The Holy Spirit’s Work

Extract

The Holy Spirit’s Work
A. W. Pink

First, in Salvation

In the nineteenth chapter of Acts, we learn that when the apostle Paul came to Ephesus, he asked some disciples of John the Baptist, “Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?” (Acts 19:2). And we are told, “They said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Spirit.” Sad to say, history has repeated itself. Without doubt, were the members of hundreds of so- called “churches” (in which modernism and worldliness rule) asked this same question, they would be obliged to return the identical answer. The reason why those disciples at Ephesus knew not about the Holy Spirit was, most probably, because they had been baptized in Judaea by the forerunner of Christ and then had returned to Ephesus in ignorance of what had taken place on the day of Pentecost. But the reason why the members of the average “church” today know nothing about the third Person of the Godhead is that the preachers they sit under are silent concerning Him.

Nor is it very much better with many of the churches still counted as orthodox. Though the Person of the Spirit may not be repudiated, and though His name may occasionally be mentioned, yet only on rare occasions is there any definite scriptural teaching given out concerning the offices and operations of the divine Comforter. In the majority of places where the Lord Jesus is still formally acknowledged to be the only Saviour for sinners, the current teaching of the day is that Christ made it possible for me to be saved. As to the Holy Spirit’s work in salvation, this is very little understood even by professing Christians. The idea now so widely prevailing is that Christ is offered to man’s acceptance, and that he must “surrender,” “Give his heart to Jesus,” “Take his stand for Christ,” etc., if the blood of the cross is to avail for his sins. Thus, according to this conception, the finished work of Christ, the greatest work of all time, in all the universe, is left contingent on the fickle will of man as to whether it shall be a success or a failure. Entering now a much narrower circle in Christendom, in places where it is yet owned that the Holy Spirit has a mission and ministry …