s of
Work.
Chapter XIX. The Holy Spirit and the Believer's Body.
Chapter XX. The Baptism With the Holy Spirit.
Chapter XXI. The Work of the Holy Spirit in Prophets and Apostles.
Chapter XXII. The Work of the Holy Spirit In Jesus Christ.
Footnotes

CHAPTER I. THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Before one can correctly understand the work of the Holy Spirit, he must
first of all know the Spirit Himself. A frequent source of error and
fanaticism about the work of the Holy Spirit is the attempt to study and
understand His work without first of all coming to know Him as a Person.

It is of the highest importance from the standpoint of worship that we
decide whether the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, worthy to receive our
adoration, our faith, our love, and our entire surrender to Himself, or
whether it is simply an influence emanating from God or a power or an
illumination that God imparts to us. If the Holy Spirit is a person, and a
Divine Person, and we do not know Him as such, then we are robbing a
Divine Being of the worship and the faith and the love and the surrender
to Himself which are His due.

It is also of the highest importance from the practical standpoint that we
decide whether the Holy Spirit is merely some mysterious and wonderful
power that we in our weakness and ignorance are somehow to get hold of and
use, or whether the Holy Spirit is a real Person, infinitely holy,
infinitely wise, infinitely mighty and infinitely tender who is to get
hold of and use us. The former conception is utterly heathenish, not
essentially different from the thought of the African fetich worshipper
who has his god whom he uses. The latter conception is sublime and
Christian. If we think of the Holy Spirit as so many do as merely a power
or influence, our constant thought will be, "How can I get more of the
Holy Spirit," but if we think of Him in the Biblical way as a Divine
Person, our thought will rather be, "How can the Holy Spirit have more of
me?" The conception of the Holy Spirit as a Divine influence or power that
we are somehow to get hold of and use, leads to self-exaltation and
self-sufficiency. One who so thinks of the Holy Spirit and who at the same
time imagines that he has received the Holy Spirit will almost inevitably
be full of spiritual pride and strut about as if he belonged to some
superior order of Christians. One frequently hears such persons say, "I am
a Holy Ghost man," or "I am a Holy G