10 Essentials Series: 4. Pneumatology, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

The Ten Essential Doctrines and the Scope of Pneumatology

Okay, so, as you guys know, we're going through the Ten Essential Doctrines series. So far, we've gone through Bibliology, the study of the Scriptures, Theology Proper, the study of God, Christology, the study of Jesus Christ.

Today is going to be Pneumatology, which is the study of the Holy Spirit, and we'll get to Angelology, the study of angels, Anthropology, the study of man, Homardiology, the study of sin, I'm an expert, Soteriology, the study of salvation, Ecclesiology, the study of God's government, and Eschatology, the study of last things.

The Holy Spirit in Creation, the New Covenant, and the Old Testament

So we'll jump in right away. Pneumatology is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the study of who God's Holy Spirit is. And I like this quote by Grudem, he says, We may define the work of the Holy Spirit as follows.

The work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in the world and especially in the Church. This definition indicates that the Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity whom Scripture most often represents as being present to do God's work in the world.

Although this is true throughout the Bible, it is particularly true in the New Covenant Age. We see a different manifestation or a greater manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant. In the Old Testament, the presence of God was many times manifested in the glory of God in the Theophanies and in the Gospels.

Jesus Himself manifested the presence of God among men. But after Jesus ascended into heaven and continuing through the entire Church Age, the Holy Spirit is now the primary manifestation of the presence of the Trinity among us.

He is the one who is most prominently presented with us now. So Theophany is just a theological word to talk about an appearance of God in the Old Testament. So as you know, we are now endowed with the Spirit.

God poured out His Spirit upon all flesh and we're going to get into what that means in a few minutes. So from the very beginning of creation, we have an indication that the Holy Spirit's work is to complete and sustain what God the Father has planned and what God the Son has begun.

In Genesis 1 -2, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And at Pentecost, with the beginning of the new creation in Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to grant power to the Church. So we see in Genesis 1, when the Holy Spirit comes, He brings order out of disorder.

That's very important for our understanding of who the Holy Spirit is. And when we see so-called manifestations of the Spirit, when you see something that's out of order or uncontrolled, that's not a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Fruit of the Holy Spirit is self-control. If you see disorder rather than order, it's a spirit. It's just not the Holy One, okay? Because the Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity through whom God particularly manifests His presence in the New Covenant age, it is appropriate that Paul should call the Holy Spirit the first fruits and the guarantee or down payment of the full manifestation of God's presence that we will know in the new heavens and the new earth, okay?

So that term, first fruits, it's when Jesus rose from the dead, He's the first fruits from the dead, first fruits of the dead. In other words, that is the first of many. When we are raised from the dead, we are going to be similar to Jesus, right?

The Holy Spirit is referred to from the time of creation, Genesis 1 -2, all the way to the last Old Testament book in Malachi 2 -15. God's Spirit appears most frequently in Isaiah 15 times, Ezekiel 15 times, Numbers 7 times, Judges 7 times, 1 Samuel 7 times, and Psalms 5 times.

That was from MacArthur's essential Christian doctrine book. So we see in creation, God creates three spaces, the heavens and the earth and beneath the earth and then He fills those three spaces with the birds, human beings, and the fish.

When Pentecost comes, which is the beginning, when Jesus comes, when Jesus came, I should say, in the New Covenant age, what does John start off with? In the beginning. Same as Genesis 1 -1. This is now a new beginning.

This is the second, the last Adam who's going to start the new heavens and the new earth. So when He pours out His Spirit upon all flesh, He fills the spaces. He fills us up with God's Spirit. It's the new creation that we're looking forward to the consummation of.

The New Testament revelation about the Holy Spirit is more extensive. The word pneuma occurs 379 times in the New Testament and it refers to the Holy Spirit on more than 245 of these occasions. Pneuma refers to the Holy Spirit in 23 of the 27 New Testament books, with the exception of Philemon, James, 2 John, and 3 John.

The Holy Spirit appears throughout the New Testament. From Matthew 1 -18 to Revelation 21 -10, the Holy Spirit is mentioned most frequently in Acts 56 times, Romans 28 times, and 1 Corinthians 22 times.

Now the fact that the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the book of Acts 56 times, why is that important in the current landscape in America? Most Charismatics and Pentecostals get their theology of the Holy Spirit from the book of Acts.

One of the most dominant themes is that the Holy Spirit is a gift from God to every believer. But that's not necessarily what Charismatics and Pentecostals understand it to be. So we see the book of Acts, and most of their theology comes out of the book of Acts.

But we have to ask, what genre is the book of Acts? It's a historical narrative. Now because it's a historical narrative, is everything in the book of Acts supposed to be normative? No. Yet they point to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire and speaking in tongues as something that's supposed to be normative, when this is a narrative.

So if the book of Acts is supposed to be normative, you want to ask them, do you choose your elders by casting lots? Oh no, we don't do that. Why not? That's what they did in the book of Acts. Did you sell all your possessions and give it to the church so they could give to everyone as they had need?

Did you sell all your possessions? No. Why not? They did that in the book of Acts. We have to remember that Pentecost was a one-time event where God poured out His Holy Spirit. And you'll hear Greg Bonson talk about that.

You'll hear R .C. Sproul talk about that. Pentecost is not something that's supposed to be repeatable. It's like the crucifixion. There's only one crucifixion. There's only one Pentecost where God poured out His Spirit on who?

All flesh. All flesh. The Holy Spirit was present and active in creation. He's omnipresent, wise, understanding, counseling, mighty, and reverent, and gives rest. Genesis 1 -2, the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

So we see here the Holy Spirit is active in creation. Creation is done by God. God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Psalm 139, where shall I go from your Spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? Obviously it's a rhetorical question and the answer is nowhere.

Wherever I go, the Holy Spirit is. So the Spirit is omnipresent. That's an attribute, right, an incommunicable, communicable attribute of God. We don't get that attribute. Isaiah 11 -2, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear, or reverence come from God's Spirit.

When we are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, we have a reverence for God that we did not have before. And because now we're born of his Spirit, we're given eyes to see and ears to hear. When we read the scriptures, we can get a better understanding of things rather than reading them through physical eyes without the Spirit.

Isaiah 63, like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So the Spirit is the one who can give us rest as well. So the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, let's take a look at what this looks like.

The Holy Spirit brings forth words from God to the prophets, Zechariah 7 -12. The Holy Spirit came upon people in the Old Testament to prophesy, Numbers 11 -25, 1 Samuel 10. He came upon some people for craftsmanship, Exodus 31.

To some, it was to lead, Numbers 27 and Deuteronomy 34, others to judge, and others to warn. He is promised for the new covenant, Ezekiel 36, to give life to the spiritually dead, Ezekiel 37 -14, and we be poured out on all flesh, like I said before.

Zechariah 7 -12, they made their hearts diamond hard, lest they should hear the law and the words of the Lord of hosts had sent His Spirit through the former prophets. So God uses His Spirit to speak to the prophets to give the message to us.

I think we spoke about it last week, the difference between a prophet and a priest. The prophet speaks on behalf of God to the people, telling them that they have to hold to the covenant. The priest speaks to God on behalf, I'm sorry, I messed that up, didn't I?

The prophet speaks on behalf of God to the people, the priest speaks on behalf of people to God. Okay, they go in different directions. That's why Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king. He accomplishes both.

Numbers 11 -25, then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the 70 elders. As soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not continue doing it.

So here we see that the Spirit was given to some people, the 70 elders, who were with Moses in the wilderness, to prophesy. That's a gift that the Spirit gave them. First Samuel 10 -10, when they came to Gibeah, behold, a group of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them.

Prophesying is one of the things that the Spirit enables the human being to do. Exodus 31, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, bronze, and cutting of stones for setting, and in carving wood to work in every craft.

So here, the Spirit came upon this gentleman to help build the temple. He was gifted by God to do that through God's Holy Spirit. Numbers 27, let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be a sheep that have no shepherd.

So here, it's God, the Holy Spirit, places in human beings to help lead the people of God. Right? So here, as undershepherds, elders, we are called by God to lead him. Jesus was our great high priest.

He was the good shepherd, empowered by God to lead his people. So the Spirit is the one inside of people, inside of the elders, inside of the prophets, leading them in a specific direction. Deuteronomy 34, and Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the Spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him, so the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord commanded Moses.

So God used the prophets, okay, spoke through them, gave them a spirit of wisdom that they would be able to convey what God wanted to the people who were there. Is this making sense? Everybody good so far?

Okay. Judges 3 .10, the Spirit of the Lord was upon them, and he judged Israel. Nehemiah 9 .30, many years you have bore with them and warned them with your spirit through your prophets, yet they would not give ear.

Incidentally, in Judges 3 .10, the judge was Othniel, okay? The prophets of Israel warned the people by their spirit, yet they would not give ear. Again, we're going to get into that when we talk about anthropology.

Human beings do not have ears to hear. In Deuteronomy 29 .4, a very important verse, God commanded them to do things and he says, and yet to this day I have not circumcised your heart, I have not circumcised your ears, I have not given you eyes to see and ears to hear, right?

So he's warning them here by his spirit. Ezekiel 36, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Now this is so important, I quote Ezekiel 36 all the time, because these are where all the I wills come from God.

I will, I will. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.

So if somebody's born of God's spirit, what's the spirit going to do? It's going to cause that person to walk in his statutes and rules. Be careful to obey his rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God and I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.

How much of your uncleanness is? All, all of your uncleanness and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.

Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. God's part is to put his spirit within you, to cause you to follow his statutes, his rules.

We now have eyes to see and we recognize our own sinfulness. If you don't have a keen awareness of your own sinfulness, you have to ask, do I have God's spirit or do I think I'm really good? No matter what we do, because we're sinful human beings, it's stained by our flesh.

But with God's spirit in us, we have a new heart and new desires. Now remember, right after this, he says this, and this is really important. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord.

Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. So for whose sake is God acting? He says it's not for your sake, for Jesus' sake. Jesus is the one who comes, earns what we needed, right?

So everything is created through him and by him and for him. Okay, this is about Jesus. Ezekiel 37, 14, this is the next chapter, and I will put my spirit within you and you shall live, right? Because I live, you will live also.

The spirit brings us to life. He gives us eternal life. He doesn't give us temporary life or contingent life. He gives us eternal life. Eternal means it has no end. Joel 28, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

All flesh is all flesh, every human being. Okay, now into the New Testament. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. Actually, that's where the felloquy clause comes in, but we're not going to go into that.

He will bear witness of Jesus and teach the apostles all things, bringing to remembrance all that Jesus has said. John 14, 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Again, that's spoken to the apostles and the disciples who would write the New Testament scriptures, okay? So he's bringing to remembrance everything that Jesus taught them. John 15, 26, but when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

This is what I preached on two weeks ago about the Spirit bearing witness of what Jesus did over and over and over again. And some translations, instead of that word helper, have comforter. Does anybody know what comfort means?

Comfort. Does anybody know what comfort means? Yeah, it's a trap. I'm trapping you. Yes. To strengthen, right? Sometimes we think comfort, oh, I got my little pillow and my blanket, I'm so comfortable.

Comfort is two words, with strength, comfort, with strength, that's what it actually means. So when we have the Holy Spirit, we're strengthened, we're strengthened to bear witness in the midst of unbelievers, we're strengthened to bear witness in the midst of darkness, we let our light shine.

Why? Because the Spirit strengthened us to do it. First Corinthians 12, 12, 3, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

Now, we look at that now, today, and say, there's lots of people who say Jesus is Lord, and they're not Christians. You're right. In the context at that time, you would either confess Jesus is Lord or Caesar is Lord.

If you rejected Caesar is Lord and say, no, Jesus is Lord, that was a death sentence. You die, they would kill you. So saying Jesus is Lord in that context would have to be by the strength of God's Holy Spirit.

Now, in today's day and age, we're not being persecuted to that point yet, where if we confess Jesus is Lord and not the government is Lord, we're not going to be killed, we might be hurt in a different way.

But anybody who confesses Jesus is Lord and means it in the face of adversity, that's what this means. The Holy Spirit is going to strengthen you in the midst of persecution to stand true, to not compromise for the sake of the gospel.

First John 5, 7 through 8, for there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three agree. Now, I had to look this one up because there's controversy. The verse before it is actually a textual variant, but this is in there.

And the Spirit, the water, and the blood, First John is about the testimony of Jesus Christ. That which we have seen, that which we have heard when we proclaim to you from the beginning. John would go on to say, there are many Antichrists who've come, the one who denies the Father but denies the Son, that is the Antichrist.

What John is telling us here is there's three that testify. What does the Scripture say about many witnesses? Any two or three witnesses, right? So the Spirit testifies that Jesus is who He says He is.

The water, pointing to Jesus' baptism when the Father's voice came from heaven and the Spirit rested upon Him like a dove, and the blood, His crucifixion. These three things testify to who Jesus was, who Jesus still is, okay?

We have ample evidence that Jesus was who He says He was. The problem is the human mind will not receive that, it will reject that. Okay, so now the baptism of the Holy Spirit. All believers, all believers are baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 3, Mark 1, Acts 11, 1 Corinthians 12, those who do not have the Holy Spirit are not of God. Romans 8, Jude 19, John 14, 17. Matthew 3, 11, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

This is Jesus. Jesus is going to baptize people with the Holy Spirit and fire. Mark 1, 8, I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Acts 11, and I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Now I need to make a real important point here, because Pentecostals and Charismatics point to the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a second blessing, something that you receive after you're saved. But that's not what the scripture says.

Again, if you're going to take the book of Acts and try to make that normative and not understand that it's a narrative, you're going to misunderstand it. You can only have one Pentecost. You don't have continual Pentecostals, Pentecosts.

So they would say, once you're baptized, after you're a Christian, once you're baptized with the Holy Spirit, that'll be evidenced by speaking in tongues or prophesying or some of these gifts that we don't normally see today.

The problem is the scripture says that every Christian has the Holy Spirit. No one can confess Jesus as Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So what they'll do, and I've heard this right out of preachers mouths, they'll say, well, once you're born again of God's Spirit, you have the Holy Spirit inside you, but it's like a pilot light.

But then when you're baptized with the Holy Spirit, that's full blown blaze. Now you're on fire. And it really, it caused me issues in the last church that I was at because I was, I believed like, my goodness, I see sincere people speaking in tongues and doing these things.

And they said, you got to closet yourself with God and pray that he would give you this. And I prayed earnestly. And thankfully I didn't get that, right? Because it's not true. Right? I had the Holy Spirit.

And oddly enough, and I'm not tooting my own horn, when I was teaching Evangelism Explosion, all the people who were, who had God's Spirit in them and they were on fire, they were home watching TV and I was out in the street witnessing to people.

Right? And I'm like, why would me with the pilot light? Why am I out here? Why aren't they out here? And I don't want to use my experience to interpret the scriptures, but it just was a disconnect for me.

I'm like, if you're on fire for God and you're speaking in tongues and prophesying, where are you? Right? Again, and in some services, you need to watch, right? Everything needs to be done in decency and order.

Orders from where? The Spirit. If you see disorder and disunity, it's not the Holy Spirit. Because guess what happens? The very thing that God did in sending his Spirit to unify his people is the very thing that is the opposite of that theology.

So you prayed, you received the Spirit and spoke in tongues. You didn't, you prayed and didn't receive it. So now we have the haves and the have nots. Those who are full of the Spirit and those who aren't.

And what'd you just do? You made a division in the body of Christ. Those who have the fire and those who, yeah, you can confess Jesus Lord, but you don't have the power that we have. That's division. That's not what the Holy Spirit came to do.

Every single believer, you need to understand this. Every single believer has the Holy Spirit within you and you have gifts that he's giving you. The gift of helps. There's so many different gifts that God could give us, right?

So don't look at this and say, oh my goodness, I need to be baptized with the Spirit. All of us have been baptized into the body of Christ by God's Spirit, okay? 1 Corinthians 12, 13, sorry, for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.

Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Romans 8, 9, you however are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

That's a heavy verse. If you don't have the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit inside of you, you are not a Christian. We talk about wheat and tares. Wheat and tares look identical. You can't tell the difference from them from the outside.

What's different is what's on the inside. The tare is hollow. The wheat has a grain in it, right, a seed of grain in it. And what happens? The farmer, he hits it on the threshing floor, goes with the fork, throws it up in the air, the wind blows and it takes the tares, the hollow shells away.

And what's left is the one that are filled with the grain. It's the same thing with God's people. I shouldn't say the same. It's the same thing with people who profess to be Christians who don't have God's Spirit.

You can be baptized in water. If you don't have God's Spirit in you, that baptism is irrelevant. You're testifying to something that was not done inside of you. It's real important to understand that.

Jude 19, I loved going through this book, me and Pastor Chris, when we got to preach it. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, right? Creepers, perverters, deniers, all coming against God's people, called, beloved, and kept, right?

So if you're devoid of the Spirit, you don't belong to God. The dividing line is God's Spirit. John 14, 16 through 17, I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever.

How long? Forever. If you get the Spirit, it's not temporary. It's forever. Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, you know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you.

Ooh, that's good news. Here's why. The Spirit converts and creates. He gives new birth to saints by quickening our hearts, circumcising them to renew and regenerate us. He conforms us to the image of Jesus and seals us as a guarantee of our inheritance.

John 3, 6, that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Human beings give birth to other human beings. Human beings never give birth to spiritual beings.

You're spiritually dead, separated from God. You must be born from above. That's actually what that verse means in John 3 and 5. You must be born again or born from above by the Spirit. It says the Spirit blows where He wishes.

You don't know where He comes from, know where He goes. So it is with everyone who's born of God's Spirit. So you can't point to water baptism and say, well, that's where the Spirit is. That's where somebody gets born again because the Scripture just says, you don't know where the Spirit blows.

You don't know where He comes from. Okay? 2 Corinthians 5, 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Galatians 4, 29, but just as at that time, He who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.

Tell me that verse isn't true today, right? Anybody who claims to be a Christian is constantly getting pushback. Oh, my goodness, you believe in marriage between a man and a woman and all these other things, and you believe that women don't have rights to abort their children, and we stand up for the truth.

We're being persecuted by the world. Amazing, other people who claim to believe in God, whether you be Muslim or Jew or whatever, those never get any pushback. We are the ones who get the pushback. So, let's continue on.

John 6, 63, it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. So, what does this point to? Monergism, synergism. Monergism is the single act of God, God's power. Synergism, God plus man accomplishes the goal.

But if it's plus man, and the Scripture says the flesh is of no help at all, what does God need? Does He need your flesh to carry His plan out? No. You're born of God's Spirit, it is God's plan. It's the one power of God working in us.

Ephesians 2, 5, even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ. It's the Spirit that brings life. Now, it's really important from our perspective and our theology, we hold to Reformed theology, we hold to the doctrines of grace, we hold to the depravity of man.

The term born again, what did any of you have to do with your physical birth? Nothing, you're the result of someone else's actions. New creation, the world was created, right? Did it create itself? No, it would have to have existed already in order to create itself, it's a contradiction.

So for new creation, we had somebody create us, we didn't do it ourselves. And last, we were made alive. In other words, the Scripture also bears witness to us being resurrected, right? What did Lazarus have to do with his resurrection?

Nothing, it was the result of God's work. So you're born again, you're a new creation, and you are now alive, you have resurrected. None of either of those three things did you have a part in. Those are the necessary consequence of God giving His Holy Spirit to you, giving you eyes to see and ears to hear.

Again, I've used this analogy several times, when a baby's born, it doesn't take its first breath in order to become alive. It takes his first breath because it's alive already. When somebody is born of God's Spirit, the breath that comes out of them is what?

The confession that Jesus is Lord. He's Lord. He wasn't Lord two days ago, He's Lord now. How did that happen? God's Spirit. It's not due to human effort. Okay, Romans 2, 28, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

Circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not the letter. We're also given new hearts. Titus 3, 5, and 6. He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

That is not talking about baptism. It's the washing of regeneration. Regeneration means what? You were dead and you're alive. You're regenerated. A work of the Spirit, not the work of the waters in baptism.

Your baptism points to the fact that you regenerated. We talked earlier about Jesus, His baptism, and the Spirit, the water, and the blood being a witness to who Jesus is. Does anybody believe that Jesus was born again in baptism?

No, you shouldn't. Unfortunately, there are people in the New Apostolic Reformation, Bill Johnson out of Bethel Church, he says Jesus was born again. No, no, if your Saviour needs to be born again, you have a problem.

You have a problem. You don't understand what it means to be born again. Jesus was never spiritually dead in order to be born again. We are spiritually dead and need to be born again. So, regeneration is a function of the Holy Spirit, not water baptism.

Jesus' baptism didn't point to the fact that He was born again, right? It was His identifying with the people of God. It was the washing that a Levitical priest had to go through at approximately 30 years of age in order to become a priest.