The Ministry of the Spirit (eBook)

A. J. Gordon (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
108 Seiten
CrossReach Publications (Verlag)
978-0-00-004422-8 (ISBN)

Infos

PREFACE

It is not claimed that in this little volume all has been
said that might be said upon the subject treated. On the contrary, the writer
has proceeded upon the belief that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit can be
better understood by limiting the sphere of discussion, rather than by
extending it to the largest bounds. For finite beings, at least, presence is
more intelligible than omnipresence. So, though the subject of this book is in
itself profoundly mysterious, we have sought to simplify it by dwelling upon the
time-ministry of the Holy Ghost without entering upon the consideration of his
eternal ministry. What the Spirit did before the incarnation of Christ, and
what he may do hereafter beyond the second advent of Christ, is a question
hardly touched upon in this volume. We have sought rather to emphasize and to
magnify the great truth that the Paraclete is now present in the church: that
we are living in the dispensation of the Spirit, with all the unspeakable
blessing for the church and for the world which this economy provides. Hence,
as we speak of the ministry of Christ meaning a service embraced within defined
limits, so we name this volume the 'Ministry of the Spirit,' as referring to
the work of the Comforter extending from Pentecost to the end of this
dispensation.

How deep a subject for a study! What prayer more becoming
for those entering upon it than the humble petition that the Spirit himself
will teach us concerning the Spirit! Deeply sensible of the imperfection of
this work, it is now committed to the use and blessing of that Divine Person of
the Godhead of whom it so unworthily speaks.

A. J. Gordon 

BOSTON,

Dec., 1894.

Textauszug

I

THE AGE-MISSION OF THE SPIRIT

 

“It is evident that the present dispensation under which we are is the dispensation of the Spirit, or of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. To him in the Divine economy, has been committed the office of applying the redemption of the Son to the souls of men by the vocation, justification, and salvation of the elect. We are therefore under the personal guidance of the Third Person, as truly as the apostles were under the guidance of the Second.”—Henry Edward Manning.

 

In some observations on the doctrine of the Spirit, which lie before us as we write, an eminent professor of theology remarks on the disproportionate attention which has been given to the person and work of the Holy Spirit, as compared with that bestowed on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It is affirmed, moreover, that in many of the works upon the subject now extant there is a lack of definiteness of impression which leaves much still to be desired in the treatment of this subject. These observations lead us to ask: Why not employ the same method in writing about the Third Person of the Trinity as we use in considering the Second Person? Scores of excellent lives of Christ have been written; and we find that in these, almost without exception, the divine story begins with Bethlehem and ends with Olivet. Though the Saviour lived before his incarnation, and continues to live after his ascension, yet it gives a certain definiteness of impression to limit one’s view to his historic career, distinguishing his visible life lived in time from his invisible life lived in eternity.

 

So in considering the Holy Spirit, we believe there is an advantage in separating his ministry in time from his ministry before and after, bounding it by Pentecost on the one side, and by Christ’s second coming on the other. We have to confess that in many respects one of the best treatises on the Spirit which we have found is by a Roman Catholic—Cardinal Manning. Notwithstanding the papistical errors which abound in the volume, his general conception of the subject is in some particulars admirable. His treatise is called “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost.” How much is suggested by this title! Just as Jesus Christ had a time-ministry which he came into the world to fulfill, and having accomplished it returned to the Father, so the Holy Spirit, for the fulfillment of a definite mission, came into the world at an appointed time; he is now carrying on his ministry on earth, and in due time he will complete it and ascend to heaven again—this is what these words suggest, and what, as we believe, the Scriptures teach. If we thus form a right conception of this present age-ministry of the Spirit, we have a definite view-point from which to study his operations in the ages past, and his greater mission, if there be such, in the ages to come.

Now we conceive that the vagueness and mystery attaching in many minds to the doctrine of the Spirit, are due largely to a failure to recognize his time-ministry, distinct from all that went before and introductory to all that is to come after—a ministry with a definite beginning and a definite termination. Certainly no one can read the farewell discourse of our Lord, as recorded by John, without being impressed with the fact that just as distinctly as his own advent was foretold by prophets and angels, he now announces the advent into the world of another, co-equal with himself, his Divine successor, his other self in the mysterious unity of the Godhead. And moreover, it seems clear to us that he implied that this coming One was to appear not only for an appointed work, but for an appointed period: “He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever”—eis ton aiõna. If we translate literally and say “for the age,” it harmonizes with a parallel passage. In giving the great commission, Jesus says: “And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age.” Here his presence by the Holy Ghost is evidently meant. The perpetuity of that presence is guaranteed, “with you all the days”; and its bound determined, “unto the end of the age.” Not that it need be argued that he shall not be here after this dispensation is finished; but that there is such a thing as a temporal mission of the Holy Spirit does seem to be implied. And a full study confirms the view. The present is the dispensation of the Holy Ghost; the age-work which he inaugurated on the day of Pentecost is now going on, and it will continue until the Lord Jesus returns from heaven, when another order will be ushered in and another dispensational ministry succeed.

In the well-known work of Moberly, on “The Administration of the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ,” the author divides the course of redemption thus far accomplished into these three stages: The first age, God the Father; the second age, God the Son; and the third age, God the Holy Ghost. This distribution seems to be correct, and so does his remark upon the inauguration of the last of these periods on the day of Pentecost. “At that moment,” he says, “the third stage of the development [manifestation] of God for the restoration of the world finally began, never to come to an end or to be superseded on earth till the restitution of all things, when the Son of Man shall come again in the clouds of heaven, in like manner as his disciples saw him go into heaven.” And what shall be the next period, “the age to come,” whose powers they have already tasted who have been “made partakers of the Holy Ghost”? This question need not be answered, as we have done all that is required, defined the age of the Spirit which constitutes the field in which our entire discussion lies.

II

THE ADVENT OF THE SPIRIT

“Therefore the Holy Ghost on this day—Pentecost—descended into the temple of his apostles, which he had prepared for himself, as a shower of sanctification, appearing no more as a transient visitor, but as a perpetual Comforter and as an eternal inhabitant. He came therefore on this day to his disciples, no longer by the grace of visitation and operation, but by the very presence of his majesty.”—Augustine.

 

“For the Holy Ghost was not yet,” is the more than surprising saying of Jesus when speaking of “the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive.” Had not the Spirit been seen descending upon Jesus like a dove at his baptism, and remaining on him? Had he not been the divine agent in creation, and in the illumination and inspiration of the patriarchs and prophets and seers of the old dispensation? How then could Jesus say that he “was not yet given,” as the words read in our Common version? The answer to this question furnishes our best point of departure for an intelligent study of the doctrine of the Spirit. Augustine calls the day of Pentecost the “dies natalis” of the Holy Ghost; and for the same reason that the day when Mary “brought forth her first-born son” we name “the birthday of Jesus Christ.” Yet Jesus had existed before he lay in the cradle at Bethlehem; he was “in the beginning with God”; he was the agent in creation. By him all things were. But on the day of his birth he became incarnate, that in the flesh he might fulfill his great ministry as the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, manifesting God to men, and making himself an offering for the sins of the world. Not until after his birth in Bethlehem was Jesus in the world in his official capacity, in his divine ministry as mediator between man and God; and so not till after the day of Pentecost was the Holy Spirit in the world in his official sphere, as mediator between men and Christ. In the following senses then is Augustine’s saying true, which calls Pentecost “the birthday of the Spirit”:

1. The Holy Spirit, from that time on, took up his residence on earth. The Christian church throughout all this dispensation is the home of the Spirit as truly as heaven, during this same period, is the home of Jesus Christ. This is according to that sublime word of Jesus, called by one “the highest promise which can be made to man”: “If a man love me he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). This promise was fulfilled at Pentecost, and the first two Persons of the Godhead now hold residence in the church through the Third. The Holy Spirit during the present time is in office on earth; and all spiritual presence and divine communion of the Trinity with men are through him. In other words, while the Father and the Son are visibly and personally in heaven, they are invisibly here in the body of the faithful by the indwelling of the Comforter. So that though we affirm that on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to dwell upon earth for this entire dispensation, we do not imply that he thereby ceased to be in heaven. Not with God, as with finite man, does arrival in one place necessitate withdrawal from another. Jesus uttered a saying concerning himself so mysterious and seemingly contradictory that many attempts have been made to explain away its literal and obvious meaning: “And no man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven”—Christ on earth, and yet in glory; here and there, at the same time, just as a thought which we embody in speech and send forth from the mind, yet remains in the mind as really and distinctly as before it was expressed. Why should this saying concerning our divine Lord seem incredible? And as with the Son, so with the Spirit. The Holy Ghost is here, abiding perpetually in the church; and he is likewise there,...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 20.12.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie
• ISBN-10: 0-00-004422-9 / 0000044229
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-004422-8 / 9780000044228