THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT - PRESERVATION IN THE TRUTH

           

Sermon delivered on Whitsunday the 31st May 2009 by Fr Nicholas J.G. Sykes in the congregation of St. Alban's Church of England, George Town, Cayman Islands.

Scriptures: Acts 2: 1 - 21                      Romans 8: 22 - 27        John 15: 26-27; 16: 4b-15

 

John 16: 13  "When the Spirit of truth comes He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come."

 

"CHARISMATIC" TEACHINGS

There are many Christians who present to the world a version of the Holy Spirit that emphasizes excitement, loudness and extreme manifestations of joy. The churches that see the work of the Spirit in this sort of way are often called "charismatic".

 

While the more standard Christian doctrine of water Baptism regards it as a Baptism both in water and the Spirit the charismatic churches tend to separate water-baptism and Spirit-baptism, so that for them there are two sorts of Christians, those who have been baptised with the Spirit, and those who have only been baptised in water but not in the Spirit. For them, a Christian becomes empowered or complete or effective as a Christian when he undergoes this second baptism, and the sign of having done this is when he speaks in tongues.

 

THE NEW TESTAMENT PICTURE

Although the New Testament certainly can be referred to to support this scenario, it is still very questionable in a number of ways. Now the New Testament clearly presents the Holy Spirit as the third person of a divine Trinity, and with the New Testament presentation the mind of the catholic and apostolic Church is in agreement. We may not deny that God the Holy Spirit empowers Christians and empowers the Church, but in the New Testament there is a great variety in the ways in which this empowerment takes place, and we should not suppose that we can pin down the action of the Spirit that Jesus declares blows where He wills, and we do not know from where He comes or to where He will go.

 

After the coming of the Holy Spirit to the waiting Church on the Jewish feast of Pentecost that followed fifty days after Jesus' Resurrection and ten days after His Ascension, the apostles, and in particular St. Peter, were empowered to preach the Good News. Before that they did not possess this power: they were pretty much in retreat, or even in hiding. Nevertheless, St. John tells us that on the evening of the day of the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to most of the apostles, and after identifying Himself to them, breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The primary purpose of this reception of the Holy Spirit was for them to absolve sins authoritatively. But the emphasis of the account in the Acts of the Apostles of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost among them is in the gift of the ability to communicate intelligibly the praise of the Lord to men of other tongues gathered in Jerusalem for the feast. The visible manifestation was of tongues as of fire resting on each one, and the Greek word for "tongues" in the contexts of both the appearance of fire and of languages is the same. The twelve Apostles themselves had all without doubt been baptised before or at the beginning of the Lord Jesus' own ministry, by John the Baptist or by Jesus Himself. Now they were being filled with the Holy Spirit as they became empowered to make themselves understood by a greatly enlarged circle of people than formerly. For this initial group of the Church, one could say that their water-baptism and their Spirit-baptism might appear as separate events, but as the story of the spread of the Good News unfolds in the Acts of the Apostles, we see these aspects coming together in the lives of converts to form one category, a "mystery" or sacrament of initiation into the Spirit-filled life of the Body of Christ.

 

THE ROLE OF THE SPIRIT IN DISCIPLESHIP

Charismatic churches and groups today tend to emphasize that the baptism of the Spirit gives completion to the incomplete Christian disciple who has not experienced it. St. Paul's remarkable teaching in our Second Lesson today, however, confirms that those like himself, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, as he puts it, experience a great sense of incompleteness as we wait for what he calls “the redemption of our bodies”. St. Paul elsewhere talks in such terms as not having yet attained the resurrection, pressing forward for the prize of his high calling, having treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us, possessing strength through weakness, and so on. The New Testament therefore shows us, first, that every baptised Christian, baptised with water in the Name of Jesus or in the three-fold Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, being upheld by and exercising the faith declared at his Baptism, is normatively Spirit-filled. There is no possibility of someone walking in the faith into which he was baptised not being guided and helped by the Spirit. If the Spirit is being quenched in the life of a believer, so is his believing and his discipleship. Secondly, the New Testament shows us that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness now but does not by any means remove it. "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" We should never therefore be fooled by the knowledge of our weakness or incompleteness as the disciples of our Lord into thinking the Spirit has not been given to us. On the contrary, it is the Spirit that is making us aware of our incompleteness and weaknesses, and the Spirit will help us in these too, to keep on pressing on to what we hope for.

 

For as long as our earthly life lasts, we will be incomplete in our discipleship, and it is the Holy Spirit with us and within us who will show us our own sicknesses and sin - but always with a view to healing and resistance. The Gospel today shows our Lord Jesus being almost painfully sensitive to the needs and weaknesses of His disciples as He was making final preparations to depart from the earth. He knows the disciples will not be able to stand at the bar of the world's opinion without divine assistance, and He promises the presence with them of the Spirit of truth, who will stand with them, strengthening them as a Comforter (used in the old English sense), being beside them as their Advocate, arguing for them at the bar of world opinion, and being also their Advisor or Counsellor. In spite of their weaknesses which remain, this Holy Spirit will preserve them in the truth in the face of all the lies told to us in the world. "He will guide you into all the truth," said Jesus; "for He will not speak on His own authority." As the New English Bible renders it, Jesus said, When the Spirit comes, "He will confute the world, and show where wrong and right and judgment lie."

 

ATTENTION TO THE SPIRIT

So on this Whitsunday, the anniversary of the great Pentecost event after the Resurrection, it is appropriate to reflect that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is still fulfilling the task of helping the disciples of Jesus in our weakness, whether we are regarded as charismatic or not. It is for us to seek out His still, small but persistent voice that speaks to the Church and that speaks out from the Church, to distinguish that voice of truth from the world's shoutings and give it our attention and our credence. It was never the Spirit's task to make us instantly complete as disciples in the world, but He will enable us to keep our heads above the water of lies in difficult times and in all things possess the mind of Christ as to the truth, to remain united with one another and with Christ in His Body, and to continue to communicate intelligibly to our contemporaries the eternal truths of the Lord. Let us then give thanks for this precious gift that preserves us in the truth, and trust in His guidance and help.