Interpreting biblical events

When reading the Bible, how does a person know if events describe something we are supposed to do, or if they are just a description of what happened? Confusion is humorous if not dangerous. Consider this one: “Judas went out and hanged himself.”

Interpretation of historical events uses theological terms of “prescriptive” and “descriptive.”  For instance, the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are descriptive. This means they happened in time and are historical events that will not happen again, nor can we copy or imitate them.

A prescriptive event is one that Christians can repeat in their current situation. One example is Paul giving his conversion story to others. All Christians are supposed to do that; it is not a one-time event for one person, but an example and even a command for every believer.

Some events are not as easy to put in one box or the other. One of them is the reception of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said about the Spirit . . .

“And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)

As Chambers says, the disciples waited until Pentecost, not just for the Holy Spirit to come on them. They looked first for another event in which the Lord was glorified. As soon as that happened, “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” (Acts 2:33)

In other words, the disciples could not be clothed with the Spirit until Jesus had was glorified as He ascended into heaven. He hinted at this earlier when saying that those who believed would be a source of ‘living water’ . . . 

“Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:39)

Here, Jesus is talking about historical events. He was and is glorified, and then the Holy Spirit was given. While the Spirit influenced God’s people before that, He was not with us in the way God promised. However, immediately after Jesus was glorified in Ascension, the Holy Spirit came into this world, and He has been here ever since.

Herein lies some confusion. Some think the Spirit is received when a person believes and is born again. The key verse for this is:

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)

Others look at the event of Pentecost and think that Christians must also have a second experience where they are baptized by the Holy Spirit, and they insist that this does not happen to everyone.

After studying this topic, I’ve concluded that the Holy Spirit comes into a believer’s life when they are regenerated or born anew. This event is prescriptive in that it happens to all who truly believe in Jesus Christ.

However, that Pentecostal baptism is descriptive. It was a very visible event to show that the body of Christ was now filled with power from on high, a power that changes us and puts us into the family of God. Since that descriptive event, “we were all baptized into one body . . . and made to drink of one Spirit.” As Chambers says, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ: it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.

How is this practical? I know several people who moan that they are ineffective because they have never had the Spirit’s baptism, or they insist that others must have this in order to be useful to God. They have made a descriptive event (Pentecost) into a prescriptive event and in doing so, robbed themselves and others of the joy of knowing they already have the Holy Spirit and His power.

I can move ahead in faith. My need (prescriptive) is to keep short accounts with God and believe that the Holy Spirit is in me, giving me whatever I need to do whatever God asks. If I wait for some kind of dramatic sign that He is with me, my responses to the Lord will border on disobedience. “Oh God, I’d love to serve you but I cannot until You pour out Your Spirit on me.”

When I talk to God like that, my problem is not that the Spirit is absent, but that I am making excuses for my lack of faith and my desire to instead live by sight. 

The Holy Spirit's over-riding joy

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:19–21)

When I was a teen (and not a Christian yet), my dad often lent me the family car so I could take my friends to community dances. We didn’t drink, but we had a lot of fun. One weekend, an uncle happened to be at the event and afterward told my father that I was drinking. In his mind, no one could be having that much fun unless they were full of liquor.

I remember being angry with that uncle. My dad knew me well and didn’t believe the story, but it seemed such an unfair assumption. Later I understood that those who cannot be happy without drinking alcohol would think the same about others. Perhaps this is why those who observed the joy of the first Christians also accused them of being drunk.

Peter defended them. He said, “For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.” (Acts 2:15) This first strikes me as funny. No one gets drunk at 9:00 a.m.? But that is not the point. They had been baptized with the Holy Spirit, and when that happened, He also gave them deep joy, a euphoria that lifted them above all their concerns and fears.

They should have expected it. John the Baptist foretold this would happen, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11)

Jesus did too. He said it would happen and added that this was a good gift from the Father, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13) Besides the wonder and the joy of it, being filled with the Spirit never leaves God’s people with a hangover.

Yesterday’s sermon was about the Holy Spirit and what it is like to be filled with Him. The term “filled” means that His person and personality overrule mine. That isn’t the best description since this is difficult to describe. It is like being so happy with Jesus and His goodness that nothing else matters. It is having freedom to consider others without thinking about me. It is exuding love, peace, faith and the other “fruits of the Spirit” without trying or even thinking about it. It is having such an infectious joy that others who don’t know this Holy Spirit think you have been drinking.

Being Spirit-filled isn’t limited to joy though. It is also about power. Jesus also said, “Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49) The Holy Spirit gives a holy fearlessness, an incredible freedom to do and say what God prompts me to do and say. It is like the words of that chorus which come from a verse in Jeremiah: “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”

This joy and power was the experience of the early church. We need more of it in the Body of Christ today.

Established in history, not in myth

Occasionally someone comes along with the idea that the Bible is only a religious document without historical veracity. They say that the Old Testament is largely myth and the New Testament is about the “idea” of Christ, not about a real person or real events.

For me, this is interesting, but totally without value. If Christ is not real, and if He did not die for my sin, I’ve no assurance of forgiveness. If Christ did not actually rise from the dead, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, my faith is useless and my experience meaningless.

Instead, I’m firmly convinced of the reality of Jesus. I believe His Word, and have also experienced what He said would happen. He said that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin. This happened to me. He also said that if we confess our sin and receive Him as Lord and Savior, we will experience a relationship with God, removal of guilt, victory over sin, and the assurance of eternal life. All that happened to me. Those who talk about the Bible as myth do not share stories of a real relationship with a real God. How could they if He is just an idea?

Today, I am reading about another promise related to my Christian experience. This one concerns the Holy Spirit. When Jesus talked to the disciples, He said that out of the heart of believers would flow living water and then John explains . . . 

Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:39)

At that time, the disciples did not know the Holy Spirit’s presence or power. Only after Jesus ascended to heaven would the Holy Spirit come. He told them later to be on the lookout . . . 

And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49)

This power was the power of the Spirit, unknown to them prior but as soon as Jesus was glorified, the Holy Spirit came into the world and is available to all who believe. This would be a real experience, not a mere notion. In fact, the Word of God is clear that the Spirit lives in everyone who knows Jesus as their Lord and Savior. 

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:9–11)

This incredible reality was also part of Jesus’ prayer before the crucifixion. He prayed, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

Jesus made it clear that eternal life is about knowing God. Christianity is about a personal relationship made possible by the power of God and the Spirit of God who lives in all who believe.

In the very beginning, after Jesus died and rose and went to heaven, the disciples had to wait until the day of Pentecost until the Lord was glorified — an historical event. Then, as soon as that happened, the Spirit was given in that room where the believers gathered. Their experience was an historical event also.

As the Bible says, this experience marked the arrival of the Holy Spirit. It is not repeated in the lives of believers now because the Spirit is already in this world. As said, He came as soon as Jesus was glorified in His ascension and has been here ever since.

Daily, I need to remember and embrace the Spirit as a fact of my new life in Christ. I need to always maintain an attitude of relying on Him who is my life link to the living God. I can be filled with the Spirit or filled with myself at any given moment, but it is the filling of the Spirit that gives me the ability to live as I ought. It is also evidence of the ascended Christ. This Christ, who came into my life, changes me by the power of His Spirit. I need no other “events” because I already have all that I need to live a godly life of obedience.

A personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit also describes eternal life and explains to me why my mind is seldom on the past or even thinking about the future. The presence of the Holy Spirit pushes aside human thoughts of time and turns life into a glorious NOW. Just as Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee.”

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Lord, knowing You is life eternal. Wow. I am continually amazed by what You have done and are doing in my life and the lives of Your people. All of these things are real, historical events. We do not exist in a nebulous and mythical idea of ‘the Christ’ but in the reality of changed lives because we have a personal relationship with a very real God. Thank You, thank You, thank You.