Acts 2:16,17. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh . . .
4. The nature and manner of the work of the Spirit now going on in the Church and in the world
(1.) His miraculous gifts have long ceased.
They served their purpose at the start of the gospel dispensation by attesting the authority of those whom the Lord used to establish it, and by directing the attention of the world to its claims; and so they soon ceased. Indeed, surprising events may sometimes still occur in connection with the work of the Spirit. But outward effects are accidental accompaniments, not essential characteristics, of such a work. And the less it is mixed up with such outward accompaniments, the more likely it is to be genuine, solid, extensive and enduring. It was not in the whirlwind or in the earthquake, but in the still, small voice that the Lord made Himself known to His prophets of old. And the Lord Jesus has told us that the kingdom of God does not come with observation, but is within His people, a kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
(2.) In setting up the kingdom of Christ in men, the Spirit acts upon them, in what we have described [1] as His common operations, and [2] as His saving grace.
[1.] The Spirit acts upon men in His common operations – that is to say, in His providential government, He brings them into contact with the outward ordinances of His Word; He then so presents the Word to them, and so causes them to realise its truth, as to render them inexcusable if they quench their convictions and refuse to yield to its power.
[2.] The Spirit follows up these common operations, in the case of all who are enabled to believe unto salvation, by putting forth upon them His saving power. He actually regenerates their moral nature; He creates them anew in Christ unto good works; He quickens them to a new life; He dwells and works in them; He makes their very bodies His temples; He implants and cherishes in their hearts all holy affections; He guides and supports them as they perform their duty, and He thus leads them onward and upward to the land of uprightness.
1This is the final section of a sermon taken, with editing, from Nixon’s volume, All and in All: the Relations of Christ as God: Creator and Redeemer. Nixon (1803-1900) was a minister in Montrose. The first part, published last month, contained three points: (1.) The position of Christ and of His apostles, when this pouring out of the Spirit took place on the Day of Pentecost; (2.) The Spirit came down in His miraculous gifts, in His common operations, and in saving power; (3.) The Spirit’s work of saving grace during the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, and His work throughout the gospel dispensation.
(3.) As to the way in which He savingly works on the minds and hearts of men, the following things are to be remembered:
[1.] The Spirit gives no new revelations to the minds of believers apart from, or in addition to, those that are contained in the Bible.
The Quakers held, and some of them still hold, that such revelations are granted. And the same opinion is taken up and acted on, especially in times of religious excitement, by some who are in ill-instructed, perverse, or fanatical. This notion of theirs is, however, a mischievous delusion, opening the door to extravagances and disorders which help the kingdom of Satan, and hinder the kingdom of Christ, as effectually as open enmity to religion, or the prevalence of indifference and of spiritual death.
[2.] The reason is that the Spirit accomplishes His saving work in men only through the instrumentality of the Word and the ordinances of God.
It was while Peter and the other apostles were preaching the truth contained in Scripture, and pressing it on their hearers, that the Spirit came upon them with power and converted thousands of them unto God. While it is still the same Spirit that regenerates and sanctifies believers, it is by the same Word of truth that they are begotten (Jas 1:18) and sanctified (Jn 17:17). They are chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (2 Th 2:13). It is by being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets that believers are made into an habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph 2:22). It is only from the ordinances, as wells of salvation, that anyone can draw the living and life-giving water of the Spirit (Is 12:3). God puts His Spirit in His people, and so causes them to walk in His statutes, and to keep His judgments, and do them.
[3.] The presence and power of the Spirit, in those in whom He is accomplishing a saving change, are to be ascertained only by the effects of His grace.
They do not themselves know, and they cannot enable others to know, His presence, His indwelling and His work by Him appearing in any visions they can see with their bodily eyes, or by Him uttering any sounds they can hear with their bodily ears, or by Him assuming any material form with which they can come into bodily contact, or by Him making any direct manifestation of Himself to their imagination, apart from all revelation of the truth in the Word of God. On the contrary, the Spirit operates upon them only in and through the truth revealed and recorded. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof; but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” It is in the effects produced in their hearts and lives that anyone can have credible evidence of having become the subject of the Spirit’s saving work. Let them be convinced of sin, righteousness and judgement. Let them find the Scriptures made profitable to them for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, and, as men of God, they will become thoroughly furnished unto all good works. And let them be inclined to walk in all the commandments of the Lord blameless and endeavour to do so. Then, in that case, they assuredly have the only evidence that can be possessed, and all the evidence needful to satisfy them, that the saving work of the Spirit has been begun within them and is being carried on.
5. Practical remarks
(1.) In its important practical bearings, this subject enters into everything connected with our faith and duty, our privileges and practice, our interests and hopes.
For, while Christ has purchased redemption, He has placed us under the ministration of the Spirit, so that He may apply redemption to our souls. It is not enough for us that Christ has satisfied divine justice for our offences and opened up the way for the return of the guiltiest to God. It is not enough that He presses on our acceptance the offers of salvation and establishes and upholds among us the ordinances through which the blessings of salvation are conveyed.
One thing more is indispensable if we are actually to experience and enjoy redemption: it must be applied to our souls by the Holy Spirit. This is the great work which is going on in the world, under the dealings of divine providence and the dispensations of divine grace. Thus the amount of good which we have received from the gospel is exactly measured by the extent to which the Spirit has sanctified our nature. But if we do not have the Spirit – whatever our religious professions, attainments, or exertions may be – we still have in us that carnal mind which is enmity against God.
(2.) Ordinances serve no saving purpose except as the Holy Spirit is in them and operating through them on those who make use of them.
The Bible remains to its readers a sealed book, except as the Spirit opens their eyes to behold its wonders. The Sabbath is a weariness to all, except to those who are in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. The preaching of Christ, and Him crucified, is a stumbling block or foolishness to all, except to those to whom the Spirit renders it the power of God and the wisdom of God for their salvation. The offering of prayer is fruitless as to any saving effects, except as the Spirit helps the infirmities of the suppliants and intercedes within them, while Christ is interceding for them and the Hearer of prayer satisfies the desires thus divinely created in their souls. The fellowship of saints is without comfort except as the Spirit of Christ is with their spirits, to convey His refreshing influence from heart to heart through acts of brotherly communion. Baptism with water does no good spiritually to those who receive it, except as they are baptized with the Holy Ghost, and so buried with Christ and dead to sin, and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life. And the Lord’s Supper itself, with all its impressive representations, is a useless or even injurious formality, destitute of all spiritual meaning and benefit to those who receive it, except as the Lord Jesus, working in them by His Spirit, makes Himself known to them in the breaking of bread and causes their hearts to burn within them with holy desires and the blessed experience of His love.
(3.) Christ Himself and the benefits of His purchase do not become ours, except as they are conveyed to us by His Spirit.
To natural men He appears to be without form or comeliness, and the treasures of wisdom and grace that are in Him are hidden from their eyes until the Spirit takes of the things that are Christ’s and shows them to their minds – and until they thus begin to see His glory and receive out of His fulness. When any are enabled to draw nigh to God as sin-pardoning and gracious, it is because through Christ they have access by one Spirit unto the Father. When any are brought into His family, and partake of the privileges and hopes of His children, it is because the Spirit is in them as the Spirit of adoption, crying, Abba Father. When any are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and die to sin and live to righteousness, this change is accomplished “through sanctification of the Spirit” and because their bodies have become temples of the Holy Ghost. When any make their light to shine before men, it is because the Spirit of God writes His law on the fleshly tables of their hearts, and thus turns them into living epistles of Christ which all men can know and read (2 Cor 3:2). When any come to know the love of Christ, and to be filled with all the fulness of God, it is by their being strengthened with all might by His Spirit in their inner man (Eph 3:16). The holy satisfaction found by believers in the ordinances and service of Christ is joy in the Holy Ghost. In the anticipations of heaven that gladden them, the Holy Spirit is sealing them to the day of redemption and proving to be, within them, the earnest of their inheritance.
(4.) Believers are also dependent on the Spirit to enable them to cherish and exercise the gracious affections, to perform the actions and to pursue the course of new creatures in Christ.
While their life comes from knowing God and Jesus Christ, it is the Spirit alone who can guide them into all truth, who can glorify Christ by taking the things that are His and showing them to their minds, and who can, by His anointing, teach them all things. Christians are to look to Jesus, and lean and live on Him by faith. But this faith is the gift of God, for it is a fruit of the Spirit in all who have it. Believers are to look on Him whom they have pierced and be in bitterness for sin, but this repentance flows only from the Spirit of grace and supplication when He is poured out upon them. We are to love God, but the love of God can only be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. Brethren in Christ are to love each other; but it is only when they obey the truth through the Spirit that they love one another with a pure heart fervently. Children of God are to walk circumspectly; but they walk thus only when filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18). They are to walk in the way to heaven, but it is only the good Spirit of God that leads them to the land of uprightness (Ps 143:10).
(5.) As the whole work of carrying forward redemption to its practical saving results in the salvation of sinners is thus in the hands of the Holy Spirit, it is well to remember that He is both able and willing to perform it.
[1.] He is able to do it.
For He is the eternal Spirit from whom we cannot go. He searches all things and is full of wisdom, power and goodness. By His creative energy all things were at first made; by His all-pervading presence and agency they are preserved and governed. He formed the human nature of Jesus in His virgin mother, endowed it with all possible perfection, sustained Him in offering Himself as a sacrifice for sin, and then raised Him from the dead. And He is now, in fact, the sum of all the gifts which the Lord Jesus is dispensing to men from His exalted throne.
[2.] And the Spirit is as willing as He is able to perform His divine work in our salvation.
For He is the Spirit of goodness, grace and love, who moves up and down in the world and enters every heart that, by divine grace, is opened to receive Him. He dwells and works in all believers, quickening, leading, sanctifying, strengthening and comforting them, until He conducts them to heaven, full of His own light and holiness and joy.
We dishonour [God] much when we expect little things from Him; and I believe we often receive a small blessing because our expectations are small – wholly unsuitable to Him with whom we have to do. May the Holy Spirit enable us to think honourably of Him, and act honourably towards Him in all our dealings with Him. We sin more than we are apt to imagine by our narrow views and contracted thoughts of Him and by our unworthy expectations from Him
Grace never seeks peace and comfort but in the way of holiness, and never thinks it costs too much if it can by any means be obtained.
Divine truths are one consistent whole; none of them can be spared without disfiguring the beauty and symmetry of the whole system and injuring our own souls and the souls of others.
Thomas Charles