November 15

CHRIST, JUSTIFIED IN THE SPIRIT.

Justified in the Spirit.—Tim. iii. 16.

THIS is the second link in this precious mysterious chain, that Jesus, was justified in, or by the Spirit. Christ made great and glorious pretensions. He professed to be the Messiah, the world's long expected Saviour, and the Divine Son of God. These claims of Jesus were rejected: they treated him as an impostor: they ascribed his miracles to Satanic influence, and they considered these claims of Jesus, to involve him in the guilt of blasphemy, and as such, they put him to death. But Christ was fully justified by the spirit. The spirit, which fashioned him in the womb of the virgin, rendered his nature sinless, and incapable of moral pollution; and he possessed that spirit in all its blessed plenitude through the whole of his ministerial life, for it was given not by measure to him, but rested as it were bodily upon him. All his discourses were therefore delivered under the influence of that spirit, and the purity, majesty and power of those discourses, justified Jesus, from the vile aspersions of the Jews. Then the spirit justified him by the miracles which he wrought. These were so striking, so numerous, and so gracious, that one of the rulers frankly confessed, that they knew he was a teacher sent from God, and that no man could do the miracles which he did, were not God with him.—John, 3-2. But the spirit fully vindicated him from all the calumnies of his enemies, by his resurrection from the dead. They put him to death as an impostor, as such, they expected he would remain the inhabitant of the sepulchre. They sealed the stone at its mouth. Had it carefully watched, that his disciples might not remove him. Yet, despite of all, on the morning of the third day, the stone was rolled away, the guard fell as dead men, the earthquake shook the whole vicinity of the tomb, Angels ministered, and Jesus arose from the dead, with power and glory. Thus then is he proved beyond all controversy, to be the true Son of God — the Messiah of the world. And the spirit afterwards rested upon those men who were to preach this risen Saviour, and made that Gospel the power of God to Salvation, to thousands of immortal believing souls.