The Christian life is a dynamic life. It is a life of growth, progress, and transformation. Christian spirituality is being in Christ, having the Spirit of God in us, and living a God-ward and Spirit-filled life. Paul summarizes it majestically in Romans 8:9. “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:9-10). See how dynamic a true disciple is! We are no longer fleshly, but spiritual. The Spirit of God and Christ dwells in us. And our spirits are alive because of righteousness. If this is true of you, then I would think that you would have a great interest in studying and understanding the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
Here is a great study tool for you. In this article I would like to take you on a guided tour of the book where I will stop the bus and tell you a little bit about what we are seeing here and there. I will also describe other places where you may do just fine by looking as the bus travels along the countryside.
As I mentioned in the short book review, there is much about the Holy Spirit that we need to explore. Ferguson’s book is an intermediate book on the Spirit. It is not written on the popular level (written for a broad audience), nor written on the scholarly (with technical and complex language) level. As an intermediate volume, you will find the book easy going for the most part, but challenging in certain parts. The challenge comes as the author tries to explain how the doctrine of the Holy Spirit developed at certain periods of church history.
The first issue that any theology of the Spirit looks at is the nature of spirit (something that applies to the study of man himself) and the Holy Spirit. This makes the first chapter fascinating reading. The opening verses of Holy Scripture introduce us to this very subject: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Gen. 1:1-2).
These verses bring us face forward to an understanding of the Holy Spirit. Is the Spirit of verse 2 the mere extension of God’s being into the world, a mode of His being? Or is it a reference to a distinct hypostasis (person) in the Godhead? The author sets forth principles essential to determining the answer to these questions. Is what I see divine activity? Is it personal activity? Is it hypostatically distinct? Ferguson is correct to understand this introduction to the Spirit as the beginning of the “story of the Holy Spirit,” and a revelation of His divine person. But the Old Testament only tells the beginning of the Spirit’s story. It is not until the coming of Jesus that the Day of the Spirit finally dawns.
It is in the careful study of the first two chapters of this book that a good foundation of understanding is laid for the student of the Spirit. While the first chapter unfolds the nature of spirit and the Holy Spirit, the second chapter explores the nature of the Holy Spirit’s relationship to the person of Christ incarnate. And Ferguson is most accurate, in my estimate, in his handling of John 7:39, which is the crucial text regarding the Holy Spirit in this relationship. There we read “…..for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
I’m sure that you picked up the important nuance in the quote of Rom. 8:9-10 at the beginning of this article, which makes reference to the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ being in us. It is this relationship that Ferguson is dealing with in these first two chapters, for he understands what many authors on the Holy Spirit, whom I have read, miss. He himself points out this oversight: “This aspect of the Spirit’s ministry has suffered considerable neglect in the history of theology, despite noteworthy exceptions like Abraham Kuyper” (37). And what Ferguson is showing the reader in these chapters is that the difference between the OT and the NT believer is more than the idea that we have the Spirit in greater measure and fullness (this is certainly true), but that we have the Spirit of the incarnate Christ which Old Testament believers could not have because Jesus was not yet glorified, so that to have the Spirit is to have Christ and to have Christ is to have the Spirit.
How can we quantify the Holy Spirit? When people say that one can have Christ as Savior and not as Lord we say, how can you divide Christ? If you have Christ you have all of Christ. The same is true of the Spirit. If we have the Spirit we have Him as He is in His relationship to Father and Son. According to John 7:39, we now have the Spirit of God as He has been revealed in the historia salutis (events of salvation history) as the Spirit of the incarnate and exalted Christ.
The author moves next to the gift of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and develops this theme in relation to Pentecost. Pages 68-78 are crucial for understanding three things: the relationship between Spirit of God and Spirit of Christ, John 7:39, and the relationship of the promises made in the upper room concerning the Spirit and His coming on the day of Pentecost. I recommend that you study these pages very carefully. Get out of the tour bus and walk around! And there is another reason why I say this. It is because Ferguson gives a helpful overview of important issues concerning our understanding of the Trinity in these pages. Let me give you a glimpse of some of the helpful things you will find here.
Another Holy Spirit passage that is also often misunderstood is John 14:17 which says “… that is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him or know Him. But you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Ferguson explains: “What is in view is not so much a distinction between the Spirit being only with believers in the old covenant, while He dwells in them in the new covenant, although that view has widespread support. Rather, it is that during the days of His humiliation, the Spirit of Christ was on Christ, and therefore, and in this sense, with the disciples. But at the exaltation, Christ would breathe His spirit on His disciples. He would now indwell them in His identity as the Spirit of the exalted Savior” (68).
Pentecost is the official coming of the Holy Spirit, a day of fame and renown. But the true significance of Pentecost is that the Spirit of the exalted and coronated Christ has been sent (Ps. 16:8-11, Ps. 110:1). The promise in the upper room of “another Paraclete” (another, just like Me) reminds us of this amazing connection which Ferguson explains in this way: “the coming of the Spirit is the equivalent of the indwelling of Jesus” and “the Trinitarian union and communion of Father and Spirit is the analogy for the union and communion between Christ and His people” (71).
The brief section on pages 72 – 78 is extremely helpful in understanding some of the complex issues regarding the Trinity. These complex issues involve our understanding of the procession of the Spirit, and the sending (single or double sending) of the Spirit, which was at the heart of the major split between the Eastern and Western churches in the Great Schism of 1054. Though there were many other issues behind this schism, the question of whether the Spirit was sent by the Father alone or by the Father and the Son (the Filioque clause) was at the heart of it.
Ferguson is supportive of Augustine’s understanding that the Spirit is the “bond of love,” and therefore “bond of union,” between the Father and the Son (77). Augustine’s view has been vigorously challenged in Trinitarian studies, but I, like Ferguson, believe that Augustine’s view is the correct view because it has biblical support rooted in the designation of the Spirit as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ (I hope to write more on this subject in a future article).
In his chapter entitled “The Spirit of Order” the author takes issue with the classic presentation of the ordo salutis (whether there is an order of occurrence in the application of our salvation). Let me just say two things about this chapter. First, Pastor Jeffrey Smith of Coconut Creek, FL, shared with me a concern that he has over Ferguson’s presentation about the ordo salutis. He writes: “When reading Ferguson’s chapter a few years ago I was a bit confused with what he was trying to say. I felt that the danger he was concerned about is more of a straw man than a reality in the history of Reformed theology. I felt there are much more substantial dangers involved in denying the presence of an ordo salutis in the application of salvation. In reflection I think what Ferguson may be reacting to is the tendency found in Hyper-Calvinism to divide conversion into experimental stages and the tendency this has to point the soul inward instead of looking outward to Christ from whom all the blessings of salvation come to us and in whom they are all found.” So the reader of this book should factor in this helpful observation and read carefully here.
Second, I recommend John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied as presenting a clearer understanding of this than Ferguson does. John Murray devotes a whole chapter (ch. 9) in his book to underscore the centrality of union with Christ through the Spirit (which is what Ferguson is arguing for). Yet Murray is not critical of the classic ordo salutis as Ferguson is. As in the reading of any book, no matter how much we esteem the author, we must weigh all things.
Chapters 6 and 7 deal respectively with regeneration and sanctification. While these are important chapters, they are not as much of an exposition of the Holy Spirit as the other chapters are. The work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification is thrilling, but these chapters are more of a straightforward and helpful exposition of these two doctrines.
There is no one right way to outline the biblical material on the Holy Spirit, and Sinclair Ferguson, like any author, has chosen a breakdown of the Spirit’s person and work which he feels comfortable with. While I may outline it differently, I find his approach to the Holy Spirit commendable. After dealing with regeneration and sanctification, the author takes up the whole subject of spiritual communion through the Holy Spirit. This is chapter 8. Naturally, once we consider the history of the Spirit in the historia salutis (those epochal, non-repeatable events which advance God’s purpose), and the work of regeneration and sanctification in the life of sinners, we are now prepared to explore the blessed reality of ongoing communion with or in the Spirit. So in this chapter the author nicely and neatly explores the wonderful subject of indwelling by means of the New Testament teaching on the Spirit as the first fruit and earnest of our salvation, as well as our being sealed in Him.
Thankfully, this is not a myopic book on the Holy Spirit that does not see His story in history and His glory in Trinity. Tongues and prophecy are given an adequate and biblical treatment in the next-to-last chapter that is quite satisfying, and the placement of this material is just right (where it belongs in pneumatology). The gifts of the Spirit are not unimportant, but spiritual gifts are all about how the Spirit uses us in the work of the kingdom. Knowing the history of the Spirit in the world, His relation to Father and Son, and our union with Him, is far more important and foundational for our assurance and perseverance in the faith. Understanding our baptism in the Spirit, sealing, how to pray in the Spirit, and how the Spirit grows fruit in our lives, is far more important too.
Ferguson’s book is not exhaustive and does not deal with every subject related to the Spirit, but the book is balanced and exciting in its presentation. In closing, I commend this book to you as a “must” in your library for understanding the One who has been called “the neglected member of the Trinity.”