Chapter 35.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE SONS OF GOD

BY `

W. J. ERDMAN, D. D.,

Germantown, Pennsylvania

It is evident from many tracts and treatises on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that due importance has not been given to the peculiar characteristic of the Pentecost gift in its relation to the sonship of believers. 

Before considering this theme a few brief statements may be made concerning the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit and His relation to the people of God in the dispensations and times preceding the Day of Pentecost.

1. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, another Person, but not a different Being. 

In general it may be said, He is not an "influence" or a sum and series of "influences," but a personal Being with names and affections, words and acts, interchanged with those of God. 

He is God as Creator. (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:30; Job 26:13; Luke 1:35). He is one with God as Jehovah (Lord) in providential leading and care, and susceptible of grief on account of the unholiness of His chosen people. We cannot grieve an "influence," but only a person, and a person, too, who loves us. (Psalm 78:40; Ephesians 4:30). He is one with God as Adonai (Lord), whose glory Isaiah beheld and John rehearses, who commissioned the prophet and sent forth the apostle. (Isaiah 6:1-10; John 12:37-41; Acts 13:2; 20:15-18). In these Scriptures one and the same act is that of Jehovah and of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit.

Besides the clear evidence of personality and equality in the baptismal words and in the benediction (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14), the promise of Jesus affirms the presence and the abiding of the Spirit to be one with His own and with the Father’s in this Word. "If a man love Me he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him" (John 16:23). Above all, the name "another Comforter" (Paraclete) suggests a Person who would do for the disciples what Jesus the other Comforter (Luke 2:25) had been doing for them. He speaks, testifies, teaches, reminds, reproves, convicts, warns, commands, loves, consoles, beseeches, prays, intercedes, (often the word is "paracletes"); in brief, all these and other acts and dealings are not those of an impersonal medium or influence, but of a person, and One who in the nature of the case cannot be less than God in wisdom, love and power, and who is one with the Father and the Son; another Person indeed, but not a different Being.

2. The spiritual, Divine life in the people of God is the same in kind in every age and dispensation, but the relation to God in which the life was developed of old was different from that which now exists between believers as sons and God as Father, and in accordance with that relationship the Holy Spirit acted. 

He was of old the Author and Nourisher of all spiritual life and power in righteous men and women of past ages, in patriarch and friend of God, in Israelites as minors and servants, in pious kings and adoring psalmists, in consecrated priests and faithful prophets; and whatever truth had been revealed, He employed to develop the Divine life He had imparted. From the beginning, He used promise and precept, law and type, Psalm and ritual to instruct, quicken, convince, teach, lead, warn, comfort and to do all for the growth and establishment of the people of God.

The Psalms run through the gamut of the spiritual experience possible for those, who while waiting for the consolation of Israel and the future outpouring of the Holy Spirit, were "apart from us" not to be "made perfect" as sons and as "worshipers." More than one prayed, 

"Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God; let Thy good Spirit lead me into the land of uprightness" (Psalm 143:10). 

But there was then still lacking among men the consummate Reality and perfect Illustration of a Son of God.

When at last, all righteousness and holy virtues appeared in a Life of filial love and obedience, even in Christ "the first-born of many brethren," then the Mold and Image of the spiritual life of the saints of the old covenant, who were waiting for sonship, was seen perfect and complete. It was pre-eminently the life of a Son of God and not only of a righteous man; of a Son ever rejoicing before the Father, His whole being filled with filial love and obedience, peace and joy. In ways God-ward and man-ward, in self-denial and in full surrender to His Father’s will, in hatred of sin and in grace to sinners, in purity of heart and forgiveness of injuries, in gentleness and all condescension, in restful yet ceaseless service, in unity of purpose and faultless obedience — in a word, in all excellencies and graces, in all virtues and beauties of the Spirit, in light and in love, the Lord Jesus set forth. the mold and substance of the life spiritual, divine, eternal.

3. Redemption must precede both the sonship and the gift of the Spirit. 

This is very clearly seen in the Apostle’s argument on the great subject: 

"God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:4-6).

The word "adoption" signifies the placing in the state and relation of a son. It is found in Romans 9:4; 13:15,23; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5. 

In the writings of John believers are never called sons, but "children" ("born ones"), a word indicating nature, kinship. Sonship relates not to nature, but to legal standing; it comes not through regeneration, but by redemption. The disciples of Jesus had to wait until the Son of God had redeemed them; and then on the redeemed disciples the Spirit of God was poured at Pentecost, not to make believers sons, but because they had become sons through redemption. In brief, sonship, though ever since redemption inseparable from justification, does in the order of salvation succeed justification. Justification in Romans 5:1 precedes the "grace" of sonship in 5:2. This "access" or "introduction" is of the justified into the presence of God as Father; and it is through Christ and by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18; 3:12).

We were "predestined" to be sons of God, and to be "conformed to the image of His Son" (Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:29). In Ephesians 1:5 the "sonship" is rather corporate; all believers are viewed as one "son," one "body," just as Jehovah said of Israel, "My son," "My first born." This corporate ness is really to be understood in Galatians 3:28, which may read, "Ye are all one son in Christ Jesus," instead of "one man." (See also Ephesians 4:13; 1 Corinthians 12:12).

And this image is His as glorified, so that until we have been conformed to His body of glory, our "adoption" or sonship is not complete nor our experience of redemption finished. (Romans 8:23).

And special emphasis should be laid upon the truth that sins were before God only pretermitted until the atonement was made; "propitiation for the pretermission [passing over] of sins that are past" (Romans 3:25); "for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament" (Hebrews 9:15).

Remission came through the great offering for sin, just as sonship came through this redemption; and as the Spirit was given because believers had become sons, so also He could be given because believers had received the remission of their sins. This is the invariable order; faith in Christ, remission of sins, gift of the Holy Spirit.

Yea, more, as without the gracious power of the Spirit of God the new birth would be impossible, so without the redeeming blood of Christ the estate of sonship would have been unattainable; the Spirit and the blood are equally necessary to the full accomplishment of the eternal purpose of God.

In brief, through redemption the new dignity of sonship was conferred, the new name "sons" was given to them as a new name "Father" had been declared of Him; a new name was given to the life in this new relation, "the life eternal," and a new name, "Spirit of His Son," was given to the Holy Spirit, who henceforth, with new truth and a new commandment, would nourish and develop this life and illumine and lead believers into all the privileges and duties of the sons of God.

These facts are then all related to and dependent upon each other; Jesus must first lay the ground of the forgiveness of sins of past and future times in His work of redemption and reconciliation; as risen and glorified, not before, He is "the first-born of many brethren," to whose image they are predestined to be conformed; as the Son, He declared to them the name of God as Father, the crowning name of God corresponding to their highest name, sons of God. As His "brethren" in this high and peculiar sense, He did not call them until He had first suffered, died, and risen again from the dead, but that name is the first word He spoke of them on the morning of resurrection, as if it were the chiefest joy of His soul to name and greet them as His brethren, and sons of God, being in and with Him "sons of the resurrection;" and because they were sons, the Father, through the Son, sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, "Abba, Father!"

It is the marvelous dignity of a sonship in glory, like that of our Lord Jesus, with all its attendant blessings and privileges, service and rewards, suffering and glories, to which the gift of the Holy Spirit is related in this present dispensation.

Accordingly, when the disciples were baptized with the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost they were not only endued with ministering power, but they also then entered into the experience of sonship. Then they knew as they could not have known before, though the Book of the Acts records but little of their inner life, that through the heaven-descended Spirit the sons of God are forever united with the heaven-ascended, glorified Son of God. Whether they at first fully realized this fact or not, it is seen as in the Gospel of John, they were in Him and He in them. Was Jesus begotten of  the Spirit, so were they; was He not of the world as to origin and nature, neither were they; was He loved of the Father, so were they, and with the same love; was He sanctified and sent into the world to bear witness to the truth, so likewise He sent them; did He receive the Spirit as the seal of God to His Sonship, so were they sealed; was He anointed with power and light to serve, so they received the unction from Him; did He begin to serve when there came the attesting Spirit and confirming word of the Father, so they began to serve when the Spirit of the Son, the Witness, was sent forth into their hearts, saying Abba, Father; was He, after service and suffering, received up in glory, so shall they obtain His glory when He comes again to receive them unto Himself. Verily, "we are as He is in this world." (1 John 4:17; John 10:36; 17:1-26; Romans 5:5).

In view of these truths of Divine revelation how foolish the wisdom of the natural man and how sadly misleading the doctrine which makes the "fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," which are by nature and creation, identical and co-extensive with that which is by grace and redemption; for not only does the imperative word, "Ye must be born again," sweep away all the merit and glory of man as he is by the first birth, but also, the predestination to a sonship like that of the Son of God in glory lifts the "twice-born" to a height and dignity never conceived of by the natural man.

4. In the gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost all gifts, for believers in Christ were contained and were related to them as Sons of God both individually and corporatively as the Church the Body of Christ.

In kind, as can be seen on comparison, there was no difference in His gifts and acts before and after that day, but the new Gift was now to dwell in the hearts of men as sons of God and with more abundant life and varied manifestations of power and wisdom.

But by the Spirit the one Body was formed and all gifts are due to His perpetual presence. (1 Corinthians 12:14). Also, it is to be understood that such a word of Jesus, "If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him," could not have been fulfilled until a later hour, for repeating His promise at another time it is said of Jesus,

"But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believed on Him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 3:7-39)

These are some of the anticipative sayings of our Lord, not to be made good until He had died and risen again. The good things could not be given until "transgression had been forgiven and sin covered." The water could not pour forth until the Rock had been smitten. And as to the use of the words, "baptize" and "pour," they afterwards, in later Scriptures, imply the original incorporating act.

It is significant that after Pentecost only the words, "filled with the Spirit," are used. Nothing is said of an individual receiving a new or fresh "baptism of the Spirit." It would imply that the baptism is one for the whole Body until all the members are incorporated; one the outpouring, many the fillings; one fountain, many the hearts to drink, to have in turn a well of water springing up within them.

The disciples were indeed endued with power for service according to promise; on that especially their eyes and hearts had been fixed; that was the chief thing for them; but in the light of later Scriptures it is seen that the chief thing with God was not only to attest the glory of Jesus by the gift of the Spirit, but also "in one Spirit to baptize into one body" the "children of God," who until then were looked upon as "scattered abroad," as unincorporated members. (1 Corinthians 12:13; John 11:52; Galatians 3:27,28). And the Gift, whether to the Body or to the individual member, is once for all. As the Christian is Once for all in Christ, so the Holy Spirit is once for all in the Christian; but the intent of the presence of the Spirit is often but feebly met by the believer, just as his knowledge of what it is to be "in Christ" is often most defective.

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