prevented their seeing Christ in their Scriptures.  If they had not this wrong interpretation, they would see Christ and their Scriptures would be plain. As it was, they were dark and mysterious.  The apostle tells what will remove the veil:  “When they shall turn to the Lord,” the veil shall be taken away.  There is nothing in the whole passage that even hints at an immediate operation of the Spirit.

3.  “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).  There is nothing here to even hint at a direct operation.  It says the Ephesians were created in Christ Jesus (not in the Holy Spirit) unto good works.  If the reader wishes to learn by what means they were so created, let him turn to chapter 1, verse 13, and he will obtain the information:  “In whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation,—­in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.”  That is something to the point.  They “heard the word of truth,” the gospel of their salvation.  Then, after they believed, they “were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.”  There is nothing in the passage to warrant the teaching of a special operation to enable them to believe.

4.  “And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one that worshipped God, heard us:  whose heart the Lord opened to give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul” (Acts 16:14).  This is relied upon to prove a direct work of the Spirit upon Lydia that she might hear and believe.  The very thing to be proved is again assumed.  True, the Lord opened Lydia’s heart, but he didn’t do so that she might “receive the word,” for Paul had already preached it to her.  Her heart was opened that “she gave heed to the things spoken by Paul.”  Before she heard Paul she had a narrow, bigoted Jewish heart.  After she heard the preaching, her heart was opened to attend to the things she had heard.  That is, she obeyed the gospel.  Nothing about the Holy Spirit in the entire history.

5.  “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth:  whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him:  ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:16, 17).  As I have elsewhere shown, this passage has a private and peculiar application to the apostles, and not to the world of mankind.  It specifically states that “the world cannot receive” this Comforter.  That kills it as a proof-text that the world “must receive it” before it can believe.  Those who affirm a direct operation of the Spirit on “the world” make a clear-cut issue with the Saviour.