REVELATION, IN SCRIPTURE, IS PROGRESSIVE
Some care needs to be exercised in the use of the above term. Sometimes it is used to represent the idea of a gradual evolutionary development; this is not what we mean. The idea of a gradual evolutionary development flourished under liberal scholarship, regarded sections of the Old Testament as virtually obsolete and false; they were only very imperfect approximations of the truth.
What we mean by progressive revelation is that later revelation builds upon earlier revelation. It is complementary and supplementary to it, not contradictory. Note for instance the way Jesus elevated the teachings of the law by extending, expanding, and internalising them. He frequently prefaced his instruction with the expression, “You have heard…but I say to you.” In a similar fashion the author of Hebrews points out that God, who in the past spoke by the prophets, has in these last days spoken by a Son, who reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature (Heb. 1:1-3).
The revelation of God is a process even as its redemption, and a process which moved to an ever more complete form. This means that lost and sinful humans can come to know God and then to go on to grow in understanding of what he expects of and promises to his children. Because this revelation includes both the personal presence of God and informational truth, we are able to identify God, to understand something about him, and to point others to him.
Another example of progressive revelation pertains to the sacrificial work of Christ. Whereas in the Old Testament there were continual offerings of sacrifice in the court, twice-daily offerings of incense in the outer tent, and the animal sacrifice by the high priest in the inner place, the Holy of Holies (Heb. 9:1-10). Christ brought this process to an end by fulfilling it (vs12). The offering of his own blood was once for all. The permanent factor here is the need for sacrificial atonement and the satisfaction of that need through the death of Christ. The earlier forms were simply anticipations or reflections of what was yet to come. In some cases, the essence of a doctrine was not explicitly realised within biblical times. It was only approximated. For example, the status of women in society was elevated dramatically by Jesus. Similarly, Paul granted an unusual status to slaves. Yet the lot of these groups did not improve as much as it ultimately would. So to find the essence of how such persons should be treated, we must look to principles laid down or implied regarding their status, not to accounts of how they actually were treated in biblical times.
We need to find the essential spiritual truth upon which a given portion of Scripture rests, and then make a contemporary application of it. Our aim is not to eliminate any portion or Scripture, but to find out the meaning of all of it.
Another example is to look at genealogies in Scripture. An attempt to go directly from “what a genealogy meant” to “what it means” will probably prove frustrating. Instead, we must ask, “What are the underlying truths?” Several possibilities come to mind: 1) all of us have human heritage from which we derive much of what we are; 2) we have all, through the long process of descent, received our life from God; 3) God is at work providentially in human history, a fact of which we will be acutely aware if we study that history and God’s dealings with humankind. These truths have meaning for our situations today. Similarly, the Old Testament rules of sanitation speak to us of God’s concern for human health and well-being, and the importance of taking steps to preserve that well-being. Pollution control and wise dietary practices would be modern applications of the underlying truth. This is not allegorising; we are not looking for symbolism, spiritual meaning hidden in literal references. Rather, we are advocating that Christians ask themselves the real reason why a particular statement was spoken or written.
The book of Hebrews is probably a book that is very helpful in crystallising the concept “Revelation in Scripture is progressive”. This book was written to Jewish Christians who were undergoing intense persecutions by the Roman rulers and they were pondering the possibility of returning to Judaism to escape the sufferings inflicted upon them. The Romans allowed the Jews to have their own synagogues and high priest and they also understood that the Jews would only worship their own God and not bow down in worship to Caesar. However, Jewish Christians did not enjoy this exemption, and they therefore faced greater opposition with the prospect of losing their homes, being imprisoned, and even losing their lives if they refused to ‘worship Caesar’.
The writer of Hebrews took great pains to share that the new covenant was a better covenant than the old: Jesus as the Son of God was greater than the angels; as a Son, He was greater than Moses, greater than Joshua, greater than Aaron the high priest as He was a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus was the ultimate Lamb of God, the final and complete sacrifice. He entered not into the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle but He actually entered into heavens as the high priest and as the final sacrifice, opening the way into the presence of God for all true believers. Above all, Jesus emits the radiance of God’s glory from within and is the exact representation of God’s nature and image. In sharing all these clearly, the writer was actually sharing the progressive revelation of Scripture (from the Old Testament to the New) and making it clear that Jesus was superior to all the previous servants (including angels) who came before Him, for He is the Son of God and the exact representation of God, bringing in a new and superior covenant. Jesus was not only God’s messenger and the final prophet, but He is the message, the Word of God!
The letter, in revealing this progressive revelation, also highlighted the warnings not to turn away from the gospel of Jesus Christ to Judaism. The Jewish Christians could not afford to ignore such a great salvation; they should not be like a land which does not produce fruits but produce weeds instead (note the parallel with the parable of the Sower); they must not ignore the One who spoke from heaven.
The Jewish Christians, if they understood this account of the progressive revelation of Scripture, could not turn back to Judaism with the assumption that the God they followed was the same God, and therefore they were not abandoning the gospel and the Lord Jesus. Without the clarity of this progressive revelation, they might go away with justifying their action of turning away from the gospel and not realise the serious implications of what was written in Hebrews 6:4-6: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.” There is no option of turning back to Judaism. The call is to be faithful to God and to face the odds courageously.
Perhaps a similar call is also given to some of us believers in this current age – will we also rationalise and turn away from the Lord Jesus?
RECOVERING THE REVELATIONS OF SCRIPTURE AND THE CROSS
THE TRINITY AND THE GOSPEL
Trinity is the Christian word for describing the Christian God. Faith in the Trinity is the belief that God is as truly three as he is one; that the unity of his being, his substance,’ as the creed calls it, is tri-personal ; that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are coequal and coeternal, uncreated and inseparable, undivided though distinguishable. It is the truth that the Athanasian Creed is spelling out.
There are always erroneous ideas when the Trinity is under discussion. For instance, there is the idea that Jesus and the Spirit are not personally divine, but are God’s two top creatures doing top jobs. Jehovah’s Witnesses think that. There is also the idea that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three gods whose solidarity in action masks the fact that they are not one in being. Mormons think that.
The doctrine of salvation is the good news of the Father’s giving us his Son to redeem us and his Spirit to renew us. The doctrine of the Trinity is the good news of three divine persons working together to raise us into spiritual life and bring us to the glory of God’s kingdom.
If we dismiss the doctrine of the Trinity; if the place of any of the three persons is misconceived or denied, the gospel falls. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, and the liberal Protestants for whom the personal deity of the Son and the Spirit is suspect, acan never state the gospel rightly because they think of the Godhead wrongly. Clear confession of the Trinity is foundational. The gospel proclaims precisely the joint saving action of the three persons, and it is lost as soon as one’s hold on their distinct divine personhood slackens.
Let us remind ourselves to give equal emphasis inn our thinking and our witness to the sovereign initiative of the Father who planned salvation, the atoning sacrifice of the Son who obtained salvation, and the mighty power of the Spirit who applies salvation.
Many preachers, teachers today, in their thinking and speaking either stree the cross all the time and say all too little about the Spirit, or stree God’s saving plan or the Spirit’s renewing work all the time and say all too little about the cross. We need to be careful – false proportions in our doctrine are the beginning of false doctrine itself. We must make it a matter of conscience to do full justice in our thought, our speech, and our worship, both in public and in private, to the love, wisdom, power, and achievement of each divine person separately, as well as of all three together. Then our theology will benefit and our soul will prosper, and our whole life will express, as it should, the spirit of this old and precious doxology – “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
CONFIDENCE IN THE ‘LAST THINGS’ IN THE ‘LAST DAYS’
We live, according to the New Testament, in the last days. This means the period between the Lord’s first coming and the Lord’s second coming. Eschatology is the study of the last things, God’s future, God’s fulfilment of his purpose of perfecting his creation by eliminating from it the disorder brought into it by sin and reconstructing everything in its final perfect form.
In our study of the Gospels, we realise that the kingdom of God is here and the powers of the kingdom are at work already. The gospel is the good news that heaven has begun already here on earth for those who are Christ’s. The long expected Messiah and king of Old Testament prophecy has come; he came in lowliness as the servant Saviour of humankind; now he is risen and enthroned and from his throne he still comes to us by the personal presence of his Holy Spirit. One day, he will come again publicly in glory as the world’s judge.
This is first of the many ‘last things’ we can be confident in if we are Christ’s; at this juncture, we are living in the last days but as believers, we are risen with Christ – we live with Christ (this is our eternal condition).
In these last days, this era of Christ’s kingdom and church and gospel and the outworking of his saving purpose for those for whom he died, there is constant conflict with the devil and his forces opposing Christ and his people. This is going to be in an increasing measure, until the Lord comes again.Spiritual warfare will be unceasing; the devil is a beaten foe, but will keep on fighting to the end. And we can expect the enemy’s seeking to destroy God’s people from within and without, using direct persecution, often involving physical suffering; and deception, distorting the truths in Scripture, manipulating the believers by ‘inflating’ their indwelling sin, their love and lust for pleasure and the ‘world’, and even causing the ignorant and the ‘weak’ to become ‘enemies’ of the Cross.
Hence the writings of James, the half brother of Jesus, of Peter the apostle, and Jude – all these to combat the evil plans of the enemy. There is the common call to persevere in sufferings (rejoicing in sufferings too); to anchor our faith in the Scriptures and revelation of God; to be faithful in growing in the faith, and passing on the faith to subsequent generations. We are not to be ‘cowed’ by the enemy; we are to stand firm, to persevere and to endure, and to always be conscious and confident of our HOPE in Christ.
Already the Lord is transforming his own people in his own ways. He transforms them from the inside out. That is to say, he changes heart and character, though our physical body, that external aspect of our personal being which is given us for enjoyment and expression, remains for the most part unchanged, and in the course wears out, fails, and is left behind. One day, when the Lord comes again, when we are taken from this world to glory, we who already have been changed inside will be given bodies to match, bodies that are true and adequate expressions of the new persons we are in Christ. That will be fullness of our personal redemption. When Christ comes again, we shall find that in a moment the whole cosmos, glorious as it is in so many ways in its present form, has been remade into yet greater glory.
Eschatology is first the key to understanding the unity of the Bible. Holy Scripture in its totality is a book of hope looking forward to a final consummation, and finding its unity in all its lines of thought and teaching about the divine action which will bring that final consummation toward which God is working.
Eschatology is, further, the clue to understanding the nature of the Christian life. That life is essentially a life of hope, a life in which nothing is perfect yet but the hope of perfection is set before us, so that we may forget what is behind and reach out to what lies ahead and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The whole materialistic culture around us encourages us to forget that there are two worlds and not just one, two lives and not just one, and heaven really is more important than earth, for heaven’s life is that goal for which this life is preparation. So if we are preparing for heaven and for future glory, let us not be too ‘involved’ with the things of the earth. Yes, we need to be responsible on earth and be good stewards, but let us not be so caught up with what the world and the devil can offer in terms of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life – this preoccupation is the start of the ‘decay’ of our spiritual life.
Remember that the devil offered the world to Jesus if he were to worship him. Unfortunately, many believers have taken up his offer for something much less than the whole world. We are so concerned with our status, our wealth, what others think of us; we lose sight of what is important in preparing for the eternal future, and we are so taken up with good physical health (when the reality is that the outer man is decaying) and we become so discouraged when illness strikes and when our hope of a good life and a life of ‘pleasure’ diminishes. So the church may in fact be preoccupied with meeting these needs, teaching the seniors how to live healthily, how to spend time enjoying outings, how to invest for retirement etc. (unknowingly or knowingly centering on the life here on earth and not at all giving much time to prepare these various ones for the life and world ahead in eternity).Sad to say, many of these senior brethren, though active in service in the church for many years, hardly know the Bible, and are not interested to know what God has spoken and revealed in the Scripture. On top of that, ‘faithfulness’ in their understanding, is making sure to be present in church every sunday and to meet up with those they have been comfortable with for so many years, and talk about issues which unbelievers also are good at. So what the church has become is a glorified club – and the short lived joy is centered upon having meals together and catching up with latest news and occasional reference to the sermon or the bible study.
As for the children and young people, besides ‘bible stories’ and some attempts at biblical teaching, most of what is communicated is to make sure they grow up to have good education, sustainable careers, and perhaps be able to be in a position to ‘pass on’ what they have acquired all those years in church.
Eschatology is the key to understanding the shape of world history. The people of God have always been at the centre of world history. The way to read the book of world history is in terms of the life, work, fortunes, and battles first of Old Testament Israel and now of the church of Christ. This is a helpful perspective to bring to the bewildering confusions of world affairs today. Remember that the church under the sovereign hand of God is the real centre of what is going on and always will be. That is the Bible view.
And while our life continues, let us work and pray for the advancing of the kingdom; let us not neglect preparing ourselves as God’s children for the eternal future, looking for that blessed hope when our Lord comes again. When Christ appears publicly in this world, in what posture should he find the church? Praying for revival and planning world evangelism, surely. Will he find us and the church ready for the new heavens and new earth?
THE GREATEST PRIVILEGE – TO KNOW GOD
To know God is the promise of the gospel. To know God is the supreme gift of grace. Jeremiah spoke these terms: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.” The new covenant is mediated by Christ Jesus – those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – Jesus has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant (Heb. 9:15).
And the consequence of the new covenant: “They shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” This is the glory of the new covenant!
John the Apostle wrote: “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true”(1 John 5:20). This is the glorious reality, knowing God. This is what we were made for; this is what we have been redeemed for. This is the sum of the biblical Christian’s ambition and his hope.The Apostle Paul tells us his own hope: “That Imay know him” (Phil. 310). The hope to which Paul looks forward he sums up in this way: “Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.”God. It is man’s highest dignity to know God; it is man’ final fulfilment to know God.
The opening sentence of the 1536 Institutes of John Calvin was this: “The sum of sacred doctrine is contained in our knowledge of God and of ourselves.” Knowing God is not simply cultivating true notions about God; knowing God is quite simply the practice of the Christian religion, the practice of godliness. It is in truth the basic biblical concept and the basic concept which sums up the life that the Christian gospel proclaims.
Knowledge of a covenant God who has given himself to us as our God is basic to the Bible’s understanding. Faith is the outgoing of the heart in trust. Experiences flow from it. But faith is a relationship of trust and not in itself an experience. Without faith there would be no conversion experience. Without faith there would be no Christian experience at all. But faith is something distinct from the experience. Faith is the outgoing of heart in the God and Christ who are there giving themselves to us and saying, ‘Come put your trust in the Father and the Son.’ For knowledge of God is relational knowledge, knowledge that comes to us in the relation of commitment and trust, faith and reliance.
Knowledge of God takes place only where there is knowledge of ourselves and our need and thankful reception of God’s gifts to meet our need. One does not begin to know God until one knows God’s gracious gift offered to one in one’s weakness, sin and wretchedness; then and only then does one know God’s grace.
We have shared previously that the knowledge of God depends on God’s revelation of himself to us. Knowledge and revelation are correlative. Revelation of God – when we think of it, we need to keep in view the fact that it is a personal communication from the Creator to his creation. It suggests a person who is approaching us, coming close to us, speaking to us, telling us about himself, opening his mind to us, giving us what he has, revealing what he knows, asking for our attention, asking for our response to what he is saying. Knowledge of God comes to us through divine communication. God comes to us and makes himself known.
And God had done it in three stages besides general communication in the natural order (in creation). The first is redemption in history – by words and works God makes himself known on the stage of history in saving action. The second is the recording of revelation in writing – inspiring the Holy Scriptures, God caused to be written interpretive records of what he had said and done – the written record is our Bible.
The third in the communicative process is reception by individuals of the realities of redemption declared in the Scriptures, a reception which becomes a reality through the work of the Holy Spirit – we become new creatures in Christ. What is called for is the humility to bow before the Scriptures and accept them as instruction from God!
HUMANKIND WITHOUT CHRIST IS WITHOUT HOPE
An article in today’s Straits Times by an opinion Editor highlighted that the younger generation has seen too many crises and it is time to raise their hopes. This lack of hope, in this article, leads to the rise of depression, mental problems, and a sense of being lost – and this to me is an accurate observation.
But the suggestions given to raise the hopes of our younger generation, although helpful to a certain degree, have their clear shortcomings. One obvious one is that it is not feasible to have real hope when one is aware that ‘a better future’ is a delusion, a mirage – real hope is only possible when there is certainty of a real authentic future that is not just a possibility or something that we just hope is and can be real.
Humankind without Christ is in a pitiable state, whatever may or may not appear on the surface of life. We are guilty, lost, without hope as death approaches, short on self-mastery, pulled to and fro by conflicting allurements and distractions; there are skeletons of sensuality, callousness, arrogance, and other unlovely things in our cupboard; we regularly find frustration and discontent, because we find ourselves thwarted by circumstances, and we ourselves are so unclear as to what is worth our endeavour anyway. On top of that, we find no assurance from those who are supposed to be leaders of the world; those who are supposed to be able to make a difference to the various crises. The problems of climate change see no substantial change despite all the various meetings and resolutions; basically, those ‘in command’ are led by selfish agenda, protectionism, and they have to face the popular opinion of their own citizens who also have similar agendas. Wars, conflicts, continue to spread – all the call to be rational, restrained falls on ‘deaf ears’, again because the same self-centered agenda which includes pride, self-assertiveness as well as the desire to be popular and to remain in power controls the situations.
But Jesus Christ gives peace – with God, with oneself, with circumstances, and with other people – plus his own presence and friendship, plus a call to witness and service as the priority concerns of life in this world, plus a promise of enabling by the Holy Spirit, plus an assurance of final glory in the Saviour’s own company, and this brings integration, purpose, contentment, and joy such as one has not known before. And the promise is that as one travels the road of discipleship, so these things will increase.
Now this is what I call ‘Authenic hope’ – it is a hope with a certainty based on the promises of God who is faithful, reliable, gracious and loving. And He is not only able to bring about the fulfilment of these promises, He has proven it again and again through the history of humankind as well as in the lives of numerous individuals across generation and generation that has gone by, not just individuals, but nations, and multitudes of people (who would be seen in the new heaven and new earth).
The gospel call is a summons to enter through faith and obedience into the joy that Christ gives and a life that is eternal in HIm.
WITHOUT THE CROSS AND RESURRECTION THERE IS NO HOPE
Some have claimed that scientific and technological progress gives hope for a brighter future. But if we pause and consider, ironically the threats to our future are the result of it. Pandemics may be impossible because of our mobility through air travel and because of the globalisation of our economies, all due to modern technology. Our loss of trust and confidence in what we hear and read is now acknowledged to be, to a great degree, fueled by social media, as well as fake-news, deep fakes and what have you in IT,
There is the threat of of climate change and the never ending possibility of international terrorism, both heightened by scientific advances – the very things that were supposed to help us and save us from terrible perils have instead created new ones.
As a medical practitioner, I can testify that there is much profound discontent, depression, despair, addiction, and loneliness across the whole spectrum of society, from the very young to the very old. Perhaps this phenomenon is more so in the most advanced liberal societies. Nevertheless, it is rife in all societies – although we have attained more progress, we have somewhat lost something that undergirds all of it: meaning, cohesion, and a different, deeper kind of happiness than the satiation of all our earthly needs.
We hunger for meaning and purpose. We find that things that wwe thought would bring us satisfaction do not. We are shocked at the evil things and the immoral things other human beings, and even ourselves, are capable of doing.. The greatest threat to our hope for a better future is not the natural environment but the various evils that continually spring from the heart. Science cannot eradicate human evils – it, in fact, can give it more tools to use for its own ends.
The cross and the resurrection together bring the future new creation, the omnipotent power through which God renews and heals the entire world, into our present. When Christ paid the debt of sin on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51). The separation of humanity from the holy presence of God is removed – the presence of God can come to us, and because of the resurrection of Christ, it does come to us. The risen Chrust sends us the Holy Spirit, and both Christ and the Spirit are the ‘firstfruits’, a first installment, a down payment on the future triumph over death and of a new, remade material world. This renewing power from the future is only here partially, but it is actual and substantial – and has entered the present world.
We are to live in the ‘light’ of the future ‘new creation’, that is, we are to participate in that future resurrection in the way we live NOW. If Jesus was raised from the dead, it changes everything: how we conduct relationships, our attitudes toward wealth and power, how we work in our vocations, our understanding and practice of sexuality, race relations, and justice. And this should be first and foremost manifested in the church, God’s people and community!
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THEOLOGY
Understanding the Holy Spirit is a crucial task for Christian theology at all times. Where and when the Spirit’s ministry is studied, it will also be sought after and spiritual vitality will result.
Historically, those who have thought about and sought after the power of the Spirit in their own lives have regularly found what they were seeking, in such cases, our generous God does not suspend his blessing upon their getting details of theology all correct. When the Spirit’s ministry is ignored and other preoccupations rule our minds, the quest for life in the Spirit is likely to be neglected too.
Often we pay lip service to the Holy Spirit, but we do not take him seriously. Do we grasp the supernatural reality of Holy Spirit life? When the reminder and message from God flashes before our eyes, are our eyes trained on one another as we gossip about our current interests and as we argue about what are the better ways and methods to improve church-life? Then the church will lapse into either the formal routines of Christian Pharisaism or the spiritual counterpart of sleeping sickness, or maybe a mixture of both.
In the epistle to the Galatians, we see more Spirit talk per line of text than any other document in the New Testament, and that is because Paul recognised so clearly what most later Christians do not, that the only God-given antidote to legalism (a way of securing one’s relationship with God) is a full and thorough-going reliance on the Spirit. So at the end of the letter, where the Holy Spirit is mentioned some eighteen times, Paul urges those who are “spiritual”, meaning, those “who live by the Spirit,” to restore a brother or sister who is ‘caught in sin’ (Gal. 6:1); and this admonition is preceded by the “Spirit talk” which includes the fruit of the Spirit. It is by the Spirit’s gentleness (sixth in the listing of the ‘fruit’) that others are to restore such a person within the believing community. Gentleness and love are two facets of the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit.
In Colossians 1:9, Paul prays that “God might fill us with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives” and this prayer is preceded by thanksgivings that ends with “who told us of your love in the Spirit”. Here we see “spiritual wisdom” as a direct reference to the wisdom that comes from the Spirit mentioned in the preceding sentence. And this spiritual wisdom is definitely required in the study and application of Holy Scripture and theology.
In Eph. 1:3, Paul begins by “blessing” God the Father who in Christ has blessed the believers “with every spiritual blessing in the heaven places”. Paul could not help praising God (i.e. blessing God) for the manifold ways that God has chosen to bless his people by means of his Holy Spirit. The emphasis lies not with the character of the blessings themselves, but with their divine origin within what the later church came to call the “blessed Trinity,” blessings which have been lavished upon God’s people through the Holy Spirit.
While Paul does speak of the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6; Phil. 1:19) he more typically refers to the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of God.”. Both phrases emphasise that the Spirit is conveying the activity of either God or Christ to the believer. In Paul’s theology, the presence of the Spirit is the reality of God’s presence in the midst of his people. The Spirit is God’s personal presence in our lives, individually and corporately.
What does the Holy Spirit do? He acts as a divine personal spirit in myriad ways. The Spirit searches all things (1 Cor. 2:10), knows the mind of Glod (1 Cor. 211), teaches the content of the gospel to believers (1 Cor. 213), dwells among or within believers (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 4:16; 2 Tim. 1:14), accomplishes all things (1 Cor. 12:11), gives life to those who believe (2 Cor. 3:6), cries out from within our hearts (Gal.;4:6), leads us in the ways of God (Rom.8:14; Gal. 5:18), bears witness with our own spirits (Rom. 816), has desires that are in opposition to the flesh (Gal. 5:17), helps us in our weakness (Rom. 8:26), intercedes on our behalf (Rom. 8:26-27), works all things together for our ultimate good (Rom. 8:28), strengthens believers (Eph. 3:16) and is grieved by our sinfulness (Eph. 4:30).
The fruit of the Spirit’s indwelling are the personal attributes of God (Gal. 5:22-23). Spirituality has to do with who the Spirit is and what the Spirit is doing in our lives. If the Spirit is left out of our account of Christian Spirituality then a very great deal will have been lost. Spirituality without the Holy Spirit becomes a feeble human project.
For Paul, salvation is explained with reference to the character and agency of the triune God. Salvation originates in the Father’s redeeming love; it is in Christ, brought about by his death and resurrection; and it is realised in the life of the believer by the Holy Spirit, the empowering presence of God. The people of God are Spirit’s people: they walk by the Spirit and are led by the Spirit, since getting saved first of all means “receiving the Spirit.” When we speak of spiritual formation, then if insufficient attention is given to the decisive work of the Spirit, then spiritual formation will not be generated in the lives of believers.
We must consciously allow the Spirit to have a much more major and focused role in our thinking about “Spirituality”. The Spirit is both the “locus” and “enabler” of our lives as believers; where spirituality has often deteriorated into a lifeless series of scripted or traditional routines and programs undertaken by human planning and human willpower, we need to become more aware of the person and role of the Spirit in every aspect of Christian life, not just in specific “boxes” like work, family life, churchlife, and so on.
As stated earlier, the Spirit brings the presence of God the Father and God the Son to the believer, individually and corporately; he is conveying the activity of God the Father and the Son to the believer. The wonder of wonders – we as believers and children of God are given the privilege of ‘entering’ in different degrees into the wondrous fellowship and harmony of the Triune God. Unfortunately, many Christians are trinitarian in name only, but not in practice. Thus in belief, Protestants maintain their trinitarianism, but in practice many of them are binitarians; the trinity is only mentioned in the creed and in the closing ‘benedictions’. And surely this has caused much ‘poverty’ to the Christian church, when God, the triune God, is not known and worshipped as the One in Three.
Our recognition and awareness of the Triune God means:
A sense that the heavenly Father is this world’s maker and judge; he is our Father who sent his Son to redeem us; who adopted us into his family; who loves us, watches over us, listens to us, cares for us, showers gifts upon us; who preserves us for the inheritance of glory that he keeps in store for us; and to whom we have access through Christ by the Spirit.
A sense that Jesus Christ, who is now personally in heaven, nonetheless makes himself present to us by the Spirit to stand by us, to love, lead, assure, quicken, uphold, and encourage us, and to use us in his work as in weakness we trust him.
A sense that the Holy Spirit indwells us to sustain in us a personal understanding of gospel truth; to maintain in consciousness our fellowship with the Father and the Son; to reshape us in ethical correspondence to Christ; to equip us with abilities for loving personal worship of God in praise and prayer and loving personal ministry to others; to engender realisation of present moral weakness and inadequacy of achievement, and to make us long for the future life of bodily resurrection and renewal, the life of which the Spirit’s present ministry to us is the firstfruits and the initial installment guaranteeing the rest.
THE MESSAGE OF THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
Paul’s letter to the Romans is a timeless manifesto, one of freedom through Jesus Christ. It is the fullest, plainest and grandest statement of the gospel in the New Testament.
Its message is that human beings are born in sin and slavery, but that Jesus Christ came to set us free. For here is unfolded the good news of freedom, freedom from the holy wrath of God upon all ungodliness, freedom from alienation into reconciliation, freedom from the condemnation of God’s law, freedom from the ‘dark little dungeon of our own ego’, freedom from the fear of death, freedom one day from the decay of the groaning creation into the glorious liberty of God’s children, and meanwhile freedom from ethnic conflict in the family of God, and freedom to give ourselves to the loving service of God and others.
It is not surprising that the church in every generation has acknowledged the importance of Romans. Calvin wrote that if we gain a true understanding of this epistle, we have an open door to all the most profound treasures of Scripture. Luther called it ‘really the chief part of the New Testament, and…truly the purest gospel’. Augustine’s conversion was related to reading Roman. 13:13-14; John Wesley turned from self condemnation to faith in Christ at a meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, on hearing the reading Luther’s Preface to Romans. Dumitru Cornilescu and Karl Barth – both were transformed by their study of Romans.
It is in Romans that the exposition and defence of the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone are clearly articulated. Romans 1:18-3:20 establishes universal and inexcusable human guilt. In this epistle, Paul was determined to make a full and fresh statement of the apostolic gospel, which would not compromise any of its revealed truths, but which would at the same time resolve the conflict between the Jews and the Gentiles over the covenant and the law, and so promote the unity of the church. Besides the theme of justification of guilty sinners by God’s grace alone in Christ alone, irrespective of either status or works, the other theme is the redefinition of the people of God, no longer according to descent, circumcision or culture, but according to faith in Jesus, so that all believers are the true children of Abraham, regardless of their ethnic origin or religious practice.
When we come to Romans 12:1-15:13, we see the notable feature of Paul’s teaching that he regularly combines doctrine with duty, belief with behaviour. As in his other letters, eg. 1 and 2 Thessalonians, in Roman 12, Paul turns from exposition to exhortation, from the gospel to everyday Christian discipleship. It is not only individual ethics to which he now introduces but his concerns to depict the characteristics of the new community which Jesus has brought into being by his death and resurrection.
Note the integration of creed and conduct, insisting both on the practical implications of his theology and on the theological foundations of his ethic. In spite of of our newness in Christ as believers (dead to sin but alive to God), holiness is neither automatic nor inevitable. Pleas for good conduct still need to be issued, and reasons need to be given.
In chapter 12, we are told to offer our bodies to God because of his mercy; to serve one another because we are one body in Christ and not to take revenge, because vengeance belongs to God. Let us focus on Rom. 12:1-2 on our relationship to God – consecrated bodies and renewed minds:
For eleven chapters Paul has been unfolding the mercies of God; indeed the gospel is precisely God’s mercy to inexcusable and undeserving sinners, in giving his Son to die for them, in justifying them freely by faith, in sending them his life-giving Spirit, and is making them his children. Thus Paul began his appeal in verse 1 of chapter 12 with the conjunction “therefore” – i.e. in view of God’s mercy he issued his ethical appeal.
This appeal concerns both our bodies and our minds, the presentation of our bodies to God and our transformation by the renewal of our minds.
For our bodies, Paul urges believers to offer their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is our spiritual act of worship. In order to maintain the sacrificial imagery throughout the sentence, Paul uses five more terms: he represents believers as a priestly people, who, in responsive gratitude for God’s mercy, offer or present their bodies as living sacrifices – holy and pleasing to God seem to be the equivalent of physically unblemished or without defect in the animal sacrifices in Leviticus. The offering of ourselves to God is seen as the only sensible, logical and appropriate response to him in view of his self-giving mercy. This living sacrifice is not to be offered in the temple courts or in the church building,but rather in home life and in the market-place; it is the presentation of our bodies to God.
Our human depravity reveals itself through our bodies, in tongues which practise deceit and lips which spread poison, in mouths which are full of cursing and bitterness, in feet which are swift to shed blood, and in eyes which look away from God. Conversely, Christian sanctity shows itself in the deeds of the body. So we are to offer the different parts of our bodies not to sin as ‘instruments of wickedness’ but to God as ‘instruments of righteousness’. Then our feet will walk in his paths, our lips will speak the truth and spread the gospel, our tongues will bring healing, our hands will lift up those who have fallen, and perform many mundane tasks as well like cooking and cleaning, typing and mending; our arms will embrace the lonely and the unloved, our ears will listen to the cries of the distressed, and our eyes will look humbly and patiently towards God.
The second presentation relates to our transformation according to his will. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. This is the call to nonconformity and holiness as God’s people.
The two models: ‘this world or age’ which is passing away, and there is ‘God’s will’, which is good, pleasing and perfect. It is a call to fundamental transformation of character and conduct, away from the standards of the world and into the image of Christ himself. These two value systems diverge so completely that there is no possibility of compromise.
The transformation takes place by the renewing of our minds. A renewed mind can test and approve, that is, discern, appreciate and determine to obey, God’s will – and the renewal is by a combination of the Spirit and the Word of God. The regeneration by the Spirit involves the renewal of every part of our humanness, which has been tainted and twisted by the fall, and this includes our mind. In addition, we need the Word of God, which is the Spirit’s sword’, and which acts as an objective revelation of God’s will.
In Romans 8, Paul wrote that those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. (vv5-8).
Ponder over this: Have we responded to the appeal to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice? Are we being transformed by the renewing of our minds by the Spirit and the Word? If we truly understand and appreciate God’s mercies through the gospel and we have been ‘born again’, then this ought to be our response to God’s grace and mercy.
DO NOT LOSE GRIP OF THE TRUTH
In the previous sharing on the man of lawlessness, we are told that he will seek to mimic the Lord Jesus in the last of the last days: therefore there would be preponderance of deceptions, false and impressive miracles, as well as distortions of truths, and replacement of these with lies. Those who refuse to accept the truth before his arrival would be most vulnerable to his manipulations and they will opt to believe in a lie from him.
The consequences of following the man of lawlessness will be ending up with him in hell, in ‘the lake of fire’ that burns on and on. Those who love the truth and are God’s children would continue to seek and follow the truths taught by the Holy Spirit and the objective revelation in Scripture.
Whenever the church loses, or threatens to lose, its grip on the gospel, or whenever Christians cease to walk according to the truth of the gospel, she is in real danger of falling under the sway of an outlook that would swallow up the gospel by assimilating it into a larger, non-evangelical whole.
Paul wrote to the Galatians because there the gospel was in effect being swallowed up by legalism. Or again when Paul wrote to the Colossians, it was because the gospel was being swallowed up by polytheism. The most fundamental fault of both heresies was that they sought to add to the gospel of salvation by faith in Christ, thus treating it as no more than a part of a larger and comprehensive whole.
Christians cease to walk according to the truth of the gospel either when they let their lives be governed by doctrinal error – as when the Galatians observed Jewish ceremonial law and the Colossians worshipped angels Gal.4:1o; Col.2:18) – or when they compromise the truth in practice under pressure from an influential body of non-evangelical opinion (as when Peter withdrew from table fellowship with Gentile Christians at Antioch under pressure from the Jerusalem party (Gal. 2:12). All these tendencies still appear today in modern dress.
Scripture is designed to meet the problems of 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 short-comings by which its life is marred.
Ever wonder why Paul instructed Timothy: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” (2 Tim.2:15).
The certainty of the trustworthiness and authority of Scripture rests on exactly the same basis as the church’s certainty of the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or any other major doctrine. God has declared it; Scripture embodies it; the Spirit exhibits it to believers, and they humbly receive it, as they are bound to do. It is not optional for Christians to sit loose to what God has said, and treat questions which he has closed as if they were still open. Christians fall into mental error, partly through mistaking or overlooking what Scripture teaches; partly through having their minds prepossessed with unbiblical notions so that they cannot take scriptural statements seriously. All heresy begins so. Unscriptural ideas in our theology are like germs in our system. They tend only to weaken and destroy life,m and their effect is always damaging.
So we need, like Timothy, to study the Scriptures so that we can handle the truths correctly and accurately; we can then be servants of God who need not be ashamed and are approved by him. Unscriptural ideas can creep in, into our theology, planted by the evil one and his minions. It does not mean that when we study theology, or refer to Scriptural passages in our discussion that we are immune to such wrong ideas coming in. We have seen that with the coming of the man of lawlessness, there would be counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. A distortion or deviation of the truth makes an untruth; that is how deception takes root. Those who are well versed in the Scriptures, as taught by the Holy Spirit, are in a better position not to be deceived.
The contrast of lifestyles would emerge in these last days: in four sets of opposites – day and night, light and darkness, alert and asleep, sober and drunk. If we are in the dark about spiritual realities, then the Lord’s parousia will be like a thief in the night. But the Christian is not in the dark. Those who trust in Christ have been illumined by the LIght of the World. Darkness is a biblical picture of ignorance, sometimes of separation. By contrast, Christians are sons of light, and sons of the day. We cannot afford to be asleep and drunk, implying the need to be spiritually alert and self-controlled.
If we do not take heed to all these exhortations, then, in the midst of the days of the man of lawlessness, we become more vulnerable to be led astray and be ‘victims’ of his ploys and deceptions. Indeed, we must not lose grip of the truth of the gospel given by God. No one is exempt from this danger – even apostle Peter, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, can be swayed. Let us be prayerfully humble and be constantly open to the teachings of God’s Spirit, in the face of a formidable enemy with many resources at his bidding.
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CHURCHLIFE
The church in Corinth was one blessed with many spiritual gifts. Yet in the epistle addressed to them in 1 Corinthians, Paul noted many varied problems in the church. Among them – division, pride, the boasting of human wisdom, immorality(incest), legal conflicts and spiritual arrogance. It is interesting to note that when Paul addressed these various issues, the person, ministry, role and power of the Holy Spirit were highlighted to correct these various ‘ills’ in the church.
Paul started off by contrasting human wisdom and power with that of God’s as far as receiving salvation from God in Jesus Christ is concerned. He makes it clear that human wisdom cannot help men to come to the right judgments about God without the revelation from God. Human wisdom can never help human beings to find their way to God and to the salvation of their souls.
With the understanding of true wisdom and power as coming from God in his revelation to man, Paul went on to explain his approach in sharing the gospel when he first came to Corinth. The Corinthian esteemed eloquence, and delighted in debates, but Paul wanted them to know that the gospel comes to them not as something for them to debate and discuss as if they could judge it, but as a word from God to judge them.
Cleverness for manipulation and self glorification is becoming a curse in Christian communication today. Paul was not against the use of intellect and good communication; he himself communicated very effectively in all his epistles. However, Paul was conscious that he was not to feed God’s Word into the area of debate and rhetoric, but simply to proclaim it with the authority of the Lord Himself from whom it comes. His main aim was to persuade men to receive and respond to God’s truth in the gospel, always in dependence on God’s Spirit to enable them to do so in God’s power. Herein is a principle so very important in our sharing the gospel as well in building up the church (in preaching, teaching, and the like).
The apostle went on to share that although the message of the gospel (with its centrality on the Cross) appears as foolishness to human wisdom, there is a higher wisdom, and the message of wisdom is from the Holy Spirit of God. A person’s thoughts are known by the spirit of the person; similarly, the thoughts of God are known by the Holy Spirit of God and these thoughts are communicated to those who have received the Spirit of God, namely believers. Unbelievers are not able to receive these thoughts and they find them unacceptable, branding them as foolishness.
Paul declared that believers not only have the Spirit of God but they have the mind of Christ. In Romans 8, he clearly stated that those who do not have the Spirit of God do not belong to God.
We know that the Spirit is the agent of new birth; he gives us understanding to know God and a new heart to obey him. He dwells within us; he guides us and teaches us in our daily pilgrimage; and he also gives us joy, peace, power, and special gifts. The Holy Spirit is also the “Spirit of adoption”; God not only forgives us; he accepts us as his adopted children, allowing us to share the love, inheritance and glory of his Son now and eternally. The Spirit makes us realise, in increasing measures, the meaning of our filial relationship with God in Christ and leads us into an ever increasing response to God in this relationship, allowing us to call God ‘Father’ (Abba). The Bible reveals we can grieve the Holy Spirit; we can harden our hearts to his ministry in our lives; we can be guilty of not using the mind of Christ. This was in fact the problem with the Corinthian Christians; and this can be our problem today if we do not take heed to the role, ministry, guidance and power of the Spirit in our lives and in the church of God.
Paul began chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians by addressing the Corinthian believers as worldly(carnal or fleshly in other translations). He called them infants in Christ,not able to partake of more substantial ‘spiritual food’. When they were quarreling among themselves, being jealous of one another , they were demonstrating traits that showed their spiritual immaturity.
Their wrong understanding of spiritual leaders further illustrated this state in their lives. Spiritual leaders are mere servants of god; there is no place to idolise them. The church does not belong to them but to God. Paul used farming as an illustration; he and Apollos only planted and watered but it is God who gave the growth and increase.
He went on to illustrate this principle by referring to a building. The foundation of the church can only be Jesus Christ and no other. Paul and his co-workers were responsible for building on the foundation. The quality of their building will be manifested on the day of the Lord; those that survive the test of fire, that is God’s evaluation and judgment, will be revealed but those who fail the test will be burned.
What is required of servants is faithfulness to God. The church is the body of Christ; the temple of God. God’s temple is destroyed by those who sow divisions; it is destroyed by those who seek to build her by using worldly wisdom and methods, focusing on wrong teachings and doctrines.
Do not be mistaken; carnal and worldly Christians may possess spiritual gifts, given by the grace of God. But spiritual gifts exercised selfishly, with pride and arrogance do not edify the church.
The Holy Spirit is holy; for the Spirit to bless and edify the church, there can be no room for unholiness and immorality. This was another problem in the church in Corinth. As Christ’s body and the temple of God, not only must the church be holy for God to dwell in it; the church also, being united with Christ, is a whole and united body. Division, disunity, quarrels, fueled by spiritual pride, self-centredness, and the like would surely affect the church negatively. It certainly does not augur well for its testimony to the world.