Picture with the President
A desire for learning was
installed in me when my elementary school promoted me to 3rd grade
from the 1st without attending the 2nd. But life was not always a smooth sailing like
that; through many ups and downs, I have finally come to the end of my formal
schooling. As the reality of my final
graduation sinks in, I have begun to see how this journey for PhD has finally
taught me lessons that should have been learnt many many years ago. Three things stand out in my pursuit of PhD;
they are 1) Theological Clarity, 2) Academic Affection, and 3) Character Refinement.
1. Theological
Clarity: My Christian beginning was complicated. Before meeting any Christians and
reading the Bible myself, a small gospel booklet had convinced me to
follow Christ. Eventually I came in
contact with a Christian group that was strongly influenced by the Baptist
cessationism. My water baptism took
place in India, in a church associated with Church of North India, an Episcopalian
body. While fellowshipping with the
Baptistic church after my baptism in India, God rocked my Christian
world. In one fateful day, I
attended a worship service in a different church in Dhangadi; the speaker that
day was from Sri Lanka, Dr. David Balasingh. He talked about being baptized in the
Holy Spirit, the subject that I had been constantly struggling ever since
I took water baptism. I had asked
my Baptistic friends as when one should be baptized in the Holy Spirit. They had no clear answers. But this preacher was so convinced that
unless you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you cannot be effective
witness of the Lord. After the
service, I tried to ask him more about this subject through his
interpreter Basant Prakash Bhaikaji (Shrestha). But there was not much said, all Dr.
Balasingh said was, "if you want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit,
go and read book of Acts chapters 2, 4, 8, 10, and 19." I wrote those references at the back of
my Bible and went back. Throughout
the week I had forgotten about what he told me, but on Friday night, as I
began to prepare for the Saturday service, I remembered what he had said
on the preceding Saturday in that little church by the river, across from
the Muslim cemetery, through his interpreter. At about 10:30 PM, I picked up my Bible,
read until chapter 8 and didn't find anything special. By the time I began chapter 10, I was
feeling sleepy; closing the Bible, I started to pray in my rented
room. I remember saying to God
"God, I don't know anything about this thing called baptism in the
Holy Spirit, but if there is anything that you have for me and I haven't
received it, please give me. I want
to be baptized in the Holy Spirit."
No sooner I had finished such a prayer, something amazing happened,
my hands went up, my voice rose and I continued to pray the same thing but
in a bolder and louder voice.
Unaware of the time I spent in prayer, I found myself fallen on
bed, lying on my back, hands lifted up and speaking in a kind of language
I had never heard. At times I would
feel as if my body was being lifted, at times I would feel as if my vocal
cord was so enlarged that I could not close it any more to stop me from
speaking. A great sense of joy
flooded my heart and I disturbed the whole neighborhood; dogs barking and
people knocking on my door and windows.
To make the matter worse, the pastor of the Baptist church that I
was belonging to was there (I had no idea that it had been hours since I disturbed
the neighbors). Following that
experience, the Baptist church gave me two options; either to recant my
experience and stop speaking in tongues or be excommunicated. They asked one of their most senior ministers
to counsel me. I remember this
brother willing to hold my feet in urging me to stop speaking in tongues. He convinced me that it was from the
devil and I was being deceived.
Knowing his theological and ministerial credential, I was worried
if I had been truly deceived or was being possessed by an evil
spirit. So to appease these
brothers, I decided to stop speaking in tongues in front of them. I remember biting my tongues while
worshiping God with them. I knew I
was not possessed by an evil Spirit, I knew the experience I had was so
amazing; it was a life-transforming experience. But I didn’t want to be excommunicated;
I needed to belong to this Christian group. Unfortunately, I could not hide my
experience and eventually I was expelled from that church. Once out of the Baptist church, I
decided to attend the church where I heard Dr. Balasingh speak first. This fellowship belonged to Assemblies
of God denomination; one of the prominent Pentecostal denominations. Through this fellowship, I was
recommended to attend Southern Asia Bible College from where I completed
my four years Bachelor of Theology.
Returning to Nepal, I decided not to join the Assemblies of God but
to remain as an indigenous minister of the gospel without any former affiliation. Later, got the opportunity to study in a
Presbyterian seminary for my M.Div.
Experience in this seminary convinced me for the need to be
ordained as a minister and decided to receive the ordination under the
Presbyterian Church. In this
seminary, I understood the value of theological reflection instead of depending
on my theological sentiment. Up
until that time, my theological worldview was shaped by my experience of
baptism in the Holy Spirit. I found
reading the book of Acts so comforting and inspiring. But when I read the other portion of the
New Testament, I did not feel the same kind of affinity with my experience
of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
To make the matters worse, Cessationist interpretation of the book
of Acts became a formidable hurdle for me to overcome. Even the Pentecostal sympathizers like James
Dunn and others have left no stone unturned to debunk the Pentecostal
interpretation of the book of Acts and their doctrine of the baptism in
the Holy Spirit. As I turned to my
Pentecostal cousins to see if they could help me stand up against this
onslaught of Evangelical opposition to my experience of the baptism in the
Holy Spirit, I chose Gordon Fee, who is by bar the most prolific
Pentecostal theologian of our time.
To my dismay, I found Fee to have accepted James Dunn's position
when it comes to receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit after conversion. Even those Pentecostals who claim to
have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit have concluded that the
doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion cannot
be sustained from any other New Testament books apart from the book of Acts. So, it appeared to me that Pentecostals
are willing to divide the New Testament understanding of the work of the Holy
Spirit in two parts; Luke standing for the baptism in the Holy Spirit
subsequent to conversion while Paul and the rest opposing Luke's view by
claiming that one receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit in conversion. Such a division I cannot comprehend;
Holy Spirit cannot be saying two contradictory things at the same
time. Either Luke is right or Paul
is right; or we have not understood both of their understanding of the
work of the Holy Spirit. With such
a dilemma at hand, I have to make up my mind as where I stand in this
debate. Should I stand with Luke or
Paul? I decided that I should not
choose between one and the other; I want to see what Paul had to say about
my experience. With Luke I had no quarrels,
but it was Paul who appeared to be contradicting what I experienced. But when I looked at Paul's experience I
have found my peace of mind; I have found my theological conviction and
that is; there is no disagreement between Paul and Luke. But to come to this conclusion is not an
easy task. The traditional understanding
of justification and regeneration had to be looked at from a new angle; an
angle that is prone to come under severe attack. In the protestant and catholic traditions,
salvation is attributed to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is believed to be the
one who brings a person to faith in Christ. In these traditions it is believed that
the Holy Spirit comes in the hearts of the sinners before Christ comes
in. But by looking at Pauline
letters, we found that salvation takes place when one hears the
gospel. The gospel proclaimed in
the power of the Holy Spirit has the power to create faith in the hearts
of the listeners. Just as in the beginning
God created everything by his word, now the new life is also created by
the word of the gospel. When a
sinner hears the gospel with the intention of receiving it; the gospel recreates
faith in the human heart and a new human spirit created. At the point of regeneration, a human
spirit is created; it is not the Holy Spirit coming and living in the
sinner as it is thought in the evangelical theology. The Holy Spirit comes to the sinner only
after the sinner has been recreated by the power of the gospel. In all of Pauline discussion of salvation
it is faith in the gospel that saves a sinner and not the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the
agent of creation; God in Christ through the gospel creates new life in
human heart and then imparts the Holy Spirit as his presence. Even John and Peter agree with Paul that
the new birth is the result of God's word.
Once the new creation comes into existence by the power of the
gospel, then God comes to dwell in that creation through the coming of the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not
the life creating agent, but the life-sustaining agent. If this is the case, then I can fully
rest assure my struggle of reconciling my experience of the baptism of the
Holy Spirit with Paul. Paul was a
man who himself went through this experience. Writing a PhD thesis from Pauline writing
has given me a theological clarity which I had struggled for so many years. But this is not the end of my struggle
of course, it is just the beginning.
I will have to work hard to see how Pauline understanding of the work
of the Holy Spirit provides me the basis for my understanding of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion. I no longer have to be afraid of Paul, rather,
in Paul, I see my own experience. In the next posts, I will list the other two lesions;
- Academic Affection
- Character Refinement
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