Page:Groves - Darbyism - Its Rise and Development and a Review of the Bethesda Question.djvu/5



God gave Jesus Christ, He gave him as essentially God’s truth—God’s whole truth to man, and made him also the Eternal Centre of all Light, and of all Life, in the new creation created in him—the Dead and Risen one. This glorious reality, seen in Christ as lie rises, the First born from the dead, the Spirit of Truth who proceedeth from the Father, was sent down from heaven to recreate, by his mighty renewing power, in those who believe, imparting to them that divine nature, which makes them not in adoption only, but in real sonship, the sons of God, who cry, Abba, Father. This, the day of Pentecost brought down to the church, when, endued with power from on high, the risen church—risen from the grave of Jesus, and standing as those who had been “quickened together,” and “raised up together” with Him—bore witness that the old was passing away, and that in Christ must all things now be made new.

Had sin not marred and apostacy not corrupted the simplicity of truth in man’s hand, the pathway of the church would have shone brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. But notwithstanding man’s failures, God has not failed; and the believing soul looks at God’s Christ, and repeats that word of hope, “ shall not fail nor be discouraged until he have set judgment in the earth.” The Spirit of God has not failed; the Comforter, the Advocate, the Interpreter, remains still the witness of an ever-faithful God, who, although much of His truth is again and again lost sight of in the rubbish that man accumulates over it, yet does He bring again the forgotten truth to the surface, making it—so to say—a new life to those who lay hold on it, and thereby introducing a fresh element of power, and in the direction most needed. Truth quickened by the Holy Ghost in the heart, is the power of God; and any truth, when it becomes a living reality, is a witness for Christ, to whom all parts of truth bear testimony, as all rays of created light testify to the sun, whence they come.

Truth will, however, meet with many to assail it, and many well-intentioned friends who will often do much to damage it: still, by the grace of