THE HOLY SPIRIT

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS on the doctrine of the Spirit, and it is worthy of notice that on several points, and especially on the inscrutable relations of the Trinity, we find, as was to be expected, disclosures from His lips more definite and ample than are expressed by any of His servants, whether prophets or apostles. In His last discourses, spoken in the midst of His disciples (John xiv. - xvi.), He set forth for their comfort and for the Church’s instruction the essential as well as economical relations in which the Holy Spirit stood to Him, and also the mission of the Spirit for the guidance of apostles and the application of redemption, in a manner more full and ample than we find in any other part of Scripture. He shows (1) that the Father should send the Holy Spirit IN HIS NAME (xiv. 26), a statement which implies that the Spirit, previously forfeited and withdrawn from mankind in consequence of sin, should, on the ground of His merits and intercession as the Mediator, be sent by the Father for all the purposes of His redemption. He shows (2) that the Spirit should be dispensed or given by His hand. This He repeatedly announced, and much more explicitly than was ever done by the Baptist.

We find that there are two principal divisions of our Lord’s sayings on the subject of the Spirit,—those which describe the Spirit’s work in conversion, and those which describe the Spirit’s work on the mind of apostles and of the Church in general.

Those sayings which describe the Spirit’s work in conversion, will be most fitly adduced afterwards (Lect IV.).

Christ also promised the Holy Spirit to His believing disciples as rivers of living water: “If any wan thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John vii. 37-39). We have to notice first Christ’s saying, and then the apostolic commentary appended to it. While water is in certain passages the element of cleansing, it is introduced here and elsewhere (Isa. lv. 1) as the element of quenching thirst. They who are said in a religious sense to thirst have a painful feeling of want, and desire relief in the only way in which they can attain it. Two things are included in the invitation. They are desired TO COME, which simply means to believe, as is evident from the alternated expression employed in another passage (John vi. 35), implying a misery from which they escape, and a fountain, that is, the Saviour, to which they are invited to repair; and they are desired to DRINK, for in no case can the sense of thirst be removed by merely looking at the fountain. The terms thus conjoined, COME and DRINK, mean faith, but are no mere tautology. They are the incipient, and the enlarged or continued exercise of the same grace of faith.

And it is promised that from the heart of this believing disciple there should well up or flow out rivers of living water, which intimate precisely the same thing as Christ said to the woman of Samaria (John iv. 14). The meaning is not that the Spirit flows from one disciple to another,—for none can so give the Spirit,—but that the Spirit as a flowing river quenches the thirst and satisfies the desires, so that the soul no longer thirsts for any other object. The promise is not to apostles alone, for that ulterior promise following faith in Christ is made definite: He that believeth on me. But this by no means presupposes that the believing disciple has, by his own self-determining power, produced this faith without the teaching of the Father (John vi. 45), the drawing of the Son (xii. 32), of the life-giving power of the Spirit (vi. 63).

The terms of the apostolic commentary subjoined are very significant. They show that Christ meant the Spirit, and that all the inward satisfaction, rest, peace, joy, and assurance flowing into the soul and quenching its thirst, are the result of the Spirit’s operation. When John says that Christ spoke of the Spirit which believers should receive, he explains why Jesus used the future tense and not the past: rivers of living water shall flow. But the apostle adds that “the Spirit was not yet,” because Christ’s glorification had not yet arrived. He does not mean that the Spirit did not yet exist,—for all Scripture attests His eternal pre-existence,—nor that His regenerating efficacy was still unknown,—for countless millions had been regenerated by His power since the first promise in Eden,—but that these operations of the Spirit had been but an anticipation of the atoning death of Christ rather than a GIVING. The apostle speaks comparatively, not absolutely, as is always done when the old and new economy are contrasted.

Christ’s testimony to the Spirit contained special reference to the Comforter (John xiv. 16 - xvi. 7). As further allusion will be made to these promises, it may here suffice to enumerate the passages and give their scope. For wise reasons, the Lord reserved His special teaching on the Holy Spirit to His last evening on the earth, that the donation of the Spirit might be connected in the mind of the disciples with His vicarious sacrifice, and that He might be expected as Christ’s Deputy. We are reminded of this antecedent and consequent when He speaks of sending the Spirit (John xv. 26), of giving the Spirit (vii. 39), of pouring out the Spirit (Joel ii. 28), of kindling a fire on the earth (Luke xii. 49). The culminating point of Christ’s exultation was to have the authority or power of baptizing with the Holy Ghost, as foretold by John the Baptist and announced by the Lord Himself (Acts i. 5). The authority to give the Spirit was assigned to the Son as the reward of His finished work. That no one might suppose that the Spirit’s dependence on the Father is removed, Christ says: “Whom I will send to you from the Father” (John xv. 26). And to show that this was done at Christ’s intercession and request, He says: “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter” (John xiv. 16); that is, to compensate them for their great loss in losing the visible presence of their Lord.

To be convinced of the importance which Christ attached to the mission of the Spirit, we have only to recall the terms in which He four times refers to the Paraclete or Comforter. Whether we render the word TEACHER with some, or HELPER with others, or ADVOCATE and PATRON with others, or abide by the translation COMFORTER, with which we are most familiar, the tenor of the promise implies that He was to be sent at Christ’s intercession, and to act as His Deputy.

A brief summary of the different operations of the Comforter may be set forth as follows. He was, after Christ’s departure from the world, to take the Saviour’s place, and in all cases of official duty or emergency to impart the necessary aid. He was to remind the apostles what Christ had taught them; He was to give them clearer and more extensive communications in reference to the doctrine of Jesus; He was to unfold to them what they did not comprehend when the Lord was with them. They were to be under the perpetual direction and superintendence of the Spirit, and supported by Him in the proclamation of the gospel wherever they should be sent,—promises which imparted to them the greatest calmness, and gave rise to the most joyful state of mind. Such a close union is represented as existing between the Son and the Spirit, that it almost seems from the passages which describe the indwelling of the Spirit as if they were identical. But that is only in appearance. For Scripture represents Christ as sending the Spirit to glorify Him,—to supply His place,—to lead the disciples into all truth, and to imbue the minds of the apostles with an immediate revelation of the divine will.

The Lord Jesus, in the evening of the first resurrection day, first began to GIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT to the apostles assembled in one place. And to make the occasion significant, He breathed on them, and said: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” It has often been affirmed by expositors that this was but a pledge or promise accompanied with a symbolic action, and awaiting its accomplishment on the day of Pentecost. The words, however, must be accepted as they stand, and in their full significance. They intimate an actual donation of the Holy Ghost, not an allusion to the gift conferred fifty days afterwards. The atonement was already a completed fact, and accepted by the Father; the everlasting righteousness was actually brought in; every barrier to the communication of the Spirit was now removed; and the Lord did not deal in empty symbols or mere terms. He bestowed what the words imply when He said: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John xx. 22).

This interpretation enables us to dispose of two misleading opinions which have obtained greater currency than could have been supposed. (1) It is held by not a few, such as Stier, Wardlaw, and others, that the apostles acted with undue precipitance in filling up the vacant apostleship, because the promised effusion of the Spirit was not received. The doubts raised by Stier against the steps taken to supply the place from which Judas by transgression fell, carry more serious consequences than the propounders of that interpretation imagine. It is of no avail to say, If the Spirit came in the room of Christ, it would have been more natural for Him to nominate the new apostle. The answer is, The Spirit was actually doing so through the Church. When it is said, Is it not possible that the apostles, with all their intellectual knowledge and childlike confidence, might err? the answer is, That the Lord, in breathing upon them and imparting the Spirit, intimated that what they remitted or retained would be ratified in heaven; and as for the comparison between Matthias and Paul, whom Stier refers to as alone filling the vacant place, it is sufficient to say that Paul calls himself “one born out of due time.” The whole college of apostles, to whom the Lord said: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” cannot be supposed to have erred in their interpretation of the psalm (Ps. cix. 8), or in the further step of publicly filling up the vacant office.

(2) Another error is the modern notion propounded by the Plymouth Brethren, that believers are not to pray for the Holy Spirit, because He was once for all given on the day of Pentecost, and that the Christian body may not pray for what is already possessed. That rash and presumptuous position, by whomsoever it is held, is discredited by the fact that the apostles who had received the Holy Ghost on the first resurrection day continued with one accord in prayer and supplication for the promise of the Father (Acts i. 14). They prayed for the Spirit though they had received the Spirit. They waited for more of the Spirit that they had, in compliance with their Lord’s command. This is the true attitude of the Christian Church in every age. And the history of the apostles shows that not once, but on many occasions, they were made partakers of the baptism of the Spirit and fire.