Matthew Henry's Commentary on Striving of the Holy Spirit
Matthew Henry's commentary does not contain a dedicated exposition on "the striving of the Holy Spirit" as a discrete doctrinal topic. The phrase appears in his treatment of Genesis 6:3, where he interprets God's declaration "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" as a warning of divine withdrawal. Henry frames this striving as the Spirit's convicting work against human resistance: "the Spirit of the Lord, being provoked by their resistance of his motions, ceased to strive with them, and then all religion was soon lost among them" [1]. The striving is thus the Spirit's active opposition to sin through conviction, which when persistently resisted, may be withdrawn as judgment.
The Spirit's Convicting Ministry
Henry's understanding of the Spirit's striving emerges from his broader pneumatology, where the Spirit functions as the agent of conviction and sanctification. In his commentary on 1 Timothy 4:1, he references "the Spirit" who "speaks expressly" about apostasy, indicating the Spirit's prophetic and warning role [3]. The Spirit's work is not merely passive indwelling but active engagement with human conscience and will. When Henry discusses the indwelling Spirit in contexts like 1 Peter 4, he emphasizes the Spirit's role in enabling Christian duties: "mortification of sin, living to God, sobriety, prayer, charity" [2]. This active sanctifying work presupposes the Spirit's ongoing striving against the believer's remaining corruption.
Resistance and Withdrawal
The Genesis 6:3 passage provides Henry's clearest statement on what happens when the Spirit's striving is resisted. He interprets the threatened withdrawal as "spiritual judgments, the sorest of all judgments" [1]. This reflects a Puritan concern with the Spirit's resistibility in the unregenerate and the danger of grieving the Spirit even among believers. Henry notes that "fleshly lusts are often punished with spiritual judgments," suggesting a judicial dimension to the Spirit's withdrawal [1]. The striving is not coercive but persuasive, and its cessation marks divine abandonment to hardness.
Henry's treatment assumes the Spirit's striving is universal in some measure—God warns "before, that they might not further vex his Holy Spirit" [1]—yet effectual only where not finally resisted. This fits the Nonconformist emphasis on both common grace and effectual calling, where the Spirit strives with all but conquers only the elect.
Sources
- Genesis (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Genesis 6:3: This comes in here as a token of God's displeasure at those who married strange wives; he threatens to withdraw from them his Spirit, whom they had grieved by such marriages, contrary to their convictions: fleshly lusts are often punished with spiritual judgments, the sorest of all judgments. Or as another occasion of the great wickedness of the old world; the Spirit of the Lord, being provoked by their resistance of his motions, ceased to strive with them, and then all religion was soon lost among them. This he warns them of before, that they might not further ve”
- 1 Peter (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on 1 Peter 4 (introduction): The work of a Christian is twofold - doing the will of God and suffering his pleasure. This chapter directs us in both. The duties we are here exhorted to employ ourselves in are the mortification of sin, living to God, sobriety, prayer, charity, hospitality, and the best improvement of our talents, which the apostle presses upon Christians from the consideration of the time they have lost in their sins, and the approaching end of all things (Pe1 4:1-11). The directions for sufferings are that we should not be surprised at them, but rejoice in them, o”
- 1 Timothy (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on 1 Timothy 4:1: We have here a prophecy of the apostasy of the latter times, which he had spoken of as a thing expected and taken for granted among Christians, 2 Th. 2. I. In the close of the foregoing chapter, we had the mystery of godliness summed up; and therefore very fitly, in the beginning of this chapter, we have the mystery of iniquity summed up: The Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith; whether he means the Spirit in the Old Testament, or the Spirit in the prophets of the New Testament, or both. The prophecies concerning ant”