02.B07. The Promise Of The Spirit

CHAPTER VII. THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT, OR THE DOCTRINE OF THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST

THERE is, and can be, no subject connected with "the redemption of the soul," no subject about which clearer and more definite information is required at the present time than on the doctrine of "the baptism of the Holy Ghost." In the experiences and elucidations above given, we have been prepared for a direct consideration of this great subject. It should be borne in mind that, in the whole work of human redemption, every Person of the sacred Trinity sustains to sinners and believers relations altogether special and peculiar -- relations wholly unlike those which said personalities sustain to other realms and orders of the rational universe. God is a Father to believers in a sense and in relations which pertain to no other beings in existence. No revelation such as the following, as far as we know, is applicable to any other world but this, namely, "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Equally special and peculiar are the revealed relations of the Holy Spirit to the race on the one hand, and to believers on the other. So peculiar and special are His revealed relations to believers under this, the new dispensation, that inspiration affirms absolutely that "the Holy Ghost was not given" until "after Jesus was glorified." On all these subjects human speculation is wholly out of place. Every ray of light which comes to us on said subjects descends to us directly and exclusively from God Himself through His inspired Word. To understand the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as revealed in the Scriptures, we need to inquire, first of all, into those revealed relations which each person of the Trinity sustains to each of the others, to the universe, and to mankind as sinners and believers. Of the doctrine itself, I would only say that, on the exclusive authority of revelation, I hold, in common with the teachings of the evangelical faith, that, in opposition to the plurality of heathenism, there is one God or Godhead, and, in opposition to the absolute unity of Mohammedanism and Unitarianism, the same Godhead is clearly revealed to us as a Tri-Unity, represented by the words Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The grounds of neither this unity on the one hand, nor Tri-personality on the other, are, in any sense or form, revealed in the Scriptures. The two doctrines, the unity on the one hand, and the plurality on the other, are revealed as facts of the divine nature, while the reason or ground of the facts are not revealed at all. We have a mystery, but no absurdity -- the seeming contradiction involved in the doctrine arising exclusively from the endeavour of theologians to be "wise above what is written," by their attempts to define the divine unity on the one hand, or tri-personality on the other. What we now have to do with is, the revealed relations of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I begin with those of The Father.

If we will carefully study "what is written" upon the subject, we shall find, that whatever is represented by such words as original, ultimate, and absolute authority, supremacy, and paternity, pertains exclusively to the Father. Each of the other personalities, in all they do, act in absolute subordination to the Father, and exercise no form or degree of authority or power but such as has been delegated to them by the Father. As the Creator of the universe, Christ exercised a delegated power, "the Father creating all things by Jesus Christ." As the present Sovereign of the universe, Christ exercises authority delegated to Him by the Father. "All power in heaven and on earth," says our Saviour, "has been given unto me." "The government shall be laid upon His shoulders." The inauguration of Christ as Sovereign of the universe is thus represented by the prophet Daniel: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." "The Father," says our Saviour again, "judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son." As "God manifest in the flesh," our Saviour taught that He was in the world as a gift of the Father to our lost race, and as sent by the Father, and that He "came not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent him," not to do His own work, but to "finish the work which the Father had given Him to do." The same absolute subordination to the Father obtains in respect to the Holy Spirit. Like the Son, the Spirit comes from the Father, and is sent and given to men by Him. Like the Son, also, the Spirit comes, "not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him." Like the Son, the Spirit "speaks not of Himself; but what He hears that He speaks." "He receives of Christ, and show them to believers," and "shows them plainly of the Father." In the work of redemption, the Spirit also acts in subordination to the will of Christ as well as of that of the Father. The Father, then, as representing the Godhead in its absolute and universal sovereignty, supremacy, and paternity, is not the exclusive, but, for the most part, the proper object of prayer. We approach Him through the Son. Let us now consider the revealed relations of The Son.

While the Father represents the Godhead in its absolute supremacy, sovereign authority, and universal paternity, the Son represents the same Godhead in what may be denominated its supreme executive executive power, authority, and majesty. The Son is the revealed authoritative executor of the Father’s will. The agency of the Father was not direct and immediate in creation. The Father, on the other hand, "created all things by Jesus Christ," "’by whom also He" (the Father) "made the worlds." Of the Son, as we read Hebrews 1:8-12, the Father thus speaks : -- "But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. And Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of Thine hands: They shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail." The Father does not directly and immediately govern the universe, but has "laid the government upon the shoulders of the Son," who, as the Supreme executive of the universe, "upholds all things by the word of His power." By Him, also, "all things consist," that is, are sustained, controlled, and governed. As the supreme executive, also, Christ, as the Eternal Word, "was made flesh, and dwelt among us," "bore our sins," "brought in everlasting righteousness," now reigns as the sovereign Lord of all, and will, at the final consummation, sit as "Judge of quick and dead." A careful study of the Scriptures will also fully evince the great fact that all the audible and visible manifestations of the Godhead to men were made by Jesus Christ. "He it was that was with the Church in the wilderness," "the Rock" of defence and hope, "which followed the people, being Christ." He it was, consequently, that spake to Moses in the bush, led the people by a pillar of fire out of Egypt, gave the covenant and law from Sinai, and conducted the people through the wilderness. All that we know or can know of God is through Christ, through His works, manifestations, and revelations. When we "see Him we see the Father." In Christ, and only through Him, do we "behold the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His substance." We will now contemplate the revealed relation of The Holy Spirit.

While the Father represents the Godhead in its high functions as the original source of universal and absolute sovereignty, authority, and paternity, and the Son in those of supreme executive power, and dominion, the Holy Spirit represents the same Godhead in its functions as that invisible divine energy which everywhere acts potentially in nature, and immediately brings about those results which God wills. The first revelation which we have of the agency of the Spirit, we find in connection with the account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis.

We find that revelation in these words : -- "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Had we been present, and witnessed the events here referred to, all that would have been visible to us would have been the simple agitation of the watery elements. The cause of the movement would have been to us wholly invisible. We might, and should, were we infidels, have attributed all these results to the action of mere natural law. The same holds true of the results produced by the Spirit everywhere in the universe of matter and mind. The results are manifest; the cause is invisible; and the events appear as they would were they the results of the internal powers of nature itself. When the Spirit, for example, operates upon our minds, in very few instances can we distinguish the thoughts and states induced from those which result from the laws of natural association. Here infidelity comes in, and, in the name of "science, falsely so-called," denies the all-controlling agency of God in nature, attributing all events to natural law. Even theologians, let me add here, are too often accustomed to lead the Church away from God, and in the direction of false science.

Take the all-energising agency of the Spirit of God out of nature, and we are in a blind, cold, and Godless universe, and as really without God in the world as the heathen are. As a further illustration of the agency of the Spirit, as representing the Godhead in nature, let us, for a moment, contemplate His revealed agency in the miraculous events recorded in the Scriptures. In Matthew 12:28, Christ affirms that all His miracles were performed by the Spirit. "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." This is undeniably uttered as illustrative of the invisible divine agency by which all Christ’s miracles and all other miraculous events are produced. Christ, for example, said to the leper, "I will; be thou clean." The Spirit invisibly energised in the system of the individual diseased, and thus induced the cleansing required. Christ stood upon the deck of the vessel amid the night tempest on the Sea of Galilee, and said to the winds and waves, "Peace, be still!" The Spirit invisibly "moved upon the face of the waters," and energised in the atmosphere around, and thus instantly induced the subsidence of the waves and the stillness of the atmosphere which ensued. So in all other instances. But the Holy Spirit is not only the invisible divine energy which operates in visible nature around us, and induces those events which we behold, but He also operated with the same invisible divine efficiency upon the writers of the Sacred Word, and thus originated "That dearest of Books, that excels every other, The old Family Bible, that lays on the stand." The Bible is what it is, because "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and "the holy men" who wrote it "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The Holy Spirit is now in the world, and operating upon the minds of men as a convicting and regenerating agency, leading all who will be led to Christ. In the Church, and among all who have received Christ as their "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," the Holy Spirit is present as "the promise of the Father; "-- a promised "enduement of power from on high," an indwelling light, by which "we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord," and as an all-strengthening and all-vitalising power, by which we "may be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God," -- an indwelling and ever-working power, "according to which," or through which, God is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Such are the revealed relations and functions of the Holy Spirit -- relations and functions as distinct from one another as are the various offices which Christ fulfils distinct from one another. It would be no greater error for us, for example, to confound the office of Christ as "Mediator between God and man" with that of His other function as "Judge of quick and dead," than it would be to confound the office of the Spirit as "the promised enduement of power from on high" with either of His offices in conviction and conversion, or as the invisible divine energy everywhere working potentially in nature.

Essential Errors connected with the Doctrine of The Spirit.

There are three very essential errors connected with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit -- errors which require special consideration in this connection. The first that I notice has obtained control over the faith of the Churches in consequence of what has been rightly called "the senseless twaddle of infidelity about the absolute prevalence of law in nature." Under the influence of this error, the influence of the Spirit is supposed to have place only in the kingdom of grace, while the revealed fact that He is omnipresent in universal nature, operating everywhere as the invisible divine energy causing, controlling, and regulating the events which we behold, is practically denied. Hence the error, so deadening to the faith of believers, that prayer has efficacy in the former, and not in the latter kingdom. The Bible, let me say, is one of the most unmeaning and deceptive books that ever was written, if, in respect to revealed objects of prayer, prayer has not the same avail in one kingdom as in the other, and temporal are as distinctly specified as such objects as our spiritual blessings. But are not all events in the universe around us controlled by fixed and immutable laws? Yes, we answer. Yet these laws work out very different results indeed from what they would do but for the presence, and action, and controlling influence of finite spirit in nature. The reciprocal influence of spirit over matter, and of matter over spirit, is no violation of nature’s laws, but absolutely accord with those laws. Now, if there is omnipresent in nature an infinite and eternal Spirit invisibly controlling all events, then we should expect that the order of events would be as far different, at least, from what it would be but for His presence and agency, and in consequence of the presence and action of that Spirit, as that order is in consequence of the presence and action of the Spirit of man in nature. Any deduction the opposite of this is as absurd, and contrary to the dictates of true science, as it is to the revealed truth of God. It is, therefore, not only accordant with the express teachings of inspiration, but just as reasonable in itself, for me to expect to receive specific answers to prayer relatively to the temporalities of life -- answers through the occurrence of events which would not arise but for my prayers -- as it is for me to expect to receive answers to communications sent to friends on the other side of the Atlantic -- answers which I should not receive but for the communications which I do send; and it is quite as necessary to our real comfort and well-being to know that God lives and acts in the kingdom of nature, as well as in that of grace, as a Hearer of prayer, as it is to know that our distant friends are alive and ready to answer our communications. Nor will God ever, as He has promised, "dwell in His people, and walk in them," until they recognise the presence and agency of the Eternal Spirit in the world of nature as well as of that of grace, and repose the same confidence in the divine promises relatively to temporal as to spiritual blessings.

Another important error connected with this subject is the too common one of confounding "the baptism of the Holy Ghost" with His special functions in conviction and conversion. In the latter relation He is never called "the Holy Spirit of promise," and is never, more especially, said to be given to "those who obey God," and not to have been given at all until after "Jesus was glorified." In this specific relation He has, in each dispensation alike, been in the world, "striving with men," and "grieved" and "vexed" with their sins, ever since the Fall. In this relation He acts upon the human mind, whether men are willing or unwilling to be "convinced of sin." In the former relation, on the other hand, the Holy Ghost, as promised in the new, was not given at all in the old dispensation: "For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." In this relation He is given to those, and those only, who obey God, and after they have believed in Jesus. "And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him." "In whom, after that ye believed," or having believed, "ye were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise." In this relation the Holy Ghost is a gift of grace, a gift promised to those who are already in a state of obedience, and given only to such, and given "after they have believed." In strict accordance with the above exposition are the express teachings of our Saviour upon this subject: "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." The special and revealed function of the Spirit in conviction, conversion, and regeneration is to act as a convicting and converting power upon those who are in sin. In His special and revealed function as an "enduement of power from on high," the Spirit has to do with those only who "have believed," who "obey God," and are "keeping Christ’s commandments." To confound these two distinct and separate functions of the Spirit is one of the most dangerous errors into which the Church can fall. It has, for centuries past, kept the mass of believers under the darkness of the old dispensation, and shut them out from "all the fulness of God," promised to the faith of all "who obey Him." Pentecostal power will not return to the Churches until the promise of the pentecostal baptism shall be recognised as the common inheritance of all believers. The only additional error to which I refer is the common one of representing the Spirit, in the influence which He exerts upon the mind, as confined to the revealed truth of God. When He would convince of sin, He must, of course, place the facts of our moral states and lives in the clear light of the truth revealed in the Word of God. Hence it is that "the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God." So, when the Spirit would show us "the things of Christ," or impress upon our hearts any truth or promise of God, His illuminations and presentations must be confined to the circle of what is revealed in the Sacred Word. It by no means follows from hence that the influence of the Spirit is confined to the truth. It may be that He may act directly and immediately upon our sensibilities, and thus bring this department of our nature into a state to be affected by the truth such as would otherwise be impossible. For aught that we know, He may thus act upon our propensities, and induce total changes in their tendencies. In a similar manner, He may act upon our intellectual capacities, "strengthening us with might in the inner man," and thus enable us to apprehend and comprehend what now lies beyond the reach of our capacities. By acting also upon and through the laws of association, He may suggest trains of thought which would not otherwise occur. The reader has, no doubt, heard of the young woman in Scotland who, on the Sabbath, and in the days of persecution, was on her way to a place of worship, and was met by a company of hostile cavalry, and required by its commander to make known her destination. At this crisis this promise presented itself to her mind, to wit, "It shall be given you at that hour what you ought to answer;" and she put up a silent prayer that the Spirit of God would put the right words into her mouth. In a moment these words suggested themselves, and she uttered them as suggested "I am going to my Father’s house. My Elder Brother has died; His will is to be read to-day, and I have an interest in it." The commander bid her go on her way, expressing the hope that she would find a rich portion left to herself. Who will affirm that those words were not directly and immediately suggested to her mind by the Spirit of God? Yet the words suggested are not found in the Bible. Is not special wisdom for special exigencies specifically promised to those who "lack wisdom" and "ask God" for it? While it is the revealed office of the Spirit to "lead us into all truth "-- and He leads us into no form of divine truth but what is revealed -- we should greatly err by "limiting the Holy One," and cutting ourselves off from revealed privileges by limiting the influences of the Spirit to the mere use of revealed truth. Let us, on the other hand, carefully inquire after what the Spirit is able to do for us, and what He has promised to our faith, and leave all methods of doing to His own wisdom.

Baptism of the Holy Ghost when Received. As the agency of the Holy Spirit is always invisible, we become conscious of His presence and workings in ourselves, but through the results which He produces in us. The sinner, for example, becomes conscious of himself, as subject to the Spirit’s influences, but through the convictions of sin, and the apprehensions of the way of life and salvation through Christ -- convictions and apprehensions which the Spirit induces in the mind. The same holds equally true of the presence and agency of the Spirit, represented by such words as "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence;" "Tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high;" "Behold I send the promise of the Father upon you," and "the sealing and earnest of the Spirit in your hearts." We can know that we have received the promised baptism but by becoming conscious in experience of the revealed results which attend or follow that baptism. When, for example, we are conscious of "beholding with open face the glory of the Lord," of being "changed into the same image from glory to glory," of "being strengthened with might in the inner man," of "Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith," of our "becoming rooted and grounded in love," and "able to comprehend the length, and breadth, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge," that "our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," and that "the Lord is our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning ended ;" we thus know that we have received "the promise of the Spirit," and have been "filled with the Holy Ghost." In waiting for the fulfilment of "the promise of the Spirit," we at length become conscious that "all things are made new," that we have new power over our "propensities, and over all evil principles within and around us, that our powers of apprehension and comprehension are enlarged, that we "know the things which are freely given us of God," that the truth of God is in our hearts "as a burning fire shut up in our bones," that our obedience is not forced by dint of our own wills, but sweetly "constrained by the love of Christ," that the spirit of prophecy has been given us, and that we are able, as we never were before, to "speak to edification, and exhortation, and comfort," and that "having all sufficiency for all things, we are ready for every good work." In the consciousness of such experiences we know that "Christ has prayed the Father for us, and that He has sent us the Comforter, that He may abide with us for ever," and that Christ Himself has baptized us with the Holy Ghost." In seeking for this "enduement of power from on high," we must ever bear in mind the revealed conditions on which this crowning blessing of the new dispensation is promised. This condition is definitely specified by our Saviour. "If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father for you, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." "The promise of the Spirit" is fulfilled in the experience of those only who "obey God," "love Christ, and keep His commandments." In seeking for "the promise of the Spirit," we must do so in a state of supreme dedication to Christ, and of absolute subjection to His will.

Here I notice the fundamental mistake of those who suppose that "the baptism of the Holy Ghost" is always given in regeneration. In confirmation of such a conclusion, they cite such passages as these: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His," and "your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost." The inference of such persons is, that none but those who have been "baptized with the holy Ghost" have the "Spirit of Christ" at all, and that the bodies of none but such are "the temples of the Holy Ghost." The Spirit is, first of all, we should bear in mind, in the heart of the sinner as a convicting and converting power. When the sinner has become "a believer in Jesus," the Spirit continues in the heart of the convert to perfect him in the love and obedience which is the necessary condition of his being "baptized with the Holy Ghost." Prior to His crucifixion, Christ told his disciples that the Spirit whom the Father would send as the Comforter was even then in them : "He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." From the beginning of the world, after the Fall, the Spirit had ever been in the hearts of all saints, and their bodies had been "temples of the Holy Ghost." Yet, as the great central promise of the new dispensation, "the Holy Ghost," I repeat, "had never been given until after Jesus was glorified." Those who accept of the work of the Spirit in regeneration and as realised in the common experience of the Church, as the promised "baptism of the Holy Ghost," shut out from themselves "the everlasting light" of the dispensation under which they are permitted to live.

How absurd it is, also, to call the common work of the Spirit among the mass of believers "the baptism of the Holy Ghost," "the promised enduement of power from on high," and "the sealing and earnest of the Spirit in our hearts"! Are these Christians "beholding with open face, as in a glass, the glory of God"? Are they being "changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord"? Are they being "filled with all the fulness of God"? Are they "rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory," and "ready for every good word and work"? Is their "joy full "? Is "God their everlasting light," and are "the days of their mourning ended"? These are but examples of the revealed common experience of all who have been "baptized with the Holy Ghost." We should make ourselves ridiculous if we should set up any such pretensions in behalf of the class of believers above referred to.

Let all who are waiting for "the promise of the Spirit," watching for His coming "more than they who watch for the morning," bear this thought with them continually, that Christ is now present to their faith, to do for them all that their present state requires, and that the Spirit is also in them to perfect in them the love and obedience requisite to the reception of "the promise of the Father," that all that is needed is being done in the best possible manner, and that as soon as the way is prepared, they will be "filled with the Holy Ghost." "If the vision tarry, wait for it," and wait for it with the assurance that you "shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." "In due time you will reap, if you faint not,"