The Promise of the Father

“Waat for the promise of the Father... ye shall be

baptized mith the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” — Acts i 4, 5.

Wuen Christ came to this world to work out our redemption He received from the Father the Promise, when His work had been accomplished, of a rich reward. This was nothing less than that the Father would give to Him as Man the whole fulness of the Divine Spirit to bestow on all who believed in Him. It was in the last night, on His way to the cross that He communicated to the disciples the wonderful promise, with a revelation of all the glory that the Holy Spirit would work

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in them. We are accustomed to think of the work of the Spirit as something that is easily understood, while we have very little apprehension of the supernatural and inconceivable blessedness of having the Spirit of God’s own Son to dwell in us as our Life, our Teacher, and our Strength. Let us with holy reverence pause and consider what it implies.

Who is the Holy Spirit? He is a Person. He is the Spirit of God, He is God. He is the Third Person in the Godhead, the living bond of union between the Father and the Son. And no tongue can express the inconceivable privilege it is that this Spirit, Who searches the deep things of God, and knows all the secrets of the Trinity, should come in to us, dwell in us as in the temple of God, and pour all the love of God into our hearts. We often think of the Spirit as something that God gives us, a power or operation of the Divine Being. But no, He is much more — He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, in Whom They have Their life and love, and as such He will also be the Spirit of our life.

And what is to be His special work?

1. The first thing that He does is, according to the teaching of our Lord in the last night, to reveal Christ Jesus in us in His indwelling and abiding presence. It was for this reason that He was called THE ComrorTER. The disciples were troubled, and their hearts filled with deep sorrow at the thought that they would lose His presence.

For the space of three years they had lived in His fellowship. It had been to them an unspeakable privilege and happiness to be His friends and companions, and enjoy the blessedness of His teaching and holy intimacy. Their hearts were in sore anguish at the very thought of losing Him, and here our Lord comes to tell them that the Holy

Spirit, the very life of Godhead, would come from heaven and make Christ’s presence such a reality within them that they would have Him, their beloved Lord, more near to them, more intimately and powerfully present with them than they had ever known Him upon earth.

And so it actually happened. When the Spirit came their hearts overflowed with the love and the joy and the abiding consciousness of Christ with them and Christ in them. And this was not to be for those alone who had lived with Him on earth, but for all who would yield themselves in undivided surrender to Him, their Master.

2. The second work of the Holy Spirit of which our Lord speaks is that He, as THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, would reveal God’s truth, not only by enlightening the understanding, but by making the truth a reality as life and power in their inmost being. He would, as the

Spirit of wisdom and revelation, give such a Divine enlightening of the eyes that heavenly things would in very truth form a heavenly life within them.

He would especially remind them of the words Christ had spoken upon earth, so that they might have the heavenly instruction Christ had given them but with this difference, that while Christ was upon earth they were not capable of accepting and carrying out what He taught them, whereas now the Spirit would work in them in the power of the unseen world.

3. A third name given to the Spirit is “‘ THE Hoty Spirit.” He is the Spirit of God’s holiness, to Whom the work is entrusted of bringing that holiness into our heart and life. The word, “holy,” is only thrice used in the Old Testament in regard to the Spirit, but in the New it is almost exclusively used in regard to Him. We think of Him as the One who imparts the Divine life and holiness to all who are willing to receive Him.;

It is He for Whom all souls unconsciously long to satisfy their spiritual need. It is He Who offers Himself to every living soul as a fountain of life and blessing. Unsearchable in the glory of His Divine being, He reveals Himself to all who truly long for His presence. He fills heaven and earth with God’s glory, and is yet present in every single soul, as if this were the only one. He leads God’s children into their blessed heritage — the Father’s love and abiding presence, and the likeness to His image. It is to the sanctification of this Spirit of holiness that we have been called.

4. Now comes the fourth operation of the Spirit. ‘“‘ HE sHALL TESTIFY oF ME, and ye shall also bear witness.’? The Spirit would first of all give witness to their being in Christ, and Christ in them (Rom. viii. 16). And the Spirit would then through them testify as to what Christ was for them and in them. This would be the great mark of their preaching, that they did not speak of what they had not experienced, but of what Christ had done for them. They could boldly say: ‘Christ hath done it for me, He will do it for you.”

And that would not only be true of the Apostles and teachers, but of every Christian as he told of what Christ had done for him. It was the testimony of a heavenly love filling the heart that gave such power to the message of simple and unlearned men. Heathen writers have left on record the power that such lives exercised. It was all the fulfilment of Christ’s words: “Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and be My witnesses to the ends of the earth.”

5. The last work of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s disciples of which He spake was — ‘* THE SPIRIT SHALL GLORIFY ME;

He shall take of Mine, and show it unto you.” Christ was to ascend to heaven and to be seated on the throne in the glory of the Father. The disciples could form no conception of what that glory was.

The Spirit would come forth out. of that glory, and bring it, with the very joy and power of heaven, into their hearts. It was as the Conqueror over every enemy, the conqueror of all sin, that Christ was seated upon the throne. — The Holy Spirit would so reveal this conquering, Christ in their hearts that they themselves would be more than conquerors through Him that loved them. Their life would then indeed be what Christ had promised: “If ye love Me, keep My commandments, and My Father will love you, and I will love you, and we will come and make our abode with you.” It is Jesus the crucified, Jesus the glorified, Whom the Spirit will glorify in us, taking of the things that are Christ’s and declaring and imparting them to us.

Here we have the five-fold office of the Holy Spirit in the work He does in believers. Our Lord spake also of the work of the Spirit on the world, in convincing men of their sin in not believing in Christ. It was this that gave the disciples the assurance that their testimony would indeed have power to break the hardest heart, and to convince of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And if ever, as alas is so universally the case now, the Church were to allow the spirit of the world to have the mastery, then the Holy Spirit would have to perform the work which was meant for the world on God’s own people, and bring them to a new conviction of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. y.

A careful study of the teaching of our Lord in regard to the work of the blessed Spirit will show us that there is

e ’ a double relation between the Spirit and the believer. First of all, He works in us all that is needed for a life of abiding in Christ and His love — a life of unceasing trust and dependence, and of absolute, unconditional obedience. And ‘then He works further, in those who are filled with the Spirit, what is needed to make Christ known to others and to win men for Him. These are the two things that must go inseparably together: ‘“‘He that abideth in Me beareth much fruit.” The Spirit reveals Christ in His abiding presence and love as the joy and the strength of my life. And from this flows most naturally and blessedly the power of bearing much fruit.

Let us seek, by a thoughtful and prayerful study of Christ’s teaching in the last night, to realize fully the wonderful mystery of this heavenly life of love and power which the Holy Spirit is given to maintain in us. And as we feel how little the Church experiences of that power, let us in singleness of heart seek nothing less than to have the promise of the Father fulfilled to us in all its power and blessing.