T O WA R D S A P N E U M AT O - E C C L E S I O L O G Y: E X P L O R I N G T H E P N E U M AT O L O G I C A L U N I O N BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE CHURCH Greg Liston PhD Candidate AUT University and Carey Graduate School

In Christ, the Son of God exists bodily; in the Church, Christ indwells an ecclesial body. Such correspondence between the ontology of Christ and the Church is commonly recognised. What is perhaps underappreciated, however, is that this correspondence cannot be adequately examined without giving priority to the Spirit. This essay rst argues that understanding the connection between Christ and the Church from a pneumatological perspective is crucial, and then utilises this pneumatological connection to draw analogical insights about ecclesiology from the vantage point of Christology. In so doing, the constituent features of a Pneumato-Ecclesiology begin to emerge, as viewed from a Spirit-Christological foundation. There are two reasons that it is crucial to understand the connection between Christ and the Church from a pneumatological perspective. A rst and obvious reason is because Christs identity cannot be understood apart from the Spirit. The last few decades have seen signicant attention given to Christologies that interpret Christs identity (at least partly) through the category of the Spirit, and not solely through the category of the Son. Such Spirit Christologies claim that we cannot correctly understand the identity, ontology, and mission of Jesus Christ without introducing this category of the Spirit at the most fundamental level. From a biblical perspective, the Spirit was intimately involved in Jesus conception (Luke 1:35), birth (Luke 2:2528), baptism (Mark 1:912), ministry (Luke 4:1819), death (Heb 9:14), and resurrection (Rom 1:4). Spirit Christologies rightly argue from this deep functional involvement to an even more fundamental ontological identity. For example, Del Colle says I am arguing that who Jesus is proceeds from a basic and foundational pneumatological orientation.1 Not just Christs actions then, but his very identity cannot be understood without a pneumatological perspective.
1

Ralph Del-Colle, Spirit-Christology: Dogmatic Foundations for Pentecostal-Charismatic Spirituality, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 3 (1993): 9596.

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The second reason the pneumatological perspective is crucial is that it denes the relationship between Christ and the Church it is by the Spirit that the Church forms the one body of Christ. Paul states this explicitly. In his most extended outworking of the body image, he writes: For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free and we were all given one Spirit to drink. (1 Cor 12:13) Paul is not merely saying that the Spirit enables us to embrace the reality of unity in diversity as a functional community. More profoundly, his claim is that the Spirit makes the Church the body of Christ. Badcock comments: The Church as the body of Christ cannot be considered apart from this [the Spirits presence], for the ecclesiastical body of Christ is something that is mediated by the work of the Spirit, and cannot exist without the Spirit.2 Such an insight is not restricted to the image of the Church as the body of Christ, however, nor indeed to merely metaphorical connections between the loci of Christology and ecclesiology. The biblical text connects Christology and ecclesiology in three signicant ways: historically (the Church was founded by Christ), metaphorically (the Church is like Christ), and organically (the Church is in Christ), and for each of these the connection is facilitated in and through the Spirit. This point is signicant. If the Bible emphasises so strongly the pneumatological component of the union between Christ and the Church, then an adequate theological understanding of the correspondence between them simply cannot be formed without giving signicant attention to its pneumatological nature. Viewing Christology and ecclesiology through a pneumatological lens, parallels between a Spirit Christology and a Pneumato-Ecclesiology immediately become clear: 1) The Spirit conceives (Christ and the Church); 2) The Spirit sustains the communion (of Christ and the Church); 3) The Spirit conforms (Christ and the Church); 4) The Spirit directs and empowers (Christ and the Church); 5) The Spirit is displayed and mediated (by Christ and the Church). This paper utilises these pneumatological parallels in order to analogically view ecclesiology from the perspective of Christology. By the nature of analogy, each parallel has points of both clear continuity (because the Church exists in union with the incarnate Christ) and intentional discontinuity (because the Church is not simply a continuation or repetition of the incarnation). Moreover, as with all divinehuman analogies each
2

Gary D. Badcock, The House Where God Lives: Renewing the Doctrine of the Church for Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 85.

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parallel also has a clear asymmetry, for the existence and function of the Church depend completely on the existence and function of Christ.3 By examining these points of continuity, discontinuity, and asymmetry in detail, the constituent features of a Pneumato-Ecclesiology come into clear focus, founded as they are upon a prior Spirit-Christology. In particular, the Church is revealed as being tripartite in nature (the pneumatological union between Christ and the Church), relational in identity, unique in context, Christ-centred in orientation, dynamic in disposition, increasingly Christlike in appearance, indivisible in constitution, cruciform in shape, missional in purpose, and narrative in character. i the spirit conceives (christ and the church) The continuity in this rst parallel is simple and clear. Just as Jesus conception and birth was by the Spirit (Luke 1:35), so the conception and birth of the Church itself was by the Spirit (Acts 2). It is by the Spirit that the eternal Son became hypostatically united with a human nature, and it is similarly by the Spirit that Christ was (and is) mystically united with his Church. The consequence is that the Church is not just irreducibly human (as is clearly evident) but also irreducibly supernatural (as is sometimes overlooked). The Church is not solely (or even primarily) a human institution, but exists substantially because of its pneumatological communion with Christ. The Church cannot be understood merely sociologically any more than Christ can be thought of merely historically. In contrast it must be understood as having a tripartite nature it exists as the pneumatological union between Christ and the Churchs human community. Talking or thinking of the Churchs human community4 independently of its connection with Christ
3

This understanding of analogy in terms of continuity, discontinuity, and asymmetry takes as its source what Barth scholar George Hunsinger terms Barths Chalcedonian pattern. George Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth:The Shape of His Theology (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 34. Between the divine and human natures of Christ and consequently, according to Barth, between all divine and human relationships there is unity, dierentiation, and asymmetry: unity in that the two need to be considered together without division or separation; dierentiation in that they cannot be so mingled that either loses their own integrity without confusion or change; and asymmetry in that the relationship is ordered so the rst is independent and superior, the second dependent and subordinate. Hunsinger claims there is virtually no discussion of divine and human agency in the Church Dogmatics which does not conform to this scheme, page 187. 4 This phrase the Churchs human community refers to the entity that Christ unites himself with to form the Church. By denition, such an entity cannot include Christ within it, because it needs to be united with him in order to form the church. The sole purpose in categorising

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through the Spirit is as nonsensical as talking or thinking of the human nature of Christ independently of its hypostatic union with the eternal Son by the Spirit. The discontinuity associated with this parallel regards the sending and receiving of the Spirit. In terms of the incarnation, Christ receives the Spirit who is sent by the Father. In contrast, the Church receives the Spirit who is sent to us by Christ.5 Christ is thus both the receiver and giver of the Spirit,6 a discontinuity that requires explanation. In virtually every other case of God acting in or on the world, it occurs by the originating action of the Father as he speaks the Word through the Spirit. In this case, though, it is the incarnate Word of God who is the sender of the Spirit. How can this be? Catholic theologian David Coey provides a positive pointer towards the explanation by utilising the mutual love model of the Trinity.7 He suggests that within the Trinity, the focus of the Fathers love is on the Son, but when in the divine plan that love is directed beyond the Godhead, it is creative (in the creation of Christs humanity) and unitive (in that the result is not a mere union of persons but unity of person within the Son).8 The Spirit hypostatically unites the humanity of Christ with the person of the Son. As Coey explains: In the one act of nature and grace the humanity of Christ was created by the triune God and so radically sanctied by the Holy Spirit, sent thereto by the Father, that it became one in person with the eternal Son, and so Son of God in humanity.9 Moreover, Coey identies not just
such an entity is to recognise that talking or thinking in such a way is nonsensical, for the church cannot and does not exist apart from Christ. 5 The word receives is in inverted commas here, as it is used purely in a directional, and not in a temporal sense. Explicitly rejected is any implication that Christ or the Church existed before the receiving of the Spirit. The conceiving (by the Spirit) and the receiving (of the Spirit) should be considered as chronologically and logically synchronous. 6 See for example Thaddeus D. Horgan, Biblical Basis and Guidelines, in The Church in the Movement of the Spirit (ed. William R. Barr and Rena M. Yocum; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 1516. 7 Coeys work is utilised here because of its suggestive nature. As noted below at several points, it certainly has challenges. But nevertheless it points in an interesting direction that is worthy of reection. The intention here is to utilise the positive suggestions in Coeys work without accepting all of the problematic associations. 8 David Coey, The Incarnation of the Holy Spirit in Christ, Theological Studies 45 (1984): 472. Note that it could appear here that the Spirit creates the human rst and then the Son is hypostatically united with that human, but such a chronological sequence is clearly not Coeys intention. 9 Coey, The Incarnation of the Holy Spirit in Christ, 469. (Italics mine.) Note that by

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the love of the Father for the incarnate Christ as the Holy Spirit, but also (and pivotally) the love of the human Jesus for the Father. So as the Son is incarnated into creation as the human Jesus, in a closely analogous way, the Holy Spirit is incarnated into creation as the love of the human Jesus for the Father. Over his life and ministry, the love that Jesus has for the Father as the Son (identied as the Holy Spirit)10 is progressively realised in the humanity of Jesus. According to Coey, this stamps the imprint of the human Jesus on the so-called incarnate Holy Spirit, so that when Jesus dies, is resurrected, and gains the beatic vision in his humanity, not only has the incarnate person of Jesus fully realised his divine Sonship, but the incarnate love of Jesus has fully realised his divine Spiritship to the full measure that humanity can accommodate it. Finally, Coey notes Rahners proposition that human love for God is indistinguishable from and inextricably bound to human love for our neighbours,11 and concludes that the sending of the Holy Spirit on the Church by the human Jesus is simply the intrinsic and necessary counterpart of Jesus human but fully realised love for the Father. Without owning all of Coeys theological positions above,12 nor his nomenclature (particularly his unusual application of the term incarnate
using the words radically sanctied Coey may be implying that as an infant (or embryo even) the human Christ had attained the beatic vision, with a full human knowledge of the Father. Further, Coey appears to be suggesting that Jesus becomes the Son rather than being identically the logos by virtue of the hypostatic union. Whether or not either of these implications accurately reects Coeys position is beyond the scope of this paper, but neither is required or adopted for the course of this argument. 10 The implication of identifying the Holy Spirit specically as the mutual love of the Father and the Son calls into question the full personhood of the Holy Spirit, a problematic implication of Coeys understanding not required for the following analysis. 11 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations (trans. Karl-H. Kruger and Boniface Kruger; 23 vols.; London: Darton Longman & Todd, 1974), 6:23149. 12 There are several theologians who strongly critique Coeys position as outlined here, the two most notable being Paul Molnar (from a Barthian perspective) and Neil Ormerod (from a classical western perspective.) For Molnars critique, see Paul D. Molnar, Deus Trinitas: Some Dogmatic Implications of David Coeys Biblical Approach to the Trinity, Irish Theological Quarterly 67 (2002): 3354, Coeys response: David Coey, In Response to Paul Molnar, Irish Theological Quarterly 67 (2002): 37554, and Molnars response to Coeys response: Paul D. Molnar, Response to David Coey, Irish Theological Quarterly 68 (2003): 6165. For Ormerods critique see Neil Ormerod, The Trinity: Retrieving the Western Tradition (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2005). Also Neil J. Ormerod, Two Points or Four?-Rahner and Lonergan on Trinity, Incarnation, Grace and Beatic Vision, Theological Studies 68 (2007): 66173. And Coeys response to Ormerod: David M. Coey, Response to Neil Ormerod, and Beyond, Theological Studies 68 (2007): 900915.

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to the Holy Spirit) there is nevertheless signicant value to be found in the direction he takes.13 The fact that in the moving Paraclete passages of John 1416 it is Christ and not just the Father who sends the Spirit, and particularly the close connection between Christ going away and his sending of the Holy Spirit (e.g. John 16:7) suggest that through Jesus life and culminating in his death, resurrection, and ascension there is not only growth and development in the incarnate Son, but also in the relation between the incarnate Son and the Spirit. Indeed, if one thinks in terms of a relational ontology (as opposed to a substance ontology)14 then the change, growth, and development in the incarnate Christ and in his relationships are clearly interdependent. Further, if the Spirit could only be sent fully, permanently, and completely onto the Church after Christ had departed from the earth, then it is quite reasonable to suppose that it is Christ (as opposed to the eternal Son simpliciter) who was and is doing the sending. Finally, if it is Christ who sends the Spirit to the Church, then it is also reasonable to suppose that the role of the Spirit being sent to the Church is specically and uniquely determined by Christs humanity and its relation to the human nature of the Church. In other words, it is the incarnate Christ who sends the Spirit to the Church in order to unite us with his humanity. Our humanity is joined with his humanity by the Spirit he sends. Just as the Godhead experienced or learned what it was like to create by creating, and the eternal Son experienced or learned what it was like to become human in the incarnation, so the Holy Spirit in his (initial and continuing) anointing of the incarnate Son and his (nal and eternal) resurrection of the incarnate Son, experienced or learned through his actions what it meant to transform and redeem humanity. In particular, the Spirit learned what it meant/cost for humanity and divinity to be permanently and unalterably united together in the person of the Son. It
13 Also, see Steven M. Studebaker, Integrating Pneumatology and Christology: A Trinitarian Modication of Clark H. Pinnocks Spirit Christology, Pneuma 28 (2006): 520. In this article Studebaker eectively applies Coeys ideas to Clark Pinnocks Spirit Christology. 14 The terms relational and substance ontology are utilised in broad terms here, and refer to the commonly noted turn to relationality in theological understanding of the last few decades. So rather than a person being an individual substance with a rational nature, as Boethius and the western tradition would have it, the ontology of a person is understood as intrinsically and irreducibly relational. See for example Stanley J. Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 11762, for a discussion of the relational ontology of the Godhead. See also Thomas Smail, Like Father, Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in our Humanity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), for a corresponding discussion on the relational ontology of humanity.

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is this experienced Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus the incarnate Son, who is sent to the Church, drawing and wooing us, uniting our humanity to that of the incarnate Son. And as he makes us one with Christ we share in the incarnate Sons permanent and unique relationship with his Father, a relationship that itself is enabled through the same Spirit. The Church then, should be understood precisely as the pneumatically-enabled relational union between our humanity and that of the incarnate Sons. The continuity of this parallel, then, is that just as the Spirit conceived and sustained Christ during the incarnation, so he conceived and sustains the Church. The discontinuity is that while the Spirit is sent to Christ during the incarnation, the Spirit is sent by Christ to the Church. And this leads directly to the asymmetry. The Church of God exists on earth only because in and through the incarnate Son, the Spirit of God is fully released to humanity, uniting the human community of the Church with Christ. A common biblical image connecting Christology and ecclesiology profoundly illustrates this facet. The Pauline Epistles often describe Christ as the foundation of the Church (1 Cor 3:11) or as its cornerstone (Eph 2:20), or in the most detailed outworking as a living cornerstone (1 Pet 2:4, 68). But in each case, the context of the metaphor is both christological and pneumatological. The Churchs foundation, cornerstone, or living cornerstone (which is Christ) is for the building of a temple where Gods Spirit dwells (1 Cor 3:16, Eph 2:22, 1 Pet 2:5). The conclusions of John and Lukes gospels similarly emphasise the point that the Church exists because of the release of the Spirit on humanity through the work of the incarnate Son.15 In Johns gospel, Jesus nal commissioning words to the community of his followers are about being sent into the world lled with the Holy Spirit that he gives to them (John 20:2123). Luke similarly nishes his gospel with Jesus assurance that he will send the promised Holy Spirit (Luke 24:4549).16 In fact, viewed together, Luke-Acts provides the preeminent description of this historical link. New Testament scholar Graham Twelftree notes clear and signicant parallels between the lives of Jesus and the early Church, in preaching (both proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God), healing and exorcising
15

The gospel of Matthew nishes with a similar promise to that in Luke and John but in this gospel Jesus claims that he himself will be with his disciples (Matt 28:1920). Reading the text theologically, we would interpret this as a reference to the Spirit, but it is not explicit in the text. Mark, in contrast to the other three gospels, nishes quite rapidly without any parting words to the community (excluding the additional section not contained in the earliest manuscripts). 16 The parallel passage in Acts specically identies this gift from Jesus as the Holy Spirit.

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(both perform extraordinary signs and wonders), prayer (a priority for both), and in character qualities (both are described as full of power, grace, joy, and both elicit responses of fear through their ministry).17 But primarily, Twelftree notes the parallels between the Spirits involvement in the conception of Jesus life and the inauguration of his ministry, and the similar involvement of the Spirit in the early life of the Church and the inauguration of its ministry. Just as Jesus ministry was inaugurated and empowered by the Spirit so the followers of Jesus were and, by implication, should continue to be empowered by the same Spirit.18 The Spirit, however, should not be seen as simply the primary parallel between the early life of Jesus and the early life of the Church, as Twelftree does. The Spirit is much more than merely the rst among many parallels he is the source and root cause of them all. Examining the biblical text beyond Luke-Acts enables us to signicantly strengthen our understanding of these parallels, and to see that the Spirit is the root and underlying cause of each of them. For just as the Spirit anointed Jesus to preach (Luke 4:18), so he anoints the early Church to do so (Acts 2:14). As the Spirit empowered Jesus to heal (Luke 4:18), so he empowers the early Church (1 Cor 12:9). As the Spirit enabled Jesus prayers to connect him with the Father (Luke 10:2122), so the Spirit connects our prayers with the Father even those we cannot express (Rom 8:2627). As the Spirit reveals Jesus character and nature (John 16:3235), so the Spirit enables the fruit of Jesus character to be seen in the Church (Gal 5:2225). In each of these acts the Spirit is not just one parallel among many, one characteristic connecting the Church historically with the incarnation, he is the sole dening and constituent feature that makes the Church what it is.19 As Twelftree rightly concludes
For more information see Graham H. Twelftree, People of the Spirit: Exploring Lukes View of the Church (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2009), 3234. See also Kevin N. Giles, The Church in the Gospel of Luke, Scottish Journal of Theology 34 (1981): 12146. 18 See Twelftree, People of the Spirit, 32. 19 Twelftree makes the argument in his analysis of Luke-Acts that the Church is Christo-centric and not pneuma-centric. Twelftree, People of the Spirit, 20507. The primary basis for his claim is that Jesus instituted the Church in the calling of the disciples before the coming of the Spirit. Such an understanding, however unnecessarily diminishes the role of the Spirit in the life of Jesus, and assumes an unnecessary mutually exclusive distinction between characterising Christ and the Spirit as the dening centre of the Church. Further, and ironically, making such a distinction runs directly against the gamut of evidence in Luke-Acts presented in the remainder of Twelftrees book. If, as Twelftree realises and notes, this Jesus who was conceived by the Holy Spirit (page 31), who had a ministry that was inaugurated and empowered by the Holy Spirit (page 31), who founded a Church that has the Spirit as its dening characteristic (page 208), at a time that Luke looks back on and calls the Churchs beginning (page 28), then
17

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Luke establishes the coming of the eschatological Spirit as the dening event and experience of the Church. Christians are people of the Spirit. Thus, if Luke was asked what determined and characterised Christianity or the Church he would probably say that those who are part of it are people of the Spirit.20 From a biblical perspective, then, the asymmetrical connection between the conception of Christ and the Church is because Jesus, as a person in history, fully and completely anointed with the Holy Spirit as a human, exalted above all that was created, founded the church by breathing the Spirit onto it, thereby giving it life. i i t h e s p i r i t s u s ta i n s t h e c o m m u n i o n ( o f c h r i s t and the church) The Bible, however, doesnt focus merely on Christs foundational role in the Church. Christ is very much active in and connected to the Church throughout its history. So a direct and signicant corollary to the Spirits conceiving Christ and the Church is that it is not a once o event but a continuous action. The Spirit sustained Christ in the hypostatic union through his communion with the Father and the Spirit sustains the Church in its life-giving connection with Christ, and in him through the same Spirit to the Father. Perhaps the most convincing evidence for the organic identity that exists between Christ and the Church is the repeated New Testament use of phrases referring to the Church being in Christ or Christ being in us. Although the phrase is used in dierent ways, most commonly it refers to the Churchs present status. For example, Pauls repeated description of his fellow believers in Romans 16 as in Christ suggests he uses the term not dissimilarly to how we use the word Christian. Being in Christ simply means that by grace, and in various particular senses depending on the context, what is true of Christ is true of us.21 In particular, a primary implication is that just as Christ is the Son of God, we too are sons and daughters of God. But being related to the Father like Christ does not mean we are relating to the Father like Christ. Having the status of being sons and daughters does not mean that we are actually experiencing a lial
surely it is safe to suggest that the Church is centred around not just Christ but the Spirit as well. 20 Twelftree, People of the Spirit, 32. 21 See the discussion in C.F.D. Moule, The Origin of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 4769.

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relationship with our heavenly father. How does our sonship become more than a status, but a reality of fellowship an active relationship? Paul explains by noting that because we are sons [i.e. our status], God sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out Abba Father [i.e. our relationship] (Gal 4:6). So we appropriate sonship by means of the Spirit of Christ. We call the Father Father because the Spirit testies to us that we are actually children of God (Rom 8:16). Again, there are clear continuities here, particularly when Jesus life is viewed through the insights of a Spirit Christology. Just as the Spirit sustained Jesus lial communion with the Father during the incarnation and now in glory, so he sustains the Churchs lial communion with the Father. Jesus in his incarnation always had the status of Sonship, but he chose not to act independently of his human nature, and as such did not utilise the power of his divinity to enable him to do more than a human being can intrinsically achieve. Rather, Jesus remained in active fellowship with the Father through the Spirit. Jesus status was that of being Gods Son, and during the incarnation this sonship was appropriated in intimate fellowship with the Father through the Spirit. Similarly, we have the status of being sons and daughters, and we appropriate that status in the reality of intimate relationship with the Father through the Spirit in union with Christ. The associated asymmetry is that the Churchs relationship with the Father is only in Christ. It is only because the Church is in Christ that we relate to the Father as his sons and daughters. Indeed it is precisely Christs lial relationship with his Father in which the Church participates. Thomas Torrance explains this pivotal asymmetry through a cautious analogy with the theological couplet of the anhypostasia/enhypostasia of Christ. Anhypostasia would mean that the Church as Body of Christ has no per se existence, no independent hypostasis, apart from atonement and communion through the Holy Spirit. Enhypostasia, however, would mean that the Church is given in Christ real hypostasis through incorporation, and therefore concrete function in union with him. That is why to speak of the Church as the Body of Christ is no mere gure of speech but describes an ontological reality, enhypostatic in Christ and wholly dependent on Him.22
22

Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement and the Oneness of the Church, Scottish Journal of Theology 7 (1954): 254.

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The implication is that the Churchs ontology is not just intrinsically tripartite but also intrinsically relational. The Church is constituted by its participation in the Sons lial relationship with the Father. Just as the ousia of God is intrinsically relational, so the Churchs identity is constituted relationally. In Christ we experience the fatherhood of God through the mediation of the Spirit. Utilising the Christological analogy, we are led to view the Church as a single entity, which communes as this single identity a single subject with the Father. The Christological vantage point thus enables us to view the Church as a whole in its unity with God (i.e. the vertical relationship).23 What is being emphasised from this perspective is the mark of the Church as one. The Church is one primarily because there is one Christ (Eph 4:46), and together by the one Spirit we as one Church participate in Christs one relationship of Sonship with his one Father. The discontinuity in this parallel of communion regards our entry point into this one lial relationship. Christs lial relationship with the Father is one of nature, the Churchs is one of grace. He is Son by virtue of being begotten, we are sons and daughters by virtue of being adopted. Christ began his human life in relation with the Father, we must undergo a qualitative transformation in order to participate in this relationship. The Church is thus formed or created through the transformation of individuals into the body of Christ, whereby we as many persons and yet one people are united with Christ by the Spirit, and thus participate in Christs lial relationship with his Father. The transformational change that we undergo is thus qualitative and individual.24 In the ontologically dening new relationship through the Spirit that connects us with Christ and in him to the Father, we (unlike Christ) are fundamentally altered. In biblical language, we are born again (John 3:119), we become new creations (2 Cor 5:17). The Church is thus both Christ-centred in orientation and unique in context, for our ontological transformation to be a part of his body is dened by a new relationship with Christ, becoming a member of his body and cannot take place otherwise.25
23 This is not to say that the horizontal perspective is absent or diminished in an overall and balanced Pneumato-Ecclesiology, but simply that this particular aspect is not clearly visible from the present vantage point. The view through the lens of the Spirit from the starting point of Christology sheds little light on and gives an inadequate view of the horizontal relationships that exist between Church members. The analogical viewpoint from the Trinity, however, provides a comparatively unhindered view of such horizontal relationships. 24 This is in contrast to the quantitative and communal conformation to Christs image that the Church undergoes, as discussed in the next subsection. 25 That our ontological transformation is to be identied with a new relationship is a point

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Perhaps the most erudite and balanced description of this transformation is in the work of the Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance, and particularly his notion of onto-relationships.26 Torrance notes that human existence; even at the created, biological level is relational: it is apparent that man must be regarded as an essentially relational being, who is what he is as man through subsisting in the being constituting relation of the Creator with him.27 But people have fallen from this created, relational state so that they are no longer the beings they ought to be either in relation to God or in relation to one another.28 Nevertheless, a remnant of our original state remains; in that we are aware that we ought to be other than we are, even though we can do nothing to change our ontological, fallen state. Gods determination that people should be with him, however, triumphs over our fallen nature. Torrance points to Jesus as the true imago Dei, and thus identies him as the only genuine human being. Moreover, inJesus it became nally established thatfor man to live in union with God is to become fully and perfectly human.29 Further, because Jesus unites divine and human nature within his one person, the humanity of every manis bound up with the humanity of Jesus, and determined by it.30 The consequence according to Torrance is that we are but humanised men and women, for we are not human in virtue of some essence of humanity that we have in ourselves, but only in virtue of what we receive from his humanity.31 Strictly, God is the only true person, as an inherently relational being. We, in contrast,
popularly associated with John Zizioulas, although as some have rightly noted his work excessively minimises the personhood of created but unredeemed humans. For example, Gunton writes; If Christ is the mediator of creation as well as being mediator of salvation and the head of the Church, his body, does it not follow that even our biological selves are already personal, as created? Zizioulas is right, surely, in his assertion that person is an eschatological concept; but is not the persons eschatological realisation anticipated already in creation, albeit less truly under the conditions of sin and death than in the community of salvation? Colin Gunton, Persons and Particularity, in The Theology of John Zizioulas (ed. Douglas H. Knight; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 105. 26 In the explanation that follows we utilise Torrances 1988 essay; Thomas F. Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity of Man in the Christian Tradition, Modern Theology 4 (1988): 30922. There are, however many sources where Torrance addresses these themes. For an overview, see Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 3942. It is unfortunate that Torrance uses gender exclusive language, but it has not been altered. 27 Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 311. 28 Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 312. 29 Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 313. 30 Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 317. 31 Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 318.

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are personalised persons, we are persons only through what we receive from Jesus Christ and become in union with him and indeed in communion with the fullness of personal Being in the Holy Trinity. For us really to be personal, therefore, is to be in Christ.32 This new ontological relationship (onto-relationship) of persons in communion with Christ occurs precisely by the Holy Spirit. Indeed it would perhaps not be an exaggeration to say that for Torrance Jesus is the means, with the Holy Spirit as the end of our salvation.33 What has happened through Christs incarnation and atoning sacrice is that the profound ontological tension between our human being and the Holy Spirit has been healed so that the Holy Spirit is now freely given to us in all the fullness of his lifegiving and sanctifying presence.34 For a person in Christ is armed with a spiritual wholeness and a new ontological interrelation with others that transcends his original creation, for now he exists not just alongside of the Creator, but in such a way that his human being is anchored in the very Being of God.35 Summarising, then, in terms of continuity, the parallel of communion reveals that the Church is ontologically constituted in relationship with the Father through the Spirit. In terms of asymmetry, it illustrates that the Church is ontologically constituted in Christ through the Spirit, and only by virtue of this position in Christ do we share his lial relationship with the Father. In terms of discontinuity, it points us to the ontological transformation undergone as biological individuals enter Christs body the Church. The Church is thus relational in identity, Christ-centred in orientation and unique in context: we are identied precisely as the one community of those who share in Christs lial relationship with his Father.
Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 321. We note that on this point there are close parallels between Torrances theological understanding and that of Eastern Orthodoxy. In a discussion of these parallels, for example, Habets notes that Torrances pneumatology is in general agreement with this [ie. an Eastern Orthodox understanding], see Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance, 149. He then goes on to quote Lossky saying For the true end of the Christian life is the acquiring of the Holy Spirit. See Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke and Co. Ltd, 1957), 196. 34 Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 321. 35 Torrance, The Goodness and Dignity, 321.
33 32

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iii the spirit conforms (christ and the church) Human nature is not static. Our mind develops; our will sharpens; our emotions deepen. Given that ontology is intrinsically relational, then just as our physical capability grows, so our human nature grows as well. The two are inseparable. Development is the very essence of humanity. Jesus, as fully human, changed, developed, and grew throughout his life (Luke 2:52). And as this happened, Christ was increasingly conformed into the image of God by the Spirit. As such, the hypostatic union of Christ was not merely initially conceived by the Holy Spirit, but it was by the Holy Spirit that Jesus grew into his own skin so to speak. As Catholic scholar Heribert Mhlen recognised, the Spirit sanctied or conformed the human nature of Jesus so that it could be more and more fully united with the divine Logos.36 The parallel here is that just as Christ was conformed into the image of God by the Spirit, so the Church is conformed into the image of Christ by the Spirit. It is by the Holy Spirit the Church is being sanctied so that it can be more fully united with Christ, and so more fully reect him. The implication is that the Churchs identity should be recognised as being dynamic in disposition. The ontology of the Church is not static, something that just is. Rather the ontology of the Church grows and develops, just as human nature (and Jesus humanity in particular) grew and developed.37 The analogy thus reveals a nuanced understanding of the Church as Christs body. In contrast to a Reformed understanding (e.g. Barth, for whom the Church is fully and always the body of Christ, but only a part of it), 38 and a Eucharistic understanding (e.g. Zizioulas, for whom the Church is rhythmically the body of Christ),39 the biblical references to Christs body can be interpreted not merely as a state of being but also as a state of becoming. The Church both is the body of Christ and is becoming the body of Christ. It is becoming the body of Christ in the sense that as
See Gary D. Badcock, Light of Truth and Fire of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 14553. A key example of this sanctifying process is seen in Gethsemane where the struggle was the most intense and the culmination of the union the most complete. 37 This is not to imply that nature is independent of person, in some way. Rather, that as a nature (either human or ecclesial) develops and grows, so the reality of the person can be more and more clearly displayed. 38 Kimlyn J. Bender, Karl Barths Christological Ecclesiology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 194 95. 39 See Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993), 28788.
36

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the Church grows and develops through time, it is increasingly transformed by the Spirit to achieve a greater communion with Christ, fully realising the potential of its ontological union and identication at the eschaton. The Church is becoming the body of Christ in the sense that it is being prepared for that day. And it already is the body of Christ in the sense that Christ has already united himself to the Church, with the promise of a fuller and greater communion to come. Just as the not guilty verdict of the nal judgement is enacted at the present time (Rom 3:26), in precisely the same way the future union is (in a nuanced sense) enacted at this moment, through the arrabn (deposit) of the Spirit.40 Through the Spirit, the Church both is the body of Christ, and is becoming what she already is. One clear benet of the continuities arising from this parallel of communion, then, is that it paints a picture of ecclesial journey and development that naturally incorporates the many biblical images that describe the Church this way, particularly the prominent image of the Church as Christs bride.41 Although this metaphor is perhaps less commonly utilised in contemporary theology,42 its biblical signicance is in no way inferior. The body metaphor is predominantly Pauline, while the bridal metaphor is both contiguous with the Old Testament picture of Israels betrothal (and unfaithfulness) to God,43 and gets broadly repeated across the entirety of the New Testament. The image of betrothal appears in the Gospels (e.g. Matt 9:1417, Matt 25:113, Mark 2:19, Luke 5:3335), in the epistles (e.g. Rom

See note 44 below. Note that there is some biblical motivation for interpreting this bride of Christ image as being more than merely a metaphor. Brewer, for example, notes the extreme lengths that Paul goes to in order to explain why the marriage covenant between Christ and the Church applies not just to Gentiles but to Jews who had an existing marriage covenant (Rom 7:14). He writes, Paul must have been tempted to say that the analogy of a marriage covenant breaks down at this point. However, like the prophets, he regarded it as more than an analogy. This marriage of God to Israel was a solemn binding covenant which could not simply be disregarded, David Instone Brewer, Three Weddings and a Divorce: Gods Covenant with Israel, Judah and the Church, Tyndale Bulletin 47 (1996): 22. Most commentators are content with acknowledging a literal covenant between God and Israel (or Jesus and the Church), which parallels in very many respects an Ancient Near Eastern marriage covenant, but is not to be literally identied as one. 42 Although it may be becoming less neglected. See for example, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology: Spouse of the Word (trans. A. V. Littledale; vol. 2; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991). 43 For a description of the continuity between the OT and NT images, see Brewer, Three Weddings and a Divorce: Gods Covenant with Israel, Judah and the Church, 125.
41

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7:24, 2 Cor 11:2, Eph 5:25) and comes to fruition with the wedding supper of the lamb (Rev 19:927). While the body image implies a unity of subject, metaphorically melding Christ and the Church into a single organism, the bride image emphasises the intimacy of relationship while the pair remain distinct identities. The metaphors primary thrust is on the Churchs journey of preparation. Just as a future bride in the ANE was set apart for one husband, and prepares for her wedding by keeping pure and making herself ready, so the Church is set apart for Christ, and prepares by keeping pure and making herself ready. The outworking is clear: the Church is Christs and his alone; we must remain faithful, preparing ourselves for the day when he returns and unites us with him fully, completely, and forever. But the Spirit is just as central for the bridal image as for the body image. If the Church is beholden to Christ how has this engagement been conrmed? By the Spirit. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are Gods possession to the praise of his glory (Eph 1:1415; see also 2 Cor 1:22, 5:5.)44 And how does the Church go about keeping pure and making herself ready? By the Spirit. It is the work of Christ that initially made the Church pure and hence eligible for marriage. The old covenant united people to Yahweh by the law, but the Church could not and Israel did not remain faithful to God through this means. But Jesus death has released us from the law (Romans 7:14), so that we are no longer prisoners of sin. But having thus been puried and hence become eligible for marriage, we are to remain pure and make ourselves ready. A bride gets ready by putting on garments of ne linen; the Church gets ready by clothing herself with righteous acts (Rev 19:8) or by bearing fruit for God (Rom 7:4). To do this is to serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code (Rom 7:5), to demonstrate lives lled with the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:25). It is by the work of Christ, then, that we are eligible for marriage to him; but it is by the Spirit that we are marked as his future bride. Similarly, through the Spirit we are enabled
44 None of the three passages noted above are bridal images and it is dicult to make the case directly from the New Testament that the word translated deposit here (arrabn) refers (even obliquely) to an engagement ring, although some commentators do utilise it this way. See for example Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Rich: An Expository Study of The Epistle to the Ephesians (Wheaton: Victor, 1977), 24. Whatever the terminological usage of arrabn, however, the truth being alluded to in such an identication (i.e. that the Holy Spirit is the present conrmation of the future promise of full union with Christ) is undoubtedly valid. See also David J. Williams, Pauls Metaphors: Their Context and Character (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1999), 53.

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to remain pure and to prepare ourselves for the coming wedding. Just as the Spirit causes the Church to be Christs body, so the Spirit causes the Church to become Christs promised bride. The Spirit enables the Church to grow into being not just eligible but worthy to be Christs bride. The parallel between the Spirits role in conforming Christs humanity (to the Son) and conforming the Church (to Christ) gives an illuminating picture of the Church growing up, becoming more aware over time of who she is, and through this increasing knowledge and obedience being moulded into an increasingly perfect image of Christ. This coincides closely with the picture of the Church as the bride of Christ, being prepared by his Spirit for the eschaton when full union and communion is nally realised. These biblical images are often mentioned simultaneously (e.g. Eph 5:2533, 1 Cor 6:1217) and thus almost certainly refer (at least metaphorically) to a common truth. Whether the Church is understood primarily as the body or the bride of Christ, then, it is characterised by being increasingly Christ-like in appearance. There are two key discontinuities within this parallel, however: the rst relating to our entry into the conformation process; the second concerning the extent we live up to it. Regarding the former, this is simply a clearer statement of the discontinuity discussed in the previous section. Christ in his humanity is increasingly conformed to who he already is; we in entering the Church are rst changed into something fundamentally new. We are transformed before we can be conformed. The change and development that occurred in Christ is quantitative, in the sense that he started life already in relationship with the Father. Christ was intimately connected by the Spirit from his conception, but was nevertheless limited by his inherent createdness and humanity. As his human characteristics grew and developed, and as the Spirit increasingly conformed his human will to the divine will, so he increasingly became who he was. C.S. Lewis wrote of one of his ctional characters as having at every age the beauty proper to that age.45 We might similarly speak of Christ as having at every age the perfection proper to that age. So Christ was perfect, and a perfect reection of God was ever and always in Christ, but as a human this perfection included change, growth, and development, so that, in his humanity and within both its age-dened and creaturely limitations, Christs humanity was increasingly con-formed
45 C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces, in Selected Readings (London: HarperCollins, 2002), 462. The quotes extension is equally applicable and profound: she was according to nature; what every woman, or even every thing, ought to have been and meant to be, but had missed

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into the image of obedient sonship by the Spirit. The Church, in contrast is both trans-formed and con-formed into Christs image. More accurately, the Church is formed or created through the trans-formation of individuals into the body of Christ, whereby we as many persons and yet one people are united with Christ by the Spirit, and thus participate in Christs lial relationship with his Father. The change that we undergo is thus qualitative and individual before it is quantitative and communal. But even following this transformation, the Churchs quantitative and communal conformation to the image of Christ must be distinguished from Christs. For while Jesus conformation is perfect within his creaturely and age-based limitations, the Churchs conformation is certainly not so. The action of the Church is (at times) sinful, because its being is (in part) sinful. It is precisely because of this second discontinuity between Jesus and the Church that Barth made such a strong distinction between the true and false, or the sanctied and the sinful Church. Some authors suggest that Barth was forced into such a sharp distinction because of his thin doctrine of the Spirit, which leans toward collapsing the doctrine of the Spirit into the doctrine of Christ within the loci of ecclesiology.46 Whether or not such an accusation is warranted, a thick doctrine that recognises the Spirits unique bridging role in the redemption of humanity certainly overcomes this tendency. Anglican theologian Gary Badcock, for example, examines the point where the Father turned his face away from Jesus on the cross a point at which the vast majority of scholars concede that Jesus was truly full of (our) sin and notes that at that point the Father and Son were still one with each other because they were united through the Spirit.47 From the basis of this Spirit Christology, he comments: It is not something foreign to God to be at one with himself in otherness. The way of the triune God is not only such that God can be both here and there without contradiction, but that God can condescend to exist in the contradiction of sin and death, and yet remain one with himself.48
See for example Joseph L. Mangina, Bearing the Marks of Jesus: The Church in the Economy of Salvation in Barth and Hauerwas, Scottish Journal of Theology 52 (1999): 32239. Note that Mangina doesnt use precisely this terminology, however. 47 This paragraph summarises one particular exploration in theology contained in Badcock, The House Where God Lives, 194209. 48 Badcock, The House Where God Lives, 203.
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Badcock then looks out from the basis of this Spirit Christological understanding at the Church, and notes that just as at the cross the Spirit united two things that were alien to each other (the Father in his holiness and the incarnate Son in our sinfulness), so he does it in the community of the Church. The Spirit reaches beyond the small grasp of our own community and embraces not only those who seem alien to us, but supremely what seems strictly alien to God. Badcock goes on to develop a theology of otherness, the way the Church through the Spirit can and should embrace people who dont belong in a Church. He concludes with these words, The Spirits passing over into what seems incompatible with it isa fundamental dimension of the Spirits work, and a fundamental possibility with which the discipline of ecclesiology has scarcely begun to grapple.49 The consequence of a thick doctrine of the Spirit is that there can be no sharp distinctions made between the holy and sinful sections of the church. Indeed no sharp inter-ecclesial divisions true/false, sanctied/ sinful, visible/invisible can be justied, meaning the Church must be viewed as indivisible in constitution. For just as the Spirit united Christ with the Father on the cross a Christ who (at that point at least) was credited with our sinful nature and actions so the Spirit unites both the sinful and the sanctied parts of the Church with Christ, and consequently with each other. Moreover, just as by the power of the Spirit Jesus triumphed over the sin he bore for us, moving from death to life and glory, so by the power of the Spirit the Church in its entirety will move from death to life and glory. For it is in the nature of the Spirit that where he exists he conforms, sancties and perfects, so that just as he triumphed over the sin that caused Jesus suering and death, so he will conform and perfect the entirety of the Church. So the continuity is that just as the Spirit conforms the humanity of Christ to the image of God, so the Spirit conforms the Church to the image of Christ. The associated discontinuities are rst, that individuals must be transformed before the Church can be conformed, and second, that the Churchs conformation to the image of Christ is not gradual, steady, and perfect. The asymmetry, of course, is that it is Christ to whom the Church is being conformed. This is the repeated argument of Paul (Phil 2:5, 2 Cor 4, Eph 12 and Col 1) who urges that the life and death of Christ, his humiliation and exaltation, be increasingly translated into the life of the Church. Perhaps even more explicitly, the Epistle to the Hebrews urges that
49

Badcock, The House Where God Lives, 207.

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the Church looks to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, (Heb 12:23) and then goes on to urge that the Churchs life should analogically imitate his. Thomas Torrance notes the twin poles of this asymmetry (Christ as goal) and the rst asymmetry mentioned (Christ as founder).50 He terms these the eschatological and the ontological view of the Church. Insightfully, he recognises that focusing on the latter leads to a view of the Church as merely enhypostatic, and thus as an extension of the Incarnation. Similarly focusing on the former leads to a view of the Church as merely anhypostatic, with the result that the Church has no present existence as the body of Christ but is rather dened solely by its eschatological future. But Torrance concludes that as both are centred on Christ, they belong together inseparably. If we think of the Church consistently in terms of Christ who died and rose again and apply that analogically to the Church so that we understand it not only as constituted by the substitutionary work of Christ but as so incorporated into Him that it bears about in its body the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus, then we cannot have an eschatological view of the Church that is not also ontological, nor an ontological view of the Church which is not also eschatological.51 If we add to this the recognition that both the present existence of the Church in Christ, and the future attainment of the Church being fully like Christ are Spirit-enabled then we end with a profound and balanced picture of the Church in the Spirit as being and becoming Christs body, a Church that is not only Christ-centred in orientation, but dynamic in disposition, increasingly Christ-like in appearance, and as a consequence of the bridging of the Spirit indivisible in constitution. iv the spirit directs and empowers (christ and the church) As the discussion moves to the last two pneumatological parallels between Christ and the Church, the focus moves from ontology to functionality, from what the Church is (and is becoming) to how it becomes so. The question
50 51

Torrance, Atonement and the Oneness of the Church, 255-56. Torrance, Atonement and the Oneness of the Church, 256.

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of the Churchs functionality is broad and vast, even if viewed merely from the vantage point of Christology through the lens of the Spirit. As such a detailed examination goes well beyond the constraints of this paper. The intent of the following two sections is merely to recognise the overarching themes that arise in a Pneumato-Ecclesiology from these two parallels. In particular, the key question being addressed is how the Church journeys towards its future and complete union and communion; how is the Church conformed into the image of Christ? Insight into this question is gained by investigating the parallel question of how Christ grew and developed as a human. The fourth parallel, then, is that just as the Spirit directed and empowered Christ, so the Spirit directs and empowers the Church. The continuity here can be seen in how the Synoptic pictures of Christ being directed (and perhaps even compelled? e.g. Mark 1:12) by the Spirit are echoed in the depictions of the early Christians being similarly directed (and perhaps similarly compelled? e.g. Acts 8:39).52 And not just directed, but empowered. After an exhaustive review of the gospel accounts, Hawthorne concludes that all the words and actions of Jesus, including his prayers and worship, were spoke[n] and performed not by virtue of his own power, the power of his own divine personality, but by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit at work within him and through him.53 The Church, similarly, acts only through the power of the Holy Spirit working within and through us (e.g. Rom 8). As noted, here the emphasis moves from Christ and the Churchs being to their actions. And perhaps the key recognition in making this move is that the ontology and functionality of either Christ or the Church simply cannot be distinguished to any great extent. Christ is what he does, and he does what he is. Viewed through the lens of the Spirit, it becomes clear that the ontology of Christ and in particular the growth and development of his human nature, is determined by his actions, and similarly his actions are determined by his ontology. In particular it is Christs actions of obedience and suering that enable him to become who he is. Christ learns obedience in suering, and he suers in obedience. And as a human, his (ontologically
52

Integrating this understanding with the Johannine statements about Christ doing and saying only what the Father does and says (John 5:19.36 etc.) clearly imply that these Spirit-given directions are originally sourced from the Father. 53 Gerald F. Hawthorne, The Presence and the Power: The Signicance of the Holy Spirit in the Life and Ministry of Jesus (Dallas: Word Publications, 1991), 146.

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dening) relationship with the Father is enabled through this growth and learning (see for example Heb 5:58). So too the Church. The Churchs (ontologically dening) relationship through the Spirit with Christ and in him with the Father is determined by our obedience and suering. It is as we keep Christs commands that we remain in his love, just as Christ remained in the Father and the Father in him because of his obedience (John 15:10). The Spirit conforms the Church into the image of Christ, therefore, as it suers and obeys, or better, as it suers in obedience.54 The Church is thus cruciform in shape, as Torrance explains: It is through baptismal incorporation, through self-denial and bearing the Cross, through Holy Communion that the Form of the Son of Man becomes the form of the Church His Body. As the body of Christ, the Church is cruciform, but that has to be understood as active analogy, of daily crucixion and resurrection. Wherever in obedience to the blood of Christ the Church is found engaged in the ministry of reconciliation, pouring out its life like the Son of Man that the Word of reconciliation might be delivered to all men for whom He died, wherever the Church shows forth His death until He comes and presents its body a living sacrice, there the image of Christ is to be seen and His Body is to be discerned in the Church.55 Signicantly, it could be added here that there the Church is increasingly conformed to the image of Christ, as the Spirit increasingly unites the Church to her founder and perfecter. The discontinuity is that whereas Christ always obeyed the Spirits direction, and submitted himself entirely to the Spirits empowering, the Church does not. Jesus could have sinned but didnt,56 the Church can sin and does. The discontinuity discussed previously is applicable here. A thick understanding of the Spirit enables the Church to still be the Church even in those times when she is decidedly less than she should be. For not just when we are sinners, but even when we sin, even then the Spirit binds
54 55

See particularly John 15:125. Torrance, Atonement and the Oneness of the Church, 259. 56 Note that an exclusively logos Christology, because of its inbuilt Docetic leaning, brings into question whether Jesus could actually have sinned. This paper, however, is utilising a Spirit Christology perspective which fully acknowledges the reality of Christs humanity. Consequently, there is both a recognition that Jesus could have sinned, and an armation that he did not.

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us to Christ. The asymmetry here is also most signicant: the Church is not a suering servant in the way that Christ was. Christs suering obedience was uniquely eective in the ministry of reconciliation. The Church does not repeat his ministry, nor does it contribute to it, but rather it participates in Christs own ministry, and does so by serving him and suering for him. To cite Torrance again, The Churchs ministry as prophetic, priestly and kingly is correlative to Christs whole ministry but entirely subordinate to it and fullled alterius rationis, in a way appropriate to the Church as the Body of which Christ is the Head, as the servant of which He is the Lord, as the Herald of which He is King.57 The task of the Church then is to be as transparent as possible, so that by looking at (or better, through) it people may see Christ, and so that by joining it people will be conjoined to Christ. It is precisely through the Church being cruciform in shape, that she will increasingly full her missional purpose. v t h e s p i r i t i s d i s p l ay e d a n d m e d i at e d ( b y c h r i s t and the church) The continuity within the fth and nal parallel is that just as Christ displayed the existence of the kingdom of God as a present reality within the world, so too does the Church. But this continuity is again Spirit-driven. In both cases, it is the presence of the Spirit that establishes the reality of the kingdom. Jesus makes this explicitly clear when he replies to the accusation of driving out demons through Beelzebub: if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you (Matt 12:28). The discontinuity is that whereas the Spirit is always displayed by Christ into the world, it is not always displayed by the Church. The Spirit is not captive to the Church, nor restricted to it. But the existence of this discontinuity forces us to address the issue of whether the Church has any mediatorial role at all in the world? There are two key questions here. First, what role does the Church play in the transformation of individuals, that is, what does the Church do to embody, assist or facilitate the Spirit in enabling individuals to make the qualitative passage from biological individuals to ecclesial persons in Christ? Second, what role does the Church play in the conforming of itself (and as a corollary the persons that constitute it) to the image of Christ. In other words, what does the Church do in order to aid its quantitative development epistemologically and practically?
57

Torrance, Atonement and the Oneness of the Church, 258.

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There are two excesses to be avoided. First, the rejection of all ecclesial mediation. An example of this error is the developed theological understanding of Barth, who dismisses any ecclesial mediatorial role in both instances, limiting the Churchs vocation to witness. For Barth, the Church, like John the Baptists crooked nger in Grunewalds painting, simply points to the work of Christ through the Spirit who both transforms us as individuals and conforms us as a body into the image of Christ.58 Some theologians argue that it is because the Spirits work is minimised and signicantly collapsed into that of Christ within Barths understanding that redemptive history is essentially brought to a close at the cross, leaving little for the Spirit or the Church to do, and no place for any form of ecclesial mediation beyond witness.59 The second error is to overemphasise the Churchs mediatorial role. Zizioulas, for example, argues that the Church has a central, necessary role as the unique means by which the transformation of the individual and the conformation of the Church occurs. Because the person of Christ (post resurrection) is collapsed into the Spirit, the Church collapses into Christ (particularly at the Eucharist), and so just as the Spirit entered the world through the God-man Christ, so it enters the world through the divine/human institution of the Church, essentially making the Church the sole and exclusive mediator of the Spirit.60 Logically distinguishing between the involvement of Christ and the Spirit within the Church, however, enables both of these excesses to be avoided, and a real but limited role for ecclesial mediation to be armed. First, although the Church witnesses to the world the reality of the Spirit and the kingdom of God, and although the Church provides the unique context within which transformation occurs, it certainly does not accomplish that transformation. The grace by which we become part of the Church is solely the work of the triune God. Scripture teaches repeatedly and clearly that we cannot save ourselves (e.g. Eph 2:8). Second, the Church, which is an historical institution in which the Spirit abides and continues to abide even
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (trans. G.W. Bromiley; 4 vols.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 2010), I.1 112. See also CD I.1 262; I.2 125; III.3 492 59 See for example Mangina, Bearing the Marks of Jesus: The Church in the Economy of Salvation in Barth and Hauerwas. Also Joseph L. Mangina, The Stranger as Sacrament: Karl Barth and the Ethics of Ecclesial Practice, International Journal of Systematic Theology 1 (1999): 269305. 60 See for example John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (New York: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1985), 11011. Also Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 10102.
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when we fall and fail, contributes to its own conformation into the image of Christ through suering and obedience. Here, we utilise the parallel between the incarnate body of Christ and the ecclesial body of Christ. The Spirit enabled Christ to grow into who he was as his human nature developed. As he surrendered himself in obedient submission the Spirit led him down the path of suering and into glory. Similarly, the Church as whole, unied, historic institution grows into what it is over its history, and this growth happens through obedient submission to the Spirit that leads us along the path of suering and into glory. There is, of course, an extra dimension to our journey, in that the Church is (like Christ) not merely growing into the fullness of its created potential, but it is also conquering and overwhelming its eshly or sinful nature.61 But this impediment and added growth requirement, the Spirit too has shown himself to be more than capable of eradicating as the Church grows, for just as the Spirit triumphed in power over the sin in Jesus through his death on the cross, so he will triumph over our sin as well. Further, as we do submit to the Spirit in obedience, and walk the path of suering into glory that he lays out for us, we increasingly provide a more complete picture of the kingdom of God on earth, and consequently, a more compelling witness. The picture of the Church here bears marked similarities to the ecclesiologies developed by recent authors who describe the Church as narrative in character. The work of Von Balthasar,62 Vanhoozer,63 Horton,64
Thomas F. Torrance, for example, would not see this as an extra dimension but one that Christ also struggled with and overcame in the power of the Spirit. See for example Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 18890. While I agree with Torrance on this particular issue, it is not necessary for the present argument, and consequently not included nor emphasised here. 62 Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory (trans. G. Harrison; 5 vols.; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988). 63 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005). 64 Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). Also, Michael S. Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008).
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and Hauerwas65 are indicative.66 In Vanhoozers words: If theology is about the speech and action of the triune God and the Churchs response in word and deed, then doctrine is best viewed as direction for the Churchs tting participation in the drama of redemption.67 Noted below are three clear points of intersection between the Pneumato-Ecclesiology being developed here and a narrative or dramatic understanding. First, it recognises that the Churchs primary role is simply to be. Or, to utilise Hauerwas often quoted dictum: the rst social task of the Church is to be the Church.68 In this the Church plays an important mediatory role as the context in which conformation occurs. A key feature of dramatic theology is that it recognises that Scripture reveals who Jesus is only when it is employed as the script by which the Christian community lives. As one commentator explains the otherness that brings me to myself, then, is not simply God as revealed in Scripture, but God as revealed in the lives of those persons who are my companions in the way of discipleship. A stronger statement of Churchly mediation at this local level can scarcely be imagined.69 Second, and correlated to this, it recognises the essential narrative character of the Church the Church is the living narrative of the kingdom. In contrast to both Barth and Zizioulas, the Church is not to be understood as merely a series of moments at which humanity encounters Christ through the Spirit. Nor is it a collection of many stories of various individuals who encounter Christ. It is rather the common, developing narrative of a community that lives in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus, is journeying inexorably towards a nal and complete union and communion
Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom (Notre Dame: SCM, 1983). Also, Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe (London: SCM, 2002). For a brief summary of Hauerwas dramatic outworking of ecclesiology in comparison with Karl Barth, see also Mangina, Bearing the Marks of Jesus: The Church in the Economy of Salvation in Barth and Hauerwas, 269305. Note that Hauerwas himself has endorsed Manginas understanding of his theology on this point. See Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe, 14445. 66 Note that the presentation here does not own all of the constituent features of these authors ecclesiologies, let alone their entire theological programs. Indeed, it couldnt as they are in places dierent and contradictory. Rather, what is being noted is that many of the overarching themes of this work closely converge with some of the features of the pneumatological ecclesiology being developed here. For a brief overview of dramatic theology see Myk Habets, The Dogma is the Drama: Dramatic Developments in Biblical Theology Stimulus 16 (2008): 25. 67 Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, 31. 68 Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 100. 69 Mangina, Bearing the Marks of Jesus: The Church in the Economy of Salvation in Barth and Hauerwas, 297.
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with him, and is even now in constant connection to the risen Jesus by the Spirit. This is why the Church is often understood by these dramatic theologians as a journey, a procession, or an adventure.70 Third, and again following on from the previous point, there is an emphasis on the everyday actions and life of the Church its obedience and its suering as the means by which the journey is enacted and thus that God makes himself increasingly known to us. Hauerwas for example explains this by utilising the language of gestures: It is through gestures that we learn the nature of the story that is the very content and constitution of that kingdom.71 By gestures, Hauerwas is referring to the full breadth of Christian life: the day to day practices of community, the moral practices of ethical signicance, and even the place of liturgy and sacraments. On the latter, Hauerwas notes that, baptism and eucharist stand as crucial gestures which are meant to shape us rightly to hear as well as enact the story. We cannot be the Church without them.72 There are clear points of convergence, then, between a narrative or dramatic ecclesiology, and the Pneumato-Ecclesiology being developed here. In particular, the Church provides the context in which transformation of individuals occurs, and further, in analogy with the humanity of Christ, it dynamically grows and develops through its actions of obedience and suering. Indeed it could easily be argued that a dramatic ecclesiology ts best within the overall setting of a Pneumato-Ecclesiology, and as a subsection of it.73 Mangina recognises this as he notes a wise caution about the development of Hauerwas ecclesiology: Without attention to the Spirit and to the specically mandated ways by which we encounter the gospel, his [ie. Hauerwas] political interpretation of the Church might easily slide into a Christian politics of identity, on the one hand, and as a corollary to this an impotent protest against liberal society. In other words, a developed pneumatology might oer resources for keeping the community of Jesus followers focused on his story. An authentic theology of discipleship or imitation bearing the marks of

70 See for example, Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 87; Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, 25657. 71 Stanley Hauerwas, Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church, World and Living In Between (Durham: Labyrinth, 1988), 289. 72 Hauerwas, Christian Existence Today, 107. 73 See for example Cheryl M. Peterson, Who is the Church?, Dialog 51 (2012): 2430.

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Jesus, as I have put it depends on situating the Church within the larger context of the Spirits work.74 Such a developed pneumatology, or (better) a Pneumato-Ecclesiology that looks through the lens of the Spirit at the ontology and functionality of the Church is precisely the aim of this present essay. conclusion The constituent features of a pneumatological ecclesiology obtained so far in this paper are merely those that are visible from the vantage point of Christology. This perspective needs to be complemented by the view of ecclesiology from alternative vantage points such as eschatology, anthropology, the Trinity, and other theological loci, where the primary connection between each of these loci and ecclesiology is similarly viewed as pneumatological. But notwithstanding the analysis and future insight that will arise from these other perspectives, the Christological viewpoint alone has yielded signicant insight into the constituent features of a PneumatoEcclesiology. The picture painted above is of a Church that is tripartite in nature (the pneumatological union between Christ and the Church), relational in identity, unique in context, Christ-centred in orientation, dynamic in disposition, increasingly Christ-like in appearance, indivisible in constitution, cruciform in shape, missional in purpose, and narrative in character. If Cheryl Peterson is correct in positing that the real crisis facing the Churches is one of identity75 and to discover who the Church is,we ought to start with the Spirit,76 then it is hoped that the PneumatoEcclesiology developed in this essay, in line with a Third Article Theology, provides a step in the right direction.77
74 Mangina, Bearing the Marks of Jesus: The Church in the Economy of Salvation in Barth and Hauerwas, 292. 75 Peterson, Who is the Church?, 24. 76 Peterson, Who is the Church?, 28. 77 On Third Article Theology see Myk Habets, The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology (Eugene, OR.: Pickwick, 2010), 22857. I am indebted to Dr Myk Habets for his critical interaction with the themes of this essay as part of his PhD supervision of my thesis: The Anointed Church: Towards a Third Article Ecclesiology.

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