needed to be revealed by the Son, so the Son needed to be revealed by
the Spirit. Those who knew Christ merely in the flesh knew but little of
Him, and had little understanding of His words. It was the Spirit of
Christ that guided, and still guides, His disciples into the fuller
knowledge of the meaning of His past life on earth and His present
purposes in heaven.
I own, however, that I have sometimes felt at a loss when I have asked
myself, “How is this Spirit a Person? And do I love Him or It? And if
Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus are two Persons, then must I also infer
two personalities for myself, one for my mortal terrestrial humanity,
another for my immortal celestial spirit?” These questions are extremely
difficult for me to answer with confidence: yet I feel instinctively
that they have a profound and satisfying answer to which I have not yet
attained; but I suggest some answer of this kind, “When we endeavour to
form a conception of God we ought to put aside the limitations of human
individuality. Now we cannot do this while we conceive of God simply as
the Father, and still less while we conceive of Him simply as the Son;
but we can do it when we conceive of Him as being an all-pervasive
Power, the source of order and harmony and light, sometimes as a Breath
breathing life into all things good and beautiful, sometimes as a Bond,
or Law, linking or attracting together all things material and spiritual
so as to make up the Kosmos or Order of the Universe. The traditions of
the Church have taught us that there has been such a Power, subsisting
from the first with the Father and the Eternal Son, in whom the Father
and the Son were, and are, united; and by whom the whole human race is
bound together in brotherhood to one another and in sonship to the
Eternal Father. What is this Being but the Personification of that Power
which, in the material world, we call Attraction and in the immaterial,
Love? Is it not conceivable that this Being which breathes good thoughts
into every human breast should love those whom It inspires? And we—can
we love our country, and love Goodness, Purity, Honour, Faith, Hope, and
yet must we find it impossible to love this personified Love, this Holy
Spirit? But if we love the Spirit of God, and the Spirit loves us, then
we can understand how it may be called a Person.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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