Charles Ryrie: The Holy Spirit

It may go with out saying that the third person of the Trinity is the least understood and least studied person with in the God head leaving many Christians uninformed and ill prepared to discuss His work, ministry, and even proper identification. Charles Ryrie has done an invaluable service to the church then by writing a work that addresses such a dilemma and succinctly organizes into a solid teaching a study into and on the Holy Spirit. Aptly titled The Holy Spirit, Ryrie packs a lot into the 206 pages of his revised and expanded edition. The back cover description boasts that the book “avoids confusion and trendiness, sticking uncompromisingly to the revealed Word of God.” This, for the most part, seems to be the case where as Ryrie’s main purpose is to show the person of the Holy Spirit as He is portrayed through Holy Scripture.

The book is split up into 22 chapters and though the book doesn’t make these distinctions outright, Ryrie may agree with me in that the outline of the book can be separated or organized into four main parts. Chapters one through four can serve as scriptural identification, definition, and description of who the Holy Spirit is. Chapters five through ten describe the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in His different functions through out scripture. Chapters eleven through fifteen deal with the specific work of the Spirit in salvation, both leading up to faith and continuing through to glorification, and then finally chapters sixteen through twenty one deal with the work of the Spirit as ministering to the church and church age believers. Chapter 22 just gives a brief overview of the history of the doctrine as well as a helpful bibliography on the subject of the Spirit.

Of the four different sections the ones I enjoyed reading most were the chapters that dealt with who the Holy Spirit was (one through four) and the chapters that discussed the Spirit’s work in salvation. (Eleven through fifteen)

Ryrie does an excellent job at defining who the Spirit is as a personality in his chapter titled He or It? He walks the reader through a number of different texts that show the distinct personhood of the Spirit, thus putting to rest the often made mistake of calling the Spirit an ‘it.’ For instance, in Ephesians 4:30 we see a clear situation in which the Spirit can be grieved, commanding the reader to “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption.” An inanimate force or energy can not be grieved, only someone who demonstrates personhood can experience the emotion of grief. Again, in Acts 5:3 we see the Spirit being lied to when Peter asks Ananias “why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land?” Surely one can not lie to a force or non person like a computer or TV, the absence of personhood marks the absence of moral responsibility; the Holy Spirit must then be a person. The most interesting of Ryrie’s arguments was his use of grammar to show the Spirit’s personality. He writes,

“The greek word for spirit is pneuma and is a neuter gender word. According to every normal rule of grammar, any pronoun that would be substituted for this neuter noun would itself have to be neuter. However, in several places the biblical writers did not follow this normal rule of grammar, and instead of using a neuter pronoun when referring to the neuter noun pneuma, they deliberately contradicted the grammatical rule and used masculine pronouns. Indeed, they used two different kinds of pronouns, all in the masculine gender. This shows that they considered the Spirit to be a person and not merely a thing.” (pg 17)

This truth of course has major ramifications for any student of the scriptures or God, most notably dealing with ones perception of the Trinity. And this is exactly where Ryrie takes the reader, showing that the person of the Holy Spirit is an important doctrine to believe simply because it bears so strongly a witness to His relationship with the other persons of the Trinity, thus begging His deity. The crucial text found in Matt. 28:19 where we are commanded to “baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” would not make much grammatical sense if the first two figures are presented as persons where as the last is only a force. The use of the word ‘name’ in vs. 19 Ryrie argues indicates His personhood just as the Father and Son are represented as such.

In chapter nine, Ryrie addresses the often misunderstood teaching of Blaspheming the Holy Spirit and uses Matt.12:22-33 to show contextually what the bible means by this feared unforgivable sin and even though I may agree with his outcome I still feel like he left some questions unanswered. He says that because the Pharisees’ sin of ascribing the work of the Holy Spirit to that of Satan was made all the worse by the actual presence of Christ and that it was their wickedness in light of Christ’s present holiness that caused the unique circumstances for this sin to take place, it could therefore never happen today. But I still ask why. If I ascribe a miraculous work, say tongues or prophecy, to the work of Satan in a present day person how am I different than the Pharisees of Christ’s time. I feel this could have been dealt with a little more by giving more arguments for why this sin is restricted to the past.

Ryrie does, I think an excellent job in discussing General or Common grace and touching on the fact that the cross of Christ, though given to save a few, had universal effects reaching all people. “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4)

Chapters eleven and twelve I thought were the most engaging and displayed a brilliant overview of the Spirit’s work in bringing sinful, unregenerate people to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He deals first with the doctrine of Efficacious Grace, though he sadly prefers the title Special Grace, and rightly connects the doctrine with that of sin, or mans total depravity. The calling of the Spirit in man, leading him to salvation, therefore becomes a work entirely of God because sinful man is unable to bring himself to life. It is then mans inability that shows by contrast the power of the Spirit in His effectiveness to bring life and willingness where there was once death and heavenly disdain. Chapter twelve explains the doctrine of Regeneration or being born again of the Spirit and though Ryrie hits the mark in describing this theology to first time readers I think he definitely misses the mark in unfolding the process regeneration takes in salvation or the ordu salutis. “Although this may be seen as a logical order, (Regeneration before faith) it is undebatably not a chronological one. Regeneration does not precede faith chronologically.”(pg 90) Firstly, it is misleading or confusing to use the word ‘undebatably’ because Ryrie must be aware that there is debate concerning the order of regeneration to faith both logically and chronologically[i]. Secondly, no where in his argument of regeneration being simultaneous with faith does he use scripture to back up his conclusion, he simply just tells the reader what he thinks proclaiming that any conclusion differing from his is “a monstrous idea [being] completely unbiblical.” This, I argue, is an unfair appraisal of the issue, where as elsewhere he is sure to look at scripture for support, here I think he strays and misses an opportunity to look at such verses like Jn 1:12, Jn 3:3-5, 1 Jn 3:9, and definitely Rm 8:30.

Overall the book has been delightful to read and incredibly encouraging. Each chapter gives a brief application for what comes out of each doctrine pushing the reader to really look at the Spirit; not as a set of facts, but as a part of the Godhead who has graciously and most lovingly entered into a relationship with those whom God has chosen to pour out His special love to. Also as you read each chapter you notice how Ryrie makes a point to continually show how each work or ministry or promise points again and again to the Spirits deity. Reading this book has been a treat and has certainly added depth to my personal walk and prayer life. I echo Charles Ryrie’s prayer in response to D.W. Whittle’s hymn:

“’As Lives the flow’r within the seed

As in the cone the tree,

So, praise the God of truth and grace,

His Spirit liveth in me.’

How we do praise God that He – the Father, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit live in me.”

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[i] See Part II of John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied for a full critique of the place regeneration plays in the ordu salutis. He biblically and logically shows regeneration preceding faith.