06.10. The Supreme Gift of the Ascension

Chapter 10 The Supreme Gift of the Ascension To the simple graphic story of the inspired annalists, the Apostle Peter, moved by the Holy Spirit, adds some significant details, in that great sermon which he preached on the day of Pentecost. He tells us that the ascension of our Lord was due not simply to the inherent virtue of His nature, but to the direct action and interposition of His Father, "being by the right hand of God exalted," as though, through the azure sky, the hand of God were reached down to our low earth, to raise His Son through all heavens to His throne. But there is yet a more striking expression used by the apostle, the full significance of which evades our most searching scrutiny--that in which he speaks of Christ as receiving from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. It was as if the ascension day, which began in Jerusalem and ended in glory, which exchanged the Mount of Olives at dawn for the meridian light of heaven’s unsetting noon, witnessed also the reception on the part of Christ of a new accession of the power and grace of the Holy Ghost. As Son of God, He had from all eternity been One with the Father and With the Holy Ghost, and it was impossible for Him to receive more than He already possessed; but on His incarnation He evidently entered into new relations with the Divine Spirit, as is clear from many expressions used in reference to it throughout the gospel. We cannot penetrate the mystery of Christ’s nature. It is secret. But we believe that God was manifest in the flesh, and it is from the human standpoint that we approach Him now, as one draws near the lower slopes of some soaring Alp, the upper reaches of which, untrodden by human foot, are veiled in perpetual cloud.

We are told that our Lord’s birth was due to the Holy Ghost, and there is little doubt that during the thirty years of His seclusion at Nazareth He was perpetually beneath the teaching and molding influence of the Divine Spirit. But His contract with John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan marked a new epoch in His life. It was His Pentecost. He was then endued and anointed with the Spirit without measure; and from that time He is spoken of as being full of the Spirit, as returning in the power of the Spirit to His life-work, and as standing in the synagogue of Nazareth, conscious that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, and that He had been anointed to preach. All His miracles and words thereafter were wrought and spoken beneath that same inspiration. It was in the Eternal Spirit that He offered Himself upon the cross; through the spirit of holiness that He was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead; and it was through the Holy Ghost that He issued commands during the forty days of His posthumous ministry. He does not appear, however, to have had any special power of conferring upon others that Holy Spirit which, as Man, He had so fully realized. It is true that, after His resurrection, He bade the apostles and their associates receive the Holy Ghost, and the breath of His lips was the emblem of the gentle grace which He communicated. This, however, appears to have been rather an anticipation of the power which He was soon to assume, than to any large extent a manifestation of it. In any case there is a great contrast between the breath of the resurrection evening and the sound of the mighty rushing wind that filled all the house where they were sitting. Up to the time of His ascension, therefore, we may think of Jesus Christ as being charged with the indwelling of the Holy Ghost to the fullest extent possible to our nature, and yet as not possessing in any great measure the faculty of communicating that Spirit to His Church. With the ascension, however, all this was altered. He entered the presence of God as the representative Man, and as the Surety of His people. Indeed, to adopt the frequently recurring thought of the apostle, they rose with Him from His grave, and ascended with Him into the heavenlies. A great multitude, of every nation, kindred, people, and tongue, passed upward with Him as He crossed the confines between time and eternity, between the material and the spiritual, between the seen and the unseen, and in that multitude were included all who were to believe in Him through the word of the gospel. The whole mystical body was represented in the Head; the Church stood in complete beauty before God. It is therefore clear that whatever He received from the Father He did not obtain for Himself, but as the Trustee of those for whom He stood. He obtained the Spirit in a new and unexampled measure that He might hold Him as a precious trust for those who, in the process of the years, would be twice born, once of nature, and once by the regenerating grace of His Spirit.

Notice that the word "receive," which almost always occurs in the Word of God in the Holy Spirit, is a phrase employed to denote the process by which our Lord became charged with the Holy Ghost as a reservoir or receptacle from which we were to receive grace upon grace; and the whole Trinity was engaged in that august act by which the divine fulness was made to dwell in the Divine Man.

Turning now from the expression which sets forth our Lord’s reception of the Holy Spirit at the hands of His Father, we may notice the expressions used of His communication of this priceless gift to His Church. Peter says, "He poured it forth" (Acts 2:33). A similar expression is used of what occurred in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10:45). It is as though the walls of an inland lake were suddenly pierced, and the contents issued forth in torrents. The word "fell upon" is also used of the experience of those first days (Acts 11:15), indicating, doubtless, the heavenly source from which the divine influence came. This is in harmony with the thought of anointing. The holy chrism must needs fall upon us from above, that, passing downward from the Head, it may reach even the garment hem, and sanctify the commonest and most trivial acts of life (1 John 2:27). The word "baptism" is also used, especially by the Lord Himself (Acts 1:5), but it has been thought by some that this expression may perhaps apply only to the gift of the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-47), to the outpouring of the Spirit in Samaria (Acts 8:1-40), and to the first reception by Gentiles of the same august gift in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48). There is nothing to prevent our using the expression more widely except that it is not used throughout the New Testament in this general sense, and there is some fear lest the frequent use of the term "baptism," as applied to the Holy Ghost, may lead people to look for something extraordinary, abnormal, and emotional. The word "filling," therefore, is a term which best expresses our experience, as we claim our part in the supreme gift of the ascension. After His Pentecost our Lord was filled with the Holy Spirit; and after their baptism in the upper room the little company that had gathered there is described as being "filled," women as well as men, the rank and file of the Church equally with the apostles. So throughout the New Testament this is the term most often employed. There is this thought connected with the conception of filling which may comfort some whose natures are unemotional, that a well may be filled by the percolation of drop after drop, as well as by the rush of a stream, and that those who are able to claim the indwelling of the Spirit of God in His fulness, without rapture or emotion, or any definite experience, may as surely count on being filled as those who can point to the time and place when they passed through some marked spiritual experience which was attended by deep and rapturous joy.

It is sometimes asked whether the gift of Pentecost refers primarily to character or to office in the early Church. But they appear to have been closely conjoined. The chapter which begins with the account of the outpouring of the Spirit ends with the delightful picture of the love and unselfishness, the gladness and simplicity of the Church, and it is after these characteristics have been enumerated that we are told of the evident power that it wielded over men. Stephen is described as full of grace and power (Acts 6:8, R. V.). There can be no doubt that the first indication of the new era which dated from Pentecost was the cessation of rivalry and jealousy, which had marred the relations of the apostles, and the introduction of a spirit of gentle love. At the same time it is unquestionable that one main end in the gift of Pentecost was to equip the Church for the work of evangelizing the world. Jesus did not attempt His public ministry until He was filled with the Holy Ghost; He forbade His disciples undertaking their work in the Church until they had received their Pentecostal equipment. The presence of the Holy Spirit is perpetually associated with power, as in the case of Stephen and many others. And in Ephesians iv. the apostle distinctly associates the ascension with the gifts of prophets, teachers, pastors, evangelists, and other workers in the ranks of God’s people. The filling of the Holy Spirit means holiness, purity, love; but it includes more. If you have the former alone, never rest until by faith in the ascended Saviour you have become, in your measure, filled with power, before which hard hearts shall break, dry eyes shall fill with tears, conscience shall spring from its grave and fill the chambers of the heart with remonstrances, and your foes shall be unable to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which you speak. The work of the Spirit within us precedes His anointing upon us; but some experience the first without going forward to claim the second. It is much to have Him as a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty; but let us ask Him to be unto us also for strength, to enable us to turn the battle from the gate (Isaiah 28:6).