RSS<\/a><\/p>\nTopics Addressed in This Interview:<\/h2>\n
Matt Tully<\/em>
Fred, thanks so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast<\/em>.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Thanks for having me. It\u2019s good to talk to you.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Yeah, it\u2019s fun. We\u2019ve discussed the Trinity in a previous episode a couple years ago now, and today we\u2019re going to dig into the Holy Spirit. The first question might strike some as a silly question, perhaps, or a weird question, but I\u2019ve heard people say this. It\u2019s a question that a lot of average, normal Christians would actually have at some point and would wonder how to answer. Is the Holy Spirit a he, a she, an it, or something else? How should we refer to the Holy Spirit?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
It\u2019s a good question. I think this is an area where you can trust your English Bible translation and go with he<\/em>. For most people, that\u2019s kind of a common sense, Oh, good. I sort of felt like I should call the Spirit <\/em>he anyway<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
That\u2019s probably the default, but then we read certain books that present the Holy Spirit in a certain way, or even just want to preserve the fact that he doesn\u2019t have a gender like Jesus does, and so we think, Is it an <\/em>it, perhaps?<\/em><\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
So much of this is determined by the context from which you\u2019re coming to the question. And if I could just mention two contexts in my own upbringing. I grew up Pentecostal in the Foursquare Church, and if in those settings you referred to the Holy Spirit as it<\/em>, that was a dead giveaway that you were not born again. Anyone who doesn\u2019t know that the Holy Spirit is someone personal and dares to say it<\/em> has obviously blown it, and we need to help that person right away come to an experiential understanding of this somebody.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Right, like there\u2019s a theological significance to that mistake.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yeah. But then, of course, I went off to grad school\u2014I was in the city of Berkeley for that\u2014and there you have more of these other concerns that you\u2019ve raised about like, Yeah, you used a personal pronoun, but you used a gendered personal pronoun. So are you saying that the Holy Spirit is male?<\/em><\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
The interesting thing there is the Son, incarnate as Jesus, has an actual, literal physical gender to him. So that makes some sense why we call the Son a he<\/em>. The Father is presented as Father in the Scriptures very explicitly, so the he<\/em> makes sense there. But the Spirit it\u2019s a little less obvious in Scripture.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
I think that\u2019s right. I have learned over the years that in places where the Holy Spirit is less obvious, less clear, less concrete, where he talks about himself that way, or the Bible describes him that way, that can strike us as an irritation. Like, I wish the Spirit would behave clearly, like the other two persons of the Trinity<\/em>. But you\u2019ve got to push through that and get to God\u2019s revelation is perfect, so this must be a feature, not a bug, as programmers would say. The ambiguity must be something good. If I were to say what\u2019s good about the ambiguity in this case, it would be that it reminds you that in no case, neither with the Father nor the eternal Son nor the Spirit, are you in fact talking about maleness.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So then what is the significance of the fact that Scripture does though use that pronoun he<\/em> in reference to all of those persons?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
In the cultures of Scripture we\u2019re talking about, you don\u2019t have a non-gendered way of talking about personal agency, and so that\u2019s the default.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I want to jump into that broader issue you talked about of the ambiguity, or the lack of some clarity at times, when it comes to the Spirit. Of all the persons of the Trinity, it seems like the Spirit\u2019s role and function in salvation history and in our own lives, even as Christians, often feels (at least to many Christians) to be the most opaque. You have, I think, an interesting take on that. How would you reflect on that fact?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
If you push through and get to why that\u2019s an advantage instead of a disadvantage, right?<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
That would be one way you would kind of push against the kind of easy critique of say, evangelical Christians, that we kind of don\u2019t know the Spirit and we should know the Spirit more. You don\u2019t see that as a wholly bad thing.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
That\u2019s right. Some people should know more about the Spirit and should even talk more about the Spirit, but not everybody should. Some people are actually living fine, functioning, flourishing Christian lives, in touch with biblical revelation and really pursuing knowledge of God, and are talking about the Spirit in the same proportion that Scripture talks about the Spirit. Which you can\u2019t really say that\u2019s a C minus. They must be doing it right.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Unpack that. How would you describe how Scripture talks about the Spirit?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
I think the Spirit talks\u2014well, it is the Spirit because that\u2019s the divine author of Scripture. Scripture talks about the Holy Spirit less than the Father and Son, less concretely than the Father and the Son, and later than the Father and the Son. That is to say, the scriptural pattern is to build a foundation of talking about the Father and the Son, and then to add to that the discussion of the Holy Spirit. Now here\u2019s the trick with that, and I can give examples of that. Broadly, the structure of Romans is kind of a lot about the Father and then a lot about the Son, and the Spirit is mentioned a few times, but then in chapter eight, just comes on and takes over. Maybe even more clearly, John\u2019s Gospel, which is the greatest one thing to read on the doctrine of the Trinity, John\u2019s Gospel starts with, \u201cIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.\u201d It\u2019s this dyadic. There are two terms there: the Word and God. You go round and round that circle, and John instructs you in how to think about that. Then, the story starts and it\u2019s all about the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son. A few references to the Spirit, but it\u2019s not really until around chapter 14 when the Holy Spirit really comes to the foreground of Jesus\u2019s teaching. Partly because by John 14, Jesus is already thinking about going away to the Father and not abandoning us, but sending us another comforter.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So is there a sense in which the Spirit\u2019s role in salvation history really comes to the fore after the Son leaves the earth?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Jesus is a helper, which we know because he says he will send another helper. Of course, the Spirit\u2019s work comes to the fore there because it\u2019s then working on the foundation of the finished work of Jesus Christ. The Spirit has always been everywhere, doing anything God does, just like the Son of God has always been everywhere, doing everything. But the incarnation is special. Similarly, on the basis of the finished work of the incarnate Christ, the Spirit is present in a new and special way.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Let\u2019s dig into that right there as well. We know that the Holy Spirit is active in the New Testament. In the writings of the New Testament we see him very clearly there, even if it isn\u2019t as common and as often as we hear of the Father and the Son. But sometimes I think Christians wonder about his presence in activity in the Old Testament before Christ\u2019s coming. It feels much less clear, I think, to most of us, than it does in the New Testament. Speak to that a little bit. We have our systematic category that yes, he has always been there, he\u2019s always been active, but do we actually see him in the Old Testament, or is that just something we have to assume was going on?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
This is a huge and great topic. we do see the Spirit of God in the Old Testament. You notice I didn\u2019t call him the Holy Spirit because the Old Testament doesn\u2019t put that adjective in front of that noun very often to pick out what we would call\u2014I\u2019ll just say it\u2014anachronistically, the third person of the Trinity. Clearly not an Old Testament way of talking. But the adjective \u201choly\u201d in front of the noun \u201cSpirit\u201d is only like twice in Isaiah and once in Psalm 51. And in the case of Psalm 51, it\u2019s not very clear that it doesn\u2019t just mean the spirit of God\u2019s holiness, because it\u2019s a repentance psalm. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
It\u2019s not clearly a different person than the Father.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
The Isaiah passage is clearer I think because God is speaking in the first person there and saying, I will be with you. My own presence was with you<\/em>. And then it talks about the sending of the Holy Spirit. So it\u2019s clearly divine identity, but some mode of God\u2019s presence. It doesn\u2019t quite say another person because, again, that\u2019s not an Old Testament way of talking. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Would you say that we could get a fully orbed Trinitarian theology, including the Holy Spirit as a distinct person, from the Old Testament itself? Or do we need the New Testament revelation to actually help us understand that?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
I think we need the New Testament revelation in order to understand it. I always appeal to what B. B. Warfield said about the Old Testament, which is that it\u2019s a chamber, richly furnished but dimly lit. Of course, you don\u2019t just have the Old Testament by itself; you have it with the New Testament. And the New Testament is the light, which then shines back onto the Old Testament. So what I like about Warfield\u2019s thing is the furniture is all there in the Old Testament, but the lights aren\u2019t on. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
But once you turn the lights on, you can see, *Oh, wow. Yeah. This is supported.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
This is, I think, especially nice with the Holy Spirit because the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord\u2014there are all these different Spirit phrases. The word \u201cspirit\u201d is definitely an Old Testament word. It becomes the name that is specifically picking out this person, which then in retrospect, you look back on the Old Testament and say the Spirit of God on the face of the waters and the Spirit of the Lord and my Spirit that I will send out. There aren\u2019t nineteen spirits; these are all unitively pointing to the person who gets the new covenant name, the Holy Spirit. It\u2019s not an old covenant name.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Just to take a step back a little bit, if you\u2019re talking to a seven-year-old child\u2014a small child\u2014how would you answer the simple question, Who is the Holy Spirit? What does he do?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
I\u2019d be laying down a foundation here for catechesis, knowing that a kid that age is going to understand something at the moment and is going to memorize some words and begin to infer some connections, and you can build on it later. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So one point, then, in saying that is just that you can\u2019t think in terms of a single, concise definition and think that\u2019s sufficient.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yeah, that\u2019s right. When you\u2019re talking about communicating with young people, it\u2019s a process. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
But then communicating something about the Trinity is a process.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yep. I would actually say that the Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Trinity. Obviously, they\u2019re not going to take all that in right now, but they\u2019ve got hooks now in their mind to say, Oh, right. We keep talking at church and I keep reading in the Bible about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So then how would you summarize what this Holy Spirit does?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
When I start unpacking this sort of in a catechetical way, by which I mean when I can establish the categories from Scripture but arrange systematically in such a way that this is going to provide advanced organizers into which Christian understanding can grow as it matures\u2014I\u2019m going to talk about the life of God always being, in all things, from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. I\u2019m going to try to not talk too much about the Father and the Son here and say that the \u201cin the Spirit\u201d part really has the force of meaning completed in the Spirit, reaching its fulfillment in the Spirit, being perfected in the Spirit. That everything God does, God does from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So let\u2019s briefly unpack each of those prepositions that you\u2019re using, distinct with each person. We talked about some of this in our last conversation about the Trinity as a whole, but I think it\u2019s helpful to summarize some of that same ground as we then zero in on the Spirit more. What does it mean to talk about things being from the Father?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
It means that in the life of the Trinity the Father is the source of everything. One of the rules is you can\u2019t talk about a particular person of the Trinity if all you talk about is the divine essence. If you\u2019re going to say like, The almighty one. Oh, wait. That\u2019s all three of them. The holy one. Oh, wait. That\u2019s all three of them<\/em>. In order to actually pick out one person, you can only do it by relating that person to another person. There\u2019s nothing I can say about the Father\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Because all the divine attributes are true of all of them.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
That\u2019s right. You could talk all day and say wonderful things about God but never succeed in picking out the Father until you say, Well, he\u2019s the Father of the Son<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
The distinction is only relative to each other.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yep. When you draw a circle on the board and say, Okay, here\u2019s the Father<\/em>, and then you write things in it like almighty, you have to go, Well, actually, yes, but Almighty applies to all three of them<\/em>. Right. But if you write that he has the attribute of fatherhood, that sticks and identifies only the Father. But what you\u2019ve done is you\u2019ve smuggled in relation to the Son. Because fatherhood isn’t like this abstract principle he has.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
There\u2019s got to be a son for you to be a father.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
In the eternal life of the Trinity, everything is from the Father in that sense. The Son is from the Father, the Spirit is, in a different way, from the Father. There are technical terms\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Eternally.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yep. Eternal generation in the case of the Son and eternal spiration in the case of the Spirit. Spirate is kind of this ugly English word that, clearly, we just got from the Latin word for Spirit<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
The question I had is that\u2019s probably a term that maybe someone has heard of eternal generation vis-\u00e0-vis the Son, but spiration sounds very foreign and odd and not something that we\u2019re hearing in church very often. <\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
You could say it\u2019s biblical to talk about the Spirit being eternally breathed forth from the Father. The Spirit is the breath of God, and that\u2019s what Spirit means.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So how do we hold to that very orthodox view and not fall into this idea of thinking that somehow the Father made the Spirit, or he\u2019s a creation in a certain sense?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Here\u2019s the nice thing about that: to know the Father\u2014of course, you only know him in relation to the Son and the Spirit, as the source of the Son and Spirit\u2014and then the other thing that the Father is the source of is creation. Everything comes from God. In the creed we learn to say, \u201cI believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,\u201d but we don\u2019t mean that the Father alone made heaven and earth, because we also know the Son is the maker and the Spirit is the maker. The one Triune God is the maker of heaven and earth. What we\u2019re doing there, when we identify the Father as the maker, is we\u2019re doing a technical move called appropriation, where we take something that is the work of the whole Trinity (creation) and we appropriate it to the Father, specifically because it reminds us of the Father\u2019s personal identity in the Trinity. Just as the Son and the Spirit are from the Father, creation, being from God, reminds us of this from-ness. And so we appropriate it. Now, we don\u2019t all know we\u2019re doing that when we talk. We\u2019re just talking about the Bible and the creed when we say, \u201cGod the Father, maker of heaven and earth.\u201d But if I ask you the Socratic\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I don\u2019t think most Christians are saying, I\u2019m appropriating right there<\/em>.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
That\u2019s right. I am performing the theological act of appropriation<\/em>. But it is, in fact, what we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s what the Bible\u2019s doing. In the Torrey Honors College I teach Socratically all the time, and so I could ask Socratically\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
That just means it would be a question and an answer.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Question and answer. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Can you give an example of what that would be?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
So if you say, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth<\/em>, and I say, Do you mean that the Son is not the maker of heaven and earth?<\/em><\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Your students are like, No. No<\/em>.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Exactly. It\u2019s a leading question in the sense that I think you know the whole picture, and I think here\u2019s what you mean. Let me put that to you in a question.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Interesting. I\u2019ve heard some Christians today, arguably following in the footsteps of someone like Saint Augustine or others in church history, who will sort of want to define the Holy Spirit as the mutual love shared between the Father and the Son. They\u2019ll draw on certain passages of Scripture that they would say kind of suggest that. Are you familiar with that view? If so, how would you think about that? Is there merit to that way of conceiving of the Spirit?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yeah, there is merit to that. I think it\u2019s in the fact that the Scripture presents the Holy Spirit third. I think \u201cthird person of the Trinity,\u201d though it\u2019s obviously not a biblical phrase, really captures something deep about how God instructs us about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
There\u2019s a certain progression to how maybe we should even think about or learn about these persons.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yep. So even though it\u2019s true that when you think of the Father, you ought to also always think of the Son and Spirit, that\u2019s not self-evident in the name Father. In fact, there\u2019s this kind of dyadic tendency to think of Father and Son\u2014that\u2019s a pair that naturally goes together. The thing about the Spirit coming third is when you think about the Holy Spirit, it\u2019s obvious, it\u2019s evident, that you must always also think of the Father and the Son. You\u2019ve got to think of who is the Holy Spirit? Well, he\u2019s the Spirit of the Father, he\u2019s the Spirit of the Son, he\u2019s the Spirit of the Father and the Son. This is the great benefit of teaching on the Holy Spirit is it really lands the plane. Teaching on the Spirit really closes the loop and completes the teaching on the Trinity. In some sense, you draw the equilateral triangle and label the corner\u2019s Father, Son, and Spirit, and it seems like you should be able to start anywhere and get a full teaching on the Trinity. But in fact, in the order of revelation, it\u2019s when you complete the story with reflection on the Spirit that the whole Trinitarian thing really comes to life for you.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
That\u2019s interesting. It connects to what you were saying before about just, in some ways, observing and acknowledging the validity of what revelation is actually revealing about these persons and the order in which they\u2019re revealed and the extent to which they\u2019re revealed. I think that\u2019s something where we can have our systematic categories, and so we feel like each should receive the same focus, as maybe revealed to the same extent, but it seems like you\u2019re kind of advocating for a certain respect for just the way God chose to reveal these things to us.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Obviously, I love systematic categories, and I\u2019m going to draw that triangle, and I\u2019m gonna keep doing it.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
There\u2019s value in that.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Oh yeah. There is a false geometricization, though, of our way of organizing the thought. And what I mean is, once you draw the triangle\u2014and it\u2019s helpful\u2014but you can start to treat it as if the three corners ought to be talked about in the same way. And in the sense that the Spirit is fully God and is not the Father or the Son, of course that\u2019s true. But you don\u2019t want to take that triangular template and then start judging everybody by using it. If your pastor talks a lot about the Father and the Son in a sermon, you don\u2019t want to take out the triangle diagram and say, Pastor, you neglected the Spirit<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
To take a concrete example of that, I know some people, for great reasons, will make a point to, whenever they pray, they pray to all three persons of the Trinity. They want to make a point of emphasizing that every time. What do you think about that? Is that a good thing that you should always do? Or is that sort of falling into this trap?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
It could be falling into the trap of artificially sort of geometricizing things, getting fooled into thinking that since Father, Son, and Spirit are all co-equal and co-eternally God, they should get the same amount of attention. So there\u2019s nothing wrong with praying to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. The rule is you can pray to anyone who\u2019s God.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Well, that was another question. I\u2019ve heard Christians make the case that, and I think it was an argument from Scripture itself, that it\u2019s maybe not appropriate to pray to the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
So here\u2019s the thing about that. It is true that most biblical prayer is directed to the Father, and it is directed to the Father in the name of the Son. But there is also prayer to the Son in Scripture. In fact, some of theologians would say the real test of your orthodoxy is, Do you believe Jesus is God? Then you will pray to him<\/em>. Because if you just kind of like formally acknowledge he\u2019s God but won\u2019t pray to him\u2014 <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
If you won\u2019t pray to him, what\u2019s that say?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Exactly.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I think often people will point the Lord\u2019s Prayer where Jesus explicitly instructs his followers, This is how you pray<\/em>, and he prays to the Father.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
If you want an A on the theological exam\u2014What is the direction of Christian prayer?\u2014it is to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. But notice I used that phrase before: everything is from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. That\u2019s the direction of God\u2019s work towards us. If you\u2019re talking about our response to God, empowered by God, then it\u2019s gonna be to the Father\u2014it\u2019s the reversal of from the Father\u2014answering from the Father. Our access to God is to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Now, it\u2019s that \u201cin the Spirit\u201d part that you realize \u201cin the Spirit\u201d means that I might not be as actively aware of the spirit, because the Spirit\u2019s neither the target I\u2019m aiming at nor the means through which I get to it, but the sort of environment or circumstance in which I aim at that target through that medium. And then the last thing to say is there just are no biblical examples of prayer to the Spirit.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
But you would say that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s inappropriate to do so?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
That\u2019s right.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
That\u2019s where our systematic categories can help us keep straight that, no, this is God.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
You can pray to anyone who\u2019s God, and so that means you can pray to the Father, the Son, or the Spirit. And you can also pray to God in general. It\u2019s not like that\u2019s going to go to the dead letter office in heaven. <\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
You got the mailman in heaven saying, Well, which person? I don\u2019t know where to send this<\/em>.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
I\u2019m pretty extremely Trinitarian, but if I see something going wrong in traffic and I just suddenly hold my hand up and say, God, protect that person<\/em>, you could freeze frame that, pull me out of it, and ask me in detail, Which person of the Trinity were you talking to?<\/em> I would say, I was not having any conscious Trinitarian thoughts<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
And that\u2019s okay. <\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
That\u2019s okay. You are talking personally to God. Not because God is four persons or something like that.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
I think it\u2019s a helpful emphasis because when you think of Trinitarian theology, often the emphasis is on the threeness. But Trinitarian theology is also emphasizing the oneness.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
I will say on prayer to the Spirit, you could take a very\u2014I don\u2019t know if you call it fundamentalist\u2014you could take a very literalist approach to this and say, Since there is no prayer to the Spirit in Scripture, I will not pray to the Spirit<\/em>. I think that\u2019s overly tight. That\u2019s extreme. But I think it\u2019s Graham Cole who points this out, that broadly you want your prayer life to have the proportions of Scripture. And so if over the course of time\u2014<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
On a number of fronts, probably. <\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
On a number of fronts, yes, but on Trinitarian front, you\u2019d want to say you should mostly pray to the Father. And you should sometimes pray to the Son. And you should not that often pray to the Holy Spirit. And when you do pray to the Spirit, you should probably do it in a more formal context where you\u2019re doing something like, In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit<\/em>. You\u2019ve got kind of a liturgical, or elaborate, setting in which all these things are made present somehow. Though that doesn\u2019t rule out just like asking the Holy Spirit to be present with us.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So that\u2019s something that families listening tonight, you could feel free to pray to the Spirit tonight over dinner.<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
You want to have your eye on the big picture though. Overall, am I praying to God in Scripture proportions? So, I would say it would probably be wrong in some way to pray exclusively to the Holy Spirit as the main staple of your prayer diet. I would just say, if you\u2019re not choosing to follow Scripture\u2019s proportions, what proportions are you choosing to follow? Where are you getting that and why?<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Maybe a few other common questions about the Spirit that I think come up that I\u2019m sure you get asked often. What does it mean to be indwelled by the Spirit? It\u2019s a phrase that we throw out a lot, and I think all of us have maybe a vague sense. And then there\u2019s probably even certain traditions within Christianity that have a more specific understanding of what that would look like or mean. But how do you see that phrase?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
I take the basic idea of indwelling of the Spirit to be synonymous with salvation. It\u2019s a matter of intimate communion with God that\u2019s happening at the deepest level, at the level of union, as the Puritans would distinguish between union and communion. Union is like the foundation of you being united to God through the work of God. Communion is actually your devotional life. Did you pray, or are you feeling the presence of God?<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So would you connect the idea with the indwelling of the Spirit, in a systematic way, with this concept of union with Christ?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Yes.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
Those are kind of both speaking about the same thing?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em> Those are very close. They\u2019re the same thing, but maybe under different aspects. We could distinguish truths about them, but they\u2019re pointing to the same kind of saving.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
What are some of the most common misunderstandings of the indwelling of the Spirit that you\u2019ve encountered?<\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
Well, to put it off in a subsequent way, as if we have such a thing as salvation, and then later on you add to it this expansion pack of being filled by the Holy Spirit. I had a Pentecostal upbringing, and I\u2019m very comfortable in charismatic circles, though I am not Pentecostal or charismatic. There can be a tendency there to sort of misspeak and make it sound like phase one of the Christian life is Spirit-free. Phase two, that you can trade up to or add on, is Spirit-filled. And I think, well, I understand why people talk like that, because thank God there are these breakthrough moments in Christian experience where your eyes are reopened and you understand something. I got saved at about age sixteen, and about a year later I came to a new understanding of grace that was so earth shaking that I looked back on my past year and thought, Have I actually been Christian? If I didn\u2019t understand what I now understand twelve months later, did my so-called conversion really count? I didn\u2019t know anything!<\/em> Then, a year later it happened again and I thought, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve been a Christian the last two years<\/em>. After a while you start to realize, Wait, maybe you just grow in your understanding<\/em>.<\/p>\nMatt Tully<\/em>
So, there are these moments when the Spirit, through the word and other things, can reveal things to us in a powerful way. <\/p>\nFred Sanders<\/em>
There\u2019s a moment of intimacy and nearness that throws a whole new light on everything you\u2019ve been doing, that makes you think in retrospect, I was doing the right thing, but going through the motions, but now I get it<\/em>. People want to say maybe that was the baptism in the Spirit. Maybe that was the real indwelling of the Spirit. And so I think a lot of times people will mislabel that and sort of grab a biblical phrase and apply it.<\/p>\n