The Subordination Of The Spirit To The Father And The Son

This chapter explains that while the Holy Spirit is fully God, He willingly takes a subordinate role to the Father and the Son in His work. Scripture shows that He is sent by the Father and the Son, speaks what He hears from them, and seeks to glorify Christ rather than Himself. This working relationship within the Trinity reflects unity, not inequality.

From the fact that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, it does not follow that the Holy Spirit is in every sense equal to the Father. While the Scriptures teach that in Jesus Christ dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead in a bodily form (Colossians 2:9) and that He was so truly and fully Divine that He could say, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

(John 14:9), they also teach with equal clearness that Jesus Christ was not equal to the Father in every respect, but subordinate to the Father in many ways. Similarly, the Scriptures teach us that though the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, He is subordinate to the Father and the Son.

In John 14:26, we are taught that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and in the name of the Son. Jesus declares very clearly, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” In John 15 :26, it is Jesus who sends the Spirit from the Father. The exact words are, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” Just as we are elsewhere tau ght that Jesus Christ was sent by the Father (John 6:29, 8:29, 42), we are here taught that the Holy Spirit, in turn, is sent by Jesus Christ.

The subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son also comes out in the fact that He derives some of His names from the Father and the Son. We read in Romans 8:9, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” Here we have two names of th e Spirit, one derived from His relation to the Father, “the Spirit of God,” and the other derived from His relation to the Son, “the Spirit of Christ.”

In Acts 16:7, He is spoken of as “the Spirit of Jesus. “The subordination of the Spirit to the Son is also seen in the fact that the Holy Spirit speaks ' not from Himself but speaks the words which He hears.” We read in John 16:13, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. “The subordination of the Spirit to the Son comes out again in the revealed fact that it is the work of the Holy Spirit not to glorify Himself but to glorify Christ. Jesus says in John 16:14, “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Similarly, Jesus didn’t try to make Himself look great. He wanted to bring glory to the One who sent Him, His Father.

From all these passages, it is evident that the Holy Spirit, in His present work, while possessed of all the attributes of Deity, is subordinated to the Father and the Son. On the other hand, we shall see later that in His earthly life, Jesus lived and taught and worked in the power of the Holy Spirit.