IN CHRIST WE find both the Father and the Holy Spirit. Out of Him, or apart from Him, we lose both.
When Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), it was sober truth. Apart from Jesus you may see abstractions about God, more or less true, but to see the Father—the truth about God—you have to come to the Son. Just as you have to come through the sun’s rays before you come to the sun, so you have to come to the manifested God before you can get to the unmanifested God.
You cannot come to the Holy Spirit until you come through Jesus who gives the Holy Spirit. Go to the Holy Spirit apart from Jesus and you go into all sorts of vagaries and extravagances and all sorts of manifestations. The Holy Spirit is a Christlike Spirit. The Holy Spirit will make us Christlike persons, for Christ is the pattern.
God could not give the Holy Spirit until the pattern was fixed. “Now this he said about the Spirit . . . for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). The Spirit could be given only when it was clear that the Spirit would make us Christlike persons. Then God could give with both hands.
“One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). What was the one baptism? The one Lord was Jesus—Jesus is Lord—the one faith was faith in the Lord Jesus, and the one baptism was the one baptism which the Lord Jesus gave. What baptism was that? Jesus did not baptize with water. He saved Himself to give the one baptism—the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He went to the Father and gave the one baptism—the baptism of the Spirit.
O Jesus, my Lord, Thou art today giving the one baptism. Help me not to be content with the shadow and miss the substance. Help me to be a firsthander—I want the Holy Spirit and Thou dost want to give me the Holy Spirit. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Affirm all that Thou hast promised by giving me the mighty affirmation—the affirmation of the Holy Spirit.
