Don't Divorce the Spirit from the Trinity - Why The Spirit's Procession Matters!
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Dear Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Last Sunday night we saw the goal of our witness and how it involved Experiencing not just God in general, nor even just the Father hood of God, but that is only possible to experience when we know and experience and abide in God the Son, who is eternally begotten, and who alone can share that relationship with us. We must know not only God the Son in his eternity as God, but God the Son incarnate, the very same Person Jesus Christ, sent by the Father to us - and when we experience this work of God through the Person of God of the Son accomplishing our salvation, establishing a real union with the Godhead -then we can have true salvation and true worship. And so the verse we ended with was 1 Cor 12:3
Therefore 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.
Polycarp was a 2nd generation Christian a disciple of John, refused to say Caesar is Lord, commander, divine, because he said I would then blaspheme the Lord, Jesus is LORD, God and mediator, and Master, and here we are to see that only the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity can enable us to see, and prompt us to worship the Son of God like that. But this evening we must not only see that the Holy Spirit as a force or power must influence us, but that He is a Person, whom we must worship, who must dwell in us. And this is a wonder that we are to confess - that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal power or mere influence of God, but is a Person of the Trinity who proceeding eternally from the Father and the Son, also in time Proceeds from the Father and the Son to us.
Key Truth: We must experience that proceeding of the Holy Spirit, as a gift from the Father and Son of themselves as the Living God, to us!
A. The Person of the Holy Spirit is a Necessary Gift to Believers
The first thing we must establish is that this gift of the Holy Spirit is given to all who believe in Christ and have received salvation. We can see this in those who heard of John the Baptist’s baptism for repentance, knew about the life and even the crucifixion of Jesus but not really His resurrection and ascension into heaven. What happened when h ascended into heaven - he received the Promised reward and gift of the Spirit - of course Jesus had the Spirit from the beginning as Son, the Holy Spirit prepared his physical body for when he became incarnate - The Holy Spirit came upon him in new spiritual way to equip and empower his human nature in his baptism. But after His resurrection give n the Spirit to pour it out in fuller way on every single believer and the church as a whole! And so we read for those believers in Samaria who hadn’t yet gotten the full memo nor the complete package of salvation yet: Acts 8:15-17
who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
We similarly read of those in Ephesus in our text - they knew of John’s baptism and of the one to come after - some idea of Messiah and his work. but had not received the Holy Spirit. And Paul lays hands on them and what happens? Acts 19:6
And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.
Now that particular result was in a unique time in the spread of the church, to and the events of Pentecost in a sense repeated. IN the Apostolic Age there were miraculous unique gifts, but it is the same gift, bestowal of the Holy Spirit that was promised at Pentecost to every believer. And what do we read of believers who received the gift of the Spirit? Acts 6:5,8
And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.
And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.
Again the particular gifting maybe different in our lives, but that gift of the presence Holy Spirit to and in every believer, to be empowered and equipped, to receive the Holy Spirit not just to be with you, but as Jesus promised to be in us in a way that far exceeded anything that OT believers experienced -that is the same. And just like them, later Paul and the believers in Corinth received the gift of the Spirit and were empowered with the Person of the Spirit dwelling in them: 1 Cor 2:4
and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
The Scriptures clearly state that those who have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, don’t have the Spirit with and in them. As one commentator of the BC puts it that could be people in the church today whose experience is like those men from Ephesus . They believe in God, they are acquainted with the basics of the gospel, the live respectable lives, but they have not believed in Christ the Son of God their mediator, in such a way that they can say - Yes I have received the Holy Spirit. They are hardly aware that the Holy Spirit exists. Osterhaven writing a few decades ago in the RCA says: By consequence their lives manifest no spiritual power; they lack confidence and enthusiasm,, and their religion is often to them more drudgery than it is inspiration and joy!” So there nominal “Christians” who need the personal presence of the Holy Spirit on one hand.
But on the other extreme, like in the days of the Reformation, there are those who, like some extreme charismatics, totally emphasize the Holy Spirit - but like in the early church come of them - so wrapped up in extraordinary gifts, and feelings and experiences of the Spirit - that they relate to Him not as a Person, but as mere force, or power - to be fascinated like a fad for a while, but then grow bored with and move onto some other excitement. And so with these twin threats of Spirit-less dry religion on one side; and ecstatic but impersonal on the other. But our confession includes this article - not only need to know and confess Jesus is God, but also that the Holy Spirit is God and we need to rely on His unique characteristics and function as the Third Person of the Trinity.
And while the teaching of the Holy Spirit and His work - in creation but also in salvation, is in the OT, see in people’s lives, see it in the prophesies - but it is in suspension. And while it is a lot clear in the NT as the Gift fully given, still even in the NT the Person of the Spirit three, and His work vital, still hidden in many ways as His job is to draw attention and glory and be applying the work of Christ! But this is the first thing I want you to see, as the fulfillment of the Old Testament the Spirit is an essential gift to the true believer. John 14-17.
But also like God’s presence as Jesus Christ physically leaves, like the Holy Spirit fills huge picture, and poured out on all who believe: Jesus promised it in his ascension Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
God publically and forever made a visible picture of Him coming and abiding on every believer on Pentecost - when the wind and tongues of fire divinding and resting on each believer - happens and Luke writes: Acts 2:4
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And this is explained by Peter quoting the OT prophesy that now must be fulfilled in every NT believer: Acts 2:17a
“ ‘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;
So the gift of the Spirit is necessary for all believers! But who is the Spirit, who we experience and confess?
B. The Holy Spirit is Fully Divine, Third Person of the Trinity
Now has to be clearly stated the Holy Spirit is real and He is God in our midst. The Scriptures increasingly describe the Spirit, after the gift is given by Christ. And He is described as more than a force or influence emanating from God - as Jehovah Witnesses believe today. He is more than a created helper that the Son of God used like a super angel and sent out, as a lesser subcontractor. He is more than just a mode that Father morphed into after done being the Son, so that the Person is just God dressing in a different overcoat.
He is described as being there before Creation, the same way the Son was there before anything was created. He is eternal. But He is spoken of as more than the power of God. For instance when the virgin birth happens, we read: Luke 1:35
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
Do you see the Person is distinguished from the power of God. You probably know Acts 5 when A &S lie about how much they had given, Why have you lied to the Holy Spirit and then in the same breath … you have not lied to man but to God. The Holy Spirit is God, just like the Father and the Son are fully God. We can see this in all the places where the Holy Spirit is described with the attributes of a person: the Holy Spirit seeks, draws, convicts, the Holy Spirit is grieved, the Holy Spirit talks. The Spirit dispenses gifts. In the OT we read that God spoke to the prophet in Isaiah 6:9, Paul reports it was the Holy Spirit who spoke to Him
And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement: “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet:
These characteristics are not something an influence, or in personal power emanating from God does. What a distinct person - co-eternal and co-essential with the Father and Son, - dwelling in each other, yet with own consciousnesses, living and fully sharing in each other, mutually indwelling the other.
Listen to how Paul describes Him in 1 Cor 2:11-14
For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
The Spirit of God inter-penetrates the life of the Father and the Son with love and communication - and he takes those things in the heart of the Father and the Son and He cones to us and teach us them and apply them! Paul knew all about trying to live a religious life whiteout the gift of the Holy Spirit from Jesus. He was completely frustrate trying to be a Pharisees of Pharisees to do religion ion his own, without the gift, the fellowship with Christ through the Spirit! Jesus said that He was the first coming along side, comforter, Paraclete - but it was better now that He go to heaven, and send the Paraclete who could be personally with and in each believer!
But this brings us to the unique way the Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity relates to the others and relates to believers!
C. The Holy Spirit exists in and is experienced by PROCESSION!
Did you catch that very clear but mysterious phrasing: Belgic Confession Article 11 . Why isn’t the Spirit begotten - remember that eternal relationship of the Initiating and Planning, but the reflecting and imaging, shining forth. Why doesn’t the Spirit do that too? The early church in defending the full God-ness of the Holy Spirit, very clear in describing His unique relationship, hes unique way of relating to the other two persons of the Trinity, His eternal mode of subsistence is proceeding, procession. Do you know what that word means?
Listen carefully. Unlike the Son eternally reflecting the character of the Father radiating His image, the Spirit has eternally gone forth from the person of the Father but not the Father alone, nor of the Son alone -but of both. And Augustine said this is a mutual love, wherewith the Father and the Son reciprocally love one another. In simpler but profound language: The Spirit has ever been that love that proceeded from and was poured out from the Father upon the Son and from the Son upon the Father, just as the Father pours out his love upon the world by sending his Son and just as the Son pours the Father’s love upon the church on Pentecost by sending the Spirit. Augustine Daniel Hyde.
But that eternal procession, is kind of copied and by analogy happens toward the world! I. In Creation. The ontological Trinity is mirrored in the economic Trinity. Hilary of Portieres, appealing to Matthew 28:19 and 1 Corinthians 8:6, states that the Father is the author from whom all things exist; the Son the only begotten through whom all things exist; and the Spirit a gift in all. Accordingly, there is one power, one Son, one gift. In this perfect divine state nothing is lacking. Eternity is in the Father; the “form” is in the image who is the Son; the “practical use” is in the gift who is the Spirit. Hilary assigns these properties to the three persons because the Father is the originating cause (ἀρχη) and himself without an originating principle (principium); the Son the image of the Father, who reveals the Father in his glory; the Holy Spirit a gift from the Father and the Son, who makes us partakers in communion with God. Bavinck.
In creation, the Spirit the Lord the Giver of Life, proceeds from Father and Son hovering over the face of the deep. It happens II. in salvation, the Father planning salvation, the Son accomplishing it. But look at how the Spirit proceeds out into this congregation, into this world to apply the work of salvation. Jesus describes that in John 14:16
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
He proceeds from the Father, but listen a little later Jesus says though this is the Father giving the Person as a gift, the Son also sends this person: 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.
AND THIS IS so very important for how we receive and experience our salvation, our fellowship, our communion with God! In the early church, Arius said, only God the Father is fully God, the Son a created lesser being, and that lesser created being, made the Holy Spirit and sent him to us. The early church said: “That doesn’t do justice to who the Holy Spirit its, to the rich interrelations they have and how each Person work s in our life as full God. You are robbing us.” And so defending the Deity of the Holy Spirit in 325 refuting Arius at Constantinople they made a creed summarizing like the Apostles Creed - I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the Giver of life. But the in 381 a certain Macednonius a semi-Arian started to say the Holy Spirit is subordinate to the Son, he comes from the Son and not [from] the Father at all. So not co-equal, nor co-essential. So the church had a second ecumenical council on the matter and they add proceeds from the Father. - who proceeds from the Father as John 15 states and as it proves fully God proceeding. The Spirit and the Son are equal. But then in 589 at the Council of Toledo to make clear that it is not that the Father is more God and the Spirit and the Son less God they added the phrase “and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.” BUT They did this without the Eastern church’s involvement, and even though believe the same thing, using John 15 which states the Spirit is both Jesus’s Spirit and the Fatehr’s Spirit , it is the Father who sends through the Son. But the E said technically speaking only porceeds from the Father explicitly in that text. In 1054 sadly this misunderstanding and snub resulted in the Great Schism - E/W.
Now you may say, just a theological argument, precision but not that important. For instance as proof Gal 4:6 and Jesus speaking of the Holy Spirit working us to witness says: Matthew 10:20
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Wow do you get that? Spirit of both the Father and the Son, live in each other through this work of the SPrit proceeding as lvoe. Do you get that not lesser than Father or Son, but even in act of salvation, at the Cross equally at work, but uniquely at work. Look at Hebrews 9:14
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
The Spirit who effected the Son’s offering of his sacrifice to the Father - he is the Spirit who always proceeds from the Father in selfless love and blessedness. But this ins’t just fine distinction, in practically matters in our receiving the gift of the Spirit in our lives.
D. The Holy Spirit Proceeds from the Son applying His Work of Salvation
What difference would it make to you and your living of the Christian life if only the Father sent the Spirit, but not the Son? Let me put simply say: you’d have a bells and smells spirituality that sought direct communion with God apart from Jesus work and apart from Jesus’ Word! There is a big difference between a Western Christian’s piety and practice of the Christian living and Eastern Orthodox. Many Orthodox theologians with rich rich Trinitarian theology have come to understand misunderstanding over that filioque , but some and the Eastern Orthodox tradition, itself - have come to view the Holy Spirit as separated from the Son and His redeeming work, and proceeding just from the Father. They have said - your piety is to center on contemplation of divine mysteries hidden deep in God Himself, and your spiritual disciplines will get you into that sweet spot of the Spirit putting you in direct contact with God, and here’s the critical thing without Christ and His Word! This is an immediate work of the Spirit, not mediated through Christ works and Word. Now while much of orthodox worship centered on the holiness of God! The reverence is a good corrective, fluff of western evangelical worship centered more on man,. BUT we must never separate the work of the Spirit from the Father and Christi's work.
Romans 8:9, Galatians 4:6
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.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Do you see the Spirit’s work there it is applying the Work of Christ. And the Spirit’s work is through the ordinary means of grace of the Word and Sacraments. The Spirit’s work through proceeding from Father and Son to us is what? Just like he indwelt and indwells the anointed Jesus - set apart for task of the kingdom of God, So too in us the Holy Spirit is the Person of God given to apply the work of Christ, to bear witness to Jesus person and work> Romans 8:15-16
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
God ensures, not only that our redemption is accomplished. He also ensures that Christ's redemption is applied to our lives. Do you understand that when we confess the Holy Spirit in His full God-ness, his distinct person, His proceeding work from Father and Son, we are confessing our dependence on the Holy Spirit of God to set us apart, to work in us and sanctify us. And here is the real application. Some church stress the work of the Father, - be moral, , social justice and personal morality. Others focus narrowly on the work of the Son - just believe in the Cross and get to heaven. Just believe the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that all there is and maybe Second Coming teaching. Still others just focus on the power & gifts of the Holy Spirit.
But biblically balanced Christians emphasizing all Three in One, understand as much as God must work my justification by Christ’s work on the Cross, so too God must work in us by His Holy Spirit sanctification. That’s not primarily my effort to be set apart and holy. This is the action of the Holy Spirit enlivening in us to lay down our lives as living sacrifices to God. This the Spirit of the Sovereign God - not only rooting me in the salvation Christ work, but producing the good fruit . So little done since early Church Father’s on the work of the Spirit. Especially those Eastern Cappadocian Fathers on the Holy Spirit. That is until the Reformation. Very little done since then. But the Reformation, didn’t bring a focus on the miraculous gifts or mystic experience of the Spirit, but theologians like Calvin, Owen, Kuyper, huge works on the Holy Spirit, called theologians of the Holy Spirit because they saw His work in the ordinary believers life, His communion so tied to Christ’s work and the Word. Much of the Church today treats the Spirit as force to be played with either in mysticism or in a charismatic frenzy. But listen we confess the Holy Spirit as God a Person with whom we have vital relationship. And later we will see His work in sealing, preserving and leading us to the final day as Children of God! For tonight , I hope it is abundantly clear that we must never divorce the Spirit from the Son and His Work nor the Fther, but we invoke, worship, and serve the Holy Spirit, even as We do the Father and the Son. We worship God in unity, and the God-head in Tri-unity!
And so I ask you tonight, have you received the Holy Spirit? Is it possible you’ve believed in God in general, but not in the living God who is a real power wonderful and awesome terible in Power. Have you pushed Him off to safe distance, in stead of being drawn in to the blessed closeness He brings through His Son, by the Spirit. Do you expect, since Christ is gone to heaven, nothing to happen between God and you. God is inactive until the Second Coming? Or humbly turning to Christ through whom the Holy Spirit will l proceed from Him and the Father - do you confess and believe that the Living God the Tinrue God will use and possess you, He will fill you and cleanse you from your sins, he will sanctify you and raise you up for His Holy Purpose. The preheat Malachi was judged to be a false and bothersome prophet but unbelievers. But listen to how he responds: Micah 3:8a
But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.