03 - Chapter 03
CHAPTER III. The Work of the Holy Spirit under Messiah’s reign, and in what respects it differed from that under Moses. 1. In the measure of Divine influence imparted to individuals. The great atonement, by the blood of the Messiah, opened the door for a wider and richer display of God’s mercy and generosity towards sinners. God’s government is vast! Countless are the hosts which are interested in it! It is evident from the Scriptures, that beings, other than those of the earth, looked with wondering eyes on God’s treatment of a world of sinners! When the angels sinned, at once the law was executed, an(jl they were cast out of heaven! But when man had sinned, punishment was largely withheld! The judgment was delayed, and pity and mercy and love combined to bring him to repentance! What did it mean? Was it possible that the Great Father and Governor was so moved by sympathy for his children, born in a world where devils roamed and tempted them, that he would fail to stand by the law which had hitherto been held so sacred. And when the mercy seat was planted in the tabernacle, and offerings made thereon, angels are represented as looking down upon it and studying into its meaning! Paul interprets the cherubim above the mercy seat as meaning, "which things the angels desire to look into." But when the Lamb of God condescended to human incarnation! to humiliation so low! and at last poured out his blood on the Altar of Sacrifice! then were the seals of the great mystery broken! and the Cherubim above the mercy seat flew back to heaven crying, Amen! Amen! God is just and God is gracious! And his fidelity to his government can be questioned nevermore! No, not if millions of repentant prodigals are forgiven and restored! And now open wider than ever the windows of heaven and let richer showers than ever fall upon men I If we are asked to show that larger measures of the Spirit are imparted to persons since Jesus came than ever before, we refer to Peter preaching after he had received the holy baptism in which 3,000 were converted in one day, and that in a city notorious for its prejudice against Christ and His disciples! In vain is previous history searched for a parallel with the power which attended that day’s preaching. So too, the Apostle Paul stands head and shoulders above the seers and prophets of the Old Testament in the marvelous power which attended his footsteps, while "from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum, he fully preached the Gospel of Christ!" So of many others, the companions or successors of these men. Baptised with the Holy Ghost they went every where preaching the word, planting Churches, and leading sinners to Christ in numbers so great that kings on their thrones saw the signs of the Son of Man coming in his kingdom with power and great glory! No section of earth’s previous history, shows anything like a similar endowment of Spiritual .power! Coming down to more modern times, we behold Wesley and Whitfield, men as entirely dissimilar in mental traits, as two men well could be. Yet both filled with the Holy Ghost, and each leading unto the Lord, in his own way, men and women in numbers far beyond those so led by any of the Old Testament Prophets, or even Peter and Paul in the new! Later still, and even in our own times, men like Spurgeon in Europe, and Moody and Mills in America, astonish the world, by the power which attends them in preaching the Gospel. Did not Jesus say, John 14:12, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater’ works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father!" But there is another difference in the operations of the Spirit, under the new dispensation which distinguishes it from the old.
2d. In the enlarged area of his work. Under the first Dispensation, while he was everywhere doing his work among the sons of men, leaving not a single soul destitute of his influence, his first and especial work was among the lost sheep of the House of Israel, raising up prophets among them, imparting to them a special revelation, walling them in also and separating them born the nations by special institutions and promises. But the seers of the Old Testament clearly foresaw, this was not always so to be, They beheld in Messiah’s day, the partition wall broken down, and thus they prophesied, "It shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh!" "It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it, and many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths. And he shall judge among the nations and rebuke many peoples and they shall beat their swords into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more! Passages like these abound in the Old Testament, and they teach, what facts abundantly show, that on Messiah’s day, the work and success of the Holy Spirit, would be greater outside the Jewish people, than within their borders!
3. Unusual classes of people receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit under the new dispensation. In the old, his special gifts were largely confined to the priesthood, the seers, and the first-born in the family. Now, all were invited to share in it, the sons and daughters, the young men and old men, the servants and handmaidens; not one is excluded! what ever their employments, or social condition, the greatest of heaven’s gifts is laid at their door! The language conveying the gift is this, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men dream dreams, and on the servants and on the handmaidens, will I pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." That is, they shall like the ancient prophets preach the will of God, with the manifest sanction of his power! This precious truth, that every Christian in Messiah’s day could receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, received clear illustration and confirmation in the Pentecostal object lesson. In that wonderful outpouring of the Spirit, the cloven tongue as of fire sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and glorified God, as the Spirit gave them utterance!