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

the ante-Pentecostal days. Have we forgotten that since our Lord ascended to the Father he has given us a further revelation, that wondrous book of the Apocalypse, which opens and closes with a beatitude upon those who read and faithfully keep the words of this prophecy? And one characteristic feature of this book is its chronological predictions concerning the time of the end, its mystical dates, which have led many sober searchers of the word of God to inquire diligently "what and what manner of time" the Spirit did signify in giving us these way-marks in the wilderness. This being so, we may ask: If we are not irreverent in concluding with many devout expositors that our Saviour meant what he said in declaring that he did "not yet" know the time of his advent, are we presumptuous in taking literally the opening words of the Apocalypse?: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass." It was because of his going unto the Father that greater works and greater riches were to attend the church after Pentecost. Why may we not assign to the same {49} cause also the fuller revelation of the future and the leading into completer truth concerning the blessed hope of the church? In other words, if we may think of Christ as entering into larger revelation as he returns to the glory which he had with the Father must we not think of larger communications of truth by the blessed Paraclete?

Have we not learned something of the nature and offices of the Spirit by this study of his new name, and of all that the departing Lord says in the wondrous discourse wherein he introduces him to his disciples? At least the study should enable us to distinguish two inspired terms which have been needlessly confounded by not a few writers, viz.: the words "Paraclete," and "Parousia." The latter word, which constantly occurs in Scripture as describing our Lord's second coming, has been applied in several learned works to the advent of the Holy Spirit; and since Christ came in the person of the Spirit, it has been argued that the Redeemer's promised advent in glory has already taken place. But this is to confuse terms whose use in Scripture marks them as clearly distinct. Observe their difference: In the Paraclete, Christ comes spiritually and invisibly; in the Parousia, he comes bodily and gloriously. The advent of the Paraclete is really conditioned on the Saviour's personal departure from his people: "If I go not away the Paraclete will not come to you" (John 16: 7). {50} The Parousia, on the other hand, is only realized in his personal return to his people: "For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?" (1 Thess. 2: 19.) The Paraclete attends the church in the days of her humiliation; the Parousia introduces the church into the day of her glory. In the Paraclete, Christ came to dwell with the church on earth: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you" (John 14: 18). In the Parousia, Christ comes to take the church to dwell with himself in glory: "I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also" (John 14: 3). Christ prayed on behalf of his bereaved church for the coming of this Paraclete: "And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Paraclete." The Holy Spirit now prays with the pilgrim-church for the hastening of the Parousia. "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come" (Rev. 22: 17). These two can only be understood in their mutual relations. Christ, who gave the new name to the Holy Spirit, can best interpret that name to us by making us acquainted with himself. May that name be for us so real a symbol of personal presence that while strangers and pilgrims in the earth we may walk evermore "in the paraclesis of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 9:31).

[1] The word paraklêtôr is used in the Septuagint (Job 16:2) with the meaning of "Comforter," and the term paraklêtos occurs in the Talmud, signifying "Interpreter."

[2] The most obvious reason for concluding that the Holy Spirit is a person is that he performs actions and stands in relations which belong only to a person, e. g.: He speaks (Acts 1: 16); he works miracles (Acts 2: 4; 8: 39); he sets ministers over churches (Acts 20: 28); he commands and forbids (Acts 8: 29; 11: 12; 13: 2; 16: 6, 7); he prays for us (Rom. 8: 26); he witnesses (Rom. 8: 16); he can be grieved (Eph. 4: 30); he can be blasphemed (Mark 3: 29); he can be resisted (Acts 7: 51, etc).

[3] If the Holy Spirit may not speak of himself as preacher, how canst thou draw thy preaching out of thyself—out of thine head or even out of thine heart.—Pastor Gossner.

[4] Let it be observed that in this communication of the risen Christ it is not said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost"—the article being significantly omitted—Labete Pneuma agion (John 20: 22).

[5] How righteous must he be, who will go to the Father from the cross and the grave! Thus will the Holy Spirit convince the world that he is a righteous man, and truly righteous for man.—Roos.

[6] "Neither the Son": "It is more than neither; it is not yet the Son," says Morrison the commentator.

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IV THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT

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"But now the Holy Ghost is given more perfectly, for he is no longer present by his operation as of old, but is present with us so to speak, and converses with us in a substantial manner. For it was fitting that, as the Son had conversed with us in the body, the spirit should also come among us in a bodily manner."—Gregory Nazianzen.

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IV THE EMBODYING OF THE SPIRIT

"The church, which is his body," began its history and development at Pentecost. Believers had been saved, and the influences of the Spirit had been manifested to men in all previous dispensations from Adam to Christ. But now an ecclesia, an outgathering, was to be made to constitute the mystical body of Christ, incorporated into him the Head and indwelt by him through the Holy Ghost. The definition which we sometimes hear, that a church is "a voluntary association of believers, united together for the purposes of worship and edification" is most inadequate, not to say incorrect. It is no more true than that hands and feet and eyes and ears are voluntarily united in the human body for the purposes of locomotion and work. The church is formed from within; Christ present by the Holy Ghost, regenerating men by the sovereign action of the Spirit, and organizing them into himself as the living center. The Head and the body are therefore one, and predestined to the same history of humiliation and glory. And as they are one in fact, so are they one in name. He whom God anointed and filled with the Holy Ghost {54} is called "the Christ," and the church, which is his body and fullness, is also called "the Christ." "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ" (1 Cor. 12: 12). Here plainly and with wondrous honor the church is named o Christos, commenting upon which fact Bishop Andrews beautifully says: "Christ is both in heaven and on earth; as he is called the Head of his church, he is in heaven; but in respect of his body which is called Christ, he is on earth."

So soon as the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven this great work of his embodying began, and it is to continue until the number of the elect shall be accomplished, or unto the end of the present dispensation. Christ, if we may say it reverently, became mystically a babe again on the day of Pentecost, and the hundred and twenty were his infantile body, as once more through the Holy Ghost he incarnated himself in his flesh. Now he is growing and increasing in his members, and so will he continue to do "till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of fullness of Christ." Then the Christ on earth will be taken up into visible union with the Christ in heaven, and the Head and the body be glorified together. Observe how the history of the church's formation, as recorded in the Acts, harmonizes with {55} the conception given above. The story of Pentecost culminates in the words, "and the same day there were added about three thousand souls" (Acts 2: 41). Added to whom? we naturally ask. And the King James translators have answered our question by inserting in italics "to them." But not so speaks the Holy Ghost. And when, a few verses further on in the same chapter, we read: "And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved," we need to be reminded that the words "to the church" are spurious. All such glosses and interpolations have only tended to mar the sublime teaching of this first chapter of the Holy Spirit's history. "And believers were the more added to the Lord" (Acts 5: 14.) "And much people were added unto the Lord" (Acts 11: 24.) This is the language of inspiration—Not the mutual union of believers, but their divine co-uniting with Christ; not voluntary association of Christians, but their sovereign incorporation into the Head and this incorporation effected by the Head through the Holy Ghost.

If we ask concerning the way of admission into this divine ecclesia, the teaching of Scripture is explicit: "For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body" (1 Cor. 12: 13). The baptism in water marks the formal introduction of the believer into the church; but this is the symbol, not the substance. For observe the identity of form between the ritual {56} and the spiritual. "I indeed baptize you in water," . . . said John, "but he that cometh after me . . . shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire" (Matt. 3: 11). As in the one instance the disciple was submerged in the element of water, so in the other he was to be submerged in the element of the Spirit. And thus it was in actual historic fact. The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery, if we may use the figure. His presence "filled all the house where they were sitting," and "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." The baptistery would never need to be re-filled, for Pentecost was once and for all, and the Spirit then came to abide in the church perpetually. But each believer throughout the age would need to be infilled with that Spirit which dwells in the body of Christ. In other words, it seems clear that the baptism of the Spirit was given once for the whole church, extending from Pentecost to Parousia. "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. 4: 5). As there is one body reaching through the entire dispensation, so there is "one baptism" for that body given on the day of Pentecost. Thus if we rightly understand the meaning of Scripture it is true, both as to time and as to fact, that "in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free."

The typical foreshadowing, as seen in the church in the wilderness, is very suggestive at this point: "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be {57} ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea" (1 Cor. 10: 1). Baptized into Moses by their passage through the sea, identified with him as their leader, and committed to him in corporate fellowship; even so were they also baptized into Jehovah, who in the cloud of glory now took his place in the midst of the camp and tabernacled henceforth with them.