The Two Hands of God
Writing in the late 2nd century, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote that the Word (God the Son) and Wisdom (God the Holy Spirit) were God's two "hands" by whom He made the universe and saved fallen humankind. St. Irenaeus was not intending to de-personalize the Son and Spirit in using this analogy but rather to describe what the modern Catholic scholar Catherine Mowry LaCugna affirms so strongly, that God has revealed Himself to us by the sending first of the Son and then the Holy Spirit. Below are excerpts from a paper that seeks to develop this concept toward a healthy view of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Triune God revealed in Scripture. A full transcript of the paper can be obtained by contacting the author.
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In his ground-breaking work on the Trinity, entitled Being and Communion, the Eastern Orthodox scholar John Zizioulas offers some constructive criticism to the Western church:
The question, however, still remains open as to how Pneumatology and Christology can be brought together into a full and organic synthesis. ... A proper synthesis between Christology and Pneumatology in ecclesiology concerns Orthodoxy as much as the West. ... The problem arose only when these two aspects [Christology and Pneumatology] were in fact separated from each other both liturgically and theologically. It was at this point that East and West started to follow their separate ways leading to total estrangement and division. ... Not only baptism and confirmation were separated liturgically in the West, but Christology tended little by little to dominate Pneumatology, the Filioque being only part of the new development.[1]
This writer believes that Zizioulas’ contention regarding the separation of Christology and Pneumatology in the West contains significant merit.[2] In many evangelical churches, Christians either remain silent concerning the Holy Spirit or, perhaps worse yet, speak of Him in an impersonal way, like “the Force” in the modern epic Star Wars.[3] As Zizioulas claims, western Pneumatology has become divorced from Christology to such a drastic degree that it has become anemic, weak, and in some cases non-existent – exactly the opposite of the portrayal of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. This paper seeks to begin filling this gap from an evangelical, Biblicist perspective. We have not room to offer a “full and organic synthesis” as Zizioulas requests; we will only look for how Scripture holds together both Christology and Pneumatology, [4] paying particular attention to the work of the Holy Spirit.
We derive our method of inquiry from Catherine Mowry LaCugna, whose incisive work, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, convincingly argues for the necessary application of Rahner’s Axiom[5] when considering the Triune God:
[Rahner’s] reflections on trinitarian doctrine have stimulated much interest in theology, even after decades and even centuries of neglect. The axiom on the identity of the economic and immanent Trinity has made it possible for theologians writing on this topic to reaffirm that soteriology is decisive for the doctrine of God. Theology is the contemplation of the one self-communication of God (Father) in the Incarnation of Christ and in the divinizing presence of the Spirit (grace). Because God is revealed in Christ and the Spirit, theological reflection on the nature of God is inseparable from theology of grace, theological anthropology, christology, pneumatology, and ecclesiology.[6]
LaCugna avers that since God communicates Himself in the Son and the Spirit, we must begin our study of God via the actions of Son and Spirit.[7] We only know God by what He does in the universe. This presents us with an interesting methodological problem, since Jesus Himself (God the Son) is no longer present on earth.[8] All is not lost, however, for we have documents about Him – documents authored by none other than God the Holy Spirit. Unlike the Son, who has ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit is directly with us since He indwells all believers.[9]
Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. ... And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. ... Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.’ ...
And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Then He came and took the scroll out of the hand of Him who sat on the throne. Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb ... and they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us a kingdom and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.’ ...
And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!’ Then the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.[10]
Here the biblical exegete finds the consummation of the manifold mission of God in creation: to reveal Himself; to redeem humans from every tribe and tongue, people and nation; and to rule the universe as King. This vignette of the throne room of God at the end of time precisely bookends the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
The Missio Dei
Back at the beginning, God began to reveal Himself by speaking order into the chaos of the universe. He revealed Himself to Adam, making him vice-regent of the world and charging him with commands that were not burdensome, even providing him with a spouse to be his companion and soul-mate through life. But Adam didn’t heed God’s voice, thereby necessitating the second aspect of God’s mission. Humanity had sinned and broken fellowship with God, and therefore needed redemption. And as a result of their sin, humanity rebelled against God’s sovereign rule in creation and sought to glorify themselves in His place at
God finally accomplishes each of these components of His mission in the book of Revelation.[11] (These components are introduced in the biblical prologue [Genesis 1-11] and resolved in the biblical epilogue [Revelation].) The division of nations by the confusion of languages is reversed in the multi-lingual adoration of Christ’s redemption of believers from every tribe and tongue, people and nation. On their behalf, Christ suffered judgment for their sin, restoring their broken relationship with the Father and redeeming them to God. And they eternally abide in the immanent presence of the Father, for He has made His home both with them and in them.[12]
The Son and Spirit work together to accomplish this mission through the course of human history. Neither the eternal generation of the Son nor the eternal spiration of the Spirit can be separated from each other or from God’s unified, tri-personal essence.[13] But as we delve into deeper into the details of the story of the world’s redemption, we will notice differences between the distinctive workings of the Son and Spirit, all the while maintaining the Trinitarian patterns of interpenetration and unity with the Father that we have observed all along. We conclude, then, that the distinction between the sendings of the Son and Spirit is important to God and therefore ought to be important to us as well.[14] Without carefully distinguishing the two missions of Son and Spirit, we risk ignoring Zizoulas’ warning and allowing our Christology to overwhelm our Pneumatology. As we observe the distinct work of the Spirit, we will understand why this is the case.
The Holy Spirit - Missionary Extraordinaire
Since we intend to focus on the specific work of the Holy Spirit, it is only fitting that we begin this section in the book of Acts. Jesus introduces Him to the apostles and in the process provides the theme for this book, Luke’s second volume:
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, ‘which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ ... And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in
World evangelization, as practiced in the Christian church, is the distinct work of the Holy Spirit, although this work is not separated from either the Son or the Father.[16] This truth cannot be made more explicit as in Luke’s expression of the Great Commission, recorded here in Acts 1:8. Jesus specifically tells the apostles to wait for the Holy Spirit’s coming and then ascends to heaven. Through the apostles and those who subsequently believe in Christ, the Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus: first in
This work is NOT accomplished by the Son; not in the direct sense, at least. The Gospel of John makes the specific point that Jesus finished the work that God had given Him to do. Jesus accomplished corporate redemption for all the elect by bearing their sins on the cross and rising from the dead. Afterward, He commissioned His apostles to spread the Word of His resurrection throughout the world; He then left and sent the Spirit. So the onus to proclaim the Gospel (the substance of which is Jesus) and evangelize all nations and language resides firmly on the Spirit.
We argue against world evangelization as the direct work of the Father on similar grounds. Since the creation of the world, the Father has resided in heaven (with the possible exception of Abraham’s visitation in Genesis 18).[17] Indeed, the Father first sent the Son then the Spirit to accomplish His mission. The Son came down to redeem. The Spirit came down to proclaim the Son’s rule over men. And when their work is finished, the Father will come down to dwell with men and, at long last, fully reveal Himself to creation. But alas, that time has not yet come. We are in the age of God’s worldwide evangelization, the time of the Spirit’s indwelling work in mankind, awaiting the coming of the Father.
Observations
On the basis of all we have seen thus far, let us proceed to make some observations regarding the work of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the work of Christ. We will move from the specific to the general, beginning with the specific task of missiology with the church then expanding our view to span the whole of human history. Undoubtedly, we could make many more enlightening observations, but for the sake of space we will discuss only three.
The Holy Spirit proclaims the truth of the Gospel, the substance of which is the Person and work of the Son. The New Testament authors utilize amazing diversity when using the Greek term translated “evangel,” or “gospel.” In analyzing the verbal form, we see many different messages being evangelized – Jesus (6x), the Word (5x), the Gospel (5x), and the
The Holy Spirit applies to the individual the corporate work of the Son. Interestingly, this axiom has a converse corollary. The Son is incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth, a single man; whereas the Holy Spirit fully indwells each and every believer. We are all damned because of our corporate solidarity with Adam, our human father. In the same way, then, we can be saved because of corporate solidarity with Jesus, obtained by the grace of God given to us through faith. However, the vivifying Spirit of God accomplishes this salvation in us as individuals. When a person is born again in the Spirit, he gains a new communal identity in the global body of Christ, although without having lost his individual identity as a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit unites man to man on the basis of the Son, who unites man to God. Between the Week of Creation and the
Applications
In all these things we see an order and progression to the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father remains hidden, but reveals Himself first in the Son then in the Spirit, as the early creeds suggest. However, this order never negates the reciprocity of Son and Spirit, as we have attempted to demonstrate. So although the Spirit relates the most directly to us as Christians (and to the world at large in the current age), He always points to Jesus, the incarnate Son. It is only natural, then, that without a robust view of the Spirit’s distinctive work, Christology will always crowd out Pneumatology. This may help explain the West’s neglect of Pneumatology as a specific discipline of Trinitarian theology.[19]
A healthy relationship with God properly acknowledges both Son and Spirit in relation to the Father.[20] Christian life, therefore, is of necessity a Trinitarian existence; we properly relate to God the Father by keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.[21]
Jesus describes the experience of eternal salvation and new birth in the Spirit by drawing an analogy to the story recorded in Numbers 21:4-9. God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole; and whoever has been bitten is saved from death when he/she looks at the serpent up on the pole. Just as the Israelites were saved from physical death by looking at the serpent, so we are saved from spiritual death by believing in the crucified (and risen!) Christ.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.[22]
Jesus is speaking here. Obviously He cannot be referring to His own physical voice, since now He has ascended to heaven. We are unable to hear His actual voice unless He miraculously appears to us, as He did to Saul on the
Conclusion
At the urging of Zizioulas, we have attempted in this paper to lay a basic groundwork for an integrated Pneumatology and Christology within an evangelical and biblical Trinitarian theology. We set off on this journey having accepted Rahner’s Axiom, attempting to follow LaCugna’s method of viewing the Trinity through the lens of the incarnated Son and spirated Spirit. We have focused specifically on the Holy Spirit as a corrective against the tendency of Western church toward an imbalanced Christology and Pneumatology.
In the process we have seen that God reveals Himself first by sending the Son then the Spirit. These sendings are reciprocal, unified by the will and mission of God the Father. Yet the fundamental unity of the Father’s mission does not confound the specific work of either Son or Spirit. The respective sendings of Son and Spirit cannot be separated, yet they remain distinct. On this basis, then, we have demonstrated that Christian missiology is the specific purview of the Holy Spirit. We have also observed that although the Spirit is the Person of the Trinity with whom we relate the most directly at this point in human history, He always points beyond Himself to the Person of the Son. Therefore, the healthy Christian lives a complete Trinitarian life: growing in His relationship with God by looking to the Son and heeding the voice of the Spirit.
[1] John D. Zizioulas, Being and Communion (Cretswood, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1985), p.126-129
[2] Clark Pinnock agrees: “Our language is often revealing – the Spirit is a third person in a third place. At times the Spirit can even sound like an appendage to the doctrine of God and a shadowy, ghostly, poor relation of the Trinity. In the church year the celebration of Pentecost hardly compares to the observance of Christmas and Easter. Even worse, it may be completely forgotten, eclipsed by Mother’s Day or some other cultural holiday. It is time for us to heed the East’s complaint that Western Christianity has confined the Spirit to the margins of the church and subordinated it to the mission of the Son.” Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downer’s Grove, InterVarsity, 1996), p.10. See also David F. Wells, God the Evangelist: How the Holy Spirit Works to Bring Men and Women to Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p.1-2; Pinnock, p.35, 79-111.
[3] The confusion in the West concerning the personhood of the Holy Spirit is nothing less than tragic. Pinnock’s discussion regarding the proper pronoun to use in reference to the Holy Spirit reveals much. “The Scriptures do not settle the question of pronouns but leave the matter open. It would be permissible to use any one – he, she or it” (Pinnock, p.15). [John the Evangelist, whose Trinitarian theology is perhaps most explicit in the New Testament, unequivocally refers to the Holy Spirit as “He.”] Many scholars, including this writer, trace this development of the de-personalization of the Spirit back to Augustine and his psychological model of the Trinity. It most certainly was not Augustine’s intent to treat the Holy Spirit as less personal than Father or Son, but that is the inevitable result of both his exegesis and theology. See Augustine, The Trinity, The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Part I, Vol.5, trans. by Edmund Hill, O.P., ed. by John E. Rotelle, O.S.A. (Brooklyn: New City, 1991), p. 209-210; Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), p.89-94; Yves M. J. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, Vol.III: The River of Life Flows in the East and in the West, trans. by David Smith (New York: Seabury, 1983), p.84-85; John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham University, 1974), p.168; Pinnock, p.33, 40; Wells, p.1, 13.
[4] For a brief discussion of the comradeship of Son and Spirit in Scripture, see Wells, p.3-10.
[5] Rahner’s Axiom: “The basic thesis which establishes this connection between the treatises and presents the Trinity as a mystery of salvation (in its reality and nor merely as a doctrine) might be formulated as follows: The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity.” Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. by Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), p.21-22. In vernacular terms, this means that what God does in the world reveals who God is. Practically speaking, then, we can only know God through the Son and the Spirit. See Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, trans. by Paul Burns (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1988), p.94-96. For a helpful discussion concerning the implications of adopting Rahner’s Axiom, see Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. by John H. Erickson and Thomas E. Bird (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1974), p.14-17; LaCugna, p.211-213; Congar III, p.11-17.
[6] LaCugna, p.231.
[7] LaCugna devotes her entire work to the defense of this point: “There is an entirely different way of approaching the doctrine of the Trinity, one that is more consistent with the Bible, creeds, and the liturgy, and also one that makes it possible for theology of God to be intimately related to ecclesiology, sacramental theology, grace, ethics, spirituality, and anthropology. It requires that we root all speculation about the triune nature of God in the economy of salvation (oikonomia), in the self-communication of God in the person of Christ and the activity of the Holy Spirit. ... Theological statements are possible not because we have some independent insight into God, or can speak from the standpoint of God, but because God has freely revealed and communicated God’s self, God’s personal existence, God’s infinite mystery. Christians believe that God bestows the fullness of divine life in the person of Jesus Christ, and that through the person of Christ and the action of the Holy Spirit we are made intimate partakers of the living God” LaCugna, p.2-3. This method was also practiced by Basil the Great, Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. See Roger E. Olson and Christopher A. Hall, The Trinity, Guides to Theology, ed. by Sally Bruyneel, Alan G. Padgett, David A. S. Fergusson, and Iain R. Torrance, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p.69-70; St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit [Basil], trans. with notes by Rev. Blomfield Jackson, M.A. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8, ed. by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. and Henry Wace, D.D. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1999), p.29-30.
[8] Andreas J. Köstenberger and Peter T. O’Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission [Salvation], New Studies in Biblical Theology, Vol. 11, edited by D.A. Carson (Downers Grove, Intervarsity Press, 2001), p.22-23.
[9] Wells, p.44.
[10] Revelation 4:2, 4-5, 9-11; 5:6-8, 9-10, 13-14, [NKJV].
[11] Salvation, p.262.
[12] “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God’” [emphasis added] Revelation 21:1-3, [NKJV].
[13] This is the essential argument of the 4th century theologians, which especially consumed the first two ecumenical councils at Nicea (325 C.E.) and
[14] William of St. Thierry, perhaps the greatest theologian of the 12th century, said it best: “In respect to the relative names, it is necessary to know that while the names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are names which are proper to the persons, with one name for each of them, there are also certain operations proper to each of them; ... However, in these proper operations there is no separation of that nature, but a recognition of persons. For, the three persons are spoken of singly so that they can be known, not so that they can be separated.” William of St. Thierry, The Enigma of Faith, Cistercian Fathers Series, No. 9, The Works of William of St. Thierry, Vol. 3, trans. with introduction and notes, by John D. Anderson (Spencer: Cistercian Publications, 1973), p.97. This main idea that William espouses comes from Basil the Great, who summarized his Trinitarian method in the following statement: “Yes; but these are the words of a writer not laying down a rule, but carefully distinguishing the hypostases” [emphasis added] Basil, p.5. See also Basil, p.23; Olson & Hall, p.58; Lossky, p.79.
[15] Acts 1:4-8, [NKJV].
[16] “The Holy Spirit brings to every culture the newness of the gospel arising from the Christ event.” Wells, 25-26. See also Wells, p.45-47; Meyendorff, p.174; Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, p.47.
[17] The text mentioned records a fascinating episode of God’s interaction with Abraham. Theologians have debated for centuries whether the three men make up a Trinitarian theophany or whether two angels accompany a single theophanic figure. Ambrose and Augustine both conclude the former, although many modern commentaries disagree. If an answer to this dilemma could be satisfactory developed and sustained, this would shed enormous light on the discipline of Trinitarian theology. As Augustine avers, the passage “calls for much more than a quick passing glance” (Augustine, p.111). See also Ambrose, p.115; Augustine, p.111-113.
[18] See Pinnock, p.81.
[19] Wells: “The Protestant consensus, then, can be summed up in the following way. First, without a full-orbed, biblical Trinitarianism, the work of the Holy Spirit either evaporates or becomes extremely obscure. Without a clear understanding of who the Spirit is and what his work is, Christology is affected, as are revelation, regeneration, sanctification, the church, and the dynamic of practical piety.” Wells, p.44.
[20] The concepts explored in this paper also shed light on the relationship between the soteriological concepts of justification and sanctification. For example, we might propose the following: the Spirit brings each believer into proper relationship with the Son through faith; and the Son brings the believing community into proper relationship with God through grace. But these two movements are related reciprocally and dynamically, not linearly. They do not occur one after the other, but simultaneously. Indeed, the Anglican Articles of Religion distinguish the work of Son and Spirit in the expression of soteriology. See The Book of Common Prayer, p.870-871. See also Wells, p.8, 33; Olson & Hall, p.104-105.
[21] John 3:14-15, [NKJV].
[22] John 10:27-28, [NKJV].
[23] See Acts 2:1-41; 4:8-12, 31; 6:8-10; 18:5; 19:21; 21:4, 10-11.
[24] See Romans 8:9-17; 1 Corinthians 2:10-12.
[25] See Matthew 16:24-28; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:21-26; Philippians 2:29-30; 3:7-11.
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