Philip Melanchthon on Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
At the moment of saving faith
By faith alone is apprehended remission of sins and grace. And because the Holy Spirit is received by faith, our hearts are now renewed, and so put on new affections, so that they are able to bring forth good works.
THE POSITION
Augsburg XX states the sequence directly: the Holy Spirit is received through faith, and the renewal of the heart and the capacity for good works follow from that reception. The Spirit is not first given and then faith produced as its effect; faith is the hand that takes what the promise offers, and the Spirit comes with it.
2 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Luther's colleague at Wittenberg and the Reformation's systematizer. He wrote the first Protestant systematic theology (Loci Communes, 1521), drafted the Augsburg Confession (1530) and its Apology (1531), and then revised his own work far enough that the Formula of Concord condemned the later version seventeen years after his death. This entry rests on the Augsburg Confession read in Latin and English — Part I less Articles VI-VIII and XIV-XVI, plus Part II Articles XXII-XXIV and XXVIII — on the opening articles of the Apology in English, and on the successive editions of the Loci through Latin sentences preserved by Schaff and Bente; no edition of the Loci itself was read.
Cite this page
"Philip Melanchthon on Indwelling of the Holy Spirit", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/melanchthon/indwelling (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/melanchthon/indwelling).