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).