The Mosaic Law was never a means of salvation, but rather showed how man could never save himself since the issue of sin could not be conquered by any sinful person. No one could ever attain the perfect righteousness required to live with God forever on their own. Therefore salvation has always been by faith in the Messiah (Savior). During the Old Testament people believed that God would send a Messiah to reconcile God and mankind, and by this faith in a future Messiah they gained salvation. After the cross people gain salvation by believing in Jesus Christ as the actual Savior. Once the reality of the cross has occurred, those provisions which looked forward to reconciliation between God and mankind were set aside. The shadows have been replaced by the reality, and with that a new set of divine rules apply.
It may come as a shock, but the Church is not even under the Ten Commandments since it is part of the Mosaic Law. They were given to Israel to establish order and discipline in the Jewish society, and dealt with issues facing them as a struggling new nation just released from slavery in Egypt. Certain types of sins would tear them apart as a nation, therefore they were emphasized. Idolatry, adultery, murder, coveting, dishonoring parents were all threats to good order and discipline in a society, especially one where God was the direct ruler under a theocracy. Regarding the ten items listed, the Church does not keep Saturday holy as required by the Ten Commandments, so that throws out one of the ten right away. While complying with the other nine commandments which speak of sin is also a requirement of our New Testament, the approach has changed from a “thou shalt not” (i.e., “don’t do that”) approach 107
to being a grace approach recognizing we are all sinners who need to grow out of sin as our love of the Lord increases through Truth in our human spirit.
The Ten Commandments were about defining how a nation should maintain freedom under God in a theocracy where God is the direct ruler, as Israel was designed to be, until they demanded a human king in violation of God’s requirements for them. This is another very important reason why the Mosaic Law was only for Israel before the cross, namely the Mosaic Law established Israel as a theocracy under the direct rule of God, not under the rule of man.
The Jews rejected this principle to their detriment. However, no nation except Old Testament Israel was supposed to be a theocracy, therefore the detailed directives of the Law were not meant to apply to any nation except for Israel. This is because they were established as a nation set aside by God as His representatives to the world in order to spread the message of salvation and maintain the scriptures. The Ten Commandments only listed a few sins, and not the worst of them in God’s view. God views arrogance as worse than many of the sins listed in the Ten Commandments. Proverbs 6 provides a list of the sins God views as the worst: “There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.” The Sabbath days during the Old Testament times required the person to stop doing ordinary things and instead contemplate what they had learned about the Messiah through the Levitical sacrifices and other information. It was a time to refocus away from earthly things and turn the focus toward God. This requirement was put into the Ten Commandments and other Old Testament codes. The Sabbath of the Old Testament was not only every Saturday for the Jews, but also the first day of every month, and also the six annual feast days were Sabbath days. So anyone who thinks keeping Sunday "holy" complies with the Ten Commandments is far off base, since no requirement was ever declared for the Church regarding Sunday, but rather it is simply a traditional assembly worship day for the Church in celebration of the Resurrection of Christ, which occurred on a Sunday. The Church may gather on Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection, but there is no requirement to avoid work or strenuous efforts or prohibit children from playing and having fun. These prohibitions only had meaning to Israel as a shadow form of worship which no longer applies.
To be clear, nine of the Ten Commandments are sins we should avoid, but “keeping the Sabbath holy” does not apply any longer since there is no Sabbath. So saying the Ten Commandments are a requirement is not accurate since the Sabbath observance (Saturday) has been removed. The Ten Commandments was part of the Mosaic Law, and it has been set aside. The avoidance of all sins is our requirement from the New Testament, so there are no longer only nine called out as being special. But even so the New Testament recognizes our weaknesses and emphasizes forgiveness of all personal sins.
108
If anyone thinks Church Age believers must follow the Old Testament and the Ten Commandments, then why are they not complying with the verses which immediately follow the Ten Commandments in Exodus Chapter 20:
Exodus 20:24 “‘Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you. 25 If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. 26 And do not go up to my altar on steps, or your private parts may be exposed.”
Church Age believers are not prohibited from walking up stairs out of concern about their
"private parts." We do not make altars made of earth. We do not sacrifice animals. We are allowed to use tools. We can use any type of stone we choose. We must not sacrifice animals, or prohibit our family from eating certain foods such as pork, or follow Old Testament rituals.
We do not tithe, which was taxation in Israel. We are not prohibited from being in a room with a dead person. We are not required to stay away from dogs. We must not prohibit children from having fun on a Sabbath since there is no Sabbath during the Church Age (Sunday is a day of assembly worship celebrating the Resurrection, not a Sabbath). We must not try to enforce any of the numerous lifestyle prohibitions listed in the Old Testament.
These types of prohibitions have been removed entirely. We have been set free from the rigorous and monotonous and burdensome requirements of a Mosaic Law which were meant to teach believers about God at a time before the salvation work of the Messiah was accomplished, before most people could read, and before there were books. Christ was the end of the Law. Going back to it ignores the work of our Savior to set us free from sin and from the Mosaic Law which defined sin and set burdensome rules for how to deal with spiritual issues and also mundane daily life issues. Many Old Testament directives spoke figuratively of avoiding things which represented sin or evil. And numerous Old Testament prohibitions concerning food, unclean animals and people such as lepers, working on Saturday, and so forth were teaching aids to the Old Testament believers, and this was how they learned many lessons. Along with those there was a vast array of rituals which were also used to teach principles including salvation, forgiveness of sins, and the characteristics of the future Messiah. We do not live in the shadows of such outdated teaching methods since we have the New Testament. Hebrews 10:1 says: “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.”
Only Jesus Christ in person as Savior would be the reality. And after He provided salvation, 109
the covenants with mankind were changed from the old covenant to the New Testament to reflect that reality.
Other issues related to Israel's national life were meant to teach them spiritual lessons which only applied to them, such as sabbatical years (every 7 years), Jubilee years (every 50 years), and the celebration of the seven annual feasts. The first four annual feasts occur during the spring (Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Weeks) and the last three feasts (Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles) occurred during the fall. Jesus Christ fulfilled the first four feasts, but the last three feasts speak of the Tribulation and Millennial reign of Christ so their fulfillment is still future. This shows yet again how there are prophecies yet to be fulfilled from the Old Testament, and these prophesies remain very much valid even though the rituals and feasts do not. And many prophecies were about the Messiah and have already been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Also, some prophecies were about specific nations and empires and disasters which were fulfilled during Old Testament times. But many other prophecies remain to be fulfilled. The remaining unfulfilled prophecies are about the Tribulation and the Millennium, which come after the Church Age ends with the Rapture (resurrection) of the Church. There are no prophecies which will be fulfilled during the Church Age except for the Rapture itself. So the most important portions of the Old Testament which remain valid are the numerous prophecies which are yet to be fulfilled.
Every last prophecy must be fulfilled by the end of the Millennium.
Regarding the non-Law portions of the Old Testament which remain generally valid, there are several categories of useful information. The Old Testament contains historical and practical information which put our lives into perspective related to the timeline of God's plan. God has revealed how man was created, how man fell, the Great Flood, the history of Israel as a nation and other information which provides a historical perspective for current believers.
The lives of many great believers of Old Testament times are discussed, both successes and failures. Angels and Satan are discussed. Sin is generally defined. Then there are the Books of Wisdom which are Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon which remain valid as generally useful information about life and also includes basic information about God's character and faithfulness. There is much to be learned from all of this information, although it is very basic to the spiritual life, and not the source of primary spiritual growth information for the Church. So although the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament was fulfilled by the Messiah Jesus Christ, and therefore has been set aside after the cross and replaced by the New Testament, many non-Law portions remain useful for our general instruction. And all unfulfilled prophecies must be fulfilled. But the primary instruction and direction regarding the spiritual life of the Church is in the New Testament. The Old Testament is no longer directive, but is now mainly illustrative, serving to provide information about God’s divine 110
standards regarding sin, defining the principles of human freedom, and generally providing information about how mankind has both succeeded and failed during human history in relation to God’s will. To sum up, the Old Testament remains useful in many ways, but it is not the main part of our spiritual food which enables our spiritual growth. The Old Testament is very basic spiritual information compared with what the New Testament offers. So if a believer is going to grow spiritually they must do it primarily using the information from the New Testament, not from the Old Testament.
As discussed earlier, the Books of Wisdom which includes Job, Proverbs, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon provide mostly succinct statements of common sense wisdom and basic principles regarding faith in God which apply to all Ages. A good example is the Book of Proverbs, which is an aphorism-based method of providing spiritual common sense information applicable to all Ages of time. Examples include pithy sayings about being humble, faithfully serving God, avoiding people who are bad influences, trusting the Lord, and fulfilling obligations. Some examples include:
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 22:6 “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”
Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Proverbs 31:10 “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.”
Psalm 9:1 “I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.”
Psalm 16:8 “I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Psalm 37:4 “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
Such succinct sayings and advice formed the basis of learning to trust God during Old Testament times. That was a time of simple faith as a means to please God, and that faith was 111
based on simple lessons. Their spiritual life was therefore very simplistic, and the results were also spiritually simple and basic. In contrast, Church Age believers have a deep and complex spiritual life based on understanding the deep concepts and doctrines of the New Testament.
These bring us closer to understanding God and lead to a spiritual life based on increased power, and far greater impact than was ever possible during Old Testament times. The reality of the cross made that possible, since God was able to expand the spiritual life exponentially after the cross occurred. Trying to go back and live the simplistic spiritual life of the Old Testament is like trying to regain childhood. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said “but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me” (I Corinthians 13:10-11). The “completeness” was the completed Bible, which provides and adult level knowledge of God as opposed to a child-like knowledge of God given during Old Testament times. And this new level of knowledge is as close to knowing God as is possible this side of heaven, when we will more fully understand Him.
Therefore we can still learn from the Old Testament as instructive for Church Age believers even though we must not live under the Mosaic Law portion of the Old Testament as being directive to us. The key is learning from it, not living under its spiritual requirements as though they were directive. The Church gets its complex spiritual direction from the New Testament. The Old Testament should not be discarded since we can learn many lessons from it. But learning is different than taking it as directive. Certain provisions of the Old Testament were reiterated in the New Testament making them apply to the Church, but often in a changed manner reflecting God’s grace approach. Church Age believers can use the timeless Old Testament basic spiritual truths as an interim level of spiritual support on their way to the advanced level of spiritual status only the New Testament can provide.
During Old Testament times God sent prophets who received spiritual information directly from God, performed miraculous signs and actions, and taught the people spiritual information. All of this ended after the cross. Although the Apostles were able to perform miracles for a short time, it was only to establish their spiritual authority to spread the gospel of Christ and teach spiritual truth to the world. These powers were taken away from them once the Church Age had been established and doctrines were written down in the epistles to the churches. The Church Age is a time when God requires believers to live a grace-based life of faith. He no longer uses miracles to impress us or teach us, as He did with the prophets during the Old Testament.
112
As already discussed, God established Israel to serve as His chosen people. They were chosen to perform two specific tasks, namely to evangelize the world, and to be the keepers of the Scriptures. Israel was given the Old Testament which was by necessity limited until the sin issue was actually resolved by the Messiah. Once the Messiah was presented to them but rejected, God needed to provide an alternate group to carry on the mission of evangelization and keep the Scriptures since the promised Kingdom (Millennium) to Israel was delayed.
This alternate group became the Church which had special provisions since the cross had removed the sin issue, so God was able to provide the Church with a greatly enhanced spiritual life which was much more fulfilling than He had been able to provide Israel before the sin issue was removed as an impediment. The Church does not set aside or replace Israel, so Israel’s fulfillment of Old Testament prophetical promises were only delayed until the Millennium, not removed or transferred to the Church. God keeps the Church and Israel separate since both have unique taskings in God’s plan. The Old Testament was given to Israel, and the New Testament was given to the Church, and these are never mixed. During the Church Age all Jewish believers are part of the Church, not a separate “chosen people”
called Israel. In the Millennium the promises of the Millennial Kingdom in the Old Testament will be fulfilled to a regathered Israel and all prophecies which have not yet been fulfilled will be fulfilled at that time. There are also unfulfilled prophecies about the seven year Tribulation which will be fulfilled after the Rapture of the Church when the Age of Israel resumes and concludes during that seven year period.
Despite all this, during the Church Age many religious groups seek to implement the provisions of the Old Testament as directive, to the spiritual detriment of their followers.
Some seek to live in the Old Testament and revive what Jesus Christ has already accomplished and taken out of the way. These groups attempt to maintain what God has set aside. In essence, they seek to re-shackle themselves to an inferior covenant from which God has graciously freed us. Some try to keep Saturday or Sunday as a holy day. Others have priests and other levels of hierarchy attempting to replace or mimic the Levitical priesthood. The New Testament makes it clear that now believers are their own priest, and are each given full access to God on their own. Revelation 1:5-6 says: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.” Other denominations attempt to make the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Mosaic Law the primary focus for worship, when in fact the Law has been fulfilled and set aside by Jesus Christ in favor of a grace approach, which although it includes morality based on grace it does not emphasize the issue of morality to the exclusion of grace. God Himself has not changed, but what He can offer based on the reality of the cross having actually occurred has changed. The New Testament reiterates the portions of the Old Testament which apply to the Church. The focus has been changed from living under a set of prohibitions and restrictions to living under the 113
freedom to serve and worship God through Jesus Christ in the power of Truth from the human spirit.
Therefore Church Age believers can learn many lessons from the Old Testament, but must not use the Mosaic Law as a directive means of living the spiritual life God requires of us. The Church must live under the New Testament, which makes it clear that Jesus Christ’s salvation work on the cross set aside the Mosaic Law, and allowed God to provide greatly expanded grace to believers during the Church Age. Therefore the Old Testament remains instructive to Church Age believers in many ways, but it is not directive. We have been set free from it by our Savior Jesus Christ. For that we are very grateful.
114
THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMILITY IN SPIRITUALITY
Humility is a fundamental requirement of spirituality because it enables us to understand our need for God's grace in our lives, gives us a respect for others, and also makes us teachable.
And as we have seen, we must learn the Word of God consistently over time in order to attain spirituality, so it is imperative that we be teachable. Looking at it from the opposite viewpoint, a consistently arrogant person cannot achieve any level of spirituality, which the Bible makes very clear, including 1 Peter 5:5 which says "All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” And Romans 12:3 says "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you." Before we look at additional verses, let us first discuss what humility is and is not.
We should begin by noting that humility cannot be judged from the outside, since as with everything spiritual it is not a facade of actions or method of speaking. Humility allows for accurately assessing one's own abilities and accomplishments, self-awareness, confidence, being at ease, having leadership skills and talking with authority when required. True humility is a thought process which objectively understands one's own limitations, foibles, imperfections, and lack of being the center of the universe. But humble people will have a level of self-assuredness and comfort about their role in life without the trappings of arrogant thinking because they do not take themselves more seriously than they should. This is why humility is often accompanied by a good sense of humor, which is making light of oneself and difficult situations, rather than joke telling. In contrast, arrogance is defined by a lack of humility and the good qualities stated above, while it overestimates practically everything positive and underestimates practically everything negative about self. Arrogant people can fake humility for a while, and in fact those who seem to be the most humble from a human viewpoint can often be the most arrogant, as they try to hide their true self under a false exterior. That is, until their true nature is found out. Then they are seen as the proud, boastful, conceited and self-centered person they really are.
Now let is take a look at some Bible verses which makes clear the need for humility in order to 115
James 3:13
"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom."
1 Peter 5:5
"In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
Proverbs 11:2
"When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."
Proverbs 15:33
"Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the Lord, and humility comes before honor."
James 3:14
"But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth."
Philippians 2:3
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves"
Romans 3:27
"Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded."
2 Cor 11:30
116
"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying."
James 4:13
"Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”
James 4:16
"As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil."
Jude 1:16
"These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage."
Colossians 2:18
"Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you.
Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind."
Colossians 2:23
"Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."
Colossians 3:12
"Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."
The attitude of a believer who wants to achieve spirituality should be something like the following, which is an important part of a believer's daily interface with God: 117
1) Father, I know that I am nothing apart from you and my Savior, 2) I would have no salvation and nothing of value without you, 3) I am completely dependent on you for everything useful in my life, 4) I need more of your instruction in Truth and more wisdom most of all.
This is not meant to be a prescription for a ritual, but rather it is meant to demonstrate one possible way to remind oneself of the need for humility in our daily life. The sinful nature tries very hard to get the believer into pride and an unrealistic view of one's own importance.
It will be a lifelong battle to avoid pride and the downside effects it will have on the spiritual life. As the Bible says:
16 "How much better to get wisdom than gold,
to get insight rather than silver!
17 The highway of the upright avoids evil;
those who guard their ways preserve their lives.
18 Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
19 Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed
than to share plunder with the proud.
20 Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers,
and blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.
21 The wise in heart are called discerning,
and gracious words promote instruction."
-- Proverbs 16:18-23
Note how "pride" is set in opposition to wisdom and instruction. Spirituality is built on a bedrock of humility which facilitates instruction in the Word of God, which transforms the human spirit by filling it up with Truth -- the power of God inside us. Therefore pride is the enemy of spirituality, and overcoming pride becomes a major issue in the life of every believer.
118
FAITH, HOPE & LOVE RELATED TO SPIRITUALITY
The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 about maturing spiritually and achieving three levels of spiritual growth, each one built on the former. "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." But what does Paul mean by this?
In the context of the entire passage starting in the previous chapter Paul is talking about differing levels of mature thinking and understanding related to spiritual matters, and discusses the various spiritual gifts. He ends the chapter with: 1 Corinthians 12:13 "And yet I will show you the most excellent way."
In the next sentence Paul begins chapter 13 (of course, there were no chapter divisions in the original epistle) with a continuation of the thought, saying that spiritual gifts are not "the most excellent way." Rather, Paul's discussion turns to faith, hope, and love as "the most excellent way." During this passage he describes spiritual knowledge of Truth related to love as "the most excellent way."
1 Corinthians 13:4 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails...12 Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
Here we see that love is used to describe mature spiritual thinking and understanding based on knowing a maximum amount of Truth. Once again we see how the Bible consistently links spirituality with knowledge of the Word of God. Three levels of spirituality based on Truth are placed in order of achievement, starting with some level of basic faith, then progressing to the point where we have a "hope of glory" as we understand much more about the plan of God for our life, and finally achieving love, the ultimate level of spirituality. This is not simply the love most think of, which is usually a superficial and emotional type based on limited information and based primarily on feelings. This is instead a mature and abiding love based on what is 119
known about God deep within the human spirit, namely Truth. In Colossians 2:2 Paul says:
"that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ." It is therefore knowledge and understanding about God the Father and Jesus Christ which leads to this type of love Paul is discussing. And since this knowledge is related to God, it is knowledge of Truth from the Word, which is the only way to know and understand God, and only comes to fruition for believers inside the human spirit by the mentoring of the Holy Spirit.
Paul therefore sets two interim goals of spiritual growth, which are faith and hope, and sets the ultimate goal of our spiritual development as achieving love, the top level of spirituality.
This is not simply using love now and again, but rather it is living by love, and in a state of love from the human spirit filled with maximum Truth. 1 John 4:19 says "We love because he first loved us." Because of what God has done for us in developing our spirituality (soul sanctification) we can live in a state of love from His power inside us. Love is more than a nice thought or action, it is a state of being at the highest point of spirituality. Remember, this is not a superficial and emotional approach, but rather it is viewing everything in life through the lens of a deep understanding of God and our Savior. This is achieved by a process of spiritual development, not an instant result, and not something we can conjure up from our soul. The only instant results are from the soul, and often from the emotion, but those are not spiritual results. And God is only impressed with spiritual results because He is Spirit, and He requires us to use spiritual power to please Him. Striving from the soul does not please God, and spirituality requires a spiritual motivation, which can only come from Truth in the human spirit. Therefore this is about achieving a state of love, not working up love on occasions when there is an unlovable person around. Once again this is the highest spiritual achievement, and very, very few attain it. These believers will have maximum eternal rewards.
Believers cannot achieve the faith, hope, and love levels of spirituality on an empty human spirit, therefore a long process of learning and applying Bible Truth under various levels of testing is required for this growth to happen. It is the only way to grow our spirituality, and there are no shortcuts. Many who start out on the right track fail along the way, give up, and go back to living using only the soul. To achieve spiritual love as the ultimate in spirituality, the believer must persist and go through the first two levels of faith and then hope, and there will be many setbacks. Faith is the base level because we must build a foundation of trusting God. When we are first saved we do not know much about how and why God could give us salvation as a free gift by faith in Christ, and we are not sure we can rely on God for our needs.
After all, we got this far in life before salvation on our own resources, not by trusting God. So we must first learn more about God's faithfulness and other basic issues in order to build up a 120
more secure form of faith in God based on spiritual understanding from the Word. As we acquire more and more Truth from a well-trained pastor and the mentoring ministry of the Holy Spirit our faith becomes stronger as we begin to actually learn about God and our Savior.
Over a period of time the next level, hope, takes hold in our human spirit. Hope is where we begin to understand that our home is not on earth, but with God. He has eternal rewards, which Paul calls "the hope of glory." Then after much more study we move on to learning advanced levels of Truth, and if we persist through many tests, we can eventually get to the point where our human spirit controls our soul to a maximum degree and we live in a state of love. None of these stages are free from failures, and testing must occur all along the way.
And we will always fail, no matter what level of spirituality we are in. But those failures become fewer and farther between, and recovery becomes quicker as we learn to pick up and carry on without spending time worrying about our past failures.
It is important to understand that even at the highest levels of spirituality there will be failures. No believer is perfect, and we cannot expect that from ourselves or others. If we expect it from others we will be constantly disappointed. If we expect perfection from ourselves we will derail our spiritual advance. God forgives us over and over because Christ paid in full for all our failures, so we move on with gratitude. The sinful nature remains in believers until we die, then it will be shed and we will be perfect. Until then we must grow through the stages of spiritual maturity to reduce the impact of the sinful nature in our life and also increase our love for God by understanding Him more deeply and trusting Him more completely. This spiritual journey is not an easy one, and is marked by many failures, but we must continually be "looking toward Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2) And as 1 John 3:3 says: "All who have this hope in him purify themselves." The stages of maturity are called a purifying or sanctification process, not related to salvation, but related to post-salvation achievement of our spirituality objectives. This is the process of self-improvement which God has authorized, because it is by His power, not our own.
Numerous passages in the Bible relate love to knowing and understanding the Word of God.
Ephesians 4:15: "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ." The "love" level of spirituality is when the believer enters into "spiritual rest" as we will discuss in the next chapter. Not in the sense of coasting from then on, but rather the condition of resting in a true understanding of God's plan for us, that we are forever saved by grace, that He is gracious to us, that He is in charge of our destiny, and that we can rely on Him. This cannot be achieved by human striving, which is why the power of the Word is so essential in our spiritual life. The highest level is like reaching a state of spiritual smooth sailing through life. We still face what life throws at us, but now with a sense of calm contentedness. This is when we can actually feel 121
the human spirit working. We feel Truth flowing through our soul. We can finally sense spirituality. This is what mysticism erroneously tries to achieve by a shortcut of getting the feeling part before the Truth part exists. But the only path is on the long road of learning and applying the Truth of the Word.
Love is higher than faith:
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
"If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing...Love is patient and kind...It does not insist on its own way."
Love is tied to knowledge of the Word of God:
Philippians 1:9
"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent."
Love as related to the power of spiritual maturity is tied to our human spirit: 2 Timothy 1:7
"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."
Note that this type of love comes from the human spirit, not the soul.
Love is related to growing up spiritually:
Ephesians 4:15-16
"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ...[which] causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."
Ephesians 3:17
"that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,"
Ephesians 4:15
122
"but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ"
Ephesians 5:2
"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma."
1 Timothy 4:12
"be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity."
1 John 4:16
"And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."
1 John 4:18
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."
Our goal is to increase in love, a sign of abounding in spiritual maturity among believers: 1 Thessalonians 3:12
"And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all."
This is only achieved by a process of spiritual growth by learning the Word of God, which leads to higher and higher levels of spirituality.
As previously discussed, the process of spiritual growth is one of sanctification, or purification, of our soul by filling up the human spirit with Truth so our soul will be driven by Truth and not by the sinful nature and its lusts. This process of spiritual sanctification of our inner human tears down non-Biblical thinking and replaces it with thinking by using Truth. It replaces living under the control of the sinful nature with living under the control of the human spirit. This is necessary because the spiritual life is a constant battle for control of the soul between the sinful nature and the human spirit. And for the human spirit to prevail it requires spiritual power from the Word. It is mostly a back and forth process of gains and 123
losses. Gaining and keeping a state of spirituality is a long, difficult, and time consuming process of learning the Word of God, along with testing from God to motivate higher levels of understanding, and continuing this process over and over.
As we have seen, spirituality is not simply an "in or out" condition, but is also the result of spiritual growth by learning maximum Truth from the Word, filling up our human spirit so that it can direct our soul to live in conformity with the will and plan of God. And during the process of spiritual growth the believer goes through stages or levels, which are described in the Bible as the faith, hope, and love. One builds upon the other, and as that happens, the previous stages become stronger as the upper levels are being developed. It is a process that should continue until the end of our life on earth.
124
THE "REST FROM GOD" -- ATTAINING HIS PEACE
Spirituality has a destination, the pinnacle of spirituality called in the Bible the "Rest from God." After a long and overall successful trek toward the goal of nearly continuous spirituality, the believer can finally enter into a status of spiritual rest. This highest level of spirituality is where the believer enters into a restful stage of the spiritual life, where most testing is generally over, and what remains just bounces off as the believer handles life in a state of calm confidence based on living by Truth. At this point life becomes much smoother and more restful in a spiritual sense. This stage is seen by very few believers, but the eternal rewards for those who achieve it are exponentially expanded and enhanced.
To enter His Rest requires many years of studying the Word, passing the numerous tests along the way, and living from Truth in the human spirit more and more continually over time. It is our purpose in life to achieve the Rest from God where our human spirit runs our soul almost continually and there are fewer aberrations from the will of God. It is also referred to in Philippians 4:7 which says "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Maximum Truth in the human spirit guards the heart and mind of the soul from the evil attacks of the sinful nature in this advanced stage of spirituality. This path toward His Rest is not a straight line, because there will be many failures along the way, however God never requires perfection from us -- not even close. He simply requires overall faithfulness to continue on the path of an upward growth in the Word. We will fail, but we can always get back into His plan and continue moving forward. But it is an ongoing choice we must make. And most believers fail.
Even the Apostle Paul said at one point "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
(Philippians 3:12-14)
Paul scolded the Corinthian believers for not making progress toward the Rest from God even though he had started them out on the right track. About five years after he left Corinth Paul 125
wrote to them saying they should be farther along, but instead were still "babes in Christ" who had not progressed past the need for spiritual milk when they should be eating spiritual meat and growing toward spiritual maturity. Paul said to them "Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly." (1 Corinthians 3:1-3) Note that the Corinthians were not "living by the (human) spirit" which defines spirituality. The spiritual life must be one of continuous growth from study of the Word, filling the spirit with Truth, resulting in achieving higher and higher levels of maturity, headed toward the goal of attaining the Rest from God. But most believers languish in the lower levels, or never grow at all. It is actually rare for a believer to grow spiritually into the middle regions of growth, let alone into the higher levels of spirituality.
The Apostle Paul also discussed the Rest from God as being similar to an athlete who strives to achieve the heights of athletic achievement through intense preparation for the ancient Olympic Games and other high level athletic events. As Paul said "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." (1 Corinthians 9:25) When the long period of rigorous training comes to an end, the victor can rest in the glory of achieving something truly rare and important.
The struggle to achieve the Rest from God is described in detail in Hebrews chapters 3-4.
Hebrews 3:7-11 says: "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They will not enter my rest.’” Here the author of Hebrews declares that salvation is not the end point of what God desires for us, but rather God has much more. The Jews who left the slavery of Egypt had eternal salvation, since leaving the slavery of Egypt is an analogy to leaving behind the slavery associated with the unsaved life. Then entering the Promised Land is analogous to entering spirituality at the highest levels after passing the testing of the wilderness along the way. But the Jewish believers of that day did not pass the tests along the way, and refused to accept the promises from God, so they did not enter into the Rest of God as analogized by the Promised Land, which was "flowing with milk and honey."
Hebrews chapter 4 warns that spiritual failure among Church Age believers was also rampant, 126
and uses this analogy to the Jews of the Exodus failing to enter into the Promised Land after God had led them to it. They rebelled and refused God so often along the way that He set that entire generation aside. The writer first quotes Psalm 95 where God said: “They will not enter my rest” then goes on to warn believers in the Church Age against repeating the failures of the Exodus generation. Hebrews 4:1 says: "Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” So the point is that God desires for us to enter his rest; but how is this accomplished? The next verse says “For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.” The way into the Rest of God is by accumulating large amounts of Truth from the Word of God in the human spirit, and applying it to life, especially to pass the tests which will come along.
The author of Hebrews also makes the analogy of God resting after six days of creation to the
"Rest from God" available to believers: "although his works were finished at the foundation of the world. For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’” Genesis tells us that God rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2) after He had finished the creation. So just as God rested, His Rest is also open for His believers to enter. The author goes on with this analogy in Hebrews 4:6, stating that although it was rejected by the Exodus generation of Jews, God’s Rest is available to us because “it remains open for some to enter it.” The previous failures have not closed off the offer from God. Their rebellion and disobedience showed their lack of faith in God after they had been saved, because they refused to believe that God would provide for them as believers after salvation. The author again draws a practical conclusion: “Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.”
Therefore the Exodus generation died off during 40 years in the wilderness, having never entered into the Rest which God had for them, but then the following generation entered the Promised Land. Even so, most did not enter God’s Rest once they had entered the Promised Land, but only Joshua and a few others. “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day.” The “rest” which Psalm 95 was speaking of was not the Promised Land itself, which was used figuratively, but rather the heights of spirituality where God rewards His believers to the maximum while still on the earth, not waiting until eternity to give them rewards. The Rest of God is about rewards for finishing the spiritual life while on earth, and the rewards will not only be given in eternity, but also while still on the earth.
The author of Hebrews concludes: “So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God.” At this point he finishes his analogy to the rest occurring after a long period of 127
faithfulness leading up to it. Just as the Jewish Sabbath was at the end of the work week, on the seventh day they were to rest. That is the ultimate analogy to entering into a state of spiritual rest after much effort leading up to it. “For those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.” God rested from His work of Creation, and we can enter a spirituality Rest and enjoy significant rewards here on earth. But they will be different for each one, and not necessarily of the "health and wealth" variety which are improperly promised by some who mislead their congregations.
As the ultimate in spirituality, the "Rest of God" is rarefied territory, seldom reached by believers. But it remains our goal in life, and it offers rewards both here on earth and during eternity.
Next we will explore the reasons why spirituality has been so misunderstood and improperly taught at all levels from local churches to seminaries.
128
BIBLE MIS-TRANSLATIONS & SPIRITUALITY
Understanding of spirituality among believers today has been greatly influenced by how the Bible was translated from the original Greek into English in 1611 with the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. Before that time the Bible was most widely available Latin, which after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century very few people understood. The KJV Bible is one of the great achievements of mankind since it brought the Bible to much of the Western world allowing individual believers to read it for themselves and understand in greater detail the plan of God. Of course, the KJV was not without flaws, and one of the biggest was related to passages dealing with the human spirit and spirituality. Therefore the KJV introduced a major misunderstanding into the English Bible which has endured to this day, passed down by subsequent translations which dared not change what the KJV had mistranslated because the beliefs had become part of the fabric of Christian thought, even though incorrect.
As a result of mis-translations in the KJV and other early versions such as the German Luther Bible, a precedent was set which has persisted. The result has been a serious flaw in the theology of Bible researchers, interpreters, theologians, and pastors when it comes to the subject of spirituality. The embedded misunderstandings about what it means to live a spiritual life will ultimately prevent many from being able, or even willing, to give spirituality issues and explanations a proper hearing. In fact, many believers immediately reject attempts to explain the issues since they are so comfortable in their current misunderstandings, despite being unable to explain what the Bible says about the roles of the Holy Spirit and human spirit in the spiritual life of the believer.
The specific issue with the KJV Bible is related to passages which cover the human spirit, and confuses the human spirit with the Holy Spirit. This is because of a very simple issue, namely capitalization of the word as "Spirit" instead of "spirit." The Holy Spirit must be capitalized out of respect, but the human spirit is not capitalized. This created an issue for Bible translators because the word for "spirit" used in the original Greek text of the Bible is the same for both human spirit and Holy Spirit. And the original Greek language did not differentiate by capitalization because every word in the Greek New Testament was entirely capitalized and also contained no spaces between words. Therefore the problem began with 129
the simple fact that the Greek word "pneuma" (spirit/Spirit) when used without the word
"holy" can mean either Holy Spirit or human spirit, and occasionally something else. This odd mixture of the Greek word for spirit used without the word "holy" coupled with the need for Bible translators to determine whether to capitalize or not capitalize "spirit/Spirit" led to the problem of how the translators should deal with the word "pneuma" when translating it into other languages, especially English. The question became: Is the translation "spirit" or
"Spirit?" Same word, but very different interpretations in the translated text. As with many issues of interpretation, context and comparison with other Biblical passages are key to determining difficult translation issues. But the KJV translators got it wrong many times, and we are still living with the confusion it created. Note that the issue is more complex, and relates to which Greek texts the KJV translators used, which were mostly dated in the late 1500's. But to be brief, this issue dates back to all the texts used by the KJV translators, including some written in Latin, so this is just a quick overview of the issue.
The Bible as properly interpreted in its original language is clear enough on the human spirit, but those who have translated the Bible often jumped to a wrong conclusion based on a failure to properly identify whether the passage was covering the human spirit or the Holy Spirit. It is not generally the job of Bible translators to differentiate between such issues since they are mostly language experts, not necessarily doctrinal or theology experts. But because the word for "spirit" is respectfully capitalized as "Spirit" when the translators had some small notion it might refer to the Holy Spirit, translators often defaulted to capitalizing the word as Spirit out of caution. After all, who would want to offend the Holy Spirit? This has resulted in confusion among most believers during the past 400 years and a failure to properly understand spirituality.
Therefore the KJV translators made incorrect theological determinations about deep spiritual issues rather than to simply translate the words as they found them, as was their job. The capitalization issue tripped them up, and so also the rest of us ever since. As a result many passages which discuss the human spirit have erroneously been translated as discussing the Holy Spirit. Again, the word for "spirit" and "Spirit" is exactly the same for both, and the original Greek language did not differentiate by capitalization. And oddly, this is the only capitalization issue in the Bible which has a significant impact on theology.
And it is not as though the KJV translators got it wrong a couple times. They got it wrong consistently, in over 50 New Testament passages. Once they started down the wrong path by capitalizing the word as Spirit, the original error became set in stone and led to subsequent errors. Even today there is a reluctance to take on this issue due to enormity of what it would 130
mean to change nearly all Bible translations, and no longer capitalize the word Spirit when it should actually be spirit. The result would change theology related to spirituality. And it should. Although that is desperately needed, Bible publishers want to sell Bibles, and if they change the incorrect translations they will upset many people who expect certain passages to say what they believe it said in the KJV, even though the passages have been incorrectly translated for over 400 years. There is an old joke which says "If the KJV was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it is good enough for me." However, confusing the subject of spirituality is not a laughing matter.
But why would translators make these incorrect theological determinations when their job was translation, not theology? The answer is that the translators started thinking about the issue of potentially disrespecting God the Holy Spirit. Of course, they did not want to disrespect the Holy Spirit since He is God. The translation had already been determined to be
"spirit" or "Spirit," but what to do? These translators knew very little about the human spirit since their forte was language, not necessarily hermeneutics (interpretation of Scripture). The doctrinal issues regarding the human spirit were poorly explained at the time, so faced with this conundrum, they often did what they thought would not offend the Holy Spirit, which means they translated the word with a capital S, then went on to working on the next verse.
So if it were not for the issue of capitalizing the word "Spirit" out of fear of disrespecting God when the translators thought the Holy Spirit was possibly being discussed, this issue would not have arisen. However, there was no excuse for constantly capitalizing the word during translation if the word "Holy" is not in the same verse or implied by the surrounding context.
In this regard the mis-translations were often inexcusable. And when they faced the same issue another 50+ times in the New Testament, they followed their original precedent, which was to avoid offending the Holy Spirit by using a capital S. Oddly, that mis-translation certainly did offend the Holy Spirit who was not in view in these mistranslated verses. And He is also the One who inspired Scripture. Seeking to not offend resulted in actual offense, and the entirety of Christendom has been robbed of a proper understanding of the human spirit for over 400 years as a result.
Not every version of the Bible has continued the KJV error, but all of the most widely used ones have. There are at least six versions which correctly translate "spirit" without capitalization when the human spirit is in view, or at least in some of the passages. However very few individual believers or pastors use those versions of the Bible. As a result the KJV
error continues in the hands of most believers who read their Bibles, and for pastors who actually try to teach from the Bible.
131
The human spirit is indeed a very advanced concept in the Bible, and most Bible translators are normally required to translate, not necessarily interpret, in order to perform their task.
So although the subject of the verse is in fact the human spirit in many cases, the translators often capitalized the word as "Spirit" taking the path of least resistance and therefore forced an incorrect interpretation. This issue resulted in mis-translations of possibly 30% of the words for "spirit" in the New Testament, and has confused the subject of spirituality for over 400 years.
132
SPIRITUALITY: ROLES OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT & HOLY SPIRIT
We saw in the last chapter how decisions by translators of the KJV had an enormous impact on the subject of spirituality over the ensuing 400 years. It seems incredible that such a small thing as improper capitalization of one single word could have so negatively impacted our understanding of this important subject. But the KJV error also had help from those who followed with later translations of the Bible, and refused to question the issue, or refused to change the translation in order to provide Bibles which corresponded with what individual believers and pastors expected to read. Either way the continuation of this error remains a major source of confusion and misunderstanding among believers.
We have already discussed in detail the importance of filling the human spirit with Truth, which becomes the power of God inside us, and how spirituality grows as the level of Truth in the human spirit increases. This is the goal of the believer, to grow in spiritual Truth which provides an ever-increasing level of spiritual power, by which the human spirit directs the soul and also fights off the sinful nature. The more this happens, the higher our level of spirituality. We are saved by faith, and then we must live by faith powered by Truth. This is a key which is often missed, that God is impressed with faith combined with His power, not with human works and mere avoidance of sin. He is impressed with trusting Him based on knowing Him, not with human power and human works from a soul relying on avoidance to create a shadow spirituality. We must understand that we are helpless and hopeless apart from God and His power, and must turn constantly to Him for everything. Not just for a few things, but for everything. And we must have God's power inside of us through the Word if we are to succeed. But the translators of the KJV misled believers to conclude that the Holy Spirit directly empowers the spirituality of the believer, which is inaccurate and lures believers into thinking they are not responsible for learning and applying the Word of God in order to achieve spirituality, but rather can have a mystical relationship with the Holy Spirit and feel their way through life under the false belief they are being directly guided and empowered.
God gave us His power through His Word, but He does not live our life for us by directly controlling our soul, or by fighting off the sinful nature for us. As Paul described it, we have "a more excellent way."
133
Let us now dig deeper and discuss the main issue which has confused so many believers regarding spirituality. It is about Ephesians 5:18 which in most Bible translations says "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." All major translations except the NTE translate the Greek word "pneuma" as "Spirit" when it should be "spirit." To get right to the point, the issue here is that this verse actually refers to the human spirit, not the Holy Spirit. I realize some will want to stop here and yell
"Blasphemy!" and stick with what the Author believes is a multi-century misunderstanding of both the human spirit and Holy Spirit, and how both relate to spirituality. And to be clear, both are indeed involved, but not as the mis-translation of Ephesians 5:18 would suggest. So if the Reader continues, the issues will be made clear.
The decision to capitalize "spirit" as "Spirit" in Ephesians 5:18 was an interpretation by translators of the KJV Bible in 1611. Then all major English translations which followed over the next 400 years repeated the error. This is not strictly an issue with the word "pneuma"
(spirit) itself. But since one of the potential options when dealing with the word "pneuma" is the Holy Spirit, a decision on capitalization was required in order to publish the KJV
translation of the Bible. Since the word for "Holy" is not in the Greek text, the translation depends on interpretation issues rather than the actual language, but translators are not the ones who should decide interpretation issues. But they did. Also, the word "with" is definitely not an accurate translation, so the translation became doubly confused in all major English translations. What the KJV and all others translated as "be filled with the Spirit" should have been translated "be filled in the spirit." Then we can see it refers to filling the human spirit with something, which other passages show is the Word of God.
If one chooses to go along with capitalizing "spirit" and make the decision that this is discussing the Holy Spirit, then that person must also describe what "filled with (actually "in"
or "by") the (Holy) Spirit" means. So the question becomes: what does "filled in/by the Spirit"
mean? Does this mean control of the soul of the believer by the Holy Spirit? If not, is it something less than direct control by the Holy Spirit, whatever that might be? Those who try to support this mis-translation struggle to explain it, and with good reason. The fact is that believers have free will and the Holy Spirit does not directly control believers as if they were puppets, although the Holy Spirit is a very important part of the spiritual life of the believer, and His ministry relates to the spiritual growth of the believer through learning the Word of God. And it is the Word of God which fills up the human spirit, and that is the issue in Ephesians 5:18. Therefore the human spirit becomes filled with the Word of God which the Holy Spirit turns into Truth, which is then used by the believer to empower and live the spiritual life. So this verse should be properly translated "be filled in the spirit," meaning the believer must be filled up in the human spirit with the Word of God. And the Holy Spirit is 134
the one who enables learning the Word, but He does not directly control the spirituality of the believer. We must use Truth in the human spirit for spiritual empowerment, because the Holy Spirit does not empower believers directly. Those who are lacking in the Word will have no spiritual power. Suggesting that the Holy Spirit will overcome that lack of Truth in the human spirit and give that believer power directly apart from Truth is an absurdity. If the human spirit is not filled up with the Word as Ephesians 5:18 suggests, then the Holy Spirit certainly could not help or empower or do anything for that believer as long as they refuse to learn the Word and grow in Truth. Spiritual growth in the Word is an imperative in the Bible.
But the one thing which is not possible is that Ephesians 5:18 means the Holy Spirit directly enables or controls the spiritual lives of believers apart from the Word of God in the human spirit. That is an impossibility.
Galatians 5:16-18 has the same exact issue. Each time the word "Spirit" is used in these verses it should instead be "spirit," meaning the human spirit: "So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law."
Once again it is the human spirit which fights against the sinful nature, which provides the power from God for believers to live a daily walk with God, and leads the believer in daily decision making concerning all types of issues which come our way. And this issue repeats throughout the Bible as the mis-translation "Spirit" drives other interpretations in the wrong direction. So it is not just a matter of confusing spirituality, but many other doctrinal issues as well.
That is the overview of the main issue, and many more verses could be discussed. But it should become more clear that it is the human spirit which must be filled up with the Word of God, while the Holy Spirit, who resides in the human spirit of every believer and mentors the believer in the Word, turns it into Truth and the power of God in us. But He does not directly control our spiritual lives, or directly cause us to "walk" with God. We must learn Truth under the mentoring of the Holy Spirit and then apply it as the power from God to our daily lives, and that makes us solely responsible for deciding to become spiritual. If the believer pursues learning the Word then the Holy Spirit not only helps that person learn but also uses the Word as part of their spiritual life, which elevates faith to higher levels. But if the believer refuses to learn the Word, then the Holy Spirit has nothing to work with in the human spirit of the believer, and that person remains powerless in spiritual infancy and becomes a casualty of the spiritual conflict, resulting in a loss of eternal rewards.
135
Therefore we can see how there has been confusion regarding the human spirit because those who translated the Bible over the centuries did not adequately understand the issues involved.
Or worse, maybe the later ones simply refused to address the issue since it would be difficult.
This issue is probably the most egregious example of a damaging mis-translation in all the New Testament. And it is because words dealing with a direct reference to God are capitalized, including Spirit when referring to the Holy Spirit, so the translators were forced to come to a conclusion about capitalizing or not capitalizing the word as either "spirit" or
"Spirit." This capitalization issue became a unique problem in translating the Bible because it put the translators in the position of making judgments about deep doctrinal issues and deciding whether the passage was discussing the Holy Spirit or the human spirit, which they knew very little about. Capitalization issues do not affect any other significant translation uncertainties in the Bible, so it is a unique problem related to human spirit or Holy Spirit passages when the word for "Holy" is absent. Add to the problem that the translators did not want to appear to diminish the Holy Spirit, and if there was a question about how to translate the word "spirit," they would default to capitalizing the word as "Spirit" and drive a doctrinal determination which was neither their duty nor right to do so. The result has been an extremely serious misunderstanding of the role of the human spirit going back to the King James Version of the Bible translated originally in 1611.
With the Ephesians 5:18 and Galatians 5:16 discussion in mind, let us proceed to discuss numerous other examples in the Bible where translators incorrectly capitalized the word for human spirit as "Spirit," meaning they were actually interpreting, not translating, the passage, and declaring inappropriately that the passage was about the Holy Spirit instead of the human spirit. There are at least 16 major verses in the Bible where the majority of Bible translations capitalize the word "Spirit" when it should not be capitalized, meaning the verse is actually discussing the human spirit, but translators forced the interpretation of Holy Spirit into the verse. That is a lot of confusion on this important issue. To be very clear, the Holy Spirit is a significant influence in the life of the believer. Of that there is no doubt. Believers could not learn the Word or have it become Truth in their human spirit without Him. There is no intent or purpose to minimizing the role of the Holy Spirit, and the Bible makes His roles in the life of the believer clear. But incorrectly interpreting the Scriptures does not give the Holy Spirit the credit He deserves since He played the major role in the writing of those Scriptures, as He inspired them, which have now become confused by Bible translators. Therefore, clearing up the mis-translations would support the Holy Spirit rather than to challenge Him. Proper interpretation of Scripture is critical to understanding what God wants us to know so that we may understand and glorify the entire Trinity of God. In this case, it is important that we re-interpret what so many translators have misinterpreted. That must be done out of respect for the Holy Spirit.
136
As we look at the other verses which have misinterpreted "spirit" as "Spirit" the most confusing ones to believers are those which use the phrases "filled by the spirit" and "walk by the spirit." In both cases it is the human spirit in view, although almost every pastor teaches them as referring to the Holy Spirit, since they are capitalized in most Bible translations. As the following verses are read, note that the word "Spirit" is presented as written in most versions of the Bible, then an explanation follows:
A good next example which has resulted in confusion among believers is Romans 8 which covers the human spirit as the center of the spiritual life of believers: Romans 8:4
"in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (spirit should NOT be capitalized, since this is the human spirit).
Romans 8:5
"Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires."
(Neither should be capitalized, since this is the human spirit -- the sinful nature is offset by the human spirit, not by the Holy Spirit).
Romans 8:6
"The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace." (spirit should NOT be capitalized, since it is the human spirit which convinces the mind to think spiritually, not the Holy Spirit directly imparting some sort of power.) Romans 8:9
"You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you." (spirit should NOT be capitalized, the human spirit is the realm we live in spiritually. The human spirit is often called "the spirit from God.") Romans 8:10
"But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness." (spirit should NOT be capitalized. The sinful nature is called "sin" singular, while the human spirit is the righteous part of the inner human since it is spiritual.)
Romans 8:13
137
"For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." (spirit should NOT be capitalized, since the human spirit is what wars against the sinful nature when filled with the Word of God and enables the believer to fend off the lusts of the flesh.)
Romans 8:14
"For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God." (spirit should NOT be capitalized, since the human spirit leads the human soul when filled with the Word of God.) Romans 8:15
"The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.” (spirit should NOT be capitalized, since the human spirit given to believers at salvation enable a life of spiritual strength and freedom from fear.)
Romans 8:16
"The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children." (The first "spirit" is the Holy Spirit and the second is the human spirit. This KJV translation is accurate, and shows a properly translated verse where the human spirit is mentioned alongside the Holy Spirit.)
Perhaps the ultimate verse where the human spirit has been blotted out by translators is Ephesians 5:18 which says: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” We have taken a quick look at this verse, but let us look at it in more detail since it is the verse which is most often used to wrongly insist that the Holy Spirit directly enables and controls our spirituality. Two issues appear in this mis-translation. The first is that there is no "with" in this verse but rather it must be "in" or "by." Some Bible translations have obscured this important point in order to apply the capitalization to the word "spirit." Then secondly the word "spirit" should not be capitalized, since it refers to the human spirit.
We see that the word "Spirit" is capitalized in most translations of this verse, meaning the translators assumed this to be the Holy Spirit, and since the KJV had started the trend, other later translators were unwilling to change it due to fear that they would offend Christians who would refuse to buy their Bibles because of ingrained false understandings about the role of the Holy Spirit in their lives. But the context does not allow for that assumption. Let us look at the word mistranslated "with" which is the Greek word "en" and cannot be translated
"with" but rather must be "in" or "by." That requires the verse to be either "be filled in the 138
spirit" or "be filled by the Spirit." Then one must ask what is actually being filled "by the Spirit," and it cannot be the same as being "filled with the Spirit" which assumes levels of filling with something, presumably the Holy Spirit. But there cannot be levels of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
For many hundreds of years believers have been led to believe that Ephesians 5:18 is a reference to the Holy Spirit when it is actually about the human spirit. We are not to be "filled up" with "additional quantity" of the Holy Spirit, since that is not possible. The Holy Spirit fully indwells every believer in the Church Age, and He is not partially measured out to any believer. John 3:34 says "for God gives the Spirit without limit." Also, why would Paul compare the Holy Spirit to drunkenness anyway? He would not, and this issue confounds those who try to insist this verse is about the Holy Spirit. Therefore it is impossible to translate Ephesians 5:18 as referring to the Holy Spirit. Rather we are to be filled "in the spirit" meaning our human spirit needs to be filled up with something from God, namely the Word of God, so that we grow spiritually which gives us power from God. This is the only translation which makes any sense at all. After all, we are required to fill up our human spirit with Truth from the Word in order to live spiritually. The Apostle Paul, who wrote Ephesians as well as most of the Epistles which dealt with the human spirit, has made it clear that the human spirit needs to be filled up, since it is empty at the point of salvation. And that which fills the human spirit is always Truth. The Holy Spirit already indwells the human spirit, so it cannot refer to Him.
Additionally, look closely at the verse and see that Paul contrasts filling of, or in, or by a
"spirit" with drinking too much wine and getting drunk. The issue in both cases is about taking something in, both into our body (wine) and into our human spirit (God's Word). This cannot mean taking in "more" of the Holy Spirit rather than less of Him which is counter to God's Word. It also does not contrast drunkenness with taking in more of the Holy Spirit.
Further, the Greek word mistranslated "with" is the word for "in" or "by" and should most often be translated as "in" as in this verse, which is all about taking things "in," either wine into the body or the Word of God into our human spirit. A simple focus on what the contrast is showing makes the issue clear to us.
If someone wants to continue to insist this is the Holy Spirit, then what exactly is filling of, or by, or with the Holy Spirit? We have already seen that the Bible says in John 3:34 "for God gives the Spirit without limit." How then could there be more of Him than "without limit."
And what would more of Him mean anyway? It is so very clear that Paul is discussing that we should be more concerned about taking the Word of God into our human spirit than taking in 139
too much wine into our body. The former builds us up, and the latter causes dissipation, or wasting away. A truly fitting analogy which makes perfect sense, unlike attempts to insist this is the Holy Spirit. Taking in God's Word builds up our human spirit while taking in too much wine breaks down the body. In contrast to drunkenness we are encouraged to take in more Bible Truth into our human spirit to build up our spiritual life to better serve and glorify God, since the human spirit is where we interact with God. Again, there is no such thing as needing to have "more filling" of the Holy Spirit rather than less of Him, which the Bible declares is not even possible. We believers during the Church Age are indwelt by the Holy Spirit at salvation and afterward. That is a status quo fact which does not need to be enhanced in any way by gaining "more" of Him, so it cannot happen. However, we do need to constantly take in more of the Word of God, into our human spirit, in order that the human spirit may be built up to more effectively control our soul resulting in a more effective spiritual life.
Not convinced yet? Do not worry. This is hard, and the human spirit mis-translation issue has confused millions of believers over the centuries, so do not be discouraged. Let us next look at Galatians 5:16: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” Again you see "Spirit" is capitalized when it should not be. This verse does not mean walk by or in or with the Holy Spirit so that He can exert direct control over your soul and its actions, as the translators would have us believe. We are required to have self-control, not to rely on the Holy Spirit to control our soul in some mysterious way. The Holy Spirit does many things for us, but He does not directly control our actions so that we avoid sin. If so, we would never sin at all, since how could God fail to prevent us from sinning if that was His goal, and He was also in direct control of our soul? Does this verse imply the Holy Spirit has not done His job -- absolutely not. The capitalization implies failure by the Holy Spirit when we sin, however the correct translation is "spirit" meaning the human spirit. Obviously the Holy Spirit is not in view in this verse, because God gives us the tools to empower our human spirit to minimize the role of sin in our life through the power of the Word. This in turn glorifies God when our human spirit functions more and more effectively as we grow spiritually, although never perfectly. We are required to exert self-control by numerous Bible verses such as Titus 2:1-5 which uses the term for self-control three times. The Apostle Paul tells Titus "teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. 2 Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live...5 to be self-controlled and pure...to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." If the Holy Spirit directly controlled our soul and resisted the sinful nature for us then there would be no reason for us to use self-control. Once again we can see how the mis-translation issue has distorted the issue of spirituality and has misled believers for over 400 years.
140
Direct control over our sinning by the Holy Spirit would not glorify God or result in our attaining eternal rewards if the Holy Spirit did all the work in us. We would not be rewarded for anything the Holy Spirit actually does in us. Rather, we are required by God to build up the Word of God in our human spirit. and then use our human spirit, not the Holy Spirit, to exert self-control over our soul, resulting in thinking and actions which glorify God by using His Truth out from our inner human. This verse therefore means that if we walk by our human spirit filled with the Word of God then we cannot walk by means of the sinful nature at that same exact time, since the two are mutually exclusive. But we can and will switch back and forth, because we are only human. Therefore to summarize Gal. 5:16, “I say then: Walk in the [s]pirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh [sinful nature].” Spirit should not be capitalized because it is our human spirit which is at war with our sinful nature, and filling our human spirit with the Word of God is the only way to fulfill our mission to defeat it. "The Word of God is alive and powerful," and God requires us to live by it from our human spirit.
(Hebrews 4:18)
Of course this is difficult, but we are making progress. This issue has prevented proper understanding of the Word of God related to the human spirit for a long time and it requires sorting out. But this next example might make the issue more understandable. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says "The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit." We see in this single verse how the first and third use of the word for "spirit" are capitalized, when they should not be. The correct translation should be: "The person without the [human] spirit does not accept the things that come from the
[Holy] Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the [human] spirit."
It is the human spirit which takes in spiritual information under the mentoring of the Holy Spirit, since He indwells and mentors our human spirit. Unbelievers cannot understand anything spiritual because they do not have a human spirit. That is the point in this last verse, that unbelievers do not have a human spirit, so they are not spiritual beings, and therefore cannot understand spiritual things, or interact with God on a spiritual level. Additionally, as the human spirit of the believer becomes filled up with the Word of God we become spiritually mature and we please God more and more as we progress through the stages of spiritual growth, all with the help of the Holy Spirit as He fills up our human spirit with the Word of God if we are willing to learn and accept it. This process changes the nature of our thoughts and beliefs, and gives us power to fight against our internal enemy the sinful nature.
141
Maybe a bit more clear? But there is some more confusion to clear up. See, I apologized in advance for the technical discussion, but I also give the Reader credit that it can be understood.
For the rest of these mistranslated verses related to the human spirit we will simply give the short version of each. In each of the following verses the capitalization of the word "Spirit" (as Holy Spirit) is incorrect, since the "spirit" (human spirit) is being discussed: John 4:23–24 "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit (incorrect capitalization) and in truth.”
We worship God from our human spirit filled with the Truth of God's Word, The human spirit is the only spiritual part of a human where the Truth of God's Word resides if and when it is learned.
Rom 8:6, "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit (incorrect capitalization) is life and peace…"
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit, because this discusses the human spirit influencing the mind of the soul with spiritual Truth, so we can have inner peace in the soul.
Gal. 5:18, “But if you are led by the Spirit (incorrect capitalization), you are not under the law.”
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. When our human spirit is directing the soul we are living on a spiritual level, and not on a legalistic one.
Galatians 5:22: "the fruit of the Spirit (incorrect capitalization) is love, joy, peace …"
Again the translators capitalize "Spirit" when it is actually "spirit," meaning the human spirit which bears fruit in the mature believer when the human spirit is filled with the Word of God.
Otherwise the Holy Spirit would get the eternal rewards, and that is not the way God has designed the spiritual life. God gives us His Word to learn, then He requires us to put it to use through our human spirit. The result is we fulfill God's requirements for our spiritual life as outlined in the Bible.
142
Galatians 5:25, “If we live in the Spirit (incorrect capitalization), let us also walk in the Spirit (incorrect capitalization).”
Both incorrectly capitalized. When believers have a human spirit filled with the Word of God, then we can live by the human spirit controlling the soul. If we have God's Word in our human spirit, we can then apply it to our life, meaning control of the soul. With spiritual information in the human spirit our daily life (walk) will show our spiritual life to those we meet and interact with.
Ephesians 2:18, “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit (incorrect capitalization) to the Father.”
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. The human spirit gives believers access to the Father through prayer because only those with a human spirit can pray to God. God is spirit, and we can only approach Him from our human spirit.
Ephesians 2:22, “in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God by [in]
the Spirit (incorrect capitalization).”
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. The dwelling place of God the Holy Spirit is in our human spirit since that is the spiritual part of the inner human. God is spirit and can only interface with us by a spiritual means, which is from within our human spirit.
Ephesians 3:5, "now revealed by the Spirit (incorrect capitalization)."
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. It is revealed "in" the human spirit by the Word of God.
Ephesians 3:16 "to be strengthened with might through the Spirit (incorrect capitalization)."
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. We are strengthened by the Word of God in our human spirit, which in turn drives our decisions and actions as the human spirit directs the soul. The Holy Spirit does not directly impart power to us. God requires us to learn His Word to gain power, as Hebrews 4:12 says "The Word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword." Power for our lives is through the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit is instrumental in helping us learn the Word of God if we study it, but the Holy Spirit does not impart strength directly into us apart from the Word. The power is in the Word, and the Word which has been put into our human spirit by the mentoring of the Holy Spirit is what 143
empowers us to live the spiritual life. To expect direct empowerment from the Holy Spirit apart from the Word is to expect something outside of God's plan for our lives.
Ephesians 4:3, “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit (incorrect capitalization) in the bond of peace.
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. Unity of the Church is by means of our collective human spirits when they are filled with the Word of God which provides us "the peace which passes all understanding."
Ephesians 4:4, “There is one body and one Spirit (incorrect capitalization), just as you were called in one hope of your calling;”
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. Note that the Holy Spirit would not be compared to the human body on the same level. Rather, we believers have a body, soul, and human spirit.
Ephesians 4:23, “and be renewed in the Spirit (incorrect capitalization) of your mind,”
Incorrect capitalization of Spirit. It is the human spirit which is renewed and which interfaces with the mind of the soul. The Holy Spirit cannot be "renewed" since He cannot decline.
Let us pause for a moment. If all of this seems like there must be some simple mistake, note that when the Apostles wanted to refer to the Holy Spirit they mostly did so by His full name, which is God the Holy Spirit, or at least the Holy Spirit, not by some "too familiar" partial or slang use of His name by calling Him just "Spirit." The exceptions occur when the passage has already referred to Him properly. To further explain this point, note the following representative verses which actually discuss the Holy Spirit and use His name appropriately: 1 Peter 1:12, “To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven —things which angels desire to look into.”
Jude 20, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying by the Holy Spirit...”
144
...and so on many times throughout the New Testament as the Holy Spirit is called by His full name showing the proper level of respect. Why would we think the writers of the New Testament would call God the Holy Spirit a slang word such as "Spirit." That word is only used for Him rarely when a proper level of respect has already been shown in the passage.
The main point this chapter has tried to convey is that most Bible translations confuse discussions about the human spirit due to incorrectly capitalizing the word "spirit," which has led to a lack of understanding of the important role of the human spirit in our spiritual life.
The result is a lack of appreciation for what we must do to live a life of spirituality.
So here we are, many centuries later, trying to overcome ingrained misunderstandings which evoke shouts of BLASPHEMY! and HERESY! against those who dare to try to explain the human spirit, and differentiate the human spirit from the Holy Spirit, as revealed in the Bible.
So what does the Reader do at this point? Join the shouts of BLASPHEMY! and HERESY! or allow the explanation to be made in a scholarly and clear manner? Properly explaining what the Bible says is always honoring to God, but allowing 400 years of mis-translations to continue is not.
145
SPIRITUAL WARFARE: ACCEPTANCE vs. REJECTION OF TRUTH
What is it about believers which causes them to resist Truth, and readily accept false substitutes? There is a daily battle in the soul of each person over whether they will listen to the sinful nature or the human spirit. The sinful nature tries to pull the believer in its direction, while the human spirit resists it, but only if it has power from Truth. Galatians 5:17
says "For the flesh [sinful nature] desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want." We must understand that this is a war inside of us over control of our soul, and we are required to choose a side. And not just one time, but continually.
As we have seen, we can only successfully engage our enemy the sinful nature if our human spirit is equipped to fight. Ephesians 6:10-17 says: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." We have the sword, armor and helmet if we study the Word, then we must make decisions to use them in our daily spiritual battle. The stakes are very high. If we live a life of spirituality, the eternal rewards will be fantastic beyond belief. But if we fail, we will lose eternal rewards. Eternity is forever, and it will matter a lot.
People will gravitate toward rejecting Truth and reality mostly because they have previously formed core beliefs based on falsehoods from their sinful nature which are the antithesis of Truth, and once they become firmly established are hard to change. And it is the core beliefs, those which are most important to a person, which exert the strongest influence since they 146
determine what will be accepted as true in the future, since a comparison is made with existing beliefs, and especially core beliefs, when new information is being considered. Core beliefs strongly influence how a person views the world, spiritual issues, other people, and so on. Internal soul distortions make it difficult for a person to think clearly, especially when arrogance and emotion become locked in. Attempts to teach the Word to such a person will be met with resistance due to their inability to think clearly and rationally because their sinful nature has consistently been given the upper hand, and it will employ a variety of mechanisms to deflect and avoid Truth. Therefore changing such embedded false core beliefs often takes a personal crisis or disaster to break the sinful nature's lock on the soul. Beliefs are powerful things.
The involvement of emotion along with lusts yields an arrogance of life which can make a person believe anything, especially about themselves. Arrogance is a product of the sinful nature-emotion alliance. Look at Satan, who told himself he could "be like the most high God" and actually believed it, and tried to overthrow God. Compare that to human politicians, economists, social reformers, and endless lines of arrogant self-important people promoting causes in opposition to actual Truth, and you can see that when it comes to combining the sinful nature with emotion, anything and everything in the realm of beliefs, no matter how outrageous, becomes possible. And lies from such people are more likely to be accepted as true by the masses of people than Truth from the Bible. But why? Once again, combining the distortions of the sinful nature with the non-thinking emotion will inevitably lead to the inability to accept God's Word due to the blinding effects of arrogance. After Truth and reality are rejected, all that remains are various forms of untruth and lies. The lie is how Satan got his start, which is why he is called "a liar from the beginning." (John 8:44) The result of this strong delusion is what we have today, a society of people who hate and lie and deceive and manipulate to get what they want, at the expense of innocent others, all due to the misguided self-delusion that they have progressed beyond formerly acceptable, but now outdated, beliefs based on Truth. They set one group against another to create strife and discord. Into this discord they exert themselves as power brokers and power seekers, in order to gain control over others they see as inferior. In this society and under this set of thoughts and beliefs there is no Truth and nothing honorable, only hatred, self-promotion, greed, power lust, and lies. Under such conditions Bible Truth is one of the things people hate most strongly. In contrast the Bible emphasizes love as the basis for thinking, making Christianity the only belief system based on love.
If the soul is out of control, dominated by the sinful nature in alliance with the emotion, such 147
people will look arrogantly at the Truth and call it a lie, and look at a lie and call it the truth.
The longer they do so, the easier it becomes. The soul develops untruthful ruts into which the next thoughts fall and ride along uninterrupted by rational thinking. This is the ultimate answer to why different people look at the same information, conditions or circumstances and draw opposite conclusions. It is the answer to why people reject the Truth in favor of the lie.
It is the answer to why the Cosmic System is so popular among people. It is also the answer to why so many people will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire apart from God. Namely, that a hardened heart under the control of the sinful nature backed by the out of control emotion causes people to gravitate toward a lie no matter how convincing the Truth may be.
This brings us to a central point about how salvation and spirituality are accepted, and therefore how Truth is acquired from the Bible. God requires both to be by faith, and only by faith. Faith is belief. Faith accepts from God what we do not deserve, including salvation and power for our spiritual life. Faith believes that God, as the source of the Bible and salvation, is worth believing, that He is trustworthy, and that He tells the Truth. Faith is the only method authorized by God for acquiring spiritual information, and avoids merit and works by the recipient because the Holy Spirit serves as our mentor. Faith is the only fair way for God to provide salvation, and also spiritual information afterward, otherwise smarter people would have all the advantages. Therefore He requires belief in Jesus Christ and then belief in His Word as the means of complying with His plan.
The spiritual warfare we are engaged in involves the world and our sinful nature engaged in trying to defeat us spiritually by getting us to think and act apart from what the Word of God teaches. It is only by filling our human spirit with the power of Truth that we can fight back and win the spiritual battle over control of our soul.
148
PRACTICAL ISSUES RELATED TO SPIRITUALITY
Spirituality is not an academic concept, but rather it is how we must live out each day, day after day. It is how we are able to please God and also achieve and live out a happy and contented life in spite of trials. It is how we can live as the Bible outlines, not under the Mosaic Law, but rather using divine power from within our human spirit to live by expanded grace during the Church Age. Of course, none of this is done perfectly because we remain flawed humans with a sinful nature until we depart this life. Then we are set free.
But until that time, our goal while remaining on the earth is to live in a state of maximum spirituality. Therefore, what are the practical issues related to spirituality, and how can we apply them? Let us discuss that subject now.
The first point to remember is that spirituality must be our lifelong and day-by-day focus. It is not something we can achieve easily, or quickly, or by occasional pursuit. Nor can we achieve it and then coast through life. God requires His believer to make continuous and on-going positive decisions toward Him. Every minute of every day is a new opportunity to decide to focus on God or focus on the world and our own desires apart from Him. It could be overwhelming to think of this as a lifelong struggle, so we must view it as a day by day commitment to fulfill the will of God. And the only power which can overcome the many issues involved is the power of the Word inside our human spirit, which we call Truth.
We must also understand that our level of spirituality drives the effectiveness of everything we do in relation to God and to life in general. The spiritually mature believer pleases God at a higher level in whatever that believer does, whether ordinary everyday life, or high impact service for the Lord. It would shock most believers to realize that a person with a human spirit full of Truth sitting alone in a chair at home could have a higher level of spirituality at that moment than a spiritually confused missionary without any significant Truth in the human spirit trying to convert a village of unbelievers in a foreign land. That simple example should help clarify what spirituality actually is, and what it is not. It is about having the power of Truth driving the life, especially the thought processes, not about what we are doing.
149
The thinking of a spiritually mature believer is calmer, stronger, more centered on the true purpose of life. There is a higher level of faith that God is in control and will care for us.
There is greater effectiveness in prayer, and every other part of our spiritual life. God gives more blessing to the spiritually mature believer who lives in a state of near constant spirituality, not necessarily in the "health and wealth" arena, since God's plan for each believer is different. Some of the verses which show the greater effectiveness of the spiritually mature believer are as follows:
Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son."
The key phrase here is "for those who love God." Not every believer actually loves God as He requires, even though they have accepted the gift of salvation. To achieve a love for God requires spiritual maturity by growth in the Word. We have previously discuss how the Bible discusses the phases of spiritual growth as "faith, hope, and love." We only truly love God when we learn to know Him through His Word. Therefore "in all things God works for the good of those who love him" means the greater the spirituality, the more God can and will do for that believer. God not only rewards spirituality during eternity, but also while we are living on the earth. He does not treat all believers equally as though they are all pleasing Him, because most do not. God treats believers differently, and spirituality makes the difference.
We also see that spiritual maturity makes us more effective as believers: James 5:16 "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."
A "righteous man" is a believer who has become mature in the Word, and lives in a higher state of spirituality. Therefore spirituality is a process of sanctification of the soul by putting the Word into the human spirit, whereby our life becomes more "righteous" in the sense of living a life of spiritual maturity as we execute the requirements of the Word of God at the highest level possible. The righteous Word inside the human spirit drives the soul to become increasingly more sanctified or righteous in the sense of pleasing God as spirituality increases.
But never perfectly.
The believer who is seeking to grow by learning the Word of God on a very regular basis will go through a series of stages. This is necessary because the inner human must be reoriented to function on Truth instead of functioning on human learning. As a human baby grows up 150
mentally they will collect data and information from many sources, and a lot of it will not align with Truth. Therefore a spiritual re-alignment is required for spirituality. We have previously discussed that the Apostle Paul described the stages of spiritual growth as faith, hope, and love in 1 Corinthians 13.
At some point the believer levels out and can sense that the human spirit is in control, and also senses the loss of control when that happens, which becomes more rare, but will continue throughout the life. This is not a mystical sensing, but rather the human spirit exerts a strong influence when mature which can eventually be sensed spiritually. There is no "done" or
"complete" when it comes to our spirituality, so we must always go higher. But at the top tiers the believer can actually sense the human spirit. There are several clues. One is that the soul is not always striving to think hard about spiritual issues. They are just there. At that point the human spirit has an almost wide-open access through the soul to the outside world, and it is in control of the soul most of the time. Living the way the Bible describes becomes more automatic, and the interruptions by the sinful nature become less frequent. Not perfectly, because we are still faulty humans. But we live in the "Rest" God provides to those who reach the top tier spiritually, as we have discussed.
As a review, that "Rest" is described in several passages in the Bible: Matthew 11:29 "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."
1 Corinthians 2:4 "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power."
1 John 3:18 "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."
Hebrews 3:10 "That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, They 151
shall never enter my rest,' 12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God."
Hebrews 4:1 "Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it... Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said...10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest."
Another important practical issue related to gaining spirituality is finding a pastor who teaches sound doctrine from the Word. This is not easy at the current time. In many cases there may not be such a pastor locally, and in those instances we must turn to online learning.
Fortunately, many pastors now make their lessons available to anyone who wants them. It is becoming more and more common for believers to get their instruction from the Word in this manner, so do not be intimidated by anyone who would say it is "forsaking the assembling together" because in-person assembly was the only way to get instruction at the time the Bible was written.
Overall it becomes a very practical issue that our study of the Word must be a part of our daily life. A weekly church service is not enough for spiritual growth. Even several times per week stretches out the process. Our study should be every day, no matter what tries to get in our way. It is best to set aside a specific time if that is possible, and when that time comes we do our study. But that is a matter of what works best for the individual. The key is to study daily, and that is not reading, but study, learning from a highly qualified pastor as much as possible.
We should begin to understand that God looks at the motivation and source of what we do rather than simply what we do. Believers can only interact with God on the basis of "spirit and truth." (John 4:24) He looks at our motivation to determine if it is pleasing to Him. He looks at the source of power, divine or human. Anything which is accomplished using only the soul is not spirituality. Anything done apart from the power of the Word of God inside the human spirit is not spirituality. These actions, even if compliant with what God requires, are therefore not pleasing to God, because they are not done in spirituality, and they are therefore not rewardable in eternity.
Many, many believers who were highly moral and performed tons of good deeds during their life on earth will have no eternal rewards. The same thoughts and actions done with or 152
without motivation from the human spirit are either part of spirituality or not, depending on whether a human spirit filled with Truth is involved. And although God wants us to be moral, unless such morality is from the human spirit, it is not spirituality. It may be better to be moral than immoral, but the issue we are discussing is whether that morality is also spirituality. Unbelievers can be moral, but never spiritual in any way. If not driven by the human spirit filled with the Word of God, nothing is rewardable in eternity since it is merely avoidance and motivated from the soul alone.
However, morality motivated by Truth from the human spirit is rewardable in eternity because it was enabled and caused from a spiritual source, using spiritual power from the Word in the human spirit. In that case it is no longer avoidance, but rather is spiritually motivated living inside the will and plan of God in a positive sense, not in a negative sense.
The key difference is using a spiritual source and God's power. He rejects everything else as
"wood, hay, and stubble" which will be burned up when we are evaluated in eternity.
We believers must stop living out of our soul, and instead live out of our human spirit, where the Holy Spirit also resides as our Mentor, and fills up our human spirit with Truth when we seek it out by regular study. That is the key to spirituality. This is also the key to knowing when we are living a spiritual life, namely, that we are applying Truth from the Word to our daily life on a regular basis. Not perfectly, of course, but with increasing consistency. Only our human spirit can interact with God, as it directs the soul using spiritual information and power from God. Any time we apply Truth from the Word we are living out of our human spirit. And that is the key to spirituality, no matter what else we do, even if we are simply sitting in a chair thinking from our human spirit.
There is no shortcut to spiritual maturity. The process will seem very slow at first. There can be short term advances, but it takes years to see real progress, and to reach the top tiers takes much longer. But we must view it in terms of each day, one at a time, doing what is required to learn the Word and fill up the human spirit with Truth. God will take care of the rest, and our rewards will follow.
153
BIBLE DESCRIPTIONS OF SPIRITUALITY
Spirituality is described many different ways in the Bible, including direct discussions, analogies, similes, and other methods. But the primary way is by analogy. We will now take a look at Bible verses which provide various descriptions of spirituality.
The Bible refers to spirituality in a number of different ways, often by analogy. Phrases such as "walk with God," "abide in Christ," "conform to the image of God," "Christ in you,"
"crucified with Christ," "be filled in the spirit," and other phrases are used to explain this difficult subject in analogous terms we can understand more easily. But it is still not an easy concept to comprehend. We have seen that spirituality is not straining from our own human capabilities to live a life free from sin. Rather, it is using our spiritual side, our human spirit, which has been filled with Truth from the Word of God through the mentoring of the Holy Spirit, to live a life pleasing to God based on a consistent spiritual walk with Him. It is not an outward attempt to simply be as moral as possible, but rather living a life out of the human spirit based on Truth, which motivates a right relationship (daily walk) with God. It is not using the soul alone to try to conform to Bible mandates, but rather using the human spirit filled with Truth to direct the soul to fulfill what God desires of us. And it matters very much to God that we do it His way.
One analogy often used in the Bible is to "walking." Physical walking is going in a direction making decisions to use repetitive movements. This is found in fourteen New Testament verses. Another way is close association with Jesus Christ, which is used quite often. It is sometimes described as being "in Christ" and "abiding in Christ." Growing spiritually after salvation is also called soul "sanctification." There is also the description "putting on the new man" which is dealing with the human spirit being filled up with the Word of God. And there are others, as we shall see, so let us look at how the Bible describes spirituality.
Spirituality is based on the human spirit, the only spiritual part of the believer. Every time the word spirit appears in the following verses, it is the human spirit which is being discussed, even though the word is incorrectly capitalized wherever "(s)" appears in these verses: 154
Galatians 5:22
"But the fruit of the (s)pirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness."
Romans 8:6
"For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the (s)pirit is life and peace."
Romans 8:4
"In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the (s)pirit."
John 4:24
"God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
Galatians 5:25
If we live by the (s)pirit, let us also walk by the (s)pirit.
Romans 8:16
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
In the following verses "walking" and "walking with Christ" are related to spirituality: Galatians 5:16
"So I say, walk by the (s)pirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. "
Colossians 2:6-7
"Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught."
Colossians 1:9-10
"And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."
1 John 1:17
155
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another."
2 John 1:4
"It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth."
2 John 1:6
"His command is that you walk in love."
3 John 3
"It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."
These verses show that spirituality is abiding in Christ: John 15:1-17
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
2 Corinthians 5:17
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
1 John 2:10
"The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him."
1 John 3:24
"The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the (s)pirit whom He has given us."
2 John 1:9
"Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son."
Spirituality is built on the Truth of the Word:
156
2 Peter 3:18
"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity."
Hebrews 5:12-14
"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."
2 Timothy 3:16-17
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
Ephesians 4:15-16
"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ."
Colossians 3:16
"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God."
Psalm 1:2
"But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."
Hebrews 6:1-2
"Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity."
Then there are other miscellaneous descriptions of spirituality: 2 Peter 1:5-8
"Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with 157
godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Corinthians 3:18
"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another."
Colossians 3:1-3
"Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth."
Ephesians 4:14-15
"So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ."
1 Corinthians 14:20
"Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature."
Ephesians 6:10-17
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
1 Corinthians 13:11
"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."
Romans 12:11
"Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord."
158
"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."
2 Timothy 1:7
"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
"If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing...Love is patient and kind...It does not insist on its own way."
Philippians 1:9
"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent."
1 Thessalonians 3:12
"And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all."
Romans 12:1
"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."
James 1:5
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him."
Colossians 3:9-10
"You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator."
Ephesians 4:13
"Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
1 Corinthians 13:13
"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13:10-12
"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."
1 Corinthians 2:6
159
"Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age."
Romans 12:2
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Next we will look at some of the primary misunderstandings about spirituality, and what has been taught over the past several hundred years, much of which has not been very accurate.
160
FUNDAMENTALIST MYSTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY
In a previous chapter we discussed fundamentalist mysticism as an attempt to directly plug into the Holy Spirit as a power source for spirituality, believing that the Holy Spirit will control the spiritual life if we simply yield to Him and allow Him to take control. This is a mystical view because it seeks intuitive illumination directly from God in the personal life, and is usually based on feelings and being inwardly moved. This view originated with the mistranslation of the word "spirit" as "Spirit," especially in Ephesians 5:18, which is most often rendered as "be filled with the Spirit." As previously noted, the word "Spirit" should be
"spirit," and the word "with" is not there. However, the top five translations of the Bible, which are used by over 95% of Christians, all say "be filled with the Spirit." This issue has caused many pastors and theologians to erroneously teach that the Holy Spirit directly controls, empowers, dominates, or enables the spirituality of the believer, instead of believers learning the Word of God with the help of the Holy Spirit (our spiritual mentor), so that we can think and act spiritually from our human spirit empowered by Truth. Confusion over the word "spirit" in the Bible has therefore led to a form of fundamentalist mysticism among churches which otherwise teach the Bible in a generally accurate way. As a result, many believers over the past 400 years have engaged in non-Biblical methods of attempting to get the Holy Spirit to directly control their spiritual life, therefore it is important to explain this issue in order to put it to rest.
Let us look at a paper titled "Ephesians 5:18: Holy Spirit or Human Spirit?" written by Clifford Rapp, Jr., of Chafer Theological Seminary, since it is instructive to understand the two points of view, even if we must disagree with the conclusion. Why choose this paper? Because it actually does a very good job trying to explain the issues involved in the verse, and takes a fair approach right up to its conclusion, where it ignores all the facts which had been previously laid out. So although it fails miserably in its conclusion, it is still instructive. And it provides insight into how fundamentalist mysticism arrives at its beliefs regarding direct control of spirituality by the Holy Spirit. So let us take a look at the paper "Ephesians 5:18: Holy Spirit or Human Spirit?"
Ephesians 5:18 says in most current Bible translations:
161
"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit."
Professor Rapp states the purpose of his paper discussing Ephesians 5:18:
"This article primarily concerns itself with a single question. That is, should we translate the word “spirit” (pneuma), with a capital “S” referring to the Holy Spirit, or with a lower case “s” referring to something else?"
An excellent start. Then he correctly states that many pastors teach the Holy Spirit directly controls our spirituality:
"Many understand Ephesians 5:18 to be a command to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Generally teachers take this to mean that the believer surrenders to the control of the Holy Spirit...In spite of the appeal of this interpretation, a number of questions and alternative interpretations exist."
This would seem to have set up a proper review of the issues, and so far so good. Regarding the Ephesians 5:18 translation "be filled with the Spirit" Professor Rapp first shows how the preposition "with" is not in the original Greek text, and why it should instead be translated
"in" or "by." We agree. So the verse in question which has been mistranslated for centuries as
"be filled with the Spirit" actually begins as either "be filled by" or "be filled in," instead of "be filled with." Removal of the word "with" significantly diminishes the argument for using
"Spirit" since it becomes much more difficult to argue for a translation "be filled by the Spirit"
or "be filled in the Spirit" as relating to the Holy Spirit. What would it mean to be filled in the Holy Spirit, or to be filled by the Holy Spirit, when discussing direct control of spirituality by the Holy Spirit? Having taken away the preposition "with," using "spirit" becomes a more likely translation since it would mean "be filled in the (human) spirit," and that filling is by the Word of God.
Now that the first KJV error has been discussed, the issue can now turn to "Spirit" or "spirit."
Rapp goes on to discuss the problems with the analogy used by Paul comparing being drunk with wine to the Holy Spirit if one assumes the Holy Spirit is actually in view here: 162
"There has also been great debate over the meaning of the contrast in this verse....Both drunk people and spiritual people are controlled - drunk people by alcohol and spiritual people by the Spirit. However...the folly of this interpretation: a control that allows the Christian to lose the Spirit's control (and be filled/controlled again) can hardly be called control!"
Exactly right. So Rapp sees two additional problems with using "Spirit" in Ephesians 5:18, namely that he has difficulty making sense of why Paul would make such a comparison of drunkenness with the Holy Spirit, and secondly that if the Holy Spirit is ever in "control" of the believer's spirituality and loses it, then it is not control at all, as he stated above: "the folly of this interpretation: a control that allows the Christian to lose the Spirit's control (and be filled/controlled again) can hardly be called control!" Rapp shows how these two issues further weaken the argument for "Spirit." If the Holy Spirit ever gained control He could not possibly lose it, otherwise He would be the source of the failure. But that cannot be the case.
And comparison of the Holy Spirit to drunkenness is an absurdity, and Paul did not do that.
But if the human spirit is in view, an analogy of drunk people being under the influence of alcohol compared to a human spirit under the influence of Truth makes sense, as one is filled in the body by alcohol, and the other is filled in the human spirit by Truth.
Professor Rapp makes this point himself regarding why the word in Ephesians 5:16 could be
"spirit":
"Since Paul previously revealed that in Christ we are “renewed in the spirit of [our]
mind,” it would seem possible that Paul might urge saints to lay hold of that truth by being filled in their spirit with the mind of Christ. Also the most common meaning of the Greek preposition "en" followed by the dative case is to indicate location."
Here Rapp agrees that Ephesians 5:18 could mean being filled in the human spirit with the mind of Christ, which would be the human spirit filled with the Word of God, which Paul called the "mind of Christ." And that is correct, since the analogy Paul used is that some believers are being filled up in their body with wine, but should instead be filled up in their human spirit with the Word of God. That makes perfect sense of Paul's analogy in Ephesians 5:18.
However, saying the Holy Spirit can control the spirituality of believers is trying to convince of 163
something which is impossible, namely that the Holy Spirit would try to control us and yet fail at the same time although trying desperately to maintain control. That also makes any discussion about partial filling of the Holy Spirit absurd and should have been dispensed with centuries ago.
At this point Rapp has made the argument very well in favor of Ephesians 5:18 meaning the human spirit, because 1) the word "with" is not in the passage, so it cannot be translated "be filled with the Spirit," 2) the analogy of drunkenness compared with the Holy Spirit makes no sense, 3) if the Holy Spirit has control of our spirituality it could not be lost, and 4) the Greek preposition "en" followed by the dative case indicates location, and the Holy Spirit is not a location for our filling, but the human spirit is indeed the proper location for filling it up with Truth from the Word of God.
At this point we see how Professor Rapp seems to agree with our view of using "spirit." But not so fast, since that is not the end of it. Oddly, Professor Rapp made the following argument against the human spirit being in view:
"if Paul meant something different in Ephesians 5:18, he certainly would have expressed it more clearly."
Odd. But Paul was clear that something needed to be filled into a spirit, rather than a Spirit filling into something, as the mis-translation using Spirit would require. Rapp then turns to other KJV mis-translations of "Spirit" which should have been "spirit" to support continuing to use "Spirit" in Ephesians 5:16:
"In Romans 8:4-9, Paul exhorts his readers not to be influenced by the sinful nature but to live according to the Spirit. Also, in Galatians 5:16-24 he instructs them to live by the Spirit, so that they will avoid the acts of the sinful nature and bear the fruit of the Spirit."
Both of these citations above should be "spirit," meaning the human spirit, so Rapp is using other mis-translations of "spirit" as "Spirit" trying to defend the Ephesians 5:16 mistranslation of Spirit. Once again we see a failure to properly distinguish between the Holy Spirit and human spirit throughout the Bible, and Rapp falls back into those KJV original 164
errors which occurred in numerous locations. But citing an error to prove an error is not a convincing argument.
The obvious answer to the translation issue would follow from Rapp's arguments, namely that it is the human spirit filled with Truth from the Word which is in view in Ephesians 5:18, and should be rendered as "be filled (with Truth) in the (human) spirit." However, Rapp proceeds to conclude the opposite:
"There are a number of questions that we may ask about how to translate “by the Spirit” in Ephesians 5:18. Yet when we consider all the issues, the evidence brings us to the position represented in every translation of the English Bible: we should capitalize the “S” to denote the Holy Spirit. It has always been the will of the Lord that Church saints “be filled by means of the Holy Spirit.”
After all of the good analysis and logical thinking about the issue, Rapp's conclusion is to stick with what the KJV translators said in 1611 AD, because as he says "It has always been the will of the Lord that Church saints “be filled by means of the Holy Spirit.” So in the final analysis Rapp discards proper Biblical analysis, exegesis, evaluation procedure, and methodology and instead simply declares it to be "God's will" to keep the KJV mis-translation.
Is this really the best we can do? Must we stick with the KJV of the Bible, translated in 1611
from inferior texts, because it must be how God would want it to be? Using "God's will" as a debate tool must certainly be the ultimate in fundamentalist mysticism, since it directly calls in God as the expert witness apart from His Word. This is the exasperating part of trying to explain what the Bible actually says, because we are fighting the KJV Bible, and every translation since which has not had enough nerve to upset their readership by making corrections on this issue.
Additionally, Rapp's paper avoids a key issue by failing to define what the Holy Spirit does by directly controlling, empowering and/or directing the spirituality of believers. How would the Holy Spirit do this without removing our decision making, and therefore our free will to choose to live a spiritual life, or else to fail miserably? And how does He convey His wishes to us? Does he "move us," or send "feeling signals?" Such questions remain unanswered, and are why this is a mystical viewpoint of spirituality.
165
And if the Holy Spirit directly controls, enables, and empowers the spirituality of believers, why does He fail so miserably? That question is never answered. As stated many times in this book, our belief is that the Holy Spirit mentors us when we believers seek to learn the Word of God, so that the Word is planted firmly into our human spirit as divine power, by which we live a spiritual life. The Holy Spirit does not directly control, empower and/or direct the spirituality of believers, but rather mentors us so that we have the power from Truth to live a life of spirituality. If the Holy Spirit were in control of the spiritual life of the believer, it would not be us, but the Holy Spirit who would succeed or fail in our spiritual lives. And since failure by the Holy Spirit is not an option, and all believers fail spiritually (and many are complete failures), it cannot be the Holy Spirit in view in Ephesians 5:18.
But one might say, those who fail spiritually have refused to allow the Holy Spirit to control their spiritual life. Or maybe we do not "yield" to the Holy Spirit. Do they say He takes control only when allowed to do so? But how is it "control" or "empowerment" by the Holy Spirit if permission is first required? The bottom line is that if the Holy Spirit directly empowers or controls the spiritual life of the believer, then we would be required to admit that the Holy Spirit fails to enable even a minor amount of spirituality in most believers. Such failure cannot be true of God, so there must be an alternate explanation. And there is. As we have already discussed, the Truth from the Word of God inside our human spirit is the source of power for our spiritual life. That power requires a life of study, with the mentoring of the Holy Spirit, and our spirituality depends on the amount of Truth we possess in our human spirit for use in our daily life. And how would the Holy Spirit fill us anyway? Part way? Half way? Partial filling is not an option for the Holy Spirit. Trying to say the Holy Spirit fills us by measure, as a little here and a little there, more here, and less there, is nonsense. The entirety of the Holy Spirit always indwells every believer. So the difference between the two positions is that one says the Holy Spirit is in direct control, and the other says He is our mentor and makes our spirituality possible, but only through the Word of God instead of directly.
Recall that Old Testament believers did not even have the Holy Spirit (except in rare cases, and for different purposes), but they were still able to live a spiritual life. So translating Ephesians 5:18 as "Spirit" does not allow for Old Testament spirituality since they did not have the Holy Spirit. But "be filled in the spirit" does make the argument for filling the human spirit with the Truth from the Word of God, so that spiritual learning can fill up our human spirit, which is our spiritual inner human, so that we can apply the Word of God to our lives. This is something all believers of all time have been able to do since all believers of all time have a human spirit, and have been required to fill it with the Bible Truth which existed at that time. The difference is that Church Age Truth requires involvement of the Holy Spirit as mentor, while Old Testament Truth was much simpler and did not require it. Therefore the 166
proper translation is necessarily "be filled in the spirit" or "be filled up in the spirit," meaning the human spirit filled with Truth from the Word of God.
Who would suggest that the Holy Spirit "controls all their thoughts, feelings, words, and actions” as Professor Rapp says, and under what possible scenario? Only someone under spiritual mysticism. Can the Holy Spirit impute power directly into us to make us spiritual by His own controlling actions? Does He force us into spirituality? If so, how could we sin?
How could we fail? How could He fail? We and He could not. The actual ministry of the Holy Spirit is to mentor us to fill up our human spirit with the Truth of the mind of Christ when we study the Word of God intensively and continually. Then our human spirit applies the spiritual information we have learned as Truth. God holds us responsible, not the Holy Spirit, for living a spiritual life. The Holy Spirit is absolutely crucial to our success in learning the Word of God, and populating the human spirit with Truth when we seek to learn the Word of God, which is the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit is therefore the one who assures Truth is learned and stored in our human spirit when properly presented, so that we may consequently have power inside our human spirit to make decisions to live a spiritual life as a result of having the power of the Word. But we may also decide to reject God's Truth and try to find our own way. The decisions must be ours alone to make, and the failures are our own, and not failures by the Holy Spirit.
The spiritual life is about decisions, for or against God and His plan. We believers are not puppets on a string controlled by God. We have free will to determine our spirituality, and our eternal rewards will be based on the decisions we make. God requires us to make continual decisions in our heart to resist our sinful nature and yield to the human spirit filled with Truth. We must live out of our human spirit to direct our soul's heart to make decisions for God's plan. The spiritual life is not about avoidance of something, such as specific sins, but about using the power of the Word out from our human spirit to live a spiritual life. And although a part of that will be making decisions to avoid sinning to some degree or another, the issue is to do it by the power of God in our human spirit, which is Truth. This is living out from our human spirit. It is the Word which has power, and it is not avoidance of sin which makes us spiritual, nor is it anything else we do apart from the divine power of the Word. We will never be rewarded for what we do not do. Therefore, simply avoiding a sin is not rewardable. It is the application of the Word from the human spirit through the heart which is rewardable, and that may result in avoiding sin to some imperfect degree and choosing instead to attempt to follow the will of God for our life most of the time. But the Holy Spirit does not directly empower us to live a spiritual life. He mentors us in the Word as we study it, and then requires us to use the Word of God from our human spirit to make decisions in our soul's heart to follow the will and plan of God. And most of it is simply about choices, not 167
endless praying, and imploring God to tell us what to do.
The purpose in the above discussion was to present, as fairly as possible, how spirituality is taught in a mystical way among fundamentalist believers. It is important to note that when trying to explain spirituality the failure rate is very high because most pastors simply do not know what it is. And the misunderstandings have been handed down for centuries. Before we can move on, one more issue about the past remains. It involves a book that formulated the beliefs about spirituality for many pastors during the past century or so.
168
CHAFER'S "HE THAT IS SPIRITUAL" REVISITED
Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote his booklet "He That Is Spiritual" in 1918 and his work remains influential in Christian teachings, mainly because the seminary he founded turned out many influential pastors during the 20th Century. Chafer significantly expanded the teaching of the Word, so it is unpleasant to offer criticism of his work. However, because his booklet was so widely read, and continued the misinterpretations which began with the KJV Bible in 1611, it is important to understand and critique his viewpoint on spirituality. Therefore, this chapter is needed to put to rest arguments against the proper view of spirituality as discussed in this book. Some Readers will want all the details, and all the counter-viewpoints. Therefore this chapter seeks to give a fair representation of other viewpoints, and address them thoughtfully and thoroughly so that they may finally, after 400 years of misinformation, be put to rest.
Therefore, looking at what Chafer did to drive Christian teaching about spirituality remains important because his influence continues, and it was responsible for many fundamentalist believers ending up with a mystical view of spirituality.
Chafer's book drove two incorrect views of spirituality which have held back many Christians from advancing in the spiritual life. Those two views include that the Holy Spirit directly controls and empowers the spiritual life of the believer, and secondly he taught a process of mechanical, continuous confession of sin in order to regain spirituality which he said was lost by each and every sin. Chafer's text will be quoted at some length so that we can fairly examine his views in detail.
Chafer begins his booklet well by stating that the Holy Spirit is involved in making sure the accurately communicated Word of God can be made usable in our lives. But then he goes astray almost immediately by falling into the trap of making the Holy Spirit responsible for directly controlling our spiritual life:
"A CHRISTIAN IS A CHRISTIAN because he is rightly related to Christ; but "he that is spiritual" is spiritual because he is rightly related to the [Holy] Spirit, in addition to his relation to Christ in salvation. It therefore follows that any attempt to discover the fact 169
and conditions of true spirituality must be based upon a clear understanding of the Bible revelation concerning the [Holy] Spirit in His possible relationships to men."
Having set up his position that the Holy Spirit directly enables and controls our daily spiritual life, it becomes impossible for Chafer to properly develop the subject of Christian spirituality.
The difference is that the Holy Spirit regenerates our human spirit, then we must live out from our human spirit filled with the Truth of the Word to live in a state of spirituality. This is the main issue which has plagued Bible teaching for centuries, namely that the human spirit is not understood, so as a result the Holy Spirit is said to directly control our spiritual lives instead of mentoring our human spirit to enable our spirituality through the power of Truth, not from His own direct power. As we shall see, Chafer makes his position very clear, over and over, that he believed the Holy Spirit directly controls the spirituality of the believer.
Therefore, Chafer goes astray early on the issue of spirituality by confusing the Holy Spirit with the human spirit, as did many others who followed the KJV mis-translations. Chafer begins by declaring that the Holy Spirit directly empowers and controls the spiritual life of the believer. We have previously examined what "spirit" is in view in those passages dealing with spirituality, and have explained that it is the human spirit being discussed in many passages where the KJV and subsequent translations of the Bible got it wrong, over and over again. But with his early failure to distinguish between Spirit and spirit, Chafer never challenges the mistranslation, and since he was not able to exegete from the original Greek text, he was not equipped to do so. Therefore Chafer failed to understand that it is the human spirit which is primarily in view in our spirituality, and he continued the mis-translation of "spirit" as
"Spirit," reaffirming the KJV Bible mis-translations. From this starting position there was no ability to understand the subject of spirituality, which was the purpose of his booklet.
Having incorrectly assumed that the word "spirit" in Ephesians 5:18 and many other verses refers to the Holy Spirit, Chafer defined our spirituality as being directly empowered and controlled by the Holy Spirit, instead of the human spirit using Truth from the Word and applying it to daily life. Chafer goes on to misquote the KJV Bible in other places such as Galatians 5:17:
"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."..."This is spirituality."
170
By capitalizing "spirit" as "Spirit" Chafer declares "walking in the Spirit" is spirituality, when it should be "walking by the spirit," meaning living out of the human spirit filled with Truth, which is the true description of spirituality.
Chafer goes on to discuss two classes of Christians:
"...those who are "spiritual" and those who are "carnal" as those who are "filled with the Spirit," and those who are not."
This is where the issue of spirituality is finally defined by Chafer, when he makes spirituality a simple "in or out" issue with no relationship to spiritual maturity from the Word of God. As we have already discussed in detail, spirituality is not simply an "in or out" issue, but also involves levels of maturity, which Chafer ignores. To Chafer, all believers were equally spiritual when they were in a state of spirituality, regardless of whether it was a new believer or the Apostle Paul. Chafer defined the "filling of the Holy Spirit" as follows (remember while reading that he confuses the Holy Spirit and human spirit in the quoted passages): WHAT IS THE SPIRIT'S FILLING?
"In the Bible, the meaning of the phrase "filled with the Spirit," is disclosed, and the filling of the Spirit is also seen to be the experience of the early Christians..."
Chafer here mixes what happened during the initial start-up of the Church with what happens afterward. And they are very different, as we have already seen. The Holy Spirit directly empowered certain early Church Apostles and a few leaders by being "upon them" to directly empower certain abilities. However this ended very early, and the Holy Spirit no longer acts
"upon" believers to directly empower them.
Chafer then shows why he went astray, and it is the same issue as with many others, namely the 1611 KJV mis-translations of the word "spirit" as "Spirit." The primary mis-translation is found in Ephesians 5:18 which says "be filled with the Spirit" which Chafer explains as follows:
"One direct New Testament command is given: "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit"...A Christian, to be spiritual, must, then, be filled 171
and kept filled by the Spirit."
Chafer firmly ties his definition of spirituality to the Holy Spirit directly controlling the spiritual life of the believer. As mentioned several times already, if the Holy Spirit is controlling the lives of all believers, then one must conclude that the Holy Spirit has failed miserably -- but He has not failed at all. That cannot be the case.
Then Chafer goes on to deal with the issue of "filling" which necessarily implies degrees or levels of filling, from none to partial to complete. And since "filling" by the Holy Spirit cannot be defined or explained, he changes the entire nature of the discussion by saying it is the Holy Spirit who must "get more" of the believer:
"To be filled is not the problem of getting more of the Spirit: it is rather the problem of the Spirit getting more of us. We shall never have More of the Spirit than the anointing which every true Christian has received. On the other hand, the Spirit may have all of the believer and thus be able to manifest in him the life and character of Christ."
"To be filled with the Spirit is to have the Spirit fulfilling in us all that God intended Him to do when He placed Him there."
Chafer could not explain why "filling" would not include levels of filling, so he insists that
"filling" is not really "filling" since that implies partiality, which of course it does. So he changes the word to "fulfilling" in the paragraph above. Chafer then proceeds to further back off from the "filling" issue to include the provision that the believer must be "fully adjusted,"
although once again without an explanation of what that might entail:
"The New Testament is clear as to just what the Spirit would produce in a fully adjusted life, and all of this revelation taken together forms the Bible definition of spirituality.
These undertakings are distinctly assigned to the Spirit, and are His manifestations in and through the Christian."
But how must a believer become "fully adjusted?" The entire booklet says it is the Holy Spirit who must empower the believer, but is that only for those who are "fully adjusted?" With the addition of the "fulfilling" and "fully adjusted" provisions, Chafer has muddled what he made clear at first, even though it was incorrect. Is the Holy Spirit in control or not? Or is 172
"fulfilling" only for those who have made themselves "fully adjusted?" And what do those terms mean? The problem, of course, is due to his original premise being incorrect, so none of what follows can make sense. The reality is that Holy Spirit does not directly control and empower the believer's spirituality. Any time pastors try to explain spirituality as being "filled with the Spirit" they end up saying "filling is not filling" and redefine the passage as meaning something else. But if Chafer and others want to say we are required to "be filled with the Spirit" when Chafer already stated that we always have all of the Spirit, and that there is no partial filling, then that phrase must be explained, not something else like "fulfilling" or being
"fully adjusted," which are merely wordplay distractions. Of course, the premise is wrong, so attempts to explain it will never make sense.
Chafer restates his "full control" belief in yet another way:
"It is no longer something for the human strength to attempt, nor is it to be done by the human strength plus the help of the Spirit...It is not something that man can do, even with help. It is "the fruit of the Spirit."...True Christian character is produced in the believer, but not by the believer...All must be produced in the heart and life by the Spirit."
At this point Chafer is "all in" in asserting that the believer plays no role in spirituality. Then he leaves no doubt that he means the Holy Spirit is 100% responsible and the believer is 0%
responsible:
"Walking by means of the Spirit, or "being led of the Spirit," is not the flesh being helped in some degree by the Spirit. It is said to be a direct accomplishment of the Spirit in spite of the opposition of the flesh...Spirituality is a work of God for His child."
Now we fully understand that Chafer places all responsibility on the Holy Spirit for spirituality when he says "Spirituality is a work of God for His child." We see the degree to which assigning all responsibility for our spiritual life to the Holy Spirit must go in order to try to justify the false premise. As Chafer describes in the above narrative, no responsibility is left to the believer. This also assigns all responsibility for failure to the Holy Spirit, which is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this incorrect view of spirituality.
173
Once Chafer has turned over all control of the believer's spirituality to the Holy Spirit, he concludes that the believer cannot sin because the Holy Spirit is in complete control:
"...a Spirit-filled Christian is, however, in a position wherein he cannot do the things which he otherwise would (Galatians 5:17). This again is due to the fact that he is
"inlawed to Christ." Being in the power and control of the Spirit, he cannot do the things which he otherwise would do because of the transformed desires of a heart which the Spirit has filled. The power of God is working in such a believer, "both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
Next Chafer adds another false premise on top of the previous one. His new premise states that since the Holy Spirit directly provides spirituality to believers, which he says can be lost when the Holy Spirit is "grieved" or "quenched" resulting in a complete loss of spirituality (loss of "filling"), he concludes that such grieving and quenching results at each and every sin.
Given this argument, Chafer must therefore find a method to regain the lost "filling" of the Holy Spirit, therefore he ties two unconnected verses together from different parts of the Bible to conclude that since sin causes the Holy Spirit's "filling" to be lost, the only way to get it back is confession of each and every sin. Here we see one false premise requiring creation of another to fix the problems of the first. As a result, this concept of regaining the "filling" of the Holy Spirit by a mechanical process of continual confession of every sin became embedded in fundamentalist Christian teaching, and remains so. But of course, the Reader is entitled to look at Chafer's argument, which is presented as follows:
"WHAT IT IS THAT GRIEVES THE SPIRIT"
"Sin destroys spirituality. It is necessarily so; for where sin is tolerated in the believer's daily life, the Spirit, who indwells him, must then turn from His blessed ministry through him, to a pleading ministry to him. The Bible does not teach that the Spirit withdraws because of sin in the one whom He indwells: He is rather grieved by the sin."
(Ephesians 4:30)
"QUENCH NOT THE SPIRIT" (First Thessalonians 5:19) is another explicit command to the believer concerning his relation to the One who indwells him."
"The Spirit is "quenched" by any unyieldedness to the revealed will of God. It is simply saying "no" to God, and so is closely related to matters of the divine appointments for service; though the Spirit may be "quenched" as well, by any resistance of the 174
providence of God in the life."
One would wonder how a believer under the direct control of the Holy Spirit could overcome Him and proceed to sin. Even Chafer said in his booklet that a believer under the direct control of the Holy Spirit cannot sin. But he says differently in the above passage.
Chafer continues the misinterpretation of the KJV by saying the Holy Spirit is "quenched" by sin, however quenching refers to the human spirit. So it is not the Holy Spirit being quenched at all in the passage. Once again the KJV mis-translates "spirit" as "Spirit," since the word for
"holy " is not in the passage. The Apostle Paul was telling believers to avoid shutting off the human spirit because it is the only way for us to have spirituality. If we "quench" our human spirit we will live by the sinful nature, not by the human spirit.
"Grieving" is indeed about the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 4:30, however it is not about each and every sin causing a loss of "filling." The passage discusses believers fighting among themselves, and destroying harmony in the Church and also their witness to unbelievers around them. The Holy Spirit is "grieved" by such discord and strife among believers, since it interferes with His ministry to reach the unsaved, and also with His mentoring ministry to believers from the Word of God.
But Chafer tries to explain the issue as being each and every single sin in the life of the believer:
"TRUE SPIRITUALITY also depends upon a positive attitude of reliance upon the presence and power of the indwelling Spirit....He must not grieve the Spirit by retaining unconfessed any known sin. He must not quench the Spirit by saying "no" to God. The third, and last, condition is positive in character. It is something the believer, to be spiritual, must do."
"A Christian, because of the power of the new enemy, must "walk by means of the Spirit" if he would be spiritual."
In the above sentence the "walk by means of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:18) is yet another KJV
mis-translation of "spirit" as "Spirit," which actually means we must walk by means of our human spirit filled with Truth, and does not mean walk by the Holy Spirit directly under His 175
control. We can see the degree of devastation done by this single mis-translated word from over 400 years ago.
A contemporary of Chafer, D.B. Warfield, commented on Chafer's work and re-affirmed that confession of sin brings about instantaneous spirituality in spite of whether the believer had any spiritual growth in the Word, and that all believers are equally spiritual at the moment they confess their recent sins:
"...Spirituality is the present state of blessing and power of the believer who, at the same time, may be very immature. A Christian can and should be spiritual from the moment he is saved. Spirituality, which is the unhindered manifestations of the Spirit in life, is provided to the full for all believers who "confess" their sins, "yield" to God, and "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." When these conditions are complied with, the results are immediate; for no process is indicated...Christian experience bears unfailing testimony to two outstanding facts: (1) There is an abrupt change from the carnal to the spiritual when the Biblical conditions are met. And (2) there is an abrupt loss of spiritual blessing whenever there has been a yielding to sin."
Chafer does not discuss growing in the Word to enable spirituality, or to make it stronger, or to achieve higher levels. In his view, the most immature believer and the most mature believer would both lose all spirituality when they commit a single sin, and then both would regain the fullest form of spirituality after each sin had been confessed. Under this scenario the most mature believer can be no more spiritual than the totally immature believer who never learned anything from the Word of God, as long as sins are confessed by both groups.
We can easily see the enormous flaws in such a view of spirituality, and the continuation of these beliefs until this day are a source of sadness over the lack of proper handling of the Word of God. This has led to untold confusion among believers who have sought to understand the Truth of the Word.
To conclude our summary of Chafer's view of spirituality from his booklet "He That Is Spiritual" we see his insistence that all the power and effort involved in our spirituality comes directly and only from the Holy Spirit:
WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?
"The third condition, then, upon which one may be spiritual, is a definite reliance upon 176
the Spirit, which is a "walk by means of the Spirit." Such a reliance upon the Spirit is imperative because of the impossible heavenly calling, the opposing power of Satan, and the continued presence of the "flesh" with its Adamic nature."
"What, then, is true spirituality? It is the unhindered manifestations of the indwelling Spirit. There are in all, seven of these manifestations. These blessed realities are all provided for in the presence and power of the Spirit and will be normally produced by the Spirit in the Christian who is not grieving the Spirit, but has confessed every known sin; who is not quenching the Spirit, but is yielded to God; and who is walking in the Spirit by an attitude of dependence upon His power alone. Such an one is spiritual because He is Spirit-filled. The Spirit is free to fulfill in him all the purpose and desire of God for him."
It should be noted that confession of sins to God is mentioned only once in the New Testament (1 John 1:9) when John was refuting false teaching from those who said believers are unable to sin after salvation. But he never tied confession of sin to regaining spirituality.
It is also important to note that the Apostle Paul never once mentioned confession of sins. If it were the sole component of regaining spirituality for believers, do we not think Paul might have mentioned it even once? And maybe John would have mentioned it in a passage where he was discussing how spirituality is gained or lost? But they did not. When the issues are laid bare, it is very disappointing to realize the extent to which otherwise good Bible teachers have gone astray, and continue to go astray, in order to insist that our spirituality is directly controlled by the Holy Spirit. And Chafer's booklet assured that this would continue for another century.
It is a sad commentary that Chafer as an otherwise excellent Bible teacher fell into fundamentalist mysticism related to spirituality, and led generations of pastors down the same incorrect path. He demonstrated that he did not understand the human spirit and its role in our spirituality. As a result, modern Christian teaching about spirituality would continue with the KJV mis-translations, taking us right up to now. Chafer's tying Christian spirituality to being "rightly related to the [Holy] Spirit" missed the point entirely, and this is where Chafer and all who followed his teachings failed to grasp that the Holy Spirit does not directly control or empower the believer to live a life of spirituality, but rather the believer must first learn the Word of God with help from the Holy Spirit, which is an indirect approach and makes the individual believer responsible for their own spirituality, rather than the Holy Spirit. This only makes sense, because we are the ones who will be rewarded, or will lose rewards. The believer must live from his own human spirit to apply Truth from the Word which the Holy Spirit has put in place as it was studied and learned under the teaching of a 177
prepared pastor. This core issue is what has been missed by so many along the way.
Now that we have looked at a booklet which promoted and continued a false view of spirituality which had already persisted for 400 years, the Reader can hopefully understand why this book needed to be written.
178
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
For those who did not quit after reading the Introduction, I am confident this journey has been enlightening, and maybe even spiritually beneficial. Spirituality has been so confused for so long that trying to get believers to reconsider the misperceptions which started with the KJV Bible has been a difficult task. Those simple capitalization errors caused 400 years of false teaching about spirituality. But once the true issues are seen, they are so clear.
So what have we learned?
We started out discussing how spirituality requires living out of the human spirit using the power of Truth, although very few understand what that means. The human spirit is not another name for our soul, or a generic reference to our entire immaterial inner human. It is a separate and very specific component of our inner self which only believers in Jesus Christ possess. It is what was reborn when we were "born again" at salvation, because it died when the original humans sinned and died spiritually. It gives us eternal life, because it is both spiritual and eternal. Only those humans who are saved by faith in Jesus Christ have a human spirit, so unbelievers do not have one. Therefore only believers can have spirituality since they have both a soul and human spirit, while unbelievers have only a soul. But simply having a human spirit is not enough. The second step must be to fill that human spirit with Truth, which provides the power from God to live in spirituality. This involves learning the Word of God to put Truth into the human spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit, and then living out of the human spirit to drive the soul to interact with God and the world around us. When this condition exists, everything the believer does within the plan of God for their life is a part of their spirituality, meaning our spirituality is not doing something specific, or avoidance of certain things, but rather living from the human spirit filled with the power of Truth.
Most believers live only out of their soul, and do not use their human spirit. Such believers have no spirituality. That is because their human spirit is empty, or nearly so, which means it is devoid of power from Truth. The Bible says "The Word of God is alive and powerful"
(Hebrews 4:12), and we must use that power from God to live a spiritual life. For those 179
believers who do not even seek spirituality, but rather essentially tell God after they are saved
"Thanks for the salvation, but I'll take it from here," the "taking it from here" part is living from the soul and trying to impress God by avoidance of negatives instead of gaining and using the power God has for us from the Word. The soul has no power to please God, because it is not a spiritual entity. The soul may try to "take it from here," but the soul is powerless to please God without the backing of the human spirit filled with Truth from the Word.
The human spirit is the repository of spiritual Truth, not the soul, and this is the key to spirituality, filling the human spirit with the Word of God and then living out of the human spirit using divine Truth, applying it to our daily lives. Spiritual Truth must have a spiritual residence, which can only be in the human spirit where the Holy Spirit also indwells, since Spirit must reside in spirit, and only spirit can commune with Spirit. Spiritual information cannot be housed in the soul, because it is not a spiritual vessel. Therefore living out of the human soul cannot result in spirituality. Only when the human spirit is filled with spiritual Truth can the believer have spirituality, because the Word of God is the power from God for living the Christian life. If we do not put spiritual Truth into our human spirit, then we believers are not capable of living out of our human spirit since it remains an empty and weak vessel. Without Truth in the human spirit, the believer is a spiritual baby crawling through life without any spiritual power.
We have therefore defined spirituality as living out of our human spirit using the power of the Word of God to have a right relationship with God while not conforming to the thinking and desires of the world from a soul filled with human learning and backed by the sinful nature.
And we have seen that spirituality has two components for the believer. First we must accumulate Truth from the Word inside our human spirit, and secondly we must make ongoing decisions to live by that Truth. It is important to note that spirituality is not continuous, because all believers sin and fail to use their human spirit at times. But when we fail we must regain our focus on God and His plan, to live by Truth from our human spirit, and make progress toward a closer relationship with God and our Savior through His Word.
And as we have discussed, our eternal rewards will be based on the level of spirituality we achieve.
That summarizes the positive side, however most believers are attempting to be spiritual by living a life of negatives, trying to please God by what they avoid doing. Most live generally as they had before salvation, with maybe a little more restraint thrown in, trying to be a "good person." But being a good person is not spirituality if it is achieved only by the soul. Many unbelievers are relatively good people who are rather moral, love their family, are law abiding, 180
help others, and so on, all from the soul alone. But they do not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, so they do not have salvation, and do not have a human spirit, therefore they cannot be spiritual. They have no relationship with God at all. Therefore, spirituality is not straining from our own human capabilities in the soul to live a life relatively free from sin and other negatives. That is merely an avoidance approach. Rather, spirituality is using our spiritual side, our human spirit which is gained at the moment of salvation, filled with spiritual Truth from the Word of God through mentoring by the Holy Spirit, to live a life pleasing to God based on a consistent spiritual relationship or "walk" with Him. Then everything we do is motivated by a positive approach which results from living a life out from the human spirit based on the Truth stored in it, which in turn motivates a right relationship with God.
Spirituality is not using the soul alone to try to conform to Bible mandates (the "avoidance"
approach), but rather using the human spirit filled with Truth to direct the soul to fulfill what God desires of us in a positive spiritual sense based on His power.
Only our spiritual side can please God. Of course the human spirit must use the soul to communicate to the outside world, but to be spiritual the human spirit must be in control of the entire person, especially the soul. And that is the issue: what controls our soul? There are two opposites at war with each other inside every believer -- the human spirit and the sinful nature. And one or the other will be in overall control of the soul. The soul cannot remain in neutral for very long in between the two. The sinful nature drives sin and many other types of wrong thinking and behavior contrary to the will of God. The believer with an empty human spirit will inevitably gravitate to the sinful nature and think mainly like the unbeliever thinks, and therefore will act like an unbeliever acts. And that can even be as a "good person," but without spirituality. The soul is like a moth to the flame, since the sinful nature cannot be resisted without significant Truth in the human spirit. It is the human spirit which "wars with" and resists the sinful nature, but only when it is sufficiently filled with Truth from the Word of God. The soul alone does not have the power to resist the sinful nature, and what little power it has to resist is only human power, not spiritual power from God.
We have discussed how the KJV translation caused much of the confusion regarding spirituality. Many still teach that it is the Holy Spirit who "fills" and controls or directly empowers the soul of the believer, and enables a spiritual life, therefore they miss the point entirely. It is not the Holy Spirit who empowers us directly with His own divine power, but rather He mentors us when we study and learn from the Word of God, which builds up divine power in our human spirit based on Truth. Then we can apply that power to life from our human spirit to war against our sinful nature. So it is the Spirit of God who uses the Word of God to build up spiritual strength in our human spirit which leads to spirituality, which is therefore an indirect approach used by the Holy Spirit, not direct empowerment or control 181
It is understandable that believers get upset when their current beliefs are challenged. The issue of spirituality is one such subject area. We are fighting 400 years of mis-translations and deeply embedded mystical views of what the Holy Spirit does for believers. That is why we have been so meticulous in laying out the Biblical support for the positions presented in this book. We have examined the human spirit in detail, why we need one, that we are required to fill it with Truth from the Word of God, and the role of the Holy Spirit in mentoring us in this process to turn Bible information into spiritual power so we can then apply it to live in a state of spirituality. We have examined the views of many who say the Holy Spirit directly controls our spiritual life, and why that is simply not possible. At this point, the explanations have been laid out and the decision rests with the Reader.
Do you want to live a life of spirituality, or do you simply want to strive on your own apart from God's power? It is a choice between living out of the soul or out of the human spirit.
God has left us on earth to make choices, for or against His plan. As the Apostle Paul said in Romans 12:11 "Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord." We can live spiritually or soulishly, and it is a choice we are required to make, day by day. And that choice is about filling the human spirit with the Truth of the Word of God, and then living out of it, or else we will live out of the soul as a spiritual failure, even if as a so-called "good person." The human spirit is the only spiritual part of us, and our happiness while on earth, and also our eternal rewards, depend upon whether we live out of our soul, or out of our human spirit using Truth.
"
T
H
E
R
E
I
S
N
O
E
N
182
Reads:
2
Pages:
150
Published:
Nov 2024
Since the beginning of time GOD (YHVH ) is in the process of creating for HIMSELF an own people, a holy nation born from above (Rev 1:6; 1Pet 2:9-10) in HIS i...
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT
Reads:
19
Pages:
59
Published:
Nov 2024
Throughout the history of man humans have existed and functioned under the delusion that they can and in fact must develop systems for solving the problems, p...
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT
Reads:
2
Pages:
26
Published:
Oct 2024
Let's be Divine Mercy Superheroes! Be motivated to pray more for the souls in Purgatory.
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT
Reads:
4
Pages:
109
Published:
Oct 2024
The soul of the believer after salvation lacks something. It is the purpose of God for the believer to give him the necessary assets in his life to FILL his ...
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT