In The Lord's Life, Atonement And Resurrection

by J. L. Ferguson | Category: The Holy Spirit And His Work | Jul 1952

The Spirit of God, who descended on the beloved Son, as recorded in John 1. 32, remained also upon Him, unrestrained in power in His perfect manhood on earth. Many a time in other days the Spirit had clothed Himself with devout men of Israel, sometimes to leave them again, grieved by their proneness to sin. But now at last there had branched out a fragrant, fruitful Shoot from the root of Jesse. Isaiah's great prophecy was having its fulfilment. And the Spirit of the LORD rested upon Him, "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD". Resting and remaining !-what a joy to the Holy Spirit thus at last to indwell One through whom He could perfectly express all the will of God!

We ponder, for example, those deep experiences of morning meditations when the Son in the Spirit communed with the Father as to the words and ways of the rising day. Those experiences also of strong crying and tears in evening prayer in the Holy Spirit over a nation which hid as it were its face from Him and hated Him without a cause! The Son and the Spirit walked both of them together in unbroken fellowship of joy in paths of deepest sorrow!

David had once written "The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and His word was on my tongue". But what shall we say of the Spirit-given speakings of the Son who had the unfailing law of kindness on His tongue? What He heard He spoke and what He spoke He spoke "into the world", deep down into the very fabric of human affairs and nature, Spirit-breathed words which quickened then and quicken still. Words of cheer also to the lonely who felt the darkness deepening; words of chiding also where reproach was due!

And what works He wrought through the strength of that same Spirit! He was an uncovering Light in the dark places of Israel. Capernaum never knew how many sick it had till the Light of the world shone on it and they came out from their darkness of sin and shame, sickness and sorrow-and, tireless, Christ in the setting sun laid His hands on every one of them at the door of Peter's dwelling and healed them all. Memories crowd in' but space would fail. Israel confessed, "We never saw it on this fashion", and they went, each man to his own home, marvelling at the majesty of God in this Man. Son and Spirit together, with perfect unity of thought and word and action, they made the flesh of men wax warm as the Saviour passed through their cities and villages, magnifying the Law and making it honourable, condemning also sin in men through the utter sinlessness in Him.

It is impossible for us to appreciate fully the fragrance of that yielded life to God. In the meal offering He had describe4 it in tenderest words to Israel. Corn in the ear, for example, parched with fire, bruised corn of the fresh ear, with its oil and its frankincense! How delightful a foreshadowing of the days and ways of the Man of Sorrows ! days of selfless abnegation to the Father's will, of perfection through suffering, of experiencing all that was involved in "becoming obedient even unto death". And as the frankincense depicted the fragrance to God of the "days of His flesh" so surely did the oil foretell that "Spirit of holiness" whereby He was declared to be the Son of God with power as "He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him".

It is written of the disputers with Stephen that "they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which He spake". Far less had they withstood that same Spirit in his beloved Master. He had come to the mourners in Zion "to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He might be glorified" (Isaiah 61.8). He had bound up their broken lives and made the widowed hearts to sing. He had healed their sicknesses and carried their sorrows. He had quelled in their presence death and the power of demons. He had been to them what Elisha foreshadowed a holy Man of God who passed by continually; with "a heart at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize". All this and much more He had done in what Scripture describes so tersely as "the power of the Spirit" (Luke 4.14). Ungrieved, unresisted, unquenched within, the Holy Spirit had filled with glory that sacred "temple of His body" and had guided into absolute obedience and surrender that yielded life. Holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, He had gone through those fragrant years in the unbroken tranquillity and serenity of One who walked with God. He had done among them, as a consequence, the works which none other did. Yet they crucified Him one day on the "mountain of myrrh".

We know, of course, that the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God were involved; but Satan, too, for his own evil ends, was behind that fearful happening. It would seem he sought two particular achievements. The one was to shame the Lord of glory on a cursed tree. So he entered into Judas. The other was to taunt Him down from "obedience even unto death, yea, the death of the cross". So he deeply incensed the chief priests and the rulers of Israel. But no power of hell or taunts of earth could deflect the Son of God that day, and "through the eternal Spirit" He offered Himself without blemish to God. Great Antitype of all the sweet savour offerings, He had come to the altar in sinless manhood, for acceptance according to the Lord's good pleasure. The Firstborn had come to the altar.

"And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him." Physically worn out beyond human description; His visage marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men; blessed "bruised corn of the fresh ear"! Yet in the vigour of the indwelling Spirit He resisted every temptation to desert His mediatorial work in that hour which He Himself described as "your hour and the power of darkness" (Luke 22. 58); resisted every taunt to manifest His eternal power and Godhead when men derided Him in those moments of greatest human weakness; yet displayed that same divine power in taking thought in His agonies for all things that were written in the prophets and the Psalms concerning Him, that they might have their fulfilment. And we rejoice to think what a wondrous source of invincible strength the Spirit was to the Son that day when the deeps were calling and the waves and billows were about to break on the lonely Sufferer on the tree.

Yet there was one meal offering which had no oil, no frankincense. That was the guilt offering of Leviticus 5. for the poorest in Israel whose means were not even sufficient for two turtle doves or two young pigeons. Such could bring what amounted to a day's eating in fine flour, for the tenth part of an ephah was the equal of the omer of manna. But, "he shall put no oil upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense thereon: for it is a sin offering." And as we meditate on how the beloved Man of Sorrows entered into the horror of thick darkness during Calvary's last three hours, a sense of the fearfulness of sin and sin-bearing comes over our spirits. He was made sin, who had known no sin-sin in all its deepest, darkest abomination to God, and to Him! Yes, there was no fragrance in that Sin-offering. Then the Sin-offering called out, "My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake. Me?" The nearness of God was removed while the Son of Man was made a curse that others might be blessed.

Our hearts would fain linger round that scene. Matthew described it as "Him-there". If eternity has a centre that is it. What a shame if we sit silent and unmoved at the breaking of the bread, in our midst the symbols of fulness of sorrow which brought to us fulness of joy! It is only a little while till we shall see Him. "Comfort of. all my earthly way, Jesus, I'll meet Thee some sweet day;. Centre of glory Thee I'll see, Wonderful Man of Calvary"! And then we shall wonder why we served Him so unappreciatively in days when faith's rewards were brightest.

"Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again"-and on the third day the Loved of the Father came again from the dead in that glorious working of the strength of God's might with which the Holy Spirit is so intimately linked in Romans 8.11. Then followed the memorable forty days of infallible proofs, during which the risen Lord gave "commandment through the Holy Spirit into the apostles whom He had chosen". Again they wrought together, the Son and the Spirit with nothing between, in the power of blended mind and will.

Then the Son of God returned to the right hand of the Majesty on high, back again to the glory which He had with Him before the world was. And the Father, who had thus given His Son in death for a world lost in sin, now gave His Holy Spirit, freely and without measure, to indwell all who would love Him, and to convict all who would despise Him. One poetess wrote of it this way:

"He, who had given men

The standard of the right,

That they might gain through book and pen

A glimmering of light:

He, who had given His Son,

That earthly eyes might see,

And earthly hearts lay hold upon, Incarnate Mystery;

Now by Man's secret door,

And to His secret cell

Came silently and evermore To dwell"

Beloved fellow-believer, the "Spirit of God dwelleth in you

"and that same Spirit who wrought so completely all the will of God in faith's Princely Leader can work it out also, in due measure, in His faltering followers. Shall we yield ourselves unto Him?

J. L. Ferguson | Jul 1952
The Holy Spirit And His Work