By G.V. Wigram
1 Peter 1: 18-20.
One of the means adopted by the adversary to prevent souls, quickened by God, from being established in peace, is, by reversing the order of God's truth. They do not receive God's truth in the order in which God presents it. You will find many a soul looking to the work of Christ as the foundation before God, recognizing the necessity of the Spirit's work in renewing the heart, yet not having peace -- and that because they are looking to the work of the Holy Ghost within, rather than to the finished work of Christ without. The only thing God presents to the sinner is Jesus. God never presents the work of the Holy Ghost before the sinner, as that which he is to begin with. Until the sinner is converted, the object God presents is the finished work of His Son.
When the sinner has received the testimony, he knows the work of the Spirit in his heart; but he is the subject of the operation of the Holy Ghost before he is conscious of it. This is God's order. To reverse it, is to build upon a sandy foundation. Adam and Eve were unconscious of the work of their creation, but afterwards they recognize the hand of God in it. When I know the cross, then I understand how I got peace -- by the Holy Ghost.
God's instrumentality is set before us in this chapter (ver. 21), "You, who by Him do believe in God," etc.; and again (ver. 23, 25), "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." There is the instrument -- "the word of God" -- not the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, but of Christ. So also the same thing is brought out in the preaching of the apostles: the objects brought forward were Jesus and the resurrection, -- he that believed found he had got peace. Again: -- in the instance of Saul's conversion, his knowledge about the work of the Holy Ghost was matter of after attainment; what Saul learnt first was, that Jesus, the very one he had persecuted, was up in heaven.
The alone thing God presents, is Jesus crucified and risen. (Acts 2, 3, 4) Here the sum and substance of the gospel is presented. The sinner's attention is never called to the Holy Ghost. The soul, though awakened, has no power of entering into the privileges of the Holy Ghost till it gets peace. Until the saint can say, "Unto Him that loved us," etc., the doctrine of the Holy Ghost is not to be presented. The 6th and 7th chapters of Romans show that the quickening power of the Holy Ghost cannot give peace. In Rom. 8: 3-6, it is the person of Christ that is presented as the quickening power, and not the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost uses the Lord Jesus as the quickening power. In John 3: 14-18, Jesus, after speaking of the necessity of the new birth, goes on to show where the power was which would give the new nature -- the power which would open the door into heaven.
This is exceedingly important as connected with peace - "I am the door." The Holy Ghost has not that place given Him. Is the question, I ask, ever of the Holy Ghost, as to the work, opening the way to God? The Holy Ghost does give the power to receive the testimony sent forth. The Holy Ghost does make it a quickening word; and then the sinner finds that the Holy Ghost has done it.
The soul that is not established on the work of Christ cannot understand the work of the Spirit.
Again: -- It is thought by some that the Holy Ghost is simply the substitute for Jesus Christ: that is not strictly so, the case being that both Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are substitutes; Christ being the substitute for the sinner - "the Just for the unjust," -- and the Holy Ghost being substitute for Christ in His guardian care of the Church, and in all His service, taking up, and calling whom He will; acting as representative of Jesus during His absence.
There is no atonement in the work of the Holy Ghost; nothing to open the way; nothing for God to work upon in connection with the Holy Ghost. We find that the apostles never took that ground when the question was of sin: "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins." So also Paul, -- "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
The apostles had no thought of interfering with this prerogative of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is confusion on this point of prerogative that occasions so much disquiet to souls; for consider, if God the Holy Ghost came to the sinner, without the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, it could be only as a consuming fire.
There is nothing, then, in the work of the Holy Ghost to bring peace. He has come to discover sin. All the holiness, all the requirements, of God are MET FULLY in the Cross. The soul that comes to this gets instant peace; whereas the Spirit of God is a Spirit of conflict with the flesh -- it is a constant warfare; but whilst there is the work of Christ before the soul, there is just quiet and simple peace.
The great place of the Holy Ghost is as representative of Jesus, as Guardian of the Church; even as Jesus had been an elder brother to the Church, so the Holy Ghost succeeds Jesus in that character, on Jesus' going away and taking His place at the right hand of the Father, and during His absence, until Jesus returns to take His Church to himself. (John 14, 15, 16)
To those who understand the value of the blood, the Holy Ghost gives power to enter into the Holiest. He teaches all things, and brings all things to remembrance. "He shall testify of ME: He shall take of mine, and show it unto you." The subject of the Holy Ghost's testimony is not of himself, but Jesus -- the person of Jesus. The 15th chapter treats simply of bearing fruit.
If the sinner's ground of hope is connected with something wrought in himself -- the experience of something wrought in himself -- he is sure to fail in the hour of trial. Nothing but the Blood of Christ, and God's testimony concerning it, can give peace. There need be great simplicity on this point. Let this be our rest; the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The 16th of John points rather to the believer's victory over the world.
Such portions of Scripture, as the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians, have been read in vain, if you do not know that Jesus has been made to you "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." If you are still looking for evidences within, a Balaam might have taught you, but the Holy Ghost does not teach so. He teaches of the love of Jesus -- of the death of Jesus. With Him it is not sunshine today, and gloom tomorrow. No; He whispers Jesus' farewell -- "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." The Holy Ghost presents your security as in connection with the session of Jesus at the right hand of God the Father; a security based on a rock immovable and unchangeable? Lastly, He presents the "Lamb as it had been slain, on the throne."
I would earnestly ask those who do not know this abiding peace, how can God hide His face from one who is in Christ? hide His face from him who ought to know his own entrance with Jesus into the presence of God? Is such an one to be ever changing and shifting according to the state of his own frame and feeling? He has one abiding answer to every question about sin, - There is Christ at the right hand of God! God is satisfied! That is the answer of a soul resting on the word of God.
It is matter of astonishment from day to day to witness the prevailing defective apprehension of their standing, in those reported and recognized as Christians. A man has no proper standing as a Christian, if he does not know his sins to be forgiven. Without this knowledge, he is scarcely in a state to be accredited as a Christian by the Church. It is a matter of the most solemn consideration: Christ's death being either the condemnation or salvation of every human creature.
