The Spirit in the New Testament

No doctrine has proved so fruitful in modern Christianity as that of the Spirit. During the 19th and 20th century, social order has undergone profound changes. Our knowledge of nature and of the process of human development has been immensely widened, and the documents of the faith have been subjected to critical inquiry, with the result that many of the old assumptions have given way. If our religion has been able to maintain itself under the altered conditions this has been chiefly due to the doctrine of the Spirit which it has inherited from the early church. The present book attempts to examine the doctrine of the Spirit as it is set forth in the New Testament. Its object is nothing more than to determine, by critical and historical methods, the nature of the New Testament doctrine and its meaning for the early church. But the New Testament must always be the starting point for our religious thought.