Rodman Williams: The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Effects, Part 1
The first part of chapter eight from Professor Williams’ book, The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today, about the greatest reality of our time.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Context (Chapter 7)
Chapter Eight: Effects, Part 1
We come finally to a consideration of the effects or results of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our concern is not so much with long-range effects, though they are certainly not excluded, as with the immediate results of the Spirit being given. A number of these may be noted.
First of all, there is an extraordinary sense of the reality of God. As has been observed, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift of God’s own presence. It is not something the Holy Spirit grants—such as life, power, wisdom—but it is the Spirit Himself who is given. Since the Holy Spirit is God in His essential being, the reception of this gift means the reception of God Himself. This then signifies the stupendous fact of the coming of God, the Holy Spirit, in fullness to lay claim to His creature, and to pervade the totality of human existence. In the action, God without ceasing to be wholly transcendent is also wholly immanent as He possesses the heights and depths of creaturely life. This extraordinary event of the divine self-giving is at the same time a divine self-disclosure, a revelation of the divine reality. The reality of God, His divine presence, is made known to man with compelling force.
Further, the God who comes through the gift of the Holy Spirit is the triune God. Hence, though it is the Spirit who is given—and thus not the same personally as Father or Son—nonetheless His very presence also makes real other persons of the Godhead. He constantly points to, glorifies, makes real the Son, the exalted Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit the exalted Lord constantly makes Himself known to His believing people. Jesus Christ, though now at the “right hand” of the Father and not bodily present, becomes spiritually present among those who believe in Him. Likewise, the Holy Spirit makes real God as Father, for it is through the Spirit’s indwelling and moving presence that the fatherhood of God takes on more intimate and personal meaning. By the Spirit we say “Abba! Father!” not as address to a distant deity but as the cry of the heart to one near at hand.1 To summarize: the reality of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is vividly disclosed through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
As we turn again to the books of Acts, it is apparent that the reality of God is the paramount fact in everything that occurs. When the Spirit is given at Pentecost, the company immediately begins to declare the marvelous works of God and thus to exult in His wonderful presence. It matters not that thousands are gathered around them, for so full are they of God’s Spirit that they go right on praising Him. The reality of God’s presence has gripped them as a community, as individuals, and in such fashion that in all that follows they sense God moving in their midst.
For example, in the case of Peter’s ministry it is clear that the reality of God’s presence pervades everything. In his message to the large Jewish audience in Jerusalem (Acts 2:14-39) he speaks of God with authority, of Jesus Christ with the assurance of personal knowledge, of the Holy Spirit with the certainty of profound experience. He later pronounces healing in the name of Jesus Christ as in the name of one who powerfully and personnally present (Acts 3:6), and “filled with the Holy Spirit” he does not hesitate to proclaim salvation even to the rulers, elders and high priests (Acts 4:8-12). So real is the presence of God in the community of believers that Peter declares that to lie about a certain matter is to lie against God—”You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:4). Further, the witness of Peter and the others about Jesus is known by them to be a co-witness with the Holy Spirit—”We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given” (Acts 5:32). Also, the Holy Spirit, prior to Peter’s going to Caesarea, speaks directly and personally to him—”the Spirit said to him, ‘Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down, and accompany them without hesitation; for I have sent them'” (Acts 10:19-20).
Likewise, from the outset of Paul’s ministry there is a compelling sense of God’s reality. The personal self-disclosure of the risen and exalted Lord to Saul of Tarsus—”I am Jesus” (Acts 9:5) and the ensuing experience of being “filled with the Holy Spirit” (9:17) made of Saul a man whose life and activity thereafter were dominated by the reality of God’s living presence. “Immediately he proclaimed Jesus, saying, ‘He is the Son of God'” (9:20); and this proclamation, like all else Paul thenceforward did, stemmed from the indubitable certainty of God’s pervading presence and action. One telling illustration of the presence of God in Paul’s missionary activity is that wherein the apostle (with Timothy) is led by the Holy Spirit to cross over from Asia Minor into Europe. First, he was “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia,” and, second, when he purposed to go in another direction, “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” (Acts 16:6-7). Therein is unmistakable testimony to the reality of the divine presence and direction in whatever Paul did. Throughout Paul’s ministry there is a continuing sense of the activity of the Holy Spirit.2
The book of Acts is the record of a church intensely aware of the presence of God. When the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch meet together, the Holy Spirit is markedly present—”While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'” (Acts 13:2). When the apostles and elders of the church in Jerusalem convene to make a decision about the matter of Gentile circumcision, they send a letter which includes the words: “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden” (Acts 15:28). Throughout, it is a church—whether in Jerusalem, Antioch, or elsewhere—moving and acting in the reality of God’s spiritual presence.
The book of Acts, accordingly, is far more than the acts of men—or “Acts of the Apostles.”3 For though men are everywhere involved, it is basically the acts of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Spirit that stand forth. God is present in a compelling manner; the sense of His presence and action is markedly known and experienced. All that happens finds its source and direction from Him. That God is real is the basic fact in the life of the early Christian community.
Now what has been said about the experienced reality of God in the early church is again being confirmed in the contemporary movement of the Holy Spirit. A spiritual breakthrough is occurring wherein people are being made profoundly aware of the divine presence. Through the outpoured gift of the Holy Spirit, God in His divine reality is manifesting Himself. That God is real is being affirmed by countless thousands, not as simply an affirmation of distant faith, but of vivid, undeniable experience.
Living in a day of the “absence” of God—the “eclipse” of God, even the “death” of God4—this spiritual breakthrough is a tremendous fact.5 For the unreality of God has become the actual situation for vast numbers of people. This is the case not only for the secular world but quite often for people inside the church. It is a matter of the Real Absence rather than the Real Presence. Often even when the gospel is preached, the Bible fully accepted as the Word of God, the sacraments regularly shared in, there is little spiritual vitality. This may be the case also for churches that lay much stress on evangelistic and missionary activity; there is little spiritual vitality. This may be the case also for churches that lay much stress on evangelistic and missionary activity; there is little excitement about the presence of the living God in the midst of His people. But now through the outpouring of God’s Spirit, all is changing for many persons: there is spiritual rejuvenation, renewal—an overwhelming sense of the divine presence.6 For God is possessing His people in a profound manner, pervading the heights and depths of creaturely existence, even through the conscious to the subconscious life, and becoming the recognized primary actor in all that takes place.
Thus the community of believers, experiencing the divine visitation, is becoming much like the early church. As at Pentecost, people are declaring with full fervor the mighty works of God, they are witnessing to the gospel with tremendous enthusiasm and boldness, and signs and wonders are occurring on every hand. They are looking to the Holy Spirit for a “Thus saith the Lord,” and like Peter, Paul, and others, they are hearing a word and moving by divine direction. When God is real and powerfully present, all of life is set in a different key—and the church becomes afresh the church of the living God.
Second, another effect of the gift of the Holy Spirit is fullness of joy. Wherever the Holy Spirit is received there is a great upsurge of joy. Sometimes the joy is so great as to be almost uncontainable. In the language of 1 Peter 1:8 it may be “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”7
It is apparent that on the Day of Pentecost there was great rejoicing in the Lord. As we have noted, the Spirit-filled disciples immediately began to speak forth the “mighty works of God,” and they did so in such fashion that many mockingly declared them to be “filled with new wine.” However, it was not fruit of the vine but fruit of the Spirit—not an artificial joy soon to fade but a genuine joy that was thereafter to penetrate their whole existence.
Indeed, this deep joy is further demonstrated in an entirely different setting where the apostles, having already been put in jail, are now beaten and charged by the Jewish high council not to speak further in the name of Jesus. “Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (Acts 5:41). Hence the joy that they, along with many others, had experienced on the Day of Pentecost was not only a joy related to favorable circumstances, but also one that continued in the midst of persecution and disrepute. It was the great rejoicing about which Jesus spoke when He told His disciples: “Blessed are you when men hate you and revile you …on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day and leap for joy …” (Luke 6:22-23). Truly this is fullness of joy!
This fullness of joy, as a promise to His disciples, was mentioned by Jesus in the Gospel of John several times on the night of His betrayal. The words are found first in 15:11: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”8 It is to be noted that the joy comes from Jesus—it is “my joy”9—and that the promise of being filled with joy. Looking ahead, it could be said that the Resurrection was the coming of joy,10 but only at Pentecost and thereafter did the disciples know the fullness of that joy.
Returning to the book of Acts we find several other accounts where joy, or rejoicing, is mentioned. First, just following the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip, the Scripture reads: “And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip; and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:39). Second, at Iconium, “The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit” (Acts 13:52). Third, the Philippian jailer who had come to faith in the Lord Jesus and was baptized thereafter “rejoiced greatly,11 having believed in God with his whole household” (Acts 16:34 NASB). In all of these accounts, joy is closely connected with the Holy Spirit, quite possibly as an immediate effect of the gift of the Holy Spirit.12
Beyond Acts we may also observe, first, how Paul writes the Thessalonians that they “received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). That the Thessalonians had received the gift of the Holy Spirit is apparent from Paul’s prior words: “Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). Hence, the “joy inspired by the Holy Spirit” came out of the fullness of their experience of the Holy Spirit—a joy that even amid “much affliction” broke forth. The result, Paul adds: “you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achais” (1 Thessalonians 1:7). Second, Paul writes the Romans, praying: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). “All joy” comes out of God’s “filling,” out of “the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The fullness of joy expressed by these various Scriptures is being exemplified across the world in the contemporary outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Many who have received the gift of the Spirit attest that one of the immediate effects is an intensity of joy. Often the experience is that of an inner movement of the Holy Spirit wherein the whole being is flooded with joy.13Â There is about this joy something quite different, or other, than ordinary joy or happiness: it is the joy of the Lord. In one popular chorus, based on 1 Peter 1:8, the wording goes: “It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, and the half has never yet been told!”
Further, this is a joy which thereafter may have its ups and downs, but regardless of what occurs in the life of faith it continues as a wellspring ever bubbling up and overflowing. Jesus also said about the joy which He promised His disciples that “no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22). So it is: since this joy is fulfilled through the gift of the Holy Spirit, and this joy is the Lord’s own joy, nothing can take it away. It is joy everlasting. Surely the words of Isaiah are appropriate: “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads” (Isaiah 51:11).
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Part Two of “Effects” continues in the Summer 2004 issue.
Notes
1. See below for fuller discussion.
2. E.g. Acts 19:21: “Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem.” Acts 20:22-23: “I am going to Jerusalem bound in the Spirit …the Holy Spirit testifies to me that imprisonment and afflictions await me.”
3. “Acts of the Apostles” is a title frequently given to the book. The title is doubly misleading: first, the book of Acts while mostly containing narrations about apostolic activity also relates the acts of “deacons” such as Stephen (Acts 6 and 7) and Philip (8), of churches such as at Antioch and Jerusalem (see above), of teachers such as Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24-28) and of a prophet such as Agabus (Acts 11:28 and 21:10-11); second, the focus of the title is off center, for the main feature is not the acts of the apostles or any other believers but the acts of the Holy Spirit, or the acts of the exalted Lord through the Holy Spirit, the continuation of “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1) in His earthly life.
4. “Death of God” terminology used by Nietzsche, and taken up in the mid-sixties by so-called “death of God” theologians, says far more about the human than the divine condition. For all practical purposes God is dead when there is utterly no sense of His living reality.
5. “In an era that cries, ‘God is dead,’ and questions whether ‘Christianity’ has a future, the charismatic renewal comes as a vigorous affirmation that God is indeed a living God, and that Jesus Christ is active in the world with sovereign power.” So begins Pentecost in the Modern World (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1972) by Edward D. O’Connor, C.S.C.
6. In his autobiography, Nine O’Clock in the Morning, Dennis Bennett describes the sense of Presence that came to him just following his receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit: “The Presence of God that I had so clearly seen in earlier days to be the real reason for living, suddenly enveloped me again after the many, many years of dryness. Never had I experienced God’s presence in such reality as now. It might have frightened me, except that I recognized that this was the same Presence of the Lord that I had sensed when I first accepted Jesus …only the intensity and reality of my present experience was far greater than anything I had believed possible. If those earlier experiences were like flashbulbs this was as if someone had suddenly turned on the floodlights! The reality of God was something that I felt all the way through” (p. 24). Here, verily, is the answer to “the death of God!”
7. KJV. The RSV translates the text as “unutterable and exalted joy.”
8. Cf. also John 16:24: “ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full,” and John 17:13: “these things I speak …that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”
9. The joy of Jesus may be observed, for example, upon the return of seventy disciples from a successful missionary journey: “In that same hour he rejoiced [‘rejoiced greatly’ or ‘exulted’—egalliasato] in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). Here is fullness of joy in (or “by”) the Holy Spirit—which the disciples also were to experience later.
10. E.g., the women, told that Jesus was risen, “departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy (charas megales) …” (Matthew 28:8). Later Jesus appeared to the larger group who experienced “joy and …marveling” (charas kai thaumazonton) (Luke 24:41 NAS).
11. The Greek term is egalliasato, the same as in Luke 10:41 (supra).
12. We may recall (see chapter 6, fn. 9, in the Fall 2003 [6:4] issue of the Pneuma Review, p. 22) that the Acts 8:39 passage in a number of early manuscripts reads: “And when they came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit fell upon the eunuch and an angel of the Lord caught up Philip …” The point of this reading, as we before observed, is undoubtedly to emphasize that the eunuch’s believing and baptism were followed by the gift of the Spirit. Accordingly, the rejoicing of the eunuch springs out of his experience of the Holy Spirit. In regard to the Acts 16:34 passage, nothing is said directly about the Holy Spirit. However, since once again the rejoicing—or great rejoicing—is closely connected with faith and baptism, the implication of the text is quite likely that of the reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
13. Earlier we quoted the words of Larry Tomczak about his baptism in the Holy Spirit: “I felt the rapturous and exultant joy of the Lord surging through me. … Then, just at the right moment words began to flow from my heart” (supra. chap. 3, fn. 4, in the Fall 2002 [5:4] issue of the Pneuma Review, p. 9). Then Tomczak adds: “At the same time, like a mountain stream—pure, sparkling, cool, crystal clear—living joy began to flow upward and outward through my entire being.” His concluding words: “Jesus Christ touched me that night, and, oh, the joy that filled my soul. … I opened the door and seemed to float through it. Looking up at the cool, crisp, early morning sky, I grinned foolishly, drunk for joy” (Clap Your Hand, pp. 112-13). Also see the moving life story by Sister Mary Bernard, I Leap for Joy (Plainfield, NJ: Logos, 1974).
Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptural quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Effects, Part 2 (Chapter 8)
The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today by J. Rodman Williams, was published in 1980 by Logos International. Used by permission of the author. Reprinted in Pneuma Review with minor updates from the author.
