further suggestion of this tri-personality of Jehovah of

further suggestion of this tri-personality of Jehovah of

28. The, Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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

: x. xvi. 7. Here we

as their subject is found in

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. iiL 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 wilder-

ness : 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 Jeho-

vah, 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-n).

IV. The name of tht Holy Spirit is coupled with that

of God in a way it would be impossiblefor 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 i Cor. xii. 4-6, " Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit

The Deity of the Holy Spirit 3

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 to-

gether 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, u Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father , and of the

&tf, 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 Be-

ing ?

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, u But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine

heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part

^ The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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, 2. *., the Holy Spirit to whom he lied is called

God.

To sum it all up, by the ascription of all the dis-

tinctively 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 unmis-

takable ways, God in His own Word distinctly proclaims that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person.

Ill

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 state-

ments 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 iri 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 na-

34 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

tions, 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, u And / 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, an-

other Comforter, in answer to the prayer of the second

Person, the Son. If words mean anything, and cer-

tainly 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 5

It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not

away, the Comforter will not come unto you 5 but if I

; Him unto you." A similar distinc-

depart, I will sen4

tion is drawn iiylActs ii. 33, where we read, " Therefore

being by the right hand of God exalted, and having re-*

ceived 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 ex-

alted, 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 Distinction of the Holy Spirit 35

the clearest possible distinction between the three Per-

sons, 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 oersons to one another.

The Subordination of the Spirit to the Father and to the Son

the fact that the Holy Spirit is a Divine

FROM

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 re-

spect, 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.'V In John xiv. 26, we are

taught that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and in

cc But

the name of the Son. Jesus declares very clearly,

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, a But when the

Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from

The Subordination of the Spirit 37

the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeded! 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 ; vlii. 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/

7 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."

cc My teaching

In a similar way, Jesus said of Himself,

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

38 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

i / 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.

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.

/. 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 isalso

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.

i. 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, u Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit^ they are created : and

40 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

Thou renewest the face of the earth." And Job xxxiiL

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 ojf 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 u the Wind "

is brought out in vfohn iii. 6-8, u 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 u

Spirit " and the other part of the passage

cc 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

c Wind

is wind. Marvel

and that which is born of the

not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The \yind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 41

sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or

: so is every one that is born of the

whither it goeth

c 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

(i) The Spirit like the wind is sovereign. u The

wind bloweth where it listeth "

^(Jolin 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 cc divides to each man "

severally even as^He wiU"J{l Cor. xii. II, 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, u 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

42 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 warn-

ing, 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 Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 43

the room. I realized what Eliphaz meant when he

said, " Then a spirit passed before my face \ the hair of my flesh stood up Y (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

^nd again and again. His mighty power we have wit-

nessed 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 injthe 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^ u Thou

':anst 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 unexpect-

edly '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 u 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

44 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 m/2 Cor. Hi. 6, we read, " The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." Per-

haps 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 GODJ Come from the four winds, O breath, and

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 45

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

(cf. John iii. 5). Israel, in the

exceeding great army

prophet's vision, was only bones, very many and very

dry (vs. 2, n), until the prophet proclaimed unto them

the word of God; then there was a noise and a shak-

ing 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 ic 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 worki You will some-

times 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 dis-

cover 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

46 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

day you visit a church. Everything about the outward

appointments of the church are all that could be de-

sired. There is an attractive meeting-house, an expen-

sive 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 criti-

cism. 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

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 47

! The same

celebrated preacher, but what a change

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 preach-

ing. Men and women sit breathless as he speaks, sinners bowed with tears of contrition, pricked to

their hearts with conviction of sin j 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 irrjjjtfiUcv We read inMcts 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 pronpSe of our Lord was ful-

filled in Stephen, we read, I** 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

48 The 'Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 busi-

ness man in Chicago, and in the power of this resist-

less 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, Ex-

cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can-

not enter into the kingdom of God," would disappear

" means "Wind" and translate the verse literally all through, u 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, " Ex-

if we would only bear in mind that "

Spirit

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 49

cept 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. 1. 18 j I Pet. L 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 I Cor,

iii. 1 6, " 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. XL 2, A. R. V., " And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him." The thought of the name is, of course, essen-

tially 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. Ixi. 1-3, A. R. V., " The Spirit of the

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

Lord Jehovah is upon Me ; because Jehovah hath

anointed Me to preac

* 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 re-

lation in which God Himself is spoken of in this con-

nection, 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

t Spirit is

even more expressive than the name u 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 mani-

festly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by

us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the liv-

ing 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 in-

tellectual 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 in-

tellectual theological proposition. It is the work of the

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 51

Holy Spirit to make God something vastly more than a

theological notion, no matter how orthodox 5 He is the

Spirit of the living GW, 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 uni-

verse, 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

<jW, 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

52 The Person and Work of the Holy .Spirit

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 fellow-

ship, a God to whom he may raise his voice in prayer and who speaks back to him.

VI. The Spirit of Christ.

In Rom. viiL 9, u B,ut 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 ligs back of a Christlike

spirit j it is a name of the Holy Spirit. Why is the

Holy Spirit called the Spirit of Christ ? For several

reasons :

(i) Because He is Chrisfs 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 a 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 in>*

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 53

parts 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 il. 33 we read thatJesus " 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 j that is, that Jesus, having been exalted to

the right hand of God, in answer to His prayer, re-

ceives the Holy Spirit from the Father and sheds forth

upon the Church Him whom He hath received from

the Father* In Matt. ill. 1 1 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 a,nd

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 a the Spirit of Christ," /. *., became It is

the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to us. In

John xvL 14, R. V., we read, u 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,

54 The Ferson and Work ot the Holy Spirit

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 Mis work toform Christ as a living presence

within us. In Eph. iii. 1 6, 17, the Apostle Paul prays

to the Father that He would grant to believers accord-

ing 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 com-

ing 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.

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 55

VII. The Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Jesus Christ

in Phil. L 19, "For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the

9 The Spirit is not merely the

Spirit of Jesus Christ.'

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 5 and when they were come over against" Mysia, they assayed to go into

Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.'*

" the

By the using of this name, " The Spirit of Jesus

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, tc And because ye are sons, God hath sent

forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,

56 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 u 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

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in "His Names 57

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 in-

tention 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 selfish-

ness, 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 ac-

58 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

tion into conformity with His will.) The infinitely

Holy Spirit is ready to come into our churches, how-

ever 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.

XL 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 a 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 tbe Spirit of holiness in Rom. i. 4, " And declared to be the Son of God with

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 59

power, according to the Spirit of holiness^ by the resurrec-

tion 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. i 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. 79). 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;toJ Burning. This name is usel in the passage just quoted above.

(See XIIL) This n<tme emphasizes His searching.

60 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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, u 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 communi-

cate truth, to impart truth, to those who receive Him.

This comes out in the passage given above, and, if

possible, it comes out evert 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

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 6 1

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

" and " of love " and "

cc of power

of a sound mind'

9 or sound sense (2 Tim. L 7).

XVIL The Spirit of Counsel and Might. We find this name used of the Holy Spirit in the

passage given under the preceding head. The mean-

ing of this name too is obvious, the Holy Spirit is

" because He gives us counsel in all our plans and strength to

called " the Spirit of counsel and of might

carry them out (cf. Acts viiL 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 sug-

6i The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

gestive 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. i-io). 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 ful-

filled in those who walk not after the flesh but after

the Spirit. (See Rom. viii. 2-4.) The Holy Spirit is

therefore called u the Spirit of life," because He im-

parts 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. L 9, u Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 63

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. 1 8, Jesus Himself is recorded as saying, u 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 He-

brews we are told that it was with the oil ofgladness that He was anointed ; so, of course, the only possible con-

clusion is that the oil of gladness means the Holy

Spirit. What a beautiful and suggestive name it is for Him whose fruit is, first, u love " then "joy" (Gal.

v. 22). The Holy Spirit becomes a source of bound-

less joy to those who receive Him ; He so fills and satis-

fies 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 "

(l 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 be-

tween abnormal intoxication that comes through excess

of wine and the wholesome exhilaration from which

64 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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, sup-

pose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trod-

den 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, JR. V., " And I will

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 65

pour upon the house of David, and upon the Inhabit-

ants 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.*

c the Spirit of grace and of supplication "

The phrase, f

in this passage is beyond a doubt a name of the Holy

" we have al-

Spirit. The name " the Spirit of grace

ready 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 nothow 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 pray-

ing is knowing the Holy Spirit as "the Spirit of grace and of supplication/'

XXIII. The Spirit of Glory. The Holy Spirit is called u the Spirit of glory

" in

I Pet. iv. 14, " If ye be reproached for the name of

Christ, happy are ye ; for the Spirit ofglory and of God

: on their part He is evil spoken of, but on your part He is glorified." This name does

resteth upon you

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 im-

parts truth to us, and as the Spirit of life imparts life

66 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

to us, and as the Spirit of wisdom and understand-

ing and of counsel and might and knowledge and of

the fear of the LORD imparts to us wisdom and under-

standing 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

: that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye

sufferings

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. Tie 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.

The Holy Spirit as Reyealed In His Names 67

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

cc But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even

in John xv. 26,

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 cc ad-

vocate " " helper " and a simple transference of the Greek word into English, " Paraclete." The word

translated u Comforter " means literally, " one called

to another's side," the i.dea being, one right at hand to

take another's part. It is the same word that is trans-

lated " advocate " in I John ii. I, " 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

(u advocatus ") and it means u one called to another to

68 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

take his part," but in our modern usage, the word has

acquired a restricted meaning. The Greek word trans-

(Parakleetos) means " one called

lated u Comforter "

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

Spiriti He seems to be so far away, but when we think

of the Parakleetos, or in plain English our " Stand-

" or our 4C part-taker," how near He is. Up to

byer

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 occa-

sion. 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

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 69

name cc 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 loneli-

ness 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 5 the remain ing 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.

5 *

cc I am not alone ; by my

Then another thought came,

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

cc I want to thank you for

meeting and gently said,

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 th^t 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

Jo The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 1 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

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 71

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 5 u 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 wonder-

ful 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

! It seemed as if I would

agony of those two years

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 rny 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 rnore awful years of insomnia/' But that very

72 The^ Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 rne 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 responsi-

bility 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

The Holy Spirit as Revealed in His Names 73

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.

4C Dr. Torrey, this is the

She hurried to me and said,

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

74 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

to be a Christian, because I was determined that I

would not be a preacher, and I feared that if I sur-

rendered 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 u I will give up sin," or anything of

that sort, I simply cried, u 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 extra-

ordinarily 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 1 sup-

posed 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 j my voice faltered. I repeated as much

as I could remember and sat down. Think of a man

The Holy Spirit as Revealed In His Names 75

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 Sundayschool 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 Para-

clete 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,

76 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 ,|>ray| (Rom. viii. 26, 27) ; when we .study the Word ;0ohn xiv. 26; xvL 12-14)*, when we do

{(Acts viii. 29) ; when we preach or

personal work^

teach (i,Gor. ii. 4)5 when we are tempted (Rom. viiir

2) j when we leave this world (Acts vii. 5460). 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," -

The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Material Universe

are many who think of the work of

THERE

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,

cc 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 ii$/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. L i63

78 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

R. V., u For in Him were all things created, in the

heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things

invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principali-

ties 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 connec-

tion 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, u 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 Th'ou renew est 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 Holy Spirit in the Mate.

the Spirit of God in them. This does ru moment that the universe is God, but it does .

the universe is maintained in its being by the t

nence of God in it. ..This is the great and solemn trui

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 ex-

istence 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, cc 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 crea-

tion 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. I. 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^JgMtfiefyr&Q his nostrils the

breath of .life; and man became a living soul." Here

again it is through the agency of the breath of God,

. and Work of the Holy Spirit 78 The Perso- \ -f thing, human life, comes into Boeing. R. V,, "pV as the Bible is the history of man's recJempheavenft does not dwell upon this phase of truthi, but

invjemingly each new and higher impartation of

ffee

* Spirit of God brings forth a higher order of being.

First, inert matter j then motion ; then light ; then vegetable life ; then animal life ; then man j and, as we shall

see later, then the new man 5 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.

VII

The Holy Spirit Convicting the World of Sinf of Righteousness and of Judgment

UR 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-u, 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 ofthe 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 inyBcts

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 con-

victed the world of sin : He pricked them to their

heart with a sense of their awful guilt in the rejection

82 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

of their Lord and their Christ. If the Apostle Peter

had spoken thesame 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 instru-

mentality 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 ex-

aggerating 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 abun-

dantly 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 com-

monest 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 pas-

8c Convicting the World of Sin

sages of Scripture in a most skillful way, the very pas-

sages 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 helpless-

ness 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 en-

gineer on the Pan Handle Railway with the remark,

tc 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". ct 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

,. The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

brought the man to me and said, " I have worked with

him for two hours with no result," I thought to myself, u 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 indiffer-

ence 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 convic-

tion 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 en-

tire 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

Convicting the World of Sin 85

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

5 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

been fishing to-day/

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.

1 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, u I don't know what is the matter with me. I never

felt this way before in all my life," and he sobbed and

: " I

shook like a leaf. Then he told me this story

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

86 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 in-

vitation, 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 invita-

tion ; 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,

Convicting the World of Sin 87

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, a I have a great problem on my hands.

I am the pastor of the church in a university town. My congregration is largely made up of university pro-

fessors 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 delight-

ful people in the world, believe that they are sinners, how to convict them of sin/' I replied, " It is impos-

sible. 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, u Neverthe-

less I tell you the truth ; It is expedient for you that

: for if I go not away, the Comforter will

I go away

not come unto you ; but if I go, I will send Him unto

you" Then He goes on to say, u And when He is come

(un^jou\ 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,

88 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 co.i ver-

sion 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, u 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 callfor

Simon^ whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee

words whereby thou and all thy bouse shall be saved "

(Acts xi. 13, 14). So we may go right through the

record of the 'conversions in the Acts of the Apostles

Convicting the World of Sin 89

and we will see they were all effected through human

instrumentality. How solemn, how almost over-

whelming, 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 con-

vinces 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 rer

jected was their Lord and Christ, attested so to be by His resurrection from the dead (Acts il 22-36). a And

90 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 su-

periority. Not unfrequently, he is all the more proud of it because it is the only mark of intellectual supe-

riority that he possesses. He tosses his head and says, " I am an agnostic j " " 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 unbe-

liever 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 ;t(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,

Convicting the World of Sin 91

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-con-

demning) 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, per-

haps 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).

92 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

III. The Holy Spirit also convicts the ivorld ofjudgment.

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. n). 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 con-

vinced 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 em-

phasizes judgment and future retribution is not thought to be quite up to date ; he is considered " mediaeval

or even ct 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

Convicting the "World of Sin 93

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 revela-

tion 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 con-

vinced me of judgment.

VIII

The Holy Spirit Bearing Witness to Jesus Christ

our Lord was talking to His disciples on the night before His crucifixion of the

WHEN

Comforter who after His departure was to

come to take His place, He said, u But when the Com-

forter 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

(John xv. 26, 27, R. V.), and the Apostle

beginning

Peter and the other disciples when they were strictly commanded by the Jewish Council not to teach in the name of Jesus said,

tc 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 con-

cerning Jesus Christ. We find the Holy Spirit's testi-

mony 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 Scrip-

tures 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

Bearing Witness to Jesus Christ 95

Holy Spirit directly to our hearts that we ever come to

a true, living knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. I 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 to-

gether 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

c Amen

' and the

(Acts ii. 36), the Holy Spirit said,

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

g& The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 some-

thing 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 (i 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, u 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

Bearing Witness to Jesus Christ 97

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*/]ohn xx. 31, u 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. ^Tlie 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 sur-

render his will absolutely to God and ask God for light

98 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 testi-

mony. 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. Often-

times 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

Bearing Witness to Jesus Christ 99

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 be-

lieved.

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 Gos-

pel 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

loo The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

say you had a wonderful meeting at the mission last

night." u 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.

The Regenerating Work of the Holy Spirit, THE

Apostle Paul in Titus iii. 5, R. V., writes,

44 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. 35, 44 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 en-

ter 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." ;\ <#. \ K u I , What is regeneration ? (Regeneration is thejmparta-

tion of life, spiritual life, to those who are dead, spiritually

dead, through their trespasses and sins (Eph. ii. I, R. V.). It is the Holy Spirit who imparts this life. It is true

that the written Word is the i$sriiment whichf the

Holy Spirit uses in regeneration. We read ii^'i Pet.

4C Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but

i. 23,

of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and

102 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 in-

strument 'used in regeneration, but it is only as the

Holy Sgirit uses the instrument that the new birth re-

sults. u It i^ the Spirit that givetfa life "

(John vi. 63, AT R. V.). /In 2 Cor. iii. 6, we are told that " the let-

ter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." 1 This is some-

times 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 j but that some spiritual interpretation, an interpre-

tation that tc

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 cc 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. In-

deed, 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

1 Both the translators of the Authorized Version and the Revised

Version, and even the translators of the American Revision, seem to

have lost sight of the context, for while they spell " Spirit " in the

third verse with a capital, in the sixth verse, in all three versions it

is spelled with a small " s."

Regenerating Work of the Holy Spirit 103

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

1 No number of Bibles upon our tables or

bring us life.

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 5

regeneration is the impartation of a new nature^ Go<fs 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

1 The ministry of many an orthodox preacher and teacher is a

ministry of death. It is true that the Word of the Gospel is preached but it is preached with enticing words of man's wisdom and not in

the demonstration of the Spirit and of power (I Cor. ii. 4). The

Gospel comes in word only and not in power and in the Holy Spirit

104 T^e Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

human ancestry, we come into this world with a mind

that is blind to the truth of God. ;(a 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." , i 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, un-

cleanness, 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 per-

verted, set upon pleasing itself, rather than pleasing God. (u Because the mind of the flesh is enmity

against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God,

rf*Kom. viii. 7, R. V.) In

neither indeed can it be."

the _new birth a new intellectual, affectional and voli-

tional nature is imparted to us. We receive the mind

that sees as God sees, thinks God's thoughts after Him (i Cor. ii. 12-14)5 affections in harmony with

the affections of God. (

c^,The fruit of the Spirit is love,

joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

: against such there is no law."

meekness, temperance

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 im-

parts this new nature to us. No amount of preaching,

Regenerating Work of the Holy Spirit 105

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 vili. n ; cf. I Pet. I. 235

Jas. i. 1 8 ; i 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 Di-

vine nature springs up as the result. There is abun-

dant 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

ground 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 h^s

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 ap-

pear to be beyond hope. How often I have seen it

proven. How often I have seen men and women ut-

io6 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

terly 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 dis-

orderliness. 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. Con-

version is merely an outward thing, the turning around.

Regeneration goes down to the deepest depths of the

Regenerating Work of the Holy Spirit 107

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 sud-

5 * If the religion of the

den miraculous conversion.

future does not teach sudden miraculous conversion, if

it does not teach something far more meaningful, sud-

den, 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 re-

ligion 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 out-

look 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

io8 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 oc-

cur 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 educa-

tion and culture and says, u 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, u 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 bap-

tized, 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

Regenerating Work of the Holy Spirit 109

quitting his meanness ; it says, " Outward reform, quit-

ting 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, u 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."

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 i 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 i Cor. vi. 19, R. V., we read, u 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 be-

lievers, 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 1

will pray the Father, and He shall give you another

Comforter, that He may abide with you forever ; Even

>j^!^ whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know /Him ; for He dwelleth with you and .shall^kej^i j^'TQohn xiv. 16, 17). The Holy Spirit dwells in

the Sirit

every one who is born again. "We read in Rom. viii. 9, If any man have not the Spirit of Christ (the Spirit of

The Indwelling Spirit 1 1 1

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 concern-

ing gross immoralities. ("See i Cor. vi. 15-19.) The

Holy Spirit dwells in every child of God. In some, how-

ever, 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.

5/Vhat 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

112 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 ever-

lasting satisfaction and life. Jesus says in John iv. 14, R. V., u 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 spring-

ing 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 hu-> man 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

The Indwelling Spirit 1 13

Jesus Christ gives is the Holy Spirit. T nis John tells

us in the most explicit language in John vii. 37-395 a 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 re-

ceives 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 ;fto have

your source of satisfaction, not

; !i ;lie things outside

yourself, but in a well within and that is always within, and that is always springing up in freshness and power i

to have oar 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 spring-

ing 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 sat-

isfaction 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 dear-

114 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

est 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. Ixi. 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 in-

stantly 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.

Ijlie one who has the Spirit of God dwelling within

as a well springing up into everlasting life is indegeni

ent^of the world's pleasures^ He does not need to rur.

after Se^theat?r"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, u 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."

The Indwelling Spirit 1 1

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 1 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 wilLMQt^waji^o. 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 pos-

sible 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 foun-

tain may -burst forth again, springing up every day and

hour into everlasting life.

The Holy Spirit Setting the Believer Free

From the Power of Indwelling Sin

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 "

(j^J))* 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

t 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 u 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 with-

out 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^

Setting the Believer Free j 17

c& You cannot do the good that you would/

9 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 9 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, a 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, u the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," and

this third law read this way, u 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

1 1 8 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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. // 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. 924. 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 5 that it is the experience under law andjiot 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:

A^al'n 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

betting the Jtleliever free 119

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 Eftf 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

(v. 13). The desires

mortify_the deeds of the body

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 Spirife

yand therefore do not fulfill the

lusts of the flesh ^(UaL 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 injDjujiJlesh, dwelleth no good

thing (Rorn. vii. 18). (It is all in the power of the in-

jrit, but the Spirit's power may be in such

fullness that one is not even conscious of the presence of the flesh^

t It seems as if it were dead and gone

forever, but it is only kept in place of death by the

120 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 msintaired bv 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" (i 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. 1 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, a I do

Setting the Believer Free 121

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 (i Cor. iv. 4, R. V.), and He would bring it to light and our failure could be confessed and put away. "No5

" he said, "he did not feel that that was

necessary." Satan took advantage of his self-con-

fidence. 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.

C Ye shall know the truth

* In John viii. 32 we read,

and the truth shall set youfree" 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. 1 1 we read, " Thy W7ord 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. (Jf 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.)

XII

The Holy Spirit Forming Christ Within Us

is a wonderful and deeply significant prayer that

Paul offers iii/Eph. iii. 16-19 for the believers in

Ephesus and for all believers who read the Epistle. Paul writes, u For this cause I bow my knees unto * j 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 pQffi^J^?Ugb--Hi^Spirit in the inward man / that

Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ; teethe end that ye, being^ footed and grounded in love,Tnay 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 comple-

tion. 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 u dwell " in this passage is a very strong word. It means literally,

cc to dwell down,"

cc to settle," u to^dweljjeep." It is the work of the Holy Spirit to

form the living Christ within us, dwelling deep down

Forming Christ Within Us 123

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, a 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 Christfor 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 "

(i 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 indwell-

ing 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

124 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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, u 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 footed 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 an-

other ; 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

Forming Christ Within Us 1 25

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 lop e_ of Chrisi;which passeth knowl-

edge. 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 com-

prehend it. But we can cc apprehend

it 5 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 ap-

prehend 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 thefullness of God." There is a very important change between the Au-

thorized and Revised Version. The Authorized Ver-

sion 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

126 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 full-

ness 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 u unto all the

fullness " of the infinite God, to fill us until all tjxe

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),

/". ^., 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 there-

from, 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."

XIII

The Holy Spirit Bringing Forth in the Believer

Christlike Graces of Character

is a singular charm, a charm that one can scarcely explain, in the words of Paul in

THERE

Gal. v. 22, 23, R. V., " The fruit of the Spirit

is love, joy, peace, longsufFering, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, meekness, temperance." What a cata-

logue 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 j

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, /. *., 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

" " peace " " longsuf-

one by one ; " love " "joy

fering " _ kindness " goodness

" faith "

(or

128 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

u faithfulness," R. V. 5 faith is the better translation if

properly understood. The word is deeper than faithful-

ness. It is a real faith that results in faithfulness)

cc meekness " a temperance "

(or a life under per-

fect 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 our-

selves. 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, unclean-

ness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife,

jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envy-

ings, drunkenness, revellings and such like "

(Gal. v.

21, R. V.). All these works of the flesh will not mani-

fest 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 charac-

ter, which are set forth in Gal. v. 22, 23, are His fruit

in our lives. Do you wish these graces in your charac-

ter and life ? Do you really wish them ? Then re-

Chrlstlike Graces of Character 129

nqunce, self utterly and all its strivings after holiness,

give up any thought that you can ever attain to any-

thing 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 u 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 j Matt. xiL

33). We hear also a great deal about cc character build-

ing." That may be all very well if you bear constantly

in rnind 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 u

5 but we must

cultivating graces of character/

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

(i Pet. i. 2 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13). There is a sense, however, in which,

: viz., we look

cultivating graces of character is right

at Jesus Christ to see what He is and what we there-

130 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit,

fore 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

(2 Cor. iii. 18, R. V.). Settle it,

the Lord the Spirit

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 " thefruit of the Spirit"

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 6W, 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 personallyconducted 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 connec-

tion that Paul says, " For ye received not the spirit of

bondage again tofear" A life governed^by rules with-

out 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

132 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

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 a 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. u 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). f Our lives should not be governed by

a set of rules without us but by the loving Spirit of

Adoption with^a 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 over-

whelming 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 (i John i. 9) and go on light and happy of heart to obey Him and be led by His

Spirit,

fBeing led by the Spirit of God does not mean for a

A Life as a Son 133

moment that we will do things that the written Word

of God tells us not to do. The Holy Spirit never i

leads men contrary to the Book of which He Himself

is the AuthcJJ 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 them-

selves 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 (i John iv. i). 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 u 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,

f your wife. You have no reason to suppose she

she is

134 The Person and Work ol tiie iloly bpint

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." a You lie, and you blaspheme," I replied. u 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 charac-

ter 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 i 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 contra-

dicts Himself, He never leads the individual to do

that which in the written Wprf 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

A Life as a Son 135

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 u 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 some-

times 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*

The Holy Spirit Bearing Witness to our

Sonsfaip

of the most precious passages In the Bible

ONE

regarding the work of the Holy Spirit is found

in Rom^viii. 15, 16, R. V., "For ye re-

ceived not the spirit of bondage again to fear ; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit Him'self beareth witness with our

spirit, that we are the children of God/

7 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 L

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.

cc Together with "

is the force of the Greek used In this passage.

It does not say that He bears witness to our spirit but "

** it. How He does this is explained In GaL iv. 6, cc Because ye are sons, God hath sent

together with

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 concern-

ing Christ that through Him we have become sons, the

Bearing Witness to Our Sonship 137

Spirit of His Son comes Into our hearts filling them

with an overwhelming sense of sonship, and crying

tc Abba, Father." The natural

through our hearts,

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

cc Our Father, which art in heaven," but there is no real sense that He Is our Father. Our

Jesus taught us,

calling Him so is mere words. We do not really trust Him. We do not love to come into His presence 5 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) j then we

have th^believer not minding the things of the flesh

but the things of the Spirit (v^5) j then we have the

138 The Person apd Work of the Holy Spirit

believer day by 'day through the, Spirit putting to de'ath

the 4eeds of the body- (v. 13)5 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 5 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 ;

i John v. 10-13 ; John v. 24; John L I2);^e*t 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 j let us through the

Spirit day by day put to death the deeds of the body 5

let us give our lives up to be led by the Spirit of God

in all things ; and\/i 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

Bearing Witness to Our Sonship 139

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 Jackson-

ville, 111., 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

cc Papa," such a throb of joy passed

that sweet word

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

140 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

look up into His face and from a heart which the Holy

Spirit has filled with a sense of sonship call Him u Abba "

(papa), " Father/' no language can describe

the joy of God.

XVI

The Holy Spirit as a Teacher

Lord Jesus In His last conversation with His disciples before His crucifixion said, " But the Comforter which Is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach

OUR

you all things, and bring all things to your remem-

" (John xiv.

brance, whatsoever I have said unto you

26). Here we have a twofold work of the Holy Spirit,

teaching and bringing to remembrance the things which

Christ had already taught. We will take them in the

reverse order.

L The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the words of

Christ.

This promise was made primarily to the Apostles and

is the guarantee of the accuracy of their report of what

Jesus said; but the Holy Spirit does a similar work

with'each believer who expects it of Him, and who looks

to Him to do it. The Holy Spirit brings to our mind

the teachings of Christ and of the Word just when we

need them for either the necessities of our life or of

our service. Many of us could tell of occasions when we were in great distress of soul or great questioning as

to duty or great extremity as to what to say to one

14*

142 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

whom we were trying to lead to Christ or to help, and

at that exact moment the very Scripture we needed

some passage it may be we had not thought of for a

long time and quite likely of which we had never

thought in this connection was brought to mind. Who did It ? The Holy Spirit did it. He is ready to

do it even more frequently, if we only expect it of Him

and look to Him to do it. It Is our privilege every time we sit down beside an inquirer to point him to the

way of life to look up to the Holy Spirit and say,

"Just what shall I say to this inquirer ? Just what

Scripture shall I use ? " There is a deep significance

In the fact that in the verse immediately following this

precious promise Jesus says, " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." It is by the Spirit bringing His words to remembrance and teaching us the truth

of God that we obtain and abide in this peace. If we

will simply look to the Holy Spirit to bring to mind

Scripture just when we need it, and just the Scripture we need, we shall indeed have Christ's peace every moment of our lives. One who was preparing for

Christian work came to me in great distress. He said

he must give up his preparation for he could not memorize the Scriptures. u I am thirty-two years old," he said, " and have been in business now for years. I

have gotten out of the habit of study and I cannot memorize anything." The man longed to be in his

Master's service and the tears stood in his eyes as he

said it. "Don't be discouraged," I replied. "Take

your Lord's promise that the Holy Spirit will bring His

words to remembrance, learn one passage of Scripture,

The Holy Spirit as a Teacher 143

fix it firmly In your mind, then another and then an-

other and look to the Holy Spirit to bring them to your remembrance when you need them." He went on

with his preparation. He trusted the Holy Spirit. Afterwards he took up work in a very difficult field, a

field where all sorts of error abounded. They would

gather around him on the street like bees and he would

take his Bible and trust the Holy Spirit to bring to remembrance the passages of Scripture that he needed and He did it. His adversaries were filled with confusion,

as he met them at every point with the sure Word of

God, and many of the most hardened were won for

Christ.

II. The Holy Spirit will teach us all things. There is a still more explicit promise to this effect two chapters further on in John xvi. 12, 13, 14, R. V. Here Jesus says, " 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 5 but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He

: and He shall declare unto you the things that

speak

are to come. He shall glorify Me : for He shall take

of Mine, and shall declare it unto you." This promise was made in the first instance to the Apostles, but the

Apostles themselves applied it to all believers (i John

ii. 20, 27).

It is the privilege of each believer in Jesus Christ, even the humblest, to be "taught of God." Each

humblest believer is independent of human teachers

144 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

a Ye need not that any teach you

(i John ii. 27, R. V.). This, of course, does not mean that we may not

learn much from others who are taught of the Holy

Spirit. If John had thought that he would never have

written this epistle 'to teach others. The man who Is

the most fully taught of God is the very one who will

be most ready to listen to what God has taught others. Much less does It mean that when we are taught of the

Spirit, we are independent of the written Word of God;

for the Word is the very place to which the Spirit, who

is the Author of the Word, leads His pupils and the

instrument through which He instructs them (Eph.

vi. 17 ; John vi. 33 ; Eph. v. 18, 19 ; cf. Col. iii. 16). But while we may learn much from men, we are not

dependent upon them. We have a Divine Teacher,

the Holy Spirit.

We shall never truly know the truth until we are

thus taught directly by the Holy Spirit. No amount of

mere human teaching, no matter who our teachers may

be, will ever give us a correct and exact and full ap-

prehension of the truth. Not even a diligent study of

the Word either in the English or in the original lan-

guages will give us a real understanding of the truth. We must be taught directly by the Holy Spirit and we

may be thus taught, each one of us. The one who is thus

taught will understand the truth of God better even if

he does not know one word of Greek or Hebrew, than

the one who knows Greek and Hebrew thoroughly and

all the cognate languages as well, but who is not taught of the Spirit.

The Spirit will guide the one whom He thus teaches

The Holy Spirit as a Teacher 145

" Into all the truth," The whole sphere of God's

truth Is for each one of us, but the Holy Spirit will not

guide us Into all the truth in a single day, nor in a

week, nor In a year, but step by step. There are two

especial lines of the Spirit's teaching mentioned:

(1) " He shall declare unto you the things that are

to come." There are many who say we can know

nothing of the future, that all our thoughts on that sub-

ject are guesswork. It is true that we cannot know

everything about the future. There are some things which God has seen fit to keep to Himself, secret

things which belong to Him (Deut. xxix. 29). For

example, we cannot c; know the times, or the seasons "

of our Lord's return (Acts i. 7), but there are many

things about the future which the Holy Spirit will

reveal to us.

(2) " He shall glorify Me (that is, Christ) for He

shall take of Mine and shall declare it unto you." This is the Holy Spirit's especial line of teaching with

the believer, as with the unbeliever, Jesus Christ. It

is His work above all else to reveal Jesus Christ and

to glorify Him. His whole teaching centres in Christ. From one point of view or the other, He is always bring-

ing us to Jesus Christ. There are some who fear to em-

phasize the truth about the Holy Spirit lest Christ Him-

self be disparaged and put in the background, but there

is no one who magnifies Christ as the Holy Spirit does* We shall never understand Christ, nor see His glory

until the Holy Spirit interprets Him to us. No

amount of listening to sermons and lectures, no matter how able, no amount of mere study of the Word even.

146 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

would ever give us to see " the things of Christ "

; the

Holy Spirit must show us and He is willing to do it

and He can do it. He is longing to do it. The Holy

Spirit's most intense desire is to reveal Jesus Christ to

men. On the day of Pentecost when Peter and the

rest of the company were "filled with the Holy

Spirit," they did not talk much about the Holy Spirit,

they talked about Christ. Study Peter's sermon on

that day 5 Jesus Christ was his one theme, and Jesus

Christ will be our one theme, if we are taught of the

Spirit; Jesus Christ will occupy the whole horizon of

our vision. We will have a new Christ, a glorious

Christ. Christ will be so glorious to us that we will

long to go and tell every one about this gloriousr One whom we have found. Jesus Christ is so different when the Spirit glorifies Him by taking of His things and showing them unto us.

III. The Holy Spirit reveals to us the deep things of God which are hidden from and are foolishness to the

natural man.

We read in I Cor. ii. 913, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of

man, the things which God hath prepared for them

that love Him. 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. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God 5 that we

The Holy Spirit as a Teacher 147

might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth j comparing spiritual things with

spiritual." This passage, of course, refers primarily to the Apostles but we cannot limit this work of the

Spirit to them. The Spirit reveals to the individual

believer the deep things of God, things which human

eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, things which have

not entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. It

is evident from the context that this does not refer

solely to heaven, or the things to come in the life

hereafter. The Holy Spirit takes the deep things of God which God hath prepared for us, even in the life

that now is, and reveals them to us.

IV. The Holy Spirit interprets His own revelation. He imparts power to discern^ know and appreciate what He has taught.

In the next verse to those just quoted we read, " But 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 "

(i Cor. iii. 14). Not only is the Holy

Spirit the Author of revelation, the written Word of God : He is also the Interpreter of what He has

revealed. Any profound book is immeasurably more

interesting and helpful when we have the author of the

book right at hand to interpret it to us, and it is always our privilege to have the author of the Bible right at

148 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

hand when we study it. The Holy Spirit is the

Author of the Bible and He stands ready to interpret

its meaning to every believer every time he opens the

Book. To understand the Book, we must look to

Him, then the darkest places become clear. We often

need to pray with the Psalmist of old, u Open Thou

mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law "

(Ps. cxix. 18). It is not enough that we

have the revelation of God before us in the written Word to study, we must also have the inward illumi-

nation of the Holy Spirit to enable us to apprehend it

as we study. It is a common mistake, but a most

palpable mistake, to try to comprehend a spiritual

revelation with the natural understanding. It is the

foolish attempt to do this that has landed so many in

the bog of so-called u Higher Criticism.^ In order to

understand art a man must have aesthetic sense as well

as the knowledge of colours and of paint, and a man

to understand a spiritual revelation must be taught of

the Spirit. A mere knowledge of the languages in which the Bible was written is not enough. A man

with no aesthetic sense might as well expect to appre-

ciate the Sistine Madonna, because he is not colour

blind, as a man who is not filled with the Spirit to

understand the Bible, simply because he understands

the vocabulary and the laws of grammar of the lan-

guages in which the Bible was written. We might as

well think of setting a man to teach art because he un-

derstood paints as to set a man to teach the Bible be-

cause he has a thorough understanding of Greek and Hebrew. In our day we need not only to recognize

The Holy Spirit as a Teacher 149

the utter insufficiency and worthlessness before God of

our own righteousness, which is the lesson of the open-

ing chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, but also the

utter Insufficiency and worthlessness in the things of God of our own wisdom, which is the lesson of the

First Epistle to the Corinthians, especially the first to

the third chapters. (See for example i Cor. L 19-21,

26, 27.) The Jews of old had a revelation by the Spirit but

they failed to depend upon the Spirit Himself to inter-

pret it to them, so they went astray. So Christians

to-day have a revelation by the Spirit and many are

failing to depend upon the Holy Spirit to interpret it to them and so they go astray. The whole evangelical church recognizes theoretically at least the utter in-

sufficiency of man's own righteousness. vWhat it needs

to be taught in the present hour, and what it needs to

be made to feel, is the utter insufficiency of man's

wisdom?; That is perhaps the lesson which this

twentieth century of towering intellectual conceit

needs most of any to learn. To understand God's

Word, we must empty ourselves utterly of our own wisdom and rest in utter dependence upon the Spirit of God to interpret it to us. We/do well to lay to heart

the words of Jesus Himself irf Matt, xi. 25, " I thank

thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." A number of

Bible students were once discussing the best methods

of Bible study and one man, who was in point of fact

a learned and scholarly man, said, " I think the best

150 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

method of Bible study is the baby method." When we have entirely put away our own righteousness, then

and only then, we get the righteousness of God (Phil,

iii. 4-7, 9; Rom, x. 3). And when we have en-

tirely put away our own wisdom, then, and only then, we get the wisdom of God. u Let no man deceive

himself," says the Apostle Paul. u If any man among

you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a

fool^ that he may be wise "

(i Cor. ii:. 18). 4. 'And the

emptying must precede filling, the self poured out that God may be poured in.

We must daily be taught by the Spirit to understand

the Word. We cannot depend to-day on the fact that

the Spirit taught us yesterday. Each new time that we come in contact with the Word, it must be in the

power of the Spirit for that specific occasion. That

the Holy Spirit once illumined our mind to grasp a

certain truth is not enough. He must do it each time

we confront that passage. Andrew Murray has well

said, " Each time you come to the Word in study, in

hearing a sermon, or reading a religious book, there

ought to be as distinct as your intercourse with the

external means, the definite act of self-abnegation,

denying your own wisdom and yielding yourself in

faith to the Divine teacher "

(" The Spirit of Christ/'

page 221).

V. The Holy Spirit enables the believer to communicate

to others in power the truth he himself has been taught.

Paul says in i Cor. ii. 1-5, u And I, brethren, when

I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or

The Holy Spirit as a Teacher 151

of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with

you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the

Spirit and of power : That your faith should not stand

in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." In

a similar way in writing to the believers in Thessa-

lonica in I Thess. i. 5, " For our Gospel came not

unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the

Holy Ghost, and in much assurance ; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.** We need not only the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to

chosen apostles and prophets in the first place, and the

Holy Spirit in the second place to interpret to us as

individuals the truth He has thus revealed, but in the

third place, we need the -Holy Spirit to enable us to

effectually communicate to others the truth which He

Himself has interpreted to us.*ii We need Him all

along the line. One great cause of real failure in the

ministry, even when there is seeming success, and not

only in the regular ministry but in all forms of service

as well, comes from the attempt to teach by " enticing words of man's wisdom "

(that is, by the arts ofhuman

logic, rhetoric, persuasion and eloquence) what the

Holy Spirit has taught us. What is needed is Holy Ghost

power, " demonstration of the Spirit and of power." There are three causes of failure in preaching to-day.

First, Some other message is taught than the message which the Holy Spirit has revealed in the Word, (Men

1 2 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

preach science, art, literature, philosophy, sociology,

history, economics, experience, etc., and not the simple Word of God as found in the Holy Spirit's Book,

the Bible.) Second, The Spirit-taught message of the

Bible is studied and sought to be apprehended by the

natural understanding, that is, without the Spirit's illumi-

nation. How common that is, even in institutions

where men are being trained for the ministry, even in-

stitutions which may be altogether orthodox. .Third, The Spirit-given message, the Word, the Bible

studied and apprehended under the Holy Ghost's illumi-

nation is given out to others with "

enticing words of

man's wisdom," and not in " demonstration of the Spirit and of power." j^We need, and we are absolutely de-

pendent upon the Spirit all along the line. He must

teach us how to speak as well as what to speak. His

must be the^power as well as the message,

XVII

Praying, Returning Thanks, Worshipping In

the Holy Spirit TWO

of the most deeply significant passages in

the Bib'e oil the subject of the Holy Spirit and jii the subject of prayer are found In

Jude 20 and Lph. vL 18. In Jude 20 we read, u But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith

9 and in Eph. vi. i8 5

cc Pr^j2 ^always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit^ and watching thereunto with all perseverance and sup-

prayjing^ in the ff&/y GhostJ

plication for all saints/*

These passages teach us distinctly that the Holy

Spirit guides the believer in prayer* The disciples did

not know how to pray as they ought so they came to

Jesus and said, " Lord, teach us to pray " (Luke xi. i). W'e to-day do not know how to pray as we

ought we do not know what to pray for, nor how

to ask for It but there is One who Is always at hand

to help 'John xiv. 16, 17) and He knows what we

should pray for. He helps our in^rmity in this matter

of prayer as in other matters (Horn. viii. 26, R. V.). H* tparses us to pray. True prayer is prayer in the

Spirit {t. *., uic jpA'a^er toat the Holy Spirit inspires and

directs). The prayer in which the Holy Spirit leads

cc according to the will of God

us , is the prayer

154 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

(Rom. viii. 27). When we ask anything according to

God's will, we know that He hears us and we know

that He has granted the things that we ask (i John

v. 14, 15). We may know it is ours at the moment

when we pray just as surely as we know it afterwards

when we have it in our actual possession. But how

can we know the will of God when we pray ? In two waJs : EllSLSfJ& ky what is written in His Word ;

all the promises in the Bible are sure and if God

promises anything in the Bible, we may be sure it is

His will to give us that thing 5 but there are many

things that we need which are not specifically promised

in the Word and still even in that case it is our privi-

lege to know the will of God, for it is the work of the

Holy Spirit to teach us God's will and lead us out in

prayer along the line of God's will. Some object to

the Christian doctrine of prayer ; for they say that it

teaches that we can go to God in our ignorance and

change His will and subject His infinite wisdom to our

erring foolishness. But that is not the Christian

doctrine of prayer at all; the Christian doctrine of

prayer is that it is the believer's privilege to be taught

by the Spirit of God Himself to know what the will

of God is and not to ask for the things that our foolish-

ness would prompt us to ask for but to ask for things

that the never-erring Spirit of God prompts us to ask

for. True prayer is prayer " in the Spirit," that is, ^Vw^x

l""*< '

,., i.. .*-. . A, L, , , ;, "*' -*."*. r>-'*

the prayer which the Spirit inspires and directs. When we come into God's presence, we should recognize our infirmity, our ignorance of what is best for us, our

ignorance of what we should pray for, our ignorance

Praying, Returning Thanks 155

of how we should pray for It and in the consciousness of

our utter Inability to pray aright look up to the Holy

Spirit to teach us to pray, and cast ourselves utterly upon Him to direct our prayers and to lead out our

desires and guide our utterance of them. There is no

place where we need to recognize our ignorance more

than we do in prayer. Rushing heedlessly into God's

presence and asking the first thing that comes into our

minds, or that some other thoughtless one asks us to

pray for, is not praying a in the Holy Spirit " and is

not true prayer. We must wait for the Holy Spirit' and surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit. Jfhe<

prayer that God, the Holy Spirit, inspires is the prayer

that God, the Father, answers.

The longings which the Holy Spirit begets in our

hearts are often too deep for utterance, too deep

apparently for clear and definite comprehension on the

part of the believer himself in whom the Spirit is

working "The Spirit Himself maketh interce^fon for us with groamngs which cannot be uttered "^fRom.

viii. 26, R. V.). God Himself " must search the

heart " to know what is " the mind of the Spirit

" in these

unuttered and unutterable longings. But God does know what is the mind of the Spirit; He does know what these Spirit-given longings which we cannot put

into words mean, even if we do not, and these longings

are ct according to the will of God," and God grants them. It is in this way that it comes to pass that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all

that we ask or t^ink, according to the power that

worketh in us (6f>h. iii. 20). There are other times

156 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

when the Spirit's leadings are so clear that we pray with

the Spirit and with the understand ing also (l Cor,

xlv. 15). We distinctly understand what it Is that

the Holy Spirit leads us to pray for.

IL The Holy Spirit inspires the believer and guides Mm in thanksgiving as well as in prayer. We read In

Eph. v. 18-20, R. V., "And be not drunken with

wine, wherein is riot, but be filkd with the Spirit j

speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your

heart to the Lord ; giving thanks always for all things In

the name of our Lord 'Jesus Christ to God, even the

Father." Not only does the Holy Spirit teach us to

pray, He also teaches us to render thanks. One of the

most prominent characteristics of the Spirit-filled life is

thanksgiving. On the Day of Pentecost, when the

disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke as

the Spirit gave them utterance, we hear them telling

the wonderful works of God (Acts

II. 4, n), and

to-day when any believer is filled with the Holy Spirit,

he always becomes filled with thanksgiving and praise. True thanksgiving is " to God, even the Father,"

through, or " In the name of" our Lord Jesus Christ,

in the Holy Spirit.

III. The Holy Spirit inspires worship on the part of

the believer. We read In

, Phil. in. 3, R. V,, For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of

God^ and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence

Prayer is not worship; thanksgiving Is

in the flesh.

not worship. Worship is a definite act of the creature

in relation to God, Worship is bowing before God in

Praying, Returning Thanks 157

adoring acknowledgment and contemplation of Himself

2 Aid die i/cri^ci;o.i <jf His being. &ome one has said, u In our pray',-.?, u-~ a. 2 taken up with our needs 5 in

our thanksgiving we are taken up with our blessings \

in our worship^ we are taken up with Himself/

There is no true and acceptable worship except that which the Holy Spirit prompts and directs. " God is X Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him

in Spirit and truth ; for such doth the Father seek to be

(John iv. 24, 23). The flesh seeks

His worshippers

to intrude into every sphere of life. The flesh has its

worship as well as its lusts. The worship which the

flesh prompts is an abomination unto God. In this we see thf felly of any attempt at a congress of religions where th; representatives of radically d

- .ft re ill religions

attempt to worship together.

Not all eaiiiC.L and hurust worship is worship in the

Spirit. A man may be very honest and very earnest

in his worship and still not have submitted himself to

the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the matter and so

his worship is in the flesh. Oftentimes even when

there is great loyalty to the letter of the Word, worship may not be " in the Spirit," /". *?., inspired and directed

by Him. To worship aright, as Paul puts it, we must

have " no confidence in the flesh/* that is, we must

recognize the utter inability of the flesh (our natural

self as contrasted to the Divine Spirit that dwells in

and should mould everything in the believer) to worship

acceptably. And we must also realize the danger that/

there is that the flesh intrude itself into our worship. In utter self-distrust and self-abnegation we must cast

158 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

ourselves upon the Holy Spirit to lead us aright in our

worship. Just as we must renounce any merit in

ourselves and cast ourselves upon Christ and His work

for us upon the cross for justification, just so we must

renounce any supposed capacity for good in ourselves

and cast ourselves utterly upon the Holy Spirit and His work in us, in holy living, knowing, praying, thanking and worshipping and all else that we are to do.

XVIII

The Holy Spirit Sending Men Forth to Definite

Lines of Work WE

cc As they ministered

read in Acts xlii. 24,

to the Lord, and fasted,^* Holj^Ghost said^

Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had

fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy

Ghosty departed into Seleucia ; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus/' It is evident from this passage that

the Holy Spirit calls men into definite lines of work and

sends them forth into the work. He not only calls men

in a general way into Christian work, but selects the

specific work and points it out. Many a one is asking

c< Shall I go to

to-day, and many another ought to ask,

China, to Africa, to India ? " There is only one Person who can rightly settle that question for you and

that Person is the Hpl^jSgirif. You cannot settle the

question for yourself, much less can any other man

settle it rightly for you. Not every Christian man is

called to go to China ; not every Christian man is called

to go to Africa 5 not every Christian man is called to

go to the foreign field at all. God alone knows whether He wishes you in any of these places, but He is willing to show you. In a day such as we live in, when there

is such a need of the right men and the right women

160 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

on the foreign field, every young and healthy and

intellectually competent Christian man and woman

should definitely offer themselves to God for the foreign

field and ask Him if He wants them to go. But they

ought not to go until He, by His Holy Spirit, makes it

plain.

The great need in all lines of Christian work to-day

is men and women whom the Holy Ghost calls and

sends forth. We have plenty of men and women whom men have called and sent forth. We have plenty

of men and women who have called themselves, for

there are many to-day who object strenuously to being

sent forth by men, by any organization of any kind,

but, in fact, are what is immeasurably worse, sent forth

by themselves and not by God.

How does the Holy Spirit call? The passage before

us does not tell us how the Holy Spirit spoke to the

group of prophets and teachers in Antioch, telling them

to separate Barnabas and Saul to the work to which He

had called them. It is presumably purposely silent on

this point. Possibly it is silent on this point lest we

should think that the Holy Spirit must always call in

precisely the same way. There is nothing whatever to

indicate that He spoke by an audible voice, much less

is there anything to indicate that He made His will known in any of the fantastic ways in which some in

these days profess to discern His leading as for ex-

ample, by twitchings of the body, by shuddering, by

opening of the Bible at random and putting his finger on a passage that may be construed into some entirely

different meaning than that which the inspired author

Definite Lines of Work 161

intended by it. The important point is, He made

His will clearly known, and He is willing to make His

will clearly known to us to-day. Sometimes He makes

it known in one way and sometimes in another, but He will make it known.

But how shall we receive the Holy Spirit' s call ? First

of all, by desiring it ; second, by earnestly seeking it ;

third, by waiting upon the Lord for it; fourth,

by expecting it. The record reads, " As they minis-

tered to the Lord, andfasted" They were waiting upon the Lord for His direction. For the time being they had turned their back utterly upon worldly cares and

enjoyments, even upon those things which were per-

fectly proper in their place. Many a man is saying

to-day in justification for his staying home from the

foreign field, " I have never had a call." But how

do you know that ? Have you been listening for a

call ? God usually speaks in a still small voice and it

is only the listening ear that can catch it. Have you ever definitely offered yourself to God to send you where He will ? While no man or woman ought to go to China or Africa or other foreign field unless they are

clearly and definitely called, they ought each to offer

themselves to God for this work and be ready for the

call and be listening sharply that they may hear the call

if it comes. Let it be borne distinctly in mind that a man needs no more definite call to Africa than to Bos-

ton, or New York, or London, or any other desirable

field at home.

The Holy Spirit not only calls men and sends them

forth into definite lines of work, but He also guides in

162 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

the details of daily life and service as to where to go and

where not to go, what to do and what not to do. We read

in Acts viii. 27-29, R. V., " And he (Philip) arose and

went : and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great

authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who

was over all her treasure, who had come to Jerusalem for

to worship ; and he was returning and sitting in his

chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the

Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this

chariot." Here we see the Spirit guiding Philip in the

details of service into which He had called him. In a

similar way, we read in Acts xvi. 6, 7, R. V., " And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having

beenforbidden of the Holy Ghost 'to speak the word in Asia ;

and when they were come over against Mysia, they^as-

sayed to go into Bithynia ; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not." Here we see the Holy Spirit directing Paul*

where not to go. It is possible for us to have the un-

erringguidance of the Holy Spirit at every turn of life.

Take, for example, our personal work. It is manifestly not God's intention that we speak to every one we meet. To attempt to do so would be to attempt the impossible, and we would waste much time in trying to speak to

people where we could do no good that might be used

in speaking to people where we could accomplish some-

thing. There are some to whom it would be wise for

us to speak. There are others to whom it would be

unwise for us to speak. Time spent on them would

be taken from work that would be more to God's

glory. Doubtless as Philip journeyed towards Gaza, he met many before he met the one of whom the Spirit

Definite Lines of Work 163

said, u Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.'

5 The

Spirit is as ready to guide us as He was to guide

Philip. Some years ago, a Christian worker in Toronto had the impression that he should go to

the hospital and speak to some one there. He

cc Whom do I know at the hos-

thought to himself,

pital at this time ? " There came to his mind one whom he knew was at the hospital, and he hurried to the hospital, but as he sat down by his side to talk with

him, he realized it was not for this man that he was

sent. He got up to lift a window. What did it all mean ? There was another man lying across the pas-

sage from the man he knew and the thought came to him that this might be the man to whom he should

speak. And he turned and spoke to this man and had

the privilege of leading him to Christ. There was ap-

parently nothing serious m the man's case. He had

suffered some injury to his knee and there was no

thought of a serious issue, but that man passed into eter-

nity that night. Many instances of a similar character could be recorded and prove from experience that the

Holy Spirit is as ready to guide those who seek His

guidance to-day as He was to guide the early disciples. But He is ready to guide us, n.ot jonly in our more def-

inite forms of Christian work but in all the affairs of

life, business, study, everything we have to do.. There

is no promise in the Bible more plainly explicit than

James i. 5-7, R. V., " But if any of you lack wisdom,

let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him. But let him

ask in faith, nothing doubting

: for he that doubteth is

164 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

like the jmrge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.

For let not that man think that he shall receive any-

thing of the Lord." This passage not only promises

God's wisdom but tells us specifically just what to do

to obtain it. There are really five steps stated or im-

plied in the passage

- I. That we "Jack wisdom^' We must be con-

scious of and fully admit our own inability to decide

wisely. Here is where oftentimes we fail to receive

God's wisdom. We think we are able to decide for

ourselves or at least we are not ready to admit our own utter Inability to decide. There must be an entire

renunciation of the wisdom of the flesh.

2. We must really desire to know God's way and be will-

ing at any cost to do God's will. This is implied in the word u ask" The asking must be sincere, and if we are not

willing to do God's will, whatever it may be, at any cost,

the -asking is not sincere. This Is a point of fundamental

importance. There is nothing that goes so far to make

our minds, clear in the discernment of the will of God

as revealed by His Spirit as an absolutely surrendered

will. Here we find the reason why men oftentimes do

not know God's will and have the Spirit's guidance. They are not willing to do whatever the Spirit leads at

any cost. |t is he that " willetb to do His will " who

shall know, not only of the doctrine, but he shall kjiow

his daily dutyjji* Men oftentimes come to rne and say, u I cannot find out the will of God," but when I put

to them the question, " Are you willing to do the

will of God at any cost r "

they admit that they are not. The way that is very obscure when we hold back from

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