THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
G. V. Wigram
The Scriptures are given to us by God as a complete depositary and standard of truth; they contain all we need to know as Christians, and by them every error may be detected. But who is the interpreter of Scripture? I answer, The Holy Spirit. As the Lord Jesus Christ is more or less directly the subject of all Scripture testimony, so is the Holy Spirit the only authorised and infallible interpreter of it. True, He gives to each babe in Christ the unction whereby to know all things, and gives, too, various measures of capacity in understanding; He may also give teachers to the church, and gifts of wisdom and knowledge as blessed links of connection between Himself, the Interpreter, and the children whom He teaches; diligence and carefulness of study, and a pure conscience undefiled, have also their place in the learner.
But still the Holy Spirit Himself alone is the Interpreter; to Him, as God, the plans of God and the glory of Christ are fully known and precious, and it is His ability and willingness and faithfulness which constitute the security that each humble soul shall receive its own measure of truth. In honouring Him the saints find great power and enlargement and unity in the truth; and the reverse is true if they dishonour Him ...
If anyone, instead of looking for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, dabbles with his own mind in Scripture, he will either see something in the Book which is not there, or the contents of the Book out of their proper order and relative importance, and here heresy begins. He has, unconsciously perhaps, dishonoured the Holy Spirit and honoured himself. The leaven of heresy, it may be, is now at work in him; if so, and if he does not judge himself, the
leaven will by-and-by show itself. He will either broach things which are not at all in the Book, or he will broach a connection of things which is not true, or he may diminish the importance of foundation truth, or magnify unduly the importance of some item or point of super-structure truth …
Brethren, it is a solemn word—“There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you”, 1 Corinthians 11: 19. The Holy Spirit assures us that it is God alone who can and who will preserve His own; but the saints should watch.
The poor of the flock I beseech to notice, that heresy has a great deal more to do with the spirit in which things are held and taken up, and propagated, than with the thing itself which is held or propagated. Every Christian, however simple, can watch the spirit in which friends hold and set out their views. Is it Christ-like? Is it like the apostles? Does it keep truth in its place and proportion? Is conscience, and not only intellect, drawn into action? are questions the simplest can apply ...
As heresy begins with the natural mind playing with the truth, so its mode and means of success are the getting the saints upon hard points and questions, and a thinking instead of praying ... Heresy is in principle the playing of the flesh with the truth, and is the sending into parties those who should be one. May the Lord keep His saints watching and praying.
The sum of what I say is this, God has given us a standard of truth, and a Guide for the understanding and use of it. Heresy is not, as some take it to mean, some undefined error in doctrine, but consists in the flesh setting aside the Guide, and itself attempting to use the standard, the end of which will be sects.
‘Ministry of G.V.W.’. Vol. 2, pp.86–92