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The Holy Spirit

By W. H. Griffith Thomas

Part 1. - The Biblical Revelation

Chapter 5 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

The fulness of Pauline teaching clearly presupposes a genuine experience of the Spirit existing in the Christian community.

' That the Divine Spirit was present in the community of believers, revealing there His mighty power, was no discovery of the apostle Paul's. The fact was patent to all. By all accounts the primitive Church was the scene of remarkable phenomena which arrested general attention, and bore witness to the operation of a cause of a very unusual character to which beholders gave the name of the Holy Ghost.'1

Our next step, therefore, is to get behind St. Paul's teaching, and study the experience of the early Church. We can do this in the Acts, and attention to its teaching is essential to a proper understanding of the subject. Recent criticism bears ample testimony to the early date and historical character of the book, and also in particular to the historical value of the early chapters.

' While these chapters do not tell us all that we should like to know, they do furnish us a clear idea of the relations of the earliest Christians to their ancestral religion and of the principal points which they emphasised in their efforts to win men to belief in the messiahship of Jesus.'2

The first point to observe is the remarkable prominence given to the Holy Spirit in this book.

' No one can read the vivid and intense pages of the early chapters of the Acts without feeling that even the written record betrays a consciousness of unmeasured power, a heroic enthusiasm in the face of man and circumstance, an overmastering realisation of divine guidance swaying the leaders and the communities in ways unexpected and before unexperienced.'3

There are at least seventy references, and on this account the book has been called ' The Acts of the Holy Spirit.' Wood speaks of

' the superabundant use of the Holy Spirit in the literature of early Christianity. If that literature represents with any adequacy the life of the early Church, that life was full of the thought that the Spirit was an actual possession of the Christian. The Spirit manifested itself in every Church and was a part of the common experience of many Christians.'4

' So, also, the whole book glows in the light of this primary fact, and back to it all the activities of the Church as witness to Jews and Gentiles for salvation in the name of the risen Lord are traced. It might be termed " The Acts of the Holy Spirit " in and through Peter, Paul, and other leaders.'5

Another line of emphasis is placed on the Lord Jesus Christ as exalted.6 This may be, and doubtless is, ' a very simple Christology,'7 but it is sufficient to show the Divine position He held and the supreme authority He possessed in the eyes of the early Christians, as recorded in these chapters:

' The descriptions which they give of Christ's absolutely unique character and work appear to me to be quite irreconcilable with the humanitarian theory of His Person.'8

This twofold stress is the most remarkable feature in the book; the prominence of the Divine over the human element in life and work. Denney says:

' The whole Pentecostal phenomenon... has the character of a testimony to Jesus... the gift and possession of the Spirit is the proof to the world of the exaltation of Jesus. It is His Divine power which is behind this incalculable elevation and reinforcement of the natural life. This is the New Testament point of view throughout.'9

We must now look more definitely at the teaching of the book. The first striking feature is the reference to the Holy Spirit in connection with the Great Forty Days of our Lord's post-resurrection earthly life. Christ's teaching and the disciples' expectations are seen to be concentrated on the Holy Spirit. The key-note is struck at once (ch. i. 2, 4, 8). It has been well pointed out that this first reference in Acts to the Holy Spirit ' is one of the most singular,'10 because, although in the Gospel our Lord speaks and acts in the power of the Holy Spirit,

' there is no parallel to this expression. It seems to suggest that with the Resurrection the dispensation of the Holy Spirit began, and that the disciples were conscious, as they listened to the new and final charge of their Lord, that they were in contact, as they had never been before, with the powers of the world to come (He. vi. 5), the Divine inspiration of the Messianic age.'11

The second feature of the book is the prominence given to the Day of Pentecost. It is clearly to be regarded as unique both as the culmination of previous expectation, and also as the beginning of the new Society. For the purpose of the study of this important and pivotal event, the following points call for special study.

(a) The facts connected with the coming: the symbols and realities. The occasion was a Jewish Festival which necessarily brought together a vast concourse of people. The symbols of Fire, Wind, and Tongues were expressive of the testimony and service which were to be inaugurated on that day as the most important efforts thenceforward of the Christian community.

(b) The effects of the coming: the reception of the Spirit, with the testimony to Christ and its resultant impressions. The true interpretation would seem to be that all the disciples, and not the Apostles only, were filled with the Holy Spirit. The narrative does not warrant the view that the Apostles alone were the recipients of the gift.12 The correct idea is that all the 120 who had been waiting in the Upper Room experienced the new power and blessing.

' The whole was a vision, as St. Luke is careful to explain, but a vision that corresponded to a great spiritual fact which at the same moment accomplished itself in the experience of all who were present.'13

(c) The first sermon: with the reference to Joel ii. A careful comparison of the context in the Prophet shows that the primary meaning was essentially Jewish, whatever secondary and wider application the words may be supposed to have. If Joel is taken just as it stands, Pentecost was not at all a full and complete realisation of the prophetic word.

' Neither the Prophet nor the Apostle who quoted him could have seen all that was implied in this prophecy, or how it would work itself out in the history of the Church. In the thought of both, all flesh seems to have borne the narrow sense " all Israelites and all prosetytes to the religion of Israel from among the Gentiles."14

(d) The effects of the preaching: the Holy Spirit offered and received. After his quotation, St. Peter again refers to the coming of the Spirit as associated with the Ascension of Christ, and then definitely sets before his hearers the possibility of their experiencing the same Holy Spirit on the conditions of repentance and baptism. The result was immediate, for on the acceptance of the Apostle's word the gift came, and with it the new life that was to be henceforth a predominant mark of those who were the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

' The closing verses of the second chapter of the Acts, with their picture of the simple, joyful, strenuous life of the newly baptized in the days that followed the Pentecost, reveal even more than the miracles of the Pentecost itself the nature of the Power which had come to dwell with the Church.'15

What then are we to understand as the meaning of this important Day of Pentecost?16

1. First of all, it was the vindication of Christ to the Jews. It was the demonstration of His character and claim (ch. ii. 22-36).

2. Then, it brought a new power among the disciples. Pentecost was not their regeneration, for they were already disciples; it involved a new era and operation of the Holy Spirit, such as never existed before (John vii. 37). In the Old Testament and the Gospels we have the record of the Holy Spirit as already at work, but this is a fuller manifestation, and its newness lay in the relation of the Holy Spirit to Christ. To the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost may be said to be analogous to the descent of the Holy Spirit on Christ at His baptism; it was the initiation into, and consecration to specific service for God. And with this came the bestowal of power, as in their Master's case, adequate to the new demands that were so soon to be made upon them.

' The descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples at Pentecost was to them what the descent of the Holy Spirit upon our Lord at His Baptism was to Him. It was their initiation into an official ministry. As in His instance, so too in theirs, it occurred on the threshold of public responsibility. After His Baptism He was no more a private man, living in quietness and retirement, but the definite claimant to Messiahship. And they too, after the Pentecost, were no more timid, shrinking, reticent, half-hearted men, no more gathered apart from society in a small room, but bold as lions, the strenuous advocates of the greatest of all causes, the invincible evangelists of the world.'17

' The Peter of the Day of Pentecost is a new man, far other than the Peter of the Passover.... And in courage and general understanding of the new situation Peter was not alone; the whole company of believers was filled with the same spirit; the rest of the Twelve stood up with him, identifying themselves with his words. From that day forward a new strength, which was not their own, marked all the sayings and deeds of the Apostolic Church. It is in this great change of mental and spiritual attitude rather than in the external signs of wind and fire or in strange powers of utterance that we recognise the supreme miracle of the day of Pentecost.'18

3. By the same gift the new body was constituted. While we may say, literally, that the birthday of the Christian Church was that occasion on which the two disciples of the Baptist heard their master speak and followed Jesus (John i. 37), yet the Day of Pentecost may be rightly called the commencement of the Christian Church among the Jews by the coming and indwelling of the Holy Spirit as the gift of the Ascended Christ.

4. Above all, Pentecost was the entrance of the Holy Spirit into human life, to make real the work of Christ. All through His earthly life, and especially in its later stages, our Lord had spoken of a Kingdom and a coming gift, and even after His resurrection His followers were told to wait until they were endued with power from on high (Luke xxiv. 49; Acts i. 4, 5). Then after the Ascension and the prayerful waiting during the ten days, the Gift came, with its bestowal of light and power. What their Master had said to them now became instinct with meaning, and they entered into a new experience of their crucified and risen Lord. Thus it was not until the Day of Pentecost that the reality of the work of redemption became fully vital in their experience.

The third feature of the book is the prominence given to the Spirit of God in the early Church. This is seen in almost every part from beginning to end.

' The early history of the Church recorded in the Acts is a kind of extended Pentecost. On that day a pellucid spring of new life is seen pouring forth from the mountain-side, and the first years of the Church show us the course of the stream, in its pristine freshness and purity, the first effervescence of what can only be described as a Vita Nuova, a New Life.'19

It is only possible to look at this in outline.

(a) The Bestowal of the Spirit. There are six accounts of the gift of the Spirit as representative examples of His coming. In ch. ii. we have the commencement of the Jewish Christian Church; in ch. iv. 31, a special bestowal for special testimony; in ch. viii. the extension of the Church to the Samaritans; in ch. ix. the conversion of the Apostle of the Gentiles; in ch. x. the extension of the Church to the Gentiles; and in ch. xix. the special occasion at Ephesus.

(b) The Work of the Spirit. This is found in almost every aspect of the life of the Christian community, and in particular whenever the Church is called upon to extend its sphere. Thus in ch. vi. 3, the appointment of the Seven is bound up with the fulness of the Spirit; in ch. xiii. 2, the Spirit calls men to missionary service; in ch. XV. 28, the Holy Spirit is associated with the decision of the Council at Jerusalem; in ch. xvi. 6, the Holy Spirit's guidance is given as to the proper sphere of labour.

' It was plainly an accepted canon of judgment that any new departure or policy was right which either was initiated by the Spirit, or was subsequently endorsed by Him.'20

' The author of the book of Acts assigns to the Spirit the guidance of the Church in its progressive expansion.'21

' The Holy Spirit is a great reality in Luke's thought-world, it dominates his conceptions. He is the Divine guiding power in the Church's growth throughout.'22

(c) The Gifts of the Spirit. These are found at almost every juncture, and are of various kinds. There is the gift of tongues on three occasions (chs. ii., x., xix.);23 the gift of healing (ch. iii.); the gift of prophecy (ch. xix. 6); and some manifest tokens of the Spirit which are not described in detail (ch. viii. 18).

All this shows how true it is that the book is dominated throughout by the Holy Spirit, and that the life of the primitive Church is possessed, inspired, and controlled by His Divine presence and power.

But there is one great problem to be faced. Modern writers often distinguish very clearly between the revelation of the Holy Spirit in the Acts and that found in the Epistles of St. Paul. This distinction is one of the most prominent features in several recent books, and calls for thorough consideration. It is urged that the first Christians realised the presence of the Spirit only in extraordinary and supernatural phenomena, and that this tendency to favour the preternatural resulted in a very partial, one-sided view of the work of the Spirit of God.

' It was in phenomena of this sort, preternatural effects of some great power, that the first Christians saw the hand of God. The miraculousness of the phenomena was what they laid stress on. The more unusual and out of the ordinary course, the more divine. In accordance with this view, the Spirit's work was conceived of as transcendent, miraculous, and charismatic'24

According to this view, the Spirit in Acts is a Spirit of power rather than a Spirit of holiness; the author of gifts (χαρίσματα) rather than of grace (χάρις)25 This interpretation is adopted by a number of writers. Thus Stevens says:

' The extraordinary and the marvellous were the marks of the Spirit's presence and power.'26

Wood even goes so far as to say that

' the spirit was never regarded in the pre-Pauline Church as an essential part of the ordinary Christian life, but as a donum superadditiim.... Nowhere in the book of Acts is there proof that the author regarded the Spirit as the basis of the ordinary religious life.'27

This is interpreted to mean that there was a fundamental misconception in this emphasis on the abnormal, which the Apostle had to remove,28 and that he thereby saved the Church from a very real danger.29 This work of the Apostle is said to be 'one of Paul's most ingenious and truly spiritual conceptions.'30 To the same effect is the following statement:

' It is one of the defects which, as a legacy from the Old Testament, long attached to the doctrine of the Spirit in the primitive Church, that Christians seemed unable to realise His presence save through some arresting appeal to the senses.'31

The writer adds that ' the corrective was supplied by the Apostle Paul.'32 It is therefore regarded as one of the most obvious truths that the thought of the Holy Spirit in the Acts is inextricably bound up with the abnormal, the spectacular, and the dramatic, and with that alone. ' Until Paul taught them a truer view they saw Him nowhere else.'33 The supernatural phenomena of Acts are said to imply a defect which the Apostle corrected, and that this involves an advance in Paul's doctrine.

' The community regards as pneumatic the extraordinary in the life of the Christian, Paul the ordinary; they that which is peculiar to individuals, Paul that which is common to all; they that which occurs abruptly, Paul that which is constant; they that which is special in the Christian life, Paul the Christian life itself. Hence the value which the primitive Church attaches to miracles, Paul attaches to the Christian state. No more is that which is individual and sporadic held to be the Divine in man; the Christian man is the spiritual man.'34

The issues are thus made perfectly plain and have to be faced. First of all, this must surely be said. It is not quite correct to state in so unqualified a way that the abnormal is the only element in the conception of the Holy Spirit in the Acts, because the presence of the normal is admitted:

' We are not to suppose that anyone meant deliberately to exclude the Holy Ghost from the properly spiritual sphere, and to confine His agency to the charismatic region. That the author of Acts had no such thought may be gathered from the fact that he ascribed Lydia's openness of mind to the Gospel to Divine influence.'35

Again, and chiefly, while these writers are correct in their facts, they seem to be incorrect and misleading in their deductions. There is indeed a great difference between Acts and St. Paul, but the explanation is to be sought for elsewhere and otherwise. The true view is pretty certainly to be found in a fresh and fuller consideration of the Acts in relation both to what precedes and follows. As a commencement, let us contrast the earlier and later parts of the book. Nothing is more striking than the Jewish features in these early chapters, which link on the Day of Pentecost to that which precedes. While a new dispensation has begun, the emphasis is rather upon Pentecost as the close of a former than the opening of a new era. In a word, Pentecost is really transitional, and almost everything found at least in the first twelve chapters bears out the principle of the Apostle, ' To the Jew first.' The fact is that Acts is almost entirely Jewish until the time of Stephen's martyrdom, followed by Saul's conversion, and even then the Jewish element does not materially recede, but is found more or less fully until the end of the book. So that the key to the proper understanding of Acts is to regard it primarily as the record not of the founding of the Christian Church in its wide sense, but rather as the account of the last offer to, and the wilful sin of the Jewish nation.36

This is all the more striking when we remember that Luke, the writer of Acts, was a companion of Paul, and must surely have known the Apostle's characteristic doctrines of grace. Thus it has been remarked on this point:

' The truly Pauline level of teaching is unattained, the doctrine of the Spirit as the moulder and fashioner of the Christian's inner life continually, as it confronts us in the Apostle's letters, is unassimilated. Thus Luke, after all, reflects a less developed form of teaching in his writings than his greater fellow-traveller; he edits his sources in the light of the Spirit's work, but that work is still to him almost solely confined to the equipment of the Messiah, of those who prepare His way, and of those who lead on the continuation of His saving mission. The guidance is occasional, mostly external or by " tongues " and " prophecy," the daily religion of the believer is not yet by Luke expressly regarded as the sphere of the influence of the Spirit of God or of Christ.'37

The admitted fact of this inadequacy of teaching compared with ' the truly Pauline level ' ought to have received more attention from students, because therein we may find the solution of our problem. This view of the book is fully borne out by a careful study of its contents.

(a) The first chapter is concerned with the Kingdom of God in relation to Israel, thereby indicating the last chapter of Israel's history rather than the first chapter of Church history; the close of an old dispensation rather than the beginning of a new.

(b) The same Jewish features are strikingly evident in the story of the Day of Pentecost. Not only was the date one of the Jewish Festivals, and Jews were the original recipients of the Holy Spirit, but the Apostle's address is to ' men of Judea, and all that dwell in Jerusalem,' with a special use of an Old Testament prophecy (Joel ii. 28-32). The more the context of Joel ii. is studied, the more fully it will be seen to refer to Israel rather than the Church.

(c) Then, again, a comparison of the references to purely Jewish matters and to miraculous gifts during the time of the Acts with those found afterwards produces some very striking results. Thus in the Acts there are twenty-five references to the Jews, while afterwards there is only one; in Acts fourteen to Israel, but afterwards only two; in Acts nineteen allusions to Abraham, but afterwards none at all. So also in regard to gifts. They are seen to be in operation up to the end of Acts, but not afterwards, for while, for example, the gift of healing is found throughout Acts, we have no trace of anything of the kind afterwards; on the contrary, Epaphroditus is spoken of as dangerously ill, Timothy is given medical advice, and Trophimus is left at Miletus sick. The same contrast is seen if we take the Epistles of St. Paul written before Acts xxviii. (1 and 2 Thess.; 1 and 2 Cor.; Gal.; Rom.), and compare them with those written during the Roman captivity. In the former there are twenty-five references to the Jew, and only one in the latter; twenty-two references to tongues, and none in the latter; nine allusions to gifts as opposed to two; thirteen references to prophecy as a gift, with none in the latter.

These facts, and more that could be adduced, seem to show that the miraculous gifts recorded in Acts were specifically and solely for Israel; that they were demonstrations of power to vindicate the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth, but not intended for permanent exercise in the normal conditions of the Christian Church when Christ had been rejected by Israel. When these remarkable differences between Acts and St, Paul are thus viewed historically and dispensationally, they are seen to be explicable on these grounds, and do not in any way involve either a defect in the Acts or a correction of the defect by St. Paul. When once it is realised that the Pentecostal period was transitional, and was more closely connected with the Jewish past than with the universal Christian future, everything becomes quite clear. The key is found in Acts iii. 19-21, which plainly teaches that if only the Jews had there and then repented, Jesus Christ would have come back according to His own promise, but as they wilfully refused to accept Him, and maintained this refusal on every occasion when the offer was made, the supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit came to an end, and the normal graces of the Spirit became naturally more prominent in the Gentile Christian Church and as associated with the Apostle Paul.

If this view of the character of the Acts is correct, it settles by rendering unnecessary the discussion of several questions often raised to-day, including:

(a) The relation of Pentecost with its gifts to the normal Christian life.38

(b) The question of the gift of tongues.39

(c) The laying on of hands in association with the bestowal of the gifts of the Spirit (Acts viii., xix.). Any connection, as is sometimes instituted, between this laying on of hands and what is known as confirmation necessarily falls to the ground.40

(d) Even the question of what is known as ' the baptism of the Spirit '41 finds its truest interpretation in connection with the specific Jewish character of the Acts, especially as in the Epistles the term descriptive of the work of the Spirit is not 'baptism,' but ' fulness ' and its cognates. The baptism, whether regarded as miraculous or normal, is evidently to be considered (like its analogue of water baptism) as an initial gift which is not to be repeated, while the soul may be ' filled ' with the Spirit again and again.

Literature. — Humphries, The Holy Spirit in Faith and Experience, chs. vi. and vii.; Wood, The Spirit of God in Biblical Literature, p. 151; Welldon, The Revelation of the Holy Spirit, p. 147; Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; Davison, The Indwelling Spirit, ch. iv.; Downer, The Mission and Ministration of the Holy Spirit, chs. v. and vi.; E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit, p. 158; Elder Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit, p. 168; Redford, Vox Dei, p. 259; Swete, Article ' Holy Spirit,' Hastings' Bible Dictionary, p. 407.

1 Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, p. 243.

2 Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, p. 258.

3 Winstanley, Spirit in the New Testament, p. 130.

4 Wood, The Spirit of God in Biblical Literature, p. 157.

5 Winstanley, op. cit. p. 131.

6 Stevens, op. cit. p. 265.

7 Stevens, op. cit. p. 266.

8Stevens, op. cit. p. 267.

9 Article ' Holy Spirit,' Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, p. 737.

10 Denney, ut supra, p. 736.

11 Denney, ut supra, p. 736.

12 So Welldon, The Revelation of the Holy Spirit, p. 149.

13 Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, p. 71.

14 Swete, ut supra, p. 75.

15 Swete, ut supra, p. 80.

16 Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, p. 73; A. J. Gordon, The Ministry of the Spirit, p. 27; Elder Gumming, Through the Eternal Spirit, chs. vii.-ix.; J. M. Campbell, After Pentecost, What? ch. i.; Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, p. 112; E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit, p. 160; Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, p. 432; Welldon, The Revelation of the Holy Spirit, p. 147; Humphries, The Holy Spirit in Faith and Experience, pp. 155, 183; Joseph Parker, The Paraclete, p. 10.