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  INDWELLING SPIRIT (1911)
  by DavisonW
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Davison's 1911 treatise on the doctrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit, examining
the Spirit's presence within the believer, His transforming work, and the
implications of His indwelling for the Christian life.

  Chapters: 1

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00 Indwelling Spirit (1911)

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  CHAPTER 1: 00 INDWELLING SPIRIT (1911)
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THE INDWELLING SPIRIT BY W. T. DAVISON, M.A., D.D.

PRINCIPAL OF RICHMOND COLLEGE, SURREY MEMBER OF THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY AND
EXAMINER IN DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
http://www.archive.org/details/indwellingspirit00daviuoft HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

PREFACE THE following pages obviously do not contain a systematic treatment of
the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit. They contain suggestions only, not a
comprehensive survey of a great properly speaking, an illimitable subject.
Greater completeness in the study of this topic is indeed most desirable, but
perhaps completeness of plan and systematic outline are not the chief requisites
in an attempt to describe the influence upon the human spirit of that Divine
Breath which bloweth where it listeth, and whose chief characteristic it is to
surpass human thought and expectation. Complaints have been frequently made as
to the lack of adequate treatment of this central doctrine of Christianity, a
deficiency largely remedied of late by works such as are named in the selected
list of books that follows. The Holy Spirit is God imparting Himself directly to
the consciousness and experience of men. Hence the subject is approached in this
volume from the side of experience, rather than of dogma; of Biblical
exposition, rather than of philosophical discussion ; of life and practice,
rather than of theological specula tion. An attempt is, however, indirectly made
to show that the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit meets the needs and
claims of modern religious life better than certain philosophico-religious
theorizings vii viii PREFACE that ignore or disparage the teaching of the New
Testament. The connection between the various chapters which compose the book,
though not logic ally close, is real and vital ; and it will be seen that some
of the chief aspects of the work of the Spirit that are of present-day
importance have been either directly or indirectly treated. The writer s deep
con viction is, that greater emphasis needs to be laid upon God s work in man,
the presence of Christ, by and through the Holy Spirit, in the hearts and lives
of Christians, even if it be at the expense of inter esting questions of
doctrine that are of necessity largely speculative. The substance of Chapters
XII, XIII and XIV has been delivered in the form of sermons on special
occasions, and the style of spoken address has not been altered. Part of Chapter
XV was given at a meeting of the National Free Church Council, whilst Chapter
XVI originally appeared as an article in the London Quarterly Review, and I am
indebted to the courtesy of the Editor for permission to re-publish it. All
these portions of the book are reproduced at the instance of those who had
previously heard or read them. The bearing of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit
upon the myriad forms of mystical religion, referred to in the last chapter,
has, of neces sity, been only touched in passing. It deserves careful and
continuous treatment.

Richmond,

February 1911.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto, 376 A.D.

John Owen, Pneumatologia, Works, Ed. Goold, 1869.

John Goodwin, Pier o ma to Pneumatikon; or A Being filled with the Spirit, 1670;
Reprinted 1867.

J. C. Hare, Mission of the Comforter, 1846.

Smeaton, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 1882.

W. P. Dickson, St. PauVs Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, 1883.

Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, 1899.

Lechler, Die Biblische Lehre des //. G., 1899.

Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Geistes, 6-v., 1899.

Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, Translated by De Vries,

1900.

Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, 1 899.

Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 1909.

Downer, The Mission and Administration of the Holy Spirit,

1909.

Denio, The Supreme Leader, Boston, 1910.

Irving Wood, The Spirit of God in Biblical Literature, 1904.

Arthur, Tongue of Fire, 1856.

Selby, The Holy Spirit and Christian Privilege, 1894.

Welldon, The Revelation of the Spirit, 1902.

J. R. Illingworth, Personality Human and Divine, 1894, and Divine Immanence,
1898.

Inge, Christian Mysticism, 1900.

Von Hiigel, Mystical Element in Religion, 1908.

Rufus Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, 1909.

James Burns, Revivals, their Laws and Leaders, 1909.

Rudolph Eucken, The Life of the Spirit, 1909, Translated by F. L. Pogson ;
Christianity and the New Idealism, Translated by L. J. and W. R. Boyce Gibson,
1909. x SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Also, the related portions of the works of Oehler,
Schultz, and A. B. Davidson on Old Testament Theology ; and those of Beyschlag
and G. B. Stevens on New Testament Theology.

Aso Schmiedel s article on " Spiritual Gifts " in Encyclopaedia Biblica, Swete s
on "Holy Spirit" in Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, and Cremer s article "
Heiliger Geist" in Herzog- Hauck s Real-Encyklopadie.

CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHY ,,.... x

I DIVINE IMMANENCE I

II THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT . . 27

III THE SPIRIT IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL . . 57

IV THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 79

V THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT , * , 97

VI SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 1 19 t

VII PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT ,. 135 xi xii CONTENTS

PAGE

VIII THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 151

IX THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 171

X THE HOLY SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS . . . 193

XI THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH TEACHER OF TEACHERS . .213

XII THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 233

XIII A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH 253

XIV THE INDWELLING CHRIST 267

XV THE HIDDEN LIFE . 295

XVI MYSTICAL RELIGION , . . . . . ^1 DIVINE IMMANENCE " Whither -hall I go from
Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" Ps. cxxxix. 7.

"God is Spirit ... in essence simple, in powers various, wholly present in each
and being -wliolly everyivhere; . . . shared without loss of ceasing to be
entire, after the likeness of the sunbeam, whose kindly light falls on him who
enjoys it, yet illumines land and sea and mingles with the air" BASIL.

" To find God everywhere, you must everywhere seek for nothing but Him."
RUYSBROEK.

"No picture to my aid I call, I shape no image in my prayer;

I only know in Him is all Of life, light, beauty everywhere, Eternal Goodness
here, and there." WHITTIER.

DIVINE IMMANENCE WHAT is the Christian view of God and the world, especially of
the relation which God continually maintains to the world which He has brought
into being ? An Atheist finds no meaning in the ques tion, because he denies the
existence of God; an Agnostic asserts that if such a Being exists, it is
impossible that man should know anything about Him. In practice, an Atheist may
mean only to deny that the evidence is strong enough to prove the existence of
the Theist s God; and Agnosticism in the person of Herbert Spencer, one of its
best repre sentatives, admits so much in relation to that Infinite and Eternal
Energy from which all things proceed, that his exposition might include a
considerable part of natural theology. Still, it is vain to discuss with atheist
or agnostic the exact relation between "God" and the world, when there is so
small a measure of agreement as to the very meaning of the word.

Dualism and Polytheism, as forms of religious belief, hardly exist among
civilized nations to-day.

According to them the ultimate Ground of Reality in the universe is either Two
or Many. The Zoro- astrian holds that the facts of the physical and moral worlds
point to rival ultimate powers of life and death, good and evil. The Pagan does
not pass beyond the idea of many Divine powers, amongst which some measure of
subordination, or CD-Ordina ls 3 4 DIVINE IMMANENCE tion, may be discernible,
but the Manifold refuses to be entirely brought into relation with the One, or
under its control. These forms of belief belong to ancient rather than to modern
history, or to existing nations and tribes that have come least under the
influences of modern Western civilization. Whether an exception ought to be made
of the doctrine of philosophical Pluralism advocated by Professor W.

James need not be at the moment discussed. Broadly speaking, it may be said that
thinkers of the modern age are prepared to accept unity as the basis of reality,
though the methods of harmonizing the One in whom, or in which, they believe
with the Manifold, obvious to the senses and the understanding, vary almost
indefinitely with the philosophical or religious systems adopted. A prevailing
tendency in the thought of the time is to emphasize unity in the universe at the
expense of multiplicity. Pantheism, indigenous in the East, may not be in set
terms accepted as a creed by many Western thinkers, but Pantheistic tendencies,
philo sophical rather than religious for Pantheism, properly speaking, is more
philosophical than religious prevail in many diverse quarters. Monism is a name
which covers fundamentally different creeds. These agree in the doctrine of One
only substance in the universe; be it matter, or spirit, or one " stuff" with
double aspect. W T hether Monism, strictly speaking, is compatible with Theism
may be questioned. Understanding by Theism, in the words of one of its best
modern exponents, a belief in "a personal self-existent Being, infinite in power
and wisdom and perfect in holiness and goodness, the Maker of heaven and earth,"
it is opposed both to materialistic and idealistic Monism. But the preva- DIVINE
IMMANENCE 5 lence of these latter systems in our time brings the Theist face to
face with the question raised at the outset. If the existence of One living
personal God, creator of all, be admitted, what is His continuous relation to
the universe He has brought into being ?

I The chief conflict of Theism in the West to-day is not against rival
religions, but against "world-views" which either dispense with religion
altogether, or attempt to provide a substitute for it, or use the word in a
sense which the Theist cannot accept. It is of no use to denounce these
alternative theories, or to ignore them as unworthy of the consideration of a
religious man ; it must be shown that Theism accounts more completely for the
facts of life, and is itself a more living and potent force in the thought of
our time than any other hypothesis of world-existence. This can hardly be done
without a clear understand ing of what is meant by the phrase which is now
before us the Immanence of God in His own universe.

Naturalism, as one prevailing method of regarding the universe has come to be
called, identifies reality with nature, nature with science, and science with
physical science. By nature is to be understood the whole of things viewed from
the standpoint of mechanical causation. Allied to Positivism in main taining the
doctrine that nothing is knowable except phenomena, Naturalism meets the
prevailing desire for a unity of principle pervading the cosmos as a whole,
makes man the creature of conditions, the product of evolutionary forces, and so
far as it contains a doctrine of man, emphasizes the importance of his 6 DIVINE
IMMANENCE own energy and activity, not his dependence on a higher power. One
important side of life as we know it is undeniably represented by this doctrine,
but the question is whether justice is done to the whole, and especially the
higher, part of it. When Naturalism is examined it is found to bean abstraction
; its victories many, great and abiding have been gained because, for the sake
of investigating "nature" thoroughly, certain leading factors of actual
existence have been for the time eliminated, in order that the work of "science"
might be the better done. The "laws " of science are symbols only, shorthand
notes, abstract formulas, admirably calculated for the purpose for which they
have been framed, but representing only certain aspects of the many-sided
reality which man seeks to study and understand. Naturalism fails to recognize
the relation of its science as a whole to consciousness, freedom, and those
higher instincts and capacities which are at least as much a part of "nature" as
the unquestionable facts on which it insists. An opposite tendency, sometimes
known by the vague and ambiguous name of Idealism, makes the intellect dominant
in the interpretation of God and the world, and with Hegel holds that Thought is
Reality and Reality is Thought. All is subordinate to the development of the
Idea, a process of system- making from the standpoint of thought, which takes
iittle account of the external, except as material out of which to furnish forth
an abstract plan which alone possesses reality and abides. In essence Idealism
is opposed to Naturalism, yet the two are found some times in strange, yet quite
intelligible, combination.

Joined together in a period of high culture, they con stitute Humanism, which
treats the world of nature DIVINE IMMANENCE 7 and thought, of which man forms a
part, as the whole of things, with man himself as centre and crown.

Humanism denies the existence of a world beyond our own, a life beyond the
grave, and a reality beyond phenomena so far as our faculties can take us, and
therefore it denies the relevancy of the question, What is the relation between
God and the world? For though it is professedly theistic and often uses the word
God, He is not regarded as over the world, or over- against the world, or other
than the world only as the whole viewed from a given standpoint. God is an idea,
says one such modern writer, "which serves to generalize and idealize all the
values one knows " ;

"the word involves a living process, law, or movement, in the working of which
human needs are satisfied, justice and truth established, and distant ideals
attained." Room is left in this doctrine for the emphasis which some would lay
on the greatness of the individual, or for the supreme claim which others make
for society and the race ; but in either case man becomes a god to himself, or
else the whole of which man forms the crowning element is worshipped, if any
place be found for worship at all.

Hence a growing and deepening world-weariness. The unsatisfying character of
much of the most "advanced" teaching of our time is notorious, and it is due to
the fact that religion has so far lost its real power. Sir John Seeley s Natural
Religion, though published many years ago, remains still one of the best
representatives of a current quasi-theistic world-view characteristic of the
later nineteenth and opening twentieth century. It is because Eucken, as a
philosopher and quite apajrt from Christian ortho doxy, has pointed out this
failure with so much clearness and power, that many are turning to him as 8
DIVINE IMMANENCE a teacher of promise and inspiration. He says, "A weariness of
the world and a deep dislike to its limita tions are becoming more and more
general. We feel that life must forfeit all meaning and value if man may not
strive towards some lofty goal in dependence on a Power that is higher than man,
and, as he reaches forward, realize himself more fully than he could ever do
under the conditions of sense-experience. Cut off from the larger life of the
universe, and shut up in a sphere of his own, he is condemned to an unbearably
narrow and paltry existence, and the deeps of his own nature are locked away
from him." 1 It is his way of looking at life which so often puts the man of
culture out of his place, and therefore out of gear. He is not really
self-sufficing, but dependent. The race as a whole is not its own end, is not
really isolated, but bound up with a higher Order. The individual is not
transient, but immortal; God has "put eternity in his heart." Modern attempts,
such as Seeley s, to substitute awe in the presence of nature, and the
solidarity of the human race for true worship of, and communion with, the living
God, have proved unavail ing. The conception of human nature thus implied is
faulty and deficient; and that deficiency, only too manifest in some of the
highest and best thought of our generation, Theism professes to supply.

II The introduction of the term "worship" begs a large question which it is not
our object now to dis cuss. The position here taken is that religion neces
sarily implies an adequate object of worship, that for a personal being such as
man a personal object is 1 Meaning and Value of Life, pp. 57, 58.

DIVINE IMMANENCE 9 needed, and that, rightly speaking, neither Pantheism, nor
Monism of any type, materialistic or idealistic, leaves room for worship. It is
fundamental with the Theist to maintain the existence of Another than man,
Highest of all, on whom we depend, to whom moral obligation is due, and who
forms at the same time the Source, the Sustainer, and the Goal of all existence.

It is not denied that difficult questions arise some of them probably far beyond
our answering as to the relation between a personal God and nature as we know
it. The Theist sums up his reply to these ques tions by the use of two words,
Transcendence and Immanence, which must be combined in order to define the full
relation. The immanence of God implies that God is everywhere and always present
in the universe, that from no conceivable corner of it is He absent, nor is He
separated from its life, but that He informs, inhabits, pervades, as well as
sustains and holds together, the whole. His transcendence implies, not that He
is outside the universe, but that He is not shut up within it, not limited by
it. Whilst He informs nature, He infinitely surpasses it, and while always
within it, He is always independent of it, and able with infinite power and
wisdom to act upon that which He Himself has brought into being and ever
sustains in all its parts and operations.

There is no contradiction between the two attributes thus defined, though it may
not always be easy to maintain them together and observe a just proportion in
their mutual relations. The word, however, which calls for special study, and on
which special emphasis is laid to-day, is Immanence. Why is it made promi nent?
Why has it largely taken the place of Omni presence as a Divine attribute ? Does
its frequent use 10 DIVINE IMMANENCE imply any change in the prevalent ideas of
religion, or in the relation of God to the world around us and within us? And,
especially in view of "new theologies," which are to be "re-articulated in terms
of the Immanence of God," are there any dangers in the use of the word which
must be avoided, any limits which must be laid down, if the teaching of the
doctrine is not to slide imperceptibly into Pantheism ? The reason for the
prevalence of the word in this century is not far to seek. Undue insistence on
Divine transcendence puts God too far away from His own universe. Judaism,
especially later Judaism, in unfolding the majesty of God, magnified His tran
scendence. Islam follows on similar lines. The Deism of the eighteenth century
virtually proclaimed an absentee Deity, one mighty enough to bring worlds into
existence, wise enough to lay down laws for their regulation, and then cold and
careless enough to leave them to the working of the secondary laws He had
established, vouchsafing no special revelation of His will, still less providing
a Saviour for a sinning and suffering race. The God of the Deist was a mighty
Architect, a great Lawgiver, a sovereign Ruler, an all-wise Judge : the world is
the work of His hands, the product of His creative energy. But within the
universe He is represented only by law and order, and by the principles of
beneficent government; in the actual working of the world the living God has
disappeared, and the one thing men in the eighteenth century could not believe
was that God is "not far from" i.e. most near to "every one of us." The
Omnipresence of such a God was, indeed, in theory taught, but, as Dr. Martineau
expresses it, "in that Divine infinitude there is a death-like coldness; so long
as it is only a passive, though it be an observant DIVINE IMMANENCE 11 presence
brooding over every field of thought, it is but Space with eyes, that can never
leave us within or without, yet will never help us, or so much as return a
whisper to our cry." 1 In the nineteenth century a great change passed over all
Western thought in these high matters.

Nature ceased to be a machine, and was understood to be an organism. Further, if
the name God was to have any meaning at all, it was felt that nature must be the
organized expression of His indwelling will, not a mere remote product of His
almighty fiat.

"From no part of its space, from no moment of its time, is His living agency
withdrawn, or less intensely present than in any crisis fitly called creative."

Wordsworth, at the opening of the century, antici pated, as poets are used to
do, results more slowly reached by science. He taught the earlier nineteenth
century how to discern "A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated
thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interposed, Whose
dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All
thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things."

Before the end of the century the idea of the reign of law had spread, and order
had been traced every where until men could no longer entertain the idea of a
God who manifested Himself only at exceptional crises, who was manifest mainly
in "gaps" and " breaks " and exceptions. For the religious man nature had come
to be a living robe of God indeed, con tinually depending upon and upheld by the
living presence of Him, without whose informing energy and 1 Study of Religion,
Vol. II, p. 171.

12 DIVINE IMMANENCE wisdom the whole would collapse and disappear. By the end of
last century it was clearly understood not only that all things were made by
Him, but that in Him all things consist.

Ill This position indicates a clear advance in religious thought and feeling.
True Theists cried out, not for less of God, but for more ; they refused to be
satisfied without a God of whom it might be said He in all and all in Him. But
in what sense? For confusion of thought here is easy, and just discrimination
very difficult. Wordsworth was by some accounted a Pan theist, and Tennyson was
not afraid to profess a "Higher Pantheism." Some, like Dr. Allanson Picton,
began with "Christian Pantheism" what ever such a paradoxical phrase might mean
but, naturally enough, ere long dropped the epithet and professed the
Pantheistic creed entire. Pantheism is not so much an abyss into which men fall
without intending it, as an atmosphere which encompasses them, and which they
breathe without knowing it.

It has been said that "Christianity, if it is to triumph over Pantheism, must
absorb it," but what if Pan theism absorbs Christianity in the process ? It is
possible, though not always easy, to preserve the Pantheism of the best mystics
and the mediaeval hymn, "Intra cuncta nee inclusus, Extra cuncta nee exclusus,
Extra totus complectendo, Intra totus es implendo." Immanence may be maintained
without teaching either that all is God and identifying the being of the
creature with His, or that God is all, that He has no being above and beyond the
universe. But confusion has arisen in the use of the word, DIVINE IMMANENCE 13
partly through not sufficiently distinguishing between God s relation to
inorganic nature and to organized and sentient life on the one hand, and, on the
other, His relation to the higher, voluntary life of man.

Further, the essential difference between the relation of God to man in nature
and in grace must never be lost sight of, if His indwelling in humanity is to be
adequately understood. But the chief line of cleavage lies between spiritual and
non-spiritual existence. The relation of God who is Spirit to creatures whom He
has made spirits in His own likeness is obviously different from any that He can
entertain to inorganic creation or the lower organic creatures around. There are
schools of thought that reject the very idea of spirit in the life of man, and
with these we are not now concerned. But it is unquestionably difficult in our
time to preserve this central landmark clear and firm amidst the inrolling tides
of naturalistic world-views. Eucken is surely right when he urges that one main
struggle of the present generation is "that which we have to wage for a
spiritual centre for our civilization and a perception of the meaning and value
of life." It is essentially a new kind of life when spirit appears on the scene,
and "its construction of a world from within, with its own particular contents,
value and order, can never be the work of man by himself. It is only to be
understood as a movement of the whole of reality itself which surrounds man,
takes hold of him and drives him on." 1 Not only does man as spirit distinguish
the I from the not-I, he is able to transcend these distinctions and pass to a
higher unity which transcends all "nature."

It is obvious that the problem of Immanence arises 1 Spirit of Life, pp. 17, 18.

14 DIVINE IMMANENCE specially here. God is in nature, not spatially, but as
Spirit, directing and controlling, the Source of all, Sustainer of all, moving
and impelling to a goal which nature knows not, which He only knows. Only a part
of the Divine nature if the expression may be allowed can be operative and
manifested in this region. Power, Wisdom, Beneficence can be dis played, but no
conscious response on the part of the creature is possible. The world viewed as
a mechanical product is one thing, as the nursery of a world of spirits it is
quite another. Religion tells of such a world of spirits, dependent on God for
existence as are other finite creatures, but each pos sessing, because He has
bestowed it, a nature which separates him from nature and allies him to God ;
which enables him to say, Thou and I. Hence arises conscious dependence, the
possibility of com munion and of alienation, obligation from without, compliance
from within, the power of resistance, recon ciliation, renewal. The world of
spirits is the training ground of the moral creation.

If the Immanence of God be asserted here, where most of all it is needed, it
must be with all due regard to the conditions of the case. How is God related to
the world of finite spirits ? All men are apt to think in metaphors, and even
philosophers would teach in metaphors drawn from nature, which may confuse
rather than illumine. Analogies taken from the sun and its rays, from fountain
and stream, from root, stem and branches, must be strictly limited in their
application to personal life.

Divine Immanence in the human spirit is not of thought, or intellect, alone, as
Spinoza and Hegel, and to some extent T. H. Green, taught, each in his own
fashion. Neither is it one of feeling alone, as Schleier- DIVINE IMMANENCE 15
macher was understood to maintain. It is not one of will alone, as Kant would
seem to intimate in his doctrine of the Practical Reason, resolving religion
into morality and the right conduct of life in obedience to the Divine will. The
whole of human nature must be included in its various relations to that Divine
Being who is not mere Intelligence, mere Power, mere Beneficence, but the
Highest Life of all, the only real and complete Personality in the universe. He
pos sesses a personal life in its unimaginable perfection and has entrusted His
high gift in a measure to some of His creatures, that they may continually press
forward towards its fuller realization. The Divine Spirit is at the same time
God over all human spirits, around them and within them each word to be
maintained with equal weight and strenuousness. To apprehend, maintain, enjoy
and extend that many-sided relation constitutes the true life of the finite
spirit through all its history. This implies a human self, a world of "selves."
But what is to be understood by the word ? It cannot mean the subjective
experience of the passing moment, and the principle of continuity is not easy to
describe. Do we as yet "possess our souls," or are we in process of "acquiring"
them? The differing translations of Luke xxi. 19 suggest a distinction which
may, or may not, be implied in the Greek, but it must never be lost sight of in
the study of humanity. Every "self " in the finite creation is, as Aristotle
expressed it, Si^ajut? passing into ei^y/aa, a capacity developed into a mode of
activity through assimilation and conquest. The life of the spirit implies a
"being for self," but by its very constitution it implies something more. Eucken
has nobly vindicated this fundamental position, but it may be questioned whether
he allows sufficiently for 16 DIVINE IMMANENCE the individuality which forms the
germ of growth and development. He contends that it is in virtue of "spirit"
that each man possesses the capacity of un bounded assimilation in the spiritual
world. But he passes rapidly on to urge that this "selfhood" is a "point of
view" from which the whole universe is apprehended, and without that universe in
action self hood has no meaning. It is personal action on which he insists, so
that his system is most distinctively styled Activism. The principle of
personality with him is "not a mere state of personal experience which exists in
entire indifference to objective fact, but a life of action which includes and
envelops an objectivity within itself, and transfigures it in so doing." l When
the relation of the human spirit to the Divine is considered, a refuge from
difficulties is often found by describing it as "mystical " in character. Into
the various senses of that much abused word it is not necessary here to enter ;
more may be found upon the subject in Chapter XVI. But it must imply that the
individual spirit is brought into immediate contact with the Infinite Spirit,
that being the very kernel of mystical doctrine. And true Theism, not to say
Christianity, steers a middle course between a mere external action of the
Divine discerned by certain effects of grace in the human spirit on the one
hand, and an absorption of the human in the Divine upon the other, in such wise
that the innermost centre of the human soul becomes Divine. Vital union implies
a close relation in which, the finite creatureliness of the soul being never
forgotten, and its distinct, though not independent, existence being preserved,
God can infuse true life into the soul from within in varying degrees according
to the capacity of each soul to 1 Gibson, Rudolf Eucken s Philosophy of Life, p.
94.

DIVINE IMMANENCE 17 receive, and its fidelity in using the measure of Divine
Presence already vouchsafed. Such union and com munion is made closer and more
intimate by the con scious, willing, eager surrender of the finite to the
Infinite Spirit, this very surrender being maintained by the communicated
strength of all-encompassing Divine energy. But communion is not absorption.

Immanence is not identity. Rapture is not extinction of individual being. Rather
is the true nature of each distinct Finite Self more and more fully realized as
it experiences the Divine indwelling. As Browning says, "man is not Man as yet";
the inchoate self becomes the Self by union with the Divine.

" Our wills are ours, we know not how, Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."

Communion implies two beings, however lofty the one and insignificant the other.
There may be com munion in silence as well as in speech, but com munion there
must be, or the distinctive glory which God has given the highest creature known
on earth is lost. Man does not rise in the scale of being by approximating to
the passive and unconscious from the consciously active state. The inspiration
of the prophet is not at its highest when he is compared to an unconscious lyre
struck by the fingers of the musician; still less if he should undergo an utter
loss of identity, as when a drop of water disappears in the ocean. But the
Divine communion which implies the highest exercise of the human spirit is quite
con sistent with Divine action within, as well as without, the soul a Divine
energizing which "wells up" in consciousness, as the sap in the tree, the source
and supply of all its life. In the natural world the force which impels the sap
c 18 DIVINE IMMANENCE upwards acts counter to gravitation ; "capillary attrac
tion " may be described, but not explained. The power in the roots and stems and
twigs of the grow ing plant or tree to draw moisture upwards may be described as
"surface tension," or "cohesion acting as a force at insensible distances," but
such phraseology covers our ignorance of the principle by which life is
maintained in a million trees of the forest, as in the cattle on a thousand
hills. Physical illustrations carry a very short distance when used to expound
personal relations. It is enough that God, who "stands as it were a hand-breadth
off to give room for the newly-made to live," does also so abide in the human
spirit if it will unfold itself to His presence, that the new life, distinct but
not separate from the life of God, may be lived from Him, in Him and unto Him
increasingly for ever.

IV Thus far religious philosophy, but what of the Christian position ? Religion
may be viewed as giving a law for conduct, as embodied in ceremonial worship, as
a creed for the intellect and for faith ; or as implying a certain significance,
purpose and goal in the scheme and history of the world. It is from the last
point of view that we have now to regard Christianity. It is unquestionably a
religion, not to say the religion, of redemption. The idea of a com plete
renewal of nature as necessary for all men lies at its very root. The
possibility of such renewal is taught in its characteristic doctrine of
Incarnation, the method of renewal in the doctrines of Atonement, Justification
and Sanctification, the climax being DIVINE IMMANENCE 19 found in a proclamation
of Resurrection and Life

Everlasting. The part of Christian teaching with which we are now concerned,
however, is the mode in which Divine Redeeming Energy is exerted in the human
spirit. A Mediator is implied. In the twentieth century such a doctrine is not
popular. Men are so engrossed with "the course of this world," research into
nature and control of its resources, the mutual relations of society in
political, industrial, commercial and inter national life, they are so anxious
to exploit their own powers, and those of others, in the development of
materials within their reach, that they resent the idea of Salvation through
Another, the need of revelation, mediation, vicarious suffering and redemption.
If the gaze must be turned back at all two thousand years, it is enough to find.
a great Exemplar always reserv ing the rights and powers of the present
generation but not a Saviour. There can, however, be no ques tion, if
Christianity be true, that a Saviour is needed, that one has appeared in
history, and signs are not wanting that the characteristic self-sufficiency of
our age is in certain directions being broken down, and the need of Christ as a
Saviour for the world is increasingly felt and acknowledged. Be that as it may,
such is the burden of the Chris tian Gospel. A new relation of the individual to
God and a new order of the world are necessary. This work must be carried on
here and now in re newed personalities. No new substance of human nature is
necessary, its existing substance is not evil, but its bias, tendency, scope and
aim are bent and dwarfed, and man s powers can only be renewed as his relations
to God and his fellows are rectified.

Hence mere Theistic doctrine does not suffice for c 2 20 DIVINE IMMANENCE
world-renewal, but Theism with a special revelation culminating in Christ. The
work of reconciliation is already effected, the message is declared, "to wit
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them." But the meaning and power of this can only be realized by
faith on man s part and the energizing of the Holy Spirit on God s part. The
believer is brought into closer relation with God than is possible to any other
human being, a relation described as the Spirit s indwelling rather than Divine
immanence, the latter phrase being postulated of creation as a whole and
especially of mankind as the highest crea ture on the face of the earth. No man
is, or can be, outside the reach of these general influences of the Holy Spirit.
But He is now manifested as the Spirit of Christ, with special characteristics
and operations realizable only by faith in Christ. Under these con ditions the
"indwelling of the Spirit" acquires a meaning which cannot be understood outside
Christian experience, and that experience finds its consumma tion in the present
life ; not in some Nirvana or absorption into Deity, but in that state of
"entire sanctification " which means nothing more, and nothing less, than
perfect love to God and man.

Under what conditions is this process of renewal of the human spirit in
communion with the Divine possible? The Christian answer is through God the Holy
Spirit, spoken of as the third Person in the Trinity. This may seem to be
explaining the obscure by the more obscure, and it has sometimes been so taught
as to darken rather than illumine a sacred theme. But let us examine it more
closely. The doctrine of the Trinity is described as a "mystery," and such it
undoubtedly is if the word be rightly DIVINE IMMANENCE 21 understood in the New
Testament sense. It does not mean that which in itself is unintelligible, or
self- contradictory, or irrational, but that which has been only partly
revealed, or is only partially understood, because of the imperfect capacity of
those who receive it. As a revelation from God to man, a mystery is that which
can be apprehended, though not compre hended ; that which for a while was for
good reasons hidden, or which, when made known, appeals only to those who are
prepared by their own training and experience to receive it. The Trinity is a
"mystery," as the Personality of God held by the Theist is a mystery, or it
might even be said as the personality of man held by the man in the street is a
mystery. For he who understands the "flower in the crannied wall, root and all,
and all in all," may understand what God and man is. The attempt to conceive
Absolute Personality is surrounded by difficulties metaphysical, emotional,
moral. If there is an absolute Subject, this would seem to imply a corresponding
eternal Object ; even Aristotle asks what God contemplates, and answers Himself.
So with love and all other moral relations.

Tf these belong in any real sense to the eternal essence of the Godhead, they
require an object. Dr. Mar- tineau would find such an object in an eternal uni
verse, but this would interfere with the fundamental self-existence of the
Godhead and make Him as much dependent on the universe as the universe is on
Him.

It is more reasonable understanding by reason the human spirit exercising itself
on high themes largely beyond its ken to suppose that these moral and emotional
relations are interior to the Godhead, that the Deity is not a bare, solitary
unit, as set forth by the Mohammedan and the Unitarian Theist, but Him- 22
DIVINE IMMANENCE self a home of social relations. As Dr. Illingworth puts it, He
exists "in a mode of which the family, the unit of human society, is the created
and faint reflection. ... A person is as essentially a social, as he is an
individual, being; he cannot be realized, he cannot become his true self, apart
from society : and personality having this plural implication, soli tary
personality is a contradiction in terms." As another writer has expressed it
"The question of theology was : What is God ? And the answer was :

God is a fellowship, a communion of persons." Dr.

Moberly goes so far as to say, " I am not sure that this is not the one thing in
respect of Divine Person ality of which we can with most unfailing certainty be
said to have a real intellectual grasp. We see not merely that an inherent
mutuality is authoritatively implied or revealed. We can see that it is
intellectually impossible that it should be otherwise. We can see that Eternal
Personality, without mutual relation in itself, could not be Eternal Personality
after all." 1 The words now used in the orthodox creeds to express this truth
may, or may not, be the best to convey the idea. Words change their meaning in
process of time and no translation can convey the exact meaning of the original.
The doctrine of "Three Persons" suggests to the English mind the idea of
Tritheism, and "one substance" might savour of materialism. The time- honoured
phrase, admirably devised when it was coined, "neither confusing the Persons,
nor dividing the Substance," conveys little meaning to the non- theological
mind. If "persons" are individuals, mutually exclusive, the word is not
applicable to the Deity. But a Personal God for the Trinitarian means 1
Illingworth, Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 143, 144, 256;

Moberly, Atonement and Personality, p. 165.

DIVINE IMMANENCE 23 One indivisible Personality so much richer than ours that
what we need to find in others He finds in Him self. The three "hypostases" in
the Godhead are more than three aspects, more than three characteristic
functions, of one personality ; they are three subsist ences, the position and
function of each of which pre supposes the position and function of each of the
others as members of one organic whole. Each is necessary to the other and
indissolubly blended in a Unity ineffably higher than the organic unity of the
individual, as that is indescribably higher than the unity constituted by each
plant or animal around us. The Father is the Source and Origin of all. He does
not reveal Himself immediately, either in creation or redemption, but always
through the Son. The Son is the revealing principle of the Divine existence, the
organ and medium of all creation. From within He is the x a P aKT ^iP 77 1 J
vjroarda-cwy, the " impress of the substance " of the Father, and in revelation
He is the effulgence of His glory, the beginning and the end in mediation and
redemption. The position and function of the Spirit, with which we are now espe
cially concerned, is not that of ultimate source, nor does it imply the
accomplishment of the actual work of redemption, but He is throughout the
"formative and glorifying principle," in Creation, in History, in the
Incarnation, in Redemption, in the formation and development of the individual
Christian and the Church, in the accomplishment of all Divine designs for the
whole world. The will is of the Father, ac cepted and revealed by the Son,
fulfilled by the Spirit God over us, God for us, God in us. The Spirit is the
executing power of the Godhead; "by His imma nent plastic activity He unfolds
and brings forth into realization and progressively to complete manifesta- 24
DIVINE IMMANENCE tion the Divine idea of the kingdoms of the universe, the
natural and ethical," l in nature, providence and grace. In all realms it is
through the Holy Spirit that possibilities in the creature become realities, so
that each is to be brought through processes of growth and development to
ultimate perfection and glory.

It may be that in such speculations we are trying to "wind ourselves too high
for sinful man below the sky" ; that of the interior relations of the Godhead we
can think nothing, understand nothing, imagine nothing. But surely, if we use
the name of God at all, it is more reasonable to conceive of the Author of ali
personal beings as personal than as impersonal. And, in trying to conceive of
His personality, it is reason able to think of it as higher and richer than
ours, perfect where ours is imperfect. Surely also we have ground enough in our
own existence to discern unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity. The
higher the unity, the more easily and completely is the mani fold taken up into
itself, without impairing its one ness. The Christian revelation enables us thus
to think of God. As Dorner phrases it : "This principle of union in the organism
of the absolute Life we call the Holy Spirit. . . . The principle of union pre
supposes distinctions ; but distinctions presuppose in turn the principle of
union, for God could not part Himself unless He were sure of the principle of
union.

Thus Self-origination is possible by means of the mediation of the third :
trinitas dualitatem ad unita- tem reducit" 2 Absoluteness in the Infinite,
rightly understood, does not mean that which is utterly out of relation with the
finite, neither does it imply comprehension, 1 Gerhart, Institutes of the
Christian Religion, Vol. I, p. 309.

2 System of Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 421.

DIVINE IMMANENCE 25 or absorption of the finite; but a "fulness which is master
and conscious of itself," and which at the same time informs and sustains the
creature in all its rela tions, both creaturely and Divine. In the case of man
this relation has been impaired and broken. It is to be renewed in and through
Christ, Son of God Incarnate, and that restoration is being carried out by the
power of the Holy Spirit, partially now, but to be realized completely at the
last, when all God s purposes are accomplished. The life of the spirit means,
therefore, for man the process by which the human spirit, already possessed of
certain capacities, attains gradually its growth and development in union with
the Spirit of God. It is from the Christian point of view that this spirit-life
is here regarded; and it may safely be said, with all the theological and
theosophical speculations of the ages in view, that no higher, or more
practically effective, teaching on this subject has been known in history. The
"law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" means the Christian way of attaining
this high goal.

It does "make free from the law of sin and death." The redemption in Christ,
ministered by the Holy Spirit and apprehended by receptive faith, raises man
above himself as no other power has ever raised him. The process by which
"Paracelsus attains " in Brown ing s poem is nobly expressed, but it represents
aspiration, rather than achievement.

"The secret of the world was mine.

I knew, I felt (perception unexpressed, Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift And change in the spirit, nay, in
every pore Of the body, even) what God is, what we are, What life is how God
tastes an infinite joy In infinite ways one everlasting bliss, From whom all
emanates, all power 26 DIVINE IMMANENCE Proceeds : in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest form Includes; where dwells enjoyment, there is
He.

. . . God renews His ancient rapture. Thus He dwells in all From life s minute
beginnings, up at last To man the consummation of this scheme Of being, the
completion of this sphere Of life. . . . For these things tend still upward,
progress is The law of life, man is not Man as yet."

Prognostics in creation told man s near approach : so in man as he is there are
august anticipations of what he will be, "types of dim splendour in that eternal
circle life pursues." Not Divine Power alone, Divine Love is needed "love
preceding power, and with such power always more love." And yet all is not told,
the whole lesson of love is not yet learned.

He who has attained is still pressing forward.

"If I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press
God s lamp Close to my breast ; its splendour, soon or late, Will pierce the
gloom ! I shall emerge one day."

These are man s highest hopes and strivings, indicat ing at least capacity and
hope. The real secret of the upward rise is contained in the words, Your life is
hid with Christ in God. The power by which the glori ous summit is to be
attained is expressed in another well-known phrase of St. Paul "strengthened
with might by His Spirit in the inward man." Some steps in the climb up this
world s great altar-stairs to the very presence and glory of God, sustained and
animated by His indwelling Spirit, are now to be traced in the light of
Christian revelation. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT " The Father shall
give you another Comforter. ... He shall glorify me." JOHN xiv. 16; xvi. 14.

" We call the new life which came into the world the burning love, the unstinted
self-devotion, the infinite compas sion, the sweet and beautiful innocence, the
high ambition to spend and be spent for God we call all this the fruits of
Christianity. In more exact words, all has flowed from the great gift of
Pentecost." R. W. CHURCH.

"T/ie belief in the Holy Spirit as a Divine Person living, acting, quickening,
elevating, sanctifying is the key to the solution of many spiritual problems, or
at least to the temper in which alone it is possible to think of solving them."
J. E. C.

WELLDON.

"All Christians profess to believe in the Holy Ghost. Had only all Christians so
believed, and lived up to their belief, they would all have been mystics, and
there would have been no mysticism." R. C. MOBERLY.

II THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT IT is frequently said that the history
of mankind includes three dispensations, or periods of Divine self-
manifestation. First is that of the Father, from the Creation to the
Incarnation; the second is that of the Son, during the life of Christ upon the
earth ; while the third is that of the Holy Spirit, extend ing from Pentecost
till now and to the end of the world.

Truth is, no doubt, implied in such a statement, but it is not accurate, and may
easily be misleading.

There is but one Triune God, continually operative in the history of humanity,
who controls and orders all generations, age linked with age, and preparing for
ages yet to come. In this long history occurred the great epoch of the
Incarnation, during which the Son perfectly revealed the Father-God to man in
human form and fashion. Since Christ left the earth, the Spirit whom He promised
has been carrying on the work for the consummation of His Kingdom, and during
these two thousand years of Christian history it is the Holy Spirit, as the
Spirit of Christ, who has been the one operative agent in the Church and in the
world to bring fallen men into fellowship with the Father through the Son of His
love.

But, if that is true, the Church has largely failed to realize the importance of
the work of the Holy Spirit.

We hear and read far more of the Fatherhood of God

29 30 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN and of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ our Lord,
than of the operations of the Spirit. Not that this is necessarily ground of
complaint. God is One.

Father, Son and Spirit are distinctions within the unity of the one only and
true God. To glorify the Son is to glorify the Father ; and that men may do
either rightly, the Holy Spirit must glorify the Son, as Christ said He should
do. But if the full chord of Christian music is to be rightly struck, due
emphasis must be given to each note. When the work of the Holy Spirit is
insufficiently considered, the missing note is the immediate Presence and
Indwelling and Inworking of God in (i) Creation; (2) Humanity;

(3) the Church ; (4) the mediatorial Kingdom of Christ and the world at large.
The reasons for such comparative neglect are toler ably obvious. That which is
spiritual is vague and indefinite, while the actual life of Christ on the earth,
the words He spoke and the work He did, are concrete and historical. Again, the
work of the Holy Spirit in human hearts lies on the border-line between the
Divine and human, and it is only natural to emphasize the human side, the
activities and manifestations of human life, rather than the Divine energy which
prompts and animates the whole. Again, while lack of spiritual experience is a
drawback in the study of any department of theology, it is absolutely fatal
here.

Critics may discuss Christology from the point of view of history or or of
literature ; but, when they come to deal with the work of the Holy Spirit,
without spiritual knowledge they are so far at a loss that they give up the
attempt with a sneer at its futility.

Whilst, on the other hand, those who possess spiritual knowledge through their
own experience do not find it easy to convey such knowledge in words. For who
THE NEW TESTAMENT 31 among men knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of
the man which is in him ? And the deeper things which the Spirit of God teaches
are so dimly apprehended that when they are expressed they are often condemned
as mystical and unreal. The more reason, therefore, that from time to time
attempts should be made to redress the balance. The Society of Friends in the
seventeenth century, the Methodists in the eighteenth, drew attention it may be
with somewhat disproportionate emphasis to truths which the generations were in
danger of forget ting. There are indications that the twentieth century has in
this matter its own message to give and its own lessons to learn. But if we
would learn them aright we must turn to the fountain-head. The litera ture of
the New Testament is, for evangelical churches at least, normal and normative on
this, as on all other topics of Christian doctrine. If the infallibility and
inerrancy of the Scripture writers on all subjects of human knowledge are not
now insisted on, if the documents are now studied with freedom as well as with
reverence, these sacred books are felt to be the more, not the less, full of
inspiration and authority for the Christian. Guidance is here furnished for
those who trust not the letter which killeth, but the Spirit who makes alive. A
record of facts, an enun ciation of fundamental principles, are there to be
found, which are of permanent import ; and the ques tion has to be asked, How
was the work of the Holy Spirit understood and realized in the earliest days ?

What modifications, if any, has the passage of time effected? How far is the
Church following on the lines laid down in the New Testament? How far may the
modern Church expect to reach, or to surpass, the measure of the gift therein
described? What is 32 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN the significance of the work of the
Spirit in successive ages of the Church, and how is it to be understood for the
needs of fo-day? These are large questions. A wise man will think himself happy
if he is able here and there to suggest a fraction of an answer to them. The
work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament has furnished material for more
than one ample volume ; all that can be given in a few pages is some
illustration of the way in which the New Testament may be studied so as to solve
some of these perpetually recurring problems.

I The working of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testa ment cannot be ignored, and it
explains much that would otherwise be unintelligible in the manifestations of
the New. St. Peter s address on the day of Pente cost points back to the prophet
Joel, and the strange upliftings of that memorable day were not wholly new or
alien to Jewish thought. From the first chapter of Genesis to the, last page of
the prophetic volume, the Spirit is never forgotten. He appears first, last and
midst, often in unlikely places, and with increasing significance as time goes
on. Not, indeed, as "The Third Person in the Trinity," nor as distinguished from
other "Persons" in the Godhead. The Spirit of God is God Himself at work in the
world. The "breath " of God indicates the life of God in active operation
quickening, moving, energizing ; so that as God is said to have eyes to see,
ears to hear, an arm to work, so also He sends forth His Spirit, Himself the
living God and the great quickener of life everywhere. In nature, He broods over
chaos dark and rude, to THE NEW TESTAMENT 33 bring out order and peace. The
origin of life in man is that Divine breath which God breathed into his
nostrils, and it is when He sends forth His Spirit that the face of the earth is
renewed. In art, Bezaleel and Aholiab devise cunning works in gold and silver,
in brass and embroidery, because they are filled with the Spirit of God. In
government, His presence is needed.

It is the greatest of human tasks to rule well; and if in the midst of anarchy
the Judges introduced order, it was because they were inspired of God to do so;
and Solomon was endued with the Spirit to perceive and do the right as God s
vice-regent in the land. The inspiration of the prophets is of various types.
The Spirit of God came upon Elijah to dare and act, upon Ezekiel to write, and
upon Daniel to dream, as it came upon Isaiah the son of Amos to fill a great
place as statesman, and his later namesake to anticipate the ages and preach a
gospel of comfort to the exiled and disconsolate people. All moral and religious
life was under the special direction of the Spirit of God. His Spirit gives man
understanding, and the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching the
inmost parts of his being. In the latest utterances of all, that name is
occasionally used which in later days was to become so sacredly familiar, and a
tenderer tone breathes through the words, "They turned and grieved His Holy
Spirit," and "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." The prophets drew largely on
this source in the outline of their promises for the future, they had their
message concerning the Anointed One yet to appear, but no gracious forecasts
were richer than these "I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon
thine offspring"; "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall
dream dreams, the servants even and the handmaidens shall

D 34 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN prophesy, for I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh."

Without this preparation under the Old Covenant the richer grace of the New
could hardly have been conferred. Only a people trained like Israel could have
received and appreciated the revelation that was granted in the latter days.
This training had deeply impressed on their minds the close relation of God to
His people, the Divine influence never far from them, the tenderness which did
not utterly forsake them even when unfaithful, the intimate communion ever
possible, save when shut out from God by the barrier of sin. Israel, before the
coming of Christ, had travelled a considerable way towards learning what was
uttered later in sublime words for all time "God is a Spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

II Turn to the New Testament, and the doctrine is the same, yet how changed !
Mark the increasing fre quency of the mention of the Spirit ; He appears now on
every page. Mark further, that, while there is no mention of the word Trinity,
the relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son indicates a fuller
revelation of the being and nature of God. The Spirit is not only the Spirit of
God, He is the Spirit of Jesus, of Christ, of God s Son. And the change of
emphasis implies virtually a new doctrine. It is no exaggera tion to say that in
the New Testament the Holy Spirit is everywhere, in all things. Dr. W. L.
Walker, who has made this subject his own, says, "The Spirit is the great thing
in Christianity"; "The essential thing in the Christian religion"; this is "the
dis- THE NEW TESTAMENT 35 tinctive doctrine, vital, fundamental and permanent."
1 Speaking of St. Paul and Paulinism, Dr. Moffatt says, "The most vital and
central doctrine is that of the Spirit, in relation to the person of Christ and
to the Christian experience." This is not to disparage doctrines concerning the
Father and the Son, for these are the very truths which the Holy Spirit takes up
and works out ; it is the power and grace of both that He applies and brings
home to the hearts of men. The Son appears in His own glory just in proportion
as He reveals and glorifies the Father; so the Holy Spirit does not speak from
Himself, but " He shall glorify Me. All things that the Father hath are Mine,
therefore said I that He shall take of Mine and shall show them unto you." I am
leaving you, said the Saviour, yet only going away so that I shall be nearer to
you than ever; for He is coming whom the Father will send in My name. So He
spoke, and so it was done. All the latter part of the New Testament is a
commentary on these words. Christ s promise was fulfilled, and these books,
written between A.D.

50-100 teem with influences of the Holy Spirit, which breathe forth from the
pages to-day, as they have done any day for these two thousand years. The
operations of the Spirit during the life of Christ on the earth are described in
detail, especially by St.

Luke, from the birth and infancy and growth of Jesus, His baptism and
temptation, down to His Cross, where He offered His all-availing sacrifice
"through the eternal Spirit " and His resurrection, when He was declared to be
the Son of God with power "accord ing to the Spirit of holiness." The latter two
passages are instructive, though the primary reference in them is probably not
to the Holy Spirit directly. It is 1 The Spirit and the Incarnation, passim.

D2 36 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN generally recognized that during the life of Christ on
earth the Spirit "was not yet," and that a great epoch was made and marked on
the day of Pentecost, when the Church of Christ was born. What happened on that
great and notable day, and what changes came about to justify the previous
expectation and the subsequent apostolic ministry? In the narrative of Acts ii
symbolism unquestion ably has a large place. On this subject Dr. Sanday says, "A
broad recognition of the extent of symbolism is necessary in any process of
adjusting our modern ways of looking at things with the ancient ways " ; he
speaks further of "a system of equivalence," so that the critical method at one
stage shall correspond to the exegetical at another, the paraphrastic at a
third, and the symbolical at a fourth. "But the change is only in the mode of
presentation ; the essence of that which is presented is unchanged. We need to
remind ourselves from time to time that the way in which a thing appears to us
does not affect the underlying reality." 1 In studying the events of the Day of
Pentecost it is not altogether easy for us to translate the account into modern
language and answer the question, Wliat happened then ? so as to produce the
same impression on the modern mind that the second chapter of Acts produced on
those for whom it was written. St. Luke say that tongues oxret TTU/OOJ, like as
of fire, &4>Q r l crai appeared (as in a vision). Wind and Fire were already
fully recognized in the Old Testa ment as symbols of the presence of God, and
the prophecy of John the Baptist in Matt. iii. 11 goes to show that the baptism
of the Holy Ghost would be a baptism of fire. Lambent jets of flame appeared to
flicker in the air, and distribution of the gift to each 1 Christologies Ancient
and Modern, pp. 221, 227. THE NEW TESTAMENT 37 is made emphatic. On the nature
of the "gift" of tongues something further will be said in Chapter IV.

Whatever the nature of the accompanying pheno mena, the important fact is that
"they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." The Divine power which rested on
the Apostles wrought a veritable revolution how? If we compare the disciples as
they were a few weeks before, during the time of Christ s ministry, the change
is hardly credible. Even at the time of the Ascension their naive question,
"Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom unto Israel ? " shows how far
they were from understanding the person and work of their Master. The great
change wrought at Pentecost is not explicable by any ordinary experi ences, yet
there is nothing in it contrary to the teach ing of a sound psychology. What
happened is in harmony with principles now generally recognized, though they are
illustrated in an unparalleled and supernatural degree. The full results were
discerni


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/davisonw-indwelling-spirit-1911dcoxv9/
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