We believe in the Holy Spirit

[joseph]

Week 7 - We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son
he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.

So far the Creed has established the nature of the One and only,
Creator God, the co-eternal, equally divine Son of God, Jesus, and
also the incarnate, fully human, crucified child of Mary that rose
from dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

Now we move to the Third Person in the triune God, the Holy Spirit,
otherwise known in scripture as the "ruah"(Hebrew) or wind of God in
the Old Testament, or the "paraclete" (Greek) or Comforter, Counselor,
or Advocate in the New Testament (Jn 14:16, 16:7)

Strangely enough, it is here where the "Spirit of Truth" becomes the
impetus for the most severe division of the early Church. It comes
from the infamous "Filioque clause" which appears in the first
sentence of this section which reads, "who proceeds from the Father
and the Son."

The phrase, "and the Son" (Filioque means "and from the Son") was
added to the original version of the Creed by the Western Church some
250 years after the Council of Nicaea. The addition of this phrase,
made by the Western Church without the consultation of the Eastern
Church eventually became the flashpoint for a theological division
between the Eastern and Western church in 1054. The Eastern objection
was (and is) that the Spirit proceeds from the Father only, through
the Son, based primarily on John 15:26 that says: "When the Counselor
comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth
who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me."

The point the West was trying to reinforce was the overarching Nicene
confession that the Son was "of the same substance" with the Father
and co-eternal.

My personal opinion is that the main issue for the division stemmed
not from an irreconcilable theological position but from the fact that
the West acted to insert the clause without consulting the Eastern
Church through an ecumenical council and that ticked people off. The
cancer grew without an understanding or practice of the gospel of
repentance and 400 years later the church split, but that's just my
humble opinion. Maybe great minds really thought it was a theological
point worth splitting the entire world over.

Funny that the next verse in the John 15 passage reads, "and you also
must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning." The whole
point Jesus seems to be making is that the Holy Spirit's purpose is to
testify about Jesus, but rather than focus on that mission of the
Church, He was made a source of division; now that's a testimony.

The Holy Spirit has been the source of further division of the church
as people argued and split over spiritual gifts, baptism in the HS,
second blessings, tongues, present day miracles, etc. all interfering
with the point the creed is trying to make: that the Holy Spirit is
God, He is the giver of life, He goes out from the Father and the Son
(or from the Father through the Son, if that makes any difference),
He's to be worshipped as God, and He has spoken God's truth through
the prophets.

The controversy surrounding the filioque confirms the truth that
creedal statements never work from the top-down. The only time creeds
mean anything is when they truly reflect the deep conviction in the
hearts of people that bubbles up to the surface and finds its way to
paper. This deep conviction and heartfelt belief is purely and
completely the work of the Holy Spirit and cannot be coerced or earned
but is a complete gift from the hand of God. May He, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit be worshipped and adored.