THE KING’S BUSINESS
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judgment than reading all the books upon “Future Punishment” that were ever writ ten. “The prince of this world,” i.e., the devil, has already been judged, he. was judged in the cross of Christ, and though the consequences of that judgment are not yet made manifest, and will not be until the time described in Rev. 20:1-10, his judgment is already secured by the death of Christ on the cross (cf. Heb. 2:14, R.V.) ; so Jesus said, not the prince of this world shall be judged, but “the prince of this world hath been judged.” vs. 12-14. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but yp cannot bear them now: (.) Howbeit, when He (add ,) the Spirit of truth is come, He will (shall) guide you into all (add, the) truth: for He shall not speak of (from) Himself: (;) but whatsoever (what things soever) He shall hear, that (these) shall he speak, (;) and He will show (shall declare unto) you things to come (the things that are to come). He shall glorify me, (:) for He shall receive (take) of mine, and shall show (declare) it unto you?’ ' Here we see a still further work of the Holy Spirit, viz., to guide the disciples into all the truth. The disciples were not yet ripe for all the' truth, but Jesus is an infinitely wise teacher and so He gave them the truth as they were prepared to receive it. It would be well if modern teachers would learn from Jesus to adapt their teaching "to their hearers’ ability to digest what they hear. But the time was coming, after the death and resurrection of the Lord, when they should be prepared to hear the i whole truth, and therefore should be led into all the fullness of God’s truth. The Holy Spirit was coming to do this work. This promise was made primarily to the Apos tles, and it is Jesus’ own guarantee of the inspiration and truth and completeness of their teaching. Jesus here distinctly teaches that the teaching of the Apostles would be of Divine origin and would be more com plete than His own teaching, and that it would indeed cover “all the truth.” There are many saying, “Back to Christ,” by
which they mean, “Do not tell us what Paul said, or John said, or is said to have, said, or what James and Peter said, or are said to have said, back to Christ, i.e., back to the original source of authority, Jesus Christ.” Very well, “back to Christ,” but when we get “back to Christ," we hear Him saying, “On to Apostles, their teaching will be more complete than my own. I had many things to say to them when I was here on earth, but could not say them, not because I did not know them, but because they were not yet ready to hear them, but after my death I sent the Holy Spirit to guide them into all the truth and teach them the things I withheld from them.” But this promise, while made pri marily to the Apostles cannot be altogether limited to them; for John himself applies it to all believers. (1 John 2:27). It is the privilege of each individual believer to be directly taught of the Spirit and we will not understand the truth until we are thus taught. No amount of reading of good books, o r of the mere letter of the Word, will give us to know the truth the Spirit Himself must teach us. Of course, He will not teach us anything contrary to the Book of which He Himself is the Author, but He will be the interpreter of the Book. This does not mean that He will qualify us to be inspired and inerrant teachers as He did the Apostles, for He has not chosen us, as He did them, to that specific work. That work has been done, and done thor oughly, and does not need to be added to ; but it does mean that we may have Him as our individual Teacher of His own Word. The opinion of the Spirit-taught man about the teaching of the Bible, even though he is utterly ignorant of Greek or Hebrew or cognate languages, is of more value than that of the ripest Greek or Hebrew scholar whose will is not abso lutely surrendered to God, and who, there fore, is not taught of the Spirit. Jesus specified what the special lines of teaching of the Holy Spirit would be: (1) Concern ing Himself. It is only through the Spirit’s teaching that we ever really come
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