Moral Flame

One of the most telling blows that the enemy ever struck at the life of the Church was to create in it a fear of the Holy Spirit. No one who mingles with Christians in these times will deny that such a fear exists. Few there are who without restraint will open their whole heart to the blessed Comforter. He has been and is so widely misunderstood that the very mention of His name in some circles is enough to frighten many people into resistance. The source of this unreasoning fear may easily be traced, but it would be a fruitless labor to do it here. Sufficient to say that the fear is groundless. Perhaps we may help to destroy its power over us if we examine that fire that is the symbol of the Spirit’s Person and Presence.

The Holy Spirit is first of all a moral flame. It is not an accident of language that He is called the Holy Spirit, for whatever else the word holy may mean, it does undoubtedly carry with it the idea of moral purity. And the Spirit, being God, must be absolutely and infinitely pure. With Him there are not (as with men) grades and degrees of holiness. He is holiness itself, the sum and essence of all that is unspeakably pure.

Verse

The Light of Israel will become a fire, / their Holy One a flame; / in a single day it will burn and consume / his thorns and his briers. Isaiah 10:17

Thought

It is not an accident of language that the Spirit is called the Holy Spirit, for whatever else the word holy may mean, it does undoubtedly carry with it the idea of moral purity.

Prayer

Holy Spirit, do Your work in us to make us holy, pure.