The Holy Spirit was intimately connected with
every phase of the life, ministry and atonement of Jesus. It was the Holy Spirit who overshadowed Mary
to bring about the conception of Jesus in her womb (Luke 1:35), and it
was he whose presence and power flowed through Jesus in his healing ministry
(Luke 4:18-19, 5:17, 6:19; Mark 5:30). It was by the eternal Spirit that Jesus
offered himself as an atoning sacrifice on the cross (Heb. 9:14), and it was by
the power of the Spirit of holiness that Christ was raised from the dead (Rom.
1:4). And then, after his exaltation, Jesus
received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and poured him out on the day
of Pentecost. So the Holy Spirit is the personal,
divine witness who empowered every aspect of the finished and complete work of
Christ in our redemption.
Forty days after his resurrection,
Jesus ascended through the heavens and was exalted to the highest place, the
right hand of the Father, far above every principality and power and far above
every name that can be named. From this
position he began his present reign as King of kings and Lord of lords, with all
things having been placed under his feet (Heb. 4:14, Eph. 1:19-22, Phil.
2:9-11, Heb. 1:3-13). So the Jesus we love
and serve is not simply the Jesus who gained our redemption at the cross, nor
is he simply the Jesus who conquered death by leaving behind an empty
tomb. He is indeed both of these, but he
also now rules over God’s creation, having been given all authority in heaven
and on earth (Matt. 28:18; Rev. 1:5, 3:14).
He is risen, ascended and exalted, and is now seated in heaven and
reigns as King of kings.
It was then, as I said above, that
king Jesus poured out the promised Holy Spirit upon the 120 early believers on
the day of Pentecost, consequent to their sustained united praying:
‘Exalted to the right hand of God,
he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out
what you now see and hear.’
(Acts 2:33)
‘Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind
came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting… All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…’ (Acts 2:2,4)
This outpouring of the Holy Spirit
brought about the birth of the early Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem,
and in time it resulted in the powerful and extensive moves of God which can be
traced through the book of Acts. The redeemed,
new covenant people of God, the Bride of Christ, came into being through an outpouring
of the Holy Spirit in revival!
Furthermore, the intention of God in this
present age was never that the events of the day of Pentecost should be an
isolated fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy regarding the outpouring of the Spirit
of God on all people. This prophecy implies
an ongoing condition of being filled with Holy Spirit as a matter consistent
experience:
‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit
on all people. Your sons and daughters
will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream
dreams. Even on my servants, both men
and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.’ (Acts 2:17-18, cf. Joel 2:28)
The Holy Spirit is the seal of the
covenant that God has made with his people in Christ (Eph. 1:13). So God’s purpose is that we should
consistently know and experience the Holy Spirit’s purifying and empowering
presence with us, so that we live and operate in a consistently revived condition,
permeated with the presence of the Holy Spirit, much as the early believers
were in the book of Acts (cf. Eph. 5:18).
We need to understand this purpose of God for us, so that we will
always honour and seek the presence and power of the Holy Spirit with us. This is what we see at many junctures of
church and mission history, when God poured out his Spirit yet again to revive
and empower his people to go forward in his purpose of extending his kingdom on
earth. Such a revived, empowered and
effective Church reflects the normal, biblical state of Christianity.
God’s purpose in the coming of the
Holy Spirit into this world was/is specifically so that he can apply the
finished and complete work of Christ’s redemption to this fallen world.
The Holy Spirit begins this from the position of a complete victory
already won by Christ over an enemy who was utterly routed by him through the
cross-resurrection event (Col. 2:13-15).
He takes this victory of Christ and applies it to human life in this
fallen world through the ministries of Spirit-filled believers, with the desire
and intention of gaining as full a practical realisation of it as possible in
the lives of all those who will believe in and receive Christ. Pentecost was – and still is – about the Holy
Spirit coming upon, filling and possessing believers whose surrendered lives he
can then use powerfully to fulfil this purpose.
So, after the Holy Spirit birthed into
existence the early Christian community on the day of Pentecost, he then,
through the ministries of these empowered believers, began to apply deeply and
effectively into the lives of non-believers the complete victory which Christ
has won over sin, sickness, death and the dominion of Satan, bringing them into
the kingdom of God and under his caring reign and authority in their lives.
As an intimate witness of every aspect of
the finished work of Christ, the Holy Spirit came specifically to lead, empower
and bring into practical realisation this purpose of God to redeem fallen
humanity and, in doing so, he ignited a momentous and massive spiritual war
against the dominion of Satan in this world, which is still ongoing today.
From that time onwards, the kingdom of God advanced powerfully in this world,
as the Holy Spirit demonstrated this complete victory of Christ through the
early believers.
Examples
of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in revival
So that which marks revival out today as
being a distinct working of God is, again, the powerful outpouring of the Holy
Spirit upon a group or community of believers, much as on the day of
Pentecost. In such an outpouring, the
presence and power of God become immanent and manifest among believers, and
work powerfully among and through them.
In the words of Isaiah, God rends the heavens, comes down, and is
powerfully and mightily present among his people:
‘Oh, that you would rend the heavens
and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water
to boil, come down and make your name known to your enemies and cause the
nations to quake before you! For when
you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains
trembled before you.’ (Isa. 64:1-3)
There have been many such outpourings of
the Holy Spirit throughout the world in the history of the Church, particularly
since the evangelical awakenings of the 1700s and the burgeoning of the
worldwide missions movement which followed these. Such outpourings have always brought about a
refreshing, renewal and empowering of the spiritual lives of God’s people, and they
have given great impetus to the purpose of God in reaching non-believers with
the gospel through revived believers.
One example of such an outpouring was
recorded in his journal by David Brainerd who worked as a missionary to the
native Americans in the eastern parts of the USA. He recorded how revival broke out at
Crossweeksung, New Jersey in August 1745 in a community of native Americans among
whom he was working. In answer to Brainerd’s
many heart-burdened prayers and travail, the presence and power of God were
poured out among them like a rushing mighty wind, and they were all overwhelmed
by this. His diary entry for August 8th
reads thus:
‘The power of God seemed to descend
on the assembly “like a rushing mighty wind” and with an astonishing energy
bore all down before it. I stood amazed
at the influence that seized the audience almost universally and could compare
it to nothing more aptly than the irresistible force of a mighty
torrent... Almost all persons of all
ages were bowed down with concern together and scarcely any was able to
withstand the shock of this astonishing operation.’[1]
Similarly, Rees Howells related how the
Holy Spirit fell in revival power when he was working as a missionary in
Rusitu, Zimbabwe on October 10th, 1915:
‘The Sunday was October 10 – my birthday – and as I preached in the morning you could feel the Spirit coming on the congregation. In the evening down He came. I shall never forget it. He came upon a young girl, Kufase by name, who had fasted for three days under conviction that she was not ready for the Lord’s coming. As she prayed she broke down crying, and within five minutes the whole congregation were on their faces crying to God. Like lightning and thunder the power came down... Heaven had opened and there was no room to contain the blessing... We went on until late in the night; we couldn’t stop the meeting... You can never describe those meetings when the Holy Spirit comes down. I shall never forget the sound in the district that night – praying in every kraal.’[2]
It is this kind of strong and powerful outpouring of
the Holy Spirit upon God’s people that can radically change what may seem to be
a hopeless situation, in which spiritual darkness and bondage to sin are
dominating, controlling and destroying people’s lives. This
is why we need to seek and pray for revival, because it has the power to
overcome and break the grip which the forces of darkness have on human beings. As the following blogs will demonstrate, in such an outpouring the lives of believers are transformed,
renewed and empowered, and, in turn, just as ripples on a pond move outward from
the point of a pebble’s impact, this then gives rise to powerful change for
good in the surrounding society, as the effects of revival spread outward from
the Christian community.
THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All
rights reserved worldwide.
[1] http://www.evanwiggs.com/revival/history/1-1700.html,
accessed 08.03.2020.
[2] Grubb, N. Rees Howells: Intercessor,
Fort Washington: CLC, 1973, p.167.
