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Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.
You see and hear us speak with tongues that we never learned; probably there was an observable change in the air of their countenances, which they saw, as well as heard the change of their voice and language; now this is from the Holy Ghost, whose coming is an evidence that Jesus is exalted, and he has received this gift from the Father, to confer it upon the church, which plainly bespeaks him to be the Mediator, or middle person between God and the church. The gift of the Holy Ghost was, First, A performance of divine promises already made; here it is called the promise of the Holy Ghost; many exceedingly great and precious promises the divine power has given us, but this is the promise, by way of eminency, as that of the Messiah had been, and this is the promise that includes all the rest; hence God's giving the Holy Spirit to those that ask him (Luke xi. 13) is his giving them all good things, Matt. vii. 11. Christ received the promise of the Holy Ghost, that is, the promised gift of the Holy Ghost, and has given it to us; for all the promises are yea and amen in him. Secondly, It was a pledge of all divine favours further intended; what you now see and hear is but an earnest of greater things.
What the difference is between generation of the Son and the procession of the H. Spirit cannot be explained and it is safer not to know than to enquire into it. The Scholastics would look for the difference in the operation of intellectus and voluntas, so that the generation of the Son is brought about by means of intellectus, whence he is called the wisdom of God; but procession by means of voluntas, whence it is called love and charity. But as this is said without Scripture, it involves rather than explains matters. Those talk more sanely, who babbling in such a difficult matter find the distinction in three things. (1) In principle: because the Son emanates from the Father alone, but the H. Spirit from Father and Son at once. (2) In mode: because the Son emanates per vim generationis, which culminates not only in personality but also in likeness, on account of which the Son is called the image of the Father and according to which the Son receives the property of communicating the same essence to another person. But the Spirit does so by spiratio, which ends only in personality, and through which the person who proceeds does not receive the property of communicating that essence to another. (3) In order: because as the Son is the second person, but the H. Spirit the third, generation by our way of thinking, precedes spiratio, although really they are co-eternal.
7.4 Operations of the Spirit Ad intra and Ad extra
A. The Ad intra Operation or “Procession” of the Spirit
1. Processio or ἐκπόρευσις defined. Once the full divinity and independent subsistence of the Spirit have been acknowledged, the procession of the Spirit becomes the crucial point of differentiation between the Spirit and the other persons of the Trinity. Vermigli writes, “And that this third person proceedeth from the Father and the Son, it is evident enough in the same Gospel of John, where it is written; When the Comforter shall come, whom I will send unto you: even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father.”
The incommunicable property of the Holy Ghost is his “proceeding,” which neither the Scriptures nor the church can precisely distinguish from “begetting.” Still, the term “procession” is to be accepted and to be understood as specific to the Spirit: just as “generation” or “begetting” is argued of the Son, so is “procession” argued of the Spirit—nor is the meaning of the term “procession” to be taken in the broadest sense, of having “origin from some one” or as coming forth from some one, given that in this sense the term might as well be applied to the Son (cf. John 16:28; Mic. 5:2). Rather it is to be understood strictly as denoting “an emanation from the Father and the Son, distinct from the generation of the Son.” This distinct emanation of the Holy Ghost corresponds, moreover, to his “proper manner of working [which] is, to finish an action, effecting it, as from the Father and the Son.” As far as this “manner of working” is a description of the divine economy, it must be further clarified by the dictum that all works of God ad extra are performed “out of his divine essence” and “are common to the Trinity, the peculiar manner of working always reserved to every person.”
Turretin notes that the debate of his time does not concern the latter point, the “temporal and external procession,” but only the “eternal and internal procession”—not the ad extra activity according to which the divine work, appropriated to the Spirit, terminates on God’s creatures, but the ad intra activity that is “terminated inwardly,” namely, the “mode of communication of the divine essence … by which the third person of the Trinity has from the Father and the Son the same numerical essence which the Father and the Son have.”
Given the fact that the Spirit is a different person from the Son, it is clear that his procession must differ from the generation of the Son: were the emanations identical, the persons would be also, but the Spirit and the Son are “different persons who stand related to each other in origin” from the Father. The Reformed orthodox, however, typically take the path of the later fathers as opposed to that of the medieval scholastics: they recognize that there is a difference but refrain from speculation concerning the nature of the difference between the procession of the Spirit and the generation of the Son. They also cite both Augustine and John of Damascus to this effect.
The sending of the Spirit is not a sign of his inferiority to the Father and the Son: his being sent is not a matter of being ordered, but by his consent and, even so, it indicates a “diversity of work, but not of essence.” Similarly, the statement that “the Spirit searcheth … the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10) does not imply a subordination of the Spirit, as is seen when the text is conferred with Romans 8:27, “he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit”: as Rijssen points out, searching does not mean “investigation,” implying lack of knowledge and discursive thinking, but an “intimate penetration.” Nor does Romans 8:26, where the Spirit is said to pray for us, make the Spirit subordinate as a mediator between men and God, for the Spirit does “not pray for us as Christ, the mediator, did, presenting to the heavenly Father his merits, but the Spirit prays in our place and in us, raising up our infirmities when we are unable to pray.”
2. The demonstration of the filioque: “double procession.” The traditionally Western trinitarian concept of the double procession of the Holy Spirit was consistently upheld by the Reformers and argued with some vigor against the Greek Orthodox view. The Reformed exegetes, moreover, understood the issue to be one of exegesis, not merely an issue of the form of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and found the biblical text to be entirely of one accord in favor of double procession. Vermigli writes, with reference to John 15:26,
Seeing the Son saith, that he will send the Spirit, and (as we said before) affirmeth him to receive of his; no man doubteth, but that he proceedeth from the Son. And now he expressly addeth; Who proceedeth from the Father.
Calvin took the point with equal seriousness, noting in his commentary on the same text,
When he says that he will send him from the Father, and, again, that he proceedeth from the Father, he does so in order to increase the weight of his authority; for the testimony of the Spirit would not be sufficient against attacks so powerful, and against efforts so numerous and fierce, if we were not convinced that he proceedeth from God. So then it is Christ who sends the Spirit, but it is from the heavenly glory, that we may know that it is not a gift of men, but a sure pledge of Divine grace. Hence it appears how idle was the subtlety of the Greeks, when they argued, on the ground of these words, that the Spirit does not proceed from the Son; for here Christ, according to his custom, mentions the Father in order to raise our eyes to the contemplation of his Divinity.
As in Vermigli’s comment, Calvin’s analysis of the text assumes the sending of the Spirit by Christ and therefore the procession of the Spirit from the Son and views the further statement of the Gospel that the Spirit proceeds from the Father not restrictively but as an expansion of the meaning to include the Father.
Calvin rather emphatically takes the words “he proceeds from the Father” as an indication of the authority of the Spirit, not of the sole origin of his eternal procession: Christ here sends the Spirit, but manifests the Spirit as a “sure pledge of divine grace.” It is, he concludes, an “idle subtlety of the Greeks” to claim this text as warrant for their denial of double procession. Calvin points out in his comment on Romans 8:9,
But let readers observe here, that the Spirit is, without any distinction, called sometimes the Spirit of God the Father, and sometimes the Spirit of Christ; and thus called, not only because his whole fulness was poured on Christ as our Mediator and head, so that from him a portion might descend on each of us, but also because he is equally the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, who have one essence, and the same eternal divinity.
The orthodox follow the Reformers in upholding the Western doctrine of the filioque. The orthodox Reformed writers not only argue the Augustinian doctrine of double procession they insist on it as a biblical point held over against the teachings of the Greek Orthodox:
The property of the Son in respect of the Holy Ghost is to send him out, John 15:26. Hence arose the Schism between the Western and the Eastern Churches, they affirming the procession from the Father and the Son, these from the Father alone.
Among the Reformed orthodox theologians, Pictet notes the clear distinction of persons in John 15:26:
Here the Comforter, or Spirit, is plainly distinct from the Father and the Son. Again, they are so distinguished, that some things are said of the Father which cannot be said of the Son, and some things of the Son which are no where said of the Spirit. The Father is said to have begotten the Son … the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father, and to be sent by the Son; but nowhere is the Father said to proceed from nor the Son to be sent by the Spirit. Yet are these persons distinct in such a manner, that they are not three Gods but one God; for the scripture everywhere proves and reason confirms, the unity of the Godhead.
Similar statements are found among the Reformed exegetes of the era. Poole notes that the text has been read variously: some exegetes understand the Spirit’s procession from the Father merely as his coming forth or being poured out at Pentecost, whereas others—“the generality of the best interpreters”—understand the text as a reference to “the Holy Spirit’s eternal proceeding.” Owen, by way of contrast, argues the primary meaning of the text to be that the Spirit “goeth forth or proceedeth” in order to “put into execution” the salvific counsel of God in the application of grace and views the immanent procession of the Spirit as a secondary meaning, a conclusion to be drawn from the text.
As Pictet notes, the Reformed orthodox uniformly follow the Western doctrine:
That the Spirit proceeds from the Son, is proved by those passages in which he is represented as being sent no less by the Son than by the Father; nor is he any less the Spirit of the Son than of the Father: Rom. 8:9, “any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ …; Gal. 4:6, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”; John 16:7, “If I do not go away, Comforter will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.”
Nor is this a minor point in theology that can be dismissed:
To deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, is a grievous error of Divinity, and would have grated the foundation, if the Greek Church had so denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as that they had made an inequality between the Persons. But since their form of speech is, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father by the Son, and is the Spirit of the Son, without making any difference in the consubstantiality of the Persons it is a true though erroneous Church in this particular; divers learned men think that à Filio & per Filium in the sense of the Greek Church, was but a question in modo loquendi, in manner of speech, and not fundamental.
The problem of the filioque was, therefore, not something that the Reformed orthodox could ignore: they refused to go so far as to claim that the Greek church was a false church, but they still insisted that it ensconced an error in its doctrinal explanations of the creed.
From the Reformed perspective, moreover, the Greek critique of the filioque, that it implied two ultimate principia or archai in the Godhead, did not hold—for there could only be two archai if the Father and the Son separately and equally were the sources of the Spirit’s procession. The orthodox conception of the filioque, however, insisted on the unity of the act of the Father and the Son, so that the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son by “one and the same breathing” and does so from both equally, the Father and the Son acting in communion with one another. Thus, the Holy Ghost, the third person, proceeds from the Father and the Son: “and albeit the Father and the Son are distinct persons, yet they are both but one beginning of the holy Ghost.” At the same time, following the Western pattern, the Reformed orthodox insisted on the begetting of the Son as placing the Son second in order, thus maintaining the Father as ultimate source of the personal distinctions and the Father and the Son together as the source of the Spirit.
Thus, when addressing the question of the procession of the Spirit, Owen indicates that the “fountain” or “source” of the Spirit’s procession is the Father, as indicated by John 15:26. There is, moreover, he adds, a “twofold ekporeusis or ‘procession’ of the Spirit: 1. physike or hypostatike, in respect substance and personality; 2. oikonomike or dispensatory, in respect of the work of grace.” The hypostatic procession, furthermore, must be understood in terms of the filioque: “he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, proceeding from both eternally, so receiving his substance and personality.” Once stated, however, the point cannot, indeed, may not be elaborated, but rather accepted as “the bare acquiescence of faith in the mystery revealed.” It is only of the economic procession of the Spirit ad extra in the work of grace that Owen feels capable of speaking.
3. Procession and the scholastic tradition: Reformed reservations. The distinction between procession and begetting is also clear, albeit indefinable by finite creatures:
That procession may be distinguished from generation can be demonstrated from the fact that the Holy Spirit is always said to proceed from, and never to have been begotten by, the Father; nor is he ever called the image of God—but we must not curiously inquire into the nature of the difference. Let us guard against the unbridled and unsuccessful boldness of the schoolmen, who attempt to explain it: I certainly do not grasp the distinction between generation and procession, I am not desirous of this, nor am I able.
The usual unwillingness of the Protestant scholastics to enter into a lengthy discussion of the way in which the emanations of the second and third persons of the Trinity differ represents a rather significant example of the difference between medieval and Protestant scholasticism: the Protestants revert to the caveat of Gregory of Nazianzen against excessive inquiry into the mystery and emulate the Reformers in their somewhat reserved acceptance of the tradition without further explanation. The extensive and frequently cogent speculation of the medieval doctors concerning the relation of the emanations to the divine nature, intellect, and will (itself an extension of the Augustinian metaphors) is simply ignored by most of the Reformed orthodox. Keckermann’s early orthodox discussion of the procession of the Spirit as a volitional act of love in the Godhead, framed as part of a logical argument for the Trinity as three modes of existing in the one God, is quite unique in the era of orthodoxy.
A few writers note the problem and reflect on the medieval solutions, some with a high degree of distaste for the Augustinian metaphors and for speculative elaboration of the doctrine. Thus, Turretin, Heidegger, Pictet, and Rijssen indicate that the procession of the Spirit denotes a relation to the other persons of the Godhead different from the relation of the Son to the Father by generation. Both comment that what this difference is remains a mystery—we cannot explain it nor ought we to inquire into it as did the medieval scholastics. Turretin and Rijssen note, without any angry polemic, that the scholastics compared the operations of intellect and will to generation and procession, as if the Son, the Wisdom of God, were generated in an intellective manner (per modum intellectus) and the Spirit, identified with the divine love, proceeded in a volitional manner (per modum voluntatis). These arguments were posed, however, he continues, without the express corroboration of Scripture—and they serve to confuse even as they attempt to explain. Heidegger similarly rejects these distinctions as alogon, having no basis in Scripture or reason: after all, he notes, the correct doctrine of the divine attributes understands them as equally belonging to each of the persons, so that the intellectus Dei cannot pertain differently to the Father and the Son or the voluntas Dei differently by the Father and the Spirit. The relative gentleness of the criticism derives, perhaps, from Rijssen’s, Heidegger’s, and Turretin’s recognition that some of their Reformed predecessors had adopted the medieval solutions on this point.
Still, it is clear that the Spirit is different from the Son, related to the Son in origin, but a distinct person. It is also permissible to note three grounds of this distinction: first, in principio or foundation, for the Son emanates from the Father alone, the Spirit from both the Father and the Son. Thus, the Father alone is the principium of the Son, whereas the Father and the Son together are the principium of the Spirit. Second, in modo, since “the way of generation” terminates not only in the personalitas of the Son but also in a “similitude,” according to which the Son is called “the image of the Father” and according to which “the Son receives the property of communicating the same essence to another person.” In contrast, the Spirit “does not receive the property of communicating that essence to another person,” inasmuch as “the way of spiration” terminates “only in the personalitas” of the Spirit and not in a similitude of the Father. Third, there is a difference in ordine according to “our mode of perception,” insofar as the generation of the Son is somehow prior to the operation or procession of the Spirit, although, of course, the persons are coeternal—the spiration or procession of the Spirit presumes the generation of the Son, given the procession of the Spirit from the Son as well as from the Father.
Whereas most of the orthodox follow this line of argument and define the procession of the Spirit as a “spiration,” which is to say analogically, a “breathing forth,” some of the later writers, perhaps because of the confusion of “spirit” and “thought” in debates over Cartesianism, find the usage less than satisfactory, despite the patristic and medieval precedent: “Some think he is so called, because he proceeds from God in a way of breathing, but this is to explain what is obscure by what is still more obscure,” or, in the words of another later orthodox writer, if “spiration” is a “mere metaphorical expression,” it is unsuitable to the identification of distinct subsistence or personhood. “Since we are much in the dark about this mode of speaking, it would be better to lay it aside, as many modern writers have done.”
Ridgley notes that “some” have “pretended” to define the difference between the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit as identified by the power to communicate essence—a power communicated by the Father to the Son, but not communicated by the Father and the Son to the Spirit. The Spirit, therefore, does not have a power “to communicate the divine essence to any other as a fourth Person in the Godhead.” For Ridgley, this is an excessive speculation into an “unsearchable mystery.” All that can be said is that the various biblical texts that refer to the relationship of the Spirit to the Father and the Son “evince the truth” of the “communication of his divine essence or, at least, his personality, and that his being ‛sent by the Son,’ implies that this communication is from him as well as from the Father”—and, in Ridgley’s view, the question remains as to whether the biblical texts refer to an ad intra procession or merely to an ad extra sending.
B. The Ad extra “Sending” and the Office of the Spirit
1. The “sending” of the Spirit. The ad intra procession of the Spirit is mirrored and followed by the ad extra procession or “mission” of the Spirit. Indeed, the ad intra procession, or, in Greek, ἑκπόρευσις, of the Spirit takes its name from the identification of the Spirit as “sent” or “sent forth” (John 15:26). The commentators often indicate, moreover, that the Johannine text can be subject to two interpretations.
What proceeding from the Father is here meant, is questioned among the divines: some understand it only of his coming out from the Father, and being poured out upon the disciples in the days of Pentecost: others understand it of the Holy Spirit’s eternal proceeding.
In any case, the term “procession” or sending is drawn from this text as descriptive both of the eternal, ad intra life and of the temporal, ad extra activity of the Spirit. Of course, whatever the interpretation of this particular text, the ad extra sending or procession of the Spirit was never in question: it is clearly taught in John 14:26, “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name”; Joel 2:28–29, as cited in Acts 2:16–17, “It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh”; Luke 24:49, “behold I send the promise of my Father upon you” (usually interpreted as referring to the Spirit at Pentecost, given Acts 1:4 and 2:33); and Galatians 4:6, “God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts.”
This outward sending of the Spirit, moreover, observes the pattern described in general in the discussion of works of the Godhead ad extra: there is an undivided work of the Godhead in which the persons have “appropriate” tasks, manifesting not only the unity of God’s work but the distinction of persons and the exercise of their personal properties. In the case of the Spirit, as in the earthly work of Christ, these tasks can be distinguished into the “ordinary” and the “extraordinary,” namely, the work that the Spirit performs broadly and generally, according to the general biblical revelation of his proper work, and discrete works, particularly miracles, that are performed but once for a very specific purpose. In no case ought the Spirit to be regarded as a mere instrument of God, as an “instrumental cause” or a “servant,” but rather as one working together with the Father and the Son, without any inferiority of station.
In the controversies of the seventeenth century, argument over the sending of the Spirit proceeded in several directions. Among the Socinians, Biddle understood John 15:26 and related texts not only as an ad extra description of the divine mandate to the Spirit; he also argued that they disproved the omnipresence of the Spirit, given that “sending” refers to a movement from place to place. Nye, who held the more usual Socinian doctrine of the Spirit, focused his reading of the text on the Spirit as testifying or witnessing, and, as he had argued of John 16:13, where the “Spirit of Truth” is promised as the apostles’ guide “into all truth,” he claimed that John 15:26 identifies the Spirit not as a divine person but as the power or inspiration of God.
Against the more typical Socinian argument, the Reformed emphasize the “sending” of the Spirit: the language applies to a person, not to a power or an inspiration. As noted above of the person of the Spirit, in such biblical passages as Matthew 3:16, Luke 3:22, and John 1:32, the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove indicates his independent subsistence, as do the powers attributed to him: one who has subsistence, understanding, will, and power is not a mere power or inspiration, but a person. Against arguments like those of Biddle, Reformed orthodox writers insisted that care should be taken so as not to use the language of procession or sending ad extra in such a way as to imply either a local motion of the Spirit or a change in the Godhead. When the Spirit is identified as “sent,” this ought to be understood as God’s “eternal will and decree to accomplish something by the … Holy Ghost, and of the execution and manifestation of his will through the working of the … Holy Ghost.” Thus the sending of the Spirit on Pentecost does not indicate the absence of the omnipresent Spirit before Pentecost: the Spirit is understood as “sent into the world, not because [he] began to exist where [he] did not exist before; but because [he] accomplished in the world what was the will of the Father, and showed [himself] present and efficacious according to the will of the Father.”
2. The “office” of the Spirit. This sending of the Spirit points directly toward what can be called the officium oeconomicum, the office or work of the Spirit in the economy or administration of the world order and, especially, of salvation. As indicated previously in discussion the identification of the third person of the Trinity as “Spirit,” he is, as Spirit in the personal sense, the “immediate agent of divine works,” the person “through whom the Father and Son immediately influence the hearts of the elect.” The Spirit is both the emissarius Trinitatis and the advocatus Trinitatis in the fulfillment of the decree, the former in the work of creation, the latter in the work of salvation: for the Father “delineates” or “designates” the work; the Son, in his office, “obtains” or “accomplishes” the objective result; the Spirit “completes” or “finishes” the work.
The “office” or “work” of the Holy Spirit, then, follows from this definition of the Spirit’s relation to the Father and the Son and from the nature of the work performed through him: in creation, the Spirit is said to brood or hover over the waters (Gen. 1:2) in the same terms that a hen is said to gather and protect her chicks (Deut. 32:11)—as, in the same sense, the Spirit is called the “finger of God” (Luke 11:20) and the “power of God” (Luke 1:35; Rom. 15:13) or the one who works miracles (Matt. 12:28), all of which identify him as the “emissary of the Trinity,” perfecting and completing the work that he shares with the Father and the Son.
The Spirit is also called the “paraclete”—manifesting him as advocatus Trinitatis in the work of perfecting the salvation of human beings, again, completing what the Father designs and the Son accomplishes objectively. In the work of salvation,
the office of the Holy Ghost is to produce sanctification in the people of God. This he performs immediately from the Father and the Son. It is for this reason that he is called the Spirit of holiness. The office of the Holy Ghost may be said to embrace the following things: to instruct, to regenerate, to unite to Christ and God, to rule, to comfort and strengthen us.
To this definition, it may be objected that all of the works performed belong to the Father and the Son and, therefore, do not constitute a distinct office in any way specific to the Spirit. The office of the Spirit appears, however, in the distinction of the manner of working—for in all of these activities, although they are included in the willing and effecting of the work or gift, the Father and the Son do not work immediately, but through the Spirit, while the Spirit works immediately in believers. Thus, there is a distinct office that belongs to the immediate agent of the work. In the words of Goodwin,
whereas both God and Christ, those other two persons, are also in Scripture said to be in us, and to dwell in us, yet this indwelling is more special, and immediationi suppositi, attributed to the Holy ghost; which, as it serves to give an honor peculiar to him, so when set in such a comparison, even with them, must be meant and understood of this person immediately, and not by his graces only. Yes, the other two persons are said to dwell in us, and the Godhead itself, because the Holy Ghost dwells in us, he being the person that makes entry, and takes possession first, in the name and for the use of the other two, and bringeth them in.
The Spirit specifically performs the work of God among human beings, leading them toward faith in Christ the Mediator, thereby confirming with sanctification what the Father decrees and the Son has accomplished. In this context, the Spirit is said to teach (John 14:26), to send forth the teachers of the church (Acts 13:2), to give them the requisite gifts (Acts 2:4), to inspire the authors of Scripture (2 Pet. 1:21), and in all this, to be the “Spirit of truth” (John 14:17).
Muller, R. A. (2003). Post-Reformation reformed dogmatics: The rise and development of reformed orthodoxy; volume 4: The triunity of God (371–381). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
