The Acts of the Holy Spirit: Tracing His Work in the Early Church, Discerning His Life-Giving Presence Today

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1895. Excerpt: ... THE PRESENCE AND PRESIDENCY OF THE SPIRIT The word "presence" implies personality, as we more correctly use it. And the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Holy Ghost contains an unmistakable unveiling of the fact that he is a Person, present and presiding in the church. When Ananias and Sapphira conspired in a sin of sacrilege, keeping back in part what, being already given unto God, was to be ranked among "devoted" things, they committed ° Joshua vn. a1 a sin similar to that of Achan, and a6' visited with like penalties. The noticeable feature, however, is not this correspondence, so much as the indirect but unquestionable witness to the individuality, personality, presence, and presidency of the Spirit. Peter said to Ananias, "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to Lie To The Holy Ghost?" And afterward to Sapphira, "How is it that ye have agreed together to TEMPT THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD?" Let us mark, also, how he added to his rebuke to Ananias, "Thou hast not lied unto men, but UNTO GOD." Thus, in one transaction, so briefly recorded, we are vividly impressed with three facts, all the more impressive because assumed to be facts, and needing no argument or even direct assertion: 1. The Spirit is a person, with personal attributes. 2. The Spirit is God, not only having divinity, but deity. 3. The Spirit is the presiding presence in the church. If the Holy Spirit were, as some would have us believe, only "a thin and shadowy effluence proceeding from God," as the breath exhales from one's body, such language as is here used would be absurdly inappropriate. It is plain that a man cannot "lie" to an influence or effluence, or "tempt" and defraud anything less than a person. Moreover, it is distinctly affirmed that, in thus lying " unto the Holy Ghost," Ananias had lied, "not unto men, ...