The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Corinthians — Section 70

nothing of myself"); not only did he wait for its baptismal descent upon him before entering on his ministry, and' acknowledge his presence in his miracles and teaching (" lfl cast out devils by the Spirit of God." etc.';" '!'he words I speak unto you, I speak: not of myself"); but, in the most solemn hours of his existence, death just at hand, he taught the disciples to expect the Spirit as his gift, stating what would be his offices as Remembrancer, Convincer, Witness, Glorifier, and in all the Comforter. This was to bo their outfit for discipling all nations, for victory over themselves as to all self-seek in a and self-furthering emotions, for triumph over all opposing forces. This was to be the ~eans of realizing him as their glorified Lord, so that they should know him no more after the flesh, bnt after the Spirit. Now, we must not fail to notice that we are indebted to St. Paul for a very full portrayal of the actual work of the Spirit in the Church. One may call him the historian of the Spirit, the thinker who, under God, discerned his blessed operations in their variety and compass, the writer who put them on record for the illumination of the Church in all ages, the man who laid bare his own soul in extremities of sorrow and in moments of supreme happiness so that we might have his theology of the Holy Ghost in its experimental results. From him, then, we have not only the completest doctrinal instruction on this most vital subject, but likewise the flesh-and-blood view superinduced upon the anatomy of theological truth; witness this third chapter: yet this is only one among his many-sided presentations of this topic. Observe, however, this chapter fills a special place in his system of teaching. Step by step he had been approaching a point at which he could demonstrate the pre-eminent excellence of the gospel. Charity had been delineated once aud for ever; the resurrec- tion had been argued on a method and in a manner unusual with him; so too the economy of the Church as a society divinely planned. In this third chapter all his prominent ideas coalesce in one great master-truth, viz. the dispensation of the gospel as the ministry of the Spirit_. The phrase," ministry of the Spirit," is itself remurkable. 1t includes, in a certain sense, the ministry of Moses, while differentiating the old covenant from the new. It takes in all ministries, apostolic, ordinary, and the numerous kinds uf the ordinary. If we have lost some of these as they existed in St. Paul's day, how many have we gained as original to later times and genoric to circumstances called into existence by England and America in the eighteenth century-the century of II constel- lation of epochs in the firmament of history? "Now the Lord is that Spirit." Every- where, in everything, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Dispenser of its manifold inllucnce. "Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see n.nd hen.r." It is the doctrine of Pentecost. It is the miracle and grandeur of Pentecost. Yet St. Peter does little more than state the fact. The doctrinal elaboration wnits for St. P11ul, 11nd these two Epistles furnish the opportunity. Nature, thoroughness, and growiriy excellence of the Spirit'a work. It is liberty. "Whore the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Liberty from the ped11gogy of the Law; liberty from the tyranny of the curna\ intellect; liberty from that national domination which in the case of the Jows offered such a solid resistance to the gospel; liberty from Gentile idolatry ; liberty from overy agency that wrought evil in the soul of man. "If the Son therefore she.II m11ko you free, ye shall be free indeed." But it was the glorified Son who wns to make men frco by communiC11ti11g the Holy Ghost. It is a revela.tion of God in Christ and Christ in the Spirit of tho consciousness and conscience of men, and therefore thorough. It addresses his conscious- nees &!I one who has the co.pacity to think, feel, judge; and it audrcsscs his conscicnco as to how he should think, feel, judge, as touching his obligations aud as enforcing them by an immortality of reward or punishment. lly tho truth of tho gospel, by the Spirit i&ecompanying that trutll and rendering it effective, consciousness is euli~htened, culti- vated, enlarged. 'l'he man sees much in himself ho never saw before. And his mornl sense or conscience, that mightiest of the instincts, is instructed and guiiled so us to represont the Spirit. It is in the soul a Rememhrnncer, a Convincer, a Witness, n G lorifior of Christ, a Comforter. And under this twofold devolopmont which is brought into unity by the Spirit of truth aud love, the work of graco extends to all the m1111's faculties. The intellect, the moml sensibilities, the soci11\ affections, lii't up tho physical nrnn into themselves, and grow together into the spiritu11l man. Not un appetite, not a passion, not an attribute, of body or 80U1 is loft neglected. 'l'ho ideul is" body, soul, QJa;i HJ:lirit" consecrated to Christ, living, working, Hull'cring, so th11t " whatsoever ye Jo 'i'O 'l'Hli S~C0ND EPISTLE TO THE C0UINTlllANS. LtH. m. 1-18,