The Spirit of the Age: The 19th Century Debate Over the Holy Spirit and the Westminster Confession

“Critics of Calvinism often refer to Reformed Protestants as Gods frozen chosen, an expression that evokes belief in election and the absence of Spirit-filled piety. John Feskos book proves how wrong that characterization is. The work of the Holy Spirit, as Fesko shows, has long been a subject of reflection and meditation for theologians and pastors. The reason can only be that Calvinists, like Fesko, seek and encourage evidence of the Spirits work in salvation.”

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“J. V. Fesko investigates the progressive philosophy of men like Charles Briggs, Philip Schaff, and John Williamson Nevin to explain why the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America added a chapter on the Holy Spirit to the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1903. Where those men had concluded the Westminster divines had an inadequate theology of the Holy Spirit when they issued the confession in 1646, Fesko argues that the divines theology of the Holy Spirit in the WCF is actually robust and catholic. He is especially insightful in showing the divines close connection between Christology and pneumatology, as this partially explains the lack of a separate chapter on the Holy Spirit in the WCF. There are lessons for us still today in this cautionary tale that led to the unnecessary 1903 revision.”

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“Sometimes it has been suggested by critics, both outside and inside the tradition, that the Reformed church doesnt seem interested in keeping in step with the Spirit. While Reformed Christians should always be keen to pursue intellectual and theological repentance as prompted by Gods Holy Word, we do well to actually engage our exegetical and confessional tradition with alert awareness. Fesko helps us do so, that we might find treasures old and new in the ways in which earlier Christians and then the Reformed divines acclaim the Spirit of God as Lord and giver of life.”

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