Thursday, October 15, 2009

on the Spirit

I've been thinking about the Holy Spirit being described by St. Augustine as the love between the Father and the Son.

If this is the case, what does it say about us, given that we are part of the body of Christ, and children of the Father?

What happens as we expand and broaden our love for Him and for eachother? Is there some corresponding procession of Spirit?

Does the Spirit increase?

4 comments:

Ike said...

". . . the whole object of being a Christian is that you may know the love of Jesus Christ, his personal love to you; that he may tell you in unmistakable language that he loves you, that he has given himself for you, that he has loved you with 'an everlasting love.' He does this through the Holy Spirit; he 'seals' all his statements to you through the Spirit. . . . You believe it because it is in the Word; but there is more than that; he will tell you this directly as a great secret. The Spirit gives manifestations of the Son of God to his own, to his beloved, to those for whom he has gladly died and given himself."

D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 7.1-8.4, page 61.

Ike said...

The Countess of Huntingdon recalled the funeral service of Rev. Howell Harris in 1773:

"On the day Mr. Harris was interred we had some special seasons of Divine influence both upon converted and unconverted. It was a day never to be forgotten, but I think ought to be remembered with holy wonder and gratitude by all who were present. . . . Though we had enjoyed much of the gracious presence of God in our assemblies before, yet I think I never saw so much at any time as on that day; especially when the Lord's Supper was administered, God poured out his Spirit in a wonderful manner. Many old Christians told me they had never seen so much of the glory of the Lord and the riches of his grace, nor felt so much of the gospel before."

Who wrote that? Hardly a nut. She was upper-class British, 18th-century, Jane Austen's world. A highly structured culture. Everything just so. And in that culture, in a Bible-believing, standard-brand, non-eccentric theological setting, both the converted and the unconverted were receiving an unforgettable outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones asks, "Does our doctrine of the Holy Spirit and his work leave any room for revival either in the individual or in the church, or is it a doctrine which says that we have all received everything we can have of the Spirit at regeneration [being 'born again'], and all we need is to surrender to what we have already? Does our doctrine allow for an outpouring of the Spirit, the 'gale' of the Spirit coming down upon us individually and collectively? . . . Is not the greatest sin among Evangelical people today that of quenching the Spirit?"

The longer I live, the more intensely I long for the end of quenching and the return of outpouring.

Quotes from D. M. Lloyd-Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors, pages 301-302

Suzanne Marie DeWitt said...

Thanks for your insightful comments Ike. The second set, re. Rev. Harris' funeral service, is particularly of interest and is connected to two upcoming posts re. the Spirit. It actually confirmed that I should indeed post one of them which I questioned, on the subject of praying in tongues.

Diane Marie Hall said...

Human love produces doubt or fear in the other person in the actual relationship itself.
Godly love is the kind of love that produce GREAT relationships because you can be stable, unchanging becoming like God more and more as you embody his presence.

1Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, love never fails.
The loving relationship guided by the exsistance of the holy spirit is capable of becoming a corintihans 13 love...if our humaness does not get in the way.