By request, here’s the complete paper from July 2010 from which the Completed by the Spirit blog series was adapted. You’re welcome to download it and distribute it freely as long as you do not modify it:
Completed by the Spirit: New Covenant Sanctification in Paul (PDF, 240 kb)
This is the 18th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
If sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us, why do believers — who have received the Spirit — still need instruction and exhortation?
First, it is important to remember that believers are still imperfect this side of glory. As we have seen, the incarnate Christ as God-Man was the prototype of the believer given the Holy Spirit.
But unlike us, the incarnate Jesus’ communication with the Holy Spirit was perfect.
In Christ, the Spirit’s communication was complete. Continue Reading…
This is the 11th part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
T. J. Deidun: New Covenant Morality in Paul
There is one more passage in which Paul speaks against the law for sanctification, and that is 2 Corinthians 3. It is perhaps the most specific comparison between a law of letters and of the Spirit – the γράμμα/πνε̣̣ῦμα antithesis.
[1] Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? [2] You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. [3] And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
[4] Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. [5] Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, [6] who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Cor 3:1–6)
