THE INDWELLING SPIRIT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 1, 16 January 1937, Page 12

THE INDWELLING SPIRIT

St. Paul, speaking to the men of Athens, dwelt upon the truth of the nearness of God: "He is not far from each of us. " In the history of religion the pendulum has swung between insistence upon the Divine transcendence and assertion of the Divine immanence or indwelling. Both thoughts are needed, but if either is emphasised to the exclusion of the other the result is a wrong conception of God. Hgcessive emphasis upon the transcendence of God may lead, as it did in later Judaism, to a thought of God as being So remote in His Majesty that He can be approached only through intermediaries. His immanence, on the other hand may be so asserted that it rcsults in a doctrine of pantheism, which identifies the universe with God. The truth of the Divine immanence does not mean that God and the universe are the same.

MAN'S ASPIRATIONS, It means that God is not to be thought of as living at a distance and ' exercising a general superintendence over the world which He created long ago; but that He is eeaselessly aetive in ereating and sustaining all things, and that His Spirit is present in all the grades of being, and pre-eminently in man. It is better to speak of the universe as God's work rather tfran His body. and to think of Him as the great Spirit of Lif e and Love within whose embrace we and all things "live and move and have our being." This thought of the Divine indwelling helps man to interpret his own nature with its spiritual movements and aspirations after higher things. What is the ccnscience within us which warns and reproves? What is the meaning of the preseuce of ethical ideals? It is_ possible to argue with some psychologists that these things carry with them no ref'erenco to a source higher than man himself, but are the produet of human conve.ntion and social needs; in a word, tuai religion is a human device by which man effects some kind of adjustment between the conflicting tend- ' encies or his nature. But if we see in ou^ religious instincts proof of the activity of the Spirit of God in human personality ouj view of man's life and its possibiliiies is at onee immensely enriched. Man then becomes a potential channet for the inflow of the life of God; and God, instead of being regarded as remote and external to man, is seen to be near at hand, seeking to give of His fullness in proportion to our canacity to receive.

Who, after. all, can say where man ends and God begins? God is not man, nor man God, but between them there is no gulf fixed which cannot be crossed. For the theist the history of religion is the story of man's quest for God in response to the Divine initiative which made man of such a nature that he was impelled to seek Him. God would have all men enter into fellowsbip with Himself, In^the light of the thought of the Divine nearness the Incarnation of Jiesus Ghrist gains fresh significance. In Christ we see the pattern of manhood indwelt to its fullness by the Spirit of God, The incarnation is to be interpreted not primarily as the miracle of A, remote God coming near to man, but as the culminating act of a God who has always .been near to man, trying to express Himself through human nature.

FATHERHOOD OF GOD. In our Lord's teaching the transcendence of God is emphasised: He is the creative gfound of the universe and the source from which come our ideals of goodnees. But Christ 's name for God was Father, a word which suggests, not remoteness, but nearness, and an intimacy of relationhip between man and God. Such a saying as "the very hairs of your head are all numbered" indicates providential care for the individual members of the human family. The place of a father is in( the centre of the home and his presence lights up the whole of the family life. _ , Our Lord certainly wished His hearers to think of God as near at hand and accessible; a truth which He Teinforced by His teaching about the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Spirit is the doctrine of God present in_ human life and seeking to be creative in the heart of man. We have only to read the Epistles of St. Paul to realise how eentral in his thought was the conception of a fellowship of believers drawing their inspiration and power from a life-giving Spirit. Christian doctrines are not statements of abstract principles; they embody truths which can be verified in experience. This truth of the nearness of God is one which has to be lived out. We shall. know God to be near if we open our hearts to the influence of His Spirit