A recurring theme here on the blog over the years has been the idea that one of the major claims the first Christians made was that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, historically reserved for those with unique vocations of leadership, was now poured out richly upon the whole community of faith. But this is not a new Spirit; the continuity with the Spirit’s historical role was just as important to them as its newfound abundance among Jesus’ followers. It’s this sense of continuity that lies at the heart of the line from the Creed I’ll be discussing today, which asserts that we trust in the Holy Spirit, “Who spoke by the prophets.”
As strange as it may be for us who have grown up in a culture where ‘new’ has connotations of ‘new and improved,’ in the ancient Mediterranean world, ‘new’ was a bad word; if something was new, it was untested, untrustworthy, and suspicious. So, it was important for the first Christians that their new faith not be understood to be disconnected from the past. One of the major ways they did this, starting with Jesus’ own teaching, was to see Jesus as the fulfillment of the oracles of the prophets of old. An analogy I like to us for this is to think of the prophets as giving the people of Israel and Judah a set of beautiful big cups, which their immediate events only filled halfway: Judah did get a good, solid king within a generation of the Syro-Ephraimite Crisis as Isaiah said, but his was no reign of unbounded righteousness, justice, and prosperity; and Persia did let the descendants of the exiled Judean leadership return home, but it was no grand procession requiring the construction of a new superhighway through the desert. For the early Christians, Jesus filled up those cups to overflowing, spiritually speaking, if not historically.
So the work of the Holy Spirit through the prophets is the greatest link between the old (again, in ancient terms this didn’t mean ‘old and out of date and disposable’ but ‘old and therefore venerable and trustworthy’) message of salvation and the new, between the Law of Moses and the teaching of Jesus, between Israel and the Church. And that’s why it’s here in the Creed.
For more on this, please check out previous posts about the Holy Spirit and prophecy in the links above.
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-Begotten, Who was begotten of the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, Begotten not made, Who is of the same essence as the Father, Through whom all things exist. Who, for us humans and for our salvation, came down from heaven, And was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became human. Who was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and rose gain on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Who is coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, Who proceeds from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified Who spoke by the prophets.
Matthew Root 