Chapter 21

Why should we try to win our case by fighting over such unworthy questions when we can establish the surpassing excellence of the Spirit’s glory from higher considerations?

If we simply repeat what Scripture has taught us, every fighter against the Spirit may shout loudly, stop his ears, pick up stones or whatever else comes to hand, and rush upon us. But our own safety must not be valued above the truth.

We have learned from the Apostle: “May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the endurance of Christ.” Who is this Lord who directs us into the love of God and the endurance of Christ? Let those answer who want to make the Holy Spirit a slave. If Paul meant God the Father, he could have said, “The Lord direct you into his own love.” If he meant the Son, he could have said, “into his own endurance.” Let them tell us what other person is worthy of the title Lord.

A parallel passage says: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all ... so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before God our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” What Lord does Paul ask to establish the hearts of the Thessalonian believers blameless in holiness before God the Father at the coming of our Lord? Let those who place the Holy Spirit among ministering spirits answer. They cannot.

So let them hear a still clearer testimony that calls the Spirit Lord: “The Lord is the Spirit,” and, “as from the Lord, the Spirit.” To remove every excuse for objection I will quote the Apostle’s reasoning. Even to this day, when the old covenant is read, the same veil remains; it is removed in Christ. “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit.”

Why does Paul speak this way? The person who remains at the bare letter and occupies himself only with the bodily observances of the Law has, as it were, wrapped his heart in the Jewish reading of the letter like a veil. This happens because he does not understand that the bodily observance of the Law is brought to completion by Christ’s presence, since the types have now passed over into the reality. Lamps are unnecessary when the sun has risen. When truth appears, the labor of the Law’s shadows is ended and prophecy falls silent before fulfillment.

The one, however, who receives power to look into the depth of the Law’s meaning, passes through the obscurity of the letter as through a veil and enters the ineffable realities within. Such a person is like Moses removing the veil when he spoke with God. The veil over Moses’ face corresponds to the obscurity of the Law’s teaching; spiritual contemplation corresponds to turning to the Lord. The person who removes the letter as a veil in reading the Law and turns to the Lord—and the Lord here is called the Spirit—becomes like Moses, whose face was glorified by God’s manifestation.

Objects placed near brilliant colors are themselves tinted by the radiance falling around them. In the same way, one who fixes the gaze firmly on the Spirit is somehow transformed by the Spirit’s glory into a greater splendor, the heart illuminated by light streaming from the truth of the Spirit. This is to be “changed from glory” by the Spirit “into” his own “glory,” not faintly or obscurely, but as one would expect of someone truly illumined by the Spirit.

Do you not fear the Apostle’s words: “You are God’s temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you”? Would he call the dwelling place of a slave God’s “temple”? And how could the same Apostle call Scripture “God-breathed” because it was written through the Spirit’s inspiration, while speaking of the Spirit in terms that insult and belittle him?