“We Believe” - The Nicene , the Church, and you All-Ages Sunday School Winter/Spring 2021 Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) Sierra Vista, AZ

“1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death… 9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” - Romans 8:1-2, 9-11 Review: The is a confession of what ‘we’ believe as Christians. Since its completion in 381 AD, it has been continually used by Christ’s Church in worship.

By confessing the Blessed , we believe in one God in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the persons of the Godhead. This is a profound mystery of the faith. We have worked our way through what the Creed teaches about the Father and about the Son, and now we are considering the Holy Spirit.

Last week we considered that He is a ‘he’ and that He is the Lord and Giver of Life.

“… who proceeds from the Father and the Son; …” Belgic Confession (1561 A.D.) — Article 11: The Deity of the Holy Spirit “We believe and confess also that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son— neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but only proceeding from the two of them. In regard to order, he is the third person of the Trinity— of one and the same essence, and majesty, and glory, with the Father and the Son. He is true and eternal God, as the Holy Scriptures teach us.”

Just as Jesus is not a second-order divinity, so too the Holy spirit is not a third-order God. The persons of the godhead are true and eternal God.

As the says “None in this Trinity is before or after, none is greater or smaller; in their entirety they three persons are coeternal and coequal with each other. So in everything, as was said earlier, the unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity, is to be worshipped”

Module III - The Holy Spirit Lesson 13 — May 23, 2021 Personal Property - The Father is Unbegotten, the Son is Begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit Proceeds from the Father and the Son. (Procession = Spiration) filioque - the most controversial topic we will cover in this Sunday School class. The Western (Latin) Church began using this clause in the 6th Century. The Eastern (Greek) Church rejected it as unbiblical and heretical. This is one of the major purported causes of the Great Schism of 1054 A.D. The Controversy: does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father? Or from the Father and the Son?

A truth that no Christian contests: The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”

But does he proceed from the Son also? The answer is yes. The Father sending the Spirit and the Son sending the Spirit is strong evidence for the filioque.

Acts 2:17, 32-33 = these are the last Days and the Spirit has been given to Christ to pour out on his people as evidence that the Kingdom has come and that the Eschaton is here. The New Age has already broken in to this present, passing, evil Old Age.

Jesus sends him from the Father. The Spirit’s ministry is about bringing glory to the Father and the Son. He is the breath breathed as the Word is spoken, and he is the power of the Word reverberating throughout the world.

John 20:22“And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ”

Genesis 2:7“then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

1 Corinthians 15 is one of our most complex exegetical chapters, but v.45 evidences this procession: “Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

Romans 8: The Spirit of life (v.2), the Spirit of God (v.9a), the Spirit of Christ (v.9b)

“… who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; …” Coequal in essence, majesty, and glory; coworthy of our worship - this what we proclaim every Sunday when we sing the Gloria Patri (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost …”) and the (“Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”). - Mt. 28:19, 2 Cor. 13:14

Module III - The Holy Spirit Lesson 13 — May 23, 2021