Given that the Spirit is one with the Father and the Son from eternity, he is to be worshiped with them in one united act of adoration. We were all baptized into the one name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Since God is one indivisible being, it is inconceivable that the Spirit could be anything less than the full unqualified God and so worthy of our worship and service. The Holy Spirit is one being (homoousios) with the Father and the Son, one in wisdom, power, and glory.

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (C), composed in A.D. 381, sums up the considered biblical exegesis and doctrinal commitments of the church at the time. It has been recognized as authoritative through the centuries in both East and West.
We Believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life
Creator and Sustainer of the Universe
The Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, is confessed as the Creator of all contingent life. The one holy, catholic, and apostolic church acknowledges that the Father Almighty is the Creator of heaven and earth, that Jesus Christ is the one by whom all things were made, and that the Holy Spirit is the author and giver of life. In short, all three persons work together inseparably according to their distinct hypostatic particularities. In the case of the creation, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters of creation (Gen. 1:2) and the created entities were brought forth by the breath of God’s mouth (Ps. 33:6–9). This mirrors the Trinitarian structure of C, with sections devoted to each hypostasis, demonstrating an awareness of their indivisibility.
This entails that the Spirit pervades the entire creation, inseparably from the Father and the Son. It demonstrates that all life is sacred insofar as it ultimately stems from God, who brought all entities other than himself into existence and continues to sustain them by his almighty power. I recall making vacation trips on a number of occasions to see family members in the USA from our home in Britain. Away for three weeks, we left in spring as the leaves were appearing on the trees and the stems were poking through the soil. What a change there was upon our return! The garden was now ablaze with color, vegetation having sprung up seemingly from nowhere. What power there was in the life force that animated each plant, shrub, and tree! It was the Holy Spirit that did it, giving vibrant life and exquisite beauty to each part, a sumptuous feast for the eyes. He also allowed a goodly number of weeds! These we were responsible to eliminate.
We cannot identify this beautiful and infinitely varied scene with the divine; that would be pantheism. Gustav Mahler gave a title to the first movement of his vast Third Symphony, “Pan awakes: summer marches in.” While we may appreciate his love of nature, such a sentiment fails to reckon with the distinction between Creator and creature. Nor, for the same reasons, can we accept the panentheist notion that creation and Creator are mutually dependent. On the other hand, it is all too easy to assume that the created order—my garden being part of it—develops simply of itself, independent of its Creator; that is deism and, I fear, is more common than we might suppose. No, the Holy Spirit gives life to the vegetation, the trees and plants around us, and sustains it by his mighty power, in accordance with his immanent causes, such as sunshine and rainfall. This helps us to appreciate how agricultural fruitfulness was listed as one of the blessings Yahweh promised to Israel in his covenant, upon the people’s faithful fulfillment of their obligations. All contingent life owes its existence to the Holy Spirit, not to innate powers of “Mother Nature.” It commits us to nurture, cultivate, and preserve the environment.
He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain, The breezes and the sunshine, and soft, refreshing rain.1
Source of Eternal Life
This leads on to the reality that the Spirit is the source of the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). He transforms us into the image of God (2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Peter 1:4). It was the Spirit of the Father that raised Christ, the Son, from the dead and will raise us too in union with the Son (Rom. 8:10–11; 1 Cor. 15:35–58; Phil. 3:20–21). He is the guarantee of the final renewal of the entire cosmos, concurrent with the redemption of the church (Rom. 8:18–23). In all these great works, all three Trinitarian persons work together without separation. Thus, not only is the Spirit the giver of life (Ps. 104:29–30), but behind that he is the Lord of life, since he is life itself.
Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son
Processions
The internal relations of the Trinity exhibit an order. While a range of orders are presented in the New Testament, indicating the equality of all three persons and their identical being, nevertheless there is a recurrent pattern throughout the Bible in creation, providence, and grace. This pattern reflects who God is in himself.
This internal order is from the Father through or in the Son and by the Holy Spirit. As Basil argued, we should not be too insistent on the prepositions, since what is most significant is what is intended. All three are one identical being, equal in status and in possession of all divine attributes. The order does not affect these realities, but is the way in which the three subsistent hypostases relate to one another. Thus, the Father generates the Son, spirates the Spirit, and is neither begotten nor proceeds; the Son is begotten and does not proceed; and the Spirit does not beget nor is begotten, but proceeds from the Father in and through the Son.
Missions
These processions are reflected in the external works of God in creation, providence, and grace. In the case of the Spirit, he proceeds from the Father in and through the Son, while in relation to the creation he is sent by the Father and the Son. We can see this at the Jordan when Jesus was baptized. There the Spirit descended from the Father, not as a dove but “like a dove” (Mark 1:10), and came to rest on the Son. That was for the purpose that the Son would bestow him on his people. This pattern is evident in the missions as recorded in the Bible and in the ongoing work of God thereafter. In John Owen’s words, “the order of operation among the distinct persons depends on the order of their subsistence” in the Trinity. The missions reflect the processions. In every work of God, however, “the concluding, completing, perfecting acts are ascribed unto the Holy Ghost.”2 Or as Abraham Kuyper put it, “in every work effected by Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in common, the power to bring forth proceeds from the Father, the power to arrange from the Son; the power to perfect from the Holy Spirit.”3 Both echo John Calvin, who wrote that to the Father “is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity.”4 Yet there is a difference. The processions are necessary acts, inherent in the nature of God. The missions are the consequences of his will. They might not have been, without any detriment to God’s own being or to the processions themselves. Owen describes them as voluntary acts and not necessary properties.5
Who Together with the Father and the Son Is Worshiped and Adored
Given that the Spirit is one with the Father and the Son from eternity, he is to be worshiped with them in one united act of adoration. We were all baptized into the one name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Since God is one indivisible being, it is inconceivable that the Spirit could be anything less than the full unqualified God and so worthy of our worship and service. The Holy Spirit is one being (homoousios) with the Father and the Son, one in wisdom, power, and glory.
While there are no explicit statements to this effect in the New Testament, all that the New Testament teaches demands it. In consequence, we can see the threefold patterns in the letters of Paul and Peter, the baptismal formula, the apostolic benedictions in that light.6 While there is no express example of prayer being specifically offered to the Spirit, as there is to the Father and the Son, it is because our prayers are offered in the Spirit (Rom. 8:26–27; Jude 20). Moreover, since the three are indivisible, where the Father or the Son is mentioned, all three are entailed. That is why it is by the Holy Spirit that we have access through Christ, the Son, to the Father (Eph. 2:18). From this, it is clear that the Spirit is “in himself a distinct, living, powerful, intelligent divine person; for none other can be the author of those internal and external divine acts and operations which are ascribed unto him.”7
Who Spoke by the Prophets
The Bible itself is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit. As the breath of God, he inspired the Old Testament prophets and the biblical authors. Paul teaches that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). This is a reference to the Spirit. As we will see, pneuma means “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit,” according to the context. There is a frequent overlap in usage, and the Spirit is compared to the wind or the breath of God on more than one occasion (Pss. 33:6–9; 104:29–30; Ezek. 37:1–14; John 3:5–14).
Moreover, in 2 Peter 1:20–21, Peter describes the Spirit’s work in the production of Scripture: “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit was the primary author who supervened, directing the thoughts and words of the human writers in such a way that they themselves were fully responsible and wrote according to their own particular character and inclinations.
Excerpt taken from Chapter 4: Basic Axioms, The Holy Spirit by Robert Letham, published by P&R. Used with permission.

From Matthias Claudius, “We Plow the Fields and Scatter” (1782), trans. Jane M. Campbell (1861).
John Owen, A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit (1674), in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (London: Banner of Truth, 1965–68), 3:94.
Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, trans. Henri De Vries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1900), 19.
John Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.18.
Owen, Holy Spirit, in Works, 3:117. This is correct, as long as one understands, as Owen does, that these are not three separate wills but rather one indivisible will express in its hypostatic distinctions.
Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship, rev. and expanded ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2019), 47–69.
Owen, Holy Spirit, in Works, 3:67–68.

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And therein lies the danger – when the wrong fear compels us to embrace the wrong kind of savior. But our souls are anchored elsewhere – where our real Hope awaits within the Veil. We cannot afford to forget that, no matter how discouraged or desperate we become when we consider how to rescue our country.

Once there was a Christian community which loved its Church, its country and its God.  Its members were patriotic and loyal. Indeed, to be a Christian was to be a member of the national community. To serve God was to serve their country and vice-versa.
Flawed as it was, its constitution was one of the most advanced of any Republic in history. More than any other around it, this nation had successfully integrated a significant minority which had become an important part of its community, contributing to its wealth and progress. Compared to the oppression this minority had suffered in the past, their status since the mid-nineteenth century showed what was possible if freedom and equality was extended to everyone.
But a dark side had emerged. After a recent catastrophic war, this country’s standing at home and abroad had taken a serious downturn. The land these Christians were so proud of was no longer the respected leader it had been.  And they became fearful of the future.
Their fears would come to govern their behavior and justify their actions.  No longer were they governed by a fear of God, but by fear of “the other.”
Their government seemed incapable of governing. Factions, left and right, grew more and more hostile to each other as they battled for control. As one historian points out, The language of politics was permeated by metaphors of warfare, the other part was an enemy to be smashed, and struggle, terror and violence became widely accepted as legitimate weapons in the political structure….proceedings degenerated all too often into unseemly shouting matches with each side showing open contempt for the other, and the chair unable to keep order… Mutual fear, mutual recriminations and mutual hatred between the two parties far outweighed any potential purpose they might have had in common.
The language of many Christians became more and more violent as did their behavior.  At one point a “Fighting League” of Christian students was established at every university.  What began politically led to conflicts in the streets. Many Christians feared the growing power of socialists and communists and the implications of their influence on the morality and the churches. Their anxieties grew.
Open gay lifestyles, pornography, and bizarre entertainment alarmed Christian citizens who wanted only the best for their country and a return to the morality of an earlier era. Older Christians felt angry and betrayed by the new cultural trends that openly mocked older traditions, both religious and political.  There was also the growing belief that the new feminism and sexual openness was seriously eroding the traditional family.  Indeed, as historians note, many conservatives perceived a “crisis of masculinity” and were especially incensed at the public campaigns for gay rights.
Democracy as they understood it wasn’t working.  Serious economic problems threatened the middle classes.  In desperation, many Christians were attracted to extreme right-wing groups that promised to restore the country’s greatness, to overturn the inept system, and to respect and nurture Christianity and the traditional family.  A widely-held belief was that a left-wing conspiracy had overthrown their previous leadership to establish a socialist system.   Loyal, patriotic citizens had been stabbed in the back and betrayed.
Street violence, effective use of new media technology, and political intrigue grew.  Some media even undermined the Republic with their sensational exposures of real or imagined wrongdoings of… politicians.  One major media empire had as part of its mission the “constant harping on the iniquities of the Republic… (and) was another factor in weakening (its) legitimacy and convincing people that something else was needed in its stead.   In place of the feeble compromises of…democracy, authors…proclaimed the need for strong leadership, ruthless, uncompromising, hard, willing to strike down the enemies of the nation without compunction. 
To overturn an unjust, inept, unpatriotic, and foreign system would require actions which were extreme but necessary. We must save our country or lose it. This is what God would want. We have no other choice.
And a leader emerged – uncompromising, patriotic, moral and, above all, effective. The fact that he was a political amateur worked in his favor since he was seen as untainted by the corrupt and inept politicians of the Republic.  Here was a leader whose popularity was largely untouched by scandals that he himself generated. Even a violent attempt to overthrow the government was viewed by most of his patriotic Christian followers as unfortunate, but necessary to save the nation.  Although tried and found guilty of treason, his record only enhanced his reputation to his followers.   Christians flocked to his movement.
He was not alone. Judges routinely ruled “selfless patriotism” as mitigating factors in the extremists’ revolt against the State.  In many ways, the legal foundations of the Republic were being slowly undermined by those who did not believe that the current government was “constitutionally anchored.”
Within the national Christian community, politically liberal sentiments were suspect.  Christians associated with Christian communities in other countries were viewed as unpatriotic globalists.  These nationalist Christian leaders rejected anyone who dared to deny the greatness and destiny of their nation.  Influential media reported that more than half the candidates for ordination were followers of the extreme right.  One Christian leader attending a conference reported that there seemed to be more concern for the economy and foreign policy than there was for theological issues.  However, one clear-thinking theologian warned his fellow Christians in a broadcast that a leader like this could gradually become a “misleader,” making an idol of himself and therefore, mocking God.
Loyalty to the leader and his agenda soon became commensurate with loyalty to the nation. Anything less was branded as treason. Those with opposing political views were no longer merely friendly opponents but enemies of the people. It wasn’t long before Christians so embraced the leader and his movement that even the Scriptures were subject to bizarre interpretations based on the leader’s principles.  The racism that had always percolated below the surface soon became the law of the land. Indeed, most Christians did not object to this increasing isolation of vulnerable people.  After all, didn’t they do it to themselves? They have too much influence.  It’s not our problem.   They are “other,” politically and socially, and therefore, the enemy.  They are vermin and have poisoned the blood of the nation.
One pastor and former war veteran, remembering his fellow soldiers who had died in action wrote that, “We had to fight on so that their death should not have been in vain or forgotten.  But what had become of our country? A land of injustice and corruption, subject to the whims of liberal and conservative alike. Then the Party came into power with a program having a moral and religious basis. That’s why I became a member of the movement.” He went on to say that the leader, as opposed to his followers, possessed a deep morality and religion that could change people’s hearts so that the nation could be reconstructed.
The voices that sought to remind Christians that real power lay in suffering and in the weakness of Christ were ignored or silenced. The prophetic calls to return to the pure word of God were replaced by the word of the leader. Christians traded their birthright for the lure of naked political power. The fear of man had become a snare that failed to save their church and nation they loved. And what is saddest of all is that the leader they clung to in desperation shared neither their faith nor their morality. In private moments he despised their Christianity, their morality, and their sheep-like subservience.  Their desperation borne of fear led them to cling to a leader and system that betrayed them in the end. The actions that their fear generated swallowed them and their nation whole.   The reputation of their country never recovered.
Be careful, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ in what you place your hope. Proverbs 29:25 is just as meaningful today as it was in 1933 Germany. Snares do not advertise themselves. As Michael Horton points out in his magnificent book Recovering our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us, the fear of losing cultural, social, and political power often drives a large number of evangelicals to ‘put their trust in princes.’
And therein lies the danger – when the wrong fear compels us to embrace the wrong kind of savior. But our souls are anchored elsewhere – where our real Hope awaits within the Veil. We cannot afford to forget that, no matter how discouraged or desperate we become when we consider how to rescue our country.
Chris Bryans is a member of Northside Presbyterian Church (PCA) and is a retired professor of history from Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne FL.

*Whether one agrees with Bonhoeffer’s neo-orthodox theology is not the point here.  What is clear is that he was so very convinced that Christ’s commands were not optional.  He possessed an extraordinary command of Scripture as well as its applications. This was missing from what had increasingly become a cultural “cut-flower” Christian faith that characterized much of Germany even prior to the Weimar era. Indeed, liberal theology had so poisoned the Reformed doctrine of Scripture that it was easy to infect Christianity with extremism.  Biblical illiteracy abounded within the average church.  How else could so many believe the view that the Old Testament was a “Jewish book” that needed to be purged from Christianity?  How else could the German Christian movement reconstruct a Christ who had more in common with Norse heroic myths than the New Testament?  I remember hearing Bonhoeffer’s friend, disciple, and his greatest biographer discuss how very strange it was when Bonhoeffer had his seminary students engage in what we would call today “a quiet time” on the seminary grounds.  It wasn’t a part of their church experience.
Sources:
Eberhard Bethge Dietrich Bonhoeffer Man of Vision, Man of Courage (Harper and Rowe, 1977).
Georg Denzler & Volker Fabricius (Herausgeber) Die Kirchen im Dritten Reich Band 1 & 2 Fischer Verlag 1988.
Richard J. Evans The Coming of the Third Reich The Penguin Press, 2003.
Heinz Hürten (Herausgeber) Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung Band 9 Weimarer Republik und Drittes Reich 1918-1945 Reklam, 1995.
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Justice is getting what you deserve and giving others what they deserve. And the standard for what is just is God’s righteousness. This is what Francis Schaeffer argued forty years ago, and it is something we need to recover today. 

Where do human rights come from?
Are these five alleged “human rights” actually right?
1. LGBT justice2. Reproductive justice3. Distributive justice4. Racial justice5. Social justice
It depends on how you define them. But back to that in a moment. before we do this, consider three parallel contrasts:
First, It is wholesome for kids to play in a secure treehouse. But it is foolish to cut a tall tree branch that you are sitting on when the saw is between you and the tree’s trunk.
Second, It is responsible for a carpenter to pay for a truck so that he can better fulfill his vocation. But it is reckless and immoral for a thief to steal that carpenter’s truck to take it on a high-speed joy ride through a neighborhood.
Third and similarly, it is wholesome and responsible to defend human rights. But it is foolish to defend human rights without the foundation that human rights come from the Creator. Further, it is reckless and immoral to claim to defend human rights when you are actually defending injustice.
Now back to those five alleged human rights. If you define them as follows, then they are examples of folly, recklessness, and immorality:

LGBT justice. Everyone must affirm and celebrate the ideology of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people—and any sexual orientations or gender identities that do not correspond to heterosexual norms.
Reproductive justice. Pregnant people (that’s the new term—not women but pregnant people since “men” can get pregnant, too) have a human right to have personal bodily autonomy—to choose to keep or to kill the unborn baby in one’s womb.
Distributive justice. Society must distribute (or allocate) power and resources so that there are equal outcomes. (This is different from arguing that God-ordained authorities must impartially punish lawbreaking and right wrongs.)
Racial justice. Society must remove systemic racial disparities in areas such as wealth, income, education, and employment. Justice is equal outcomes, and a failure to have equal outcomes is racism. (This is different from arguing that society must treat all ethnicities impartially.)
Social justice. In order to understand what social justice typically means in our culture today, you have to understand what Critical Theory is. In a nutshell Critical Theory affirms four beliefs (I’m paraphrasing Neil Shenvi): (1) Society is divided into two groups: oppressors and oppressed. The oppressors have power, and they are evil bullies; the oppressed do not have power, and they are innocent victims. (2) Oppressors (the dominant group) maintain their power by imposing their ideology on everyone. (3) Lived experience gives oppressed people special access to truths about their oppression. (4) Society needs social justice—that is, society needs to pursue equal outcomes by deconstructing and eliminating all forms of social oppression. Social oppression includes not just disparities regarding race and ethnicity but also gender, sexual orientation, religion, physical ability, mental ability, and economic class. The term wokeness refers to the state of being consciously aware of and “awake” to this social injustice. (This is different from arguing that God-ordained authorities must oppose partiality in civic life by impartially punishing unjust perpetrators and righting wrongs.)

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