CONTINUING our look at Chapter 62, The Spirit’s Ministry, in A Guide to Spiritual Growth, considering the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit. Reading this section again I’m reminded of how rich and important Miles Stanford’s words are in explaining these things. In the previous comment, note that last paragraph. So accurate! In fact, everything our author says here is right on target:
That growth is transmitted by the Spirit of the Lord, from glory to glory transforming us into the image of the Son (2 Cor. 3:18). And growth of the new is always balanced by the Spirit’s application of the death of the Cross to the self-life.
The object is not self, but Christ. In fact, and to be sure, not even the Holy Spirit is the focus, but Christ. The Spirit is not given to draw attention to Himself, but to point away and always to Christ!
IT is interesting how certain things stick with you. But I recall so many, many years ago going to a local conference on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit. I have a vague recollection as to the speaker, remembering that he was well known and respected in the Reformed community. As I drove up to the particular Church and into the parking lot, it was late evening and I remember my attention being drawn to the well lite façade of the church building. Later as the speaker addressed the group he made reference to the “unseen flood lights” that were casting a bright light upon the church. He noticed as he arrived and approached the church facility a fitting illustration as to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. What caught his attention in the dark night was the building illuminated by the lights, but not the lights themselves. Where the lights were, he had no idea; they were out of sight in the surrounding landscape; and the point of the lights were not to draw attention to themselves, but to the object of illumination. To carry the analogy further, he said as I recall that if we were to locate and fixate upon the floodlights only, what would we see? Well, it might dazzle us for a moment, but it would also blind us in our ability to see anything else, until we withdrew and recovered from the silly and potentially harmful exercise of staring into the lights rather onto the intended object of illumination.
HIS point made in that lecture was that just like the purpose of those church flood lights was to cast light upon the building and bring it to light out of the surrounding darkness, so the Spirit is to reveal Christ in the Word to the heart, mind, and life of every Christ follower. Again, read that last paragraph in the previous comment.
So, with that, let us now see how our author expands on this theme under the next heading, Spirit-motivated.
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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Chapter 62—The Spirit’s Ministry – Part 4
Spirit-motivated
The Holy Spirit took charge while we were yet “dead in sins” and brought us to the Lord Jesus by faith. He will conform us to Christ’s image by faith. He is God, dwelling within each believer, and He will abide with us forever (John 14:16). The union is absolute, since we are “in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” (Rom. 8:9). His indwelling is a relationship of life. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2).
The Spirit of Christ within is at work, and has been from the moment we were saved. He is not cringing in some corner of our being, in some dark garret, hopefully waiting for a series of conditions to be met so that He may have the privilege of filling us. Far from it! We have been bought with the price of Calvary and re-created in Christ Jesus; therefore the Spirit is able to carry out God’s eternal purpose in us by means of that finished work and flowing life.
How vast the number of believers today who are utterly defeated! Many of these are being tempted by the tinseled offer of instant holiness, or by self-centered, neurotically induced, so-called “gifts of the Spirit.” They do not realize the blessed fact that, ever since their new birth, the Spirit has been faithfully ministering within by taking them down into defeat that self might be revealed and repudiated.
At the very time they are crying out, “O wretched man that I am!” the Spirit has them at the turning point where He can begin to transmit the life that is “not I, but Christ,” thereby enabling them to begin to “thank God through Jesus Christ”(Rom. 7:24, 25). But they know it not. May many see it now! …to be continued
