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

his public ministry, he waited for the Spirit to come upon him, as he had hitherto been in him. For this anointing we find him praying: "Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a {76} dove upon him" (Luke 3: 22). Had he any "promise of the Father" to plead, as he now asked the anointing of the Spirit, if as we may believe this was the subject of his prayer? Yes; it had been written in the prophets concerning the rod out of the stem of Jesse: "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11: 2). "The promise of the seven-fold Spirit," the Jewish commentators call it. Certainly it was literally fulfilled upon the Son of God at the Jordan, when God gave him the Spirit without measure. For he who was now baptized was in turn to be baptizer. "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost" (John 1: 33). "I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I . . . he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire" (Matt. 3: 11, R. V.). And now being at the right hand exalted, and having "the seven spirits of God" (Rev. 3: 3), the fullness of the Holy Ghost, he will shed forth his power upon those who pray for it, even as the Father shed it forth upon himself.

Let us observe now the symbols and descriptions of the enduement of the
Spirit which are applied equally to Christ and to the disciples of
Christ.

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1. The Sealing of the Spirit. We hear Jesus saying to the multitude that sought him for the loaves and fishes, "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed" (John 6: 27). This sealing must evidently refer back to his reception of the Spirit at the Jordan. One of the most instructive writers on the Hebrew worship and ritual tells us that it was the custom for the priest to whom the service pertained, having selected a lamb from the flock, to inspect it with the most minute scrutiny, in order to discover if it was without physical defect, and then to seal it with the temple seal, thus certifying that it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Behold the Lamb of God presenting himself for inspection at the Jordan! Under the Father's omniscient scrutiny he is found to be "a lamb without blemish and without spot." From the opening heaven God gives witness to the fact in the words: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," and then he puts the Holy Ghost upon him, the testimony to his sonship, the seal of his separation unto sacrifice and service.

The disciple is as his Lord in this experience. "In whom having also believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1: 13). As always in the statements of Scripture, this {78} transaction is represented as subsequent to faith. It is not conversion, but something done upon a converted soul, a kind of crown of consecration put upon his faith. Indeed the two events stand in marked contrast. In conversion the believer receives the testimony of God and "sets his seal to that God is true" (John 3: 33). In consecration God sets his seal upon the believer that he is true. The last is God's "Amen" to the Christian, verifying the Christian's "Amen" to God. "Now he, which establisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God; who also sealed us and gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" (2 Cor. 1: 21, 22).

If we ask to what we are committed and separated by this divine transaction, we may learn by studying the church's monograph, if such we may name what is brought out in a mysterious passage in one of the pastoral epistles. In spite of the defection and unbelief of some, the apostle says: "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal." Then he gives us the two inscriptions on the seal: "The Lord knoweth them that are his"; and, "Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness" (2 Tim. 2: 19)—Ownership and holiness. When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit it is that we may count ourselves henceforth and altogether Christ's. If any shrink from this devotement, how can he {79} have the fullness of the Spirit? God cannot put his signature upon what is not his. Hence, if under the sway of a worldly spirit we withhold ourselves from God and insist on self-ownership, we need not count it strange if God withholds himself from us and denies us the seal of divine ownership. God is very jealous of his divine signet. He graciously bestows it upon those who are ready to devote themselves utterly and irrevocably to his service, but he strenuously withholds it from those who, while professing his name, are yet "serving divers lusts and pleasures." There is a suggestive passage in the Gospel of John which, translated so as to bring out the antitheses which it contains, reads thus: "Many trusted in his name, beholding the signs which he did; but Jesus did not trust himself to them" (John 2: 23, 24). Here is the great essential to our having the seal of the Spirit. Can the Lord trust us? Nay; the question is more serious. Can he trust himself to us? The Holy Spirit, which is his signet ring, can he commit it to our use for signing our prayers and for certifying ourselves, and his honor not be compromised?

The other inscription on the seal is: "Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness."[5] The possession of the Spirit {80} commits us irrevocably to separation from sin. For what is holiness but an emanation of the Spirit of holiness who dwells within us? A sanctified life is therefore the print or impression of his seal: "He can never own us without his mark, the stamp of holiness. The devil's stamp is none of God's badge. Our spiritual extraction from him is but pretended unless we do things worthy of so illustrious birth and becoming the honor of so great a Father." The great office of the Spirit in the present economy is to communicate Christ to his church which is his body. And what is so truly essential of Christ as holiness? "In him is no sin; whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." The body can only be sinless by uninterrupted communion with the Head; the Head will not maintain communion with the body except it be holy.

The idea of ownership, just considered, comes out still further in the words of the apostle: "And grieve not the Spirit of God in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4: 30). The day of redemption is at the advent of our Lord in glory, when he shall raise the dead and translate the living. Now his own are in the world, but the world knows them not. But he has put his mark and secret sign upon them, by which he shall recognize them at his coming. In that great quickening, at the Redeemer's advent, the Holy Spirit will be the seal by which the saints will be recognized, {81} and the power through which they will be drawn up to God. "If the Spirit that raised up Jesus dwell in you" (Rom. 11: 9), is the great condition of final quickening. As the magnet attracts the particles of iron and attaches them to itself by first imparting its own magnetism to them, so Christ, having given his Spirit to his own, will draw them to himself through the Spirit. We are not questioning now that all who have eternal life dwelling in them will share in the redemption of the body; we are simply entering into the apostle's exhortation against grieving the Spirit. We must fear lest we mar the seal by which we were stamped, lest we deface or obscure the signature by which we are to be recognized in the day of redemption.[6]

In a word the sealing is the Spirit himself, now received by faith and resting upon the believer, with all the results in assurance, in joy, and in {82} empowering for service, which must follow his unhindered sway in the soul. Dr. John Owen, who has written more intelligently and more exhaustively on this subject than any with whom we are acquainted, thus sums up the subject: "If we can learn aright how Christ was sealed, we shall learn how we are sealed. The sealing of Christ by the Father is the communication of the Holy Spirit in fullness to him, authorizing him unto and acting his divine power in all the acts and duties of his office, so as to evidence the presence of God with him and approbation of him. God's sealing of believers then is his gracious communication of the Holy Spirit unto them so to act his divine power in them as to enable them unto all the duties of their holy calling, evidencing them to be accepted with him both for themselves and others, and asserting their preservation unto eternal life."[7]

2. The Fullness of the Spirit. Immediately upon his baptism we read: "And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness" (Luke 4: 1). The same record is made concerning the upper-room, disciples, immediately after the descent of the Spirit: "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2: 4). What is here spoken of seems nothing different from what in other Scriptures is {83} called the reception of the Spirit. It is a transaction that may be repeated, and will be if we are living in the Spirit. But it is clearly an experience belonging to one who has already been converged. This comes out very plainly in the life of Paul. If according to the opinion quoted in the early part of this chapter, the reception of the Spirit is associated always and inseparably with conversion, one will reasonably ask, why a conversion so marked and so radical as that of the apostle to the Gentiles need be followed by such an experience as that named in Acts 9: 17: "And Ananias departed and entered into the house, and laying his hands on him, said Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus who appeared unto thee in the way which thou earnest, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost." We seem to have a clear allusion here to that which so constantly appears in Scripture, both in doctrine and in life, a divine something distinct from conversion and subsequent to it, which we have called the reception of the Spirit. "The enduement of power" we may well name it; for observe how constantly throughout the book of Acts mighty works and mighty utterances are connected with this qualification. "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them" (Acts 4: 8), is the preface to one of the apostle's most powerful sermons. "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the {84} word with boldness" (Acts 4: 31), is a similar record. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, the narrative runs, regarding the choice of deacons in Acts 6: 5. "And he, being full of the Holy Ghost," is the keynote to his great martyr-sermon. This infilling of the Spirit marks a decisive and most important crisis in the Christian life, judging from the story of the apostle's conversion, to which we have just referred.

But, as we have intimated, we are far from maintaining that this is an experience once for all, as the sealing seems to be. As the words "regeneration" and "renewal" used in Scripture mark respectively the impartation of the divine life as a perpetual possession and