THERE are three things in this Scripture in which Christ is in relation to us. The first is, He takes away the sin of the world; God sent Him to take away everything that offended Himself. This is the groundwork of all in the soul; if it have not got hold of this it has not got simple confidence, but if it have, it can say, as we learn in another place, "As he is, so are we in this world; " we are not afraid of the judgment; as to the sin, we do not see it all taken away yet, but for us who believe it is taken away to faith. The soul never gets settled rest with God if it do not see that God has satisfied Himself; it is He who has " provided himself a lamb," it is not I who have done it. According to the Levitical order they had to bring their offerings, and it is true that I come to the Levitical side too; but it was not I who went and found Christ. I only appropriated Him; God provided Him; He sent His Son for Himself, and satisfied Himself in doing so.
Some little time ago, in a train, talking to a stranger of these things, he said to me, " I know all that you are saying to me, but nevertheless there will come doubts." " If God have satisfied Himself," I said, " how can you have any doubts? " " I thank you for that," he said. He felt the importance of it at once. God only is able to remove the distance that lies between Himself and you. The holiest man living does not know the measure of the offense that he has done against God. There never was but one Man who knew it, and that One bore the punishment that was due to it: "He taketh away the sin of the world." The simple- heart lays hold of it: God sent His Son, and He knows it, and He did the work, and therein maintained all that was due to God-. It would be an immense favor to say to 'one of my children, You have committed a great offense against me, and you cannot settle it, you cannot repair it, but I will tell you what I will do: I will settle it myself, according to my own mind. Now, what would a sensible child say? -Why, Father, I am very glad, and amazed at, your settling it yourself, because then you will certainly satisfy your own mind, and it can never cause any more coldness between us.
Thus the first thing is taking away everything that is objectionable; the second is something conferred-a new thing brought in. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is a new thing altogether; it came from an ascended Christ. The third is a new place.
In John's baptism the Lord took His place with the godly ones here upon earth: He cut Himself off from that which connected Him 'with Judaism. There were three parts in His life. He lived a private life for thirty years; then for three years He was the servant of God, until His service culminated at the Mount of Transfiguration; then He comes down from this point, after He had been the perfect man both in private life and in public life, to become the victim-to meet the judgment of God which we had incurred for ourselves; He sets His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. And now we are entitled to glory, because the Person who paid our debt has been raised by glory. Paul woke up to find himself in glory without a word as to his sins; but then he could not see for the glory of that light, and was three days and did neither eat nor drink. It was then that it passed through his soul how that in the cross God could bring such a sinner as he was into such a place: that was eating "the lamb roast with fire." God brings the sinner into His own presence. Thus we are to be in the same dwelling as Christ Himself. The moment John's disciples get to Him, they ask Him,," Where dwellest thou? " and He at once answers, " Come and see." The first thing is to take away sin; the next, to bring in an entirely new power-the Holy Ghost; and the sum or fruit, that you are to be in the same place as Himself.
Now, the moment you find you are really set in holiness you want to change your place. I always doubt a person being really holy in his tastes who does not seek for heaven.- " This is not your rest; it is polluted." It is a mistake to say it is not. Everything around you appeals to " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." Look at a shop-window; is not that polluted? You cannot go into a friend's house without saying, He has done up his house to meet my flesh. You tell me a thing that addresses the spirit here, that helps up your heart here. Except the Spirit of God in the scene, you do not find anything here; all here diverts the soul from God.
Now what I purpose to do as shortly as I can is to divide this subject of the Spirit of God into four heads. First, how we get the Spirit; second, what are the effects of the Spirit; third, how we promote the Spirit; fourth, how we grieve the Spirit.
First, how we get it. Some think, and very rightly too, that we are born of the Spirit. But in the 5th of Luke we read that "new wine must be put into new bottles." The figure there of the Spirit is " new wine." As, some one has said of the Spirit of God, first He builds the house, and then He dwells in it. You must have the bottle before you can fill it. The world will use Christianity as a patch, and so try to make itself better, but it has become worse through Christianity than it was before, which you can see by comparing 2 Tim. 3 with Rom. 1
There are certain denominations that do not see the new bottle at all, and yet. they own the action of the Holy Ghost. Hence it is more difficult to detect their mistake than with the world. I find Christians trying with the new wine to make the old bottles new; they expect the Holy Ghost to -work upon the old bottles. This might be without conversion. I read that a man can come into a meeting of saints, and falling down on his face, worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth; " but there is no new bottle there, though-there is the wine.
That I want you to understand now is not the new wine, but the new wine in the new bottle. There must be first a new bottle.
Well, first, how do I get it -then? You get it by faith. I do not want to speak of any interval of time-there is interval-but I want you to see that it is a distinct thing. I will show you first the doctrine of it. In Galatians you read: "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He, therefore, that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? There was the " hearing of faith," that is, the way the Spirit comes: that is the first thing. Practically speaking, we have no link with Christ but by the Spirit of God; and, if that were simply carried out, it would set aside a good- deal that people are now quietly going on with. Mere happy feelings, pious feelings, and so on, never connect you with Christ; it is only the Spirit of God, and we have a great deal to learn about the wonderful position that He puts me in. The flesh is what binds me to man, but God has broken that bond; the bond 'that bound me to the first man was broken by Christ, and now I am not in the flesh but in the Spirit. But some one says, How then do I get the Spirit? Every one of you here, I trust, knows what the new bottle is-you all have that; but the thing is to get the new wine. Very often a person does not get it until he is dying. It is not a question of salvation we are dwelling upon; it is that which gives the soul consciousness of being bound to another-to Christ. A new bond, the Holy Ghost, binds you to Christ, in consequence of the work which has freed you from the old. I ask every soul here, Are you bound to Christ 2 I say there is no other bond to Him but the Holy Ghost, and it comes "by the hearing of faith." But while you are seeking something else you are dimming the truth. Christ has put away everything that was against you in the sight of God, but how long is a soul often after he believes, before he sees Christ risen and gets peace. You do not get either righteousness or peace until you see Christ risen. If I am in debt, and someone comes forward and offers to pay the whole for me, and I see him go into the bank to do so, it is not when I see him go in, but when I see him come out, having paid it, that I feel satisfied. I must see Christ come out of death, out of the grave, and seated at the right hand of God in heaven, and know myself by the Spirit connected with Him where He is.
I turn now to the seventh of Romans, to show the practical way in which the soul finds the necessity of having the Spirit of God. " Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall, deliver me from the body of this death? " There is the new bottle, but without the Spirit of God. The new bottle says, " I delight in the law of God after the inward man," and yet I am wretched. Why are you? Because I have not power to rise superior to my state. That person has not done with the flesh: The apostle is not describing his own experience, but that of a person who has not got the Spirit of God. I Say I have desires after holiness. Well, that is 'the new bottle; you have a new nature, but the new nature has not power over the old thing; you want power, and you only get power in Christ: " I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Now you see where I have got to: I have not to do any more with man in the flesh; it is crucified; I have done with it. God has done with it in the cross, and God will never revive the bond He has broken in the cross. Can you say, God has done with it on the cross? I do not say you will not find it rising up now and then, but God has broken the bond in the cross, and He will never revive it. Of course, I suffer for it if I let it get up; if I " sow to the flesh " I shall pay for it; but God never revives it. I suffer for it if I do, because I not only sin, but I revive that which God has done away with in the cross. The only way for me is to drop it as a man would a stick that is broken, and say, That stick is no use to me any longer.
In the parable of the good Samaritan it says, he " set him on his own beast." He took him away from his own power, and put him on that of another; he took him off his own legs, which were weak and powerless, and put him on a beast with four: his own legs were useless. The point we all stop short at here is what happened to that man. This is the earthly side of grace. We get the heavenly side in the parable of the prodigal -son. In the one I am brought to the Father's house, in the other to the inn. Both are blessedly true; I cannot do without both. I cannot do without an inn as long as I am in a poor world like this; I must have somewhere to be-; this room is an "inn." I have got the blessing-the oil and the wine-but I am perfectly powerless, and the more powerless the better, because then I will drop myself and trust to Him.
Have you ever come to that? If you have, you find that you are united to Christ. You have the document of grade written out upon your your heart, and at the bottom the seal is put. That is one grand effect of the Spirit of God; He is the seal on the document. You would not like the seal put after only a few lines were written! The Holy Ghost comes in to establish the fact that the man had the oil and wine in his wounds. As has -been said very truly, no one ever got out of the seventh of Romans until he got into it; we must find out where we are, and we all go through it,-one as well as another; we must all find out that "-in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." Well, then, waive it! There only are two men; One is on the right hand side of the road, the other on the left. The one on the left hand side ruined me; well, I cross over to the One on the right.
Thus, you have got to the Spirit now in the eighth of Romans: " The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin sand death." I Will give you an illustration in the fifth of Mark's gospel to show you a simple mode of learning this positive truth.
" A certain woman, who was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment: for she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole." Now, mark you, there was a case of weakness, perfect powerlessness; every effort to get on, like the seventh of. Romans, but every effort only made her worse and worse. But she has faith in Christ; just a touch, and she is whole. Now it is all done, you say. But no, it is not all finished. But is she not cured? Yes, she will never get a bit better cured; the bottle is made, but there is something more to go on in the soul. I often see it in people: they know that there is a divine work done in their souls, but they have not had an interview with Christ, they do not know that they are united to Him.
Now the woman is cured, but the Lord has to bring out another thing in her: He says, "Who touched my clothes? and he looked round about to see her that had done this thing." Then the woman, " fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole: go in peace; " and I believe if souls would go and tell the Lord, You are the only one I have to do with now, they too would " go in peace." Look at the fearing and the trembling that you see in souls, and some even think it is the right thing; it gives them the comfort that they have something new and divine.
To get positive relief there must be confession. You get the same idea in the tenth of Romans: "'If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." I do not believe people are walking in the consciousness of salvation if they are not Confessing Christ not confessing their sins, but confessing His worth. The more I am like a Jonathan confessing the worth of David, the more am I walking in the consciousness of salvation. There is always "the heart" and "the mouth": the inside and the outside. It is then she finds she is connected with Christ; she finds He has not only done a work for her, but He calls her " daughter." It is " Daughter, go in peace." She is acquainted with Himself; she says, I know not only what He has done for me, but I know I am His.
Now I turn to another point; that is, what it effects. In the third of John-I am not going through all the effects, but will merely just touch upon one or two -He says: " And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." But there are two things in the Christian. In Numbers it says they not only looked to the brazen serpent and lived, but there was God's well. He said, Come, and I will give you water; and they sing to it. There are the two things: life given by faith, and water given to sustain the life given. You have here a crucified Savior, the Son of man lifted up; and I say, what then 2 Why, I have life. And what. comes next? Why, " Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." " Sing ye unto it! " and people ought to sing to it! And why should not we sing to it, and be filled with the Spirit? It is inexhaustible; there can be no failing of it, whilst on the brightest festive day the wine was out. There is man for you! But here in the fourth chapter, to a poor sorrowful Woman who had done everything she could to make herself happy in this world, He says: I will give you something that will make you perfectly happy without your ever going outside of yourself; you shall " drink waters out of your own cistern, and running waters out of your own well.". And yet with all this you find people murmuring, discontented, dissatisfied. The fact is, you do not " sing to it;" you are not, as the princes were, occupied with it.
Another effect is that it makes you superior to man. You can worship; you have become another being; you have got into another state of-things altogether. I have a -fund in myself that is„ inexhaustible; I have a store filled with everything that I want for God and internal enjoyment. In the new bottle I have the new. wine; and it is, " Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." If I am, there will be "melody in my heart to the Lord;" and " melody" is a wonderful thing. It is not the mere chanting of a song, but it is the heart in full accord to Christ.
And now I turn to another passage to show the practical effect of having the Spirit of God, to which I attach a great deal. It is in Rom. 8.: "If ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." We all know how we fail when we try to repress bad habits, cares, anxieties, worries of any kind. I try to repress a bad temper, but do I succeed? I find that my heart is like a river; repression only makes it swell the higher.. I will take for an instance what every one would consider a very good man teetotaler; he has repressed himself into good habits, but there is no virtue imparted. As has been said, " Sublimate the flesh as much as You will, it will never yield spirit." Repression is only the negative side. The teetotaler has repressed a bad taste, but he has not got a good one instead of it. You may pick up a weed, but that will not make a flower grow in the place of it. Self-culture represses bad habits, but in doing so it only makes the will stronger; it has only strengthened itself to repress the bad habit. If there were any good in you to come out it would be another thing; but there is not any virtue produced. Now the Holy Ghost will not only repress your bad habits, but will actually give you new tastes, so that a drunkard will love sobriety. He will not only not allow the bad thing, but will also put a good one in its place.
Now I turn to Gal. 6 to show you what promotes the Spirit. In the seventh verse you read, " He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh-reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." That is the way to promote it. It is well for us to study ourselves a little bit, for there is nothing, more sure than that people reap what they sow. You say, I am going out for a day's amusement. Well, then, to-morrow you will be dull, and you will tell me you are depressed and do not know why. It is because you have been sowing to the flesh. If you had been sowing to the Spirit, waiting on the Lord, doing His will, do you think you would have been dull and depressed? But, you say, how am I to sow to the Spirit? Well, I find I have to check my mind constantly, to be continually watching myself, I think of such foolish things. Do you look upon the Spirit as a second self? and as a second self ever superior to our self? I have now got the Spirit of God to be in' me! It is the most wonderful thing! I do not think people at all estimate such a fact. And do I minister to that Spirit, or am I ministering to the flesh? As some one said lately of Noah, he did not mean to get drunk at all; he only Wanted to indulge himself a little. I feel one has to be careful about everything, even to such a thing as reading the newspaper; if it come to be a question of indulgence, you are sowing to the flesh, and if you do you will reap corruption; any indulgence is sowing to the flesh.
And now just one word upon grieving the Spirit. We read in Eph. 4 " Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve riot the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." A person who has grieved the Spirit is very like one who has never had it, but I have hardly time now for dwelling on the difference that there is between them. The fact of having grieved the Spirit often does not show itself until you come to do something, and then you find He is not there to support you. As it was with Samson: he awoke out of his sleep, and " wist not that the Lord was departed from him." The Spirit retires when He is grieved, as you get in the Psalm: " Be not silent to me, lest, if thou be silent to me, I. become like them that go down into the pit." Often when I have felt powerless I have said to myself, You have been grieving the Spirit, and you have not settled that grieving. What settles it is getting the feet washed.
Now nothing can disturb my acceptance-not all the weakness of the human heart; but the smallest thing disturbs my communion, and God will not let the smallest thing pass. He brings it up. He says, If you will not judge yourselves you must be judged; " for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." To me it is melancholy to see saints making much of themselves when they are under the chastening hand of the Lord, trafficking upon the sympathies of their brethren because they are suffering for their failures. There should be such an answer of divine grace coming out of the broken vessel that every spectator should be occupied with the grace instead of looking at the vessel. God may put a person in prison for his own good and for service too, and there is no greater prison than sickness.
Well, a very small thing grieves the Spirit of God. What a wonderful thing it is to be baptized with the Spirit! What resources I have in myself! If you understand it at all, do not grieve the Spirit, so that He may go on with you and help you, and that you may be able to say, I have a wonderful back, I have a wonderful power, though I have nothing but an "inn" here. The Lord lead our hearts practically to understand the magnitude of being sealed by the Holy Ghost.
(J. B. S.)