The Holy Spirit, The Power, Influence, or Gifts of God by John Wilson
He that will carefully observe the language of the Holy Ghost shall find that this word “Spirit,” or “Holy Ghost,” is most usually, in the New Testament, taken for the extraordinary gifts of that age. — RICHARD BAXTER: Unreasonableness of Infidelity; in Practical Works, vol. xx. p. 7.
For the better understanding of these words [viz. “full of the Holy Ghost,” in Luke iv. 1.], it is to be observed, that by the term “Holy Ghost” is to be understood the prophetic gifts wherewithal Christ was filled for the preaching and publishing of the gospel, as the revealing of the will of God, and working miracles. The Jews, by the phrase “Holy Ghost,” continually intend prophetic gifts, wherewith men and women were endued; and in this sense is the expression most constantly to be taken in the New Testament, when it speaketh not of the third person in the Trinity itself; as, Luke i. 15, 41, 67. John vii. 39. Acts ii. 4; viii. 18; x. 44; xiii. 52; xix. 2; and in very many other places. To work miracles, to expound difficulties, to heal diseases, to teach divinity, to foretell things to come, and the like, were not so properly the fruit of the union of the human nature to the Godhead; for even mere men had been enabled to do the same. — Abridged from DR. JoHN LIGHTFOOT: Harmony of the Four Evangelists; in Works, vol. iv. pp. 351–3.
“Spirit” signifies wind or breath; and in the Old Testament it stands frequently in that sense. The “Spirit of God,” or “wind of God,” stands sometimes for a high and strong wind; but more frequently it signifies a secret impression made by God on the mind of a prophet. In the New Testament, this word “Holy Ghost” stands most commonly for that wonderful effusion of those miraculous virtues that was poured out at Pentecost on the apostles; by which their spirits were not only exalted with extraordinary degrees of zeal and courage, of authority and utterance, but they were furnished with the gifts of tongues and of miracles. And, besides that first and great effusion, several Christians received particular talents and inspirations, which are most commonly expressed by the word “Spirit” or inspiration. Those inward assistances by which the frame and temper of men's minds are changed and renewed are likewise called “the Spirit,” or the “Holy Spirit,” or “Holy Ghost.” So Christ said to Nicodemus, that, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God;" and that his “heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to every one that asked him.” By these it is plain that extraordinary or miraculous inspirations are not meant; for these are not every Christian's portion. — BISHOP BURNET: Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. V. p. 84.
There are many passages in which “the Spirit of God” means gifts or powers communicated to men, and from which we are not warranted to infer that there is a person who is the fountain and distributer of these gifts. So we read often in the Old Testament, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him,” when nothing more is necessarily implied under the expression than that the person spoken of was endowed with an extraordinary degree of skill or might or wisdom. So the promises of the Old Testament, “I will pour out my spirit upon you,” were fulfilled under the New Testament by what are there called “the gifts of the Holy Ghost;” in reference to which we read, “that Christians received the Holy Ghost,” “that the Holy Ghost was given to them,” “that they were filled with the Spirit.” Neither the words of the promise, nor the words that relate to the fulfilment of it, suggest the personality of the Spirit. —DR. GEORGE HILL: Lectures in Divinity, vol. i. p. 439.
It is agreed, on all sides, that the word “spirit,” originally signifying air in motion, and breath, was applied in some more remote significations, and particularly to mind and its affections, to intelligent creatures superior to man, and to any species of powerful influence, the cause of which was imperfectly or not at all known; but more especially to the immediate energy of the Deity; and, in a still more restricted sense, to the Deity himself. It is further admitted, that, in many places, the phrase “spirit of God” and its synonyms are used to denote any especial influence or energy of God, whether exercised in a miraculous manner, or according to the ordinary laws of nature. But an accurate examination will, I conceive, satisfactorily show that, &c. — DR. J. P. SMITH: Script. Testimony to the Messiah, vol. ii. p. 446.
[“Holy Spirit"] frequently signifies the divine nature, or God himself; but it also denotes the divine power, as displayed both in the material and spiritual world; also the divine understanding and knowledge, and the communication of it to men. . . . All who oppose the truth of God, or persecute the prophets who teach it, even those who put hindrances in the way of the influence of religion over themselves or others, are said to resist the Holy Spirit, to afflict, to grieve it, &c., Isa. lxiii. 10; Eph. iv. 30; Acts vii. 51. Since, now, the sacred writers, like all others, make use of the figure prosopopeia*, and personify these divine influences, – speaking of them as the “Holy Spirit,” as they often do of the wisdom and other attributes of God, – we should be cautious in the selection of texts from which the personality of the Holy Spirit is to be proved. We should rest content with those which are most clear and explicit; for nothing is gained by collecting a large number. — GEO. C. KNAPP: Christian Theology, sect. xxxix. I.
For proof of the personality of the Holy Ghost, as different from that of the Father, Dr. KNAPP rests chiefly on John xiv. 16, 17; xv.26; and on a few other passages, which represent the Spirit of God as willing, searching, speaking, sending, &c. But those to which he refers in the Gospel of John teach, according to the acknowledgment of our author, that the Spirit was commissioned by and dependent on the Father and the Son; and therefore, unhappily for the Trinitarian cause, prove too much. The other passages may easily be brought under KNAPP's own principles of interpretation; that is, the Holy Spirit may either signify God himself, without having any reference to hypostatical distinctions, or, by the figure prosopopeia*, be spoken of as having personal attributes, without implying a real personal consciousness.
*prosopopeia: personification, as of inanimate things
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