The Holy Spirit and the Believer Today
PREFACE
This essay originated in discussions in Newfoundland,
with brethren and sisters who, while anxious to resist the excesses of modern
Pentecostalism, nevertheless desired to do full justice to the teaching of
the Scriptures on the Holy Spirit today. Notes were prepared on the spot
which were adjudged very helpful, and what is now offered is a development
from these.
It is impossible to approach the subject without
realizing how close its very consideration brings us to the presence of Him
that is holy. The pressing duty to expound the subject is not made easier
by the knowledge of one’s unworthiness to do so. Mistakes and inadvertences
which any one author might make have, however, been as far as possible eliminated
by long and searching, but always kindly, examination by others over many
months. The document has been weighed sentence by sentence and though the
responsibility for it is still my own, in many places the hands of others
have left their mark.
Here and there differing views were expressed
in our discussions on the meaning of isolated verses, as was perhaps inevitable.
What is gratifying in spite of this is that we were very much at one in our
understanding of the subject as a whole, and of nearly all the Scripture evidence
adduced.
It is now my hope and prayer that the essay
may help towards an enlarged understanding of this exalted theme, and that
what the mind has grasped the heart may take hold of, that we all, “being
rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and to know the love
of Christ which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled unto all the fulness
of God.”
North Cave,
October 1974 Alfred Norris
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
Attitudes to the activity of God’s Holy Spirit
vary enormously. At the one extreme are those broadly labeled “Pentecostal”,
who believe that the gifts which descended on the apostles a few days after
the ascension of the Lord Jesus, and were shortly afterwards bestowed on other
believers, continued to be available throughout the centuries, and are to
be expected and desired today. The whole range of such gifts is in principle
to be expected, including tongues, prophecy, interpretations, healings, and
even the raising of the dead. The first of these is the most obvious characteristic
of Pentecostal movements, and while the language employed may sometimes, it
is claimed, be a real foreign tongue otherwise unknown to the speaker, it
is more usually an ecstatic utterance, a ‘tongue of angels”, corresponding
to no known language, but nevertheless capable of interpretation by one having
that gift to provide an edifying message for the congregation. In addition
to tongues, healings are very commonly claimed, though raising from the dead
very rarely indeed.
| Acts 2:1-12,
43 |
Acts 14:3 |
| Acts 6:8 |
Acts 19:1-7 |
| Acts 8:5-24 |
1 Corinthians
12:1-11 |
| Acts 10:44-48 |
1 Corinthians
14:1-40 |
| Acts 11:17 |
1 Corinthians
13:1 |
Next to these are others who, either denying or indifferent
to these miraculous manifestations, are still confident that the Holy Spirit
speaks to the heart and mind of the believer today, giving a genuine revelation
of the will and purpose of God. Some would regard all believers as so guided
by the Holy Spirit as to be assured of the rightness of their views, safeguarded
from false teaching, protected against loss of faith, and independent of any
need to appeal to the written witness of the Bible, the Word of God: though
this latter is more often implied than categorically stated. Others, while
claiming less for the individual, would claim more for the church to which
he belongs, or for its priests and ministers, whose ordination of call is
supposed to convey the grace of divine guidance by the Spirit for the teaching
and care of their flocks. Here, too, the guidance by the Holy Spirit could
make it superfluous to reason from what is written in the Word of God.
Further along the scale would be those who,
while recognizing that the Bible is the only court of appeal at which doctrine,
instruction, and moral precepts are to be established, hold that the Bible
itself promises help from God’s Holy Spirit to the believer in living his
life, meeting his temptations, and working out his salvation. These would
regard the evidently miraculous gifts as past, at least for the time being,
and would add that they are in any case irrelevant to salvation. But they
would say that to deny God’s power and will to work in the life of every believer
in every age by His Spirit could lead to the assertion that man can save himself
if only he knows enough. It would lie within the believer’s power, having
understood what God has revealed, to live his life in the light of that knowledge
alone, and bring it to a successful issue. Such a view, they would claim,
is entirely out of accord with the Bible’s own revelation of the mediation
of the risen Christ and the facts of Christian worship.
Philippians 2:12
Romans 8:31-34
Ephesians 3:14-21
Finally, there may be some who mistrust all
claims to possess the Spirit’s gifts, or be subject to the Spirit’s guidance
or help, and have come to the conclusion that the only safe course is to claim
the sole sufficiency of the Bible, without acknowledging any power from above
which could, as they would put it, come between the believer and his unrestricted
reliance on the written Word of God. These would then claim that the Holy
Spirit simply does not now operate otherwise than through his Word. The
believer has his Bible, and needs nothing else to enable him to secure the
blessing at his Lord’s return.
OUR TREATMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The method adopted here is simple. In principle,
what we are doing is to ask the Bible what is the truth of the matter. If
it proves that the Bible offers us the power to speak with tongues and work
other miracles today, then these powers are available. If the Bible is found
to promise every believer, or his church, inspired understanding of God’s
truth without further recourse to its pages for confirmation, then that is
the truth of the matter. If the Bible tells us that truth can be found only
by studying its pages, but that this truth can only be worked out with the
help of God’s Holy Spirit if it is to be effective, then for the help of that
Spirit we must seek. Finally, if it should tell us that the Book itself is
all we can expect of have, we must be happily content with that.
Isaiah 8:20
John 5:39
2 Timothy 3:14-17
Of one thing we must beware. Our own feelings,
whether we are predisposed to view with enthusiasm wielding the miraculous
powers of the Holy Spirit, or whether we are inclined to suspect and resent
such aspirations, must not usurp a calm enquiry into the teaching of the Word
of God itself. We must neither demand more than God offers, nor reject what
he does: to do either would be to make void the Word of God by our traditions.
Matthew 15:3, 6
Mark 7:13
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Though it might not always be put in these terms,
it is clear that when men of God wrought miracles (as Moses, Elijah, and Elisha),
it was the Spirit of God which gave this power to them. Though the prophets,
when they spoke messages from God, said “The word of the Lord came unto me”,
and the like, the New Testament tells us how this came about by stating: “Holy
men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Words to the same
effect are sometimes used by the prophets themselves, as when Moses tells
us that “the spirit of God came upon” Baalam, or when David says, “The spirit
of the Lord spoke to me”. But apart from the special powers conveyed by the
Spirit of God to special men it is clear that the people as a whole had to
await such revelations, and profit from them as they received them from prophets
and lawgivers, having no such inspiration of their own.
| Exodus 4:1-7,
and chapters 5 onwards |
2 Peter
1:19-21 |
| 1 Kings
17:16-24, etc. |
Numbers
24:2 |
| Jeremiah
1:2, 4, 7, 11, etc. |
2 Samuel
23:2 |
There are also some indications of a quieter
manifestation of the Spirit in assisting the personal lives of men of God.
When king Saul ceased to seek God’s ways, and the Spirit of God departed
from him, to be replaced by “an evil spirit from the Lord”, a man who had
been helped to rule well was given over to the workings of his rebellious
mind because he revolted from under God’s hand; and when David in his remorse
pleads that God will not take away His Holy Spirit from him, but will uphold
him with a willing spirit, he is not asking for inspiration to speak or write
oracles from God, but for renewed fellowship with God, to create in him a
clean heart and strengthen him in righteous ways.
1 Samuel 16:14
Psalm 51:10-17
THE MIRACULOUS MANIFESTATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE
NEW TESTAMENT
This begins with the power granted to the aged
Elizabeth to bear a child (after a pattern which had already occurred several
times in the Old Testament), a power continued in her son John, who was to
be “filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb”. It reaches
a vastly higher level when God grants a child to Mary, Himself being the Father
of the child. When Jesus was fully grown, He could claim the fulfillment
of Isaiah’s prophecy “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me”, a fact revealed
in all He spoke and did. He is marked out from all the former prophets by
the fact that God “gave not the Spirit by measure” to Him: they must wait
until they were moved by the Spirit before, “at sundry times in divers manner”,
they could truly speak in God’s name; but the message from God was constantly
on Jesus’ lips, so that He spoke with an authority which never failed. The
power of God was ever with Him, so that virtue could go out from Him to work
healings such as had never been seen before.
| Luke 1:5-23,
26-38 |
John 10:25,
38 |
| Luke 4:17-19 |
John 15:24 |
| Isaiah 61:1-2 |
Luke 6:19 |
| John 3:34 |
Luke 8:46 |
| Hebrews
1:1-2 |
|
Even before he died the Lord gave some power
to heal to His disciples, who were able to take tours of duty, their signs
bearing powerful witness to the grace of God. Yet they must await His death,
resurrection, and ascension before the fullness of such powers could be granted
them. “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and
greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”
Matthew 10:8
Mark 16:15-18
John 7:39
John 14:12
The apostles must, the Lord said, “wait at Jerusalem
until they were endued with power from on high”. The Holy Spirit (sometimes
called Parakletos, “the Comforter”, conveying the thought of a Helper
by one’s side), was to lead them into all truth, bringing to their remembrance
all that the Lord had said to them. On the Day of Pentecost the sound of
the rushing mighty wind announced the descent of the heavenly powers upon
them. By these powers they could speak with other tongues and prophesy.
They could heal the sick and even raise the dead. Those of them whose writings
have come down to us joined the inspired men of the Old Testament in writing
“the commandments of the Lord” under the guidance of His Spirit, so that
these writings, too, came to be known as Scripture.
| Acts 1:8 |
Acts 21:10 |
| Luke 24:49 |
Acts 3:1-10 |
| John 14:16 |
Acts 9:36-43 |
| John 15:26 |
1 Corinthians
14:37 |
| John 16:7 |
2 Peter
3:15-16 |
| Acts 2:1ff |
|
The miraculous gifts were for a time more abundant
than (save in the case of the Lord Jesus alone) they had ever been before.
Peter described the event as a fulfillment of the prophecy that God would
‘pour out his Spirit on all flesh”, so that “your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall
dream dreams”. As a result numerous people, named and unnamed, are found
able to exercise one of more of the gifts. Apart from the prophetic and miraculous
powers of the pre-eminent Peter and Paul, we have, for example, the Spirit-guided
preaching and miracles of Stephen in Jerusalem, and Philip the evangelist
in Samaria. Philip’s four daughters are prophetesses, and there is a body
of prophets at Antioch. Agabus is a prophet who by the Spirit predicts a
famine, and also the arrest of the apostle Paul. Paul writes of the Lord’s
ascension as resulting in His “giving gifts to men”, in providing and endowing
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. He recognizes as
operations of one and the same Spirit the words of wisdom and knowledge, faith,
healings, miracles, prophecy, tongues and their interpretation, and lays down
guidelines for their profitable use. In the recorded experience of the earliest
Christian community much of the promise to the apostles was fulfilled: “These
signs shall follow them that believe: in my name they shall cast out demons,
they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they
drink any deadly drink it shall in no wise hurt them.”
| Acts 2:14 |
Acts 21:9-11 |
| Joel 2:28 |
Ephesians
4:7-13 |
| Acts 6:8 |
1 Corinthians
12-14 |
| Acts 8:4 |
Mark 16:18 |
THE LIMITATIONS OF THE MIRACULOUS GIFTS
All the same, granted the widespread existence
of these powers, we must not go beyond the New Testament’s own picture of
the situation. Thus the miraculous outpouring at Pentecost came on the apostolic
company, but not on their audience, who were amazed at what they saw and heard.
Even when three thousand accepted the call to repent and be baptized, on the
promise that they would “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”, it is not said
that they received any miraculous powers, for immediately afterwards we are
told that “many wonders and signs were done by the apostles” while the multitude
experienced “great grace”. When seven believers “full of the Spirit and of
wisdom” are selected for a special duty, no miraculous works are attributed
to them until the apostles lay their hands on them and appoint them to their
duties: after which Stephen and Philip, at least, are able to command attention
by the wonders they work. When Philip exercises his powers in Samaria, no
powers are conferred on those whom he converts until Peter and John arrive,
when their prayers cause gifts, but not the right to transmit the gifts, to
fall on converts there.
Acts 2:43
Acts 6:5-6
Acts 8:14-17
Acts 8:18-24
The occasions when the gifts are renewed from
above seem specially designed to provide new witness that this is the work
of God when a new advance makes this desirable. Pentecost provided that witness
in Judea; Peter and John are granted it in Samaria; when Peter preaches to
the first Gentile the signs are sent unbidden from above to assure all that
this admission of the Gentiles to the faith is the work of God. The conversion
of certain disciples of John in Ephesus to a truer understanding of the work
of Jesus and His power to save was followed by similar evidence to convince
them that this was so. So far as the Acts are concerned, that is all. There
may have been such occasions elsewhere and at other times, and Paul’s references
to “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (to the Corinthians), and “he
that supplieth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you” (to the Galatians)
might be indications pointing that way. But the indications of the Acts are
that these effusions were rare, limited, and for specific objects.
| Acts 2:1 |
Acts 19:1-7 |
| Acts 10:44 |
1 Corinthians
2:4 |
| Acts 8:14 |
Galatians
3:5 |
Direct guidance by the Holy Spirit also occurred:
but again it seems, this was in limited measure and for special purposes.
Twice Paul was deflected from his plans (to visit Asia and Bithynia), and
then directed in a vision to go to Philippi instead. Through prophets, or
by direct revelation, Paul was warned by the Spirit of the consequences which
would follow a visit to Jerusalem. There is no evidence at all, though, that
instructions of this kind were the order of the day for Christians in general,
which is plain enough when we consider the pains to which the writers of the
inspired Epistles went to share their revelations with their readers. The
very disputes which arose, and the heresies which raised their heads in the
infant community make it all too plain how much such people needed guidance
from their Spirit-instructed leaders if they were to deal wisely with their
problems. Direct divine guidance was the privilege of the few, and not the
common property of all, or even of most, believers.
| Acts 16:6-10 |
Acts 15:3 |
| Acts 20:23 |
Hebrews
2:3-4 |
| Acts 21:4,
11 |
Ephesians
3:5 |
| 1 Corinthians
11:23 |
Jude 17 |
There were other limitations, too. “He shall
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have spoken unto you” is
a promise which could only apply to those who had heard the Lord in the first
place. The authority given to the apostles when the Lord said “Receive ye
the Holy Spirit” was unique and incommunicable. The powers of healing were
either not available for their own advantage or that of their friends, or
were deliberately abdicated. Paul’s eye troubles, and his “thorn in the flesh”,
could only have been removed by the Lord, who wished them in fact to remain.
Paul’s sick friend was healed, not because Paul wrought a miracle on him,
but because the Lord Himself had mercy on him.
John 14:26
John 20:22-23
Galatians 4:13
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Philippians 2:25-30
Even when the Lord Jesus Himself was on earth,
He made it plain that the miracles of healing were not ends in themselves.
He neither healed all the sick in the land nor removed penury from their poor.
One miracle, at least, was performed “that ye may know that the Son of man
has power on earth to forgive sins”, and His signs in general were directed
to establishing His person and office as Saviour, and as Son of God. They
were outward signs of greater things which He could do, and the restricted
and selective use of similar powers by His apostles and evangelists were to
the same end. The signs had no saving power in themselves, and to dwell upon
miraculous powers as though they represent now, or ever did, the essential
function of the Gospel is gravely to misconceive the work of the Saviour.
Even healed bodies die in the natural course, and the Lord had and has something
far better to offer His disciples than a brief prolongation of their natural
vigor during what must remain an essentially mortal life.
Mark 2:10
John 20:30-31
Acts 3:6-26
“We that are in this body do groan, being burdened”,
just as they did when the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were at their height.
We shall not be rid of the burden until it pleases the Lord, at His second
coming, to “change the body of our humiliation and fashion it anew like unto
His own glorious body.” Only then will His power be used to end all sorrow
and sighing, and wipe away all tears.
2 Corinthians 5:5
Romans 8:18-23
Revelation 7:17
Revelation 21:4
Isaiah 25:8
THE PASSING OF THE MIRACULOUS GIFTS
First as a matter of history, the period of
abundant miracles was very limited. By the close of the first century the
end had almost, if not quite, been reached. One factor in particular bears
witness to this: the marked inferiority of the literature which follows the
apostolic age to that written under the Spirit’s guidance in the apostolic
age, which makes up our New Testament. We should hardly expect God to
continue to men the gift of speaking in unknown tongues when He denied to
them the gifts of supernatural knowledge and wisdom which, compared with their
predecessors, they so evidently lacked.
Paul actually seems to write as though the miraculous
powers may have been on the wane as early as his First Letter to the Corinthians.
There were real gifts still, and men were exhorted to “covet earnestly the
best gifts”. There were valid tongues still, and they were not to forbid
their use. But strange things were happening: unseemly competition between
those claiming the gifts was evident; tongues were being spoken in circumstances
inconsistent with their purpose, and calculated to bring ridicule on the faith.
People produced prophecies or messages purporting to be from God, but themselves
showed little of the wisdom one would have expected such endowments to bring.
Mighty powers were being claimed by those who were children in understanding.
Those who thought themselves “to be a prophet or spiritual”—that is, to have
the corresponding gifts—were expected to acknowledge that Paul’s instructions
were “the commandments of the Lord”, with the implication that if they failed
this test they had been deceiving themselves.
1 Corinthians 14:1-40
Moreover, in encouraging them to concentrate on the development
of the spirit of love among themselves, the apostle speaks of prophecy as
being only for a time, tongues as about to be silenced, and supernatural knowledge
as about to be withheld. At a time when faith and hope (both of which look
to the future), and love, would be as abiding as before, the other gifts would
have passed. This may not allow us to fix a date for their vanishing, but
the fact that Paul presses the matter so strongly to the Corinthians suggests
that they, who first received the message, were at least in some degree to
feel the bereavement of their passing, and would need the assurance provided
by their faith, hope, and love if they were to bear the loss without losing
confidence in their calling.
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
A minor symptom pointing in the same direction
may well be that whereas, earlier in the letter, Paul has recognized the existence
of genuine women prophets (“any woman praying or prophesying”, like Philip’s
daughters to which we have referred earlier), towards the end of the letter
he lays down a rule of silence for female members in the assembly of the congregation,
which suggests that the period when “your daughters shall prophesy” was already
drawing to its close.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
1 Corinthians 11:4
THE CLAIM FOR MIRACULOUS GIFTS TODAY
In those early days there could never be any
doubt that the gifts were there. They came spontaneously in response to the
will of God. Men and women met together, perhaps for prayer, perhaps for
witness; and, some few times, it pleased God to take these quiet, reverent
assemblies and pour out His power upon them. “God bore witness” unmistakably,
and men were reduced to trying to explain away phenomena so striking that
they could not be denied. But in most cases now, when such gifts are claimed,
the situation is otherwise. The time selected for “speaking with tongues”
is an occasion for much enthusiastic hymn singing, and a thorough awakening
of the emotions of those concerned. What is called a “baptism of the Holy
Spirit” for initiates seems often to involve, under such influences, some
sort of paroxysm which could not have been produced in a calmer atmosphere.
It is difficult to imagine anything less like the apostolic situation, and
the very idea of seeking to conjure up the gifts by creating such an atmosphere
casts the gravest doubts on their genuineness. The gifts of tongues is the
one on which such assemblies seem to concentrate, and of all the gifts of
the Spirit this is the one which is the easiest to simulate, and the most
difficult to put to objective test.
| Acts 2:1-4 |
Acts 8:14 |
| Acts 4:31 |
Acts 10:44 |
| Acts 6:6,
8 |
Acts 19:1 |
reference will be made below to the meaning of baptism
of the Holy Spirit
Besides this, Paul lays it down expressly that
tongues are “a sign for the unbeliever". As at Jerusalem, Samaria, and
Caesarea, the gift of this power to make oneself understood in the languages
of the hearers (though not, in all probability, essential to the understanding
of the message in view of the widespread knowledge of Greek as a common language)
was evidence to those as yet unconvinced that God was with the preaching,
to the silencing of the critic and the conviction of the sincere enquirer.
But the majority of the tongues movements of today practise their arts in
their own prayer meetings, apparently for the edification of their members,
so laying themselves dangerously open to the charge against which Paul warned
the Corinthians in their excesses: “Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not
to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth
not for them that believe not, but for them which believe. If therefore the
whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues,
and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not
say that ye are mad?”
1 Corinthians 14:22-25
What may be much more important than mistaken
expectations of the bestowal of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, and self-deception
in supposing that they have been achieved, is the fact that the one who looks
for such things as a primary objective is looking for the wrong things, and
in the wrong way. A man is no better for the ability to speak with
tongues (or the power to use the rarer gifts either), even supposing the endowments
to be real, and no worse for lacking the ability. The powers, when they were
available, provided an opportunity, indeed, to witness to the reality of the
Gospel message; but in New Testament times as much as now men who sought for
salvation did not expect to find it because they were able to work miracles,
or to lose it because they could not.
1 Corinthians 12:12-26
SALVATION AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD
Salvation is a matter of repentance from dead
works, faith towards God, and baptism, with a new life to follow in which
we no longer live unto ourselves but unto God, and look to Him through Jesus
Christ for the fulfillment of all our needs. What happened on the day of
Pentecost is very much to the point, and must now be examined. When the Jews
had been made to feel their guilt in putting to death the Son of God, they
were “pricked in their hearts, and said, Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
This was a heart-cry of desperate men, conveying the idea, “Whatever can be
done to win forgiveness for men as guilty as we are?” Peter’s answer must
have been relevant to this urgent question:
“Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to you is the promise, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall
call unto Him.”
Hebrews 6:1-2
Acts 2:37-39
Note the following points: (1) Peter answers
their cry by calling on them to depart from an old way of life, and embrace
a new, which is the basic idea of repentance; (2) he couples their repentance
with baptism, which is in Scripture the means whereby a repentant person seeks
to bury his old life and rise to a new one; (3) on this condition he promises
them remission of their sins, which amounts to assuring them that their troubled
consciences can be healed, and themselves be reconciled to God; (4) he promises
the gift of the Holy Spirit, to others also, but does not associate this promise
with any reference to miraculous gifts; (5) they are not in fact said to
receive any such miraculous gifts, which the apostles continue to exercise
in their presence, but are said to continue “in the apostles’ doctrine and
fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayer”, and to rejoice in
their new calling in gladness and simplicity of heart.
Acts 2:41-47
It is thus probably that the “gift of the Holy
Spirit” in this context does not refer to the miraculous powers with which
(in the apostles’ case at least) it was accompanied, since these powers as
such had no relevance to the needs of these sinful but penitent men. What
they needed was forgiveness, restoration, and the intercession of the Son
of God whom they had crucified; in short salvation in all its aspects
was what they needed from the Spirit’s work. Peter speaks of the “promise”
being to them and others, and although in Acts 1:4 “the promise of the Father”
and in this chapter “the promise of the Holy Spirit” clearly relate it to
the topic of this essay, the same word “promise” elsewhere in the Acts can
relate to the fulfillment of the expectations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Paul does, in fact, connect the two together when he writes that Jesus died
in order “that upon the Gentiles we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith”. All this is involved in Peter’s assurance that those who
repent and are baptized will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 1:4
Acts 2:33
Galatians 3:13-14
We should not expect such a promise as this
to be restricted to any one race, or any one or two generations; and Peter’s
promise sounds absolutely universal: “The promise is to you (the Jews of
that time), and to your children (their descendants if they showed
the same repentance and faith), and to all afar off” (to Gentiles as
well as to Jews). There is no suggestion of any exception.
It is true that the other occasions when this
word “gift” is used in the Acts are associated with evidence of miraculous
powers. But this would be expected. The powers provided the evidence that
the gift was real (just as the healing of the palsied man showed that his
sins could be forgiven), and there could have been no such proof unless the
signs had been present to confirm the Word. But this provides no justification
for equating the gift with the signs, and when the same word is used in the
Epistles it can refer to “the gift by grace” through Jesus for the salvation
of sinners, “the gift of righteousness”, and “the unspeakable gift” by means
of which God is able to satisfy the believer’s every spiritual need, while
on the lips of the Lord Jesus the “gift of God” is associated with the giving
of “living water”.
| Romans 5:15,
17 |
Hebrews
6:4 |
| 2 Corinthians
9:15 |
Mark 2:10-11 |
| Ephesians
3:7 |
John 4:10 |
| Ephesians
4:7 |
|
Whether this understanding of Peter’s words
to the Jews at Pentecost is, or is not, wholly correct, what we need to know
is if the teaching here envisaged is borne out elsewhere in Scripture, by
the Holy Spirit being spoken of as the means whereby this peace of heart,
this fellowship with God, and this help towards salvation on which the power
to work miracles has no bearing at all, may come about. When we examine the
matter, the answer is plain. The Holy Spirit is frequently so spoken of,
and in this sense it is not restricted to some brief interval in apostolic
days. Thus the Lord promises that the Father will “give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him”, against the background of teaching the disciples to pray
in terms of the Lord’s Prayer. John reports that the Lord promised the Comforter
forever, not only in the necessarily restricted sense of a revealer of miraculously
provided knowledge to the apostles, but also as the means whereby “if a man
love Me….my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode
with him”. Paul speaks of “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through
the Holy Spirit which was given unto us”. The man who has died to his old
life in baptism “walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit”, for “the
Spirit of God dwells” in him, even assisting in his prayers. Those who are
heirs of the kingdom have “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”.
The disciple’s body is “a temple of the Holy Spirit”. Those who wish to escape
the ruin which the works of the flesh will bring must “walk by the Spirit,
and they will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh”, being “led by the Spirit”
and bearing its fruit. Paul prays that his brethren may be “strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in
their hearts through faith” – and this “unto all generations, for ever and
ever”. The true circumcision are those who “worship by the Spirit of God
and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh”.
| Luke 11:13,
1-10 |
1 Corinthians
6:19 |
| John 14:23,
26 |
Galatians
5:16, 18 |
| Romans 5:5 |
Ephesians
3:14-21 |
| Romans
8:4 |
Philippians
3:3 |
| Romans 14:17 |
|
The believer has renounced the way of the flesh
and his own self-will. Henceforth it is possible for the Spirit of God to
dwell in him. Having been taught of God by submission to the teaching of
His Word, in which he continues to seek his daily guidance, he now rejoices
in the Lord and in the power of his might. In Christ he is succoured against
temptation, and in Him is able to do all things needful by the strength the
Lord supplies in response to humble prayer. In his daily walk to the kingdom
he is directed by God in the face of evil and doubt in the patient waiting
for Christ. As the temple of the Lord in which the Spirit of God dwells,
he waits for the redemption of the body by that same Spirit. It is in that
Holy Spirit that he is taught to pray.
| John 6:45 |
Philippians
4:13 |
| Romans 8:9,
11, 14, 23 |
2 Thessalonians
3:5 |
| 1 Corinthians
3:16 |
Hebrews
2:18 |
| Ephesians
6:10 |
|
This is the merest selection from numerous passages
which allow no possibility of escape (as if one could wish for escape!) from
the relationship of the Holy Spirit of God to the sanctified life, throughout
this dispensation.
But this relationship claims no private revelation
for the believer. For his knowledge of the ways of God he remains entirely
dependent on the Bible, the Word of God. It claims no control over the Spirit
or power to use it in working miracles nor any gift to make him independent
of the Scriptures believed and obeyed: it is needful to work out our own
salvation while “God worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure”.
Philippians 2:12-13
We do not seek to understand, still less to
explain, the manner in which God employs his Spirit for the benefit of His
children. No one who has learned from the Word that “the Spirit (or wind)
moveth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but cannot tell
whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the
Spirit” would be so bold as to imagine that he can chart the course of the
Spirit’s activities. We need simply to recognize that in every department
of the believing life, from beginning to end, when we renounce all thought
that we are sufficient unto ourselves, God is able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think. God has made Himself known to us in His Word.
God has sent His Son to die for our sins. God has raised Him from the dead,
and after His pattern has received the baptized saints as risen to a new life.
And now “it is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” It is no
accident that this heavenly Mediator is in one passage called by the same
name as the Spirit, “a Comforter (Advocate) with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous”. In fact, 1 John 1:1 (on the one hand) and John 14-16 (on
the other), together link the work of intercession of the high Priest who
is actually seated at the right hand of God with the consolation of the disciples
who would enjoy the fellowship of Father and Son through the Spirit. The
whole process of salvation and redemption in Christ is called in Luke “the
consolation (paraklesis) of Israel”.
| Romans 8:31-39 |
John 14-16 |
| John 3:3-8 |
Luke 2:25 |
| 1 John 2:1 |
cf. Isaiah
40:1-8 |
It is the consistent teaching of Scripture that
salvation is “not of works, lest any man should boast”. Even when the believer
does good, if he does it in his own strength without reliance on God, it can
be sin to him and lead to his undoing. The Son of God Himself confessed,
“I can of mine own self do nothing”, and this is the pattern for His servants.
A caution is needed, though. The necessary emphasis on the presence of God
by His Spirit in the believer’s life may give encouragement to those who know
their need; but it can also lead to near-despair on the part of those who
know that this help is promised, but who within themselves feel but dimly
the associated indwelling of Him who said, “Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him.”
It may help to recognize that even the early servants of God, in the days
when the Spirit was manifested by its miracles too, could be cast down and
desolate. Our own temperaments, the prevailing unbelief of our environment,
the constant inability to pray as we ought, all conspire to cheat us of the
confidence in God which can make sure that He is near to help. Paul knew
it of his own generation. When he wrote the inspiring words to the Ephesians
already referred to, praying “that they might be strengthened with all might
by his Spirit in the inward man”, he prayed for something that the Ephesians
found hard to apprehend. If it is hard for us too, that is no reason for
despair. The natural man fights hard before he yields. The New Testament,
by its constant exhortations to the believer to submit himself to the mighty
hand of God, reveals how hard the conflict is before one can truly and consistently
walk in the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:9
John 5:19, 30
John 6:63
Revelation 3:20
Ephesians 3:14 –21
The very exercise of faithful prayer is a testimony
to the truth of what we have concluded. Unless “Give us this day our daily
bread,” and “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil”, and
many others, are so construed simply as psychological exercises, affecting
the morale of the one who prays, but having no influence with Him that heareth
prayer, to offer such prayers at all admits at least the possibility of an
answer. When God grants such an answer, He may, of course, employ the angels,
“those ministers of His that do His pleasure”, but if that answer involves
a grant of strength or courage, or the supply of “the peace of God which passeth
all understanding”, God must make these things available through the use of
His Spirit.
Matthew 6:6-13
Psalm 103:21
Hebrews 1:14
Philippians 4:4-7, 19
The hymns we sing show plainly that the same
truth has always been accepted, even when expressed in other terms. When
we sing, “Abide with me”, calling upon God as the helper of the helpless,
our Guide and Stay: or, “In death’s dark vale I fear no ill with Thee, dear
Lord, beside me”; or, “O may the bounteous God through all our life be near”;
or, “And freely with that blessed One Thou givest all”; or “Thy bountiful
care what tongue can recite” –choosing words well known to all from a multitude
of examples—are we not expressing confidence that God through His Son will
be present to bless those true disciples who put their trust in Him? This
confidence is soundly based on the Word of God itself, where we are as truly
invited to seek the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, so understood, as we are
to look for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God.
2 Corinthians 13:14
BIRTH OF THE SPIRIT
Becoming a disciple of the Lord Jesus by baptism
is spoken of as both burial to an old life and rising to a new, and the birth
of a child of God. “As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to
become children of God”. “Beloved, now are we the children of God.” The
rebirth which gives rise to this sonship is variously described: by James
it is, “Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be
a kind of firstfruits of His creatures”; by Peter: “Being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, of the word of God that liveth
and abideth”; by Paul to Titus: “The washing of regeneration and renewal
of the Holy Spirit”; and by the Lord Jesus to Nicodemus: “Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.”
Because it is evidently true that our present pilgrimage falls far short of
the glory that is to be revealed (“It does not yet appear what we shall be”),
and because those who attain to the blessedness to come are described as “the
children of God, being the children of the resurrection”, it may be tempting
to take the Lord’s own promise and divide it into two parts: birth of water
now in baptism, followed by birth of the Spirit in the future to become the
“children of the resurrection”. But there is no need to do so, and it is
not a probable interpretation of the verse. The Lord is referring to one
birth, “of water and of Spirit”.
He proceeds at once to discuss what it is like to be born of the Spirit, seemingly
making it plain that the water is the symbol and the Spirit’s motions the
outcome. Such statements as, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God” almost read like comments on this statement of the Lord
Jesus. And the “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” –a
washing of rebirth and being made new by the Holy Spirit—is distinctly said
to have been “shed forth on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.”
There is no need to look for some startling event, or unforgettable experience
to signify this rebirth: spiritual babes, like natural ones, are born young,
and full growth of the new creature in Christ Jesus is a long, and often chequered,
process.
| John 1:12-13 |
Titus 3:5 |
| 1 John 3:1-3 |
John 3:1-8 |
| James 1:18 |
Romans 8:14 |
| 1 Peter
1:22 - 2:2 |
|
The acceptance of the baptism of water is the
believer’s own part in offering his surrender as the ground for God’s operation.
God’s own part cannot be timetabled: for the new life thenceforth is the
expression of a battle between the surviving desires of the flesh and the
renewing influence of the Spirit: insofar as the former are dominant, so
must the latter be impeded; insofar as the believer by prayer seems to “buffet
his body and bring it into subjection", by so much does the seed of God
which abideth in him protect the believer from sin and bring his mind into
conformity with Christ. There is nothing automatic about it. A person formally
baptized may so resist the working of God within him that no true regeneration
occurs; or he (and she) may so yield to the sweet influences which are learned
from the Word and mediated by the risen Lord that the result is renewal in
the spirit of the mind, with all the development of the stature of the fullness
of Christ which follows from this. How much could in principle be achieved
in the totally surrendered mind, with past sins abjured and forgiven and present
and future ones contained by the yielding of the members of instruments of
righteousness, is hinted at in the promise that the Lord “is able to keep
us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy through Jesus Christ our Lord”; and the corresponding one
that with love made perfect one might even “have boldness in day of judgment”.
Though such perfect submission is in practice achieved by few, it is nevertheless
the goal to which the believer may strive without despairing.
| Galatians
5:16-25 |
Ephesians
4:23, 13 |
| 1 Corinthians
9:27 |
Jude 24-25,
R.V. |
| 1 John 3:9 |
1 John 4:17 |
| 1 John 5:18 |
James 1:13-14 |
BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
In circles known as Pentecostal it is the expectation
that believers will, or at least may, undergo a rapturous, ecstatic experience
known as baptism of the Holy Spirit, which will establish to themselves and
to others that they are the children of God. Indeed, this notion of spirit-baptism
has sometimes been pressed so far that baptism in water has been rejected
as superfluous. In Scriptural terms this is substantially an argument from
silence, since explicit references to baptism of the Holy Spirit are uncommon,
and are confined to the Gospels and the Acts.
| Matthew
3:11 |
John 1:26-34
(?) |
| Mark 1:8 |
Acts 1:5 |
| Luke 3:16 |
Acts 11:16 |
In these passages it is plain that John the
Baptist is comparing his own limited mission with the greater work which the
Lord Jesus will perform, and is looking forward to the outpouring of miraculous
powers at Pentecost which will show beyond doubt that the crucified Christ
is Lord indeed. In none of the cases is there any indication that an ecstatic
experience will be the lot of every believer. We are simply told that the
powers of the forerunner are minimal compared with those of the One whom he
announces. The one will promise, and the other will realize, the activity
of the Spirit of God among redeemed mankind. It is not a question of supernatural
ecstatic experiences, but of the evidence that God is indeed working for the
salvation of men. The fact that Peter could give evidence of this by the
effusion at Pentecost and by what happened at Caesarea is in no way evidence
that these miraculous manifestations must or should accompany the inauguration
of the Christian life. Insofar, therefore, as the baptism of the Holy Spirit
is distinct from being born of the Spirit, it is simply the supernatural witness
at first granted to show that the claims of the Lord Jesus were warranted,
and that His salvation was indeed available to all believing people who would
become baptized in water into the death and resurrection of their Lord. Moreover
the “unquenchable fire” referred to by John must relate to the Lord’s final
work of judgment.
Acts 2:1-4
Acts 10:44-47
Romans 6:1-11
When Paul writes that “in one Spirit were we
all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free;
and were all made to drink of one Spirit”, the baptism to which he refers
is the common baptism in water, as a parallel passage shows, since “as many
of us as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There can be neither
Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus”. But this baptism could at that time lead to miraculous manifestations,
as well as the enlargement of the quieter blessings of faith and wisdom and
knowledge. In the latter sense it is the privilege of every believer yet
to say “Lord, increase my faith!” Or, “Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief!”:
and know that the prayer will not be unheard. Noisy and emotional eruptions
claiming the influence of the Spirit are readily counterfeited, are at best
unprofitable, and have no part in the beginning or the continuance of the
life of the believer today.
1 Corinthians 12:13, 4-11
Galatians 3:27-28
Mark 9:24
Luke 17:5
THE GRACE GIVEN UNTO US
None of us has anything which he did not receive.
To begin with, God gives to all life and breath, and in Him we live and move
and have our being. Then, fallen creatures as we now are, God gives the
blessing of His Son to open out the way of life; and He gives His Word to
tell of His purpose which culminates in that Son. To follow that, as our
studies have now witnessed, He promises all needful help from above to answer
the needs of His servants and strengthen them on the way of pilgrimage to
the Kingdom of His glory. And though there were gifts of prophecy, healing,
tongues, and the like, which for the present have ceased, the people of God still stand
in need of such services as ministry (caring for the wants of its members),
teaching (by faithful men instructed in the Word), exhortation (encouragement
and correction on the way of life); giving (in response to the gift
of love which the Father has showered upon them); rulership (not with
autocratic pretensions, but with a loving gentleness which seeks that all
should be done decently and in order to the glory of God); and mercy
(a tender forgiveness of those who have erred, and a wholehearted restoration
of those who repent). In these and other respects we, individually and collectively,
stand in sore need of all the help which God has promised. And in all these
functions and others the apostle bids disciples offer their bodies a living
sacrifice to God that, by His power and blessing, they may be both strengthened
to do them and as the essential road to their own salvation, that they may
be “transformed by the renewing of their mind, that they may prove what is
the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God”, who through Christ their
Lord, “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us.”
Romans 12:1-16
Ephesians 3:14-21