Nicene Pneumatology, Winter 2007

We Believe in God the Holy Spirit

By William H. Lazareth

This is the fifth of eight articles on the Trinitarian foundations of the Christian faith. In these essays our attention focuses on the Biblical revelation supporting the adoration and praise of the Holy Trinity: one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity was only later defined by universal Councils as the official dogma of the Church.

The documentation in these essays, in condensed and excerpted form, is mostly derived and simplified from the original convergence texts produced over decades by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. These are specifically:

"Confessing the One Faith: An Ecumenical Explication of the Apostolic Faith as it is Confessed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed" (No. 153, 1991), and "Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry" (No. 111, 1982).

"The Lord, the Giver of Life"

Because the God whom we confess in the Creed is revealed as the triune God, faith in God the Holy Spirit is never to be isolated from faith in the Father and in the Son. As "the Lord, the giver of life," the Holy Spirit enables our communion with the Father and the Son and is, therefore, fundamental to Christian faith, life and hope.

The Nicene Creed continues to provide the Church with trustworthy doctrinal praise of the triune God. Church dogma and Church worship are interdependent. For example, in ecumenical testimony to this perennial reality, the American Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have recently officially adopted "A Lutheran-Orthodox Common Statement on Faith in the Holy Trinity" (November 2006). They jointly declared:

Our theological dialogue as Orthodox and Lutherans has made clear to us that each of our churches believes in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. We recognize one another's churches as churches believing in the Holy Trinity. We also recognize that our churches do not simply believe in, but worship the Holy Trinity. In our worship we do not only confess our faith in the Trinity, but we encounter each of the persons of the Holy Trinity in their distinction from one another and their unity with each other as the one God.

In our worship, Lutherans and Orthodox both explicitly confess faith in the Holy Trinity in the words of the Nicene Creed. Our churches are both committed to the Nicene Creed as ecumenically binding dogma, that is, as a statement of the apostolic faith in the Holy Trinity which is permanently normative for all Christians. We may therefore briefly summarize our shared faith in the Holy Trinity by reference to the Nicene Creed.

Explicating the Text of the Creed: "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. Who, with the Father and the Son, is worshipped and glorified ..."

When in the Nicene Creed the leaders of the early Church publicly confessed their faith in the Holy Spirit, they were receiving and witnessing the faith transmitted since the apostolic age. They were also influenced in their confession by the questions of several Christian groups relating to the Holy Spirit, and even by the denial of some of the divinity of the third person of the Trinity.

Significantly, the Creed does not call the Holy Spirit "God," as it does with the Son when it refers to him as "true God of true God." The Creed does not use, as does later theology, the term homoousios (one Being) to describe the identity of the Holy Spirit in relation to God the Father, as it does to describe the identity of the divinity of the Son in relation to the Father.

However, in using the divine title "Lord" for the Holy Spirit, the Creed does affirm that the Spirit's divinity is exactly that of the Father and the Son. Thereby the Church establishes its doctrine of the Holy Trinity of three divine "persons" (or hypostases) — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — in the perfect unity of one and the same divine Being (ousia).

To believe in the Holy Spirit is to affirm that the Holy Spirit is a divine person, always present and active in the Church. Whenever the Father and the Son are at work, there also is the Spirit to be found. The whole of creation and every divine blessing upon it comes from the Father through the Son and the Spirit. And it is in the Spirit and through the Son that the Father is glorified when the world becomes what it was created to be, a sacrifice of universal praise and thanksgiving.

The Biblical Witness

In the witness of the New Testament, the first Christian generation affirmed the Holy Spirit as the one by whom Christ was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:35), and who confirmed Jesus in his baptism as Messiah (Matt. 5:16; Mark 1:10; Acts 10:38). This is also the same Spirit who was present in Christ working through his whole ministry (Matt. 12:28; Luke 4:14; John 1:32f.), and who raised him from the dead (I Cor. 15: 45).

The first Christians likewise recognized that this was the same Spirit who in the creation moved over the waters (Gen. 1:2), who spoke through the prophets, anointed the kings of the people, and inspired the prayers of the faithful. The event of Pentecost they experienced, understood, and proclaimed as the pouring out of the same Spirit, who had already spoken through the prophets, as the gift of the final times (Acts 2:1-21).

The New Testament also shows clearly that the Spirit given at Pentecost is the source of the life of the Church, who in the preaching of the Good News awakens faith, and joins new members to the body of Christ through baptism. The Holy Spirit kindles faith (I Cor.12:3) and provides the gifts necessary for the life of the believer and the community (I Cor.12:4-13; 14:1). The Spirit inspires prayer (Rom. 8:15:15-16), the liberty of the children of God (Rom. 8: 12-16). From the Holy Spirit will come the final resurrection (Rom.8:11). The Holy Spirit is called the "other Advocate" (Paraclete, John 4:16). At the end of time, it is the Spirit who will call the whole creation to fulfillment in the glory of God (Rev. 22:17).

Explicating the Text of the Creed: "the Holy Spirit…who has spoken through the prophets ...")

While taking up in this way the Old Testament witness to the Spirit of God, the apostolic Church realized, in the light of its faith, that the Spirit, active in history, was not merely an impersonal power. Having perceived that the eternal Word (Logos) of God, made flesh in Jesus, the Christ, is a person, Christians were also enabled to confess in a similar way that the Spirit of God is also a divine person. Consequently, they recognized that the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, is a divine person active in the economy of salvation (Ps. 33:6; Ezek.37:1-4; Rom.1:3-5; 8:14-17).

The Holy Spirit "has spoken through the prophets." In this affirmation the Church, which is in continuity with the people of God of the Old Covenant and is at the same time indeed the people of God of the New Covenant, insists that God's Spirit is the same Spirit who inspired both the prophets of Israel and the canonical Hebrew scriptures. The Jewish people have continued through the centuries, on the basis of their tradition, to listen to and respond to God's Spirit speaking through these scriptures. Christians, likewise, continue to be taught by the Spirit through the prophets, as understood in the light of the revelation of Christ (John 5:39). In this, hope is given that the Spirit of God will draw both communities together by his continuing activity (Rom. 11:29-32).

This confession that the Holy Spirit "spoke through the prophets" rejects any position among Christians, whether in the past or in the present, which would deny that the God of the prophets is the same God as the Father of Jesus Christ. In our time many Christians have been led to reconsider the traditional attitude of the Church towards the people of Jewish faith. It is recognized that the Hebrew prophets announced an eschatological coming of a Messiah who above all would renew the face of the earth. In view of the fulfillment of this proclamation, Jesus is understood by Christians as the Messiah. Christians and Jews might be able to come nearer to each other by studying their respective eschatological expectations of God's final kingdom, and by seeking ways of common service to humankind in this perspective.

Explicating the Text of the Creed: "We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church."

The sequence opening the third article of the Creed moves from belief in the Holy Spirit to belief in the Church. This indicates the close relationship of the Church's reality to the work of the Spirit. It prevents the Church from appearing as an isolated object of faith.

The Creed identifies the Church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic. This is the richest form of confessing the Church in the history of the early Christian creeds.

It begins with the oneness which had a special relevance in the face of the fourth century doctrinal divisions of the Church and its "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism" (Eph.4:5). Its holiness refers to the fundamental fact that the Church belongs to the Holy One and is called to coherent fidelity. Its catholicity means that it is the universal gift of God for all people — whatever their particular country, race, social condition or language. The apostolicity of the Church expresses its obligation and commitment to the norm of the apostolic gospel of God’s action in the cross and resurrection of the Church's Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Biblical Witness

The New Testament uses several images in speaking of the Church (vine, temple, building, bride, the New Jerusalem, the people of God, the communion of the Holy Spirit). Each has its own significance.

Special attention, however, has to be given to the Church as the "body of Christ." This is more than an image, because the term refers to the fundamental reality of participation in the body of Christ when sharing in the Eucharist as constitutive, through the Spirit, of the communion (koinonia) among those who partake in the Lord's Supper (I Cor. 10:16-17 and 11:23-30).

Wherever in the Pauline literature the expression "body of Christ" occurs (Rom.12:4-5; I Cor. 12: 12-27; Eph.1:22-23), this profound association is implied. It underlines the intimate, organic relationship which exists between the Risen Lord and all those who receive the Spirit's new life through communion in him.

The Church has been "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone" (Eph. 2:20). It spreads the good news of God's saving action in Jesus Christ to reconcile the world to himself (II Cor. 5:18-19).

The New Testament also takes up and elaborates the Old Testament concept of the election of Israel, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" (I Pet. 2:9; cf. Ex. 19:6) in extending its domain to the Church. Composed of those "called out" of this world by God’s grace, the ekklesia of the New Covenant is linked to the beginning and model of the people of God in the qahal of the Old. The Church is then called to declare "the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (I Pet.2:9).

According to Paul, the election of the Church of God in Jesus Christ does not undo the election of Israel. However, only in the eschaton will all of Israel, the remnant of which became the core of the Church of Christ, be reunited with the Church in the one people of God (Rom.11:1-36).

The Church and the Churches

Christians today sometimes have difficulties in receiving each other's statements about the Church because they understand and use the word "Church" differently.

In the Eastern Christian tradition, the Church is predominantly seen in terms of the divine mystery of being-the-Church. Here the perfection of the Church, known only by faith, dominates the orientation, and renders it practically meaningless to speak of a church as sinful, imperfect, in need of change, etc.

In the Western churches, it is more common to link statements of faith and historical reality — the Church as divine mystery and the Church as a fragile human community — in the dialectical language of divine and human, thus expressing the tension of faith and historical reality in one unified conceptuality.

The difference between the Eastern and Western traditions certainly implies less theological disagreement than it immediately seems to. However, the question remains whether the different traditions indicate some wide-ranging difference in their basic ecclesiological visions.

To illustrate, the Nicene Creed's emphasis on the Church as the place of the saving action of the Holy Spirit has to face many challenges today, the most important of which are the following:

Those who seek Jesus outside the Church deny the relevance of the Church for their own salvation.

Among those who belong to the Church the necessity of complying with the rules of the community is felt to be an irrelevant burden.

Others who accept the Church nevertheless contest the exercise of authority that constrains their freedom and deplore the lack of genuine community and mutuality. In many churches, some forms of charismatic and other movements, because of their feeling of immediacy to God, reject any kind of human authority; others, on the contrary, rely blindly on arbitrary human authority.

In the eyes of many, the divisions among the churches destroy the credibility of the teaching of any of the churches. Even among committed Christians, the apparent inability of the churches to overcome their historic divisions seems to demonstrate that either the leadership of the churches is not authentically committed to the will of Christ for unity among his disciples, or that his commandment itself is an impossible dream.

In the judgment of the world, the meagerness of the fruits of sanctification exhibited by Christians and the failure of Christianity in over 2000 years of its history to change profoundly the condition of the world, discredit the claims of the churches.

The Gift and the Unity

Nevertheless, the promise of Christ holds fast: "I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). As Christ is given by the Father for and to humankind, so the Church as Christ's body is sent into the world. The gift for which the Church continually gives thanks unites the vision of the reign of God over all creation with the uniqueness of Christ's death, resurrection and ascension.

At the same time, this gift enables Christians to understand the inter-relatedness and unity of worship (leitourgia) and service (diakonia). The community is contemplative and active, serving God and humankind, and it will remain so until the end of time, when it will be taken up into the all-embracing and all-restoring kingdom of God.