Back to the basics: the holy spirit

“I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.”
~The Apostle’s Creed


The Third Person of the Trinity, perhaps the most nebulous of the three, may also be the most understated, maybe because it is difficult to pin down an image of this רוּח (ruach), the breath or wind of God. To quote Billy Graham—“I’ve never seen the wind. I see the effects of the wind, but I’ve never seen the wind.” There is something about us that needs to understand, to see the evidence for ourselves, like the Apostle Thomas, who said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). However, the very nature of the Spirit is that She is like the wind—unseen, uncontained, everywhere all at once. Even in Her shape as a bird or fire, She is the epitome of untamed freedom, and we struggle with things we cannot control. Even the Creed does not provide a satisfactory description of the Spirit as it does of the First and Second Persons of the Trinity, focusing more on the effects of the Spirit rather than Her identity. 

In The Large Chatechism, Martin Luther uses the term “Sanctifier” to describe the Holy Spirit as “the one who has made us holy and still makes us holy.” This Sanctifier has been present since the beginning, when She “swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 2), and is described in Proverbs as “daily [God’s] delight, playing before Him always, playing in His inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (Proverbs 8:30-31). This wild, mischievous, playful Spirit joyfully erupted into the world in a new way at Pentecost (which we will be celebrating this Sunday), the final step in the sanctification of Creation that began with the Incarnation.

But what is sanctification? Most importantly, sanctification is not justification. Where justification is the forgiveness of our sins and the source of our salvation, sanctification is the lifelong process of becoming holy through our gratitude for our justification and the relationship we have with God. In other words, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are the source of our justification that allows us to be free from the bondage of sin. The Holy Spirit’s descent upon the world inspires us to become more like Christ—putting others’ needs before our own and embodying the gifts of the spirit like patience and kindness. 

As members of Christ’s body, baptized with water and fire in the Holy Spirit, we are called to our own personal sanctification as well as the sanctification of all of Creation through the catholic* church’s reflection of God in the world. Like the sanctification of Creation, our own sanctification is impossible outside of community because it is this community of believers, at its healthiest, that helps “one another to see the truth about themselves;” and what is sanctification but the stripping away of all that is not authentically ourselves—our self-deceptions and brokenness—in order to come confidently, yet humbly, into an encounter with God?

This is the work of the Holy Spirit, to provide for us the holy, refining encounters of rubbing up against one another in a community of love, to sanctify and be sanctified. She is the breath of life breathed into Creation at the beginning (Genesis 2:7), and She continues to breathe life anew into us in each and every moment. She is what animates Creation and binds us all up together with one another and with God. She is wholly mysterious and yet ever near and ever present, coaxing us into a deeper relationship with God. 

*Catholic simply means “universal” in this context
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