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ekthanatou
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 7
| Posted 1/29/2003 9:26 AM (GMT -6) |   | I recently read Boyd's _Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity_ and his article on Oneness historiography that he presented at Harvard.
I have an Apostolic background, and am well connected to the UPC, so I thought that it would be interesting and fun to talk with some of Boyd's people about Oneness Pentecostal theology--any aspect at all--and get some Evangelical perspectives from people who actually know something about the Apostolic movement.
Right now, though, I have a question regarding pneumatology that perhaps someone out there who is familiar with Apostolic soteriology may be able to answer. From an Apostolic perspective, I have a hard time making sense of an Evangelical model of the reception of the Spirit. From Boyd's book, I gather that y'all are "second blessing" charismatics: from this perspective, how do you maintain any sort of unity between the Lukan and Pauline pneumatologies, or even account for the fact that a "second blessing" model must be *imposed* upon the scriptures to make sense of them?
Furthermore, if an Evangelical one-stage model is subscribed to, in which the Holy Ghost inevitably comes at the instant (if there even IS such a thing!) of repentance and faith, how in the world can we account for the logic behind Luke's saying that the Samaritans had not received the Holy Spirit even though they believed, were baptized, and accepted the message "with great joy?" Given tyhe Evangelical pneumatology, why in the world did the apostles not just come down and assure the Samaritans that they already *had* the Holy Spirit, since they were believers? Certainly that is what any modern Evangelical pastor would do, is it not?
Finally, if baptism "in Jesus' Name" is merely shorthand for the FSHS formula, which is the *real* fixed formula, why does baptism seem to have an exclusively Christological significance in Paul's writings?
I am looking foreward to talking with you guys. Ciao for Now!
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Tiggers
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| Posted 1/29/2003 4:30 PM (GMT -6) | | ekthanatou asserts,
"I have an Apostolic background, and am well connected to the UPC, so I thought that it would be interesting and fun to talk with some of Boyd's people about Oneness Pentecostal theology."
Tiggers reply,
Hey this sounds like a great topic, unfortunately I have never read the book. I hope people respond, I don't personally know much about Oneness Pentecostals. Anyways (to only be taken in love) my only thing is, and like I have proclaimed on this board before...Greg Boyd doesn't have people (there are NO and should be NO Boydians, or "Boyd's people")! If I seem to be overly sensitive it's because I went to Bethel College where SOME people like to classify people and SOME have made comments way back at least, that Woodland Hills folks and Bethel's open theist are merely Boydians. From my perspective your statement could infer this meaning (not that is does).
Warmly in Christ,
Tiggers
“The notion that God uses evils as a means to such higher goods is, … incompatible with the doctrine that he is omnipotent, and therefore does not need to use deplorable means to achieve his ends” (J.L. Mackie). | | Back to Top | | |
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a_theist
"Thy will be done."
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 286
| Posted 1/29/2003 4:47 PM (GMT -6) | | I know that a lot Doc's theology rests on the assumption that God is triune in nautre.
Then again, I could be wrong.
Sorry that I don't have anything to contribute; I own the book, but didn't find the topic that interesting.
If God isn't triune, oh well!
Peace
The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the overexamined life is nothing to write home about either.
Daniel C. Dennett
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rsirkel
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Total Posts : 183
| Posted 1/29/2003 5:51 PM (GMT -6) | |
Greetings ekthanatou,
.....Oneness Pentecostal theology--any aspect at all--....
Ron
First a comment, I believe that if one honors the Son he is honored of the Father. UPC members are believers and I see you as my brother.
Question: I read where UPC doctrine interprets "John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
The water being the baptism in water and Spirit being the Holy Spirit giving the new birth. Not the exact wording but something like it. I got the impression that the UPC believes water baptism is and essential part of salvation. That is, my impression was, without baptism in water and the new birth, one doesn't enter the kingdom of God. Is that a true intrepretation of UPC doctrine? That is not a challenge, I would like to know, without having to spend alot of time reading, since you are here.
Apart from the oneness trinity issue, do you personally accept any of the open view beliefs?
I am new to this board also and find it is an excellent place to see some brilliant minds at work, like them or not, so welcome.
Ron Sirkel | | Back to Top | | |
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ekthanatou
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Total Posts : 7
| Posted 1/30/2003 5:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Well, sorry, guys. I guess that I just went in here not really informed enough about what this is all about. My apologies to anyone who felt that I lumped them together with Boyd or assumed that people here share his teachings, etc.
This probably is not a good place to talk about Oneness Pentecostalism after all!
But in answer to your question, RSirkel, it would really depend on what Oneness Pentecostal that you talk to. I am sure that there are some really hard liners out there who would say that baptism and the Holy Spirit are *absolutely* necessary to enter the kingdom of God, but most that I know would not say that.
Baptism and the Holy Spirit are rather normative for full conversion-initiation. They are thus normative for full salvation, I guess you can say, but salvation, as I was taught, is not a binary concept in which you are either damned or you are saved at any one point: it is more like a process or a trajectory, and only God will be the judge ultimately. Thus, I have heard many Oneness theologians say that "we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved." When we stop viewing salvation as simply avoiding Hell, as Evangelicals do, but rather being filled with God and walking with him in a restored relationship, the question of "do I have to be baptized to go to heaven?" becomes moot. Personally, it is not heaven itself that I look foreward to, but being with God for eternity.
Thus, in baptism our sins are washed away, yet some people also often receive the Holy Spirit before they are baptized, and certainly the Holy Spirit will not dwell in someone whos sins are not forgiven! Yet in such situations, the response of Peter in Acts chapter 10 is appropriate: "Wow: they just received the Holy Spirit: Let's get these people baptized!" Peter did not stop and ponder whether or not, if Cornelius and his household died that instant, they would go to heaven, or stand paralized with indecision about whether or not baptism was necessary anymore, since the ordo salutas had been inverted. He just did it.
In any case, as with the thief on the cross, the widow's mite principle operates: God holds us accountable only to that which we are given. THus, while the thief surely got through the pearly gates without having either been baptized or without receiving the Holy Spirit (even by Evanglelical rekonning, since the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out), we would make a very big mistake by saying that since the thief on the cross got by without it, baptism is not a necessary act of obedience for us!
But such an attitude, which seeks loopholes so that we may fulfill the letter of the law without the spirit, is clearly legalism. It is legalism, too, to ask what the minimum requirement for avoiding punishment is, rather than seeking that which will bring us closer to God! David Bernard says as much in his book, and I consider him even a bit antiquated and hard-line in his soteriology for Oneness people. Last Sunday my UPC pastor talked about that from the pulpit: "We do not seek to be baptised," he preached, "so that we can fulfill some requirement that will turn away God's wrath and make us right before him: we are baptized because he is already making us right before him, and that is the appropriate responce to the Love that he has shown us, and our love for him! The nature of God is to love, and we must walk in the same way towards him: therefore, we are baptized because we want to meet him in the waters and put on Christ."
Anyway, I hope that clarifies things a little more about at least my circle of Apostolics. And that is not just UPC stuff. I know a few PAW preachers who say the same thing.
And no, I am not Openness. I flirted with that a bit in College, having met Sanders at a Theology conference and hearing what he had to say, but after "trying it out" in the practical implications that that belief had in my prayer life, I rejected it with disgust. I do know a UPC theologian who is very sympathetic to the belief, though, in an effort to avoid the implications of compatibilism, but I am much more comfortable with the ultimate mystery of the divine will. Even if it leads to apparant contradictions!
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ReasonableDoubt
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Total Posts : 655
| Posted 1/30/2003 6:56 AM (GMT -6) | | A- THeist: What is meant by this remark: "If God isn't triune, oh well!"
I'll be the first to admit I know next to nothing about Oneness Pentecostal Theology.
But I do know that the Trinity is an essential doctrine to the Christian faith, according to orthodoxy.
This is exactly my point in my free will post. What does it mean when you say "I believe in God" ? Do you believe in the Trinity?
This is just rhetorical, so don't feel like you have to answer. | | Back to Top | | |
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rsirkel
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| Posted 1/30/2003 7:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for your answer and it satisfies my mind. I feel a real kinship through your words.
ekthanatou:
When we stop viewing salvation as simply avoiding Hell, as Evangelicals do, but rather being filled with God and walking with him in a restored relationship
Ron
(walking with Him in a restored relationship)
Hope you don't mind doing most of the writing but do you believe, in view of your walk with the Lord that the future exists today? Does tomorrow exist today? If so, how would you describe the freedom we have been called unto and an efficacious prayer life today?
In Christ
Ron Sirkel | | Back to Top | | |
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ekthanatou
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| Posted 1/30/2003 8:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Ron,
I do not understand what you mean when you ask me whether I believe that "the future exists today." Certainly, this makes no logical sense unless you are speaking metaphorically. Also, I am not sure how that relates to prayer life. Are you talking about the "word of faith" or "name it and claim it" doctrine that says that we actually speak things into reality by claiming them as present? If so, I would disagree. If, on the other hand, and I know you could mean an infinate number of other things, you are saying that we live, as Dallas Willard says, "the eternal sort of life now," then yes, I agree wholeheartedly. As CS Lewis says, when we look back on our earthly life, all will seem a part of heaven, or conversely, of hell.
Oh, yeah: hey REASONABLEDOUBT: if the Trinity is so essential, what do you do with all of those uneducated Christians who, without knowing it, adhere to a naively modalistic view of God? I have met lots of "trinitarian" Christians of every stripe that were really modalists, including a whole lot of pastors! If trinitarianism is an essential feature of the definition "Christianity," are these people therefore non-Christian?
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ReasonableDoubt
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| Posted 1/30/2003 9:22 AM (GMT -6) | | There've been a lot of threads about the Trinity on this site. I can't find the one where Dr. Greg Boyd posted what he believed. If you can I'd advise it - or maybe he'll come on here and explain it.
Yes, historically the trinity was an essential part of the Christian doctrine according to the Council of Nicea (AD 325)- Several of the creeds recite it.
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rsirkel
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| Posted 1/30/2003 11:26 AM (GMT -6) | | ekthanatou :And no, I am not Openness. I flirted with that a bit in College, having met Sanders at a Theology conference and hearing what he had to say, but after "trying it out"in the practical implications that that belief had in my prayer life, I rejected it with disgust.
Ron
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear I thought I would get away with an easy post. If God knows the future exhaustively,in His knowing, the future is settled. If the future is settled then my tomorrow exists in His knowing today. My tomorrow will be exactly what He knew today. You can argue the theology  you are still free but you have to argue from the mystery. Because it doesn't compute that we are free and God has exhaustive foreknowledge. This perspective of God and the nature of reality keeps the inner man in a foggy, unclear, perception of God's will for their personal life and our prayer life is one of straining to tap into what we believe is the future master plan.
You said you walk in a living relationship with God. If the future is settled, (tomorrow exists today)how does that work out in your living relationship with God? We've been called unto liberty but is it really freedom if the future is settled? Is the relationship really interpersonal if God knows today what you will choose tommorrow? Does it make sense that God would give you promises for prayer if the future is settled? Why pray if the future exists settled in God's knowing before the creation? Or are we all just puppets, you don't believe that.
One of the greatest empowerments to your faith, prayer life, bible knowledge, obedient love relationship with God,and sanity as a Christian, is to know the future does not exist. When that Holy Spirit breathed revelation breaks light in your soul, order will manifest in your inner man. What you now know about God's word will become real authority and power because you will realize the agent is the cause and you keep the garden under God's authority. I hope I'm not too cryptic.
The reformation in the knowledge of God going on is likened to the change in the world of physics from Newton's determinism to quantum mechanics. The nature of the universe is not what we supposed at first. Keep posting friend.
Ron Sirkel | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 1/30/2003 12:01 PM (GMT -6) | | EK-
“ekthanatou”…nice name!
Welcome to the room! I appreciate your comments. You bring up some important issues.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, but Robert Menzies and other Pentecostal scholars have explored Pauline and Lukan Pneumatologies and argue that they are different—complementary, but different. Luke, Menzies argues, nowhere discusses the Spirit in soteriological terms. Luke’s entire discussion of the work of the Spirit centers on the Spirit’s empowering/gifting presence for mission. Menzies points out that this was the standard understanding of the Spirit in the Old Testament and (in his Ph.D. work) attempts to prove that Paul is the first Christian to view the Spirit in soteriological dimensions.
Now, you don’t have to buy into all of Menzies’ thesis about Paul being the first Christian to conceive of the Spirit in soteriological terms (Gordon Fee and Craig Keener have challenged Menzies on this), but it does seem to me that even if Luke knows of Paul’s emphasis on the Spirit’s role in salvation/sanctification (let’s assume he does), Luke shows little interest in developing it. His presentation of the work of the Spirit in the believer’s life is entirely centered on the empowering and gifting of the Spirit for mission and service. The Spirit is here to equip us, anoint us, and empower us to DO something. If Luke believed in the Spirit as a soteriological agent (the one who regenerates us), he doesn’t discuss or develop it. It’s not his concern. But he is VERY concerned to show that the Spirit empowers, gifts, and anoints believers to witness, proclaim, heal, etc.. That’s Luke’s pneumatology. Paul discusses both aspects, though his emphasis tends to be on the role of the Spirit in saving and sanctifying us.
Is this empowering/equipping dimension one and the same with justification? Fee argues that they are “theologically” one and the same but “phenomenologically” distinct. Classical Pentecostals want to argue that if they’re not theologically distinct, we have no biblical basis for believing in the phenomenological at all. Fee, though a Pentecostal, wants to agree (against classical Pentecostal theology) that there is no distinct second blessing, no two-stage reception of the Spirit, no Spirit-baptism distinct from the new birth. Fee simply equates Spirit-baptism and the new birth. They’re synonymous. But at the same time Fee strongly champions (in support of Pentecostal experience) the gifts, tongues, the miraculous, etc., as relevant, necessary in fact, for all believers today. Fee would argue that what Pentecostals experienced 100 years ago is entirely biblical, even if their hermeneutics and the arguments they used to justify themselves were not.
There are a few pieces of evidence that continue to incline me to a more classical Pentecostal position on Spirit-baptism, but I’m finding it less and less an issue that matters. I think it’s enough to show that a hunger for encountering the powerful presence of the Spirit, being empowered by the Spirit to witness and serve, being open to the promptings and gifts of the Spirit, etc., are all biblical in themselves, and where such hunger and openness to God’s Spirit are present, doctrinal precision isn’t a requirement. Classical Pentecostals (like my denomination) traditionally (I think) tended to assume that embracing particular doctrinal positions both made experiencing the empowering dimension of the Spirit possible (one couldn’t function in a gift of the Spirit, work a miracle, speak in tongues, etc., unless one believed in these doctrines) and safeguarded the experience for subsequent generations. I grew up hearing leaders in my denomination warn, “If we abandon our distinctive doctrines of Spirit-baptism as subsequent to salvation and initial evidence, then it’ll be a matter of time and the experience of the Spirit (gifts, tongues, the miraculous, etc.) will disappear and we’ll be just like the Presbyterians!” So we’ve continued to affirm these doctrines in our statement of faith. But today we’re grieving the dearth of passion, experience of the gifts, etc., among our folk. So the doctrines haven’t “shielded” us from anything. And not embracing these doctrines hasn’t kept others from enjoying the experiential dimension of the Spirit’s power and gifting!
Shut up Tom! You’re rambling!
OK.
Tom
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Tom
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| Posted 1/30/2003 12:11 PM (GMT -6) | | EK: Finally, if baptism "in Jesus' Name" is merely shorthand for the FSHS formula, which is the *real* fixed formula, why does baptism seem to have an exclusively Christological significance in Paul's writings?
Tom: Oh yeah. EK, I personally don't think there IS a fixed "formula" at all. Why the Christological significance of baptism for Paul? What is there in Paul that DOESN'T have Christological significance? The guy was a nut for Christ! Christ IS the center, the hub, the meaning, the goal, the rule, the guide, the standard. A total Jesus freak!
Tom
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selah
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Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 1/31/2003 4:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Well this is totally off topic, so forgive me. I just want to say "Hi"
quote:
...What is there in Paul that DOESN'T have Christological significance? The guy was a nut for Christ! Christ IS the center, the hub, the meaning, the goal, the rule, the guide, the standard. A total Jesus freak!
Tom
Love never ends
Hey Tom,
Thanks for that piece on Paul. I love that guy! Oh, that reminds me (and should remind SOMEONE else) that we should be thinking and even possibly TEACHING on Paul in the near future (if there is a future!) 
Also, I've been wanting to share with you how much I like your new tag line. I've been using it lately as a "pattern interrupt" to help prioritize the way I do life. For example, when I notice I'm getting caught up (or worried) over issues, events, deadlines etc.
I have a (internal) visual representation of Jesus and an (internal) auditory hearing Him say: "love never ends".
This instantly re-focuses my attention to the love in my relationships with God and others. Whether it's my kids, friends, clients etc. doesn't make a difference. All I know is to run toward and attend to thoughts of love and blessing for them. (What are we livin for anyway? Right?!)
The way I figure it works is that Love (being eternal) is the higher principle in the now, (and then in the now, and now and so on.) This focus on the love within relationships has a protecting quality then,too, because it automatically moves my thinking from the temporal--toward the eternal. Thus, eliminating many judgemental thoughts, helping me set my mind on things above and not on things of earth, and fix my eyes on Jesus.
peace and love,
back to work,
the peanut gallery 
Then He showed me the river whose waters give life, sparkling like crystal, flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Rev. 22:1
Edited by - Selah on 01/31/2003 10:13:31 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 1/31/2003 7:18 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks Selah! I needed the reminder of love too, so after hearing Doc's sermon on "Love Never Ends" I just decided to keep it in front of me.
Peace!
Tom
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ekthanatou
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Total Posts : 7
| Posted 2/1/2003 9:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
thank you for that great posting, and for bringing up Menzies and company. Yes, I have read Stronstad and Menzies, along with other Classical Pentecostal scholars who defend the doctrine of separate and subsequent.
In the end, I just cannot see such a harsh dichotomy between the pneumatologies of Luke and Paul. Fee has responded to my satisfaction to this view, and Max Turner does an even more thorough job of it. I suggest his book _Holy Spirit and Spiritual gifts then and Now_. Essentially, he demonstrates that while Luke certainly conceived of the gift of the Spirit as the Spirit of prophecy, as Menzies contends, Luke also does include a soteriological dimension to the gift, as well. For example, Turner cites the many instances in which the SPirit had little or nothing to do with empowerment for mission, such as the Samaritan Pentecost, but where Luke still spills ink describing it. Also, he cites Luke's linking the effects of the Holy Spirit to the effects of God's (soteriological) restoration of Israel, thus treating the gift of the Holy Spirit to Christians as effecting the soteriological restoration of Israel.
Turner and Menzies have had debates and exchanges in writing: in each case, Menzies case seems extremely weak to me.
But the issue is not only whether Luke and Paul are describing the same thing.
Suppose that we conceed that Luke describes a donum superadditum, while Paul is describing the soteriological gift of the Spirit that all receive at conversion. We still have to deal with John, who describes the gift of the Holy Spirit in no uncertain terms as soteriological in significance, and what's more, describes *the same promise that Luke does in his gospel!!!*
Thus, subsequence folk have to draw not ony a dichotomy between Luke and Paul, but a *trichotomy* between Luke on the one hand, and Paul, John, and whoever else on the other!!! Also, since Luke and John describe the same phenomenon (ie the promise of the Father), if one says it does and the other it does not have soteriological significance, we have a major problem for our faith in the unity and inspiration of the scriptures. These are mutually exclusive assertions, after all: on what basis do we choose one and throw the other out of the cannon?
THose are my thoughts on Menzies' dichotomy.
Ron, I do not know what you mean by dragging in the Openness issue. I still do not pretend to have the context by which to understand what you are saying, but I am certain that what you are saying is based on a libertarian view of the will, in which to be truly free the will must be arbitrary, like quantum unpredictability. My only thought on that is this: how in the world can an arbitrarily fluctuating will be truly said to be our own, or originate in the willer? On the contrary, it is nothing more than a product of the same dice roll as everything else in such a God-forsaken universe, and that it has nothing to do with personal autonomy. In fact, It seems that such a will would enslave us to the operation of the universe in just the same way as an Augustinian view of the will does from your perspective. This way, though, the universe's operation is random, independant not only of the self's own desires but even of GOd, which seems even more fearful to me.
But I do not wish to have a forum on Oneness Pentecostalism turn into a forum on Openness, even if the possibility for discussion about OP *is* hopeless.
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ekthanatou
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| Posted 2/1/2003 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | | PS tom,
you bring up a good point about the fixedness of the baptismal fromula. I have been thinking about your point alot lately. Thank you.
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ekthanatou
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Total Posts : 7
| Posted 2/1/2003 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | | PS tom,
you bring up a good point about the fixedness of the baptismal fromula. I have been thinking about your point alot lately. Thank you.
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Tom
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| Posted 2/1/2003 10:21 AM (GMT -6) | | ekthanatou-
Glad to hear from you. Hope your studies go well.
EK: Thus, subsequence folk have to draw not ony a dichotomy between Luke and Paul, but a *trichotomy* between Luke on the one hand, and Paul, John, and whoever else on the other!!!
Tom: Not to mention Jesus! In John 3 Jesus links the Spirit to the new birth, and ch. 15 Jesus describes the work of the coming Spirit in soteriological terms too. I've talked to Menzies about this. He feels that the theology here represents John writing later in life, describing Jesus' conversations and teachings in his own (viz. John's) theological categories developed later. Menzies doesn't deny that Jesus and Nicodemus had a conversation, or that the conversation was about the new birth. Menzies does deny that Jesus discussed the Spirit in relation to the new birth. In fact, Menzies denies that Jesus was even capable of conceiving of the Spirit in soteriological terms.
So I'll agree with you against Menzies that Paul was not the first Christian to conceive of the Spirit as a soteriological agent.
I tried to follow the Turner/Menzies dialogue, but being in Beirut I couldn't get ahold of the material. I was pretty interested in it at one point a few years ago, but seemed to have moved on to other things. I will concede though that Luke's clear "emphasis" when discussing the Spirit is on empowerment for mission. The soteriological dimension may be hinted at, but it's hardly a developed theme, whereas empowerment/equiping overshadow Luke's pneumatology like the Himalayas.
What Stronstad and Menzies do rightly call our attention to is, I think, the faulty reasoning which argues: We receive the Spirit at conversion [something Paul does say] and ONLY at conversion [something Paul does NOT say], and therefore the belief that believers ought to expect anything in terms of experiencing the Spirit subsequent to regeneration ought to be rejected. I'm far more concerned with the broad-based biblical support for believing that God wants to empower all believers today just as he did 2,000 years ago and that this empowerment for service and equipping of believers to serve one another means that what we see happening in Acts and read about in the NT church is something that ought to be happening in our lives today (the gifts, the miraculous, etc.). And since I don't think that the classical Pentecostal distinctives of subsequence and initial evidence are the ONLY two pillars that support such a belief, I'm content to not push these doctrines. I confess that though I haven't completely abandoned them, I see less value in them today than I once did.
Tom
Love never ends
Edited by - TGB on 02/01/2003 3:30:14 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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John Earp
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| Posted 2/1/2003 6:49 PM (GMT -6) | | If I may jump in, I would like to say a few things about this subject (OP) and the related one that has developed from it in this thread (subsequence).
Being a fourth generation trinitarian Pentecostal who has also had much fellowship and disfellowship  with Oneness Pentecostals, I have been able to reconcile these opposing points of view by looking at this from the standpoint of our common experience of the Spirit rather than our doctrinal differences. As far as I can tell, the experiences in the Oneness Pentecostal churches are no different than the experiences in the trinitarian ones. (I realize this will not sit well with many OPs, but I'm only calling it like I see it). The differences I tend to see as more a result of human finitude than substantive.
As to the issue of subsequence, a couple of things I think are important to observe:
1. The usual experience of the believers in the Book of Acts was repent, believe, be baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (a la Acts 2:38). Except for the Samaritans in Acts 8, and the possible exception of the Ephesians in Acts 19, a long interval between repentance/faith/conversion and Spirit baptism is not typical. Thus it seems to me that modern Pentecostalism's typical distinction between regeneration/justification and Spirit baptism/empowerment is in many cases quite overdrawn, if one is going to base their theology of Spirit baptism primarily on the Book of Acts, (as all modern Pentecostals do).
2. That said, when we keep in mind the dynamic, relational and most of all the experiential aspect of the "Spirit-filled life, this worry over a punctiliar experience (as wonderful and needful as that may be) appears more than a bit shortsighted (at least to me). There never can be a time in our lives as Christians when we don't need to be filled with God's Spirit, can there? As a pastor friend of mine once said, "We Pentecostals may not believe once saved always saved, but many of my people do seem to believe once filled always filled."
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. | | Back to Top | | |
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ekthanatou
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| Posted 2/3/2003 3:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
The merit that you suggest Menzies has for the debate, i.e. emphasizing the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, is something I hope that no side of the issue will debate: whether Third Wave, Classical Pentecostal, or Oneness Pentecostal.
John,
Those are some great comments of yours. With just about everything that you have said, I feel that you have pinned the tail on the theological donkey perfectly. You are right: in the end, it is the same experience with the Same Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 2/3/2003 10:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Great having you in the discussion room ekthanatou. With others on this board, I think it is biblical -- on both Lucan and Pauline grounds -- for believers to want to live being filled with the Spirit (e.g. Eph 5:18). My only concern with classical Pentecostal doctrine is with the conviction that speaking in tongues is "the initial physical evidence" that this has happened. I don't see this exegetically warranted. And, like many Pentecostal and former Pentecostal pastors, I have seen some rather nasty practical implications of the doctrine.
These concerns are intensified with the common (but not universal) Oneness perspective that Luke and Paul are both talking in soteriological categories. For now the infilling because a matter of salvation.
Blessings
Doc
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 | | Back to Top | | |
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