Spirit's work answers to the Messianic possibilities and Messianic intent of the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic economy. The work of the Spirit in the elect people differs from the work of the Spirit among pagan peoples as the Messianic type and intent of the covenant differ from the religious possibilities of the natural man.

On the day of Pentecost the advent and work of the Holy Spirit was related, not to the Son of God as He is active in the fallen Adamic race, not to a symbolical presence of Jehovah among His chosen people, but presupposing both kinds of the Spirit's agency as the neces sary historical basis of a different and higher effectual working, He was related directly to the incarnate Son. The Spirit given was the Spirit of the Christ, the Spirit of Truth, by whom the Son of Man was glorified in vital and eternal union with the Son of God. As the resurrec tion and glorification of the Son of Man differ from all events in the history of Confucius or Gautama or Zarathrustra or Socrates or Numa Pompilius, or from all events in the history of Noah or Abraham or Moses or Elijah, so does Pentecost differ from every previous manifestation and work of the Third Person in the Godhead, whether in paganism or among the covenant people.

§ 282.

Like the advent of the Christ in His relation to all antecedent history, to all types and prophecies, so was the advent of His Holy Spirit relatively to the antecedent personal history, the death and glorification of Christ, a fulfilment. Fulfilling among the disciples the design of the exaltation, Pentecost conditions all the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and every stage in the progressive history of the Church onward to the second advent.

1. The day of Pentecost was an epoch in the objective process of revelation and redemption which developed the import and realized the design of the works which Christ had done and the sufferings He had endured in the flesh. That day also brought to light the spiritual worth for mankind of the perfection and glory to which He had attained by His exaltation.

Contemplating Pentecost retrospectively, it depends both on the divine-human life of Christ advanced to the state of consummation and on His completed redemptive work. This epoch was not possible at any previous juncture in the history of Messianic revelation, nor possible at any point of His personal history on earth before His glorification.

Contemplating Pentecost prospectively, all subsequent Christian facts depend on it: the apostolate, the apostolic ministry, the organism of the Christian Church, the spiritual virtue of the sacraments, the forgiveness of sins, the written word of the New Testament, the resurrection from the dead in the image of Christ and the life everlasting. These mysteries become realities by the fulfilment of the promise of Christ concerning the Paraclete.'

1Eph. iv. 4-16. 1 Cor. xii. I-II.

2. The miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit was a fulfilment under a twofold view. Pentecost was a necessity grounded in the objective economy of revelation and redemption. It was required also by the predictions of the prophets, especially by the words of our Lord.

As a fulfilment, Pentecost was the product of the law of life in the new creation. Necessary it was in the same sense in which the incarnation was necessary. The entire personal history of Christ, all His words and deeds, look forward to this day as their relative consummation, just as the calling of Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant, the education and discipline of the chosen nation anticipated the advent of the Messiah. The Spirit of Pentecost was not given just for the reason that our Lord had uttered the promise respecting the Spirit's advent; but the promise was spoken by Him for the reason that the gift of the Spirit, like His death and resurrection, was a necessity arising from the nature and purpose of the Christian economy.

The death of Christ, for example, was a cardinal event, an indispensable epoch of His mediatorial work. "Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into His glory?" So was Pentecost objectively indispensable. After His passion, being assembled together with the apostles whom He had chosen, He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father. He says: "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you." The Spirit could not be given unless Jesus would depart from the apostles. "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you;

'Luke xxiv. 26.

2 Acts i. 8.

but if I go I will send Him unto you." And unless the Spirit would be given the apostles would not attain to the full possession of the truth. "When He, the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you into all the truth; for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify

me: for He shall take of mine and shall declare unto you. 2 As the atoning virtue of the sacrifice on the cross anticipates and requires the resurrection, so does the newcreating virtue of Christ glorified anticipate and require the pentecostal gift.

Given the idea of the incarnate Son of God as the Mediator between God and man, and we have given by this idea the miracle of Pentecost as an epoch essential to the integrity of His mediatorship. Pentecost accomplishes the purpose of His nativity, of His passion and His resurrection. It reveals the glory of the life and the righteousness of the risen Christ. It realizes His regeneration in His disciples, who by this birth of the Spirit become members of the new race of which He is the Head.

3. Inasmuch as Pentecost is an integral part of the objective economy of grace and for this reason a necessity, Jesus Christ by His words of promise assures the disciples of the advent of another Advocate.

Everywhere He speaks of the coming of the Spirit as a future event, and of this future event as necessary, implying that His natural presence with them and His teaching in person are inadequate to their needs. That the end for which He came into the world may be accomplished He must first leave the world and go to the Father. John xvi. 13, 14.

'John xvi. 7.

Then after He has been glorified the Spirit of Truth can come and will come. Then through the abiding presence of the Spirit He can fulfill and will fulfill His mission. "I will pray the Father," He says, "and He shall give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth: whom the world cannot receive, for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you." "In that day," the day when the Father shall send the Advocate, "ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." His words imply two things: 1. that the Advocate had not yet come, and until Jesus had withdrawn from the world the Advocate would not come; 2. that until the Advocate should come the disciples could not know that Jesus is in the Father, and they in Jesus, and Jesus in them. Jesus could not teach them nor lead them into the truth; for since the disciples had not yet received the Spirit of Truth they were not able to discern or take in the truth. He had 'many things to say unto them,' but they could not bear those things then; or

1John xiv. 16, 17, 20. The words of the original “ ἄλλον παράκλητον here translated in our English Version "another Comforter" mean properly, One called to stand by us for our help, our Advocate, Helper, Representative. "Comforter is not its meaning," says Dr. Milligan. "The Paraclete is really one who stands by our side, sustains us in our Christian calling, and breathes into us ever new measures of a spirit of boldness and daring in the warfare we have to wage. He is the representative of the glorified Lord with His militant people upon earth."

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John xvi. 13. Those 'many things' which the disciples then had not the strength to bear are the "contents of the Epistles and the Apoca. lypse, so far as they passed beyond those of the teaching of Jesus. This domain of the new creation, which Jesus can only show them from without, in the objective form, the Spirit will reveal to them by making them themselves enter into it through a personal experience."-Godet.