The systematic theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg proves very helpful for constructing a systematic-theological framework for the charismatic renewal of “inaugurated Kingdom theology” (as it surfaces within New Wine). But Pannenberg fails to do justice to present experiences of Christ, due to a deficient pneumatology. What happens if we infuse Pannenberg's theology with insights from Pentecostal theology? Well, that's exactly what Frank D. Macchia has been doing in "Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology".
“Spirit baptism is a baptism into the love of God that sanctifies, renews, and empowers until Spirit baptism turns all of creation into the final dwelling place of God. Along the way, Pentecostals will be justified in calling Christians to a Spirit baptism as a fresh experience of power for witness with charismatic signs following.”
Introduction: Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Omission
The
systematic theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg proves very helpful for constructing
a systematic-theological framework for the charismatic renewal of “inaugurated
Kingdom theology” (as it surfaces within New Wine). It confirms, for instance,
that the Kingdom-motif isn’t merely one of many Biblical themes, but the central theme to understand the
Bible as a whole. It also confirms that the eschatological Kingdom of God
indeed has been inaugurated in the
life and ministry of Jesus Christ (inaugurated eschatology - over against a realized eschatology and a future eschatology), and that the
Church is “sign and tool” of this Kingdom (Pannenberg speaks of “the presence
of the future”, reminiscent of New Wine-terminology). With Pannenberg’s
systematic theology, the understanding of salvation as “wholeness of life” (as
it is implied within the charismatic renewal of inaugurated Kingdom-theology)
becomes solidly grounded in soteriology.
Messianic salvation, Pannenberg convincingly argues, comprises the making-whole
of all aspects of creaturely life. It is inseparable from God’s reign:
salvation comes as the Kingdom of God breaks way in history, and will be
consummated at the eschaton.[1]
However,
when it comes to translating the above to concrete faith experiences and
practices in the life of the Church, Pannenberg downright disappoints. While Pannenberg throughout his Systematic Theology speaks fervently and boldly about the nature of
salvation in this-worldly and
“material” terms (social justice, peace, healing, deliverance from bondage,
participation in the divine life), and about the “presence of the future” in
the case of believers, he fails to translate this into concrete experiences and
practices. In his ecclesiological chapters (Part III of his Systematic Theology), he shows some
striking and disappointing shifts in emphasis: salvation is now narrowed down
to a present assurance of future salvation, not “materializing” in the present
life, and the future is merely present in the liturgical celebration of the
sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.[2]
As a matter
of fact, Pannenberg has been widely criticized by Evangelicals, liberation
theologians and Catholics alike, for his failure to do justice to present
experiences of Christ.[3] In
correlation with this, Pannenberg hardly pays any attention to the active role of the Spirit in the
believer, transforming the present life.
Pannenberg
briefly mentions “special manifestations in the course of life”, but these
aspects of the work of the Spirit hardly play any significant role in his
perception of the “presence of the future”, or the church’s calling to proclaim
the Kingdom of God. As with much trinitarian theology, pneumatology remains its
weakest link also with Pannenberg. Dutch Reformed theologian Maarten Wisse goes
as far as asserting that Pannenberg’s theology is “rather binary than
trinitarian”, and Finnish Pentecostal theologian Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen raises
the same issue as he critically comments on Pannenberg’s use of the
(impersonal) scientific concept of force field to describe the Spirit of God.[4] As Stanley
Grenz notes, it is obvious that Pannenberg
“tolerates no suggestion that some additional inspired word or some
supernatural working of the Spirit must be added to events.”[5]
As a result
of this, Pannenberg’s theology remains far less dynamic than he would seem to
intend. Despite his talk on “the future breaking in on the present”, the reign
of God turns out to be not yet actually transforming the lives of believers. In
the end, the Kingdom hardly seems to be “inaugurated” at all.
Kärkkäinen
suggests an interesting reason for Pannenberg’s omission of present experiences
of Christ. Being a classical German theologian, the faith experiences of
Christians within the Global Pentecostal and Charismatic movements apparently
have been beyond Pannenberg’s frame of reference.
“Pannenberg seems to live in a theological/ecclesiastical
world occupied by only the old, established churches and their traditions [and he
dismisses almost completely] the voices from outside the classical European
traditions, and does not engage in any kind of meaningful exchange with
feminist, non-Western, or other contextual voices.
As unbelievable as it sounds, he is able to finish a major
systematic theology for the third millennium, focussing on pneumatology in all
crucial topics, and does not even seem to know about the existence of the
Pentecostal/Charismatic movements.”[6]
Kärkkäinen
ends his essay with an incentive question:
“What would a genuine dialogue between ‘Pannenbergians’ and
Pentecostals look like?”
Frank D. Macchia: Infusing Pannenberg’s theology with Pentecostal experiences
In this
discussion paper, then, I will turn to a Pentecostal theologian who is very
much in dialogue with Pannenberg, and who may provide us with some “building
blocks” for a systematic-theological framework for the charismatic renewal of
“inaugurated Kingdom theology”: Frank D. Macchia, Professor of systematic
theology at Vanguard University.
Macchia is a
Pentecostal theologian who seeks to retrieve some of the distinct features of
Pentecostal theology, but who also
places himself firmly in the theological tradition of the Reformation. He
builds on the systematic theology of Pannenberg, but infuses this framework
with a charismatic reading, flowing from the charismatic experiences and practices
in Global Pentecostalism.
At this
point, we will confine ourselves to his Baptized
in the Spirit. A Global Pentecostal Theology (2006), in which he takes the
metaphor of “baptism in the Spirit”, and explores how it might function as an
organizing principle of a Pentecostal theology. [7]
In this paper, I will mainly summarize
Macchia’s line of thought, as relates Pannenberg’s understanding of the
inaugurated Kingdom of God to present experiences of Christ.
Spirit baptism: Both initiation and empowerment for witness, including charismatic experiences
Traditionally,
Macchia explains, Pentecostals tend to understand the concept of “Spirit
baptism” from Luke/Acts only, as charismatic and missionary empowerment. Luke understands baptism
with the Spirit primarily as a “clothing” with power by which believers bear
witness to Christ and advance the work of the Kingdom of God in the world (Luke
24: 49; Acts 1:8).[8] This
clothing with power certainly involves experiences,
as believers are gripped by the Spirit, and are powerfully inspired “to give of
oneself to others in whatever gifting God has created within.”[9]
However, the
Pentecostal tradition has to a large extent neglected Paul’s understanding of Spirit baptism. While Luke focuses on functioning in Christ as witnesses of
the Kingdom, Paul is primarily concerned with initiation: incorporation into Christ, by which believers become
members of the body of Christ. Therefore, Paul’s understanding of Spirit
baptism is primarily soteriological, emphasizing being in Christ. [10]
Macchia
criticizes traditional Pentecostalism – rooted as it was in the Holiness
movement and revivalism – for perceiving Spirit baptism as a “second blessing”
(a further stage in an ordo salutis, stemming
from an individualist, Pietistic spirituality), separating it from God’s
redemptive work in Christ.[11] Yet
he also criticizes other traditions for ignoring the charismatic experiences
altogether, separating union with Christ from experienced empowerment for
witness to the Kingdom.[12]
What Macchia
seeks to retain, is an understanding of Spirit baptism as an empowerment for
ministry (including extraordinary gifts of the Spirit), distinct from (and subsequent to) initiation into Christ, but keeping them closely together
theologically.[13] Likewise,
he seeks to broaden the understanding of Spirit baptism in order to move beyond the traditional Pentecostal
focus on personal experiences, and its tendency towards an other-worldly
spirituality.
Spirit baptism as the inauguration of the eschatological Kingdom of God
Interesting
for our inquiry is the broader eschatological framework that Macchia proposes
to do so, drawing from Pannenberg. [14]
Instead of depicting Spirit baptism as a personal charismatic experience
(traditional Pentecostalism), our understanding should be broadened using the Kingdom of God as an integrating
concept. The Kingdom of God has to do with both
- our personal (and communal) sanctification and empowerment (as God’s reign is gradually and partially actualized in our hearts and lives, and believers are equipped to bear witness in the world)
- and with eschatology and the entire creation (as God’s reign will be consummated).[15]
Drawing from Pannenberg, Macchia then argues that the coming of the Kingdom of God must be pneumatologically understood as “participation in, and union with, God”, through the indwelling of the Spirit:
- It is the presence of God in believers, through the indwelling of the Spirit, that sanctifies, heals and empowers to serve and bear witness to the Kingdom of God.
- It is also the presence of God, through the indwelling of the Spirit, that is the pneumatological substance of the eschatological Kingdom of God – that is already here and yet to come.
In other
words, baptism with the Spirit is not merely about personal transformation, but
must be understood eschatologically, in terms of the coming of God’s Kingdom in
all of creation.
As the
coming of the Kingdom of God is understood as our “participation in the
ever-expanding fullness of divine life through the presence of Christ”[16], the metaphor of Spirit baptism moves to the
centre of theology: It is through
baptism with the Spirit, that God’s plan of salvation enfolds in the world, and
will find its completion.[17]
“In Spirit baptism, the church is allowed to participate in,
and bear central witness to, the final sanctification of creation. Regeneration
by faith in the context of the gospel and the sacraments of initiation do not
grant one grace merely as a deposit that can later burst forth in charismatic
experience. Rather, the experience of new life in faith, hope, and love in the
context of the gospel, the sacraments, and the Pentecostal experience of
prophetic consecration (with charismatic signs following) allows one to
participate already in a Spirit baptism that is yet to come. It is always
present and coming, emerging and encountering.”[18]
Macchia’s central thesis, then, is that
“Spirit baptism is a baptism into the love of God that
sanctifies, renews, and empowers until Spirit baptism turns all of creation
into the final dwelling place of God. Along the way, Pentecostals will be
justified in calling Christians to a Spirit baptism as a fresh experience of
power for witness with charismatic signs following.”[19]
The Spirit as down payment of God’s indwelling in creation
In Christ,
Macchia argues,
“God has acted decisively to make the creation into a holy
temple, the very dwelling place of God.” [20]
Christ was
both the Bearer of the Spirit – anointed to proclaim the Kingdom of God (Luke
3: 21-22; 4: 18-21) and the Bestower of the Spirit. His outpouring of the
Spirit wasn’t merely a “support” for believers, but a “down payment” of the future indwelling of God in all creation
(Ephesians 1: 14; 1 Corinthians 15: 28).
This
proleptic presence of God in creation holds a promise for the continuity in
God’s movement from creation to new creation, as God will not abandon his
creation but heal and renew it. His presence through the Spirit in believers,
proleptically brings into creation “the powers of the age to come” (Hebrews
6:5).
“In the renewal of creation for the divine indwelling, God
can be said to be present already to establish the reign of the divine love and
life, overthrowing the reign of sin and death. This ongoing transformation
involves a sense of continuous abiding in God and God is us as God indwells us
penultimately as a foretaste of the final indwelling of all things. Decisively
inaugurated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the kingdom of God
becomes a dynamic within history through the outpouring of the Spirit that is
directed toward the divine indwelling in all of creation so that all things
might be conformed to Christ’s image.”[21]
Key passages
are 1 Corinthians 15: 22-28 and Romans 8: 15-16; 18-23, as all creation “will
be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of
the children of God” (who received the “Spirit of sonship”), as Christ “hands
over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion,
authority and power”, “so that God may be all in all.” The Kingdom, then,
involves “participation in the very presence of God.”[22]
Concrete experiences and practices in the life of the Church
Macchia thus
enhances Pannenberg’s insistence on the indwelling of the Spirit as God’s way
to fulfil his reign on earth.[23]
Where Pannenberg remained rather abstract and vague, Macchia is much more
precise and concrete, relating
Pannenberg’s proposal to experiences and practices in the life of
Pentecostal and Charismatic churches.
The
sanctifying work of the Spirit, preparing creation to be the final dwelling
place of God, is released in the lives of believers
“through powerful experiences of renewal and charismatic
enrichment that propel us toward vibrant praise, healing reconciliations,
enriched koinonia, and enhanced gifting for empowered service.”[24]
Experiences: Signs and wonders
The early
Pentecostals experienced “that empowered witness of the kingdom of God dawning
in the world was accompanied by visible signs of God’s righteous favour in the
bodily and social realms that anticipated the final new creation of all things
(Matt. 12:28).” As miraculous signs and wonders were “at the very substance of
Jesus’ mission to inaugurate the reign of God in the world and to overthrow the
reign of death, sin, and the devil”, such signs and wonders are naturally part
of the proclamation of the Church, too.[25]
Prophetic
speech, gifts of knowledge and wisdom, speaking in tongues, healing of the
sick, and the casting out of demons, are no bizarre phenomena on the fringes of
Christianity, but proleptic expressions
of God’s future presence, mediated through the indwelling of the Spirit as a
down payment of that future salvation. This
is how salvation touches on material, bodily, earthly reality.
Experiences: Signs of grace in a graceless
world
But there
are many other gifts as well – and Macchia explicitly refers to the “rich
intellectual heritage cherished in the Reformed tradition” by which “we
Pentecostals have been blessed.” And “the greatest release of the Spirit is in
the form of divine love, to which all these gifts point and from which they
draw their strength as pointers to the power of the kingdom to transform
lives.”[26]
In two
lengthy chapters on “a Spirit-baptized ecclesiology” and “the Spirit-baptized
life”, Macchia translates the previous into concrete practices, including
social action, political involvement, ministries of reconciliation and healing,
and also including the gifts of the Spirit (charismata) and signs and wonders. This also is how salvation touches on
material, bodily, earthly reality, as
“the Spirit in the koinonia and empowered mission of the
church seeks to draw humanity into communion with God and to inspire a sighing
for the day when all of creation becomes the temple of God’s presence to the
glory of God.”[27]
The Church
is to participate in the gospel, and to embody the gospel, in its communal life
and witness, in renewed relationships and koinonia, as “signs of grace in a
graceless world.” Macchia agrees with Pannenberg and the Reformed tradition
that these “signs of grace” include the proclamation and the sacraments of the
Church, but adds the charismata.
These signs of grace
“have their origins and ongoing power from the God who
baptizes in the Spirit of who gives of the triune life in order to inhabit the
creation and to draw it into divine koinonia.”[28]
Concluding
Pannenberg
disappoints when it comes to translating his bold assertions on the inaugurated
Kingdom and the “presence of the future” into concrete faith experiences and
practices in the life of the church, we said. His insistence that the Kingdom
comes through the indwelling of the Spirit, remained rather vague and unrelated
to actual experiences of the Spirit. We took up Kärkkäinen’s suggestion that
Pannenberg’s theology can be enhanced with Pentecostal perspectives, and
explored Macchia’s proposals for a renewed understanding of the metaphor of
Spirit baptism.
It can be concluded that Macchia indeed enhances Pannenberg’s insistence
that the Kingdom comes through the indwelling of the Spirit, by relating it to
Pentecostal experiences and practices. At the same time, Macchia corrects
traditional Pentecostal theology by moving beyond its narrow understanding of
Spirit baptism in terms of personal, empowering experiences, and perceiving
these experiences in soteriological and eschatological terms instead.
- · Spirit baptism should be understood both as initiation in Christ and as an empowerment for ministry, as an experienced reality (including extraordinary gifts of the Spirit).
- · Spirit baptism isn’t merely about personal, charismatic experiences, or as personal salvation, but should be understood in terms of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Put the other way around: The coming of the Kingdom of God should pneumatologically be understood as the indwelling of the Spirit.
- · The pneumatological substance of the eschatological Kingdom of God is the presence of God in creation, through the indwelling of the Spirit: Creation is to be the final dwelling place of God (as heaven descends on earth). The indwelling of the Spirit in believers is a down payment of the eschatological Kingdom.
- · The metaphor of Spirit baptism thus moves to the centre of theology: It is through baptism with the Spirit that God’s plan of salvation enfolds in the world, and will find its completion.
- · The sanctifying work of the Spirit, preparing creation to be the final dwelling place of God, is released in the lives of believers through powerful experiences of renewal and charismatic enrichment.
- · Prophetic speech, gifts of knowledge and wisdom, speaking in tongues, healing of the sick, and the casting out of demons, are no bizarre phenomena on the fringes of Christianity, but proleptic expressions of God’s future presence, mediated through the indwelling of the Spirit as a down payment of that future salvation.
See also (on Moltmann and Pannenberg):
- Salvation & Eschatology (3): Salvation is the Coming of the Kingdom of God
- Salvation & the Trinity (1): The Divine Dance of Love - Reconceiving the Trinity
- Salvation & the Trinity (2): Welcomed into the Divine Embrace - Reconceiving Salvation
Footnotes:
[1] Ronald Westerbeek, Wolfhart Pannenberg and the Presence of the
Future. An Exploration into Pannenberg’s Understanding of the “Presence of the
Future” in the context of charismatic renewal, unpublished research paper,
VU University Amsterdam (2013); Ronald Westerbeek, Life to the Full. From
Creation to Re-Creation. An exploration of a Protestant soteriological
framework to vindicate and assess the theological notion of “salvation as
wholeness” in the charismatic renewal of New Wine, Research master thesis, VU University Amsterdam (2014).
[2] Westerbeek, Wolfhart Pannenberg and the Presence of the Future; and Ronald
Westerbeek, The Spirit and the Presence
of the Future. A Survey of the Pneumatological Proposals of Michael Welker and
Frank D. Macchia in the context of charismatic renewal, unpublished
research paper, VU University Amsterdam (2013), 11-15.
[3]
Stanley J. Grenz, Reason for Hope. The Systematic Theology of
Wolfhart Pannenberg (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005, 2nd ed.), 199.
[4]
Maarten Wisse, Trinitarian Theology Beyond Participation.
Augustine’s De Trinitate and Contemporary Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2011);
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, ‘The Working of the Spirit of God in Creation and
in the People of God’, in: Pneuma,
Vol. 26: 1 (2004), 17-35.
[5]
Grenz, Reason for Hope, 53.
[6]
Kärkkäinen, ‘The
Working of the Spirit of God’
(2004), 34.
[7] Frank D.
Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit. A Global
Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). His study largely
addresses internal Pentecostal debates, as Macchia is highly critical of his
own tradition and aims at developing a more mature Pentecostal theology. I will
leave this for what it is, and focus on his pneumatological proposals that are
relevant to this inquiry.
[8] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 14, 57.
[9] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 14.
[10] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 15.
[11] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 29-32.
[12] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 61.
[13] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 20.
[14] Explicitly
so in response to some his reviewers: “It is also within this context that I
utilize Pannenberg’s understanding of the divine monarchy (reign) of God as
mediated by the mutually-dependent communion of persons (a mutual indwelling),
which ends in the divine indwelling of creation (and creation in God) as the
Son and the Spirit submit themselves to the will of the Father in overcoming
the reign of sin and death by the reign of the divine righteousness and life”
(Macchia, ‘Baptized in the Spirit: Reflections in Response to My Reviewers’,
in: Journal of Pentecostal Theology,
Vol. 16 (2008), 14-20).
[15] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 38-42.
[16] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 45.
[17] Also
Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit,
100-107 (“Many Pentecostals may not be accustomed to such a cosmic,
eschatological understanding of Spirit baptism. But Spirit baptism as a kingdom
and eschatological concept has this cosmic significance as its theological
context in the New Testament (…) Notice that Christ’s ascension and bestowal of
the Spirit and the Spirit’s gifts on the church (the symbol of Pentecost) have
as their ultimate goal that Christ ‘fill the whole universe’ with his presence
(…) In Pauline terms, the kingdom of God and the divine indwelling of creation
converge in the final deliverance of creation from the dominion of death
(bondage to sin and death) unto the liberating dominion of life”, 102-103; and
“Especially in the light of the Trinitarian context for the kingdom of God and
Spirit baptism, we can develop the life-transforming communion of God’s love as
the very heart of the reign of God established through Spirit baptism”, 104).
[18] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 86-87.
[19] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 60. Let this
then be, Macchia says, the Pentecostal contribution to the worldwide Church:
“Orthodox faith, that is rooted in the will of the Father as Creator, centered
in the Son as Spirit Baptizer and Inaugurator of the kingdom of God, and richly
directed toward the life of the eschatological Spirit in perfecting creation as
the final dwelling place of God” (112).
[20] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 89 (“Spirit
baptism in trinitarian perspective”).
[21] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 96-97.
[22] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 104. More on
participation, Trinity and perichoresis (drawing from Moltmann and Pannenberg,
complemented with Welker), 113-129.
[23] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 123.
[24] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 145.
[25]
Macchia criticizes traditional Pentecostal notions of miracles being
“supernatural”, flowing from a dualist world view. His own framework allows him
to understand miracles as being part of God’s renewal of nature: Miracles “are
not interruptions into reality that suspend the course of nature but rather
involve all of nature as graced to some extent already by God but, in wonderful
signs of future renewal, transform nature further in unprecedented ways. The
ordinary is not graceless, not is it abandoned in the midst of extraordinary
signs and wonders. It is taken up into the renewing presence of God so that it
can function on another level and in a different sense than that we can
exhaustively, rationally explain. Miracles represent nature in the power of the
Spirit reaching for a glimpse of its future renewal” (Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 147).
[26] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 151.
[27] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 156.
[28] Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 194.
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