The Ministry of the Spirit by A. J. Gordon (good fiction books to read .txt) 📕

We believe that the apostolic office has passed away, the qualification therefor, that of having been a witness of the Lord's resurrection, being now impossible. But the office of pastor, elder, bishop, or {137} teacher of the flock still remains. And the divine plan is that this office should be filled, just as in the beginning, by the appointment of the Holy Ghost. Nor can we doubt that if there is a prayerful waiting upon him for guidance, and a sanctified submission to his will when it is made known, he will now choose pastors and set them over their appointed flocks just as manifestly as he did in the beginning. Very beautiful is the picture in Revelation of the glorified Lord, moving among the candlesticks. There are "seven golden candlesticks" now, not one only as in the Jewish temple. The Church of God is manifold, not a unit.[2] He who "walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks" "holdeth the seven stars in his right hand." These stars are "the angels of the seven churches"—their ministers or bishops as generally understood. The Lord holds them in his right hand. Does he not require us to ask of him alone for their bestowal? Yes. "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest" (Luke 10: 2). There is no intimation in Scripture that we are to apply anywhere but to him for the ministry of his church. Does he not give {138} such ministry, and he alone? Yes. "When he ascended on high . . . he gave some . . . pastors and teachers." And now, speaking to the church in Ephesus, the elders of which, chosen by the Holy Ghost, Paul had so affectionately exhorted, he is seen in the attitude of Chief-shepherd and Bishop—giving pastors with his own hand; placing them with his own right hand, and warning the church that though they have tried and rejected false apostles, they have nevertheless left their "first love." Significant word! On this love our Lord conditioned the indwelling of the Father and of the Son through the Holy Spirit (John 14: 23). Losing this the peril becomes imminent that the candlestick may be removed out of its place; and so the warning is solemnly announced: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Without the Spirit the candlestick can shed forth no light, and loses its place of testimony.

Dead churches, whose witness has been silenced, whose place has been vacated, even though the lifeless form remains, have we not seen such? And what is the safeguard against them, if not that found in the apostle's warning: "Quench not the Spirit?" The voice of the Lord must be heard in his church, and to the Holy Ghost alone has been committed the prerogative of communicating that voice. Is there any likelihood that that voice will be heard when the king or prime minister of a civil {139} government holds the sole function of appointing the bishops, as in the case of State churches? Is there any certainty of it when an archbishop or bishop puts pastors over flocks by the action of his single will? We may congratulate ourselves that we are neither in a State church nor under an episcopal bishop; but there are methods of ignoring or repressing the voice of the Holy Ghost, which though simpler and far less apparent than those just indicated, are no less violent. The humble and godly membership of the little church may turn to some pastor, after much prayer and waiting on God for the Spirit's guidance, and the signs of the divine choice may be clearly manifest; when some pulpit committee, or some conclave of "leading brethren," vetoes their action on the ground, perchance, that the candidate is not popular and will not draw. Alas! for the little flock so lorded over that the voice of the Holy Ghost cannot be heard.

And majorities are no more to be depended upon than minorities, if there is in both cases a neglect of patient and prolonged waiting upon the Lord to know his will. Of what value is a "show of hands" unless his are stretched out "who holdeth the seven stars in his right hand?" Of what use is a viva voce choice, except the living voice of Christ be heard speaking by his Spirit? One may object that we are holding up an ideal which is impossible to be realized. It is a difficult ideal we admit, as {140} the highest attainments are always difficult; but it is not an impossible one. It is easier to recite our prayers from a book than to read them from the tables of a prepared heart, where the finger of the Spirit has silently written them; but the more difficult way is the more acceptable way to him who seeks for worshipers who "worship in Spirit and in truth." It is easier to get "the sense of the meeting" in choosing a pastor than to learn "the mind of the Spirit" by patient tarrying and humble surrender to God; but the more laborious way will certainly prove the more profitable way. The failure to take this way is, we are persuaded, the cause of more decay and spiritual death in the churches than we have yet imagined. From the watch-tower where we write we can look out on half a score of churches on which "Ichabod" has been evidently written, and the glory of which has long since departed. They were founded in prayer and consecration, "to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven." Why has their light been extinguished, though the lampstand which once bore it still remains, adorned and beautified with all that the highest art and architecture can suggest? Their history is known to him who walks among the golden candlesticks. What violence may have been done, by headstrong self-will, to him who is called "the Spirit of counsel and might"? What rejection of the truth which he, "the Spirit {141} of truth," has appointed for the faith of God's church till at last the word has been spoken: "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye." Is it only Jewish worshipers to whom these words apply? Is it only a Jewish temple of which this sentence is true: "Behold your house is left unto you desolate"? The Spirit will not be entirely withdrawn from the body of Christ indeed, but there is the Church, and there are churches. A man may yet live and breathe when cell after cell has been closed by congestion till at last he only inhales and exhales with a little portion of one lung. Let him that readeth understand.

The Spirit is the breath of God in the body of his church. While that divine body survives and must, multitudes of churches have so shut out the Spirit from rule and authority and supremacy in the midst of them that the ascended Lord can only say to them: "Thou hast a name to live and art dead." In a word, so vital and indispensable is the ministry of the Spirit, that without it nothing else will avail. Some trust in creeds, and some in ordinances; some suppose that the church's security lies in a sound theology, and others locate it in a primitive simplicity of government and worship; but it lies in none of these, desirable as they are. The body may be as to its organs perfect and entire, wanting nothing; but simply because the Spirit has been {142} withdrawn from it, it has passed from a church into a corpse. As one has powerfully stated it: "When the Holy Spirit withdraws, . . . he sometimes allows the forms which he has created to remain. The oil is exhausted, but the lamp is still there; prayer is offered and the Bible read; church-going is not given up, and to a certain degree the service is enjoyed; in a word religious habits are preserved, and like the corpses found at Pompeii, which were in a perfect state of preservation and in the very position in which death had surprised them, but which were reduced to ashes by contact with the air, so the blast of trial, of temptation, or of final judgment will destroy these spiritual corpses."[3]

2. The Holy Spirit in the Worship and Service of the Church. Is there anything, from highest to lowest, which we are called to do in connection with the worship of God's house, of which the Holy Spirit is not the appointed agent? Believers are the instruments indeed through which he acts; but they have no function apart from his inspiration and guidance, any more than the organ-pipe has without the wind, which breathing through it causes it to resound. To make this clear, we may consider the several parts of the service of the church as we are accustomed to participate in it, and observe their relation to the divine Administrator.

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(1) Preaching is by general consent an important factor of the work of the ministry, both for the pastor and for the evangelist. In what consists its inspiration and authority? We "have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven" (1 Peter 1: 12), is Peter's simple story of the apostolic method. And the words direct our thought to the Spirit not as instrumental but as inspiring. "In the Holy Ghost," the words mean literally. The true preacher does not simply use the Spirit; he is used by the Spirit. He speaks as one moving in the element and atmosphere of the Holy Ghost, and mastered by his divine power.

In this fact the sermon differs immeasurably from the speech, and the preacher from the orator. How distinctly Paul emphasizes this contrast in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 2: 4). The sole substance of his preaching he declares to be "Jesus Christ and him crucified," and the sole inspiration of his preaching, the Holy Ghost: "And my speech was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power." What did good Philip Henry mean by his resolve "to preach Christ crucified in a crucified style"? More perhaps than he thought or knew. "He shall testify of me," is Jesus' saying concerning the promised Paraclete. The Comforter bears witness to the Crucified. No other theme in the pulpit can be sure of commanding his co-operation. {144} Philosophy, poetry, art, literature, sociology, ethics, and history are attractive subjects to many minds, and they who handle such themes in the pulpit may set them forth with alluring words of human genius; but there is no certainty that the Holy Ghost will accompany their presentation with his divine attestation. The preaching of the Cross, in chastened simplicity of speech, has the demonstration of the Spirit pledged to it, as no secular, or moral, or even formal religious discourse has. And when Paul writes to the Thessalonians: "Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance" (1 Thess. 1: 5), we need only to be reminded that "our gospel" meant but one thing to Paul, the setting forth of Jesus Christ crucified in the midst of the people, and we have found the secret of evangelical power. Ought it not therefore to be the supreme question with the preacher, what themes can assuredly command the witness of the Holy Spirit, rather than what topics will enlist the attention of the people? Let us set the popular preacher and the apostolic preacher side by side, and consider whose reward we would choose, universal admiration or "God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles, and gifts