Throughout this Book of the Revelation we find this remarkable expression, in which the Spirit of God is not spoken of as in His personal unity, but as in sevenfold variety. So at the beginning of the letter we find the salutation,' Grace and peace from Him which is, and was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before His Throne.' And again we read, in one of the letters to the churches: These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars'; the correspondence being marked between the number of each. And again we read in the earlier part of this same vision, in the preceding chapter, that before the throne there were seven torches flaming, which are the seven Spirits of God.' And so, again, in my text, we read, seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.'
Now it is obvious that there is not any question here of the personality and unity of the Divine Spirit, which is sufficiently recognised in other parts of the Apocalypse, such as the Spirit and the Bride say: "Come!"and the like; but that the thing before the Evangelist's mind is the variety of the operations and activities of that one Spirit.
And the number' seven,' of course, at once suggests the idea of perfection and completeness.
So that the thought emerges of the endless, boundless, manifoldness, and wonderful diversity of the operations of this great life-spirit that streams from Jesus Christ.
Think of the number of designations by which that Spirit is described in the New Testament. In regard to all that belongs to intellectual life, He is the Spirit of wisdom' and of illumination in the knowledge of Christ,' He is the Spirit of Truth.' In regard to all that belongs to the spiritual life, He is the Spirit of holiness,' the Spirit of liberty'; the Spirit of self-control, or as rendered in our Bible, of a sound mind'; the Spirit of love.' In regard to all that belongs to the practical life, He is the Spirit of counsel and of might,' the Spirit of power.' In regard to all that belongs to the religious life, He is the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry, Abba! Father!'; the Spirit of grace and of supplication,' the Spirit of life.' So over the whole round of man's capacity and nature, all his intellectual, moral, practical, and religious being, there are gifts which fit each side and each part of it.
Think of the variety of the symbols under which He is presented: the oil,' with its soft, gentle flow; the fire,' with its swift transmuting, purifying energy; the water, refreshing, fertilising, cleansing; the breath, quickening, vitalising, purifying the blood; the wind, gentle as the sigh of an infant, loud and mighty as a hurricane, sometimes scarcely lifting the leaves upon the tender spring herbage, sometimes laying the city low in a low place. It is various in manifestation, graduating through all degrees, applying to every side of human nature, capable of all functions that our weakness requires, helping our infirmities, making intercession for us and in us, with unutterable groanings, sealing and confirming our possession of His grace; searching the deep things of God and revealing them to us; guiding into all truth, freeing us from the law of sin and death. There are diversities of operation, but the same Spirit. It is protean, and takes every shape that our necessities require.
Think of all men's diverse weaknesses, miseries, sins, cravings--every one of them an open door through which God's grace may come; every one of them a form provided into which the rich molten ore of this golden Spirit may flow. Whatsoever a man needs, that he will find in the infinite variety of the spiritual help and strength which the Lamb slain is ready to give. It is like the old fable of the manna, which the Rabbis tell us tasted upon each lip precisely what each man chose. So this nourishment from above becomes to every man what each man requires. Water will take the shape of any vessel into which you choose to pour it; the Spirit of God assumes the form that is imposed upon it by our weaknesses and needs. And if you want to know the exhaustless variety of the seven Spirits which the Lamb gives, find out the multiplicity and measure, the manifoldness and the depth, of man's necessities, of weakness, of sorrow, and sin, and you will know how much the Spirit of God is able to bestow and still remain full and unexhausted.
