The Ministry of the Spirit

de in the church. It does not follow therefore that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing; our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. O

of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 1: 12). Here are the two

ngelical teaching must reject this theory as utterly {68} untenable, since it ignores the necessity of individual faith in Christ. But some orthodox writers have urged an almost identical view with respect to the Holy Ghost. They have contended that the enduement of the Spirit is "not any specia

ing the body of Christ, there is the same reason for our accepting him for his special ministry as for accepting the Lord Jesus for his special ministry. To say that in receiving Christ we necessarily received in the same act the gift of the Spirit, seems to confound what the Scriptures make distinct.[2] For it is as sinners that we accept {69} Christ for our justification, but it is as sons that we accept the

s text in Acts, says: "Therefore it is evident that the reception of the Holy Ghost, as here spoken of, has nothing whatever to do with bringing men to believe and repent. It is a subsequent operation; it is an additional and {70} separate blessing; it is a privilege founded on faith already actively working in the heart. . . I do not mean to deny

n Christ, standing in the midst of his disciples, "breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." The verb is not passive, as our English version might lead us to suppose, but has here as generally an active signification, just as in the familiar passage in Revelation: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Twice in the Epistle to the Galatians the possession of the Holy G

entered into possession of the Spirit as God's gift to believers. Some admit this, who yet deny any possible application of the incident to our own times, alleging that it is the miraculous gifts of the Spirit which are here under consideration, since, after recording that when Paul had laid his hands upon them and "the Holy Ghost came upon them," it is added that "they spake with tongues and prophesied." All that need be said upon this point is simply that t

within that ideal realm called "the apostolic age," however convenient it may be as an escape from fancied difficulties, may be the means of robbing believers of some of their most precious covenant rights.[4] Let us {73} transfer this incident of the Ephesian Christians to our own times. We need not bring forward an imaginary case, for by the testimony of many experienced witnesses the same condition is constantly encountered. Not only individual Christians, but whole communities of disciples are found who have been so imperfectly instructed that they have never known that there is a Holy Spirit, except as an influence, an impersonal something to be vaguely recognized. Of the Holy Ghost as a Divine Person, dwelling in the church, to be honored and invoked and o

for those who today may be ignorant of the Comforter. And yet such prayer should be followed by an act of believing acceptance on the part of the willing disciple: "O Holy Spirit, I yield to thee now in humble surrender. I receive thee as my Teacher, my Comforter, m

ve service in the church of Christ. Other effects will certainly attend the blessing, a fixed assurance of our acceptance in Christ, a

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and we hear him saying: "I by the Spirit of God cast out devils" (Matt. 12: 28). Ask concerning that decease which he accomplished at Jerusalem, and we read "that he through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God" (Heb. 9: 14). Ask concerning the giving of th

r" to plead, as he now asked the anointing of the Spirit, if as we may believe this was the subject of his prayer? Yes; it had been written in the prophets concerning the rod out of the stem of Jesse: "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11: 2). "The promise of the seven-fold Spirit," the Jewish commentators call it. Certainly it was literally fulfilled upon the Son of God at the Jordan, when God gave him the Spirit without measure. For he

symbols and description

ed equally to Christ a

ri

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instructive writers on the Hebrew worship and ritual tells us that it was the custom for the priest to whom the service pertained, having selected a lamb from the flock, to inspect it with the most minute scrutiny, in order to discover if it was without physical defect, and then to seal it with the temple seal, thus certifying that it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Behold the Lamb of God

done upon a converted soul, a kind of crown of consecration put upon his faith. Indeed the two events stand in marked contrast. In conversion the believer receives the testimony of God and "sets his seal to that God is true" (John 3: 33). In consecration God sets his seal upon t

we may count ourselves henceforth and altogether Christ's. If any shrink from this devotement, how can he {79} have the fullness of the Spirit? God cannot put his signature upon what is not his. Hence, if under the sway of a worldly spirit we withhold ourselves from God and insist on self-ownership, we need not count it strange if God withholds himself from us and denies us the seal of divine ownership. God is very jealous of his divine signet. He graciously bestows it upon those who are ready to devote themselves utterly and irrevocably to his service, but he strenuously withholds it from those who, while professi

int or impression of his seal: "He can never own us without his mark, the stamp of holiness. The devil's stamp is none of God's badge. Our spiritual extraction from him is but pretended unless we do things worthy of so illustrious birth and becoming the honor of so great a Father." The great office of the Spirit in the pr

e them at his coming. In that great quickening, at the Redeemer's advent, the Holy Spirit will be the seal by which the saints will be recognized, {81} and the power through which they will be drawn up to God. "If the Spirit that raised up Jesus dwell in you" (Rom. 11: 9), is the great condition of final quickening. As the magnet attracts the particles of iron and attaches them to itself by first imparting its own magnetism to them, so Chris

quainted, thus sums up the subject: "If we can learn aright how Christ was sealed, we shall learn how we are sealed. The sealing of Christ by the Father is the communication of the Holy Spirit in fullness to him, authorizing him unto and acting his divine power in all the acts and duties of his office, so as to evidence the presence of God wi

of the Spirit is associated always and inseparably with conversion, one will reasonably ask, why a conversion so marked and so radical as that of the apostle to the Gentiles need be followed by such an experience as that named in Acts 9: 17: "And Ananias departed and entered into the house, and laying his hands on him, said Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus who appeared unto thee in the way which thou earnest, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost." We seem to have a clear allusion here to that which so constantly appears in Scripture, both in doctrine and in life, a divine something distinct from conversion and subsequent to it, which we have called the reception of the Spirit. "The enduement of power" we may well name it;

perpetual possession and its increase by repeated communications, so in our sealing there is a reception of the Spirit once for all, which reception may be followed by repeated fillings. It is reasonable to conclude this since our capacity is

prayer, that since "we have received not the spirit of {85} the world but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God," this bl

n on this subject from those who have thought most carefully and searched most prayerfully concerning it This is our apology for the multiplied quotations which we are i

at blessing may be, it is in immediate connection with the Holy Ghost; and one of the terms by which we may designate it is 'to be filled with the Spirit.' As with the early Christians so with us now, the filling comes when there is special need for it. . . And there is an occasion when that blessing comes to a man for the first time. That first time is a spiritual crisis from which his future spiritual life must be dated. There may be a question as to what it is to be called, or at least by what name in Scripture we are authorized to call it. . . Whether consciously or not, it is to the fact of the Holy Spirit's coming in new power to th

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ncoming. And when he has come and filled the believer, the result is a kind of passive activity, as of one wrought upon and controlled rather than of one directing his own efforts. Under the influence of strong drink there is an outpouring of all that the evil spirit inspires-frivolity, profanity, and riotous conduct. "Be God-intoxicated men," the apostle would seem to say; "let the Spirit of God so control you th

he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor" (Luke 4: 18). Twice in the Acts there is a reference to this important event in similar terms: "Thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint" (Acts 4: 27, R. V.). "Jesus

ed that he might be the oracle of God to the people (1 Kings 19: 16). No servant of Jehovah was deemed qualified for his ministry without this holy sanctifying touch laid upon him. Even in the cleansing of the leper this ceremony was not wanting. The priest was required to dip his right finger in the oil that was in his left hand and to put it upon the tip of the right ear, u

constantly called "the Holy One." And because the Spirit was sent to communicate him to the people, they are made partakers of his knowledge as well as of his holiness. If it should be said that this unction of which John speaks is miraculous, the divine illumination of evangelists and prophets who were commissioned to be the vehicles of inspired Scripture, we must call attention to other passages which connect the knowledge of God with the Holy Ghost. "For who among men knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which {90} is in him; even so the things of God none knoweth save the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 2: 11, R. V.). The horse

aching is the contrast between the tuition of learning and the intuition of the Spirit. While we should not undervalue the former, it is striking to note how the Bible puts the weightier emphasis on the latter; so that really the unspiritual hearer is to be accounted less blameworthy for not discerning

thus by a beautiful figure reminding us that as we can only see the sun in the rays of the sun, so we can only know God in Jesus Christ, who is the manifestation of God. It is so likewise between the second and third Persons of the Trinity. Christ is the image of the invisible God; the Hol

ed "the Spirit of Christ," as revealing Christ in his suffering and glory, so he is called "the Spirit of truth," as manifesting the truth in all its depths and heights. As impossible as it is that we should know the person of Christ without the Spirit of Christ who reveals him, so impossible it is that we should know the truth as it is in Jesus without the Spirit of truth who is appointed to convey it. "The Spirit of truth whom the wo

hing-the gift of the Holy Ghost appropriated through faith. Each of these terms is connected with some special {93} Divine endowment-the seal with assurance and consecration; the f

s in the lives of Dr. Finney, James Brainard Taylor, and many others. And instead of discrediting these experiences-so definite as to time and so distinct as to accompanying credentials-we would ask the reader to study them, and observe the remarkable effects which followed in the ministry of those who enjoyed them. The lives of many of the co-laborers with Wesley and

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in you" (Gal. 4: 19), writes the apostle to those who had already believed on the Son of God. Whatever he may have meant in this fervent saying, we doubt not that the deepest yearning of the Spirit is for the informing of Christ in the heart, in order to that outward conformity to Christ which is the supreme end of Christian nurture. If we conceive of the Christian life as only a gradual growth in grace, is there not danger that we come to r

mation a

ernal truth b

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tual tuition, says: "If a reference to personal experience may be permitted, I may indeed here 'set my seal.' Never shall I forget the gain to conscious faith and peace which came to my own soul, not long after a first decisive and appropriating view of the crucified Lord as the sinner's sacrifice of peace, from a more intelligent a

ing just above it in the wire and is borne irresistibly on by it.-Thus does the power which is eternally for us become a power within us; the law of Sinai, with {96} its tables of stone, is replaced by "the law of the Spirit of l

, "Filled with t

he same. As well might the apostles, when first called, have concluded that because at his baptism the Spirit like a dove rested upon Christ, therefore they had equally received the same blessing. Surely the Spirit has

on the New Testament Doctrine

is to keep spiritual influences out of sight; and it will be well ever to hold fast the assurance that a wide, deep, and perpetual spiritual blessing in the ch

ubstantially the same as that upon the forehead of the High P

tnote. As best my research can tell me, they are, from left to right, H (het, hei), V/O/U (vav), H (het,

his timber, stamped it with his own signet, which was an acknowledged sign of ownership. He often did not carry off his possession at the time; it was left in the harbor with other floats of timber; but it was chosen, bought, and stamped; and in due time the merchant sent a trusty agent with the

Discourse Concerning th

Spirit," by James Elder C

ritus," by Principal

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