Chapter 5. The Participation of the Holy Trinity in the Salvation of Man

The dogma of the Holy Trinity, which reflects primarily the mystery of the inner life of God, is rightly considered the basic and main of all Christian dogmas and is the most incomprehensible not only for people, but also for angels. Being equal and independent Divine Persons, the Son and the Holy Spirit have one Divine nature, one power, authority and majesty. "God, one in essence," teaches St. Theophanes, "is Triune in Persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – and these Three are not names of one and the same Person, nor are they the names of different actions of the same Person, but three Hypostases of the one Godhead" [93: p. 14].

Each of the Divine Hypostases possesses all the Divine perfections, but they possess these perfections inseparably. The personal properties of the Holy Trinity are those by which the Persons of the Holy Trinity differ from each other. "Only the personal property of each belongs exclusively to each of Her Persons – unbegottenness, birth and origin" [144: pp. 202-203]. All the Persons of the Holy Trinity possess the same Divine dignity and the same Divine perfections. "Common are the names of God," Bishop Theophan reminds us, "common are the attributes of Divine and Divine actions: creation, providence, the arrangement of the incarnate economy, the accomplishment of the salvation of everyone, the organization and preservation of the Church, and all the rest that can only come from God" [Ibid.].

In the matter of the salvation of people, everything is connected by an indissoluble union and is accomplished by the action of the One God in the Trinity worshipped, "although in the explanations of these actions they refer now to one or another Person of the Most Holy Trinity" [65: p. 41].

The Holy Fathers presented the period of time before the redemption of man as the kingdom of the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit, by Whom creation and providence were accomplished. The time of redemption is primarily the reign of the Son with the Father and the Spirit; the period after redemption is the kingdom primarily of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.

In the pre-eternal Council of the Most Holy Trinity, it was ordained from eternity for the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity – God the Son – to be incarnated from the Ever-Virgin. "The Only-begotten Son of God, Who became incarnate for our sake, having satisfied God's righteousness by His death on the Cross, reconciled us to God; and having ascended into heaven and sitting at the right hand of the Father, He intercedes for us with His conciliatory intercession" [82: p. 80]. God the Father draws all to the Son, and the Son brings them to the Father. "God the Father, through the incarnate Son, stretches out to us the embrace of His fatherly favor, and those who fall into these embraces, He receives through the Son" [89: p. 224].

God breathed into the primordial man the breath of Divine life, but sin killed him. Then the Spirit of God departed from man for transgressing the commandment, and "the breath of Divine life died in him after receiving the pernicious breath of the spirit of the tempter" [105: p. 179]. In order to restore the human spirit and reunite it with God, it was necessary that the Spirit of God descend upon man and revive him.

In the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, "it was ordained that the Holy Spirit should descend" [84: p. 201] upon people. The Lord Jesus Christ, having endured death on the cross and having risen from the dead, "ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit from the Father to us on earth, so that He would endow everyone with those blessings and needs of salvation which are combined for us in the Person of the Lord" [96: p. 152].

The participation of the Holy Spirit in the economy of our salvation consists in assimilating to redeemed sinners the merits of the Son of God and with His assistance to accomplish the work of salvation in the hearts of men. The economy of salvation, "the dispensation of all that is necessary for salvation, was accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of the Father, but not without the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit assimilates and applies this salvation to us by the good pleasure of God the Father, but not without Christ the Lord, the Son of God" [96: p. 150].

The descent of the Holy Spirit is "the first breath of mankind by the Divine Spirit" [55: p. 498]. The designation of the Holy Spirit as "life-giving," as included in the Symbol of Faith, testifies to God the Spirit as the Author not only of natural life, but also of grace-filled, spiritual life. The Holy Spirit quickens, nurtures, and develops in us the seed of new life laid by Christ, and unites us with Him. "The Divine Spirit descended, and mankind came to life, breathing in the Divine Spirit — this is the first time, as a newborn child, coming out into the world, breathes air into itself for the first time" [93, p. 31].

The reception of the Holy Spirit is the crown of the blessings bestowed upon mankind by the Incarnation.

On the day of Holy Pentecost, only the apostles received the Holy Spirit. The Apostles, or the entire first Church gathered in the Upper Room, were the lips by which redeemed humanity received "the first breath of the Spirit" [Ibid.], it was they who were His first "life-receiving vessels" [105: p. 180]. The Holy Spirit, having descended upon the Apostles, dwelt not only in them, but through them, as through canals, poured out upon all the faithful, and from that time He "lives and acts in the Church through the Divine Mysteries, reviving to spiritual life, educating and preserving in it everyone who enters it" [105: p. 193].

The faithful, through the divinely instituted sacraments, received the grace of the Holy Dra and, as Bishop Theophan writes, "became new in the very beginnings of life" [84, p. 97], so that "spiritualization and spirituality constitute a distinctive feature of Christians" [5, p. 91], and "the spiritualization of believers is the essence of the New Testament" [84, p. 97].

The Holy Spirit arranges conversion and forms faith in the repentant sinner. Through the Divine word, the Holy Spirit arouses in a person feelings of sinfulness, fears for his eternal fate, repentance and a decision to begin to live rightly.