Basic Training with R. C. Sproul, “The Holy Spirit and the Church,” 5

In this session of our study of the Apostles' Creed and of the Foundations of Christian Doctrine, we're going to look at the confession of the church to the

Holy Spirit and to the church, that segment of the creed that says,

I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of the saints.

Now, we noticed earlier on that the Apostles' Creed, and even before that, the

Roman symbol, very earliest times, was self -consciously

Trinitarian. I say that simply because some people sort of think that the full orb concept of the

Trinity didn't develop until the fourth century to the Council of Nicaea, but in fact, it was, the

Council of Nicaea was called to reaffirm and assert that which was from the beginning a clear confession of Trinitarian faith.

And so, the creed simply gives us a brief statement, I believe in the Holy Ghost. Nothing more is said about the

Holy Ghost. We don't have a delineation such as we find later in church history of the role of the

Holy Ghost and the function of the Holy Ghost, but in passing, let's remember that in biblical categories, one of the most important things to understand, which is particularly important for new

Christians, is to understand that the Holy Ghost is a person, not merely an impersonal force or a power.

The Holy Ghost is a he, not an it. And for some reason, the language that we use in the church often betrays an understanding of the

Holy Spirit as if he were, in fact, an impersonal force. And the role of the

Spirit is vital in our Christian life. We know that there are many aspects of his work that the

Holy Spirit was involved in creation. Remember, when God calls the world into being and the world was without shape and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep, the

Spirit of the Lord hovers or broods over the water and out of that primordial portrait of what seems to be an unordered or unstructured or perhaps even chaotic situation comes light, stability.

The Spirit is not the author of confusion. The Spirit is the Spirit of truth, we are told in the

New Testament. The Holy Spirit is trustworthy. We can depend on him.

We know that he is the author of truth. And so we're concerned about his role in anointing prophets.

The Spirit of the Lord comes upon the prophet and the prophet then speaks the truth of God. It's by the

Holy Spirit that the scriptures themselves are inspired and superintended. The Christian life begins with the quickening of God the

Holy Spirit where it is the function of the Spirit to change the disposition of our hearts, to cause us to come alive to the things of God so that the very beginning of the

Christian life, what we call regeneration, is affected by the power of the

Holy Ghost. But yet that's only the beginning, our birth into the fellowship of God.

The whole process of our Christian experience, our growth in grace, our growth into spiritual maturity, what we call the process of sanctification, comes under the province of God the

Holy Spirit. And the New Testament ethic calls for us to manifest the fruit of the

Holy Spirit, love and gentleness and kindness and meekness and patience and long -suffering and so on. That that is an effect that is brought about in our lives by the influence of a supernatural person, the third person of the

Trinity. That the power that dwells within us is not simply an impersonal force but it is the

Spirit dwelling in us, working in us, helping us to live out our

Christian life. Well, these of course are the standard conventional dimensions of the activity of the

Holy Spirit with which I think most of us are fairly well familiar. But there's a dimension of the

Spirit and his personal concern for us that I'd like to mention before we move on to the church.

And that is in the New Testament when Jesus talks to his disciples in the upper room and we have that lengthy discourse of the sending of the

Spirit in John 14, 15, 16, 17. Jesus calls the

Spirit by his supreme title in the New Testament, the Paraclete. And if I ask my theological students,

I'll say, who is the Paraclete in the New Testament? That title.

A hundred students out of a hundred will answer the same. Why, the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. And I say, well, you're right partially.

But when the New Testament introduces the Paraclete, it introduces it by a strange designation.

He's not simply called the Paraclete. Jesus doesn't say, I will send you the

Paraclete, but he says, I will send you what? Another Paraclete.

Now we have different translations of that in the English language. The old traditional translation for Paraclete was the word

Comforter. Now, the more recent translations tend to render the

Greek Paracletos by the English word Counselor. Paraclete comes from two

Greek words, a preface or a prefix, para, and the clete comes from the

Greek kleitos, which is the noun form of the verb kolao.

Now you maybe don't know Greek, but you've certainly heard this word come across in the English language.

Kolao is not a hard Greek word to remember. That's one of the easy ones because it means to call.

Kolao, to call. That's easy. Where does that come across in the language most clearly?

In our ecclesiastical framework. In our ecclesiastical framework.

In ecclesiastical. The New Testament Greek word for church is ecclesia, which we will be looking at in a moment, and that is a prefix of ecc with this same verb, kolao.

The ecclesia are those called out by God out of the world and into fellowship with Him.

So you have the same basic root for the word church as you have in the title for the

Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, but with a different prefix. The church are those called out.

A Paraclete is someone who is called para, alongside of.

We have in the church, we distinguish between the ministry of the church and paraministries.

What are paraministries? They're outside of the church, but that's not why they're called paraministries.

They work alongside the church. They stand with the church. They're considered to be sort of an adjunct arm of the church.

Paratroopers, paramedics, you know, that's what the word para means. So that the

Paraclete is somebody who's called to stand alongside of somebody, to stand beside him.

In the ancient world, a Paraclete was first of all, I mean, it was the title that was given to a defense attorney, and usually the kind of defense attorney that a family it was involved with on a permanent retainer basis.

So that anytime a person got in trouble, they could call upon their

Paraclete to stand with them in the midst of the crisis.

Now, the reason I'm emphasizing this point is that when Jesus said, I'm going to go away and I'm going to send you a comforter or a

Paraclete, he was not saying that after I send you out in the world like lambs in the midst of wolves and you get your brains beat in and you suffer humiliation and tragedy and persecution, all of which you will suffer, he said.

But don't worry, after you go through all of this hassle and you come home and you're weeping in frustration, then

I'm going to send the Spirit along to make you feel better. That's not what he's saying here. He's saying that I am going to send another

Paraclete to stand beside you when? In the midst of the battle, in the midst of the struggle, in the midst of the crisis.

In fact, the reason why the King James used the term comforter was that when the

King James version was written, the language of English at that time was much more closely tied to its

Latin roots than it is today. And a comforter was not thought of in the way we're describing it today, but rather here we have it coming from the

Latin. This is from the Greek, Paracletos from the Greek. From the Latin, cum, what does cum mean in Latin?

With. So a comforter is somebody who comes with and so those of you that play the piano, forte, loud, but not just, it's strength.

If I say something is somebody's forte, that's their strong point. And so a comforter is someone who comes with strength.

And so Jesus promises the Holy Ghost as our ally to stand with us, and I might add to encourage us.

Now, that's a point that I sort of tend to beat the drum on, because in the

New Testament I see, I read at least in there, an emphasis, almost a preoccupation at times, on the importance of encouragement within the

Christian community. And I've thought a lot about that. Why, for example, I say to my students, what's the number one negative prohibition that Jesus gives to his people in the

New Testament? And they'll tell me, well, don't steal, don't kill, don't do the, and I say, no, far and away number one is don't be afraid, fear not.

In fact, he says it so often we miss it. It sounds like hello and goodbye. I mean, every time he shows up, fear not.

He leaves, fear not. Why did our Lord say that so many times? I'm speculating here, but I'm assuming that Jesus understood something about human nature, number one, and number two, that he understood if there was anything that was going to frustrate the ministry and the mission that he gives his church, it would be the paralysis that comes from being frightened.

And again, the exhortations of the epistles to encourage one another. Now, I've talked about this with my son many times, and I say, okay, now look, what is the one indispensable prerequisite, the one ingredient that is absolutely necessary for courage to be present, the sine qua non, without which courage can't be there?

The absence of fear. The absence of fear, I would say it's just the opposite of that.

It is the presence of fear, because it doesn't take courage to do what you're not afraid to do, okay?

In other words, only the fearful can be courageous. But what courage does is give us the capacity to act in spite of our fear.

That's what heroic courage is all about. And what Jesus is saying is, yeah, I don't want you to be afraid, but on the other hand,

I know you're going to be afraid. You guys are always afraid. Intimidation is what holds the church back more than anything else.

See? It's not the lack of the orthodoxy so much as that it's the lack of courage that keeps us from being the people of God.

And so Jesus said, first of all, I am going to send you the Holy Ghost, who will come to stand with you, to encourage you, to give you strength.

And in addition to that, I want you to encourage one another.

Now, this leads us naturally to the next point of the creed, that as soon as we talk about the

Holy Spirit who converts, sanctifies, convicts, bestows gifts, and so on, individuals, when the

Spirit works in the individual's life, He always puts him and guides him to a community, to a group.

The Spirit is a Holy Spirit, and the root meaning of holy is to be set apart and consecrated.

In the New Testament, the principal word for holy is the word hagios, the adjective hagios.

Believers in a group are called what, you ministers? Paul writes, to the saints at Corinth, or to the saints here, or to the saints there.

What's the Greek word? To the hagioi. You have the hagios, or the hagiounouma, the

Holy Spirit, who brings forth

His power and His fruit in people, and they are called the saints, not because they are pure, and righteous, and altogether holy in that sense, but because the

Holy Spirit is dwelling in them, and the Holy Spirit has set them apart, and He sets them apart by consecrating them and then drawing them together into a body.

Those individuals who are individuals of faith are called to participate in a fellowship of faith, which we call the church.

And the creed declares to be the holy catholic church, the holy catholic church.

Now, if there's any institution in our day and age that doesn't always appear to be holy, it's the church.

I've said many times that the church is the most corrupt institution in the world, but that's an intentional statement designed to get people's attention, because I have to qualify.

I grant that there are other human institutions far more corrupt than the church, the mafia, and so on.

But if we measure the church, church's performance in light of the biblical standard of to whom much is given, much is required.

If we consider somebody's performance in light of the sanctity of their task, and the special way in which it has been blessed and graced, then

I think judging by that kind of relative standard, then the church is the most corrupt, because we fall so much more short of the standard to which we are called than the mafia does.

The mafia doesn't have high and virtuous and noble standards. It doesn't have the promise of Christ that the gates of hell will not prevail against it, and so on.

But the church does. But if it is true that the church is the most corrupt institution, or if it's even one of the most corrupt institutions in the world, the next question, the important question is why.

I think my answer to that question is because it's the most important institution.

The most important institution in the world is the church of Jesus Christ, and all of the forces of hell understand that, so that the supreme target of the demonic and of the satanic is the church of Jesus Christ.

But it, of all human institutions, is the only one that has the guarantee of Christ.

But why, then, does the creed call it holy when, in fact, it isn't always holy?

Well, it's not holy by virtue of the purity and the righteousness of each of the members.

The church is the only institution I know of that requires you to be sinful to get in.

I mean, the church is designed to be a special fellowship organized for the benefit of sinners, right?

That's why the church exists. It is a fellowship of sinners, and I always say facetiously, if you ever find a perfect church, don't join it.

You'll ruin it. It'll be the end of its perfection, okay?

But the reason why the church is holy is because of its institution and because of its head, who is

Christ. And Christ is the one who said, I will build my church.

So the church exists because it is called out by Christ. It is instituted by Christ. It is ordained by Christ.

It is gifted by Christ. It is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And we receive the benefit of the holiness of the church.

In other words, whatever holiness we get, we get because of the same powers that are pulling the church together in the first place, by the

Holy Spirit and by Jesus Christ. It's not that we are the ones who make the church holy. Now, in addition to referring to this sacred institution, this special institution which

Christ has ordained and called every Christian to participate in, telling us not to forsake the gathering together of the saints.

No man is an island when it comes to Christian faith. And we all have a duty as well as a privilege to participate in a church.

Now, the creed declares a conviction in the Holy Catholic Church, not the

Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Catholic Church. Here the concept of the word Catholic enters into the vocabulary of the creedal statement about the middle of the second century through the vocabulary of Saint Ignatius.

Ignatius was the first one to use this term because he was observing the fact that everywhere

Christians were spreading across the world, the church was growing as well.

And so that he was speaking, using the term Catholic, which simply means universal, that the church exists wherever the people of God are involved throughout the world.

And then, of course, they began to try to formalize that and say, well, what is it that distinguishes the church from something else?

And they early on said, well, where the Lord's Supper is celebrated, there is the church.

Or, and then later in ecclesiastical terms, Rome took the position where the bishop is, there is the church.

If you don't have the sanction of church government, there's not the church. And others said, no, where the

Spirit is, there is the church. And so that has become a matter of dispute between various denominations, since there's more than one denomination as to where the church is.

But Protestants still retain a confession of the Apostles' Creed because they say, we may not embrace the

Roman Catholic Church, but we certainly believe that there is such a thing as a universal body of Christ that is bigger and wider, deeper and broader than the denominations that we are members of.

And now, that provoked in church history, particularly with the Protestant Reformation, a concept of understanding this universal church of believers.

And an appeal went back to Augustine's work and Augustine's distinction between the visible church and the invisible church.

An important distinction, but also a dangerous one. When Augustine made the distinction between the visible and invisible church, he went back to the

New Testament with the idea of the fact that the church Jesus describes with the figure of the garden, where there will always be tares growing along with the wheat.

To get into a Christian church, you have to make some sort of verbal profession of faith.

You have to say you believe. Well, does everybody who say they believe, believe? No.

Jesus himself acknowledged the fact that some people can honor him with their lips while their hearts were far from them.

And so it is possible to make a profession of faith for all kinds of reasons, political, social, economic, whatever, without having genuine faith in your heart.

So Augustine said the church in this world will always be a corpus per mixtum, a mixed body of tares growing along with the wheat, of believers mixed together with unbelievers.

Now what he meant by the invisible church was not some underground church that exists substantially outside the visible church, but he was talking about, he made the statement that the invisible church exists substantially where?

In the visible church, because Christ has called us to make our communion and our fellowship and our worship and all of that visible, bearing witness to him with a visible church.

But what Augustine says is within the visible church, there is the invisible church who are the true people of God.

Now they are called invisible not because they're invisible to God, but because I can't read another man's heart.

That remains outside the scope of my sight. I can't see it.

It's invisible to me. But it exists, and God can see it.

Now I'll just mention, I only have a minute or so left, the communion of saints is just another word to describe the universal

Catholic church. The Latin there is communio sanctorum. Now I only want to just clear up one common misconception.

So often when people say, I believe in the communion of saints, what they think they're saying is, I believe in the practice and the liturgical rite of celebrating the

Lord's supper. Because in many Protestant fellowships, that's called communion, holy communion.

But the communion of the saints means that there is a fellowship, a brotherhood, a binding together by the

Holy Spirit of all Christians in the world. All Christians who are part of the invisible church share a common bond and share a common spirit and are linked together.

I mean, if we are Christians, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. So that if you are in Christ and I am in Christ, we're both in Christ, we are experiencing a common union.

Okay? There's a withness, a oneness that we exist, that we participate in by virtue of our unification in Christ and by the

Spirit. But not only was the church confessing belief in a fellowship or a unity that transcends denominational, geographic, ethnic, and all other boundaries, but it also transcends temporal boundaries.

That we say there's a mystical element here of the mystical body of Christ, that not only am

I in fellowship with you as a Christian, but right now, this moment, I am in fellowship with Martin Luther and with John Kelp and with Saint Augustine and with every

Christian who has ever lived. Because every Christian who has ever lived and who has been brought into unity of Christ, that unity that he enjoys with Christ cannot be destroyed.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? You know, death, famine, whatever, peril, sword, nothing can separate us.

I mean, Luther, the moment Luther became in Christ, he entered into a union with his Lord and by virtue of that union, mystically, is joined to every other person who is in union with Christ.

And when I enter into union with Christ, I enter union with the whole body of Christ, the past as well as the present, and we'll be, of course, united in the future.

So that's what we mean when we say we believe in the communion of saints. Okay, again, my time is up, and we'll look in our next session at the final statements of the creed regarding forgiveness of sins and resurrection of the body and so on.