1.
God as Redeemer
Jesus
Christ is Lord. For us to know this, two things must occur. First, Jesus Christ
must objectively confront us. Secondly, we must subjectively acknowledge his
lordship. In the New Testament, most people objectively confronted by Jesus
Christ did not subjectively recognize him as Lord. The people who did were
brought to him by the Father (John 6:65). They were empowered by the Son (John
1:12-13). It was and remains the Holy Spirit who enables us to confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Only this presence of God’s Spirit
within us makes us capable of opening up to God’s revelation. God becomes
present to us, then, not just objectively from outside us but also subjectively
from inside us. He not only comes from outside of us to encounter us but also
from inside of us to encounter himself.
We should not confuse the Holy Spirit with Jesus Christ, the Son or Word of God. Jesus Christ is the one whom God the Father exalted. The Spirit is the one who from our exalted Lord in Heaven comes down to us (cf. Acts 2:2, 10:44, 11:15). At the same time, we must not separate the two. The Spirit is not a new Word of God superseding the one Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Instead, the Spirit testifies to us on behalf of Jesus, and to the glory of Jesus, with the testimony he bears through Jesus (John 15:26, 16:13f.).
We
may speak of the importance and actions of the Holy Spirit in three ways.
First, the Holy Spirit is God’s affirmation in us that the Word of God spoken
to us is meant for us. Second, even though the Holy Spirit dwells within us, he
teaches us and leads us as our Lord. Third, it is the Holy Spirit who calls us
and equips us to speak about the great work of God done in Jesus Christ. Though
we are sinners, the Holy Spirit as Lord sets us free for God’s Word that we may
be servants of God as hearers and doers of it. He also frees us to be adopted
children of God so that we may know and cry to him as our Father (Romans 8:15,
Galatians 4:6).
In
2 Corinthians 3:17 we read, “the Lord is the Spirit.” In John 4:24 we read,
“God is Spirit.” Scripture attests then that the Holy Spirit is God. Although
the Spirit is distinct from both the Father and Jesus Christ, the Spirit
nonetheless is God just as both the Father and the Son are God. So even after
we receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit remains God and we remain sinners.
When
we acknowledge the Holy Spirit as the Lord who frees us, we make a statement of
praise about God rather than about ourselves. We ourselves do become liberated
children of God, but only in faith; that is, only in the Holy Spirit
subjectively and in Christ objectively. We may be strong in faith, but only
because the strength of our faith rests not on our own strength, weak enough in
relation to sin, but on the strength of the act of God which liberates us from
sin. We rightly have confidence, but only because God is our rock.
We
have our redemption, but only in faith; that is, only according to God’s
promise. Now we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). We believe
God’s promise to redeem us, though we do not see that Word as yet fulfilled. We
believe our inheritance is eternal life, but now we continue to lie in the
shadow of death. But with faith in God’s promise of our redemption, we do
participate even now in that redemption, we do have it through a living hope,
through the lively expectation that Jesus is coming in glory and, when he does,
we shall be like him (1 John 3:1f.). The Holy Spirit is the seal of this
promise given to us even now to the praise of God’s glory (Ephesians 1:13-14).
2.
God the Holy Spirit
What
the Holy Spirit is to us he is beforehand in himself. The Holy Spirit is God
just as the Father and the Son are God. This doctrine, while based on
Scripture, is not in Scripture. It is our interpretation of Scripture. This
doctrine of the deity of the Spirit came much later than that of the deity of
the Son. It was introduced finally into the Creed by the Latin Church only in
1014. This tardiness may be attributed to the doctrine’s intellectual
difficulty but this, in turn, may be due to our difficulty in accepting what
the deity of the Spirit means.
We
may accept that the Father, the source of revelation, is fully God. We may even
accept that the Son must be fully God to reveal the Father. But we may well
prefer to hold our own finally when our own active appreciation of God’s
revelation comes into question. The doctrine of the deity of the Holy Spirit
affirms the biblical witness that even our affirmation of God’s revelation is
not our own work but God’s alone.
To
understand more clearly the doctrine of the deity of the Holy Spirit and the
dogma of the Trinity, we shall follow the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
affirmed at Chalcedon in AD 451. We shall confess, first, that we believe in
the Holy Spirit as Lord. This does not mean the Father is one Lord, the Son
another, and the Holy Spirit a third. The Holy Spirit is Lord fully and in
unity with the Father and the Son. But the Holy Spirit is Lord in his own way.
The Father is distinct from the Son, and the Son is distinct from the Father,
but their two distinct ways of being are nonetheless reciprocal. The Holy
Spirit is Lord as the love of the Father for the Son and of the Son for the
Father. The uniqueness of the Spirit’s divine way of being lies in the Spirit
being this act of reciprocal love between Father and Son. Because God is this
act of communion or love in himself, he can be so in relation to us.
Second,
we confess that the Holy Spirit is the giver of life. Just as the Holy Spirit
is involved in the Son’s work of reconciliation as the Spirit of the Son, so he
is involved in the Father’s work of creation. The same word in Hebrew may be
translated “breath,” “wind,” or “spirit.” In the beginning, the hosts of heaven
were made by the “breath” of God’s mouth (Psalm 33:6). The Spirit as the “breath”
of life is in all flesh (Genesis 7:15). When God sends forth his “Spirit” he
creates all living creatures and, when he takes their “breath” away, they die
(Psalm 104:29-30).
Third,
we believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. This
means, first, that the Holy Spirit is not a creature but one of God’s three
distinct ways of being. Secondly, procession means that the Spirit of God is
not the Son of God. Thirdly, procession means the eternal origin of the Holy
Spirit differs in some way from that of the Son. If before we spoke of the
Father begetting the Son, here we may speak of the Father and the Son as
together breathing the Spirit.
We
also affirm the procession of the Spirit from both the Father and the Son as
being true both of God in himself and of God in relation to creation. We said
previously that the Holy Spirit is the act of reciprocal love, the act of
communion, between the Father and the Son. This act of love in God himself is
the basis of the act of love between God and human beings. The communion of the
Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is the basis of God being the
God of us and of us being the people of God.
We
shall now attempt to summarize our understanding of God as he is in himself
from all eternity. In himself, God is the Father. As the Father, he begets
himself as the Son. In himself, God is the Son, As the Son, he is begotten of
himself as the Father. In himself, God is the Spirit. In the begetting of
himself as the Son, and in the being begotten of himself as the Father, God
posits himself a third time as the Holy Spirit or act of love binding himself
as Father to Son and Son to Father.
As
the Father begets the Son, he posits himself as the Spirit of love. This is because,
while not dividing himself, the Father chooses to reject all self-isolation by
begetting the Son. God the Father chooses to be God only with and in God the
Son. Likewise God the Son chooses to be God only with and in God the Father.
And as the Son is begotten of the Father, he too posits himself as the Spirit
of love. In this way the positing of the Spirit belongs not to God the Father
alone, nor to God the Son alone, nor to God the Father and God the Son in
cooperation, but to the one God whose first two ways of being are united by his
third way of being God. So, from all eternity, God chooses to be God only by
positing himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: three ways of being God which
remain distinct but not separate and of one nature but not identical.
Copyright © 2019
by Steven Farsaci.
All rights
reserved. Fair use encouraged.
