THE HOLY SPIRIT - "WITH YOU" AND "IN YOU"
THE HOLY SPIRIT — “WITH YOU” AND “IN YOU”
Every christian will admit that the Holy Spirit acted on this earth before the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Consequent on Christ’s ascension the Holy Spirit descended and took up a new place on the earth. He came to abide; to remain with you and be in you, John 14: 16, 17. “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you”. It is the effects from His new position which we have to learn, and to keep in mind. His power was necessarily always the same. But as He has come to remain with and to be in us, He must rule in a twofold way. His very greatness necessitates His ruling; that is, ordering all things according to Christ, according to the purpose for which He has come. Before He took this new place, He acted in everything according to the [p. 192] divine pleasure, but now having come definitely to remain with and be in us, He sways according to His own infinite greatness. Thus is there an entirely new government in the midst of the old existing one. All the government that was given to man remains. The power given to Noah, then to Israel, and lastly transferred to the gentiles, remains as it was given, but there is now on the earth an entirely new order of government invisible, but it is as real and as great as the presence of the Holy Spirit can render it.
Now the dwelling and rule of the Holy Spirit is twofold; there is the individual temple, as we see in 1 Corinthians 6: 19, “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God?” and there is the collective temple, according to 1 Corinthians 3: 16, 17, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are”. Truly “the world ... seeth him not, neither knoweth him”, but yet His rule is known by those who are capable of apprehending Him. No man knows the things of God but the Spirit of God. The first great thing to accept in faith is that the Holy Spirit is here; and then, as a simple consequence, whether in the church where He dwells, or in the individual, He must exercise His own sway, entirely distinct and apart from man’s ideas; and after His own mind and good pleasure. When this new though invisible government is accepted, it must be by the Spirit. No one could instruct us as to the Spirit but the Spirit. Only the man indwelt by the Spirit, and knowing the rule of the Spirit in himself, could comprehend the rule of the Spirit in the house of God. I should be unable to see that the Spirit was residing here to testify of Christ, if I had not first learned by His dwelling in me, as sent by the Father in Christ’s name, how new and distinct His rule in me is; and then, from my personal knowledge of His [p. 193] presence, I can apprehend Him in the wider sphere of the church.
It is plain from John 14: 26 and 15: 26, that He is here for two services: one, to the individual; the other, for testimony. If these two services are not believed in and counted on concurrently, there is sure to be, however unwittingly, a failure or deficiency with regard to both.
In the great ecclesiastical system, it was assumed that there must be a person here for Christ — His vicar. The idea was borrowed from Scripture. Thus the office of the Holy Spirit, as here for Christ, was admitted; but the office was filled up by a man, the Pope. It is important to trace this falling away, because, as we see, it began by admitting that there was a vicar of Christ here; but instead of by faith owning the Holy Spirit as the only one able to fill the office, they, having lost faith in the presence of the Holy Spirit, assigned it to a man. Hence with such a vicar, such a pivot, it is easy to see what the Romish system came to, and, of course, all idea of the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit was lost. The conscientious faithful could not bow to a system thus formed; but as they had not faith to lay hold of the true Vicar, their efforts to reach a truly spiritual state were singularly baffled; so that while the Romanist who owned a vicar, but one of his own choosing, was deprived of the joy of the Holy Spirit for himself personally, the Protestant, though he rejected the Roman pretender, failed to grasp the true work and service of the Holy Spirit even with respect to himself, because he did not see Him in His office here as come down from heaven. I feel it will be found that whenever or wherever there is unbelief, or a limitation of the Spirit’s office or service for Christ on earth, there is always great lack of apprehension as to His service and place in the individual saint.
It is remarkable that at the descent of the Holy Spirit, the house “where they were sitting” was filled first (Acts 2: 2), and then He sat upon each one of them.
[p. 194] That is, that the Holy Spirit, on coming down, first connected Himself with Christ’s own; and then filled them individually — “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”.
Surely Ananias and Sapphira betrayed that they were not under the rule of the Spirit in themselves, or they would have recognised His presence in the assembly. Peter convicts them on this ground. “Why has Satan filled thy heart that thou shouldest lie to the Holy Spirit?” I need not add more on this part of our subject, but I press the importance of implicitly owning the Spirit’s office here for Christ, if the believer would preserve, and advance in, His own personal enjoyment of Him. I submit it will always be found that any limitation of His power and efficacy for testimony is accompanied by a corresponding lack and limitation as to His power in the individual, or rather that it has originated there. Hence it is not a mere question of the use of this or that means, but whether the Spirit is sufficient in His own way, and by His own instruments, to carry out the pleasure of Christ. If I limit Him for Christ I must limit Him for myself, and vice versa. He has an entirely new government, and entirely new modes of maintaining the rule that He has undertaken for Christ. Truly He uses the members of Christ, but it is He who uses them, and He only can tell them how they are to be used by Him. If the Spirit of God were depended on, either in the individual or in the assembly, every difficulty would be solved, and the true course would be defined by Him. We learn from the Acts of the Apostles the various ways in which the Spirit’s presence was overlooked, and also the singular way He helped them, when they were in simple faith as to His presence. One thing is evident, that all through the Acts the Spirit of God is regarded as being here, so that whether it be the suppression of evil, or the support of the testimony, through the servants of the Lord, or the comfort and establishment of souls, He is always referred to as present.
[p. 195] Many christians know that they could not say “Abba, Father” but by the Spirit of the Son in their heart; but neither can they enjoy any other of His activities. I have not space now to refer to them all. Communion, association with Christ, and all divine communications are known only through the Spirit, who is the seal of our present blessing, and the earnest of our inheritance. Surely it would add considerably to our sense of the magnitude of His indwelling in us, if we were in simple assurance of His habitation being here. The twofold dwelling would act and react on one another. If I should fear to grieve the Spirit in myself, I should correspondingly fear to quench the Spirit in the assembly, and vice versa. The Spirit not only gathers to Christ, for Christ is always His centre, but He only can give power and efficacy to any ministry, dividing to every man severally as He will; and He only, a greater than Eliezer, can conduct the bride to the Bridegroom.
The Lord awaken each heart to apprehend the solemn blessedness of the Spirit’s presence in these two offices or service.