1. _The Doctrine of the Personality of the Holy Spirit is of the
highest importance from the standpoint of worship._ If the Holy Spirit
is a person and a Divine Person, and He is, and if we do not know Him
as such, if we think of the Holy Spirit only as an impersonal influence
or power, then we are robbing a Divine Person of the worship which
is His due, and the love which is His due, and the confidence and
surrender and obedience which are His due. And may I stop at this point
to ask each one of you, "Do you worship the Holy Spirit?" Theoretically
we all do, every time we sing the long metre Doxology,
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts,
Praise Father, Son _and Holy Ghost_."
Theoretically we all do every time we sing the Gloria Patri: "Glory be
to the Father and to the Son and _to the Holy Ghost_. As it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." But
it is one thing to do a thing theoretically and quite another thing
to actually do it. It is one thing to sing words, quite another thing
to realise the meaning and the force of the words that you sing. I
had a striking illustration of this some years ago. I was going to a
Bible Conference in New York State. I had to pass through a city four
miles from the grounds where the Conference was held. I had a relative
living in that city and on the way to the Conference stopped to call
upon my relative, who went with me to the Conference. This relative
was a Christian, she was much older than I, had been a Christian much
longer than I, a member of the Presbyterian Church, brought up on the
Shorter Catechism, and thoroughly orthodox. I spoke that morning at the
Conference on the Personality of the Holy Spirit. When the address was
over, we were waiting on the veranda of the hotel for the trolley to
take us back to the city. My relative turned to me and said, "Archie, I
never thought of _it_ before as a person." Well, I had never thought of
_it_ as a person, but thank God I had come to know _Him_ as a person.
2. In the second place, _it is of the highest importance from a
practical standpoint that we know the Holy Spirit as a person_. If
you think of the Holy Spirit, as so many even among Christian people
do, as a mere influence or power, then your thought will be, "How
can I get hold of the Holy Spirit and use it." But if you think of
Him in the Biblical way as a Divine person, your thought will be,
"How can the Holy Spirit get hold of me and use me?" Is there no
difference between the thought of man, the worm, using God to thresh
the mountain, or God using man, the worm, to thresh the mountain? The
former conception is heathenish, it does not differ essentially from
the conception of the African fetich worshipper who uses his god. The
latter conception, of God the Holy Ghost getting hold of and using
us, is lofty and Christian. If you think of the Holy Spirit merely
as an influence or power, your thought will be, "How can I get more
of the Holy Spirit?" But if you think of Him in the Biblical way as
a person, your thought will be, "How can the Holy Spirit get more
of me?" The former conception, the conception of the Holy Spirit as
a mere influence or power, inevitably leads to self-confidence, to
self-exaltation, to the parade of self. If you think of the Holy Spirit
as an influence or power and then fancy that you have received the Holy
Spirit, the inevitable result will be that you will strut around as
if you belonged to a superior order of Christians. I remember a woman
who came to me one afternoon at the Northfield Bible Conference at the
close of an address and said to me, "Brother Torrey, I want to ask you
a question; but before I do, I want you to understand that I am a Holy
Ghost woman." It made me shudder. It did not sound like it. But on the
other hand, if you think of the Holy Spirit in the Biblical way as a
Divine Person of infinite majesty, who comes to dwell in our hearts
and take possession of us and use us, it leads to self-renunciation,
self-abnegation, self-humiliation. I know of no thought that is more
calculated to put one in the dust and keep one in the dust than this
great Biblical truth of the Holy Ghost as a Divine Person coming to
take up His dwelling in our hearts, and to take possession of our lives
and to use us.
3. _The doctrine of the personality of the Holy Spirit is of the
highest importance from the standpoint of experience._ Thousands and
tens of thousands of Christian men and women can testify to an entire
transformation of their experience through coming to know the Holy
Spirit as a person. In fact, this address upon the Personality of the
Holy Spirit which, for substance, I have given in almost every city
in which I have ever held a series of meetings, is in some respects
apparently the most abstruse and technical subject that I ever
attempted to handle before a popular audience, and yet, notwithstanding
that fact, more men and women have come to me at the close of the
address and more have written to me, testifying of personal blessing
received, than of any other address which God has permitted me to give.