I would desire to say a few words on the operations of the Spirit of God—the connection of his working in us with Christ; and the separateness too of the operation of the Spirit in us, from the work of Christ as wrought and perfected for us already.
I do not assume, by any means, to give a full or adequate view of the operations of the Spirit,— “Who is sufficient for these things?” I see enough, indeed, to see the paucity and dimness of what has appeared to my mind, compared with the glory of what is still shown to be Onward. Blessed that it is so—most blessed—eternal blessings! Still I would speak of that which the Scripture seems to make clear. If others have learned more, they can be led forth to communicate it; if less, they will not begrudge what I do; what I hope is, that it may lead into more searching and attainment of the power of these things. Christians, and real ones, are too apt (though this may seem a strange assertion) to separate, and too apt to confound Christ and the Spirit—that is, they separate Christ and the Spirit in operation in us too much; and they confound the work of Christ for us too much with the Spirit. The consequence of both is, uncertainty, meagerness of judgment, and doubt.
The work of the Spirit of God in me, in the power of life, produces conflict, labor, discoveries of sin, and need of mortifying my members which are on the earth; and the more what “Christ is” is revealed in my soul, in comparison with the discovery of what I am, the more do I find cause of humiliation—the more do I find, by the contrast of Christ looked at as in the flesh here sinless, God condemning this evil root of sin in the flesh in me. And much more, by the discovery of what my blessed Lord is, as glorified, do I see, through the Spirit, how short I am of “attaining,” though I may be still changed into the same likeness, from glory to glory. Hence, though at peace, hope, perhaps animating hope, and joy betimes filling the soul, yet there will be exercised self-judgment and sorrow of heart at the discovery of how every feeling we have towards God, and every object spiritually known, is short of the just effects they should produce and call out; and hence, too, in case of any allowance or indulgence of evil, deep self-abasement and utter abhorrence. Hence, when the fullness and finishedness of our acceptance in Christ is not known, anxiety and spiritual despondency arise, and doubt, sometimes issuing in a very mistaken and evil reference to the law,—a sort of consecrating the principle of unbelief, putting the soul (on the discovery, by the Spirit, of sin working in it) under the law and its condemnation; and not “in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.”
We hear of God hiding his face from us, and the like language, which faith never could use; for faith knows that God ever looks on his Anointed, never hides his face; and if we have such thoughts, they are to be treated as pure unbelief, and dealt with accordingly: every believer must acknowledge that it is not true, if he believe the full and perfect acceptance of the saints in Christ; and therefore to account it true is the lie of his own heart, and unbelief. The Spirit of God judges sin in me; but it makes me know that I am not judged for it, because Christ has borne that judgment for me. This is no cloak of licentiousness. The flesh would indeed always turn it to this—it would pervert everything. But the truth is, that same Spirit which reveals the Lord, who bore my sins, as having purged them, at the right hand of God, and which therefore gives me perfect assurance of their —being put away, and the infiniteness of my acceptance in Him,—that same Spirit, I say, judges the sin by virtue of its character as seen in the light of that very glory; and when this is not done, the Father, into whose hands the Son has committed those whom the Father has given Him to keep, as a Holy Father chastises, and corrects, and purges—as a husbandman the branches. Here, moreover, the discipline of the Church of God, as having the Spirit, comes in:—the disuse and neglect of which has much ministered to the distrust of the full and happy assurance of the believer; for the body of the Church, as such, might necessarily to assume itself (for such is the portion of the Church according to the word) as a sacred people—a manifested sacred people—and then, through the Spirit dwelling in it, to exercise all godly and gracious discipline for the maintenance of the manifested holiness of that sacred people. The Church is the dwelling-place of the Spirit. The Spirit reveals the condition of the Church in Christ, and of the individuals who compose it, (“In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you,”) and effects, maintains, and guards the character of Christ in the Church in grace and holiness: “Ye are the epistle of Christ written by the Spirit of the living God.” If my soul rests entirely on the work of Christ and his acceptance, as the One who appears in the presence of God for me,—that is a finished work, and a perfect infinite acceptance,— “as He is, so am I in this world:” so that “herein is love made perfect with me, that I should have boldness in the day of judgment” Now, what men substitute for this, is the examination of the effects of the Spirit in me;—the effects of regeneration are put as the ground of rest in lieu of ‘redemption: whence I sometimes hope when I see those effects, sometimes despond when I see the flesh working; and having put the work of the Spirit in the place of the work of Christ, the confidence I am commanded to hold fast never exists, and I doubt whether I am in the faith at all. All this results from substituting the work of the Spirit of God in me, for the work, victory, resurrection, and ascension of Christ actually accomplished: the sure (because finished) resting-place of faith, which never alters, never varies, and is always the same before God. If it be said, “Yes, but I cannot see it as plain, because of the flesh and unbelief,”—this does not alter the truth; and to whatever extent this dimness proceeds, treat it as unbelief and sin, —not as the state of a Christian, or as God hiding his face. The discovery of sin in you hateful and detestable as it is, is no ground for doubting, because it was by reason of this, to atone for this, because you were this, that Christ died, and Christ is risen; and there is an end of that question.
But it will be said, “I fully believe that Christ is the very true Son of God, one with the Father, and all his work and grace, but I do not know that I have an interest in Him: —this is the question, and this is quite a different question.” Not so: but the subtlety of Satan, and bad teaching, which would still throw you back off Christ. God; for our comfort, has identified the two things, by stating “that by Him all that believe are justified from all things” in a word, to say, “ I believe, but I do not know whether I have an interest,” is a delusion of the devil; for God says, it is those who believe who have the interest:—that is his way of dealing. I have no more right to believe that 1 am a sinner, as —God views it, in myself, than that I am righteous in Christ. The same testimony declares that none is righteous, and that believers are justified.
I may have a natural consciousness of sin, and a Spirit-taught consciousness of sin and what it is. If I rest in tins, I cannot have peace: in Christ’s work about it I have perfect peace. But am I not desired to examine myself, whether I am in the faith? No. What, then says 2 Corinthians 13:5: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith,” &c. Why, that if they sought a proof of Christ speaking in Paul, they were to examine themselves, and by the certainty of their own Christianity, which they did not doubt, be assured of his apostleship? The apostle’s argument was of no value whatever, but on the ground of the sanctioned certainty that they were Christians. But I have dwelt longer on this than I had any purpose; but the comfort of souls may justify it. It is connected with man’s seeking, from the work of the Spirit of God in him, that which is to be looked for only from the work of Christ.
If my assurance, and comfort, or hope, be drawn from the experience of what passes within me, though it may be verified against cavils thereby, as in the first Epistle of John, then it is not the righteousness of God by faith; for the experience of what passes in my soul is not faith. I repeat—that by looking to the work of Christ the standard of holiness is exalted; because, instead of looking into the muddied image of Christ in my soul, I view Him in the Spirit, in the perfectness of that glory into the fellowship of which I am called; and therefore, to walk worthy of God, who hath called me to his own kingdom and glory.
I forget the things behind, and press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; and my self-examination becomes, not an unhappy inquiry whether or not I am in the faith, never honoring God in confidence after all that He has done, but whether my walk is worthy of one who is called into his kingdom and glory.
But the disconnection of Christ from the operations of the Spirit is an evil, and tends to the same point, though the application be not so immediate.
In the teaching of ordinary evangelicalism, a man is said to be “born of the Spirit,”—its need perhaps shown from what we are, and its fruits shown, and the inquiry stated—Are you this? —for then you will go to heaven. These things have a measure of truth in them. But are they thus presented in Scripture? There I find these thing’s continually and fully connected with Christ, and involving our being in that blessed One, and He in us; and consequently not merely an evidence, by fruits, that I am born of the Spirit of God, but a participation in all of which He is the Heir, as the risen Man (in the sure title of his own Sonship), as quickened together with Him—a union of life and inheritance, of which the Holy Ghost is the power and witness.
It is thus expressed in the Epistle to the Ephesians,— “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. And you hath He quickened, even when we were dead in sins, bath quickened us together with Christ, and bath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.” So in Colossians 2:13: “And you hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” “If ye then be risen with Christ.”
The operation of the Spirit of God, while acting in divine power, it to bring us into living association with Christ. His operation in us is to make good in us, to connect us with, to reveal to us, and to bring us into the power of, all that is verified in Christ, as the second Adam, the risen Man in life, office and glory, — “he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” We are “heirs together,” “suffering together that we may be glorified together,” and this finally “ conformed to the image” of God’s Son, in that God “hath quickened us together,” and “ hath raised us up together, and made us sit together,” &c (Ephesians 2:5,65Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: (Ephesians 2:5‑6)); and the Spirit of God works in us thus in life, and in service, and suffering; and lastly in glory, in the resurrection of our bodies also.
I would trace, briefly, the testimony of this through Scripture. It may be seen there both individually, and, besides that, also corporately, as in the Church. The Spirit is spoken of first as quickening, and secondly as indwelling. We are born of the Spirit. As regards individuals So quickened, as indwelling, it associates them with the glory of Christ, as it sheds abroad also God’s love in the heart, and with the power of Christ’s life as having eternal life—life in Himself as Son of God; and it also reveals and makes them, according to his good pleasure, instruments of the revelation of his glory as Son of Man; —this consequent upon ascension, as the former is declared and witnessed in resurrection.
The special subject of which He is witness in the Church corporately, constituting the Church the present faithful witness, is, that Jesus Christ is Lord, which is immediately connected with the glory, “to the glory of God the Father.”
The 3rd chapter of John first brings the subject of the operations of the Spirit before us at large. “A man must be born again,” born of water and of the Spirit. But while this is generally taken simply that he must be regenerate to be saved, the passage states much more. He cannot see nor enter into the kingdom of God, a kingdom composed of earthly things and heavenly things, of which a Jew must be born again, to be partaker, (however much he fancied himself a child of the kingdom,) even in its earthly things, which Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel, ought to have known,’ as from Ezekiel 36:21-3821But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. 22Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. 23And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. 24For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. 25Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. 28And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. 30And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. 31Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. 32Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. 33Thus saith the Lord God; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. 34And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. 35And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. 36Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. 37Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. 38As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 36:21‑38); and to the heavenly things of which the Lord could not direct them then, save as shelving the door, even the cross, a door which opened into better and higher things: wherein (as, in the Spirit’s work, being prerogative power, “so was every one that was born of the Spirit,” and Gentiles therefore might be partakers of it; for it made, not found, men what it would have them) the Lord declared that God loved not the Jew only, but the world. In this passage itself, then, we have not merely the individual renewed, and fit for heaven, but the estimate of the Jew, a kingdom revealed, embracing earthly and heavenly things, which the regenerate alone saw, and into which they entered —to the heavenly things, of which the cross, as yet as unintelligible as the heavenly things themselves, formed the only door, wherein was exhibited the Son of man lifted up, and the Son of God given in God’s love to the world. “In the regeneration,” of which the Spirit’s quickening operation in the heart was the first-fruits, as his presence was the earnest of the heavenly part, “this Son of man would sit on the throne of his glory.”
The principle, then, on which men dwell, is true; but the revelation of this chapter is much wider and more definite than they suppose. It is not merely that the man is changed or saved; but he sees and enters a kingdom the world knows nothing of, till it comes in power; and moreover, that such a one receives a life as true and real, and much more important and blessed than any natural life in the flesh. It is not merely changing a man by acting on his faculties, but the giving a life which may act indeed now, through these faculties, on objects far beyond them, as the old and depraved life on objects within its or their reach; but in which he is made partaker of the divine nature, in which not merely the faculties of his soul have new objects, but as in this he was partner with the first Adam, the living soul, so in that with the second Adam, the quickening Spirit. And we must add, that the Church, in order to its assimilation with Him in it, is made partaker of this, consequent upon his resurrection, and therefore is made partaker of the, life according to the power of it thus exhibited; and has its existence consequent upon, yea as the witness of, the passing away (blessed be God!) of all the judgment of its sins; for it has its life from, and consequent upon, the resurrection of Christ out of that grave in which, so to speak, He buried them all. It exists, and has not its existence but consequent upon the absolute accomplishment and passing away of its judgment.
This, then, is the real character of our regeneration into the kingdom, where the charge of sin is not, nor cafe be, upon us, being introduced there by the power of that in which all is put away. The life of the Church is identified with the resurrection of Christ, and therefore the unqualified forgiveness of all its flesh could do, for it was borne, and borne away. The justification of the Church is identified with living grace; for it has it, because quickened together with Him, as out of the grave, where He buried all its sins. Thus are necessarily connected regeneration and justification; and the operation of the Spirit is not a mere acting on the faculties, a work quite separate from Christ and to be known by its fruits, while the death of Christ is something left to reason about; but it is a quickening together with Christ out of my trespasses and sins, in which I find myself indeed morally dead, but Him judicially dead for me, and therefore forgiven, and justified necessarily, as so quickened. The resurrection of Christ proves that there will be a judgment, says the apostle. (Acts 17.) It proves that there will be none for me, says the Spirit by the same blessed apostle; for He was raised for my justification. He was dead under my sins; God has raised Him, and where are they? The Church is quickened out of Jesus grave, where the sins were left.
Then, as to the power of this life and the other operations of the Spirit, I find, in the Lord’s account of his own testimony, the statement of communion and displayed glory. “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.” He testified that which He knew in oneness with the Father, which He had seen in the glory which He had with the Father before the world was.
The operations of the Spirit, in giving us life in the Son, and revealing the glory (ours therefore withal) into which He has brought his manhood, and which consequently is revealed in it, answer just to this statement of the Lord concerning Himself. Our communion—living communion with Him and with the Father-and our apprehension and expression of the glory which is his, —of these two the 4th and 7th chapters of John speak. In these chapters and elsewhere we have to remark, that we are taught, not of the Spirit’s operating on, but dwelling in us. The Spirit of, God does operate on, (whether in mere testimony, for the reception of which we are responsible, as in the case of the rulers of the Jews and St. Stephen—if Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye;” of which I do not speak now at large or efficiently,) in convincing, renewing, and quickening us. This being done by the Word, it is by faith wherein (that is, in the reception of the Word) we are quickened; that is, the revelation of Christ. “We are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.” “Of his own will begat He us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.” These are sufficient to show the manner of the operation; how, being a testimony, the natural man rejects it, though guilty for so doing; for it is God’s testimony: and how it is effectual, in the quickening power of the Spirit; but is by faith, in consequence of the instrument employed. The power of it I have already spoken of whence we see, while they that believe not make God a liar, they that believe have the witness in themselves; for they are made livingly partakers, in communion, of what they believe.
But the work in virtue of which they are thus made partakers of life and fellowship with God, being; a perfect work, the Spirit, who takes up his abode in the believer, is a spirit of peace and joy, a spirit of witness of all that Christ is and has done, and, we must add, of the Father’s perfect acceptance of both.
That the natural man rejects these things, arid receives them not, we shall see; but the conscience being awakened, and peace made, the Spirit is witness to the renewed soul of them.
Now, in the 5th chapter of John, we have the Spirit’s operation, wherein, as to the manner, the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear live; and though, by the Spirit, it is still: the Son speaking from heaven, as before on earth, i.e., on Mount Sinai, which was by angels, as far as mediately, not by the Spirit.
As to the manner and character of the testimony, I would speak more when I come to the 7th chapter of John, where it is the witness of the glory of the Son of man, as thus given and present among believers.
(To be continued.)