7 Feb 2024
God’s assignment to his people, Israel, in the Old Covenant, is now assigned to the Church, in the New Covenant. The Church comprises of all the saints in the OT as well as those in the NT – all those who are the true children of Abraham by faith.
Whereas the first Adam has failed, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, prevailed and triumphed – and now He leads the recreated community and humanity towards the ‘new promised land’ (the city of God in the new heaven and new earth) via the new “exodus”.
However, the church on earth consists of imperfectly sanctified sinners; there are always two defects in the lives of its members, both corporately and individually. These are ignorance and error, which cause omissions and mistakes in belief and behaviour. The church, therefore, has two constant needs: instruction in the truths by which it must live, and correction of the shortcomings by which its life is marred.
Scripture is designed to meet this twofold need: It is “profitable for teaching….and for training in righteousness” on one hand, and for “reproof” and “correction” on the other (2Timothy 3:16).
It is the church’s responsibility to use Scripture for its intended purpose. This it does by the complementary activities of exposition followed by reformation. To accept the authority of Scripture means in practice being willing first to believe what it teaches, and then to apply its teaching to ourselves for our correction and guidance. The words and lives of Christian men and women must be in continual process of reformation by the written Word of their God.
But this purpose will not be realised in, and by, the church if there is no accurate and wholesome exposition of Scripture in the preaching and teaching ministry; and certainly, if there is no continual reformation when the reproof and correction by God, through the written Word, and through His servants, are not heeded.
This is where willingness to accept advice and correction comes in Proverbs 10:17: “Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray”. Unfortunately, one of the major reasons churches today, in every continent, are in disarray, is because of the unwillingness to heed instruction from God (which might come through Scripture or through other means which God appoints). Pride, selfish ambitions, the “know all” attitude, the dependence on intellectual capability, ‘unopenness’ and being unteachable – all these are some of the reasons why the reproof and correction cannot be received in the way God desires. We are wise to be aware that our way of living and believing will influence others whether or not we intended it so – and therefore to humbly heed advice from others about avoiding pitfalls on our own chosen path. Indeed, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15).
The Holy Spirit operates in and through our thinking (he convinces us of God’s truth), our decision-making (he leads us to will the will of God), and our affections (he draws forth from us love and hate, hope and fear, joy and sorrow, and other feeling-laden dispositions, all responding to the realities of the gospel). His blessing on the Bible we read, and on the Christian instruction we receive, persuades us of the truth of Christianity. He shows us how God’s promises and demands bear on our lives.
The Reformers argued constantly that those who do not in humility and self-distrust allow the Bible to teach them its message about God and grace will never have their false notions of God corrected, nor see the light of saving truth, but will walk in darkness forever; only those who become people of Scripture will find the true God and eternal life.
This point is bound up with another: the clear understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit which blossomed at the Reformation in a way that was quite without precedent since the Apostles Paul and John laid down their pens. Theologically, the Reformers’ grasp of the nature and power of the Spirit’s ministry sprang straight from the Scriptures, which they read not to allegorise in terms of inherited ideas as medieval preachers had done, but to enter into the thinking of the authors. Reading them thus, they learned from God’s penmen of the Spirit’s covenanted work in Christian and in the church. They read the Scriptures not as scholars but as Christians, conscious of the darkness of their own minds and praying for light, they had enjoyed in answer to their prayers a deep personal experience of the Spirit’s inner witness to the authenticity of Scripture as God’s Word, and of the Spirit’s power to use it as a source of instruction, hope and strength.
Holy Scripture, which is Law and Light, is also Life, in the very precise sense that it bestows life through the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit writes it in our hearts. James 1:21 gives us this thought: “Receive with meekness the implanted word,” God implants the Word in our hearts, just as the gardeners implant bulbs and seeds in our flowerpots. The implanted Word “is able to save your souls”, continues James.
The Word, once implanted, takes root, and through the Holy Spirit it has become the means of life to our hearts. Bible truth imparts spiritual life, and we need to soak ourselves in Scripture if we are ever to learn how to know and love and serve and, honour and obey our Lord. May God grant us to share in the excitement and in a full measure of that divine life to which the love of God’s Word opens the door.