In creation there appeared the form of things; in the Incarnation the original purity regained its dominion over what in those forms of things had become degenerate and deformed. But only here with the Outpouring of the Holy Ghost those forms are aglow with Spirit and after the manner of germs become manifest in their perfection and consummation.

The natural is first, i. e. creation, after that in the Incarnation comes the victory over that which is against nature, but only now with the outpouring of the Holy Ghost comes the purely Spiritual; and therein the Divine, the altogether perfect, the highest, above which no higher can go out.

Test this by yourself.

From Creation, through the generations, you have received your flesh and blood, and by creation inbreaking upon the first the existence of your soul. In the Incarnation of the Word you also have been visited by the “Dayspring from on high” and the tender mercy of our God. But when, glorying in the fact that God hath chosen you, and knowing that He has regenerated you, you are permitted to own yourself as His child and Him as your dear Father in heaven, and can lay your hand upon your heart, and not hesitantly but with perfect certainty can joyously declare: “Here in my heart dwells God the Holy Ghost, in my own soul praying for that soul, anointing and sanctifying me, and forming to be a temple of His habitation that same heart, that I by guilt and sin had desecrated”… then every nerve that thrills in your soul seals it unto you, then every breath that passes through your lips bears witness of it to you, then every throb of your heart’s blood declares it unto you, that so to carry about God the Holy Spirit with you in your innermost self, to have Him more intimately and closer to your soul, than you shall ever be able to make that approach yourself, and in times of need and death—when light shines and in darknesses—whether you sleep or wake, thus inseverably and unshakably in the center of your being to be united with your God, is a delight, a joy of the soul, a matter of glorying, that far surpasses everything that the creature can ever taste of wealth of soul, and excels it.

The psalmist glories in the hidden walk with God, and he who like Abraham, is permitted to associate with God as with a friend, rejoices in the communion with the Eternal Being.

And surely this already passes the limit of what the creature of itself could ever expect, and transcends every benefit of the salvation, for which a sinner dared to hope.

In the “hidden walk”, however, there is but a mere hearing of what God speaks and a prayerful address to Him. And in the “communion with the Eternal Being” there is but an awareness of the thrill of His majesty in the soul and of the glow of His Divine heart. But here there is an inbeing of the Holy Spirit in you, not occasionally, not now and then, but for ever, and to remain with you forever. A habitation in you as in His temple, even before your soul was aware or had taken notice of it.

A mystical union in the hiddenness of Being of God Almighty with you, His helpless creature.

Yea, even with this enough has not been said.

It is One body, so the holy apostle of the Lord declares it unto you, it is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling (Eph. 4:4).

That outpouring and down-coming of God the Holy Ghost is therefore no personal closed matter; valid for you yourself, and similarly in other houses equally independently valid for an other.

The Holy Spirit was not first poured out on the day of Pentecost, and, when in our good land our idolatrous fathers were converted, outpoured again anew; and when your father and your mother came to life outpoured again in them, and at last even so outpoured in your soul, when you also passed over from death unto life, in like manner every time anew to be outpoured upon your child, upon your child’s child, to the third and fourth generation, provided at least they too are chosen from the seed of the church, and are sanctified in Christ.

Your feast of Pentecost itself announces the contrary. It does not tell of a first outpouring, but of the Outpouring of the Holy Ghost, which surely had an afterglow with the first ingathering of the heathen world, in apostolic times, but which even so is recorded in sacred history as the Outpouring on the day of Pentecost, altogether unique, never to be repeated in that way.

God the Holy Ghost, once come down and outpoured in the Body of Christ, does not withdraw Himself, to return again later on, but, once having come to us, He made His abode with us, chose us as His temple and thus remains in the Body of Christ eternally.

It is as with the light which the Greek Church ignites at her funeral services among the rows of bystanders. He who stands near the altar, lights his candle at the glow of the altar, but he alone; and now every next one in the row lights his candle at the burning candle of him who stands next to him, and in a moment the light thus propagated glistens along all the rows and glitters to the furthest circumference.

And so it is here.

The apostles lighted the lamps of their soul on the day of Pentecost, but all who came after them, lighted theirs at their light, and so the light of that light has propagated itself, broadly among the nations and peoples, and lengthwise through the course of the ages, and now that Light of the Spirit shines and glistens the whole world over, and as it is one Body, so it is altogether one Spirit Who shines in all and glistens in every heart, and all together they form God’s holy habitation in the Spirit.

Therefore it matters not and does not abolish the sacred reality, that the children of God are scattered over the whole earth, that you do not understand the language of many, and of the altogether great multitude you know only a few by name, nor that ecclesiastically they are divided in all sorts of ways; yea, sometimes outwardly rather stand opposed to each other and lack all fellowship. For the churches do not make the Body of the Lord, but from that one Body of Christ all churches are born. And back of the ecclesiastical veil, on the deep spiritual background, as it stands before God, and as His holy angels see it, there the life of all who are truly elect, is one, and the glow that glistens glorifying God in the soul of all is one. From the North to the South, and from the West to the East it is one Congregation that is saved; one Body of the Son, that is penetrated of Divine glowings; one habitation, one temple of God, with God Himself indwelling in that temple, by the Holy Ghost.

For this reason the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit is far more than the work of the Creation and than the Incarnation of the Word a pure object of faith, not to be enjoyed apart from faith, and without penetrating faith not attainable by your soul.

For of that Body of Christ you see nothing. What you see are people, men and women and children, each by themselves, dressed in their several garments each exhibiting a nature and a character of their own, and sometimes taking you by surprise at their spiritual richness, but frequently being an offence to you by their spiritual barrenness, their poverty of soul and sinful imperfection.

The Body of Christ you do not see.

What you see and your eyes behold are at most groups of confessors, now and then coming together in the house of prayer, spending there an hour or two, quietly sitting down, sometimes with the glow of animation in the eye, but not infrequently with the heavy eye of indifference with difficulty keeping sleep away from the eyelids. Often mixed along with all sorts of strange persons, who in nothing remind you of Christ, who in nothing make you think of the Christ of God, and often press the question to your lips: Might these be hypocrites?

No, the Body of Christ is truly in God’s children, and God’s children are incorporated in that Body, but it is all hidden, it all plays on a hidden background, it all draws itself secretly back into the spiritual.

How then can you perceive the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in that real, but invisible and mysterious Body of Christ?

Can the Holy Ghost be seen? And if that were possible, where in that Body would you discover Him, so long as this Body itself remains a veiled mystery to you?

If on the evening of that great day of Pentecost you had mingled with the people in the streets of Jerusalem, and had asked some passerby: “Lead me to that Body of Christ, show me that sacred Body of the Lord, and above all tell me, where in that Body of Christ God the Holy Spirit dwells,”—he would have taken you in a back street to an humble house; there you would have found altogether ordinary people, a John, a Peter, a Mary and Salome, conversing with one another of glorious things and rejoicing in what had taken place; and if then an angel of the Lord pointing to them would have said to you: “This is the Body of Christ, and presently that Body of Christ shall go into the world, and shall extend itself to the four quarters of the earth, and in that Body of Christ there dwells God the Holy Ghost, and He shall dwell and operate in that Body eternally,” it would have sounded in your ears as idle talk, and disappointed you would have whispered underbreath: “Can these people be the Body of Christ? Is that the hope of humanity?”

And in these mumbled words you would have spoken correctly.

For those men and women were not the ones to do it, neither would they do it; no, He Who would do it, has done it, and shall do it, is God the Holy Ghost, and Him you could not and Him you can not see.

But of that holy presence of God in his people on earth, he who still misses the eye of faith, perceives, detects and observes simply nothing.

To perceive that presence you must get back to the Scripture, that in that holy Scripture with thanksgiving you may honor the Self-revelation of your God.

To discover that presence, you must read in that Holy Scripture the narrative of the Pentecost miracle and with hushed reverence read it again. You must yourself relive it as though you had been present there in that sacred hour. With it you must believe that what took place there and then was in very deed and truth the Outpouring of the Holy Ghost, the descent of God Himself in the Body of Christ.

More yet, to detect that sacred presence of your God in His people on earth, you must join yourself to that people, seek your delight in the quiet fellowship of the saints, by one spirit live with that people, and thus become conscious of your personal incorporation in the Body of Christ.

To say it more briefly, to open the eye of your soul to that holy presence of God the Holy Ghost on earth, the lamp of your soul must be ignited by the spark of that Spirit, in your own heart the spirit of your self must make way before that Holy Spirit, and the experience of the inworking of that Spirit in your own soul must become known.

Then only, but then surely, that “sacred presence of God the Holy Ghost in the Body of Christ” becomes to you not merely a surmisal, a possibility, but the fact of facts, by which your entire world- and life-view is dominated.

Then you realize, how all the value and significance of the rest of the world, compared with that Body of Christ, in which God Himself dwells, is less than nothing.

Then you believe, and because you believe you rejoice, and such blessed enjoyment of itself compels you to exult and to confess.

To exult not least in the holy Pentecost mystery.

For that Pentecost mystery, that descension of God on earth in the Body of Christ, is the reason for which once the world must make way before Christ, and on which for you, with all the brethren together, as long as the pilgrim journey here continues, stands the hope of your calling.

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