The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit
by R. A. Torrey · English · Gutenberg #30241 · 409,097 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit
Author: R. A. Torrey
Release date: October 13, 2009 [eBook #30241]
Most recently updated: June 16, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30241
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ***
The Person and Work
of
The Holy Spirit
As Revealed in the Scriptures
And in Personal Experience
By
R. A. Torrey
Fleming H. Revell Company
New York, Chicago, Toronto,
London and Edinburgh
Copyright 1910, by
R. A. Torrey
CONTENTS
Chapter I. The Personality of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter II. The Deity of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter III. The Distinction of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from
His Son, Jesus Christ.
Chapter IV. The Subordination of the Spirit to the Father and to the Son.
Chapter V. The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit as Revealed in His
Names.
Chapter VI. The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Material Universe.
Chapter VII. The Holy Spirit Convicting the World of Sin, of Righteousness
and of Judgment.
Chapter VIII. The Holy Spirit Bearing Witness to Jesus Christ.
Chapter IX. The Regenerating Work of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter X. The Indwelling Spirit Fully and Forever Satisfying.
Chapter XI. The Holy Spirit Setting the Believer Free From the Power of
Indwelling Sin.
Chapter XII. The Holy Spirit Forming Christ Within Us.
Chapter XIII. The Holy Spirit Bringing Forth in the Believer Christlike
Graces of Character.
Chapter XIV. The Holy Spirit Guiding the Believer Into a Life as a Son.
Chapter XV. The Holy Spirit Bearing Witness to our Sonship.
Chapter XVI. The Holy Spirit as a Teacher.
Chapter XVII. Praying, Returning Thanks, Worshipping in the Holy Spirit.
Chapter XVIII. The Holy Spirit Sending Men Forth to Definite Lines of
Work.
Chapter XIX. The Holy Spirit and the Believer’s Body.
Chapter XX. The Baptism With the Holy Spirit.
Chapter XXI. The Work of the Holy Spirit in Prophets and Apostles.
Chapter XXII. The Work of the Holy Spirit In Jesus Christ.
Footnotes
CHAPTER I. THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Before one can correctly understand the work of the Holy Spirit, he must
first of all know the Spirit Himself. A frequent source of error and
fanaticism about the work of the Holy Spirit is the attempt to study and
understand His work without first of all coming to know Him as a Person.
It is of the highest importance from the standpoint of worship that we
decide whether the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, worthy to receive our
adoration, our faith, our love, and our entire surrender to Himself, or
whether it is simply an influence emanating from God or a power or an
illumination that God imparts to us. If the Holy Spirit is a person, and a
Divine Person, and we do not know Him as such, then we are robbing a
Divine Being of the worship and the faith and the love and the surrender
to Himself which are His due.
It is also of the highest importance from the practical standpoint that we
decide whether the Holy Spirit is merely some mysterious and wonderful
power that we in our weakness and ignorance are somehow to get hold of and
use, or whether the Holy Spirit is a real Person, infinitely holy,
infinitely wise, infinitely mighty and infinitely tender who is to get
hold of and use us. The former conception is utterly heathenish, not
essentially different from the thought of the African fetich worshipper
who has his god whom he uses. The latter conception is sublime and
Christian. If we think of the Holy Spirit as so many do as merely a power
or influence, our constant thought will be, “How can I get more of the
Holy Spirit,” but if we think of Him in the Biblical way as a Divine
Person, our thought will rather be, “How can the Holy Spirit have more of
me?” The conception of the Holy Spirit as a Divine influence or power that
we are somehow to get hold of and use, leads to self-exaltation and
self-sufficiency. One who so thinks of the Holy Spirit and who at the same
time imagines that he has received the Holy Spirit will almost inevitably
be full of spiritual pride and strut about as if he belonged to some
superior order of Christians. One frequently hears such persons say, “I am
a Holy Ghost man,” or “I am a Holy Ghost woman.” But if we once grasp the
thought that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person of infinite majesty, glory
and holiness and power, who in marvellous condescension has come into our
hearts to make His abode there and take possession of our lives and make
use of them, it will put us in the dust and keep us in the dust. I can
think of no thought more humbling or more overwhelming than the thought
that a person of Divine majesty and glory dwells in my heart and is ready
to use even me.
It is of the highest importance from the standpoint of experience that we
know the Holy Spirit as a person. Thousands and tens of thousands of men
and women can testify to the blessing that has come into their own lives
as they have come to know the Holy Spirit, not merely as a gracious
influence (emanating, it is true, from God) but as a real Person, just as
real as Jesus Christ Himself, an ever-present, loving Friend and mighty
Helper, who is not only always by their side but dwells in their heart
every day and every hour and who is ready to undertake for them in every
emergency of life. Thousands of ministers, Christian workers and
Christians in the humblest spheres of life have spoken to me, or written
to me, of the complete transformation of their Christian experience that
came to them when they grasped the thought (not merely in a theological,
but in an experimental way) that the Holy Spirit was a Person and
consequently came to know Him.
There are at least four distinct lines of proof in the Bible that the Holy
Spirit is a person.
I. _All the distinctive characteristics of personality are ascribed to the
Holy Spirit in the Bible._
What are the distinctive characteristics, or marks, of personality?
Knowledge, feeling or emotion, and will. Any entity that thinks and feels
and wills is a person. When we say that the Holy Spirit is a person, there
are those who understand us to mean that the Holy Spirit has hands and
feet and eyes and ears and mouth, and so on, but these are not the
characteristics of personality but of corporeity. All of these
characteristics or marks of personality are repeatedly ascribed to the
Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments. We read in 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11,
“But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” Here knowledge is
ascribed to the Holy Spirit. We are clearly taught that the Holy Spirit is
not merely an influence that illuminates our minds to comprehend the truth
but a Being who Himself knows the truth.
In 1 Cor. xii. 11, we read, “But all these worketh that one and the
selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as _He will_.” Here will
is ascribed to the Spirit and we are taught that the Holy Spirit is not a
power that we get hold of and use according to our will but a Person of
sovereign majesty, who uses us according to His will. This distinction is
of fundamental importance in our getting into right relations with the
Holy Spirit. It is at this very point that many honest seekers after power
and efficiency in service go astray. They are reaching out after and
struggling to get possession of some mysterious and mighty power that they
can make use of in their work according to their own will. They will never
get possession of the power they seek until they come to recognize that
there is not some Divine power for them to get hold of and use in their
blindness and ignorance but that there is a Person, infinitely wise, as
well as infinitely mighty, who is willing to take possession of them and
use them according to His own perfect will. When we stop to think of it,
we must rejoice that there is no Divine power that beings so ignorant as
we are, so liable to err, to get hold of and use. How appalling might be
the results if there were. But what a holy joy must come into our hearts
when we grasp the thought that there is a Divine Person, One who never
errs, who is willing to take possession of us and impart to us such gifts
as He sees best and to use us according to His wise and loving will.
We read in Rom. viii. 27, “And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what
is _the mind of the Spirit_, because He maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God.” In this passage mind is ascribed to the
Holy Spirit. The Greek word translated “mind” is a comprehensive word,
including the ideas of thought, feeling and purpose. It is the same that
is used in Rom. viii. 7 where we read that “the carnal mind is enmity
against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
be.” So then in this passage we have all the distinctive marks of
personality ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
We find the personality of the Holy Spirit brought out in a most touching
and suggestive way in Rom. xv. 30, “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the
Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the _love of the Spirit_, that ye strive
together with me in your prayers to God for me.” Here we have “_love_”
ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The reader would do well to stop and ponder
those five words, “_the love of the Spirit_.” We dwell often upon the love
of God the Father. It is the subject of our daily and constant thought. We
dwell often upon the love of Jesus Christ the Son. Who would think of
calling himself a Christian who passed a day without meditating on the
love of his Saviour, but how often have we meditated upon “_the love of
the Spirit_”? Each day of our lives, if we are living as Christians ought,
we kneel down in the presence of God the Father and look up into His face
and say, “I thank Thee, Father, for Thy great love that led Thee to give
Thine only begotten Son to die upon the cross of Calvary for me.” Each day
of our lives we also look up into the face of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ, and say, “Oh, Thou glorious Lord and Saviour, Jesus Thou Son of
God, I thank Thee for Thy great love that led Thee not to count it a thing
to be grasped to be on equality with God but to empty Thyself and
forsaking all the glory of heaven, come down to earth with all its shame
and to take my sins upon Thyself and die in my place upon the cross of
Calvary.” But how often do we kneel and say to the Holy Spirit, “Oh, Thou
eternal and infinite Spirit of God, I thank Thee for Thy great love that
led Thee to come into this world of sin and darkness and to seek me out
and to follow me so patiently until Thou didst bring me to see my utter
ruin and need of a Saviour and to reveal to me my Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ, as just the Saviour whom I need.” Yet we owe our salvation just as
truly to the love of the Spirit as we do to the love of the Father and the
love of the Son. If it had not been for the love of God the Father looking
down upon me in my utter ruin and providing a perfect atonement for me in
the death of His own Son on the cross of Calvary, I would have been in
hell to-day. If it had not been for the love of Jesus Christ, the eternal
Word of God, looking upon me in my utter ruin and in obedience to the
Father, putting aside all the glory of heaven for all the shame of earth
and taking my place, the place of the curse, upon the cross of Calvary and
pouring out His life utterly for me, I would have been in hell to-day. But
if it had not been for the love of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in
answer to the prayer of the Son (John xiv. 16) leading Him to seek me out
in my utter blindness and ruin and to follow me day after day, week after
week, and year after year, when I persistently turned a deaf ear to His
pleadings, following me through paths of sin where it must have been agony
for that holy One to go, until at last I listened and He opened my eyes to
see my utter ruin and then revealed Jesus to me as just the Saviour that
would meet my every need and then enabled me to receive this Jesus as my
own Saviour; if it had not been for this patient, long-suffering,
never-tiring, infinitely-tender love of the Holy Spirit, I would have been
in hell to-day. Oh, the Holy Spirit is not merely an influence or a power
or an illumination but is a Person just as real as God the Father or Jesus
Christ His Son.
The personality of the Holy Spirit comes out in the Old Testament as truly
as in the New, for we read in Neh. ix. 20, “Thou gavest also Thy good
Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not Thy manna from their mouth,
and gavest them water for their thirst.” Here both intelligence and
goodness are ascribed to the Holy Spirit. There are some who tell us that
while it is true the personality of the Holy Spirit is found in the New
Testament, it is not found in the Old. But it is certainly found in this
passage. As a matter of course, the doctrine of the personality of the
Holy Spirit is not as fully developed in the Old Testament as in the New.
But the doctrine is there.
There is perhaps no passage in the entire Bible in which the personality
of the Holy Spirit comes out more tenderly and touchingly than in Eph. iv.
30, “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the
day of redemption.” Here grief is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit is not a blind, impersonal influence or power that comes into our
lives to illuminate, sanctify and empower them. No, He is immeasurably
more than that, He is a holy Person who comes to dwell in our hearts, One
who sees clearly every act we perform, every word we speak, every thought
we entertain, even the most fleeting fancy that is allowed to pass through
our minds; and if there is anything in act, or word or deed that is
impure, unholy, unkind, selfish, mean, petty or untrue, this infinitely
holy One is deeply grieved by it. I know of no thought that will help one
more than this to lead a holy life and to walk softly in the presence of
the holy One. How often a young man is kept back from yielding to the
temptations that surround young manhood by the thought that if he should
yield to the temptation that now assails him, his holy mother might hear
of it and would be grieved by it beyond expression. How often some young
man has had his hand upon the door of some place of sin that he is about
to enter and the thought has come to him, “If I should enter there, my
mother might hear of it and it would nearly kill her,” and he has turned
his back upon that door and gone away to lead a pure life, that he might
not grieve his mother. But there is One who is holier than any mother, One
who is more sensitive against sin than the purest woman who ever walked
this earth, and who loves us as even no mother ever loved, and this One
dwells in our hearts, if we are really Christians, and He sees every act
we do by day or under cover of the night; He hears every word we utter in
public or in private; He sees every thought we entertain, He beholds every
fancy and imagination that is permitted even a momentary lodgment in our
mind, and if there is anything unholy, impure, selfish, mean, petty,
unkind, harsh, unjust, or in anywise evil in act or word or thought or
fancy, He is grieved by it. If we will allow those words, “Grieve not the
Holy Spirit of God,” to sink into our hearts and become the motto of our
lives, they will keep us from many a sin. How often some thought or fancy
has knocked for an entrance into my own mind and was about to find
entertainment when the thought has come, “The Holy Spirit sees that
thought and will be grieved by it” and that thought has gone.
II. _Many acts that only a Person can perform are ascribed to the Holy
Spirit._
If we deny the personality of the Holy Spirit, many passages of Scripture
become meaningless and absurd. For example, we read in 1 Cor. ii. 10, “But
God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for _the Spirit searcheth_
all things, yea, the deep things of God.” This passage sets before us the
Holy Spirit, not merely as an illumination whereby we are enabled to grasp
the deep things of God, but a Person who Himself searches the deep things
of God and then reveals to us the precious discoveries which He has made.
We read in Rev. ii. 7, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what _the Spirit
saith_ unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the
tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Here the Holy
Spirit is set before us, not merely as an impersonal enlightenment that
comes to our mind but a Person who speaks and out of the depths of His own
wisdom, whispers into the ear of His listening servant the precious truth
of God.
In Gal. iv. 6 we read, “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into your hearts, _crying_, Abba, Father.” Here the Holy
Spirit is represented as crying out in the heart of the individual
believer. Not merely a Divine influence producing in our own hearts the
assurance of our sonship but one who cries out in our hearts, who bears
witness together with our spirit that we are sons of God. (See also Rom.
viii. 16.)
The Holy Spirit is also represented in the Scripture as one who prays. We
read in Rom. viii. 26, R. V., “And in like manner the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmity; for we know not how to pray as we ought; but _the Spirit
Himself maketh intercession_ for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered.” It is plain from this passage that the Holy Spirit is not merely
an influence that moves us to pray, not merely an illumination that
teaches us how to pray, but a Person who Himself prays in and through us.
There is wondrous comfort in the thought that every true believer has two
Divine Persons praying for him, Jesus Christ, the Son who was once upon
this earth, who knows all about our temptations, who can be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities and who is now ascended to the right hand
of the Father and in that place of authority and power ever lives to make
intercession for us (Heb. vii. 25; 1 John ii. 1); and another Person, just
as Divine as He, who walks by our side each day, yes, who dwells in the
innermost depths of our being and knows our needs, even as we do not know
them ourselves, and from these depths makes intercession to the Father for
us. The position of the believer is indeed one of perfect security with
these two Divine Persons praying for him.
We read again in John xv. 26, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth
from the Father, _He shall testify_ of Me.” Here the Holy Spirit is set
before us as a Person who gives His testimony to Jesus Christ, not merely
as an illumination that enables the believer to testify of Christ, but a
Person who Himself testifies; and a clear distinction is drawn in this and
the following verse between the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the
testimony of the believer to whom He has borne His witness, for we read in
the next verse, “And _ye also_ shall bear witness because ye have been
with Me from the beginning.” So there are two witnesses, the Holy Spirit
bearing witness to the believer and the believer bearing witness to the
world.
The Holy Spirit is also spoken of as a teacher. We read in John xiv. 26,
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in
My name, _He shall teach_ you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” And in a similar way, we
read in John xvi. 12-14, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, _He
will guide_ you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but
whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things
to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show
it unto you.” And in the Old Testament, Neh. ix. 20, “Thou gavest also Thy
good Spirit to instruct them.” In all these passages it is perfectly clear
that the Holy Spirit is not a mere illumination that enables us to
apprehend the truth, but a Person who comes to us to teach us day by day
the truth of God. It is the privilege of the humblest believer in Jesus
Christ not merely to have his mind illumined to comprehend the truth of
God, but to have a Divine Teacher to daily teach him the truth he needs to
know (cf. 1 John ii. 20, 27). The Holy Spirit is also represented as the
Leader and Guide of the children of God. We read in Rom. viii. 14, “For as
many as are _led by the Spirit_ of God they are the sons of God.” He is
not merely an influence that enables us to see the way that God would have
us go, nor merely a power that gives us strength to go that way, but a
Person who takes us by the hand and gently leads us on in the paths in
which God would have us walk.
The Holy Spirit is also represented as a Person who has authority to
command men in their service of Jesus Christ. We read of the Apostle Paul
and his companions in Acts xvi. 6, 7, “Now when they had gone throughout
Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were _forbidden of the Holy Ghost_
to preach the Word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to
go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.” Here it is a Person
who takes the direction of the conduct of Paul and his companions and a
Person whose authority they recognized and to whom they instantly submit.
Further still than this the Holy Spirit is represented as the One who is
the supreme authority in the church, who calls men to work and appoints
them to office. We read in Acts xiii. 2, “As they ministered to the Lord,
and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the
work where unto I have called them.” And in Acts xx. 28, “Take heed
therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy
Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which He hath
purchased with His own blood.” There can be no doubt to a candid seeker
after truth that it is a Person, and a person of Divine majesty and
sovereignty, who is here set before us.
From all the passages here quoted, it is evident that many acts that only
a person can perform are ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
III. _An office is predicated of the Holy Spirit that can only be
predicated of a person._
Our Saviour says in John xiv. 16, 17, “And I will pray the Father, and He
shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; Even
the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him
not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and
shall be in you.” Our Lord had announced to the disciples that He was
about to leave them. An awful sense of desolation took possession of them.
Sorrow filled their hearts (John xvi. 6) at the contemplation of their
loneliness and absolute helplessness when Jesus should thus leave them
alone. To comfort them the Lord tells them that they shall not be left
alone, that in leaving them He was going to the Father and that He would
pray the Father and He would give them another Comforter to take the place
of Himself during His absence. Is it possible that Jesus Christ could have
used such language if the other Comforter who was coming to take His place
was only an impersonal influence or power? Still more, is it possible that
Jesus could have said as He did in John xvi. 7, “Nevertheless I tell you
the truth: _It is expedient for you that I go away_: for if I go not away,
the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him
unto you,” if this Comforter whom He was to send was simply an impersonal
influence or power? No, one Divine Person was going, another Person just
as Divine was coming to take His place, and it was expedient for the
disciples that the One go to represent them before the Father, for another
just as Divine and sufficient was coming to take His place. This promise
of our Lord and Saviour of the coming of the other Comforter and of His
abiding with us is the greatest and best of all for the present
dispensation. This is _the_ promise of the Father (Acts i. 4), the promise
of promises. We shall take it up again when we come to study the names of
the Holy Spirit.
IV. _A treatment is predicated to the Holy Spirit that could only be
predicated of a Person._
We read in Isa. lxiii. 10, R. V., “But they _rebelled and grieved_ His
Holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought
against them.” Here we are told that the Holy Spirit is rebelled against
and grieved (cf. Eph. iv. 30). Only a person can be rebelled against and
only a person of authority. Only a person can be grieved. You cannot
grieve a mere influence or power. In Heb. x. 29, we read, “Of how much
sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden
underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant,
wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath _done despite unto_
the Spirit of grace?” Here we are told that the Holy Spirit is “done
despite unto” (“treated with contumely”—Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of
the New Testament). There is but one kind of entity in the universe that
can be treated with contumely (or insulted) and that is a person. It is
absurd to think of treating an influence or a power or any kind of being
except a person with contumely. We read again in Acts v. 3, “But Peter
said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart _to lie to_ the Holy
Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?” Here we have the
Holy Spirit represented as one who can be lied to. One cannot lie to
anything but a person.
In Matt. xii. 31, 32, we read, “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of
sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a
word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in
this world, neither in the world to come.” Here we are told that the Holy
Spirit is blasphemed against. It is impossible to blaspheme anything but a
person. If the Holy Spirit is not a person, it certainly cannot be a more
serious and decisive sin to blaspheme Him than it is to blaspheme the Son
of man, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ Himself.
Here then we have four distinctive and decisive lines of proof _that the
Holy Spirit is a Person_. Theoretically most of us believe this but do we,
in our real thought of Him and in our practical attitude towards Him treat
Him as if He were indeed a Person? At the close of an address on the
Personality of the Holy Spirit at a Bible conference some years ago, one
who had been a church-member many years, a member of one of the most
orthodox of our modern denominations, said to me, “I never thought of _It_
before as a Person.” Doubtless this Christian woman had often sung:
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”
Doubtless she had often sung:
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
World without end, Amen.”
But it is one thing to sing words; it is quite another thing to realize
the meaning of what we sing. If this Christian woman had been questioned
in regard to her doctrine, she would doubtless have said that she believed
that there were three Persons in the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
but a theological confession is one thing, a practical realization of the
truth we confess is quite another. So the question is altogether
necessary, no matter how orthodox you may be in your creedal statements,
Do you regard the Holy Spirit as indeed as real a Person as Jesus Christ,
as loving and wise and strong, as worthy of your confidence and love and
surrender as Jesus Christ Himself? The Holy Spirit came into this world to
be to the disciples of our Lord after His departure, and to us, what Jesus
Christ had been to them during the days of His personal companionship with
them (John xiv. 16, 17). Is He that to you? Do you know Him? Every week in
your life you hear the apostolic benediction, “The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you
all” (2 Cor. xiii. 14), but while you hear it, do you take in the
significance of it? Do you know the communion of the Holy Ghost? The
fellowship of the Holy Ghost? The partnership of the Holy Ghost? The
comradeship of the Holy Ghost? The intimate personal friendship of the
Holy Ghost? Herein lies the whole secret of a real Christian life, a life
of liberty and joy and power and fullness. To have as one’s ever-present
Friend, and to be conscious that one has as his ever-present Friend, the
Holy Spirit and to surrender one’s life in all its departments entirely to
His control, this is true Christian living. The doctrine of the
Personality of the Holy Spirit is as distinctive of the religion that
Jesus taught as the doctrines of the Deity and the atonement of Jesus
Christ Himself. But it is not enough to believe the doctrine—one must know
the Holy Spirit Himself. The whole purpose of this chapter (God help me to
say it reverently) is to introduce you to my Friend, the Holy Spirit.
CHAPTER II. THE DEITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
In the preceding chapter we have seen clearly that the Holy Spirit is a
Person. But what sort of a Person is He? Is He a finite person or an
infinite person? Is He God? This question also is plainly answered in the
Bible. There are in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments five
distinct and decisive lines of proof of the Deity of the Holy Spirit.
I. _Each of the four distinctively Divine attributes is ascribed to the
Holy Spirit._
What are the distinctively Divine attributes? Eternity, omnipresence,
omniscience and omnipotence. All of these are ascribed to the Holy Spirit
in the Bible.
We find _eternity_ ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Heb. ix. 14, “How much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the _eternal_ Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?”
_Omnipresence_ is ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Ps. cxxxix. 7-10,
“Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy
presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in
hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead
me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.”
_Omniscience_ is ascribed to the Holy Spirit in several passages. For
example, we read in 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11, “But God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit: for the Spirit _searcheth all things_, yea, the deep things
of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man
which is in him? _Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit
of God._” Again in John xiv. 26, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy
Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall _teach you all
things_, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you.” Still further we read in John xvi. 12, 13, R. V., “I have yet
many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He,
the Spirit of truth is come, He shall _guide you into all the truth_: for
He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear,
these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to
come.”
We find _omnipotence_ ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Luke i. 35, “And the
angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and
the _power of the Highest_ shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
II. _Three distinctively Divine works are ascribed to the Holy Spirit._
When we think of God and His work, the first work of which we always think
is that of creation. In the Scriptures creation is ascribed to the Holy
Spirit. We read in Job xxxiii. 4, “The Spirit of God _hath made me_, and
the _breath of the Almighty_ hath given me life.” We read still again in
Ps. civ. 30, “Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, _they are created_: and Thou
renewest the face of the earth.” In connection with the description of
creation in the first chapter of Genesis, the activity of the Spirit is
referred to (Gen. i. 1-3).
The impartation of life is also a Divine work and this is ascribed in the
Scriptures to the Holy Spirit, We read in John vi. 6, A. R. V., “It is the
Spirit that giveth life: the flesh profiteth nothing.” We read also in
Rom. viii. 11, “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies _by His Spirit_ that dwelleth in you.” In the
description of the creation of man in Gen. ii. 7, it is the breath of God,
that is the Holy Spirit, who imparts life to man, and man becomes a living
soul. The exact words are, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils _the breath of life_; and man
became a living soul.” The Greek word which is rendered “spirit” means
“breath” and though the Holy Spirit as a Person does not come out
distinctly in this early reference to Him in Gen. ii. 7, nevertheless,
this passage interpreted in the light of the fuller revelation of the New
Testament clearly refers to the Holy Spirit.
The authorship of Divine prophecies is also ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
We read in 2 Pet. i. 21, R. V., “For no prophecy ever came by the will of
man: but men spake from God, _being moved by the Holy Ghost_.” Even in the
Old Testament, there is a reference to the Holy Spirit as the author of
prophecy. We read in 2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3, “_the Spirit of the _LORD_ spake_
by me, and His word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of
Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the
fear of God.”
So we see that the three distinctly Divine works of creation, the
impartation of life, and prophecy are ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
III. _Statements which in the Old Testament distinctly name the __LORD__
or Jehovah as their subject are applied to the Holy Spirit in the New
Testament, i. e., the Holy Spirit occupies the position of Deity in New
Testament thought._
A striking illustration of this is found in Isa. vi. 8-10, “Also I heard
the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
Then said I, Here am I; send me. And He said, Go, and tell this people,
Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut
their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and
understand with their heart, and convert and be healed.” In verse five we
are told that it was Jehovah (whenever the word LORD is spelled in
capitals in the Old Testament, it stands for Jehovah in the Hebrew and is
so rendered in the American Revision) whom Isaiah saw and who speaks. But
in Acts xxviii. 25-27 there is a reference to this statement of Isaiah’s
and whereas in Isaiah we are told it is Jehovah who speaks, in the
reference in Acts we are told that it was the Holy Spirit who was the
speaker. The passage in Acts reads as follows, “And when they agreed not
among themselves, they departed after that Paul had spoken one word, Well
spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go
unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not
understand; and seeing ye shall see and not perceive: For the heart of
this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their
eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with
their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and
I should heal them.” So we see that what is distinctly ascribed to Jehovah
in the Old Testament is ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the New: _i. e._,
the Holy Spirit is identified with Jehovah. It is a noteworthy fact that
in the Gospel of John, the twelfth chapter and the thirty-ninth to
forty-first verses where another reference is made to this passage in
Isaiah, this same passage is ascribed to Christ (note carefully the
forty-first verse). So in different parts of Scripture, we have the same
passage referred to Jehovah, referred to the Holy Spirit, and referred to
Jesus Christ. May we not find the explanation of this in the threefold
“Holy” of the seraphic cry in Isaiah vi. 3, where we read, “And one cried
unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole
earth is full of His glory.” In this we have a distinct suggestion of the
tri-personality of the Jehovah of Hosts, and hence the propriety of the
threefold application of the vision. A further suggestion of this
tri-personality of Jehovah of Hosts is found in the eighth verse of the
chapter where the Lord is represented as saying, “Whom shall I send, and
who will go for _us_?”
Another striking illustration of the application of passages in the New
Testament to the Holy Spirit which in the Old Testament distinctly name
Jehovah as their subject is found in Ex. xvi. 7. Here we read, “And in the
morning, then ye shall see the glory of the LORD; for that He heareth your
murmurings against the LORD: and what are we that ye murmur against us?”
Here the murmuring of the children of Israel is distinctly said to be
against Jehovah. But in Heb. iii. 7-9, where this instance is referred to,
we read, “Wherefore, _as the Holy Ghost saith_, To-day if ye will hear His
voice, harden not your hearts, and in the provocation, in the day of
temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted _Me_, proved _Me_,
and saw My works forty years.” The murmurings which Moses in the Book of
Exodus says were against Jehovah, we are told in the Epistle to the
Hebrews were against the Holy Spirit. This leaves it beyond question that
the Holy Spirit occupies the position of Jehovah (or Deity) in the New
Testament (cf. also Ps. xcv. 8-11).
IV. _The name of the Holy Spirit is coupled with that of God in a way it
would be impossible for a reverent and thoughtful mind to couple the name
of any finite being with that of the Deity._
We have an illustration of this in 1 Cor. xii. 4-6, “Now there are
diversities of gifts, but the _same Spirit_. And there are differences of
administrations, but the _same Lord_. And there are diversities of
operations, but it is the _same God_ which worketh all in all.” Here we
find God, and the Lord and the Spirit associated together in a relation of
equality that would be shocking to contemplate if the Spirit were a finite
being. We have a still more striking illustration of this in Matt. xxviii.
19, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the _Father_, and of the _Son_, and of the _Holy Ghost_.” Who, that had
grasped the Bible conception of God the Father, would think for a moment
of coupling the name of the Holy Spirit with that of the Father in this
way if the Holy Spirit were a finite being, even the most exalted of
angelic beings? Another striking illustration is found in 2 Cor. xiii. 14,
“The grace of _the Lord Jesus Christ_, and the love of _God_, and the
communion of _the Holy Ghost_, be with you all. Amen.” Can any one ponder
these words and catch anything like their real import without seeing
clearly that it would be impossible to couple the name of the Holy Spirit
with that of God the Father in the way in which it is coupled in this
verse unless the Holy Spirit were Himself a Divine Being?
V. _The Holy Spirit is called God._
The final and decisive proof of the Deity of the Holy Spirit is found in
the fact that He is called God in the New Testament. We read in Acts v. 3,
4, “But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to
the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it
remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine
own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast
not lied unto men but _unto God_.” In the first part of this passage we
are told that Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit. When this is further
explained, we are told it was not unto men but unto God that he had lied
in lying to the Holy Spirit, _i. e._, the Holy Spirit to whom he lied is
called God.
To sum it all up, by the ascription of all the distinctively Divine
attributes, and several distinctly Divine works, by referring statements
which in the Old Testament clearly name Jehovah, the Lord, or God as their
subject to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, by coupling the name of
the Holy Spirit with that of God in a way that would be impossible to
couple that of any finite being with that of Deity, by plainly calling the
Holy Spirit God, in all these unmistakable ways, God in His own Word
distinctly proclaims that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person.
CHAPTER III. THE DISTINCTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FROM THE FATHER AND FROM
HIS SON, JESUS CHRIST.
We have seen thus far that the Holy Spirit is a Person and a Divine
Person. And now another question arises, Is He as a Person separate and
distinct from the Father and from the Son? One who carefully studies the
New Testament statements cannot but discover that beyond a question He is.
We read in Luke iii. 21, 22, “Now when all the people were baptized, it
came to pass that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was
opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon
Him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art My beloved Son; in
Thee I am well pleased.” Here the clearest possible distinction is drawn
between Jesus Christ, who was on earth, and the Father who spoke to Him
from heaven as one person speaks to another person, and the Holy Spirit
who descended in a bodily form as a dove from the Father, who was
speaking, to the Son, to whom He was speaking, and rested upon the Son as
a Person separate and distinct from Himself. We see a clear distinction
drawn between the name of the Father and that of the Son and that of the
Holy Spirit in Matt, xxviii. 19, where we read, “Go ye therefore, and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, _and_ of the
Son, _and_ of the Holy Ghost.” The distinction of the Holy Spirit from the
Father and the Son comes out again with exceeding clearness in John xiv.
16. Here we read, “And _I_ will pray _the Father_, and He shall give you
_another Comforter_, that He may abide with you forever.” Here we see the
one Person, the Son, praying to another Person, the Father, and the Father
to whom He prays giving another Person, another Comforter, in answer to
the prayer of the second Person, the Son. If words mean anything, and
certainly in the Bible they mean what they say, there can be no mistaking
it, that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are three distinct and
separate Persons.
Again in John xvi. 7, a clear distinction is drawn between Jesus who goes
away to the Father and the Holy Spirit who comes from the Father to take
His place. Jesus says, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient
for you that I go away: for if I go not away, _the Comforter_ will not
come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” A similar
distinction is drawn in Acts ii. 33, where we read, “Therefore being by
the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the
promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and
hear.” In this passage, the clearest possible distinction is drawn between
the Son exalted to the right hand of the Father and the Father to whose
right hand He is exalted, and the Holy Spirit whom the Son receives from
the Father and sheds forth upon the Church.
To sum it all up, again and again the Bible draws the clearest possible
distinction between the three Persons, the Holy Spirit, the Father and the
Son. They are three separate personalities, having mutual relations to one
another, acting upon one another, speaking of or to one another, applying
the pronouns of the second and third persons to one another.
CHAPTER IV. THE SUBORDINATION OF THE SPIRIT TO THE FATHER AND TO THE SON.
From the fact that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, it does not follow
that the Holy Spirit is in every sense equal to the Father. While the
Scriptures teach that in Jesus Christ dwelt all the fullness of the
Godhead in a bodily form (Col. ii. 9) and that He was so truly and _fully
_ Divine that He could say, “I and the Father are one” (John x. 30) and
“He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John xiv. 9), they also teach
with equal clearness that Jesus Christ was not equal to the Father in
every respect, but subordinate to the Father in many ways. In a similar
way, the Scriptures teach us that though the Holy Spirit is a Divine
Person, He is subordinate to the Father and to the Son. In John xiv. 26,
we are taught that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and in the name
of the Son. Jesus declares very clearly, “But the Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost, whom _the Father will send_ in My name, He shall teach you all
things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you.” In John xv. 26 we are told that it is Jesus who sends the
Spirit from the Father. The exact words are, “But when the Comforter is
come, _whom I will send_ unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.” Just as
we are elsewhere taught that Jesus Christ was sent by the Father (John vi.
29; viii. 29, 42), we are here taught that the Holy Spirit in turn is sent
by Jesus Christ.
The subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son comes out
also in the fact that He derives some of His names from the Father and
from the Son. We read in Rom. viii. 9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but
in the Spirit, if so be that _the Spirit of God_ dwell in you. Now if any
man have not _the Spirit of Christ_, he is none of His.” Here we have two
names of the Spirit, one derived from His relation to the Father, “the
Spirit of God,” and the other derived from His relation to the Son, “the
Spirit of Christ.”
In Acts xvi. 7, R. V., He is spoken of as “the Spirit of Jesus.”
The subordination of the Spirit to the Son is also seen in the fact that
the Holy Spirit speaks “not from Himself but speaks the words which He
hears.” We read in John xvi. 13, R. V., “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of
truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth: for He _shall not
speak from Himself_; but _what things soever He shall hear_, these shall
He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come.” In a
similar way, Jesus said of Himself, “My teaching is not Mine, but His that
sent Me.” (John vii. 16; viii. 26, 40).
The subordination of the Spirit to the Son comes out again in the clearly
revealed fact that it is the work of the Holy Spirit not to glorify
Himself but to glorify Christ. Jesus says in John xvi. 14, “He shall
glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.” In
a similar way, Christ sought not His own glory, but the glory of Him that
sent Him, that is the Father (John vii. 18).
From all these passages, it is evident that the Holy Spirit in His present
work, while possessed of all the attributes of Deity, is subordinated to
the Father and to the Son. On the other hand, we shall see later that in
His earthly life, Jesus lived and taught and worked in the power of the
Holy Spirit.
CHAPTER V. THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AS REVEALED IN HIS
NAMES.
At least twenty-five different names are used in the Old and New
Testaments in speaking of the Holy Spirit. There is the deepest
significance in these names. By the careful study of them, we find a
wonderful revelation of the Person and work of the Holy Spirit.
I. _The Spirit._
The simplest name by which the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Bible is
that which stands at the head of this paragraph—“_The Spirit_.” This name
is also used as the basis of other names, so we begin our study with this.
The Greek and Hebrew words so translated mean literally, “Breath” or
“Wind.” Both thoughts are in the name as applied to the Holy Spirit.
1. The thought of breath is brought out in John xx. 22 where we read, “And
when He had said this, _He breathed on them_, and saith unto them, Receive
ye the Holy Ghost.” It is also suggested in Gen. ii. 7, “And the LORD God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and _breathed_ into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This becomes more evident
when we compare with this Ps. civ. 30, “Thou sendest forth _Thy Spirit_,
they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth.” And Job
xxxiii. 4, “_The Spirit of God hath made me_, and _the breath_ of the
Almighty hath given me life.” What is the significance of this name from
the standpoint of these passages? It is that the Spirit is the
outbreathing of God, His inmost life going forth in a personal form to
quicken. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the inmost life of
God Himself to dwell in a personal way in us. When we really grasp this
thought, it is overwhelming in its solemnity. Just stop and think what it
means to have the inmost life of that infinite and eternal Being whom we
call God, dwelling in a personal way in you. How solemn and how awful and
yet unspeakably glorious life becomes when we realize this.
2. The thought of the Holy Spirit as “the Wind” is brought out in John
iii. 6-8, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be
born again. 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.” In the Greek, it is the same word
that is translated in one part of this passage “Spirit” and the other part
of the passage “wind.” And it would seem as if the word ought to be
translated the same way in both parts of the passage. It would then read,
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the
‘Wind’ is wind. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that
is born of the ‘Wind.’ ” The full significance of this name as applied to
the Holy Spirit (or Holy Wind) it may be beyond us to fathom, but we can
see at least this much of its meaning:
(1) The Spirit like the wind is _sovereign_. “The wind bloweth where it
listeth” (John iii. 8). You cannot dictate to the wind. It does as it
wills. Just so with the Holy Spirit—He is sovereign—we cannot dictate to
Him. He “divides to each man” severally even “_as He will_” (1 Cor. xii.
11, R. V.). When the wind is blowing from the north you may long to have
it blow from the south, but cry as clamorously as you may to the wind,
“Blow from the south” it will keep right on blowing from the north. But
while you cannot dictate to the wind, while it blows as it will, you may
learn the laws that govern the wind’s motions and by bringing yourself
into harmony with those laws, you can get the wind to do your work. You
can erect your windmill so that whichever way the wind blows from the
wheels will turn and the wind will grind your grain, or pump your water.
Just so, while we cannot dictate to the Holy Spirit we can learn the laws
of His operations and by bringing ourselves into harmony with those laws,
above all by submitting our wills absolutely to His sovereign will, the
sovereign Spirit of God will work through us and accomplish His own
glorious work by our instrumentality.
(2) The Spirit like the wind is _invisible but none the less perceptible
and real and mighty_. You hear the sound of the wind (John iii. 8) but the
wind itself you never see. You hear the voice of the Spirit but He Himself
is ever invisible. (The word translated “sound” in John iii. 8 is the word
which elsewhere is translated “voice.” See R. V.) We not only hear the
voice, of the wind but we see its mighty effects. We feel the breath of
the wind upon our cheeks, we see the dust and the leaves blowing before
the wind, we see the vessels at sea driven swiftly towards their ports;
but the wind itself remains invisible. Just so with the Spirit; we feel
His breath upon our souls, we see the mighty things He does, but Himself
we do not see. He is invisible, but He is real and perceptible. I shall
never forget a solemn hour in Chicago Avenue Church, Chicago. Dr. W. W.
White was making a farewell address before going to India to work among
the students there. Suddenly, without any apparent warning, the place was
filled with an awful and glorious Presence. To me it was very real, but
the question arose in my mind, “Is this merely subjective, just a feeling
of my own, or is there an objective Presence here?” After the meeting was
over, I asked different persons whether they were conscious of anything
and found that at the same point in the meeting they, too, though they saw
no one, became distinctly conscious of an overwhelming Presence, the
Presence of the Holy Spirit. Though many years have passed, there are
those who speak of that hour to this day. On another occasion in my own
home at Chicago, when kneeling in prayer with an intimate friend, as we
prayed it seemed as if an unseen and awful Presence entered the room. I
realized what Eliphaz meant when he said, “Then a spirit passed before my
face; the hair of my flesh stood up” (Job iv. 15). The moment was
overwhelming, but as glorious as it was awful. These are but two
illustrations of which many might be given. None of us have seen the Holy
Spirit at any time, but of His presence we have been distinctly conscious
again and again and again. His mighty power we have witnessed and His
reality we cannot doubt. There are those who tell us that they do not
believe in anything which they cannot see. Not one of them has ever seen
the wind but they all believe in the wind. They have felt the wind and
they have seen its effects, and just so we, beyond a question, have felt
the mighty presence of the Spirit and witnessed His mighty workings.
(3) The Spirit like the wind is _inscrutable_. “Thou canst not tell whence
it cometh and whither it goeth.” Nothing in nature is more mysterious than
the wind. But more mysterious still is the Holy Spirit in His operations.
We hear of how suddenly and unexpectedly in widely separated communities
He begins to work His mighty work. Doubtless there are hidden reasons why
He does thus begin His work, but often-times these reasons are completely
undiscoverable by us. We know not whence He comes nor whither He goes. We
cannot tell where next He will display His mighty and gracious power.
(4) The Spirit, like the wind, is _indispensable_. Without wind, that is
“air in motion,” there is no life and so Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I
say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God.” If the wind should absolutely cease to
blow for a single hour, most of the life on this earth would cease to be.
Time and again when the health reports of the different cities of the
United States are issued, it has been found that the five healthiest
cities in the United States were five cities located on the great lakes.
Many have been surprised at this report when they have visited some of
these cities and found that they were far from being the cleanest cities,
or most sanitary in their general arrangement, and yet year after year
this report has been returned. The explanation is simply this, it is the
wind blowing from the lakes that has brought life and health to the
cities. Just so when the Spirit ceases to blow in any heart or any church
or any community, death ensues, but when the Spirit blows steadily upon
the individual or the church or the community, there is abounding
spiritual life and health.
(5) Closely related to the foregoing thought, like the wind the Holy
Spirit is _life giving_. This thought comes out again and again in the
Scriptures. For example, we read in John vi. 63, A. R. V., “It is the
Spirit that giveth life,” and in 2 Cor. iii. 6, we read, “The letter
killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” Perhaps the most suggestive passage
on this point is Ezek. xxxvii. 8, 9, 10, “And when I beheld, lo, the
sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above:
but there was _no breath_ in them. Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto
_the wind_, prophesy, son of man, and say to _the wind_, Thus saith the
Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these
slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and _the
breath came into them, and they lived_, and stood upon their feet, an
exceeding great army” (cf. John iii. 5). Israel, in the prophet’s vision,
was only bones, very many and very dry (vs. 2, 11), until the prophet
proclaimed unto them the word of God; then there was a noise and a shaking
and the bones came together, bone to his bone, and the sinews and the
flesh came upon the bones, but still there was no life, but when the wind
blew, the breath of God’s Spirit, then “they stood up upon their feet an
exceeding great army.” All life in the individual believer, in the
teacher, the preacher, and the church is the Holy Spirit’s work. You will
sometimes make the acquaintance of a man, and as you hear him talk and
observe his conduct, you are repelled and disgusted. Everything about him
declares that he is a dead man, a moral corpse and not only dead but
rapidly putrefying. You get away from him as quickly as you can. Months
afterwards you meet him again. You hesitate to speak to him; you want to
get out of his very presence, but you do speak to him, and he has not
uttered many sentences before you notice a marvellous change. His
conversation is sweet and wholesome and uplifting; everything about his
manner is attractive and delightful. You soon discover that the man’s
whole conduct and life has been transformed. He is no longer a putrefying
corpse but a living child of God. What has happened? The Wind of God has
blown upon him; he has received the Holy Spirit, the Holy Wind. Some quiet
Sabbath day you visit a church. Everything about the outward appointments
of the church are all that could be desired. There is an attractive
meeting-house, an expensive organ, a gifted choir, a scholarly preacher.
The service is well arranged but you have not been long at the gathering
before you are forced to see that there is no life, that it is all form,
and that there is nothing really being accomplished for God or for man.
You go away with a heavy heart. Months afterwards you have occasion to
visit the church again; the outward appointments of the church are much as
they were before but the service has not proceeded far before you note a
great difference. There is a new power in the singing, a new spirit in the
prayer, a new grip in the preaching, everything about the church is
teeming with the life of God. What has happened? The Wind of God has blown
upon that church; the Holy Spirit, the Holy Wind, has come. You go some
day to hear a preacher of whose abilities you have heard great reports. As
he stands up to preach you soon learn that nothing too much has been said
in praise of his abilities from the merely intellectual and rhetorical
standpoint. His diction is faultless, his style beautiful, his logic
unimpeachable, his orthodoxy beyond criticism. It is an intellectual treat
to listen to him, and yet after all as he preaches you cannot avoid a
feeling of sadness, for there is no real grip, no real power, indeed no
reality of any kind, in the man’s preaching. You go away with a heavy
heart at the thought of this waste of magnificent abilities. Months,
perhaps years, pass by and you again find yourself listening to this
celebrated preacher, but what a change! The same faultless diction, the
same beautiful style, the same unimpeachable logic, the same skillful
elocution, the same sound orthodoxy, but now there is something more,
there is reality, life, grip, power in the preaching. Men and women sit
breathless as he speaks, sinners bowed with tears of contrition, pricked
to their hearts with conviction of sin; men and women and boys and girls
renounce their selfishness, and their sin and their worldliness and accept
Jesus Christ and surrender their lives to Him. What has happened? The Wind
of God has blown upon that man. He has been filled with the Holy Wind.
(6) Like the wind, the Holy Spirit is _irresistible_. We read in Acts i.
8, “But _ye shall receive power_, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” When
this promise of our Lord was fulfilled in Stephen, we read, “And they were
_not able to resist_ the wisdom _and the Spirit_ by which he spake.” A man
filled with the Holy Spirit is transformed into a cyclone. What can stand
before the wind? When St. Cloud, Minn., was visited with a cyclone years
ago, the wind picked up loaded freight cars and carried them away off the
track. It wrenched an iron bridge from its foundations, twisted it
together and hurled it away. When a cyclone later visited St. Louis, Mo.,
it cut off telegraph poles a foot in diameter as if they had been pipe
stems. It cut off enormous trees close to the root, it cut off the corner
of brick buildings where it passed as though they had been cut by a knife;
nothing could stand before it; and so, nothing can stand before a
Spirit-filled preacher of the Word. None can resist the wisdom and the
Spirit by which he speaks. The Wind of God took possession of Charles G.
Finney, an obscure country lawyer, and sent him through New York State,
then through New England, then through England, mowing down strong men by
his resistless, Spirit-given logic. One night in Rochester, scores of
lawyers, led by the justice of the Court of Appeals, filed out of the pews
and bowed in the aisles and yielded their lives to God. The Wind of God
took possession of D. L. Moody, an uneducated young business man in
Chicago, and in the power of this resistless Wind, men and women and young
people were mowed down before his words and brought in humble confession
and renunciation of sin to the feet of Jesus Christ, and filled with the
life of God they have been the pillars in the churches of Great Britain
and throughout the world ever since. The great need to-day in individuals,
in churches and in preachers is that the Wind of God blow upon us.
Much of the difficulty that many find with John iii. 5, “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,” would disappear if we
would only bear in mind that “Spirit” means “Wind” and translate the verse
literally all through, “Except a man be born of water and Wind (there is
no ‘the’ in the original), he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The
thought would then seem to be, “Except a man be born of the cleansing and
quickening power of the Spirit (or else of the cleansing Word—cf. John xv.
3; Eph. v. 26; Jas. i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 23—and the quickening power of the
Holy Spirit).”
II. _The Spirit of God._
The Holy Spirit is frequently spoken of in the Bible as the Spirit of God.
For example we read in 1 Cor. iii. 16, “Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” In this name we have
the same essential thought as in the former name, but with this addition,
that His Divine origin, nature and power are emphasized. He is not merely
“The Wind” as seen above, but “The Wind _of God_.”
III. _The Spirit of Jehovah._
This name is used of the Holy Spirit in Isa. xi. 2, A. R. V., “And the
Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him.” The thought of the name is, of
course, essentially the same as the preceding with the exception that God
is here thought of as the Covenant God of Israel. He is thus spoken of in
the connection in which the name is found; and, of course, the Bible,
following that unerring accuracy that it always exhibits in its use of the
different names for God, in this connection speaks of the Spirit as the
Spirit of Jehovah and not merely as the Spirit of God.
IV. _The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah._
The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Lord Jehovah in Isa. lxi. 1-3,
A. R. V., “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon Me; because Jehovah hath
anointed Me to preach good tidings to the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up
the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, etc.” The Holy
Spirit is here spoken of, not merely as the Spirit of Jehovah, but the
Spirit of the Lord Jehovah because of the relation in which God Himself is
spoken of in this connection, as not merely Jehovah, the covenant God of
Israel, but as Jehovah Israel’s Lord as well as their covenant-keeping
God. This name of the Spirit is even more expressive than the name “The
Spirit of God.”
V. _The Spirit of the Living God._
The Holy Spirit is called “_The Spirit of the living God_” in 2 Cor. iii.
3, “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with _the Spirit of the living
God_; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” What is
the significance of this name? It is made clear by the context. The
Apostle Paul is drawing a contrast between the Word of God written with
ink on parchment and the Word of God written on “tables that are hearts of
flesh” (R. V.) by the Holy Spirit, who in this connection is called “the
Spirit of the living God,” because He makes God a living reality in our
personal experience instead of a mere intellectual concept. There are many
who believe in God, and who are perfectly orthodox in their conception of
God, but after all God is to them only an intellectual theological
proposition. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make God something
vastly more than a theological notion, no matter how orthodox; He is the
Spirit _of the living God_, and it is His work to make God a living God to
us, a Being whom we know, with whom we have personal acquaintance, a Being
more real to us than the most intimate human friend we have. Have you a
real God? Well, you may have. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the living
God, and He is able and ready to give to you a living God, to make God
real in your personal experience. There are many who have a God who once
lived and acted and spoke, a God who lived and acted at the creation of
the universe, who perhaps lived and acted in the days of Moses and Elijah
and Jesus Christ and the Apostles, but who no longer lives and acts. If He
exists at all, He has withdrawn Himself from any active part in nature or
the history of man. He created nature and gave it its laws and powers and
now leaves it to run itself. He created man and endowed him with his
various faculties but has now left him to work out his own destiny. They
may go further than this: they may believe in a God, who spoke to Abraham
and to Moses and to David and to Isaiah and to Jesus and to the Apostles,
but who speaks no longer. We may read in the Bible what He spoke to these
various men but we cannot expect Him to speak to us. In contrast with
these, it is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit _of the living God_,
to give us to know a God who lives and acts and speaks to-day, a God who
is ready to come as near to us as He came to Abraham, to Moses or to
Isaiah, or to the Apostles or to Jesus Himself. Not that He has any new
revelations to make, for He guided the Apostles into all the truth (John
xvi. 13, R. V.): but though there has been a complete revelation of God’s
truth made in the Bible, still God lives to-day and will speak to us as
directly as He spoke to His chosen ones of old. Happy is the man who knows
the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the living God, and who, consequently,
has a real God, a God who lives to-day, a God upon whom he can depend
to-day to undertake for him, a God with whom he enjoys intimate personal
fellowship, a God to whom he may raise his voice in prayer and who speaks
back to him.
VI. _The Spirit of Christ._
In Rom. viii. 9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be
that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not _the Spirit
of Christ_, he is none of His.” The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of
Christ_. The Spirit of Christ in this passage does not mean a Christlike
spirit. It means something far more than that, it means that which lies
back of a Christlike spirit; it is a name of the Holy Spirit. Why is the
Holy Spirit called _the Spirit of Christ_? For several reasons:
(1) _Because He is Christ’s gift._ The Holy Spirit is not merely the gift
of the Father, but the gift of the Son as well. We read in John xx. 22
that Jesus “breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy
Ghost.” The Holy Spirit is therefore the breath of Christ, as well as the
breath of God the Father. It is Christ who breathes upon us and imparts to
us the Holy Spirit. In John xiv. 15 and the following verses Jesus teaches
us that it is in answer to His prayer that the Father gives to us the Holy
Spirit. In Acts ii. 33 we read that Jesus “Being by the right hand of God
exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,”
shed Him forth upon believers; that is, that Jesus, having been exalted to
the right hand of God, in answer to His prayer, receives the Holy Spirit
from the Father and sheds forth upon the Church Him whom He hath received
from the Father. In Matt. iii. 11 we read that it is Jesus who baptizes
with the Holy Spirit. In John vii. 37-39 Jesus bids all that are thirsty
to _come unto Him_ and drink, and the context makes it clear that the
water that He gives is the Holy Spirit, who becomes in those who receive
Him a source of life and power flowing out to others. It is the glorified
Christ who gives to the Church the Holy Spirit. In the fourth chapter of
John and the tenth verse Jesus declares that He is the One who gives the
living water, the Holy Spirit. In all these passages, Christ is set forth
as the One who gives the Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit is called “the
Spirit of Christ.”
(2) But there is a deeper reason why the Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit
of Christ,” _i. e._, _because it is the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal
Christ to us_. In John xvi. 14, R. V., we read, “He (that is the Holy
Spirit) shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it
unto you.” In a similar way in John xv. 26, R. V., it is written, “But
when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear
witness of Me.” This is the work of the Holy Spirit to bear witness of
Christ and reveal Jesus Christ to men. And as the revealer of Christ, He
is called “the Spirit of Christ.”
(3) But there is a still deeper reason yet why the Holy Spirit is called
the Spirit of Christ, and that is _because it is His work to form Christ
as a living presence within us_. In Eph. iii. 16, 17, the Apostle Paul
prays to the Father that He would grant to believers according to the
riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the
inner man, that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith. This then is
the work of the Holy Spirit, to cause Christ to dwell in our hearts, to
form the living Christ within us. Just as the Holy Spirit literally and
physically formed Jesus Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary (Luke i. 35)
so the Holy Spirit spiritually but really forms Jesus Christ within our
hearts to-day. In John xiv. 16-18, Jesus told His disciples that when the
Holy Spirit came that He Himself would come, that is, the result of the
coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell in their hearts would be the coming of
Christ Himself. It is the privilege of every believer in Christ to have
the living Christ formed by the power of the Holy Spirit in his own heart
and therefore the Holy Spirit who thus forms Christ within the heart is
called the Spirit of Christ. How wonderful! How glorious is the
significance of this name. Let us ponder it until we understand it, as far
as it is possible to understand it, and until we rejoice exceedingly in
the glory of it.
VII. _The Spirit of Jesus Christ._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of Jesus Christ_ in Phil. i. 19,
“For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and
the supply of _the Spirit of Jesus Christ_.” The Spirit is not merely the
Spirit of the eternal Word but the Spirit of the Word incarnate. Not
merely the Spirit of Christ, but the Spirit _of Jesus Christ_. It is the
Man Jesus exalted to the right hand of the Father who receives and sends
the Spirit. So we read in Acts ii. 32, 33, “This _Jesus_ hath God raised
up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God
exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost,
He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”
VIII. _The Spirit of Jesus._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of Jesus_ in Acts xvi. 6, 7, R. V.,
“And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been
forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia; and when they were
come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the _Spirit
of Jesus_ suffered them not.” By the using of this name, “_The Spirit of
Jesus_” the thought of the relation of the Spirit to the _Man Jesus_ is
still more clear than in the name preceding this, the Spirit of Jesus
Christ.
IX. _The Spirit of His Son._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of His Son_ in Gal. iv. 6, “And
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth _the Spirit of His Son_ into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” We see from the context (vs. 4, 5) that
this name is given to the Holy Spirit in special connection with His
testifying to the sonship of the believer. It is “_the Spirit of His Son_”
who testifies to our sonship. The thought is that the Holy Spirit is a
filial Spirit, a Spirit who produces a sense of sonship in us. If we
receive the Holy Spirit, we no longer think of God as if we were serving
under constraint and bondage but we are sons living in joyous liberty. We
do not fear God, we trust Him and rejoice in Him. When we receive the Holy
Spirit, we do not receive a Spirit of bondage again to fear but a Spirit
of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father (Rom. viii. 15). This name of the
Holy Spirit is one of the most suggestive of all. We do well to ponder it
long until we realize the glad fullness of its significance. We shall take
it up again when we come to study the work of the Holy Spirit.
X. _The Holy Spirit._
This name is of very frequent occurrence, and the name with which most of
us are most familiar. One of the most familiar passages in which the name
is used is Luke xi. 13, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give
_the Holy Spirit_ to them that ask Him?” This name emphasizes the
essential moral character of the Spirit. He is _holy_ in Himself. We are
so familiar with the name that we neglect to weigh its significance. Oh,
if we only realized more deeply and constantly that He is the _Holy_
Spirit. We would do well if we, as the seraphim in Isaiah’s vision, would
bow in His presence and cry, “Holy, holy, holy.” Yet how thoughtlessly
oftentimes we talk about Him and pray for Him. We pray for Him to come
into our churches and into our hearts but what would He find if He should
come there? Would He not find much that would be painful and agonizing to
Him? What would we think if vile women from the lowest den of iniquity in
a great city should go to the purest woman in the city and invite her to
come and live with them in their disgusting vileness with no intention of
changing their evil ways. But that would not be as shocking as for you and
me to ask the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in our hearts when we have no
thought of giving up our impurity, or our selfishness, or our worldliness,
or our sin. It would not be as shocking as it is for us to invite the Holy
Spirit to come into our churches when they are full of worldliness and
selfishness and contention and envy and pride, and all that is unholy. But
if the denizens of the lowest and vilest den of infamy should go to the
purest and most Christlike woman asking her to go and dwell with them with
the intention of putting away everything that was vile and evil and giving
to this holy and Christlike woman the entire control of the place, she
would go. And as sinful and selfish and imperfect as we may be, the
infinitely Holy Spirit is ready to come and take His dwelling in our heart
if we will surrender to Him the absolute control of our lives, and allow
Him to bring everything in thought and fancy and feeling and purpose and
imagination and action into conformity with His will. The infinitely Holy
Spirit is ready to come into our churches, however imperfect and worldly
they may be now, if we are willing to put the absolute control of
everything in His hands. But let us never forget that He is _the Holy_
Spirit, and when we pray for Him let us pray for Him as such.
XI. _The Holy Spirit of Promise._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Holy Spirit of promise_ in Eph. i. 13, R.
V., “In whom ye also, having heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of your
salvation,—in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with _the Holy
Spirit of promise_.” We have here the same name as that given above with
the added thought that this Holy Spirit is the great promise of the Father
and of the Son. The Holy Spirit is God’s great all-inclusive promise for
the present dispensation; the one thing for which Jesus bade the disciples
wait after His ascension before they undertook His work was “the promise
of the Father,” that is the Holy Spirit (Acts i. 4, 5). The great promise
of the Father until the coming of Christ was the coming atoning Saviour
and King, but when Jesus came and died His atoning death upon the cross of
Calvary and arose and ascended to the right hand of the Father, then the
second great promise of the Father was the Holy Spirit to take the place
of our absent Lord. (See also Acts ii. 33.)
XII. _The Spirit of Holiness._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of holiness_ in Rom. i. 4, “And
declared to be the Son of God with power, according to _the Spirit of
holiness_, by the resurrection from the dead.” At the first glance it may
seem as if there were no essential difference between the two names the
Holy Spirit and the Spirit of holiness. But there is a marked difference.
The name of the Holy Spirit, as already said, emphasizes the essential
moral character of the Spirit as holy, but the name of _the Spirit of
holiness_ brings out the thought that the Holy Spirit is not merely holy
in Himself but He imparts holiness to others. The perfect holiness which
He Himself possesses He imparts to those who receive Him (cf. 1 Pet. i.
2).
XIII. _The Spirit of Judgment._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of judgment_ in Isa. iv. 4, “When
the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and
shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by _the
Spirit of judgment_, and by the Spirit of burning.” There are two names of
the Holy Spirit in this passage; first, _the Spirit of judgment_. The Holy
Spirit is so called because it is His work to bring sin to light, to
convict of sin (cf. John xvi. 7-9). When the Holy Spirit comes to us the
first thing that He does is to open our eyes to see our sins as God sees
them. He judges our sin. (We will go into this more at length in studying
John xvi. 7-11 when considering the work of the Holy Spirit.)
XIV. _The Spirit of Burning._
This name is used in the passage just quoted above. (See XIII.) This name
emphasizes His searching, refining, dross-consuming, illuminating and
energizing work. The Holy Spirit is like a fire in the heart in which He
dwells; and as fire tests and refines and consumes and illuminates and
warms and energizes, so does He. In the context, it is the cleansing work
of the Holy Spirit which is especially emphasized (Isa. iv. 3, 4).
XV. _The Spirit of Truth._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of truth_ in John xiv. 17, “Even the
Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not,
neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall
be in you” (cf. John xv. 26; xvi. 13). The Holy Spirit is called the
Spirit of truth because it is the work of the Holy Spirit to communicate
truth, to impart truth, to those who receive Him. This comes out in the
passage given above, and, if possible, it comes out even more clearly in
John xvi. 13, R. V., “Howbeit when He, _the Spirit of truth_, is come, He
shall guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself;
but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall
declare unto you the things that are to come.” All truth is from the Holy
Spirit. It is only as He teaches us that we come to know the truth.
XVI. _The Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding._
The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of wisdom and understanding in Isa.
xi. 2, “And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, _the Spirit_ of
wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.” The significance of the name is so
plain as to need no explanation. It is evident both from the words used
and from the context that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to impart
wisdom and understanding to those who receive Him. Those who receive the
Holy Spirit receive the Spirit “of power” and “of love” and “_of a sound
mind_” or sound sense (2 Tim. i. 7).
XVII. _The Spirit of Counsel and Might._
We find this name used of the Holy Spirit in the passage given under the
preceding head. The meaning of this name too is obvious, the Holy Spirit
is called “the Spirit of counsel and of might” because He gives us counsel
in all our plans and strength to carry them out (cf. Acts viii. 29; xvi.
6, 7; i. 8). It is our privilege to have God’s own counsel in all our
plans and God’s strength in all the work that we undertake for Him. We
receive them by receiving the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of counsel and
might.
XVIII. _The Spirit of Knowledge and of the Fear of the Lord._
This name also is used in the passage given above (Isa. xi. 2). The
significance of this name is also obvious. It is the work of the Holy
Spirit to impart knowledge to us and to beget in us a reverence for
Jehovah, that reverence that reveals itself above all in obedience to His
commandments. The one who receives the Holy Spirit finds his delight in
the fear of the LORD. (See Isa. xi. 3, R. V.) The three suggestive names
just given refer especially to the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in the
servant of the Lord, that is Jesus Christ (Isa. xi. 1-5).
XIX. _The Spirit of Life._
The Holy Spirit is called _the Spirit of life_ in Rom. viii. 2, “For the
law of _the Spirit of life_ in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death.” The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of life because it
is His work to impart life (cf. John vi. 63, R. V.; Ezek. xxxvii. 1-10).
In the context in which the name is found in the passage given above,
beginning back in the seventh chapter of Romans, seventh verse, Paul is
drawing a contrast between the law of Moses outside a man, holy and just
and good, it is true, but impotent, and the living Spirit of God in the
heart, imparting spiritual and moral life to the believer and enabling him
thus to meet the requirements of the law of God, so that what the law
alone could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, the Spirit of
God imparting life to the believer and dwelling in the heart enables him
to do, so that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk
not after the flesh but after the Spirit. (See Rom. viii. 2-4.) The Holy
Spirit is therefore called “the Spirit of life,” because He imparts
spiritual life and consequent victory over sin to those who receive Him.
XX. _The Oil of Gladness._
The Holy Spirit is called the “oil of gladness” in Heb. i. 9, “Thou hast
loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath
anointed thee with the _oil of gladness_ above thy fellows.” Some one may
ask what reason have we for supposing that “the oil of gladness” in this
passage is a name of the Holy Spirit. The answer is found in a comparison
of Heb. i. 9, with Acts x. 38 and Luke iv. 18. In Acts x. 38 we read “how
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power,” and in
Luke iv. 18, Jesus Himself is recorded as saying, “_The Spirit of the Lord
is upon_ Me, because He hath _anointed_ Me to preach the Gospel to the
poor,” etc. In both of these passages, we are told it was _the Holy Spirit
with which Jesus was anointed_ and as in the passage in Hebrews we are
told that _it was with the oil of gladness that He was anointed_; so, of
course, the only possible conclusion is that the oil of gladness means the
Holy Spirit. What a beautiful and suggestive name it is for Him whose
fruit is, first, “love” then “joy” (Gal. v. 22). The Holy Spirit becomes a
source of boundless joy to those who receive Him; He so fills and
satisfies the soul, that the soul who receives Him does not thirst forever
(John iv. 14). No matter how great the afflictions with which the believer
receives the Word, still he will have “_the joy of the Holy Ghost_” (1
Thess. i. 6). On the Day of Pentecost, when the disciples were baptized
with the Holy Spirit, they were so filled with ecstatic joy that others
looking on them thought they were intoxicated. They said, “These men are
full of new wine.” And Paul draws a comparison between abnormal
intoxication that comes through excess of wine and the wholesome
exhilaration from which there is no reaction that comes through being
filled with the Spirit (Eph. v. 18-20). When God anoints one with the Holy
Spirit, it is as if He broke a precious alabaster box of oil of gladness
above their heads until it ran down to the hem of their garments and the
whole person was suffused with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
XXI. _The Spirit of Grace._
The Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of grace” in Heb. x. 29, “Of how
much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath
trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the
covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done
despite unto _the Spirit of grace_?” This name brings out the fact that it
is the Holy Spirit’s work to administer and apply the grace of God: He
Himself is gracious, it is true, but the name means far more than that, it
means that He makes ours experimentally the manifold grace of God. It is
only by the work of the Spirit of grace in our hearts that we are enabled
to appropriate to ourselves that infinite fullness of grace that God has,
from the beginning, bestowed upon us in Jesus Christ. It is ours from the
beginning, as far as belonging to us is concerned, but it is only ours
experimentally as we claim it by the power of the Spirit of grace.
XXII. _The Spirit of Grace and of Supplication._
The Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of grace and of supplication” in
Zech. xii. 10, R. V., “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, _the Spirit of grace and of supplication_;
and they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn
for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for
his first-born.” The phrase, “the Spirit of grace and of supplication” in
this passage is beyond a doubt a name of the Holy Spirit. The name “the
Spirit of grace” we have already had under the preceding head, but here
there is a further thought of that operation of grace that leads us to
pray intensely. The Holy Spirit is so called because it is He that teaches
to pray because all true prayer is in the Spirit (Jude 20). We of
ourselves know not how to pray as we ought, but it is the work of the Holy
Spirit of intercession to make intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered and to lead us out in prayer according to the will of
God (Rom. viii. 26, 27). The secret of all true and effective praying is
knowing the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of grace and of supplication.”
XXIII. _The Spirit of Glory._
The Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of glory” in 1 Pet. iv. 14, “If ye
be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for _the Spirit of
glory_ and of God resteth upon you: on their part He is evil spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified.” This name does not merely teach that
the Holy Spirit is infinitely glorious Himself, but it rather teaches that
He imparts the glory of God to us, just as the Spirit of truth imparts
truth to us, and as the Spirit of life imparts life to us, and as the
Spirit of wisdom and understanding and of counsel and might and knowledge
and of the fear of the LORD imparts to us wisdom and understanding and
counsel and might and knowledge and the fear of the LORD, and as the
Spirit of grace applies and administers to us the manifold grace of God,
so the Spirit of glory is the administrator to us of God’s glory. In the
immediately preceding verse we read, “But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are
partakers of Christ’s sufferings: that, when His glory shall be revealed,
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” It is in this connection that He
is called the Spirit of glory. We find a similar connection between the
sufferings which we endure and the glory which the Holy Spirit imparts to
us in Rom. viii. 16, 17, “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of
God and joint-heirs with Christ; _if so be that we suffer with_ Him, that
we may _be also glorified with Him_.” The Holy Spirit is the administrator
of glory as well as of grace, or rather of the grace that culminates in
glory.
XXIV. _The Eternal Spirit._
The Holy Spirit is called “the eternal Spirit” in Heb. ix. 14, “How much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through _the eternal Spirit_ offered
Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God.” The eternity and the Deity and infinite majesty of
the Holy Spirit are brought out by this name.
XXV. _The Comforter._
The Holy Spirit is called “the Comforter” over and over again in the
Scriptures. For example in John xiv. 26, we read, “But _the Comforter_
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall
teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever
I have said unto you.” And in John xv. 26, “But when _the Comforter_ is
come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth,
which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.” (See also John
xvi. 27.) The word translated “Comforter” in these passages means that,
but it means much more beside. It is a word difficult of adequate
translation into any one word in English. The translators of the Revised
Version found difficulty in deciding with what word to render the Greek
word so translated. They have suggested in the margin of the Revised
Version “advocate” “helper” and a simple transference of the Greek word
into English, “Paraclete.” The word translated “Comforter” means
literally, “one called to another’s side,” the idea being, one right at
hand to take another’s part. It is the same word that is translated
“advocate” in 1 John ii. 1, “My little children, these things write I unto
you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have _an advocate_ with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” But “advocate,” as we now understand
it, does not give the full force of the Greek word so rendered.
Etymologically “advocate” means nearly the same thing. Advocate is Latin
(“advocatus”) and it means “one called to another to take his part,” but
in our modern usage, the word has acquired a restricted meaning. The Greek
word translated “Comforter” (Parakleetos) means “one called alongside,”
that is one called to stand constantly by one’s side and who is ever ready
to stand by us and take our part in everything in which his help is
needed. It is a wonderfully tender and expressive name for the Holy One.
Sometimes when we think of _the Holy Spirit_, He seems to be so far away,
but when we think of the Parakleetos, or in plain English our “Stand-byer”
or our “part-taker,” how near He is. Up to the time that Jesus made this
promise to the disciples, He Himself had been their Parakleetos. When they
were in any emergency or difficulty they turned to Him. On one occasion,
for example, the disciples were in doubt as to how to pray and they turned
to Jesus and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And the Lord taught them the
wonderful prayer that has come down through the ages (Luke xi. 1-4). On
another occasion, Peter was sinking in the waves of Galilee and he cried,
“Lord, save me,” and immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught
him and saved him (Matt. xiv. 30, 31). In every extremity they turned to
Him. Just so now that Jesus is gone to the Father, we have another Person,
just as Divine as He is, just as wise as He, just as strong as He, just as
loving as He, just as tender as He, just as ready and just as able to
help, who is always right by our side. Yes, better yet, who dwells in our
heart, who will take hold and help if we only trust Him to do it.
If the truth of the Holy Spirit as set forth in the name “Parakleetos”
once gets into our heart and abides there, it will banish all loneliness
forever; for how can we ever be lonely when this best of all Friends is
ever with us? In the last eight years, I have been called upon to endure
what would naturally be a very lonely life. Most of the time I am
separated from wife and children by the calls of duty. For eighteen months
consecutively, I was separated from almost all my family by many thousands
of miles. The loneliness would have been unendurable were it not for the
one all-sufficient Friend, who was always with me. I recall one night
walking up and down the deck of a storm-tossed steamer in the South Seas.
Most of my family were 18,000 miles away; the remaining member of my
family was not with me. The officers were busy on the bridge, and I was
pacing the deck alone, and the thought came to me, “Here you are all
alone.” Then another thought came, “I am not alone; by my side as I walk
this deck in the loneliness and the storm walks the Holy Spirit” and He
was enough. I said something like this once at a Bible conference in St.
Paul. A doctor came to me at the close of the meeting and gently said, “I
want to thank you for that thought about the Holy Spirit always being with
us. I am a doctor. Oftentimes I have to drive far out in the country in
the night and storm to attend a case, and I have often been so lonely, but
I will never be lonely again. I will always know that by my side in my
doctor’s carriage, the Holy Spirit goes with me.”
If this thought of the Holy Spirit as the ever-present Paraclete once gets
into your heart and abides there, it will banish all fear forever. How can
we be afraid in the face of any peril, if this Divine One is by our side
to counsel us and to take our part? There may be a howling mob about us,
or a lowering storm, it matters not. He stands between us and both mob and
storm. One night I had promised to walk four miles to a friend’s house
after an evening session of a conference. The path led along the side of a
lake. As I started for my friend’s house, a thunder-storm was coming up. I
had not counted on this but as I had promised, I felt I ought to go. The
path led along the edge of the lake, oftentimes very near to the edge,
sometimes the lake was near the path and sometimes many feet below. The
night was so dark with the clouds one could not see ahead. Now and then
there would be a blinding flash of lightning in which you could see where
the path was washed away, and then it would be blacker than ever. You
could hear the lake booming below. It seemed a dangerous place to walk but
that very week, I had been speaking upon the Personality of the Holy
Spirit and about the Holy Spirit as an ever-present Friend, and the
thought came to me, “What was it you were telling the people in the
address about the Holy Spirit as an ever-present Friend?” And then I said
to myself, “Between me and the boiling lake and the edge of the path walks
the Holy Spirit,” and I pushed on fearless and glad. When we were in
London, a young lady attended the meeting one afternoon in the Royal
Albert Hall. She had an abnormal fear of the dark. It was absolutely
impossible for her to go into a dark room alone, but the thought of the
Holy Spirit as an ever-present Friend sank into her mind. She went home
and told her mother what a wonderful thought she had heard that day, and
how it had banished forever all fear from her. It was already growing very
dark in the London winter afternoon and her mother looked up and said,
“Very well, let us see if it is real. Go up to the top of the house and
shut yourself alone in a dark room.” She instantly sprang to her feet,
bounded up the stairs, went into a room that was totally dark and shut the
door and sat down. All fear was gone, and as she wrote the next day, the
whole room seemed to be filled with a wonderful glory, the glory of the
presence of the Holy Spirit.
In the thought of the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete there is also a cure
for insomnia. For two awful years, I suffered from insomnia. Night after
night I would go to bed apparently almost dead for sleep; it seemed as
though I must sleep, but I could not sleep; oh, the agony of those two
years! It seemed as if I would lose my mind if I did not get relief.
Relief came at last and for years I went on without the suggestion of
trouble from insomnia. Then one night I retired to my room in the
Institute, lay down expecting to fall asleep in a moment as I usually did,
but scarcely had my head touched the pillow when I became aware that
insomnia was back again. If one has ever had it, he never forgets it and
never mistakes it. It seemed as if insomnia were sitting on the foot-board
of my bed, grinning at me and saying, “I am back again for another two
years.” “Oh,” I thought, “two more awful years of insomnia.” But that very
morning, I had been lecturing to our students in the Institute about the
Personality of the Holy Spirit and about the Holy Spirit as an
ever-present Friend, and at once the thought came to me, “What were you
talking to the students about this morning? What were you telling them?”
and I looked up and said, “Thou blessed Spirit of God, Thou art here. I am
not alone. If Thou hast anything to say to me, I will listen,” and He
began to open to me some of the deep and precious things about my Lord and
Saviour, things, that filled my soul with joy and rest, and the next thing
I knew I was asleep and the next thing I knew it was to-morrow morning. So
whenever insomnia has come my way since, I have simply remembered that the
Holy Spirit was there and I have looked up to Him to speak to me and to
teach me and He has done so and insomnia has taken its flight.
In the thought of the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete there is a cure for a
breaking heart. How many aching, breaking hearts there are in this world
of ours, so full of death and separation from those we most dearly love.
How many a woman there is, who a few years ago, or a few months or a few
weeks ago, had no care, no worry, for by her side was a Christian husband
who was so wise and strong that the wife rested all responsibility upon
him and she walked care-free through life and satisfied with his love and
companionship. But one awful day, he was taken from her. She was left
alone and all the cares and responsibilities rested upon her. How empty
that heart has been ever since; how empty the whole world has been. She
has just dragged through her life and her duties as best she could with an
aching and almost breaking heart. But there is One, if she only knew it,
wiser and more loving than the tenderest husband, One willing to bear all
the care and responsibilities of life for her, One who is able, if, she
will only let Him, to fill every nook and corner of her empty and aching
heart; that One is the Paraclete. I said something like this in St.
Andrews’ Hall in Glasgow. At the close of the meeting a sad-faced
Christian woman, wearing a widow’s garb, came to me as I stepped out of
the hall into the reception room. She hurried to me and said, “Dr. Torrey,
this is the anniversary of my dear husband’s death. Just one year ago
to-day he was taken from me. I came to-day to see if you could not speak
some word to help me. You have given me just the word I need. I will never
be lonesome again.” A year and a half passed by. I was on the yacht of a
friend on the lochs of the Clyde. One day a little boat put out from shore
and came alongside the yacht. One of the first to come up the side of the
yacht was this widow. She hurried to me and the first thing she said was,
“The thought that you gave me that day in St. Andrews’ Hall on the
anniversary of my husband’s leaving me has been with me ever since, and
the Holy Spirit does satisfy me and fill my heart.”
But it is in our work for our Master that the thought of the Holy Spirit
as the Paraclete comes with greatest helpfulness. I think it may be
permissible to illustrate it from my own experience. I entered the
ministry because I was literally forced to. For years I refused to be a
Christian, because I was determined that I would not be a preacher, and I
feared that if I surrendered to Christ I must enter the ministry. My
conversion turned upon my yielding to Him at this point. The night I
yielded, I did not say, “I will accept Christ” or “I will give up sin,” or
anything of that sort, I simply cried, “Take this awful burden off my
heart, and I will preach the Gospel.” But no one could be less fitted by
natural temperament for the ministry than I. From early boyhood, I was
extraordinarily timid and bashful. Even after I had entered Yale College,
when I would go home in the summer and my mother would call me in to meet
her friends, I was so frightened that when I thought I spoke I did not
make an audible sound. When her friends had gone, my mother would ask,
“Why didn’t you say something to them?” And I would reply that I supposed
I had, but my mother would say, “You did not utter a sound.” Think of a
young fellow like that entering the ministry. I never mustered courage
even to speak in a public prayer-meeting until after I was in the
theological seminary. Then I felt, if I was to enter the ministry, I must
be able to at least speak in a prayer-meeting. I learned a little piece by
heart to say, but when the hour came, I forgot much of it in my terror. At
the critical moment, I grasped the back of the settee in front of me and
pulled myself hurriedly to my feet and held on to the settee. One Niagara
seemed to be going up one side and another down another; my voice
faltered. I repeated as much as I could remember and sat down. Think of a
man like that entering the ministry. In the early days of my ministry, I
would write my sermons out in full and commit them to memory, stand up and
twist a button until I had repeated it off as best I could and would then
sink back into the pulpit chair with a sense of relief that that was over
for another week. I cannot tell you what I suffered in those early days of
my ministry. But the glad day came when I came to know the Holy Spirit as
the Paraclete. When the thought got possession of me that when I stood up
to preach, there was Another who stood by my side, that while the audience
saw me God saw Him, and that the responsibility was all upon Him, and that
He was abundantly able to meet it and care for it all, and that all I had
to do was to stand back as far out of sight as possible and let Him do the
work. I have no dread of preaching now; preaching is the greatest joy of
my life, and sometimes when I stand up to speak and realize that He is
there, that all the responsibility is upon Him, such a joy fills my heart
that I can scarce restrain myself from shouting and leaping. He is just as
ready to help us in all our work; in our Sunday-school classes; in our
personal work and in every other line of Christian effort. Many hesitate
to speak to others about accepting Christ. They are afraid they will not
say the right thing; they fear that they will do more harm than they will
good. You certainly will if _you_ do it, but if you will just believe in
the Paraclete and trust Him to say it and to say it in His way, you will
never do harm but always good. It may seem at the time that you have
accomplished nothing, but perhaps years after you will find out you have
accomplished much and even if you do not find it out in this world, you
will find it out in eternity.
There are many ways in which the Paraclete stands by us and helps us of
which we will speak at length when we come to study His work. He stands by
us when we pray (Rom. viii. 26, 27); when we study the Word (John xiv. 26;
xvi. 12-14); when we do personal work (Acts viii. 29); when we preach or
teach (1 Cor. ii. 4); when we are tempted (Rom. viii. 2); when we leave
this world (Acts vii. 54-60). Let us get this thought firmly fixed now and
for all time that the Holy Spirit is One called to our side to take our
part.
“Ever present, truest Friend,
Ever near, Thine aid to lend.”
CHAPTER VI. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE.
There are many who think of the work of the Holy Spirit as limited to man.
But God reveals to us in His Word that the Holy Spirit’s work has a far
wider scope than this. We are taught in the Bible that the Holy Spirit has
a threefold work in the material universe.
I. The creation of the material universe and of man is effected through
the agency of the Holy Spirit.
We read in Ps. xxxiii. 6, “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made;
and all the host of them _by the breath of His mouth_.” We have already
seen in our study of the names of the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit is
the breath of JEHOVAH, so this passage teaches us that all the hosts of
heaven, all the stellar worlds, were made by the Holy Spirit. We are
taught explicitly in Job xxxiii. 4, that the creation of man is the Holy
Spirit’s work. We read, “_The Spirit of God_ hath made me, and _the breath
of the Almighty_ hath given me life.” Here both the creation of the
material frame and the impartation of life are attributed to the agency of
the Holy Spirit. In other passages of Scripture we are taught that
creation was in and through the Son of God. For example we read in Col. i.
16, R. V., “For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon
the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created
through Him and unto Him.” In a similar way we read in Heb. i. 2, that God
“hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, whom He
appointed heir of all things, _through whom_ also He made the worlds
(ages).” In the passage given above (Ps. xxxiii. 6), the Word as well as
the Spirit are mentioned in connection with creation. In the account of
the creation and the rehabilitation of this world to be the abode of man,
Father, Word and Holy Spirit are all mentioned (Gen. i. 1-3). It is
evident from a comparison of these passages that the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are all active in the creative work. The Father works _in_ His Son,
_through_ His Spirit.
II. Not only is the original creation of the material universe attributed
to the agency of the Holy Spirit in the Bible but _the maintenance of
living creatures_ as well.
We read in Ps. civ. 29, 30, “Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled: Thou
takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou
_sendest forth Thy Spirit_, they are created: and Thou _renewest_ the face
of the earth.” The clear indication of this passage is that not only are
things brought into being through the agency of the Holy Spirit, but that
they are maintained in being by the Holy Spirit. Not only is spiritual
life maintained by the Spirit of God but material being as well. Things
exist and continue by the presence of the Spirit of God in them. This does
not mean for a moment that the universe is God, but it does mean that the
universe is maintained in its being by the immanence of God in it. This is
the great and solemn truth that lies at the foundation of the awful and
debasing perversions of Pantheism in its countless forms.
III. But not only is the universe created through the agency of the Holy
Spirit and maintained in its existence through the agency of the Holy
Spirit, but _the development of the earlier, chaotic, undeveloped states
of the material universe into higher orders of being is effected through
the agency of the Holy Spirit_.
We read in Gen, i. 2, 3, “And the earth was (or became) without form and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And _the Spirit of God
moved_ upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and
there was light.” We may take this account to refer either to the original
creation of the universe, or we may take it as the deeper students of the
Word are more and more inclining to take it, as the account of the
rehabilitation of the earth after its plunging into chaos through sin
after the original creation described in v. 1. In either case we have set
before us here the development of the earth from a chaotic and unformed
condition into its present highly developed condition through the agency
of the Holy Spirit. We see the process carried still further in Gen. ii.
7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, _and breathed_
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Here
again it is through the agency of the breath of God, that a higher thing,
human life, comes into being. Naturally, as the Bible is the history of
man’s redemption it does not dwell upon this phase of truth, but seemingly
each new and higher impartation of the Spirit of God brings forth a higher
order of being. First, inert matter; then motion; then light; then
vegetable life; then animal life; then man; and, as we shall see later,
then the new man; and then Jesus Christ, the supreme Man, the completion
of God’s thought of man, the Son of Man. This is the Biblical thought of
development from the lower to the higher by the agency of the Spirit of
God as distinguished from the godless evolution that has been so popular
in the generation now closing. It is, however, only hinted at in the
Bible. The more important phases of the Holy Spirit’s work, His work in
redemption, are those that are emphasized and iterated and reiterated. The
Word of God is even more plainly active in each state of progress of
creation. God _said_ occurs ten times in the first chapter of Genesis.
CHAPTER VII. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTING THE WORLD OF SIN, OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
AND OF JUDGMENT.
Our salvation begins experimentally with our being brought to a profound
sense that we need a Saviour. The Holy Spirit is the One who brings us to
this realization of our need. We read in John xvi. 8-11, R. V., “And He,
when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on Me; of
righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold Me no more; of
judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged.”
I. We see in this passage that _it is the work of the Holy Spirit to
convict men of sin_. That is, to so convince of their error in respect to
sin as to produce a deep sense of personal guilt. We have the first
recorded fulfillment of this promise in Acts ii. 36, 37, “Therefore let
all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same
Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard
this, _they were pricked in their heart, and said_ unto Peter and to the
rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, _what shall we do_?” The Holy
Spirit had come just as Jesus had promised that He would and when He came
He convicted the world of sin: He pricked them to their heart with a sense
of their awful guilt in the rejection of their Lord and their Christ. If
the Apostle Peter had spoken the same words the day before Pentecost, no
such results would have followed; but now Peter was filled with the Holy
Spirit (v. 4) and the Holy Spirit took Peter and his words and through the
instrumentality of Peter and his words convicted his hearers. The Holy
Spirit is the only One who can convince men of sin. The natural heart is
“deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” and there is nothing
in which the inbred deceitfulness of our hearts comes out more clearly
than in our estimations of ourselves. We are all of us sharp-sighted
enough to the faults of others but we are all blind by nature to our own
faults. Our blindness to our own shortcomings is oftentimes little short
of ludicrous. We have a strange power of exaggerating our imaginary
virtues and losing sight utterly of our defects. The longer and more
thoroughly one studies human nature, the more clearly will he see how
hopeless is the task of convincing other men of sin. We cannot do it, nor
has God left it for us to do. He has put this work into the hands of One
who is abundantly able to do it, the Holy Spirit. One of the worst
mistakes that we can make in our efforts to bring men to Christ is to try
to convince them of sin in any power of our own. Unfortunately, it is one
of the commonest mistakes. Preachers will stand in the pulpit and argue
and reason with men to make them see and realize that they are sinners.
They make it as plain as day; it is a wonder that their hearers do not see
it; but they do not. Personal workers sit down beside an inquirer and
reason with him, and bring forward passages of Scripture in a most
skillful way, the very passages that are calculated to produce the effect
desired and yet there is no result. Why? Because we are trying to do the
Holy Spirit’s work, the work that He alone can do, convince men of sin. If
we would only bear in mind our own utter inability to convince men of sin,
and cast ourselves upon Him in utter helplessness to do the work, we would
see results.
At the close of an inquiry meeting in our church in Chicago, one of our
best workers brought to me an engineer on the Pan Handle Railway with the
remark, “I wish that you would speak to this man. I have been talking to
him two hours with no result.” I sat down by his side with my open Bible
and in less than ten minutes that man, under deep conviction of sin, was
on his knees crying to God for mercy. The worker who had brought him to me
said when the man had gone out, “That is very strange.” “What is strange?”
I asked. “Do you know,” the worker said, “I used exactly the same passages
in dealing with that man that you did, and though I had worked with him
for two hours with no result, in ten minutes with the same passages of
Scripture, he was brought under conviction of sin and accepted Christ.”
What was the explanation? Simply this, for once that worker had forgotten
something that she seldom forgot, namely, that the Holy Spirit must do the
work. She had been trying to convince the man of sin. She had used the
right passages; she had reasoned wisely; she had made out a clear case,
but she had not looked to the only One who could do the work. When she
brought the man to me and said, “I have worked with him for two hours with
no result,” I thought to myself, “If this expert worker has dealt with him
for two hours with no result, what is the use of my dealing with him?” and
in a sense of utter helplessness I cast myself upon the Holy Spirit to do
the work and He did it.
But while we cannot convince men of sin, there is One who can, the Holy
Spirit. He can convince the most hardened and blinded man of sin. He can
change men and women from utter carelessness and indifference to a place
where they are overwhelmed with a sense of their need of a Saviour. How
often we have seen this illustrated. Some years ago, the officers of the
Chicago Avenue Church were burdened over the fact that there was so little
profound conviction of sin manifested in our meetings. There were
conversions, a good many were being added to the church, but very few were
coming with an apparently overwhelming conviction of sin. One night one of
the officers of the church said, “Brethren, I am greatly troubled by the
fact that we have so little conviction of sin in our meetings. While we
are having conversions and many accessions to the church, there is not
that deep conviction of sin that I like to see, and I propose that we, the
officers of the church, meet from night to night to pray that there may be
more conviction of sin in our meetings.” The suggestion was taken up by
the entire committee. We had not been praying many nights when one Sunday
evening I saw in the front seat underneath the gallery a showily dressed
man with a very hard face. A large diamond was blazing from his shirt
front. He was sitting beside one of the deacons. As I looked at him as I
preached, I thought to myself, “That man is a sporting man, and Deacon
Young has been fishing to-day.” It turned out that I was right. The man
was the son of a woman who kept a sporting house in a Western city. I
think he had never been in a Protestant service before. Deacon Young had
got hold of him that day on the street and brought him to the meeting. As
I preached the man’s eyes were riveted upon me. When we went down-stairs
to the after meeting, Deacon Young took the man with him. I was late
dealing with the anxious that night. As I finished with the last one about
eleven o’clock, and almost everybody had gone home, Deacon Young came over
to me and said, “I have a man over here I wish you would come and speak
with.” It was this big sporting man. He was deeply agitated. “Oh,” he
groaned, “I don’t know what is the matter with me. I never felt this way
before in all my life,” and he sobbed and shook like a leaf. Then he told
me this story: “I started out this afternoon to go down to Cottage Grove
Avenue to meet some men and spend the afternoon gambling. As I passed by
the park over yonder, some of your young men were holding an open air
meeting and I stopped to listen. I saw one man testifying whom I had known
in a life of sin, and I waited to hear what he had to say. When he
finished I went on down the street. I had not gone far when some strange
power took hold of me and brought me back and I stayed through the
meeting. Then this gentleman spoke to me and brought me over to your
church, to your Yoke Fellows’ Meeting. I stayed to supper with them and he
brought me up to hear you preach, then he brought me down to this
meeting.” Here he stopped and sobbed, “Oh, I don’t know what is the matter
with me. I feel awful. I never felt this way before in all my life,” and
his great frame shook with emotion. “I know what is the matter with you,”
I said. “You are under conviction of sin; the Holy Spirit is dealing with
you,” and I pointed him to Christ, and he knelt down and cried to God for
mercy, to forgive his sins for Christ’s sake.
Not long after, one Sunday night I saw another man sitting in the gallery
almost exactly above where this man had sat. A diamond flashed also from
this man’s shirt front. I said to myself, “There is another sporting man.”
He turned out to be a travelling man who was also a sporting man. As I
preached, he leaned further and further forward in his seat. In the midst
of my sermon, without any intention of giving out the invitation, simply
wishing to drive a point home, I said, “Who will accept Jesus Christ
to-night?” Quick as a flash the man sprang to his feet and shouted, “I
will.” It rang through the building like the crack of a revolver. I
dropped my sermon and instantly gave out the invitation; men and women and
young people rose all over the building to yield themselves to Christ. God
was answering prayer and the Holy Spirit was convincing men of sin. The
Holy Spirit can convince men of sin. We need not despair of any one, no
matter how indifferent they may appear, no matter how worldly, no matter
how self-satisfied, no matter how irreligious, the Holy Spirit can
convince men of sin. A young minister of very rare culture and ability
once came to me and said, “I have a great problem on my hands. I am the
pastor of the church in a university town. My congregation is largely made
up of university professors and students. They are most delightful people.
They have very high moral ideals and are living most exemplary lives.
Now,” he continued, “if I had a congregation in which there were drunkards
and outcasts and thieves, I could convince them of sin, but my problem is
how to make people like that, the most delightful people in the world,
believe that they are sinners, how to convict them of sin.” I replied, “It
is impossible. You cannot do it, but the Holy Spirit can.” And so He can.
Some of the deepest manifestations of conviction of sin I have ever seen
have been on the part of men and women of most exemplary conduct and
attractive personality. But they were sinners and the Holy Spirit opened
their eyes to the fact.
While it is the Holy Spirit who convinces men of sin, He does it through
us. This comes out very clearly in the context of the passage before us.
Jesus says in the seventh verse, R. V., of the chapter, “Nevertheless I
tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go
not away, the Comforter will not come _unto you_; but if I go, I will send
Him _unto you_.” Then He goes on to say, “And when He is come (_unto
you_), He will convict the world of sin.” That is, our Lord Jesus sends
the Holy Spirit unto us (unto believers), and when He is come unto us
believers, through us to whom He has come, He convinces the world. On the
Day of Pentecost, it was the Holy Spirit who convinced the 3,000 of sin,
but the Holy Spirit came to the group of believers and through them
convinced the outside world. As far as the Holy Scriptures definitely tell
us, the Holy Spirit has no Way of getting at the unsaved world except
through the agency of those who are already saved. Every conversion
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles was through the agency of men or
women already saved. Take, for example, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.
If there ever was a miraculous conversion, it was that. The glorified
Jesus appeared visibly to Saul on his way to Damascus, but before Saul
could come out clearly into the light as a saved man, human
instrumentality must be brought in. Saul prostrate on the ground cried to
the risen Christ asking what he must do, and the Lord told him to go into
Damascus and there it would be told him what he must do. And then Ananias,
“a certain disciple,” was brought on the scene as the human
instrumentality through whom the Holy Spirit should do His work (cf. Acts
ix. 17; xxii. 16). Take the case of Cornelius. Here again was a most
remarkable conversion through supernatural agency. “_An angel_” appeared
to Cornelius, but the angel did not tell Cornelius what to do to be saved.
The angel rather said to Cornelius, “Send men to Joppa, and _call for
Simon_, whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words whereby _thou
and all thy house shall be saved_” (Acts xi. 13, 14). So we may go right
through the record of the conversions in the Acts of the Apostles and we
will see they were all effected through human instrumentality. How solemn,
how almost overwhelming, is the thought that the Holy Spirit has no way of
getting at the unsaved with His saving power except through the
instrumentality of us who are already Christians. If we realized that,
would we not be more careful to offer to the Holy Spirit a more free and
unobstructed channel for His all-important work? The Holy Spirit needs
human lips to speak through. He needs yours, and He needs lives so clean
and so utterly surrendered to Him that He can work through them.
Notice of which sin it is that the Holy Spirit convinces men—the sin of
unbelief in Jesus Christ, “Of sin because they believe not on Me,” says
Jesus. Not the sin of stealing, not the sin of drunkenness, not the sin of
adultery, not the sin of murder, but the sin of unbelief in Jesus Christ.
The one thing that the eternal God demands of men is that they believe on
Him whom He hath sent (John vi. 29). And the one sin that reveals men’s
rebellion against God and daring defiance of Him is the sin of not
believing on Jesus Christ, and this is the one sin that the Holy Spirit
puts to the front and emphasizes and of which He convicts men. This was
the sin of which He convicted the 3,000 on the Day of Pentecost.
Doubtless, there were many other sins in their lives, but the one point
that the Holy Spirit brought to the front through the Apostle Peter was
that the One whom they had rejected was their Lord and Christ, attested so
to be by His resurrection from the dead (Acts ii. 22-36). “And _when they
heard this_ (namely, that He whom they had rejected was Lord and Christ)
they were pricked in their hearts.” This is the sin of which the Holy
Spirit convinces men to-day. In regard to the comparatively minor
moralities of life, there is a wide difference among men, but the thief
who rejects Christ and the honest man who rejects Christ are alike
condemned at the great point of what they do with God’s Son, and this is
the point that the Holy Spirit presses home. The sin of unbelief is the
most difficult of all sins of which to convince men. The average
unbeliever does not look upon unbelief as a sin. Many an unbeliever looks
upon his unbelief as a mark of intellectual superiority. Not unfrequently,
he is all the more proud of it because it is the only mark of intellectual
superiority that he possesses. He tosses his head and says, “I am an
agnostic;” “I am a skeptic;” or, “I am an infidel,” and assumes an air of
superiority on that account. If he does not go so far as that, the
unbeliever frequently looks upon his unbelief as, at the very worst, a
misfortune. He looks for pity rather than for blame. He says, “Oh, I wish
I could believe. I am so sorry I cannot believe,” and then appeals to us
for pity because he cannot believe, but when the Holy Spirit touches a
man’s heart, he no longer looks upon unbelief as a mark of intellectual
superiority; he does not look upon it as a mere misfortune; he sees it as
the most daring, decisive and damning of all sins and is overwhelmed with
a sense of his awful guilt in that he had not believed on the name of the
only begotten Son of God.
II. But the Holy Spirit not only convicts of sin, _He convicts in respect
of righteousness_.
He convicts the world in respect of righteousness because Jesus Christ has
gone to the Father, that is He convicts (convinces with a convincing that
is self-condemning) the world of Christ’s righteousness attested by His
going to the Father. The coming of the Spirit is in itself a proof that
Christ has gone to the Father (cf. Acts ii. 33) and the Holy Spirit thus
opens our eyes to see that Jesus Christ, whom the world condemned as an
evil-doer, was indeed the righteous One. The Father sets the stamp of His
approval upon His character and claims by raising Him from the dead and
exalting Him to His own right hand and giving to Him a name that is above
every name. The world at large to-day claims to believe in the
righteousness of Christ but it does not really believe in the
righteousness of Christ: it has no adequate conception of the
righteousness of Christ. The righteousness which the world attributes to
Christ is not the righteousness which God attributes to Him, but a poor
human righteousness, perhaps a little better than our own. The world loves
to put the names of other men that it considers good alongside the name of
Jesus Christ. But when the Spirit of God comes to a man, He convinces him
of the righteousness of Christ; He opens his eyes to see Jesus Christ
standing absolutely alone, not only far above all men but “far above all
principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is
named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come” (Eph. i.
21).
III. The Holy Spirit also convicts the world of judgment.
The ground upon which the Holy Spirit convinces men of judgment is upon
the ground of the fact that “the Prince of this world hath been judged”
(John xvi. 11). When Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, it seemed as if
He were judged there, but in reality it was the Prince of this world who
was judged at the cross, and, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, the
Father made it plain to all coming ages that the cross was not the
judgment of Christ, but the judgment of the Prince of darkness. The Holy
Spirit opens our eyes to see this fact and so convinces us of judgment.
There is a great need to-day that the world be convinced of judgment.
Judgment is a doctrine that has fallen into the background, that has
indeed almost sunken out of sight. It is not popular to-day to speak about
judgment, or retribution, or hell. One who emphasizes judgment and future
retribution is not thought to be quite up to date; he is considered
“mediæval” or even “archaic,” but when the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of
men, they believe in judgment. In the early days of my Christian
experience, I had great difficulties with the Bible doctrine of future
retribution. I came again and again up to what it taught about the eternal
penalties of persistent sin. It seemed as if I could not believe it: it
must not be true. Time and again I would back away from the stern
teachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostles concerning this matter. But one
night I was waiting upon God that I might know the Holy Spirit in a fuller
manifestation of His presence and His power. God gave me what I sought
that night and with this larger experience of the Holy Spirit’s presence
and power, there came such a revelation of the glory, the infinite glory
of Jesus Christ, that I had no longer any difficulties with what the Book
said about the stern and endless judgment that would be visited upon those
who persistently rejected this glorious Son of God. From that day to this,
while I have had many a heartache over the Bible doctrine of future
retribution, I have had no intellectual difficulty with it. I have
believed it. The Holy Spirit has convinced me of judgment.
CHAPTER VIII. THE HOLY SPIRIT BEARING WITNESS TO JESUS CHRIST.
When our Lord was talking to His disciples on the night before His
crucifixion of the Comforter who after His departure was to come to take
His place, He said, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto
you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the
Father, He shall bear witness of Me: and ye also bear witness, because ye
have been with Me from the beginning” (John xv. 26, 27, R. V.), and the
Apostle Peter and the other disciples when they were strictly commanded by
the Jewish Council not to teach in the name of Jesus said, “We are
witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost” (Acts v. 32). It
is clear from these words of Jesus Christ and the Apostles that it is the
work of the Holy Spirit to bear witness concerning Jesus Christ. We find
the Holy Spirit’s testimony to Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, but beside
this the Holy Spirit bears witness directly to the individual heart
concerning Jesus Christ. He takes His own Scriptures and interprets them
to us and makes them clear to us. All truth is from the Spirit, for He is
“the Spirit of truth,” but it is especially His work to bear witness to
Him who is the truth, that is Jesus Christ (John xiv. 6). It is only
through the testimony of the Holy Spirit directly to our hearts that we
ever come to a true, living knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Cor. xii. 3).
No amount of mere reading the written Word (in the Bible) and no amount of
listening to man’s testimony will ever bring us to a living knowledge of
Christ. It is only when the Holy Spirit Himself takes the written Word, or
takes the testimony of our fellow man, and interprets it directly to our
hearts that we really come to see and know Jesus as He is. On the day of
Pentecost, Peter gave all his hearers the testimony of the Scriptures
regarding Christ and also gave them his own testimony; he told them what
he and the other Apostles knew by personal observation regarding His
resurrection, but unless the Holy Spirit Himself had taken the Scriptures
which Peter had brought together and taken the testimony of Peter and the
other disciples, the 3,000 would not on that day have seen Jesus as He
really was and received Him and been baptized in His name. The Holy Spirit
added His testimony to that of Peter and that of the written Word. Mr.
Moody used to say in his terse and graphic way that when Peter said,
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts ii.
36), the Holy Spirit said, ‘Amen’ and the people saw and believed.” And it
is certain that unless the Holy Spirit had come that day and through Peter
and the other Apostles borne His direct testimony to the hearts of their
hearers, there would have been no saving vision of Jesus on the part of
the people. If you wish men to get a true view of Jesus Christ, such a
view of Him that they may believe and be saved, it is not enough that you
give them the Scriptures concerning Him; it is not enough that you give
them your own testimony, you must seek for them the testimony of the Holy
Spirit and put yourself into such relations with God that the Holy Spirit
may bear His testimony through you. Neither your testimony, nor even that
of the written Word alone will effect this, though it is your testimony,
or that of the Word that the Holy Spirit uses. But unless your testimony
and that of the Word is taken up by the Holy Spirit and He Himself
testifies, they will not believe. This explains something which every
experienced worker must have noticed. We sit down beside an inquirer and
open our Bibles and give him those Scriptures which clearly reveal Jesus
as his atoning Saviour on the cross, a Saviour from the guilt of sin, and
as his risen Saviour, a Saviour from the power of sin. It is just the
truth the man needs to see and believe in order to be saved, but he does
not see it. We go over these Scriptures which to us are as plain as day
again and again, and the inquirer sits there in blank darkness; he sees
nothing, he grasps nothing. Sometimes we almost wonder if the inquirer is
stupid that he cannot see it. No, he is not stupid, except with that
spiritual blindness that possesses every mind unenlightened by the Holy
Spirit (1 Cor. ii. 14). We go over it again and still he does not see it.
We go over it again and his face lightens up and he exclaims, “I see it. I
see it,” and he sees Jesus and believes and is saved and knows he is saved
there on the spot. What has happened? Simply this, the Holy Spirit has
borne His testimony and what was dark as midnight before is as clear as
day now. This explains also why it is that one who has been long in
darkness concerning Jesus Christ so quickly comes to see the truth when he
surrenders his will to God and seeks light from Him. When he surrenders
his will to God, he has put himself into that attitude towards God where
the Holy Spirit can do His work (Acts v. 32). Jesus says in John vii. 17,
R. V., “If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself.” When a man wills to
do the will of God, then the conditions are provided on which the Holy
Spirit works and He illuminates the mind to see the truth about Jesus and
to see that His teaching is the very Word of God. John writes in John xx.
31, “But these are written (these things in the Gospel of John) that ye
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing
ye might have life through His name.” John wrote his Gospel for this
purpose, that men might see Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, through
what he records, and that they might believe that He is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that thus believing they might have life through His name.
The best book in the world to put into the hands of one who desires to
know about Jesus and to be saved is the Gospel of John. And yet many a man
has read the Gospel of John over and over and over again and not seen and
believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. But let the same man
surrender his will absolutely to God and ask God for light as he reads the
Gospel and promise God that he will take his stand on everything in the
Gospel that He shows him to be true and before the man has finished the
Gospel he will see clearly that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
will believe and have eternal life. Why? Because he has put himself into
the place where the Holy Spirit can take the things written in the Gospel
and interpret them and bear His testimony. I have seen this tested and
proven time and time again all around the world. Men have come to me and
said to me that they did not believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and many have gone farther and said they were agnostics and did not
even know whether there was a personal God. Then I have told them to read
the Gospel of John, that in that Gospel John presented the evidence that
Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Oftentimes they have told me they
have read it over and over again, and yet were not convinced that Jesus
was the Christ, the Son of God. Then I have said to them, “You have not
read it the right way,” and I have got them to surrender their will to God
(or in case where they were not sure there was a God, have got them to
take their stand upon the right to follow it wherever it might carry
them). Then I have had them agree to read the Gospel of John slowly and
thoughtfully, and each time before they read to look up to God, if there
were any God, to help them to understand what they were to read and to
promise Him that they would take their stand upon whatever He showed them
to be true, and follow it wherever it would carry them. And in every
instance before they had finished the Gospel they had come to see that
Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and have believed and been saved.
They had put themselves in that position where the Holy Spirit could bear
His testimony to Jesus Christ and He had done it and through His testimony
they saw and believed.
If you wish men to see the truth about Christ, do not depend upon your own
powers of expression and persuasion, but cast yourself upon the Holy
Spirit and seek for them His testimony and see to it that they put
themselves in the place where the Holy Spirit can testify. This is the
cure for both skepticism and ignorance concerning Christ. If you yourself
are not clear concerning the truth about Jesus Christ, seek for yourself
the testimony of the Holy Spirit regarding Christ. Read the Scriptures,
read especially the Gospel of John but do not depend upon the mere reading
of the Word, but before you read it, put yourself in such an attitude
towards God by the absolute surrender of your will to Him that the Holy
Spirit may bear His testimony in your heart concerning Jesus Christ. What
we all most need is a clear and full vision of Jesus Christ and this comes
through the testimony of the Holy Spirit. One night a number of our
students came back from the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago and said to
me, “We had a wonderful meeting at the mission to-night. There were many
drunkards and outcasts at the front who accepted Christ.” The next day I
met Mr. Harry Monroe, the superintendent of the mission, on the street,
and I said, “Harry, the boys say you had a wonderful meeting at the
mission last night.” “Would you like to know how it came about?” he
replied. “Yes.” “Well,” he said, “I simply held up Jesus Christ and it
pleased the Holy Spirit to illumine the face of Jesus Christ, and men saw
and believed.” It was a unique way of putting it but it was an expressive
way and true to the essential facts in the case. It is our part to hold up
Jesus Christ, and then look to the Holy Spirit to illumine His face or to
take the truth about Him and make it clear to the hearts of our hearers
and He will do it and men will see and believe. Of course, we need to be
so walking towards God that the Holy Spirit may take us as the instruments
through whom He will bear His testimony.
CHAPTER IX. THE REGENERATING WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
The Apostle Paul in Titus iii. 5, R. V., writes, “Not by works done in
righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy He saved
us, through the washing of regeneration and _renewing of the Holy Ghost_.”
In these words we are taught that _the Holy Spirit renews men, or makes
men new_, and that through this renewing of the Holy Spirit, we are saved.
Jesus taught the same in John iii. 3-5, “Jesus answered and said unto him,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when
he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be
born? 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.”
What is regeneration? _Regeneration is the impartation of life, spiritual
life, to those who are dead, spiritually dead, through their trespasses
and sins_ (Eph. ii. 1, R. V.). It is the Holy Spirit who imparts this
life. It is true that the written Word is the instrument which the Holy
Spirit uses in regeneration. We read in 1 Pet. i. 23, “Being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, _by the Word of God_, which
liveth and abideth forever.” We read in James i. 18, “Of His own will
begat He us with _the Word of truth_, that we should be a kind of first
fruits of His creatures.” These passages make it plain that the Word is
the instrument used in regeneration, but it is only as the Holy Spirit
uses the instrument that the new birth results. “It is the Spirit that
giveth life” (John vi. 63, A. R. V.). In 2 Cor. iii. 6, we are told that
“the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.”(1) This is sometimes
interpreted to mean that the literal interpretation of Scripture, the
interpretation that takes it in its strict grammatical sense and makes it
mean what it says, kills; but that some spiritual interpretation, an
interpretation that “gives the spirit of the passage,” by making it mean
something it does not say, gives life; and those who insist upon Scripture
meaning exactly what it says are called “deadly literalists.” This is a
favourite perversion of Scripture with those who do not like to take the
Bible as meaning just what it says and who find themselves driven into a
corner and are looking about for some convenient way of escape. If one
will read the words in their context, he will see that this thought was
utterly foreign to the mind of Paul. Indeed, one who will carefully study
the epistles of Paul will find that he himself was a literalist of the
literalists. If literalism is deadly, then the teachings of Paul are among
the most deadly ever written. Paul will build an argument upon the turn of
a word, upon a number or a tense. What does the passage mean? The way to
find out what any passage means is to study in their context the words
used. Paul is drawing a contrast between the Word of God outside of us,
written with ink upon parchment or graven on tables of stone, and the Word
of God written within us in tables that are hearts of flesh with the
Spirit of the living God (v. 3) and he tells us that if we merely have the
Word of God outside us in a Book or on parchment or on tables of stone,
that it will kill us, that it will only bring condemnation and death, but
that if we have the Word of God made a living thing in our hearts, written
upon our hearts by the Spirit of the living God, that it will bring us
life.(2) No number of Bibles upon our tables or in our libraries will save
us, but the truth of the Bible written by the Spirit of the living God in
our hearts will save us.
To put the matter of regeneration in another way; _regeneration is the
impartation of a new nature, God’s own nature to the one who is born
again_ (2 Pet. i. 4). Every human being is born into this world with a
perverted nature; his whole intellectual, affectional and volitional
nature perverted by sin. No matter how excellent our human ancestry, we
come into this world with a mind that is blind to the truth of God. (“The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned.” 1 Cor. ii. 14.) With affections that are alienated
from God, loving the things that we ought to hate and hating the things
that we ought to love. (“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which
are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions,
heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.” Gal.
v. 19, 20, 21.) With a will that is perverted, set upon pleasing itself,
rather than pleasing God. (“Because the mind of the flesh is enmity
against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
it be.” Rom. viii. 7, R. V.) In the new birth a new intellectual,
affectional and volitional nature is imparted to us. We receive the mind
that sees as God sees, thinks God’s thoughts after Him (1 Cor. ii. 12-14);
affections in harmony with the affections of God. (“The fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Gal. v. 22, 23); a
will that is in harmony with the will of God, that delights to do the
things that please Him. (Like Jesus we say, “My meat is to do the will of
Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” John iv. 34; cf. John vi. 38;
Gal i. 10.) It is the Holy Spirit who creates in us this new nature, or
imparts this new nature to us. No amount of preaching, no matter how
orthodox it may be, no amount of mere study of the Word will regenerate
unless the Holy Spirit works. It is He and He alone who makes a man a new
creature.
The new birth is compared in the Bible to growth from a seed. The human
heart is the soil, the Word of God is the seed (Luke viii. 11; cf. 1 Pet.
i. 23; Jas. i. 18; 1 Cor. iv. 15), every preacher or teacher of the Word
is a sower, but the Spirit of God is the One who quickens the seed that is
thus sown and the Divine nature springs up as the result. There is
abundant soil everywhere in which to sow the seed, in the human hearts
that are around about us upon every hand. There is abundant seed to be
sown, any of us can find it in the granary of God’s Word; and there are
to-day many sowers: but there may be soil and seed and sowers, but unless
as we sow the seed, the Spirit of God quickens it and the heart of the
hearer closes around it by faith, there will be no harvest. Every sower
needs to see to it that he realizes his dependence upon the Holy Spirit to
quicken the seed he sows and he needs to see to it also that he is in such
relation to God that the Holy Spirit may work through him and quicken the
seed he sows.
The Holy Spirit does regenerate men. He has power to raise the dead. He
has power to impart life to those who are morally both dead and
putrefying. He has power to impart an entirely new nature to those whose
nature now is so corrupt that to men they appear to be beyond hope. How
often I have seen it proven. How often I have seen men and women utterly
lost and ruined and vile come into a meeting scarcely knowing why they
came, and as they have sat there the Word was spoken, the Spirit of God
has quickened the Word thus sown in their hearts and in a moment that man
or woman, by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, has become a new
creation. I know a man who seemed as completely abandoned and hopeless as
men ever become. He was about forty-five years of age. He had gone off in
evil courses in early boyhood. He had run away from home, had joined the
navy and afterwards the army, and learned all the vices of both. He had
been dishonourably discharged from the army because of his extreme
dissipation and disorderliness. He had found his companionships among the
lowest of the low and the vilest of the vile. When he would go up the
street of a Western town at night, and merchants would hear his yell, they
would close their doors in fear. But this man went one night into a
revival meeting in a country church out of curiosity. He made sport of the
meeting that night with a boon companion who sat by his side, but he went
again the next night. The Spirit of God touched his heart. He went forward
and bowed at the altar. He arose a new creation. He was transformed into
one of the noblest, truest, purest, most unselfish, most gentle and most
Christlike men I have ever known. I am sometimes asked, “Do you believe in
sudden conversion?” I believe in something far more wonderful than sudden
conversion. I believe in sudden regeneration. Conversion is merely an
outward thing, the turning around. Regeneration goes down to the deepest
depths of the inmost soul, transforming thoughts, affections, will, the
whole inward man. I believe in sudden regeneration because the Bible
teaches it and because I have seen it times without number. I believe in
sudden regeneration because I have experienced it. We are sometimes told
that “the religion of the future will not teach sudden miraculous
conversion.” If the religion of the future does not teach sudden
miraculous conversion, if it does not teach something far more meaningful,
sudden, miraculous regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit, then the
religion of the future will not be in conformity with the facts of
experience and so will not be scientific. It will miss one of the most
certain and most glorious of all truths. Man-devised religions in the past
have often missed the truth and man-devised religions in the future will
doubtless do the same. But the religion God has revealed in His Word and
the religion that God confirms in experience teaches sudden regeneration
by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. If I did not believe in
regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit, I would quit preaching. What
would be the use in facing great audiences in which there were multitudes
of men and women hardened and seared, caring for nothing but the things of
the world and the flesh, with no high and holy aspirations, with no
outlook beyond money and fame and power and pleasure, if it were not for
the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit? But with the regenerating power
of the Holy Spirit, there is every use; for the preacher can never tell
where the Spirit of God is going to strike and do His mighty work. There
sits before you a man who is a gambler, or a drunkard, or a libertine.
There does not seem to be much use in preaching to him, but you can never
tell but that very night, the Spirit of God will touch that man’s heart
and transform him into one of the holiest and most useful of men. It has
often occurred in the past and will doubtless often occur in the future.
There sits before you a woman, who is a mere butterfly of fashion. She
seems to have no thought above society and pleasure and adulation. Why
preach to her? Without the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, it would
be foolishness and a waste of time; but you can never tell, perhaps this
very night the Spirit of God will shine in that darkened heart and open
the eyes of that woman to see the beauty of Jesus Christ and she may
receive Him and then and there the life of God be imparted by the power of
the Holy Spirit to that trifling soul.
The doctrine of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit is a glorious
doctrine. It sweeps away false hopes. It comes to the one who is trusting
in education and culture and says, “Education and culture are not enough.
You must be born again.” It comes to the one who is trusting in mere
external morality, and says, “External morality is not enough, you must be
born again.” It comes to the one who is trusting in the externalities of
religion, in going to church, reading the Bible, saying prayers, being
confirmed, being baptized, partaking of the Lord’s supper, and says, “The
mere externalities of religion are not enough, you must be born again.” It
comes to the one who is trusting in turning over a new leaf, in outward
reform, in quitting his meanness; it says, “Outward reform, quitting your
meanness is not enough. You must be born again.” But in place of the vague
and shallow hopes that it sweeps away, it brings in a new hope, a good
hope, a blessed hope, a glorious hope. It says, “You may be born again.”
It comes to the one who has no desire higher than the desire for things
animal or selfish or worldly and says, “You may become a partaker of the
Divine nature, and love the things that God loves and hate the things that
God hates. You may become like Jesus Christ. You may be born again.”
CHAPTER X. THE INDWELLING SPIRIT FULLY AND FOREVER SATISFYING.
The Holy Spirit takes up His abode in the one who is born of the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul says to the believers in Corinth in 1 Cor. iii. 16, R.
V., “Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you?” This passage refers, not so much to the individual
believer, as to the whole body of believers, the Church. The Church as a
body is indwelt by the Spirit of God. But in 1 Cor. vi. 19, R. V., we
read, “Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is
in you, which ye have from God?” It is evident in this passage that Paul
is not speaking of the body of believers, of the Church as a whole, but of
the individual believer. In a similar way, the Lord Jesus said to His
disciples on the night before His crucifixion, “And I will pray the
Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with
you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He
dwelleth with you and _shall be in you_” (John xiv. 16, 17). The Holy
Spirit dwells in every one who is born again. We read in Rom. viii. 9, “If
any man have not the Spirit of Christ (the Spirit of Christ in this verse,
as we have already seen, does not mean merely a Christlike spirit, but is
a name of the Holy Spirit) he is none of His.” One may be a very imperfect
believer but if he really is a believer in Jesus Christ, if he has really
been born again, the Spirit of God dwells in him. It is very evident from
the First Epistle to the Corinthians that the believers in Corinth were
very imperfect believers; they were full of imperfection and there was
gross sin among them. But nevertheless Paul tells them that they are
temples of the Holy Spirit, even when dealing with them concerning gross
immoralities. (See 1 Cor. vi. 15-19.) _The Holy Spirit dwells in every
child of God._ In some, however, He dwells way back of consciousness in
the hidden sanctuary of their spirit. He is not allowed to take possession
as He desires of the whole man, spirit, soul and body. Some therefore are
not distinctly conscious of His indwelling, but He is there none the less.
What a solemn, and yet what a glorious thought, that in me dwells this
august Person, the Holy Spirit. If we are children of God, we are not so
much to pray that the Spirit may come and dwell in us, for He does that
already, we are rather to recognize His presence, His gracious and
glorious indwelling, and give to Him complete control of the house He
already inhabits, and strive to so live as not to grieve this holy One,
this Divine Guest. We shall see later, however, that it is right to pray
for the filling or baptism with the Spirit. What a thought it gives of the
hallowedness and sacredness of the body, to think of the Holy Spirit
dwelling within us. How considerately we ought to treat these bodies and
how sensitively we ought to shun everything that will defile them. How
carefully we ought to walk in all things so as not to grieve Him who
dwells within us.
This indwelling Spirit is a source of full and everlasting satisfaction
and life. Jesus says in John iv. 14, R. V., “Whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto (better
‘into’ as in A. V.) eternal life.” Jesus was talking to the woman of
Samaria by the well at Sychar. She had said to Him, “Art Thou greater than
our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank thereof himself, and his
children and his cattle?” Then Jesus answered and said unto her,
“Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” How true that is of
every earthly fountain. No matter how deeply we drink we shall thirst
again. No earthly spring of satisfaction ever fully satisfies. We may
drink of the fountain of wealth as deeply as we may, it will not satisfy
long. We shall thirst again. We may drink of the fountain of fame as
deeply as any man ever drank, the satisfaction is but for an hour. We may
drink of the fountain of worldly pleasure, of human science and philosophy
and of earthly learning, we may even drink of the fountain of human love,
none will satisfy long; we shall thirst again. But then Jesus went on to
say, “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well
of water springing up into everlasting life.” The water that Jesus Christ
gives is the Holy Spirit. This John tells us in the most explicit language
in John vii. 37-39, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus
stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and
drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of _living water_. (But this _spake He of the
Spirit_, which they that believe on Him should receive.)” The Holy Spirit
fully and forever satisfies the one who receives Him. He becomes within
him a well of water springing up, ever springing up, into everlasting
life. It is a great thing to have a well that you can carry with you; to
have a well that is within you; to have your source of satisfaction, not
in the things outside yourself, but in a well within and that is always
within, and that is always springing up in freshness and power; to have
our well of satisfaction and joy within us. We are then independent of our
environment. It matters little whether we have health or sickness,
prosperity or adversity, our source of joy is within and is ever springing
up. It matters comparatively little even whether we have our friends with
us or are separated from them, separated even by what men call death, this
fountain within is always gushing up and our souls are satisfied.
Sometimes this fountain within gushes up with greatest power and fullness
in the days of deepest bereavement. At such a time all earthly
satisfactions fail. What satisfaction is there in money, or worldly
pleasure, in the theatre or the opera or the dance, in fame or power or
human learning, when some loved one is taken from us? But in the hours
when those that we loved dearest upon earth are taken from us, then it is
that the spring of joy of the indwelling Spirit of God bursts forth with
fullest flow, sorrow and sighing flee away and our own spirits are filled
with peace and ecstasy. We have beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isa. lxi. 3).
If the experience were not too sacred to put in print, I could tell of a
moment of sudden and overwhelming bereavement and sorrow, when it seemed
as if I would be crushed, when I cried aloud in an agony that seemed
unendurable, when suddenly and instantly this fountain of the Holy Spirit
within burst forth and I knew such a rest and joy as I had rarely known
before, and my whole being was suffused with the oil of gladness.
The one who has the Spirit of God dwelling within as a well springing up
into everlasting life is independent of the world’s pleasures. He does not
need to run after the theatre and the opera and the dance and the cards
and the other pleasures without which life does not seem worth living to
those who have not received the Holy Spirit. He gives these things up, not
so much because he thinks they are wrong, as because he has something so
much better. He loses all taste for them.
A lady once came to Mr. Moody and said, “Mr. Moody, I do not like you.” He
asked, “Why not?” She said, “Because you are too narrow.” “Narrow! I did
not know that I was narrow.” “Yes, you are too narrow. You don’t believe
in the theatre; you don’t believe in cards; you don’t believe in dancing.”
“How do you know I don’t believe in the theatre?” he asked. “Oh,” she
said, “I know you don’t.” Mr. Moody replied, “I go to the theatre whenever
I want to.” “What,” cried the woman, “you go to the theatre whenever you
want to?” “Yes, I go to the theatre whenever I want to.” “Oh,” she said,
“Mr. Moody, you are a much broader man than I thought you were. I am so
glad to hear you say it, that you go to the theatre whenever you want to.”
“Yes, I go to the theatre whenever I want to. I don’t want to.” Any one
who has really received the Holy Spirit, and in whom the Holy Spirit
dwells and is unhindered in His working will not want to. Why is it then
that so many professed Christians do go after these worldly amusements?
For one of two reasons; either because they have never definitely received
the Holy Spirit, or else because the fountain is choked. It is quite
possible for a fountain to become choked. The best well in one of our
inland cities was choked and dry for many months because an old rag carpet
had been thrust into the opening from which the water flowed. When the rag
was pulled out, the water flowed again pure and cool and invigorating.
There are many in the Church to-day who once knew the matchless joy of the
Holy Spirit, but some sin or worldly conformity, some act of disobedience,
more or less conscious disobedience, to God has come in and the fountain
is choked. Let us pull out the old rags to-day that this wondrous fountain
may burst forth again, springing up every day and hour into everlasting
life.
CHAPTER XI. THE HOLY SPIRIT SETTING THE BELIEVER FREE FROM THE POWER OF
INDWELLING SIN.
In Rom. viii. 2 the Apostle Paul writes, “The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” What the
law of sin and death is we learn from the preceding chapter, the ninth to
the twenty-fourth verses. Paul tells us that there was a time in his life
when he was “alive apart from the law” (v. 9). But the time came when he
was brought face to face with the law of God; he saw that this law was
holy and the commandment holy and just and good. And he made up his mind
to keep this holy and just and good law of God. But he soon discovered
that beside this law of God outside him, which was holy and just and good,
that there was another law inside him directly contrary to this law of God
outside him. While the law of God outside him said, “This good thing” and
“this good thing” and “this good thing” and “this good thing thou shalt
do,” the law within him said, “You cannot do this good thing that you
would;” and a fierce combat ensued between this holy and just and good law
without him which Paul himself approved after the inward man, and this
other law in his members which warred against the law of his mind and kept
constantly saying, “You cannot do the good that you would.” But this law
in his members (the law that the good that he would do, he did not, but
the evil that he would not he constantly did, v. 19) gained the victory.
Paul’s attempt to keep the law of God resulted in total failure. He found
himself sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of sin, constrained and
dragged down by this law of sin in his members, until at last he cried
out, “Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of the body of
this death?” (v. 24, R. V.). Then Paul made another discovery. He found
that in addition to the two laws that he had already found, the law of God
without him, holy and just and good, and the law of sin and death within
him, the law that the good he would he could not do and the evil he would
not, he must keep on doing, there was a third law, “the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus,” and this third law read this way, “The
righteousness which you cannot achieve in your own strength by the power
of your own will approving the law of God, the righteousness which the law
of God without you, holy and just and good though it is, cannot accomplish
in you, in that it is weak through your flesh, the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus can produce in you so that the righteousness that the law
requires may be fulfilled in you, if you will not walk after the flesh but
after the Spirit.” In other words when we come to the end of ourselves,
when we fully realize our own inability to keep the law of God and in
utter helplessness look up to the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus to do for us
that which we cannot do for ourselves, and surrender our every thought and
every purpose and every desire and every affection to His absolute control
and thus walk after the Spirit, the Spirit does take control and set us
free from the power of sin that dwells in us and brings our whole lives
into conformity to the will of God. _It is the privilege of the child of
God in the power of the Holy Spirit to have victory over sin every day and
every hour and every moment._
There are many professed Christians to-day living in the experience that
Paul described in Rom. vii. 9-24. Each day is a day of defeat and if at
the close of the day, they review their lives they must cry, “Oh, wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” There
are some who even go so far as to reason that this is the normal Christian
life, but Paul tells us distinctly that this was “when the commandment
came” (v. 9), not when the Spirit came; that it is the experience under
law and not in the Spirit. The pronoun “I” occurs twenty-seven times in
these fifteen verses and the Holy Spirit is not found once, whereas in the
eighth chapter of Romans the pronoun “I” is found only twice in the whole
chapter and the Holy Spirit appears constantly. Again Paul tells us in the
fourteenth verse that this was his experience as “carnal, sold under sin.”
Certainly, that does not describe the normal Christian experience. On the
other hand in Rom. viii. 9 we are told how not to be in the flesh but in
the Spirit. In the eighth chapter of Romans we have a picture of the true
Christian life, the life that is possible to each one of us and that God
expects from each one of us. Here we have a life where not merely the
commandment comes but the Spirit comes, and works obedience to the
commandment and brings us complete victory over the law of sin and death.
Here we have life, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, where we not only
see the beauty of the law (Rom. vii. 22) but where the Spirit imparts
power to keep it (Rom. viii. 4). We still have the flesh but we are not in
the flesh and we do not live after the flesh. We “through the Spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body” (v. 13). The desires of the body are still
there, desires which if made the rule of our life, would lead us into sin,
but we day by day by the power of the Spirit do put to death the deeds to
which the desires of the body would lead us. We walk by the Spirit and
therefore do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal. v. 16, R. V.). We
have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts thereof (Gal. v. 24,
R. V.). It would be _going too far to say we had still a carnal nature_,
for a carnal nature is a nature governed by the flesh; _but we have the
flesh_, but in the Spirit’s power, it is our privilege to get daily,
hourly, constant victory over the flesh and over sin. But this victory is
not in ourselves, nor in any strength of our own. Left to ourselves,
deserted of the Spirit of God, we would be as helpless as ever. It is
still true that in us, that is in our flesh, dwelleth no good thing (Rom.
vii. 18). It is all in the power of the indwelling Spirit, but the
Spirit’s power may be in such fullness that one is not even conscious of
the presence of the flesh. It seems as if it were dead and gone forever,
but it is only kept in place of death by the Holy Spirit’s power. If for
one moment we were to get our eyes off from Jesus Christ, if we were to
neglect the daily study of the Word and prayer, down we would go. We must
live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit if we would have continuous
victory (Gal. v. 16, 25). The life of the Spirit within us must be
maintained by the study of the Word and prayer. One of the saddest things
ever witnessed is the way in which some people who have entered by the
Spirit’s power into a life of victory become self-confident and fancy that
the victory is in themselves, and that they can safely neglect the study
of the Word and prayer. The depths to which such sometimes fall is
appalling. Each of us needs to lay to heart the inspired words of the
Apostle, “Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he
fall” (1 Cor. x. 12). I once knew a man who seemed to make extraordinary
strides in the Christian life. He became a teacher of others and was
greatly blessed to thousands. It seemed to me that he was becoming
self-confident and I trembled for him. I invited him to my room and we had
a long heart to heart conversation. I told him frankly that it seemed as
if he were going perilously near exceedingly dangerous ground. I said that
I found it safer at the close of each day not to be too confident that
there had been no failures nor defeats that day but to go alone with God
and ask Him to search my heart and show me if there was anything in my
outward or inward life that was displeasing to Him, and that very often
failures were brought to light that must be confessed as sin. “No,” he
replied, “I do not need to do that. Even if I should do something wrong, I
would see it at once. I keep very short accounts with God, and I would
confess it at once.” I said it seemed to me as if it would be safer to
take time alone with God for God to search us through and through, that
while we might not know anything against ourselves, God might know
something against us (1 Cor. iv. 4, R. V.), and He would bring it to light
and our failure could be confessed and put away. “No,” he said, “he did
not feel that that was necessary.” Satan took advantage of his
self-confidence. He fell into most appalling sin, and though he has since
confessed and professed repentance, he has been utterly set aside from
God’s service.
In John viii. 32 we read, “Ye shall know the truth and _the truth shall
set you free_.” In this verse it is the truth, or the Word of God, that
sets us free from the power of sin and gives us victory. And in Ps. cxix.
11 we read, “_Thy Word_ have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin
against Thee.” Here again it is the indwelling Word that keeps us free
from sin. In this matter as in everything else what in one place is
attributed to the Holy Spirit is elsewhere attributed to the Word. The
explanation, of course, is that the Holy Spirit works through the Word,
and it is futile to talk of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us if we neglect
the Word. If we are not feeding on the Word, we are not walking after the
Spirit and we shall not have victory over the flesh and over sin.
CHAPTER XII. THE HOLY SPIRIT FORMING CHRIST WITHIN US.
It is a wonderful and deeply significant prayer that Paul offers in Eph.
iii. 16-19 for the believers in Ephesus and for all believers who read the
Epistle. Paul writes, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from
whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant
you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of
God” (R. V.). We have here an advance in the thought over that which we
have just been studying in the preceding chapter. It is the carrying out
of the former work to its completion. Here the power of the Spirit
manifests itself, not merely in giving us victory over sin but in four
things:
I. _In Christ dwelling in our hearts._ The word translated “dwell” in this
passage is a very strong word. It means literally, “to dwell down,” “to
settle,” “to dwell deep.” It is the work of the Holy Spirit to form the
living Christ within us, dwelling deep down in the deepest depths of our
being. We have already seen that this was a part of the significance of
the name sometimes used of the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of Christ.” In
Christ on the cross of Calvary, made an atoning sacrifice for sin, bearing
the curse of the broken law in our place, we have _Christ for us_. But by
the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon us by the risen Christ we have
_Christ in us_. Herein lies the secret of a Christlike life. We hear a
great deal in these days about doing as Jesus would do. Certainly we ought
as Christians to live like Christ. “He that saith he abideth in Him, ought
himself so to walk even as He walked” (1 John ii. 6). But any attempt on
our part to imitate Christ in our own strength will only result in utter
disappointment and despair. There is nothing more futile that we can
possibly attempt than to imitate Christ in the power of our own will. If
we fancy that we succeed it will be simply because we have a very
incomplete knowledge of Christ. The more we study Him, and the more
perfectly we understand His conduct, the more clearly will we see how far
short we have come from imitating Him. But God does not demand of us the
impossible, He does not demand of us that we imitate Christ in our own
strength. He offers to us something infinitely better, He offers to form
Christ in us by the power of His Holy Spirit. And when Christ is thus
formed in us by the Holy Spirit’s power, all we have to do is to let this
indwelling Christ live out His own life in us, and then we shall be like
Christ without struggle and effort of our own. A woman, who had a deep
knowledge of the Word and a rare experience of the fullness that there is
in Christ, stood one morning before a body of ministers as they plied her
with questions. “Do you mean to say, Mrs. H——,” one of the ministers
asked, “that you are holy?” Quickly but very meekly and gently, the elect
lady replied, “Christ in me is holy.” No, we are not holy. To the end of
the chapter in and of ourselves we are full of weakness and failure, but
the Holy Spirit is able to form within us the Holy One of God, the
indwelling Christ, and He will live out His life through us in all the
humblest relations of life as well as in those relations of life that are
considered greater. He will live out His life through the mother in the
home, through the day-labourer in the pit, through the business man in his
office—everywhere.
II. _In our being rooted and grounded in love_ (v. 17). Paul multiplies
figures here. The first figure is taken from the tree shooting its roots
down deep into the earth and taking fast hold upon it. The second figure
is taken from a great building with its foundations laid deep in the earth
on the rock. Paul therefore tells us that by the strengthening of the
Spirit in the inward man we send the roots of our life down deep into the
soil of love and also that the foundations of the superstructure of our
character are built upon the rock of love. Love is the sum of holiness,
the fulfilling of the law (Rom. xiii. 10); love is what we all most need
in our relations to God, to Jesus Christ and to one another; and it is the
work of the Holy Spirit to root and ground our lives in love. There is the
most intimate relation between Christ being formed within us, or made to
dwell in us, and our being rooted and grounded in love, for Jesus Christ
Himself is the absolutely perfect embodiment of divine love.
III. _In our being made strong to apprehend with all the saints what is
the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of
Christ which passeth knowledge._ It is not enough that we love, we must
know the love of Christ, but that love passeth knowledge. It is so broad,
so long, so high, so deep, that no one can comprehend it. But we can
“apprehend” it, we can lay hold upon it; we can make it our own; we can
hold it before us as the object of our meditation, our wonder, and our
joy. But it is only in the power of the Holy Spirit that we can thus
apprehend it. The mind cannot grasp it at all, in its own native strength.
A man untaught and unstrengthened by the Spirit of God may talk about the
love of Christ, he may write poetry about it, he may go into rhapsodies
over it, but it is only words, words, words. There is no real
apprehension. But the Spirit of God makes us strong to really apprehend it
in all its breadth, in all its length, in all its depth, and in all its
height.
IV. _In our being __“__filled unto __ALL__ the fullness of God.__”_ There
is a very important change between the Authorized and Revised Version. The
Authorized Version reads “Filled _with_ all the fullness of God.” The
Revised Version reads more exactly “filled _unto_ all the fullness of
God.” It is no wonder that the translators of the Authorized Version
staggered at what Paul said and sought to tone down the full force of his
words. To be filled _with_ all the fullness of God would not be so
wonderful, for it is an easy matter to fill a pint cup with all the
fullness of the ocean, a single dip will do it. But it would be an
impossibility indeed to fill a pint cup _unto_ all the fullness of the
ocean, until all the fullness that there is in the ocean is in that pint
cup. But it is seemingly a more impossible task that the Holy Spirit
undertakes to do for us, to fill us “unto all the fullness” of the
infinite God, to fill us until all the intellectual and moral fullness
that there is in God is in us. But this is the believer’s destiny, we are
“heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ” (Rom. viii. 17), _i. e._,
we are heirs of God to the extent that Jesus Christ is an heir of God;
that is, we are heirs to all God is and all God has. It is the work of the
Holy Spirit to apply to us that which is already ours in Christ. It is His
work to make ours experimentally all God has and all God is, until the
work is consummated in our being “_filled unto all the fullness of God_.”
This is not the work of a moment, nor a day, nor a week, nor a month, nor
a year, but the Holy Spirit day by day puts His hand, as it were, into the
fullness of God and conveys to us what He has taken therefrom and puts it
into us, and then again He puts His hand into the fullness that there is
in God and conveys to us what is taken therefrom, and puts it into us, and
this wonderful process goes on day after day and week after week and month
after month, and year after year, and never ends until we are “filled
_unto_ all the fullness of God.”
CHAPTER XIII. THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGING FORTH IN THE BELIEVER CHRISTLIKE
GRACES OF CHARACTER.
There is a singular charm, a charm that one can scarcely explain, in the
words of Paul in Gal. v. 22, 23, R. V., “The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness,
temperance.” What a catalogue we have here of lovely moral
characteristics. Paul tells us that they are the fruit of the Spirit, that
is, if the Holy Spirit is given control of our lives, this is the fruit
that He will bear. All real beauty of character, all real Christlikeness
in us, is the Holy Spirit’s work; it is His fruit; He produces it; He
bears it, not we. It is well to notice that these graces are not said to
be the fruits of the Spirit but the fruit, _i. e._, if the Spirit is given
control of our life, He will not bear one of these as fruit in one person
and another as fruit in another person, but this will be the one fruit of
many flavours that He produces in each one. There is also a unity of
origin running throughout all the multiplicity of manifestation. It is a
beautiful life that is set forth in these verses. Every word is worthy of
earnest study and profound meditation. Think of these words one by one;
“love”—“joy”—“peace”—“longsuffering”—“kindness”—“goodness”—“faith” (or
“faithfulness,” R. V.; faith is the better translation if properly
understood. The word is deeper than faithfulness. It is a real faith that
results in faithfulness)—“meekness”—“temperance” (or a life under perfect
control by the power of the Holy Spirit). We have here a perfect picture
of the life of Jesus Christ Himself. Is not this the life that we all long
for, the Christlike life? But this life is not natural to us and is not
attainable by us by any effort of what we are in ourselves. The life that
is natural to us is set forth in the three preceding verses: “Now the
works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife,
jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness,
revellings and such like” (Gal. v. 21, R. V.). All these works of the
flesh will not manifest themselves in each individual; some will manifest
themselves in one, others in others, but they have one common source, the
flesh, and if we live in the flesh, this is the kind of a life that we
will live. It is the life that is natural to us. But when the indwelling
Spirit is given full control in the one He inhabits, when we are brought
to realize the utter badness of the flesh and give up in hopeless despair
of ever attaining to anything in its power, when, in other words, we come
to the end of ourselves, and just give over the whole work of making us
what we ought to be to the indwelling Holy Spirit, then and only then,
these holy graces of character, which are set forth in Gal. v. 22, 23, are
His fruit in our lives. Do you wish these graces in your character and
life? Do you really wish them? Then renounce self utterly and all its
strivings after holiness, give up any thought that you can ever attain to
anything really morally beautiful in your own strength and let the Holy
Spirit, who already dwells in you (if you are a child of God) take full
control and bear His own glorious fruit in your daily life.
We get very much the same thought from a different point of view in the
second chapter and twentieth verse, A. R. V., “I have been crucified with
Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that
life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
We hear a great deal in these days about “Ethical Culture,” which usually
means the cultivation of the flesh until it bears the fruit of the Spirit.
It cannot be done; no more than thorns can be made to bear figs and the
bramble bush grapes (Luke vi. 44; Matt. xii. 33). We hear also a great
deal about “character building.” That may be all very well if you bear
constantly in mind that the Holy Spirit must do the building, and even
then it is not so much building as fruit bearing. (See, however, 2 Pet. i.
5-7.) We hear also a great deal about “cultivating graces of character,”
but we must always bear it clearly in mind that the way to cultivate true
graces of character is by submitting ourselves utterly to the Spirit to do
His work and bear His fruit. This is “sanctification _of the Spirit_” (1
Pet. i. 2; 2 Thess. ii. 13). There is a sense, however, in which
cultivating graces of character is right: viz., we look at Jesus Christ to
see what He is and what we therefore ought to be; then we look to the Holy
Spirit to make us this that we ought to be and thus, “reflecting as a
mirror the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii. 18, R. V.).
Settle it, however, clearly and forever that the flesh can never bear this
fruit, that you can never attain to these things by your own effort that
they are “_the fruit of the Spirit_.”
CHAPTER XIV. THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDING THE BELIEVER INTO A LIFE AS A SON.
The Apostle Paul writes in Rom. viii. 14, R. V., “For as many as are _led
by the Spirit of God_, these are the sons of God.” In this passage we see
the Holy Spirit taking the conduct of the believer’s life. A true
Christian life is a personally conducted life, conducted at every turn by
a Divine Person. It is the believer’s privilege to be absolutely set free
from all care and worry and anxiety as to the decisions which we must make
at any turn of life. The Holy Spirit undertakes all that responsibility
for us. A true Christian life is not one governed by a long set of rules
without us, but led by a living and ever-present Person within us. It is
in this connection that Paul says, “For ye received not the spirit _of
bondage_ again _to fear_.” A life governed by rules without one is a life
of _bondage_. There is always _fear_ that we haven’t made quite rules
enough, and always the dread that in an unguarded moment we may have
broken some of the rules which we have made. The life that many professed
Christians lead is one of awful bondage; for they have put upon themselves
a yoke more grievous to bear than that of the ancient Mosaic law
concerning which Peter said to the Jews of his time, that neither they nor
their fathers had been able to bear it (Acts xv. 10). Many Christians have
a long list of self-made rules, “Thou shalt do this,” and “Thou shalt do
this,” and “Thou shalt do this,” and “Thou shalt not do that,” and “Thou
shalt not do that,” and “Thou shalt not do that”; and if by any chance
they break one of these self-made rules, or forget to keep one of them,
they are at once filled with an awful dread that they have brought upon
themselves the displeasure of God (and they even sometimes fancy that they
have committed the unpardonable sin). This is not Christianity, this is
legalism. “We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,” we
have received the Spirit who gives us the place of sons (Rom. viii. 15).
Our lives should not be governed by a set of rules without us but by the
loving Spirit of Adoption within us. We should believe the teaching of
God’s Word that the Spirit of God’s Son dwells within us and we should
surrender the absolute control of our life to Him and look to Him to guide
us at every turn of life. He will do it if we only surrender to Him to do
it and trust Him to do it. If in a moment of thoughtlessness, we go our
own way instead of His, we will not be filled with an overwhelming sense
of condemnation and of fear of an offended God, but we will go to God as
our Father, confess our going astray, believe that He forgives us fully
because He says so (1 John i. 9) and go on light and happy of heart to
obey Him and be led by His Spirit.
Being led by the Spirit of God does not mean for a moment that we will do
things that the written Word of God tells us not to do. The Holy Spirit
never leads men contrary to the Book of which He Himself is the Author.
And if there is some spirit which is leading us to do something that is
contrary to the explicit teachings of Jesus, or the Apostles, we may be
perfectly sure that this spirit who is leading us is not the Holy Spirit.
This point needs to be emphasized in our day, for there are not a few who
give themselves over to the leading of some spirit, whom they say is the
Holy Spirit, but who is leading them to do things explicitly forbidden in
the Word. We must always remember that many false spirits and false
prophets are gone out into the world (1 John iv. 1). There are many who
are so anxious to be led by some unseen power that they are ready to
surrender the conduct of their lives to any spiritual influence or unseen
person. In this way, they open their lives to the conduct and malevolent
influence of evil spirits to the utter wreck and ruin of their lives.
A man who made great professions of piety once came to me and said that
the Holy Spirit was leading him and “a sweet Christian woman,” whom he had
met, to contemplate marriage. “Why,” I said, in astonishment, “you already
have one wife.” “Yes,” he said, “but you know we are not congenial, and we
have not lived together for years.” “Yes,” I replied, “I know you have not
lived together for years, and I have looked into the matter, and I believe
that the blame for that lies largely at your door. In any event, she is
your wife. You have no reason to suppose she has been untrue to you, and
Jesus Christ explicitly teaches that if you marry another while she lives
you commit adultery” (Luke xvi. 18). “Oh, but,” the man said, “the Spirit
of God is leading us to love one another and to see that we ought to marry
one another.” “You lie, and you blaspheme,” I replied. “Any spirit that is
leading you to disobey the plain teaching of Jesus Christ is not the
Spirit of God but some spirit of the devil.” This perhaps was an extreme
case, but cases of essentially the same character are not rare. Many
professed Christians seek to justify themselves in doing things which are
explicitly forbidden in the Word by saying that they are led by the Spirit
of God. Not long ago, I protested to the leaders in a Christian assembly
where at each meeting many professed to speak with tongues in distinct
violation of the teaching of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul in 1
Cor. xiv. 27, 28 (that not more than two or at the most, three, shall
speak in a tongue in one gathering and that not even one shall speak
unless there was an interpreter, and that no two shall speak at the same
time). The defense that they made was that the Holy Spirit led them to
speak several at a time and many in a single meeting and that they must
obey the Holy Spirit, and in such a case as this were not subject to the
Word. The Holy Spirit never contradicts Himself. He never leads the
individual to do that which in the written Word He has commanded us all
not to do. Any leading of the Spirit must be tested by that which we know
to be the leading of the Spirit in the Word. But while we need to be on
our guard against the leading of false spirits, it is our privilege to be
led by the Holy Spirit, and to lead a life free from the bondage of rules
and free from the anxiety that we shall not go wrong, a life as children
whose Father has sent an unerring Guide to lead them all the way.
Those who are thus led by the Spirit of God are “_sons_ of God,” that is,
they are not merely _children_ of God, born it is true of the Father, but
immature, but they are the grown children, the mature children of God;
they are no longer babes but sons. The Apostle Paul draws a contrast in
Gal. iv. 1-7 between the babe under the tutelage of the law and differing
nothing from a servant, and the full grown son who is no more a servant
but a son walking in joyous liberty. It sometimes seems as if
comparatively few Christians to-day had really thrown off the bondage of
law, rules outside themselves, and entered into the joyous liberty of
sons.
CHAPTER XV. THE HOLY SPIRIT BEARING WITNESS TO OUR SONSHIP.
One of the most precious passages in the Bible regarding the work of the
Holy Spirit is found in Rom. viii. 15, 16, R. V., “For ye received not the
spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are the children of God.” There are two witnesses to our
sonship, first, our own spirit, taking God at His Word (“As many as
received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God,” John i.
12), bears witness to our sonship. Our own spirit unhesitatingly affirms
that what God says is true that we are sons of God because God says so.
But there is another witness to our sonship, namely, the Holy Spirit. He
bears witness _together with_ our spirit. “Together with” is the force of
the Greek used in this passage. It does not say that He bears witness _to_
our spirit but “_together_ with” it. How He does this is explained in Gal
iv. 6, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son
into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” When we have received Jesus
Christ as our Saviour and accepted God’s testimony concerning Christ that
through Him we have become sons, the Spirit of His Son comes into our
hearts filling them with an overwhelming sense of sonship, and crying
through our hearts, “Abba, Father.” The natural attitude of our hearts
towards God is not that of sons. We may call Him Father with our lips, as
when for example we repeat in a formal way, the prayer that Jesus taught
us, “Our Father, which art in heaven,” but there is no real sense that He
is our Father. Our calling Him so is mere words. We do not really trust
Him. We do not love to come into His presence; we do not love to look up
into His face with a sense of wonderful joy and trust because we are
talking to our Father. We dread God. We come to Him in prayer because we
think we ought to and perhaps we are afraid of what might happen if we did
not. But when the Spirit of His Son bears witness together with our spirit
to our sonship, then we are filled and thrilled with the sense that we are
sons. We trust Him as we never even trusted our earthly Father. There is
even less fear of Him than there was of our earthly father. Reverence
there is, awe, but oh! such a sense of wonderful childlike trust.
Notice when it is that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we
are the children of God. We have the order of experience in the order of
the verses in Rom. viii. First we see the Holy Spirit setting us free from
the law of sin and death, and consequently, the righteousness of the law
fulfilled in us who walk not after the law but after the Spirit (vs. 2-4);
then we have the believer not minding the things of the flesh but the
things of the Spirit (v. 5); then we have the believer day by day through
the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the body (v. 13); then we have
the believer led by the Spirit of God; then and only then, we have the
Spirit bearing witness to our sonship. There are many seeking the witness
of the Spirit to their sonship in the wrong place. They practically demand
the witness of the Spirit to their sonship before they have even confessed
their acceptance of Christ, and certainly before they have surrendered
their lives fully to the control of the indwelling Spirit of God. No, let
us seek things in their right order. Let us accept Jesus Christ as our
Saviour, and surrender to Him as our Lord and Master, because God commands
us to do so; let us confess Him before the world because God commands that
(Matt. x. 32, 33; Rom. x. 9, 10); let us assert that our sins are
forgiven, that we have eternal life, that we are sons of God because God
says so in His Word and we are unwilling to make God a liar by doubting
Him (Acts x. 43; xiii. 38, 39; 1 John v. 10-13; John v. 24; John i. 12);
let us surrender our lives to the control of the Spirit of Life, looking
to Him to set us free from the law of sin and death; let us set our minds,
not upon the things of the flesh but the things of the Spirit; let us
through the Spirit day by day put to death the deeds of the body; let us
give our lives up to be led by the Spirit of God in all things; and _then_
let us simply trust God to send the Spirit of His Son into our hearts
filling us with a sense of sonship, crying, “Abba, Father,” and He will do
it.
God, our Father, longs that we shall know and realize that we are His
sons. He longs to hear us call Him Father from hearts that realize what
they say, and that trust Him without a fear or anxiety. He is our Father,
He alone in all the universe realizes the fullness of meaning that there
is in that wonderful word “Father,” and it brings joy to Him to have us
realize that He is our Father and to call Him so.
Some years ago there was a father in the state of Illinois, who had a
child who had been deaf and dumb from her birth. It was a sad day in that
home when they came to realize that that little child was deaf and would
never hear and, as they thought, would never speak. The father heard of an
institution in Jacksonville, Ill., where deaf children were taught to
talk. He took this little child to the institution and put her in charge
of the superintendent. After the child had been there some time, the
superintendent wrote telling the father that he would better come and
visit his child. A day was appointed and the child was told that her
father was coming. As the hour approached, she sat up in the window,
watching the gate for her father to pass through. The moment he entered
the gate she saw him, ran down the stairs and ran out on the lawn, met
him, looked up into his face and lifted up her hands and said, “Papa.”
When that father heard the dumb lips of his child speak for the first time
and frame that sweet word “Papa,” such a throb of joy passed through his
heart that he literally fell to the ground and rolled upon the grass in
ecstasy. But there is a Father who loves as no earthly father, who longs
to have His children realize that they are children, and when we look up
into His face and from a heart which the Holy Spirit has filled
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