The Forgotten Emphasis: Spurgeon’s Theology of the Holy Spirit
If, like the disciples at the day of Pentecost, there can be given only one explanation for the phenomenon who was Charles Spurgeon, it must be that he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4).
In fact, when William Robertson Nicoll was asked for the reason for Spurgeon’s ministry success, he answer “without an instant’s hesitation … ‘The Holy Ghost.’”1 Spurgeon’s understanding of the person and work of the Holy Spirit permeated every part of his theology, ministry, and description of the Christian life.
Spurgeon was committed absolutely to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in every sermon and from every text of Scripture, and he was aware fundamentally of the need for a proper belief in the Holy Spirit to that end. While the tip of the spear for Spurgeon’s ministry was the gospel of Jesus Christ, the shaft, sharpening rock, and grip strength was the personal power of the Holy Spirit. So, while significant attention has appropriately been given to Spurgeon’s preaching of Jesus Christ, relatively too little attention has been given to his theology of the Holy Spirit.
Here are a few of the ways that Spurgeon’s theology about the Holy Spirit informed his understanding of the Christian faith and of Christian ministry.
Worshipping the Holy Spirit
Spurgeon affirmed the biblical revelation that the Holy Spirit is fully God and is a distinct person of the Trinity, coequal and coeternal with the Father and the Son. As such, Spurgeon delighted to ascribe worship the Holy Spirit as is fitting to God. Spurgeon’s adoration for the Holy Spirit led him to write for his church a hymn of praise in recognition of the person and work of the Spirit of God. In the hymn, the Holy Spirit is “Jesu’s parting gift,” the “Monarch” who “dwells within our soul”, and who presides with God’s people in prayer even as he does “in His courts on high.” In the final two stanzas, Spurgeon built to the climax of his praise to the Holy Spirit:
4 Our bodies are His shrine,
And He th’ indwelling Lord;
All hail, thou Comforter divine,
Be evermore adored.
5 Obedient to Thy will,
We wait to feel Thy power,
O Lord of life, our hopes fulfil,
And bless this hallow’d hour.2
Conversion
In his own conversion, Spurgeon knew that what drew him to faith in Jesus Christ was the direct agency of the Holy Spirit on his life. The account of Spurgeon’s conversion is nothing short of remarkable: in January of 1850 Spurgeon found his way, in the midst of a snowstorm, into a Primitive Methodist Chapel, where he listened to a poorly given sermon by an unknown preacher to a room of a dozen people. And yet, it was in the that very sermon that the Lord transformed Spurgeon’s life and drew the 15-year-old boy into complete faith in Jesus Christ. Spurgeon always recognized that as the work of the Spirit, because in his mind nothing else could have cause him to come to faith on that day. In his Autobiography, Spurgeon was reflecting on the nature of his coming to faith in Jesus:
One weeknight, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, “How did you come to be a Christian?” I sought the Lord. “But how did you come to seek the Lord?” The truth flashed across my mind in a moment,—I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I; but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them; but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith.”3
Christian Ministry
Spurgeon also affirmed the absolute necessity of the Spirit in the life of a Christian, and in the life of a Christian minister. In one of his sermons, Spurgeon spoke directly to those who would serve the Lord in ministry:
Nothing can ye do ye ministers of God, nothing ye faithful watchmen of Jerusalem, nothing can ye do ye teachers of youth, nothing ye heralds of the cross in foreign fields, nothing ye ten thousands who are willing to give all your substance, your time, and your talents, absolutely nothing can ye accomplish until God the Holy Spirit comes.4
This is the type of ministry that Spurgeon both taught and modelled—utter dependence on the Spirit of God. The Spirit’s work through Spurgeon was so evident that a friend of his once described the great preacher as being “cradled in the Holy Ghost.”5
