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Images of the Holy Spirit 3
Friday 9 May 2008
This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday and this is my final blog about the images of the Holy Spirit used in the Bible. The fifth image for the Spirit is that of a dove – which is how the Spirit was seen descending on Jesus at his baptism. While Jesus undoubtedly possessed the Spirit already, this event focuses our minds on the gentleness associated with the dove. This gentleness would generally characterise Christ’s work – but not, of course, when he drove the money changers out of the temple.
The expression ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ comes from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. These are his words: ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control’ (Gal 5:22-23a).
John Stott, whose biography I am writing, has commented as follows on this verse: The mere recital of these Christian graces should be enough to make the mouth water and the heart beat faster. For this is a portrait of Jesus Christ. No man or woman has ever exhibited these qualities in such balance or to such perfection as the man Christ Jesus. Yet this is the kind of person every Christian longs to be.
This then, is the portrait of Christ, and so – at least in the ideal – of the balanced, Christ-like, Spirit-filled Christian. We have not liberty to pick and choose from among these qualities. For it is together (as a bunch of fruit or a harvest) that they constitute Christlikeness; to cultivate some without the others is to be a lopsided Christian. The Spirit gives different Christians different gifts … but he works to produce the same fruit in all. He is not content if we display love for others, while we have no control of ourselves; or interior joy and peace without kindness to others; or a negative patience without a positive goodness; or gentleness and pliability without firmness of Christian dependability. The lopsided Christian is a carnal Christian; but there is a wholeness, a roundness, a fullness of Christian character which only the Spirit-filled Christian ever exhibits.
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