THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE WORLD
‘And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.’
We are prepared to understand how it is that our Saviour should put His finger, as it were, upon the sin of the world, that He should have declared unbelief to be its characteristic sin—the sin which in the last resort will have proved the most hurtful of all.
I. ‘He shall reprove the world of sin because they believe not in Me.’—Unbelief is, or it issues in, the neglect or the rejection of God’s ‘great salvation.’ Many have exclaimed when they have weighed such words, ‘We never thought the sin of unbelief to be so serious.’ The world to-day is of the same opinion, and if we differ it is because the Spirit of God has taught us better.
II. But our Saviour says of the Holy Ghost, ‘He shall reprove the world of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye see me no more.’ If the world’s estimate of sin be defective, its estimate of righteousness must likewise be equally untrustworthy. He who does not regard sin as God views it, must be without true conceptions of righteousness, which is its opposite. The world does not recognise the truth that sin is at bottom the alienation of the heart from God and its idolatry of self. And further, the notions about righteousness current amongst men generally are very low compared with the standard which we find in the Sermon on the Mount. The world’s ideal of it does not excel even if it equals ‘the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees’ which our Saviour rebuked in such scathing terms. Righteousness as He enforced it must be inward, it must be sincere, it must be all-embracing in its scope.
III. The Holy Ghost ‘shall reprove the world of judgment’; and the reason given is this, ‘because the prince of this world is judged.’ Now when the world’s sin, that is, its unbelief, is condemned, when its ideals of righteousness have been unmasked and shown to be inadequate, then it follows ‘that the prince of this world is judged.’ His overthrow is henceforward only a matter of time. He will not be suffered to go on ‘deceiving the nations.’ The Lord will consume him with the breath of His mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of His coming. It follows that the process of judgment has already begun. Christians condemn the prince of this world in the degree in which they become partakers of the spirit of Christ.
—Rev. F. K. Aglionby.
Illustration
‘ “This incident,” writes Bishop Moule of Durham, “is so far within my own ken that I remember seeing, in my early childhood, the dear and beautiful subject of it, the aged widow of a farmer in my father’s parish. My mother took me to visit Mrs. Elliot one day in her farm-kitchen. It was, I think, in 1848. I still see the brightness, the sweet radiance, of that venerable face; it shone, as I now know, with Jesus Christ. At the age of about eighty-one, after a life of blameless kindliness, so that to say she had ‘never done harm to any one’ was from her no unmeaning utterance, she was, through the Holy Scriptures, convinced of sin. ‘I have lived eighty years in the world,’ was her cry, ‘and never done anything for God!’ Deep went the Divine work in the still active nature, and long was the spiritual darkness. Then, ‘the word of the Cross’ found its own way in her soul, and ‘believing, she rejoiced with joy unspeakable.’ Three or four years of life were yet given her. They were illuminated by faith, hope, and love in a wonderful degree. To every visitor she bore witness of her Lord. Nights, wakeful with pain, were spent in living over the beloved scenes of His earthly ministry; ‘I was at the well of Samaria last night’; ‘Ah, I was all last night upon Mount Calvary.’ In extreme suffering an opiate was offered, and she declined it; for ‘when I lose the pain I lose the thought of my Saviour too.’ At last she slept in the Lord, gently murmuring, almost singing, Rock of Ages, with her latest voice. Wonderful is the phenomenon of the conviction of the virtuous. But it is a phenomenon corresponding to the deepest facts of the soul.” ’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
CONVICTIONS OF THE SPIRIT
The word ‘reprove’ is an unfortunately weak rendering of the true meaning. It has been amended both in the margin and in the Revised Version. Instead of ‘reprove’ we have ‘convince’ and ‘convict.’ The difference is enormous. It has often been pointed out that to ‘reprove’ the world is no new thing. A thousand writers, sacred and profane, have reproved the world, and the world has given little heed. But the work of the Spirit is widely different. He shall convict those in whom He comes of sin, of their own sin; He shall convict them of the need of righteousness, of the beauty of holiness; He shall convict them of the judgment that has been passed once for all upon the spirit of worldliness.
I. Conviction of sin is the work of the Holy Ghost.—No other power, no other influence or means can produce it. It is the prerogative of the Spirit. It needs the thunderbolt power of God to penetrate through the toughened armour-plating of worldliness. Only the piercing light of His direct revelation can dispel the dark illusions that hinder our sight, and show us the disconcerting reality.
II. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would convict of righteousness.—The reason that he gives is ‘because I go to the Father.’ This sounds rather cryptic until we remember another statement concerning the same Spirit that ‘He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you.’ The righteousness of which we are to be convinced is the righteousness of Christ—a righteousness so approved and acceptable to God that He Who possessed it could say, ‘I go to my Father.’ You will perhaps say this work is unnecessary. There is a conviction that says, ‘I am fully persuaded of the sinless righteousness of Jesus’ and yet remains impotent, and there is a conviction that brings this perception into vital relationship to the whole personality; that says ‘the righteousness of Christ must be my righteousness; that is the goal of my endeavour, the purpose of my life, the end and aim of my being, and I cannot rest until I have gained something of it, that so I may “come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” ’ This is the work of the Spirit.
III. We are to be convicted of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I think this is a statement concerning which many may err. They are likely to think that the judgment mentioned means the judgment of the Last Day. That, however, is not the meaning. It refers to the judgment which the life and death of Jesus have passed upon the spirit of the world. In the light of the Spirit we look back upon the tremendous conflict. On the one side is the rejecting and persecuting crowd dominated by the spirit of the world; on the other there are the life and death of the Man of Love and Righteousness. For a moment we are arbiters of truth. But the Spirit of Truth convinces us once for all that the prince of the world is tried, judged, condemned, and for ever discredited. Our eyes are open for a truer discernment. Henceforth we know that the standards of the world are false measures.
Rev. Walter H. Green.
Illustration
‘There is such a thing as an abortive, or fictitious, conviction, the cold result of a sheer dread of personal consequences, where the will all the while remains in itself centred on evil. The chaplain of a prison had to deal with a man condemned to death. He found the man anxious, as he well might be; nay, he seemed more than anxious; convicted, spiritually alarmed. The chaplain’s instructions all bore upon the power of the Redeemer to save to the uttermost; and it seemed as if the message was received, and the man were a believer. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the chaplain had come to think that there was ground for appeal from the death-sentence; he placed the matter before the proper authorities; and with success. On his next visit, very cautiously and by way of mere suggestions and surmises, he led the apparently resigned criminal towards the possibility of a commutation. What would he say, how would his repentance stand, if his life were granted him? The answer soon came. Instantly the prisoner divined the position; asked a few decisive questions; then threw his Bible across the cell, and, civilly thanking the chaplain for his attentions, told him that he had no further need of him, nor of his Book.’