Filioque, the
procession of the Holy Spirit from the
Father and the SonBy Jack Kettler
“Shew me thy
ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” (Psalm
25:4)
In this study, we will look at
the biblical teaching regarding what
theologians call the “filioque.”
What does this mean? As in previous studies,
we will look at definitions, scriptures,
lexical evidence, commentary evidence and
confessional support for the purpose to
glorify God in how we live. Glorify God
always!
Filioque:
“Latin for “and from the Son, ” a
termreferring
to a clause inserted into the Nicene Creed to
indicate that the Holy Spirit proceeds not
from the Father only but also from the Son.
The controversy that arose over this doctrinal
point contributed to the split between the
Eastern and Western churches in A. D. 1054.” *
Filioque:
“The doctrine that the Holy
Spirit proceeds equally from both the Father
and the Son.” **
From Scripture:
“The
Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the
LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the prison to
them that are bound.” (Isaiah 61:1)
In
Isaiah, we see the continuing possession of
the Spirit in this Messianic prophecy. Also,
consider how the Spirit is without measure
upon Christ as seen in John 3:34. Moreover,
God anointed Him (Christ) with the Holy Spirit
and with power as seen in (Acts 10:38). Also,
ponder, “But if I cast out devils by the
Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come
unto you” (Matthew 12:28).
Jesus’
exercising the power of healing and casting
out demons is proof that the Spirit does
things at Christ’s command. Because of this
possession and anointing of the Spirit
“without measure,” it follows that Christ can
send the Spirit to His disciples. In the next
passage of Scripture, this conclusion is
unequivocal.
“But
when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth
from the Father, he shall testify of me.”
(John 15:26)
Christ
says that He will send the “Comforter,” (“whom
I will send unto you”) therefore, the latter
part of the passage, which says the Spirit
proceedeth from the Father, does not preclude
the procession or sending of the Spirit from
the Son. This is because of what Christ has
said in the first part of the passage about
His sending of the Spirit. The first and last
part of the passage does not contradict but in
fact, supplement our understanding of the
sending of the Spirit.
In the
next passage of Scripture, the conclusion
regarding Christ sending the Spirit is
undisputable.
“Nevertheless
I
tell you the truth; it is expedient for you
that I go away: for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come unto you; but if I
depart, I will send him unto you.”(John 16:7)
This
passage likewise does not preclude the Father
sending the Spirit. The Father and Son are in
unity.
“You,
however, are not in the flesh but in the
Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in
you. Anyone who does not have the
Spirit of Christ does not belong
to him.” (Romans 8:9 ESV)
Charles Hodge’s Commentary on Romans 8:9:
Romans
8:9 — that he does to the first person of the
Trinity. This was one of the points of
controversy between the Greek and Latin
Churches; the latter insisting on inserting in
that clause of the Creed which speaks of the
procession of the Holy Ghost, the words “filioque,”
(and
from the Son.) For this, the gratitude of all
Christians is due to the Latin Church, as it
vindicates the full equality of the Son with
the Father. No clearer assertion and no higher
exhibition of the Godhead of the Son can be
conceived. (1)
What
Hodge says is correct about “the full equality
of the Son with the Father.” If this were not
so, there would be subordinationism within the
Triune God. Implicit within subordinationism
is the idea that the Son is inferior to the
Father.
The next two passages also
speak of the Spirit of Christ. What does
this mean?
“For I
know that this shall turn to my salvation
through your prayer, and the supply of the
Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
(Philippians 1:19)
These
two passages do not preclude the phrase the
Spirit of the Father. “The Spirit of Jesus
Christ” as Hodge has said earlier does
“vindicates the full equality of the Son with
the Father.”
“Searching
what
or what manner of time the Spirit of
Christ which was in them did
signify, when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ, and the glory that
should follow.” (1 Peter 1:11)
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
Bible Commentary on 1 Peter 1:11:
11.
what—Greek, “In reference to what, or what
manner of time.” What expresses the time
absolutely: what was to be the era of
Messiah's coming; what manner of time; what
events and features should characterize the
time of His coming. The “or” implies that some
of the prophets, if they could not as
individuals discover the exact time, searched
into its characteristic features and events.
The Greek for “time” is the season, the epoch,
the fit time in God's purposes.
Spirit
of Christ … in them—(Ac 16:7, in
oldest
manuscripts, “the Spirit of Jesus”;
Re 19:10). So Justin Martyr says, “Jesus was
He who appeared and communed with Moses,
Abraham, and the other patriarchs.” “Clement
of Alexandria calls Him "the Prophet of
prophets, and Lord of all the prophetical
spirit.”
did
signify—“did give intimation.”
of—Greek,
“the sufferers (appointed) unto Christ,” or
foretold in regard to Christ. “Christ,” the
anointed Mediator, whose sufferings are the
price of our "salvation" (1Pe 1:9, 10), and
who is the channel of “the grace that should
come unto you.”
the
glory—Greek, “glories,” namely, of His
resurrection, of His ascension, of His
judgment and coming kingdom, the necessary
consequence of the sufferings.
that
should follow—Greek, “after these
(sufferings),” 1Pe 3:18-22; 5:1. Since “the
Spirit of Christ” is the Spirit of God, Christ
is God. It is only because the Son of God was
to become our Christ that He manifested
Himself and the Father through Him in the Old
Testament, and by the Holy Spirit,eternally proceeding
from the Father and Himself, spake in
the prophets. (2)
In
these two passages, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
demonstrates the proceeding of the Spirit from
the Father and Himself (Jesus).
Revelation 22:1 provides more
evidence of the procession of the Spirit
from the Father and Son:
“And he
shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear
as crystal, proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the
Lamb.” (Revelation 22:1)
There
is a double procession out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb. This conclusion is
inescapable. The following comments by Henry
make this clear.
Matthew Henry'sConcise
Commentary on Revelation 22:1:
22:1-5
All streams of earthly comfort are muddy; but
these are clear, and refreshing. They give
life, and preserve life, to those who drink of
them, and thus they will flow for evermore.
These point to the quickening and sanctifying
influences of the Holy Spirit, as given to
sinners through Christ. The Holy
Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the
Son, applies this salvation to our
souls by his new-creating love and power. The
trees of life are fed by the pure waters of
the river that comes from the throne of God.
The presence of God in heaven is the health
and happiness of the saints. This tree was an
emblem of Christ and of all the blessings of
his salvation; and the leaves for the healing
of the nations, mean that his favor and
presence supply all good to the inhabitants of
that blessed world. The devil has no power
there; he cannot draw the saints from serving
God, nor can he disturb them in the service of
God. God and the
Lamb are here spoken of as one.
Service there shall be not only freedom, but
also honour and dominion. There will be no
night; no affliction or dejection, no pause in
service or enjoyment: no diversions or
pleasures or man's inventing will there be
wanted. How different all this from gross and
merely human views of heavenly happiness, even
those which refer to pleasures of the mind! (3)
The next article is one of the
finest examinations of the procession of the
Holy Spirit from the Son!
The
Western form of the Nicene Creed differs from
the Eastern in what it says about the Holy
Spirit. The Eastern form, following that
adopted at Constantinople, says that the Holy
Ghost “proceedeth from the Father.” The
Western form of the Creed adds the words, “and
the Son” — in Latin, the single word Filioque.
The Western Church confesses a double
procession of the Holy Spirit, a procession
from the Father and the Son. (1) The Eastern
Church regards this as heresy.
The
Filioque clause originated in Spain in the 6th
Century. The Council of Toledo (589), in
denouncing Arianism, issued twenty-three
anathemas and, at the same time, inserted the
Filioque into the Latin text of the Nicene
Creed. (2) From Spain, use of the Filioque
passed into Gaul. Charlemagne asked Pope Leo
III to sanction the Filioque.
Leo judged the doctrine orthodox, but objected
to altering the ecumenical Creed. Nonetheless,
use of the Filioque continued to spread in
the West and eventually won approval in Rome.
In the
middle of the 11th Century, the Filioque
became a major point of contention between the
East and West. The Eastern Church complained
that the West had added the Filioque
illegally — that is, without an ecumenical
council (30 — and that the doctrine itself was
fundamentally wrong and dangerous. This
remains the position of the Eastern Church to
this day.
The Testimony of the Fathers
The
doctrine of the double procession was no
novelty when the Council of Toledo used it in
its attack on Arianism. Consider the testimony
of these ancient writers, two of whom actually
hailed from the East (4)
St.
Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) wrote in his Ankyrotos:
The
Father always existed and the Son always
existed, and the Spirit breathes from the
Father and the Son; and neither is the Son
created nor is the Spirit created.
St.
Cyril of Alexandria, the enemy of
Nestorianism, wrote in his Thesaurus (c. 424):
Since
the Holy Spirit when He is in us effects our
being conformed to God, and He actually
proceeds from Father and Son, it is abundantly
clear that He is of the divine essence, in it
in essence and proceeding from it.
St.
Hilary of Potiers (356-359) in his De
Trinitate said the Holy Spirit “is of
the Father and the Son, His Sources.” Pope St.
Damasus I in the Acts of the Council of Rome
(382) declared:
The
Holy Spirit is not of the Father only, or the
Spirit of the Son only, but He is the Spirit
of the Father and the Son. For it is written,
“If anyone loves the world, the Spirit of the
Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15); and again
it is written: “If anyone, however, does not
have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His”
(Romans 8:9).
And Pope St. Leo I (d. 461)
said (Sermon 75:30):
The Son
is the Only-begotten of the Father, and the
Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of
the Son, not as any creature, which also is of
the Father and of the Son, but as living and
having power with both, and eternally
subsisting of that which is the Father and the
Son.
But it
was St. Augustine of Hippo who did the most to
develop the doctrine of the double procession.
“St. Augustine taught that the Holy Spirit is
the bond of love that exists between the
Father and the Son.” (5) In On the Trinity
(400-416) he wrote:
[With
the Father and the Son] the Holy Spirit, too,
exists in this same unit of substance and
equality. For whether He be the unity of the
Father and the Son, or Their holiness, or
Their love, or Their unity because He is Their
love, or Their love because He is Their
holiness, it is clear that He is not one of
the Two, since it is by Him that the Two are
joined, by Him that the Begotten is loved by
the Begetter, and in turn loves Him who begot
Him (XI, 5:7).
And yet
it is not without reason that in this Trinity
only the Word of God is called Son, only the
Gift of God the Holy Spirit, and only He of
whom the Word is begotten and from Whom
principally the Holy Spirit proceeds is called
God the Father. I have added the term
“principally” because the Holy Spirit is found
to proceed also from the Son. But this too the
Father gave the Son, not as if the Son did not
already exist and have it, but because
whatever the Father gives the Son, He gives by
begetting. He so begot Him, then, that the
Gift might proceed jointly from Him, and so
that the Holy Spirit would be the Spirit of
both (XV, 17:29).
According to Scripture
The central verse in this whole
debate is John 15:26:
But
when the Comforter is come, whom I will send
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he
shall testify of me.
The
Council of Constantinople lifted the phrase
“proceedeth from the Father” directly from
Scripture and placed it in the Creed. The
Spirit's precise relationship to the Son was
not a pressing question at the time, and the
Council did not speak to it one way or the
other. Yet the Eastern Church argues from the
silence of the text and of the Creed: since
both say “from the Father” and no more, it is
wrong, the East insists, to add more. This is
not necessarily true, however. “From the
Father” need not exclude “and from the Son” if
there is other Scriptural evidence to support
the clause.
We read
in Matthew of one angel at the tomb on Easter
Day, and this does not contradict Luke's
statement that there were two angels. We read
in Mark 10 and Luke 18 of a blind beggar
healed by Jesus on the outskirts of Jericho,
and this does not contradict the statement in
Matthew that there were two blind beggars
healed. Similarly, it is clear that the saying
of Jesus, that the Spirit proceeds from the
Father, does not contradict the statement that
the Spirit proceeds also from the Son. (6)
Though
Scripture does not say explicitly that the
Spirit proceeds from the Son, it does say what
amounts to the same thing.
Nevertheless
I
tell you the truth; it is expedient for you
that I go away: for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come unto you; but if I
depart, I will send him unto you (John 17:7).
And
when he had said this, he breathed on them,
and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost
(John 20:22).
Jesus
promised that He Himself would send the
Spirit. After His resurrection, He bestowed
the Spirit upon His disciples with a breath,
His own breath. The Eastern Church argues that
this was merely a sign or sacrament; yet God
reveals Himself in His works as He is in
truth. The sending or breathing or procession
in time presupposes and reveals the procession
from eternity. (7)
And
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying
Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6).
If the
Holy Spirit is the Spirit (or Breath) of the
Son, then He must be breathed (spirated) by
the Son. And the word is Son, not Christ or
Jesus: the reference is to the ontological
Trinity, to something within the Godhead, and
not to the Mediator's sending the Spirit at
Pentecost. The Son breathes the Spirit from
eternity, and therefore He has breathed or
sent Him in time.
Howbeit
when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will
guide you into all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall
hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew
you things to come. He shall glorify me: for
he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it
unto you. All things that the Father hath are
mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of
mine, and shew it unto you (John 16:13-15).
That
which the Spirit has, He has “from the Son no
less than from the Father.”
…and as
the Son is said to be from the Father because
he does not speak of himself, but of the
Father (from whom he receives all things), so
the Spirit ought to be said to be and to
proceed from the Son because he hears and
speaks from him. (8)
There
is more. If the Spirit does not proceed from
the Son, we have some serious theological
problems. First, we lose intimate fellowship
that is the Trinity. For the Holy Spirit has
no immediate relationship to the Son. The
Father's Breath has no destination, nor is
that Breath ever returned to Him. "It is only
if the Spirit proceeds from both that the
inter-communion of the persons of the Trinity
is eternally complete." (9)
Second,
we have no way to distinguish the Son and the
Spirit within the Godhead. We cannot even say
that the Son is the second Person of the
Trinity and the Holy Spirit is the third.
After all, isn't it true that a man's spirit
is closer to that man than is his son? And yet
the normal language of Scripture and the order
of historical revelation give us Father, then
Son, and then Spirit.
If We
Abandon the Filioque…
Ideas
have consequences. Ideas about God have
profound consequences, especially given enough
time. The Filioque
is not a minor matter, and whether the Church
accepts or rejects it will have extensive and
long-term cultural effects. The Dutch
theologians and those influenced by their
writings seem to have clearer understanding of
this than, say, those in the Presbyterian
tradition. For example, Herman Bavinck writes:
The
three persons [in the Eastern perspective] are
not viewed as three relations within the one
essence, the self-unfoldment of the Godhead,
but the Father is viewed as the One who
imparts his being to the Son and to the
Spirit. As a result, the Son and the Spirit
are so coördinated that both in the same
manner have their “originating cause” in the
Father. In both the Father reveals himself.
The Son causes us to know God: the Spirit
causes us to delight in him. The Son does not
reveal the Father in and through the Spirit,
neither does the Spirit lead us to the Father
through the Son. The two are more or less
independent of each other; each leads to the
Father in his own peculiar way. Thus,
orthodoxy and mysticism, mind and will, are
placed in antithetic relation to one another.
And this peculiar relation between orthodoxy
and mysticism characterizes the religious
attitude prevailing in the Eastern Church.
Doctrine and life are separated: doctrine is
for the mind only: it is a fit object of
theological speculation. Next to it and apart
from it there is another fountain of life,
namely the mysticism of the Spirit. This
fountain does not have knowledge as its source
but has its own distinct origin and nourishes
the heart. Thus, a false relation is
established between mind and heart: ideas and
emotions are separated, and the link that
should bind the two in ethical union is
lacking. (10)
Edwin Palmer summarizes
Kuyper's analysis:
Moreover,
as
Abraham Kuyper has incisively pointed out, a
denial of the filioque
leads to an unhealthy mysticism. It tends to
isolate the work of the Holy Spirit in our
lives from the work of Jesus. Redemption by
Christ is put in the background, while the
sanctifying work of the Spirit is brought to
the fore. The emphasis is more and more on the
work of the Spirit in our lives, which tends
to lead to an independence from Christ, the
church, and the Bible. Sanctification can loom
larger than justification, the subjective
communion with the Spirit larger than the
objective church life, and illumination by the
Spirit larger than the Word. Kuyper believes
that this has actually been the case to some
extent in the Eastern Church, as a result of
the denial that the Spirit proceeds from the
Son as well as from the Father. (11)
The
Spirit comes to glorify the Son (John 16:14).
If we detach the work of the Spirit from the
blood of Christ and the word of God, we
distort Christianity in a most frightful
manner, and any mysticism we create will be
more akin to Eastern pantheism than to
anything in the Bible — excepting, perhaps,
the idolatry of ancient Israel. (12)
Jim
Jordan, writing on the Second Commandment, has
connected Eastern Orthodoxy's rejection of the
Filioque
with its use of icons.
God
meets man in language, in personal discourse.
Music may glorify that conversation — and it
should do so in worship — but God does not
meet man in music. Nor does He meet man in
visual art of any sort. He meets man in the
Word of God, in language; and because God in
incorporeal, He meets man in language alone.
Another
way to put this is that God meets man only
through the Son of God, the Word. The Spirit
is the glory, the music, the visual display of
God; but God does not meet man through the
Spirit. By insisting that icons are a separate
channel of non-verbal communication with God
and the saints, the Orthodox separate the
Spirit from the Son. Understandably, they deny
that the Spirit proceeds from the Son.
Biblical religion, however, insists that the
work of the Spirit is to enable us to
understand the Word of the Son, not to be a
separate way of approaching God. God's “No!”
[in the 2nd Commandment] is a rejection of any
attempt on the part of man to approach God
apart from His Son. (13)
There
are other implications we need to consider.
For if the Spirit comes to do the work of the
Father, we must expect to find Him most
clearly revealed, not in the Church, but in
creation. “If the Spirit is understood as
proceeding from the Father alone, it is then
natural to think that Spirit reflects the
spiritual energy of the created world.” Grace
then takes a back seat to Nature.
Subordinationism
gave
primacy to nature, and hence to the natural
ability of man. As a result, man becomes in
effect his own savior, and grace is
cooperating grace, not prevenient. If the Holy
Ghost proceeds only from the Father, then the
Holy Ghost, in a system, which accords primacy
to nature, becomes absorbed into nature. (15)
Theologically,
rejection
of the Filioque
opens the door to Pelagianism, man's ability
to save himself; politically, it leads
directly to statism. “The sure voice of God
was therefore the natural voice, the state.”
(16) Eastern Orthodox nations are no strangers
to totalitarianism and imperialism.
The filioque
is vitally connected with the advance of the
Western church towards a strong anthropology
(in connection with the doctrine of sin and
grace), while the Eastern stopped in a weak
Pelagian and synergistic view, crude and
undeveloped. The procession only de Patre
per Filium would put the church at arm's
length, so to speak, from God; that is, beyond
Christ, off at an extreme, or at one side of
the kingdom of divine life, rather than in the
center and bosom of that kingdom, where all
things are hers. The filioque
put the church, which is the temple and organ
of the Holy Ghost in the work of redemption,
rather between the Father and the Son,
partaking of their own fellowship, according
to the great intercessory prayer of Christ
Himself. It places the church in the meeting
point, or the living circuit of the interplay,
of grace and nature, of the divine and the
human; thus giving scope for s strong doctrine
of both nature and grace, and to a strong
doctrine also of the church itself. (17)
The Filioque
means that the work of the Father and the work
of the Son coincide in the operation of the
Holy Spirit. Grace is not deification, but the
redemption and restoration of God's creation.
The Church, as the temple of the Holy Ghost,
lies at the very heart of this process and in
the center of the covenant love that exists
within the Triune God.
Summary and Conclusion
In 1984
ABC correspondent George Bailey, writing for a
secular audience, traced the conflict between
the Soviet Union and the United States of
America, the modern incarnations of East and
West, to the Filioque.
He pointed to “the mystagogical, or spiritual,
turning inward of the Greek Orthodox faith,”
which he connected with “the withdrawn
spirituality of the Russian orthodox
tradition.” This he contrasted with "the
dynamic involvement in worldly affairs
characteristic of Catholicism and, to an even
greater extent, of Protestantism (the lay
minister in a business suit)."(18) Bailey may
have exaggerated cause and effect, but at
least he saw something of the theological and
creedal roots of the greatest political
conflict of the 20th Century. Not many Western
theologians were as astute.
The
mysticism, cultural stagnation, and
imperialism typical of Eastern Orthodox
nations are logical consequences of rejecting
the Filioque.
Sovereign grace and political liberty are
logical consequences of embracing it. And yet
few Western writers have devoted more than a
page or two to the Filioque.
This is sad. Eastern Orthodox theologians at
least understand that the issue is important,
and they are quick to contend for the sanctity
of their position. (19) It is time for Western
theologians to show a like zeal in defending
their own theological inheritance.
Notes
1.
William G. T. Shedd, one of the few American
theologians to write at length on this issue,
summarizes the doctrine with these words:
Again,
the Spirit, though spirated by the Father and
the Son, yet proceeds not from the Father and
Son as persons but from the Divine essence.
His procession is from one, namely, the
essence; while his spiration is by two,
namely, two persons. The Father and the Son
are not two essences, and therefore do not
spirate the Spirit from two essences. Yet they
are two persons, and as two persons having one
numerical essence spirate from it the third
form or mode of the essence — the Holy Spirit:
their two personal acts of spiration
concurring in one single procession of the
Spirit. There are two spirations, because the
Father and the Son are two persons; but there
is only one resulting procession.—Dogmatic
Theology, 2nd ed., vol. I (Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 1980), 290.
2. An
earlier council at Toledo (447) had already
declared: “If anyone does not believe that the
Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the
Son, and is coeternal with and like unto the
Father and the Son, let him be anathema.” The
3rd Anathema, in Rousas J. Rushdoony,
Foundations of Social Order (N. p.:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.,
1972), 120.
3.
Protestants have not worried much about this
point, and I will leave the argument to
others. Whether the Filioque
is biblical or not is logically a distinct
issue.
4. The
quotations that follow have been collected by
James Kiefer in Creeds, “The
Filioque,” 5-7, available at (
http://www.thefathershouse.org/creed/filioque.html).
This is a remarkable web site, the more so
since it is sponsored by the International
Pentecostal Holiness Church.
5.
Ibid., 8. Keifer writes: “From all eternity,
independently of any created being, God is the
Lover, the Loved, and the Love itself. And the
bond of unity and love that exists between the
Father and the Son proceeds from the Father
and the Son.”
6.
Ibid., 2.
7.
Turretin, III, xxxi, v, 309. Cf. Palmer, The
Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit, The
Traditional Calvinistic Perspective (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974), 16.
8.
Turretin, 309.
9.
Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to
Systematic Theology (N. p.: Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing Co., 1974), 226.
10.
Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 317.
11.
Palmer, 18.
12. The
golden calves, both Aaron's and Jeroboam's,
were supposed to represent and serve as means
of contact to Jehovah (cf. Ex. 32:4; 1 Kings
12:28).
13.
James Jordan, Rite Reasons, Studies in
Worship, No. 59, September 1998.
14.
Robert J. Sanders, “Violence and the Filioque”
(http://st-pauls.manhatttanks.org/essays/apr95.htm),
April 1995.
15.
Rushdoony, 125.
16.
Ibid., 123.
17.
Yeoman, quoted by Rushdoony, 123.
Unfortunately, Rushdoony mistakenly traces
this quote through Schaff. If anyone knows
where the quote actually comes from, please
e-mail me the reference.
18.
George Bailey, Armageddon in Prime Time (New
York: Avon Books, 1984), 37-38.
19.
Most web articles on the Filioque are Eastern
Orthodox. (4)
Greg
Uttinger teaches theology, history, and
literature at Cornerstone Christian School in
Roseville, California. He lives nearby in
Sacramento County with his wife, Kate, and
their three children. For one of the best
theological websites, go to
https://chalcedon.edu/
The Athanasian
Creed and the filioque,
see number 22:
1. Whosoever will be saved, before all
things it is necessary that he hold the
catholic faith; Which faith except every one
do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he
shall perish everlastingly.
2. And the catholic faith is this: That
we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in
Unity;
3. Neither confounding the persons, nor
dividing the substance
4. For there is one Person of the
Father, another of the Son and another of the
Holy Spirit.
5. But the Godhead of the Father, of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one,
the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.
6. Such as the Father is, such is the
Son and such is the Holy Spirit.
7. The Father uncreate, the Son
uncreate, and the Holy Spirit uncreate.
8. The Father incomprehensible, the Son
incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit
incomprehensible.
9. The Father eternal, the Son eternal,
and the Holy Spirit eternal.
10. And yet they are not three
eternals, but one eternal.
11. As also there are not three
uncreated nor three incomprehensibles, but one
uncreated and one incomprehensible.
12. So likewise the Father is almighty,
the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit
almighty;
13. And yet they are not three
almighties, but one almighty.
14. So the Father is God, the Son is
God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
15. And yet they are not three Gods,
but one God.
16. So likewise the Father is Lord, the
Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
17. And yet they are not three Lords,
but one Lord.
18. For like as we are compelled by the
Christian verity to acknowledge every person
by himself to be God and Lord;
19. So are we forbidden by the catholic
religion to say: There are three Gods or three
Lords.
20. The Father is made of none, neither
created nor begotten.
21. The Son is of the Father alone; not
made nor created, but begotten.
22. The Holy Spirit is of the Father
and of the Son; neither made, nor created,
nor begotten, but proceeding.
23. So there is one Father, not three
Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy
Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
24. And in this Trinity none is afore,
nor after another; none is greater, or less
than another.
25. But the whole three persons are
co-eternal, and co-equal.
26.
So
that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in
Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be
worshipped.
27. He therefore that will be saved
must thus think of the Trinity.
28. Furthermore, it is necessary to
everlasting salvation that he also believe
rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
29. For the right faith is that we
believe and confess that our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
30. God of the substance of the Father,
begotten before the worlds; and made of the
substance of His mother, born in the world.
31. Perfect God and perfect man, of a
reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
32. Equal to the Father as touching His
Godhead, and inferior to the Father as
touching His manhood.
33. Who, although He is God and man,
yet He is not two, but one Christ.
34. One, not by conversion of the
Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the
manhood into God.
35. One altogether, not by the
confusion of substance, but by unity of
person.
36. For as the reasonable soul and
flesh is one man, so God and man is one
Christ;
37. Who suffered for our salvation,
descended into hell, rose again the third day
from the dead;
38. He ascended into heaven, He sitteth
on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty;
39. From thence, He shall come to judge
the living and the dead.
40. At whose coming all men shall rise
again with their bodies;
41. And shall give account of their own
works.
42. And they that have done good shall
go into life everlasting, and they that have
done evil into everlasting fire.
43. This is the catholic faith, which
except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be
saved.
This
creed is named after Athanasius (A.D.
293-373), the defender of orthodoxy against
Arian attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity.
Protestant Reformed Churches in
America Official Website on the Ecumenical
Creeds:
A creed
expresses what the church believes to be the
truth of Sacred Scripture. An ecumenical creed
expresses certain fundamental truths of
Scripture which are held by most Christian
churches throughout the world. Three of these
ecumenical creeds—the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene
Creed, and Athanasian Creed—are
cited in Article 9 of the Belgic Confession as
statements of truth which “we do willingly
receive.” These ancient creeds express basic
truths regarding the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity over against various errors, which
surfaced in the early history of the New
Testament church. To these three the
Protestant Reformed Churches have added the
Creed of Chalcedon (AD. 451), which sums the
truth of the Person and Natures of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Even though this creed is not
mentioned by name in the Reformed confessions,
it is included because the doctrine set forth
in it is clearly embodied in Article 19 of the
Belgic Confession.
“The Symbolum
Quicunque [Athanasian Creed] is a
remarkably clear and precise summary of the
doctrinal decisions of the first four
ecumenical Councils (from A.D. 325 to A.D.
451), and the Augustinian speculations on the
Trinity and the Incarnation. Its brief
sentences are artistically arranged and
rhythmically expressed. It is a musical creed
or dogmatic psalm. The first part (ver. 3–28)
sets forth the orthodox doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, not in the less definite Athanasian
or Niceno-Constantinopolitan, but in its
strictest Augustinian form, to the exclusion
of every kind of subordination of essence…The
second part (ver. 29–44) contains a succinct
statement of the orthodox doctrine concerning
the person of Christ, as settled by the
general Councils of Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon
451, and in this respect it is a valuable
supplement to the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.
It asserts that Christ had a rational soul (νοῦς,
πνεῦμα), in opposition to the
Apollinarian heresy, which limited the extent
of his humanity to a mere body with an animal
soul inhabited by the divine Logos. It also
teaches the proper relation between the divine
and human nature of Christ, and excludes the
Nestorian and Eutychian or Monophysite
heresies, in essential agreement with the
Chalcedonian Symbol. (5)
In Closing:
“Nevertheless
I
tell you the truth; it is expedient for you
that I go away: for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come unto you; but if I
depart, I
will send him unto you.” (John 16:7)
Who can dispute that Jesus sends the Holy
Spirit?
“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach
me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)
“Study to shew thyself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
(2 Timothy 2:15)
Notes:
1.Charles Hodge,
Commentary on Romans, (Grand Rapids,
Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Company), p.
258.
2.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary
on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids,
Michigan, Zondervan, 1977) p. 1467.
3.Matthew Henry, Concise
Commentary, Revelation, (Nashville,
Tennessee, Thomas Nelson), p.2126.
4.Greg Uttinger, Chalcedon
Foundation, The
Theology of the Ancient Creeds Part 6: The
Procession of the Spirit, (Vallecito,
CA, Chalcedon Foundation), Online article
https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/christianity-101-the-theology-of-the-ancient-creeds-the-procession-of-the-spirit
5.Philip Schaff, The
Creeds of Christendom, (New York: Harper
& Brothers, Publishers, 1878), 1.37, 39.
“To God, only wise, be glory
through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans
16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.”
(Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr. Kettler has previously
published articles in the Chalcedon
Report and Contra
Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the
Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an
ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired
from a fortune five hundred company in
corporate America after forty years. He runs
two blogs sites and is the author of the book
defending the Reformed Faith against attacks,
titled: The
Religion That Started in a Hat.
Available at:
www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
* For a great source of
theological definitions go to Rebecca writes
at Rebecca writes
http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/
THE DOUBLE PROCESSION OF
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY
TODAY: DO WE STILL NEED IT? GERALD BRAYhttp://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/41/41-3/41-3-pp415-426-JETS.pdf