基督教信仰入門 7 (下)

基督教信仰入門第七課(下)                        

第七課：認識聖靈（下）

1.  聖靈的工作

a.  聖靈在舊約有幾方面的工作：[1]

                   i.   創造

1.  「地是空虛混沌，淵面黑暗，神的靈運行在水面上。」（創1:2）

2.  「藉他的靈使天有裝飾，他的手刺殺快蛇。」（伯26:13）

                 ii.   賜下神的話

1.  「他對我說話的時候，靈就進入我裡面，使我站起來，我便聽見那位對我說話的聲音。」（結2：2）

2.  「因為預言從來沒有出於人意的，乃是人被聖靈感動，說出神的話來。」（彼後1:21）

                iii.   賜下技能完成不同的工作

1.  「耶和華曉諭摩西說：『看哪，猶大支派中，戶珥的孫子、烏利的兒子比撒列，我已經提他的名召他。我也以我的靈充滿了他，使他有智慧，有聰明，有知識，能做各樣的工，能想出巧工，用金、銀、銅製造各物，又能刻寶石，可以鑲嵌，能雕刻木頭，能做各樣的工。』」（出31:1-5）

a.  比撒列天生便有這種才能？或是，因著這特別的事工聖靈賜予能力？

b.  不論如何，這份能力（或恩賜）是用來事奉神的。

                                                i.   個人的才幹vs. 上帝的恩賜（恩典）

                 iv.   行政管理

1.  「法老和他一切臣僕都以這事為妙。法老對臣僕說：『像這樣的人，有神的靈在他裡頭，我們豈能找得著呢？』法老對約瑟說：『神既將這事都指示你，可見沒有人像你這樣有聰明有智慧。你可以掌管我的家，我的民都必聽從你的話，唯獨在寶座上我比你大。』法老又對約瑟說：『我派你治理埃及全地。』」（創41:37-41）

2.  「耶和華在雲中降臨，對摩西說話，把降於他身上的靈分賜那七十個長老。靈停在他們身上的時候，他們就受感說話，以後卻沒有再說。」（民11:25）

                   v.   指向將來的盼望

1.  「以後，我要將我的靈澆灌凡有血氣的，你們的兒女要說預言，你們的老年人要做異夢，少年人要見異象。在那些日子，我要將我的靈澆灌我的僕人和使女。」（珥2:28-29）

a.  這經文這使徒行轉第二章應驗了。

b.  聖靈在新約的工作

                   i.   隱藏自己，彰顯基督

1.  楊慶球說得非常好：「聖靈不宣揚自己，只宣講聖子；而聖子又見證聖父（約16:13、14）。聖靈並不直接與我們相遇，祂的工作是另我們認識聖父、聖子、使我們與祂相遇。正如舞台上的燈光並不是要我們注意它，乃是要我們藉著它注意舞台上的演員。當我們的注意力集中在演員身上時，燈光便發揮了應有的作用，到達它本來得目的。」[2]

                 ii.   引我們進入基督的真理（不是聖靈自己的真理）。

1.  「只等真理的聖靈來了，他要引導你們明白（或進入）一切的真理，因為他不是憑自己說的，乃是把他所聽見的都說出來，並要把將來的事告訴你們。」（約16:13）

2.  「但保惠師，就是父因我的名所要差來的聖靈，他要將一切的事指教你們，並且要叫你們想起我對你們所說的一切話。」（約14:26）

                iii.   榮耀基督

1.  「他要榮耀我，因為他要將受於我的告訴你們。」（約16:14）

                 iv.   叫人知罪

1.  「然而我將真情告訴你們，我去是於你們有益的。我若不去，保惠師就不到你們這裡來；我若去，就差他來。他既來了，就要叫世人為罪、為義、為審判，自己責備自己。」（約16:7-8）

2.  聖靈不是以肉身的形式彰顯在祂人前，而是在人心裡工作。

3.  承認自己有罪，並不是一件容易的事，但聖靈在我們心裡不斷施行感動的工作，讓人看到自己的罪。

4.  我們的信心是聖靈在我們心靈裡做工的結果。

                   v.   見證基督

1.  「但聖靈降臨在你們身上，你們就必得著能力，並要在耶路撒冷、猶太全地和撒馬利亞，直到地極，作我的見證。」（徒1:8）

2.  藉著教會見證基督

                 vi.   賜予不同的恩賜，建立基督的身體

1.  「聖靈顯在各人身上，是叫人得益處。」（林後12:7）

2.  「他所賜的有使徒，有先知，有傳福音的，有牧師和教師，為要成全聖徒，各盡其職，建立基督的身體。」（弗4:11-12）

a.  參李保羅：《聖經結構式註釋--以弗所書》(香港: 漢語聖經出版社, 2005)，頁134。

3.  「按我們所得的恩賜，各有不同。。。」（羅12:6）

 

 

 

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[1] Millard J. Erickson 著，蔡萬生譯：《基督教神學》(卷三) 增訂本（台灣：中華福音神學院，2002），頁37-42。

[2]楊慶球：《靈風起舞：聖靈教義與靈恩現象剖析》（香港：宣道出版社，2007），頁7。

Law and Gospel

It is not really just me evaluating the life of the church from the standpoint of discipleship. The shallowness of the life of the church demands our attention because the message of the weightlessness of God produces nothing but weightless Christians, regular churchgoers, uncommitted “disciples,” and heavenly church members whose feet are never on the ground. In The Courage to be Protestant: Truth-Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), David F. Wells says:

The gospel so preached has been separated from discipleship. The reason is quite simple. Marketers are looking for buyers. If disciples somehow also emerge, one has to say it is an anomaly. It is buyers that are wanted. In droves. Instead of evangelism being the doorway to the life of discipleship, now the gospel enterprise stands alone and the church is left outside the door, rejected and despised. The invisible church becomes everything, and the visible church, in its local configuration, loses its significance and its place in Christian life (p. 214).

The phrase “the gospel so preached has been separated from discipleship” captures my attention and I can’t disagree with his critique. The gospel can never be accepted apart from commitment, for the gospel is costly. The gospel is a free gift, but not cheap. It is free, but not cheap. The gospel without discipleship is cheap; discipleship without the gospel is law. The free gift of the gospel is the foundation of Christian discipleship. It is not by works, but by grace through faith. Discipleship is a lifelong, outward expression of the gospel as the inner foundation. We don’t just preach the gospel. We preach the gospel and the law. Apart from the law, we don’t understand the gospel, for it is in the context of law, we understand the meaning of grace and experience grace. The law tells us that we fall short of his glory. In and through Christ, we enter into his glory. The law points us to Christ who is the fulfillment of the law. In Christ, we are governed by Christ’s law under the guidance of the Spirit.

We preach the gospel with discipleship. We should have high demands of God’s people in all areas of life, for the gospel is free and yet demanding.

 

Missional Church: From Disengagement to Reengagement

The church must live out its missional identity as salt and light by being disengaged from the dominant culture first and then engaged in it with a fresh understanding of the gospel. It is through disengagement that the church keeps a distance from its surrounding culture and asks what it means to be out of the world and also in the world. To be disengaged from it is to be reengaged in it with new identity and mission. Douglas John Hall names this act as “disengagement as a work of theology.”[1] As Hall rightly says:

To put it quite clearly, for North American Christians who are serious about re-forming the church so that it may become a more faithful bearer of divine judgment and mercy in our social context, there is no alternative to engaging in a disciplined, prolonged, and, above all, critical work of theology.[2]

 

In order for the church to re-vision what the church is supposed to be and do, a critical, contextual theology must be redeveloped in disengagement. In his essay, “Metamorphosis: From Christendom to Diaspora,” Douglas John Hall says, “We need to learn a critical and constructive theology of the church that is based on the charter of Scripture and informed by the Holy Spirit, in contrast to one that is entrenched in the ecclesial conventions of Christendom.”[3] A new set of contextual theology needs to be redeveloped for the church to become a faithful witness in the world.

To be a missional church is to be disengaged from culture first and then being sent back to the world by the Sender, the Triune God. “Disengagement from our status of cultural establishment is primarily, then, a work of theology. But whoever thinks that theology is a remote, abstract undertaking has not yet been grasped by the Word of the cross!”[4] A sending church must first learn to be a sent community associated with the Sender. It is the Sender who defines the church as a sent community through which the Triune God accomplishes his redemptive purpose. The church is not the subject of this sending business. The church is always understood as a sent community, for mission belongs to God. As Georg F. Vicedom rightly noted, “The mission is work that belongs to God. This is the first implication of missio Dei.”[5]

Being disengaged from the world is a necessary step for the church to take because she has been long forgotten by the wider culture in the post-Christian era. It is God’s providence to allow the church to be in the place of marginality. As a result, the church is placed in a “solitary” place to question her own identity and mission once again in order for her to be on the move toward God’s mission. It is in “a position of redemptive self-doubt”[6] that the church can unlearn its missionary methods under the impact of Christendom and relearn the relations between gospel, culture, and church through the lens of missio Dei.

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[1] Douglas John Hall, “Ecclesia Crucis: The Theologic of Christian Awkwardness,” in The Church Between Gospel and Culture, edited by George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 198-203.

[2] Ibid., p. 199.

[3] Douglas John Hall, “Metamorphosis: From Christendom to Diaspora,” in Confident Witness—Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America, edited by Graig Van Gelder (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 73.

[4] Hall, “Ecclesia Crucis: The Theologic of Christian Awkwardness,” p. 203.

[5] Georg F. Vicedom, The Mission of God: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (St. Louis: Concordia, 1965), p. 5.

[6] Hall, “Metamorphosis: From Christendom to Diaspora,” p. 76.

基督教信仰入門 7 (上)

基督教信仰入門第七課(上)

第七課：認識聖靈（上）

1.  聖靈的位格和工作

a.  聖靈的位格

                   i.   三一教義與聖靈

1.  舊約

a.  獨一的上帝說: 「我們要照著我們的形象，按著我們的樣式造人，使他們管理海裡的魚、空中的鳥、地上的牲畜和全地，並地上所爬的一切昆蟲。神就照著自己的形象造人，乃是照著他的形象，造男造女。」（創1:26-27）

b.  以賽亞書6:8--「我又聽見主的聲音說：『我可以差遣誰呢？誰肯為我們去呢？』我說：『我在這裡，請差遣我！』」

2.  新約

a.  太28:19--「所以你們要去，使萬民做我的門徒，奉父、子、聖靈的名給他們施洗」

b.  林後13:14—「願主耶穌基督的恩惠，神的慈愛，神靈感動，常與你們眾人同在」

c.  彼前1:2—「就是照父神的先見被揀選，藉著聖靈得成聖潔，以致順服耶穌基督，又蒙祂血所灑的人。願恩惠，平安，多多的加給你們」

                 ii.   聖靈的神性與位格

1.  徒5:3-4—「彼得說：亞拿尼亞，為什麼撒旦充滿了你的心，叫你欺哄聖靈，把田地的價銀私自留下幾份呢？田地還沒有賣，不是你自己的嗎？既賣了，價銀不是你做主嗎？你怎麼心裡起這意念呢？你不是欺哄人，是欺哄神了！」

2.  林前3:16-17—「豈不知你們是神的殿，神的靈住在你們裡頭嗎？ 若有人毀壞神的殿，神必要毀壞那人；因為神的殿是聖的，這殿就是你們。」

3.  林前6:19-20—「豈不知你們的身子就是聖靈的殿嗎？這聖靈是從神而來，住在你們裡頭的。並且你們不是自己的人， ²⁰ 因為你們是重價買來的，所以要在你們的身子上榮耀神。」

a.  Millard J. Erickson 說：「顯然，對保羅而言，聖靈的內住就是神的同在。藉著等同『神的殿』和『聖靈的殿』兩片語，保羅清楚的指出聖靈就是神。」[1]

                iii.   耶穌說的另一位

1.  約14:16—「我要求父，父就另外賜給你們一位保惠師，叫他永遠與你們同在。」

a.  「這裏的『另一』是a;lloj , 意指『同類的另一個。』」[2]

b.  即是說，聖靈的同在等於耶穌的同在。

2.  約16:13-14—「只等真理的聖靈來了，他要引導你們明白一切的真理，因為他不是憑自己說的，乃是把他所聽見的都說出來，並要把將來的事告訴你們。他要榮耀我，因為他要將受於我的告訴你們。」

a.  留意耶穌描述聖靈時，祂是用陽性代名詞（He）。[3] 即是說，聖靈不是一種力量，而是有位格的。所以，我們能跟祂相交。

                                                i.   聖靈替/為我們禱告。

1.  羅8:26-27

2.  林前2:10-12

a.  藉著聖靈顯明神奧秘的事

b.  神的靈(=聖靈)明白神的事

c.  叫我們能知道神開恩賜給（give/grant freely as a favor）

                                              ii.   可以向祂禱告

                                            iii.   弗4:30—「不要叫神的聖靈擔憂。。。」

1.  聖靈內住在信徒生命裏，我們靈性軟弱的時候，祂為我們擔憂或憂傷。

2.  周聯華說：「在我們的基督徒生活中是否天天使上帝為我們擔憂？我們正像不聽話的孩子，整天淘氣，不聽上帝的指揮。」[4]

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[1] Millard J. Erickson 著，蔡萬生譯：《基督教神學》(卷三) 增訂本（台灣：中華福音神學院，2002），頁25。

[2] Millard J. Erickson 著，蔡萬生譯：《基督教神學》(卷三) 增訂本（台灣：中華福音神學院，2002），頁29。In commenting on the word “another” [a;lloj], Robert E. Coleman writes, “The word another here is of a peculiar significance in the original Greek. It is not the word used to compare two objects of a dissimilar quality, but rather the word used to compare two things of the same essential quality, there being a difference only in person. Hence the value of this word is that it identifies the quality of the Spirit with that of the incarnate Son, so that the Spirit, while different in person, is exactly like Jesus in his ministry to the disciples.” The Master Plan of Evangelism, 2^nd edition (Grand Rapids: Spire, 1994), p. 125.

[3] Gk. evkei/noj：masculine singular

[4]周聯華: 《神學綱要》卷三 （台灣:基督教文藝出版社, 2000），頁130。