This group of passages also shows very clearly that we are here taught to think of the Spirit as not only personal, but as distinct from the Father and the Son. This appears remarkably in 14-'' ' The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all thatl said unto you.' Again in 15-" 'Whom I will send unto you from the Fatlier, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me.' Language could not make the distinctness of the Persons clearer. Yet strong and clear as this teaching is, we find its strength and clearness greatly increased by the fact that it fits into the scheme of Christian thought as we find that scheme developing in the Epistles of St. Paul and taking more rounded dogmatic form in the later ages of Christian reflexion.
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(4) The Divinity of the Holy Ghost. — We can have no doubt on this subject when we have reached the point at which we attain the conviction that, in His great discourse, our Lord teaches us unmistakably the Personality of the Spirit as distinct from that of the Father and of the Son. The Three Persons are here viewed upon a plane of being which is above that of all created things.
In Jn 1416-18. 26 152(; 1614. 15 the inter-relationship of the Divine Three is expressed and implied. The dependence of both the Son and the Holy Ghost upon the Father appears : ' I will pray the Father, and he shall give j'ou another Paraclete.' The Spirit ' proceeds ' from the Father and is sent by the Son (1526 16"). His presence is equivalent to the presence of the Son, for with reference to His coming, our Lord declares (141**), ' I will not leave you desolate : I come unto you.' In His relation to the Son, the Spirit is to bring all our Lord's words to the remem- brance of the disciples (v.26) ; He is to bear witness of our Lord (15-6), to glorify Him (161-1), etc. So important is the work of the Spirit in its connexion with that of the Son, that our Lord solemnly declares the expediency of His own departure in order that the period of the Spirit's activity may begin. And to this teaching we must add such statements as the following : ' He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ' (14^) ; ' I am in the Father, and the Father in me ' (v.io) ; ' If a man love me, he will keep my word : and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him' (v.2-*); 'All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine, therefore said I, that he {i.e. the Spirit) taketh of mine and shall declare it unto you ' (161S). All these refer to the nature and effects of that dis- pensation of the Spirit concerning which our Lord is instructing His disciples in this great discourse.
Such teaching certainly implies both the Divinity and the Unity of the Tiiree Persons, which through- out are at once distinguished, regarded as insepar- ably united, and placed upon a jjlane of being far above all created existence.
III. Summary.— (i. ) The Baptismal Formula. — We have omitted from our consideration one great passage of first-rate importance on every branch of our subject. It has been kept to the last because it is the nearest thing to a compre- hensive and formal statement of the doctrine of the Trinity to be found in Holy Scripture. In Mt 2818--" there is, as the last word of that Gospel, a solemn charge which it is stated our Lord gave to His disciples when they met Him, by His sjiecial command, after His resurrection. The charge in- cludes : (1) a declaration of His ^lniversal authority, ' All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and in earth,' containing a very strong implication of His Divinity and agreeing with Mt IP' and Lk 10^^ as well as with the teaching of the Fourth Gospel. (2) A great commission, ' (Jo ye therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,' — Avords which are at once the greatest command, the greatest prophecy, and the greatest dogmatic statement ever given. (3) A promise, ' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,' which has been a source of power and inspiration to the Church ever since.
It is true that this passage belongs to a part of St. Matthew's Gospel which has been assailed with great persistence, and, on internal grounds, with some apparent reason. It is often argued that the First Gospel contains many additions to the Evangelic narrative which arose from the habits of thought and practice, as well as from explanatory teaching, current in the primitive Church. The account of baptism given here would then be a reflexion of the teaching of a later time. Against this, we have to note that there is no textual evidence against the passage, that 2 Co ISi-i contains the threefold Divine name in a way which shows that the combination was familiar to the mind of the Christian Church at a time which was cer- tainly less than thirty years after the Ascension, and that there is a continuous stream of testimony from the earliest times as to baptism into the threefold name, the Didacke providing the connecting link between the Apostolic age and Justin Martyr. But stronger than all these is the fact that this passage merely sums up the teachings concerning God which, as we have seen in detail, may be found scattered throughout the four Gospels. It is surel3- somewhat hard to suppose that the Christian doctrine of God could have so rapidly assumed the form in which we find it in St. Paul's Epistles, if our Lord Himself had not brought together the various strands of His teaching ; and when was