The Holy Spirit.
'But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him
were to receive: for _the Holy Spirit_ was not yet: because Jesus
was not yet glorified.'--John vii. 39.
'The Comforter, even _the Holy Spirit_, whom the Father will send
in my name, He shall teach you all things.'--John xiv. 26.
'God chose you to salvation _in sanctification of the Spirit_, and
belief of the truth.'--2 Thess. ii. 13. (See 1 Pet. i. 2.)
It has sometimes been said, that while the Holiness of God stands out
more prominently in the Old Testament, in the New it has to give way to
the revelation of His love. The remark could hardly be made if it were
fully realized that the Spirit is God, and that when He takes up the
epithet Holy as His own proper name, it is to teach us that now the
Holiness of God is to come nearer than ever, and to be specially
revealed as the power that makes us holy. In the Holy Spirit, God the
Holy One of Israel, and He who was the Holy One of God, come nigh for
the fulfilment of the promise, 'I am the Lord that make you holy.' The
unseen and unapproachable holiness of God had been revealed and brought
near in the life of Christ Jesus; all that hindered our participation in
it had been removed by His death. The name of Holy Spirit teaches us
that it is specially the Spirit's work to impart it to us and make it
our own.
Try and realize the meaning of this; the epithet that through the whole
Old Testament has belonged to the Holy God, is now appropriated to that
Spirit which is within you. The Holiness of God in Christ becomes
holiness _in you_, because this Spirit is in you. The words, and the
Divine realities the words express, _Holy_ and _Spirit_, are now
inseparably and eternally united. You can only have as much of the
Spirit as you are willing to have of holiness. You can only have as much
holiness as you have of the indwelling Spirit.
There are some who pray for the Spirit because they long to have His
light and joy and strength. And yet their prayers bring little increase
of blessing or power. It is because they do not rightly know or desire
Him as the _Holy_ Spirit. His burning purity, His searching and
convicting light, His making dead of the deeds of the body, of self with
its will and its power, His leading into the fellowship of Jesus as He
gave up His will and His life to the Father,--of all this they have not
thought. The Spirit cannot work in power in them because they receive
Him not as the _Holy_ Spirit, in _sanctification_ of the Spirit. At
times, in seasons of revival, as among the Corinthians and Galatians, He
may indeed come with His gifts and mighty workings, while His
sanctifying power is but little manifest. (1 Cor. xiv. 4, xiii. 8, iii.
1-3; Gal. iii. 3, v. 15-26.) But unless that sanctifying power be
acknowledged and accepted, His gifts will be lost. His gifts coming on
us are but meant to prepare the way for the sanctifying power within us.
We must take the lesson to heart; we can have as much of the Spirit as
we are willing to have of His Holiness. Be full of the Spirit, must mean
to us, Be fully holy.
The converse is equally true. We can only have so much holiness as we
have of the Spirit. Some souls do very earnestly seek to be holy, but it
is very much in their own strength. They will read books and listen to
addresses most earnestly; they will use every effort to lay hold of
every thought, and act out every advice. And yet they must confess that
they are still very much strangers to the true, deep rest and joy and
power of abiding in Christ, and being holy in Him. They sought for
holiness more than for the Spirit. They must learn how even all the
holiness which is so near and clear in Christ, is beyond our reach,
except as the Holy Spirit dwells within and imparts it. They must learn
to pray for Him and His mighty strengthening (Eph. iii. 16), to believe
for Him (John iv. 14, vii. 37), in faith to yield to Him as indwelling
(1 Cor. iii. 14, vi. 19). They must learn to cease from self-effort in
thinking and believing, in willing and in running; to hope in God, and
wait patiently for Him. He will by His Holy Spirit make us holy. Be holy
means, Be filled with the Spirit.
If we inquire more closely how it is that this Holy Spirit makes holy,
the answer is,--He reveals and imparts the Holiness of Christ. Scripture
tells us: Christ is made unto us sanctification. He sanctified Himself
for us, that we ourselves might also be sanctified in truth. We have
been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. We are sanctified in Christ Jesus. The whole living Christ is
just a treasury of holiness for man. In His life on earth He exchanged
the Divine Holiness He possessed into the current coin needed for this
human earthly life, obedience to the Father, and humility, and love, and
zeal. As God, He has a sufficiency of it for every moment of the life of
every believer.
And yet, it is all beyond our reach, except as the Holy Spirit brings it
to us and inwardly communicates it. But this is the very work for which
He bears the Divine Name, the _Holy_ Spirit, to glorify Jesus, the Holy
One of God, within us, and so make us partakers of His Holiness. He does
it by revealing Christ, so that we begin to see what is in Him. He does
it by discovering the deep unholiness of our nature (Rom. vii. 14-23).
He does it by mightily strengthening us to believe, to receive Jesus
Himself as our life. He does it by leading us to utter despair of self,
to absolute surrender of obedience to Jesus as Lord, to the assured
confidence of faith in the power of an indwelling Christ. He does it by,
in the secret silent depths of the heart and life, imparting the
dispositions and graces of Christ, so that from the inner centre of our
life, which has been renewed and sanctified in Christ, holiness should
flow out and pervade all to the utmost circumference. Where the desire
has once been awakened, and the delight in the law of God after the
inward man been created, there, as the Spirit of this life in Christ
Jesus, He makes free from the law of sin and death in the members, he
leads into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. As God within us, He
communicates what God in Christ has prepared.
And if we ask once more how the working of this Holy Spirit, who thus
makes holy, is to be secured, the answer is very simple and clear. He is
the Spirit of the Holy Father, and of Christ, the Holy One of God: from
them He must be received. 'He showed me a river of water of life
proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb.' Jesus speaks of 'the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my Name.' He taught us to ask
the Father. Paul prays for the Ephesians: 'I bow my knees to the Father,
that He may grant unto you, according to the riches of His glory, that
ye may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.' It is
as we look to God in His Holiness, and all its revelation from Creation
downward, and see how the Spirit now flows out from the throne of His
Holiness as the water of life, that our hope will be awakened that God
will give Him to work mightily in us. And as we then see Jesus revealing
that holiness in human nature, rending the veil in His atoning death,
that the Spirit from the Holiest of all may come forth and, as the Holy
Spirit, be His representative, making Him present within us, we shall
become confident that faith in Jesus will bring the fulness of the
Spirit. As He told us to ask the Father, He told us to believe in
Himself. 'He that believeth in me, rivers of living water shall flow out
of him.' Let us bow to the Father in the name of Christ, His Son; let us
believe very simply in the Son as Him in whom we are well-pleasing to
the Father, and through whom the Father's love and blessing reach us,
and we may be sure the Spirit, who is already within us, will, as the
Holy Spirit, do His work in ever-increasing power. The mystery of
holiness is the mystery of the Trinity: as we bow to the Father,
believing in the Son, the Holy Spirit will work. And we shall see the
true meaning of what God spake in Israel: '_I am holy_,' thus speaks the
Father; '_Be holy_,' as my Son and in my Son; '_I make holy_,' through
the Spirit of my Son dwelling in you. Let our souls worship and cry out,
'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.'
The Holy Spirit. All true knowledge of the Father in His adorable
Holiness, and of the Son in His, which is meant to be ours, and all
participation of it, depend upon our life in the Spirit, upon our
knowing and owning Him as abiding in us as our Life. Oh, what can it be
that, with such a Thrice Holy God, His Holiness does not more cover His
Church and children? The Holy Spirit is among us, is in us: it must be
we grieve and resist Him. If _you_ would not do so, at once bow the knee
to the Father, that He may grant you the Spirit's mighty workings in
the inner man. Believe that the Holy Spirit, bearer to you of all the
Holiness of God and of Jesus, is indeed in you. Let Him take the place
of self, with its thoughts and efforts. Set your soul still before God
in holy silence, for Him to give you wisdom; rest, in emptiness and
poverty of spirit, in the faith that He will work in His own way. As
Divine as is the holiness that Jesus brings, so Divine is the power in
which the Holy Spirit communicates it. Yield yourself day by day in
growing dependence and obedience, to wait on and be led of Him. Let the
fear of the Holy One be on you: sanctify the Lord God in your heart: let
Him be your fear and dread. Fear not only sin: fear above all self, as
it thrusts itself in before God with its service. Let self die, in
refusing and denying its work: let the Holy Spirit, in quietness, and
dependence, in the surrender of obedience and trust, have the rule, the
free disposal of every faculty. Wait for Him--He can, He will in power
reveal and impart the Holiness of the Father and the Son.[7]