wholly dependent upon Scripture, its tradition included the principle that ' the Holy Spirit had been taken away from it.' But as the communion of God witli His people had not been broken oft", that principle did not exclude the possibility that the Holy Spirit might be bestowed upon indi- viduals (cf. Lk 2-^) — at times, namely, when the gift of prophecy was vouchsafed to them — or that the conduct of the people as a whole miglit be directed by the Holy Spirit (cf. the saying of Hillel, TSsephtd PSsdhtm, iv. 2). The actual scope of this idea, however, was circumscribed by the fact that the nation's portion in God was based upon the Law. It was therefore necessary that the individual should learn God's will from Scripture, and practise obedience thereto by his own ettbrt. This excludes the idea of a Divine work manifest- ing itself in the inner life of man. Hence even the teachers of the Law abstained from tracing their learning to the action of the Spirit, and based their authority upon the experience wliich they had derived from their knowledge of the Law and tradition. When Scripture proved inadequate to the clear ascertainment of the Divine will, recourse was had to signs, and especially to voices coming from above. These facts show clearly how far the primitive Church's belief that it was guided by the Spirit of God transcended the prevailing religious ideas of contemporary Judaism.
2. The Messiah as the new vehicle of the Spirit. — The second presupposition of the Chris- tian conviction regarding the Spirit lay in the fact that, in accordance with the promises, the Messiah was expected to be the vehicle of the Spirit. Since it was His function to bring perfection to His people, the gift that distinguished the earlier servants of God was His in a superlative degree. Accordingly He has the Spirit 'not by measure' (Jn 3^). By the Spirit He is one with God, and is able to work the work of God in men. This principle is common to the Messianic hope, the preaching of John the Baptist, the witness of Jesus to Himself, and the message of His disciples in all its various forms. The conviction was in- tensified by the culminating events of the life of Jesus, since, as the Risen One, He reveals in Him- self the work of the Spirit ; the Spirit giveth life. Then, as He still maintains in His state of exalta- tion His intercourse with His disciples, and does this in such a way that, like God, He is present with them and reigns over them, the Spirit becomes the medium by which He consummates His work. Thus the avowal of the Messiahship of Jesus involved the doctrine that the Spirit of God is efi'ectively operative in man. The man whom Christ rules is guided by the Spirit, and he who is united with Christ partakes of the Spirit.
3. The prophetic idea that the Spirit would be given to all. — The conception of tlie perfected community connoted also the idea — derived from prophecy— that in it the Spirit would be vouch- safed to all. This idea likewise was ratified by the life of Jesus, inasmuch as He placed His relation to His disciples wholly under the law of love. Between Himself and them He established a per- fect communion, and thus all that belonged to Him passed over to them. His filial relation to God made them children of God ; His Word, with full authority to do wonders, was imparted to them too ; His passion called them to sufiering and death ; His risen life and His coming dominion invested them also with glory. The perfect charac- ter of the fellowship which Jesus instituted between Himself and His disciples involved the conviction that they likewise should receive the Spirit of God, even as it had been imparted to Him. Thus the events of Easter by which that fellowship was consummated after His death were directly linked
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with the belief tliat noAv the disciples also had become possessed of the Spirit ; the breath of the Kisen Lord imparts the Spirit to them ( Jn 20^-).
II. The coming of the Spirit to the DISCIPLES of Jesus— i. A fact of historical experience. — In the primitive community's recol- lections of its beginnings it stands out as a signifi- cant fact that the descent of the Spirit is regarded as a particular experience, taking place on a particular da}^ and associated with the founding of the Church (Ac 2). The doctrine of the Spirit thus becomes more than a tiieological inference from the character of God or of Christ, and does not remain a mere hope derived from the utterances of Scripture or of Jesus ; on the contrary, it expresses, for tlie religious consciousness of the primitive Church, something that it had actually experienced, and it possesses the certitude of historical fact. The type of tradition given in Ac 2 appears also in St. Paul, in the fact, namely, that he regards the sending of the S^jirit, no less than that of the Son, as a work of God — as the work, indeed, by which the Advent of the Son was fully realized (Gal 4*"^). The same idea appeal's in St. John, who speaks of the descent of the Spirit as the act of the Exalted Christ (Jn V^ 14i«- 2s W% This interpretation of religious history was fraught with most important consequences, inasmuch as it dissociated the con- ception of tiie Spirit from the subjective religious states of the individual. Believers were now con- vinced that their possession of the Spirit was not dependent upon their purely personal experience. Tlie message of the Spirit's presence came to all men as a historical fact no less secure than the message of the Advent of Christ Himself. It is true, of course, that the individual could recog- nize the ert'ects of the Spirit's presence in his personal experience, and he might accordingly be asked whetlier he had on his part received the Spirit (Ac 19^ ; cf. 1 Co 3i«), but his certainty in the matter did not rest wholly upon his inward condition. Hence the assertion of the Spirit's operation still remained unshaken even when an individual or a community proved unsteadfast ; the belief that they were partakers of the Spirit was safeguarded against every doubt (cf. Gal 3^ 5i«, 1 Co 316 with 3» 6i«). That belief flowed directly from the Christology of the primitive Church, and could become liable to doubt only by the dissolu- tion of the union between the community and Christ.