Embraced by God...

The Knock-Out: We've received the Spirit, how about you?

Let’s begin by unpacking what it means to have received the Spirit. First, Christians believe the Spirit to be literally God as personally and actively present to each of us at all times. We receive the Spirit as we somehow say "YES!" and open ourselves to this active and saving presence of God in our lives (1 John 4:13-17). The Spirit is said to literally live in each Christian—both as proof that God has accepted him or her and to somehow help guide the person in living out the Christian life (Romans 8:9-11). Specifically to my point, Paul claimed receiving the Spirit proved one was a Christian, saying:

"Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:13b-14, NIV).

If you have received the Spirit, then God has put "his" seal on you, guaranteeing you’re an authentic Christian. So how do we know if someone has received the Spirit? Ultimately the evidence is the same for all persons claiming to have the Spirit in their lives—one’s personal testimony and a life exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit: "God’s Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled" (Galatians 5:22-23a, CEV). The reality is that many queers do claim to be Christians and to know the Spirit’s presence in their lives. We know these claims to be true, for we have experienced first hand the loving warmth of God’s presence in their lives—you only know a person if you’ll journey with them.

Certainly someone could simply deny our claims to have been given the Spirit, but if our claims can simply be declared invalid, how can any Christian’s spiritual claims be validated? Jesus said: "Don’t condemn others, and God won’t condemn you. God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them" (Matthew 7:1-2, CEV).

Since nobody can conclusively prove any spiritual claim, let’s show some humility and allow God alone to be the judge of everyone’s claims. At the very least conservative Christians should acknowledge that IF we have received the Spirit, THEN they have been wrong about us. With such a beginning we can end the bitter war of words as each side learns to see the other with God’s merciful and loving eyes.

Finally, it is important to note that I am not saying anything new here, for the principle that receiving the Spirit proves a person’s acceptance by God dates back to the early Church. It was around the year 48 A.D. when the early Church leaders got together to consider an important question: were converted Gentiles redeemed if they remained uncircumcised and did not keep the religious laws of Judaism? This meeting is referred to as The Jerusalem Council—and it is considered by scholars to be one of the most important Councils in Church history (cf., Acts 15).

(Note: nearly all of the early believers in Jesus were Jewish converts who saw themselves as still within Judaism—they were Jews who claimed Jesus to have been the Jews’ Messiah as foretold in the Old Testament).

In determining that Gentile converts didn’t have to follow Judaism’s laws, nor be circumcised, the Council was swayed by one huge fact: the Gentiles had already received the Spirit without having to jump through any of Judaism’s religious hoops. Thus, there was no point in anyone trying to make Gentile converts into obedient Jews—they were free to obey the Spirit’s leading in their lives! Again, since God had given the Gentile converts the Spirit, just as "he" had to the Jewish converts, they were Christians, end of debate. Whether or not one was circumcised or followed the specifics of Judaism’s laws were of no consequence.

Like Gentile converts prior to the Jerusalem Council, queers today are declared by the Religious Right to be unacceptable Christians. Similar to how many of the early Jewish converts viewed Gentiles, many Christians today view queers as people who must become just like them in order to become a Christian and join one of their churches. Against such thinking, God bypassed the Jewish convert’s prejudice against Gentiles and today’s Religious Right’s hatred of queers, giving all believers the Spirit without seeking the permission of their morally conservative critics.

Pretty cool, huh? And that’s how the debate was won with a first-round knock-out punch.