As a contrast to the absence of Paul using literary precedence for Jesus Christ becoming the one Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15:45(b), I would like to present my idea of John's use of literary precedence for his images of seven spirits burning before the throne in Revelations.
Now we all know John repeatedly saw visions of seven spirits in Revelation, starting right at chapter one with the scene of God on the throne. So it is important. But did John just cook this up out of nowhere? Or did he have any precedence which he would expect his readers to be familiar with? I argue the latter. There were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne as far back as Exodus, with the fabrication of the Menorah candlestick, and in subsequent literature, e.g. the prophets as well.
And there were seven "first created spirits" as well, in contemporary literature such as Tobit. And the apostle John, in Revelation 8:2, also mentioned seven angels that stand before God (cf Luke 1:19). The meaning of this was discussed in commentary as far back as the second century AD with writers such as Clement and Origen.
Now, my point is not to offer an interpretation, but simply to mention that John isn't dredging up something completely new and without precedence, in seven spirits before the throne. His readers might have been challenged, as they surely were by his "apocalyptic vision", but John was not being inscrutable and indecipherable - John was writing with purpose; he expected understanding. And, importantly, John's "revelation" was not without literary precedent; John's vision was tied to preceding visions. By contrast, where is precedence for Paul's supposed vision of the last Adam becoming the life-giving Spirit?
Additionally, where does WL's "God who became man who became one life-giving Spirit" need to be intensified sevenfold, anyway? Because of the degradation of the churches? There were seven lamps burning before the throne as far back as Exodus, and there they were, burning in the Holiest place, in the temple period. Suddenly, WL thinks that John is saying that the life-giving Spirit needs to be intensified sevenfold, to overcome the degradation of the church... ??? I don't buy it. God was, is, and always will be "intense" enough for whatever He sets at hand. If anything, we need the intensification, not the Spirit of God.
And if the one Holy Spirit could not give life to those in the Asian churches without becoming intensified, then where's evidence of a sevenfold intensified work of the Holy Spirit subsequently? Or was this also waiting for "the last apostle" to come and put the jigsaw puzzle together and sell us the pamphlets? And even if so, where's the evidence of a sevenfold intensified Spirit operating in the Local Churches of WL? All I remember is shouting and jumping up and down, but today it seems more like soulish enthusiasm masquerading as spirituality. Is that the extent of the "seven-fold intensified" Spirit's operation -- few scattered outbreaks of charismatic Pentecostalism over the years?
All this may seem off the thread of 1 Cor 15:45(b), but I'm trying to show that the NT writers were careful to couch their ideas in the authority of preceding scriptures. The apostle John referenced the OT over 400 times, easily, in his Apocalypse. There was no need for the Holy Spirit to "become" something it had not already been, all along. So my question here is: what precedence, if any, does Paul reference in his supposed revelation of Jesus becoming the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15? Or is WL's logic (sorry,
'revelation') all we have to guide us here?
