THE SPIRIT AND CHRIST'S MANHOOD. 33 and ascended, speaks to the seven Churches, the voices of the Saviour and of the Spirit are as one. Rev. ii. 1-7, etc. With the reserve of humblest reverence, may we not say that the Manhood of our dear Redeemer was produced, and maintained all along in its absolute and unalterable perfection, not by His own action as God the Son but by that of God the Holy Spirit? His own divine act in the matter was, as we have said, and as Owen said long ago,1 to assume the Manhood, but no more. Never indeed, not for one moment from the first, was that Manhood dissociated from the Godhead of the Son. Never for a moment had it a personality independent of that of God the Son. The very Person who said, in the days of His flesh, "Before Abraham was, I am," the Person John viii. 58. who under His great humiliation said to a whole world of sin and sorrow, "Come unto Me," was then and there as truly att. x. 28. GOD 2 as He was before the world was. 1 See Pneumatologia, bk. ii., ch. iii. But 2 And not God in abeyance, as some have seemed to say, giving to His Kenôsis (Phil. ii. 7) a meaning not borne out by Scripture. On the theory that He so “made Himself void" as all this leaves untouched the sacred truth that the Manhood He took was, in the divine order and law, manhood begun and maintained in its perfect holiness and power by the Holy Spirit as the immediate personal divine Worker. It is accordingly by the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Second Man. It is by the Holy Spirit that He, as the Second Man now glorified, is the Receptacle, the Reservoir, the Fountain-head, of that "all fulness" which dwells in Him for us. Col. i. 19; ii. 9, 18. We pass almost instantly in the treatment of such a subject into regions beyond our analysis. But we see enough to deepen and to become liable to mental error, mistakes of fact and reasoning, for example about the age and nature of the Old Testament Scriptures, see by all means Liddon, Bampton Lectures, Lecture viii. It may be enough here to point out that to view such a voluntary fallibility on our Lord's part as an instance of His blessed self-humiliation involves a certain confusion of conceptions. It would stand, supposing it to be true, under a very different description from, for instance, His voluntary liability to fatigue, sorrow, and death. A rich and refined philanthropist, bent on elevating a degraded tribe, would give a beautiful instance of self-humiliation in consenting, if it were expedient, to be as poor, and as badly lodged, as they.. But if, while coming as their teacher, he consented to share their ignorance (were it possible) on matters on which he undertook to teach them, he would deprive himself to their loss and disadvantage. CHRIST'S PLACE IN THE SPIRIT'S WORK. 35 strengthen our "faith in the operation of God," to impart a growing definite- Col. ii. 12. ness of view, and a fuller peace in the heart, and a more humble adoration, as we ponder our own transition, by the power of the Spirit, “from death unto life," and onwards always to "life more abundant." John v. 24; X. IO. For in this recollection of the truth of the Spirit's work on and in the Manhood of our blessed Head we are brought directly to a fuller recollection also of the PLACE OF CHRIST (if I may express myself so) in the Holy Spirit's saving work for us. Let us take this up as our closing topic for this chapter. We who believe indeed in the Lord Jesus Christ know on the evidence of God's Word that we owe our saving faith to the Lord the Spirit, "the Spirit of faith." We 2 Cor. iv. 13. who were once "dead in trespasses Eph. ii. 1. and sins," and who now live, know on the same evidence that we were, in "abundant mercy," "born of the Spirit," and John iii. 8. that every step which we take in we take "by the Spirit." Is the "sound" of regenerate vitality and action. that life Gal. v. 25. "heard," in however small a whisper yet audibly, in our souls and in the outward life which manifests their condition? It is the blessed Spirit's presence in special grace. It is the evidence, the one evidence, of our real new birth, new creation, by Him. I say, it is the one evidence of this. For let us remember that across all the problems of sacramental operation we must read always those words of our Lord about the mystic Wind. Wherever that Wind is, yes, wherever it is, by its very nature as wind it moves; it is not merely latent; it is heard: "Thou hearest the sound thereof; so is every one that is born of the Spirit." But on this I do not linger now.1 Our concern now is with the experiences of the life of grace in Christ, and their connexion with the personal working of the Spirit. AccordI Pet. i. 2. ingly, "in the sanctification of the Spirit," that is to say in His whole work of our separation to God, we were by Him at first brought through conviction John xvi. 8. I Pet. i. 2. unto obedience to, and bloodsprinkling of, Jesus Christ." And when the 1 See further below, p. 74. OUR NEW LIFE ALL BY THE SPIRIT. 37 last step of the blessed process shall come, and we shall rise transfigured from the grave, possessing "the adoption, to wit Rom. viii. 23. the redemption of our body," it will still and for ever be "because of the Spirit Rom. viii. 11. who dwelleth in us." Between this Alpha and this Omega of our personal salvation all is of "the same Spirit." Does the peaceful power of grace pervade our regenerate being, and claim effectually for our Lord all we are and all we have, and bring spirit, soul, and body into a delightful captivity and bondservice to our Head and Possessor? It is Eph. v. 18. "the fulness of the Spirit." Do we day by day "mortify the deeds of the body"? It is "by the Spirit." Do we in truth Rom. viii. 13. breathe "the Abba, that prayer of faith alone"? It is the Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of God's Son in our hearts. Do we pray in truth the prayer of Rom. viii. 15, 17. Jude 20. holy faith and love, the prayer that asks according to His will? It is "in the Holy Ghost" it is "the Spirit making intercession for us with groanings that Rom. viii. 26. cannot be uttered." Do" we wait by faith for |