The Secret of His Incoming: Union With Christ
“This Jesus…having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost.”
Acts 2:32, 33
“But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus…”
I Corinthians 1:30
“In whom…ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.”
Ephesians 1:13
The Abundant Life
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
As the west-bound traveler speeds over the Alleghenies, his watchful gaze can hardly fail to note the gleaming surface of a little artificial lake whose azure-tinted waters mirroring the skies above, add much to the beauty of the great railroad system which spans our native state. This lakelet, embosomed in the depths of the mountains, is the reservoir which furnishes water to a busy neighboring city, and is fed by a mountain stream of modest supply. In the drought of last summer the infilling streams dwindled to a tiny thread; the waters of the reservoir sank to their lowest limits; and all the ills of a protracted water famine, with its constant menace to health and home, beset the city. The most rigid economy was urged by the authorities; the water was cut off save for a few hours per day; and the scant supply of precious fluid was carefully husbanded against emergencies. Not a hundred miles from this city lies a smaller one nestling also among the mountains. In its very center bursts forth a natural fountain of unlimited abundance and marvelous beauty. In the same summer of disastrous drought this famous spring without abating one jot of its wondrous flow or sinking one inch below the lip of its encircling embankment, furnished the thirsty city with fullest supply and then still outflowed over its waste-weir a sparkling, leaping stream of unstinted copiousness, earning right royally the privilege not only of refreshing with its water, but of christening with its own name the city of “The Beautiful Fountain.” The larger city, in truth had water. But the smaller one had it “more abundantly.” The scanty rivulet that trickled into the reservoir was barely enough to save from keen thirst. But the living bubbling fountain, pouring out its liquid wealth in prodigal flow for its native town, had left still enough to slake the thirst of a city many times the size of its greater neighbor.
Even so is it with the life of the Holy Spirit in God's children. Some have His indwelling life only as the trickling stream with scarce enough to keep and refresh them at times of test and stress, and never knowing what His fullness means. Others there are in whom the words of Jesus are joyously fulfilled: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Not only are they filled with the Spirit in their own inner life, but they overflow in abundant, outgiving blessing to the hungry and thirsty lives about them that seek to know the secret of their refreshing. Sorrow comes, but it cannot rob them of their great peace. Dark grow the days, but their child-like faith abounds more and more. Heavily fall the afflictive blows but like the oil well which, under the blow of the explosive, gives forth a more abundant flow because of the very shattering of its rocky reservoir, so their lives only pour out an ever increasing and enriching volume of blessing upon those about them. An unceasing stream of prayer flows from their hearts. Praise leaps as instinctively and artlessly from their lips as a glad song bursts from the soaring skylark. Trust has become a second nature; joy is its natural outcome; and ceaseless service springs not from the bondage of duty but as the gracious response of love. They are not like dry pumps, needing to be aided by others through impoured draughts of exhortation and stimulation ere they will give forth their scant supply. They are rather deep-driven artesian wells, spontaneous, constant, spirit-flowing. In them the Master's words have been fulfilled: “…the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).
Such were the lives of the apostles after the eventful day of Pentecost; transformed from timid, self-seeking, hesitating followers to bold, sacrificing, heroic messengers of Jesus Christ; preaching His gospel with wondrous power, joy, and effectiveness. The Book of Acts tells us of several of these. Stephen “full of faith and the Holy Ghost;” and Barnabas “full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.” The men chosen to wait on tables were “full of the Holy Ghost.” Paul swept to and fro in his great missionary journeys “Filled with the Holy Ghost.” Such was Charles Finney preaching the word of life with fiery earnestness born of a mighty fullness of the Spirit. Such were Edwards, and Moody, and multitudes of others; and such an abundant life as this does God hold out to all His children as their birthright, their lawful inheritance. In His picture of its precious fruitage (Gal 5:22, 23), we see it to be a life of
Abundant Love.
See the apostles filled with burning zeal to give the gospel of Christ's love to all. Mark Stephen's intense love for souls. Behold Peter's glowing heart and fervent testimonies now well attesting his earnest assertion, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee” (John 21:15). Mark the man of Tarsus, consumed with such a love for dying men as naught but God could inspire, and none but God could surpass. His great throbbing heart is too small a fountain to contain; his thrilling, burning words too weak a bridge to convey; his weak, toil-spent body too feeble a tabernacle to incarnate all the fullness of his passionate love for souls. So too Brainerd toils, fasts, weeps and dies for his Indians, because of the divine Love within him. Judson is driven from the land of his choice; is baffled again and again in his efforts to obtain a foothold in Burma; languishes in prison amid unspeakable horrors and sufferings, yet the flame of Love never abates. Livingstone travels through a pathless wilderness; endures untold hardships; is broken hearted by the vision of the infamy and anguish of the slave traffic; yet, dying upon his knees in holy prayer, Love burns more intensely than in the days of his youth. Paton exiles himself among the cannibals; faces difficulties that would daunt the most daring; labors with patience, prays with mighty faith; suffers with unmurmuring fortitude, reaps with joy unspeakable; and then girdles the earth in his travels, his heart all the while pulsating with the Spirit's own mighty Love.
Whose heart has not thrilled at the story of Delia, the sin-marred queen of the Mulberry street dive, and of her rescue from a life of shame? Yet is was the burning love of Christ in her heart which led Mrs. Whittemore to seek to save this lost one. It was love that breathed out the earnest prayer over the spotless rose and offered it to the erring one. It was love that drew the poor girl to the Door of Hope in the hour of her conviction. It was love that welcomed her, wept over her, and melted her heart with contrition and repentance. And then Love begat Love. For saved to the uttermost, this rescued one broke the alabaster box of her redeemed life as an offering of sweetest savor at the feet of Him whose Love had saved her, and went forth to tell the story of that Love to others. In prisons, in the slums, in street meetings, wherever this ransomed one told the story of Him who loved us and gave himself for us, the kindling love of the Holy Ghost so fired her soul that strong, sin-hardened men, bowing and sobbing under her thrilling, impassioned words, were swept by scores into the kingdom of God. For one brief year the love-life of God streamed, brimful through the open channel of her surrendered being; quickening, thrilling and inspiring all with whom she came in touch, and then she went to Him who was the fountain of her life of Abounding Love.
In an interior city dwells a friend “grappled to our souls with hooks of steel” in the precious bonds of the kinship that is in Christ Jesus. By the grace of God he has been wonderfully saved from a life of scoffing, derisive, soul-destroying infidelity. For days and weeks at a time he will be engaged in the busy, loving ministrations of a secular profession. Then, without warning the Holy Ghost will suddenly lay upon him the burden of lost souls. Driven by the Spirit to the seclusion of his own chamber, the love of God for the lost will so flood his being that for hours at a time he will lie upon his face sobbing out his broken petitions to God for their salvation. Then, going forth into the surrounding country with mighty, convicting messages from a heart overflowing with the abundant Love-life of his Master, he preaches the gospel of Christ in the needy places. In the few short years since his conversion God has given to this devoted servant over six hundred souls as fruitage of the life of Abundant Love. Beloved, are we walking in this Abounding Love-life? Do we know its power, joy and fullness? If not, we are falling short of the high calling of Him who came that we might have love not meagerly—but have it abundantly.
Again, it is the life of
Abundant Peace.
“…the fruit of the Spirit is…peace…” (Gal. 5:22). “…the peace of God…shall keep your hearts and minds…” (Phil. 4:7). “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27).
There rises up here the vision of a lovely mid-summer forenoon. As we lay quietly resting, the inside shutters of the window under the puff of a passing breeze suddenly opened. Straightway there lay before our gaze a beautiful picture of a sky of cloudless blue; green hills stretching away in the dim distance; and a noble river smiling and tossing its sparkling waves in the broad path of the sunlight. A moment the vision lingered and then, under the fitful gust of a contrary breeze, the shutters suddenly slammed shut. At once all the glory and beauty of the scene vanished, and stayed hidden until another flow of wind again disclosed its loveliness, only to be followed anew by its disappearance. Even thus, we thought, is the peace of the natural heart. For awhile, when all goes well and plans prosper, our hearts are content and at peace. But let a gust of adverse fortune, a baffling of some favorite purpose befall us, and at once peace vanishes and anxious care broods in its place. Peace indeed we have, but its manifestation is inconstant and fickle, filling us one day with rest, leaving us the next in darkness and hopelessness. What a contrast with this is the peace of the Abundant Spirit-life! For there is a peace which “passeth all understanding,” and—as one has well said—“all misunderstanding;” a peace which keeps us, not we it; a peace of which it is said “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee…” (Isaiah 26:3); a peace which, because born not of an outer calm, but an inner Christ, cannot be disturbed by sting or storm. It is the peace of the fullness of the Spirit. The sea has a surface which tosses and frets; foams and spumes; rises, staggers, and falls under every passing wind that assails its unstable life. But it has also deeps which have lain in motionless peace for ages, unswept by wind, unswayed by billow. So there are for the timorous heart moveless deeps of peace whose unbroken rest can be pictured only by that wonderful phrase—“the peace of God.” The peace of God! Think of it for a moment. How wondrous must be God's peace! With Him there is no frailty, no error, no sin. With Him there is no past to lament; no future to dread; no blunders or mistakes to fear; no plans to be thwarted; no purposes to be unmet. With God, there is no death that can overcome; no suffering can weaken, no ideal can be unfulfilled, no perfection unattained. Past, present or future; vanishing time or endless eternity; life or death; hope or fear; storm or calm—naught of these, and naught else within the bounds of the universe can disturb the peace of Him who calls himself the God of peace. And it is this peace that is ours to possess. “The peace of God…shall keep your hearts and minds…” (Phil. 4:7). Not a human peace attained by self-struggle or self-discipline, but Divine peace—the very peace which God Himself has, yea, is. This is why Jesus Himself says, “My peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). Human, man-made peace, which rises and falls with the vicissitudes of life, is worthless; but the peace of Christ—what a gift is this! Mark the surroundings when Christ spake these words, and how wonderful this peace appears! It was just before His death. Before Him is the kiss of the traitor; the hiss of the scourge; the weary blood-stained way to death; the hiding of His Father's face; the thorn-crowned, purple-robed mockery of His kingship; and the awful torture-climax of the cross. If ever a man's soul ought to be torn with agony, burdened with horror, surely this is the hour. But instead of gloom, and fear, and shuddering anticipation, hear His wondrous words, “My peace I leave with you!” (John 14:27). Surely a peace like this is worth having! Surely a peace which does not take flight before such a hideous vision of betrayal, agony, and death is an abundant peace; is one of which Jesus could well have said, “I leave it with you; it will stay; it is the God-peace which abides forever. My children, behold my hour of crisis, darker than shall ever come to any of you, yet my peace abides without a tremor. My peace has stood the supreme test; therefore, it can never fail; I pass it on to you.”
Some years ago a friend narrated to us an experience of the Johnstown flood which we have never forgotten. His home was below that ill-fated city, and when the flood burst he, with others, hurried out upon the bridge, rope in hand, to rescue if possible any unfortunates who might be borne down the river. Presently, as he waited, his attention was attracted by the approach of a half submerged house which the rushing torrent was bearing swiftly toward him, and upon the roof of which he saw the recumbent form of a woman. With heart thrilling with sympathy and earnest desire to compass her rescue, he quickly made ready, and as the strange craft neared the bridge he cast the rope with eager expectancy, but it fell short of the mark. Rushing to the lower side of the bridge, as the house swept under the arching span, he again cast the rope with feverish haste and intensity, but again it failed of its merciful purpose. “And then,” said our friend, “as the last hope of rescue faded with the second failure to reach her, and death became her inevitable doom, the occupant of the roof, who had been reclining on its steep slope with her head resting upon her hand, turned, and a sweet womanly face looked up into mine. Until my dying day I shall never forget the expression upon that upturned countenance! Instead of fear, horror, and agony with which I expected to see it distorted, it was quiet and calm, with an unspeakable, serene, abiding Peace; and with a kindly nod of recognition of my poor effort to save her, as she swept on to certain death, that Peace kindled into a glory that 'ne'er was seen on land or sea, whose radiance was unshadowed even by the awful roar and strife of the elements about.” “Ah, friend,” thought I, as the tears leaped unbidden to my eyes under this touching story, “she must have been a child of the Lord; she knew Him; and this that kept her was the Peace of God.”
Then, too, it is a life of
Abundant Power.
“…ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you,” said Christ to His disciples. And their lives straightway became a neverceasing record of mighty deeds done in the power of the Spirit. “Stephen,” we are told, “full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people” (Acts 6:8). Charles G. Finney, entering a mill, was so filled with the power of the Spirit that the operatives fell upon their knees in tears before the mere presence of the evangelist, ere he had uttered a word. At a camp-meeting where the most learned and eloquent sermons had utterly failed to move men to repentance, the whole congregation broke down in tears of conviction and penitence under the quiet words of an unassuming man who spoke manifestly filled with the Spirit. A word, a prayer, an earnest appeal, a song that would fall otherwise unheeded, goes home to the heart, filled with some subtle power when issuing from a Spirit-filled life. Moody testifies that never until he knew the fullness of the Spirit did he know the fullness of God's power in his preaching, but after that his preached words never failed of some fruitage. Neither is the power of the abundant life confined to the preaching of God's word. God gives to some power in prayer; to others power in testimony; to others power in song; to others power in suffering and affliction. Every soul that knows the Spirit's abounding life is touching other lives with power whose full scope and intensity he will never know until the Lord comes to reward.
Nor is the fullness of the Spirit limited to abundant love, peace and power. It is a life, too, of abundant joy, for the joy of the Lord is our strength; of abundant long-suffering, girding us with patience under trials that we never could otherwise endure; of abundant gentleness, as Christ's own gentleness takes possession of us; of abundant goodness, abundant faith, abundant meekness, abundant self-control. That it is not meant for apostles, or ministers, or missionaries, or teachers only, but for all of God's children is clear, “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off…” (Acts 2:39).
What it its secret?
How then shall our heart-longings for the fullness of the Spirit be satisfied? How shall we know His abundance of love, peace, joy, and power for service? What is the secret of this abundant life; this fullness of the Spirit? We answer first, negatively, It is not that we have not received the Holy Ghost. Seeing the powerlessness, the barrenness, the lack of love, joy, peace, and power in many Christian lives, and knowing these to be the fruitage of the abundant life of the Spirit, we may leap to the conclusion that the Spirit has not been received, else how account for the feeble manifestations of His presence and power? Wherefore the first thing we need clearly to see is that every child of God has received the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is of the greatest importance, in the search for the secret of the abundant life, that this glorious fact should be clearly seen and accepted by the believer. For if he has not received the Holy Ghost, then his attitude should be that of waiting, petitioning, and seeking for the gift which is not yet his. But if he has received the Holy Ghost, then he must take an entirely different attitude, namely, not of waiting and praying for the Holy Ghost to be received but of yielding and surrendering to Him who has already been received.
In the first case we are waiting on God to do something; in the other God is waiting on us to do something.
It will be seen at once that if a man is occupying either of these attitudes when he ought to be in the other, then confusion and failure are bound to result. For example, the simple conditions of salvation are repentance from sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, to keep a truly penitent soul in the attitude of seeking or praying for forgiveness, instead of simple faith in God's Word that he has been forgiven in Christ, is a ruinous mistake, and leads to darkness and agony, instead of the light and joy that god means him to have. On the other hand, to try to get an impenitent soul to “only believe,” instead of first repenting of sins, will keep him in equal darkness, and make his nominal acceptance of Christ a mere profession and hypocrisy. Exactly so is it with the case in hand. If the absence of the abundant life of the Spirit in us is due, as we are persuaded it is, not to the fact that He has not come in, but that we have not surrendered to Him who is already in, then it is a tremendous and fatal mistake to keep a soul waiting and seeking instead of surrendering and yielding. It puts him at cross purposes with God. He keeps calling on God to give the Holy Ghost; to baptize him with the Spirit. But God has already done this to all who are in Christ, and is calling on him to fulfill certain conditions by which he may know the abundance of the Spirit, not the Spirit who is to come, but the Spirit who is already in him. Have we not known His children to wait, and cry, and agonize for the gift of the Holy Ghost through long, weary days, months, and even years, from not knowing the truth of His Word upon this point? For it is the truth that makes us free, and if we know it not we cannot be free. That all we, then, who are God's children have “received the Holy Spirit,” the “gift of the Holy Spirit,” (as God uses that term) is clearly taught in His Word, for:
1. We have fulfilled the conditions of the gift of the Holy Ghost. What are these conditions? We would expect them first to be very simple and easily comprehended by the most unlearned. God does not, and would not, make the greatest gift of His love to us, next to that of His Son, to hinge upon any but the very simplest and plainest conditions. Through all the ages the great promise of the Spirit was in the divine mind preparing for fulfillment. He would not have a single child of His to miss the way. He has made it a great highway, and set up finger-boards so plain and unambiguous that only pre-conceived human opinions, doctrines, theories, theologies, and darkening of counsel could make us miss it so grievously as we have done. Moreover when we have endeavored to lay aside our own opinions and prejudices, and to seek the light of His Word alone, we have complicated the question by confining ourselves almost entirely to the experience of the apostles at the day of Pentecost. Accepting this as the “pattern in the mount” for us, we, consciously or unconsciously, deem the same conditions needful. Right here note that in our search for the conditions of the gift of the Holy ghost we have confined ourselves too closely to the apostolic experience instead of the apostolic teaching at Pentecost. Now a man's experience of conversion may be most marvelous and impressive in its accompaniments. But many a man who has had a genuine, glorious experience of conversion utterly fails when he tries to lead others to Christ. Why? Because he imparts into his directions to the anxious seeker conditions from his own experience which are not essential scriptural conditions for others. Equally disastrous has been this practice in the teaching concerning the glorious truths of the Spirit, and that, too, by men who have had genuine, striking experiences of His fullness of blessing. they teach us to pray without ceasing; to wait not only ten days, but ten years if need be, to wait for the promise of the Comforter; to look for wonderful experiences, etc. How many an anxious soul has thus been plunged into hopeless confusion and spiritual darkness! The trouble is the same. They are endeavoring to guide us solely by the apostolic experience instead of the apostolic teaching. But the former is much more difficult of analysis than the latter, and it may be fairly said to be abnormal to us in these important respects, that the apostles lived before Christ came, while He walked the earth, and after He left it. They thus had one experience of the Holy Ghost as Old Testament believers; another when the risen Christ breathed upon them and said, “receive ye the Holy Ghost;” another when the ascended Christ poured out the Holy Ghost upon them at Pentecost. But this is not true of us. Wherefore, to our mind, the important question is not so much how the apostles—who lived through the dispensations, loosely speaking, of Father, Son and Holy Ghost—received the Holy Ghost, as how men who lived in the latter, as we do, received Him. The experience that matches ours is not so much that of the apostles, who had also believed on Jesus before the gift of the Holy Ghost, as that of the apostles' converts who believed on Him exactly as we do, after the work of Christ was finished, and after the Holy Ghost was given. Let us therefore now ask not so much what did the apostles experience as what did they teach. Not only how did they receive the Holy Ghost, but how did they instruct others to receive Him. And here, as always, we find the Word of God wondrously simple, if we will lay aside our own prejudgments and hear only what it says. For on that same Pentecostal day the apostolic teaching was just as clear as the apostolic experience was wonderful.
If ever there was a time when the presence of God filled a human body, burned in a human heart, and inspired human lips with errorless accuracy of teaching; surely it was when Peter preached his great sermon on the day of Pentecost. All aflame he was with the mighty anointing of power, and it was the God of truth Himself who spoke through him and answered the pleading cry of the multitude “What shall we do” by His own divine word of direction and teaching. And what does He say? “Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). It is evident from many passages in the Word that baptism as here an ordinance administered upon faith in Christ as a sin-bearer, and thus God here taught through Peter this great truth that the two great conditions of receiving the Holy Ghost are:
Repentance and faith in Christ for the remission of sins.
No other conditions are required. Repent of your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins (being baptized thereupon), and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Two things for us to do, and then one thing God does. If ye do these two things ye shall receive, says God. The promise is absolute. Surely man has no right to put any other requirement between the “Repent and believe,” and the “Ye shall receive,” since God Himself puts none. If any soul honestly repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins, then the heavens would fall ere God would fail to fulfill His promise “Ye shall receive.”
Wherefore the only questions that the child of God in doubt whether he has received the gift of the Holy Ghost, need ask are; “Have I turned away from my sins with an honest heart?” and, “Am I trusting, not in my own poor works, but in Jesus Christ as my sin-bearer and Saviour?” If so, God has given me the Holy Ghost, and the peace I find in my heart is born alone of that Spirit whom “if any have not he is none of His.” If we have never honestly repented, or have never simply believed in Jesus Christ, then we have not received the Spirit. But if we have fulfilled these two simple conditions—a fact easily known to ourselves—then God must have given us His great gift. Albeit He does not leave us to rest alone upon logic even as good as this, but buttresses it with the next great proof that we have so received Him, namely:
2. By the witness of the Spirit Himself; by our own experience of His incoming, when we fulfilled these conditions. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). Do not many of us remember the very day and hour and place, when having repented and believed in Jesus Christ, our hearts were filled with wondrous peace and joy therein? Or even if it did to others of us come less definitely as to time and place, yet was the experience of the peace that came into our heart, to replace the distress and unrest that had dwelt there for years, any the less definite or wonderful because it had stolen upon us gradually and quietly? The Spirit bore witness with our spirit. No power in existence could bring the peace that we have concerning past sins, save the Holy Ghost. Jesus alone is our peace concerning the past, and the Holy Ghost alone could communicate to our hearts the experience of that peace. The fact that it is there, is proof absolute of the Spirit's presence. Let none rob us of this conscious attestation of His incoming. We know He is in us because none but Him could work in us such fruitage as that of which we are conscious. We repented; we believed; and He came in to “abide with us forever.” Let our hearts be at rest. Nor does it matter much that this is not what we mean by the “gift of the Holy Ghost.” It is what God says. And the sooner we use God's terms, accept God's statements, and obey God's commands, the sooner will the darkness that shrouds this great truth flee away and let in upon our souls the clear shining of the day.
3. It is the constant assertion of God's Word concerning believers. Notice how emphatic this is: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you” (I Cor. 3:16). Not that we shall be hereafter, but that now we believers are the temple of God, and that the Spirit dwells now (present tense) in us. Again (mark the tense) “What! Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God…” (I Cor. 6:19). Again “…for ye are the temple of the living God” (II Cor. 6:16). Also, II Cor. 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” How clear this last passage is upon the points named. Note the simple condition again: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.” That is, are you believers? Are you simply trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? If so, know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed when you examine yourself you find that you are “reprobate,” that is, “not-standing-the-test,” not trusting Christ, but somebody else. How simple all this is, and how harmonious, with the truth as Peter preached it! He says we are to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. And then we ask of these who have repented and are now believers “Don't you know that the only question you have to ask yourselves is: ‘Am I trusting in Christ?’ If so, Jesus dwells in you, in the Holy Ghost.” Beloved, even though we had never had a single emotional experience of the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost yet we would be bold indeed—to say nothing worse—to deny the glorious fact of His indwelling in the face of the constant, explicit assertions of God that we are His temple, that He does dwell in us and that we have this great gift of the Spirit from God now.
4. Christ and the Apostles always take this truth for granted in addressing believers. Note Paul's exclamation of surprise that they should for a moment lose sight of this fundamental truth. “What? Know ye not…” (I Cor. 6:19). Are ye ignorant or forgetful of this great and glorious truth that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in you? (I Cor. 3:16). Do you grow doubtful of His presence because you are not having any such wonderful experience of it as you expect? Do you forget that His indwelling does not depend upon your emotions, but upon your union with Christ which has been long since accomplished by God through your faith in Him? (I Cor. 1:30). And then again in Acts 19:2 he says to them, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since [from the time that: because that] ye believed?” showing that he expected all the children of God to receive the gift at the time of repentance and belief in Christ.
So, too, notice Christ's attitude toward the same truth in His constant use of the word, “Abide.” “Abide in me and I in you.” “If ye abide in me.” “And now, little children, abide in him…” (I John 2:28). What is the truth here? Clearly this: The word “abide” means “to stay, to remain in a place in which you already are.” Thus, when you request a company of people to abide, to stay in a room, we at once understand that those addressed are already there. When Paul said in Acts 27:31, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved,” we know that they were already in the ship. Now, Christ's word to the sinner is, “Come,” because he is out of Christ. But His word to the believer is “Abide,” because he is already, and forever, in Christ. But no man can be in Christ and not have received the Holy Ghost. It is impossible, for He is the giver of the Spirit. In Him is life and the instant we are united to Him by faith we must receive the Spirit. The wire can no more be joined to the dynamo and not receive the electric fluid, the branch can no more be joined to the vine and not receive the thrill of life, than we can be joined to Christ by faith and not receive His great resurrection gift. “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5).
But someone now says: “I believe that it is the Holy Ghost who has regenerated me, and that I could not be born again except by His agency. But I do not believe this is what God means by receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Is there not a second experience for the believer in which, after his conversion, he receives the Holy Ghost for service in great power and abundance, such as he has never known before? Did not Paul say to the Ephesian converts: ‘Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?’ (Acts 19:2); and does not this clearly prove that one can be a Christian and yet need to receive the Holy Ghost afterward?”
To this we say both yes and no. There is a fullness of the Holy Ghost such as does not come to most Christians at conversion, and therefore is, in point of time, usually a second experience. But this is not the gift of the Holy Ghost, not the receiving of the Holy Ghost, not the baptism of the Holy Ghost as God's Word teaches. The Holy Ghost is received once and forever at conversion. He is a person. He comes in them once and forever, and to stay. We receive Him then—though we may not yield to Him—for service, as well as for regeneration. The greater experience of His presence and power that follows conversion, sooner or later, is not the gift of the Holy Ghost, the receiving of the Holy Ghost, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as God uses those terms, but a fullness, in response to consecration, of that Holy Ghost who has already been given at regeneration. At Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down to empower the Church, the mystic Body of Christ. On that great day Christ baptized the Church with the Holy Ghost. Wherefore, as each one of us by faith becomes a member of that Body, we are baptized with the same Spirit that dwells in that Body; we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. We cannot too clearly lay hold of this. For our deceitful natural heart is all too quick to take refuge in prayer, and waiting to receive, and thus dodge the real issue which is an absolute surrender to Him who has been received. so subtle is the flesh that it is glad, by waiting petition, to throw on God the burden of giving, if thereby it can evade the real issue which God has put upon us of yielding wholly to Him who has already been given. It is exactly matched by the case of the sinner who is far more willing to pray and wait on God for a blessing than to make the surrender that will bring the blessing. But how about the Ephesian converts who were taught that they must receive the Holy Ghost after they had believed? Does not this prove that many, though Christian, have not received the Holy Ghost, and that this is the secret of their lack of power and victory? Now, if we will examine this instance in the light of God's own Word, with unbiased mind, we will see that this much-quoted passage (Acts 19:2) not only does not support the view that this was a receiving of the gift of the Holy Ghost by believers after regeneration, and thus proving our need of the same, but that it is one of the strongest proofs in God's Word that the apostles expected men to receive the Holy Ghost at conversion. In other words, the teaching of Paul corresponds exactly with that of Peter upon this great theme. We will recall from the preceding chapter that the simple conditions, as laid down by Peter, for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit were repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. These two alone were necessary. But mark this, that both of these were essential. One was not sufficient. Men must repent and believe. For a man simply to repent of his sins, without faith in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, would not bring the gift of the Holy Ghost, for one of the essential conditions would be missing. So also for a man to attempt to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ without repenting of his sins would not, and could not, bring the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the same reason—the absence, in this case of the necessary condition of repentance. We need not do anything more than God requires, but we dare not do anything less. Every Christian worker's experience confirms this. How often we meet with seekers after salvation who can find no witnessing peace of the Holy Ghost because there is some secret sin unsurrendered, some specific failure in repentance! Or again, some truly penitent one fails to find peace because he will not simply believe in Jesus Christ's atoning work for the remission of his sins. The evidence of multitudes of such cases confirms then this great truth of God's Word—that there are two conditions essential to receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, namely, repentance and faith; and that the only reason anyone fails to receive Him is that he has not repented, or does not believe in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
With this truth now in mind consider Acts 19:1-6. Paul comes to Ephesus and, finding certain disciples, says to them, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed;” thus showing that Paul expected them to receive Him at the time they turned from their sins. When they answer in the negative Paul begins at once to search for the cause, and he does so exactly in line with the conditions laid down by Peter, as already quoted. “Unto what then were ye baptized?” said Paul; and they said: “Unto John's baptism.” “Oh, I see,” says Paul in effect, “but don't you know that John baptized only unto repentance? Now, repentance is not enough to bring the gift of the Holy Ghost; you must also believe in Jesus Christ.” And when they heard this, they believed on Jesus Christ and, baptized into His name, received the Holy Ghost. They were not believers at all as we are believers. They were practically believers under the Old Covenant, not under the New. They can be classed only with John's converts, who did not, and could not, receive the gift of the Spirit, inasmuch as they fulfilled only one condition, that of repentance. So far from being believers as we are, and being cited to prove that believers must receive the Holy Ghost as a second experience after conversion, these men, we are distinctly told, had not believed in Jesus Christ at all up to this time. Paul simply supplied the missing condition of salvation under the New Testament—faith in Christ, which should have been taught them when they repented. They stood in the place a penitent stands today who has honestly repented of his sins, but has not been instructed to believe in Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins. This failed to bring the gift of the Holy Ghost just as it would fail now. Then, too, the scriptural context, telling us exactly how this happened, seems to us forever to settle this mooted passage. If we go back to the preceding chapter we find an explanation that makes the whole episode as clear as sunlight. In verse twenty-four we are told: “a certain Jew named Apollos…came to Ephesus…and being fervent in the Spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John,” that is, only the baptism of repentance (19:4). While he was mighty in the Old Testament Scriptures, yet he evidently did not know God's full plan of salvation, and thus Aquila and Priscilla, when they heard him, “…took him unto them[selves] and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly” (v. 26), doubtless teaching faith in Christ for the remission of sins. Apollos now goes to Corinth, and Paul, coming to Ephesus, finds Apollos' misinstructed disciples, a dozen men who had not received the Holy Ghost. Why? Simply because they had not believed in Jesus Christ. True, they were believers in the sense that John's disciples were believers, having “repentance toward God,” but they had not “faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul therefore simply supplies the missing condition of New Testament conversion, and they receive the Holy Ghost, not as a second experience of full-fledged believers, but as the first experience of those who had not believed in Christ at all as we believe in Him. Instead of proving that the Christian man does not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost at conversion, but as a second enduement, this passage is one of the strongest proofs in the Word of God that the apostles expected men to receive the Holy Ghost at conversion, and, if not received, they simply proceeded to show that one of the two simple conditions of New Covenant salvation had been neglected at the time of professed discipleship.
Again, take the case of the Samaritans recorded in Acts 8:5-25. Here, we are distinctly told that they believed Philip as he preached Christ, and that they were baptized (v. 12). Why then was the Holy Spirit not received? It is suggested that there may not have been an honest repentance. For to Simon the sorcerer, who had professed belief and been baptized, Peter declared, “Thy heart is not right in the sight of God” (Acts 8:21). Another likely more reasonable explanation is that God desired to show His condemnation of the enmity between Jew and Samaritan by using not Philip but two Jewish apostles, Peter and John, as the human instruments through which the outpoured Spirit came to the Samaritans.
A careful examination of these two chief passages cited to prove that the gift of the Holy Spirit comes as an after experience in the believer's life, will show, we believe, that they have no application to us as believers, but only prove that seekers after Christ must both repent and believe, in order to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
It follows, too, from this that every child of God has also been baptized with the Holy Ghost. The receiving of the Holy Ghost and the baptism with the Holy Ghost we conceive to be absolutely synonymous, as God uses these terms. John baptized with water telling his disciples to believe on Him that should come after, and that then He would baptize them with the Holy Ghost. This was to be the distinguishing characteristic that was to mark baptism by the resurrected Christ. When men turned to God under the preaching of John he baptized them with water. But when they turn to Him in this Gospel age Jesus Christ baptizes them with the Holy Ghost. There is not a single instance that we recall where baptism with the Holy Ghost is made a subsequent experience of the believer. The apostles were again and again filled with fresh anointing, as it were, of the Spirit, but they were never baptized again. Nor are any converts who have received the Spirit in regeneration ever said thereafter to be baptized with Him. The reason is clear. Baptism was plainly an initial rite. It was administered upon entrance into the kingdom of God. Both baptisms stand, in relation of time, at the same place, whether John's with water, or Christ's with the Holy Ghost, namely, at the threshold of the Christian life, not at any subsequent milestone. Wherefore, when the baptism of the Spirit is urged now upon believers we may all agree with the thought behind it, namely, that of a fullness of the Spirit not yet known or possessed, for such a fullness is our birthright. Yet the expression itself is not a happy one in that it is never, to our knowledge, so used in the Scriptures, and therefore misleads men in attaching to a certain phrase a different meaning than God gives to it. Two speakers using a word to which each attached a different meaning would soon land in hopeless confusion. So has it been with this great theme, and it would clear up marvelously if we would not only study God's truth upon it, but adopt His phrases in describing it, using “the gift,” “the receiving,” “the baptism” of the Holy Ghost exactly as He himself does in His own inspired Word.
In fact, the receiving of the Holy Ghost depends upon one set of conditions, and the fullness of the Holy Ghost upon another. Because we have not His fullness, we leap to the conclusion that we have not received Him. The truth is that we should accept forever the fact that we have received Him, and press on to know the secret of His fullness. Beloved, let your heart go out no longer in petition to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, but let it be filled with praise that you have received Him, and that He is dwelling in you. Read again and again God's positive statements concerning it. Weigh them carefully. Recall your own experience of joy and peace when the Holy Spirit entered. Notice the constant statement in the Epistles that the believer is the sanctuary, the “holy place” where the Spirit indwells. Then remember that he who stands with God, stands on sure ground. Let no one shake your confidence at this point. If any would, then repeat again and again His word, “Ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God…” (I Cor. 6:19) until you are forever settled in this glorious truth.
Then, if not withstanding you have received Him, you are painfully conscious of powerlessness, joylessness, fruitlessness in your life; know that there is a fullness of the Spirit who is in you; a life of abounding peace and power and joy and love; a life of liberty, a life of victory over self and sin; that this life is for every child of God who will learn, and then fulfill its conditions; that, therefore, it is for you. Then, knowing the secret of His incoming, the glorious fact that He is now in you, patiently waiting for you to act, press on to know the secret of His fullness.
To recapitulate, we believe God's Word teaches:
· That every believer has received the Holy Ghost, the gift of the Holy Ghost—the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
· That the simple secret of His thus incoming is Repentance and Faith.
· That there is a fullness of the Holy Ghost, greater than that usually thus received at conversion.
· That there are certain conditions of this fullness, different from the conditions on which the Holy Ghost is received (that is, one may receive the Holy Ghost, yet not know His fullness); lastly
· That the secret of His fullness is—what?
The Secret of His Fullness: Yielding to Christ
“Yield yourselves unto God.”
Romans 6:13
“Present your bodies…unto God.”
Romans 12:1
“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.”
Romans 1:1
The Secret of His Fullness
Granted, then, that we have received the gift of the Holy Ghost; that we have been baptized with Him; that He has come into our lives to abide forever. What then is the secret of His fullness, of His abundant life of Peace, Power, and Love? We answer:
—The absolute, unqualified surrender of our life to God, to do His will instead of our own— Thus, when we surrender our sins and believe, we receive the Holy Spirit; when we surrender our lives and believe, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. The receiving of the Spirit is God's answer to repentance and faith; the fullness of the Spirit is God's answer to surrender and faith. At conversion the Spirit enters; at surrender the Spirit, already entered, takes full possession. The supreme, human condition of the fullness of the Spirit is a life wholly surrendered to God to do His will. This is true
1. In reason. In our mind, all the clouds that have been hindering the clear outshining of this great truth into our soul will vanish away before him who will ponder carefully the great scriptural and experimental truth of the two-fold nature of the believer. Note first the situation of the sinner. He has but one nature—“the old man.” He is declared absolutely to be dead in trespasses and sins. He has the self-life, but not the God-life within him. He walks in the flesh, and in that only. The Spirit may and does strive with him, but not in him, for only “he who is Christ's” hath that Spirit. But now comes a wonderful change. He repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. What happens? He is born again, born from above, born of God, born of the Spirit. And what do these phrases signify? Simply that a new life, a divine life, the life of God has come into him. God Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, has come to dwell in him; he has received the Holy Spirit. He has now what the sinner does not have—a new nature. But when the new life, the Spirit, came in, did the old life, the “old man,” go out? Alas, not he! If he had, then, to receive the Spirit would be at once and forever to be filled with Him, for He would have full possession. But this is not the case. The old life does not go out when the new comes in; upon this God's Words and our own experience are painfully clear. But now, as a believer, he has, as it were, a dual nature. In him are both “the flesh” and “the Spirit”—the old life and the new. These two co-exist. Both dwell in him. But as deadly foes, they struggle for the mastership of his life. “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” for each wants not only to be in him but to have full possession. Each desires to fill him.
The problem is changed. It is no longer how shall he receive the Spirit. That is settled: he has received Him. But he finds him a joint-tenant with the flesh. Wherefore the question now is: Having two natures within him, how shall he be filled with one of them? How shall he know the fullness and abundant life of the Spirit, and be delivered from the life and power of the flesh?
The answer is clear. How else could he be filled save by yielding himself wholly to that one which he would have fill him? He has the power of choice; he can yield himself to either. Is it not clear that whatever life he yields himself to, that will fill him? When he once yielded himself a servant to the flesh (Rom. 6:19) was he not “…filled with all unrighteousness…”? (Rom. 1:29). Even so now, just in proportion as he yields himself to the Spirit (Rom. 6:19) will he not be filled with that Spirit? It is as though the sweet fresh air of spring-time should enter a ten-roomed house full of foul odors. You open up one chamber to it, but leave the rest closed and in possession of the old, fetid atmosphere. Truly the pure air has entered, but how can it fill the house until you yield that house wholly to it, throwing open every nook and cranny to its fragrant breath? Or, it is as though a fountain were fed by two strong springs bubbling up from the ground, one of water, and the other of oil. There is no doubt that the fountain has received water, for it is constantly inflowing. Yet how can it be filled with water save as it yields itself wholly to its life-giving stream, and refuses to yield itself to the oil? Even so is it with the Holy Spirit. True, He has come into every believer's heart, and abides there, and will abide forever. Yet every believer thus co-indwelt by the flesh and the Spirit may so continue to yield to the flesh as to thwart, choke up, and clog all manifestation of the fullness of the Spirit who is within him. This fact that, even after the Spirit has been received, there may be a mastership of Self in our lives through failure to yield to the Spirit, is a full and sufficient explanation of all lack of fullness of the Spirit. He who knows the awful power of that self-life in himself; its enmity with God; its carnality; its grieving and quenching of the Spirit; its deadly blighting of all the blessed fruits of the Spirit; its fierce and desperate resistings of his efforts to enter into the full life of the Spirit, needs no other explanation of the failure of fullness of the Spirit than the fullness of Self. The trouble is not the Spirit un-entered, but the Spirit un-yielded to, and thus shorn of opportunity to manifest the very fullness He desires. The remedy is clear, logical, inescapable: a refusal to yield the life longer to the mastership of self, and a surrender to the Spirit, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). It is true again:
2. In Revelation. God's Word is clear upon it. Paul again and again calls himself the “bond slave” of Christ, yielded to Him wholly, to do His will, not his own. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice…unto God” (Romans 12:1). Hear Paul thus exhorting believers, “Neither yield…unto sin…yield yourselves unto God…to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are…as ye have yielded…servants…to iniquity…even so now yield…servants to righteousness unto holiness” (Rom. 6:13, 16, 19), “But now being made free from sin [God's act in Christ], and become servants to God [your act of surrender, needful to make you realize that freedom which is in Christ], ye have your fruit unto holiness…” (v. 22); i.e., you know the power, blessing, fullness and fruitage of the Holy Spirit to whom you have now yielded. Notice both the impressive repetition and the significant position (Rom. 6) of his exhortation to yield ourselves to God. It follows the fifth chapter of Romans. That is, as soon as the believer, justified by faith, has received the Holy Ghost (v. 5), he is urged to yield himself to God, wholly and absolutely. Why? Because Paul knows the twofold nature of the believer; knows that with whatsoever he would be filled, to that he must yield; knows that if he would be filled with the Spirit he must yield to Him or otherwise he will go on living in the power and fullness of the flesh.
Thus the absolute yielding of our lives to God is the first great step after conversion urged in His Word.
Upon every convert, having received the Spirit, and while his heart is glowing with the love of Christ who has saved him, should be pressed home, earnestly and tenderly, the claim of that Christ upon his redeemed life, and His loving call to him to yield it to Him in absolute, unreserved surrender. There is no other way in reason, in revelation, or in practice. Alas for our blindness! Converts are exhorted to study the Word; to be diligent in prayer; to abound in good works; to give of their substance to the Lord; to be faithful in church services; to join her various societies; and to busy themselves in her countless round of activities. But, (Woe unto us!) in omitting the one supreme condition which God reveals, we fail to lift the single flood gate which alone will let into our lives His coveted fullness. That this act of surrender is the pivot upon which the gat of His fullness swings open, is also seen in
3. The experience of God's children. Is it not true of all of you, beloved, who walk the pathway of the blessed life? The Holy Spirit painted in your secret soul pictures of a walk with God which persistently refused to fade, even amid all your failures and falling short of them. There were yearnings after a richness and fullness of life in Christ which never ceased to haunt your soul. There were voices that called you for years to untrodden heights of communion, privilege, and service. You made many mistakes; you were misled by false teaching; you groped earnestly in the darkness after truth. But now, with the peace and joy of an established life in Christ Jesus filling your soul, as you look back over the past, do you not see that pivotal point of blessing and fullness was the surrender of your life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Whether long years in coming to this crisis, or reaching it at a single bound, every consecrated child of God knows that this act of surrender to God was the supreme step that brought him into the fullness of the close walk with God. Your experience may have been complicated, confused, difficult to interpret, but that this act of surrender was the culmination of it all, and this fullness of the Spirit, the outcome of such an act, God's response of grace to that act, all will testify. The lives of such men as Carey, Martyn, Paton, and Livingstone, vividly show forth this truth. The fullness and power that marked their lives from the divine side went hand in hand on the human side with an unqualified, unwavering surrender of life in its fullest sweep, to do the will of Him that sent them. Only such an bring His fullness.
Again, that surrender is the secret of fullness is proven by:
4. The resistance of the flesh. We may be assured that a step which the self-life supremely opposes is the supreme step the Spirit would have us take. That point at which the Flesh masses its most desperate resistance must be the point to which the Spirit is most desirous of bringing us; must be the key-point of the situation. Above all else is the deliberate resolve to surrender the life to God this step, this point. How clamorously the hostile Self-life protests against it! We will lead meetings; sign pledges; fill official positions; draw checks even to the half of our fortune; yea, do anything else; but how vehemently and desperately the Self-life opposes our yielding our life to God in full surrender! Does anyone question that self-will is the stronghold of the Flesh, and that the act of surrender storms the stronghold and is the act which the Spirit most desires and the Flesh most resists? Then let that man or woman try to make such a surrender. Let them say to God:
“Here, Lord, I give up all my plans and purposes, all my desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. Whatever Thou dost want, take; whatever Thou wouldst have come, send; wherever Thou wouldst have me go, lead; whatever Thou wouldst have me surrender, reveal. ‘Lo, I come to Thy will.’”
Immediately how the powers of the Flesh will assail this decision! What clamorous protests! What fierce hostility! What agonizing struggles! What deathly swoonings of the soul at the mere thought! What bitter tests of pride and reputation! What sweeping sacrifices loom up unthought of before! The pulpit; the mission field; yielded idols; surrendered professions; or occupations or possessions—how these all start up like spectres before the trembling soul! That day on which a child of God decides to yield his will to God will scarce have passed its meridian ere he will stand appalled at the revelation of his own unwillingness to do God's will. He will be astonished and humiliated beyond measure at the desperate and repeated onslaughts of the Self-life to drive him from the new stand he has taken. Just as the frantic cries and wild flutterings of the mother bird prove that your disturbing hand is near her nestling, so does the passionate resistance of Self to the consecration of your life prove that through that act the Self-life is in deadly peril of overthrow under the mighty hand of God. Child of God, does not this very shrinking, this fierce enmity of the flesh, prove that his stronghold is unmasked, that his secret is betrayed, that the very thing which he most vehemently resists is that, above all others, which God wants you to do? Have you done it?
5. There is no substitute for your act of surrender. When God states a condition of blessing, no other condition, however good elsewhere, can be substituted. This is why all your crying, and waiting, and petitioning—yea, even agonizing before God—have accomplished naught but to leave you grieved, disappointed, and dazed at lack of answer.
You have been praying instead of obeying
Prayer is all right with obedience, but not instead of it. “To obey is better than sacrifice” (I Sam. 15:22). So is it better than prayer if it is the thing God is asking. We are not petitioning God; He is petitioning us! Hear Him through His servant Paul: “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Have you done this? When we petition God to do something for us, we expect Him to act. When God petitions us to make Him a present of our bodies as a living sacrifice He expects us to act. But lo, we turn and begin to pray, for, we say, “is not prayer a good thing?” Forsooth it is, but not well spent if used to dodge obedience! How subtle the flesh is! How in our blindness we do play at cross-purposes with God! “[Abraham]”, said God, “because thou hast done this thing…I will bless thee” (Gen. 22:16). And what was the thing upon the doing of which the blessing of God came to him as never before? It was the yielding of his all to God in the surrender of his son. Child of God, have you done this thing? No other thing will avail. Constant prayer, importunate entreaty, wearisome waiting, attempts at believing, reckoning it done—all these are of no avail if you will not do this thing. This unyielded life is the very citadel of Self. God will not force it. But when its key, the will, is voluntarily handed over to Him, then He floods the life with His fullness of blessing. Would you know His “I will bless thee”? Then “do this thing.” Absolutely, unreservedly, confidingly yield yourself, your life, your all into His hands for time and eternity.
It will not do, in lieu of this, to give money, to give time, to give service, only. Thousands are trying thus to silence conscience and rob God. We must needs give ourselves. How grieved would that true lover be whose betrothed would answer his petition for her heart, herself, by proffering to her his purse, houses, and lands! How much more must God be grieved by our poor attempts to bribe Him by giving Him everything else except the one thing He wants—ourselves.
“My son, give me thine heart.”
There is a giving which is instead of ourselves; and there is a gift of ourselves. One is the poor bribe of legalism to Love; the other the joyful response of love to Love. So in falling short of giving ourselves to God, we fall short of the one supreme gift He desires. For God gave Himself, gave all to us. If our response to the Lover of our soul falls short of the true-hearted surrender of ourselves, we thereby show that we do not fully trust Him. But the shadow of such distrust haunting the unsurrendered heart is the barrier that keeps it from the fullness of God. For God cannot give fullness of the Spirit to him who does not have such fullness of trust as to yield his life to Him. Wherefore, beloved, knowing that naught but this can bring to your heart His fullness of life, see to it that you omit it not. Know too, that:
6. The responsibility for this fullness of the Spirit is, in a tremendous sense, in your own hands. The question now rests with you. Not that it is not all of God and of grace. It is. But in Christ Jesus the grace phase of it is complete. That is, God has already done all He can do for us in giving Christ. He “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:3). Do we want God to pour out the fullness of the Holy Spirit? He has done so in Christ. “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). Do we want God then to put us “in Christ” where the fullness dwells? He has done so, for “…of Him are ye in Christ Jesus…” (I Cor. 1:30). There is but one thing left, and that is yours. It is to so yield yourself to the Christ to whom you are united as to give Him opportunity to pour forth His fullness in and through you. This you must do. Do not attempt to throw the responsibility on God. If you do, He will throw it back upon you, and rightly, too, for that is where it belongs. All these years He has been doing this. Have you been too blind to see it? He stands pledged to give you to know His fullness so soon as you surrender your life wholly to Him, but He does not stand pledged to surrender it for you, or to make you surrender it. He will not coerce your will. There He stops and waits—as He has been waiting all these years—for you. Do not say, either, “I have prayed, I have waited, I have wrestled and agonized, I have tried to believe it done,” and the like. Do you not see that in all this you are calling on God to do something instead of obeying His command to do something yourself? The question is, have you yielded? Bought with a price, and not your own, have you taken your hands off your own life and consecrated it wholly, unflinchingly, eternally to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be His loving bond-slave forever? It is not now a question of His fullness; that is limitless. It is a question of your receptiveness, your surrender. Is He worthy of trust, of absolute trust? Then how child-like will you trust Him? How absolutely will you yield to Him? With what self-abandonment will you throw yourself upon Him? How far up toward the height of His perfect surrender will you climb? He will meet you where you meet Him. The only limit to His fullness is that which you impose in the limitation of your surrender. The more absolutely, sweepingly, irrevocably you yield yourself, time, talents, possessions, plans, hopes, aspirations, purposes…yea, all…to Jesus Christ, vouching yourself His loving bond-slave to do and suffer His will, the more you shall know the blessed fullness of His Spirit. You may have all the fullness you will make room for. In a profound sense it rests with you. What a tremendous thought! To go through all the long years of life with the privilege, peace, and power of the blessed life within your grasp at any hour and yet to have missed it!
And are you faint-hearted, timorous, slow to trust Him absolutely? Are you loath to surrender your will, and afraid of His will? Think a moment what that will is for you. The bleeding Son of God hanging between Heaven and earth for you; translation from death to eternal life; sons and daughters of God; fullness of His spirit; peace, joy, fellowship in Him; instant, jubilant glorification at His coming; triumphant sharing in His Kingship, eternal ages of unending bliss in His presence—this is His known will for you. And yet you fear His will! The soul's high treason, this, against its awful, loving Lord! Beloved, at the very core of your spiritual life nestles a deadly cobra of unbelief which you would do well, by this one deliberate, trustful act of surrender to crush, ere it strikes its fangs deeper into your heart. The daring cliff-climber, trusting a frail rope, swings out with dauntless heart over the dizzy abyss, while beneath him the cruel rocks and roaring, treacherous sea eagerly wait to slay him if he falls. But you, beloved, when you this day swing out in blind and simple trust in Him will find to cruel fate awaiting you, but the strong hands that catch you were pierced—for you; the side to which you are pressed in loving embrace was riven—for you; the heart that throbs with joy at your obedience once broke—for you. Yet, the Christ who beseeches you is the Christ of love, desiring to fill you with His own fullness of love. Therefore fear Him not, but, entering into the secret place, fight the battle; endure the suffering of the cross; cease not until you have honestly laid your life at His feet; and “He shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Ps. 37:4).