The Gifts of the Holy Spirit-I
The Spirit upon Christ and in Us
Last Sunday, the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, we heard St Paul’s teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit: “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:4). It’s remarkable that the Prayer Book gives such an established place to this teaching of Saint Paul, and indeed to the other passages of his teaching on the subject: Ephesians 4 on St Mark’s Day, and Romans 12 over the first three Sundays after Epiphany. Nor is this merely a residue of ancient tradition – in the 16th century Cranmer composed a new collect on the theme of the spiritual gifts for the feast of Saint Barnabas.
The prominent place of this teaching is remarkable because this teaching about spiritual gifts is associated with revivalistic and charismatic enthusiasm since the 18th century, especially the Pentecost revival of the 20th century. In their more radical forms, these movements taught that supernatural manifestations such as speaking in tongues should be a normal feature of Christian life, and sometimes treated their absence as evidence of spiritual deficiency. (“Ain’t got the tongues, ain’t got the Spirit”). Milder forms emphasized an intense emotional experience of the Spirit in worship. Anglicans by a large have been suspicious of such pious excitements. Joseph Butler, the great 18th century Bishop of Bristol, spoke for many when in 1739 he told John Wesley: “Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing”. Nonetheless, the Prayer Book does not allow us simply to dismiss the gifts of the Spirit. It has been making Anglicans listen to St Paul’s teaching about them for centuries. How, then, should we understand them?
We need to begin with another biblical passage about the gifts of the Spirit. Isaiah foretells the coming of the Messiah: “The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:2). These are not miraculous abilities, such as those named by St. Paul. They are qualities of character—dispositions by which the Messiah is equipped to exercise his authority in God’s kingdom, in fulfilment of God’s righteous will: “And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD” (11:3). The prophecy is fulfilled first in Jesus Christ. Upon him the Spirit rests “without measure” (John 3:34). Yet the Spirit rests upon Christ in order that Christ may give him to his Body the church – and Christians receive the Spirit in order that they may be conformed to the likeness of their Head.
Already in the fourth century St. Ambrose connects Isaiah’s gifts with Christian initiation. He reminds the new Christian: “Remember that thou hast received the spiritual seal, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, the Spirit of holy fear.” The connection is important. The sevenfold gifts belong first to Christ; but the Spirit who rests upon Christ communicates them to Christ’s members. Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, godliness, and holy fear therefore came to be understood as sanctifying gifts: not special talents possessed by a few Christians, but dispositions by which every Christian grows into the likeness of Christ.
The history by which this understanding entered the rite of Confirmation is not entirely clear. But by the early Middle Ages, the bishop’s prayer over the baptized, on whom he lays his hands, asks for the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit. From there it passes through the Sarum rite used in medieval England to the English Prayer Book. Before laying hands upon those presented for Confirmation, the bishop speaks of them as already baptized—those whom God has “regenerated…by Water and the Holy Ghost” and given “forgiveness of all their sins.” He now prays: “Strengthen them…with the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and daily increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace; the spirit of wisdom and understanding; the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength; the spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and fill them…with the spirit of thy holy fear.” The Prayer Book is therefore not inventing a doctrine of Confirmation. It is receiving and reforming an ancient Western tradition whose roots reach back at least to Ambrose: the Spirit who rests in fullness upon Christ is invoked upon the baptized so that Christ’s wisdom, understanding, strength, godliness, and holy fear may increasingly characterize their lives.
Here, then, is one meaning of the “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” God gives us his Spirit not merely so that we may do remarkable things, but so that we may become a new kind of people. The Spirit rests upon Christ; the same Spirit dwells in Christ’s members, forming in them the character of their Head. But why do those already baptized need to be “strengthened” by the Spirit? The answer takes us to another ancient understanding of Confirmation: the Christian life as spiritual combat.
GGD
(First of Three Parts)