The Holy Spirit in theology

When you read (or intone) the Nicene Creed in Sunday Churches, what are you thinking? Nice and clear parts of faith or something you don’t really understand? The Nicene Creed is an ecumenical Christian statement of faith accepted by some 2 billion 140 million people who confess to this creed. The Creeds age is about 1700 years. The Nicene Creed involves among others like a part of the Holy Spirit as follows: “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.” Simple and clear?
We know The Heavenly Father and we know who was His son Jesus, but what Christianity knows about the person of the Holy Spirit? Is it important or not? In my opinion, it is important to know what is possible to know in believing things. That’s why I tell in my text what is possible to know about of the Holy Spirit because it perhaps is a quite big word to understand. If we are not interested in this kind of question, why we confess to the Nicene Creed in Sunday Church?
First of all I want to make one question clear about names the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost. The second we look generally what the Old and New testaments tell us about the Holy Spirit. The main body of the text, third one, is looking for the Holy Spirit through the Pauline’s theology, because his is generally first theologian in Christianity.

1.Holy Ghost was the common name for the Holy Spirit in English prior to the 20th century. It is the name used in the Book of Common Prayer, which is more than 500 years old prayer book and the King James Version of the Bible, and is still used by those who prefer more traditional language. The term is still retained in the traditional-language rites of the Anglican Church. The original meaning of the English word ghost paralleled the words spirit or soul. I use this presentation word the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament speak about the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit. In the Bible Paul’s using the phrase “Spirit of his son” what is synonymous in theology with the Holy Spirit.

2. Is The Holy Spirit perhaps the most difficult person of the Trinity to know? Why is it even hard to say what one is talking about when speaking of the Holy Spirit? We must look at least what the Bible says if we want to know something about the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament speaks about what Spirit has spoken for David and many others. This was time before Jesus and that’s why we must speak about the Spirit of God. In Psalms there are a lot of speak about Spirit. Prophet Isaiah first used the name the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel prophesies that, after the restoration to the land, God would give the Spirit to his people. The prophet Joel foretells that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh; as a result, people will prophesy, have visions and prophetic dreams.The New Testament speaks a lot about the Holy Spirit starting when Mary was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit. In the Great Commission Jesus himself invited to go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.Jesus said in the John that Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in His name will help His successors.

This is not so mysterious case than we first thought. Let’s think about spirit generally. In this net we can feel the spirit. I feel little spirit of nervous when I am writing this and maybe you feel spirit of embarrassed by me.
If you go to the room which has a man who is troubled in his life, you feel the spirit of desperation. In your power is to change this spirit by your word. You can encourage him and see how this works. Your spirit moved to the other.

3. The Holy Spirit is central to Paul's theology; he believes that the Old Testament promise of the giving of the Spirit has been fulfilled. Paul’s theology is so crowing straight about the Old Testament but of course involves personal experiences.
In Rom chapter 8, Paul separates two things “in the Spirit” and “in the flesh”. “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, so long as the Spirit of God dwells in you (8:9). That is an intelligible idea in our lives. Everyone knows exact times when the flesh wants to give up for wishes as chocolate or mostly bad things. A point of view is that Paul is right as separating the flesh from spiritual parts of humanity.
Paul explains that “The body is one” (1 Cor 12:12), which means that our goals and spirit is same in the church. Paul says, “We were all baptized in one Spirit to become one body.” If you are a member of a sport club and you have a team, you know exactly what Paul means.
Gal chapter 4:6: “Paul says to the believers at Galatia that, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his son into your hearts.” The reason that God has done this is because they are sons. His meaning is that Christians are sons of God and that’s why they get the same Spirit to hearts.
The “place” where God sent the Spirit of his son is the “heart,” which is not really a place, but the experience and free will “center” in the mind. The most famous Bible passage about the 'fruit of the Spirit' is in Galatians chapter 5:22, where the apostle Paul gives us a list of fruit. The list means as a contrast to the list of the 'deeds of the flesh' found in chapter 5:19-20, but we don’t look it now. The fruit of spirit is listed clearly:
love (agape);
joy (chara);
peace (eirene);
patience (makrothumia);
kindness (chrestotes);
goodness (agathosune);
faithfulness (pistis);
gentleness (prautes);
self-control (enkrateia).

Finally I summarize my Idea of the Holy Spirit. If you and me have the spirit which change our circle of circumstances, how much more the God’s spirit move His scope of activities. The question what is the Holy Spirit is the question what is God. If we accept faith to the God we can confess our faith to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Thank you for reading. I want to know do you agree my claim by the spirit in our own life’s circle?

Ismo Valkoniemi
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1 Lutheran Service Book 2006
2. Website of Atlantic Baptist University, Professor Barry D. Smith
3. Theology Today – Vol 46, No. 1 – April 1989 – The Holy Spirit by Michael Welker
4. Spirituality today, Spring 1986, Vol. 38, pp. 9-18, Barbra Finan: The Holy Spirit: An Issue in Theology