The Spirit's Mode of Regeneration
‘‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.” — ISA, xl. 7.
CM ALAT! the Spirit a destroyer! I thought VAS it was the source of life. I would have expected it to have been written, “The grass withereth because the Spirit of the Lord doth mot blow upon it.” Here for the first time the breath of the Spirit is said to give not life but death. Yes, but is not death the prelude to life? ‘ That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” I used to think it strange that among the gods of the Hindoos there was one worshipped as “the Destroyer;” is not the Spirit here worshipped as the destroyer — the witherer of the grass. And is it not well that the grass should wither? Is not grass the very emblem .of fadingness, the very principle of death. Is not to say that the grass shall wither, equivalent to saying that death shall die. The flowering of the flesh is killing the word of the Lord within me; if that word is to endure for ever, the flowering of the flesh must fade. What power shall make it fade, what but the Spirit divine? Shall the breath that gave life to the waters do otherwise than destroy the adversary of its own gift? Shall it not blow upon the flesh that impedes the immortal life, shall it not breathe upon the grass that buries the word of the Lord?
O Thou divine Destroyer, Thou crucifier of sin, Thou abolisher of death, we worship Thee. Spirit of Calvary, Spirit of the redeeming Christ, blow upon our deadness that it may die. Wither all in my heart that would wither Thy word. Wither its pride, its self-seeking, its vanity. Wither its malice, its hatred, its envy, its all uncharitableness. Wither its preference for the seen and temporal, its estimation of the dross above the gold. Wither its hopes of being happy through the love of self, its prospects of avoiding misery through forgetfulness of others. Wither the gourd that shuts out the larger view, that prevents me from seeing the woes of Nineveh. When Thou blowest upon the grass, mortality shall be swallowed up of life; when the flower of the flesh shall fade, Thy word shall endure for ever.