A lot of Bible-readers seem to want to force Bible-statements into exclusive single categories, in ways they wouldn't do with statements made by anyone else anywhere else.
And not only that but many also pick and choose which Bible themes they want to do it with, and which ones they don't.
The theme of baptism, for example.
Regarding baptism in water, when some read Bible-statements like:
"...whoever believes AND IS BAPTISED shall be saved";
"...born OF WATER..."; and
"...baptism DOTH NOW SAVE US"
- verses where baptism is associated with the new birth and salvation -
many are willing not to force that association of baptism with salvation to mean that the moment when an individual believer is baptised can't also be considered separately from the moment of his initial saving-faith.
After all, many realise, Cornelius' household had received the Spirit and spoken in tongues (which meant God had accepted them) before they were baptised in water.
So as Scriptural as it is to associate water baptism with salvation, it's equally Scriptural to consider the two separately. And many Bible-readers accept that.
They accept that a statement was made in one place with a certain objective in mind, while another statement on the same theme was made in another place with a different objective in mind. And they're okay with that. On the theme of baptism in water.
Yet when it comes to the theme of the 'baptism with the Holy Spirit', many of the same Bible-readers tend to want to insist on a single category only - on a narrow, exclusive way of considering a term - in a way they wouldn't do with water baptism, or with other themes.
So for example they read passages where the Bible associates the indwelling Spirit with salvation; yet when the Bible also describes believers 'receiving the Spirit' and being 'filled with the Spirit' in an experience DISTINCT from and SUBSEQUENT to the initial moment of their saving-faith, then rather than allow that - rather than allow both ways of discussing it - they instead want to force all of their theology of the Spirit into a single category. Their preferred category.
And in order to do that, they have to say that part of the Bible is not normative (such as the experiences described in the Book of Acts).
Or they have to say that such parts of the Bible are now obsolete.
And the irony of it is that while doing so they claim 'Sola Scriptura' - sometimes even more proudly than other Bible-believers do.
I really don't think the authors of Bible-books always intended all of their statements to be taken that way, any more than we ourselves today intend our statements to be.
Like, imagine if you give a friend an iPhone, brand new in the box. It comes with a charger, lead and earphones. All wrapped up, as a gift.
Your friend might take the phone out and play with it a bit straightaway. He might leave the charger and lead folded still in the box. He might put it on charge a little later, or even the next day.
Or he might take it all out of the box and give it a full charge first before doing anything else much with it.
But either way it would be just as appropriate to discuss the gift as a single item as it would be to consider the items that came individually inside the box.
It's correct to discuss something both as a single unit, and separately.
Same with the themes of the 'Holy Spirit' in the life of a believer; or the theme of water 'baptism'; or the overall theme of 'salvation, in the Bible. It can be discussed as a unit - or it can just as legitimately be considered separately. The Bible does so both ways.
The Bible's theology of God Himself is another example. The statement is true that 'the LORD our God is one LORD'. For the intent and purposes that the 'Hear O Israel' proclamation had, in the polytheistic world in which it was proclaimed, the statement was and is entirely true.
But the proclamation wasn't intended to preclude a more detailed consideration about the inner nature of the one God and LORD. Because even the Old Testament itself did so (like in Genesis 'let us [plural] make'; and in Psalms 'the LORD said to my LORD'; and in Daniel 'one like unto the son of man, appearing before the Ancient of Days').
So, a theme discussed generally, isn't meant to preclude more detailed consideration of the same theme. We speak like that all the time.
Yet many seem to want to impose unintended and unnatural categories onto parts of the Bible. Parts of their choice.
Especially since the Enlightenment.
Not least among Reformed and particularly Calvinist Reformed Bible-readers.
But really: proper exegesis is meant to involve the discipline of thinking into the mind of the writer - rather than imposing paradigms and categories of our own onto it.
So when Jesus, and John, and the Book of Acts, and the Epistles discuss the theme of the Holy Spirit, while they certainly associate the theme with the overall theme of 'salvation', that wasn't to deny that there could be some process, or timing, or variation, in the way individual believers come to experience all that there would be and is to experience of the Holy Spirit.
And it's the same with baptism. And with 'resurrection'. And with 'salvation' itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment