spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

Van Ruler deliberately distinguishes the work of the Spirit from the work of Christ. In
soteriological terms, there is a reciprocity between the messiah and the pneuma, which allows for
the statement that God saves in Christ through the Spirit, as well as for the statement that God
saves through Christ in the Spirit (2011 [1957a]:297f). The Spirit communicates everything that
is in Christ, and relates it to our life: the communion with Christ himself. Yet it is all about the
kingdom of God and the world: “we are his beloved ones” (2011 [1957a]:298). In other words,
God’s saving involvement in creation requires two related but distinctive perspectives: Christ
and the Spirit.
With his emphasis on a distinct viewpoint on the work of the Holy Spirit, Van Ruler develops a
clear response to Barth’s Christological focus in theology, and retrieves an equilibrium in the
work of the Son and the Spirit. He identifies several differences in the structure of Christology
and pneumatology (cf. Van der Kooi 2009:48f). The first of these differences is about the
absence of enhypostasis in pneumatology: the work of the Holy Spirit is aimed at restoration of
creaturely existence. This does not mean, however, that creation is supposed to return to God in
an ontological sense, because creation, in being created, is already good. The implication for the
work of the Spirit is that the sending, the outpouring, and the inhabitation of the Spirit is not
focused on leading human life into God, but rather that God comes, and moves towards, and
lives in creation (2011 [1957a]:305). The work of the Spirit emphasizes the creaturely being, the
existence that is distinct from God. Contrary to Christology, pneumatology is thus not about
human life becoming part of God, but about the distinctiveness of creation through the
inhabitation of the Spirit.
The second difference is that Christology is about the human nature (taken on or assumed by
Christ), while pneumatology deals with the person. The Spirit lives in a person, while the two of
them do not become one; they do not share the same nature.
The third difference Van Ruler identifies is that Christology is a matter of substitution. In his
saving work, Christ takes the place of the human being, and becomes the substitute, because
humans cannot do this by themselves. Pneumatology aims at empowering the human being, at
inhabiting the human being so that he or she is endorsed to cooperate with God. Such a reference
to cooperation is unthinkable in Christology, but in pneumatology it is called theonome
reciprocity: the Spirit is the One who prepares our will so that we can respond and act for
ourselves.
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