ILLIAM KIMBROUGH PENDLETON was born in Louisa County, Virginia, September 8, 1817. He is of English descent, and his ancestors, both paternal and maternal, have, from the earliest history of this country, occupied distinguished positions in the state and the church. His mother was brought up under Episcopal influence, but his father, Colonel EMUND PENDLETON, was not a member of any church until WILLIAM was about sixteen years of age, when he became a reader of the "Christian Baptist" and "Millennial Harbinger," and, after a full and free investigation of the plea presented by the advocates of primitive Christianity, he determined to be immersed "for the remission of sins." He soon became an active and earnest worker in the cause of Christ, and, through his influence, a church was established in his neighborhood, which was the first Disciples' church in that part of Virginia, and was the nucleus of the Mount Gilboa Church, which afterward became celebrated for being the germ from which sprung many other congregations. The "peculiar doctrines" which the father advocated met with very determined opposition from the various religious sects of the neighborhood. Hence, every position of the new movement was subjected to the severest investigation; and, as his father's house was the center of most of these discussions, WILLIAM had, thus early, every opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with the principles of the Reformation.

      From his earliest boyhood his education was carefully provided for. After attending, for several years, the best schools in that part of the State, he entered the University of Virginia, where, besides the academical course, he studied the law two years, and was licensed to practice. During most o f this time he had been a regular reader of the "Christian Baptist" and "Millennial Harbinger," and a constant and earnest student of the Word of God. He also acted as amanuensis for his father in conducting some epistolary discussions with a Baptist preacher and others; heard Elder S. HIGGASON and JAMES BAGLEY preach for years, besides hearing occasionally many of the most distinguished preachers among the Disciples; was constantly in company with Disciples at his father's house; and, above all, and before all, was [303] carefully trained from his infancy by a pious mother--"a woman possessing the gentleness and mildness of a child, combined with the firmness and courage of a Spartan mother--extremely modest and unobtrusive, yet, when drawn into conversation, showing great depth of thought and clearness of perception, and a mind well stored with information." Such was the character of the religious influences brought to bear upon him, and, under these, having come to a full understanding of his duty, he was, in June, 1840, immersed by ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, at the Mount Gilboa Church, Louisa County, Virginia, being, at the time, in the twenty-third year of his age. In the fall of 1840, he was married to LAVINIA M., daughter of ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, a lady of brilliant intellect and beautiful Christian character, who died in the spring of 1846.

      He was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy in Bethany College, in May, 1841, (the year the college was founded,) and has been connected with it ever since as Professor, and, much of the time, as Vice-President, and now as President. In 1844 he was united to the editorial corps of the "Millennial Harbinger," and has continued in that relation ever since, being at this time its proprietor and senior editor.

      In August, 1848, he was again married-this time to CLARINDA, also a daughter of ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. Mr. CAMPBELL's celebrated letters from Europe were addressed to this daughter. She was greatly beloved by all who knew her, and was thoroughly devoted to the cause of Christ. She died in January, 1851, rich in good works, and meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light." In the autumn of 1855, he was again married--to CATHERINE H., daughter of judge LECEISTER KING, of Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio.

      For several years previous to the death of Mr. CAMPBELL, Professor PENDLETON discharged the duties of President of Bethany College, and, on the death of Mr. CAMPBELL, was unanimously elected by the curators to fill the place so long and ably occupied by his father-in-law.

      President PENDLETON is five feet eight and a half inches high, and weighs about one hundred and fifty pounds. His nervous system predominates over both the muscular and vital; hence, he is capable of great intellectual force, but has rather a feeble physical organization. As a speaker, he is chaste, logical, and impressive, but, on account of his profession, has never had sufficient opportunities for thoroughly testing his powers before the people. As a writer, he stands unquestionably without a superior in the ranks of the Disciples. But it is as the dignified, courteous, polished, Christian gentleman that you delight to know him. And, to understand what we mean by this, you must know him, for no description can ever do him justice. [304]

      "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged."--JOHN xvi: 7-11.

HEN the Savior said to his apostles, "It is expedient for you that I go away," it must have been to them a declaration hard to understand. His presence had been so necessary to their confidence, and so full of comfort and of power, that they could not regard a separation with less than the gloomiest forebodings. They had hung upon his words with the fond and newly-awakened hopes of eternal life; they had forsaken all to follow him; and now, to be left alone, what could it seem but the saddest and darkest disappointment? When "many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him," and he had asked them, with such pathetic tenderness, "Will ye also go away?" Peter, the prompt and impulsive Peter, had answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." There was no light, no strength, no hope to them but in Christ, and how could it be [305] expedient for them that he should go away? It was a saying hard to be understood, requiring, in fact, a fuller revelation of the Divine economy of redemption than he had yet made to them.

      Hitherto, the central power of this economy had been in his sensible person. Martha, weeping over the death of Lazarus, says: "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." Before Jairus's daughter is raised, Jesus goes to the house of her parents, stands over the bier, takes her by the hand, and says, "Daughter, arise."

      The power of Christ to help was centered in his visible, sensible person, and that was limited to time and place. True, in sending out the seventy, and healing the centurion's servant, we have instances of power exerted where he was not personally present. But even in these cases there was direct connection with his person by some one before the influence was imparted. Evidently these sensuous limitations were not suited to the omnipresent wants of a spiritual kingdom. An omnipresent agent is needed for a universal kingdom. A spirit-presence must take the place of a sense-presence. The heart must be filled where the eye can not see; and Jesus must go away, that the Paraclete, the advocate and comforter, may come. Let us consider the difference. Suppose Jesus to-day at Jerusalem, and seated on the throne of David, in the person he wore when he stood, eighteen centuries ago, arraigned as a criminal before the bar of Pilate. Around the throne there might be the effulgence of glory, and in his presence fullness of joy. But what would he be to us, in this far distant land of the West? Between him and our hearts an ocean-barrier rolls; the radiance of his countenance beams not upon us, and his words come to us through the telegraph, chilled by the distance and void of the vital [306] breath of the King. We can not see him, or hear him. Like Moses, wrapped in the misty shroud of Mount Sinai, he is hidden from our view. What would be left us but, like the children of Israel, to turn to our own devices, and cry: "Up, make us gods which shall go before us." Peter returns to his nets, and the rest go with him.

      On the other hand, enthrone Jesus in heaven, invest him with all power, and fill the earth with the presence of the Spirit--the Paraclete--the official advocate and comforting minister of his reign. Here is a power wide as the domain of his truth, breathing with ever-present influence through words of eternal life; working with the same energy that brooded over the primitive chaos, and molding into order, and form, and beauty, and conscious blessedness, the new spirit-world, a glorious regeneration of the wreck of the old.

      Doubtless the apostles felt disconsolate when the Savior said, "I go away;" but when, on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit came, and they were baptized in its power, and began to speak with tongues, and felt the mighty energy of truth burning for utterance, and saw its two-edged sharpness piercing the hearts of their enemies, they could say: "We are not left comfortless; the blessed Jesus has indeed gone away; but, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." Truly did he say, "It is expedient for you that I go away," because, as he promised, he hath sent the Comforter.

      Thus, in one passage, the Savior very formally announces his purpose to devolve the advocacy of his cause upon the Holy Spirit, to replace his personal presence by the ministration of the Paraclete, and declares it to be [307] expedient for his disciples that he should do so. There is to be a new administration of affairs, and a new ministry. Let us consider--

      I. THE MINISTER.

      He is called the Paraclete. The term, in its fullness, means a comforting helper. It is a name by which the Savior calls the Holy Spirit. (John xiv: 26.) In our passage he is presented to us as the successor of Christ in the administration of the economy of redemption. He proceedeth from the Father, and is sent by the Son. (John xv: 26.) He is, therefore, a distinct manifestation of God. For the want of a better term, we call him a person, a word which very inadequately represents the idea of a spiritual essence. But the New Testament leaves no ambiguity as to the threefold manifestation of God, in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and as the word person has been used by the common version to translate both the prosopon (prosopon) of Christ, (2 Cor. ii: 10,) and the hupostasis (hupostasis) of the Father, (Heb. 1: 3,) we are warranted in applying the same term also to that manifestation of God, which is called, in the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit is a distinct personal manifestation of God is evident:

      First, from the fact that he is designated, like the Father and the Son, by appropriate names. He is called "the Paraclete," and "the Holy Spirit;" and the latter designation is expressly given as his name: "Baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matt. xxviii: 19.) The expression is [308] literal, and the distinctness of the three marked by a definiteness that could not be more sharply indicated by language. Our baptism brings us equally into relation to the three as persons, and presents the three to us, at the same time, as also one in nature.

      Second. From the fact that both intelligence and determining will are ascribed to him. "He is a Spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel, and knowledge." (Isa. xi: 2.) "He searcheth all things, even the deep things of God." (1 Cor. ii: 10.) He is the author of spiritual gifts; and the apostle declares that, in distributing these, "he divides to every man as he will." (1 Cor. xii: 11.) But what can thus act with intelligence and free choice but a distinct person? These are not isolated passages, but the general drift of revelation, concerning the Holy Spirit, is to the same effect.

      Third. Not only has he intelligence and free choice, but also accompanying power. He descends on the day of Pentecost, as a mighty rushing wind; he imparts the power of working miracles to the apostles, just as Christ had done; he raises up Christ from the dead; he smites the hypocrites Ananias and Sapphira with death in the instant of their falsehood; and many other marvelous works are ascribed to him, which present him constantly before us, in the boldest and most striking aspects of personal grandeur and power.

      Fourth. Our passage speaks of him as a person, as one that can come, that may be sent, that can glorify the Son, and guide the disciples into all, or the whole truth. "He shall take of mine," says the Savior, "and show it unto you." (John xvi: 15.) Can an agent like this be a mere influence? Can language like this be applicable to merely impersonal means, having no distinct energy of their own, [309] and moving simply as they are moved by some other power? Surely words are meaningless, and all reality must be banished from the Scriptures, if these expressions are simply metaphors, shadows of shades, misty utterances about unknown phantoms, that vanish from our view when we attempt to fix them in thought, or give them, in our faith, "a local habitation and a name."

      Fifth. Because, in the new dispensation, he is set forth as the promised personal manifestation of God. In Leviticus xxvi: 11, 12, God, speaking absolutely, says: "I will set my tabernacle among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people." But Paul, in 2 Cor. vi: 16, interprets this as a promise, and finds its fulfillment in the actual bestowal of the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of Christians. He says: "Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk among them." This he accomplishes in the person of the Holy Spirit. "Know ye not, that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? for the temple of God are ye." While, then, the Holy Spirit is personally distinct, he is, in nature, God; so that, when he fills the temple of the human heart, it is truly God who dwells in it.

      Thus is this minister of the new reign set before us; by his official and his essential name; by his omniscient intelligence and self-determining will; by his omnipotent power, by his glorious and official procession from the Father and the Son, and by his representative dignity as the personal manifestation of God in the new and spiritual kingdom. By all these, and many other tokens, he comes to us, our Comforter, Helper, Friend. He introduces himself wondrously to us in the sublime and overpowering scenes of Pentecost, and opens up the new empire over [310] the hearts of men, with a grand exhibition of his power to perform the work for which he is sent. Let us inquire:

      II. TO WHOM IS HE SENT.

      This question need not detain us long; but it is important, in approaching it, to notice the different economies or dispensations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Before the fall, man enjoyed the full manifestation of God. The unveiled Majesty stood before him in the garden. He walked with God, as a son with a father. Paradise was garnished for him with "herb, tree, fruit, and flower, glistening with dew."

      His heart is open to God in all pure worship. He moves, a peer among the cherubim, and mingles his praises with theirs. The will of God thrills through his nature as his vital breath. He trembles with fullness of joy. "God is all in all"--"Omnipotent, immutable, immortal, infinite, eternal King." This is the dispensation of the Father. Man is without sin, and God is manifested only as life, light, and love.

      The entrance of sin breaks this harmony. Man is banished from the garden of Eden. The dispensation of love gives place to the dispensation of law. Remedial grace holds the world in quarantine. God operates afar off through his Son. He does not utterly abandon us, but out of the thick darkness he speaks in tones of thunder, and, at long intervals, by the "angel of the presence." The promised seed of the woman even now has his [311] "delights with the sons of men." (Prov. viii: 31.) He appears to Abraham, and speaks with Moses in the Mount of Sinai, (Acts vii: 38,) adding the law, till he should come in full accomplishment of the promise. (Gal. iii: 19.) Yet when, in the fullness of time, he is manifested in the flesh, his operation is transient, and mostly limited to his personal presence. Even his apostles do not comprehend him. He speaks in parables, and holds the truth under a veil. Until sin is atoned for, and his work of redemption done, there can be no closer or more intimate relation to the sinner. God and man must be reconciled before the lost fellowship of Eden can be restored. This is his work, and it leads him by the gate of death. He must glorify humanity in his own person before he can sanctify it with his Holy Spirit. This is the remedial dispensation--the dispensation of the Son.

      Not until it was finished could the Holy Spirit be given. True the Spirit, as of the divine essence, appears in every dispensation as an inseparable, co-operating divine agent. As the Savior said: "The Father worketh hitherto and I work;" and, "Without the Father I can do nothing." So it is equally true that there is also an ever-present co-operation of the Spirit. But it is an operation, ab extra, from without. The glorification of the Son opens up a new era--the dispensation or economy of the Holy Spirit--a manifestation of the Spirit fuller and more permanent and intimate than had ever been enjoyed before. This could not be, our passage expressly declares, until Christ should go away. "If I go not away, the Paraclete will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. The disciples had, doubtless, felt the influence of the Spirit in looking upon the radiant countenance, and listening to the burning words of Jesus, and when he breathed on [312] them, and said unto them: Receive ye the Holy Spirit, (John xx: 22,) the action and the word must have thrilled them with a sense of divine ecstacy and power. But he is not yet given, as the fountain of an overflowing river of living water, in the heart of the believer, because that Jesus is not yet glorified. (John vii: 38, 39.) The disciples must yet tarry, sorrowful it may be, but yet in hope, tarry at Jerusalem till this new power--the Comforting Advocate--shall come. (Luke xxiv: 49.)

      He had brooded over chaos, the quickening power in creation; striven with the antediluvians in their rebellion against the will of God; cheered with bright and hopeful visions the fainting hearts of the patriarchs, and other immortal heroes of God; opened long vistas down through the mysterious future to the wondering eyes of the prophets, and clothed, in rosy light, the dawning day of the good things to come; thrilled the souls of poets with sweet inspirations and power to strike the sublimest chords of song; cherished and kept alive, in pure minds, the deathless memories of God, and "the pure empyrean where he sits high-throned above all height;" stirred in brooding hearts immortal longings for the return of the golden days of Eden, long dimmed in sinful night; and in all, and through all the wise and wondrous providence of God, moved and worked, one with the Father and the Son, but yet, not as a distinct dweller in the temple of humanity, an abiding guest in the heart of the fallen, a comforting helper to the orphaned exile from the Father's face.

      This is a manifestation of the Spirit long promised and yet to come, and its accomplishment brings us to the ever memorable Pentecost; to the scene in the upper chamber, where the disciples are waiting; to the miracles of tongues; to the sermon of Peter, and the conversion of the three [313] thousand in a day. The period of the last days is now fully come, and the Spirit is poured out in all fullness and power. Jesus has been glorified. Humanity has been lifted up in his victory, and fitted for the indwelling of the Spirit. He may now enter the long-closed temple of the human heart, now reconciled to the Father, through the death of the Son, and take up his abode there to dwell with it forever.

      Returning to our question: To whom is he sent? we find the answer easy and intelligible. Our passage says: "I will send him unto you"--you, my disciples. Again: "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." (John vii: 39.) Again: "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world can not receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." (John xiv: 16, 17.) Yet again, on the day of Pentecost, Peter, speaking as he was moved by this same Spirit, says: "Repent, and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts ii: 38.) It is the baptized, penitent believer, then, to whom the Holy Spirit is sent; and to him, in contrast with the unconverted, the impenitent, the unbaptized "world" to whom he is not sent. And the reason of this is plain. As his coming is restrained till Jesus shall go away, and his ministry withheld till humanity is first glorified in the person of Christ, so it is incompatible with' the dignity and purity of the Divine economy that the Holy Spirit should be sent to dwell in a heart that had not, by faith, received Christ, and washed in the fountain of his blood, opened for sin and uncleanness. (Zech. xiii: 1.) The mission of Christ ends with [314] his fitting humanity, by faith in him, for the reception of the Spirit. The mission of the Spirit commences by his taking up his abode in the temple thus prepared for his entrance.

      III. WHAT IS HIS WORK?

      This is twofold. First, in the heart of the believers, leading them to glorify Jesus, by reproducing in them his life; and second, through the disciples, upon the world.

      In these twofold operations there is this difference: in the first, he dwells in and works with the believers. In the apostolic age he imparts spiritual gifts to them; then and always, he dwells in the heart of the disciples to help their infirmities, (Rom. viii: 26,) and work in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Phil. ii: 13). In the second, he operates through the disciples upon the world. "The world," as such, can not receive him. Upon them he works from without, producing faith, and preparing them, by the reception of Christ, to become fit temples for his entrance as a comforting guest. And this is the great work to which our passage especially points our attention. It is what the Savior emphatically declares the Paraclete shall do when he comes. "He shall convince or reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." These are the grand themes of the great advocate. Let us consider them.

      1. He shall reprove the world of sin. What is the method of the Holy Spirit in working conviction in the hearts of men? How shall he reprove the world of sin? Shall he descant upon the doctrine of the fall; weave fine metaphysical webs about human depravity; decide whether it is total or partial; discuss the ethics of transmitted guilt; draw nice distinctions between original and hereditary sin; [315] turn all our misfortune and woe over to Adam; or, looking into our own actions, condemn us by the special crimes of our own personal life? This is man's method--the bungling diagnosis of our spiritual doctors. Into what a maze of controversy it leads us, and how it turns the heart away from Christ, and the great question which the Holy Spirit raises with the world! "Shall I be damned because my ancestor, six thousand years ago, imprudently ate of an apple?" says one; and he stands excusing himself on the ethics of this question till he is lost. "I live in all good conscience," says another;" I defraud no one, I give to the poor, and 'with gentle heart worship nature in hill and valley,' cherishing

"Shall I, thus elevated in soul, and wrapped in Divine spheres of reason, be ranked with the vulgar herd that grovel in the dust? What is my crime? What stain spots the robe of my righteousness?" And thus, self-fascinated, he puts aside the great question of the Holy Spirit, and goes to the judgment without Christ. Amazing folly! These, O man, are not the questions which the Holy Spirit raises with you, by which he reproves you of sin.

      He asks you, "What think you of Christ?" He reproves you of sin, not because of Adam's sin; not because you stand, a shattered column from the ruin of Paradise; but because, so standing, marred and defaced by sin, you [316] refuse his offered help to restore you--to renew in you the effaced countenance of the Father, and fill your heart again with the blessed fellowship of his Spirit. "He shall convince the world of sin, because they believe not on him." The sin that is brought home to us, to each of us, to you and to me, is our own sin--not another's. He says to us: "Look around upon the world's ruin; look within, at the withered glory of the soul; see the work of the enemy; behold, over it my love, like a Niobe of nations, weeping, stoops to regenerate it. Through agony and blood I have travailed to victory. The work is done. Come and share it with me." Who will refuse? What can make us refuse but the love of sin--the sin that caused his death?

      Is not this a simple criterion? Christ finds us ruined by sin--held under its bondage; he comes to redeem us, suffers for us, conquers for us, and offers us the fruit of his victory freely--without money, and without price. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and, by a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." (Rom. viii: 3.) And now to refuse him as our sin-offering, what is it but to cleave to the sin which he has condemned? And is not this sin in us? Adam, tempted, and without experience of the damning guilt of sin, yielded to the fatal fascination. He found himself naked, stripped of the glory that had covered him as a mantle, and shrank, abashed at his own deformity, from the purity and beauty of Paradise. He is cast out, a banished exile from the presence of the Father, but with the promise of deliverance. "The seed of the woman shall yet bruise the serpent's head." He sold the life of Eden for the knowledge of good and evil, and received the penalty--death. In the fullness of time, the promised seed comes. The [317] deliverance is achieved. The Holy Spirit is sent to call us to accept it. A free return to the tree of life is offered to us through Christ, and we refuse it. With all the sad experience of six thousand years under sin, we deliberately adhere to the choice of Adam. We repeat his act in our own freedom. We say to Christ: We will continue as we are, hug our chains, CLING to our bondage; we will not come back. Adam has chosen, we abide the choice. The tree of life has been forfeited, we stand by the result. We despise your sufferings, we refuse your sacrifice. We will repeat the sin of the first Adam, and die, rather than accept the sacrifice of the second Adam, and live. O friend, is not this deeper sin than that which brought our fall? Is not deliberate and conscious sin worse than tempted and ignorant impulse? impenitence and ingratitude, than passion and appetite? "This is now the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men prefer darkness to light, because their deeds are evil." (John iii: 19.) This is the reproof of the Paraclete, that Jesus has died and risen again, and men will not believe on him.

      2. He shall convince the world of righteousness. This is the second great theme of the Paraclete, to convince the world of righteousness. This term has a double sense: it points, first, to the personal character of Christ; second, to his representative character. In both these respects, Jesus must be vindicated before the world.

      His personal character was involved in two charges. The Jews accused him of blasphemy and treason; blasphemy, because he professed to be the Son of God, and thus made himself equal with God (John v: 18); and treason, because he claimed to be a King, and so was a rival of Cæsar. (John xix: 12.) The refutation of these charges was easy. The great argument is that "I go to the [318] Father." If I am not the Son of God, the Father will not receive me; if I am not King, he will not welcome me to the throne. He will not acknowledge an imposter, nor honor a pretender. Condemned before Pilate, I appeal to the "King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, with whom are honor and glory forever and ever." (1 Tim. i: 17.) If he acquits, who shall condemn? "I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." (Psalms xvi: 9-11.) This was the sublime confidence with which Jesus went to the bar of Pilate, to the cross, to the tomb, to the judgment of the Father. Who shall witness the trial, and report to us the eternal verdict? Human witnesses can not be admitted to this scene. The Paraclete must come, and the demonstration must be worthy of the sufferer.

      This is the first great theme of Pentecost. Peter makes it the prominent point in his first argument. The mighty wonder of the out-poured Spirit demonstrates this:--"This same Jesus whom you took, and with wicked hands crucified and slew, hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses: him hath God acknowledged as his Son, and exalted to the throne, saying, 'Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool.' Let all the house of Israel know assuredly this, that God hath made that same Jesus whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ." (Acts ii: 32-36.) Thus is he vindicated in his high pretensions as the Son of God, as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and thus is the personal righteousness of Jesus proved by the Spirit.

      But there is another sense, in which the righteousness of Christ is of deepest interest to us. As a matter merely [319] personal to him, his righteousness is, indeed, also a question of vital interest to us, since all his pretensions as our Savior hang upon his Divine nature and official grandeur as both the Son of God, and King. But, in connection with his representative character, his righteousness has a dearer and more comforting significance to us. In his manifestation as the Son of God, he is also the Son of man. "The word was made flesh." He became Immanuel, God with us. In our nature, he fulfilled all righteousness. He carried humanity successfully through temptation, through suffering, through death, and through judgment, up to the very throne of God. He demonstrated the possibility of its becoming and being perfect, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin, and higher than the heavens." This knowledge is too high for us. It is an announcement of the Paraclete, one of the comforting things which the Spirit hath heard of the Father and shown unto us, a revelation of the superlative and transcendent grandeur of humanity in its new and mysterious union with Christ, that passes all understanding. Ineffable honor, that thus we may be lifted up from our degradation and ruin to the honors and privileges of heaven!

      This perfect righteousness of the God-man becomes, again, the sufficient ground of our justification. "By the sacrifices of the law, there was only a remembrance of sins again from year to year; for it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins: but [320] this man, after he had made one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool; for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." (Heb. x: 3-14.) Upon the altar of his divinity, he offers the sacrifice of a perfect humanity, and is made of God unto us, who glory not in the flesh, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. (1 Cor. i: 30.) "He shall convince the world of righteousness, because I go to the Father."

      3. He shall convince the world of judgment. If there were no evidence of a judgment, there would, perhaps, be but little respect for law. Man is so perverted by sin that he has but little respect for authority that has no adequate sanction attached to its commands. But here, again, the demonstration of the Spirit goes at once to the root of all rebellion. It contemplates man as, by nature, under the power of the wicked one. It does not stop to inquire into the guilt or innocence of individuals; but, with one sweeping generalization, involves all men in the great controversy with Satan, and condemns them because of their relation to "the Prince of this world." It declares to us that the great controversy is one for dominion. By the successful temptation of the Garden, man fell under the power of the tempter. Christ comes to set him free. The conflict is not with man, but with Satan; that tyrannical prince, under whom man is held in bondage. His dominion is right, or it is wrong, legitimate or usurped. If it is right, then we are justified in adhering to it. If it is wrong, then we are involved in its guilt, if we do not forsake it. This is the issue. Jesus makes it, and Satan rises in all the might of a last desperate struggle to meet it. He approaches him with alluring temptations in the [321] wilderness; lays cunning traps for him in the opposition of the Jews to catch him in his words; confronts him with demoniacal possessions, to test the measure of his power; and, day after day, month after month, year after year, throws around him the cunning meshes of his strategy, till he brings him to the bar of Pilate, with specific charges and infuriated witnesses. The power of hell is at war with the Son of God. The final issue seems to hang upon this trial before Pilate. The conflict is of the many against the one, and the majority carry it. Jesus is humiliated, mocked, scourged, condemned, led away to be crucified, carrying his own cross, with fainting footsteps, to the summit of Calvary. All men forsake him. He "looks, and there is none to help;" therefore, "his own right arm must bring salvation to him." He must go down alone to the citadel of this enemy. "The war must be carried into Carthage." The way is through the valley of death, and the stronghold is the grave. These must be invaded; and Jesus enters them, not as a strong man, prepared for battle, but with tears, and bitter cries of agony, and burden of sin, at which angels gaze with mute wonder, and the solid earth shudders to its center. Oh, this is the moment of hell's triumph! Through its fiery caverns the shout of demons thunders: "Victory! victory! The Son of God is a captive. Let captivity rejoice, and hell flaunt her banners over the fallen!"

      O, thou bleeding Lamb of God, thou hast not fallen, but stooped to conquer! Thy strength returns to thee. Thine arms are around the central columns of this temple of Dagon. Thy mocking enemies are within the crushing folds of thy omnipotence. Thou canst not be holden of death. Rise, in the might of thy power, and shake off the shackles of the grave; burst the cerements that bind [322] thee, and, as thou saidst for Lazarus, so for thyself: "Come forth!"

      Let us thank God that he did not suffer his Holy One to see corruption, but that he "declared him to be his own Son, with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead." (Rom. i: 4.) That in his final conflict he gave the verdict in his favor, and condemned Satan, with an everlasting judgment, to "chains under darkness, to be kept till the punishment of the last day." (Jude: 6.)

      And now, what is the short argument of the Paraclete with the world? Simply this: If "the Prince of this world is condemned"--already conquered, subdued, and in chains--what is the condition of "the world," who still adhere to him? Are not they under sentence with him, shut up in the fate of their "prince?" Does not this argument "stop every mouth, and subject all the world to the judgment of God?" (Rom. iii: 19.) The Spirit does not enter into a personal examination of the moral character of each man, and seek the ground of his condemnation in his personal misdeeds; but he raises the broad and universal question: Whom serve ye? The conquering Son of God, or the conquered prince of the world? These are the two powers. With which do you stand? With the triumphant soldiers of the Cross, or the broken columns of hell? Is not this a plain question? Can not all men answer it? Is it not an important question? Should not all men consider it? Is it not a decisive test of loyalty? Should not all men be judged by it?

      And now, how simple, and yet how comprehensive, is the ministry of the Spirit. In his great plea there is the one supreme end ever in view--the regeneration of the world. In all his work, there is the co-operation of the [323] Father and the Son; for, while there are diversities of gifts, it is the same Spirit and differences of administration, it is the same Lord and diversities of operations, it is the same God, which worketh all in all." (1 Cor. xii: 4, 7.) In his manifestation to believers and to the world, he maintains sharply the distinction between a heart cleansed by the blood of Christ and reconciled to God, and one still under the power of sin, and allied to Satan; entering the one and dwelling in it, as a deity in a temple, and operating upon the other as an influence from without. In his operation upon the world, working through the disciples--to whom alone he is sent--and employing words and miracles, truths and demonstrations, to convince and reprove them. And in the wide breadth of his plea, comprehending only the three great themes of sin, righteousness, and judgment: "Sin," says the Savior, "because they believe not on me; righteousness, because I go to the Father; and judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged." [324]

[TLP 303-324]