The Holy Spirit Our Helper
By Clarence Santee
MANY pages have been written in which efforts have been made to define the Holy Ghost. Its office has been made a basis of research; also its all-pervading presence, equally present at all times in all places of the great dominion of God, its representative position, etc. But with all that has been written, the pen has been laid down with the task as far from completion as when it was taken up. Like the life of God, it is, and must remain, unsearchable. “Canst thou by searching find out God?” Job 11:7. A great Bible teacher has said: “It is not essential for us to be able to define just what the Holy Spirit is. . . . The nature of the Holy Spirit is a mystery. Men can not explain it, because the Lord has not revealed it to them. Men having fanciful views may bring together passages of Scripture and put a human construction on them; but the acceptance of these views will not strengthen the church. Regarding such mysteries, which are too deep for human understanding, silence is golden.”—“Acts of the Apostles,” pages 51, 52.
We can with profit read of its different offices, to what it is likened, its power and agency. God has revealed much of these, and “those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.” Deut. 29:29. “The Holy Spirit is the breath of spiritual life in the soul. The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ.”—“Desire of Ages,” page 805. “Jesus imbues the believer with His spiritual life, which is the Holy Ghost.”—“Spirit of Prophecy,” volume 3, page 242. It is called “the Spirit of God” (1 John 4:2), and “the Spirit of Christ” (1 Peter 1:11), “the highest influence in the universe, emanating from the source of all power” (“Desire of Ages,” page 679), “the third Person of the Godhead,” “divested of the personality of humanity” (“Desire of Ages,” pages 671, 669). God and Christ have the personality of humanity. Gen. 1:26. The Holy Spirit is “inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16, compared with 2 Peter 1:21), the “voice of Christ” (“Desire of Ages,” page 799), “water” (Eph. 5:26; Eze. 36:25). “Rivers of living water.” “This spake He of the Spirit.” John 7:38, 39. “The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit.” John 6:63. “There must be a power working from within. . . . That power is Christ.” (“Steps to Christ,” page 19.) These are a few expressions concerning the Spirit. While the Scriptures thoroughly furnish unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:17), they do not authorize any one to pray to the Holy Ghost, nor is it represented as something having life in itself, independent of God and Christ. It had no part in giving the law, and does not demand obedience to itself. “Christ and the Father standing side by side upon the mount, in solemn majesty, proclaimed the Ten Commandments.” (“Hist. Sketches of Foreign Missions,” page 231.) While, as we have seen, it is utterly impossible for man to understand this mighty power of God, we can so have its guidance that we will enter the city, and have a part in the eternal kingdom of God.