Chapter X: The Ascent of the Spirit, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 (5)

(5) In setting the Divine seal upon their {161} ministry among the Gentiles: "And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving _them the Holy Ghost_, even as he did unto us" (15: 8).

(6) In counseling in difficult questions of missionary policy: "It seemed good _to the Holy Ghost_ and to us" (15: 28).

(7) In restraining the missionaries from entering into fields not yet appointed by the Lord: They "were forbidden of the _Holy Ghost_ to preach the gospel in Asia. . . They assayed to go into Bithynia but _the Spirit suffered them not_" (16: 6, 7).

Very striking is this record of the ever-present, unfailing, and minute direction of the Holy Ghost in all the steps of this divine enterprise. "But this was in apostolic days," it will be said. Yes; but the promise of the Spirit is that "He shall abide with you for the age." Unless the age has ended he is still here, and still in office, and still entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out that work which is dearest to the heart of our glorified Lord. Who can say that there is not need in these days of a return to primitive methods and of a resumption of the Church's primitive endowments? The Holy Spirit is not straitened in himself, but only in us. If the Church had faith to lean less on human wisdom, to trust less in prudential methods, to administer less by mechanical {162} rules, and to recognize once more the great fact that, having committed to her a supernatural work, she has appointed for her a supernatural power, who can doubt that the grinding and groaning of our cumbrous missionary machinery would be vastly lessened, and the demonstration of the Spirit be far more apparent?

[1] Of course Catholic writers claim that the pope is the "Vicar of Christ" only as being the mouth-piece of the Holy Ghost. But the Spirit has been given to the church as a whole, that is to the body of regenerated believers, and to every member of that body according to his measure. The sin of sacerdotalism is, that it arrogates for a usurping few that which belongs to every member of Christ's mystical body. It is a suggestive fact that the name _klêros_, which Peter gives to the church as the "flock of God," when warning the elders against being _lords over God's heritage_, now appears in ecclesiastical usage as the _clergy_, with its orders of pontiff and prelates and lord bishops, whose appointed function it is to exercise lordship over Christ's flock.

[2] By the candlesticks being seven instead of one, as in the tabernacle, we are taught that whereas in the Jewish dispensation, God's visible church was one, in the Gentile dispensation there are many visible churches; and that Christ himself recognizes them alike.--_Canon Garratt, "Commentary on the Revelation," p. 32._

[3] "The Work of the Holy Spirit in Man," by Pastor G. F. Tophel, p. 66.

[4] It was impossible up to the time of the glorification of Jesus to pray to the Father in his name. It is a fullness of joy peculiar to the dispensation of the Spirit to be able to do so.--_Alford_.

[5] It were well for us to give more heed to the voice of Christian history as related to such questions as these. The rise of "sporadic sects" like the "Quietists," the "Mystics," the "Friends," and the "Brethren," with their emphasis on "the still voice" and "the inward leading," is very suggestive. If we may not go so far as some of these go in the insistence on speaking only as sensibly moved by the Spirit we may be admonished of the hard, artificial man-made worship which made their protest necessary.

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VIII

THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT

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"Have you visited the Cathedral of Freyburg, and listened to that wonderful organist, who with such enchantment draws the tears from the traveler's eyes while he touches, one after another, his wonderful keys, and makes you hear by turns the march of armies upon the beach, or the chanted prayer upon the lake during the tempest, or the voices of praise after it is calm? Well, thus the Eternal God, embracing at a glance the key-board of sixty centuries, touches by turns, with the fingers of his Spirit, the keys which he had chosen for the unity of his celestial hymn. He lays his left hand upon Enoch, the seventh from Adam, and his right hand on John, the humble and sublime prisoner of Patmos. From the one the strain is heard: 'Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints'; from the other: 'Behold he cometh with clouds.' And between the notes of this hymn of three thousand years there is eternal harmony, and the angels stoop to listen, the elect of God are moved, and eternal life descends into men's souls."--_Gaussen's Theopneustia_.

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VIII

THE INSPIRATION OP THE SPIRIT

Inspiration signifies inbreathing. Both the scribe and the Scripture, both the man of God and the word of God were divinely inbreathed. In that memorable meeting of the risen Lord and his disciples within the closed doors, we read that "_He breathed on them_ and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20: 22, R. V.). Well may the question of the scribes concerning Jesus now arise in our hearts concerning his disciples: "Who can forgive sins but God only?" And the answer should be: "True; God alone can forgive sins. And it is only because the Spirit of God, who is God, is in the apostles, endowing them with his divine prerogatives, that they are able to exercise this high authority."

We are persuaded, however, that this commission was not given to all Christians, though all have the Spirit. In a note in Olshausen's Commentary the matter seems to be correctly stated: "To the apostles was granted the power, absolute and unconditioned, of binding and loosing, just as to them was {166} given the power of publishing truth unmixed with error. For _both_ they possessed miraculous spiritual endowments." Only we should say "sovereign" rather than "miraculous" endowments. "_The Spirit breatheth where he wills_, and thou hearest his voice," said Jesus.[1] While miraculous gifts were not confined to the apostles, Christ may have committed to these, and to these alone, the sovereign prerogative of forgiving sins; gifts of healing, on the other hand, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of spirits, and tongues, being distributed throughout the church; "but all these worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even _as he will_" (1 Cor. 12: 11, R. V.). In a word, the action of the Holy Ghost was supremely sovereign in the assignment of spiritual offices, and when Jesus breathed on his apostles the Holy Ghost, and gave them authority {167} to remit sins, he separated them unto a prerogative of which others, indwelt by the same Spirit, might have known nothing. It is very generally held that the order of apostles ceased with the death of those who had seen the Lord and companied with him until the day that he was received up. But the reason for this cessation has been too little considered. May we not believe that the apostles and their companions were commissioned to speak for the Lord until the New Testament Scriptures, his authoritative voice, should be completed? If so, in the apostolate we have a provisional inspiration; in the gospel a stereotyped inspiration; the first being endowed with authority _ad interim_ to remit sins, and the second having this authority _in perpetuam_. The New Testament, as the very mouthpiece of the Lord, pronounces forgiveness upon all in every generation who truly repent and believe on the Son of God; and preachers in every age, with the Bible in their hand, are authorized to do the same declaratively. But when it is urged, as by Catholic writers, that this infallibility for teaching and absolution, which was committed to the apostles, has descended through a succession of ministers called the clergy, the answer seems to be, that this authority has not been perpetuated in any body of men apart from the Scriptures, but was transferred to the New Testament and lodged there for all time. Historically, at least, it seems to have been {168} the fact, that as the apostles and prophets of the new dispensation disappeared, the Gospels and Epistles took their place, and that henceforth the divine authoritative voice of the Spirit could be distinctly recognized only in the written word. As coal has been called "fossil sunlight," so the New Testament may be called fossil inspiration, the supernatural illumination which fell upon the apostles being herein stored up for the use of the church throughout the ages.[2]

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God [_theopneustos_--God-breathed], and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (3 Tim. 3: 16). As the Lord breathed the Spirit into certain men, and thereby committed to them his own prerogative of forgiving sin, so he breathed his Spirit into certain books and endowed them with his infallibility in teaching truth. God did not choose to inspire all good books, though he has chosen to

{169} inbreathe one book, thereby separating it and setting it apart from all other books.[3] The phrase, "the Bible is simply literature," which some are using to-day, as a suggestion against bibliolatry, is not true. Literature is the letter; Scripture is the letter inspired by the Spirit. What Jesus said in justification of his doctrine of the new birth is equally applicable to the doctrine of inspiration: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Educate, develop, and refine the natural man to the highest possible point, and yet he is not a spiritual man till, through the new birth, the Holy Ghost renews and indwells him. So of literature; however elevated its tone, however lofty its thought, it is not Scripture. Scripture is literature indwelt by the Spirit of God. The absence of the Holy Ghost from any writing constitutes the impassable gulf between it and Scripture. Our Lord, in speaking of his own doctrine, uses the same language, to show its separateness from common teaching which he employs above to mark the distinction of the new man. He says: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; _the words that I have spoken unto {170} you are spirit and are life_" (John 6: 63, R. V.). Words they were, and in that respect, literature; but words divinely inbreathed and therefore Scripture. In fine, the one fact which makes the word of God a unique book, standing apart in solitary separateness from all other writings, is that which also parts off the man of God from common men--the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Therefore we may say truly of the Bible, not merely that it _was_ inspired, but it _is_ inspired; that the Holy Ghost breathes within it, making it not only authoritative in its doctrine but life-giving in its substance, so that they who receive its promises by faith "have been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God which liveth and abideth" (1 Peter 1: 23, R. V.).

Thus far in this volume we have been dwelling upon the various works and offices of the Paraclete. Now we come to consider that the Holy Spirit not only acts but speaks. Let us listen to the repeated affirmations of this fact. Seven times our glorified Lord says, speaking in the Apocalypse: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what _the Spirit saith unto_ the churches" (Rev. 2: 7). The Paraclete on earth answers to the Paraclete above, so that to the voice from Heaven saying: "Write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth," the response is heard: "_Yea, saith the Spirit_, that they may rest from their labors," etc. (Rev. 14: 13). {171} This accords with the general tenor of Scripture as to its own Author. In referring to the Old Testament, Peter says: "This Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, _which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before_ concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus" (Acts 1: 16). And again: "David himself _said by the Holy Ghost_" (Mark 12: 36), our Lord thus plainly recognizing the voice of the Spirit in the voice of the psalmist. So again: "_The Spirit of the Lord spake by me_, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me" (2 Sam. 23: 2, 3), and "Wherefore as _the Holy Ghost saith_, To-day if ye will hear his voice" (Heb. 3: 7).

And what is it to speak? Is it not to express thought in language? The difference between thinking and saying is simply the difference of words. Therefore, if the Holy Ghost "_saith_," we are to find in the _words_ of Scripture the exact substance of what he saith. Hence verbal inspiration seems absolutely essential for conveying to us the exact thought of God. And while many affect to ridicule the idea as mechanical and paltry, the conduct and method of scholars of every shade of belief show how generally it is accepted. For, why the minute study of the _words_ of Scripture carried on by all expositors, their search after the precise shade of verbal significance, their attention to the {172} minutest details of language, and to all the delicate coloring of mood and tense and accent? The high scholars who speak lightly of the theory of literal inspiration of the Scriptures by their method of study and exegesis are they who put the strongest affirmation on the doctrine which they deny. Then we cannot forget what we imply when we say that language is the expression of thought. Words determine the size and shape of ideas. As exactly as the coin answers to the die in which it is struck, does the thought answer to the word by which it is uttered. Vary the language by the slightest modification, and you by so much vary the thought.

As ultra spiritualism interprets Paul's words "_a spiritual body_," to mean a ghost, when the accent is as strongly on the _sõma_ as on the _pneumatichon_, his real thought evidently being that of a _body spiritualized_; so some, remembering that "the letter killeth," would etherealize Scripture by telling us that the divine idea is the chief thing, and the language quite secondary. But wisely and well has Martin Luther reminded us that "Christ did not say of his Spirit, but of his _words_, they are spirit and life."

To deny that it is the Holy Ghost who speaks in Scripture, is an intelligible position; but admitting that _he speaks_, we can only understand his thoughts by listening to his words. True, he may beget within us emotions too deep for expression, as when {173} "The Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Rom. 8: 26). But the idea which is really intelligible is the idea that is embodied in speech. For finite minds, at least, words are the measure of comprehensible thoughts. Evidently Jesus claims for his teaching not only inspiration, but verbal inspiration, when he says that his _words_ are "spirit and life." And to this agrees the saying of Paul, in speaking of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost: "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, _not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth_, comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Cor. 2: 10-13).

And what if one objects that this theory makes inspiration purely mechanical, and turns the writers of Scripture into stenographers, whose office is simply to transcribe the words of the Spirit as they are dictated? It must be confessed that there is much in Scripture to support this view of the case. Should we see a student who, having taken down {174} the lecture of a profound philosopher, was now studying diligently to comprehend the sense of the discourse which he had written, we should understand simply that he was a pupil and not a master; that he had nothing to do with originating either the thoughts or the words of the lecture, but was rather a disciple whose province it was to understand what he had transcribed, and so be able to communicate it to others. And who can deny that this is the exact picture of what we have in the following passage from Scripture: "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, _searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow_; unto whom it was revealed," etc. (1 Peter 1: 10, 11). Here were inspired writers, studying the meaning of what they themselves had written. If they were prophets on the manward side, they were evidently pupils on the Godward side. With all possible allowance for the human peculiarities of the writers, they must have been reporters of what they heard, rather than the formulators of that which they had been made to understand. How nearly this also describes the attitude of Christ,--a hearer that he might be a teacher: "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John 15: 15); {175} a reporter that he might be a revealer: "I have given unto them _the words_ which thou gavest me" (John 17: 8).

In these days scholars are very jealous for the human element in inspiration; but the sovereign element is what most impresses the diligent student of this subject. "The Spirit breatheth where he wills." Concerning regeneration by the Holy Ghost, we are carefully told that it is "not of the will of the flesh, nor _of the will of man_, but of God"; and concerning inspiration by the Spirit, the teaching is equally explicit: "For no prophecy ever came _by the will of man_, but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1: 21, R. V.).

The style of Scripture is, no doubt, according to the traits and idiosyncracies of the several writers, as the light within the cathedral takes on its various hues from passing through the stained windows; but to say that the thoughts of the Bible are from the Spirit, and the language from men, creates a dualism in revelation not easy to justify; so that we must quote with entire approval the words of an eminent writer upon this subject: "The opinion that the subject-matter alone of the Bible proceeded from the Holy Spirit, while its language was left to the unaided choice of the various writers, amounts to that fantastic notion which is the grand fallacy of many theories of inspiration; namely, that two spiritual agencies were in operation, one of which {176} produced the phraseology in the outward form, while the other created within the soul the conceptions and thoughts of which such phraseology was the expression. The Holy Spirit, on the contrary, as the productive _principle_, embraces the entire activity of those whom he inspires, rendering their language the _word of God_."[4]

If it be urged that the quotations which the New Testament makes from the Old are rarely _ipsissima verba_, the language being in many instances greatly changed, it should be noted in reply how significant even these changes often are. If the Holy Spirit directed in the writing of both books, he would have a sovereign right to alter the phraseology, if need be, from the one to the other. In the opinion of many scholars the change of "the Redeemer shall come _to_ Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob," in Isa. 59: 20, to "There shall come _out_ of Zion the Deliverer," in Rom. 11: 26, is an inspired and intentional change.[5] So of the citation from Amos 9: 11, "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle that is fallen," as given in Acts 15:16, "After these things I will return, and I will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen"; the modification of the language seems designed, in order to make clear its significance in its present setting. Many other examples might be given of {177} a reshaping of his own words by the divine Author of Scripture. On the other hand, the constant recurrence of the same words and phrases in books of the Bible most widely separated in the time and circumstances of their composition, strongly suggests identity of authorship amid the variety of penmanship. The individuality of the writers was no doubt preserved, only that their individuality was subordinated to the sovereign individuality of the Holy Spirit. It is with the written word as with the incarnate Word. Because Christ is divine, he is more truly human than any whom the world has ever seen; and because the Bible is supernatural, it is natural as no other book which was ever written; its divinity lifts it above those faults of style which are the fruits of self-consciousness and ambition. Whether we read the Old Testament story of Abraham's servant seeking a bride for Isaac, or the New Testament narrative of the walk of the risen Christ with his disciples to Emmaus, the inimitable simplicity of the diction would make us think that we were listening to the dialect of the angels who never sinned in thought, and therefore cannot sin in style, did we not know rather that it is the phraseology of the Holy Spirit.[6]

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An eminent German theologian has written a sentence so profoundly significant that we here reproduce it in Italics: "_We can in fact speak with good reason of a language of the Holy Ghost. For it lies in the Bible plainly before our eyes, how the Divine Spirit, who is the agent of revelation, has fashioned for himself a quite peculiar religious dialect out of the speech of that people which forms its theatre._"[7] So true do we hold this saying to be, that it seems to us quite impossible that the exact meaning of many of the terms of the New Testament Greek should be found in a Lexicon of classic Greek. Though the verbal form is the same in both, the inbreathed spirit may have imparted such new significance to old words, that to employ a secular dictionary for translating the sacred oracles, were almost like calling an unregenerate man to interpret the mysteries of the regenerate life. Do we not know how modern progress and discovery have even put new meanings into many English words, so that one must be in "the spirit of the age" in order to comprehend them?[8] Thus {179} likewise, even in the work of verbal criticism, it is essential that one possess the spirit of Christ in order to translate the words of Christ.

As to the question of the "inerrancy of Scripture," as the modern phrase is, we may well pass by many minor arguments, and emphasize the one great reason for holding this view, viz.: If it is God the Holy Ghost who speaks in Scripture, then the Bible is the word of God, and like God, infallible. A recent brilliant writer has challenged us to show where the Bible anywhere calls itself "The word of God."[9] The most elementary student of the subject can, with the aid of a concordance, easily point out the passages which so describe it. But we dwell on the fact that is not only called _o logos tou theon_, "_the Word of God_," but _ta logia tou theou_, "_the oracles of God_." This collective name of the Scriptures is most significant. We need not inquire of the heathen as to the meaning which they put upon the words as the authoritative utterances of their gods; let the usage of Scripture make its own impression: "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way; first of all, that they were intrusted with _the oracles of God_" (Rom. 3: 2, R. V.).[10]

This comprehensive expression is very helpful {180} to our faith. When critics are assailing the books of the Old Testament in detail, the Holy Spirit authenticates them for us in their entirety. As Abigail prayed for a soul "bound in the bundle of life" with the Lord, so here an apostle gives us the books of the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms bound together in one bundle of inspired authority. Stephen, in like manner, speaks of his nation as "those who received the _lively oracles_ (of God) to give unto us" (Acts 7: 38); and Peter says, "If any man speak let him speak as _the oracles of God_" (1 Peter 4: 11). And not only this; the same apostles who submitted to the authority of the Old Testament as the oracles of God, themselves claimed to write as the oracles of God in the New Testament. "If any man," says Paul, "think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the _commandments of the Lord_" (1 Cor. 14: 37). "We are of God," writes John. "He that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us" (1 John 4: 16). These claims are too great to be put forth concerning fallible writings. Admitting their premises, the Jews were right in charging Jesus with blasphemy, in that being a man {181} he made himself God. If Christ is not God, he is not even a good man. And if the Scriptures are not inerrant, they are worse than errant; since, being literature, they make themselves the word of God.

And what if it be said that there are irreconcilable contradictions in this book which calls itself the oracles of God? Two things may be said: First, it should be expected that under "the scientific method" such contradictions should appear and constantly multiply. The Bible is a sensitive plant, which shuts itself up at the touch of mere critical investigation. In the same paragraph in which it claims that its very words are the words of the Holy Spirit, it repudiates the scientific method as futile for the understanding of those words: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,"--and insists on the spiritual method as alone adequate,--"but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Cor. 2: 9, 10). Not only does the Bible not yield roses to the critic, it yields the thorns and briars of hopeless contradiction. "_Intellige ut credos verbum meum_," said Augustine to the rationalists of his day, "_sed crede ut intelligas verbum Dei_." "Understand my word, that you may believe it; believe God's word, that you may understand it." Faith holds not only the keys of all the creeds, but of all the contradictions. He who starts out and proceeds under the conviction that the Bible is the {182} infallible word of God, will find discrepancies constantly turning into unisons under his study. And this remark leads to the second observation: that the contradictions of man may really be the harmonies of God. An uncultivated listener, hearing an oratorio of one of the great masters, would detect discords again and again in the strains; and as a matter of fact, what are called "accidentals" in music are discords, but discords inserted to heighten the harmony. Thus, as one after another of the alleged discrepancies of Scripture having been noted and made to jar upon the ear have then been reconciled, with what an emphatic and heightened harmony have the words of the psalmist, speaking by the Holy Ghost, fallen on our ear: "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple"! There seems to the critic to be historic error in the statement of Stephen that Jacob was buried at Sychem (Acts 7: 16) instead of in the field of Machpelah before Mamre, as recorded in Gen. 50: 13, just as it was once thought that Luke had made a mistake, not to be explained away, in his reference to Cyrenius in chapter 2: 1, 2. But as the latter contradiction has disappeared, only confirming the veracity of Scripture by the investigation which it has called forth, so may the former. And so also with such alleged discrepancies as that between the record in {183} one place that King Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses, and in another forty thousand; or that of the statement in one passage that King Josias began to reign at eight years of age, and in another, at eighteen. What if we freely admit that we cannot reconcile these statements? That does not prove that they are not reconcilable. The history of solved contradictions has certainly shown this, that as "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men," so the discords of God are more harmonious than men.

We may say, in closing this chapter, that almost the highest proof of the infallibility of Scripture is the practical one, that we have proved it so; that as the coin of the State has always been found able to buy the amount represented on its face, so the prophecies and the promises of Holy Scripture have yielded their face value to those who have taken pains to prove them. If they have not always done so, it is probable that they have not yet matured. Certainly there are multitudes of Christians who have so far proved the veracity of Scripture that they are ready to trust it without reserve in all that it pledges for the world yet unseen and the life yet unrealized. "Believe that thou mayest know," then, is the admonition which Scripture and history combine to enforce. In the farewell of that rare saint, Adolph Monod, these golden words occur: {184} "When I shall enter the invisible world, I do not expect to find things different from what the word of God represented them to me here. The voice I shall then hear will be the same I now hear upon the earth, and I shall say, 'This is indeed what God said to me; _and how thankful I am that I did not wait till I had seen in order to believe_.'"

[1] John 3: 8. "The wind bloweth where it listeth." Without pronouncing dogmatically, it must be said that the translation of Bengel and some others--"_The Spirit breatheth where he wills, and thou hearest his voice_"--has reasons in its favor which are well-nigh irresistible; _e.g._, If _to pneuma_ here is the _wind_, it has one meaning in the first part of the sentence and another meaning in the second; and that meaning too, one which it bears in no other instance of the more than two hundred and seventy uses of the word in the New Testament. It is not the word used in Acts 2: 2, as might be expected if it signified wind. Then it seems unnatural to ascribe volition to the wind, _thelei_. On the contrary, if the words apply to the Spirit, the saying is in entire harmony with other Scriptures, which affirm the sovereignty of the Holy Ghost in regeneration (John 1: 13) and in the control and direction of those who are the subjects of the new birth (2 Cor. 12: 4-11).

[2] The proof that the inspiration of the apostles and scribes of the New Testament was not transmitted to successors is thus stated by Neander: "A phenomenon singular in its kind is the striking difference between the writings of the apostles and those of the apostolic fathers, so nearly their contemporaries. In other instances transitions are wont to be gradual, but in this instance we observe a sudden change. There is no gentle gradation here, but all at once an abrupt transition from one style of language to another--a phenomenon which should lead us to acknowledge the fact of a special agency of the Divine Spirit in the souls of the apostles and of a new creative element in the first period."--_Church History_, II., 405.

[3] There are the strongest reasons for rejecting the rendering of this passage as given in the Revised Version: "_Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable_", etc. The reader will find the objections to this rendering powerfully and conclusively set forth in Tregelles on Daniel. Note, p. 267.

[4] Lee on the "Inspiration of the Holy Scripture," pp. 32, 33.

[5] See Lange's "Commentary" _in loco_.

[6] I am satisfied only with the style of Scripture. My own style and the style of all other men cannot satisfy me. If I read only three or four verses I am sure of their divinity on account of their inimitableness. _It is the style of the heavenly court.--Oetinger_.

[7] Rothe, "Dogmatics," p. 238.

[8] For example, Shakespeare, and Milton, and Dryden, employ the words "car" and "engine" and "train" in their writings; but living before the age of steam and railways they knew nothing of the meaning which these terms convey to us. And it is possible that Homer and Plato knew as little of the meaning of such words as _aiôn_ and _paraklêtos_, as found in the revelation of Jesus Christ, by whom "the ages were framed" and the Comforter sent down.

[9] Dr. R. F. Horton, in "_Verbum Dei_."

[10] The apostle in calling the Old Testament Scriptures the "oracles of God," clearly recognizes them as divinely inspired books. The Jewish church was the trustee and guardian of these oracles till the coming of Christ. Now the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are committed to the guardianship of the Christian Church.--_Dr. Philip Schaff_.

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IX

THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT

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"The Comforter in every part of his threefold work glorifies Christ. In convincing of sin he convinces us of the sin of not believing on Christ. In convincing us of righteousness, he convinces us of the righteousness of Christ, of that righteousness which was made manifest in Christ going to the Father, and which he received to bestow on all such as should believe in him. And lastly, in convincing of judgment, he convinces us that the prince of the World was judged in the life and by the death of Christ. Thus throughout, Christ is glorified; and that which the Comforter shows to us relates in all its parts to the life and work of the incarnate Son of God."--_Julius Charles Hare_.

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IX

THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT

"And when he is come _he will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment_" (John 16: 8, R. V.). It is too large a conclusion which many seem to draw from these words, that since the day of Pentecost the Spirit has been universally diffused in the world, touching hearts everywhere, among Christians and heathen, among the evangelized and the unevangelized alike, and awakening in them a sense of sin. Does not our Lord say in this same discourse concerning the Comforter: "_Whom the world cannot receive_, because it seeth him not neither knoweth him"? (John 14: 17) With these words should be associated the limitation which Jesus makes in the gift of the Paraclete: "If I depart I will send him _unto you_." Christ's disciples were to be the recipients and distributors of the Holy Ghost, and his church the mediator between the Spirit and the world. "And when he is come (to you) he will reprove the world." And to complete the exposition, we may connect this promise with the Great Commission, "Go ye into _all the world_ and preach the gospel to every creature," and conclude that when the {188} Lord sends his messengers into the world, the Spirit of truth goes with them, witnessing to the message which they bear, convincing of the sin which they reprove, and revealing the righteousness which they proclaim. We are not clear to affirm that the conviction of the Spirit here promised goes beyond the church's evangelizing, though there is every reason to believe that it invariably accompanies the faithful preaching of the word.

It will help us then to a clear conception of the subject, if we consider the Spirit of truth as sent _unto the Church_, testifying _of Christ_, and bringing conviction _to the world_.

As there is a threefold work of Christ, as prophet, priest, and king, so there is a threefold conviction of the Spirit answering thereto: "And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin and of righteousness and of judgment; of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father and ye behold me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged" (John 16: 8-12, R. V.). It is concerning the testimony of Christ as he spake to men in the days of his flesh; and concerning the work of Christ now carried on in his intercession at God's right hand; and concerning the sentence of Christ when he shall come again to be our judge, that this witness of the Spirit has to do.

"_He shall convince the world of sin._" Why is he {189} needed for this conviction since conscience is present in every human breast, and is doing his work so faithfully? We reply: Conscience is the witness to the law; the Spirit is the witness to grace. Conscience brings legal conviction; the Spirit brings evangelical conviction; the one begets a conviction unto despair, the other a conviction unto hope.

"_Of sin, because they believe not on me,_" describes the ground of the Holy Spirit's conviction. The entrance of Christ into the world rendered possible a sin hitherto unknown: "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin" (John 15: 22). Evil seems to have required the presence of incarnate goodness, in order to its fullest manifestation. Hence the deep significance of the prophecy spoken over the cradle of Jesus: "Behold this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against, _that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed_" (Luke 2: 34, 35). All the most hideous sins of human nature came out during the betrayal and trial and passion of our Lord. In that "hour and power of darkness" these sins seem indeed to have been but imperfectly recognized. But when the day of Pentecost had come, with its awful revealing light of the Spirit of truth, then there was great contrition in Jerusalem--a contrition the sting of {190} which we find in the charge of Peter: "Jesus of Nazareth, whom ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Was not that deep conviction, following the gift of the Spirit, in which three thousand were brought to repentance in a single day, a conviction of sin because they had not believed on Christ?

For our reproof the Holy Ghost presents another side of the same fact, calling us to repentance, not for having taken part in crucifying Christ, but for having refused to take part in Christ crucified; not for having been guilty of delivering him up to death, but for having refused to believe in him who was "delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification." Wherever, by the preaching of the gospel, the fact of Christ having died for the sins of the world is made known, this guilt becomes possible. The sin of disbelieving on Christ is, therefore, the great sin now, because it summarizes all other sins. He bore for us the penalties of the law; and thus our obligation, which was originally to the law, is transferred to him. To refuse faith in him, therefore, is to repudiate the claims of the law which he fulfilled and to repudiate the debt of infinite love which, by his sacrifice, we have incurred. Nevertheless, the Spirit of truth brings home this sin against the Lord, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. In a word, as has been well said, "it is not {191} the sin-question but the Son-question" which we really raise now in preaching the gospel. "Christ having perfectly satisfied God about sin, the question now between God and your heart is: Are you perfectly satisfied with Christ as the alone portion of your soul? Christ has settled every other to the glory of God." In dealing with the guilty Jews, it was the historical fact which the Holy Ghost urged for their conviction: "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and killed the Prince of Life" (Acts 3: 14, 15). In dealing with us Gentiles, it is rather the theological or evangelical fact: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18), and you are condemned that you have not believed on him and confessed him as Saviour and Lord. It is the same sin in the last instance, but viewed upon its reverse side, if we may say it. In the one case it is the guilt of despising and rejecting the Son of God; in the other, it is the guilt of not believing in him who was despised and rejected of men. Yet if submissively yielded to, the Spirit will lead us from this first stage of revelation to the second, since what Andrew Fuller said of the doctrines of theology is equally true of the convictions of the Spirit, that "they are united together like chain-shot, so that whichever one enters the heart the other must certainly follow."

"_Of righteousness, because I go to the Father and {192} ye see me no more._" Not until he had been seated in the heavenly places had Christ perfected righteousness for us. As he was "delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification," so must he be enthroned for our assurance. It is necessary to see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, in order to know ourselves "accepted in the Beloved." How beautiful the culmination of Isaiah's passion-prophecy wherein, accompanying the promise that "he shall bear the sin of many," is the prediction that "by his knowledge _shall my righteous servant justify many_"! But he must be shown to be righteous, in order that he may justify; and this is what his exaltation does. "It was the proof that him whom the world condemned, God justified--that the stone which the builders rejected, God made the Headstone of the corner--that him whom the world denied and lifted up on a cross of shame in the midst of two thieves, God accepted and lifted up in the midst of the throne."[1]

The words "and because ye see me no more," which have perplexed the commentators, seem to us {193} to give the real clue to the meaning of the whole passage. So long as the High Priest was within the veil, and unseen, the congregation of Israel could not be sure of their acceptance. Hence the eager anxiety with which they waited his coming out, with the assurance that God had received the propitiation offered on their behalf. Christ, our great High Priest, has entered into the Holy of Holies by his own blood. Until he comes forth again at his second advent, how can we be assured that his sacrifice for us is accepted? We could not be, unless he had sent out one from his presence to make known this fact to us. And this is precisely what he has done in the gift of the Holy Ghost. "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1: 3). There he will remain throughout the whole duration of the great day of atonement, which extends from ascension to advent. But in order that his church may have immediate assurance of acceptance with the Father, through his righteous servant, he sends forth the Paraclete to certify the fact; and the presence of the Spirit in the midst of the church is proof positive of the presence of Jesus in the midst of the throne; as is said by Peter on the day of {194} Pentecost; "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear" (Acts 2: 33).

Now the Lord's words seem plain to us. Because he ascends to the Father, to be seen no more until his second coming, the Spirit meantime comes down to attest his presence and approval with the Father as the perfectly righteous One. How clearly this comes out in Peter's defense before the Council: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins; and we are witnesses of these things, _and so also is the Holy Ghost_, whom God hath given to them that obey him" (Acts 5: 30-32). Why this two-fold witness? The reason is obvious. The disciples could bear testimony to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, but not to his enthronement; that event was beyond the ken of human vision; and so the Holy Ghost, who had been cognizant of that fact in heaven, must be sent down as a joint-witness with the apostles, that thus the whole circle of redemption-truth might be attested. Therein was the promise of Jesus in his last discourse literally fulfilled: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which {195} proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me; and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning" (John 15: 26, 27).

As we have said, it is not only the enthronement of Christ in righteous approval with the Father that must be certified, but the acceptance of his sacrificial work as a full and satisfying ground of our reconciliation with the Father. And the Spirit proceeding from God is alone competent to bear to us this assurance. Therefore in the Epistle to the Hebrews, after the reiterated statement of our Lord's exaltation at the right hand of God, it is added: "For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, _whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us_" (Heb. 10: 14, 15). In a word, he whom we have known on the cross as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world," must now be known to us on the throne as "_the Lord our righteousness_." But though the angels and the glorified in heaven see Jesus, once crucified, now "made both Lord and Christ," we see him not. Therefore it is written that "no man can say Jesus is Lord, _but in the Holy Spirit_" (1 Cor. 12: 3, R. V.). So also we are told that "if any man sin we have a _Paraclete_ with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2: 1); but we can only know Christ as such through that "other Paraclete" sent forth from the Father. It was promised that "when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall {196} not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak" (John 16: 13, R. V.). Hearing the ascriptions of worthiness lifted up to Christ in heaven, and beholding him who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, now "crowned with glory and honor," he communicates what he sees and hears to the church on earth. Thus, as he in his earthly life, through his own outshining and self-evidencing perfection, "was justified in the spirit"; so we, recognizing him standing for us in glory, and now "of God made unto us righteousness," are also "justified in the name of the Lord Jesus _and by the Spirit of our God_" (1 Cor. 6: 11).

Thus, though unseen by the church during all the time of his high-priestly ministry, our Lord has sent to his church one whose office it is to bear witness to all he is and all he is doing while in heaven, that so we may have "boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him," and that so we may come boldly to the throne of grace, "the Holy Ghost this signifying"--what he could not under the old covenant--"that the way into the holiest of all" (Heb. 9: 8) has been made manifest.

And yet--strange paradox--in this identical discourse in which Jesus speaks to his disciples of seeing him no more, he says: "Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more, _but ye see me_; because I live ye shall live also" (John 14: 19); words {197} which by common consent refer to the same time of Christ's continuance within the veil. But it is now by the inward vision, which the world has not, that they are to behold him. And they are to behold him _for the world_, since Christ said of him: "Whom the _world cannot receive, because_ it seeth him not, neither knoweth him." And yet it is "to _convince the world_" "of sin and of righteousness and of judgment" that the Spirit was to be sent. How shall we make it plain? When the sun retires beyond the horizon at night, the world, our hemisphere, sees him no more; yet the moon sees him, and all night long catches his light and throws it down upon us. So the world sees not Christ in the gracious provisions of redemption which he holds for us in heaven, but through the illumination of the Comforter the church sees him; as it is written: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; _but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit_" (1 Cor. 2: 9, 10). And the Church seeing these things, communicates what she sees to the world. Christ is all and in all; and the Spirit receives and reflects him to the world through his people.

The moon above, the church below,
A wondrous race they run;
But all their radiance, all their glow,
Each borrows of its sun.

{198}

"_Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged._" Here, we believe, is a still farther advance in the revelation of the gospel, and not a retreat to the doctrine of a future judgment, as some would teach. For we repeat our conviction, that in this entire discourse the Holy Spirit is revealed to us as an evangel of Grace, and not as a sheriff of the Law. Hear the Apostle Peter once more, as, pointing to him who had been raised from the dead and seated in the heavenlies, he says: "By him every one that believeth is justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13: 39, R. V.). Justification, in the evangelical sense, is but another name for judgment prejudged and condemnation ended. In the enthroned Christ every question about sin is answered, and every claim of a violated law is absolutely met; and though there is no abatement in the demands of the decalogue, yet because "Christ has become the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," now "_grace reigns through righteousness_ unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Strange paradox set forth in Isaiah's passion psalm: "_By his stripes we are healed,_" as though it were told us that sin's smiting had procured sin's remission. And so it is. If the Holy Spirit shows us the wounds of the dying Christ for condemning us, he immediately shows us the wounds of the exalted Christ for comforting us. {199} His glorified body is death's certificate of discharge, the law's receipt in full, assuring us that all the penalties of transgression have been endured, and the Sin-bearer acquitted.