Saturday: The Applied Edge of Redemption
WEEK 2
SATURDAY
THE APPLIED EDGE OF REDEMPTION
2 Corinthians 1:21-22
We come now to consider the last of the seven pillars upon which the gospel rests: the Word become dynamic—the Holy Spirit. “While they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. He said, ‘This is what you heard from me: John baptized with water, but in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit’” (Acts 1:4-5).
Here in this last step all the other six come into contact with the immediate problem; the problem of so changing and reinforcing the moral and spiritual life of people that they will be willing and able to put into operation in actual life what God has provided. It is not enough for the Word to become flesh, for the Word to become revelation, for the Word to become vicarious, for the Word to become triumphant, for the Word to become final, for the Word to become total program for the total life—all these are good, but not good enough unless and until they can move on the inside of humanity as immediate dynamic and power to enable us to accept and appropriate and make use of all that God has provided in Jesus. For all these six things are on the outside of us; and nothing is ours until it moves on the inside and becomes a part of us. This happens in the last step—the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is the applied edge of redemption. The Spirit is redemption where it counts, namely, down amid the driving urges on the inside of us. If the Holy Spirit can move in and cleanse and control and consecrate these driving urges, then salvation has come and has come where it counts, namely, within.
Otherwise these first six basic facts are all outside of us in history. The historical must become the experimental. The Jesus of history must become the Christ of experience. For nothing is ours until it becomes us. If all the redemption that Jesus has wrought had remained in history and had stopped this side of experience, then it would have stopped short of redemption. For it is not redemption until it redeems us, and it does not redeem us unless it can get into the inside of us. In the Holy Spirit, God takes the final step in redemption—God steps within. And that is where God has always wanted to be.
O Holy Spirit, you are the Lord and the Son stepping within me to remake and refashion me into the divine image. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The Holy Spirit is with me now; my lowered barriers invite God within.