Part 2, Chapter 01

CHAPTER I. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON CHRIST. The New Testament is pre-eminently the dispensation of the Spirit, fulfilling the promises that God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh (Joel 2:28), put His Spirit within His people’s hearts, and so write His law there (Ezekiel 36:26-27). This was also predicted to be done through the Servant of Jehovah, the root out of the stem of Jesse, who was to be Himself anointed with the Spirit of God (Isaiah 11:1-4). Accordingly we find in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit is represented primarily as working upon and in Jesus Christ. In the first place, the Holy Spirit is described as the agent in the miraculous conception of Jesus (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35). Though this fact is mentioned explicitly only by these evangelists, their accounts are manifestly independent, and while varying in details agree in substance. The one may represent the report transmitted from Joseph, and the other that coming from Mary. But if not expressly stated, it is presupposed by other New Testament writers, that the beginning of Jesus’ human life was not an ordinary one. John reports His saying, “that which is begotten of the flesh is flesh,” and therefore needs to be begotten again: but He excludes Himself when He says, “ye must be born again; “ hence we may infer that He was in some peculiar way begotten not of the flesh but of the Spirit. Paul says that God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and that while He was born of a woman, of the seed of David according to the flesh, He knew no sin. Since all men born according to the ordinary law of nature inherit sin and death from Adam, He who has no sin and saves His people from their sin must needs have been begotten of the Holy Spirit. In virtue of this agency it was that He grew up filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him (Luke 2:40); that He advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men (Luke 2:52), needing no repentance or conversion, but holy, harmless, undefiled, tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15; Hebrews 7:26). The holiness of the human nature of our Lord is not to be ascribed directly to its union to the divine nature by the Incarnation. The proper effect of that was to elevate it to the highest dignity, inasmuch as it became the human nature of the eternal Son of God, the soul and body that was for ever a part of His very self. But this wonderful union did not make His soul or body one whit less truly human; and the holiness he had in His human nature is human holiness, not something above our nature, but the very perfection and crown of it; and in this He is like His brethren, receiving the aid of the Holy Spirit. His being God did not make the preservation of holiness in an ungodly world at all more easy to His flesh and blood, nay His task was all the harder. Hence we read that He received the Holy Spirit, was filled with the Spirit, led of the Spirit, anointed with the Holy Spirit; that He was much in prayer to God, and was encouraged by voices from heaven, and strengthened by an angel. The various points or stages in His life on earth, at which special mention is made of His being under the influence of the Spirit, are worthy of notice. The first is when He entered on His public work, identifying Himself with those whom John called to repentance, by receiving baptism from one who confessed that he had need to be baptized by Jesus. Then He saw the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descending on Him in visible form as a dove, and heard a voice from heaven saying, “ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This was for Him a testimony of His Father’s approval, which would strengthen and encourage His human soul; and it would seem that along with it there was not a mere symbol, but an actual communication to His human nature of the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit. Immediately afterwards we read that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1), and we can hardly avoid connecting that with the occurrence at His baptism. He was now endowed to the full in His humanity with all the wisdom, and power, and zeal, and love, needed for carrying out His great commission as the Saviour of the world.

Then He was led (Matthew 4:1; Luke 4:1), or as Mark 1:12 expresses it, driven forth by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Before beginning His Messianic work, He sought retirement: away from His townsmen of Nazareth and the throngs surrounding the Baptist, He would fix His mind on the nature and means of His enterprise. Here He encountered and overcame those suggestions of the prince of this world, that would have led Him to attempt His work in a selfish, vainglorious, or worldly spirit. He suffered being tempted, yet without sin, for He was full of the Holy Spirit, and had been led to this conflict by the Spirit.

Next we read that He returned in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14) to begin His work of proclaiming and establishing the kingdom of God. Thereafter He speaks of Himself as having the Spirit of God on Him in His teaching (Luke 4:8), and of casting out demons by the Spirit of God (Matthew 12:28); and Peter afterwards declared that “ God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38).

We can hardly doubt also that the great act by which He gave Himself a sacrifice for the sins of men was performed in the power of the Holy Spirit; and this is possibly the meaning of the saying in Hebrews 9:14; that He “ through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God; “ although some of the best interpreters prefer to understand the eternal Spirit as His own divine nature. The reference to the Holy Spirit has however a great deal in its favour.

After His resurrection He is still represented as giving commandment to His apostles through the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:2); and thus from first to last His work is described as carried on in the power of the Spirit of God given to Him. This is that anointing which He had for His office, in virtue of which He is the Messiah or Christ, i.e. the Anointed One; and this shows us that He is qualified for all the parts of our salvation, not only as God but also as man. He is able perfectly to teach us as a prophet, not merely because He knows all things as God, but because His human mind is enlightened and taught by the Spirit of God: He can appear for us as a great high priest, because He can bear gently with the ignorant and erring, for that He Himself also was compassed with infirmity, and needed the support of the Holy Spirit: He can rule us as a perfect king, because He is not only Almighty God, but our brother, conquering His and our enemies by the power of the Spirit.

Hence, too, when He bestows the Holy Spirit He gives a blessing that He has Himself received and enjoys, and makes us joint-partakers in it with Himself. Thus we read, not only of the gift, but of the communion of the Holy Spirit, i.e. partaking in common of the privilege and blessing of having the Spirit of God given to us. It is a fellowship of believers with one another, but also with Christ; they receive the same anointing as He did; it is like the precious ointment on the head of Aaron, that flowed down his beard, and descended even to the skirts of his garments.

All the members of our great high priest partake of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that is given to Him their Head. This work of the Holy Spirit on Christ affords an explanation of a passage that has caused not a little difficulty to commentators, John 14:16-17 : “ I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive, for it behoklcth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him, for he abideth with you and shall be in you.” The gift of the Spirit here promised is future; the disciples received it after our Lord’s departure, when so remarkable a change appeared in their whole mental and moral character. How then does Jesus say, “he abideth with you,” giving that as the reason why they knew Him?

Many understand these statements, though present in form, as future in meaning, so that the sense would be, Ye shall soon know Him, for He shall abide with you. This however is not satisfactory, because the contrast with the world’s ignorance, which is undoubtedly present, requires that the disciples’ knowledge be present too. Besides, that knowledge is clearly given as the reason why they can receive the Spirit, as the world cannot. It is more in accordance with the force of the words to understand “ He abideth with you “ as referring to the dwelling of the Spirit in Christ, from which they had come to know Him, though He was not yet in them as He was afterwards to be. 1 The presence of the Spirit of God in Jesus was manifested by His speaking the words of God; as the Baptist said, “ He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for he giveth not the Spirit by measure” (John 3:36); and the disciples had recognised this, when Peter said, “ Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the

1 This explanation is given by J. C. Hare, Mission of the Comforter, pp. 308, 309: “ If we make a distinction between the outward and the inward presence of the Spirit, and suppose that the apostles as yet had only enjoyed the former, recognising His power in a measure, as manifested in the life and discourse of their Lord, and being so far enlightened by Him as to discern the divine character of that power, then the promise of the higher gift to them would be in full conformity with that principle, which runs through the whole Scripture, as it does through all the dispensations of life, that to him who has shall be given.” In confirmation of this view it may be noticed, that the words rendered “with you” are not the same as in ver. 16. There they mean exactly ’ ’ along with you; “ here, ’ ’ beside you. “ On the other hand, however, many weighty authorities read in the last clause of ver. 17 “is in you,” for “ shall be in you.” If that be correct, the interpretation just given must be abandoned. But while the external evidence is pretty equally balanced, internal considerations are in favour of the future tense. words of eternal life. And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). It was the blindness and sin of the Pharisees that they would not and could not recognise in Jesus’ works the agency of the Holy Spirit, but ascribed them to Beelzebub. In His work on the man Christ Jesus, the Spirit of God is more fully revealed as the Holy Spirit than ever before. Under the Old Testament He had been recognised as the spirit of wisdom and skill in a leader like Moses or an artificer like Bezaleel, as the spirit of strength and courage clothing men like Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and as the spirit of prophecy in Samuel and his successors: but there had never been seen a perfectly holy man. That was the new thing that appeared in Jesus.