THE SPIRIT GLORIFYING CHRIST
Andrew Martin
John 16: 14
Hebrews 2: 5-10
The Lord Jesus refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit in this verse in John’s gospel. The Lord Jesus was here as a Man, but He was a divine Person in the form of a Man. He was speaking about another divine Person who was going to come. One thing that was true of the Lord Jesus in His pathway here was that He never glorified Himself. In relation to one of His official glories it says in the epistle to the Hebrews that “the Christ has not glorified himself”, chap 5: 5. I think that would be true in relation to every glory, that He did not glorify Himself. In chapter 8 of John’s gospel He speaks about not seeking His own glory, v 50. Here He speaks about the Holy Spirit coming and He says, “He shall glorify me”. That is the impression that has been with me as I have been pondering this occasion, that there is a divine Person whose mission here, and whose objective, is to glorify Christ, that blessed Man whom we know and love. He has been glorified by none other than One who in Godhead glory is equal to Him, but still in wonderful service and grace glorifies Him.
How does the Holy Spirit glorify Christ? The Lord Jesus went up on high, having completed the great work of redemption on the cross; He was raised and He went up on high. Perhaps one of the first things that took place in heaven was that He spoke to the Father about the saints so that the Holy Spirit should come. He promised His disciples He would do that. He said, “I will beg the Father, and He will give you another Comforter”, John 14: 16. Think of the Lord Jesus coming out of death having vanquished its power, having annulled every power that was hostile to God, having effected the great work that none other could effect, upon the cross. As having come out of death and gone up into glory, His first occupation is the saints who are down here; speaking to the Father about them. He knew the need; He knew that we would need a Comforter. We would need One who could help us down here to take up our affairs. The Lord Jesus knew that and that was one of His first priorities, as having been raised and ascended up on high, to speak to the Father. We have to be careful how we speak about divine Persons: it is not that there was any need for any persuasion as to the matter - divine Persons are one, but as having ascended up on high His great affections were bound up in the saints and He begged the Father to send the Comforter.
What the Holy Spirit does is remind the bereft saints here of their Lord. They were totally bereft when He went into death, but when He was raised, then they knew that He was greater than any other power upon earth. “All power has been given me in heaven and upon earth”, Matt 28: 18. He was going on high; what were they to do here? They were to remain until they had received His promise, the promise of the Holy Spirit. I wonder how much they realised just what that would mean. The Lord Jesus assured them of this, “He shall glorify me”. The Holy Spirit having come, His normal service and His primary mission is to attach our hearts to the Man in heaven. That is the normal service of the Holy Spirit. “He shall glorify me”, the Lord says, “for he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”. Who does He receive it from? He receives from Christ. The Lord Jesus on high is ministering to His assembly; we read about that in Ephesians 5: 29. We thereby see divine Persons working together; and the Lord Jesus providing what the assembly needs. The Holy Spirit receives what is of Christ and announces it to believers here. How precious it is to consider these things! Two divine Persons constantly working, in order that saints down here should be attached to Christ and that they should know Him; and know Him not only as He was in His humiliation, but know Him in glory, the One who was here displaying every feature of moral excellence that is possible to be found in a man because He Himself was the very expression of all that God had looked for in man. Not only was He that down here, but He is that where He is now. He remains the same; every feature remains.
As to what is displayed in Him morally, nothing has changed. Death could not change Him; the sufferings did not change Him; resurrection and glory have not changed Him. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and to the ages to come” (Heb 13: 8); now in glory at the Father’s right hand. The highest place has been given to Him. I love to think of the Father inviting Him to take that place: “Sit at my right hand, until I put thine enemies as footstool of thy feet”, Ps 110: 1. The Lord Jesus has done the work; He has overcome every power. The Father will see to it that every adverse power is to be made the footstool of His feet. You think of the greatness of that, and now He is on high. The Holy Spirit serves to attach our hearts to Him. He is the Centre; He now has glory that He could not have had on earth. He was given glories when He was raised up into heaven. The Father exalted Him and made Him both Lord and Christ. There were those who acknowledged Him as Lord, and those who acknowledged Him as Christ when He was here. Now in glory, He has officially been made these things: Peter says, “he is Lord of all”, Acts 10: 36. He is the One whom God has as the Centre of another world; the Centre of a world that is for God’s pleasure. This poor world will be disposed of, but He is the Centre of a world where God’s pleasure will be eternally, and He remains that. By the Holy Spirit coming down, there is that upon the earth by which He is known as the Head. He is the Head of the body. God has given Him to be Head over all things to the assembly.
There are those who take account of Him in His glory. This is on account of the Holy Spirit being here. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit that allows us to take account of Him in that way. The Holy Spirit here would unite our hearts with that blessed One where He is above. The Lord Jesus is on high and the Holy Spirit here is glorifying Him: “He shall glorify me.” The Lord Jesus is specifically speaking here of the Holy Spirit’s work: “he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”. What is the effect of that? What is the effect of the Holy Spirit’s service here? The effect is that there is something formed in men women and children here which is like Jesus. You think of that in this poor world where sin is abundant on every hand and men are departing from every thought of God - not only personally, but even officially and nationally; men are forsaking every divine thought and every divine institution as fast as they can, and think it not good to have God in their thoughts. Yet in the midst of this there is something going through that man cannot affect: they cannot affect the work of God in the saints. It is what the Holy Spirit produces. He takes persons whom the Lord Jesus has secured in His death and He forms something in them. Every time that we find pleasure in doing what is right in the sight of God, there is simple evidence that there is something formed in the soul that is like Jesus. Think of what it means that Jesus is being glorified in the lives of believers here. He is being glorified and that is the effect of the Holy Spirit. It is not only what the Holy Spirit tells us, but the effect of His work is that Christ is glorified in the hearts of men, women, and children here, people who seek to please the Lord Jesus. The Lord is glorified in every such desire. Think of what that means for Him. How great it is that the Holy Spirit would work in such a way, that He should be glorified; it is His desire and His pleasure to glorify Christ. Just as it was the pleasure of the Lord Jesus to be here for the glory of His Father, so it is the Holy Spirit’s pleasure that He should be here for the glory of Christ.
He would attach us to Him and enable us to find our joy in Him. The writer to the Hebrews speaks about Him where He is: “we see not yet all things subjected to him, but we see Jesus”. How do we see Jesus now? I used to think when I was a boy that it would have been nice to have been here when Jesus was here. Perhaps we used to sing,
I think when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men,
How He called little children as lambs to His fold,
I should like to have been with them then.
Jemima Luke (1841)
We have a greater advantage than that; we see Him now by faith. God gives us faith in order that we should take account of Him. It is a gift that God would give, and He takes delight in any one who is concerned about that matter. One thing that God loves to do is to give gifts to those who ask. Many of us at some stage in our lives may have been quite concerned as to whether we really had faith, or whether we had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. God loves to give to those who ask. The Lord Jesus tells us that; He says, “But of whom of you that is a father shall a son ask bread, and the father shall give him a stone? or also a fish, and instead of a fish shall give him a serpent? or if also he shall ask an egg, shall give him a scorpion?”, Luke 11: 11-12. God is not like that. He would give you more than you ask for. You can ask for something and God gives you much more than you ask for. The blessings of God are so great. The heart of God is so great. If we are not sure, we can ask Him to give us faith so that we are able to take account of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus has been here in this scene, in this difficult world; He has passed through it. He was not changed by it externally; He passed through it and He has now ascended up on high, still the same; and by faith we are attached to Him. Not only by faith; I have been speaking about the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit would attach us to Christ; and He is another great gift of God; a divine Person: we must never forget that and must be careful how we speak of Him and be careful in His presence. He is here on the basis of gift. Think of One so great but here on the basis of gift. God gives His Spirit to those who obey Him and to those who ask.
It is by faith and by the Holy Spirit that we see Jesus; we have our link with Him where He is. We know He is exalted, He is crowned above, but the Holy Spirit gives us a living link with the Man in heaven, who is One to whom we can turn at any time. He is not One who is remote; He is One who has been here; He has come into our circumstances. He knows what we pass through and He knows our needs. The greatest need of all is the need of our souls, the need when we felt ourselves away from God. It is a terrible feeling when you realise that you are away from God, but there is an answer to that. The Lord Jesus has done the work. He has tasted death; He has been through suffering. What sufferings He has known! He has known the sufferings of the cross; He has known what it is to be rejected by men. He has known violence; yes, He has known that. He has known what it is to be forsaken by those whom He loved; yes, He knew that. He has known what it is to be entirely alone. He has been through all these things, has been through sufferings that none of us could ever know, and what it is to be so alone that He was even forsaken of God. What a terrible moment that was, when not only was He forsaken by His own who were here, those whom He loved, not only that; He was forsaken by God Himself. You think of the awfulness of that time: there were His enemies, standing around mocking Him. They did not believe that He was Son of God; they did not believe in the greatness of His Person. As far as they were concerned, they thought that they would be better off without Him. That is what people think today; they would be better off without religion. They thought they would be better off without Christ. They taunted Him saying, “If thou art Son of God”, Matt 27: 40. “He trusted upon God; let him save him now if He will” (Matt 27: 43); “if He will”: they taunted Him with those words. I suppose they forgot at times that they were quoting the prophets and the psalms, even Psalm 22, “Commit it to Jehovah”, v 8. “Commit it to Jehovah”, they said. Maybe they did not even care that they were quoting what was prophetically stated of them. “Let him save him now if he will”.
At the end of those three hours, the Lord, perfect in His humanity, publicly acknowledged that the God upon whom He had relied through all the days of His manhood had indeed forsaken Him. He had to acknowledge publicly that God had actually forsaken Him. Why was He forsaken? Men saw no value in Him; Peter could speak about the stone cast away as worthless, 1 Pet 2: 4. That is what men saw, but why did God forsake Him? He forsook Him because of you and me. He forsook Him because the whole matter of sin and our sins had to be answered for to God. Someone had to give account to God for the sins of each one of us who have their faith in Him. By having our faith in Him we can have the assurance that our sins were included in what He bore on that terrible cross. The Lord Jesus was forsaken of God and He went into death. As having died, His precious blood was shed, the testimony to that life having been laid down; the blood so “precious”. That is the only word we use regarding the blood. There is no other word that is suitable for us to use in relation to the blood; it was precious blood, precious to God, precious to every believer below. How precious it is! Why? It is the basis on which everything has been secured. Everything for God and as that blood was shed, God’s rights were fully met. The Lord Jesus as going into death has dealt with every matter for God. Everything that was offensive to God has been put away and now He has been raised, raised by the glory of the Father.
He is now ascended up into heaven and has been crowned with glory and honour; the Father has glorified Him. You think of the place that God has given Him: no other place is great enough for Him; the Father has given it to Him. He glorified God on the earth; the Father has glorified Him now in the light of a completed work. How right it is that it should be so. It is a matter of righteousness that the Father should do so. It was more than a matter of righteousness; the Father’s affections were involved in it. You think of the Father looking upon His own beloved Son, having undertaken all that He did in view of securing an answer for the Father’s own heart. The Father could hardly forbear to give Him the highest place in the universe; He has gone beyond the created universe. He has gone up above all the heavens that He might fill all things. The Holy Spirit’s service now is that He should fill all things, including our hearts. I am sure that we all have some place for Him in our heart. The Holy Spirit’s service is in view of Him securing the first place. He will have it publicly. When He comes down again, He will have that first place and He will come out publicly. After the saints have been called away to be with Him for evermore He will come out publicly. He will be seen and wondered at in those who believe, and He will be glorified in the whole universe. There will be no power to stand against Him then; He will come out in military might and cleanse this whole earth of evil and His kingdom will be established.
In that day men will seek His glory. The prophets speak about ”that day”. You read a prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah and they use the expression “that day”, many times. They were looking on to another day. The believer is looking on to another day, the day of His appearing with all those who love His appearing. The apostle speaks about “when he shall have come to be glorified in his saints” (2 Thess 1: 10): personally glorified, but glorified in the saints. The whole universe will take account of what He has secured in believers everywhere. They will take account of His work, not then obscured by the conditions in which we now are. That work will all be like Him; it will be Himself all over again; you think of that. That work is there now; that work is progressing. I remember a dear brother once coming to my locality, and he said, “When I get home, my brethren will ask what I found here. I will say, ‘I found Christ’”. That is Christ in the saints. The Holy Spirit’s service is that Christ should be glorified by being reflected and seen substantially formed in the lives of believers here. He shall be glorified thus and in a coming day He will be seen by the whole universe. They will wonder at it. The earth will never have seen anything like it before. He will be acknowledged for one thousand years. Men will gravitate towards the divine centre. In Isaiah it says, “it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall be established on top of the mountains and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob”, chap 2: 2, 3. They will flow unto it. He will be glorified. In the meantime, He is to be glorified now.
I feel that the test is, how much is He glorified in testimony today? When the saints are together, we can draw on the work of God in one another, but when we go out in testimony amongst men, do they see Christ? Do they see the features that were seen in Him? How foreign to us naturally are the features that marked Him. The One who magnifies Him is the One who has the power to give expression of His features even while we are here.
That is the simple impression I have, that the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ. We cannot add to His personal glory; that is beyond us, but He glorifies Him in the affections of the saints and He glorifies Him by forming a true expression of Him in men, women and children like ourselves even while we are here.
West Norwood
12th January 2020