Essentials of Spiritual Growth and Multiplication

A weblog to accompany the moderated chat sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ's Global Media Outreach division. Members feel free to comment on the previous weeks' study!

1 Comments:

At 8:44 AM,  Anonymous said...

In Sunday evening’s study, we were talking about the fact that Truth is a Person. It was our second study in our series on the divine Person of the Holy Spirit and His intimate ministry to us.

Although we had technical difficulties interrupting our study, I believe God showed us all something. I know for me some of our discussion and meditation afterward has shown me that I need to tighten up and be more disciplined about my schedule in order to be relaxed and have unstructured time for the really important things, like spending adequate time in prayer and in personal ministry, in performing the ministry God has given me.

I know God has revealed some things to others of you as well—maybe you’d care to share them, so that we can hold one another accountable!

We talked about how the Holy Spirit is our Teacher, according to 1 John 2:27:
“And as for you, the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”

The Spirit is described here as an “anointing,” like in 2 Corinthians 2:21-22—or as “oil” like in Matthew 25:1-13. It’s not talking about our having no use for a human teacher at all—just that you must let the Holy Spirit be your real Teacher in every circumstance. This is why we urge you to always pray for His supernatural guidance before approaching His Word; and why we encourage you to cross-reference the things we say in your own personal study, (See Acts 17:11), that in the extra light of parallel passages, God will make things more clear to you…and dispel any error I might unintentionally introduce.

1 Peter 1:20 says the following:
“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”
(I used the King James Version, because it’s very literal. I have seen some very confusing renderings of this verse in other translations.)

The idea is that, since the Spirit in you and the Spirit in me is the Author (see the next verse:
“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
And, since the same Spirit is also the Interpreter, Spirit-led individuals will arrive at the same conclusion regarding the meaning of a passage.

For instance, there was a group called the “Manifest Sons of God,” based on Romans 8:19: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” They began to teach that certain elite Christians would increase in holiness and spirituality until they eventually literally became new incarnations of Christ Himself.

This is a unique and novel interpretation of Scripture; also a horribly wrong one. You could find many passages that show it to be false, but all it would really take would be to keep on reading in the same passage, where it begins to talk about how we await the ultimate redemption of our bodies.

1 Corinthians 2:10-16 is also talking about our need for the Spirit to be our Teacher. The mind of God, also called the Mind of Christ in v. 16, is compared to our human mind. Just as we can’t read one another’s thoughts, the only way we can have access to God’s own mind is by communion with His Spirit. Job 32: 8 says, “there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.”

The translators have inserted the words “thoughts” and “words” in 1 Corinthians 2:13…so you really have to think of it as “comparing spiritual with spiritual.” (Pneumatikos pneumatikos). I wouldn’t argue with the need to compare words and thoughts. But I think the idea here is to compare spiritual teachings with other spiritual teachings, cross-referencing the Bible topically. Our interpretation has to be in harmony with “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) for it to be correct. Thankfully we have access to that, if we will only avail ourselves of it. Amos 3:7 makes the stunning statement that “the Lord will do nothing without revealing His secret to His servants the prophets.” Isn’t that amazing? That’s talking about a specific instance—but there’s a principle involved, the same one Jesus pointed out in John 15. As His friends, He is willing to share truth about His works with us, sometimes even in anticipation—but more importantly, He gives us the deeper meaning behind why He does what He does, as we grow in our relationship with Him.

Finally, John 16:13-15 tells us:

However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will announce to you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take from what is Mine and He will announce it to you. All things which the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He takes from what is Mine and will announce it to you. (John 16:13-15)

This is Jesus telling the disciples about the unique role of the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus meant when He said it was actually “profitable” to us that He leave this earth—the indwelling Spirit’s ministry to Jesus’ disciples after His resurrection is actually preferable to Jesus’ face-to-face ministry to them. That’s a pretty radical thought. How could that possibly be? Think about all the times He said something and they didn’t “get it.” (Mark 8:32; 9:6; Matthew 15:15; 16:7; John 4:33) They were also frightened, scattered and nearly spineless after Jesus’ arrest. That word doesn’t apply to them at all after the Resurrection and the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.

The Spirit’s ministry of Truth toward us helps us recognize truth about our own circumstances, and how they are sovereignly controlled by God:

But He that searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes on behalf of the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Because whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Rom 8:27-29)

All circumstances work together for our good because of this. However, we can’t change the word “good” to “comfort.” Because the very next verse tells us that those same called ones are predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. This parallels an earlier passage, (v. 17-18), which shows us that we are destined to suffer the results of sin together with him in this life, awaiting the glorification with Him in the next.

We talked about this more in-depth by comparing it to 2 Corinthians 4. Please look carefully at this passage. We’ll start at the very end of chapter 3:

Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not despair, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor falsifying the word of God, but by the disclosure of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience before God. But even if our gospel is hidden, it is hidden among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake.

Because it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay vessels, so that the extraordinary character of the power may be of God and not of us; in everything being oppressed, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, so that also the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body.

For we who are living are always handed over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifest in our body. So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written, "I believed, and therefore I spoke," we also believe, therefore we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us through Jesus, and will present us together with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not despair, but even if our outward man is being destroyed, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is working out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are for a season, but the things which are not seen last forever. (2Co 4:1-18)

When we become Christians, we “repent,” or turn and abandon, our old way of living…primarily our assumption that we are acceptable to God on our own. (See Hebrews 6:1.) But that’s not to be the last time we repent. The Christian life is a lifestyle of repentance, of submitting in faith, of yielding ourselves to God’s purposes:

Likewise you also, consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts, nor present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:11-13)

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.” (Rom 13:14)

Romans 8 is a much-beloved and much claimed, passage, wrapping up with the following beautiful words:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Just as it is written: "For Your sake we are put to death the whole day long; we are accounted as sheep for slaughter." But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

Something we in modern western Christendom often miss, (which Ravi Zacharias, a “missionary to North America” from India, describes with the following wry statement, “God, if you’re there, then why do I have this toothache?”), is that, although the theme in Romans 8 IS Jesus’ persevering love, all those things were indeed happening to the 1st Century Roman Christians who received Paul’s letter!

Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword… being put to death, all the day long. And not because of anything bad they did. Paul is saying that in spite of the way these circumstances appeared, the divine supervision of all circumstances ensured that they were for the benefit of the called, to conform us to the image of Christ our Lord, to work out for us a “more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” beside which nothing in this world can compare. Do circumstances in your life seem unfair, inequitable? Do you want them to be fair and equitable in this life—or do you want them balanced out by the rewards in eternity?? (See Hebrews 6:10, 11:6, 11:35)

Far from doubting God’s existence, or complaining against Him, when we suffer, the Spirit’s work in us is to help us submit to what is essentially God’s work in our lives, designed to help us “mortify” (make dead—Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5) our bodies and consider ourselves dead to sin, alive to God. 1 Peter is a book containing much valuable advice about suffering, including the following:

For this is admirable, if because of conscience toward God someone endures pain, suffering unjustly. For what glory is it, if when you sin and are beaten, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is admirable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving behind an example for you, that you should follow in His footsteps, "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; who, being verbally abused, did not return verbal insults, when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, in order that having died to sins, we might live unto righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed. (1 Peter 2:19-24)

I realize this is extremely strong language—and an extremely tall order. So, rather than looking to ourselves to fulfill it, we must look to God:

“So therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, [this is the great list of heroes of the faith given in chapter 11], let us lay aside every impediment, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you be weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to the point of bloodshed, struggling against sin. (Hebrews 12:1-4, boldface mine)

You cannot live the Christian life in your own strength. God never intended you to! The best you can do in your own strength is live a half-life, either hypocrisy or evident defeat before men, self-absorption before God. If we believe God raised Jesus from the dead, we must believe that He can raise us also to walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4) That’s what baptism’s testimony is to the world—that that’s what our own attitude is. Have you been baptized? If so, were you baptized with any other understanding than that described in Romans 6:1-14? If not, would you consider obedience to believer’s baptism, the model of the Scriptures? It’s a commitment and accountability to live the crucified life which only the Spirit of God can make you want to do.

 

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