The Fundamentals (1910), Vol.1

56

The Fundamentals. tion; the latter conception to self-humiliation, self-emptying, and self-renunciation. I f we think of the Holy Spirit merely as a Divine power or influence and then imagine that we have received the Holy Spirit, there will be the temptation to feel as if we belonged to a superior order of Christians. A woman once came to me to ask a question and began by saying, “Be­ fore I ask the question, I want you to understand that I am a Holy Ghost woman.” The words and the manner of uttering them made me shudder. I could not believe that they were true. But if we think of the Holy Spirit in the Biblical way as a divine Being of infinite majesty, condescending to dwell in our hearts and take possession of our lives, it will put us in the dust, and make us walk very softly before God. I t is of the highest importance from an experimental stand­ point that we know the Holy Spirit as a person. Many can testify of the blessing that has come into their own lives from coming to know the Holy Spirit, as an ever-present, living, divine Friend and Helper. There are four lines of proof in the Bible that the Holy Spirit is a person. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT . 1. All the distinctive characteristics of personality are ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the Bible. What are the distinctive characteristics or marks of per­ sonality? Knowledge, feeling and will. Any being who knows and feels and wills is a person. When you say that the Holy Spirit is a person, some understand you to mean that the Holy Spirit has hands and feet and eyes and nose, and so on, but these are the marks, not of personality, but of corporeity. When we say that the Holy Spirit is a person, we mean that He is not a mere influence or power that God sends into our lives but that He is a Being who knows and feels and wills. These three characteristics of personality, knowledge, feeling

Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog