Apostles’ Creed (part 6)

And I believe in the Holy Spirit.

1. • As we have discussed, much of trinitarian thought is more mystery than rational, logical, or substantiated science. That should not surprise us, for we have been there before. What is new here in terms of faith and “the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen. … By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible” (Heb 11:1). Take for instance, creation, the virgin birth, resurrection, the ascension, the Trinity, and today’s topic, the Holy Spirit.
     • This is not 2+2=4 faith.
     • While not beyond the reach and realm of reason, faith is more about trust. We know more about faith by the implications it has for our lives and the assurance we have.

• • John Wesley is known for talking about “his warm feeling.” “Christian experience”—the experience of “assurance” as seen in the oft-quoted line, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s ‘Preface to the Epistle to the Romans’. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”[1]
  • Experience includes the individual’s direct experience of God’s love, forgiveness, and the witness of the Spirit confirming their adoption as children of God. This is often referred to as the “assurance of salvation” or the “witness of the Spirit.” Wesley emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit in bearing witness to one’s faith, leading to a distinctively Christian experience of assurance.“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Rom 8:16). Evidence of God’s saving act is seen in the sanctification and transformation in the life of the believer (e.g., the fruits of the Spirit). While personal experience is also understood within the context of the Christian community. The shared experiences of God’s work among believers, their testimonies, and the collective wisdom of the faithful contribute to theological understanding. Wesley valued the accounts of others’ encounters with God, particularly within the Methodist societies. Additionally, Wesley valued discernment. He did not see experience as an autonomous source of truth. Instead, it must be consistent with Scripture, informed by tradition,[2] and examined by reason. If a personal or communal experience contradicts these other sources, its theological validity is questioned.
  • And so too is our fully trinitarian faith seen in the Holy Spirit—“the Father sending his Son into the world for all; the Son in his life, death and resurrection offering our shared humanity to the Father in the Spirit’s power; and the Holy Spirit working in the world, in the church, and in us to kindle that faith that alone grasps and responds appropriately to the reality of what has occurred.”[3]
    • 2 Cor. 3:17.
    • “The Holy Spirit is differentiated from the Father as one who proceeds … from the Father. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit is also differentiated from Jesus, who both promises the Spirit (John 14:26) and is raised by the Spirit (Rom. 1:4). The Holy Spirit is not regarded as a creature because “to proceed from” is not the same as “to be created by,” and because the Holy Spirit is worshiped … and glorified together with the Father and the Son.”[4]
• We proclaim the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” The Apostles’ Creed though has more to say than that one line. Earlier it says, “And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit’s role in conception intrigues me. Creation itself was conceived by the Holy Spirit as the Spirit hovered over the waters of chaos (Gen 1:1–2). God breathes spirit into the clay, and it becomes a living being (Gen 2:7). The Psalmist proclaims, “When you send forth our spirit, they are created.” God’s Spirit directly conceives new beginnings. God’s Spirit is at the heart of our Creator God.
  • And the road continues. Isa. 32:15 God’s Spirit is poured out over all flesh connected to the restoration of (or resurrected life of) Israel. See also Isa 11:2; 51:11; 61:1; 63:10–11; Ezek. 37:7–14; and Joel 2:28). The Holy Spirit brings about restoration and is connected to the holiness of God and the holiness required of God’s people.
  • “So when the Spirit broods over the womb of Mary, we see a picture of God’s creative work happening all over again.”[5] And the story continues with Elizabeth (Lk 1:41). And the power of the Spirit brought life again in the resurrection of Jesus (Rom 1:4). The Nicaean Creed is clear on this very point, “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.”
  • And it is the same Spirit (Acts 1:12; 2:1–4) where we find the conception of the Church. Acts is sometimes called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s active agency is experienced by the Church in wondrous and beautiful ways. Acts 1:8 restoration of Israel.
    • Ruach/pneuma—spirit, breath, or wind. And just as our own breath is embodied, separate but one, so too is the breath or Spirit of God. We may differentiate between the two, perhaps, but we cannot separate the two.[6] Again, we know this, as in concepts like body, soul, spirit, and mind. We too embody that breath with the indwelling of God Holy Spirit within us. In creation (Gen 2:7) and our new birth (John 3:3–5), and the birth of the church (Acts 2).
    • Both individually and communally, 1 Cor 3 & 6. “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13).
    • The key descriptor of the Spirit is “Holy.” The Holy Spirit of Jesus is the Holy Spirit of the church.
    • In contrast to any other spirit or spirit of this age.
  • The resurrection brought about the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. The Spirit proleptically provides all the fullness that resurrection life brings us.
    • The Holy Spirit is a deposit, the first installment of the fullness of our salvation.
    • 2 Cor. 1:22; 2 (Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:13–1). When I buy a car on a 48-month term, I get the full use and privileges of the car. The same with a deposit and mortgage on a house.
    • And the verdict is “Yes” and “Amen.” See 2 Cor. 1:19–20 as it leads to 1:22.
    • See also Rom. 8:10–11.
  • And just as God incarnated God’s self in Jesus materially, God embodies us with God’s indwelling Spirit. Hart quotes C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity (48, 88) saying, “‘God likes matter. He invented it.’ God invented matter so that God might make it God’s own, “sharing I its life fully and personally so that we in our turn might come to share at last in God’s life, God’s joy, Gd’s glory and do so in a manner that is bodlily just as surely as it is spiritual.” [7]
  • “The phrases ‘in Christ’ and ‘in the Spirit’ are synonyms because, after the ascension the presence of one would be incomprehensible apart from the presence of the other.”[8]
  • “The early church expressed the complexity of the two introductory copulas by affirming that the Son is ‘begotten’ while the Spirit ‘proceeds’ from the Father and the Son together or from the Father through the Son. … the distinction drawn between Son and Spirit also serves to insist upon their unity.”[9] This last point is more about Nicaea than the Apostles’ Creed.

[1] W. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater, eds. The Works of John Wesley: Journals and Diaries, vols. 18-24 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988-2003), 18:249-50. See also Mark K. Olson, Wesley and Aldersgate: Interpreting Conversion Narratives (Routledge, 2019), and “Wesley’s Warmed Heart at Aldersgate — What Really Happen?” (https://wesleyscholar.com/wesleys-warmed-heart-at-aldersgate-what-really-happened/ accessed April 23, 2025); Kevin M. Watson, “Experience in the so-called ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’” at https://kevinmwatson.com/2013/05/13/experience-in-the-so-called-wesleyan-quadrilateral/#:~:text=Outler’s%20understanding%20of%20the%20role%20of%20experience%20in%20Wesley’s%20theology,of%20the%20current%20popular%20culture accessed April 23, 2025.

[2] Tradition, not in a modern sense, but Christian antiquity. The Quadrilateral also did not function equilaterally, but in keeping with the sensibilities of the Protestant adherence to the primacy of Scripture. “Reason” is applied as a way for rational persons to mediate disagreement and evaluate doctrine and practice. See Ted A. Campbell, The “Wesleyan Quadrilateral,” 92–94.

[3] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 147.

[4] Walter R. Bouman, “I Believe in the Holy Spirit,” 200, in Van Harn, Exploring & Proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed.

[5] Myers, The Apostles’ Creed, 44.

[6] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 183.

[7] Hart, Confessing and Believing, 184.

[8] Harned, Creed and Personal Identity, 86.

[9] Harned, Creed and Personal Identity, 86–87.