The Gospel (pp. 24-34)
The truth and perfection of the gospel could not be realized until it became solely a ministration of the Holy Spirit. Though instructed in heavenly truths from Christ Himself and enabled to work miracles in His name, nevertheless the apostles were not yet qualified to know and teach the mysteries of His Kingdom. There was a higher dispensation to come which they could never have part in from an outward instruction, even from the lips of Christ Himself. Only when He, being glorified, should come again in the fulness and power of the Spirit [emphasis added], breaking open the death and darkness of their hearts with light and life from heaven, could they experience in themselves all that He had promised to them while He was with them in the flesh.
"I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away," said Christ, thus teaching the need of a higher and more blessed state than they could know through His bodily presence with them. For He adds, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come." Therefore the real comfort and blessing of Christ to His followers could not be had except through something more than His physical presence and verbal instruction, wonderful as these must have been to those privileged few.
Before His crucifixion Christ carefully explained to His disciples the necessity of His outward teaching and guidance being changed into the inspiration and operation of His Spirit resident within their souls.
A man, however expert in all Scripture doctrines or learning, can only talk about the gospel as of any tale he has been told until the life of Christ has been brought forth, verified, fulfilled, and enjoyed through the power of the Holy Spirit in his soul. No one can know the truth of salvation by a mere rational consent to that which is historically said of Christ. Only by an inward experience of His cross, death, and resurrection can the saving power of the gospel be known. For the reality of Christ's redemption is not in fleshly, finite, outward things - much less in verbal descriptions of them - but is a birth, a life, a spiritual operation, which as truly belongs to God alone as does His creative power.
All that we are to be and do is by that very Spirit of Christ living within us.
He who places any hope or trust for salvation in a mere intellectual assent to doctrinal opinions has no more scriptural faith than he who looks for redemption to an image of stone. Every society of Christians which rejects the present operations of the Holy Spirit can produce nothing better than a religion of self-effort, despite its great zeal for all sound Scripture doctrines.
