10.30am Morning Prayer
Readings: Ezekiel 37: 1-10; Titus 3:4-7; John 14
Welcome to Part 3 of our look at the Nicene Creed over these three weeks in Lent.
In the first week Chris focused on the first section about God the Father and Jesus Christ and their relationship to each other.
Last week David took us through the second section, which follows Jesus coming to earth, what He did when He was here, and what happened to him after he left earth.
Today this third section focuses on the Holy Spirit, as well as – at the end – some short statements on three other topics.
We can read the Creed, but how do we check on what the Creed is saying? How do we verify it?
Have you found ‘BBC Verify’ on the BBC News website. When a politician makes a claim which seems particularly implausible – the BBC journalist gets to work sifting the original information to see if the claim can be justified. The findings are posted on ‘BBC Verify’.
How can we verify the Creed? We go back to the original information. Another big issue of that time was agreeing exactly which books should be in the New Testament, in Holy Scripture? That was pretty much settled when the Nicene Creed was written, though the content of the New Testament was finally signed off about 50 years later. But that means that if we want to check and verify what this very concise creed says, we go back to the Bible, which was in front of them at Nicea as they debated and agreed the creed.
It is very easy to be interested in all this history if you like that sort of thing , but let’s not lose sight of the much more important reason for each of us knowing the creed better, to personally understand more about our faith.
The Creed’s language has been modernised over the centuries, but it still has some words which to our modern ear are unfamiliar. For example, what does it mean that the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds’ from the Father and the Son? Or… what is a ‘holy, catholic and apostolic church’
You might think because of these difficult words and ideas that the Creed was written for clever people – that you need a theology or philosophy degree to get to grips with it. Well, I certainly don’t have one of those, although looking round the congregation I can see a few who do. But it wasn’t just written for them. It was written for all of us, ordinary people, like you and me, to deal with uncertainties and confusions, to make the faith clear.
This section of the Creed was written to help us understand the Holy Spirit better – and so strengthen our Christian lives?
Now we are going to look at this section of the Creed line by line. Perhaps you are word perfect after saying this creed more times than you can remember, and saying it for more years than you care to remember, but I still think you’ll find it helpful to follow it – page 11 in Worship for the Week.
There are five lines about the Holy Spirit, the last five lines on page 11, beginning from ‘We Believe in the Holy Spirit……’ , and then over the page three separate sentences about three big issues: about the so-called ‘holy, catholic, and apostolic church’ , about baptism, and about resurrection and eternal life. We’ll come back to those at the end.
But we’ll start with the Holy Spirit. There are three big questions about the Holy Spirit which the Creed considers:
- Who or what is the Holy Spirit?
- How do God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit fit together? Or to put it another way: what is the Trinity ? – that word ‘trinity’ which we use a lot in church , which is not actually in the Creed, which is not actually in the Bible.
- What does the Holy Spirit do?
1. Who or what is this thing called the Holy Spirit?
What is it this Holy Spirit thing. Yes – I have made a deliberate error. The Holy Spirit is not a ‘thing’ , but a person
John 14:17 This the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know Him
Jesus also calls the Holy Spirit ‘he’ in several other places in these later chapter of John.
Peter and Paul writing in their epistles later in the NT sometimes call Him the Spirit of God, sometimes call him the Spirit of Christ.
Who is the Holy Spirit ? He’s a person
If we may we will leave aside the question of why He should be ‘he’ and not ‘she’. That’s a discussion for another day.
But the point for today is that the Holy Spirit is not a thing, He is a person.
And second, the Holy Spirit is God. How do we know that?
Here are three creed statements about it:
- We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord it says. The word ‘Lord’ used quite deliberately. God is Lord, Jesus is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord
- the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son. This is an unfamiliar use of ‘proceeds’ . Holy Spirit is not created by the Father and the Son, it doesn’t say that. Proceeds from…He is part of the Father and the Son. And comes from them.
Jn 14:16: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth..
Jn 14: 26 Jesus says the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name
- And third the creed says
who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified
equal status with God the Father and with Jesus Christ, equally worshipped and glorified, equally God.
So the answer to our question Who or what is this thing called the Holy Spirit? Is that He is a person, He is part of God, he is equal with God and Jesus.
2 How do God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit fit together?
Well the Creed lays out the problem but does not obviously solve it. It makes clear that God, Jesus Xt, the HS are three, yet they are also all God.
People invented the word Trinity to describe that, but saying it is one thing and understanding it properly is quite another.
Many people have tried to use pictures to explain the Trinity, but nothing quite works. I don’t think there is anything much better than that thought up by St Patrick the Irish Xtian leader who lived about a hundred years after the Creed. He picked up a clover leaf, except being Irish he called it a shamrock.
One leaf with three separate pieces – but not completely separate, they all share the common stem of the leaf, they all get life and nutrition from that common stem, they do not exist alone. Not a perfect illustration of the Trinity – but a good start for us.
Here in picture form is one other way of thinking about the Trinity which I find helpful:
We have thought then about Who is the Holy Spirit….. about how God, Xt and the Spirit fit together, and now our third question:
What does the Holy Spirit do?
There is a lot in the Bible in both Old and New Testaments about the Holy Spirit in action. Often He is just called the Spirit or God’s spirit. In the few minutes we have this morning let’s concentrate on the two things which the Creed says about the Holy Spirit at work.
What does the Creed say? He is the Giver of Life
In John Chapter 3 we read of the famous meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, where Jesus explains to Nicodemus how we can be born again, give a new spiritual life. A spiritual life in each of us – transforms us as individuals
Jn 3: 7 “You must be born from above.” says Jesus 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’
The Greek word meaning wind also means breath. The Holy Spirit breathing new life into us.
And that fits with the wonderful picture which we heard read in Ezekiel chapter 37
The dry bones in the valley are dead. Dry and dead. God breathes into them, and they come alive. And at the end of that passage, we heard a promise from God:
Ezekiel 37:14 I will put my spirit within you and you shall live
The Holy Spirit is the wind breathing new life into us.
The Holy Spirit the Giver of Life is also there right at the beginning of creation
Gen 1:1,2 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters
A wind from God, the Holy Spirit there at creation
And the creed also says that the Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets. – which at that time meant the OT writers.
When the New Testament writers quote from the Old Testament, they often say the Holy Spirit says. Peter, early in Acts says: no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
Jesus himself says in our reading from John 14 this morning: the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
the Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets.
Now there are many other words translated as ‘spirit’ in the Bible, in both Old & New Testaments. But let’s look at one other name for the Holy Spirit, which isn’t in the Creed, but I choose it because it is the word Jesus uses in this morning’s reading from John 14
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,[g] to be with you for ever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth..
26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything,
Advocate – if you are Scottish, an advocate is a barrister, one who is alongside to help and advise in court.
Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Advocate (but in other Bible translations the same word ‘paraclete’ in Greek, is sometimes translated as Comforter or Counsellor or even Paraclete).
Paraclete actually means ‘alongside’
A few years ago I was standing on a bridge on the Norfolk Broads watching the ‘Three Bridges’ race. Traditional Norfolk ‘half decker’ sailing boats race along three rivers through the Broads, and have to negotiate three bridges. The masts fold down so you can get through the low bridges, the knack is to drop your mast as late as possible as you approach the bridge, and get it up the moment you are through so you do not lose speed. I watched as one skipper tried to be too clever, his mast was still half up as he arrived at the bridge, and it hit the bridge and sheared off. Through the bridge he came with no mast, no power, no steering, there were boats everywhere, a disaster was coming. A motor launch quickly appeared, came ‘alongside’ him, tied on to him and used its own motor power to bring him safely to shore before there were any accidents. A picture of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, coming alongside us when we are powerless and have lost our steering, and bringing us safely to shore with no accidents.
Enough – there are many more things that the Holy Spirit does, which we read elsewhere in the Bible – but for today from the Creed there is a starter.
He is the Giver of Life, our Advocate alongside us, the inspirer of Scripture.
And now briefly the final three statements in the Creed.
All here in the Creed because they were already big issues then, as now. A few things to note now (we are discussing them more fully in our midweek study on Tuesday).
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church
- ‘Catholic’ … nothing to do of course with the Roman Catholic tradition of Xtian faith. The word ‘catholic’ just means universal
- Apostolic means based on the apostles’ teaching … the Bible
- Holy means holy
- One means ONE
- Humans love a bit of schism don’t we. We’re all Christians we say, but we’re just a bit more correct than you are. And small details of style, and nuances of doctrine split us. What does Jesus make of these separations. We’re one holy catholic and apostolic Church
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins
We read the passage from Paul’s letter to Titus chapter 3 this morning which introduces the picture of washing by the Holy Spirit giving us rebirth, renewal.
One baptism. Whether you are baptised as an infant or a child or an adult. Whether the water is sprinkled on you, or you are dunked in a big swimming pool, or in a river. It’s all the same. It’s not magic water. The water is an outward and visible sign of the beginning of an inner change. A change only made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
And finally our Nicene Creed ends with a great encouragement. A promise that as Xtians we can expect after our physical death a resurrection and eternal life
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come
And weend the whole Creed with one big resounding ‘Yes’. That is of course we mean when we say Amen. Yes we are signed up – that is what we believe. And we say, AMEN. Amen indeed