The Mission of the Holy Spirit: Five Addresses

Will ask you to turn to-night to the 16th
chapter of the Gospel of John — 7th to 11th
verses.

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on Me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see Me no more; of judgment because the prince of this world is judged.”

We have here succinctly depicted for us by our Lord Himself the special mission of the Holy Spirit to a lost world. Observe that the Spirit’s presence on earth during the present dispensation is declared ’ by Christ to be more important than His remaining here. He says, “It is expedient for you that I go away.” We might naturally have thought that it would have been far better if He, the divine Man, could have remained in this scene, going about teaching and instructing men, making known to them the love of God, and declaring the righteousness that men are responsible to render in response to that love. But in this we would be wrong, for our Lord Jesus did not come to this world simply as a Teacher. He did not come merely to be the great Exemplar. He does not save men by His life before the cross; He saves by His death.

Our Saviour came into this world to die. He was made a little lower than the angels with a view to the suffering of death. He made this very clear when He said to Nicodemus, ‘“‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Elsewhere He declared He came “‘to give His life a ransom for many.” And yet death had no claim on Him. We are told that, “Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death,” but He was the absolutely sinless One.

He was therefore not naturally subject to death. Had He so elected He might have lived on as the Prince of Life — the deathless One. In one sense it was as great a miracle for Him to die as to be raised from the dead. He says, “No man taketh my life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received from my Father.” And so it was expedient that He should go away; and He must go by the way of the cross — there to give His life a ransom for many.

But even apart from this, it was expedient that He should go away that the Comforter might come. If He had remained on earth as He was before His death and resurrection, He must necessarily have been localized. As man He could not have been in more than one place at one time. When Lazarus lay so ill in Bethany, and the sorrowing sisters yearned for Christ’s presence, He was away in the north of the land. They sent a message to Him saying, “He whom Thou lovest is sick.” But days elapsed ere Jesus reached Bethany, and before He arrived Lazarus had died. Thus, if He had remained on earth He could not have been in Palestine and in America at the same time. He might have gone from place to place all through the years, but millions never would have seen His face nor heard His voice. Therefore it was expedient that He should go away, that He should return to that heaven from whence He came. Upon His ascension to the right hand of the Father He sent down the Holy Spirit, another divine Person, one of the Eternal Trinity, to carry on the work that Christ began. And because the Holy Spirit never became incarnate, never took a human body, He can be in every place at one time.

Notice that this does not in the slightest degree dim the truth of His personality. Our Lord in speaking of Him uses the masculine pronoun. He constantly refers to “Him” as a divine Person, who as a living Person could do the things that Jesus said He would do. Now what was His special mission to be? Jesus says, “When He is come He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” This is the purpose for which He came into the world.

This word here rendered “reprove” is variously translated. he rec {ag given in the margin of our Authorized Version :° “convince,” and in other transations “coiivie.* is used. It is the special mission of the Holy “p?rit to convict, convince, or to reprove the world o* sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

I think that many, when they use the word “convict,” have in their minds the producing of a deep emotional experience, intense sorrow and anguish because of sin. In fact, I believe this is the way it is generally used. A man attends a gospel meeting, and as his sins are brought before him, he is moved to tears of penitence, and at last to confession and a complete breakdown before God. The sorrow accompanying this experience is generally spoken of as “conviction,” and some people are troubled because they have never passed through just such an experience as this; and they even question the reality of their conversion to God, although trusting Christ, because they have not known a period of poignant grief and anguish because of sin.

Far be it from me to make light of such an experience. Yea, I would be thankful indeed to see people break down and weep bitterly over their neglect of Christ and their cold-hearted indifference to the gospel, and over their selfishness and wickedness. But there may be grief and tears without the conviction of which our Lord speaks here, On the other hand this conviction may be thoroughly genuine where no tear is shed, and where little real anguish of spirit is known. All are not constituted alike, nor do all express their exercises in the same way. It would be a mistake therefore to limit conviction to an emotional breakdown.

The word is really a legal term. It has to do with the presentation of evidence that conveys with it the proof of wrong-doing. The Spirit of God comes to bring to bear upon the minds and consciences of men the great wrong they are doing to God by sinning against Him. Now when this wrong is brought home to a man’s conscience and he is really convinced of the evil of his way, he will be affected largely according to his disposition, or make-up, aS we say. Some men are exceedingly sensitive and easily moved to tears. Others are calm, cool, logical, and while perhaps even more deeply convinced than their emo-

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