23rd Septemer 2025

The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) primarily addressed Christ’s divinity against Arian heresy: a belief that taught that Jesus Christ was not co-eternal with the Father but was a created being. The Council of Constantinople (381 AD) definitively canonised the Holy Spirit as the third ‘person’ of the Trinity. The Spirit is not vague and ethereal, like ‘the spirit of the times’ or ‘the spirit of democracy’ – he is Almighty God, and the Creed, following the revelation of scripture, describes the Holy Spirit as ‘the Lord, the giver of life’, and profoundly affirms both his deity and essential role.

The title ‘Lord’ (Greek: Kyrios) is perhaps the most direct and forceful affirmation of the Holy Spirit’s divinity. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) primarily uses Kyrios to translate the Hebrew divine name. To call the Holy Spirit ‘Lord’ is, therefore, to ascribe to him the very name and attributes of God Almighty. It places him on par with the Father and the Son, both of whom are also called ‘Lord’ (Deuteronomy 6:13; 1 Peter 1:3).

In the Old Testament, the phrase ‘the Spirit of the Lord’ denotes divine power, authority, and presence (Judges 3:10; Isaiah 11:2). When the Spirit acts, it is God acting. In the New Testament, Paul’s statement ‘the Lord is the Spirit’ (2 Corinthians 3:17) confirms the Spirit’s divine status, and when Peter confronts Ananias, ‘…how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit…You have not lied just to human beings but to God’ (Acts 5:3-4), he directly equates lying to the Spirit with lying to God.

The title ‘the giver of life’ describes the Holy Spirit’s indispensable role as the life-giver in both creation and salvation. The Old Testament describes the Holy Spirit’s role in the act of physical creation (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:30), while the New Testament goes beyond physical creation, showing that the Spirit is indispensable for the new life of salvation (John 3:5-8; Romans 8:9-11). Identifying the Spirit as the giver of life shows his active participation from creation to final consummation.

These two scriptural titles in the Creed present the Holy Spirit not as a lesser being, but as the divine ‘Lord’ whose very nature is to impart life – physical, spiritual, and eternal. 

As Thomas Torrance says,‘…the Holy Spirit is to be understood as the presence to us of the Lord God in the full reality of his divine life and being – the presence to us of the Holy Spirit is the immediate presence of God Almighty…The Holy Spirit, then, is none other than the living dynamic reality of God Almighty, the transcendent Lord of all being, from whom we derive our own being and existence, to whom we are altogether indebted, and before whom we can only prostrate ourselves in sheer wonder, adoration and worship…in sending to us his Spirit, God has given us not just something of himself, but his very Self. In the Lord the giver of life, God himself is the content of his giving…Of one and the same being with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is to be worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son, and to be confessed as God.’ ¹ 

To which all God’s people say ‘Amen’.

¹ Torrance, T.F.  The Trinitarian Faith, pp 209-210.

Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead 
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA

Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm

Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:  
wordoflife@gracecom.church