The Holy Spirit

 

"I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith."

For hundreds of years, Lutheran children have learned and often been asked to recite these words which introduce Martin Luther’s explanation of the third article of The Apostles' Creed (Luther's Small Catechism). ELCA Lutherans believe that the Holy Spirit, calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies us in the faith, and that all of this flows from what we understand to be the Holy Spirit’s paramount work — to reveal and glorify Christ, and to strengthen the believer’s faith.

The white dove is often used to represent the Holy SpiritThe Spirit as person
For Luther the Spirit is both altogether person and altogether gift:

  • person in the manner in which the Spirit comes to us and thus always remains the Lord
  • gift in the manner in which the Spirit brings us to Christ and preserves us in the faith.*

Together, Father, Christ and Holy Spirit are the manifestations of the one God whom we know and understand to be revealed in a trinity of persons. For ELCA Lutherans, the Holy Spirit — as person — might be said to be one of God’s "three faces."

The center of God’s divine activity is the incarnate Son of God, Jesus the Christ. Yet, just as the Son performed the work of the Father who sent him, so the Spirit performs the work of the Son. The Spirit underscores the fulfillment of prophecy, witnessing to God revealed in Jesus. In carrying on Jesus’ earthly ministry, the Spirit’s ongoing work is to reveal truth, give life and strengthen faith (John 7:39, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7-15).

In the doctrine’s Old Testament roots, the Spirit is God present in

  • the natural order, at work creating the world and sustaining life
  • history, using Israel to reveal God’s divine redemptive purpose for humankind
  • individual believers, anticipating the New Testament doctrine of the Spirit who dwells in human hearts (indwelling Spirit).

The continuity to the New Testament can be seen as the Spirit

  • comes to Mary to give birth to Jesus (Luke 1:35)
  • is present at Jesus’ baptism (Luke 3:22 , often depicted in art as a descending dove)
  • is given by the post-Resurrection Jesus to his disciples (John 20:22, often depicted in art as breath or wind), and
  • enters and forms the church at Pentecost, extending Jesus’ earthly ministry throughout the world (Acts 2:4 often depicted in art as tongues of fire).

The New Testament is uniquely a book of the Holy Spirit. All its writings, except 2 and 3 John, contain references to the Spirit.

Giver of life
The Holy Spirit as the "giver of life" has a central place in Christian revelation. ELCA Lutherans confess in the words of the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) that;

...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....

In the Latin-speaking (Western) Church, the phrase and the Son (in Latin filioque) was first added to the Nicene Creed at the Synod of Toledo in Spain in 447. The formula was used in a letter from Pope Leo I to the members of that synod, responding to heresies they were confronting. (Primarily, it was added to the Creed in order to oppose the Arian heresy, which taught that the Son was a creature and not God.) At the third synod of Toledo in 589, the ruling Visigoths, who had been Arian Christians, submitted to the Catholic Church. They were obliged to accept the Nicene Creed with the filioque.**

It is the essence of the Gospel that the new life in Christ from beginning to end is solely the work of the Spirit. The Spirit’s essential work of bestowing God’s grace of forgiveness is pure gift, renewing us so that Christ may dwell in us. For Christians, the Spirit makes the living and life-changing Christ a personally experienced reality. In John 14:16 we are told by Jesus that the Spirit is our Advocate, God’s "face" which is given to dwell with us forever. John goes on to say, "You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you" (John 14:17). Thus the Spirit, whose intrinsic nature of vital ongoing divine activity is recognized within the early church, comes to humankind from both Father and Son.

In church and world
ELCA Lutherans concur with Martin Luther that,"the Holy Spirit is among humans in a twofold way:

"First through a universal activity, by which [the Holy Spirit] preserves them as well as God’s other creatures. ..." (Thus, the Spirit’s activity is not limited to the sphere of faith and the church, but that all activity in which God engages with reference to the world and humankind is mediated through the Spirit.)

Secondly, the Holy Spirit "is gift from Christ" to believers. One can establish the principle that, for Luther, a relationship with God is possible only through the Spirit - understood in the strict sense as a person of the Trinity. He believed that there is not a single theological doctrine in which the activity of the Spirit is not fundamental. The activities of the Spirit are personal in nature: speaking, bearing witness, and uniting believers with one another in one body. Apart from the Spirit there is no activity of God in the world or in human life, no living Word, no grace of Baptism, no real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, no conversion or regeneration, no faith or fellowship in Christ.

"The Gospel also ascribes to the Holy Spirit the creation and preservation of the Christian community, the church. Through this ‘communion of saints,’ which has been entrusted with the Word and the Sacraments, the Spirit creates faith and fellowship, and thus carries out God’s purpose for humankind." The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (Galatians 5:22).*

In Word and Sacrament
For Luther, the Spirit is the author of preaching the Gospel and, simultaneously, gift to humankind enclosed in the Word. He stressed both the Spirit as the creator of the new life and as indwelling witness. He professed that such things as, "Raising one’s children, loving one’s wife and obeying the magistrate are fruits of the Spirit."

At the same time, Luther taught and ELCA Lutherans profess that, within the church, the Spirit works through the Word and Sacraments, so ELCA Lutherans appreciate Word and the Sacraments as instruments of the Spirit which "feed" our faith.

In binding the Spirit to the external means of Word and Sacrament, Luther did not deny the inner working of the Spirit.