Book Review: God's Indwelling Presence

I haven't read anything this academically rigorous in quite a while. My brain is tired, but I hope stronger for the workout.

How much continuity is there between the Old & New Testaments? How much discontinuity is there? These are big questions in biblical theology with big implications for local church life. The answers to these questions influence the decisions churches make on issues like baptizing infants, church discipline, worship liturgies, leadership structures and church government.

In this book, James Hamilton focuses on the question of whether people in Old Testament times were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The book is a major exegetical study of John's Gospel, though it also surveys the entire scope of the biblical canon. Heavily footnoted, it often makes for laborious reading, but scholars, theologians, pastors and teachers in local churches can benefit from this study.

Hamilton earned a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, America's seed-bed of dispensationalism. Hamilton has also been heavily influenced by Dr. Craig Blaising, one of our country's most able teachers of "progressive dispensationalism" (a modified version of the classical dispensationalism taught at DTS for years).

Hamilton concludes that there is more discontinuity than continuity between the testaments when it comes to the question of whether the Holy Spirit indwells believers in either testament. Not surprising, given the influences in his theological education, but he does a more than adequate job of making his points directly from the scriptures. Hamilton concludes:

"Regeneration is not to be equated with indwelling. Regeneration happens when God gives spiritual life to a person who was previously spiritually dead. Understood this way, regeneration is possible at any time in salvation history. The Spirit indwells believers when God takes up residence in His new temple, which consists both of each individual member of Christ's body and of the community of believers as a whole. Understanding indwelling this way leads to the conclusion that this aspect of the Spirit's ministry is only possible in salvation history after jesus has put an end to all sacrifices for atonement by dying on the cross. Once Jesus makes the old covenant temple with its cult obsolete, God dwells not only with but also in His new covenant people...Indwelling does exist in the old covenant, but it is not each individual that is indwelt. In the old covenant God indwelt the temple. In the new covenant the people of God are the temple, and God dwells in them." [160, emphasis his]

As a progressively dispensastional reformed covenantal baptist evangelical Christian, I think I am in complete agreement. How about you?

God's Indwelling Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Old & New Testaments, James M. Hamilton, Jr., Broadman & Holman Academic, 2005, NAC Studies in Bible & Theology, Series Editor: E. Ray Clendenen

Note: I first met Jim Hamilton in June of 2001 at Southern Seminary in Louisville. He was a Ph.D. candidate at Southern while I was working toward my M.Div. and we studied Biblical Hebrew together for a while. This book was based largely upon his Ph.D. dissertation.