Holy Spirit, Vivifying the Word – Charles Spurgeon

IT is the word of God that is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. There must be life in it, for by it men are born again. As for believers, the Holy Spirit often sets the word on a blaze while they are studying it. The letters were at one time before us as mere letters, but the Holy Spirit suddenly came upon them, and they spoke with tongues. The chapter is lowly as the bush at Horeb, but the Spirit descends upon it, and lo! it glows with celestial splendor, God appearing in the words, so that we feel like Moses when he put off his shoes from his feet, because the place whereon he stood was holy ground. It is true, the mass of readers understand not this, and look upon the Bible as a common book; but if they understand it not, at least let them allow the truthfulness of our assertion, when we declare that hundreds of times we have as surely felt the presence of God in the page of Scripture as ever Elijah did when he heard the Lord speaking in a still small voice. The Bible has often appeared to us a temple of God, and the posts of its doors have moved at the voice of him that cried, whose train also has filled the temple. We have been constrained adoringly to cry with the seraphim, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts.” The Jews place as a frontispiece to their great Bible the text, “Surely God is in this place: it is none other than the house of God, and the very gate of Heaven.” And they say well. It is, indeed, a spiritual temple, a most holy house, garnished with precious stones for beauty, and overlaid within and without with pure gold, having for its chief glory the presence of the Lord, so gloriously revealed that oftentimes the priests of the Lord cannot stand to minister by reason of the glory of the Lord which fills the house. God the Holy Spirit vivifies the letter with his presence, and then it is to us a living word indeed.