for himself--that "one new man," the
regenerate church, gathered out from both Jews and Gentiles during this
dispensation. For what is the rapture of the saints predicted by the
apostle when, at the sound of the trumpet and the resurrection of the
righteous dead, "we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air?" (1
Thess. 4: 17). It is the earthly Christ rising to meet the heavenly
Christ; the elect church, gathered in the Spirit and named _o
christos_, (1 Cor. 12: 12,) taken up to be united in glory with
"Christ, the Head of the church, himself the Saviour of the body" {206}
(Eph. 5: 23, R. V.). In the council at Jerusalem this is announced as
the distinctive work of the Spirit in this dispensation "to gather out
_a people for his name_." It was not by accident and as a term of
derision that the first believers received their name; but "the
disciples were divinely called _Christians_ first in Antioch" (Acts 11:
26). This was the name pre-ordained for them, that "honorable name" by
which they are called (James 2: 7). When, therefore, this
out-gathering shall have been accomplished, and _the people for his
name_ shall be completed, they will be translated to be one with him in
glory, as they were one with him in name, the Head taking the body to
himself, "as Christ also, the church" (Eph. 5: 29). And this
translation of the church is to be effected by the Holy Spirit who
dwells in her. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. 8:
11). It is not by acting upon the body of Christ from without, but by
energizing it from within, that the Holy Ghost will effect its
glorification. In a word, the Comforter, who on the day of Pentecost,
came down to form a body out of flesh, will at the _Parousia_ return to
heaven in that body, having fashioned it like unto the body of Christ,
that it may be presented to him "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing, . . . holy {207} and without blemish" (Eph. 5: 27). Is it
meant to be implied in what is here said that the Comforter is to leave
the world at the time of the advent, to return no more? By no means.
And yet what is meant needs to be very explicitly set forth.

A very able writer on the doctrine of the Spirit makes this remark, so
striking and yet so tru