2. As the water is the immediate efficient cause of the cleansing, in washing, so the Spirit is the immediate efficient cause of the grace wrought in the spiritual baptism. But to describe him as the executive Agent of that baptism, is the same error which should represent the water in that capacity, in ritual baptism.
3. Jesus was “in the Spirit,” that is under the pervasive influence and control of the Spirit, during his entire earthly life. But it was precisely herein that he filled the character of being God’s “righteous servant.”—Isa. liii, 11. It was characteristic of his humiliation, to be thus subordinate. But upon his exaltation, the order was reversed. It is no longer Christ in the Spirit, fulfilling the service and work appointed him. But it is the Spirit in Christ, subject to his control, speaking his words and doing according to the will of Jesus, the Lord. And Jesus does not baptize by the Holy Ghost doing it for Him, but “with the Holy Ghost,” as his Spirit and instrument; as he so clearly intimated, when he breathed upon his disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”
Section LXIII.—Note, on the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
In the year 325, the council of Nice condemned the heresies of Arius concerning the Son, and formulated the orthodox doctrine on the subject in what is known as the Nicene creed. In 381, the council of Constantinople, being assembled on account of the errors of Macedonius, concerning the Spirit, inserted into the Nicene creed a statement of doctrine concerning the Third Person, in which occurred the phrase, “which proceedeth from the Father.” About the year, 434, the council of Ephesus, being the third general council, as the before mentioned were the first and second, determined that no further addition should be made to this creed. Disregarding this decree, and without the sanction of any general council, the western or Latin church, about the end of the sixth century, silently interpolated the formula of Constantinople, so as to make it read,—“which proceedeth from the Father and the Son.” The resulting controversies became one cause of the division between the Latin and Greek churches. At the reformation, the Protestant churches generally, without discussion, accepted the Romish doctrine on the subject, and incorporated it into their doctrinal formularies.
In the foregoing discussion this theory is ignored, in favor of the primitive doctrine; for the following reasons:
1. The point in question is the essential and eternal procession of the Spirit. If there is one Scripture, referred to by any writer, or contained in the sacred volume, which even seems to describe such procession from the Son, it has not been my privilege to meet with it, in the course of a careful and long continued inquiry. The texts usually cited are, all of them, statements explicitly referring to the voluntary and temporal mission of the Spirit, coming into the world; and not to his essential procession, which is involuntary and eternal. They are John xv, 26; xvi, 7: Gal. iv, 6. “When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father.”—“If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Will any one pretend that these passages refer to the eternal procession?
2. The language in which Jesus speaks of this procession as being from the Father seems designed to be adequate and exhaustive. “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”—John xv, 26. That the Father, specifically, is the one essential and peculiar source of the Spirit, is here doubly asserted, by the phrase, “whom I will send unto you from the Father;” and by the further expository statement, “which proceedeth from the Father.” Should James and John unite in writing a book, any one who in speaking of James should say that he wrote it, would be justly chargeable with carelessness of statement. But if the book itself and its authorship and origin are the subject of discussion, it could not be said, with any regard to truth and accuracy that “This book was written by James.” And, if the subject of the book were the life of John, and the statement were made that “This book was written by James, and gives the story of John’s life,” the omission, which previously might perhaps be accounted an inadvertence, assumes a character of falsehood and deceit. This, it seems to me, is a just parallel to the case which is made by the insertion of the filioque clause, making the procession to be from the Father and the Son. In the place in question, Jesus is speaking expressly of the Spirit, whom he describes with reference to his qualification to be a witness, on behalf of the Son. Had the whole thought of the passage been concerning the Father, and in describing him Jesus had said, “From him proceedeth the Spirit,” the declaration would seem scarcely reconcilable with a coincident procession from the Son. But when the Spirit, himself, and his qualification to be a witness on behalf of the Son, is the distinct subject of discourse,—the statement that “He proceedeth from the Father, and will testify of me,” utterly excludes a like procession from the Son. This conclusion is strengthened by the remarkable language on the same subject, uttered by the Lord Jesus upon another occasion. “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.... The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.”—John v, 31-36. Peter declares that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good.”—Acts x, 38. Jesus here expressly certifies that the testimony thus by the Spirit given to his ministry was distinctively the Father’s testimony and not that of the Son,—a statement wholly irreconcilable with the supposition that the Spirit of witness who was the efficient author of those miracles proceeded alike from the Son and the Father.
3. The phrase,—“which proceedeth from the Father,”—is explanatory of the language immediately preceding. “When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father.” But why “from the Father,” since it is Christ that sends Him? Why not “from the Father and the Son?” Jesus gives the reason,—“Which proceedeth from the Father.” Either this indicates something peculiar and exclusive, or words are without meaning.
4. There is undoubtedly a voluntary and temporal bestowal of the Spirit by the Father upon the incarnate Son, a bestowal in virtue of which, he, as the Spirit of the Son, is by the Mediator breathed or shed upon his people. But if the doctrine in question is true, the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, sustains essentially and eternally the very same identical relation to each, and it would be just as impossible that he should be given by the Father to the Son, as on the contrary, by the Son to the Father. The fact that he is given to the Son shows conclusively that his relation to the Father is not only primary, but peculiar, a fact which is the express contradictory of the theory in question. In fact, by that theory the voluntary, temporal, and mediatorial mission of the Spirit, by the Son as incarnate, is necessarily and inextricably confounded with the eternal procession, which is essential and involuntary, the Scripture testimony on the subject is distorted and set at naught, and the whole subject involved in perplexity and confusion. These considerations, and especially the fact that there is not even a plausible pretense of Scriptural authority for the doctrine, lead me to its rejection.