. This comes out very clearly in the context of the passage before us.
Jesus says in the seventh verse, R. V., of the chapter, "Nevertheless I
tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go
not away, the Comforter will not come _unto you_; but if I go, I will send
Him _unto you_." Then He goes on to say, "And when He is come (_unto
you_), He will convict the world of sin." That is, our Lord Jesus sends
the Holy Spirit unto us (unto believers), and when He is come unto us
believers, through us to whom He has come, He convinces the world. On the
Day of Pentecost, it was the Holy Spirit who convinced the 3,000 of sin,
but the Holy Spirit came to the group of believers and through them
convinced the outside world. As far as the Holy Scriptures definitely tell
us, the Holy Spirit has no Way of getting at the unsaved world except
through the agency of those who are already saved. Every conversion
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles was through the agency of men or
women already saved. Take, for example, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.
If there ever was a miraculous conversion, it was that. The glorified
Jesus appeared visibly to Saul on his way to Damascus, but before Saul
could come out clearly into the light as a saved man, human
instrumentality must be brought in. Saul prostrate on the ground cried to
the risen Christ asking what he must do, and the Lord told him to go into
Damascus and there it would be told him what he must do. And then Ananias,
"a certain disciple," was brought on the scene as the human
instrumentality through whom the Holy Spirit should do His work (cf. Acts
ix. 17; xxii. 16). Take the case of Cornelius. Here again was a most
remarkable conversion through supernatural agency. "_An angel_" appeared
to Cornelius, but the angel did not tell Cornelius what to do to be saved.
The angel rather said to Cornelius, "Send men to Joppa, and _call for
Simon_, whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words whereby _thou
and all thy house shall be saved_" (Acts xi. 13, 14). So we may go right
through the record of the conversions in the Acts of the Apostles and we
will see they were all effected through human instrumentality. How solemn,
how almost overwhelming, is the thought that the Holy Spirit has no way of
getting at the unsaved with His saving power except through the
instrumentality of us who are already Christians. If we realized that,
would we not be more careful to offer to the