Robert Letham

Book Review: The Holy Spirit

The book has the following outline. The first section is a historical survey of discussion in the church. The focus here is that the Trinity is indivisible and so the works of the Spirit are inseparable from those of the Father and the Son. So when we consider the Spirit, we must not think of him as out on his own. The second section is biblical, tracing the pervasive and increasing stress on the Spirit in creation, the history of redemption, the life and ministry of Christ, the work of the apostles, and the establishment of the church, ultimately extending to our own transformation and eventual resurrection. The book comes to its climax with a short chapter that asks how we are to discern where the Spirit is clearly at work. 

This book follows an invitation by the publisher to undertake a trilogy on the Trinitarian persons, stemming from my earlier work on the Holy Trinity (2004, 2019), especially the second edition. Further volumes on the Son and the Father are projected. I contemplate this with a sense of overwhelming responsibility. Something in me tells me that it is too much for one individual to give an account of the Holy Trinity in all its uniqueness and glory, and yet also to write of the three hypostases or “persons” distinctly. This is literally an awesome task, too great for a mere human to undertake. Yet God has made himself known to us. He has come among us in the person of his Son, living as man. He has poured out his Spirit upon us and within us. We can so speak; indeed, we must speak, if only through trembling and stammering lips. One thing is certain: this book, as all others on the subject, will be nowhere near adequate. John Stott often quoted the words of the great Charles Simeon, who upon entering the pulpit would remind himself: “One thing I know, I am a fool; of that I am certain.” We are all fools, for such wisdom as we have comes from the Holy Spirit alone.
In order to appreciate the presence and work of the Holy Spirit today, we need to ask how this has been seen over the past two thousand years of the church’s existence. Such a search is not a merely antiquarian exercise. It is vital for us to ensure that our own thinking is within the parameters shaped by more than fifty generations of those who have gone before us. How else can we be clear that our experience is demonstrably Christian? We have two millennia of accumulated wisdom, biblical exegesis, and concentrated thought to guide us. While not all of it may seem fruitful, much if not most will. It is absurd to assume that we must ground everything on our own exegesis of the Bible, while ignoring the cumulative wisdom of the people of God down through the ages.
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Basic Axioms on The Holy Spirit

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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What Is Eastern Orthodoxy? A Reformed Perspective and Response

Orthodoxy comprises a range of autonomous churches, the Russian and Greek being the most prominent. During the first millennium of the church, the Latin West and the predominantly Greek-speaking East drifted apart linguistically, culturally, and theologically. Rome’s claims to universal jurisdiction and its acceptance of the filioque clause led to severed relations in 1054. Many countries in the East, overrun by the Muslims, had limited freedom. Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, while in the twentieth century, Orthodoxy in Russia and Eastern Europe endured under Communist rule, suffering intense persecution.

Orthodoxy is emphatically not to be identified with Rome. Ecclesiastically, it has no unified hierarchy, no pope, no magisterium. It lacks the barrage of dogmas of the Roman Church. Its doctrinal basis, such as it is, is the seven ecumenical councils, referring principally to the Trinity and Christology, the vast majority of which Protestants embrace. While at the popular level some Marian dogmas are accepted, they are not accorded official status. Nor is there a requirement for converts from Protestantism to renounce justification by faith alone. Particularly distinctive is its dominantly visual worship; icons fill its churches. Its ancient liturgy, rooted in the fourth century, is central to its theology and life.

If Orthodoxy differs so significantly from Catholicism, how closely does it resemble Protestantism? A brief overview of Orthodoxy reveals several points of alignment, some significant misunderstandings, and a few major disagreements with Protestantism.

Learning from Orthodoxy

First, Protestants can learn from many positive elements in Orthodoxy.

The Orthodox liturgy, for starters, is full of Trinitarian prayers, hymns, and doxologies. The Trinity is a vital part of their belief and worship. This finds biblical precedent as Paul describes our relationship with God in Trinitarian terms: “Through [Christ] we . . . have access by one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:18).

Another positive element in Orthodoxy is their teaching on union with Christ and God. Crucial to Orthodox theology is deification, in which humans are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and transformed by divine grace. Orthodox theology has maintained a focus on the union of the three persons in God, the union of deity and humanity in Christ, the union of Christ and the church, and the union of the Holy Spirit and the saints. In some forms, Orthodoxy’s focus on deification enters the realm of mysticism. But in other strands, exemplified by the Alexandrians, Athanasius (295–373), and Cyril (378–444), it is the equivalent of regeneration, adoption, sanctification, and glorification viewed as one seamless process.

In addition, unlike the Western church, the Orthodox Church has enjoyed freedom from concerns raised by the Enlightenment. Due to its historical and cultural isolation, Orthodoxy has experienced no Middle Ages, no Renaissance, no Reformation, and no Enlightenment. Until recently, it was not preoccupied with critical attacks of unbelief, which in the West have sometimes bred a detached, academic approach to theology divorced from the life of the church. This is evident in Orthodoxy’s firm belief in the return of Christ and heaven and hell, topics often sidelined in the West due to possible embarrassment.

Finally, the Orthodox Church keeps together theology and piety. Asceticism and monasticism have had a contemplative character. The knowledge of God is received and cultivated in prayer and meditation in battle against the forces of darkness. Since the Enlightenment, Western theology has centered in academic institutions unconnected to the church. Orthodoxy has profoundly integrated liturgy, piety, and doctrine.

Points of Alignment

Beyond these positive elements in Orthodoxy from which Protestants can learn, there are many areas of agreement between Protestantism and Orthodoxy.

The ecumenical councils’ declarations on the Trinity and Christ show the extensive agreement between Orthodoxy and classic Protestantism, despite disagreement on the filioque.

With different emphases, the Orthodox and evangelical Protestants agree on the authority of the Bible, sin and the fall (although the Orthodox do not accept the Augustinian doctrine of original sin), Christ’s death and resurrection (although the atonement is regarded more as conquest of death than as payment for the penalty of the broken law), the Holy Spirit, the return of Christ, the final judgment, and heaven and hell.

Although the Reformation controversies passed the East by, occasionally Orthodox fathers talk of salvation and of faith as gifts of God’s grace, while the Orthodox liturgy repeatedly calls on the Lord for mercy to us as sinners, as does the famous Jesus prayer. At root, justification has not been an issue and so has not provoked discussion. Similarly, there are echoes in the West of deification — in Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and some Puritans — for, understood in the way Athanasius and Cyril did, deification is no more incompatible with justification by faith than are sanctification and glorification.

Additionally, the Orthodox doctrine of the church stresses its unity, the parity of bishops and of all church members, underlying its opposition to Rome. This is a model close to Anglicanism.

Significant Misunderstandings

Historically, however, Protestant and Orthodox believers have often misunderstood one another.

To start, Protestants tend to misunderstand the Eastern understanding of icons. Nicea II (AD 787) emphatically denied that icons are worshiped. Following John of Damascus (675–749), the council distinguished between honor (proskunēsis) given to saints and icons, and worship (latreia) owed to the indivisible Trinity alone. Icons are seen as windows to the spiritual realm, indicating the presence in the church’s worship on earth of the saints in heaven. Moreover, the idea of image (eikon) is prominent in the Bible. The whole creation reveals the glory of God (Psalm 19:1–6; Romans 1:18–20). Reformed theology, in general revelation, views the whole world as an icon.

No problem exists with intercession among saints as such, for we all pray for and with living saints; we have prayer meetings. However, the Bible does not encourage us to pray to departed saints, for there are no grounds to suppose that they hear us. Rather, Scripture directs our hope to Christ, his return, and the resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18).

On Scripture and tradition (the teaching of the church), both sides appeal to both sources. There is an overwhelming biblical emphasis in Orthodox liturgy, while the Reformation had a high view of the teaching of the church. The issue is not the Bible versus tradition, but rather which has the decisive voice. For evangelicalism, the Bible is unequivocally the word of God (2 Timothy 3:16), while all human councils may err.

From the Orthodox side, many confuse the Protestant doctrine of predestination with Islamic fatalism. The Bible teaches both the absolute sovereignty of God and the full responsibility of man, God’s decrees not undermining the free actions of secondary causes. As such, the Orthodox idea that the doctrine of predestination short-circuits the human will, and is effectively monothelite, is misplaced.

Many Orthodox polemicists also accuse evangelicals of ignoring the church’s part in Scripture. However, the classic Protestant confessions attest that the church is integral to the process of salvation, the Christian faith being found in the Bible and taught by the church. Both Scripture and the church are originated by the Holy Spirit. Church and covenant are integral to Reformed theology. Orthodoxy often confuses classic Protestantism with today’s freewheeling individualists.

Major Disagreements

Beyond these points of alignment and misunderstanding, significant differences do exist.

First, the East tends to downplay preaching. Largely due to the impact of Islam, and despite Orthodoxy’s heritage of superlative preaching (Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen, among others), their liturgy is more visual. Sermons are part of the liturgy, but the focus is more on the icons and the symbolic movements of the clergy.

Next, the relationship between Scripture and tradition differs. For Orthodoxy, tradition is a living dynamic movement — the Bible existing within it, not apart from it. This was the position of the church of the first two centuries, with the Bible and tradition effectively indistinguishable. Later developments in the West placed tradition over Scripture (medieval Rome), or pitted Scripture against tradition (the anabaptists, some evangelicals), or put Scripture over tradition without rejecting it (the Reformation, the Reformed churches). For Orthodoxy, Scripture is not the supreme authority.

A third distinction is found in what’s called the Palamite doctrine of the Trinity. Gregory Palamas’s distinction between the unknowable essence (being) of God and his energies has driven a wedge between God in himself and God as he has revealed himself, threatening our knowledge of God with profound agnosticism. It introduces into God a division, not a distinction. The Christian life easily becomes mystical contemplation.

Along with Rome, the East venerates Mary and the saints. Orthodoxy considers it possible, legitimate, and desirable to pray to departed saints. But there is no biblical evidence that this is possible.

Finally and most crucially, Orthodoxy has what we might call soteriological synergism. The East has a vigorous doctrine of free will and an implacable opposition to the Protestant teaching on predestination and the sovereignty of God’s grace in salvation. This puts Orthodoxy further away from the Reformation than is Rome.

How Far Away Is the East?

Compared with Rome, how far away from Protestantism is Orthodoxy?

Orthodoxy is closer to classic Protestantism than is Rome in a number of ways. Both were forced into separation, and both oppose the claims of the papacy. The structure of the Orthodox churches is closer to Anglicanism than Catholicism. Orthodoxy does not have the same accumulation of authoritative dogmas as Rome. Its stress on the Bible opens up a large commonality of approach.

In other ways, Orthodoxy is further removed from Protestantism than is Rome. Protestantism, with Rome, is part of the Latin church, shares the same history, and addresses the same questions. Its faith is centered in Christ; the East’s is more focused on the Holy Spirit, along with a more mystical theology and practice. As Kallistos Ware puts it, Rome and Protestantism share the same questions, but supply different answers; with Orthodoxy the questions are different.

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