The Mind of the Spirit

The term φρόνημα has no exact equivalent in English, and even in Greek its semantic range is wide enough that only context will define its sense. Given the semantic range of φρόνημα, the phrases often translated “mind of the Spirit” and “mind of the flesh” can refer to the divergent frames of mind, cognitive dispositions, or cognitive approaches of the Spirit and of the flesh. In today’s terms, one might think partly of how outlooks and character are shaped by the different worldviews, or approaches to reality, of these two spheres. One mind focuses on the matters of God; the other is oriented around only matters involving the self and its desires (Rom. 8:5–6).
 
Philo, who often employs the term φρόνημα, may provide a sample of Diaspora Jewish intellectual usage. He generally uses the term to mean disposition, attitude, or character. As such, it is a settled direction of the personality, not a matter of fleeting thoughts; certainly, this must be true also for Paul, who plainly depicts the corrupted mind of Romans 1:28–31 not as a matter of fleeting thoughts but as a matter of characteristic ones. This disposition may be intelligent, philosophic, untrained and undiscerning, free or slavish, proud or broken, noble, enduring, mature, or brave and courageous. (As one expects from Philo, such aspects of character often correlate with masculinity or with being effeminate.)
 
Because ancient intellectuals often associated such aspects of character with one’s way of thinking, it is not surprising that for Philo the term φρόνημα often has cognitive associations, including in ways associated with the sort of intellectual thought elsewhere addressed by Paul. Thus, for Philo φρόνημα ideally contemplates matters beyond heaven rather than lowly ones. It can be divine, viewing matters from a divine perspective and desiring nothing earthly. It can be subject to or avoid pleasure. Ideally, it should think not only of its own locale but with wise knowledge about the cosmos.
 
Paul certainly includes cognitive associations, because he clearly associates the meaning of this noun with the cognate verb φρονέω, which occurs in Romans 8:5. Yet Paul means even more than exclusively “disposition,” “character,” “attitude,” or “frame of mind,”because he uses the same language in relation to the mind of the Spirit (see 8:27). That is, for Paul, the new way of thinking is empowered by God’s own activity.
 
The mind-frame of the Spirit thus not only contemplates God and shares God’s agendas; it depends on God, recognizing the liberation accomplished in Christ (Rom. 8:2) and the consequent power to live a new way (8:3). This is the perspective that Paul has been communicating in previous chapters: believers are righted by Christ, not themselves (cf. 3:21–5:11), and this righting includes a new life in union with Christ (5:12–6:11). Just as Paul depends on Christ for being righted, he depends on God’s Spirit for being able to appropriate the cognitive moral character consonant with one who is righted. One who behaves by the new identity is thus walking by the Spirit. For Paul, the new frame for thinking is effective because it depends on the reality of Christ and thus of the new identity in him.

- Craig S. Keener, The Mind of the Spirit: Paul's Approach to Transformed Thinking, 2016

The Images of Holy Spirit

Adding to the images of "anointing," "seal," "down payment," and "firstfruits" , one can draw firm conclusions:
 
1. The wide variety of images and figures of speech in itself indicates that no single one will do. The work of Christ, applied by the Spirit in Christian conversion, simply has to many facets to be captured by a single image. In almost every case the choice of images is related to the perspective on the human condition that is addressed in the context. Thus, propitiation responds to our being under God's wrath; redemption to our being enslaved to sin; justification to our guilt before God's law; reconciliation to our being God's enemies; sanctification to our being unholy; washing to our being unclean; and so on.
 
2. The images tend to be used in keeping with the emphasis of the moment, thus the point in context is what is at issue, not the precise timing or relationships in conversion.
 
3. There is no such thing as Christian conversion that does not have the coming of the Spirit into the believer's life as the critical ingredient. However variously expressed, the presence of die Spirit is the one constant.
 

- Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. p94.

The Spirit as Holy

For Paul, "holiness," that is, walking by means of the Holy Spirit, has two aspects. On the one hand, it means abstaining from some sins—absolutely. Since in Christ believers have died to both sin (the flesh) and the law, they are to serve God "in the newness of the Spirit" (Rom 7:6). They must put to death the former way of life (Rom 6:1-18; 8:12-13; Col 3:5-11), portrayed in Galatians 5:19-21 as "the works of the flesh," which refers to life before and outside Christ. Such a life is no longer an option for the new people of God, who indeed have become a people by the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Paul, therefore, understands "putting to death" the works of the flesh as the empowering work of the Spirit (Rom 8:12-13).
 
On the other hand, "holiness" also (especially) means the Holy Spirit living in believers, reproducing the life of Christ within and among them, particularly in dieir communal relationships. To do otherwise is to "grieve the Holy Spirit o f God" (Eph 4:30), who by his presence has given them both unity and mutual growth. For this reason, Paul's most common language for the people of God is "the saints" (= God's holy people). They live differendy in their relationships with one another, and are empowered to do so, because they are Spirit people, whatever else they may be.
 

- Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. p109.

Unity in the Spirit

Unity is a dominical value, as our Lord’s prayer in the garden shows (John 17). And unity in the Spirit is an apostolic value, as both Paul’s writings and his practice show. Recall that Paul instructs the Ephesian believers to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). To live this way is to walk in a manner worthy of their calling to be Christians (Eph. 4:1). Paul practiced what he preached. His espoused theology and his operational theology were one. And so he entreats Euodia and Syntyche—both of whom were gospel workers with him—“to agree in the Lord” (Phil. 4:2–3). These women need to heed his earlier general admonition to the Philippians that if they have “any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,” then the way to complete Paul’s joy was to be unified in mind and in love (Phil. 2:1–2). Humility needs to replace rivalry and conceit (v. 3). To give a different Pauline example, what the Jerusalem church thought of the Gentile mission mattered to him. He rejoiced that “the right hand of fellowship” with its leadership had been extended to him (Gal. 2:1–10)—even though it is clear from the argument of his Galatians letter that, if he had thought that the Galatian leaders’ approval would have risked the integrity of his message of grace, he would not have mentioned it (Gal. 1:6–10; 2:11–14).
 
However, the NT nowhere mandates that a dull uniformity of Ecclesiastical polity is to be pursued. There is every indication that the Pauline communities developed differently from that in Jerusalem. “The right hand of fellowship” does not mean organizational homogeneity, nor that one apostolic leader such as Peter rose above all others (contra the claims of the church of Rome). 

In fact even the Pauline communities themselves may have differed in organization. The first letter to Timothy, for example, speaks of elders and deacons (1 Tim. 3:1–13), but the letter to Titus refers only to elders (Titus 1:5–9). His Corinthian correspondence refers neither to elders nor to deacons. In contrast the Jerusalem church seems to have ultimately come under the presidency of James the brother of Jesus (Acts 15:1–21). Indeed there is some extrabiblical evidence that the leadership of that church may have been kept within Jesus’ own family.

- Graham A. Cole, He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 2007

Unity in the Spirit-filled Reality

In Ephesians, Paul writes about the corporate life of God’s people as the church. In this great company both Jews and Gentiles have their place as the new temple of the holy God indwelt by the Spirit of God (Eph. 2:11–22). The unity established by Christ’s death needs maintenance, though. Indeed the Ephesians ought to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). When they gather, they are not to behave as the Gentiles do (5:6–11). Christian meetings are not to be debauched as though all were drunk with wine and out of control (5:18). In contrast, the Spirit is to fill them as God’s temple with group practices that are other-person-centered. In relation to one another, they are to address one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. In relation to the Lord Jesus himself, they are to sing and make melody in their collective heart to him. And as for the Father, they are to give thanks to him for everything. A congregation where such practices are found, motivated by other-person-centered regard—whether vertically in a Godward direction or horizontally in a fellow believer’s direction—is a Spirit-filled reality, a true temple of God. Understood as above, Ephesians may provide better tests for evaluating a church’s health than the acreage of the church’s parking.
 
The biblical answer to the question of how I as an individual may be filled with the Spirit is subtle. One of the stories in Acts provides the way forward, I believe. In Acts 4:23–31 we find Peter and John rejoining their friends after a brief stay in custody. They had been interrogated by the chief priests and elders about a healing incident in the temple and about their preaching Christ (Acts 4:1–22). In a unity of response to the apostles’ report the disciples call upon the sovereign Lord in prayer to “look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word [the gospel] with all boldness” (v. 29). The Lord answered their prayer: “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (v. 31). Significantly these disciples did not pray that they might be filled with the Spirit in order to respond appropriately to the hostility they had encountered. Instead they prayed for the boldness they needed, and in so praying they were filled with the Spirit. When they made the object of their prayer the godly need in that hour, then the fullness came. If I want to be filled with the fullness of the Spirit, then let me set my heart on doing the will of God and call upon him for the enablement to do so (e.g., to preach the gospel faithfully and effectively next Sunday). Unlike idols, the living God answers prayers (cf. Isa. 46:1–7 and Ps. 116:1). 

- Graham A. Cole, He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 2007

Pseudo-gospels

In most of the world churches are liable to be swamped by the so-called prosperity gospel, and in the richer parts of the world churches struggle to guard the gospel against metamorphosing into what we might call the therapeutic gospel. These two closely-related pseudo-gospels threaten to displace the authentic Christian and Biblical gospel.

The prosperity gospel, in its crudest form, is the message that God wants you to be rich, and if you trust him and ask him, he will make you rich.

What happens to the prosperity gospel when I already enjoy prosperity? It metamorphoses into the therapeutic gospel. In its simplest form, this false gospel says that if I feel empty and I come to Jesus, Jesus will fill me. The promise of objective goods (money, wife, husband, children) metamorphoses into the claiming of subjective benefits. I feel depressed, and Jesus promises to lift my spirits. I feel aimless, and Jesus commits himself to giving me purpose in life. I feel empty inside, and Jesus will fill me.

The therapeutic gospel is the gospel of self-fulfillment. It makes me, already healthy and wealthy, feel good.

- Christopher Ash, Job: The Wisdom of the Cross, 2014.

The Prosperity Heresy of Positive Faith

It has two main and very different manifestations: 

(1) a kind of “New Age” positive thinking religion rooted in the nineteenth-century quasireligious movement called “New Thought,” 

 (2) a neo-Pentecostal, charismatic religion touted by television evangelists that revels in miracles. 

On the surface these two manifestations seem radically different, but below the surface they share much in common. For both, God is a kind of cosmic vending machine who must provide health and wealth to all who have “positive faith” expressed in words of faith—spoken affirmations or declarations that create reality through divine power. Both treat prayer as magic without realizing it. Both deny God’s sovereignty and put God and his power at human disposal. Both elevate health and wealth to the status of ultimate goods. Both claim to be Christian while distorting biblical, historical, classical, orthodox Christianity to the point that it is unrecognizable.
 
The “New Age” manifestation of this heresy is promoted by various “positive thinking” spiritual gurus influenced by the nineteenth-century movement known as New Thought, which will be described later. It is not Pentecostal or charismatic and often includes belief in reincarnation. Its god is not personal, transcendent, or holy but an impersonal power resident in every-thing. The human mind is able to tap into it through positive thinking and speaking. The neo-Pentecostal manifestation of this heresy is also influenced by nineteenth-century New Thought, but it is blended with twentieth-century Pentecostalism and charismatic spirituality and heavily influenced by the “divine healing” movement of nineteenth and twentieth-century Christian revivalism. It is closer to orthodox Christianity but takes it in a very different direction through its emphasis on God as guarantor of health and wealth.

- Roger E. Olson, Counterfeit Christianity: The Persistence of Errors in the Church, 2015.