The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

by Reuben Archer Torrey

Overview

Before one can correctly understand the work of the Holy Spirit, he must first of all know the Spirit Himself. A frequent source of error and fanaticism about the work of the Holy Spirit is the attempt to study and understand His work without first of all coming to know Him as a Person.
It is of the highest importance from the standpoint of worship that we decide whether the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, worthy to receive our adoration, our faith, our love, and our entire surrender to Himself, or whether it is simply an influence emanating from God or a power or an illumination that God imparts to us. If the Holy Spirit is a person, and a Divine Person, and we do not know Him as such, then we are robbing a Divine Being of the worship and the faith and the love and the surrender to Himself which are His due.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940162601869
Publisher:	Steinbeck Publishers
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Torrey was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, the son of a banker. He graduated from Yale University in 1875 and from Yale Divinity School in 1878, following which he became a Congregational minister in Garrettsville, Ohio. In 1879, he married Clara Smith, and they subsequently had five children.

After further studies in theology at Leipzig University and Erlangen University in 1882–1883, Torrey joined Dwight L. Moody in his evangelistic work in Chicago in 1889, and became superintendent of the Bible Institute of the Chicago Evangelization Society (now Moody Bible Institute). In 1894, he became pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church (now the Moody Church).[2]

In 1898, Torrey served as a chaplain with the YMCA at Camp Chickamauga during the Spanish–American War. During World War I, he performed similar service at Camp Bowie (a POW camp in Texas) and at Camp Kearny.

In 1902–1903, he preached in nearly every part of the English-speaking world and with song leader Charles McCallon Alexander conducted revival services in Great Britain from 1903 to 1905. During this period, he also visited China, Japan, Australia, and India. Torrey conducted a similar campaign in American and Canadian cities in 1906–1907.[2] Throughout these campaigns, Torrey used a meeting style that he borrowed from Moody's campaigns of the 1870s.

In 1912, Torrey was persuaded to build another institution like Moody Bible Institute, and from 1912 to 1924, he served as Dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University) and contributed to the BIOLA publication, The King's Business. Beginning in 1915, he served as the first pastor of the Church of the Open Door, Los Angeles. Torrey was one of the three editors of The Fundamentals, a 12-volume series that gave its name to what came to be called "fundamentalism".[3]