He Will Lead you into all Truth

Abstract

"There are two common views of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church today: one emphasises the believer's experience of love, joy and fellowship, which may be accompanied (albeit secondarily) by phenomena such as those associated with the 'Toronto blessing'. The other view is that the Spirit mediates salvation by word and sacrament to the hearer of the Gospel; the criterion of what is true to the Gospel cannot be an experience. In view of these alternative views, the essay raises the following questions: how is the Holy Spirit to be recognized? How does he relate to God the Father and God the Son? .A:nd how is his work to be understood, of whom it is said that He will lead you into all truth? The essay is not an attempt to do a theology of the Holy Spirit, but only asks in what ways the Holy Spirit manifests himself as real in the Christian community"