VIII

THE SPIRIT AND THE WORLD

Hitherto we have been treating the Holy Spirit in terms of the past, but now we come to the present tense.  Is the Holy Spirit a power in the present age?  If so, what kind of a power?  Is he making an issue with men as a direct power and working upon them immediately, or is he working through an instrumentality, and, if so, what is the instrumentality?

The Spirit is undoubtedly dealing with two classes of persons in his work to-day.

First, those who are not believers, and therefore unconverted and “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.”

Second, those who have believed and obeyed the gospel, and are therefore children of God.

We shall devote this chapter to the influence of the Spirit upon the unbelieving world.

In the very nature of things, the work of the Spirit is to make believers out of unbelievers, and convert the perverted.  We all believe this.  We believe that all believers are made by the power of the Spirit.  We differ about whether he exercises that power directly from himself to the individual soul, or whether he exercises that power through the gospel, through the apostles and through Christ’s word of truth.  Reason, philosophy and experience exhausted themselves in discovering but two methods by which one spirit can exercise an influence over another.

First, a direct mechanical, immediate influence taking possession of the will and influencing the mind of and controlling the speech and actions of the subject.  This takes place in hypnotism and is supposed to take place in clairvoyance and clairaudience.

Second, a rational moral influence exerted by ideas impressed upon the mind by teaching and words that represent ideas.

There is, there can be, no third way by which one spirit can influence another.  You may study till you are gray-headed or bald-headed, for that matter, and you will discover no other way.

The Holy Spirit has used both of these methods in the past.

1.  In the case of the apostles and prophets, he immediately, mechanically and directly controlled their actions and speech, so much so that Jesus told them that under the influence of the Spirit they should take no thought what they should say.  “For it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11).  “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4).

2.  In the case of the men to whom the apostles preached on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit used a rational moral influence through the words of Peter’s sermon, which conveyed ideas that swayed their minds and hearts.  It is claimed by some that both of these methods are used by the Spirit to-day.  The modern teaching concerning the first of these influences is well set forth in the following selection