Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
CHAPTER III
THE SPIRIT OF GOD
THE word which stands for "spirit" in the Old Testament is
(ruach), in the New Testament, (pneuma). They are words precisely of the same
significance. Both are derived from words which mean "to breathe,"* and in
their primary sense therefore signify "breath," or what is a kindred thought,
air in motion, "wind." From this as the type of viewless activity, its meaning
of" spirit" most evidently and easily derived. The comparison between the two
is what the Lord makes in John iii. 8, where like same word pneuma is both
"wind" and "spirit": "the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or wither it goeth, so is
every one that is born of the Spirit." Here manifestly the thought is of
invisible activity beyond control; the effects are manifest, the power which
produces them unseen and uncontrollable. In the formation of language, where
that which can be conceived of only gets its name from that which is recognized
by the senses, what more simple than that pneuma, originally breath or wind,
should give its name to the power that, omnipresent in its activity acts unseen
and uncontrolled? Hence "God is Spirit," the third Person of the Trinity,
whom Scripture represents as the immediate mover, both in creation and in new
creation, is preeminently the "Spirit of God."
( *The verb is not used
in the Old Testament, except in the Hiphil a causative form; and in this form
it signifies "to smell." How this is really the same as to "cause to breathe"
is plain on a moments consideration Pneuma occurs seven times in the New
Testament, in every place to represent the blowing of wind.
In the
"Personal Recollections" of Charlotte Elizabeth occurs a well known and
touching illustration of the connection of thought. A poor dumb boy, in whom
she was interested, and whom she had been seeking to impress with the fact of
the being of God, told her that he had been looking everywhere for God, but
could not find Him. "There was God, NO!" She took up a pair of
bellows, and blew a puff at his hand, which was red with cold on a
winters day. He showed signs of displeasure, told her it made his hands
cold, while she, looking at the pipe of the bellows, told him she could see
nothing, "there was wind, no!" " He opened his eyes very wide,
stared at me, and panted a deep crimson suffused his whole face, and a soul, a
real soul, shone in his strangely altered countenance, while he triumphantly
repeated. God like wind! God like wind! " )
To all this,
indeed, on behalf of materialism, Mr. Roberts has made sundry objections, the
answer to which need not detain us long. He tells us: "A substantive derived
from a verb draws its meaning from the act expressed by the verb. Ruach is
ruach, because it is the thing ruached so to speak, and not because the act of
ruaching is invisible." But that has to do with the primary meaning of words
only, and not with the secondary, of which alone we are speaking. "Breath" is
the thing breathed, no doubt, but if I speak of "a breath of air," I do not
speak of anything breathed. I apply the word "breath" in a secondary sense, to
something which in some way it resembles. This secondary sense has nothing to.
do with the derivation of the word at all, as a "breath of air" is not a thing
breathed forth, but only compared to that which is. John iii. 8 shows us, for
pneuma, the real ground of comparison between its primary and secondary
meanings: an illustration which Mr. Roberts silently passes by, in order that
he may be able to speak of this view of the matter as an "opinion having no
deeper foundation than the ingenuity of those who have given birth to the
speculation."
Meanwhile, he himself puts forth what is really that,
that "the power which gives life was itself in the first instance spirited
(breathed forth) from the Eternal Source of life and light." To this, moreover,
we answer by bringing forward the passage which Mr. R. rightly foresees will be
against him - " "God is a Spirit."* Who breathed forth, then, this Spirit which
God is? Was God Himself an emanation from something else? Mr. R. anticipates
this objection, and tries to provide for it by telling us that "spirit" "comes
by association with subsequent manifestation, to stand in its New Testament use
as the synonym of the Divine nature; but this by association merely, and not by
philological derivation." But how, then, is he so sure that there is
"philological derivation" in the former case? This is evidently a second
conjecture, to uphold the previous one, and as baseless as the former. For,
with so-called Christadelphianism, as is well known, the theory is, that while
"spirit" is a thing "spirited forth" from God, out of this spirit all things
were made. How strange and contradictory to take, then, what is, so to speak,
the raw material of all creation, and to confound with that Gods very
nature - creation and Creator being so identified as one!
*John iv. 24.
Materialism has thus not shrunk from assailing, along with the Godhead
of the Son, the Personality of the Holy Ghost. And this is not confined even to
the followers of Dr. Thomas. The interpretation of "spirit" adopted by Ellis
and Read, borrowed, it would seem, by or from the former, tends directly the
same way. Miles Grant, as we have seen, makes it a mere influence. But Dr.
Thomas it is who has formulated the doctrine, as before seen. According to him,
the Spirit of God is electricity, or, combined with nitrogen and oxygen in the
atmosphere, which Job calls the "breath of God." According to Mr. Roberts, his
follower, it is proved by the shaking of the house on the day of Pentecost, and
the energizing of Samsons muscles, when it came on him, to belong as much
on the list of material forces as light, heat or electricity. The doctrine is
developed in full in his fifth lecture that God is a material being, surrounded
by a kind of electrical atmosphere, so dazzling and consuming in His immediate
presence, as to be called "light unapproachable," but which, attenuated by
degrees, is the material out of which He creates all things, and by which He
becomes cognizant of everything, and executes His purpose in the whole domain
of the universe. This is the ruach, the principle of life in the
nostrils of all flesh, which the foolish animals "use all up" in the mere
process of existence, but which wiser man can use to move tables, read unopened
letters, and even (when in a high state of nervous susceptibility) to perceive
distant facts and occurrences! " When concentrated under the Almightys
will," it "becomes holy spirit, as distinct from spirit in its free,
spontaneous form;" in which way apostles received it, but "it is given to none
in the present day." In "evolving a new man" in people, "the Spirit has no
participation except in the shape of the written word. The present days are
barren days, as regards the Spirits direct operations"*
*Twelve
Lectures, pp. 110-125.
All this is but the legitimate fruit of
materialistic teaching. It is essential to its self-consistency that the
Personality of the Spirit of God be denied. Once get rid of Him as a Person,
put Him upon the list of material forces - let it be electricity or anything
else you please - and plainly you have at once reduced the spirit of man also
to something just as unintelligent, and as well suited to the purpose they
desire to accomplish. The statement I have given from Mr. Roberts book
may not seem to need reply, nor anything but its simple utterance, to condemn
it sufficiently. Nevertheless I shall answer it; for in these days of
wide-spread infidelity, God alone knows in what unlooked-for places the answer
may be needed. Nor does the gross folly which marks it all hinder its
reception. Man has no wisdom apart from the word of truth, and, once astray
from that, the apostolic declaration is fulfilled, "professing to be wise, they
became fools." How like, too, to what is now occupying us, that which he goes
on to say ! - "and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into AN IMAGE
MADE LIKE TO CORRUPTIBLE MAN!" (Rom. i. 22. 23).
Scripture disowns this
system in all its parts. In Scripture the Spirit of God is a Person, divine and
intelligent in the things of God. Just as, "what man knoweth the things of a
man, save the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knoweth
no man, but the Spirit of God"* (1 Cor. ii. 11).
( *Mr. Roberts objects
against this: - "There is a parallel: 1. Man, and the spirit of man; 2. God,
and the Spirit of God. Now, does Mr. Grant mean to contend that the spirit of
man is one person, knowing the things of man another person? Surely not. Yet
this is what his view would require if he is right, in maintaining that the
Spirit of God is one person, knowing the things of God, another person."
)
Mr. Grants view requires nothing of the sort. The " things
of man" are just human things, as "the things of God" are divine things. It is
not a question of another person in either case. But if the Spirit of God knows
divine things, then He is conscious and intelligent; and so is the spirit of
man in human things.
And I know not what argues personality more than
consciousness and intelligence. Does Mr. Roberts? Of course this infers the
personality of the spirit of man, and this is obnoxious to him but the passage
before us does plainly intimate that the essence of personality in man is in
his spirit. This is a very important point, which will come up again in its own
place.
This is as different from Mr. Grants "influence" or Mr.
Roberts "medium," through which the Deity receives impressions (much as
the human ear sound through the atmosphere), but itself as unconscious as the
atmosphere - of which, indeed, according to Thomas, it forms part - as can well
be conceived. "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God"
(ver. 10). Not God searches by the Spirit, as Mr. R. would have it, but the
Spirit itself searches and knows. Moreover, again, "He who searcheth the
hearts" i. e., God, "knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit," which, living and
active, "ITSELF maketh intercession for us according to God" (Rom. viii. 26,
27).
If this is not the announcement of an intelligent Person, words
cannot convey the idea of one. Yet Mr. Roberts will have it that it is all what
he is fond of calling "the inevitable fictions of human speech." Of the
passages from Corinthians he says: "This describes the apostolic experience of
the Spirit," which, "to THEIR SENSATIONS, as we may say, was separately from
themselves an Enlightener, Penetrator,: Comforter, Witness, and therefore
described in language that reads as if these functions were personally separate
from the Father"*
*Man Mortal, p. 29.
So then it does read
as if the Spirit of God were a person! The truth is, after all, too strong for
the theory. But then this is merely a description, according to the human
sensation! Is it true, then, that to their human sensations the Spirit of God
was not only separate from themselves, but from the Father also? How did the
"sensation" differ from what it would have been had the Father spoken apart
from this? Could they not help describing it by misleading words? Mr. Roberts
himself can and does describe it differently. Why not the apostles? The words
do read as if the Spirit of God were a Person, our adversaries themselves being
judges; and they speak not merely of inspired knowledge, but of the competency
of the Spirit to reveal. And then is further added (ver. 12), "Now we have
received the Spirit" - this Spirit so competent in knowledge - "that we might
know." Their knowledge is distinguished from the Spirits knowledge; and
the doctrine is complete that theirs proceeds from their reception of One, who
had it in His own power to impart His to them.
The argument that the
Spirit of God is in the nostrils, and so a mere principle of life in all
living, because Job xxvii. 3, in the common version, speaks so, I can only say
is worthy of men who, when they choose, can quote Greek and Hebrew abundantly,
but who are pleased to ignore in this case the fact that one of the commonest
renderings of ruach is breath; and that the expression refers to Gen. ii. 7,
where the word for "breath of life" is a word which is never applied to the
Spirit of God at all. And, moreover, so far is Scripture from asserting that
the Spirit of God is in all men, that it speaks of Christians expressly as
those "who have received the Spirit which is of God."
The proof is
indeed abundant and decisive as to this, which is alone (spite of Mr.
Roberts protest) subversive of their whole theory. For it is no work of
the Spirit that is in question, as he would make it, but the reception of the
Spirit Himself Nor was (as he affirms) the teaching of the Spirit ever called
the Spirit. The Lords words indeed were "spirit," but not the Spirit of
God; and "the Spirit is truth" surely, characteristically, just as is the Lord
Jesus (John. xiv. 6); but in neither case does that destroy personality. All
the way through Scripture we find language which defies accommodation to this
lowest depth of materialism. If I begin with Genesis (xli. 38)* I find Joseph
spoken of as a "man in whom [distinctively] the Spirit of God is." In Jude 19,
some, even of professing Christians are described as "sensual, having not the
Spirit." So I find in Gal. iv. 6, that "because ye are sons, God hath sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father!" [Was this
merely " truth" that God sent into their hearts? and were they sons before they
had received it?] And again, "Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so
be that the Spirit of God dwell in you;" and then it is added, "Now if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. viii. 9). Solemn
utterance, indeed, for men who have to confess that they have no "Holy Spirit":
for only by the Holy Ghost given to us is "the love of God shed abroad in our
hearts" (Rom. v. 5); and "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (ch. xiv. 17). If that be
withdrawn, there is no more "communion of the Holy Ghost" (2 Cor. xiii. 14); no
more "sealing" to the day of redemption (Eph. iv. 30); no more "renewing of the
Holy Ghost" (Titus iii. 5). Sad work indeed, if this he true! and barren days
indeed! But what an account for men to give of themselves, that they have no
communion, no renewing, no sealing, no peace, no joy, no love of God in their
hearts! They have pronounced their condemnation with their own lips, when they
say that the only Spirit of God they know is one subject to mens wills,
and " used up " by animals "in the mere process of existence."
(
*Roberts allows this, and yet thinks it "looks as much like a manuvre as
possible," and spends a full page in proving (what no one will deny), that the
ruach Eloah of Job, and the nishmath chayim of Genesis are doctrinally
identical." How is it he does not see that this is the very thing which Mr.
Grant (as he thinks, so dogmatically) asserts? The real question is, can the
"breath of God in the nostrils," which Job speaks of, be the same as that
Spirit of God, who (to quote the same book) made man (xxxiii. 4)? To assert
this because it is the same word ruach in each case, is equivalent to asserting
that in John iii. 8, because the same word pneuma is used for " wind" and
"spirit," therefore to be born of the Spirit is to be born of the wind!
)
He goes on: "But Mr. Grant is mistaken if he supposes that this
verse in Job is the only support to the doctrine that the Spirit of God is the
means of universal life. The statements quoted four or five sentences back
(Psa. xxxvi. 9; Acts xvii. 25; Job xii. 10) indirectly (and if so very
indirectly) show the same thing. In addition, we have to consider passages as
these: Whither shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from
thy presence? (Psa. cxxxix. 7). What conclusion can we come to from this,
but that the universal presence of God, who personally dwells in heaven, is the
universal Spirit, invisible power or energy radiated from the Father, and
therefore called Spirit, or that which is breathed? Again, the Spirit of
God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life (Job
xxxiii. 7). Again, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created (Psa.
civ. 30). Hence, in Him (by the Spirit) we live, and move and have our
being (Acts xvii. 28). Hence, if He gather to Himself His Spirit
(ruach) and His breath (nishmath) ALL FLESH shall perish together, and man
shall turn again to his dust, (Job xxxiv. 14)."
Here we have the
strength of Mr. Roberts doctrine. How plain it is also and that he goes
to Scripture, as so many do, just to find support for it. What an inference,
that if one cannot go from the Spirit, and then from the presence of God, that
therefore "Spirit" and "presence" must be just the same thing! and, moreover,
this must be an energy breathed from the Father. The trouble with Mr. Roberts
is that he is so absolute a materialist, that with him even God Himself must be
material, and there must either be a material presence or such. To others than
himself it will appear that Mr. R. had better give us the grounds of such a
conclusion from Scripture, rather than suppose them. Similarly we all believe
that the Spirit of God has made us, and the breath of the Almighty given us
life. Does that prove that the Spirit of God is only breath ? And if so, how?
Again, in what way does God send forth His Spirit when He creates,
according to Mr. R.? To us it looks very much like the doctrine of a living,
personal agent, in which we believe.
So as to Acts xvii. 28, the
materialism is all his own.
In the last passage, allowing his reading of it
(which some accept), Gods Spirit need not., surely be impersonal, because
the maintainer of life in all created existences, nor is it identified with the
spirit of man.
This is, then, the total result of the appeal to
Scripture as to this so weighty a point to be established, and in face of
Scriptures, which (it is owned) do read as if the Spirit of God were a distinct
person in the Godhead. With Mr. Roberts the Spirit is the material of creation;
in Scripture the Creator, as indeed he owns: thoughts which are contradictory
of each other, as long as Creator and creature are distinct in more than name.
Yet Mr. Roberts allows that this (impersonal!) Spirit "was a teacher,
more particularly in the apostolic era, when it was bestowed on all who
believed the word, enabling them to work miracles, speak with tongues,
understand mysteries, according as the Spirit WILLED"! How strange an
impersonality is this, creating, teaching, searching, willing, hearing,
knowing, and yet not a person! Of course this language must be understood as
mere, strangely contradictory, human speech. Scripture seems to say this. We
must believe it to mean something that it never even seems to say!
Go to Chapter Four
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