And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar, Acts 11:28. Which member of the trinity signified that a dearth was coming? We saw in the previous post (The Spirit of Man Part II) that the preincarnate Jesus Christ had given his personal spirit to 70 of the elders of Israel in Numbers 11:25.
Of course, if you attended a major Fundamentalist University in the last 50 years, the idea that there is a difference in the spirit of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels the seven times his spirit is mentioned, and the Holy Spirit of Luke 11:13 is simply preposterous. The idea that the lower case "s" of Genesis 6:3, And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man; is proof that the man Jesus Christ is indeed the LORD of the Old Testament, is also preposterous.
You weren't taught that and therefore it is suspect. Somehow, history keeps repeating itself. In any given age, the Lord manifests himself in men that the gentry of the universities consider to be rabble. Those men, through the power of God, eventually win over a following. That following then builds a university to perpetuate the teaching of men who a prior generation considered to be rabble, but now through the prestige of their universities, take their place in the world of the educated elite. The new universities come to fruition and grow stale just in time to condemn whatever the Holy Ghost is currently trying to do among men. For every genuine movement of God, there is an equal and opposite reaction against that movement by pious men of learning.
The rest of us intend to go forward with our King James Bibles. The King James Bible as represented by the Pure Cambridge Text is the clearest and most precise revelation of the Godhead to mankind that the world has ever known. From the time that the translators themselves wrestled control of the printing procedure away from the King's printer in the early 1600s, until the 21st century, the Cambridge University Press has used a lower case "s" in Acts 11:28.
They were telling us that the spirit by which Agabus prophesied was the same spirit that the elders of Israel had received in Numbers 11:25 and by which they prophesied in Nehemiah 9:30, Yet many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands. That relationship did not just vanish away upon the death of Jesus Christ. The Book of Acts is a history of that Old Testament relationship that the Lord had with the church (Acts 7:38) as he brings it into harmony with New Testament revelations.
In 1894 the Oxford text was changed to make the spirit of Acts 11:28 to be the New Testament relationship exposited by the Apostle Paul in the Book of I Corinthians by changing that "s" to an upper case "S". The truth that the churches of Judaea had a relationship with the Lord prior to the cross became obscured. Agabus's prophesy became just a routine New Testament Church prophesy. In the last decade Cambridge has followed suit. Naturally, our super separated brethren jumped on the band wagon.
It was the Lord Jesus Christ who in his preincarnate relationship with Israel gave his spirit to them who enabled Agabus to prophesy. New printings by misguided editors make it the the third person of the trinity who empowers Agabus. How sharp is your sword. Can it divide soul and spirit?