[Alamo-Girl]

annalex: Is it your contention that the Church receives the Holy Spirit but does not give it to anyone?

Dr. Eckleburg: Believers receive the Holy Spirit. Believers make up a congregation. The Holy Spirit speaks to and regenerates the individual heart of each believer. The congregation and the groups of congregations making up the church exist to preach the Good News of the Gospel and to enjoy glorying God in unison.

The church exists by the will of God, led by the Holy Spirit, to serve Jesus Christ. Not vice versa.

Everything, absolutely everything, is subordinate to Jesus Christ.

Indeed. Thank you so much for your excellent post!

Truly, the thought of the Church - or any thing other than a mortal man - being able to receive the Holy Spirit strikes me as bizarre since Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, a man, telling him that he must be born again.

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. - John 3:5-6

Actually, even imagining a mortal man "receiving" (as in physically catching) the Holy Spirit strikes me as odd. It is a rebirth.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. - John 3:8

[annalex]

I don’t understand what your contention is. The clergy actiong in the person of Christ effects the sacraments of the Church, under the canon law that the Church establishes. Why?

- As my Father had sent me so I send you;
- bind and loose on earth and accordingly it will be bound and loosened in heaven