03.10. The Ascent of the Spirit

X THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRIT

"The Apostle Paul evidently saw the redemption of the bodies of the saints and their manifestation as the sons of God and with them the redemption of the whole creation from its present bondage to be the complete harvest of the Spirit, whereof the church doth now possess only the first-fruits, that is, the first ripe grains which could be formed into a sheaf and presented in the temple as a wave-offering unto the Lord. ’That Holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance,’ saith the same apostle--the earnest, like the first-fruit, being only a part of that which is to be earned . . . yet a sufficient surety that the whole shall in the fullness of the times, be likewise ours."--Edward Irving.

"He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens." So writes the apostle concerning the Paraclete who is now with the Father, "Jesus Christ the righteous" (Ephesians 4:9). And what is true of the one is true of that "other Paraclete," the Holy Ghost, who was sent down to abide with us during this age. When he has accomplished his temporal mission in the world he will return to heaven in the body which he has fashioned for himself--that "one new man," the regenerate church, gathered out from both Jews and Gentiles during this dispensation. For what is the rapture of the saints predicted by the apostle when, at the sound of the trumpet and the resurrection of the righteous dead, "we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air?" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). It is the earthly Christ rising to meet the heavenly Christ; the elect church, gathered in the Spirit and named o christos, (1 Corinthians 12:12,) taken up to be united in glory with "Christ, the Head of the church, himself the Saviour of the body" (Ephesians 5:23, R. V.). In the council at Jerusalem this is announced as the distinctive work of the Spirit in this dispensation "to gather out a people for his name." It was not by accident and as a term of derision that the first believers received their name; but "the disciples were divinely called Christians first in Antioch" (Acts 11:26). This was the name pre-ordained for them, that "honorable name" by which they are called (James 2:7). When, therefore, this out-gathering shall have been accomplished, and the people for his name shall be completed, they will be translated to be one with him in glory, as they were one with him in name, the Head taking the body to himself, "as Christ also, the church" (Ephesians 5:29). And this translation of the church is to be effected by the Holy Spirit who dwells in her. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:11). It is not by acting upon the body of Christ from without, but by energizing it from within, that the Holy Ghost will effect its glorification. In a word, the Comforter, who on the day of Pentecost, came down to form a body out of flesh, will at the Parousia return to heaven in that body, having fashioned it like unto the body of Christ, that it may be presented to him "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, . . . holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27). Is it meant to be implied in what is here said that the Comforter is to leave the world at the time of the advent, to return no more? By no means. And yet what is meant needs to be very explicitly set forth. A very able writer on the doctrine of the Spirit makes this remark, so striking and yet so true that we have put it in italics: "As Christ shall ultimately give up his kingdom to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-28), so the Holy Ghost shall give up his administration to the Son, when he comes in glory and all his holy angels with him."[1] The church and the kingdom are not identical terms, if we mean by the kingdom the visible reign and government of Jesus Christ on earth. In another sense they are identical. As the King, so the kingdom. The King is present now in the world, only invisibly and by the Holy Spirit; so the kingdom is now present invisibly and spiritually in the hearts of believers. The King is to come again visibly and gloriously; so shall the kingdom appear visibly and gloriously. In other words, the kingdom is already here in mystery; it is to be here in manifestation. Now the spiritual kingdom is administered by the Holy Ghost, and it extends from Pentecost to Parousia. At the Parousia--the appearing of the Son of Man in glory--when he shall take unto himself his great power and reign (Revelation 11:17), when he who has now gone into a far country, to be invested with a kingdom, shall return and enter upon his government (Luke 19:15), then the invisible shall give way to the visible; the kingdom in mystery shall emerge into the kingdom in manifestation, and the Holy Spirit’s administration shall yield to that of Christ.

Here our discussion properly ends, since the age-ministry of the Holy Spirit terminates with the return of Jesus Christ in glory. But there is an "age to come" (Hebrews 6:5), succeeding "the present evil age" (Galatians 1:4), and we may, in closing, take a glimpse at that for the light which it may throw upon the present dispensation.

What significance has the phrase, "the first-fruits of the Spirit," which several times occurs in the New Testament? The first-fruits is but a handful compared with the whole harvest; and this is what we have in the gift of "the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession" (Ephesians 1:13-14). The harvest, to which all the first-fruits look forward, is at the appearing of the Lord. Christ, by his rising from the dead, became "the first-fruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). The full harvest, of course, is at the advent, when "they that are Christ’s at his coming" shall be raised up (1 Corinthians 15:23). So of the Holy Ghost. We have all the Spirit, but not all of the Spirit. As a person of the God-head, he is here in his entirety; but as to his ministry, we have as yet but a part or earnest of his full blessing. To make this statement plain, let us observe that the work of the Holy Spirit, during this entire dispensation, is elective. He gathers from Jew and Gentile the body of Christ, the ecclesia, the called-out. This is his peculiar work in this gospel age. In a word, the present is the age of election, and not of universal ingathering. But is this all we have to hope for? Let the word of God answer. Paul, in considering the hope of Israel, says that there is at this present time "a remnant according to the election of grace"; and a little farther on he declares that in connection with the coming of the Deliverer "all Israel shall be saved" (Romans 11:5; Romans 11:26). Here is an elective out-gathering, and then a universal in-gathering; or, as the apostle sums it up in this same chapter: "If the first-fruits be holy, so also the lump." On the other hand, James, speaking by the Holy Ghost concerning the Gentiles, says first that "God did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name," and "after this will I return," etc., "that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord" (Acts 15:14; Acts 15:17). Here, again, is first an elective out-gathering and then a total in-gathering.

Now, by looking at other scriptures, it seems clear that the Holy Spirit is the divine agent in both these redemptions, the partial and the total. If we refer to Joel’s great prophecy: "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh," and then to Peter’s reference to the same, as recorded in the Acts, we are led to ask, Was this prediction completely fulfilled on the day of Pentecost? Clearly not. Peter, with inspired accuracy, says: "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel," without affirming that herein the prophecy of Joel was entirely fulfilled. Turning back to the prediction itself, we find that it includes within its sweep "the great and the terrible day of the Lord," and the "bringing again of the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem" (Joel 2:31; Joel 3:1), events which are clearly yet future. If again we examine the vivid prophecy of Israel’s conversion, we observe that their looking upon him whom they pierced, and mourning for him, follows the prediction: "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication" (Zechariah 12:10). So in the picture of the desolations of Jerusalem, as they have actually existed during the present age, the prophet represents this judgment of thorns and briars and forsaken palaces and desertion of population, as continuing "until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high" (Isaiah 32:15).

Indeed the Scriptures seem to be harmonious in their teaching that, after the present elective work of the Spirit has been completed, there will come a time of universal blessing, when the Spirit shall literally be "poured out upon all flesh"; when "that which is perfect shall come" and "that which is in part shall be done away."

Thus in the doctrine of the Spirit there is a constant reference to the final consummation. "The Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption," says Paul (Ephesians 4:30). Again: "Ourselves also which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Romans 8:23).

All which the Comforter has yet brought us, or can now bring us, is only the first sheaf of the great harvest of redemption which awaits us on our Lord’s return. "Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15); but for the adoption itself we wait; sons of God already by birth from above, we with the whole creation yet wait for "the manifestation of the sons of God" (Romans 8:19). To his tender exhortation to be patient until the coming of the Lord, which James writes in the first chapter of his epistle, there is added the suggestive illustration: "Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it receive the early and latter rain." As in husbandry the one rain belonged to the time of sowing, and the other to the time of harvest, so in redemption the early rain of the Spirit was at Pentecost, the latter rain will be at the Parousia; the one fell upon the world as the first sowers went forth into the world to sow, the other will accompany "the harvest which is the end of the age," and will fructify the earth for the final blessing of the age to come, bringing repentance to Israel and the remission of sins, "that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, before appointed for you, whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things" (Acts 3:19-21).

[1] "Through the Eternal Spirit," by Elder Cumming, D. D., p. 185.