Father, Son and Holy Spirit
By John Gavazzoni

Though the following may, at first seem to be dead, dry theology, please bear with me since what I'm dealing with has to do with the preciousness of the personal indwelling of God the Father, in His Son, Jesus, the Christ, in us as believers, and lays a firm foundation for a clear understanding of the anointing we have from the Father.

Pseudo-orthodoxy insidiously brings to bear unrelenting pressure upon the truth-seeking believer to not question any of its dogma, and certainly this is so in regard to its standardized definition of what it calls "The Trinity." I can't think of anything that presumptive orthodoxy regards as more forbidden, than that someone should dare to question the accuracy of the doctrine of "The Trinity." But I have a compulsion laid upon me to do just that.

I will proceed by that time tested approach to teaching, i.e., raising pertinent questions that are quite naturally recognized as spiritually appropriate by those who have at least in some substantive measure been freed from institutional forces of thought-suppression. What I'm saying is that a good teacher often primes the pump of learning by raising seminally thought-provoking questions.

And so, I am led to ask, why is it that the scripturally well documented Deity of the Holy Spirit is not presented in scripture relationally in the same way as are the Father and the Son? Does there not seem to be some inconsistency about that in the face of Trinitarian teaching?

Two of the affirmed "Three in One" are described as family related, but not the "Third." Pseudo-orthodoxy speaks of the "Third Person of the Trinity," and yet, to repeat, whereas the Ones they describe as the "First Person" and "Second Person" of the Godhead are described in scripture as being family-relational to One Another, (Father and Son), the Holy Spirit is not. I know I'm laboring the point, but it's so important: "Father" and "Son" speaks of family-constituted relationship, whereas the description, "Holy Spirit," does not.

Since the obvious Anotherness within the Oneness of Deity was clearly presented by Jesus and the apostles in Father and Son terms, why does not the Holy Spirit have a family-relational description? Some have postulated that the Holy Spirit is the Mother within Deity.

Though my regular readers know that I affirm, both the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God, I must say, that ascribing God's Motherhood as specific and exclusive to the Holy Spirit, just won't stand up to close scrutiny, for the Holy Spirit is clearly the Spirit of the Father and the Son as many passages reveal.

The Holy Spirit is the "Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead," and obviously "Him who raised Jesus from the dead is the Father, since it is also written that Jesus was raised from the dead "by the glory of the Father." The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father, AND, since Christ, God's Son, according to Paul is "a life-giving Spirit," and he refers to the One who indwells us as Christ and/or the Holy Spirit and/or the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit is also the Spirit of the Son.

That the Anotherness within God's Oneness includes the Holy Spirit is indisputable. But in what way, or in what sense is the Spirit "Another," as in Jesus saying, "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of Truth....?" When the Father sent the Son into the world, it was just that, the Son coming to us from the Father, but as what family relative of the Father and the Son did the Spirit come?

Stay with me, dear brethren: The Holy Spirit is relative TO (as in pertaining to) but not A relative OF (as in a father, or a son, or a mother, uncle, cousin, etc.) of the Father and the Son. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit has no family description, but He most certainly pertains to, and is intrinsic to Deity Itself. Yes, yes, I know that I'm super- laboring my point because it is SO important that we be deeply impressed that it is none other than the Person of Jesus Christ who indwells us personally (my redundancy is also deliberate).

I recently read an article by a brother who, on one hand accurately states the meaning of the word "Christ" as "anointed," or "anointed one." But then going in further into the article to somewhat disassociate the anointING of the Holy Spirit from the AnointED, as if we have received it, the anointing, as some spiritual ability received merely FROM the Father, and passed on to us by Christ, as opposed to having received the anointing by having received Him, the anointed, as ontologically integral to His very Person.

Though the Greek word "Christos" might have a certain flexibility from a scholarship perspective, so that it might be acceptable, depending on the context in which it is used, to be translated as "anointED", or "anointING, the overall treatment of the anointing in scripture has Jesus, having been anointed by the Father, as the all-governing reference point re: what that Divine action is all about.

All cases, all instances of the reception of the anointing points to, and has in view that central anointing by the Father upon the Son, out from whom proceeds any unction upon His brethren that would have any New Covenant validity. Principally, God's Son, is THE anointed, or anointed One. We have Him, and all that He includes---His mind with His knowledge, His faith, His righteousness, His submission to the Father, and His anointing.

He is all this to us. God has not given us spiritual THINGS, He has given us His Son, who, as Jesus of Nazareth, He is anointed with the Holy Spirit, making Him, quite specifically, uniquely and singularly THE AnointED. Of course, and I hasten to say so in the flow of the restoration of truth re: the increase of Christ within, and as, the body of Christ, that we together share fully in that singularity of anointing.

He, Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord, in His glorified Humanity, is God's fulness to us, and it is in communion with Him, one to Another, in union with Him, in and through whom we have been made partakers of the Divine Nature, that we have all things, For all things are ours, and we are (belong to) Christ's, and Christ is (belongs to) God's.

The communion we have with the Son, and by Him with the Father, is the communion of the Holy Spirit. The communion of the Holy Spirit is the sharing of the Being, or Divine Nature that is the Ground of God being both parental and filial. The Holy Spirit is both the Person of the Father (Mother-inclusive) and the Person of the Son (Bride-inclusive) in Divine communion, gloriously inclusive of all the family of God in union with Christ.

When Jesus spoke to His disciples of sending another Helper to them, in the same context He says that He is coming to them. The way, or sense in which the Holy Spirit is "Another" in comparison to Jesus as He was at that moment speaking to them, is that, as Paul later explained, He was coming to them to be known, no longer in the flesh as they had known Him thus far, but in the Spirit. He would remain the Divine God-Man Person He was, but in the transfigurating glorification through death and resurrection, He would become as "Another" or different to them.

I checked Strong's Concordance for the Greek word translated "Another," and as I suspected, I found that the root of the word has to do with "different." He, the same Jesus Christ our Lord, became different to the disciples as their indwelling Lord, compared to how He was known by them when He was among them in the flesh.

Since biblically, in a discreet way, the existence of the Motherhood of God is implied by the existence of God's Fatherhood (for how can there be Father God without Mother God, just as how can there be God as Father without God as Son, and vise versa) So also, biblically, the existence of the Son of God, as the perfect likeness of God, implies the existence of the Daughter of God, who became the Bride of Christ, her Bridegroom This eternally grounded relationship, transferred into the aions/eons, becomes the ekklesia, the community of believers called out from the world system.

We are never in communion with the Person of the Holy Spirit as ontologically distinguished from God our Father, and His Son, our Elder Brother. The "He" of the Holy Spirit, is the "He" of Father AND the Son. You are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit as distinguished from the Father and the Son It is as Holy Spirit that the Son indwells us including the Father in Him, so you can plainly see that it is right to ascribe Divine Personhood to the Holy Spirit.

THE PERSON OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE PERSON OF BOTH TO EACH OTHER AND TO US ALL, AS THOSE BORN OF GOD.

The anointing which we have received of the Father is received in and through the Son as the pleasure of God is realized by all fulness dwelling in Him who indwells us WITH HIS anointing. True anointing is always part and parcel of the communion of the Holy Spirit, which IS the communion of the Father and the Son inclusive of us all.

The anointing within the called-out gathering is experienced in purity and richness as described above, not merely as the ability to forcefully impact others. When I sense deeply that my brother or sister is sharing Christ Himself with me, that He Himself, as a life-giving Spirit is being imparted to me as our life, I can be assured that that is the anointing which we have all received from the Father. Pardon me ending on a negative note, but there's a lot of "fluff" that parades about as the anointing.