The Work of the Holy Spirit in Prophets and Apostles
I. The Distinctive Character of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prophets and Apostles.
(i) i Cor. 12: 4, 8-n, 28, 29 — “Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.... For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.... And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?”
FIRST PROPOSITION: The toork of the Holy Spirit in Apostles and Prophets differs from His work in other believers. He imparts to Apostles and Prophets an especial gift for an especial purpose.
The doctrine which is becoming so common and so popular in our day, that the work of the Holy Spirit in preachers and teachers and in ordinary believers, illuminating them and guiding them into the truth and into the understanding of the Word of God, is the same in kind and differs only in degree from the work of the Holy Spirit in Prophets and Apostles, is thoroughly unscriptural and untrue. It overlooks the clearly stated and carefully elucidated fact that while there is “the same Spirit,” ‘“there are diversities of gifts,” “diversities of ministrations,” “diversities of workings” (1 Cor. 12: 4-6, R.V.), and that not all are prophets or apostles. (1 Cor. 12: 29.)
NOTE. — Those who desire to minimize the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in Apostles and Prophets, and his work in other men, often refer to the fact that the Bible says that Bezaleel was to be “filled with the Spirit of God” to devise the work of the Tabernacle (Ex. 31: i-n), as a proof that the inspiration of the prophet does not differ from the inspiration of the artist or architect; but they are ignorant of the fact, or forget it, that the Tabernacle was to be built after the pattern shown to Moses in the Mount (Ex. 25: 9, 40), and that, therefore, it was itself a prophecy, and an exposition of the truth of God. It was the wore of God done into wood, gold, silver, brass, cloth, skin, etc. There is much reasoning about inspiration to-day that appears at first sight very learned, but that will not bear much rigid scrutiny or candid comparison with the word of God. There is nothing in the Bible more inspired than the Tabernacle, and if the higher critics would study it more they would give up their ingenious but untenable theories.
II. Results of the Work of the Holj Spirit in Prophets and Apostles.
(1) Eph. 3: 5, R.V. — “Which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.’”
FIRST PROPOSITION; Truth hidden from men for ages, and which they had not discover ed, and could not discover by the unaided processes of human reasoning, has been revealed to Apostles and to Prophets in the Spirit.
The Bible contains truth that men never had discovered, and never would have discovered if left to themselves, but which the Father in great grace has revealed to his children through His servants, the Prophets and the Apostles. We see here the folly of testing the statements of Scripture by the conclusions of human reasoning or ’ the Christian Consciousness.” The revelation of God transcends human reasoning, and a consciousness that is truly and fully Christian is the product of the study and absorption of Bible truth. If our consciousness differs from the statements of this book, it is not yet fully Christian, and the thing to do is not to try to pull God’s revelation down to the level of our consciousness, but to tone our consciousness up to the level of God’s Word.
(2) i Pet. i: 10, n, 12 — “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 oj 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, that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.”
SECOND PROPOSITION: The Revelation made to the Prophets was independent of their own thinking it was made to them by the Spirit of Christ which was in them — and was a subject of inquiry to their own mind as to its meaning. It was not their thought, but His.
(3) 2 Pet. i: 21, R.V. — “For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost.”
THIRD PROPOSITION: No prophetic utterance was of the Prophets’ own will, but they spake from God, and the Prophet was carried along in it by the Holy Spirit.
(4) Heb. 3: 7 — “Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day, if ye will hear his voice.”
10: 15, 16 — “Whereof the t*nly Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, Tnis is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord; I will put rny laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them.”
Acts. 28: 25 — “And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word. Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers.”
2 Sam. 23: 2, R.V. — “The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word iv as in my tongue.”
FOURTH PROPOSITION: It was the Holy Spirit who spoke in the prophetic utterance; it was His word that was upon the Prophet’s tongue.
The prophet was simply the mouth by which the Holy Spirit spake. As a man, except as the Spirit taught him and used him, the prophet was fallible as other men are, but when the Spirit was upon him, and he was taken up and borne along by the Holy Spirit, he was infallible in his teachings. The teaching, indeed, was not his, but the Holy Spirit’s. God was speaking, not the prophet. For example, Paul doubtless had many mistaken notions, but when he taught as an apostle, under the Spirit’s power, he was infallible — or rather the Spirit who taught through him, and the consequent teaching, were infallible — as infallible as God. We do well to carefully distinguish what Paul may have thought as a man, and what he actually did teach as an apostle.
In the Bible we have the record of what he taught as an apostle, with the possible exception of 1 Cor. 7: (>, 1^5 — “But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.... Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful,” and the context. Here he does not seem to have been sure that he had the word of the Lord and is careful to note the fact, thus giving additional certainty to all other passages.
It is sometimes said that Paul taught in his early epistles that the Lord would return during his lifetime, and in this was of course mistaken. But Paul never taught anywhere that the Lord would return during his lifetime. In 1 Thess. 4: 17 (“Then ire which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we be ever with the Lord’’), as he was still alive, he naturally did not include himself with those who were fallen asleep in speaking of the Lord’s return. Quite probably he did believe that he might be alive, and the attitude of expectancy is the true attitude in all ages for every believer. Paul probably rather believed he would live to the coming of the Lord, but he did not so teach. The Holy Spirit kept him from this as all other errors in his teachings.
(5) i Cor. 2: 13 — “Which things also we speak, not/;/ the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (See Am. Ap. to R.V.)
FIFTH. PROPOSITION: The Holy Spirit in the Apostle taught not only the thought (or “concept”) but the words in which the thought was to be expressed.
This is not only a necessary inference from the fact that thought is conveyed from mind to mind by words, and if the words were imperfect the thought expressed in those words would necessarily be imperfect, but it is distinctly so stated. Nothing could be plainer than Paul’s statement “IN WORDS, which the Spirit teacheth.” The Holy Spirit has Himself anticipated all these modern ingenious but unbiblical and false theories regarding His own work in the apostles.
The more carefully and minutely one studies the wording of the statements of this wonderful book, the more he will become convinced of the marvelous accuracy of the words used to express the thought. To a superficial student the doctrine of verbal inspiration may appear questionable or even absurd, but any regenerated and Spirit-taught man who ponders the words of the Scripture day after day and year after year will become convinced that the wisdom of God is in the very words, as well as in the thought which is expressed in the words. It is an impressive fact that our difficulties with the Bible rapidly disappear as we note the precise language used. The change of a word or letter, of a tense, case, or number would land us in contradiction or untruth, but taking the words just as written, difficulties disappear and truth shines forth.
The Divine origin of nature shines forth clearly under the use of the microscope as we see the perfection of form and adaptation of the minutest particles of matter. So likewise the Divine origin of the Bible shines forth clearly under the microscope as we note the perfection with which the turn of a word reveals the absolute thought of God.
QUESTION: If the Holy Spirit is the author of the words of Scripture, how do we account for variations in style and diction? — that, for example, Paul always uses Pauline language, and John, Johannean, etc.
ANSWER: If we could not account at all for this fact it would have little weight against the explicit statement of God’s Word, with anyone who is humble and wise enough to recognize that there are a great many things which he can not account for at all, which could be easily accounted for if he knew more. But these variations are easily accounted for. The Holy Spirit is quite wise enough and has quite enough facility in the use of language in revealing truth to and through any individual, to use words, phrases and forms of expression in that person’s vocabulary and forms of thought, and to make use of that person’s peculiar individuality. It is a mark of the Divine wisdom of this book that the same Divine truth is expressed with absolute accuracy in such widely variant forms of expression.
(6) Mark 7: 13 — “Making the word of God of none effect through your traditions, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.”
2 Sam. 23:2 — “The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.”
286 What the Bible TeacTies
i Thess. 2: 13 — “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God, -which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”
SIXTH PROPOSITION: The utterances of the Apostles and the Prophets were the Word of God. When we read these words we are not listening to the voice of man but to the voice of God.