The Promise of the Father
"Oh, to be like Thee, Lord, I am coming
Now to receive the anointing divine!"
That last clause might well be taken to compass and cover what we
are going to consider at this time - the "anointing divine". We
will look at some fragments of Scripture:
"And behold, I send forth the promise of My Father upon you;
but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on
high" (Luke 24:49).
"And, being assembled together with them, He charged them not
to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the
Father, which, said He, ye heard from Me; for John indeed
baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit
not many days hence" (Acts 1:4).
"Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath
poured forth this, which ye see and hear" (Acts 2:33).
"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a
curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that
hangeth on a tree; that upon the Gentiles might come the
blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; that we might receive the
promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:13).
You will have noted that the coming of the Holy Spirit is so
frequently referred to as "the promise of the Father", and if you
study the contextual references to that phrase, you will find that
the gift of the Holy Spirit was a promise with a very long history
- that is, it dates right back to Abraham. In this one fragment
Paul stated quite clearly and definitely that the promise made to
Abraham would have its fulfilment by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That promise of God was repeated again and again through the
Scriptures, and it revived, or had a special emphasis, in the
prophets. You will find Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel and
Zechariah all have something quite strong to say about the coming
of the Spirit or the Day of the Spirit.
"The promise of the Father" was a long-standing promise, and
therefore, a long-standing hope. The point, of course, which is so
impressive, is this, that while Christ is the central and supreme
figure in all the Scriptures, all the meaning and value of Christ
in every respect, was only made effective here by the coming of
the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself said that would be so: If He "did
not go away, the Spirit would not come"; it was "expedient that He
should go away" for that very reason, surely indicating and
implying that all that He had come to do, and did, waited for its
practical effectiveness in the coming of the Spirit. Christ's
life, Christ's work, and Christ's power as Son of Man here, was
dependent entirely upon the anointing. He fulfilled all His
ministry in dependence upon the anointing, by all that the
anointing meant. It was true in His case, and the Word of God
bears that out abundantly, it must be all the more true, certainly
equally true in the case of the church, that the church's life and
work, ministry, and power rest solely upon the anointing of the
Holy Spirit. And what is true of the whole, is true of every part,
every individual. We may have everything that Christ has said and
done, we may have it all, but it means nothing without the
anointing. That, of course, is well-known from the fact that He
had given His teaching in great fullness; He had done His mighty
works, He had lived His wonderful life, He had died His tremendous
death, He had risen again in triumph over death. And we might
think that is enough to get on with and to go out with, but at
that very point, with all that present, He says: "Tarry": "Don't
go yet; depart not from Jerusalem yet, wait, that is not enough!"
"...till the Spirit come". That is tremendously impressive.
That is where we begin; it is not fresh light, I am aware of
that, but we must be impressed, I feel, more than ever, with the
tremendous thing that has happened in the giving of the Holy
Spirit. I trust that that is what we are going to be impressed
with more than ever in these chapters.
The Holy Spirit Given by the Father to the Son
The next thing for us to note is that the Holy Spirit was given
by the Father to the Son on the completion of the whole cycle of
redemption. He left the glory: He came "out of the ivory palaces",
"He emptied himself", He laid aside His garments of glory, He came
here and accepted the situation of a bond-slave, the fashion of a
man; carried through His great mission, and completed redemption,
and returned to the Father, carrying with Him that completed and
finished work. At that time the Father, according to these words,
gave Him the Spirit: "Being therefore, at the right hand of God
exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Spirit...". The giving to the Son of the Holy Spirit therefore was
God's seal upon a finished work. If therefore, you or I are to
come into the good of the Holy Spirit as God's gift to the Son, it
will be God's gift to faith in Christ and His perfected and finish
work. That is a statement of fact, but it is also a challenge.
So many of our lives are powerless and bring little honour to the
Lord. We are weak and deficient, not because He has not provided
the Holy Spirit to make it otherwise, but because we are not
resting fully and finally upon a perfected work done by the Lord
Jesus. Put in another way, while we are in doubt or are in any way
weak as to this matter of Christ's perfected work of redemption,
the Holy Spirit stands back. It is a terrible thing for a
Christian, who is really an heir of the Holy Spirit, not to be
living in the good of the gift of God, the promise of the Father.
Settle this whole matter, that there is nothing more to be done,
"He has by one offering, perfected (made complete for ever!) them
that come unto God by Him" and you have cleared the way for the
Spirit. Live in any other way that raises a question about that -
uncertainty about your redemption, your salvation, your
acceptance, which means raising a doubt as to whether Christ has
done it all, and the Spirit stands with a veil over His face,
grieved. That is a terrible state to be in.
And so I repeat that the Holy Spirit was given to the Son as the
Father's seal upon the accomplishment of the entire circle of
redemption, and the Holy Spirit is given to us, abides with us,
and makes His presence real with us when we rest upon the ground
of God's giving of the Spirit to His Son - the work finished!
The Spirit of Sonship
Then we go on. The next thing we note is the particular significance
of the gift of the Spirit. "And coming up out of the water, and
praying, the heaven was opened, and a voice came out of heaven,
saying, "Thou art My beloved Son." The particular significance of
the gift of the Spirit is that He is given as the Spirit of
sonship. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of
His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." It is true
in the case of Christ Himself as Son of Man. In His incarnation,
the Holy Spirit indicated by coming upon Him that He was God's
Son, that this One is marked out in sonship; it is true
of Christ Himself. It is true in the same way of the believer. It
is by the receiving of the Holy Spirit that we receive sonship. We
are born into the family; we are marked out as sons of God. The
Spirit of sonship - we have more to say about that later. For the
time being, let us note what that indicates. It does represent a
momentous thing in the history of this creation; it represents and
indicates no less a thing than God restarting a divine family, of
which Christ is the first. Think of that! God restarting a divine
family.
The first Adam was created by God, put on probation by God, but
was never adopted. Adoption comes by way of fulfilled probation to
the satisfaction of God. The Last Adam was born, probationed, and
adopted! The giving of the Spirit to Him was the adoption, that
is, the attesting of Him as God's Son. So the Holy Spirit is the
Spirit of adoption and He is called in the Word the Spirit of
adoption. That means, in this family which God has recommenced in
His Son (a tremendously significant thing in the history of this
whole creation) God has started over again to build a divine
family - sons of God.
Paul makes a tremendous thing of that, as you know, in his letter
to the Romans. He says the whole of this old, fallen and cursed
creation groans and travails in pain. What is it groaning for?
"Waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God". "And we who
groan within ourselves, are waiting for our adoption." That is,
those who are sons shall be manifested.
So the Holy Spirit is the seal and sign of sonship, of membership
of the family, of being in this new thing that God is doing, of
which He is, in a peculiar sense, the Father. It gives new
emphasis, significance, to the very words used: "the promise of",
not God, but "the Father" - "the promise of the Father", implying
sonship in its fulfilment, carrying with it sonship, when the
promise is fulfilled. It is all so bound up together as a whole.
The church is Christ in a corporate way. Paul says in 2
Corinthians: "We are anointed in Christ... and (God) has anointed
us in Him." The church is in Christ, is Christ corporate, by the
Holy Spirit. And so, the Holy Spirit coming brings us into the
Body of Christ, and it is in the Body of Christ that sonship is
attested by the Holy Spirit.
Adoption into God's Family
Further, all the divine values and interests are bound up
inseparably with sonship. Be very clear about that. Let me repeat,
all the divine values and interests are bound up with sonship. It
is the one thing that God has ever had in His heart, in His mind,
in the creation and existence of man. God has vested all His
interests in sonship. This matter of sonship is immense in its
significance. There is no greater and higher thought in this
universe than sonship. That brings us back to the beginning and I
would that we recognized it in a new way, to take account of the
tremendous significance of a new birth, of one person being born
anew into the family, receiving the Spirit, and entering into
sonship. It is what Christ came for and He leaves us in no doubt
whatever as to its meaning and significance. He will repeat three
times over: "There is joy in heaven among the angels over one
sinner that repenteth." He will put into the balances all the
traditions and oracles, the visions, the prophets and the law, and
all that has been in the Old Testament, on the one side, and on
the other: "You must be born again." And that all goes for nothing
if this is not true (and that is not a small 'all'). No, this is
what Christ came for, to bring this family into being through
adoption. That is the mighty work of the Holy Spirit, to bring
about the birth into this family.
It is no small thing for one to be born again. This is a matter
which has suffered perhaps as much as any, if not more, than any
matter in the way of prejudice. This whole matter of evangelism
has suffered much by the cheapness associated with it. It has
suffered much by worldliness being allied to it. It has suffered
immensely by not relating to all that God means by having sons, in
being made something in itself, just 'being saved', just being
born again. It has suffered much through prejudice of an
inadequate apprehension of what it means to be 'born again' in the
family of God. It is not less evangelism that is needed, but what
is needed is the fulness of the meaning of a soul being saved. It
should be given its tremendous significance from heaven's
standpoint as being all that ever Christ came for, and all that
ever the Holy Spirit came for. The church would be a very
different thing, and Christians would be very different people if
only there was from the beginning a greater knowledge of what is
involved in being brought into the family of God or receiving the
Holy Spirit, which is the same thing.
Enmity Against God's Children
Yes, there is a tremendous significance about this matter. In
this life you and I will probably never fathom that significance.
If we did but understand our own history and experience, and the
experience of all the Lord's children, we should understand what
it means to have received the Holy Spirit. You see, the presence
of a divine seed in this earth, in this cosmic realm is the
occasion of a bitter controversy. You ask, what is all the trouble
about, all the conflict, all the pressure? What is it all about,
that this world is in a turmoil and a ferment? What is all this
experience of ours, of suffering, and trial, and adversity, and
conflict, and pressure? The answer is: the presence of a divine
seed in this universe.
Now, what I am going to say can be wrongly interpreted, but what
I mean is quite true that wherever there are Christians, there
will be trouble - make no mistake about it! The presence of
Christians in this universe is the occasion of all the trouble.
There are many illustrations of this in the Old Testament. All the
trouble in Egypt was because God had a divine seed in Egypt and in
the end, like Jonah's whale, Egypt was glad to vomit them out!
Babylon was glad to get rid of them! It is like that; their
presence represents something of tremendous disturbance and
challenge. That explains our trouble! Until this thing is brought
to its final issue, (we shall probably be speaking about that
again later) the trouble will go on. Once we have it all to
ourselves, then it will all be at rest. And we are going to have
it all to ourselves; that is the end. The sons are going to
possess. The end of this controversy is going to come about, and
we shall be on top then indeed; there will be no one underneath!
It will be settled. In the meantime things become more and more
acute, and it is the very presence of this divine seed that is the
occasion of all the controversy. Yes, it is no insignificant thing
to be a child of God and to have the Holy Spirit.
The Bible teaches that all these immense issues of life,
conflict, work, service, can only be secured and carried through
by the anointing. It teaches this in type and figure in the Old
Testament, in many forms and representations, and in the history
of God's people. The Spirit's presence was the guarantee of
reaching the divine end. The withdrawing of the Spirit meant that
the people lost the thing for which they were the people of God.
But, what is set forth there historically and typologically, is
infinitely more true spiritually in our own dispensation. We are
only going to get through, survive, fulfil our mission, do our
work by the anointing. There is no other hope. If it was true of
Jesus, it is true of the church, and of every believer.
For the present, what are our conclusions? First of all, the Holy
Spirit brings into this world and universe, a different and a
unique kind of manhood, or creature, or creation - something
different, the like of which is not to be found anywhere else. A
different kind of creature, person, order of being, spiritually,
first of all. It ought to be very evident to you and to every true
child of God that whatever there may be of the old deep down in
the deepest part of our being, there is a difference from all
others who are not in Christ. We know it, we are aware of it; it
is the most real thing in our consciousness and experience that we
are different. A difference has been made; it is a difference as
stark as that between light and darkness; between life and death.
However much that consciously means to us, it is the basic fact of
our very existence as the people of God. Something has been done,
has happened, in us; we may not understand or be able to explain,
but it has happened in us. Those who have not come that way cannot
understand us, and it is no use trying to explain ourselves to
them, they never will understand until they come the same way.
That basic, initial difference, which is the mark of sonship, of
the Spirit's presence and operation, is the thing on which the
Spirit works continually, all the way through our lives. But it
begins in a spiritual way; it is a spiritual thing. It is also a
moral thing. I use that word in its largest sense; a difference
has been made morally. I want to say something more about that
now.
It is something that you and I have got to see, and then lay hold
of, that the presence of the Holy Spirit results in a moral
difference in us. And by that I do not only mean that it makes us
more 'moral', decent people, respectable people. I mean by that
that it brings into us a dignity which is the beginning of
something which at last is going to be consummated in 'kingship'.
It is the spirit of kingship that has been introduced. The
presence of the Holy Spirit, making any man or woman a member of
this reconstituted divine family, gives to that man and woman a
dignity which distinguishes them, or should distinguish them, (I
say it with care) a 'superior' order of people in this universe.
Safeguard the words 'superior order'; don't let us think wrongly
of ourselves, more highly than we ought to think, as being some
very important people. But, here is the spiritual truth. It is a
most dignified thing to be a member of the family of God. Could a
higher and greater dignity be conferred upon anyone? We are
children of the Great King of the Royal Family, destined to reign.
It is this that is introduced with His gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now note that the one thing which Satan has always sought to do,
by any conceivable means, is to dishonour and degrade the sons of
God, to bring reproach upon the Father by way of the children.
Look at Israel in Egypt! Do you know how the story begins about
Israel in Egypt? It begins like this: "Now these are the names of
the sons of Jacob... went down into Egypt" - sons of a 'prince
with God'; sons of an anointed man. Of that people in Egypt, God
said: "Let my son go." You see, in figure, here are the sons of
God. But look, if Satan is typified by Pharaoh, and his kingdom by
Egypt, what is the one thing he determines? To degrade and make
slaves of them and make them use their strength and their lives to
bring 'kudos' (glory, renown) to the prince of this world. That is
a long story with many sides and aspects. What may be true in the
historical sense in the Old Testament is exactly what is happening
now! What is all this work of the enemy about, upon you and upon
me, the pressure and the harassment, the confusion, and what not?
What is it all about? To make us cringing, self-despising,
self-pitying, all sorry for ourselves, people who are afraid to
lift up our heads and look the world in the face! Isn't that true?
Is not that the effect that suffering, adversity and trial can
have upon us? They rob us of our spiritual dignity as 'princes
with God'. The devil is doing it, and he is trying hard at this
thing, there is no doubt about it!
How shall we lift up our heads? How shall we be what we are from
God's standpoint - sons of God? How shall we be in the ascendant,
reigning in life? How shall we be freed from all this that makes
us in the eyes of men such a despicable crowd? By the anointing,
only, but truly! That is why He is given, to bring this dignity
among the people of God. No, not pride - God forbid! Not conceit
or self-sufficiency, but, yes, with our head, perhaps bleeding
from many a battering, yet not bowed; our spirits wounded in the
conflict, but not finished! "Though I fall, yet shall I rise"!
That is the Spirit of Christ! That is what I mean by a 'moral'
difference. Oh, I take this to my heart, do you? We need the
Spirit, but we have the Spirit! What is required? You and I must
recognize, first of all, what a thing God has done in giving us
the Holy Spirit. It is a fact! We have to recognize the ground on
which He has given the Spirit - the finished work of His Son,
"...has given us the Spirit". And then, with both hands, by faith,
we lay hold of the gift. In the hour, the day, that is
dark, contrary and difficult, and we are tempted; let us, by the
grace of God, say: 'But, I have the Holy Spirit dwelling within
me, and that is the answer!' We have the answer because of the
anointing. "Anoint the shield and the battle-axe" - there is great
fighting in the anointing.
I must leave it there, but do remember that all our discipline,
conflict and travail is bound up with this matter of sonship. The
transforming from the one old type, to the new type in Christ, is
by way of terrible discipline and travail, which is a painful
process of going through the transforming course and work to be
changed from one likeness to another. But you see, that is exactly
what Paul meant in words, perhaps, as familiar to us as any words
in the Bible: "All things work together for good to them that love
God and are the called according to His purpose." What good? All
things? Yes, this discipline, this suffering, this affliction,
this adversity, this seeming frustration - all this, all these
things - what are they doing? They are the stuff of our
transformation by which we are being changed from one form to
another; from what we are in ourselves to what we are in Christ.
It is infinite good! God has hold of it all; God works that good
in all these things to them that love Him.