Emory Professor Sees Holy Spirit as God’s Energy
August 8th, 2007 by Sean
Luke Timothy Johnson is the RW Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta Georgia. He is well known in the field of New Testament scholarship by both liberal and convservative theologians. I was listening to a course he taught called Jesus and the Gospels in which he made the following statement.
click here to listen [4:16]
Most Christians see the holy spirit as the third person of the Trinity. However, the earliest Christians looked at the spirit as God’s energy or power to accomplish great deeds through them, psychologically (i.e. personal forgiveness, emotional healing, comfort, etc.), sociologically (the building of communities or fellowships through witnessing), and phenonomenologically (physical healings and other miracles). In fact this empowerment of the spirit was not looked at as a separate, nameless person but instead as the indwelling of ascended Christ. I appreciated this professor’s description of the spirit, what do you think?
Sean I also appreciated his description.Christ in you, perhaps this is the means of Jesus”s active work for us. The body being one and all of us participating via his spirit.Maybe there is more to it than this but certainly this is part of it, I believe this is why this is so important. It is also why holiness is so important.
How could the Holy Spirit be Christ in us if Christ was a human being. That would mean that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father as well as dwelling in every Christian. That would make him omnipresent.
I agree it’s more of a power than a person, but at the same time I wouldn’t say it is “just” a power, like an energy field. It is described as God’s Spirit working in a person or a situation. It has a “personal” nature to it, because it is God’s very essence or nature, His presence and power extended into the created world. This is why “the Holy Spirit said” is a way of referring to what God said by His Spirit. And to lie to the Holy Spirit is another way of saying the person lied to God.
Aaron, I would say that the Holy Spirit is not “equal” to Christ in us. Rather, the Holy Spirit is the means by which the ascended Christ indwells us. While Christ himself is seated at God’s right hand, his nature and character can dwell in us by way of the Holy Spirit.
I’ve written about this in detail on my web site:
http://godskingdomfirst.org/holyspirit.htm