ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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He's God, so of course He was in the OT. The first mention of the Holy Spirit is in the opening verses of Genesis chapter 1, when God created the heavens and the earth, when the earth was a formless waste, the Holy Spirit is right there hovering over the primordial waters.
The sending/giving of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is definitely a special and unique thing, and so the indwelling of the Spirit in the life of the believer is special compared to the former way of things.
But He's still the same Person He always has been. The Holy Spirit is Eternal and Almighty God, He always has been, always is, and always will be. And He resides with us and in us by the grace of God, as our Paraclete, our Comforter, who keeps us in faith.
Seeing as I am a Lutheran, I am partial to how Dr. Luther explains the Third Article of the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in the Holy Spirit", in this way:
"For neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ, or believe on Him, and obtain Him for our Lord, unless it were offered to us and granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Gospel. The work is done and accomplished; for Christ has acquired and gained the treasure for us by His suffering, death, resurrection, etc. But if the work remained concealed so that no one knew of it, then it would be in vain and lost. That this treasure, therefore, might not lie buried, but be appropriated and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed, in which He gives the Holy Ghost to bring this treasure home and appropriate it to us. Therefore sanctifying is nothing else than bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves.
Learn, then, to understand this article most clearly. If you are asked: What do you mean by the words: I believe in the Holy Ghost? you can answer: I believe that the Holy Ghost makes me holy, as His name implies. But whereby does He accomplish this, or what are His method and means to this end? Answer: By the Christian Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. For, in the first place, He has a peculiar congregation in the world, which is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God, which He reveals and preaches, [and through which] He illumines and enkindles hearts, that they understand, accept it, cling to it, and persevere in it.
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This, now, is the article which must ever be and remain in operation. For creation we have received; redemption, too, is finished But the Holy Ghost carries on His work without ceasing to the last day. And for that purpose He has appointed a congregation upon earth by which He speaks and does everything. For He has not yet brought together all His Christian Church nor dispensed forgiveness. Therefore we believe in Him who through the Word daily brings us into the fellowship of this Christian Church, and through the same Word and the forgiveness of sins bestows, increases, and strengthens faith, in order that when He has accomplished it all, and we abide therein, and die to the world and to all evil, He may finally make us perfectly and forever holy [in the future resurrection of the body and the life everlasting]; which now we expect in faith through the Word." - The Large Catechism, Secion II, Article III
-CryptoLutheran
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