The Ministry of the Spirit - A. J. Gordon (fantasy novels to read TXT) 📗

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