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In the traditional Reformed dogmatics the Spirit is often perceived as the gift of divine grace or the product of the Spirit's working. Hyung Lyong Park, for example, argued that since faith is the direct result of the Spirit's work of regeneration, only the believer born of the Spirit is capable of believing the gospel. How would the New Testament writers respond to this sort of conception? On the exegetical basis of the relevant NT passages that speak of receiving the Spirit in relation to faith, we are led to the following conclusions:First, the conception of faith as the product of the Spirit's working is clearly expressed in Paul's letters and also implied in John's gospel, but does not explicitly occur in the Book of Acts. In particular, Paul acknowledges the Spirit as at work not only in the process of proclaiming the gospel but also in that of believing it. Second, the main emphasis of the New Testament writers is upon the notion of faith as the means or condition of receiving the Spirit. They, without exception, teach that the gift of the Spirit is dependent upon faith as a conversion response and thus can be given on the basis of it. There are a few cases that water baptism follows the experience of the Spirit, and He is given by the act of laying hands, but these are never conditions for receiving the Spirit. Third, if the gift of the Spirit is experienced in the process of conversion, it must be never a second blessing confined only to the elite group of believers in the church. The New Testament writers expect that everyone without exception should experience the Spirit in the first phase of entering into the saved community by believing the gospel. Fourth, the New Testament writers appear to differ from each other in the way in which to allow soteriological implications to the gift of the Spirit. It is Paul the Apostle that clearly understands the Spirit as the soteriological gift that makes possible regeneration in the believer. It is also somehow true that both Luke and John give a wide range of soteriological implications to the Spirit as the Spirit of prophecy. While, however, it is never possible in Paul's thought to become a born-again believer without receiving the gift of the Spirit, there are in Acts a few cases, for example, such as Jesus' disciples and Samaritans to have received water baptism and believed the gospel, yet with receiving the Spirit only at a later stage. However, the former is never a model for modern Christians because they lived in the unique circumstances in which the major saving events of Christ have not yet been completed, while the latter is an abnormal case to be corrected soon by the Apostles. Fifth, the New Testament writers have a clear tendency to describe the believer's experience of the Spirit in his conversion process vividly and dynamically as possible as they can. The gift of the Spirit is surely more than an inward secret experience of the believer. If our exegetical observations above are correct, then it becomes clear that the pattern of the early church's conversion evangelism has one thing different from that of the modern presbyterian churches. Whereas the early church understood that it is normative for every believer to experience the dynamic gift of the Spirit in the final phase of his conversion, the modern presbyterian churches presuppose it as a secret inward experience or set it aside completely. Modern reformed theologians need to represent such an explicit teaching of the New Testament in their theological enterprises.
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Receiving of the Spirit, conversion, faith, evangelism, the Early Church
