Jerry C. Brewer
To hear some folks tell it, the Holy Spirit is a an inarticulate being. In his newspaper column, “Kingdom Principles,” Andy Taylor, the preacher for Trinity Fellowship Church at Sayre, Okla. wrote, “Can you be obedient to the, sometimes silent and vague, instructions of the Holy Spirit?” That the Holy Spirit is “vague” or “silent” in His instructions did not come from the Bible. There is not a single verse, from Genesis to Revelation, on which Taylor can lay his finger that teaches such nonsense and his statement impugns the integrity and intelligence of Almighty God.
At which time, in all of the Bible, did the Holy Spirit give “silent” instructions? How were such instructions given? How are “silent” instructions comprehended? What are the “vague” instructions of the Holy Spirit? Is the Holy Spirit so inarticulate that He must be “vague”?
The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Godhead and, as such, is Deity. God the Father purposed salvation for all men in Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:3-10). God the Son purchased our salvation by His blood (Eph. 1:7) and God the Holy Spirit revealed that salvation through the inspired apostles (John 14:26; 16:12-13).
In His revelation to man, the Holy Spirit was explicit—never “vague” or “silent.” Paul told Timothy, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly…” (1 Tim. 4:1a). That is neither “vague” nor “silent.” In the Old Testament, David was inspired to speak the word of God and said, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue, The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me…” (2 Sam. 23: 2ff). No “silent” or “vague” instructions here. God’s Spirit clearly and expressly spake by the mouth of David. The Holy Spirit does not communicate in “vague” or silent” ways. Nor is He so inarticulate that He must resort to “hints,” “nudges,” or “feelings.”
Paul clearly defines the means by which God communicates to man—in words. He said that in ages past, “eye hath not seen. nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). Paul’s quotation from Isaiah 64:4 indicated that no person in the Old Testament knew the plan God had for man’s salvation. Then Paul wrote, “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (2 Cor. 2:10-11). He then relates how the Spirit revealed the “things of God.” “Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth…” (2 Cor. 2:13).
The Holy Spirit did not reveal God’s scheme of redemption in “vague” or “silent” ways. He revealed the mind of God just as you reveal your mind to others—in words. Words are vehicles of thought and no man can know God’s thoughts except through His revealed word in the New Testament—God’s final revelation to man (Jude 3). The Holy Spirit has, once and for all time to come, clearly revealed the will of God to us through inspired men. They wrote God’s will in the Bible, and the Holy Spirit speaks directly to no one today—either in words, or in “silent and vague” ways. The misguided notion that the Holy Spirit “guides” men today through “hints”, “nudges” or “feelings” a “better-felt-than-told” holy roller religion with no Biblical basis.
