The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian faith

by R. A. Torrey

Spirit and say to him, "Holy Spirit, I thank thee for that great love of thine"? And yet we owe our salvation as truly to the love of the Holy Spirit as we do to the love of the Father and the love of the Son. If it had not been for the love of God the Father to me, looking down upon me in my lost estate, yes, anticipating my fall and ruin and sending His Son down to this world to die upon the cross, to die in my place, I would have been in hell to-day. If it had not been for the love of Jesus Christ, the Son, coming down to this world in obedience to the Father to lay down His life, a perfect atoning sacrifice on the cross of Cavalry in my stead, I would have been in hell to-day. But if it had not been for the love of the Holy Spirit to me, coming down to this world in obedience to the Father and the Son, seeking me out in my lost condition, following me day after day, and week after week, and month after month, and year after year, when I would not listen to Him, when I deliberately turned my back upon Him, when I insulted Him, following me into places where it must have been agony for One so holy to go, following me day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, until at last He succeeded in bringing me to my senses and bringing me to realise my utterly lost condition and revealed the Lord Jesus to me as just the Saviour I needed and induced me and enabled me to receive the Lord Jesus as my Saviour and my Lord; if it had not been for this

patient, long-suffering, never-wearying love of the Spirit of God to me, I would have been in hell to-day.

(5) Turn now to a passage in the Old Testament. Neh. 9:20. "Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst." Here both intelligence and goodness are ascribed to the Holy Spirit. This passage does not add anything to the thought that we have already had: I brought it in simply because it is from the Old Testament. There are those who say that the doctrine of the Personality of the Holy Spirit is in the New Testament, but is not in the Old Testament; but here we find it as clearly in the Old Testament as in the New. Of course, we do not find it as frequently in the Old Testament as in the New, for this is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit: but the doctrine of the Personality of the Holy Spirit is there in the Old Testament. There are many who say that the doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Old Testament, that while it is in the New, it is not in the Old. But it is in the Old, in the very first chapter of the Bible. In Gen. 1:26 we read, "And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Here the plurality of the persons in the Godhead comes out clearly. God did not say, "I will" or "Let me make man in my image." He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The three persons of the Trinity are found

in the first three verses of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." There you have God the Father. "And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." There you have the Holy Spirit. "And God said," there you have the Word, "Let there be light: and there was light." Here we have the three persons of the Trinity in the first three verses of the Bible. In fact the doctrine of the Trinity is found hundreds of times in the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Bible it occurs in every place where you find the word God in your English Bible, for the Hebrew word for God is a plural noun. Literally translated, it would be "Gods" and not God. In the very passage to which the Unitarians and the Jews, who reject the Deity of Christ, refer so often as proving conclusively that the Deity of Christ cannot be true, namely Deut. 6:4, the very doctrine that they are seeking to disprove is found; for Deut. 6:4 literally translated would read "Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our Gods is one Jehovah." Why did the Hebrews with their intense monotheism, use a plural name for God? This was the question that puzzled the Hebrew grammarians and lexicographers, and the best explanation they could arrive at was that the plural for God here used was the pluralis majestatis, the plural of majesty. The explanation is entirely inadequate, to say nothing of the fact that the

pluralis majestatis in the Old Testament is a figure of very doubtful validity. There is another explanation far nearer at hand, and far more adequate and satisfactory, and that is that the Hebrew inspired writers use a plural name for God in spite of their intense monotheism, because there is a plurality of persons in the one Godhead.

(6) Now turn to Eph. 4:30. "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Here grief is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Holy Spirit is not a mere blind impersonal influence or power that comes to dwell in your heart and mine, but a person, a person who loves us, a person who is holy and intensely sensitive against sin, a person who recoils from sin in what we call its slightest forms as the holiest woman of earth never recoiled from sin in its grossest and most repulsive forms. And He sees whatever we do, He hears whatever we say, He sees our very thoughts, not a vagrant fancy is allowed a moment's lodgment in our mind but what He sees it. And if there is anything impure, unholy, immodest, untrue, false, censorious, or unChristlike in any way, He is grieved beyond expression. This is a wonderful thought and it is to me the mightiest incentive that I know to a Christian walk. How many a young man is kept back from doing things that he would otherwise do, by the thought that, if he did do that, his mother might hear of it and it would grieve her beyond expression. How many

a young man has come to the great city and in some hour of temptation has been about to go into a place that no self-respecting man ought ever to enter, but just as his hand is on the doorknob and he is about to open the door, the thought comes to him, "If I should enter there mother might hear of it, and if she did, it would nearly kill her," and he has turned away without entering; but there is One holier than the holiest mother that any of us ever knew, One who loves us with a tenderer love than our own mother loves us, and Who sees everything we do, not only in the daylight but under the cover of night; Who hears every word we utter, every careless word that escapes our lips; Who sees every thought we entertain, yes, Who sees every fleeting fancy that we allow a moment's lodgment in our mind; and if there is anything unholy, impure, immodest, indecorous, unkind, harsh, censorious or unchristlike in any way in act or word or thought, He sees it and is grieved beyond expression. Oh, how often there has come into my mind some thought or imagination, I know not from what source, but that I ought not to entertain, and just as I was about to give it lodgment, the thought has come, "The Holy Spirit sees that and will be grieved by it," and the thought has gone. Bearing this thought of the Holy Spirit in our mind will help us to solve all the questions that perplex the young believer to-day. For example, the question, "Ought I as a Christian go to the theatre or the

movies?" Well, if you go the Holy Spirit will go; for He dwells in the heart of every believer and goes wherever the believer goes. Were you ever at a theatre or at a moving picture show in your life where you thought the atmosphere of the place would be congenial to the Holy Spirit? If not, don't go. Ought I as a Christian go to the dance? Well, here again, if you go, the Holy Spirit will surely go. Were you ever at a dance in your life where you believed the atmosphere of the place would be congenial to the Holy Spirit? Shall I as a Christian play cards? Were you ever at a card party in all your life, even the most select little neighbourhood gathering, or even a home gathering to play cards, where you thought the atmosphere of the place would be congenial to the Holy Spirit? If not, don't play. So with all the questions that come up and that some of us find so hard to settle, this thought of the Holy Spirit will help you to settle them all, and to settle them right, if you really desire to settle them right and not merely to do the thing that pleases yourself.

2. The second line of proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit is that, many actions are ascribed to the Holy Spirit that only a person can perform. There are many illustrations of this in the Bible; but I will limit our consideration this morning to three instances.

(1) Turn again to the 2nd chapter of 1 Corinthians. In the 10th verse, we read, "But unto us,