Authentic biblical revival is uniquely the work of the All Holy God, un-orchestrated and unpredictable. It is the movement of the Spirit of God among His people that quickens such a sense of shame for sin before Him, followed by genuine confession and Christian living. Thus, true revival consists of God’s gracious conveying of new life, vigor, and power to those who are already of God’s people, and then by the same grace of God revealed in the Gospel, the giving of new spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead.
The source of revival is not our deep desire for revival. You cannot wish revival to happen. If that were true, it would happen every day of our lives or, at least, that should be our daily desire. While we see in the histories of revival that prayer has always preceded the quickening of the Lord’s people, prayer, of itself, is not a source of revival. We find consistently in the histories of revival that, like prayer, a return to the acceptance and constant use of the Bible as the “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword…” has preceded many revivals. Likewise, persecution has often preceded revivals and continued throughout them. The world’s largest revival, occurring in atheistic China, thrived under constant, official oppression. Such has been the case in Sudan and under Islamic persecution in Indonesia.
We must make clear in our minds that the source of revival is not formulated crusades. It is not the result of spectacular, planned events with advertising, meals, great praise, or worship groups. It is not man-ordained theatrics, or staged demonstrations. It is not based on getting the “perfect” evangelist that we so often see in present-day attempts at revival. The great periods of church expansion have never come because of new techniques in evangelism or because of better programs for church growth. The true source of all revival is the All Holy God. God alone brings revival when He chooses to bring revival. While there are things that we can do that prepare our hearts for revival, there is nothing we can do to bring about a revival in our lives.
Having established the fact that revivals are totally God given, we should ardently ask the question, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” Throughout Christian history there have been many true revivals; the Lord has been favorable to His people in the past and has revived them. Both Old and New Testaments show abundant evidence of great, God-ordained changes in the hearts of His people throughout human history.
First, however, we see that both Old and New Testaments show forth abundant evidence of great apostasy in the hearts of God’s people throughout human history. The discernable link between the spiritual state of God’s people on earth and the surrounding culture is undeniable. Holy Scripture reveals God’s view of evil in the “land” and His intent to work solely through His people to bring about healing. Thus, the Lord solemnly promises, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”[1]
We must ask in all honesty, “Does the average Christian today view the surrounding culture, and to a great extent the culture within the church itself, to be wicked and in rebellion against the All Holy God?”
Do God’s people in the 21st Century truly desire to see revival in their lives? To honestly answer that, we must examine our own hearts to see if we are merely upset by the culture around us, and within us, and within our churches, or do we sigh and cry over all the wicked ways of the land? Looking back to what we have just read concerning the Lord’s promise to heal the “land,” we see this tremendous verse reveals not only a great promise of the Lord regarding forgiveness of the sin of God’s people and healing of the land, but it lays out specific responsibilities He places upon His people before He moves in the earth on their behalf. These responsibilities are humility, prayer, repentance, and seeking the face of God.
In the western world, humility, genuine heart-felt prayer, seeking the very face of the Living God, and repentance are not representative of the characteristics found in typical present-day Christians. We must be honest; Christians in the western world are like the lukewarm “church of the Laodiceans,” “increased with goods, and have need of nothing” yet in fact are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” While we often have true doctrine in our churches, the spiritual lives of many are wilderness and barrenness.
We have become weary of the spiritual battle in our generation and allowed apathy to extinguish any passion we once held for “pressing back the gates of hell.” We have ignored the Apostle Paul’s abomination, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”[2]
It should be sobering for any professing Christian living today to read what many believe is a description of the church in our day as seen by Christ Jesus the Head of the Church. In their false sense of humility, Bible-believing churches of our day may never actually boast of being “…rich, wealthy, having need of nothing,” however, they seem unwilling to take a view of it from God’s perspective, to see indeed they are to some extent “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” Our Master, our Lord, the Head of His Church, the Lord Jesus gives instruction through His words to John, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”[3]
Jesus died for His people, and despite our wretched condition in the latter days, He lovingly gives His counsel concerning its desperate, but unrecognized, need. “Buy from Me.” All the wealth on earth cannot “buy” what they “need!” “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”[4] As we look at the state of the culture, and indeed the church in our day, it is easy to feel overwhelmed to the point of giving up. Nevertheless, God must not be through, for His Son has not yet returned to the earth. We must strive to be about the Master’s work as long as He leaves us here. As Jesus said, “…No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”[5]
The Objective of This Presentation
As we have seen, great periods of church expansion have never come because of new techniques in evangelism, or because of better programs for church growth. They have come because of sound doctrine, and with a great desire and working of the Holy Sprit to give life to dead bones. Revivals are facts not dreams. An ignorance of sound doctrine, plus an ignorance of the work of God in history are the major causes of the sinful contentment of the state of the church in our own times. Knowledge of the past gives direction for the present. What I intend to do in this presentation is simply to outline the privilege it is to lay hold of what God has promised; then, basically, to give the biblical principles of what the Lord has given us on how we are revived and transformed, and how spiritual life is given to those who are spiritually dead.
Trusting on the Lord’s Promises
The promises of the New Testament regarding the Gospel of Grace are absolute and unconditional. They are God’s absolute purposes and decrees. However, the promises, with respect to growth and revival in believers, are not so. These promises require watchful diligence and obedience so that we can see them fulfilled. To live as true believers, we must be prepared to pay the price. It is a costly business being obedient to the Lord, to the point of the loss of friends and relatives. The Lord Himself was obedient unto death. We are commanded by His Word to, “be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”[6] He promises us, thus the Apostle Peter proclaimed, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises…giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness.”[7] If we are negligent in these virtues mentioned, we will have a low, unhealthy, Christian walk. This is the principal reason of the difference between the promises of God regarding revival and the promises as seen in our lives. The graces promised will not come while we live in spiritual comfort and laziness. The plea that we hear that revivals are totally the sovereign work of the Lord, while true, can be used as an escape from our responsibility to be diligent. The Sovereign Lord has commanded us to be over-comers! Fervent prayer and dedication are required of us. Why is it that we are not seeing revival in our time? It is because so few are willing to live as did men and women of the past who were utterly dedicated to Him in standing on His promises. Basically, we have forgotten to meditate on the glory of Christ as representing us, so as to be transformed more and more into His likeness.
Beholding the Glory of Christ
The face of Moses shone after He met with God on Mount Sinai. The Lord God allowed Moses to see a portion of His glory, and somehow His glory radiated from Moses’ face. The Apostle drew a comparison from this experience of Moses and told us that if we gaze at the glory of Christ we will become like Him and radiate His glory. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”[8] That is the essence of what His Word proclaims. The consequence is, the more of Christ Jesus you see, the more like Him you become. As we fix our minds on Christ Jesus in God’s revealed Word, we go from one level of glory to the next. We become more like Him by the Spirit’s work. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by demonstrating His glory through the Word and by transforming believers into His image. The more we meditate on Christ Jesus’ splendor and majesty the more we become like Him. We cannot become like Christ Jesus through our human efforts apart from the Spirit. While we are diligent and pray, we realize that all true revival is by the Spirit.
The Foundation Principle in Beholding the Glory of Christ
It is in Christ alone that we have a clear distinct view of the nature of God and of His characteristics. For Christ alone has been appointed as the representative of God to us. The first and most important attribute of God is His holiness. The true believer of the Lord Jesus Christ has, “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”[9] This is because Christ Jesus is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.”[10] The Apostle John tells us that Isaiah saw the glory of God in the Person of Christ Jesus.[11] What did Isaiah see and declare? He saw the all-holy nature of God. He proclaimed “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”[12] None of the divine attributes is so celebrated in Scripture as this is. What is proclaimed is superlative excellence of God’s Holiness. He alone is Holy, thrice Holy, infinitely Holy, originally, perfectly, and eternally Holy. “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou only art Holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee...”[13] Humanity’s greatest problem is that we have offended the Lord God, the All Holy One. His holiness is the distinguishing factor in all His essential characteristics. This is the reason why we need to be in right standing before the one and only All Holy God on the terms He prescribes. Our evil thoughts, deeds, and character have made us enemies of Him. We have a spiritual debt of infinite proportions that we are unable to repay. Even our good deeds are as filthy rags before the Holy God due to our innate rebellion toward Him. The good news, however, is that by His grace we can turn to Him in faith alone for the salvation that He alone gives; by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, based on Christ’s death and resurrection for His own, and believing on Him alone, as the Scripture states, “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”[14] In these three verses we have a complete basis for revival. Verses eight and nine declare the Gospel for those who are spiritually dead. Verse ten gives the basis for good works that we need as believers to experience the power of God in our lives. The good works, which God has ordained that we should walk in, is a summary of revival. It is equally by grace through faith as is salvation. Our confidence in looking for revival is that the Lord God treats us not on the ground of our merits, of which we have none, but by grace through faith. The Lord God is unchangeable in His own purpose of grace, “whom he called... them he also glorified.”[15] The inexhaustible wealth of divine grace is flowing. The only begotten Son who became flesh is the one who is “full of grace and truth.” Because we have been made joint heirs with Him, it is written, “and of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.”[16] Therefore, beholding even His awesome holiness, by grace through faith, we stand firm on His grace to revive His people and to bring new life to those dead in trespasses and sins.
The Foundation Principle and God’s Nature of Love
A second important attribute of God, revealed while beholding Christ, is His love. The Apostle tells us that “God is love”[17] Divine love is not to be considered only by its effects but in its nature and essence, because God Himself is love. This blessed revelation of the divine nature casts out envy, revulsion, cruelty, and reprisal with all their fruits of rage, violence, mercilessness, persecution, and murder. Such things are totally separate from the God of love. How can we view God as love? By what means shall we behold the glory of it? Knowledge of this love is hidden from all living, in God Himself. Philosophers, who discussed the love of God throughout history, knew nothing of “God is love.” The natural notions of men about God are corrupt, and the best notions are weak and imperfect. Generally, the thoughts of men about God are superficial and do not take into account other factors of His nature. For although “God is love,” yet “his wrath is revealed from heaven against the ungodliness of men.” Many things at the present day are filled with evidences of His anger at sin and His displeasure at the evil ways of mankind. How then can we behold the glory of God in this: that He is love? The Apostle declares it in the words following his statement that “God is love.” “In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.”[18] The verification given to us that “God is love” is the Person and purpose of the Son of God. Without Him, all are in darkness as to the true nature and operation of God’s divine love.
Thus, we behold the glory of Christ Himself even in this life! We see in Him that we have an appropriate representation of God, as He is love. This is the most joyful sight of God that any creature can obtain. He who beholds not the glory of Christ is totally ignorant of heavenly mysteries. Such a person knows neither God nor Christ. He knows not God, because he knows not the properties of God’s nature in the way designed, by Him, for its manifestation. In this revelation, Christ has the preeminence. Men do not comprehend anything correctly about the nature of God’s love, except in beholding the glory of Christ. The ordinary believer can have an understanding of the nature of God as love, that it is needful as the basis of sanctification and revival! We should behold the glory of Christ as the great means of our sanctification and revival, as a preparation for the beholding of His glory in eternal life. Let us meditate on what is made known of God and represented to us in Him. The Lord God has purposed and designed to glorify Himself in Christ Jesus. Now this is what is known about God for the salvation of the lost and the vivifying of believers. The Lord Christ has been appointed as the way and means. How exceedingly glorious He is in the view of them that seek revival. There is nothing reserved in the outflow of God’s love to us, such unlikable objects. He has loved us with an everlasting love, so our confidence in looking for revival stands firm! The Lord God gives a full expression of the dependability of His everlasting love toward His own, by effectually calling us out of darkness into His marvelous light. This should fully assure us of the certain continuance of it. It is His purpose that we be revived! All the attacks that the powers of darkness have made upon the promises of God cannot shake these promises; they stand firm. “The foundation of God standeth sure.”[19]
The Glory of Christ as our Mediator the Fountainhead of Revival
All goodness of our Glorious Lord, i.e., His grace, life, light, mercy, and power are the causes of revival in Him. The whole purpose of the Gospel was to manifest His glory in believers. First, true revival is in Christ as the Head of the church. It pleased God that in Him should all the fullness of all things dwell, so that the whole of the new creation might consist in Him. “He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. This awesome fact is stated again in the Lord’s Word together its application to us. “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.”[20] So it is that we “have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”[21] Since we have believed on Christ Jesus we have been filled with Him. This is no fanciful completeness; even while we are incomplete in ourselves, we have the fullness of Christ in glory as our inheritance. It is an inheritance that belongs to us as children. This is our best security, in order that we can really live the Christian life. “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him,that we may be also glorified together.”[22] It is our birthright in light—the perfection of knowledge, holiness, and joy—by communion with God, who is light and the Father of lights. This is the treasury house of all revival.
Christ Jesus, in His person and as the Head of the church, is the treasury of all grace, life, light, power, and mercy that are necessary for the revival of His people. The treasury is laid up in Him, dwells in Him so as to be communicated to His people. The Lord has this treasury of all grace as representing His people. He is filled with the unsearchable riches of divine grace. Most importantly is that Christ Jesus, as the Head of His people, is the way appointed by the Father for the giving of the treasures of grace to His people. This is the purpose of the headship of Christ to His people as He is a priest, a prophet, and a king. This is the way appointed by infinite wisdom for the giving of the grace laid up in His person to the His people. He received the Holy Spirit in all fullness. By the same Spirit He shares the treasury of His graces with us His people, as we approach Him in the way He has been designated, by beholding Him in His glory and as the fountainhead of our life. As we focus our minds on Christ Jesus, as He is now glorified, we go from one level of glory to the next. As Evan Roberts looked to the Lord in the Welsh Revival of 1904, he indeed was transformed and used mightily to see the rivers of revival flow at that time. Thus, as we look to the Lord in His glory, we become more like Him by the Spirit’s work. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by demonstrating His glory through the Word and by transforming believers into His image. The more we meditate on Christ Jesus’ splendor and majesty as representing us, as our Mediator the more we become like Him.
Many of us know of how remarkably the Lord used Jonathan Edwards during “The Great Awakening.” It is of great significance to find the writing of Edwards that his contemplation of the glory of Christ was as our Mediator. The treasury of revival is contemplation and prayer in beholding glory of the Son of God as our Mediator. God’s purposes are definite in presenting to us the glory of Christ representing us as the fountainhead where His Holy Spirit revives. There it is that we should raise our minds and hearts in reflection on His Word. Should it not be that we cry out that His glory be seen upon us at the present day? We pray to the Lord God that the words of Isaiah would apply to us. “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.”[23]
His Glory Communicating to Us by His Holy Spirit
By the Holy Spirit we behold the glory of Christ with open face. By the Spirit we are to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”[24] By the Spirit we are, as we saw, “renewed after the image of him who created him.”[25] The glory of the state and condition where Christ reigns is what we must behold. He exercises His power at the right hand of the Majesty on high. His present position as our Mediator consists in His glory, power, authority, love, and grace. That is His glory as a King. In His royal glory He is sovereign in power and authority over the whole creation of God. He reigns in heaven as glorious and majestic in Himself, but also as representing His people. He lives as the Mediator of His people; as the King, Priest, and Prophet. This is where our true renewal exists. The darkness within our faith to see this reality is often the reason why we fail to experience revival. Some believers only have general and confused notions of the present state of Christ’s glory with respect to His people. However, His glory on our behalf is revealed to us, and it belongs to us. The present state of Christ in glory is of great importance for revival for our own souls and, thus, to reach the lost. With the glory of His power the Lord is exalted, and as our representative has received the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Peter preached, “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”[26] The Lord God exalted the Person and work of Christ Jesus. As the exalted Head of His people, Christ communicates and gives to us His Holy Spirit. There is an inexpressible union between Him and us. Most of us know what it is to be married, i.e., the reality of what it is for a man to be joined to his wife so as to become one flesh. However, what that union typifies, few believers seem to seriously contemplate. To be joined to the Lord so as to become one in spirit, few seriously take time to ponder. Nevertheless, this is the principle and source of our spiritual life as the Lord’s people. Truly, “our life is hid with Christ in God.” In Christ we are that new man, that new creature, born of the Spirit. Then from Him we expect and receive the effects of the Holy Spirit. This is the communication by which, “he is made unto us wisdom and sanctification.” As the Scripture proclaims, “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” Thus, He makes it happen, “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”[27] The communication of the Holy Spirit from Christ to us is an inward glory of His people; it is true revival. This is transforming us into His image. In this the Lord Jesus Christ is, and will be, glorious for all eternity.
The Lord God, in the human nature of Christ, perfectly renewed His blessed image on our nature, which we lost in Adam. With the renewed image, He added many glorious endowments, which Adam did not have. Our position in Christ is splendidly laid out in His Word because, “it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.” Quite unbelievable, but true, we are told that the Father has “predestinated us to be conformed unto the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.”[28] Again, the Lord God designed to make Him “the first born of many brethren,” to give Him the power and authority of the firstborn, with the purpose of entrusting the inheritance of being conformed to His image to us, mere sinners saved by grace, “for both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,”[29]
The Lord God designed and gave to Christ all grace and glory. He did this so Christ might be the prototype of what He designed for us, and would bestow upon us. Thus, the Apostle showed the effect of our predestination to be conformed to the image of the Son. The great design of God’s grace is that we who were born in the “image of the first Adam” should bear the “image of the second” from the renovation done by His Holy Spirit. “As we have born the image of the earthy,” so “we shall bear the image of the heavenly.”[30] The Lord Jesus Christ is the pattern of all our graces. As we set our minds on Him, it is revealed we go from one level of glory to the next. This is the wellspring of all true revival, looking at Christ Jesus as He is in glory representing us as our prototype and example. This is what the Lord God intends for us, that we may come to the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”[31]
Conclusion
Like Israel of old, the present-day church in many ways has become wilderness and desolation! The Western world is in a tail spin burying itself deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of moral decay. We need a revival that will shake the Christian church and cause the haughty spirits and obstinate hearts of those who profess Christ as Lord and Savior to be brought to repentance.
There is no question that many “tares” are rooted into the church in general among the wheat. They have been blown in by every ‘wind of doctrine’ and have settled in among the wheat from lowliest person in our churches to the pastors. There was a complacency that overtook the church since the mid 1960’s. The traditional church member took refuge during the explosion of the hippy movement and the Vietnam War. By the time the hippy movement had quieted down due leading up to the Moral Majority Movement, door to door evangelism had pretty well disappeared. The house to house evangelism that was so popular during the 1950’s has for the most part disappeared. It is true that sinners were saved under the preaching all along. However, there has been an emphasis to win the lost through the sermons and planned events of the churches. Most people have depended upon the ‘professional’ to do the soul winning for the church. While the pastoral staff takes up the responsibility of soul winning all sorts of church programs, conferences and camps filled the emptiness. For certain, our churches need to repent of our sin of spiritual fornication and pray for biblical revival. Our prayer is that our churches will wake up before it is too late. There is no question that God seeks our repentance so He can restore us to spiritual health as we already emphasized His appeal is, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”[32]
In this context are we willing to stir ourselves to take hold of God and His blessing and His working among us? In the past, even in days of utter decline, the way of the Holy Spirit’s advance has been to present the glory of Christ. This will always be His means until the Lord of glory returns. This has been the teaching and practice of those used of the Lord in revivals throughout church history. Therefore we pray as did men and women in previous days of spiritual decline, “Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained? Of old, men and women waited upon God and cried and cried until He came down in power. We again pray to the Lord, as they did, “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence.”[33]
In Christ Jesus, we still confidently pray for the abounding, overflowing riches of grace that He has promised. Not only are we told of the “riches of his grace” and of the “exceeding riches of His grace,” but also it is proclaimed that grace has “abounded unto many,” and that we receive “abundance of grace.” Yes, God’s grace in the glory of Christ Jesus is superabundant. Should we not expect to be touched by it in true revival in our day even with situation of the churches as we have outlined. This is so because the Lord Jesus remains as the “Christ,” i.e., the anointed One. His purpose continues as the work of obedience and death, which He received in His humanity as Mediator, the perpetual fullness of the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, He was declared to be the exalted Prince and Savior, as the abundance of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit was not for Himself, but for the Church, which is His body. As we saw, the Apostle Peter preached, “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”[34] Would to God that we could pray with the passion of David, “unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.”[35] The Word of God teaches that as believers we are to pray to God and to expect an answer from Him, and to look for the Holy Spirit to bear witness to this answer by what we see and hear. We ought to pray with such great fervor that one day we can pray in thanksgiving the words of the Psalmist, “As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts.”[36]
The Apostle Paul speaks of the believers at Ephesus as being “sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,”[37] yet, they needed more of the same Spirit. The Apostle prayed for them, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.”[38] So we pray not only for the wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, but with the Apostles of old we pray, “and now, Lord…grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak Thy Word.”[39]
The Lord’s solemn promise harmonizes entirely with this, “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? …If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”[40] This gives us as Christians the permanent assurance that we can expect more of the Spirit. Our permanent duty consists of faith in Christ Jesus and in His Word. Faith in the abundance of the Spirit abides in Him. It is for us not only to intellectually believe, “of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace,” but in true doctrine and expectation of the Holy Spirit see this verse as a fact of our daily life. In the Words of the Apostle, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”[41] As we have seen false revivals abound, and the alignment of New Evangelicals with apostasy is astounding. Sin indeed abounds. Prevailing at the present day are “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” “Christian Churches Together,” the “New Perspective,” the “Coming Home Movement,” and other apostate associations. The holiness of God, the fear of God, the conviction of sin, and the Gospel message are entirely missing in these movements. In face of all this abounding sin and deception, how do we live and reign with Christ Jesus daily? The Apostle gives us the answer, “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”[42]
Those who receive the abundant grace given by Christ are not only redeemed from the empire of death, they live and reign with Him as they are sanctified daily through His Word by the Holy Spirit, and by constant fellowship with Him. With Him they shall forever live and reign, world without end. Through Christ Jesus, grace reigns with sovereign freedom, power, and bounty! How do we make sure that grace reigns with sovereign freedom, power, and bounty in our lives? We do this as we take hold of His Word as the Lord’s promise that He made of His goodness to us. “Blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.”[43]
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[1] 2 Chronicles 7:14-15
[2] Galatians 6:9
[3] Revelation 3:18-19
[4] Isaiah 55:1
[5] Luke 9:62
[6] Romans 12:21
[7] 2 Peter 1:4-6
[8] II Corinthians 3:18
[9] II Corinthians 4:6
[10] Hebrews 1:3
[11] John 12:41 “These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him”.
[12] Isaiah 6:3
[13] Revelation 15: 4
[14] Ephesians 2: 8:10
[15] Romans 8:30
[16] John 1: 16
[17] 1 John 4:8
[18] 1 John 4:9
[19] Timothy 2:19
[20] Colossians 2: 9-10
[21] Colossians 3: 10
[22] Romans 8:17
[23] Isaiah 60:2
[24] Ephesians 4:20, 23, 24
[25] Colossians 3:10
[26] Acts 2:33
[27] Ephesians 5:30, 5:27
[28] Romans 8:29
[29] Hebrews 2:11
[30] 1 Corinthians 15:49
[31] Ephesians 4:13
[32] 2 Chronicles 7:14
[33] Isaiah 63:15, 64:1
[34] Acts 2:33
[35] Psalm 28:1
[36] Psalm 48:8
[37] Ephesians 1:13
[38] Ephesians 1:17
[39] Acts 4:29
[40] Luke 11:11, 13
[41] Romans 5:20
[42] Romans 5:17
[43] Psalm 72:19