The Spirit of God

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 32.

The Spirit of God

The Spirit of God comes in connection with his Word. Said Jesus, “The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life.” In them is the life and power of God.

The power in the Word is the power of the Spirit; for that Word is the “sword of the Spirit,” “piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12.

Wherever and whenever, in all the history of God’s people in the past, there has been a genuine outpouring and lasting work of the Spirit of God, it has been in connection with a study of God’s Word and new light either in reproof or instruction from that Word. Note the great revivals of the past.

When Israel Came Out of Egypt, while they did not reach that condition spiritually which God desired, still there was a great advance over their condition in Egypt. God’s good Spirit instructed them (Neh. 9:20), but it did it through the laws, commandments, statutes, precepts, and promises so abundantly given. The rebellious rose against God’s commandments (Eze. 20:13), but they were in that very thing against his Spirit (Isa. 63:10).

When the revival came under Josiah it was through the finding and reading of the forgotten law inspired by the Spirit of God. 2 Chron. 34:18-33.

In the great reformation which followed the Babylonian captivity, the work was wrought through the Word of God. The Word of God was read “from the morning till midday,” “the people were attentive,” and they “read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading;” and when sins were revealed, they were put away. Neh. 8:1-18; 9:1-5. And yet the work wrought was not by might nor army, but by the Spirit of God. Zech. 4:6.

In the days of John the Baptist and of our Lord it was equally true. The Pentecostal blessing had been preceded by a three years’ course of Bible instruction under the greatest Teacher the world ever knew. Beside all the instruction previous to his resurrection, the power of which was hidden by their wrong conceptions of his kingdom, he instructed them for forty days after that event. “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” When the day of Pentecost came they were by instruction and prayer and meditation saturated, so to speak, all through and through with the living water of the living Word. Sin and selfishness had been yielded according to the light of the Word, and the true believers were prepared to receive of the fulness of God’s power.

In the great reformation from the captivity of spiritual Babylon in the sixteenth century it was just the same. The outpouring of the Spirit upon the nations came through and in connection with the preaching and receiving of the Word of God. And the backsliding and weakness and union with the State came as the church departed from that Word and formed her belief into dead creed.

And in the last reformation of all, typified by every reformation of the past, which will fit a people for the reception of the Coming King, the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh will be the fructifying of the Seed of the Word of God so abundantly sown. Once again the everlasting Gospel is to go to every nation and tongue and kindred and people. Warnings concerning every species of deception will be given to the world. Christ’s coming will be heralded to the nations; and Jesus Christ and his Word will be lifted up as the only ensign of liberty, the only refuge from trouble. See Rev. 14:6-14; 2 Thess. 2:11, 12; Isa. 62:10, 11; Joel 2:1; Zeph. 2:1-3; Ps. 91:4, 9. God grant that his Word may be to his people just what it was to Jesus Christ, a power and a defense in every need. Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; John 17:14, 17, 19.