“It is the Holy Spirit who supplies the bodily absence of Christ, and by Him doth He accomplish all His promises to the church.
Hence, some of the ancients call Him “Vicarium Christi,” “The vicar of Christ,” or Him who represents His person, and dischargeth His promised work: Operam navat Christo vicariam. (“He works vicariously for Christ”)
When our Lord Jesus was leaving the world, He gave His disciples command to “preach the gospel,” Mark 16:15, and to “disciple all nations” into the faith and profession thereof, Matt. 28:19.
For their encouragement herein, He promiseth His own presence with them in their whole work, wherever any of them should be called unto it, and that whilst He would have the gospel preached on the earth.
So saith He, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” or the consummation of all things, verse 20.
Immediately after He had thus spoken unto them, “while they beheld, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight,” and they “looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up,” Acts 1:9, 10.
Where now is the accomplishment of His promise that He would be with them unto the end of all things, which was the sole encouragement He gave them unto their great undertaking?
It may be that after this His triumphant ascension into heaven, to take possession of His kingdom and glory, He came again unto them, and made His abode with them.
“No,” saith Peter; “the heaven must receive Him until the times of restitution of all things,” Acts 3:21.
How, then, is this promise of His made good, which had such a peculiar respect unto the ministry and ministers of the gospel, that without it none can ever honestly or conscientiously engage in the dispensation of it, or expect the least success upon their so doing?
Besides, He had promised unto the church itself, that “wherever two or three were gathered together in His name, that He would be in the midst of them,” Matt. 18:19, 20.
Hereon do all their comforts and all their acceptance with God depend. I say, all these promises are perfectly fulfilled by His sending of the Holy Spirit.
In and by Him He is present with His disciples in their ministry and their assemblies.
And whenever Christ leaves the world, the church must do so too; for it is His presence alone which puts men into that condition, or invests them with that privilege: for so He saith, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” 2 Cor. 6:16; Lev. 26:12.
Their being the “people of God,” so as therewithal to be “the temple of the living God,”—that is, to be brought into a sacred church-state for His worship,—depends on His “dwelling in them and walking in them.”
And this He doth by His Spirit alone; for, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Cor. 3:16.
He, therefore, so far represents the person, and supplies the bodily absence of Christ, that on His presence the being of the church, the success of the ministry, and the edification of the whole, do absolutely depend.
And this, if anything in the whole gospel, deserves our serious consideration.
The Lord Jesus hath told us that His presence with us by His Spirit is better and more expedient for us than the continuance of His bodily presence.”
–John Owen, “The Holy Spirit ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 2 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 3: 193-194.
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