Things, of course, must be experimental as differing from merely doctrinal, theoretical. There must be experience and there must be experience in relation to the Holy Spirit; but in what way is experience safe? Well, let us remind ourselves of the New Testament position about this matter, that while the Holy Spirit's manifestation, coming, presence, activity in the New Testament was ever an experience on the part of those concerned, it was not just an experience, it was not an experience just in itself, something that they felt, something that they heard, something that broke in upon their senses; the experience was always related to a Person and that Person was the glorified Lord Jesus, and the experience always brought Christ glorified personally into evidence, so that their immediate, spontaneous expression was the glorifying of Jesus in word, in testimony, in life, in manner, in every way. Christ glorified came into evidence at that moment, and they did not go about saying that they had had some kind of beautiful sensation, emotion, high-tensioned experience; they went immediately to speak about the Lord Jesus. That is the only realm in which the experience is a right quest. We must always relate the Holy Spirit in every form and fragment of His activity, to the Person of the Lord Jesus, for that is where the New Testament makes the link. And so we must cease to seek for an experience in itself. We must seek for an expression, a manifestation, a glorifying of the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit as our experience.
