03.06. The Gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38; Romans 8:9. The Lord Jesus sought to cheer the drooping spirits of his apostles, who were saddened at the announcement of his departure from them by saying: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you." The change that was wrought in these disciples by the coming of the Holy Spirit is revealed in the later Scriptures. They were transformed, energised, equipped for service and for witness. The power by which they spake could not be resisted. Simon, afraid when a girl called him a disciple, became indeed Peter, the rock-apostle who testified before the murderers of Jesus that he was the Messiah and Son of God. Not all the promises associated with the Spirit’s presence and work in the apostles can rightfully be appropriated by believers, but it is evident that the best which the Holy Spirit can do was not limited to the apostolic company. The greatest gift is for all the people of God who will appropriate it. The power for Christian living and service is at our disposal. On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles at .Jerusalem, Jesus stood up and cried aloud: "Whoever is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, from within him, as the Scripture hath said, rivers of living water shall flow." John adds that "he referred to the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive; for the Spirit was not bestowed as yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified." A neglected subject.

It has to be confessed that many Christians neglect unduly the New Testament teaching regarding the Holy Spirit. Dr. A. E. Garvie begins a recent article with the sentence: "Except in a few devout circles, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has in the history of the Christian Church been very generally neglected." This witness is true. The thought of the living, personal Christ is much more real to the ordinary believer than is that of the ever-present and indwelling Spirit. As Dr. Garvie puts it: "It may be admitted that the historical reality of Jesus gives to the content of the consciousness of the living Christ, in which the historical reality is, as it were, spiritually diffused and continued, a definiteness which any consciousness of the Spirit’s presence and activity lacks. Further, few Christians have the assurance to maintain, as I have heard one Christian minister at least maintain, that they can by reflection in their inner life clearly distinguish and separate the fellowship with the living Christ and the working of his Spirit." But the failure thus to distinguish neither gives justification for a denial of revealed truth, nor proves the identity of Christ and the Spirit. Despite some recent statements to the contrary, we are sure Dr. Garvie is right when he says: "However intimately Paul relates Christ and the Spirit, so that whenever Christ is believed as Saviour and Lord, the Spirit is possessed, I am convinced that he nowhere identifies Christ and the Spirit, still less does he confuse them."

It is not with the Holy Spirit’s work in and for the believer that we are now concerned, but with the fact of his indwelling. The great thought is of the highest mark of our discipleship. Believers are distinguished from non-believers by their possession of the Spirit. They have been "sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13). They are thus marked as Christ’s own. Here is something beyond and above any work wrought in or for them. Christians have the supreme token of God’s favor when he gives to them his Holy Spirit. There are two familiar texts which emphasise this wonderful method of divine discrimination between the worldling and the Christian. Of the Spirit, Jesus used the words: "Whom the world cannot receive" (John 14:17). To Christians the Apostle Paul wrote: "Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6). The gift promised at Pentecost. To the inquirers of Pentecost, pricked in their hearts by the message, the Apostle Peter gave a command and a promise: "Repent ye, and be baptised 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" (Acts 2:38). What is this gift? There is a certain ambiguity which brings this text into our series. The "gift of the Holy Spirit" might be (a) a gift which is bestowed by the Spirit, or (b) the Spirit as a gift. There is a similar ambiguity in another much discussed text, Ephesians 2:20, where Paul speaks of Christians as belonging to the household of God, "being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets"--which is interpreted by some to mean the foundation of them simply because they laid it; and by others (with more reason) a foundation consisting of apostles and prophets.

Regarding Acts 2:38, it might be argued that, since in the parallel construction of John 4:10 "the gift of God" means a gift from God, so "the gift of the Holy Spirit" will mean some endowment or gift which the Holy Spirit bestows. Accordingly, there are to be found some who think the reference is to such spiritual gifts as certain members of the apostolic church received. These, however, are by the Apostle Paul otherwise described as "charismata" (1 Corinthians 12:1 ff.). There is no evidence at all that the "doorea" of Acts 2:38 is the "charisma" of 1 Corinthians.

There are other passages in Acts and the epistles, also, which make it clear that it is the Spirit himself who is promised, in fulfilment of Jesus’ word in John 7:39. Thus in Acts 5:32 Peter and the apostles are represented as speaking of "the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them that obey him." Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:8 writes that God "giveth his Holy Spirit." The Christian’s body is in 1 Corinthians 6:19 described as "a temple of the Holy Spirit." The Ephesian Christians were urged to "be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). No amount of argumentation could make more definite the teaching of such passages. The badge of our sonship is the possession of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost we have not only a fulfilment of the promise of power made to the apostles, so that they should be able to give their adequate witness; but we also have the beginning of the fulfilment of the promise of John 7:1-53 : that believers were, after Christ’s glorification, to receive the Holy Spirit. It is well to consider these two promises apart. Pentecost marks the beginning of the dispensation of the Spirit. But the greatest thing in connection with the Spirit’s Pentecostal manifestation was not the more spectacular baptism and speaking with tongues on the part of the apostles, but the promise of the bestowal of the Spirit upon every one who in humble faith surrendered himself to the exalted Christ and Lord.

Unchristian, without the Spirit.

There is a text which expresses the great truth a negative form. In Romans 8:9 the Apostle Paul writes: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." This passage also may be read in two different ways, and so is classed as ambiguous, though there should be no real doubt of the meaning. In the chapter as a whole there is a certain ambiguity due to the fact that the Greek word "pneuma" is used either of the human spirit or of the Divine Spirit. The word can denote wind, air, breath, life, or spirit. If the reader will carefully peruse Romans 8:1-39, and compare the Common and Revised Versions, be will find that the Common Version throughout prints Spirit with a capital "S," while in Romans 8:4-11 the revisers print the word six times with a small "s," indicating that the human spirit is meant. It is the very same word which in the same chapter the revisers printed ten times with a capital letter. The American Standard Revised Version and Moffatt’s New Translation return generally to the view of the Common Version, while Weymouth and Rotherham agree more with the English Revision. There can be no finality regarding all the verses; there is a legitimate difference of view.

Regarding Romans 8:9, in the judgment of all the translators of the versions quoted "the Spirit of God" and the "Spirit of Christ" (there can be no intended distinction between these) refer to the divine Spirit, a personal Being and not a mere influence or disposition. The personality of the Spirit is clearly implied in Romans 8:11, Romans 8:16 and Romans 8:26; to raise the dead, to give testimony, to pray, to have a mind, are evidence of personality., and could not properly be predicated of an energy or influence.

There are two classes of people who do interpret Romans 8:9 as referring to the disposition of Christ. First, of course, all who deny his divine personality do so; but their general reasoning is weak and their view opposed to Scripture. In the second place, it is not uncommon for speakers who do believe in the Spirit’s personality to use the text in an accommodated sense to enforce a needed lesson. They talk thus:--"If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." What was the spirit, or disposition, of Christ? One of humility, obedience, trust, self-sacrifice, devotion, fidelity, and so on. An admirable lesson is thus adduced, but one which in our judgment had much better be attached to another text. It is true that we should follow the example and imitate the character of our Lord; but that is not the lesson taught in Romans 8:9. The preacher should make his homiletics and his exegesis agree; else he may unintentionally mislead his hearers regarding important truth.

If we read Romans 8:9 in accord with John 7:39, Acts 2:38, Acts 5:32, 1 Thessalonians 4:8 and 1 Corinthians 6:19, we shall get its deepest meaning. This indwelling Spirit is God’s highest gift to his people, that which distinguishes the believer from the unbeliever. It is of course true that when the Spirit dwells in the heart of the Christian, there will be produced the fruit of the Spirit--love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. The Spirit helps our infirmity, strengthens us with might in the inward man, and enables us to reproduce in some measure the character of our Lord.

"Be filled with the Spirit."

We referred at the beginning of this study to a common neglect of the New Testament doctrine of the Spirit. We shall do well to remove the reproach of this neglect. As with the doctrine of our Lord’s coming, that "blessed hope," so here--it is probably the common neglect of the scriptural truth which furnishes the occasion for the errors and extravagances of others. Extremes beget extremes. We shall lose, and also make others lose, if we minimise or ignore the working of the indwelling Spirit of God. With Alexander Campbell we would say that we "could not esteem as of any value the religion of any man, as respects the grand affair of eternal life, whose religion is not begun, carried on, and completed by the personal agency of the Spirit of God." We who have appropriated the promise of Acts 2:38 should give heed to the command of Ephesians 5:18 and seek to be "filled with the Spirit."

We may close with Dr. Moffatt’s translation of a well-known Pauline passage: "In him [Christ] you also by your faith have been stamped with the seal of the long-promised holy Spirit which is the pledge and instalment of our common heritage, that we may obtain our divine possession and so redound to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:13-14).