Part 2, Chapter 10

CHAPTER X. THE COMFORTING WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

ALTHOUGH the name Comforter, by which we render the title Paraclete or Advocate, given to the Spirit by Jesus, must be understood to include many more functions besides what we generally mean by comfort; yet there can be no doubt that it does comprehend the narrower use of the word, in the sense of giving consolation in trouble or sorrow; and there are other passages of Scripture that describe the agency of the Holy Spirit in this special way. We must not indeed separate this part of His work from the others; for indeed one great lesson that we should learn from all our consideration of the work of the Holy Spirit is, that no part of it can be isolated from the others, and that the various functions that we ascribe to Him, of convincing, converting, sanctifying, witnessing, interceding, and comforting are rather different aspects of one and the same great work. We cannot study deeply any one of the special works of the Spirit, without finding that it rests upon His agency in creating and fostering spiritual life in the soul, and is but a special form or application of that work. Yet we do well to consider distinctly these several aspects of the Spirit’s work in us; for not only are they all suited to our several wants, but each reveals a special aspect of the Holy Spirit Himself. Thus His converting and sanctifying work especially illustrates His power and His holiness; His function as a witness shows His truth and faithfulness; and above all His agency as the Comforter reveals His love. For this work has to do with men considered as liable to dejection trouble, and sorrow; and has for its object to relieve these painful affections, and to fill our souls with joy. Now this can proceed from nothing but love, desiring and delighting in the happiness of the loved ones. The deliverance of men from actual danger of perishing may be due simply to pity or compassion; their sanctification may be due to a love of holiness; but to seek their comfort is sure evidence of love. Out of mere pity one might procure the release of a criminal from prison; out of zeal for virtue one miaht labour to reform him; but both these ends might be secured though nothing were done to relieve him from sad feelings of gloom and self-reproach, and to make his life positively happy • and if one were found caring for this too, and taking pains to comfort and cheer him, this would show, that such a benefactor was moved, not merely by general philanthropy, but by personal affection. So, when the Holy Spirit is revealed in Scripture as not only saving and sanctifying us, but undertaking the office of a Comforter, to fill us with joy and peace, we see in this a most wonderful evidence of His love. This office the Holy Spirit performs partly by presenting to our minds the objects best fitted to give encouragement and comfort especially the person and work of Christ, and the grace and faithfulness of God therein revealed. This is what Jesus speaks of the Spirit as doing, when He promised Him as a Comforter to supply His place. “He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you;” “He shall bear witness of me; » “ He shall glorify me, for He shall take of mine and declare it unto you” (John 14:26; John 15:26; John 16:14). This is a particular aspect of His work as a witness, of which Jesus speaks more generally. His testimony to the ungodly and unbelieving world is also of Christ, but is such as to produce conviction of sin, and so awaken feelings of distress, anxiety, and alarm. But the person and work of Christ are the only things that can give real comfort to the soul in a religious point of view, and hence to those who look to Christ in faith, this work of the Holy Spirit is truly one of consolation. In giving us ever clearer views and more certain convictions of what Jesus is and has done as our Saviour, the Spirit acts as our Comforter. But He also performs this work inwardly, inasmuch as peace, and joy, and hope, which form the elements of comfort, are the effects of His presence and work in the soul. We read of the disciples who heard in faith the tidings of the grace of God being filled with joy and the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:52); and of the Thessalonians, to whom the gospel came in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance, receiving it with joy of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:5-6). Paul includes in the fruit of the Spirit joy and peace (Galatians 5:1-26), and declares the kingdom of God to be righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17), and prays that God would fill his readers with all joy and peace in believing, that they may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). These passages show that joy is not merely the effect of the truths of the gospel, of which the Holy Spirit gives us evidence, but a direct exercise of that new life in the soul, of which the Holy Spirit is the author. Nor is this a thing hard to explain. Joy is an element of healthy religious life, without which it would be defective. It is right and proper for one who is a child, under the care of an all-wise and loving God, not only to adore and love and trust his Father in heaven, but also to rejoice in thinking of His greatness, His goodness, His love. Indeed, there cannot be genuine religious feeling without some measure of that delight in God that is so often expressed in the devotional utterances of Scripture. If then the Spirit of God produces in us that life of devotion, there cannot but be awakened, as a part of it, holy and religious joy. Thus the Holy Spirit is our Comforter, not only by presenting to us those objects that are fitted to dispel grief and fear, and cause joy and hope, but also by inwardly moving us to cherish and exercise holy joy. The former function is connected with His work as a Teacher and Witness, the latter with His work as the Author and Nourisher of spiritual life. This twofold function may also explain the striking language of Scripture about the sealing and the earnest of the Spirit. When the figure of sealing is used in this connection, it is God who is said to have sealed believers in Christ with the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:30). In the first of these passages, a parallel is drawn between Christ and His followers primarily in regard to stability or constancy of purpose, and then also in regard to those spiritual endowments that produce that constancy. Paul s defending himself against the charge of duplicity or fickleness, of wavering in promise or purpose from yea to nay. He affirms that he had not done so, because Christ, whom he proclaimed as the Son of God, had not done so; and God had made him, and his readers too, stedfast, had established them unto Christ. In allusion to the meaning of that title, he adds, that God had anointed them also, and sealed them. This reminds us of Jesus saying of Himself, “Him the Father, even God, hath sealed” (John 6:27). That was the assurance He gave to the people that they might safely trust Him for the food which abideth unto eternal life. Now as the Holy Spirit is elsewhere compared by Jesus to food (Luke 11:11-13), and as we are taught that Jesus was able to baptize with the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit descended and abode on Him; we are led to regard the sealing He speaks of having received as referring to the gift and manifestation of the Holy Spirit on Him. The sealing in His case was chiefly a testimony to others, though doubtless also to His own human soul; in the case of believers it is mainly for their own encouragement that the seal of the Spirit is referred to. The special use of sealing, to which allusion is made in these applications of the idea, both to Christ and to Christians, seems to be that of marking property to which the owner attaches value, but which may be in danger of being neglected or lost. When God sent His Son into the world, the world knew Him not, and sought for a sign that they might believe. Jesus said, that the Father had borne witness to Him, and sealed Him, and so marked Him out as His own, doing the works of God in the power of His Spirit. So too God takes those who believe in Christ to be His special possession, which He has purchased or obtained for Himself. 1 But they are not at once taken out of the world, but left in it, often unknown and unesteemed by men.

Meanwhile God has marked them for His own, as men mark valued property, with the seal of His Spirit until the time when He shall openly take them to Himself in full possession. This idea is also implied in the use made of the figure of sealing the servants of God in the Apocalyptic vision (Revelation 7:1-8; Revelation 9:4), that they may be marked as those who are to be spared in impending judgments (compare also Ezekiel 9:4-6); but there is no indication to connect that sealing especially with the work of the Spirit. The Pauline idea of the sealing of believers by the Spirit may possibly bear an allusion to the restoration of the image of God through Christ, who is said in Hebrews 1:3 to be the very image of His substance (lit. impress or stamp, as on a seal); but it is not to be identified with the progressive work of moral renewal; for it is always described as done at once, and when we believe. It is therefore rather that spiritual or religious likeness and affinity to Christ, that is a token of real union to Him, even where there is much imperfection of moral character; that trustful love and loyalty that shows a heart right with God amid much that is sinful in conduct. Such was the love of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears (Luke 7:36-50); such that of Simon Peter even after he had denied his Master in the hour of temptation (John 21:15-17). So also Paul speaks of bearing branded on his body the marks of Jesus (Galatians 6:17), in the scars of his stripes and wounds for Jesus’ sake, which gave evidence, not of his moral perfection, but of his loyalty and love to his Lord. This unmistakable seal of

1 The word “purchased” is used in the Authorized Version of the Bible in its old sense, from the French po?irchasser, to chase after, to obtain for oneself, without necessarily implying the payment of a price. So Shakspeare uses it: “I sent thee forth to purchase honour “ (Rich. II, Acts 1:1-26. Sc. 3). true godliness is what distinguishes such a man as David, with strong unruly passions, that often hurried him into great crimes of sensuality and cruelty, but with as passionate a devotion to God, repentance for sin, and longing for purity as well as pardon, from one like Saul less outwardly guilty, but cold, timid, and worldly. “The Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself,” one whom He favoureth, and who responds to that favour in the prayer of childlike trust (Psalms 4:3). While many who profess and seem to be godly give way before error and temptation, the firm foundation of God abides, the people whom He has built on Christ the foundation-stone, having the twofold seal, “ The Lord knoweth them that are his,” and, “ Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness” (2 Timothy 2:19). In writing thus, Paul had probably in his mind the narrative of the rebellion of Korah (Numbers 16:1-50), where it is said on the one hand (v. 5), “ In the morning the Lord will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near unto him;” and on the other hand (Numbers 16:26), “ Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins.” They who act in the spirit of these two sayings, have the seal of God marking them as the people whom He has made His own, and will finally deliver from all evil; and the Holy Spirit enabling them so to do, seals them unto the day of redemption. The Spirit whereby they are thus sealed is also the earnest of the inheritance destined for them (2 Corinthians 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:5; Ephesians 1:14 l). An earnest is not only a pledge but a foretaste or anticipation of the benefit secured by the pledge; and when this name is given

1 The word translated “earnest” in these places is the same that is rendered “pledge” in Genesis 38:17-20; indeed the Hebrew word has simply passed into the Greek and Latin languages, probably through commercial dealings with the Phoenicians, the great trading people of ancient days.

Originally it meant no more than a pledge; but in usage it came to denote that particular kind of pledge which is a part of the full price of an article paid in advance; and as it is joined with the figure of a seal when applied to the Spirit, it seems to be used by Paul in this specific sense. to the Holy Spirit, we are taught that His gracious presence and working in us constitute a foretaste of the blessedness of heaven. The same thing seems to be indicated when Paul speaks of the first-fruits of the Spirit (Romans 8:23), which is most naturally interpreted as meaning the Spirit as the first-fruits of glory.

These representations refer to the Holy Spirit as the source of joy and peace. The sealing of the Spirit may often be not joyous, but painful; it may imply a self-denying departing from iniquity, or an endurance of suffering for Christ’s sake; the chastisements of our heavenly Father are pledges of the blessing He has in store for His children, though in themselves they are of an opposite nature. But He who knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust, is graciously pleased to give us, not only pledges of future blessedness, but foretastes of it also. The former appeal to our faith, and may be even painful to our sensibilities: the atter are necessarily joyful, and are meant for our comfort. This truth, that the joy of the Holy Spirit is a beginning of the blessedness of heaven, is of great practical use, as a safeguard against dreamy and fanciful ideas, that may even degenerate into earthly and sensual expectations of future bliss. There is ever a danger of this when we regard the joy that is set before us as something of which we have no experience here. It will in that case be either entirely vague and indistinct, or we shall introduce into our thoughts of it those enjoyments of this world that we have to deny to ourselves for the sake of Christ, and we shall simply hope to be recompensed in a future life for the sacrifices made in this. If however we have any experience of a holy joy, even amid the sins and sorrows of this world; if we know in any measure what Peter meant when he said, that believing in Christ we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and what Paul meant when he spoke of rejoicing in tribulations, and rejoicing in God through Jesus Christ our Lord; then we can form a conception of one element at least in the future blessedness that is not in the least degree earthly or sensuous. We have also a strong assurance of the truth and certainty of our hope. It promises us nothing different in kind from what we already enjoy imperfectly, though in degree something inconceivably more pure and perfect.

Here it may only be fitfully and in snatches that we have, or believe that we have, something of the joy of the Holy Spirit, we hardly dare trust ourselves to enjoy it; and we are encompassed and interrupted with much that humiliates, pains, tempts, and wearies us. We just know enough of this holy joy to make us feel how real it is, and to give us a faint idea how great must be the blessedness when it is perfect, unalloyed, and unbroken. The Spirit that makes Christians happy in the midst of shame and suffering is called the Spirit of glory and of God (1 Peter 4:14), as the Spirit who possesses the glory of God, who glorifies Christ, and will glorify all who are Christ’s. This title is an appropriate sequel to that of the spirit of grace, for glory is but grace perfected, as grace is glory begun. He is the Spirit of grace, as beginning the new life in the sorrows of self-accusing repentance; and the Spirit of glory as completing it, in the joy of the open manifestation and glorious liberty of the sons of God.