All that said, there is a sense in which Pentecost does have
a special significance for NT believers.
I think it safe to say that as New Testament believers we
experience life in the Spirit in a greater fullness. Old Testament figures
would have the Spirit come upon them for great deeds and yet the True Presence
was found with the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies. This again is another
mind-bending revelatory truth in that believers possessed the Spirit, but not
in its fullness, they were regenerated by the Spirit but the Spirit-Presence in
space-time (for want of a better concept) was spatially located in the Temple.
The typology and chronology bend, warp and are interwoven with the eternal-eschatological
realities that believers participate in. A simple appeal to omnipresence does
not alleviate the difficulty.
Clearly the New Testament teaches that the Shekinah-Presence
is in the New Covenant Temple, within the Church made up of those in Union with
Christ, both corporately and individually. The interplay between the Spirit of
Christ, the Spirit-Temple on a corporate level and among individual people (also
reckoned as being temples) is yet another example of this system-defying
revelation. It can be apprehended to a point but attempts at comprehensive
explanation and systematising necessarily rely on reductionism and thus
minimise (if not decimate) certain aspects of this particularly rich and
wondrous series of multi-faceted doctrines.
While in some ways it may seem like the Old Testament was a
more exciting and satisfying era in which to live, the reality is the New Testament
is the supreme age as it is (through life in the Spirit) heaven itself in
earnest, that much closer to fullness, something we can experience (both fully
and in part) right now. This type of language smacks of equivocation to many
but again, the concepts are Spiritual and their analogy is not found in nature or
experience but in other things Spiritual. These are revealed doctrines and as
such they are not subject to the necessarily finite scrutinies of fallen
creatures but are to be trustingly submitted to and obeyed.
We have the completed Scriptures and as a result we possess a
vaster understanding of Redemptive History. This is something one can endlessly
ponder.
Old Testament saints lived chronologically under a lower
order, one flawed and incomplete. Its ethics were of a lower form, symbolic,
pedagogical and at times practical. Some will chafe at this assessment but
clearly many of the Old Testament ethics were temporary, holy because commanded,
contextual and as such were not intrinsic reflections of the character of God,
nor universal in scope or obligation. They were largely covenantal. They served
a purpose, as shadowy forms of heavenly realities, meaningful for those in
covenant with God and yet even this covenant conception is layered and
multifaceted. Ultimately the types failed, as indeed they were destined to do.
Our age is characterised as being an age of maturity as opposed to tutelage, of
sonship as opposed to servanthood. We don't need the hundreds of commandments
because we are to have a fuller understanding of our calling and what it means
to walk in Christ.
Again, the room cleaning illustration comes to mind, an
example I have utilised on more than one occasion. When our son was a small we
showed him how to clean his room. There was a list of items to be accomplished.
One must dust the shelves, make the bed, pick up this, put away that, etc. But
when he's older and more mature, he can simply be told to 'go' and clean his
room or even better, he knows to do it even without being told. This
illustration is in keeping with Paul's argument in Galatians regarding the Law
and how we in the New Testament relate to it. More could be said about Apostolic
statements in 2 Corinthians 3, Romans 7 and much of the book of Hebrews. These
passages reveal much and on a very practical level reveal just how gravely
Divine Law and the proper relationship between the Old and New Testaments has
been misunderstood.
The Old Covenant had a type of earthly glory represented in
the riches of Abraham and Solomon, in the dynastic splendour of the Davidic
line, in the military prowess of Joshua and yet the order failed, so poignantly
symbolised in Moses standing on Mount Nebo, looking out over the promised land
that had eluded him, a poignant symbol of Sinai's weakness and failure.
We live in a superior age. As faith-inducing as their visions
must have been we don't know how much prophets like Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel
understood them. We have a much greater clarity and a richer, fuller life in
the Spirit and yet how few realise it? How many despise it, even as Esau
despised his birthright?
Of course we're also called to a higher ethic. This will be
controversial to some as they believe we are not called to an ethic at all.
They call the very notion an imposition of 'law' and fear that calls to
holiness smack of legalism and works salvation.
On the contrary the New Testament does call us to a higher
walk. We have more and thus more is expected, even required. In the Sermon on the Mount there are debates over
Christ's teaching. Was he giving the correct understanding of the law or
enhancing and expanding it? The answer is both. There was a type of
righteousness attainable under Old Testament law (Luke 1.6, Phil 3.6, Job 1) but
it was substandard, weak and standing alone, was superficial and could not
save. It pointed to an elusive and yet deeper, vital and eternal holiness that
would drive the Old Testament saint to grace and salvation by faith.
Indeed many of these same forces and impulses are in effect
even now, and any righteousness we might seek to possess or sustain will fall
short, fail and result in little more than filthy rags. But in light of Christ
and the Spirit we are called to a higher heavenly standard, not the typological
heavenly standard of Earthly or Mosaic Israel, but the fulfilled true standard
of eschatological Israel, of heaven, of Christ Himself and those in
union-presence with Him.
Thus we are not called to earthly riches or to wield the
sword but we are called to live as those whose home is in heaven. We cannot
fully live out our eschatological life yet.
We still procreate, we are still granted temporal holy rites
which serve as signs and seals, as bridges or ladders communally connecting us
to our heavenly family, heritage and home. Through the Word these common
elements are transformed into holy blessings and tokens of heaven and yet they
are nevertheless accommodations to the present order. We still live in our
sin-cursed bodies but we experience a bridge-life, we live in both realms at
once, we are the people living all at once in this age and the age to come.
There are dangers in an over-realised eschatology which I think are best
represented in certain Baptistic theological tendencies (the downplaying of
Means as effectively superfluous or redundant and the attempt to reify or
absolutise (in this age) the consummate order). But at the same time it can be
safely said that the New Testament intends to teach us and hold us accountable
to Eschatological Ethics. And thus
our standard is much higher and of a different order than that of the Old Testament.
Some have certainly erred in over-realisation but there is another danger, that
of failing to recognise the redemptive-historical meaning of Pentecost, of life
in the New Covenant.
This is particularly important to understand in light of the
multitude of attempts by Christians to import Old Covenant concepts into the
Church and even to de-covenantally
import them into the world. In their attempts to sacralise the world, they in
fact de-sacralise the Covenant. As suggested earlier, the Old Testament order
was never meant to be understood universally, as something applicable to all
places and at all times. It was contextual and temporary, specific to a certain
people and place and for a specific time. There are certainly universal
principles which undergird it but the Old Testament or Covenant is contained
within a holistic package and thus can never serve as a model for the nations.
Additionally and perhaps most importantly the New Testament identifies it as
obsolete. Those that attempt to live by the Old Order and labour to apply it to
the world effectively negate the Coming of the Spirit, the profundity of its
meaning and the transformative nature of the New Covenant order.
In our Spirit-filled lives we are experiencing a greater
fullness and glory that surpasses the Old Testament. It may not be as pleasing
to the flesh as we do not witness the supernatural signs and wonders that
seemed to dominate the Old Covenant, a phenomenon repeated (briefly) under the
Apostles in order to temporarily establish and supernaturally ratify the new
order. But instead we can actually live a richer and more spiritually abundant
life if we would understand these things and submit to them.
Called to take up our cross, to follow the pattern of the
Saviour, we live as those who have no place to lay our heads. This does not
mean we need to be literally homeless but that is our ethos and how foreign
that is to the Church of the past 1700 years, the post-Constantinian order
known as Christendom.
Pentecost represents an essential facet of salvation in that
Christ's death and resurrection are applied to us or as others have said
redemption is accomplished and applied. The Spirit effects regeneration and
union.
And yet the work of the Spirit while tied to a specific calendar
date in the first century transcends the specifics of that chronological
moment.
But those living after that moment, living after the
historical events of redemption and the completion/abrogation of the old order
are able to more fully participate in the benefits of the New Covenant, the
salvation covenant. No longer living under a typological order we are called to
live as much as or as close as humanly possible to the reality of the New
Covenant and thus ethically, we are bound to the ethos of heavenly citizenship,
living as those who know this order is passing away. This argument looms large
in Paul's discussion in 1 Corinthians, a discussion founded on a
world-rejecting transcendent and eschatological epistemology which he
establishes at the beginning of the epistle. Key to this Gospel-Kingdom-Heavenly
Temple life is the power of the Holy Spirit, a mystery revealed, the Effector
of Union, the joy of salvation, the author, sustainer and finisher of our
Blessed Hope.