A Person, Not an Influence

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. JOHN 14:16–17

Of all the things Torrey taught, the one he thought most basic was this: the Holy Spirit is a Person. He opened both of his larger works on the Spirit with it. The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit begins with a chapter on His personality before a word is said about His work, and The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith gives the subject a sermon of its own. Torrey’s reason was simple. You cannot understand what someone does until you know who He is. And a great deal of confusion about the Spirit’s work, he thought, came from treating Him as a thing.

Why it matters so much

Torrey put the point in terms of worship, of practice and of experience.

In worship, if the Holy Spirit is a divine Person and we think of Him only as an influence, we are withholding from God the love, trust and adoration that are His due. We would not think of passing a day without thanking the Father for His love or the Son for His sacrifice. How often, Torrey asked, do we thank the Spirit for His?

In practice, the difference is between using and being used. If the Spirit is a power, then our great question will be how to get hold of more of it for our work. If He is a Person, the question turns round. Torrey put it in two sentences that are worth learning by heart. If we think of the Spirit as merely a power, he wrote, our constant thought will be, “How can I get more of the Holy Spirit?” But if we know Him as a divine Person, our thought will rather be, “How can the Holy Spirit have more of me?”

That reversal runs through all of Torrey’s teaching on the Spirit, and it is the key to reading his more controversial chapters rightly. He did not think of the Spirit as fuel for Christian service. He thought of Him as the Lord of it.

But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. 1 CORINTHIANS 12:11

The marks of a person

Torrey’s method was typical of him. He asked what the marks of personality are, and then looked to see whether Scripture ascribes them to the Spirit. Personality, he said, is not a matter of hands and eyes but of knowing, feeling and willing. Anything that knows, feels and wills is a person.

The Spirit knows. He searches the deep things of God, and no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:10

The Spirit wills. He divides gifts to every man as He will — not as we will. Torrey drew a sharp practical lesson from this. Many earnest workers, he observed, are struggling to get possession of a mysterious power they can use in their work as they choose. They will never find it, because there is no such power to be had. There is instead a Person, wise as well as mighty, who is willing to take possession of them and use them as He chooses. And Torrey added that we should be glad of it. Imagine what ignorant and sinful people would do with divine power if it were simply handed over to them.

The Spirit loves. Torrey asked his readers to stop over five words in Romans 15:30: the love of the Spirit.

Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. ROMANS 15:30

We owe our salvation to that love as truly as to the love of the Father and the Son. It was the Spirit who followed us through years of indifference, who opened our eyes to our need and showed us Christ. Torrey wrote with feeling here, and it is some of his most moving writing.

And the Spirit can be grieved.

And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. EPHESIANS 4:30

One who is grieved

Torrey thought this verse among the most tender in the Bible. The Spirit is not a blind force that we either have or lack. He is a holy Person who lives in the believer, who sees every act, hears every word and knows every thought, and who is grieved by whatever is impure, unkind, selfish or untrue. Torrey compared Him to a godly mother whose son is kept from sin by the thought of how it would wound her if she knew. The Holy Spirit is holier than any mother and loves more than any mother, and He does not need to be told. Of this truth Torrey wrote, “I know of no thought that will help one more than this to lead a holy life and to walk softly in the presence of the Holy One.”

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19–20

Acts only a person can do

Torrey went on to show that Scripture ascribes to the Spirit acts that only a person performs. He teaches and brings to remembrance. He speaks, and says, Separate me Barnabas and Saul. He intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. He can be lied to, as Ananias found, and to lie to the Holy Ghost, Peter says, is to lie to God.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. JOHN 16:13

A word of balance

Torrey’s arguments here are sound and they have stood the test of time. The only caution is one he himself would have accepted. It is possible to prove the personality of the Spirit, as he does, by a careful catalogue of texts, and still not know Him. Torrey’s real point was not intellectual. It was that thousands of Christians, as he testified, found their whole experience transformed when they began to treat the Spirit as a real and present Friend. The texts are there to lead us to Him, not to replace Him.

He also wrote, and it is worth hearing, that a wrong idea of the Spirit as a power to be possessed tends to make people proud, and that the true idea makes them humble. “I can think of no thought more humbling or more overwhelming,” he wrote, “than the thought that a person of Divine majesty and glory dwells in my heart and is ready to use me.” Anyone who finds that talk of the Spirit is making him feel superior to other Christians has probably lost sight of the Person.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. 2 CORINTHIANS 13:14

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Notice how you usually speak and think of the Holy Spirit — as it or as He. Begin deliberately to think of Him as a Person who is present with you.

2. Take Torrey’s two questions and ask them of yourself honestly: am I seeking more of the Spirit, or am I willing for the Spirit to have more of me?

3. Thank the Holy Spirit today, by name, for His love in seeking you and showing you Christ.

4. Before your next temptation, remember that the Holy One who dwells in you sees and is grieved. Let that thought turn you back.

5. Read the first chapter of The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit in the Ochorus library.

A PRAYER

Holy Spirit of God, I have spoken of You as if You were a force, and treated You as if You were mine to use. Forgive me.

You are the Lord and giver of life, the Spirit of truth, the Comforter sent from the Father. You sought me when I did not seek You, and showed me Christ.

Do not let me grieve You by careless words, unkind thoughts or hidden sins. Keep me walking softly in Your presence.

Take more of me, and use me as You will, for the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen.