Have you ever thought of the Holy Spirit as "the sum of all that Christ purchased for man" (Edwards, Discourse on the Trinity, Yale: 136)? If you, like myself, have found yourself struggling over how to begin appropriately thinking of the personhood and the role of the Holy Spirit, let Jonathan Edwards pour affection and worship for the Holy Spirit over your heart and mind.
Just a quick note...neither Jonathan Edwards nor anyone else will exhaust the mystery of the Trinity, but this doesn't mean we can't think right thoughts about Him and rightly worship Him.
Our dependence is equally upon each in this affair: the Father appoints and provides the Redeemer; and himself accepts the price and grant the thing purchased; the Son is the Redeemer by offering up himself, and is the price; the Holy Ghost immediately communicates to us the thing purchased by communicating himself, and he is the thing purchased. The sum of all that Christ purchased for man was the Holy Ghost. Gal 3:13-14, he was "made a curse for us...that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." What Christ purchased for us, was that we have communion with God in his God, which consists in partaking of the Holy Ghost as we have shown. All the blessedness of the redeemed consists in their partaking of Christ's fullness , which consists in partaking of that Spirit which is given not by measure unto him. The oil that is poured on the head of the church runs down to the members of his body and tho the skirts of his garment (Ps. 133:2). Christ purchased for us that we should have the favor of God and might enjoy his love; but this love is the Holy Ghost. Christ purchased for us true spiritual excellency, grace and holiness, the sum of which is love to God, which is but only the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the heart. Christ purchased for us spiritual joy and comfort, which is in a participation of God's joy and happiness; which joy and happiness is the Holy Ghost, as we have shown. The Holy Ghost is the sum of all good things. Good things and the Holy Spirit are synonymous expressions in Scripture. Matt. 7:11, "How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" The sum of all spiritual good which the saints have in this world is that spring of living water within them, which we read of, John 4:10-15; and those rivers of living water flowing out of them, which we read of, John 7:38-39; which we are there told means the Holy Ghost. And the sum of all happiness in the other world is that river of water of life which proceeds out of the throne of God and the Lamb, which we read of, Rev. 22:1; which is the river of God's pleasures and is the Holy Ghost; and therefore the sum of the gospel invitation is to come and take the water of life (v. 17). The Holy Ghost is the purchased possession and inheritance of the saints, as appears, because that little of it which the saints have in this world is said to be the earnest of that purchased inheritance (Eph. 1:14, II Cor. 1:22 and 5:5). 'Tis an earnest of that which we are to have a fullness of hereafter. The Holy Ghost is the great subject of all gospel promises, and therefore is the Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13)....All our good is of God the Father; 'tis all through God the Son; and all is in the Holy Ghost, as he is himself all our good. God is himself the portion and purchased inheritance of his people. Thus God is the Alpha and the Omega in this affair of redemption.
Thank you Holy Spirit for binding my heart to the Triune God.
5 comments:
Hi! Dusty. Great post here. I was talking to Michael about your post and the role of the HS in our conversion recently. The crux of our discussion (at least the way i heard it) was about what it means to be indwelt with the HS. Does the indwelling of the HS bring salvation or does the HS bring us to Christ and through union with Christ we gain salvation? I think it is both. The main purpose of the HS is to bring us to and to unite us to Christ through which we gain salvation. It is the dying and rising with Christ as he is living in and through me that makes me saved. Christ now lives in me and I do what Christ did and because Christ deified his life I can be deified through Him.
maybe i can explain it better with an example from my Christian walk. When i was baptized i believe that i received grace to live a better Christian life. Now what I think is important is not my baptism per se but that I was reinacting Christ's baptism and gainging stregnth through it. The same thing occurs when I remember my baptism and walk in Christ in my daily life. I gain stregnth from him deifying his own life. I do the same things he did while incaranted and thus i become deified myself through union with him. Now there are other ways of deification such as partaking him in the Lord's supper but that is not completely significant right now.
What has this to do with the HS? Well I think the HS brings us to Christ. He reveals to us the revealation. He also brings us and sustains our union with Christ. This union with Christ makes it possible to come to the Father and thus have communion/union with all of the Trinity.
so salvation is a work of God that starts from the Father whose revealation is the Son who makes it possible and sends (economically) the HS to the World. We are gain revealation by and gather the stregnth from the HS who causes us to be united to Chrsit who is the archetype. By being united with him and communing with him through faith and works we are able to approach the Father and come into his courts in full fellowship.
BH-Carl
Carl,
I'm sorry I haven't gotten back with you. It has been a trying pregnancy thus far, thus many things have been pushed under the priority of taking care of my wife and children.
First off I want to say that I don't fear the deification you are positing. It's not a metaphysical cult type of deification, i.e. Word of Faith Heresy or Mormon Heresy.
Very quickly, perhaps Edwards himslef could answer your primary question.
Does the indwelling of the HS bring salvation or does the HS bring us to Christ and through union with Christ we gain salvation?
And herein lies the mystery of the vital union that is between Christ and the soul of a believer, which orthodox divines speak so much of: Christ's love, this is, his Spirit, is actually united to the faculties of their souls. So it properly lives, acts and exerts its nature in the exercise of their faculties. By this love being in them, he is in them (John 17:26); and so it is said, 1 Cor. 6:17, "But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit."
And thus it is that the saints are said to live, yet not they, but Christ lives in them (Gal. 2:20)....
There is a union with Christ, by the indwelling of the love of Christ, two ways: first, as it is from Christ, and is the very Spirit and life and fullness of Christ; and second, as it acts to Christ: for the very nature of it is love union of heart to him (Treatise on Grace, Works v.21, pg 195).
Are you seeing a sort of hypostatic union in the believer as in the God-man Christ? Such that the believer is human and divine?
That is okay. Family is more important than blogging. Take watever time you need. In fact if you want to talk about it outside the blogging world then that is fine also.
A quick reponse to your post.
1. The way I am interpreting Edwards in this section is that the H.S. lives in us. And since the H.S. is "Christ's love" for the Father and for the believer thus we also have union with Christ since we are joined with His Spirit. We do what Christ did (as a man) because of the Spirit living in us. I do not really understand what he is saying in reason #2. It seems that he is just saying that the H.S.'s job is to unite us with Christ.
I do not know what to say about what Edward's said. The fathers speak more about the Spirit revealing and giving the believer power to be united to the Son and then the Son brings us to the Father and salvation. But all three are God so I think all three grant salvation. It might be Edward's said at the beginning. A mystery.
You said:
"Are you seeing a sort of hypostatic union in the believer as in the God-man Christ? Such that the believer is human and divine?"
I would not use those words. I think those words confuse the distinction between creator and created. God is still God and I am man. Like you said I am not using the word deification in a Mormon or pagan sense. We become gods through partaking of the Divine nature. (psalm 82:6, 2 Peter 1:4) We are gods by grace because he is God by nature. (many church Fathers).
What I am saying is that there is an ethical, moral, and organic union between us and Christ which deifies us both in an ethical and realistic fashion. Thus through the sacraments we experience the true presence of Christ (in an organic way) and thus we are deified. Also through doing what he did we are united with him ethically/morally.
I guess what I am trying to stress is a real experience (union/communion) of Christ in the worship of the body of Christ (mainly in the sacraments). Also there is a real participation in Christ when we worship him in our daily Christian walk of Agape love through the power of the Spirit. Thus in the end it is a mystery. The Spirit is continually giving us power but so is Christ. Also so is the Father. WE are united to all when we are united to one. So I was trying not have Christ and the Father so far away from us in heaven so that we do not participate in them also. We participate in the perichoisis (sp?) of the Trinity. Our salvation is from the Father through the Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus salvation is most easily summed up as union with Christ because of the what each of the persons do.
It would be interesting to see how Edward's Augustinian-influenced Trinitarianism effects union/deification talk.
Doesn't the filioque clause significantly alter deification?
I think you are right michael. Maybe we should all get together with Dr. Caldwell about this. He is the edward's expert and maybe he could shed some light on it. Maybe we could get Dr. lee also.
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