"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." -- John xx. 22.

" Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." -- Ezek. xxxvii. 9.

In all the universe there should be no field of knowledge so enchanting to a created mind as the study of God. The knowledge of God is always new, and fresh, and elevating, and refining, sweetening, and utterly inexhaustible. The more we become acquainted with him and the more we enter into fellowship with his threefold personality, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the more quickly we detect how everything in creation is in some way a type of himself, a faint shadow under which he hides his attributes and mysterious life and will.

In considering the many operations of the Holy Spirit, we find him in Scripture selecting various things as types of his person and work. He condescends to represent himself as a breath, a flowing stream, a fire, a fragrant oil, a dove, a voice, and other things in creation, each and all of which are needful to set forth the multiplied form of his presence and work. Each of the emblems he selects represents his operation on a certain definite line, and no two types have exactly the same significance.

I. In every instance in Scripture where the Holy Spirit represents himself as wind, or air, or a breath, it invariably signifies his work as a life giver, either imparting life or restoring life, where it has been lost. Hence the Holy Ghost as a breath typifies his operation in the new birth. Nowhere in the Bible is the wind used as a type of sanctification or of empowerment, or the imparting of gifts, but exclusively as making alive.

In Gen. ii. 7, we are told the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." The word "God" is in Hebrew in the plural number, and sets forth the action of the whole trinity, and the Holy Spirit is eternally breathed forth from the Father and the Son, and in the form of a breath he imparted to the lifeless dust a living soul. The word" life in this Scripture is in the plural number, signifying both the soul and the spirit of man. And the word "living soul signifies an immortal soul which would exist forever. There is no hint in Scripture or creation that the soul will ever be annihilated.

St. Paul tells us that the difference between Adam and Christ is that Adam was made a " living soul," with natural immortality, but Christ was made a "quickening spirit,"� that is, with power to impart life to the dead. Another text is found in Job xxxiii. 4, " The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." " Here we see that the Holy Spirit, under the form of a breath, is a life giver. The Hebrew word for Almighty signifies the "outpoured one" and refers pre-eminently to the Holy Spirit as eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

In Ezekiel xxxvii. we have that wonderful vision of the valley of dry bones, and how the prophet was commanded to call for the winds to come and breathe upon the slain that they might live, and as he prophesied the breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army. But we notice in this vision the operations of the Spirit is not that of a sanctifier, or of empowering with gifts, but pre-eminently a work of regeneration, for he goes on to say, "I will bring you out of your graves and put my Spirit in you."' This Scripture, like all others, has more than one fulfillment, it has a spiritual fulfillment in all those who are regenerated and made children of Abraham by faith; and it will have a special, national fulfillment in the restoration of the Jews in the millennial reign of Jesus, when he shall be as David, a king over them, which is described in the latter part of the chapter. But the thought we emphasize here is, that the Holy Spirit as a breath is to give life.

Another instance is found in Psalm civ. 29, 30, where God, as an infinite sovereign, can take away at will the breath of living creatures, and then send forth his Spirit and renew the face of creation. But perhaps the strongest proof of this truth in the Bible is found in the words of Jesus, in Jno. iii. 8, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" You will notice that our Lord is not speaking in this passage of sanctification, or of spiritual gifts, but exclusively of the new birth" and he affirms that the operation of the Holy Ghost in our being born again is symbolized by the wind. Later on in his ministry, when he taught the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, he spoke of him as a river of water flowing out from our innermost being.

It is true that in this chapter he speaks of a man being born of water and of the Spirit, and we must remember that air is not the only type of the new birth, but only that when the Spirit is compared to wind, or breath, it signifies either life or the concomitants of life. Hence in Jno. xx. 22, we are told that Jesus breathed on the Apostle, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost;"� but he goes right on to speak of the forgiveness of sins, saying, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them."�

We must remember that the Apostles received the Holy Spirit twice, in different degrees and in different offices; once before Christ ascended, and then after he ascended. In this instance, in John xx., Jesus was collecting together his scattered disciples, who had denied him, and doubtless all of them had more or less backslidden during the storm of the crucifixion, and now he was restoring them to justified relations with God, and preparing them for Pentecost, and in this work of restoration he breathed on them the Holy Spirit, which was not the full baptism of the Spirit, for that came after his ascension; but he gave them that measure of the Spirit which accompanies justification.

Thousands of believers fail to see this distinction in Scripture, and suppose that the witness of the Spirit to their justification is the same as the gift or baptism of the Spirit; but they are greatly mistaken. Some may suppose that the descent of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost was symbolized by wind, because it says there was a sound from heaven like a rushing wind." But the language does not say there was a rushing wind, but simply a rushing sound, which made a noise like the noise of wind. This sound was made by a meteoric shower of fiery tongues, which we will consider later; but there was no blowing of wind, for we all know how the sound of fire resembles wind. This we have seen throughout all Scripture: God's chosen type of the new birth is that of the Holy Spirit acting as a breath.

II. There is a marvelous fitness in this type of the Spirit, because the atmosphere is of all things in creation the most essential to life. God selects his illustrations with absolute scientific accuracy. Our physical life is sustained by three things: food, water, and air; for the great fact of the Trinity is interwoven in every department of creation. We can go without food many days, we can go without water for only a few days, unless supernaturally sustained, but how long can our bodies live without air? Thus in selecting breath as the type of the Spirit in giving life to the soul, God has selected that very element which is every instant essential to all physical life. Every living substance on earth is kept alive by the atmosphere. Not only all the animals and insects, but all vegetation; every tiny plant, or leaf, or moss, or sponge in the depths of the sea, and every drop of water in the vast ocean, is kept alive every moment by the all-encircling, all-penetrating, vitalizing forces in the air. Even fire itself can not live without the air. Water and fire and oil are types of the Holy Spirit, in washing and anointing graces; but even water and fire and oil can not live without the air. Hence we discern that God's great fundamental thought is, there must be life, divine life, his own blessed life, imparted to the. soul of man, as the primeval basis of all other blessings.

Only see how God has wrapped the globe in a vitalizing ocean of atmosphere, extending miles above the highest mountain, and pressing its subtle passage through all the pores of the earth, and piercing through every drop of the ocean to the depths of the sea, giving for every successive instant, through thousands of years, a mysterious vitality to every form of life on the entire planet. Such is the emblem of the eternal Spirit, who is eternally out-breathed from the Father and the Son, surrounding all the created universe, angels, and men, and worlds, giving every moment diversified kinds of life, to all the known and unknown orders of created beings and things.

III. What an infinite blessedness it is to have the Holy Spirit breathe his precious life into us, to love with his love, think over again his thoughts, to pray his prayers, to feel his sentiments. This is life indeed! The forgiveness for all our sins is but the preliminary condition for the inflow of this divine life. The removal of all actual sin is the prerequisite for the new birth which follows immediately after pardon, just as the purging out of original sin is the prerequisite for the indwelling of the personal Comforter.

There are seven grades of life made known to us in nature and revelation. First, mineral life, such as exists in pearls and gems, and the growth of rocks. Second, infusoria life, such as exists in those substances which can not be classed as either minerals or plants. Third, vegetable life, which spreads itself out in thousands of diversified forms of beauty and fragrance, in grasses, plants and trees, both on the earth and under the sea. Fourth, animal life, which rises in inconceivable grandeur of variety, and force, and motion, and value, above all lower forms of life; for animal life devours the life in the lower kingdoms, and turns it into itself. Fifth, rational life, or what we might strictly call soulish life, which includes the intellectual and soul life of mankind, in their natural state. This life in the human mind is as immeasurably above animal life as that is above the life of plants. Sixth, millions of leagues above mere rational life is the spiritual life of the blessed God imparted to us by the Holy Spirit. This spiritual life, like other kinds of life, has laws, and affinities, and repulsions, and nourishments, and joys, and modes of operation peculiar to itself, which can never be known except by those who have the life. It is as impossible for one living in the mere life of reason to understand the Holy Spirit life as it is for a lower animal to grasp the life of a philosopher. Seventh, beyond what we know of the spiritual life, is the glorified life where the whole being of body, soul, and spirit will be glorified, and live a form of life utterly inconceivable by our reason in this present state.

Now only think that all these seven kinds of life are flowing out incessantly from the uncreated fountains of the Holy Spirit. If we yield ourselves continually and unreservedly to the omnipotent Spirit, he will breathe into us the love of the Father, and the grace of the blessed Jesus, and make our life but a vessel of his own life. It is by pure faith that we apprehend the Holy Spirit as a divine atmosphere, flowing into every pore of our nature, and by faith we breathe in his own life. What a mysterious joy there is in simply living. Who knows but what the beautiful plants and trees enjoy their life? and then how dear is the life even of a little worm to itself; and as we rise through the different kingdoms of life, the preciousness of living is multiplied in geometrical ratio.

And who of us have begun to realize the preciousness of the Holy Spirit's life in us? And what is sanctification but simply removing the interior hindrances, for the expansion and richness of that divinely inbreathed breath of eternal love?