Rediscovering the Holy Spirit by Michael Horton

Author:Michael Horton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2017-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Jesus Underwent Our Judgment-Consecration in the Power of the Spirit

Jesus underwent the ultimate cutting-off, not merely circumcision but excommunication. “By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” (Isa 53:8). Imagining that the arrival in Jerusalem would culminate in the consecration of the messianic king, James and John asked to be seated on his right and left hand. “Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?’ ” (Mark 10:38–39 ESV). The royal consecration of Jesus was his baptism into death, the devotion of his body and soul to condemnation for us. And now all who are baptized into him pass through the waters of judgment unharmed.

As Paul reminds us, “our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank of the same spiritual drink” (1 Cor 10:1–4 ESV). No one was baptized into Christ through this typological exodus and cloud; it was a different covenant, with different promises and terms, particularly because it had a different mediator: Moses, a servant, rather than Jesus, the Son. And yet everything in it pointed to Christ. The context of Paul’s remark is the seriousness and holiness of communion—both the sacrament and the koinōnia that it generates—over against the Corinthians’ profanation of both by chaotic worship and sectarianism. While the typological baptism drowned Pharaoh’s hosts, it saved the Israelites who passed through safely on dry ground “and all ate the same spiritual food” (the manna), and “all drank of the same spiritual drink” (the Rock, which was typologically Christ himself [v. 4], although Christ identifies the Spirit as the water [John 7:37–39]). He adds, “Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (v. 5). While all were baptized into this covenant with Moses as mediator, not all made it into the promised land. Rather, “most of them” failed to enter his typological land of rest. They are “an example to us” (v. 6) because now that Christ—the reality—has come as the mediator of the new covenant, we are especially obligated to embrace our baptism and participation in his flesh and blood through the Lord’s Supper with all seriousness.

The signs must lead us to the reality. Some who had been outwardly baptized into Moses failed to enter the earthly and typological land—indeed, including Moses himself. How much greater then is our loss if we fail to enter the everlasting rest even though we have been baptized. Paul’s argument here is echoed in Hebrews 4, 6, 10, and 12.

It is this biblical theology that we should bear in mind when we speak of the Spirit of holiness.

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