Matthew Barrett: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” Are Acts 2 and 10 Proof-Texts for Inclusivism?
So far the Credo blog has posted several papers from ETS including:
“The Advent of God’s Son as Judgment in John’s Gospel-Justification and Condemnation Already.” by A. B. Caneday
“He Will Glorify Me: Evaluating the current turn to pneumatology by inclusivists and pluralists,” by Todd Miles
“The Making of a Baptist Universalist: The Curious Case of Elhanan Winchester,” by Nathan Finn
Today we would like to highlight yet another: “‘I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.’ Are Acts 2 and 10 Proof-Texts for Inclusivism?” by Matthew Barrett. Matthew Barrett (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the executive editor of Credo Magazine. Barrett has contributed book reviews and articles to various academic journals. He is married to Elizabeth and they have two daughters, Cassandra and Georgia. He is a member of Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.
Here is the introducation:
Acts 2:17 is often cited as a proof-text supporting the inclusivist view. The context for Acts 2 is the day of Pentecost. Previously, in Acts 1 Jesus, before ascending to the right hand of the Father, promised his disciples that they would receive power with the advent of the Holy Spirit, so that they might be witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). In Acts 2 we see the fulfillment of this promise as “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). When Peter explains to onlookers what had taken place, he does so by quoting Joel 2:28-32. “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18). According to the inclusivist, the Spirit poured out on all flesh demonstrates that there is a saving, universal work of the Spirit even apart from the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amos Yong, for example, argues that this text “should caution us against reading the ‘all’ of Acts 2:17 in an exclusively ecclesiological sense.”
The most important passage, says the inclusivist, that exemplifies Acts 2:17 is Acts 10 where we learn that Cornelius was “a devout man who feared God” and “prayed continually to God” (Acts 10:2). As Clark Pinnock explains, many like Cornelius have faith in God, wherever they live in the world, and therefore are accepted by God even though they have not yet heard the gospel of Jesus. Pinnock believes Cornelius is “the pagan saint par excellence of the New Testament, a believer in God before he became a Christian.” Likewise, John Sanders agrees, “Cornelius was already a saved believer before Peter arrived but he was not a Christian believer.”
This paper, however, intends to argue that such an inclusivist reading of Acts 2 and Acts 10 is misguided. To the contrary, I will argue that not only do these two passages fail to support the inclusivist position, but, when read in the context of redemptive-history, they actually prove to support the exclusivist view.
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