Presence, Power, and Promise (eds. David G. Firth and Paul D. Wegner)
FIRTH, David G. Firth and Paul D. Wegner, eds., Presence, Power and Promise: The Role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011, 415 pp. $24.00 paperback, ISBN 978-0-8308-3975-5.
Review by Kevin Williford
Throughout the church’s history, Christians have often found it difficult to relate to the Old Testament (“OT”). On the one hand, some write off the Old Testament as being, well, the “Old” Testament, and view it as having little relevance to them, or as having been replaced by the “New” Testament (“NT”). One the other hand, some baptize everything in the OT, making it “Christian” even when this can only be accomplished by the use of allegory or typology. The deficiencies of both approaches to the OT are easily seen.
In the first case, the attitude is not that far from the heretic Marcion who dismissed the OT as the work of the demiurge. And in the second case, the exegete often reads concepts back into the OT that are anachronistic to the stage of progressive revelation. Nowhere is this tension with the OT more evident than in pneumatology.
When the OT is used to develop a doctrine of the Holy Spirit, two basic tendencies result: Either to claim that the concept of the Holy Spirit is foreign to and absent from the OT, or to claim that every reference to the Spirit of the Lord (rûach YHWH) is a synonym for the Holy Spirit. Adoption of the first approach results in a deficient pneumatology by failing to use a significant portion of Scripture. Adoption of the second approach causes exegesis of these passages to be skewed by applying an alien norm to the text. So, what contribution does the OT make to Christian pneumatology? Answering that question requires careful and detailed exegesis of each relevant passage in the OT.
The Christian pastor has been greatly aided in the exegesis of these passages by the publication of David G. Firth and Paul F. Wegner’s book Presence, Power and Promise. Firth is probably best known as the author of 1 and 2 Samuel (Apollos Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 8). Wegner is well known as the author of A Student’s Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible. In Power, Presence, and Promise, Firth and Wegner have gathered together some of the foremost evangelical OT scholars (including Robert B. Chisholm, Jr., Tremper Longman III, Eugene H. Merrill, Willem VanGemeren, John H. Walton, and fourteen others) to contribute chapters on the Spirit of God in the OT. The book’s contributors are gathered from seminaries across the globe and represent a variety of denominations.
Following an Introduction by Firth and Wegner, the book is divided into eight parts. Part one provides an overview of the usage of rûach (spirit) in the OT and compares it to concepts current in the Ancient Near East (“ANE”). Part two explores creation and the role of the rûach in creation. Part three deals with the concept of rûach as it is developed in the wisdom tradition and literature. Part four explores the Spirit and its role in creativity, a key contribution of the Pentateuch. Part five traces the development of the concept of rûach in the prophets and their writings. Part six explores the relation of the Spirit to leadership, and part seven analyzes the Spirit’s role in Israel’s eschatology. The book ends with part eight, which explores the understanding of the Holy Spirit by the Qumran community as evidenced by the Dead Sea Scrolls. This final chapter also serves as a bridge to NT pneumatology, which is beyond the scope of the present book.
Time will neither permit a detailed analysis, nor a brief summary, of each chapter by all twenty-one contributors. However, I will highlight a few chapters in an endeavor to reveal the spirit and contents of the entire book.
The first of these is Chapter 2, “The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Spirit of the Lord in the Old Testament” (pp. 38-67), by John H. Walton. In this chapter Walton compares three primary biblical categories related to the Spirit’s activity with similar texts from the ANE: creation, leadership, and prophecy. As a result of this comparison, Walton concludes that there are notable similarities and dramatic differences, not only between the OT concept of the Spirit of the Lord and ANE concepts, but also between the OT and the NT concept of the Holy Spirit.
For example, Walton concludes that the NT concept of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling is actually closer to the ANE ideal than it is to the OT’s concept of the Spirit of the Lord. He gives two reasons: (a) Both the ANE sources and the NT personify the Spirit, whereas the OT does not; and (b) both the ANE sources and the NT confer to the essence of deity in the Spirit, whereas it is absent in the OT concept of the Spirit of the Lord. Additionally, Walton’s analysis reveals similarities between the OT Spirit of the Lord and the NT Holy Spirit that are not shared with the ANE sources, including the OT and NT view that that Spirit is bestowed by deity but is not viewed as the offspring of deity as in the ANE sources.
In Chapter 10, “The View From the Top: The Holy Spirit in the Prophets” (pp. 175-207), Daniel I. Block catalogues the many nuances of the word rûacḥ in the prophets. The rich meaning of the word rûach is among the things that make any discussion of the Holy Spirit in OT so difficult. In the simplest form it can be said that the word can mean “wind, breath, or spirit.” Whenever an exegete comes to the word rûacḥ in the passage, he must determine which meaning is intended.
In Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones (Ezek 37.1-14), the word occurs 10 times, but with every occurrence the exegete must determine whether rûach refers to a wind, breath, or spirit. The task is not as simple as it may first seem. For example, even when the Lord tells Ezekiel, “I will put my Spirit in you” (Ezek. 37.14 NIV emphasis mine), is He referring to His Holy Spirit or is He referring to His breath as an echo of the breath of life in Gen. 2.7?
However, Block demonstrates that the issue is more complicated than just a choice among wind, breath, or spirit, for even among these there are subtle distinctions and nuances which must be appreciated. For example, if rûach means spirit, is it referring to man’s spirit or God’s spirit? Even if it refers to God’s Spirit, this does not necessarily mean that it is referring to the Holy Spirit, since the word can mean the divine mind or disposition or even be used as a synonym for God Himself. The point is that we cannot simply assume just because the text refers to the spirit that it is speaking of the Holy Spirit. This is a point that is made by several of the contributors throughout the book.
From the discussion of the chapters above it may appear that the book is designed to provide broad overviews of the understanding of the spirit. The book does contain a number of chapters that provide an overview according to a specific genre or time frame. But there are also a number of chapters that provide detailed exegesis of key passages related to the spirit. Among these are Wegner’s chapter “Isaiah 48.16: A Trinitarian Enigma?” (pp. 233-244) and Robert Chisholm’s chapter “The ‘Spirit of the Lord’ in 2 Kings 2.16” (pp. 306-317). In Presence, Power, and Promise, Firth and Wegner have wisely balanced those chapters providing broad overviews with chapters containing detailed exegesis thereby allowing the reader to appreciate how the broad concepts should be worked out in a specific passage.
Balance is a good description for the entire book. Not only have Firth and Wegner balanced overview with exegesis of specific passages, but they have also balanced the chronological development of progressive revelation with classification according to literary genre and canonical placement. They have achieved this balance while also striking a balance between the tendency to dismiss the OT and the tendency to interpret it anachronistically. The result is a book that will undoubtedly serve as a starting place for building a biblical pneumatology for years to come.
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About the Author: Kevin Williford lives in Kansas City with his wife Sheila, their four young boys and his Yorkie. He is the pastor of the Victory FWB Church, and serves on the MOFWB Christian Education Board. He graduated with his BA from Hillsdale FWB College (1996) and with his MDiv from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (2001). He is currently working on a PhD in OT at Midwestern. In addition to his love of the OT, he enjoys numismatics and reading Russian Literature.
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