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The Holy Spirit

By W. H. Griffith Thomas

Part 4. - The Modern Application

Chapter 24 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND DIVINE IMMANENCE.

Every age has its characteristic tendencies and needs, and on this account Christianity has to be adapted constantly and perpetually to human life. The secret of this feature of constant variety and complete adaptation is found in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is impossible in one volume to consider modern life in all its fulness and complexity, but some special applications seem to call for attention, not only because of their own importance, but also as illustrations of the way in which the Holy Spirit's presence in the Christian religion enables the Church to face all the problems of humanity.

Among modern problems connected with this subject, one of the most prominent is that known as Divine Immanence. On every hand we hear to-day of the Immanence of God, and it is at once interesting and curious to observe how ready Christian thought has been to accept it. What does it mean? It is said to be the necessary complement of the doctrine of Divine Transcendence, and that together they form the true idea of God.1

Let us endeavour to obtain from a competent authority the true meaning of Immanence.

' We mean that God is the omnipresent ground of all finite existence and activity. The world alike of things and spirits is nothing existing and acting on its own account while God is away in some extra-sidereal, but it continually depends upon, and is ever upheld by the ever-living, ever-present, ever- working God.'2

To put the matter in a simpler form, Immanence is intended to teach that God is everywhere present and active in nature, ceaselessly at work in history, and spiritually present with and in man.

Now, although differences are made between God's Immanence in nature and in man, it is still a question whether the general idea of Immanence is really clear. Science to-day is teaching an Immanence in the process of nature, a Divine Thought and Purpose immanent in everything. But what about man? Is God immanent in him? St. Paul's words are sometimes quoted as bearing on this point, ' In Him we live, and move, and have our being ' (Acts xvii. 28). Yet, apart from the fact that this refers to man's immanence in God, not God's Immanence in man, it surely must be interpreted by the previous words, ' He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ' (ver. 25). But setting this aside, there still remains the question of sin. Is God in that also? As Mackintosh well says:

' No one can be so keenly aware of the limits of the Divine Immanence as the sinner, to whom repentance has brought home the divergence of self and God with a vivid realisation which is sharpened and registered by the sense of guilt.'3

There is, it is true, a school of Christian philosophy which endeavours to support a doctrine of Divine Immanence, but it may be questioned whether it affords a clear view of it. The way in which Immanence has overthrown an incorrect idea of dualism in nature has been very welcome, and we can no longer think of the universe as consisting of two separate and opposed spheres, the natural and the supernatural. The natural is a method by which the supernatural expresses itself. The supernatural works in the realms of history and personal experience, and nature in many respects is the manifestation of divinity. But still the question persists as to where we should stop. Are the souls of men part of this Divine activity? We must preserve moral realities. Immanence must be consistent with Theism, or else it will not be moral. The distinction between the Divine and the human is real. We distinguish ourselves as personal individuals, endowed by God with wills of our own, even though we recognise that we have the basis of our existence in Him, and that by Him all our faculties are bestowed and sustained. Any view that ignores, still more that sets aside this position tends to destroy moral reality, and it is therefore impossible to accept any view of Immanence that does not recognise ethical distinctions.4

There are also those who say that God was immanent in the Incarnation, but this does not appear to be an adequate interpretation of the Incarnation in the light of several passages of the New Testament (John i. 14; Rom. viii. 3; I Tim. iii. 16). What we can say is, not that God was immanent in Christ, but that Christ is God, that His Person was representative of God, that He was God manifest in the flesh.5

It is evidently not intended that we should regard the Divine Immanence as merely a substitute for the old idea of Omnipresence. Immanence means something more, and it is this ' something ' that has to be clearly stated and proved. According to one writer, the doctrine of Immanence adds to the doctrine of Omnipresence

' the endeavour to expound the relation between the omnipresent God and the universe with which He is present. It not only affirms that God is present, but attempts to suggest something as to what He effects by virtue of His presence, and how the universe is affected by it. The doctrine of immanence is nothing more than an endeavour to interpret the fact of God's universal presence, and tell what that presence signifies, or accomplishes.'6

But it may be questioned whether the new idea adds anything material to the old. In the same way, it has been recently said that the Jews taught this doctrine, and that the modern view of Immanence, meaning something more than Omnipresence and suggesting a closer communion between the Creator and His works, was taught centuries ago by the Jewish Rabbis.7 It is certainly interesting to follow the teaching of the Rabbis on the subject of the Divine Shekinah, or God's presence with His people; of the Ruach, or Holy Spirit; of the Memra, or word of the Targums. But while all this clearly proves, what no one ever denied, that the doctrine of the Divine Omnipresence was held by the Jews notwithstanding the fact that the supreme thought of the Old Testament is the Divine Transcendence, yet it may be seriously questioned whether the writer has succeeded in showing that the Jewish Rabbinical doctrine is one of Immanence in the modern sense.

It is hardly too much to say that there is a good deal of loose thinking on the subject of Immanence, especially when men allow themselves to speak of God's ' incarnation in the race,' which is not only untrue to fact, but also robs the Divine revelation of all thought of redemption from sin, and takes away from Christ His uniqueness as the Incarnate Son of God. Neither in the past nor in the present can we speak of God's incarnation in this way. On the contrary,

' the loose and confused notion of " incarnation in the race," which has been offered as a profounder substitute for the Christian view, is out of harmony with concrete fact. Any attractiveness it may seem to possess is in reality owing to a crude obliteration of moral distinctions, resting on the mistaken assumption that the relations of God and man are completely interpretable in physical and logical categories.'8

It is clear, therefore, that while Immanence is a useful term, it may be ' the parent of a nest of fallacies.' The only true Immanence of God is the presence of Christ by the Holy Spirit in the heart and life of the believer (John xiv. 17, 21; I Cor. iii. 17; vi. 19). Converted lives have been well said to be the best proof and the truest safeguard of Divine Immanence, since they involve the entrance of a new Divine power into life. An able writer in vindication of Modernism has expressed surprise that the Church should think it necessary to combat the view of Divine Immanence held by the Modernists, which he says is as old as religion itself and is wholly in keeping with the doctrine of the outpouring of the Spirit. But this is just where the doctrine of Divine Immanence robs Christianity of its distinctiveness by a quasi-pantheistic conception of God's presence in the world. The New Testament, as we observed, never associates the Holy Spirit with God's action in nature, but only with the redemptive work of Christ for and in man. The sphere of the Spirit is definitely spiritual, and His activities are spiritual also. There may be analogy, but there is certainly no identity between the presence of God in nature and the Holy Spirit of God in the believer. This is all we can say, but it does not carry us where the Modernists would have us go. Indeed, Modernism in this respect is the very antithesis of the Christian position. It robs Christianity of everything characteristic of redemption; it endangers man by emphasising his spiritual possibilities without reminding him of his sinfulness; above all, it makes Christ a Teacher rather than a Redeemer, and sums up man's greatest need as revelation rather than redemption; knowledge rather than salvation. But this, whatever else it is, is not New Testament Christianity. The Incarnation of Christ and the gift of the Spirit were unique, both in their manifestation and destination, and the only Immanence of which we can speak with truth and safety is the presence of God in Christ by the Spirit in the hearts and lives of the people of God. Ethical indwelling is one thing, natural causality is quite another.9

It is in relation to the Holy Spirit that the Christian doctrine of God meets the deepest human need. Man's prevailing desire has always been for the presence of God. This is the essential truth underlying pantheism.

' The doctrine of the Holy Spirit represents the truth of pantheism. The infinite Power that is everywhere present, the reality of which the energy and life of nature are the manifestation, is the Spirit of God. He is the substratum of the human spirit, the light of our intellectual seeing, the source of all that is pure and holy in us. Moreover, by the Incarnation God has become immanent in the world in a peculiar and wondrous way for our redemption. The Word has become flesh, the Father has come to us through the Son."10

But an impersonal doctrine of Immanence is utterly insufficient to satisfy this need. A mere ' stream of tendency ' is impossible. The logical outcome of a belief in Divine Immanence in the modern sense is seen in a recent article entitled ' The Little Rag of Faith that is Left.'11 It is said that the orthodox conceptions of Christian worship have disappeared, that the religion of nature is taking their place, and that even the conception of God as the Heavenly Father introduced by Jesus Christ is only a metaphor expressive of kinship with the Eternal. The article goes on to call attention to ' the remarkable extent to which within the last generation especially, the conception of Divine Immanence has found favour both in and beyond the Church.' This conception is declared to be ' a prominent form of, and a great stepping-stone towards the Impersonality of the Divine Nature.' This apparently is what is meant by the title, ' The Little Rag of Faith that is Left,' and it is said to constitute the problem of Christian philosophy to-day. But the view stands condemned by the writer's own admission that Divine Impersonality ' can never be a really popular thought for the bulk of the religious world,' even though it is said to be constantly becoming more certain, and ' for the higher and more trained minds the natural and final resting place.' A religion which can never be popular and is only occupied with a metaphor will never meet the deepest needs of mankind. Personality in God is essential if human personalities are to be satisfied, and it is here that Christianity steps in with its distinctive message. It is easy to say that the principle of Immanence has for ever destroyed the deistic conception of God, but it is sometimes forgotten that for all practical purposes the two ideas come to the same thing. If God is apart from the world, or is identified with the world, it is obvious that He cannot come into essential relationships with the human beings who crave for fellowship with the Divine. ' A uniform world with God locked in is exactly equivalent to a uniform world with God locked out.'12 It is only in the Holy Spirit that man finds the truth suggested by pantheism, that of a definite offer, guarantee, and realisation of the presence of God.

' All the longing of pious mysticism, and the affinity for pantheistic union with the Eternal Existence which have shown themselves in millions of the religious peoples of the earth may find deepest satisfaction in this doctrine of the Spirit. The human soul cries out for a God that is personally present, and not afar off; an abiding Comforter, whom the world cannot receive nor cast out. The Spirit of truth reveals Himself with all this blessed assurance to them that worship in spirit and in truth. Herein we recognise the blessed reality which was from the beginning but has been sadly overlooked at times — the reality of the vital, everlasting Immanence of God.'13

But the distinctness between the Divine Spirit and the human is always maintained. Sanday and Headlam point out that

' the very ease with which St. Paul changes and inverts his metaphors shows that the Divine immanence with him nowhere means Buddhistic or Pantheistic absorption.'14

It is easy for Christians to sing:

'Till in the ocean of Thy love

We lose ourselves in heaven above.'

But we do well to remind ourselves that this is not strictly correct, that it is only a poetic expression of an anticipated satisfaction, and that it would be infinitely truer (in the double sense) to say:

'Till in the ocean of Thy love

we find ourselves in heaven above.'

Even in the future there will be no absorption, though withal the most complete satisfaction. It is in this way that we are safeguarded against a false Mysticism due to an equally false Monism, which ignores the fact of moral evil, and therefore sets aside the redemptive element in Christianity. No doubt the problem is one of great difficulty. It has always been one of the profoundest questions, how we can conceive of an all-embracing Mind, and yet find room for free independent beings of limited knowledge. If in order to avoid Deism we endeavour to prevent the infinite and the finite from remaining in isolation, we are in danger of Pantheism, and on this theory Personality inevitably disappears and with it all distinctiveness of human nature. But every philosophical attempt to reconcile the two great realities — the Divine Immanence and the Divine Transcendence, has utterly failed, and invariably led to forms of Monism which have not only obliterated human personalities, but have underestimated and even ignored the universal consciousness of moral evil. Say what we will, human life is not normal, and the abnormality is due to what the Bible calls sin.

' The recognition of something divine in man and the recognition of something inconsistent with and contrary to that divine element in man always start up side by side.... Recognition of that which is of God in man, and recognition of something in man that is not of God, are always in the New Testament, the two close-lying planks in the platform of thought.... It is an impaired Immanence, therefore, with which the New Testament has to deal.... An impaired Immanence can be repaired only by and out of Transcendence.'15

Any view which ignores or denies this is false from the outset to the most patent and potent realities of life. And it is just here that the Christian doctrine of the Godhead enters with vital, uplifting, transforming, and satisfying power. Its attitude to sin is four-fold: it reveals, rebukes, redeems, and restores. When this is seen, we understand the statement that Immanence in the New Testament is the goal to which all else in Christianity leads up, and that the New Testament is eminently concerned with the means and method of reaching that goal.16 And so the problem of the New Testament is the entrance of God into man's life for the purpose of removing that which is wrong and bestowing that which is right. Immanence, or, rather, Fellowship, is the end, and Redemption is the means.17 ' God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself,' and this reconciliation is applied to the soul by the Holy Spirit. Everything in belief and practice, in doctrine and duty, is intended to lead up to and bring about the indwelling of God in the believer. ' Christ in you the hope of glory ' is the centre of Christianity. His earthly Life, His atoning Death, His Resurrection, His Ascension, His gift of the Spirit — are all for the purpose of accomplishing this, and the great New Testament words, like Faith and Justification, which express man's attitude to God, are all so many ways of indicating our appropriation of this indwelling Christ in order to bring God into our life. Christ for us, our Atoning Sacrifice, is intended to lead up to Christ in us as our living power.18

And so while from one point of view we agree with Phillips Brooks that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a continual protest against every constantly recurring tendency to separate God from the current world, it is equally true that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a continual protest against every constantly recurring tendency to identify God with the world. Dr. Forsyth lately had an article on Schlatter, in which he says of that great theologian:

' He distrusts the mysticism of a natural and rationalist spirituality, of mere warm intimacy apart from a positive and creative content in the final act of God in Christ. He is, of course, a Christian mystic, as everyone must be whose citizenship is in heaven, and whose life is hid with Christ in God.'19

And he quotes Schlatter, who speaks of

' the central, given point of history; to what Christ's disciples said at first; to the fact that He is Lord. The whole theme and motive of my Christology is that here a human life issued from God, lived in His service, and was hallowed to be the instrument whereby God's grace reached us unmaimed and complete.'20

In the Holy Spirit as the Applier of Divine Redemption which emanated from the Father, and was wrought out by the Son, we have the only and adequate safeguard against all extremes of theistic speculation, and the only and adequate guarantee of a theistic doctrine which is vital to the life of mankind.

Literature. — W. N. Clarke, The Christian Doctrine of God, p. 320; An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 132; W. Adams Brown, Christian Theology in Outline, s.v. Immanence; Illingworth, Divine Immanence; John Caird, The Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, Vol. I.; Garvie, The Christian Certainty Amid the Modern Perplexity, ch. ix.; Davison, The Indwelling Spirit, ch. i.; Bowne, The Immanence of God; Stearns, Present Day Theology, p. 206; Terry, Biblical Dogmatics, p. 508; D'Arcy, Idealism and Theology, p. 251; Walker, The Holy Spirit, p. 194; Denio, The Supreme Leader, p. 120; Humphries, The Holy Spirit in Faith and Experience, p. 357; J. M. Campbell, After Pentecost, What? ch. iii.; Rowland, Article ' Presence,' Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (with Bibliography); H. W. Clark, ' Religious History and the Idea of Immanence,' Review and Expositor, Vol. X. p. 3 (January, 1913)