Week of Winslow - Friday

Quotes from The Glory of the Redeemer:

CHAPTER IX – THE HOLY SPIRIT GLORIFYING THE REDEEMER

Complete as is the righteousness, efficacious as is the blood, and all-sufficient as is the grace of Christ, yet apart from the especial, effectual, and Divine operation of the Spirit upon the heart, they would remain to us as a robe unworn, a fulness untouched, a "fountain sealed." Thus, there is a beautiful relation, a sweet harmony, between the atoning work of Jesus and the official work of the Holy Spirit- "He will glorify me." (340)

But it is the office of the blessed and eternal Spirit to unfold, and so to glorify, Jesus in the Word. All that we spiritually and savingly learn respecting Him, through this revealed medium, is by the sole teaching of the Holy Spirit, opening up this word to the mind. He shows how all the luminous lines of Scripture truth emanate from, return to, and center in, Christ- how all the doctrines set forth the glory of His person, how all the promises are written in His heart's blood, and how all the precepts are embodied in His life. (342)

To the question often earnestly propounded- "What is the best method of reading, so as to understand the Scriptures?" I would, in this connection of our subject, reply- Read them with the one desire and end of learning more of Christ, and with earnest prayer for the teaching of the Spirit, that Christ may be unfolded in the Word. (342)

Passing by all human philosophy, and pouring contempt upon the profoundest wisdom and the mightiest power of man, He employs, in the product of a work, in comparison with which the rise and the fall of empires were as infants' play, simply and alone, the "truth as it is in Jesus." With this instrument He enters the soul- the seat of the greatest revolution that ever transpired. He moves over the dark chaos, without form and void, and in a moment, a world of immortal beauty bursts into view. He overshadows the soul, and a vital principle is imparted, whose stream of existence, once commenced, flows on with the eternity of God Himself. (344)

Divine as is the record, and precious as is the revelation it affords of Jesus, it yet is but an instrument, and nothing more. Unaccompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, it is inactive, inoperative, a mere dead letter. It quickens not, it sanctifies not, it comforts not. It may be read constantly, and searched deeply, and known accurately, and understood partially, and quoted appropriately; yet, left to its own unassisted power, 'it comes but in word only,' producing no hallowing, no abiding, no saving results. If there be no other, especial and invincible, influence of the Divine Spirit, operating upon the mind, how comes it to pass that all who read the word are not instantly converted by the word? -that wherever these healing leaves are borne, wherever this precious seed is scattered, broad-cast upon the world, man's moral malady is not arrested, and a harvest of happiness to the creature, and of glory to God, springs not forth. (347)