Holy saturation: religious symbolism and visual intensity

Holy Saturation

The traditional, or Orthodox view, is that the church is a necessary medium between the laity and God, and that without the church and the hierarchy of clergy, the congregation would be unable to attain the wisdom of God. They saw the coming of god's kingdom as a literal event. They also saw it preposterous thought to separate the body from human life. That is, they saw Jesus as both flesh and spirit that were inseparable. The Orthodox considered the crucifixion of Jesus as a historical account. They viewed Jesus as a martyr that sacrificed his life so that we may live. It was believed that the martyrdom of Jesus allows for the forgiveness of sins and ensures resurrection and our life everlasting; this sacrifice allowed us to release our guilt and receive forgiveness for our sins.

Spiritual gifts, the gift of communion with the Holy Spirit, the gift of melding, or saturation, with the Holy Spirit, are, for some denominations special and more suited to the infancy of Christendom. For others, spiritual gifts are divine, entranced, and are representative, not exhaustive. The emphasis on the gifts from the Holy Spirit, though, derived from several sources, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and Corinthians 12:27-30 being the most predominant (Carraway, 2005, 2-29). The table below represents an overview of these gifts, and is a useful tool prior to a detailed analysis of Christology.

The Father

The Son

The Holy Ghost

Operative Gifts

Administrative Gifts

Charismatic Gifts

Romans 12:6-8

Ephesians 4:11

1 Corinthians 12:1-14

Prophecy

Apostolic Focus

Wisdom

Ministry

Prophectic Goals

Knowledge

Teaching

Evangelism

Discerning of Spirits

Exhortation

Pastoralism

Speaking & Interpreting Tongues

Giving

Teaching

Prophecy

Leading

Examples

Faith

Compassion

Empathy

Faith

Hierarchy

Egalitarian

Subserviant

Contemporary scholarship on the subject breaks down the gifts and transient saturation into four broad paradigms that, if taken as a whole, help round out a more definitive template for spiritual living:

Receiving saturation with the Holy Spirit enables the individual to witness the validity of Christ with supernatural workings that could only be possible from the Son of God. Christ commands us to continue witnessing for Him; spiritual gifts are divinely inspired and Christ's ministry on earth the basis for all of this that unravels (Acts 2:22). As Christ travelled through the known world performing miracles, demonstrating faith, healing and discerning spirits for his testament and ministry, so too much we emulate that within our own world (Greig, G. And K. Springer, eds., 1993).

With the acceptance of saturation, comes edification of the person, and therefore, the Body of Christ. Christ asks that we edify ourselves and use these gifts for the benefit of mankind. The uniqueness of these individual gifts are unquantitative, and thus non-duplicating, so they must be used by the receiver. Benjamin Franklin even said, "Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What is a sundial in the shade?" The body is part of this process, too, and must be revered toward the standards set forth (Chadwell, 1991, 4-37).

The external often bring unity and stability to the Church. This is analogous to the Church as the core body, and the members the core functions; neither words without the other, and the synergism in the bond transcends the self. When all parts come together and work well, the optimism and love exist; without this mitigation, it is only lust, terror, and a complete lack of moral values and centeredness (Hastings, 2007).

For the contemporary Christian, the saturation is a process to become ready to carry out the mission of the Church as outlined in Matthew 28:19 and in Acts 1:8. The mission of the Church has not ceased, only evolved over time. It still requires personal edification, Christ centered services, and worldwide evangelism. Indeed, if Christ still calls us to carry out His mission, would he not continue to give us the gifts which we need (Limm, 2007, 457-88).

The Gnostic sect split with Orthodoxy over the initial question of who Jesus was. Gnostics were more than historical realists, believing that Christ, as part of the Holy Trinity, was much more than just a human martyr. Instead, they were a bit more literal vis-a-vis the Biblical story of Jesus born as a human, but receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and then becoming a greater being, the Christ (Lowe, 2000, 314-6). Then, at the Crucifixion, Jesus' spirit was transfigured into something different, a unique spiritual being who embedded the sins of mankind so that humans had the possibility of salvation. The Church and the Gnostics also disagreed over the suffering of Jesus -- or the Passion of Christ. The Church, this time, took the more literal approach, the Gnostics completely separated out the body vs. The spirit, and believed that only the physical nature of Jesus suffered, not the divine part -- but the steps were necessary in order to allow for ascension into heaven (O'Collins, 1995, Chapter 4; Clark, 1967, 18-65).

This disagreement bled into each division's basic theory of God. For the Gnostics, the Creator of the Old Testament was interpreted more as a stern manager who created the world, set to organizing it, and punished those who did not follow its path. The New Testament God, however, was loving, forgiving, and benevolent in granting humans more freedom to choose good or evil (the absence of good). The had difficulty reconciling a Supreme Being who could be spiteful, kill, maim, or starve while at the same time preaching the doctrine of universal forgiveness and love. The Orthodoxy, however, believed in "one God, the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and all that was part thereof" (Ibid., 188-94).

An additional point of contention was the process of salvation. Partially because of their conception of God, the Orthodoxy believed it was necessary to overtly praise their belief in a creed of one God. The Gnostics were far more inward-thinking and meditative, separating their spiritual belief system from the political and cultural ties that were becoming so linked with the early Church. In fact, it was in the best interests of the Orthodoxy to create the message that the Gnostics were heretics. Gnosticism believed that humans should demonstrate their visage of Christianity through living well, doing good works, and having faith. This did not include an intermediary (the Papacy), tithing, nor an official organized structure to manage the Church. The Gnostics, in turn, believed that their position was more in line with the teachings of Jesus; that anyone could proclaim a creed, but one had to demonstrate it to prove that one had accepted it. Since the ultimate goal was salvation, this disagreement had very serious consequences for Gnosticism as the early Church became more organized and politicized (Williams, 1996, 44-89.)

After the Crucifixion, both sides also claimed to be the true witnesses, and thus inheritors, of Christ's tradition. The Orthodoxy claimed they alone say the physical reappearance of Christ and foretold the importance of such as Gospel. Gnostics believe that the relationship between salvation and humans was far more personal and individualistic. The Crucifixion was symbolic and merely an encounter between Jesus' spirit and humanity -- it was the self-knowledge and interpretation of that event that allowed a Gnostic to attain union with Christ. This also led to a schism in which the Gnostics held that they belonged to a "truer" Church, one of the minorities who could understand just what was necessary to attain enlightenment (Perkins, 1984, 500-6).

For Christians, the Doctrine of the Trinity is part of the basis for the realization of the divinity of Christ -- it teaches that there are three parts to God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all united into one Godly force. This doctrine purports that the Christian God is the Triune God -- the Greek hypostases, an amalgamation of the ancient mystical three into one.

As a central dogma of the Christian Church, and a main tenet of Eastern Orthodoxy, the idea of the Trinity as dogma originated in the 3rd century; debated, postulated, organized and agreed upon along with numerous other doctrine at the Council of Nicea.

Additionally, the Papacy has long embraced the use of the Trinity as both the methodological precept of salvation and the manner in which God chose to organize and communicate his message to mankind. This makes the Trinity the mediation of salvation -- occurring not just through the ministry, but through all members of the Church -- the Church's being constituted by the Holy Spirit.

Interestingly enough, there is no formalized doctrine of the Trinity within the New Testament, although there are several references to the idea of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a way to understand the overwhelming nature of God. The formal use of the concept developed out of Matthew 28:19 (Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit), and was embellished up until the formulation of the Nicean Doctrine. The popularization of the idea, though was somewhat linguistic in that when speaking of God and the Holy Spirit, different words were used that could mean "person," "nature," "essence," or "substance," -- words that were part of a longer, and far older tradition, but not adopted by the new Church .

Later, to echo this interpretation, the French Dominican Yves Conger, wrote that the Spirit of God was equal to the Spirit of Wisdom -- intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle

However, we must realize, too, that there was a long and rich tradition within the Ancient Near East. Whether one subscribes to the idea that essential mythos was something common arising out of civilization and being passed forward, or that each individual religion of the Ancient World was divinely inspired by its own set of beings, the concept of the Trinity is neither new, nor linked inexorably to the New Testament. This tradition actually enhances the philosophical construct for the idea of the conception of the Trinity prior to Jesus -- the primacy of the nature of the concept is documented as more than a nomadic tradition, but an actual way of viewing God through the eyes of man.

This is important background in that as modern Christians turn to the words of Paul to explore and examine the way the resurrection is utilized as not just a portal into the nature of God, but the future and appropriateness of God's message to mankind. Of course, we must realize that the source for the issue is Biblical, a series of over sixty books and letters arranged in a more or less chronological order, by over forty authors in three different languages- Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The written material covers over fourteen hundred years and events in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The authors range from poor people to kings, from Hebrew fishermen to Greek doctors. The New Testament books were written before 100 AD but were not put together until 367 AD by Athanasius and the councils of Hippo (393 AD (Poole, 2003). In addition, the Bible has manuscript support from twenty four thousand copies made, compared to, for example, the works of Caesar, which had only ten copies. There is concordance between Biblical histories and secular sources such as various Roman writings by Flavius Josephus and Pliny, Governor of Bithynia. There is also archaeological evidence from many sources such as the tablets unearthed from Edla / Northern Syria, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. that do not contradict the Biblical accounts (Poole, 2003; McDowell, 1999).

Judaism conceives of God as transcendent, above nature and the world, yet God communicates with people through various media, such as the kabalistic tradition, which holds that God has voluntarily relinquished some control over the world, granting free will on humanity, thus allowing the opportunity to prove its own level of maturity. Because the God of Judaism is formless, invisible, and beyond the capacity of humans to comprehend, it has, since its earliest days, avoided artistic portrayals that might be confused with attempts to depict the deity.

Thus, in order to fully understand the Judaic concept of monotheism, one must first understand the structure of the basic Judaic system. God is linked with Israel through the Torah, which is divine self-disclosure through speech. This relationship is stabilized through Israel's loyalty to the one God. Consequently, along another line of thought, the obedience of Israel through the Torah's commandments (Mitzvot) brings reality to its perfection, with the coming of the Messiah. Though speculative, it would seem that the intersection of these two linear concepts has allowed Jews to continue to practice their religion with general consistency, although cultural factors have at times forced them to make adaptations to their practice.

The monotheism of Christianity is engulfed in a concept known as a trinity. This trinity consists of a new revelation known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christianity is a religion that thrives on paradox, because it believes in the existence of an all-powerful God (similar to Judaism), but a God that reveals himself in three distinctly different forms. Yet even though this God can manifest himself in these different forms, he still remains the same God. Symbols in Christianity also illustrate the idea of paradox. These concepts of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are referred to in Christian scripture in abounding numbers. Christology, defined as the theological term for thinking about Christ, also is a paradoxical element of Christianity. In it is the belief that Christ was both fully divine and fully human at the same time,

One basic idea of the Trinity, then, within the Torah is that of the covenant of God, the Jews, and the Promised homeland of Israel. That there is but one god is revealed many times, but the Judaic Old Testament belief is that God is one-being, split into three essences, but the same God, or one being. In the Old Testament, there are several proofs that there is but one God:

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is One Lord." (Deut. 6:4)

In the first of the Ten Commandments, 'Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." (Deut. 5:7).

Many religious scholars do not see a conflict between the interpretation of the Trinity in the Old Testament and the evolution of that interpretation in the New Testament. It seems logical that as the religion of Jesus of Nazareth expanded, the cultural relevancy of the relationship between God and the people of Israel would change, too. That being said, there are several examples, both textual and parabalic, within the Old Testament that point to a clear Trinitarian tradition and belief system.

Now skip to the resurrection. Looking at the actual events alleged to have occurred during the resurrection itself. The details of the crucifixion are well-known and detailed in such Biblical sections as John, "so the soldiers took charge of Jesus, carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the skull, here they crucified him, and with him two others," (19:17-35).

Did Jesus really die during the crucifixion or was he just unconscious and later revived? In this act, Jesus was pierced with a sword (John 19:34). Prior to the crucifixion he had been beaten and whipped in ways that would have led to severe injuries without medical attention (McDowell). The act of the crucifixion itself has been described in great detail by Roman scholars and modern researchers, in a way that emphasizes maximum suffering and minimum chance of survival. A Roman soldier (Mark 15:44, 45) told Pilate that Jesus was dead. Pilate had been surprised at the speed of death, so wanted it verified. A Centurion would have made very sure of this before telling vital information to a king with power over his life and death. Joseph of Arimathea and numerous religious leaders as well as followers confirmed this physical death (Wilkins and Moreland, 1996, pp.145-48).

The tomb was found empty by Mary Magdalene ("They have taken my Lord away" John 20:13), Peter (Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away wondering to himself what had happened" Luke 24:14), and others. Now, the tomb had been sealed with a heavy stone that a very sick man without medical attention couldn't have moved, and guarded by Roman soldiers who were under strict orders to allow no disturbance or theft, under likely pain of death (McDowell, 1990).

There has long been a theory that the disciples of Jesus some how bribed the guards (the high priests were on alert specifically for this- Matthew 7:62-66) and stole the body. However, all but one of the disciples (John) later died violently would they have died for their faith if it was meaningless? Their motives could be later clarified by Paul, who wrote, "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so, is your faith" (I Corinthians 15:14).

The ultimate evidence for the resurrection would be if a revival Jesus appeared in broad daylight in front of witnesses, which the Bible states he did over a period of forty days. In I Corinthians 15:6, Paul notes, while listing the post resurrection appearances, "After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time (in a hill in Galilee), most of whom are still living (at the time Paul is writing this). On the above eyewitness account, some people might explain this away by mass hysteria or hallucinations, a response to this was done by Thomas J. Thorburn who stated, "It is absolutely inconceivable that as many as (say) five hundred persons of average soundness of mind and temperament, in various numbers, at all sorts of times, and in diverse situations, should experience all kinds of sensuous impressions- visual, auditory, tactual - and that all these manifold experiences should rest entirely upon subjective hallucinations. We say that this is incredible, because if such a theory were applied to any other than a "supernatural event in history, it would be dismissed forth with as a ridiculously insufficient explanation (McDowell, 1979, p. 249).