The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 219

XTentb Cbapter.

THE CHURCH OF

CHRIST.

XXXVI. The Church

of Christ. " It

is

the Spirit that beareth wit-

ness, because

truth."

We now proceed to discuss the in the

Church

work

of the

—

I

John

Holy

the

Spirit

is

v. 6.

Spirit

wrought

of Christ.

Altho the Son of God has had a Church in the earth from the beginning, yet the Scripture distinguishes between its manifestaAs the acorn, planted in the ground, tion before and after Christ.

through the two periods of germinating and and of growing upward and forming trunk and branches, even so the Church. At first hidden in the soil of Israel, wrapped in the swaddling-clothes of its national existence, it was only on the day of Pentecost that it was manifested in the world. Not that the Church was founded only on Pentecost; this would be a denial of the Old Covenant revelation, a falsification of the idea of Church, and an annihilation of God's election. We only say that on that day it became the Church for the world. And in it the Holy Spirit has wrought a very comprehensive exists, altho it passes

rooting,

work.

Not

God

its

formation, however, for that

in the divine decree; or, speaking

the

is

more

work

of the Triune

definitely, of Jesus the

King when He bought His people with His own blood. Indeed, the Spirit of

God regenerates

the elect,

not find in the world, but already in the Church.

whom He

does

Every represen-

Holy Spirit gathers the elect out of a lost world, and so brings them into the Church, opposes the Scripture's repre-

tation as tho the

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