We need to remember this. We must not put it in other ways; we must not think of it in other terms. ’The Holy Spirit will do this and that’, we say. Yes, He will: but – ’this and that’, and perhaps a hundred or a thousand other things and aspects, are all related to one thing; they are not things in themselves.
We must emphasize this here very strongly. The Holy Spirit may give light; the Holy Spirit may give leading; the Holy Spirit may do many many ’things’: but we must remember that everything that the Holy Spirit does is included in one object, it is all to one end. That object is, primarily, to secure Christ’s place in this universe – to secure the place of the Lord Jesus in men, in this world.
Our way of speaking may often mislead us. We would say: The work of the Holy Spirit is to save souls. Yes, quite – but why? just to have them saved? No; in order that the Lord Jesus may have His place. Those souls are to be the ’residences’ of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit may instruct believers and build them up – for what purpose? Just that they should be mature Christians? Not at all; but so that the Lord Jesus shall have a larger place.
No matter what the Holy Spirit does, He has one all-inclusive object and end – the glorifying of the Lord Jesus: that is, the giving of the Lord Jesus His place, and then filling all things with Christ. Do not think of the ’being filled with the Spirit’, of the ’fulness of the Spirit’, in any other way than this. The Holy Spirit’s filling is intended to be a filling of all things with Christ.
TAS
