Luke 4:14-15 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.… Jesus returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. This is full of interest in every way. 1. As bringing up the question of Christ's Divinity. Can One who is Divine receive augmented powers? Especially can He from another co-equal Spirit? To this inquiry it may be replied that Christ's life on earth was the Divine circumscribed. The power of the Spirit that rested upon Christ brought forth no new elements, but it brought out the Divine element previously existing. 2. Interesting as a study of the life of Christ, it becomes even more so in its connection with ourselves — with the whole sphere and operation and possibilities of the human mind. A like experience will be traced in the apostles' lives. At the time of His death they were very little advanced, except in personal affection for Him, beyond Nicodemus, or other devout and spiritually-minded Jews. He had told them to stay in Jerusalem until some great change should come upon them. And He declared what that change should be — power from on high; the power of the Holy Ghost. And then came the Pentecostal experience. 3. We find traces in the early Church to show that there were those who received this special power over and above mere ordinary endowments. 4. In every age there have been those to whom these disclosures have been made, pre-eminently the case with John Wesley, who laboured years, as he regarded it, in bondage, and at last came out in the power of the Spirit. 5. Lastly, many now living are distinctly conscious that this same impulse, this same clothing of extraordinary power remains on earth. Men's faculties are telescopic. Used in their lower state they are, as it were, undrawn cut. They are capable of being brought to a condition in which they will be a hundred times more than in their ordinary condition. The consciousness of this transcends all other evidences of the Divine life. APPLICATION: Many of you are longing for the renewal of life. Here is the instrument of your power. This is what you need; this is what we all need — that higher life which comes by the Spirit of God. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. |
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