laying on of the hands of one in whose body He has taken up His abode, and this happens after the new birth. The Holy Spirit is a person; the holy spirit which He gives at the new birth is a thing, just as the body which the parents give is a thing, not a person. (John 3:6, Acts 8:17, 9:17, 19:6, Eph. 1:13 "after".)

So the Apostles received holy spirit and were born again on the night of the Resurrection. After that they were continually in the Temple praising and blessing God. It was, however, not until the day of Pentecost that they received the Holy Spirit Himself, who immediately manifested His presence in a miraculous fashion. Much confusion has arisen through the failure to differentiate between the Person and the thing. Since there are no capital letters or other ways of distinguishing between them in the original MSS., every translator is free to use his own judgment in the matter, and so mistakes have been made. (John 20:22, Acts 2:4, Lk. 24:53.)

All Christians then have that which the Holy Spirit begets, and all Christians have also the Holy Spirit Himself "with them," for it was He who brought them to repentance and begat them again. It is, however, those who are baptised in the Spirit who have Him "in them." (Rom. 8:9, John 14:17, Acts 19:2-6.)

The body of every Son of God is a temple of the Holy Ghost: but that temple is empty until the Spirit enters it, of which entry there is always a clear sign. Even as the Tabernacle and Temple were first prepared and built, and after that manifestly filled with the glory of God. (I Cor. 3:16-17, 6:19, Ex. 40:33-34, I Kings 8:10-11, Mal. 3:1.)

The Gift of God

Faith is therefore the gift of God, because it is the result of the new spirit, which is born; just as hearing is the result of an ear, or sight of an eye. A man believes because he has been given a living spirit; and because he has such a spirit he cannot help believing, even if for some selfish reason he may wish to do so. Only by spiritual suicide can he kill this spirit and become "twice dead." In such cases he knows what he has done and lives in apprehension of fiery judgment (I Peter 1:23-2:2, Eph. 2:8-10, Heb. 6:4-8, 10:26-29, Jude 12.)

It is essential that faith should be the gift of God and not a human ability. Were it not so, a man might be discouraged by