The Gifts of the Holy Spirit – II
Vol. 57 No. 39 The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity August 23, 2026
Strengthened for the Fight
The classical Prayer Book’s Confirmation prayer asks for the baptized to be strengthened by the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit—wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength, knowledge and godliness, and holy fear. But if Baptism has already given regeneration, forgiveness, why is this further strengthening needed? One answer arose from the ancient Church’s understanding of the Christian life as spiritual combat – and understanding that goes back to St. Anthony fighting with devils in the deserts of Egypt, and to St. Paul’s stirring testimony in the epistle to the Ephesians: “we war not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against spiritual darkness in high places…” The devil does not give up without putting up a stiff fight. In the fifth century, Faustus of Riez expressed the distinction memorably: in Baptism we are reborn to life; in Confirmation we are armed for the strife. He writes in a milieu that was deeply shaped both by the ascetical tradition of the monastic movement (with its insistence on good works and spiritual warfare), and by the teaching of Augustine (with his insistence on the priority of grace. Faustus combines these two emphases: the priority of divine grace does not make the Christian passive. Grace gives new life; but the person made alive by grace must now believe, obey, persevere, resist temptation, and struggle against sin.
This understanding survived the Reformation and appears with remarkable clarity in the Prayer Book of 1552. Its lengthy rubric before Confirmation is really a theological rationale for the whole service. It begins by saying that Confirmation should be administered “to the more edifying” of those who receive it, “according unto Saint Paul’s doctrine,” that all things in the Church should be done for its edification (1 Corinthians 14:26), that is, to “build up” and strengthen Christians in faith and virtue. Those presented must therefore be able to say in their own language the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and answer questions from the Catechism. The Prayer Book then gives three reasons for this requirement.
First, children who have reached “the years of discretion” and learned what their godparents promised for them in Baptism may now “with their own mouth, and with their own consent,” openly ratify those promises. They promise, significantly, that “by the grace of God” they will endeavour faithfully to observe what they have professed. The priority of grace is carefully maintained. Confirmation is not the moment at which the baptized cease relying upon grace and begin relying upon their own moral effort. Their own willing and striving are themselves made possible by grace. But grace calls forth precisely such willing and striving.
The second reason is even more striking: “Confirmation is ministered to them that be baptized, that by imposition of hands and Prayer they may receive strength and defence against all temptations to sin and the assaults of the world and the Devil.” It is therefore especially fitting when children reach the age at which “partly by the frailty of their own flesh, partly by the assaults of the world and the Devil,” they begin to be in danger of falling into different kinds of sin.
Here the old ascetical tradition represented by Faustus reappears almost unmistakably. Baptism gives new life; Confirmation strengthens the baptized for the spiritual battle belonging to that life. The enemy is both within and without: the disordered desires of our own fallen nature, the pressures of the world around us, and the spiritual adversary whom Scripture calls the Devil.
Thirdly, the Prayer Book appeals to “the usage of the Church in times past.” Those of mature age, having been instructed in the Christian religion, publicly professed their faith and promised obedience to the will of God. The Reformation of Confirmation is thus presented not as the abandonment of ancient practice but as its recovery and clarification.
The rubric and the prayer that follows illuminate one another. The rubric tells us why strengthening is needed: for the struggle involved in faithful Christian obedience. The prayer tells us what that strengthening consists in: the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit promised in Isaiah. Two ancient strands have been woven together. From Isaiah and Ambrose comes the sevenfold Spirit of the Messiah, communicated to those who belong to Christ. From the ascetical tradition comes the understanding of Christian life as a combat in which the baptized continually require divine strengthening against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
This gives us a richer account of sanctification than either passivity or moralism. We do not make ourselves holy by our own efforts. The Spirit conforms us to Christ. Yet neither does the Spirit render our effort unnecessary. Grace enables precisely the faith, obedience, resistance, repentance, and perseverance to which God calls us.
But the Prayer Book’s opening appeal to St Paul introduces another dimension. Confirmation is to be celebrated for “edifying”; and edification is one of St Paul’s great words for the purpose of spiritual gifts. The Spirit strengthens Christians not simply as isolated individuals but as members of a Body.
That brings us back to the Epistle for Trinity 10, and to the other gifts of the Holy Spirit, to which we will turn next.
(Second of Three Parts)