As believers, a
vast
inheritance is ours, for we are “heirs of God, and Christ’s joint
heirs” (Rom. 8: 17). This inheritance is beyond the ability of the
greatest human mind to grasp, and baffles the most prodigious
imagination on earth—for what creature intelligence can take in the
vast inheritance of God? But this is not all, for the “earnest of
our inheritance” (Eph. 1: 14)—the One who makes it real—is the
Spirit of God, and the earnest is greater than the inheritance
itself. The gift of the Spirit is thus the greatest gift that God
can confer upon His beloved people.
The Lord spoke of this great gift on the eve of His departure out of
the world, giving His disciples to understand that they would be
better off in the possession of the Spirit (see John 14: 12;
16: 7) than they were in having His bodily presence in their midst.
While the Lord was here upon earth, He could only be said to be
with
them, but when He was glorified and the
Spirit here, the Lord (by the Spirit—see 1 John 3: 24) would be
in
them. He says, “In that day ye shall know that
I [am] in my Father, and ye in me, and I
in you”
(John 14. 20).
The Spirit could not be given until Christ was glorified (see John 7: 39)
because the new order of relationships and blessings for man were
not brought fully to light until redemption was accomplished and Christ set
on high at the right hand of God. The Spirit was not promised in
connection with Adam, either innocent or guilty, but with the new
sphere and order of things which lay in the purpose of God “before
[the] world’s foundation” (Eph. 1: 4). He was sent in connection
with the determination of God to “head up all things in the Christ”
(v10), and to set up the redeemed “holy and blameless before him in
love” (v4) maintained in divine power before His face by “the Holy
Spirit of promise” (v14).
Think of the intimacy with God into which this wonderful gift brings
its recipients! The Apostle asks the question in 1 Corinthians 2:
“For who of men hath known the things of a man except the spirit of
the man which is in him?” (v11). There can be only one answer to
such a question, and the answer is, No man. Had I the spirit of
another I should know all about him. I should know him as well as he
knows himself. There would be none of his thoughts, feelings, or
affections hidden from me. Nothing of that man would remain a secret
from me. But we have got the Spirit of God!
What for? That we might know the things that are “freely given to us
of God” (v12). Could we know them without the Spirit? No, for they
are “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which
have not come into man’s heart” (v9). But the Spirit knows them,
“for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God” (v10).
There is nothing hidden from the Spirit, and from the divine
treasury “God has revealed to us by [his] Spirit” (v10)
things
above and beyond the limits of man’s imagination.
By Him we become acquainted with the counsels of the Father. By Him
we are enabled to enter into the greatness of the revelation God has
made of Himself in Christ. By Him we are in the enjoyment of the
love of God that was declared in the cross of Christ, for it has
been “shed abroad in our hearts by [the] Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5: 5).
By Him we know that we are children of God. By Him we are enabled to address God as our Father. By Him we are
able to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. By
His power we are made free from the law of sin which works in our
members, and through His power we produce fruit towards God. He is
also the power for all worship and service. In fact He is the power
of all our relationships with God, for He is the power of the life
we have from, and in, the risen Christ. How very thankful we should
be for such an unspeakable gift!
Were we able to communicate our spirit to another person there is not a
soul on earth to whom we would give such a gift, for we would never
wish people to know us too intimately. We are too evil to desire to
be well known. By contrast, God desires us to know Him in order that
all our delight might be in Him. With men, the better we know them
in their natural condition the more we recoil from more than a very
limited degree of familiarity with them. With God, the better we
know Him, the more closely we are drawn to Him, and the happier we
are. It is that we might find our home in His presence that He has
bestowed upon us this gift of His Holy Spirit.
If we contemplate for a moment the greatness of this gift He has
given for us, we shall not be so much surprised at the
gift He has given to
us. In Christ, God has
Himself provided a lamb for the sacrifice in order that “whosoever
believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal” (John 3: 16).
Can we, as we reflect on that love, wonder that He who gave His own
Son to die our death and save us from our woe, should give His Holy
Spirit to us? Seeing He has given up to the judgment of the cross
His well–beloved, we need not be surprised at anything He may give
us after that, for “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but
delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him grant us
all things?" (Rom. 8: 32). As the gift of the Son was the only thing
that could meet our deep need as sinners, so was the gift of the
Spirit the only thing that could meet our need in view of the
position given to us in divine counsel, for it is only by His power
we can occupy that place. Wonderful gift!
