Horton: This is one of the questions that — I just wrote a book on the Holy Spirit
and — a very arrogant thing to do.
But, really enriched my own experience of the Spirit, as well as thoughts about questions
like this, and made me more uncertain of the answers that I had for it.
I think, on one hand there’s a danger, and Dr. Ferguson has written on this really well
in his book on the Holy Spirit.
There’s a danger on one hand to so defend the unity of the one covenant of grace that
we don’t recognize the peaks and the valleys, the differences from old covenant to new covenant.
And, then the other danger is the opposite danger to not recognize the unity of that
one covenant.
And so, in that unity of the one covenant, you have to have — if people are believers,
if David is confessing his sin, he’s prompted by the Holy Spirit, he’s repentant, he’s
trusting in Christ, he’s born again, you know?
He is a justified, converted believer.
And yet you have to recognize that, you know, when Jesus — when John tells us that the
Spirit had not yet been poured out, and even when you get to John 20, and you have a sort
of mini-Pentecost there with the disciples, it’s clear that that’s not the big thing
that happens in Acts 2.
That’s why they’re to go and wait for the Holy Spirit to be poured out.
This the prophets anticipated.
None of it had been fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry, and I think that’s why Jesus says,
“Greater things shall you do when the Holy Spirit comes, when I am ascended and the Holy
Spirit comes,” because it’s not just that the speaker has to be God, but the one opening
our hearts to embrace the speech has to be God.
And that outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost was a decisive event in the history of redemption
that had never happened before.
And ever since, we have been living in a completely different era, and yet one in which we share
with our Old Testament brothers and sisters, faith and repentance and renewal.
Now, what exactly that means and the extent to which they — the Holy Spirit was upon
them, but maybe not indwelling them, you know, all sorts of questions arise, but the New
Testament, seems to me, makes it pretty clear that it — the Holy Spirit came in such a
way upon the people of God that fulfilled the request of Moses, that all of the people
would be filled with the Spirit of God that had never been done in the history of redemption,
but finally at Pentecost that gift of the Spirit came upon the church.
Nichols: I think that’s helpful.
I think we also need to look at John 3 and Nicodemus.
This is always very fascinating.
You’ve got John 6, where John gives that editorial, “the Spirit has not yet been
given.”
But then you have John 3, where Jesus says to Nicodemus, “You should have known this.
You should know that you need to be born of the Spirit.”
So there is this newness to Pentecost, but this continuity, this unity, and looking at
those two texts, even just three chapters apart are helpful for us to put that in a
good perspective.
Thomas: Yeah.
So I mean, the answer is yes and no.
I think if you’re asking the question, “How is a person under the old covenant saved?”
then the answer has to be in precisely the same way as a person in the new covenant is
saved.
By the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, producing faith and repentance, and a promised
Christ that was seen in type and shadow.
But, you know, Psalm 51, verse 11: “Cast me not away from your presence and take not
your Holy Spirit from me.”
So, yes, Pentecost is epochal.
It’s a redemptively significant moment, a unique moment in redemptive history.
So, there’s something about the fullness of the Spirit and perhaps the experience of
that fullness under the new covenant that is different from the old covenant, but if
the question is: Were Old Testament saints indwelt by the Spirit?
I think I would have to say yes.