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

an evangel of Grace, and not as a sheriff of the Law. Hear the Apostle Peter once more, as, pointing to him who had been raised from the dead and seated in the heavenlies, he says: "By him every one that believeth is justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13: 39, R. V.). Justification, in the evangelical sense, is but another name for judgment prejudged and condemnation ended. In the enthroned Christ every question about sin is answered, and every claim of a violated law is absolutely met; and though there is no abatement in the demands of the decalogue, yet because "Christ has become the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," now "grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Strange paradox set forth in Isaiah's passion psalm: "By his stripes we are healed," as though it were told us that sin's smiting had procured sin's remission. And so it is. If the Holy Spirit shows us the wounds of the dying Christ for condemning us, he immediately shows us the wounds of the exalted Christ for comforting us. {199} His glorified body is death's certificate of discharge, the law's receipt in full, assuring us that all the penalties of transgression have been endured, and the Sin-bearer acquitted.

The meaning of this last conviction seems plain therefore: "Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." Recall the words of Jesus as he stood face to face with the cross: "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (John 12: 31). "The accuser of the brethren" is at last non-suited and ejected from court. The death of Christ is the death of death, and of the author of death also. "That through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2: 14, 15). If the relation of Satan to our judgment and condemnation is mysterious, this much is clear, from this and several passages, that Christ by his cross has delivered us from his dominion. We must believe that Jesus spoke the literal truth when he said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life" (John 5: 24, R. V.). On the cross Christ judged sin and acquitted those who believe on him; and in heaven he defends them against every re-arrest by a violated law. {200} "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8: 1). Thus the threefold conviction brings the sinner the three stages of Christ's redemptive work, past judgment and past condemnation into eternal acceptance with the Father.

In striking antithesis with all this, we have an instance in the Acts of the threefold conviction of conscience, when Paul before Felix "reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment to come" (Acts 24: 25). Here the sin of a profligate life was laid bare as the apostle discoursed of chastity; the claims of righteousness were vindicated, and the certainty of coming judgment exhibited; and with the only effect that "Felix trembled." So it must ever be under the convictions of conscience,—compunction but not peace. We have also an instructive contrast exhibited in Scripture, between the co-witness of the Spirit and the co-witness of conscience. "The Spirit himself beareth witness (summarturei) that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8: 16). Here is the assurance of sonship, with all the divine inward persuasion of freedom from condemnation which it carries. On the other hand is the conviction of the heathen, who have only the law written in their hearts: "Their conscience bearing witness (summarturousês), their thoughts one with another accusing, or else excusing them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men" {201} (Rom. 2: 15, 16). Conscience can "accuse," and how universally it does so, abundant testimony of Christian missionaries shows; and conscience can "excuse," which is the method that guilty thoughts invariably suggest; but conscience cannot justify. Only the Spirit of truth, whom the Father hath sent forth into the world, can do this. The work of the two witnesses may be thus set in contrast:

  Conscience Convinces— The Comforter Convinces—
  Of sin committed; Of sin committed;
  Of righteousness impossible; Of righteousness imputed;
  Of judgment accomplished. Of judgment impending.

Happily these two witnesses may be harmonized, as they are by that atonement which reconciles man to himself, as well as reconciles man to God. Very significantly does the Epistle to the Hebrews, in inviting our approach to God make, as the condition of that approach, the "having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." As the High Priest carried the blood into the Holy of Holies in connection with the old dispensation, so does the Spirit take the blood of Christ into the inner sanctuary of our spirit in the more wondrous economy of the new dispensation, in order that he may "cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Heb. 9: 14). Blessed is the man who is thus made at one with himself while made at one with God, so that he can say: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also {202} bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 9: 11). The believer's conscience dwelling in the Spirit, even as his life is "hid with Christ in God," both having the same mind and bearing the same testimony—this is the end of redemption and this is the victory of the atoning blood.

[1] For as the ministry of Enoch was sealed by his reception into heaven, and as the ministry of Elijah was also abundantly proved by his translation, so also the righteousness and innocence of Christ. But it was necessary that the ascension of Christ should be more fully attested, because upon his righteousness, so fully proved by his ascension, we must depend for all our righteousness. For if God had not approved him after his resurrection, and he had not taken his seat at his right hand, we could by no means be accepted of God.—Cartwright.

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X THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRIT

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"The Apostle Paul evidently saw the redemption of the bodies of the saints and their manifestation as the sons of God and with them the redemption of the whole creation from its present bondage to be the complete harvest of the Spirit, whereof the church doth now possess only the first-fruits, that is, the first ripe grains which could be formed into a sheaf and presented in the temple as a wave-offering unto the Lord. 'That Holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance,' saith the same apostle—the earnest, like the first-fruit, being only a part of that which is to be earned . . . yet a sufficient surety that the whole shall in the fullness of the times, be likewise ours."—Edward Irving.

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X THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRIT

"He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens." So writes the apostle concerning the Paraclete who is now with the Father, "Jesus Christ the righteous" (Eph. 4: 9). And what is true of the one is true of that "other Paraclete," the Holy Ghost, who was sent down to abide with us during this age. When he has accomplished his temporal mission in the world he will return to heaven in the body which he has fashioned for himself—that "one new man," the regenerate church, gathered out from both Jews and Gentiles during this dispensation. For what is the rapture of the saints predicted by the apostle when, at the sound of the trumpet and the resurrection of the righteous dead, "we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air?" (1 Thess. 4: 17). It is the earthly Christ rising to meet the heavenly Christ; the elect church, gathered in the Spirit and named o christos, (1 Cor. 12: 12,) taken up to be united in glory with "Christ, the Head of the church, himself the Saviour of the body" {206} (Eph. 5: 23, R. V.). In the council at Jerusalem this is announced as the distinctive work of the Spirit in this dispensation "to gather out a people for his name." It was not by accident and as a term of derision that the first believers received their name; but "the disciples were divinely called Christians first in Antioch" (Acts 11: 26). This was the name pre-ordained for them, that "honorable name" by which they are called (James 2: 7). When, therefore, this out-gathering shall have been accomplished, and the people for his name shall be completed, they will be translated to be one with him in glory, as they were one with him in name, the Head taking the body to himself, "as Christ also, the church" (Eph. 5: 29). And this translation of the church is to be effected by the Holy Spirit who dwells in her. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. 8: 11). It is not by acting upon the body of Christ from without, but by energizing it from within, that the Holy Ghost will effect its glorification. In a word, the Comforter, who on the day of Pentecost, came down to form a body out of flesh, will at the Parousia return to heaven in that body, having fashioned it like unto the body of Christ, that it may be presented to him "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, . . . holy {207} and without blemish" (Eph. 5: 27). Is it meant to be implied in what is here said that the Comforter is to leave the world at the time of the advent, to return no more? By no means. And yet what is meant needs to be very explicitly set forth.

A very able writer on the doctrine of the Spirit makes this remark, so striking and yet so true that we have put it in italics: "As Christ shall ultimately give up his kingdom to the Father (1 Cor. 15: 24-28), so the Holy Ghost shall give up his administration to the Son, when he comes in glory and all his holy angels with him."[1] The church and the kingdom are not identical terms, if we mean by the kingdom the visible reign and government of Jesus Christ on earth. In another sense they are identical. As the King, so the kingdom. The King is present now in the world, only invisibly and by the Holy Spirit; so the kingdom is now present invisibly and spiritually in the hearts of believers. The King is to come again visibly and gloriously; so shall the kingdom appear visibly and gloriously. In other words, the kingdom is already here in mystery; it is to be here in manifestation. Now the spiritual kingdom is administered by the Holy Ghost, and it extends from Pentecost to Parousia. At the Parousia—the appearing of the Son of Man in glory—when he shall take unto himself his great power and reign (Rev. 11: 17), when he who has {208} now gone into a far country, to be invested with a kingdom, shall return and enter upon his government (Luke 19: 15), then the invisible shall give way to the visible; the kingdom in mystery shall emerge into the kingdom in manifestation, and the Holy Spirit's administration shall yield to that of Christ.

Here our discussion properly ends, since the age-ministry of the Holy Spirit terminates with the return of Jesus Christ in glory. But there is an "age to come" (Heb. 6: 5), succeeding "the present evil age" (Gal. 1: 4), and we may, in closing, take a glimpse at that for the light which it may throw upon the present dispensation.

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