Jesus is the door to the understanding of all revelation. Let us enter by Him, with praise and thanksgivings.

God is a spirit (Jno., 4:23) eternal; His resources, infinite, are in His word. Whoever therefore opens one revealed thought of God, recorded in the Scriptures, to the human mind, makes it possible for the Holy Spirit to work; and I would make all lands hear it yea makes it impossible for the Holy Spirit not to work.

Beyond all discussion this argument justifies this conclusion: Every theory of the Holy Spirit's work in conversion and Christian growth that eliminates the thoughts of God expressed in human language and recorded in human language in the Scriptures, and that eliminates the human understanding from conversion and Christian growth, is a delusion and a snare!

CHAPTER VI.

The Holy Spirit and Human Instrumentality-The Apostles.

By human instrumentality is meant God's use of human beings for the revelation of His will and the accomplishment of His purposes. By the apostles is meant the twelve men whom Jesus called around Him as His special friends and disciples, and whom He made His ambassadors.

I appeal to the record: "When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? and they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God; and Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven; and I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it! and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt., 16:13-19)." The keys of the kingdom were manifestly and pre-eminently given to Simon Peter, but in an exalted sense the other apostles had the same power. Said Jesus unto the twelve, Peter included: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt., 18: 18)." It is a fact that they all received the same commission. It is a fact also that they preached the same gospel. In what therefore was

Peter pre-eminent? It must have been in the authority to first bind and unloose, among the Jews, among the Gentiles.

No theory of the Holy Spirit's work in redemption that eliminates the fact the words of Jesus Himself - that Peter had the keys of the Kingdom from the Master, or that eliminates the fact that all the apostles had Divine authority to bind and unloose in the name of Jesus, can possibly be

true.

The apostles are a reality, called, ordained, authenticated by Heaven. We must find some explanation, therefore, of the Holy Spirit's work that will honor and find a divinely made place for both the Holy Spirit and the Holy Twelve.

If we eliminate the Holy Spirit and leave it all to men, the whole thing will become grossly material. If we eliminate the apostles and leave it all to the Holy Spirit we will drive into the wildest fanaticism. There is a happy medium: the Holy Spirit - apostles working together; the word of the apostles, suggested, inspired, spoken, by the Holy Spirit.

God has revealed His will to men; that will is recorded in the Old and New Testaments and kept alive by the power of the Holy Spirit in it.

God has spoken many times, at many places, and in many manners, but let the emphasis be placed upon the fact that He has spoken, spoken by men and for men, to men: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son (Heb., 1: 1, 2)." God has spoken. Let mortal man hear and be silent.

Here is a remarkable statement, but it is clearly within the facts: God has never spoken to any individual for his sole, personal benefit; He has chosen men and spoken to them that He might reach others ultimately, the whole race. He spoke to Noah; not for his benefit exclusively, but in order to reach an apostate world (Gen., 6: 1-22). God called Abraham out of Chaldea, and gave him two great promises, and talked with him often, but he had another object in

view the establishment and training of a nation: "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him (Gen., 18: 1719)." To carry out this purpose God spoke to Isaac (Gen., 26:1-5), and to Jacob (Gen., 28: 10-15). God spoke to Moses at Horeb: "Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt (Ex., 3:10)." Again: "And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet; thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of the land (Ex., 7: 1, 2)." Again: "And the Lord said unto Moses, wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward (Ex., 14:15)." Again: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee forever (Ex., 19:9)." The Lord spoke unto Joshua, and through him to the whole nation: "Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass, that the Lord spoke unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel; every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses (Josh., 1: 1-3)." The Lord spoke to Gideon in order to use him as a deliverer for His oppressed people: "And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have I not sent thee (Judg., 6: 14)?" The Lord spoke to Samuel the prophet in order to

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reach Eli the priest, and Israel: "And the Lord said unto Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle * And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision (I. Sam., 3:1118)." God spoke to and through the prophets in order to reach all Israel: "Yet many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands; nevertheless for thy great mercy's sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God (Neh., 9: 30, 31).

The fundamental principles - the one unbroken thread running from eternal silence to the eternal song of Moses and the Lambis for humanity, to humanity, through humanity, by the Spirit of the living God. 'Tis true that for a time in the earliest ages God talked somewhat to the individual, but when He began to fully reveal His purpose, He adopted the plan, and adhered to it persistently, of speaking to men through men, and in order to fully and graphically, lovingly and sympathetically, identify Himself with His lost and wandering children, His "Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth (Jno., 1:14). Again: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men (Phil., 2:57)." Again: "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man (Heb., 2:9)."

God approached Abraham that through his immediate offspring He might build up and train a nation for service, and that remotely, through Abraham's Great Son - His Son He might reach and speak to a world.