The Holy Spirit E-Book

Fred Sanders

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Short Studies in Systematic Theology
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A Compelling Introduction to the Work and Person of the Holy Spirit The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is equal to the Father and the Son, yet he is often overlooked and misunderstood. In this helpful introduction, theologian Fred Sanders clears the confusion by highlighting the Holy Spirit's place in the Trinity. He focuses on the Spirit's relation to the Father and the Son, and then on his work in the lives of believers. Written for pastors, students, and laypeople, this addition to the Short Studies in Systematic Theology series underscores the essential role the Holy Spirit plays in salvation history.

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“How do we think about someone who is not merely ‘out there’ but also in, with, and through us? Fred Sanders has set out to do just such thinking. The result is a study on the Holy Spirit that comes like a breath of fresh air where familiar terms and images take on new and unexpected significances.”

Simon Chan, Former Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Theological College, Singapore; Editor, Asia Journal of Theology

“The Holy Spirit: An Introduction comes with all the hallmarks we anticipate enjoying in a book by Fred Sanders: Trinitarian foundations without obfuscation; appreciation of rigorous theology without ignoring biblically informed experience; reading from the ancient fathers that does not bypass more recent Americans, Dutch, French—and even Scottish—authors; a willingness to correct error without developing a harsh spirit; a desire to seek rapprochement where possible without compromising important convictions; and reverence for great theologians without losing an engaging playfulness. This is an introduction in the root sense of the word. Here we are led into the living reality of the ‘three person’d God’ who makes himself known through the Holy Spirit. There is theological treasure here, beautifully coupled with theological pleasure! What could be better?”

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary; Teaching Fellow, Ligonier Ministries

“There are many good books on the Holy Spirit, but Fred Sanders has made a most welcome addition to the literature with an approach that is both fresh and faithful. Introducing the theology of the Holy Spirit as part of Trinitarian theology, he shows how the doctrine of the Trinity shapes and informs our understanding of the Holy Spirit. The result is superbly rich, precise, and wonder-inducing, yet at the same time eminently clear and accessible.”

Michael Reeves, President and Professor of Theology, Union School of Theology

“Fred Sanders’s little treasure on the Holy Spirit is both theologically rich and spiritually bracing in short compass. You will find yourself invoking, praising, and knowing the blessed Holy Spirit better to your soul’s benefit.”

Liam Goligher, Senior Minister, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“In his customarily clear, creative, and compelling way, Fred Sanders invites us to consider the Holy Spirit, first, as the divine Trinitarian person whom we already know, and, second, as the subject of theological study. This book covers all its essential aspects, with several unique emphases: an appeal to pneumatology as the doctrine that connects all other doctrines; the proposal that we encounter the Spirit as ‘the Holy Presupposition’ and appropriate him as the consummating person; the question of what alternatives we have created as substitutes for the Spirit; and twenty-seven ‘rules for thinking well about the Holy Spirit.’ Vintage Sanders and, thus, a must-read!”

Gregg R. Allison, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Secretary, Evangelical Theological Society; author, God, Gift, and Guide: Knowing the Holy Spirit

“Fred Sanders is a world-class theologian of the Trinity. In this book, he introduces us to the Holy Spirit—the member of the Godhead whom Christians already know yet often neglect or misunderstand. Accessibly written, rich in historical and theological insight, and unwaveringly faithful to Scripture and orthodoxy, The Holy Spirit: An Introduction is the best book of its kind. It distills a great depth of learning into a clear, friendly, pastoral text. The twenty-seven rules of the appendix alone would make a wonderful primer for every Christian.”

Gavin Ortlund, author, Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals

The Holy Spirit

Short Studies in Systematic Theology

Edited by Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin

The Atonement: An Introduction, Jeremy Treat (2023)

The Attributes of God: An Introduction, Gerald Bray (2021)

The Church: An Introduction, Gregg R. Allison (2021)

The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction, Mark D. Thompson (2022)

Faithful Theology: An Introduction, Graham A. Cole (2020)

Glorification: An Introduction, Graham A. Cole (2022)

The Holy Spirit: An Introduction, Fred Sanders (2023)

Justification: An Introduction, Thomas R. Schreiner (2023)

The Person of Christ: An Introduction, Stephen J. Wellum (2021)

The Trinity: An Introduction, Scott R. Swain (2020)

The Holy Spirit

An Introduction

Fred Sanders

The Holy Spirit: An Introduction

Copyright © 2023 by Fred Sanders

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-6143-6 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-6146-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-6144-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sanders, Fred (Fred R.), author.

Title: The Holy Spirit : an introduction / Fred Sanders.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2023. | Series: Short studies in systematic theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022058979 (print) | LCCN 2022058980 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433561436 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433561437 (epub) | ISBN 9781433561443 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Holy Spirit—Biblical teaching.

Classification: LCC BT121.3 .S37 2023 (print) | LCC BT121.3 (ebook) | DDC 231/.3—dc23/eng/20230503

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058979

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058980

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To Biola University, with gratitude for a place to teach and learn

And Torrey Honors College, for a place to talk and read

And Grace Evangelical Free Church, for a place to pray and serve

Contents

Series Preface

Introduction: Haunted by the Holy Ghost

1  Meeting the Holy Spirit

2  The Holy Spirit in the Trinity

3  The Holy Spirit and the Father

4  The Holy Spirit and the Son

5  The Holy Spirit Himself

Appendix: Rules for Thinking Well about the Holy Spirit

Further Reading

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

The ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus reputedly said that the thinker has to listen to the essence of things. A series of theological studies dealing with the traditional topics that make up systematic theology needs to do just that. Accordingly, in each of these studies, a theologian addresses the essence of a doctrine. This series thus aims to present short studies in theology that are attuned to both the Christian tradition and contemporary theology in order to equip the church to faithfully understand, love, teach, and apply what God has revealed in Scripture about a variety of topics. What may be lost in comprehensiveness can be gained through what John Calvin, in the dedicatory epistle of his commentary on Romans, called “lucid brevity.”

Of course, a thorough study of any doctrine will be longer rather than shorter, as there are two millennia of confession, discussion, and debate with which to interact. As a result, a short study needs to be more selective but deftly so. Thankfully, the contributors to this series have the ability to be brief yet accurate. The key aim is that the simpler is not to morph into the simplistic. The test is whether the topic of a short study, when further studied in depth, requires some unlearning to take place. The simple can be amplified. The simplistic needs to be corrected. As editors, we believe that the volumes in this series pass that test.

While the specific focus varies, each volume (1) introduces the doctrine, (2) sets it in context, (3) develops it from Scripture, (4) draws the various threads together, and (5) brings it to bear on the Christian life. It is our prayer, then, that this series will assist the church to delight in her triune God by thinking his thoughts—which he has graciously revealed in his written word, which testifies to his living Word, Jesus Christ—after him in the powerful working of his Spirit.

Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin

Introduction

Haunted by the Holy Ghost

This book introduces Christians to the Holy Spirit, which is a cheeky thing to do.

By definition, every Christian must already know the Holy Spirit in the most important way, since “anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9). So to publish a book for Christian readers under the title The Holy Spirit: An Introduction is to take on a peculiar project: introducing readers to somebody they already know. That is exactly what this book does. It presupposes that its readers are already engaged with the reality of the Holy Spirit and invites them to a theological encounter with that person.

The Holy Spirit in Three Points

Normally when we grow in our knowledge of people, we say that while we knew them already, now we know them better. But in the case of the Holy Spirit, something more subtle and paradoxical takes place. The Holy Spirit is more than just the next person to know. To encounter him is to be caught up into an act of knowing that claims us altogether and sets us free, that expands our theological horizons while regathering our mental powers, that suspends us in his power and grounds us in his truth. You can’t just walk up to him and say hi. Meeting the Holy Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being, requires a special approach because knowledge of the Spirit is a special kind of knowledge.

We will approach the doctrine of the Holy Spirit obliquely because of who he is and how he acts. The Holy Spirit points in three different directions: he points to the Son, he points back to us, and he points to all truth.

1. The Holy Spirit points to the Son. He is deflective, turning our gaze away. There is something slippery about this, because even when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see and understand his work, what he primarily directs our attention to is not himself but Jesus Christ. Think of the steps by which our knowledge of the Spirit advances. We start with Jesus. As we understand Jesus Christ more fully, we recognize him not in an isolated way but as the one sent by God the Father. You cannot know one without the other. When Jesus is in the foreground, God the Father is, so to speak, in the background as the one who so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son. And then, finally, as we become more aware of this Father-Son relation, we become aware that our awareness of it is being brought about by the Holy Spirit. So when the Holy Spirit, the life-giving Lord of all, effectively accomplishes his work on our hearts and in our minds, he unveils the fact that he has already been at work in us as he has been successfully directing our attention to Jesus.

The Spirit is expert at deflecting attention away from himself and toward the Son. He tends to deflect attention best at exactly the moment when he is most powerfully present in us! As Pentecostal and charismatic Christians have often pointed out, the people who talk the most about the Holy Spirit are not necessarily the people most influenced by the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, the people most influenced by the Holy Spirit are usually the ones with the most to say about Jesus Christ. This is because the Spirit is powerful and effective at deflecting our attention to the Son rather than drawing it to himself.

2. The Holy Spirit points to our own spiritual knowledge. He is reflexive, turning our gaze back to itself. While the Holy Spirit is always at work everywhere, his special ministry involves opening our spiritual eyes to the fact that he is already at work everywhere. God gives us the gift of salvation, which includes the Holy Spirit. But he also gives us that same Holy Spirit precisely to open our eyes to the gift itself: “We have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12). That is, the Spirit within us is a kind of God-given power of reception by which we understand what God has already given. This work of the Spirit is reflexive, because thinking about the Spirit turns our eyes back upon their own act of seeing, so to speak.

There is something inherently eye opening in all the work of the Holy Spirit. Think of the Trinity’s revelation. If the Father is the speaker and the Son is his Word, the Spirit is the one who personally causes our understanding of that Word. So to begin thinking about the Spirit is to begin thinking about thinking, or about the one in whom you’ve already been doing your thinking, meeting somebody you already know. As Hermann Witsius (1636–1708) said of the Spirit, “He cannot be seen, but in his own light; he cannot be known or acknowledged, but by his own kind and gracious agency.”1 Knowledge of the Spirit is spiritual, and the only way into it is by the Spirit.

Of course there’s more to the Holy Spirit’s work than just enlightening our minds; he produces life and imparts power, and (as we will see in chapter 5), does a whole list of other things that are not merely cognitive or mental. The Holy Spirit is not just in your mind! He brings with him a reality that is more than thoughts and ideas. But his great illuminating work on the Christian mind is what gives the study of the Holy Spirit its paradoxical character. Thinking about the Holy Spirit is like faith looking at its own eyeballs. Talking about the Holy Spirit is like faith saying why it’s saying what it’s saying while it’s still saying it. When you try to focus on pneumatology, you realize that there are at least two meanings to the word vision in the ancient Irish hymn “Be Thou My Vision.” When you sing it, you are asking, with the saints of all the ages, for God to be the object on which your mental eye focuses (what you see; the vision before you), and also to be the power by which the mental eye can focus on such an object (how you see it; your vision). You are asking God to be simultaneously the vision you see and the vision by which you see. “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light” (Ps. 36:9).

3. The Holy Spirit points to all truth. He is connective. These first two reasons why it is paradoxically powerful to give sustained attention to the Holy Spirit already suggest the third reason: the Spirit uniquely connects all truths to each other. When the Holy Spirit illumines a mind, his work is not so much to bring in a few new ideas (though he can and does do this), but to connect all true ideas about God and salvation in a meaningful way. The Spirit uniquely binds every Christian doctrine to every other Christian doctrine, weaving together the spiritual truth of our faith in an integral way. To think specifically about the Holy Spirit, you have to reach into the very heart of Christian life and doctrine and pull out something that is linked to everything else, something that is always theologically functioning whenever anything at all is theologically functional. And as you drag it out into the light and begin to analyze it by itself, it starts to look strangely isolated and disconnected. That’s because in the very act of dragging it out and analyzing it, you have in fact isolated it and disconnected the most connected thing. If we call this third reason the connective aspect of the Spirit’s work, it is because of how enmeshed Spirit-knowledge is in all theological knowledge. It is paradoxical to focus our attention on the work of the Spirit in particular, and in isolation, because the work of the Spirit is characteristically connective, consummating, holistic, and synthetic.

Even when we focus directly on the Holy Spirit as the object or content of our study, he is always more. He is its motivating force, its context, its presupposition, its condition, its meaningful form, its inner power, its atmosphere, its element, its idiom, its orientation, its governor, its medium, its carrier. He is all this for any doctrine we study: divine attributes, creation, providence, salvation, church, and the rest. In studying any of these, as we focus our attention on a specific theological topic, it is only in and with and by the Holy Spirit that we reach true understanding of each spiritual topic. And then when the time comes to study the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we are at work on something special, because in this doctrine, someone special is uniquely at work within us for knowledge of himself. That someone is at work within us as we think and write and read about him. He is the teacher of the lesson that is himself.

Think of it this way. A pulmonologist, in writing about the functioning of the respiratory tract, obviously doesn’t need to disconnect and dissect actual lungs. There is no need to tear them out of the chest! But pulmonology is an extremely apt analogy for pneumatology; to think accurately and meaningfully about the lungs as functioning organs in your chest requires thinking about the entire respiratory system. The subspecialties of pulmonology work their way out from the lungs to consider the circulatory system so that the quality of the blood and its movement from the heart are directly implicated. Not only are the body’s other systems and behaviors drawn into the relevant analysis but so is the quality of the environment around the body, most notably the ambient air as it makes its way into the breather. This is the kind of doctrine pneumatology is; it involves the lungs of theology and therefore also the heart and blood and breath of theology. It is here in this doctrine that we ought to recognize the divine environment in which all true theology takes place.

It is tempting to say that this connective aspect of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit makes it an especially difficult area of theology. Perhaps it does. But it is also true that pneumatology is the doctrinal location where we are invited to recognize the spiritual character of all doctrines, of theology itself. It is especially here that we are summoned to see that studying theology is a holy task. The great Methodist theologian William Burt Pope (1822–1903) declared of theology that “every branch of this science is sacred. It is a temple which is filled with the presence of God. From its hidden sanctuary, into which no high priest taken from among men can enter, issues a light which leaves no part dark save where it is dark with excess of glory. Therefore all fit students are worshippers as well as students.”2 All theology should be done in the Spirit; what wakes us up to this is the recognition that the theology of the Holy Spirit should be done in the Spirit.3 Theology itself is, as it were, haunted by the Holy Ghost.

How to Meet the Holy Spirit

This book is an introduction to the Holy Spirit for people who already know the Holy Spirit. Our goal is to make the doctrine about the Holy Spirit clearer, but one way this book will do that is by showing readers just how much they already know about the Holy Spirit. The goal, educationally, is not to write the doctrine of the Spirit on the blank slate of faithless minds but to evoke and draw forth the truth of the Spirit from believers. In order to accomplish this, the book takes an indirect route: it situates the doctrine of the Spirit within the doctrine of the Trinity.

Other books on the Holy Spirit take a more direct approach, and I heartily recommend those books as well (see the Further Reading section). I especially recommend two classic approaches to pneumatology that organize the material in different ways, one according to biblical theology and one according to Christian experience. For the biblical theology approach, Sinclair Ferguson’s The Holy Spirit is exemplary.4 Beginning with “the Holy Spirit and His Story,” it moves through creation, the incarnation, and Pentecost to the Spirit’s work in salvation, church, and eschatology. The alternative approach, starting from Christian experience, is James Buchanan’s (1804–1870) book The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit,5 which considers the work of the Spirit “in the conversion of sinners” and then traces “the Spirit’s work in the edification of his people after their conversion.” Both of these approaches are widespread in the literature of pneumatology because both are excellent methods of arranging the subject. Both are classic in their own ways.

But my approach in this book is, as I said above, indirect, which is why I began by highlighting the paradoxical character of studying the Holy Spirit. I hope to treat the paradoxical character of pneumatology not as a hindrance to be lamented but as a help to be cherished. If knowledge of the Holy Spirit is, in the ways described above, deflective, reflexive, and connective, then an introduction to the Holy Spirit might deliver a great deal of insight by arranging itself in a corresponding way. Think of the implications that follow from the work of the Spirit being deflective, reflexive, and connective. Deflective means that when you try to think about the Spirit, you find the Spirit himself changing the subject to the Father and the Son. Reflexive means that when you try to think about the Spirit, you find the Spirit himself requiring you to think about yourself and about thinking. Connective means that when you try to think about the Spirit, the Spirit himself draws you out into the full scope of all theology. But these things are all beneficial! To study the Holy Spirit according to his own characteristic way of working means to be personally engaged in a total Trinitarian encounter with the truth of God.

We will engage the deflective character of pneumatology not by resisting the Spirit’s deflective force but by obeying it and focusing our attention on Jesus Christ and God the Father, as the Spirit himself directs us to. We will engage the reflexive character of pneumatology by considering carefully how the Spirit made himself known to us in the history of revelation and how he is manifest now. And we will make the most of the connective aspect of pneumatology by setting pneumatology deliberately in the context of the most comprehensive and all-encompassing of Christian doctrines, the doctrine of the Trinity.

The plan of approach followed in this book may strike some readers as backward. Instead of building up pneumatology piece by piece, precept on precept, it begins with the big picture and only then moves back to show where some of the parts fit. That apparent backwardness, which is actually thinking from the whole to the parts, is the consequence of this book being a short study in systematic theology rather than in biblical theology. The special contribution of systematic theology to the Christian mind is precisely the ability to handle the large, integrating doctrines of the faith in this way. But even among the many possibilities within systematic theology, one could follow a more inductive approach, rehearsing the basic data and then assembling it into the larger structures. What I want to say is that such books exist, and I encourage you to read them. But it seems to me that a lot of Christians have already heard the doctrine of the Spirit put together in that way. Our goal here is not to overwrite that previous teaching (half-remembered though it may be) or to start over from scratch, but to set in place the comprehensive structures of truth within which you can organize all the Spirit information you probably already have in your mind.

That is the strategy by which this book introduces the Holy Spirit to readers who have already met the Spirit. The goal is to enable us to learn pneumatology by leveraging what we already know about God and the Christian life and becoming alert to the Spirit’s presence and power in all of it. The book’s outline follows directly from the strategy. After a chapter alerting us to the presence of the Spirit (chapter 1) comes a chapter on the Holy Spirit within the Trinity (chapter 2), followed by one chapter each on the three persons: the Spirit and the Father (chapter 3), the Spirit and the Son (chapter 4), and the Spirit himself (chapter 5).

1. Hermann Witsius, Sacred Dissertations on the Apostles’ Creed (1823; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2010), 2:303.

2. William Burt Pope, A Compendium of Christian Theology (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1879), 1:5.

3. Andrew Murray remarked, at the beginning of a book on the Spirit, that a real understanding of the Spirit’s indwelling presence “would transform all our theology into that knowledge of God which is eternal life.” See his Spirit of Christ: Thoughts on the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Believer and the Church (London: James Nisbet, 1888), 10.

4. Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996).

5. James Buchanan, The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit (Edinburgh: John Johnstone, 1842).

1

Meeting the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is always already. When you become aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit, you become aware that he was present before you became aware. More than that, the spiritual awareness into which you wake up is itself, you come to learn, wrought by the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit always goes before you and prepares you to meet him when you arrive where he is. He is, to use a theological term, the prevenient person in our experience of the Trinity—he goes before. We are always playing catch-up. This is the kind of theological truth that takes time to receive. So let us begin (though the Spirit has already begun!) with a brief meditation on the Holy Spirit’s prevenience by way of reflecting on our experience of breath.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

You are borrowing the materials of your own life from the environment in which you exist. The ambient air that rushes into your lungs through your nose and mouth is absolutely necessary to sustain you. A human is a breathing thing. In fact, a complete account of who and what you are would have to acknowledge the air in your environment as a necessary part of what it takes for you to keep being you. It’s even tempting to think of the whole system of air around you as part of you. Certainly the air inside your lungs, and the oxygen in your blood, seems to be part of you; there’s always some air in you, even though it’s constantly being exchanged for new air. From another point of view, though, the airy environment surrounding you is not so much a part of you as you are part of it. Systemically speaking, you are part of a larger complex that includes not only you and all that air, but also whatever else it takes to make that air useful for sustaining you (its mixture of elements, its density and temperature, the amount of pressure it is under, and so on). That’s creaturely life. All living creatures are embedded in networks of interdependences rather than existing as sovereign, separate, sealed-off, individual entities. Breathing is “a drawing in of the air; and we are so constructed that something foreign to the constitution of the body is inhaled and exhaled.”1 We all borrow our life from our environments.

God’s Breath and Ours

There are two theological applications we can draw from this brief meditation on air, and both have to do with the Holy Spirit and his prevenience. First, it’s easy and even natural for us to think of the analogy between our dependence on air and our dependence on God. Both are invisible, both surround us, and both sustain our life. The analogy is limited by the fact that air is just as much a creature as we are, of course.2 But that’s how analogies work; our dependence on the created element of air is not the same thing as, but is in certain specific ways something like, our dependence on the Creator. In both God and the air “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), but in obviously different ways. When you opened this book about the Holy Spirit and read this chapter inviting you to breathe in and breathe out, you probably immediately sensed the power of the obvious metaphor. Breathing in and out is like prayer, or like practicing the presence of God the Holy Spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit is not air; he surrounds us not atmospherically but in a way that is holy and spiritual. He is always already surrounding us. The Spirit’s presence to all creatures—invisible, immediate, intimate—is a vital topic. The Holy Spirit’s presence to followers of Jesus is even more personal and profound. The Holy Spirit is (like) the air we breathe.

But the second application of our meditation on air is, I think, less obvious. It may require you to turn your thought patterns inside out for a moment, but it is worth doing. Here it is: though all living creatures exist in some sustaining environment, God does not. God is certainly living but is certainly no creature. Gregory of Nyssa puts it this way:

We must not imagine that, in the way of our own breath, something alien and extraneous to God flows into him and becomes the divine Spirit in him. . . . For we should degrade the majesty of God’s power were we to conceive of his Spirit in the same way as ours. On the contrary, we think of it as a power really existing by itself and in its own special subsistence. It is not able to be separated from God in whom it exists, or from God’s Word which it accompanies.3

The God in whom we live and move and have our being does not live and move and have his being in anything or anyone but himself. There are two ways to say this one thing. Negatively, you could deny that God has any environment around him. Positively, and more substantially, you could assert that God is his own environment. Just as God speaks his holy word, he breathes his holy breath. But unlike human breath, divine breath does not come into God from a surrounding environment and then return to it. God’s breath is God. God’s Spirit is God. God’s environment and conditions of existence are all simply God. Edward Polhill (1622–1694) made the point this way:

God all-sufficient must needs be his own happiness; he hath his being from himself, and his happiness is no other than his being radiant with all excellencies, and by intellectual and amatorious reflexions, turning back into the fruition of itself. . . . He needed not the pleasure of a world, who hath an eternal Son in his bosom to joy in, nor the breath of angels or men who hath an eternal Spirit of his own.4

God has no need of the breath of creatures because he has his own breath within the dynamics of the eternal divine life. Not only that, but God has no need of a region in which to be God or a medium through which to be God. God is omnisufficient, absolutely enough in every way. So this second application of our meditation on air is a contrast; God isn’t like creatures. Our breath marks us as necessarily surrounded by something besides ourselves, but God’s breath is God. In thinking about the Holy Spirit, we are trying to conceive of the divine life as a life that is always already fully resourced—oxygenated, as it were—from its own inherent resources.

These two applications of our meditation on air point in two different directions. The first application is about our relationship to God (we need God like air); the second is about God’s own inner life (God needs no air). “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” God says (Isa. 55:8). Likewise, the breath of God is not as the breath of creatures. Creaturely breath marks the point at which creatures draw on resources outside themselves to sustain them. Divine breath marks the opposite: God having life in himself, of himself, from himself, as himself. It’s hard to imagine, really, because if we start from our own experience of breath and try to apply it to God, we can only get so far. If I try to picture myself having no need of the air in my environment, I might picture myself in scuba gear or a space suit. Obviously, such technological equipment only proves the point that I need air so badly that in an inhospitable and airless setting, I will avail myself of a wearable, artificial micro-environment to meet my needs. But God has no needs.