Chapter 11

“Who has woe? Who has sorrow?” For whom are distress and darkness? For whom is eternal condemnation? Is it not for transgressors, for those who deny the faith? And what proves their denial? Is it not that they have set aside their own confession?

What did they confess, and when? They confessed faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit when they renounced the devil and his angels and spoke those saving words. What name, then, should the children of light give them? Are they not transgressors because they have violated the covenant of their salvation?

What shall I call the denial of God? What shall I call the denial of Christ? Nothing other than transgression. And what name do you want me to give to the one who denies the Spirit? Must it not be the same, since that person too has broken the covenant made with God? When confession of faith in the Spirit secures the blessing of godliness and denial of him brings the condemnation of godlessness, is it not dreadful that people should set aside their confession—not under threat of fire, sword, cross, scourge, wheel, or rack, but simply because they have been deceived by the sophistry and seductions of those who fight against the Spirit?

I testify to everyone who confesses Christ but denies God that Christ will profit him nothing; to everyone who calls upon God but rejects the Son, that his faith is empty; and to everyone who sets aside the Spirit, that faith in the Father and the Son will be useless. Indeed, such a person cannot truly hold that faith without the presence of the Spirit. Whoever does not believe in the Spirit does not believe in the Son, and whoever has not believed in the Son does not believe in the Father. For “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit,” and “no one has ever seen God; the Only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known.”

Such a person has no share or portion in true worship. It is impossible to worship the Son except in the Holy Spirit, and impossible to call upon the Father except in the Spirit of adoption.