The Spirit in the Writings of St Paul: The Fulness of the Spirit
Ae are still engaged upon the revelation
through St Paul of the Holy Spirit and His work. In the present chapter we take up a group of Pauline words and phrases on the subject, rich in materials for enquiry and for faith.
And, first, and mainly, the FuLness oF THE Spirit. The precise phrase is not Pauline; indeed it is not verbally Biblical. But equivalent expressions are abundant, in many parts of Scripture. In the Mosaic age we find the sacred artificer Bezaleel “filled with Exod. xxxi. 3. the Spirit of God” for the work of constructing and adorning the Tabernacle, whose true Designer was none other than Heb. is.s, the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel age the Lord Jesus Himself is seen going up from Baptism to Temptation “full of the Lureiv.:
Holy Ghost.” His Forerunner was “filled Lukei. 13,674. With the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.” And both the father and mother of the second Elijah were on special occasions “filled with the Holy Ghost.” At Pentecost the gathered company, apparently
the “hundred and twenty” of Acts 1 15,
Actsii4 were “all filled with the Holy Ghost.” Peter was specially “filled” when
he met the Jewish Council for the first time, —
Acts iv.8,31 Witnessing to his Lord; and so, immediately afterwards, were all the brethren. Actsix.x7 So was Paul at his baptism, and when he sentenced Elymas to blindness. So Acts xiii. 9,32. were the disciples at the Pisidian Antioch in their hour of trial and joy. The Actsvis. seven “Deacons” were chosen as “men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.” And Stephen, in the Acts vii. ss. act of confession, ‘being full of the Holy Ghost, saw heaven opened.” Barnabas Acts xi.24. is described as a man “full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.”
Such are the main Scriptural parallels which by way of illustration may be gathered around
VARIOUS ASPECTS OF “THE FULNESS.” 211
the great Pauline passage on the Fulness of the Spirit, Eph. v. 18: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled in ‘the
Spirit.”
Let us approach the text through the avenue of the parallels, and ask what they have to tell us on this great and precious fact and phenomenon of the New Life.
In the first place we gather very plainly that “the Filling” is not identical in idea, whether or no it coincides in time, with the initial work of the Spirit as the Life-Giver. The Filling is always seen as taking place where there is already present the New Birth; and the possession of that Birth is thus the occasion for a holy desire and longing to possess in some sense the Filling.
Again we gather that there are upon the whole two main aspects or phases of the Fulness of the Spirit. There is a special, critical, phase, in which at a great crisis it comes out in marked, and perhaps wholly abnormal, manifestation, as when it enables the man or woman to utter supernatural prediction or proclamation. And there is also what we may call the habitual phase, where it is used to describe the condition of this or that believer’s life day by day and in its normal course. Thus the Seven were not so much specially “filled” as known to be “full;” and so was Barnabas. Into this holy habitual fulness Paul entered, it appears, at his baptism. On the other hand the same Paul experienced from time to time the other and abnormal sort of filling; and it thus results that the same man might in one respect be full while in another he needed to be filled.
There is a close connexion from one point of view between the Fulness of the Spirit and what we commonly mean by miraculous powers and works, particularly the miraculous work of infallibly “inspired” speaking.. The immediate result at Pentecost was an instantaneous
Acts.ii4 ‘speaking with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” St Peter, St Paul, St Stephen, all spoke supernatural words of testimony, or authority, or vision, when thus “filled with the Spirit.” The Lord Jesus Himself in the Fulness of the
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Spirit sustained six weeks of fasting and met the Tempter under mysterious conditions. And some may think that we should infer a similar reference wherever the Fulness is spoken of; as if it implied a miracle-working power for instance in the Pisidian Christians, or in the Ephesians who are here enjoined to bees filledvin the: Spirit.”
But it seems clear that this inference is by no means necessary. And the proof of this statement lies in the general testimony of the Word of God, which now in successive chapters we have been collecting, to the character of the highest ranges of the Holy One’s work. Those highest ranges have to do with not the miraculous, in our common sense of that word, but the moral; the transfiguration of the will, of the heart, of the soul, by the immediate action of the Lord the Spirit. And there would be surely an anomaly, a disproportion, in a real appropriation of the glorious phraseology of His Futness to the abnormal and (from a true view-point) not noblest and most perfect kind of His operation. As we study the description of the Fruit of the Spirit, and (what will be
BE Ee ST 5 ce a el ee ee before us in our closing chapter) the Indwelling of Christ in the heart by the. Spirit, we are surely right in being certain that, whatever the Fulness has to do with tongues and prophecies, it has its very highest concern with the believer’s spiritual knowledge of His glorious Lord in the life of faith, and with the true manifestation of that life in the loveliness of a holy walk. To be filled with the Spirit is a phrase intensely connected with the fulness of our consecration to the will and work of God in human life.
I would not be mistaken, as if I meant to relegate off-hand to the apostolic age alone all manifestations of the presence and power of God through His people in the way of sign and wonder. I do gather, both from the history of the Church and from that pregnant Scripture, 1 Cor. xiii, &, that oz the whole the commonly called miraculous displays of that power were intended for the first days only, or at least in a degree altogether peculiar. That period had characteristic conditions and needs which.can never quite recur, even where the Gospel is a new thing among the heathen ef our time, For the Gospel was then every-OUGHT WE TO “CLAIM MIRACLE-GIFTS?” 215
where and absolutely new, with no history as yet behind it, no results of long years to give it their credentials. I do not think, with some earnest Christians, that the Christian Church is “responsible” for the abeyance of miraculous manifestation, by a lack of faith while faith might at any time claim the wonder-working power. I believe on the other hand that subtle dangers and strong temptations lie concealed where the Christian, or the community, is eager for the gift of such miraculous faculties rather than for an ever-deepening abasement of self before the Holy One and an ever closer and more chastened walk with Him. But meanwhile it is no part of such convictions to deny priord the possibility of signs and wonders in any age, our own ‘or another, since the apostolic. Only it seems to me to be certain not merely that upon the whole such operation is not the will of God now as it was of old, but that this is so because more and more His people are to be led in His plan of teaching to rest in that “more excellent way” which already in that wonderful first age the Apostle preferred to
1Cor. xii.3r. even “the best gifts” of the other kind.
But let us now take up the Apostle’s word to the Ephesians: Be ye filled with the Spirit; TAnpovobe &v Tvevmare.
It will be seen, as we look into the context, and as we recall what has now been said on the two phases of manifestation of the Fulness, that we have here a precept not for a crisis but for the whole habit of the Christian’s life. Not the least reference to works of wonder occurs in the context. ‘ Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs,” are the - manifestation of the Fulness specially and at once in view, and the blessed habit of thankfulness, and the habitual readiness to forget self in the interests of others, and then all the lovely details of the life of a sanctified home. And we must observe that the preceptive verb (zlnpovoGe) is in the present or continuing tense. It enjoins a course, a habit, not a critical effort or venture. It lays it upon
1 I commend to the reader’s attention the late Dean Goode’s Modern Claims to the Possession of the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit, stated and examined (1834).
pdt? Rt LIN Se hLIN LLL, AV, 18: Mg
the believer so to use the open spiritual secrets of his life in the Lord as to enter upon and walk in a state of divine Fulness which shall be, above all things, useful and rich in blessing for the needs of the daily path, and shall result, whatever else it results in, in a temper of continual modesty and unselfish serviceableness towards all around him. We must observe further the exact wording of the phrase in its last words: ‘“Be ye filled zz the Spirit, é& Ivevpar.” It is as if the Apostle had written at large, ‘Be filled wth that Holy Spirit zz whom you are; you ave zm the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in Rom. viii.«,
you; see now to it that by His grace you are in such relations of faith and submission with Him that He who is within you shall be no longer, if hitherto, a well-head hidden beneath the débvis of disobedience and unbelief, but springing, rising, unhindered in His blessed overflow, till all regions of the inner man ‘live’ indeed where that ‘ river cometh;’ till a parts of your Ezck. xvii. o.
outward walk and work are ruled by the Spirit of God, and a- holy abundance goes Johnvii.38,39. forth through you to the blessing of the souls of others,”
Such, I believe is a simple account of the Fulness of the Spirit as it is presented here in this divine word of appeal, exhortation, and implied promise. The Apostle in effect calls
Rom.vix3. upon the believer to “yield himself
unto God” the Holy Ghost as to a Power and Presence already dwelling in living reality within him, but waiting, as it were, for the welcome of the soul to come forth from within and take entire possession of the whole circle and range of life. It is no invitation to a spasmodic or tempestuous enthusiasm. It is a call to let the water from the mountainsprings of God rise in the man, in his purposes, in his affections, in his works, in his will, calmly and surely towards its blessed level.
Let us not forget the holy reality under its sacred imagery. This appeal of the Spirit by St Paul is sent straight to the innermost heart of my reader, and of myself. What does it mean in our life, as that life is to be lived this day? By grace we believe in the Son of God revealed. Therefore most surely the Spirit is in us, for without His inworking we should never have ‘called Jesus Lord.” But are :cor. xii. we filled, nay are we filling, with the Spirit? IsHis blessed power upon our “‘first springs of thought and will” a power fully welcomed there? Are we watching and praying over the matter, and humbly resolved, looking up for light, that nothing we know of in act, or habit, in occupation, in recreation, in thought and word about our neighbour, in use of time or means, is such as to obstruct the rise of His “calm excess” through all we are and all we have? St Paul calls us to this humble and holy watching and resolve; and assuredly the whole Word of God promises a blissful result, to the glory not of ourselves but of our Lord, upon our so doing in His name.
So let us do then, in the name of Jesus Christ. As I said, this precept implies a promise. And the promise is unto not great or exceptional Christians, but to the Christian — who yields himself to God. At Ephesus, it was meant for the everyday Christian believer; husband, wife, parent, child, master, slave. They were all meant to live lives divinely full, full from within;
‘Not roughened by those cataracts and breaks Which humour interposed so often makes;”
and which are made indeed by anything and everything in which the soul at all rebels against the Holy Ghost; but equal, equable, under the welcomed power of the Lord. And what this precept meant at Ephesus it means in England, it means to the man who writes these words in his study at Cambridge, and to his brother in Christ who reads them wherever God has bid him dwell.
Are our lives “full” with the fulness of multiplied duties, of heavy calls. upon every hour? Let us calm them and illuminate them with this other Fulness in its divine simplicity. Let the Spirit, the Life-Giver, the Revealer of Christ, the Imparter of Christ to us, have His way, and rise and fill the man. Then the life full of toil will be a life full also of internal peace.
It will be in place here to remark on the phrase the Baptism oF THE Spirit. That phrase is not precisely Pauline. We have only an approach to it in the words, “by one Spirit we were all baptized into :cor. xii: one body.’ But its connexion with the subject of the Fulness of the Spirit, as seen in the Ephesian Epistle, is close and important. It occurs in each of the Gospels Matt, iit, x and twice in the Acts. It will be Ton iisecd seen that the Lord Jesus appears xc there always as the Baptizer. And it will be seen also that while the mentions of the holy Filling are frequent the recorded occasions of the Baptism are two only; the Day of Pentecost, and the closely parallel occasion when in the house of Cornelius St Peter, the Apostle of Pentecost, was permitted solemnly and for ever to “open the door of faith to the Gentiles.” Nowhere in the Epistles does the precise phrase ‘“‘ Baptism of the Spirit” occur. Are we not thus led to
see Acts xi,.15,
10,
the conclusion that the Baptism is not to be identified with the Filling, and is not, like the Filling, presented to us as a blessing for which the Christian is to seek?
I am aware that the question is not without its special difficulties. The analogy of the Sacrament of Baptism would in itself lead us to connect the Baptism of the Spirit rather with the beginning of the new life than with a great development of it; but we can hardly do this without reserve, in view of the fact that the Apostles themselves were not till the Day of-Pentecost subjects of this Baptism. Still, both the Pentecost and the Visit to Cornelius were not only historical events but great representative occasions, each of which was as it were a birth-time of the true Church by the power of the Spirit. And each may thus be held to typify and signify on a great scale the true birth-process and birth-time, by the same power, in the case of the individual soul. Anywise it is remarkable and significant that the developed teaching of the Epistles contains no appeal to the man already in Christ to seek the Baptism of the Spirit. We are to be filled, and to be full of Him, as those who have already received Him “from the height that knows no measure.”
In view of these facts of Scripture may I say,. with tenderness and deep spiritual sympathy,
ISTHE “BAPTISM” TOBE WAITED FOR? 223,
that a mistake appears to underlie the practice, not uncommon now among earnest Christians, of wazteng for a special “Baptism of the Spirit” in order to more effectual service for the Lord? Surely, “by one Spirit we have been baptized into one body.” And now our part :Cor, xii. 1. is to open in humblest faith all the avenues and regions of the soul and of the life, that we may be filled with what we already have.! And how shall this be done? St Paul gives the answer: ‘“That we might re- Gal. iii. 14. ceive the promise of the Spirit ¢hrough faith.” Yes, through faith, the mouth of the inner man, “opened” that He Ps. tsxxi. 20, who has promised may “fill” it. In this brief, loving appeal to the Ephesian saints, the Apostle does but ask them to open and
’ I may refer to an admirable little tract in verse by an anonymous Writer; Zhe Baptism of the Holy Ghost. The tract is “to be had of the Secretary of the Mildmay Letter Mission, 66, Mildmay Park, London.” A short quotation shows what its drift is : —
‘* Thine is the throne-room of the soul! Its Ruler, break each barrier down; As with full tide o’erflood the whole, Self overborne by Thee alone: ... Spirit of truth, of holiness, We cry not ‘ender,’ but ‘ possess.’”
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receive; to take their stand upon a promise. Not by mighty spiritual effort but in order to it is that “promise” to be “received.” We are to take the Lord at His word, to trust Him to bless us fully in His keeping His word. We are to open to Him all the inner doors of the soul, the chamber doors, as we have opened the main portal. And we are to use the same key, ‘the key of promise,” which is, from the other point of view, the key of our simplest and most confiding faith.
Believing, we receive. And blessed then will be the manifestations of the holy Gift received, in one special direction and another. We shall know something of what it is to be Rom. xv.13. “filled with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” We shall be PhiLixz. On our way to be “filled with the fruit of righteousness;” “filled with the Col. i. 9. knowledge of His will.” We shall be realizing something indeed, by the power of Him who is the Bond betwixt us and our Head, of that Filling which we already possess (but possession is not realization) in Him in (DL SIRT RRS eS NES 9 a el ON whom “all the Fulness dwells.” Yes, we shall
be filled, we shall be filling, in our Cisiee Git finite receptivity, with that “Fulness
of God” which means whatsoever xpb. iii 16. being glory in Him is capable of becoming grace in us.
Here will be a blessed and continuous answer to the prayer of our Communion Service, that wonderful and pregnant petition: “We humbly beseech Thee that all we, who are partakers of this holy Communion, may be FUL-FILLED with Thy grace and heavenly benediction.”
Let us not forget the words which, with profound significance, just precede that prayer: “Here we offer and present unto Thee,«@ Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee.” We yield ourselves to Him for His will. He meets us with His sacred Fulness.
To this same range of truth we may refer the language of St Paul about ae Lay pil. 1, 13,14 5 the Srauine by the Spirit, and the Poawes
oes Rom, viii. 23. Earnest of the Spirit, and the: Firstrruits of the Spirit. No doubt the
T5 “Gifts” of the primeval Church are considerably in view in each of those phrases. But surely the same reasons which have constrained us to apply’ the Apostle’s language about the Fulness to the “more excellent way” of the divine life of faith, hope, and love, apply here. The believer, already a believer by the Spirit’s lifegiving operation, is now also “sealed” as the property of his Master by the same Spirit’s developed possession of Him. And this possession, with its holy fruit, is the “earnest” of his full possession of his God for ever in eternity; the ‘‘ first-fruits”
Ga. vis. of the harvest of “life everlasting” which is to be reaped “of the Spirit’ then at length.
Come forth then, eternal Spirit, and be ever coming forth, from Thy secret place within our -spirit, into all that we are, and all that we have, to fill all in all in us, and to overflow through us. Fill Thou us in a blessed continuousness and habit, enabling us in humble continuousness to
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receive Thee, day by day and hour by hour, through faith. At each crisis of need fill us with Thy special fulness out of Thy habitual. And when the hour of death shall come, so fill us that we may see with our spirit’s eyes, in Thy light, heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
Amen.