There is nothing more important in this life than to possess and be possessed by the Holy Spirit. The descent of the Spirit at Pentecost fulfills Christ’s saving death and even creation itself. God created the world so that He might become a man, and he became man so that he might in the Ascension take our humanity into heaven, and he took our humanity into heaven so that He could send the Spirit to us, and He sent the Spirit to us so that the Spirit might take us to where He is in heaven. All that to say: the Spirit descends that we might ascend.
Jesus goes up in the ascension that the Spirit might come down at Pentecost, and the Spirit comes down that we might be caught up to heaven, to behold His glory which he had with the Father from the beginning, and beholding that glory we might also be glorified in Him.
What Pascha and the Ascension is to Jesus, Pentecost is to the Church: Christ is raised bodily on Pascha, we are raised by the Spirit on Pentecost. When He ascended just ten days ago he left us standing on a mountain gazing into heaven after Him. But our Savior did not leave us as orphans; He and the Father have come to us today in the outpouring of the other comforter, and through the Holy Spirit have made their abode within us.
But the bigger story is not that God comes down and Jesus lives in our hearts, but that he comes down that we might go up. The purpose of Christ in you is that you might be in Christ who is seated in Glory. Christ in you is the hope, and hope points to glory. Christ in you through the Spirit results in you being in Christ who is at the right hand of God in majesty, which means you are at the right hand of God in majesty.
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me: for You loved Me before the Foundation of the world. . . .And the glory which you gave Me I have given them that they may be one, just as we are one…”
St. Paul tells us plainly that we are no longer dead in sins, but that we have been made alive together with Christ and raised together and seated with Christ in the heavenly place of glory.
This is all a work of the Spirit, and if we are people filled with the Spirit we
must set our hearts and minds and affections on things above where Christ is.
It is no coincidence that Christ suffered and died at Jewish Passover; God arranged this so that we might see Jesus as the Paschal Lamb who delivered us from the Egypt of sin and death. It is also no coincidence that fifty days later the Holy Spirit was poured out on the same day as Jewish Pentecost, showing us that the sending of the Spirit is a fulfillment of Jewish Pentecost. If we want to grasp the meaning of the outpouring of the Spirit we must understand Jewish Pentecost which concerns the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us and we are delivered from Egypt, and fifty days later the Law of God is written on our hearts when the Holy Spirit is
poured out on Pentecost. The long history and repeated celebration of the cycle of Jewish Passover to Pentecost were always pointing to the fulfillment: they were types of the reality that has now come. God himself is the Paschal Lamb who delivers us, and God Himself is the Torah written on our hearts.
Let’s lay out a few of the parallels:
- The nation of Israel was “born” at Sinai; The Church was “birthed” at Pentecost.
- On Sinai the Jews receive the Law, and a Covenant was made; at Pentecost
the Church received the Spirit who writes the law on the heart, and a New
Covenant was ratified - In both events the gift was given through fire
- The Israelites escaped death and Egypt (celebrated now as Passover); Jesus died on Passover to save us from death. 40 days after escaping Egypt, Israel arrived at Sinai where Moses went up on the mountain to meet God; 40 days after Jesus defeated death, he went up on a mountain to see God. After ten days Moses came down with the Torah, while sadly the Israelites broke
the covenant and 3000 people died; ten days after Jesus ascended, the Holy Spirit came down and 3000 people were saved! - Both Sinai and the outpouring of the Spirit were marked by wind and fire.
- The Hebrew word translated thunder at Sinai means voices and languages.
- The Thunder of voices heard on Sinai is fulfilled by the speaking in tongues
at Pentecost - The fire at Sinai rested on the mountain; the fire at Pentecost rested on
their heads. - At Sinai, the people were kept away from the fire, because man remained
in sin and that fire would destroy them. But in Acts, the fire came upon the
people, because a Man was in Heaven and has become fire. - In both events God gave His Law which is better translated “Words” to His People. At Sinai He gave the Law written on tablets of stone. At Pentecost, He gave the Law written on Tablets of the Heart.
In the Gospel of John Jesus promises the gift of the Spirit to those who love Him by keeping his commandments. The reception of the Spirit is inseparable from obedience. The very last thing some folks associate with the outpouring of the Spirit is Law! But there is no getting away from this: Pentecost is the
fulfillment of the Law.
This is not very exciting to people who think of the Law as a list of rules. But the Law is so much more than just rules–it is essentially the Truth of God flowing out from Himself into all creation. The Law is God’s articulation of what is, what is real, what is true, what is good and beautiful.
If the first problem is thinking the Old Law us just rules, the second problem is thinking the New Law of the Spirit written on our hearts has nothing to do with rules. The truth must be manifest in concrete behavior and the Spirit has come to transform us and bring us into conformity with the truth, with God Himself. You cannot say you love God and continue in sin.
The Spirit writes the law on our hearts. What does that mean? The Law is not a secondary truth. There is just God, not God and morality, just God. There is no Law as such; there is just God. The Law is an articulation of Truth, the Law is God’s Words. God in himself is the Truth, the Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. When the Spirit writes the law on your heart this means nothing less than that the Spirit fills your life and becomes the law of your heart. When you walk and live in the Spirit you are ruled by the Spirit and not by your own flesh and selfish desires. You cease to be your own god–you cease to be an individual–and begin to live in submission to Another. This is love.
The Torah has always pointed to a person, not just rules. The Law points to Jesus Christ, the Word who is the Truth, and the Spirit of Truth who unites us to the Truth. But this being so, still in daily life this does translate into do’s and don’ts, associated with a life of sanctification. The coming of the Spirit does not abolish the Law but fulfills it and firmly establishes it in a new way. Again and again in the New Testament we see a correlation between the Spirit and Holiness; the Spirit fills us to make us Holy.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But ye are not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you…11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that
dwelleth in you. 12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Rom 8)
We are not saved because the Judge sees us differently than we are–through a legal loophole–but because we have received the Spirit who sanctifies us. God doesn’t look down upon us trapped in sin and say, “I know you feel miserable, but don’t feel bad because when I look at you I just see Jesus,” and then leave us in our wretchedness. No, our salvation delivers us from the power of sin, but not in a magical way. It requires our faith and love and cooperation. “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”
Salvation is both immediate and also a process, and in this process things have to advance in the proper order for them to be effectual. So many people think the Spirit was sent to make them happy or to feel good. And they get quite obsessed with feeling good and happy, because they are trying to manufacture the fruit of the Spirit’s presence. But we need to focus on the fact that the Spirit was sent to conform you to the Law of God, to make you Holy. And you can trust that when you become holy then you will be happy, because then you will be like God, and God is very happy. Stop trying to be happy. Try to be holy through obedience, and you will find yourself happy.
The Spirit in our lives also fills us with power to be witnesses of the Resurrection. Sin produces fear and shame, resulting in a loss of authority, a loss of power to speak. Sin silences the word, but faith emboldens us to speak. The Spirit gives us a voice to bear witness in the face of uncertainty. The Spirit enables us to speak with authority.
We have received gifts given by the Spirit to build the Church. We become co-laborers with God in the construction of a new creation, because we are filled with the Spirit, the same Spirit who hovered over the deep in the creation of the worlds. But all of this will not materialize in our lives if we do not first and foremost receive the Spirit as the Law of God in the heart and obey His gentle and whispering voice.