P. Redemptus Maria Valabek O.Carm., Rome
(Part 2)
In the writings of St. Paul
St. John and St. Paul, theologians of the New Testament, significantly develop the teaching on the work of the Spirit. For Paul, Christ is the power of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:24), and he is a herald of grace, which is the true reality and places man in the sphere of God. This is what the Holy Spirit does in the hearts of men. St. Paul, overwhelmed on the way to Damascus by the power of Jesus, does not require any further instruction. He has embarked on the path of Christian freedom and is aware that "the whole Christian life is governed by the 'most precise' of laws, 'the law of the Spirit'" (Rom 8:2).13 (Paul, who was zealous to the point of heroic extremes in observing every letter and punctuation of the law of Moses, realized that salvation is not found in this approach: what he sought was given to him in another way. "He (Christ) has become for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor 1:30).
The Christian is immersed in the Easter mystery of Christ from his baptism and thus receives the foundation of a new life (cf. Rom 6:1–11); he becomes a new man (Eph 2:15), a new creation (2 Cor 5:17).
The typical expression: to be "in Christ" meant for Paul "to live 'at home' with God as Father and with Christ Jesus as Brother, to live as a beloved son, whom God has adopted, and this not merely by some legal act, but by the gift of divine life, which is imparted and preserved by God's own holy Spirit."14 Originally, within the framework of the Mosaic law, Paul served the Lord as a servant. Now the Word of God has taken on human flesh, dwelt among men, so that the Christian enters into the intimacy of family life with God as father. And it is precisely the gift of the Holy Spirit that has realized this adoption and inwardly transformed the heart of a slave into the heart of a son. Thus Christ, the firstborn among many brothers, once he returned to his place at the right hand of the Father, sent his own Spirit to his brothers, to be now their Spirit. "Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" (Gal 4:6–7).15 Then Christians can address their heavenly Father with the same familial familiarity, the same intimacy and tenderness that permeated the personal prayers of the only Son. This is something entirely unique in world religions. "To recite the Our Father devoutly and with devotion can be done by anyone; however, this prayer hides a mystery that is articulated only on the lips of those who have the image of the Son of God imprinted in their hearts."16
Thus Paul was captivated by the experience of freedom from the laws that had previously bound him. However, this is not an idealistic, naive call for individualistic Christianity (cf. Gal 5:13; Rom 7:15–23). Paul now truly belongs to God as his son and understands that no human law is as "precise" as the spirit of sonship. A son does what pleases his father; he is ready to love and give himself for his family. This involves a more radical degree of demands than those placed on slaves.17
A servant can carry out his tasks faithfully and even anxiously; but he remains outside the family circle. A son carries out the same tasks in a completely different way: the father's house is his own home; and his duties are tasks entrusted to him by the father who loves him: Paul emphasizes that every Christian partakes of these gifts: "he has staked everything on Christ," and thus the Father cares for him as for a son. And it is precisely Jesus' Spirit who continually "testifies to our spirit that we are God’s children" (Rom 8:16).
This Spirit is in fact the Spirit of Jesus: Jesus promised and sent it to us. "To have the Spirit," who dwells in us permanently, means "to have Christ" dwelling in us. It is the Spirit who gives us the awareness and understanding that we truly are God's children (Rom 8:16). In this close connection, being sons of God is no longer merely an attribute; an added soul of man, but it is a powerful inner movement inspired by the Holy Spirit.18 When Paul declares that "those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Rom 8:14), he uses the expression agontai ("are led"), which surpasses the meaning: to be guided or forced, persuaded or directed as if from the outside; Paul's expression means that Christians are animated by the Spirit. The Spirit does not act in Christians merely by urging them to imitate in their actions and ways of thinking what the firstborn Son revealed in his own person and life; through the gift of the Spirit, Christians receive a share in the very love within the family of the Trinity. Christians are in communion with God's love itself. "Since the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, he places on the lips and in the hearts of men the prayer that belongs only to the only Son: 'Abba!', and thereby confirms that we are God's children (Rom 8:16) and that God loves us with the same love as his only Son. Thus St. Paul can declare that 'the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us' (Rom 5:5)."19
For Paul and according to the teaching of the New Testament, God loves people in the fullest possible sense, even when they are still sinners; but they are accepted as sons of God only when they are connected with Christ and led and nourished by his Spirit.20 This conviction is the source of Christian hope. It is the privileged atmosphere from which Christian prayer springs. The human spirit, open to this and eager to achieve the state of fulfillment and fullness, the state of divinity, spontaneously breaks forth in a pious calling and asks for this salvation, which alone has value for him. For Paul, prayer springs from the very being of the Christian. Paul has already recognized his own powerlessness in the realization of his salvation, even though he meticulously observes the regulations of the Old Testament; he insists: "But if you are led by the Spirit of God, you are no longer under law" (Gal 5:18), from the Spirit also comes the fact that man reaps eternal life (Gal 6:8), after all, "by the Spirit and in faith we await the hope of righteousness" (Gal 5:5). Truly Christian prayer, like all other Christian activity, must begin in a spirit influenced and permeated by the Spirit of Christ. True prayer, connected with an authentic awareness of the source of true salvation, can be awakened in the heart of the Christian only by the power of God. Thus, prayer is significantly a gift: a gift that must be gratefully accepted and developed, but that always remains a gift. Only the Holy Spirit can transform the disciple into a person of prayer, always open to God's matters.
"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God" (Rom 8:26–27). The Christian is all too aware in this world of the pressure of his great weakness and imperfection; but he is always a person of hope coming from the Spirit, who helps him understand that he is a child of God. Thus he has "the Spirit as a pledge" of the future (cf. Rom 8:23); but he also has the same Spirit to help him in the present. In this passage of the New Testament, we find these two thoughts: we are not capable of praying as we should, and the Spirit intercedes for us. A few lines above (verses 19–22) all of creation was described as eagerly waiting for the revealing of the sons of God; in verses 23–25, we ourselves are included in this eager chorus. Thus, not only nature, but also we, who already have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan under a certain uncertainty. Our sighs are unable to adequately formulate prayer. Then the Spirit comes to help us and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. The Spirit prays instead of us. It is a gradual process culminating in the Spirit, which does not suppress human effort but complements our inadequacy. The "weakness" that Paul speaks of relates (as in verse 18) to the state of our present condition, the captivity of suffering and the corruption of the body. This weakness Paul sees in the baptized, his Christian brethren, in their vulnerability to sin, scandal, and all kinds of limitations, which ultimately culminate in death. From this fundamental weakness arises our inability to pray as we should. To overcome this dreadful inability and to be capable of praying according to God's will, the Holy Spirit must intervene. As long as we are in a state of pilgrimage, this weakness cannot be removed by the Spirit; by his groans in the hearts of Christians, the Spirit alleviates its burden. The Spirit does not require human words for God to understand him; he intercedes for us "according to God's will," leading all the brothers of Christ Jesus to receive the likeness of the Son that the Father expects to find in them. This likeness will achieve perfection only in the glory that awaits those who love God in the fullness of ages; in the present, only the longings of God's sons can be fully expressed by the Spirit. For he is indeed the pledge of future glory, while they are too caught up in the limitations of what is human, earthly life, to know how or for what they should pray correctly.
Paul urges Christians to pray in all circumstances (1 Thess 5:17), so that God's will is fulfilled in the full diversity of their lives. But the fundamental hope of the Christian comes from above: it comes from the Spirit dwelling in the hearts of people as a guarantee of their future glory. The Spirit does not ask us to be freed from our present condition, but to be capable of opening our hearts and minds to the approaching coming of God's kingdom in its fullness. This well corresponds with many other elements of true Christian spirituality, "the spirituality of humility and poverty in recognition of our basic incapacity to formulate a prayer worthy of God, worthy of that which he prepares for those who are his; the spirituality of complete trust arising from the certainty that within us dwells the Advocate, to whom God understands and who is the guarantee of our inheritance as sons of God; the spirituality that is not a terrifying accusation, but frees from anxieties, doubts, from the need to possess, and rather leads to the assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord."22
According to Paul, prayer as well as all other aspects of Christian life arises from God's initiative. He beautifully summarizes this conviction in another place: "God has revealed this to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a man’s thoughts except the man’s own spirit within him? So too, no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual" (1 Cor 2:10–13). "The Spirit represents imminent divinity, but its corrective is transcendent divinity, for which Paul essentially reserves the name 'God'. Prayer is truly the activity of the Spirit of God within us, but for Paul it would lose its meaning if it did not ascend to God above us."22
The Spirit indeed does not give man knowledge in the realm of earthly knowledge, relating to art, science, industry; but enables the disciple, permeated with the mindset of Christ, to understand how all things fit into God's plan pursuing the ultimate destiny of man. "For the pneumatikos (spiritual person) has in him pneuma (spirit) and by it is revealed to him understanding, and can therefore grasp everything… He has the Spirit of Christ and is in a way brought into God's inaccessibility."23
Or in other words: "The soul experiences its acceptance as a child of God and feels God's fatherhood to the extent that it allows the Holy Spirit to lead it and holds to his inspirations. This fatherhood envelops it in an atmosphere of intimacy, bliss, and boundless trust. Prayer then takes on a unique form – a loving dialogue with the heavenly Father."24
In the writings of St. John
St. Paul is captivated by grace; and St. John's view complements it. John sees Christ primarily as the creative Word of God. Individual Christians are personally called to listen to this saving word and to be transformed by it: especially by the saving mysteries of his life. The Christian listens to this Word to "know" God, which can also be described as [having] "eternal life." Christ continues to speak to the hearts of those who follow him, precisely through the Spirit. The message that Christ reveals to us is not limited by the time and space in which Jesus unveiled the mysteries of God. His words remain alive and are conveyed: they are received by the believing person. This ongoing action, foreseen by Christ himself – as the work of the Holy Spirit: "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (John 14:25–26). Christ's words will not be forgotten – the evangelists contributed their part to ensure this. But Christ's message is not primarily written words, but a living message that is to touch human hearts and transform them. Anyone who has received the Holy Spirit is empowered to hear this divine communication and to understand it.25
The task of the Spirit is to reveal to the disciples and to all who follow Jesus the wealth of Christ's words. "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:12–13). The truth that Christ Jesus came to bring to the earth is not exhausted even in the inexhaustible treasure of Sacred Scripture. This truth must be rediscovered in every single time and circumstance. Christ's eternal words must be proclaimed so they can affect events that are never described in the gospels. This is the task of the Spirit: to never allow the fire and penetrating nature of Christ's message to fade, but rather to work so that the hearts and minds of people are empowered to see those words embodied in every event.
What is that "truth" into which the Spirit leads, according to John (cf. John 16:12–14)? The fundamental answer is given by Jesus when he declares: "I am the truth" (John 14:6). Jesus came to bring the truth not in the form of some system of moral principles or dogmatic assertions. He came in the flesh precisely so that those who see him might see the Father. Jesus does not make the Father known merely by speaking about him; Jesus reveals the Father through what he is in him: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Immediately after calling himself the truth, Jesus continues: "No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him" (John 14:6–7). And when Philip still confesses that he is confused, Jesus' sadness at Philip's inability to overcome this point is evident: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:9–10). "Therefore, knowing Jesus means having eternal life, since eternal life is the same as knowing the Father and the Son. But in John’s view, this knowledge is scarcely distinguishable from love. Indeed, knowing Jesus splendidly fulfills the usual definition of truth: 'truth is knowledge of reality.' If we know Jesus, we know the true world, in a certain sense the only true world, a cosmos permeated by the Father's love."26
This is the truth that truly sets a person free, the truth to which one must be led by the Spirit, if he is to see all reality in its deepest sense. The unification that Christians long for will be achieved only if they allow the Spirit to unite them precisely in this knowledge-love of the Father and the Son.
But in John's view, the Holy Spirit, in addition to leading people into all truth, is also the giver of life. Truth is not merely an intellectual appreciation of Christ, but is the person of Christ Jesus himself and his Father – who lives forever. And this is what a disciple must be led into in this world and must begin to live in this earthly dwelling. The significance of prayer is then immediately clear in this view. And it is precisely the Spirit that allows people to enter into this new life (cf. John 7:37–38; 3:5–6…). After his resurrection, in his spiritual (pneumatikos) state, Jesus was able to transcend the limitations of his voluntarily accepted kenosis (humiliation) and give the Spirit to his disciples. Just as God breathed life into man at the first creation, now Jesus re-creates his beloved: "With that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22). Now the disciples were new beings, sharing in the life of God himself. "The symbolic gesture of breathing suggests what our words cannot fully express: the gift of God's life, which is the Holy Spirit. And worship in spirit and truth is worshiping the Father in the Son through the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us." 27
