Homily on the Holy Spirit

1The one who is baptized into the Trinity is baptized into Father and Son and Holy Spirit—not into rulers, not into powers, not into any of the other things that belong to creation. Let him understand clearly, then, that the Trinity is above creation, and let him not try to bring down any part of the Trinity into creation. Let him also remember the Lord, who breathed the Holy Spirit, and who showed by that breathing that the Spirit belongs to the divine being and not to created nature. Let him consider as well the apostolic explanation of the Trinity, in which we see one activity of Father and Son and Holy Spirit—since neither the Son nor the Spirit is by nature something created or made. For God does not need his own creation in order to carry out his own activity.

The Apostle says: “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of workings, but the same God who works all things in all” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). So then, what God works, the Spirit works. “The one and same Spirit works all things,” he says, “apportioning to each one as he wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11). Let no one bring the Spirit down into slavery when he hears that the Spirit works all the things of God just as he wills. And again: “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). For if he is not saying that divinity dwells in us through the Spirit that dwells in us—as John says, “By this we know that he is in us, from the Spirit he has given us” (1 John 4:13)—then one destroys all hope. For if God is not in us, we will obtain neither life nor eternal goods.

Paul also says again: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16), and again: “Your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Creation needs revelation in order to know the things of God, but the Spirit reveals. “God has revealed to us,” he says, “through his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:10). And the Spirit searches on our behalf, because we make our search in him: “The Spirit,” he says, “searches even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). But the Spirit knows by himself, just as our own spirit does. “For who among human beings knows the things of a person except the spirit within that person? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11).

God gives life, for Paul says: “I charge you before God, who gives life to all things” (1 Timothy 6:13). Christ gives life, as he says: “My sheep hear my voice, and I give them eternal life” (John 10:27). And we are given life through the Spirit, as Paul says: “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). So then, we are given life by God through Christ in the Spirit.

3For we do not receive anything from the Spirit in the way we receive the Spirit from the Son; rather, the Spirit himself comes to us and sanctifies us, and we receive him: a sharing in divinity, a participation in sonship, a guarantee of the eternal inheritance, and the first fruits of the good things to come. Let no one busy himself beyond the sacred names that have been spoken; let no one force the title of Son or generation onto the Spirit, but let him be content with the title and likeness that belong to the Spirit. Since by the grace of the good God, through the remembrance of the words of the only-begotten Son of the living God, and of his holy evangelists and apostles and prophets, who have made sufficiently clear to us the teaching concerning the baptism of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have been instructed that the baptism in fire convicts all wickedness and receives the righteousness that is in Christ, producing hatred of evil and desire for virtue. Through faith we have been cleansed from all sin by the blood of Christ, and when we were baptized in water into the death of the Lord, we deposited, as it were, a written confession: that we have been put to death to sin and to the world, and given life by righteousness. And so, having been baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit, we were born again from above; and having been born, and having been baptized in the name of the Son, we have clothed ourselves with Christ; and having clothed ourselves with the new man, created according to God, we were baptized in the name of the Father and were proclaimed children of God. What remains, then, is for us to be nourished with the food of eternal life, which the same only-begotten Son of the living God again handed over to us, saying: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). And how this comes about he taught when he said: “My food is to do the will of the Father who sent me” (John 4:34); and again: “Amen, amen, I say to you.” Setting this down a second time to confirm what follows and to assure those who hear, he said: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will give him rest on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him” (John 6:53-56). And a little later it is written: “Many therefore, having heard the word of his disciples, said: This word is hard. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them: Does this scandalize you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. My words are spirit and life. But there are some among you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who the believers were, and who it was who would betray him” (John 6:60-65).

4And he said: “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by my Father” (John 6:65). And near the end: “So Jesus took bread, and having given thanks, he broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said: Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And he took the cup, and having given thanks, he gave it to them, saying: Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood of the New Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 22:19-20). And the Apostle says: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:26). What then are these words, and what benefit comes from them? It is so that, as we eat and drink, we may always remember the one who died and rose for us, and so be necessarily taught to keep that apostolic commandment given to us, which says: “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this: that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose for them” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). For the one who eats and drinks clearly does so for an indelible remembrance of the obedience unto death of the Master and Creator, who for my sake became what the formed thing was. But we are not commanded to eat simply; rather, we are urged to discern this body of the Lord—clearly, having put away defilement of flesh and spirit, and having prepared a vessel for the spiritual ointment, so to approach the pure sacrifice, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion now and to the ages of ages. Amen.