BEN: I appreciate your emphasis on how the church from time to time has domesticated the Spirit, making it rather like Mr. Rogers, rather than a dangerous dynamo. Hard sayings like Mk. 3.29 and par. Warn us against such a misreading. Of course. the BIG question is what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? What counts as that terrible eternal sin that won’t be forgiven? JACK: My mentor, Jerry Hawthorne, once gave this simple definition: attributing to Satan what is... Read more

BEN: I think in chapter six you’ve pointed some excellent points about the issue of lying to the Holy Spirit and blasphemy. In regard to the story of Ananias and Sapphira however their main sin was not economic, it was the lies they told about their sale of the property. This very clear on several counts. Peter says to them ‘was the money not yours even after you sold the property’, and the answer to the question he raises is... Read more

BEN: The prayer life of Jesus (p. 91) is important, not least because it reminds us Jesus is living his life as a genuine human being. He needs to pray to communicate with the Father, even Jesus needs to pray. This I would call another example of his true humanity, and of divine condescension—a refusal to draw on the omnis, in this case omniscience, in order to fully identify with humanity. Does this make sense to you? JACK: My German... Read more

BEN: You are right that Luke’s story of the 70 missionaries owes something to the story of the 70 elders in Numbers. It would appear to me that in both cases we are talking about the spirit of Yahweh which was on Moses, being distributed to the 70 elders as well to help Moses out. Likewise, the 70 Jesus sends out are empowered by the spirit of God the Father, because they do not yet have the Holy Spirit in... Read more

BEN: I realize your focus is on the relationship between the Spirit and Jesus, and I agree the Spirit is rambunctious—driving Jesus into the wilderness for the testing, but staying with or in Jesus through the testing, and he passes the tests in a way that Adam and Israel did not, and Job mostly did not, though Job repents in the end and covers his mouth. What really surprised me about this chapter is no focus on the temptations themselves.... Read more

BEN: I like your emphasis on the ideas that the Spirit entered Jesus or remained on Jesus. I would suggest the Gospel writers are suggesting he is the first person in Biblical history to have the continuous presence and power of the Spirit in his life. From a Biblical theological point of view, it is important to add that Jesus doesn’t begin his ministry before this happens, not least because he is going to draw on the very same resources,... Read more

BEN: The church fathers long ago observed that the first truly Trinitarian text in the NT is the story of Jesus’ baptism in which the Father speaks, the Son listens and is baptized, and the Spirit descends on the Son. What has all your study of the Holy Spirit taught you about the role of the Spirit not because one is hard pressed to find any genuinely Trinitarian texts in the OT. As Hebrews says, not even the three strangers... Read more

BEN: I quite agree with you about the purifying role of the Spirit in a believer’s life, John however seems to be talking about a coming judgment on Israel if they do not repent and turn, and there the imagery doesn’t have to do with cleansing from within but rather with judgment from without. And why the phrase baptize with Spirit AND fire if the latter is just a dimension or function of the former? One of the trends in... Read more

BEN: In your second chapter (p. 31) you seem to negate the Johannine contrast between John’s baptizing with water and Jesus with the Spirit (John 1.33). You would prefer it to say ‘I baptize with water , but I am unworthy to untie his shoelaces’. But surely the text says that John said both— both that he was unworthy to untie Jesus’ sandals and that Jesus will baptize with the Spirit. Explain why you don’t want to take John 1.33... Read more

BEN: Talk to us a bit about the value of comparing texts which use a similar or same word to describe a divine activity. Here I’m thinking of the word translated ‘overshadow’ and you helpfully lay out various OT texts that talk about God’s living presence descending on the tabernacle and elsewhere, and the same sort of language is what Luke uses to says Mary will be overshadowed by God’s Spirit….. The same word can of course be used with... Read more