Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols.
The great change and its obligations
Observe--
I. The condition of the heathen.
1. Worshippers of dumb idols.
2. Carried away by their lusts.
3. Led by the devil and his agents.
II. This condition was yours.
1. Literally in past times.
2. Spiritually in your own former experience.
III. The change in you has been effected by God’s grace.
1. Through the gospel.
2. By the agency of others.
3. Hence your obligation to send it to the world.
Christianity and heathenism
Two things are here expressed--
I. The dead silence of the state of heathenism--the idols standing voiceless, with neither mouths to speak, nor ears to hear--silent amongst their silent worshippers. “The oracles are dumb.” This is contrasted with the music and speech of Christianity, “the sound of a mighty, rushing wind,” “the voice of many waters,” which resounded through the whole Church in the diffusion of the gifts, especially of prophesying and tongues.
II. The unconscious irrational state of heathenism, in which the worshippers were blindly hurried away by some overruling power of fate, or evil spirit of divination or priestly caste, without any will or reason of their own to worship at theshrine of inanimate idols. This is contrasted with the consciousness of an indwelling Spirit, moving in harmony with their spirits, and controlled by a sense of order and wisdom. Possibly there is the further intention of impressing the superiority of the conscious over the unconscious gifts of the Spirit. (Dean Stanley.)
No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and … no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost.
Jesus anathema
Thefirst thing needed by a Church so inexperienced was to know what was the true character of the Divine influence. The apostle says every utterance, be it prophecy, tongue, or doctrine, which amounts to saying “Jesus is accursed,” is not Divinely inspired. But to whom can we attribute this language? To the Jews or unbelieving Gentiles who treated Jesus as an impostor, and saw in His ignominious and cruel death a token of the Divine curse (1Co_1:23)? No; for how could Christians be tempted to esteem such as inspired? Besides, we have here to do with discourses uttered in church; and how would anti-Christians have been allowed to speak there? Does, then, Paul admit the possibility of discourses from Christians to this effect? Remember the powerful fermentation of religious ideas then called forth by the gospel. In 2Co_11:3-4, the apostle speaks of teachers newly arrived in Corinth, who preached another Jesus and raised a different spirit to that which the Church had received. It was therefore not only another doctrine, but another breath, a new principle of inspiration, which these people brought with them. In 1Co_16:22 he devotes to anathema certain persons who love not Jesus when the Lord shall come, which would be very severe if it were not a return for the anathema which they threw in His face. How was this possible in a Christian Church? We must observe the term “Jesus,” detecting the historical and earthly person of our Lord, and hear in mind that from the earliest times there were people who, offended at the idea of the ignominious punishment of the Cross, and the unheard abasement of the Son of God, thought they must set up a distinction between the man Jesus and the true Christ. The first had been, according to them, a pious Jew. A heavenly Being, the true Christ, had chosen Him to serve as His organ while He acted below as the Saviour of humanity. But this Christ from above had parted from Jesus before the Passion, and left the latter to suffer and die alone. It is easy to seehow, from this point of view, one might curse the Crucified One who appeared to have been cursed of God on the Cross, and that without thinking he was cursing the true Saviour, and while remaining without scruple a member of the Church. Cerinthus taught this doctrine, and Epiphanius affirms that this Epistle was written against him. The Ophites, or serpent worshippers, too, who existed before the end of the first century, asked those who wished to enter their churches to curse Jesus. In stating this first negative criterion, the apostle therefore means: However ecstatic in form or profound in matter may be a spiritual manifestation, if it tends to degrade Jesus, to make Him an impostor or a man worthy of the Divine wrath, if it does violence in any way to His holiness, you may be sure the inspiring breath of such a discourse is not that of God’s Spirit. Such is the decisive standard which the prophets, e.g., are summoned to use when they sit in judgment on one another (chap. 14:29). (Prof. Godet.)
The denial of Christ
I.Its forms.
1. Infidelity makes Him an impostor.
2. Socinianism robs Him of His Divinity.
3. Impenitence and unbelief resist His claims and authority.
4. All by denying practically declare Him accursed.
II. Its cause. The want of the Spirit. Hence a man is governed in his views and conduct either by a depraved reason or corrupt natural sense.
III. Its consequences.
1. Delusion.
2. Misery.
3. Ruin. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The confession of Christ
I.What it implies.
1. A full conviction of His supreme authority as Lord and Christ.
2. A believing trust in Him.
3. A willing submission to His authority.
II. How is it elicited? By the Holy Ghost, who--
1. Enlightens.
2. Convinces.
3. Assures.
4. Sanctifies--him that believeth. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The confession that Jesus is Lord by the Holy Ghost
Note--
I. The general impotency of man in spiritual duties. Here we see--
1. The universality of our loss in Adam. No one hath any power to do this. Which notes their blasphemy that exempt any man from the infection of sin.
2. Where this impotency lies--in man. “No man.” Which notes their blasphemy that say man may be saved by his natural faculties as he is man.
3. By just occasion of that word “can,” is able, we see also the laziness of man who, though he can do nothing effectually and primarily, yet does not do so much as he might do.
II. What this spiritual duty is wherein we are all so impotent.
1. An outward act, a profession; not that the outward act is enough, but that the inward affection alone is not enough neither. To think it, to believe it, is not sufficient; we must say it, profess it.
2. And what?
(1) That Jesus is: not only assent to the history, and matter of fact that Jesus was, and did all that is recorded of Him, but that he is still that which He pretended to be. Caesar is not Caesar still, nor is Alexander, Alexander; but Jesus is Jesus still, and shall be for ever.
(2) That He is the Lord. He was not sent hither as the greatest of the prophets, nor as the greatest of the priests; His work consists not only in having preached to us, nor in having sacrificed Himself, thereby to be an example to us; but He is Lord. He purchased a dominion with His blood. He is the Lord, not only the Lord paramount, but the only Lord, no other hath a lordship in our souls and no other any part in saving them but He.
III. This cannot be done but by the Holy Ghost.
1. All recalls but one are excluded, and therefore that one must necessarily be hard to be compassed. The knowledge and discerning of the Holy Ghost is a difficult thing.
2. As all other means are excluded, so this one is included as necessary. Nothing can effect it but having the Holy Ghost, and therefore the Holy Ghost may be had. (J. Donne, D.D.)
Jesus the Lord
I. The truth that Jesus is the Lord. The man Jesus for thirty-three years acted as a man in connection with men, and at last died. This man is the Lord. The word he uses is almost invariably the translation of Jehovah in the LXX., a version in common use among the apostles. Now if Paul, as a Jew, called Jesus Jehovah, he must have demanded for Him all those attributes which his nation was wont to associate with that name; and that he did claim these attributes for Jesus no candid and qualified reader of his sermons and epistles can doubt.
II. This tremendous truth is so transcendent that it cannot be accepted without Divine help. No man of himself can affirm it--can state it as the natural conviction of his judgment. When you tell me that Jesus was born, lived, taught, and died, I understand you; for you have narrated a natural event; but when you tell me that Jesus is the great God, you transport me from the sphere of intelligible statement and testimony into wonderland. I do not mean that the Godhead of Christ is naturally inconceivable, but simply that the doctrine is above me. I cannot say that Jesus is God unless you add some other power to my mind, or stimulate to an unnatural intensity the powers I have. St. Paul affirms that no man can: and if St. Paul had not affirmed it we should have found it out. The history of controversy has repeated it in every age. Modern philosophers maintain this in a spirit of boasting, ill concealed beneath an affectation of scientific certainty; as if it had been left for them to discover; whereas Paul asserted it from the first. And he has described this temper of mind with as much candour and accuracy as if he had been a philosopher himself! “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,” etc.; neither can he know them. The natural men have been unconsciously repeating Paul’s words from his day to ours. Now there is a portion of this wonderful truth which is historic--the works and the resurrection of Jesus. These were visible facts, and might be supposed to lie within the realm of observation and testimony. But see how the natural men treat them--as they dare not treat any other history. They first say that Jesus cannot be God, and then they read the gospels to explain away New Testament facts. I do not blame these men because they are unable to say that Jesus is the Lord, any more than I would rate a blind man for not knowing the sun; but I should censure the blind man if he declared there was no sun because he could not see it.
III. The evidence by which this grand truth can be affirmed. The internal persuasion of the Holy Ghost. This leads us at once into the region of the supernatural. Here we part company with the wise, and the scribe, and the disputer of this world. Here we speak in parables to them that are without. The Spirit is the author of the expression or manifestation of the Christian religion. The lips of prophets were touched, and the pens of scribes were moved, by Him; the holy child Jesus was conceived by Him; the dispensing of the glad tidings, that that child was a light to lighten the Gentiles, was entrusted to Him. Now, the first step towards the confession of the Godhead of Christ is the conviction of sin by the Holy Ghost. The misery following such a conviction of sin will make a man strive against it, and learn by bitter failures his helplessness. When I preach Jesus to a man in this state, with his self-despair and his eager cries for help, he not only sees no difficulty in accepting the Godhead of Christ, but he grasps it as the only truth that can give him comfort. He wants a God-mediator because he has sinned against God. He must take his forgiveness from Him against whom he has sinned; and, being pardoned, he must render Him the full and loyal service of his heart and life. That which makes Jesus our final resting-place is His Godhead: that which gives an omnipotent potency to His blood is His equality with the Father. How easy for those whom the Holy Ghost has convinced of sin, and who have imagined under the tyranny of its power what a counter-power that must be which could redeem us from it--how easy for such to admit that Jesus is God! (E. E. Jenkins, D.D.)
The impossibility of truly believing and savingly confessing Christ, but by the Holy Ghost
I. The statement in the text needs explanation. It does not mean that a person cannot repeat the words, “Jesus is the Lord,” but by the Holy Ghost. What, then, is the true meaning, of the text? It is that none can without the Holy Spirit make this confession--
1. With a firm belief of its truth.
2. With a firm reliance on Him for salvation. In order to our relying on Jesus Christ for salvation two things are necessary.
(1) We must feel our need of such a salvation.
(2) We must believe that there is such a provision made for our salvation in Christ Jesus, neither of which we can do without the influence of the Holy Spirit.
3. With a full purpose of living to His glory.
II. We are here instructed--
1. In the nature of true religion. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ lies at the foundation of all true religion. That glorious truth, “Jesus is the Lord,” that He who died upon the Cross for our sins is “the Lord,” this truth is the great turning point of salvation, and whoever truly believes it is brought into a state of salvation. By the belief of this glorious truth he is also prepared for God’s service, to confess Him before men, and to maintain a conduct, according to His will, in the face of all difficulties from within and from without.
2. In the need of the Holy Spirit. We cannot know and believe that “Jesus is the Lord” so as to have our hearts savingly affected by it, so as to depend on Jesus as our Saviour, so as to be renewed thereby after His image in righteousness and true holiness. To attain this faith the special operation of the Holy Ghost is needful.
3. The peculiar office of the Holy Ghost. How He works, and by what means. (G. Maxwell, B.A.)
The work of the Holy Ghost necessary to man
I. The need of the Spirit’s work. It is a matter of needful preliminary consideration, that we dwell upon the guiltiness of our own nature. And no man wants more evidence than that which he finds concurrently upon the page of the Bible and in the volume of his own heart; he has only to look into the former to see what is holy and right and good; he has only to look into the latter in order to see how utterly we have departed therefrom. And this condition is not to be changed by any power which we can set in motion. It is not to be changed by the force of education. It is true that we may train and discipline our children to a certain outward course; we may bind upon them the necessity of maintaining a certain line of conduct, but this has nothing to do with the heart. It is not even by the ordinances of God’s appointment that we can ensure the conversion of souls.
II. The mode of the Spirit’s operations. It is a marvellous work which is wrought upon the soul of every man who passes from a state of nature into a state of grace. It is a change of desires, hopes, purposes, objects--a new birth. We can trace it by its results; we cannot always trace it by its accomplishment. “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” etc. But we are certain that if the effect be really and truly wrought upon any man the results will be manifest. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,” etc. When the evil has been removed, when the hardness has been subdued, when the door of the understanding has been opened to admit the truth of Christianity, and when the door of the heart has been unclosed to all its blessed influences, the man comes to pursue earnestly and diligently those things for which he had once no esteem. (S. Robins.)
Faith a gift of the Spirit
Perhaps there is no one habit which Scripture attributes more often, either explicitly or implicitly, to the agency of the Holy Spirit than a sound and lively faith; and there is none, therefore, which the soul will more carefully seek and cherish. Faith, in the sense in which we are here concerned with it, is the belief of a professed revelation of God to man, on the authority of God who made it, and a lively faith is such a conviction of its truth as causes it to operate as a motive on our affections and lives. It is itself, then, a habit of the intellect, and appears, so far, to become moral only at the point where it influences, rather than is influenced by, the will. And in this light, as a moral motive, coupled too, as it often is in Scripture, with those effects which itshould produce on the will, there seems no greater difficulty in viewing faith as a work of the Spirit than in so regarding repentance, love, or obedience. But in the prior intellectual process--the conviction of the understanding by the force of proof--there is a difficulty which has been felt probably by most minds. There appears, as far as can be seen, no more reason to seek or expect Divine interposition to correct or prevent a logical error, than to stay the effects of any physical power which we ourselves have set in motion. Either would be a miracle which God may work, but which we have no authority to suppose He will. We can no more refuse to believe what is proved, or believe what is destitute of apparent proof, than the eye can reject or change the forms and colours thrown by external objects on the retina. How then can the reception of a doctrine by the reason be affected by the operations of Divine grace? If it is proved, must it not be believed? This difficulty, however, such as it is, is not peculiar to Scripture, or religious truth, or the question of the Holy Spirit’s influence. It belongs equally to the acknowledged fact that, on almost every subject, men, apparently of equivalent power of intellect, with precisely the same evidence before them, arrive at widely different conclusions. Thus it is every day in history, in politics, in much that is called science, in the judgment we form of each other’s characters and conduct, and even in the credit that is given to alleged events almost within the sphere of our own observation. Whether it be that a partial and temporal blindness of the judgment is superinduced by the force of passion and the tension of the will; or whether, as seems more probable, attention, the optic glass, or rather the eye of the mind, is directed by the prevailing emotion excited by the subject in question, with more intensity on a certain class of considerations bearing upon it, while others it glances over slightly, or entirely disregards--even as the bodily eye gazing fixedly on one object is as blind for the time to all the rest as if they were not--so that from all the topics which should have been considered in due weight and measure, it culls those only which lead to the desired conclusion, or gives them such undue prominence in the field of vision that the judgment, deceived and misled, arrives, at a partial, though acceptable, decision--these are questions which may be left to the metaphysician to solve. It is enough for us that the fact is admitted, that everywhere, but in the necessary truths of demonstrative reasoning, the conclusions of reason are actually modified by the wishes, interests, or prejudices of the reasoner; so that belief is not merely the result of intellect, but is, in perhaps a large majority of cases, the mixed product of the moral and intellectual faculties combined. And if this be true where the feelings and passions are only remotely affected, and should not be so at all, how much more will it have place when the subject-matter is religion, which must teach the tenderest part of our moral nature; which strikes on hopes and fears; which bears directly on every affection, passion, motive, habit, and act; which, if admitted to be true, requires a complete revolution in the whole inner man and in great part of the outward conduct. The choice of arrangement of the materials with which reason is to work is much in the power of the will; and the will is prejudiced, and cannot, or will not, honestly do its part. It is not, then, surprising that our Lord should have attributed unbelief always to moral, never to purely intellectual causes (see Joh_3:18-20; Joh_5:40-44; Joh_7:17). It will follow, too--which is the point more immediately before us--not only that in the formation of a sound and living faith there is room for the agency of the Holy Spirit, but that without His aid such faith cannot exist. For if the character of our belief depends not merely on the correctness of the reasoning process, but much more on prior operations of the will, by which the antecedents and materials of reason are selected and arranged, and if our moral nature is in our unregenerate state warped and impaired so as to have a disinclination to what is good and a bias to what is evil, it is evident that the gospel, placed before such a tribunal, must be tried by a prejudiced and incapable judge; that, being wished false, and admitting of objections capable of being magnified and coloured into refutations, it is certain to be found false; and that nothing can rectify the balance of judgment, and place truth on an equal footing with falsehood, but the same external and Divine power which changes and renews the will of man, and enables it to love right instead of wrong, and to desire in all things to know and to do God’s will. Let us now, in further illustration of what has been said, endeavour to trace in one or two instances the process by which moral causes, acting on the intellect, may lead to avowed or practical belief.
1. In a certain class of minds infidelity and heresy alike seem to owe their origin to intellectual pride. To believe is to, adopt the same opinions which have been the creed of multitudes before, and to be confounded in the mass of unreasoning minds which have received implicitly the same traditionary tenets. Objections, on the other hand, have an air of novelty. There is at least the appearance of power in striking out difficulties. It is an intoxicating pleasure to feel different from other men--that is, in our own judgment, superior to them--and the brain often reels under it. Besides this, there is a prejudice against the gospel from the mere circumstance of its being old. In every science new discoveries are making daily. In history, in politics, in science, men have been long mistaken, why not in religion also? With such feelings and prepossessions the mind catches up objections to Christianity, or to some of its doctrines, as just what it was expecting to find. It dwells on them; it magnifies them by the exclusion of other presumptions, till they fill the field of mental vision and leave no room for truth. Humility and faith are kindred gifts of the same Spirit.
2. Another source of unbelief is even more evidently moral. It arises when the soul would hide from God after displeasing Him by wilful sin. Some, for example, smother accusing thoughts in worldly amusements and the dissipation of frivolous gaiety. But many--far more, probably, than can be known till the secrets of all hearts are disclosed--take refuge in a kind of partial unbelief. There are difficulties in revelation, and in some of its doctrines--light as a feather, indeed, when weighed impartially in the balance against the accumulated evidences of truth, but not of course without weight when poised and pondered over by themselves. Such the writhing soul is glad to seize. Suppose the gospel should not be true? his obligations are imaginary, and his guilt and ingratitude are unreal. (Bp. Jackson.)
The necessity of Divine influence in the study and use of Holy Scripture
I. What progress may be made in the study and use of Scripture without the special influence of the Holy Spirit.
1. It is obvious that, without such special influence of the Spirit of God, it is possible to arrive at a merely speculative belief in the truth of Scripture. Men of keen faculties in other pursuits do not forfeit them on approaching the Word of God.
2. It is possible for an individual, without the special influence of the Holy Spirit, to obtain a general acquaintance with the contents of the sacred volume. The strongest eye will make the largest discoveries.
3. It is possible, without the special influence of the Holy Spirit, to feel the highest admiration for parts of the sacred volume.
4. Such an individual may proceed clearly and strikingly to display the contents of the sacred volume to others. He may be a man of lively imagination, and conjure up the most attractive images for the illustration of the truth. He may be a master in composition and therefore able to describe forcibly what he sees distinctly. But, nevertheless, all these powers and faculties may be called into action without the operation of any principle of piety, and therefore without the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit on the soul.
II. What is that knowledge and use of Scripture of which the Holy Ghost must be considered as the exclusive Author.
1. It is by the Holy Spirit we are led to make a personal application of the holy Scripture to our own case.
2. It is the Spirit of God alone who endears the promises of Scripture to the heart. They nominally called Christ “Lord” before, but they now use the expression in a higher and more appropriate sense. They are entirely His. They “yield their members as instruments of righteousness” to Him.
3. It is the Holy Spirit alone who brings the Word of God effectually to bear upon the temper and conduct. As soon as this new influence is felt on the soul our chains begin to drop from us.
Conclusions:
1. Let the text teach us not to confound the results of our natural powers with the fruits of the Spirit.
2. Let the text teach us the transcendent importance of seeking habitually and devoutly the presence and influence of the Spirit of God.
3. If He does not lead us to “say that Jesus is the Lord”--to acknowledge Him, practically and spiritually, as our Redeemer, our Saviour, our Teacher, our Example--the whole of Scripture is as to us a dead letter, and we have “received the grace of God in vain.” (J. W. Cunningham.)
The Lordship of Jesus the ground of unity
I. There are reasons for believing that the expression, “Jesus is Lord,” was the primitive form of Christian creed, out of which all other more elaborate forms have grown (Php_2:11).
1. This simple formula contains in germ the whole faith, both objectively and subjectively. We cannot heartily accept this without accepting with it the truths of His incarnation, atonement, resurrection, reign. It includes also all that we need for our own spiritual welfare. If He is Lord, we are His, He is ours.
2. So full and so mighty is this confession of faith that we cannot heartily make it save by the power of the Holy Ghost (cf.St. Mat_16:16-17)
. To make it on the authority of others, or because our reasoning faculties have been convinced of its truth, is not sufficient. It is real only when the Holy Spirit has convinced our spirit that it is a living truth.
II. From the above considerations we can gain some guidance is the search after unity among Christians. If the essential primitive creed that “Jesus is the Lord” be held spiritually--
1. It may be permitted us to differ as to the exact methods in which He works upon our spiritual being. St. Paul allows that there are diversities of gifts, differences of administration, differences of operation.
2. We shall learn not to contradict the spiritual experiences of others because they have been gained by methods differing from our own. Our creed is a creed of affirmations, not of denials. The spiritual education of St. Peter differed from that of St. John, and both differed from that of St. Paul or St. James, yet they are united in their belief in the one Lord. (Canon Vernon button.)
The teaching of the Spirit of God
I. The lesson we are to learn, to say. “Jesus is the Lord.”
1. It is but short, but it is the whole gospel. Here is Jesus, “a Saviour” and “the Lord,” and as they are joined together in one Christ, no man must put them asunder. If we wilt have Christ our Saviour, we must make Him our Lord: and if we make Him our Lord, He will then be our Saviour. Had He not been the Lord, the world had been a chaos, the Church a body without a head, a family without a father, an army without a captain, a ship without a pilot, and a kingdom without a king.
2. What it is to say it. It is soon said: it is but three words. The devils themselves did say it (Mat_8:29). And if the heretic will not confess it, saith Hilary, “what more fit to convince him than the cry of the devils themselves?” The “vagabond Jews” thought to work miracles with these words (Act_19:13). To say it taketh in the tongue, the heart, the hand, i.e., an outward profession, an inward persuasion, a constant practice answerable to them both.
(1) We are bound to say it (Rom_10:9; 1Jn_4:15).
(a) But if to say it were sufficient, there needed no Holy Ghost to teach it. We might learn to say it as the parrot did to salute Caesar. And indeed, if we take a survey or the conversation of most Christians, we shall find that our confession is much after the fashion of birds.
(b) Some dare not but say it for very shame, lest those they live with should confute them. Yet the voice may be for Jesus and the heart for Mammon. “It is a voice, and no more.” Thus they may name Him who never name Him but in their execrations.
(2) As there is “a word floating on the tongue,” so there is the word of the heart, when by due examination we are well persuaded that Jesus is the Lord. We call it “faith,” which as a fire will not be concealed (Jer_20:9; Psa_39:3; Psa_116:10). Sometimes we read of its valour (Heb_11:33); its policy (2Co_2:11), its strength; but that faith should be idle, or speechless, or dead, is contrary to its nature. Now there are many who maintain the truth, but by those ways which are contrary to the truth (2Ti_3:5); crying, “Jesus is the Lord,” but scourging Him with their blasphemies, and fighting against Him with their lusts. Therefore--
(3) That we may truly say it, we must speak it to God as God speaketh to us; who, if “He saith it, will make it good “ (Num_23:19). And as He speaketh to us by His benefits, so must we speak to Him by our obedience. For if He be indeed our Lord, then shall we be under His command.
II. The teacher. As the lesson is difficult, we must have a skilful master.
1. Good reason that the Holy Ghost should be our teacher. For as the lesson is, such should the master be. The lesson is spiritual; the teacher a Spirit. The lecture is a lecture of piety; and the Spirit is a Holy Spirit. It is not sharpness of wit, or quickness of apprehension, or force of eloquence, that can raise us to this truth.
2. “Christ dwelleth in us by His Spirit” (Rom_8:11). Who teaches us--
(1) By sanctifying our knowledge of Christ; by showing us the riches of His gospel, and the majesty of His kingdom, with that evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship.
(2) By quickening, enlivening, and even actuating our faith. For this Spirit “dwelleth in our hearts by faith,” maketh us to be “rooted and grounded in love,” enableth us to believe with efficacy (Eph_3:17).
3. A teacher then He is. But great care is to be taken that we mistake Him not, or take some other spirit for Him. And it doth not follow, because some men mistake and abuse the Spirit, that no man is taught by Him. Because I will not learn, doth not the Spirit therefore teach? And if some men take dreams for revelations, must the Holy Ghost needs lose His office?
4. But you will say perhaps that “the Holy Ghost was a teacher in the apostles’ times, but doth He still keep open school?” Yes, certainly. Though we be no apostles, yet we are Christians; and the same Spirit teacheth both. And by His light we avoid all by-paths of dangerous error, and discern, though not all truth, yet all that is necessary.
III. His prerogative. He is our “sole instructor.”
1. “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” And there are diversities of teachers, but the same Spirit.
(1) The Church is “the house of learning,” and “the pillar of the truth.”
(2) The Word is a teacher: and Christ by open proclamation hath commanded us to have recourse unto it.
(3) We are taught also by Christ’s discipline.
2. All these are teachers; but their authority andefficacy is from the Spirit. The Church, if not directed by the Spirit, were but a rout or conventicle; the Word, if not quickened by the Spirit, “a dead letter”; and His discipline a rod of iron, first to harden us, and then break us to pieces. But the Spirit bloweth upon His garden the Church, and the spices thereof flow (Son_4:16); He sitteth upon the seed of the Word, and hatcheth a new creature, a subject to this Lord; He moveth upon these waters of bitterness, and then they make us “fruitful to every good work.” Conclusion: Wilt thou know how to speak this language truly, that “Jesus is the Lord,” and assure thyself that the Spirit teacheth thee so to speak? Mark well then those symptoms of His presence.
Remember--
1. That He is a Spirit, and the Spirit of God, and so is contrary to the flesh, and teacheth nothing that may flatter or countenance it, or let it loose to insult over the spirit.
2. That He is “a right Spirit” (Psa_51:10); not now glancing on heaven, and having an eye fixed and buried in the earth.
3. That He is a Spirit of truth. And it is the property of truth to be always like unto itself, to change neither shape nor voice. (A. Farindon, B.D.)
Who have, and who have not, the Spirit
I.Who do not speak by the spirit of God, and have not His influences. “They that call Jesus accursed” (Lev_27:21; Lev_27:28).
1. The test put on Christians by their persecutors was, that they should revile andblaspheme Christ. Pliny, writing to Trajan, says, “When they” (the Christians) “could be induced to call on the gods … and, moreover, to revile Christ, to none of which things it is said that those who are in reality Christians can be compelled, I thought they ought to be released.” And the Jews not only uttered blasphemies against Christ themselves, but extorted them, if possible, from those they apprehended to be His disciples (Act_26:11). The apostle, therefore, here signifies that those who reviled Christ had not the Spirit. This is applicable to those who in any way detract from the glory of Christ, or that do not acknowledge Him to be Lord.
2. It includes--
(1) All that blaspheme Him, or account Him, an impostor; as all infidels, heathens, Jews, Mohammedans, and whoever does not acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah (Joh_8:24; 1Jn_4:3).
(2) All that reject Him (Act_4:11).
(a) As a Teacher, not receiving the whole of His doctrine as infallibly true.
(b) As a Mediator, not making His atonement or intercession the ground of their justification (Rom_9:31; Rom_10:3).
(c) As a Saviour from sin and its consequences.
(d) As a King, by disobeying His laws. For, as the chief end for which the Holy Spirit is given to us is to glorify Christ, if we neglect, or be indifferent about, Him, it is certain we are not inspired by that Spirit.
II. Who have the Holy Spirit? All that “say that Jesus is the Lord.”
1. What is implied in saying this? To say so is--
(1) To believe and confess that, although He wasdespised and persecuted, yet He was the Lord Christ promised to the patriarchs, foretold by the prophets (Mal_3:1; Psa_110:1; 1Jn_4:2; Mat_16:16); anointed and qualified to be our Teacher, our Redeemer (Isa_59:20-21; Heb_2:14), our Saviour, our Owner, our King (Php_2:11), our Lord and Master (Rom_14:7-9), our Judge (Rom_14:9-12).
(2) To believe and confess Him to be the Son of God, in a sense that no other being is His Son (1Jn_4:15; Mat_16:16; Heb_1:3, etc.); therefore, to be the “heir” and “lord of all”--to be “Immanuel, God with us” (Rom_9:5). It is impossible He should sustain His offices, or be our Lord, if He be not God.
2. The importance of it.
(1) It is the end of His life, death, and resurrection, that He should be acknowledged such (Php_2:6-11).
(2) It is necessary to our salvation, and certainly connected with it (Rom_10:8-10; 1Jn_4:13-15).
(3) It tends to the glory of God, and the salvation of others.
3. It can only be said “by the Holy Ghost.” It must be said--
(1) In the mind believingly and sincerely; therefore, it must proceed from knowledge which we cannot have but by the Spirit (Mat_11:27; 1Co_2:10; 1Co_2:12; Joh_16:13-15; Eph_1:17; 2Co_4:6).
(2) In the heart, affectionately (Rom_10:10; and 1Co_16:22; 1Pe_2:7-8); but this love we cannot have but by the Spirit (Rom_5:5).
(3) With lips, openly, whatever it may cost (Rom_10:9; 2Ti_2:8-14; Mat_10:25; Mat_10:28; Mat_10:32-39), which we cannot do of ourselves, or without faith and a new birth (1Jn_5:4-5), and, therefore, without the Spirit.
(4) By the life, consistently. (J. Benson.)
Spiritual discernment
I. What does this statement mean? The Holy Ghost must--
1. Convince us of its truth.
2. Reveal to us its importance.
3. Inspire us to trust in it.
II. Upon what is it based? It is--
1. Necessarily a matter of revelation.
2. Contrary to the carnal mind.
3. Superior to human reason. (W. W. Wythe.)
Divine grace necessary to the right appreciation of revealed truth
It seems a very simple thing to say that Jesus is the Christ, and yet the apostle declares that no man can do this but by the Holy Ghost. This is cutting down human power to a very low point indeed; and if that be so, then must the whole of Revelation be a sealed book to us, unless laid open by the Spirit of God.
I. The text does not assert the incompetency of the human understanding in matters of religion. Though the understanding was greatly injured by the fall, nevertheless in the main it still faithfully executes its part. But it can only judge of things according to the representations laid before it; and if those representations be incorrect, it may deliver a wrong judgment, and yet be no ways in fault. E.g., we lay a case before a lawyer; he delivers a favourable opinion; nevertheless, when we go into court, the verdict is against us. Now, it is possible enough that the lawyer may have been to blame, but the case may not have been fairly submitted to him; a colouring may have been thrown over certain facts, which has distorted them. Then surely the lawyer is not in fault.
II. The understanding may be deceived.
1. By the senses. Let us suppose a man born with impaired senses, but with a clear understanding. Suppose that his eye distorts everything, or is unable to discriminate colours; suppose his touch imperfect, or his ear faulty. Now what will the powers of the man’s understanding avail him when such senses make their report? Would he not himself require to be made the subject of a rectifying process ere he could frame any true and fitting conceptions of the world in which he is placed?
2. By the affections. There are in all of us faculties by which we love and by which we hate certain things; the former is in right order if it fix on nothing but what is worthy of our love, and the latter if it fix on nothing but what is worthy of our hatred. But if, like the diseased eye or ear, they misrepresent objects, what will the understanding be able to do, seeing that the impression transmitted to it of evil may make it seem good, and of good may make it seem evil? And is not man in his natural state a being with depraved affections, though he may not be a being with vitiated senses? By nature he regards as worthy of his best love what God would have him despise, and gives his aversion to that which God would have him value; he seeks happiness where God asserts that it cannot be found, and denies that it exists where alone God would place it. The task demanded from the understanding by religion is, that it determine that in God is man’s chief good, and that in obedience to God is also true happiness. But whilst the affections in their natural state give preference to some finite good and shrink from God’s service, how can the understanding deliver the verdict required by religion any more than it could form a correct notion of a tree, if the senses represent it as lying on the ground in place of springing from it?
III. The Holy Spirit is required to work on that by which the understanding is deceived, i.e., in the heart; removing the corrupt bias from the affections, and purifying them so that they shall find their chief good in God, ere the head can apprehend the great truths of the gospel, confess their force, and bow to their authority. Men often profess to count it very strange that we should make them out incapable of understanding spiritual things, when they have confessedly so much power in other departments of knowledge. The proper answer is, that the affections are to spiritual things what the senses are to natural things. If, then, the affections misrepresent the objects of which they have to give impressions to the understanding, the result will be of the same kind as if the work were done by the senses. The Holy Ghost did not come to give a new understanding, for there was strength enough in the head; He came to set in order those faculties through which the understanding is necessarily influenced. And it follows indubitably, from such passages as our text, that until a man has submitted himself to the influences of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the meaning of the Bible, and yield himself to the duties of religion. (H. Melvill, B.D.)
Real submission to Christ the effect of Divine influence
I.The manner in which a true Christian is here described.
1. He says “Jesus is the Lord.” The term “Lord” is here used to signify Christ’s Messiahship, including His authority and dominion. “He is Lord of all.” Christ has authority--
(1) To teach, to prescribe the faith of His followers, to enact laws for His Church, to direct and command in all things pertaining to our present duty, and our hopes for the future.
(2) To rule. As Lord of all, He is the head of that mediatorial government which externals over the world, for the sake of His Church which is in the world. His reign is a reign of grace. His throne is in the hearts of the faithful, who are made willing in the day of His power, and find their pleasure in their obedience.
(3) To pardon and save. When on earth He had power to forgive sins; and He is now “exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give remission of sins.” We are required to look unto Him, that we might be saved.
(4) He will hereafter come in the clouds of heaven with all authority to judge.
2. But what is meant by saying that Jesus is the Lord?
(1) That to say it aright you must cordially receive Christ, and trust in Him as your Redeemer and Saviour (Joh_1:12-13).
(2) With this is connected a spirit of submission, and a practical acknowledgment of His lordship over us. To say He is the Lord, and yet to refuse to obey Him, is to mock Him with vain words.
(3) To this must be joined those exercises of the mind which are the proper workings of faith, the fruits of the Spirit of grace.
II. The work of the Holy Spirit in producing a cordial subjection to Christ the Lord.
1. The human mind shows a reluctance to that spiritual reception of the gospel which is meant by saying that Jesus is the Lord.
2. It is not to be expected that the heart, under this wrong bias, will cure itself. Nor can so desirable a change be effected, except by our heavenly Father’s gracious assumption of this work to Himself (Eze_36:26). The scriptures connect the sanctification of the Spirit with the belief of the truth. What occasions the rejection of the authority of Jesus the Lord? Is it not ignorance and unbelief? And how shall these be removed but by instruction and evidence? These are to be obtained from the Word of God, and it is by means of His own truth as there revealed that souls are renewed and reconciled. His Spirit helpeth our infirmities, and “worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (1Th_2:13).
Conclusion:
1. Let us infer, for our improvement, the great importance of the work of the Holy Spirit in the concerns of our salvation.
2. Let us all carefully use the means whereby our souls may be quickened to all holy obedience. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer )
