; to do for us "what the law
could not do in that it was weak through the flesh," and to become "the
end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." When in
turn Christ had completed his redemption-work by dying on the cross for
our sins, and rising again from the dead for our justification, and had
taken his place at God's right hand for perpetual intercession, _then_
the Holy Ghost came down to communicate and realize to the church the
finished work of Christ. {27} In a word, as God the Son fulfills to men
the work of God the Father, so God the Holy Ghost realizes to human
hearts the work of God the Son.

There is a holy deference, if we may so say, between the Persons of the
Trinity in regard to their respective ministries. When Christ was in
office on earth, the Father commends us to him, speaking from heaven and
saying: "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him"; when the Holy Ghost had
entered upon his earthly office, Christ commends us to him, speaking
again from heaven with sevenfold reiteration, saying: "He that hath an
ear, let him hear what _the Spirit_ saith unto the churches."[2] As each
Person refers us to the teaching of the other, so in like manner does
each in turn consummate the ministry of the other. Christ's words and
works were not his own, but his Father's: "The words which I speak unto
you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me he doeth
the works."[3] The Spirit's teaching and communications are not his own,
but Christ's: "Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide
you into all truth; _for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he
shall hear that shall he speak_; and he will show you things to come."
"_He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine and show it unto
you._"

This order in the ministries of the Persons of {28} the Godhead is so
fixed and eternal that we find it distinctly foreshadowed even in the
typical teaching of the Old Testament. Many speak slightingly of the
types, but they are as accurate as mathematics; they fix the sequence of
events in redemption as rigidly as the order of sunrise and noontide is
fixed in the heavens. Nowhere in tabernacle or in temple, shall we ever
find the laver placed before the altar. The altar is Calvary and the
laver is Pentecost; one stands for the sacrificial blood, the other for
the sanctifying Spirit. If any high priest were ignorantly to approach
the brazen laver without first hav