OH 1:33-39{There are two great parts in the revelation God has given us of Himself. There is, first- and it is of first importance to us- He reveals Himself; for how else should we know Him? We had lost every true thought of Him from Eden, so early had Satan poisoned the very springs of our being against God. The mind of the flesh is enmity against Him. But the moment was come at last when the heart of God, long yearning to tell itself out in this ruined world, was to have its full, suited expression. This we are brought to in the first chapter of John: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." Blessed thought for us!- there has been from eternity with God the Word that could fully express Him; "and the Word was God," for who but God could express God? For a moment we are introduced to the vast scene of the display of His Godhead and power in creation (John 1:33All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:3)), but only to be dismissed in a word, to give way before what was infinitely greater, even the Divine Word, the Creator Himself come into the world that He had made. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." Yes, it is even so, for "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"- God manifest in the flesh. And the opened eye of faith beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. For this was the character of His coming: "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." "No man bath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."
Thus the light of all that God is fully revealed had risen upon this dark world. With what effect? Oh, has it to be told? None whatever, if left to itself! Such is man, such the total ruin that sin has made of us, that what is impossible physically takes place. "The light shineth in darkness." Perfect light was there; the darkness remained as it was, perfectly unaffected by it, "the darkness comprehended it not." Such the profound moral darkness in which we lay! He was in the world, and the world knew Him not: He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Do we not know and own it? Have we not had to prove it in our own souls? We saw no beauty in Him that we should desire Him. But mark the wondrous grace of the revelation. If He had shone into this world in all the majesty of His glory, who could have borne His presence? It would have been our destruction. But "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." He veiled His glory beneath the lowly garb of His humiliation, that He might bring down all the grace that was in God to us where we were in all our need of it, to draw us by the grace into the discovered truth of our condition. Had He come only to shine, we should have been left where we were, lost forever. Blessed be God, it is not so. If light is come, love is come with it, for God is love as well as light. And love is active to bring in the rays of the light into our consciences and hearts, that, being brought to know ourselves, we may know Him.
But this brings us to the second great part of the way He has revealed Himself, even the divine work, in all its completeness, by which He puts us in the presence of His glory at perfect rest. This, too, we find presented in the chapter before us, if not in its full result as to us, yet at least in the glory of Him whose work it is, and the work part of His glory. But God must work, if any heart were ever to open to His glory. Nor was the fact of an activity of divine love any new thing in itself in this poor world. God had ever wrought that there might be anything of Him, of blessing, or of good, found in it. Only all comes out clearly in the light now, and we see what the first essential work of all is, and what its character. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe in his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12, 1312But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12‑13)) When the darkness of our condition was wholly unaffected by the presence of infinite light, when there was no heart here to answer to the infinite love that brought in the light, God wrought in that love- His word, applied by the power of the Spirit, as ever His instrument- that born of the Spirit and the Word- born of God- our poor hearts might open to receive Jesus, and that we might possess a nature capable of answering to, and (when set free) delighting in, all that was presented to us in Him. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." Oh, think of the wonderful grace that wrought when there was nothing in any of our hearts that answered to anything in His, to bring us into partaking of His own nature, that we might have capacity to know and joy in Him forever! But this blessed enjoyment is not the first effect of being born of God- far from it. There must be the bringing out between the conscience and God of our sins as we never knew them before. Sooner or later self must be learned, too, to be nothing but sin. Thus we find ourselves out before God in the only truth of our condition—a condition that makes us totally unfit for His presence. What a place to be brought to, solemn and humbling, yet needed; and that is the sure mark, as it is the effect, of a work all His own. We are brought at last where Peter was in principle, as in Luke 5; "he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Blessed taking of God's side against himself, as it was; but not to be left there. No; that never would have satisfied divine love. More was needed for God's own glory- more, to give us rest in His presence. The answer to both is found in the glories in which the Lord Jesus is now presented to us in the testimony of John the Baptist. How suited and exquisite the grace, that, amid this full testimony to the varied glory of the Divine Word manifested on earth, we should find the complete work as an essential part of that glory, that was necessary if we were to have any part in it for blessing!
There are two further parts of the divine work, and they are brought out in this testimony to His glory first, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world;" and, secondly, "He it is that baptizes with the Holy Ghost." These two parts of the work of the Son of God are needed to be added to the primary work of the Spirit of God, by which we are born anew, to complete the full Christian position. In the slain Lamb of God we find the righteous ground- now for the first time manifested- of all the work of God in blessing that there ever had been, or could be, in a lost world, but here presented according to all the perfection found in it for God, and therefore in its full, complete efficacy, even to the clearing away of sin forever, in a new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Of that first part of His work as the Lamb of God, He could say, "God is glorified in him, and if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself." And He has done it. So that, where God rests in the full settlement of every question of sin, as it affected His glory, there we rest in seeing our sins gone in His death who bore them, and we ourselves judged, condemned, and crucified with Him. It needed, indeed, the whole glory of the work that lays the foundation of the new heavens and new earth to remove the stain of a single sin from our guilty souls; but it is there, an accomplished work for us. So that the moment the eye of faith turns from self, found out in its sin, to the Lamb of God, the scene is cleared for us, as it is for God, of all we have done and been. It lay in the perfection and glory of His work as the Lamb of God, to end all that was of the first man for faith, in infinitely executed judgment, and to lay the basis, in divine righteousness, for the accomplishment of all God's counsels, for His glory and our blessing, in the Second.
But this brings us to the second part of the work of the Son of God, as He who baptiseth with the Holy Ghost. It is all here still wrapped up in testimony to the glory of His Person. But we know it as accomplished. Having finished His work as the atoning Lamb of God, He has taken His place as the accepted Man in the glory of God, and sent down the Holy Ghost. He is given to dwell within us, as each one receives the testimony of accomplished redemption, to bring us in power into the whole of Christ's own place, as man, before that glory. He baptizes with the Holy Ghost. It is no longer the mere negative taking away of all that had to be taken away in God's judgment, but the full, positive bringing in of what was to be established in its room. Not till, in fact, the work of redemption was accomplished could the Holy Ghost be given; "for the Holy Ghost was not yet, because Jesus was not glorified." And so, in the faith of our souls, "In whom ye also, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (compare Acts 19:1-61And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, 2He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. 3And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. 4Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. 5When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. (Acts 19:1‑6); Eph. 1:1515Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, (Ephesians 1:15)). Given immediately upon, and the seal of, the faith that believes God's testimony to the accomplished work of a risen and glorified Christ, the Holy Ghost gives us the consciousness of our new and wonderful place in Christ. This testimony is conveyed to us in the forgiveness of sins. Hence it is at the point at which we receive the positive and conferred forgiveness of our sins, that we receive the Holy Ghost to dwell in us. Compare Acts 2:38; 10:43, 4438Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2:38)
43To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. 44While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. (Acts 10:43‑44); and the place of the introduction of the Holy Ghost, in the Epistle to the Romans, after peace with God through justification. (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).) Also in type, in the case of the leper (Lev. 14:14-1814And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot: 15And the priest shall take some of the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand: 16And the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger seven times before the Lord: 17And of the rest of the oil that is in his hand shall the priest put upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass offering: 18And the remnant of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall pour upon the head of him that is to be cleansed: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord. (Leviticus 14:14‑18)), where the oil (type of the Holy Ghost) follows the application of the blood of the trespass offering.
Thus, when the Holy Ghost was come, Jesus says, "Ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you." When He had made peace through the blood of His cross, and become Himself the first messenger of it to His disciples, in John 20, greeting them with, "Peace be unto you," as the last Adam, a quickening Spirit, He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. It is the Spirit as the power of the life with which He was risen from the dead, rather than given as a distinct Person to dwell in them. For this we know they had still to wait till the day of Pentecost. The Son of God was come, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." The Spirit is the power of that life now possessed in new association with the risen Christ. Hence it can be said, " The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." (Rom. 8:22For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2).) It is a positive, actual deliverance, by divine power, out of the old condition in which we were into a wholly new one in Christ. Further, He is the Spirit of adoption; if we are the sons of God, by faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:2626For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26)), because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father. (Gal. 4:66And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. (Galatians 4:6).) Another blessed mark and effect of His presence is stated in 2 Cor. 3:1717Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (2 Corinthians 3:17): "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"- liberty to gaze on the unveiled glory of God in the face of Jesus, the token of God's perfect acceptance of the work, according to which we are accepted before Him in righteousness, that as we gaze, we may be changed into His image. There are also corporate effects of the gift of the Holy Ghost, as dwelling on earth, and uniting us to Christ; but these do not come within the scope of the Gospel of John; and it is profitable for our souls to distinguish the individual aspect of the baptism of the Holy Ghost from that which is corporate, for we must be established in the former before anything of the latter can be known in privilege and responsibility. J. A. T.
(To be continued.)
The fathers were spoken to by the prophets, by those who had but visions and dreams. We are now spoken to by the Son, by Him who sees face to face, who has access to all that is of God. And this lets us into heavenly things as well as earthly. This discloses the holiest things to our view, as well as the courts, because our prophet is there, while the prophets of the fathers were more in the distance, in the place of visions and dreams. J. G. B.