The Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ part V

No sooner had the Lord received the baptism of the Holy Ghost than He was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to "be tempted of the devil." This is especially emphasized by the Evangelist. It is aot the devil that appears first, but it is the Spirit. In the Gospel of Mark the language is still stronger, and it is said that he was "driven of the Spirit."

Perhaps His human spirit recoiled from the awful ordeal of the wilderness as it afterwards shrank from the anguish of Gethsemane, and the Holy Ghost pressed Him forward by one of those resistless impulses which many of us have learned to understand; and for forty days His blessing was challenged, His faith was tested, His very soul was tried by all the assaults of the adversary.

He was brought into certain places that seemed to contradict all that He believed, and to challenge all that had been promised to Him. The devil might well say to Him, "Art Thou indeed the Son of God, in the midst of hunger, desolation, and wild beasts, and every form of suffering, cast.off and neglected even by God, and left in destitution and desolation."

And then, amid all these perils and privations, suddenly there opened before Him, the vision of power and pleasure—the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them if He would but yield a single point and accept the leadership of the enemy, who doubtless appealed to His higher nature and represented Himself as an angel of light, or perhaps approached Him through His own form, and all the visions and possibilities of power He might use for the good of men and the benefit of the world.

These and other yet more subtle insinuations and instigations came to Him on every side; and yet amid them all He stood unmoved in His obedience to His Father's will and His reliance upon His Father's word, until Satan was driven from His presence, and He came forth more than conqueror. And so the first thing that we may look for, after the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is the wilderness with its desolations and privations. Circumstances will surely come to us which seem to contradict all that we have believed, and to render impossible the promise of God. Even God will seem to have failed us; and when all is dark as midnight, the vision of help from other sources will come to us, and a thousand voices will whisper to us their promises of sympathy and aid if we will but yield a single point of conscience and give ourselves up to the will of the deceiver. All the temptations of our Master will come to us;—The lust of the flesh, The lust of the eye, The pride of life, The temptation to take help from forbidden sources,  All these will come; but if the Spirit has led us up into the wilderness He will lead us out. If we will but lift our eyes above the tempter to the Divine Deliverer, we shall find that even Satan shall be compelled to become our ally; and, more than conquerors like our Master, We shall take our enemy prisoner, and make him fight our very battles.

Spiritual Growth and Security

"Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 3:17

It is not a matter of personal preference whether we shall grow or not. It is a matter of vital necessity, for only thus can we be kept from retrograding. This the apostle hints in our text, "Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Growth is the remedy for declension and we must ever grow or go backward. So in 1 Peter 2 the same truth is expounded. "If ye do these things ye shall never fall. He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." That is the very experience of conversion—it fades away and becomes but a dim recollection unless we press on to deeper and higher things.

Indeed, it is necessary for us to grow with an accelerated motion and to make more rapid progress the longer we continue in the Christian life. And so we have a very strong figure even in this passage expressing this thought. The word translated "abound" in our version, in the Greek is "multiply." "If these things be in you and multiply, they shall make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus." Let us not fail to notice the striking antithesis of the "add" in verse 3, and the "multiply" of verse 8. We all know in arithmetic the difference between addition and multiplication. The addition of nine to nine makes eighteen, but the multiplication of nine into nine reverses the figures and makes eighty-one, or nearly five times as much. Everything depends upon the size of the multiplier.  In the spiritual arithmetic the multiplier is God and infinitely higher than the highest digits of human calculation. God simply takes the surrendered heart and unites Himself with it, and the result is as many times greater than itself as God is greater than man.

Spiritual Growth, Responsibility, and Personal Efforts

"Giving all diligence, add to your faith,.." 2 Peter 1:5

While it is true, on the one hand, that all the resources are divinely provided, this does not justify, on our part, a spirit of passive negligence, but summons us all the more to diligence and earnestness in pressing forward in our spiritual career. And so the apostle adds, after this strongly emphasized enumeration of the resources of God's grace, "Giving all diligence, add to your faith," etc. There is to be no languid leaning upon God's grace, no dreamy fatalism, based upon His almighty purpose and power, but a strenuous and unceasing energy on our part in meeting Him with the co-operation of our faith, vigilance and obedience. In fact, the very provisions of God's grace are made, by the apostle, the ground of his exhortation to give earnest attention to this matter. For this very reason, that is, because God has so abundantly provided for us, and is so mightily working in our lives and hearts, and developing us from the power of sin, for this very reason, "Add to your faith," etc.

It is the same thought which Paul has expressed in Philippians, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure." This does not mean that we are to work for our salvation, for we are represented as already saved, otherwise it could not be '' our own salvation." But it is yet in embryo and infancy, an inward principle of life which must be worked out into its full development and maturity in every part of our life, and to this we are "to give all diligence," a diligence, indeed, which often reaches the extent of "fear and trembling," a holy and solemn sense of responsibility to make the most of our spiritual resources and opportunities, because "it is God that worketh in us." It is as if, with the finger of solemn warning raised, He were standing and looking into our eyes and saying, '' God has come. The Almighty has taken this matter in hand. The Eternal Jehovah has undertaken the work, therefore, mind what you do! Let there be no laxness, no negligence, and no failure on your part to meet Him and afford Him the utmost opportunity to fulfill in you all the good pleasure of His will, and the accomplishment of His high and mighty purpose for your soul."

Grace Abounding part III

"Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." Rom. 5: 20.

This text is illustrated in the sanctification of believers and especially in their sanctification from qualities and tendencies most unholy and contrary to their new and sanctified lives. Still it is literally true in the deeper life of the soul that ''where sin abounded grace much more abounds." It is not that God will make the good better, but that He will make the bad good, and the utterly and hopelessly bad divinely pure and holy. Sanctification is not the refining and elevating of the naturally pure, but the transforming of darkness into light, a selfish soul into aliving sacrifice of love, and a heart all steeped in corruption into the glorious counterpart of Christ's own holiness. In the work of grace God takes peculiar delight in contradicting natural probabilities and tendencies. He took a shrinking Jeremiah to be a bold and courageous reprover of Israel's prophets, priests and kings. He took a cowardly Peter to be the courageous and defiant apostle of Pentecost. He took a Son of Thunder to be the gentle, loving disciple of love. He took a raging persecutor to be the long-suffering apostle who could say, '' I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." He can make the weakest things in you the strongest, the worst things in you the occasions for the grace which will magnify in you the best and divinest qualities of the Christian life.

l am among you as he that serveth

"l am among you as he that serveth."— Luke 22:27.

In the kingdom of Christ, the lowest place is the place of honor. It was this that He himself stooped to when He took upon Him the form of a servant.

It was in lowly love that He thus came to serve us; and what is there that He is not willing to stoop to in order that He may supply our need? He has already stooped to the cradle, and the cross, and the tomb; and what is there, after these, that He will shrink from or refuse, in the way of service for us?

He has taken on Him this special office, and will He not perform it well? What want is there, be it great or small, that He will not supply? In going to Him for this supply, we are not taxing His patience, we are not making undue demands upon Him, we are not making too free with His love or condescension. We are only employing Him in the very way in which He delights to be employed. We are only making that use of His condescension which the Father designed, when He filled Him with the Spirit without measure, and sent Him to us, that He might "supply all our need, according to His riches in glory." We cannot be too needy, or too empty. He is as unwearied in His service as in His love.

THE HUMILITY OF JESUS

"I am in the midst of you as he that serveth." —Luke 22:26, 27

In the Gospel of John we have the inner life of our Lord laid open to us. Jesus speaks frequently of His relation to the Father, of the motives by which He is guided, of His consciousness of the power and spirit in which He acts. Though the word humble does not occur, we shall nowhere in Scripture see so clearly wherein His humility consisted.  In Jesus we shall see how both as the Son of God in heaven, and as man upon earth, He took the place of entire subordination, and gave God the honor and the glory which is due to Him. And what He taught so often was made true to Himself: "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." As it is written, " He humbled himself, therefore God highly exalted Him."

Listen to the words in which our Lord speaks of His relation to the Father, and see how unceasingly He uses the words not, and nothing, of Himself. The not /, in which Paul expresses his relation to Christ, is the very spirit of what Christ says of His relation to the Father.

"The Son can do nothing of Himself" (John 5:19)."I can of My own self do nothing; My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own will" (John 5: 30)."1 receive not glory from men " (John 5: 41)."I am come not to do Mine own will" (John 6:38)."My teaching is not Mine" (John 7:16)."I am not come of Myself" (John 7:28)."I do nothingof Myself" (John 8:28)."I have not come of Myself, but He sent Me " (John 8:42)."I seek not Mine own glory " (John 8:50)"The words that I say, I speak not from Myself" (John 14:10)."The word which ye hear is not Mine" (John 14:24).