The Holy Spirit in the Epistle to the Hebrews

THAT this epistle was originally addressed to Jews who professed the name of the Lord Jesus is shown by its contents. This fact and their peculiar condition must never be lost sight of in the study of it. We may assume that the epistle was especially addressed to the church in Jerusalem with its thousands of Hebrew Christians, who were still zealous for the law. There are a few references to the Holy Spirit in this epistle which we have to examine.

Hebrews 2:4

Chapter 2:4. "God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will." This evidently refers to the days of the apostles, when the gospel was preached to the Jews first. As we saw in the comment on the Holy Spirit in Acts, He manifested His power in signs and miracles, because the Jews asked for signs.

Hebrews 3:7

Chapter 3:7. "Wherefore as the Holy Spirit saith, today if ye will hear His voice." This is a significant expression. It embodies the belief of the Jews, that it was not David who spoke, or the prophets, but the Holy Spirit. It might be well to use this phrase more in these days of the denial of the inspiration of the Word of God and to say instead of, as Paul, Peter or John said, "as the Holy Spirit saith."

Hebrews 6:4

Chapter 6:4. "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." This is a solemn warning addressed to those Hebrews who were undecided and in danger of turning back to Judaism after they had been under the influence of the gospel and the Spirit of God. In abandoning the truth brought to them by the Spirit of God that Christ is the Lamb of God and turning once more to the Jewish sacrifices, they crucified the Son of God afresh and put Him to open shame. There is nothing in the passage, so often used by Arminian theologians, to contradict the perseverance of the Saints, which would warrant the belief that those who are warned were real believers. The description of these apostates does not speak of them as justified believers, born again and children of God. As the "Numerical Bible" states, "the apostle after describing them, immediately adds, as to those whom he is addressing: But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you even things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. This is the most distinct assurance that he had no thought of one who had known salvation incurring the doom of an apostate." The phrase "partakers of the Holy Spirit" does not mean at all the gift of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power which is present in Christianity; it is present when the gospel is preached. Those who come under the preaching of the gospel in the energy of the Holy Spirit partake of the Spirit, but that does not mean salvation or the gift of life.

Hebrews 9:8

Chapter 9:8. "The Holy Spirit thus signifying, that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing." This is another interesting passage. It teaches that the Holy Spirit is the author of the types, the shadow things in the old dispensation. He is the author of the Word of God, the communicator of the revelation of God and He also reveals the same truth in the Levitical institutions, the tabernacle service, the sacrifices, the offerings, the priesthood and its different ceremonies. The marvelous teachings revealed through these institutions are sufficient evidence that the Holy Spirit has produced all.

Hebrews 9:14

Chapter 9:14. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." It is an additional truth as to the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ. As man on earth, in the perfection and value of His person, He offered Himself, by the eternal Spirit, without spot unto God. This offering by the eternal Spirit took place on the cross. Therefore, on account of this spotless offering by the eternal Spirit, every sinner who comes to God through Him, is purged from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 10:15

Chapter 10:15. "Whereof the Holy Spirit also is a witness to us." This is spoken in connection with a quotation from the prophet Jeremiah. The passage shows that the Spirit of God witnesses and speaks through and in the prophets. The witness of the -Spirit is in the Word of God.

Hebrews 10:29

Chapter 10:29. He is called in this verse "the Spirit ,of Grace" because He is given through the grace of God and He communicates that grace to the heart and life of the believing sinner. This exhortation had its special meaning for those Hebrews who had not been fully converted and were halting between two opinions; it is of the same meaning as chapter 6:1-6.

There is no mention of the Holy Spirit in the Epistle of James. The passage in chapter 4:5 has reference to the spirit of man, which lusteth to envy. Those addressed by James in his epistle (the earliest of all written, about 45 A. D.) the believers among the twelve tribes of Israel scattered abroad, possessed the gift of the Spirit like all other believers. Being an intensely practical epistle, the doctrine of Christianity not being the subject unfolded, nothing is said of the Holy Spirit.