Article V
The Holy Spirit
The Spirit is fully God, giving life to God’s people.
The Article
OF THE HOLY GHOST
THE Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory, with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.
In modern English
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. He shares the same divine being, majesty and glory as the Father and the Son, and is truly and eternally God.
Scripture readings
- John 15:26
- John 16:13–15
- Acts 5:3–4
Understand the teaching
The person who gives us new life
Article V completes the opening account of the triune God by confessing the full deity of the Holy Spirit. He shares the same divine being, majesty and glory as the Father and the Son. Christians therefore encounter God himself in the Spirit's presence and work. This matters whenever spiritual experience becomes central in a church. The Spirit is a person to trust and obey. His presence cannot be reduced to an atmosphere, an emotional intensity or a resource a leader learns to control.
The word Holy Ghost uses an older English word for spirit. It does not suggest that the Spirit is the ghost of a dead person. Nor does his designation imply that the Father and Son possess less holiness. The Article identifies the third person through his distinctive relationship within the Trinity while affirming the undivided divine nature. The same eternal God who creates and redeems also brings people to faith, dwells within them and forms them into Christ's likeness.
His deity and personal agency in Scripture
Acts 5:3–4 closely connects lying to the Holy Spirit with lying to God. First Corinthians 2:10–12 describes the Spirit knowing the depths of God and enabling believers to receive what God has given. His knowledge is uniquely divine. The baptismal command in Matthew 28:19 places him alongside the Father and Son within the one name into which disciples are baptised. Together these passages provide important foundations for the Article's confession of equal divine majesty.
Scripture also depicts personal action. The Spirit teaches and reminds the disciples in John 14:26, distributes gifts according to his will in 1 Corinthians 12:11, and can be grieved according to Ephesians 4:30. We should read these descriptions together. His work engages truth, relationships and moral conduct. A congregation cannot reasonably claim deep responsiveness to the Spirit while treating manipulation, persistent dishonesty or cruelty as minor matters. The one present among us is holy and personally concerned with the life we share.
Proceeding from the Father and the Son
The Article's language of procession concerns the Spirit's eternal relationship within God. It says he proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Latin expression filioque means and the Son, and its addition to the Western form of the Nicene Creed became a major point of disagreement with Eastern Christianity. Eastern Christians fully confess the Spirit's deity. Their objection concerns the account of his origin and the authority to alter a creed received by the wider church.
John 15:26 speaks of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and of Jesus sending him. John 16:14–15 links the Spirit's ministry closely with what belongs to the Son and the Father. Western theology has understood these passages within an account of the Spirit's eternal relationship to both. Eastern theology distinguishes carefully between eternal procession and being sent in history. Modern Anglican ecumenical dialogue has sought agreement and sometimes recommended omitting the added clause when reciting the creed. Such dialogue does not erase the historic wording we are studying here.
The Spirit's work and disputed gifts
Jesus says the Spirit will glorify him in John 16:14. This provides a central test of spiritual ministry: does it lead people to understand, trust and obey Jesus? Romans 8 connects the Spirit with adoption, assurance, resistance to sin and hope for bodily resurrection. His work reaches the whole person. The Christian who patiently forgives an offender may display the Spirit's activity as significantly as someone exercising a more immediately noticeable spiritual gift.
Article V does not resolve later debates about prophecy, tongues or healing. Anglicans have differed over whether particular gifts continue and how they should be practised. Within a continuationist approach, 1 Corinthians 12–14 provides essential safeguards: gifts serve the common good, love governs their use, claims require discernment, and gatherings need order. Personal intensity cannot establish divine authority. An impression offered prayerfully must remain open to testing and correction, especially when someone proposes to direct another person's major life decisions.
Depending upon the Spirit daily
Imagine a worship leader who assumes a quiet service indicates the Spirit's absence. This Article invites a deeper judgement. Were people helped to hear Scripture, confess sin, trust Christ and care for one another? The Spirit can work through joyful exuberance and through attentive stillness. Emotional responses are real features of human worship, but they vary with personality, circumstance and culture. Leaders serve well when they make room for sincere responses without pressuring everyone to reproduce one visible experience.
Dependence on the Spirit includes expectant prayer and ordinary obedience. Ask for his help before reading Scripture, making a difficult apology or speaking about Jesus. Then act upon what Scripture makes clear. Galatians 5:22–25 offers a concrete examination of growth: love, joy, peace and the other fruit become visible in relationships over time. Choose one relationship in which a particular fruit is needed. Pray specifically for the Spirit's enabling and take a practical step that expresses the character of Christ there.
Bring it into everyday life
- Ask the Spirit to make one quality of Christ more evident in you.