“Before Christ sent the Church into the world He sent the Spirit into the Church. The same order must be observed today.” – John Stott
Introduction from Michael Cassidy
(Extract taken from Bursting the Wineskins)
“I want to stress the importance of approaching our theological formulations on the Holy Spirit with humility, flexibility and grace. How foolish to try to present a final or definitive word on the Holy Spirit! He is God the surpriser, God the unpredictable, God the box-breaker, God the de-systematiser of systematic theologians! Much of the current confusion on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit lies in just this – that we have tried to systematise One who does not always fit into our theological systems! We have tried to confine in neat theological categories One who, like the wind, blows where He wishes, unfettered by the theological formulations in which we seek to contain Him, or the human predictables by which we hope to anticipate Him. In my library, I have dozens of books by authors not only orthodox, neo-orthodox and unorthodox, this including Pentecostal, neo-Pentecostal, anti-Pentecostal, most of them presenting, equally dogmatically, the definitive word on the Spirit’s person and work! Every one, I suspect, has some of the truth. No one has it all.”
We have the Holy Spirit but does He have us?
Listen to: The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit by Michael Cassidy