The Ministry of the Spirit - A. J. Gordon (fantasy novels to read TXT) 📗

its awful revealing light of the Spirit of truth, then there was great contrition in Jerusalem—a contrition the sting of {190} which we find in the charge of Peter: "Jesus of Nazareth, whom ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Was not that deep conviction, following the gift of the Spirit, in which three thousand were brought to repentance in a single day, a conviction of sin because they had not believed on Christ?

For our reproof the Holy Ghost presents another side of the same fact, calling us to repentance, not for having taken part in crucifying Christ, but for having refused to take part in Christ crucified; not for having been guilty of delivering him up to death, but for having refused to believe in him who was "delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification." Wherever, by the preaching of the gospel, the fact of Christ having died for the sins of the world is made known, this guilt becomes possible. The sin of disbelieving on Christ is, therefore, the great sin now, because it summarizes all other sins. He bore for us the penalties of the law; and thus our obligation, which was originally to the law, is transferred to him. To refuse faith in him, therefore, is to repudiate the claims of the law which he fulfilled and to repudiate the debt of infinite love which, by his sacrifice, we have incurred. Nevertheless, the Spirit of truth brings home this sin against the Lord, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. In a word, as has been well said, "it is not {191} the sin-question but the Son-question" which we really raise now in preaching the gospel. "Christ having perfectly satisfied God about sin, the question now between God and your heart is: Are you perfectly satisfied with Christ as the alone portion of your soul? Christ has settled every other to the glory of God." In dealing with the guilty Jews, it was the historical fact which the Holy Ghost urged for their conviction: "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and killed the Prince of Life" (Acts 3: 14, 15). In dealing with us Gentiles, it is rather the theological or evangelical fact: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18), and you are condemned that you have not believed on him and confessed him as Saviour and Lord. It is the same sin in the last instance, but viewed upon its reverse side, if we may say it. In the one case it is the guilt of despising and rejecting the Son of God; in the other, it is the guilt of not believing in him who was despised and rejected of men. Yet if submissively yielded to, the Spirit will lead us from this first stage of revelation to the second, since what Andrew Fuller said of the doctrines of theology is equally true of the convictions of the Spirit, that "they are united together like chain-shot, so that whichever one enters the heart the other must certainly follow."

"Of righteousness, because I go to the Father and {192} ye see me no more." Not until he had been seated in the heavenly places had Christ perfected righteousness for us. As he was "delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification," so must he be enthroned for our assurance. It is necessary to see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, in order to know ourselves "accepted in the Beloved." How beautiful the culmination of Isaiah's passion-prophecy wherein, accompanying the promise that "he shall bear the sin of many," is the prediction that "by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many"! But he must be shown to be righteous, in order that he may justify; and this is what his exaltation does. "It was the proof that him whom the world condemned, God justified—that the stone which the builders rejected, God made the Headstone of the corner—that him whom the world denied and lifted up on a cross of shame in the midst of two thieves, God accepted and lifted up in the midst of the throne."[1]

The words "and because ye see me no more," which have perplexed the commentators, seem to us {193} to give the real clue to the meaning of the whole passage. So long as the High Priest was within the veil, and unseen, the congregation of Israel could not be sure of their acceptance. Hence the eager anxiety with which they waited his coming out, with the assurance that God had received the propitiation offered on their behalf. Christ, our great High Priest, has entered into the Holy of Holies by his own blood. Until he comes forth again at his second advent, how can we be assured that his sacrifice for us is accepted? We could not be, unless he had sent out one from his presence to make known this fact to us. And this is precisely what he has done in the gift of the Holy Ghost. "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1: 3). There he will remain throughout the whole duration of the great day of atonement, which extends from ascension to advent. But in order that his church may have immediate assurance of acceptance with the Father, through his righteous servant, he sends forth the Paraclete to certify the fact; and the presence of the Spirit in the midst of the church is proof positive of the presence of Jesus in the midst of the throne; as is said by Peter on the day of {194} Pentecost; "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear" (Acts 2: 33).

Now the Lord's words seem plain to us. Because he ascends to the Father, to be seen no more until his second coming, the Spirit meantime comes down to attest his presence and approval with the Father as the perfectly righteous One. How clearly this comes out in Peter's defense before the Council: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins; and we are witnesses of these things, and so also is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him" (Acts 5: 30-32). Why this two-fold witness? The reason is obvious. The disciples could bear testimony to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, but not to his enthronement; that event was beyond the ken of human vision; and so the Holy Ghost, who had been cognizant of that fact in heaven, must be sent down as a joint-witness with the apostles, that thus the whole circle of redemption-truth might be attested. Therein was the promise of Jesus in his last discourse literally fulfilled: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which {195} proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me; and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning" (John 15: 26, 27).

As we have said, it is not only the enthronement of Christ in righteous approval with the Father that must be certified, but the acceptance of his sacrificial work as a full and satisfying ground of our reconciliation with the Father. And the Spirit proceeding from God is alone competent to bear to us this assurance. Therefore in the Epistle to the Hebrews, after the reiterated statement of our Lord's exaltation at the right hand of God, it is added: "For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us" (Heb. 10: 14, 15). In a word, he whom we have known on the cross as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world," must now be known to us on the throne as "the Lord our righteousness." But though the angels and the glorified in heaven see Jesus, once crucified, now "made both Lord and Christ," we see him not. Therefore it is written that "no man can say Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12: 3, R. V.). So also we are told that "if any man sin we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2: 1); but we can only know Christ as such through that "other Paraclete" sent forth from the Father. It was promised that "when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall {196} not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak" (John 16: 13, R. V.). Hearing the ascriptions of worthiness lifted up to Christ in heaven, and beholding him who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, now "crowned with glory and honor," he communicates what he sees and hears to the church on earth. Thus, as he in his earthly life, through his own outshining and self-evidencing perfection, "was justified in the spirit"; so we, recognizing him standing for us in glory, and now "of God made unto us righteousness," are also "justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6: 11).

Thus, though unseen by the church during all the time of his high-priestly ministry, our Lord has sent to his church one whose office it is to bear witness to all he is and all he is doing while in heaven, that so we may have "boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him," and that so we may come boldly to the throne of grace, "the Holy Ghost this signifying"—what he could not under the old covenant—"that the way into the holiest of all" (Heb. 9: 8) has been made manifest.

And yet—strange paradox—in this identical discourse in which Jesus speaks to his disciples of seeing him no more, he says: "Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more, but ye see me; because I live ye shall live also" (John 14: 19); words {197} which by common consent refer to the same time of Christ's continuance within the veil. But it is now by the inward vision, which the world has not, that they are to behold him. And they are to behold him for the world, since Christ said of him: "Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him." And yet it is "to convince the world" "of sin and of righteousness and of judgment" that the Spirit was to be sent. How shall we make it plain? When the sun retires beyond the horizon at night, the world, our hemisphere, sees him no more; yet the moon sees him, and all night long catches his light and throws it down upon us. So the world sees not Christ in the gracious provisions of redemption which he holds for us in heaven, but through the illumination of the Comforter the church sees him; as it is written: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Cor. 2: 9, 10). And the Church seeing these things, communicates what she sees to the world. Christ is all and in all; and the Spirit receives and reflects him to the world through his people.

  The moon above, the church below,
    A wondrous race they run;
  But all their radiance, all their glow,
    Each borrows of its sun.

{198}

"Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." Here, we believe, is a still farther advance in the revelation of the gospel, and not a retreat to the doctrine of a future judgment, as some would teach. For we repeat our conviction, that in this entire discourse the Holy Spirit is revealed to us as