Holy Spirit, Word Only – True Beliefs of the Restoration Movement

“IT is very instructive to examine, with great accuracy, the various uses and applications of important words and phrases in the sacred writings. By so doing we form an acquaintance with the language which those holy men used as they spoke by the Holy Spirit; and from such an acquaintance with their language, we obtain the same ideas which they entertained of the great objects of christian faith and hope. Words and phrases which, in the Jewish writings, were used in a more general sense, are, in the New Institution, used in an appropriated sense. Thus while the term Christ was generally applied to all the anointed ones in the Jewish Age, it is in the apostolic writings exclusively appropriated to the Saviour. The phrase ‘the Word of God,‘ is used in a like restricted sense in the apostolic writings. From the ascension of Jesus it is appropriated to denote the glad tidings concerning Jesus. This is its current acceptation; so that out of thirty-four times which it occurs, from Pentecost to the end of the volume, it thirty times obviously refers to the gospel. On three occasions it is applied to the literal voice of God at the Creation and the Deluge, and once to him who is in his own person the Word of God. But what I wish to note here, is, that it is never applied to any writing or speech from the day of Pentecost, but to the gospel or proclamation of mercy to the human race. The previous writings given to the Jews are not called the word of God now, because this phrase has in it the idea of the present command and will of God.

‘A word of God,’ or ‘a word of the Lord,’ or ‘a message from the Lord,’ are phrases which frequently occur in the Jewish scriptures, and always refer to the immediate communication made by some messenger and addressed to some particular occasion. It did not mean what was before written or spoken, but what was spoken at that particular time, and by that particular person. For example, ‘a word of God came to Nathan;’ ‘a word of God came to John in the wilderness.’ Some particular message is always intended, implying a command with promises or with threatenings accompanying. Now this is the word which as glad tidings, says Peter, has been announced to you. This is now the will of God that we should obey him whom he has commissioned.

If it were necessary to establish this by proofs and arguments, it were easy to adduce many. But I shall only add, as a very strong evidence of the justice of this discrimination, the following fact:–Multitudes who received the Jewish scriptures as containing revelations from God–the former communications and messages of God, are, by the penmen of the New Testament, said to receive the word of God only when they obeyed the gospel. Acts iv. 31. ‘They spoke the word of God with boldness;’ ‘the word of God increased in Jerusalem.’ viii. 14. ‘They heard that Samaria had received the word of God.‘ xiii. 44. ‘The whole city came to hear the word of God.‘ 46. ‘It was necessary that the word of God should have been first spoken to you Jews.‘

The same remarks apply to the phrase ‘the word,‘ without any discriminating epithet, such as ‘the word which God sent to Israel’–by John. ‘Labor in the word and teaching.’ ‘If any one obey not the word.‘ ‘They received the word with all readiness of mind.’ And so in every passage in the Epistles where there is no peculiar direction given to it from accompanying explanations.

Having so far traced the exact import of the phrase ‘the word of God,‘ and ‘the word,‘ in the apostolic writings, I proceed to notice the various epithets which are used to designate the peculiar character of the word of God, or the gospel.

It is called ‘the word of reconciliation; the word of life; the word of his favor; the word of faith; the word of truth; the word of righteousness; the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.’ Such are the titles and descriptive epithets by which the word of God is commended to us by its author. It is the word which reconciles man to the divine character, will, and government. It is the word through which life is communicated to man, and by which he comes into the enjoyment of life. It is the word of faith, the subject matter of the christian’s belief, and the means by which we have confidence in God. It is the word of truth, or the truth emphatically, which delivers us from error and darkness, and imparts to the mind certainty in things unseen and future relative to the divine purposes. It is the word of righteousness by which we are accounted righteous in the sight of God, and by which alone we are qualified to live righteously. It is the implanted word, the word established by the Apostles in the world, which is able to save the soul. In a word, it is the word of God’s grace, or favor, by which alone we do enjoy the favor of God here, and are prepared to enjoy it forever.

The attributes of this word are strikingly displayed in the apostolic writings. It is called the living word, the sword of the Spirit. In one period Paul gives us a full description of it. Heb. iv. 12. ‘The word of God is living and effectual, and more cutting than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the parting of both soul and spirit, and of the joints also and marrows, and is a discerner of the desires and purposes of the heart?’

By it we are said to be purified, sanctified, begotten again, enlightened, saved. Nothing is so much extolled; no instrument so powerful, energetic, and effectual; so well adapted to its end, as the word of God. Every great moral change in man is ascribed to it; and it is uniformly presented to us as the great instrument of God’s almighty power. It is the voice of the Almighty. By his voice all his great works have been accomplished. God commanded light to shine out of darkness, and the only instrument which he is said to have employed in the original creation was his word. In the new creation he has not changed his plan, or employed a new instrument. Of his own will he has impregnated us by the word of truth, and has made his word the very principle of renovation. Hearing is imparted to man by his word; for faith comes by hearing, and hearing itself comes by the word of God.

To hear many of the moderns, who profess to preach the word, talk of it as they do, and represent it as a dead and inefficient letter, is enough to provoke the meekness of a Moses, or to awaken the indignation of a Paul. The voice of God spoke the universe into being from the womb of nothing. The same voice recreates the soul of man, and the same voice will awaken the dead at the last day. His voice, heard or read, is equally adapted to the ends proposed. Some look for another call, a more powerful call than the written gospel presents. They talk of an inward call, of hearing the voice of God in their souls. But what greater power can the voice of God in the soul have, or what greater power can this inward call have, than the outward call, or the voice of God, echoed by the Apostles? God’s voice is only heard now in the gospel. The gospel is now the only word of God, or will of God–the only proclamation and command addressed to the human race. ‘Tis in this word of God his Spirit operates upon men, and not out of it. Were the Spirit to lay it aside, and adopt any other instrument, it would be the greatest disparagement of the word of God, ‘which is the wisdom and power of God,’ ‘the word of life,’ and able ‘to save the soul;’ it would be to dishonor that word as men do who prefer other means for converting men to the gospel of Christ.

But let me ask, and seriously ask these inward called saints, who have heard some other voice of God than the word of God, What did that voice say? Any thing different from that which is written? If so, how did you judge it? To what standard did you refer it? If it said any thing to you different from what is written, you dare not hearken to it: for the written gospel, Jesus declared, will judge you at the last day. If it said nothing different from the written gospel, it must have repeated the same, and what was the meaning of repeating it? Does the word of God derive power from a mere repetition of it; or must God, like men, use frequent repetitions to supply the lack of power? Can the voice of God have more power in one language than another–at one time than another–in one place than in another? You cannot answer, Yes. What do you mean by an inward call? If there be a word spoken it must be what is written or what is not written. And you must see that either hypothesis issues in that which is inadmissible–in that which is absurd.

Do you mean, with Andrew Fuller, that the Spirit which first gives you life, quickens you without the word? Then I ask you two questions: First, Does it use any means? If you say, No: then you contradict universal analogy as well as the oracle of God: for the Spirit was to speak of Christ in doing its work. If you say it uses any means to quicken you, then those means are the principle of life. But then I ask, Have you not, in supposing life infused without the gospel by any other means, deprived the gospel of its character as the word of life–as the living word–as living, and powerful, and effectual–as the incorruptible seed?

But if you have heard a voice simply telling you, by name, that you are welcome, remember, I pray you, that that particular call or invitation to you destroys the veracity of God, and makes what is written of no value whatever. For if the general invitation is insincere, if it cannot be relied on, if there must be a particular assurance that you are welcome, that assurance given to you, implies that, without it, you had no assurance before; which would be directly to impeach the veracity of God; yes, his promise, though signed by his name and sealed by his hand. The special call, then, is either a lie or it makes the general call a lie. This is where your system ends. And let him who has an ear to hear hearken.

The voice of God, and the only voice of God which you will hear till he calls you home, is his written gospel. This is now the only word of God, the only command and the only promise addressed to all men; proclaimed by his authority to every creature. The gospel is the power of God to salvation, to every one who obeys it. ‘Tis in it the Spirit of God exhibits his energy, and he who thinks that the Spirit operates in any other way than clothed in the word of God in convincing and converting the world, feeds upon a fancy of his own, or of some other distempered mind.

I have never yet heard a person attentive to the apostolic writings, never heard a student and practitioner of them, complain of any want of power or energy in them. I have seen and felt their power to be that of the Spirit which endited them, an omnipotent moral instrument in his hand exactly adapted to man. Not physically omnipotent, as in creating something out of nothing; but so morally omnipotent that he who regards them not, could not be persuaded though angels, and spirits, and the dead revived, did appear and speak to them in a language never before heard. It is a mistake, a gross mistake, in my judgment, of the means necessary to restore man–a mistake of the nature of the government of God over man, of the actual condition of man, to imagine that any other than moral means, than the well attested developement of the love of God in the mission and sacrifice of his Son, is necessary to renew the heart of man, to reconcile him to God, and to prepare him for the enjoyment of the friendship and favor of God forever. But this only by the way. They who talk of a resistible and irresistible voice of God–who talk of a gospel grace common and special, have found a new Bible and a new gospel which I have not seen, nor read, and of course do not understand. The book, commonly called the New Testament, (rather the sacred writings of the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ,) is that from which I have derived my views of christianity, and to which alone I subscribe as the infallible arbiter of all questions touching the word of God, and the salvation of Jesus Christ. The voice of God has, in it, bid me welcome, and my ability to come I find in the welcome which he has given. ‘The Spirit and the church say, Come: every one who hears, says, Come; and Jesus says, Let him who is thirsty, come; and WHOSOEVER will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.’ In this WHATSOEVER, I have found every letter of my name, and have had as special a welcome as if Gabriel had paid me a visit from heaven” (PG. 124-128).