THE HOLY SPIRIT
[p. 38] THE HOLY SPIRIT
Some believers do not see that the Holy Spirit has come down from heaven in an entirely new and distinct way since the exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ. They regard Him as the power by which they were converted, and believe that He by His influence comforts and directs them; but they have no idea of His presence on the earth as dwelling in the house of God, nor as dwelling in themselves. This class, though very numerous, every one who is scripturally taught must, alas! pronounce mistaken and untaught. But there are others who believe in the descent of the Holy Spirit, but have no apprehension of His dwelling in the house of God, though they see that the body has been formed by Him. They thus limit Him in His services, and do not see the great place He holds here in the absence of Christ; and therefore they must deprive themselves of much, for the greater the position He holds here, the greater He is to me in the place, so that the place itself is thus superseded by One in the place who is in every way above it.
Any limitation of the truth is not sound teaching. Truth makes free. I need not dwell on the darkness of those who do not see the descent of the Holy Spirit; their lack and loss must be at once apparent. But it is very necessary that we should see the lack and loss from which they suffer, who, while admitting the descent of the Holy Spirit, do not see Him in His full position.
The Holy Spirit is here, I may say, for two services, one to the individual directly, the other more indirectly as to the individual, but directly for Christ: “He shall testify of me”. Now those who confine the Holy Spirit to one branch, though unintentionally, must necessarily lose much, and the teaching connected with this limitation cannot be “sound”.
When one avows that he believes in the descent and consequent presence of the Holy Spirit, he may imagine [p. 39] that he accepts Him in both services. And he will not be convinced that he limits Him until he has been convicted of acting contrary to his profession or creed. To convince him that he does limit His services is therefore of the greatest importance, and my desire is to help to this end. One may seem to be clear as to the more individual service, but when it comes to the question of practical acceptance of the second part, the defect is disclosed, which we must trace to its source.
A believer, though accepting the truth of the Holy Spirit’s descent, cannot apprehend the nature of His mission beyond his practical faith in His presence. Of course he could never have an adequate sense of it; but if he has not tasted of the almighty resources and supplies of the Holy Spirit to himself, how can he form any estimate of what He can do? I can speak of power when I am a partaker of it. “Whereas I was blind, now I see”, justified the blind man in declaring that Jesus was of God.
If I say that the Holy Spirit has come, and that I have received Him, I Can only speak of Him according to the nature of the effect He has had upon me. I limit Him in the first service if I do not see the resources and supplies which Christ has given me here (John 4: 14 and 7: 37), for the Spirit comes to me in His name, to reproduce to me what He was on earth, otherwise His name would not be truly exemplified. The Holy Spirit has been sent by the Father in Christ’s name (John 14: 26), to comfort the heart in its loneliness and in the absence of Christ. But He is also sent by Christ from the Father to testify of Himself, and to be the stay and support of His own in the face of the opposition and hatred of this world. If we do not feel our need of Him we do not enjoy Him. If I have the sense that the might and eternal power of God has come nigh directly to me, and has thus ensured to my heart, in the absence of my Lord, inexhaustible resources, that I shall never thirst (John 4: 14), and that from me shall flow “rivers of living water”
([p. 40] John 7: 38), I am then alive to the nature and character of His power in testifying of Christ where He is.
The Holy Spirit has come to me directly in Christ’s name, and He testifies of Him, not only as He was on earth, but as He is now in glory. The “name” embraced all that was revealed of Him, but the testimony would be as He is now in glory. The believer who had in any measure enjoyed the first service would appreciate and delight in being a vessel of the Holy Spirit in His testimony to us of Christ in glory; on the one hand to enable us to bear up in our loneliness in the absence of Christ, and on the other to support us, as Stephen was supported against all the combined force and hostility of the world. The one who feels the hostility of this world to Christ finds no cheer except in the fact that He is in glory; and therefore Paul longs for “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus” as He is in glory.
The believer who accepts the truth of the Holy Spirit’s descent may not deny that He is here to testify of Christ, but there will be a limiting of the nature and greatness of this testimony if in the Holy Spirit’s direct service to the soul there has not been a true idea or estimate of His power and value. If I cannot apprehend, and have not the sense of, the magnitude of the Spirit’s dwelling in myself, how can I form any estimate of the greatness of the effect in His testifying of Christ? But as I grow in apprehension of the magnitude of the blessing conferred on myself, I comprehend more fully the immensity of His work and place in testimony, not apart from the believer, but using him to carry it out, so that I am not a spectator of a great operation, but an actual agent in it. But if I am, I do not lead or suggest; I could not venture to do so, but rejoice that I am led of Him to do according to His pleasure.
I could admit the simple fact that He was here to testify of Christ, and all the time, because dark as to the great effect of His presence, be led to adopt what I had not seen must be far better secured by the Holy [p. 41] Spirit if He were really recognised and apprehended as the living God. Can any one, at all alive to the fact that the living God is here, attempt to contribute to His work except as He would lead the way? What would have been thought of Moses or Joshua if either had attempted, by some canal or other means, to carry away the water which was impeding the advance of the armies of Israel?
Now if the teaching be not “sound” there must be glaringly defective practice. Where the practice is defective, either the teaching is unsound, or there is a bad conscience, that is, it is not true in its answer to the truth accepted.
The manner and the mode in which the testimony has been carried out by many in this day indicates that the teaching on the presence of the Holy Spirit has not been “sound”. If it had been, very different effects would have been produced.
First, if the testimony of the Holy Spirit had been truly seen, Christ in glory would have been the great and continued subject, as also the support of the soul. “He shall testify of me” is as He was in glory, because that only would express “me” when He was there.
It is not only that there are few who are, in even a small measure, agents in this testimony, but many accepted ministers are dark about it, and some deny or oppose it. They do not deny the presence of the Holy Spirit, or the fact that He is here to testify of Christ, but the teaching is not “sound”, and manifest feebleness as to the truth must be the result. And I feel constrained to add that every one who does not grasp the magnitude of the Holy Spirit’s work here for Christ, has not found Him in His magnitude in his own heart; how could he? He necessarily considers His action in testimony must be similar as to power to what he has himself experienced. Such an one cannot be His agent to carry out truth quite beyond his faith. He cannot speak of a glorified [p. 42] Christ unless he has had his eyes opened by the Holy Spirit to behold Him there.
If I have not seen Him there I cannot know the way I am to be supported here in the teeth of the world’s opposition. This empowered Elisha in another day, as it had done Abram; also Isaiah “when he saw his glory, and spake of him”.
The believer now led by the Spirit, according to the pattern of Stephen, derives power from Christ in glory as his eye is set upon Him there. And this testimony by the Holy Spirit enables him to be here more than conqueror through Him that loved him. He stands for Christ in glory, and as he does so, he neither seeks nor uses any means but the Holy Spirit’s to bear witness of Him here. This enables me to stand here invincibly for Christ. I cannot use the world, because it is on account of the world’s opposition that the Spirit testifies to me of Christ in glory; and as I receive His testimony I am myself, according to my measure, a vessel of it. For as I am in fellowship of the Holy Spirit, so am I as He is, convicting the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. I am characteristically doing so. I am, according to my measure of grace, demonstrating these three things to the world. I am in the wake of the Spirit of God. He is distinct and apart from the world, declarative of three things, which put the world in its true light to every anointed eye, and therefore most entirely distinct from the world. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world”; but while in the world, they are in the same distinctness from the world as light is from darkness.
There is the glorifying of Christ which enables the one in the testimony to set Him forth worthily to believers and unbelievers, as Paul had done. The more He is glorified to me, the better can I present Him to every one, while at the same time heavenly things are shown to me. I am manifestly unworldly, but I am enjoying heavenly things. Every one in the fellowship of the Holy [p. 43] Spirit will be characterised in this two-fold way, he will be unworldly and heavenly instructed; while the merely zealous labourer will be occupied with his work and his usefulness, adopting and approving of every kind of human help which would not be an outrage on the world’s conscience, and such assuredly cannot assume to be unworldly. Many of these have got on in the world since they were converted, and they as a rule are not unworldly and heavenly instructed. Their teaching and preaching is popular because it is not “sound”; it has not the whole demand on the conscience that the full truth has.