Chapter
3 - The Holy Spirit, the Trinity and Grace
The Holy Spirit - Reveals
The subject of the Holy Spirit can lead
to great discussion, primarily centered not on whether or not there is a Holy
Spirit, but when did the Holy Spirit come to exist. So in order to put that
question off the table, let’s deal with it early in the discussion. There are a
number of references to the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, beginning with Genesis
1:2. (See also Exodus 31:1-5; 1 Samuel 10: 6-9; 2 Samuel 23:2; Isaiah 59:
19-21; Micah 3: 8; Matthew 1:18; Acts 2: 1-4) From our scriptural evidence, the
Holy Spirit has been around since the beginning. We will discuss the Trinity when
this whole concept may become clearer.
So the second part of any discussion
about the Holy Spirit is about how do we define the Holy Spirit? One definition
that seems to work for most folks is that the Holy Spirit is the
personification of God that interacts with humanity. In other words, we do not
often get the full presence of the creator in our daily lives. If we read the
biblical story, we are certainly not as clear about the personification of God
that interacted with Moses, Jacob, David and the prophets. But suffice it to
say that the Holy Spirit was certainly involved in some of these encounters. So
what we can determine as a simple explanation is that when we encounter God,
more often than not, the personification of God that we encounter will be the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our teacher (John 14:26), our advisor (John 14:
16-17), our transformer (1 Samuel 31:1-5), and our advocate (John 15:26).
The final part of the discussion is
more difficult to answer than any other. How do we encounter and/or interact
with the Holy Spirit. The answer to this question is as diverse as there are people
in the world. Again if we go to the scriptures for an answer, we see the Holy
Spirit interacting in the world through dreams, voiced conversations, visions
and many other ways. “The Holy Spirit’s
power enables us to become holy; in other words, to love and serve God as we
were intended.”[i] From
this quote I understand that through the Holy Spirit we receive discernment of
God’s will and it is through the Holy Spirit’s power given to us that we can
become healers, prophets, and apostles. The Holy Spirit is responsible for
revealing the nature of God through the scriptures, through other writings and
interaction with others. I believe that the Holy Spirit gives us strength and
courage to walk a different journey than the world suggests. And it is in the community
of believers that the Holy Spirit provides that strength through
accountability, nurturing and support. We find the Holy Spirit speaking to us
through our daily reading of the Bible, though our prayers, through other
people acting at the direction of the Holy Spirit directly with us and through
the writings and meditations of others.
So if we again try to simplify our
understanding, then we can say simply that the “Holy Spirit reveals.” When we
look at scripture we see that the Holy Spirit reveals the world at creation. It
is the Holy Spirit abiding in the Apostles that allows them to reveal God to
the people around them. And it again is through the power of the Holy Spirit
that God is revealed in our sacraments.
The Trinity
This is one of the concepts that
define us as Christians and as Methodists. We believe in a triune God. This is
so important to our understanding that without we cannot call ourselves
Methodists or align ourselves with the majority of Christian denominational
beliefs. We believe that there is God. And God is creator, redeemer and
sustainer. We encounter God in different personifications. We encounter God the
creator each time we pay attention to the world around us. God is often
compared to the Potter and we are the clay (see Jeremiah 18: 1-6; Isaiah 45:9).
There is scientific evidence that we humans are pre-disposed to believe in God.
If we look at our world and creation we realize the need for God. Even
scientists now understand that creation required a third party to provide the
spark that we know as creation or “The Big Bang.” The second personification is of course,
Jesus. Jesus is the human interacting force of God that walked the earth, to
teach us and show us by example what it means to walk as one of God’s children.
And then we have the Holy Spirit who interacts with us in our daily lives.
Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer! Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Our belief is
that God exists as three personifications in one being or one essence. There
are some that believe that Jesus was simply a man, a prophet who walked the
earth. But we believe differently. Some might teach this concept by using water
as an example. At one point in temperature water exists simultaneously in three
states, liquid, solid and gas. I like the idea of personification of God in
three states. But whatever you use as an example, we believe that:
Grace
Our final topic in this chapter is
Grace. There is one Grace, the Grace of God. In order to fully appreciate that
concept, we must first understand our own humanity and the human need for
divine grace. “Human beings are sinful
and without God incapable on their own of being righteous, however they are not
irredeemably sinful and can be transformed by God’s grace.”[ii]
As Christians, we believe that we are born into a sinful nature where we desire
to exert our will over the will of God. We spend our life fighting this nature
where we each fight for control of our lives rather than relinquishing that
control to God and seeking discernment for our lives through the Holy Spirit.
In that inescapable nature our doom is assured except for the intervention of
God. Humanity cannot bridge the sinful gap between our own humanity and God.
Because of that it was necessary for divine intervention in the death of Jesus.
John Wesley summed up our depraved nature in his sermon on the New Birth said:
“And in Adam all died, all humankind, all the children of
men who were then in Adam's loins. The natural consequence of this is, that
every one descended from him comes into the world spiritually dead, dead to
God, wholly dead in sin; entirely void of the life of God; void of the image of
God, of all that righteousness and holiness wherein Adam was created. Instead
of this, every man born into the world now bears the image of the devil in
pride and self-will; the image of the beast, in sensual appetites and desires.
This, then, is the foundation of the new birth, -- the entire corruption of our
nature. Hence it is, that, being born in sin, we must be "born
again." Hence every one that is born of a woman must be born of the Spirit
of God.”[iii]
Without
divine intervention we would be incapable of redemption and so God provides the
means through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection.
This now brings us to the concept of
Grace. “While the grace of God is
undivided, it precedes salvation as ‘prevenient grace,’ continues in
‘justifying grace,’ and is brought to fruition in ‘sanctifying grace.’”[iv]
Our lives are a journey from birth to death and then resurrection that allows
us to share in the grace of God given to us through the cross and resurrection
of Jesus. We are all in need of repentance, our own desire to seek forgiveness
for our sinful nature, whether before our new birth or after. We seek to
restore ourselves to God’s favor through our prayers for forgiveness, our
participation in Holy Communion and our witness in the community of believers.
This act of repentance is played out in the world daily individually and in
communion with others. Prevenient grace is with us from conception to our
grave. It is God’s love that flows through us even before we know God. It is
God striving to bring us into relationship. Some refer to this point in the
journey as that time in our lives when we have a yearning for something greater
or deeper even if we do not fully know what that yearning is.
Justification is the act of
forgiveness given to us by God for our sinful nature and our sins against God
throughout our lives. It is a place in the journey of grace of God according to
John Wesley, given through the cross and resurrection. “In justification we are, through faith, forgiven our sin and restored
to God’s favor.”[v] When
Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about “being born again” he was referring to the regeneration
of our spirit, that moment when we are renewed inwardly in the image of Christ.
It is this moment that John Wesley speaks of as the moment of our “new birth’
when we are reconciled to God. After this moment which may come through a
journey of faith development with the Holy Spirit or a spiritual awakening from
the Holy Spirit we strive to achieve perfection in our lives. For many, this is
the time when we would profess our faith publicly or privately.
“Sanctification
is that renewal of our fallen nature by the Holy Ghost…”[vi]
This is the time in our journey when we completely submissively surrender our
lives to the will of God. John Wesley believed that we are on a journey to
perfection and that perfection is possible in our lifetimes. That we were
created to be holy as God is holy. The example I have most often heard and used
is the example of the house, the porch, the front door and upstairs. We are
justified when we enter the front door and continue our journey to the upstairs
of the house where we are completely at home with God. For many of us this does
not happen in our physical lifetime, but rather after we complete the spiritual
journey.
Questions
1. When did the Holy Spirit appear
2. What are the names given to the Holy
Spirit? (Hint: See handout)
3. How does the Holy Spirit differ from
Old Testament to New Testament and what is the significance of the spirit in
the Pentecost story (Acts 2: 1-4)
4. When do we see the Trinity for the
first time? (Genesis 1:26 or Matthew 28:19- . . . )
5. How would you describe the Trinity?
6. Why is the concept of a Triune God
important to our understanding of God?
7. Some of these terms, repentance;
justification; regeneration; and sanctification may be new terms to you. Is
your understanding of these terms clearer now than before and what does this
whole concept of Grace mean to you?
[i] Garrett,
class notes from PT752
[ii]
Garrett, Daniel Rev. Dr., Class notes from PT752 – United Methodist Doctrine,
Polity, and History, School of Theology, Virginia Union University, Winter 2005
and Spring 2006
[iii]
Outler, Albert and Richard Heitzenrater, Editors, John Wesley’s Sermons, An
Anthology, Abingdon Press, TN 1991, page 338
[iv] Smith, Judith E., ed., The Book of Discipline of the
United Methodist Church 2008, (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing
House, 2008), page 45-46
[v] Smith,
page 46
[vi] Smith,
page 66
John Wesley on grace
One of the tenets of Wesley’s is the
concept of the three points in the journey of the Grace of God that begin
before we are born and continues all our lives. Let us begin this discussion by
first discussing the concept of a lifelong journey. What we enter into with the
Holy Spirit and with God is ultimately a lifelong journey where we move through
the ups and downs of life, carrying our religious beliefs and traditions with
us. More importantly, we have come to understand that our journey becomes not a
collection of remembered worship services, Sunday school lessons and Bible
studies, but rather we begin to understand the Bible and our journey as a
relationship with God. When we suddenly understand that what our life is all
about is having relationships, then it opens a whole new explanation of what
Christianity means.
The first point in the journey is
Prevenient Grace. Think of Prevenient grace as the porch on a house. On this
porch come the people who enter into your life, stepping up onto the porch in
order to meet you, get to know you and ultimately to enter into a relationship
with you. God’s grace is real and available from the moment that you are born.
When we read in Jeremiah that God knew Jeremiah before he was born, we should
be able to make the leap then that he knows all of us before we are born. What
we know as Prevenient grace is that love that comes from God who desires to
enter into a relationship with us from the day that we are born. Before there
was you in the world, God was already working for your salvation and his grace
was already permeating all of the life around you.
When you finally come to know Jesus
Christ and accept him into your life, then Justifying grace kicks in. Imagine
with me for a moment that house we used in the second paragraph. When you are
born you are standing or stepping up onto the porch. When you come through the
door (Knock and the door will be opened to you (Matt 7:7 NRSV)) by accepting
Jesus Christ into your heart, your life has been justified. At that moment, the
moment of a public profession of faith, you announce your desire to enter into
a relationship with a living God. This is how we understand the second leg of
God’s grace to be, the moment of justification for our own salvation that comes
from belief. Paul and James, both who wrote about salvation and justification
agreed on one aspect, that being that it is the moment of believing in Jesus
Christ that is the moment of salivation. It is the belief in Jesus Christ as
savior and as the Son of God that sustains us for the eternal reward that we
have been promised.
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