Athanasius on the Holy Spirit (Part II)
“Who is the Holy Spirit, and what is He like?” These are the questions toward which we directed our attention in Part I. In this article, we ask a different question: “What does He do?” In other words, we move from discussing the Spirit’s person to considering His work. In particular, we’ll examine His activity regarding believers and the church.
As we think toward these topics, we must first remember that the Spirit is the third member of the triune Godhead. This means that He works in the context of Trinity. As Athanasius puts it, “[T]he activity of the Trinity is one. For the apostle [Paul] does not mean that what is given by each [member of the Trinity] is different and separate but rather that what is given is given in the Trinity, and it is all from the one God.”[1] Thus as we consider the Spirit’s work in these areas, we should analyze it through a Trinitarian framework.
The Holy Spirit in Salvation
a. In Christ
The Spirit’s work in salvation begins far before many of us might imagine. In fact, according to Athanasius, it begins in the life of Christ at the Jordan where God anoints Jesus with the Holy Spirit. Though he frequently highlights the Trinity’s perfect unity, Athanasius illustrates His perfect distinction here. But to what purpose was Jesus anointed, if He was without sin? (2 Cor. 5:21) Athanasius explains: “[I]t happened not for the Word’s improvement but for our sanctification, in order that we may share his anointing.”[2]
In other words, God anointed Jesus with the Spirit so that the Spirit might anoint believers with salvation (e.g., Jn. 16:7, 14; 17:17; 1 Jn. 2:20; 3:24; cf. Joel 2:28).[3] This is part of the reason why the Father and the Son will later send forth the Spirit—to apply salvation’s benefits, secured in Christ, to believers.[4] As Athanasius puts it, this “is on account of us and on our behalf.”[5] Jesus’ baptism then isn’t simply important for God’s affirmation of Jesus, but also for our understanding of our salvation. With this foundation in place, Athanasius turns then to the believer.
b. In Redemption
When do believers receive their redemption? Many of us might say that we receive it when we accept Christ in faith. However, Athanasius would challenge this. Although redemption may be applied when we accept Christ in faith, Athanasius would argue that it was secured and received long ago in Christ. Though seemingly small, this distinction is significant.
Specifically, Athanasius holds that all of God’s children received their redemption, as well as their anointing in the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism. “When the Lord, as a man, was washed in the Jordan,” Athanasius explains, “we were the ones washed in him and by him. And when he received the Spirit, we were the ones who became recipients of the Spirit through him” (cf. Mt. 3:16; Acts 10:38).[6]
As twenty-first century Protestants, we may find this peculiar. But by locating these events at Jesus’ baptism, Athanasius does not thereby intend to deemphasize Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Instead he sees them all as part of the same work in Christ. Whereas Christ’s incarnation identified Him with mankind, Christ’s baptism identified Him with sinful mankind, an identification He would take with Him to His crucifixion and resurrection. In addition, we must remember that Athanasius was combating the heresy of adoptionism in his day. As a result, leaders like him worked to flesh out the theological implications of Jesus’ baptism.
By placing the beginning of the work of redemption at Jesus’ baptism, Athanasius “transfers” or “relocates” the believer from his first origin to his new origin. This transfer is important because believers, in their first origin, are born from the earth and doomed to die in Adam. However, in their new origin, they are born from above and bound to eternal life in Jesus Christ the Logos. As Athanasius puts it, believers have been “logified.”[7]
This great transfer also makes vital Jesus’ instruction to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit in Matthew 28:19. In fact, Athanasius refers to this Trinitarian formula as the “foundation of the Church’s faith.”[8] When we are baptized then, we must be baptized in the Trinity: the Father gives, the Son secures, and the Spirit applies. “This,” Athanasius writes, “is the indivisible unity of the Trinity and faith in this Trinity is one.”[9] Thus we see that Athanasius brings his discussion back to the perfect unity of the Trinity.
c. In Sanctification
However, the Spirit isn’t simply at work in believers’ redemption, but in their sanctification too. And just as redemption is for our benefit, so is sanctification. Without the Spirit’s application of salvation, we would be hopelessly lost. “[W]e are the ones needing the grace of the Spirit in sanctification,” Athanasius writes.[10] Athanasius points to 1 Corinthians 6:11, Romans 1:4, Titus 3:4-7, and Psalm 104:30 to highlight this point.
As evidence of our sanctification, the Spirit gives us spiritual gifts,[11] and He gives us security in our salvation by sealing it.[12] In fact, the Spirit is Himself the “seal” (e.g., Eph. 1:13).[13] And in sealing our sanctification, the Holy Spirit will also perfect it. But again, this isn’t simply an act of the Spirit. As with redemption, sanctification and our perfection in it is the Trinity’s work: “[T]here is one sanctification which is from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.”[14] Athanasius then links our future perfection to our baptism according to the Trinitarian formula: “[T]he one whom the Father baptizes the Son also baptizes, and the one whom the Son baptizes is perfected in the Holy Spirit.”[15]
The Holy Spirit in the Church
Having discussed the Holy Spirit’s role in the life of Jesus Christ and in the salvation of believers, Athanasius also considers His role in the context of the Church’s worship.[16] He presents several components to this work, and what we find may be surprising to some.
a. Harmonization with Christ
The first component of corporate worship actually begins before the corporate gathering. This simplicity may surprise some. The first component of our corporate worship is simply the evidence of sanctification. Believers should “harmonize,” or align their tongues and their minds with those of Christ. He points specifically to the tongue and the mind because they will play such a vital role in the gathering itself. Athanasius writes, “[T]he soul that possesses the mind of Christ” must also possess the mind of believers (e.g., 1 Cor. 2:16).[17] As this harmonization is the work of the Spirit, it is also the work of the Trinity.
b. The Corporate Gathering and the Harmonization of Believers
As the Spirit harmonizes the minds and tongues of believers with Christ’s, the corporate gathering may properly commence. Athanasius explains worship in this way: “[Believers] sing with the tongue, but singing also with the mind they greatly benefit not only themselves but even those willing to hear them.”[18] This means that the songs themselves should engage believers’ minds, and by implication those that don’t aren’t aiding the church to worship as it should.
Athanasius’ theology of song echoes the apostle Paul’s, who says, “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father” (Eph. 5:18b-20; cf. Col. 3:16).[19] Here again we see Trinitarian language.
Finally, through this mutual exhortation of one another, the Spirit harmonizes individual believers to one another. To illustrate, Athanasius beautifully likens the harmony that believers should experience with one another in a corporate setting to the harmony of the various instruments in song: “Moreover, the praising of God in well-tuned cymbals and harp and ten-stringed instrument was again a figure and sign of the parts of the body . . . and then all of these being moved and living through the command of the Spirit.”[20] Indeed, the Spirit’s work of sanctification within believers individually and among them corporately is as a great song, literally and figuratively to the great God of heaven.
Conclusion
I began this two-part article by considering the person of the Holy Spirit. Though He may be the most neglected member of the Godhead, He is still God and thus deserving of our attention. Because Scripture attests to these truths, Athanasius reminds us that we should accept them in faith.
As we’ve considered in Part II, the Spirit does the work of God as well. He creates, anoints, and redeems. Athanasius teaches that Jesus’ baptism, alongside His crucifixion and resurrection, has great implication for our salvation. We see this first in redemption, then in sanctification, and one day we’ll see it in the perfection of our sanctification. As the Spirit redeems believers in Christ, He renews them in community as well. Finally, He harmonizes their lives with Christ’s, so that they may in turn encourage one another unto greater obedience and indeed greater faithfulness.
____________________
[1] Athanasius, Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit (1:15-33), in Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Early Church Fathers (New York: Routledge, 2004), 230 (hereafter referred to as Letters).
[2] Athanasius, Athanasius’ Orations against the Arians, Book 1, in William G. Rusch (trans., ed.), The Trinitarian Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 110 (hereafter referred to as Orations in Rusch). In another place, he writes, But the Savior . . . being God and always ruling the kingdom of the Father, himself the supplier of the Holy Spirit, nevertheless is now said to be ‘anointed,’ that again, being said as a man anointed by the Spirit, he might supply us men with the indwelling and intimacy of the Spirit, just as with the exaltation and resurrection” (Rusch, 110).
[3] Athanasius, Orations in Rusch, 110, 111; cf. Athanasius, Orations against the Arians, in Richard A. Norris, Jr. (trans., ed.), The Christological Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 89 (hereafter referred to as Orations in Norris).
[4] Athanasius affirms his commitment to the filioque, which is a doctrine that holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, when he says, “It is said to proceed from the Father (Jn. 15:26), since it shines forth and is sent and given by the Word who is confessed to be from the Father” (Letters, 220). This question was central to the Great Schism of 1054.
[5] Orations in Rusch, 111.
[6] Ibid., 110.
[7] Orations in Norris, 92.
[8] Letters, 228.
[9] Ibid., 229.
[10] Orations Rusch, 114; see also 109, 115; and Letters, 220.
[11] Athanasius, A Letter of Athanasius, Our Holy Father, Archbishop of Alexandria, to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms, in Robert C. Gregg (trans.), Athanasius: The Life of Antony and The Letter to Marcellinus (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1980), 48 (hereafter referred to as Marcellinus).
[12] Orations in Rusch, 125.
[13] Letters, 222.
[14] Ibid., 220.
[15] Ibid., 229
[16] Athanasius outlines these principles from a study of the Psalms.
[17] Marcellinus, 124.
[18] Ibid., 125.
[19] See our article, “Christian Worship: ‘Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs,’” for further exploration into this topic.
[20] Marcellinus, 125-26.
Recent Comments