declared to be the epistle of Christ
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with _the Spirit of the living
God_; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." What is
the significance of this name? It is made clear by the context. The
Apostle Paul is drawing a contrast between the Word of God written with
ink on parchment and the Word of God written on "tables that are hearts of
flesh" (R. V.) by the Holy Spirit, who in this connection is called "the
Spirit of the living God," because He makes God a living reality in our
personal experience instead of a mere intellectual concept. There are many
who believe in God, and who are perfectly orthodox in their conception of
God, but after all God is to them only an intellectual theological
proposition. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make God something
vastly more than a theological notion, no matter how orthodox; He is the
Spirit _of the living God_, and it is His work to make God a living God to
us, a Being whom we know, with whom we have personal acquaintance, a Being
more real to us than the most intimate human friend we have. Have you a
real God? Well, you may have. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the living
God, and He is able and ready to give to you a living God, to make God
real in your personal experience. There are many who have a God who once
lived and acted and spoke, a God who lived and acted at the creation of
the universe, who perhaps lived and acted in the days of Moses and Elijah
and Jesus Christ and the Apostles, but who no longer lives and acts. If He
exists at all, He has withdrawn Himself from any active part in nature or
the history of man. He created nature and gave it its laws and powers and
now leaves it to run itself. He created man and endowed him with his
various faculties but has now left him to work out his own destiny. They
may go further than this: they may believe in a God, who spoke to Abraham
and to Moses and to David and to Isaiah and to Jesus and to the Apostles,
but who speaks no longer. We may read in the Bible what He spoke to these
various men but we cannot expect Him to speak to us. In contrast with
these, it is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit _of the living God_,
to give us to know a God who lives and acts and speaks to-day, a God who
is ready to come as near to us as He came to Abraham, to Moses or to
Isaiah, or to the Apostles or to Jesus Himself. Not that He has any new
revelations to make, for He gui