What is the significance of Pentecost? It was the occasion in
which the Holy Spirit descended on believers signifying the new age, the
sealing of the promised work of Christ and the ratification of the era of the
New Covenant. Christ's Ascension meant that the Holy Spirit could come as a
Comforter, as the proleptic earnest of the Kingdom which would exist in its
Already and Not-Yet form during the Parousia Interim, the period we know as the
New Testament or Church Age. This interim is understood as the period in which
the Parousia is in temporal suspension, paused and delayed from being fully
completed or consummated, the period in which Divine Wrath and Judgment are deferred,
that the Gentiles might be brought in.
Usually one hears that the nature of salvation changed with
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. New Testament believers possess the Spirit
and yet the saints of the Old Testament did not. While there is a degree of prima facie plausibility to such a
sentiment and it does indeed contain a modicum of truth, the notion is actually
erroneous.
Paul labours in Romans to demonstrate that we are saved in
exactly the same way that Abraham was. In Galatians he clearly teaches that
salvation has always been found in Christ and the sons of Abraham are in fact those
who have faith in Christ. Additionally faith is repeatedly demonstrated to be a
fruit of regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit. Some will argue that the Spirit
was given on a limited or temporary basis in the Old Testament and that there
was no 'indwelling' and thus the very character of New Testament life in the
Spirit is different. It will be granted that again there is a degree of truth
to this but the statement if left alone and not elaborated runs the risk of
being misleading.
Christ Himself indicated to Nicodemus that the doctrine of
re-birth is something explicitly taught in the Old Testament. In John 3, our
Lord rebukes the Pharisee for being a master of Israel and yet not knowing the
doctrine.
But how could Old Testament believers have been regenerate,
how could they salvifically have the Spirit (as we do) when the Spirit was not
yet given? This is admittedly a bit of a chronological conundrum but the answer
is found in the same kind of eschatological atemporal or proleptic explanations
of how the Cross of Christ saved those in the Old Testament. It is a question
touching on a mystery and the issues surrounding how time (this age) and
eternity (the age to come) relate to one another. Ranging beyond
sense-experience or any kind of verifiable coherent cognitive framework we are
left dependent on revelation, and in the end these admittedly difficult
concepts must be accepted by faith.*
To continue, Old Testament saints were saved in exactly the
same way New Testament saints are. Again, this is at the heart of Paul's
argument in both Romans and Galatians.
How were they saved by Christ when the Cross had not happened
yet? Some argue they were held in suspension, a type of contingent heaven that
remained tentative until the work on Calvary was completed.
And yet there are evidences to suggest this is not the case
as many Old Testament saints are said to be in heaven. At other times there are
even hints of an existential duality in the afterlife, of habiting the grave,
the realm of the dead even while experiencing the bliss of paradise. Much has
been written on the Intermediate State and yet the Scriptural presentation is
difficult and often appears in terms that are less than conducive to systematic
arrangement. It is the present author's belief that the answers are found in
this same type of proleptic temporally-defying tension indicated by the
eschatology of the New Testament.
These somewhat nebulous answers won't fully satisfy the
logician but those trusting in Revelatory Scripture can place their faith (or trust)
in the answers found in the New Testament. The people of the Old Testament were
saved by the cross even though it hadn't happened yet. They, along with New
Covenant dead experience heaven even though temporally speaking heaven (as in
the New Heavens and New Earth) is not yet operative, it is an order that temporally
speaking is yet future.
Does that apply in the same way to Old Testament saints and
believers who have died in the New Testament era? That too can be debated.
To continue, 2 Corinthians and Hebrews teach us that
salvation itself is found only in the New Covenant, a very strange thing indeed
considering it was not initiated until the first century AD. There is no substantive salvation in the Old Testament
but clearly people were saved chronologically
under the Old Order. But salvation (a catch-all phrase for a host of concepts
surrounding reconciliation with God through union, justification and regeneration)
is eschatological, a heavenly transcending of space-time as it were, in which
we are joined to the risen Person of Christ and His acts as the Logos, wherein the
Incarnate Word perished on the cross and was resurrected, are applied to us, thus
eradicating our sins and re-establishing us in fellowship within the Divine
family.
Our salvation depends on the completion of an act in history,
done by a son of man, a son of Adam. Salvation is of a heavenly and eternal
order, something otherworldly and atemporal (outside of time as we know it in
this age) and yet we experience it even now. By virtue of our union with
Christ, by being 'in' Him, we are translated into the heavenly Kingdom, and
thus it becomes our hope and our home, the focus of our thoughts, affections
and activity. Though salvation's import and telos are eternal it rests upon
works completed in history. How can this be? How can the two interrelate and
affect one another? The doctrinal answers are probably most clearly revealed in
the book of Hebrews. As far as the mechanics of 'how' it all works, we're not
told. The question is actually reminiscent of old philosophical debates
regarding mind and body and the problems of interaction. And yet philosophy is
unable to provide solid answers... for the answer is not found in a method, a
syllogism or even a governing paradigm. The answer is found not in something
but in someone.
The answer to this tension is found in the Person of Jesus
Christ. His calling as Savior of fallen man, as the Second Adam, necessitates a
work tied to the temporal order, but its relevance and import transcend
temporal limitation and restriction. The Second Adam inherits a new Eden as it
were, and one that cannot fail or be corrupted, one that will brook no serpent
trespass.
Old Testament salvation could be said to be contingent on the
Incarnation-Cross-Resurrection-Ascension-Judgment event(s) collectively known
in the Old Testament as the Day of the
Lord, and yet evidently in God's
unfathomable a- (or perhaps trans-) temporal plan, the deed could be reckoned
as done. Clearly there is an element of asynchronicity when heaven and earth
are related. Eternal eschatological realities can be applied to and function within
time, even though the temporal events which actuate them have not yet happened.
The best way we can apprehend this wondrous mystery is through the concept of
prolepsis and yet even this concept is limited. It's only a start or hint at
the mysteries being touched on here. It describes the nature of the phenomenon
but it can't even begin to touch upon the mechanics of how God governs the
universe, relates to it, let alone how He applies the various categories of
redemption.
An even more mind-bending aspect of this eschatological
asynchronicity or prolepsis is indicated in Revelation 13 when Christ is
identified as having been slain before
the foundation of the world. This could merely be a reference to the
decretal certainty of God's Providential plan but does that certainty not
contain, hint at or even necessitate a proleptic application of its completion?
What one must ponder is whether in terms of eternity the chronological
considerations and limitations are even applicable at all?
A further case could be made for this concept of
eschatological asynchronicity by referring to the nature of prophetic
fulfillment, prophetic perspective (sometimes called telescoping) and even the
nature of prophetic visions which seem to defy normal temporal relation and
progression. An event in eternity is applied 'in time' in ways that defy
quantification or chronology. This shouldn't be a surprise to us but many build
their theology on cognitive frameworks and epistemological patterns rooted in the
assumptions and limitations of empirical finitude and commonsense intuition.
This is contrary to the Apostle Paul's statements in the opening chapters of 1
Corinthians wherein he reveals that Divine Truths are apprehended as revealed
mysteries accepted by Spirit-wrought faith, not the fruition of philosophical
inquiry.
Again according to Christ, the Holy Spirit was given under
the Old Testament, even though chronologically the event of the Spirit's
outpouring had not happened yet. The Pentecost event itself is actually
directly tied to the Cross, or more properly to the Day of the Lord/Parousia itself.
This Day of the Lord/Parousia of Christ encompasses not just what we call His
Second Coming but the entirety of his mission and fulfillment of prophecy, viz.
all aspects of His Coming.** By way of example, the Zionic mountain imagery
found in books like Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Zechariah make this
particularly clear. To try and divide the passages into 1st and 2nd
Coming pericopes defeats the purpose and confounds the overall image. The same
is true in the Olivet Discourse, which has perhaps more commonly been subject
to this artificial hermeneutic.
The New Testament appropriation of Zion/Mountain language in
the Gospels, the Book of Revelation and the language surrounding the New
Covenant in places like Hebrews, weds these various Kingdom concepts, always
within the Already and Not-Yet eschatological framework.
He appeared as a babe in the manger, to keep the law, die on
the cross, be raised from the dead and ascend into heaven, all foretold as
indicated in Luke 18, Luke 24 and elsewhere, but the giving, outpouring,
washing or baptism of the Spirit is also closely connected with these events.
Joel 2 makes this clear and Acts 2 ratifies this understanding, connecting the
various threads even while announcing that Christ is the enthroned Davidic
King. The latter issue is particularly striking given that it seemingly (in
time) has not been fulfilled. Only when one understands the
heavenly/eschatological nature of the Kingdom and the way in functions in This
Age, can one hope to grasp it. The query of the apostles at the Ascension
regarding the Kingdom and restoration of Israel remains to many an unanswered
and enticing question. A closer read of the text reveals that its answer is
found in Pentecost and its elaborating revelation of not only the nature of the
Kingdom but the fact that the Incarnate
Risen Christ is indeed (as Peter proclaims) the enthroned Davidic King, and
incidentally has been now for nigh on two millennia. Once again a duality
appears in that Christ has always reigned as King, especially in reference to
His people, and yet the historical events of the Incarnation and Resurrection actuate
in time (and reveal) a fuller understanding and aspect of this profound
reality. And of course there are yet further aspects of the Kingdom to be
revealed only when all things are put under him, something that is declared a
present reality and yet at the same time is reckoned as something yet future.
(See 1 Cor 15)
The Spirit's outpouring is connected to the Ascension as
Christ Himself taught in John 16 and yet just because many saints lived before
Pentecost (roughly 29AD) doesn't mean that they weren't able to receive the
benefits of it.
*The difficulties in finding apt terms to describe these
dynamics cannot be overstated. With prolepsis we can explain how something can
be stated or experienced before it has actually taken place and yet this term
is too narrow in many instances.
Asynchronicity is a term used in other disciplines and it can
be used here to refer to prophetic fulfillment(s) occurring at different times
and yet this term also proves limited unless supplemented by some kind of
concept of an atemporal basis. This is to differentiate time fulfillment(s)
from eternal atemporal categories dealing with heaven or the age to come. Or to
put it another way, sub- or imperfect typological fulfillments must be
differentiated from both temporal and eternal Christocentric anti-types. All
the prophecies are ultimately about Christ and yet they find their fulfillments
in various symbolic and incomplete ways throughout redemptive history.
Additionally Christ Himself accomplished earthly tasks which actually find
their relevance in the New Heavens and Earth, a reality formally actuated by
the Resurrection-Ascension.
In summary, while prophecies have an earthly temporal import,
their real Christocentric significance is found eschatologically in the age to
come. And thus an event that is essentially part of the eternal order may also find
its fulfillment in a series of typological (both partial and full) fulfillments
within this age.
We could employ the term Achronism (not to be confused with
anachronism) in order to express the nature of eschatological events. The
latter term (eschatological) is probably preferable and yet not everyone will
understand let alone agree upon what is meant by referencing eschatology. For
many this is referring to 'end times', which indeed it does but more than that
the concept refers to the Eschaton itself which marks the end of the age and
the end of time as we know it. Achronism specifically marks events as happening
outside of temporal limitation. Eschatological does as well but this is not
always clear nor agreed upon by all.
Additionally there are debates over the meaning of
temporality and to what extent it is affected or even eradicated in the age to
come. At the very least whether eternity is understood as an endless succession
of time or an effective timeless-ness, everyone should agree that time in the
new age will be of a different order. This can be empirically argued by our
conception of time in relation to light, the sun etc. These relations will
certainly change in the age to come. There are debates over whether time as we
know it is a convention or conceptual universal we use to describe and quantify
movements and patterns of light or whether it is something in and of itself.
If Biblical hints and suggestions of eternity being
timeless-ness are in fact metaphorical and in fact endless time is the paradigm
of the new order, then at the very least such a notion would completely
reorient common conceptions and connotations of what we call minutes, hours,
years, centuries etc... In other words if it is merely endless time, it won't
be 'time' as we know it.
The reader should understand these terms and discussions are
not being used as an attempt to wow the reader but instead reveal the limits of
our capacity for thought and understanding beyond the very narrow and
inadequate standards of sense experience. Using such terms are not expressions
of intellectual, theological or philosophical advancement but in reality are paltry,
grasping attempts to extract concepts that stretch linguistic conception to the
point of breaking.
** This is where some of the Preterists (the Full or Hymenaean
variety) get into trouble. There are reasons for understanding the Day of the
Lord as being connected to the 1st century, to the appearance of
Christ. And yet because of their reductionist understanding of prophecy and
prophetic fulfillment and due to grave deficiencies in their hermeneutics and
basic understanding of eschatology, some venture beyond the pale and end up
denying that Christ will yet return in time. The Day of the Lord is (eschatologically
speaking) a single event (inaugurated
in the 1st century) and yet as revealed in time – it is split by
millennia. A thousand years is as a day, and a day is as a thousand years.
While not specifically establishing a principle of asynchronicity, it at least
suggests that the Divine way of measuring time is not reducible to our human
categories and conceptions.