SPIRIT
CONSTANT UNVEILING CHRIST
Leaving the subject now in its historic setting, it will be
best to consider somewhat more carefully the apprehension of Christ through the Spirit by the
individual. The first work of the Spirit of God towards this end is
that of the preparation of the spirit of man. That spirit originally created as
a medium for the knowledge of God, was polluted, and disorganized by sin, and therefore
became useless
for, the fulfillment of its original intention. By the impartation of Christ to
the spirit of man, the Holy Spirit of God cleanses from pollution. By uniting
the spirit of man with Christ He readjusts the instrument, and by lifting man
into the place where he looks out upon all things in fellowship with Christ, He focusses the
lens, that so the pictures may no longer be distorted, blurred, and inaccurate,
but definite, clear, and precise. This
PRELIMINARY WORK of the Spirit is most immediate and most gracious. And yet its
value is only known in the results which follow.
Man's experience of this work is
not in a new self-consciousness, even though it is that of purity and illumination.
It is rather an experience of the issue, that namely of a new apprehension of Christ, and
consequently a new knowledge of God.
Then follows necessarily the work
of the Spirit in PRESENTING THE OBJECT to this restored instrument: THAT OBJECT
IS CHRIST. The method of the Spirit here is always governed by the individual
necessity of the believer, and by capacity. It may be safely
affirmed that the Spirit of God has no stereotyped system of theology to teach
men. The
great facts concerning Christ are never taught by the Spirit to companies of
men, but to individual lives, and the lesson now being learned by any single
person, is the one necessary for the growth of that particular individual.
To some today He will reveal the Master's sympathy, to others His severity; and
so, according to the necessity of each, will He minister the revelation of the
living Lord.
It is equally true that He does not
measure His teaching by the standards of time, but by the capacity of the disciple, revealing only
that which each is able to bear. His method is moreover perpetually
characterized by the fact that every individual revelation of Christ to the
spirit of the disciple has within it some new claim, DEMANDING IMMEDIATE
OBEDIENCE, and the
measure of the obedience is the measure of an increased capacity for yet new
revelations.
Thus man, indwelt by the Spirit, is
the subject of a perpetually growing consciousness of the excellence and
completeness of Christ, through a perpetually growing understanding of His
simplicities. Thus
it is that while the youngest believer may seem to be in possession of all the
facts concerning Christ; as the years pass, through the varied disciplines of
life, and the operation of an abiding communion, it is seen that the things
known were hardly known, that the facts recognized were imperfectly realized;
and gradually and yet surely with the passing of the years, through every
window, new light is streaming, and new meanings are dawning on the soul. In
the earliest years of discipleship there must be recognition of the simplicity
of Christ, as the story of His life is read; of His perpetual peacefulness as
He passed through scenes that might have been expected to disturb the stoutest
heart; of the sweetness of His disposition, in spite of all the occasions
which so often end in the embittering of the human heart; of the severity of
His Spirit against all forms of wrong and of tyranny; and of His ever active
sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men. All these things, however, are
only learned as to their fullness of value, and of meaning, as the Spirit
reveals them according to the demand of occasion, and the capacity of the learner.
Through this great process it is discovered that the simplicity of Christ is
due to His sublimity of the consciousness of the straightness of the line of
truth; and His serenity is due to the abiding sense of the permanence of
righteousness; and His sweetness manifest because of His understanding of the
ultimate victory of love; while His severity is the necessary out-flaming anger
of that love against all that for the time may seem to violate it; and His sympathy
is the natural, spontaneous relation of essential love to all the
consciousness of those upon whom such love is set.
Thus the issue of the indwelling
Spirit is not merely the unveiling before the spirit of man of the fact of
Christ; but also the preparation of the spirit of man, which issues in a true
and ever growing apprehension of THE UNVEILED ONE.
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