Dennis Tuuri

Q1
Questioner:
This text speaks is understood to be a reference to a special apostolic commissioning and giving of the Spirit, and during your talk I think you acknowledged that, yet at the same time you spoke of it as broadly applicable to the disciples and to us. I’m wondering if you’re rejecting the common apostolic interpretation, particularly in the statement. I think the reason that it’s said that way or interpreted that way is because one, they are specifically said to be sent, correlating as you said to the word apostle, and two, because it’s a special giving of the Spirit which precedes Pentecost, which is the general giving of the Spirit. So I’m wondering if you’re rejecting that understanding.

Pastor Tuuri:
I am. What I think I said was it has application to that, but I am rejecting that sense of an exclusive commissioning of just the apostles here. I just don’t see it. Actually, it’s not a common interpretation—I’m not at odds with most commentators on this anymore. Calvin and some others in the Reformation thought it was exclusive to the apostles, but really most modern commentators have moved away from that because the textual evidence seems to me not to support it.

Several reasons. One, we have the continuing statement of disciples throughout the thing, not the 12. Two, the word shifts from the word for apostle—Jesus is the sent one, the apostle—to “sending forth,” which is a general term, not a specific. And it seems like he could have just as easily used the same word that he’s used about his own being sent by the Father. And we might have had some textual support for an apostolic sending, but it’s not that word. It’s the generalized word for sending. Now, you know, maybe that’s just to make the differentiation of Christ and the apostles, but to me, it’s one more line of evidence that says we have a general thing going on here.

Three, the giving of the Spirit argument I think kind of falls apart because in John’s gospel, we’ve seen over and over again that death, resurrection, ascension—it’s all linked up. He’s just told Mary, you know, I’m ascending to the Father presently. I’m doing it now. So the text wants us to see the giving of the Spirit in relationship to that ascension as being general and not specific.

Four, the line of evidence is that breathing upon the disciples, the gift of new life is conferred to the church as a body, and it’s emblematic of the whole new creation. New creation isn’t filled with some guys that are breathing and living beings and some that aren’t. The fact that it’s a corpus, that there’s a group of people brought together as the church, the society of the church, as one commentator puts it—indicates, and I failed to make mention of this in my notes, but that we have a continuing entity that is being filled with the Spirit here, enlivened by the Spirit, and that is the church.

You know, the modern idea of corporation comes from the Latin “corpus,” or body, and in this text the body is assembled and the body is given the Spirit and this worldwide task. The body continues to exist though its individual members die. That’s why corporations have a perpetual life. It’s based upon the idea of Christ’s body in the church having life that outlives the individual members of it. So it was only necessary once to breathe life into this body and make the church then the mechanism for this mission to the world.

So it seems to me that we don’t want to isolate that off into just apostles. There’s no specific designation of just apostles. The Greek term used for sending them out is different than he could have used to designate just the apostles. And so it seems to me that it’s a broader commission to all the church and not restricted to apostles. And like I said, that’s not necessarily a new or unusual way of interpreting the text anymore. A lot of modern commentators have gone that route just because of the textual evidence.

Does that help? You know, we could turn to Peter being given the keys of the kingdom and make some obvious claims in terms of the ministry of the church. But I just think it’s so important to see this in terms of this general idea of the new creation and all of the congregation’s participation in new creation. So it gives all of us both the responsibility as well as the meaning of our lives being related to this rolling back of sin.

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Q2
Questioner:
Yes, Dennis, thank you for the great message. Following up on what Doug said, somewhat following Doug’s question: if you could parse the essential economy for effectually hearing the voice of Christ.

Pastor Tuuri:
I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear that.

Questioner:
If you could parse the essential economy for effectually hearing the voice of Christ. What is essential for hearing the voice of Christ and what are the essential aspects of that?

Pastor Tuuri:
Well, that would take a… If I’m understanding your question correctly, you’re trying to—are you asking, I’m sitting here in my house, how do I hear the voice of Christ? What is the mechanism? Is that what your question is?

Questioner:
Right. I mean, in the most essential, what are the rudimentary essentials for hearing the voice of Christ?

Questioner:
Did you have an answer? Well, I thought I might venture a comment. Probably the central feature of hearing the voice of Christ is having it mediated to us through other human beings. And so whether that be human beings who wrote in the Bible the words of God, or human beings who are in the church with us, or those human beings who are pastors over us, it’s always mediated to us through other people. That would be, I think, the central way to think of the voice of Jesus.

Pastor Tuuri:
That’s good. And you know, this, and that of course in the text, is so linked to the whole—you know, “whoever sins you retain are retained, whoever sins you remit are remitted.” Jesus wants us to think in terms of a one-to-one correlation as other people speak to us the truth of his word. So I would agree that was well put. Does that help you at all?

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Q3
Questioner:
I have an idea on that. Back in John 7, Jesus therefore answered them and said, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself.” We’re bombarded on every side with communication from God. I mean, we have the Psalm 19 kind of creation. We have marriage, we have plants, we have animals, we have Tolkien—you know, we have all kinds of books and stories and legends. And I mean, he just reveals himself everywhere. Probably the willingness to do as well that enables us to hear that and make sense out of it and receive that communication from Christ through all these different channels.

Pastor Tuuri:
Good.

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Q4
Questioner:
It was during a question and answer time, and I think also during the sermon, some aspect of when one speaks forth some kind of articulation of the words in the air for the hearer. I’m just wondering, in terms of this economy, you did mention a couple Sundays back the necessity, of course, of the Holy Spirit. So I’m just wondering—why, in terms of answering a question as to the necessary economies of hearing the voice of Christ, the omniscience or the omnipresence of God’s Spirit, in terms of God being everywhere—why the Holy Spirit isn’t immediately included in those answers? I’m just wondering. Okay, was there a question in that?

Questioner:
Yeah. I’m just wondering as to how you see—in terms of the speaking forth in terms of person-to-person, what place the Holy Spirit has. Is it just merely an articulation of words in the air, or is the Spirit actually everywhere? And indeed, that is my understanding—that the Holy Spirit speaks a message to those who are damned, God’s wrath; to those who are elect, God’s peace.

Pastor Tuuri:
Yeah. And so I’m believing that the Holy Spirit’s everywhere and that he’s probably more essential to the economy of hearing the voice of Christ than just a simple individual. Well, except that in Ephesians and Colossians, when he encourages them to be filled with the Spirit, he encourages them to speak to one another. So, you know, both Ephesians and Colossians, when it gets down to the practical section of the book, the application is that the way to be Spirit-filled and be Spirit-guided and directed is to be in the context of community and speaking the truth of God to each other in community.

So the Spirit exists in the context of community. So certainly the Spirit’s one that is using the words of other people, bringing conviction to us. But you know, we kind of, I think, tend to think of the Spirit as isolated from that—the Spirit speaks to us when we get off in our prayer closet. And I think both Ephesians and Colossians says the Spirit speaks to us as he uses other people around us to penetrate our world.

And I agree with you that I think it’s very important. I probably didn’t stress this in my talk, but it’s very important to see that double nature. You know, it’s important to see the primacy of forgiveness, grace, and regeneration. But to effect that in the charter of the church given to us here, it says to speak both truths. People don’t like it when a pastor speaks strong words to them or when a friend speaks strong words to them.

But it is as necessary, I think, according to our text as the other. And so the Spirit is a Spirit that brings conviction of sin and unrighteousness. And he does that again through the voice of other people.

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Pastor Tuuri:
Anybody else? Any comments or questions? Well, I would just encourage you all to read the text in your home. And you know, I always—this is why I didn’t really want to preach on John. You know, the text is so beautiful and so pregnant that I frequently feel like a blithering idiot up here trying to say anything other or to plumb at least a little bit of the depths of the text.

So I would just encourage you all to continue to read John’s gospel in your homes and particularly the text of chapter 20. Okay, let’s go.