The Spirit of Christ
Jesus always made it clear that the Spirit would not speak on his own but that he would say what he heard from the Father and the Son. There are several important things to note when we think about the Spirit.
Mutual Mediation of Christ and the Spirit
We read in the New Testament that Jesus is the one who mediates the Holy Spirit to us. This takes the form of the dramatic outpouring of the Spirit upon the church at Pentecost, but it is also evident in Christ’s baptism in the Jordan, where he received the Spirit into our humanity in a way it had never indwelt it before. The only access that we have to the Spirit is in and through Christ. The Spirit was not poured out upon a group of people who were not already bound to Christ, nor do we speak of the Spirit working in other religions and cultures in the same powerful way that we see in the book of Acts (we do not deny that the Spirit is indeed at work in non-Christian situations, but that the work is not a penetrating indwelling as is described and depicted in the New Testament). We cannot seek the Spirit by bypassing Christ. We are bound to the actual historical event that the Holy Spirit was not given independently of Christ, but in and through him. We cannot have the Spirit without Christ.
However, though the New Testament speaks quite clearly about Christ mediating the Spirit to us, it is less clear about the fact that it is the Spirit that mediates Christ to us. It is less clear, but it is still there and very important. Perhaps the most convincing evidence that it is the Spirit that mediates Christ to us lies in the fact that those who followed Christ during his earthly ministry did not truly understand him until Pentecost. Even at the times when it seemed that his followers understood him, Christ showed them that they really did not know what they were talking about. A prime example is when Jesus rebukes Peter for calling him the Christ (Mark 8:29-30). Peter is indeed correct, for Jesus is the Christ, but when Peter uses the word, he means a secular ruler who will overthrow the Romans, rather than what the Christ really is, the suffering servant who dies so that others might live.
What is amazing is that, even after Jesus is raised from the dead and the disciples can stand in his resurrected presence, not everyone was able to really believe. Matthew 28:17, which occurs right before the Great Commission, reads, “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some were doubtful.” We cannot even begin to imagine what it must have been like to stand in the presence of Christ, resurrected in glory, and yet, it seems that unbelief can still reign, even then. The story of the walk to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35 also shows that people can walk with Jesus, even having their hearts burning within them, and still not really understand.
However, all of that changed at Pentecost. Disciples who were timid and afraid of persecution were transformed to the point where they would lay their lives down for the Gospel. Peter, who had denied Christ so many times, who had proven his impulsiveness, is transformed into the rock he was prophesied to be and became a leader among his peers. They were truly transformed from disciples to apostles (those who are sent). Christ only really made sense to them after they had received the Spirit. It was this mediation of Christ by the Spirit that made all the difference in the world. Without it, they would have remained a weak-willed, frightened band who were afraid to go into the world. We cannot have Christ without the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit and Revelation
In ancient Israel, the Holy Spirit came upon prophets and teachers, revealing God and shaping their culture. We can see that Israel needed to receive some things first and then, once they had learned more fully who God is, could receive further instruction. This further instruction was not contrary to, but in addition to, what was revealed before. This pattern of progressive revelation continued with the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. Now, instead of having a revelation being delivered by a prophet who is not God, God came among us and revealed himself in an unprecedented way, calling into question certain interpretations of Old Testament revelation, but not doing away with it.
There is a sense that it would stand to reason that this pattern of progressive revelation would continue in the ages after Jesus walked the earth. It would seem logical that, as time went on, the Spirit of God would continue to mediate more of the truth of God and new revelation would crop up time and time again until God institutes his eschatological kingdom, that is, the kingdom of God at the end of time. This indeed has been the opinion of several groups throughout history. However, it is extremely problematic.
The reason why new revelation should cease is not something that can be the result of an arbitrary decision of church leaders, either in history or today. Rather, it is because of the final character of the incarnation. To say that there is more of God than was revealed in and through the Incarnation, that we need to be taught by the Spirit, is to say that, in Jesus, we do not have an incarnation of God, but rather an incarnation of something less than God, whose revelatory significance is limited and needs to be supplemented by the work of the Spirit.
This is the reason why the Christian canon is closed. No new books of utterly new revelation can be written because God has revealed himself fully to us in Christ. This is not to mean that our understanding of Christ is exhaustive and does not need to be aided and furthered by the Spirit, but only that nothing that is true of God but is not true of Jesus can be or will be revealed by the Spirit. This is the reason why the apostolic writings are so important. Not only do the gospels tell us about Jesus, about what he said and did and how he interpreted his own ministry, but the epistles give us insight into the theological endeavors of the early church, where those first followers of Christ began to unpack the significance of Christ in particular times and places for the first Christians.
However, it must be stressed that the work of the apostles and the work of later thinkers is not, strictly speaking, revelation, but rather is theology. God has revealed himself to us in Christ; our task is to unpack it and apply it to every new circumstance. If it is faithful to the revelation of God as borne witness to in the Scripture, it will be guided by the Spirit, who takes what is Christ’s and discloses it to us. The Spirit is not a source of revelation independent of (or behind the back of) Christ, but is the light which illuminates what Christ has done on our behalf and in our place and mediates Christ to us.
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