The manifestation of this spiritual fact was at Pentecost (Ac 2), and it presupposed two prior events — the advent of Jesus, and His ascension. And the meaning of these three events for man's self-determinarion lies here.
(i. ) The Spirit as revealed in the earthly life of Jesus was the unique illustration of a Personality mo\"ing only in the direction of truth, holiness, and love, and yet on the lines of human nature. And this was manifestly due to the unhindered operation of the personal Spirit of God. Henceforth the asso- ciation between Christ and the Spirit is so close for us, that we may say that the Spirit is Christ inter- preted in terms of our experience ; even as the Father is Christ read into the Eternal. To use the fine analogy of Martineau I Essays, iii. 1, p. 50), ' If it has pleased God, the Creator, to fit up one system with one sun, to make the daylight of several worlds, so may it fitly have pleased Gkxi, the Revealer, to kindle amid the elliptic of history- One Di^■ine Soul to glorify whatever lies within
the great year of His moral Providence, and repre- .sent the Father of Lights.' Only we must go on to say that, in the name of God the Redeemer, Jesus represents the sunshine as well ; for it is through Him the Holy Spirit is mediated to us. ' The truth is' (as against Beyschlag, vol. i. p. 279), ' not that the Spirit is identical with Christ, but that it was from the first so entirely the principle of His personality, and He was throughout so completely one with it in His DiWne humanity, that He became its perfect organ and expression, not merely in a temporal and impersonal sense, but in a personal and abiding sense. . . . The Holy Spirit as it comes to us in Christianity, therefore, includes the personal presence of Chri.~t ' (Walker, Spirit and Incarnation, p. 85).
(ii ) But it is equally true that the earthly life of Jesus had to be superseded if it was to have its ftdl effect on man's personality. On the one hand. He Himself said, ' I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me' (Jn 12^^j ; and, on the other hand, the response came from the experience of an Apostle : ' Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more ' (2 Co 5^*). ' If any one have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his' (Ro 8*). Faith is more than an outlook ; it is al-so an up- look and an inlook. The Christ of history must become the Christ of experience. Just as the painter passes from the stage of imitation to origination before he becomes an artist, so a Chri.stian is one who, looking away to Christ, loses himself in Him, and so finds himself again as a new creation (2 Co o'' ; cf. Mk 8^). Thtts ' the Lord is the Sj^irit.' Christ in whose face was the glory of God becomes ' Christ in us the hope of glory ' (2 Co 4^ Col 1^). ' He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things ' (Eph 4*'^).
(iii; The significance of Pentecost is, in brief, that Christ is now to be made known to the world through ' li\'ing epistles, known and read of all men, ^\Titten by the Holy Spirit on the fleshy tables of the heart,' i.e. in the promptings of conscience and compassion, which prove the work- ing of the Spirit of Christ (2 Co 3^ ^). In other words, the honour of Christ's name and the suc- cess of His cause are thro\<"n upon the personality He has evoked, — that personality which in part- nership with the Spirit of God, and in union with fellow-Christians, is to do even greater things than Christ in His earthly life could accomplish. And who is sufficient for these things ': But we have the mind of Christ and the ministry of the Spirit (1 Co 218, 2 Co 218 36^
4. The redeemed personality. — For the re- deemed personality, Justification is its liberty ; Sanctification its law. These great words were invented to express personality at its highest, and in its fulfilment, from the point of \-iew of self- conscioiLsness and self-determination respectively. It may fairly be said that this redeemed person- ality has been the kevnote of Christendom, the secret of its history, tte source of its progress — often misleading and misled, but having the power of an endless life. This sketch of the subject may be completed by a few .suggestions as to the significance of the redeemed per.sonality for the history of Christendom. It has caiLsea man (1) to stand for his rights and liberties, (2) to recog- nize his debts and duties.
(1) The, rights and liberties of the soul. — Modem history i* the steady unfolding of the powers of the personality in answer to the challenge of the ci^iJization by which it is surrounded. The world is so much with us through facilities of knowledge, communication, and enjoyment, that the inner life of the soul would have little chance