“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Com forter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged” (John 16:7-9). With these words our Lord in a concise manner summed up the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relation to the world during this dispensation. The presence of the Holy Spirit on earth during this age is declared by Christ to be of more importance than His remaining here. It was expedient that He should go away. This word expedient is translated profitable in Matthew 5 :30. The work of the Holy Spirit in the world is threefold. By His revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, He produces a threefold conviction which is necessary to the regen eration of man. There must be a sense of sin or a sinner will not seek the Saviour. There must be a belief that righteousness is possible or the sinner will die in despair. There must be the assurance that Satan is doomed, or the conflict will be given up as hopeless. The word reprove means to demonstrate by argu ment, to persuade to do a thing by presenting reasons: therefore, to convince of anything, particularly of crime. Many people, when using the word convict, have in their minds the producing of a deep emotional experi ence, intense sorrow and anguish because of sin. We should not make light of such an experience; indeed, on the contrary, we should rejoice to see people weep over their neglect of Christ and their cold-hearted indiffer ence to the Gospel. At the same time, we must guard against the mistake of deciding that conviction is merely an emotional breakdown. People can be moved to tears by sentimental solos and pathetic stories; the same results can be produced by witnessing a pathetic movie. This is not conviction. The question may be asked, “Why is the Holy Spirit needed for this conviction? Is not conscience doing its work in every human breast?” Conscience produces legal conviction, the Holy Spirit evangelical conviction. The one begets conviction unto despair, the other unto hope. Speaking generally, sin is the violation of law, spirit ual or natural. The particular sin here is unbelief in Jesus Christ. The entrance of Christ into the world rendered possible a sin hitherto unknown (John 15:22). Unbelief is the one great damning sin, the one sin which, unrepented of, will keep one out of heaven. Your sins and iniquities, however great their sum, do not of themselves keep you out of heaven; for this reason, when Christ gave Himself a ransom on Calvary’s tree, He made a full and complete satisfaction to the right eous claims of God. He made a perfect propitiation to divine justice for all the sins of which man could be OF SIN
guilty. Christ thereby becomes an available propitiation for the whole world. If you are ever shut out from the presence of God, it will not be because you came into this world a sinner, nor will it be because Adam sinned and you inherited a sinful nature and evil tendencies. It will be not only because you have yourself trans gressed, or have been guilty of grave offenses against the laws of God and man; but because, though God provided a way of salvation for you, you deliberately turned away from it and refused to accept the Saviour, who died that you might live (John 3:17-18). The work of the Holy Spirit, then, is primarily to show sinners the enormity of the sin of unbelief. The moral turpitude of the human heart is manifested by its refusal to accept Jesus Christ as a Saviour from sin. Sin at its worst is not in a Nero, drenched with the blood of saints; not in an Alva, expert to invent new methods of torture; not in the brutalized expressions of a felon; not in the degradation of the heathen; but in that man, who having heard of the love of God in Christ, deliberately and persistently rejects it and re fuses to believe. We have considered the meaning of convict— to prove by argument. How does the Holy Spirit demonstrate righteousness? Certainly the Holy Spirit does not prove to the world its own righteousness for it has none. The divine sentence is, “ There is none righteous, no not one.” The Holy Spirit convicts the world by revealing where righteousness may be found. Once it was on earth in the person of the Holy Son of God who always did the Father’s will. No longer is this righteousness on earth; we would search for it in vain. Christ is no longer here; the fact that Christ is now with the Father is the basis upon which the Holy Spirit convicts the world of right eousness. They who were possessed of unbelief treated Jesus Christ as a felon, as a blasphemer, as a malefac tor. They meted out to Him a punishment fitted for one who had committed treason. That was the world’s esti mate of Him. But God has “ raised him up from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Ephes. 1:20-23); “God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11). That righteousness which the world rejected, God has received into heaven and enthroned there. What a tremendous conviction! God in justice could not leave OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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