In a former paper we traced the momentous fact of the presence of the promised Comforter on earth—the new thing—unknown before the day of Pentecost, when He was sent down from on high. Shed forth by the Son, as exalted Man, according to the promise of the Father; sent by the Father in the Son’s name, in answer to the prayer of the Son of the Father; sent by the Son from the Father, now as Man in glory, He took up His abode on that day with, and in, the Lord’s people on earth, to remain until Jesus comes for them. He had wrought at all times, but had not come to dwell till then.
We will now examine the testimony of Scripture in some measure, as to the witness of the Holy Ghost to us.
In the tenth chapter of Hebrews we read, “Whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness to us,” &c. (v. 15.) We will find in other Scriptures the fact of His witness in the believer, but here it is another thing. In the course of the ninth chapter, the writer had gone through the contrast of the state of those under the Levitical economy—unable to enter the holiest, their consciences unpurged, and their works partaking of the nature of “dead works”—with those under the work of Christ, by which the way into the holiest was made manifest, the conscience of the enterer purged, and himself constituted a worshipper of the living and true God. In the close of it he shows that Christ had, in the consummation of the ages, appeared for the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself. This work, in result, was not yet done; nor will it be until the new heavens and the new earth witness to the fact of sin being forever put away. Of course for God, and for the faith of the believer, who saw with Him, the thing is done. The cross, and the work there accomplished, were the grand settlement and divine solution of the whole question of good and evil, and that forever. Good and evil met there as they will never meet again; and when the evil reached its highest, the good rose in all the grandeur of God, and surmounted the evil in perfect triumph. The work was then and there accomplished, by which, and on the basis of which, sin will in effect be put out of the scene of blessing forever, and the evil and sin that is put out thereof will find its eternal punishment, and be shut out from God forever also, in the lake of fire.
It is a very common thing to state that “sin has been put away.” Now there is no warrant, that I am aware of, in Scripture for such a statement. The ground-work was laid in atonement on the cross for that result, and in God’s sight the work is done. Faith takes up His thoughts, and sees all done also; the result and effect of all will come again. There is a great difference between the act before God, and this full result, though it is fully realized by faith now in the conscience of the believer.
Then in the closing verses (27, 28) he shows, contrastively, the difference between the sinner’s position and that of the Christian. For the one, death closed his course in this world, and judgment was his portion in the other. He may have been great amongst his fellows, and have benefited his fellowman; sought out inventions, and decked the world by his taste and ingenuity; made the hearts of men throb with the power and persuasion of his oratory, or made it tremble at his name. As one has wisely said, “He is where his name is not, and his name is where he is not,” where death and judgment-two certainties which dogged his footsteps in this life—closed all forever.
Contrastively to the “as” of that verse, the “so” of the following reads on, and two divine certainties again are announced by the Spirit: the one— “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many,” and faith looks back to see them borne; the other— “Unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation,” and hope looks forward to this desired end.
It will here be noticed how the cross of Christ on the one Sand, and the coming of Christ on the other, are presented as the two termini of the Christian’s course and history, and these two grand objects of faith and hope are now unfolded in chapter 10. The cross, and His work there doing the will of God, is enlarged upon in the early part of the chapter, and at the close His coming again forms the subject.
Intermediately between them comes another thing, viz., the “witness of the Holy Ghost to us” (v. 15).
Now this peculiar truth of the Spirit’s presence on earth, and His witness and varied operations, is strictly peculiar to the present interval, i.e., that between the cross of Christ, or more particularly His ascension, and His coming again for His people. This was not the case in the Old Testament times, nor will it be so during the millennial reign of the Lord. Before the cross, the Spirit wrought; now He dwells with us; and during the millennial kingdom Christ will be present, and reign in glory. It is to the present period, therefore, that the Spirit’s presence as Vicar of Christ, so to say, during His absence and rejection by the world and the Jew, specially belongs.
His presence on earth is the demonstration to the hearts of the Lord’s people of the total condemnation of the world, and even of that world (none the less) which now calls itself “Christian.” If we ask the question, Where is Jesus, and why is He on high? the answer is, The world united to cast Him out as a malefactor, but God exalted Him to His throne. The world was against God and His Anointed. As the second Psalm testifies, “The kings of the earth, and the rulers set themselves against the Lord (Jehovah) and his anointed” (Messiah); yet “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.” Where, then, is the Spirit of God, and why is He here? He is on earth, to occupy till Jesus comes again, and He is here because Christ is on God’s throne, rejected by the world. He is set down on His Father’s throne (Revelation 3:2121To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Revelation 3:21)); and not yet upon His own. “We see not yet all things put under him.”
The Law of God, when given, was a test to man. Whosoever he might be that came within its sound, whether Jew or Gentile, felt that he was bound to obey its precepts. No man denied, unless it might be the avowed infidel, that he was not bound to keep God’s law. It was, in all its commands, morally what conscience dictated in every man, with God’s authority added to conscience’s claim.
Still, under the legal dispensation God was unrevealed. He was shut in behind the veil, in the holiest of all, while man was shut out of His presence. And this gives the grand characteristic to the time before the cross of Christ and since then. In the Old Testament, God had not come to man, and man could not go to God. In the New Testament, God has come to man, and the believer can go to Him, cleansed of his sins, and delight himself in God.
But the presence of the Law of God on earth, while men felt its authority, did not reveal the standard that the presence of the Holy Ghost on earth has done. Many things were allowed under the Law that were not allowed in the Light—the Light of the Gospel. For this cause the effect Christianity has had upon the world, as far as it is known in profession, has been very great. Men do not in the light what they do in the dark and in secret. There is a restraint upon men through Christianity being professed even, and the presence of the Holy Ghost on earth characterizes it, as the presence of the Law upon earth did Judaism.
But while this is so, He bears and presents a testimony to the conscience also. He is the Bearer from on high of the blessed message that the work of Christ has been so accepted of God, and has so satisfied Him, nay, so glorified Him, that He is free in His righteousness to send forth His love to all men— “whosoever will.” He bears the message, too, of the exaltation of man, in the person of Jesus, to God’s throne. He unfolds the work of Jesus, and its effects on those who believe, bearing testimony to us of our sins and iniquities being no more remembered by the God against whom they were committed. Now, unless we had this plain and blessed testimony from God, how should we know, as a divine certainty, that all had been put away forever? It were impossible. There is no prophet now, like Nathan, to come and tell David, “The Lord hath put away thy sin.”
Like as one who owed an immense debt that he could never pay, would justly fear the day of reckoning, which he felt in his inmost soul must come; but one of infinite wealth had stepped in and discharged all the debt behind his back: still the fears were unremoved; and though there might be a gleam of undefined hope struggling in his breast, the sense of his helpless misery pressed upon his soul. There had been some one kind enough to think of him; there had been another kind enough to discharge his debt; but this was not enough; there should be one also kind enough to come and tell him it was done, otherwise his fears had remained, and his head had still hung down with the misery of his state.
Thus God had thought of us in our sins; Jesus had come and paid the penalty, and erased with blood the mighty debt; and the Spirit of God has been sent from heaven to make it known, that, on His testimony being received, the delivered one might go in and stand by faith in God’s most blessed presence, his conscience purged of every stain, and his heart free to look up and delight himself in Him, and worship and adore.
And so we find in Hebrews 10, “Whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness to us,... and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” Jesus bore them all, and put them away forever: the Holy Ghost bears the message that this is so: they are buried in the grave of God’s forgetfulness!
I see a lovely instance of this “witness to us” in comparing Isa. 53 with 1 Peter 2.
Many are aware that the former chapter narrates the feelings and confession of the godly Jew in the last days, when, on the return of Jesus to that ancient people, and they look upon Him whom they pierced, they take up the lovely language of this Scripture, and say, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes we are healed” (v. 5). Evidently, then, this is the language of God-given faith, in those who utter it at any time, be they Jew or Gentile. But remark, that it is the language of faith, and spoken by those who are entering upon their souls’ blessing themselves. When we turn to 1 Peter 2, the casual reader would suppose that the twenty-fourth verse was (with the other words of the apostle) a literal citation of Isa. 53:55But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5). But no! We read, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to (or done with) sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” Remark that the words of faith in Isa. 53, are, “We are healed;” but the words of the Holy Ghost by Peter—the witness of the Spirit to us is, “Ye were healed.” Addressing, as He does, all those Jews who had entered into the blessings of Christianity, and consequently all those, be they Jews or Gentiles, who were found in the same sphere of blessing, He would thus bear witness to us, as from on high, that by His stripes “ye were healed.” Blessed testimony! Blessed Witnesser, who would not—could not minister to the Lord’s people aught but the fullness of their blessings now, though they were as sheep going astray, but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls!
Thus He acts through the Word of God; thus He acts through the Gospel when presented to faith; and thus He will ever act till His work is over here below, and the Church of God is safe in the presence of her Lord forever.
How solemn, awfully solemn, to “do despite to the Spirit of grace” (v. 29.) Tremble, godless professor; illuminated professor of the truths of Christianity! “Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord” (v. 30). Beware, ye Ritualists, who deny the sufficiency of
Jesus’ blood, once shed, for the cleansing away forever of sins. Tremble when you think of Him whose blessed presence on earth and testimony you slight and do despite to by your unbelief. Remember that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Thus He, the Witnesser, would warn the unsaved professor, and forecast in darkest colors the ruin of any soul who despises His blessed testimony.
He would look onward, too, to that bright and blessed day that hourly approaches—the coming of our Lord. He would witness of the unchanging love of the Lord for His people. He would encourage their hearts to watch through the long, dark night for the “Morning Star.” Many a time has my heart been stirred within me, as I have looked at the morning star. Rising before the dawn I have seen the pale shades of light, as they grew more strong each moment, above the eastern sky, and the beauteous morning star hung in the blue-gray sky above the horizon, wending its way higher and higher, till at last when the busy hours of the day called me away, it soon vanished, imperceptibly lost in the glorious light of the rising sun. How I have felt cheered and refreshed with the remembrance of the Spirit’s use of the lovely symbol, to convey the thought of the Lord’s appearing, for a moment, as that lovely figure teaches—to greet the watcher through the long, dark night of this world’s history, and bear him aloft to the glory of the Father’s house on high. The Lord preaches to our souls in these things; He “speaks to our hearts,” as Joseph to his brethren of old (Genesis 1).
And while Jesus would not close the Book of God without a parting word for His people: “I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star;” the Spirit then on earth with and in the Bride, giving her a voice, joins with her responsively to Him while she gazes on Him in the heavens in that blessed character, and says, “And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.” The Spirit and the Bride join in inviting the Lord. Are there those too, who understand not her thoughts of her beloved? Yet “Let him that heareth (that invitation) say, Come:” let him invite the Lord who loved and gave Himself for him. Do any thirst around? any in whom the Spirit of God has wrought—for how but thus would they thirst after Jesus then “Let him that is athirst come;” and, wide as the sun’s meridian ray, “Whosoever will,” whoso has the desire in any wise, “let him come and take the water of life freely.”
And so the Spirit in the inspired writer of Hebrews 10 would not close His witness to us without exhorting the saints of God as to that day. He says (and here I take a liberty with the English version—a warrantable liberty, I trust), “ For yet a very, very little, and the Coming—One will arrive, and will not delay” (v. 37). May the Lord cheer our hearts, amidst the sorrows and pressures of the way, by His blessed Spirit’s witness to us, for His name’s sake! Amen.