The Holy Spirit, Part 1

The State of Modern Christianity

Live from Salt Lake City, Utah, this is heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. where we do all we can to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. I’m Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion., your host.

Show 14 491 The Holy Spirit April 5th 2016

Our prayer this evening will be given by _____________________.

The Play?

New Book?

I’m thinking I’m going to start doing more illustrations on the board. By the way, I have always used the white board to illustrate and I have always grown my hair and beard out. I say this because a brother in Christ decided to follow a Spirit of criticism of me online and ask if I am becoming the next Gene Scott who, though now deceased, used to use a white board, smoke cigars, and rant.

Okay – (ON BOARD ILLUSTRATION)

For 2000 years Christianity has been plunging full steam ahead like the Titanic impervious to some hidden dangerous elements looming ahead in the dark. The hull we have long believed impenetrable, is an amalgamation of

And the hull of our ship has been made weak by and through

• A history of ridiculous claims and behaviors
• An egregious misappropriation of the Biblical text
• Ugly orthodoxy
• Empty authorities
• Hollow Traditions
• A loss of the Good News
• Dogmatism
• Calvinism
• Ecclesiastical abuses
• Playing the game of church
• Our own materialism, and
• Our own selfishness

The Iceberg of Modern Humanism

Out on the horizon, frozen and rock solid and lying beneath the surface of the sea of modern life, is an iceberg of immense size. Its tip rises just above the surface – maybe twenty-five feet into the air – but its body, hidden below the black surface, is three football fields deep and four of the same wide.

What are the contents of this iceberg?

• Geological studies
• Biology
• Sociology
• Medical Advances
• Education
• Reason
• Kickback from maligned special interest groups
• and growing Governmental restrictions.

And when this Godless Iceberg of Modern Humanism comes into speedy contact with the weakened hull of what we believe is our indestructible faith, a weakened hull welded together by overzealous aggressive orthodoxy, we are going to see a loss of Christian life on earth – mostly from the hearts of our youth.

Now is the time for change. Right now. And like the removal of cancer, the steps necessary are going to be painful and disfiguring to some – but necessary in order to help this wonderful, beautiful faith survive.

Perspectives on Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity

Even though we haven’t been on television here in Utah since December of 2012, I am still approached – almost every day – and in some way or another asked if I am that guy who used to be on TV, etc. It can generally be assumed that when people choose to approach you they are friendly – those who bear unfriendly feelings generally do all they can to somehow advertise their distain but from a distance.

Interestingly enough for me I get the looks of distain from the Christians today far more than the LDS (and the Christians are identified by their clothes, crosses, and non LDS ways). Anyway, had a guy approach me last week and ask: “I heard you have changed your views about Mormonism. What happened?”

This is not the first time I’ve been hit up with this so I thought I’d address it quickly right here and now. I have NOT changed my views of Mormonism. Mormonism is the same as it has ever been in my mind and my views of it are exactly the same as when we did our first show. If you go back and watch or listen to the programs we did in 2006 you will discover that what I am saying here is true.

My views have always been that –

• Mormonism is a man-made religion.
• Mormon doctrine is unbiblical in some very significant ways.
• Mormon doctrine breeds pride.
• And Mormonism is NOT Christian.

That being said, we have also ALWAYS, ALWAYS admitted that:

• Not all Mormon people are proud.
• Some Mormon people are saved Christians.
• And if an individual chooses to remain LDS having come to know Christ, that is a personal decision between them and God.

Change in Ministry Approach

What has changed, however, in the ministry (and in me) is . . .

• I have seen that there is just as much man-made religion in Evangelical Christianity as there is in Mormonism.
• Much of Modern Evangelicalism is unbiblical, and
• Even moreso, it does NOT matter what brick and mortar a person attends every week or what doctrine they are allowing – but what matters is their heart for God, their personal knowledge of Him and His Son, and their love.

Yes, we have deconstructed much in terms of doctrinal dogmatism. Yes, we have shifted from supporting Objective Religion to endorsing what we call Subjective Relationships –

The Heart of Acceptance and Love

but this really isn’t anything new (again, watch the old shows). We’ve just opened up to a much more liberal view of things – and (LISTEN) in so doing, we have become far MORE accepting of all people and their views than rejecting.

This points to the final change – I have changed in my heart toward my approach. How? Why? Because Jesus has stepped in and shown me that He wanted me to be this way – and so I am. And as a result of HIS Spirit and Influence, I have been better equipped to love others – especially in the area of those who hate and abuse and malign me and my character.

Even as a new Christian God blessed me with a heart for the lost and sinful but I had real heartburn for those who challenged, attacked, or ridiculed me. Now I see they have reason, valid points, and are my brothers and sisters in the Lord – and it is incumbent on me to really love them. May God continue to help me in this way.

And with that how about a moment from the Word?

Grace and Good Works

As a follow up to last week's message from Peter that told us to huppogramma Jesus and then to walk –

Which we summarized as the command to “copy and walk,”

I want to turn to a very familiar passage from Paul to speak just a bit more on this topic. You know it – Ephesians 2:8-9:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Oh we know this verse and Oh we cite this verse – especially in the Mormon Christian arenas of debate, right? But 7 times out of ten we neglect to cite verse 10 – which completes the picture:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

(verse 10 – ready? Ready?)

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

“For we are” – “For those of us who have been saved by grace through faith ARE . . .

“His Workmanship.”

We are his POI AY MA in the Greek, his fabric, his product . . .

We are his products (CREATED – KTIDZO) fabricated (copied) made, fashioned . . . “created in Jesus Christ UNTO good works” . . . (down) which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Understanding Our Creation

Part I – “we have been saved by grace through faith”– it (is certainly) the gift of God because if He never extended it to us we would never be able to create it on our own – it is His gift, “not of works lest any of us should boast . . .”

Part II . . . “and as a result,” OR

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

And contextually speaking, taking all of the New Testament narrative into account, the Law and the Prophets, what are these good works unto which we are created in Christ Jesus to do?

(beat)

Love.

Love God (point up) And love man (point out)

All summarized in agape loveSelfless love marked by patience, mercy, and humility—central to living in spiritual liberty..

Love of God first. Love of others second. Love of self-last. That’s right, you heard me.

There some ridiculous fad out there in Christian-dumb, bracelets and all that says, “I am second.”

I got news for you, Christians are not second. We are last. God is first (point up) Others are second (point out) we are last.

The Measure of Doctrine

We talk a lot about doctrine and doctrinal positions on the show and in our ministry. I’ve seen a new way to vet a person's theological stances – by their love.

Show me a person whose doctrine is this or that and who truly loves God and others, and I will show you a person who has rightfully divided the Word of God.

Conversely show me someone who is unloving and I will show you someone whose doctrinal stances are failing.

Simple as that.

Because the fruit of the Spirit is love. It’s not doctrinal superiority.

And so Paul here commends us, like Peter did last week, to understand that having been “saved by grace through faith, not of works lest any person should boast” that “we

The Holy Spirit in Religious Contexts

Okay, tonight we are going to talk about the Holy Spirit. We’ve talked about God (relative to the LDS and Christian views) and we’ve talked about Jesus (in terms of ontology and not so much in terms of His life and works) so now we’re going to venture into one of the most mysterious of topics relative to God – the Holy Spirit. I think you might be surprised by some of the information. I say this because in both the LDS and the Christian traditions the general view and understanding of the Holy Spirit has morphed – over time – to being what these respective beliefs are today.

So let’s get to it. In both Mormonism and traditional Christian thought the Holy Spirit (holy Ghost if you are a King James onliest) is considered the 3rd member of the Godhead (to the LDS) and Trinity within Christianity. In the Old Testament we read that the Spirit (capital S) was at work in the creation brooding over the waters and that throughout the Old Testament this same Spirit moved or “inspired” men to write and speak (prophesy).

Old Testament Depictions of the Holy Spirit

The Old Testament never uses the term Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit but instead appeals to the phrase, “the spirit of the Lord” to describe what seems to be more of the influence of God rather than a personage or conscious entity with a mind of its own. It is also of interest that in the Old Testament the word for Spirit (ruah) is feminine and in the Greek (pneuma) the term is neuter not masculine. In both places the terms mean, breath, breath of life, wind, inspiration, divine inspiration. So in the Old Testament, the term Spirit is a way of expressing God’s activity and His revelation to the World. No person of the Holy Spirit or Ghost was ever described.

LA Bushinski, a Catholic Scholar, says: “The Old Testament clearly does not envisage God’s spirit as a person . . . God’s spirit (in the Old Testament) is simply God’s power.” All apologies on the table to my Trinitarian brothers and sisters, I continue to see the Holy Spirit in the same way today. Bushinski adds: “If it (meaning the Holy Spirit) is sometimes represented as being distinct from God it is because the breath of God acts exteriorly.”

Additionally, nowhere in the Old Testament do we read of gifts of the Spirit or read of receiving eternal truths by the Spirit (with the exception of the Spirit of the Lord falling on prophets and giving them divine inspiration). The most obvious presence of the Holy Spirit engaged with man in the Old Testament was when it would rest upon some and provide what we call, “God-breathed,” words of inspiration. It seems that the idea of the Holy Spirit being God’s influence rather than the third person of a Godhead or Trinity was around at least into New Testament times.

Transition in the New Testament

James Dunn, in his book, “Christology in the Making,” says: “At the time of Jesus, the divine spirit or Spirit was not yet thought of in Judaism even as a semi-independent divine agent.” But in the New Testament narrative we begin to see the Holy Spirit, in passages like Luke 24:29 and Acts 2:33 as a representative of God that was sent to encourage and teach and fortify the Saints.

The Holy Spirit's Personification

But even then, and based on the Greek, the Holy Spirit (which was still the same, Spirit of the Lord) doesn’t appear to have been seen as a third person of the Godhead or Trinity. Bushinski continues and says: “The New Testament text reveal God’s spirit as something NOT someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism between the Spirit and the Power of God.” However, it is in the Gospel of John, which was one of the later NT books composed, that the Holy Spirit is described in more, shall we say, personal terms.

There is a reason for this. Now remember, in the Hebrew the Spirit of the Lord is always in the feminine gender and in the Greek the Holy Spirit is always neuter – except in places where this neuter gender is either ignored and the Holy Spirit is referred to in the masculine OR if a masculine noun is used in the description of the Spirit. This occurs in the Gospel of John.

14:16-17
15:26
16:7
And 16:13-16

Why?

The Nature of the Holy Spirit

Because here Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Comforter (paraklete in the Greek) and since comforter or paraklete is a masculine pronoun it must be met by masculine gender, in other words the term “he” rather than “it” which is the most common way Holy Spirit is referred in scripture. In other words, as Charles Harrell points out,

“What is lost in translation is the fact that the masculine pronoun in these instances is necessitated because the Greek word paraklete, which is usually translated as comforter happens to be a masculine noun.”

In other words it is the term comforter that is masculine and NOT necessarily the Holy Spirit itself.

Remember, in the several dozens of times the word “Spirit” is used in the NT it is always in the gender-neutral pneuma, which is always combined with the gender-neutral pronoun “it” rather than “he.” Because of this non-gender specific way the Spirit is described in the Greek it seems fairly obvious that to the early believers the Holy Spirit was still NOT considered a person.

Trinitarianism and the Holy Spirit

Key to Trinitarianism is that the Holy Spirit be seen as a third separate and distinct being, essence, person or personality of the Godhead. Due to the information just provided I tend to wonder about the Creedal definition of this element of Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism.

In his book, Theology for the Community of God, Stanely Grenz, a Baptist theologian writes that:

“the personhood of the Holy Ghost didn’t become official church dogma unto the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD.”

Today it has become quite necessary for Christians to fully embrace this man-made assessment of God with its man-made definitions and it man-made terms, but prior to 381 and going back to Moses, it seems that the Spirit of the Lord was seen as exactly that – the Spirit of the Lord.

Holy Spirit in Various Christian Beliefs

Moving out to Joseph Smith’s day, Christians, laboring under the weight of Creedal Trinitarianism, continued to see the Holy Spirit as the divine influence of God and though a person, never seemed to describe it (or Him) as a ghost in human form. To Trinitarian Christians then (and today) the Holy Spirit was more of a center of consciousness or will or essence than a personage. However, to binitarian and Unitarian Christians the Holy Spirit was simply a manifestation of God’s power or as God’s divine influence upon Man.

Metaphors and Descriptions

It was the Unitarian minister Noah Worcester in 1812, the era of a very young Joseph Smith who said that

“If God is represented by a metaphor of the natural sun . . . then the rays . . . which emanate or proceed from the sun, are an emblem of the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father. Like the rays of the sun, these divine emanations . . . illuminate, quicken, invigorate and fructify.”

Binitarian David Millard also called the Holy Ghost, “a divine emanation of God,” and to be honest, even Trinitarians (who even today maintain the same things) regarded the Holy Spirit as an emanation flowing from the Father and Son, but not as an actual being or person himself. (see Charles Spurgeon Sermons, Sermons of C.H Spurgeon London, page 46)

So along comes Joseph Smith. But, just as it has been proven to be among Biblical Christians, the concept and understanding of the Holy Spirit in Mormonism was an evolving matter. The earliest LDS revelations and teachings on the Holy Ghost appeal to traditional Christian terminology which emphasized its “illuminating and quickening nature rather than traits that would identify “it” as a “he” or being. The Book of Mormon, for example, refers to the Holy Ghost as it in 2nd Nephi 32:5, Alma 34:38, and 39:6) and the earliest revelations found in the Doctrine and Covenants speak of the Holy Spirit as an “it” of influence not a person.

(there is a side issue to all of this relative to the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove which I won’t go into here but it is used by LDS defenders to prove that the Holy Spirit has always been a personage. Careful scrutiny of this defense is found wanting and because I see it as ancillary to our topic I’m not going to cover it here.)

As Harrell plainly states:

“The evidence suggests that early Latter-day Saints understood the Holy Ghost to be a spiritual power or influence not a personage.”

2nd Nephi 32:5

Alma 34:38

39:6

Context of the Holy Ghost in LDS Belief

Holy Ghost, the Light of Christ, the Spirit, the holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Truth, all of which late LDS apostle Bruce McConkie says must be taken into the context of each scriptural passage in which it is mentioned to know which is which) such a differentiation to the earliest Mormons would have probably been seen as twisted.

To support this we must remember that founder Joseph Smith himself defined the Holy Ghost in The Lectures on Faith (which were published in 1835) as “the mind of God” noting that only the Father and the Son were personages.

Evolution of LDS View on the Holy Spirit

Next week we will continue forward with how the LDS view of the Holy Spirit morphed into what the view is today.

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