Christ’s Person (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1834-1892)

2 Corinthians 4:4

“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” 

The glory of the gospel lies very much in the glory of our Lord’s person. He Who is the Savior of men is God—“over all, God blessed for ever” (Rom 9:5). Is it not written, “When he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him” (Heb 1:6)? With the angels of God, we worship Jesus Christ as God.

Our Redeemer is also man—man like ourselves with this exception: in Him there is no taint of natural depravity, and no act of sin has ever stained His character. Behold the glory of Him Who is God and man mysteriously united in one person!3 He is unique: He is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the brother born for adversity (Heb 1:3; Pro 17:17). This is the gospel—that the Son of God Himself gloriously undertook the salvation of men and therefore was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory (Joh 1:14). If we had here a vast hospital full of sick folk, it would be the best of news for those languishing4 therein, if I could tell them that a great physician had devoted himself to their healing; and the more I could extol5 the physician who had come to visit them, the more would there be of good news for them. If I could say to them, “The physician who is coming to succor6 you is possessed of infallible wisdom and unerring skill, and in him are united loving tenderness and infinite power,” how they would smile upon their beds! Why, the very news would half restore them!

Should it not be much more so with desponding and despairing souls when they hear that He Who has come to save is none other than the glorious Christ of God? The mysteriously majestic person of Christ is the mainstay of the gospel. He Who is able to save is no angel and no mere man; but He is “Emmanuel…God with us” (Mat 1:23). Infinite are His resources, boundless is His grace. O ye guilty ones, who lie upon beds of remorse, ready to die of grief, here is a Savior such as you need. When you think of what you are and despair, think also of what He is, and take heart. If I made you doubt the deity of the Savior, I should cut away the foundation of your only hope; but while you see Him to be God, you remember that nothing is too hard for Him. If I caused you to doubt His proper manhood, I should also rob you of comfort, since you would not recognize in Him the tender sympathy that grows out of kinship. Beloved, the Lord Jesus stands before you, commissioned by the eternal God, with the Spirit of the Lord resting upon Him without measure (Joh 3:34); and thus, being in nature and person the first and the best, His message of salvation is to you most full and sure, and His glory is gospel to you.

The glory of Christ lies not only in His person, but in His love. Remember this and see the gospel that lies in it. From all eternity, the Son of God has loved His people: even from of old his “delights were with the sons of men” (Pro 8:31). Long before He came on earth, He so loved the men whom His Father gave Him that He determined to be one with them and for their redemption to pay the dreadful price of life for life. He saw the whole company of His chosen in the glass of His foreknowledge and loved them with an everlasting love. Oh, the love that glowed in the heart of our Redeemer “in the beginning” (Joh 1:1)! That same love will never know an end. Herein to us is His glory. He loved us so that heaven could not hold Him; He loved us so that He descended to redeem us; and having come among us amid our sin and shame, He loves us still. “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (Joh 13:1). Love, thou hast reached thine utmost glory in the heart of the divine Savior! And the glory of this love, which is without beginning, boundary, change, or close, is the very life-blood of the gospel. The love of Jesus is the glad tidings of great joy! Our great physician loves the sick and delights to heal them. He comes into the wards among the palsied7 and the plague-stricken with an intense longing to bless them. Jesus is the sinner’s friend…A gracious gospel lies in the glory of the love of Christ!

This being so, beloved, we next see the glory of His incarnation.8 To us, it was the glory of Christ that He was born at Bethlehem and dwelt at Nazareth. It looks like dishonor that He should be the carpenter’s son; but throughout all ages this shall be the glory of the Mediator,9 that He deigned10 to be partaker of our flesh and blood. There is glory in His poverty and shame; glory in His having nowhere to lay His head; glory in His weariness and hunger. Surpassing glory springs from Gethsemane and the bloody sweat, from Calvary and the death of the cross. All heaven could not yield Him such renown as that that comes from the spitting and the scourging, the nailing and the piercing. A glory of grace and tenderness surrounds the incarnate God; and this, to those convinced of sin, is the gospel. When we see God in human flesh, we expect reconciliation. When we see that He took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, we hope for pardon and healing. Born of a virgin, our Lord has come among us and has lived on earth a life of service and of suffering: there must be hope for us. He came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (Joh 3:17). See, I pray you, the glory of His life of doing good, of working miracles of mercy, of tender care for the fallen, and ask yourselves whether there is not in His life among men good news for all sad hearts. Did God Himself cover His glory with a veil of our inferior clay? Then He means well to men. Humanity, thus honored by union with the Godhead, is not utterly abhorred. In the Word made flesh, we see the glory of God; and noting how love predominates, how condescending pity reigns, we see in this a gospel of grace for all believing men.

The glory of Christ is further seen in His atoning sacrifice. But you stop me and say, “That was His humiliation and His shame.” Yes, it is true; and therefore, it is His glory. Is not the Christ to every loving heart most of all glorious in the death of the cross? What garment doth so well become our Beloved as the vesture11 dipped in His own blood (Rev 19:13)? He is altogether lovely, let Him be arrayed as He may; but when our believing hearts behold Him covered with the bloody sweat, we gaze upon Him with adoring amazement and rapturous12 love. His flowing crimson bedecks13 Him with a robe more glorious than the imperial purple. We fall at His feet with sevenfold reverence when we behold the marks of His passion. Is He not most of all illustrious as our dying substitute? Beloved, here lies the marrow of the gospel: Jesus Christ suffered in our stead. He “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1Pe 2:24). That glory of His cross, which we again aver14 to be greater glory than any other, is gospel to us. On His cross, He bore the whole weight of divine justice in our place; the iron rod of Jehovah, which must have broken us in pieces like potters’ vessels, fell on Him. He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phi 2:8); and in that act, He slew death and overcame him that had the power of death, that is, the devil…But the glory of His sacrificial death, by which He blotted out our sin and magnified the Law, is the gospel of our salvation.

We will now travel a little further to His resurrection,15 wherein His glory is more palpable16 to us. He could not be held by the bonds of death (Act 2:24). He was dead: His holy body could die, but it could not see corruption; so, having slept a little while within the chamber of the tomb, He arose and came forth to light and liberty—the living Christ glorified by His resurrection. Who shall tell the glory of the risen Lord?...

Rising, He sealed our justification.17 Rising, He rifled the sepulcher and released the captives of death. He was “declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4). Let us rejoice that He is not dead, but “ever liveth to make intercession for [us]” (Heb 7:25). This is the gospel to us; for because He lives we shall live also (Joh 14:19)! “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25). Oh, the glory of our risen Lord! Consider it deeply, meditate upon it earnestly; and, as you do so, hear the clear sound of glad tidings of great joy! For our greatest consolation, we do not look to this precept or to that promise, so much as to Jesus Himself, Who has by His rising from the dead given us the surest pledge and guarantee of our deliverance from the prison of guilt, the dungeon of despair, and the sepulcher of death.

Once more, lift your eyes a little higher and note the glory of our Lord’s enthronement18 and of His second coming. He sits at the right hand of God. He that once was hung up upon the tree of shame now sitteth on the throne of universal dominion. Instead of the nail, behold the scepter of all worlds in His most blessed hand. All things are put under His feet. Jesus, “who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death,” is now “crowned with glory and honour” (Heb 2:9), and this is the gospel to us. For thus it is plain that He has conquered all our enemies and has all power in heaven and in earth on our behalf. His acceptance with God is the acceptance of all whom He loves; and He loves all who trust Him. His sitting in glory is a pledge that the whole of the redeemed by blood shall sit there in due time.

His second coming, for which we daily look, is our divinest hope. [Perhaps,] before we fall asleep, the Lord “shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God” (1Th 4:16); and “then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mat 13:43). Then will our weary days be ended: the strife of tongues, the struggle against sin, the stratagems19 of error—all will be finished, and truth and holiness shall reign supreme. O my brethren, if I could but break loose from the impediments of mouth and tongue and speak my heart without these [clumsy] organs, then would I make you rejoice in the glory of my divine Master upon His throne today and in His glorious appearing at the appointed hour. If we could see Him as John did in Patmos, we might swoon at His feet; but it would be with the rapture of hope and not with the chill of despair.

Mark this: the less you make of Christ, the less gospel you have to trust in. If you get rid of Christ from your creed, you have at the same time destroyed all its good news. The more gospel we would preach, the more of Christ we must proclaim. If you lift up Christ, you lift up the gospel. If you dream of preaching the gospel without exalting Christ in it, you will give the people husks instead of true bread. In proportion as the Lord Jesus is set up on a glorious high throne, He becomes salvation to the sons of men. A little Christ means a little gospel; but the true gospel is the gospel of the glory of Christ.

From a sermon delivered on Lord’s Day morning, March 31, 1889, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

_______________________

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892): Influential English Baptist preacher; born at Kelvedon, Essex, England, UK.

https://www.chapellibrary.org/

Christ’s Glory (John Owen, 1616-1683)

John 17:24

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” 

The glory of Christ is the glory of the person of Christ. So, He calls it “that glory which is mine,” which belongs to Me, to My person (Joh 17:24).

The first glorious thing we learn about the person of Christ is that He is the perfect revelation of the Father. This revelation of the Father is for the benefit of the church, for we behold “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2Co 4:6).

The glory of God includes both the holy properties of His nature and the things He has purposed to do. The only way we can know these things of God is “in the face” or person “of Jesus Christ,” for He is “the image of God” (2Co 4:4). He is “the brightness of his [Father’s] glory, and the express image of his person” (Heb 1:3). He is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15).

But Christ is especially glorious because He and He alone perfectly reveals God’s nature and will to us. Without Christ, we would have known nothing truly about God, for He would have been eternally invisible to us. We would never have seen God at any time, either in this life or the next (Joh 1:18).

In His divine person,2 Christ is the essential image of God the Father. He is in the Father and the Father in Him, both existing in the unity of the same divine essence (Joh 14:10). Furthermore, He is with the Father, as well as being the essential image of the Father (Joh 1:1; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). But when He assumed human nature, He became the representative of God’s image to the church, so that only by Christ do we understand the wonderful and excellent things of God’s nature and will (2Co 4:6). Without Christ, God would still be to us the “invisible God.” We see the glory of God only in the person of Christ.

This is the glory that the Father gave Him, which we by faith may behold. He alone makes known both to angels and men the essential glory of the invisible God, without which a perpetual comparative darkness would have covered all creation.

The foundation of our religion, the rock on which the church is built, the ground of all our hopes of salvation, of life and immortality, is the revelation that is made of God’s nature and will by Jesus Christ. So, if Christ fails, if He, the Light of the world becomes darkness, then we are forever lost. But if this Rock stands firm, the church is safe and shall be triumphant forever.

It is as the representative of God that the Lord Christ is exceedingly glorious. Those who cannot see His glory by faith do not know Him. When they worship Him, they worship an image of their own devising. Not to see that Christ is the only true representative of the glory of God to the souls of men is to be an unbeliever. This was the sad state of the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles of old. They did not, they would not, they could not, behold the glory of God in Him; that was why they did not believe in Him (see 1Co 1:21-25). The one who does not see the wisdom and power of God and all the other holy properties of the divine nature in Christ—as well as seeing in Him the only way of salvation—is, to put it bluntly, an unbeliever.

The essence of faith lies in glorifying God (Rom 4:20). But we cannot do this without the revelation of the glorious qualities of His divine nature. These qualities and glories of the divine nature are revealed to us by Christ alone.

It is only by Christ that we can glorify God rightly and acceptably. Hence, the great purpose of the devil, when the gospel was first preached, was to blind the eyes of men’s understanding and to fill their minds with prejudices so that they might not behold His glory. By various deceitful ways, he attempted to hold on to his title “god of this world” (2Co 4:3-4). By counterfeiting supernatural appearances of power and wisdom, he labored to prejudice the minds of men and so to turn them away from the glorious light of the gospel that proclaimed to all that the Lord Christ was the perfect and only true revealer of God’s image. This blindness is taken away from the minds and hearts of believers only by the almighty power of God; for Paul tells us that God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts with “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2Co 4:6). The unbelieving world of Jews and Gentiles perished under this darkness; so do all present-day unbelievers who deny that Jesus is truly God as well as being truly man. But if Christ were only a man, He could never have truly represented God to us; for no mere creature can ever truly represent the divine nature.

From The Glory of Christ, ed. R.J.K. Law (Edinburgh; Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 11-13, www.banneroftruth.org, used by permission.

https://www.chapellibrary.org/

Seeing the Glory of Christ (John Owen, 1616-1683)

John 17:24

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” 

One of the greatest privileges the believer has, both in this world and for eternity, is to behold the glory of Christ. So, Christ prays that “they may behold my glory.” But this glorious privilege is not to be limited to the heavenly state only. It includes the state of believers in this world as I shall show.

Unbelievers see no glory in Christ. They see nothing attractive about Him. They despise Him in their hearts. Outwardly they cry, like Judas, “Hail, master” (Mat 26:49); but in their hearts they crucify Him. Thus, they strip Him of His glory, deny the only “Lord that bought them” (2Pe 2:1), and substitute a false Christ. Others think little of Christ and His glory and see no use for His person in Christianity—as though there were anything in our religion that has any truth or reality apart from Christ!

In the early days of the church, there were swarms of brain-sick persons who vomited out many foolish ideas, culminating at length in Arianism,1 in whose ruins they now lie buried. The gates of hell in them did not prevail against the rock on which the church is built…[Yet,] many still oppose the person and glory of Christ under the pretense that nothing can be believed except that which reason can understand and accept. Indeed, unbelief in the Trinity and the incarnation of the Son of God, the sole foundation of Christianity, is so spread about in the world that it has almost demolished the life and power of true Christianity. And not a few, who dare not let people know what they really believe, lead people to think they love Jesus, when all the time they scorn, despise, and persecute those who truly desire to know nothing but “Christ, and him crucified” (1Co 2:2).

But God, in His appointed time, will vindicate His honor and glory from the foolish attempts of sinful men who attempt to strip Him of both. Meanwhile, it is the duty of all those who “love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity” (Eph 6:24) to testify to His divine person and glory according to the ability God has given to each of us; and this I have chosen to do, not in a controversial way, but in order to strengthen the faith of true believers, to build them up in the knowledge of Christ and His glory, and to help them experience that which they have, or may have, of the power and reality of these things.

That which I intend to show is that beholding the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges that believers are capable of in this world or even in that which is to come. Indeed, it is by beholding the glory of Christ that believers are first gradually transformed into His image and then brought into the eternal enjoyment of it because they shall be forever “like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1Jo 3:2; 2Co 3:18). Our present comforts and future blessedness depend on this. This is the life and reward of our souls (Joh 14:9; 2Co 4:6).

Scripture shows us two ways by which we may behold the glory of Christ. We may behold it by faith in this world, faith being “the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1), and we may behold it by sight in the next (2Co 5:7-8; 1Co 13:12).

When Christ prayed “that they may behold my glory,” He meant by actual sight in the light of eternal glory. But the Lord Jesus does not exclude that sight of His glory that we may have by faith in this world; rather He prays for the perfection of it in heaven. So, we can learn the following lessons:

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven who does not, in some measure, behold it by faith in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory and faith for sight. The soul unprepared by grace and faith is not capable of seeing the glory of Christ in heaven. Many will say with confidence that they desire to be with Christ and to behold His glory. But then they can give no reason for this desire, except that it would be better than going to hell. If a man claims to love and desire that which he never even saw, he is deceiving himself…

John writes not only of himself but of his fellow apostles also: “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Joh 1:14). Now, what was this glory of Christ that they saw, and how did they see it? It was not the glory of Christ’s outward condition for He had no earthly glory or grandeur. He kept no court, nor did He entertain people to parties in a great house. He had nowhere to lay His head, even though He created all things. There was nothing about His outward appearance that would attract the eyes of the world (Isa 52:14; 53:2-3). He appeared to others as a “man of sorrows” (Isa 53:3). Neither was it the eternal essential glory of His divine nature that is meant, for this no man can see while in this world. What we shall see in heaven, we cannot conceive.

What the apostles witnessed was the glory of “grace and truth” (Joh 1:14). They saw the glory of Christ’s person and office in the administration of grace and truth. And how did they see this glory? It was by faith and in no other way, for this privilege was given only to those who “received him” and “believe on his name” (Joh 1:12). This was the glory that the Baptist saw when he pointed to Christ and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (Joh 1:29).

So, let no one deceive himself. He that has no sight of Christ’s glory here shall never see it hereafter. The beholding of Christ in glory is too high, glorious, and marvelous for us in our present condition. The splendor of Christ’s glory is too much for our physical eyes just as is the sun shining in all its strength. So, while we are here on earth, we can behold His glory only by faith.

Many learned men have written of this future state of eternal glory. Some of their writings are filled with excellent things that cannot but stir the minds and hearts of all who read them. But many complain that such writings do nothing for them. They are like a man who beholds his natural face in a mirror and immediately forgets what he saw (Jam1:23-24)…But why do these writings make no impression on them? Is it not because their idea of future things has not arisen out of an experience of them that faith alone gives?

In fact, a soul will be troubled rather than edified when it thinks of future glory, if it has had no foretaste, sense, experience, or evidence of these things by faith. No man ought to look for anything in heaven if he has not by faith first had some experience of it in this life. If men were convinced of this, they would spend more time in the exercise of faith and love about heavenly things than they usually do. At present they do not know what they enjoy, so they do not know what to expect. This is why men who are complete strangers to seeing the person and glory of Christ by faith have turned to images, pictures, and music to help them in their worship.

So, it is only as we behold the glory of Christ by faith here in this world that our hearts will be drawn more and more to Christ and to the full enjoyment of the sight of His glory hereafter. It is by beholding the glory of Christ by faith that we are spiritually edified and built up in this world; for as we behold His glory, the life and power of faith grow stronger and stronger. It is by faith that we grow to love Christ. So, if we desire strong faith and powerful love, which give us rest, peace, and satisfaction, we must seek them by diligently beholding the glory of Christ by faith. In this duty, I desire to live and to die. On Christ’s glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires; and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes, and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy…

By beholding the glory of Christ, we shall be made fit and ready for heaven. Not all who want to go to heaven are fit and ready for it. Some are not only unworthy of it and excluded from it because of unforgiven sin, they are not prepared for it. Should they be admitted, they would never enjoy it. All of us naturally regard ourselves as fit for eternal glory. But few of us have any idea of how unfit we really are because we have had no experience of that glory of Christ that is in heaven. Men shall not be clothed with glory, as it were, whether they want to be or not. It is to be received only by faith. But fallen man is incapable of believing. Music cannot please a deaf man, nor can beautiful colors impress a blind man. A fish would not thank you for taking it out of the sea and putting it on dry land under the blazing sun! Neither would an unregenerate sinner welcome the thought of living for ever in the blazing glory of Christ.

So, Paul gives “thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col 1:12). Indeed, the first touches of glory here and the fullness of glory hereafter are communicated to believers by an almighty act of the will and the grace of God. Nevertheless, He has ordained ways and means by which they may be made fit to receive that fullness of glory that still awaits them, and this way and means is by beholding the glory of Christ by faith, as we shall see. Knowing this should stir us up to our duty, for all our present glory lies in preparing for future glory.

By beholding the glory of Christ, we shall be transformed “into the same image” (2Co 3:18). How this is done and how we become like Christ by beholding His glory will become clear as our study progresses.

By beholding the glory of Christ by faith we shall find rest to our souls. Our minds are apt to be filled with troubles, fears, cares, dangers, distresses, ungoverned passions, and lusts. By these our thoughts are filled with chaos, darkness, and confusion. But where the soul is fixed on the glory of Christ, then the mind finds rest and peace; for “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom 8:6).

By beholding the glory of Christ, we shall begin to experience what it means to be everlastingly blessed. “So shall we ever be with the Lord” (1Th 4:17). We shall “be with Christ” (Phi 1:23), which is best of all. For there we shall behold His glory (Joh 17:24). And by seeing Him as He is, we shall be made like Him (1Jo 3:2). This is our everlasting blessedness.

The enjoyment of God by sight is commonly called the “Beatific Vision,” and it is the only motive for everything we do in that state of blessedness. What the sight of God is and how we will react to it, we cannot imagine. Nevertheless, we do know this: God in His immense essence is invisible to our physical eyes and will be in eternity, just as He will always be incomprehensible to our minds. So, the sight that we shall have of God will be always “in the face of Jesus Christ” (2Co 4:6). In Christ’s face, we shall see the glory of God in His infinite perfections. These things will shine into our souls filling us forever with peace, rest, and glory.

We can rejoice in these things even though we cannot understand them. We can talk of them but never fully comprehend them. In fact, true believers experience a foresight and foretaste of this glorious condition. Sometimes, when reading and meditating on the Bible, our hearts are filled with such a sense of the uncreated glory of God shining through Jesus Christ that we experience unspeakable joy. [Thus] arises that “peace of God, which passeth all understanding, [which] shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ” (Phi 4:7). “Christ in you [believers], the hope of glory” (Col 1:27) gives them a foretaste of that future glory. And where any have no acquaintance with these things, they are blind and dead to spiritual things. It is because believers are lazy and ignorant that we do not experience more and more in our souls the visits of grace and the dawnings of eternal glory.

From The Glory of Christ, ed. R.J.K Law (Edinburgh; Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 2-10, www.banneroftruth.org, used by permission.

_______________________

John Owen (1616-1683): English Congregational pastor, author, and theologian; born in Stadhampton, Oxfordshire, UK.

As the beams of the sun, such is the glory of Christ, which cannot be said of any creature, He having the same glory with His Father.—Thomas Goodwin

https://www.chapellibrary.org/

Contemplating Christ’s Glory (Octavius Winslow, 1808-1878)

Reader, what do you think of Christ? What are your apprehensions of His glory as it has thus far been placed before you? Do you see beauty, surpassing beauty, in Emmanuel? Has His glory broken upon your view? Has it beamed in upon your mind? Has a sight of Jesus, seen by faith, cast you in the dust, exclaiming, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6)?

Your honest reply to these searching questions will decide the nature and the ground of your present hope for eternity. On the confines of that eternity you are now standing. Solemn consideration! It is of infinite moment, then, that your views of the Son of God should be thoroughly examined, sifted, and compared with the inspired Word.

A crown now lowered on your brow, a kingdom stretched at your feet, a world gained and grasped, were as infants’ baubles compared with the tremendous interest involved in the question, “What do you think of Christ?” And what do you think of Him? Is He all your salvation and all your desire? Have you laid sinful self and righteous self beneath His cross? And in all your poverty, nakedness, and vileness, have you received Him as made of God unto you, “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1Co 1:30)? Does His glory dim all other glory, and does His beauty eclipse all other beauty in your eye? Can you point to Him and say, in the humble confidence of faith and joy of love, “This is my beloved, and this is my friend” (Song 5:16)? Eternal God! But for the righteousness of Your Son, I sink in all my pollution! But for the atoning blood of Emmanuel, I perish in all my guilt! Holy Father, look not on me, but behold my Shield, and look upon the face of your Anointed! And when Your glory passes by—the glory of Your majesty, Your holiness, and Your justice—then put me in the cleft of the rock, and cover me with Your hand while You pass by.

Cultivate frequent and devout contemplations of the glory of Christ. Immense will be the benefit accruing111 to your soul. The mind thus preoccupied, filled, and expanded, will be enabled to present a stronger resistance to the ever advancing and insidious encroachments112 of the world without. No place will be found for vain thoughts and no desire or time for carnal enjoyments.

Oh, how crucifying and sanctifying are clear views of the glory of Emmanuel! How emptying, humbling, and abasing! With the patriarch, we then exclaim, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” And with the prophet, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips…mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa 6:5). And with the apostle, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal 6:14). Oh, then, aim to get your mind filled with enlarged and yet expanding views of the glory of the Redeemer! Let it, in all the discoveries it affords of the divine mind and majesty, be the one subject of your thoughts, the one theme of your conversation. Place no limit to your knowledge of Christ. Ever consider that you have but read the preface to the volume, you have but touched the margin of the sea. Stretching far away beyond you, are undiscovered beauties, and precious views, and sparkling glories, each encouraging your advance, inviting your research, and asking the homage of your faith, the tribute of your love, and the dedication of your life.

Go forward, then! The glories that yet must be revealed to you in a growing knowledge of Jesus, what imagination can conceive, what pen can describe them? “Thou shalt see greater things than these” is the promise that bids you advance. Jesus stands ready to unveil all the beauties of His person and to admit you into the very arcade113 of His love. There is not a chamber of His heart that He will not throw open to you; not a blessing that He will not bestow upon you; not a glory that He will not show to you. You shall see greater things than you have yet seen: greater depths of sin in your fallen nature shall be revealed; deeper sense of the cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood shall be felt; clearer views of your acceptance in the Beloved; greater discoveries of God’s love;114 and greater depths of grace and glory in Jesus shall be enjoyed. Your communion with God shall be closer, and more the fruit of adopting love in your heart; your feet shall be as hinds’ feet, and you shall walk on your high places. Your peace shall flow as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isa 48:18). Sorrow shall wound you less deeply; affliction shall press you less heavily; tribulation shall affect you less keenly—all this and infinitely more will result from your deeper knowledge of Jesus. Ah, wonder not that the heaving, panting, thirsting soul of the apostle exclaimed, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord… That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phi 3:8, 10). “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD” (Hos 6:3).

Let your life be a clear reflection of the glory of the Redeemer. The saints of God are the only witnesses to this glory—the only reflectors the Lord has in this dark and Christ-denying world. Holiness, springing from the fount of the Spirit’s indwelling grace, cherished and matured by close views of the cross and imparting a character of sanctity and beauty to every act of your life, will be the highest testimony you can bear to the Redeemer’s glory. That glory is entrusted to your hands. It is committed to your guardianship.

Seeing, then, that it is so, “what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness” (2Pe 3:11)! How exact in principles, and upright in conduct—how watchful over temper and how vigilant where most assailed, how broad awake to the wiles of the devil, and how watchful against the encroachments of sin, how strict in all transactions with the world; and how tender, charitable, meek, and forgiving in all our conduct with the saints! Alas! We are at best but dim reflectors of this great glory of our Lord. We are unworthy and unfaithful depositories of so rich a treasure! How much of clinging infirmity, of unmortified sin, of carelessness of spirit, of unsanctified temper, of tampering with temptation, of a lack of strict integrity and uprightness, dims our light, neutralizes our testimony for God, and weakens, if not entirely destroys, our spiritual influence! We are not more eminently useful because we are not more eminently holy. We bring so little glory to Christ because we seek so much our own. We reflect so faint and flickering a beam because our posture is so seldom that of the apocalyptic angel, “standing in the sun” (Rev 19:17). We realize so imperfectly our oneness with and standing in Christ; and this will ever foster a feeble, fruitless, and drooping profession of Christianity. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me” (Joh 15:4).

Oh, to know more of this abiding in Christ! See how Jesus invites His saints to it. Are they fallen? He bids them take hold of His strength. Are they burdened? He bids them cast that burden on His arm. Are they wearied? He bids them recline on Him for rest. Does the world persecute them...? He bids them take refuge within the hallowed sanctuary of His own pierced and loving heart. Do they need grace? He bids them sink their empty vessel beneath the depths of His ocean fulness and draw freely “more grace” (Jam 4:6). Whatever corruptions distress them, whatever temptations assail them, whatever adversity grieves them, whatever cloud darkens them, whatever necessity presses upon them—as the watchful Shepherd, as the tender Brother, as the faithful Friend, as the great High Priest, He bids His saints draw near and repose in His love.

Oh, He has a capacious115 bosom: there is room, there is a chamber in that heart for you, my Christian reader! Do not think your lot is desolate, lonely, and friendless. Do not think that all have forsaken you and that in sadness and in solitude you are threading your way through an intricate desert. There is One that loves you, that thinks of you, that has His eye upon you, and is at this moment guiding, upholding, and caring for you: that one is Jesus! O that you could but look into His heart and see how He loves you; O that you could but hear Him say, so gently, so earnestly, “Abide in my love!” (Joh 15:10). Cheer up; you are in Christ’s heart, and Christ is in your heart. You are not alone: your God, even your Father, is with you. Your Shepherd guides you; the Comforter spreads His wings around you, and heaven is bright before you. Soon you will be there. The pilgrim will repose his weary limbs; the voyager will be moored in his harbor of rest; the warrior will put off his armor and shout his song of triumph. Then look up! Christ is yours, God is yours, heaven is yours. If God is for you, who can be against you? (Rom 8:31). And if you find disappointment in created good, it will but endear Jesus; and if you know more of the inward plague, it will but drive you to the atoning blood; and if you have storms and tempests, they will but shorten the voyage and waft you the quicker to glory. “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2Co 9:15).

From “The Prophetical Glory of Christ” in The Glory of the Redeemer (London: John F. Shaw, 1845), 117-123, in the public domain.

What will heaven be, but seeing the glory of Christ?—Thomas Goodwin

https://www.chapellibrary.org/

The Teaching of the Holy Ghost (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1860)

John 14:26

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” 

There are many choice gifts comprehended in the Covenant of Grace, but the first and richest of them are these twain—the gift of Jesus Christ for us and the gift of the Holy Ghost to us. The first of these I trust we are not likely to undervalue. We delight to hear of that "unspeakable gift"—the Son of God, who bare our sine, and carried our sorrows, and endured our punishment in his own body on the tree. There is something so tangible in the cross, the nails, the vinegar, the spear, that we are not able to forget the Master, especially when so often we enjoy the delightful privilege of assembling round his table, and breaking bread in remembrance of him. But the second great gift, by no means inferior to the first—the gift of the Holy Spirit to us—is so spiritual and we are so carnal, is so mysterious and we are so material, that we are very apt to forget its value, ay, and even to forget the gift altogether. And yet, my brethren, let us ever remember that Christ on the cross is of no value to us apart from the Holy Spirit in us. In vain that blood is flowing, unless the finger of the Spirit applies the blood to our conscience; in vain is that garment of righteousness wrought out, a garment without seam, woven from the top throughout, unless the Holy Spirit wraps it around us, and arrays us in its costly folds. The river of the water of life cannot quench our thirst till the Spirit presents the goblet and lifts it to our lip. All the things that are in the paradise of God itself could never be blissful to us so long as we are dead souls, and dead souls we are until that heavenly wind comes from the four corners of the earth and breathes upon us slain, that we may live. We do not hesitate to say, that we owe as much to God the Holy Ghost as we do to God the Son. Indeed, it were a high sin and misdemeanor to attempt to put one person of the Divine Trinity before another. Thou, O Father, art the source of all grace, all love and mercy towards us. Thou, O Son, art the channel of thy Father's mercy, and without thee thy Father's love could never flow to us. And thou, O Spirit—thou art he who enables us to receive that divine virtue which flows from the fountainhead, the Father, through Christ the channel, and by thy means enters into our spirit, and there abides and brings forth its glorious fruit. Magnify, then, the Spirit, ye who are partakers of it; "praise, laud, and love his name always, for it is seemly so to do."

My work this morning is to set forth the work of the Holy Spirit, not as a Comforter, or as a Quickener, or as a Sanctifier, but principally as a Teacher, although we shall have to touch upon these other points in passing.

The Holy Ghost is the great Teacher of the Father's children. The Father begets us by his own will through the word of truth. Jesus Christ takes us into union with himself, so that we become in a second sense the children of God. Then God the Holy Spirit breathes into us the "spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Having given us that spirit of adoption, he trains us, becomes our great Educator, cleanses away our ignorance, and reveals one truth after another, until at last we comprehend with all saints what are the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and then the Spirit introduces the educated ones to the general assembly and church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven.

Concerning this Teacher, these three things—first, what he teaches; secondly, his methods of teaching; and thirdly, the nature and characteristics of that teaching.

I. First, then, WHAT THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES US. And here indeed we have a wide field spread before us, for he teaches to God's people all that they do that is acceptable to the Father, and all that they know that is profitable to themselves.

1. I say that he teaches them all that they do. Now, there are some things which you and I can do naturally, when we are but children without any teaching. Who ever taught a child to cry? It is natural to it. The first sign of its life is its shrill feeble cry of pain. Ever afterwards you need never send it to school to teach it to utter the cry of its grief, the well known expression of its little sorrows. Ah, my brethren, but you and I as spiritual infants, had to be taught to cry; for we could not even cry of ourselves, till we had received "the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abbe, Father." There are cryings and groanings which cannot be uttered in words and speech, simple as this language of the new nature seems to be. But even these feeblest groanings, sighings, cryings, tears, are marks of education. We must be taught to do this, or else we are not sufficient to do even these little things in and of ourselves. Children, as we know, have to be taught to speak, and it is by degrees that they-are able to pronounce first the shorter, and afterwards the longer words. We, too, are taught to speak. We have none of us learned, as yet, the whole vocabulary of Canaan. I trust we are able to say some of the words; but we shall never be able to pronounce them all till we come into that land where we shall see Christ, and "shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." The sayings of the saints, when they are good and true, are the teachings of the Spirit. Marked ye not that passage—"No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost?" He may say as much in dead words, but the spirit's saying, the saying of the soul, he can never attain to, except as he is taught by the Holy Ghost. Those first words which we ever used as Christians—"God be merciful to me a sinner," were taught us by the Holy Spirit; and that song which we shall sing before the throne—"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever," shall but be the ripe fruit of that same tree of knowledge of good and evil, which the Holy Spirit hath planted in the soil of our hearts.

Further, as we are taught to cry, and taught to speak by the Holy Spirit, so are all God's people taught to walk and act by Him. "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." We may take the best heed to our life, but we shah stumble or go astray unless he who first set us in the path shall guide us in it. "I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms." "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters." To stray is natural; to keep the path of right is spiritual. To err is human; to be holy is divine. To fall is the natural effect of evil; but to stand is the glorious effect of the Holy Spirit working in us, both to will and to do of his own good pleasure. There was never yet a heavenly thought, never yet a hallowed deed, never yet a consecrated act acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, which was not worked in us by the Holy Ghost. Thou hast worked all our works in us. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

Now as it is with the simple deeds of the Christian, his crying, his speaking, his walking, his acting-all these are teachings of the Holy Ghost—so is it with the higher efforts of his nature. The preaching of the gospel, when it be done aright, is only accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. That sermon which is based upon human genius is worthless, that sermon which has been obtained through human knowledge, and which has no other force in it than the force of logic or of oratory, is spent in vain. God worketh not by such tools as these. He cleanseth not spirits by the water from broken cisterns, neither doth he save souls by thoughts which come from men's brains, apart from the divine influence which goeth with them. We might have all the learning of the sages of Greece, nay, better still, all the knowledge of the twelve apostles put together, and then we might have the tongue of a seraph, and the eyes and heart of a Savior, but apart from the Spirit of the living God, our preaching would yet be vain, and our hearers and ourselves would still abide in our sins. To preach aright can only be accomplished of the Holy Spirit. There may be a thing called preaching that is of human energy, but God's ministers are taught of the Holy One; and when their word is blessed, either to saint or sinner, the blessing cometh not of them, but of the Holy Ghost, and unto Him be all the glory, for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.

So is it with sacred song. Whose are the wings with which I mount towards the skies in sacred harmony and joy? They are thy wings, O Holy Dove! Whose is the fire with which my spirit flames at times of hallowed consecration? Thine is the flame, O fiery Spirit! thine. Whose is the tongue of fire which rested on the apostolic lip? Thine was that cleft tongue, thou Holy One of Israel! Whose is that dew which falls upon the withered blade, and makes it smile and fire? Thine are those holy drops thou Dew of God; thou aft that womb of the morning from whence these beauties of holiness proceed. Thou hast worked an in us, and unto thee would we give well-deserved thanks. So, then, all the doings of the Christian, both the little and the major doings, are all the teachings of the Holy Ghost.

2. But now, farther; all that the believer truly know that is profitable to himself is taught him by the Holy Spirit. We may learn very much from the Word of God morally and mentally, but the Christian philosopher understands that there is a distinction between soul and spirit; that the mere natural soul or intellect of man may instruct itself well enough out of the Word of God, but that spiritual things are only to be spiritually discerned, and that until that third, higher principle—the spirit—is infused into us in regeneration, we have not even the capability or the possibility of knowing spiritual things. Now it is this third, higher principle, of which the apostle speaks when he speaks of "body, soul, and spirit." Mental philosophers declare there is no such thing as the third part—spirit. They can find a body and a soul, but no spirit. They are quite right—there is no such thing in natural men. That third principle—the spirit—is an infusion of the Holy Ghost at regeneration, and is not to be detected by mental philosophy; it is altogether a subtler thing; a thing too rare, too heavenly, to be described by Dugald Stewart, or Reid, or Brown, or any of those mighty men who could dissect the mind, but who could not understand the spirit Now, the Spirit of God first gives us a spirit, and then afterwards educates that spirit; and all that that spirit knows is taught it by the Holy Ghost. Perhaps the first thing that we learn is sin: he reproves us of sin. No man knows the exceeding sinfulness of sin, but by the Holy Ghost. You may punish a man, you may tell him of the wrath of God, and of hen, but you cannot make him know what an evil and a bitter thing sin is till the Holy Ghost hath taught it to him. 'Tis an awful lesson indeed to learn, and when the Holy Spirit makes us sit down upon the stool of penitence, and begins to drill this great truth into us, that sin is damnation in the bud, that sin is hell in the germ: then when we begin to perceive it, we cry out, "Now I know how vile I am, my soul abhorreth itself in dust and ashes." No man, I repeat it, will ever know the sinfulness of sin by argument, by punishment, by moral discipline, or by any means apart from the education of the Holy Ghost. It is a truth beyond the reach of human intellect to know how base a thing sin is. The spirit alone, engrafted and given by the Holy Spirit,—that spirit alone can learn the lesson, and only the Holy Ghost can teach it.

The next lesson the Spirit teaches us, is the total ruin, depravity, and helplessness of self. Men pretend to know this by nature, but they do not know it; they can only speak the words of experience as parrots speak like men. But to know myself utterly lost and ruined; to know myself so lost, "that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing," is a knowledge so distasteful, so hateful, so abominable to the carnal intellect, that man would not learn it if he could, and if he hath learnt it, it is a clear proof that God the Holy Spirit has made him willing to see the truth, and willing to receive it. When we sometimes hear great preachers telling us that there is something grand left in man yet, that when Adam fell he might have broken his little finger, but did not ruin himself entirely, that man is a grand being, in fact a noble creature and that we are all wrong in telling men they are depraved, and thundering out the law of God at them—am I astonished that they should speak thus? Nay, my brethren, it is the language of the carnal mind the whole world over, and in every age. No wonder that a man is eloquent upon this point, every man needs to be eloquent when he has to defend a lie. No wonder that glorious sentences have been uttered, and flowery periods poured forth from a cornucopia of eloquence upon this subject. A man need exhaust all logic and all rhetoric to defend a-falsehood; and it is not a wonder that he seeks to do it, for man believes himself to be rich, and increased in goods, and to have need of nothing, till the Holy Ghost teaches him that he is naked, and poor, and miserable.

These lessons being learned, the Spirit proceeds to teach us further—the nature and character of God. God is to be heard in every wind, and seen in every cloud, but not all of God. God's goodness, and God's omnipotence, the world clearly manifesteth to us in the works of creation, but where do I read of his grace, where do I read of his mercy, or of his justice? There are lines which I cannot read in creation. Those must have ears indeed who can hear the notes of mercy or of grace whispering in the evening gale. No, brethren, these parts of God's attributes are only revealed to us in this precious Book, and there they are so revealed that we cannot know them until the Spirit opens our eyes to perceive them. To know the inflexibility of Divine justice, and to see how God exacts punishment for every jot and little of sin, and yet to know that that full-justice does not eclipse his equally full-mercy, but that the two move around each other, without for a single instant coming into contact, or conflict, or casting the slighest shallow one or the other; to see how God is just and yet the justifier of the ungodly, and so to know God that my spirit loves his nature, appreciates his attributes, and desires to be like him—this is a knowledge which astronomy cannot teach, which all the researches of the sciences can never give to us. We must be taught God, if we ever learn of him—we must be taught God, by God the Holy Ghost. Oh that we may learn this lesson well, that we may be able to sing of his faithfulness, of his covenant love, of his immutability, of his boundless mercy, of his inflexible justice, that we may be able to talk to one another concerning that incomprehensible One, and may see him even as a man seeth his friend; and may come to walk with him as Enoch did all the days of our life I This, indeed, must be an education given to us by the Holy Ghost.

But not to tarry on these points, though they are prolific of thought, let us observe that the Holy Spirit specially teaches to us Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Ghost who manifests the Savior to us in the glory of his person; the complex character of his manhood and of his deity; it is he who tells us of the love of his heart, of the power of his arm, of the clearness of his eye, the preciousness of his blood, and of the prevalence of his plea. To know that Christ is my Redeemer, is to know more than Plato could have taught me. To know that I am a member of his body, of his flesh and of his bones; that my name is on his breast, and engraver on the palms of his hands, is to know more than the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge could teach to all their scholars, learn they never so well. Not at the feet of Gamaliel did Paul learn to say-"He loved me, and gave himself for me." Not in the midst of the Rabbis, or at the feet of the members of the Sanhedrim, did Paul learn to cry—"Those things which I counted gain, I now count loss for Christ's sake." "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." No, this must have been taught as he himself confesseth—"not of flesh and blood, but of the Holy Ghost."

I need only hint that it is also the Spirit who teaches us our adoption. Indeed, an the privileges of the new covenant, beginning from regeneration, running through redemption, justification pardon, sanctification, adoption, preservation, continual safety, even unto au abundant enhance into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—all is the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and especially that last point, for "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." He leads us into the truth of joys to come, carries our spirit upwards, and gives us

"That inward calm within the breast,
The surest pledge of glorious rest,
Which for the Church of God remains,
The end of cares, the end of pains."
II. And now I come to the second point, which was this—THE METHODS BY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES GOD'S CHILDREN THESE PRECIOUS THINGS.

Here we must remark that we know nothing of the precise way of operation, because the Spirit is mysterious; we know not whence he cometh nor whither he goeth. But still let us describe what we can perceive. And first, in teaching God's people, one of the first things the Spirit does is to excite interest in their minds. I frequently find that when men are being educated for the ministry, the hardest thing is to set them going. They are like bats on the ground; if once a bat gets on the earth he cannot fly until he creeps to the top of a stone and gets a little above the earth, and then he gets wing and can fly well enough. So there are many who have not got their energies aroused, they have talent but it is asleep, and we want a kind of railway-whistle to blow in their ears to make them start up and rub away the film from their eyes so that they may see. Now it is just so with men, when the Spirit of God begins to teach them. He excites their interest in the things which he wishes them to learn he shows them that these things here a personal bearing upon their soul's present and eternal welfare. He so brings precious truth home, that what the man thought was utterly indifferent yesterday, he now begins to esteem inestimably precious "Oh!" said he, "theology I of what use can it be to me?" But now the knowledge of Christ and him crucified has become to him the most desirable and excellent of all the sciences. The Holy Spirit awakens his interest.

That done, he gives to the man a teachable spirit. There be men who will not learn. They profess that they want to know, but you never found the right way of teaching them. Teach them by little and little, and they easy—"Do you think I am a child?" Tell them a great deal at once, and they say—"You have not the power to make me comprehend!" will I have been competed sometimes to say to a man, when I have been trying to make him understand, and he has said "I cannot understand you," "Well, sir, I am thankful it is not my duty to give you an understanding if you have none." Now, the Holy Spirit makes a man willing to learn in any shape. The disciple sits down at the feet of Christ; and let Christ speak as he may, and teach him as he will, whether with the rod, or with a smile, he is quite willing to learn. Distasteful the lessons are, but the regenerated pupil loves to learn best the very things he once hated. Cutting to his pride the doctrines of the gospel each one of them may be, but for this very reason he loves them; for he cries, "Lord, humble me; Lord, bring me down; teach me those things that will make me cover my head with dust and ashes; show me my nothingness; teach me my emptiness; reveal to me my filthiness." So that the Holy Spirit thus proceeds with his work awaking interest, and enkindling a teachable spirit. This done, the Holy Ghost in the next place sets truth in a clear light, How bard it is sometimes to state a fact which you perfectly understand yourself, in such a way that another man may see it. It is like the telescope; there are many persons who are disappointed with a telescope, because whenever they walk into an observatory and put their eye to the glass, expecting to see the rings of Saturn, and the belts of Jupiter, they have said, "I can see nothing at all; a piece of glass, and a grain or two of dust is all I can see!" "But," says the astronomer, when he comes, "I can see Saturn in all her glory." Why cannot you? Because the focus does not suit the stranger's eye. By a little skill, the focus can be altered so that the observer may be able to see what he could not see before. So is it with language; it is a sort of telescope by which I enable another to see my thoughts, but I cannot always give him the right focus. Now the Holy Spirit always gives the right focus to every truth. He sheds a light so strong and forcible upon the Word, that the spirit says. "Now I see it, now I understand it." For even here, in this precious Book, there are words which I have looked at a hundred times, but I could not understand them, till at some favored hour, the key-word seemed as if it leaped up from the midst of the verse and said to me, "Look at the verse in my light," and at once I perceived—not always from a word in the verse itself, but sometimes in the context—I perceived the meaning which I could not see before. This, too, is a part of the Spirit's training—to steed a light upon truth. But the Spirit not only enlightens the truth, but he enlightens the understanding. 'Tis marvellous, too, how the Holy Ghost does teach men who seemed as if they never could learn. I would not wish to say anything which my brother might be grieved at; but I do know some brethren, I won't say they are here today, but they are not out of the place come brethren whose opinion I would not take in anything worldly on any account. If h were anything to do with pounds, shillings, and pence anything where human judgment was concerned, I should not consult them; but those men have a deeper,. truer, and more experimental knowledge of the Word of God, than many who preach it, because the Holy Spirit never tried to teach them grammar, and never meant to. teach-them business never wanted to teach them astronomy, but he has taught them the Word of God, and they understand it. Other teachers have labored to beat the elements. of science into them but without success, for they are as thick and addled in they brains as they can well be; but the Holy Spirit teas taught them the Word of God, and. they are clear enough there. I come in close contact with some young men. When. we are taking our lessens for illustration out of the sciences, they seem to be all profound, and when I ask them a question to see if they have understood; they are lost; but, mark you, when we come to read: a chapter out of some old Puritanic book—come to theology—those brethren give-me the smartest and sharpest answers of the whole class. When we once some to deal with things experimental and controversial, I find those men are able to double up their opponents, and vanquish them at once, because they are deeply read in the Word of God. The Spirit has taught them the things of Christ, but he has not taught them anything else. I have perceived, also, that when the Spirit of God: has enlarged the understanding to receive the Bible truth that understanding becomes more capable receiving other truth. I heard, some time ago, from a brother minister, when we were comparing notes, the story of a man who had been the dullest creature that was known. He was not more than one grade above an idiot, but when he was converted to God, one of the first things he wanted to do, was to read the Bible. They had a long, long teak to teach him a verse, but he would learn it, he would master it. He stuck at it as hard as ever he could, till he was able to read, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That man was by-and-bye asked to engage in prayer. At first he hardly put a sentence together. By-and-bye he arrived at a considerable degree of fluency, because he would do it. He would not stand still, he said, in the prayer-meeting, and not have a word to say for his Master. He began to read his Bible much, and to pray with a great deal of profit and acceptableness to those that heard, and after awhile, he actuary began to speak in the villages, and became sometime after an honored and acceptable pastor of one of our Baptist Churches. Had it not been for the Spirit of God first expanding the understanding to receive religious truth, that understanding might have been cramped, and fettered, and fast bolted to this very day, and the man might have been ever after an idiot, and so have gone down to his grave, while now he stands up to tell to sinners round, in burning language, the story of the cross of Christ. The Spirit teaches us by enlightening the understanding.

Lest I weary you, let me hurry on through the other points. He teaches us also by refreshing the memory. "He shall bring all things to your remembrance." He puts all those old treasures into the ark of our soul, and when the time comes, he opens it, and brings out these precious things in right good order, and shows them to us again and again. He refreshes the memory, and when this is done, he does better, he teaches us the Word, by making us feel its effect, and that, after all, is the best way of learning. You may try to teach a child the meaning of the term "sweetness;" but words will not avail, give him some honey and he win never forget it. You might seek to tell him of the glorious mountains, and the Alps, that pierce the clouds and send their snows peaks, like white-robed ambassadors up to the courts of heaven: take him there, let him see them, and he will never forget them. You might seek to paint to him the grandeur of the American continent, with its hills, and lakes, and rivers, such as the world saw not before: let him go and view it, and he will know more of the land than he could know by all your teaching, when he site at home. So the Holy Spirit does not only tell us of Christ's love; he sheds it abroad in the heart. He does not merely tell us of the sweetness of pardon; but he gives us a sense of no condemnation, and then we know an about it, better than we could have done by any teaching of words and thoughts. He takes us into the banqueting house and waves the banner of love over us. He bids us visit the garden of nets, and makes us lie among the lilies. He gives us that bundle of camphire, even our beloved, and bids us place it all night betwixt our breasts. He takes us to the cross of Christ, and he bids us put our finger into the print of the nails, and our hands into his side, and tells us not come "faithless, but believing," and so in the highest and most effectual manner he teacheth us to profit.

III. But now I shall come to my third point, although I feel so if I wished my subject were somewhat less comprehensive, but indeed it is a fault which does not often happen—to have too much rather than too little to speak of, except when we come upon a topic where God is to be glorified, and here indeed our tongue must be like the pen of a ready writer, when we speak of the things that we have made touching the king.

I am now to speak to you about the CHARACTERISTICS AND NATURE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT'S TEACHING. And first I would remark that the Holy Ghost teaches sovereignty. He teaches whom he pleases. He takes the fool and makes him know the wonders of the dying love of Christ, to bring aspiring wisdom low and make the pride of man humble and abase itself. And as the Spirit teaches whom he wills, so he teaches when he wills. He has his own hours of instruction, and he will not be limited and bound by us. And then again he teaches as he wills—same by affliction, some by. communion; some he teaches by the Word read, some by the Word spoken, some by neither, but directly by his own agency. And so also the Holy Spirit is a sovereign in that he teaches in whatever degree he pleases. He will make one man learn much, while another comprehends but little. Some Christiana wear their beards early—they come to a rapid and high degree of maturity, and that on a sudden, while others creep but slowly to the goal, sad are very long in reaching it. Some Christians in early years understand more than others whose hairs have turned grey. The Holy Ghost is a sovereign. He doe not have all his pupils in one class, and them all the same lesson by simultaneous instruction; but each man is in a separate class, each man learning a separate lesson. Some beginning at the end of the book, some at the beginning, and some in the middle—some learning one doctrine and some another, some going backwards and some forwards. The Holy Spirit teacheth sovereignly, and giveth to every man according as he wills, but then, wherever he teaches at all, he teaches effectually. He never failed to make us learn yet. No scholar was ever turned out of the Spirit's school incorrigible. He teaches all his children, not some of them—"All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children,"—the last sentence being a proof that they have been effectually taught. Never once did the Spirit bring home the truth to the heart and yet that heart fail to receive it. He hath modes of touching the secret springs of life, and putting the truth into the very core of the being. He casts his healing mixtures into the fountain itself, and not into the streams. We instruct the ear, and the ear is far removed from the heart; he teaches the heart itself, and therefore his every word falleth upon good soil, and bringeth forth good and abundant fruit—he teaches effectually. Dear brother, do you feel yourself to be a great fool sometimes? Your great Schoolmaster will make a good scholar of you yet. He will so teach you, that you shall be able to enter the kingdom of heaven knowing as much as the brightest saints. Teaching thus sovereignly and effectually, I may add, he teaches infallibly. We teach you errors through want of caution, sometimes through over zeal, and again through the weakness of our own mind. In the greatest preacher or teacher that ever lived there was some degree of error, and hence our hearers should always bring what we say to the law and the testimony; but the Holy Ghost never teaches error, if thou hast learned anything by the Spirit of God, it is pure, unadulterated, undiluted truth. Put thyself daily under his teaching, and thou shalt never learn a word amiss, nor a thought awry, but become infallibly taught, well taught in the whole truth as it is in Jesus.

Further, where the Spirit thus teaches infallibly he teaches continually. Whom once he teaches, he never leaves till he has completed their education. On, and on, and on, however dull the scholar, however frail the memory, however vitiated the mind, he still continues with his gracious work, till he has trained us up and made us "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Nor does he leave us till he has taught us completely; for as our text says, "He shall teach you all things." There is not a truth so high that it shall not yet be mastered, nor a doctrine so hard that it shall not yet be received. High up, high up, tower the heights of the hill of knowledge, but there, when there, thy feet shall stand. Weary may be the way and weak thy knees, but up thither thou shalt climb, and one day with thy forehead bathed in the sunlight of heaven, thy soul shall stand and look down on tempests, mists, and all earth's clouds and smoke, and see the Master face to face, and be like him, and know him as he is. This is the joy of the Christian, that he shall be completely taught, and that the Holy Spirit will never give him up till; he has taught him all truth.

I fear, however, that this morning I weary you. Such a theme as this will not be likely to be suitable to all minds. As I have already said, the spiritual mind alone receiveth spiritual things, and the doctrine of the Spirit's agency will never be very interesting to those who are entire strangers to it. I could not make another man understand the force of an electric shock unless he has felt it. It would not be likely at all that he would believe in those secret energies which move the world, unless he had some means of testing for himself. And those of you that never felt the Spirit's energy, are as much strangers to it as a stone would be. You are out of your element when you hear of the Spirit. You know nothing of his divine power; you have never been taught of him, and therefore how should you be careful to know what truths he teaches?

I close, therefore, with this sorrowful reflection. Alas, alas, a thousand times alas, that there should be so many who know not their danger, who feel not their load, and in whose heart the light of the Holy Ghost hath never shone! Is it your case my dear hearer, this morning? I do not ask you whether you have been ever educated in the school of learning; that you may be, and you may have taken your degree and been first-class in honors, but you may still be as the wild ass's colt that knows nothing about these things. Religion, and the truth of it, is not to be learnt by the head. Years of reading, hours of assiduous study, will never make a man a Christian. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." Oh! art thou destitute of the Spirit of the living God? For oh! I charge thee to remember this my hearer: if in thy soul mysterious and supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit has never been shed abroad, thou art an utter stranger to all the things of God. The promises are not thine; heaven is not thine, thou art on thy road to the land of the dead, to the region of the corpse, where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. Oh that the Spirit of God may rest upon you now! Bethink you, you are absolutely dependent upon his influence. You are in God's hand today to be saved or to be lost—not in your own hands, but in his. You are dead in sins; unless he quickens you, you must remain so. The moth beneath your finger is not more absolutely at your mercy than you are now at the mercy of God. Let him but will to leave you as you are, and you are lost; but oh! if mercy speaks and says, "Let that man live," you are saved. I would that you could feel the weight of this tremendous doctrine of sovereignty. It is like the hammer of Thor, it may shake your heart however stout it be, and make your rocky soul tremble to its base.
"Life, death, and hell, and worlds unknown,
Hang on his firm decree."
Your destiny hangs there now; and will you rebel against the God in whose hand your sours eternal fate now rests? Will you lift the puny hand of your rebellion against him who alone can quicken you—without whose gracious energy you are dead, and must be destroyed? Will you go this day and sin against light and against knowledge t Will you go to day and reject mercy which is proclaimed to you in Christ Jesus? If so, no fool was ever so mad as you are, to reject him without whom you are dead, and lost, and ruined. O that instead thereof there may be the sweet whisper of the Spirit saying, "Obey the divine command, believe on Christ and live I" Hear thou the voice of Jehovah, who cries, "This is the commandment, that ye believe in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent?" Thus obedient, God saith within himself, "I have set my love upon him, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high because he hath known my name;" and you shall yet live to sing in heaven of that sovereignty which, when your soul trembled in the balances, decided for your salvation, and gave you light and joy unspeakable. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on Calvary's cross, "and whosoever believeth on him shall be saved." "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." Believe that record truer cast down your weapons; yield to the sovereignly of the Holy Ghost; and he shall assuredly prove to you that, in that very yielding, there was a proof that he had loved you; for he made you yield; he made you willing to bow before him in the day of his power. May the Holy Spirit now rest on the word I have spoken, for Jesu's sake!

https://www.biblebb.com