We have explored the disruptive and transformative work of the Spirit in Hebrew Scripture, the Gospels and Acts, and in Corinth, a cosmopolitan city with groups of believers with whom Paul was in regular communication. What of the Spirit elsewhere in Paul’s writings? A different perspective emerges from the communities of faith gathering in Rome—people in a city which Paul had not previously visited, but to whom Paul nevertheless wrote a great length, explaining his theological commitments.
In this longest letter, written to “all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints”, Paul places importance in the role played by the Spirit of God. The word spirit appears 32 times in this letter; many of these refer to the Holy Spirit. Incidentally, the terms “righteous” and “righteousness”, “justify” and “justification”, which are usually identified as the central theme of Romans, appear 42 times in this letter. So Spirit is up there alongside these terms as a key focus in this letter.
Paul retains from his Jewish upbringing a sense of the Spirit as a manifestation of divine energy; the Spirit is God’s gift to believers (5:5) and thus the source of life and peace (7:6; 8:2, 5–6). Paul knows that in his scriptures, the Spirit has breathed over the waters of chaos as God’s primary agent in creation, gifted the elders appointed by Moses, anointed the prophets and inspired their pointed words of warning. The disruption brought by the Spirit has indeed been transformative and constructive.
Paul’s words in Romans imbue the Spirit with an eschatological role—first, the Spirit acts by raising Jesus from the dead (1:4; 8:11) and then by adopting believers as “children of God” (8:14–17, 23). The Spirit is a marker of life in the kingdom of God (14:17). The kingdom, for Paul, remains a future promise, to become a reality within the eschatological timetable (1 Cor 15:23-26). In these passages, the Spirit is the way that God enters human existence, disturbs and reshapes, transforming people so that the ultimate vision of the kingdom can be realised.
But there is a broader procure at hand for Paul. He speaks with passion about how the creation groans in the present time of distress (Rom 8:18–23), as believers hold fast to their hope in the renewal of creation (8:17, 21, 24–25; see also 1 Cor 7:28–31). The role of the Spirit in this period is to strengthen believers by interceding for them (8:26–27).
Paul reminds the Romans that they are “in the Spirit” (8:9); this is reminiscent of his guidance to the Galatians to live “by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16, 22–25) and his exposition to the Corinthians of the gifts which are given “through the Spirit” (1 Cor 12:1, 4–11). The understanding of the gifting of believers by the Spirit, articulated in the first letter to the Corinthians, has played a significant role throughout the history of the church over the centuries.
The life of faith, lived “in the Spirit”, is therefore to be characterised by “spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). Paul immediately explains that this requires believers to be “transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom 12:2). The Spirit disturbs in order to transform. There can be no comfortable familiarity when the Spirit enters, inspires, and energises the community of faith.
After making this bold programmatic statement, Paul then devotes significant time (in chapters 12–15) to spelling out some of the ways in which this transformation might take place amongst the Romans—and, by extrapolation, elsewhere, even into our time and place. As the Spirit produces transformation, the behaviour as well as the words of believers are reshaped. The spirit is manifest in practical ways.
The long letter to the Romans is often associated with the much shorter, and earlier, letter to the Galatians. The common factor is regularly considered to be the focus on “justification by faith”, set out in short form to the Galatians (Gal 2:15–21) and then developed at length in the argument of Romans (see Rom 1:16–18; 3:21–26; 4:13–25: 5:1–5, 18–21; 8:1–2, 10–11; 10:1–4, 12–13; 11:32).
However, there is another connection—the presence and activities of the Spirit. “Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?”, Paul confronts the Galatians (Gal 3:2). That God had granted them the Spirit is not doubted by Paul (3:3–5); the work of this Spirit is seen when “the blessing of Abraham [ comes ] to the Gentiles” (3:14), which is how Paul perceives many in the Galatian community (4:8–9). Yes, indeed, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts”, he affirms (4:6).
But the Galatians manifest “the works of the flesh”, which are manifestly opposed to “what the Spirit desires” (5:17). And so, after listing the vices present in the Galatian community (5:18–21), Paul exhorts them to “live by the Spirit”, listing the qualities which form “the fruit of the Spirit” (5:22–25). And the qualities that he enumerates are decidedly counter-cultural, running against the grain of the Greco-Roman society, marked by honour-shame contests, patronage and servitude, hierarchy and order. The “fruits of the Spirit” must be seen as disruptive in that society, and transformative within the community of faith.
Beyond the time of Paul, there is evidence for developments within the movement that Jesus initiated, that see a progressive tendency to embrace that hierarchy and order so dominant in society, and to organise itself so that it becomes an institution, with structured leadership, decreed belief statements, and less openness to the disruptive and transformative actions of the Spirit.
In later letters written in the name of Paul by one of his followers, whilst some fragments of authentic Pauline theology might be included, the focus on this process of institutionalisation means that the Spirit is co-opted to become a clause in a creed (1 Tim 3:16, a precursor of the third section of the Apostles Creed), a guarantor of orthodoxy (“guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us”, 2 Tim 1:14), and the agent of an ecclesial ritual (Tit 3:4–6). The Spirit gifts “power … and self-discipline” (2 Tim 1:7), quite a different role from what is envisaged in the authentic letters by Paul.
That trajectory continues on into writers of the second century, reflecting the order of the church (Ignatius) and the increasing concern with “right beliefs” (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian). The disruptive Spirit which enlivens and transforms is hidden with power structures and credal words. And so the church closes options for the renewal that is looked to, experienced, and hoped for, in many places within scripture.
An Informed Faith 