THE SERVICE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
S. McCallum
John 14: 15–17; 16: 13, 14; Romans 8: 15, 16; 1 John 5: 6–9 (1st sentence)
You will observe the references to the Holy Spirit in these passages, and it is of Him that I desire to speak. I believe the recognition of the Spirit is of the greatest moment at the present time. You may perhaps have heard me say before that the last words I heard from the lips of Mr. Taylor in this area, Plainfield, were when he said that ‘The greatest Friend we have in heaven is Jesus, and the greatest Friend we have on earth is the Holy Spirit’. I never forgot that statement! It is a wonderful thing to reach that conclusion in a world where so much has to be faced, that we have One, not incarnate as Jesus was when He was here, but a divine Person, and that He is our greatest Friend here in this world, here on earth.
It is important that we should be searched as to our knowledge of the Spirit. In John 14 the Lord is leaving His disciples here. He is going out of the world, and He speaks much to them about the Spirit. He says, “I will beg the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth”. The Holy Spirit is thus referred to as One who is with us for ever. Friends may go, friends may come, but when the Spirit comes, He remains with us for ever. It is a very touching thought. He is a divine Person who can be spoken to, referred to, and inquired of in regard to all our problems and all our current needs.
You know, when you get old, as some of us have gotten, it is very comforting to hear young brothers pray for you as an aged one. It is a wonderful thing to reach old age as David speaks of it, fresh and still interested. You may be forgetful sometimes and cannot remember names as you used to, but one of the comforts that I have, and I am sure the rest of the older ones would have, is the presence of the Holy Spirit within me. It is a wonderful thing because problems arise and this word Comforter has to do with matters that arise in this world. The Comforter (or Paraclete) is One who takes charge of our affairs. When Jesus was here with His disciples He took charge of their affairs. When they were criticized He took the matter up and dealt with it conclusively. When they passed through the cornfields and rubbed the ears of corn, the Pharisees were very critical of them and spoke against them. But the One who took up their case was the Lord. He answered the Pharisees and took charge of that affair.
The Spirit has come now. The Lord is not here; He is on high. But the Spirit has come and taken up His place. He is the other Comforter that the Lord refers to.
The younger brethren may not be like us older ones who are failing in our memories. You may be sharp in your memories and the like, but do not forget the Holy Spirit. Learn to relate yourself to the Spirit. Learn to speak to the Spirit. There are a lot of things you may do and may go on with (and I am not going to say too much about it), which may not have the approval of the Spirit. And that is a very important matter. Has this thing I am going on with the approval of the Spirit? Do the places I go to have the approval of the Spirit? Would the Spirit be free with me in the places that I go to? It is a great thing to have a friendship with the Spirit that will comfort and strengthen you in a difficult circumstance or a difficult hour. The Lord says of Him “whom the world cannot receive”. It is an impossibility for the world to receive the Spirit. It is a reference to the world morally. The Spirit is against all that constitutes the world morally. He says, “Because it does not see him nor know him; but ye know him, for he abides with you, and shall be in you”. Is it not a wonderful thing to think that there are persons here who have the Spirit of God indwelling them? And they know Him, they talk with Him, and they are able to commune with Him in regard to all their matters and their problems. I think it is the most wonderful thing to think of.
Now that the Lord has died out of this world and gone on high, what He did, before He went on high, the Spirit maintains here. For instance, the Lord said, “For judgment am I come into this world” (John 9: 39); “Now is the judgment of this world”, John 12: 31. You will find in the second passage we have read that, the Spirit having come. He maintains what the Lord said on the eve of leaving this world. The Lord condemned the world judicially. Now that is the world morally. It is not exactly the world as to persons creatorially. The Lord judged morally every principle of the world. Therefore, we should be like the Lord, judging every feature of the world morally. We cannot go on with what He could not go on with. According to John 16, as the Spirit comes, He maintains that, and He maintains it in us, because the great fact of the Spirit’s presence is in answer to an issue that God has raised, that He is not going on with the world morally.
So if I go on with something that is not morally in keeping with God and His mind, it means that I am not going on with what the Spirit is pleased with. Therefore, there is a great need of acquaintance with the Spirit. Have you ever talked with Him quietly? Have you communed with Him? Have you ever said, ‘Spirit of God, Thou knowest that I love the Lord; I want to love Him more. Thou knowest that I do not want to go on with the world. Help me to overcome the world’? Overcoming is one of the great features that is linked with the presence of the Spirit of God in keeping us free from the world and its wickedness and all that constitutes it morally.
I read that passage in John 16—“When he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth”. We have this guarantee of the maintenance of the truth, related to the presence of the Spirit here. There has been a lot of difficulty as to the truth, but many of these difficulties arise from the fact that the Spirit of God is not made way for in us as He should be. It says, “He shall not speak from himself; but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak”. It is a wonderful thing that we have a first-hand knowledge of what conversation goes on between the holy Persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Lord says, “He shall glorify me”. That is one thing that the Spirit will always do. He will glorify Christ. He will make Him more glorious than ever in our affections as we commune with Him.
I read the passage in Romans 8 to show one of the great features of the blessing that is linked with the presence of the Spirit, and that is His witness that we belong to the family of God. It says, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God”. What a wonderful thing it is that in this world there are persons who belong to the family of God They are born of God, not born of blood or flesh, but born of God. That is, I can look on persons in this room who actually have their origin morally and spiritually from God. They are born of God, just as in the natural family you partake of the features of your father and your mother. It is not now a question of how many chromosomes you have. That is not the case with the spiritual family. You are born of God. You have a nature that is morally of God and like God. So it is not difficult to love your brethren. It is easy to love your brethren if you understand that you are born of God and that you are morally of Him. There is a generation in this world that is of God.
What a contrast to the crime, the lawlessness—to all that obtains in the world! Over against that generation “whose teeth are … knives” (Proverbs 30: 14), there are persons who love God, and they love men, in the light of the gospel, as God does, and long for men to be saved.
They do not want any to perish, but to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. And they love their brethren. It is a wonderful thing in your locality to love your brethren, to be morally like God, so that the spirit of forgiveness flows through you. You are like God, for that is what God does. He forgives! The Spirit is referred to in Hebrews 10: 15 as bearing witness to our forgiveness. It is a great thing to let the spirit of forgiveness flow through every one of us, so that we do not hold things in a vicious way, or a jealous way, or an envious way against one another. The spirit of forgiveness is the spirit of the kingdom; “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”, Romans 14: 17. The Spirit helps us in regard to forgiveness. This passage in Romans 8 brings out the attractiveness of the fact that we belong to the family of God, and the Spirit is witnessing to it. You do not have the Witness on a piece of paper, or a certificate; we have the living witness in a divine Person, one of the Deity, who is present in us and with us, speaking to us all the time of Christ, and all the time of God. How wonderful the presence of the Spirit is, and how wonderful that we belong to the most dignified family that ever will be manifested in the universe of God. The present family, formed by God in the assembly, is composed of persons who have the Spirit dwelling in them. Let us all make sure we have the Spirit. It is a wonderful thing to have the Spirit as obeying God.
I read the passage in 1 John 5 to show the importance of the Spirit’s presence as the current witness to the water and the blood. The effectiveness of the work of Christ is that we have been cleared of all that was against us. It has been taken out of the way. It says, It is the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is the truth. For they that bear witness are three—the Spirit, and the water, and the blood”! What a fine statement that is, “the Spirit, and the water, and the blood”! The water and the blood are historical. They flowed at Calvary. But the Spirit is not historical. The witness of the Spirit is current. It is present all the time. He is witnessing to us the fulness of what has happened through redemption in the water and the blood. The blood has cleansed me completely in regard to my guilt, and the water as to what pertains to me naturally.
If we realized the witness of the Spirit as to the water we would not go on with the things of the world. People ask, ‘Why do you not go to the theatre? Why do you not have television?
Why do you not have the radio?’ The answer is that I am born of water. A person who understands that he is born of water will never have part in these things, because they do not belong to what he is as born of water. “Born of the Spirit”, in John 3, means that I am related to, and in affinity with, all that is spiritual, but “born of water” means that I have finished with all that I once went on with. I used to go to the cinema three times a week, with every change of films. But when I was converted at the age of seventeen I never went back any more. Why was that? I was born of water. You see, born of water means that, negatively, you are through with everything that constitutes the world morally. While you love persons in view of the gospel—“God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son” (John 3: 16)—morally you cannot go on with what is contrary to all that God is in His holiness, and contrary to what He wants us to be in correspondence with Him—which the Spirit is the power to fill out and answer to. It says, “The Spirit is the truth. For they that bear witness are three—the Spirit, and the water, and the blood …”. As I have said, the water and the blood are historical; it was what was shed for you and for me at Calvary, shed for sinners. What a wonderful act of love that was when, the Roman spear having pierced the side of Jesus, forthwith there came out blood and water, as John the evangelist says. Think of the wonderful, effective clearance we have had. Nothing can be raised against us that the blood and the water have had to say to. The Spirit is the witness; He is the current witness. He is the present power of testimony in my soul that these things have been effected.
Well, may God help us, dear brethren, to be conscious of the presence of the Spirit, to know the joy of His presence, and to know what communion with the Spirit is, day by day. Read the Scriptures with the help of the Spirit; read the ministry with the help of the Spirit, and let us enjoy our relations with one another in the power of the Spirit. May God help us to do so, for His name’s sake.
Address at Plainfield, New Jersey
25 January 1975