Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2382
“He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall show it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine and shall show it to you.” John 16:14,15.
IT is the chief office of the Holy Spirit to glorify Christ. He does many things, but this is what He aims at in all of them—to glorify Christ. Brothers and Sisters, what the Holy Spirit does must be right for us to imitate! Therefore, let us endeavor to glorify Christ. To what higher ends can we devote ourselves, than to something to which God the Holy Spirit devotes Himself? Be this, then, your continual prayer, “Blessed Spirit, help me to always glorify the Lord Jesus Christ!”
Observe that the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by showing to us the things of Christ. It is a great marvel that there should be any Glory given to Christ by showing Him to such poor creatures as we are! What? To make us see Christ— does that glorify Him? For our weak eyes to behold Him, for our trembling hearts to know Him and to love Him—does this glorify Him? It is even so, for the Holy Spirit chooses this as His principal way of glorifying the Lord Jesus. He takes of the things of Christ, not to show them to angels, not to write them in letters of fire across the brow of night, but to show them to us! Within the little temple of a sanctified heart, Christ is praised, not so much by what we do, or think, as by what we see. This puts great value upon meditation, upon the study of God’s Word, and upon silent thought under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, for Jesus says, “He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall show it to you.”
Here is a Gospel word at the very outset of our sermon! Poor sinner, conscious of your sin, it is possible for Christ to be glorified by His being shown to you! If you look to Him, if you see Him to be a suitable Savior, an all-sufficient Savior. If your mind’s eye takes Him in. If He is effectually shown to you by the Holy Spirit, He is thereby glorified! Sinner as you are, unworthy, apparently, to become the arena of Christ’s Glory, yet shall you be a temple in which the King’s Glory shall be revealed and your poor heart, like a mirror, shall reflect His Grace—
“Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, With all Your quickening powers” and show Christ to the sinner, that Christ may be glorified in the sinner’s salvation!
If that great work of Grace is really done at the beginning of the sermon, I shall not mind, even, if I never finish it! God the Holy Spirit will have worked more without me than I could possibly have worked myself, and to the Triune Jehovah shall be all the praise! Oh, that the name of Christ may be glorified in every one of you! Has the Holy Spirit shown you Christ, the Sin-Bearer, the one Sacrifice for sin, exalted on high, to give repentance and remission? If so, then the Holy Spirit has glorified Christ, even in you!
Now, proceeding to examine the text a little in detail, my first observation upon it is this—the Holy Spirit is our Lord’s Glorifier. “He shall glorify Me.” Secondly, Christ’s own things are His best Glory. “He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall show it to you.” And, thirdly, Christ’s Glory is His Father’s Glory. “All things that the Father has are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it to you.”
I. To begin, then, THE HOLY SPIRIT IS OUR LORD’S GLORIFIER. I want you to keep this Truth of God in your mind and never to forget it—that which does not glorify Christ is not of the Holy Spirit, and that which is of the Holy Spirit invariably glorifies our Lord Jesus Christ!
First, then, have an eye to this Truth in all comforts. If a comfort which you think you need and which appears to you to be very sweet, does not glorify Christ, look very suspiciously upon it. If, in conversing with an apparently religious man, he prates about truth which he says is comforting, but which does not honor Christ, do not have anything to do with it! It is a poisonous sweet—it may charm you for a moment, but it will ruin your soul forever if you partake of it. But blessed are those comforts which smell of Christ, those consolations in which there is a fragrance of myrrh, aloes and cassia, out of the King’s palace—the comfort drawn from His Person, from His work, from His blood, from the Resurrection, from His Glory—the comfort directly fetched from that sacred spot where He trod the winepress alone! This is wine of which you may drink, forget your misery and be unhappy no more!
But always look with great suspicion upon any comfort offered to you, either as a sinner or a saint, which does not come distinctly from Christ. Say, “I will not be comforted till Jesus comforts me. I will refuse to lay aside my despondency until He removes my sin. I will not go to Mr. Civility, or Mr. Legality, for the unloading of my burden. No hands shall ever lift the load of conscious sin from off my heart but those that were nailed to the Cross, when Jesus, Himself, bore my sins in His own body on the tree.” Please carry this Truth of God with you wherever you go as a kind of spiritual litmus paper by which you may test everything that is presented to you as a cordial or comfort. If it does not glorify Christ, let it not console or please you!