Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

and communicates its own essential properties to whatever abides its test.
Thus the Holy Spirit, the "Spirit of burning," destroys the pollution of the
heart, and makes pure and divine all its powers and faculties.
"The communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all." May that Holy
Spirit, that divine and eternal energy which proceeds from the Father and
the Son; that heavenly fire that gives light and life, that purifies and
refines, sublimes and exalts, comforts and invigorates, make you all
partakers with himself. This points out the astonishing privileges of true
believers: they have communion with God's Spirit; share in all his gifts
and graces; walk in his light; through him they have the fullest confidence
that they are of God, that he is their Father and Friend, and has blotted out
all their iniquities: this they know by the Spirit which he has given them.
And is it possible that a man shall be a partaker with the Holy Ghost, and
not know it! that he shall be full of light and love, and not know it! that
he shall have the Spirit of adoption by which he can cry, "Abba, Father!"
and yet know nothing of his relationship to God but by inference from
indirect proofs? in a word, that he shall have the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost with him,
and all the while know nothing certain of the grace, as to his portion in it;
feel nothing warming from the love, as to its part in him; and nothing
energetic from the communion, as to his participation in the gifts and
graces of this divine energy? This is all as absurd as it is impossible.
Every genuine Christian, who maintains a close walk with God, may have
as full an evidence of his acceptance with God as he has of his own
existence. And the doctrine that explains away this privilege, or softens
it down to nothing, by making the most gracious and safe state consistent
with innumerable doubts and fears, and general uncertainty, is not of
God. It is a spurious gospel, which, under the show of a voluntary
humility, not only lowers, but almost annihilates the standard of
Christianity.
One communication of this Spirit always makes way and disposes for
another. Neither apostle nor private Christian can subsist in the divine life
without frequent influences from on high.