Where Do We Look for Righteousness?
The Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children,
then joint heirs with Christ. Romans 8:16, 17.
Do we look to the law for
righteousness, even after we have been brought to Christ? Where do we look
for righteousness? In the face of Jesus Christ. There "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," from righteousness to
righteousness, from character to character, from goodness to goodness, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Then don't you see how the
righteousness of God and the Holy Spirit go hand in hand? Don't you see that
when we obtain the righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ, that
then the Holy Spirit cannot be kept away from us. You cannot separate the
two. They belong together. Then He says we have a right to ask for the Holy
Spirit and to receive it too.
He came "to redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts." He sends it. He does not want to hold it back. He sends it
into the heart. It is a free gift.
Don't you see that it is
impossible to keep the righteousness of God and the Holy Spirit separate? So
then, "changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord" and when the image of God in Jesus Christ is found
in us, what then? There is the impress, the seal of God.
By looking into the face of
Jesus Christ, and there alone, we receive the righteousness of God which is
by faith in Him. The effect of looking ever into His glorious face that
reflects the glory of God, is to change us into the same image, to perfect
the image of God, and restore it in us, by the working of the Spirit of God
upon the soul. And when that is done, then the same Spirit of God is there
to affix the seal of the living God, the eternal impress of His own image.
A.T. Jones, 1893 General Conference
Bulletin, p. 415 |
