Pastors Must Be Teachers

The general care of the Christian flock is the work of a pastor and, to this end, some receive the gift of being a pastor (Ephesians 4.11).  By its very title, it compares to the work of a shepherd caring for his sheep, the word “pastors” being the translation of “poimenas,” a word meaning, literally, “shepherds.”  A pastor is one who leads, provides, protects, and cares for his flock.  As in the natural figure no small skill is required to care for the flock properly, so, in the spiritual reality, a pastor needs a supernatural gift to be, to his flock, all that a pastor should.

A significant insight into the character of a true pastor’s work is afforded by the close connection between pastoral work and teaching.  In Ephesians 4.11, the use of “kai” ["and" - RZ] linking pastors and teachers instead of the usual “de” ["and," but can also mean "but" or "also" - RZ], implies that one cannot be a true pastor without being, also, a teacher.  The principle involved is of tremendous significance.  While it is not necessary for a teacher to have all the qualities of a pastor, it is vital to the work of a true pastor that he teach his flock.  It is obvious that a shepherd who did not feed his flock would not be worthy of the name.  Likewise, in the spiritual realm, the first duty of a pastor is to feed his flock on the Word of God.  Quite apart from being merely an organizer, promoter, or social leader, the true pastor gives himself to preaching the Word.

From: The Holy Spirit: A Comprehensive Study of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit by John F. Walvoord (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958), p. 170.

John Flipse Walvoord (1910-2002) was President and Professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, from 1952 to 1986.  He then served as the school’s Chancellor until shortly before his death.

 

On Fervency of Spirit

Fervency of spirit is properly joined with fixedness of attention, for they go together and reciprocally influence each other.  If the affections be lively, they will carry the train of thought with them and, if the attention be steadily fixed on the object of worship, the affections will commonly be excited and fervency of spirit enkindled.  The offering of the affections of the heart is the soul of devotion.  Such offerings, alone, will God accept.  All external services without this, however solemn and decent, are as a smoke in His nostrils – they are  abominable in His sight.  The crying defect of our worship is the want of heart.  It is mere formalism or hypocrisy.  We should strive, then, to worship God in spirit, and this we can only do by the aid of the Holy Spirit.  We should, then, be much concerned to have that blessed Monitor dwelling in us and abiding with us at all times.  Keep your hearts with all diligence when you engage in the worship of God, whether in public or private.  Let your attention be fixed and your spirit be fervent. – Archibald Alexander (1772-1851)

 

On the Trinity

In every creative and redemptive act, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit operate together in fellowship with one another but, nevertheless, in ways peculiar to each of them.  It is not possible for us to spell that out in terms of any demarcations between their distinctive operations, if only because, within the coactivity of the three divine Persons, those operations perichoretically contain one another and pass over into one another while remaining what they distinctively are in themselves.  It is only from within the incarnate economy of God’s saving self-communication to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that we can say anything at all about this.  The primary distinction was made there, of course, for it was the Son, or Word of God, who became incarnate, was born of the virgin, Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose again from the grave, and not the Father or the Holy Spirit, although the whole life and activity of Jesus, from His birth to His death and resurrection, did not take place apart from the presence and coactivity of the Father and the Spirit.  And, it is in the light of what the Lord Jesus Himself revealed about His relation to the Father and the Spirit, and what He did for us in His miraculous works and saving acts, thereby manifesting on earth the works of the Father, that we are able to discern something of the way in which the Father and the Spirit participated in the economy of redemption.  This enables us to believe that what God is toward us in Jesus Christ and in His manifestation in the history of salvation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He really is antecedently and eternally in His triune Self.

From: The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons by Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), p. 198.

Thomas F. Torrance (1913-2007) taught Church History and then, for the majority of his career, Christian Dogmatics, at the University of Edinburgh (1950-1979).  This book, published when he was 83 is, in my opinion, the finest book on the doctrine of the Trinity published in the 20th century.

 

The Holy Spirit Applies the Word of God

God, in a renewed manner, speaks to us by His Word when His Spirit applies it to us individually.  We never truly hear the voice of God in Scripture until the truth is spoken home to each heart and conscience by the Holy Spirit.  Revelation must be revealed to each one; otherwise, it soon comes to be a veiling of the truth rather than a discovering of the Lord’s mind.  The revelation is clear enough, in itself, but we have not the opened eye till grace bestows it.  If we have not the Spirit of God, the letter may actually become a veil to hide the spirit of truth.  This, indeed, it should not be, neither is it according to its natural intent and tendency, but our depravity makes it so, turning even light itself into a thing which blinds.  Do you know what it is to have a text leap out of the Scriptures upon you and carry you away?  This special energy and flash of truth is always memorable.  How often have the waves of this sea of truth been phosphorescent before my eyes – a sea of glass mingled with fire, of which the spray has dashed over me and set my soul on flame!  As surely as the Lord spoke these words to Moses or to David or to Isaiah or to John or to Paul, so, surely, does he speak them to our souls by His Spirit.  Understand you what I say? – Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), an excerpt from “A Private Enquiry” (1 Samuel 3.17), a sermon preached on October 9, 1890.

 

On the Holy Spirit

Wherever Christianity has become a living power, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has uniformly been regarded, equally with the atonement and justification by faith, as the article of a standing or a falling church.  The distinctive feature of Christianity, as it addresses itself to man’s experience, is the work of the Spirit, which not only elevates it far above all philosophical speculation, but also over every other form of religion. – George Smeaton (1814-1889), from “The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit” (1882)

 

On the Holy Spirit

While we are constantly dependent on the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit, we must also take into account the fact that sanctification is a process that draws within its scope the conscious life of the believer.  The exhortation of Paul to the Philippians is: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to work on behalf of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2.12-13).  God works in us by His Holy Spirit and we work, also.  But the relation is that, because the Spirit works, we work.

In writing to the Romans, Paul describes the Christians as “those who live according to the Spirit” (Romans 8.5).  In his epistle to the Galatians, he twice exhorts the believers “to walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5. 16, 25).  In verse 16, the word in the Greek is the ordinary one: “to walk,” but the word in verse 25 refers literally to people “being drawn up in line.”  The idea is of marching in file with others as, for example, a soldier might be called to do on a parade ground.  The Holy Spirit is to be obeyed and followed precisely. 

From: “Sanctification: 3 – Through the Power of the Spirit,” by John J. Murray, in The Banner of Truth, Issue 511 (April, 2006), p. 5.

 

On God the Holy Spirit

When Scripture states that the Spirit “searches the deep things of God” and that no human being knows the “things of God,” but only the Spirit, it clearly identifies the Spirit as having understanding.  Nor do these passages refer to a human being endowed with the Spirit, for the Spirit is consistently distinguished from the human beings to whom His gifts are given.  The personal distinction of the Spirit and the distinction of the Spirit from human beings is also implied in the statement that God has revealed things to us by His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10).  Even so, the Spirit is a giver of gifts who works “as He wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11).  For Owen, this attribution of understanding or wisdom to the Spirit underlines the Spirit’s personal identity inasmuch as this attribute “is the first inseparable property of an intelligent subsistence.”

Witsius notes that, in the passages that refer to the Spirit and power, there is a clear distinction made by Scripture between the Spirit and the power that He has.  Thus, Luke 24:49 indicates that the “power from on high” is given to the Apostles, meaning the power with which they were filled – which is not the Spirit Himself, but a gift of which the Spirit is the author.  This is not only the implication of the text in Luke; it is the necessary conclusion drawn when this particular text in Luke is compared to other places, such as Acts 1:8, where the Apostles are told, “ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”  Similarly, in Acts 10:38, God is said to have anointed Jesus “with the Holy Ghost and with power.”

From: Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725: Volume Four: The Triunity of God by Richard A. Muller (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), pp. 348-349.

 

Regeneration the Work of God

God effects this gracious work in His own way, i.e., He so royally perseveres that all creatures together could not rob Him of one of His elect.  If all men and devils should conspire to pluck a brutal man, belonging to the elect, from His saving power, all their efforts would be mere vanity.  As we brush away a spider’s web, so would God laugh at all their commotion.  The powerful steam borer pierces the iron plate not more noiselessly and with less effort than silently and majestically God penetrates the heart of whomsoever He will, and changes the nature of His chosen.  Isaiah’s word concerning the starry heavens – “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their hosts by number; He calleth them all by name, by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth” – may be applied to the firmament in which God’s elect shine as stars: “Because of the greatness of His might, and that He is strong in power, not one faileth.”  All that are ordained to eternal life are quickened at the divinely-appointed hour.

From: The Work of the Holy Spirit by Abraham Kuyper; translated from the Dutch by Henri de Vries (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1900), p. 307.  Dutch original published in 1888.

 

Warfare Against Selfishness

It is true, in death God cuts off all sin from our hearts and, so far as we are concerned, selfishness is cast out.  He who awakes in eternity with selfishness in his heart is on the way to hell.  But, although God, in death, graciously draws the last threads of selfishness from the hearts of His elect, yet their warfare against selfishness is not ended.  For even from heaven, Christ wages war until the hour when, as the true Michael with all His angels, He shall deliver the last blow upon Satan and his unholy demons.  And if, immediately after death, the elect will enjoy, with Immanuel, the communion of love, then, of course, they will engage with Him in the conflict against Satan and fight with Him day and night.  No saint can see his Savior fight and remain neutral.  Nay, the love of God is so deep, stirring, and captivating that he cannot but enter the conflict.

From: The Work of the Holy Spirit by Abraham Kuyper; translated from the Dutch by the Rev. Henri de Vries; reprint (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1941 [1900]), p. 544.

 

Old Testament Saints Looking Forward

Indeed, there is a sense in which the whole Old Testament is looking forward to the Holy Spirit’s coming, and the point that it is establishing is that this will be the great difference between God’s people under the new dispensation and His people under the Old Testament dispensation.  The Jews were, after all, the people of God; they had knowledge and understanding.  Yet, they were being promised that something bigger, something greater, was coming.  In the Old Testament, the Spirit came on people occasionally.  He would give ability and understanding – for instance, He would enable them to prophesy or He would give ability to make the Tabernacle (Exodus 35:31).  But a promise was given that a day was coming when the Spirit would be poured out with great profusion, even upon young men and young women, “upon the servants and upon the handmaids” (Joel 2:29).  It would be general and would be common to all people.  In many ways, the great difference between the Old Testament saints and those of the New Testament would be the coming of the Holy Spirit in this remarkable manner.  The whole Old Testament looked forward to this astounding event.

From: “The Coming of the Holy Spirit,” a sermon on John 4:13-14, in Living Water: Studies in John 4 by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2009), pp. 388-389.  This book consists of 56 sermons preached on John 4 in late 1966 and early 1967 at Westminster Chapel, London.

The Rev. Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was pastor of Westminster Chapel, London, from 1943 to 1968.