The Fork in the Road: “The Way of UNITY between “Christian Churches” and Churches of Christ,” Part 11

In response to my comments on the Holy Spirit, Greg Tidwell posted an extensive quote from Robert Richardson, The Office of the Holy Spirit (Bosworth, Chase and Hall, Cincinnati: 1872), p. 11. You cannot imagine my delight in learning that Greg and I are both fans of Richardson.

Dr. Richardson was a great intellect and skilled writer. Indeed, Alexander Campbell appointed him as co-editor of Campbell’s Millennial Harbinger, eventually succeeding Campbell as editor after his death.

Had Richardson had the opportunity to lead the Restoration Movement as Campbell’s successor, the Movement would have been much less factious and legalistic. Unfortunately, Richardson’s health and the Civil War prevented this, and the leadership of the Movement descended to other periodicals, portending the divisions that were to follow.

As it turned out, the a cappella Churches of Christ have largely ignored Richardson. After all, his theology is quite different from that taught in the 20th Century Churches of Christ.

Consider his views on the Holy Spirit —

It is sufficient to know that literally there is no such thing as a “pouring out” of the Spirit, or a “drinking” of the Spirit, or a “baptism” in the Spirit, but that these are all alike metaphors, designed, by the resemblances they suggest, to present to the mind, in various aspects and from various points of view, the most lively and correct ideas possible of a fact, which, in whatever form or imagery it may be clothed, itself always remains the same, and is simply and unfiguratively the impartation or gift of the Holy Spirit to those who believe.

The Office of the Holy Spirit, pp. 103-104. (In each case, underlining reflects italics in the original; bold is mine.)

In other words, as I’ve been teaching here, “baptism in the Spirit,” the “outpouring of the Spirit,” and the “gift of the Holy Spirit” are all the same thing — contrary to the theorizing of H. Leo Boles and subsequent Church of Christ thinkers.

Contrary our church practice and teaching, Richardson criticizes efforts to reduce the Spirit to sheer intellectualism, to remove the emotional work of the Spirit from our hearts —

There has been, unhappily, with many, a systematic and continuous effort to disparage religious feeling, and to oppose all expression of it, as savoring of enthusiasm, and incompatible with their philosophy of religion. This extreme, is but the counterview of that theory of special “spiritual operations” now prevailing, which has been productive of so many disorders and extravagancies in religious society, to the discredit of both reason and religion. There has, hence, arisen a dislike to all excitement, and to every manifestation of emotion, as if religion were designed for the intellect alone. The advocates of modern revivalism, on the other hand, seem to regard religion as consisting altogether in certain excitements of feeling. But the religion of Christ is designed both for the head and for the heart. It is intended to embrace the whole man in body, soul, and spirit, and to secure to every faculty and every department of human nature its appropriate office and its most harmonious development. It is, hence, absurd to attempt to establish any contrariety between the religion of the heart and the religion of the head, or to seek to exalt the one to the depreciation of the other. Much more is it criminal to exalt either against the religion of the Bible.

The Office of the Holy Spirit, pp. 195-196.

Richardson accuses the “word only” advocates of Socinianism, a heresy that treats the Spirit and God as one person. He further ridicules the notion that the Spirit could have worked solely through the pages of the New Testament when the New Testament had not yet been written!

Great pains have been taken, by rationalistic and Socinian interpreters, to pervert and explain away this important and plain statement of Paul [in Romans 8:26]. … Or, again, others admitting that the Spirit of God indeed bears the witness, affirm that it is by the written word or gospel, and not as dwelling in the heart, These pseudo-critics who would exalt the word of the Spirit against the Spirit himself, seem incapable of placing themselves in the position of those to whom Paul wrote, and they talk of the “written word” bearing witness to them, as if the Bible Society was then in full operation, and every disciple in Rome had a New Testament in his pocket! In their eagerness to sustain a theory, they overlook the fact that the New Testament was not then written, and that there was no “written word” to bear the witness they imagine. It is not likely that the church at Rome had a single written document of any kind on the subject of Christianity, when Paul wrote his Epistle, nor could his language be then at all understood as applying to any thing but that internal witness of the Spirit familiar to all.

The Office of the Holy Spirit, pp. 200-201.

Richardson insists that the Spirit has both an external influence, through the word, and an internal influence through its indwelling presence.

The work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men hence naturally divides itself into two chapters–1. The influence He exerts from without in the production of faith and conversion; and, 2. The influence he exerts from within, as the Comforter, Helper and Sanctifier of the obedient believer.

The Office of the Holy Spirit, p. 321.

Finally, Richardson concludes that the solution to the need for unity is not theologizing but the Spirit! Indeed, Richardson declares that the Restoration Movement is futile without the empowering work of the Spirit within us.

But, in order to the manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit, the presence of the Spirit himself is necessary. In vain do men weary themselves and the world with plans of reformation; with systems of belief; with schemes of union based on human wisdom. In vain do they imagine themselves to have discovered the secret of the power of the primitive church in its freedom from priestly rule; or in its supernatural gifts; or in any other exterior characteristic. That power was, indeed, wondrous. It was truly a secret, because an interior power, and its secret was the indwelling of the Spirit of God, giving unity, imparting energy, evolving the glorious fruits of Christianity, and presenting to the world, in every disciple, an illustration of the life of Christ–a life of love, and of labor, and of sacrifice for humanity. It is the presence now of this blessed Spirit, in a fuller measure, that is the true want of the Church; but, in order to its attainment, the demons of bigotry and of denominationalism must first be exorcised. The religious world must come and sit at the feet of Jesus, freed from its legion of theologies, and in its right mind, before it can receive his teachings. Men must return to the simple faith of primitive times, and cease forever from those discords and dissensions which, in banishing peace, and substituting human speculations for Divine truth, have largely banished the Holy Spirit from the hearts of religious professors.

The Office of the Holy Spirit, p. 223-224. Richardson concludes that the strength of the early church was not in its primitive “exterior characteristic” but in the inner Spirit.

It’s not the pattern of worship but the Spirit’s transformative work on the heart that empowered the early church! We cannot hope to truly restore the First Century church if we reject the work of Spirit within us to transform us into the image of Christ.

Would that today’s professors spend far more time in the writings of Richardson!

And I pray for the day that the Gospel Advocate teaches the truth as clearly as Richardson does.

I look forward to one day spending time (if that word even applies) in eternity talking with Stone, the Campbells, and Scott. But I imagine I’ll most enjoy sharing thoughts with Dr. Robert Richardson.

PS — After many years of zealously denying the personal indwelling, the Gospel Advocate has been strangely silent on the Spirit for years. The result has been to leave the Churches believing in a powerless Christianity in which our intellects are the sole hope of sufficient obedience and hiding the extraordinary comfort of knowing that God, through his Spirit, has come to live within us to help us make it to the end.