Fr Fio Mascarenhas, SJ –
The Bible, very especially the New Testament, is a great treasure-chest that God has gifted to the Church, filled to the brim with spiritual gems. Through each of them, “spirit, and abundance of new life” (Jn 6:63) can be communicated to disciples who thirst for God-experience. A gem a day is the ‘daily bread’ that can nourish us in “spirit, mind, and body” (1Thes 5:23). Some of the most dynamic, empowering Scripture gems which are absolutely fundamental for a Christian’s identity and daily practice of discipleship are explained below:
1). Rom.8:14-17: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are sons of God, and if sons, then heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Revised Standard Version).
This text reveals to a Christian his/her basic identity, and is the most important Good News a human being can receive in this life. Note that some translations, including NRSV, that favour a gender-neutral policy, have changed the Greek “sons” into “children,” and “spirit of sonship” into “spirit of adoption.” This is misleading because Christians become “a new creation” (2Cor 5:17) not by some act of legal fiction (which adoption is) but by grace! “If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom.11:5, 6). So “sonship” is not something biological but a spiritual sharing in Christ’s sonship: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” – Gal 3:27f).
One can never over-emphasize the importance of Rom 8:14-17 because, as a foundational text, it is the perennial source and summit of a Christian’s identity, and offers a faith-vision for victorious and joyful discipleship! Once we accept this extraordinary and almost unbelievable revelation, we will be set free to actually live as sons/daughters of God, and begin to claim, with awe and gratitude, our God-given dignity as “co-heirs” with Jesus!
‘Co-heir’ means that whatever Jesus Christ experienced in his humanity (his joyful, luminous, and sorrowful mysteries) we too can expect to share in, and when our pilgrimage in this world is over, in his glorious mysteries as well! “For those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that Jesus might be the first-born among many brethren” (Rom.8:29). And again, “God destined us in love to be his sons/daughters through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…” (Eph.1:5-7). Furthermore, Paul teaches us that through the Spirit of Jesus, we all “are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2Co.3:17f).
No wonder the Fathers of the Church, the Popes, the Councils, and the Saints have all encouraged Christians to relish their new identity. “O Christian, be aware of your nobility,” declared Pope St Leo the Great in his Nativity Sermons. And St Catherine of Siena exclaimed, “Eternal Trinity, you are the Creator, I the creature. I have come to know in the new creation you made of me in the blood of your Son, that you are in love with the beauty of your creature!” (On Divine Revelation, ch.167).
Let us all therefore learn by heart this text of Rom 8:14-17, and recall it at least once daily, in order to experience ongoing “spirit and life.” Thus we will grow in the insight that “in God’s eyes, we are sons/daughters first and always, sinners second,” and rather than recite mechanically the Lord’s Prayer, we will do it each time with an awareness of the “spirit of sonship” dwelling within us. Then we will also hear the Father say often to us by name, “You are my beloved son/daughter, in whom I take my delight!” The “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22) will necessarily grow in us as the result of praying in this way, making us even more recognizable as true disciples of Jesus!
2) John 7:37-39: “On the last and great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him/her come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’.” Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
This is a most remarkable and powerful bible gem for daily life! It reveals the inner reason why “in God’s eyes, we are sons/daughters first and always, sinners second” (see Rom 8:16 above). It declares that Jesus’ saving Death and Resurrection was required before the ‘Holy Spirit,’ the Divine Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, could be given to humanity! For St John, the ‘glorification’ of Jesus means his Death and Resurrection. Only when Jesus is ‘lifted up’ on the cross does he draw people to himself as God and Saviour (Jn 8:28), for this finally is his ‘hour’ (Jn 17:1). Only then can the Gift of His Spirit be poured out upon his disciples. Before that time, including the time of the Old Testament, St John insists that the gift of the Divine Spirit “had not been given” (“for as yet there was no Spirit”).
We must remember that the OT never understood ‘spirit of the Lord’ in the same sense as the NT. Important and oft-quoted texts like Gen 1:2, Isa 11:2, Ez 36:26, etc., all have “spirit” in lower case and not in capitals, and so does Ps 51:11, etc. This is because the OT recognizes God as only one Person (Yahweh), so for the Jews it would be blasphemy to think of God as Three Persons, or to say that the ‘spirit of the Lord’ is God himself. For them, ‘spirit of the Lord’ meant an impersonal force sent by Yahweh to empower someone for a task: e.g., for the prophet, a non-permanent blessing of knowledge to speak on behalf of God; for the king, a blessing of authority to rule the people; for Samson, a blessing of strength to pull down the Philistine temple; for David, ‘holy spirit’ meant God’s ‘favour,’ etc.
But the New Testament recognizes ‘Holy Spirit’ as God himself, the Divine Third Person of the Trinity. This “Spirit” is indeed ‘the Lord’ (2Cor 3:18), and is able to make us truly ‘holy’ by an inner transformation, not just by some exterior anointing. This ‘Holy Spirit’ comes to change us into “sons/daughters of the Father and co-heirs with Jesus” (Rom 8:15-17), to make us members of the Body of which Christ is the Head (1Cor 12), and most importantly, to “transform us into Christ, degree by degree” (2Cor 3:17,18 – see next issue of BA). This happens by “the fellowship/communion of the Spirit” (2Cor 13:13), constituted by the Spirit’s permanent indwelling in the Christian (see Jn 14:16 about another Paraclete or Encourager). This NT “spirit of sonship” shows itself in our daily behaviour by our consistently manifesting the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:19-23).
That is why the Spirit, the “new Self-Gift of God” (St John Paul II), can only be given after Jesus has become the Lamb of God and redeemed us from the ‘power of the Devil.’ John’s Gospel is perfectly right in maintaining that “as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified,” but that “those who believed in him were to receive” this Gift (after Jesus’ Death and Resurrection). Jesus opening words, “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water,” indeed came true on the Cross, when the heart of Jesus was pierced with the soldier’s lance, and blood and water (the Johannine symbols of new life in the Spirit) started flowing copiously for the life of humanity (Jn 19:32).
Jesus had to pay a very heavy price so that we could receive the Holy Spirit! Whereas the OT ‘spirit of the Lord’ meant only a blessing from God, the NT ‘Holy Spirit’ is God himself, indwelling us, and working within us for our holiness and transformation, and making Rom 8:14-17 come true for us in beautiful ways! (In the next issue BA 80, we will explain more bible gems, like 2Cor 3:17,18, etc).
Fr. Fio Mascarenhas is the Chairman of the Catholic Bible Institute, Mumbai since its founding in 1979. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI nominated him to participate as an “expert” at the Synod of Bishops in Rome on “The word of God in the life of the Church.” He was awarded the Doctor of Ministry degree (Biblical Spirituality) from Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. He is a past Chairman (1981-1987) of the International Council for Catholic Charismatic Renewal (resident in Vatican City). He has authored 14 books, several of them translated into many foreign and Indian languages (Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Hindi, Telugu…) He is the Publisher of BIBLE AGLOW magazine (website: bibleaglow.com. Contact: [email protected] Mobile tel: +91-9892197312).