JN 7:37-43
Jottings on John…Pentecost…2017
Does v. 39 seem a bit odd? We know from many passages of Scripture how Holy Spirit in one way or another has been active - under various ‘guises’ - from the very beginning. Does whoever adds v. 39 do so because they’re puzzling over how to protect John’s doctrine that it’s God’s Word who tells creation into being? Go too far, though, in any direction, here, & we may end up ‘confounding the Persons & dividing the Substance’ of the Trinity as Athanasius warns us against doing!
Two Jewish scholars1 have just published a book on how the ancient Hebrews come over time to believe in YHWH rather than a collection of gods like other nations round about them. Much of their work is over my head, but I’m excited when they begin by saying things like the Bible being a network of contributions in which we can hear conversations between stories & poetry & prophecies & laws & biographies & so on & so forth. So far as Christians are concerned, JS then comes on the scene in His turn & adds His words that as often as not build on those that came before & that He inherits as His Jewish Faith. What Shinan & Zakovitch are saying is surely a participation in this very same continuing ‘conversation’. When we were mulling over this, my wife suggested it’s a bit like electricity. There’s always been electricity, but humans weren’t able to catch it, store it, harness it, & energise with it till it was ‘discovered’.
Try this for starters: Holy Spirit has always existed as One of the Persons of God, but isn’t publicly identified & revealed & made widely available till Pentecost. When we celebrate the giving of the Spirit to the Apostles & the early Church, & now to us, we’re keeping all the above connectivity alive & energising. By continuing that on-going conversation, building on that network of connections as living participants.
Are we conscious of Holy Spirit choosing us, & calling us, as preachers & people to keep this ongoing conversation between the written word & ourselves alive & well? Are we all alive to God, to ourselves, to each other, in continuing the connections through which contributors & contributions go on talking to each other, still? Are we letting God’s Spirit join up all the dots?
1 Shinan & Zakovitch, From Gods to God, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 2012 p.1
