The Deeper Christian Life # 18

The Deeper Christian Life # 18

Some time ago I read this expression in an old author - "The first duty of a clergyman is humbly to ask of God that all that he wants done in his hearers should first be truly and fully done in himself." These words have stuck to me ever since. What a solemn application this is to the subject that occupied our attention in previous chapters - the living and working under the fullness of the Holy Spirit! And yet, if we understand our falling aright, every one of us will have to say, "That is the one thing on which everything depends. What profit is it to tell men that they may be filled with the Spirit of God, if, when they ask us, "Has God done it for you?" we have to answer, "No, He has not done it." What profit is it for me to tell men that Jesus Christ can dwell within us every moment, and keep us from sin and actual transgressions, and that the abiding presence of God can be our portion all the day, if I wait not upon God first to do it truly and fully day by day?

Look at the Lord Jesus Christ; it was of the Christ Himself, when He had received the Holy Spirit from heaven, that John the Baptist said that "He would baptize with the Holy Spirit." I can only communicate to others what God has imparted to me. If my life as a minister be a life in which the flesh still greatly prevails - if my life be a life in which I grieve the Spirit of God, I cannot expect but that my people will receive through me a very mingled kind of life. But if the life of God dwell in me, and I am filled with His power, then I can hope that the life that goes out from me may be infused into my hearers too.

We have referred to the need of every believer being filled with the Spirit; and what is there of deeper interest to us now, or that can better occupy our attention, than prayerfully to consider how we can being our congregations to believe that this is possible; and how we can lead on every believer to seek it for himself, to expect it, and to accept of it, so as to live it out? But, brethren, the message must come from us as a witness of our personal experience, by the grace of God. The same writer to whom I alluded, says elsewhere : "The first business of a clergyman, when he sees men awakened and brought to Christ, is to lead them on to know the Holy Spirit." How true!! Do not we find this throughout the word of God? John the Baptist preached Christ as the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," we read in Matthew that he also said that Christ would "baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire." In the gospel by John, we read that the Baptist was told that upon Whom he would see the Spirit descending and abiding, He it was who would baptize with the Spirit. Thus John the Baptist led the people on from Christ to the expectation of the Holy Spirit for themselves. And what did Jesus do? For three years, He was with His disciples, teaching and instructing them; but when He was about to go away, in His farewell discourse on the last night, what was His great promise to the disciples? "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth." He had previously promised to those who believed on Him, that "rivers of flowing water" should flow from them, which the evangelist explains as meaning the Holy Spirit. "Thus spake He of the Spirit." But this promise was only to be fulfilled after Christ "was glorified." Christ points to the Holy Spirit as the one fruit of being glorified. The glorified Christ leads to the Holy Spirit. So in the farewell discourse, Christ leads the disciples to expect the Spirit as the Father's great blessing. Then again, when Christ came and stood at the footstool of His heavenly throne, on the Mount of Olives, ready to ascend, what were His words? "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me." Christ's constant work was to teach His disciples to expect the Holy Spirit. Look through the Book of Acts, you see the same thing. Peter on the day of Pentecost preached that Christ was exalted, and had received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and so he told the people; "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." So, when I believe in Jesus risen, ascended, and glorified, I shall receive the Holy Spirit.

Look again, after Philip had preached the gospel in Samaria, men and women had been converted, and there was great joy in the city. The Holy Spirit had been working, but something was still wanting; Peter and John came down from Jerusalem, prayed for the converted ones, laid their hands upon them, "and they received the Holy Spirit." They they had the conscious possession and enjoyment of the Spirit, but till that came they were incomplete. Paul was converted by the mighty power of Jesus who appeared to him on the way to Damascus; and yet he had to go to Ananias to receive the Holy Spirit.

Then again, we read that when Peter went to preach to Cornelius, as he preached Christ, "the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word," which Peter took as the sign that these Gentiles were one with the Jews in the favor of God, having the same baptism.

And so we might go through many of the Epistles, where we find the same truth taught. Look at that wonderful epistle to the Romans. The doctrine of justification by faith is established in the first five chapters. Then in the sixth and seventh, though the believer is represented as dead to sin and the law, and married to Christ, yet a dreadful struggle goes on in the heart of the regenerate man as long as he has not got the full power of the Holy Spirit. But in the eighth chapter, it is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" that maketh us free from "the law of sin and death." Then we are "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit," with the Spirit of God dwelling in us. All the teaching leads us to the Holy Spirit.

~Andrew Murray~

(continued with # 19)