Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Foreword by David Peterson

Introduction

1. What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?
2. How may we resist the Holy Spirit?
3. Ought we to pray to the Holy Spirit?
4. How do we quench the Holy Spirit?
5. How do we grieve the Holy Spirit?
6. How does the Holy Spirit fill us?
Conclusion

FOREWORD

Despite the many books that have been written on the subject in recent decades, the person and work of the Holy Spirit remains a fascinating area for further exploration. Graham Cole has focused his research firstly on ways in which we may sin against the Spirit, secondly on whether it is right to pray to the Spirit, and thirdly on what it means to be filled with the Spirit. Each chapter confronts us with important challenges about our relationship with the Spirit, either as believers or as unbelievers.

However, in fulfilling his aims, Graham has also enriched us with some valuable reflections on theological method. How do we handle the biblical evidence reverently and responsibly? How do we interpret the Bible’s teaching in the light of many centuries of differing insights and opinions? In particular, can we agree on an approach to certain biblical texts about the Spirit? Graham shows us in practice how valuable it is to have a clearly defined and articulated theological method, that takes the biblical text seriously, learns from others in the process of interpretation, and works hard at application to the contemporary context.

This is exactly what we hope for at our Annual School of Theology, where college graduates and others come together for a day, to reflect on their ministries and to be inspired in their pastoring and teaching of others. We were blessed at Oak Hill by Graham’s lectures in 2006 and it is my prayer that many readers will be similarly blessed by the publication of this expanded version of his work.

David Peterson
Principal of Oak Hill Theological College, London

Extract from ... Chapter 4. HOW DO WE QUENCH THE HOLY SPIRIT?

Introduction

Every Easter we look back to what Christ, the bearer of the Spirit, achieved in his dying in our place and how he was vindicated by his being raised from the dead. Pentecost soon follows. On that occasion we look back to how the bearer of the Spirit became the bestower of the Spirit and restorer of Israel. Restored Israel in the person of Paul became the light to the nations that Isaiah spoke of, and one of the communities formed in the wake of the Pauline mission was that of the Thessalonians (cf. Isa. 49:6; Acts 13:47; 17:1–9). In what is most probably the earliest New Testament document, written around ad 51, the apostle Paul commands the Thessalonians not to quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19–22). In fact, New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson suggests: ‘The Thessalonian correspondence marks the probable beginning of Christian literature.'

Surprisingly, this Pauline command not to quench the Spirit has had comparatively little sustained theological examination. However, I believe that understanding this command and observing it in congregational life is of great contemporary importance. The answer to our question ‘How do we quench the Holy Spirit?’ will affect our practices. Firstly, we briefly look at what was said in the past about quenching the Spirit – especially by John Calvin and John Owen – and then at what is being said in the present. Next we examine the biblical testimony and that testimony will also raise the vexed question as to the nature of New Testament prophecy. Finally, I offer a theological reflection on what we have considered before drawing the discussion to a close.

Quenching the Spirit: some past and present perspectives

In the sixteenth century Calvin dealt with our question in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians. His discussion is a sustained one and is worth examination. He argues that quenching the Spirit is ‘when we make void his grace’. That quenching of the Spirit does include despising prophecies, but goes beyond it: ‘yet those also quench the Spirit who, instead of stirring up, as they ought, more and more, by daily progress, the sparks that God has kindled in them, do, by their negligence, make void the gifts of God.’ For Calvin the Spirit is the Spirit of light and to reject any form of the Spirit’s enlightenment is to quench the Spirit.

As for prophecy, Calvin contends:

(F)or as the Spirit of God illuminates us chiefly by doctrine, those who give not teaching its proper place, do, so far as in them lies, quench the Spirit, for we must always consider in what manner or by what means God designs to communicate himself to us. Let every one, therefore, who is desirous to make progress under the direction of the Holy Spirit, allow himself to be taught by the ministry of prophets.

Prophecy, according to Calvin’s commentary, is not foretelling the future God intends, but preaching. More specifically, prophecy is ‘the science of interpreting Scripture, so that a prophet is an interpreter of the will of God’.

In the century after Calvin’s, John Owen, in his magisterial treatment of the Christian’s communion with God, deals specifically with what he entitles ‘The general ways of the saints’ acting in communion with the Holy Ghost’. Part of his discussion addresses the question of quenching the Spirit as in the 1 Thessalonians 5:19 text. He acknowledges that there were several understandings of the text current in his day. In his view, however, Paul has in mind not the Person of the Holy Spirit, but ‘his motions, actings, and operations’. He uses the analogy of wet wood thrown into a fire. That is what quenching the Spirit is like. The Spirit’s aim is to act in ways that promote our growth in grace. But we may hinder his work. As Owen puts it: ‘ ‘‘Take heed,’’ saith the apostle, ‘‘lest, by the power of your lusts and temptations, you attend not to his workings, but hinder him in his good-will towards you; that is, what in you lieth.’’ ’ The discussion is general and frustratingly does not deal with the specifics of the text, unlike Calvin’s.

Bringing the discussion up to more recent times, in the second half of the twentieth century, D. M. Lloyd-Jones distinguished between grieving the Spirit, which refers to the Christian’s individual lack of obedience, and quenching the Spirit, which has to do with Christian corporate life. He understood the Thessalonians’ text to refer to resisting the Spirit’s ‘general movement upon your spirit’ in a congregational setting. Back in Thessalonica when the Spirit ‘came upon people’ and they began to prophesy, the temptation was to not respond to the prophesying or to discourage those prophesying. This, Lloyd-Jones argues, is quenching the Spirit.

A contemporary theologian, Wayne Grudem, sees in 1 Thessalonians 5:19–21 evidence for his thesis that New Testament prophecy stands on a lower level than Old Testament prophecy as far as its authority is concerned. The Thessalonians were to weight the prophecy they heard and to hold fast to what was good. According to Grudem: ‘This could never have been said of the words of an OT prophet, or of the authoritative teachings of a NT apostle.’ True, New Testament prophecy is Spirit impelled, but still it is a lesser form of communication, which is to be open to scrutiny.

Even this brief survey reveals the questions to be addressed. Is quenching the Spirit related to prophecy only, or is there a wider problem in mind of which despising prophecy is one way in which the Spirit is quenched? And what does quenching look like? Is it really like throwing wet wood in a fire? Further, what exactly is the prophesying on view? Is it preaching and Scripture interpretation as Calvin suggests? ...