THE PRESENT MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD

Galatians 1: 4, 5; 2: 19, 20; John 16: 13-15; 20: 11-18

What I had before me in these scriptures is the fact that the great work—or a great part of the work—of the Spirit is to detach us in mind and heart from this world, and to connect our hearts with another scene, to bring us to God’s world. In using the word “world” I mean on the one hand, a system of things that belongs to man and is of man; and, on the other hand, that system of things which is of God, and of which Christ is the Beginning and Centre and Head. It would be an immense thing for every one of us to know practically what it is to be detached from this world, and to be brought in mind and spirit to God’s world at the present time, and that is a great part of the Spirit’s work. I believe the way in which the Spirit does this is by bringing us into the light and under the influence of the Son of God. That is the ministry of the Spirit. In the case of Paul in Galatians 2, we have an illustration of it. He is himself an example of one who had been delivered from this present evil world; a man who was down here in this world living his life in flesh, as we are, but practically delivered from it because he was living down here in the light and under the influence of the Son of God. And in Mary Magdalene, on the other hand, we get an illustration of one who was not only detached from this world, but one who had come to God’s world. She did not know much, but I believe she had touched God’s world and by the same reason. In John 20 she came into the light and under the influence of the Son of God. That brought her to God’s world. When I come to Him, I am brought into touch with the One who is the centre of God’s world. That is the only way I can come to it. The object of the Spirit of God is to bring us in our affections to that blessed Person who is the Centre and Head of all that system of things which God has purposed for His pleasure and glory. I will say just a word in explanation as to what I mean by being in the light of the Son of God. The apostle says, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God”. He was living his life down here in the light of what was set forth in the Son of God. It was the light that filled his soul, the light of the Son of God. I think two things are set forth in the Son of God. I do not say only two, but these I see specially. They are connected with two expressions. He says of Himself in John 16, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father”. In His coming from the Father you get one thing set forth, and in His going back to the Father you get another thing. What does it mean to you when you think of Him, the blessed Son of God, coming forth from the Father, the One who was one with the Father, who dwelt in His bosom? Think of that One coming forth from the Father and coming into this world! What I understand by that expression is the testimony to man of what God is in love; the revelation, the expression of His love. The apostle says, “We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world”, 1 John 4: 14. He is the One in whom God is speaking, the very voice of God, as it were. No other person could express it; no other was ever with God, or could come forth from Him in the way He did. The Father’s love shone out, and has been expressed in that blessed One who according to His will came forth from the Father, the Father’s voice to us setting forth God’s love. All that is conveyed in the Son of God. We have the light of that in our souls. I am in a scene of darkness and death but in my soul I have the light of that One come forth in love from the Father. His testimony made effective in me by the ministry of the Holy Ghost would go a long way towards delivering me from this present evil world. Then another thing: the One who came forth from the Father, who expressed Him in all His works and words, in all He said and did, who was the living revelation of God, the bread of heaven brought down for us to feed upon; now He has gone back to the Father. “Again”, He says, “I leave the world, and go to the Father”. He has gone back on the ground of accomplished redemption, and has taken His place as Man in the presence of God. Man in the place of sonship, a new place and relationship for man. That which existed in the mind and purpose of God is now established in a Man, His own blessed Son. He has gone back to the Father, and we have expressed in Him not only the Father’s love, but also His mind livingly expressed in that Person. The very fact that He as man has gone back to heaven declares God’s mind that man should be there. It is the mind of God in regard of man. It is the proof to us that God would have man in glory. He is bringing many sons to glory. I know now God’s mind is that we should be in glory because He has put Jesus there. And, moreover, He has put Him there as Son and that proves not only that God’s mind is to have men in glory, but to have them there as sons. It is the mind of God revealed livingly in the Person of His Son. That is what I understand to be set forth in the Son of God, and I think that is what the apostle means when he says, “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. That was the influence that governed him. He was not governed by the sight of the eyes or the hearing of the ears or what goes on in the world, the things that so easily influence and govern man. He was governed by what was so infinitely greater—the Son of God. All that God is, is brought out for us and set before us in the Son of God. Paul was in the light and under the control of it, and set free therefore from every influence here. What is going on in this world? Man doing his own will, gratifying his own lusts, exalting himself. Do you think a man walking in the light of the Son of God will care for this? will he go about gratifying himself? Was the apostle doing his own will? Not at all! The Son of God, he could say, “loved me, and gave himself for me”. Instead of finding pleasure in doing his own will, his pleasure was to be for God’s will and Christ’s, as he said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” He was delivered from the world in that sense, he was free. Then was he seeking to gratify his own lusts? seeking to minister to his own desires? No; he had found satisfaction in the knowledge of the Son of God. How can I know the blessed Son of God, how can I know all the great and divine realities set forth in Him, and yet have any desire for the things that gratify the lusts of man? “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him”, 1 John 2: 15. There is only one thing can shut the world out, and that is the love of the Father and the Son. If we are brought under the influence of divine Persons, the Father’s love, the love of the Son, the world will have no power over us. Satan may present it in its fairest forms, but we are delivered from it. The apostle was not living here to exalt himself; he had thrown all that overboard; he desired that Christ should be magnified in his body, Christ was before him, the One who loved him and whom he loved, and his great desire was that Christ should be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death. So you see what a real thing it is to be delivered from this present world, as brought and kept under the influence of the Son of God. I say kept, because nothing is easier than to slip away from it. There are ten thousand things appealing to us continually, and we need not only to begin in faith but to go on in faith; the faith of the Son of God was a present and continual thing to the apostle. “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. Now I turn to the other side for a moment, How does the Spirit of God connect us with God’s world? John 16 answers the question. “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all truth ... He shall glorify me”. That is not His testimony to the world. No doubt the Spirit of God maintains a testimony in the world to the glory of Christ, but here in John 16 it is His testimony to us. He comes to us; He glorifies Christ to us; He sets before our eyes and hearts the glory of that blessed Person; what God has established in Him as we have been hearing—the greatness of that Person. The Spirit maintains that and keeps it before our minds and hearts. “All things that the Father hath are mine, therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you”. That is what the Spirit would always do. He would occupy and engage our hearts with Christ, and all that God has given to Him. All that in which He has made Him most blessed. The Spirit would reveal these things to us and thus would bring us to God’s world and all that belongs to that world—God’s things.

You get a good example of that in Mary Magdalene. She had lost the Lord here. In her love she had followed Him to the cross. In the fact that the One in whom all her hopes centred had died, all her hopes in connection with this world died with Him. The Lord had so revealed Himself to her; He had become the object of attraction to her and so when He died, she died in spirit with Him and her hopes died too. I think she is a good example of it. And then she follows Him to the grave, expecting to find Him there but on the third day what happened? The Lord brings Himself before her in a new way. He was risen; He says, “Touch me not”. She was to know Him in another way. “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”. See how He presents Himself as the One who is going back to the Father. It is His glory as Son of God going back to the Father. He is going to another world. He is leaving this and going to another. He not only presents Himself as the Centre of that world and the One who is the object of her heart but shews her that He can connect her with Himself: My Father is your Father; my God is your God.

I think in that way the Lord appeared and shone upon her, revealed Himself in His glory to her, presented Himself as the blessed Son of God, the One going back to the Father, the Object for her heart. On account of her affection to the Person she in spirit followed Him there, and from that moment I do not think she went back to this world for anything. She had no taste left for this world. She simply went back to the disciples to tell them of what had enlightened her, to tell them of the One she had come in touch with. She knew the Son of God, and in mind and affection had come to God’s world. She had done with man’s world; she had found her home in that scene where Christ is. That is the way the Spirit of God brings about His purpose, to detach us from this world in mind and affection and that we may, even now, come to God’s world, and while down here really find our place and enjoyment, our rest and satisfaction, in that eternal scene of love and blessing where the Son is with the Father and where we share with Him in all that blessing and joy which He has entered into and which is ours to enjoy with Him here and through all eternity. It would be a great thing for us to walk down here in view of God’s world, and to realise that we have already come into touch with that great system of things which is of God, and which is about to be displayed in glory.

From Truth for the Time part 14 (1901)