Let us return, then, to the point with which we began: in everything the Holy Spirit is inseparable and wholly incapable of being divided from the Father and the Son.
Paul, speaking to the Corinthians about the gift of prophecy, says: “If all prophesy and an unbeliever or an uninstructed person enters, he is convicted by all and examined by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is truly among you.” If God is recognized as present in the prophets through prophecy operating according to the distribution of the Spirit’s gifts, let our opponents consider what place they will assign to the Holy Spirit. Is it more fitting to rank him with God, or thrust him down into the place of a creature?
Peter’s words to Sapphira—“How is it that you agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? ... You have not lied to men but to God”—show that sin against the Holy Spirit is sin against God. From this too you may learn that in every operation the Spirit is closely joined to and inseparable from the Father and the Son.
God works the varieties of operations; the Lord orders the varieties of ministries; and throughout them the Holy Spirit is present by his own will, distributing the gifts according to what is fitting for each recipient. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; varieties of ministries, but the same Lord; and varieties of operations, but the same God who works all in all.” And, “All these are worked by the one and same Spirit, distributing to each one individually as he wills.”
We must not imagine that because the Apostle in this passage names the Spirit first, the Son second, and God the Father third, he has reversed their rank. He begins according to the order in which our thought naturally proceeds. When we receive gifts, we first think of the one who distributes them; next of the one through whom they are sent; and then our mind rises to the fountain and cause of the blessings.
The fellowship of the Spirit with the Father and the Son may also be learned from the things created at the beginning. The pure, intelligent powers above the world are called holy because they possess holiness through the grace given by the Holy Spirit.
The manner in which the heavenly powers were created is passed over in silence, because the narrator of creation tells us only of the formation of things perceptible to the senses. But you, who are able from visible things to reason analogically about the invisible, glorify the Maker by whom all things were made—visible and invisible, principalities, powers, authorities, thrones, dominions, and every other rational nature beyond our naming.
In creation, consider first the originating Cause of everything made, the Father; the creating Cause, the Son; and the perfecting Cause, the Spirit. Thus the ministering spirits subsist by the Father’s will, are brought into being through the Son’s operation, and are perfected by the Spirit’s presence. The perfection of angels is their sanctification and their perseverance in it.
Let no one imagine that I am teaching three first principles, or that I am calling the Son’s operation imperfect. The first principle of existing things is one, creating through the Son and perfecting through the Spirit. The Father’s operation, by which he “works all in all,” is not imperfect; nor is the Son’s creative work deficient because the Spirit perfects. The Father, who creates by his will alone, does not need the Son, yet he wills to create through the Son. The Son, who works according to the likeness of the Father, does not need assistance, yet he too wills to perfect through the Spirit.
“For by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the Spirit of his mouth.” The Word is not merely a meaningful sound impressed on the air and produced by bodily organs. Nor is the Spirit of God’s mouth a vapor emitted by breathing. The Word is the one who “was with God in the beginning” and “was God”; the Spirit of God’s mouth is “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.”
You are therefore to recognize three: the Lord who commands, the Word who creates, and the Spirit who confirms. And what is this confirmation except perfection according to holiness? “Confirmation” signifies firmness, immutability, and stability in the good; and there is no sanctification without the Spirit.
The heavenly powers are not holy by nature. If they were, in that respect there would be no difference between them and the Holy Spirit. According to their excellence, they receive their measure of holiness from the Spirit. As the branding iron is conceived together with the fire while the material and the fire remain distinct, so too with the heavenly powers: whatever their created substance may be, their sanctification is not their substance but a perfection added through communion with the Spirit.
They preserve their rank by abiding in what is good and true. Retaining freedom of will, they never abandon their patient attendance on the one who is truly good. Remove the Spirit by your argument, and the angelic hosts are dissolved; the orders of archangels are destroyed; all falls into confusion, and their life loses law, order, and distinction.
How could the angels cry, “Glory to God in the highest,” unless empowered by the Spirit? “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit,” and “no one speaking in the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus is accursed.’” The fall of evil and hostile spirits itself confirms the freedom of the invisible powers and their need for the Spirit’s help.
I would also say that Gabriel foretells future events only through foreknowledge from the Spirit, since prophecy is one of the gifts distributed by the Spirit. And from where did the one appointed to explain mysteries to the man of desires receive wisdom to teach hidden things, if not from the Holy Spirit? Revelation of mysteries is the Spirit’s own work: “God has revealed them to us through his Spirit.”
How could “thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers” live their blessed life unless they “behold the face of the Father in heaven”? Yet that vision is impossible without the Spirit. If at night you remove the light from a house, the eyes become useless and cannot distinguish the worth of things; gold may be stepped on as though it were iron. In the same way, the ordered life of the intelligible world cannot remain without the Spirit—no more than an army can maintain discipline without its commander or a choir harmony without its leader.
How could the Seraphim cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” unless the Spirit taught them how the true worship of God requires this threefold glorification? Do “all his angels” and “all his hosts” praise God? They do so through the Spirit’s cooperation. Do “thousands upon thousands” stand before him, and “ten thousand times ten thousand” minister? They fulfill their proper work blamelessly by the Spirit’s power.
Therefore all the glorious and ineffable harmony of the highest heavens—in service to God and in the concord of the heavenly powers—is preserved only through the Spirit’s direction. In beings that do not reach perfection gradually by growth and advancement but are created complete from the beginning, the Holy Spirit is present in their very creation, granting from himself the grace that brings their nature to its proper perfection.
When we turn to the saving works of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ toward humanity, who can deny that they were accomplished through the grace of the Spirit?
Look first at the ancient history: the blessings of the patriarchs, the help given through the Law, the types, the prophecies, the victories in war, and the signs performed through righteous people. Or look at the economy of our Lord’s coming in the flesh. Everything is through the Spirit.
First, the Spirit was the anointing and was inseparably present with the very flesh of the Lord, according to what is written: “Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, this is ... my beloved Son”; and, “Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit.” After this, every operation took place with the Spirit’s cooperation.
The Spirit was present when the Lord was tempted by the devil: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted.” He remained inseparably with him in the working of miracles: “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God....” Nor did the Spirit leave him after the resurrection. When the Lord renewed humanity and, by breathing upon the disciples, restored the grace of God’s original inbreathing that humanity had lost, he said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain them, they are retained.”
And is it not plain beyond dispute that the ordering of the Church is accomplished through the Spirit? God “appointed in the Church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.” This order is established according to the distribution of the gifts that belong to the Spirit.
Anyone who considers the matter carefully will also find that at the expected appearing of the Lord from heaven the Holy Spirit will not, as some imagine, be without a work to perform. On the contrary, on the day of the Lord’s revelation, when the blessed and only Sovereign judges the world in righteousness, the Spirit will be present with him.
Who is so ignorant of the good things God has prepared for the worthy as not to know that the crown of the righteous is the grace of the Spirit, bestowed more abundantly and perfectly on that day, when spiritual glory is distributed to each according to the nobility of that person’s struggle? Among the glories of the saints are “many dwelling places” in the Father’s house—that is, differences of dignity—for “star differs from star in glory; so also is the resurrection of the dead.”
Those who were “sealed by the Spirit for the day of redemption” and who keep pure and undiminished the firstfruits they received from the Spirit are the ones who will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will set you over many.” In the same way, those who have grieved the Holy Spirit by their evil way of life, or who have failed to make fruitful use of what was given them, will be deprived of what they received, and their grace will be transferred to others. Or, as one Evangelist says, they will be “cut in two”—that is, completely separated from the Spirit.
This “cutting in two” cannot mean bodily division, as though half the body were punished and half spared. When the whole person has sinned, such a punishment would resemble an old myth and would be unworthy of a righteous judge. Nor is the soul literally divided, since the whole soul bears the sinful disposition and cooperates with the body in wickedness. The division, as I have said, is the eternal separation of the soul from the Spirit.
For now, although the Spirit never mingles with the unworthy, he nevertheless seems in a certain manner to remain near those who have once been sealed, awaiting the salvation that follows their conversion. Then, however, he will be wholly separated from the soul that has defiled his grace. This is why “in Hades there is no one who confesses you; in death no one remembers God”: the Spirit’s help is no longer present.
How, then, could anyone imagine the judgment being accomplished without the Holy Spirit, when Scripture indicates that the Spirit himself is the reward of the righteous? Then what is perfect is given in place of the pledge. And the first condemnation of sinners is deprivation of what they appeared to possess.
The greatest proof of the Spirit’s conjunction with the Father and the Son is that Scripture speaks of his relation to God as analogous to the relation of our spirit to ourselves: “What person knows the things of a person except the person’s spirit within him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.”
On this point, what has been said is sufficient.