"And yet it has seemed to me that there was a still deeper secret of Pentecost to be discovered.  The thought came that perhaps our conception of the Lord Jesus in heaven was limited.  We think of Him in the splendor, the glory of God's throne.  We also think of the unsearchable love that moved Him to give Himself for us.  But we forget too often that, above all, it is as the Crucified One He has His place on the throne of God. 'And, lo, in the midst of the throne...stood a Lamb as it had been slain' (Rev. 5:6).

"Yes, it is as the Crucified One that He is the object of the Father's eternal good pleasure and of the worship of the entire creation.  And it is, therefore, of the first importance that we here on earth should know and have experience of Him as the Crucified One, so that we may make men see what His nature and ours is, and what the power is that can make them partakers of salvation.

"The Cross is Christ's highest glory.  The Holy Spirit neither has done nor can do anything greater or more glorious than He did when He empowered Jesus to go to that cross: 'Christ...through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God' (Heb. 9:14).  In the same way, the Holy Spirit can do nothing greater or more glorious for us than to take us up into the fellowship of that Cross, and to work in us the same spirit of the Cross that was seen in our Lord Jesus. In a word, the question arose whether this was not the real reason why our prayers for the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit could not be answered, because we had sought too little to receive the Spirit, in order that we might know and become like the glorified Christ in the fellowship of His Cross.

"Is this not the deepest secret of Pentecost? The Spirit comes to us from the cross, where He strengthened Christ to offer Himself to God. He comes to us from the Father, who looked down with unspeakable good pleasure at the humiliation and obedience and self sacrifice of Christ, as the highest proof of His surrender to Him.  He comes from Christ, who through the cross was prepared to receive from the Father the fullness of the Spirit, that He might share it with the world. He comes to reveal Christ to our hearts, as the Lamb slain in the midst of the throne, so that we on earth may worship Him as they do in heaven.  He comes, chiefly, to impart to us the life of the crucified Christ, so that....