God's Indwelling Presence

The Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments

James M. Hamilton, Jr.

• Publisher: B&H Academic
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780805443837
• eBook ISBN: 9781433670664
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Does the Holy Spirit do the same things now and in the New Testament times that He did in Old Testament times? Volume one in the NEW AMERICAN COMMENTARY STUDIES IN BIBLE AND THEOLOGY series for pastors, advanced Bible students, and other deeply committed laypersons addresses this challenging subject.

God's Indwelling Presence asks and explores to answer: What are the spiritual differences and similarities between Old Testament and New Testament believers? Did God dwell in Old Testament believers as He does in New Testament believers? Were Old Testament believers born again (that is, experience regeneration)? What do the words indwelling and regeneration mean? How is the Holy Spirit's ministry similar or different during Old Testament and New Testament times?

Users will find this an excellent extension of the long-respected NEW AMERICAN COMMENTARY.

Chapter 1

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
THE OLD COVENANT REMNANT

Introduction

The Bible was written in three different languages, on three different continents, over a period of fifteen hundred years, by some forty different authors. The progressive nature of God's self-revelation given through the human authors during the unfolding of salvation history creates many interpretive challenges. Nevertheless, a Christian worldview entails the understanding that if God has spoken, and if the Bible is His word, then the Bible is not only entirely true in every respect since God is faithful and true in every sense, but it also exhibits a coherent system of thought because God is coherent.¹ We can expect to find in the Bible a unified, non-contradictory theology.²

To claim that the Bible possesses a coherent theology raises a host of questions. This investigation hopes to answer one of those questions, namely, were individual believers under the old covenant continually indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Certain statements in the Gospel of John suggest that believers would not be indwelt by the Spirit until Jesus was glorified (see 7:39; 14:16–17; and 16:7).³ Other statements in John's Gospel indicate that apart from the Spirit's activity human beings are unable to become (John 1:13; 3:3,5–8; 6:63) and remain (3:20–21; 8:34; 16:8) children of God. These two observations—that John portrays the reception of the indwelling Spirit as beginning only after the glorification of Jesus, and that apart from the Spirit humanity is of the Devil (8:44)—prompt us to ask how believers who lived prior to Jesus' glorification became and remained faithful to God.

While the Gospel of John nowhere addresses the question of how Old Testament saints became and remained faithful, the question is implicit in the Gospel itself. If the Spirit is not received until Jesus is exalted (7:39), what did Jesus mean when He told Nicodemus that he must be born of “water and spirit” (3:5)?⁴ When we examine the biblical material that reflects what comes before and after the events recorded in the Fourth Gospel, this question becomes yet more vivid. The Old Testament does say that some have the Spirit (see e.g., Num 27:18), but it is by no means clear that this is the experience of every member of the old covenant remnant. The New Testament, on the other hand, indicates that the Spirit regenerates and indwells all believers (see Rom 8:9–11).

At the appropriate point in this study I will seek to elucidate the distinctions between regeneration and indwelling seen in John's Gospel (see chap. six). Based on the conclusions reached there, I will use the word regeneration to refer to God's work of granting to humans the ability to hear, understand, believe, obey, and enter the kingdom. The New Testament's metaphor of “new birth” matches the Old Testament's metaphor of “heart circumcision.” That is, I take circumcision of the heart to be the same experience as regeneration (Rom 2:29; Col 2:11–13). Apart from the enablement God gives in regeneration, men remain slaves of sin (John 8:34) and of the Devil (8:44), or as Paul puts it, dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1; Col 2:13). I will use indwelling, on the other hand, to refer to God's abiding, positive, covenant presence in believers through the Spirit. This book seeks to understand and articulate the role of the Holy Spirit in the faithfulness of believers who live both before and after the exaltation of Jesus. This exercise in biblical theology will focus largely on the Gospel of John because it has so much to say on this question.⁵

John's Gospel, I believe, teaches that the continual indwelling of the Holy Spirit began to take place only after Jesus completed the work that the Father gave Him to do (17:4). When I first began to pursue this question, because of the Bible's clear teaching on mankind's sinful state (e.g., Gen 6:5; Jer 17:9; John 8:34; Rom 3:10–18), I was convinced that saving faith requires both regeneration and indwelling by the Holy Spirit. I have concluded, however, that in the absence of a clear affirmation in the Old Testament that the Spirit continually dwelt in the hearts of believers, passages such as John 7:39; 14:17; and 16:7 will not permit us to say that the Holy Spirit dwelt in ordinary members of the old covenant remnant on an individual basis.

What does the Bible say about how the Spirit relates to believers before and after the glorification of Jesus? I believe this question is answered by Jesus' statement in John 14:17: “He is with you, and he will be in you.”⁶ Here Jesus encapsulates the Bible's teaching on God's dwelling in relation to believers in the old and new covenants. In the old covenant God faithfully remained with His people, accompanying them in a pillar of fire and cloud, then dwelling among them in the tabernacle and the temple. Under the new covenant, the only temple is the believing community itself, and God dwells not only among the community corporately (Matt 18:20; 1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 6:16), but also in each member individually (John 14:17; Rom 8:9–11; 1 Cor 6:19). This is the overarching thesis this book seeks to establish.

The assertion that old covenant believers were not indwelt raises the additional question of how they became and remained faithful. Previous arguments that old covenant believers were not indwelt have largely failed to address this critical issue. In seeking to explain how old covenant believers were empowered to live by faith (see Heb 11), I will argue that indwelling is not to be equated with regeneration. This distinction opens the possibility that old covenant believers experienced regeneration by the Spirit, even though the Spirit did not then take up residence within them. Some scholars hesitate to use the term “regenerate” in reference to old covenant believers because the Old Testament does not use the “new-birth” and “made-alive” language found in the New Testament. As noted above, the Old Testament metaphor for this is “circumcision of the heart.” Since both regeneration and heart circumcision refer to God enabling people who are dead in sin to believe and obey (see Jer 6:10; Rom 2:25–29), I will regard the two expressions as functionally equivalent. Thus old covenant believers may be described as regenerate though not indwelt. They became believers when the Spirit of God enabled them to believe, and they were maintained in faith by God's covenant presence with the nation as He dwelt in the temple.

In support of this thesis, both Testaments speak of the word of God creating spiritual life.⁷ Further, we have evidence that before and after Jesus God's word is made effective by God's Spirit.⁸ Thus it seems that in both old and new covenants regeneration occurs when God's Spirit creates the ability to believe the proclamation of God's word (see Rom 4:16–18; 10:17).

It will be argued here that prior to Jesus' glorification God sanctified believers by His presence with them rather than in them. Often the Old Testament describes God as with select persons.⁹ God declared to His old covenant people, “I am Yahweh, who sanctifies you” (Lev 20:8; 21:8,15,23; 22:9,16,32). God made His people holy as He indwelt the tabernacle and later the temple (Exod 25:8; 40:34–38; 1 Kgs 8:11,57–58), and thereby He remained near His people on an individual and corporate level (Deut 31:6; 1 Kgs 8:11; 2 Kgs 13:23; Hag 1:13; 2:5). After Jesus' glorification, in keeping with the coming of “that day” (John 14:20), God brought about new birth and obedience by regenerating individuals and indwelling them by His Spirit (John 3:3–6; 6:63; 7:37–39; 14:17; 20:22). So regeneration and indwelling remain distinct works of the Spirit, but they are simultaneously received by all who believe.

With Jesus' completion of the work the Father sent Him to do, a major salvation-historical shift took place. The Spirit takes up residence in a new temple. He dwells in those who believe, and He will do so until the end of the age (John 14:16–17). This is best seen when compared with the Spirit's work in the old covenant. Prior to the completion of Jesus' work, God dwelt in the temple.¹⁰ In the Old Testament, God is described as with and near His chosen nation and only in certain persons for extraordinary tasks. Jesus' proclamation of the new covenant ministry of the Spirit (John 14–16), and the disciples' reception of the Spirit (20:22), anticipate subsequent references to believers and the church as a temple built of living stones (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; Eph 2:21–22; 1 Pet 2:5). The indwelling of the Spirit is connected to the reality that Jesus has replaced the temple (John 2:13–22), with the result that worship is no longer centered at specific locations (cp. John 4:21 with Deut 12:5). A temple is no longer necessary because those who believe are “in” Jesus (14:20). Through His death on the cross, Jesus put an end to sacrifice (Heb 10:10–18; cp. John 19:30). The triune God no longer dwells in the temple in Jerusalem, but in believers who live all over the world (see John 14:23).

The Method of This Study

We will approach relevant texts with a particular question: what is the relationship between the Holy Spirit and believers before and after the glorification of Jesus? Through exegesis and synthesis of these texts, we will seek to trace the structure of thought that produces the statements found in the Bible. As Schlatter described the task,

The significance of New Testament theology today rests on the fact that it is not content simply to gather material like a statistician. It sees its main task in raising the question how the convictions found here in the New Testament arose. It is concerned not only to perceive but to explain… The enquiry concerns what gave rise to the ideas of the New Testament.¹¹

The approach taken here will seek to follow Peter Stuhlmacher: “A Biblical Theology of the New Testament which deserves this name must suit the biblical texts hermeneutically, i.e. it must attempt to interpret the Old and New Testament tradition as it wants to be interpreted.”¹² Thus Stuhlmacher urges that if we are to understand the text correctly, we must read it sympathetically.¹³

Stuhlmacher's insight is similar to the principle articulated by Michael Horton, who advocates “an exercise in theology in which theological method is determined by the content of the system.”¹⁴ We must, as it were, take the text on its own terms and let it speak for itself. In N. T. Wright's words, we must employ a “hermeneutic of love.”¹⁵ This study seeks to understand the teaching of the Fourth Gospel as it now stands¹⁶ on the role of the Spirit in the lives of believers before and after the glorification of Jesus. That will be best accomplished by reading the Gospel of John “as it wants to be interpreted.”¹⁷

A Preview of What Follows

Chapter two surveys the ways that scholars have sought to answer the question posed by this study¹⁸ These observations on what has been said and how the texts have been treated provide important clarity as we seek to untangle this particular knot.

Chapter three seeks to show that the Old Testament does not explicitly claim that each member of the old covenant remnant was indwelt for the duration of his or her earthly sojourn. References to the Spirit being upon or in Israel's leaders are examined, then God's presence with the nation in the tabernacle and temple. The chapter concludes by discussing two new covenant passages, Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36.

Chapter four surveys statements regarding the Holy Spirit in John 1–12 and then examines the Paraclete passages in more detail. The goal of this chapter is to establish exegetically this Gospel's teaching concerning the Spirit. This exegetical work is foundational for the biblical-theological conclusions of chapters five and six. Chapter four is the most technical section of this study, and I hope the reader will not get bogged down in it. The non-technical reader should feel free to move quickly through, i.e. skim, or even skip parts of this chapter rather than put the book down altogether. The last section of chapter four along with the final three chapters are the most important part of the study.

Chapter five argues that the evangelist's comment in John 7:39 means that old covenant believers had not received the indwelling Spirit. The aim here is to show that the Old Testament prophets described a Spirit-anointed Messiah and a future day when the Spirit would be poured out on the people of God. The Gospel of John describes Jesus as the fulfillment and fulfiller of these prophecies. According to John, only after the cross would God dwell in all believers (see John 4:21–24; 7:39; 14:17, 23; 20:22). Chapter five concludes by comparing John's teaching with statements about the Spirit's indwelling in the rest of the New Testament.

Chapter six argues that from what John says about regeneration and indwelling, these two ministries of the Spirit can be distinguished. Having argued that regeneration is not to be equated with indwelling in the Gospel of John, I contend that John presents Jesus as the replacement of the temple. Jesus then confers upon His disciples the authority to administer the blessings of the temple when He gives them the indwelling Spirit. Thus, when Jesus goes away, the disciples replace Him as the replacement of the...

Table of contents

• Half Title
• Full title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Series Preface
• Author Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Bibliography