The Ecclesiology and Economy of the Holy Spirit in The Writings of Saint Paul
When we speak of Pauline Ecclesiology we are beginning the study of the Early Church of Saint Paul, not just in the structural organizational sense of the word, but in the mystical sense dealing with the Life and Salvation of the world. The Church is the Body of Christ, a theanthropic divine-human communion of Jesus Christ with his people. The only head of the Church is Jesus Christ. The heart of Saint Paul’s Ecclesiology and Economy of the Holy Spirit is found in his preaching that we as a Christian people are members of the Body of Christ. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (RSV 1 Corinthians 12:12-13) “The Body (The Church) consists of the totality of members working together for the good of the whole, not each for itself; but on the other hand, it is the good of the body which in turn proves to be the good of each member. However, just as in the body some members (e.g. the brain, the heart, the liver) are essential whereas others are helpful (the hands and arms, the feet and legs, the eyes), as also it is in Christ’s body. Priority is given to the bears of gifts related to the “word” that both produces and sustains the church: apostles, prophets, and teachers (vv.27-31). Without these, there is no church.” (The New Testament Introduction: Paul and Mark; Paul Tarazi, pgs. 70-71.)
Being The Orthodox Church, we are the True Body of Christ, we are the hands and the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ in this world of darkness. We are called by Christ to be lights in this darkness, using the Mysteries of the Church as our source of Life which are filled with the Divine Grace of the Holy Spirit. All the nations of the world are meant to be members of this Ark of Salvation, we like Saint Paul have a special duty to evangelize this world we live in by bringing to our brothers and sisters the Light of the Gospel, for in doing this we will be sharing Jesus Christ with them. This is evangelization is not meant to be just something exciting we read about in the Epistles of Saint Paul, we ought to be actively growing the Body of Christ as Paul did.
If the Church is the Body of Christ, it is also the temple and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. To begin speaking about the Economy of the Holy Spirit we first need to define from a dogmatic standpoint the study of the Holy Spirit. Pneumatology is derived from two Greek words, Pneuma which is translated as wind, breath, or spirit, and Logos which is translated as the word. In Orthodox Christian Theology Pneumatology refers to the study of the workings of the Holy Spirit in Sacred Scriptures, and in the life of the Church. This typically includes topics such as the personhood of the Holy Spirit as member of the Trinity, the Deity of the Holy Spirit, and finally the work of the Holy Spirit within the Sacred Scriptures. This Holy Spirit appears throughout the entire corpus of the Bible from the creation story in the Book of Genesis to the formation of the church in the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Saint Paul, and in the Revelation of Saint John at the very end of the Bible. We are of course focusing on the writings of Saint Paul which are the most profoundly pneumatological group of writings in the entire corpus of the Sacred Scriptures.
In Saint Paul’s doctrine of the Church and the Holy Spirit there are five areas that we need to concern ourselves with; (1) The Church and the work of Salvation, (2) Unity of the Church, (3) Mission of the Church, (4) The Church and the process of Sanctification, (5) The Church and the Glorification of Man. The Church’s mission is made possible only through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, therefore the Church is the Sacrament par excellence of the world. The Church of the New Testament is the new planting of God in His Divine Garden, and man's salvation is found and comes to fruition is in this garden of the Holy Church. In Ephesians chapter five we see the Mystical marriage of Christ with His Church and how Life in the Church should operate, as a Holy Life of Love in the Holy Trinity. Faith and obedience to Christ as both Lord and Saviour will bring us to salvation, it is in the Body of the Church guided by the Holy Spirit that man’s salvation and Theosis is realized. In Ephesians, we see that Saint Paul compares the relationship with Christ and His Church to a relationship between a husband and wife, both are ultimate relationships of sacrifice and selfless love. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” ( RSV 5:25-27 & 32-33.)
Christ is the head of the Church which is his body, for the Church is a spiritual organism that is full of Christ and the Holy Spirit. In Christ, we have the foundation and the cornerstone of the Church and we as His members are being built upon this strong corner. On the basis of our Faith, the Christian receives the Holy Spirit who is fully present in the Church, and this indwelling Spirit abides in the Christian. By living the Life of the Church this grace-filled Christian is sanctified through the workings of the Holy Spirit in the Sacred Mysteries of the Church. “For Paul, the Church is the mystical body of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, it is God’s sacrament of salvation to the world. To be delivered from the bondage of evil and to be raised into the presence and the life of the triune God, we must be “made one” with Christ, we must be incorporated into Christ through the devotional, sacramental and moral life of the Church. Salvation must be appropriated by the individual through faith in and obedience to Christ as Savior and Lord. But Paul does not teach a “doctrine of solitary salvation.” On the contrary, to be ‘in Christ’ is, for St. Paul, to participate in the solidarity of all Christians with one another and with their Lord: it is to be a member of the Church which is the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12), Christ Himself being the Head.” (The Message of the Bible; George Cronk pg. 215.)
This Sanctification that happens in the Body of Christ which is the Holy Orthodox Church, leads to glorification and Theosis in the Holy Spirit, for it is in the Holy Church of God that all people can participate in Holiness. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Church, we are made to be adopted sons of God. We must freely choose Christ by our own free will in the Church for outside the Church there is no salvation. When the man who freely chooses to follow Christ in His Church, this man is then raised up in Christ and raise up in the Glory of God the Father. Again we hear Saint Paul saying to us in Ephesian that in the Holy Spirit we possess the bond of Peace and Love; “With all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. (RSV Ephesians 4:2-7) We must notice the stress that Paul places upon Unity of the Church in this passage which is brought to us through One Faith, One Baptism, One Body, One Spirit, and in One God and Father of all. This is perfect unity in the bond of peace that the Church possesses for in this community we are no longer strangers but members of the Household of God, one people under one Lord. Baptism and the Eucharist in the Early Church identified you as a member of the Body of Christ for you were able to share in this union of peace and love within the larger Christian Community. “The early churches were inevitably quite diverse in many respects. There was, for instance, more than one baptismal formula. Matthew’s (Matt 28:19) finally became standard, but it is not the same as Paul’s (Gal 3:28; cf. 1Cor 12:13.), which itself was not fixed (cf. Col 3:11). Ephesians (4:4-6) reflects a further or, at least, additional liturgical language of baptism. The insistence here that there must be “one faith, one baptism” (4:5) bespeaks attempts of the early churches, no matter how diverse or scattered, to be “one body.” The emphasis here on God as the “one God” of the entire universe (4:6) furthered these efforts considerably. For the New Testament (e.g. John 17:20-23), Christians being divided among themselves is unthinkable.” (New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament; Daniel Durken, pgs. 611-612.)
Christians must live in the Bond of Peace and lead a life worthy of their Calling being guided on their way by the Clergy of the Church, of whom the Holy Spirit works through. The Holy Spirit works in and through the Body of Christ for the life and Salvation of the World, and all the members of the Body of Christ who hold to the one and true Faith are of the Royal Priesthood of Christ by virtue of their Baptism, thus they can preach the Word as well, it is the job of the clergy of the Church. In Ephesians four, we see that the Spiritual Leaders of the Church are chosen from the members of the Royal Priesthood and are set aside as ordained Priests to lead the mission of the Church in the evangelization of the world with the goal of Salvation for all mankind. “In discussing the practical expression of the Unity of the Church, Paul elaborates upon the work of the Holy Spirit in and through the Body of Christ. The Spirit, as Christ’s gift to the Church, is also the source of the Church’s gifts (or Charisms, special powers). Paul refers to a general dispensation of the Holy Spirit whereby all members of the Church are constituted as a Holy Priesthood (“the priesthood of all believers”) as well as a special dispensation of the Holy Spirit which raises up an ordained spiritual leadership (Eph 4:7-12). Through the general dispensation of the Holy Spirit (at Pentecost; see Acts 2), the Church as a whole has received “Christ’s gift.” (The Message of the Bible; George Cronk pg. 217.)
Each and every member of the Church has received his own measure or share of the Divine Grace of the Holy Spirit by which he is then empowered to live an Orthodox Christian Life. Through the economy of the Holy Spirit which fills all the members of the Church with His gift of sanctifying grace, Jesus Christ is then able to fill all things with His Divine Presence as Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:10. The spiritual leaders that Saint Paul is talking about are the bishops, priests, deacons, teachers, apostles, prophets, and the evangelists. These men and women are raised to leadership in the Church through this dispensation of the Holy Spirit, they are thus gifted, called, and ordained by Christ and the Holy Spirit in order to equip the Holy Church for the proper performance of her ministry to all the world. The Mission of the Church is to proclaim the Gospel of Christ and teach this plan of to all people, for the Church is God’s Sacrament of Salvation to the entire world. The Church is teaching every man wisdom and maturity in Jesus Christ, and likewise to Baptize all nations, for in this Sacrament all man can come to regeneration and throw off the old man of sin and put on the new man which is the new man in Christ. The Presence of the Holy Spirit is the powerful presence of Almighty God dwelling in His Church. The Church itself is Sanctification for all mankind if each man freely chooses to have a synergetic cooperative relationship with God to allow the Grace of the Holy Spirit to work within him. “The end of the process of (the Mission of the Church) and the process of sanctification then, is the glorification (deification) of man in Christ. Through our Faith, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ… {for in him} we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2). Through the process of sanctification, “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17-18; see also 2 Cor 4:6). In the power of the Holy Spirit, we may be “raised with Christ” to the “right hand of God.” For the true Christian is dead to the world, the flesh, and the devil; and his life is “hid with Christ in God.” When Christ who is our life appears at his second coming, then we also will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:1-4).” (The Message of the Bible; George Cronk pg. 224.)
