The Ministry of the Spirit by A. J. Gordon (my reading book .txt) 📖

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" (Eph. 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 Cor. 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 Cor. 15: 23). So of the Holy Ghost. We have all the Spirit, but not all of the Spirit. As a person of {209} 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" (Rom. 11: 5, 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, 17). Here, again, is first an elective out-gathering and then a total in-gathering.

{210}

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; 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" (Zech. 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 {211} 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 (Eph. 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" (Rom. 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" (Rom. 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" (Rom. 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." {212} 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.

{213}

SCRIPTURE INDEX PAGE

Genesis 50: 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Exodus 30: 30-33 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

  Leviticus 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
  Leviticus 23: 11-16 . . . . . . . . . . . 29
  Leviticus 8: 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
  Leviticus 14: 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

1 Samuel 16: 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

2 Samuel 23: 2, 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

1 Kings 19: 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

  Psalms 133: 1, 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
  Psalms 17: 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
  Psalms 84: 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
  Psalms 17: 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

  Isaiah 11: 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
  Isaiah 59: 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
  Isaiah 32: 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

  Joel 2: 31 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
  Joel 3: 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Amos 9: 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Zechariah 12: 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

  Matthew 3: 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
  Matthew 12: 28 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
  Matthew 3: 11, R. V. . . . . . . . . . . . 76
  Matthew 16: 24, 25 . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
  Matthew 6: 27, R. V. . . . . . . . . . . . 115
  Matthew 18: 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

  Mark 13: 32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
  Mark 12: 36 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

  Luke 3: 22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
  Luke 4: 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
  Luke 4: 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
  Luke 10: 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
  Luke 2: 1, 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
  Luke 2: 34, 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
  Luke 19: 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

  John 14: 23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
  John 1: 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
  John 20: 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
  John 15: 26 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
  John 14: 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
  John 14: 18; 14: 26; 16: 13 . . . . . . . 39
  John 16: 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
  John 14: 28 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
  John 16: 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
  John 14: 12; 15: 26 . . . . . . . . . . . 44
  John 16: 8-10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
  John 16: 12, 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
  John 16: 13, R. V. . . . . . . .