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One of the more influential theologians of the twentieth century was a Swiss Reformed man named Karl Barth. The man had a tough gig: surrounded by and steeped himself in liberal scholarship which was more interested in the supremacy of (European) man, Karl Barth’s life was a trajectory away from this idolatry and towards the utter priority, sovereignty, and independence of God, especially in his self-revelation. In Hitler’s crosshairs for leading the small element of the German church that didn’t capitulate to Nazism, Barth lost his faculty position in Bonn and was exiled from Germany during the 1930’s.
In the English-speaking world particularly, Barth was a polarising figure. World War II aside, the English were suspicious of a German-speaking theologian who had a liberal background and who also seemed to say that the Bible is not the Word of God. It was a misunderstanding of Barth, but the fact remains that Barth did have a very strange way of talking about the Bible and the Word of God. In essence, he was trying to protect something about the Word of God: namely, God’s sovereignty and independence in self-disclosure. His mistake, despite his ‘godly’ desire, is that he never asked whether God was concerned to protect his self-revelation in the way that Barth himself tried to do. It was like defending a lion: a lion is well capable of defending itself in its own way; to get in the way is only to get injured oneself!
Why talk about Karl Barth? He is for me one of the more thought-provoking theologians I’ve ever read. But he also stands as a warning for me: that he had a desire to defend God’s reputation in a way that God himself doesn’t feel the need to defend. He stands as a reminder for me that we must do our theology – our thinking about God – in the way that God wants us to think of him.
This is a really important lesson to learn as we speak about the Holy Spirit. Across the course of the twentieth century, so many Christians have felt the need to defend and promote the Spirit’s personhood in terms of his uniqueness and independence. The assumption has been that to do otherwise is to ‘forget’ or ‘neglect’ the Holy Spirit. It’s a ‘godly’ desire: a desire to honour God. But the unasked question remains: does the Spirit himself feel the need to defend his personhood in this way? And, if not, what trouble do we get ourselves into with our thinking about God if it’s not God’s way of thinking about himself?
Defined by Relationships
The Holy Spirit is defined in part by his uniqueness from us, and from any other spirit: he is the holy spirit. But it is vital that we understand that the Holy Spirit is not defined by his uniqueness from the Father or the Son. As spirit, we have to ask: ‘the spirit of whom?’; or, ‘the spirit of what?’ The very nature of the term ‘spirit’ requires us to ask: ‘of whom?’ It’s likewise if we talked about a specific soul, or mind, or strength, or body, we must ask: of whom?
In other words, the Holy Spirit is defined by his relationships within the Godhead. He is the Spirit of God: he is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. In this relational identity, he is as the Father and the Son: the idea of ‘father’ requires the concept of ‘child’, and the idea of ‘son’ requires the idea of ‘parent’. They are relational terms.
This goes against our late Western notions of individualism. Our cultural context emphasises the individual as primary. We are ‘our own person’ and to be defined by another, or even in relationship with another, is somehow diminishing in our eyes. We emphasise self-determination and control over our personal identity.
And yet, we are fundamentally relational beings. Every significant thing about me, for instance, is a relational idea: I am a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a teacher-pastor of a church. And ‘glory’ (to use the biblical word) is found not in myself, but in those relationships: the honour I give to my parents, the honour my children reflect, the glory that my wife is. A person is seen at their best and most honourable in their lives in relationship with others.
This is exactly what we see of the person of the Spirit and the glory that is given to him. The identity of the Spirit is in his relationship with the Father and Son. As they are glorified, he is glorified with them. Further, the Spirit – who is their spirit – is received by the Son from the Father, who in turn gives the Spirit to his people. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and, in return, glorifies them. He delights, and teaches his people, to call God ‘Father’, and Jesus ‘Lord’.
The self-effacing nature of the Spirit is only natural because he is God, and God is love. The Father doesn’t seek his own glory, but the glory of the Son; likewise, the Son seeks the Father’s glory, not his own. And the Spirit, whose desire is to glorify the Father through the Son, is glorified as they are glorified. As Christians have said for over 1,600 years by the Nicene Creed:
And in the Holy Spirit,
The Lord, the giver of life,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified,
Who spoke by the prophets.
The relational nature of the Spirit, how he is identified and how he is glorified, is vital if we are – like the early church fathers – to ensure we talk about the Spirit in the way that the Spirit himself desires.
That is, as we are reminded by the Nicene Creed, the Spirit ‘spoke by the prophets.’ We must never diverge the revelation of the Spirit from the Word; instead, we remember that the Scriptures are the Spirit’s own words about the Spirit (as well as the words of the Father and Son). The pattern of the Spirit’s speech about himself must be our pattern of speech about the Spirit. To do otherwise – even in the best of intentions to honour the Spirit – actually dishonours him, since it fails to listen to him. We are left ‘defending’ God in a way he doesn’t ask us to.
The Doctrine of the Trinity Follows Rightly from the Doctrine of Christ
Undeniably, we only know God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the will and word of God – Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father’s intention was always that we would know him through Jesus. But we only know Jesus – the Word of God Incarnate – through the Scriptures, the Word of God Inscripturate. These Scriptures, written by the prophets and apostles under the Spirit’s aegis, are also illumined by the Spirit. Without the Spirit’s work we’d be blind, unable to see. But by him the word is understood and believed.
But here again we see the self-effacing nature of the Spirit. His desire is not that we look at him, but rather that we see Jesus, and so see Father through him (just as the Son’s desire is that we would know the Father). So, as C.S. Lewis put it, to focus our attention on the Spirit is like staring at a bright light: beautiful in its own right but defeats the purpose of the light: to see everything which is illumined by the light.
This is how our theological formulations played out in church history. We see, of course, trinitarian statements throughout the Scriptures (even in the very first verses), including the Great Commission (Matthew 28) and the Grace (1 Corinthians 16). We see unequivocal statements of Christ being the Lord (‘Yahweh’) in the New Testament. And we also see the New Testament struggling to use appropriate language of the Spirit. In Greek, ‘spirit’ is a ‘neuter’ noun: its pronouns are ‘it’ and ‘its’, not ‘him’ or ‘his’. But because the apostles saw the personhood of the Spirit, there are instances where Greek grammar is ‘mangled’ and male pronouns are used, to make sure we knew the personhood of the Spirit.
But over the course of the next few centuries, the church slowly arrived at the formulations we still declare today. ‘Trinity’ was used long before the Nicene Creed (325), but we must recognise that, in its first iteration, the Nicene Creed was originally about the deity of Jesus, not about the Trinity.
The original creed’s concern for the deity of Christ rather than a full-blown trinitarian statement is demonstrated in how the original Nicene Creed (AD 325) ends. Notice that the Spirit is identified, but not described or defined. Instead, the creed moves quickly back to Jesus:
And in the Holy Spirit.
But those who say:
‘There was a time when the Son was not;’ and
‘He was not before he was made;’ and
‘He was made out of nothing,’ or
‘He is of another substance or essence,’ or
‘The Son of God is created, or changeable, or alterable’
— they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.
The point of the original Nicene Creed was to affirm the deity of Christ, not a doctrine of the Trinity. It was trying to combat the particular heresy of the day, particular from Arius, who made those claims about Jesus.
But by 381, at the Council at Constantinople, the church had sufficiently seen these struggles resolved, and the focus moved on to a fuller trinitarian doctrine, and we have the Trinitarian expression we declare today. If only the Father is God, then there was no need to speak about the Spirit being God as a person. But if the Son is God, then it follows that the Spirit is, too, by natural consequence.
We Worship God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity: One Being in Three Persons; Three Persons in One Being
God is One. The implications of this need to be thought through in terms of how we speak about the persons and work of the Trinity. All too often we find ourselves speaking about the persons of the Trinity as having different character from each other or doing different work one from another. This separation between the persons of God is a mistake of a most serious nature; it is ‘tritheism’ and pits God against himself, thus failing to know and honour him as we should.
For instance, how easy do we find it to talk about a loving Son turning away the wrath of an angry Father? But the Son weeps at sin and desires righteous judgement as much as the Father; the Father in turn loves and has compassion on this world with a depth beyond understanding such he’d give his Son to redeem it. Or again, how often do we find it so easy to associate the Son with the mind (he is ‘the Word’) but the Spirit with the affections and godliness? But it is the Spirit who knows the mind of the Father and gives us the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2). Mind and godliness are distinct, but impossible to separate in God’s thinking (e.g. Romans 1:18f, Ephesians 4:17f, Colossians 1:10-12).
There has been a recent emphasis on the independence of action by the Spirit. But this is dangerous (and unbiblical – and therefore anti-Spirit) territory. We must be very wary of any thinking or speech that drives wedges between the persons of the Trinity. He is oneGod.
For instance, it has become popular to say that the Spirit has his own will. There is a truth in this: he does have ‘a will’ (he’s a person). But he does not define his will in independence, but in relationship with the Father and the Son. Just as the Son doesn’t do his own will, but makes his will the will of the Father, and acts and speaks only what the Father wills, so with the Spirit: he wills and acts and speaks only what the Father and the Son say. Trinity in unity, and unity in Trinity.
This goes for ‘actions’ of the Trinity also. Creation is a Triune act. The Father creates, yes, but he creates only through his Word (the Son – John 1:1-3), and the Spirit is there in the beginning also along with the Father and the Word (Genesis 1:1-3; cf: Psalm 33:6).
Prayer also is a triune act. We pray to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. Or again, (spiritual) gift-giving is triune act. The Father gives gifts (Romans 13), the gifts are given through the Son (Ephesians 4), and the Holy Spirit manifests them in people (1 Corinthians 12).
At each point in which God acts, God is there: one being in three persons. Their role may differ in the act, but their presence is inseparable. Every act of God is a triune act. Every encounter with a person of the godhead is inevitably a trinitarian encounter, because God is one. We see this, perhaps most beautifully, in Romans 8. The Spirit who dwells in us is variously described as Goddwelling in us and Christ dwelling in us. As Peter puts it, being included in Christ means we participate in the divine nature: Father, Son, and Spirit.
Nevertheless, for all this, perhaps the biggest way we misunderstand the Spirit is by associating him with things that the Bible doesn’t associate him with, combined with a disassociation with the things it does associate him … remembering of course the Scriptures are the Spirit’s testimony to himself as much the Father’s and Son’s.
In particular, late Western churches have a tendency to associate the Spirit with outward manifestations: gifts, emotions, the ‘wonderous’, spontaneity, and so forth. Alongside this, the Spirit is often pitted against Jesus and the Word of God, as if to focus on these is to miss out on the Spirit, or forget him or dishonour him. The dangers of these (dis)associations, when fully worked out in church-life, are ritualism, mysticism, ‘ecstatic religion’, and a letting go of the true power and work of the Spirit.
We instead must hold the Trinity together. We must, therefore, as a consequence also hold Word and Spirit together. Any attempts to separate these, or seek one at the expense of the other, is to drive a wedge into the Trinity, at our own expense. Aside from dishonouring God, we must realise that God – the true God as he is in himself – is our greatest good. To know him deeply and truly is to know the greatest joy. To misunderstand him is to deprive ourselves of joy and delight and godliness.
Having ministered in various capacities for over twenty years now, I become wary when someone tells me I need to foster or invite the Spirit into a meeting. If we’re followers of Jesus, the Spirit is already there! We ourselves are temples of the Holy Spirit, and the church together is also the temple of the Spirit: where God dwells with us. And so, the Father and Son are also with us: where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, there he is amongst us.
Further, the sensational or spontaneous – or the lack of either – is no indication of the presence or absence of the Spirit. If the word of Christ dwells amongst us richly – whether in Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs – if we devote ourselves to the Word of God read, preached, exhorted, do we not ‘maximise’ the Spirit’s work amongst us, to illumine our hearts to see the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ?
I remember well a Sudanese family that joined our church some years ago. Culturally, they really wished they could go to the local Pentecostal church: waving hands, dancing, spontaneous singing, etc. Our service in comparison was ‘drab’. But they came to us instead of the other because the other had let go of God’s word. They knew where the Spirit is found and does his work.
Likewise, then, we work very hard to not ‘quench the Spirit’ in our gatherings. In context, this phrase (used once in the New Testament) is a comment about honouring prophecy, that is, ‘the application of Scripture according to the present need.’ When we preach the word, apply it in conversation and morning-tea and so forth, we maximise the Spirit’s work in our midst. Quenching has nothing to do with the outward, but everything to do with bringing the word of God to bear on the church.
At this time of year in the church calendar (Pentecost) we remember that God in his love and mercy poured out his Spirit upon his people. The Spirit who co-authored the Scriptures is the Spirit who removes the veil and illumines our hearts to make blind eyes see. The one who knows the mind of God makes it known to us. The Spirit who unites Father and Son unites us in Christ, to Christ, and so brings us into the intra-trinitarian life of the triune God. The Spirit of holiness, by that word, produces holiness in us. The Spirit teaches us to call God our own Father, and Jesus Lord. He gives us what we need to have faith despite all things, love in all things, and hope through all things. What glorious news!
The Nicene Creed (Council of Nicaea – 325)
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
Maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
Begotten of the Father
Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father;
By whom all things were made;
Who for us men, and for our salvation,
came down and was incarnate and was made man;
He suffered,
And the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven;
From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead;
And in the Holy Spirit;
But those who say:
‘There was a time when the Son was not;’ and
‘He was not before he was made;’ and
‘He was made out of nothing,’ or
‘He is of another substance or essence,’ or
‘The Son of God is created, or changeable, or alterable’
— they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.
The Nicene Creed (Council of Constantinople – 381)
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
Eternally begotten of the Father
Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father;
By whom all things were made;
Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man;
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried,
And the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father;
From there he shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead;
Whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit,
The Lord, the giver of life,
Who proceeds from the Father [and the Son (Filioque)],
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified,
Who spoke by the prophets.
And in one holy catholic and apostolic Church;
We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
