The Ministry of the SpiritGordon, A. J. (Adoniram Judson)
Religion
The Ministry of the Spirit
Gordon, A. J. (Adoniram Judson)
Holy Spirit
Jesus Christ, the ever-living Son of God, is the one supreme answer to
the restlessness and travail of our day. But he cannot, he will not
reveal himself. Each person in the Holy Trinity reveals another. The
Son reveals the Father, but his own revelation awaits the testimony of
the Holy Ghost, which, though often given directly, is largely through
the church. What we need then, and what the world is waiting for, is
the Son of God, borne witness to and revealed in all his radiant {xii}
beauty of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as he energizes with and
through the saints that make up the holy and mystical body, the church.
It is needful to emphasize this distinction. In some quarters it seems
to be supposed that the Holy Spirit himself is the solution of the
perplexities of our time. Now what we may witness in some coming age
we know not, but in this it is clear that God in the person of Christ
is the one only and divine answer. Here is God's yea and amen, the
Alpha and Omega, sight for the blind, healing for the paralyzed,
cleansing for the polluted, life for the dead, the gospel for the poor
and sad and comfortless. Now we covet the gracious bestowal of the
Spirit, that he may take more deeply of the things of Christ, and
reveal them unto us. When the disciples sought to know the Father, the
Lord said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. It is his glory
that shines on my face, his will that molds my life, his purpose that
is fulfilled in my ministry. So the blessed Paraclete would turn our
thought and attention from himself to him, with whom he is One in the
Holy Trinity, and whom he has come to reveal.
{xiii}
Throughout the so-called Christian centuries the voice of the Holy
Spirit has borne witness to the Lord, directly and mediately.
Directly, in each widespread quickening of the human conscience, in
each revival of religion, in each era of advance in the knowledge of
divine truth, in each soul that has been regenerated, comforted, or
taught. Mediately his work has been carried on through the church, the
body of those that believe. But, alas! how sadly his witness has been
weakened and hindered by the medium through which it has come. He has
not been able to do many mighty works because of the unbelief which has
kept closed and barred those avenues through which he would have poured
his glad testimony to the unseen and glorified Lord.
The divisions of the church, her strife about matters of comparative
unimportance, her magnification of points of difference, her
materialism, her love of pelf and place and power, her accounting
herself rich and increased in goods and needing nothing, when she was
poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked--these things have not only
robbed her of her testimony, but have grieved and {xiv} quenched the
Holy Spirit, and nullified his testimony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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