On Pentecost
Scattered notes on the Spirit, Paul, Genesis 1-11, Acts 2:1-11, and John 14:8-17
This will be a stream-of-consciousness style post to help me process my thoughts in preparation for my Pentecost sermon. Sometimes just getting the words out helps to clear the clutter so that my actual sermon will be more focused and tolerable.
I have the opportunity to preach on Pentecost this year. I will admit that I have not thought much about the Holy Spirit before these last few months. The most attention I gave to the Holy Spirit was strictly in the context of Trinitarian dogma and the Cappadocian defense of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. In undergrad, I wrestled with the debates about spiritual gifts and the cessation (or not) of the miraculous gifts as well as inconsistently participated in a charismatic prayer meeting on campus. It’s not that I had anything against the Spirit, I just didn’t find an urgency for the Spirit. The Father? Yes. Jesus, the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, etc? Yes. The Spirit? Not so much. But that has recently changed.
The Spirit in Galatians and Romans
It began with me trying to understand why Paul changes conjunctions in Galatians 3:28 which seems to be regularly misquoted (“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female.” οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην, οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος, οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ). In the process, I noticed for the first time that Paul starts his central argument in Galatians (beginning in 3:1) by asking how the Galatians received the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit? I thought the point of Galatians was justification by faith in Jesus! Instead of the Spirit being an add-on to Paul’s argument (e.g., Gal 6 and the fruit of the Spirit), it actually serves as the beginning of the argument: did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the Law or by believing what was heard (i.e, faith). I then began to notice that this Spirit that the Galatians received is connected in Paul’s argument to the one seed that was promised to Abraham (Gal 3:15-18) and the promised inheritance. Noticing the repetition of “one” in this argument (one seed, one God, one in Christ), I began to summarize Paul’s argument in this part of Galatians like this:
The one God, promised the one Spirit to the one seed of Abraham such that all who are united to the one seed by baptism become co-inheritors of that one Spirit.1
This way of framing it helped me to understand why Paul would start by asking how the Galatians received the Holy Spirit. The Spirit isn’t an add-on; the Spirit is the point. What Jesus accomplished in his life,2 death, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension culminated in his sending the Spirit.
Next, I began to take a closer look at Romans, specifically 6-8, and I began to sense that spirit/flesh dualism in these chapters served a very important function in Paul’s argument. Specifically, if Paul thinks that our reception of the Spirit is the culmination of his mission, then he has to explain how the Spirit accomplishes that goal this side of the eschaton. We don’t yet have resurrected bodies (as Paul has to argue multiple times in his corpus), and so the spirit/flesh dualism allows him to account for what we do have in the midst of the painfully obvious fact of sin and evil internally and in the world. By connecting our Spirit with the Holy Spirit—through whom we have access to God, through whom our lives are hidden with Christ on high, and through whom we have every spiritual blessing in Christ in the heavenly places and following the Spirit’s lead, we are able to bring our flesh into conformity with God’s law (Romans 8:1-17). The painful and difficult process of bringing our flesh into conformity with God’s will is only possible because we have the Spirit. So, while it’s trendy to hate on dualism these days, I think it’s hard to account for what Paul is saying in Romans 8 without it.
With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I was more than eager to preach on Pentecost. I wanted to emphasize the extraordinary mundaneness of the Spirit. We get so caught up in the question of healing, prophecy, or tongues, that we miss how miraculous it is to repent. To reconcile with an enemy. To resist temptation. To choose to do good. To sacrifice one’s will, wishes, and desires. That is nothing to balk at. Unfortunately, we too often trivialize these things when the reality is that we cannot do them without the Spirit.
The problem was that it wasn’t immediately apparent that this emphasis on the miraculous mundanity of the Holy Spirit was the concern of my two primary texts: Gen 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-21. It is customary now to bring these texts together for Pentecost, after all, is the undoing of Babel. But what does that mean? It seems to me that in our current (American) culture when people think of the undoing of Babel, they think in terms of racial reconciliation. The importance of Pentecost then is the inclusion of difference within the people of God. God’s people are no longer only Jews, but people from every tongue, tribe, and nation. I should note here that what I am arguing is not some political “anti-woke” screed against diversity, equity, or inclusion. What I want to draw out is that I don’t think Pentecost as the undoing of Babel should be read as merely that. I think it misses something deeper and more important going on in the Bible as a whole and in Genesis 1-11 specifically.
Genesis 1-11
In trying to understand what is going on with Babel in Genesis 11, I realized that I had unwittingly fallen into the mistake of dividing my Bible into Genesis 1-3, and then everything else until the New Testament. The more I looked at the movement from Genesis 1 all the way through Genesis 11, I began to see how tightly woven a narrative this opening section of the Bible is for everything that follows. It is not merely Babel that precipitates the calling of Abram (which it does), but it is the entire movement of Genesis 1-11 that sets up the problem to which the calling of Abram is the solution.
I think Gen 1-11 sets up two main ideas: sin results in exile (eastward movement away from the presence of God and therefore death)3 and left to our own devices (i.e., without God's law and Spirit) we get violence (Cain escalating into Lamach) and false gods (Gen 6). These twin ideas are consolidated in the Babel narrative. The first solution is to start over (Gen 6-8) by cleansing the earth of violence.4 I think violence is a synecdoche of sin because, as we see in Gen 9:6, God takes very seriously the destruction of his image.5 But I don't think we should reduce the concern of Gen 1-11 as merely speaking against violence instead of addressing other sins, but violence against the image of God is its most extreme form.6
The second solution, after God had made a solemn covenant with creation never to destroy it again (Gen 8 ), is scattering the people into different groups. That is, to prevent the escalation of sin and violence that came about in Genesis 6, God scatters and divides the conspirators.7 But the problem repeats itself in Genesis 9 in a condensed version: consuming fruit (drinking instead of eating), nakedness, shame, and curse. I think Genesis 9 is then a condensed version of Genesis 3-4 in which the themes of sin and curse are repeated. Then we have re-population (chronologically out of order) in Genesis 10 followed by a repetition of Genesis 6 in the events of Gen 11:
making a name for ourselves || malevolent spirits in Genesis 6
nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them || every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
But, as I mentioned, God is cutting the complete corruption of humanity short by exile/scattering.
So I think there is a connection between violence (as the culmination of corruption/boundary crossing against God’s order), the nations, and the pagan gods. These things go together. Nations in the Bible are not merely different cultures; that is a very contemporary notion. Nations included the national gods as well.8 These are families/tribes/nations under the control of malevolent spirits, which harkens back to the enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.9 This is what is overcome in Christ because he
perfectly fulfilled the law and therefore
is the righteous suffering servant (suffering exile in his death), and so
is the pure spotless sacrificial victim who makes atonement for the sins of the whole world.
We who are united to him in Baptism are the beneficiaries of his death (dying to the condemnation of the law; Romans 6).
In his resurrection he overcomes death (the result of sin/exile) as the firstfruits of the resurrection for all of those who are united to him in baptism, and finally
in his ascension he is set above all the malevolent spirits which means that the gentile nations once under the control of the malevolent spirits are now freed from their power and control.10
This is why the Jew/Gentile relationship in the NT is so important. Not because diversity is the goal, but because, going back to Genesis 1-11, the fundamental problem, sin and with it slavery to the malevolent spirits and death, has been dealt with. The Jews and Gentiles are not separated because of prejudice. The Jews and Gentiles were separated because the nations fell into slavery to sin, malevolent spirits, and death, and God selected Abram and his seed—from among those nations—to be his people so that through them (=Jesus) he would ultimately overcome all three of those problems.
Interestingly, the return from exile is connected also with a new heart throughout the Old Testament as early as Deuteronomy 30:1-10. Ezra-Nehemiah showed that the return from exile they experienced didn’t fix the problem because as much as they tried to reinstate the Torah, the people continued to sin. Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26 connect the new heart with God’s Spirit, so Pentecost and the giving of God’s Spirit should be connected in our minds with receiving a new heart. Interestingly, the evil inclinations of the human heart are mentioned twice in Genesis 1-11: Genesis 6:5 and 8:21.11 In the first case, I noticed that the enigmatic phrase in Genesis 6:3—“Then the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years’”—occurs before the observation that the heart of humans was inclined towards evil continually from youth. Usually, the verse is taken to mean either the human lifespan will be reduced to 120 years or that there are only 120 years left until the flood, but I am more interested in the connection between the removal of God’s Spirit and the inclination of the heart towards evil that is noted afterward.12 Is there a connection to my broader concerns of the Spirit creating a new heart? If I kept to merely interpreting the verse in the immediate context I would say no, but noting the broader biblical themes of Spirit and a new heart, it’s hard for me not to think the concepts are here even if in an underdetermined sense.
In Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, we see these threads come together. The focus is on the resurrection but note that in defeating death, the resurrected Jesus is exalted (2:33), his enemies (malevolent spirits) are put under his footstool (3:35), and he is given the Holy Spirit (3:33).13 What should people do? They should repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and receive the Holy Spirit. This is the end of the thread begun in Genesis 4:26 with those who call on the name of the Lord. Not our own name, not the name of the gods or some human leader, but the name of the Lord, which in Acts 2 is Jesus. Baptism, if we keep Genesis 1-11 together, is, therefore, a new flood event (as Peter says in 1 Peter 3:18-22), a new creation, a new birth. Yet instead of leading to Babel, it leads to a new unified humanity.14
Interestingly, in Acts 2, we don't have one language as in Gen 11, but the Spirit overcomes the differences in language without creating one language. If Pentecost overcomes Babel, then one might be inclined to think this would mean that we return to one language. But that is not what happens here. Instead, people speak in other languages, that is, other than their own. The Spirit mediates communication without flattening it into one. In this way, the church is one without requiring one language.15 Again, this is possible because Jesus has overcome the malevolent spirits that enslaved the nations and kept Jews and Gentiles apart.16
Pentecost and the Giving of the Law
How could I connect these observations about Genesis 1-11 and Acts 2 with my observations about Galatians 3 and Romans 6-8? These seem like two different tracks until we get to our Gospel reading. John 14:8-17 is set within Jesus’s last instructions to his disciples before his crucifixion. Philip asks Jesus to show the Father to them and Jesus responds by saying if you have seen me you have seen the Father because Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him. His words and his works testify to this, and the disciples too will do greater works than Jesus if he goes to the Father. Why? Because he will send the Spirit to be with them forever. However, note that before he introduces the Spirit, he says that if his disciples love him, they will keep his commandment. What is the commandment? Earlier in John 13:34 Jesus gives the commandment: love one another.
What does the Spirit have to do with the commandments? A lot, especially in the context of Pentecost. Pentecost, or the Festival of Weeks, was the second major festival of the Hebrew calendar. It marked the wheat harvest and occurred 50 days after the festival of Firstfruits.17 Pentecost occurred during the third month of the Hebrew calendar, which is also when Israel arrived at Mt Sinai (Exodus 19:1). While not exactly occurring on the same day, Pentecost has traditionally been associated with the giving of the Law at Mt Sinai as both occur in the third month of the Hebrew calendar.18 That’s a tenuous connection, but when we consider the description of the loud wind and fire in Acts 2:2-3 and compare that to the loud trumpet sound and smoke and fire of God descending on Mt Sinai to give the law in Exodus 19:16-19, the possibility is made stronger (though by no means certain).
Thus, if we take our observations above about the Spirit and the new heart, the new heart's connection to obedience to God’s law (Deuteronomy 30:6-8), and Jesus’s new commandment to love one another, we are able to see where Paul’s thoughts on the Spirit in Galatians 3 and Romans 6-8 fit into the picture. The Spirit is that by which we are able to do what we could not do on our own. Once Jesus has dealt with sin, the Spirit is given so that we can positively live out obedience to God’s commands: loving God and loving our neighbor which sums up the Law. Again, we see that the Spirit is not just an afterthought to give us a boost. The Spirit is absolutely necessary to fulfill Jesus’s commandment.
After articulating this, I realized that I have heard this before in Ephesians 4:4-5: “there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
One of the things I think the Fathers got right, as I discussed in my post on Maximus, is that Jesus’s life isn’t merely an example, but, by his living a life in submission to the Spirit, we are able to be empowered to do the same through our participating in Jesus’ Spirit-conformed nature.
Note Cain’s response to his punishment for killing Able (Genesis 4:14), “Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Because Cain spilled his brother’s blood on the ground ('ăḏāmâ), he is driven from the ground ('ăḏāmâ). Not only is Cain a tiller of the ground ('ăḏāmâ), but he is the son of Adam who was made from the 'ăḏāmâ. There is something existential about this punishment that naturally moves from alienation from the ground, separation from God, and death. It then makes sense that in Deuteronomy 28:58-68, the promise of exile for Israel who doesn’t keep God’s law sounds similar to Cain’s fear where Israel is separated from the promised land in exile, serves other gods, and fears death. On the significance of the eastward movement, see L. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?
Note Numbers 35:33-44: “Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the Lord, dwell among the Israelites.”
This is why even animals who gore a human to death are put to death in the law; see Exodus 21:28–32.
I’m not going to call Genesis 1-11 a myth, but in many ways the narrative is underdetermined. It is a condensed story that expresses ideas that are so essential that their significance cannot be reduced to a single meaning within the short narrative. I think, like a detective story, the simple story gains in meaning as it progresses and we can look back with greater knowledge and understanding after we read the rest of the story. This is how Hebrew poetry works, but it is also, according to Dru Johnson (Biblical Philosophy), how the Bible philosophizes. Additionally, I think violence is a synecdoche because the Bible groups sins together and sees them logically leading to the most extreme result which is the destruction of God's image (e.g., James 2:10-13, Romans 1:18-32).
Psalm 55:9-11: “Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they go around it on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are within it; ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.”
This makes sense of the connection between the prohibition of intermarrying outside of Israel and the fear that such marriages will lead people to serve other gods.
Interestingly, I think this is the same enmity (ἔχθρα; same word used in the LXX translation of Genesis 3:15) that Paul says is overcome in Jesus in Ephesians 2:11-16.
The connection between sin and demonic influence is strong in the monastic tradition as I discussed in my post on Maximus.
This second occurrence was the most surprising for me for it happened after the Flood and before the Noah and Ham incident.
Note also that here we have the vocabulary of spirit and flesh that appears in Paul’s letters that I discussed above.
He is given the Spirit to give to others as Peter will indicate when he tells the crowd to be baptized. This seems consonant with my observations about Galatians 3 above.
Perhaps we can think of baptism as taking us back not to Eden but to this period of the biblical chronology. This makes sense of the recommendation of the Apostles to Gentiles in Acts 15 which has hints of the Noahic covenant (as well as Leviticus 17 and the laws that applied to foreigners living in the land with them). For example, eating animal meat (Genesis 9:3-4; cf. Acts 15:21) and some form of capital punishment (Genesis 9:6; cf. Romans 13:1-7?) is permissible, but idolatry and sexual immorality (i.e., Genesis 6 and 11) are not.
This is beautifully expressed in Ephesians 2:14-18: “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.”
Peter Tomson notes in Paul and the Jewish Law that there is Rabbinic evidence that there was table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles and that one of the primary concerns was the connection between the meal and idolatry. If a Jew brought two jars of wine to a meal and, when leaving, left one on the table, he should not take it home for he does not know if the Gentile poured out a libation to his god.
This was the harvesting of barely because barley was ready to be harvested before wheat.
Pentecost would be on the sixth day of the third month and the narrative of Exodus has Moses going up the mountain on the third day of the third month.