There is in all human intelligence a threefoldness which points toward a trinitarian life in God. We can distinguish a Wissen, a Bewusstsein, a Selbstbewusstein. In complete self-consciousness there are the three elements: 1. We are ourselves; 2. We form a picture of ourselves; 3. We recognize this picture as the picture of ourselves. The little child speaks of himself in the third person: “Baby did it.” The objective comes before the subject; “me” comes first, and “I” is a later development; “himself”still holds its place, rather than “heself.” But this duality belongs only to undeveloped intelligence; it is characteristic of the animal creation; we revert to it in our [pg 338]dreams; the insane are permanent victims of it; and since sin is moral insanity, the sinner has no hope until, like the prodigal, he “comes to himself” (Luke 15:17). The insane person is mente alienatus, and we call physicians for the insane by the name of alienists. Mere duality gives us only the notion of separation. Perfect self-consciousness whether in man or in God requires a third unifying element. And in God mediation between the “I” and the “Thou” must be the work of a Person also, and the Person who mediates between the two must be in all respects the equal of either, or he could not adequately interpret the one to the other; see Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 57-59.
Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:179-189, 276-283—“It is one of the effects of conviction by the Holy Spirit to convert consciousness into self-consciousness.... Conviction of sin is the consciousness of self as the guilty author of sin. Self-consciousness is trinal, while mere consciousness is dual.... One and the same human spirit subsists in two modes or distinctions—subject and object ... The three hypostatical consciousnesses in their combination and unity constitute the one consciousness of God ... as the three persons make one essence.”
Dorner considers the internal relations of the Trinity (System, 1:412 sq.) in three aspects: 1. Physical. God is causa sui. But effect that equals cause must itself be causative. Here would be duality, were it not for a third principle of unity. Trinitas dualitatem ad unitatem reducit. 2. Logical. Self-consciousness sets self over against self. Yet the thinker must not regard self as one of many, and call himself “he,” as children do; for the thinker would then be, not self-conscious, but mente alienatus, “beside himself.” He therefore “comes to himself” in a third, as the brute cannot. 3. Ethical. God—self-willing right. But right based on arbitrary will is not right. Right based on passive nature is not right either. Right as being—Father. Right as willing—Son. Without the latter principle of freedom, we have a dead ethic, a dead God, an enthroned necessity. The unity of necessity and freedom is found by God, as by the Christian, in the Holy Spirit. The Father—I; the Son—Me; the Spirit the unity of the two; see C. C. Everett, Essays, Theological and Literary, 32. There must be not only Sun and Sunlight, but an Eye to behold the Light. William James, in his Psychology, distinguishes the Me, the self as known, from the I, the self as knower.
But we need still further to distinguish a third principle, a subject-object, from both subject and object. The subject cannot recognize the object as one with itself except through a unifying principle which can be distinguished from both. We may therefore regard the Holy Spirit as the principle of self-consciousness in man as well as in God. As there was a natural union of Christ with humanity prior to his redeeming work, so there is a natural union of the Holy Spirit with all men prior to his regenerating work: Job 32:18—“there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit, teaches that the Holy Spirit constitutes the principle of life in all living things, and animates all rational beings, as well as regenerates and sanctifies the elect of God. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 75, remarks on Job 34:14, 15—“If he gather unto himself his Spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together”—that the Spirit is not only necessary to man's salvation, but also to keep up even man's natural life.
Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:172, speaks of the Son as the centrifugal, while the Holy Spirit is the centripetal movement of the Godhead. God apart from Christ is unrevealed (John 1:18—“No man hath seen God at any time”); Christ is the organ of external revelation (18—“the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”); the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation (1 Cor. 2:10—“unto us Christ revealed them through the Spirit”). That the Holy Spirit is the principle of all movement towards God appears from Heb. 9:14—Christ “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God”; Eph. 2:28—“access in one Spirit unto the Father”; Rom. 8:26—“the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity ... the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us”; John 4:24—“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit”; 16:8-11—“convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” See Twesten, Dogmatik, on the Trinity; also Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:111. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 68—“It is the joy of the Son to receive, his gladness to welcome most those wishes of the Father which will cost most to himself. The Spirit also has his joy in making known,—in perfecting fellowship and keeping the eternal love alive by that incessant sounding of the deeps which makes the heart of the Father known to the Son, and the heart of the Son known to the Father.” We may add that the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation even to the Father and to the Son.
(c) In the light of what has been said, we may understand somewhat more fully the characteristic differences between the work of Christ and that of the Holy Spirit. We may sum them up in the four statements that, [pg 339] first, all outgoing seems to be the work of Christ, all return to God the work of the Spirit; secondly, Christ is the organ of external revelation, the Holy Spirit the organ of internal revelation; thirdly, Christ is our advocate in heaven, the Holy Spirit is our advocate in the soul; fourthly, in the work of Christ we are passive, in the work of the Spirit we are active. Of the work of Christ we shall treat more fully hereafter, in speaking of his Offices as Prophet, Priest, and King. The work of the Holy Spirit will be treated when we come to speak of the Application of Redemption in Regeneration and Sanctification. Here it is sufficient to say that the Holy Spirit is represented in the Scriptures as the author of life—in creation, in the conception of Christ, in regeneration, in resurrection; and as the giver of light—in the inspiration of Scripture writers, in the conviction of sinners, in the illumination and sanctification of Christians.
Gen. 1:2—“The Spirit of God was brooding”; Luke 1:35—to Mary: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee”, John 3:8—“born of the Spirit”; Ps. 37:9, 14—“Come from the four winds, O breath.... I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live”; Rom. 8:11—“give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit.” 1 John 2:1—“an advocate(παράκλητον) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”; John 14:16, 17—“another Comforter (παράκλητον), that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth”; Rom. 8:26—“the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us.” 2 Pet. 1:21—“men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit”; John 16:8—“convict the world in respect of sin”; 13—“when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth”; Rom. 8:14—“as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
McCosh: The works of the Spirit are Conviction, Conversion, Sanctification, Comfort. Donovan: The Spirit is the Spirit of conviction, enlightenment, quickening, in the sinner; and of revelation, remembrance, witness, sanctification, consolation, to the saint. The Spirit enlightens the sinner, as the flash of lightning lights the traveler stumbling on the edge of a precipice at night; enlightens the Christian, as the rising sun reveals a landscape which was all there before, but which was hidden from sight until the great luminary made it visible. “The morning light did not create The lovely prospect it revealed; It only showed the real state Of what the darkness had concealed.”Christ's advocacy before the throne is like that of legal counsel pleading in our stead; the Holy Spirit's advocacy in the heart is like the mother's teaching her child to pray for himself.
J. W. A. Stewart: “Without the work of the Holy Spirit redemption would have been impossible, as impossible as that fuel should warm without being lighted, or that bread should nourish without being eaten. Christ is God entering into human history, but without the Spirit Christianity would be only history. The Holy Spirit is God entering into human hearts. The Holy Spirit turns creed into life. Christ is the physician who leaves the remedy and then departs. The Holy Spirit is the nurse who applies and administers the remedy, and who remains with the patient until the cure is completed.” Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 78—“It is in vain that the mirror exists in the room, if it is lying on its face; the sunbeams cannot reach it till its face is upturned to them. Heaven lies about thee not only in thine infancy but at all times. But it is not enough that a place is prepared for thee; thou must be prepared for the place. It is not enough that thy light has come; thou thyself must arise and shine. No outward shining can reveal, unless thou art thyself a reflector of its glory. The Spirit must set thee on thy feet, that thou mayest hear him that speaks to thee (Ez. 2:2).”
The Holy Spirit reveals not himself but Christ. John 16:14—“He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.” So should the servants of the Spirit hide themselves while they make known Christ. E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit, 40—“Some years ago a large steam engine all of glass was exhibited about the country. When it was at work one would see the piston and the valves go; but no one could see what made them go. When steam is hot enough to be a continuous elastic vapor, it is invisible.”So we perceive the presence of the Holy Spirit, not by visions or voices, but by the effect he produces within us in the shape of new knowledge, new love, and new energy of our own powers. Denney, Studies in Theology, 161—“No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. Esprit is fatal to unction; no man can give the impression that he himself is clever and also that Christ is mighty to save. The [pg 340]power of the Holy Spirit is felt only when the witness is unconscious of self, and when others remain unconscious of him.” Moule, Veni Creator, 8—“The Holy Spirit, as Tertullian says, is the vicar of Christ. The night before the Cross, the Holy Spirit was present to the mind of Christ as a person.”