The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit Part 5

There are many professed Christians to-day living in the experience that Paul described in Rom. vii. 9-24. Each day is a day of defeat and if at the close of the day, they review their lives they must cry, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?" There are some who even go so far as to reason that this is the normal Christian life, but Paul tells us distinctly that this was "when the commandment came" (v. 9), not when the Spirit came; that it is the experience under law and not in the Spirit. The p.r.o.noun "I" occurs twenty-seven times in these fifteen verses and the Holy Spirit is not found once, whereas in the eighth chapter of Romans the p.r.o.noun "I" is found only twice in the whole chapter and the Holy Spirit appears constantly. Again Paul tells us in the fourteenth verse that this was his experience as "carnal, sold under sin."

Certainly, that does not describe the normal Christian experience. On the other hand in Rom. viii. 9 we are told how not to be in the flesh but in the Spirit. In the eighth chapter of Romans we have a picture of the true Christian life, the life that is possible to each one of us and that G.o.d expects from each one of us. Here we have a life where not merely the commandment comes but the Spirit comes, and works obedience to the commandment and brings us complete victory over the law of sin and death.

Here we have life, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, where we not only see the beauty of the law (Rom. vii. 22) but where the Spirit imparts power to keep it (Rom. viii. 4). We still have the flesh but we are not in the flesh and we do not live after the flesh. We "through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body" (v. 13). The desires of the body are still there, desires which if made the rule of our life, would lead us into sin, but we day by day by the power of the Spirit do put to death the deeds to which the desires of the body would lead us. We walk by the Spirit and therefore do not fulfill the l.u.s.ts of the flesh (Gal. v. 16, R. V.). We have crucified the flesh with the pa.s.sions and l.u.s.ts thereof (Gal. v. 24, R. V.). It would be _going too far to say we had still a carnal nature_, for a carnal nature is a nature governed by the flesh; _but we have the flesh_, but in the Spirit's power, it is our privilege to get daily, hourly, constant victory over the flesh and over sin. But this victory is not in ourselves, nor in any strength of our own. Left to ourselves, deserted of the Spirit of G.o.d, we would be as helpless as ever. It is still true that in us, that is in our flesh, dwelleth no good thing (Rom.

vii. 18). It is all in the power of the indwelling Spirit, but the Spirit's power may be in such fullness that one is not even conscious of the presence of the flesh. It seems as if it were dead and gone forever, but it is only kept in place of death by the Holy Spirit's power. If for one moment we were to get our eyes off from Jesus Christ, if we were to neglect the daily study of the Word and prayer, down we would go. We must live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit if we would have continuous victory (Gal. v. 16, 25). The life of the Spirit within us must be maintained by the study of the Word and prayer. One of the saddest things ever witnessed is the way in which some people who have entered by the Spirit's power into a life of victory become self-confident and fancy that the victory is in themselves, and that they can safely neglect the study of the Word and prayer. The depths to which such sometimes fall is appalling. Each of us needs to lay to heart the inspired words of the Apostle, "Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. x. 12). I once knew a man who seemed to make extraordinary strides in the Christian life. He became a teacher of others and was greatly blessed to thousands. It seemed to me that he was becoming self-confident and I trembled for him. I invited him to my room and we had a long heart to heart conversation. I told him frankly that it seemed as if he were going perilously near exceedingly dangerous ground. I said that I found it safer at the close of each day not to be too confident that there had been no failures nor defeats that day but to go alone with G.o.d and ask Him to search my heart and show me if there was anything in my outward or inward life that was displeasing to Him, and that very often failures were brought to light that must be confessed as sin. "No," he replied, "I do not need to do that. Even if I should do something wrong, I would see it at once. I keep very short accounts with G.o.d, and I would confess it at once." I said it seemed to me as if it would be safer to take time alone with G.o.d for G.o.d to search us through and through, that while we might not know anything against ourselves, G.o.d might know something against us (1 Cor. iv. 4, R. V.), and He would bring it to light and our failure could be confessed and put away. "No," he said, "he did not feel that that was necessary." Satan took advantage of his self-confidence. He fell into most appalling sin, and though he has since confessed and professed repentance, he has been utterly set aside from G.o.d's service.

In John viii. 32 we read, "Ye shall know the truth and _the truth shall set you free_." In this verse it is the truth, or the Word of G.o.d, that sets us free from the power of sin and gives us victory. And in Ps. cxix.

11 we read, "_Thy Word_ have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee." Here again it is the indwelling Word that keeps us free from sin. In this matter as in everything else what in one place is attributed to the Holy Spirit is elsewhere attributed to the Word. The explanation, of course, is that the Holy Spirit works through the Word, and it is futile to talk of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us if we neglect the Word. If we are not feeding on the Word, we are not walking after the Spirit and we shall not have victory over the flesh and over sin.

CHAPTER XII. THE HOLY SPIRIT FORMING CHRIST WITHIN US.

It is a wonderful and deeply significant prayer that Paul offers in Eph.

iii. 16-19 for the believers in Ephesus and for all believers who read the Epistle. Paul writes, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which pa.s.seth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of G.o.d" (R. V.). We have here an advance in the thought over that which we have just been studying in the preceding chapter. It is the carrying out of the former work to its completion. Here the power of the Spirit manifests itself, not merely in giving us victory over sin but in four things:

I. _In Christ dwelling in our hearts._ The word translated "dwell" in this pa.s.sage is a very strong word. It means literally, "to dwell down," "to settle," "to dwell deep." It is the work of the Holy Spirit to form the living Christ within us, dwelling deep down in the deepest depths of our being. We have already seen that this was a part of the significance of the name sometimes used of the Holy Spirit, "the Spirit of Christ." In Christ on the cross of Calvary, made an atoning sacrifice for sin, bearing the curse of the broken law in our place, we have _Christ for us_. But by the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon us by the risen Christ we have _Christ in us_. Herein lies the secret of a Christlike life. We hear a great deal in these days about doing as Jesus would do. Certainly we ought as Christians to live like Christ. "He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself so to walk even as He walked" (1 John ii. 6). But any attempt on our part to imitate Christ in our own strength will only result in utter disappointment and despair. There is nothing more futile that we can possibly attempt than to imitate Christ in the power of our own will. If we fancy that we succeed it will be simply because we have a very incomplete knowledge of Christ. The more we study Him, and the more perfectly we understand His conduct, the more clearly will we see how far short we have come from imitating Him. But G.o.d does not demand of us the impossible, He does not demand of us that we imitate Christ in our own strength. He offers to us something infinitely better, He offers to form Christ in us by the power of His Holy Spirit. And when Christ is thus formed in us by the Holy Spirit's power, all we have to do is to let this indwelling Christ live out His own life in us, and then we shall be like Christ without struggle and effort of our own. A woman, who had a deep knowledge of the Word and a rare experience of the fullness that there is in Christ, stood one morning before a body of ministers as they plied her with questions. "Do you mean to say, Mrs. H--," one of the ministers asked, "that you are holy?" Quickly but very meekly and gently, the elect lady replied, "Christ in me is holy." No, we are not holy. To the end of the chapter in and of ourselves we are full of weakness and failure, but the Holy Spirit is able to form within us the Holy One of G.o.d, the indwelling Christ, and He will live out His life through us in all the humblest relations of life as well as in those relations of life that are considered greater. He will live out His life through the mother in the home, through the day-labourer in the pit, through the business man in his office-everywhere.

II. _In our being rooted and grounded in love_ (v. 17). Paul multiplies figures here. The first figure is taken from the tree shooting its roots down deep into the earth and taking fast hold upon it. The second figure is taken from a great building with its foundations laid deep in the earth on the rock. Paul therefore tells us that by the strengthening of the Spirit in the inward man we send the roots of our life down deep into the soil of love and also that the foundations of the superstructure of our character are built upon the rock of love. Love is the sum of holiness, the fulfilling of the law (Rom. xiii. 10); love is what we all most need in our relations to G.o.d, to Jesus Christ and to one another; and it is the work of the Holy Spirit to root and ground our lives in love. There is the most intimate relation between Christ being formed within us, or made to dwell in us, and our being rooted and grounded in love, for Jesus Christ Himself is the absolutely perfect embodiment of divine love.

III. _In our being made strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which pa.s.seth knowledge._ It is not enough that we love, we must know the love of Christ, but that love pa.s.seth knowledge. It is so broad, so long, so high, so deep, that no one can comprehend it. But we can "apprehend" it, we can lay hold upon it; we can make it our own; we can hold it before us as the object of our meditation, our wonder, and our joy. But it is only in the power of the Holy Spirit that we can thus apprehend it. The mind cannot grasp it at all, in its own native strength.

A man untaught and unstrengthened by the Spirit of G.o.d may talk about the love of Christ, he may write poetry about it, he may go into rhapsodies over it, but it is only words, words, words. There is no real apprehension. But the Spirit of G.o.d makes us strong to really apprehend it in all its breadth, in all its length, in all its depth, and in all its height.

IV. _In our being __"__filled unto __ALL__ the fullness of G.o.d.__"_ There is a very important change between the Authorized and Revised Version. The Authorized Version reads "Filled _with_ all the fullness of G.o.d." The Revised Version reads more exactly "filled _unto_ all the fullness of G.o.d." It is no wonder that the translators of the Authorized Version staggered at what Paul said and sought to tone down the full force of his words. To be filled _with_ all the fullness of G.o.d would not be so wonderful, for it is an easy matter to fill a pint cup with all the fullness of the ocean, a single dip will do it. But it would be an impossibility indeed to fill a pint cup _unto_ all the fullness of the ocean, until all the fullness that there is in the ocean is in that pint cup. But it is seemingly a more impossible task that the Holy Spirit undertakes to do for us, to fill us "unto all the fullness" of the infinite G.o.d, to fill us until all the intellectual and moral fullness that there is in G.o.d is in us. But this is the believer's destiny, we are "heirs of G.o.d and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ" (Rom. viii. 17), _i. e._, we are heirs of G.o.d to the extent that Jesus Christ is an heir of G.o.d; that is, we are heirs to all G.o.d is and all G.o.d has. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to apply to us that which is already ours in Christ. It is His work to make ours experimentally all G.o.d has and all G.o.d is, until the work is consummated in our being "_filled unto all the fullness of G.o.d_."

This is not the work of a moment, nor a day, nor a week, nor a month, nor a year, but the Holy Spirit day by day puts His hand, as it were, into the fullness of G.o.d and conveys to us what He has taken therefrom and puts it into us, and then again He puts His hand into the fullness that there is in G.o.d and conveys to us what is taken therefrom, and puts it into us, and this wonderful process goes on day after day and week after week and month after month, and year after year, and never ends until we are "filled _unto_ all the fullness of G.o.d."

CHAPTER XIII. THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGING FORTH IN THE BELIEVER CHRISTLIKE GRACES OF CHARACTER.

There is a singular charm, a charm that one can scarcely explain, in the words of Paul in Gal. v. 22, 23, R. V., "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance." What a catalogue we have here of lovely moral characteristics. Paul tells us that they are the fruit of the Spirit, that is, if the Holy Spirit is given control of our lives, this is the fruit that He will bear. All real beauty of character, all real Christlikeness in us, is the Holy Spirit's work; it is His fruit; He produces it; He bears it, not we. It is well to notice that these graces are not said to be the fruits of the Spirit but the fruit, _i. e._, if the Spirit is given control of our life, He will not bear one of these as fruit in one person and another as fruit in another person, but this will be the one fruit of many flavours that He produces in each one. There is also a unity of origin running throughout all the multiplicity of manifestation. It is a beautiful life that is set forth in these verses. Every word is worthy of earnest study and profound meditation. Think of these words one by one; "love"-"joy"-"peace"-"longsuffering"-"kindness"-"goodness"-"faith" (or "faithfulness," R. V.; faith is the better translation if properly understood. The word is deeper than faithfulness. It is a real faith that results in faithfulness)-"meekness"-"temperance" (or a life under perfect control by the power of the Holy Spirit). We have here a perfect picture of the life of Jesus Christ Himself. Is not this the life that we all long for, the Christlike life? But this life is not natural to us and is not attainable by us by any effort of what we are in ourselves. The life that is natural to us is set forth in the three preceding verses: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings and such like" (Gal. v. 21, R. V.). All these works of the flesh will not manifest themselves in each individual; some will manifest themselves in one, others in others, but they have one common source, the flesh, and if we live in the flesh, this is the kind of a life that we will live. It is the life that is natural to us. But when the indwelling Spirit is given full control in the one He inhabits, when we are brought to realize the utter badness of the flesh and give up in hopeless despair of ever attaining to anything in its power, when, in other words, we come to the end of ourselves, and just give over the whole work of making us what we ought to be to the indwelling Holy Spirit, then and only then, these holy graces of character, which are set forth in Gal. v. 22, 23, are His fruit in our lives. Do you wish these graces in your character and life? Do you really wish them? Then renounce self utterly and all its strivings after holiness, give up any thought that you can ever attain to anything really morally beautiful in your own strength and let the Holy Spirit, who already dwells in you (if you are a child of G.o.d) take full control and bear His own glorious fruit in your daily life.

We get very much the same thought from a different point of view in the second chapter and twentieth verse, A. R. V., "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of G.o.d, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."

We hear a great deal in these days about "Ethical Culture," which usually means the cultivation of the flesh until it bears the fruit of the Spirit.

It cannot be done; no more than thorns can be made to bear figs and the bramble bush grapes (Luke vi. 44; Matt. xii. 33). We hear also a great deal about "character building." That may be all very well if you bear constantly in mind that the Holy Spirit must do the building, and even then it is not so much building as fruit bearing. (See, however, 2 Pet. i.

5-7.) We hear also a great deal about "cultivating graces of character,"

but we must always bear it clearly in mind that the way to cultivate true graces of character is by submitting ourselves utterly to the Spirit to do His work and bear His fruit. This is "sanctification _of the Spirit_" (1 Pet. i. 2; 2 Thess. ii. 13). There is a sense, however, in which cultivating graces of character is right: viz., we look at Jesus Christ to see what He is and what we therefore ought to be; then we look to the Holy Spirit to make us this that we ought to be and thus, "reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor. iii. 18, R. V.).

Settle it, however, clearly and forever that the flesh can never bear this fruit, that you can never attain to these things by your own effort that they are "_the fruit of the Spirit_."

CHAPTER XIV. THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDING THE BELIEVER INTO A LIFE AS A SON.

The Apostle Paul writes in Rom. viii. 14, R. V., "For as many as are _led by the Spirit of G.o.d_, these are the sons of G.o.d." In this pa.s.sage we see the Holy Spirit taking the conduct of the believer's life. A true Christian life is a personally conducted life, conducted at every turn by a Divine Person. It is the believer's privilege to be absolutely set free from all care and worry and anxiety as to the decisions which we must make at any turn of life. The Holy Spirit undertakes all that responsibility for us. A true Christian life is not one governed by a long set of rules without us, but led by a living and ever-present Person within us. It is in this connection that Paul says, "For ye received not the spirit _of bondage_ again _to fear_." A life governed by rules without one is a life of _bondage_. There is always _fear_ that we haven't made quite rules enough, and always the dread that in an unguarded moment we may have broken some of the rules which we have made. The life that many professed Christians lead is one of awful bondage; for they have put upon themselves a yoke more grievous to bear than that of the ancient Mosaic law concerning which Peter said to the Jews of his time, that neither they nor their fathers had been able to bear it (Acts xv. 10). Many Christians have a long list of self-made rules, "Thou shalt do this," and "Thou shalt do this," and "Thou shalt do this," and "Thou shalt not do that," and "Thou shalt not do that," and "Thou shalt not do that"; and if by any chance they break one of these self-made rules, or forget to keep one of them, they are at once filled with an awful dread that they have brought upon themselves the displeasure of G.o.d (and they even sometimes fancy that they have committed the unpardonable sin). This is not Christianity, this is legalism. "We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear," we have received the Spirit who gives us the place of sons (Rom. viii. 15).

Our lives should not be governed by a set of rules without us but by the loving Spirit of Adoption within us. We should believe the teaching of G.o.d's Word that the Spirit of G.o.d's Son dwells within us and we should surrender the absolute control of our life to Him and look to Him to guide us at every turn of life. He will do it if we only surrender to Him to do it and trust Him to do it. If in a moment of thoughtlessness, we go our own way instead of His, we will not be filled with an overwhelming sense of condemnation and of fear of an offended G.o.d, but we will go to G.o.d as our Father, confess our going astray, believe that He forgives us fully because He says so (1 John i. 9) and go on light and happy of heart to obey Him and be led by His Spirit.

Being led by the Spirit of G.o.d does not mean for a moment that we will do things that the written Word of G.o.d tells us not to do. The Holy Spirit never leads men contrary to the Book of which He Himself is the Author.

And if there is some spirit which is leading us to do something that is contrary to the explicit teachings of Jesus, or the Apostles, we may be perfectly sure that this spirit who is leading us is not the Holy Spirit.

This point needs to be emphasized in our day, for there are not a few who give themselves over to the leading of some spirit, whom they say is the Holy Spirit, but who is leading them to do things explicitly forbidden in the Word. We must always remember that many false spirits and false prophets are gone out into the world (1 John iv. 1). There are many who are so anxious to be led by some unseen power that they are ready to surrender the conduct of their lives to any spiritual influence or unseen person. In this way, they open their lives to the conduct and malevolent influence of evil spirits to the utter wreck and ruin of their lives.

A man who made great professions of piety once came to me and said that the Holy Spirit was leading him and "a sweet Christian woman," whom he had met, to contemplate marriage. "Why," I said, in astonishment, "you already have one wife." "Yes," he said, "but you know we are not congenial, and we have not lived together for years." "Yes," I replied, "I know you have not lived together for years, and I have looked into the matter, and I believe that the blame for that lies largely at your door. In any event, she is your wife. You have no reason to suppose she has been untrue to you, and Jesus Christ explicitly teaches that if you marry another while she lives you commit adultery" (Luke xvi. 18). "Oh, but," the man said, "the Spirit of G.o.d is leading us to love one another and to see that we ought to marry one another." "You lie, and you blaspheme," I replied. "Any spirit that is leading you to disobey the plain teaching of Jesus Christ is not the Spirit of G.o.d but some spirit of the devil." This perhaps was an extreme case, but cases of essentially the same character are not rare. Many professed Christians seek to justify themselves in doing things which are explicitly forbidden in the Word by saying that they are led by the Spirit of G.o.d. Not long ago, I protested to the leaders in a Christian a.s.sembly where at each meeting many professed to speak with tongues in distinct violation of the teaching of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. xiv. 27, 28 (that not more than two or at the most, three, shall speak in a tongue in one gathering and that not even one shall speak unless there was an interpreter, and that no two shall speak at the same time). The defense that they made was that the Holy Spirit led them to speak several at a time and many in a single meeting and that they must obey the Holy Spirit, and in such a case as this were not subject to the Word. The Holy Spirit never contradicts Himself. He never leads the individual to do that which in the written Word He has commanded us all not to do. Any leading of the Spirit must be tested by that which we know to be the leading of the Spirit in the Word. But while we need to be on our guard against the leading of false spirits, it is our privilege to be led by the Holy Spirit, and to lead a life free from the bondage of rules and free from the anxiety that we shall not go wrong, a life as children whose Father has sent an unerring Guide to lead them all the way.

Those who are thus led by the Spirit of G.o.d are "_sons_ of G.o.d," that is, they are not merely _children_ of G.o.d, born it is true of the Father, but immature, but they are the grown children, the mature children of G.o.d; they are no longer babes but sons. The Apostle Paul draws a contrast in Gal. iv. 1-7 between the babe under the tutelage of the law and differing nothing from a servant, and the full grown son who is no more a servant but a son walking in joyous liberty. It sometimes seems as if comparatively few Christians to-day had really thrown off the bondage of law, rules outside themselves, and entered into the joyous liberty of sons.

CHAPTER XV. THE HOLY SPIRIT BEARING WITNESS TO OUR SONSHIP.

One of the most precious pa.s.sages in the Bible regarding the work of the Holy Spirit is found in Rom. viii. 15, 16, R. V., "For ye received not the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of G.o.d." There are two witnesses to our sonship, first, our own spirit, taking G.o.d at His Word ("As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of G.o.d," John i.

12), bears witness to our sonship. Our own spirit unhesitatingly affirms that what G.o.d says is true that we are sons of G.o.d because G.o.d says so.

But there is another witness to our sonship, namely, the Holy Spirit. He bears witness _together with_ our spirit. "Together with" is the force of the Greek used in this pa.s.sage. It does not say that He bears witness _to_ our spirit but "_together_ with" it. How He does this is explained in Gal iv. 6, "Because ye are sons, G.o.d hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." When we have received Jesus Christ as our Saviour and accepted G.o.d's testimony concerning Christ that through Him we have become sons, the Spirit of His Son comes into our hearts filling them with an overwhelming sense of sonship, and crying through our hearts, "Abba, Father." The natural att.i.tude of our hearts towards G.o.d is not that of sons. We may call Him Father with our lips, as when for example we repeat in a formal way, the prayer that Jesus taught us, "Our Father, which art in heaven," but there is no real sense that He is our Father. Our calling Him so is mere words. We do not really trust Him. We do not love to come into His presence; we do not love to look up into His face with a sense of wonderful joy and trust because we are talking to our Father. We dread G.o.d. We come to Him in prayer because we think we ought to and perhaps we are afraid of what might happen if we did not. But when the Spirit of His Son bears witness together with our spirit to our sonship, then we are filled and thrilled with the sense that we are sons. We trust Him as we never even trusted our earthly Father. There is even less fear of Him than there was of our earthly father. Reverence there is, awe, but oh! such a sense of wonderful childlike trust.

Notice when it is that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of G.o.d. We have the order of experience in the order of the verses in Rom. viii. First we see the Holy Spirit setting us free from the law of sin and death, and consequently, the righteousness of the law fulfilled in us who walk not after the law but after the Spirit (vs. 2-4); then we have the believer not minding the things of the flesh but the things of the Spirit (v. 5); then we have the believer day by day through the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the body (v. 13); then we have the believer led by the Spirit of G.o.d; then and only then, we have the Spirit bearing witness to our sonship. There are many seeking the witness of the Spirit to their sonship in the wrong place. They practically demand the witness of the Spirit to their sonship before they have even confessed their acceptance of Christ, and certainly before they have surrendered their lives fully to the control of the indwelling Spirit of G.o.d. No, let us seek things in their right order. Let us accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour, and surrender to Him as our Lord and Master, because G.o.d commands us to do so; let us confess Him before the world because G.o.d commands that (Matt. x. 32, 33; Rom. x. 9, 10); let us a.s.sert that our sins are forgiven, that we have eternal life, that we are sons of G.o.d because G.o.d says so in His Word and we are unwilling to make G.o.d a liar by doubting Him (Acts x. 43; xiii. 38, 39; 1 John v. 10-13; John v. 24; John i. 12); let us surrender our lives to the control of the Spirit of Life, looking to Him to set us free from the law of sin and death; let us set our minds, not upon the things of the flesh but the things of the Spirit; let us through the Spirit day by day put to death the deeds of the body; let us give our lives up to be led by the Spirit of G.o.d in all things; and _then_ let us simply trust G.o.d to send the Spirit of His Son into our hearts filling us with a sense of sonship, crying, "Abba, Father," and He will do it.

G.o.d, our Father, longs that we shall know and realize that we are His sons. He longs to hear us call Him Father from hearts that realize what they say, and that trust Him without a fear or anxiety. He is our Father, He alone in all the universe realizes the fullness of meaning that there is in that wonderful word "Father," and it brings joy to Him to have us realize that He is our Father and to call Him so.

Some years ago there was a father in the state of Illinois, who had a child who had been deaf and dumb from her birth. It was a sad day in that home when they came to realize that that little child was deaf and would never hear and, as they thought, would never speak. The father heard of an inst.i.tution in Jacksonville, Ill., where deaf children were taught to talk. He took this little child to the inst.i.tution and put her in charge of the superintendent. After the child had been there some time, the superintendent wrote telling the father that he would better come and visit his child. A day was appointed and the child was told that her father was coming. As the hour approached, she sat up in the window, watching the gate for her father to pa.s.s through. The moment he entered the gate she saw him, ran down the stairs and ran out on the lawn, met him, looked up into his face and lifted up her hands and said, "Papa."

When that father heard the dumb lips of his child speak for the first time and frame that sweet word "Papa," such a throb of joy pa.s.sed through his heart that he literally fell to the ground and rolled upon the gra.s.s in ecstasy. But there is a Father who loves as no earthly father, who longs to have His children realize that they are children, and when we look up into His face and from a heart which the Holy Spirit has filled with a sense of sonship call Him "Abba" (papa), "Father," no language can describe the joy of G.o.d.

CHAPTER XVI. THE HOLY SPIRIT AS A TEACHER.

Our Lord Jesus in His last conversation with His disciples before His crucifixion said, "But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John xiv.

26).

Here we have a twofold work of the Holy Spirit, teaching and bringing to remembrance the things which Christ had already taught. We will take them in the reverse order.

I. _The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the words of Christ._

This promise was made primarily to the Apostles and is the guarantee of the accuracy of their report of what Jesus said; but the Holy Spirit does a similar work with each believer who expects it of Him, and who looks to Him to do it. The Holy Spirit brings to our mind the teachings of Christ and of the Word just when we need them for either the necessities of our life or of our service. Many of us could tell of occasions when we were in great distress of soul or great questioning as to duty or great extremity as to what to say to one whom we were trying to lead to Christ or to help, and at that exact moment the very Scripture we needed-some pa.s.sage it may be we had not thought of for a long time and quite likely of which we had never thought in this connection-was brought to mind. Who did it? The Holy Spirit did it. He is ready to do it even more frequently, if we only expect it of Him and look to Him to do it. It is our privilege every time we sit down beside an inquirer to point him to the way of life to look up to the Holy Spirit and say, "Just what shall I say to this inquirer? Just what Scripture shall I use?" There is a deep significance in the fact that in the verse immediately following this precious promise Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." It is by the Spirit bringing His words to remembrance and teaching us the truth of G.o.d that we obtain and abide in this peace. If we will simply look to the Holy Spirit to bring to mind Scripture just when we need it, and just the Scripture we need, we shall indeed have Christ's peace every moment of our lives. One who was preparing for Christian work came to me in great distress. He said he must give up his preparation for he could not memorize the Scriptures.

"I am thirty-two years old," he said, "and have been in business now for years. I have gotten out of the habit of study and I cannot memorize anything." The man longed to be in his Master's service and the tears stood in his eyes as he said it. "Don't be discouraged," I replied. "Take your Lord's promise that the Holy Spirit will bring His words to remembrance, learn one pa.s.sage of Scripture, fix it firmly in your mind, then another and then another and look to the Holy Spirit to bring them to your remembrance when you need them." He went on with his preparation. He trusted the Holy Spirit. Afterwards he took up work in a very difficult field, a field where all sorts of error abounded. They would gather around him on the street like bees and he would take his Bible and trust the Holy Spirit to bring to remembrance the pa.s.sages of Scripture that he needed and He did it. His adversaries were filled with confusion, as he met them at every point with the sure Word of G.o.d, and many of the most hardened were won for Christ.

II. _The Holy Spirit will teach us all things._