spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

for God. Van Ruler (2009 [1968]:115-129) contends that within a Christian-religious perspective
the actual material dimension of creation has the same value as the invisible spiritual dimension;
the external side of creaturely existence is of the same quality as the internal. His motivation to
affirm the materiality of this world has to do with the fact that, in Van Ruler’s perspective, this
earthly physical life is the genuine and only life we have. There will be no other kind of life, and
thus we are charged with affirming the physical reality we live in; it does not make sense to try
to reach beyond this created and real existence, because this world is the reality that is willed by
God (2011 [1961a]:205f).
The absence of duality in Van Ruler’s doctrine of creation has to do with his emphasis on
theocracy as the purpose of creation. The kingdom of God, which is God’s dynamic involvement
in our reality, means that creation is an open reality. Creation is to be seen from the perspective
of God’s kingdom, that has an effect on our daily life. According to Van Ruler, the eschaton stirs
this world through the work of the Holy Spirit, who approaches us from the direction of that
kingdom, erecting provisional manifestations of that kingdom everywhere (Ten Boom 2011:14).
One cannot talk about creation and the kingdom of God without mentioning the crucial work of
the Spirit: the Holy Spirit is the One who fills creation with God’s reign in such a way that God
dwells among his people. Van Ruler regularly uses the phrase that ‘the Spirit works historically’,
which means that we cannot separate creation from Christ and the cross, just as we cannot
separate creation from the outpouring of the Spirit. For this restoration of creation, both the work
of Christ and the work of the Spirit are needed.
Spirit and Christ
In his discussion on the main features of a pneumatology (2011 [1957a]:289-338), Van Ruler
addresses the need for a distinctive, separate pneumatology besides Christology. He contends
that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is about understanding how the individual contemporary
believer can partake in God’s salvation in Christ. Salvation is such a deep, mysterious, divine act
in history, so how is it possible for the contemporary believer to become part of God’s gracious
salvation? Just as God himself had to be involved to save the believer, so God himself has to be
involved in the continuous process of being saved (2011 [1957a]:289). This is the work of the
Spirit. The basic thrust of his pneumatology is the salvific inhabitation of the Holy Spirit, who is
God himself. The notion of us being God’s habitation (Ephesians 2:22) is the overall frame of
the work of the Spirit in our reality (2011 [1957a]:293). It is through the inhabitation by the
Spirit that the believer is able to acknowledge God’s intention with this world. The inhabitation
by the Spirit means that God himself touches the believer directly, and this is the deepest
mystery of creaturely existence (2011 [1957a]:306).
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