I was asked to say a few words on the difference between the sealing of the Holy Ghost, and the indwelling of the Spirit. Just turn to the first chapter of the 2nd Corinthians. In the twenty-first verse you read: “Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”
The fact that is stated here is that we are anointed. He has given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. Of course the Christian must have life through Christ, but what characterizes the Christian state as such is the presence of the Holy Ghost in consequence of the work of Christ. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The Christian stands between the first coming of Christ and His coming again to receive those that are His to be with Him forever. We get the work of Christ accomplished, and then the Holy Ghost comes down and teaches them to wait for His coining again, that where He is there they may be also. If you look at the end of the 2nd of Titus— “The grace of God that bringeth salvation path appeared to all men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Here we find-the grace of God that has appeared to us, and the looking for the blessed hope, waiting for the appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour.
But I speak now of the presence of the Holy Ghost, and I am sure it is of all importance that our hearts should be thoroughly clear that the power is of God and not of man; that we should distinctly understand how this salvation is settled, that gives power to the heart against unbelief; the character of all around is but imperfect truth, even when it is not thorough unbelief.
If you come to discipline, of course it depends on our walk, for we are under the claims of God, as to walk, only by being saved; for it is not now a question at all of a man by a certain course of living fitting himself for God. Christianity begins with the revelation that man cannot by a life under probation arrive at a standing before God. He had failed in every place in which God had set him; whether in the garden before the flood, after the flood, without law, or under law; and when Christ came it was another probation. But all that the revelation of God in Christ did was to bring out the evil of man’s heart; at the cross man’s state and condition were settled. “They are all gone out of the way, there is none that doeth good;” every mouth is stopped, and all the world brought in guilty before God.
Now guilt refers to the day of judgment, but I am not only guilty, but, as to my present state, I am lost. I am guilty and lost. But at that moment in which the sinfulness of man was proved, God’s counsels were brought out; in the very thing that proved the enmity of man’s heart, God’s grace was brought out. Perfect evil in man, and perfect good in God, both came out in the Cross. God’s glory and our salvation were both perfectly accomplished; and what was the effect of the work? That a man goes into heaven! The Lord Jesus Christ, a Man, goes into heaven after having shown the perfect obedience of love, in the place where sin came out absolutely before God. Sin stood out before God to be dealt with as sin; there it was that He glorified Him; that is the Cross. “If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” The Son of man goes up to the glory of God, and so there begins an entirely new thing; we are put upon a new platform.
I am upon this ground now. I find there is this Man gone into heaven, so that I learn God in the perfectness of love, and in the perfectness of righteousness. God has come out in perfect love; man has gone in in perfect righteousness. Man never went in before; there was a veil to keep him out, but now everything is put entirely on a new footing. God has glorified Himself.
Well, then, beloved friends, God having “made him to be sin for us who knew no sin,” and then having set Him at His own right hand, sends down the Holy Ghost as the consequence of a Man being in the glory.
From the beginning everything that was done was by the Spirit; all through, whatever the action, it was done by the Spirit of God. But He was not dwelling here. He did not even come at the incarnation. Christ was here on this earth, passing through it, and as soon as He had accomplished the work He came to do, He says, If I go I will send Him unto you. The Holy Ghost dwelling individually in the believer, or dwelling in the house of God, characterizes Christianity.
If you look in the first of 1St Peter, he says: “Of which salvation 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 glories that should follow.” It was not their time; it is “unto us.” But did Christianity bring it? No! It brought the sufferings, not the glories. “Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
I find the three steps. The prophets had prophesied, but when they searched their own prophecies they found they were not for themselves, but for me, and I am therefore to gird up the loins of my mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to me at the revelation of Jesus Christ. It does not speak of my being caught up to meet Him. I have the report of the prophets, and I am to be sober, and wait for the accomplishment of it. This evidently, then, gives me not the accomplished work. We stand between the two points—Christ entered into the glory and His revelation. And meanwhile the Holy Ghost identifies us with Christ: “He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” Power has come in, so that “we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen,” for He that has wrought us is God. There is where the Christian stands—associated with Christ for heavenly glory; where we are now associated with Christ is not for the world at all.
In the fourteenth chapter of John 1 read, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” We ought to be as a city set on a hill, for the Holy Ghost dwells in us. But it is the gospel that is for the world, not the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is not a public witness. He is the One whom the world cannot receive.
Do you say, How can I know I have the Holy Ghost? Why, do you think that God can dwell in you, and you not know it? I may not be able to explain it, but there must be in me the consciousness of my being on an entirely new footing with God.
Christ did not stay with them; He did not abide with them; but He says the Holy Ghost “shall abide with you forever.” The world may see the fruits of the Spirit, but they do not know the Spirit Himself. It is properly that which distinguishes the believer. He dwells in us, and therefore the apostle John says, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God”—of course unless he is a hypocrite. We have this in Christian position; that, being born of God, the Holy Ghost has come down to associate me with the Man who is in heaven. God remembers my sins and my iniquities no more. He has preached the gospel to me with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and I wait for the revelation of Jesus Christ. But even if we wait for this, as I have no doubt we do, our portion is not that; it is “the morning star”—a heavenly Christ for us.
Well, I know I am Christ’s, and He is mine, and if He is in me, I am to show it out. As the apostle says, “Death works in us;”— “we which live are alway delivered unto death.” He held himself perfectly dead, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in his mortal flesh.
The disciples, not having the Holy Ghost, were so dull; but as soon as the cross was accomplished, He was sent; and now I know that I am in Christ; I know, that I am a Son of God—I know it. “We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” He has given it to us—when the world gives, it gives away from itself; it has no longer the thing that it has given. But the way that Christ gives is to bring us into the enjoyment of everything that He has got Himself: “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”
And fruit is expected because we are Christ’s. He does look for progress and growth. It is those whom God has “wrought” for the glory that He seals, because they belong to the glory. He does not seal sinners; He seals saints.
In John 20 “He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” This was analogous to the first creation, when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life. He breathes into them to connect their life with His. It is “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” He did not send the Holy Ghost when He breathed on them; it was a communication out of Himself to them. The Holy Ghost comes from the Father to give the consciousness of sonship; and from the Son to reveal His glory.