The Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prophets And Apostles

The work of the Holy Spirit in apostles and prophets is entirely distinctive. He imparts to apostles and prophets a special gift for a special purpose.

We read in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 28, 29 , “Now there are varieties of gifts, b ut the same Spirit....

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit; and to another workings of miracles; and to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues: All these are empowered by the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.... And God hath set some in the church, first apostles , secondly prophets , thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diver’s kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing ? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?” It is evident from these verses that the work of the Holy Spirit in apostles and prophets is distinctive.

The doctrine is becoming very common these days that the work of the Holy Spirit in preachers, teachers, and ordinary believers, guiding them into the truth and opening their minds to understand the Word of God, is the same and differs only in degree from the work of the Holy Spirit in prophets and apostles. It is evident from the passage just cited that this doctrine is thoroughly unscriptural and untrue. It overlooks the fact clearly stated that while there is “the same Spirit” there are “diversities of gifts” “diversities of administrations” “diversities of workings” (1 Corinthians 12:4- 6) and that “not all are prophets” and “not all are apostles” (1 Corinthians 12:29).

A brilliant preacher seeking to minimize the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in apostles and prophets and His work in other men calls attention to the fact that the Bible says that Bezaleel was to be “filled with the Spirit of God” to devise the work of the temple (Exodus 31:1- 11).

He gives this as a proof that the inspiration of the prophet does not differ from the inspiration of the artist or architect, but in doing this, he loses sight of the fact that the temple was to be built after the “pattern shown to Moses in the Mount” (Exodus 25:9, 40) and that therefore it was itself a prophecy and an exposition of the truth of God. It was not mere architecture. It was the Word of God done into wood, gold, silver, brass, cloth, skin, etc. And Bezaleel needed as much special inspiration to reveal the truth in wood, gold, silver, brass, etc., as the apostle or prophet needs it to reveal the Word of God with pen and ink on parchment. There is much reasoning these days about inspiration that appears at first sight very learned, but that will not bear much rigid analysis with the exact statements of the Word of God. There is nothing in the Bible more inspired than the tabernacle, and if the Destructive Critics would study it more, they would give up their ingenious but weak theories as to the composite structure of the Pentateuch.

2. Truth hidden from man for ages and which they had not discovered and could not discover by the unaided processes of human reasoning, has been revealed to apostles and prophets in the Spirit. We read in Ephesians 3:3- 5, “ By revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. ” The Bible contains truth that men had neve r discovered before the Bible stated it. It contains truth that men never could have discovered if left to themselves.

Our heavenly Father, in great grace, has revealed this truth to us, His children, through His servants, the apostles and the prophets . The Holy Spirit is the agent of this revelation. Many tell us today that we should test the statements of Scripture by the conclusions of human reasoning or by the “Christian consciousness.” The foolishness of all this is evident when we bear in mind that t he revelation of God exceeds human reasoning, and that any consciousness that is not the product of the study and absorption of Bible truth is not a Christian consciousness. The fact that the Bible contains truth that man has never discovered is stated in the Scriptures, but we know it also as a matter of fact.

There is no one of the most distinctive and precious doctrines taught in the Bible that men have ever discovered apart from the Bible. If our consciousness differs from the statements of this Book, which is so plainly God's Book, it is not yet fully Christian and the thing to do is not to try to pull God's revelation down to the level of our consciousness but to tone our consciousness up to the level of God's Word.

3. The revelation made to the prophets was independent of their thinking. It was made to them by the Spirit of Christ, which was in them. And it was a subject of inquiry to their mind as to its meaning. It was not their thought, but His. We read in 1 Peter 1:10- 12, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. ” These words make it clear that a Person in the prophets, and independent of the prophets, and that Person is the Holy Spirit, revealed truth which was independent of their thinking, which they did not altogether understand themselves, and regarding which they needed to make diligent search and study. Another Person than themselves was thinking and speaking, and they were seeking to understand what He said.

4. No prophet's utterance was of the prophet's own will, but he spoke from God, and the prophet was carried along in his utterance by the Holy Spirit. We read in 2 Peter 1:21, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Then, the prophet was simply an instrument in the hands of another, as the Spirit of God carried him along, so he spoke.

5. It was the Holy Spirit who spoke in the prophetic utterances. It was His word that was upon the prophet's tongue. We read in Hebrews 3:7, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear his voice.” Again, we read in Hebrews 10:15- 16, “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 'this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds.”

We read again in Acts 28:25, “And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement: ' The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, etc.’ ” Still, we read in 2 Samuel 23:2, “The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue.” In these passages, we are told that it was the Holy Spirit who was the speaker in the prophetic utterances and that it was His word, not theirs, that was upon the prophet's tongue. The prophet was simply the mouth by which the Holy Spirit spoke. As a man, that is except as the Spirit taught him and used him, the prophet might be as weak as other men are but when the Spirit was upon him and he was taken up and carried along by the Holy Spirit, he was perfect in his teachings; for his teachings in that case were not his own, but the teachings of the Holy Spirit.

When thus carried along by the Holy Spirit, it was God who was speaking and not the prophet. For example, there can be little doubt that Paul had many mistaken beliefs about many things, but when he taught as an Apostle in the Spirit's power, he was perfect, or rather the Spirit, who taught through him, was faultless and the consequent teaching was perfect as God Himself. We do well, therefore, to carefully distinguish what Paul may have thought as a man and what he did teach as an Apostle.

In the Bible, we have the record of what he taught as an Apostle. Some think that in 1 Corinthians 7:6, 25, “Now as a concession, not a command, I say this ... but I gi ve my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy,” Paul admits that he was not sure in this case that he had the word of the Lord. If this is the true interpretation of the passage (which is more than doubtful), we see how careful Paul was when he was unsure to note the fact, and this gives us additional certainty in all other passages.

It is sometimes said that Paul taught in his early ministry that the Lord would return during his lifetime, and that in this he was mistaken. But Paul never taught anywhere that the Lord would return in his lifetime.

He indeed says in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord .” A s he was still living when he wrote the words, he did not include himself with those who had already fallen asleep in speaking of the Lord's return. But this is not to assert that he would remain alive until the Lord came.

At this period of his ministry, he entertained the hope that he might remain alive and consequently lived in an attitude of expectancy, but the attitude of expectancy is the true attitude in all ages for each believer. It is possible that Paul expected that he would be alive to the coming of the Lord, but if he expected that, he did not teach it. The Holy Spirit kept him from this as from all other errors in his teachings.

6. The Holy Spirit in the Apostle taught not only the thought (or “concept”) but the words in which the thought was to be expressed. We read in 1 Corinthians 2:13, “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” This passage teaches that the words, as well as the thought, were chosen and taught by the Holy Spirit. This is also a necessary conclusion from the fact that thought is conveyed from mind to mind by words, and it is the words which express the thought, and if the words were imperfect, the thought expressed in these words would necessarily be imperfect and, to that extent, be untrue.

Nothing could be clearer than Paul's statement, “ in words taught by the spirit .” The Holy Spirit has Himself expected all the modern ingenious and wholly unbiblical and false theories regarding His work in the Apostles. The more carefully and precisely we study the wording of the statements of this wonderful Book, the more we will become convinced of the marvelous accuracy of the words used to express the thought. Often, the solution to an apparent difficulty is found in studying the exact words used. The accuracy, precision, and perfection of the exact words used are amazing.

To the superficial student, the doctrine of verbal inspiration may appear questionable or even absurd; any regenerated and Spirit-taught man, who considers the words of the Scripture regularly, will become convinced that the wisdom of God is in the very words, as well as in the thought which the words endeavor to convey. A change of a word, letter, a tense, a case, or number, in many instances, would land us into contradiction or untruth, but taking the words exactly as written, difficulties disappear and truth shines forth. The Divine origin of nature shines forth more clearly in the use of a microscope as we see the perfection of form and adaptation of means to the end of the minutest particles of matter.

Similarly, the Divine origin of the Bible shines forth more clearly under the microscope as we notice the perfection with which the turn of a word reveals the absolute thought of God.

But someone may ask, “If the Holy Spirit is the author of the words of Scripture, how do we account for variations in style and wording? How do we explain, for instance, that Paul always used Pauline language and John Johannean language, et c.?” The answer to this is very simple. If we could not account for this fact, it would have little weight against the explicit statement of God's Word with anyone humble and wise enough to recognize that there are a great many things which he cannot account for, which could be easily accounted for if he knew more. But these variations are easily accounted for.

The Holy Spirit is quite wise enough and has quite facility enough in the use of language in revealing truth to and through any given individual, to use words, phrases, and forms of expression and idioms in that person's vocabulary and forms of thought, and to make use of that person's uniqueness. Indeed, it is a mark of the Divine wisdom of this Book that the same truth is expressed with absolute accuracy in such widely variant forms of expression.

7. The utterances of the Apostles and the prophets were the word of God. When we read these words, we are not listening to the voice of man, but to the voice of God. We read in Mark 7:13, “thus making voi d the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” Jesus had been setting the law given through Moses over against the legalistic traditions, and in doing this, He says in this passage that the law given through Mo ses was “ the word of God .” In 2 Samuel 23:2, we read, “The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; these words are on my tongue.” Here again , we are told that the utterance of God's prophet was the word of God. Similarly God says in1 Thessalonians 2:13 “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” Here , Paul declares that the word which he spoke, taught by the Spirit of God, was the very word of God .