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::R5418 : page 79::

THE SPIRIT-BEGOTTEN IN THE HOLY

OUR ears and our tongue bring us many blessings and in general are grand servants. Nevertheless, sometimes they are difficult so to manage as not to be misleading. Fully half the difficulties everywhere are, apparently, the results of misunderstanding. God has been misunderstood, the Bible is misunderstood and preaching is misunderstood. We cannot wonder, then, that STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES and TABERNACLE SHADOWS and THE WATCH TOWER have been misunderstood. All that we can do is to restate matters afresh, hoping that our tongue or pen will serve us better, or that the eyes and the ears of our readers will serve them better.

BEGETTING THE TRANSFORMING POWER

Repeatedly we have endeavored to show that the begetting of the Holy Spirit, in the case of each individual Christian, is the transforming power by which he passes from the human nature to the new nature. This transfer is beautifully pictured in the Tabernacle types by the priest passing from the Court into the Holy. The Court represents, in the present time, the earthly condition of those who are approaching God, but have not yet made a full consecration of their lives to Him and His service.

When the step of consecration is taken, Jesus, acting as our great High Priest, imputes His merit to cover our deficiencies of the flesh, and forthwith presents us to the Father. Our consecration of the earthly nature is thus made acceptable, and in the Divine reckoning we are from that moment dead according to the flesh, but alive according to the spirit—begotten again, not with corruptible seed, but by the Spirit of God. All thus begotten are in the Holy in their relationship to God—that is to say, they are children of God, heirs of God. Thereafter they have the enlightenment of the Truth as represented by the Golden Lamp-stand with the seven burners; the spiritual food as represented in the Table of Shewbread, and the privileges of worship and prayer as represented in the Incense Altar.

This condition continues until the end of this Age, when a judgment, or testing, or distinction, will be made as between the most faithful, the Little Flock, the Royal Priesthood class, and the less faithful class of the Great Company—the latter thereafter being typed by the tribe of Levi.

In the new order of things, after the establishment of Messiah’s Kingdom, this distinction between the Church proper, joint-heirs with Christ, and the larger company of antitypical Levites, will be perpetual, and the services of the two will be different. The former will be a Priesthood corresponding to that of Melchizedek—a Priest upon His Throne. The work of the latter will correspond more to that accomplished by the Levites; namely, teaching the people, etc., as servants of the Priests, from whom they will receive their directions.

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— March 1, 1914 —