On this passage the Nicene fathers based their doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit,^571as his personal property or characteristic individuality^572 while the unbegotten Fatherhood^573 belongs
to the person of the Father, and the eternal generation^574 to the person of the Son.
Our Lord says neither that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, nor that he
proceeds from the Father and the Son. But in several other passages of the same farewell addresses
he speaks of the Spirit as being sent by the Father and the Son, and promises this as a future event
which was to take place after his departure, and which actually did take place on the day of Pentecost
and ever since.^575
On these passages is based the doctrine of the mission of the Spirit.^576 This is regarded as
a temporal or historical act, and must be distinguished from the eternal procession in the Trinity
itself. In other words, the procession belongs to the Trinity of essence, and is an intertrinitarian
process (like the eternal generation of the Son), but the mission belongs to the Trinity of revelation
in the historical execution of the scheme of redemption. In this exegesis the orthodox divines of
the Greek and Latin churches are agreed. They differ on the source of the procession, but not on
the mission.
Modern exegetes, who adhere closely to the grammatical sense, and are not governed by
dogmatic systems, incline mostly to the view that no metaphysical distinction is intended in those
passages, and that the procession of the Spirit from the Father, and the mission of the Spirit by the
Father and the Son, refer alike to the same historic event and soteriological operation, namely, the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and his continued work in the church and in
the heart of believers. The Spirit "proceeds" when he "is sent" on his divine mission to glorify the
Son and to apply the redemption to men. The Saviour speaks of the office and work of the Spirit
rather than of his being and essence. Nevertheless there is a difference which must not be overlooked.
In the procession, the Spirit is active: in the mission, he is passive; the procession is spoken of in
the present tense (ejkporeuvetai) as a present act, the mission in the future tense (pevmyw) as a
future act, so that the former seems to belong to the eternal Trinity of essence, the latter to the
historical or economical Trinity of revelation. Now God indeed reveals himself as he actually is,
and we may therefore reason back from the divine office of the Spirit to his divine nature, and from
his temporal mission to his eternal relation. Yet it may be questioned whether such inference justifies
the doctrine of a double procession in the absence of any express Scripture warrant.^577
571
ἐκπόρευσις,a patristic noun, derived from the biblical and classical verbἐκπορεύομαι, the Latin processio is from
procedere.(^572) Called by the Greeksἰδιονorἰδιότηςby the Latins proprietas personalis or character hypostaticus. See vol. III. §
130.
(^573) ἀγεννησία, paternitas.
(^574) γεννησία,γέννησις, generation filiatio.
575
John 15:26, Christ says of the Spirit:ο νἐγὼπέμψω. Comp. 16:7;πέμψωαὐτόν, and 14:26:ὃπέμψειὁΠατὴρἐντω̑
ὀνόματίμου.
(^576) ἐκπεμψις, missio
(^577) On the exegetical question, see the commentaries on John 15:26 and the parallel passages by Lange (Am. ed., p. 469),
Luthardt, Meyer, Weiss (6th ed. of Meyer), Alford, Westcott, Godet. Lange says: "To the Father doubtless belongs the honor
of being the firstἀρχήfrom which the Son himself proceeds; but since the Holy Spirit is at the same time the Spirit of the Son,
unto whom it is also given to have life in himself, theδιὰτου̑υἱου̑(ἐκτου̑πατρός) of the Greek theology is not sufficient." Godet