The Holy Spirit - Part 3

All right, we are back with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Welcome back. Did anyone show

! Did anyone show up last week thinking we had class? No, you all got the memo. Great, good,

good, good, good. So let me just say briefly, by way of review, really briefly, we've said that the study

of the Holy Spirit typically falls into two parts, right? We're looking at the person of the Holy

Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit. And the first two weeks of our class, we spent looking at

the person of the Holy Spirit first in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament.

And the conclusion that we came to after studying the biblical text was that the Holy Spirit

is a distinct divine person along with the Father and the Son in the unity of the one triune God.

Now today, we are going to look at how the doctrine of the person of the Holy Spirit developed

in church history, at least over the first thousand years of church history.

And this week's going to be somewhat of a bridge to the second half of our class, or really the

second two-thirds of our class, where we're going to talk about the work of the Holy Spirit,

because we'll see that as the doctrine of the Holy Spirit begins to develop throughout church

history, it really goes from his person and then into his work. Now, we might kind of briefly ask,

why study the historical development of these doctrines at all? Why bother, right? Why not just

study the Bible and leave it at that? Well, I think there are a number of things we could say

to that kind of question, but I think perhaps the most straightforward answer is that studying church

history helps us to understand the Bible better. It helps us to live out the vision of biblical

faithfulness with more wisdom. Studying church history is an acknowledgement that we need other

Christians. We need each other in the church in order to grasp all that God is saying to us in

his word, right? It's prideful to think that we don't need the wisdom of previous generations of

Christians who've prayerfully studied God's word and who can help us understand it today.

Do you remember the verse in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11, where it says that our risen and

Ephesians 4:11

ascended Lord Jesus gives to the church what? Well, one of the things he lists there is teachers,

right? Teachers. Apostles and prophets, shepherds and teachers. Why? So that we might not be tossed to

and fro by the wind of every false doctrine or human cunning, but so that we might grow into maturity in

Christ. So we look to church history. When we do that, we're looking to the gifts that Christ gave

the church, these teachers who can help us understand his word and his ways with more clarity and wisdom.

Okay, how are we going to approach the history of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit? Of course,

given that we're only spending one class on the entire history of the development of the Holy Spirit,

which is ridiculous, we're obviously going to do it at a very high level, right? We're just going to hit

some of the overviews. And I had great ambitions today of breaking up church history into four

quadrants and talking about the key doctrines in each one. And then as I was preparing my notes,

I realized I hit the time limit and I only covered like the first one and a half. So we're not even

going to do some of the later stuff today, but we are going to pick those up in coming classes.

Because what happens in, you know, after the first about a thousand years of church history,

the person of the Holy Spirit really gets solidified. There'll be other kind of things that crop up

along the way, but the church's understanding of scripture of the person of the Holy Spirit is

really solidified in those first thousand years. And then the issues that kind of come up in the

Reformation and post-Reformation, the issues that come up in the modern age of the church,

are really more about the work of the Holy Spirit. And we're going to deal with those as we come to

those topics as we go. So we are painting with very broad strokes today. I don't want you to come away

from this class thinking that we've hit every little detail, you know, but I still think this

is going to be helpful, you know, as we think about the Holy Spirit, you know, if you think about like,

if you need to find a restaurant downtown, right, like a street map is really helpful, right? But,

you know, if you need to figure out the relationship of like where New Haven is located in relationship

to like London or Dubai or Tokyo, right, you need a higher level map, don't you? So this is going to be

that higher level map so that we can see sort of the big picture. So, okay, well, let's just jump

right in then. We're looking at the development of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the early church

and really the early kind of middle ages. Now, what do I mean by early church? The early church,

roughly, you know, Jesus ascended around 30 AD, right? And then there was the apostolic age. So we

think about the early church roughly, let's just say 100, right? Sort of the age after the apostles,

right? Into up to about 500. And then we think about the middle ages. I mean, sometimes all the way up to

the Reformation to 1500, but we're going to stop at 1054, which if you know the date 1054, you know,

there's something a little ominous about that date, but we'll get to that at the end. So this is the

time period we're looking at. What was the, when it came to the Holy Spirit, what was the church kind

of really hammering out, defending, thinking through, clarifying in this time? Well, the main issues

in this period of church history were two. The first was the deity of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, is the Holy Spirit fully God? And the second question they wrestled with in relation

to that was what we might call the procession of the Holy Spirit. Or in other words, what is the

relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit? If the Holy Spirit is fully God, what is his

relationship to the other two persons of the Trinity? So the deity of the Holy Spirit and the

procession of the Holy Spirit. But what's some of the background to some of these debates that we're

going to look at? Well, start reading the book of Acts, right? We've been looking at the book of Acts

on Sunday mornings. Empowered by the Spirit, the church begins to multiply and spread throughout

the known world, right? And we're going to look at a lot of theologians, what we might say in the West,

but the church is spreading all over, right? It's going east, it's going south, it's going north,

right? And as the mission of the church advanced, the church began in that time to articulate on the

basis of Scripture, the deity of the Holy Spirit with more and more precision. Now, why did they have

to do that? Why did they have to do that? Because a number of movements started to crop up in the

history of the early church that sort of challenged what we might call the traditional or the orthodox,

or we could even say the biblical view of the Holy Spirit. So we're going to look at some of those.

The first one is this. In the late first century, sorry, late second century, early third century,

there was a movement, and you're going to get a lot of cool terms this morning. Are you ready for that?

You're going to learn a lot of cool terms. Monarchianism was the first one, okay? What is

monarchianism? Monarchianism emphasized the unity of God, right? This comes from the word monarchia,

which means ruler, right? There's just one monarch, one monarchia in the universe, one principle, one

ruler. So it really emphasized the oneness of God, right? And if that idea of God is one, if that's

foremost in your thinking about the Godhead, then the deity of the Son and the deity of the Holy Spirit

become sort of problematic, right? And if God the Father is God and Jesus the Son is God, then it

appears there's two gods, right? Because there's only one God, but that means you have two. And on top of

that, if the Holy Spirit is God, well, then it looks like we're believing in three gods. So this is what

the monarchianism was trying to address by claiming the sort of absolute numerical oneness of God and

the sole deity of God the Father. Now, there were actually two kinds of this that cropped up.

The one that cropped up, as far as I can tell, actually a little later, but it was sort of less

influential, was called dynamic monarchianism. And this was championed by a guy named Paul of

Samosata, who was a bishop in Antioch kind of in the late third century. He was bishop from like 260

to 268, somewhere in there. Now, Paul, unfortunately, had a lot of really, really unbiblical views,

even though he was a bishop. So, you know, just because someone holds a title in the church doesn't

mean that they hold to the apostolic teaching, right? So on the one hand, he claimed that Jesus

was just sort of a normal human being who, probably around the time of his baptism, was sort of filled

with divine power and adopted at that point as the Son of God, right? This is sometimes called

adoptionism, right? That Jesus wasn't fully God, but sort of became a kind of super divine human

at some point in his earthly life. Along with that, the dynamic monarchianism held that the Holy Spirit

wasn't much more than just a kind of divine influence, right? Now, we talked about this view

in our last couple of classes, so we're not going to spend a lot of time on this. And honestly,

people in the church read their Bibles, they heard what the apostles had taught, and continue to teach.

They're like, that is not Christianity. So that didn't hold a lot of influence, thankfully.

The second form of monarchianism did, actually. And this second form was called, whoops,

I'll put it right over here. Okay, modalistic monarchianism. This one, that was gone.

Modalistic monarchianism. Sometimes this is just called modalism. So what was this idea?

So a couple of the teachers in the church that developed this was a guy named Praxeus in Rome.

There was another guy named Zephyrinus in Callistus. They had awesome names in the early

church, by the way. We are not good at naming people anymore. Zephyrinus, that's a sweet name.

But it was really popularized by a guy named Sibelius. And in fact, sometimes, I'm even going to make

this on its own thing. Sometimes you'll hear this view just referred to as modalism, or you might even

see it referred to as Sibelianism, right? You know you're a really bad teacher in the church when a

whole heresy gets named after you, right? So Sibelius. Now, before we laugh too hard at modalism,

modalistic monarchianism, what did it teach, right? What was it all about? So modalistic monarchianism held

that there's one God, right? But that one God can be designated by three different names, Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit at different times. The three are not distinct persons. Instead, they're different

modes of the one God. Hence the name modalism, or modalistic monarchianism, right?

Monarchianism, God is one. Modalism, he can kind of put on different masks or use different names at

different times, right? The way Sibelius kind of cashed this out was progressive in history, right?

In the Old Testament, God showed himself as Father, creator of the world, lawgiver. Then in the Gospels,

the same God showed up as Son, incarnate in Jesus Christ. But now we can call that same God Holy

Spirit as he's at work in the church, in the church age, right? So you see what the modalists are saying

here is they're saying that Jesus Christ is God and the Spirit is God, but they're not distinct persons.

They're just names. They're just modes. They're just masks of the one God. Now, how do you think the

church responded to that? Do you see the problem it's trying to solve? One God, three persons,

three things that are called God, how do we resolve that apparent tension in Scripture? How do you think

the church responded to the modalist monarchianism? Yeah, Richard, go ahead.

With a question.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

And the question is, who did Jesus pray to?

Exactly. Exactly. Who was Jesus praying to? He was praying to the Father. So look at Jesus in the

Garden of Gethsemane, praying to his Father, pleading with his Father. What other passages do you think

the church appealed to?

I think about the Father, that's a big, because I think all Jesus always talks about a Father.

He has such a devotion. He is showing what devotion is.

Yep.

Everything following the Father. So the Father is a crown.

Yeah. So it's, there were so many passages, right, where the Son, Jesus' relationship with the Father

was so clear, that we see that those were too distinct. Any others you can think of were the

spirits at play? Yeah, Tyler, and then we'll go to Jeff.

In Genesis, let us make it in our image.

Oh, that's a very interesting passage, isn't it? Yeah.

Plurality is the line of God.

Yeah, there's something going on there. And very interestingly, in Genesis 1,

there's a lot of ink that's been spilled about what that plural means there.

But earlier in Genesis, who might God be referring to? Well, the only other sort of divine figure

in the Genesis 1 narrative is the Spirit of God, right? So if you're just reading Genesis 1,

it would think that God and the Spirit of God are having this interaction. Interesting, right?

Interesting hint. Yeah, Jeff?

That's right. Yep.

Oh.

And remember what happens at the baptism as well. What else happens at the baptism?

The Spirit comes down. So the church opens up their scriptures at this point, because we're

talking third century, right? They read the account of the baptism and they think, well,

here is the Son, here is the Father, and here is the Spirit. It's not as, I mean, that's a lot of

quick mask changes in one scene, right? Like, imagine one actor playing that scene, right?

Like the modalists were claiming, right? But you can't, right? You can't have the Son being baptized,

the Spirit coming down, and the Father speaking all at the same moment, right? So these were some of the

passages that the church referred to to say, no, no, no, no, no, this apparent solution to the mystery

of the Trinity falls woefully short. So the church began to affirm, continue to affirm on the basis of

Scripture, that the Father, Son, and Spirit aren't just different masks, different prosopa, different

faces of God, but different persona, different persons of God, right? Now we can get into what the Latin

term person means. It's not quite the same as our today, but it's distinct. So Tertullian, oh yeah, Jeff, go ahead.

Was this before the Nicene Creed?

It was, yes. This was all happening before the Nicene Creed.

That's right, yes, yes. This is before then. Yep, this is going to be before then. So,

so one of the writers,

so Sibelius's dates were

like 215. So Sibelius was like circa 215,

right? Remember Nicaea is 325

and Constantinople is 381, which we'll get to that in a second, right?

So this is almost 100 years before the Council of Nicaea.

Tertullian, who was a church father in North Africa,

who died around, let me just, 220 AD.

He writes this in response to all of this.

Remember, wanting to say from Scripture that they're distinct persons.

Tertullian writes,

There is the paraclete, or the comforter,

for whom the Lord promises

to pray to the Father

to send from heaven

after he had ascended to the Father.

He is called

another comforter indeed.

John 14, 16.

See there?

Tertullian points right to the Gospel of John and says,

how do you explain that,

modalists?

You can't.

He shall receive of mine,

says Christ.

John 16, 14.

Just as Christ received,

himself received,

of the fathers.

Thus, the connection of the Father and the Son,

and of the Son,

and the paraclete,

that's the word for spirit.

Well, it's the word for comforter,

but it's referring to the Holy Spirit, right?

The connection of the Father and the Son,

and of the Son and the paraclete,

produces three coherent persons,

Tertullian writes,

who are yet distinct from one another.

These three,

here's the payoff,

are one essence,

not one person.

So,

in the early third century,

Tertullian,

finding language to try to explain

what Scripture teaches,

lands on wording that will help the church

pretty much for the rest of its history,

that God is one in essence,

and yet three in persons.

Thus, the Holy Spirit is fully God,

just as the Father and Son are,

yet he's distinct from these two,

just as the Father and Son are.

This kind of modalistic monarchianism,

right, emphasized the oneness of the Godhead,

but it didn't do justice

to the distinction in persons,

and for that reason,

the church considered it wrong.

Okay.

Flash forward a couple years,

a hundred years, right,

and a new kind of teaching arises.

So, we had monarchianism,

now Arianism.

Now, maybe you've heard of this before,

Arianism.

So, a teacher named Arius

started teaching,

again, emphasizing the oneness of God,

started denying the deity of Jesus Christ,

right, arguing that the Son

was a created being,

albeit the Son was the greatest,

the highest,

the most magnificent being that ever was,

but still a created being,

right?

And Arius

even wrote good songs,

right?

He wrote a song that said,

there is a time

when the Son was not,

right?

So, beware the worship songs

you listen to.

No, I'm kidding.

I'm joking.

I'm joking.

So, we're not,

this isn't a class about the person of the Son,

about the person of Christ,

about Christology,

so we'll move quickly,

but in the Council of Nicaea,

the Council of Nicaea in 325,

in 325,

sort of roundly rejected Arianism.

It was a big debate.

It was fierce,

and Arianism continued to have influence

after the Council of Nicaea,

but at the Council of Nicaea,

the church confessed that Jesus Christ,

the Son of God,

was,

here's a good word,

told you we were going to learn

a lot of good words today,

homoousios,

with the Father,

the same being,

the same essence,

as the Father.

Arius wanted to say this,

that Jesus was homoousios.

One little iota in there,

is what Arius wanted to put in,

which means of really,

really similar nature.

Exactly,

and these were the kind of passages

that the church would continue to appeal to,

to say,

nope,

Jesus is of the same substance,

the same being,

as the Father.

After the Council of Nicaea,

now,

oh,

this is really important.

At the Council of Nicaea,

the main debate was about

the person of the Son.

So,

the first iteration,

the first sort of copy

of the Nicene Creed,

after it had that wonderful paragraph

about the person of the Son,

just said,

and we believe in the Holy Spirit.

Done.

Now,

of course,

in saying,

and we believe in the Holy Spirit,

it was gesturing towards all

that the church had been teaching

for now hundreds of years

about the Holy Spirit.

But it,

but it left this door open,

right?

So,

as you can guess,

after the Council of Nicaea,

debate about the Holy Spirit

continued to break out.

And many emphasized with Arius,

because Arius also,

obviously,

if Arius didn't think the Son

was fully God,

he certainly didn't think

the Spirit was fully God,

right?

So,

many of Arius' sort of,

you know,

remnant followers,

who were still pretty influential,

began taking up this teaching.

And the response

to those challenges

took place over many,

many years,

over the next 70 years,

actually.

And,

now,

we talked a lot about

the deity of the Spirit

at our last,

at our last class,

but here's a sample

of how the church

took up that task.

And there were a number

of,

of church theologians,

pastors,

who,

who were

working hard

to sort of

defend

the deity of the Spirit.

The first was a guy

named Cyril

of Jerusalem,

who was,

he died in 386.

So,

he was only about 12

when the Council of Nicaea

was ratified.

But he lived

throughout the 4th century.

And he argued

that

the Spirit

is fully God,

right?

And,

interesting,

there's a lot

we could say

about Cyril,

but,

but he,

I love seeing

how the church fathers

reasoned from Scripture,

right?

And the insights

that they have,

right?

Because,

now remember,

Arius was saying,

and the followers

of Arius

after his death

were saying

the Holy Spirit

wasn't fully God,

right?

That the Holy Spirit

was a great created being,

right?

But not,

not homo usios

with the Father.

Listen to what Cyril writes.

He says,

he says of the Holy Spirit,

now listen,

the Holy Spirit,

nothing among created things,

among created things,

is equal in honor to him.

For the families of angels

and all their hosts

assembled together

have no equality

with the Holy Spirit.

the all-excellent power

of the Comforter,

picking up Jesus' language

in John 14,

15,

and 16,

overshadows all of these,

right?

So the Arians wanted to say,

the Holy Spirit's

this great exalted being,

just like all the angels,

right?

And Cyril says,

no,

no,

no,

no,

the Spirit is above them all,

right?

And here's how he reasons

from Scripture.

Hebrews 1,

14 says,

the angels are sent forth

to serve,

right?

But what does the Bible say

about the Holy Spirit?

In 1 Corinthians 2,

10 through 11,

right?

It says,

the Spirit searches everything,

even the deep things of God.

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.

So Cyril looks at a passage

like that and he's saying,

you're telling me

the Spirit of God

is some angel

who's sent forth to serve

for the sake of those

who are to inherit salvation?

No,

it can't be.

Some of you may be familiar

with the name Athanasius

who was very active

during the Council of Nicaea

and especially the years

after the Council of Nicaea.

Tyler,

how many times

was Athanasius

like banished from his post

in his battle

with the Arians

and the post-Arians?

Seven or eight times.

Six or seven times.

You know,

seven or eight times.

Like,

he was always fighting,

right?

In fact,

there's this phrase,

Athanasius,

Athanasius contra mundi,

right?

Athanasius against the world.

standing up

for the Orthodox faith.

And Athanasius also

had to do some articulation

of the doctrine

of the Holy Spirit

because, again,

that was part of this fray

that was happening

in the fourth century.

Now, again,

there's a lot we could say

about Athanasius' approach

to this.

He talks about

those moments in Scripture

where we see

the three names

lined up together.

He talks about

the triad, right?

You think about

the baptism

in the name of the Father,

the Son,

and the Holy Spirit, right?

And he says,

look,

the Holy Spirit

belongs to the triad.

If the triad is God,

the Holy Spirit is God.

Simple logic here, guys,

right?

But I found this passage

really interesting

in Athanasius.

And this is very telling

of Athanasius'

spirituality

and its theological reasoning.

So he picks up

on a verse

from 2 Peter 1.4

where Peter says

that through the gospel

we become partakers

of the divine nature.

And Athanasius writes this.

He says,

if the Holy Spirit

were a creature,

then we would have

no participation

in God through him,

right?

But if the Holy Spirit

makes men divine,

right?

Oh, sorry.

I skipped a line.

He says,

if the Holy Spirit

were a creature,

we would have

no participation

in God through him.

We would be united

to a creature

and separated

from the divine nature,

right?

Ah,

but if the Spirit

makes men divine,

his nature must undoubtedly

be that of God,

right?

In other words,

what Athanasius is saying

is that,

look,

it's scripture.

The Holy Spirit

does what only God

can do,

right?

if the Holy Spirit

comes and continues

to fashion us

into the divine image,

right?

So that we become

partakers of the divine nature,

not becoming God,

but becoming more

the image bearers

he created us to be,

then he must be God

if that is his ministry,

right?

So at the Council

of Alexandria

in 362,

at the urging

of Athanasius,

the church made

this statement.

It wasn't a creedal statement,

but it was one

of the statements

that they kind of

rolled out in this council.

It said,

we believe there's

one Godhead,

that it has one nature,

that's the usios,

not that there is

one nature of the Father

from which that of the Son

and the Spirit

are distinct,

right?

They're saying,

no, no, no, no,

the Son and the Spirit

aren't distinct

from the nature

of the Father.

In other words,

they were saying

that the Spirit

is homo usios,

just as the Son is.

But the fight

kind of raged on.

And this is my favorite name

that we're going

to talk about

this morning.

So,

in the later part

of the 4th century,

there was a group

called

the Macedonians,

but they came

to be called

the Pneumatomachians.

The Pneumatomachians,

the Spirit Fighters.

Not that they were

fighting for the Spirit,

but against Him.

Obviously,

this was the name

that their opponents

gave to them,

right?

They were called

Macedonians at first

because,

again,

an errant bishop,

a kind of,

you know,

semi-Arian bishop

named Macedonius

of Constantinople

taught the view

that, again,

just denied

the full divinity

of the Spirit.

And that teaching

from a bishop,

no less,

and he was sort of

bishop from 350

to 360

in Constantinople,

gave rise to this sect

who denied the deity

of the Spirit.

And they wanted

to be a little subtle.

Sorry,

this is a whole other view here.

They wanted to be a little subtle

and say,

whoa,

look,

the Spirit's not a created thing,

but the Spirit's not fully God,

right?

Against the

Pneumatomachians,

the sort of greatest

flowering of theology

about the person

of the Holy Spirit

took place.

Three church leaders

took up the defense

of the Orthodox

doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Gregory of Nyssa,

Gregory of Nazianzus,

what a great name,

right?

That's a mouthful.

And Basil the Great.

You know,

Basil the Great.

Wouldn't that be wonderful

if that's how the church

remembers you,

right?

And you've got to think

of the other guys.

Gregory and the two Gregories

were like,

why didn't we get the great?

You know,

he got the great.

No,

but what a wonderful picture

just as a sidebar

of brotherly collegiality

in the church

to together uphold

the truth of Scripture.

These three became known

as the Cappadocian Fathers

because they were from

a region in Asia Minor

called Cappadocia,

which today is,

today is,

in Turkey,

it's sort of like this

southeastern section

is where Cappadocia was.

And in countering

the error

of the Pneumatomachians,

the fighters

against the Spirit,

the Cappadocian Fathers,

as I said,

they set forth

kind of the definitive

theology of the Holy Spirit

that would help

and assist the church

to understand Scripture

and understand the Spirit

pretty much since then.

Greg,

we won't get into

all of their arguments

because honestly,

we talked about

a lot of their arguments

at our last meeting

that they would

take up Scripture

and say,

look at this

and look at this

and look at this

and then they would

reason from Scripture

to the full deity

of the Holy Spirit.

Right?

But as they did this

and soundly began

to defend

the deity of the Holy Spirit,

it raised an interesting question.

If the Holy Spirit

is homoousios,

of one essence

with a divine nature,

right?

Sometimes you'll see

the Latin word

consubstantial.

It means the same thing,

right?

If that is true

of the Holy Spirit

and of the Son,

how do we distinguish

between the Spirit

and the Son?

Could we not conclude

that the Father

has two sons,

right?

If they both are

homoousios with the Father?

I'm turning this around

because we're going

to need more space.

How do we talk

about the Father,

Son,

and Spirit

in a way that doesn't

just sort of evolve out

into confusion

and nonsense,

right?

Because in that confusion

was where the false teaching

started to creep in.

So in order to differentiate

the Son and the Spirit

who both share fully

in the divine nature,

Basil,

the great,

emphasized the importance

of distinguishing

several key terms.

So he says this.

He says,

we don't speak

of the Holy Spirit

as unbegotten,

right?

Because we recognize

one who is unbegotten

and the origin

of all things,

the Father

of our Lord Jesus Christ,

right?

So Basil says,

well,

we have the Father.

And Scripture

never calls

the Father begotten,

right?

He's the unbegotten one.

And he says,

nor do we speak

of the Holy Spirit

as begotten,

for by the tradition

of the faith

we have been taught

one who is only begotten,

the Son.

Right?

Okay.

Okay.

The Spirit of Truth,

he goes on,

the Spirit of Truth,

we have been taught

to proceed

from the Father

and we confess him

to be of God

without creation.

Interesting.

Where on earth,

one second,

Julie,

where on earth

did Basil

get this language

that the Son

is eternally begotten

of the Father

and the Son

eternally proceeds

from the Spirit

in order to define

their relationship?

Lo and behold,

he got it

from Scripture.

John 1.14,

what does John 1.14

say?

It says,

and the Word

became flesh

and dwelt among us

and we've seen

his glory,

glory as of the only

Son from the Father.

Now that word

only there,

if you have an older

translation,

it will render it

only begotten.

The Greek word

is monogenes,

monogenes,

right?

Which is sort of

a special word in John

that means to show

that Jesus has a singular,

kind of unique,

eternal relationship

with God the Father,

sharing his exact nature,

which is different

from humans,

right,

who become children

of God through adoption,

right?

The Son is the one

and only Son,

the only begotten Son.

Sometimes this is called

the eternal,

remember the word is

monogenes,

so picking up on this root,

this will sometimes

be called generation

and sometimes it will be

called the eternal

generation of the Son,

right?

The Father from all time

in his very being

has always had a Son,

right?

So that's where

the language of

begotten comes from,

it comes from Scripture.

So the Son is monogenes,

the only begotten

of the Father,

but what about the Spirit?

Well,

the Scriptures never say

that the Spirit

is monogenes

with the Father,

instead it says this,

listen to John 15, 26,

Jesus says,

but when the Helper comes,

again,

referring to the Holy Spirit,

whom I will send you

from the Father,

the Spirit of Truth

who proceeds

from the Father,

he will bear witness

about me.

How does Jesus talk

about the relationship

between the Father

and the Spirit?

He uses this word.

He uses language

of procession.

Now,

what do those terms

mean exactly?

What does it mean

that the eternal Son

is eternally begotten

of the Father

and that the eternal Spirit

eternally proceeds

from the Father?

Can we parse them

out a bit more?

Can we pin them down?

And Basil says,

hey,

if you try to press

any further than this,

you're going to go,

you're going to be frenzied

with insanity,

right?

Because he admits

that with these words

from Scripture itself,

we're touching on

an incomprehensible mystery.

He says,

who are we,

he writes,

to supply an account

of the divine nature,

which is so unspeakable

and transcending all words?

So,

Basil,

in a sense,

says we have to be content

with how Scripture

speaks about these things.

We can say

what we can say

and we have to acknowledge

that there are some things

as humans,

as finite creatures,

we'll never be able

to fully grasp about God

and that's part

of God's glory.

So,

it's important

to keep in mind

that when we talk

about the begottenness

of the Son

or the procession

of the Spirit,

we're not saying

that this is,

that these are

created beings,

right?

We're saying

that this is

an eternal reality

within God himself

on the basis

of Scripture.

Now,

the danger,

as they kind of

parse this out

in the 4th century,

the danger was

we need to make sure

that we're keeping

in balance

two important truths,

right?

And the more

we kind of press

into this,

we start to tip

one way,

right?

We start to tip

into forgetting

that the Godhead

is one essence,

that there is

one God,

right?

So,

we need to hold

that at the same

time as we hold

that the three

members of the Trinity

eternally exist

as distinct persons.

So,

Gregory of Nyssa

insisted on holding

together both the

unity of the divine

nature and the

diversity of the

divine persons.

He writes this,

he says,

in personality,

the Spirit is one

thing and the Word

another.

Yet again,

that from which

the Word and the

Spirit are,

God the Father

is another.

But when you

have understood

the concept

of what the

distinction is

in these,

right?

The oneness

of the nature

does not allow

division,

right?

There is distinction

but not division.

Thus,

the supremacy

of the one

first cause,

he writes,

is not split up

and cut up

into differing

Godships,

right?

One God.

So,

although

distinguishable

in terms of

personhood,

right?

The Son is the

begotten one,

the Spirit is the

one who proceeds,

the Father is the

begetter and the

proceder,

right?

The one who

gives forth,

right?

Although distinguishable

in terms of

personhood,

they share the

divine essence

and consequently,

the Cappadocian

Father said,

are to be equally

honored,

right?

Basil writes this,

he says,

we glorify the

Holy Spirit

together with

the Father

and the Son

from the

conviction that

he is not

separated from

the divine

nature.

So then in

381,

on the basis

of the work

of the Cappadocian

Fathers,

in 381,

the church

holds another

council,

the Council

of Constantinople.

And this,

unlike the

earlier council

that we talked

about where

they sort of

made a statement

about the

Holy Spirit,

this was an

ecumenical or

a general council

of the church.

This was the

second great

ecumenical council

of the church.

And at this

Council of

Constantinople in

381,

the church would

further clarify

and confess

what it believed

about the Holy

Spirit on the

basis of God's

word.

And the result

of the Council

of Constantinople

is that the

creed that was

originally affirmed

in Nicaea in

325 would be

expanded on this

point about the

Holy Spirit.

Remember we said,

remember in 325,

they hammered out

what we believe

about the Son

and then in

exhaustion they said,

and we believe in

the Holy Spirit.

No, it wasn't

that.

They had won the

debate, right?

But now further

clarification was

added in 381 at the

Council of

Constantinople.

So now the

creed would read.

Now the church

would confess.

As it confessed the

Father and the

Son, it would

confess, I believe in

the Holy Spirit, the

Lord, the giver of

life, who proceeds

from the Father, who

with the Father and

the Son is worshipped

and glorified, who

also spoke through

the prophets.

So what do we see in

this expanded creedal

statement?

Well, first we see

affirmed the full

deity of the Holy

Spirit, right?

He's the Lord, the

giver of life.

Second, we also see

the distinct personhood

of the Spirit

affirmed, right?

He proceeds from the

Father.

He is distinct in his

personhood.

But this distinction

in no way makes him

what we might say

less God than the

Father or the Son,

because with the

Father and the Son,

he is worshipped and

glorified.

God.

So, technically, what

the Church continues to

confess today on the

basis of the work of

these saints who came

before us is technically

called the Nicene

Constantinopolitan,

that's a mouthful,

the Nicene

Constantinopolitan

Creed.

Now, no one can say

that, so we just call it

the Nicene Creed,

right?

And that would set

down, this kind of

expanded Nicene Creed,

expanded in 381, that

would set down what the

Church continues to

believe on the basis of

the Holy Spirit up to

the present day.

Now, we are running

short on time, and I

haven't gotten to the

tragic part of the

story about the person

of the Holy Spirit, so

I'm going to move kind

of quickly, and then

maybe when we start up

next week, we can come

back and start with a

few more questions.

In the years after 381,

the Church began more

and more to kind of

grow apart in East and

West.

Now, why was that?

Well, the language was

different.

In the West, they spoke

Latin, in the East, they

spoke Greek.

So there were linguistic

differences, there were

cultural differences, there

were political differences,

as the Roman Empire kind of

collapsed in the West, but

sort of kept trucking on in

the East, right?

So the Church was starting

to drift apart in the

centuries after 381.

And when it came to the

doctrine of the Holy

Spirit,

as the Church in the West

did with most theological

questions, the work of

Augustine became sort of

the defining articulation

of the Holy Spirit.

He wrote a big work called

On the Trinity.

And when Augustine started

speaking about the

relationship of the

Father, Son, and Spirit,

he increasingly came to

speak about the Spirit as

proceeding, not just from

the Father, but from the

Father and the Son.

Because Augustine was

reading Scripture and saw

that the Spirit is the

gift of the Father and the

Son.

So he began to speak about

the relationship more like

this, that the Spirit

proceeds from Father and

Son, right?

Now, that position of

Augustine wasn't totally

unprecedented, actually.

In the writings of Basil the

Great, there's talk of the

Holy Spirit being joined to

one Father through the Son,

right?

And Basil also writes,

the natural goodness and

inherent holiness and the

royal dignity extend from

the Father through the

only begotten Son to the

Spirit.

And Gregory of Nyssa also

emphasized, the Holy Spirit

is indeed from God and of

the Christ, according to

Scripture.

So what Augustine was

writing in the kind of late

fourth, early fifth century

wasn't unprecedented by those

Cappadocian fathers in the

East who were writing in

Greek.

Now, where were the

Cappadocian fathers in

Augustine getting all this

from?

We just read a verse where

Jesus said, the Spirit

proceeds from the Father.

Why are we inserting the

Son into his procession?

Well, a few verses later,

what does Jesus say in John

16, 7?

Jesus says, nevertheless, I

tell you the truth.

It's to your advantage that I

go away, for if I do not go

away, the Comforter will not

come to you.

But if I go, I will send

him to you.

And a little earlier, in

John 14, 26, Jesus says,

but the Helper, the Holy

Spirit, whom I am

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.

So what do we have here?

Jesus is saying that in the

outworking of redemption on

earth, the Holy Spirit is

sent from the Father and the

Son.

Now, are we right to

conclude that the triune God's,

what we might call the God's

inward eternal life, is

reflected in his outward

works?

I think the answer the church

has given time and time again

is yes.

Right?

Because God is faithful and

true and desires to reveal

himself in grace towards us,

we're right to believe that how

God reveals himself in history

is a true expression of his

eternal nature.

So that means if the Father and

the Son send forth the Spirit in

the unfolding of redemption in

history, that's because the

Father and the Son are both

involved in some way in the

Spirit's eternal procession in the

Godhead.

Karl Rahner, a Catholic theologian

in the 20th century, coined this

term.

He said, the economic Trinity is the

imminent Trinity.

You think, what does that mean?

Why are we talking about

economics?

Economy here means sort of the plan

of God in redemption.

Right?

So what was Rahner saying?

He was saying, in theology,

God's active, what we see of God

in his saving work in history,

that economic Trinity, working out

his saving plan, speaks truly of

who God is and has been in himself

from all eternity, the imminent,

the eternal Trinity.

Right?

So, Augustine was simply saying,

with a little more directness,

and perhaps maybe a little less

precision, what the Cappadocian

fathers had said earlier, that the

Spirit proceeds from the Father and

the Son.

The Cappadocians would want to say

through the Son.

Because remember, he was Basil the

Great, right?

Okay, so this is what Augustine's

writing in the West.

It seems very convincing on the

basis of Scripture.

So in 589, a church council was

held in Toledo, Spain.

And at this council, it decided,

following Augustine, that this

teaching should be included in the

language of the Nicene Creed.

And this is what's been come to be

called, well, they wanted to insert

it with a little phrase, 589,

Toledo.

Filioque, a Latin term that means

and the Son.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the

Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds

from the Father, filioque, and the

Son.

They insert one little word into the

creed for clarity's sake, on the

basis of the great teacher,

Augustine.

This is sometimes called the double

procession of the Spirit.

So the West was affirming what it

seemed like Scripture teaches in the

double procession of the Spirit.

But here was the problem.

Guess who wasn't at the council in

Toledo, Spain?

Any of the leaders from the Eastern

Church.

They hadn't signed off on the

addition.

From their perspective, the Western

Church was acting independently, and

perhaps even a little bit audaciously, to

change the language of the creed.

And from the East's perspective, the

West didn't have the authority to do

that.

Now, the Western Church, over the

years, had a growing view of the

authority of Bishop of Rome.

So suddenly, what seemingly was a minor

point of doctrine became a huge issue.

Right?

Right?

And it would eventually lead to what we

call the Great Schism in 1054.

In 1054, the Eastern bishops and the

Western bishops excommunicate each other.

And hence, what we call the Great Schism is

the split, the formal split, the

institutional split between the Western

Church and the Eastern Church.

And from that point forward, we start

talking about the Eastern Orthodox

Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

Right?

Or the Roman Church.

Well, that's not bad.

500 years, right?

Yeah!

It took a while for it to hammer out.

Today it would be next week.

Well, you might have some truth about

that, Richard.

Yeah.

That's right.

That's right.

I think what's unfortunate, I think

what I want to say this morning is

what was really at stake in the Great

Schism was actually authority in the

Church.

It was really about authority in the

Church.

The Western Pope claimed universal

power of the whole Church.

The Eastern patriarchs believed that

all the major bishops shared equal

authority.

Right?

But the filioque kind of gets caught

up in this kind of tragic parting of

ways.

And it's a tragic chapter in the

history of church history, I think,

because it meant that the doctrine

of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who is

our unity as Christians, right, became

this flashpoint for a major division.

Now, there's been a lot of work between

East and West since then, right?

There's been a lot of rapprochement.

Ah, but man, if you talk to some spicy

Eastern Orthodox people, they can still

get a little up in arms about this.

And, you know, basically, you know, sort

of what happened was that both East and

West became marshalling arguments for

why the other was wrong.

I mean, just argument after argument.

I thought about getting into some of

those with Anselm, who was a great

theologian in the West.

But essentially, it sort of felt like,

hey, you don't have the right to say

that, and here's 50 reasons why you're

wrong about that issue, right?

So it was a bit of a tragic history.

Okay, we should wrap up.

We're going to, in coming weeks, talk

about an issue that came up in the

Reformation, which was really about the

authority of the Holy Spirit.

Where and how does the Holy Spirit

authoritatively lead the church?

Does he do so through ecstatic gifts and

prophets?

Does he do through the institutional

magisterium of the church?

Does he do so through Scripture?

Where do we hear the authoritative voice

of the Spirit?

That's what broke out in the Reformation.

In the modern age, of course, and we

know this, one of the big issues is the

gifts of the Spirit.

Which and what gifts are still active

today, right?

And this sort of, you know, a lot of

this kind of goes back even into the

early movement of our evangelical

movement, right, with Wesley and all

those.

So, but we're going to talk about both

of those things when we deal with both

of those topics.

Let me just say a couple things in

conclusion.

Not only did the doctrine of the Holy

Spirit didn't stop developing there, it

kept going.

But second, I think when we look back

at this early history, notice the way

that the church continued to return to

Scripture as the source and the norm

for what we believed about God.

What's so wonderful reading about some

of these debates, especially if you read

Athanasius or you read the Cappadocian

Fathers, they're turning to Scripture

again and again to say, what did the

Scriptures teach?

Now, yes, they did introduce some

helpful terms to explain Scripture.

Essence, person, Trinity, right?

But it was to the Word of God itself

that the church continually returned to

understand and articulate the Holy Spirit

better, right?

So Scripture was central in all of these

debates.

I think that's a great lesson for us.

And third, I think we see that the early

church cared a lot about the person of

the Holy Spirit, right?

Church councils were called.

Do you know how hard it was to travel

from one end of an empire to the other?

Right?

I complain when I have to drive to

Wallingford for something.

These guys had to travel hundreds of

miles to get to these councils.

Councils were called.

Theological debates were taking up,

right?

Thinking rightly about the Holy Spirit

mattered to the early church.

And it should matter to us, right?

The Holy Spirit is not some afterthought,

some addendum, some footnote to the work

of God.

The Holy Spirit is God.

And as the Creed said, and both East and

West can affirm this, that along with the

Father and the Son, He ought to be

worshipped and glorified.

All right, let's end there.

Let me dismiss you if you have questions,

because church is starting.

But if you have questions, feel free to

stay.

I've got a few more minutes before I need

to head over for worship.

Thank you.