JSL-05-Chapter Five:

Chapter Five:
Power from on High The commission contemplated the perform­ance of a work which was evidently too great for the unaided human capacity. Notwithstand­ing the apostles had been trained and educated in the school of Christ; notwithstanding they were perfectly familiar with the facts which they were to proclaim, and the conditions of salvation which they were to announce—all having been distinctly specified and clearly taught; still they were to tarry in Jerusalem until they should be, clothed with power from on high. This is deeply significant, and is worthy of calm and serious meditation.

It is obvious to remark that primarily this had reference to the miraculous endowment of the apostles for their special work. They were to be the first preachers of the gospel; they were to open the doors of the kingdom of heaven; they were to prescribe the terms of admission into it; and, in a word, to establish precedents for all time to come. It was peculiarly necessary, therefore, that their minds should be supernaturally strengthened and illu­minated; that they should be guided into all truth, and preserved from the possibility of mistake or error. All this may be granted—must be granted; but still, if this power from on high be regarded, as perhaps by some it may be; as merely an intellectual safeguard—as only the security that the truth, and nothing but the truth, should be preached—I must think that such conception is inadequate. Over and above all this, and perhaps even more important than all this, was the influence of the Divine Spirit upon the apostles’ own moral and spiritual natures, bringing them into sympathy with God, elevating their thoughts, purifying their affections, ennobling their purposes, and so sanctifying them, body, soul and spirit, as to make them worthy to represent the Son of God, and to be the bearers of his divine message. And this brings us to the inquiry: What interest, what practical interest, have we of this nineteenth century in the subject now under consideration? Does it in any wise concern us? Are we in any sense, and, if so, in what sense, to expect the continued presence and influence of this same power from on high ? Many, perhaps, in view of the fact that its original coming was miraculous, and that its primary object was exceptional, would answer, No. But to my mind these considerations are by no means con­clusive. Of course we eliminate the miraculous from our present View. No well instructed Christian can now look for outpourings of the Holy Spirit. We shall have no more pente­costal scenes, no more Pentecostal sounds from heaven. Nor will the special work of that memorable day ever be repeated. But we can not forget that the same Spirit which came then with signs and wonders and divers gifts, came to remain; to abide, without the signs, the won­ders and the gifts, but still to abide, as a Living Presence and a Divine Power, forever. In considering the subject as I now do, in connection with the preaching of the gospel—.for so it is presented in the commission which I am discussing—and in seeking to apply the essential elements of the doctrine to our modern life and work, it will suffice to indicate a few of the errors respecting it into which men seem liable to fall. And first it can hardly have escaped the notice of any one that ministers of fine natural and acquired ability are not always, indeed not usually, the most spiritually minded. They are apt to rely upon their native gifts. And it is scarcely necessary to say that an able man, such as I have described, may, simply from his own genius and intellectual resources, make a very fine discourse. There is, indeed, no reason why he should not be able to display, in the treatment of religious subjects, all those powers which would bring him distinction and renown upon any secular theater. I can imagine that Cicero, furnished simply with an intellectual outfit of Biblical knowledge, could, with the stimulus of ample fees, have made a very popular preacher. Genius, imagination, art, learning, expression, and whatever else goes to constitute oratory, lose neither their nature nor their influence when transferred from the forum to the pulpit. Nor is it wrong to use there these natural and acquired gifts. Let them all be brought and cones crated to the work of the ministry. But what I wish to say with all proper emphasis is that these alone, without the power from on high, do not suffice to make a true preacher of the gospel. No man, I care not who he is, nor what he is, can bear to his fellow-man a message from God unless he has himself been with God. He must have the mellowing, hallowing, sanctifying influence upon his own soul, which comes only from habitual and intimate communion with God. The Apostolic benediction, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit," must rest upon and abide with every true and acceptable preacher of the gospel. Apart from this, a man’s service is either cold and perfunctory, or else his eloquence has but the warmth of natural heat—if indeed it be not a glittering icicle. Whatever notions, therefore, it may please men to entertain respecting the nature of spiritual influence or the mode of its opera­tion, it is at least certain that, as a fact, it is the Spirit that is to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and this he does through the preaching of the word. The in­fluence, consequently, must come out of the heart of the preacher, and be borne along with his message. Truly, it is a sacred and solemn thing to be a preacher of the gospel—to preach it with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.

What is desiderated, however, is not some wild and extravagant frenzy which enthusiasts may call the influence of the Spirit. This may be in whole or in part a delusion, and we may well guard ourselves against it. But there is a true and real, a genuine and most blessed influence of the Spirit, which is absolutely indispensable to the generation and maintenance of Christian life; and the preacher who ignores it, who fails to avail himself of it, and to be filled more and more with it, has missed his calling, and is really engaged in secularizing a most sacred vocation.

I may add, in conclusion upon this point, that the Disciples of Christ, who most truly believe that in conversion the Spirit operates through the word of truth, that he begets men to the new life by the gospel, should of all men be most solicitous, while preaching that gospel; to be themselves filled with that Spirit. But while insisting, as I have been doing, upon the genuineness and necessity of the Spirit’s influence, I yet have no sort of sympathy with much that passes for soundness on this subject. I do not now refer to any of those hysterical exhibitions which often, among the ignorant and vulgar, accompany religious excitement, and which it is gratuitously assumed are evidences of the Spirit’s presence and power. These it may suffice us here to pity and dismiss. But among the cultivated and strong—among ministers of pure hearts and sound minds—the manifestation of great anxiety to have the doctrine respecting the Holy Spirit’s influence strongly and constantly stated, as though that were equivalent to the thing itself, or at any rate necessary to the attainment of it. Under all circumstances and on all possible occasions, whatever else may be left out, men are sure to be reminded of the necessity of the Spirit’s influence. Now my objection to this is not that I do not believe in this influence, for I do; but it is because it is teaching men, as it seems to me, to look for it outside of the place where God reveals that it is to be found. In­stead of being helpful, therefore, it is rather confusing and distracting. Of course in a com­pany of Christians, met together to increase their spiritual joys and cultivate their spiritual natures, my objection does not hold. But in preaching the gospel to sinners—to men who are called in the Bible " the world," and who as such, it expressly declares, "can not receive" nor " know " the Spirit, the case is totally differ­ent. And it surprises me that good men and faithful ministers of Jesus Christ have been so slow to recognize the fact that they have no commission to preach the Holy Spirit. It is our business, our whole business, aided and comforted and strengthened and filled by that Spirit, to preach the gospel of Christ, in the confident assurance that the great source of light and life will not fail to do his work, and do it all the more surely by having the mind of the sinner directed to Christ whom he can know, ’rather than to himself whom he can not know. The special object which I have here in view does not call for a discussion of the general subject of spiritual influence; and I shall be content if I have, while guarding against certain natural mistakes, made it plan that the preacher, of all Christians, should most earnestly seek the Holy Spirit—to help his infirmities, to enlighten his judgment, to warm his heart, to enlarge his sympathies—that he may be able to preach Christ in love and in power.