Pentecost 2016
The connection between the Annunciation and Pentecost is often implied in icons of Pentecost. The disciples are all in different postures that show alarm or surprise. The only one who is utterly calm and still, directly meeting the eyes of those who are looking at the icon, is Mary, Mother of God: she has been through it all before! With Mary they have received the Holy Spirit, and the Church is complete.
For ever afterwards, whenever the Eucharist is celebrated, this assembly in the upper room will be joined by the local church that celebrates. As the Holy Spirit descends on the gifts of bread and wine and upon the participants, he welds them into the body of Christ, and unites them with angels and saints, and with all who are incorporated by grace into Christ, and presents them to the Father. In this way, Pentecost continues to unite heaven and earth.
to be continued
Pentecost and the Sending
of the Holy Spirit
.by St Irenaeus of Lyons
When the Lord told his disciples to go and teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he conferred on them the power of giving men new life in God.
He had promised through the prophets that in these last days he would pour out his Spirit on his servants and handmaids, and that they would prophesy. So when the Son of God became the Son of Man, the Spirit also descended upon him, becoming accustomed in this way to dwelling with the human race, to living in men and to inhabiting God’s creation. The Spirit accomplished the Father’s will in men who had grown old in sin, and gave them new life in Christ.
Luke says that the Spirit came down on the disciples at Pentecost, after the Lord’s ascension, with power to open the gates of life to all nations and to make known to them the new covenant. So it was that men of every language joined in singing one song of praise to God, and scattered tribes, restored to unity by the Spirit, were offered to the Father as the first-fruits of all the nations.
This was why the Lord had promised to send the Advocate: he was to prepare us as an offering to God. Like dry flour, which cannot become one lump of dough, one loaf of broad, without moisture, we who are many could not become one in Christ Jesus without the water that comes down from heaven. And like parched ground, which yields no harvest unless it receives moisture, we who were once like a waterless tree could never have lived and borne fruit without this abundant rainfall from above. Through the baptism that liberates us from change and decay we have become one in body; through the Spirit we have become one in soul.
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God came down upon the Lord, and the Lord in turn gave this Spirit to his Church, sending the Advocate from heaven into all the world into which, according to his own words, the devil too had been cast down like lightning.
If we are not to be scorched and made unfruitful, we need the dew of God. Since we have our accuser, we need an advocate as well. And so the Lord in his pity for man, who had fallen into the hands of brigands, having himself bound up his wounds and left for his care two coins bearing the royal image, entrusted him to the Holy Spirit. Now, through the Spirit, the image and inscription of the Father and the Son have been given to us, and it is our duty to use the coin committed to our charge and make it yield a rich profit for the Lord.
Irenaeus was an important second century church father (130-200 AD). He was born in Smyrna in Asia Minor, where he studied under bishop Polycarp, who in turn had been a disciple of John the Apostle. He studied in Rome under Justin Martyr. Around 178 AD he was made bishop of Lyons in Southern Gaul. In contrast to Justin – whose writings he used and respected – Irenaeus rejected the philosophical approach to Christianity, which for him “rested on revelation, tradition, and on the power of the Holy Spirit.” He did not entirely abandon philosophy and many of his works are indebted to it. He saw his main ministry in refuting the heresy of the Gnostic teachers. Irenaeus is the first great theologian of the early church. His major work, Against Heresies, written around 180 AD, was a refutation of Gnostic errors. He exposed the absurdities of the Gnostic cults of the day and included a strong presentation and defense of orthodox belief. His work is the earliest compendium of Christian theology surviving from ancient times and is the first work that cites virtually every book of the Christian writings that we now call the New Testament.
From the Detailed Rules for Monks by Basil the Great, 4th century
Love of God is not something that can be taught. We did not learn from someone else how to rejoice in light or want to live, or to love our parents or guardians. It is the same — perhaps even more so — with our love for God: it does not come by another’s teaching. As soon as the living creature (that is, man) comes to be, a power of reason is implanted in us like a seed, containing with it the ability and the need to love. When the school of God’s law admits this power of reason, it cultivates it diligently, skillfully nurtures it, and with God’s help brings it to perfection.
For this reason, as by God’s gift, I find you with the zeal necessary to attain this end, and you on your part help me with your prayers. I will try to fan into flame the spark of divine love that is hidden within you, as far as I am able through the power of the Holy Spirit.
First, let me say that we have already received from God the ability to fulfill all his commands. We have then no reason to resent them, as if something beyond our capacity were being asked of us. We have no reason either to be angry, as if we had to pay back more than we had received. When we use this ability in a right and fitting way, we lead a life of virtue and holiness. But if we misuse it, we fall into sin.
This is the definition of sin: the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good, a use contrary to God’s commandments. On the other hand, the virtue that God asks of us is the use of the same powers based on a good conscience in accordance with God’s command.
Since this is so, we can say the same about love. Since we received a command to love God, we possess from the first moment of our existence an innate power and ability to love. The proof of this is not to be sought outside ourselves, but each one can learn this from himself and in himself. It is natural for us to want things that are good and pleasing to the eye, even though at first different things seem beautiful and good to different people. In the same way, we love what is related to us or near to us, though we have not been taught to do so, and we spontaneously feel well disposed to our benefactors.
What, I ask, is more wonderful than the beauty of God? What thought is more pleasing and satisfying than God’s majesty? What desire is as urgent and overpowering as the desire implanted by God in a soul that is completely purified of sin and cries out in its love: I am wounded by love? The radiance of the divine beauty is altogether beyond the power of words to describe.
Whitsuntide, Sermon 75
Selected Quotes of the Fathers on Pentecost and the Holy Spirit
my source: Full of Grace and Truth
“‘And my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.’ My friends, consider the greatness of this solemn feast that commemorates God’s coming as a guest into our hearts! If some rich and influential friend were to come to your home, you would promptly put it all in order for fear something there might offend your friend’s eyes when he came in. Let all of us then who are preparing our inner homes for God cleanse them of anything our wrongdoing has brought into them.”
St. Gregory (the Great) Dialogos, on Pentecost in Be Friends of God
“‘And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 2:3-4). They partook of fire, not of burning but of saving fire; of fire which consumes the thorns of sins, but gives luster to the soul. This is now coming upon you also, and that to strip away and consume your sins which are like thorns, and to brighten yet more that precious possession of your souls, and to give you grace; for He gave it then to the Apostles. And He sat upon them in the form of fiery tongues, that they might crown themselves with new and spiritual diadems by fiery tongues upon their heads. A fiery sword barred of old the gates of Paradise; a fiery tongue which brought salvation restored the gift.”
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures: Lecture 17 no. 15)
“Brothers, we shall hymn with praise the tongues of the disciples, because, not with elegant speech, But in divine power they have revived all men. Because they took up His Cross as a reed, So that they might again use words as fishing lines and fish for the world Since they had speech as a sharp fishhook, Since the flesh of the Master of all Has become for them a bait, it has not sought to kill But it attracts to life those who worship and praise The All-Holy Spirit.”
St Romanos the Melodist – On Pentecost
“But as the old Confusion of tongues was laudable, when men who were of one language in wickedness and impiety, even as some now venture to be, were building the Tower; for by the confusion of their language the unity of their intention was broken up, and their undertaking destroyed; so much more worthy of praise is the present miraculous one. For being poured from One Spirit upon many men, it brings them again into harmony. And there is a diversity of Gifts, which stands in need of yet another Gift to discern which is the best, where all are praiseworthy.”
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on Pentecost
“Regarding the manner in which the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, Saint Symeon the New Theologian makes a remark that is most helpful for properly understanding this event. He says that this mode of acting of the Holy Spirit – by means of a loud noise as of a rushing mighty wind, and with tongues of fire – was something unique. The Holy Spirit, he observes, comes very calmly, in the form of spiritual light, and evokes joy. The passage in which he touches upon this point is this:
The power of the Holy Spirit, which is bestowed upon him who loves God and keeps His commandments, does not appear visibly in the form of fire, nor does it come with a loud sound like a violent wind – for this happened only in the time of the Apostles for the sake of the unbelievers. Instead, it is seen spiritually in the form of spiritual light, and comes with all calm and joy.”
Guide to Byzantine Iconography, Vol. 1, by Constantine Cavarnos
“The holy mystery of the day of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, is to be understood in the following manner: the spirit of man must be completed and perfected by the Holy Spirit, that is, it must be sanctified, illuminated, and divinized by the Holy Spirit. This holy mystery is realized continually in the Church of Christ and because of this the Church is really a continuous Pentecost…. From Holy Pentecost, the day of the Holy Spirit, every God-like soul in the Church of Christ is an incombustible bush which continuously burns and is inflamed with God and has a fiery tongue within it.”
St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith and Life in Christ
“The power to bear Mysteries, which the humble man has received, which makes him perfect in every virtue without toil, this is the very power which the blessed apostles received in the form of fire. For its sake the Saviour commanded them not to leave Jerusalem until they should receive power from on high, that is to say, the Paraclete, which, being interpreted, is the Spirit of consolation. And this is the Spirit of divine visions. Concerning this it is said in divine Scripture: ‘Mysteries are revealed to the humble’ [Ecclus 3:19]. The humble are accounted worthy of receiving in themselves this Spirit of revelations Who teaches mysteries.”
St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homily 77
“Was it upon the twelve that it [the Holy Spirit] came? Not so; but upon the hundred and twenty. For Peter would not have quoted to no purpose the testimony of the prophet, saying, ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams’ (Joel 2:28). ‘And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.’ For, that the effect may not be to frighten only, therefore it is both ‘with the Holy Spirit, and with fire. And began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance’ (Mt. 3:11).”
St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles
(http://www.orthodox.net/gleanings/pentecost.html)
“If from one burning lamp someone lights another, then another from that one, and so on in succession, he has light continuously. In the same way, through the Apostles ordaining their successors, and these successors ordaining others, and so on, the grace of the Holy Spirit is handed down through all generations and enlightens all who obey their shepherds and teachers.”
St. Gregory Palamas, “On how the Holy Spirit was manifested and shared out at Pentecost”
“What is the aim of the incarnate dispensation of God’s Word, preached in all the Holy Scriptures but which we, who read them, do not know? The only aim is that, having entered into what is our own, we should participate in what is His. The Son of God has become Son of Man in order to make us, men, sons of God, raising our race by grace to what He is Himself by nature, granting us birth from above through the grace of the Holy Spirit and leading us straightway to the kingdom of heaven, or rather, granting us this kingdom of heaven within us (Luke 17:21), in order that we should not merely be fed by the hope of entering it, but entering into full possession thereof should cry: our ‘life is hid with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3).
St. Simeon the New Theologian, “Practical and Theological Precepts” (The Philokalia)
“…One must clean the royal house from every impurity and adorn it with every beauty, then the king may enter into it. In a similar way one must first cleanse the earth of the heart and uproot the weeds of sin and the passionate deeds and soften it with sorrows and the narrow way of life, sow in it the seed of virtue, water it with lamentation and tears, and only then does the fruit of dispassion and eternal life grow. For the Holy Spirit does not dwell in a man until he has been cleansed from passions of the soul and body.”
St. Paisius Velichkovsky, “Field Flowers”
“If the Lord has left us ignorant of the ordering of many things in this world, then it means it is not necessary for us to know: we cannot compass all creation with our minds. But the Creator Himself of heaven and earth and every created thing gives us to know Him in the Holy Sprit.
St. Silouan the Athonite, “Wisdom from Mount Athos”
“Whatever the soul may think fit to do itself, whatever care and pains it may take, relying only upon its own power, and thinking to be able to effect a perfect success by itself, without the co-operation of the Spirit, it is greatly mistaken. It is of no use for the heavenly places; it is of no use for the kingdom – that soul, which supposes that it can achieve perfect purity of itself, and by itself alone, without the Spirit. Unless the man who is under the influence of the passions will come to God, denying the world, and will believe with patience and hope to receive a good thing foreign to his own nature, namely the power of the Holy Spirit, and unless the Lord shall drop upon the soul from on high the life of the Godhead, such a man will never experience true life, will never recover from the drunkenness of materialism; the enlightenment of the Spirit will never shine in that benighted soul, or kindle in it a holy daytime; it will never awake out of that deepest sleep of ignorance, and so come to know God of a truth through God’s power and the efficacy of grace.”
St. Macarius the Great, “Spiritual Homilies (Homily 24)“
“The aim of all those who live in God is to please our Lord Jesus Christ and become reconciled with God the Father through receiving the Holy Spirit, thus securing their salvation, for in this consists the salvation of every soul. If this aim and this activity is lacking, all other labour is useless and all other striving is in vain. Every path of life which does not lead to this is without profit.”
St. Simeon the New Theologian, “Writings from the Philokalia”
“Everything that breathes, breathes by air and cannot live without air; similarly all reasonable free creatures live by the Holy Spirit, as though by air, and cannot live without Him. “Every soul is quickened by the Holy Spirit.” Recognise that the Holy Spirit stands in the same relation to your soul as air stands in relation to your body.”
St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
“The Saviour and the Comforter, two Persons of the Godhead: the One ever saves from sins, and the Other comforts him who is saved. Their very names are taken from their deeds, and are always actually justified. He comforts! The Holy Spirit comforts the believing soul, as a mother comforts her child.”
St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
“…In proportion to your humility you are given patience in your woes; and in proportion to your patience the burden of your afflictions is made lighter and you will find consolation; in proportion to your consolation, your love of God increases; and in proportion to your love, your joy in the Holy Spirit is magnified. Once men have truly become His sons, our tenderly compassionate Father does not take away their temptations from them when it is His pleasure to ‘make for them a way to escape’ (1 Cor. 10:13), but instead He gives His sons patience in their trials. All these good things are given into the hand of their patience for the perfecting of their souls.”
St. Isaac the Syrian, “Ascetical Homilies” (Homily Forty-Two)
“Jesus tells us that His holy Disciples will be more courageous and more understanding when they would be, as the Scripture says, Endowed with power from on high (Luke 24:49), and that when their minds would be illuminated by the torch of the Spirit they would be able to see into all things, even though no longer able to question Him bodily present among them. The Saviour does not say that they would no longer as before need the light of His guidance, but that when they received His Spirit, when He was dwelling in their hearts, they would not be wanting in any good thing, and their minds would be filled with most perfect knowledge.”
St. Cyril of Alexandria
“The Saints in Heaven through the Holy Spirit behold the glory of God and the beauty of the Lord’s Countenance. But in this same Holy Spirit they see our lives too, and our deeds. They know our sorrows and hear our burning prayers. When they were living on earth they learned of the love of God from the Holy Spirit; and he who knows love on earth takes it with him into eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven, where love grows and becomes perfect. And if love makes one unable to forget a brother here, how much more must the Saints remember and pray for us!”
St. Silouan the Athonite, “Wisdom from Mount Athos”
“As the Lord put on the body, leaving behind all principality and power, so Christians put on the Holy Spirit, and are at rest.”
St. Macarius the Great, “Spiritual Homilies” (Homily 26)
“…Filled with love, the holy Apostles went into the world, preaching salvation to mankind and fearing nothing, for the Spirit of God was their strength. When St. Andrew was threatened with death upon the cross if he did not stay his preaching he answered: ‘If I feared the cross I should not be preaching the Cross.” In this manner all the other Apostles, and after them the martyrs and holy men who wrestled against evil, went forward with joy to meet pain and suffering. For the Holy Spirit, sweet and gracious, draws the soul to love the Lord, and in the sweetness of the Holy Spirit the soul loses her fear of suffering.”
St. Silouan the Athonite, “Wisdom from Mt. Athos”
“The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.”
St. Seraphim of Sarov, “A Wonderful Revelation to the World”
“The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who fills the whole universe, passes through all believing, meek, humble, good, and simple human souls, dwelling in them, vivifying and strengthening them. He becomes one spirit with them and everything to them – light, strength, peace, joy, success in their undertakings, especially in a pious life, and everything good – “going through all understanding, pure and most subtle spirits” (Wisdom of Solomon vii, 23). “We have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (I Cor. xii.13). All pious people are filled with the Spirit of God similarly as a sponge is filled with water.”
St. John of Kronstadt, “My Life in Christ”
“Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our being brought into a state of all “fulness of blessing,” both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us, by promise hereof, through faith, beholding the reflection of their grace as though they were already present, we await the full enjoyment.”
St. Basil the Great, “On the Holy Spirit”
(http://scienceofsalvation.blogspot.com/)
by John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
“You are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you” (Romans 8:9)
[Note: Minor changes, including capitalization style, were made to allow the text
to be more accessible to modern readers. Sub-headings were also added. Editor]
Condescension of the Son
God the Son has graciously condescended to reveal the Father to his creatures from without; God the Holy Spirit, by inward communications. Who can compare these separate works of condescension, either of them being beyond our understanding? We can but silently adore the Infinite Love which encompasses us on every side.
The Son of God is called the Word, as declaring his glory throughout created nature, and impressing the evidence of it on every part of it. He has given us to read it in his works of goodness, holiness, and wisdom. He is the living and eternal law of truth and perfection, that image of God’s unapproachable attributes, which men have ever seen, by glimpses, on the face of the world, felt that it was sovereign, but knew not whether to say it was a fundamental rule and self-existing destiny, or the offspring and mirror of the divine will.
Such has he been from the beginning, graciously sent forth from the Father to reflect his glory upon all things, distinct from him, while mysteriously one with him; and in due time visiting us with an infinitely deeper mercy, when for our redemption he humbled himself to take upon himself that fallen nature which he had originally created after his own image.
Condescension of the Spirit
The condescension of the Blessed Spirit is as incomprehensible as that of the Son. He has ever been the secret Presence of God within the creation: a source of life amid the chaos, bringing out into form and order what was at first shapeless and void, and the voice of truth in the hearts of all rational beings, turning them into harmony with the intimations of God’s Law, which were externally made to them.
Hence he is especially called the “life-giving” Spirit; being (as it were) the soul of universal nature, the strength of man and beast, the guide of faith, the witness against sin, the inward light of patriarchs and prophets, the grace abiding in the Christian soul, and the Lord and Ruler of the church.
Therefore let us ever praise the Father Almighty, who is the first source of all perfection, in and together with his co-equal Son and Spirit, through whose gracious ministrations we have been given to see “what manner of love” it is wherewith the Father has loved us.
The work of the Holy Spirit
On this Festival [of Pentecost] I propose to describe as scripturally as I can, the merciful office of God the Holy Spirit, towards us Christians. And I trust I may do so with the sobriety and reverence which the subject demands.
Old Testament references
The Holy Spirit has from the beginning pleaded with humankind. We read in the Book of Genesis, that, when evil began to prevail all over the earth before the flood, the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man” (Genesis 6:3); implying that he had hitherto striven with his corruption. Again, when God took to himself a special people, the Holy Spirit was pleased to be especially present with them.
Nehemiah says, “You also gave your Good Spirit to instruct them” (Nehemiah 9:20), and Isaiah, “They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit” (Isaiah 63:10). Further, he manifested himself as the source of various gifts, intellectual and extraordinary, in the Prophets, and others.
Thus at the time the Tabernacle was constructed, the Lord filled Bezaleel “with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works” (Exodus 31:3,4) in metal, stone, and timber.
At another time, when Moses was oppressed with his labors, Almighty God graciously agreed to “take of the Spirit” which was upon him, and to put it on seventy of the elders of Israel, that they might share the burden with him. “And it came to pass, that, when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease” (Numbers 11:17,25).
These texts will be sufficient to remind you of many others, in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are spoken of under the Jewish covenant. These were great mercies; yet, great as they were, they are as nothing compared with that surpassing grace with which we Christians are honored; that great privilege of receiving into our hearts, not the mere gifts of the Spirit, but his very presence, himself, by a real not a figurative indwelling.
New Testament references
When our Lord entered upon his ministry, he acted as though he were a mere man, needing grace, and received the consecration of the Holy Spirit for our sakes. He became the Christ, or Anointed, so that the Spirit might be seen to come from God, and to pass from him to us. And the heavenly gift is not simply called the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of Christ, so that we might clearly understand that he comes to us from and instead of Christ.
Thus St. Paul says, “God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts;” and our Lord breathed on his Apostles, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; and he says elsewhere to them, “If I depart, I will send him to you” (Galatians 4: 6; John 20:22; 16:7). Accordingly this “Holy Spirit of promise” is called “the earnest of our inheritance,” “the seal and earnest of an unseen Savior” (Ephesians 1:14; 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5); being the present pledge of him who is absent – or rather more than a pledge, for an earnest is not a mere token which will be taken from us when it is fulfilled, as a pledge might be, but something in advance of what is one day to be given in full.
This must be clearly understood; for it would seem to follow, that if so, the Comforter who has come instead of Christ, must have condescended to come in the same sense in which Christ came. He has come not merely in the way of gifts or of influences, or of workings, as he came to the Prophets. If that were the case, then Christ’s going away would be a loss, and not a gain, and the Spirit’s presence would be a mere pledge, not an earnest.
The Spirit comes to us as Christ came, by a real and personal visitation. I do not say we could have inferred this thus clearly by the mere force of the above cited texts. It is revealed to us in other texts of Scripture. Thus we are able to see that it may be legitimately deduced from these. We are able to see that the Savior, when once he entered into this world, never so departed as to suffer things to be as before he came; for he still is with us, not in mere gifts, but by the substitution of his Spirit for himself, and that, both in the Church and in the souls of individual Christians.
For instance, St. Paul says in the text, “You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you.” Again, “He shall quicken even your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you.” “Do you not know that your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?” “You are the Temple of the Living God,” as God has said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them.”
The same Apostle clearly distinguishes between the indwelling of the Spirit, and his actual operations within us, when he says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us”; and again, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8: 9,11; 1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Rom. 5:5; 8:16).
Evidence for the Spirit’s divinity
Before proceeding further,let us examine what indirect evidence is afforded us in these texts of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Who can be personally present at once with every Christian, but God himself? Who but he, not merely ruling in the midst of the Church invisibly, as Michael might keep watch over Israel, or another angel might be “the Prince of Persia” – but really taking up his abode as one and the same in many separate hearts, so as to fulfill our Lord’s words, that it was expedient that he should depart; Christ’s bodily presence, which was limited to place, being exchanged for the manifold spiritual indwelling of the Comforter within us? This consideration suggests both the dignity of our Sanctifier, and the infinite preciousness of his office towards us.
To proceed: the Holy Spirit, I have said, dwells in body and soul, as in a temple. Evil spirits indeed have power to possess sinners, but his indwelling is far more perfect; for he is all-knowing and omnipresent, he is able to search into all our thoughts, and penetrate into every motive of the heart. Therefore, he pervades us (if it may be so said) as light pervades a building, or as a sweet perfume [pervades] the folds of some honorable robe; so that, in Scripture language, we are said to be in him, and he in us.
It is plain that such an inhabitation [by the Spirit] brings the Christian into a state altogether new and marvelous, far above the possession of mere gifts, exalts him inconceivably in the scale of beings, and gives him a place and an office which he had not before. In St. Peter’s forcible language, he becomes “partaker of the divine nature,” and has “power” or authority, as St. John says, “to become the son of God.” Or, to use the words of St. Paul, “He is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.” His rank is new; his parentage and service new. He is “of God,” and :is not his own,: “a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Peter 1:4; John 1:12; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 John 4:4; 1 Corinthians 6:19,20; 2 Timothy 2:21).
New birth in the Spirit
This wonderful change from darkness to light, through the coming of the Spirit into the soul, is called regeneration, or the new birth. This is a blessing which, before Christ’s coming, not even prophets and righteous men possessed, but which is now conveyed to all men and women freely through the sacrament of baptism.
By nature we are children of wrath – the heart is sold under sin, possessed by evil spirits – and inherits death as its eternal portion. But by the coming of the Holy Spirit, all guilt and pollution are burned away as by fire – the devil is driven forth – sin, original and actual, is forgiven – and the whole person is consecrated to God. And this is the reason why he is called “the earnest” of that Savior who died for us, and will one day give us the fullness of his own presence in heaven.
Hence, too, the Spirit is our “seal unto the day of redemption”; for as the potter moulds the clay, so he impresses the divine image on us members of the household of God. And his work may truly be called regeneration. Though the original nature of the soul is not destroyed, yet its past transgressions are pardoned once and for ever. And its source of evil staunched and gradually dried up by the pervading health and purity which has set up its abode in it.
Instead of its own bitter waters, a spring of health and salvation is brought within it; not the mere streams of that fountain, “clear as crystal,” which is before the throne of God, but, as our Lord says, “a well of water in him,” in a man’s heart, “springing up into everlasting life.” Hence he elsewhere describes the heart as giving forth, not receiving, the streams of grace: “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” St. John adds, “This he spoke of the Spirit” (John 4:14; 7:38,39).
Such is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us, applying to us individually the precious cleansing of Christ’s blood in all its manifold benefits. Such is the great doctrine, which we hold as a matter of faith, and without actual experience to verify it to us.
Next, I must speak briefly concerning the manner in which the gift of grace manifests itself in the regenerate soul. This is a subject which I do not willingly take up, and which no Christian perhaps is ever able to consider without some effort, feeling that he endangers either his reverence towards God, or his humility, but which the errors of this day, and the confident tone of their advocates, oblige us to dwell upon, lest truth should suffer by our silence.
The Holy Spirit reveals the Father to us
1. The heavenly gift of the Spirit fixes the eyes of our mind upon the divine Author of our salvation. By nature we are blind and fleshly (carnal); but the Holy Spirit by whom we are new-born, reveals to us the God of mercies, and bids us recognize and adore him as our Father with a true heart. He impresses on us our heavenly Father’s image, which we lost when Adam fell, and disposes us to seek his presence by the very instinct of our new nature. He gives us back a portion of that freedom in willing and doing, of that uprightness and innocence, in which Adam was created. He unites us to all holy beings, as before we had relationship with evil.
The Spirit restores for us that broken bond, which, proceeding from above, connects together into one blessed family all that is anywhere holy and eternal, and separates it off from the rebel world which comes to nought. Being then the sons of God, and one with him, our souls mount up and cry to him continually. This special characteristic of the regenerate soul is spoken of by St. Paul soon after the text. “You have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Nor are we left to utter these cries to him, in any vague uncertain way of our own; but he who sent the Spirit to dwell in us habitually, gave us also a form of words to sanctify the separate acts of our minds. Christ left his sacred prayer to be the peculiar possession of his people, and the voice of the Spirit. If we examine it, we shall find in it the substance of that doctrine, to which St. Paul has given a name in the passage just quoted. We begin it by using our privilege of calling on Almighty God in express words as “Our Father.”
We proceed, according to this beginning, in that waiting, trusting, adoring, resigned temper, which children ought to feel; looking towards him, rather than thinking of ourselves; zealous for his honor rather than fearful about our safety; resting in his present help, not with eyes timorously glancing towards the future. his name, his kingdom, his will, are the great objects for the Christian to contemplate and make his portion, being stable and serene, and “complete in him,” as beseems one who has the gracious presence of his Spirit within him. And, when he goes on to think of himself, he prays, that he may be enabled to have towards others what God has shown towards himself, a spirit of forgiveness and loving-kindness.
Thus he pours himself out on all sides, first looking up to catch the heavenly gift, but, when he gains it, not keeping it to himself, but diffusing “rivers of living water” to the whole race of man, thinking of self as little as may be, and desiring ill and destruction to nothing but that principle of temptation and evil, which is rebellion against God; – lastly, ending, as he began, with the contemplation of his kingdom, power, and glory ever-lasting. This is the true “Abba, Father,” which the Spirit of adoption utters within the Christian’s heart, the infallible voice of him who “makes intercession for the Saints in God’s way.” And if he has at times, for instance, amid trial or affliction, special visitations and comfortings from the Spirit, “plaints unutterable” within him, yearnings after the life to come, or bright and passing gleams of God’s eternal election, and deep stirrings of wonder and thankfulness thence following, he thinks too reverently of “the secret of the Lord,” to betray (as it were) his confidence, and, by vaunting it to the world, to exaggerate it perchance into more than it was meant to convey: but he is silent, and ponders it as choice encouragement to his soul, meaning something, but he knows not how much.
The Spirit glorifies the Son
2. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit raises the soul, not only to the thought of God, but of Christ also. St. John says, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” And our Lord himself, “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him” (1 John 1:3; John 14:23). Now, not to speak of other and higher ways in which these texts are fulfilled, one surely consists in that exercise of faith and love in the thought of the Father and Son, which the Gospel, and the Spirit revealing it, furnish to the Christian. The Spirit came especially to “glorify” Christ; and vouchsafes to be a shining light within the Church and the individual Christian, reflecting the Savior of the world in all his perfections, all his offices, all his works.
He came for the purpose of unfolding what was yet hidden, while Christ was on earth; and speaks on the house-tops what was delivered in closets, disclosing him in the glories of his transfiguration, who once had no comeliness in his outward form, and was but a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. First, he inspired the holy evangelists to record the life of Christ, and directed them which of his words and works to select, which to omit; next, he commented (as it were) upon these, and unfolded their meaning in the Apostolic Epistles. The birth, the life, the death and resurrection of Christ, has been the text which he has illuminated.
He has made history to be doctrine; telling us plainly, whether by St. John or St. Paul, that Christ’s conception and birth was the real Incarnation of the Eternal Word, – his life, “God manifest in the Flesh,” – his death and resurrection, the atonement for sin, and the justification of all believers. Nor was this all: he continued his sacred comment in the formation of the church, superintending and overruling its human instruments, and bringing out our Savior’s words and works, and the apostles’ illustrations of them, into acts of obedience and permanent ordinances, by the ministry of saints and martyrs. Lastly, he completes his gracious work by conveying this system of truth, thus varied and expanded, to the heart of each individual Christian in whom he dwells. Thus he condescends to edify the whole man in faith and holiness: “casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
By his wonder-working grace all things tend to perfection. Every faculty of the mind, every design, pursuit, subject of thought, is hallowed in its degree by the abiding vision of Christ, as Lord, Savior, and Judge. All solemn, reverent, thankful, and devoted feelings, all that is noble, all that is choice in the regenerate soul, all that is self-denying in conduct, and zealous in action, is drawn forth and offered up by the Spirit as a living sacrifice to the Son of God. And, though the Christian is taught not to think of himself above his measure, and dare not boast, yet he is also taught that the consciousness of the sin which remains in him, and infects his best services, should not separate him from God, but lead him to him who can save. He reasons with St. Peter, “To whom should he go?” and, without daring to decide, or being impatient to be told how far he is able to consider as his own every Gospel privilege in its fullness, he gazes on them all with deep thought as the church’s possession, joins her triumphant hymns in honor of Christ, and listens wistfully to her voice in inspired Scripture, the voice of the Bride calling upon and blest in the Beloved.
The Spirit keeps us in perfect peace
3. St. John adds, after speaking of “our fellowship with the Father and his Son:” “These things we write to you, that your joy may be full.” What is fullness of joy but peace? Joy is tumultuous only when it is not full; but peace is the privilege of those who are “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isa. 26:3). It is peace, springing from trust and innocence, and then overflowing in love towards all around him. What is the effect of mere animal ease and enjoyment, but to make a man pleased with everything which happens? “A merry heart is a perpetual feast”; and such is peculiarly the blessing of a soul rejoicing in the faith and fear of God. He who is anxious, thinks of himself, is suspicious of danger, speaks hurriedly, and has no time for the interests of others; he who lives in peace is at leisure, wherever his lot is cast.
Such is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, whether in Jew or Greek, bond or free. He himself perchance in his mysterious nature, is the Eternal Love whereby the Father and the Son have dwelt in each other, as ancient writers have believed; and what he is in heaven, that he is abundantly on earth. He lives in the Christian’s heart, as the never-failing fount of charity, which is the very sweetness of the living waters. For where he is, “there is liberty” from the tyranny of sin, from the dread, which the natural man feels, of an offended, unreconciled Creator. Doubt, gloom, impatience have been expelled; joy in the Gospel has taken their place, the hope of heaven and the harmony of a pure heart, the triumph of self-mastery, sober thoughts, and a contented mind. How can charity towards all men fail to follow, being the mere affectionateness of innocence and peace? Thus the Spirit of God creates in us the simplicity and warmth of heart which children have, nay, rather the perfections of his heavenly hosts, high and low being joined together in his mysterious work; for what are implicit trust, ardent love, abiding purity, but the mind both of little children and of the adoring seraphim!
Temples of truth and holiness
Thoughts, such as these, will affect us rightly, if they make us fear and be watchful, while we rejoice. They cannot surely do otherwise; for the mind of a Christian, as I have been attempting to describe it, is not so much what we have, as what we ought to have. To look, indeed, after dwelling on it, upon the multitude of men who have been baptized in Christ’s name, is too serious a matter, and we need not force ourselves to do so. We need not do so, further than to pray for them, and to protest and strive against what is evil among them; for as to the higher and more solemn thought, how persons, set apart individually and collectively, as temples of truth and holiness, should become what they seem to be, and what their state is in consequence in God’s sight, is a question which it is a great blessing to be allowed to put from us as not our concern.
It is our concern only to look to ourselves, and to see that, as we have received the gift, we “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption”; remembering that “if any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” This reflection and the recollection of our many backslidings, will ever keep us, please God, from judging others, or from priding ourselves on our privileges.
Let us but consider how we have fallen from the light and grace of our baptism. Were we now what that holy sacrament made us, we might ever “’go on our way rejoicing”. But having sullied our heavenly garments, in one way or other, in a greater or less degree (God knows! and our own consciences too in a measure), alas! the Spirit of adoption has in part receded from us, and the sense of guilt, remorse, sorrow, and penitence must take his place.
We must renew our confession, and seek afresh our absolution day by day, before we dare call upon God as “our Father,” or offer up psalms and intercessions to him. And, whatever pain and affliction meets us through life, we must take it as a merciful penance imposed by a Father upon erring children, to be borne meekly and thankfully, and as intended to remind us of the weight of that infinitely greater punishment, which was our desert by nature, and which Christ bore for us on the cross
Source: http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/2016/05/pentecost-2016.html
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