2. Connexion with the inauguration of apostolic work. — It was, again, a matter of the utmost importance for the religious experience of the primitive community that it associated the coming of the Spirit with tlie beginnings of apostolic labour. The day of Pentecost was not, indeed, included in the Easter period, though with the gloriiied life of Jesus was associated the conviction that the Spirit had now laid hold of the disciples too. But tlie occurrences which manifested to the disciples the descent of the Spirit were distin- guisiied from the events of Easter : the latter perfected the fellowship of Jesus with His dis- ciples, while the former inaugurated their ajiostolic work and laid the foundation of the Church. In the NT doctrine of the Spirit this continues to manifest itself in the fact that the Spirit is always associated with the task imposed upon the Church. The Spirit equips the Church to witness for Jesus, and endows it with power for its Divinely-given work. The conception of the Spirit is not asso- ciated with the personal blessings which the individual craves for, as, e.g., with his progress in knowledge, his felicity, or his moral growth and perfection ; what was expected from the Spirit was rather the equipment for the etlective work necessary to the preaching of Christ and the insti-
tution of the Church Hence the apostles were regarded as in a supreme degree the mediators of the Spirit (cf. Ac 8'«'- 19«, 1 Co 12^^ 2 Co 3«), this pre-eminence extending also to such as were actively engaged in the evangelization of the nations (1 P P^, 2 Ti 2«-, 1 Ti 4''*). In sending forth evangelists and in defining their spheres of labour (Ac 13^ 16"-)) in the judicial procedure by which they withstood sin (Ac 5^ Jn 20--'-), in prescribing the moral regulations which were to prevail in the community (Ac 15^*), their action was at once appropriate and effective in virtue of the Spirit's guidance. But this did not involve any opposition between them and the community at large, as the latter was called to full and com- plete fellowship with them as partakers of the Divine grace. Thus the possession of the Spirit was not the exclusive privilege of an official class, but was granted to the entire community entrusted with the service of God, and baptism is accordingly offered to all in view of the promise of the Spirit (Ac 2^8 i92f.^ 1 Co 6").
3. The Spirit sent by Christ. — The community believed that the sender of the Spirit was Christ (Ac 2^^). Accordingly it sought to prove the Messiahsliip of Jesus by the fact that the Spirit was revealed in the community (Ac 5^^; cf. art. Paraclete). This made it impossible to separate the doctrine of the Spirit from the doctrine of Christ, or to regard the former as superseding or transcending tiie latter. On the contrary, the statements which set forth the operations of the Spirit serve in reality to enunciate the presence and work of Christ. The Spirit who animates the community is the Spirit of Christ (Ro 8^ 2 Co 3", Ac 16^). This inseparable union laetween Christ and the Spirit, making it impossible for anyone to receive the Spirit except in personal connexion with Christ, is clearly formulated by St. Paul in the words : ' the Lord is tiie Spirit ' (2 Co S^^). This point of view had two closely inter-related consequences : first, that primitive Christian faith continued to base itself upon the earthly life of Jesus ; and, secondly, that it did not consist merely of recollections of that life, but developed into fellowship with the Exalted Christ. Had the Spirit occupied a position independent of Christ, the primitive faith would inevitably have acquired that mystical tendency which finds the evidences of Divine grace exclusively in the inner life of man. But, as it is the Spirit's function to lead men to Christ, the message wiiich makes known Christ's life and death is the foundation-stone of the community. Thus the conviction that one was living in the Spirit involved no disdain of the body, no opposition to nature and history ; on the contrary, the sure token of the Spirit's influence was not the belief which separated Christ, as the mere semblance of a heavenly being, from nature and history, but the confession that He had truly come in the flesh (1 Jn 4"^'', 2 Jn ''). Nor, again, did the believer's relation to Christ consist merely in his knowledge of the Saviour's earthly career ; and, in point of fact, that consciousness of un- limited fellowship with Christ whicli forms one of the essential characteristics of the NT Epistles is based upon the belief that the earthly work of Jesus is still carried on in the operations mediated by the Spirit.
i. The Spirit imparted to the community by God. — The doctrine that the Spirit reveals Christ implies another, viz. that it is God who imparts the Spirit to the community, and tiiat He Himself dwells with it in the Spirit. That theological type of Ciiristology according to which Christ is the Son who is one with God in the sense that God works through Him passes over into the doctrine of the Spirit. The formulae which speak of the
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work of Christ as a manifestation of Divine power are therefore applied also to the work of the Spirit. The Spirit is conceived, not as a substitute for the action of God, but as its medium ; nor is it re- garded as a power installed between God and man ; its function, rather, is to bring to man the ver}- presence of God Himself. Thus the community and its individual members are spoken of as the Temple of God — as the place in which He dwells (1 Co 3'6, 2 Co 6'«, Eph 2-1, 1 Ti S'^, 1 P 2^, 1 Co 6'^). In this we can trace the root of the Trinitarian conception of God. Christ and the Spirit are regardetl co-ordinately as the two agents through whom the gi'ace of God completes its work in man, and through both the one will expressive of the Divine grace is realized. Thus the work of Christ and that of the Spirit are in complete harmony with each other and with the work of the Father. It is this formulation of the Trinitarian conception with which St. Paul introduces his enumeration of the gifts of the Spirit (1 Co 12^-6; cf. 1 Co IS'^, Eph 4'*''^) ; and it appears also in the account of what Jesus said to Nicodemus (Jn 3*'-'), where the sequence is the new birth due to the Spirit, belief in the Son, and the deeds 'wrought in God.' Essentially the same formulation is found in the salutation of 1 Peter (P), and in a like sense we must interpret the baptismal formula in Mt 28"*, where the one Name into which the nations are to be baptized emljraces the Son and the Spirit as well as the Father, because the work of calling man to God and of bringing him Avithin the Divine grace is etlected by Christ through the medium of the Spirit.