Chapter 8: The Other Advocate.
Chapter 8: The Other Advocate.
JOHN XIV: 16.
"ANOTHER COMFORTER," or paraclete, the Master said. The Church has two Advocates-the one with the Father in heaven, Jesus Christ the Righteous, the other in her midst, for "we have been builded together as an habitation of God through the Spirit." "Ye," said the Apostle, speaking of the Church collectively, "are the temple of the Holy Ghost." When the one Advocate went up, the other came down to be to each believer, and to the whole Church, all that the Lord Jesus would have been had the ministry of the forty days been indefinitely prolonged. This is the secret of prayer; by the Spirit in the heart we are brought into living sympathy with the Saviour on the throne, and we naturally ask those things which it is the will of God to give.
There is a remarkable parallel between the Advents of the Second and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity. The Lord Jesus was, of course, in existence before His incarnation; yea, more, His delights were with the sons of men, and He wrought amongst them as the Angel-Jehovah; but at Bethlehem He entered into union with our nature. So the Holy Spirit wrought in the hearts of holy men before the Day of Pentecost, moving them to write the Scriptures, and to do great deeds of holy courage, but at Pentecost, in an especial manner, He entered into union with the Church.
What the manger-bed was to the one, the upper room was to the other. And now the Holy Spirit is as certainly immanent in the Body of which Christ is Head, as Jesus was immanent in the Body born of the Virgin Mother.
Of course, as the Church is made up of individual believers, the immanence of the Divine Spirit in the whole depends on His immanence in each. And His indwelling in any individual spirit is necessarily productive of all manner of Christ-forming, sin-destroying, grace-producing results. Holiness is the inevitable outcome of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost when He is permitted entire and undisputed supremacy. Of these our space forbids more than this mere mention, as we wish only to enumerate the special functions of the Spirit of God in respect of the Church's mission in the world.
THE ANOINTING FUNCTION.
Here, too, there is a remarkable parallel between the experiences of Christ and of His Church. Not only was He conceived of the Holy Ghost, but when the long preparatory period had passed, He was anointed for His work as the great Servant of God. He stooped to associate Himself with sinners by submitting to baptism in the swellings of Jordan, and immediately the Spirit of God, who had been in Him, descended upon Him, and He was able to say, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because he hath anointed Me to preach." This was our Saviour's Pentecost, the hour in which He was indued with power, and was filled by the Spirit, not by measure, but in illimitable abundance.
Similarly, when the Church, which, so to speak, had been conceived of the Holy Ghost, was essaying to undertake her great mission to the world, to preach the Gospel to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captive, the opening of the prison to the bound, she, too, was anointed for her work. Not a step might she stir, though the world was knocking at her doors, till she had been thus endued with power from on high.
Ever since then the Risen Christ has been anointing and enduing men. The oil which has been so copiously poured on the head of our Aaron descends to each fragment of His sacred dress that claims the sacred chrism. The Lord received the Holy Ghost as an individual at the Jordan, but He received Him again, so Peter tells us, when He ascended upon high, and this time as our Head and Representative (Acts ii: 33). He has been infilled that He may infil; anointed that He may anoint; endued that He may endue. Though in all this it must be remembered that we are not now touching on His Divine Nature, but on His office as the High Priest of His Church. As a river pouring over a mountain-side fills the large tarns and lakes below, so the nature of God pours into the Divine human nature of the Son, and so by the Spirit into all hearts that by faith claim His infilling.
HIS ADMINISTERING FUNCTION.
Throughout the Book of the Acts, we find that the Holy Ghost is the prime mover and administrator. He said to Peter, "Three men seek for thee, go with them, I have sent them"; He said, "Separate me Barnabus and Saul"; He controlled the movements of the Apostle, "the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not"; He was so evidently present in the Church, that the first official document ran thus: "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us." He struck down those that lied against His Divine Majesty. These are instances out of many. Indeed, there is not a chapter in the Acts which does not contain some reference to the administrative function of the Holy Ghost.
And what was true of the early Church has been true in the history of the universal Church in every age, and might be true of each separate one. My beloved friend, the late Dr. Gordon, to long talks with whom on this subject l owe so much, once told me that in his earlier ministry he was more anxious to administer and guide his church than in later years. He found that he was attempting work which the Holy Spirit could do better. It was enough, therefore, to preach perpetually on the work of the Holy Spirit, to keep his people's minds directed towards it, and to believe that the Spirit Himself would energize through the church to the perfect realizing of all its possibilities.
THE CO-OPERATING FUNCTION.
A scientific lecturer often employs the services of a demonstrator, who, by the experiments he performs, or the figures he chalks on the blackboard, presents to the eye what the speaker is presenting to the ear. This co-operation is like the double lens of the binocular glass, and the impression of the conjoint witness is proportionately great. So, ever since the day of Pentecost, when a servant of Christ has stood up in the right condition of soul and in believing fellowship with the Divine Spirit, He has been a fellow-witness to the Gospel. "We are witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost."
Whilst the servant of God is elaborating and enforcing the truth disclosed to him through the Bible, at the moment that he is speaking the Spirit of God is at work, convicting of sin, righteousness, and judgment, demonstrating the truth of what is advanced, and driving the arrow home in the joints of the harness. It is a mistake, therefore, to argue for the Gospel; it is better far to bear witness to it. This is our function. " Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." But it is highly important that we present Christ in His Gospel. The Spirit is not bound to add His testimony to aught else. Not to bursts of eloquence, nor to reams of essays on the last strike, nor to philosophy and science, but to the truth as it is in Jesus, is the Spirit responsive.
If once a man learns to rely on this, it makes him wonderfully calm and still. His fury and passion will not effect his purpose, but if he really knows "the communion," or partnership, "of the Holy Spirit," that will answer all.
HIS UPBUILDING FUNCTION.
Between the first and second Advents God is forming a new humanity. The Head was constituted in the incarnation, but especially in the death and resurrection of the Second Adam. The Body is being added, soul by soul. It is worth our while to give full meaning to the phrase, "Believers were the more added to the Lord" (Acts v: 14). They were, of course, added to the Church, but before that they had been added to the Lord. They were added to the Church because they had been added to the Lord.
This is a special function of the Holy Spirit to attract and draw men to the Head. He does this through the Church. Thus the Body of Christ is being built up. In the purpose of God we may say, as David did of his natural body, "In Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned." That is the point; the members of the Lord's mystical body are being fashioned in continuance: and as each new fragment is added, it becomes the vehicle or channel through which the energy of the Holy Ghost passes to incorporate still more.
HIS REVEALING FUNCTION.
The one aim of the Blessed Spirit is to glorify the Saviour, as the aim of the Saviour was to glorify the Father. The very expressions that were applicable in this connection to the Lord are equally so to the Spirit. Compare, for instance, these two remarkable sentences: "I have not spoken from Myself," and "He shall not speak from Himself."
If we may so speak, the Holy Spirit shrinks from drawing attention to Himself. He is gladdest when all the light that He can focus shines full on the face of Jesus, and men are taken up with Him. All that detracts from the pre-eminence of Christ in the heart-life and thought-life of His people is an immense grief to Him whose mission is to glorify Him by taking of the things that are His, and revealing them to those who love. The life which is most pervaded by the Spirit of Jesus will have most of the beauty of His character reflected in it. And the spirit which is really Spirit-filled will talk more of the Lord Jesus than of the Gracious Agent, whose joy is to reveal Him, and to be Himself unseen.
Our individual paracletism through these priceless functions will be in proportion as we learn the meaning of Gal. iii: 14. "That we might receive the promise of the Spirit by faith." Not by long vigils, nor by prolonged fastings and prayers, nor with a storm of emotion, and the witness of sense, but calmly, quietly, and through faith we may receive all God intends in any of these directions; not once or twice, but repeatedly; not spasmodically, but continuously; not emotionally, but by the adjusted attitude of the consecrated will.