The Deity of the Holy Ghost

Article 6 of 13 in the series “The Old Paths of Trinitarian Doctrine: Reading Edmund Calamy’s Thirteen Sermons.”

After five sermons on the Father and the Son, Calamy turns to the deity of the Holy Ghost. His text is the baptismal command of Matthew 28:19:

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Calamy begins with baptism because it places the Spirit within the church’s public confession and worship. The Christian is not baptized into the Father as God, the Son as an exalted mediator, and the Spirit as an impersonal power. The three stand together under one singular “name.”

Consecrated to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Baptism is not a mere catalogue of religious influences. It is covenantal dedication. The baptized person is marked as belonging to the triune God, pledged to his worship, and admitted into the communion of salvation promised by Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The equality of placement is striking. No qualifying phrase lowers the Spirit beneath the Father and Son. Each is named as the object of the same consecration. Each is confessed as necessary to salvation. Each receives the faith and obedience signified by initiation into the Christian church.

Calamy preserves an extended Latin argument:

Cum praecepit Dominus, ut gentes in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti baptizarentur, apertissimum est Spiritum Sanctum non esse creaturam… vel quod nunquam praeciperet Dominus, ut in creaturae nomine aliquis baptizetur.

“When the Lord commanded that the nations be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is perfectly clear that the Holy Spirit is not a creature… because the Lord would never command anyone to be baptized in the name of a creature.”¹

If baptism consecrated disciples jointly to the Creator and a creature, the foundational ordinance of Christianity would blur the distinction Scripture everywhere guards. The form makes sense only if the Spirit belongs with Father and Son within the one divine identity.

The Holy Ghost Bears the Divine Name

Calamy next follows the same cumulative method used for the Father and Son. Scripture gives the Spirit divine names and titles.

Peter tells Ananias that lying to the Holy Ghost is lying to God. Paul calls believers the temple of God because the Spirit dwells in them. The Spirit is identified with the Lord whose presence removes the veil. Old Testament words spoken by Jehovah are attributed in the New Testament to the Holy Ghost.

No single formula is isolated from context. The pattern is mutually reinforcing. A temple belongs to deity; believers are the Spirit’s temple. Lying to God is the aggravated character of lying to the Spirit. The prophetic voice of Jehovah is the voice of the Spirit. The natural conclusion is not that “God” becomes a loose honorific, but that the Spirit is God.

The Spirit Possesses Divine Attributes

The Holy Ghost searches all things, including the deep things of God. He knows the divine mind with an intimacy compared to a man’s spirit knowing the man’s own thoughts. He is omnipresent: the psalmist cannot flee from the Spirit’s presence. He is eternal and holy by nature, not merely the distributor of created holiness.

These attributes are essential, not decorative. An omniscience that depends upon information supplied from outside is not omniscience. A presence limited to one place cannot indwell the entire church. The Spirit performs his saving work in believers throughout the world because he possesses divine immensity and knowledge.

Calamy also notes the extraordinary gravity of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Sin is properly committed against God. The warning concerning this blasphemy cannot be reconciled with the Spirit’s reduction to an impersonal energy or created messenger.

The Spirit Performs Divine Works

Creation, revelation, regeneration, sanctification, resurrection, and church government are ascribed to the Spirit.

At creation the Spirit moves upon the waters and brings order from the unformed deep. Job confesses, “The Spirit of God hath made me.” Prophets speak as they are moved by the Holy Ghost. Miraculous gifts are distributed “as he will,” language that joins sovereign agency to personal choice.

In salvation the Spirit enlightens, quickens, renews, sanctifies, seals, witnesses, comforts, and prepares believers for glory. He does not merely deliver grace manufactured elsewhere. He is the personal giver whose presence constitutes communion with God.

Calamy’s threefold summary is important: creation, redemption, and sanctification are the grand works celebrated in Scripture, and Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are concerned in each. The works are inseparable because God is one, while Scripture may appropriate a work to one person according to the revealed order.

The Spirit Receives Divine Worship

Calamy argues that the Spirit receives worship in baptism, apostolic blessing, prayer, and doxology. Paul desires “the communion of the Holy Ghost” to be with the church alongside the grace of Christ and love of God. John seeks grace and peace from the seven Spirits before the throne, understood as the one Spirit in the fullness of his operations.

The objection that Scripture contains no command to invoke the Spirit fails if Scripture has already identified him as the Lord God. The general command to worship the Lord applies to each divine person. Petitions for illumination, sanctification, comfort, and communion naturally address the one whose office is to bestow those blessings.

Calamy is not arguing for three separate worships. Christian prayer is Trinitarian because the one God is triune. The Spirit helps believers pray, gives access through the Son to the Father, and may himself be sought for the gifts and graces he sovereignly communicates.

The Spirit Is a Person, Not Merely Power

Although the next sermon treats objections more fully, Calamy’s positive case already requires personality. The Spirit wills, distributes, speaks, sends, forbids, teaches, witnesses, intercedes, can be grieved, and appoints overseers. Gifts are distinguished from the giver: there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them as he wills.

Calling the Spirit “the power of God” does not make him identical with an impersonal attribute. The Son is also called the power and wisdom of God without ceasing to be personal. The Spirit exercises power; he is not reducible to the effects he produces.

A Doctrine of Dependence

Calamy’s conclusion turns doctrine into spiritual practice. Believers depend upon the Holy Ghost for light, holiness, assurance, perseverance, and fruitful service. To confess his deity while resisting his sanctifying work would be a practical contradiction.

The baptized must therefore live as those devoted to the Spirit. They should seek his illumination, remain open to his biblical influences, avoid grieving him by pride and impurity, and remember that their bodies and spirits are his temple.

This dependence is not competition with dependence upon Christ. The Spirit glorifies the Son and applies the Son’s redemption; the Son sends the Spirit and brings believers to the Father. Each person’s work leads into communion with the one God.

Calamy’s positive case is now complete: Scripture gives the Spirit the divine name, perfections, works, and worship. The next sermon tests the principal objections and, above all, examines Paul’s comparison between the spirit of a man and the Spirit of God.

Previous: Article 5, “Prayer, Obedience, and the Equal Honour of the Son.”
Next: Article 7, “The Spirit Who Knows the Things of God.”