phetic utterances. It was His word that was upon the
The Holy Spirit In Prophets and Apostles 251
been announced unto you through them that preached
the Gospel unto you by the Holy Ghost sent forth from
heaven ; which things angels desire to look into." These words make it plain that a Person in the
prophets, and independent of the prophets, and that
Person the Holy Spirit, revealed truth which was in-
dependent of their own thinking, which they did not
altogether understand themselves, and regarding which
it was necessary that they make diligent search and
study. Another Person than themselves was thinking and speaking and they were seeking to comprehend what He said.
4. No prophefs utterance was of the prophet's own
will, but he spoke from Q-od, and the prophet was
carried along in his utterance by the Holy Spirit. We read in 2 Peter i. 21, R. V., " For no prophecy ever came by the will of man : but men spake from God,
being moved by the Holy Ghost'
9 Clearly then, the
prophet was simply an instrument in the hands of an-
other, as the Spirit of God carried him along, so he
spoke.
5. It was the Holy Spirit who spoke in the pro-
phetic utterances. It was His word that was upon the
prophefs tongue. We read in Heb. iii. 7, "Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith^ To-day if ye will hear His voice." Again we read in Heb. x. 15, 16, "Whereof the Holy Ghost
also is a witness to us : for after that He had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days, saith the Lord. I will put My laws into
their hearts, and in their minds will I write them."
252 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit
We read again in Acts xxviii. 25, R. V., " And when
they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after
c Well spake the Holy
that Paul had spoken the word,
Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers saying,
etc.' " Still again we read in 2 Sam. xxiii. 2, R. V., " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me^ and His word was
upon my tongue." Over and over again in these pas-
sages we are told that it was the Holy Spirit who was
the speaker in the prophetic utterances and that it was
His word, not theirs, that was upon the prophet's
tongue. The prophet was simply the mouth by which
the Holy Spirit spoke. As a man, that is except as the
Spirit taught him and used him, the prophet might be as
fallible as other men are but when the Spirit was upon him and he was taken up and borne along by the Holy
Spirit, he was infallible in his teachings j for his teach-
ings in that case were not his own, but the teachings of
the Holy Spirit. When thus borne along by the Holy
Spirit it was God who was speaking and not the
prophet. For example, there can be little doubt that
Paul had many mistaken notions about many things but when he taught as an Apostle in the Spirit's power, he
was infallible or rather the Spirit, who taught through him was infallible and the consequent teaching was in-
fallibleas infallible as God Himself. We do well
therefore to carefully distinguish what Paul may have
thought as a man and what he actually did teach as an
Apostle, In the Bible we have the record of what he
taught as an Apostle. There are those who think that
in i Cor. vii. 6, 25, " But I speak this by permission, not of commandment . . . yet I give my judgment