"The pneumatological activity ... of the Paraclete ... may most helpfully be considered in terms of the salvific working of the hidden Spirit." - Michael Welker


"This self-effacing character of the Spirit’s presence finds a kind of verbal reinforcement in scripture due to an ambiguity present in both Hebrew and Greek, where the words ruach and pneuma carry a semantic width that encompasses the range of English words: “wind,” “breath,” “spirit.” In the Priestly account of creation, are we to translate Genesis 1:2b as saying that “the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” or would it be better rendered, “a wind of God swept over the face of the waters”? When Jesus says to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8), the Greek of the Gospel contains a kind of theological pun in its double use of pneuma.

Taking seriously this veiled presence of the Spirit, expressed in the hidden character of pneumatological action, by no means implies a denial of more manifest activity also. The kind of bivalent working that Kathryn Tanner discusses in her chapter is surely just what one would expect of a divine Person, in contrast to the uniformity of action associated with a mere force such as gravity, unvarying in its characteristics...

According to this understanding, the sanctifying work of the Spirit is a continuing activity that awaits its final completion in the creation of the community of the redeemed, a consummation that will manifest fully only at the eschaton. Of the Persons of the Trinity, we can appropriate most specifically to the Spirit the title of deus absconditus, the hidden God.

We have acknowledged that a veiling of pneumatological activity is not the only thing to be said about the work of the Paraclete, yet recognition of a degree of reticence in the nature of the Spirit’s presence does offer opportunities for the theological understanding of a number of puzzling aspects of the human encounter with divine reality. There is the important and pressing problem posed by the need to understand how the apparently clashing cognitive claims made by the different world faith traditions can be reconciled with the evident presence of authentic spiritual experience within all of them. I have suggested elsewhere that this phenomenon may most helpfully be considered in terms of the salvific working of the hidden Spirit."

Michael Welker, The work of the Spirit: pneumatology and Pentecostalism
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006, page 170-1


"The subject and the scope of this study are the role(s) of the Spirit-Paraclete in John 16:4b-15. The methodology applied is socio-rhetorical criticism as developed by Vernon K. Robbins. The fourth Gospel is called the `spiritual Gospel.' Its pneumatic connotations are not only related to its presentation of Christ but also to its frequent references to the Spirit and its cognates. Jesus' Spirit-Paraclete teaching in his Farewell Discourse is a prominent example of this. Its pneumatological content is, however, problematic. This is demonstrated by the various attempts of Johannine scholars. In addition, methodologies, goals and the scope of these studies vary. It was observed that if scholars suggest a role for the Spirit-Paraclete, they usually use `either-or' language, pointing out one role while excluding other possible roles from their conclusions or merely list explicitly mentioned functions of the Spirit-Paraclete. This study is a response to this present situation. It deals with the last two Spirit-Paraclete sayings of Jesus in his farewell address to determine the role(s) of the Spirit-Paraclete, applying the comprehensive reading model which has not been applied to this text before. The hypothesis was that if a more comprehensive methodology is applied to the narrative, a more comprehensive understanding of the text would be gained. We applied multidisciplinary socio-rhetorical criticism which takes into account narrative-rhetorical, intertextual, social-cultural, ideological and sacred aspects of the text while not neglecting contexts in which the story took place, was recorded and is interpreted. Findings were that the roles of the Spirit-Paraclete go beyond mere theological and spiritual significance to touch sociological and psychological aspects of human experience. Thus, the roles of the Spirit-Paraclete are multidimensional. These roles are also integrated with each other. Together they support and point to one major role of the Spirit-Paraclete, which does not, however, downplay [her] other roles. The central role of the Spirit-Paraclete in John 16:4b-15 is to be the divine presence who forms a performing community of the disciples called the people of the Spirit."

The role(s) of the spirit-paraclete in John 16:4b-15
Tuppurainen and Riku Pekka, UNISA, University of South Africa