The Holy Spirit Part 23

This is true of the sinner. There is a moment when he must decide or perish. The Holy Spirit's message to him is always, "Today, while it is called today," for it may not be all the day; it may be a golden moment on which eternity hangs, "Today, while it is called today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

It is also His message to the disciple, for each of us comes up to the gates of the Land of Promise, to the point of a great decision, to the place for entire consecration, to the Jordan's bank where the Holy Ghost is waiting to descend upon us if we will dare to step down into the waters of death and self-dedication. And there comes a moment when there is no time to lose. It is NOW OR NEVER. Oh, if it is such a moment with any of us today, beloved, "while it is called today, harden not your hearts"!

Yes, and even after we have received the Holy Ghost there are crisis hours in consecrated lives. There are great doors of service offered; there are great openings for higher advances; there are sacrifices to be dared, advances to be made, promises to be claimed, victories to be won, achievements to be undertaken; but they will not wait for us. Like harvest time, they are pa.s.sing by, and the Holy Spirit's message to us is, "Redeeming the time because the days are evil."

It is not merely the time, it is the point of time, ton kairon, the very niche of time. We have not days for it, but only moments. The days are evil, the moment is golden; let us seize it while we may. G.o.d help us, beloved, to understand that message, and to let that blessed Guide and Friend lead us from victory to victory, and at last present us faultless in the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

V. THE HOLY GHOST IN RELATION TO THE BACKSLIDER.

There are two very solemn pa.s.sages in this epistle in relation to the backslider.

"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of G.o.d, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them to repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of G.o.d afresh, and put Him to an open shame," Chapter 6:4-6.

"Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of G.o.d, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" Chapter 10: 29.

Time and s.p.a.ce will not permit us to enter fully on the exposition of these verses, but a few remarks may throw sufficient light upon them to prevent their being a stumbling-block to sincere and trembling hearts.

In the first place, it is quite certain from other Scriptures, that there is mercy and forgiveness for every sinner who is willing to accept the mercy of G.o.d through the Lord Jesus Christ. Again and again, the infinite mercy of G.o.d to the penitent sinner has been repeated and rea.s.serted, until no sincere penitent need ever doubt his welcome at the throne of grace. "All manner of sin and of blasphemy,"our Savior has said, "shall be forgiven unto men."

In the next place, the sin of the persons referred to here is no ordinary sin. It is not a mere fall, but it is "falling away," and falling away so utterly that the backslider wholly rejects the very blood of Christ through which he might be forgiven, and throws away the only sacrifice and hope of mercy. He crucifies to himself the Son of G.o.d afresh; he puts Him to an open shame; he tramples upon His blood, and he defies and does despite unto the Spirit of grace.

The difficulty of his salvation arises not from any limitation of G.o.d's mercy, but from the fact that he utterly rejects G.o.d's mercy, and the only way by which it could be manifested through the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the third place, the case supposed is not necessarily an actual case. It may be of the nature of a warning and a supposition, and the very warning is given in order to prevent it from becoming a fact. The mother cries to her child, "Come back from the edge of the precipice or you will be killed," but this does not imply that the child is to be killed. It is the very means by which it is saved from death. G.o.d's warnings are not prophecies, but they are His loving way of keeping back that which otherwise would happen. And so the apostle adds, "we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak."

Finally, in the Revised Version there is a little word of comfort and hope in the sixth verse. Instead of "seeing they crucify to themselves" the translation is, "so long as they crucify to themselves the Son of G.o.d afresh." It implies that in a certain spiritual condition they cannot be saved nor forgiven, but it also implies that so soon as they abandon that condition, and become penitent and accept the blood of Christ, the mercy of G.o.d is still free and full.

There is, therefore, no reason to infer from these very solemn warnings that any penitent soul need despair of being forgiven. At the same time, the warning is so solemn that we would not for one moment weaken its tremendous force. For we never can tell, when we begin to go back or even look back, where we are going to stop. That which seems but a trifling fall may become a "falling away," and may end in the rejection of Christ and the defiance of G.o.d. Our safety lies in heeding the solemn warning, "The just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe unto the saving of the soul."

The story is told of a man who advertised for a coachman. Among those who came were two who seemed to him to be particularly bright. He took them aside and asked them how near they could drive to the edge of a precipice without falling over. The first candidate answered that he could go within half an inch and had frequently done so, just shaving the edge and feeling perfectly safe. He then asked the other the same question. "Well, sir," replied the man modestly, "I really cannot tell, because I have never allowed myself to venture near the edge of a precipice. I have always made it a rule to keep as far as possible from danger, and I have had my reward in knowing that my master and his family were kept from danger and harm."

The master had no difficulty in deciding between the two candidates. "You are the man for me," he said, "the other may be very brilliant, but you are safe."

Ah, friends, let us not play with danger, trifle with sin, nor venture so close to the edge of the lake of fire that we may not be able to return! The Holy Ghost, as our loving, jealous Mother, is guarding us from harm by these very warnings. Like the Pilgrims in the Palace Beautiful, who went on their way saying, as they had looked at the wonderful visions of the palace, "These things make us both hope and fear," so, in a wise and holy fear as well as a bright and blessed hope, lies the balance of safety and the place of wisdom. Thus walking in His love and fear, may we be kept by the Holy Ghost until that glad hour when we, through the eternal Spirit, too, shall offer ourselves, without spot, to G.o.d.

Chapter 22.

G.o.d'S JEALOUS LOVE.

"The Spirit that dwelleth in us l.u.s.teth to envy." James 4: 5.

In the marginal reading of the Revised Version, we find this verse translated: "The Spirit that He hath made to dwell in us yearneth over us unto envy." A still more happy rendering is, "The Holy Spirit, that dwelleth in us, loveth us to jealousy."

This is a little gem in a ma.s.s of rocks, a little flower in a wilderness, a little bit of poetry and sacred sentiment embosomed in the great epistle of common sense. One would almost as readily expect to see a rose in a wilderness or a blossom on a glacier, as to find this exquisite little bit of sentiment in the epistle of the most practical of all the apostles.

For James has really struck the keynote of the entire system of revelation. This is the golden thread that runs through the whole Bible, from the bridal of Eve to the Marriage of the Lamb. The love life of the Lord --this is the romance of the Bible, and the golden chain of Revelation.

The story of Rebekah is a kind of idyl, setting forth the whole idea in her romantic wooing and wedding. Just as Abraham sent his trusted servant to bring a bride for Isaac, and just as old Eliezer faithfully discharged that trust, finding, wooing, and then bringing home the beautiful Rebekah, and at last presenting her to the arms of Isaac, waiting for her in the eventide; so the Holy Ghost has been sent by the Father to call from this sinful world a Bride for His beloved Son, and, having called her, to bring her home, to educate her, to robe her, and gradually to prepare her for her glorious meeting with her Lord, in that sublime event which is to be the consummation of the age --the Marriage of the lamb.

Now, the Holy Spirit is represented in this pa.s.sage as loving us to jealousy, and holding us sacredly to our blessed Bridegroom and Lord. In the context we read about the friends.h.i.+p of the world and the sin of adultery. The true reading of this pa.s.sage, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses," is simply, "ye adulteresses." It is wholly in the feminine gender. He is not speaking about the earthly marriage bond, but about the fidelity of the Bride of the Lamb to her heavenly Lord. The Church is represented throughout the Scriptures as a wife, and the sin of unfaithfulness to Christ as spiritual adultery. Therefore, it is the adulteress that is mentioned here, and she is asked in the most solemn manner, "Know ye not that the friends.h.i.+p of the world is enmity with G.o.d?

Whosoever, therefore, will be the friend of the world is the enemy of G.o.d."

Compromise with the world is unfaithfulness to Christ and adultery in His sight. It is in this connection that our text is introduced. "The Spirit that dwelleth in us loveth us to jealousy." He is constantly guarding our loyalty of heart and our single and unqualified devotion to Christ alone.

Now, the Spirit which is given to each of us is holding us true to Christ. He first wins and woos us to Christ and then holds us true to Him, and leads us on until we shall be prepared to meet Him at His glorious coming.

This figure could be much better understood in eastern countries and ancient times than now. Almost every Oriental marriage has a go-between, a friend of the bridegroom and the bride, who arranges the preliminaries, and brings the parties together, just as Eliezer brought Rebekah to Isaac. This is the high mission of the Holy Spirit, and in its discharge He is so true to Christ that the least spot upon our holy character, the least compromise in our allegiance and devotion awakens in His heart a holy jealousy. He has devoted Himself to bringing about our union with Jesus, and to fitting us for it in the highest possible measure.

This is the purpose of all His dealings with us, this is the meaning of all the discipline of our life, to call us to Christ, and then qualify us for our high calling, as the Bride of the Lamb.

I.

First, He seeks and finds us, and brings us to Jesus in conversion. He sees in us those qualities which G.o.d created for Himself, and which Satan is prost.i.tuting for our shame and ruin, and He sets His heart on winning us for our heavenly Lord.

This will explain the fact that must often have occurred to many of us, that G.o.d revealed Himself to us in mercy many a time before we knew Him as a Savior, and a Father, and answered many of our prayers when we really had no claim upon His promise. He was wooing us to His love. He was trying to make us understand that He was seeking us. He was presenting to us the jewels of Isaac that we might be drawn from the gifts to the Giver and led to listen to His overtures of grace. He was treating us in advance as His friends and His children. He was leaping over the intervening years of sin and unbelief, and antic.i.p.ating the hour when we should love Him, and weep with bitter sorrow that we did not sooner understand and accept His love to us.

O, beloved, He is calling some of you now! He is longing for you with a jealous love. You belong to Him by G.o.d's eternal purpose, you will some day love Him and live for Him with all your heart, and then you would give the world to be able to undo the years of your present sin and folly. Oh, let Him reach your hearts; let Him win your affections; let Him draw you to His bosom and make you His beloved!

II.

But secondly, even after we come to know Him as a Savior, He is pressing us forward to a deeper union and a closer fellows.h.i.+p. We have come to Him for refuge from judgment, and from guilt; we have accepted Him as a Deliverer from condemnation and from fear; we have fled for refuge, like the little bird pressed by the storm upon the deck of the pa.s.sing steamer; but He wants us closer; He wants us to put away our doubts and fears, and to enter into His confidence and fellows.h.i.+p. And so the Holy Ghost is loving us into the life of entire union with Jesus and unreserved consecration to Him.

Thousands of Christians know Him only as a shelter between them and their guilt and danger; He wants to take them into the innermost chambers of His heart and make them partakers of His deepest love. And so the Holy Spirit is wooing the children of G.o.d, and drawing them to the very bosom of Jesus. He is saying t o them "Hearken, Oh daughter, and consider, forget thy kindred and thy father's house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord, and wors.h.i.+p thou Him."

He wants us to turn away from every earthly idol, and give Him our whole heart, that He may give us His in return, and make us the partakers and the heirs of all His riches and His glory. This is what consecration means. This is what the baptism of the Holy Ghost is. In this His jealous love is calling some, even as they read these lines.

III.

But even when we thus yield ourselves to Christ in full consecration and receive Him by the Holy Ghost as an indwelling Savior and the Is.h.i.+ of our heart, we have only begun Rebekah's homeward journey, and the Holy Ghost, like Eleazar, has to lead us on through all the way, educating and preparing us for our meeting with our Lord.

And all through this life of discipline and experience, He is still loving us with a ceaseless and tireless devotion, and pressing us forward with jealous solicitude into G.o.d's highest and best will. And so He becomes our Sanctifier. He is preparing our wedding garments and fitting them to us, so that the King's daughter shall be "all-glorious within." "She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework." She shall be robed not only in garments white, but garments bright, the wedding robes of the Marriage of the Lamb.

When we receive Christ as our Sanctifier, there is a sense in which we are wholly sanctified from the beginning. We have accepted all the will of G.o.d, and G.o.d counts us fully obedient. Our will is utterly surrendered and His will is our unqualified choice. But oh, how much there is for us yet to learn, how much more light, how much more realization, how all these things have to be wrought into the very fibre of our being! As that young lady takes the pattern of embroidery that has been stamped in its minutest details upon the fabric, in one sense she has the whole pattern from the beginning. But now she goes to work with worsted, and silk, and threads of gold, and puts in many a st.i.tch, with patient, delicate needle. She works into that pattern every tint and color and costly material, until it is not only a stamped pattern on the canvas or the silk, but a beautifully inwrought figure with every tint of the rainbow, and with all the brilliant sheen of satin and silk, and silver and gold, and perhaps with precious pearls skillfully wrought into the glowing design. So the Holy Ghost stamps the image of Christ upon us from the beginning; He then goes to work to burn it in and work it in, until our clothing shall be of wrought gold and finest needlework. So He is loving us to jealousy in His deeper work of sanctifying grace, sensitive to every spot, guarding against every slip and failure, and aught that could mar the fullness and perfection of G.o.d's great purpose of grace within us.

Some day we shall thank Him for His love, when we stand with the glorious Bride of the Lamb, presented faultless before the presence of G.o.d with exceeding joy, while the wondering universe shall come to see the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, with robes more radiant than all the gems of earth and colors more glorious than a thousand rainbows or a thousand suns.

No thoughtful mind can fail to appreciate the importance and the reality of this deeper work of the Holy Ghost. It is one thing to have love, but it is another to have the love that suffereth long and is kind; that never faileth; that is not provoked. It is one thing to have patience, but it is another to "let patience have her perfect work that we may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." It is one thing to have forbearance and longsuffering, but it is another thing to be "strengthened with might unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness." It is one thing to have the things that are just and right, but it is another thing to have the "things that are lovely and of good report," not only the useful and the necessary, but the beautiful and the decorative qualities of Christian life. It is one thing to have the graces of the Holy Ghost in form; it is another to have them in maturity. It is one thing to have the grapes of June or July; it is quite another to have the mellow purple fruit of September or October, ripe and ready for the vintage.

We have seen the Holy Ghost thus leading on a soul, here adding a touch, there subtracting an excess, there deepening a line, there ripening and mellowing a quality. Silently, gradually, day by day and moment by moment, we have seen the picture growing more complete, more symmetrical, more deep, and full of strange indescribable expression, until at last we felt somehow that the work had been wrought into the depths of life, and that the soul was ripe and ready for the Master's coming.

IV.

Along with this work of sanctification, there is also a work of separation, and crucifixion. That anything may grow, something must die. He is separating us from the influences of the alien world, and the thousand forces that could distract or counteract His gracious purpose. It is here that His jealous love is most manifest. It is here that He has often to break our idols, and sever the cords that bind us, which would weaken our character, or hinder our highest growth. But the deeper and higher we are to grow, the narrower must our range of earthly sympathy become. And so He has not only to separate from sin, and from the unG.o.dly and unholy world, but to separate us from a thousand things that touch the life of self, and that enter in as hindrances between us and our Lord's highest purpose.

We may not see it ourselves, but He sees it, and He loves us too well to let it hurt us. It may be some dear friend; it may be some innocent and what we regard as an absolutely holy affection. But He may see that that love, or that friend is taking His place, and instead of becoming an attachment to the Head, it becomes a barrier between us and our living Head. Instead of a fruitbearing branch it becomes a parasite, drawing away our life, or a prop on which we lean instead of rooting more strongly in Him, and so He gently detaches us from it.

It may be that our ambition, or our literary taste, or our fondness for some artistic delight, our beautiful home, our refined friends.h.i.+ps, our higher pursuits in the lines of aesthetic taste, are absorbing much of the strength of our life and making Him and His work less. And, so the flashlight falls upon this, and the surgeon's probe detects it, and the deep cathode ray goes through the very flesh and bone, till it reaches the very intents of the heart, and brings to light the hidden danger; then He tests our loyalty and love and calls upon us to surrender it to Him.

Yes, it may be even our Christian work that is absorbing our affection and enthusiasm and leaving Him out. It may be for an idea or an ambition that we are working, rather than for our Lord, and so His jealous love sometimes must destroy the vision that He may save His child. We are reminded of the apprentice boy, who saw his master gazing intently at the beautiful fresco that he had just completed upon the ceiling, and gradually stepping backwards to admire it, until he was on the very edge of the scaffold and another movement would have dashed him to the pavement below. Suddenly the faithful apprentice dashed forward, seized the painter's brush and dashed it over the beautiful fresco, daubing it, and destroying it with one ruthless blow.

The master sprang forward with a cry of agony, but in a moment he stopped and looked at the pale, trembling boy, pointing with his finger backward to the scaffold where he had stood, and then he understood it all. He took the boy into his arms and in a paroxysm of tears he embraced him, and thanked him that he had spoiled his work and saved his life.

So the blessed Holy Ghost has marred the vision of our past, and has desolated the hopes of our future that He might save us for something better. Let us trust Him to the end; let us let Him love us as much as He wants to; let us never doubt His faithful will, nor question the commandments which are "for our good always. "

V.

The jealous love of the Holy Ghost is also educating us, and seeking to enlarge our vision and our thought, so that He can better fit us to be the eternal companion of our glorious Bridegroom. He is trying to make us understand the majesty of His purpose, and to bring us into partners.h.i.+p with Him in His glorious plans to save the world, and in the ages to come, to lead out His redeemed ones into the highest and grandest services for the universe. His heart is often grieved and disappointed, to find us so narrow, so self-bound, so unable to enter into His glorious purposes, and His eternal designs.

There is a sad story told of a young couple who became betrothed in early life. Afterward the young man went to college, and acquired a liberal education, and then went abroad and traveled for years in a foreign country, finis.h.i.+ng his studies and widening his views of life and men. All the while they kept up their correspondence and their engagement, and at last one day he came back to meet his beloved and claim her as his bride. But, alas, he found that while he had grown, she had remained stationary. He loved her still, and her whole life was bound up in him. But she was not able to understand him; she was not able to enter into his higher thoughts and plans, and she was not able to be the companion of his magnificent mind. He wedded her, but more and more, from day to day, he saw that the breach was widening. Her horizon was no wider than her neighbor's fence and her neighbor's farm; her world was scarcely bigger than the kitten on the hearth, the lambs that gamboled in the field, and the milk-pan and kitchen range.

He never told her, and she scarcely understood the shadow that had fallen upon his life, but, day by day, he pined and wasted away, until at last he died of a broken heart.

Ah, friends, our beloved Bridegroom with His glorious mind, His sweeping vision of the universe and His mighty purpose, not only to redeem this world, but to glorify His Father's name in every star and constellation of yonder s.p.a.ce through His redeemed ones by-and-by, must often be grieved to find us so slow to understand Him!

You sit down in your corner grocery to make a petty fortune; you work away at your farm in order to make a scant living and some day have a farm for your boys, and you get absorbed in your little circle, and perhaps your little bit of a church. You never think of the great world that is waiting to be saved, the millions that have never heard of Jesus, or the high purpose of His heart to make you, with Him, the queen not only of the millennial years but of the whole redeemed universe. Let us rise to meet His thought; let us get out beyond our self-bound, earth-bound life, and enter into His plan for the world, and speed His glorious coming, and His mighty purpose for all mankind.

VI.

And so again, the Holy Ghost is leading us out, and developing our faith and thus preparing us for the higher life of the world beyond. For faith is just the wings by which we are some day to sweep across the abyss and soar amid the heights of the ages to come. Even after we receive the Holy Ghost we are content to move on in small planes and small circles, and we do not want to be disturbed or pushed out to harder, higher things; therefore, the Holy Ghost has to come and just compel us by His love to develop into spiritual strength and energy of which we thought ourselves incapable.

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, taketh them, beareth them upon her wings, so the Lord alone did lead Him." And so He stirs up our nest and pitches us out in mid air, helpless and defenseless orphans, and we think that it is to destroy us, but it is only to constrain us, that we may strike out the little wings of faith and learn to fly in the great unseen. And when we get a little weary, He stretches out His mighty pinions and bears us up again until we are ready for another lesson. And so through hards.h.i.+p, through the discipline of trials, through new circ.u.mstances into which He brings us, through difficulties for which we feel unequal He is developing us, throwing us upon Him, teaching us to claim His grace and educating us for the higher energies, and the n.o.bler manhood of the life to come. Oh, how He delights in us when we yield to Him! How disappointed He is in us when we refuse! How sad when the clay will not let the Potter fas.h.i.+on it, and He has to throw it aside! Beloved, let us trust His love, and yield to His high and holy purpose of love and blessing.

VII.

Finally, the Holy Ghost is yearning for our higher usefulness, and training us for service. The life of G.o.d is an unselfish life; the employment of the ages to come will be wholly benevolent and self-forgetful. Our service for Christ today is a great investment through which we are laying up treasures beyond, that are to const.i.tute our everlasting riches and reward. And so the Holy Ghost is pressing us forward to make the most of present opportunities; He is trying to get us to plant the seeds of usefulness and to invest the things that we hold dear in sacrifice and service, which yet will bear immortal flowers and plant the heavens with trees of righteousness and fruits of glory.

Chapter 23.

THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE EPISTLES OF PETER.

There are three important truths respecting the Holy Spirit presented in the Epistles of Peter.

I. THE SPIRIT OF INSPIRATION.

In 2 Peter 1:21 we are told that "the prophecy came not by the will of man, but holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." This is a very explicit statement of the doctrine of inspiration. They were not giving their own opinions; they were not writing by the impulse of their own will. Sometimes they said things that were contrary to all their natural preferences and attachments, as for example, when Samuel p.r.o.nounced his judgment upon the house of Eli, or when Jeremiah uttered his awful warnings against his dearly loved people and country.

But they were "moved by the Holy Ghost." The Greek word 'moved' is a very strong one, and in the Revised Version is translated "borne." They were swept along by a mighty impulse which carried them far beyond themselves. They did not always even understood their own predictions, for in 1 Peter 1:10, we are told that "the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when It testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."

Daniel tells us that he heard but understood not, his own vision. Sometimes they saw the vision of a glorious King, sometimes of a bleeding Lamb. But they did not always fully comprehend what it all meant, nor when it was all to be fulfilled. It loomed before them as a glorious vista of far reaching promise, but there was many a cloud upon the vision, and all they clearly knew was that "not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister" these wondrous revelations of truth.

In the next verse the apostle speaks of the Holy Ghost, not only in the message of the prophets, but in the message of the ministers of the gospel, as these truths are now preached unto us by the amba.s.sadors of Christ, "with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." The ancient prophet was the organ of the Spirit, but the minister of the gospel has the very presence and person of "the Spirit sent down from heaven," accompanying his message and giving authority and power to his word; so that when we speak the message of G.o.d, we speak in the very name of G.o.d, and those who hear are responsible for rejecting or receiving, not the word of man, but the very word of the living G.o.d.

II. THE SPIRIT OF SANCTIFICATION.

1 Peter 1: 2, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of G.o.d the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." The Apostle Peter fully believed in the sovereignty of G.o.d, and in the divine purpose of election ; but he did not believe in any foreordination apart from personal sanctification. The truth is, there are two ends to the divine purpose. On yonder side the cable is fastened to the throne, and hidden from our view is the inscrutable and inaccessible light of G.o.d; but on this side the cable of divine mercy is within our reach, and we may fasten it around our own hearts through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, so that we may make our calling and election sure, and know that we belong to the heavenly family.

The word "through" should rather be translated "in" sanctification. Holiness is the element and atmosphere of the divine calling, and as we are found there we must be inseparably linked with Him; and apart from this spiritual condition, we have no right to rest in any theological dogma or ecclesiastical form. Let us leave the theology of it to G.o.d, and let us make the practical application sure.

Let us carefully notice the form of expression here used. It is not sanctification by the Spirit, but sanctification of the Spirit. There is a great difference. Sanctification by the Spirit might leave us crystalized into a sanctified state, like the wax when the stamp is withdrawn, or like the clock wound up to go by its own machinery. But sanctification of the Spirit is not a self-const.i.tuted state, but a sanctification which consists in our union with the Spirit, and makes and keeps us dependent upon His indwelling life and power every moment. We are not sanctified apart from Him, but only as we are filled with Him, and abide in Him continually. We are but the vessel, an empty sh.e.l.l which He must fill, and keep ever freshly filled by "the renewing of the Holy Ghost."

The Greek genitive expressed by the preposition 'of' indicates the most intimate connection between our sanctification and our possession of the Holy Ghost. Beloved, have we the Spirit as our Sanctifier and our Life? Have we something more than holiness, even the Holy One Himself to "dwell in us and walk in us," and ever "cause us to keep His statutes and judgments and do them?"

Again, the sanctification of the Spirit brings us the "sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." Now, the blood of Jesus Christ means the life of Jesus Christ, and the life of Christ has always a twofold application. First, the life of Christ was given for us through the shedding of His blood and the atonement of His death on Calvary. But the life of Christ is also given to us by His union with us and abiding in us.

This latter sense is the one covered by the "sprinkling of the blood." We read in the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus, that when Moses was about to take the leaders of Israel up into the mount, he offered sacrifices of oxen, slaying the bullocks and pouring out half of their blood upon the altar, thus signifying the shedding of Christ's blood for us in the offering of His sacrifice upon the cross. But the other half of the blood he took in basins and carried it up unto the Mount, sprinkling part of it upon the people and the book of the covenant; and, thus sprinkled with blood and accompanied by the blood, they went up into the very presence of G.o.d, and were received into His love and favor. Instead of the thunders and lightnings which yesterday made Mount Sinai a scene of terror, the blue heavens without a cloud covered them as a celestial dome, and Jehovah received them into His presence chamber, feasted them as princely guests at a royal banquet, and, it is added, "upon the n.o.bles of Israel he laid not His hand; but they did eat and drink, and they saw G.o.d."

Now, the sprinkled blood in this beautiful type is quite different from the shed blood poured out upon the altar; it represents the life of Christ imparted to us, and making us fit for His presence and fellows.h.i.+p. This is the work of the Holy Ghost. He brings us into living union with the person of Jesus and reproduces in us the very life of Christ.

We believe this is the meaning of the strong expressions used so often respecting the life and blood of Jesus. We are said to be "saved by His life." Again, the "blood of Jesus Christ His Son," that is, the life of Jesus Christ, "cleanseth us, or keeps cleansing us from all sin." So again, in the sixth of John, it is by eating His flesh and drinking His blood that we have eternal life, and that life is nourished from day to day. Beloved, do we know the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, and are we living upon His life?

There is another beautiful type in the Old Testament throwing much precious light upon this striking figure. It is the account of the red heifer in the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers. We will pa.s.s by the other applications of this remarkable type, and refer only to the sprinkling of the water of separation. When any one in the camp of Israel had become defiled by the touch of the dead, or by contact with uncleanness in any way, it was provided that he should be cleansed and restored by sprinkling with the water of separation. This water was made out of the ashes of the heifer that had been sacrificed and then burned, and preserved in a sacred place for this purpose. Water was poured upon it and then, with a bunch of hyssop, the unclean person was sprinkled and cleansed.

Now, we know that the water which you make out of ashes is known as lye, and it is pungent and cutting in its operation as caustic or fire. The sprinkling that came in this way upon the unclean would not be likely to be forgotten. It was a cleansing that would cut to the core, and burn to the bone. And so the work of the Holy Ghost is not always soft and complacent, but often most searching and consuming. He brings home to our hearts the application of the death of Christ, until it takes us into actual fellows.h.i.+p with His death, and makes us also willing to die to the sinful or selfish thing which He has revealed in our natural life.

There is, therefore, a sense in which the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost is at once immediate and progressive. There is a moment in which we actually enter into personal union with Jesus and receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. In that moment we are fully accepted, and are fully sanctified up to all the light we have. But as the light grows deeper and clearer He leads us farther down, and farther on, at once revealing and healing every secret thing that is contrary to His perfect will, as we are able to bear it, and bringing us into perfect conformity to the very nature and life of Christ.

It is somewhat like the operation of the limestone brook upon the wooden branch that is left lying in the flowing stream. Day by day, the limestone held in solution is deposited in the open fibers of the wood, until after a while the wood has been changed to stone and, while retaining its natural form, its substance has been transformed into the nature of the stone. So there is a sense in which the Holy Ghost holds the life of Jesus Christ in a kind of solution, and imparts it to us, until we become perfectly conformed to the very image of our glorious Pattern and Head.

Once more, the sanctification of the Spirit leads to "obedience." It is not all theory and experience, but it is intensely practical and real. It runs into our daily lives in the home, the factory, and the store. It makes us better men and women, and compels the world to testify to its genuineness and reality. And then it becomes so easy. It is not the obedience of effort, but the spontaneous and joyful outflow of life and love. He not only dwells in us, but He also walks in us. "And what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh,"

"the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," does accomplish, "making us free from the law of sin and death, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

III. THE SPIRIT OF GLORY.

1 Peter 4:14, "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of G.o.d resteth upon you." The work of the Holy Ghost is more than cleansing. It is also glorifying. He comes not only to make our garments white, but l.u.s.trous, like the transfiguration light and the marriage robe.

In the ancient tabernacle there were three sections. The first represented salvation; it was the Court where the wors.h.i.+per came to the altar and the laver for the atoning blood and the cleansing water. The second was the Holy Place, the chamber where the priests had their home, and where they dwelt with G.o.d amid the light of the golden lamps, feeding upon the sacred bread and frankincense, and breathing the fragrant odors that arose in clouds of incense from the golden altar of intercession. This represented sanctification, communion, fellows.h.i.+p, the life of abiding in personal union with the Lord Jesus Christ. But there was another chamber farther in. It was the Holy of Holies, the sacred presence chamber of G.o.d, where the Shekinah glory shone between the outstretched wings of the heavenly cherubim. This was G.o.d's image of the glory. This represents, of course, the future glory of our heavenly home and the millennial day for which we are waiting. But This also represents the beginning of that glory into which we may enter now. For the Holy Ghost is the earnest of our future inheritance, and He brings its foregleams and foretastes to us here.

That inner chamber, in the days of Moses, was shut off from view. Only the high priest might enter it, and he but once a year. But the veiling curtains were rent asunder when Jesus died, and the glory was opened wide for us to enter in. And so we read the divine invitation, "Having, therefore, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living Way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, let us draw near with a true heart, in full a.s.surance of faith." Yes, we may enter into the glory even here. "The glory which Thou gayest Me, I have given them," is our Savior's parting bequest. Not only does He give us His peace and His love, but He gives us His glory, too, and into its heavenly radiance we may enter now.

"Whom having not seen, we love, in whom though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." "Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also." "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of G.o.d resteth upon you."