ASSEMBLIES OF GOD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

PNEUMATOLOGY: THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO

DR. JAMES RAILEY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE 800/THE 532 SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY II (DIRECTED RESEARCH)

BY

Brian P. Roden

Little Rock, AR

April 2016

[rode21710122@evangel.edu]
 Introduction

Even though the Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity who acts most directly among

believers today, there exists much confusion among believers as to the Spirit’s nature and

activity. “Spirit” is a somewhat nebulous term, unlike Father and Son, which represent familial

relationships everyone recognizes. The lack of a systematic treatment of the Spirit in Scripture,

combined with the excesses of some in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, lead some

Christians to avoid speaking of Him altogether, other than when reciting the creeds.1 This neglect

of the third Person of the Godhead led California pastor Francis Chan in 2009 to give his book

about the Holy Spirit the title Forgotten God.

This paper will present an overview of a theology of the Holy Spirit. It will touch upon

the following topics: the Spirit’s deity and personhood; biblical names and images for the Spirit;

the Spirit’s work in the world and among God’s people; the gifts bestowed by the Spirit; and the

baptism in the Holy Spirit. It will also discuss some precautions believers should observe when

teaching about the Spirit and practicing the gifts.

Deity and Personhood of the Spirit

Some groups in early church history did not believe the Holy Spirit to be part of the

Godhead. The Tropici considered Him to be a created being of a different substance from the

Father and the Son, while the Pneumatomachians opposed the doctrine of His full deity.2

Scripture, however, provides convincing evidence for believing the Spirit to be God. In Acts 5:3,

1
Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1998), 861-864.
2
Erickson, 866-867.

1
 2

Peter charges Ananias with lying to God, and in the following verse says, “You have not lied just

to human beings but to God.”3 In 1 Corinthians 3:16–17, Paul speaks of believers as “God’s

temple,” while he later calls them “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19). The ease with

which Peter and Paul interchange “God” and “Holy Spirit” in these passages indicates they

believed in the full deity of the Spirit. When Jesus, referring to the Holy Spirit, speaks in John

14:16 about sending another advocate, the Greek word used for “another” is allos, which means

“another of the same kind.” Therefore, since Christ is equal with the Father in deity, being of the

same substance, then the Spirit also shares in the same divine essence as the Father and Son.

The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force. In his epistles, Paul uses several verbs for the

Spirit’s activity that only make sense if the subject of the verb is a personal agent. He writes of

the Spirit searching and knowing (1 Cor. 2:11), teaching (1 Cor. 2:13), dwelling (1 Cor. 3:16;

Rom. 8:11; 2 Tim. 2:14), and crying out (Gal. 4:6).4 Paul tells the Ephesian church not to grieve

the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). One cannot grieve a force, but can certainly grieve a person who has

a will and emotions. The possibility of blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:31; Mark 3:29)

also supports the idea of the Spirit’s personhood.5

Biblical Names and Images for the Holy Spirit

Scripture uses various names for the Holy Spirit, each reflecting some aspect of His

nature. “Holy Spirit” and “Spirit of Holiness” emphasize His holiness—separation from the

profane and common. The Old Testament most frequently refers to Him as “the Spirit of

3
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New International Version 2011.
4
Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996),
27.
5
Erickson, 878)
 3

Yahweh,” signifying His unity with the God of creation.6 In John 14:16–17, Jesus refers to the

Spirit as an “advocate,” highlighting His role in assisting believers, and the “Spirit of Truth,”

referring to His work in revealing God’s truth. Paul often refers not only to the “Holy Spirit,” but

also to the “Spirit of God” or “Spirit of Christ” whenever he wants to emphasize the activity of

the Father or the Son being conveyed to believers by the Spirit.7

The Bible writers also employ several symbols for the Holy Spirit to depict aspects of His

activity. The first image—that of wind or breath—is inherent in the Hebrew and Greek words for

“spirit” (ruach and pneuma, respectively). The image of wind implies power that human beings

cannot see or control, and breath relates to one of the basic functions of life. Just as the human

body cannot survive without physical breath, the human spirit needs the divine breath or Spirit to

live.

Another symbol for the Spirit in Scripture is water. Water, like breathing and air, is

essential to life. Jesus, referring to the Spirit, said that "rivers of living water" would flow from

within those who believe on Him (John 7:38). One other image for the Holy Spirit is a dove,

which is the form in which the Spirit descended on Christ at His baptism in all four Gospel

accounts. Doves are representative of gentleness and peace, illustrating the fact that the Holy

Spirit does not possess people as evil spirits do, but rather indwells them.8

The Holy Spirit’s Work

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit performed several different actions. He was active

in the creation of the world (Gen. 1:2). He endowed Bezalel and Oholiab with special skills in

6
Mark D. McLean, "The Holy Spirit," in Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective, ed. Stanley M.
Horton, (Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1995), 377.
7
Fee, 30.
8
McLean, 381.
 4

craftsmanship for building the furnishings of the wilderness tabernacle (Ex. 31:2–11). The Spirit

also enabled Moses and the seventy elders of Israel to render wise judgment in the cases brought

before them (Num. 11:16–17). The Spirit of God came upon Samson and other judges to aid

them in military endeavors to liberate Israel from her oppressors.9 He also gave messages to the

prophets of Yahweh, revealing to them God's promises and words of judgment concerning His

people.

In the New Testament, the Spirit is God's active agent in the incarnation of the Son (Luke

1:25). He comes and rests upon Jesus at His baptism, thereafter empowering Christ's earthly

ministry, declaring from Isaiah 61: "The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the

LORD has anointed me." The Holy Spirit also gives the apostles and other believers boldness to

speak the word of God in the face of opposition (Acts 4:31), and He directs the route of Paul and

his companions on their missionary journeys (Acts 16:6-7).

Throughout both Testaments, the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture, giving

them God's message to record. In the case of the apostles, He stimulated their recollection of

Jesus' teachings and the events of His earthly ministry, preserving those memories from error.10

As the divine author of Scripture, the Spirit now aids believers in the interpretation of Scripture

and its application to current contexts.

In the process of salvation, the Spirit brings about conviction, causing people to

recognize their sin and state of separation from God. This frequently occurs through the reading

or preaching of the Spirit-inspired Scriptures. When a person repents of sin and places his or her

trust in Christ, the Spirit regenerates that person, producing the new birth in the individual (John

3:5-8). In the ongoing process of sanctification, the Holy Spirit continually sets the believer apart

9
Erickson, 884.
10
Erickson, 865.
 5

from sin in principle and increasingly delivers him or her from sin in fact by enabling the

believer to resist temptation.11

Gifts of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit gives certain gifts, or enablings, to the church for the purpose of building

up the body of believers. Scripture does not give a single, complete list of the Spirit’s gifts. The

lists that do appear (Ro. 12:3–8; 1 Cor. 12:4–11; Eph. 4:11–13) have some commonalities, as

well as differences, indicating they are representative lists rather than exhaustive catalogs. No

individual believer should expect to exercise all the gifts, and Scripture does not seem to specify

any one particular gift given to every believer.12 Rather, the Spirit sovereignly distributes the

gifts “to each one, just as He determines” (1 Cor. 12:11).

Some of these gifts are related to natural skills—such as teaching or administration—that

the Spirit enhances beyond the believer’s innate talent. Other gifts, such as prophecy, miracles,

or tongues, are entirely supernatural, not building on any prior knowledge or skill of the person

exercising the gift.13 Whichever category a gift belongs to, its purpose is to benefit the church as

a whole, not to lift up the particular individual who manifests the gift. Spiritual gifts should never

be a motive for pride, because they are gifts given by the Spirit, not prizes earned by believers

through some personal merit (1 Cor. 4:7).

While almost no one argues that gifts such as service, encouragement, giving, or teaching

have ceased, some Christians believe that the more obviously supernatural gifts—prophecy,

tongues, interpretation of tongues, and working of miracles—died out after the books of the New

11
Timothy P. Jenney, "The Holy Spirit and Sanctification," in Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal
Perspective, ed. Stanley M. Horton, (Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1995), 416-417.
12
Erickson, 892.
13
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), 1016.
 6

Testament were completed and the last Apostle died. They reason that the “sign gifts” served

only to authenticate the Apostles’ message until the church was firmly established. However, the

disciples present at Pentecost, believing the “last days” had begun with Christ’s death and

resurrection—and that the Old Testament prophets had predicted an increase in the Spirit’s

activity in the eschaton—would not have expected a future diminution of the Spirit’s gifts when

the new covenant age was clearly marked by their increase and expansion.14 There exists no

scriptural basis for the gifts’ disappearance before Christ’s return to earth. Present-day Christians

who claim the gifts are not for today base their belief on the de facto waning that occurred as the

church gained influence after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

With this increased status, the institutional church neglected and disregarded the supernatural

gifts, since believers no longer depended on them as they had when persecuted. The miraculous

gifts, spontaneously given by the Spirit as needs arose, no longer fit with the tightly controlled

hierarchical structure that had developed in the church.15

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

The precise phrase "baptism in the Holy Spirit" is not found in Scripture. However, Jesus'

promise to His disciples that they would be "baptized with the Holy Spirit" in a few days (Acts

1:5) makes this an appropriate term for what the disciples experienced on the day of Pentecost in

Acts 2. Other terms used in the Bible to refer to this experience and later similar events are:

"being filled with the Holy Spirit;" "receiving the Holy Spirit;" "the Holy Spirit being poured

out;" "the Holy Spirit falling upon;" "the Holy Spirit coming on;" and other slight variations.16

14
Grudem, 1018.
15
Vernon L. Purdy, "Divine Healing," in Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective, ed. Stanley M.
Horton, (Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1995), 513.
16
John W. Wyckoff, "The Baptism in the Holy Spirit," in Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective,
ed. Stanley M. Horton, (Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1995), 425-426.
 7

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, considered the baptism in the Holy Spirit a

second instantaneous work of grace in the believer's life, the purpose of which was to produce

"entire sanctification," or the elimination of willful sin. The purpose according to Scripture,

however, is empowerment for Christian witness and service (Acts 1:8).

This doctrine is a point of much contention in the evangelical church. Classical

Pentecostals believe this experience to be separate from and subsequent to conversion. Some

Charismatic believers and other Evangelicals say that one is baptized in the Holy Spirit when one

becomes part of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13), though many of them also accept the

existence of repeatable post-conversion events where one is "filled with the Holy Spirit" for

special empowerment. Non-Pentecostals who acknowledge Pentecostals’ observation that the

book of Acts frequently shows a lapse of time between initial conversion and the baptism in the

Spirit argue that the apparent subsequence and separability are due to the events reported in Acts

occurring during a transitional period related to the Spirit's first being poured out after Christ's

ascension. "Since that time the normal pattern has been for conversion/regeneration and the

baptism of the Holy Spirit to coincide."17

Another point of controversy concerns the Pentecostal teaching that speaking in other

tongues is the initial physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. In three of the instances

of Spirit baptism recorded by Luke, he clearly describes speaking in tongues as transpiring.18

However, those who believe Spirit baptism coincides with conversion say that tongues is not the

evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, because clearly not everyone exhibits glossolalia at

the new birth.

17
Erickson, 895.
18
Wyckoff, 440.
 8

It is notable that even though the cases of the Samaritan converts (Acts 8) and the

Ephesian disciples of John (Acts 19) demonstrate a delay between placing faith in Christ and

being baptized in the Spirit, the time separating the two experiences seems to be relatively short.

When Paul asks the Ephesian disciples whether they received the Holy Spirit when they

believed, the question implies that the normative practice in the early church was Spirit baptism

concurrent with or following shortly after conversion, as seen in the cases of the household of

Cornelius and of Paul himself.

The introduction of infant baptism in the post-apostolic era may be at least partly

responsible for the later increase in the amount of time passing between conversion and the

baptism in the Holy Spirit. Christians developed the belief that water baptism removed the stain

of original sin, and then began baptizing infants so that children who died in infancy would be

able to enter heaven. Since infants could not speak at all, much less speak in tongues, people did

not expect to witness glossolalia following their sprinkling with water. As time progressed, the

close temporal link between conversion and the baptism in the Holy Spirit that existed in the first

century became a vague memory, and the practice of Spirit baptism evidenced by glossolalia

became less and less common. Christians who did speak in tongues at different points throughout

church history often had this experience many years after conversion. The separation in time

between the two events increased dramatically, and often the second event never occurred.

Cautions

While affirming the ongoing work of the Spirit—not only in conviction and regeneration

of lost persons, and illumination of believers’ study of Scripture, but also in the ministry of the

supernatural gifts—Pentecostals must exercise caution in how they teach about and practice the

gifts.
 9

Concerning the baptism in the Holy Spirit, they must take care not to make those who

have not had this experience feel that they are somehow second-class Christians. Teachings that

indicate two levels of Christianity can lead those who are sincerely seeking the baptism in the

Holy Spirit, but have not yet received it, to doubt God’s love for them or their own status before

God. In addition, Spirit-filled believers should avoid language that implies that those who have

not spoken in tongues do not have the Holy Spirit.19 All who belong to Christ through repentance

and faith have the Holy Spirit resident within them even if they don’t manifest supernatural gifts,

because the Spirit is the active agent in the new birth (Rom. 8:9).

In teaching on Spirit baptism, Pentecostal believers should focus on the purpose of the

experience—power for witness and service—rather than on the sign of tongues, in order to avoid

tongues becoming the goal. Pentecostals should not emphasize evidential tongues and the gifts to

the point of overlooking the development of the fruit of the Spirit. A critical, watching world will

quickly discount any supernatural manifestation that is not accompanied by Christlike character.

For the Apostle Paul, ethics and Spirit-inspired worship went hand-in-hand.20

While spiritual gifts should be in regular evidence in a believer’s life, this does not mean

the supernatural must occur continuously. Although Jesus did miraculously walk on water,

demonstrating His command over natural elements, He usually crossed the Sea of Galilee by

perfectly natural means—in a boat. Philip was supernaturally taken away from the Ethiopian

eunuch by the Spirit and appeared at Azotus (Acts 8:40), but the biblical text does not indicate

that this became his primary means of transportation. Many of our errors where spiritual gifts are

concerned arise when we want the extraordinary and exceptional to become the frequent and

19
Wyckoff, 446.
20
Fee, 153.
 10

habitual.21 Walking in step with the Spirit daily in the routine activities of life is just as important

as experiencing those special moments when the Spirit manifests himself in extraordinary power.

Pentecostal believers should seek not only the gifts of miracles, tongues, and prophecy,

but also the gift of discernment. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would guide Christ’s followers

into all truth (John 16:13). When a purported supernatural manifestation occurs, Christians

should not automatically assume that it comes from the Holy Spirit, but submit it to judgment by

the congregation, just as Paul told believers to handle prophecies (1 Cor. 14:29). Critical thinking

guided by knowledge of God’s revelation in Scripture must be used to interpret and evaluate

spiritual intuitions and experiences.22

Conclusion

Despite the fact that the Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity whose work is most

prominent in the present age, much confusion and controversy surround pneumatology, the study

of the Spirit. Even among Christians who believe in the continuation of the supernatural gifts

listed in 1 Corinthians 12, there is disagreement on the definition of terms and the nature of

certain evidences of the Spirit’s work.

Pentecostals and Charismatics who believe in and practice the gifts of the Spirit would

greatly benefit the broader body of Christ if they spent less time debating the proper terminology

for and timing of the Spirit’s work and focused more on actually following the Spirit’s leading

and serving God and others while infused with the Spirit’s power. With more genuine Spirit-led

activity taking place, Christ would be exalted in a greater way and more people would see His

glory and be drawn to Him.

21
Grudem, 1041.
22
Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest. Integrative Theology. Volume 3. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), 217.
 SOURCES CITED

Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 2nd edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House,
1998.

Fee, Gordon D. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers,
1996.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.

Jenney, Timothy P. "The Holy Spirit and Sanctification." In Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal
Perspective, edited by Stanley M. Horton, 397-421. Springfield, MO: Logion Press,
1995.

Lewis, Gordon R. and Bruce A. Demarest. Integrative Theology. Volume 3. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.

McLean, Mark D. "The Holy Spirit." In Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective, edited
by Stanley M. Horton, 375-395. Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1995.

Purdy, Vernon L. "Divine Healing." In Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective, edited

by Stanley M. Horton, 489-523. Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1995.

Wyckoff, John W. "The Baptism in the Holy Spirit." In Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal
Perspective, edited by Stanley M. Horton, 423-455. Springfield, MO: Logion Press,
1995.

11