Book I Chapter XIII Section 14-29

In this section Calvin seeks to demonstrate the divinity of the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. He points to the Spirit’s omnipresent ministry as an evidence of His divine nature. He also points out the indiscriminate way that scripture ascribes authoritative utterances from God to the Holy Spirit – thus making the Spirit equivalent with God. Finally he raises the question that if the Spirit is the author of our spiritual gifts and means of regeneration and sanctification then how can He not be divine and yet accomplish all this?

In the final section Calvin moves on to discuss in more detail some of the controversies that have arisen over the issue of the Trinity. His strategy to counter them is to repeatedly draw out the unity and distinction within the Trinity found in the scriptures. The Persons of the Trinity are united in respect to their substance and yet distinct in respect to their relationship to each other and role in the creation and redemption of the world.

Response:

This chapter has been the most challenging so far, not because of the length or depth but because of the limitations of language. The Trinity stretches the ability of English, French, Greek etc to its limit in order to try and explain the infinite, to comprehend the impossible, to express the unimaginable. It reminds me of the apocalyptic literature when John, Daniel and Ezekiel etc struggled to capture and record what they were seeing. So we have Ezekiel describing his vision of “wheels within wheels…full of eyes” (Ezekiel 1.16-18).

Similarly when we are trying to understand and describe the Trinity, we are at the limit of simile and metaphor. Even with our most precise language there is very little we can definitively say about the Trinity, but that there is one God in three Persons, each united in substance but distinct in relation to each other.

Like Calvin our response must be one of wonder and awe, not idle curiosity or vain speculation. It is easy to get lost in such mysterious truths and we would do well not to go one inch beyond the revealed truth.

“He (the Spirit) will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.” John 16. 14-15

Father, like David we feel that such knowledge is “too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain”, help our finite minds to grasp something of the wonder of your essence – who you are within yourself – your self-existent, self-sufficient nature. Amen.