by
T. Austin-Sparks
Part 1
Readings: John 16:5-15; 7:38-39.
"He that believeth on Me as the scripture hath said, from within him
shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the Spirit
which they that believe on Him were to receive: for the Spirit was
not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.)"
Beloved of God, for some considerable time my heart has been
growingly exercised concerning the Holy Spirit. I believe that the
Lord has something that He wants to say to His people in this
connection, and something that He wants to do in and through His
people in this connection in some new way in this end-time. If one
has not misread the leading of the Spirit, we are right in gathering
at this time for the Lord to speak to us on this matter. I am quite
sure that we, with a great many more of the Lord's people, are
deeply conscious, and increasingly conscious, of the need for some
fuller expression of the life, power, and work of the Holy Spirit in
the Church; which of course means in ourselves as members of Christ.
And while it is not my thought at this time, or the leading which I
have, to seek to present a system of doctrine concerning the Person
and work of the Holy Spirit, I do feel that the Lord has some things
within that compass that He really does want us to take heed unto.
We are not going, for instance, to discuss whether the Holy Spirit
is a Person or not. I think we can all take that as settled. If it
is not, well, let us get it settled outside, for that is not the
matter which concerns the majority of us here, who have, I am sure,
settled that matter long ago. There are other similar matters in
relation to the Holy Spirit which we will take as settled and for
granted, but there are some things which, while we may be well
acquainted with them, we need to have renewed as a serious matter of
quest and enquiry before the Lord.
There are, I think, in the main two or three directions in which
this matter of the Holy Spirit concerns us spiritually in these
days. There is, for instance, the matter of power. Power by the Holy
Spirit; the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of power. That is a matter that
concerns us, for the Lord's people are almost universally, at least
very generally, conscious that the forces which are against His
Testimony, His work, are well nigh too much for them, if not
altogether beyond their ability to cope with. There is a sense of
severe limitation, real weakness, inability to make much headway, a
mighty withstanding and obstructing, a terrific pressure and
adversity which raises the whole question of power. We are all in
our hearts just crying to the Lord that we might know more of the
power of God in our lives, and then in what ministry the Lord may
give us beyond the ministry of the individual's life testimony, that
is, in specific ministry that may be entrusted to us. That is one
realm in which the whole matter of the Holy Spirit is a living one
for us today. And then again, the question of truth; this is, I
think, equally a living one at this time.
While we are up against that force of opposition, that power of
evil, that mighty antagonism of the adversary, we are also up
against widespread and growing error which is taking the subtle form
of a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit. There is no doubt but that
there are movements in the earth at this time which are a
counterfeiting of the Holy Spirit even in the matter of regeneration
or new birth or conversion; and in many other connections the Holy
Spirit is being counterfeited; and the sad, grievous tragedy of it
all is that multitudes of the Lord's own dear children are being
carried away by these things. It is quite easy for us to say that we
do not want teaching, we
want life, we want power, we want work, we want activity, but,
beloved, we need teaching. The matter of truth by the Holy Spirit as
the Spirit of Truth is a very, very vital, important matter for us
today. We cannot speak about wanting power as something in itself;
these two things must go together, truth and power, power and truth.
The
Peril of Making Experience an End in Itself
Now the third thing, which of course embraces these two, is the
question of experience, and here we are on perhaps the most
dangerous ground of all, for so many of the Lord's dear children,
in conscious disappointment and weakness and insufficiency, are just
crying, praying, longing, for an experience, a new experience, a
fresh experience, and are stretching themselves out for such. They
relate their experience mentally to the Holy Spirit, they speak
about the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and such like terms are used,
but it is an experience that they are after. Now that is right and
it is wrong, and we want to be very clear as to the right and the
wrong of an experience in relation to the Holy Spirit.
It is a most dangerous thing to go out for an experience as such, to have an experience
as an object in view in itself. It opens the way for deception, for
delusion and for the inrush of counterfeit. It draws out our
soul-life, and brings us into a strained and almost occult state,
making many of the Lord's dear children mediumistic, and they are
carried away, therefore, by anything that the counterfeiter of the
Holy Ghost likes to offer them, providing it is couched in biblical
terms and presented in a semblance of evangelical doctrine. The
danger there, beloved, is the supreme peril of the hour, a
stretching out of the soul for an experience, as such. But oh, my
heart in these days is terribly burdened concerning the Lord's
people, that He would say something, if possible here, but that He
would in any case raise up a ministry for the safeguarding of His
people in these very perilous days, these days which are perilous in
these particular respects.
There is going to be a terrible state of things before very long in
the discovery of multitudes of dear children of God that they have
been misled, they have been led off and that the thing that has
carried them away is not the true, although it had all the marks of
the true as far as they were able to see; but it was another,
another and not the truth as the truth is in Jesus. As far as the
Lord would enable us, we should seek to come into true light today
by the Word of the Lord, and full understanding, that on our part we
might be preserved, and that also we may be able to help in the
preservation, and safeguarding of other children of God. Pray that
the Lord may raise up that ministry and pray that even now, in this
message if it be His will, there may be that which shall be for the
saving of His own people in a day like this.
Now with regard to experience. Things, of course, must be
experimental as differing from merely doctrinal, theoretical. There
must be experience and there must be experience in relation to the
Holy Spirit; but in what way is experience safe? Well, let us remind
ourselves of the New Testament position about this matter, that
while the Holy Spirit's manifestation, coming, presence, activity in
the New Testament was ever an experience on the part of those
concerned, it was not
just
an experience, it was not an experience just in itself, something
that they felt, something that they heard, something that broke in
upon their senses; the experience was always related to a Person and
that Person was the glorified Lord Jesus, and the experience always
brought Christ glorified personally into evidence, so that their
immediate, spontaneous expression was the glorifying of Jesus in
word, in testimony, in life, in manner, in every way. Christ
glorified came into evidence at that moment, and they did not go
about saying that they had had some kind of beautiful sensation,
emotion, high-tensioned experience; they went immediately to speak
about the Lord Jesus. That is the only realm in which the experience
is a right quest. We must always relate the Holy Spirit in every
form and fragment of His activity, to the Person of the Lord Jesus,
for that is where the New Testament makes the link. And so we must
cease to seek for an experience in itself. We must seek for an
expression, a manifestation, a glorifying of the Lord Jesus by the
Holy Spirit as our experience.
Beloved, if the Lord Jesus is glorified in our lives we have the
Holy Spirit, for that is not possible otherwise. If He is the One
who is before the consciousness of others as glorified, that is the
testimony, coming right from our innermost being and registering
itself upon others, you may take it for granted the question of the
baptism of the Holy Spirit is alright, it is settled. But though we
may have had all kinds of wonderful experiences, and people are
impressed with
us and
something that has happened to us, and
we are brought into evidence, and we are circling
around ourselves and our own experience, and the Lord Jesus is not
the registered fact upon other consciousnesses, but we occupy the
field, there is some real question of our having become controlled,
dominated, filled, baptized (whatever you like to call it) by the
Holy Spirit. It must be related to Him. That is why we have read
this passage as a key to whatever the Lord Jesus may have to say to
us. "This spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him
should receive: the Spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet
glorified." The Spirit could not begin His work until He had got
that which was essential to His work. The Holy Spirit's ministry
could never be commenced within a believer until He had got that
which was essential to His ministry in full, which was Christ
glorified. Which means that the ministry, the work of the Holy
Spirit in and through the believer is based wholly and solely upon
the glorification of the Lord Jesus.
Why
did the Holy Spirit Come?
Now then, let us begin to sift this out and bring it down to a few
quite clear, concise facts, realities. We begin by asking one very
general question. Why did the Holy Spirit come? I think, as far as I
know, the best answer to that question is: to take the place of the
Lord Jesus here. That will embrace a great deal. "It is expedient
for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Holy Spirit will
not come." So that the Lord Jesus considered that the presence of
the Holy Spirit here was more important than His personal human
presence on the earth, that it at least meant what His presence
meant in the flesh, but more. So that we might quite safely and
truly say that the Holy Spirit came to take the place of the Lord
Jesus here.
Let us ask another question which will bring us a step further
toward our ultimate conclusion. Why did the Lord Jesus spend thirty
years first, three and a half years second, and forty days third,
here on earth? The answer of course is a simple one. In order that,
firstly, He might be associated with humanity vitally and
practically; that is the meaning of the thirty years beginning with
the Incarnation. You have no need that we take up all that the
scripture has to say about the Incarnation; one scripture is enough,
I think for the moment. "Inasmuch as the children were partakers of
flesh and blood, He also partook of the same that through death He
might destroy him that had the power of (the hold) of death and
deliver all those who all their lifetime were subject to bondage
through fear of death." He also partook of the same. "Being made in the likeness of man and being
found in fashion as a man," a second very strong scripture. And
thirdly, "Though He was a son yet learned He obedience by the things
which He suffered." Many more scriptures bringing Him into a vital
relationship with humanity could be cited, but I think we recognise
that He should have been here, though silently and mainly in
seclusion for thirty years before His manifestation to the world, is
not without point, not without reason and not without the best of
reasons. When you remember that in the Old Testament He appeared in
the form of a man again and again and was seen and spoken with in a
full-grown man's form - where He got that body you do not know, I do
not know; where it went to you do not know, I do not know, but on
many occasions He was seen as a man. The scriptures make it
absolutely clear and certain that that One who appeared was God, but
He then for specific purposes, at given times, just for a moment,
took a man's fully-developed form and appeared to accomplish
something, and then disappeared. We do not know any more about the
means of His manifestation then, but here He chooses to come by the
way of an infant's birth and abide for thirty years, and there is
something different here from that, and it is because, now, as
differing from then, He has become vitally linked with the race as
He was not then, partaking of the same flesh and blood, yet without
the stain of sin.
Well, the thirty years primarily, I think, represents His
relationship to humanity, vitally; that is, livingly and
practically, I mean in a practical way. He was a baby, and He was a
boy, and He was a youth, and He was a young man and went through all
that such go through, and you do not want to put a halo round His
head and make of Him an extraordinary exception from all boys and
youths and men, except that you will not find sin in Him; yet He had
a boy's life, a youth's life, and young man's life. He is in a
practical way related to humanity. The three-and-a-half years are
the second phase and they bring in new factors, as to why He was
here. Well, they bring into view the fact that He was here to
reveal, to manifest the Father's mind, the Father's love and the
Father's power. They were the years of the unveiling of God's mind,
God's thought in and through Christ.
Beloved, everything that you will find subsequently in the New
Testament in the book of Acts, in the Epistles or in the Revelation
as truth, you will find its seed, its germ, in the gospels. That is
an important thing to remember. Put that down, that you will not
find in the subsequent writings of the New Testament what you cannot
trace in germ in the teaching of the Lord Jesus. His three and a
half years' teaching was the seed plot of all Divine revelation.
That will give you enough study to the end of your days! It was the
revelation, not that man apprehended it, grasped it, understood it,
not even those nearest to Him understood; nevertheless it was the
revelation of the Father's mind for man. How wonderful it is. We
might spend many hours, many weeks with that alone, to see the
aspects of that truth, the revelation of the Father's mind and the
riches of that teaching. And ought we to make comparisons? Perhaps
not, but one was going to say, the richest is John's record. And
what has John, as differing from the others, to reveal about the
Father's mind? It is this, the Father's coming down all the time to
man. It is a wonderful revelation of how God takes the initiative
toward man. The whole aspect of John's Gospel of the teaching and
work of the Lord Jesus is God taking the initiative, God coming
down. That is blessed, that is precious, follow that out in the rest
of the New Testament. You know what we are trying to do, trying to
pump up this vile stream of our humanity to reach God, when God is
pouring down the stream of Divine life to reach us. We are
struggling somehow to get up in all the vileness of our flesh, into
touch with God, and it never succeeds. But the revelation of God's
mind is that God has come down to us in all His holiness. That is
"John". That is comforting surely, to our hearts. I merely touch it
as signifying what I meant by revealing the mind of God in the three
and a half years. And then, revealing the Father's love.