Thinking with C. René Padilla about the Holy Spirit (Part III: English Version)
Preface
This is the third essay in a six-part series on C. René Padilla’s essay “The Holy Spirit: Power for Life and Hope.” The series’ first and second English-version essays are here and here, respectively. Its first and second Spanish-version essays are here and here. Mi padre y yo hope you enjoy the series Saludos!
The Spirit of God at Jesus’ Baptism and Temptation
Padilla’s essay considers the Spirit of God’s work in creation and history (Part 1), in Jesus’ mission (Part 2), and in the life and mission of the church (Part 3). The last post treated Padilla’s teachings on the Spirit’s work in creation and history. Now we turn to Padilla’s teachings on the Spirit’s work in Jesus’ mission.
Padilla begins with a general point about the Synoptic Gospels’ (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke) presentations of Jesus.
From the perspective of the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is the archetype of the man who has been anointed by the Spirit of God in order to fulfill the mission that God has committed to him.
Three of the four Gospels present Jesus as the paradigm example of someone God anoints with the Spirit to complete a God-given mission. And, as Padilla notes, texts within and without these Gospels highlight this theme. “Several New Testament passages explicitly refer to the close relation between the Spirit’s action and the vents through which Jesus accomplished redemption: his incarnation (Mt 1:18; Lk 1:35), his earthly ministry (Lk 4:18), his crucifixion (Heb 9:14), his resurrection (Rom 1:4), and his ascension (Eph 1:19-23).” The Spirit empowers Jesus to accomplish the redemptive events the Father willed (Jn 6:38).
Padilla turns to consider some of these redemptive events, beginning with Jesus’ baptism. Padilla writes, “Before the initiation of his earthly ministry, when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the spirit descended on him ‘in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’’ (Lk 3:22; see Mt 3:17; Mk 1:11).” The same Spirit that empowered the births of Jesus and John (Lk 1) rests upon Jesus as John baptizes him (Lk 3). And it’s this Spirit that drives Jesus into the dessert to undergo temptation. As Padilla notes, “Both events [i.e., baptism and temptation] are explicitly related to the Spirit’s action.”
The Gospel of Luke also explicitly ties the Spirit’s action to the initiation of Jesus’ ministry. “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside” (Lk 4:14). Padilla directs his readers to the significance of this Spirit-empowered ministry move.
Note the connection that this text establishes between the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ Galilean option—the option for the marginalized sector of the population living in Palestine at the time. Jesus, who has been anointed as the Son of God and a prophet, goes from town to town throughout Galilee, “teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Mt 4:23; see Mt 9:35). Clearly, in Jesus’ case the anointing of the Spirit is not a subjective or ecstatic experience, but an experience of the Spirit of power for life and hope related to his public ministry, much of which is dedicated to the most vulnerable sector of the population.
Padilla chooses to emphasize that Luke and Matthew present Jesus’ Galilean option. Padilla also chooses to contrast Jesus’ experience of being the Spirit-anointed Son of God and a prophet with contemporary discussions of subjective and ecstatic experiences of the Spirit. Indeed, Padilla stresses the communal rather than individual impact of Jesus’ experience of being Spirit-anointed: The Spirit empowers Jesus to promote hope and life—especially among the least of these (Mt 25).
The Spirit of God and Jesus’ Public Ministry Initiation
Padilla continues to stress the previous point by considering Luke 4. He writes:
This observation is ratified by Jesus’ manifesto at the synagogue of Nazareth, at the beginning of his ministry, according to Luke 4:18-19:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed me
To preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
And recovery of sight for the blind,
To release the oppressed,
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
In a town many doubted could produce anything good (Jn 1), Jesus publically declares that the Spirit has anointed him to usher in cosmic shalom. And Jesus begins this divine mission in backwater, colonized, and oppressed regions like Nazareth and Galilee, caring for the vulnerable and neglected within these marginalized communities.
Padilla highlights four additional features of this ministry-inauguration passage. First, “the opening reference to the Spirit must be viewed in light of the definition of Jesus’ mission: the purpose of the anointing of the Spirit is the fulfillment of Jesus’ messianic mission.” Padilla pivots to unpack the Old Testament context informing Jesus’ Spirit-empowered mission.
An important antecedent of the New Testament’s pneumatology is the relation of God’s ruach with two Old Testament figures: the Messiah and the Suffering Servant of the Lord. The prophet Isaiah foresees the coming of David’s descendant, “from the Stump of Jesse,” on whom the ruach of the Lord—“the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord”—will rest (Is 11:1-2). In line with this prophetic vision of the suffering Servant of the Lord, Jesus is anointed by the Spirit in order to fulfill his messianic role. For him, the Spirit’s anointing and the mission are inseparable.
Jesus, Padilla observes, is the long awaited anointed Son of God and Son of David—the shoot from Jesse’s stump. As such, God’s ruach rests upon and empowers him to fulfill his God-appointed mission. It is striking, however, that Padilla does not explicitly link this passage and his discussion of the Suffering Servant to Isaiah’s four Servant Songs (Is 42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–7; and 52:13–53:12). Indeed, the absence of any discussion about the final of these songs is surprising and perplexing.
But whereas Padilla is silent about Isaiah 52 and 53, his second point about Luke 4 relates the text to two other passages from Isaiah. Padilla writes, “the mission of the Messiah in the power of the Spirit is oriented toward the most vulnerable persons in society: the poor, the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed.” Padilla offers an extended explanation of this part of Jesus’ messianic mission.
The passage read at the synagogue in Nazareth is Isaiah 61:1-2, in which the prophet addresses a group of disappointed Jews shortly after the exile. The quotation, however, includes an additional phrase taken from Isaiah 58:6, “to release the oppressed,” which in its original context has definite social connotations. Israel’s oppressed are those who, feeling totally unable to cover their basic needs, have sold themselves as slaves. The only hope for them, as for all who are in positions of disadvantage in society, is the cancelation of their debts and their liberation from oppression.
Many who read Luke 4 don’t recognize that Jesus draws upon two texts, not merely one. Moreover, many of these same readers find it tempting to hyper-spiritualize or ignore how Jesus links these texts together to describe his messianic mission. Hyper-spiritualized readings go something like this: “Jesus doesn’t really mean he’s come to liberate the physically and politically oppressed; he means he’s come to liberate us from the ‘oppression’ of our individual sins.” Readings that ignore Luke 4 go something like this: “Yeah, sure—but we need to turn to John 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 15 to understand what Jesus’ messianic mission is really about.” Padilla believes both fail to do justice to the entire revealed council of God, especially as it regards the triune God’s commitment to liberate the physically and politically oppressed. On this point, Padilla quotes Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. “As Walter Brueggemann has pointed out in this passage, ‘the verbs of deliverance refuse to accept as a given any circumstance of oppression.’” The prophet’s grammar reveals God’s diametric opposition to oppression.
The third feature of Luke 4 Padilla highlights further unpacks how Jesus’ mission relates to social realities. He writes:
Jesus was convinced that his ministry was to promote radical socioeconomic changes big enough to be regarded as signs of the coming of a new era of justice and peace—‘the year of the Lord’s favor,’ the Jubilee year (Lev 25)—a metaphor of the messianic era initiated in history by Jesus Christ, in other words, the Kingdom of God.
Ever attuned to Jesus’ employment of the Hebrew Bible, Padilla helps readers see that the Spirit is empowering Jesus to accomplish a recreation that is not just spiritual, but physical. Here too, then, we see a recapitulation of the Spirit’s work to establish shalom in the material world. Padilla emphasizes that this work has an eschatological scope. “Both the reference to Isaiah 61:1-2…and the arrival of the year of the Lord’s favor give to Jesus’ ministry an eschatological note….What Jesus is announcing is nothing less than the arrival of a new age in human history. Anointed by the Spirit of God, the Messiah is the agent of eschatology in the process of fulfillment.” Jesus is ushering in the Kingdom of God, establishing a reign of justice. This is his Spirit-empowered, Messianic mission. “Jesus’ announcement, therefore, must be understood as the affirmation of the beginning of a new age of justice by the power of the Spirit manifested in his own person and work.”
At this point Padilla pivots. He aims to locate his previous points in an even broader understanding of Jesus’ inaugural ministry announcement. Consequently, Padilla makes general points about the Gospels.
Jesus’ own ministry, synthetically described throughout the Gospels, provides elements for understanding his programmatic Nazareth manifesto: he focuses his ministry on the needy not only from a physical and economic perspective but also from a social and spiritual dimension, according to the will of God. It is evident that his mission includes the restoration of harmony of people with God, with each other, and with creation. It is, in one word, a shalom mission.
Jesus works in the Spirit’s power to promote peace in a full, proper sense. This is the Father’s will. And Jesus’ presence, action, and words “are signs of the kingdom of God, concrete manifestations of the work of the Holy Spirit in the age of fulfillment.” Put differently: “The Spirit is God’s eschatological gift that makes ‘the year of the Lord’s favor’ a present reality through the person and work of Jesus Christ—the embodiment of the prophetic hope not just for his disciples, but for the multitudes who are attracted by his ministry.”
Padilla concludes his discussion of the Spirit’s work in Jesus’ ministry by linking Jesus’ popularity with his Spirit-empowered commitment to suffering people. Crowds pressed in on Jesus and his disciples partly because “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd” [emphasis in Padilla’s text]. Padilla links this compassion to the Old Testament’s depiction of God “as a God full of compassion for the poor and oppressed, ‘a parent of the orphan, the widows champion…[who] gives the friendless a home and brings the prisoner safe and sound’ (Ps 68:5-6).” Here Padilla hits a Trinitarian note: “The God who reveals himself through Jesus as God’s Messiah is this God-man of boundless compassion who was anointed by the Spirit to be the source of power for life and hope, especially among the poor.” Ever generous, Padilla gives the last word to another. “As Gustavo Gutiérrez puts it, ‘The works on behalf of the poor and the needy identify Jesus as the Messiah.’”
