I have had a sense for some time of a growing burden and
constraint to a reconsideration or re-emphasis upon the work of
the Holy Spirit. The Lord would have us now take but a small
fragment of that whole matter, and I ask you to turn for our
clause to 1 Cor. 2:14, and a part of the first sentence in that
verse which is this: "the things of the Spirit of God", "the
things of the Spirit".
The Dispensation of the Holy Spirit
It is common knowledge that God has arranged the course of this
world's history in what we call ages or dispensations, which
simply means that at given and different times a certain character
is given to that period. There are the past dispensations which
had their own character and nature and regime. There will be
future dispensations called in the New Testament "the ages of
the ages". They again will have their own particular
characteristics. We are in one of these arrangements of God, and
it is common knowledge that God has so arranged the course of this
world's history. It is also common knowledge that the advent of
the Holy Spirit on that particular occasion which has come to be
known as the day of Pentecost marked a change in the nature of the
ages. That day saw a change of dispensations. That day brought in
the dispensation in which we still live which has its own
particular and peculiar characteristic different from all the
others. This, of course, is a commonly accepted truth, but the
failure to recognise adequately the nature of the change which
took place on that day has resulted in nine-tenths of all that
which does not bring honour to the Lord Jesus, or really to
Christianity. There is a great deal that does not honour the Lord
Jesus in the present state of Christianity as we know it. There is
that which almost everyone deplores regarding this condition. I
mean there are very few people who do not deplore the divisions
among Christians and many other things like that, and these have
brought about a state which really does not glorify our Lord, and
makes room for much that He would not have and would not be if He
had things according to His own mind.
The Holy Spirit's Work in This Age
Now there are four great connections of the Holy Spirit in this
age. They are these -
(a) The Relationship of the Holy Spirit to the
Man in Heaven
Firstly, the Holy Spirit is related to the perfected Man in
heaven as His, the Holy Spirit's, vision, objective and passion.
In other words, the Holy Spirit has come as committed to that One
at God's right hand, the perfected Man, to work everything in this
earth in relation to Him. He is the sole and inclusive objective
of the Holy Spirit's work in this dispensation. And the Holy
Spirit's passion is Jesus Christ in heaven as God's model for a
new creation. That is the first thing.
(b) An Alteration in Man's Being
The second great thing with which the Holy Spirit is connected in
this age is the alteration in man's very being, to make a
fundamental difference in the very being of man, basically and
progressively, and that is a great thing.
(c) Calling out a People into Life-Union with
Christ
The third thing is the calling out from the nations of a people
into life-union with Christ by which the church which is His Body,
is formed. That is the commitment made by the Holy Spirit to the
Lord Jesus Himself, to get His Body for Him, to make that Body
suitable to Him, and to take that Body back to Him. All the
energies of the Holy Spirit are church-ward, related to the
building of the Body of Christ by gathering and building up. That
is simply the fulfilment of the Lord's own words: "I will build
my church" (Matt. 16:18). Seeing that so soon after He said
those words, He went back to glory without doing anything, or very
little, about it, it is evident that it was handed over to the
Holy Spirit to fulfil the thing that He had said He would do.
(d) The Commissioning and Empowering of the Church
for World Ministry
And fourthly, the Holy Spirit has as His work the commissioning
and empowering of the church for a world mission and ministry, to
anoint the church. And I underline the church. It is very
important to underline that because that takes us back to what we
said at the beginning, an inadequate apprehension of the meaning
of the coming of the Holy Spirit has led to many weaknesses and
defectivenesses. It is the church that is the anointed vessel for
a world commission and ministry. That has been missed. If only the
church as a whole had stood into the anointing and the commission,
we should have seen a continuance of what was at the beginning,
but that has been largely lost, although there is a coming back to
that now.
Now, within those four things, as you will realise, a whole lot
of other things will be found.
The Bringing About of a Vital Union with God
and Man
We pass to the second, the alteration in man's being as the work
to which the Holy Spirit has committed Himself, and for which He
has come, and the first aspect of that great change by the work
and power of the Holy Spirit is to bring about a vital union
between man and God, a vital union between man and God in Jesus
Christ; aliveness to God in a very immediate, real, conscious way,
something altogether new as to man's consciousness of God, an
aliveness to God and God's aliveness to man. That is the first
phase and stage of this work of the Holy Spirit with regard to
man's very being.
By New Birth
This involves what the New Testament speaks of as new birth,
being born anew. This is the rebirth of a certain faculty by which
man is able to have this aliveness to God. The Word of God has
this phrase: "The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord"
(Prov. 20:27). Now, a lamp is a very definite and concrete object.
A lamp is something in itself. It is not just something abstract.
A lamp is a definite object. The lamp of the Lord is the spirit of
man. When Adam was disobedient, that lamp went out. The spirit of
man was no longer the lamp of the Lord in that man. The lamp went
out, the light went out. And so right through the Bible it is
assumed and declared that man by nature is in darkness, man by
nature is blind, man by nature is without understanding, man by
nature does not have the knowledge which is life. The Lord Jesus
built His whole coming and ministry upon that fact. "I am come
a light into the world" (John 12:46). "(I came) into this
world, that they that see not may see" (John 9:39). "This
is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God,
and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ" (John
17:3). To know, to know. It is assumed and taken for granted that
man is in the dark, blind, without knowledge, and without
understanding.
Now, the great passage which gathers all that into itself is the
whole of that verse from which we took the part, 1 Cor. 2:14: "Now
the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them,
because they are spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual
judges all things". What have we got here? We ought to read
the whole chapter, and I suggest to you that you do read this
chapter again very carefully as soon as possible. In verse 10 we
have this phrase: "For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the
deep things of God." Now that is said in connection with
what has just gone before. "Things which eye saw not, and ear
heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man" -
strong words - "whatsoever things God prepared for them that
love Him. But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for
the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God."
Those deep things of God are things which "no eye has seen, no ear
has heard, things whereof no vision ever dawned on human heart,
all those things which God has made ready for those who love Him".
That is how Way [Arthur S. Way] translates that verse very
beautifully. And the covering statement is that the natural man is
shut out of all that, he just cannot know the deep things of God,
he just cannot know all these things, for the natural eye has not
seen, the natural ear has not heard, the natural heart has not
conceived or perceived all this. The natural man is utterly at a
discount, disadvantage and incapacitated in the realm of the
things of God. That is a very thoroughgoing statement, very
drastic, very comprehensive, and all that was closed down to man
when Adam disobeyed God.
Something, then, has got to be done in man if he is to come back
into the realm where the deep things of God are an open book to
him, where the things which eye never saw, ear never heard, heart
never perceived, are all open; the heritage and the inheritance of
man. Something has got to happen to change that state and make
that true. It is stated not as something that is going to be later
on. This does not belong to the hereafter, to heaven, when we
shall see. No, this is something which came in on the day of
Pentecost. "God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit." The lamp
has been relit, the light has been reborn, the faculty which is
the lamp of spiritual life, light, understanding, knowledge,
perception and inheritance, has been brought into new life. That
is the new birth. It is the spirit of man which lost its power of
knowing God and the things of God, brought back into life as from
the dead, brought back into the light as out of darkness, brought
back into knowledge as out from ignorance, brought back into sight
as out from blindness. This is the very beginning of the Christian
life. Oh, if that were entered into, apprehended and really was
true of every Christian, am I not right in saying that that which
exists would not exist? And that is putting it rather mildly. So
we begin in nature with an incapacitated man where God is
concerned and all His things, and then, with the coming of the
Holy Spirit and the receiving of the Holy Spirit and the work of
the Holy Spirit in new birth, now man is capacitated. He has a
faculty that he never before possessed in nature quickened and
made alive.
This whole matter is first of all initial as to a faculty. We
have got to realise this, and this is a point upon which so much
depends, a faculty there renewed, quickened and energised by the
Spirit of God, for knowing the deep things of God. It is not just
a matter of information from without. It is not just a matter of
what you get in addresses, teachings, ministries, messages and
books. You can just cram yourself with information about God and
the things of God, you can read it up and get all that kind of
knowledge and give it out as though it were your knowledge, and
yet it is second-hand. What the Spirit of God does is to make
everything original in us, firsthand, and if it is not that, we
are simply living on something objective outside of ourselves,
such as sermons and what not.
Vital Union with God
But I said 'vital' union with God. That is indicated in further
words in this chapter. "Who among men knows the things of a
man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him?" Well,
brethren, you and I can understand one another, up to a point at
any rate, just because we are fellow-men; we know how men think
and how men feel and how men act. We are men, and there is
something in us which we have in common with which is a man's
life, which gives us ability to understand one another. "Even so",
says the apostle, "the things of God none knows save the Spirit of
God". Only the Spirit of God understands the things of God,
because They have everything in common. Now, the natural man does
not understand God or the things of God. We know that, even though
we are Christians, how limited we are in our own natural life in
understanding God. We have got to have some knowledge and
understanding of God that we do not possess naturally, otherwise
we are defeated and baffled. Only the Spirit of God understands
God because They are God in common.
Now, if the Spirit of God comes into us and begins to operate in
us, we are lifted on to a higher level altogether than the man
level, and the Spirit begins through this renewed faculty to make
us able to understand the things of God, and so it is to him to
whom the Spirit reveals. It begins with a faculty in us. Oh, it is
a wonderful thing, I think the most wonderful thing in the whole
Christian life, apart from the grace of God, this faculty. It is a
tremendous thing to have got the key, got the secret, for it to be
there, in union with the Spirit of God to have a faculty in
yourself for seeing and grasping the things of God. It is the
greatest thing that we can possibly have. Just think of all this
that is closed to the natural man, the deep things of God and all
that is said about the deep things of God, and then follow on and
say, "God has revealed them to us", and it is because He has done
something in us. Are you in the good of that? Oh, it is not
perfect. It is initial by a faculty being renewed, and so the man
is a changed being with this very faculty. But it is also
progressive, and it is progressive along two lines or in two ways.
By Revelation
Two words are used in the Scripture. "God has revealed them to
us by his Spirit", that is, by revelation. Now, let me say
with all the emphasis that I can command that that does not mean a
new revelation additional to the Scriptures, but it does mean
revelation of what, even in the Scriptures, is not open to the
natural mind. Revelation is as to God's meaning in His Word. You
know the prayer of the apostle: "that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him" (Eph. 1:17).
This is to Christians...
(The last 5 minutes of this message are missing). Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.