The Secret of His Incoming
How then shall our heart-longings for the fullness of the Spirit be satisfied? How shall we know His abundance of love, peace, joy, and power for service? What is the secret of this abundant life; this fullness of the Spirit? We answer first, negatively, It is not that we have not received the Holy Ghost. Seeing the powerlessness, the barrenness, the lack of love, joy, peace, and power in many Christian lives, and knowing these to be the fruitage of the abundant life of the Spirit, we may leap to the conclusion that the Spirit has not been received, else how account for the feeble manifestations of His presence and power? Wherefore the first thing we need clearly to see is that every child of God has received the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is of the greatest importance, in the search for the secret of the abundant life, that this glorious fact should be clearly seen and accepted by the believer. For if he has not received the Holy Ghost, then his attitude should be that of waiting, petitioning, and seeking for the gift which is not yet his. But if he has received the Holy Ghost, then he must take an entirely different attitude, namely, not of waiting and praying for the Holy Ghost to be received but of yielding and surrendering to Him who has already been received.
In the first case we are waiting on God to do something; in the other God is waiting on us to do something.
It will be seen at once that if a man is occupying either of these attitudes when he ought to be in the other, then confusion and failure are bound to result. For example, the simple conditions of salvation are repentance from sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, to keep a truly penitent soul in the attitude of seeking or praying for forgiveness, instead of simple faith in God's Word that he has been forgiven in Christ, is a ruinous mistake, and leads to darkness and agony, instead of the light and joy that god means him to have. On the other hand, to try to get an impenitent soul to “only believe,” instead of first repenting of sins, will keep him in equal darkness, and make his nominal acceptance of Christ a mere profession and hypocrisy. Exactly so is it with the case in hand. If the absence of the abundant life of the Spirit in us is due, as we are persuaded it is, not to the fact that He has not come in, but that we have not surrendered to Him who is already in, then it is a tremendous and fatal mistake to keep a soul waiting and seeking instead of surrendering and yielding. It puts him at cross purposes with God. He keeps calling on God to give the Holy Ghost; to baptize him with the Spirit. But God has already done this to all who are in Christ, and is calling on him to fulfill certain conditions by which he may know the abundance of the Spirit, not the Spirit who is to come, but the Spirit who is already in him. Have we not known His children to wait, and cry, and agonize for the gift of the Holy Ghost through long, weary days, months, and even years, from not knowing the truth of His Word upon this point? For it is the truth that makes us free, and if we know it not we cannot be free. That all we, then, who are God's children have “received the Holy Spirit,” the “gift of the Holy Spirit,” (as God uses that term) is clearly taught in His Word, for:
1. We have fulfilled the conditions of the gift of the Holy Ghost. What are these conditions? We would expect them first to be very simple and easily comprehended by the most unlearned. God does not, and would not, make the greatest gift of His love to us, next to that of His Son, to hinge upon any but the very simplest and plainest conditions. Through all the ages the great promise of the Spirit was in the divine mind preparing for fulfillment. He would not have a single child of His to miss the way. He has made it a great highway, and set up finger-boards so plain and unambiguous that only pre-conceived human opinions, doctrines, theories, theologies, and darkening of counsel could make us miss it so grievously as we have done. Moreover when we have endeavored to lay aside our own opinions and prejudices, and to seek the light of His Word alone, we have complicated the question by confining ourselves almost entirely to the experience of the apostles at the day of Pentecost. Accepting this as the “pattern in the mount” for us, we, consciously or unconsciously, deem the same conditions needful. Right here note that in our search for the conditions of the gift of the Holy ghost we have confined ourselves too closely to the apostolic experience instead of the apostolic teaching at Pentecost. Now a man's experience of conversion may be most marvelous and impressive in its accompaniments. But many a man who has had a genuine, glorious experience of conversion utterly fails when he tries to lead others to Christ. Why? Because he imparts into his directions to the anxious seeker conditions from his own experience which are not essential scriptural conditions for others. Equally disastrous has been this practice in the teaching concerning the glorious truths of the Spirit, and that, too, by men who have had genuine, striking experiences of His fullness of blessing. they teach us to pray without ceasing; to wait not only ten days, but ten years if need be, to wait for the promise of the Comforter; to look for wonderful experiences, etc. How many an anxious soul has thus been plunged into hopeless confusion and spiritual darkness! The trouble is the same. They are endeavoring to guide us solely by the apostolic experience instead of the apostolic teaching. But the former is much more difficult of analysis than the latter, and it may be fairly said to be abnormal to us in these important respects, that the apostles lived before Christ came, while He walked the earth, and after He left it. They thus had one experience of the Holy Ghost as Old Testament believers; another when the risen Christ breathed upon them and said, “receive ye the Holy Ghost;” another when the ascended Christ poured out the Holy Ghost upon them at Pentecost. But this is not true of us. Wherefore, to our mind, the important question is not so much how the apostles—who lived through the dispensations, loosely speaking, of Father, Son and Holy Ghost—received the Holy Ghost, as how men who lived in the latter, as we do, received Him. The experience that matches ours is not so much that of the apostles, who had also believed on Jesus before the gift of the Holy Ghost, as that of the apostles' converts who believed on Him exactly as we do, after the work of Christ was finished, and after the Holy Ghost was given. Let us therefore now ask not so much what did the apostles experience as what did they teach. Not only how did they receive the Holy Ghost, but how did they instruct others to receive Him. And here, as always, we find the Word of God wondrously simple, if we will lay aside our own prejudgments and hear only what it says. For on that same Pentecostal day the apostolic teaching was just as clear as the apostolic experience was wonderful.
If ever there was a time when the presence of God filled a human body, burned in a human heart, and inspired human lips with errorless accuracy of teaching; surely it was when Peter preached his great sermon on the day of Pentecost. All aflame he was with the mighty anointing of power, and it was the God of truth Himself who spoke through him and answered the pleading cry of the multitude “What shall we do” by His own divine word of direction and teaching. And what does He say? “Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). It is evident from many passages in the Word that baptism as here an ordinance administered upon faith in Christ as a sin-bearer, and thus God here taught through Peter this great truth that the two great conditions of receiving the Holy Ghost are:
Repentance and faith in Christ for the remission of sins.
No other conditions are required. Repent of your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins (being baptized thereupon), and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Two things for us to do, and then one thing God does. If ye do these two things ye shall receive, says God. The promise is absolute. Surely man has no right to put any other requirement between the “Repent and believe,” and the “Ye shall receive,” since God Himself puts none. If any soul honestly repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins, then the heavens would fall ere God would fail to fulfill His promise “Ye shall receive.”
Wherefore the only questions that the child of God in doubt whether he has received the gift of the Holy Ghost, need ask are; “Have I turned away from my sins with an honest heart?” and, “Am I trusting, not in my own poor works, but in Jesus Christ as my sin-bearer and Saviour?” If so, God has given me the Holy Ghost, and the peace I find in my heart is born alone of that Spirit whom “if any have not he is none of His.” If we have never honestly repented, or have never simply believed in Jesus Christ, then we have not received the Spirit. But if we have fulfilled these two simple conditions—a fact easily known to ourselves—then God must have given us His great gift. Albeit He does not leave us to rest alone upon logic even as good as this, but buttresses it with the next great proof that we have so received Him, namely:
2. By the witness of the Spirit Himself; by our own experience of His incoming, when we fulfilled these conditions. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). Do not many of us remember the very day and hour and place, when having repented and believed in Jesus Christ, our hearts were filled with wondrous peace and joy therein? Or even if it did to others of us come less definitely as to time and place, yet was the experience of the peace that came into our heart, to replace the distress and unrest that had dwelt there for years, any the less definite or wonderful because it had stolen upon us gradually and quietly? The Spirit bore witness with our spirit. No power in existence could bring the peace that we have concerning past sins, save the Holy Ghost. Jesus alone is our peace concerning the past, and the Holy Ghost alone could communicate to our hearts the experience of that peace. The fact that it is there, is proof absolute of the Spirit's presence. Let none rob us of this conscious attestation of His incoming. We know He is in us because none but Him could work in us such fruitage as that of which we are conscious. We repented; we believed; and He came in to “abide with us forever.” Let our hearts be at rest. Nor does it matter much that this is not what we mean by the “gift of the Holy Ghost.” It is what God says. And the sooner we use God's terms, accept God's statements, and obey God's commands, the sooner will the darkness that shrouds this great truth flee away and let in upon our souls the clear shining of the day.
3. It is the constant assertion of God's Word concerning believers. Notice how emphatic this is: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you” (I Cor. 3:16). Not that we shall be hereafter, but that now we believers are the temple of God, and that the Spirit dwells now (present tense) in us. Again (mark the tense) “What! Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God…” (I Cor. 6:19). Again “…for ye are the temple of the living God” (II Cor. 6:16). Also, II Cor. 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” How clear this last passage is upon the points named. Note the simple condition again: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.” That is, are you believers? Are you simply trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? If so, know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed when you examine yourself you find that you are “reprobate,” that is, “not-standing-the-test,” not trusting Christ, but somebody else. How simple all this is, and how harmonious, with the truth as Peter preached it! He says we are to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. And then we ask of these who have repented and are now believers “Don't you know that the only question you have to ask yourselves is: ‘Am I trusting in Christ?’ If so, Jesus dwells in you, in the Holy Ghost.” Beloved, even though we had never had a single emotional experience of the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost yet we would be bold indeed—to say nothing worse—to deny the glorious fact of His indwelling in the face of the constant, explicit assertions of God that we are His temple, that He does dwell in us and that we have this great gift of the Spirit from God now.
4. Christ and the Apostles always take this truth for granted in addressing believers. Note Paul's exclamation of surprise that they should for a moment lose sight of this fundamental truth. “What? Know ye not…” (I Cor. 6:19). Are ye ignorant or forgetful of this great and glorious truth that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in you? (I Cor. 3:16). Do you grow doubtful of His presence because you are not having any such wonderful experience of it as you expect? Do you forget that His indwelling does not depend upon your emotions, but upon your union with Christ which has been long since accomplished by God through your faith in Him? (I Cor. 1:30). And then again in Acts 19:2 he says to them, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since [from the time that: because that] ye believed?” showing that he expected all the children of God to receive the gift at the time of repentance and belief in Christ.
So, too, notice Christ's attitude toward the same truth in His constant use of the word, “Abide.” “Abide in me and I in you.” “If ye abide in me.” “And now, little children, abide in him…” (I John 2:28). What is the truth here? Clearly this: The word “abide” means “to stay, to remain in a place in which you already are.” Thus, when you request a company of people to abide, to stay in a room, we at once understand that those addressed are already there. When Paul said in Acts 27:31, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved,” we know that they were already in the ship. Now, Christ's word to the sinner is, “Come,” because he is out of Christ. But His word to the believer is “Abide,” because he is already, and forever, in Christ. But no man can be in Christ and not have received the Holy Ghost. It is impossible, for He is the giver of the Spirit. In Him is life and the instant we are united to Him by faith we must receive the Spirit. The wire can no more be joined to the dynamo and not receive the electric fluid, the branch can no more be joined to the vine and not receive the thrill of life, than we can be joined to Christ by faith and not receive His great resurrection gift. “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5).
But someone now says: “I believe that it is the Holy Ghost who has regenerated me, and that I could not be born again except by His agency. But I do not believe this is what God means by receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Is there not a second experience for the believer in which, after his conversion, he receives the Holy Ghost for service in great power and abundance, such as he has never known before? Did not Paul say to the Ephesian converts: ‘Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?’ (Acts 19:2); and does not this clearly prove that one can be a Christian and yet need to receive the Holy Ghost afterward?”
To this we say both yes and no. There is a fullness of the Holy Ghost such as does not come to most Christians at conversion, and therefore is, in point of time, usually a second experience. But this is not the gift of the Holy Ghost, not the receiving of the Holy Ghost, not the baptism of the Holy Ghost as God's Word teaches. The Holy Ghost is received once and forever at conversion. He is a person. He comes in them once and forever, and to stay. We receive Him then—though we may not yield to Him—for service, as well as for regeneration. The greater experience of His presence and power that follows conversion, sooner or later, is not the gift of the Holy Ghost, the receiving of the Holy Ghost, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as God uses those terms, but a fullness, in response to consecration, of that Holy Ghost who has already been given at regeneration. At Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down to empower the Church, the mystic Body of Christ. On that great day Christ baptized the Church with the Holy Ghost. Wherefore, as each one of us by faith becomes a member of that Body, we are baptized with the same Spirit that dwells in that Body; we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. We cannot too clearly lay hold of this. For our deceitful natural heart is all too quick to take refuge in prayer, and waiting to receive, and thus dodge the real issue which is an absolute surrender to Him who has been received. so subtle is the flesh that it is glad, by waiting petition, to throw on God the burden of giving, if thereby it can evade the real issue which God has put upon us of yielding wholly to Him who has already been given. It is exactly matched by the case of the sinner who is far more willing to pray and wait on God for a blessing than to make the surrender that will bring the blessing. But how about the Ephesian converts who were taught that they must receive the Holy Ghost after they had believed? Does not this prove that many, though Christian, have not received the Holy Ghost, and that this is the secret of their lack of power and victory? Now, if we will examine this instance in the light of God's own Word, with unbiased mind, we will see that this much-quoted passage (Acts 19:2) not only does not support the view that this was a receiving of the gift of the Holy Ghost by believers after regeneration, and thus proving our need of the same, but that it is one of the strongest proofs in God's Word that the apostles expected men to receive the Holy Ghost at conversion. In other words, the teaching of Paul corresponds exactly with that of Peter upon this great theme. We will recall from the preceding chapter that the simple conditions, as laid down by Peter, for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit were repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. These two alone were necessary. But mark this, that both of these were essential. One was not sufficient. Men must repent and believe. For a man simply to repent of his sins, without faith in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, would not bring the gift of the Holy Ghost, for one of the essential conditions would be missing. So also for a man to attempt to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ without repenting of his sins would not, and could not, bring the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the same reason—the absence, in this case of the necessary condition of repentance. We need not do anything more than God requires, but we dare not do anything less. Every Christian worker's experience confirms this. How often we meet with seekers after salvation who can find no witnessing peace of the Holy Ghost because there is some secret sin unsurrendered, some specific failure in repentance! Or again, some truly penitent one fails to find peace because he will not simply believe in Jesus Christ's atoning work for the remission of his sins. The evidence of multitudes of such cases confirms then this great truth of God's Word—that there are two conditions essential to receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, namely, repentance and faith; and that the only reason anyone fails to receive Him is that he has not repented, or does not believe in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
With this truth now in mind consider Acts 19:1-6. Paul comes to Ephesus and, finding certain disciples, says to them, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed;” thus showing that Paul expected them to receive Him at the time they turned from their sins. When they answer in the negative Paul begins at once to search for the cause, and he does so exactly in line with the conditions laid down by Peter, as already quoted. “Unto what then were ye baptized?” said Paul; and they said: “Unto John's baptism.” “Oh, I see,” says Paul in effect, “but don't you know that John baptized only unto repentance? Now, repentance is not enough to bring the gift of the Holy Ghost; you must also believe in Jesus Christ.” And when they heard this, they believed on Jesus Christ and, baptized into His name, received the Holy Ghost. They were not believers at all as we are believers. They were practically believers under the Old Covenant, not under the New. They can be classed only with John's converts, who did not, and could not, receive the gift of the Spirit, inasmuch as they fulfilled only one condition, that of repentance. So far from being believers as we are, and being cited to prove that believers must receive the Holy Ghost as a second experience after conversion, these men, we are distinctly told, had not believed in Jesus Christ at all up to this time. Paul simply supplied the missing condition of salvation under the New Testament—faith in Christ, which should have been taught them when they repented. They stood in the place a penitent stands today who has honestly repented of his sins, but has not been instructed to believe in Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins. This failed to bring the gift of the Holy Ghost just as it would fail now. Then, too, the scriptural context, telling us exactly how this happened, seems to us forever to settle this mooted passage. If we go back to the preceding chapter we find an explanation that makes the whole episode as clear as sunlight. In verse twenty-four we are told: “a certain Jew named Apollos…came to Ephesus…and being fervent in the Spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John,” that is, only the baptism of repentance (19:4). While he was mighty in the Old Testament Scriptures, yet he evidently did not know God's full plan of salvation, and thus Aquila and Priscilla, when they heard him, “…took him unto them[selves] and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly” (v. 26), doubtless teaching faith in Christ for the remission of sins. Apollos now goes to Corinth, and Paul, coming to Ephesus, finds Apollos' misinstructed disciples, a dozen men who had not received the Holy Ghost. Why? Simply because they had not believed in Jesus Christ. True, they were believers in the sense that John's disciples were believers, having “repentance toward God,” but they had not “faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul therefore simply supplies the missing condition of New Testament conversion, and they receive the Holy Ghost, not as a second experience of full-fledged believers, but as the first experience of those who had not believed in Christ at all as we believe in Him. Instead of proving that the Christian man does not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost at conversion, but as a second enduement, this passage is one of the strongest proofs in the Word of God that the apostles expected men to receive the Holy Ghost at conversion, and, if not received, they simply proceeded to show that one of the two simple conditions of New Covenant salvation had been neglected at the time of professed discipleship.
Again, take the case of the Samaritans recorded in Acts 8:5-25. Here, we are distinctly told that they believed Philip as he preached Christ, and that they were baptized (v. 12). Why then was the Holy Spirit not received? It is suggested that there may not have been an honest repentance. For to Simon the sorcerer, who had professed belief and been baptized, Peter declared, “Thy heart is not right in the sight of God” (Acts 8:21). Another likely more reasonable explanation is that God desired to show His condemnation of the enmity between Jew and Samaritan by using not Philip but two Jewish apostles, Peter and John, as the human instruments through which the outpoured Spirit came to the Samaritans.
A careful examination of these two chief passages cited to prove that the gift of the Holy Spirit comes as an after experience in the believer's life, will show, we believe, that they have no application to us as believers, but only prove that seekers after Christ must both repent and believe, in order to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
It follows, too, from this that every child of God has also been baptized with the Holy Ghost. The receiving of the Holy Ghost and the baptism with the Holy Ghost we conceive to be absolutely synonymous, as God uses these terms. John baptized with water telling his disciples to believe on Him that should come after, and that then He would baptize them with the Holy Ghost. This was to be the distinguishing characteristic that was to mark baptism by the resurrected Christ. When men turned to God under the preaching of John he baptized them with water. But when they turn to Him in this Gospel age Jesus Christ baptizes them with the Holy Ghost. There is not a single instance that we recall where baptism with the Holy Ghost is made a subsequent experience of the believer. The apostles were again and again filled with fresh anointing, as it were, of the Spirit, but they were never baptized again. Nor are any converts who have received the Spirit in regeneration ever said thereafter to be baptized with Him. The reason is clear. Baptism was plainly an initial rite. It was administered upon entrance into the kingdom of God. Both baptisms stand, in relation of time, at the same place, whether John's with water, or Christ's with the Holy Ghost, namely, at the threshold of the Christian life, not at any subsequent milestone. Wherefore, when the baptism of the Spirit is urged now upon believers we may all agree with the thought behind it, namely, that of a fullness of the Spirit not yet known or possessed, for such a fullness is our birthright. Yet the expression itself is not a happy one in that it is never, to our knowledge, so used in the Scriptures, and therefore misleads men in attaching to a certain phrase a different meaning than God gives to it. Two speakers using a word to which each attached a different meaning would soon land in hopeless confusion. So has it been with this great theme, and it would clear up marvelously if we would not only study God's truth upon it, but adopt His phrases in describing it, using “the gift,” “the receiving,” “the baptism” of the Holy Ghost exactly as He himself does in His own inspired Word.
In fact, the receiving of the Holy Ghost depends upon one set of conditions, and the fullness of the Holy Ghost upon another. Because we have not His fullness, we leap to the conclusion that we have not received Him. The truth is that we should accept forever the fact that we have received Him, and press on to know the secret of His fullness. Beloved, let your heart go out no longer in petition to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, but let it be filled with praise that you have received Him, and that He is dwelling in you. Read again and again God's positive statements concerning it. Weigh them carefully. Recall your own experience of joy and peace when the Holy Spirit entered. Notice the constant statement in the Epistles that the believer is the sanctuary, the “holy place” where the Spirit indwells. Then remember that he who stands with God, stands on sure ground. Let no one shake your confidence at this point. If any would, then repeat again and again His word, “Ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God…” (I Cor. 6:19) until you are forever settled in this glorious truth.
Then, if not withstanding you have received Him, you are painfully conscious of powerlessness, joylessness, fruitlessness in your life; know that there is a fullness of the Spirit who is in you; a life of abounding peace and power and joy and love; a life of liberty, a life of victory over self and sin; that this life is for every child of God who will learn, and then fulfill its conditions; that, therefore, it is for you. Then, knowing the secret of His incoming, the glorious fact that He is now in you, patiently waiting for you to act, press on to know the secret of His fullness.
To recapitulate, we believe God's Word teaches:
That every believer has received the Holy Ghost, the gift of the Holy Ghost—the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
That the simple secret of His thus incoming is Repentance and Faith.
That there is a fullness of the Holy Ghost, greater than that usually thus received at conversion.
That there are certain conditions of this fullness, different from the conditions on which the Holy Ghost is received (that is, one may receive the Holy Ghost, yet not know His fullness); lastly
That the secret of His fullness is—what?