By Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis “The gospel, which was preached by me that it is not according to man. For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Galatians 1:11-12. We have already noticed the teaching of the Apostle Peter that the Spirit of Christ indwelt and controlled the prophets of old when they testified beforehand about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. This Spirit-testimony not only revealed the Son of God as suffering death on the cross when His hour had come, but, in the broadest sense, set forth Christ as being the theme of prophecy from the beginning of the world. By the Holy Spirit He inspired the preaching of His coming sacrificial death on the cross during the centuries preceding His manifestation to the world. Since this was the case before His suffering, there is no reason to think that after He ascended into heaven, He then committed the interpretation and proclamation of His crucifixion entirely to the wisdom of men. The apostles were eyewitness of His sufferings; but they were not left to preach what each may have thought to be the meaning of the cross, for we find, in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost, that the Third Person of the Blessed Holy Trinity, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, takes possession of the chosen band of witnesses to equip them for their work.

As with everything else, this also consists of various components. The aim with all of God’s salvation is to separate the noble from the ignoble. This is sanctification. It is a noble work to grieve over our own children’s sin, but the ignoble clings even to this work. This grief can consist of four parts: 1) pure love for the child’s salvation; 2) pure love for God and the gospel’s glory and effectual power; 3) grief over the fact that I have acquitted myself so badly; and 4) grief over the loss of my own honor, over the fact that I sink in other people’s eyes. The first three of these characteristics are noble, whereas the fourth must be separated out because it is selfish. By way of example, the mixture can consist of 15% love for the child’s salvation, 15% love for the honor of God and the gospel’s effectual power, 10% grief over having acquitted myself badly, and 60% honor-seeking. How shamefully wrong it is simply to assume that one’s care for our children’s salvation is completely noble! The same thing applies to our care for other people’s salvation. This care can be mixed with a zeal to relate that you have won so and so many souls so that you can thereby increase in other people’s eyes with the result that you can get a larger assembly and thereby increase in self-esteem. It can even be mixed with such a simple and vile thing as thinking about a large collection, a larger income, and the resulting greater earthly glory. “Pursue sanctification!”Elias Aslaksen