Baptized in the Spirit: Reflections in Response to My Reviewers

Abstract

AbstractBaptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology is essentially my effort to develop the early Pentecostal focus on the chief vocation of humanity to bear the divine Spirit in the image of Jesus Christ. I have sought to expand the horizons of this focus on the divine indwelling in order to view it as an eschatological reality that will end in the entire creation becoming the dwelling place of God. I attempt within this pneumatological context to understand the Pentecostal breakthrough experiences of conversion to Christ, sanctification, and empowerment (with signs following). It is also within this context that I utilize Pannenberg's understanding of the divine monarchy (reign) of God as mediated by the mutually-dependent communion of persons (a mutual indwelling), which ends in the divine indwelling of creation (and creation in God) as the Son and the Spirit submit themselves to the will of the Father in overcoming the reign of sin and death by the reign of the divine righteousness and life. Spirit baptism is the organizing principle for looking at various doctrinal loci from the vantage point of the divine indwelling and the eschatological reign of the divine life throughout all of creation.