He Shall Glorify Me
“Ile shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it
unto you.’’’’ — John xvi. 14.
HERE is one Mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus. Other foundation can
no man lay than that which is laid. He is
the way. No man cometh unto the Father but by him.
Whoever and whatever he may be whom we may meet as we cross this desert, our message to him must be in substance the same as Philip’s to the Ethiopian. We must preach unto him Jesus. Neither is there salvation in any other. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
But in preaching Christ, we should not neglect the ministry of the Spirit. To preach Christ without reference to his Spirit, is to put ourselves in that Spirit’s place. He made much of the Spirit’s work in the establishment of his kingdom: so should we. He ascended into heaven that he might bestow the Spirit, and counted that gift an equivalent to his sorrowing disciples for the want of his own presence at their head. It is from his own hps that we learn the necessity, the use, and the results of the Holy Spirit’s ministry.
The work of God the Spirit is an essential part of the eternal covenant. Wanting it, there would be no salvation to men, no glory to God in the gospel. Although the Redeemer had travailed on earth, he would not in heaven have seen of the travail of his soul, if the Spirit had not taken of his and shown it effectually to men.
The sacrifice of Christ for sinners does not of itself save sinners, — not from any defect in the Redeemer’s work, but because he is rejected and despised of men. Jesus said, “It is finished,” when he bowed his head and died. No new sacrifice is needed. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. But after that sacrifice has been offered, many perish. This shows that, in some sense, the sacrifice of Christ is not by itself enough to save a sinning world. Nothing more is needed to reconcile God to sinners; but something more is needed to reconcile sinners to God. On the upper side, the simple presentation of Christ is enough: on the under side, the simple presentation of Christ is not enough. God the Father does not, when the Son presents himself, demand another mediator to induce him to listen to that Son’s voice; but fallen men need, and get, another Intercessor to open their hearts to a beseeching Saviour.
On the one extreme is God, the offended Judge: on the other, fallen, prodigal men, with Christ, the Daysman, laying his hand on both. But although all is thus ready, no transaction takes place. God needs no ministry to make him willing to be, in Christ, reconciled to us; but we need a ministry, even after Christ’s work is complete, to make us willing- to be, through Christ, reconciled to God.
It is of the essence of the covenant, that those who by man’s sin were reciprocally alienated, should both accept Christ as Mediator, and be in him reconciled. But one feature or effect of the alienation is, that we are unwilling to accept the redemption which we so much need. The spiritually blind, looking outward, cannot perceive the beauty of the Saviour; looking inward, cannot appreciate their own guilt and need. The perverse heart spurns away the Saviour; and thus, though Christ is an all-sufficient Redeemer, men are perishing in their sins. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” The power of God is needed, and in the covenant is, in point of fact, applied, to bend the hard heart into glad compliance with Christ’s offer; and the ministry of the Spirit is the form in which divine power is exercised for this end.
As we have an Intercessor with God, God has an Intercessor with us. The Son, in heaven, pleads with God for us: the Spirit, on earth, pleads with us for God.
The Spirit’s ministry is exercised on earth among men. In heaven it is not needed. But we must carefully observe, that the Spirit is not another Saviour, sent to accomplish the object in which the Son had failed. It is of essential importance to mark the connection which, according to the Scriptures, subsists between the sacrifice of the Son and the ministry of the Spirit. When we say that men in enmity against God perish hi their sin, notwithstanding the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice, unless the quickening Spirit intervene, we must beware of supposing that the Spirit accomph’shed what the blood of Christ failed to achieve. When the enmity is removed, and the will subdued, through the Spirit’s ministry, it still remains true that Christ crucified, presented to the sinner, was the true power that melted and subdued him.
Leaving out of view, for the present, the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice, when presented to the Father, in removing condemnation and obtaining favour for the unworthy, we must trace the operation and effects of that sacrifice on the other side, in removing the enmity of a human heart, so that it is reconciled to God. It is a great error, on the one side, to imagine, that the presentation of Christ in the Scriptures, or by a human ministry, is of itself sufficient to convert men; but it is an equal, though an opposite error, to suppose that when the blood of Christ failed to move the man’s heart, another power — the power of the Spirit — prevailed to move it. When we point out that the simple exhibition of redeeming love, in the life and death of Jesus, is not enough to change a sinner’s heart, we do not in aught detract from the power of that love. We do not represent its drawing power to be small; we represent the resisting hardness of a carnal mind to be great.
Some teachers, erring not in the positive doctrines which they proclaim, but in a certain one-sidedness, which omits the opposite and corresponding and balancing truths, are in the habit of expatiating on the divine omnipotence of the love that radiates from Christ crucified, and intimating that it needs but to be held forth in simplicity in order to win the world to God. But you are met here by the obvious fact that many to whom Christ is so presented continue in unbelief, and perish in their sin. Another ministry intervenes here, not incongruous with Christ’s work, but provided, promised, given by Christ to reveal and apply his own love. ‘* Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” In point of fact, to teach that the exhibition of Christ’s love is the only power needed, and the only power applied to convert sinners, does not make the power of Christ’s love greater, but the evil of human hearts less. If the heart of man were not deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, the lifting of Christ upon the cross would draw all men to him. When Jesus — divine love incarnate! — went out and in among men, they condemned and crucified him. This is the peculiar condemnation of the world, that when the Son of God came to seek and save it, they would have none of him. After the descent of the Spirit, in the Pentecost, thousands of these despisers were converted in a day.
But do we not learn from the Scriptures that the love of Christ is the greatest power that can be brought to bear on a sinful heart — that Christ crucified is in this respect the very power of God? Yes; we learn all this, and more in the same direction. This is the greatest power — this the only power — this the power to which the prodigal yields, when at last he consents to return to the Father. As there is none other whose merit will take away condemnation in God’s sight, so there is none other whose manifested love can avail to overcome the enmity in man, and draw him back to God. But here we must insert the Spirit’s ministry as a part of the counsel of God. Besides the objective inducement, there must be the subjective operation, I agree with the teachers who magnify the power and sufficiency of the Saviour’s love to subdue and win the world to himself. I allow them to state it in the strongest terms, and to state it fully. When they have done, I take up the subject where they have left off, and teach further, that such is the hardness, the blindness, the death in sin in which mankind lie, that they remain unmoved even under this wonderful love: moreover, such is the long-suffering and patience of our God, that instead of giving men over when they refuse to submit to the Son, he sends through that Son the ministering Spirit, whose work it is to overcome the enmity, not without, but by means of the sacrifice and righteousness of Christ. God in the covenant, after providing Christ’s love to draw men, has also provided a mighty work in secret on sinners’ hearts to make them yield to that drawing.
When the Spirit works effectually on a human heart, it is not a work independent of Christ’s; the Spirit’s office is to apply Christ’s work: “He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” Ask those who have, through the outpouring of the Spirit in pentecostal seasons, been renewed and forgiven — ask them to what they owe forgiveness and sanctifying: they will give the old answer — Christ is all my salvation. Christ crucified has removed condemnation, so that God is at peace w-ith me; and melted out the enmity of my heart, so that I am at peace with God. The Spirit does not act without the motive, or supply another; but he applies the motive which lies in redeeming love, and makes the heart yield to its power.
When saved men enter rest, the glory of their redemption wall all rise to God. They throw their crowns at the Redeemer’s feet. They abjure all claim to the merit of providing mercy, and all claim to the merit of even accepting the mercy that was provided. They could not save themselves, and they could not come to the Saviour. Even when redemption was wrought by Christ, such was their deadness that they would have perished in presence of a complete salvation, had not the sovereign Spirit graciously come, and by a secret work in their hearts made them willing to close with Christ — made Christ so lovely that they were at length won.
As we cleave on the one hand to Christ’s work for us, we must cleave on the other hand to the Spirit’s work within us. To reconcile God to us, removing the condemnation, is the part of the Son; to reconcile us to God, removing the enmity, is the ministry of the Spirit.
It is a mistake to limit the ministration of the Spirit to the revelation of Christ in the Scriptures: this is the Spirit’s work, but this is not all his work. In as far as that revelation is concerned, the Spirit’s work, like Christ’s, is finished. But as our Intercessor with the Father carries on that part of his ministry to the end, so the Father’s Intercessor with us carries on that part of his ministry to the end.
The work now concerns not the object, but the organ: the defect now is not a dim light in the sky, but a blind eye on earth. I do not need the Spirit to display for me a brighter light, but I need the Spirit within me to open the eyes of my understanding. I do not need another ministry to bring from heaven another and greater love than Christ’s; but I need another ministry to break and open this hard heart, that the love already pressing on its gates may be permitted to flow in, that it may reconcile and purify me. I do not need any ministry to make Jesus more lovely; but I do need a ministry to make me love Jesus.
At this point men have struggled hard to rid themselves of the humbling doctrine that they are as little able to accept the reconciliation offered, as to provide the reconciliation for themselves. It is as completely beyond human power to open a blind eye as to hang a sun in the heavens. From the Father of lights both good gifts ahke come down. Both the Christ who is the way, and the Spirit who leads us through it, are the sovereign gifts of God. It is from the region of human philosophy, not from the Scriptures, that objections are gathered. People raise a debate on the question hov, man can be responsible, if God is sole and sovereign on both sides of salvation. I am not able to explain all these points to the satisfaction of all men: many of God’s works are too deep for me, both in creation and redemption. I shall not fling away the gift, whether it be material or spiritual, because I cannot by my searching find out the Giver. If I do not believe in his Son, it is not less but more my own fault, seeing he has promised the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.
I confess I have learned to love the divine sovereignty. I am not ashamed of it: I do not explain it away; I delight to own that I am indebted to sovereign free mercy both for a Christ to believe in, and for my believing in Christ. The Object to look upon, and the look upon that Object, are both the gift of God.
Conspiracies have at various times sprung up in the world to deprive the Supreme of this peculiar glory — to deny him a will. Man would fain substitute a law of Nature for the living God. They conceive of an unthinking principle like gravitation; they think of a power like the sea, lashing itself, and raging, and advancing without a purpose or a plan, floating a ship and sinking a stone with equal indifference, and continuing afterwards its unmeaning roar. I love the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: it is a sublime protest against an atheistic human philosophy, and a transparent assertion of the doctrine that the potter hath power over the clay, and puts it forth too.
I can have no com-munion with a merely mechanical omnipotence, — a sort of infinite ocean that heaves eternally by laws to which it is subject; saving me if I continue to make myself sufficiently buoyant before I am cast on its cold, uncaring bosom; and swallowing me up with the same relentless regularity if I make the leap before I be light enough. This omnipotent principle is not my Saviour. If I thought he should crush me, I would hate him; and if I were saved, I would not thank him, — would not love him. I need as my Saviour the living God, who loves me, and whom I may love in return; — the God who looked on me when I was lost, and loved me when I was worthless; who saved me from hell, and made me his child. I need from my God, not merely a general aspect of benevolence towards the world, under which some of the most vigorous agonizers may struggle into heaven; I need not only permission to save myself, but a hope that the Infinite sees me, knows me, pities me, loves me, grasps me, and holds me in the hollow of his hand, safe against all dangers, until he bring me to his eternal rest. My God is he who, after giving Christ for my redemption, gives the Spirit to quicken me and unite me to Christ. If there were a true vine growing in the ground beside me, and I were a branch severed, rootless, fruitless, ready to die, and sure when dead to be burned, what would the living vine be to me, unless a kind and skilful hand should graff me in and give me life? The gospel is nothing to me unless I am permitted to attribute a will to my God; unless I am indebted to that free will for all my salvation first and last, — for the pardon-price and for the renewing power.
Do not tell me of a God who stands in high heaven, with its gates open, permitting all to arise and enter who will or can: tell me, as the Bible does, of a God who not only receives me if I am willing of my own accord, but who comes by his Spirit into my heart while it is unwilling, and makes it willing by his power. A Saviour who stands in heaven pledged to receive me after I can say, “Lord, I believe,” is not enough for me: I need a Saviour who will rend the heavens and come down when I cry from the depths, “Lord, help my unbelief”
It is necessary that we should take now one side into view and now another, in an effort rightly to divide the word of truth; but both sides lie in the Scriptures. Jesus, revealing the Father, gave the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Prodigal. The lost sheep is sought, found, and carried home; yet the prodigal comes to himself, arises, and goes of his own will and on his own feet to the Father. As the Saviour’s work for sinners does not supersede the sinner’s duty to follow Christ, so the Spirit’s work in sinners does not supersede repentance and believing in the sinner himself. It is the Spirit that quickens the dead; and yet the command of the Scriptures is, “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!”
If any should neglect to obey the command, on the alleged ground that if the Spirit sovereignly quicken him he will live, and if the Spirit is withheld he will remain unconverted, whatever exertions he may make, — he is allowing a philosophical speculation to interpose between his soul and his Saviour. The difficulty does not lie in the domain of religion at all; it is a subtle speculation of a human brain permitted to rise up like a mist and spread until it has darkened both heaven and earth. The matter is set down with abundant plainness in the Scriptures. Not only work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, although it is God that worketh in you; but work out your own salvation, /(9r it is God that worketh in you. The promise of the Spirit to enlighten and enliven, so far from being intended to hinder, is meant to help your own effort to turn and live.
Here are two great rocks, at some distance from each other, rising from the sea. On this one you may safely stand, and on that one you may safely stand. You believe that though the two are separated above the water, and stand far apart, they are united in their roots far beneath. You have no difficulty in taking your stand alternately on both, and in believing that they are united in unseen depths; but if you should attempt personally to trace the one rock to the other, — to feel with your
(512; 4 hands beneath the water all the way over from this to that, — you would be lost in those waters that cover and conceal their union. It is thus that faith accepts both the truths revealed, — the sovereign act of God when he breathes new life into the dead, and the freedom of a human being when the alternative “Repent or perish” is placed before him. Do your part altJwtigJi God does his: do yours hopefully, because you are not left alone to do it.
The Spirit of God is in Scripture compared to air — to breath. Indeed the word is borrowed from the lower sphere for use in the higher. Christ taught Nicodemus that the Spirit, in conversion, is like the wind. Now, observe how abundant the material breath is, and how near to each of us. How vast the atmospheric ocean, and how closely it wraps itself round our world, and presses upon every part of our frame always! So vast is the ocean, that it has in all ages been a favourite emblem of eternity and infinitude; but the sea of air is immensely greater than the sea of water. The water covers the earth partially; the air covers it all. And the upper ocean is many times deeper than the lower. Both in its universality and its vastness it is a much better emblem of infinitude than the ocean of water. And see how closely it lies to hand, and how easily it is reached for use! It is not necessary to put forth an effort to obtain it for life. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Let a man but gasp, and he gets it in abundance. The moment that there is an emptiness in your breast the breath of life rushes in. In this matter you have but to hunger, and you are forthwith filled. The Giver of this plentiful supply in nature is not more niggard of his spiritual gifts. “Ye give good gifts to your children; how much more will your Father in heaven give the Spirit to them that ask him.^” “Ask, and ye shall receive.” Ye that are fathers in the flesh know well how you take pleasure in giving good gifts to your children. Although the young have an advantage over us in many respects, we who are parents have in this an advantage over the children. When I was a child, I was conscious that I was so much a burden to my father, that, although he supplied all my wants, I found it hard to believe that he did it willingly or took any pleasure in the act. I know better now. Not only when they ask, but before they can ask. Before the infant’s lips can articulate a word, we grow skilful in interpreting its looks and cries, — we run to fetch the thing we think it wants. These beautiful affections, the planting of the Lord in our own being, will be witnesses against us if we maintain a distant reserve toward our Father in heaven, and suspect him of unwillingness to bestow the best gifts. Specifically and expressly, as we know how to give good gifts unto our children, our Father in heaven will much more give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. But pant for the Spirit, and the aching, inarticulate emptiness, will draw the Spirit in.