Notes Regarding J. E. Stile's Book: "The Gift of the Holy Spirit"
A personal note:
I had two copies of J. E. Stile's The Gift of the Holy Spirit. I gave one to my brother. I gave him the unmarked one because it was newer, and I did not want to give him something all marked up. Then I regretted my decision because Stiles says a lot that is not pertinent to my brother's questions, but most of my notes are. I wanted him to read the parts I underlined. Well, he has gone home now, so I decided to write down what I underlined and what notes I made in my copy of The Gift of the Holy Spirit. This was to be just between the two of us, but as I have typed it all out, perhaps my readers might get something out of it, too. My notes are below the line below. Says I to Allen:
I ask you to disconnect your understanding of the Bible from history, for the Bible is revelation of God via illustrations. It is understanding in the speech of word pictures. The Bible has nothing to do with sequential history but rather spiritual relationships. It is both the revelation of God and it is the biography of man, of God as man. Divorce what you think of the Bible from historic times and apply what is illustrated to yourself.
The Book of Acts, chapter 2, is an illustration of the giving of the Holy Spirit, the giving of the Consciousness of God, to you. It is something that happens in your life; in fact, it is already set as the key to your ascension. The gift's reception is when you reach a point of complete submission to Divine lordship and all of your thoughts are in full accord in submission to God. That is illustrated all the disciples in the upper room in Acts 2. God then opens the stop - takes the lid off your bucket - and YOUR mind fills with HIS Consciousness of Glory and Grace and Majesty. Your being then floods with praise and adoration and gratitude. This unstopping is given at your -- or anyone else's -- complete submission to God. Always has been, always will be. And once the stop is removed, all you have to do is take His Consciousness in like a bucket takes in water. From then on the connection to His Consciousness continues. You may always receive His input from the well.
______________________________________________
Page 20, Chapter III, The Body of the Holy Spirit:
Please be aware of the concept in this chapter. Your physical body is the body of the Holy Spirit Who is enlivening it. You were born into this body and consider it yours, but it is not. The life you have here is GOD'S life. This body, its life, and you belong to God Whose is the Holy Spirit, the Consciousness which is enlivening you. Each moment you lord over God's body for your purpose is robbery of His purpose for enlivening it. You thief (no offense).
Page 68. Everything up to this chapter has been fine, and I hope you will read it, but it was to convince you and direct you through illustrations of scripture and arguments of logic. All good, read it when you can. Underline in number 7 at the top of page 68 the words "we may say at this point that teaching people to tarry for that which God has already given as a free gift only produces doubt and indecision." You do not have to wait for the Holy Spirit to be given, that is done. You only have to get yourself submitted to God.
Page 75, half way down: 1. The Holy Spirit is a gift because God wants you to have it. He wants it to be flowing and alive in you. An aside: I say that the Holy Spirit is God's Consciousness and that Jesus Christ is His attitude in it. That attitude is to send the Holy Spirit into you without restraint. There is nothing you can do to earn or merit it except to undo your self-lordship and submit fully to His lordship. The words "and ye shall receive the gift" sounds like something you need to do, that you need to physically take it. The Greek word is the future indicative of lambano, to get hold of. So the verse Acts 2: 28 is saying, "Repent, be baptized, and you shall get hold of the Holy Spirit." It is a package deal: repented and baptized, you get hold of the Spirit.
Page 77, third line from the bottom, underline "the imputed righteousness of Christ is the only righteousness we have." This idea is echoed on page 79, second to the last paragraph: "You will never be worthy to receive (the Holy Spirit) on the basis of your own righteousness, so come in the merits of our glorious Lord."
Page 80 speaks of receiving the Holy Spirit on the basis of grace alone. Here I wrote my own testimony: "When I first sought the gift of tongues, I did not receive. God 'wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole.' Rejected by God, I was reduced to tears. God in His grace then showed me why He rejected me. It was because I was giving Him my life AS THOUGH I OWNED IT, as if I were His peer. 'I give you my voice, my body, my life, etc., to use on loan; but if I do not like what you do with it, I am taking it back.' I was not really submitting my life to Him in recognition of it being His life. I was reserving my control over my life because I still thought it was MINE. My self-lordship was rebellion against His lordship, and He could not, would not accept that.
"I SAW rebellion and abdicated. I un-self-controlled myself: I cast self-control OUT of myself. I thought I might fall flat on the floor. I didn't, yet I wasn't doing anything to hold myself up. In my mind's eye I was kneeling at a large felled pine tree in the mountains, and the Glory of God spread across the sky like aspen glow in the clouds. I said in utter humility, 'You are Glorious God, and I am a mud-man. Whatever is your purpose for me, I will do that.' And thoroughly un-ed, I waited, listening for direction. All I heard was a soft, 'Remember this, and it is all right.' He accepted me. Joy welled up inside me. My bowels felt as if they were flooding with living praise, gratitude, and adoration. These rose upward to my throat. My jaw started quivering. The minister next to me said, 'Don't try to control it.' I didn't, and I broke into speaking a language I did not otherwise know. I observed this as a witness to what was going on, for I was doing nothing to control my mouth or direct my speech."
Page 82 in first paragraph, I underlined "It has been almost universally taught that the Holy Spirit and His gifts are received on basis of human merit, instead of on the basis of Grace, as the Bible plainly teaches." You may see that there is a theme here.
Page 84 less than one third down: "It is not a question of God's willingness to give (the Holy Spirit), but of the seeker's lack of knowledge of what the Spirit is trying to get him to do." This is the result, sadly, of the church's misreading the scriptures and constructing a errant theology from their misunderstanding.
Page 89 one third down: "Surely the receiving the Holy Spirit gives the individual greater power to live a godly life, and it lays on him (or her) a greater responsibility to do so, but it is no proof at all that he WILL do so." May I point out that in the illustration of Jesus' baptism in the Holy Spirit he remained cloistered with the Spirit for forty days.
Page 91 first paragraph: "He does not come in because we have arrived at a high state of spiritual develop and consecration, but He comes in to cause us, by His help and guidance, to become conformed to the image of Christ." Christ, again I am teaching, is the ATTITUDE of Ineffable.
Page 95, seventh line: "Since salvation comes as a result of his believing hat the blood of Jesus is a complete, and all sufficient, remedy for sins." In the margin I noted: "This is it: the whole 'Gospel.'"
Sixth line up from the bottom of that paragraph: I underlined the word 'then' in the phrase "and then God will clean him up."
Fifth line in the next paragraph: above 'Satan' I insert DOUBT.
Ninth line: The Holy Spirit is a GIFT of God's grace, and anyone who is saved is ready to receive the Holy Spirit if only he knows (double underline) it." . . . "It is up to them to receive (double underline) that which has already been given."
I comment on the last line of page 95: "The word 'receive' applies to an act of the one who gets something." It was for me more like opening a door for an inflow. I stopped all self-lordship and waited for direction. Seeing Glory spread above me, I submitted, and He said, "Remember this, and it is all right." I was ACCEPTED, and praise, gratitude, and adoration AROSE in a flood of living waters. The arising was the Spirit I received into this vessel.
Page 96 at top: "The word 'receive' might just as readily be translated 'take' and do no injury to the meaning of the original Greek." I dare you to stick your hand out and take the Holy Spirit. Overlooking the original was Aramaic, the Greek is the future indicative of lambano. To take = get hold of. Think of a bucket dipped into a well. It takes in the water as it gets hold of the supply. It is more like absorb.
Page 98, last half of first paragraph AND the note: "the man's part is to do the speaking": Yes, it is man's part to do the speaking when you have gotten to that point, but to get there it is man's part to set the attitude of submission.
Eighth line from the bottom of the page, "Since God commands all Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; Eph. 5:18), it is unthinkable that His Word would not make the matter plain enough (& etc.)." If it isn't plain enough, then we have mistranslated, misread, and misunderstood what was supposed to be plain enough. When Moses said "God is one" in Deuteronomy 6:4, he did not mean God was one "over there," separate from us. God is one here in us, with us, as us. All of everything is the Big One. Hence, at the top of page 99 Stiles says the Holy Spirit is a person. She is. It is the Ineffable Itself. I do not care how you dice the Ineffable -- as imagination, consciousness, power, spirit, or whatever -- the Holy Spirit IS the Ineffable. And the think It is is also you.
Page 99 top of page, note at end of first sentence: It is what He does.
Underlined in second sentence: "He (the Holy Spirit is a she -- always feminine) was (is) given to help us become mature, steady, fully developed Christians, which God wants us to be." Note: because He is becoming through this.
Page 99 11th line from bottom: "Does not common intelligent -- insert the word 'thought' or 'logic' -- tell us that the movements which the Spirit is causing on the man's lips and tongue are only suggestions to the man (or woman) as to how God wants him to speak?" Underline the word 'leads' in the next sentence, and "Faith moves out on the suggestion of God" at the bottom of the page. Note on that sentence: He gives us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37).
Page 100, 7th line down: "our motive of heart is the thing God is interested in."
Two-thirds down: "Yielding simply means that he is to stop all effort to control what he speaks . . . but lift his voice, willing to make whatever sounds result from the movement of his lips and tongue which the Spirit is controlling." Do not try to control, it. Just let it go.
Page 101, one third down: Underline "He either is in the believer, or he is not," and read surrounding text (by the way, He is).
Just below center of page: "Will the man do his part in receiving what God has already given?"
Second to last sentence in that paragraph: "If the man is willing to praise AND ADORE God with the sounds which the Spirit causes his lips to form, he is acting IN faith, and God will honor it . . ."
The bottom paragraph on page 101 begins a story (to page 104) well worth reading. The gist of it is that the praising and adoring of God (as we do in the speaking in tongues) is the rest which refreshes. This is much more meaningful than it appears. Concentration on God brings healing and deliverance. It is the "Golden Key" Emmet Fox spoke and wrote of. Lose yourself in worship.
Page 104 at bottom: underline all of number 1.
Page 105 number 2: "anyone who is saved ALREADY HAS THE HOLY SPIRIT AND is ready to receive the Holy Spirit UNSTOPPED.
Number 4: "he is to expect the INFLOWING Spirit to move on his vocal organs, and to put supernatural words OF PRAISE AND ADORATION on his lips."
Chapter 12
Page 108 middle of page: Read John 14:16-17, quoted here. If one knows the PRINCIPLE of God that is Christ, which is to progress toward full manifestation, he can receive the gift of God's Consciousness, the Holy Spirit.
Page 109 one quarter of he way down: "After Pentecost we find the Word speaking about men receiving the Spirit, instead of God giving Him (Her)." Third line below this: "and ye shall receive (take/get hold of) the GIFT of the Holy Spirit." Stiles implies that receiving is the act of the believer. But what does a bucket do to take on water? Once it is dropped into the well, it just allows the water to flow in. It doesn't have an 'act' except to be open. You repent, be baptized, and then the water of the Spirit can flow in -- that is receiving the gift.
Page 110 bottom third: "The sooner we realize this great truth, that we are hopelessly sinful (ignorant), the sooner we will cast ourselves recklessly upon the Lord, and trust Him for the righteousness which is by faith. The moment that you receive Christ as Savior, you have credited to your account the perfect righteousness of Christ, and it is in His righteousness that you stand before God."
Page 111 middle of the page: "He (God) gave Him (Christ) that weak, faltering Christians might receive Him, and (that) through His help, and guidance, and power, they might be shaped into the likeness of Christ . . . I remind you again that you are no good (ignorant), and your only hope is in Him." It is my opinion that the giving of Christ was not on the cross at Calvary two thousand years ago, but at the very beginning of creation. The Calvary story is a report of THAT giving; it is an illustration of it. Christ was crucified "from the foundation of the universe." In THAT giving the Ineffable God intended that all would become like HIM. This principle is Christ: the Ineffable saying, "You (the universe) shall become like Me."
I had two copies of J. E. Stile's The Gift of the Holy Spirit. I gave one to my brother. I gave him the unmarked one because it was newer, and I did not want to give him something all marked up. Then I regretted my decision because Stiles says a lot that is not pertinent to my brother's questions, but most of my notes are. I wanted him to read the parts I underlined. Well, he has gone home now, so I decided to write down what I underlined and what notes I made in my copy of The Gift of the Holy Spirit. This was to be just between the two of us, but as I have typed it all out, perhaps my readers might get something out of it, too. My notes are below the line below. Says I to Allen:
I ask you to disconnect your understanding of the Bible from history, for the Bible is revelation of God via illustrations. It is understanding in the speech of word pictures. The Bible has nothing to do with sequential history but rather spiritual relationships. It is both the revelation of God and it is the biography of man, of God as man. Divorce what you think of the Bible from historic times and apply what is illustrated to yourself.
The Book of Acts, chapter 2, is an illustration of the giving of the Holy Spirit, the giving of the Consciousness of God, to you. It is something that happens in your life; in fact, it is already set as the key to your ascension. The gift's reception is when you reach a point of complete submission to Divine lordship and all of your thoughts are in full accord in submission to God. That is illustrated all the disciples in the upper room in Acts 2. God then opens the stop - takes the lid off your bucket - and YOUR mind fills with HIS Consciousness of Glory and Grace and Majesty. Your being then floods with praise and adoration and gratitude. This unstopping is given at your -- or anyone else's -- complete submission to God. Always has been, always will be. And once the stop is removed, all you have to do is take His Consciousness in like a bucket takes in water. From then on the connection to His Consciousness continues. You may always receive His input from the well.
______________________________________________
Page 20, Chapter III, The Body of the Holy Spirit:
Please be aware of the concept in this chapter. Your physical body is the body of the Holy Spirit Who is enlivening it. You were born into this body and consider it yours, but it is not. The life you have here is GOD'S life. This body, its life, and you belong to God Whose is the Holy Spirit, the Consciousness which is enlivening you. Each moment you lord over God's body for your purpose is robbery of His purpose for enlivening it. You thief (no offense).
Page 68. Everything up to this chapter has been fine, and I hope you will read it, but it was to convince you and direct you through illustrations of scripture and arguments of logic. All good, read it when you can. Underline in number 7 at the top of page 68 the words "we may say at this point that teaching people to tarry for that which God has already given as a free gift only produces doubt and indecision." You do not have to wait for the Holy Spirit to be given, that is done. You only have to get yourself submitted to God.
Page 75, half way down: 1. The Holy Spirit is a gift because God wants you to have it. He wants it to be flowing and alive in you. An aside: I say that the Holy Spirit is God's Consciousness and that Jesus Christ is His attitude in it. That attitude is to send the Holy Spirit into you without restraint. There is nothing you can do to earn or merit it except to undo your self-lordship and submit fully to His lordship. The words "and ye shall receive the gift" sounds like something you need to do, that you need to physically take it. The Greek word is the future indicative of lambano, to get hold of. So the verse Acts 2: 28 is saying, "Repent, be baptized, and you shall get hold of the Holy Spirit." It is a package deal: repented and baptized, you get hold of the Spirit.
Page 77, third line from the bottom, underline "the imputed righteousness of Christ is the only righteousness we have." This idea is echoed on page 79, second to the last paragraph: "You will never be worthy to receive (the Holy Spirit) on the basis of your own righteousness, so come in the merits of our glorious Lord."
Page 80 speaks of receiving the Holy Spirit on the basis of grace alone. Here I wrote my own testimony: "When I first sought the gift of tongues, I did not receive. God 'wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole.' Rejected by God, I was reduced to tears. God in His grace then showed me why He rejected me. It was because I was giving Him my life AS THOUGH I OWNED IT, as if I were His peer. 'I give you my voice, my body, my life, etc., to use on loan; but if I do not like what you do with it, I am taking it back.' I was not really submitting my life to Him in recognition of it being His life. I was reserving my control over my life because I still thought it was MINE. My self-lordship was rebellion against His lordship, and He could not, would not accept that.
"I SAW rebellion and abdicated. I un-self-controlled myself: I cast self-control OUT of myself. I thought I might fall flat on the floor. I didn't, yet I wasn't doing anything to hold myself up. In my mind's eye I was kneeling at a large felled pine tree in the mountains, and the Glory of God spread across the sky like aspen glow in the clouds. I said in utter humility, 'You are Glorious God, and I am a mud-man. Whatever is your purpose for me, I will do that.' And thoroughly un-ed, I waited, listening for direction. All I heard was a soft, 'Remember this, and it is all right.' He accepted me. Joy welled up inside me. My bowels felt as if they were flooding with living praise, gratitude, and adoration. These rose upward to my throat. My jaw started quivering. The minister next to me said, 'Don't try to control it.' I didn't, and I broke into speaking a language I did not otherwise know. I observed this as a witness to what was going on, for I was doing nothing to control my mouth or direct my speech."
Page 82 in first paragraph, I underlined "It has been almost universally taught that the Holy Spirit and His gifts are received on basis of human merit, instead of on the basis of Grace, as the Bible plainly teaches." You may see that there is a theme here.
Page 84 less than one third down: "It is not a question of God's willingness to give (the Holy Spirit), but of the seeker's lack of knowledge of what the Spirit is trying to get him to do." This is the result, sadly, of the church's misreading the scriptures and constructing a errant theology from their misunderstanding.
Page 89 one third down: "Surely the receiving the Holy Spirit gives the individual greater power to live a godly life, and it lays on him (or her) a greater responsibility to do so, but it is no proof at all that he WILL do so." May I point out that in the illustration of Jesus' baptism in the Holy Spirit he remained cloistered with the Spirit for forty days.
Page 91 first paragraph: "He does not come in because we have arrived at a high state of spiritual develop and consecration, but He comes in to cause us, by His help and guidance, to become conformed to the image of Christ." Christ, again I am teaching, is the ATTITUDE of Ineffable.
Page 95, seventh line: "Since salvation comes as a result of his believing hat the blood of Jesus is a complete, and all sufficient, remedy for sins." In the margin I noted: "This is it: the whole 'Gospel.'"
Sixth line up from the bottom of that paragraph: I underlined the word 'then' in the phrase "and then God will clean him up."
Fifth line in the next paragraph: above 'Satan' I insert DOUBT.
Ninth line: The Holy Spirit is a GIFT of God's grace, and anyone who is saved is ready to receive the Holy Spirit if only he knows (double underline) it." . . . "It is up to them to receive (double underline) that which has already been given."
I comment on the last line of page 95: "The word 'receive' applies to an act of the one who gets something." It was for me more like opening a door for an inflow. I stopped all self-lordship and waited for direction. Seeing Glory spread above me, I submitted, and He said, "Remember this, and it is all right." I was ACCEPTED, and praise, gratitude, and adoration AROSE in a flood of living waters. The arising was the Spirit I received into this vessel.
Page 96 at top: "The word 'receive' might just as readily be translated 'take' and do no injury to the meaning of the original Greek." I dare you to stick your hand out and take the Holy Spirit. Overlooking the original was Aramaic, the Greek is the future indicative of lambano. To take = get hold of. Think of a bucket dipped into a well. It takes in the water as it gets hold of the supply. It is more like absorb.
Page 98, last half of first paragraph AND the note: "the man's part is to do the speaking": Yes, it is man's part to do the speaking when you have gotten to that point, but to get there it is man's part to set the attitude of submission.
Eighth line from the bottom of the page, "Since God commands all Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; Eph. 5:18), it is unthinkable that His Word would not make the matter plain enough (& etc.)." If it isn't plain enough, then we have mistranslated, misread, and misunderstood what was supposed to be plain enough. When Moses said "God is one" in Deuteronomy 6:4, he did not mean God was one "over there," separate from us. God is one here in us, with us, as us. All of everything is the Big One. Hence, at the top of page 99 Stiles says the Holy Spirit is a person. She is. It is the Ineffable Itself. I do not care how you dice the Ineffable -- as imagination, consciousness, power, spirit, or whatever -- the Holy Spirit IS the Ineffable. And the think It is is also you.
Page 99 top of page, note at end of first sentence: It is what He does.
Underlined in second sentence: "He (the Holy Spirit is a she -- always feminine) was (is) given to help us become mature, steady, fully developed Christians, which God wants us to be." Note: because He is becoming through this.
Page 99 11th line from bottom: "Does not common intelligent -- insert the word 'thought' or 'logic' -- tell us that the movements which the Spirit is causing on the man's lips and tongue are only suggestions to the man (or woman) as to how God wants him to speak?" Underline the word 'leads' in the next sentence, and "Faith moves out on the suggestion of God" at the bottom of the page. Note on that sentence: He gives us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37).
Page 100, 7th line down: "our motive of heart is the thing God is interested in."
Two-thirds down: "Yielding simply means that he is to stop all effort to control what he speaks . . . but lift his voice, willing to make whatever sounds result from the movement of his lips and tongue which the Spirit is controlling." Do not try to control, it. Just let it go.
Page 101, one third down: Underline "He either is in the believer, or he is not," and read surrounding text (by the way, He is).
Just below center of page: "Will the man do his part in receiving what God has already given?"
Second to last sentence in that paragraph: "If the man is willing to praise AND ADORE God with the sounds which the Spirit causes his lips to form, he is acting IN faith, and God will honor it . . ."
The bottom paragraph on page 101 begins a story (to page 104) well worth reading. The gist of it is that the praising and adoring of God (as we do in the speaking in tongues) is the rest which refreshes. This is much more meaningful than it appears. Concentration on God brings healing and deliverance. It is the "Golden Key" Emmet Fox spoke and wrote of. Lose yourself in worship.
Page 104 at bottom: underline all of number 1.
Page 105 number 2: "anyone who is saved ALREADY HAS THE HOLY SPIRIT AND is ready to receive the Holy Spirit UNSTOPPED.
Number 4: "he is to expect the INFLOWING Spirit to move on his vocal organs, and to put supernatural words OF PRAISE AND ADORATION on his lips."
Chapter 12
Page 108 middle of page: Read John 14:16-17, quoted here. If one knows the PRINCIPLE of God that is Christ, which is to progress toward full manifestation, he can receive the gift of God's Consciousness, the Holy Spirit.
Page 109 one quarter of he way down: "After Pentecost we find the Word speaking about men receiving the Spirit, instead of God giving Him (Her)." Third line below this: "and ye shall receive (take/get hold of) the GIFT of the Holy Spirit." Stiles implies that receiving is the act of the believer. But what does a bucket do to take on water? Once it is dropped into the well, it just allows the water to flow in. It doesn't have an 'act' except to be open. You repent, be baptized, and then the water of the Spirit can flow in -- that is receiving the gift.
Page 110 bottom third: "The sooner we realize this great truth, that we are hopelessly sinful (ignorant), the sooner we will cast ourselves recklessly upon the Lord, and trust Him for the righteousness which is by faith. The moment that you receive Christ as Savior, you have credited to your account the perfect righteousness of Christ, and it is in His righteousness that you stand before God."
Page 111 middle of the page: "He (God) gave Him (Christ) that weak, faltering Christians might receive Him, and (that) through His help, and guidance, and power, they might be shaped into the likeness of Christ . . . I remind you again that you are no good (ignorant), and your only hope is in Him." It is my opinion that the giving of Christ was not on the cross at Calvary two thousand years ago, but at the very beginning of creation. The Calvary story is a report of THAT giving; it is an illustration of it. Christ was crucified "from the foundation of the universe." In THAT giving the Ineffable God intended that all would become like HIM. This principle is Christ: the Ineffable saying, "You (the universe) shall become like Me."
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