Trinity Western University: TWU Academic Journals

Macchia, Frank

 
Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity 1 (2010) 176-183. 
                                                
Spirit Baptism  
A Response to My Reviewers 
 
Frank Macchia, D.Theol. 
Vanguard University of Southern California 
 
I wish to thank the editors (Michael Wilkinson and Peter 
Althouse) for bringing these four reviews of my book, 
Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology to 
my attention and for allowing me a brief response in order 
to clarify a few issues. I am also grateful to the reviewers 
for taking the time to read my book and to engage my 
theological vision. 
 Allow me to begin with a few preliminary remarks 
on my use of the category of Spirit baptism. First, as An-
drew Gabriel explains, my use of this metaphor comes 
from the diverse emphasis on it that has characterized the 
classical Pentecostal movement. We took the metaphor 
from the Holiness Movement and popularized it, even 
placed it on the ecumenical table, but debates among us 
continued as to the implications of the metaphor for 
Christian initiation (including baptism) and the charis-
matic life of the churches. Second, the most brilliant 
among our ecumenical critics (especially, Protestant New 
Testament scholar, James Dunn, and Catholic scholars 
Kilian McDonnell and George Montague1) have broad-
 
1 James Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of 
the New Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to 
Pentecostalism Today (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), and 
Kilian McDonnell and George Montague, Christian Initiation and 
Macchia: Spirit Baptism 177
 
 
ened and intensified the diversity of options concerning 
the doctrine of Spirit baptism by responding to us with 
proposals nourished from the Scriptures and from their 
own ecclesiastical backgrounds. In my view, they have 
persuasively made the case in response to the bourgeon-
ing Pentecostal movement that the metaphor of Spirit bap-
tism and its connection to the lavish charismatic life of the 
church has deep roots in the tradition, both throughout the 
New Testament and in the first eight centuries of church. 
Though they understandably criticized the tendency 
among most Pentecostals to focus Spirit baptism too nar-
rowly on an experience of empowerment, they were also 
willing to show that the movement has reconnected with a 
relatively neglected aspect of our common heritage. Kil-
ian McDonnell and George Montague, for example, con-
clude:  
The energizing power of the Holy Spirit, manifest-
ing itself in a variety of charisms, is not religious 
fluff. Nor is it—as viewed by many today—an op-
tional spirituality in the church…The baptism in 
the Holy Spirit does not belong to private piety 
but, as we have demonstrated, to the public, offi-
cial liturgy of the church…Indeed, the baptism in 
the Spirit is normative.”2
                                                                                               
Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries 
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991, 94). 
2 Kilian McDonnell and George Montague, Christian Initiation 
and Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 373. 
Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity 178 
So I turned to the New Testament to explore a 
metaphor that was not only important to my Pentecostal 
heritage but also to an increasingly global conversation 
that had come to involve creative voices from other tradi-
tions. My goal was to expand the theological horizons for 
Pentecostals but also to reveal the ecumenical potential of 
a typically Pentecostal metaphor. Constance Price’s will-
ingness to look appreciatively through a lens that was 
relatively unfamiliar to her was exactly the kind of ecu-
menical response I had hoped my book would inspire. She 
joins several Catholic voices that have responded to my 
book just as positively.3 Though my book is obviously 
situated within Pentecostalism (and communities of faith 
outside of Pentecostalism that have come to cherish simi-
lar spiritual accents or experiences), it was my hope that 
ecumenical partners could be blessed by it as well. 
 As to substance, the most basic theological move 
that I make in the book is to define Spirit baptism funda-
mentally as the self-impartation of the Triune God. Con-
stance Price is therefore spot on in her observation that 
my basic intention was an “expansion of the understand-
ing of Spirit baptism as a Trinitarian act, understood es-
chatologically as the outpouring of divine love” (134). 
Spirit baptism occurred as Jesus received the Spirit from 
                                                 
3 See for example H. Gasper, “Schritte zu einer Pneumatologie 
der Pfingstbewegung,” Una Sancta: Zeitschrift für ökumenische Be-
gegnung 1 (2009): 41-53; Ralph Del Colle, “Wither Pentecostal The-
ology: Why Is a Catholic Interested?” Pneuma: The Journal of the 
Society for Pentecostal Studies 31:1 (2009): 35-46; Peter Hocken, 
“Baptism in the Spirit: A Biblical Understanding,” online: 
http://www.ccr.org.uk/archive/gn0709/g08.htm
Macchia: Spirit Baptism 179
 
 
                                                
his heavenly Father and poured it forth to give birth to the 
church and to fulfill the Kingdom or reign of God in his-
tory (e.g., Acts 1:2-8; 2:33). Within this larger frame-
work, I also seek to look at Christology through the lens 
of Spirit baptism. I ask the question as to what would 
happen if we view Jesus’ person and mission through the 
lens of his unique role in imparting the Spirit, accenting 
(among other things) his descent into godless flesh as the 
man of the Spirit (through incarnation, baptism, and the 
cross) in order to bring all flesh into the realm of the 
Spirit (through his resurrection and the event of Pente-
cost).4 Most fully, the divine self-impartation thus in-
volves the eschatological expanse and freedom of the di-
vine love or koinonia granted through the outpouring of 
the Spirit. In general, I regard Spirit baptism as a helpful 
lens for viewing life within the “wide open spaces” 
(Moltmann) of God’s self-impartation as Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit. 
My reason for viewing Spirit baptism so expan-
sively was not simply to subsume all views of Spirit bap-
tism beneath a single idea or definition. My reason was 
primarily exegetical. I noticed that in the New Testament 
(e.g., Matt. 3:1-2, 11-12; Acts 1:3-8), Spirit baptism is 
used as a term for understanding the inauguration and ful-
fillment of the Kingdom of God in history. I try to follow 
that idea from its dogmatic foundations through to its lar-
 
4 I elaborate on this point further in my most recent book, Justified 
in the Spirit: Creation, Redemption, and the Triune God, Eerdmans, 
2010. 
Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity 180 
ger eschatological implications. The fact that all four 
Gospels and Acts, the narrative foundation of the New 
Testament canon, introduce Christ as the Spirit Baptizer 
implies that Spirit baptism functions as a “root metaphor” 
for Jesus’ eschatological impartation of the Spirit. If a re-
viewer feels that the reality of Spirit baptism is not as ex-
pansive as I have made it, that response would naturally 
need to engage my exegetical arguments, especially con-
cerning those elements in texts on Spirit baptism that de-
fine the metaphor in eschatological language and as a way 
of understanding the inauguration and fulfillment of the 
Kingdom of God. I am certainly open to participate in 
such a discussion.  
The second theological move that I make is eccle-
siological. As I note on pages 61ff and 155ff, Spirit bap-
tism constitutes the church in the outpouring of the Spirit. 
I view the competition of understandings concerning 
Spirit baptism (regenerative, sacramental, charismatic) as 
unfortunate in that each option tends to subordinate Spirit 
baptism to a particular understanding of the nature and 
function of the church. My response is that Spirit baptism 
in its essential connection to the Kingdom of God cannot 
be adequately contained within any of the three options. 
Spirit baptism constitutes the church in the koinonia of 
God as Father, Son, and Spirit and transcends the church 
in its fulfillment in the new creation. What lies behind the 
church is thus not a particular experience but rather the 
divine self-giving and the inauguration of the Kingdom of 
God. Making a particular experience of the Spirit the de-
termining factor in defining Spirit baptism would be to 
Macchia: Spirit Baptism 181
 
 
                                                
reduce Spirit baptism to regeneration or empowerment, a 
possibility that I have on one level written my entire book 
to resist. I do not wed pneumatology to a particular ex-
perience, so that granting the Spirit priority in relation to 
the church causes me to interpret all of the realities of the 
church as arising from my own cherished (and provincial) 
understanding of this experience! Reading my entire book 
through this lens, as Jane Barter Moulaison does, misses 
the mark of my central intention. It’s a provocative error 
that allows me to clarify the true motive at the heart of the 
book, but it is a fatal error in terms of appreciating what it 
is that I am really trying to do. As the special gift of di-
vine koinonia granted in the divine self-giving, the church 
(its doctrines and other core practices) therefore does in-
deed cradle our experiences of God, just as our ongoing 
experiences help to shape doctrines and other practices in 
return (note, e.g., 52 to 55). 5  
My third theological move is experiential. As 
Price notes rightly, I also define Spirit baptism as “a par-
ticipation in the charity of God who is Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit” (137).  This participation involves a variety 
of practices and experiences. The value of the Spirit bap-
tism metaphor for me is that it brings together so wonder-
fully the dogmatic foundations of the self-impartation of 
God in the eschatological gift of divine love or koinonia 
 
5 In his review of my book, Anglican theologian, Mark Cartledge, 
has thus noted that my theological method may be termed postliberal. 
His review was given as part of a panel of reviews at a plenary ses-
sion of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Lee University, Cleve-
land, TN, March, 2007. 
Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity 182 
and the practical/experiential dimension of life in the 
Spirit. The experiences of Spirit baptism of which I speak, 
therefore, do not arise from some esoteric illumination 
accessible only to privileged initiates. By defining Spirit 
baptism as essentially the eschatological gift of divine 
love or koinonia, I grant it broad accessibility as well as 
theological guidance, and I create breathing room for an 
expansively diverse understanding of it in terms of practi-
cal and experiential implications. I do not try in my book 
to impose Pentecostal spirituality on the churches. I make 
that abundantly clear (e.g., 149-151), recognizing that 
Pentecostal spirituality has been mediated by historical 
and cultural factors (151) and that “no single grid of New 
Testament gifts is to be imposed on the churches as all-
encompassing” (149). I do try in part to help other com-
munities gain an appreciation for those gifts and experi-
ences that have flourished among Pentecostals (which is 
already happening quite a lot in some places of the globe), 
but my larger goal is for ecclesial families to influence 
each other and for them all to detect overlap as well as 
analogies in terms of how they understand the experience 
of the Christian life. One Episcopalian response to an 
early paper that I gave capturing the essence of my book, 
for example, noted overlap between the Pentecostal ac-
cent on the charismageist and her work for her church on 
a theology of confirmation, which accented an under-
standing of the presence of the Spirit in a person’s life as 
empowerment for Christian vocation.  
Moreover, my trajectory of Catholic, Protestant, 
and Pentecostal accents when it comes to Spirit baptism is 
Macchia: Spirit Baptism 183
 
 
                                                
not intended as “progressive” and my discussion of op-
tions not meant to be exhaustive. Here again, Constance 
Price understands me best by noting that in my book the 
Spirit cannot be divided up into separate bestowals that 
can be ranked within some kind of hierarchy of options. 
There is according to my book one gift of the Spirit that is 
“released” in life practice and experience in a variety of 
ways. Within this context I can appreciate Schweitzer’s 
suggestion concerning the role of the Spirit in re-
contextualizing Christ afresh in new historical contexts. I 
note in line with this that the gifts and insights of the 
Spirit vary according to the contextual needs of the 
churches (149).  
I would like to close with a fitting quote from 
Clark Pinnock that captures the spirit of my book fairly 
well I think: 
As well as receiving the sacraments from the 
Spirit, we need to cultivate openness to the gifts of 
the Spirit. The Spirit is present beyond liturgy in a 
wider circle. There is a flowing that manifests it-
self as power to bear witness, heal the sick, proph-
esy, praise God enthusiastically, perform miracles 
and more. There is a liberty to celebrate, an ability 
to dream and see visions, a release of Easter life. 
There are impulses of power in the move of the 
Spirit to transform and commission disciples to 
become instruments of the mission.6
 
6 Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit 
(Downer’s Grove, IL: 1996), 129. 


English

Spirit Baptism: A Response to My Reviewers

Price, Constance M.

Review of Frank Macchia, 2006. Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

This essay explores ways that Pinnock also can serve as theological guide for the Pentecostal theological community

Studebaker, Steven M.

Clark H. Pinnock: Charismatic Pilgrim

Schweitzer, Don

1) I offer a brief narration of Stronstad’s journey toward personal ownership of a rich Pentecostal heritage; 2) I provide a summary of Stronstad’s magnum opus, "The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke"; 3) I move to Stronstad’s later development of Christian vocation as the "Prophethood of All Believers"; 4) I address the structural design of a one-volume commentary co-edited with French Arrington; and 5) I offer a select review of Stronstad’s participation in an ongoing Pentecostal debate concerning biblical interpretation

Not a member yet

Spirit Baptism: A Response to My Reviewers

Review of Frank Macchia, 2006. Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Clark H. Pinnock: Charismatic Pilgrim

Review of Frank Macchia, 2006. Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Academic and Pentecostal: An Appreciation of Roger Stronstad

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