Before you begin your Bible study, as a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ, be sure you have named your sins privately to God the
Father.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
(Known, Unknown and Forgotten sins) (1Jn 1:9)
You will then be in fellowship with God, Filled with the
Holy Spirit and ready to learn Truth from the Word of God.
"God is spirit, and those who worship Him
must worship in Spirit and Truth," (Joh 4:24)
Spirituality
by Grace
WHAT IS
SPIRITUALITY?
There has
been much confusion regarding the subject of Spirituality. What is it that
makes a person “Spiritual”? Is it an experience which some Christians achieve
to a greater degree than others? Is it a stimulating feeling which produces an
ecstatic reaction? Should we try to imitate the experience of another great
believer in order to become Spiritual? What is Spirituality? What does the
Bible actually teach regarding this important subject?
Let me say at the very beginning that Spirituality is open
to all believers, just as Salvation is open to all humanity. It is not
an elusive and mysterious experience which some can have and which will set
them apart from other believers. Spirituality is just as available as is
Salvation. The Word of God is very specific as to what it is --- how to obtain
it and what it produces. In order to clear up the many misconceptions
concerning this subject, it will be necessary to understand what Spirituality
is not, as well as what it is.
In the broadest sense of the word, Spirituality is a
relationship with God the Holy Spirit, just as
Christianity is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. A person is a Christian, not because he is religious or
because of something he has done, but because he has received Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior through faith. (Gal 3:26)
At the moment you believe in Him, you enter into union with the Son of God, and
He dwells within us. (2Co 3:18) Christ
provided on the cross everything necessary for you to have this relationship
with Him.
From the time
of the original sin in the Garden, man has been separated from God. He is Spiritually dead; (Eph
2:1) and therefore can have no fellowship with Him. In order to bring man into fellowship and a FAMILY
relationship with Himself, the wages of sin,
(Spiritual death) must
be paid. As Jesus Christ hung on the cross. He was judged for every sin
in the human race — past, present and future; He bore them all in His own body.
(1Pe 2:24) He was separated from God
the Father and God the Holy Spirit by Spiritual death. (Mat 27:46) and thus paid in full the debt of
mankind. Only when His work was FINISHED did He die physically. (Joh 19:30) And
because He has done all the work, you and I can have an eternal relationship
with Him by simply receiving what He has done.
But as many as received Him, to them
He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His
name. (Joh
1:12)
Looking at
this relationship to Christ; from the standpoint of redemption. He has broken
the shackles of sin. We are no longer in the slave market of sin; we are now
free, even as Jesus Christ is free. From the standpoint of propitiation, the
Father was satisfied with what Jesus Christ did on the cross. From the
standpoint of reconciliation, the barrier is removed and we are now reconciled
to God. From the standpoint of expiation, Christ was judged for every sin we
have ever committed. From the standpoint of unlimited atonement, Christ died
for the sins of the entire world. (1Jn 2:2)
We might look at it from the standpoint of positional Truth or regeneration or
any one of the many other marvelous facets of Salvation. But regardless of how we look at it, we can summarize by
saying that Christianity is a relationship with the Person of Jesus Christ!
Now, in a
similar way, Spirituality is a relationship with God the Holy Spirit. It is the
ministry of God the Holy Spirit, Who indwells every believer at the moment of
Salvation, controlling or filling or occupying your life. Spirituality is
specifically Commanded in two passages: (Eph 5:18;
“...Be filled with the Spirit”; Gal 5:16)
“…walk by [By means of] the Spirit.”
SPIRITUALITY VERSUS BAPTISM AND INDWELLING
OF THE SPIRIT
Neither the
baptism nor the indwelling of the Holy Spirit are synonymous with Spirituality.
The baptism of the Spirit: is God the Holy Spirit taking the believer at the
moment of Salvation and putting him in union with Christ. (1Co 12:13) It is a once and for all action. (Col 2:12). “Indwelling” is God the Holy Spirit
coming to make His residence inside the believer at the moment of Salvation; (1Co 6:19; Gal 3:2)
and while He never leaves. He may or may not control the believers’ life.
Like the
baptism of the Spirit, indwelling cannot be experienced. We are never Commanded
in the Word of God to be either baptized or indwelt by the Spirit. We are never
told to make the Holy Spirit come within or that we should ask Him to come in. He indwells at the very moment we put our trust in Jesus
Christ. The Holy Spirit always indwells, and there will never be a time
when He does not! (Mat 28:19-20) But
the filling of the Spirit comes and goes. These distinctions are very
important. If you want to speak of Spirituality in other terms, Think of it as
the filling of the Spirit, because this phrase conforms to Bible nomenclature.
(Eph 5:18) We are Commanded to be
filled, habitually and constantly, with the Holy Spirit. When we are filled
with the Spirit, then, of course. He controls the life.
There is ONE act of indwelling; but there are
MANY acts of the filling of God the Spirit!
CONCEPTS OF
EXPERIENTIAL CHRISTIANITY
The
Absolute Concept. Spirituality is not a matter of degrees. We often hear it
said that some person is more Spiritual than another, or less Spiritual. The
implication is that some people have a greater degree of Spirituality than
others; but the Bible very definitely teaches that
Spirituality is an ABSOLUTE! We either have it, or we do not have it. We
are either 100 percent Spiritual, or we are not Spiritual at all! If we are
what might be said 99 percent Spiritual, (And there is no such thing) then we
are not Spiritual at all; we are carnal. Either
our life is controlled by God the Holy Spirit, or we are controlled by the old
sin nature. (Rom 8:7-8) There cannot be a dual control!
When the old
sin nature controls your life, you are carnal. When the Holy Spirit controls
your life, you are Spiritual. And at any particular point in your life either
the old sin nature controls or the Holy Spirit controls. There is no half and
half, or part and part. There is no such thing as being 5 percent, 50 percent
or even 95 percent Spiritual. You either have Spirituality or you do not. This
is what is meant by the fact that Spirituality is an absolute. We are either
Spiritual or we are carnal. We cannot be in between. The greatest step in
understanding Spirituality is to understand that there are no degrees of
Spirituality. The great difference in degrees is in
the matter of Christian growth. There are degrees of growth, but not of Spirituality.
The Growth
Concept. One of the greatest sources of confusion to the believer is the
fact that there is no Law and also grace, so we must understand what actually
constitutes growth and what constitutes Spirituality. While one very definitely
helps the other, each is entirely different in every aspect. Maturity, which is
the result of growth, is often mistaken for Spirituality; but we must understand that Spirituality is not maturity!
The instant we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord
and Savior, we are born into the family of God; (Joh
3:3; Gal 3:26) and we begin
the Christian life as “babies.” From then on, as long as we live on this earth,
we are Commanded to do two things: we are Commanded on the one hand to “be
filled with the Spirit,” (Eph 5:18)
and, on the other hand, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. (2Pe 3:18)
The issue of
Spirituality is that at any point in your life you are controlled either by God
the Holy Spirit or by the old sin nature. When you meet the Bible conditions,
you are filled with the Spirit. When you fail to meet
the Bible conditions, you are not filled with the Spirit, and you revert to a
carnal status. You either have Spirituality or you do not!
From the
standpoint of growth, believers fall into one of three categories: babies,
adolescents, or mature Christians. In one assembly, believers may range all the
way from babyhood to complete maturity. Furthermore, there are Spiritual babies
and carnal babies; (1Co 3:1-3; Heb 5:11-13) Spiritual adolescents and carnal
adolescents; Spiritual mature believers; (Heb 5:14)
and carnal mature believers. (Rom 7:14-24)
This is where the big problem lies. A baby, for example, has to be amused and
entertained. If I am teaching a more advanced passage of Scripture, I notice that the babies’ eyes begin to stray and their
minds begin to wander. The only way to bring
them back to the subject is to give them an illustration or a story.
Then, in other passages where a simple Truth is taught, we have their
attention, but the more "adult" believers
begin to tune out. So you see, in any particular group there are all
stages of growth and variations of interest. This also makes a great deal of
difference in our relationship with each other, since there are many things
which are not required of babies but which are required of mature believers. (1Co 8:9)
Growth in the
Christian life does not remain motionless. The Bible
clearly indicates progression and retrogression, as well as degrees of growth. As a baby should grow, so the great objective of Christian
experience is to get the one who is born again to grow! (2Co 5:20)
Dangers in
Christian Growth.
(1) To the
immature or infant believer. The infant mortality rate in the Christian life is
extremely high! The less a believer knows about the
Word of God and about Spirituality, the higher the infant mortality rate.
Too many are ignorant of their marvelous position in Christ; they are unaware
of all the Divine operating assets by which they could accomplish tremendous
things for the Lord. They are at a standstill, or may
even be retrogressing into Spiritual morons because of a misconception of
Spirituality and because older believers are missing the boat on “baby care”,
and how to get a baby started in the Lord.
So this
particular message is crucial — extremely crucial! The
objective is to provide a clear understanding as to exactly what you must do,
as a believer, to help other believers. We put
a great deal of emphasis on winning souls to Jesus Christ, and we should, for
the Word of God does; but the Word of God
puts an equal emphasis on helping believers to grow! (Heb 5:12-14; Heb
6:1-3)
(2) To
Spiritual adolescents. Adolescence in the Spiritual realm is probably the most
difficult period. Believers who have come out of the
baby-hood stage into adolescence have a LITTLE KNOWLEDGE, and one of the most
dangerous things in the world is a little knowledge of the Word of God! Once we begin to feel a little confident about what we know
of the Word, though it is just a little knowledge, there is often a tendency to
assume that we know everything! Such adolescents have often destroyed
the possibility of other babies growing and progressing.
(3) To mature
believers. After adolescence comes maturity; and although there are many ways
to distinguish maturity; (e.g., the “Edification Complex” of the soul) by way
of introduction, we will emphasize five words.
KNOWLEDGE.
While many believers are Spiritual, and have been Spiritual, and can be
Spiritual with very little understanding of the Word, maturity is different. In maturity you have one who has a maximum knowledge of the
Word of God — a COMPLETE knowledge of God's Thinking on EVERY SUBJECT! There can be no true application to experience
apart from Truth. So first of all, there must be a
maximum knowledge of the Word and the Doctrines of Scripture! This is
characteristic of maturity, but it is not Spirituality. It is possible to be
Spiritual without a great knowledge of the Word of God. A baby can be
Spiritual. As a matter of fact, when we are born into the family of God, we are
born Spiritual. But the first time we sin, that is the end of Spirituality.
There is a way to become Spiritual again by the application of, (1Jn 1:9)! But a
maximum knowledge of the Word has to do with maturity.
WISDOM. Wisdom is the application of Truth to experience
from the right lobe’s frame of reference. It is possible in many cases for one
to be Spiritual without having much wisdom because
of a lack of knowledge of Truth and or a failure to believe God's Thinking and
so to transfer it from the perceptive lobe of
the mind to the human spirit. The human spirit
is received at the point of Salvation and is the means of storing and using
Divine Thinking: Wisdom!
FAITH. A
mature believer is able habitually to mix the promises of God with faith. Faith
pulls in Truth we are learning so that we have inner resources in time of
pressure.
GRACE. From
eternity past, God’s plan for the believer can be summarized by this one word.
Grace is all that God is free to do for the believer on the basis of the work
of Christ on the Cross. Therefore, grace depends on
Who and What God Is! Never on who and what man
is, thinks or does! (Exod 33:19;
Rom 9:15-16) Therefore,
grace excludes all human merit, all human ability, and anything that can be
"Thought of" as meritorious on the part of man! (1Co 3:19-20) For the believer who functions
daily under Operation Z, (The grace apparatus for perception, provided for
believers for the intake of Truth) and who, through the ministry of the Holy
Spirit assimilates a maximum amount of Truth, grace
becomes more and more of a Divine Reality in OUR SOUL each day! (Isa 55:8-9) The fourth floor of the
edification complex, (Spiritual life) of the soul is grace orientation. Bible Truth in the right
lobe produces God's Viewpoint; and application of God's Thinking to life
produces Spiritual maturity. Therefore, a mature believer is always
grace-oriented. http://thinkingtruth.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/top-and-bottom-circles/
PRODUCTION. The mature believer
produces on a maximum scale. Now a baby can produce also. A newborn baby can
win another person to the Lord Jesus Christ; but production
on a large scale is the result of maturity. That is obvious. For
example, a child cannot take as much coal out of a pit as an adult. So it is in
the Christian life: all the way through there is an increased production which
goes with growth.
Hindrances
to Growth. (Heb 5:11-14) is our
first passage in introducing the subject of Spirituality. We are still in the
introduction of this tremendous subject. This passage looks at the Christian
life and experience from the standpoint of growth, not from the standpoint of
Spirituality. The concept of Spirituality will be studied later in, (Eph 5:1). Keep in mind that while the concepts
of growth and Spirituality are interlocking, they are entirely different.
In order to
integrate with the context, let us review a little background in the previous
chapter. First of all, in Chapter 1 of Hebrews, the glories of the Person of
Christ are presented. In Chapter 2, there is a warning about drifting from the
Person of Christ. In Chapter 3, we are told to give Christ first place; and the
means of so doing — the faith-rest life — is presented. Then, for the first
time in Chapter 5, advanced Truth is mentioned — the great Doctrine of the High
Priesthood of Christ! The author of the Book of Hebrews devotes ten verses to
this Doctrine, and then suddenly he stops! He realizes that these believers
cannot take it in because of their ignorance and carnality. He sees the
necessity of departing from this Doctrine for awhile in order to take up the
matter of their experience. That is where we pick up the subject.
Concerning him we have much to say, and it
is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. (Heb 5:11)
Now these
things in themselves are not hard to be explained. The marvelous flow of this
Truth as it is presented in, Chapters 7, 8 and 9 progresses easily and in
itself is not hard to “say” or understand. It is hard
to be explained when there is no positive response. This is the meaning
of the phrase in the Greek. “Hard to explain” means that you cannot take it in.
The writer says, “I would love to give you the rest of this Doctrine right now,
but I must stop. There is something we must straighten out first; there is advanced
work! Before we can grasp this glorious Doctrine that leads to maturity, we
must stop and recognize a hindrance to perception — a
lack of growth!
“Since you
have become dull of hearing,” or, more literally, ‘seeing ye have no ‘pusher’
in hearing.” The Greek for “dull” is “no push,” or “no desire.” There is no motivation and no desire to take in this
marvelous Doctrine. (Pro 27:7)
The Truth of the High Priesthood of the Person of Jesus Christ and the
priesthood of every believer is one of the greatest Doctrines in the Word of
God. Yet the writer has to digress and say, “Look, this
is a tremendous Truth which belongs to every Christian, but you have no
motivation and no desire to hear or to absorb it!” Verse 12 states the
problem:
For though by this time you ought
[OWE] to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the
elementary principles of the oracles [Thoughts] of God, and you have come to
need milk and not solid food.
“You ought to
be teachers” does not refer to the gift of teaching; it refers to a concept of
the Church Age which we might call, “passing it on.” Believers
who have been saved for a long time OWE to be sharing the Word with other
believers as well as with unbelievers. (Rom
1:14-16)
We owe to be passing on the marvelous Thinking;
that we have from Thinking with Mind of Christ. But
instead, “you have need again for someone to teach you
the elementary principles of the oracles of God...” The author of Hebrews is saying, “You need someone to teach
you the “ABC’s” of Truth — the simple Spiritual
Thoughts, the basic Thoughts! Just as I was
ready to go into a bit of calculus, I remembered that you didn’t know that one
plus one equals two! You have not learned simple arithmetic.”
Now, do you
see the picture? Here are people who have been believers for possibly ten years
or longer, a group of people who are born again, who are saved, who know Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior; yet they are still babies! Do
you understand the Concept here? This is not Concept Spirituality — this is Concept growth! They are Spiritual morons,
actually. The Bible calls them carnal Christians. We use the term “Spiritual
morons” because they have been born again for many years and they are still
babies. They have neither grown nor progressed, primarily for lack of
KNOWLEDGE!
Before they
can eat solid food, before they can get into this marvelous Truth, they
actually need, not solid food, but milk! They are going to have to be put on a
formula! Now, isn’t that tragic? They have been saved all these years, and they
still need to learn the ABC’s. You can see that if this were true of all
believers, there would be no impact for Christ, no production. Christians must grow up!
For everyone who partakes only of milk
is not accustomed to the Word of righteousness, for he is an infant. (Heb 5:13)
Maturity is tied into the Word. There are those who
have been believers for twenty-five years, yet are unskilled in the Word of
God! They still do not know straight up from straight down! Consequently, it
follows that they do not understand Spirituality. If
there is anything every believer needs to understand, it is Spirituality! We
need to get away from the idea that one person is more Spiritual than another.
There is no such thing! You are filled with the Spirit, or you are not! You are
not more or less Spiritual.
Even worse,
is the idea of Spirituality by works. What must I DO
to be Spiritual? So, people are doing certain things. We will elaborate on this
later, as well as on other common but false demonic thoughts of Spirituality.
They have confused the results with the means. This is one of the greatest
problems we face in the subject of Spirituality. True, Spirituality causes one
to grow faster; but the results of Spirituality are not the same as those of
maturity. Today there is a tremendous structure in the Christian way of life
and in the form of Christianity — even in fundamental Christianity — which
says, “I DO certain things; therefore, I am
Spiritual!” Or, “I am Spiritual because I DON’T do certain things.” Oh,
that Christians could truly understand what the Word of God teaches about
Spirituality!
But solid
food is for the [Spiritually] mature, who because of practice [Thinking with the Truth] have their senses [Spiritual Thinking] trained to discern [Distinguish between] good [God's Thinking] and evil.
[Satan's Thinking] (Heb
5:14)
Those who are of “full age’’ are those who have grown up;
Spiritually mature believers, those who can take in “solid food,” or advanced
Truth. Notice the word “practice.’’ “Practice” is application. “...By
reason of ‘application” have their Spiritual Thinking exercised to distinguish
between God's Thinking and Satan's thinking. “ Very few people can really
distinguish between good and evil. I am not talking about such basic things as
the Mosaic Law and other clearly declared passages of Scripture. I am not
talking about the black and white. I am talking about
the large mass of THOUGHTS in and about our lives that we face everyday which
are not directly covered by the Word of God. It takes Spiritual maturity to distinguish what is good
and what is evil in
this area!
ON TO
MATURITY!
(Heb 6:1-6)
Therefore leaving the elementary teaching
about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of
repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. (Heb 6:1)
The writer is
saying, “Look, you people, you have to grow up. You will never understand this
Truth of the High Priesthood until you mature. You
have to leave the ABC’s — you have to move on!”
Well, how are you going to leave them? More literally, the Greek says,
“Therefore, knowing what you are leaving.” This changes the aspect somewhat.
Many times we leave something, but do not know what we are leaving. But this is
to leave and to know what you are leaving. You know the ABC’s of the Truth of
Christ, so you should now “press on to maturity.” Keep moving toward maturity.
“Not laying
again the foundation...” The foundation is one plus one equals two; two plus
two equals four. It is listed here by six representative basic Doctrines. The
first one is called “repentance from dead works.” You
know, of course, that “repent” means a complete change of mental attitude.
“Let us change our minds about works which are dead.”
(Anything done by the power of the old sin nature)
The word “dead’” carries the idea of non-production.
There are works which are non-producing. There are things we do which cannot
and will not produce. They are human old sin nature thoughts and actions; and
count for nothing, as far as God is concerned.
The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life in
every detail! It cannot, therefore, be fulfilled
through any naturalistic power or through the talents and energy of the flesh.
(Joh 6:63) One of the great principles
of the Christian life is to love the brethren. Yet it is humanly impossible to
love all the brethren. I may go around and TRY to love the brethren; I may try
to be friendly with them; I may go out of my way to be nice to people I don’t
like. I can try and try — I can practice and practice, but it is only dead
works and produces nothing.
When my son,
who loves automobiles, was quite young, I noticed him go by my study window one
day with a gleam in his eye and a garden hose in his hand. When I saw that
gleam, I got up and moved rapidly, for he was moving right toward my automobile
in the driveway. I arrived on the scene just as he put his hand on the gas cap.
Now, why was I in such a hurry? I’ll tell you why! The carburetor is designed
to run on gas. If you fill the tank with water, it won’t go. It was a wonderful
piece of machinery; all the running parts were in perfect order. It rode
nicely; it was comfortable and pleasing to the eye. But a car will not run if
the tank is filled with water!
Nor is the
Christian life designed to run on “water.” It will not run when it is loaded
with the wrong thing. Our “carburetors,” given us at the new birth, must
operate on the proper fuel. The only means of
executing the Christian way of life is by God the Holy Spirit! You can
practice certain things, you can give up certain things, you can observe all
the local taboos, but none of these things makes you Spiritual. Too often an
older believer (Older in point of time — not in growth) pounces upon a new
Christian, a baby, and attacks him with certain taboos. He says, “You’ll never
get anywhere if you don’t give up this, if you don’t give up that!” There is a
great deal of difference between separation and tabooism. True separation is
UNTO GOD. True separation is the result of
Spirituality, the result of maturity, but
never, never the means. There are three conditions for the filling of
the Spirit, but giving up something is not one of them.
Now notice
again this “repentance from dead works.” It is the first inference relative to
Spirituality. I must change my mind about the means of getting Spirituality.
That is basic. I must change my mind about how to get back in fellowship with
the Lord when I sin. You see, getting back in fellowship does not involve
works. It involves confession — acknowledgment. How
many theories we hear regarding how to get back into fellowship — pray, ask God to give you a sorrow for your sins, weep over
your sins, then come down the aisle and rededicate your life! Experience, experience, experience! The Bible does not
say that any of these is the means of getting back into fellowship. The Bible
does say “confess,” “acknowledge” being out of fellowship. (1Jn 1:9)
Confession is restoration by grace. The others are restoration by works. God has provided
a means to get back into fellowship — not by works, but by grace. Every believer must decide once and for all: is the Bible
my STANDARD OF THINKING, or is personal
experience my standard? If the Bible is your
standard of Thinking, you are going to have an experience; the impact of which
will hit your city and the uttermost parts of the world! Now, I did not
say an emotional experience. Emotion is not in question here. When we get to
“Spirituality by ecstatics,” we will take up emotion. Emotion has a place; but Spirituality is the filling of GOD the Holy Spirit,
and not an ecstatic experience. We will never be
Spiritual, we will never be restored to fellowship, and we will never move or
grow up in the Christian life as long as we think that we do it! God has provided the Spiritual life for us!
The second
thing on the list about which to change our mind is “faith toward God” — the
mixing of the promises of God with faith; the faith-rest technique.
Third, (Heb 6:2) “the Doctrine of washings and
baptisms.” Note the plural “washings. “ There are seven different baptisms in the
Bible: the baptism of Moses; (1Co 10:2)
the baptism of John; (Joh 1:25-33) the
baptism of Jesus; (Mat 3:13-17) the
baptism of the Spirit; (Act 1:5; 1Co 12:13) water baptism for the believer; (Act 2:41) the baptism of fire; (Mat 3:11) the baptism of the cross. (Mar 10:38-39)
Fourth, the
Doctrine of the “laying on of hands.” This was another Doctrine of
identification which was used especially at this time.
Fifth, the
Truth of the “resurrection of the dead,” and sixth, understanding “eternal
judgment.” These are six representative ABC’s. It was just a list which was
particularly applicable to the Jews at the time who had come out of Judaism and
were going back to animal sacrifices. Do you remember what is first on the
list? “Repentance from dead works.” Why do I mention this? In the syntax of the
Greek, the entire list is not referred to again. That would be a waste of
words. Only the top item will be given. For example, the fruit of the Spirit is
“love” — the first in the list. There are passages of Scripture where “love”
actually refers to the whole list of the fruit of the Spirit. (cf. Gal 5:22-23 with, (1Co
13:1-8).
“And this will we do, if God permits.” (Heb 6:3) If God permits us as believers to
remain long enough in this life, we will learn Truth and grow up Spiritually on
the basis of, (2Pe 3:18). The length of
time the believer remains on this earth is determined by such factors as the
potential cause of death. There are several reasons for Christian death: your
work is finished; Divine discipline; glorification of Christ; superimposition
of your volition over God’s. (Suicide) Since it takes time to learn Truth, the
believer will accomplish the objective of growing up only if God’s will permits
him to remain long enough to do so.
For in the case of those who have once been
enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers
of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the
age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to
repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him
to open shame. (Heb 6:4-6)
This passage
is so clear in the Greek, it is astounding how confusing it has been made in
the English. It says in effect that under certain conditions of carnality and
legalism, such as those referred to in the latter half of verse 6, it is
impossible to take in even basic Truth. The key to understanding these three
verses is based on a point of Greek syntax in which the action of the aorist
participle precedes the action of the main verb. There are five aorist
participles here which precede the main verb, “It is impossible,”
(Actually a noun) plus the present active infinitive “to
renew again.’’ The subject of this long sentence is “for those who” — believers
of Jewish descent living in Jerusalem, who were previously characterized in
Hebrews 5 as “dull of hearing,’’ ignorant of basic
Truth, and “unskilful in the Word.”
Since the
participle precedes the action of the main verb, (Heb
6:4) should start, “Having fallen away, it is impossible...” This is
a key spot where the translators certainly went off the deep end. “For those
who were once enlightened” is in the aorist tense, and its Concept implies
“once and for all enlightened.” These are believers who once knew basic Truth,
but who through carnality have become ignorant. They have “tasted of the
heavenly gift,” again an aorist tense, indicating that they have once and for
all tasted of the heavenly gift.
“To taste”
here has often been construed as “taking a little sip,” and therefore it is
concluded that this could not be a believer. However, this same Greek word
occurs in, (Heb 2:9) in the same tense,
where it says, “Christ TASTED death for US.” Did He just take a little sip and
not go all the way? Certainly not! He went all the way! “Have tasted” in the
aorist tense is a point of time when the believer received Salvation. “The
heavenly gift” is the Person of Jesus Christ and or Salvation. (2Co 9:15) “And were made partakers, (Partners,
literally) with the Holy Spirit, (Aorist tense) in a point of time, (Salvation)
when the Holy Spirit indwelt the believer.
These
believers have “tasted” something else: “the good Word of God, and the powers
of the age to come.” Here we have an aorist middle participle: the aorist tense
gathers into one point every occasion when the believer has absorbed Truth or
has been filled with the Spirit. The middle voice
indicates that the believer is benefited by learning Truth and being filled
with the Spirit Two things have been tasted: “the good Word of God,’’
which refers to a pertinent part of the Word. In the past, these believers have
learned and applied certain Divine Thoughts. They have also tasted “the
powers,” that is, the manifestation of the power of the Spiritual life, “of the
age to come.” “The world” is literally “the age,” a reference to the Millennium
when Spirituality will reach an all-time high.
Now I want
you to get the main structure of the sentence: “Having fallen away, it is
impossible... To renew them again unto repentance.” These believers have fallen
away from something, but it is NOT Salvation. They cannot fall from Salvation.
Now to Him
who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence
of His glory blameless with great joy, to the
only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time
and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24-25)
To obtain an inheritance which is
imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time. (1Pe 1:4-5)
Remember, one
of the laws of the interpretation of Scripture is that the use of a word in
context is determined by the FIRST use of that word. Where do we find
“repentance” in context? Back in, (Heb 6:1)
“repentance from dead works.” Therefore, the word “repentance” is a reference
again to the list of the ABC’s. So, “having fallen
away, it is IMPOSSIBLE “TO TEACH THEM AGAIN,” to renew, (Restore) them again, “so
long as’ they...” Are doing something. (Ritual without Reality: Reading but not Thinking with God's
Thoughts! Luk 14:26-33) cf. (Heb 6:1-6) They are doing something that is
contrary to Truth and hinders their learning as well as their Spirituality and
keeps them from maturing. The “falling away” is describing believers out of
fellowship. The verb does not imply loss of Salvation from the Lake of Fire.
These believers of Jewish descent are committing two sins in Jerusalem which
hinder their interest and understanding of basic Truth. First, they are “crucifying the Son of God again.” These people are
going to the Temple, (It was still in existence) to offer animal sacrifices.
Now, what was wrong with that? These people are Christians; they have received
Christ as Savior; they “have tasted of the heavenly gift”; they know that Jesus
Christ died once and for all for their sins, and that it is no longer necessary
to bring animal sacrifices! They are probably doing it
to avoid persecution by the religious Jews. But
they are dabbling in shadows after they have received the Reality of God's New
Covenant Thoughts. The practice of Judaism was a
compromise with religion; and contrary to the Word of God.
We have here
the Doctrine of the High Priesthood of Christ and the priesthood of every
believer. As long as they continue their practice of offering animal
sacrifices, they are saying in effect that the sacrifice of Christ is not
efficacious, which was tantamount to blasphemy! They were not operating under
their true priesthood, but on a priesthood that is GONE! To continue in shadows
constituted both legalism and religionism, a practice which obscured basic Truth
and phased it out of the right lobe.
Secondly,
they “put Him to an open shame.” By their old sin
nature activity, they were exposing Christ to ignominy. Legalism and the practice of religion are the worst
deterrents to the maintenance of Truth in the right lobe and to moving toward
the goal of maturity!
THE GREAT
ISSUE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
The
Spiritual Believer Imitates God. Spirituality is a difficult subject to
launch into because so many people have a religious background. Most people have some pet area of holiness, some place where
they are so good it hurts, and they always run to that place when someone is
about to level with them. They have their
little fort of self- righteousness, and they get in their fort and start
shooting at everyone. (2Co 10:4)
We have to do a lot of growing to get away from
this! One of the best approaches to Spirituality is from, (Eph 5:1) because it is one of the great issues
in the Christian life; yet it is a Command that no
unbeliever or carnal believer can obey!
“Therefore be
imitators of God, as beloved children.” On the surface, it might appear that
anyone can obey this Command. Any carnal believer, any Spiritual moron can
RATIONALIZE his way through this Command. The King James Version leaves many
loopholes. The social action crowd think they are followers of God; the
liberals, left-wingers, anti-Semitics, those who beat the drums for world peace
and disarmament, those who have given up everything from bubble gum to wild
women think they are followers of God, In other words,
most people assume that anything they do, of which THEY approve, makes them a
follower of God!
But when you
see this verse in the Greek, the first thing you should be able to say to
yourself is, “I CAN’T DO IT!” That’s where
Spirituality starts. It begins with the principle
that it is something you and I cannot do! Human
energy, human ability, human ingenuity are totally incapable of Spirituality.
Like everything else in the Christian life, Spirituality is by grace, and this
means God has provided and we respond in a non-meritorious manner. Grace equals
God doing the work — Divine power ---Virtue --- good — and man receives it in a
non-meritorious way. Grace means that any believer
one degree above an idiot, all the way up to a genius, can be Spiritual.
It doesn’t require any great intellectual ability or any academic perspicacity.
“Therefore
be” is literally, “keep on becoming” — as long as you live in Phase Two, (The
Christian life) and this is a Command to all believers. Now the next word is
the real issue: “imitators” should be; “Keep on
becoming IMITATORS of God!” There is one thing you and I cannot do — we
cannot of ourselves become imitators of God. And yet when we are given a
Command to do something, the impossible becomes possible through grace. Grace always takes the hopeless and converts it into hope.
As members of
the family of God, we should bear the family resemblance. Whatever
characteristics and traits we had from physical birth, we now have a new set of
characteristics from Spiritual birth; and if we have normal growth and if we
have the erection of the “edification structure”;
(Completed Spiritual life in the soul) we will have a family resemblance! Christ, as God,
is the manifest Person of the Trinity; (Joh 1:18)
Christ, as humanity, set the pattern for the filling of the Spirit. He was
filled with the Spirit, (Heb 9:14)
during His entire life on earth. (Joh 3:34)
In order to imitate, we have to have a pattern, and therefore, we are to
imitate the manifest Person of the Godhead. This Command to imitate Christ can
only be executed by the filling of the Spirit. (Eph
3:16-17; Php 1:20-21)
(Eph 5:1) is the
Command to Spirituality! It will be repeated in, (Eph 5:18). To be imitators of God and to be
filled with the Spirit are two sides of the same coin. To see the other side of
the coin, we need to get the context, beginning at verse 14.
POTENTIAL
POWER
For this reason it says, "Awake,
sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you. (Eph 5:14)
It is just as
though half way through the fifth chapter of Ephesians, the writer, who has
been telling of the marvelous supernatural way of life, suddenly interrupts
himself and says, “Look, you have all this tremendous
equipment and you don’t know how to operate it. Wake up, (Rebound) and
find out how. Switch from negative to positive! Be
aroused toward Truth!’’ Occasionally you run
into Christians, who are positive toward Truth, but they can’t take it in; or
will not put Learning and Thinking with Truth FIRST PLACE in their life.
Being positive toward Truth is like wanting oxygen; it has to be available, and
you must have the mechanism for taking it in. The whole point of this first
analogy is to remind the believer that even though he may have a positive desire
for Truth, it won’t get the job done, unless he also has the filling of God the
Holy Spirit. This verse prepares us for the importance of the Command given in,
(Eph 5:18).
All Truth is
inhaled through the filling of the Spirit technique. Obviously, even though you
are positive toward Truth, and even though Bible Truth is available, it still
isn’t enough when you are out of fellowship and or not in LOVE, (AROUSED) WITH
GOD'S THINKING! The believer out of fellowship is not filled with the Spirit and
therefore he has two strikes against him: his carnality excludes the filling of
the Spirit and it hinders the intake of Truth.
“Arise from
the dead...” Of the different kinds of death mentioned in the Bible, this is
temporal death being out of fellowship through sin. It is quenching or grieving
the Holy Spirit. Indifference and apathy to Truth
results when the old sin nature controls the life.
“And Christ
will shine on you.” The light Christ gives is God the
Holy Spirit controlling the life from within. “But when He, the Spirit
of Truth, (God's Thinking) comes... He will glorify me.” (Joh 16:13-14) The light on the inside is not
your personality, it is not the way you look nor your human old sin nature
thought pattern — it is the Thinking and Virtue of God
the Holy Spirit controlling the inside Spiritual life and producing the
Spiritual nature of God in your soul. (2Pe 1:4) From
the standpoint of Spirituality, you project either light or darkness. The most
beautiful home in the world can appear drab and gloomy if the lights are all
out. All of the lovely gardens, the scenery, and the elegant settings are lost
if it is dark. But even the humblest type of dwelling takes on beauty when the
lights are on. What is the difference? Light! Turn
on the lights that is, God the Holy Spirit must control our life. The light is the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit animates the
Christian life.
Suppose you
have a perfectly beautiful television set studded with diamonds, emeralds and
rubies and made of the finest grained wood. When friends come into your home,
they admire it and exclaim, “My, what a beautiful TV set!” Then they sit down
to see a program, and you turn on this beautiful set. Flip, goes the switch,
but no picture! You try every station — still no picture. Your friends’
expletives fade. It is a beautiful set, but it does not work! Now, all of a
sudden, you think, “Oh, I know,’’ and you go around behind the television and
plug it into the electrical outlet. There has to be some power; it needs
electricity!
Just so, the Holy Spirit is the power Who projects the
Spiritually created Divine nature of the Person of Christ through your life and
mine! From the human viewpoint we can have beauty, personality and all
kinds of old sin nature human ability, but unless God the Holy Spirit controls
the inside, there is no power, no animation. I can hear one of your friends
say, after admiring your beautiful television set, (With no picture) I’m going
down the street where there is an old beat-up set. At least it has a picture on
it.” It doesn’t matter how beaten or “busted” up you
may be, humanly speaking; God the Holy Spirit will project through you the
nature of the Person of Christ. When the Holy
Spirit is projecting the nature of Christ from inside you, (At our growth level) — THAT
IS SPIRITUALITY! Hence, this passage Commands us to wake up to our need
of this Spirituality and Divine nature by which we operate in our Christian
life. “Awake, sleeper!” Why are we asleep? Because we do not understand that
the best electrical gadget in the world must be plugged in to get the
electricity to operate it. We have all of this equipment, but it will not operate
without power — the power of God the Holy Spirit!
“Therefore be
careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise.” (Eph 5:15) Every believer walks either as a fool
or as a wise man. He walks as a wise man if God the
Holy Spirit controls his life; in Thought and Virtue! Therefore, one of
the greatest issues, if not the greatest issue in the Christian life, is
Spirituality as over against carnality. The carnal Christian is a “fool”; the Spiritual Christian is a wise person and is walking
carefully; or, more literally, he is walking accurately. He is operating on the
power of God the Holy Spirit!
“Making the most of your time, because the days are evil.”
(Eph 5:16) The words “making the most
of your time” means to purchase or buy up. Do you know that the Christian is
the only one who can buy the most precious thing in the world? The wealthiest
unbeliever who ever lived can purchase many things with his money, but he
cannot purchase time! Christians, however, are Commanded to “buy up time,” to
keep buying time, because the days are evil. It is necessary in this evil
generation — in this intensified stage of the angelic conflict — to have those
who are filled with the Spirit. A Christian can “buy up time” only when he is
controlled by God the Holy Spirit. At the moment of Salvation we are given
unlimited capital to spend and spend and spend; but this capital does not buy
time apart from the filling of the Spirit.
“So then do
not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Eph 5:17) The filling of the Spirit is related
to the will of God. You will never know the will of God or do the will of God
until you are filled with the Spirit. How do you know the will of God? It is
defined by the teaching of Truth; but you cannot take in Truth unless you are
filled with the Spirit! (Joh 4:23-24) Once you
know the will of God, you must do it! But
doing it also requires the filling of the Spirit, because the will of God is humanly impossible to execute.
Everything you do in the Christian life depends on the filling of the Spirit!
A SUPERNATURAL LIFE DEMANDS A SUPERNATURAL WAY
TO LIVE IT!
THE DIVINE SOLUTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION! THE HUMAN OLD SIN NATURE SOLUTION IS NO SOLUTION!
“Unwise”
means “to be stupid.” And how does one become stupid? Simply by being minus
Truth and Virtue, which means you do not know the will of God; and by being
carnal, which means you are not filled with the Spirit!
The next
verse amplifies the will of God as far as our subject is concerned. It is a
Command to Spirituality; a Command to turn on the light!
THE COMMAND
TO SPIRITUALITY
“And be not
drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” (Eph 5:18) Why does the Bible forbid drunkenness?
Drunkenness is alcohol controlling the inner life and changing the character of
the person. He becomes something he wouldn’t ordinarily be. This sets up an
analogy between the physical and the Spiritual. As wine changes the thought
pattern, behavior, etc., so the filling of the
Spirit changes the Thought pattern and nature Spiritually — the first
for the worst, the latter for the better. On the
negative side, wine in excess on the inside becomes a controlling factor in the
life, removing inhibitions and becoming a basis for licentiousness and
escapism. On the positive side, the filling of
the Spirit becomes the basis for producing the nature of Christ on the inside.
(2Co 4:11)
“Be filled with the Spirit” is a Command to “be
habitually, constantly and repeatedly filled with the Spirit;” and since it is
a Command from God, it is not to a chosen few or to some super-duper class of
Christian. It is for every believer, without
exception. Spirituality is an experience: it is the experience of having
the light turned on inside. The days we are living in are evil — nighttime —
and the light is either going to be on or off. Every
time the light inside is on, God the Holy Spirit controls the life.
Any Christian
can be animated; any Christian can honor Christ. The secret of the Christian
life is POWER and MORE POWER! The plug must be in the outlet — the power must
be flowing through the line. Whether, humanly speaking, you are a Mr. Nobody or
a Mr. Somebody, when the power flows through, there is a tremendous impact
which enables you to be an effective representative of Jesus Christ here on
this earth. Before Christ left the earth to go back to the Father, He promised
that He would send the Comforter — God the Holy Spirit Who would indwell all
believers and Who would glorify Christ. “You will receive power...”; (Act 1:8) and that
power is God the Holy Spirit filling and controlling the believer.
Now, here is
the difficulty. This passage says nothing of HOW to be filled with the Spirit.
What is necessary to be filled with the Spirit? The filling of the Spirit is as
available to the believer today as Salvation is to the unbeliever, and it is
appropriated by the same means. Therefore, it is most important to know how we
can fulfill this Command to be filled with the Spirit, HOW?
HOW? HOW?
THE NEGATIVE
ASPECTS OF SPIRITUALITY
The answer is
in three parts — two negative and one positive answer. First, the two
negatives: “Quench not the Spirit; (1Th 5:19)
and “Grieve not the Spirit.” (Eph 4:30)
Now, immediately, these two negative conditions tell us we can do something NOT
to be Spiritual. But we will see in a minute that we
can do nothing, actually to BE Spiritual! What an amazing thing! We can
do something so as not to be Spiritual: we can grieve and quench the Spirit of
God. The context of these two passages indicates that grieving and quenching
the Spirit describe the activity of the old sin nature. “Grieving the Spirit” refers to sinning which stems from the area of
weakness of the old sin nature. “Quenching the
Spirit” is the production of reversionism and or human old sin nature good from
its area of strength.
From the
negative standpoint, we know that we are not Spiritual when we are sinning. As
a matter of fact, any sin in the life immediately destroys Spirituality and
causes us to revert to the other absolute in the Christian life, which is
carnality. It goes back to the important fact that at any particular point in our
life, we are either Spiritual or carnal. We are either filled with the Spirit
or we are grieving or quenching the Spirit. There is
no in between! It isn’t a little grieving or a little quenching the
Spirit. He is either quenched or grieved, or He fills and controls the life. It
isn’t five or ten or fifteen percent filled or quenched; it is either one
hundred percent filled or one hundred percent carnal. Now we are getting to the
heart of this matter. How can you fulfill the Commands, “Be filled with the Spirit”
and “Walk by means of the Spirit”? This is the most critical point in your
experience. The answer is so simple; yet it needs amplification. First, the two
negative answers: “Quench not and grieve not” the Spirit. Now, the positive
answer: rebound or restoration to fellowship.
THE POSITIVE
ASPECT OF SPIRITUALITY
Rebound.
The personal sins of the believer come from the area of weakness in the old sin
nature. Personal sin is the basis of getting out of fellowship, for the
believer is responsible for his own actions. (Sins) There is no place in the
Christian life for “operation patsy.” So the first basic concept in the
Christian life is to know how to get back in temporal fellowship with God when
we sin. We must understand how to be restored to the place of power, how to put
the plug back in the wall. If we do not understand that, we can wander around
in such ignorance that we become Spiritual morons, utterly useless for the
Lord. Hence, we must comprehend rebound, or (1Jn
1:9). It is the only way to get back into fellowship with the Lord.
There is no other way.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. http://thinkingtruth.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/topandbottomcircles.jpg
I like to
call this verse “rebound,” because it is the means of “picking up the ball” and
moving again in the Christian life. In a state of carnality, the Holy Spirit
does not control the life; consequently. He cannot work through us, and any
production is only human old sin nature good. Rebound
gets the sin out of the way; and until we sin again, we are filled with the
Spirit and produce Divine good. Human old sin nature good was not judged
at the cross; in fact, it was rejected. That means that the judgment of human
good is held in suspension until another time: for the unbeliever, at the last
judgment; (Rev 20:11-13) for the
believer, at the Judgment Seat of Christ. (2Co
5:10) Only that which was judged at the cross is involved in rebound
— and that is sin!
(1Jn 1:9)
is addressed to believers only, and the condition is CONFESS! The marvelous
thing about confession is that there are no works attached to it. Now, here is
a subtle danger. Even though you have confessed your sin, you may still feel
bad; you may have a guilty conscience. You begin to think that perhaps your sin
is not forgiven. Here is the key: you must believe
what the Word of God says! It is not how you
feel. No matter how great the guilt complex or guilt reaction, no matter what
pressure is upon you because of the wrong you have done, you must believe what
the Word says. This is an amazing factor. Here is a promise for the Christian,
the operation of which depends only upon believing it, regardless of how we
feel! Humanly speaking, we want to do something to make up for it, to
get things straightened out our own way. We feel we ought to work up a genuine
sorrow, and then we feel purified and cleansed. But, (1Jn 1:9) does not say, “If we work up a big
sorrow”; it does say, “If we confess it! And admit it to God! Confess it to Him
that we are out of fellowship.
Now looking
again at, (Eph 5:14) “Awake, sleeper,
And arise from the dead,” “Rising from the dead” is REBOUND! As we have said,
“death” here is temporal death — getting out of temporal fellowship through
sin. The only way to get back in fellowship is by rebound — by confessing our carnality; by standing on the Word of
God, that when you confess your sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive
us and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. “Arise from the dead!”
When you confess your sins, you are immediately cleansed and restored to a
position of fellowship with the Lord. If you are to be filled with the Spirit,
you must get back in fellowship with God when you have sinned!
It should be emphasized that confession was not given to
keep you from sinning. That comes as you grow
Spiritually through the daily intake of Truth and its application, or by
discipline, if necessary. Confession was given that you might have a
means of being restored to a proper relationship with God when you have sinned.
And this is based on grace alone, not on works!
Let us look
briefly at the context of, (1Jn 1:9) so
that we thoroughly understand the vital importance of confession.
TEMPORAL
FELLOWSHIP
“First John”
is called a general epistle; that is, it was not sent to just one person or one
church. Rather, it was circulated through many churches which had the same
problems in common. The first problem is introduced in verses 1-3 of Chapter 1
when John states his desire that believers should have fellowship with one
another and with the Father and with the Son. The fact that we have a
relationship with God was established in eternity past, and John writes this
book to give us an understanding of our eternal relationship with Jesus Christ,
as well as to help us maintain a temporal relationship with Him. As John
recalls the time when he was with the Lord during His incarnation, all of the
impressions that he had of the life of our Lord came back to him. He declares
emphatically that this Life was manifested, not only by what he saw the Lord
do, but by what he heard Him say. Therefore, he desires to pass along to all
believers this vital message that has as its basis the means of fellowship
between believers and between a believer and God. We
can only share in that fellowship through the Word of Truth.
What we have seen and heard we
proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed
our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things
we write, so that our joy may be made complete.
(Spiritual maturity) (1Jn 1:3-4)
“Fellowship” means
“love” — to
love through Truth. It is the exhale of Truth from soul to soul. (Mat 18:20) Believers have a deficiency in the
soul: “that your joy MAY BE FULL.” Although we have
One who loves us with a perfect love, we can respond to that love only through
Truth in the soul! The deficiency, then, is
lack of Truth, lack of ability to love God, and that means lack of happiness!
The more Truth we have and Think with, the more
happiness we will have because we can exhale toward God and respond to His
Virtue love, as well as exhale Virtue love toward others! The first
response toward God is faith-rest, which is then over time converted into
Virtue love.
No member of
the human race has anything in himself whereby he can love God. (Rom 5:5) We all start
out with Spiritual death, which makes loving God absolutely impossible!
Therefore, God had to make some provisions: first, Salvation; then from that
point on He provides Truth and the means of taking it in — the filling of the
Holy Spirit. (Joh 16:13) The constant inhale of Truth in the filling of the Spirit
and exhale response toward God means that you may have a fulfillment of the
happiness for which Virtue love is designed.
There are
certain things, however, which slow this down. You are going to have some
misunderstandings with God. These come from the old sin nature, which doesn’t
have “lungs” or apertures. It resents the fact that it
isn’t in the picture, so it comes up into the soul and intrudes with mental
attitude sins and functions on the right bank of the soul, which cause you to
look like any unbeliever. Immediately you are cut off from any response
to God and the “breathing” stops. “Artificial respiration” is necessary to get
the breathing going again — the “rebound technique,” whereby God the Holy
Spirit can control the life. Therefore, the important message John has for us
is simply this: it is impossible for a believer to have temporal fellowship
with God as long as he has un-confessed sin in his life.
This is the message (Truth) which we
have heard from Him, (This is the Word
of God) and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness
at all. (1Jn
1:5)
John develops
this idea by going back to the nature of God with Whom believers have a
relationship and fellowship. “God (The God-head) is light.” “God” and “light”
are not interchangeable terms; rather, it means that God has a nature or
character or essence that partakes of light. The idea
of light brings to mind the glory of God. (Rom
3:23) A more perfect word could not be
found to describe the sum total of His Divine essence, His absolute holiness --- INTEGRITY!
The meaning
is crystal clear in the Greek. You will notice that the passage does not say,
“God is THE light.” The definite article “the” is not there. Now, there is a
rule of Greek syntax that states when the definite article is absent before a
word, the quality or character of that word is emphasized. Therefore, this means that God has a nature that partakes
of light. (Divine Reality) Notice, too,
John goes on to say that no darkness whatsoever dwells in God. John uses the
term “darkness” many times in his Gospel as a state of evil or sinfulness. (Joh 3:19-21) Therefore,
just as light and darkness are incompatible, so also are God’s Holiness ---Integrity and sin.
(1Jn 1:6-10) each begin with the word “if,” which
introduces a third class condition in the Greek — maybe we will and maybe we
won’t. This indicates that temporal fellowship is optional: a believer, on the
basis of his own volition, makes a decision whether to rebound or not. There is
certain terminology used throughout the New Testament to describe the believer
in and out of temporal fellowship: (1)
IN FELLOWSHIP: “filled with God the Holy Spirit’’; (Eph
5:18) “walking in the Spirit”; (Gal
5:16) “cleansed.” (1Jn 1:9)
(2) OUT OF FELLOWSHIP: “carnal” (Rom 7:14;
1Co 3:1-3) “grieving the Spirit”; (Eph 4:30) “quenching the Spirit”; (1Th 5:19) “dead” (Rom
8:6; Rom 8:13; Eph 5:14; 1Ti 5:6;
Jas 1:15; Rev
3:1) “walking in darkness.” (1Jn 1:6)
(1Jn 1:6-10)
are conditional assertions, solved by “if we walk in the light,” and “if we
confess” actually two sides of the same coin. “Walking” indicates the actual
function of Phase Two. You have to do your own walking, and God has provided
the means of doing so: the provision of Truth, the techniques, and, in this
passage, the filling of God the Holy Spirit. That’s why we are Commanded to
“walk in (By means of) the Spirit,” (Gal 5:16)
to “walk in Truth,” (3Jn 1:3) etc.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him
and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice [Think with] the
Truth. (1Jn 1:6)
Believers who think they are Spiritual when they are merely
practicing asceticism, legalism, or some form of human old sin nature good or
morality, are living a lie. They and interpreting it as Spirituality.
This is described here as “walking in darkness.’ There are two areas of
darkness: being under the control of the old sin nature
and rejection of Truth. (God's Thinking)
If you are not
taking in the Word of Truth, you develop scar tissue on the left bank of the
soul; mental attitude sins produce scar tissue on the right bank of the soul,
and “mataiotes” (A vacuum) opens up
and lets in darkness. (Eph 4:17-18) The
old sin nature has a lust pattern that shoves darkness into the right lobe, and
both sin and human old sin nature good are evacuated through the sin nature.
Divine good is exhaled out the right bank of the soul; but if your soul is
clogged up with scar tissue, (Hardness of heart --- negitive to Truth) the only
thing you can do is to live through the old sin nature. Rebound does not remove
scar tissue, but it does prevent it. Where you have
scar tissue, rebound produces the filling of the Spirit so that you can start
the removal of it through the inhale of Truth. So (1Jn 1:6) is referring to a carnal believer with
scar tissue on the soul!
But if we walk in the Light as He
Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of
Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1Jn 1:7)
In contrast
to the carnal believer, the Spiritual believer walks in the light, “as He [God]
is in the light.” “Walking in the light” is responding to God’s love by means
of the filling of the Holy Spirit. So long as the believer does not step into
the state of darkness through sin, he is walking in the state of light and has
the joy of wonderful fellowship with other believers and with God Himself.
God found away, even though we still have an old sin
nature, for us to have fellowship with Him and with each other: “The love of
God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us.”
(Rom 5:5) This fellowship is based on
the “blood” of Jesus Christ. Yet this word is one of the most misunderstood
words in the Bible. The “blood of Christ” is always associated with Salvation
or the cross. It portrays four Doctrines of Soteriology: redemption; (Eph 1:7; 1Pe
1:18-19) justification; (Rom 5:9)
sanctification; (Heb 13:12) expiation.
(Rev 1:5)
The Analogy of the Blood.
In the Old Testament, the blood of the animal sacrifice portrays the cross and
anticipates it. Every passage in Scripture is literal unless there is something
in the passage to indicate that it is figurative and or Spiritual. However,
literal things are often used to indicate Spiritual factors. The analogies and
parables are obvious, so these present no problem. The
greatest misconception about the blood is that while it is literal blood, yet
the “blood of Christ” in the New Testament refers to one or sometimes all of
the Doctrines of Salvation. (Depending on the
context) He had literal blood, just as you and I; but wherever His blood
is mentioned in connection with the cross, it is referring to Salvation. There
was very little bleeding, actually. Whatever bleeding there was from His hands
and feet coagulated immediately. Therefore, He did not bleed to death on the
cross! This is easily substantiated, for a Roman soldier plunged a spear into
His side and out came blood and water. Had He bled to death, there would have
been no blood left to pour out. When He died physically, He did so by
dismissing His spirit, (Luk 23:46) not by bleeding to death!
The physical
death of Christ does not explain any passage which says that Christ died for
our sins. There was a death which preceded His physical death, a
substitutionary death. (Rom 5:8) A
physical death cannot be a substitutionary death. Adam died Spiritually first,
and this was the death which separated him from God. Therefore, the wages of
sin is Spiritual death. (Rom 6:23; Rom 5:12) “The blood of Christ” also refers to
the Spiritual death of Christ on the cross. (Isa
53:10-12) The “blood” is a representative analogy between the
physical death of animals in the Old Testament (The animal was symbolically
judged for the sins; but literally bled to death) and the Spiritual death of
Christ on the cross. (Jesus Christ in his human nature was literally judged for
our sins but did not bleed to death) The work of the blood of Christ is
twofold: (1) cleansing at the moment of
Salvation; (Eph 1:7) and (2) cleansing
of the carnal believer after Salvation. (1Jn 1:7-9)
When the sins
of the world were put on Christ and judged. He died Spiritually in His human
nature. The moment we accept Jesus Christ as our
Lord and Savior, our sins, past, present and future, are all forgiven
judicially, for Christ has already been judged for them. God is no longer an
enemy to us, but a loving heavenly Father!
For if while we were enemies we were
reconciled to God through the death (Spiritual death) of His Son, much more,
having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Resurrection life) (Rom 5:10)
Were it not
for the fact that the blood or Spiritual death of Jesus keeps on cleansing us
from all sin, it would be possible for us to commit some sin which had not been
paid for by the Spiritual death of Christ. This would bring the righteous
judgment of God down upon us, and we would go to the Lake of Fire. But by God’s
matchless grace, this can never happen. The phrase, “...the blood of Jesus His
Son cleanses us from all sin,” (1Jn 1:7)
anticipates, (1Jn 1:9). The word
“cleanse” is in the present tense in the Greek, which means that when we
confess our sins, they are always cleansed, and therefore our forgiveness is
certain.
False
Conclusions. Now, there is a danger that a Christian might jump to two
incorrect conclusions based on the fact that he has constant cleansing from
sin. These are stated in verses 8 and 10.
If we say that we have no sin, [Sin nature]
we are deceiving ourselves and the Truth [God's Thinking] is not in us. (1Jn 1:8)
Incorrect
conclusion No. 1: “Well, if all my sins
were washed away and paid for at the cross, then I no longer possess a sin
nature because that must have been eradicated, too.” However, John warns us
that if we believe this, we are only deceiving ourselves because God’s Word
clearly states that, although our sins have been judicially paid for, we still
retain our sin nature, which can tempt us to go contrary to God’s Word and
thereby destroy our fellowship with Him in time. (Rom
7:17-18) That’s why we have verse 9.
Before we go
to verse 9, let’s see incorrect conclusion No. 2: “Well, if all my sins are washed away at the
cross, then I no longer commit any personal acts of sin,” But . ..
If we
say that we have not sinned, (When we do sin)
we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us.
(1Jn 1:10)
My little children, I am writing these
things, (Spiritual Thoughts) to you so that you may
not sin. (Learn to stay in fellowship)
And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. (1Jn 2:1)
To conclude
that you have never sinned after Salvation is to call God a liar because He has
stated in His Word that we can still sin as believers and thereby become carnal
Christians. (1Co 3:1-3; Heb 12:1-2; 1Jn 2:1)
Since we still possess a sin nature and commit personal acts of sin, there must
be some way for these sins to be forgiven if we are ever to be restored to
fellowship with God. The recovery must be on a grace principle; and that brings
us to, (1Jn 1:9).
If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Restoration
to Fellowship. Just as God deals with man in grace in the matter of
Salvation, where man does nothing and God does everything, so He also treats us
in grace in the matter of restoration to fellowship.
All He asks of us when we sin is to want to be back in fellowship with Him, to
admit to Him that we have sinned. There is no room for human works in an
arrangement like this. Whether or not the believer rebounds depends on his own
volition acting in a non-meritorious way. The believer-priest has free will.
The Greek
word for confess (“Homologeo”) means
to cite a case as a judicial witness, to admit, to name, or to confess, in the
sense that you simply tell God the Father you are out of fellowship. “Citing”
means that you know your sins have already been judged. It is a legal term used
where a case is cited.
So “homologeo”
means to simply to admit what God already knows; that we are out of fellowship.
It does not mean to feel sorry for sin or to promise
better behavior. This way, God gets the credit and the glory for the
believer’s forgiveness. This is going to be a big shock to some of you because
you always thought you had to help God! You have tried
to work up a big sorrow for your sins, to make vows and promises that you would
never do it again. Some of you cling to the feeling that unless you feel badly
about your sins or truly feel sorry or do some kind of penance, you are not
really forgiven. That’s just as legalistic and out of phase with grace as
anything can be!
How you feel
about your sins when you name them is inconsequential.
It matters how God feels about them and what God does and has done about them
that counts! God says, “I don’t look at how you feel when you confess
your sins; I look at the courtroom where they were judged, and I don’t forgive
on the basis of feeling. I forgive on the basis of
justice!” So don’t stand around and wait until you can work up a
“sorrow” about your sin or until you can make some stupid promise. Some of you
will be out of fellowship for a long time!
God has found
a way to forgive you apart from your works. Feeling sorry for your sins is
works; renouncing your sins is works; going through some system of penance is
works; and there is no place for works in rebound, just as there is no place
for works in Salvation. Citing or naming your sin is compatible with grace.
In rebound, God does the work: God the Father did the judging of our
sins; (Isa 53:6) God the Son received the
judgment; (1Pe 2:24) God the Holy Spirit
discloses and fills. (Joh 16:13-15)
When you rebound, the Holy Spirit fills and controls your
Spiritual life. You can rebound because
Christ went to the cross and bore OUR sins. When we rebound, the Father can
forgive US because He was satisfied with the work of Christ on the cross! There are two places where people stumble over grace:
unbelievers stumble over simple faith for Salvation; believers stumble over
confession as the only means for forgiveness after Salvation. But grace always finds away, and is always compatible with
God’s essence!
God the
Father does the forgiving. “He, (God The Father) is
faithful...” He always does the same thing;
there is never a variation. No matter what the sin may be, when confessed, God
always forgives. It is impossible for God not
to forgive! The source of His faithfulness is Divine immutability plus
Divine love. In both Salvation and restoration to fellowship, everything
depends on the essence of God, not on the merit of man. Everything hinges on WHO AND WHAT GOD IS, never
on who and what we are! The believer does not earn or deserve
forgiveness; it is strictly a matter of grace!
“He is
faithful and righteous” — God is fair and righteous in forgiving the believer
when the believer simply names his known sins. How can a righteous God forgive
unrighteousness? He can do it and still be righteous
because the penalty of that sin was paid for at the cross. This is the
link between, (1Jn 1:7) and (1Jn 1:9). When the sins of the world were poured
out on Christ, God the Father judged those sins, past, present and future. The “blood of Christ’ is also the name of the court
trial. You are naming a sin which has already been judged. Under the Law of double jeopardy, you can’t be judged twice
for the same sin. So, because of the work of Christ, God is absolutely
right and fair in forgiving sins. In other words, God has found a way to
forgive us our sins and still be compatible with His own essence. His perfect
righteousness is not violated because it was satisfied when our sins were borne
on the cross.
Sins
Committed in ignorance. Now, you may be wondering, “But what about the sins
I commit in ignorance because I have not reached that point in Christian
maturity where I realize they are sins?” This question is answered in the last
half of verse 9: “and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” “Cleanse” is a technical
word here, which refers to the rebound offering of, (Lev 4:2-3) for unknown sins. The Greek word for
“unrighteousness” has the meaning of deceitfulness. These
sins deceive us because they are unknown to us. (Eph 4:22) But when we confess being out of
fellowship, God in His grace also cleanses us from ALL the sins we may have
done in ignorance. The slate is wiped clean, and we are restored to fellowship
with Him.
CONFESSION IS
THE ONLY MEANS THAT IS AVAILABLE TO RESTORE US TO FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD! Confession
does not pay the penalty of sin; that was done at the cross. Rather, it is the
means that God has provided for us to handle sin in our lives. The penalty of
sin is not the issue here, but whether or not we want to be restored to
fellowship with God on His terms.
To refuse to confess a sin is to say to God that we don’t
see anything wrong with going contrary to His will in committing it. And let’s
not kid ourselves — we sin willfully with a full
knowledge that we are going contrary to His Word.
Divine
Discipline. Someone may say, “Well, if confession restores me to
fellowship, why can’t I go out and live any way I want, just so I confess my
sins?” To answer this question, we must go to, (Heb
12:6-13). Divine discipline comes into the picture at this point: “
FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES.” (Heb
12:6) But this is not the discipline of a righteous judge which
condemns us to hell; it is the discipline of a loving Father who wants to
impress upon us the seriousness of sin and to bring us to the place of rebound.
Confession
turns the suffering caused by discipline into blessing. When God does not
remove the discipline after rebound, the cursing becomes blessing. It is far better to ride out the discipline in fellowship;
where we can see it from God’s way of Thinking and accept it. Otherwise
we will begin to feel sorry for ourselves, or we will become bitter and get
into chain sinning. (Heb 12:15) But
back in fellowship and filled with the Spirit, we can claim His promises (e.g.,
Rom 8:28; 1Pe
5:7), which produce peace while we are under suffering. This draws the attention of the unbelieving world and
brings glory to God and blessing to us!
ASSURANCE OF
SPIRITUALITY
One final
question may yet be asked: ‘’I believe that confession of sin restores me to
fellowship with God, but how do I know that I am also filled with the Holy
Spirit?” Let me answer this question by asking you one: Is it possible to have
fellowship with God and NOT be controlled by the Spirit? The Word of God
clearly teaches that we are either controlled by the flesh, (i.e., the sin
nature) or by the Holy Spirit; (Gal 5:16-18)
we are either Spiritual Christians or carnal; (1Co
3:1-3) that nothing the flesh can do is good in itself; (Rom 7:18) that we are not to live by the power
of the flesh, but by the power of the Holy Spirit; (Rom
8:4-7) that one thinking and living in
carnality cannot please God! (Rom 8:8)
From these passages and many others, we see that there is no middle ground. We are either carnal Christians controlled by our sin
natures, or we are Spiritual Christians
controlled by God the Holy Spirit. CONCLUSION: when we have no
unconfessed sin in our lives, the Holy Spirit is no longer quenched or grieved;
thus we are once again restored to fellowship with God and also controlled by
the Holy Spirit. THIS IS TRUE SPIRITUALITY,
and confession of sin is the only means of attaining it. You may feel ill
physically, you may have pressures all day long, but faith moves right through
and says, if you have fulfilled the Commands, “Do not quench the Spirit” (1Th 5:19) and “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit...”
(Eph 4:30) By using, (1Jn 1:9) then YOU ARE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.
You know that God the Holy Spirit is controlling your life; you know that you
are Spiritual because you have met God's conditions. When
there is no unconfessed sin in your life, you are in fellowship with the Lord
and you know that you are filled with the Spirit! (Gal 5:22-23)
THE PURPOSE
OF THE INDWELLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
There never was a day when we needed Christians living the
New Covenant Spiritual life as we do today. We
are certainly moving toward the end of the Age, if we are not already there!
The apostasy is tremendous!
The Christian way of life is the simplest thing in the
world, but we are trying to make something hard out of it. We are trying
to get some super-duper experience — an experience that no one else has had
which puts us on a little higher level. Yet it is the filling of the Spirit
that makes the difference. Just as God the Holy Spirit indwells every believer,
so He wants to control every believer; and when the Holy Spirit controls a
believer, He animates that life. The Holy Spirit produces something in that
life, and that production is the great test of the filling of the Spirit. To
get the complete picture, we need to understand the purpose of the indwelling
of the Spirit.
(1) To
Teach Truth. In John 16, Jesus had been discussing the time of His
departure. In, (Joh 16:12) He stops and
says to His disciples, “I have many more things, (Doctrines) to say to you...”
In fact, He hadn’t even begun to cover the ground. “But,” Jesus continued, “but
you cannot bear them now.” Literally, “you cannot take them in now.” These
disciples, who later on were able to grasp so much Truth, were not able to take
it in at this time. What little He was able to teach them regarding their
future in the Church Age is found in, John Chapters 14 through 17. But the many
other things Jesus wanted to say to them, which were so extremely important, are
found in the ENTIRE New Testament.
If you have
in your possession a Red Letter New Testament, my suggestion is to discard it.
The red letters are supposed to be the words of Jesus and therefore more
important than anything else in the Bible. The continuation of what Jesus had
to say was equally important, but impossible to say while He was on earth. If
we are to have a red letter Bible with the words of Jesus in red letters, we
must red-letter every word of the Epistles as well. In fact, the entire Scripture
is the “Mind of Christ.” (1Co 2:16) But at that time the disciples were
not yet able to take it in. The question is — why?
(Joh 16:13): “But when He, the Spirit of Truth,
comes, He will guide you into all the Truth...” The
Holy Spirit would be the One Who would teach them and Who would reveal the
Spiritual Thoughts that Jesus could not give the disciples. (cf. Joh 16:14) In their ignorance, they were not
ready for these Doctrines. When the Holy Spirit came
to indwell them on the Day of Pentecost, then they would be able to take in the
Spiritual Thinking of the Word of God. (1Co
2:12-13) Then men like Peter could declare the great message that he
gave that same day, as well as subsequent messages.
(2) To Teach
Prophecy. “...But whatever He hears, He
will speak: and He will disclose to you
what is to come.” (Joh 16:13)
(3) To
Glorify Christ. “For He, (God the Holy Spirit) will not speak on His own
initiative...” Here is a very important point: the Holy Spirit does not indwell
to teach about Himself. Now, skip down to, (Joh
16:14): “He will glorify Me. (Christ) It is the work of God the Holy
Spirit to glorify the Person of Jesus Christ. In order to get the whole
picture, look at, (Joh 7:38-39).
"He who believes in Me, as the
Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living
water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him
were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet
glorified. (Joh
7:38-39)
Why had the
Holy Spirit not yet come to permanently indwell Christ’s disciples? “Because
Jesus was not yet glorified.” Why was it that the Holy Spirit did not
permanently indwell every believer in the Old Testament and could be removed
from those He did empower? “Because Jesus was not yet glorified.” But after
Jesus was glorified, the Holy Spirit comes to make His permanent residence in
every believer.
(4) To Form a
Sanctuary, “Or do you not know that your body is a
temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in you, Whom you have from God, and that you
are not your own? ” (1Co 6:19)
You often hear the church building or the church auditorium referred to as the
“sanctuary.” But the Bible says that the “sanctuary” is the person who sits in
the auditorium, or in the house, or in the building. The
sanctuary is the body of the believer! Do you know what that means? It
means that this body is something that God has animated. (A individual Theocracy that God wants to rule in. Luk 10:9; Luk 17:21)
It means this body is the very basis of worship. It
means that something has happened to this body that makes it possible for it to
be a Temple and place of worship.
Once we
accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we no longer live for ourselves. (2Co 5:15) We no
longer belong to ourself. Our purpose in life has completely and radically
changed. We are now the Lord’s; we belong to Him. We are His ambassadors.
(2Co 5:20) Since He is in us and in
heaven; and we are here on this earth, we are to represent Him on this earth.
Now, how can I represent Him effectively? By means of God the Holy Spirit, Who
dwells within. I am a walking Temple, and so are
you. Every believer is a Temple. (Joh 2:19;
1Co 6:19)
This tells us
something else. You remember that God the Holy Spirit has a purpose — to
glorify Christ. He is going to do it from inside the
believer. Whatever in your life glorifies the
Lord Jesus Christ is the direct result of God the Holy Spirit and Truth
controlling your life! (Joh 4:23-24) We do not have the power in ourself to glorify God. (2Co 3:5) But there is
Someone inside every believer who has the power, and that Someone is God the
Holy Spirit! His purpose is to glorify the
Lord Jesus Christ, and HE DOES IT in and through you and me!
“For you have
been bought with a price...” (Here is Salvation through the work of Christ; and
when we accepted Christ as Savior, the Holy Spirit came to dwell within) ...Therefore glorify God in your body. (1Co 6:20) Why does this passage say “in your
body?” Because in your body and in my body dwells God the Holy Spirit. Think of it! God the Third Person of the Trinity dwells
inside you and inside me. Therefore, glorify God! His purpose for
indwelling is to glorify the Person of Jesus Christ.
(5) To
Fill the Believer. “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation,
but be filled with the Spirit.” (Eph 5:18)
Be filled constantly, habitually, repeatedly and
continuously! This is the secret; this is the animation that turns on
the light. Do you remember (Eph 5:14)?
“...Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.” A believer out of fellowship, a believer who is not filled
with the Spirit is temporally dead. He must
wake up! (REBOUND
AND BECOME HOT!!!; Rev 3:15-22) He is asleep! He is
apathetic! He is indifferent! He is not representing Jesus Christ as he should!
He cannot glorify the Person of Christ!
“Awake!” How
do I wake up? By being filled with the Spirit. “Turn on the light!” How is the
light turned on? The minute that God the Holy Spirit controls the life, the
light is turned on. The most beautiful home, or the most beautiful structure in
the world is a drab sight without light! The ugliest life in the world, the
worst or the meanest life, takes on beauty and animation when God the Holy
Spirit controls the inside. (Luk 14:26-33)
(6) To
Declare Christ.
“Being
manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with
ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on
tablets of human hearts.” (2Co 3:3)
The Christian
way of life is not in keeping the Mosaic Law; the
Christian way of life is executed by God the Holy Spirit filling and
controlling the life. When the believer is filled with the Spirit, the
Holy Spirit “writes” a letter to humanity from God, which declares, in effect,
to the unbeliever, “come to Christ; receive Him as
Lord and Savior!” And to the believer, to grow
to Spiritual maturity!
(7) To
Keep Out Demons. The indwelling Holy Spirit makes it impossible for the
believer to be demon possessed. He can be influenced by demons, but never
indwelt by them, even during the time he may be grieving or quenching the
Spirit. The only way the devil can get at believers is
through their negative volition toward Truth, which opens up the vacuum in the
soul through which false Satanic thinking can enter. (False twisted Biblical Truth of demons — 1Ti 4:1)
FALSE
CRITERIA FOR SPIRITUALITY
Now the
question arises, how can we tell when we are filled with the Spirit? How can we
detect Spirituality? There is a Biblical answer, but human speculation is
voluminous! So before we can answer the question of how to recognize true
Spirituality, we must first expose the false criteria.
Morality.
Many people are under the delusion that morality is
Spirituality. This does not hold water because the unbeliever doesn’t
have the indwelling of the Spirit; yet he is capable of morality. Both the
believer and the unbeliever are capable of being moral or immoral. The filling of the Spirit, or Spirituality, belongs to
believer ONLY! This should tell you that morality is not Spirituality.
People who think that morality is Spirituality are usually those who have been
taught that the Ten Commandments are the Christian way of life. Whatever sins
these people have, they are not sins of immorality. Many sins are not immoral.
So morality is not a manifestation of the filling of the Spirit. The Spirit-filled life has a glory that far exceeds mere morality!
Emotion.
As believers, we have been freed from the bondage of sin; we are no longer in
the slave market of sin. But we are still in bondage to a number of things. For
one thing, we are in bondage to our emotions. Many Christians “feel” their way
through the Christian life. They think they must have a certain feeling or the
experience is not valid. Many true and sincere
believers contend that the only way to recognize the filling of the Spirit is
by having an ecstatic experience.
However, just
as the standard for Salvation is never how you feel, so the criterion for
Spirituality is never emotion. Although some people have a tremendous emotional
reaction when they are saved, and there is nothing wrong with that, yet others
have no emotional reaction at all. Does this mean that the individual who has
not had the emotional reaction is not truly saved? Absolutely not! Salvation is
never determined by the presence or absence of ecstatics. Emotion, has a place
in life, (For appreciation of God and Truth)
but emotion is not the means nor the test nor the measure for either Salvation
or Spirituality.
We need to
remember that just as no two of us are alike physically, so none of us is alike
in the Christian life. The Christian life is illustrated in, (1Co 12:12) by the human body. No two members of the body are exactly the same. We
all have hands, eyes, joints, muscles, etc., but they are not identical.
Wouldn’t it be appalling if the human body were just a big ear? Or a nose? Or a
hand? A hand walking around would be a terrible thing! And yet, there are
people who do their best to try to get everyone in the Christian body, of which
we are all members, to be a “hand.” If they are a hand, they want everyone to
be a hand. If they are a nose, they want everyone to be a nose. Actually, these
people are saying, “If you are not a nose, you are not Spiritual. If you have
not sneezed, you are not Spiritual.” The Christian
life is a supernatural way of life demanding a supernatural means of execution!
Therefore, if we are going to fulfill that purpose for which the Lord
has left us on this earth, we must be controlled by the Spirit. The Christian life cannot be executed apart from the
filling of God the Holy Spirit. Now, there are Spiritual gifts, but they
have nothing to do with Spirituality, except that it takes the filling of the
Spirit to exercise all the Spiritual gifts. (1Co
12:6)
Facial
Expression or Superficial Hypocrisy. We also need to understand that a
long, sad face is not a manifestation of Spirituality. Spirituality cannot be
judged on the basis of facial expression. “If I crack a smile, I am not
Spiritual. If I seem to be enjoying life, I am not Spiritual.” Does
Christianity really guarantee that I am not to enjoy life that I must set my face
into a somber expression? Remember, every believer is representing the Person
of Jesus Christ. We are never Commanded to represent Him with a certain
expression, for the Spiritual life importance is the
inner life. (2Co 4:16)
When the Holy
Spirit controls the inside, there is animation not apathy or indifference or
that sad face which gives the impression that Christ is not sufficient. The
believer can be an advertisement that Christ is all in all to him; only when he
possesses that inner animation which comes from the filling of the Spirit. (Mat 23:26)
A Second
Blessing. Must you have a second blessing? Do you recognize the filling of
the Spirit by a so-called second blessing? A man once asked Dr. Lewis Sperry
Chafer if he had ever had the second blessing. With a twinkle in his eye, Dr.
Chafer replied, “You know, many years ago I had the second blessing.” The man
leaned forward and asked eagerly, “Yes? Did you speak in a heavenly language?’’
Then Dr. Chafer added, “But since then I’ve had the one millionth, two hundred
and seventy-five thousandth blessing!’’ Just imagine limiting the grace of God
to two blessings! What is this business of the “second blessing”? Are we once
and for all indwelt and filled with the Spirit after an ecstatic, post-Salvation
experience? We might have a tremendous emotional reaction, or none at all — it
depends upon the individual’s emotions; but one’s emotional reaction, or lack
of it, never cuts any ice in the Christian life. People who emphasize
experience to the exclusion of Truth are always a flop as far as representing
Christ is concerned. Imagine basing a whole life of
service, a whole life of impact for Christ on ONE experience!
Think of
trying to run a fine automobile for years and years on one tank of gas! There is
no such thing as a one-shot experience of any kind which will guarantee a
Spiritual giant. It is impossible for an experience to do such a thing. The
filling of the Spirit is to be constant, habitual, repeated and repeated, and
the means is by confession of sin — not an experience!
THE FRUIT OF
THE SPIRIT
Is it
necessary to recognize the filling of the Spirit? No, it is not necessary,
since, if you meet the Biblical conditions, you are filled with the Spirit,
whether you recognize it or not. As a matter of fact, you may not be able to
recognize it at first, or even to be conscious of it. You cannot judge
Spirituality by any overt activity. Now, don’t worry
about whether Divine impact in being produced. With the consistent use of
rebound, Divine impact will take care of itself!
Is it possible to recognize the filling of the Spirit by
the production of the Spirit, as defined in, (Gal 5:22-23)? If we are filled
with the Spirit; God the Holy Spirit will be producing these Virtues and
Thoughts in us; but we cannot say that we are filled with the Spirit
just because we THINK WE are producing them. You might be confusing the true
production of the Spirit with the many substitutes for animating one’s life
which are peddled today. There are many books on the
market on how to impress everyone with your personality, how to be animated,
and how to and develop a scintillating personality — forget them! There is a
Book which, though centuries old, has THE ONLY TRUE ANSWERS, (THOUGHTS) for every born-again
child of God — the Bible! The answer is
not in changing your personality. You are spinning
your wheels unless you discover that the answer is the control of Truth and the
Holy Spirit on the inside, not on improving the
outside. When God the Holy Spirit takes control
of your life. He produces the most marvelous miracle the world has ever seen!
“My little
children, (Addressed to the Galatian believers who were having so much trouble)
with whom I am again in labor, (Or we might translate it into the modern vernacular
— ‘whom I am sweating out’) until Christ be formed in you.” (Gal 4:19) Do you get the impact of these words? It is possible for the Thinking and Virtue of Jesus
Christ to be formed inside every believer! How can Christ be formed in
you? By reproducing the miracles that Jesus did? By following in the
“footsteps’ of Jesus? No! The answer is found in the next chapter, (Gal 5:22-23). This is the great miracle of
Christian experience. This is something that animates the Christian life and
makes it incredible to those who behold.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control; against such things there is no Law.
When you are
filled with the Spirit, these nine characteristics become true in your life.
Notice, the Scripture says the “fruit” or the production of the SPIRIT. It is
not the fruits of discipline, the fruits of practice, the fruits of our works —
it is the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT! It is that which God the Holy Spirit produces, and God the
Holy Spirit produces the very Spiritual life of the Incarnate Christ.
The first
item on the list is “love.” (Rom 5:5)
This is not the ordinary type of love. It is the Greek word, “agape” — actually
a relaxed mental attitude toward others, minus mental attitude sins. It is the
love of, (1Co 13:1-8) and (1Jn 4:7-21).
This is the love that does not discriminate, the
love that is fair to all, and the love that gives itself to the unlovely as
well as to the lovely, to the unattractive as well as to the attractive. It is
the love that Christ has for humanity, when we read, “He had compassion on the
multitudes.” (Mat 15:32) That compassion was expressed at the cross. “We love him
because he first loved US! (1Jn 4:19)
This is supernatural love. (Virtue love) This Divine
love fulfils the Old and New Covenants and turns the world upside down.
(Mat 22:36-40; Act 17:6) This is the
love that warms Christian fellowship. This is the love that destroys all
personality conflicts, all antagonistic attitudes, all of the apathy and
indifference. This is the love that animates
Christianity. This is the love people see and say, “I want Jesus Christ. If
Jesus Christ can do that, I want that in my life!”
What does Virtue love produce?
(1) Love produces characteristics which are self-ward, first
of all: joy, an inner HAPPINESS which nothing on the outside can disturb,
whether it is suffering or success; and peace, an inner mental STABILITY in all
situations in life. (Joh 16:33)
(2) Outward or neighbor-ward characteristics: long-suffering, a
RELAXED ATTITUDE toward the human race; the avoidance of judging, maligning and
gossiping. Long-suffering completely eliminates the problems of relationship
with other members of the human race. Gentleness, THINKING GRACE; a mental
attitude of giving others the benefit of the doubt. Goodness, the OVERT
ACTIVITY OF GRACE; e.g., to forgive as Christ forgave. (Col 3:13)
(3) Upward or
God-ward characteristics: Faithfulness, (Literally) the operation of the
FAITH-REST technique; the application of Bible Truth to experience.
Gentleness,, a MENTAL ATTITUDE OF GRACE with regard to Divine provision not
self-effacement. It is recognition of the fact that we earn or deserve nothing
from God at any time. “Self-control,” includes the DISCIPLINES of life, such as
proper use of time.
The nine
characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit coexist, though they may not all be
manifest at the same time. They are “standing by,” just as the characteristics
of God’s essence are always present, but are not necessarily manifest at the
same moment. Of course, the more Spiritually mature
the believer, the more he is consistently filled with the Spirit and the more
consistently he manifests the fruit of the Spirit.
“Against such there is no Law.” Why? Because this is a supernatural plane that transcends any
and every other Law! (Mat 17:24-27)
When God the Holy Spirit controls the life, the
Virtue love of Christ is produced and the world cannot resist the impact of His
nature. (2Pe 1:4)
THE CARNAL
BELIEVER IMITATES THE UNBELIEVER
One of the keys to understanding Spirituality is that when
you as a believer get out of fellowship for any length of time, you imitate the
unbeliever. (Php 3:18-19) Perhaps as high as eighty percent of believers today are
living just as they would live if they were unbelievers. They are moral, religious or immoral, just as they would be
as an unbeliever. This runs counter to the grain today because we are
getting the worst bit of tripe in Christian literature we have ever had. For
example: “If you are a Christian, you ought to be living a nearly perfect life.
There are certain sins you could never commit if you were a Christian.” Well, I
have news for you — there isn’t any sin you can’t commit as a Christian! This is a very serious problem today because people do not
Spiritually Think WITH the Mind of Christ. They are looking at the Christian
life entirely from EXPERIENCE. Both the believer and the unbeliever have
an old sin nature; so obviously, when the believer is
controlled by the sin nature, he is going to act exactly like the unbeliever.
Yet believers are blubbering about victorious
Christian living and mountain-top experiences through one-shot decisions; they
are throwing faggots on the fire for dedication and rededication; they are
practicing some system of legalism, moral degeneracy and or tabooism or some
type of ecstatics or asceticism, such as fasting or agonizing in a closet; and
they think they are living the Christian way of life, when in reality they are
carnal believers imitating the unbeliever. Look at, (1Co 3:1-3)
And I, brethren, could not speak to
you as to Spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I
gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive
it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since
there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not
walking like mere men? (1Co 3:1-3)
In, (1Co 3:1) Paul is not saying that he did not have
the ability to speak, but that the Corinthians could not take it in because of
their carnality. No communicator in the world can
communicate one c.c. of Truth unless the recipients are filled with the Spirit!
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is absolutely
essential to the teaching of the Word of God! They had to be fed with
“milk” (1Co 3:2) — very elementary
Truth — because of their persistent carnality. Whether
they were producing sins from the area of weakness of the sin nature or human
old sin nature good from the area of strength, they were imitating the
unbeliever. This was a case where believers did
not use the rebound technique, and the old sin nature became “set,” as it were.
The Holy Spirit was continually grieved and quenched, and the old sin nature
controlled the life without a break.
This
principle applies to believers who do not use rebound or who are ignorant of
rebound, who are negative toward Truth and live their entire lives in
carnality. There is no way you can tell whether these
believers are saved or not. They are not necessarily the “town drunk”
type; they may be the most religious people in town. The
idea that only moral people are saved and immoral people are lost is ridiculous
and non-Biblical. Some of the worst offenders in the field of carnality
are the religious, legalistic types. Saul of Tarsus was the worst sinner who
ever lived because he was saturated with religion. (1Ti
1:15)
“...But as to
men of flesh . . . .” Because they were out on the town? Because they were
alcoholics? No! “For you are still
fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly,
and are you not walking like mere men?” — mental
attitude sins! In persistent carnality, they “are walking, (And or thinking as unbelievers). (1Co 3:3) This is their
consistent pattern of life. They walk according to the thinking of the unbeliever.
(Rom 12:2) They are saved, but they are
not living under the control of the Spirit. (Gal
5:15-21) cf. (Gal 5:22-23)
This describes the pattern: that both believers and unbelievers are thinking with the same
thoughts. (Isa
65:2) Believers who are persistent
in their carnality are not only imitating the unbeliever, but they don’t show
any family resemblance. They are in union with Christ, but they manifest no
evidence of it. However, you have to be careful on this matter of “evidence.”
You may think you are showing evidence that you are in the family of God
because you are moral or self-righteous, when all you are doing is showing the
pride of the devil. You are actually imitating “cosmos
diabolicus.” (Satan's system of thinking)
THE BELIEVER FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT
CANNOT SIN UNDER THE STATUS OF SPIRITUALITY
You must make
the decision as to who or what is going to control your life the Holy Spirit or the old sin nature. It is impossible for a person
to sin who is under the control of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, and
therefore does not sponsor sin or solicit to sin. He is not the Author of sin
and does not condone it. If you cannot sin while filled with the Holy Spirit,
how, then, do you lose the filling of the Spirit? There
are two ways: through sins of ignorance in which the volition is involved,
though you are not aware of what you are doing; and through sins of cognizance
whereby, from your own volition you succumb to temptation. Once you
succumb, the temptation becomes a sin and you come under the control of the sin
nature. There are three sources of temptation: the world; (False values and
thinking) the flesh; (The old sin nature; lust of the eyes; lust of the flesh;
and the pride of life) and Satan; (Demonic false Truth). It is not sinful to be tempted. As long as you maintain the
filling of the Spirit, you are not sinning.
However,
there are sins you commit of which you are ignorant; unknown — sins. These put
you out of fellowship as well as the known sins. You went positive toward the
temptation — known or unknown — and through negative volition to the Holy
Spirit, you are out of fellowship, (Bottom circle) and under status quo
carnality. Once you succumb to the temptation, you come under the control of
the sin nature and you commit the sin. Positive volition toward God;
(Confession) gets you back in fellowship and under the control of the Holy
Spirit.
You can do
something to get out, but, compatible with grace, you DO nothing to get back
in. Just as, “For by grace you have been saved through faith;” so “by
confession are you restored through rebound.” This is not saying you can’t sin
as a Christian; it means you can’t sin when you are filled with the Spirit.
THIS IS A PRINCIPLE! We have all sinned, but not while we were filled with the
Spirit. You cannot do both at the same time. The Principle is so close to our
experience, we want to apply it before we get the Divine Thought, and we miss
the boat! The point is when you are filled with the Spirit, you can't sin; and
when you’re under the control of the sin nature, you are not filled with the
Spirit. There is no difference between the carnal believer and the unbeliever
as far as control of the old sin nature is concerned. He is in the “top
circle,” but out of the “bottom circle.” Top And Bottom Circles.jpg
The one who practices
sin (Living out of fellowship) is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the
beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of
the devil. (1Jn
3:8)
No one who is born of God practices
sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of
God. (1Jn
3:9)
By this the
children of God and the children of the devil
are obvious: anyone who does not
practice righteousness, (By staying in fellowship) is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. (1Jn 3:10)
“ The one who
practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.” (1Jn 3:8) When the old sin nature controls the
unbeliever, that is simply a part of the devil’s system — cosmos diabolicus. But when the believer gets out of the control of the Spirit,
he has moved into the devil’s world, and to that extent, he is in the same
bracket with the unbeliever and is the devil’s evangelist. Both are imitating
the devil. The one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned
from the beginning. “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, (First
advent of Christ) to destroy the works of the devil.’’ (1Jn 3:8) On the cross,
Christ provided the basis for getting out from under the control of the sin
nature. Through Salvation, the believer is given something greater than
the sin nature — God the Holy Spirit — by which he
may have victory over the sin nature.
“No one who
is born of God, (In fellowship with God) practices sin, because His seed,
(Spiritual life) abides in him; and he cannot sin, (In fellowship) because he
is born of God.” (In fellowship with God) (1Jn 3:9)
“Practices”
means that in the point of time when you are controlled by the Holy Spirit, you
are not doing sin. “For his seed abides in him, (In this context, the Spiritual
life: as a seed produces, so the Spiritual life produces Divine Virtue) and he
cannot sin, (He is able not to sin while controlled
by the Holy Spirit) because he is born of God (In fellowship with God).”
The Holy Spirit is God and therefore could never sin; it is totally
incompatible with His Divine nature. Only ignorance of
a certain sin or negative volition at the point of temptation can break the
control of the Holy Spirit. Grace found a way to overcome the bondage of
the old sin nature, which is summarized in Principle by the phrase, “cannot
sin.” Every creature must live according to his own nature. To be born of God
means to live in union with Christ under the indwelling of the Spirit in a
permanent relationship with the Father in the family of God. This means we have
to take on the nature of God, and this can be done only by the Holy Spirit. (2Pe 1:4) The Divine
nature of God is manifested through the filling of the Spirit! Believers
can walk as either children of light or children of darkness. In regeneration
we carry the life of God which cannot sin; but we also carry over the
unregenerate old sin nature which can only sin and produce human old sin nature
good; therefore, there is an inner struggle in the believer. By his own volition, he can choose to move under the control
of the sin nature and therefore imitate the unbeliever; and thereby he produces
both sins and dead works.
RESULTS OF
SPIRITUALITY
Glorification
of Christ. Everything in the Christian life which honors the Lord has only
one source God the Holy Spirit! Nothing good is produced in the Christian life
apart from the work and power of the Holy Spirit. We have previously seen the
reason for His indwelling, and also the reason why the New Covenant permanent
indwelling was never true before the Day of Pentecost: “The Holy Spirit was not
yet given permanently because Christ was not yet glorified.’’ (Joh 7:39) All of the worship, all of the
activity under the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament was designed with one thing
in mind — to point to Christ. But Christ was not yet glorified. The God-Man had
to go to the cross; He had to die; He had to rise from the dead; He had to
ascend, to enter into the presence of the Father and be seated before He was
glorified as the God-Man. And once Jesus Christ was
glorified, then God the Holy Spirit could permanently indwell every believer.
Now that the
glorified Christ is absent from the earth, every believer is left on earth for
the express purpose of glorying Jesus Christ. Your life as a Christian can be
reduced to one factor: you are here to honor and to glorify Jesus Christ! You
can now glorify Him because He is glorified. It is
impossible for the energy of the flesh — human
talents, human abilities, human powers and human activity — to glorify the Person of Christ! God the Holy Spirit DOES; when He empowers the inner man.
(Eph 3:16) Now, do you see how this
applies? There are two things which every believer must understand or he will
never move for the Lord: he must understand how to handle the sin problem, for when he is out of temporal fellowship he is powerless
and useless, as well as under discipline; and he must understand how to
be filled with the Spirit.
The amazing thing about so many believers today is that they
have never heard that there is a means of fulfilling the Christian life. Some understand experientially that it is humanly
impossible to execute the Commands and injunctions of the Word of God, but they
are ignorant of the remedy. They are, therefore, incapable of glorifying
the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. (Rom 7:18)
There is only one issue at the beginning of experiential Christianity — how can
you be filled with the Spirit?
Many
Christian parents are going to be utterly shocked some day to find their
children suddenly antagonistic to Christian things, turning their backs on the
Bible, and even heading down the road toward juvenile delinquency. The reason is too often that parents have put so much
emphasis on the taboos without teaching the children the means of fulfilling
the Christian life. I have talked with many such young people who,
almost without exception, admit to defeat when they tried to live the Christian
life. They had heard the “taboos” all their lives, but once they had gotten
away from parental influence, had ceased to observe them. The mental attitudes
expressed by most of these people was, “Oh, I got tired of that nonsense. I
want to have some fun now.” I always ask these young people, “Do you know how
to be filled with the Spirit?” Their answers are almost invariably, “No!” Some
do not so much as know there is a Holy Spirit.
So, I say to
Christian parents, if you do not start teaching your children how to be filled
with the Spirit, you can try to enforce taboos until you are exhausted, and
they may observe them in front of you; but when they get out from under your
wing, there is likely to be a complete breakdown. The
Word of Truth is the only protection for the Christian child, and the first
Truth they must know is how to rebound; and that is HOW to be filled with God
the Holy Spirit!
Fulfillment
of the Law. God has designed something on earth to reflect the glory, the
perfection and the grace of our position; and the immediate reflection is the
filling of God the Holy Spirit. Since the filling of the Spirit is inside the
believer, it is challenged by the old sin nature.
(Rom 8:2-4) brings into focus the filling of the
Spirit versus the Law of the sin nature. There is a conflicting set of Laws
operating inside the believer: the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
and the Law of sin and death. (cf. Gal 5:16-17)
For the Law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, (The Spiritual life) has set
you free from the Law of sin and of death. (The Old Covenant) For what the Law
could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in
the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might
be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according
to the flesh, (By the old sin nature) but according to the Spirit. (Rom 8:2-4)
It is often
true that believers were nicer people before they were saved. So we have a
right to ask, “What happens?” The answer is quite simple: before a person
accepts Christ as Savior, there is no contest. The old sin nature ruled the
roost. Whatever the person was — pleasant, nice, phony, and hypocritical —
there was no challenge. Any restraint upon sin came from fear of the repercussions.
In addition to that, the unbeliever who is trying to get to heaven by his own
works is going to keep up his human old sin nature good column. Society will look at this person and say, “Very nice; very
wonderful!”
Now, when he
becomes a believer, the fears that restrained sin are removed. Often he will go through a period of unrestrained sin or
carnality because he knows he has eternal life, regardless. He no longer
runs scared. During this period, although he is permanently indwelt by the
Spirit, the old sin nature controls his life and the
Spirit is quenched. Not until we take in enough
Truth can we reach a place of stability and grace orientation in our life.
Truth has to replace human restraints in our Thinking.
(1Co 2:16)
If the carnal
or baby believer never understands the Truth of the two Laws and how to operate
under the Law of the Spirit of life, he can never begin to move in Phase Two. He is going to operate under the Law of the old sin nature,
and without the restraint of fear, he will get into unrestrained sin and will
actually become worse than before he was saved. (2Pe 2:20-22) Furthermore, the misery factor
enters in, which always triggers guilt in the soul, and guilt begins to work in
all facets of the soul until a guilt complex is built up. This is followed by a reaction to the “wild oats” period, and
being minus Truth, he goes into self-righteousness or religious activity. The only way to get out of this bracket is to get positive
to Truth and to stay with it.
Even though
we as believers are no longer under the Mosaic Law, we operate under Law — either the Law of the filling of the Spirit or the Law of the old sin nature. These Laws are a set
of Principles inside the believer which are combined into a norm or standard. The first Law is the New Covenant Law of the Spirit
— a reference to God the Third Person of the Trinity
and the Thinking of Christ. The “Spirit of
life indicates the Spiritual life as a function. The Holy Spirit indwells us so
that He can control us and enable us to function under the plan of God, the
grace of God and the life of God.
This Law of
the Spirit is “in Christ Jesus,” which goes back to positional Truth of, (Rom 8:1). The indwelling of the Holy Spirit
indicates the power and the glory of our position in Christ. Notice what this
Law does: it has made us free! We have
freedom to function under His plan from our own volition — not someone else’s.
Every believer is a priest; and as priests, believers
have privacy to live their lives as unto the Lord and not as unto people. (Rom 14:4; Rom 14:10) If God gives us
the privacy to live as unto Him, He also makes provision for it. God is not
easily satisfied. God is perfect, and He demands
perfection. Yet we are going to find the verb “to please’’ in this
passage. Grace has found a way to provide something whereby we can meet His
standards and please Him! This provision is God the
Holy Spirit empowering the Spiritual life; and the believer Thinking with God's
PERFECT THOUGHTS! The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life,
and He has provided ALL the supernatural means of executing it!
In this sense, we are set free. All the freedom is
directed toward God and not toward SIN. People often think that since they are
now saved and can’t lose their Salvation, they are free to go out and raise
“hell,’’ as they have always desired to do. So they say, “Goodbye, God, I’ll
see you in heaven!” However, God has provided a way for you to serve Him and honor
Him and to reach the place where you have the reflected glory of an edification
complex, (Spiritual life) in your soul. But in this passage, since the believer
is just starting out, the filling of the Spirit shines through positional Truth
— your relationship with Christ.
When people first catch on to rebound, they often think that
this gives them a license to sin. If you think that, you are looking in the
wrong direction. Instead of looking at sin, you must look in the
direction of God, for rebound gives you a license to
serve the Lord. Inevitably, people are going to misunderstand and
distort grace. “The Law of sin and death” refers to the Mosaic Law, but it is
not the Christian way of life. “For what the Law could not do... ” (Rom 8:3). The Mosaic Law can do certain things
for the human race. It can give people norms and standards; it can teach by its
norms and standards that you are a sinner. It also
proves that we are helpless and hopeless to save ourself or to MAKE THE SIN
NATURE HOLY! You cannot gain the approbation of
God by your human old sin nature good. The Law shows that you have a problem;
but the Law can’t do anything about the problem. Nor was it ever designed to
produce Spirituality. Since it is on the outside, it cannot do for you
what the Holy Spirit, Who is on the inside, can do. Why can the Law not help
you? Something weakened it: “...In that
it was weak through the flesh, (The old sin nature).”
The sin nature prevents the POSSIBILITY of fulfilling the Mosaic Law!
“God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh [NO SIN
NATURE] and
as an offering for sin, (Sin offering) He condemned sin in the flesh.” The first advent of Christ makes it possible for the Law
of the Spirit of life to exist. No one was
filled with the New Covenant Spiritual life in the Old Testament; there was no
such thing as the universal permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit until
Christ came in the flesh, went to the cross and was subsequently glorified.
(Joh 7:39)
In His humanity, He was in the “LIKENESS of sinful flesh.” He was without a sin
nature, imputed sin, and without ANY personal sin! His Divine Person, (I AM) had a human
spirit, human soul and a human body. He came “for a sin offering.” (Literally a body prepared) (Heb 10:5-10) Christ
is the sin offering that satisfied the righteousness and justice of God:
Father, Son and Spirit! Every righteous and holy demand that God had on
the human race was satisfied by the sin offering, and therefore, God is now
free under His own plan to love us and still be consistent with HIS ESSENCE. (INTEGRITY
AND HOLINESS) Essence of God.jpg
In, (Rom 8:4) all three Laws are brought together.
“So that the righteousness of the Law, (The perfect standard demanded by the
Law) might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but
according to the Spirit.” The old sin nature
frustrates the demands of the Mosaic Law. The
New Covenant Law of the Spirit fills the deficiency created by the Law of the
old sin nature. Jesus Christ fulfilled the
Law by ALWAYS living in the Spiritual life and by dying for our sins! We fulfill the Law by staying filled with God the Spirit.
But whether or not the Experiential righteousness demanded by the Law is
actually fulfilled, depends on the use of the rebound technique and the
subsequent filling of the Spirit. In other words, the POWER of our walk lies in
the ministry of the Holy Spirit; but the CHOICE of our walk resides in us — in
our volition with regard to rebound. The believer can
choose to operate under the Law of carnality or
under the New Covenant Law of grace in Spirituality.
The Enemy
to Spirituality. In, (Rom 8:5-8) we
have the great enemy to Spirituality — the thought
pattern of the old sin nature; thinking according to the standard of the sin
nature: “For those, (Carnal believers) who are according to the flesh,
(In carnality) set their minds on the things, (Thoughts) of the flesh; but they
that are after the Spirit the things (Spiritual Thoughts) of the Spirit.” (Rom 8:5) From the
thinking in the old sin nature comes thought pattern sins: hatred, jealousy,
self-pity, egoism, religion, legalism, worldly and empty chatter, human and
satanic false realities, implacability, mental fornication, etc. (Mat 15:18-20; Rom
14:23) Christians have the tendency to
excuse the sins of the mind and think they are Spiritual because they do not
commit overt sins. (Rom 2:1)
They put on a phony, self-righteous facade of asceticism,
but inside they are full of mental attitude sins. (Mat 23:25) The
emphasis in Christianity is what you Spiritually Think! Christianity is not a system of ethics or morals; it is a dynamic, vital life, determined by what you THINK
WITH: God's Thinking or satanic and human thinking! (1Co 3:18-20)
The sin nature has an area of strength, which causes people
to interpret activities of human old sin nature good as the Christian way of
life. (2Ti
3:5) What
does an old sin nature good thought pattern say? “What we need is to love everybody. Or, “socialism is of God — we must have the greatest good for the greatest number,” (Which has been a gimmick leading to slavery throughout human
history) But these are human viewpoint thoughts
straight from the sin nature and cosmos diabolicus. (Satan's world system of
false thinking)
In the sin nature is also a lust pattern —
approbation lust, power lust, sex lust, etc. Lust for approbation is one of the
greatest enemies of Spirituality. For example, doing things around the church
so that people will tell you how good you are or what a great Christian you
are. But as long as you are doing anything for the praise of man, you are
always off balance, and you will never know what’s the matter. You are thinking the thoughts of the old sin nature. (Rom 8:7-8)
“But those who are according to the Spirit, the things,
(Thoughts) of the
Spirit.” Their Spiritual Thought pattern is
Divine Viewpoint; (GOD'S REALITY!) it is the Virtue love toward others which has no mental
attitude sins; it is serving as unto the Lord
and not for the praise of men; it is inner happiness and inner peace! (1Jn 3:16)
“For the mind set on the flesh, (A thought pattern controlled by the sin nature) is death; (Temporal death — out of fellowship, cut off
from God, and or out of the bottom circle) but
the mind set on the Spirit is life, (Spiritually Thinking with God's Word filled with God the
Holy Spirit) e.g. (Life in the bottom circle; life in the filling of the
Spirit; the Spiritual life which reflects our position in Christ) and peace, (The opposite of
having a mental attitude thinking with satanic and human realities and or sins;
a relaxed mental attitude).” (Rom 8:6)
You don’t need some great experience, you don’t need
to rededicate your life or to reaffirm your faith. These are all substitutes
for rebound and the filling of the Spirit.
“Because the mind set
on the flesh, (Old sin nature thinking) is hostile toward God... ” (Rom 8:7) The thought pattern of the
believer becomes the enemy of God when he is out of fellowship. Perhaps you understand that mental attitude sins are against
God; but when you think you have to do something to help God, that you must
have a certain experience to be Spiritual, that you must go through some
activity or ritual, that you must have an emotional or ecstatic experience,
then you are just as much at enmity with God as at any time you are committing
mental attitude or overt sins. These experiences
glorify self, and there is no place in the plan of God for glorifying self! (Gal 5:4)
“…For it, (The thinking of
the old sin nature) does not subject itself to
the Law of God, (The Spiritual Thinking of God; 1Co 2:12-14) for it is
not even able to do so.” It, (Human old sin nature thinking) does not take its orders from God, but from the sin nature!
The mental attitude of the believer out of fellowship
makes it IMPOSSIBLE for him to be in the will of God or to Spiritually Think
and do the will of God! He is not in the place from where we receive our
orders — the “Law of the Spirit” — the Word of God! He is
living by his emotions or by some system of ecstatics or experience, and
therefore he is not in obedience to the Word of God. Such believers are off
balance all their lives — always seeking, always
looking, but never finding. They run from person to person, asking,
“What’s the secret, what’s the answer?”
“So then, (In
conclusion) those who are in the flesh, (In temporal death;
carnality)
cannot please God.” (Rom 8:8)
Every believer is “in Christ,” in the top circle, and can never get out. At the
same time, we are in the bottom circle, filled with the Holy Spirit, and we can
get out of this position. When we are out of the bottom circle, we are “in the flesh.” It is
impossible for any Christian to please God when he is ruled and controlled by
his old sin nature! The great emphasis in the
Word of God is not reaffirmation of faith, which doesn’t mean a thing, nor
rededication, which means less than nothing, but
REBOUND, which is everything and gives God the glory! (Pro 1:23; Pro 28:13)
FALSE
SPIRITUALITY
There are so
many ideas prevailing today as to what is Spirituality and how we fulfill the
Command to be filled with the Spirit, that it is necessary to point out some of
these false practices which Christians are engaging in and by which they are
trying to attain Spirituality. The reason for this is quite obvious. We are
living in an age of carnal preachers who do not know what the Christian life is
all about. Or they are so busy with administration, activities and programs,
they neglect the primary function of the ministry — the study of the Word of
God!
There is also
the mistaken idea that the Christian way of life by grace is a license for sin.
I have actually been accused of telling people they can indulge in all the
taboos! Nothing could be farther from the Truth. This problem stems from a
misunderstanding of grace and from legalism. Well
meaning believers are trying to get all the rest of the believers straightened
out by imposing upon them their pet taboos.
Now, many of these taboos should be observed, provided they are the results of
Spirituality and are not being observed as a means of trying to become
Spiritual. They will take care of themselves
as the believer matures and understands the true basic Concepts of
Christianity!
All of the
following theories of Spirituality are works — Spirituality by works! They are HOW NOT TO BE FILLED WITH GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT! The
negatives emphasize the positives.
Confusion
of Means and Results. Believers in this category think they are Spiritual
because they witness, give, pray, present, dedicate and rededicate, etc.; but
this is putting the cart before the horse. Except for “present” (In the aorist
tense) in, (Rom 6:13; Rom 6:19; Rom 12:1)
which is the principle of rebound, none of these things are the MEANS of the
filling of the Spirit — only the result! The
words “present” of Romans are “paristemi”
in the Greek. “Par” is a preposition
of immediate source, and “istemi
means “to stand. “ The Holy Spirit is the source of our help. When you present
yourself to sin, (Rom 6:13) you are under the control of the old sin nature; when you present yourselves to God, (Rom 6:13) you have
used the rebound technique, you are back in or have stayed in fellowship with
God, and the Holy Spirit controls your Spiritual life.
The idea of
Spirituality by prayer is very common and quite subtle. Prayer is one of the
most marvelous things God ever gave us in grace! We cannot minimize prayer. In
fact, we need more and more prayer. God is so gracious to give us a means of
approaching Him and presenting our petitions and our needs. (Heb 4:16) It is wonderful when we can spend time
together in prayer, when we can approach the Throne of Grace for each other. But as wonderful as prayer is, it is not the means of
Spirituality. (Psa 66:18) We are
never told either to pray for or to ask for the Holy Spirit, as were the
disciples in the previous dispensation. Nor are we ever told to get down on our
knees and pray through or to utter something over and over again in order to
get the filling of the Spirit. Effective prayer is the result of Spirituality!
(Eph 6:18)
Spirituality
by Personality Imitation. Another false concept involves the imitation of
some outstanding Christian in the matter of dress, speech or mannerism. I
decide that wearing black or somber shades, wearing rags, presenting a
disheveled appearance, or omitting cosmetics makes me Spiritual. Or, I use a language which sounds Spiritual, such as “amen,
“hallelujah,” “Lord willing,” “God bless you,” “brother this and brother that.”
I stand in a slump, I lower my head in humility and put on a pious facial
expression. All of these are superficialities which in no way indicate true
Spirituality. The believer must learn to distinguish between personality and
Spirituality.
Spirituality
by Tabooism. This idea of Spirituality has become very popular today,
especially in fundamental Christian circles. Spirituality by tabooism says
simply this: I am Spiritual if I observe certain taboos. By “taboos” I do not
mean the negative Commands of the Word of God which are unquestioned. I am
talking about the problems of social life of certain groups and time periods
which are not specifically covered in Scripture, such as problems of
entertainment or those that have to do with our extracurricular activities. The
taboos are usually characterized by the “big five.” I once sat beside a man in
California during a message on the “big five.” He nudged me and said, “I don’t
know how you feel about it, but I lost ten years of honoring the Lord because
of this very thing!” Here were the big five: don’t
smoke, don’t dance, don’t go to the movies, don’t drink, and don’t play cards!
In other words, if you observe certain social taboos, you are “Spiritual.” There
are many sincere believers who honestly believe they are Spiritual because they
have given up this and that, or go with the girls who do, and it has become
their means of Spirituality. But it is Spirituality by
works, which is an abomination to the Lord.
It does not
necessarily mean that we condone all these things; but
the point is, they are NOT THE MEANS OF SPIRITUALITY! A dead man gives up these
things, and he is still dead! Anything the
unbeliever can do is not the Christian way of life! Bona fide taboos
exist in two areas: the application of superseding Laws — that is, the Laws of liberty, love, expediency and supreme
sacrifice; and certain things which are given
up AS A RESULT of either Spirituality or Spiritual maturity or both. No
two believers have attained the same degree of growth in the Christian life. A
believer who is a baby will not handle a taboo in the same manner as a mature
believer. When believers impose their taboos on new believers, it will result
either in legalism and hypocrisy if accepted, or, if rejected, in bitterness or
resentment.
One of the
most awful sins in the Christian life is pride. Pride is the thing that springs
out of Spirituality by works: “I have given up this,
and I have given up that, and therefore, you now behold the most Spiritual
person walking on the face of the earth. If YOU have not given up these
things, then, pardon me, if I slant my nose a little bit and look down at you
and say, “You are not Spiritual.” Oh, you may not say this with your mouth; you
have more subtle ways of conveying the idea.
The Bible
does not teach Spirituality by tabooism by the things that we give up. It is
true, a number of things that come under the category of tabooism are given up
as a result of Spirituality plus Spiritual maturity; but they are not the means
of Spirituality. The Bible very clearly defines the means of Spiritually; but
it is not by observing social taboos laid down by Christians in your area.
Although there are some negative approaches to Spirituality, they are not in
the form of tabooism. The energy of the flesh cannot
give up anything to the glory of God. God-honoring “tabooism” results
from the filling of the Spirit!
Spirituality
by Relativity. This says, “By comparing myself to others, I am Spiritual.”
I watch others very closely, I put the binoculars on this one and that one
until I discover their sins and their weaknesses. Then I make an estimate and
do a little compensating. I compare my weaknesses with their weaknesses, and I
say to myself, “Well, that one is guilty of gross sin — those are terrible
things he does. I see the telephone pole in his eye, but, of course, the
splinter in my eye isn’t bad at all. (Mat 7:3)
My sins are cultured and refined. Oh, I gossip now and then, true — but not
very much. And I tell a little lie now and then; I’m a little envious and a
little jealous once in awhile, but not very often. But
HE does or SHE does — or THEY do ! Therefore, by comparison, I am Spiritual.” (2Co 10:12)
That is carnal relativity. Now,
remember, Spirituality is an absolute. It is God the Holy Spirit filling and
controlling the life. We are not Spiritual
because our sins are more refined than someone else’s sins!
Spirituality
by Asceticism. Asceticism is extreme self-denial. It is the denial of food,
human relationships, the denial of all normal activities and functions of life.
One who is ascetic is one who goes in for monasticism — seclusion from
everything possible in the world. Some even go to the extreme of inflicting
self-torture. These people believe they are Spiritual because they have given
up the normal things of life and have shut themselves off from everything in
order to fast and pray and agonize. That is merely asceticism; it is not true
Spirituality, nor a means of Spirituality.
Spirituality
by Ecstatics. This is very popular today among the highly emotional. It
might be classified as Spirituality by emotion. There are those who say they
have a Spiritual monopoly because they have had a certain kind of experience —
an ecstatic experience. Now, there are many kinds of ecstatic experiences, many
of which are bona fide. There are times when the emotional pattern in the life
of anyone can be in the place where he can have an ecstatic experience. As a
matter of fact, even unbelievers have ecstatic experiences. But the ecstatic
experience we are dealing with here is identified with certain things, such as
speaking in a “demonic language,” or suddenly going into a feeling of being
completely out of one’s self and praising God, etc. It is again a system of
works and is not the way to be filled with the Spirit.
Spirituality
by Ritualism. This is a false system of holiness based on the observation
of a ritual or holy day. It includes those who think they are Spiritual because
they observe certain rituals of the church, such as baptism or the Lord ’s
Supper; or because they observe the Sabbath or Lent.
Spirituality
by Self-Crucifixion. One day we realize “self” is our worst enemy, (Jer 17:5; Jer 17:9)
and we decide to get rid of self. Self is not going to
cancel out self. A “kingdom divided against itself cannot stand,” and
self is definitely not divided against self. “Even so
consider yourselves to be dead to sin but
alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 6:11)
In, (Rom 6:6)
we are Commanded to know the Truth of retroactive
positional santifaction, (Satan's system and
the old sin nature positionally cut off) and to
apply it to experience. By being dead to the
Thinking of the old sin nature! But this
business of “crucifying self” is a fleshly effort to obtain Spirituality by
trying to get rid of “self.” There is a means
of overcoming the old sin nature; (Rom
6:16-18) but the old sin nature self is not
the means of overcoming the old sin nature self! We need to stay in fellowship and Think with Truth! (Joh 12:24-26)
Program
Spirituality. Many people think they are Spiritual because they perform a
certain number of good deeds which are emphasized in a church program. These
may be anything from the giving of money, functioning in administration, attending
church regularly and participating in a calling program, to coming to prayer
meeting or participating in the missionary program. However,
the issue is not in the deed performed, but are you filled with God the Holy
Spirit and Thinking with the Word of Truth; (Joh
4:23-24) or are you out of fellowship and thinking with human and
satanic thoughts. (Rom 8:5-8)
Spirituality
by Self-Improvement. This is trying to be Spiritual by picking myself up by
my own bootstraps. I make myself do certain things in order to become
Spiritual. I make myself try to love the brethren. The Scripture tells me to
forgive as Christ forgave, and to be humble. So I try to work this up. I
practice until I get it. This is discipline and may
lead to self-improvement; but it is not Spirituality, and it will not lead to
Spirituality.
God gave us
the Holy Spirit, and He is the only means by which the Christian life can be
fulfilled. Every time someone tries to be Spiritual by
his own works, he finds himself a complete failure in the Christian life!
(Heb 10:26-38)
THE GLORY OF
THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE
Do you realize that the Christian way of life is the most
thrilling, the most magnificent life possible? It makes no difference
what pressures there may be; it makes no difference what problems there may be,
or what adverse circumstances are on the horizon. This
life is incomparable! Is it wonderful and thrilling to YOU? The only thing greater is Phase Three, when we enter into
the presence of the Lord! But here in this life we have a marvelous
opportunity. For us the “game’’ is in progress.
But the game may be over soon; we may be in the fourth quarter, perhaps even down to the
last few seconds. Here is the guaranteed way
not to fumble or to lose the game at the last minute, as it were, not to lose
the opportunity of winning people to Christ and then leading then to Spiritual
maturity, and that is by the New Covenant Spirit-filled life! (2Co 5:20)
Although God
has not given us too much time on earth. He has given us the wonderful
opportunity of glorifying Him while here. We will
have all eternity to glorify Him, to love and praise Him; but is it not
gracious of God to permit us to stay here on earth for a few short years for
the sole purpose of His Spiritual life in us, representing Him? Now what
about those years? Are you going to make them count for Him?
We are so busy scrambling around and scrounging for the
things we want, for the things that feed the ego, the things that we think are
important in life! We fight for our place in
the world and try to get a little power so we can throw our weight around and
dangle people like puppets. But listen! The
Word of God says that the only thing that counts for you as a believer; is
“redeeming the time,” and the only way to begin to redeem the time is to be
filled with the Spirit! Second Corinthians 3 sets forth the glory of the
Spirit-filled life.
You are our letter, written in our hearts,
known and read by all men. (2Co 3:2)
Every
Christian is a letter that all the world can read — an open letter from God to
the human race!
Being manifested that you are a letter
of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but
with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2Co 3:3)
The kind of
writing mentioned here is not penned with ink; the
writing is God's Thoughts in our heart. It is
written with the “Spirit of the living God,”
Here is the vital, transforming power in the Christian life; here is grace
personified. Here is God the Third Person in
you, and in me to produce the Spiritual nature and Thinking of Christ; (1Co 2:16; 2Pe 1:4) and to effect in us the
New Covenant way of life. It is impossible in any other way!
Some of you are filled with prejudice and tradition. All your
life you have heard, “Don’t do this, don’t do that,” and to you that is the
whole scope of the Spiritual life. It is not the
picture at all! The answer is “Be filled with
the Spirit,” and these things then fall into their proper place and
perspective. You don’t have to make an issue of them. The Holy Spirit and Bible Truth take care of them.
Then you have real life, real vitality — you have the by-products of the
Christian life. When God the Holy Spirit controls the life, there is animation;
there are works, and many other wonderful results. You often hear, “Let’s get
everybody busy; let’s get everyone in the church working.” Don’t ever put
people to work without telling them how to go to work. They
must first learn how to be filled with the Spirit; then bona fide production
will result.
Not that we
are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. (2Co 3:5)
This refutes
the whole concept of tabooism, or any other system of works for Spirituality. We are so prone to think WE did it, or I did it. “I
had a revolting habit once, and I dropped it!” I-I-I get the credit. But the
Bible says, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to
consider ANYTHING as coming from ourselves.” Now
notice: “but our adequacy is of God.” Remember, Jesus Christ is
glorified, and at present, He is at the right hand of the Father as the
glorified God-Man. His Spiritual life in us
represents Him on this earth. (Col 3:1-10)
The Father gave us a plan which is given in outline here in, (2Co 3:5) The
Christian life is not a “do-it-yourself” project! Our sufficiency, our ability,
our power, is of God, and this is grace!
Who also
made us adequate as servants of a New Covenant, not
of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, (The
Old Covenant condemns the old sin nature self) but
the Spirit, (And
New Covenant justifies the Spiritual man) gives life.
(2Co 3:6)
The word
“servants” refers to you, Christian. As a believer in Jesus Christ, you are
God’s servant; you are in full-time Christian service. Today it is you who
stand in the gap and proclaim, “Come to Jesus Christ
and grow to Spiritual maturity.” While Christ was here, He said to
humanity, “Come to Me, all who are weary and
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Mat
11:28)
Now, while Jesus is absent, He does not give the
invitation personally. He extends it through you! The only way you can say it, the only way you can invite a
lost and dying world to Jesus Christ is through the filling of the Spirit and
the Teaching of Truth!
Why is it we
have so little proclamation of the Word on the part of believers? Because God the Holy Spirit does not control the life.
People have not heard of the filling of the Spirit nor
how to be filled. They are in bondage to some system of works and are not
filled with the Spirit. (How can people do what
they do not know how to do?)
“As Spiritually
mature believers; we are NOW made adequate servants of the New Covenant,
(2Co 3:6) not
just servants, but servants WHO CAN DO IT! In other words, we are given the
ability to minister by means of God the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament is God’s Word; but we have many Doctrines
in the New Covenant Church Age which were never realized in the Old Testament. We
need to get oriented. We need to find out what God has for us. We need to find
out what the meaning and purpose of our lives is. It’s all here in the New
Testament, here for you right now — today!
Every believer is a priest. (1Pe 2:9; Rev 1:6)
There was no universal priesthood in the Old Testament. Every New Covenant believer is permanently indwelt by God the Holy
Spirit. (1Co 6:19-20) There was
no universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Everything in
the Old Testament points to Christ; shadows, (Old Covenant) pointing to the
Reality. (New Covenant) But after the Reality comes,
there is a complete change of plan, and this change of plan involves you as a
believer.
“Who also
made us adequate as servants of a New Covenant, not of the letter...” The
“letter” is the Mosaic Law. This passage is going to show you how the Mosaic
Law can be a hindrance to glorifying the Lord. The
Law pointed to the Spiritual nature of Christ; the Law has some
wonderful functions; it is “holy, righteous and good;” (Rom 7:12) but the Law is not the modus operandi
or the way of life for you as a believer. The Mosaic Law will hinder you; it
will hold you back. It was a system of freedom for the nation of Israel in the
part where the Commandments occur. Apart from that, it is a series of shadows.
“…For the letter kills...” It condemns the old sin nature
self! The Mosaic Law slaps us in jail. (Rom 3:9) The Mosaic Law
proves that we are sinners and that we need Christ; but the Law cannot give us
life or animation or power or stability; nor can it enable us to live the
Christian life. Sabbath keeping, shadow worship
— all of the activities of the specialized priesthood
are out! They are no longer in operation. In our day, through sheer
ignorance of the New Covenant, we find many sincere believers still living
under the Law. They have ignored the New Covenant
Church Age dispensation.
There also
seems to be a Truth that many have forgotten: until the canon of Scripture was
completed, revelation was progressive. There was much revelation not given in
the Old Testament which has now been completed in the New Testament. Now that we have a complete canon of Scripture, (The Bible) all of the
progression of Divine revelation is in the Word. The only way to be oriented in our day, the only way to live to honor the
Lord is to get the final and complete progression, which is found in Matthew
through Revelation. But where are the believers who read or understand
the Epistles? Where are the believers who understand the modus operandi of the
Christian life? Where are the believers who understand that it is God the Holy
Spirit inside the believer who produces, or we do not honor the Lord?
Roland Hill
once said, as he watched a child on a rocking horse going back and forth, back
and forth: “Oh, this reminds me of so many Christians — so much motion, but not
going anywhere.’’ Any believer who operates on his emotions is going nowhere!
In the verses which follow, we have a contrast between the Holy Spirit inside
and the operation of the Mosaic Law on the outside.
The
Contrasts of Glory.
But if the ministry of death, in
letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could
not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading
as it was. (2Co
3:7)
This verse
says a lot! First of all, the Mosaic Law was glorious. Secondly, Moses, as a
result of receiving the Law, was filled with animation: his countenance was
changed, and his face was radiant. (Exod 34:33-35)
Moses would go up into the mountain; he would talk with the Lord; the Lord
would give him the Law, after which his face would shine, and he would be
animated and stimulated. He would come down the mountain and stand before the
children of Israel, and they could see his face shining brightly. They could
hear the animation in his voice as he would give them that section of the Law.
Then, as soon as he finished talking to them, he put a veil over his face. The
reason for this was that the glory faded out. He did
not want the children of Israel to see the fading of the Law. It was a
passing glory. It was not a glory that could go on from “glory to glory.” Now,
there is a glory that does not fade. There is a glory that gets brighter and
brighter. It is the glory of the indwelling Spirit controlling the life.
“How will the
ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? (Literally, ‘be much
more glorious’)” (2Co 3:8) If the Mosaic Law was glorious, how much more the glory of
the Reality of the the New Covenant; with the Temple of God the Holy Spirit in
us! Christ, His Thinking and Spiritual Virtue
ruling as a Theocracy in us! (Luk 17:21) Everything in the Mosaic Law was only a shadow
pointing to Christ and the Spiritual life; (The Levitical offerings, the
Temple, the articles of sacred furniture, the activities of the priesthood, the
Feasts, etc.). The Reality has come, and now a Person
of the Trinity, a member of the God- head, the Holy Spirit, indwells us to
produce a glory in us; the glory of the Person of Jesus Christ! (2Co 3:18)
When God the Holy Spirit controls the Thinking of our life.
He produces the very Spiritual life of Christ; and as a result, we have the
glory of Christ — unfading glory! Remember, it was Christ who fulfilled the Law. Now we
start where the Law left off. We start with the glory that was produced in the
life and the nature of Christ. “For Christ is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Rom 10:4)
The love, the joy, the peace and the self-control
— OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE “against such there is no
Law.” (Gal 5:22-23) Why? Because
it is not license; it is not Lawlessness — it is a
higher glory!
Do you
realize that as an individual believer in Jesus Christ you have a higher glory?
You have a glory that will not fade away, that does not need a veil over your
face. It is that which is produced by the COMPLETED
EDIFICATION COMPLEX; TEMPLE; SPIRITUAL LIFE IN US; BY THE POWER OF GOD THE HOLY
SPIRIT! (1Co
3:10-16)
Not only does He produce the Spiritual Virtue of Christ, (Gal 5:22-23) He produces the ability
to Spiritually Understand and Think with the Word of God! (1Co 2:10-16) Our
Understanding of the Word, our prayer life, our worship, and our witnessing for
Jesus Christ depend upon the Holy Spirit’s controlling of our life.
A
SUPERNATURAL LIFE DEMANDS A SUPERNATURAL WAY TO LIVE IT!
The tragedy is those people who teach in the flesh, (By the false power of the
old sin nature; 1Co 4:20) people who say, “Before you can be saved, you have to give up
something!” Or, “You have to repent of your sins”! Listen! God the Holy
Spirit gives you the ability to make the issue clear, as you function under the
“grace apparatus for perception” (Operation Z — the daily
intake of the Mind of Christ in the filling of the Spirit, the transfer by
faith into the human spirit, and the cycling up to the right lobe where there
is frame of reference from previously learned Truth.) When you talk to
people about giving up sin, let me remind you that Christ paid for those sins.
The issue is not sin or giving up sins. The issue is receiving the Person of
Jesus Christ. If we could get every unsaved person in
the world to stop sinning, they would be no closer to heaven! The
solution is Jesus Christ. It is a positive solution: “...Believe in the Lord
Jesus, and you will be saved...” (Act 16:31)
So many
people have been led to think that before they can be saved, they must feel
sorry for their sins, or that they must promise God they will never sin again.
But the Bible says, BELIEVE, BELIEVE, BELIEVE! Our sins were all paid for at the
cross. Now it is simply a matter of receiving Christ as Savior through faith
not giving up something! You do not give up something that Christ bore on the
cross; you take on the solution. “So that whoever
believes will in Him have eternal life.” (Joh
3:15) We cannot operate for Christ apart from the ministry of the
Spirit in and through us.
For if the ministry of condemnation
has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness (After Salvation leading
them to Spiritual maturity) abound in glory. (2Co 3:9)
Here is Experiential righteousness that only the Holy
Spirit can produce. Here is the result of the filling of the Spirit, and
it is marvelous in its scope. Notice that it is not an ecstatic or an emotion —
it is a righteousness. The great miracle of our day is the righteousness which
the Holy Spirit produces — not the emotional reaction. Many
people judge what they call “real preaching” by the emotions it stirs within. Whether I am really preaching or not, is not the point.
The point is, is God the Holy Spirit controlling my life, and is He preaching
the Word through me? (Joh 6:63; Joh 14:24)
This passage
is extremely important and very basic. How I would love to see Christian
parents take their children as soon as they are saved and begin to teach them
these things immediately! Start with the Doctrines,
Spiritual Thoughts, and or Principles which give the power for living the
Christian life and producing for the Lord.
Teach them that only the Holy Spirit can produce the Virtue that counts in the
Christian life! (Php 3:3) This
is where we begin training up a child in the way he should go. (Pro 22:6) He will know how to execute the do’s
and don’ts in the Christian life, and he will have the power to do so. He won’t
grow up with the impression that the Christian life is a dreary prison of
don’t, don’t, don’t, with no ability to perform it. To realize that the
Christian life is an exciting, stimulating experience, that the very Virtue of
the wonderful Person of the Lord Jesus Christ is produced in the believer is
every child’s prerogative.
For indeed what had glory, in this case has no
glory because of the glory that surpasses it. (2Co 3:10)
Although the Law has glory, the glory of the ministry of
the New Covenant Spiritual life, (To make Spiritually mature Theocracies) so far exceeds the
temporary glory of the Law, it is as though the Law has no glory.
For if that which fades away was with
glory, much more that which remains is in glory. (2Co 3:11)
The Mosaic Law has been done away as the procedure of the
believer in the New Covenant Age. (Heb 13:20) Although it still teaches the believer many
wonderful Doctrines about the Person of Christ by way of typology and
illustration, it is not our way of life. It was given specifically to Israel
and to no one else. (2Co 3:12-14)
“Seeing then, (In view of the glory of the Spirit-filled life) that we have
such hope, (The hope-absolute confidence of
glorifying God by reaching Spiritual maturity; but notice it is a hope; it is
not a REALITY unless you meet the Biblical conditions of the filling of the
Spirit and Thinking with Truth; Joh 4:24)
We use...” Elegant speech? Rhetoric? Swelling words
which will tickle your ears and cause you to say, “My, he is a wonderful
Speaker) No! “We use BOLDNES and PLAINNESS of speech.” This is a very
interesting little side light. People often say that a man is a great preacher
because of his eloquence or his unusual vocabulary. But the objective is to
communicate. In the Old Testament, Divine Thinking was
communicated through training aids, such as types, holy days, ritual,
offerings, etc. But with the glorification of
Christ, Truth must now be communicated apart from types and shadows; it must be
accomplished by the Literal, Grammatical, Historical, Etymological, Contextual,
Exegetical, Hermeneutical Interpretation of the Word of God! So Paul
emphasizes simplicity, (Literally) of speech so that no one will miss this
tremendous Doctrine.
The
Removal of the Veils.
And are not like Moses, who used to put a
veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would
not look intently at the end of what was fading away. (2Co 3:13)
Paul’s
function is the exact opposite of Moses! Moses put a veil over his face so the
people could not see the fading glory. Paul uses
clarity of speech so the glory of the New Covenant Spirit-filled life can be
revealed. The veil over Moses’ face was a literal veil; but between, (2Co 3:13-14) there is a quick transition. The
discussion of the literal veil which Moses put over his face is illustrative of
a veil which the Jews have over their hearts today. Though not a literal veil,
it is nevertheless real. As Moses had a veil over his
face, so the Jews have a veil over their hearts
and or their minds.
But their minds were hardened; for
until this very day at the reading of the Old Covenant the same veil remains
unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. (2Co 3:14)
Although the
Jews still read the Old Testament, they are incapable of comprehending it
because of the veil which is over their minds. The veil is their rejection of
Jesus Christ. Negative volition produces scar tissue on the left bank of the soul,
and this is the reason the Old Testament is unintelligible to them. When grace is rejected, legalism and religion are used in
place of REALITY. (Mat 7:21-23)
Since the Jews substituted a system of Salvation by works, (Rom 9:30-33; Gal
2:16) the Old Testament is an enigma to them because they have not
received Christ as Lord and Savior.
“Because it
is removed in Christ.” The veil is removed by a personal relationship with the
Lord Jesus Christ; only then can their darkened minds receive the Truth of the
Old Testament. By application, anyone can understand the Bible who will believe
in Christ, for then he will have the indwelling Holy Spirit to give him light.
But to this day whenever Moses is
read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord,
the veil is taken away. (2Co 3:15-16)
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
(2Co 3:17)
“Lord” is “kurios” in the Greek — a title for
Deity. The Holy Spirit is God! The One who
indwells every believer is just as much God as the Father and Son. He is
coequal and coeternal. “Where the Spirit is,” that is, inside every believer,
“there is not license but liberty (Freedom).” This does not mean:
Free from the Law, O happy condition,
Sin
as you please, for there is remission.
It does mean there is freedom to serve, honor and glorify
the Lord. Because the Holy Spirit indwells,
there is potential freedom to produce the Virtue and Thinking of Christ, to
make your life count! The Law does not give
freedom to the sin nature; the Law restricts the POSSIBILITY FOR THE SIN NATURE
TO EVERY BE HOLY! (Gal 2:16) But here is perfect
freedom. Why? Because we have the means of
execution inside us!
I want to emphasize again, nothing good in the Christian life
has its source in old sin nature human energy or ability. All Divine Virtue and Thinking in the New Covenant
Spiritual life is produced by God the Holy Spirit! (2Co 3:18) If it is
produced apart from the filling of the Spirit, it is absolutely USELESS!
(1Co 3:16-20) What a shock there will
be for some believers when they stand expectantly before the Judgment Seat of
Christ, waiting to receive their reward for all the wonderful things they thought they did on earth as Christians! But see
what is coming up — truck after truck — and a freight train behind — full of
all they did. Then the works are all dumped out,
and what is in them? “Wood, hay and straw”! (Human old sin nature thinking and works) What a tragedy it will be to see tons and tons of wood, hay
and straw all burn up because they knew nothing about the filling of the Spirit
and Truth! If there is any “gold, silver and
precious stones’ in your Christian life, it is produced by one means only — God the Holy Spirit! (1Co
3:11-15)
But we all,
with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, (The Virtue and Thinking) from
glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the
Spirit. (2Co
3:18)
Are you a
believer in Jesus Christ? Have you received Him as your Lord and Savior? Are
you born again into the family of God? If so, you are included in this “we.” Every believer today has an “unveiled face.” He has the
ability, “in fellowship” to read the Word of God with Spiritual Understanding. (1Co 2:11-13) The blindness and darkness which characterize the
unbeliever are lifted upon trusting Christ as Savior, for the Holy Spirit
indwells at the moment, to give Spiritual Understanding. “Beholding” describes the believer’s intake of Truth which
is based on the filling of the Spirit. Hence, the result of being filled
with the Spirit includes learning Bible Truth. (Joh
14:26; Joh 16:12-15; 1Co 2:9-14; Jas
1:21-25)
The “glass”
or “mirror” is not your emotional pattern, or what you have heard from
tradition; it is not a set of taboos, which is a substitute for good, hard
Bible study. It is the Word of God. (Jas 1:22-25) You and I, as believers, are “to
habitually behold” (Literally). We need to spend time
every day in the Word. We cannot get enough! (Pro 2:1-5) We cannot, as some have suggested, get Spiritual
indigestion from too much of the Word. If God the Holy Spirit fills your life,
you will not get too much. If He does not, you will get indigestion all right,
but it will be because you cannot understand what you are reading!
“But we
all... Are being transformed into the same image from
glory to glory...” What we see in the Bible is
the glory of the Lord — the matchless grace of
God, as well as His perfect Divine nature. Truth
is the Thinking and glory of God! Then follows an amazing thing — WE ARE CHANGED! We are not suddenly or momentarily
changed — we are constantly changed. Now what does this mean? The Thinking and Virtue love of
God becomes our Thinking and Virtue love! By
means of two factors presented in this verse: the filling of the Spirit and
Truth in the right lobe. When the Holy Spirit
controls the life, when we get into the Word and Think with the Mind of Christ,
we are changed! (Joh 17:17)
How are we changed? “Into the SAME image” the image of the
Lord Jesus Christ! There are certain things the Lord did not do when He
was here on earth, but not because someone kept saying, “Don’t, don’t, don’t.”
He did not do these things in the flesh, (Human nature and thinking; Joh 12:49; Joh
14:24) because God the Holy Spirit controlled His life. His life was
characterized, not by the working up of emotion or ecstatics, but by “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against
such things there is no law.
These characteristics
were produced by the Holy Spirit in Him to show believers how that it can be
done. And we are changed into the same image
by the same means by God the Holy Spirit. The reflected and transient glory of
Moses came from the Law; but the perpetual and
transparent glory of the Spirit-filled believer comes from Bible Truth and the
filling of the Spirit!
...Not by might nor by
power, (The old sin nature) but by
My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts. (Zec
4:6)
End
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