John Oliver - Giver of Life: The Holy Spirit in Orthodox Tradition

O heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things; Treasury of good things and Giver of life; come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Gracious Lord.

F LOWERS , like those with which the Orthodox adorn our churches during Pentecost, open gradually. So too does Holy Scripture, revealing its inner treasures over time. Orthodoxy is an emphatically Trinitarian faith, but the book of Genesis does not open with an explicit and detailed explanation of Holy Trinity or three Persons or Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet Orthodox Christians believe that the aroma of the Trinity rises from the first page.

Let Us make man in Our image (Gen. 1:26). Who, exactly, is Us? Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of Us (Gen. 3:22). Like Whom? Come, let Us go down there and confuse their language (Gen. 11:7). Who is coming down? These references to God are uttered by God Himself. Is He referring, perhaps, to Himself and the angels? But why would humanity be made in the image of both God and the angels? Or is He referring to some plurality within Himself? But if, as Moses wrote, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord (Deut. 6:4), how can there be plurality in one ?

So pages are turned and petals are opened: while early Genesis suggests some kind of plurality, later Genesis hints toward three . The Orthodox perceive Gods appearance to Abraham in the form of three mysterious visitors as rich with Trinitarian significance. A famous icon often used in churches during the season of Pentecostby the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev and called The Hospitality of Abraham shows three angelic figures seated at table, two looking toward one, and is often adorned with boughs that represent the ancient oak of Mamre beneath which the encounter occurred (Gen. 18).

When Orthodox Christians reach the end of the Old Testament and turn around to survey the landscape covered, we see perhaps the most powerful foreshadowing of the Holy Trinity: the presence, everywhere, of God who gives His Word and shares His Spirit. Yahweh is in the midst of His people not as a concept or an idea but as Word that is also an act and as Spirit that is also a presence .

Entering the New Testament, the three come into sharper relief. When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:1617). At the baptism of Christ, the three have now been identifiedGod, a Son, and a Spirit.