The personality of the Holy Spirit online

had been smitten with the pestilence, it was ^°"'""-
known that Varro, although escaping with only



36



The Power of Personality.



a few horsemen, still believed that Roman valor
would save the Roman people. It was that faith
that led the Roman Senate to come forth to meet
him and to thank him that he had not despaired
of the republic. And Varro was right. Capua
was to redeem Cannae, and Hannibal's star de-
clined from the hour v/hen it seemed surely ris-
ing to the zenith. Rome could never forget the
man whose faith remained unshaken. Possibly
there is nothing for which we clamor more than
for men who have not lost faith in humanity.

We shudder at the croakings of ill omen, wheth-

I

er from birds or men. "Men who impeach all

mankind convict only themselves." The undis-
couraged Christ is our File Leader and Captain.
"He shall not fail or be discouraged till he have
set judgment in the earth ; and the isles shall
wait for his law."

The perfect humanness of Christ has stood
the scrutinizing gaze of the race which now
owns his leadership, the leadership of a perfect
character as well as of a Divine Saviour. He
bulks more largely as an historic person who ap-
peals so strongly to men of all ages and nations
recognizing him as their great contemporary,
while his teachings, his works, his example, him-



The Pozvcr of Personality. 37

self, fill all literature and art and song. He was
at once the leader of men and the lover of chil-
dren, the bravest of men and the tenderest of
companions, the world's most public-spirited
citizen and the devoted patriot weeping over his
doomed city and nation, self-conscious with a
consciousness that swept all eternity in its
thought and self-determining with a purpose
that inwrapped a lost world in its firm embrace,
the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty, the Hero-
God, the Prince of Peace. Only one being ever
deserved and won such titles from mortal men,
and that was the Son of God, who exchanged
the existence-form of his eternal glory and took
upon himself the existence-form of a man, and
became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. Wherefore God has highly exalted
him and given him a name that Is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven and things on
earth and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. To his essen-
tial glory as the eternal Son of the Father is
added the glory which comes from human grat-
itude and adoration and worship. Our human-



38 The Pozvcr of Personality.

ity has been enlarged and realized and glorified
since Christ wore it and has refused ever to lay it
aside.

Christ has given a new meaning to the idea of
personality, both the personality of God and of
man. His was the human life of God when the
finite seemed scarcely able to hold what has
sought to be revealed of the Infinite. The glory
shining through the incarnate form on the
mount of transfiguration and then again of the
ascension, the voices of attendant angels at his
birth and resurrection, the broken silence of
God who must pronounce to the loving, trust-
ing heart, "Thou art my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased" — all these tell how that the
infinite embraces the finite as part of itself, and
that God is not far from every one of us. So
eager is God to catch our ear that after speaking
in times past unto the fathers in the prophets, he
hath in these last days spoken unto us in his Son,
whom he appointed heir of all things, through
whom also he made the worlds ; who being the
eflfulgence of his glory and the very image of
his person, and upholding all things by the word
of his power, when he had by himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the



The Power of Personality. 39

majesty on high. Could he indeed have heen
human whose personaUty so far transcends any
other? The Docetists thought to honor Christ
hy denying him a human body, but the de-
vout behever in every age has resented such
mutilation of the perfect manhood of Jesus, cry-
ing, "Ye have taken away my Lord, and I know
not where ye have laid him."

If we had not deemed that our humanity Theqtdcken-
could receive and hold and show so much of "'^^^*"-
God, it was because we had forgotten that it
^vas for this reason that man was made in the
divine image and after the divine likeness. Je-
sus Christ was such a being in his perfect hu-
manity as God had always intended that man
should be. For this reason the first Adam was
made a living soul. But in his fall he lost that
image through weakened intellect and depraved
heart and impaired will, so that he could neither
recover it for himself nor transmit it to his pos-
terity. Therefore the Second Adam was made
known to us as a quickening spirit, not only
having this divine likeness, but capable of trans-
mitting it. It was only one filled with the Holy
Spirit, one to whom the Spirit was given with-
out measure, who could baptize with the Holy



40



The Power of Personality.



Spirit. Human personality was not only re-
stored, it was enlarged, it was vitalized, it was
realized in Christ. The forgotten possibilities of
human nature began to reappear as men received
power to become the sons of God. For of his
fullness have we all received, and grace for grace.
What a succession of graces is bestowed on the
sons of God as we are able to receive them, the
lower giving place to the higher, but none save
as they come from Him who is full of grace and
truth. It is only by beholding him and his glory
that we are changed from glory into glory. It is
therefore unto Him who is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we can ask or think
according to the power that worketh in us that
we give glory unto all generations, forever and
ever.

Christ is become therefore the quickening
spirit to our race, the one whose chief creden-
tial is that he baptizeth with the Holy Spirit. It
was only out of his perfected and glorified hu-
manity that the Holy Spirit could be given to
men. It was part of the mission of Christ to re-
veal both the personality of man and of God.
Now we are apt to think that there can be no
true personality that is not limited and bounded.



The Pozucr of Personality. 41

Are we not made aware of our own personality
by becoming conscious of other beings tlian our-
selves? Are we not made aware of our own
rights by the resistance which we encounter and
by the claims of other beings? Yes, our self-
existence is often made clearer to us by contrast
with something other than ourselves, because we
do not contain in ourselves the conditions of our
existence. Not so the divine existence. It has
no such limitations. It needs neither the con-
sciousness of existence to be begun or to be con-
tinuously developed by something not itself. It
has within itself all the conditions of existence.
Therefore Lotze sayc : "Perfect personality is in

Perfect per-

God only ; to all finite mmds there is allotted but ^^„„^y^ -^
a pale copy thereof; the finiteness of the finite God only.
is not a producing condition of this Personality,
but a limit and hindrance of its development."

Despite our Lord's perfect humanity, he free-
ly confessed the limitations made necessary by
coming in human form. He needed tO' empty
himself of his omniscience and of his omnipo-
tence and of his omnipresence until after his res-
urrection and the assumption of his spiritual
body. And so long as w^e are waiting for our full
adoption, namely, the redemption of our body, we



42 The Pozvcr of Personality.

ourselves cannot be made perfect, cannot real-
ize our true personality to the utmost. But the
whole process of true life in Christ is the get-
ting ready for that fuller realization of our per-
sonality when in spiritualized nature we shall
be made kings and priests unto God and the
Father. To that end is given us the Holy Spir-
it who abode in John the Baptist and without
measure in Jesus Christ, and for whose coming
to abide with us forever our divine Lord said
that it was expedient that even he himself should
go away. This other Comforter, this Divine
Paraclete, comes with none of the limitations
which belong to our humanity, but with Christ
as the highest expression of our humanity, our
realized humanity and our Lord and Saviour,
as his theme. He comes to take of the things
of Christ and to show them unto us. The third
great Personality in the history of the Church is
none other than the Holy Spirit.



11.

THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT.

(43)



Creator, Spirit, by whose aid
The world's foundations first were laid,
Come, visit every pious mind ;
Come, pour thy joys on humankind;
From sin and sorrow set us free.
And make thy temples worthy thee.

Plenteous of grace, descend from high,

Rich in thy seven-fold energy !

Thou strength of his almighty hand,

Whose power does heaven and earth command,

Proceeding Spirit, our defense.

Who dost the gift of tongues dispense.

And crown'st thy gifts with eloquence!

(This grand hymn has always held the highest rank
among poems addressed to the Holy Spirit, and was
appointed to be used at the coronation of kings and
emperors. Its authorship is unknown, although ascribed
both to Charlemagne and to Gregory the Great.)

(44)



II.

THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT.

The promise of the Old Testament was of The Holy
the Divine Son; the promise of the New Tes- ^^'"^'^^

promise oj

tament was of the Holy Spirit. None prom- the New
ised the Holy Spirit with greater frequency and Testament.
force than did the Son of God. It was impos-
sible for the Holy Spirit to be given save out of
the perfected and glorified manhood of the Son
of God. Jesus Christ made personal the Deity.
God was no longer mere Power or Force or Law,
he was Love, after Christ came to reveal him.
He was a Person loving, patient, merciful, just.
God so loved that he sent his Son, and when
the Son came he was ever speaking of the Fa-
ther's love ; and his own earthly life was simply
the human life of God. As the sun seems
larger when nearest the horizon, so God seemed
more real as men saw his moral attributes tested
under the conditions of the incarnation. The
life of God in terms of humanity revealed him
more clearly as a person. The wonderful per-

(45)



4^ The Personality of the Holy Spirit.

sonality of Christ helped to make real the per-
sonality alike of the Father and of the Holy
Spirit. Whatever the hypostatic union may
mean besides, it means for us the blessed fact
that God can so reveal himself through perfect
humanity as that we are made conscious of kin-
ship with him as we hold communion with him.
Nature comes to consciousness in man, a per-
son, capable of thought, affection, and will.
God cannot be less than a self-conscious and
self-determining Person unless he be less than
man. How much more he is as an Infinite Per-
son than the largest conception that we have
ever had of personality, awaits of our growing
knowledge of God in Christ.
The difference ^ human pcrsou, thc crown of creation, rep-

betiveen a hu- . ,. - - ,

, resents or embodies only a fragment of human

man and a j a

divine person, naturc. No ouc m.au or person can be said to
embody all of human nature. It takes all men,
all human persons, to do that. But what for
lack of a better, a higher term to denote the
distinctions in the Godhead, we call a Divine
Person, embodies all of the divine nature. All
the Deity is in the Father, all is in the Son,
and all is in the Holy Spirit. Each could not
be a divine Person save as he embodied all of



The Fci'satuility of the Holy Spirit. 47

the divine nature. Yet the divine essence may
not be said simply to subsist in three modes.
The very mode which embodies the divine es-
sence discloses a Person, self-conscious, self-
determining, and so capable of communing with
another. God is not a unit, but a unity. God
has not dwelt alone, a solitary unit from all
eternity. There are three modes of one divine
substance, or three distinctions in the Infinite
Essence as revealed by the very nature of God
as self-contemplating, self-cognitive, self-com-
muning. There is the subject contemplating,
the object contemplated, and the perception of
the identity of both. Person is not an attri-
bute of the essence, but a mode of the essence,
an "existence-form" of the essence. There is
but one divine essence in common to the three
persons. A Trinitarian Person is tlie entire di-
vine nature subsisting in a particular manner as
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The culminating point of the exaltation of
Christ was when out of his perfected and glo-
rified humanity, through which was made known
the Father, was made known also and given to The spirit of
the world of believers the Holy Spirit. So in- chrut.
timate and sacred was the fellowship that each



48 The Personality of the Holy Spirit.

was, as it were, his other self. "He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father also." Even as
he promises the other Comforter who shall
abide with men forever, Christ declares, "I will
not leave you desolate : I will come unto you."
The very Holy Spirit thus proceeding from the
Father and the Son is at once the Spirit of God
and the Spirit of Christ. "If a man love me,
he will keep my word ; and my Father will love
him, and we will come unto him and make our
abode with him." All that is done by the Holy
Spirit is done in the unity of the Father and
the Son, just as all that is done by the Divine
Son is done in the unity of the Father and the
Holy Spirit. The Father, too, lives and acts in
the unity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
So that when our divine Lord gave his com-
mission to the disciples it was to baptize in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost. The gradual unfolding of the
mystery of redemption was the gradual unfold-
ing of the mystery of the Triune God. As the
whole Godhead is revealed as engaged in the
creation, when the Father who is always the
supreme representative of the Godhead said,
"Let us make man in our imacre and after our



The Personality of the Holy Spirit. 49

likeness," so the Triune God is interested and
engaged in the work of man's redemption. God
and Father are interchangeable terms. What
belongs to the three Persons of the Holy Trinity
alike is usually assigned to the Father, to whom
prayer is generally offered. In the soul's su-
preme need it prays to the Son and to the Floly
Spirit also.

The Holy Spirit, the promise of the New The Acts the
Testament as Christ was of the Old Testament,

Holy Spirit,

is mentioned nearly three hundred times in the
New Testament. One entire book is so given
to the account of the coming and work of the
Holy Spirit tliat while it is known as the Acts
of the Apostles it may more fitly be known as
the Acts of the Holy Spirit, or as the Gospel
of the Holy Spirit, at least, as Luke denominates
his gospel of our Lord, "of what he began both
to do and teach." The four Gospels are the
manifestation of Christ. The Acts and the
Epistles are the preaching of Christ after that
manifestation had been completed by his ascen-
sion. These were written in a very atmosphere
of power, so supreme was the consciousness that
God dwelt graciously within and was moving
omnipotently without. The mighty movement



50 The Personality of the Holy Spirit.

is felt in every page, as the Lord of the harvest
had come and was sending out laborers into his
harvest, and was gathering in the ripened grain
as well as sowing the living seed in all the
world. So long as the Church realized his
leadership, as the personal representative of the
glorified Lord, the Holy Spirit inspired hope
and courage, and men labored and lived in the
power of the Spirit. To fail to grasp or to deny
the personality of the other Comforter, and
above all his divine personality, meant the de-
nial of the divinity of the Son of God to whom
the Holy Spirit ever bore testimony. And to
deny the divinity of Christ speedily included
the denial of his atoning work. The doctrines
of the cross and of Pentecost are closely con-
nected. Unless Christ came into the world to
save sinners the Holy Spirit has no worthy
theme. The personality and divinity of the
Holy Spirit are revealed no less than God the
Father revealed his only begotten Son as the
eternal Son and the Lamb of God slain from
the foundation of the world. So vitally con-
nected are the great teachings of our religion
that where one great doctrine is assailed the
fracture reaches into the very Trinity itself.



The Personality of the Holy Spirit. 51

Hence in Paul's day he was concerned that be-
lievers everywhere should know Christ as one
that baptized with the iioly Spirit. Not until
this final proof was given could the disciples
call Jesus Lord, for no man can call Jesus Lord
save by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
opened both men's understandings and the Holy
Scriptures, giving intellectual and spiritual life,
while he illumined the sacred pages of proph-
ecy, and through quickened memories and vi-
talized minds brought all things to their re-
membrance and led them into all truth.

In our day with its tendency to materialism Atauriahsm
it is vital to know that the Holy Spirit is not """"''"-y-
merely the esprit de corps of the Church, but a
Divine Person abiding in the Church. And it
is no less vital to know that the true source of
both order and life in the material universe is
this same Divine Spirit. Materialism would
deny the existence of all spirit, and would make
thought itself simply a secretion of the brain.
Matter would claim universal dominion, forget-
ful of Pascal's weighty words when he said
that while man is a reed he is a reed that
thinks. "Even if the whole world should unite
to crush him, man would still be more noble



52 TJic Personality of the Holy Spirit.

than that which kills him, for he would know
that he dies, and the universe would know noth-
ing of the advantage w-hich it has over him."
Man's personality ranks with him above all na-
ture without it. But never is man so con-
scious of his real existence as a person as
wlien he has a vision of God, or realizes his
responsibility to God. Who dares deny the ex-
istence of a man who has violated the laws of
life or the sanctity of the home? His person-
ality seems girded with fire as he is separated
from all others by his defiance of the laws of
God and of man. His sense of guilt is the
awful guardian of his personal identity in all
lands and in all worlds. Personality is essen-
tially ethical. The Holy Spirit dwelling in the
tmity of the Father and the Son, searching and
knowing the deep things of God, is tlie most
vital personality on earth, filled with a lofty
and divine purpose that shakes the planet. He
comes as the very executive of the Godhead.
He is not a mere influence, an impersonal pow-
er, leaving us to ask what shall we do with it.
He comes as very God, asking the question
what he shall do with us. He is girded with
divine majesty, as celestial fire attends his com-



Tlie Personality of the Holy Spirit. 53

in^ and the rushing mighty wind heralds his
approach, as if all the elements hastened to
recognize that Sovereign who called order out
of chaos as he brooded over darkness and con-
fusion and said, "Let there be light." He who
clothed himself with light as with a garment
comes now to assert his supremacy alike over
material and spiritual nature. In creation the
Holy Spirit first manifested that glorious pow-
er which is to appear yet more glorious in the
regeneration of the spirit and in the resurrec-
tion of the body. Only a divine Personality was
worthy to follow the divine and glorified Son
of God.

The Holy Spirit which came to us out of the jfmstht
perfected and glorified humanity of Christ is

^ => ^ of the Holy

inseparable in our thought from Christ. What- spirit.
ever of the incarnate person and work of Jesus
belongs to him as the representative of man-
kind is under the Spirit's direction ; while all
that belongs to him as the representative of the
Deity is the act of his own Eternal Spirit as the
Son of God. Jesus must be glorified of the
Father in his completed resurrection, which was
his ascension, before the Holy Spirit could glo-
rify him among men. The Holy Spirit has a



54 The Personality of the Holy Spirit.

sharply defined commission of service in exclu-
sive relation to the purpose and work of Christ.
Since his ascension Christ is known only through
the Spirit, and no longer after the flesh. Even
to one who as the beloved disciple had so often
leaned upon his breast, when the final and glo-
rious revelation of Patmos is given, it was Christ
revealing himself through the Spirit to one who
was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. The Holy
Spirit is the perpetual and only sufficient wit-
ness of the Lordship of Christ, and the one
witness of the sonship of believers mediated
through Christ. He is the interpreter of the
mystery of the person of Christ. After Christ
said, "It is finished," the application oi the atone-
ment remained for the administration of the
Spirit. The very ministry of reconciliation is
the ministration of the Spirit, without whose aid
the world could never be convinced of sin in
the rejection of Christ, or of righteousness in
our ascended Lord as the only ground of hu-
man acceptance before the law, and of judg-
ment in the separation of all who belong to the
prince oi this world and those who belong to
Jesus its rightful Lord. As our risen Lord on
the first dav of his resurrection breathed on his



The Personality of the Holy Spirit. 55

disciples and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit,"
he prepared them by the help of the Holy Spirit
for every revelation and duty of the forty days,
and for those ten days of waiting in faith and
prayer for the promise of the Father, when the
Holy Spirit should be given, not to the apostles
only, but to the whole body of believers as-
sembled in the upper room. It was the gift of
power, it was the induement for service. It
was the Holy Spirit that had perfected Christ's
humanity now come to perfect ours as he should
take of the things of Christ and show them unto
us. It was the Spirit of Christ which dwelt in
him without measure.

Because no impersonal influence could take Nothing im-
the place of Christ's presence and g^uidance, the ^"'^°*"' '^°"

^ f » ' take the place

early disciples expected and welcomed the Holy of Christ.
Spirit as another Comforter or Strengthener, a
very Paraclete or Friend in need, such as Christ
himself had been to them. He was One with
whom they could counsel, to whom they could
pray, One who should guide them into all truth,
and One who as Lord of the harvest should
command and lead. So confident were they of
all these needs being met by the Holy Spirit, a
joint witness with them of the resurrection of



56 The Personality of the Holy Spirit.

Christ, that they beHeved that he was the real
self of the Church, the one Spirit, however di-
verse his gifts, whether of wisdom or under-
standing or speech. In their most solemn de-
liverances they were able to say, "It seemed
good to the Holy Spirit and to us." They dared
not disobey his voice when the Holy Spirit said,
^'Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work
whereunto I have called them." And these cho-
sen messengers, being sent forth by the Holy
Spirit, went forth on that first great mission-
ary tour which the Lord of the harvest had
planned, to be followed by countless others un-
til the final ingathering of the harvest.

The way in which the Holy Spirit was prom-
ised implied his personality. He was "the
promise of the Father," as the Son had also
been the promise of the Father. God gai'e the
Spirit as God also gave his Son. He was
promised as "another Comforter," which meant
that he should be no less personal than was the
first. All his acts were to be personal acts, as
he was to "speak," to "convince," to "testify,"
to "guide," to "show things to come," to "glo-
rify" Christ. Acts were possible toward him
which would not have been possible toward a



The Personality of the Holy Spirit. 57

mere influence or what was simply impersonal.
Men could resist the Holy Spirit as their fathers
had done, they could lie unto him, they could
even blaspheme him, and so be guilty of an
eternal sin.

The coming of the Holy Spirit was attended
with supernatural signs and wonders as really supernatural