Did Luther really call the Holy Spirit “she”? If so, I wonder why.

I don’t believe that it was until I entered Catechism and we were studying the appostle’s creed that I was begining to understand who the Holy Spirit was and what he was doing in my life.

Luther says in his small catechism response that the third article:

“I believe that I cannot come to my Lord Jesus Christ by my own intellegence or power. But the Holy Spirit called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with her gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as she calls, gathers together, enlightens and makes holy the whole Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus in the one, true faith. In this Church, she generously forgives each day every sin committed by me and by every believer. On the last day, she will raise me and all the dead from the grave. She will give eternal life to me and to all who believe in Christ. Yes, this is true! ”

From this almost “textbook” understanding, I have always believed that the Holy Spirit has been working in me and has been the reason that I keep with my faith because my own strength is not strong enough. And like most of my knowledge, I have quite a lot more to understand fully.

You have mentioned something very interesting. There are many simple analogies that have been used to illustrate the three-persons-in-one-God aspect of the Trinity. I have never heard the one about the apple before.

St. Patrick was said to have used the shamrock (three-leaf clover), but rather than making me think about the Trinity, it evokes images of corned beef, cabbage and green beer.

Here is another common one. Someone says, “The Trinity is illogical. If the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct, then you are saying that there are three Gods rather than one.” Then you reply, “It’s not like 1+1+1=3. It’s like 1×1x1=1.”

These analogies, which are very childlike, can help a young person settle in his or her mind that the Trinity is plausible. So they are useful, but only to a point, because they are quite unlike the descriptions of God found in the Bible. There are subtle dangers associated with these analogies. First, some people hold on to them and begin to think that they really do understand the Trinity (i.e., they have it “figured out”) which they do not, because the Trinity is ultimately a mystery. This attitude can keep them from pondering further. Second, some people begin to think that their favorite analogy really does capture the essence of God, that God really is like the shamrock or apple or whatever, when many elements of the analogy do not apply.

Some of the analogies out there suggest that the three persons are three different attributes or God, or three different forms (modes) in which God interacts with people and works in the world. For example, some have compared the Trinity to ice, water and steam; they are three different ways that the same compound, H2O, appears to us under different conditions. That idea — that one God is appearing to us and working in three different forms, is an ancient heresy called modalism. That idea, and many others, were rejected by the ancient ecumenical councils because they don’t correspond to what the Scripture actually says about God. Christian who hold on to them are not necessarily harming their faith, at least not in the short term. But over time, wrong-headed ideas about God to tend to adversely affect Christian beliefs and practices — how we pray, worship, study and teach the scriptures, etc. — in ways that are subtle at first, but eventually become problematic.

Scot McKnight, who is a widely respected, openminded and solidly orthodox Christian scholar, recently wrote about this. He pointed out that evangelical Christians profess to believe in the Trinity, and we quickly denounce the faith of anyone who doesn’t (Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc) as false religion. But in practice we ourselves do not envision God or speak to or about him in Trinititarian ways. So he concluded, “Most of Western evangelicals are functionally heretical.” You can see Scot’s comments here:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/05/great-is-the-lord-4.html

I’m sure that you remember when John Armstrong spoke to us about worship last summer. After his message, we followed up with about 1-1/2 hours of praise and worship. Part of that worship was explicitly Trinitarian — praise, song and prayer offered to the Father, then to the Son, then to the Holy Spirit. Some of our church members found this uncomfortable. They wondered whether it was okay to pray to the Holy Spirit. Some felt it was strange to speak directly to Jesus, because that is not how we ordinarily do it. (We usually pray to the Father in Jesus’ name.) John is a very openminded and generous person. He interacts with Christians from a wide variety of churches and denominations who worship in many different styles, and although he has his own personal ideas and preferences, he is very careful never to try to impose his ideas on anyone else, unless he thinks they are truly fundamental to the essence of the Christian faith. The one thing that John said to me after our conference, the only thing that came close to a suggestion or recommendation for us, was that we strive to become more Trinitarian in how we speak of God and interact with him. I think that was very good advice.

I’d say my understanding is around a 1.45. It’s only that high because I gave myself credit for acknowledging the existence of the Holy Spirit and the belief & faith that the Spirit does indeed work among my friends and family.

Glad you’re reading. Congratulations on the approval of InterVarsity at Penn State. I hope that your arm and wrist are getting better.

Your first word was “Sadly.” In my case, I could say the same thing; I wish that I had begun to learn about the Holy Spirit earlier. But on secind thought, I’m not sure that it would have worked. Perhaps we need to experience the work of the Holy Spirit first to know that he is real, and then later we (hopefully) begin to understand what we have experienced in light of Scripture. God reveals himself to us over the course of our lives, and whatever the shortcomings of the church in which you were raised, it was God’s providence to place you there, and I am sure that you learned many important things that are bearing fruit now.

I have definitely been experiencing the work of the Spirit in my life. In the past week, I’ve seen several miracles…impossible things that happened through prayer, a woman knowing things about me that I didn’t tell her, and God speaking to me in very intimate ways. Random people (not connected to each other) have been saying the same things to me as I try to process decisions in my life; and I attribute that to the work of the Spirit. I would say, on a scale of 1-5, I know the Spirit as a 2.5. I have much more to learn, and I appreciate the things you are writing here!