One of the most popular rock songs ever is Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” A great amount of ink has been spilled on the meaning of this and other Nirvana songs. Just as it is quite difficult to discern the words from listening to the tune, it is not so easy to understand the meaning of the words.[1] Regardless of the meaning of the words to the song, Nirvana captured the spirit of a generation in large part due to iconic Kurt Cobain’s songs and personal vibe. Did Cobain, like Bob Dylan before him (to whose song “Like a Rolling Stone” one commentator compared “Teen Spirit’s” cultural import), have a sixth sense that made it possible for him to have his finger on the pulse of his peers? How does one discern the spirit of a generation, and/or the spirit of the age?
These aren’t easy questions to answer. Nor is the following question: how does one discern the Holy Spirit’s person and work? If the question were so easy to answer, one might think that the religious leaders who rejected Jesus and his teaching would have been more responsive and welcoming of him. Moreover, one might think the Corinthian Christians would have been far more attentive to the Spirit rather than fixate on a fleshly spirit so much of the time.
In what follows, let’s first consider the religious establishment’s rejection of Jesus in Matthew chapter 12.
Upon hearing of Jesus’ exorcising a demon and healing a man who was blind and mute, a group of the Pharisees claimed that Jesus cast out the demon by the prince of demons, Beelzebul, rather than by God’s Spirit. Here is the full context of the account:
Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come (Matthew 12:22-32; ESV).
How could they have missed that Jesus would not be casting out Satan’s brood by Satan? If that were so, Satan would be fighting against himself. Rather, it was by the Spirit of God that Jesus cast out demons, thereby indicating that the kingdom of God had come upon them.
I wonder if this particular group of religious leaders had difficulty discerning the Spirit of God in Jesus’ ministry due to Jesus not bruising people or snuffing out their spirits. After all, many religious power-brokers over the centuries broke people. Similarly, in the immediately preceding context, Jesus healed a man of a withered hand on the Sabbath to these religious leaders’ chagrin. They went out and conspired to destroy Jesus after this healing (Matthew 12:9-14). Aware of their plans, Jesus withdrew from there, though many followed him and he healed those in need of deliverance even while exhorting them to remain quiet about his identity. Here is how Matthew’s Gospel presents the matter:
Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
and in his name the Gentiles will hope” (Matthew 12:15-21; ESV).
So, to return to an earlier question, how do we discern the Spirit’s person and work? First, we discern the Spirit’s person and work when we perceive total alignment between Jesus and the Spirit. The Spirit never contradicts Jesus’ person and work, just as Jesus never contradicts the Spirit’s person and work. This is borne out by the entire New Testament witness (See for example Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 2, and John 14-16).
Second, we discern the Spirit’s work when we realize that the Law was not given to enslave people but to free them. There is total alignment between the Spirit’s person and work and the import of the Law and the Prophets. After all, the Spirit inspired the Scriptures (See 2 Timothy 3:16, 1 Peter 1:10-12, and 2 Peter 1:16-21). So, as Jesus says elsewhere, people were not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for people (Mark 2:27). In like manner, the Spirit empowered Jesus to heal the person/people mentioned in Matthew 12, as noted above, on the Sabbath. Along similar lines, as we find recorded in Matthew 12:15-21, Jesus and the Spirit are not boisterous and boastful, but humble in their glory. Similarly, they lift up the downtrodden and broken-hearted rather than break bruised reeds and snuff out or quench smoldering wicks. This was true in Jesus’ day, and is no less true today.
By no means do I wish to confuse “Teen Spirit” with the Holy Spirit, nor do I see much similarity between the Spirit described by Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and the Spirit described by Matthew 12. As Christian Smith writes of MTD, young people do not view God as filling and transforming them through his Spirit. Rather, God is rather like a synthesis of a “Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist.” Thus, it should come as no surprise when a teenager said that religion matters to him “Cause God made us and if you ask him for something I believe he gives it to you. Yeah, he hasn’t let me down yet. [So what is God like?] God is a spirit that grants you anything you want, but not anything bad.”[2]
One who wishes to account for the Spirit disclosed in the Bible should know that while God does not let us down, God allows us to go through down times, even through the valley of the shadow of death. In the down times, God does not forsake us, but shepherds us (See Psalm 23). The Spirit ministers to the broken-hearted and lifts them up.
With this point in mind, I return to the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Just as Cobain challenged the music industry in “Teen Spirit” with his line about entertaining people, so the Spirit does not exist to entertain us. Rather, the Spirit reaches out to those filled with pain, who feel aborted and rejected, and who would even abort Christ, as Cobain sometimes cried out.
The Spirit would have us come as we are (to allude to the title of a Nirvana song, “Come As You Are”) with no pretense, no polish, just our sense of need. We don’t have to be good people like the rich young ruler (See Matthew 19), or finished products to receive God’s gracious love through the Spirit. There is no “members only” country club, no gated community, no wall that would keep out the blind and mute and those with withered hands. No one can get to heaven on their own. It is impossible, and not just for those without worldly riches, power, and fame. If anything, those with much have a much harder time letting go, as in the case of the rich young ruler. While it is harder for a rich person to get to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, with God alone salvation is possible. After all, the Spirit who draws us to the same Jesus, whom the world aborted, does not close the divine circle, but opens up God’s life to include us in Jesus’ life, as we live simply by faith.[3]
With the preceding statement, we come to a third and final way (at least the last for this blog post) in which we can discern the Spirit’s person and work. Thus, third, we discern the Spirit’s person and work when we comprehend that neither fame, nor fortune, nor formidable strength opens the door to God’s love. Rather, God’s Spirit opens the door free of charge by faith to all who would desire the living water that quenches our thirst and heals our tortured souls. In view of this reality, the Spirit and Bride of Christ (the church) call out, “‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17; ESV). “Come as you are.”
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[1]For background context, suggestions as to the meaning of the Teen Spirit song and its reception, refer to the following three articles: one, two, three.
[2]Christian Smith, “On ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’ as U.S. Teenagers’ Actual, Tacit, De Facto Religious Faith,” for The 2005 Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church, and Culture, page 50.
[3]According to Colin Gunton, the Spirit who, as Basil states, “completes the divine and blessed Trinity” serves “not as the one who completes an inward turning circle, but as one who is the agent of the Father’s outward turning to the creation in his Son. As the one who ‘completes’, the Spirit does indeed establish God’s aseity, his utter self-sufficiency. Yet this aseity is the basis of a movement outwards…. The love of the Father, Son and Spirit is a form of love which does not remain content with its eternal self-sufficiency because that self-sufficiency is the basis of a movement outwards to create and perfect a world whose otherness from God—of being distinctly itself—is based in the otherness-in-relation of Father, Son and Spirit in eternity.” Colin E. Gunton, Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes (London: SCM Press, 2002), page 146.
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