THE SPIRIT AS LIFE AND POWER IN THE CHRISTIAN.
[p. 290] THE SPIRIT AS LIFE AND POWER IN THE CHRISTIAN.
Ques Do you connect “Receive the Holy Spirit” in John 20 with Romans 8?
FER I think so.
Ques Did they then and there receive the Holy Spirit?
FER I suppose so.
Ques What about the day of Pentecost, and “Do ye remain in the city”?
FER I do not think they got the power for testimony.
Rem They received the Spirit then as the Spirit of life.
Ques Do you mean what we get in Luke 24: 49?
FER No, that refers to what was yet to come. Christ must go to the Father in order to send the promise of the Father, and then they would be endued with power from on high.
Ques What is the lesson for us in “Receive the Holy Spirit”?
FER I think the force of it is the purpose of Christ to bring us into association with Himself. Association must depend upon the Holy Spirit. “Go to my brethren”.
Ques Was receiving the Holy Spirit there in the sense of receiving life from the risen Lord as distinct from power?
FER Yes.
Ques Is there any analogy between that and Genesis 2, where God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul?
FER I think so.
Rem The breathing was in connection with resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit in [p. 291] connection with ascension. We have the accomplished fact, the Holy Spirit has come now both for life and power.
Ques Is not “breathed into them” distinct from what follows? Is there not a difference?
FER No, the one results from the other.
Ques Is it a presentation of Christ as the last Adam, the quickening Spirit?
FER Yes, the Lord takes His place as the last Adam.
Ques Is there not something in the omission of the article — “Receive [the] Holy Spirit”?
FER I always thought it was the Holy Spirit, the same as in Acts 2.
Ques In John 10 we have, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”. Do you get it “abundantly” in John 20?
FER Something seems to be needed to make them capable of entering into it, and He fits them for it.
Ques You spoke just now of life in association with Christ.
FER I connected in my own mind John 20 with John 4. It was the water springing up in John 20, the fulfilment of John 4.
Rem It did not spring up then.
FER How do you know that? I do not doubt it sprang up from that moment. “Continually in the temple, praising and blessing God” — it was springing up then. That was before Pentecost — it was life in the Holy Spirit springing up in worship. The point in John 20 is what Christ said and did, and not what they did. You cannot imagine the Spirit as quiescent. He is going to carry us up to the level of Christ.
Ques Is it right to say that in John 20 it is the Spirit of another [p. 292] Man?
FER Yes — the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the Father. It is all one Spirit, but in very different connections.
Ques Could we have life except in the Spirit?
FER No one can know the Spirit of life (sonship) until they know the Spirit of God. The great thought is that the Spirit of God is presented objectively, while the Spirit of Christ is presented subjectively. What people need to apprehend is the Spirit of God. God has taken His place here by the presence of the Spirit, who sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts. The Spirit of God is the seal on the believer.
Rem What is of God is brought in and man set aside.
FER Objectively God is here. We should be suited to the presence of God. That is the idea people have in taking off their hats on entering a church or meeting-room; there is a sense of being in the presence of One who is there.
Ques When you say God is here, is it in the church?
FER Yes.
Rem “There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all”.
FER Romans 8 is in contrast with chapter 5. The one gives the state of believers, the other is subjective. In chapter 8 you get the indwelling of the believer rather than of the church. Both are true and collateral. 1 Corinthians gives us the Spirit both objectively and subjectively.
Ques What scripture is there for ‘subjectively’?
FER “Baptized into one body”. The “Spirit of God” refers to the individual. He is the seal on the individual; He sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts; but when you come to the “Spirit of Christ”, or “of God’s Son”, it brings before us the thought of life, eternal life, and the body.
Ques Did you say that the “Spirit of God” was objective, and the “Spirit of Christ” was subjective?
FER Yes, it is presented in that connection. The “Spirit of God” brings God in morally.
Rem The soul is to be alive to the fact that God is here.
FER Yes, that is the point, God is here. The Spirit has come to make known the things of God.
Ques When you believe, do you receive the Spirit of God?
FER When there is faith in God, the Spirit of God is given. Every one who believes in God has the Spirit. That involves the acceptance of God’s testimony. Man must accept God’s testimony, and bow to His righteousness.
Rem In Acts 10 Peter says, “To him all the prophets bear witness that every one that believes on him will receive through his name remission of sins”.,
FER It does not say “shall receive the Holy Spirit”, but “remission of sins”; and while Peter was speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon them. What was presented was the reception of forgiveness. In the eye of God they received forgiveness, but they had no consciousness of it till they had the Holy Spirit. The testimony of God is the resurrection of Christ; man accepts that testimony, and he is subdued by the righteousness of God.
Ques In Acts 10 what is the point — “The word which he sent ... preaching peace by Jesus Christ”?
FER God sent it. There was a different idea of Christ from God in their minds.
Rem The “Spirit of Christ” is connected with the thought of a risen Man before God.
FER Quite so. The Spirit of God makes Him known. What is needed is that we should bring home to people the presence of God and how it subdues the man who believes it. “The kingdom of [p. 294] God is ... righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”.
Now in the first verse of chapter 8 we are under the control of the Spirit, and not under the law; the governing principle is the Spirit.
Rem I do not think people believe that the first man is removed.
Rem And that the Spirit is here to bring in God, and now there is another Man before God.
Ques Where in Romans do you get the removal of the first man?
FER In chapter 3, not in 5, though the latter is based upon 3. He has quite disappeared in 8. God is brought in, and Christ; there is no condemnation.
Ques How came the last clause of verse 1, because it raises so serious a condition?
Rem There was a marginal note in the MSS. of the early centuries, and this slipped into the text.
FER The presence of the Spirit of God is what people need to realise. You never get the subjective side if you do not get the objective.
Ques How would you present the truth?
FER All Christianity hangs on it; God is dwelling here. The great idea connected with the Spirit of God is that He has brought God in.
Ques When you say that the Spirit of God is present, that God is present, is it not in the way of testifying that God has approached man in Christ?
FER If you recognise His presence, it is that which gives character to His house.
Ques As to testimony, is it not governed by the words. “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him nor know him”? (John 14: 17.)
FER Quite so; hence of necessity you must have God’s house as the medium of God’s approach [p. 295] to man. What characterises the house is that it is where God dwells.
Ques What is the relation of the assembly to the world? Has the assembly any responsibility towards the world?
FER The assembly is the pillar and base of the truth, and it has a good deal to say about the truth of the gospel. One great object of God’s house being here is that God may approach man. 1 Timothy brings that out. See how it tells, in chapter 2, how men will be lifting up holy hands in prayer, women will be adorned in modest apparel, all suited to the presence of God. God is approaching man, and He will have all men to be saved.
All active testimony is governed by that which is passive; there cannot be the one without the other.
Rem You get really into the presence of God in the assembly. It is a great thing to present God to the soul. The servants of the Lord ought to have the house of God before them, the building of it up.
Rem And the unsaved too.
Rem Yes, but put God first and the other will follow. The dwelling of God goes on into eternity, so that must be the principal thing. It is the great end in view that God will tabernacle with men — there is the rest of God which remaineth. Jews and gentiles are builded together. What we have to do is to bring them into the sense of being builded (i.e., those professedly christian, not the heathen) in order to bring them into the reality of christianity.
FER The evangelist is not happy if he has not the idea of fellowship. There is a great deal more in fellowship than people think. Social life is all very well, but fellowship comes before social life.
Rem It is fellowship with the Spirit.
FER Yes.
Ques Does conversion bring man into the house?
FER The reception of the [p. 296] Spirit does.
Ques In what way does it “grow”?
FER I cannot tell you. The passage says it does grow. We want more confidence in God’s work.
Ques Would you keep His mind before men, and not tell of His love?
FER That is His love. In Matthew 13 the net cast into the sea is a parable of the kingdom.
Ques Is not that outward work?
FER No, God is taking care of it. The New Translation gives the idea. The net has been cast into the sea, and it has gathered of every kind.
Rem The apostles were to go into all the world.
FER Yes, to preach the gospel, that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in His name.
Rem That goes on still.
FER Of course it does. The work of the evangelist all tends to this end, that men shall be brought into God’s house.
Rem You emphasize the distinction between God’s own work and God’s work by man.
Rem The presence of God must mean that God is active.
FER Yes, the blessed God sees fit to dwell, and there is supreme blessing in His house if God dwells. You may not get all the blessing, but it is there. The house was not formed by any labour of man; it was formed by Christ Himself, and the Holy Spirit came to the company which Christ had gathered together. Jew and gentile were builded together.
Ques What is the building of 1 Peter 2?
FER The work of God going on in people. We are very slow in coming to the truth of God.
In christendom, at the present day, if a man is not a christian, he is an apostate, be has sold his birthright, i.e., christianity. God still works, and will work, but the present day is tending to apostasy.
[p. 297] It is of profound importance that God’s house is here, and that God is dwelling. If it were realised more, it would have an immense effect on all the details of conduct.
To make God known to men is the true work of the evangelist — that is the end and purpose of his whole service.
Ques Where does the responsibility lie?
FER In a way, the whole assembly is responsible to God. That is where the special character of the house of God comes in. Then there is the responsibility of gift.
Rem You speak of gift, I have a great idea of grace.
FER But no really gifted man would ever be a copy of another.
Rem But there is a danger of making too much of gift, and not enough of hanging upon God.
FER Leave gift to itself, and make much of the house of God. The evangelist, if he has right thoughts of God’s mind, would have the sense in his own soul of the need of fellowship, and the house of God is where he will find it.