for the maintenance of the Church, and communicated “for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body: of Christ, till we all come,” &c. But it is a revelation given to Christ, and communicated when the Church had begun to decay, instead of growing; and had need, in its severed compartments, at very best to be reproved or encouraged, as so looked at apart—as these several candlesticks,—the Son of Man interfering as the high priest, but judicially—a revelation given (not the Spirit communicated) when all this darkness and (in principle) apostasy had come in. Each one of these seems another thing, and less immediate than the promise in John already referred to (xiv. 20), “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”
There is the Sonship of Christ with the Father, in respect of which the Holy Ghost dwells in us—the Spirit of adoption and union, the Comforter—and looks up and places us before the Father even as He the Son is.
There is Christ, the head of the body, the exalted man (the first-born among many brethren)—in which character He receives the promise of the Father, and imparts it, as power for testimony.
