There remains yet one thing to be done to perfect God’s gracious plan of salvation. A connecting link between the Savior in Heaven and the sinner on Earth is needed. The finished work of Christ by some means must be made applicable to and operative in the souls of men. A way must be provided whereby the life of the crucified Savior, now enthroned as Lord in Heaven, may be communicated to and maintained in the believer on earth. 

TWO WONDROUS GIFTS

Upon the sinner, God has bestowed a wondrous gift, that of His Son as Savior. Upon the believer, God has bestowed a second wondrous gift, that of His Spirit as Sanctifier.

Galatians 4:4-7

⁴ “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. ⁶ And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.” ⁷ Therefore thou art no more a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

God sent forth His Son so that the sinner might enter the family of God as a child. God sent forth His Spirit that the child might enter into the fullness of his inheritance as an heir. God gave His Son to make salvation possible for us; God gave the Spirit to make salvation real in us. God gave His Son that we might have life; God gave the Spirit that we might have life abiding and abounding. 

GOD’S CROWNING WORK

Without the Holy Spirit’s work, all that was accomplished through Christ’s death, resurrection, and exaltation would be of no avail. One cannot study thoughtfully the Lord’s last conversation with His disciples on earth recorded in John 13-16 without seeing that He teaches most clearly that the sending of the Holy Spirit from the Father upon His return to glory was to be the crowning work in His salvation of men. Let us turn then to these chapters for a study of this truth.

There were many things that He longed to say to His disciples that last night but they were unable to bear them (John 16:12). A few things, however, He must make clear. One was the kind of life He expected them to live. It was to be both an abiding and an abounding life. His life was to be to their life what that of the vine is to the branch. In Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and that fulness was to be made theirs until they were “filled with all the fulness of God” (Colossians 2:9-10; Ephesians 3:19).

As He talked along about this wonderful abiding and abounding life, He said, “But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart ” (John 16:6). No doubt He was watching their faces and saw a confused, troubled look as He spoke of going away from them and yet of expecting them to live such a life as this. He had told them that it was to be a life characterized by peace, joy, power, fruitfulness, friendship, and love. Yet, it was to be interwoven with suffering, tribulation, persecution, and even possible death by violence. How could they ever hope to live such a life if He went from them when in those three years in which they had enjoyed the blessing and helpfulness of His personal presence, there had been so much envy, criticism, discouragement, cowardice, fear, and unbelief in their lives? His quick sympathy understood what they feared to express, and He hastened to comfort them by saying: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18)

What a strange thing to say — to tell them in the same breath that He was going away from them and yet coming to them. But He explains further: “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me.” He was to be with them and seen of them but in a way unknown and invisible to others. It must be, then, in a spiritual rather than in a physical presence. Still, they were perplexed and could see no real benefit in His leaving them. Then He said, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; 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 depart, I will send him unto you.” But what would be gained by the going of Jesus Christ and the sending of someone else in His place? Had it not been very wonderful to have the Lord with them on earth, talking and praying with them, teaching and leading them, letting them work with Him, showing them by the life He lived and the work He did how they ought to live and work? Yes, it had been very wonderful but not altogether successful. While there had been much joy in fellowship with Him, there had also been much of discouragement. He said so much, the meaning of which they could not grasp, and even what they did understand, they so often failed to obey. He had been much with them, but they had not grown like Him in the three years. What gain then could it be to have Him go away so that even His bodily presence was denied them? He does not leave them without answering every question of their sad, perplexed hearts.

John 14:16-17

^16 “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever”. ¹⁷ even the Spirit of Truth…for He dwelleth with you, and SHALL BE IN YOU.

Oh! here is something entirely new: wholly different from any of God’s dealings with men before. God the Spirit had been with men, and He had come upon men, but never had He been in men as a perpetual presence. Now, it would seem that through Jesus Christ’s going back to the Father by way of the cross and the tomb and the clouds, an entirely different relationship was to be established between God and men, a relationship more close and intimate than anything man had experienced through all the centuries. “We will come unto him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). God, the righteous, holy One, was to live in men in actual presence. How could such a thing be? The Lord Jesus tells us.

John 14:20

“At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”

John 17:21

“As Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.”

How would the Son who was leaving to go back to the Father in Heaven and live at His right hand be able to live also in Peter, James, and John on earth? “O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!” Here, indeed, is the crowning work of the Lord Jesus.

John 16:7

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. 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 depart, I will send Him unto you.”

John 16:13-14

^13 “However when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak from Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak; and He will show you things to come.¹⁴ He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you.”

John 15:26

“He shall testify of Me.”

Jesus taught clearly in these words that the chief mission of the Holy Spirit in being sent forth from the Father to dwell in the believer was that He might make the presence of the risen, glorified, living Lord an actual spiritual reality. He also taught them that the Holy Spirit was to be both the sole and the sufficient messenger of spiritual truth and the medium of spiritual revelation. In other words, all that they would ever know of or receive from their risen Lord was to be communicated by and through the Holy Spirit. Without Him, there would be no means for the presence and power of the risen Christ to be manifested in their lives and no way for them to realize in their spiritual experience the blessing and benefit gained for them by Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit was to be the middleman between Heaven and Earth. The Spirit would apply the salvation that had come from the Father through the Son. By the power invested in the Holy Spirit, the believer would be lifted to the plane of the spiritual man, and his life would be maintained there. 

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Gracious Father, thank You for Your wonderful gifts. To the sinner, You gave Your Son as their Savior. To the believer, You gave the Spirit of Your Son.