Note the two things, the universality and the abundance of this divine
gift. I have often had occasion to say to you, and so I merely repeat
it again in the briefest fashion, that we do not grasp the central
blessedness of the Christian faith unless, beyond forgiveness and
acceptance, beyond the mere putting away of the dread of punishment
either here or hereafter, we see that the gift of God in Jesus Christ
is the communication to every believing soul of that divine life which
is bestowed by the Spirit of Christ granted to every believing heart.
But I would have you notice how the universality of the gift is
unmistakably taught us by the instances which I have briefly gathered
together in my previous remarks. It was no official class on which, on
the day of Pentecost, the tongues of fire fluttered down. It was to the
whole Church that courage to front the persecutor was imparted. When in
Samaria the preaching of Philip brought about the result of the
communication of the Holy Spirit, it was to all the believers that it
was granted, and when, in the Roman barracks at Caesarea, Cornelius and
his companion listened to Peter, it was upon them all that that Divine
Spirit descended.
I suppose I need not remind you of how, if we pass beyond this book of
the Acts into the Epistles of Paul, his affirmations do most
emphatically insist upon the fact that 'we are all made to drink into
one Spirit'; and so convinced is he of the universality of the
possession of that divine life by every Christian, that he does not
hesitate to say that 'if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is
none of His,' and to clear away all possibility of misunderstanding the
depth and wonderfulness of the gift, he further adds in another place,
'Know ye not that the Spirit is in you, except ye be reprobates?'
Similarly another of the New Testament writers declares, in the
broadest terms, that 'this spake he of the Holy Spirit,
which'--Apostles? no; office-bearers? no; ordained men? no;
distinguished and leading men? No--'_they that believe on Him_ should
receive.' Christianity is the true democracy, because it declares that
upon all, handmaidens and servants, young men and old men, there comes
the divine gift. The world thinks of a divine inspiration in a more or
less superficial fashion, as touching only the lofty summits, the great
thinkers and teachers and artists and mighty men of light and leading
of the race. The Old Testament regarded prophets and kings, and those
who were designated to important offices, as the possessors of the
Divine Spirit. But Christianity has seen the sun rising so high in the
heavens that the humblest floweret, in the deepest valley, basks in its
beams and opens to its light. 'We have _all_ been made to drink into
the one Spirit.'
Let me remind you too of how, from the usage of this book, as well as
from the rest of the New Testament teaching, there rises the other
thought of the abundance of the gift. 'Full of the Holy Spirit'--the
cup is brimming with generous wine. Not that that fulness is such as to
make inconsistencies impossible, as, alas, the best of us know. The
highest condition for us is laid down in the sad words which yet have
triumph in their sadness--'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and
the Spirit against the flesh.' But whilst the fulness is not such as to
exclude the need of conflict, it is such as to bring the certainty of
victory.
Again if we turn to the instances to which I have already referred, we
shall find that they fall into two classes, which are distinguished in
the original by a slight variation in the form of the words employed.
Some instances refer to a habitual possession of an abundant spiritual
life moulding the character constantly, as in the cases of Stephen and
Barnabas. Others refer rather to occasional and special influxes of
special power on account of special circumstances, and drawn forth by
special exigencies, as when there poured into Peter's heart the Divine
Spirit that made him bold before the Council; or as when the dying
martyr's spirit was flooded with a new clearness of vision that pierced
the heavens and beheld the Christ. So then there may be and ought to
be, in each of us, a fulness of the Spirit, up to the edge of our
capacity, and yet of such a kind as that it may be reinforced and
increased when special needs arise.
Not only so, but that which fills me to-day should not fill me
to-morrow, because, as in earthly love, so in heavenly, no man can tell
to what this thing shall grow. The more of fruition the more there will
be of expansion, and the more of expansion the more of desire, and the
more of desire the more of capacity, and the more of capacity the more
of possession. So, brethren, the man who receives a spark of the divine
life, through his most rudimentary and tremulous faith, if he is a
faithful steward of the gift that is given to him, will find that it
grows and grows, and that there is no limit to its growth, and that in
its limitless growth there lies the surest prophecy of an eternal
growth in the heavens.
A universal gift, that is to say, a gift to each of us if we are
Christians, an abundant gift that fills the whole nature of a man,
according to the measure of his present power to receive--that is the
ideal, that is what God means, that is what these first believers had.
It did not make them perfect, it did not save them from faults or from
errors, but it was real, it was influential, it was moulding their
characters, it was progressive. And that is the ideal for all
Christians. Is it our actual? We are meant to be full of the Holy
Ghost. Ah! how many of us have never realised that there is such a
thing as being thus possessed with a divine life, partly because we do
not understand that such a fulness will not be distinguishable from our
own self, except by bettering of the works of self, and partly because
of other reasons which I shall have to touch upon presently! Brethren,
we may, every one of us, be filled with the Spirit. Let each of us ask,
'Am I? and if I am not, why this emptiness in the presence of such
abundance?'
And now let me ask you to look, in the second place, at what we gather
from these instances as to--