Lex addresses the next chapter in Torrey’s book “What the Bible Teaches,” concerning the distinction of the Holy Spirit. That is His distinction from the Father and from the Son.
She notes it is the most brief of the book’s chapters. Indeed it is barely more than a page. Lex tries to spark some discussion by asking, “why does it matter?” Indeed. After a few centuries of church growth, development and spread throughout the known world the most divisive battles seemed to revolve around the distinction of these three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What did it matter? For whatever reason, it seemed to them to matter a very great deal. I’d suppose it was of extreme importance that knowing precisely to whom they were entrusting their faith and salvation and to whom they were surrendering their life that made it crucial to understand exactly the characters involved. Especially if you were going to call them “God.”
I often wonder what would I have thought had I been entangled in the genesis of this theological debate having the unbound copies of letters the apostles wrote to their followers and devotees as guides. It must have been a strange and exciting world back then, when the Holy Spirit exhibited Himself often in very powerful ways if one had eyes to see. And it probably would have been fearfully easy to get lost in the depths of pride and self will and create one’s own heresies.
Of course the more things change the more they stay the same.