THE HOLY SPIRIT AND FREE WILL

1. The Holy Spirit.

When we pass to passages in the Revised Version bearing on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we cannot but again join in the widely-expressed regret that the Revisers did not see their way to follow the example of their American colleagues and adopt the uniform rendering of "Spirit" for the Greek word by which the Third Person of the Trinity is described, instead of retaining in numerous passages the archaic word "Ghost."1 For not only is the word now meaningless, except in the sense of disembodied spirit, but its use obscures the vital relation between the spirit of man and the Spirit of God. That yielding to the demands of the context, the Revisers read Spirit in certain passages — such as Luke ii. 25-27, "the Holy Spirit was upon him . . . it had been revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit . . . he came in the Spirit," or iv. 1, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit . . . was led by the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted of the devil," or 1 Cor. xii. 3, 4, "and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministrations, and the same Lord" — only makes us wish the more that it had been consistently maintained.

Similarly when we pass to the description of the Spirit's work in our Lord's great Farewell Discourse. Here again (John xiv. 16, 26, xv. 26, xvi. 7), contrary to expectation, the translation "Comforter" has retained its place in the text; but the margin at least supplies us with the more exact rendering "Advocate." For the Greek word2 is passive, not active, in force, and denotes literally one who is summoned to the side of an accused man to aid him in his defence in a court of justice, rather than one who simply consoles, or even strengthens according to the original force of "comforter." By the observance of this, not only is the full range of the Spirit's advocacy brought home to us, but we are also reminded of the close connexion between His work and the work of our Lord. It is He "who Himself is our Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John ii. 1), who promises that He will "pray the Father, and He shall give you another Advocate, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth" (John xiv. 1 6).

The personality of the Spirit gains, too, new emphasis from the use of masculine pronouns in Rom. viii. 16 and 26, "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God . . . the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" : while the wide range of His influence is brought out by the omission of "unto him" from the close of John iii. 34, "For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God : for He giveth not the Spirit by measure"; and His continual ministry is enforced by the use of the present tense in 1 Thess. iv. 8, "God who giveth His Holy Spirit unto you."

As an example of a change so slight as liable to pass unmarked, and yet full of significance, we may point to the omission of "of" before "the Spirit" in John iii. 5, "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," whereby "water" and "the Spirit" are shown to be, not two independent mediating agencies, but essentially connected.3

2. Election and Free Will.

If a bias against Rome has been unnecessarily urged against the Authorized rendering of 1 Cor. xi. 27 (p. 121 f.), there seems equally little ground for asserting an undue bias in favour of Calvinistic doctrine in certain other passages, for in most of the renderings so cited the Translators of 1611 appear simply to have followed older authorities.4 But, in any case, the Revisers have been careful to remove all ground of complaint.

Thus in Matt. xx. 23, "but to sit on my right hand, and on my left hand, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my father," the clause "it shall be given" (which, as the italics show, does not belong to the original, but has found its way into the text through the Genevan version to bring out the sense) has how been softened down into "it is for them for whom it hath been prepared of my Father"; in the margins of Rom. iii. 25 and v. 12, the suggested alternative readings "foreordained" and "in whom" disappear; in the very difficult Heb. vi. 6, the words "if they shall fall away" are now rendered "and then fell away" in accordance with the tense of the Greek verb,5 while the marginal "the while," instead of "seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh," makes it clear that it is only so long as men go on so crucifying the Son of God that renewal is impossible.

Or, to take one more example, it has been thought that the translation of the famous verse, Heb. x. 38, has been modified in the interests of the doctrine of the final perseverance of saints. Tindale translated it : "But the just shall live by faith. And if he withdraw himself, my soul shall have no pleasure in him" — showing that the person whose possible withdrawing is thought of is "the just" of the first clause. But the Genevan translators substituted "any" for "he," drawing a distinction between the two, and in this they were followed by the Authorized, "but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."6 The older and more correct rendering now reappears in the Revised :

"But my righteous one shall live by faith :

And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him."

The freedom, indeed, of man's will and the need of a definite exercise of it in the realization of the offered blessings both obtain fresh prominence in the Revised Version. Thus in Matt, xviii. 3, the opening verb, though passive in form,7 is properly rendered actively, and the popular error of men being mere passive instruments in the hands of God thereby exploded : "Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." And, so again, Peter's words in his sermon at Jerusalem gain a new and unexpected force when we read, "Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord" (Acts iii. 19).8 Instead of the waiting to "be converted . . . when the times of refreshing shall come," in seasons, that is, of revival, we learn that the actual coming of these seasons is dependent on human effort, and the fulfilment by men of the necessary conditions by deliberately turning to God and obeying His will. It was a lesson that Peter himself had learned from the Lord : for the charge to him was not, "when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren," but, "do thou, when once thou hast turned again, stablish thy brethren" (Luke xxii. 32).

In St. John's Gospel, again, its proper force is given to the Greek verb for "will,"9 which, as rendered in the Authorized Version, seems often no more than the mark of the future. "Wouldest thou" — that is, hast thou the will, the desire to — "be made whole?" is the full force of Jesus' question to the impotent man at Bethesda.10 To the Twelve at Capernaum He saps, "Would ye also go away?"11 And, more pointedly still, "If any man will do his will" becomes, "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":12 "the force of the argument lies in the moral harmony of the man's purpose with the divine law so far as this law is known or felt."13

In the same connexion the force of the reflexive pronouns in John v. 42, "But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves"; ib. vi. 53, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves"; and ib. xvii. 19, "And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth," ought not to be missed, as bringing out that the appropriation of the life of Christ on the part of believers," "so far from extinguishing their individuality, responsibility, and freedom, . . . rather brings these prominently forward as characteristics especially distinguishing them."14

Regarded indeed together, all believers form a single great abstract unity, which God has given to Christ : "whatsoever Thou hast given Him" — so our Lord Himself describes the company of the faithful in His great Intercessory Prayer. And it is only when the thought passes to the individuals composing that company, on whom in His turn the Son bestows His gift, that the neuter-singular gives place to the masculine-plural — "to them he should give eternal life."15

Therefore, too, it is that in Christ we have not only "redemption" as a general gift, according to the Authorized rendering, but "our redemption," so the Revisers translate, to bring out the force of the definite article in the original, the redemption which meets our individual needs (Eph. i. 7). And again, when the Lord comes, "who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts," the promise is, "then shall each man have his praise from God" — a much more personal award than, "then shall every man have praise of God" (1 Cor. iv. 5).

1 Cf. p. 81.

2 παράκλητος.

3 Ellicott, Considerations on the Revision of the English Testament, London, 1870, p. 75, note 1.

4 Reference may be made to an article by Archdeacon Farrar on "Fidelity and Bias in Versions of the Bible" in the Expositor, 2nd Ser., iii. p. 280 ff.

5 καὶ παραπεσόντας.

6 The italics any man, which now appear in our Bibles, were first introduced in the 1638 edition of the Authorized Version.

7 στραφῆτε.

8 ἐπιστρέψατε . . . ὅπως ἂν ἔλθωσι καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως.

9 θέλω.

10 John v. 6.

11 Ib. vi. 67.

12 Ib. vii. 17.

13 Westcott ad loc.

14 W. Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord, London, 1892, p. 188.

15 John xvii. 2. With this may be compared the Pauline, "For ye are all one man in Christ Jesus" (Gal, iii. 28), "not 'one'  only in the abstract by the acknowledgment of a real fellowship, . . . but one man: . . . one by the presence of a vital energy guided by one law, one will, to one end" (Westcott, The Victory of the Cross, London, 1888, p. 41).