The Holy Spirit, a well of joy (Pt. 2)
Exploring in fragments the themes of joy, God's oft-neglected Spirit, and our resurrection
By now, you might be wondering where we got off track. This is cool and all, but what has all this got to do with Psa 30 and baptism and resurrection again? We recognized an unintentional connection on David’s part between his psalm of joyful praise and baptism, but what about what David actually meant? Let me read the heading of Psa 30 again:
A psalm — a song used at the dedication of the temple; by David.1
To be transparent, it isn’t clear David wrote this psalm for the dedication of the temple, but that’s the way the psalm was used—probably first by Solomon in 1 Kgs 8 and again in Ezra 6:13-22.
So the biblical precedent for one of the proper uses of the psalm is at the dedication of the temple. But where is the temple in these “last days” when the Spirit of God has been poured out on those who believe?
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19)
The temple is in the bodies of believers—we are the temple, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We are living stones “being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Pet 2:4-6).
Let’s return to the metaphor for baptism where we started: the death, burial, and resurrection of our spiritual bodies. If our spiritual bodies have been pulled up from “Sheol,” where are they now? Where is this kingdom of God, whose temple is found in our bodies? After using this metaphor in Rom 6, Paul continues in Rom 8:
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Rom 8:9-11)
We live in a new realm, the realm of the Spirit. However, Paul draws a distinction between our spiritual and physical bodies here.2 Our spiritual bodies are “in the Spirit” in the here-and-now; but the Spirit-given life to our physical, “mortal” bodies is spoken about as if it is yet to come. Paul's words provide a glimpse of the already-but-not-yet, one of the most profound and paradoxical concepts in the New Testament.
What does that not-yet look like? Let’s go back to Acts 2, where Peter is quoting Psalm 16:
‘You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
There’s that joy and gladness again, which pours out of us as the fruit of the Spirit within us (Gal 5:22). But notice something—Peter stopped one phrase short of finishing David’s psalm:
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
So what about our physical bodies? They still have to taste death as a result of sin's presence in the world (Rom 5:12), but David says at God’s right hand are “pleasures forevermore” and Paul says in the not-yet they will be raised “through his Spirit” (Rom 8:11) and never taste death again (1 Cor 15:50-55).
Peter knew the end of days were arrived in his time, and he knew something better was still coming. So I ask a question that cannot be answered with confidence: was Peter thinking about something like the not-yet when he intentionally stopped the psalm one phrase short?
Let’s dive into this dichotomy of spiritual and physical life and death. Perhaps one of the most important implications of these passages for believers is the realization that our everlasting life with God has already started; when we came out of the waters of baptism, our spiritual selves were resurrected and they will never taste death again. This is our reality in the already. So what does the not-yet look like, when our physical bodies are resurrected?
The fully realized not-yet looks like Eden,3 the place where God dwells, heaven and earth reunited.4 Ezekiel—like others in the Old Testament—prophesied about it:
I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God…
Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the LORD; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it. (Ezek 36:24-28, 33-36)
This passage, especially the verses I skipped (29-32) apply both to their immediate context and to an already-fulfilled idea that resolved in the book of Acts.5 However, I want to focus on the not-yet in this passage, because it's definitely there. Eden is here in the world already in the form of the church and its body of believers, but it sure doesn't look like it.
Someday it will.
If Ezekiel’s point wasn’t clear enough, this passage is immediately followed with the famous vision of the “Valley of Dry Bones,” where God’s people are resurrected and have the breath of life—the Spirit—breathed into them.
Ezek 47-48, the final chapters of the book and Ezekiel’s temple vision, carry the same theme. The eschatological temple is full of Edenic imagery,6 and issuing from its source is a river of healing water that restores everything it touches to luscious life all the way to the sea. The Promised Land, which was taken from Israel by the time of Ezekiel, is once again filled with the Lord’s holy people. The entire city is a square, like the holy of holies where God’s presence dwelt in Solomon’s temple.7 Now the presence of God is no longer restricted, but freely dwells throughout the city, named “The LORD Is There.”
John’s final Revelation of the eschaton is similar (Rev 21-22). This city is square as well—a cube, actually—but there is no temple in sight. Fitting, since we’ve already established it is God’s people themselves now who function as the temple, carrying God’s presence wherever they go. The “river of the water of life” issues from God’s throne, and the righteous once again have access to the “tree of life” that sustains immortality.
In the already, that river pours out of believers in the form of the Holy Spirit. In the not-yet, I don’t think it’s quite as metaphorical. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well,
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)
And to the people of Jerusalem,
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, (John 7:37-39)
And as Isaiah says,
“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” (Isa 12:3)
I wholeheartedly look forward to the complete restoration of earth to Edenic conditions, both in terms of a healed natural world and of our perfect communion with God. What an incredible future the Holy Spirit seals us for (Eph 1)! It is our freely given inheritance alongside Christ, if we share in His sufferings (Rom 8:16-18)—for this should be our response in the already.
We believers live in a new realm, but our mortal bodies are still here, awaiting the world’s full restoration. This meantime is painful in so many ways, but the Spirit within us gives us a source of joy not dependent on our mortal circumstances. In the words of Peter:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Pet 1:3-12)
So let us rejoice, because we “believe in him” and have been filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, the Holy Spirit.
Biblical quotations will be from the ESV unless otherwise noted.
I think Paul has been making this very distinction throughout Romans, most notably (in terms of how it affects our theology) in Rom 5:12, where physical death—in my opinion—is in view as opposed to the spiritual death advocated by supporters of the doctrine of original sin. As always, my goal is not to cause strife with those who disagree.
In my analogy using the image from the Bible Project, our spiritual bodies are in the purple intersection of the Venn diagram; our physical bodies are in the pink. This is the already. In the not yet, there is only purple and our physical world is blurred with the spiritual.
The restoration of the Promised Land and the restoration of God’s people is an important theme in Acts, with the idea being that everywhere believers (with the indwelt Holy Spirit) go, they effectively bring the presence of God to that place and restore it to part of God’s kingdom.
In addition to the Edenic descriptions of verdant greenery and living water is a theme of jubilee and eternal rest, represented throughout Ezekiel 40-48 by multiples of 50. For an introduction to this theme, see The Restored Temple as ‘Built Jubilee’ in Ezekiel 40-48 by John Bergsma (2004), or Dr. Michael S. Heiser’s podcast episodes on these chapters of Ezekiel, part 1 and part 2.
1 Kgs 6:20.