The personality and deity of the Holy Spirit we indeed do not deny; but the methods by which Trinitarians attempt the proof of this self-evident proposition, are, like all proofs of identical propositions, unsatisfactory to an extreme. The Lecturer in Christ Church, when meeting the objection, that baptism into Christ was no proof of his deity, because we have also the expression, “baptism into Moses,” dropped out of sight the true bearing of the objection against the deity of Jesus, and argued that the expression, baptism into Moses, was so far a proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit, because Moses was a person. Was the death of Christ, a person? Was Mount Gerizim, a person? We do not deny the personality of the Holy Spirit—though this is no way of proving it. We do deny that the deity of Christ is implied in baptism into his name, and the force of the expression, baptism into Moses, in this bearing of it, was either not seen or was put aside.
The argument, that because three words follow one another, without any expressed distinction, they must all refer to subjects of the same nature, co-equal and co-extensive, and this, too, as the strongest, indeed the only direct evidence of a Trinity in the Godhead, is really one of those arguments for a doctrine of revelation, which a mind with any reverence knows not how properly to discuss. I am glad to be able to say, that Dr. Tattershall pronounces this to be only a presumptive proof of the separate personality of the Holy Spirit, that is, in fact, no proof at all, but merely such a hint as might lead to the presumption that there may be additional evidence, and which, therefore, in the absence of such additional evidence, amounts to nothing. If any one, however, advances such an argument, we have only to ask first, is any one really content to rest such a doctrine on such a proof, and call this Revelation? and secondly, to advance in our turn, other passages of Scripture, where this principle of interpretation cannot be maintained. If the concurrence of the words, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, necessarily implies that each of these refers to a person who is God, and that when taken together they make up the entire nature of God—then, I ask, what is the necessary inference from such expressions as these,—“I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things?”—1 Tim. v. 21. Now if the argument is conclusive that infers in the one case the deity of Jesus, it must be equally conclusive, when it infers, in the other, the deity of the elect angels. The Trinitarian answer will be,—“We know that the angels are not God, and in accordance with this knowledge, we interpret the passage:” and equally do we answer, that when such a passage is given us as proof of the deity of the Lord Jesus, we know that he was a man, and in accordance with this knowledge do we interpret the passage. Other instances might be given of similar modes of expression:—“And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel,” 1 Sam. xii. 18; and more strikingly still, Rev. iii. 12, where the name of a place is associated as a religious idea, with the names of God and Christ. “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of Heaven from my God, and [I will write upon him] my new name.”
There is only one other passage in which these three expressions occur together; and it must have a precisely similar explanation: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” Now here the expression “communion of the Holy Spirit,” fixes the meaning of the passage. The word communion signifies “participation,” “a having in common.” Thus St. Paul speaks of “the communion of the sufferings of Christ,” Philipp. iii. 10. In this sense, then, it can have no reference to a person, and must signify simply a participation of that spiritual presence, comfort, and power of God, which was the promise and the witness of the religion of the Christ. In explaining such passages, we have again and again to recal ourselves to the belief, that we are actually considering the strongest Scriptural assertions of the doctrine of a Trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead. The first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians closes thus: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.” Who thinks of inferring the equality of Paul with Jesus? And yet, if such a mode of reasoning is allowable, from the close of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, it is impossible to give any reason for its not being equally conclusive when applied to the close of the first Epistle of the Corinthians. But such verbal reasonings are in every way unworthy of the solemn character of revelation, nor can the mind long dwell upon them without feeling how painfully they interfere with the sentiment of Reverence, and what a lowering it is of Christ and Christianity to place them in such lights.
The portion of Scripture, however, which is mainly relied upon to prove the distinct deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, is that most solemn and faithful promise of Christ to his disciples, in which the Spirit of Truth is described as a Comforter which the Father would send in his name, and who, when he came, would testify of Jesus, and bring to their remembrance all things that he had said unto them, but which they had not understood. Now let us connect this promise of a Comforter previous to his death, with a similar promise after the resurrection, and then endeavour to ascertain the meaning. In the first chapter of the Book of Acts, at the eighth verse, it is written, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” Now we shall find that the Holy Spirit which came upon them was the Spirit of Truth, a truer knowledge of Christ, a portion of the Spirit of God, a sympathy with and an understanding of the Mind of the Father of Jesus, which they did not possess before;—in the one case comforting them for the loss of their friend and their master, by giving them a participation of his and of his Father’s Spirit,—in the other case, qualifying them spiritually to be witnesses unto him, to be his Apostles and Preachers, an office for which their previous misconceptions of the true character of the Christ, their alienation from the true Spirit of God, as manifested in Jesus, had totally disqualified them. Why it was that Jesus must “go away,” in order that the Spirit of Truth might come unto them, in order that the Spirit of the world should be separated from their ideas of the Christ, and the Spirit of God take its place, we shall fully see. Previous to the death of Jesus, the views of the Apostles respecting their Messiah were Jewish and worldly—after the Resurrection and Ascension they became Christian and Spiritual. How was it that Jesus must personally leave them, in order that the Spirit of Truth might come unto them? “It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”
The Death, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of the Christ, introduced a necessary change into the conceptions of the Apostles; these drove out of their Messianic idea the spirit of the World, and introduced into it the spirit of God. They could not retain their Jewish ideas of the reign of the Messiah, in connexion with the crucified Jesus. If they held by their Jewish faith on this matter, they must abandon Jesus. If they held by Jesus, they must abandon their Jewish ideas, and remodel their faith. But God takes care that they shall hold by Jesus: and this is His mode of spiritualizing their conceptions of Christ and of Christianity. God lifts him from the dead and places him in Heaven. The Christ returns to earth to show that God was with him; and he ascends into Heaven, to repel the imagination which otherwise might possibly arise, nay, which actually had arisen, that even yet he might raise his standard on the earth, and realize the gigantic illusion of the Jew. By this means, the Apostles were placed in this position:—they must retain their faith in Jesus, for how could they battle against God, or hold out against such evidence as the Christ rising from the tomb, and the Christ passing into the skies;—and yet if they are to regard Jesus as their Messiah, they must modify all their Jewish views, and conceive of the Christ anew. And accordingly this was the plan and process of their conversion, of their introduction to the true Christianity, of their baptism into the Spirit of God. Since Jesus was thus evidently the Christ, and yet could not be adapted to their Jewish views, of course all their Jewish views must yield, and adapt themselves to him. His life and destinies were the fixed facts, with which their conceptions of the Christ must now be harmonized. You now see how when the Spirit of Truth came upon them, it testified of Jesus, it took of his and showed it unto them, it threw illumination upon words and deeds of his, which, when contemplated from the Jewish point of view, caught not the sympathies of their souls, and like invisible writing, waited for the heat and light of Truth to fall upon them, and bring out the meaning. His Death struck down a principal part of their errors: and his Exaltation forced upon them a new idea of his kingdom. Never again could they confound the Messiah with a temporal prince. Whatever Christianity might be, henceforth it must be connected with the immortality of Heaven. Christianity could not be separated from the Christ, and the Christ was with God; and they remembered his prayer and promise, that they were to be with him where he was.
All this would necessarily be suggested to them from their identifying the Christ with the risen Jesus. Nothing more would be necessary to unfold this train of spiritual thought. It was the first fulfilment of that profound prophecy, “When the Comforter is come, even the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me, and shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” And this Spirit of Truth did lead them into all truth—it gave them no new revelation, but it called to their remembrance, and taught them to understand a revelation which Jesus had before offered to them in vain—and so, in the words of his own promise, it glorified him, for it “took of his, and showed it unto them.” The Apostles were now in a position to look upon the Christ from a right point of view, and to receive the Spirit of Truth and God. The scales of illusion dropped from their eyes, and they began to see Jesus as he was. From the hour that circumstances constrained them to draw their Christianity from the life and destinies of the Christ, their minds began to open, and the Spirit of Truth to teach them all things, and to call to their remembrance whatsoever Jesus had said unto them, no longer dimly understood, but irradiated with moral light, because seen in right connexions, and explained by the interpretation of events. Who can retain his fancies in opposition to direct experience? and experience was now enlightening the Apostles. How could they go on dreaming of an Earthly Prince, when their Christ was in the skies? From that hour their souls began to be transfigured, and they walked in the light of the other world, and the Christ to whom they looked became their leader to Immortality. How could they go on in their unspiritual imaginations, when the Captain of their Salvation stood constantly before their eyes, a crucified man, and a risen immortal? From that hour they became soldiers of the Cross, and their only victories were over themselves, and the powers of evil; and the only battle-cry of the Son of Man, when idol after idol fell prostrate before the Truth, and their Master in the skies, in the successes of his faith, led on the movements of humanity, and, wherever his spirit struck root, banded a new force against the enemies of man, and mustered fresh hosts for conquest. How could they go on in their national arrogance, and in their sectarian intolerance, when they were obliged to draw their moral notions of Christianity from the life of Christ, and that spoke such different lessons? From that hour their anti-social temper began to soften, their exclusiveness to bend and give way, their deep-cut lines of national distinctness to disappear in the fully developed features of our common humanity. In the light of his Spirit, what could they be but children of God, and brethren of mankind? They had to harmonize his Kingdom with his Character, and that led them into all truth. They had to read the glory of God in the face of Christ; and the light that beamed there was grace and truth. They had to take their Christianity from the Master’s life, and that kept them right. Its lesson was of the one fold, and the one shepherd—of the one God and Father of all, and of one type of the connexions between humanity and Heaven—one Mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus. And so at last, when fitted for it by the teaching of events, the Spirit of Truth, at once their Comforter and their Teacher, descended upon them, and then they became “witnesses unto him.” They read his life anew, and reported it to the world, and the world read it too, and has ever since been studying that exhaustless revelation. They saw in it more and more of the Saviour’s spirit and purposes, and after the illumination had come upon them, the providence of God so disposed the external events that affected the infant Church, that they went forth bearing the light that lighted them unto all the world. Persecution scattered them from land to land, and they went carrying with them their priceless treasure. They were hunted from city to city, but all the faster flew the Gospel. The stake received them, and it became as a new cross of Christ, and the blood of his martyrs witnessed unto him. Are we speaking of the same men who in Gethsemane’s garden forsook their Lord and fled—who in the Temple Court denied him to his face—who, when he was led to the Cross, abandoned him in terror, and when he died there, laid their heads in the dust, because their poor ambition was fallen to the earth? Are they the same men, who in the Gospels are narrow-minded, ambitious, and false—that in the Acts of the Apostles come forth bold, resolute, spiritual witnesses for Jesus, and dauntless martyrs to his truth? We can scarcely believe that we are reading of the same men, when we turn from the page of the Evangelists to the record of their deeds, after the Death and the Ascension of the Christ annihilated their errors, and the Spirit of Truth and of God had fallen upon them. Contrast the prayer,—“Lord grant us to sit on thy right hand and on thy left in thy kingdom,” or, “Lord wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”—with this, “Lord, thou art God, which hast made Heaven and Earth, and the Sea, and all that in them is; who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the Earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done: And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word; by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus!” How came this difference? What passed over them and turned them into new men? The Spirit of Truth had come unto them, that great Comforter, the Spirit of understanding and of God: they saw it all, and they were worldly and weak no more, but strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might? And this Comforter never again left them; the truth broke upon them and became their stay for ever,—it was the Spirit of God dwelling in them, and abiding for ever, his imperishable light in the soul, once given never to be withdrawn. It was just the difference between Spiritual light and Spiritual darkness, in their effects upon character. It was just the difference between the spirit that is of the world, and the spirit that is of God. It was just the difference between our nature when it is right and when it is wrong with God; when it is stumbling in darkness, the dupe of illusions, and when it is furnished with everlasting principles, and walking in the light of life. In the Gospels they are men palsied by the feebleness of error—in the Acts of the Apostles they are men omnipotent in the power of Truth. Is this change in their characters capable of being accounted for? Yes, if you grant the facts of Christ’s history,—but not otherwise. How otherwise you are to get across the chasm between the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, I know not. Take those facts as causes, and the bridge is easy. What a step is it from the fishermen of Galilee to the Apostles of Christ—from the ignorance of Jewish peasants, to the Communicators of the mightiest impulse that Society has ever felt, the agents of the mightiest influence that ever Providence has put forth upon the soul of man,—the creators of new institutions, new forms of character, new civil relationships;—before whose preaching religions and empires fell,—at whose word Liberty first started into life, not as a spirit of opposition, but as the gentle child of brotherhood and love,—and who are still in the monuments they have left behind them, the heralds of human progress and the revolutionizers of the world! Who will deny that the spirit of God was here? Not we: we are ready to maintain it against the world. Who denies that the spirit of God still accompanies his Gospel? Not we: we believe it in the depths of our hearts. How wonderful the impulse, these men gave, and still give to the heart of the world! What difficulties had they to conquer! their own characters, and violent prepossessions—and they conquered these. The curse of the Priest, the arm of the Ruler, the scoff of the People—and they conquered these. The attractions of Heathenism; the licentiousness of its morality; the gracefulness of its idolatry; its religion for the senses; its philosophy for the sceptic; its indifference to speculative truth; its equal regard for all gods, and all forms of worship that would only be content to dwell together in peace,—and they conquered these. Think of this wonderful History, and say whether you can explain it except as the New Testament explains it. What would account for the fortunes of the Apostles, if Christianity was not from God? The world of Causes and Effects is but a game of Chance, if such things can be, and their origin an accidental imagination, their foundation a falsehood or a dream. Who will account for such men being enlightened against their own wills, and forced into the front ranks of humanity contrary to their own desires—if the history is not true? But rob not the History of its true power—take not the spirit of life out of the gospel—by telling us of a third person in the Trinity whom Jesus sent to supplant the free minds of the Apostles. No, it was the free spirit of God acting upon the free spirit of men that opened their eyes to see the things that were hidden from them before; and they walked forth in the light of these wondrous events, and looked now upon their Christ as those from whose spiritual sight the bandage of the world had been taken away. The Comforter, which is the Spirit of TRUTH, came unto them, and taught them all things, and rectifying their former misconceptions took of the things of Christ, and showed it unto them. He spoke not of himself. He added nothing to the revelation already made by Jesus:—the divine characters were already impressed on the life and destinies of the Christ—and the Spirit of Truth guided them to it, and brought out the full meaning of the already finished revelation. Still does the world want light to read that revelation. Still does many an interpreter come to the reading of it with a Jewish veil upon his heart. But there is new light still to break forth out of God’s word. Although it would almost seem as if another day of Pentecost would be needed to drive out the spirit of the world, the spirit of system and of man, by the mightier Spirit of God—and to guide our exclusive tempers, our sectarian and narrow hearts into the religion of reality—of the merciful and perfect Christ, full of grace and truth.
It is impossible to display with any minuteness the confusion that is introduced into the Scriptures by the supposition that the Holy Spirit is a third infinite Mind associated with the Father and the Son. In one passage it is said, “If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you;” in another passage it is said, “If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come unto you.” Are we to understand then different things by “the Spirit of God” and “the finger of God,”—or do they not both plainly signify the power and presence of the One God who wrought in Christ:—“the Father who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.”
In one passage it is said, “Wait for the promise of the Father—ye shall be baptized with the holy spirit not many days hence.” In another passage of the same writer it is said, “Tarry ye in the city, until ye be endued with power from on high.” Are we to understand by the Holy Spirit anything different from ‘power from on high:’ or rather are we not to understand by both the fulfilment of the promise of the Father by His own power and presence?
In one passage it is said, “We are his witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Spirit, which God hath given to them that obey Him.” In another passage it is said, “The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.” Is it not evident then that the works which the Apostles did, were the works of God, His spirit working by them, witnessing to the truth of their testimony?
If the Holy Spirit is a distinct Person from God the Father, then the third Person, and not the first person in the Trinity, nor the second person, must on the Trinitarian view be regarded as the Father of Jesus, for it is written, “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” And yet the Trinitarian hypothesis is, that it was neither the third person, nor the first, but the second person in the godhead, that took humanity into union with his deity. But there is no end of these painful inconsistencies. So again Jesus is said to be raised from the dead by God, and again to be “quickened by the Spirit:” but surely the Trinitarian hypothesis would require that the divine nature of the Christ, the second person in the Trinity, should raise up the human Jesus, with which it had been united. Who will harmonize these things for us? Who can without pain, nay, without asking pardon of God for the irreverence, contemplate His spiritual nature in such representations?