“The truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides.” So wrote the French novelist, art critic, and statesman André Malraux in 1967, in a weighty diagnosis of the human predicament (Anti-Memoirs, 5). Malraux was on to something. We may broadcast what we want to be known for, but we hide what we are.

We might think first of the dark side of this insight. We may keep the skeletons safely in the closet, our secret sins and hidden idolatries, thinking to ourselves, “If others knew who I really am, they’d despise me.” We well know that we are what we hide.

But there’s a positive side to the insight as well, and our Lord may be said to commend it. Jesus encourages us to hide, in a manner, what’s closest to our hearts: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them” (Matthew 6:1). We face a common and strong temptation to do what we do to receive the praise and admiration of people. The appearance of righteousness can easily become more important to us than righteousness itself. But true righteousness, we might say, isn’t merely something we show, but also and especially something we hide. Thus arises Jesus’s exhortation to practice righteousness — almsgiving, prayer, and fasting — “in secret” (Matthew 6:2–18).

Call to Secret Prayer

Jesus’s words and warnings about almsgiving, prayer, and fasting clearly overlap. We are to take care lest our motivation for them is the ephemeral reward of others’ esteem (Matthew 6:2, 5, 16). But prayer seems to be central among these three, and not only because it’s sandwiched in the middle. For one thing, Jesus spends twice as much time addressing prayer as he does almsgiving and fasting combined. For another, when it comes to prayer in the middle, Jesus warns against a second problematic motivation in addition to seeking others’ admiration.

“When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (verse 7). At root, it seems, “the Gentiles” pray to acquire things of want and felt need, thinking prayer to be simply a means to that end. But additionally, they presume that the divine needs goading to deliver the goods. So, they heap up many words — perhaps thinking that God needs to be informed of our grocery list of needs, or that long-winded eloquence may impress him to act, or that abundant articulation of “truth” is required to pass a threshold.

Jesus blocks off all such wrong ways at the trailhead: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (verse 8). Apparently, we don’t need to pray long to inform God. Neither are long prayers needed to butter God up for generosity and care that he isn’t already inclined toward. For the Father’s knowledge of our need signals his intention to provide for us his children, whom he loves more than he loves larks and lilies (Matthew 6:25–34), and to whom he would never dream of giving rocks or serpents in response to prayer (Matthew 7:7–11).

Secret prayer doesn’t secure the loving orientation of the Father toward us. In Jesus’s outlook, the Father’s loving attention and wise intention to meet our truest needs precede our praying and invite it. We don’t need to enter the prayer closet anxiously angling after our good.

Centrality of Secret Prayer

If prayer isn’t best thought of as merely an effort to get what we desire or need, and if it’s to be done in secret where no one else is looking, then what motivates it? Is it not simple love for and desire to commune with the Father who sees in secret?

We are what we hide because what we do in hiddenness — in secret, in the closet, when no one else is looking — is what we love. And we are what we love.

Therefore, Tim Keller rightly calls secret prayer “the infallible test of spiritual integrity” (Prayer, 23). This is not to deny that “secret” almsgiving and fasting are also tests of spiritual integrity. But simple love for God is not so easily discernible as the motivation for them. For example, philanthropy might impel secret almsgiving (which, of course, is nothing to sneeze at). And a desire for mere self-optimization might impel secret fasting (I’m going on a “technology fast” to kick a bad habit!).

In secret prayer, our love is most clearly manifested. It is the crucial and indispensable test of the wholeness, rather than double-mindedness and dividedness, of our souls before God.

Complications in Secret Prayer

Of course, secret praying might not always feel like it flows from much warmth of love for God. This lack of feeling, however, need not discourage us from the practice. Indeed, it provides us with a key supplication as we enter our prayer closets: confession of “internal, innate blindness, unbelief, doubts, [and] faintheartedness” (as the 1563 Palatinate Church Order puts it) and earnest petition that “the joy of . . . salvation” and “a willing spirit” might be restored (Psalm 51:12).

In the Christian life, we often go to private prayer not from a wellspring of warmth, but for one — yearning, seeking, and supplicating for “more love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee!” The psalmist acknowledges to God, “When I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you” (Psalm 73:21–22); but, though his flesh and even his heart may fail, he will continue to turn to God, who remains “the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (verse 26). It is a wise plan.

Having honestly admitted our lack, as is often necessary, what then might our prayers alone with God consist of? Knowing what to do and say in secret prayer, beyond confession and contrition and appeal for spiritual renewal, is a frequent complication. In this regard, let me offer a couple words of advice.

SCRIPTURE

On the one hand, pray with your Bible open. As a sword is for enfolding in the hand, so the sword of the Spirit is especially for folded hands. The word of God helps, stimulates, and shapes our prayers, and this in numerous ways. As a basic starting point, it gives us words to pray. I think here especially of praying the Psalms. These prayers are a gift of the Spirit to help give us voice when entering our prayer closet. The Psalter can function like a divinely inspired form of speech therapy, training the underdeveloped muscles of our mouths and hearts in shapes and sounds and speech-acts they may not be used to making — particularly prayers of adoration and praise of the splendor of God’s glory (also, for example, prayers of lament, and intercession for widows and orphans).

A key assumption here is that we must be taught to pray. Healthy prayer is not merely automatic and instinctual. Well do the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). And wisely, with great compassion, does the Lord so teach them. But how he teaches them is telling. He doesn’t simply talk about praying and its nature, logic, and motivations. Jesus gives his disciples a specific form, actual words to pray, which we call the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2–4; Matthew 6:9–13). The Son of God’s prayer pedagogy is the same as that of his Father, whose Spirit inspired the Psalms: he gives words to pray to help his people get started.

SILENCE

On the other hand, silence in secret prayer isn’t to be avoided. “To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools,” the Preacher asserts. Indeed, “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:1–2). The prayer closet is first a place of listening in silence before we find the proper words to speak — silent meditation on the word, silent vulnerability before God.

To be sure, silences are awkward, which may be as much a reason as any for the “Gentile” propensity to prattle. Or maybe, at root, the “Gentiles” feel they need many words to secure the caring attention of the divine because they presume that, under normal conditions, they do not already have it. Without confidence in one’s standing before God, the solitary silence can be downright terrifying. For there I am alone with my God and Lord and Judge. And how can the real me, which I try so hard to hide, feel anything but shame and terror before One who sees in secret? Such fearful uncertainty is one of the greatest complications in secret prayer.

Comfort for Secret Prayer

Crucially, our Lord speaks of the Father who sees in secret. The emphasis is unmistakable and insistent: in Matthew 6:1–18, Jesus speaks of God only as Father, and that in a tenfold manner (verses 1, 4, 6 [2x], 8, 9, 14, 15, 18 [2x]). Jesus wants us to know that the God who sees us in secret is one who looks upon us with the relational orientation of a Father.

But can we know for sure that God is not only Lord and Judge, but Father? We can know it because the one who speaks of God in this way, the one who invites us with him (in him) to pray to “our Father” (Matthew 6:9; see also John 16:23, 26–27; 20:17), is himself, by eternal begetting, the Son of God who has ever known the joy of calling upon his Father. Jesus has come to reveal the Father’s identity to us. And Jesus has come to reveal the Father’s love for us.

According to the loving plan of God the Father, the Son was sent into the world to accomplish — through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension — a great exodus work of deliverance (Galatians 1:3–4). By faith in Christ, we are delivered from our sin and adopted as beloved children of God. Indeed, God’s own Spirit of adoption is poured out into our hearts. And what does this Spirit do? He leads us in the privilege and wonder of filial prayer: “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:4–6). Because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as a traditional invitation to the Lord’s Prayer has it, we are bold to pray, “Our Father . . .”

In Christ, we need not be unsure of God’s posture toward us. We need not strategize about how — by our persuasion and prolixity — we might secure God’s attention and get into his good graces. We need not let uncertainty and fear block the way to the prayer closet. Rather, we can turn and turn again to the gospel, and know the love of the Father for us made flesh, and find welling up in return love for him. Which is as good a reason as any to find a secret, undistracted, hidden place to speak forth our thanks in love to the Father.

ABSTRACT: In John 7:39, the apostle John writes, “As yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The Spirit, though active in the lives of old-covenant saints, was given to God’s people in a radically new way following Jesus’s ascension and the event of Pentecost. Experientially, the Spirit illuminates the glory of the crucified Christ and reveals the Father’s love. Ecclesially, the Spirit transforms all of God’s people — men and women, young and old — into the temple of God. And eschatologically, the Spirit drafts Christians as witnesses in God’s end-time lawsuit against Israel and the nations. In these three ways and more, to have the Spirit of the risen King is to have the very treasure of the kingdom.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Dan Brendsel (PhD, Wheaton), pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Hinckley, Minnesota, to explore the new work of the Spirit after the ascension of Jesus.

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, says our Saviour. . . . The treasure itself, is the Holy Ghost himself, and joy in him.

—John Donne1

Our task is to deepen understanding of the kingdom treasure that is ours in Christ as a result of the Father’s love — namely, the presence and power of the Person of the Holy Spirit. We have, in a first installment, considered some necessary Christological cues toward a proper understanding of the church’s great Pentecostal privilege. We can depict with a picture what we will attempt to do in this second installment. Let us think of the kingdom treasure that is the Holy Spirit as a brilliant and priceless diamond. Part 1 sought to showcase the diamond best by attention to its proper setting, taking care to balance it properly in the Light. We are thus prepared now in part 2 to propose and appreciate three facets of the newness and glory of the Spirit’s work after Pentecost.

Already in part 1 we began touching upon the difference that Christ’s ascension and the event of Pentecost make for the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people. It is, we might say, the difference between having the inaugurated kingdom, and having only the promise (given by the Spirit) of its inauguration. It is the difference between resting in the accomplishment of the King’s victory, and hoping in the prophetic word (inspired by the Spirit) about the King’s victory. Toward a fuller appreciation of the kingdom treasure we have been given, the diamond which is enjoyment of the Spirit after Pentecost, we must further consider specific facets. In what follows, I offer three such considerations, in particularly Johannine and Lukan hues.2

Experiential Facet

John 7:37–39 is an important text in thinking about the gift of the Spirit, but it poses a challenge:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

This text asserts that the Spirit was not given before Christ was “glorified.” As we’ve labored to show in part 1, this cannot mean the Spirit was absolutely “not yet given” before Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension. What, then, can John mean?

Poured Out from the Cross

There are, in fact, several interpretive cruxes in the text,3 but for our purposes, we can somewhat steer clear of the debates and simply point to something all sides acknowledge: the Spirit is given when Jesus is glorified.4 Of course, this raises the question of what Jesus’s glorification is, but there is again mostly agreement that, for John, Jesus’s glorification, or his “lifting up” (see John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32–33), includes his crucifixion. The giving of the Spirit is tightly bound to the cross. Indeed, at the climax of John, when Jesus dies upon the cross, the soldiers seek to verify that he died by piercing his side, from which flows blood and water (John 19:34). The death of Jesus provides the cleansing and life-giving blood of the covenant, and the cleansing and life-giving water of the Spirit, into which Christ’s people are baptized.5 John 7:39 at least (if not also 7:38; see footnote 3) looks directly to the cross: from the belly of the crucified Christ, the people of God receive the Spirit.6

That is to say, the King wins his victory on the cross, securing there the kingdom (the Spirit) for his people. In this connection, we can observe the striking word John uses to describe Jesus’s moment of death. John alone among the Gospel writers uses a strong, active verb: Jesus handed over (paredōken) his Spirit (John 19:30).7 From the cross, the conquering King of glory actively hands over his own Spirit for the life and joy of his people.8

Convicted of Sin

The Spirit, then, has the closest of connections to the cross. But this is so not only because the cross secures the Spirit. In addition, the Spirit’s peculiar ministry now is especially to help us see the cross for what it is. John hints at this in his narrative aside following the crucifixion.9 In particular, in John 19:37 he quotes the latter half of Zechariah 12:10: “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” In their original Old Testament context, the words John quotes follow on the heels of God’s promise to “pour out”10 on the house of David his “Spirit of grace and of supplication” (Zechariah 12:10a).11 The full promise in Zechariah can be understood thus: the Spirit will enable those who look upon the pierced one to mourn as they ought over the wonder that has occurred. The good news of Jesus Christ, as John narrates it, is that the crucifixion of the Son of God wins for us the Spirit of God, who leads us back to the cross with humility and supplication.

To put it another way, as Jesus says earlier in John’s gospel, the Spirit “convicts” us of our sin and need for a crucified Savior (John 16:8).12 In the shadow of the cross, the Holy Spirit exposes the true depth of our sin to us,13 convinces us of our wickedness and of our great need of salvation, and woos us to repentance with the word of grace. The cross is where the Spirit was won for us, and at the same time the cross is what the Spirit helps us to understand and, in our sin, to be humbled and convicted before.

Loved by the Father

We can make another observation about the connection between the cross and the Spirit. Later in John 16, Jesus makes a strange comment, perhaps first striking us as a non sequitur:

In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:23–24)

Jesus says that a day is coming when we will ask nothing of him (verse 23a). Then in the next breath he says that whatever we ask of the Father in his name will be granted to us that our joy may be full (verses 23b–24). The logical connection between these assertions is hardly clear. Why encourage us to ask, right after asserting that we will never ask again? It may be that Jesus refers, first, to our asking of him and, second, to our asking of the Father. But it also may be that Jesus refers to two different kinds of asking.14 In verse 23, he refers to inquiry (erōtēsete), asking questions because of a lack of knowledge, asking for explanations to matters that confuse. That is what the disciples do in John’s Gospel. They are confused; they misunderstand; they ask questions from ignorance. Jesus promises that they will move from misunderstanding to understanding. How will they get this understanding? The Spirit, whom Jesus sends, will teach them, leading them into “all the truth” (John 16:13). In contrast to the first half of verse 23, we can interpret the rest of verses 23b–24 as referring not to inquiry but to supplication (aiteō, 3x), asking for good gifts in Jesus’s name from the Father. Jesus speaks of a coming day when inquiry will cease (for new understanding will come) as an encouragement unto supplication.

The same movement occurs in verses 25–26. What now seems mysterious and “figurative” will soon become “plain” (verse 25), indicating a deepened level of understanding. As a result, asking in Jesus’s name will become possible (verse 26). These verses reproduce exactly the development found verses 23–24: a new Spirit-wrought understanding (verses 23a and 25) leads to freedom to ask the Father for good gifts in Jesus’s name (verses 23b–24 and 26).

Can we discern in this context any specific lesson the Spirit will teach us that might embolden supplication? The key clue comes to light when pressing on the connection between verses 26 and 27. In verse 26, Jesus says again that we can supplicate to the Father in Jesus’s name, and then he immediately clarifies what he does and does not mean. By saying we can appeal to the Father in his name, Jesus does not intend to suggest that the Father will deal with us only at arm’s length, as it were, as though he welcomes Jesus but can’t stand us. We might paraphrase, highlighting with italics the glorious significance of the second person form of aitēsesthe: “You yourselves will make requests to the Father in my name, not only I on your behalf.” For the Father is not disgusted with us, but the very opposite: “for [gar] the Father himself loves you” (verse 27). This is what Jesus’s “name,” and especially his coming departure, his death, prove once and for all. The holy Father loves us, so much so that he gave his Son to perish in our place, that our sins might be forgiven and the pathway opened to his throne. With boldness we can come before the Father with our supplications, knowing that he loves us in Christ.

“The Spirit reveals the cross to us as the answer to all our doubts: the Father loves us in Christ.”

This is the sum of the “all truth” (verse 13) that the Spirit teaches us. The Spirit reveals the cross to us as the answer to all our doubts: the Father loves us in Christ.15 The Spirit persuades us of this truth, so that we cry from our depths, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). The work of the Spirit among God’s people is, indeed, radically different now than before the cross/resurrection/ascension, so different that we can speak as though the Spirit was “not given” until now. While the Spirit was already present and active in the life of the pre-ascended Jesus (and in the lives of Old Testament saints long before Christ), nevertheless until now God’s people did not know the Spirit as the gift of the crucified, conquering King. They did not know how the King conquered — namely, through being crucified. They did not know the full depth of their plight, which required nothing less than the King’s life in their place. They did not know with assurance why they, unworthy sinners, could expect lavish goodness from the holy God. They had promises to bank on, and merciful tokens of God’s grace to them in the sacrificial system, but they did not have the full demonstration of the holy God’s loving welcome of them, and of the work that secures it, until the cross. And the Spirit had no objective reality to illumine and persuade and assure them by. So truly not until the cross, where the gift of the kingdom poured forth from the side of the King, was the Spirit fully handed over.

Ecclesial Facet

There are many important observations to make about the event of Pentecost, but of particular note for us is that, in Acts 2:2–3, the Spirit’s arrival was marked by thunderous noise (rushing wind) that “filled the whole house,” and tongues of fire coming down from heaven and alighting on the disciples. God’s coming down in fire and sound to “fill a house” is exactly what occurred at the completion of the tabernacle, as the glory-cloud that came down in thundering fire at Sinai proceeded to come down still farther to the ground to “fill” the completed tent (Exodus 19:16–20; 40:34–48). It is also what occurred later at the dedication of Solomon’s temple, as fire came down from heaven to “fill the house” (2 Chronicles 7:1–3; cf. 1 Kings 8:10–11). In like manner, as G.K. Beale trenchantly argues, the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost is to be understood as the dedication of God’s new eschatological temple.16

Acts 2 narrates no mere illustration of a universal individual experience but a salvation-historical event. When the fiery Spirit comes down not on the tabernacle/temple but on disciples, a transition is effected from an architectural building to an anthropological building as the dwelling place of the Lord. Other New Testament writers assert that the church is God’s new temple.17 Acts 2 shows when its function as God’s temple was inaugurated. At Pentecost, the church became the place whereby the power of the Spirit the covenantal presence of God is encountered on the ground (see, e.g., Acts 4:31; 5:3, 9; 13:2). If we may rightly speak of the tabernacle/temple as the palatial residence of the cosmic King (see hêkāl in, e.g., 1 Samuel 3:3; Isaiah 6:1; Psalm 11:4), the place where the “footstool” under his exalted throne is located (Psalm 99:5; 132:7), then we can state it in this manner: Pentecost marks out the gathered church as the new royal dwelling from which the ascended King’s presence and rule is now exercised on earth, the new place where the King’s “feet” rest, for here is where people gladly submit to his authority (note Acts 7:46–53).

It is important to clarify who is included in the “people” of the preceding sentence. At Pentecost, representatives “from every nation under heaven” were gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:5).18 It is a signal of where the narrative (the mission) is headed: to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). For Luke, the incorporation of Gentiles into the covenant people is part of the difference the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost makes. Whereas before the glory-cloud covenantal presence of God by his Spirit was limited to the temple located in one place on the globe (Jerusalem), now it is present, and in fact spreading missionally, all over the globe (Acts 8:14–17; 10:44–45). Whereas beforehand God reigned publicly as King over one nation, the nation of Israel, now he is present to rule over and for Gentile nations. Whereas beforehand entrance into the dwelling place of God was restricted to Israelites, now the dwelling place of God is not only open to all peoples, but by the Spirit all peoples are incorporated into it as building materials.

A related point is that before Pentecost, the Spirit’s work seemed mostly limited to key representative figures — prophets, priests, and kings; and these were almost exclusively men. There were some exceptions (e.g., Deborah the prophetess), but locating the Spirit’s presence in their lives is mostly a matter of theological inference and implication: if Deborah was a prophetess, and if other Scriptures indicate that prophetic activity is empowered by the Spirit (e.g., Isaiah 61:1; Ezekiel 2:1–7), then we can conclude that Deborah enjoyed the Spirit. But the text of Judges doesn’t make this explicit claim. In the old covenant, we are explicitly told that the Spirit filled and empowered Moses, for example, and then the seventy elders who were raised up to help govern the people. But Moses longs for the Spirit to fill still more, indeed the whole people of God, leaders and non-leaders alike, public figures and everyday folks out of the limelight (Numbers 11:24–30). The point is that in the old covenant there was not a readily apparent enjoyment of the Spirit on all the people; it was something Moses longed for and looked forward to. But now that Christ has sealed a new covenant in his blood, now that a new creational humanity is beginning in his resurrected body, now that he has ascended as King of a world-transforming kingdom, now that he has poured out his Spirit on “all flesh” (Acts 2:17a), the Spirit is the expectation and certain privilege of all the people of God, young and old, men and women (Acts 2:17b–18).19

With the coming of Christ, all nations can be reconciled to experience unity in their diversity under one true King. In Christ’s kingdom all the dividing lines of other kingdoms of the world are broken down (divisions of tongues, skin colors, blood, and birthplaces; divisions of temporal political allegiance; divisions of age, sex, and economic status). In Christ’s kingdom, diverse and seemingly irreconcilable peoples are made one. And the Spirit is the power uniting them. Where diverse and seemingly incompatible peoples join as one under King Jesus, there we can expect to find the Spirit present and at work.

Eschatological Facet

In considering the experiential facet of the diamond that is the gift of the Spirit after Christ’s ascension, our cues were Johannine. For the ecclesial facet, they were Lukan. Our exploration of the eschatological facet will involve something of a fusion of the testimonies of John and Acts, for they together indicate that receiving the gift of the Spirit from the crucified and risen Christ answers, at the same time, the questions “What time is it?” and “What are we here for?”

John: Drafted as Witnesses

In the Farewell Discourse in John 14–16, Jesus seeks to comfort his disciples with the promise of the Helper’s (the Paraclete’s) ministry among them and in them. Among other things, Jesus assures them that “when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:26–27). The Spirit’s special mission, sent from the throne of the ascended King, is one of witness. And since Jesus immediately pairs the Spirit’s witness with the disciples also bearing witness, we can safely say that the disciples by the empowerment of the Spirit will be swept into this same mission.

“The Spirit’s special mission, sent from the throne of the ascended King, is one of witness.”

“Witness” is one of the central motifs in the Gospel according to John. From the otherwise awkward twofold inclusion of John the Baptist’s mundane testimony to the Light in the exalted “Prologue” about the cosmic, eternal Logos (John 1:6–8, 15),20 to the preponderance of “witness” terminology in the Fourth Gospel (especially in comparison to the Synoptics),21 to the parade of witnesses (in heaven above, on earth below, and from the Scriptures of the past) appearing in the Book of Signs (John 1:19–12:50),22 to Jesus’s assertion that he came into the world for the purpose of witness (John 18:37), to the climactic and singular witness given at the crucifixion (John 19:35), the Gospel according to John is all about witness. But two points must be clarified about the motif of witness in John.

First, “witness” is not, for John, simply a contextless “sharing of Jesus to unbelievers,” however common that assumption might be in today’s popular Christian imagination. For John, witness is a decidedly legal activity.23 One bears testimony in court. Witnesses are needed in a trial. John’s interest in witness, and the Spirit’s activity of and empowering for witness, is owing to the reality of an ongoing trial.

Second, John arguably thinks in terms of a very particular trial that began in Jesus’s life and that is carried on through the Spirit’s post-resurrection ministry in the world. According to the prophetic expectations of Isaiah, in the last days God will put the gods of the nations on trial, exposing them to be false and empty, revealing to all that he is God and no other (Isaiah 41:21–24 is a representative passage).24 Whereas the false gods (or the nations trusting in them) are called to put forth witnesses to prove their case but are unable to do so, God raises up Israel as his witness:

“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,     “and my servant whom I have chosen,that you may know and believe me     and understand that I am he.” (Isaiah 43:10)

Sadly, as the larger context of Isaiah indicates, Israel is hardened in unbelief, frozen in fear before the nations, blind to the light. So, far from serving faithfully as God’s witness, they actually find themselves embroiled in their own ongoing legal dispute with God (for disputation between God and Israel, see Isaiah 42:18–25; 43:22–28; 50:1–3). According to Isaiah, God’s promised work of eschatological salvation will involve him taking up the roles of witness, prosecutor, and judge in trials both with Israel and with all the nations to prove to all that “I am he.” But he promises further that despite servant Israel’s disputations with him, nevertheless he will pour out his Spirit on his people as upon dry ground (Isaiah 44:3–5), and they shall spring up with words of faithful witness to the Lord’s mighty works and glorious identity (Isaiah 59:21).

What does this (far too hasty) consideration of the eschatological trials foreseen by Isaiah have to do with the end-time work of the Holy Spirit? As Andrew Lincoln especially has argued, Isaiah’s prophecy about God’s eschatological lawsuit against Israel and the nations funds John’s portrait of a two-level drama about the trial between Jesus and the world.25 In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus is ostensibly on trial first before Israel and then before the world represented by Pilate,26 while at the same time, ironically and in truth, it is Israel and the world being put on trial by the true Judge, Jesus, who comes to reveal the one true God. Jesus is witness (e.g., John 3:11, 32–33; 8:14, 18), attorney (he is the “first Paraclete” alluded to in 14:1627), and judge (John 5:22, 26–27; 9:39), who convicts both Israel and the world of sin by manifesting that “I am” (note Jesus’s seven absolute [i.e., without predicate] “I am” statements in John: 4:26; 6:20; 8:24, 28, 58; 13:19; 18:5, 6, 8). For John, this amounts to the promised eschatological trial and work of salvation foretold by Isaiah, in which God will demonstrate to Israel and the nations that “I am he” (Isaiah 41:4; 43:10, 13; 46:4; 48:12; 52:6).28 And the giving of the Holy Spirit by the glorified Jesus is the guarantee that the trial will continue after Jesus’s departure through the empowerment of witnesses.

The Holy Spirit’s witness, and his empowering of disciples for witness, is proper to the stage of the biblical drama that has been launched with the coming and glorification of Christ. To have the Spirit is not just to be privy to an inner experience. It is less to have access to power that was not previously available. It is rather and especially a sign that we are rooted in a particular act of the drama with new opportunities and vocations fitted to that act. To receive the Spirit is to be enlisted in the eschatological trial of the whole world, in which God demonstrates the wind and emptiness of all idols and the truth of his identity made known in Christ.

Acts: World on Trial

While several have recognized something of the Isaianic background and eschatological significance of the trial motif in John’s Gospel, outside of a suggestive 1990 article by Dennis Johnson,29 few have commented on how a similar point comes to the fore in the book of Acts.30 In Acts, as in John, a preponderance of trial material appears, especially in the final third of the book (but note also Acts 4:1–22; 5:17–42; 6:8–7:60). In Acts 21–28, the Apostle Paul repeatedly appears before judges and magistrates (the Sanhedrin in ch. 23; Felix and Festus in chapters 24–25; Agrippa in chapters 25–26; and the book concludes with Paul awaiting a hearing before Caesar31). The bulk of these chapters is given over to (1) accusations made against Paul, and especially (2) Paul’s repeated defense speeches. More generally, technical or semi-technical legal terminology abounds in the narrative.32 Trial and defense is front and center and belabored in the final chapters of Acts. In this light, Luke Timothy Johnson asks exactly the right question:

Something more than the desire for historical or biographical plentitude is at work. Luke, after all, has shown himself elsewhere to be perfectly capable of passing over years of busy activity with a one-line summary (18:11; 19:10). He could easily have passed over the embarrassment of Paul’s captivity with an equally brief allusion, and moved on to the excitement of the sea voyage to Rome. Why does he linger here?33

In terms of the narrative plotline of the book, this focus on trial and defense is perhaps not surprising since what is arguably the theme verse of the book, Acts 1:8, informs us that this is a story about Spirit-empowered witness (again, witness is at home in a legal context).34

Additionally, it seems certain that Luke would have us identify Paul’s life as, in a manner, a recapitulation of Jesus’s life and mission: as in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’s public ministry gives way to extended trial scenes before a parade of authorities (first the Sanhedrin, then Herod, then Pilate), so also in Acts Paul’s missionary journeys give way to extended trial scenes before a parade of authorities (the Sanhedrin, Felix and Festus, and Agrippa). In Paul’s life, Christ is, we might say, continuing by his Spirit the work and experience he began in his earthly ministry (see Acts 1:1). So Paul’s experience on trial mirrors that of Jesus.

But there is one glaring difference between Jesus’s trials reported in the Gospel and Paul’s trials in Acts. Whereas Paul repeatedly offers long and pointed defense speeches, Jesus appears unwilling to defend himself. He offers little-to-no defense or testimony, but either simply confirms (or ambiguously restates) the accusations brought against him (“You have said so”) or remains altogether silent (see Luke 22:67–70; 23:3, 9). In David Peterson’s words, “At the time of his trial, Jesus was clearly more restrained than Paul in dealing with his accusers (cf. Lk. 22:63–71; Jn. 18:19–23).”35 Might we look for something to account for this difference?

“To have the Spirit is to find ourselves in the last hour, drafted as witnesses to the resurrection.”

Peterson’s following comment points toward an answer: “He [Jesus] submitted to injustice without complaint to accomplish the redemptive work prescribed for the Servant of the Lord (cf. Is. 53:7–8, cited in Acts 8:32–33).” Isaiah prophesied that God’s work of eschatological salvation would center on a Servant who was silent for the sake of sinners. But as we have seen, Isaiah’s prophetic hope also included a day when those sinners would no longer be silent regarding God. Because of the work of the silent Servant, God’s people would have the Spirit of God fill their mouths, emboldening them to speak (Isaiah 59:2136). There are many reasons for thinking that Isaiah’s prophecy played a major shaping role on the narrative of Acts.37 I suggest that, though little commented upon, the detailed and extended trial scenes in Acts are such a reason. In Acts, Paul (and Peter, and Stephen, and the whole church) is repeatedly on trial, for it is the time of the Isaianic end-time lawsuit against Israel (Jerusalem) and the nations (the ends of the earth), exposing the world’s idols to be impotent and deceptive, proving that the identity of the one true God is revealed in the risen and ascended Christ. Paul may be ostensibly awaiting a hearing before Caesar at the end of Acts, but there is a kingdom (Acts 28:23) over which Caesar does not have authority and whose King holds Caesar and the world accountable. In truth, it is the time when Caesar and all the world must stand before the Judge, must respond to the witnesses the Judge is raising up. And it is the time when the Spirit, as was promised long ago, has finally been poured out to empower such faithful witnesses for mission “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).38

This, too, is part of the difference Christ’s ascension and the event of Pentecost makes. To have the Spirit is to find ourselves in the last hour, drafted as witnesses to the resurrection in God’s final legal actions against the world. It is a dangerous mission, a way marked with suffering and persecution, as the church in Acts quickly discovers. But it has a saving aim (Acts 2:21). And our kind Father and victorious King has well equipped us for it, handing over nothing less than the treasure of the kingdom: “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11–12).

ABSTRACT: The Holy Spirit, according to Jesus, is the best of gifts from the best of Fathers. But how can Christians begin to understand the person and work of the Spirit, including before and after Pentecost? Perhaps the best starting point is the life of Christ both before and after his resurrection. During his earthly ministry, Jesus lived as the perfect Spirit-filled man, the paragon of humanity as God created it to be. Even still, after his resurrection, Jesus received the Spirit in a new way: as the royal inheritance of the ascended King. And in the new covenant, the King has begun to share his spoils with his people.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Dan Brendsel (PhD, Wheaton), pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Hinckley, Minnesota, to provide Christological bearings for understanding the person and work of the Spirit.

If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13)

“Teach us to pray,” the disciples ask Jesus (Luke 11:1). It is a terrific request. And Jesus is happy to oblige. First, he tells them what they are to pray (verses 2–4). But Jesus would have his disciples be much more than informed about right content in well-ordered prayer; Jesus would also have his disciples be eager and expectant in prayer. So to instruction on the content of prayer, he adds two encouragements meant to sustain fervent prayer: (1) persistence pays off (verses 5–10), and (2) our heavenly Father gives good gifts (verses 11–13). Jesus’s aim is to inspire committed, fervent prayer, so in the latter instance he speaks of the best “good gift” he can think of to showcase the Father’s astounding kindness and generosity — namely, the Holy Spirit.

Appreciating this best of gifts from the best of fathers is, to say the least, no trivial matter. Faith in the God who lays hold of us in Christ through the power of the Spirit should zealously seek to grow in understanding of this same Spirit. Unfortunately, the task is fraught with difficulty, the way is paved with distractions, and the questions needing to be answered are copious and complicated.

Challenging, Complex Questions

The Spirit is, arguably, the most nebulous member of the Trinity: a Father I have categories for, a Son I can easily envision, but where do I begin to make sense of a Spirit?1 The Spirit is, arguably, the most avoided member of the Trinity, at least at a popular level: I would wager that, outside of Pentecostal traditions, most churchgoers have never sat under a sermon series or Sunday school series exploring the person and work of the Holy Spirit.2 And when Christian reflection on the Holy Spirit’s ministry is pursued, it often happens in the context of controversy (e.g., disagreements about the so-called “charismatic spiritual gifts”), and finds itself, arguably, too ready to allow controversy to dictate the shape and focus of the treatment.

In addition to these realities, complicated biblical-theological questions arise concerning the nature of the Spirit’s work. We speak of the Spirit being “poured out” at Pentecost: does this mean he was somehow absent and inactive beforehand? After all, John 7:39 says that the Spirit was not given until Jesus was “glorified.” What do we make of such a statement? How shall we truthfully articulate the difference that Christ’s work and the event of Pentecost make? What does it mean for Christians to have and enjoy the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very treasure of the kingdom given from the ascended King’s throne? These are challenging questions, but they must be attended to if we would know aright the gift of the Father won for us by Christ.

“Jesus’s life is from beginning to end (to new beginning) saturated with the Spirit.”

Given the challenge and complexity of the matter, it can be constructive to narrow our focus. Rather than trying to tackle all or even several areas of concern, in this essay we will zero in on just one limited but strategic starting point. Specifically, we will consider the Holy Spirit in the life of Christ. We will, in other words, seek out some Christological bearings for pneumatology. This is a strategic point of departure not only because, as we shall see, Jesus’s life is from beginning to end (to new beginning) saturated with the Spirit to the point that the Spirit can be called the very Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9). To know Christ aright is necessarily to know something of the Spirit (and vice versa). But more pointedly, Christological cues in understanding the Spirit’s work in the new age are especially helpful since Christ’s own life and labor exhibits both continuity and discontinuity in the experience of the Spirit, which serves as a paradigm for proper biblical-theological understanding of the work of the Spirit through the ages.

Perfect Spirit-Filled Man

We regularly affirm (in the Western church) that the Spirit proceeds from the Son,3 but we must also say that the Son came into the world in the incarnation by the power of the Spirit. In Luke 1:35, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that the Holy Spirit will “come upon her,” and the power of the Most High will “overshadow” her. The result? She will bear one who will be called “the Son of God.” But in Scripture, many figures are called “son of God” (e.g., Israel in Exodus 4:22–23, Israel’s king in Psalm 2:7, angels in Job 1:6, peacemakers in Matthew 5:9). In what sense would Luke have us understand Jesus to be “the Son of God”?4

The meaning is clarified a couple of chapters later at Jesus’s baptism. In Luke 3:21–22, the Spirit is again present and active in Jesus’s life, coming down in the form of a dove upon him, anointing him for his God-given task. The Spirit’s anointing is coupled with a verbal declaration of Jesus’s identity: he is God’s “beloved son” (verse 22). Immediately after this, seemingly out of nowhere, Luke shifts genres from narrative to genealogy (verses 23–38). But the train of thought is clarified when we come to the end of the genealogy: “. . . Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God” (verse 38). Adam was the first son of God in the biblical story line. Jesus is the second; which is to say, he is a second Adam.

Luke 3:22 and 38 (see also 4:3, 9)5 are the most contextually important indicators of what the word to Mary in 1:35 means. To be “son of God” is to be a new Adam. Indeed, the first Adam is the only other human in history who was without a human father, but who instead was breathed into human existence directly by the breath (Spirit) of God (Genesis 2:7). The virgin conception by the power of the Holy Spirit is, therefore, not just a guarantee of Jesus’s divinity. It is also and especially in the biblical narrative a way of underlining Jesus’s true and full humanity as the new Adam who brings with him the beginnings of the new creation.6

Jesus is the quintessential Spirit-filled man, who does everything he does by the power of the Spirit. He was anointed as the new Adam and the Davidic King by the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:21–22; Matthew 3:13–17) and then driven into his holy war with the devil by the Spirit (Mark 1:12–13). Jesus’s public ministry begins by the Spirit’s empowerment (Luke 4:14, 18). He goes about “doing good and healing” in the power of the Spirit (Acts 10:38; also Matthew 12:28). His prayers and affections are drenched with the Spirit (Luke 3:21–22; 10:21–22). He suffered righteously unto death through God’s eternal Spirit (Hebrews 9:14).7 It was through the power of the Spirit of holiness that Jesus was raised from the dead (Romans 1:4)8 and thus vindicated from the world’s verdict of guilty (1 Timothy 3:16).9 And when the vindicated Son of Man ascends to the right hand of God to take up his rightful throne, he comes “on the clouds,” enwrapped or borne, we might say, by the glory-cloud which is the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:9; cf. Daniel 7:13–14).10 Everything Jesus did, he did in submission to his Father’s will by the power of the Holy Spirit, not so much proving that he is God (which, of course, he is) but demonstrating his true humanity. Jesus is the perfect Spirit-filled man, the fullness of what humans were intended by the Creator to be.

“Everything Jesus did, he did in glad submission to his Father’s will by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

So the one who ascends to his rightful throne in Acts 1 is a human king, the new Adam who has ruled and subdued the way God intended from the beginning, the new and true Davidic king promised to Israel, the ruler and pioneer of a recreated humanity. He has won the great and final victory over his foes. And he has received his prize, the spoils of his victory as conquering and enthroned king.

His Royal Inheritance

What is the prize? The answer is suggested in an astounding, yet easy to miss, statement from the apostle Peter at Pentecost:

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. (Acts 2:33)

The brevity and syntactical subordination of the participial clause can obscure its glory: Peter leads us, in Sinclair Ferguson’s words, “momentarily behind the events of history to give us a glimpse of a transaction between the Father and the Son-Mediator.”11 Specifically, Peter highlights that the ascended Christ himself first receives the gift of the promised Spirit from the Father, before he pours it out on the church at Pentecost. But we have seen scriptural testimony in abundance that Christ’s life was shot through with the Spirit from the very beginning. So what could it mean that the ascended Christ now “received” the Spirit?

I propose that Christ did not, until after his resurrection (kingly victory) and ascension (kingly enthronement), have the Spirit as the officially bestowed royal inheritance.12 There’s a difference between an anointed king who has not yet been crowned, and a crowned king who has full authority to rule the kingdom. There is a difference between, on the one hand, young David, already anointed by Samuel, who exercises king-like character and duties (e.g., in 1 Samuel 17) but who will not cut down Saul because Saul is the rightfully enthroned king, and on the other hand, mature David, who rules the kingdom as its publicly installed king. To change analogies, there’s a difference between a son who has the rights to the inheritance and who may even benefit from the inheritance ahead of time (e.g., live on the land, receive an allowance), and a son upon whom has finally been bestowed the full inheritance to do with as he pleases.

This is to suggest that the difference of Jesus’s experience of the Spirit pre-resurrection and ascension and post-resurrection and ascension is less spatial (absence vs. presence) and more legal (kingly prize, covenantal inheritance), less quantitative (less vs. more) and more theo-dramatic (the beginning of a new act in the salvation-historical drama, with the launching of new covenantal callings).13 A change in status, and with it a change of epochs, has occurred, which is evidenced by Christ’s ascended reception of the promised Spirit. In this way, Christ’s reception of the Spirit as ascended Lord on the throne is qualitatively different from even what he enjoyed of the Spirit in his Spirit-drenched life before his resurrection and ascension.

Treasure of the Kingdom

One of the first royal acts of this ascended King from his throne is, according to Ephesians 4:7 (quoting Psalm 68:18), to give gifts to his kingdom: “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” The King shares the spoils of his kingly victory with the people he rules; he gives generously to his redeemed. The gifts that Paul has in view are what we call spiritual gifts (Ephesians 4:11), gifts wrought by the “one Spirit” (verse 4) given to Christ’s kingdom. The Holy Spirit, the prize or the inheritance given to the victorious King, is what the King upon his enthronement shares with all his subjects. We might even say that to have the Spirit is to have the kingdom won by the King. For example, Luke’s language in Luke 11:13 and 12:32 veritably equates the Father’s giving of the Holy Spirit with his giving of the kingdom:

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit [ho patēr . . . dōsei pneuma hagion] to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13)

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom [ho patēr . . . dounai . . . tēn basileian]. (Luke 12:32)

It is sometimes insinuated, or outright asserted, that for new-covenant believers to have the Spirit is to be privy to a power or access to some substance that was, for all practical purposes, unavailable in prior ages. On this line of thinking, because early Christians had access to a power previously unavailable, they were able, for example, to be much bolder and more confident than old-covenant believers, with boldness such as that displayed in the book of Acts. “Peter used to be cowardly, as when he thrice denied the Lord,” so the thinking goes, “but because he got the Spirit at Pentecost, he could courageously take his stand against rulers and authorities.” To simply leave matters there obscures and distorts at least as much as it expresses a slice of truthfulness.

We may suggest a better way forward, taking Christ’s experience of the Spirit before and after his resurrection and ascension as paradigmatic of the continuity and discontinuity of the Spirit’s work in believers before and after Pentecost. Jesus did not get “more” of the Spirit after the ascension, and neither, I argue, do Christians now enjoy “more” of the Spirit than old-covenant believers. But Christ did receive the Spirit in a new way — or better, in a new act of the drama. Again, we must think in legal-covenantal and theo-dramatic terms.

Christians in the Final Act

Kevin Vanhoozer argues that emotions (like courage) should be understood as “covenantal concern-based theodramatic construals.”14 In simplified terms, emotions are a matter of narrative construal (i.e., how we narrate the reality of which we are a part) and of convictions about our covenantal place in that narrative (i.e., our judgments about our location, standing, and role in the drama). On this line of thinking, the emotions surrounding courageous boldness are not owing to bare substances or powers and chemical reactions inside us. Rather, courageously bold Christians are those who construe situations in which they find themselves as fearful yet hopeful for the sons and daughters of the kingdom.

The Christians in Acts could narrate their stories, and the story of reality, in a way no one before them could: theirs was the story in which sin and wrath had finally and decisively been dealt with; the story in which even death had been defeated; the story in which the idols of the world were finally being shown to be the wind and emptiness that they are; the story whose end is a victorious King, glorious in grace, seated on the throne, bestowing the spoils of his kingdom on his people. And because they could narrate the story in a different way, because they were assured of their standing in the kingdom secured in the final act of the drama, they could have a new kind of boldness. It is no accident that in Acts 4:31, the boldness of the early church is precisely a matter of boldness in speaking the word of God, a boldness arising from a biblical narration of the meaning of the events of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection (see Acts 4:24–28).

But at the same time, it was a boldness wrought by the Holy Spirit given in answer to prayer (see again v. 31 as the divine response to vv. 29–30). The heavenly Father gives good gifts to his adopted and supplicating children in Christ. He gives the Spirit who illuminates the meaning of the redemptive work of God in history for them, so that they might narrate the drama afresh. He gives them the Spirit who assures them of their new covenantal status as kingdom citizens. He gives them the Spirit who, in these ways at least, empowers them to live with a boldness in accord with the eschatological act of the drama that Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension inaugurated.

So to have the Holy Spirit indwelling us at “the end of the ages” is not best articulated as a matter of having access to a powerful substance unavailable to prior generations. Far less is the Pentecostal presence of the Holy Spirit a mere inner, ahistorical sensation or feeling. To have the Spirit from the ascended Lord Jesus, to know his indwelling presence and power and fellowship, is to be rooted in a particular chapter in the story. It is to know oneself the covenantal subject of the crucified, risen, and ascended King by virtue of that King’s work on our behalf. It is to rest secure in that King’s victory over all our foes and in the inauguration of his kingdom of justice and peace. To have the Spirit is to have the treasure of the kingdom.