THE HOLY SPIRIT

General Doctrine

THE Holy Spirit is the Divine truth and also the Divine opera­tion proceeding from the one only God, in whom there is a Divine Trinity, proceeding therefore from the Lord God the Saviour. (TCR n. 138)

The Divine operation is effected by the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord; and that which proceeds is of one and the same essence with Him from whom it proceeds: Like these three, the soul, the body, and the proceeding [action], which to­gether make one essence,—with man merely human, but with the Lord Divine and at the same time Human; united after the glorification, just as the prior with its posterior, and as the essence with its form. Thus the three essentials which are called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are one in the Lord. (TCR n. 139)

Now, because the Divine Truth is meant by the Holy Spirit, and this was in the Lord, and was the Lord Himself (John xiv. 6), and because it could not therefore proceed from any other source, He said, “The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (vii. 39); and after the glorification, “He breathed on the disciples, and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit” (xx. 22). The reason why the Lord breathed upon the disciples and said this was, that breathing upon was an external representative sign of Divine inspiration. But inspiration is insertion into angelic societies. (TCR n. 140)

The Holy Spirit is called the proceeding Divine, yet no one knows why it is called proceeding. This is not known, because until now it has been unknown that the Lord appears before the angels as a sun, and that heat, which in its essence is Divine love, and light, which in its essence is Divine wisdom, proceeds from that sun. So long as these truths were unknown it could not be known but that the proceeding Divine was a Divine by itself, and as the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity declares, that there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But when it is known that the Lord appears as a sun, a just idea can be had of the proceeding Divine, which is called the Holy Spirit; that it is one with the Lord, but proceeds from Him, as heat and light from the sun. (DLW n. 146)