DEVOUTLY to relive the Pentecost joy of the Body of the Lord, demands high tension and exertion of your soul in her pursuit after godliness. Not because the thrilling story of what once took place in the upper room at Jerusalem is too intricate for you, somewhat bewildering, or too incomplete; but because even in this sacred story human language and human words are not able to lend a sufficiently definite form to your imagination and your representation, of what spiritually took place and of what was effected that day in the sphere of the Spirit, so that an image with clear outlines can stand before your soul’s perception, an image in fixed proportions.
The Holy Spirit is poured out. God the Holy Ghost is come down into the Body of Christ on earth!
A thought, which already at the hearing, brings you delight, but … how to grasp it, above all how to hold it fast?
When in the work of creation, at the beginning of things, the almighty power of the Father works its miracles, that almighty power too is invisible, incomprehensible and by our human perception can not be analyzed nor imaged; but … of this almighty power you see at once the product full of majesty in the firmament that glistens from above and in the earth with its paradise splendor.
So the almightiness of the Father is revealed to you in what is wrought by His almightiness.
So when in the work of redemption, at the beginning of the new dispensation, the Son of God comes down to this earthly creation as the Incarnate Word, to reveal to you the majesty of holiest love, the inner majesty of that Son of God truly remains hidden from you, but you have the Babe born of Mary, and presently something of the inner being of your Savior plays through the features of His human face; and the apostles can glory in the fact, that they have seen something, yea with their hands they have handled something of the Word of Life.
But when it comes to the altogether special revelation of the third Person in the Triune Being, and the mighty work of the sanctification of our race begins, as God the Holy Ghost pours Himself out in the Body of Christ on earth, the Divine work remains hidden behind the veil; and though here too there is a sacrosanct work and an effect in every way Divine, there is nothing your eye can see, or your hand can handle; and when the evening has come at the close of Pentecost day, Jerusalem stands just as it stood in the morning, and you see the apostles and the multitudes turn homeward, without their person being visibly enriched with anything new, with something that was not there in the morning.
It is true, that for one moment in that upper room a holy sound from above was heard, and that cloven tongues as of fire flamed above the head of every elect, and also that in the afternoon wondrous sounds or accents were overheard and in an equally wonderful way understood. But while at the creation the work of heaven and of earth remained, and at the Incarnation the Babe, toward which all angels travelled, lay in the manger, here everything that affected your senses is vanished as quickly, as it appeared. That sound as of a mighty rushing wind lasted but one moment. Above the head of believers twinkles no longer even the faintest light. And already when Peter begins his celebrated sermon, the miracle of tongues is gone.
There was something in the sphere of the observable, but only for one fleeting moment. Not a work of the incoming of the Spirit, but merely a directive brightness, that accompanied His outpouring.
It was as an inshining from the high loftiness, when for one moment the gates of heaven opened, but equally quickly vanished when the eternal doors closed themselves again.
O, truly, now also there was a work, even no less a work than that from now on God the Holy Ghost indwelled in the living Church of the Son and had chosen and sanctified for Himself the Body of Christ as His temple; but that effect remained hidden to the sensual eye, could only be believed at the word, and be perceived with the mysticism of the heart. Even a Peter could scarcely begin to think it all out; to understand it, explain it, see through it and comprehend it, neither he nor any one was able.
And if at any time, surely at Pentecost the confession of the Psalmist is appropriate in our lips: “With Thee, O Lord, is the fountain of life; in thy light alone we see this light (36:9). All praised be thy grace!”
And yet, compared with the Creation and the Incarnation, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost stands as little secondary in majesty as in glory.
Rather it is only in this third exhibition of grace, that both Divine operations that preceded it, reach their goal, their end, their rest.