THE essential principle in Christianity, which distinguishes it from all false religions, is the union of Divinity with humanity actually realized through the incarnation of the Son of God. The eternal Word, who was in the beginning with God, "became flesh, and dwelt among us." When the Son of God thus took upon Himself our human nature and became the Son of Man, He was made the Head of a new humanity. As the second Adam He regained what the first Adam had lost. The divine-human family became a fact in Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man.
In His life upon earth the Son of Man revealed the efficacy of the covenant which He was to ratify with His own blood. He was tempted in all points like as we are. He was constantly beset by Satan and his emissaries. He was "despised, and rejected of men." And yet through all this experience He voluntarily made Himself wholly dependent upon His Father to keep Him, saying, "I can of Myself do nothing." To such an extent did He identify Himself with the weaknesses of humanity.
The Secret of Christ's Power
It will surely be profitable to study the life of the Son of Man that we may learn if possible the secret of His power to meet and to conquer temptation, and to reveal the divine character. And first, we note that He was born of the Spirit. Said the angel to Mary: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; wherefore also the Holy Thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God." Being thus born of the Spirit He was kept by Him upon whom He had cast Himself before He gave Himself to become one of the human family. Thus the prophetic psalm reads: "Thou art He that took Me out of the womb; Thou didst make Me trust when I was upon My mother's breasts. I was cast upon Thee from the womb; Thou art my God since my mother bare Me. Be not far from Me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help."
Again we mark His experience at the time of His baptism just before He entered upon His public ministry. "Now it came to pass, when all the people were baptized, that, Jesus also having been baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon Him." This was the sign given to John the Baptist who testified: "I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not; but He that sent me to baptize in water, He said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon Him, the same is He that baptized in the Holy Spirit."
After His baptism "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led in the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted of the devil." Later He "returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee," and in the synagogue at Nazareth He read Isaiah's prophecy, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor," and declared, "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears."
So filled was Jesus with the Holy Spirit and so fully was He subject to His working that "God was in Christ" and the Son could say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Thus God was manifested in the flesh, Divinity was united with humanity, and the mystery of the Gospel was revealed.
The Gift of the Spirit
When Jesus was about to take His bodily presence from the earth and to return to His Father, He comforted the troubled hearts of His disciples with some most wonderful assurances. He said: "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth." "I will not leave you desolate; I come unto you." "If a man love Me, He will keep My Word; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him." "The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you." "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me." "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you." "He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you."
"The Holy Spirit is Christ's representative, but divested of the personality of humanity, and independent thereof. Cumberd with humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally." Therefore it was for their interest that He should go to the Father, and send the Spirit to be His successor on earth. Because of this provision Jesus could say, as He was being taken up into heaven after His resurrection, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
The promise was made to the disciples before the ascension, "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be My witnesses." On the Day of Pentecost "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" and testified of Jesus so effectively that "there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls." The power of God was so manifested in the ministry of these humble men that even their opposers "took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus."
The Gifts of the Spirit—the Head of the Church
After Saul's remarkable experience on the way to Damascus, Ananias was sent unto him with this message, "The Lord, even Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way which thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit." In the power of that Spirit he labored more abundantly than they all, and in him were revealed most fully the gifts of that Spirit.
Thus in the apostolic church the Holy Spirit, the representative of Jesus upon the earth, was given His place in the hearts of the believers, the church was a Spirit-filled church, and Christ was the Head of the church. This was manifested in the fact that the work which Jesus began was carried forward by the disciples and attended by the same signs through the working of the Holy Spirit. Of this the apostle Paul wrote in these words: "Unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore He saith, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. . . . And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ."
It must always be remembered that the true church is the body of Christ, and that it continues to be the true church only so long as it is the body of which Christ is the Head. When Christ is no longer given His place as Head of the church, then the church itself becomes a body without a living head—a dead thing. In such a church the gifts of the Spirit need not be expected, inasmuch as the Spirit is rejected who worketh all these.
The Falling Away—Substitutes for the Divine
Before those men who shared in the Pentecostal blessings had all passed away there began to appear indications of that "falling away" or apostasy which, when fully developed, substituted the mystery of iniquity for the mystery of godliness, set aside Christ from His place as Head of the church, and robbed the church of those gifts which had been bestowed through the presence of the Holy Spirit, the representative of Christ.
This change was not wrought in a day. Step by step men departed from the simplicity of the faith, "speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." Little by little the traditions and commandments of men were added to, or put in the place of, the commandments of God. Gradually was developed "the man of sin, . . . the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God." This is the divinely-drawn picture of the Papacy. In this organization, according to the definition of the Council of Florence (1439) "the Roman Pontiff is . . . the true Vicar of Christ, the Head of the whole church." This is explained by Cardinal Gibbons to mean that "the pope is the organ of our Saviour, and speaks His sentiments in faith and morals. . . . The pope is the representative of Christ on earth."
According to these authoritative definitions it is perfectly plain that in the great apostasy another representative of Christ has taken the place of the Holy Spirit, and that a so-called vicegerent of the Son of God has assumed to be the head of the church. As an inevitable result the gifts of the Spirit disappeared in this apostate church, while false signs and pretended miracles were resorted to to maintain the appearance of divine authority. This has been true for many centuries and is true to-day, and by the formal declaration of the infallibility of the pope the Roman Catholic Church has effectually closed the door of reform and set its seal upon its own apostasy.7
The Apostasy
(Continued from page 6.)
The Waiting Church
But it is clear that the church which is waiting for the coming of the Lord will "come behind in no gift." There must therefore be a message of reform in the last days which will repudiate the false representative of Jesus Christ in the earth and dethrone the pretended vicegerent of the Son of God from his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming the eternal Son as the only true Head of the church and the Holy Spirit as His only representative in the world. As the result of such a message the true church will again be filled with the Holy Spirit and signs and wonders will follow them that believe.
Just such a message is found in Rev. 14:6-12 and it is now being proclaimed as God's appointed means of preparing a people for the second advent of our Lord. In this great advent movement some of the gifts of the Spirit have already been manifested, and before it comes to its climax all of them will be restored to the church. Thus the long, dark night of apostasy will be brought to an end, the Sun of Righteousness will arise, and the church, with Christ as her living Head, will triumph gloriously.
