Been reading some of Gunton...
not really the focus of the book.. but it brought this to mind:
Augustine on the baptism of Jesus:
"It would be utterly absurd for us to believe that he received the Holy Spirit when he was already thirty years old... but (we should) believe that he came to the baptism both entirely sinless and not without the Holy Spirit"
so the act of the Spirit coming upon Christ is merely a teaching aid for us or something like that - sounds ok?
Now Basil the Great:
"After this (the baptism at the Jordan), every operation was wrought with the co-operation of the Spirit. He was present while the Lord was being tempted by the devil... He was inseparably with Him while working His wonderful works... And He did not leave Him when He had risen from the dead..."
Here- there is a 'new' kind of relationship with Jesus and the Spirit after that point. really?
Here's my 2 bits:
At the point of baptism, Jesus is ready, being 30 years old, to be anointed as the Great High Priest, of the order higher than Levi. Here the high priest becomes one with his people, that is the assembly of God. He now enters via the Spirit not into a new relationship with the Spirit per se, but with the people of God via the Spirit, thus having a new dimension to His relationality, that is the communion of the Spirit. He is now the Head of the body, having been cut off from His Father's headship, He must now come into His own, before He can restore His full body back to the original Head - that God may be all in all once again.
what do you think?
3 comments:
In Thomas Goodwin's "Work of the Holy Spirit" there is a great emphasis on the fact that at the baptism the Spirit equips Jesus with all the charismatic gifts He needed for the new work. In His time of preparation He needed different gifts... wisdom, study... but when He began the public work of the Great High Priest now He needed new gifts of prophecy, healing, miracles, etc etc. The Spirit always gives to Him the gifts that He needs to do His job... but Jesus Himself says that of Himself He can do nothing.
thanks Paul
very helpful
How about in Luke 2:52 - that Jesus grew in wisdom in his youth; does that mean that He grew by the Spirit (wisdom and Spirit being synonymous)? How does that reconcile with Proverbs 8 where Wisdom is often interpreted as being Jesus? How can Jesus = Wisdom if he is growing in wisdom in his youth? Surely Christ needed the gifts of the Spirit without Whom He can do nothing...
Some thoughts spawned from Mike Reeves' talk on book of Proverbs (and how the Spirit = the excellent wife in the final chapter of Proverbs) a while ago
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