III. What the Bible says of the Holy Ghost.
The third paragraph of this Creed is a summary of the teaching of the Bible concerning Him whom we often call the third Person of the Godhead—whom Jesus described as the Comforter (S. John xiv.-xvi.). He there promised to His disciples the presence with them of One, who should be closer to them than He had Himself been, xvi. 7: xiv. 16, 17: who should unite them more closely to Himself, xiv. 18, 23: who should teach them, and help them to remember His words, xiv. 26: who should testify of Him, xv. 26: and guide them into all truth, xvi. 13: when they should be accused and persecuted, the Holy Ghost would guide their speech, S. Matth. x. 19, 20: S. Mark xiii. 11: S. Luke xii. 11, 12: xxi. 14, 15.
Consistently with these promises we find all good impulses, thoughts, and actions, in man, ascribed to the Holy Ghost—Comfort, Acts ix. 31: Joy, Rom. xiv. 17: Baptism, S. Matth. iii. 11: 1 Cor. xii. 13: Fellowship, Phil. ii. 1: Power, Acts i. 8: Sanctification, Rom. xv. 16: Teaching, 1 Cor. ii. 13: xii. 3: Resolution, S. Luke iv. 1: Acts xv. 28: Vocation, xiii. 2, 4: xx. 28: He is ranked with the Father and the Son, S. Matth. xxviii. 19: Eph. iv. 4-6: 2 Cor. xiii. 14.
His Presence is imparted through the Laying on of Hands, Acts viii. 15, 17: xix. 6: ix. 17: and before it, x. 44, in the exceptional case of Cornelius. Thus, individually we are temples of the Holy Ghost, 1 Cor. vi. 19.
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But further, the Holy Ghost unites us in one Body—the Church, Eph. iv. 2-4: wherein the work of each is allotted by Him who in 1 Cor. xii. 28 is called God, and in vv. 4-11 is called the Spirit, and in v. 3, the Holy Ghost. By virtue of this, the Church is Holy, 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17, even though individual members are unworthy. And this Church was to be One for all the world, Acts i. 8, S. Matth. xxviii. 19, 20: 1 Cor. i. 2: Eph. i. 22, 23: iii. 9, 10: S. John xvii. 20, 21. Thus it is the Holy Catholick Church. Catholick=Universal, for-the-whole. Also the Holy Catholick Church is the Society of Saints, the Communion or Fellowship of Saints. S. Paul writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. i. 2) addresses them as the Church, called to be Saints, and (after referring to the distribution of various duties amongst the members by the Holy Spirit) he says (xii. 25-27) that there should be no schism in the body, but all the members should care for one another, suffer with one another, and rejoice with one another: indeed his argument is that the Church is a body, and that this sharing of joy and sorrow is an existing fact. So in 2 Cor. i. his whole argument turns upon this thought of a society, wherein the comfort of one is the comforting of the rest, and the prayers of the rest a help to the one, the gift bestowed upon one, a cause of the others' thankfulness; and all stablished together by God. In Heb. xii. 22 mount Zion is taken as the symbol of Christ's Church; and the readers are addressed as members thereof, together with the spirits of just men made perfect, who are enrolled in heaven as the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Thus the {113} Church, or Society of Saints includes the imperfect, and those who are made perfect; those who are alive there, and those who are alive here. The condition of membership is briefly described in Acts ii. 38, 42 Repentant, Baptized, having the Gift of the Holy Ghost, Apostolic Doctrine and Fellowship, Communicant, Stedfast in Prayers.
Since then, Repentance and Baptism, Acts ii. 38: iii. 19 "for the Remission of sins," "that our sins may be blotted out," are thus associated with the gift of the Holy Ghost—see also S. John xx. 22, 23—this second great privilege of Christians is stated in the Creed; we believe in the Forgiveness of Sins. It is preached unto us through Christ, Acts xiii. 38: it is granted to us for His Name's sake, 1 S. John ii. 12: the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, S. Mark ii. 10: it is especially associated with the Presence of Christ in the assembly of the Church, S. Matth. xviii. 17-20: 1 Cor. v. 4: S. John xx. 22, 23. The union of the Faithful with Him in whom they have Faith brings, through Jesus, Rom. iii. 25, remission of their sins, through the forbearance of God.
The third great privilege, which comes to members of Christ through the Holy Ghost, is the Resurrection of the Body, a most prominent doctrine of the Gospel: as in the case of other articles of the Creeds, so here, we only give representative verses. Acts xvii. 18 S. Paul is stated to have been misunderstood, because he preached at Athens Jesus and the Resurrection, and in vv. 31, 32 it is shown that he preached the Resurrection of men to be judged. So those who {114} knew Jesus best (S. John xi. 1-3) believed, as of course, in the Resurrection of all men vv. 23, 24: in S. John v. 25-29 the Lord states the doctrine: 1 Cor. xv. shows how S. Paul taught it, and, vv. 37, 38, declares that the body of the Resurrection will be a nobler and higher body, as the plant is nobler and higher than the seed—see Phil. iii. 21: 1 Cor. xv. 43, 48, 49. Further, it is likened to the gift of Life in Baptism, Rom. vi. 3-5, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, 1 Cor. xii. 13: hence it is expressly stated to be His work, Rom. viii. 10, 11. The fourth great privilege is Life everlasting. S. John i. 12 to those who received Jesus, He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name: S. John xvii. 2, 3 and this is life eternal: S. John v. 24 which begins here on earth: but, S. Mark x. 30, is, in a higher sense, the promise of the world to come, where, Rev. xxi. 4, 1 Cor. xv. 26, 54, there shall be no more death.
In connection with this Creed we should read the Nicene Creed, the first Four Commandments, Articles I. to V., XI. and XV., Gloria in excelsis in the Communion Service, and the Proper Prefaces in the Holy Communion for Christmas, Easter, Ascensiontide and Whitsuntide. Also, note that Gloria Patri, and The grace of our Lord, are founded upon the Faith which is expressed in the Creed: and that the Collects not unfrequently have endings similarly founded.
[1] Annals xv. 44.