Who proceeds from the Father and the Son

Introduction

If you haven’t been at the midweek, then you might not know that we’ve been going through the Nicene Creed since October last year.

The Council of Nicaea met in 325 AD which was 1700 years ago last year. And lots of things happened last year to mark its anniversary. And I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and do my own series on the Creed at the midweek. That Council of Nicaea in 325 produced the Creed of Nicaea. And the Creed of Nicaea was developed further in 381 and became what we now know as the Nicene Creed.

The reason the Council of Nicaea met in 325 was to respond to the teaching of a bishop called Arius, who denied the full divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, the whole church — represented by its bishops — met together to consider his views and to respond to them. And they produced the Creed of Nicaea in order to say that this is what Christians believe. This is what we believe about God the Father and God the Son and about God the Holy Spirit.

I said at the beginning of this series that a creed is a proclamation of the gospel. Whenever Christians stand up in church and recite the Creed, they are proclaiming the good news of the gospel that Jesus Christ, who is the only begotten Son of God the Father, became one of us; and he lived for us and he died for us and he rose again for us and for our salvation. The creed is nothing less than a summary of the gospel; and it’s always a wonderful thing when Christians stand up and proclaim the gospel to one another and when we announce to one other that is is what our God has done for us! This is what he has done for us and it’s wonderful.

And saying the Creed together is a way of committing ourselves publicly to these things. When we began this series, I said that, on lots of occasions, we don’t like to commit ourselves. A wife asks her husband when he’s going to do that job that needs doing around the house. When will you do it? ‘I’m not sure.’ Will you do it on Saturday? ‘Maybe. Perhaps.’ If he doesn’t do it on Saturday, she can’t complain too much, because he didn’t commit to doing it on Saturday. But on other occasions we have to commit ourselves to something. So, the minister asks: ‘Will you take this man to be your husband?’ It’s yes or no. Make a decision. And what we decide will change our lives.

And when we stand to say a creed, we’re committing ourselves to these things. Do you believe these things about God? Make a decision. What’s it going to be? Yes or no? Commit yourself. And though everyone else around you lives as if these things are not true, you must now live each day in light of these things, because you’ve committed yourself to them publicly.

And to what have you committed yourself? You’re committing yourself to the truth about God: that he’s the Father and he’s the Son and he’s the Holy Spirit. You’re committing yourself to the truth that the Father Almighty is the Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And you’re committing yourself to the truth that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was crucified and died and was buried before rising from the dead; and he’s coming again one day to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will never end. And you’re committing yourself to the truth that the Holy Spirit is also God and he’s the Lord and Giver of life who binds us together in the church where there’s forgiveness and where we look forward to the resurrection and eternal life with God.

When we stand up and say the words of the creed, we are confessing that we believe these things and we are committing ourselves to these things. And we’re going to live our life in light of them.

So far on Wednesdays we’ve covered the first two main parts. The first main part was about God the Father and the second main part was about God the Son. We began the third main part last week and it’s about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. By saying that he’s the Lord, we’re saying that he’s God. By saying he’s the Giver of Life, we’re saying that he gives us our life in this world; he gives us new life in Christ through the new birth; and he will raise our bodies from the dead at the resurrection so that we will live for ever in the presence of God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Today we come to the next line where we confess and proclaim that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Explanation

Notice that the word ‘proceeds’ is in the present tense and not in the past tense.

If it were in the past tense, then the Creed would be referring to something that happened in the past. For instance, if it said ‘who proceeded from the Father and the Son’, we might think it was referring to the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, when there was a sound like the blowing of the wind and the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit; and tongues of fire rested on them; and they began to speak in different languages. And when a crowd gathered to see what was happening, Peter explained to them that the Risen and Exalted Lord Jesus has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what they now hear and see. So, at that time in the past, the Holy Spirit came from the Father through the Son to the disciples here on earth.

Or if the Creed said ‘who proceeded from the Father and the Son’, it might be referring to the kind of experience we read about in Galatians 4:6, where Paul refers to a time when God sent the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of his readers to enable them to know God as their Father. The Spirit of the Son came to Paul’s readers from the Father.

Those two passages — Acts 2 and Galatians 4 — refer to something that happened in the past. In the past, God the Father sent the Spirit through the Son to the disciples in Jerusalem. In the past, God the Father sent the Spirit of his Son to Paul and his readers. And in our studies in John’s gospel on Sunday evenings, we’ve been thinking about the Holy Spirit and the new birth. Every time someone becomes a Christian, it’s because the Holy Spirit has come from the Father and through the Son to implant new life in the person so that he or she is able to repent and believe. On those occasions, the Holy Spirit came from the Father and the Son. And if you’re a believer, it’s because some time in the past God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son sent the Holy Spirit to you to give you the new birth.

But the Creed is not referring to that kind of thing when it says we believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Creed is not talking about something that happened in time. It’s referring to something that happens in eternity. It’s referring to an eternal procession. When we say the Creed we’re confessing and proclaiming that we believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son.

So, Christians believe in one God. But the one God we believe in is three persons, because there’s the Father and there’s the Son and there’s the Holy Spirit. We believe this about God, because this is what he has revealed himself to be. And what becomes clear when we study what God has revealed about himself is that the Father is, in a sense, first. He’s first among the three persons, because the Son and the Spirit come from him eternally. He is the source or the origin of the other two. And therefore he is first.

But then we also need to say that since the Son and the Spirit come from the Father eternally, then there never was a time when the Father was without the Son or the Spirit. There never was a time before there was the Son. There never was a time before there was the Spirit. The Son and the Spirit come from the Father eternally. So, the Father is first, but the Son and the Spirit have always existed.

And we also have to say that the Spirit comes from the Father in a different way from the way the Son comes from the Father. The Son comes from the Father by being begotten from the Father. However the Holy Spirit comes from the Father by procession. The Son is begotten eternally and the Spirit proceeds eternally. Another way of putting it is that the Father generates the Son and he spirates the Spirit.

And then there’s something else to say about it. Whereas the Son is begotten from the Father alone, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Or the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.

So, the Father is first. He’s the source. And the Son comes from the Father by being begotten. And the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son by procession. And these things happen eternally and not in time.

Can we be a bit more specific about what it means for the Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son? Can we describe or explain what this procession is? When we were thinking about the Father begetting the Son, I said that how the Father does this is beyond our knowing. And I quoted one theologian (Gregory of Nazianzus) who said: ‘The begetting of God is to be honoured by silence; the great thing is for you to learn that he was begotten.’ And we can perhaps say the same thing about the procession of the Spirit. It is to be honoured by silence; and the important thing is for us to know it. But that same theologian helps us to say something about it. He says: ‘Insofar as [the Holy Spirit] proceeds from the Father, he is no creature; inasmuch as he is not begotten, he is no Son.’ So, he’s not another Son, because he isn’t begotten. And he’s not one of God’s creatures, because he proceeds from the Father and he wasn’t created. Apart from that, there’s not much else we can say to explain what procession is and how it differs from being begotten.

And this might seem very esoteric to you and you might be wondering why it’s important to know these things or even if it’s necessary to know these things. And the answer is that it’s important to know these things, because this is what God has revealed about himself. God wants us to know these things about him.

And so, when we read John’s gospel, we discover that the Lord Jesus is God’s only begotten Son. And in John 15:26, the Lord Jesus said to his disciples about the Holy Spirit: ‘When the Counsellor comes, who I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out of the Father, he will testify about me.’ When he refers to the Counsellor, he means the Holy Spirit. And he says he will send the Holy Spirit to his disciples from the Father to testify to them about himself. So, he’s referring there to a coming in time. The time is coming, when the Lord will send the Holy Spirit from the Father. to his disciples. That’s a coming forth in time.

But that’s not all the Lord said. He also said about the Holy Spirit that the Spirit ‘goes out of the Father’ or he ‘proceeds from the Father’. And when he says that, he’s not talking about a going out in time, but a going out in eternity. He’s talking about the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father. And since the Spirit is also known in the Bible as the Spirit of the Son, then we believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Conclusion

Why do we need to believe these things? Because this is what God has revealed to us about himself. He has revealed to us in his word that the inner life of our God is an eternal life of begetting and proceeding: the Father begetting the Son eternally; and the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son eternally.

And what God is in eternity shapes how God reaches out to us in time. So, just as the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father through the Son, so the Spirit comes to us today from the Father and through the Son. The Spirit comes to us from the Father and through the Son to give us our life in his world and to give us new life in Christ and to give us eternal life at the resurrection.

In other words, God the Father reaches out to us in time through the Son and by the Holy Spirit in order ultimately to draw us to himself. Despite our sins and our shortcomings, he reaches out to us through the Son and by the Holy Spirit to bring us to himself. And he does so, because of his overflowing love. Because of his overflowing love, the procession of the Spirit in eternity is extended into time so that God the Father sends his Spirit to us through Christ so that we will live with God for ever and become perfectly holy and happy as we gaze upon his glory for ever.