The Lord Is the Spirit. John A. Studebaker

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The Lord Is the Spirit - John A. Studebaker


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to do with the Church?” It was the Church’s opportunity to search the Scripture and to draft a series of doctrinal precedents, developed only through a long series of controversies, upon which she could assert her own “authority.” Imperial authority, whether paraded by Church or State, found its flourishing soil upon these semi-alienated grounds.

      It is within this context that the debate over the Holy Spirit’s divinity began to erupt—the Arian perspective often collaborating with the Empire and the orthodox “Fathers” at times finding themselves on the defensive, trying to protect the early Church from heresy.

      Arius

      Athanasius

      Athanasius’ Letters Concerning the Holy Spirit and Letters to Serapion present perhaps the best defense of the Spirit’s divinity in the first millennium of the Church. As the chief elaborator and defender of the Nicene Creed after 325, Athanasius suffered considerable persecution from Arian politicians. When Athanasius turned his attention to the doctrine of the Spirit he gained many converts from Arianism, such as the followers of Serapion, who had accepted the homoousios of the Son with the Father but continued to view the Spirit as a creature. In his Letters to Serapion, Athanasius uses divine attributes such as immutability and supremacy to convincingly demonstrate the Spirit’s divinity. First, the Spirit’s divinity is witnessed in His immutability.

      Second, the Spirit’s divinity emerges from His supremacy over all things.


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