Chapter 17
THE COMFORTER
"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,
that he may abide with you forever." -- St. John 14:16.
Before Christ departed, He introduced to us the Comforter who was to
continue His work, whom the Father, He said, would send in His name. "He
will partake of my divinity, and impart it unto you." The heart in which the
Comforter dwells will have all the traits of the Christ life.
Let us notice the great mission of the Comforter:
First, He is to reveal Christ and make Him more real to us than He was
to the Galilean followers, with His bodily presence while in their midst. It is the
wonderful work of the Holy Ghost to take the virgin birth, the shed blood and
the resurrection of Jesus and make those facts which occurred nearly two
thousand years ago a living reality to our spiritual consciousness. The same
Holy Ghost who made real the Bible and the Incarnation and Calvary is here
today to make real and vital those same truths.
To the great majority, Christ is just a being who once lived and died and
went away, they do not know where. But God wishes to make Him, through
the Holy Ghost, as sweet and fresh as He was to Mary on the morning He
came forth from Joseph's tomb.
The Holy Ghost not only reveals Christ to believers, but He protects His
Divinity. Jesus was not only born of the Spirit, baptized with the Spirit, and
wrought miracles through the Spirit, but we are told that it was through the
eternal Spirit that He made the atonement, and offered His pure humanity
upon the altar of His Deity. So the Holy Ghost is very jealous in protecting His
Divinity.
The Apostle, in I Cor. 12:3, says: "No man speaking by the Spirit of God
calls Jesus accursed." By this he means that no man can know anything about
the Holy Ghost and deny the virgin birth and the efficacy of the shed blood.
The Holy Ghost is like an artist, portraying, as He does, Jesus in all His
beauty upon the canvas, while He Himself is withdrawn from view. The Holy
Ghost in the believer vitalizes all the fundamental truths, and makes them
living realities.
Church history proves that no denomination remains orthodox very
long after the Comforter is grieved away.
First, the ardor of the experience cools off; then is dropped out the vital
truths of the Bible and of the church doctrine. If the Holy Ghost, Christ's
successor on earth, had failed to follow up His life, Calvary, with its bleeding
Lamb, would have been only a dim outline of God's love, which we would
have failed to understand. But when the Comforter illuminates the cross, it
becomes the most attractive thing on earth, and, like a heavenly loadstone, it
draws our affections heavenward and spoils us for this old world.
The Comforter is to dwell within. "He dwelleth with you, and shall be in
you."
The Holy Ghost has always been in the world. When the earth was
without form and void, and darkness brooded over the face of the deep, the
Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters, and out of that chaos of
desolation He brought forth beauty, order and a blissful Paradise. He inspired
the prophets; He gave Isaiah a vision of the coming Christ from the manger to
the cross; He illuminated Joel and let him see the approaching Pentecost and
outpoured Holy Ghost. His presence, however, in the Old Testament was
external, rather than internal, demonstrating the gifts rather than the graces of
the Spirit. But in the New Testament the Comforter unites and identifies
Himself with the life of the believer, controlling his choices, affections and
desires, and molding holy character.
It is possible for the image and personality of a loved one to enter into
the very being until we think his thoughts and are moved by his influence. So
the Comforter takes up His abode in our spirits and shines out through our
minds and body like the blazing light of the Divine Shekinah in the holy of
holies.
The Holy Ghost is to bring all things to our remembrance. "He shall
bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you."
It is wonderful how the Holy Ghost can quicken the intellect and
illuminate the chambers of the understanding, making the mind, which once
was dull and heavy, grasp with vigor the spiritual significance of the truths of
the Bible. The mere, cold intellect cannot understand spiritual truths. It is not
for lack of perception or education that men do not know and perceive
spiritual mysteries; it is for want of spiritual intuition. He will bring to our
memory forgotten truths in the moment of need.
Fourth, the Comforter is a guide.
The Holy Ghost not Only woos and wins us to Christ, but, like Eleazer,
the servant who conducted Rebecca to Isaac, He proposes to journey with us,
protecting us from the evil of the world, and to present us spotless to our
Heavenly bridegroom. Divine guidance is one of the outstanding promises of
the Bible.
The record of the Christian life would make a volume, chronicling, as it
could, the intervention of God's providences between us and danger, of the
impress of the Spirit that prevents our taking certain steps, at the same time.
Opening other doors hitherto closed to us, and of the hundreds of like
experiences in the life where the soul's ears are attentive to the Spirit's voice.
In Paul's missionary journey he was restrained from preaching in
Bithynia and Ephesus by the Spirit, and sent, instead, to Macedonia, giving
the Gospel thus to our ancestors. The indwelling Comforter makes the special
providences of God to us an absolute certainty, so that we are confident that
He is working all things in earth and Heaven for our good.
There is a beautiful Scripture found in 2 Chron. 16:9 which says, "The
eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself
strong in the behalf of them, whose heart is perfect toward him." "The eyes of
the Lord" express His omnipotent vision. Even the hairs on our head are
numbered. The word run shows how quickly He can fly to our rescue in
emergencies. He is never late; as in the case of Daniel, the angel reached the
lions' den before he arrived. The words whole earth show God's unlimited
care. The expression to show himself reveals His Divine personality in our
behalf, while the word strong shows His wonderful power to deliver. But
notice, this special providence is to those whose hearts are perfect toward
Him.
One of the joys of Heaven will be the rehearsing of God's providences
and of His Divine guidance in our lives.
Fifth, He will show you things to come.
The words "things to come" have to do with the future life. Too many
live in the gloomy past; their little world dips so near to where they live that all
they see in life is a struggle for a living. But the Holy Ghost deals with ages to
come. He puts a star of hope in the heart and a rainbow of promise beneath
every dark cloud and coming tomorrow. The heart in which He dwells is filled
with a buoyant, cheerful hope. If men can be lured by an earthly vision until
they go after their ideal, how much more should they be inspired by the
heavenly vision.
The Apostle in Hebrews 6 speaks of tasting of the heavenly gift, the
good Word of God, partaking of the Holy Ghost and of the powers of the
world to come. The more spiritual saints all down the ages have caught the
vision and have lived ahead of their age.
When in the North, in the latter part of March, as the cold winter was
breaking and a hint of springtime was in the air, the contrast was noted
between the sugar-maple and the other trees. These splendid maples were not
only budding, but the larger trees, which had been tapped, were exuding
sweet water. They were so full of sap that long before the other trees showed
any indications of life, the sugar-maples gave full evidence that the spring was
drawing near. It is just so with the Spirit-filled believer who has tasted of the
heavenly gift and has been made a partaker of the heavenly world to come.
Long before the cold winter (which is typical of the reign of sin and Satan)
begins to break and the eternal spring morning of His second coming draweth
nigh, the bridehood saints will begin to feel the holy sap of Divine life rising
within them, and causing the heart to sing:
"O lovely land of Beulah, the summer-land of love,
Land of the heavenly Bridegroom, land of the heavenly Dove!
My Winter has departed, my summer-time has come,
The air is full of singing, the earth is bright with bloom.
O blessed land of Beulah, sweet summer-land of love,
O ever-blessed Bridegroom, O gentle Holy Dove!
O Savior, keep us ever, all earth-born things above,
In the blessed land of Beulah, the summer-land of love."
Sixth, and finally, He is to abide with us forever. Oh, blessed thought –
most wondrous truth – that all through the trying hours of the day the
heavenly Dove abides!
When we are popular or persecuted, when friends praise or foes abuse,
at the wedding, or at the funeral, no matter what the change, the Comforter
will ever abide.
The time is coming when the heavens will be shaken and roll together as
a scroll; the earth will reel, mountains flee away, seas roar, suns be darkened,
moons turn to blood, stars fall, raves open, the Judge with flaming eyes
descend; but amidst revolving worlds, falling stars, blown-out sun, bleeding
moon, wailing sinners and shouting angels, the heavenly Dove will abide. If
we grieve Him not, He will seal our hearts unto the day of redemption.
