The Holy Spirit is the agent of the whole Trinity. He is the agent of the crucified, raised, the glorified Christ. If I am bringing forth something other than the fruit of the Spirit, the only reason is that I have grieved the Holy Spirit who is our divine guest....
...when we grieve Him, we push aside the one who is the agent to us of the work of Christ for our present life. On the basis of the finished, passive work of Christ - that is, His suffering on the cross - and on the basis of the active obedience of Christ - that is, keeping the law perfectly through His life - the fruits are there. They are there to flow out through the agency of the Holy Spirit through us to the external world. The fruits are normal; not to have them is not to have the Christian life which should be considered usual. There are oceans of grace that wait. Orchard upon orchard waits, vineyard upon vineyard waits. There is only one reason why they do not flow out through the Christian's life, and that is the instrumentality of faith is not being used. This is to quench the Holy Spirit. When we sin in this sense, we sin twice: we sin in the sin, and this is terrible, as it is against the law and character of God Himself, our Father; but at the same time we sin by omission, because we have not raised the empty hands of faith for the gift that is there.
In the light of the structure of the total universe, In the light of our calling to exhibit the existence and character of God between the Ascension and the Second Coming, In the light of the terrible price f the cross, whereby all the present and future benefits of salvation were purchased on our behalf - In the light of all this, the real sin of the Christian is not to possess his possessions by faith. This is the real sin.
TS, pp74-75 (boldface mine)
No comments:
Post a Comment