The doctrine of Spirituality

1. Introductory principles.

a) The essence of God. The Holy Spirit who indwells us is God, so we have the sovereignty of God, the righteousness, the justice, the love, the eternal life, etc. all of the attributes of the essence of God, through the fact that deity indwells us. The executor of phase one of the plan of God is Christ, second person of the Trinity. The executor of phase two is God the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity. The executor of phase three is God the Father, the first person of the Trinity. So that the entire Trinity are involved in the plan from the standpoint of execution.

b) The Holy Spirit is deity. All Trinity passages reveal co-equality with other members of the Godhead, e.g. 2 Corinthians 13:14. The Holy Spirit is called by the tetragrammaton in certain passages: Jehovah in Isaiah 6:8,9 cf. Acts 28:25; Jeremiah 31:31-34 cf. Hebrews 10:15. God the Holy Spirit is Jehovah, therefore God. The sovereignty of the Holy Spirit is mentioned 1 Corinthians 12:11. The omniscience of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2:1-11; The omnipotence of the Spirit in Genesis 1:2. The omnipresence of the Spirit in Psalm 139:7. The lordship of the Spirit in 2 Corinthians 3:17.

c) Who controls your life determines how your life is going. The Holy Spirit can control your life or the old sin nature. If the Holy Spirit controls your life this produces spirituality in various degrees of growth. If the old sin nature controls your life from the area of weakness it produces sins, the area of strength produces human good, and the lust pattern of the Old sin nature becomes the motivator. All of this is non-acceptable to God and only when the Holy Spirit controls the life is there acceptability.

2. The distinction between the salvation and the post-salvation ministries of God the Holy Spirit. At salvation, God the Holy Spirit does five things.

a) Regeneration. This means that God the Holy Spirit is the agent by which we are born into the family of God — John 3:1-16; Titus 3:5. This is the ministry that God the Holy Spirit has always had with every person who has ever been saved, the only difference being that in the Age of the Gentiles and the Age of Israel — skipping the Church Age — in the Tribulation, and in the Millennium, this is the only ministry of the Holy Spirit at salvation. In the Church Age He also has four other ministries and these all occur simultaneously.

b) The baptism of the Spirit — Acts 1:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13. This is the ministry by which He enters us into union with the Lord Jesus Christ. This ministry is absolutely unique, this is the ministry whereby we become royal family of God. This is the ministry by which we live in the palace forever, it is not something we experience, it is something God the Holy Spirit did for us at salvation.

c) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation — Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 6:19,20. This is the sign of royalty.

d) The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is security for royalty. We have two kinds of security as believers. We have security from salvation itself: we can’t lose our salvation. We have security in our royalty: we can’t lose our royalty forever and ever. We are sealed by God the Holy Spirit — 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.

e) The Holy Spirit gives each one of us a spiritual gift at the point of salvation — 1 Corinthians 12:11. Every believer has a spiritual gift. It doesn’t mean that you have to know it or understand it, unless it is a communication gift which demands preparation. Generally speaking when you are filled with the Spirit and grow up your gift functions without your cognisance, whatever it is.

The post-salvation ministry of the Spirit is for phase two only, so it deals with the royal family in time. We have the vocabulary of Paul — Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 5:16. John’s vocabulary is a little different, he calls it walking in the light — 1 John 1:7. Peter, in 2 Peter 1:4, calls it being a partaker of the divine nature or the divine essence. In other words, Peter says the filling of the Spirit is partnership in the divine essence. It must be distinguished between what God the Holy Spirit did for us at salvation and what He does for us after salvation. God the Holy Spirit regenerated you once, that’s over, you don’t have to be regenerated again. Baptism of the Spirit: you are in the top circle, you will never get out — royal family of God. He indwells you, that is the sign of your royalty. He seals you, that is the security of your royalty. He gives you a spiritual gift, that is your participation in the royal family as you move into phase two. But when it comes to the function of phase two everything is related to the filling of the Spirit.

There is a very bad tendency for people to try to make spirituality the indwelling of Christ. They try to practice the presence of Christ and they have little variations of this. None of these things are correct, they are totally inaccurate. When it comes to spirituality it is related entirely to the third person of the Trinity.

3. Spirituality and carnality are mutually exclusive, therefore absolutes in phase two. Light and dark are mutually exclusive, says 1 John 1:7; 2:10, and so it is with carnality and spirituality. They are mutually exclusive — 1 John 3:4-9. John calls walking in the light the filling of the Spirit; walking in darkness, carnality. It is an either/or situation. Again, the moment you believe in Christ you enter into union with Christ forever. Your positional sanctification is your badge of royalty but you also have the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit. Sin makes you carnal; rebound puts you back in fellowship.

4. Imitation becomes one of the great issues of spirituality in phase two. Spirituality is the imitation of God — 2 Corinthians 3:3; Ephesians 5:1; 2 Peter 1:4 — whereas carnality and reversionism is the imitation of the unbeliever — 1 Corinthians 3:3; Galatians 5:19-21; 1 John 1:6. So believers either imitate the unbeliever or they imitate God, they never imitate themselves.

5. Spirituality is a function of the royal priesthood, therefore it is not subject to the Mosaic law of the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priesthood function under the Mosaic law and functioned to the nation Israel. But now we have a royal priesthood which is not authorised by the law, it is authorised by God Himself and under the new covenant we have the statement of it and so it is not subject to the Levitical priesthood, it is not subject to the Mosaic law — Romans 8:2-4; 10:4; 13:8; Galatians 5:18.

6. In keeping with partnership in the divine essence through the filling of the Spirit (2 Peter 1:4) spirituality produces the character of the incarnate Christ — Galatians 4:19 cf. 5:22,23; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 2:5,6. In other words, the filling of the Spirit produces the character of Christ, the personality of Christ.

7. The general objective of spirituality and/or the filling of the Spirit is a) Partnership with divine essence — 2 Peter 1:4; b) Imitation of God — Ephesians 5:1; c) Glorification of Christ — John 7:39; 16:14; 1 Corinthians 6:19,20; d) Fulfilment of the law — Romans 8:2-4; e) Proper function of GAP — John 14:26; 16:12-14; 1 Corinthians 2:9-16.

8. Spirituality is lost through carnality but recovered through the rebound technique of 1 John 1:9. The principle is stated in Proverbs 1:23.

9. The results of spirituality.

a) Christ is magnified in the inner life — Ephesians 3:16,17; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Philippians 1:20,21.

b) The perception of doctrine — John 14:26; 16:12-14; 1 Corinthians 2:9-16; 1 John 2:27.

c) Effective witnessing — Acts 1:8; 2 Corinthians 3.

d) Guidance and assurance in phase two — Romans 8:14-16.

e) True worship — John 4:24; Philippians 3:3.

f) Effective prayer — Ephesians 6:18.

g) Helping the carnal or reversionistic believer to rebound — Galatians 6:1.

10. Spirituality is the source of divine good — 1 Corinthians 3:16. Divine good is the believer’s decorations in eternity — 1 Corinthians 3:12-14. Human good, produced in carnality or reversionism, is destroyed at the judgement seat of Christ because no member of the royal family of God can be contaminated by human good in eternity — 1 Corinthians 3:12,15.

11. Nomenclature for spirituality. Positive nomenclature: Walk in the Spirit — Galatians 5:16; Walk in the light — 1 John 1:7. Negative nomenclature: Quench not the Spirit — 1 Thessalonians 5:19, the production of human good; Grieve not the Spirit — Ephesians 4:30, the production of personal sins.

12. Emotion or ecstatics does not characterise spirituality in the Church Age — 2 Corinthians 6:11,12; Romans 16:17,18. When the Holy Spirit controls the life He does not produce ecstatics.

a) Only in the Millennial dispensation does ecstatics characterise the filling of the Spirit.

b) In the Church Age the believer represents the absent Christ in the devil’s world, therefore no ecstatics.

c) However, in the Millennium the believer filled with the Spirit appreciates the present Christ, therefore ecstatics.

d) Believers in the Millennium are also indwelled by the Spirit — Ezekiel 36:27; 37:14; Jeremiah 31:33.

e) Believers in the Millennium are filled with the Spirit — Isaiah 29:19; 32:15; 44:3; Ezekiel 39:29; Zechariah 12:10.

f) Ecstatics characterises spirituality in the Millennium because of the personal presence of Christ — Joel 2:28,29.

13. The royal family is in partnership with the Holy Spirit — Philippians 2:2.

14. Confidence regarding the filing of the Spirit comes from knowledge of pertinent doctrine — 1 John 3:20,21.

15. The clarification of the means and results in spirituality: the power, the means of that power, and the results. The power is the indwelling Holy Spirit. The means of having Him control the life is the rebound technique. The result is yieldedness to the plan of God and the will of God at any or every point.

16. Pseudo-spirituality: the things that are used as substitutes for the filling of the Spirit or spirituality by grace.

a) Spirituality by yielding. This system assumes that the believer is spiritual because of something he does such as yielding himself or dedicating himself to God, doing a certain amount of praying or witnessing or giving. This is putting the cart before the horse because yieldedness of Romans 6:13,19; 12:1 is the state of being filled with the Spirit and therefore positive toward doctrine. No one has ever been filled with the Spirit by yielding.

b) Spirituality by personality imitation. This consists of imitating some believer whom you admire, associating some superficial mannerism with spirituality. Every believer must learn to distinguish between spirituality and personality. Spirituality comes one way — the filling of the Spirit. The Bible never emphasises changing your nasty personality!

c) Spirituality by self-crucifixion. This system of pseudo spirituality is closely related to the above. It originates from a false interpretation of Romans 6 whereby the believer claims spirituality by virtue of crucifying self. However, ego never cancels ego; self cannot crucify self. Self is crucified by the principle of retroactive positional truth. The believer is identified with Christ in His death. In His death He bore our sins from the area of weakness of the old sin nature but He rejected human good. By being identified with Christ positionally we have rejected human good and that is what self-crucifixion is all about. It is simply the rejection of human good through identification with Christ on the cross. It is not a system of spirituality. So self is crucified by the principle of retroactive positional truth whereby the believer becomes dead to human good through the baptism of the Spirit.

d) Spirituality by tabooism. i) A taboo is a prohibition set up by a religious or social group. Here a taboo is forbidden activity but by our definition a forbidden activity not forbidden by the Word of God. ii) Therefore taboos are legalistic superimpositions on the Word of God. iii) Taboos are customs of legalistic and religious or self-righteous types of believers in groups. iv) Basic taboos of fundamentalism include the following: don’t drink, don’t dance, don’t smoke, don’t play with cards, don’t go to movies. v) In addition, certain taboos related to geographical locations — no use of cosmetics by the ladies, never go swimming in the same swimming hole with the girls. vi) The principle: Anything the unbeliever can do is not the Christian way of life. Whatever God has commanded you to do is something that no unbeliever can ever do. vii) The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life executed by supernatural means, i.e. the filling of the Spirit, GAPing it to supergrace. viii) No two believers have attained the same degree of growth in phase two. That is the big problem and why people come along with taboos. ix) Consequently the immature do not handle taboos in the same manner as adult believers. Spiritual maturity will eventually force out the truly objectionable things. A mature believer will recognise that a young believer is having problems and therefore does not make an issue of what he does. The self-righteous, legalistic people want to make an issue out of everything. x) Legalistic bullying and/or the imposition of taboos on new believers always has one of two results: response or reaction. Under response the acceptance of the bullying always results in converting the new believer into a legalistic hypocritical individual. Then there is the reaction to this which is rejection of the taboos, resulting in conflict, bitterness, disillusion. Here is where many new believers immediately enter into reversionism. They react, they think the whole Christian life is just giving up a lot of things and having no fun. So making an issue out of the taboos is to destroy the whole concept of spirituality. xi) There is a bona fide place for the observation of taboos: 1. The application of superseding law. There is a time when the law of love, the law of expediency or the law of supreme sacrifice causes you to discontinue something you are doing because of the importance of the spiritual growth or blessing of others. Then, certain things are given up as a result of growth and this is a bona fide give-up situation.

e) Spirituality by relativity. This says I’m spiritual because my sins are more refined and more respectable than your sins. In this comparison a subtle type of sinfulness is compared to an obvious shocking type of sinfulness, resulting in false rationalisation. Included in this notion is the delusion that there are degrees of spirituality. There are degrees of growth but not in spirituality. Any sin, regardless of its category, puts a believer out of fellowship, results in loss of the filling of the Spirit; and no believer can be carnal and spiritual at the same time, therefore the importance of rebound.

f) Spirituality by ecstatics — the function of the holy rollers. It is known as the monopoly of the emotional — I’m spiritual because I have some kind of ecstatic or stimulating experience. Believers evaluate Christian experience by how they feel rather than by what the Bible says. The emotion of the soul is not the criterion for either salvation or spirituality. There is no such thing as feeling saved or feeling spiritual.

g) Spirituality by ritualism. I’m spiritual because I observe certain rituals of the church, such as baptism or the Eucharist, or the observance of “Lent,” etc.

h) Program spirituality. I’m spiritual because I conform to the program of the local church, because of my attendance, my giving, because I participate in prayer meetings, because I teach Sunday school, etc. The problem here is obvious. Action has been substituted for the learning of doctrine, everyone must be put to work, and this becomes mass negative volition toward Bible doctrine in the local church. This system always caters to approbation lust, power lust, it ignores the fact that even a right thing done in a wrong way in the energy of the flesh is wrong. The Word of God demands that a right thing be done in a right way.