The intrinsically relational process of the Holy Spirit’s project to remake our humanity (Rabens, Guthrie) offers important insight to our reading of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to the people of God in both the OT and NT. As the “central miracle” of the prophesied Coming Age (Eichrodt), the advent of the Spirit at Pentecost stands as the principal means of probing the new covenant’s continuity and discontinuity to the old. Therefore, advocates for both continuity and discontinuity appeal to the ministry of the Spirit in each covenantal context for their positions. Those favoring continuity, the more theological approach according to Grogan’s taxonomy, emphasize the Spirit’s work to produce the love, knowledge, and worship of God, to circumcise the heart, and ultimately to regenerate, as possible for the righteous of the old covenant economy. The novum of the new covenant for this view is a question of degree of the Spirit’s ministry, either in depth or breadth (Kaiser and Dumbrell, respectively). The more historical approach emphasizes discontinuity in the Spirit’s covenantal ministry leveraging especially Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel (chaps 7 and 16) and Paul’s exposition of his ministry of the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 3. Language of a new heart, Spirit baptism, indwelling, the Spirit’s being with and in, versus on or upon, and a witness to Christ’s cross, strike the chord of true innovation in the new covenant for this group (Hamilton, Levison, et al.).
This paper proposes the Spirit’s ministry of God’s grace, expressed concisely in 1 Corinthians 2:12, as the means to confront the continuity/discontinuity debate. The specific measure of God’s grace available to his people defines the substance and limits of the Spirit’s, and thus, the covenant’s, ministry. The paper moves in three parts. Part 1 will establish the connection of the Holy Spirit to the believer’s subjective apprehension of covenant grace marking the Spirit as “nearly synonymous with grace” (Dunn). This will require also a clear understanding of the meaning of grace (Dunn, Konzelmann et al.). Part 2 will then examine the content of God’s grace available the people of Israel as the participants in the Mosaic covenant. Because the grace of this covenant secured the formation and preservation of the nation at the exodus, a dominant, national coloring distinguishes the Spirit’s ministry to the righteous under the old covenant. Part 3 will consider the content of grace for the new covenant in the forgiveness of sins achieved through Christ’s cross (Welker, Goldingay). The differences in the covenant grace available for the Spirit to minister to God’s people defines the nuance of the Spirit’s work to the righteous in both covenants. It highlights the advance of the new covenant in the program of redemption, and it effectively negotiates the biblical data relevant to the issue of continuity and discontinuity.