God, the Lamb, and the River: The Holy Spirit in the Age Without End
Read Revelation 21:1–22:5 slowly and you will find the Father on the throne and the Lamb, a bride, a city with Israel's twelve tribes written on its gates, a tree whose leaves heal the nations. Look for the Holy Spirit and, at first, you will not find Him named. E. K. Galle raised the issue; David Mathewson asks the question outright: where is the Spirit in the new creation, and should readers even expect to find Him there?¹ Daniel Castelo notes that some have called the Spirit "the shy member of the Trinity," and the last two chapters of the Bible can seem to prove the point.² The Old Testament shows Him hovering over the deep, filling Bezalel, rushing upon Samson, breathing life into Ezekiel's valley of bones. The New Testament gives us Pentecost and a Pauline pneumatology so pervasive the apostle can scarcely speak of Christian existence without speaking of the Spirit. Then the canon reaches the eternal state and the explicit references thin almost to nothing. A ...