This article is about the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 2: God the Holy Spirit.This article also focuses on the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Source: The Monthly Record, 1998. 2 pages.

Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 2 - God the Holy Spirit

It is one of the most often repeated criticisms of the Confession of Faith that it contains no chapter on the Holy Spirit. It is true that the twentieth century has seen a revival of interest in the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit of God, much of which has been mis-directed and mis-used. The Church has had to wage a war not only against the unbelieving mindset of the world, but also against the excesses of Charismatic and neo-Pente­costal teaching and experience. The Toronto phenomenon and its many satellite influences have sown the seeds of doubt, division and confusion. It is probably true that were the church to formulate its Confession of Faith today, to meet the needs of the Church in this contemporary world of ours, a chapter on the Holy Spirit would be indispensable. Thus, for example, in 1903, the Presbyte­rian Church in the USA added a 34th Chapter to the Westminster Confession, entitled "Of the Holy Spirit".

Yet the irony is that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit pervades the Confession of Faith at almost every point. On Scripture we are told that the infallible assurance of the authority of Scripture is the result of the Spirit's witness in the heart (1.5). By the work of the Spirit redemption is applied to believers (8.8; 11:4), repentance and saving grace are infused in them (13:1) and they grow in grace  (13:3). It is alone by the operation of the Spirit that the outward means of grace are made personally effective (7:5­6). By the Spirit believers pray (21:3) and receive assurance (18:8), and through his work and witness they are kept through faith to salvation (17:2).

It is, therefore, a sign of ignorance that the modern Church will require a separate and distinctive statement of the work of the Holy Spirit, when the compilers of the Confession themselves assume at every point that it is indeed the Spirit "who gives life; the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63). Sinclair Ferguson suggests that one reason for the omission of a chapter on the Spirit may be "the controlling influence of the biblical teaching in which the Spirit is seen as the agent and not as the object of faith (John 16:15)" (The Westminster Confession in the Church Today, p36). Perhaps there is nothing that shows the intense spirituality of the Westminster divines quite like the place actually given to the Holy Spirit, permeating every doctrine. After all, Christ did say that the Spirit would do many things; the one thing He would not do is speak of Himself (John 16:13).

The Person of the Spirit🔗

In the second chapter, the third person of the Godhead is defined as "the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son". There are four distinct emphases brought together within this short compass.

1. The Spirit is Eternal🔗

As the Father is eternal, and as the Son is eternal, so the Holy Spirit is eternal. If Hebrews 9:14 is taken to refer to the third person of the Trinity, it makes an explicit reference to eternalness as characterising the Holy Spirit of God.

The Biblical record shows us the Spirit active at the point of creation (Genesis 1:2), at work in the world now, and looking forward to the consummation of all things (cf. Romans 8:14ff; Revelation 22:17). The Holy Spirit is the God who is the alpha and omega. He is not an 'it', not some kind of impersonal force (the AV translation at Romans 8:16 is particularly unfortunate), but a personal, eternal, unchanging Being who is to be wor­shipped along with the Father and the Son: one God in three distinct persons. The divine nature is the same; the divine persons are distinct but never to be separated.

2. The Holy Spirit Proceeds🔗

It is the particular property of the Father to beget, of the Son to be begotten, and of the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and from the Son.

This procession is clearly defined in Scripture as the procession of agency. Thus, for example, in Psalm 104:30, which celebrates the work of God in creation and providence, we read: "You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; and You renew the face of the earth". It is particularly as agent in the application of redemption that the Holy Spirit is brought before us in Scripture. He takes of the things of Christ and reveals them (John 16:15). What the Father planned, the Son achieved; and what the Son achieved the Spirit makes good to those who are heirs of salvation.

This is indeed salvation by grace, not of our works, lest any of us should boast. The work is the work of God, divine, not human, extraordinary, not mundane. It is a work in which the one God sovereignly saves, and in which the Triune God actively ensures the deliverance of the contents of the covenant to those who have been brought into its bonds.

There is a marked distinction, how­ever, to be made between Christ and the Spirit. Christ came into the world as the agent of God's decree and will. His service requires subordination and humiliation. There is none of this, however, in the work of the Spirit, as He proceeds from Father and Son. His is procession without subordination, and service without humiliation.

3. The Spirit Proceeds from the Father🔗

This is the explicit teaching of our Lord. "I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper ... even the Spirit of truth" (John 14:16-17). He is the Helper "whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26). The Father sends and operates through the Spirit; never does the Spirit send and operate through the Father. There is no chaos in God. The Holy Spirit is the executive of the divine counsel, and there is procession in a specific sense on the part of the Spirit from God the Father.

4. The Spirit Proceeds from the Son🔗

At the same time, and without contradic­tion, Christ can say of the Holy Spirit "if I depart, I will send Him to you" (John 16:7). On the day of Pentecost, Peter is insistent that the phenomenon of the Spirit's advent is directly related to the exaltation of Christ: "He poured out this which you now see and hear" (Acts 2:33).

It took the church almost 6 centuries to formulate a biblical doctrine of the Spirit, when the famous Latin word filioque ('and from the Son') was ac­cepted at the Council of Toledo and added to the Nicene Creed as stating the biblical position. The Eastern Orthodox Churches refused to accept it. But the fulness of the biblical doctrine is seen in this, that the Holy Spirit rejoices to proceed as agent from Father and Son together, on behalf of the redeemed.

Add new comment

(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.
(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.