THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
C. K. Robinson
Ephesians 4: 30; Genesis 24: 22–25, 54–58, 64–67; Luke 10: 38–42; Judges 1: 14, 15; Galatians 5: 22, 23
I would like to speak about the distinctiveness of the gift of the Holy Spirit. I trust in saying that, that I can address myself to every one here who has received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
If you have not, then I would desire by what is said in the early part, to stimulate you to seek to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. God has given many gifts. May I remind you of one or two gifts that God has perhaps given to you. I trust that you have known the gift of faith, a very important matter for any Christian. In fact it is a question if I would really speak to you as a Christian unless you have a real sense of the gift of faith, because the whole operation of God in this dispensation, and the characteristic principle of it is faith. So God has given the gift of faith. Personally I can say, and many others in this room, how thankful we are for the gift of faith. Faith makes divine things living and real. The enjoyment of them is by the power of the Spirit. I have thought of it that faith is like going into a dark room and someone turns the light on and you see what is in the room. The gift of faith is like that, you know the room is there and you know things are there, but you do not know what is there, you have no real grasp of them. God gives the gift of faith and there comes a point when the whole matter becomes “the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11: 1), and faith begins to give you an entrance.
Then you begin to realise that in the gospel God is presenting His beloved Son to you and faith operates in you, God having operated initially through new birth. Through the gospel, as you hear and ponder it, you realise that the work of Christ means something essentially personal to you. God gives you faith then to believe in the precious work of His beloved Son, both in having glorified God, but that also He has done it for you. The whole matter therefore becomes personal and that is what I want to come to. I want to come to the very personal and distinctive nature of the gift of the Spirit to you.
So you come to it in the gospel that God has given you life and a belief in His beloved Son. Through repentance you have been brought to the blessing of forgiveness of sins and you know that your history, past, present and anything you do in your life while left down here, in the sight of God is met by the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanses us from all sin and from all unrighteousness. But you can only be included in that if you believe it. It is not an all embracive statement.
The epistles particularly are written to believers. I think we need to remember when reading the epistles that they are written to believers. Therefore the writer in writing to them can use the terms ‘us’ and ‘our’, and expressions like that as knowing who he was speaking to. What a wonderful matter it is that God has been prepared to give you forgiveness of sins. And then God also gives you faith to believe that Christ is out of death and you believe in the resurrection of Christ. I trust everyone here is a believer in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful matter it is and a privilege of speaking in a hall that is almost filled of people who believe that Christ is out of death, and that Jesus Christ’s blood has been shed so that our sinful history is met for time and for eternity. The enemy can never shake this because it is a God-given gift—faith in the resurrection; and then in Acts 9, belief that Jesus is the centre of another world altogether. God has extended the gift of faith and light from God becomes operational in the soul so that means that it is formed and functions and develops and we make progress.
I want now to come to the gift of the Holy Spirit of God. To help in understanding the truth it is a great matter to grasp clearly that there is a Man in heaven and God is here in the Spirit. As you receive the gospel, you soon become exercised because God is the giver of the Holy Spirit of God as described here in this verse, a unique, particular, descriptive summary of the glorious Person whom we sang to in our hymn, owning His deity and appreciating His service. The revelation of God in this dispensation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is not a one, two, three in seniority, but a glorious revelation of God with each Person taking their particular operational activity in the functioning of the Godhead. A precious matter for us is that one divine Person became Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and came into a condition in which He could bear the guilt. As another has said, He came to pay a debt He did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay. How that magnifies the grace of Jesus. So I trust everyone here believes in the Lord Jesus as Saviour, and has some appreciation of the light of Christ as the centre of another world. He is not the centre of this world. Men have rejected Him. Our Saviour and Lord is now enthroned in glory, and following His exaltation into glory, after a precious period of ten days about which little is spoken or read or ministered, the Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost and sat upon each one of the one hundred and twenty. So the gift of the Holy Spirit of God is personal to the believer. Why has God given you the Spirit? Have you ever contemplated that? Another has said in the truth that God has more to do in us than by us. God has given His Son for us, a wonderful matter, but He has also given His Spirit to us. Therefore the indwelling Spirit of God in a believer is a very, very precious asset. Through life you will be brought to the point that the greatest Friend you have on earth in spiritual things is the Holy Spirit of God.
We often say, and it is right to say it, that we have been in fellowship for fifty years or for ten years or whatever, but now I put the question another way. How long would you say you have had the Spirit of God? Have you ever paused to consider how long? Then the next question is, how much way has the Spirit of God had in your life to form the blessed fruits that I will finish off with in the address, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness”. Think of all these things being brought through. So the appeal is, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”.
I want now to draw from these three examples of persons that I believe did not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Mr. James Taylor refers in one reading to the richness of scripture in Genesis 24. What does this mean? You can look into the Old Testament and find wonderful examples of men who bring out certain features of the Lord Jesus Christ in manhood. You may wonder about people like Isaac, Joseph, David, Moses to see and understand the glories of Jesus as brought out by the richness of scripture. What value is in the Scripture, and what value in the Bible readings of the saints, when the Bibles are opened and the Scriptures are being enquired into to bring out the blessed features of that blessed Man. But there are also some very fine feminine features. There is a fine series of readings by Mr. James Taylor on types of the assembly drawing from the various types of women in the early part of the books of Moses, and one of them is Rebecca.
I think there is some point in your history when there is a distinctive intervention of God by the Spirit to prompt you in relation to divine things. Rebecca shows this. You can view Rebecca as a young person brought up in a preserved environment. Abraham longed to have a wife of the right lineage and quality for his son, Isaac, to whom he gave everything, and the mission is given to the servant, the eldest of his house, to take on this mission. If we bring that into New Testament language it all portrays and looks on to the Spirit’s mission. In coming from a glorified Christ, the Spirit indwells souls such as Rebecca speaks of, and such as each one of us. God has operated and preserved us to the point in our lives when we become amenable and usable, and then we grow in grace under the hand of the Holy Spirit of God with the end result being presentation to Christ. As we had in the reading, if ever there was a waterer, Rebecca was one. The first evidence you get of Rebecca’s activity in Genesis 24 was the watering service. The unselfish way she was prepared to water and provide drink for the camels, affected the Spirit looking on in type and He was astonished. Has any one of us done anything in our early Christian life that could cause divine Persons to be astonished? perhaps by the display of unselfish caring and devout interest in the things of God?
The camels represent the resource of God in view of the journey, and Rebecca sees the need and she comes forward. I would encourage younger brothers and sisters, if you see a practical need like this, come forward and demonstrate it. The Holy Spirit is ready to take real strong leadership through promptings within your life and mine, and Rebecca brings that forward beautifully. Where I read in verse 22 the servant establishes clearly that something is happening in relation to Rebecca. The camels have drunk enough and the servant takes “a gold ring, of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands, ten shekels weight of gold, and said, Whose daughter art thou?”. This is like the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Have we touched the love of God, demonstrated in God’s love for us in Christ, but more than that now, the Holy Spirit of God given that the love of God would be shed abroad in our heart? He has given a tangible expression of His committal to us.
Then the servant asks the question which is as relevant today as it was then, “Is there room …?”. Is there room in your life for the Holy Spirit? You say I have had the experience of knowing the Holy Spirit for twenty years, or fifty years; the question is still applicable, “Is there room ...?”. The Holy Spirit will not command, but will take the place that you give Him. So Rebecca shines bit by bit through the whole chapter. In verse 33 the servant says, “I have made known my business”.
Think of each one of us as having received the Spirit of God, that the Spirit has a mission in relation to each one. This is not a general truth, but a specific truth, that the Spirit has a mission in relation to each believer.
Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit, but desire to give Him a greater place than we have ever done so that He becomes the single source of power, of life, of character, of leading in our lives. We are walking in the Spirit according to Galatians, sowing to the Spirit, and praying in the Holy Spirit as normal evidences of spiritual life. All this reflects the Holy Spirit having the prime and influential place in our lives. Then the test comes for the Spirit says, “Send me away to my master”, the power to leave what is natural, the power to overcome what is social. Mr C. A. Coates says, in relation to Rebecca, that she represents the potential, but then it is the Holy Spirit that puts that potential into movement and into life. Have we a love for Christ? Have we some view of the day of presentation? Have we a view of what is before us as believers by way of our future and our presentation to Christ? The Holy Spirit has a clear mission in relation to us to make the things here less appealing, and the things there more appealing, because of the Person who is there. The Holy Spirit will confirm our attachment to a glorified Christ. Our place is not here, but there. As Mr Stoney’s hymn says,
‘Hark! Happy saints! Loud lift your voice,
Tell to the world how we rejoice—
Yon heaven is our home.
There lives our Head with glory crowned;
And we as for His kingdom bound,
All cry—Lord Jesus, come!’ (Hymn 7)
This is all the motion of the Holy Spirit in you as a believer. Alongside of that by way of warning is the commercial and the public religious system which aims to stifle such promptings; let us all overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray for each other so that the saints prove the blessing and service of the Holy Spirit of God, and prove victory in relation to a heavenward outlook because Christ is there, and we are soon going to be there. So Rebecca is ready to leave her home, she is going to where Isaac is and the servant is going to take her there. Up to this point she had never seen him. Like us, as Peter says to the Jews, “whom, having not seen, ye love”, 1 Peter 1: 8. Do we converse with the Holy Spirit? Do we meditate? Do we ponder? Is the Holy Spirit making Christ glorified more attractive to you? Is the coming of the Lord Jesus at the rapture, and the presentation of the assembly then to Christ becoming more and more precious? Rebecca takes the veil and covers herself, she is exclusively for Isaac. She springs off the camel, and she takes her place as the chapter finishes when Isaac “took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her”. That is the culmination of a glorious journey, and will be the culmination for you and me at the moment of the rapture.
I pass on to Luke 10, and I want to refer to Mary and what she represents, which is likewise one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. She is sitting restfully at the feet of Jesus listening to his word. This is not impossible in this commercially focused restless world. You say, I cannot even spare five minutes, never mind make time for this. I would appeal that we all take time to sit down and meditate upon the Lord Jesus and upon the things of Jesus Christ, and to seek the help of the Holy Spirit that we may prove something of the headship of Christ, and learn more of the things of Jesus Christ. Make time and take time. Time is under our own control; let us manage our time more. Actually we need to find and prove the Holy Spirit’s leading in the wilderness and that time is needed to meditate and ponder. Included in all of this, would be the preservation of the Lord’s day for the Lord Jesus and His things. The Lord loved this moment when Mary sat at His feet. He was in Bethany, and had come into the house of Martha. The Lord says Mary had chosen the good part.
That is what every one of us should desire to do, that is to choose the good part. In this, we should prove the service of the Holy Spirit to occupy our mind and our affections, so that we bear fruit and grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and the things of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit would bring this experience of sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His word closer to us.
I was thinking this morning about a very practical test. If I was to go round this room and ask, Did everyone pick up a newspaper today? then probably the answer would be, Yes. If I was then to ask, Did everyone in this room pick up the Scriptures? would it still be, Yes? If I was to ask, Did everyone pray? Did everyone pick up a little bit of ministry either at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day? would the answer still be, Yes? Did we spend any time at all on these activities, or are we totally overtaken by the pace of life? Let us desire to sow to the Holy Spirit in order that we may grow spiritually, and that we may give more time and place to the Spirit. Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. There is a touch of divine jealousy in the way Luke puts it so beautifully, that Mary chose the good part. We all need to spend a lot more time on divine things. There is nothing finer to listen to than the words of Christ. In this way, we will grow in the knowledge of God, and further the Spirit’s mission to develop the features that will fit us for another day and another world.
Now to refer to Achsah because she brings out the feature of urging. There comes a point here when Caleb says to Achsah, What do you want? and Achsah says, “Give me a blessing”. Perhaps a word may come to us today through God speaking in His word, saying like Caleb, “What wouldest thou?”. Would this be your answer? If we give place to the Holy Spirit, our answer will surely be, “Give me a blessing”. Give me a spiritual blessing, give me more in relation to these great and glorious matters. And so he gave her the land, but then she says, “thou hast given me a southern land; give me also springs of water’. The feature of urging came through in Achsah. Urging is the prompting, leading service of the Holy Spirit that wants more of the springs of water. Water is the source, with the upper and nether springs describing the expression of life and refreshment in the enjoyment of the truth. The upper springs are linked with truth in Ephesians, including the great truth of the purpose of God. Have we the enjoyment of such truth as sonship, “taken us into favour in the Beloved”, and the inheritance? The lower springs refer to the truth of Romans and other more subjective inward exercises, and both are needed. The Holy Spirit helps us all in relation to the truths in the purpose of God, but also in the working out of the truth subjectively in our lives. “Give me also”, is a desire that has the Holy Spirit as its source.
So to close, Galatians 5 describes the fruit of the Spirit as “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control”. Now I would like to ask two questions. If we go and sit down in our local meeting, or we consider this quietly at home, are these nine features in evidence? Are these features developing in growing in all our companies? The second question is, if our local brethren look at each one of us, are these nine features developing? These are the fruits of the service of the Holy Spirit that are wrought out in believers such as we are, and every one of these nine features should characterise us all more.
The answer to so much is in the demonstration of these nine fruits of the Holy Spirit of God. It is an untiring and blessed service, with a glorious culmination. May every one of us appreciate more the personal nature of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Soon the most glorious dispensation that has ever been, and is described as the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, will be complete and the Spirit and the bride will say, Come. Let us all be thankful, that in His sovereignty, God has included us in this time as we have been blest by the gospel and have received the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. May every one here be sure that they have the Holy Spirit of God. The day will fully declare the quality of the result. It is a wonderful gift that has come from God Himself revealed in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Address at Dundee
8 March 2008