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Updated: August 21, 2024
And the fact that so many of us seem to imagine that the whole Gospel lies in this, that 'He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and have relegated the teaching that He, by His Spirit, lives in us, if we are His disciples, to a less prominent place, has done enormous harm, not only to the type of Christian life, but to the conception of what Christianity is, both amongst those who receive it, and amongst those who do not accept it, making it out to be nothing more than a means of escape from the consequences of our transgression, instead of recognising it for what it is, the impartation of a new life which will flower into all beauty, and bear fruit in all goodness.
Their outward organic union as a church was the natural and inevitable result of this inward life and love. By the impartation of spiritual life to believers and by the agency of the Holy Spirit operating in the apostles as special agents appointed to do his work, Christ built his church on earth.
The chapter puts His blood-shedding before us in a way as remote as possible from a mere example, or from a suffering meant to do its work mainly by a mysterious impartation to us of the power to suffer. He dies "for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant" in other words, for the welcome back to God of those who had sinned against His awful Law.
Let us learn what ought to be counted axioms in our Church work: Heaven is still as full of stores of spiritual blessing as it was then. God still delights to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. Our life and work are still as dependent on the direct impartation of Divine power as they were in Pentecostal times.
We are taught explicitly in Job xxxiii. 4, that the creation of man is the Holy Spirit’s work. We read, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” Here both the creation of the material frame and the impartation of life are attributed to the agency of the Holy Spirit.
The fact to be noted is, however, that the people with whom Jesus was brought into contact were made aware in many ways of the impartation of His Life to them. "Of His fulness," said John, "we all received, and grace for grace." There seemed to be in Him a plenitude of vitality, from which health and vigor flowed into the lives of those who came near to Him.
The very heart of Christianity is that the Divine Light of which that Shekinah was but a poor and transitory symbol has 'tabernacled' amongst men in the Christ, and has from Him been communicated, and is being communicated in such measure as earthly limitations and conditions permit, and that these do point on assuredly to perfect impartation hereafter, when 'we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. The Three could walk in the furnace of fire, because there was One with them, 'like unto the Son of God. 'Who among us shall dwell with the everlasting fire, the fire of that divine perfection?
There is a wonderful alternation of giving and receiving between the loving God and his beloved lovers; first the impartation of the divine to the human, then the surrender of the human to the divine, and then the larger gift of God to man, just as in some series of mirrors the light is flashed back from the one to the other, in bewildering manifoldness and shimmering of rays from either polished surface.
We do not plead our own merits, because we are not under the law, but under grace, and the principle underlying the gospel is life by impartation of unmerited mercy and divine life. But the law of retribution still remains valid for Christians in so far as that God will never forget any of their works, and will give them full recompense for their work of faith and labour of love.
As certainly as every lump of coal that you put upon your fire contains in itself sunbeams that have been locked up for all these millenniums that have passed since it waved green in the forest, so certainly does every good deed embody in itself gifts from above. No man is pure except by impartation; and every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from the Father of Lights.
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