Religious Reality | Page 8

As a matter of fact, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is of absolutely vital
importance in the Christian scheme: and like all the great Christian
doctrines, it has its basis in the realities of living experience. The
opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles set before us the picture of
the earliest disciples, assured and no longer doubtful of the reality of
the Resurrection, waiting in Jerusalem for a promised endowment of
"power from on high." And the story of Pentecost is the record of the
fulfilment of "the promise of the Father."
We are making a mistake if we fix our attention primarily upon the
outward symbols of wind and fire, or confuse our minds with the
perplexities which are suggested by the references to "speaking with
tongues." These things--however wonderful to the men of the Apostolic
generation--are in themselves only examples of the psychological
abnormalities which not infrequently accompany religious revivals.
They are, as it were, the foam on the crest of the wave: evidences upon
the surface of profounder forces astir in the deeper levels of personality.
The disciples felt themselves taken hold of and transformed.
Henceforth they were new men. "GOD had sent into their hearts

through Jesus Christ a Power not of this world: only such a power
could achieve what history assures us was achieved by those early
Christians. By its compelling influence they found themselves welded
together into a religious and social community, a fellowship of faith
and hope and love, the true Israel, the Church of the living GOD.
Enabled to become daily more and more like Jesus, they developed an
ever fuller comprehension of His unique significance: and so they went
about carrying on the work and teaching which He had begun on earth,
certain that He was with them and energizing in them. They healed the
sick in mind and body, they convinced Jewish and Pagan consciences
of sin and its forgiveness, they created a new morality, and established
a new hope: life and immortality were brought to light. And then, as
need arose, they were inspired to write those books of the New
Testament, in which their wonderful experience of GOD at work in
them remains enshrined, the norm and standard of Christian faith and
practice for all time. The Power which enabled them to do all this they
called the Holy Spirit." [Footnote: _The Holy Spirit,_ by R. G. Parsons,
in The Meaning of the Creed. (S.P.C.K., 1917)]
To be "filled with the Spirit," to be "endued with power from on high,"
to be made free by the Spirit, so as to be free indeed-- released from the
tyranny of a dead past, from bondage to law and literalism, from the
power of sin and of evil habit--and to be brought forth into the glorious
liberty of the sons of GOD: this was a very vital and essential part of
what Christianity meant in the experience of those first disciples. The
new morality of the Gospel, the new righteousness which was to
exceed the righteousness of Pharisees and Scribes, was a thing as
widely removed as possible from painful conformity to the letter of an
external code: it was a fruit--a spontaneous outcome--of the Spirit. S.
Paul has described for us the fruits of the Spirit as he had seen them
manifested in the lives of men--"love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control": they are the
essential lineaments of the character of Christ: they are summed up in
the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians in S. Paul's great hymn to
Charity or Love, which itself reads like yet another portrait of the
Christ. A Christianity which through the Spirit brought forth such fruits
was true to type. The Spirit, in short, reproduced in men the life of filial

relationship towards GOD: He is described as the Spirit of adoption,
whereby men are enabled to cry Abba, Father.
The Holy Spirit, moreover, is a Spirit of insight and interpretation,
quickening men's faculties, enlightening their minds, enabling them to
see, and to understand. He brings to remembrance the things of Christ
and unfolds their significance: under His inspiration Christian
preaching was developed, and a Christian doctrine about Christ and
about GOD. In confident reliance upon His advocacy and His support
the Apostles were made bold to confront in the name of Jesus a hostile
world. Is it any wonder that in the eyes of their contemporaries they
appeared as men possessed, as men made drunk with the new wine of
some strange ecstasy, or mad with the fervour of some inexplicable
exaltation? Yet the Spirit did not normally issue in ecstasy. It is not the
way of GOD to over-ride men's reason, or to place their individual
personalities in abeyance. The operation of the Spirit is to be