Jesus and the Spirit: Interviews With Myk Habets

By Myk Habets

This is the transcript of interviews originally conducted for the video series You're Included, sponsored by Grace Communion International. Technical matters prevented us from publishing the videos, but we have been able to transcribe the interviews. Dr. Habets discusses the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the concept of theosis, or the transformation of Christians as we "partake of the divine nature."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grace Communion International
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311988522

Book preview

Jesus and the Spirit

Interviews With Myk Habets

Copyright 2016 Grace Communion International

Published by Grace Communion International

Table of Contents

Jesus the Anointed Son

Jesus and the Spirit

The Creeds and the Trinity

Theosis: Participation in the Divine Nature

About the Publisher…

Grace Communion Seminary

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Introduction

This is a transcript of interviews conducted as part of the You’re Included series, sponsored by Grace Communion International. We have more than 130 interviews available. You may watch them or download video or audio at https://learn.gcs.edu/course/view.php?id=58. Donations in support of this ministry may be made at https://www.gci.org/online-giving/.

Grace Communion International is in broad agreement with the theology of the people we interview, but GCI does not endorse every detail of every interview. The opinions expressed are those of the interviewees. We thank them for their time and their willingness to participate.

Please understand that when people speak, thoughts are not always put into well-formed sentences, and sometimes thoughts are not completed. In the following transcripts, we have removed occasional words that did not seem to contribute any meaning to the sentence. In some cases we could not figure out what word was intended. We apologize for any transcription errors, and if you notice any, we welcome your assistance.

Our guest in these interviews is Dr. Myk Habets, Dean of Faculty and Head of Carey Graduate School in New Zealand. He received his PhD from the University of Otago in 2006. His books include:

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the 21st Century(editor)

Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church(edited with Bobby Grow)

Evangelical Calvinism, Volume 2: Dogmatics & Devotion(edited with Bobby Grow)

Gospel, Truth, and Interpretation: Evangelical Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand

Heaven: An Inkling of What’s to Come

Kiwimade Narrative Sermons

Reconsidering Gender: Evangelical Perspectives(with Beulah Wood)

The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology

The Spirit of Truth: Reading Scripture and Constructing Theology with the Holy Spirit

Theology and the Experience of Disability: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Voices Down Under(with Andrew Picard)

T&T Clark Handbook of Colin Gunton(edited with Andrew Picard and Murray Rae)

T&T Clark Handbook of T.F. Torrance(edited with Paul Molnar)

The Art of Forgiveness(edited with Philip Halstead)

The Progressive Mystery: Tracing the Elusive Spirit in Scripture and Tradition

Theology and the Experience of Disability(edited with Andrew Picard)

Theology in Transposition: A Constructive Appraisal of T. F. Torrance

Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance

Third Article Theology: A Pneumatological Dogmatics

Trinitarian Theology after Barth(edited with Philip Tolladay)

What We Love: Reflections on Ministry, Leadership and Mission(edited with John Tucker)

The interviews were conducted in New Zealand by Dr. Michael Morrison, Dean of Faculty at Grace Communion Seminary. The technical quality did not permit us to post videos.

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Jesus the Anointed Son

Michael Morrison: We’re talking today with Myk Habets, head of Carey Graduate School, part of Carey Baptist College in New Zealand. Myk, it’s a pleasure to have you with us [Myk Habets: Thank you] – or for me to be with you, since we are in New Zealand on your turf.

MH: Welcome!

MM: Thanks. You’ve done a number of interesting studies and research. I was particularly interested in what you wrote in your book The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology. You had some interesting things to say about how we understand who Jesus is. Jesus is very important to Christians. How do we go about learning who this person is?

MH: Good question. I wrote the book partly to present to the academic community, in the hope that that will filter down into classrooms, pulpits, proclamation, that when we start, we start with Jesus himself (that’s a no-brainer) Jesus is risen, ascended to the right hand of the Father. So if we return to Scripture, the Gospels, the epistles, again and again, and what we see there is a number of perspectives on who Jesus is that are utterly complementary, but if we don’t see them in their different perspectives (if you like, stereoscopically), then we just see them myopically, then we get a distorted view of Christ. So I wrote this book from one perspective, which I think has been eclipsed, and we need to hear that message again. Christ’s relationship to the Spirit, a Christology that starts from below, these sorts of approaches.

MM: What you mean by from below?

MH: When we go to the Gospels, we see in John that he starts with this wonderful prologue – John 1:1-8 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So it starts, if you like, up in the heavenlies. It’s this insider’s view. Here’s the Logos, the second person, who condescends and becomes – verse 14 – takes to himself human flesh. Brilliant – wonderful – orthodox.

But the rest of that Gospel and the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke) don’t start above at all – they start with here is a person, Jesus of Nazareth. Here is someone born to Mary (in a particular way, nonetheless). He’s walking along and he calls people to Follow me. Leave your nets and come follow me. They’re not following God – that’s not their self-consciousness – they’re following a rabbi. They’d been passed over or they hadn’t wanted to go into the priesthood. They were fishermen and tax collectors and various disciplines, and this Jewish rabbi, this Jewish man who they see, who they sense, they hear something (I don’t know) authoritative,