CHAPTER ONE

Introducing a Great Theme

THE LORD JESUS came down from Heaven to save the whole world : but as long as He was in the flesh He felt Himself "straitened" or "hemmed in" (Luke 12:50). He had to spend the few years of His earthly ministry in a small country, preaching to an unappreciative nation. Even the fact that at Jordan He was baptized in the Holy Ghost, and after that could move in His power (Luke 4:14) did not satisfy Him. All His life He was looking forward to that prolongation of His ministry which should be His after the Resurrection (Isaiah 53:10). No longer then would He be confined to two feet and one tongue, but would be able to use a million tongues and feet, freely offered to Him by His Brethren, and so penetrate all over the earth and send the good news of His Atonement to every creature.

       Yet it was not enough that the message of Salvation should be universally proclaimed. Messiah though He was, and fully prepared by His Father during the hidden years of Isaiah 49:1,2, yet by Himself He could not meet the needs of His people, but required the power of the Spirit to back home His words and satisfy His compassion. Love without the ability to help those we love is a grievous burden, enough to break the heart! Luke 11:5-13 is a picture of Our Lord's heart,

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faced as He was with a groaning nation, the malice of selfish rulers, and the cruel tyranny of Satan their oppressor. For eighteen years He knocked, and knocked, and knocked; until at length the door was opened and the Spirit descended upon Him with all the mighty power of God, and He went forth in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14) to do His Father's will.

       To those who, like John Baptist (Matt. 11:2-6), or the leaders of the Jews (John 5), doubted His message, He appealed to the miraculous works which accompanied it. And He told His disciples that they too would need the same attestation in their world-wide ministry, and warned them not to move till they had received it. God's words need the witness of His acts (Mark 16:15-20; Acts 1:4-8), and Our Lord spoke of His followers doing even greater works than He had done Himself (John 14:12). To put it another way Our Lord looked forward to doing even greater things in His new Body, His Church, than He had done in His Galilean body of flesh and blood. The Church as a whole is now Christ's Universal Body, and each local Church is a local Body to meet local needs (Eph. 5:22-32; 1 Cor. 12:12-31).

The Gifts of the Spirit

       It is against this background that we turn to the consideration of the Gifts of the Spirit. They are the essential means whereby Our Lord can prolong His earthly ministry, cut short by His crucifixion, in His new and splendid Body of countless members. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that the only real reason for seeking the Baptism in the Holy Ghost is to enable Our Lord

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to continue His life of power upon the earth. Any other motive for seeking the gifts of the Spirit is mistaken, and will lead to disappointment and even disaster, for power always leads to temptation and great power to great temptation. Secular history is full of illustrations of this truth, and the history of the Church of Christ tells of many men who began well, but were not able to finish. A man of power has temptations to face of which the little man knows nothing. Pride, covetousness, jealousy, popularity, all knock at his heart incessantly; and, as the Acts and the Epistles show, the pathway of the Church has been from the beginning strewn with splits and divisions and personal antagonisms which have crippled it, and at times brought it to a standstill. It is only when power is used to enable the Lord to do what He wants that the user is safe. It is the marvel of the Lord's life that with all His Power He never enriched or profited Himself. He saved others; Himself He could, but would not, save! Men who "turn the world upside down" invariably taste its retaliation. A powerless Christ might have died in His bed: it was the raising of Lazarus that sealed His doom (John 11:45-53).

       At this point we may perhaps for a moment consider the two Scriptural descriptions of the Pentecostal experience. We may ask either, have you had your Baptism? or, have you received the Spirit? (Acts 19:2). The former draws attention to the first incoming of the Spirit, the latter to His continued manifestation of His presence. It was this latter that Paul missed at Ephesus. A true Pentecostal Church is not one whose members have "had their Baptism", but one in which the Spirit is able to manifest Himself in the nine

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ways mentioned in 1 Cor. 12:7-10. To draw an earthly parallel, we do not have a wedding day just for its own delights, but because it is the beginning of a life-long intimacy. The Mighty One who entered our bodies at the Baptism, does not desire to sit shackled and dumb, but to use His power constantly to do the things which Our Lord desires. A Pentecostal life is one in which, while we do what we can, the Spirit supplements our efforts by doing what He alone can. The words which we utter are to be constantly confirmed by the miraculous acts which He performs. A Pentecostal Church which lacks the Gifts of the Spirit is like any other godly Church, powerless though sanctified, limited though energetic. For the best efforts of men fall far short of the Power of God. Where God is inactive men are forced back upon themselves and their own abilities. An Israel, which could no longer look to God for the miraculous, fell back upon the standing army begun by an unbelieving Saul (1 Sam. 8:20 and 13:2). Yet the great armies possessed by Asa and Jehoshaphat were too weak to give victories over their more powerful enemies, and both Kings had to pray to God for the miraculous!

       The last chapter in Israel's history sees them unable any longer to believe for the miraculous, and led away into a disgraceful captivity in Babylon. Such has been the sad fate of the Christian Churches, until today, the mere mention of the miraculous has brought ostracism and contempt. Let us, who know better, cling to the glorious heritage provided by the Spirit, and resist every effort of the enemy to make us more acceptable as members of an unsupernatural Denomination!

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The Church is the Unit

       Here then is the place to emphasise two points which are so clearly put by Paul in 1 Cor. 12:

       (a) It is to the Church that the powers of the Spirit are given through the individual, and not to the individual for himself. It is the Church which under its appointed leaders is the unit. The possession of a great gift from the Lord does not entitle, though it may tempt, its owner to go off on his own, or stand out from others as if he were above them, or to expect because he has this gift to take a leading part in the Government of the Church. His gift, once he has received it, belongs to the Church, and the use to be made of it lies at the wisdom of its leaders. The Church is one body, knit together by love to do the Lord's will, and it does not matter through which member the gifts come: it is the whole body which is enriched and empowered.

       (b) It is the Lord's will to give the greatest gifts to that part which lacks. Pastors are to encourage those members, who seem to have little of their own to give to the Church's work, whether through shyness, or age, or lack of self-confidence or ability, to look for the greater gifts (1 Cor. 12:22-25). It is bad for anyone to feel that they are not of much use, and can easily be done without. The Lord therefore desires to combat this by giving to any such a compensating gift, which will make them realise that they are needed and highly valued.

       The Church then is to gather together when any particular manifestation of God's power is needed, and to expect the Lord to give it to whom He will. The Lord for His part has told every

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member to "desire earnestly the greater gifts" (GK). "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it" says Scripture. The reason for this is that it is not possible to get anything into a shut mouth! It is the open beak which receives the worm! Even God cannot enter the unwilling heart, or bless the lukewarm or fearful spirit. So Timothy was told by Paul to put away his fears and rekindle the gift which he had received (2 Tim. 1:6), instead of neglecting it (1 Tim. 4:14). It is only too easy to quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19-20). Where this is done Churches that once were spiritually powerful soon become as powerless as Churches which have never heard of Pentecost.

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