Divine Manifestations

DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS

The word of God teaches with clearness and positiveness that God will manifest Himself to the humble and devoted Christian. "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him." "If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

Here it is promised that God will manifest Himself in some special way to His children, as He does not to men in general. This manifestation to the soul refers more to illumination and spiritual apprehension than to faith. "We will come unto him, and make our abode with him," is a promise which has its fulfillment in our Saviour's declaration: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." They shall have such a clear spiritual apprehension of the existence and presence of God as serves as a practical vision, and it is as if they saw Him with open sight. This is more than mere faith; it is one of the blessed results of faith. It is experience, knowledge, and assurance.

This manifestation is by the Holy Spirit, and implies a visit or baptism of the Holy Spirit. Christ said: "If I go, I will send the Comforter, and He shall abide in you." The abiding Spirit of God in a fully sanctified soul makes the soul as much a knower of salvation as a believer in salvation.

"Faith, Hope, and Love were questioned what they thought
Of future glories, which religion taught;
Now Faith believed it firmly to be true,
And Hope expected so to find it, too,
Love answered smiling with a conscious glow,
Believe! Expect! I know it to be so."

This seeing and knowing is not physical, is not of the body, but of the mind. It is not by natural vision, not by physical senses, but by the internal eye of spiritual perception. Without running into fanaticism or vagaries, it may be said there is an important sense in which we may see God. Christ said: "The world shall not see me, but ye shall see Me." He did not mean that He would come again during their lifetime, and they should see Him, but that He would so manifest Himself unto them that they should know that He was with them, and that they had personal interviews and communion with Him. Where two or three are gathered in His name, His promise is, "There am I in the midst of them," and He closed His great commission to His apostles with the declaration: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

Millions of saints have had a manifestation of Christ to them, and many can now truthfully declare they have communion with Christ and they have seen the Lord. There is a moral standpoint of spiritual vision where Christ is apprehended as "the King in His beauty," as "the Rose of Sharon," as "the Lily of the valley," as "the Chief among ten thousand," as "the brightness of the Father's glory," and as "Emmanuel, God with us." It is not needful to wait until we reach the throne to have something of a gaze at the charming glories of the God-man. These manifestations of God break the charm of the world and lead the soul to exclaim:

"Far from my heart be joys like these,
Now I have seen the Lord."

These baptisms of spiritual light and vision are highly important to Christian ministers, enabling them to preach the Gospel with faith, love, and power. Men filled with the Holy Spirit, with their convictions intensified by the power of God, and minds illuminated with the spiritual manifestations of the presence and love of Christ, will declare, like John, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." No man can preach the Gospel with efficient energy and in the demonstration of the Spirit without more or less manifestations of the divine presence. O what a joy to preach the blessed truth of God under the inspiring impressions made by these manifestations of the presence of Christ! It is a great calamity for a minister to lose the presence and power of Christ. All that such a man can say about the Gospel of Christ is cold and formal. He cannot preach as if he possessed, enjoyed, and knew the Lord. The Church needs a fuller baptism of experimental light and knowledge to lead a lost world to Christ. When God is sought with all the heart He will manifest Himself to His people in great power and glory. "Ye shall seek Me and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart."