A Church of Christ Holy Spirit Question

Indwelling in the spotlight

The Holy Spirit has been put back under the microscope this week, and that gives me an opportunity to ask a question I’ve wanted to ask for years.

(I know I have readers who are not in the churches of Christ, so you may want to skip over this one as we in the coC continue to hash out a family matter.)

Before I get to the question, here’s a brief summary on the prevailing views on the Holy Spirit in the churches of Christ. Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it, the typical options in the churches of Christ are:

1. Only through the Word: the Holy Spirit spoke to us by inspiring the Bible and guides us in that way. He does not personally indwell us.

2. Personal indwelling. The Spirit dwells within and guides and shapes the Christian. He never operates contrary to the Word, and He does not speak directly, but He begins to overtake the Christian’s conscience by transforming their desires.

My sense is that #1 is still fairly common, but may be shrinking with each passing generation, and the majority hold to #2. But since well before I was born, for most people involved the sense has seemed to be that it’s an “agree to disagree” issue.

That brings me to my question:

Why isn’t this a bigger deal?

If in the early centuries of Christianity there were a dispute about whether the Holy Spirit actively worked in God’s people, everybody would have hit pause and gathered until they got that figured out. Of course, we in the churches of Christ don’t exactly convene councils.

But we do have our conferences and lectureships, and those do a pretty good job serving as a de facto council for various corners of the church. Where the early Christians hammered out the finer points of trinitarian theology, our “councils” reveal whether we think a preacher is going to hell for believing in a restored earth or if he’s teaching “false doctrines” by preaching about Jesus’ birth on Christmas. People can advocate for different sides of this Holy Spirit disagreement and it will bring about some debate, but it’s all considered in the realm of acceptability.

I know we have gone along to get along on this issue for a long time, but what’s at stake here is an interpretation of God’s character.

If some of our people are operating under the belief that God has given them the Bible and left them to strive to keep it to the best of their ability, and the rest are operating under the belief that God has given them the Word and is actively working to conform them to it, that’s a significant difference.

Its impact is felt literally every single day of our lives. Your view on this shapes your theology, your anthropology, your hamartiology, your soteriology, and plenty of other major “-ologies.” Yet we’ve operated as though it’s a tertiary doctrine.

I’m not here to argue the different sides or preach anybody into heaven or hell. All I’m asking is, why isn’t this a bigger deal? Why is this an “agree to disagree” issue when the practical implications are so impactful?

For more on the Trinity and the Holy Spirit, check out the Who Let the Dogma Out? Podcast episodes here and here.

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Notes

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Now that the Masculinity Monday episodes are rolling, I’m about to start in on Thursdays Through the Text and will continue to drop the occasional Cultural Breakdown. And, I’m going to be doing 30 second Shorts videos reviewing Christian memes and what they teach, called Memeology Under Review.

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