Scripture: "Ye shall be baptized -with the Holy Ghost." "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you."—ACTS i. 5, 8.
The third mark of the Church—the power for service through the Holy Spirit. Since the time of Adam's fall when he lost the spirit God had breathed into him, God's Spirit had striven with men, and worked in some with power, but He had never been able to find His permanent home in them.
It was only when Christ had come, and by His death had broken the power of sin, and had won in the resurrection, a new life for men to live in Himself, that the Spirit of God could come and take possesson of the whole heart, and make it a dwelling place for Christ and for God.
Nothing less than this could be the power in the disciples and in us by which sin could be overcome, and the prisoners set free. This Spirit is the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament He was called the Spirit of God. But now that in the cross of Christ the holiness of God had been magnified, and Christ had sanctified us that we might be sanctified like Him, the Spirit of God's holiness descends to dwell in men, and take possession of them as God's Holy temple.
He is the Spirit of the Son. On earth He led the Son first into the desert to be tempted of Satan, then to the Synagogue in Nazareth to proclaim Himself as the fulfilment of what the prophets had spoken (Isa. Ixi. 1; Luke iv. 18). And so on the cross, Christ yielded Himself implicitly to the leading of the Spirit.
The Spirit now reveals Christ in us as first of all our life, and then our strength, for a perfect obedience, and the preaching of the Word in the power of God.
Amazing mystery! The Spirit of God, our life; the Spirit of Christ, our light and strength. It is as men and women who are led by this Spirit of the first disciples, that we shall have the power to pray the effectual prayer of the righteous man that availeth much.
