My Spirit Mthin You

The promise in the text mentioned above was given by the Lord to the people of Israel during captivity. On account of their sins and to the honor of His holy Name the Lord has had to punish and chastise Israel, and hence their captivity. But for His Name’s sake, for His eternal covenant’s sake, and by mere grace He will yet again show great grace unto them. He shall cleanse them, sanctify them by His Holy Spirit, fill them with all kinds of blessings and save them forever. The Lord promises all this in this chapter and our text contains the invaluably rich and precious promise of the Holy Spirit.

It is a promise which not only held true for the old Israel, but holds true for the entire Church of Christ, the spiritual Israel. And the fulfilment of this promise shall also be sure and certain, for the Promiser is God Himself. It is God who will bless while it is undeserved, who by grace makes His people partakers of the benefits.

He says (verse 22), “I do this not for your sake, O house of Israel, but for Mine holy Name’s sake.” He has freely chosen His spiritual Israel and loves them with an eternal, incorruptible love. It is the God of oath and covenant and of a manifold showing mercy, the Lord who has freely established the covenant of grace, which contains grace and remission of guilt, peace and joy by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is the Ap-plier of all the benefits of the covenant.

As Christ gave Himself willingly as Head, Surety, and Mediator of the covenant, so likewise the Holy Spirit gave Himself to put the heirs of the promise in the possession of the fruits of Christ’s mediatorial work and in that sense He is the Comforter of those that mourn. It is His great work to glorify Christ

The Promiser, moreover, is God Almighty, who can also finish that which He promises.He made Himself known to Abraham as the almighty One and said to Him, “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” No, nothing shall be impossible with God, said the angel Gabriel to Mary. Indeed, He who steps forward here as the Promiser is the merciful and gracious God, whose bowels move with compassion over His people. He is the God of whom the church sings in Psalm 103 that He, like a father pitieth his children, pities all them that fear Him. He says to Ephraim, “Is Ephraim My dear son? is he a pleasant child?” And finally, the Promiser is the faithful God who is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent: Hath He said and shall He not do it? Hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?

His plighted Word He will not break nor change the promise that He spake. And what does that God promise then? He will give His Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the Father and of the Son. That Spirit who, in the order of salvation, is working regeneration, discovery, faith, repentance, and sanctification.

In this way man by nature does not possess the Holy Spirit. It is so necessary for us that He be given unto us— given as a free gift of grace. Peter’s question, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost?” might, indeed, take hold of us and bring us to examination—the Holy Spirit in the heart who works a missing of God and the sorrow after and the longing for God. It is the Holy Spirit who causes a sinner to know his sin and guilt by His divine light; also, He teaches that he who is guilty with a righteous and holy God cannot satisfy God’s righteousness, neither in a way of legalistic obedience and self-righteousness, nor by repentance, tears, and weeping. But He also makes known the way of salvation unto the sinner struck down by guilt and falling unto God. He reveals Christ to the heart and convinces of the power and willingness of the Savior to redeem miserable and lost people.

He comforts the discovered sinner, who is desirous of salvation, with the fulness and all-sufficiency of Christ. But, the Holy Spirit does more in the hearts of God’s people. He grants no rest in that which we have seen by faith and with the fruits which we have tasted from Christ. He glorifies a Christ who has finished everything as a complete Savior—a Jesus who suffered and died on Golgotha, but also has risen from death, who has satisfied God’s justice and adorned God’s virtues. And, in order that there will be room for such a Savior in the heart, He is going to glorify God’s justice in it.

That holy justice of the LORD God! Oh, only that Spirit can win us to losing our own life to gain it in Christ! Then taking us by the hand, He leads us to the fulness of Christ, to His merits of atonement and the cross, to the Fountain which is opened for sin and for uncleanness.

Thus a person is washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. It is the Holy Spirit who causes to understand that which was hidden from before the foundation of the world, who causes to know the things which are given us of God, who gives witness in the heart that we are children of God, and who is going to declare our inheritance; yes, who causes us to find rest and full salvation in the triune covenant-God, who is a Comforter that remains, and prepares unto eternal salvation.

Well, search now once, if it holds true for you, too, “I will put My Spirit within you.”

Rev. C. Vogelaar is pastor of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.

Rev. P. Honkoop, Sr., (1891-1963) served tge Gereformeerde Gemeenten of ‘s-Gravenhage, Rijssen-wal, and Yerske, the Netherlands. Reprinted from the Lethbridge, Alberta bulletin.

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