V. Need of Personal Reception of the Spirit
By John Orr Corliss
The personal reception of the Holy Spirit is a matter of the greatest importance, if we may believe that any one who has it not, is not acknowledged by Christ as His own. Rom. 8:9. To possess the Spirit of Christ is to be controlled by it,—to “walk” in it. To “walk in the Spirit,” is to be out of the flesh; that is, to be where one will not “fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Gal. 5:16; Rom. 8:9. Placed thus, the members of one’s body are no longer instruments of unrighteousness, to be reigned over by sin; but as a living body, its members are passive instruments under God’s direction, to do only things that are right. Rom. 6:12, 13. Thus the entire man undergoes a change. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature;” that is, a new creation. This is necessary in order that the body may become the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” and so a “member of Christ.” 1 Cor. 6:19, 15. But Christ, being “alive forevermore,” could not possibly make a dead body a member of Himself. He therefore takes a mortal body, “dead in trespasses and sins,” and, through the same power by which His own body was raised from death to life, quickens, or makes alive that body, so that the man, through the indwelling of the Spirit, may destroy the “deeds of the body.” Rom. 8:11-13. As did the disciples upon hearing a certain statement of the Saviour’s, concerning the same subject, so some may say upon reading the foregoing, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” John 6:60. But as the question was then put to His doubting, halting disciples, so may the question now be properly asked of shrinking ones, “Will you also go away,” when the Scriptures so clearly state what the Spirit can and will do for yearning souls, that they may be sanctified for the Master’s use? Do we not remember that Christ “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people”? Have we forgotten that the glory of His work is that “when He shall appear, we shall be like Him”? Is it not true that He says also that every man that “hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure”? Titus 2:14; 1 John 3:2, 3. What It Is to Be Like Christ
To be made like Christ, is to be restored to God’s image as was the first man fresh from the hand of his Creator. This is to be “complete in Him,” who is the “head of all principality and power.” Col. 2:10. Why object to this conclusion, saying such a state is impossible? True, “with men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” Matt. 19:26. Did He not fashion the world as He pleased, by His Spirit? May He not, then, fashion man’s body according to His will, after the same manner? The fulness of God dwells in His Son Jesus. Col. 2:9. If this same Jesus dwells in a man, does he not receive a measure of that fulness? John 1:16. The prayer of the great apostle was that we might, “according to the riches of God’s glory,” be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man,” that we might be able to comprehend “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height,” and so to “know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,” and “be filled with all the fulness of God.” Eph. 3:16-19. The fulness of God is none else than LOVE. We have all received of that fulness in the gift of Christ. But to be filled with all His fulness, one must first be freed from lustful desires, in order to receive the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and so be enabled to love the world as God loved it, so far as the capacity of a human being will permit. This condition of things is comprehended in those immortal words of Christ, as He stood on that last great day of a Jewish feast, and cried out: “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37, 38. In saying this, He spoke of the action of the Spirit which was to be given to those believing on Him. This was to be rivers of “living water” flowing out from men’s bodies to water the lives of others. Men receiving the living Spirit of Christ would thus be but channels for its distribution in acts of love, as representatives of Him from whom the supply issued. The abundance of this provision is well attested by those who have drunk at the fountain. Thus the psalmist declares, “They shall be abundantly satisfied [margin, Hebrew, “watered”] with the fatness of Thy house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.” Ps. 36:8. The house of the Lord is full of fatness; all,—every one who desires,—may drink and be satisfied, even tho he partakes constantly, and forever, simply because he quaffs at the river of God’s pleasure, the fountain of which is eternal life. The sweet satisfaction of all will consist in being guided of God continually, so that one will be like a “watered garden” which, amid the severest drought, provides nourishment for all in need. Isa. 58:11. Foolish indeed is he who refuses or neglects such a privilege;5for the time is at hand when every one will be ashamed who forsakes “the Lord, the fountain of living waters.” Jer. 17:13. Great as is the privilege of being thus nourished direct from heaven, money is not required with which to purchase it. The invitation is, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy, and eat; . . . without money and without price.” Isa. 55:1. Not only may one “come to the waters” as they flow in the stream, but He that proclaims Himself “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” says, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” Rev. 21:6. By partaking of this promise, one is brought directly to the very fountain of the stream, and that without restraint, for privilege is freely given. Why, then, cling to the unsatisfying, disappointing things of the world, when one may so boldly come to the “throne of grace,” out from which flows the water of life, and there obtain the eternally gratifying support of Him who so pleadingly asks the world to come and partake of His bounty? “O, taste and see that the Lord is good.” He “will give grace and glory.”