THE COMING WORK OF THE HOLY
GHOST
By D. M. PANTON, B. A.
It
is an inexplicable omission over the whole range of prophetic study that there
is an almost total unawareness of the colossal coming work of the Holy
Ghost. Throughout the Prophets no
prediction of the Spirit's action is more precise, more positive, more lucid, more comprehensive than Joel's forecast of a double
Pentecost - the Christian dispensation clasped at both ends, like a jewel, in a
bracelet of miracle. Like the imminent
Advent, this coming downpour - whether after rapture or before - is a star
ahead that never wanes; an electric flare in the blackest midnight that earth
will ever see; a revival so sure that prayer for it is an ease and a delight;
an output of the mercy of God second only to Calvary.
ALL FLESH
The
first great fact that God Himself emphasizes is the universality of the
effusion. '"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out
My Spirit " - not distil, but pour forth in great abundance
(Calvin); not in driblets, but in floods; not in isolated prophets, but in
miraculous assemblies: as Paul says, "the Holy
Ghost which He poured out upon us abundantly"
(Titus 3: 6) -
"UPON ALL FLESH" (Joel 2: 28) that is, all without distinction, not
all without exception. Since flesh, in Scripture, is the
antithesis, not of race to race, but of mankind to God and to the spirit-world,
what is foretold is a world-wide effusion: "all
flesh" - all mankind, as the Hebrew expression denotes (Prof. J. J.
Given, D.D.)* -
is a description never used in any smaller application than to the whole of
humanity (Campbell Morgan, D.D.). All races, Jew and Gentile; both sexes, sons and daughters; all
ages, young and old; all classes, bond and free:- God
exhausts Himself (I had almost said) by giving first His Son, and then His
Spirit, to the whole human race.
[*
" All flesh' is
the name for all mankind. The words
'all flesh' are in the
Pentateuch, and in one place in Daniel, used in a yet wider sense, of
everything which has life; but, in no one case, in any narrower sense. It does not include every individual in the
race, but it includes the whole race, and individuals throughout it"
(Pusey).]
A FUTURE DOWNPOUR
Now
we know, on the authority of the Spirit Himself, that at Pentecost, and in the
miracle-gifted assemblies of the Apostolic Church, this vast prophecy found an
initial fulfilment: "THIS,"
says Peter, "IS THAT" (Acts 2: 16):
and so it is applied both by Peter (here) and Paul (Rom. 10: 13) to the last
days in the sense (Heb.1: 2) of the
Gospel Age. But the context of Joel, as
well as Peter's own quotation, makes it certain that both ends of the Christian
Age receive the effusion. "It is not the first
coming of Christ," says Dean
Alford, "which interpretation would run
counter to the whole tenour of the Apostle's
application of the prophecy:-but clearly, His second coming." For (1) Joel's immediately succeeding verse (3: 1) fastens down the date to the Second Advent:- "for behold, in those
days, and in that time" - the
epoch of the effusion - "I shall bring again the
captivity of
[*
Verse 28 of Joel 2,
in our Bible, is verse 1 of chapter 3. in the Hebrew Bible. The notice as to the time in 3: 1, 2, points back to
the 'afterward'
in 2: 28 'in those days,' namely, the
days of the outpouring of the Spirit of God" (Keil
and Delitzsch).]
[**
"When Peter says, 'This
is that', he indeed maintains that the prophecy
is fulfilled on the present occasion; yet not that it has here exclusively and
in all points completely received its fulfilment, or that the fulfilment is
limited to the present time"(Lange)]
MIRACLE
Now
one feature of the effusion - namely miraculous inspiration - marks it off
sharply from all other secret and age-long activities of the Spirit. "Your sons and
your daughters [Jews] shall PROPHESY"
- the word means, not simply to predict future events, but to announce the
revelations of God (Lange): they had just heard the tongues that proved the Spirits
illapse - "your old men
shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also"
- as an unprecedented thing, for no instance throughout the Old Testament
of the Spirit ever falling on a slave - "upon the
servants and the handmaids [Gentiles]" - my servants and my
handmaidens, Peter substitutes, to show that they are mainly, if not
altogether, converted Gentiles - "in those days will I pour out my Spirit" - a
repeated prediction, that the tremendous fact may soak into our minds. Jehovah Himself has given this triple
definition of miraculous seizure:- "If there be a PROPHET among you, I, the Lord will make
myself known unto him in a vision, I will speak with him in a dream
" (Num. 12: 6). This is strictly cognate with other
prophecies of restored miracle: - immediate inspiration, without forethought (Mark 13: 11); mracle-gifted
overthrowers of demonic miracle (2Tim. 3: 9) gigantic judgment-miracles yet
to be (Rev. 11:
6); together with a general in-break of a miraculous order.*
[*
So Jas. 5: 7. The habitual failure of prophecies - except
such trivial predictions as are based on supernatural knowledge of data on
which to base inferences - is one of the many proofs, which it shares with Montanism and Irvingism, that the
Tongues Movement is not what it claims to be - the Latter Rain. There has been no 'wonder'
in these movements which is not a commonplace of the Spiritualistic sιance.]
THE OUTPOURING AND THE JUDGMENTS
Both
the Prophet and the Apostle so intertwine and interlock the effusion and the
Second Advent judgments as to put beyond all doubt that Pentecost did not
exhaust the prediction,* and also to
reveal, to a limit almost incredible, the mercy of God. "And I will show
wonders in the heavens" - to challenge thought, and rouse fear -
"and in the earth" - to sting into
action - "blood and fire and pillars of smoke: the
sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before"
- therefore this is the series of violent convulsions that precede the
Great Tribulation (Rev. 6: 12), not the
series that close it (Matt. 24: 29) - "the great and terrible" - the Spirit here changes
terrible into manifest,
world-wide ; the visible epiphany of the Lord
- "day of the Lord come"; "and whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord,"
Joel adds, "shall be delivered." Great terrors will mingle with mighty
salvations: the terrors create the salvations: in the earlier phases of the
last judgments, judgment and redemption go hand in hand: not until the last
section of the fearful catastrophes does judgment abandon hope of
salvation. "When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn
righteousness" (Isa. 26: 9).
For it is to a world's wreck, shuddering and foundering, and as it
actually takes its final plunge, that God's lifeboat draws its closest and
picks up great masses of sinking humanity. In the old world's last hours, and
up to the very brink of Hell, "mercy rejoiceth against judgment(Jas. 2: 13).**
[*
"Peter includes in his quotation this element of
the prophecy, because its realization, conditioned by the outpouring of the
Spirit which necessarily preceded it, presented itself likewise as belonging to
the allotted portion of the 'last days" (H. A.
W. Meyer).]
**
For two-thirds of the Apocalyptic judgments are meant to be remedial, for they
are punctuated with the refrain - "and they repented
not" (Rev. 9: 20, 16: 9):
it is only during the final third, from which this refrain disappears, that the
judgments, like hell, become purely punitive.]
SALVATION
Finally,
the glorious results of this climax of salvation in the
history of the universe is revealed in Joel's ultimate verse (3: 1), as expounded and expanded by our Lord. "Before Him
shall be gathered all the nations: and He shall separate them"
(masculine) as individuals, not as nations "as the
shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats"
(Matt. 25: 32); massed nations, in
colossal multitudes, to right and to left.
Behold the post-Church work of Holy Ghost! The whole world's population is gathered
before the Lord: on his right, some hundreds of millions, if the separated
masses are at all balanced and commensurate* saved
for the judge pronounces them blest, and
subject nations of Millennial rule, and regenerate, because our Lord's rebuke
to Nicodemus (John 3: 10) implies that there
has never been, and never will be, salvation without regeneration; but not
saved by the Gospel, and therefore the fruit of the work of the Holy
Ghost after rapture, for they are judged with a highly
peculiar judgment of their own; multitudes, we know, enormous
enough to stock the Millennial earth at the opening of the Kingdom ** :
- it is a work of the Holy Ghost totally unparalleled for any single generation
in the history of the world. ***
[*
How the vast numbers survive Antichrist's reign of terror is one of the most
difficult problems of the Apocalypse; but of the fact our
Lord's statement is final proof.
**
Besides these, (1), Israel's 144,000 in the Wilderness out of reach of
Antichrist (Rev. 7: 4); (2) The Jewish least brethren throughout the all lands the criterion
of Gentile judgment (Matt. 25: 40); (3) such
martyrs under Antichrist as are not, as unrapt
Christians, survivors from an earlier age (Rev. 20:
4):- all these further fruits of the outpoured Spirit, in His last and
mightiest work of world-redemption.]
***
One point of surpassing interest - the exact date of the downpour - does not
seem to be revealed. Since rain is used
in an analogy, and the first shower fell at Pentecost, must not the second
shower follow and not precede the reforming of the cloud in the
heavenlies? Or (to drop the metaphor)
the Holy Ghost is now on earth, and His descent was at Pentecost: must not His
second advent follow and not precede His removal with the first rapt (2 Thess. 2: 7)? Can He be said to descend
(as a downpour) while He is still on the earth?
Certain is it that it is after the Judgment Throne is set (Rev. 4: 1), or the removal of the Throne of Grace,
that the Holy Ghost is described as "the Seven
Spirits sent forth into all the earth" (Rev. 5: 6).
Yet it is also explicitly stated (Joel 2: 31)
to be "before the great and terrible
day of the Lord," or the Great Tribulation, which is the closing
three and a half years of a judgment epoch of unknown duration.
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