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The Holy Spirit

By W. H. Griffith Thomas

Part 3. - The Theological Formulation

Chapter 21 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

When the Nicene Creed speaks of the Holy Spirit as the ' Life-Giver,' it calls attention to one of the most prominent features of the New Testament doctrine of the Spirit; His relation to the individual Christian. In the Old Testament the predominant characteristic was the fact of the Holy Spirit as given to special men for special work, though, as already seen, He was also given to individual Jewish believers for their ordinary life. Yet the latter point could not bulk largely by reason of the preparatory character of the Old Testament dispensation, and so when we come to the New Testament, we see that the Holy Spirit is intended for each and every believer. ' Such honour have all His saints.' Indeed, without that Spirit no man can be regarded as a Christian at all (Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor. xii. 3).

There are three special features of Christianity in relation to the individual. The first is Conversion. By this is meant all the initial spiritual experience which includes conviction of sin, forgiveness, regeneration, justification, and adoption. The second is Communion with God. Everything in redemption is intended to lead up to fellowship. Man is saved in order to be united to God and to hold communion with Him. The third is Character. Human life is to be expressed in practical reality, and all grace is given in order to produce this effect. What we are and what we do constitute the supreme criterion of Christianity; without these all else is ' sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.'

Now it is the peculiar province of the Holy Spirit to provide and make real these three essential needs of man. (a) The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, reveals to the penitent soul the mercy and grace of God in Christ, bestows the gift of life, introduces to the presence of God, and assures of acceptance in Christ. In this are included those aspects of His work known as Regeneration, Adoption, Sealing, and Assurance, (b) The Holy Spirit alone makes Communion with God possible and real. The introduction of the soul to God through Justification is the commencement of a life of fellowship. We have ' access by one Spirit unto the Father,' and from that moment our Communion with God begins. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see and our ears to hear the Word of God for life. The same Spirit prompts and guides our prayers in response to God's revelation, and enables us to express all our needs, so that whether we think of the private or public ' means of grace ' by which the soul comes in contact with God, the Holy Spirit is the medium of communication and the guarantee of blessing. In this are included those aspects of His work known as Indwelling and Anointing, and also His relation to the Word of God and prayer, (c) Then the Holy Spirit alone makes Christian Character possible and real. The Spirit Who has entered for and with the initial blessing of Regeneration abides in the soul for Justification. He produces the ' fruit of the Spirit,'1 which is wholly concerned with character (Gal. v. 22, 23), and by constantly revealing, glorifying, and applying Christ to the soul, the believer is ' strengthened with might in the inner man,' and is continually being ' transformed by the Spirit of the Lord,' We live by the Spirit and walk by the Spirit ' unto all pleasing ' (Gal. v. 25; Col. i. 10).

There is scarcely anything clearer or more emphatic in Holy Scripture than the full revelation of truth concerning the Holy Spirit in relation to the individual. His action covers the whole life from first to last. He is the Spirit of Life for regeneration (John iii. 5, 8); the Spirit of Sonship for adoption (Rom. viii. 15; Gal. iv. 6); the Spirit of Holiness for sanctification2 (Rom. viii. 5); the Spirit of Glory for transfiguration (2 Cor. iii. 18; 1 Pet. iv. 14); and the Spirit of Promise for resurrection (Eph. i. 13; iv. 30; Rom. viii. 11).

This truth of the Spirit in relation to the individual clearly teaches that the power of the Personality of Christ is only really available through the Holy Spirit. It is not what Jesus was when on earth, precious though that is; it is not what He taught when on earth, wonderful though that is; it is what He is now as the living exalted Christ, brought near by the Holy Spirit, that guarantees communion with God, and in that communion all that the soul needs and craves. It is for this reason that the Example of Christ or the Teaching of Christ is of no real value when considered alone. Imitatio Christi is but a small part of the Christian's relation to Christ. Repetitio Christi is nearer the truth,3 and in the act and fact of revealing Christ as a present living reality to the soul the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete is also thereby the Revealer of the value and the power of human personality. As the Spirit of Truth He reveals God to man and man to himself. He shows what God intends man to be and to have, and thereby shows to man the possibilities of life in the Divine purpose. As the Spirit of Grace He provides man with the needful dynamic for daily life. ' God's biddings are enablings.' He never reveals truth without bestowing grace in Christ, and the ideal and the real are both assured.

When it is asked how the Holy Spirit works, we may reply with Denney that Christianity is summed up in the two correlatives of the Holy Spirit and Faith.4 The Spirit uses the truth of God to reveal Christ to the soul, and to this the soul makes the response of trust. All the avenues of Divine approach to the soul are associated with the Gospel, either preached or written, and the entire attitude of the soul to God is expressed by the idea of trust, involving as it does the three elements of thought, feeling, and volition. But while faith is thus used in connection with the Holy Spirit (Gal. iii. 14), emphasis in the New Testament is rather on the result of faith in the act and experience of ' receiving ' (Gal. iii. 2, 14; Acts xix. 2).

' I do not know whether the New Testament ever speaks of believing in the Holy Ghost as the Creed does, and as we all do of believing in the Father and the Son; but it is more significant still that it constantly speaks of receiving Him.'5

Every means of grace through which the Holy Spirit comes is associated with faith. Whether the ordinance be private or public, there must be a response of the soul to God, a response which can only be that of faith. Philosophically there may be a theoretical difficulty in conceiving of the relation of the Divine and the human in man,6 but in practical experience there is no difficulty at all. Personality, as Moberly points out, consists of three prerogatives: freewill, reason, and love. Freewill is defined as

' man's power of becoming a veritable cause to himself, in making personally his own, and being wholly self-identified with, such acts of will as themselves are in perfect accordance with, and are therefore the true experience and development of, the nature which is essentially and properly his own.'7

Reason is of course the power of thought and insight. Love is that in which self finds its full realisation. But freewill is the self-realisation of man in perfect dependence. We see at once the need of grace, and we possess that grace just exactly in proportion as we are in Christ and the Spirit of Christ is in us.8 Yet surrender is essential to our highest realisation,9 and love requires a supreme Object for its full expression. The Holy Spirit uses Christ as the Redeemer of the soul, and in proportion as man yields to Him, the grace of God works on our personality, influencing our freewill, our reason, and our love, and enabling us both ' to will and to do of God's good pleasure.' Nothing is clearer in the New Testament than the reality of Christian experience in and through the Holy Spirit.

' The very word Spirit seems to us a hard one to deal with; there is something evasive and subtle in it; its range of meanings is almost incredible, and we hesitate to define it; but plainly, in the apostolic age, it had a thoroughly real meaning. Christian experience was a thing so unique, so entirely apart, so creative, that it could not be overlooked nor confounded with anything else. There had been no time for conciliations, for approximations, for compromises; that which was Christian possessed all its originality and distinctiveness; and it was conceived as the gift and work of the Spirit. If we are ever to find the language of the New Testament natural, it must be by a return to that originality and distinctiveness of the Christian life which created the New Testament speech.'10

And so, wherever and however we contemplate individual life, we see the constant necessity, definite power, and abundant blessing of the Holy Spirit of God.

' The deep, omnipotent background of all Christian experience is thus declared to be the unresting power of the Holy Spirit. Scriptural insight is tirelessly insistent in the declaration of this fact. It stakes its whole validity on this one ultimate verity.'11

Literature.— Humphries, The Holy Spirit in Faith and Experience, p. 352; Walker, The Holy Spirit, chs. v.-viii.; Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, pp. 340, 352, 390, 391; E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit, ch. xiii.; Tophel, The Work of the Holy Spirit in Man, pp. 58, 82; A. J. Gordon, The Ministry of the Spirit, pp. 106, 113, 123, ch. X.; Elder Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit, chs. x., xiv., xvi., xvii.; Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, pp. 162-172, 204-209; Hobart, Our Silent Partner, Parts II., IV.; Denio, The Supreme Leader, pp. 12S, 147, 205; Robson, The Holy Spirit the Paraclete, p. 123; Elder Cumming, After the Spirit, ch. vii., xiv.; Masterman, ' I believe in the Holy Ghost,' ch. iv.; J. M. Campbell, After Pentecost, What? chs. vi.-viii., x.-xiii.; Ridout, The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, chs. ii., iii., V.; Parker, The Paraclete, chs. ii., xi., xiii., xv., xvi.; Morris Stewart, The Crown of Science, p. 70; Garvie, The Christian Certainty Amid the Modern Perplexity, ch. xiv.