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. At the moment you believe in Him, you enter into union with the Son of
God, and He dwells within. 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 back into fellowship and relationship with God, 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 (1 Pet. 2: 24). He was separated from God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit by spiritual death (Matt. 27:46) and thus paid in full
the debt of mankind. Only when His work was FINISHED did He die physically
(John 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
gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name
(John 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. 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: Ephesians 5:18, “ . .be
filled with the Spirit”; Galatians 5:16, “… walk in (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 (1 Cor. 12:13). It is
a once and for all action (Col. 2:12). “Indwellng” is God the Holy Spirit
coming to make His residence inside the believer at the moment of salvation (1 Cor.
6:19; Gal. 3:2); and while He never leaves. He may or may not control the 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!
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 the Spirit!
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!
You either have it, or you do not have it. You are either 100 per cent
spiritual, or you are not spiritual at all! If you are what might be said 99
per cent spiritual (and there is no such thing), then you are not spiritual at
all you are carnal. Either your life is controlled by God the Holy Spirit, or
you are controlled by the old sin nature. 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 per cent, 50
per cent or even 95 per cent 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 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 (John 3: 3; Gal. 3:26), and
we be gin 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’ (2 Pet. 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 (1 Cor. 3:1-3; Heb. 5:11-13); spiritual adolescents and
carnal adolescents; spiritual mature believers (Heb. 5:14) and carnal mature
believers (Rom. 7:14-23). 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 story. Then, in other passages where a simple
doctrine is taught, we have their attention, but the more mature 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.
Growth
in the Christian life does not remain static. 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!
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! My 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!
(2)
To spiritual adolescents. Adolescence in the spiritual realm is probably the
most difficult period. Believers who have come out of the babyhood 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
knowledge of DOCTRINE!
There can be no true application to experience apart from doctrine. So
first of all, there must be a maximum know- ledge 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 1
John 1:9! But a maximum knowledge of the Word has to do with maturity.
WISDOM. Wisdom
is the application of doctrine to experience from the right lobe’s frame of
reference. It is possible in many cases for one to be spiritual without having
this wisdom because of a lack of knowledge of doctrine and/or a failure to
believe doctrine and so to transfer it from the perceptive (left) 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 doctrine.
FAITH. A
mature believer is able habitually to mix the promises of God with faith. Faith
pulls in doctrine 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. Consequently, grace excludes all human merit, all
human ability, and anything that can be construed as meritorious on the part of
man. For the believer who functions daily under GAP (grace apparatus for perception
the means provided for believers for the intake of doctrine), and who, through
the ministry of the Holy Spirit assimilates a maximum amount of doctrine, grace
becomes more and more of a reality each day. The first floor of the edification
complex of the soul is grace orientation. Bible doctrine in the right lobe
produces grace viewpoint and grace application to life. Therefore, a mature
believer is always grace-oriented.
PRODUCTION. The mature believer
produces on a maximum scale. Now a baby can produce also. A new- born 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. Hebrews 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 Ephesians 5. 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 doctrine 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.
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard
to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing (verse 11).
Now
these things in themselves are not hard to be uttered. The marvelous flow of
this doctrine 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 uttered when
there is no response. This is the meaning of the phrase in the Greek. “Hard
to be uttered” 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!”
“Seeing
ye are 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, no desire to take in this marvelous doctrine. The doctrine 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 doctrine which belongs to
every Christian, but you have no motivation, no desire to hear or to absorb
it!” Verse 12 states the problem:
For when for the time ye ought to be
teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles
of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of
strong meat.
“Ye
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 ought to be sharing the Word with other
believers as well as with unbelievers. They ought to be passing on the
marvelous blessings they have in Christ. They ought to be sharing the assets
that belong to them. But instead, “ye have need that one teach you again the
first principles of the oracles of God . . .” The author of Hebrews is saying, “You
need someone to teach you the “ABC’s” of doctrine — the simple things, the
basic things! 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 doctrine, 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 that useth milk is unskilful
in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe
(verse 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 enlarge on this later, as well as
on other common but erroneous concepts of spirituality. Many of these things
are the results, not of spirituality alone, but of spirituality and maturity.
But 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 strong meat belongeth to them
that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses
exercised to discern both good and evil (verse 14).
Those
who are of “full age’’ are those who have grown up mature believers, those who
can take in “solid food,” or advanced doctrine. Notice the word “use.’’ “Use”
is application. “.. . by reason of ‘application” have their senses exercised to
discern good and evil. “ 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 things in our lives we face today
which are not directly covered by the Word of God. It takes maturity to
distinguish what is good and what is evil in this area!
ON TO MATURITY!
Hebrews
6:1-6
Therefore leaving the principles of
the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the
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 doctrine 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 doctrine 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.” 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 good 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. 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 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
make 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” (1 John 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 criterion, or is experience my
criterion? If the Bible is your criterion, 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 the Spirit, not an ecstatic
experience. You will never be spiritual, you will never be restored to
fellowship, you will never move or grow up in the Christian life as long as you
think that you do it! God has provided it for you!
The
second thing on the list about which to change your mind is “faith toward God”
— the mixing of the promises of God with faith; the faith-rest technique.
Third
(verse 2), “the
doctrine of baptisms.” Note the plural “baptisms. “ There are seven different
baptisms in the Bible: the baptism of Moses (1 Cor. 10: 2); the baptism of John
(John 1:25-33); the baptism of Jesus (Matt 3:13-17); the baptism of the Spirit
(Acts 1: 5; 1 Cor. 12:13); water baptism for the believer (Acts 2: 41); the
baptism of fire (Matt. 3:11); the baptism of the cross (Matt. 20:22).
Fourth,
the doctrine of “laying on of hands.” This was another doctrine of
identification which was used especially at this time.
Fifth,
the doctrine of “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 1 Cor. 13).
“And this will we do, if God permit” (verse
3). If God permits us as believers to remain long enough in this life, we will
learn doctrine and grow up spiritually on the basis of 2 Peter 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 doctrine,
the believer will accomplish the objective of growing up only if God’s will
permits him to remain long enough to do so.
For it is impossible for those who were once
enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of
the Holy Spirit, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the
world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance;
seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open
shame (verses 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 doctrine. 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
extraction living in Jerusalem, who were previously characterized in Hebrews 5
as “dull of hearing,’’ ignorant of basic doctrine, and “unskilful in the Word.”
Since
the participle precedes the action of the main verb, verse 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 punctiliar concept connotes “once
and for all enlightened.” These are believers who once knew basic doctrine, 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 Hebrews 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
(2 Cor. 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 world to come.” Here we have an aorist middle participle: the aorist
tense gathers into one point every occasion when the believer has absorbed
doctrine or has been filled with the Spirit. The middle voice indicates that
the believer is benefited by learning doctrine 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 doctrines. They have also tasted “the powers,” that is, the
manifestation of the power of the Spirit, “of the world to come.” “The world” is literally
“the age,” a reference to the Millennium when spirituality will reach an
all-time high (Joel 2:28,29).
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 unto him that is able to keep
you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory
… (Jude 24).
To an inheritance incorruptible, and
unde- filed, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the
last time (1 Pet. 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 verse 1 — “repentance from dead works.” Hence, the word
“repentance” is a reference again to the list of the A EC’s. So, “having fallen
away, it is impossible ‘to teach them again,’ to renew (restore) them again,
‘so long as’ (not ‘seeing’) so long as they . . .” do something. They are doing
something that is contrary to doctrine and binders 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 connote loss of
salvation in any way. These believers
of Jewish extraction are committing two sins in Jerusalem which hinder their
interest and understanding of basic doctrine. First, they are “crucifying the
Son of God afresh.” 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. 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 doctrine and phased it out of the right lobe.
Secondly,
they “put him to an open shame.” By their expediency, they were exposing Christ
to ignominy. Legalism and the practice of religion are the worst deterrents to
the maintenance of doctrine in the right lobe and to moving toward the goal of
maturity!
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 them. They have
their little fort of self- righteousness, and they get in their fort and start
shooting at everyone. They have to do a lot of growing to get away from this.
One of the best approaches to spirituality is from Ephesians 5:1 because it is
one of the great issues in the Christian life, yet it is a command that no one
can obey!
“Be ye
therefore followers of God, as dear (beloved) children.” On the surface, it
might appear that any- one 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 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.
“Be ye”
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: “followers” should be “imitators.” “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” m the soul, we will have a
family resemblance. Christ, as God, is the manifest Person of the Trinity (John
1:18); Christ, as humanity, set the pattern for the filling of the Spirit. He
was filled with the Spirit (except for the three hours on the cross) during His
entire life on earth (John 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; Phil. 1:20,21).
Ephesians
5:1 is the command to spirituality. It will be repeated in verse 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.
Wherefore he saith. Awake thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light (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, and find out. Switch from negative to
positive! Be aroused toward doctrine!’’ Occasionally you run into Christians
who are positive toward doctrine, but they can’t take it in. Being positive
toward doctrine is like wanting oxygen; but 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
doctrine, it won’t get the job done unless he has the filling of the Holy
Spirit. This verse prepares us for the importance of the command given in verse
18.
All
Bible doctrine is inhaled through the filling of the Spirit technique.
Obviously, even though you are positive toward doctrine, and even though Bible
doctrine is available, it still isn’t enough when you are out of fellowship.
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 binders the intake of doctrine.
“Arise
from the dead....” Of the seven 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 doctrine
result when the old sin nature controls the life.
“And
Christ shall give thee light.” The light Christ gives is God the Holy Spirit
controlling the life from within. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is
come . . . he shall glorify me” (John 16:13,14). The light on the inside is not
your personality, it is not the way you look nor your thought pattern — it is
God the Holy Spirit controlling the inside and producing the character of
Christ and the edification complex in your soul. 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 the 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 character of the Person of
Christ through your life and mine. From the human viewpoint we can have beauty,
personality and all kinds of 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 character of the
Person of Christ. When the Holy Spirit is projecting the character of Christ
from inside you — THAT IS SPIRITUALITY! Hence, this passage commands us to wake
up to our need of this spirituality by which we operate in our Christian life.
“Wake up, thou that sleepest!” 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!
“See
then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” (verse 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. 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 circumspectly; or, more literally, he is walking
accurately. He is operating on the power of the Holy Spirit.
“Redeeming
the time, because the days are evil” (verse 16). The word “redeem” 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.
“Wherefore
be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (verse 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 delineated by Bible doctrine; but you cannot
take in doctrine unless you are filled with the Spirit! 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!
“Unwise”
means “to be stupid.” And how does one become stupid? Simply by being minus
doctrine, 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 the command to turn on the light!
“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 life 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 dissipation. On the positive side, the filling of the
Spirit becomes the basis for producing the character of Christ on the inside.
“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. “Ye shall receive power ...” (Acts 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
answer is in three parts — two negative and one positive answer. First, the two
negatives: “Quench not the Spirit (1 Thess. 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 human 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
per cent filled or quenched; it is either one hundred per cent filled or one
hundred per cent 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.
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). Then 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 use- less for the
Lord. Hence, we must comprehend rebound, or 1 John 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 just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
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 good. Rebound gets the sin out of the way; and
until we sin again, we are filled with the Spirit and produce divine good. It
is only in that is dealt with in rebound. Human good was not judged at the
cross; in fact, it was rejected. That means that the judgment of human good is
held in abeyance until another time: for the unbeliever, at the last judgment
(Rev. 20:11-13); for the believer, at the Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Cor.
5:10,11). Only that which was judged at the cross is involved in rebound — and
that is sin! However,
when you are under the control of the sin nature, human goodwill be produced.
You don’t sin every second you are under the control of the sin nature. A
perfect illustration is the unbeliever: he is always under the control of the
sin nature and yet may go for long periods of time without sinning. Human good
is not sin; therefore it is not subject to confession. While human good is a
manifestation of the old sin nature, it does not, in itself, put us out of
fellowship.
First
John 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 1 John 1:9 does not say, “If we work up a big sorrow”; it does
say, “If we confess. Name it! But name it to God! Confess it to Him.
Now
looking again at Ephesians 5:14, “Awake thou that sleepest 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 your sin; by
standing on the Word of God, that when you confess your sins to Him, He is
faithful and just to forgive you 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 doctrine 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 1 John 1:9 so that we thoroughly understand
the vital importance of confession.
“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 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 Bible doctrine.
That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellow- ship with us: and truly our
fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things
write we unto you, that your joy may be full (1 John 1:3,4).
“Fellowship” means “love”
— to love through doctrine. It is the exhale of doctrine from the soul to the
person. 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 doctrine in the soul. The deficiency, then, is lack of
doctrine, lack of ability to love God, and that means lack of happiness! The
more doctrine we have, the more happiness we will have because we can exhale
toward God and respond to His love, as well as exhale love toward others from
the right bank of the soul. The first response toward God is faith-rest, which
is then converted into love.
No
member of the human race has anything in himself whereby he can love God. We
all start out with spiritual death, which makes loving God absolutely hopeless.
Therefore, God had to make some provisions: first, salvation; then from that
point on He provides doctrine and the means of taking it in — the filling of
the Holy Spirit. The constant inhale of doctrine in the filling of the Spirit
and exhale response toward God means that you may have a fulfillment of the
happiness for which His love for you 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 unconfessed sin in his life.
This then is the message (doctrine)
which we have heard of him (this is the Word of God), and declare unto you,
that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all
(verse 5).
John
develops this idea by going back to the nature of God with Whom believers have
a relationship and fellowship. “God (the Godhead) 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.
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 lighter is glorious. 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 (John 3:19— 21).
Therefore, just as light and darkness are incompatible, so also are God’s
holiness and sin.
Verses
6 through 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 the Spirit’’ (Eph. 5:18); “walking in the Spirit” (Gal. 5: 16); “cleansed”
(1 John 1:9). (2) OUT OF FELLOWSHIP: “carnal” (Rom. 7:14; 1 Cor. 3:1-3); “grieving the
Spirit” (Eph. 4:30); “quenching the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19); “dead” (Rom.
8:6,13; Eph. 5:14; 1 Tim. 5:6; James 1:15; Rev. 3:1); “walking in darkness” (1
John 1:6).
All
the “if we say’s” (verses 6, 8,10) are false contentions, solved by “if we walk
in the light,” and “if we confess” (verses 7 and 9), 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
doctrine, the techniques, and, in this passage, the filling of the Holy Spirit.
That’s why we are commanded to “walk in (by means of) the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16),
to “walk in truth (doctrine)” (3 John 3), etc.
If we say that we have fellowship with him
and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth (1 John 1:6).
Believers
who think they are spiritual when they are merely practicing asceticism,
legalism, or some form of human good or morality, are living a lie. They and
construing 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 doctrine.
If
you are not taking in Bible doctrine, 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 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, the only thing you can do is to evacuate
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 doctrine.
So verse 6 of 1 John 1 is referring to a carnal believer with scar tissue on
the soul!
If we walk in the light, as he is in
the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin (1 John 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; 1 Pet.
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. 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” on the cross does not refer to His literal blood. He had literal
blood, just as you and I; but wherever His blood is mentioned in connection
with the cross, it is referring to something else. 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 (serum). 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,
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; 5:12).
“The blood of Christ” refers to the spiritual death of Christ on the cross. The
fact that He died twice on the cross is brought out in Isaiah 53:9 (in the
Hebrew text). “Death” in this verse is literally “deaths” (plural). The “blood”
is a representative analogy between the physical death of animals in the Old
Testament (which died by bleeding to death) and the spiritual death of Christ
on the cross. 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 (1 John 1:7,9).
When
the sins of the world were put on Christ and judged. He died spiritually. 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 Omnipotent Judge to us, but a loving heavenly Father.
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 lose our salvation. But by
God’s matchless grace, this can never happen. The phrase, “the blood of Jesus
Christ his Son keeps on cleansing us from all sin,” anticipates 1 John 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 salvation is
sure.
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 (nature), we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (verse 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, we make
him a liar, and his word is not in us (verse 10).
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 (1 Cor. 3:1-3; Heb. 12:1,2; 1 John 2:1). Since
we still possess a sin nature from which comes 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 1 John 1:9.
If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just 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 name that sin to 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 what sin you have committed.
“Citing” means that you know your sins have already been judged. It is a legal
term used where a case is cited to prove a point. You have to know it’s a sin
to name it, and you have to specify the particular sin.
So “homologeo” means simply to NAME THE SIN.
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 repent 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. TVs 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 “godly 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 (1 Pet 2:24); God the Holy Spirit
reveals and fills (John 16:14). When you rebound, the Holy Spirit fills and
controls your life. You can rebound because Christ went to the cross and bore
your sins. When you rebound, the Father can forgive you because He was
satisfied with the work of Christ on he 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 al- ways compatible with God’s
character!
God
the Father does the forgiving. “He (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 character of
God, not on the merit of man. Everything hinges on WHO AND WHAT GOD IS, not 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 just” — righteous, literally. 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 1 John 1:7 and 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 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 character. 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 Leviticus 4 for
unknown sins. The Greek word for “unrighteousness’ has the connotation of
deceitfulness. These sins deceive us because they are unknown to us. But when
we confess the sins we know about, God in His grace also cleanses us from ALL the
sins we may have done in ignorance (the deceitful sins). 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 Hebrews 12:6-13. Divine
discipline comes into the picture at this point: “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth’)
(verse 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
viewpoint 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; 1 Pet. 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!
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); that we are either spiritual Christians or
carnal (1 Cor. 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 the flesh (sin nature) 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, “Quench not” and “Grieve not” by using 1 John 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 the
Bible 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!
There
never was a day when we needed Christians living the Christian life as we do
today. We need to get root and sprouted in our day. 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. Inverse 12, He stops and says to His disciples, “I have yet many
things to say unto you . . . .” In fact, He hadn’t even begun to cover the
ground. “But,” Jesus continued, “ye 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 Epistles, beginning with
Romans and going through Jude.
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” (1 Cor. 2:16). But at that time the disciples
were not yet able to take it in. The question is — why?
Verse
13: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all
truth . . .” The Holy Spirit would be the One who would teach them and who
would reveal the things that Jesus could not give the disciples. (Cf. verse
14). In their ignorance, they were not ready for these truths. When the Holy
Spirit came to indwell them on the Day of Pentecost, then they would be able to
take in the doctrines of the Word of God. 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
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to
come.” (verse 13).
(3)
To Glorify Christ. “For he (the Holy Spirit) shall not speak of himself . . .
.” Here is a very important point: the Holy Spirit does not indwell to teach
about Himself. Now, skip down to verse 14: “He shall 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 John 7:38,39.
He that believeth on me, as the
Scripture hath said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living
water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should
receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet
glorified).
Why
had the Holy Spirit not yet come to indwell Christ’s disciples? “Because Jesus
was not yet glorified.” Why was it that the Holy Spirit did not 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, “What ?know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Spirit, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own.”
(1 Cor. 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. 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 sanctuary or a place of worship.
“…
which ye have of God (the Holy Spirit was given by God), and ye are not your
own? Once you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you no longer live for
self. You no longer belong to yourself. Your purpose in life has completely and
radically changed. You are now the Lord’s; you belong to Him. You are His
ambassador (2 Cor. 5:20). Since He is 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
sanctuary, and so are you. Every believer is a sanctuary.
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 controlling your life. You do not have the power in yourself to glorify
God. No person living has the power to glorify God. 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 ye
are 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, (the phrase “and in your spirit’’ is not in
the original (1 Cor. 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 be not
drunk with wine, wherein is excess; 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
Ephesians 5:14? “Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light.” A believer out of fellowship, a believer who is
not filled with the Spirit is temporally dead. He must wake up. 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.
(6) To
Declare Christ. “… ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God;
not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Cor. 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!” We will amplify this later.
(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 doctrine, which opens up the vacuum in the soul through which
false (Satanic) doctrine can enter (doctrine of demons — 1 Tim. 4:1).
Now
the question arises, how can you tell when you are filled with the Spirit? How
can you 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 be- cause 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 can be moral as well as the spiritual believer. 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 necessarily 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 criterion 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), 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 1
Corinthians 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 “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 the 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.
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 I” 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 Christian emphasis is on the inner life.
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.
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 doctrine 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.
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, or even to be conscious of it. You cannot be sure that you are
filled with the Spirit unless you have just confessed a known sin to God. You
cannot judge spirituality by any overt activity. Now, don’t worry about whether
you are producing divine good. With the consistent use of rebound, divine good
will take care of itself.
Is it
possible to recognize the filling of the Spirit by the production of the
Spirit, as delineated in Galatians 5:22,23? If you are filled with the Spirit,
you will be producing these things; but you cannot say that you are filled with
the Spirit just because you THINK you 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, how to retrench and
develop a scintillating personality — forget them! There is a Book which,
though centuries old, has always had the true answer 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 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), of whom I travail in birth again (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 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, Galatians 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, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance:
against such 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 character 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 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John 4:7-21. This is the love that
does not discriminate, the love that is fair to all, 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” (Matt. 15:32). That compassion was expressed at
the cross. “We love him because he first loved US 1 (1 John 4:19). This is
supernatural love. This love turns the world upside down. 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 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 be suffering or success;
and peace, an inner mental STABILITY in all situations in life.
(2)
Outward or neighborward 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 Godward characteristics: Faithfulness (literally), the operation of
the FAITH-REST technique; the application of Bible doctrine to experience.
Meekness, a MENTAL ATTITUDE OF GRACE with regard to divine provision not
self-effacement. It is a recognition of the fact that we earner deserve nothing
from God at any time. Temperance, which is literally “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 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. When God the Holy Spirit controls the life,
the character of Christ is produced and the world cannot resist the impact of
His character.
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. Perhaps
as high as eighty per cent 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 think in
terms of principles. 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 growing faggots on the fire for dedication and rededication; they are
practicing some system of legalism 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 1 Corinthians 3:1-3.
And I, brethren, could not speak
unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I
have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to
bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there
is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as
men?
In
verse I, 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 doctrine 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” (verse 2) — very elementary doctrine — because of their persistent
carnality. Whether they were producing sins from the area of weakness of the
sin nature or human 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 doctrine 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 (1 Tim.
1:15).
“Ye
are yet carnal . . . .” Because they were out on the town? Because they were
alcoholics? No! “For whereas there is
among you envying and strife, and divisions” — mental attitude sins! In
persistent carnality, they “walk as (after the manner of) men (unbelievers)’ (1
Cor. 3:3). This is their consistent pattern of life. They walk according to the
standard of the unbeliever. They are
saved, but they are not living under the control of the Spirit. Galatians
5:15-21 describes the pattern: both believers and unbelievers are doing the
same things. 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” (the Devil’s world).
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
(system — cosmos diabolicus), the flesh (old sin nature) and Satan himself (in
special cases). 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. There is now only one source of sin —
the sin nature. Positive volition (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 “by grace are ye 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 principle, 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 life is concerned. Of course, the believer is going to
spend eternity in heaven, even though he is carnal. He is in the “top circle,”
but out of the “bottom circle.” A person who has never seen or known Christ (1
John 3:6) is one who has never had the experience of believing in Him, and
therefore, is not a believer (1 Cor. 2:14).
He that committeth sin is of the
devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this pur- pose the Son of
God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Whosoever is born of God doth not
commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is
born of God.
In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is
not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother (1
John 3:8-10).
“He
that committeth sin is ‘out from’ the devil; for the devil sinneth from the
beginning” (verse 8a). 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, who is the
Devil’s disciple. Both are imitating the Devil. “For this purpose the Son of God
was manifested (first advent of Christ) that he might destroy (neutralize) the
works of the devil’’ (verse 8b). 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 — the Holy Spirit — by
which he may have victory over the sin nature.
“Whosoever
(the spiritual believer) is born of God (the new birth) doth not commit (do)
sin.. . “ (verse 9a). “Do” means that in the point of time when you are
controlled by the Holy Spirit, you are not doing sin. “For his seed (in this
context, the Holy Spirit: as a seed produces, so the Holy Spirit produces
divine good) remaineth (abideth, or controls) in him, and he cannot sin (he is
not able to sin while controlled by the Holy Spirit), because he is born of God
(in union with Christ).” The Holy Spirit is God and therefore could never sin;
it is totally incompatible with His divine nature. Only ignorance of 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. The characteristics of God are
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 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.
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 it was never true before the
Day of Pentecost: “The Holy Spirit was not yet given because Christ was not yet
glorified’’ (John 7:39b). 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
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, unless God the Holy Spirit
controls the inner man. 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 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. Bible doctrine is the
only protection for the Christian child, and the first doctrine they must know
is how to rebound, how to be filled with the 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 the Holy Spirit. Since the filling of the Spirit is inside the
believer, it is challenged by the old sin nature. Romans 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 hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after 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, 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 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 he takes in enough doctrine can he reach a place of stability and
grace orientation in his life. Doctrine has to replace human restraints in the
cosmos.
If
the carnal or baby believer never understands the doctrine 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. 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 doctrine, he goes into self-righteousness or religious
activity. The only way to get out of
this bracket is to get positive to doctrine and to stay with it.
Even
though we as believers are no longer under the Mosaic Law, we operate under
laws — 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 law of the Spirit —
a reference to God the Third Person of the Trinity. The “Spirit of life indicates 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
verse 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 a 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. 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. The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life,
and He has provided 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, “Goodby, 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 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 old sin nature (sin
in the singular), which produces spiritual death (Rom. 5:12; 8:6).
Now
we meet a third law — the Mosaic Law. This Law was bona fide and, in context,
has a function; 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 you are helpless and
hopeless to save yourself. You cannot gain the approbation of God by your human
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 restricts the activities of the
Mosaic Law.
“God
sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, 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 Spirit, in this sense, in
the Old Testament; there was no such thing as the universal indwelling of the
Spirit until Christ came in the flesh, went to the cross and was subsequently
glorified (John 7:39). In His humanity, He was in the “LIKENESS of
sinful flesh.” He was without sin and without a sin nature; but He had a human
soul and a human body. He came “for a sin offering” (liter- ally). Christ is
the sin offering that satisfied God the Father. 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 own essence.
In
Romans 8:4, all three laws are brought together. “That the righteousness of the
law (the perfect standard demanded by the law) might be fulfilled in us, who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The old sin nature frustrates
the demands of the Mosaic Law. The new law of the Spirit fills the deficiency
created by the law of the old sin nature. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law by
dying for our sins. We fulfill the Law by being filled with the Spirit. But
whether or not the 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 law of grace in
spirituality.
The
Enemy to Spirituality. In Romans 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 they (carnal believers) that are after
(live according to the standard of) the flesh (sin nature) do mind (think) the
things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the
Spirit” (verse 5). From the area of weakness in the old sin nature comes
thought pattern sins: hatred, jealousy, self-pity, egoism, implacability,
mental adultery, etc. Christians have the tendency to excuse the sins of the
mind and think they are spiritual because they do not commit overt sins. They
put on a phony, self-righteous facade of asceticism, but inside they are full
of mental attitude sins. The emphasis in Christianity is what you think.
Christianity is not a system of ethics or morals; it is a dynamic, vital life,
determined by what you think!
The
sin nature has an area of strength, which causes people to construe activities
of human good as the Christian way of life. What does human 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.
A
third area in the sin nature is lust — 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 things of the old sin nature.
“But
they that are after (according to the standard of) the Spirit (believers who
are filled with the Spirit keep on thinking) the things of the Spirit.” Their
thought pattern is divine viewpoint; it is a 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!
“For
to be carnally minded (a thought pattern controlled by the sin nature) is death
(temporal death — out of fellowship, cut off from God, or out of the bottom
circle); but to be spiritually minded is life (life in the bottom circle; life
in the filling of the Spirit; the life which reflects our position in Christ)
and peace (the antithesis of mental attitude sins; a relaxed mental attitude)”
(verse 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 carnal mind is enmity against
God. .. “ (verse 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!
“…
for it (the carnal mind) is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
be.” It 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 do the will of God. He is not in the place from where we
receive our orders — the “law of God” — 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) they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (verse 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!
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 lazy-minded 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 THE SPIRIT! The negatives emphasize the
positives.
Confusion
of Means and Results. Believers in this category think they are spiritual
because they witness, give, pray, yield, dedicate, etc.; but this is putting
the cart before the horse. Except for “yield” (in the aorist tense) in Romans
6:13,19; 12:1, which is the principle of rebound, none of these things is the MEANS of
the filling of the Spirit — only the result The words “yield” of Romans 6 and
“present” of Romans 12:1 are both “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, but “yield” is a
poor translation because it usually has an emotional connotation. When you
yield to sin (Rom. 6:13a), you are under the control of the old sin nature;
when you yield unto God (Rom. 6:13b), you have used the rebound technique, you
are back in fellowship, and the Holy Spirit controls.
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 His 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. 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 peculiar to certain areas and
centuries 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, 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, 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 love, expediency and supreme sacrifice; and certain
things which are given up AS A RESULT of either spirituality or 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 maturity; but they are not the means of
spirituality. The Bible very clearly delineates 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. 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.”
That
is spiritual 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 “heavenly 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 I realize “self” is my worst enemy, and I
decide to get rid of self. I am going
to crucify the old self-life. Self is going to cancel out self. The amazing
thing is that self cannot cancel out self. A “kingdom divided against itself
cannot stand,” and self is definitely not divided against self. Actually,
“crucifying self” is a misinterpretation of the sixth chapter of Romans, which
says, “Reckon yourselves dead unto sin.”
In Romans 6, we are commanded to know the doctrine of retroactive
positional
truth and to apply it to experience. But this business of “crucifying self” is
a fleshly effort to obtain spirituality by trying to get rid of “self.” Self is
one of the expressions of the old sin nature’, and that is here to stay! There
is a means of overcoming the old sin nature; but crucifying self is not the
means, nor is it spirituality.
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 in who controls the life.
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 and further, he is taking honor and glory from
the Person of Jesus Christ!
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
unparalleled! 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 someone to Christ, and that is by the Spirit-filled
life.
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 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 after you are 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.
Ye are our epistles written in our hearts,
known and read of all men (verse 2).
Every
Christian is a letter that all the world can read — an open letter from God to
the human race!
Forasmuch as ye are manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink,
but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy
tables of the heart (verse 3).
The
kind of writing mentioned here is not penned with ink; the writing is what
others see in us. 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 effulgence of
Christ, and to effect in us the Christian 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
Christian 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 doctrine
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 sufficient of
ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God (verse
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, “We are not
sufficient of ourselves to think we are Something.” Now notice: “but our
sufficiency 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. We represent Him
on this earth. The Father gave us a plan which is given in outline here in
verse 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 hath made us able ministers
of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
life (verse 6).
In
Romans 13, the word “minister” refers to a chief of state, and in Ephesians 4,
to a pastor. But here it refers to you, Mr. Average Christian. As a believer in
Jesus Christ, you are God’s minister; you are in full-time Christian service.
Today it is you who stand in the gap and proclaim, “Come to Jesus Christ.”
While Christ was here, He said to humanity, “Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 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 invite a lost and dying
world to Jesus Christ is through the filling of the Spirit!
Why
is it we have so little proclamation of the Word on the part of Mr. Average
Believer or Mr. Man-in-the-pew? 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 cannot be filled with
the Spirit.
“We
are now made ABLE
ministers’ (2 Cor. 3:6) not just ministers, but ministers WHO CAN DO IT! In
other words, we are given the ability to minister by means of God the Holy
Spirit. We are able ministers of the Old Testament or the Mosaic Law? Is that
what it says? It does not! “Who has made us able ministers of the NEW TESTAMENT.”
The Old Testament is God’s Word; but we have many truths in the 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 (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6). There was no universal priesthood
in the Old Testament. Every believer is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit (1 Cor.
6:19,20). There was no universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Old
Testament. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). This was never true
in the Old Testament. Why? Christ was not yet glorified. Everything in the Old
Testament points to Christ shadows pointing to the reality. But after the reality comes, there is a
complete change of plan, and this change of plan involves you as a believer.
“Who
has made us able ministers of the New Testament, 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 Christ; the
Law has some wonderful functions; it is “holy, just 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 is a merit system in the
part where the commandments occur. Apart from that, it is a series of shadows.
“…
for the letter killeth . ..” It condemns! The Mosaic Law slaps us in jail (Gal.
2). 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 Testament, we find
many sincere believers still living under the Law. They have ignored the new
dispensation.
There
also seems to be a doctrine 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. 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 Romans through Jude. 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 ministration of death,
written and engraven in stones was glorious, so the children of Israel could
not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which
glory was to be done away (2 Cor. 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. Here is a picture of Exodus 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 transient 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
shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious (literally, ‘be
much more glorious’)” (verse 8)? If the Mosaic Law was glorious, how much more
the glory of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! Why is the indwelling of the
Spirit better than the Mosaic Law? Because everything in the Mosaic Law was
only a shadow pointing to Christ (the Levitical offerings, 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!
When
God the Holy Spirit controls the life. He pro- duces the very character 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 character of
Christ. “Christ is the end of the law . . . to everyone that believeth” (Rom.
10:4). The love, the joy, the peace, the self-control — “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 Holy Spirit controlling the
life. Not only does He produce the character of Christ, He produces the ability
to understand the Word of God. Our understanding of the Word, our prayer life,
our worship, and our witnessing for Jesus Christ depend upon the Holy Spirit’s
controlling our life.
The
tragedy is those people who witness in the flesh 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” — the daily
intake of doctrine 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 doctrine. 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 on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be Saved''''' (Acts
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 some- thing that Christ bore on the cross; you
take on the solution. “Whosover believeth in him should not perish, but have
eternal life” (John 3:15). We cannot operate for Christ apart from the ministry
of the Spirit in and through us.
For if the ministration of
condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed
in glory (2 Cor. 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 am I
preaching the Word?
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, the 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 things that count in the
Christian life (Phil. 2:13). This is where we begin training up a child in the
way he should go (Prov. 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 character of the wonderful Person of the Lord Jesus
Christ is produced in the believer is every child’s prerogative.
For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth (2 Cor.
3:10).
Although
the Law has glory, the glory of the ministry of the Holy Spirit so far exceeds
the temporary glory of the Law, it is as though the Law has no glory.
For if that which is done away was
glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious
(verse 11).
The
Mosaic Law has been done away as the modus operandi of the believer in the
Church Age. Although it still teaches the believer many wonderful truths 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. Verse 12: “Seeing then
(in view of the glory of the Spirit-filled life) that we have such hope (the
hope of glorifying God by the filling of the Spirit; but notice it is a hope;
it is not a reality unless you meet the Bible conditions of the filling of the
Spirit), 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 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, doctrine was
communicated through training aids, such as types, holy days, ritual,
offerings, etc. But with the glorification of Christ, doctrine must now be
communicated apart from types and shadows; it must be accomplished by
categorical teaching. So Paul
emphasizes simplicity (literally) of speech so that no one will miss this
tremendous doctrine.
The
Removal of the Veils.
And not as Moses, which put a vail over his
face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that
which is abolished (verse 13).
Paul’s
modus operandi is the antithesis of Moses I 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 Spirit-filled life can be revealed. The veil over Moses’ face was
a literal veil; but between verses 13 and 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, or their minds.
But their minds were blinded: for
until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old
testament; which vail is done away in Christ (verse 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 is substituted. 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.
“Which
vail is done away 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 even unto this day, when Moses
is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when (if) it (he) shall
turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away (2 Cor.
3:15,16).
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (verse 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, 0 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 character of
Christ, to make your life count. The Law does not give freedom; the Law
restricts; it holds back. Any merit or works system holds us back. 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
human energy or in human ability. All divine good in the Christian life is
produced by God the Holy Spirit. If it is produced apart from the filling of
the Spirit, it is absolutely worthless. 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 stubble”! What a tragedy it will be to see
tons and tons of wood, hay and stubble all burn up because they knew nothing
about the filling of the Spirit! If there is any “go d, silver and precious
stones’ in your Christian life, it is produced by one means only — God the Holy
Spirit (1 Cor. 3:11-15).
But we all, with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 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 to read
the Word of God with understanding. 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 understanding. “Beholding’’
describes the believer’s intake of doctrine which is based on the filling of
the Spirit. Hence, the result of being filled with the Spirit includes learning
Bible doctrine (John 14:26; 16:12-15; 1 Cor. 2:9-14; Jas. 1:21-25; 1 John
2:27).
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! 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!
“We
all. . . are changed 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 essence. Doctrine is the glory presented categorically. 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 glory of God
becomes our glory by means of two factors presented in this verse: the filling
of the Spirit and doctrine in the right lobe. When the Holy Spirit controls the
life, when we get into the Word and see those things concerning Christ, we are
changed.
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 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, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, humility and
self-control.” These characteristics were produced by the Holy Spirit in Him to
show believers 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 doctrine and the filling of the Spirit!
Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts (Zech. 4:6).