The Spirit is, Pt. 2

The Spirit of God is God’s quickening glory, transferred to all who trust in Him (see Mark 9:2, 3, 7; Luke 9:29, 34; 2 Corinthians 3:10-18; John 17:24; Exodus 34:30). The Spirit is the gift of spiritual oil in  our heart, our spirit, and our body that makes our face to shine (see Zechariah 4:2-6, 11, 12; Psalm 104:15). The Spirit of Christ is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6, cf Rev. 5:6; 10:1). Today, the wonderful transformation of the thoughts and intents of our heart is but a taste of the Spirit’s glory (see Hebrews 6:4, 5); however, in eternity we will receive It in full (see Daniel 12:4; Isaiah 66:18; 1 Corinthians 15:42, 43, 51-53; Philippians 3:10, 11; Revelation 21:23-26; 22:4, 5). On the Mount of Transfiguration, It connected Earth with heaven’s holy atmosphere in wavelengths above the humanly detectable spectrum, and the divine ionosphere made contact in power. By faith visible to His Father only, it transported Jesus into His Father’s presence because He longed for a taste of His former home. Then It represented His Father on the holy mount while his voice “came from heaven” (2 Pet. 1:18), by which He put His fear in the disciples (see Matthew 17:17:5; Luke 9:34,35). 

The Father, in His Spirit representative form, was a full representation of His “own self”. “O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”  (John 17:5). It was His personal presence, yet also an extension of His person (see Psalm 139:7), i.e. “The Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is...” (2Cor. 3:17). But, it was no different from the soul that man is and has (see Genesis 2:7; Psalm 42:2,5). Such a similar prayer from His Son was irresistible.

So, His Father removed the divide between Them that was caused by the uncleanness of Jesus’ human flesh. “He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.” (Isa. 25:7). He replenished Jesus’ previous brilliance and gladness, rest and power that He had with His Father before the world was. By His same “Spirit of glory and of God” (1 Pet. 4:14, cf 2 Pet. 1:21; 1 Pet. 1:11) the Father conscripted holy men of old to speak what they often couldn’t fully understand and what they sometimes shrank from saying. His promised Spirit of glory will also rivet our souls to obedience as It did our Master and His prophets of old. The world will know that we’ve been with Jesus and they will confess to Him, “Happy are Thy men, happy are these Thy servants, which stand continually before Thee, and that hear thy wisdom” (1 Ki. 10:8). God’s strong Spirit gives power to His children to be “partakers of His inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12), “the glory of His inheritance in the saints, …the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power” (Eph. 1:18, 19).

Thus, the Spirit of God creates the glory of God. This occurs because God’s Spirit is holy, in contradistinction to His subjects, whether intelligent or inanimate (and all are His), and the holiness of God manifests in the power of God for the betterment of His creation, and then His power releases His glory, from Himself and in His creation.

We have one God, the Father, in whom are all things, and we in Him. God’s glory is potential power. His glory is His power repressed; His power is His glory expressed. As we showed above from 2Corinthians 3:17 and John 4:24, God is a Spirit and God has a Spirit, i.e. “the Lord is that Spirit”--“the Spirit of the Lord”. His Spirit is Him and the part of Him that reaches us and to all of His vast creation. Thus, God’s Spirit can be crudely understood by a transitive formula of cause and effect, or of source and manifestation: God’s Spirit=>God’s holiness=>God’s divine power=>God’s glory. Similarly, a man has a mind, which invents a generator, which produces electrical power, which produces light and heat and work. We see this in an earthly representation: Man's spirit=>his invention of the electric generator=>electrical power=>light, heat, work.

The “Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) is “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16) that we can have. It is the gift to all who are “spiritually minded” (Rom. 8:6), a gift which He will give us when we are reborn of God through Jesus (see Romans 7:25-8:2). Christ discerns the deep things of God, and everyone will possess that discernment whoever has been “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8, cf Dan. 1:17; Gen. 40:8; Mal. 3:16-18). Spiritual things “are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). But, without Jesus anointing the natural man with His Spirit, spirituality appears to be pure foolishness. This is because unbelievers do not desire to stake a claim in the holy Spirit of at-one-ment with God. That oneness of Their Spirits, known by Jesus in His greater Father, “the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him” (John 14:17, cf Deut. 6:4). (Christ’s use of “Him” will be explained further in another blog post.)

The unity in the Godhead’s Spirit— “The LORD our God is one LORD”, “one Lord,... one God and Father of all”, “one Spirit” (Deut. 6:4; Eph. 4:5,6,4)—“one body” of souls who are convicted of, and have surrendered to, the Godhead’s Law of self-sacrificing love. All are born again who have responded to the call from above to dwell in God and His love, abiding under His Law that commands love. They are adopted into the family of heaven; they are “raised…up together,” and made to “sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). For them, the breech with heaven has been remade. “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21).

But, those without this resurrection into a new disposition toward heaven have no assurance of salvation because for them there is no salvation. It may be that some of these are “not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34); but they are not yet in His kingdom’s government and Edenic refuge. Otherwise, they would repeat to others the story of their rebirth into His freedom and a new life. They would have something good to say about the merciful work of God for them through Jesus. Their conversations would be more about heavenly things and issues than of earthly things and issues (see Philippians 3:20, 21). They will jealously guard the minutes of the Sabbath to talk of Jesus and they would commune with Him on His holy day. They are at rest like an infant in its mother’s arms, “bound in the bundle of life with the LORD” (1 Sam. 25:29). All who have been adopted into Christ know it, and are able to confidently say, “We have now received the atonement” (Rom. 5:11). The atonement is the song that they own; and they hold it close so that no one and no idol can take it away. To them redemption is not someone else’s song, but a tailor-made song of the uphill battles, sometimes in darkness, which they fought to get back to God. They have a unique, real testimony of God’s salvation that no one else can sing.

The “Spirit of the LORD” (Isa. 59:19) is “mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (2 Cor. 10:4). That Spirit, the strong will of God shining from Jesus who could not save Himself for our sakes or stanch His love for us, must be revealed to our conscience and divinely expressed upon our will, for by His “will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ” (Heb. 10:10). The Spirit is God’s omnipotent, redemptive virtue that flows ever from Him and  the regenerative principle hidden in the gospel; “for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith” (Rom. 1:17). By faith in Christ’s virtue we find that hidden regenerative principle and are made whole, “clean every whit” (John 13:10). His Spirit will make us well dressed servants of righteousness, instead of field slaves to sin (see Romans 6:13-22).

The Spirit of “the most high God” (Gen. 14:19, cf Rev. 4:8) is the Power of the Highest. Christ sends His Spirit to make effectual in our soul the damnation that He suffered in our stead, while He bodily mediates His sacrifice before His Father to provide for the remission of our sins. The Spirit is God working through His Prince and “Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14), “Messiah the Prince” (Dan. 9:25), who personally works His Father’s Law into our minds, blots out our sins, and sprinkles our hearts from an evil conscience (see Hebrews 10:16-22; 12:11).

I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put Me in remembrance (Isa. 43:25, 26).

The Spirit is the representative agency of our heavenly High Priest. It is “the arm of the LORD” (Isa. 53:1), the Father’s long reach from heaven to earth. The Spirit of God is the manifested goodness of God, the Power of the Most High, “which worketh all in all” (1 Cor. 12:6) throughout His vast cosmos. The Spirit is the footprint of divinity upon creation; It is God’s invisible fingerprints that linger on all His “diversities of operations” (1 Cor. 12:6), physical and spiritual. The Spirit is the residual aroma that He leaves behind in all His works (see Song 5:13; Psalm 45:8; 85:11). “Thy paths drop fatness.” (Ps. 65:11). This aroma our spirits sense “for in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). The Spirit is the present echo of the distant, but effective “word of the LORD” (1 Sam. 3:21) spoken from the throne of heaven, which only those who have an ear to hear can detect. The Holy Ghost is the living shadow of the invisible God through His Son that “hath shined in our hearts” (2 Cor. 4:6). The Spirit of the Son is the light that lightens every man that comes into the world.

The “Spirit of the LORD” (Jdg. 3:10) is God’s personified strong “arm” (Isa. 51:9, cf Isa. 53:1), which Isaiah prayed might awaken to save His people. The Spirit is “God’s holy Spirit” that pleads with us to yield to His holiness (Steps to Christ, p. 32.2). “The spirit” (Eze. 3:14) is the providential and revelational “hand of the LORD” (Eze. 3:14; 8:1; 40:1), that grabs the conscience and keeps it from falling, the soul’s tangible reality of “the LORD of hosts” (Eze. 3:14, cf 1:28-2:1, 2). God’s powerful Spirit is Himself; It is the same “Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead” (Rom. 8:11), and which without our submitting to and receiving His redemptive Spirit through His Son, we are “none of His” (Rom. 8:9). Anyone having less than this “cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5); they are “sensual, having not the Spirit” (Jude 19). To His church the Spirit of Christ says, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me” (John 13:8, cf Eph. 5:26).

Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (2 Cor. 13:5).

The Father making His abode with us (see John 14:23), by our accepting His Son’s Spirit and truth, is the utmost mandatory requirement for salvation and baptism. Unless “the power of the Lord [is] present to heal” (Luke 5:17), no pardon comes. There is no healing, and no entrance into the book of life (see Matthew 13:58; Hebrews 3:19). Without faith in the Son, the Father cannot “quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit” (Rom. 8:11) which abides in every soul that has been reconciled to God by the lifeless “body of Christ” (Rom. 7:4, cf vs. 24, 25).

The Spirit of God, who is Spirit and the origin of all truth (see John 4:24), is our Comforter Father. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:3, 4). The reason the comfort of Pentecost came with greater power than the disciples had had from Jesus’ earthly ministry was because the comfort at Pentecost came through Christ from a reconciled, powerful Father.

“The Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11) incarnated His Son into “a quickening Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45, cf John 3:34; 5:19, 20; Heb. 9:14) so that Christ could give dynamic power to judges, prophets, and kings of the Old Testament and even more so to apostles and witnesses of the New. That Spirit of God in Christ was “His holy Spirit” (Isa. 63:11); It was “the Spirit of the LORD” (1 Sam. 10:6, cf vs. 9) which turned King Saul into a new creature, anointing him with a new heart. And the Spirit of the Law in Christ Jesus, “who is our life” (Col. 3:4) through faith in His word, raises up our wretched bodies of death. Without the quickening Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, we are still dead in sin.

The Spirit is God’s restored union with fallen mankind; It is “the spirit which is of God” (1 Cor. 2:12), “the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11), “the Spirit of your Father” (Matt. 10:20, cf 16:17), who “is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working” (Isa. 28:29, cf 1 Cor. 12:4, 7; Eph. 2:10). The Spirit is God’s determined love, “My Spirit” that strives with all of humanity (Gen. 6:3, cf Zech. 6:8; 4:6; Prov. 1:23; Isa. 30:1; 44:3; Eze. 36:27; Joel 2:28; Zech. 4:6; Luke 23:46; Gal. 5:17), strongly condemning their sin, but patiently offering His provision of mercy through His Son. The Spirit of truth is God’s bitter “chastisement of our peace” (Isa. 53:5), that holds us “in derision” (Ps. 2:4), keeping us under the Law until He humbles our mischievous, estranged hearts. Our humiliation must happen before we can be comforted with reconciliation, “the comfort wherewith we…are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:4, cf Gal. 3:24). Thus, God’s Spirit calls us to surrender, beginning with His extended chastening. Then, the Spirit of God and glory He pours upon all who surrender to His lengthy, scourging Law, and who trust in Jesus’ balm (see Acts 5:31; Hebrews 12:6; John 6:37; Jeremiah 8:22; Luke 18:7, 8). “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21) is the confluence which brings the sometimes rushing, washing “holy Spirit of promise”, and which normally are “waters…that go softly” (Eph. 1:13; Isa 8:6, cf Acts 2:16-18; Joel 2:23; Zech. 12:10). It is “the promise of the Spirit through faith”, “the blessing of Abraham” (Gal. 3:14), and is full of precious promises to every humbled, repentant captive who the Lord put into bondage (see Leviticus 26:40-42).

The gift of the covenanted Spirit was the promise to the disobedient Jews going into captivity. “I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them” (Eze. 36:27). The promised Spirit to Israel became the basis for the new covenant to the Gentiles. “This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer. 31:33).

The Spirit is the evidence of our redemption. “The evidence of the purchase” (Jer. 32:11, cf vs. 10) for which Jesus paid, signing it with every drop of His blood, and sealing it with His eternal Spirit from His Father’s sanctuary above (see Isaiah 53:12; Ephesians 1:13, 14; Revelation 5:6). His Spirit of promise gives us the assurance of His love and our certainty of His salvation. “The Spirit Itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). Then we can confidently say, We “have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but…the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). By His own Spirit, Christ’s divine presence in His promises and resolutions quickens the needy soul that operates by hope, and is the Father calling and seeking to reconnect with that one through His Son. The Son’s touch (see 1 Samuel 10:26) provides the sorrowing, fatherless one the evidence of his acceptance (see Hebrews 10:15-18) and of his adoption into the family of heaven. “God setteth the solitary in families” (Ps. 68:6, cf Eph. 3:15). He “hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). “And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God” (Ps. 40:3).

The holy Spirit is “the Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4) in the powerful Son of God. The Word’s holy Spirit of promise is the foretaste of “the powers of the world to come” (Heb. 6:5). The sealing power of “that holy Spirit of promise…is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Eph. 1:14, cf 2 Cor. 1:21, 22). “Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 5:5). The present power of God’s Spirit is God’s avowed future, full gift of a nature free of sin’s bondage, for which all the children of God long. The Spirit of Christ is the powerful inheritance that transfigured Christ, and which awaits the saints’ transfiguration (see 1 Corinthians 15:43). God’s Spirit is the “glory and honour and immortality, eternal life” (Rom. 2:7), “the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump…we shall be changed.” (1 Cor. 15:52). Today, God’s omnipotent Spirit will transform us into the sons of God, expectant citizens of the still more potent heavenly kingdom at Christ’s return. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). “In this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven…. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 5:2, 4, 5, cf 15:52-54). “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9, cf Isa. 64:4), who “wait for Him” (Isa. 30:18) and “love His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8).

The Spirit is Jesus, “the water of life” (Rev. 22:17, cf Phil. 1:19) because Jesus quenches our dry souls with His revelation of God’s love (see Psalm 42:1; Jeremiah 17:7, 8). “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink” (John 7:37, cf vs. 38, 39). Did Jesus mean that He was the source of life only while He was living among us? Did He mean that after His ascension a third person of the Godhead would take His role as life giver? No. He said of Himself that as He was alive for evermore, He would continue to give us the life that springs up forever.

“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). “The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek Him: your heart shall live for ever” (Ps. 22:26).

“The Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10) since Jesus, the “righteous Branch” (Jer. 23:5), is “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Vs. 6) and “in Him was life” (John 1:4). “In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely” (Jer. 23:6). Jesus is “the life” (John 14:6 cf, 2 Cor. 4:10), “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2); Jesus is “the God of my life” (Ps. 42:8). There has ever been one channel of life (see Zechariah 4:2, 6) ― Jesus, the only way to “the eternal, self-existent One” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 36.

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).

If there had been a Law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe” (Gal. 3:21, 22).

For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3).

God means for His Law to give sinners death. Only saints find life in the Law of God; but, their sanctification He provides for. Therefore, He chooses to bring Adam’s children of the flesh to righteousness and life through His dying lamb. Otherwise, we have no chance for abundant life from the Law of morality. Everything that performing moral acts will do is grind us to powder. Nevertheless, God puts His holy Law between us and Himself, as if to say to us, “Talk to the hand.” We must go to His Prince and study the Prince closely to know Him personally. Then He and we can come together before the holy KING and receive a new spirit. The Law of God is a stone wall, the height of which is “an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel” (Rev. 21:17). God’s holy Law is 650 foot high so that He can easily stonewall us until we understand that we must come to Him by the only access through His stone wall—the gate of His sanctuary “by a new and living way, which [Jesus] hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb. 10:20). The gate to the gospel sanctuary is the Law, and the gate to the Law is the gospel sanctuary.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Heb. 10:19, 22).

Today, Jesus alone is the giver of life and love through His interceding communion from above (see John 5:21, 25; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Colossians 3:4; Hebrews 7:25; 3:15). “He that hath the Son hath life” (1 John 5:12, cf John 3:36). The Spirit of the Lord says, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:25, 26). “Now the Lord is that Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17), and there is power in the Spirit He gives. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come” (Rev. 22:17), even as the heavenly Husband through His church beckons to the world, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28, cf Matt. 28:20). “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39, cf John 6:37).

The Spirit is, Pt. 1

“He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). This speaks to the relation of the Son of God with His Father.

From the days of eternity, dwelling “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18) has ever been the privilege of the Son; and it ever will be His divine privilege. Their oneness, prior to sin, had resulted in seeming endless creation; and, since our fall into sin, Their unchanged oneness has also resulted in endless re-creation, that is, the redemption of Their purchased possession. By His own right, having been begotten of the Father, the Son possessed the same attribute of infinite craving to love and be loved that His Father God had. No alienation obstructed Their mutual tenderness which was like the strong nuclear force seen in the atoms of Their creation. From the beginning, His dwelling in His Father’s insuppressible love and righteousness made Jesus “the Messiah”, the “child” of God, “The Prince of Peace” (Dan. 9:25; Isa. 9:6); “for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him” (John 3:34). And we can have the Father’s unbounded Spirit and love, too. We can be changed from an abandoned child of wrath into His child of peace.

The only-begotten Son, He who is in the bosom of the Father, He whom God has declared to be “the Man that is My fellow” (Zechariah 13:7), ― the communion between Him and the eternal God [emphasis mine] is taken to represent the communion between Christ and His children on the earth! The Desire of Ages, p. 483.

It was Their perpetual fellowship, the “eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14) without measure from His Father (see John 3:34), that drove Jesus to continually divest from that body God gave Him the clamorings of His fallen human nature. Jesus found His life by constantly losing His life. “How am I straitened!” (Luke 12:50) was His earnest, life-long burden. Through the eternal Spirit, Jesus’ easy, natural action, from conception until the cross, was restricting self of its fallen inclinations, its ambition to be first, its craving for recognition and self-pity, its hording all that fallen nature felt that it deserved. Thus kept by His Father through His eternal Spirit, Jesus had a stainless Spirit. He “through the Spirit [mortified] the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13).

“Christ pleased not himself” (Rom. 15:3). “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (Matt. 27:42). The deepest self-denial came so naturally to Jesus because He ever dwelt in the eternal sunlight of His Father’s Spirit. And we, through that Spirit emanating from Christ’s example, will follow Him in everything. When “the Spirit” (Rom. 8:11) becomes “his Spirit” (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 2:10; Eph. 3:16; 1 John 4:13), that is Jesus’ Spirit, then the Lord God becomes “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Dwelling in Jesus’ love, breathing His Spirit, He constrains us to divest ourselves of self-service. “All we have and are is consecrated to Him. We long to bear His image, breathe His spirit, do His will, and please Him in all things” Steps to Christ, p. 58. “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 impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. It imbues the receiver with the attributes of Christ The Desire of Ages, p. 805.

Scripture calls “the Spirit” (Rom. 8:9) both “the Spirit of God” (Rom. 8:9) and “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) because both Father and His only Begotten are perfectly unified. Their communion is in one Spirit. Said Jesus, “I am in the Father, and the Father [is] in me” (John 14:10). “The communion of the Holy Ghost” (2 Cor. 13:14) is the counsel of peace and rest and trust, between Them both. The Spirit is Their union, which Jesus ever longed to have with His Father (see John 17:3). The Spirit is knowing God. And we can take part in that union of knowing, as well, and have life eternal from the eternal Spirit (see Hebrews 2:13; Revelation 1:10).

O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was….

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world (John 17:5, 21-24).

The experience of our dwelling in unity with Jehovah is the Spirit; it is “praying in the Holy Ghost” (Jude 20), being transfixed in Jehovah’s justice and goodness. It is “eternal” because it is infinite and perfect. We bind ourselves to the holy love within the Father and Son Godhead by submitting to Their righteousness. Once humbled by the Stone Law and broken, God gives us to His Son (see John 6:37), and we open our hearts to Jesus’ merciful goodness to us. With Jesus comes the Law into our hearts. The experience, “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97), is our access into the saving, powerful love of God. Jesus said, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). This is the everlasting covenant that is, has been, and ever will be. The gift of the timeless union-eternal Spirit is the object of the everlasting gospel, a foretaste of the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1; John 14:3,4,6). Without the paltry nature of our spirit being quickened, sealed, and solidified by God’s Spirit, we would be torn apart by forces of gravity and attraction within the Godhead, by our spirits’ natural-born rebellion toward Their infinite unity and by its repelling, convicting truth. Redemption, the gift of God, is nothing more than our restoration into the eternal Spirit that exists between the powerful Creator Godhead.

Jesus says that everyone who “hath set his love upon me” (Ps. 91:14, cf John 1:12) has an eternal relationship established with God, which He takes omnipotently seriously. With God, a commitment of love is permanent, serious business. He will never let that relationship die on His part. And because those who trust in Christ continually “stir up the gift of God” (2 Tim. 1:6), Jesus will keep them safe like a hen keeps her chicks gathered under her wings. “And they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28, 29). This is what Jesus ever lives for (see Hebrews 7:25), and our love to Him gives Him joy unbounded. The humbled, childlike love which the disciples had for God’s Son at Pentecost resulted in the unleashed joy of Father and Son; and a precursor to a second Pentecost is seen in the Revelation 10:1-4 boisterous reunion. We catch a view of God’s searching, holy love in the snapshot of Jesus and the rich, young ruler. “Jesus beholding him loved him” (Mark 10:21).

Through influences seen and unseen, our Saviour is constantly at work to attract the minds of men from the unsatisfying pleasures of sin to the infinite blessings that may be theirs in Him Steps to Christ, p. 28.

But, our God of love is an emphatically jealous God (see Exodus 20:2-6). And once we have sought Him out and He has poured the water of His Spirit into us, altering our spiritual chemistry into a new and living nature to love Him and His Law, then for us to turn away from that wonderful experience of His love is to blaspheme His consummating Spirit of union. The ruler’s rejection of Jesus’ love so wrenched His heart that it forced from Him a public cry of grief and consternation as He caught the attention of the multitude. “Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:23). The sorrowful ruler would never again desire an opportunity to enter into betrothal with his Creator. He didn’t turn away from someone who he saw as just another Galilean. He turned away from a conviction of obvious, pure love—the Messiah, the Son of God; and the Spirit of God turned completely silent to him because His Spirit went completely lifeless and cold to Jesus.

Until we focus away from the selfish spirit of this world to the disinterested Spirit pervading heaven, none of our sins are forgiven. But, once having opened our hearts widely to the holy Child sent from the bosom of the Father, every sin and mistake toward Him is forgivable by His Father. Jesus was the personification of disinterested love; and in God’s estimation, those who love His holy Son He treats as though they can do no wrong. “The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God” (John 16:27). And while in that powerful “spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4) they cannot sin (see 1 John 3:6; Job 1:8). The Father will chasten His loved one when wandering eyes cause him to err; but then, when the wanderer returns in repentance to Christ’s humble rules of the holy relationship, He immediately forgives him. “If he trespass against” Jesus “seventy times seven” “and…turn again…, saying, I repent”, then Jesus “shall” “forgive him” (Matt. 18:22;  12:32; Luke 17:4; 11:13; Jer. 31:17-20). This we see in His dealings with His beloved disciples, and with ancient Israel.

But, the only thing that “shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come” (Matt. 12:32) is for one to reject or to neglect that holy bond of eternal and infinite love. Even cursing Jesus, because Satan made us ignorant of His grace, is forgivable. But, once Jesus’ grace is fully known and obtained, then to leave it, as did the rich, young ruler, and to curse that which united him into the sanctifying union of the Godhead, means to bring God the most insulting rejection of our adoption. To accept the adversary’s temptation to deny God’s gift of love will never be forgivable toward that person, after having received all the abundance of the Father’s spiritual provisions in His Son’s Spirit. Turning away from Christ’s deliverance from the Almighty’s condemnation of sin, His adoption into the heavenly family, His protection and His fruit, receives the grief of a jealous God (see Hebrews 6:4-8; 2 Peter 2:20-22; Hebrews 2:1-4; Exodus 20:2-5; Leviticus 26). “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant…an unholy thing,” “wherewith he was sanctified,” “and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:29). “The just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him” (Heb. 10:38).

Many hope in the love of Jesus, but their promises and resolutions to stop sinning have become like ropes of sand. Their inability to throw down the strongholds of sin makes them feel that they have committed the unpardonable sin and can never have God’s grace and His welcoming countenance. But, it isn’t possible to be beyond God’s compassion for all who are striving to have Jesus’ mercies. Their cry is, “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me” (Mark 10:47). How can the God who made them not respond to their cry for His help?

Christ is the source of every right impulse. He is the only one that can implant in the heart enmity against sin. Every desire for truth and purity, every conviction of our own sinfulness, is an evidence that His Spirit is moving upon our hearts Steps to Christ, p. 26.

To such we can say with authority, “Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee” (Mark 10:49). “Cast away your filthy rags; you won’t need them many more. Open your heart to the love seen in Jesus, and give Him your love in return; and the love and overcoming power of God that came down at Pentecost will be yours, also.” Through His Spirit Jesus will say to him, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” (Vs. 51). With one little word, “Go” (Matt. 8:32), He will fell the devil’s powers of doubt, and drive away the demons. Of the overcomer Jesus says, “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name” (Ps. 91:14). “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children” (Isa. 49:25). The blasphemy of the Spirit of God comes not by them who hunger for God’s love and righteousness, and strive untiringly to know Him, but by them who have no need to hunger, so they turn down His earnest invitations (see Luke 15:7).

More on the Mother of all living

Jesus will birth us and succor us (see Mark 1:25; Luke 4:35; Hebrews 2:18). As we earlier stated, in the great controversy we see that the Son of God is “the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). He created Adam kingly and with all power and authority, formed in the image of His beloved Father (see 1 Corinthians 11:3, 7), made the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And, for the final work of Earth’s creation, Christ made Eve in His own spiritual image. He created Eve to help better reveal Himself before the angelic hosts and unfallen worlds. As mothers tend to the children’s immediate needs and fathers tend to their long-range needs, likewise have the two members of the Godhead. The Father of all has dealt with Earth’s rebellion in justice with some mercy because He had the needs and safety of the whole kingdom to remember. But, since the fall of man, He permitted His Son’s focus to be on our one race, our needs and issues. Thus, our issues had the Son's undivided attention, but were also interwoven with those of the rest of the vast kingdom. For us He has dealt with justice, but also in visible grace and kindness. The law of kindness has been in His mouth. And all of His born again children will rise up and call Him blessed (see Psalm 22:30, 31; Proverbs 31:28).

In their tendency to serve and minister in exchange for love and affection, every member of the female gender has revealed the Son of God, causing much joy and inspiration to the heavenly hosts – as well as great wrath and horror among the hosts of hell. Were it not for Satan’s vehement jealousy of the Son, every woman and girl should have reigned in the earth as queens and princesses, mothers and sisters of the males. But, to efface all evidence of Christ from Earth, the devil has abused and trampled upon, subjugated and excluded from the councils of men the women’s advice as a great resource of balancing wisdom. Their counsel mimics that of Daniel’s wisdom to King Nebuchadnezzar’s harsh measures, “Break off thy sins by righteousness...by shewing mercy to the poor” (Dan. 4:27).

Thus, by Christ’s infinite wisdom and creativity for the sake of the angelic hosts and the intelligent universe, through the holy pair in Eden and their animal kingdom that stretched to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills the Godhead and Their universe were displayed in a new and living way. As Christ is the Word of God, even so did He give women a voice closer to the frequency range of children and the special gift of communication to teach children their fathers’ will.

And, as “God…created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:9), so Adam would painlessly generate a race through Eve. But, after sin entered the world, the outcome of that for women would mean much agonizing in childbirth. “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (Gen. 3:16).

Likewise, the Son of God, the self-sacrificing “Mother of all living”, had His sorrow greatly multiplied and His strength spent. The “Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”, after having “borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:3, 4), “being in an agony” (Luke 22:44) died while laboring hard to give us a second birth and life eternal. By the consumed and fainting Son we were named “son of My sorrow”, but His victorious Father changed that name to “son of My right hand” (see Genesis 35:18, margin). Through the perfect sacrifice, He could see His Son’s reconciled seed and He brought Him back from the grave. And the Father’s plan of our salvation would prosper in the hands of His faithful High Priest, Michael, “the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people” (Dan. 12:1).

Jesus, the Mother of all living

“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” (Gen. 3:20). “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4).

God placed Adam in a garden. This was his dwelling. The blue heavens were its dome; the earth, with its delicate flowers and carpet of living green, was its floor; and the leafy branches of the goodly trees were its canopy. Its walls were hung with the most magnificent adornings--the handiwork of the great Master Artist. In the surroundings of the holy pair was a lesson for all time. Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 49.

Adam was made in the image of the Father, “God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:9). Adam and Eve were made in the image of the Godhead.

“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” (Gen. 5:1,2). The first parents were the progenitors of the human race, as the Godhead was the progenitor of the universe.

The man, kingly, strong, a bold ruler, calm and settled, not easily disturbed, all perfectly represented God the Father. Like God, Adam’s was the final say; and, at first, the only say. Adam went about his work, mastering and organizing the garden, as God had done His universe of suns and galaxies. The glory of the garden filled Adam’s being. But, like God had been, Adam was alone, and he had an unrest about it. The garden was full of wonder and goodness; but it wasn’t good enough.

So, as the Lord God had done earlier outside the garden, He again called forth every specie of the animal kingdom, right there before Adam’s eyes. Now, animals lowed, insects creeped, and fish swished. Birds of all sizes and colors flew around him and played together. They sang millions of melodies as the hosts of heaven had done for God. Still Adam felt alone.

The Lord God knew it wasn’t right for Adam to live without another with whom he could share his deepest companionship. But, He wanted Adam to come to that realization himself. So, He gave Adam a task that would raise the Lord’s desire in Adam’s mind, the Lord’s plans “being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” (Eph. 1:11).

Back in the dateless ages before the earth’s creation, a long period of singleness without companionship was what the Father had experienced before begetting His only beloved, the Lord God, the Heir, “God blessed for ever” (Rom. 9:5). Now, the Lord God, acting in His Father’s behalf, designed this circumstance with Adam and the animals in order for Adam to see his need for fellowship with like-minded company, a life-mate and a “like”-mate, as the divine Lord God had been to His Father God. In accordance with the Lord God’s plan, Adam noticed over and over that the varied male animals all had their mates. His conclusion: “Lord, can I have a mate also? My fellow creatures are beautiful and smart in many ways, but, none of them are just like me; and therefore can none satisfy this strong need I have for a creature like me.”

The Lord’s answer was already prepared. As He would later describe the paradise made new after the great controversy of sin: “before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isa. 65:24). Adam was so submissive to the Lord God, their thinking was so alike, that it was the Lord’s greatest joy to give all that Adam could ask or think.

So, the Lord sedated Adam and did same-day, outpatient surgery on him. With one of his bones, maybe the rib next to Adam’s heart, the Lord God “made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen. 2:22,23). She had his same shape, and his same skin—no fur or feathers, no scales or exoskeletal armor; and no walking on all fours!

Like the father of the bride, the Son of God personally introduced Eve to Adam. At first He betrothed them together and made them brother and sister for a while. Later, when they would know each other better, He would unite them in an even closer bond and relationship.

Eve was a little smaller than Adam and more deferential than he; she was quieter, but more expressive of her thoughts and emotions. She had as much energy as her brother, Adam, but not the power; yet, she happily looked up to him for counsel in everything.

Her body came with all the machinery and tools for accomplishing many miracles in the reproduction of the original human creation and its maintenance. In this way, she represented the Lord God, the Son of God, by whom everything was created. Later, Eve would be the spokesperson for Adam to the children, naturally imitating the work of her Creator, the Word of God. Like the Prince of the Godhead, her voice naturally was more comfortably within the children’s hearing range, while Adam spoke more like the sound of a roaring river or tumultuous surf, or even thunder. The woman, for her children’s sake and without even trying, had the softer body, the softer disposition, the softer heart than Adam. The man had a warm heart for his children, but not to the peculiar degree that the Lord God had put into the woman. Thus, in many ways did Eve resemble God’s dear Son, our Intercessor and everlasting Father.

The man and his betrothed wife both had a love for each other’s society, but, like the Lord God to His Father and to His creation, especially so did the mother of all living, more than the man, love to get and keep her spouse and her later children close by her. “Behold, I and the children which God hath given me.” (Heb. 2:13). And as Rebekah slowly died because she lost the love and presence of her precious Jacob, so did the Son die in His heart when He lost from His children the communion He had with them in the Garden. When they fell into sin, it was only right for God to choose the Lord God to die for the salvation of Adam’s race, since dying had already been the Lord God’s disposition after losing the especially close embrace and fellowship of His special Earth-born children.

So, temptation entered their garden home, and with that came sin. When sin comes in, so does pain and sorrow, lamentations and mourning and woe. All the pleasantness of the world was jeopardized now. Eve must endure much suffering when producing her children, and Adam must treat her more controllably than before sin came. His new fallen nature would be more impatient, more forceful, more demanding. “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (Gen. 3:16).

Simultaneously, the Father required more of His Son because of sin. He would become more controlling than before, for the sake of His eternal kingdom. And the Lord God would dutifully fulfill all of His God’s demands. If They hadn’t so desired a special, new creation in Eve, with the special capabilities to uniquely manifest the love within the Godhead for the purview of the intelligent universe, then the sin crisis would not now exist. A special revelation of Themselves in the now unholy pair as much misrepresented and dishonored Them to the kingdom. Therefore, Lord God the Son must bear the heavy responsibility with the solution for His precious Earth. God the Father must make it an urgent matter to stop and destroy sin, and to salvage the human race without jeopardizing the rest of the kingdom with their rebellion.

When the Son of God designed the Earth without sin, He painlessly birthed Adam and Eve. He Himself had provided the bodies, even as Eve would produce lifeless eggs; and the Father had provided the breath of life through His Son, as Adam would provide the power to transform Eve’s dead eggs into living, multiplying zygotes.

The humans failing in temptation was anticipated by the Son of God because He knew the overwhelming intelligence of Lucifer over His new children. But, being the one who bare them in their first birth, they were so precious to the Son of God, that He could not help but risk His eternal existence to regain their original love and devotion, and their eternal safety. He would fight like a she-bear for His people if necessary to them save from the abduction of Satan.

And now that sin entered the world, Eve’s first joy and pleasure in conception would turn into pain that would wrack her whole body, mind, and soul, but would afterward give her a love and care and worry for her newborns that would never die. After that much agony, she would never forget them for a moment. And the mixed blessing of horrific agonizing and its compulsion for childrearing would legitimize her Edenic justification. “She shall be saved in childbearing.” (1 Tim. 2:15).

In every way the same for the Son of God, delivering His children from Satan in their second birth would “greatly multiply” His sorrow, under the tremendous wrath of His Father toward mankind’s sin. From Gethsemane to Golgotha, His Spirit would be without form and void while His body would be bloated and exuding blood from every pore, as the divine wrath would press out of Him all that the eternal Spirit had impressed into Him. There would be no beauty in Him that we should desire Him as He would be reborn in us today. After that infinite agony, He would never forget His born-again children of God as their Mediator before the mercy seat of God’s throne.

The only legal redemption for Adam and his race must be the Father’s infinite severity upon His Son, hardening His Son’s already infinite tenderness and never-ending intercession for them. Our redemption came out of the Father’s infinite accountability upon Christ before the Law, thus creating His infinite advocacy to the Father before the Law. In order to ratify the Father’s original provision for our salvation, infinite mercy was birthed out of infinite justice, delivered through Their infinite desperation to love us and to woo us back from destruction, infinite yearning to have and to hold us ‘til death do us part. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” (2Cor. 5:19).

“And therefore” our redemption “was imputed” to the Son “for righteousness” (Rom. 4:22) before God. “To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” (Rom. 3:26).

The Holy Ghost and the Godhead

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2Pet. 1:21).

Everyone has an influence. Some have a stronger influence than others. If the heart is good, the influence will be for good. An opposite, but no less sure result, comes if the heart is evil. The evil influences radiating from an evil heart are under Satan’s dominion. He forces his will against our will. And, so do his children manipulate and control.

But, the heart that is good never manipulates. Its influence comes from above, from Him who would never force us against anyone’s will. He uses loving-kindness and everyone with the need for kindness will revel in His presence. Loving-kindness is holy; therefore, His loving influence is a holy influence—the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a third individual of the Godhead, but the holy winds of the great first person of the Godhead, “the Sun of righteousness”. (Mal. 4:2).

The means by which we can overcome the wicked one is that by which Christ overcame,―the power of the word. God does not control our minds without our consent; but if we desire to know and to do His will, His promises are ours: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” “If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching.” John 8:32; 7:17, R. V. Through faith in these promises, every man may be delivered from the snares of error and the control of sin.

     Every man is free to choose what power he will have to rule over him. None have fallen so low, none are so vile, but that they can find deliverance in Christ. The Desire of Ages, p. 258.

Everyone who has eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart dying for holy love will be the recipients of His Holy Ghost. No one can see the holy winds coming from the Sun of righteousness; but every one who has given up all hope and dependence on this world can feel the holy influence of God’s Spirit and will testify that it is of God. Like the flowers that all lift their faces heavenward, these humbled, longing souls are receptors for the life and health streaming from the Father. No one else than the needy can ever know the experience of the power for good that attends the reception of God’s influence of love. And without His holy influence controlling the body, mind, and soul, there is no sovereignty of the Creator over His creatures; and thus, no salvation. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” (Rom. 8:9).

When the soul surrenders itself to Christ, a new power takes possession of the new heart. A change is wrought which man can never accomplish for himself. It is a supernatural work, bringing a supernatural element into human nature. The soul that is yielded to Christ becomes His own fortress, which He holds in a revolted world, and He intends that no authority shall be known in it but His own. A soul thus kept in possession by the heavenly agencies is impregnable to the assaults of Satan. But unless we do yield ourselves to the control of Christ, we shall be dominated by the wicked one. We must inevitably be under the control of the one or the other of the two great powers that are contending for the supremacy of the world. It is not necessary for us deliberately to choose the service of the kingdom of darkness in order to come under its dominion. We have only to neglect to ally ourselves with the kingdom of light. If we do not co-operate with the heavenly agencies, Satan will take possession of the heart, and will make it his abiding place. The only defense against evil is the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith in His righteousness. Unless we become vitally connected with God, we can never resist the unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and temptation to sin. We may leave off many bad habits, for the time we may part company with Satan; but without a vital connection with God, through the surrender of ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be overcome. Without a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the end. Ibid., p.324. 

    Every soul that refuses to give himself to God is under the control of another power. He is not his own. He may talk of freedom, but he is in the most abject slavery. He is not allowed to see the beauty of truth, for his mind is under the control of Satan. While he flatters himself that he is following the dictates of his own judgment, he obeys the will of the prince of darkness. Christ came to break the shackles of sin-slavery from the soul. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” sets us “free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2.

     In the work of redemption there is no compulsion. No external force is employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to choose whom he will serve. In the change that takes place when the soul surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom. The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself. True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan’s control; but when we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power out of and above ourselves, the powers of the soul are imbued with the divine energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in fulfilling the will of God.

     The only condition upon which the freedom of man is possible is that of becoming one with Christ. “The truth shall make you free;” and Christ is the truth. Sin can triumph only by enfeebling the mind, and destroying the liberty of the soul. Subjection to God is restoration to one’s self,--to the true glory and dignity of man. The divine law, to which we are brought into subjection, is “the law of liberty.” James 2:12. Ibid., p. 466. 

  Christ gave this man a test. He called upon him to choose between the heavenly treasure and worldly greatness. The heavenly treasure was assured him if he would follow Christ. But self must yield; his will must be given into Christ’s control. The very holiness of God was offered to the young ruler. He had the privilege of becoming a son of God, and a coheir with Christ to the heavenly treasure. But he must take up the cross, and follow the Saviour in the path of self-denial. Ibid., p. 519. 

   In matters of conscience the soul must be left untrammeled. No one is to control another’s mind, to judge for another, or to prescribe his duty. God gives to every soul freedom to think, and to follow his own convictions. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” No one has a right to merge his own individuality in that of another. In all matters where principle is involved, “let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Romans 14:12, 5. In Christ’s kingdom there is no lordly oppression, no compulsion of manner. The angels of heaven do not come to the earth to rule, and to exact homage, but as messengers of mercy, to co-operate with men in uplifting humanity.

     The principles and the very words of the Saviour’s teaching, in their divine beauty, dwelt in the memory of the beloved disciple. To his latest days the burden of John’s testimony to the churches was, “This is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 3:11, 16….

     This was the spirit that pervaded the early church. After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own.” “Neither was there any among them that lacked.” “And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.” Acts 4:32, 34, 33.  Ibid., p. 550, 551.

The influence of God is not only His holy presence, but also His power. That power, with His Son is what comes together to co-create life. The power to create comes directly from the Son, but the original, underived life flows from Him who sits on the throne, who “created all things, and for [His] pleasure they are and were created.” (Rev. 4:11). The divine procreativity throughout cosmic creation results from the holy union of God and His Son.

Father and Son together have made all things. Creation comes out of the counsel of peace between Them both. “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 3:9).

The Father “hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Heb. 1:2,3).

The Son “in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” (Col. 1:14-17).

This arrangement speaks of perfect oneness and joy in the Godhead. The Father could have accomplished the creation alone. And, maybe, it was the great King who made the stars and galaxies and nebulae. We know that He can create alone, because it was He who incarnated His Son to human form.

“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Lk. 1:35). The Father alone put His Son into human flesh and made His Anointed in the likeness of man. “A body hast Thou prepared Me.” (Heb. 10:5). But the incarnation was a parable, teaching us and all the vast intelligent creation of the original begetting of the Son from the Father, when the Father knew that it was not good for Himself to exist alone; so He brought forth His firstborn Son from His heart. The Messiah’s earthly life was filled with His Father’s Spirit from the moment of conception until He ascended to sit at His Father’s side again.

“He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all.… For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.” (Jn. 3:31,34,35). The Father filled His Son with His Spirit.

The Son of God had the inherent power of divinity. He could have done all the work of miracles of His own power. But, He had ever received of His Father, and that determined His practice every step in life here. Thus, the Son of God had power to give spiritual life and healing, as well as physical life and healing. “That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.” (Matt. 9:6).

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” (Jn. 5:24-26).

The incarnation taught another lesser lesson.

At the beginning, creation of the worlds was a joint effort. As mankind is given the ability to procreate because we are made in God’s image, so did God, through the bond of holy loving-kindness with His co-Creator Son, create mankind. Demonstrating Their power to have children which He gave human parents, He said to His Son, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.... And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Gen. 1:26, 28).

Ever since then, the resulting resemblance between children and their parents has continued the first act of our creation into God’s image. “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam.… And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image….” (Gen. 5:1-3).

The model for Adam’s creation and that of his world was based upon the Godhead and Their universe. Earth was meant to display to intelligent creation many new insights about the Creator and Their reason and love for creating. No wonder the sons of God shouted for joy at earth’s creation (Job 38:7). They were praising the great Father of all.

“And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to Him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Rev. 4:9-11).

The Holy Ghost is the power of God permeating and upholding creation. The Spirit is of the Highest; It comes from the Most High, that is, God the Father. The Spirit is His Spirit, His thoughts, His mind.

The Holy Ghost is also the mind of God through His Son.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind [“Spirit” (Isa. 40:13)] of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” (1Cor. 2:9-16).

The Holy Ghost is not a supernatural power that turns intelligent men, women, and children into religious raving maniacs; It does not make them speak unintelligible gibberish. It makes no one foolishly roll around on the floor, walk on the back of pews, or handle poisonous rattle snakes. It gives no uncontrollable giggling or “holy” horse laughter and neighing, “for God hath…given us the spirit of…power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2Tim. 1:7). His Spirit “is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” (1Cor. 14:33). This is a disgrace to God the Father, one of Satan’s greatest laughs. The Holy Ghost is the wisdom of God and turns no man to foolishness, who are made to represent God’s image. Only Satan would discredit God and God’s favorite children like that.

“Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” (Ecc. 7:29). Charity “doth not behave itself unseemly.” (1Cor. 13:5). “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth…. Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” (1Tim. 3:14,15; 1Tim. 4:12).

The Holy Spirit leads fallen man to a new heart that transforms his old life into a new one, even the life of faith and beauty. Never would God take His image of soberness and order, and bring it down to confusion like the beasts that perish. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” (Matt. 12:25).

It was the Holy Ghost that spoke to the apostles, commanding them, and guiding in the extension of the kingdom of loving-kindness and grace of God.

“As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.” (Acts 13:2). “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.” (Acts 15:28). “Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas.  And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” (Acts 16:6-9).

The Holy Ghost sounded like the same commanding voice on the holy mount. “While he [Peter] yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.” (Matt. 17:5,6). The Father’s bright Spirit  that overshadowed the disciples at Christ’s transfiguration was the same cloud that overshadowed Mary at Christ’s incarnation. (See Luke 1:35).

In the Revelation we get a close up view of the Holy Ghost that moved the prophets.

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to shew unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John.” (Rev. 1:1). “And he [the angel] saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev. 19:9,10). Even though it was called the Revelation [from] Jesus, He received it from His Father. “The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of” “God” (Rev. 19:10); i.e., therefore, “worship God”. The Son is “God’s thought made audible.” The Desire of Ages, p. 19. Jesus passed to His angel God’s thoughts. Jesus was the Word of God,  His testimony He gave to John through “His angel” Gabriel; but the inspiration for Jesus’ testimony came from His Father. The Holy Ghost originated from the Father. Here is the moving of the Holy Ghost upon the prophets and upon “them which keep the sayings of this book.” (Rev. 22:9).

“And he [the angel] said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to shew unto His servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.” (Rev. 22:6-8). “I Jesus have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” (Rev. 22:16).

We need the holy influence of God to direct our paths. Of ourselves, we have no influence that is strong enough to withstand the barrage of satanic worldliness or good enough to change the hearts of fallen mankind. But, if we will learn to ally ourselves with Jesus and His loving-kindness, then He will imbue us and His holy influence. Loving-kindness, wisdom, and power will flow out of us, affecting people with a wonderful power for good that counteracts the powerful ill effects of Satan and his hosts.

Only those who, in the worst way, need Jesus and His Holy Ghost, will touch the hem of Jesus’ garment and His presence will transfix their consciences and pervade their hearts and minds. Only by His Spirit can we ever do the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. Only by relying wholly upon the Son, His life of compassion, and the power of His living word, can the gospel go to the world. Evangelism and every other commandment are possible only through receiving the holy influence of Christ. Any kind of service without His Spirit is Christless, loveless, and worthless.

“But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” (Jn. 1:12).

“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2Cor. 13:5).

“Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.… And if Christ be in you, the [fallen nature] is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.” (Rom. 8:9-11).