THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE SACRAMENTS.
OF the reality and greatness of
the Spirit's work in Christian Baptism the ancient Church entertained no doubt.
The Lord had joined together water and the Spirit in the mystery of the New
Birth, and no Christian in the early centuries dared to put them asunder.
Water, it was pointed out, had been associated with the Spirit of God in the
first creation, and sanctified afresh by the Lord's own baptism in the Jordan.
Yet there was no disposition to regard the baptismal rite as magical. The water
of Baptism was seen to be but the outward and visible sign, and the spiritual
efficacy of the Sacrament to be due to the Holy Spirit whose action it
symbolized. Water baptism and the baptism of the Spirit are separable in
thought and in fact, although in the Catholic Church through Christ's gift they
normally coincide. As for the minister of Baptism, whether he be bishop,
presbyter, or deacon, his part is ministerial only; it is the Holy Spirit who
dispenses grace". Children receive the grace of Baptism in virtue of
Christ's ordinance1; adults must come to the Sacrament in sincerity and faith,
or they will not be baptized by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not so tied
to the external rite that He cannot withhold His grace when it is not sincerely
desired, or bestow it when the Sacrament cannot be received. Nor is He pledged
to continue it to any who prove themselves unworthy, whether they have received
Baptism in infancy or in riper years.
To the question what effect is
produced by the Baptism of the Spirit more than one answer was returned. The
ancient Creeds gave prominence to the remission of sins as the chief purpose
and result of Baptism'; and herein they followed the Pentecostal teaching of St
Peter. But remission of sins is closely connected by our Lord with the Gift of
the Holy Spirit, and the inference was drawn that He operates in the initiatory
remission at Baptism. Forgiveness, however, does not stand alone; other gifts
accompany or follow in quick succession–the illumination of the mind, which
gave to Baptism one of its earliest names; the new creation or new birth of the
soul, which is perhaps the most characteristic of baptismal gifts; the sealing
of the soul which endures, if the baptized are faithful, to eternal life; the
restoration of our nature to the Divine Image in a word, the sanctifying and
deifying of man by making him a partaker in the nature of God. Anointed by the
Spirit which anointed the Christ, men become 'christs' and may be called by
that name.
In the administration of Baptism
the work of the Holy Spirit was recognized by invoking His presence and
operation. This was done at more than one point in the service: before
immersion, when after solemn invocation the Spirit was believed to descend upon
the water, giving it the power to sanctify and cleanse; before chrismation,
when the Spirit was invoked upon the chrism, which was thus identified with His
anointing grace. The imposition of the Bishop's hand which followed the
chrismation was regarded in the light of an invitation to the Holy Spirit to
rest on the baptized. With this last ceremony Tertullian explicitly connects
the baptismal gift of the Spirit; and on the whole there was a tendency,
especially in the West, to connect this gift either with the unction or with
laying on of hands which followed the immersion rather than with the immersion
itself. But so long as the three ceremonies were regarded as constituting one
sacramental rite, this difference of opinion mattered little; it was agreed on
all hands that the Holy Spirit was given to all children and to all duly
qualified adults in Baptism when it was received in its completeness. (Henry
Barclay Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church: A Study of Christian
Teaching in the Age of the Fathers [London: Macmillan and Co., Limited,
1912], 395-98)
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