THE MINISTRY AND RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
2 Corinthians 3: 8; Ephesians 5: 18
What I have before me is, to say a little about the ministry of the Spirit. It is one of the great facts of Christianity, that when the Lord Jesus had accomplished the work of redemption and ascended on high, He sent down the Holy Spirit, to dwell in us and to connect our hearts with Himself in the place where He is. The Spirit thus ministered to believers becomes in us the power of life, and the power for testimony. That state in us, which properly corresponds to our standing in Christ, is formed by the Spirit through the truth. It is the power that worketh in us, which makes good to, and in us, that which is true of us in Christ. Apart from the renewing of the Holy Spirit there is no proper Christian state, and consequently no proper Christian practice, for Christian practice must flow from a proper Christian state.
In Corinthians 2, we get two things connected with the Spirit: first, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him, He has revealed by the Spirit; and, secondly, He has given the Spirit that we might know them; they are spiritually discerned. The mere understanding of truth does not give power, it is only operative as it is made good in us by the Spirit. We have a great amount of truth in knowledge; how is it there is such a feeble condition, and why is our practice so unworthy of what we have in knowledge? Because it has not been made good in us by the Holy Ghost. Everything is ours in Christ (Eph 1: 3); this ever remains unchangeably true, independent of anything in us, but the question is how far in our own individual faith we have reached these things to know, and enjoy and live in them. The truth remains for ever the same, but it is only as in faith and by the Spirit we make it our own, so as to rejoice in Christ, that it becomes operative in us.
I will turn to some scriptures to see how the truth is made good to us and in us by the Spirit. Romans 5: 5: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost”. God has not only manifested His love and commended it to us in the gift of His Son, and revealed it in His word, He has also given us the Holy Spirit to shed it abroad in our hearts. When the truth gets there it becomes operative in us. I never doubt God’s love; the blessed fact that He loves me remains unalterably true in spite of everything; but I may not always be walking in the enjoyment of it. We cannot separate the enjoyment of the truth from our practical walk.
Romans 8: 9-13. Here we see how we realise that deliverance which has been secured for us by the death of Christ; it is by the Spirit. The ground of it we get in chapter 6. We are entitled to reckon ourselves to be dead to sin because Christ has died to sin when our old man was crucified with Him. But is this deliverance a practical thing with us? The mere knowledge of the doctrine of chapter 6 does not give me practical deliverance from sin, though it shews me the ground on which this deliverance has been secured for me. It is by the Spirit’s indwelling and power that I realise as a practical thing this deliverance. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you”. Numbers of saints do not know this deliverance, because they do not see that it is by the Spirit. As we read in Galatians 5, “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit”. By the Spirit alone can we realise this deliverance made ours in the death of Christ. It is not by fighting against my flesh that I get victory over it. The conflict is between the flesh and the Spirit, and if we walk in the Spirit we do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
Now as to sonship the same thing is true, it is known and enjoyed by the Spirit. See Romans 8: 14, 15; Galatians 3: 26; 4: 6. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. Verse 16: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”. “As many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”, John 1: 12. “Now are we children of God”, l John 3: 2. This is an unchangeable relationship. But the grace which has made it absolutely ours has also given us the Spirit of the Son in our hearts that we may know and enjoy it. “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying, Abba, Father”. It is not merely that I know that God is my Father, but by the Spirit I get the feelings, the joys, the communion, suited to that relationship. It is by the Spirit we cry, “Abba, Father”, Gal 4: 6. It is not effort but walking in the Spirit; I am led by the Spirit into the enjoyment of the relationship. But nothing can touch the relationship. If I grieve the Spirit I lose the joy directly, because it is by the Spirit I enjoy it.
Romans 15: 13: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost”.
Having set the doctrine of the gospel before them, the apostle desired there should be in them a subjective condition corresponding with the gospel, and when he thinks of this, he says “through the power of the Holy Ghost”. The mere knowledge of the gospel will not produce such a state; it is the fruit of the ungrieved power and ministry of the Spirit, and so intimately associated with our walk. If by careless or worldly walk we grieve the Holy Ghost, our spiritual condition cannot correspond with the gospel we have received; this explains the lack of joy and peace and abounding hope so often found with us.
Ephesians 3: 14: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The apostle had set before them the greatness of the calling, and then he falls on his knees and cries to God about these saints, praying that they might be strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inner man, so that their actual state might correspond with their calling, according to the power that worketh in us. The more we see the greatness of the calling the more it casts us on our lances in prayer to God that we might be in correspondence with the calling, so that it may not be merely something in our minds producing no real joy or practical effect, but the source of joy and power in our souls. On the one hand we see how the sovereignty of God has given us everything and secured all to us in Christ, and on the other hand we see how the Spirit through the truth makes them good to us and in us; there are these two things. Nothing short of divine power can lead us into the apprehension and enjoyment of divine things, because these things are entirely outside the thoughts and capacity of the natural man. It is one thing to have the truth clearly in our minds, it is another thing to have it inwrought in our souls by the Holy Spirit, so as to form and characterise our lives, Christ being thus formed in us by the truth. The Spirit never makes Himself our object nor His work in us, but ever seeks to occupy us with Christ, so that a man filled with the Spirit looks up into heaven and sees Jesus, and beholding the glory of the Lord, is changed into the same image as by the Lord the Spirit. Christ is the object, but the Spirit is the power by which we can be truly occupied with such an object, and thereby become transformed into His image. Moreover if Christ is the object of my affections, my heart follows Him to where He is, and His place becomes my place, and this morally separates me from the place where He is not. What I desire to point out is the place the Spirit has in connection with our apprehension and enjoyment of the truth. If so much for us depends on the Spirit, is it any wonder the apostle says, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption”, chap 4: 30?
What we have been looking at shews how the enjoyment of the truth and its power in us is inseparably connected with our actual state. It is impossible to be going on with the world and be in the enjoyment of heavenly things. It should make us careful to walk in God's fear, in lowliness and dependence, watching against all that excites the flesh and grieves the Spirit. According to the admonition in the verse we read, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit".
From Truth for the Time vol 2 (1890)