The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 103

:

THE SCRIPTURE A NECESSITY

63

But the two should not be separated. Redemption was not first completed and then recorded in Scripture. Such conception would be mechanical and unspiritual, directly contradicted by the nature

which is living and life-giving. Scripture was produced spontaneously and gradually by and from redemption. The promise in Paradise already foreshadowed it. For tho redemption of Scripture,

precedes Scripture, yet in the regeneration of the first men the Word was not idle the Holy Spirit began with speaking to man, ;

acting upon his consciousness.

Even in Paradise, and subsequently the stream of revelation proceeds, a divine Word always precedes the life and is life's instrument, and a divine thought intro-

when

duces redemptive work. And when redemption is fulfilled in Christ He appears first as the Speaker, then as the Worker. The Word that was from the beginning reveals Himself to Israel as the Seal of Prophecy, saying: "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in

your ears."

Hence the work Even

of the

Holy

never purely magical nor He always acted through the Word in translating a soul from death unto life. However, between then and now there is a decided difference mechanical.

Spirit is

in the preparatory period

First, then, the Word came to the soul directly by inspiration or by a prophet's address. Now, both these have ceased, and in their stead comes the Word sealed in the Sacred Scripture, interpreted by the Holy Spirit in preaching in the Church.

Secondly, then, the bringing in of

life was confined to Israel, words and originated relations that strictly separated the servants of the only true God from the life of the world.

expressed

Now,

itself in

this extraordinary,

Israel of

God

the spiritual

and peoples

;

are no ;

preparatory dispensation

more the natural descendants

of

is

closed; the

Abraham, but

the stream of the Church flows through all nations stands no more outside the world's life and develop-

it

ment, but rather governs them. Thirdly, altho in the Old Dispensation redemption existed partly already in Scripture, and the Psalmist shows everywhere his devotion thereto, yet Scripture could be used so to a small extent only, and needed constant supplementing by direct revelations and prophecies. But now. Scripture reveals the whole counsel of God, and nothing can be added to it. Wo to him who dares diminish or increase this

thought

1

Book

of Life

which discloses the world of divine

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