"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

" Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." -Romans 8:15 [KJV] The Spirit of God never was, never is, nor ever can be the Spirit of bondage to any soul. Some have asserted it, but it is a mistake. It is contrary to His name, the Comforter . He is a free Spirit, a Spirit of liberty to the soul. It is inconsistent with His office, He takes of the things of Christ, and shews them to us—testifies of Christ—brings us into the liberty of Christ— enables us to glory in the adoption of children, and to call God Father, in the faith of Christ.  When He convinces of sin, it is not to bring the soul into bondage, but to break the bondage of sin, of the law, of death, and of Satan, in the conscience, and to cast away the cords thereof, that the soul may be united to Christ by faith . In all this, He is the Comforter. What then is this Spirit of bondage? It is the Spirit of the law...

"That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." -John 17:21 [KJV] The apostle declares, "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (I Corinthians 6:17) . If, then, we are joined to the Lord, in other words, have a union with Him, this is the closest of all unions. A man and his wife are one flesh, but Jesus and the saint are one spirit. If possessed of this we are one spirit with Him; we understand what He says; we have the mind of Christ; we love what He loves, and hate what He hates. But out of this spiritual union flows communion with Him, intercourse with Him, communications from Him, and the whole of that divine work upon the heart whereby the two spirits become one.  The Spirit of Christ in His glorious Person and the Spirit of Christ in a believing heart meet together, and meeting together as two drops of rain running down a pane of ...

"Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him." -Isaiah 40:10 [KJV] The whole scope of prophecy, as referring to the person and offices of Christ, was comprised in the two great branches of "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." From everlasting, the work of Jesus was before Him. To His infinite and comprehensive mind, all that He had to do and to suffer for His church, was always in His view. He saw His church in all the glory and beauty that, in His comeliness, He would one day put upon her; He saw this before creation took place, when "His delights were with the sons of men;" and He saw His church also, in all the depths of guilt and pollution, into which, by apostacy, she would fall, and from whence He undertook to redeem her with His blood. Hence, "for the joy that was set before Him , " it is said, "He endured the cross, and despised the shame ; " and having, as well by His active...