The Presidency of the Spirit in the Church

JOHN OWEN gave to the church a Piieiimatologia — a discourse upon the Holy Spirit which, in his day, taught the church a much needed lesson. He maintained that each different age has its own test of orthodoxy. Before Christ came it was found in the attitude of God’s people as to Messianic prophecy; in the day of Christ’s personal incarnation, it was found in his reception or rejection by those to whom he presented his claims as Son of God; after the day of Pentecost the test was whether or not we have received the Holy Ghost, and how far he has freedom to work in and through us.

Adoniram J. Gordon, unconsciously perhaps, gave to the church another pneiiviatologia. He sought to realize for himself what it meant to be like Daniel, “greatly beloved of God “; and so he became in himself both an expression and exhibition of the fact of the Spirit’s indwelling and inworking. From this personal experience he carried the doctrine and influence into the collective body of believers, and so sought to make the church of which he was pastor a living temple of the Holy Spirit.

This conception of the indwelling and presidency of the Holy Spirit affected two great spheres: first, his individual life; and secondly, his pastoral life. Personally he was so indwelt by the Spirit that he saw truth through illumined eyes. He was a seer, a modern prophet, in the sense of insight if not of foresight. In Samuel’s days “there was no open vision,” and the word of the Lord was correspondingly precious. Hannah’s son was not only a Samuel, God-asked, but a Theodore, God-given — a special bestowment of the Lord to revive the spirit of prophecy and restore the open vision. A. J. Gordon was given of God to the modern church in the days of a waning spirituality, when the sense of the Holy Spirit’s personality, deity, and even reality was dull and dim, and in some cases quite lost, to revive the impression and quicken the expression of the Spirit’s actual and active indwelling. If he had any special office which was unique, it was to appreciate, and in his own person and life illustrate, the inworking and outworking of the Holy Ghost; and on a larger scale furnish both demonstration and illustration of the Spirit’s administration of church life also under favorable conditions.

Upon this last and most important department of thought it is the less necessary to dilate, inasmuch as to it Dr. Gordon gives more than thirty pages in his work on “The Ministry of the Spirit.” But, for the sake of those who may not have read that masterly treatise, and to complete the interpretation of this dream, it may be well to sketch in outline the simple yet sublime conception presented in Scripture, and particularly in the Acts of the Apostles, of the Spirit’s administration of church life.

Considered as a temple of which Christ is the corner-stone, and in which believers are living stones, he is the Divine Indweller, and holds there his throne and seat, as the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies of old. Considered as a body of which Christ is the head, and all regenerate souls members, he is the all-pervading and controlling Spirit that vitalizes and subsidizes the whole. The moment such a conception is formed in the mind, all the rest follows. He who is enthroned in a temple properly claims all homage and obedience; he who as the Spirit of Life fills and thrills the body, not only 7tiay but must rule in the whole organism, unless as in diseased members the conditions are so abnormal as to interrupt his proper activity. And again, as the spirit of life is the organizing power in the body, and distributes blood, nerve-force, nutritive energy in every part of the body, and, as the central will, wields for life’s ends every member and organ — so the Spirit of God where he is permitted to control abso-

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lutely will make every part of the body of Christ both healthful and useful. If we yield he will imeld.

Hence follow several vital conclusions: I. As to the constitution and organization of the church, members should be added, and all officers should be appointed, by the Spirit. No ceremonies, ordinances, or sacraments can make a church-member any more than any human power can add a member to the body. We are to be jealous and zealous not to have multitudes added to church rolls, but “to the Lord.” And, in electing officers, we are to look out those who have not only honest report and wisdom but are full of the Holy Ghost; otherwise how can he be unhindered in his administration? Every unregenerate or even unsanctified m.an or woman in a church office or even a church-membership, obstructs the divine policy of administration, so that we may virtually unseat the Holy Spii’it from his rightful throne and “see,” by putting into, or allowing to be put into, places of official trust, those who are not in sympathy with the Spirit’s mind and methods. What then shall be said of the inventio?t of a whole hierarchy, which borrows its entire framework from Constantine’s imperial court, with a score of offices unknown to the apostolic church, with vestments and diadems, palaces and retinues, salaries and dignities; and what of the presumption of claiming to be the vicar of

Christ, when his ascension gift was his own Divine Vicar, the Paraclete! Is this not indirect blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?

We begin to understand now why this gifted pastor cared so little for ecclesiastical honors, dignities, and preferments. He yielded himself to the Holy Spirit, to be simply a servant — the servant of Christ and the servant of the church for Jesus’ sake. All airs and assumptions of lordship were to him arrogant and offensive, and implied disloyalty to the Spirit. He was one of those of whom Hudson Taylor says that they are not so anxious to be successors of the apostles who went indeed to bring food but brought no inquiring soul back with them, as to be successors of the Samaritan woman who forgot her waterpot in her zeal to bear the living water to the thirsty souls at Sychar, and brought back a whole city to sit at Jesus’ feet.

2. As to the distribution of spheres of service. Who is he that sets in the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, elders and deacons and deaconesses; and appoints every servant for every service? Who knows the heart, and knows the work, and can fit each for the other, but the Lord, the Spirit? Of what transcendent importance to the church to have a divine wisdom select and a divine grace qualify every member for his own office; nay, to have the Spirit determine what work needs to be done, and what are the time, place, and way to begin it or enlarge it! What an awfully august privilege and responsibility combined, if it be possible and practicable for a church so to be surrendered to the Holy Ghost and dominated by him, as that in all deliberations and determinations, in all results reached through prayerful counsel and obedient self-surrender, it may be reverently true to say, “// seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.’’

3. As to the practical purity and spirituality of church life. Temple of the Holy Ghost! Body of Christ indwelt by the Spirit of God! What a hallowing must there be to those who really believe this! What a sad commentary on the church’s attitude toward the Spirit, that it is possible without remonstrance for godless singers to be hired to conduct the service of song, which is a mockery without the grace in the heart that makes melody unto the Lord! That it is possible in choosing a pastor, to consult only his intellectual standing and popular oratory, without ever asking whether he be a spirit-filled man! That it is possible for such an unscriptural office to exist as that of secular trustees, and that men should be deliberately put into control without any regard often to the fact that they do not even profess to be regenerate!

There are some who cry down, by the obnoxious name of “pessimism,” those who hint that the modern church is drifting toward apostasy. Yet what is apostasy but a departure from the essefitial principles of Christian life and church life! And Dr. Gordon, gentle as he was, and slow to accuse his brethren, felt in his soul that the church of Christ has largely lost sight of the very essentials of a Spirit-filled and Spirit-ruled body; and that Romanizing ritualism, rationalistic skepticism, and a world-assimilating secularism, are the trinity practically worshiped in the place of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.