From Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The rise and development of reformed orthodoxy; volume 4:
The triunity of God (371381). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
B. The Ad extra Sending and the Office of the Spirit
1. The sending of the Spirit. The ad intra procession of the Spirit is mirrored and followed by the ad extra procession or mission of the Spirit. Indeed, the ad intra procession, or, in Greek, ἑκπόρευσις, of the Spirit takes its name from the identification of the Spirit as sent or sent forth (John 15:26). The commentators often indicate, moreover, that the Johannine text can be subject to two interpretations.
What proceeding from the Father is here meant, is questioned among the divines: some understand it only of his coming out from the Father, and being poured out upon the disciples in the days of Pentecost: others understand it of the Holy Spirits eternal proceeding.
In any case, the term procession or sending is drawn from this text as descriptive both of the eternal, ad intra life and of the temporal, ad extra activity of the Spirit. Of course, whatever the interpretation of this particular text, the ad extra sending or procession of the Spirit was never in question: it is clearly taught in John 14:26, the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name; Joel 2:2829, as cited in Acts 2:1617, It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; Luke 24:49, behold I send the promise of my Father upon you (usually interpreted as referring to the Spirit at Pentecost, given Acts 1:4 and 2:33); and Galatians 4:6, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts.
This outward sending of the Spirit, moreover, observes the pattern described in general in the discussion of works of the Godhead ad extra: there is an undivided work of the Godhead in which the persons have appropriate tasks, manifesting not only the unity of Gods work but the distinction of persons and the exercise of their personal properties. In the case of the Spirit, as in the earthly work of Christ, these tasks can be distinguished into the ordinary and the extraordinary, namely, the work that the Spirit performs broadly and generally, according to the general biblical revelation of his proper work, and discrete works, particularly miracles, that are performed but once for a very specific purpose. In no case ought the Spirit to be regarded as a mere instrument of God, as an instrumental cause or a servant, but rather as one working together with the Father and the Son, without any inferiority of station.
In the controversies of the seventeenth century, argument over the sending of the Spirit proceeded in several directions. Among the Socinians, Biddle understood John 15:26 and related texts not only as an ad extra description of the divine mandate to the Spirit; he also argued that they disproved the omnipresence of the Spirit, given that sending refers to a movement from place to place. Nye, who held the more usual Socinian doctrine of the Spirit, focused his reading of the text on the Spirit as testifying or witnessing, and, as he had argued of John 16:13, where the Spirit of Truth is promised as the apostles guide into all truth, he claimed that John 15:26 identifies the Spirit not as a divine person but as the power or inspiration of God.
Against the more typical Socinian argument, the Reformed emphasize the sending of the Spirit: the language applies to a person, not to a power or an inspiration. As noted above of the person of the Spirit, in such biblical passages as Matthew 3:16, Luke 3:22, and John 1:32, the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove indicates his independent subsistence, as do the powers attributed to him: one who has subsistence, understanding, will, and power is not a mere power or inspiration, but a person. Against arguments like those of Biddle, Reformed orthodox writers insisted that care should be taken so as not to use the language of procession or sending ad extra in such a way as to imply either a local motion of the Spirit or a change in the Godhead. When the Spirit is identified as sent, this ought to be understood as Gods eternal will and decree to accomplish something by the
Holy Ghost, and of the execution and manifestation of his will through the working of the
Holy Ghost. Thus the sending of the Spirit on Pentecost does not indicate the absence of the omnipresent Spirit before Pentecost: the Spirit is understood as sent into the world, not because [he] began to exist where [he] did not exist before; but because [he] accomplished in the world what was the will of the Father, and showed [himself] present and efficacious according to the will of the Father.
2. The office of the Spirit. This sending of the Spirit points directly toward what can be called the officium oeconomicum, the office or work of the Spirit in the economy or administration of the world order and, especially, of salvation. As indicated previously in discussion the identification of the third person of the Trinity as Spirit, he is, as Spirit in the personal sense, the immediate agent of divine works, the person through whom the Father and Son immediately influence the hearts of the elect. The Spirit is both the emissarius Trinitatis and the advocatus Trinitatis in the fulfillment of the decree, the former in the work of creation, the latter in the work of salvation: for the Father delineates or designates the work; the Son, in his office, obtains or accomplishes the objective result; the Spirit completes or finishes the work.
The office or work of the Holy Spirit, then, follows from this definition of the Spirits relation to the Father and the Son and from the nature of the work performed through him: in creation, the Spirit is said to brood or hover over the waters (Gen. 1:2) in the same terms that a hen is said to gather and protect her chicks (Deut. 32:11)as, in the same sense, the Spirit is called the finger of God (Luke 11:20) and the power of God (Luke 1:35; Rom. 15:13) or the one who works miracles (Matt. 12:28), all of which identify him as the emissary of the Trinity, perfecting and completing the work that he shares with the Father and the Son.
The Spirit is also called the paracletemanifesting him as advocatus Trinitatis in the work of perfecting the salvation of human beings, again, completing what the Father designs and the Son accomplishes objectively. In the work of salvation,
the office of the Holy Ghost is to produce sanctification in the people of God. This he performs immediately from the Father and the Son. It is for this reason that he is called the Spirit of holiness. The office of the Holy Ghost may be said to embrace the following things: to instruct, to regenerate, to unite to Christ and God, to rule, to comfort and strengthen us.
To this definition, it may be objected that all of the works performed belong to the Father and the Son and, therefore, do not constitute a distinct office in any way specific to the Spirit. The office of the Spirit appears, however, in the distinction of the manner of workingfor in all of these activities, although they are included in the willing and effecting of the work or gift, the Father and the Son do not work immediately, but through the Spirit, while the Spirit works immediately in believers. Thus, there is a distinct office that belongs to the immediate agent of the work. In the words of Goodwin,
whereas both God and Christ, those other two persons, are also in Scripture said to be in us, and to dwell in us, yet this indwelling is more special, and immediationi suppositi, attributed to the Holy ghost; which, as it serves to give an honor peculiar to him, so when set in such a comparison, even with them, must be meant and understood of this person immediately, and not by his graces only. Yes, the other two persons are said to dwell in us, and the Godhead itself, because the Holy Ghost dwells in us, he being the person that makes entry, and takes possession first, in the name and for the use of the other two, and bringeth them in.
The Spirit specifically performs the work of God among human beings, leading them toward faith in Christ the Mediator, thereby confirming with sanctification what the Father decrees and the Son has accomplished. In this context, the Spirit is said to teach (John 14:26), to send forth the teachers of the church (Acts 13:2), to give them the requisite gifts (Acts 2:4), to inspire the authors of Scripture (2 Pet. 1:21), and in all this, to be the Spirit of truth (John 14:17)." Muller, R. A. (2003).
