The Holy Spirit as the Interpreter of Scripture; Born of the Spirit

ee previous three chapters are in some

measure introductory only. Let us proceed now to the more detailed study of our sacred subject, by the method, at once the simplest and the surest, of taking up some of the great passages of Scriptural revelation and discourse upon it and listening anew to their message in reverent, believing meditation. And as we do so we will remember that (the blessed Spirit is not only the true Author of the written Word but also its supreme and true Expositor. ) Not all my readers know the noble hymn,’ found in few modern collections, strange to say, in which Cowper has set this forth; and I quote it accordingly in full : —

1 Olney Hymns, bk ii., No. 62.

“The Spirit breathes upon the word,
And brings the truth to sight:
Precepts and promises afford
A sanctifying light.

“A glory gilds the sacred page
Majestic, like the sun;

It gives a light to every age;

It gives, but borrows none.

“The hand that gave it still supplies
The gracious light and heat;
His truths upon the nations rise;

They rise, but never set.

Let everlasting thanks be Thine,
For such a bright display
As makes a world of darkness shine
With beams of heavenly day.

“My soul rejoices to pursue
The steps of Him I love,
Till glory breaks upon my view
In brighter worlds above.”

It is true; we need the Author to be also, in

the inmost secret of the matter, the Expositor, —

the Interpreter. Then will the Written Word shine, like the Living Word, with the light as of a transfiguration, its countenance and its garments also, Then shall we trace all through the holy pages “the steps of Him we love,” of

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Him who has Himself assured us tute xxiv. 5 that they are to be found there, — Joun v.39.

It may be well here, however, to say one word of caution as to the use made by the Christian of this truth of the Spirit’s expository work. Zow may we expect Him normally to exercise for us this merciful function? Is it by direct illumination, such that this text or that passage shall be seen by the soul, in the way of supernatural intuition, to mean this or that? If I am not mistaken, this impression is widely spread among Christians; and I would not lightly or without sympathy speak in correction of it. Nevertheless it must be obvious, on reflection, that to expect the Holy One to act upon us in such a manner as this is to expect the gift, just so far as such action goes, of

prophetic infallibility. It makes my interpre-

tation, arrived at under such illumination, as truly a divine revelation as the text itself, and it precludes any criticism of my interpretation, because it thus is, at least in essentials, the interpretation of God. When I hear or read, as I sometimes do, that a Christian believer speaks of this or of that as having been ‘‘shown

Md A a ee RETREAT TS

to him” in such and such a text, I am well aware that the meaning of the phrase, as the speaker intends it, may be most true, healthful, and trustworthy. But it is also possible that it may involve a claim, a dangerous claim, to hold and teach the interpretation in question as one above examination, because inspired, because divinely intuitive. What then are we to think of the matter? Are we, after all, to apply ourselves to Scripture study without special prayer

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and special expectation? Are we to assume

practically that “the natural man do¢h receive Sedz Cor.iisra the things of the’ Spirit of Godte” that they are not, necessarily and only, “spiritually discerned”? Shall we, after all, in face of all that we recollected in the previous chapter, think that to look on the Bible as on ‘another book” is to look upon it “wisely”? No; the mistake

that they are zot “foolishness unto him;

of doing so is not only great but fatal in our Scripture study, and we will not make it. We clergy at least, in the words of our Second Ordination Service, ‘‘will continually pray to God the Father, through the mediation of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly

HOW DOES THE SPIRIT INTERPRET? 67 assistance of the Holy Ghost, that by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures we may Wax riper and stronger in our ministry.” And what the clergyman thus does in view of his special function, the private Christian will do in view of his, in view of his sacred “ministry,” his “work of ministry,”! his whole Eph. iv. 12. life as laid at the Lord’s feet for His use, But the point is this. We shall ask, not for mental infallibility, which is asking in effect for a gift that has been “annulled,” — Cor. xiii, but for spiritual submission, receptivity, and harmony with the Spirit of God, such that Our reverent inquiry into the meaning of the Spirit’s words may be carried on :conii 13. in spiritually “dry light.” We shall pray for such presence and power of the Holy One within us, at the “springs of thought and will,” that we may be morally ready for the least hint, the tenderest suggestion, given in the blessed Book, about the will and mind of the author of the Book. Such a prayer will on the one hand recognize at every step our helplessness where Sees oe EE a ee

1 Avaxoma: see the construction of the Greek sentence,

— — ..

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we really are helpless. It will on the other hand only quicken us in the diligent and patient work of attention, and research, and comparison, as we use that precious mental faculty which the Lord who made us, and remade us, has given us to be used as in His presence and for Him. And the result will be no mere prolonged uncertainty, as if we were perpetually in fear lest new Scriptural evidence should upset our deepest spiritual certainties. By the grace of God it will be a calm and settled certainty, solid yet developing, the resultant of spiritual simplicity and of the genuine mental discovery and acquisition which such simplicity powerfully assists. It will be a certainty, as to all things of salvation, practically absolute to ourselves. But it will be kept clear of all untenable claims to have prophetic authority over others.*

1 I may refer the student to an excellent passage on this subject in an excellent book, the late Mr G. Stanley Faber’s Primitive Doctrine of Justification, pp. 233, etc. (ed. 1839). Mr Faber is dealing with Bishop Bull’s peculiar theory of Justification by Faith, a theory as to which the Bishop says that he attained to a firm persuasion of its truth after earnest prayer for mental illumination.

I have digressed at some length. And I would close my digression with an appeal, all the more earnest after the cautions on which I have ventured, to make the closing verses of 1 Cor. ii., after all, one of our ruling mottoes

for all study of the Word of God.

Approaching now some of the great Scriptural passages which discourse of the Holy Spirit and His work, I observe that these are to be found, in the main, in the writings of St John and of St Paul. I propose then to take some such passages from each of these Apostles in turn, and to examine their witness, with a special view always to the spiritual life of myself and of my reader. St Paul’s writings will afford us several such passages, mainly from the Roman, Corinthian, Galatian, and Ephesian Epistles. In St John’s Gospel we have, above all things, the precious Discourse of ‘the Upper Chamber, but also John xiv-xvi. passages in the third, seventh, and twentieth chapters. In the First Epistle we have much incidental material. In the Revelation the blessed Spirit appears again and again, and in connexions full of doctrinal and spiritual teaching.

Let us take St John’s Gospel first, both because it comes first in the Canon, and because in it, with scarcely any exception, the teaching about the Spirit comes from the very lips of the Son. The passage of passages here is the Paschal Discourse. But some shorter while all- important, passages precede it, which we now take up, for brief but most reverent meditation on their divine instruction.

The first passage, the only one I can touch

Jon iii. 8. at present, is the first part of the conversation with Nicodemus.

How shall I deal with it? First, necessarily, by excluding from the inquiry many extremely interesting subsidiary points. I do not forget, but I must not now consider, the connecting “but,” or “now”, (unaccountably omitted by the Authorized Version), which links the passage to the statements just before. I do not forget, but I must now pass by, the question what precise motive brought Nicodemus to the

1 “Hy S€ dvOparos, KrX.

Lord, and what led the Lord to speak instantly to him about the 2¢mgdom and entrance into it. And indeed I do not forget the weighty importance of the passage in the study of the doctrine of Christian Baptism, to which I cannot doubt reference is made in the word Johniii.s.

“water,” though I know that much has been thoughtfully said on the other side. But I do not dwell upon this now. Not that I undervalue the momentousness of the question raised; not that I regard the divine Sacrament with feelings other than humble reverence and thankfulness. But I believe that the passage contains elements of truth which have usually received far less attention, certainly in current thought in the Church at large, than the baptismal reference has received, and which yet have the most important bearing on that reference, such that they should help to interpret it rather than it claim to explain them. And these elements I find above all in ver. 8: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” “Ye must be born again.”

Take this sacred utterance up in detail.

I. “Born of the Spirit.” Read the phrase: as if new, as if in a recently discovered document of the first century. How powerful the term is, how profound! The word is not merely altered, influenced, reformed, reinvigorated. It is born, born again, born from above, touched with a dcogeneszs which is indeed the impartation of a higher order of life,! for it is Life Eternal. The man is taken back to a new beginning, set going again under new provisions and conditions of life, stamped with a new spiritual impression,” the living family likeness of the sons of God. Would we estimate the weight and fulness of what is meant by this wonderful phrase? Then let us take the New Testament, and examine Eg. Rom. vill, again, under the Spirit’s illumination ete. on our spirits, all the many passages where “childhood” and “sonship” of the a OS ee 1 Readers of Natural Law in the Spiritual World will recognize my allusion to the first chapter of that book, I cannot go with all Professor Drummond’s contentions in the book, believing that he not seldom sees identities where analogies would be a truer word. But the lessons and suggestions of the

first chapter seem to me very valuable indeed.? Xapaxrnp.

BOLI CORt(LAL * ShIARL LY 73

spiritual kind are spoken of; the places which direct us how to know the “children of God,” what are their notes and marks, what are their characteristic thoughts of God, of Christ, of the brethren of Christ, what, in short, they are, and what they do, as “the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.” 2Cor. vi.zs. “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world;” ‘“‘As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God;” “Behold, what manner of love, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.” These are celestial words, penetrating and searching the soul. Well may St Augustine say,’ “Let all sign themselves with the Cross, let all say the Amen and the Hallelujah, let all be baptized, let all enter the church doors; the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil only by love. They who have love are born of God; they who have not love are TOisase

1 On 1 John v. 7. * I venture to refer the reader to a little treatise of my own, Lhe New Birth.

SE a a Lee art a ene ta le “oe tr

2. “Born of THE Spirit.” To Him, the blessed Third Person, the sacred Subject of our studies, the Lord Jesus Christ here assigns the immediate agency in the New Birth. He takes in hand the man, and deals with him in regyenerating efficacy. He conveys to him the eternal life whose secret and at the same time whose manifestation is love generated of the love of

God. He ploughs the ground of the soul,,

convincing it of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He inserts the vivifying seed, so that *Pet.123, the man is “born again by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” Rom.v.s. He ‘* pours out the love of God in the heart.” He both gives the child-state and Rom. viii.zs, teaches the new-born man to underide yo SStanidshit nto cry ‘“Abba Father,” “the Abba, that prayer of faith alone,’ to the Eternal and Invisible.

3. “So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” We come last to the first word of this divine sentence: “So.” Of the men,” of the human beings, thus born again, born of the

1 Paul Gerhardt’s Song in the Day of the East Wind.

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Spirit, a certain something is universally, is at the very least normally, true; true not of some of them, not of a kind or class among them, but of “every one.” Ovdrws éori was 6 yeyevnpévos €k TOU Ivevparos.

The reference of “so” is clear, is unmistakable.. The Lord has just used a familiar but vivid illustration, as was His wont. He has spoken of the breath of air, the “spirit” of material nature, of its mystery and of its evidence. In certain of its phenomena He sees the counterpart of the case of ‘every one that is born of the Spirit.”

And this in three main respects, which I briefly indicate, though perhaps there is slight need that I should do so.

First, there is in the two cases an analogous secrecy of process. The breathing atmosphere fans my forehead, plays in the tree above me, whispers in the grass and rushes of the river-side below me. It is in itself meanwhile an infinitely delicate and quite invisible wave or current in the airy ocean; and all the combined observation and inference of mankind could not tell — certainly I could not tell — where that wave in the pure deep began and where it will sink into repose again. ‘So is every one that is born of the Spirit;” the process is mysterious.. The man receives a divine power upon him, within him. He is alive unto God, knowing Him, loving Him, lovingly bent upon pleasing Him “as His own son that serveth Mal. iii.x7- Fim.” And he knows that he did not originate for himself this condition; he did not. beget and bear himself again to fae hope, to loving life. Perhaps he knows definitely when, in some day or hour of mercy, he was awakened, convinced, enlightened, enabled to give himself to God. But this is but part of the secret, one mighty symptom of the process. He does not know when and how the holy work really began, how long the Spirit, who brought him to the New Birth at last, who was, in Hooker’s words ‘thus effectual in the secret work of regeneration unto newness of life,” had been preparing for that bright hour, by secret pleadings, by unnoticed providences, by even slighted means of grace — slighted, yet leaving some

1 Serm ¢@. on Jude 17-21.

mark on thought and will. He may know when the wind manifestly swayed him; he does not know whence and how it came on its holy path. And truly he knows not whither it goeth; “it doth not yet appear what: John iii. 2 he shall be.”

Secondly, the air-wave illustrates the mystery of the New Birth by its zzdependence as regards the will of man. Putting aside exceptions which are altogether trivial, the streams of the vast atmospheric ocean do indeed not obey the will of man. He cannot originate, he cannot steer for one mile, for one yard, the broad current either of the zephyr of the summer evening or of ‘‘the storm that wrecks the winter sky.” From his point of view “it bloweth where it listeth.” Even so the Spirit ‘distributeth,” divideth, giveth, moveth, ‘as He will.” The sons of God are :Cor xii: “born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man (avyp), but of God.” It Jobni ss. is a truth never meant to discourage, to repel,; to bewilder; for this sovereignty of will is the sovereignty of Him whose ‘fruit is Gal.v. 22. love, joy, peace,” of Him concerning whom it is written, “‘ Your heavenly Father shall give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” But it is Luke xi.z3. a truth meant to humble, meant to keep us low indeed before the eternal Will. Thirdly, the New Birth is illustrated by the action of the wind in respect of evidence given iz results. Here is one plain point in our blessed Lord’s parable, all-important, yet often overlooked. The wave of air, in its origin, course, and issues, is mysterious, invisible, undefinable; but its presence around me and in my surroundings is to be known by practical results, and by them alone: “Thou hearest the sound, the voice.” The trees of the wood, the waters of the mountain lake, you “hear the wind” in them and on them; and thus you ascertain its presence there. ‘So is every one that is born of the Spirit;” every one. The divinely mysterious process produces known and observable effects: and its presence, its presence not in the abstract but here or there, is to be verified by them, and by them alone. Regeneration, the coming to be one of the children of God, in Augustine’s sense of that term, in John the Apostle’s sense, in the Lord’s sense, is indeed a “secret thing” in itself; but. its evidences are practical and plain. The Spirit is eternal, divine; but where He effectually works the New Birth, there, in one degree or another, so says the Lord here, you will hear the sound, you will trace results. And what zs the sound of the heavenly Wind in the being, in the life? It consists of things which indeed belong to, though they are not the creatures of, the circumstances of the common day: “‘love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.” It Gal.v. 22, 23. consists, in fact, of love, love in distribution, heaven-given love to God and to man in God. It will be obvious that these remarks have much to do, supposing them to be true, with our interpretation of the function of the blessed Sacrament of Baptism, and in particular of the language of our own baptismal ritual. Into the deeply interesting and important questions so suggested, questions Scriptural, ecclesiastical, historical, questions amongst others of the nature of the absolute language of ceremony as against the more guarded language of biography, I do not enter here, for I think they are not in place in these meditations... Only it is right that I should say for my own part that not one word above written has been written in forgetfulness of my obligations as a presbyter of the English Church, or with faltering convictions as to the rightness of the language of its sacramental ritual. All the more earnestly would I say, and not least to my brethren in the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, Let nothing, absolutely nothing, be allowed to obscure our sense of the unutterable moral weight of our Redeemer’s words in this great passage of St John: ‘“Ye must be born again. So is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

William Beveridge, Bishop of St Asaph (1704 — 1708), was no half-hearted Churchman. Among our elder divines few use language about the holy Sacraments more reverent, I might say more rapturous, than his. Let me close then with a brief extract from his seventy-third printed sermon’: “‘ Chrest’s Resurrection the Cause of our Regeneration:” —

3 1 I venture to refer to my Outlines of Christian Doctrine,

p. 249, etc. 2 Works, ed. 1824, vol. iv., p. 240, ‘By your care and pains about the things of this world you may perhaps get something in it, and perhaps not, and how much so ever it be, it is nothing at all in comparison of what the children of God all have; ‘all things are theirs,’ all things that God hath made, and He Himself too that made them. And what can they desire more ?. There is nothing more for them to desire; and therefore their minds must needs be at rest, and their souls as full as they can hold of all true joy and comfort.

“Who then would not be in the number of these blessed souls? Who would not be regenerate,-and made a child of God, if he might? And who may not, if he will? Blessed be God, we are all as yet capable of it, for now that Christ is risen from the dead and exalted at the right hand of God, to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and forgiveness of sins, if we do but apply ourselves to Him and believe and trust on Him for it, His Father will be ours too; He will beget us again in His own likeness, and admit us into the glorious liberty of His own children.”