SEPTEMBER 19TH, 1940

SEPTEMBER 19TH, 1940

DEAR BROTHER IN THE LORD, — Your letter of the 12th inst. duly reached me, and I am glad to send you a few lines in reply. I am thankful to know that you are reading the books which you mention, as I feel sure you will find them helpful, and as you increase in the knowledge of God you will get light on all the matters which you are exercised about.

I had not previously seen the remarks which you have copied for me, and I have read them carefully; I trust I am willing to receive help from anyone who has light from God. But I believe that the Lord’s words in John 13: 16 are universally true. If there are any exceptions it should be easy to produce from Scripture at least one clear example. The ^[p. 283] Holy Spirit being sent cannot be regarded as an exception unless it can be made evident that it is one.

It is manifest that as “sent” the Son had a mission to carry out; He was in the position of doing the will of Another. He said Himself, “For I am come down from heaven, not that I should do my will, but the will of him that has sent me”, John 6: 38. This does not imply any inequality between Him and the Father in the Godhead, but it does assert that as come down from heaven He took a relative position in which He did not do His own will but that of the Father. Jesus is God, but obedience is not a proof of His Deity, but of His perfection as Man. It may be said that His own will could not be otherwise than right, but this does not alter the fact that if He had done His own will it would have been to give up the whole principle on which He lived as Man. No believer needs to be reminded that at a most solemn hour He said, “But not as I will, but as thou wilt”. It is as Man that He is seen to be the sent One of God the Father. So John can say, “And we have seen, and testify, that the Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world”, 1 John 4: 14.

Mr. — says that to speak of “sent” in this way is to deny “absolute equality to God the Holy Spirit, for He was ‘sent’”. He asks, “In what way, then, was the Holy Spirit ‘sent’ and ‘given’?” The answer is very simple. He was sent by the Father and by the Son as glorified to take a special place with and in the saints which was, and is, quite distinct from the place which He has as in absolute Deity. If this is not maintained as the truth, the place which the Holy Spirit holds in the present divine economy will not be understood. I hold, through grace, that the Holy Spirit is God in the most absolute sense. But I also see that He has come into a special place, and is carrying on a special service, as sent by the Father and the Son, and that this special place and service of the Holy Spirit gives character to the economy in which God is known today. The Holy Spirit is God, and He has part in all that belongs to Godhead, including omniscience and omnipresence. But as sent by the Father and the Son His activities are limited to those to whom He has been sent. He indwells the saints, and is known to them as the Comforter, the Spirit of truth; He announces to them certain things which He has heard and received. The fact that the Holy Spirit hears and receives before He announces shows that, as thus spoken of, He has ^[p. 284] a place in the divine economy which corresponds with the place which the Son has taken in that economy. Not that the Holy Spirit has become incarnate, but as indwelling the saints He operates in a special way to do what He was sent to do, and which is clearly set forth in the scriptures which speak of it. There is a speciality about the present service of the Spirit which we shall not clearly apprehend if we do not distinguish it from those universal activities which pertain to Him as a co-equal Person in the Godhead. His place in the Godhead remains unchanged and unchangeable eternally, but as “sent” He has come into a place in which He was not before, nor could be until redemption had been accomplished and Jesus glorified. His position, and the service which He renders in that position, are entirely new to Him, and they belong to the present economy in which the Father and the Son are viewed as sending, and the Holy Spirit is seen as “sent” for certain specific purposes which do not cover all that He is as a Person in the Godhead. Both the Son and the Spirit when viewed as “sent” have a particular sphere of service to fill, but each of Them has also His own place in eternal Deity. What belongs to divine Persons in Themselves is one thing; the place which Two of Them have come into as “sent” is another. The latter belongs to the present divine economy. One of the co-equal divine Persons has become Man; Another of Them has come to dwell in the saints. All this is infinitely profound and blessed, but it is the plain and simple truth as stated in the Holy Scriptures.

What the Holy Spirit does as “sent” is confined to the circle of the saints, and it moves on the lines indicated by the Lord’s words and by other scriptures. But I do not suppose that any intelligent believer would say or think that there is no action of the Spirit, as One of the Persons in the Godhead, outside the circle to which He has come as “sent”. He acts in His own sovereign divine power universally, but as “sent” by the Father and the Son He acts in a particular and limited sphere, and on certain lines which Scripture presents in a very definite way. The Spirit has a place in the divine economy which is special and for particular objects, but which does not cover all that He is and does as a divine Person in the Godhead.

With reference to Hebrews 2, it is clearly to be seen that the writer tells us that he is speaking of “the habitable world which is to come”. He is not thinking of Adam in innocence,

but of the Son of man. “The son of man” in Psalm 8 is, literally, “the son of Adam”, and it is certain that Adam could not be the Son of man. It is the Son of man of whom certain things are predicated in Hebrews 2: 7 which will be fulfilled in the world to come. In the meantime “we see Jesus, who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour”. The Spirit of God has used these words, and they leave no doubt that Jesus was found as in manhood in a position of relative inferiority, though never ceasing to be, as to His own Person, all that is said of Him in Hebrews 1.

I do not think I need add more. I trust you may be definitely helped of God in the apprehension of His holy things.

Yours affectionately in the Lord,

September 19th, 1940.