Christ has borne away our sin, cleansed us from all defilement, and made us fit for the presence of God, and in order that we may enjoy this blessed reality, He has gained for us, at the same time, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Not only do we, when being born again, receive a new nature, which is holy and capable of sentiments suitable to the position in which grace has placed us before God, but we receive the Holy Spirit, who shows and reveals and communicates to us divine things and who inspires sentiments such as they should awaken. We are strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man, in order that, being rooted and grounded in love, Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, and that we may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:1619).
The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us (Rom. 5:55And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5:5)). He takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us, and all that the Father has is Christ’s (John 16:15; 17:1015All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you. (John 16:15)
10And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. (John 17:10)). That which eye has not seen, which ear has not heard, which came not into the heart of man — the things which God has prepared for him whom He loves — God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:910).
The Holy Spirit is “the unction” which we receive of God, by which “we know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Cor. 2:12) — by which we “know all things” (1 John 2:2020Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? (John 2:20)). He is the seal which God has put upon us unto the day of redemption; God has set His appropriating mark for that day of glory on those who believe. The Holy Spirit is also “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.” He gives us the full assurance of the efficacy of the work of Christ. He imparts to us the knowledge of the position in which we are placed, as cleansed by the blood of the Saviour, and therefore without spot in the sight of God. By the Holy Spirit, the love of God, whence all these accomplished blessings have flowed, is shed abroad in our hearts. He is the originator in us of all the thoughts and all the affections which respond to this love.
But He does more — He is more than all this for us. “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). This is not merely an imagination, a feeling; it is a fact. The same Spirit, whose fullness is in Christ, abides in us, and we are united to Christ as members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph. 5:3030For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. (Ephesians 5:30)). By one Spirit we have all been baptized, that we might be one body (1 Cor. 12:13). Not only is He the power, the link, of this union, but He gives us the consciousness of it. “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John 14:2020At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:20)).
The Holy Spirit, then, gives us, first of all, the assurance of our redemption. Where the Spirit is, there is liberty; He reveals to us the glory of Christ as presented in the Scriptures, as He once did to Stephen, who, full of the Holy Spirit, beheld the glory of God and the Son of Man at the right hand of God. Moreover, He gives us the consciousness of our union with Christ on high. We know that we are quickened together with Him, raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. Besides all this, He sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts — the spring and fountain of joy to ourselves, of pity towards this poor world, and of love to all the family of God.
Another truth of minor importance, but very precious in its place, depends upon this presence of the Holy Spirit: We are of the same body and thus “members one of another” (Rom. 12:55So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. (Romans 12:5)). If Christ is the Head of the body, each Christian is a member of it and consequently is united by the Holy Spirit, who forms the bond of the whole in every other member.
The same Spirit dwells in each Christian; his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). And believers being quickened and united together, they, as a whole, are also His temple (1 Cor. 3:16). God dwells there by His Spirit in a manner less palpable but far more excellent than in the temple of Jerusalem.
True Christian Worship
Now it is in their position, according to this glorious revelation of God, and by the Spirit which He has given, in order that we might enjoy all the blessed privileges which are ours, that true Christian worship is offered to God.
Knowing what God is, and what He is for us—beholding Him, without a veil, according to the perfection of His love and of His holiness — rendered capable of abiding in the light, as He Himself is in the light — the objects of that love which spared not His well-beloved Son, that we might be made partakers of it — and having received His Spirit, in order that we might comprehend this love and thus be enabled to adore Him according to the desires and affections of His heart toward us, we render Him worship responsive to the revelation which He has made of Himself in that mystery of love into which the angels desire to look and by which He will make known, in the ages to come, the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
But there remains yet another element of our intelligent service — the character of “the Father.” God must be worshipped in “spirit and in truth,” for He is a Spirit, but it is as “the Father” that He “seeketh such to worship Him.”
To worship “in spirit” is to worship according to the true nature of God and in the power of that communion which the Spirit of God gives. Spiritual worship is thus in contrast with the forms and ceremonies and all the religiousness of which the flesh is capable.
J. N. Darby, from Collected Writings,
Vol. 7, pp. 97100