a

problem

of

P O W E R

A Journal of the Holy Spirit's

Activity in the Life of

an Average Christian

c o n n i e

C O O K

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. So What's the Problem?

2. The Bottom Line

3. “What Must I Do to Be Saved?”

4. The (Super) Natural Results

5. About Baptism

6. About Baptism and Spirit Baptism

7. The Other Exceptions

8. Objective Meets Subjective

9. Objective Meets Subjective, Part II

10. Is God Angry?

11. So What's Our Problem?

12. “...For There's No Other Way...”

13. Some Bumps in the Road

14. A Matter of Timing

15. “...But the Fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace...”

~ 1~

So What's the Problem?

Imagine yourself to be Peter the Rock. Imagine yourself standing before the One whom to follow you've left home and family and a job you love and the smell of the sea. At the moment, you're swearing that nothing will ever separate you. Whatever happens, whoever else deserts Him, it will never be you. In fact, you'll die for Him if need be. And you mean it. You know in your deepest part that you would go that far — that you would die for Him. You'd count it a privilege.

Now, imagine yourself a few hours later. Imagine yourself, six-foot-four, standing before a servant girl, five-foot-nothing. This time you're swearing (with a sacred oath) that you never knew the Man. Whoever she thinks you are, she's wrong. You're no follower of His. It's too dangerous to be a follower of His right now. A guy could get himself killed following Jesus. And in the distance, you hear a faint cock-a-doodle-doo.

Are you still imagining with me? I forgot where I was for a second. It seemed so real.

Oh wait! It is real. It's a scene I've acted often in real life. At the end of every failed attempt to take my stand as a follower of Jesus Christ, I can almost hear that rooster crowing. Why is it I can be so brave in my personal prayer time and such a miserable failure face to face with a flesh-and-blood human being?

Maybe I've never come right out and said, "I don't know the Man." Most of the people around me may know I'm a Christian (though they might not know what it means to be a Christian). They may know I go to church Sundays. They may notice I do or don't do certain things. But do they think that's all there is to being a Christian? Why are conversations about what I really believe so few and far between? Why is it so difficult for me to let people know I believe they need what I have? If I believe in the reality of hell and the reality of heaven and the reality of only One Way to get to heaven, shouldn't it be important to me to pass on this information? The answer is, yes. It is very important to me. So what's the problem?

The same problem Peter had when he was speaking to the servant girl. It's called fear. Fear of being rejected. Fear of not being liked. Fear of offending. But still, like Powerless Peter, I persist in thinking that if I had to make a choice between denying Christ and not living to see my next birthday, I would choose not living to see my next birthday.

I want us to take another look at Peter the Rock. This scene is taking place a short time after the rooster incident. Today is the Feast of Pentecost which is one of the big events in the Jewish calendar, and Jerusalem is packed. Today, he is standing on a rooftop for everyone to see him, addressing a crowd that numbers in the multiples of thousands. Today, he is not denying his Master with an oath. Today, he is preaching in the name of Jesus Christ and saying all sorts of things that he knows are going to be unpopular with certain groups. You know, things like, "Him [Jesus Christ] ... you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death" (Acts 2:23).

Check out Acts 4 to hear Peter preaching to the high priest and other higher-ups. Check out Acts 5 to see Peter and John being beaten for their preaching and going away rejoicing. Is this the same guy we saw denying Jesus in the Gospels? Not really, no.

I could go on with examples, but you probably know the "before and after" story of Peter's life. What made the difference? Who made the difference? The answer is clear from Acts 2. The Holy Spirit, God-in-him, made the difference.

Now we arrive at the question that has plagued me for years, and while it's never been answered to my satisfaction, it has opened up a few discoveries for me. My question is, "Why is the church of today so different from the church of Acts?" More specifically, what's wrong with me? Why do I seem to be so powerless spiritually?

It's my belief that I'm not alone. There are two reasons I feel compelled to write what I'm writing. I hope as I dig deeper into the Scriptures to sort out a few things for my own sake. Also, I believe there are others out there who are saying, "I know what you mean," as they read this. May God guide us all.

In this book, we'll be taking a close look at the Word of God together to see if He leads us any closer to the answer to the question that has been weighing on me.

Why do I identify more with Peter the Powerless than I do with Peter the Rock?

Let me state my problem. It's my understanding that all Christians — all those who believe in Jesus Christ — have the gift of the Holy Spirit. We understand this to mean that God, as the Third Person of the Trinity, actually moves in and lives in us. If we do not have the Spirit, we are not truly Christians.

Let me back this point up with a few Scriptures, and you see if you can find any loopholes. I can't.

Paul writes in Romans 8:9, "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His."

I don't think I need to comment.

Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:5, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

Again in John we read, "On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive ..." (John 7:37-39).

So far, so good, right? All those believing in Jesus will receive the Holy Spirit, and without the Spirit, we are none of His. So what's my problem?

My problem is a verse in Acts which reads, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Did you catch that? "...you shall receive power..." and "... you shall be witnesses to Me..." Now you see my problem. Here I am, a believer in Jesus. Then, apparently, the Spirit of God dwells in me. So why do I see so little of the power promised in Acts 1:8? Not only that, why is the church of today, in general, not experiencing what the church of Acts experienced?

Scripturally, are there any conclusions we can draw? Let's turn to the only place we can hope to find any answers.

~ 2~

The Bottom Line

Today, I watched a documentary. Its subject matter was a group of people with terrible deformities. These people are part of an exhibit where other people can buy tickets to come and gawk at them. To the interviewer, one of the men from the exhibit made the comment, "This is just how God made me."

I wrestled with that statement after I watched the documentary. Rather, I should say, I wrestled with my view of God.

When it's in the abstract, I have no problem admitting God's control over the universe. Actually, I have no problem admitting God's control over the universe. It's His control over human affairs — including the factors, genetic or environmental, which caused these people's deformities — that I have a hard time with. But if the one is true, then the other must be.

I realize that we live in a fallen world. I believe that illness, suffering, and the mutations that cause deformities (as well as, say, my weak lungs and poor eyesight) would not be with us if humanity had always followed God's commands. Yet I also believe that none of these results of sin have jerked the reins out of God's hands while He sits by, helplessly wringing those hands. No, His hands are sovereign and all-powerful. Nothing escapes their control. It was God who mandated that the results of our sin would be what they are, and ultimately, He still reigns over them.

The person who claims he's never questioned either God's sovereignty or His love when faced with the problem of real, life-sized suffering a) is not telling the truth, or b) has never really faced the problem of suffering. We can't help but look at our world and wonder how an all-loving, all-powerful God could allow what He does. Or more puzzling still, cause it.

I often have "discussions" with God (aka: arguments). I never win, of course, but sometimes, when I find things too incomprehensible, I find myself questioning God, often a little rebelliously. I've never heard an audible voice answering me, but sometimes the answers that flash back at me are so clear, they might as well be audible. Our discussion today went something like this:

"Can't you imagine for what good purpose I made these people the way I did?"

"No, I really can't imagine any reason."

"You're right. You can't. And you know why that is?"

"Uh ... 'cause I'm not God."

Period. End of discussion.

Right! Until I'm qualified to take over His job of running the universe, who am I to criticize what He does on earth?

I went for a walk this afternoon in the early spring and watched, in the field below me, a deer running as gracefully as, well, as a deer. I listened to the birds in the trees around me, trying out their spring calls. I drank in the warmth of the sunshine and the scent of pine and the blue of the mountains. But I found I couldn't shake off the images of the people I'd seen on the documentary earlier today. And those images jarred terribly with the beauty I saw all around me. I had a nearly-impossible task on my hands to reconcile the two in my mind and realize that the same God created both ends of the spectrum.

Yet I know, from reading Psalm 139, that I was fearfully and wonderfully made, designed in detail, right from my wild, mind-of-its-own hair down to my funny-looking feet (and that design includes my weak lungs and poor eyesight). The sum total of me was all part of a Master Plan. I know the same God designed, fearfully and wonderfully and in detail, these other examples of his handiwork that people pay money to come and stare at. To Him, they're as beautiful, no, much more beautiful, than the deer and the birds and the pine trees and the mountains.

So why would He allow these beautiful creations of His at whom the world shudders to endure such suffering? I don't know. I don't have to know. I'm not God. And that's the bottom line. He is God. He is sovereign. He is in control. That's one thing I'm sure of, even though I wrestle with it from time to time. And the other thing I'm sure of, even though I also wrestle with it: whatever He does, He does out of love.

How can I be so sure? Because I've met a man named Jesus. He showed us what God was like because He was, in fact, God. I can see what His life was like and understand that anyone like Him could only do things out of His astonishing love and compassion.

As I continued my walk and my wrestlings, there still seemed to me to be some incompatibility between a man who walked the earth with love in His heart and healing in His hands and these other men, walking the earth with their grotesque medical conditions whom the gaping crowds barely see as human.

But after I mulled it over for a time, the words of Isaiah 53 came back to me:

He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted (Isa. 53:2b.-4).

For reasons of His own, God doesn't often take it easy on those He loves. Look at the lives of the early Christians. Look at the life of His own Son. But whatever He asks us to go through, we can know that it's something He was willing to endure. There's nothing He can ask any of us to suffer that He hasn't suffered. He knew what it was to have the world call Him ugly. He knew what it was to have people turn away in horror at the sight of His suffering. ("Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men," Isa. 52:14). He knew what it was to be gaped at, jeered at, rejected. He knew what it was to have insults hurled at Him.

I don't know why the people I saw today on the documentary have to suffer the way they do. I can't even imagine why. But I do know that God often uses suffering to turn to Himself people that wouldn't turn to Him any other way. What does that do to all our great weight of suffering? Do you think we'll reckon even seventy or eighty years of suffering as anything compared to an eternity spent with Him?

If this chapter so far appears to be a digression, far removed from the subject of the Holy Spirit's work and power in our lives as Christians, let me assure you rather that this chapter and its main points are crucial. I open with this little incident from my day and my musings (wrestlings, if you prefer) because the two conclusions I came to are foundational to every other thing I want to say in this book. 1) God is all-powerful, and 2) God is all-loving.

Now, that all sounds very abstract and theological. What I mean is that God is in control. Of everything. And He will only do what He does out of love. That's the bottom line. A loving God is in control.

God's control over everything is not an idea I accept easily. After all, what room does that leave for our freedom? If God is in control of everything, how can humans have free wills? But if humanity doesn't possess a freedom of will, then what explanation could there be for sin?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I don't exactly see how God's sovereignty and His love plus sin and suffering all fit together. "I don't know," is the short answer. Now I'll give you the long one (which will be the business of this book, though at the end of it, it will probably boil down to the short answer). I do affirm both of these truths equally: God is sovereign, and man is free.

It's in the intersection of those two truths where "a problem of power" comes in. The way I see it, God is in control. Of everything. Yet He only takes control of us when we let Him.

Still, He is in both ultimate and immediate control. His plan will be worked out, not only in spite of us but through us. Not only through our obedience but also through our disobedience. We can't thwart God's plans. His plans have been laid out from eternity past, and all the decisions every one of us can make, either for good or ill, have been worked into those plans. Yet He desires our obedience, and He hates sin.

Although it is a truth I have a hard time with, it is what I believe. That's one thing. And the other is that this eternal, overall, unthwartable plan is one of love.

Now, that's not to say that the story ends well for everyone. It doesn't. The Bible is clear on that point. The story ends well for all those "... who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28). The Bible also says that God wishes that group included everyone He's ever made because He loved and loves them all (John 3:16, 2 Pet. 3:9). And He's done whatever He can do, short of overriding the freedom of will He gave us, to get every one of us to become one of those who love Him, "... who are the called..."

Yet His plan includes those who reject Him. They're still part of His plan for the world. His plan includes their decisions, too. Even their rejection of Him. I can say that on good authority, again, because of Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53 and its fulfillment were all part — in fact, the central part — of His great and loving plan for the world, and the fulfillment of Isaiah 53 came about because of the world's rejection of Him.

But this area of God's sovereignty gets really sticky when we look at the world around us. Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes."

Does anyone else out there find this verse staggering? Anyone else have a tough time chewing on this one? When I think of all the kings (or prime ministers or presidents or governors, dictators, despots, satraps, etc.) who have ever lived and all the various decisions those kings (prime ministers, etc.) have ever made, can it be possible that, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord..." and "... He turns it wherever He wishes"? It must be possible. In fact, it must be true. God said it in His Word.

Now, I don't think what this verse is saying is that God is pleased with all the decisions all those kings, prime ministers, presidents, etc. have ever made or that they always act in obedience to Him anymore than the rest of us do. And God is not pleased with disobedience. But somehow, I know that God has His plans worked out around all those decisions all those kings (etc.) and ordinary people have made, are making, and will make. I know that overall plan is for good. I know that everything will turn out the way it's supposed to in the end.

Speaking of kings, let's take the Pharaoh in the days of Israel's exodus from Egypt as a "for instance." Was Pharaoh acting in obedience to God by telling Moses and Aaron to go take a flying leap nine times out of ten when they came to him to request politely that he let God's people go? Of course, he wasn't. Was God pleased with his hard heart? Of course, He wasn't. Yet read what Exodus says about the reason Pharaoh's heart was hard.

Exodus 7:3: "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt."

Here is God saying that He will harden Pharaoh's heart. But if Pharaoh's hard heart was an act of disobedience to God and God was displeased with His hard heart, then how could God say that He was the One doing the hardening? After all, it's impossible for God to do anything wrong or even to aid and abet in wrongdoing. And wasn't Pharaoh wrong to harden his heart?

Well, who was the one doing the hardening? Keep reading.

Exodus 8:15: "But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them, as the Lord had said."

Exodus 8:32: "But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also; neither would he let the people go."

Here we have Scripture telling us that it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart. But isn't this a contradiction? Didn't God Himself say only one chapter earlier that He would harden Pharaoh's heart? Yet here, in chapter eight, we find Pharaoh hardening his own heart. So who hardened Pharaoh's heart?

The answer's obvious, isn't it? Pharaoh did. And so did God. It's what the Bible says.

While I don't believe we can hold God responsible for our wrongdoing, the ultimate responsibility for running the universe is in His hands, and our wrongdoing that we are responsible for will somehow have its part to play in what God wants to do with His universe.

What part did Pharaoh's hard heart play in God's plan? We learn a little of what God had in mind in Exodus 9:16: "But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."

It's the same sort of paradox we see from the actions of those who put Jesus to death. On the one hand, their actions were all prearranged by God to achieve very necessary results in His loving plan for the world. On the other hand, evil men did very evil things that in no way pleased God. But, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand" (Isa. 53:10).

God did what He pleased to do through the death of His Son (which was offer salvation to the world). But He did it through the sin of man which emphatically does not please Him. He's never pleased with sin, those acts of rebellion against Himself. Yet He can use those choices and their results to do things that are pleasing to Him. Things that are necessary. Things that are loving.

What good or pleasing or necessary or loving results came about because of Pharaoh's hard heart? God was able to show His power, to demonstrate Himself the only true God, and His name was declared in all the earth. God is very concerned that people should have the chance to know Him. The spread of the knowledge of Himself is a very good, pleasing, necessary, loving result.

I don't think there's any way we'll ever, on this planet, comprehend completely (or maybe even fractionally) the relationship between what we do and what God does. Yet I've seen from my own life that God does not infringe on my ability to make my own decisions. I can't recall one instance where I've been forced by God into any action against my will. Sometimes I have experienced an intense, internal pressure that I believe is from Him. But I know it is possible to steel myself to resist that internal pressure. I know it from the times I've done it. I presume that's what Scripture means when it refers to the "hardening of the heart." Plainly, Pharaoh was under pressure (internal or external) to do what God was telling him, through Moses and Aaron, to do; yet Pharaoh steeled himself — pushed back with all his might against that pressure.

So I've seen it to be true that God gives us the freedom to make our own choices, though His voice may be telling us what choice He would like us to make. But He doesn't forcibly overrule our decisions, although He may at times graciously intervene through circumstance. But when we decide to disobey, we can.

The part I can't quite see is how God has those actions of mine all worked out into His grand scheme of things.

Now, all this may sound as though sin can be a good thing in some way. After all, if God can use the results of our sin for our good and His glory in His loving plan, why is it still sin?

Here are two other truths I affirm equally: 1) God can use the results of sin in His good and loving plan, but 2) God hates sin. He can use the results of sin, but the sin, itself — the inward choosing of rebellion against His authority — can only destroy the one who clings to it. And so God will and must destroy sin.

Then, think about this: if God can use "the king" and his hard heart and turn it like a river of water toward His purposes, how much more can He use the heart of one committed to Him? If He can use acts of disobedience to further His ends, how much more can He use acts of obedience?

The flip side is that if even my acts of disobedience aren't out of His control — they can still be worked into His plans — then certainly neither are my acts of obedience out of His control. As we'll see in the following chapters, it is God who works in me "... both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). Yet at the same time, I may not realize that it is God working in me "... both to will and to do." It may not feel like God's work. It may feel like me going about my day, just doing my thing. Fortunately, He is still in charge of my life, even when I forget the fact.

Proverbs 16:9 says, "A man's heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps." Whether you've realized it or not, it is God directing your steps, even when you think you've been planning your way.

If you are a Christian, you're probably aware of God's work in your life, and likely you consciously seek guidance from Him. You may not always be sure you've received that guidance, but you can always take heart in the truth that Psalm 37:23-24 proclaims: "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way," and in the promise of Proverbs 3:6: "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." If you know Him, if you are seeking His guidance, and if you are willing to do what He shows you, you can rest in the fact that your steps are being ordered and your paths being directed by Him. Whether you realize it or not.

The problem comes in when we're not willing to do what He show us. Even as Christians, that problem is a daily occurrence, as well. There the power struggle begins.

It may be perfectly true that God will never, in a show of His mighty power, overrule my will. He will allow me to make my own decisions. He doesn't forcibly snatch back the controls when He sees I'm about to abuse the gift of free will that He's given me. But I think it's fair to say that the entire business of the Christian life is learning to willingly give over those controls to Him.

Let me say that again because if this book has a thesis statement, this is it: "The entire business of the Christian life is learning to give over the control to Him."

The bottom line in all of this discussion is a paradox. It is a problem of power. God is in control. That's the bottom line in all of reality. Yet the bottom line in the Christian life is learning to give Him that control willingly — that control of oneself.

~ 3~

“What Must I Do to Be Saved?”

So the bottom line — the first fact to get straight — is that a loving God is in control. However, that bottom line, if taken no further, may not lead us very far toward an answer to the question, “So what's the problem?”

I believe the necessary starting point for this book is the knowledge that God is in control. But the next question to ask should be, “Am I saved?” We've seen from the Scriptures that if I am “saved”— if I am in a right relationship with God — then I have the Spirit of God living in me. At this point, then, we need to examine what the Scriptures say about being saved.

This book was born out of years of struggle and questioning while I wrestled with questions like this one. Not just for myself but for the other Christians I knew. I couldn't help but notice that in the Old Testament, God was frequently not very pleased with His people. In fact, He was often downright angry with them. But oddly enough, the people with whom He was angry would always seem to believe they were doing just-fine-thank-you-very-much and would refuse to believe the prophets who told them the bad news that they weren't. They couldn't imagine what they were doing that God didn't like. After all, didn't they do all the prescribed offerings and sacrifices? Didn't they keep the law as best they could (the external parts, anyway)? So they were a little sloppy in the matter of widows and orphans and paying their workers fair wages and so on, but what of it? No one's perfect. And they were very religious people, after all.

Then, we move to the New Testament and discover from the stories about Jesus that nothing much had changed. The religious people had become more religious. They'd become obsessed with keeping the Law (the external parts), and they were very good at it. Interestingly, they had still missed the boat.

We discover that God-in-the-flesh, the man Jesus, was still not very pleased with these highly religious types. In fact, He was often downright angry with them, too.

Then, I looked at my own life and at those around me, and I started to get scared. Had we missed the boat, too? It must be so easy to do. After all, so often the religious types in the Old Testament and the New Testament, too, were under the impression that they were just fine and that they had done all that needed doing. Yet they were so terribly wrong from God's perspective.

As I've confessed in the first chapter, I don't see the day of Pentecost happening in my own life. I don't see the Spirit of God working in me in very obvious and visible ways. Yet I seem to be a pretty average Christian. At least for the circles I move in. Are we in the position of the outwardly religious but the inwardly unrighteous? Is God angry with us, and we're clueless? Do we have the Spirit of Christ? Are we saved?

Now granted, those circles I normally move in are Baptist circles, and the Holy Spirit is somewhat the unmentionable Person of the Trinity in those circles. Maybe if I was in a church where the focus was placed heavily on the Holy Spirit and His work and His gifts, maybe then I'd see the difference.

But I don't. Not much. I've been in charismatic circles, too, and apart from some differences in worship styles (some more different than others!) and some different emphases in the preaching, I don't see much difference between the two types of circles. I don't see my world or even my little town being turned upside down by the church (or by the Power that indwelt the church) the way it was in Acts (at least not the world I've experienced by the church I've experienced).

Gradually, through years of questioning and struggling, I began to find, if not exactly answers to my questions, at least a peace with them. I didn't necessarily find answers, but I did make some discoveries, and those discoveries are the reason for this book. In case anyone else reading this is struggling those same struggles, it's my hope that my discoveries may be of help to him or her.

The first thing I discovered from Scripture is that I am, in fact, saved (phew!). Therefore, I must have the Spirit of God dwelling in me.

But that's jumping ahead. Let's you and I go through the same steps Scripturally to find out what it is the Bible says about being saved.

Probably the shortest and simplest answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" was the one given by Paul and Silas when that question was put to them in that form by the Philippian jailer.

"So they said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household' " (Acts 16:31).

That's it? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? That's the sum total of what a person has to do in order to be saved?

That's it. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it very clear: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

So the question arises, "What does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?"

After Paul and Silas gave the Philippian jailer their short-and-sweet answer, they didn't leave him there with vague instructions to "... believe on the Lord Jesus Christ ..." In Acts 16:32, "Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house." They gave him the "good news" about the Lord Jesus Christ — that gospel that Paul lays out in black and white for us in 1 Corinthians 15.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:1-4).

That's the condensed version. Of course, we have the expanded version of the gospel in the four Gospels, giving us all the details necessary to believe about “the Lord Jesus Christ” in order to be saved. But when you read between the lines, Paul and Silas summed it up for the Philippian jailer with that one simple sentence: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved..."

"The Lord": that's God's title. "Christ": that's taken from the Greek word for Messiah, the Anointed One sent by God. And "Jesus": that's the historical person — His given name in English which means "Saviour." So in order to be saved we must believe on God, the Saviour, the Messiah — all wrapped up in the historical person we call Jesus.

But what does it mean to "believe"? The word is simple enough. Yet if it's the only act we can perform in order to be saved, can it really be that simple? I think it can.

We use the word all the time in everyday speech. Is there any different meaning this simple, little word takes on when we talk about a saving-faith kind of belief? No, I don't think so.

For a quick, working definition of "believe," could we agree on, "To think to be true"? If we believe something, we think it's true. It's just that simple.

But belief is an act of the will. It is a decision. We make decisions constantly about what we choose to believe, about what we think is true.

Is that really all there is to it? A simple act of the will in an intellectual acknowledgement of a few basic facts about a certain historical Person? According to the Bible, that's it. It's that acknowledgement that starts us off down the road of getting to know God in truth — of being in that relationship with Him where nothing stands between. It's that relationship that the Bible calls salvation. And its opposite — separation from God — is spiritual death and damnation.

But once a person intellectually acknowledges those few, basic facts as mentioned above, the facts become not so basic and the acknowledgement becomes not so simply intellectual. Once a person has accepted that Jesus was God-in-the-flesh, that basic fact becomes impossible to take casually. Once a person admits that Jesus is the Messiah and the Saviour, he's admitted that he, himself, needs saving and that Jesus is the only one who can do the saving if He was the one sent by God to save us. If Jesus is God-in-the-flesh-the-Messiah-the-Saviour, that would make Him absolutely unique among historical Persons. And once those basic facts are acknowledged, if they're properly understood, there's a result in the life of the believer that follows automatically — a dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ ends up looking like resting one's whole weight on Him. It equates with trusting Him. One could hardly admit one's need for salvation and admit that Jesus is the only Person able to save and still rely on oneself for salvation. Those who would like to stick to only a certain degree of head knowledge about the historical person of Jesus will never admit to all those basic facts as seen from Acts 16:31 and 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. Once a person admits to those basic facts, it's all over. The knowledge has reached the heart once those facts and their implications are properly understood.

Okay, so we're getting somewhere. The only thing I can do to be saved is to believe on a Person. I do believe on that Person. I trust Him for my salvation. I trust Him as the only way to bridge the gap between God and me. So I am saved. Therefore, I have the Holy Spirit living in me.

We're off to a good start. If you can say, “Amen,” (or “Truth!”) to all of the above so far, then you, too, are saved and have the Holy Spirit living in you. For confirmation, check out 1 John 4:15, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” Sounds pretty much like the Holy Spirit living in us to me! And it also sounds like salvation— that relationship with God where nothing stands between.

But there are passages in Scripture that are hard to understand on this topic. We've seen some extremely straightforward statements, proclaiming that the only thing we can do to be saved is to believe — to put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet there are "problem" passages that could be understood to be saying that there is more to it. Are there contradictions? Let's take the next chapter to look at some of the seeming-contradictions.

~ 4~

The (Super) Natural Results

Let's have a look at James, that book of action written by a man of action.

"You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only" (James 2:24).

Isn't this verse a direct contradiction to Ephesians 2:8-9 which clearly tells us that we are not saved by works but by faith?

Check out a few more statements made by James, this one from James 2:22.

"Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?"

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (2:26).

When you read James 2, you'll begin to see that James was simply pointing out the fact of life that what we believe controls how we behave. It's not something that takes work. It's an automatic. It's a law of human nature as inexorable as the law of cause and effect in nature.

Let's pretend that you go to see a doctor about chest pains you've been having. He tells you that you have to change your lifestyle if you want to live to see sixty. You claim to believe him; yet leave his office and swing by the local grease joint to pick up a double cheeseburger and a large order of fries. What would that behaviour say about your beliefs? It would say that either living to see sixty is not as important to you as enjoying the food you enjoy or you don't really believe the doctor.

What you believe controls what you do. Unavoidably. Those whose actions don't line up to what they profess to believe, don't believe what they profess to believe. It's that simple.

Now, if a person claims to be saved according to the biblical prescription for salvation, that means he professes to believe certain articles of faith as already outlined last chapter. To recap, that Jesus is “...the Christ, the Son of God...” (John 20:31) (in fact, God in the flesh) (John 5:18) and that “...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4).

In other words, it was the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the Son of God, God-in-the-flesh, that somehow, upon acceptance of those truths, makes us right with God and deals with our sin problem.

Now, it seems as though this simple set of beliefs should lead us to actions where we attempt to do what Christ told us to do and try to follow His example. After all, if Jesus was God in the flesh, shouldn't that give Him the right to tell us what to do with our lives?

But here's the curious thing about beliefs: there can be layers of sub-beliefs hiding down below the surface of the belief.

For instance, you might very well believe the doctor when he tells you that you're heading for an early grave if you don't change your habits. Yet the instant you leave his office, you might begin saying to yourself, "One last grease-fest isn't going to make that much difference. I'll change my ways tomorrow."

Action springs directly out of belief. All action (except, I suppose, pure reflex). But because our beliefs and motives and desires and wills are such multifaceted, complex intertwinings of layers upon layers, it wouldn't be wise for me to make snap judgments about what a person believes or doesn't believe based solely on what I can see of his actions.

If I see a professing Christian living in such a way that I think doesn't line up with Christ's teaching and example, does that mean I would be justified in assuming that the professed Christian isn't really saved at all; that he's only claiming to believe what the Bible has to say about who Jesus is?

Don't forget that another of those articles of faith the Bible proclaims is the one that states there's nothing we can do to save ourselves. Salvation does not come about by good behaviour. It's by grace, through faith, and not of works. So when I see Christians living in disobedience to Christ's commands and example, I may, in fact, be seeing people who live what they believe. They understand all too well that salvation is not of works. And in that belief, they are believing truth. Where they've strayed off the path into some wrong thinking may be in believing that, therefore, it doesn't matter what they do. As Paul asks in Romans 6:1, “...Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And what's his answer? “Certainly not!” (Or in the good ol' King James, “God forbid!”) Why? Because, “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Rom. 6:2).

See his point? If a person has been truly saved and has God's Spirit living in him and has been made into a new person, how can there be any pleasure for that person in wilfully wallowing in sin? It grieves the Spirit of God living in him or her. And grieving is never comfortable. Once a person begins to see how much sin hurts God and oneself, I think there will be a genuine desire to give up the sin.

Still, another truth that Scripture teaches is that growth doesn't happen overnight. Which is why it doesn't do to go around judging other believers by their actions.

Also, it is possible to go on grieving the Spirit of God until a callousing effect takes hold (Eph. 4:30, 1 Tim. 4:2). That grieving process may be uncomfortable at the start, but after a person has kept it up for too long, he or she may hardly notice the discomfort anymore. That's a dangerous position to be in. But it's not necessarily a sign that a person hasn't been genuinely saved. It's just the hazard of grace. By its very nature, like the rest of God's good gifts, it leaves itself open to abuse.

It's not up to me to go around deciding who's saved and who isn't. It's up to me to examine myself and my own heart. It's up to me to tell what the Bible says about being saved in the clearest way I know to whomever wants to listen.

Is there any discrepancy between James and the salvation-through-faith-alone passages? Does James teach that there is some work I can or must do to save myself? Not at all. He makes it clear when he says, "But someone will say, 'You have faith, and I have works.' Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works" (James 2:18). In other words, saving faith does not come about by works – anymore than saving faith can exist without resulting in an action. Belief produces action. The belief in a salvation that comes about only through grace may produce actions that aren't good ones. But belief will produce a resulting action of some kind. If it doesn't, then it's not a true belief. It's only so many empty words.

But James also makes it clear that his teaching on the relationship between faith and works is not given for the purpose of telling us that we need to be about the business of deciding who's saved and who isn't. James 4:11-12 says, "Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?"

The book of James isn't the only difficult passage in the Bible that could be interpreted to mean that there are works we must do in order to be saved. I think understanding his explanation of the relationship between faith and works, between cause and effect, is key to understanding these other difficult passages, however.

Let's start by asking, "If a professed Christian believes what he or she claims to believe, if he or she has God's Spirit dwelling within, what inevitable, resulting action would that have in his or her life?"

Scripturally, the answer is simple. Simple, but not easy. I think it can be summed up in one little, four-letter word. L-O-V-E.

Why do I say that Scripturally the answer is simple? Check out the book of John, especially Jesus' last discourse with His disciples before His death.

"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4).

How can we abide in Christ and He abide in us? Almost sounds a little like the Spirit of God living in us, doesn't it? And if a branch abides in Christ it "bears much fruit." What kind of fruit should we expect this branch to bear? What does Galatians 5:22-23 tell us are the fruits of the Spirit? There are several fruits listed, but heading the list (and really, summing up the list) is love.

John 15 goes on to say a great deal more about what result will be produced in the life of the disciple, the one who abides in Christ and is the abode of Christ.

"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love" (John 15:8-10)

What commandments, exactly, are we talking about here? We're not left to puzzle over it. We're told in John 15:12, "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

Jesus is reiterating what He said earlier in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." And then He makes this rather startling statement: "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

Here Jesus is saying the same thing that James tells us. What a person believes will inevitably have an effect on his or her life. But John 15 gives us the added information that the effect a belief in Jesus will have on the life of a disciple will be the love one disciple has for another disciple. That's a scary statement to me, but we'll talk more about it in a minute. For now, let's look at a few more passages that also make this teaching clear. The disciple of Christ, the one indwelt by the Spirit of God, will develop the fruit of love.

1 John is almost more clear (if that's possible) in expounding this concept.

"Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:3-4).

And, again, what commandments?

"Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in the darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him' (1 John 2:8-10).

Then, too, "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him" (1 John 3:14-15).

Was that clear enough? Loving our “brothers” is not just an optional option for a Christian.

But again, is there more to it? Does this simple, little, four-letter word end up looking more complicated in practice? What exactly does it mean to love?

When we were talking about belief and trying to arrive at a definition we could agree on, I felt like I was on fairly safe ground. I've had practice believing things. Every waking minute I'm deciding what I believe or what I don't believe about everything I hear or see.

But when it comes to this matter of love, I have to admit that I'm not on very solid ground. I'm not going to try and offer you any definitions, biblical or otherwise, at this point (we will have a more in-depth look at the meaning of love in the last chapter) mainly because I don't think I can claim that I know just exactly what love is.

But if it's something that is so important for all believers, surely Scripture must give us some guidance so we can know what love looks like. We could take a look at 1 Corinthians 13 as the ultimate definition, but I think that definition would be for the advanced class, and I'm not quite at the novice level yet in this area.

I'm a terribly concrete person. Does the Bible give us anything concrete as to what love might look like? Yes, as a matter of fact, I think it does. For those of you who, like me, are not quite in the novice class yet, I think Scripture gives us a couple of nice, concrete tips on what love is. Or at least, one on what love is and one on what love isn't. The second tip I'll state in the negative because it's a little easier for me to recognize in the negative.

The first thing I see from Scripture that love must definitely include is meeting the needs of the needy. Here, I am talking about physical needs (because, again, I'm a terribly concrete person. Other kinds of needs are a little harder to recognize and meet. Physical needs are relatively simple). The thing love definitely does not include is holding on to unforgiveness. I state this one in the negative because I find unforgiveness easier to recognize in myself than forgiveness. I might not always be sure when I've forgiven someone. It's a little easier for me to be sure when I'm hanging on to unforgiveness.

So let's have a look at other, somewhat-problematic passages from Scripture regarding these two indicators of love (or its lack). I call these passages problematic simply because it's hard for us to reconcile what Scripture says in these areas with the salvation-through-faith alone passages.

For starters, let's go to one of the most problematic — the account of the sheep and the goats at the last judgment in Matthew 25. I won't quote it. You can read it for yourself if you're not familiar with this passage.

I've heard various explanations used to get around the obvious — the obvious being that Jesus teaches here that in the final judgment, the "sheep" go away into an eternity of bliss and delight in the "...kingdom prepared...from the foundation of the world..." for them, and the goats go away into everlasting fire in the place "... prepared for the devil and his angels..." The only information we're given about these respective creatures is how they responded to "the least of these My brethren." The sheep fed, clothed, sheltered, visited "the least of these My brethren" in their need, and the goats didn't.

Is Jesus teaching in this passage that one's eternal destiny is determined by how a person responds to the needs of the needy? That would be a works-based salvation which, as we've already seen, is not consistent with what Scripture as a whole teaches.

In trying to understand this passage in light of the rest of Scripture, maybe the place to start would be to try and figure out who "the least of these My brethren" could be referring to.

One even-more-problematic explanation I've heard to get around the problematic obvious is to decide that “the least of these My brethren” is the nation of Israel as a whole. Matthew 25:32 makes mention here of "the nations" being judged. The even-more-problematic explanation says that the nations of the world will be judged based on how they, the nations as a whole, treated the nation of Israel. I say this interpretation is even more problematic because now we not only have a works-based salvation problem, we have a wholesale salvation or damnation problem built on a works-based salvation problem. We've compounded problems.

Matthew 25 is explicit. The sheep are blessed and go to their eternal reward. The goats are cursed and go to their eternal punishment. Would anyone, after serious thought, try to make this passage say that entire nations will be saved and lost? Clearly, when Matthew 25 uses the phrase, "all the nations," it's using the term to mean "all the people of all the nations" as the Bible often does.

Given the compounded problems of the position, I don't believe "the least of these My brethren" is talking about the nation of Israel as a whole. Couldn't "the least of these My brethren" be speaking of anyone in need? It's the usual interpretation.

There could be another interpretation of "the least of these My brethren," however. In the Gospels, to whom is Jesus normally referring when He talks about His brothers?

Matthew 12:50, Mark 3:35 and Luke 8:21 all record Jesus making a statement along these lines: "For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother." Matthew 28:10 and John 20:17 both record Jesus calling His disciples His brothers. Could "the least of these My brethren" in Matthew 25 be speaking of Jesus' disciples — not just the twelve but all who follow Jesus?

What sense would that make of this parable? Would that interpretation help us get around the works-based salvation Matthew 25 seems to be teaching? On the contrary, if a person, any person, is saved just because they've done something nice for one of Jesus' disciples, any of His disciples, that would greatly complicate things. How could that interpretation be made consistent with "salvation-through-faith-alone" passages?

But don't forget that action, any action, springs first from some belief or other. Is it possible to do a kind deed for one of Jesus' disciples, simply because they happen to be one of Jesus' disciples, without "believing on the Lord Jesus Christ"? Can a person accept a disciple of Jesus who comes in the name of his Lord and still reject the Lord? There are other Scriptures that would tell us it's not possible to receive the disciple for the sake of the One he follows without also receiving the One he follows. They are a package deal.

This is what Jesus said on the subject:

He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward (Matt. 10:40-42).

And again in Mark 9:40-41, "For he who is not against us is on our side. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward" (emphasis added).

Let's take a closer look at, "For he who is not against us is on our side." What about those who remain neutral to Christ? What about the person who hasn't rejected Him but just can't be bothered with Him? Could such a person be saved without a deliberate decision to accept the truth about Him?

The longer I live in this world, the more I'm convinced that there are no neutral people when it comes to Christ. He doesn't evoke a neutral response. Rejection may mask itself as indifference, but it's still rejection. And perhaps one of the first signs that rejection is turning to acceptance is how a person who is in the process of becoming a disciple of Christ begins to view and treat other disciples.

I believe the point Jesus was driving home in the account of the sheep and the goats was, "Love Me, love My kids." But also, "Love My kids because they're My kids, and by loving them, you also love Me." He is the head, we are His body. There's a mystic oneness there we can only barely grasp.

But that principle also applies to those of us who are His kids. Love Him, love His other kids.

Whatever else I know or don't know about love, I know that it must include meeting a few basic needs. The point that those who are saved will show love by meeting needs is driven home in Matthew 25, but it's made clear elsewhere, as well. Have another look at 1 John which informs us so plainly that Christians must and will love other Christians. John doesn't leave us hanging with vague instructions to "love one another." He tells us right out what that love will look like on the most basic level. 1 John 3:17 says, "But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" Doesn't get much plainer than that.

The places in Scripture where God's people are commanded to care for the needy are numerous — too numerous to enumerate here. And they leave us in no doubt to our responsibility as God's people.

This topic of caring for the physical needs of the physical needy is not a complicated one. Often hard to put into practice but not complicated intellectually. It gets tricky putting it into practice because it's a needy world and it takes a lot of wisdom to know which needs are genuine needs and which of those genuine needs God is asking me to do something about.

But let's leave those complications behind for now and talk about our second topic: in the Christian life, love definitely does not include holding on to unforgiveness. Again, this might not be complicated intellectually, but it does become very tricky when we try to live it.

First, let's look at some Scriptures that tell us very plainly that forgiving those who have wronged us is not just an optional option for a Christian, either. It's a must.

Have you ever prayed the Lord's Prayer? What do you do when you get to the part about, "And forgive us our trespasses (debts, etc.) as we forgive those who trespass against us"? Do you gloss over it unthinkingly? Have you ever stopped to think about what you're really asking when you ask God to forgive you the way you forgive others?

Scripture has some other very startling things to say on this matter of forgiveness. Right after Jesus taught His disciples how to pray in Matthew 6, He made this frightening statement: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matt. 6:14-15).

Mark 11:25-26: "And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."

Luke 6:37: "Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."

And in Matthew 18, after we learn the required number of times we must forgive someone (490 — in other words, an unlimited number of times), Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant. You probably know the story, but here's a quick summary: a servant owed his master a huge sum. When the master commanded the servant and all his family to be sold for repayment, the servant begged for more time. The master relented and forgave the debt outright. The servant proceeded to go out and find a fellow servant who owed him a comparatively trifling sum and to demand repayment. When he was begged for mercy, he threw his fellow servant into prison. When news of the unforgiving servant's behaviour reached the master's ears, "... his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him." And Jesus concludes, "So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses" (Matt. 18:35).

There are no two ways about it. Jesus taught that our forgiveness of others is God's standard for His forgiveness of us.

Am I taking passages out of context? It doesn't matter how they're taken — in context, out of context, upside down, inside out — they still say the same thing. I've heard interpretations that try to make these statements of Jesus say something — anything — other than what they say. The prison God will throw the unforgiving servant into is a prison made of his own bitterness and unforgiveness, and his own life will become his prison. That kind of thing. The forgiveness God withholds from those who refuse to forgive others is, well, I'm not sure what kind of forgiveness, but plainly has nothing to do with our eternal-salvation forgiveness. Right? I mean, how can it? Salvation is a free gift, not at all contingent on anything I do or refuse to do. God's forgiveness is freely bestowed on any who ask sincerely.

Right! I affirm those doctrines, too. They, too, are Scripture. So what do we do with these verses on forgiveness that don't seem to line up with what we know elsewhere from Scripture to be true?

I affirm that salvation is a free gift and forgiveness is freely bestowed on all who ask and believe. But I also affirm, with many other passages in Scripture, that once those gifts have been bestowed, God begins to do a work in the life of the one to whom He has bestowed them and part of that work will and must involve growing the fruit of the Spirit in the life of that individual who has the Spirit of God, the main fruit being love. And that love will include caring for others' needs, and it will exclude unforgiveness. I can't find any way around it (as much as I would like to occasionally). Those are the clear statements of Scripture. Any interpretation that finds a way around those plain teachings has to work a little too hard to make Scripture say something it doesn't say, in my opinion.

But what about those who resist the Spirit's work in their lives and hang onto bitterness and unforgiveness? Does that mean they can lose their salvation? I'm not about to enter into a debate here on eternal security. I guess my question in reply to that question would be, "What Christian do you know who persisted in hanging onto bitterness and unforgiveness until the end of his or her life? And if you did know such a person, were you qualified to judge in what condition that person's heart was in his final moments?" We're not given a time frame. We're not told that any person who has been truly saved will be unable to hang onto bitterness and unforgiveness for six months, or maybe a year, or maybe two, or even twenty. God's work in us doesn't end until it's finished, and that doesn't happen until the day our lives on this earth end.

Maybe it works like this: if a person has been saved, then he belongs to God, and God is able to do all the work that's necessary in and with those who belong to Him. If a person is saved, God's Spirit at work in him or her will not rest until all his or her unforgiveness issues are dealt with.

We're talking about a hypothetical person here, but we don't need to. We could talk about you and me. And the command is clear. It's not a great idea to wait six months or a year or two or even twenty or possibly more to put off forgiving someone until you hit your deathbed. If there's unforgiveness in your life, now is the best time to deal with it.

And now, we should talk about an area I'm completely unqualified to talk about. We should talk about how a person goes about forgiving someone. To be honest, I'm not sure. I think we can be sure of one thing, though. As it is a command, it must be an act of the will. When Scripture talks about forgiveness, it's not talking about a certain feeling or emotion. Our emotions are not under the control of our wills. God wouldn't command us to feel forgiving toward someone who's wronged us.

In the parable of the unforgiving servant, the master didn't have to feel a certain way. The servant wouldn't have had to feel a certain way to forgive his fellow servant. It was a legal transaction. It was nothing more than an agreement on the part of the debt-ee to wipe out the debt of the debt-or.

When I think about forgiveness as that kind of a cut-and-dried transaction, I can find myself praying the Lord's Prayer again with a sigh of relief. I certainly don't want God to feel about me the way I still often continue to feel about those I've had to forgive. But if God's forgiveness toward me was primarily an act of the will, then my forgiveness of others is an act of the will, as well. And now I can ask, then rest and trust, that God will continue to do a work on my feelings. If I don't want God to feel toward me the way I continue to feel toward others, then I don't want to continue to feel that way toward them, either. But feelings are a little slower to fall in line; they're up and down and change with the weather. An act of the will is a settled, done deal.

The thing I've been convinced that forgiveness is is a must for all Christians and part and parcel of the love our lives will show if we have been born again by the Spirit of God.

So to sum up, it seems to me that the Bible is telling us that no Christian will be able to completely ignore the needs of the needy around them and no Christian will be able to continue for the rest of his days living with unforgiveness in his life. Does that conflict with what Scripture says about being saved through faith alone, not of works? Obviously, I don't think so, but I admit the difficulty. It does appear to be a conflict at first glance. Is it splitting hairs to say that salvation is not of works, that there is nothing I can do to save myself, but after I have been saved certain "works" — certain results — will and must follow? Because splitting hairs or not, I think it is where the answer lies.

Now, the question might arise, and it's a good one, "So if all these 'works' we've been talking about this chapter, these acts of love, are simply fruit that the Christian life will produce as naturally as fruit grows on a tree, then why are they commands for all Christians? Why are Christians commanded to love? Why are Christians commanded to share what they have with those in need? Why are Christians commanded to forgive? If we have the Spirit of God living in us, wouldn't He produce fruit in our lives in spite of us?"

I'm not sure I have an answer to this question (and we'll look at it in greater detail in the last chapter). But it is one of those tensions we find in the Bible — one of those balances where the one side needs the other side in order to stay true. Although I'm saying loud and clear that the work must and will be God's work in us and He will do it, I know what I'm not saying is that, therefore, there's nothing for us to do and we can sit back, relax, and ignore any signals from Him. I know that God often begins His work in us by telling us to do what it is He wants to do.

This could re-open all those unsolved, and perhaps unsolvable (for us, that is) questions of God's sovereignty and man's freedom that we delved into a chapter or two ago. The closest we come to figuring it out is to admit that God works out His plan, not in spite of the choices people make, but through them. But there again is one of the recurring themes this book. Exploring the relationship between God's work and our wills is possibly the main purpose of this book.

One thing of which I've been convinced: even the beginning of a desire toward obedience is a result of God's work in our lives. Paul sums it up this way with this paradoxical statement: "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12b.-13).

So we are to work. We are to work out our salvation, like an athlete working out the latent muscles he already has but needs to exercise. Why? Because it is God who's doing the work, really. Both to will and to do. Even the "want-to" comes from Him.

And speaking from my own observation, I don't think I've ever met a person, claiming to be a Christian, who was able to live in complete indifference to the needs of others. I've never met a person claiming to be saved who had no concern for living in obedience to God. I have met plenty of Christians who fall down in lots of different areas. I have met plenty of Christians who live with habitual sin in their lives (I don't imagine it was comfortable for them when they began to form those habits) and who have become masters at the art of rationalization. We all fall short. None of us live in perfect obedience. Good thing we affirm that salvation is not by works but by grace through faith alone. (That's one belief every one of us backs up with our actions!) But although, I don't know any perfect Christians — I don't know any disciples who follow Christ perfectly — neither do I know any disciples who aren't the least bit concerned about loving others. The process works! Remember, it's God who works in us both to will and to do.

Though I may be in the novice class when it comes to fruit of the Spirit and I may not know much about what real love is, here's another personal-experience type of discovery I've made: while I'm sitting around waiting on God's fruit-bearing work in my life, I can always keep busy in the meantime with some simple acts of obedience. I can start by forgiving anyone I need to forgive, and I can help meet needs wherever God lays them on my heart. Then, I can acknowledge that even the desire to obey in these areas is God at work in me. I can ask Him to do His work and then step out in obedience, trusting that He is doing it and that obedience is just one evidence of His work.

~ 5~

About Baptism

It's no exaggeration to say I was “born Baptist” (not Christian, but Baptist. There is a distinction). I attended a Baptist church in utero. From living memory, my parents were members of the little Baptist church in our town and were very active in it. As a result, all their kids attended the little Baptist church and were expected to be active in it, as well.

There were other churches in our small town, of course. There were names that didn't mean much to me: Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican. There was also a Pentecostal church and some others which were "charismatic" and therefore, not the kind we, as a family, would attend.

When I did attend any of the "charismatic" churches, all I really knew about them was that they made me uncomfortable. The displays of emotion (or whatever they were) made me want to find the nearest exit as soon as they started.

Our Baptist church didn't have much for teenagers, however. When I got into my later teens, although I still attended our little Baptist church on Sunday mornings, I started attending a "Christian Church" youth group on Friday nights. That's where the action was and where my friends were.

If you've never heard of this "non-denominational" denomination, I'll explain a little about my understanding of the reason for their existence. Because denominations cause divisions in the one, true church of Christ (the collection of all believers in Christ), the founding of the "Christian Church" and the "Church of Christ" was intended as a move away from denominations within the church. While I admire the sentiment behind the founding of this "non-denomination," unfortunately, in practice if not in name, "Christian Churches" and the "Churches of Christ" simply added another division and another denomination to the mix.

But besides the disagreement about the role of denominations between the two, different sets of believers I was involved with, the biggest and most obvious difference was between the two, different views of baptism I was being exposed to.

I discovered that my "Baptist" church downplayed the role of baptism and emphasized simply "becoming a Christian" while the "Christian" church "up-played" the role of baptism and downplayed "becoming a Christian."

I'd been baptized when I was eleven in my little Baptist church upon confession of my faith, but the age of eleven was probably at least a good six years after I'd first confessed my faith. I can't remember how old I was when I knelt by my bedside and "asked Jesus into my heart" (as the common parlance is for children's conversions). But I know it was much earlier than eleven. When I was eleven, I was baptized as a public confession of my faith. It was a time for stating publicly that I had been saved.

But in the "Christian Church" youth group I attended, I began hearing that a person wasn't saved until they were baptized. I began to realize that the way my parents viewed the Pentecostal Christians and other charismatic Christians was the way the "Christian Church" Christians viewed us Baptist Christians. "Maybe they're still saved, but boy, they sure are off on some of the major doctrines of the faith."

The experience of attending the Christian Church youth group broadened my thinking, but it also left me with some agonizing questions. I didn't know what to believe. I'd never thought of questioning the Baptist church view of baptism. It was Baptist, so it must be right — although I really didn't understand what baptism was supposed to mean to us Baptists. It seemed like a strange sort of custom — this public dunking of a person under water with all their clothes on. What purpose did it serve?

The meaning behind the practice had seemed a little foggy when it came up in my pre-baptism question-and-answer sessions with the pastor — he didn't seem terribly clear on the reasons for it, either. It was symbolic, he told me. Symbolic of dying, being buried, and being raised back to life again. Baptism represented my identification with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection that had taken place when I had been saved. But even if its only purpose was to represent something that had happened in my past, well, it was a command of Jesus, and it was a New Testament practice, so we'd better keep on doing it, too.

I knew I wanted to follow Jesus and do what He told me to do, so if He told me to be baptized, I would be. That was about as far as my understanding of baptism extended.

Until I started to be exposed to the Christian Church view of baptism. Was it actually something I'd had to do in order to be saved? Of course (being a good Baptist), I'd been spoon-fed Ephesians 2:8-9 and all the "salvation-by-faith-alone" passages from the time I was born. But I'd somehow missed all the ones I was now having pointed out to me by my Christian Church friends. Verses like, Mark 16:15-16: "And He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.' "

Or Acts 2:37-39 (immediately after Peter's sermon to the masses on the Day of Pentecost) "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?' Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.' "

And clearest of all, 1 Peter 3:21 (comparing baptism to the great flood in Noah's day when "...eight souls, were saved through water..." — 1 Peter 3:20): "There is also an antitype which now saves us — baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ..."

Didn't 1 Peter 3:21 state flat-out that baptism saves us?

Then, I had it pointed out to me that all the way through Acts (like in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch — Acts 8), as soon as a potential convert was ready to commit to "the way," the first thing that happened was that the new convert was baptized. There was no waiting period. There was no pre-baptism question-and-answer session to determine if a new convert (or an old Christian) was “ready for baptism.” All the questions and answers had to do with whether or not the new convert was indeed a new convert — if he did, in fact, believe the gospel (as discussed in Chapter Three of this book). If the new convert confessed his faith, he was “ready for baptism.” And after baptism, he would be considered a Christian — a follower of Jesus. Not before.

When I asked one of my Christian Church friends about the thief on the cross, who had probably never been baptized and had no opportunity to be, I was told, "That was before Jesus had died." In other words, the rules were different after Jesus died.

I was so compelled by the Scriptures my Christian Church friends were pointing out to me about the biblical role of baptism that after one long wrestling match with them (the Scriptures, I mean. Not my friends), I gave in. I admitted to God that maybe my Baptist church upbringing had been wrong in this area. If His Word taught that I needed to be baptized to be saved, then it was what I was willing to believe.

After I graduated from high school, I decided to attend Bible College. I ended up choosing a Christian Church (meaning, that non-denominational denomination) Bible School. While attending this school, after a little more wrestling with some Scriptures, I came to see baptism in a different light yet again.

It's interesting to me that while I was attending my Baptist church I came to believe that the Baptist church was wrong and the Christian Church was right in its views of baptism. While attending the Christian Church college, I came to believe that they were also wrong in their views of baptism. (Maybe I'm just a natural rebel.)

My middle ground position that I began to hold is that both are wrong. Perhaps I should rephrase and say that I came to hold the position that both churches are right! I came to believe that the Baptist church is right in theory and the Christian Church right in practice.

I began reexamining the Scriptures I'd had pointed out to me over and over by my Christian Church friends and came to some different conclusions about the passages than my friends had. Yet I realized that baptism the way the Christian Church practised it was closer to the biblical model.

All through the New Testament (Acts, in specific), baptism was the ceremony that marked a person as a Christian, as a follower of "the way." Up until he or she was baptized, a person may have been an interested listener, a seeker after truth, a potential believer, but when a person was ready to commit, the first step of obedience taken was this one of water baptism. From then on, the world around the new believer knew that he or she was a Christian.

Baptism didn't make a person's beliefs one jot more or less real. It just made them official — a little like a marriage ceremony. A wedding ceremony doesn't make a couple one jot more or less in love. It just makes them married.

It's important to understand, however, that the ceremony is not the thing that saves us. The thing that saves us is not the dunking under water. If there's no work of God going on in the person's heart, mind, and spirit, then dunking a person under water is not going to save him. It's only going to get him wet. It's the inner condition being represented by the outward action that means a person is, in fact, saved.

With that understanding, let's examine the passages again that seem to be saying that baptism saves us.

Mark 16:15-16: "And He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.' "

Notice that we're not told that he who believes but is not baptized will be condemned. No, there's no mention of baptism in the "condemned" part of the verse at all. It's he who doesn't believe that is condemned. But ordinarily, back when those words in Mark were written, when a person believed, they were baptized. Which is why we find the two linked in this verse.

Acts 2:37-39: "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?' Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.' "

Again, we're not told what happens if a person separates the repentance and the baptism. We're not told what happens if a person repents but isn't baptized. We're told what happens when a person repents and is baptized (as those who repented were generally baptized upon repentance).

And 1 Peter 3:21: "There is also an antitype which now saves us — baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ ..."

What does Peter tell us here is the thing that saves us? Baptism, right? But what kind of baptism? The outward part? The removal of the filth of the flesh? The taking a bath with all one's clothes on? The dunking of a person under water? No, not that part. Rather, it's the inward part. It's what's going on in the inside, the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the part that saves us. Again, we're not told what happens if we separate the inward part and the outward part of baptism.

What does happen if you separate the inward and outward baptisms? I believe if we could ask Peter that question he would look at us blankly and ask, "Why would you want to?"

And I'm not sure we'd have a good answer to that question. Why do we want to? (We'll discuss some possible reasons in a moment.)

It's because we've begun separating the inward and outward parts of baptism by gaps of months, years, or decades that we have so much confusion on this issue.

To return to the wedding-ceremony illustration, it's akin to the confusion we see regarding that ceremony nowadays. Once upon a time, a marriage ceremony meant something, and those getting married knew what it meant, and all those coming to see them get married knew what it meant. A couple wasn't married until they underwent this particular ceremony. It didn't really change anything about them. Except that, in a sense, it changed everything about them. It was no magic ceremony, but it meant something, and everyone knew what it meant. It meant that from here on in two people were going to share a roof and a bed and bills and responsibilities and the cat and the dog (if there were any).

Now that we've separated the ceremony from any kind of reality and the couple getting married may have already been living as a married couple for months, years, or decades, no one seems very sure what the marriage ceremony is all about anymore. The wedding may make it harder for the couple to break up in the end (though only slightly), but other than that, it's generally only a good excuse to dress up, spend a lot of money, and have a big party. If a marriage ceremony was still the ceremony that was practised before the couple lived as a married couple, it would still be a ceremony that meant something. I think it might work the same with baptism.

In the New Testament, baptism had a meaning that was easily grasped. There was none of the confusion for those early believers that there was for me when I was baptized. Or that there was even for my pastor, doing his best to guide me in our pre-baptism session.

In our day and age in most Christian circles, we've replaced baptism as the entrance ceremony into the Christian faith with all sorts of other entrance ceremonies, such as, "saying the sinner's prayer," "asking Jesus into your heart," "going forward," "altar calls," "with every head bowed and every eye closed, right where you are, just slip your hand into the air," etc.

Of course it's not a bad idea upon acceptance of a biblical belief in Christ for the new believer to tell God all about it — to confess in so many words his new faith and to acknowledge his sin and Jesus' death on the cross for his forgiveness. But while none of the ceremonies mentioned above are wrong, none are mentioned in the Bible. And none of those ceremonies can save a person. "Saying the sinner's prayer," doesn't save a person. "Going forward" at a Billy Graham Crusade doesn't save a person. Even "going forward" and then "saying the sinner's prayer" at a Billy Graham Crusade doesn't save a person.

Most Christians realize that it's not the recital of certain magic words nor walking a certain magic aisle to arrive at a certain magic spot that saves a person. It has always been God's work in the heart and mind and spirit of a person that saves that person. We recognize that the ceremonies that accompany that activity in the heart, mind, and spirit are (hopefully) just outward expressions of the inward activity. However, I find it interesting that those of us who have dropped baptism as that entrance ceremony into the Christian faith feel the need to replace that biblical ceremony with all the other ceremonies.

I've done some pondering on the reason many Christian denominations have stopped following the biblical model. Perhaps the Christian leading a new convert to Christ wants to wait to make sure the conversion "takes" before the new convert is baptized — to ensure that the new convert is sincere.

But whose job is it to determine sincerity? If the baptizer baptizes a person who doesn't, in fact, believe what he professes to believe, has the baptizer committed some kind of sacrilege? No, the baptizer just got the baptizee wet. That's the baptizer's job. It's the baptizee's job to believe, it's the baptizer's job to baptize upon confession of faith, and it's the Holy Spirit's job to know what's going on on the inside. That part's not up to the baptizer.

It is up to the baptizer (or anyone leading someone to Christ) to explain as clearly and as truthfully and as biblically as he or she can what salvation is and what kind of commitment is called for. But I would hope anyone leading a person to Christ would do his best to ensure the new convert has a good understanding before any kind of commitment is called for.

Maybe the reason many churches don't practise biblical baptism nowadays is simply a practical one. In our churches, it's a lot easier to ask people to "come forward" and pray to be saved than it is to have a tank of water always ready any time a person comes to faith in Christ. I think the practical obstacles could be overcome, though. Even if all new Christians didn't quite follow the Ethiopian eunuch's example and jump into the nearest pool of water almost on the instant of belief, I'm pretty sure there's no need to make new Christians wait months or years or even decades before they're baptized. What if we again began to teach in our churches that baptism should be the first step of obedience in the Christian walk — not the ninth or tenth or five-hundred-and-twenty-seventh step of obedience? That first step might not have to be instant, but I'm positive it could be a lot quicker than it usually is.

Maybe the reason we've stopped practising baptism biblically is because of this confusion that's developed in the Christian Church/Church of Christ circles where the outward ceremony replaces the inward condition as the means of salvation. Maybe there's a waiting period before a new convert is baptized so that the new convert won't confuse the entrance ceremony with the entrance itself. But is that confusion cleared up by replacing the biblical ceremony with all the other ones?

We do seem to feel that some sort of ceremony is necessary, and problems still occur with people viewing the ceremony itself as the thing that has saved them. It's not just the Christian Church/Church of Christ circles that are prone to this. If you were to take a church-to-church survey asking the people in the pews the question, "How do you know you're saved?" how many people would respond with an answer something like, "Well, I prayed the sinner's prayer..." "I went forward at a Billy Graham Crusade ..." "I asked Jesus into my heart..."? Now, these same people might very well understand that what saved them was the inner activity taking place while these outward actions were going on, but their answers might not reflect that understanding.

I believe that my Christian Church friends are absolutely right in biblically practising the outward ceremony of baptism to express the inward condition of the heart. But like others have, they've confused the outward action of the ceremony with the inward condition.

Now, to be fair, in my Christian Church circles, I did hear it taught once that baptism is not the means of salvation. Baptism is the time of salvation. And biblically-speaking, that's how it was. In the New Testament, a new believer's baptism visibly marked the time of the beginning of his or her commitment of faith. In the early church, the ceremony of baptism was the dividing line between the believer and the non-believer. Biblically-speaking, shouldn't baptism still be seen as the time (not the means) of salvation?

Not to leave you with any doubt as to my point, here it is: why don't we go back to that biblical entrance ceremony into the body of Christ instead of the ones we've replaced it with? Why not practise baptism biblically while emphasizing the understanding that it's not the action of the dunking under water that saves but the answer of a good conscience toward God expressed by that action?

“But what on earth,” you may be asking yourself, “does this whole digression on baptism have to do with the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's power in our lives?”

That's a good question. I'm glad you asked. But we'll have to move into our next chapter before I attempt to answer it.

~ 6~

About Baptism and Spirit Baptism

Although I was born and raised Baptist, I did occasionally move outside of my Baptist circles. I not only had friends in the Christian Church, I also had friends in some of the charismatic churches in our town, and they also showed me things from the Bible that confused me because they were things that I also wasn't hearing in my Baptist church.

While my Christian Church friends had different ideas about water baptism, my charismatic friends had different ideas about Spirit baptism. According to them, Spirit baptism was a separate event that happened after a person became a Christian, and you could tell that a person had been baptized in the Spirit because that person could speak in tongues. (I've also heard this "baptism in the Spirit" referred to as the "second blessing.")

One of my young, charismatic friends went so far as to inform me that speaking in tongues was a requirement for salvation — or at least, it was how you could tell that a person had been saved. (We were very young when she told me this. I'm not sure this is, in fact, a doctrine in any charismatic church. It might have been a doctrine that originated in the mind of this friend from misunderstanding other doctrines she had heard in her charismatic church.)

It was this activity of speaking in tongues that would make me want to bolt for the nearest exit whenever I visited a charismatic church where tongues were practised publicly. I was not comfortable with the whole idea at all, and I couldn't see any point to it. Yet my charismatic friends also had Scriptures to show me that made me wonder if they might not be right on the issue.

In Acts, there are several places where we see that people received, what my charismatic friends would call, a "Spirit baptism" type of experience. These experiences always seemed to be evidenced by the gift of tongues. These experiences evidenced by the gift of tongues also were identified as the time when the people involved received the Holy Spirit. Was speaking in tongues really the main evidence that a person had received the Holy Spirit?

Yet we're told that God doesn't change and that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (James 1:17, Heb. 13:8). We could draw the inference that the Holy Spirit doesn't change, either. So let's ask the question in the present tense. Is speaking in tongues the main evidence that a person has received the Holy Spirit?

But as we've discovered already from Scripture, all those who are saved have received the Holy Spirit. After I put these pieces together, I could see where my friend was coming from, or where the doctrine was coming from, that a person has to speak in tongues in order to be saved or as an evidence of salvation. These teachings and these Scriptures threw me into a frenzy of questioning and doubting.

It just didn't make any sense to me. I also knew all the Scriptures that proclaim loud and clear that we are saved by faith alone and that the only thing we can do to be saved is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. How could I know so many people who claimed to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who didn't speak in tongues? How could I myself believe that I was believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and never have spoken in tongues? What were we missing? What was I missing? Was I not believing "right" somehow? Was I even saved? Had I received the Holy Spirit? If so, where were my supernatural gifts of the Spirit that the believers of Acts all seemed to receive? Even more to the point, where in my life was the power for witnessing spoken of in Acts 1:8 promised by Jesus to all those who would receive the Holy Spirit?

These struggles of doubt and questioning went on for years for me. I remember one night falling on my knees in desperation and asking God to give me the gift of tongues (a gift, in and of itself, for which I had no desire except as an evidence that I was doing something right). Nothing noticeable happened. I felt nothing out of the ordinary. I got up off my knees with no more evidence that I had received the Spirit than I had when I went I went down onto them — I still had the evidence of Scripture, but I had no evidence of any supernatural experience.

While I haven't arrived at a place where all my questions have been answered, through those years of struggle and desperation, the questions threw me back onto the Scriptures — into a closer examination of them and into some different conclusions than a superficial reading of them yields. A shallow understanding of the passages in Acts dealing with the baptism of the Spirit and the gift of tongues can bring a person to the place where my young friend was or to where some of my other charismatic friend are — believing the gift of tongues to be the sign and seal of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and believing the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be an event that happens at a time after salvation. But let's give these passages a more thorough look and see what other understandings could be arrived upon from examining them.

In Acts, there are three instances where speaking in tongues is specifically mentioned (Acts 2:4, 10:46, 19:6). And there is one other instance where we could read speaking in tongues into the passage without a huge stretch of the imagination (Acts 8:14-19).

These all occur on the occasion of an individual's (or a group of individuals') initial receiving of the Holy Spirit (or, in other terminology, when the Holy Spirit was given to them or "fell on" them).

There are also a number of passages where we see that a person or people received the Holy Spirit at a time other than the "normal" time (Acts 2:4, 8:14-17, 10:44). (By "normal," I mean when the Holy Spirit normally was given to an individual — what that "normal" time was we'll talk about a little more in just a moment).

Twice, we see this giving and receiving of the Spirit being referred to as "the baptism of the Spirit" or "being baptized in the Spirit" (Acts 1:5, 11:15-17).

And in five instances we read about the "laying on of hands" (Acts 6:6, 8:17, 9:12, 17, 13:3, 19:6), and twice (or possibly three times) this is in connection to the Spirit being given or received or "falling" on a person or group of persons.

From this information, you can probably understand why the doctrine has grown up in some circles that the "baptism of the Spirit" is a separate event apart from initial belief and salvation and that the baptism of the Spirit is usually accomplished through the "laying on of hands" and usually accompanied by the gift of speaking in tongues. I've come to a different conclusion after wrestling with all these passages. Now, let's start taking a look at the Scriptures themselves.

We'll take the passage first that everyone agrees details an event that is in a category all its own. First of these “Spirit baptism” events in Acts is the original falling of the Spirit on all believers and the filling of the Spirit for all believers on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. This is the first of three instances where speaking in tongues is specifically mentioned in Acts. Few would deny that the Day of Pentecost is in a special bracket — not the norm for all Christians. It was when the Spirit was first given to all believers.

Now, this is not the first time we see people being filled with the Holy Spirit in the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament, we read that the Spirit of God "came on" or filled this person or that person for this task or that task (usually prophesying) (Gen. 41:38, Ex. 31:1-4, Num. 11:25, 24:2, 1 Sam. 10:10, 1 Sam. 19:20, 2 Chron. 15:1). In the New Testament, even before the Day of Pentecost, we find that there were also people who were filled with the Holy Spirit for a particular task (Luke 1:15, 41, 67). John 20:22 records that Jesus, after His death but before His ascension, breathed on His disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. I don't know what to make of the John 20:22 passage. I don't know how it differed from what happened on the Day of Pentecost. Why was everyone in the upper room waiting for the promise of the Father (the baptism of the Holy Spirit) (Acts 1:4-5) if certain of Jesus' followers had already received the Holy Spirit? Because I don't know how John 20:22 fits in with Acts 2, I won't comment on it.

What we do see happening in Acts 2, then, is not the first time the Holy Spirit had ever indwelt or filled one of God's people. It was the first time the Holy Spirit indwelt or filled all of God's people. It was, perhaps, not the first time the gift of the Holy Spirit was given but the first time the gift of the Holy Spirit was given universally to believers. From that time on, the gift of the Spirit (I mean, the gift of the Spirit's indwelling presence) was not just for a certain, special few for certain, special tasks. From the Day of Pentecost forward, the gift of the Spirit was for all time, for all who believe (and are baptized).

We can be assured of this because Peter says, in his sermon to the masses on the Day of Pentecost, "Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). Pretty black and white, that!

So there we are! The occasion of belief, repentance, and baptism "in the name of Jesus Christ" — that was the "normal" occasion, the "normal" time for the giving and receiving of the Holy Spirit.

But maybe this promise was only for those first-century hearers who were listening to Peter!

Just in case, millennia down the road, we're not sure this promise still applies to us as modern-day believers, Peter adds, "For this promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call" (Acts 2:39).

Remember we discovered last chapter that, Scripturally, the occasion of belief and repentance for those first-century believers was also the occasion of their water baptisms. That was my point last chapter. It was also my point that maybe it's not a bad idea for us to try and buck current trends to get back to the biblical model. No, we are not saved by water baptism. But the early Christians could look back on their water baptisms as the moment of their entrance into the salvation-life because there was no noticeable time-lapse between their belief and repentance and their water baptisms. As soon as a person was ready to commit to Christ, they confessed their faith by going under the water. Maybe, just maybe, we should try going back to their system.

If you want to know what is the point of this chapter (and the next), here it is: normally, the Spirit was given to all believers on the occasion of their initial repentance and belief. Normally, for New Testament believers, this occasion was the occasion of their water baptisms.

I believe that the Spirit is still (normally) given to a believer upon initial repentance and belief. It may save us confusion if this occasion were also the occasion of a new believer's water baptism. It may save us confusion if water baptism and Spirit baptism were to happen at the same time as they did in Acts.

But that Spirit baptism normally accompanied belief, repentance, and water baptism in Acts is what I hope to demonstrate this chapter (and the next). And the way I hope to demonstrate it is by looking at the exceptions in this chapter and the next.

Can you see what's happened? My little friend and many of my other friends in charismatic churches read the exceptions from Acts and believe that in them we should find the rule. They interpret these exceptions as the norm — that believers today should still seek a post-salvation “baptism of the Spirit”— accomplished by a laying on of hands and accompanied by the gift of tongues.

But if you read these instances as the exceptions, it changes the whole picture. And that they are the exceptions I believe we can see from Peter's words in Acts 2:38-39. (Praise God there are exceptions. In most of our evangelistic Christian circles, we've separated initial repentance and belief from water baptism. Often for periods of years. Praise God, believers do not need to try and function without the Spirit in their lives for those years.)

In Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost, we see our first exception to the rule that the Holy Spirit is normally given upon initial belief and baptism. I think there is general agreement among Christians of all kinds that Acts 2 is an exception. It was the time when the Holy Spirit came upon the earth in a new way. He came then to indwell all believers. The church was born!

We'll save the controversial exceptions — the exceptions that not everyone agrees are exceptions — for the next chapter.

~ 7~

The Other Exceptions

Our next exception we find in Acts 8. Philip, in fulfillment of Jesus' words in Acts 1:8, had gone to Samaria to help fulfill the Great Commission there. Also as a fulfillment of Acts 1:8, Philip had certainly received power from the Holy Spirit, and a lot of crazy things were happening in Samaria. Many who were lame and paralyzed were healed. Demon-possessed people were set free. "And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did" (Acts 8:6).

Then, Acts 8:14-17 says this:

Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

When Simon (an erstwhile sorcerer) saw that "... through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given..." (v. 18), he tried to buy this power from Peter who roundly scolded him and told him to repent — which Simon ostensibly did, and we hear no more about him.

My charismatic friends would look at this passage and see that, plainly, this story details a "second blessing" type of experience. After all, the new believers had believed and were baptized, and yet we're told clearly that the Holy Spirit had fallen on none of them up to that point. They had received water baptism but not the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then, the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands.

And though we're not told what visible signs were given to these new believers who had received the Holy Spirit, obviously there were visible signs. So visible that Simon the sorcerer could look and see that the Holy Spirit had fallen on people through the laying on of the apostles' hands. Simon wanted power. He was perhaps not as interested in what work the Holy Spirit was doing on the inside of people as he was in the results he could see from the outside. It was visible results he wanted.

It doesn't take much to read speaking in tongues into this passage. We'll see from other passages that speaking in tongues was, in a sense, the signature gift of the Holy Spirit for the early church. Whatever it was Simon saw when the Holy Spirit fell on the new Samaritan believers, I would guess it certainly included some speaking in tongues and probably other indications of the supernatural visibly at work by the way of miracles.

Why do I say that this story from Acts 8 is an exception whereas my charismatic friends would say it's the rule? Because of verse sixteen: "For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus."

If it was the rule, if it was the norm, for believers to receive a "second blessing" or the baptism of the Holy Spirit apart from their initial belief and water baptism, then why is verse sixteen included at all? Why would Luke (through the Holy Spirit) be bothered to explain to his readers the reason the new believers had not received the Holy Spirit at the time of their water baptisms? If it was the norm for the Holy Spirit to fall upon believers only through a special laying on of hands some time after they were already believers, then Luke wouldn't feel a need to explain to his readership why this was the case in Samaria. The early Christians would already accept this as the norm.

What Luke is telling us in verse sixteen is that there was something out of the ordinary about the Samaritan believers' baptisms (their water baptisms). What was it? "They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." And that something different was why the Holy Spirit had fallen on none of them as yet. The implication? That normally the Holy Spirit fell on believers at the time of their baptisms (in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost). I think that much we can see from this passage, putting it together with Acts 2:38 where believers are promised the gift of the Holy Spirit if they repent and are baptized.

Now, the speculating begins, and we do have to do some reading between the lines to arrive at any conclusions about this passage. Luke doesn't give us much to go on. To his first-century readers with their shared experiences, doubtless he didn't need to say any more than he said. But for us, separated from these events by almost two millennia, we have to work a little to discover the meaning.

What on earth does it mean that these Samaritan believers were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus? After all, in Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he said, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." He didn't mention needing anything more than being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. But the operative word in Acts 8:16 is the “only.” What could have been missing from the baptisms of the Samaritan believers when they were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus?

It's an interesting biblical phrase. "...in the name of..." Jesus told His disciples in John 14:13, "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." And just in case their attention had wandered for the moment and they had missed this momentous announcement, He repeated Himself in the very next verse, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."

Fortunately for us, there is obviously a great deal of meaning here, more than just mindlessly chanting, "… in Jesus' name, amen," like a mantra at the end of all our prayers. When I think about some of the things I've prayed and have probably chanted, "…in Jesus' name, amen," at the end of the prayer, I'm grateful there's more meaning to these words than we normally assign to them.

I'm reminded of "the magic word." I often hear parents use this phrase with their child when the child is making a request and has forgotten to say "please." "What's the magic word?"

Is "please" really a magic word? Of course it's not! When a parent reminds the child to "say the magic word," it's because the parent has already decided to grant the child's request and is just waiting for a display of good manners. Can you imagine the chaos that would reign the world over if "please" were really a magic word? If all a person had to do to receive everything he wanted at any given moment was speak the word "please"?

"… in Jesus' name, amen," are not magic words, either. I don't believe Jesus gave His disciples a signed, blank cheque when He told them they would receive everything they asked in His name. Can you imagine the chaos that would reign the world over if all we had to do to receive everything we happened to want at any given moment was to pray and tack, "… in Jesus' name, amen," on at the end of the prayer? I'm so glad there's more meaning to this phrase than we, in our cultural understanding or misunderstanding, assign it.

I'm not sure I can get a good grasp on Jesus' meaning here where He uses the phrase, "in My name," but I'll give it a try.

Maybe the closest I can come is to ask us to cast our minds back a couple of centuries or more to the times when kings actually ruled their lands. When a person who lived in a land ruled by a monarch was commanded to do something "in the name of the king," that person understood the command to be coming from the king himself. An act done "in the name of the king" was being done under the king's banner, so to speak — under his authority or at his command.

The king's messenger knew better than to go around spouting, "...in the name of the king..." like a mantra anytime he happened to feel like spouting anything he happened to feel like spouting. The words had meaning back then, and anyone speaking "in the name of the king" would be answerable to the king for using those words lightly.

I'm not suggesting we need to stop using "… in Jesus' name, amen" at the end of all our prayers. Not my issue, here. Hopefully, when we pray, we are knowingly and willingly trying to line our wills up to God's. We are trying to pray "in Jesus' name" or under His authority and at His command. In His will, in fact. But I think we all know that everything we ask, everything we'd like to see happen, is not going to be how God has things planned. That's okay. We're still allowed to ask. We can even tack, "… in Jesus' name, amen," on at the end of the prayer to remind us that our requests will only be granted if they are in His will.

But we need to remember that there's more to asking in Jesus' name than simply saying the words. If we reinterpreted Jesus' words to His disciples like this, "If you ask anything in my will, I will do it," does that make more sense to us? (See also 1 John 5:14-15.) Of course, anything we ask Jesus to do that He's already willing and wanting to do and waiting for us to ask Him to do, He's going to do. Still in His time, but He will do it.

All this to say that "in the name of" means more than simply repeating certain magic words.

When I was baptized, I remember hearing the words, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," being spoken over me as I was in the process of being lowered into the water. At most of the baptisms I've witnessed, I've heard those words spoken. Why are they spoken at baptisms? Because when Jesus commanded His followers to go into all the world to make disciples of all the nations, they were commanded to baptize those new disciples "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).

What was it Jesus was getting at? Did he mean for His disciples just to speak a certain phrase over the new disciples as they were being dunked? Or was there more to it?

At the very least, I believe it means that those being dunked have to have some knowledge about and acceptance of all three Persons of the trinity. We saw it from Chapter Three. It's not enough to believe in God-the-Father. We have to believe in God-the-Son. And it's not enough to believe in the Son — like, maybe that He was a nice guy or a great teacher. No, we have to know who He really was, through knowing His Father.

Well, what if the same package deal applies to the Holy Spirit? Maybe we have to know a little bit about the Holy Spirit before we can receive Him. Maybe it needs to be mentioned to those considering belief in God-the-Father-and-the-Son that God-the-Holy Spirit wants to move in and live inside all those who believe in the Father and the Son. Maybe He waits until those interested in the Father and the Son are ready for the commitment of being followers by wanting the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is a gentleman. He waits to be invited. If we're teaching people how to be saved, shouldn't we make a point of introducing them to all the Persons of the Godhead before asking them for some kind of commitment? Let's make sure we don't leave the Holy Spirit out of the equation. We can't leave any member of the trinity out of our doctrine.

The reason Peter didn't need to specify being baptized "in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" on the Day of Pentecost was because he was preaching in the name of the Holy Spirit. He let the crowd know about the Holy-Spirit-part-of-the-package in verse thirty-eight of Acts 2. Any baptizing that went on that day would certainly be done in the name of or under the authority of and in light of an understanding about the Holy Spirit.

Could this slightly different understanding of "in the name of" possibly shed any light on the Samaritan situation in Acts 8? Perhaps.

From the story of Philip's missionary journey to Samaria in Acts 8, we can see that the conversions there happened like a tidal wave. Maybe more like a tsunami.

Philip was apparently by himself in Samaria doing the work of preaching and healing, etc. A multitude believed and was baptized. Who was doing the baptizing? Philip, all by himself? My guess is that new believers were baptizing new believers. And possibly before Philip had even reached the part of the story where they got to hear who the Holy Spirit was.

It seems as though some kind of an SOS went out to the believers' headquarters in Jerusalem. Peter and John were sent to Samaria. Why? Presumably because Philip needed help.

Couldn't Philip himself have laid hands on people for them to receive the Holy Spirit? Was this gift only available through the laying on of the hands of Peter and John? Philip was an apostle. Philip certainly had the Spirit and the power of the Spirit. Why couldn't he have laid hands on people? I'm sure he could have. I'm sure he did. It was a matter of logistics. There was a multitude and one Philip. If Peter and John thought he could manage just fine all on his own, they wouldn't have felt a need to rush up to Samaria.

Then, after Peter and John arrived and prayed for the Holy Spirit to fall and started laying their hands on people, the new believers received the Holy Spirit. God certainly didn't plan to leave these baby believers without the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. Remember that, "...if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Rom. 8:9). And also, remember that, "...this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive..." (John 7:39). In the case in Acts 8, there was just a short time-lapse between the initial believing and the receiving of the Spirit. For what reason, I'm not entirely sure, but we're told that it had something to do with the new believers being baptized only in the name of the Lord Jesus.

I think we can safely say that the Acts 8 receiving of the Holy Spirit was not some kind of "second blessing" or additional "baptism of the Spirit" after the new believers had already been indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We're told flat-out in black and white in Acts 8:16 that "...as yet He had fallen upon none of them," and this "falling" is apparently synonymous with the terminologies of verses fifteen, seventeen, and eighteen where the Holy Spirit is being "given" and "received." Plainly, they didn't have the Holy Spirit until He "fell upon them."

If we continue reading in Acts 8, we soon see Philip keeping a divine appointment with a man known to us only as "the Ethiopian eunuch." You are probably familiar with this account. This was a man who was obviously seeking God, yet without a great deal of knowledge. Philip gives him the necessary knowledge, the Ethiopian embraces the knowledge of God and His Son that Philip gives him, he's baptized upon his confession of faith, the two men come up out of the water, and Philip is transported beam-me-up-Spirit style to a place called Azotus. We know that this was the only contact Philip had with the Ethiopian eunuch because that's what we're told in verse thirty-nine. We also know this was how God wanted it because He was responsible for Philip's abrupt departure. Presumably, God had no "second blessing" type of experience in mind for the eunuch. Presumably, he had already been given everything he needed. Presumably, he received the Holy Spirit upon his belief and baptism, and there was nothing lacking in his Christian experience.

Now, skipping ahead a few chapters, let's have a look at our next "exception."

As an aside, we could possibly include Saul/Paul's experience in Acts 9:17-18 as another of the exceptions where we see the Spirit being given at a time other than initial belief and baptism. But then again, we're not told exactly when Paul received the Holy Spirit. We see Ananias laying hands on him in verse seventeen for the healing of his blindness and the filling of the Holy Spirit. We are told that his blindness was healed immediately, and then he arose and was baptized. At what point was he indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Only God knows. We can see that his conversion began on the road to Damascus, and he certainly began to be a believer at that time. But he wasn't baptized until three days later when he became an official believer. Only God really knows at what point the work in the heart of any new believer is complete for salvation and the Spirit has moved in bag and baggage. It may be comparable to falling in love. Some people can pinpoint an exact moment. Others say that it happened gradually, and they don't know when they really first fell in love. Anyone can pinpoint the moment they got married, though. A ceremony makes things official and tidy. Possibly one of the reasons baptism is still a command for all believers. We do need ceremonies to mark the place where realities began.

When did Paul receive the Spirit? I'm not sure, but if he received the Spirit from the moment of the laying on of hands by Ananias, then the ceremony of his baptism followed very shortly thereafter. For that reason, I won't include this incident as one of my exceptions.

Instead, to see the next exception, let's go to Acts 10, the story of Cornelius.

I'll skip the part with Peter praying on the rooftop and the vision of the unclean animals in the sheet. I'll also skip the part about Cornelius before he met Peter. Let's jump right to the part relevant to our discussion — the giving of the Holy Spirit as these new, Roman believers listened to Peter and believed what he had to tell them. They listened, they believed, and the Holy Spirit fell on them.

Again, in this account, we see that the Holy Spirit was not given at the time of baptism, and we see that speaking in tongues evidenced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Does this lend support to the belief which some hold that the baptism of the Holy Spirit must be accompanied by the gift of tongues? It lends support. But not much support. Unless we're specifically told that speaking in tongues normally happens at the baptism of the Holy Spirit, let's not jump to that conclusion. Let's stick with what Scripture tells us plainly. Let's make sure we read out of it more than we read into it. But more on speaking in tongues (and reading into Scripture) later.

Now, as to the timing of this occurrence (specified as the baptism of the Holy Spirit when Peter is recounting the event to the other disciples in Acts 11:15-17) could we agree that, again, this is recorded as an exception rather than the norm? My friends who believe in a second-blessing type of baptism of the Holy Spirit certainly couldn't call this a second blessing. It was the first blessing. It was the very first event in the new life of the new believers, and it happened even before water baptism.

In fact, it was only after Peter and the other Jewish believers saw that the Spirit had fallen visibly on these Gentile believers that they were willing to baptize these Gentiles in water — to perform the welcome-to-the-body-of-Christ ceremony. Given that fact, could we see any reason why God allowed the baptism of the Spirit to happen before water baptism for the first Gentile believers, and why He granted the gift of tongues as the visible evidence (or audible evidence, I suppose I should say) of Spirit baptism?

It seems clear from this passage. To the Jewish believers it was all new that God had a work to do amongst the Gentiles. They had always held as dogma the idea that only the people of Israel were God's chosen people and anyone who wanted to become part of God's chosen people also had to become a Jew (through circumcision and the observing of the Law). We see God making the point that He was about to change His people's mindset in this area through the vision given to Peter immediately before he met Cornelius. But we also see that God knew the Jewish believers would need more convincing. So we see His Spirit falling on the first Gentile believers in a very obvious way, manifesting the same sign that had been given to the disciples on the Day of Pentecost.

We can see this from the reaction of the Jewish believers in Acts 10:44-47.

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then Peter answered, “Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

Or again, in Acts 11:17-18, with Peter, speaking before the apostles and Jewish believers in Jerusalem, defending his action of baptizing Gentiles: " 'If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?' When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, 'Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.' "

In Genesis 11, God created different nations and different people groups by splitting people off into language groups at the tower of Babel. Do you see what God might have been doing by installing the gift of tongues as the signature gift of the early church? He was supernaturally healing the breach created at the tower of Babel. He was demonstrating powerfully that He was not only the God of the Jews. He was the God of all nations, of all languages, of all peoples. He began doing a new thing on the Day of Pentecost when the church was born with His reversal of the Tower of Babel. He was letting everyone know that His chosen people now included anyone who wanted to follow His Son, Jesus. How fitting that this is the sign or gift that He used in Acts 10:46 to show the Jewish believers that He had chosen the Gentile believers, too.

Remember Jesus' final words to His disciples: a command to go into all the world to make disciples and a promise of His power and presence with them to do so. "... and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8b.) Isn't it interesting that when that disciple-making started in Jerusalem it started on the Day of Pentecost, a feast day when Jews who lived in all the different corners of the Roman Empire and spoke many different languages gathered in Jerusalem? And we see the Spirit coming in power and bringing with Him the gift of tongues.

Then, we see what that disciple-making first looked like in Samaria. It looked very similar. Then we see what the beginning of disciple-making among the Gentiles looked like. Again, the Spirit came in power and brought the gift of tongues with Him. And these are the exceptions where God chose to bestow His Spirit on new believers at a time other than the "usual" time of belief and water baptism.

In Samaria, the Spirit fell shortly after belief and baptism; in the case of the first Gentile believers, He fell before baptism. Could we have a hint for the reason God made exceptions in these cases from Jesus' words in Acts 1:8? Could it be because these instances were "firsts"? Could it be that God wanted to underscore and emphasize what was happening in these cases?

He was doing a new work in the world. It was a work in all the world. Maybe these exceptions were made exceptions so that they would stand out as something unusual God was doing so His people wouldn't miss the importance of this new work He was doing. (And continues to do. There are still new frontiers God desires to reach. If we're looking to see more of His power at work, we could always try going to the new frontiers He wants to take us to. The world hasn't been reached yet.)

Let's look at the last exception I've been able to find in Acts where new believers received the gift of the Holy Spirit — the indwelling of the Spirit or the baptism of the Spirit (and I think we can see from Acts 10 that these terms are synonymous) — at a time apart from initial belief and water baptism.

Before we turn to the passage, let me state for the record that, in fact, I don't number this instance as one of those exceptions, and we'll discuss what I mean by that statement after we look at the passage. But it is a passage that needs to be looked at in this discussion because it is a passage that my charismatic friends would view as the "norm" for all Christians.

Acts 19:1-6: And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" So they said to him, "We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit." And he said to them, "Into what then were you baptized?" So they said, "Into John's baptism." Then Paul said, "John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus," When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.

The reason I say we need to have a look at this passage for the purposes of this discussion is because this is a passage used to support the doctrine that the baptism of the Holy Spirit happens sometime after salvation through the laying on of hands and is accompanied by the gift of tongues.

But give the passage a careful reading. Can you see why I say I don't count this passage as one of those exceptions of the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurring at some time other than initial belief in Jesus and water baptism?

Right! Because the "disciples" in this story were disciples of John the Baptist, not of Jesus. Not at the opening of the story, anyway. Not until Paul explained the gospel to them. Then, they believed in Jesus, were baptized in His name, and were also baptized in the Spirit. Given that fact, I don't think we can find much support for saying that the baptism of the Holy Spirit normally happens apart from salvation through the laying on of hands. But I do find this passage to be very instructive.

Let's back up to the chapter before this one, to Acts 18 to learn a little more about Apollos. In Acts 18:24, we find that Apollos was an eloquent man and one who was knowledgeable in the Scriptures. He'd "... been instructed in the way of the Lord..." and "...he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John" (Acts 18:25). Paul's good friends, Aquila and Priscilla, heard Apollos preaching, and, realizing that he didn't quite have the whole picture, they took him aside and explained to him "...the way of God more accurately" (v. 26). The next thing we learn is that Apollos had gone on his way, now arguing publicly to show that Jesus is the Christ.

Then, in chapter nineteen, Paul finds some more "disciples" who apparently didn't have the whole picture. They, too, knew only the baptism of John. (Very likely, they had been taught by Apollos or by the same people who had taught Apollos who were also missing the whole picture.)

What does it mean that they had been baptized into John's baptism or that they "knew only the baptism of John"? Well, Paul tells us when he explains to them what they were missing in Acts 19:4.

"John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus."

My charismatic friends believe that the "baptism of John" in this passage is a Christian's water baptism, but we can see from Paul's explanation that the "baptism of John" here was not a Christian baptism at all. It was pre-Christian. It was a baptism of repentance — a recognition of need — and a looking toward the Messiah — the One who was to come after John — but without the full knowledge of who He was or what that One would do. You have to remember that John the Baptist died before Jesus. Even John didn't know the full story about the death and resurrection of God the Son for our sins. He had glimpses but not the full picture.

It appears very clear from Acts 18 and 19 that John's message had arrived in certain places before Jesus' message did. The disciples in Acts 19 didn't seem to know who "Christ Jesus" was. All they knew was that they had been baptized as an act of repentance and that they should be looking for the Messiah. Not to worry! I believe God will make sure that anyone who sincerely looks for the Messiah will find Him. These disciples did.

What I find most instructive for the purposes of our topic from this passage is Paul's pair of questions to these disciples. 1) "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" and 2) "Into what then were you baptized?" Do you see the implications? When did Paul assume they would have received the Holy Spirit? Right! When they believed.

When he learned that they had never heard of the Holy Spirit, he asked a further question about how they were baptized. Again, the implication that belief and baptism would be the normal time of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

We'll have to use a little imagination to reconstruct this scene, but I can imagine it happening something like this: Paul happens across these Ephesian disciples who proclaim themselves disciples, but something seems to be missing. Something seems to be a little different about them than other believers. So he begins probing and asking a question or two. What do they know about the Holy Spirit? Did they receive Him when they believed? Are they truly born-again believers? He learns that they don't even know who the Holy Spirit is. That puzzles him. They've been baptized. Weren't they baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? The answer, he learns, is, "No." They haven't even been baptized in the name of the Son. They're essentially Old Testament believers who don't know yet who the Messiah is. All is made clear for Paul, and he, in turn, makes all clear for these Ephesian believers. He baptizes them again, this time with an understanding of all three Persons of the trinity, and they receive the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues and prophesy.

A word or two (or two hundred) here about the laying on of hands: when did Paul lay his hands on these Ephesians? Well, we know for sure he laid his hands on them in baptism. Pretty hard to baptize someone without touching them at all. Is the "laying on of hands" here simply speaking about Paul baptizing them? Why not? If baptism is the normal time for the receiving of the Holy Spirit, why wouldn't it be the time when Paul laid his hands on the Ephesian disciples and they received the Spirit?

Now, I do believe, in New Testament times, that the Holy Spirit was normally imparted (by God, of course) through the laying on of the hands of one already indwelt by the Holy Spirit. There seemed to be some sort of transfer through physical contact that occurred between the Spirit-indwelt believer and the new believer looking to be indwelt by the Spirit. We see this from the incident in Acts 8 where Peter and John hurried to Samaria to lay hands on the believers who had not yet received the Holy Spirit. When we look at all the stories of healings in the Bible, although some involve no touch at all, a great many healings involved physical contact. So there is something about "the laying on of hands" that is perhaps again the "norm" for the imparting of the Holy Spirit or a gift of the Holy Spirit or an act or work of the Holy Spirit (which healing certainly is), but again, that "norm" of the laying on of hands for the imparting of the Spirit would seem to be in the act of water baptism. Again, fortunately for us, God is not limited to imparting His Holy Spirit to us through physical contact (as we see from the Day of Pentecost or in the case of Cornelius and the first Gentile believers) because a great many of us came to faith in Him long before our water baptisms or any other kind of laying on of hands (and, again, remember that if anyone doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His).

We do see from Luke 11:11-13 (in the parable Jesus told about the Father who would never give us stones when we ask for bread or snakes when we ask for fish) that all we have to do to receive the Holy Spirit is ask. He says that the Holy Spirit is one gift He is very eager to give and will not withhold if we ask. "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" (Luke 11:13).

In childish language, when a person "asks Jesus into his heart," he's asking to be saved and to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit (also called the Spirit of Christ by Paul in Romans 8:9). So we can all receive the Spirit just by asking for the gift of His indwelling. But again, in the New Testament, the "normal procedure" seemed to be for the Holy Spirit to indwell new believers at the time of belief and baptism and through the "laying on of hands" of the one doing the baptizing.

I don't pretend to begin to have it all figured out. There's a lot going on in God's world that I can't even start making guesses about (no kidding!). I think, in this matter of the laying on of hands, however, there are a few other hints from Scripture that tell us a little more about it. There will be more to say about the "laying on of hands." We'll get to it. But now, back to Spirit baptism.

After searching the Scriptures, eventually I came to the conclusion that I would have to disagree with my charismatic friends in some areas. I have never "gone forward" to have hands laid on me to receive an extra baptism of the Spirit? Why not? Because I've been convinced Scripturally that I've already received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It happened when I first believed and "asked Jesus into my heart." I have God's promise that he will not withhold His Holy Spirit from those who ask.

So if I've received the Holy Spirit, even the baptism of the Holy Spirit, why don't I speak in tongues if speaking in tongues was also the norm for those baptized in the Spirit? Short answer: I don't know.

Longer answer: I don't believe God wanted me to. Or at least, maybe I didn't want me to. When I asked Him for the gift of tongues and nothing happened, I think He knew perfectly well it wasn't what I really wanted. That's not to say He's going to give us everything we ask. But we'll examine this subject again in the next two chapters.

What's my experience of being baptized in the Spirit? I've seen His reality at work in me from the inside-out. I know God's Spirit lives in me. But as I've admitted, I don't see the spectacular, supernatural, visible, miraculous workings of the Spirit of God in my life. Why do others? Why do others have what they call a "baptism of the Holy Spirit" experience accompanied by tongues and/or other signs and wonders?

My point in this chapter and the previous one was that, Scripturally, the baptism of the Spirit is really the indwelling of the Spirit which is for all believers and happens at the time (or around the time) of initial belief. Why do others have different experiences if those experiences aren't biblical? Let's look at this question a little more closely. Next chapter.

~ 8~

Objective Meets Subjective

I would never want to suggest that personal experience should always be ruled as "inadmissible evidence." After all, were it not for personal experience, everything that we've been discussing this book — in fact, any discussion on biblical topics or any Bible study or reading — would be purely academic. Merely an intellectual exercise.

The Word of God is living and active and is never meant to be studied purely for intellectual exercise. Experience is how the Word of God lives itself out in our lives and so is extremely important. The problem is that it may also be misleading.

Last chapter, I mentioned that my experiences have been different from those of many of my charismatic friends. Then, I was so bold as to say (or to imply) that the experiences of my charismatic friends were not quite the same as the experiences of the people in Acts — that the baptism of the Spirit (or the receiving of the Spirit) is not normally some kind of a "second blessing" but happens at conversion.

If what I say is true, how do I explain all the thousands of modern-day experiences that argue differently? We have two types of evidence to consider in this chapter: personal experience and the Word of God. The subjective and the objective. What happens when those two types of evidence don't seem to line up?

While I would never want to negate genuine experience as a valid form of evidence in any discussion, I think we have to be careful with experience or any other subjective kind of evidence. Because the subjective is personal and unique to each individual, the only really solid evidence we can agree on every single time is the objective kind. In this case, when discussing the Holy Spirit and His work in each Christian's life, the only objective evidence we have to consider is the evidence of Scripture. While experiences are valid, they are open to interpretation. If we believe that the Bible is God's authoritative Word, then we will always want to view our experiences through Scriptural lenses.

Now, granted, Scripture is also open to interpretation, but there is at least the objective basis of the written words of Scripture as a starting point. We may not always understand those words, but the written word is objective, however subjective our interpretations may be.

Is it generally the case that we arrive at so many different interpretations of Scripture simply because it's difficult to know what it's saying? Isn't it more often the case that we arrive at so many different interpretations of Scripture because we don't like what it's saying? Maybe what it's saying doesn't line up with what we've experienced?

It seems to me that we come up with so many different interpretations of particular Scripture passages because we seek to interpret Scripture through our experiences. Rather, we should seek to interpret our experiences through Scripture.

So, biblically, if the baptism of the Spirit happens upon the occasion of initial belief and repentance, what kind of an experience have so many of my charismatic friends had when they've had hands laid on them and prayed for a baptism of the Spirit and have spoken in tongues?

Because speaking in tongues has become such a focus of those seeking a "second blessing" type of experience, let's start by looking at the gift of tongues and what the Bible has to say on the subject.

As we saw last chapter, the first mention of speaking in tongues in the Bible is not in the New Testament but in the Old. The first mention of speaking in tongues is in Genesis 11 at the Tower of Babel. Now, it's not called "speaking in tongues" in this passage. It's called, "...the Lord confused the language of all the earth..." (Gen. 11:9 in the New King James) or in the good ol' King James, "...the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth ..." (I personally prefer the King James rendering for this verse because, as we'll see a little later on, God is not the author of confusion, though He is perfectly able and willing to do a little "confounding" now and again.)

Essentially, what happened on the Day of Pentecost (the first time speaking in tongues took place in the New Testament) was similar to what happened at the Tower of Babel. It appears very likely from a reading of Genesis 11 that God supernaturally empowered people to speak instantaneously in languages they had never learned.

Also as mentioned last chapter, I believe the Day of Pentecost was, in a sense, a reversal of the Tower of Babel. At the Tower of Babel, God set in motion in an instant the creation of different nations and ethnicities. On the Day of Pentecost, God set in motion in an instant the creation of a brand new nation and ethnicity. One without geographical borders. One big enough to contain many languages and cultures. This new nation is the fulfillment of His promise to Abraham to make of Him a great nation of innumerable citizens; "... a holy nation, His own special people ..." (1 Pet. 2:9). (Or "peculiar people" as the King James has it, another rendering I quite like!)

And again, last chapter we looked at the timing of the bestowal to the brand-new, baby church of the gift of speaking in tongues: the Day of Pentecost — a time when Jerusalem was filled with Jews from all over the Roman Empire who spoke many different languages. And we see that God was doing a mighty work through this gift on that day. Many people heard the Good News preached to them in their own mother tongues (Acts 2:11). The message was especially convincing when coming in their own mother tongues through the tongues of people who had not formerly been able to speak in those other tongues.

When God first granted this gift on the Day of Pentecost, it wasn't random and pointless, the way I'd always believed it to be from my experiences visiting churches where speaking in tongues is practised. It made sense. It was convincing. It was a convincer to those who needed convincing. And the results were that the believers were multiplied and God was glorified (Acts 2:41).

We see something similar happening the other times we read about the gift of tongues being specifically mentioned in Acts. As noted last chapter, Acts 8 doesn't specify speaking in tongues when the church spread to Samaria, but reading between the lines, we could easily read it into the passage. And again, God was doing a new thing, making the statement loud and clear and following it with an exclamation point that His salvation was not just for the Jews but was for the whole world. Again, tongues (if, as I believe, tongues were happening in Samaria in Acts 8) were a convincer to those who needed convincing. Simon the sorcerer certainly found whatever was going on in Samaria very convincing of the Power that was at work there.

Then again, in the case of the first group of Gentile believers in Acts 10, we see that God was using the same exclamation point to emphasize His new work in all the world for all people and using tongues as a convincer to those who needed convincing. This time, those who needed convincing were already believers in Jesus, but they were also Jews, and they had to be convinced of the fact that people of any nationality could become believers in Jesus.

In Acts 19 with the Ephesian believers, we see God driving home the point that His Son, Jesus, is the Messiah who died for all the world. Again, He used the gift of tongues as a pretty convincing convincer. The Ephesian disciples would know they had found the real Messiah when the Holy Spirit got a hold of them and began speaking through their mouths in languages they had never learned.

No doubt, there were other instances from the time frame of the book of Acts that are not recorded for us in Acts where people received the gift of tongues. We can be fairly sure there were other instances because we can see from 1 Corinthians that some of the Corinthian believers had been given the gift of tongues on occasions that are not noted in Acts.

We see from 1 Corinthians 14 that there was an improper usage of this gift going on in the church. Paul writes this chapter to correct a few different disorders or abuses in the Corinthians' public worship.

While we're in 1 Corinthians, let's notice Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 14:5: "I wish you all spoke with tongues..." My charismatic friends and I view this statement a little differently. They would emphasize the fact that Paul wished everyone (or at least all the Corinthian Christians) spoke in tongues. I would emphasize the fact that not every Christian did!

And why was it that some of the Corinthian Christians did not speak in tongues when, clearly, many others did? Ah, I'm glad you asked. The answer to that question is the thesis statement of this chapter. It goes back to Chapter Two of this book which I said, at that time, was the thesis chapter of this book.

See also 1 Corinthians 12:29-30. "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?" These questions are what we call rhetorical questions where the answer is assumed as already known. And what answer was Paul assuming the Corinthian Christians already knew? No! All did not speak in tongues. All were not apostles or prophets. All did not teach, heal, work miracles, etc. The point of the passage is that all members of the body are not exactly the same, filling exactly the same roles, having exactly the same gifts. The point of 1 Corinthians 12 is that the church is a body, and as a body, it is made up of diverse members. All members are not an eye, all members are not an ear, all members are not a foot. That's why the body works. Paul is telling us in this chapter that God has given different gifts and abilities to all the members of the body as He sees fit in order for the body to function as a body.

Remember our discussion in Chapter Two of this book about, "The Bottom Line"? And what was that bottom line? That God is, and always has been and always will be, the One in charge. He's the Boss. He's the One who gets to say how it's going to be. And that's also the bottom line in any discussion on spiritual gifts.

Hebrews 2:3-4 sums up the Bottom Line in the discussion of spiritual gifts, spectacular or otherwise.

how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?

Did you catch that? “...according to His own will...” CRASH! Time after time, every breaker throws us back again onto that unyielding shoreline of God's sovereignty.

And what a good thing it is that shoreline is unyielding. What a mess we'd all be in if it wasn't! Praise Him for the fact that He will never abdicate His throne! He is God. He will always be God. He will always be the One in control. He does what He sees fit to do. What He sees fit to do is always for the best and is done out of love. And that truth applies to His handing-out of spiritual gifts, too. He decides who gets what gift, and He does it for some good purpose (or many good purposes).

If speaking in tongues is the universal sign that a person has received the Holy Spirit or has been baptized in the Spirit (which are the same things, biblically-speaking, as far as I can tell), then Paul would not have made the statements he did in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 12:30 and 1 Corinthians 14:5 tell us plainly that not all the Corinthian Christians spoke in tongues. Yet Paul clearly believed that all the Corinthian Christians had received and were baptized and indwelt by the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:1-7, 13).

From last chapter, I think we can see that speaking in tongues was perhaps a sort of signature gift of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit in the early church, but plainly, that signature gift was not given to everyone. Some may wish to argue that, "Maybe some of the Corinthian Christians hadn't been given the gift of tongues, but they'd been given the sign of tongues when they received the Holy Spirit." But that argument would be purely and simply reading into the passage. We're not told anywhere in Scripture that all Spirit-baptized or Spirit-filled Christians will, at some point in their lives, speak in tongues. Again, it's seeking to interpret Scripture based on experience. And that is backward thinking.

So I believe we can see Scripturally that not everyone will receive the gift of tongues, and God has it planned that way.

If it's true, as I stated earlier, that God always hands out (or withholds) the gifts He hands out (or withholds) for some good purpose (or many good purposes), what can be learned about His reasons for handing out the gift of tongues to those to whom He sees fit to hand it out?

Going back to Hebrews 2:3-4, there's another interesting point from this passage I'd like us to notice: Why did God grant signs and wonders (according to His own will)? What's one reason, according to this passage? God used signs and wonders (with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit) to bear witness. To confirm to any who heard the message of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, as spoken by the original eyewitnesses, that the message those eyewitnesses spoke was indeed the truth. Again, these miraculous signs and gifts were convincers to those who needed convincing.

We can see the purpose of the sign or gift of tongues as a convincer to the unconvinced in 1 Corinthians 14:22a. where Paul says plainly, "Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers…" (italics, mine). Tongues were part of the signs and wonders God did to remove all excuse. God gives us reasons to believe Him and to believe the truth.

It seems to me that, while God may ask for leaps of reckless faith from those who are already convinced and who are already His own, He gives those who need convincing all the convincers they need. He doesn't ask anyone to swallow gullibly everything anyone ever says in His name.

Many people equate faith with gullibility, but I believe that, while God requires faith of us, He's not excited about gullibility. What happens to the gullible believer the first time any ol' false teacher crosses paths with him or her? I believe God wants us to know a few good reasons why we believe what we believe, to be grounded in our faith and His Word, and then to stand our ground.

And according to Hebrews 2:3-4 one of the reasons He granted miracles, signs, and wonders was to give people good reasons to believe (and to do away with any excuse for those who wouldn't believe).

I've been convinced that God gives us all the evidence we need to believe Him beyond any reasonable doubt. But it's only faith that will carry us past all those unreasonable doubts. Only faith will address the real issue behind unbelief — sin. Ultimately, unbelief is a moral issue. It comes down to that decision of the will — or of the "want." We believe what we want to believe. And that's where faith comes in. It's the will (or the choice) to believe God.

Here we need to talk a little more about what biblical faith is because it's going to be an important point in understanding everything else I have to say in this chapter.

Faith is always about its object, and it must have the right object in order to be biblical faith.

Faith can have all kinds of objects. In order to get somewhere when I'm supposed to be there, I exercise faith in an alarm clock to wake me up on time. I exercise faith in the car to start like it's supposed to. I exercise faith in the other motorists to obey the rules of the road (otherwise I wouldn't take a car on the road at all). But the faith is only as good as its object, and those kinds of objects frequently disappoint.

In speaking about biblical faith, that right object is always and only God. Then, faith can never disappoint because God never disappoints those who trust in Him. That doesn't mean He doesn't disappoint us by always doing what we want Him to do, but if faith means trusting Him — letting Him do what He wants to do — then, faith never disappoints.

Biblical faith is not self-hypnosis or autosuggestion — me, by my own sheer willpower, trying to drum up faith in anything I happen to want to be true. Biblical faith is simply that admission of who is really God — the One in control — and a willing turning of oneself over to His control. Or in other words, biblical faith is letting God be God and letting Him be the God of me, too.

Of course, on the one hand, the phrase "letting God be God" is a little like the ant saying to the elephant that it's willing to let the elephant be an elephant. I mean, of course, that He is God whether we let Him be God or not. But because He created us with the ability to choose Him or not, there is a very real sense in which I must decide if I'm going to let Him be the God of me — if I'm willing to turn the controls of me over to Him.

If, whenever we see the concepts of faith or belief in the Bible, we begin to view those concepts with an understanding of God as the One in control, both of the universe and of me, then I think we'll be on the right track. Here's a very simple formula, and I believe it's a true one: Faith=Dependence on God.

In this area of spiritual gifts, I see two equal and opposite errors, two ditches on either side of the right path of biblical faith, that are very easy to stray into. I believe both ditches are a result of seeking to interpret Scripture through experience, but on a deeper level, both ditches are the result of a weakening of the truth that God is God.

A person may stand up in a pulpit Sunday after Sunday and preach persuasively on the sovereignty of God, a person may even be a staunch Calvinist and accept all five points of the tulip (never mind about the five points and the tulip if you're wondering what on earth tulips have to do with anything), but if a person unwittingly strays into one of these two ditches (as I often do myself), it tells me that there's a bit of a disconnect between the mouth and the mind. Or the mouth and the heart.

In the one ditch are those trying to tell God what He has to do.

Any doctrines or movements that proclaim or imply that we ever get to tell God what to do are going to be causing us to lean in the wrong direction and will inevitably pull us off the right path. Unless there's a promise from Scripture He's made us that we can claim, we simply do not get to tell Him what to do. Even if we're claiming promises, we're not telling Him what to do. Just resting in the fact of what He is going to do because He said He would.

We do have to look carefully at every promise we feel we can claim. Not every promise in Scripture was given to everyone. While there may be applications of every promise for everyone, not every promise will apply equally and in the same way to everyone.

God told Joshua and the Israelites in Joshua 1:3, "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you ..." It would not be a good idea for me to wrench Joshua 1:3 out of context and claim it for my own. Just because I've trespassed on my neighbour's property, it doesn't mean God is in the process of signing over the deeds to me. However, when God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous because the Lord His God is with Him wherever he goes (Josh. 1:9), we know this is a promise we can claim. And we know it because Jesus told His disciples that He was with them always, "...even to the end of the age." (Matt. 28:20). So we're included in that promise, seeing "the end of the age" hasn't yet arrived.

I have never found any passage of Scripture where God promises to give every believer any particular spiritual gift or any particular sign and wonder they would like to see, and that goes for the gift of tongues, too.

There are gifts that He wants to everyone to have; gifts like salvation, His Holy Spirit, wisdom, the provision of our daily needs (though the condition in all of the above is faith). These are the kinds of gifts that we are promised can be had just for the asking and the believing and the seeking first of His kingdom (Rom. 10:13, Luke 11:13, James 1:5, Matt. 6:33). But the entire gamut of spiritual gifts are not gifts that God wants every believer to possess any more than He wants every part of the body to see or every part of the body to smell or hear, taste, digest, etc.

He is the God of relationship. In fact, He is all-relational. He is love (1 John 4:8). He gave every one of His creatures dependencies for a very strategic reason. He wants us to need. Why? Because He strives to make us all-relational as He is. We need to need Him and rely on Him, first and foremost, but it's certainly not a case of, "Just You and me against the world, Lord!" No, He wants us to need each other, as well. He put us into a body on purpose.

From our own bodies, we can see how His design works. We see that every part needs every other part, and every part has a different function. There is no redundancy. So don't expect that we're going to receive all the same gifts or do all the same jobs. Not His design!

Can we ask Him for gifts that we would like? I think we can. 1 Corinthians 14:1 tells us to, "Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy." I think we're allowed to ask Him for anything...realizing that our requests are just that — requests. Then, we must remember that only those requests that are in His name or in His will for the building-up of the body receive a "yes" answer.

Let's not get wrapped up in the gifts. Let's get wrapped up in the Giver. The first and best Gift He gives us is the Gift of Himself. We can't go too far wrong if we make Him our first priority.

Now, let's pick on the other ditch for awhile. In the first ditch are those trying to tell God what He has to do (believing the gift of tongues should be for every believer). In the second ditch are those trying to tell God what He's not allowed to do. Again, this is simply not our prerogative. Unless He Himself tells us in His Word what He's not going to do or what He will never do, we simply do not get to make His decisions for Him.

We can rest in the fact that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb. 6:18). It is impossible for God to change (James 1:17). It is impossible for God to sin or tempt someone to sin or be tempted to sin (James 1:13). And we can also rest in the fact that He will never leave nor forsake His people (Heb. 13:5). But beyond those kinds of things, I'm not sure that there are very many things from His Word that He has committed Himself to never, ever doing. Or never, ever doing again. And I certainly don't find any Scriptural basis for saying that He simply will not do miracles or work healings or grant certain spectacular gifts of the Spirit (such as the gift of tongues or the gift of prophecy) just because we don't think He should and it really doesn't fit in with the programs we have planned for Him or the boxes we've built for Him. This is just, plain bad theology. It is bad theology to pick any particular gift of the Spirit and say that God has absolutely stopped granting that gift in our day and age.

It is true that both sides have Scriptures they like to turn to for support. In the last two chapters, we examined the Scriptures claimed by the side which believes everyone should speak in tongues as a sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We won't re-trample previously-trampled ground this chapter. Here, I'll only reiterate that none of those passages teach us that the sign or gift of tongues is for every believer.

Instead, this chapter, let's look at one or two of the Scriptures that are used to lend support to the idea that God has stopped causing people to speak supernaturally in unlearned languages. Or perhaps has stopped doing anything visibly supernatural at all.

First and foremost is 1 Corinthians 13:8-10. "Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away."

The thinking behind using this passage to say that God has done away with the spiritual gifts of tongues and prophecy is to equate "the perfect" Paul is speaking of in verse ten with the completed canon of Scripture. Now that we have the full, written Word from Genesis to Revelation, there is no more need for tongues or prophecy (so some would tell us).

I certainly hope that our present state of things is not "the perfect" that Paul was speaking of in 1 Corinthians 13:10. If so, we're all in a lot of trouble.

Keep reading to verse twelve. "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known."

The "perfect" of verse ten, seen in context, is plainly the "face to face" of verse twelve. The "knowing in part" of verse nine and ten is plainly the "knowing in part" of verse twelve which is contrasted with "...then I shall know even as I am fully known..." in the same verse. The best sense of this passage is that tongues and prophecy (and also our imperfect, head-only knowledge) will all be replaced with perfection when we're in the presence of Perfection. No one will need to speak in tongues or prophesy when we're with the Lord forever. We'll have no trouble communicating with each other. There will be no language barriers. And no one will need to pass on messages in the form of prophecy from God to anyone else. We'll all be face-to-face with Him.

Those who want to say that tongues and prophecies have ceased for this day and age would, by the same token, be forced to say that knowledge has also vanished away.

I've also heard the argument that because Ephesians 4:11 lists apostleship as a spiritual gift, and we would all have to agree that the original apostles are long gone, therefore, we are justified to pick and choose which other gifts have been done away with. But why stop with tongues and prophecies and healings and miracles and the like? Why not decide that evangelism, preaching, teaching, and serving have all been done away with? That would make life a great deal easier, wouldn't it? None of us would need to do anything at all.

It's true that we do often see the spectacular, supernatural gifts attached to the gift of apostleship. But surely, we also see the more seemingly-mundane gifts attached to the gift of apostleship. And 1 Corinthians let's us know that it wasn't only the apostles who saw some of the visibly supernatural giftings. The Corinthian Christians had also received some supernatural gifts of the Spirit.

I've also heard the Corinthian Christians' possession of these gifts used as an argument for saying that God doesn't grant tongues and prophecies and signs and wonders today — at least not to churches who have their heads on straight. After all, the Corinthian church was such a mess! Were these "signs and wonders" gifts a mark of God's approval? Were they an indication that the Corinthians had it all together? Surely not!

Right! I agree! But what were they, then? A form of punishment? I've heard teachings that are so anti-tongues that this is the implication. Would God punish people by giving them particular spiritual gifts? Especially the ones we've all admitted the apostles possessed?

Paul never scolds the Corinthians for having and using their "signs and wonders" gifts, and everything he says about these gifts in 1 Corinthians presupposes that these carnal Christians were exercising true gifts — just exercising them wrongly. He never states or even implies that these were perhaps counterfeit gifts.

But then he approaches the Corinthians from the standpoint that they are indeed saints. Called-out ones. Set-apart ones. Ones indwelt by the Spirit of God. Apparently, being a saint is no guarantee of having it all together. Saints may sometimes be quite messy. And even messy saints will be given spiritual gifts. Sometimes these gifts may be of the spectacular variety. We see in all areas of life that God does not restrict His gifts to those who will use them properly (praise Him for that or what gifts would we ever be given?)

As far as I've been able to tell there is no clear teaching from Scripture that God has, at the present time, done away with any particular spiritual gift. Again, this is seeking to interpret Scripture through experience rather than vice versa.

I admit, if all we had to base our doctrine on was my experience alone, we would arrive at the conclusion that God doesn't hand out the gifts of tongues and prophecies (or gifts of healing, miracles, etc.). If all we had to base our doctrine on was the experience of the vast majority of people who attend the church I attend, we would arrive at the same conclusion. If all we had to base our doctrine on was the experience of the vast majority of the Christian church for years and years of her history, we would probably end up deciding that God, for whatever reason He saw fit, did away with signs and wonders generally and tongues and prophecies specifically.

For centuries of church history, even in the histories of people that God used greatly, like Martin Luther and the reformers; John Wesley and the revivalists; D. L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, and other evangelists; William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, and other missionaries, we hear nothing (or nothing of which I'm aware) of any kind of tongues-speaking experiences (other than the foreign tongues they learned through plain, hard work).

But all these experiences are still experiences. And experiences are not all we have to base our doctrines on. Again, let's seek to interpret experience through the lens of Scripture.

So, Scripturally, why would tongues, etc. have disappeared from off of the church-history stage for centuries?

There would be biblical support for saying that God adjusts His dealings with us according to our faith. Mark 6:5-6 tells us that Jesus, in His own country, "...could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief ..."

Why would unbelief cause a famine of "mighty works"? Maybe because, in an environment of widespread unbelief, no one asks for any mighty works. Even, no one wants to see mighty works. And God believes in giving us choices.

But yet, am I going to stand up and say that men like Martin Luther, John Wesley, D. L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon (fill in any names you like) weren't men of faith? Weren't men filled with the Spirit? Weren't men used by God? That they had somehow missed out on all God had for them through unbelief? If you want to be so bold, you go ahead. I'll pass, thank you. The people I've listed certainly did see mighty works of God. Speaking in tongues just didn't happen to be one of them.

Why are there so many who haven't experienced any "signs and wonders" and so have come to the conclusion that God has stopped granting them? On the other hand, why have other people experienced them and so have decided that God wants to give them to everyone? Are there Scriptural answers?

I believe the Scriptural answer to these questions is the one we'll always end up coming back to: "According to His own will ..." Why haven't many Christians experienced "signs and wonders"? Because God hasn't seen fit to show everyone His signs and wonders. Could that be because of unbelief or lack of desire? Yes, it certainly could. On the other hand, there are probably other reasons that aren't revealed to us.

He decides who gets what gift for reasons of His own, and He doesn't have to tell us what those reasons are. If the sign gifts disappeared from church history for centuries, then it was because He wasn't handing out sign gifts at that time for reasons of His own. And if He's begun handing them out again in this day and age, that's up to Him, too.

Now, my second question: "Why have other people experienced the signs and wonders, and so, some have decided that everyone should experience them?"

To answer the first part, "Why have some people experienced signs and wonders?" "According to His own will ..." To answer the second part, why have some decided that everyone should experience them, well, you'd have to ask them. But there are a few observations I've made that I'd like to discuss as we move into our next chapter.

~ 9~

Objective Meets Subjective, Part II

Maybe one reason some people believe everyone should speak in tongues is because they believe, from Acts, that granting the gift or sign of speaking in tongues was normal operating procedure for God's Spirit when He came upon people in power.

But we're never told outright that giving the gift of tongues when He falls upon people is the Spirit's normal operating procedure. And (I repeat. Over and over, it seems) where we're not told a thing outright in Scripture, we'd do better to stay away from making hard and fast doctrines.

One more observation: I believe that some think everyone should speak in tongues because it's been their experience, it's been a wonderful experience for them, and they'd like everyone to have their particular wonderful experience.

On the other hand, I believe that some think everyone should speak in tongues, even though they themselves have never experienced speaking in tongues (though they think they have)! But whatever it is that they've experienced has been a wonderful experience for them, and they think everyone should have their wonderful experience.

Huh? What does that mean? What am I saying? I'm saying that I'm pretty sure God still gives people the ability to speak in unlearned languages in this day and age. I'm also pretty sure that God doesn't give people that ability quite as often as some imagine He does. Or to all the people who imagine He's given it to them.

Though I've never witnessed it, I've heard quite a lot of present-day, anecdotal evidence for the true gift of tongues. I've heard or read numerous stories of those who have spoken in an unlearned human language. These languages were recognizable human languages, and this was made evident by the fact that observers, who already spoke these languages, interpreted what was being said. And all that was being spoken was in praise of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What does a person do with this kind of anecdotal evidence if that person believes that God has simply done away with the gift of tongues for our day and age? Either he's forced to call the person relating the anecdotal evidence a liar. Or he takes the path of saying that demons can speak in tongues, too.

The only time I would have reason to call anyone a liar or under the influence of demons is because he or she is saying something contradictory to God's Word. But, as stated, I've never found any good Scriptural evidence for believing that God has done away with any of the sign gifts. So I simply accept these anecdotes as evidence that God does still choose to grant the gift of tongues to other believers at times. Even if He hasn't seen fit to grant it to me. (Imagine that!)

Where I do believe we have a case of people saying something that is contradictory to God's Word is where people tell me that in order to be baptized in the Spirit, every Christian needs to have hands laid on them and pray for the Spirit to fall on them, and then they should try to speak in tongues as evidence that this has happened. From Scripture, I don't believe this was normal operating procedure at all (as already discussed).

So what do I do with all the experiences of those (and there are very many) who claim that there was something lacking in their Christian life until they had this experience, if this practice is not what is taught in Scripture?

Let's go back to a statement I made earlier: "On the other hand, I believe that some think everyone should speak in tongues, even though they themselves have never experienced speaking in tongues (though they think they have)! But whatever it is that they've experienced has been a wonderful experience for them, and they think everyone should have their wonderful experience."

As I hope I've made clear, I certainly believe that God can and does still grant the gift of tongues today. On the other hand, I don't believe He grants it to everyone.

I'd like to look closer at the second type of evidence — the personal experience kind. Whose experiences will we be looking at in particular? Well, mine. But as I've told you, I've never spoken in tongues! Why would we be looking at my experiences?

It's true I've never "spoken in tongues." But I can still remember, when I was little, how easy and fun it was to make up one's own "language." I remember doing almost exactly what I've heard recommended by those who believe everyone needs to speak in tongues — priming the pump, so to speak. "Open your mouth, just begin to speak anything, even if you're repeating the same syllables over and over, even if they sound like nonsense words, keep at it, and the Spirit will give you the gift of tongues."

Is everything that passes for "the gift of tongues" really the gift of tongues? I don't believe so. I don't believe that a lot of what passes for a work of the Spirit is really a work of the Spirit. I also have a very hard time believing that quaking, shaking, rolling around on the ground, falling over backwards for no apparent reason, uncontrollable giggling in church, barking like dogs, roaring like lions (or any other animal sounds), and any other weird and wonderful behaviours that come into vogue in various Christian cultures are really the Spirit at work. I admit they may be an enormous release of pent-up emotion, and they may be a whole lot of fun. As a kid (and an adult), I've also experienced uncontrollable giggling in church (I don't think I've ever barked like a dog or roared like a lion, but I've snorted like a pig. It accompanied the giggling, so it must have been a "work of the Spirit"). It was a whole lot of fun, but I was never very tempted to think that it was the result of supernatural forces at work.

If the pump needs primed, maybe it's dry. Maybe it's not the Spirit at all. I'm not sure the Spirit ever needs His pump primed. I'm not sure He ever needs our help in bestowing any particular gift on us. We have to cooperate with Him. He can be quenched. And gifts need to be exercised. They need to be used. But just waiting to see what He wants to do rather than trying to force some kind of an experience that someone is telling us we should have doesn't seem to me to be exactly "quenching" Him.

I don't think spiritual gifts need to be forced at all. I think we should be careful to be sure that it really is God's power at work, not our own brains playing tricks on us because we're so desperate for experience.

He is the God of order. Not the author of confusion. He does things for a reason.

The reasons I'm skeptical that all the wild and woolly behaviours that go on within church walls these days are works of the Spirit are three-fold. 1) Because they're never mentioned in Scripture and don't seem to be very consistent with the work of the Spirit in Scripture and the form and function of spiritual gifts or signs in Scripture, 2) because those involved in them seem to me to be seeking experiences over and above simply seeking God (and those seeking experiences seem to prefer them the weirder the better) and 3) because of my own experiences with being human.

As to reason number one, what was the form and function of spiritual gifts from Scripture? In the area of speaking in tongues, biblically, how was this gift to be exercised publicly? From 1 Corinthians 14, we are told that speaking in tongues should not be forbidden in public worship but that all things should be done decently and in order. God is not the author of confusion. So those with the gift of tongues were to restrict themselves to speaking in tongues only if there was someone on the spot who could interpret what they were saying. They were only to speak in tongues one at a time, and only two or three at a single meeting were to exercise their gift. And everything that was done in public worship was to be done for the edifying or building-up of the body.

I've been in services where "tongues" were in evidence, and Paul's instructions from 1 Corinthians 14 were ignored. The result in my mind was exactly what Paul said it would be in 1 Corinthians 14:23. "Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?" I've wanted to bolt for the nearest exit.

God always does things for a reason (whether we can see the reason or not) and very often, He granted (and grants) signs and wonders as convincers to the unconvinced. 1 Corinthians 14:22 tells us this is one of the main roles of the gift of tongues. As a general rule, are unbelievers coming into meetings of Christians practising the weird, wild, wonderful, and woolly behaviours we talked about earlier going away convinced that God is at work? Or do they go away tapping their heads: "These Christians are crazy!" Does that glorify God? Do these "gifts" or manifestations serve to build up the church or bring in the unsaved? Ephesians 4:12 tells us the reasons for spiritual gifts. "...for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

As to reason number two, seeking experience over and above simply seeking God is a dangerous position to be in. It may lead Christians to expose themselves to power that does not come from God. At the very least, it may lead Christians to expose themselves to the influence of phenomena produced by their own subconscious.

As to reason number three, I know what it's like to be human. I may not have experienced all these manifestations that appear to be supernatural, but I have experienced how easy it is for our brains to play tricks on us. I can understand that a lot of what passes for spiritual gifting today may be nothing more than self-induced psychological phenomena, and that's because I have experienced some of these kinds of phenomena. I just wasn't tempted to think they were of supernatural origin.

My conclusion on the matter is that God can grant any kinds of gifts He chooses to grant. Yet He will not grant all gifts to all people, and we shouldn't expect that He will. Then, we must seek Him over and above His gifts.

Now, there's a subject I need to address still regarding the baptism of the Spirit.

Scripturally, what do we make of the experiences of those who've received some kind of genuine, extra "baptism" of the Spirit after salvation (evidenced by genuine signs or gifts) if this is not the Scriptural norm? Why has this "baptism" happened if those involved were already indwelt by the Holy Spirit and didn't need any other baptism? If it's not a baptism, what do we call this experience? Obviously, I can't answer dogmatically, but looking through the lens of Scripture, we may have some hints.

It seems to me that often those who are seeking an extra "baptism" of the Spirit or a second-blessing type of experience through a laying-on of hands are specifically seeking the gift of tongues or some other gift. While I've confessed that I believe some of the "tongues" being granted to people on these occasions are tricks of their own brains, I also believe that some of the tongues granted are a genuine gift of the Spirit. What would I call the experience of a true granting of the gift of tongues on these occasions if I take issue with the term "baptism of the Spirit" to describe it?

In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul writes to Timothy, "Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands."

1 Timothy 4:14 says, "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership."

Romans 1:10-11 is Paul writing the church in Rome, saying, "making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established."

What was it about Paul's physical presence that was necessary for the imparting of "some spiritual gift" to the Roman church? Could it have been the laying on of hands?

When we see from 1 Corinthians 14:1 that the Corinthians were commanded to..."Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy," and again in 1 Corinthians 14:39 admonished to, "...desire earnestly to prophesy*, and do not forbid to speak with tongues," from these passages, it looks to me as though we are allowed to desire and to ask God for the gifts that we would like to receive from Him — remembering that these are only requests.

There's a great deal I don't understand about the "laying-on of hands," but from Paul's words to Timothy and to the Romans, it does look to me as though sometimes certain spiritual gifts are imparted by God through an intentional laying-on of hands when those involved sense that God has some certain gift to grant to some certain person (see again 1 Timothy 4:14).

God often works out His desires for us by first planting specific desires and dreams in our hearts. Though we're all given spiritual gifts, whether we recognize them or not, perhaps God, on occasion, waits until we ask Him for certain gifts to grant them to us.

From remembering my childhood Christmases, I can attest to the fact that we tend to value more highly and use more intentionally the gifts we long for. (I'll confess to you here that I long for the gift of a supernatural empowerment for evangelism — to see people getting saved. I can only imagine the excitement of being in on the reaping! Maybe someday! Maybe it's my desire because it's God's desire for me, too.)

We're only given vague hints in Scripture about this granting of specific, sought-for spiritual gifts. But perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to the laying-on-of-hands experiences that many people have undergone and have received some spiritual gift through as "gift-givings" or "gift-bestowings" rather than as "baptisms" or even "fillings." (We'll look at my ideas on the "filling" of the Holy Spirit in Chapter Eleven.)

All this discussion may seem like splitting hairs. Isn't it all "disputing about words"? After all, what difference does it make what we call an experience? It hasn't changed the experience. "A rose by any other name ..." and all that.

The importance of terminology can be seen when we realize that words are all we have to use to communicate. What I call a rose, you may choose to call a skunk cabbage. Then, you may not understand my astonishment when you tell me how sweet skunk cabbages smell. After all, it's only a matter of terminology, isn't it? It hasn't changed the experience of smelling the flower that I call a rose which you refer to as a skunk cabbage.

Terminologies may not change our experiences, but they can certainly change another's perceptions of our experiences when we try to communicate our experiences to another party. For that reason, I think the terminology we use in this case has importance. When a "tongues" experience happens through a laying-on of hands and is called a baptism or a filling, then when baptism by the Spirit and filling of the Spirit (also two different events as far as I've seen from Scripture) are seen Scripturally as experiences all believers have experienced or can experience or should experience, you can see where the doctrine comes from (an unbiblical doctrine, I believe) that all Christians should speak in tongues.

No, all Christians do not need to speak in tongues. But we are allowed to ask God for the gifts we'd like Him to give us. As long as we're seeking Him over and above any of His gifts, we're allowed to desire particular gifts. As long as we're seeking Him over and above His gifts, perhaps we can even seek a laying-on-of-hands out of desire for a particular gift.

At least, that is my position as I attempt to interpret experience through Scripture. But now, I'd like to give you the main point for this chapter: my position on this question and your position on this question don't matter ultimately. Ultimately, God will do what He sees fit to do in this area. Why are we wasting time arguing about it?

As I was working on this chapter, I ran across two different booklets, both entitled something along the lines of Tongues, Prophecies, Healings, and other Miracles. (I won't give you the exact titles or the author's names as I'm not recommending either booklet or planning on saying anything very complimentary about either.) They were both written (in my view) from ditches — from opposite ditches. One of the booklets even engaged in a little mud-slinging at those in the other ditch, making comments along the lines of, "Sure, there are probably true believers in the charismatic movement. Because there are true believers there, I long to see them freed from that kind of bondage."

I came away from reading those booklets confused and discouraged. Why was I even bothering to write on the subject? What made me think I knew any better than anyone else? Sure, I imagine myself to be standing in the middle of the right path, not off in one of the ditches, but so did both of the authors of those booklets. Everyone is just as convinced as they can be that they are "rightly dividing the Word of truth" and that the guys in the other camp have it all wrong.

How can we all be so sincere in our efforts to understand God's Word and come away from it with such differing views on what it says on certain topics?

In my confusion, I cried out for wisdom. I was reminded that "...the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy" (James 3:17, italics mine).

The wisdom that comes from God is willing to give in? To admit it might be wrong? How can that be? How can God-given wisdom be wrong? The only answer I can see is that, while God promises His wisdom to those who ask, He doesn't unload it on us from a cosmic dump truck in the skies. He gives us what we need for now. We're told to ask for our daily bread. Not for all the bread we need to last us the rest of our lives. Maybe we need only to ask for our daily wisdom, as well. We can all have access to all the wisdom we need any time we need it.

Let's not forget that we are ever only going to be human. We will always have His wisdom mixed in with a little of our own thinking.

In that case, how could we trust anything we think we might happen to be hearing from God? After all, even the infallible Word of God must be filtered through our fallible minds. It says what it says, but we have to take what it says and apply it to our lives if it's to do us any good. In that application process, there is a lot of room for error. How can we know the difference between God's wisdom that He's sharing with us and our own thinking?

James gives us the litmus test. Is the wisdom pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy? If it's not, even if we're right about whatever the particular issue is that we're arguing for or against, then it's not "wisdom" that comes from God.

After reading the two ditch booklets I won't recommend, I stumbled across another little book called, Let's Quit Fighting about the Holy Spirit.* * This one I am willing to recommend. Even if all you read is the title.

That title is the direction that I ended up realizing this chapter needs to take. Let's quit fighting about the Holy Spirit.

I admit it. Diversity is not an easy thing. In fact, diversity makes me mad sometimes. And I don't mean just doctrinal issues where there are actual rights and wrongs. I mean, diversity that is just diversity. Diversity is not a comfortable thing. But God loves diversity. If you doubt it, look at the world He created. And He designed the unity of His people to come about not in spite of diversity but through it.

How can that work? Look down! You're attached to a living, breathing, walking, talking example.

The reality is, as Christ's body, we do have unity (whether we like it or not!) We are one body. Unity is not something we need to pray desperately for. We have it! We just need to live it out. (We still need to pray that we would live it out.) That one body is often not a very healthy body because of all the in-fighting — sadly, often over the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of unity.

But don't we need to stand firm on truth? Isn't truth something worth fighting for? It depends on the truth in question. Is it worth fighting over who won the World Series in '96? Or which pitcher started? Or who was on first? Probably not. Truth is always truth, but some truths aren't worth fighting over. Especially when you can't be entirely sure you know the truth.

What about all those false teachers that the Apostles Peter and Paul and John had such hard words for? Shouldn't we be concerned about dangerous heresies creeping into the church?

What were those false teachers teaching? As far as I can tell, they were teaching heresies regarding the gospel — what a person has to do to be saved or who Jesus is. In fact, the false teachers were wolves in sheep's clothing. They weren't among Christ's sheep at all. They were teachers claiming to be disciples of Christ, but they followed a different Christ or a different gospel.

True, Paul takes the Corinthians to task for their improper displays of spiritual gifts in their worship services, but he never implies that they're not fellow believers or that he couldn't fellowship with them until they got their act together.

I'm not saying we can't ever disagree on the Holy Spirit and how He functions. If we believe there's unscriptural doctrine or practice happening in the life of a brother or sister, we can, in a spirit of gentleness, try to help the brother or sister get out of the ditch. But if it's not a salvation issue, always keep in mind that the brother or sister is a brother or a sister. Do we give up on or stop communicating or meeting with our natural brothers or sisters whenever a difference of viewpoint arises? I hope not!

I've shared my views on speaking in tongues and the baptism of the Spirit and the experiences people have. Yet I don't know that I have the truth on this topic. It would be foolish for me to fight over it. I don't believe I can see from Scripture, in any kind of indisputable way, my views on speaking in tongues. The one thing I can see indisputably from Scripture is that I am called to love all my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Although for my own personal peace of mind and walk with God, I think I needed some clarity in these areas — I needed to hear from God and know that I was indeed His child, that I did indeed have His Spirit living in me — I'm not primarily worried about convincing anyone else they have to see things my way. Good thing because that's not my job.

It's the Spirit's job to lead us all into truth (and He'll be faithful to do that with me, too, where my doctrine is off-centre). I sense that there are parts of the whole picture I'm missing. I sense there is truth God has yet to teach me on these issues. I sense that there are still works He wants to do in my life in this area. I don't think I've arrived. So I can admit that someone else may know something I don't when it comes to talking about the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. But I've also arrived at a place of peace to know that it really is God's work, and He'll be faithful to do it.

And those are the main points I wanted to make this chapter: It's God's work, and He'll do it. So what are we fighting about?

* “...desire earnestly to prophesy...” Paul wrote, and today, many are following his instructions. I've said little about the gift of prophecy in these chapters and much about the gift of tongues as the gift of tongues was the focus of the charismatic movement for many years. It seems to me that there has been a shift in recent years toward an emphasis on prophecy over and above tongues. In that case, perhaps a note needs to be added on the subject.

In a general sense, prophecy is any message from God given to be passed on to someone else. In that sense, all Christians are to be prophets. Yes, He is the God who speaks. To all of us. And we are all given messages to pass on to others. At least the message of salvation. The gift of prophecy, however, seems to be a gift where the message from God is given in no uncertain terms. In the Old Testament, messages were often delivered audibly or through visions.

Of all spiritual gifts practised today, perhaps this is the one that lends itself most easily to self-deception. When I've been in situations where modern-day prophecies were being declared, I've often had the feeling that the “prophets” speaking were no better at hearing from God than I am. I believe I hear from God. The problem is that I hear from my own mind as well, and I have a hard time distinguishing between the two voices.

I've heard “prophecies” spoken where I've sensed such a desperation on the part of the prophet to hear something, anything, from God that the “prophet” speaks whatever comes into his or her mind, assuming it must be from God.

We are to “desire earnestly” to hear from God in order to pass on His message. But how I wish that today's “prophets” would seek the Giver above the gift, that they would keep silent when God is silent, and that any “prophet” speaking only from an inner prompting, even an urgent one, would preface the “prophecy” with a disclaimer, something like, “I'm not sure if this is coming from God or just from me, but here's what I think He might be telling me to say...” In short, I wish that only those who are given the genuine gift of prophecy and hear from God in some kind of unmistakable way would bother to call their utterances “prophecies.” The rest of us will have to live with uncertainty in trying to learn to listen to God's voice.

* * Gilquist, Peter E., Let's Quit Fighting about the Holy Spirit. (Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 1974)

~ 10~

Is God Angry?

For one period of my life, from the ages of about sixteen to twenty, I entered a time of prolonged spiritual struggle.

As I've mentioned, I grew up in the church, and I was saved when I was very young. But when I was about sixteen, I began doing a lot of questioning. I didn't question if God existed. I knew He did. I'd already done all the questioning I needed to do on that front to realize that there were no satisfactory explanations for anything outside of God. My wrestlings were not even so much with the issue of whether the Bible is true. I'd also wrestled that one through. It was a relatively easy one. I'd realized there were no satisfactory explanations for that book outside of it being God's book.

What I questioned was me. I questioned us.

As I've described, the questions that plagued me were, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with us?" and, "Is God angry? With me? With us?"

Those years of questioning are the reason this book exists. As I've said, I can't claim to have found complete answers to all my questions on this problem of power in the Christian life (in my Christian life, at least), but there have been exciting discoveries along the way while looking for answers.

The most foundational discoveries I learned were the subjects of my first chapters that all the rest are built on. 1) I am, in fact, saved. I am "in Christ." Very foundational to everything else. Then, 2) Being "in Christ," He is also “in me.” I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And 3) God's got it all under control. He's even got me under control. Everything, even my life, is going according to His plan. I am in Christ, I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God is doing His perfect work in me. While I have a role in cooperating with Him, and He requires me to turn the controls of myself over to Him voluntarily, it is His work, and He'll do it.

In Chapter Three, I explained briefly a big part of the reason for my years of struggling and questioning — the anger of God as I saw it in the Bible. What brought about my years of doubt was me wondering if the church of today just might not be in the same position as those who were the recipients of God's anger in the Bible.

One of the most exciting discoveries I've made in all my journey of discovery is the subject of this chapter.

To make a long story short, the answer is, "No." God is not angry at us. God is not angry at me. The point of this chapter, to cut to the chase, is that we, as believers in Christ, are not in that position.

This may be "elementary, my dear Watson" to a lot of you, but I'm convinced that a great many Christians have not completely grasped this truth. When I see many, many Christians living under guilt and condemnation and a persistent fear of God's anger just as I did during my struggling years, I realize that what I have to share in this chapter may be helpful to some.

I think the first thing we need to have clear in a discussion on the anger of God is the difference between the Old and New Covenants.

Hebrews 8 addresses the topic of the difference between the two and says this: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second” (Heb. 8:7), and then chapter eight closes in this way: “In that He says, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:13).

In the intervening verses between verses seven and thirteen of chapter eight, the writer of Hebrews quotes from Jeremiah 31:31-34. Here are those words from Jeremiah 31:

“Behold the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Do you see the difference in positions? It's a difference that makes all the difference. And while these promises are to the house of Israel and Judah and may have another fulfillment in the works, the New Covenant, according to Hebrews, is the one we, as Christians, live under. Those promises are also for us.

What were Jesus' words on His final night before His death? "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you" (Luke 22:20b).

The blood of Jesus ushered in the New Covenant. Those of us who have entered into that covenant by believing in His perfect sacrifice for us are covered under the protection of that blood and are not subject to God's wrath against our sin anymore. We are made righteous by that sacrifice with the righteousness of Christ.

Also from the "Old Covenant," hear the words on the subject of the New Covenant given to another prophet, Isaiah.

Isaiah 54:7-10, “For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,” says the LORD, your Redeemer. “For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD who has mercy on you.

Wow! Did you catch that part at the end about the covenant of peace? And about God swearing that He would not ever be angry again with those included in that covenant? Those who are dwelling under the New Covenant, the covenant of peace, are not dwelling under the anger of God. Our sins are remembered no more. God's kindness shall not depart from us.

I know this is simply the message of salvation — our sins are wiped out and washed away by believing that the life, death, and resurrection of God, the Son, has performed that miracle on our behalf; we can enter into the New Covenant through the blood of Jesus — but how slow we are to get a good, firm grasp on the most basic Scriptural truths (how slow I am to grasp them, I mean)!

There is a huge difference in position between ourselves as the saved and the unsaved in the Old Testament (and the unsaved in the New) who found themselves on the receiving end of the anger of God. All the difference in the world.

The very religious people in the Old Testament and in the New who so often fell under God's anger were not dwellers of the New Covenant. They may have been religious, but it was an outward religion. It didn't go all the way to the heart.

The anger of God as seen throughout the Bible is an anger born of pain. Not only was (and is) God angry at sin because sin is a thing that always hurts those He loves and their pain hurts Him, too, His was (and is) the anger of rejected love. Nothing hurts like rejected love. And He madly loves those who reject Him, even while they provoke His anger.

But His anger has always been directed at the unrepentant. "The vilest offender who truly believes" and repents suddenly finds himself no longer living under the anger of God. This was the case even for those who lived before the time of the installation of the New Covenant. (Manasseh, certainly one of Judah's worst kings — one of the Old Covenant's “vilest offenders” — turned away God's anger by believing and repenting — II Chronicles 33. Think also of the striking example of the unimaginably violent and corrupt people of Assyria (so history tells us) in the city of Nineveh who repented at Jonah's preaching.)

Remember from Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8, the New Covenant is written on the hearts of those who have entered into it. That's one major difference between the Old Covenant and the New. Under the Old, the Abrahamic and the Mosaic, covenants, merely being born to certain parents in a certain nation and being circumcised (if you happened to be male) was entry into the Old Covenant. No personal choice involved. No inward state of the heart necessary. No repentance required.

But under the New Covenant, God's laws are written on hearts. It's all about inward states. No one enters the New Covenant except through personal choice.

God is not angry at the repentant, so God is not angry at the dwellers of the New Covenant because no one gets to enter into the New Covenant without repentance.

And it's the blood of Jesus that makes possible the cutting of covenants. Both for those who repented under the Old Covenant and those who repent into the New. It's only that blood that was (and is) able to purify truly.

But don't we occasionally see the anger of God directed toward those who are His very own people, even in the New Testament? Even toward those who are under the New Covenant?

What about Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11)? If it wasn't an act of anger to strike them both dead in an instant, what was it?

Or what about the strong words Paul uses toward the churches of Corinth and Galatia? Don't we see some anger there?

Hebrews 12:5-11 tells us,

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

By saying that the dwellers of the New Covenant no longer come under God's wrath and anger, I'm not saying that we no longer come under God's discipline. That would be in direct opposition to what Hebrews 12 has to tell us. However, what I am saying is that He doesn't discipline His own children, the dwellers of the New Covenant, out of anger. He disciplines them out of love. That's the only way I can fit together Isaiah 54 and Hebrews 12.

Those of us who had good parents can understand the absence of unhealthy fear that exists in good parent/child relationships in spite of the discipline that has to take place from time to time (even though those good parents certainly discipline out of anger occasionally!)

We may have feared the pain of the discipline; we may have feared facing our parents after we'd done something wrong. Yet there was no fear of a severance in the relationship. No matter what I'd done, knowing I was loved and knowing that my position as a much-loved child was never in jeopardy took away most of the sting from the discipline. (At least when it was all over.)

And knowing that God isn't angry at me, that His heart throbs with love for me, makes all the difference when I realize that I've blown it again and God is speaking to me on some particular painful subject or otherwise dealing with me in some painful way.

Even in cases like Ananias and Sapphira, where the discipline came sharply and suddenly — or in His stern statements to the churches of Corinth and Galatia — those involved in those disciplinary situations (if truly God's children) could have the unspeakable blessing of knowing that the discipline was being done out of love. Not anger. Even if the discipline took the form of dropping dead in one's tracks! For one of God's own children, dropping dead in one's tracks is nothing more than a quick, painless exit from this sin-diseased world and a rapid entrance into a perfect one in God's presence.

To fear God's anger no longer, even in the midst of discipline. What a huge and freeing thing it is!

Take a look at another assurance, also from the Old Testament, that those who are under the New Covenant are not under God's anger. This one flips that statement around to state positively that, not only is God not angry with us, He's pleased with us, those of us who are partakers of the New Covenant.

"The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy" (Psalm 147:11).

Fearing Him, here, is equated with hoping in His mercy. That's a vital first step those of us who have entered into the New Covenant have taken. We've all realized our own desperate need for His mercy, knowing what we deserve is not mercy. Yet He tells us that He takes pleasure in those who hope in His mercy. Not only is He not angry with them, even though they haven't deserved His mercy. He's pleased.

Want to know that you're pleasing God? Then, hope in His mercy.

I want to close this chapter with a story, one that happened to me just yesterday. It brought home for me in a very personal way how it is that God views all His children.

First of all, you need to know that I struggle with off-and-on depression and have for years. For me, just a small, rolling pebble can start an emotional landslide.

I've been on a bit of a landslide this year. We're only into the fourth month of this year, but it's been a long year already. The pebble that started rolling started rolling at the beginning of January.

The church I attend has been going through a four-month rough patch and is on the verge of a split. I won't go into a lot of detail. All you need to know is that it's been very hard on all of us who attend and possibly harder on me than on some others because I'm a gigantic wimp.

Yesterday, was Sunday. I attended the morning Sunday service at my church and came away hurting. And angry. Not just in general, but at someone in particular. At the very someone who, about half the church would say, was responsible for all the trouble in the first place. At someone who, admittedly, has not quite attained perfection yet. And, of course, I thought God should be angry at this person and all his faults as well. Doesn't He get angry at the things that hurt His children? And I was hurt.

Sunday afternoon, when I wasn't crying, I was writing in a journal, writing to God mostly.

After ranting and raving for some time about my “problem person” and realizing, of course, that the only option was to forgive; then, after some further ranting and raving about what a mess the world is and what a mess the body of Christ is and what a mess I am, I closed my journalling the only way I could: by crying out to God for deliverance.

Eventually, I stopped crying, ranting, and raving; calmed down; and got ready to go to the evening service.

In the Sunday evening service, one of the most godly young women I've ever known took the service to share about her recent, short-term mission trip. During her talk, she mentioned that she'd lived most of her Christian life under a false impression that was very familiar to me.

“I always had the feeling that God was disappointed in me,” she said before going on to tell us how she'd been freed from that false impression and how life-changing it was to realize who she was in Christ.

As I sat listening to her, I said to her (just in my head and heart), “Darlin', do you have any idea how precious you are to God? How precious you always were?” Knowing her as I do, I couldn't imagine a time that God was disappointed in that beautiful, radiant, generous, loving spirit He'd given her. But for so long, she'd been unable to see it. And I hadn't been able to help her see it (even though I'd taught her in Sunday School and Bible study). It had to be the Spirit's work in her life, and only His work, that helped her see it.

After the evening service, I sat up late talking to another beautiful, precious young lady, one very close to me, who had also been at the evening service. We talked about what we'd heard at the service and discussed Satan's deceptions and how good he is at making us believe his lies about the way God sees us. She said to me, “I can see how God feels about us when I look at other people like [the young lady we were discussing], but it is a hard thing to believe when I look at myself.”

And looking at her, all I could think was, “Darlin', do you have any idea how precious you are to God? I have some idea because I know how precious you are to me.”

Before I fell asleep, I did a little more reading in the book I'd picked up earlier, Philip Yancey's Prayer.* Reading the experiences of many dear ones who have lived with major, unanswered prayers for years and yet have gone on praying and seeking, even in the midst of doubt and disillusionment, who refused to let go of God entirely because they know there's just nothing else worth hanging onto, in my mind I could only say to them, “Do you have any idea how precious you are to God? Do you have any idea how precious it is to Him to see a faith that goes through fire and comes out the other side with that little nugget of true gold left?”

Philip Yancey, at one point, writes feelingly about doubt, about Job and his doubts, about himself and his own doubts, and I thought, “Job's faith was so precious to God not because he didn't doubt but because he did. But he hung on, anyway.” And I thought, “Philip, do you have any idea how precious you are to God?” (He might. I have a hunch he's experienced what I'm talking about this chapter.)

And then I finally heard Him. I heard that inaudible whisper saying to me, “My Beloved, do you know how precious you are to me? How precious your faith is to me?”

I remembered my long afternoon of lapsing back into depression and bad attitude and anger at my fellow Christian and my feelings of despondency, of wondering what's wrong with the body of Christ and where is God's work in the world. And I remembered what a mess I was.

“Do you know how precious it is to me when you go through the fire? Don't you know how precious it is to me when you cry out to me for help in the midst of your need and your messiness? Don't you know how precious you are to me, Beloved?” (Yes, I really think He said all that to me.)

And all I could do was whisper back, “Yeah, I think I do.”

I should! It's a lesson he's taught me often.

But He wasn't finished whispering.

Then, He whispered, “Don't you know how precious he is to me?” and by “he,” He meant the person I had been angry at earlier.

Gulp! Yeah, I guess I knew that, too.

And then I could see it. Then I could see how precious he is to God. In spite of his faults.

The two young women I told you about, they have faults, too. I know that. And it isn't exactly that I'm blind to their faults. But I don't see those faults because I'm not looking at them. Seeing through the eyes of love, all I can see is how precious they are. I can begin — just begin — to understand what God sees when He sees them.

I can even see it in my own case. Even though I can certainly see that I'm a mess, I can see that it is infinitely precious to Him when we call out to Him from the midst of our mess.

Yet when it came to my “problem person,” all I could see were faults. I was not looking at him through the eyes of love. But God was. And is.

And once He began to open my eyes, I began to see how precious he is to God, too.

It's because we imagine that God sees things the way we do that we wrestle with these fears of disappointing Him, of angering Him. Occasionally, we look at ourselves the way we look at others, and then we're horrified. That must be what God sees.

But that is not what God sees. God does not look at us the way we do.

And that is one of the beautiful things about having God live within us. He begins to make us able to look at ourselves and others the way He does. Even the ones we don't naturally see as precious because all we can see are their faults.

I bet that Ananias and Sapphira now understand how precious they are to Him. I bet the churches of Galatia and Corinth also have that much clearer vision. And I am also beginning to see all of those precious-yet-messy ones slightly differently. As well as seeing the words of chastening He spoke to them differently, too.

After my experience of yesterday, I had a different take on the chastening of Hebrews 12:5-11. How painful and yet how gentle God's chastening can be all at the same time!

Was my chastening of yesterday joyful? No, it was painful in the moment. And yet after I began to see the point of it and it began to yield “the peaceable fruit of righteousness,” after I began to see a little more through His eyes and heard Him whisper His words of immense love to me, was it worth it? It was so worth it!

I can trust God to do that same work in the life of those other precious-yet-in-need-of-refining ones that I was busy thinking about all day yesterday. He loves them too much not to do His refining work in their lives. He loves us too much not to draw the realities of what we are at present inch-by-gruelling-inch closer towards the real reality as He sees it of what we will one day be. He loves us too much to keep us from the pain of the fire.

Now, it's perfectly true that the faith-in-the-fire that He finds so precious is really His work. Isn't it a little like God loving Himself through us?

Well, considering that He made us and that all good things can only come from Him, I suppose that's one way to look at it.

But when we give back to Him what He gave us in the first place, in some mysterious way that I can't explain, it becomes really and truly our gift to give Him. It is precious to Him. And about the only thing we can give Him is our desperate plea for help. But that's what He's waiting to hear.

For the dwellers of the New Covenant, that is where every one of us have started. We've admitted that we need His help. And that is precious. We are precious to Him. Not in spite of our need but because of our need.

So let me ask you, and it is a life-impacting — no, a life-transforming — question:

“Do you know how precious you are to Him?”

*Yancey, Philip, Prayer. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006)

~ 11~

So What's Our Problem?

So my question remains: if God is not angry at us, if all of us who have trusted Him for salvation have the Holy Spirit – in fact, all have the baptism of the Holy Spirit – if there's no other special, extra work of the Spirit that any Christian is missing from his or her life necessary for "all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Pet. 1:3), then what's our problem? Why aren't we the church of the New Testament?

Why aren't we seeing the visible, obvious power so apparent in the lives of the early Christians (Acts 2:43)? Why aren't we seeing the love and unity apparent in the lives of the early Christians (Acts 2:44-47)? Why isn't our world of today being turned upside down through us as theirs was through them (Acts 17:6)?

I have news for you. We are the church of the New Testament. It's true, the church of today may not look quite like the church of Acts, but turn just a few pages past Acts to the book of 1 Corinthians. There we find all the disunity, dysfunction, sexual sin, church discipline issues, and tendency to excesses that plague the church today. Turn a few pages past 1 Corinthians to Galatians and notice that legalism had dried up the spiritual vitality of the Galatian church as it has in many churches today.

Just on the other side of Galatians is another letter written by Paul, addressed to the Christians in the city of Ephesus. The truths Paul wrote to them are so glorious we might be tempted to think that finally, we've met a church who had it all together. Surely, any church grounded in the glorious truths Paul shared with them (especially with Paul himself praying for them to be grounded in those truths — Eph. 3:14-21) would be immune to the “cooling effect” that the Corinthians and Galatians had succumbed to. That is, we might be tempted to think so until we turn to the last book in the Bible and read that the cooling effect also took its toll on the Ephesian church.

In fact, there is nothing new under the sun. We're normal.

I don't know what that fact does for you, but it gives me great encouragement. God didn't wash His hands of the Corinthians and the Galatians and the Ephesians. Jesus had some strong things to say to them through the writers of the New Testament, but He never implied that they'd run off the rails so badly they weren't God's-own-ones anymore. Paul still addresses the Corinthian Christians as "those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord..." (1 Cor. 1:2, italics mine). Those truths written to the Ephesian Christians (and to us) were just as gloriously true for them when the book of Revelation was written as they were when the letter of Ephesians was written.

So what's our problem? What was their problem? What is that cooling effect I've mentioned? For lack of a better term, let's call it the second law of thermodynamics. We live our lives in bodies of decaying flesh in a sin-ridden world where everything — everything in our natural realm — tends to run downhill. That's the law.

That's nature's law, thanks to the entrance of sin into our world. And Christians are also subject to natural law.

Even Paul said, "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" (Rom. 7:23-25).

There are those who feel that Paul in Romans 7 wasn't writing about his present reality but about his old, pre-Christ existence. All I know is that he writes in the present tense in Romans 7, and he writes about the realities that every Christian (at least, every Christian I've ever met) experiences. There are two very different people inside of me. And they are at war.

I've never met a Christian who claimed to have arrived. I've known (and still know) some immensely godly people, and every one of them freely admit that they still struggle with that "old man" they carry around with them because they walk around in a body of flesh and blood.

Life is a struggle against the second law which is the law of death. Life is a struggle against death. And the Christian life is a struggle against sin which equals death. That's just how it is and how it's going to be — until we're freed from the struggle against death by undergoing it (physical death, that is).

But in remembering Romans 7 and being encouraged to notice that we're normal and that even that mighty champion of the faith, Paul, was in our shoes, let's never forget that Romans 7 is followed by Romans 8:1-2. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."

And that Spirit is the Spirit of power, that same power spoken of in Ephesians 1:19-20: "and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places,"

As there is the powerful natural law of death at work in the world, so there is the law of the Spirit at work in those of us who believe. And that Spirit works contrary to the natural law of death. That Spirit is the power which can raise the dead.

If living the Christian life feels like a battleground going on inside of you, now you know why. That's exactly what living the Christian life is. Inside of us we see that there are two powerful forces at work and those two forces are trying to move us in opposite directions. The one is the flesh, and the flesh pulls us toward death. The other is the Spirit, and the Spirit gives life.

Now, there's no question which force is more powerful. And there's no question which force wins in the end (in the lives of all believers, at least). But there is the question of which force we're going to allow to rule us in this life.

The force of natural law — the flesh and sin and death — is no gentleman. That force doesn't wait for our permission to try to get control of us. But the Spirit — the force (and not just a force but a Person) of life and love and liberty — is a gentleman. He waits for our permission in order to take control of us (at least, as far as I can tell. Generally. 1 Samuel 19:18-24 records one rather amusing exception).

I find myself questioning Paul on many occasions, especially when he starts talking about the death of the “old man.”

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me,” Paul said in Galatians 2:20.

And I find myself asking, “What on earth does that mean? Why doesn't that seem to be my experience? If I, the old me, the flesh, has been crucified with Christ, why is it apparently so alive and well and active?” How could Paul write Romans 7 and Galatians 2:20 both? How can they both be true?

I don't know. I don't have solid answers to my questions on what it means to be crucified with Christ. Yet I can bear witness to the reality of Christ living in me. That much I see. I know I have been born again. I can attest to the fact that I became a new person some thirty-odd years ago when I trusted Jesus for my salvation. I've seen the evidence of the new life too plainly in my life for me to doubt it seriously. So why do I still see so much evidence of the old life in my life if that old life is dead and gone — crucified and buried?

The only conclusion I've come to is the latter half of Galatians 2:20: “... the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (italics, mine). Some things we have to take on faith. That my “old man” (woman) is dead, crucified with Christ, I must take on faith. I must “reckon” or count myself to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Rom. 6:11).

The fact I can reckon on is this: I have been crucified with Christ. And Christ lives in me.

Yet it also seems to me that while the “old man” is dead —dead and buried — he (or she) is not dead and gone! Yes, I have been crucified with Christ. Yes, the old me is dead. Yet as long as I'm in this body, I have that old, dead body of my sinful nature to carry around with me all my days on this earth. And it's amazing what a lot of trouble that old, dead guy can be when you have to carry him around with you!

I believe it's the reason Jesus informs us that in order to follow Him, in order to learn to be like Him, we must deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily (Luke 9:23).

Isn't that interesting? Paul tells us that we've been crucified with Christ, and we have been. There was a particular time, a particular day, when that crucifixion was a fait accompli for me. And for you (if you're a believer). And yet Jesus tells us that we must be crucified daily. There's another sense in which the reality of the fait accompli must be enacted again and again every day for the rest of my life in order for me to follow Jesus, to go where He led, to be made into His image, and to become more and more like Him. Like I say, that old, dead body can cause a lot of mischief for something so dead. He needs to be reminded daily that he's dead. And every day, that reminder feels like a little death. Every day, choosing God's way over my way — denying myself — just, plain smarts! It's pain! There's no easy way to be crucified.

But the only way to be free from the law of sin and death is by undergoing death — on one important occasion when I was crucified with Christ, daily as I live out the reality of what happened on that occasion, and finally and completely when I undergo physical death.

I've said that there's no other special, extra work of the Spirit that any Christian is missing from his or her life necessary for "all things that pertain to life and godliness," and I believe it. The Spirit has done His part in each of our lives for those who believe. I don't mean to say He's finished with us. But the work that He does in us is to continue the work He's already done — to grow up the new life He's given us, to conform us to Christ's image through His death. The work He's done He's still in the process of doing. His work is a continuing work. But He's done and continues to do His part.

So what are we missing? What's our problem? If the Holy Spirit has already done His part and He did the same work in us (and continues to do that work) that He did in the lives of the early believers in Acts, why don't we look like the church of Acts?

Though I believe the Holy Spirit has done His part and we all have access to as much of the Spirit as we need, I believe there is a difference between the lives of many of the early believers in Acts and my own life on an average day. What is that difference?

The difference is not in how much of the Spirit they had and how much I have. The difference is in how much of them the Spirit had and how much of me the Spirit has.

We do see a difference in degree between my life and the lives of the early believers. Repeatedly in Acts we read a significant phrase: "...filled with the Holy Spirit..." And we read of this condition as though it's not a one-time-only event in an individual's life, like the receiving of the Holy Spirit or the pouring out of the Holy Spirit or the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the "falling on" by the Holy Spirit. In those events (which, as far as I can tell, are synonyms for the same event in an individual's life), we don't read of any repetition. Not in the life of an individual. If a person had received the Spirit or been baptized in or by the Spirit or had the Spirit poured out on him or the Spirit had fallen upon him, he had the Spirit.

But we do read of repetition in the "filling" of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals.

For instance, in Acts 2:4, the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. Then in Acts 4:31, again we read of the believers (who already had the Holy Spirit) being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Then, in Acts 6, seven men were appointed to a particular responsibility in the early church, and these men were "... full of the Holy Spirit ..." (6:3). They were distinguishable by this trait.

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was among these seven. Acts 6:5 informs us that Stephen was "... full of faith and the Holy Spirit..."

When we're speaking about faith, although all Christians must have a degree of faith in order to go by the name "Christian," we can see how it's possible for one Christian to be "fuller" of faith than another.

And Stephen was a man "full" of faith and the Holy Spirit in Acts 6:5. Yet in Acts 7:55, we read that Stephen "being full of the Holy Spirit" gazed into heaven to see the glory of God and Jesus. The context implies that this "fullness" was something out of the ordinary for Stephen who, we already know, was full of the Holy Spirit generally.

In Ephesians 5:18, we find the command to be filled with the Spirit as though there's some part we have to play in the matter. Don't forget this command was written to Christians who, we know from Ephesians 1:13, plainly already had the Spirit as the seal or guarantee of their inheritance.

A moment ago I made the comment that it's not how much of the Spirit we have; it's how much of us the Spirit has. But I have to admit that the biblical terminology sounds as though there is a difference in how much of the Spirit we have. After all, those who (like Stephen) are "filled with the Spirit" as contrasted with those of us, well, less-filled would seem to have more of the Spirit than the rest of us.

Ah, but that depends if you're an optimist or a pessimist. Is the glass half-full or half-empty? Both. Or perhaps, more accurately, neither. The glass is always full. Sometimes it's full of water; sometimes it's full of air; sometimes it's full of different proportions of water or air or some other substance.

In other words, it may depend on which terminology you use. If I'm full of the Spirit, there's just that much less room for me. Or if I'm full of me, there's just that much less room for the Spirit. It's not that one person's vessel can ever be fuller or emptier than some other person's vessel. The difference lies in, "What's it full of?" When we're full of ourselves, Self squeezes out the room left for the Spirit. As John the Baptist said of Christ (almost immediately before the information that God does not give the Spirit “by measure”), “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30, 34). If God does not give the Spirit by measure, the difference in being full of the Spirit or being less-full must lie in how “decreased” I am. Self must decrease for the Spirit's work in me to increase.

So how does one decrease Self or empty oneself of Self? Or how does one get filled with the Spirit (depending if you're a pessimist or an optimist)?

I wish I knew (knew experientially, I mean).

Maybe I wish it. Maybe I don't. Because now we're back to the subject of crucifixion. Obviously, dying daily to self is all part of being emptied of myself and filled with the Spirit. In fact, perhaps being filled with the Spirit and dying to Self are synonymous. Or, at least (again), two flip sides to the same coin. That glass that is either full of Self or full of the Spirit.

And how does one die daily to self? Again, I wish I knew (experientially). I wish this was a subject I could tell you all about on good authority from having experienced it repeatedly. Maybe I could if I liked dying better. But it's just so painful!

It is a problem of power. And the problem is, "Who will have the power over me? Who will be in control? Will I keep control, or will I turn the controls over to God?"

There's no getting away from it. There must be a daily death to Self, a daily denial of Self, a daily emptying of Self, to be filled with the Spirit. When the chips are down and obedience becomes a choice and an often painful one, I need to take a deep breath, mutter a quick, "Not my will, but thine," pack that cross, and start my feet on that road up the hill and to certain death to Self.

Jesus said something like this: he who gives up his life/self to Jesus finds his real life/self but he who clings to it with two, tightly-clenched, grimy, little fists will find that he can't keep it, anyway (Matt. 16:24-25). I've performed enough experiments with the tightly-clenched fists to testify from personal experience to at least one-half of the truth of those words.

But I've had much less experience with cross-carrying. I'm no expert on the subject. Maybe that is why I continue to see a large gap between my own experience and the experiences of the early Christians in Acts, like Stephen, etc. Too often their fullness with the Spirit and their deaths to Self ended in their too-very-literal deaths. Ouch! I told you being crucified isn't easy. It certainly wasn't easy even for Jesus, and He was perfect.

Still, while I'm no expert and I can't claim any great degree of fullness of the Spirit, there is much reason to hope. For me. For you. For the Christians in Corinth and Galatia and Ephesians and all the rest of us who find ourselves losing to the law of flesh and sin and death more often than not. That reason to hope lies in the fact that it doesn't all rest on my shoulders. I don't carry my cross alone.

Don't ever let us forget Romans 8:1-2: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." And II Timothy 1:12b: "...for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day." And Jude 24: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." And Philippians 1:6: “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;”

It's His work. He's doing it. Even my part of surrendering Self to Him I can do only because of His work in me. Even the desire to be crucified with Him, to be fuller of Him and emptier of me, could only be His work. "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

But on my part, is there anything I can do to be filled with the Spirit or die to Self? How can I start? Are there any steps I need to take to get me going in that direction, or is it all God's work in me? If it's all God's work, can I sit back in a lounge chair, iced drink in hand, waiting for Him to do His crucifying work? (What an incongruous word picture!) Where is the balance between waiting on God and walking with Him? What can we see from Scripture on the subject?

John 7:37-39 may give us an important clue to the first step in being filled with the Spirit: thirst.

These are Jesus' words on the subject:

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Do you see it? In order to be full to overflowing, we must first, thirst for Him and second, drink deeply of Him.

But that all sounds rather mystical. How does it translate into practical, putting-feet-to-it kinds of terms? How can we cultivate thirst if we don't happen to have it in the first place?

Perhaps thirst happens when we come to that place of realizing our absolute, desperate need for Him. Then, a reliance on God and God-in-us, the Holy Spirit, follows. There's that depending, that resting, that abiding in the Vine, that John 15 speaks of.

Maybe thirst looks like a simple, constant acknowledgement that we can't do this life on our own, and drinking-Him-in looks like conscious dependence on Him. Whatever the balance is between waiting on God and walking with Him, any steps we take must be taken with the clear understanding of who walks with us and with the will to follow where He's leading.

Then, I believe, growing out of the admittance of our absolute, desperate need for Him, thirst will eventually turn into a longing for that relationship of one-ness, that intimacy with God, that we were created for. The entire business of life that we were created for is just to get to know and to love Him. Through getting to know Him more and more, we'll unavoidably grow to love Him more and more.

Again, in practical, putting-feet-to-it terms, how can we get to know Him more?

I don't think I have any better answer than the old Sunday School standby: “Pray, worship, and study the Bible” — by ourselves and with others.

Yet just spending a required allotment of daily or weekly time in certain religious activities will probably not do the trick. It comes down to motivation. If I pray and read the Bible and go to church just to pray and read the Bible and go to church, it will likely not do much for me. If I do those activities because I want to get to know God better, it will happen. I will get to know God better. He wants us to know Him.

Generally, an appetite for His Word is an acquired taste. For some blessed and tiny percentage, the Bible has an instant and unquenchable fascination upon the moment of salvation. For myself, it took years before it began to make enough sense to me that I got anything out of it. Slowly, an insatiable hunger for the Bible has begun to take possession of me. But it was a long time coming.

Prayer, as simply communication with God, need not be complicated or onerous. Spending time listening to and learning from Him as well as telling Him my thoughts and concerns and praises and thanks, turning my heart and my thoughts to Him repeatedly throughout the day, is the kind of prayer I enjoy and the kind that seems to come as naturally as breathing. It's a simple reminder to myself of where my life comes from and who lives in me.

The kind of prayer that, for me, does not come easily or naturally and is onerous but is still extremely necessary is called intercessory prayer — prayer on the behalf of someone else. It's the kind where I sit down with a list of people and their needs and drag my mind (usually lifelessly and sometimes unthinkingly) through my list. But intercessory prayer could be a subject for books upon books — ones that I will probably never write. Those who are good at it, to whom it's not a chore to be got through, who have more wisdom on the subject than I do, can write those books.

If realizing our need of Him is the thirst and the intentional getting-to-know-Him-better is the drinking-in, both as a result of and resulting in a growing dependence on Him, I'm tempted to think that the thirst/drinking-in and the branch abiding/resting in the Vine are different slants on the same picture. As a human thirsts and consciously takes in life-giving water, so a branch unconsciously relies on the roots and the main vine in order to take in that same life-giving water.

So to sum up, it looks to me as though being filled with the Spirit is the same thing as dying to Self. Turning over the controls to Him. Simply relying on Him and doing what He shows me to do. But in order to reach that place in my life where I'm able (or willing) to live in that state, I must start by recognizing my need of Him. Next, I can start learning to depend on Him, and as the first-though-never-ending step in that life of conscious dependence, I can try to get to know Him better every day. And through it all, I can trust that it really is His work in me, and He'll do it.

~ 12~

“...For There's No Other Way...”

Most of us are probably familiar with the words of the old hymn, "Trust and Obey." The first line of the refrain sums up everything I hope to say in this chapter. "Trust and Obey, for there's no other way..."

There is no other way to live a Spirit-filled, Self-crucified-daily Christian life. There is no other key to the subject of this book — our responsibility in this problem of power (or lack thereof) in our Christian lives. The hymnwriter put the hammer down right squarely on the head of the nail, it seems to me.

The subject of last chapter was being filled with the Spirit — what it means and how it can happen (or at least, my best guesses on that subject). This chapter, we'll look at the results that are promised in living a Spirit-filled life.

After my years of struggling and questioning and searching and wondering where, in my own life, was the power that was promised in Acts 1:8, the main conclusion I came to can be summed up in this simple formula. F + O = P. Faith plus obedience equals power.

The formula sounds simple, but maybe we should start by defining some terms. If faith is the starting point, what is faith?

Obviously, it involves belief (defined in Chapter Three as, “To think to be true.”) But whereas I suppose it is possible to believe something intellectually without that belief affecting any part of my day-to-day life, I would say that faith involves an action of some kind based on what I think is true.

For instance, I believe what I've been told about atoms, I guess. Never let it bother me much, however. My belief that everything I can see is made up of particles that I can't see has never had much of an impact on how I live my life (never having been in the path of a nuclear blast).

On the other hand, I have faith in gravity. I believe intellectually that if I jump out of a plane I'm going to hit the ground. But that belief moves out of the purely intellectual realm and into the realm of my everyday life on a regular basis. You'll never catch me jumping out of planes or stepping off of tall buildings intentionally.

In Chapter Eight, we discussed the commonalities and also the differences between faith-in-general and biblical faith. I can have faith in all kinds of things — alarm clocks and car engines and other motorists. I depend on those things.

There is the action implicit in all faith. It depends. It rests its weight on its object.

But in biblical faith, the object is God and only God (and His revealed Word). Biblical faith is simply dependence on God — giving Him the controls.

Then, from Chapter Eight, we also talked briefly about how our faith is only as good as its object. Alarm clocks, car engines, and other motorists will, at some point, let us down. Yet if we rest all our weight on God, He will never let us down. If faith is simply letting God be God, letting Him be in control, well, obviously, He will always be God. He will always be in control. Faith will never disappoint once it's understood properly as simple dependence on God. Even if we don't get everything we've ever wanted from Him, when He's in control, we can always know He's doing what's good and right and necessary. We never need to worry that He's found something that's too big for Him to handle.

Now, the problem with non-biblical faith is that it is far-too-easily confused with biblical faith. I mean that it is far too easy to believe that the object of our faith is God when, in reality, we've placed our faith in something other than God.

Let's take a look at a couple of tricky passages of Scripture — passages where I find myself wishing I could "correct" Jesus' words. "He didn't really mean to say that! What He really meant to say was..." I hope I won't end up doing that this chapter. But I think these are two passages that we can easily misinterpret. We'll examine them closely in an attempt not to do so here.

"So Jesus answered and said to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, "Be removed and be cast into the sea," it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive' " (Matt. 21:21-22).

Is Jesus preaching a "name it and claim it" gospel here? Sure sounds like it, doesn't it?

Not when you remember that the object of biblical faith is always and only in God and His revealed Word.

Mark 11 records the same occasion as Matthew 21.

Mark 11:23-24 tells us, "For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."

Whoa! Really? Did Jesus really mean to say that if there's anything in particular that I want — say, a million bucks — all I need to do is ask for it, never doubting that I'll receive it?

But in that case, why isn't every believing prayer answered?

There have been people I've prayed for to be healed. I prayed for their physical lives to be extended, sincerely believing I was asking in God's will and that He wanted to heal those persons and extend their lives. In at least two cases that I can think of off the top of my head, the people I prayed for died of cancer. (Guess you won't be asking me to pray for your healing any time soon, will you?) Was I not believing "right"? Was there something wrong with my faith?

Let's take the case of the million dollars. If I ask God to give me a million dollars and I'm just as convinced as I can be that I'm going to get it because I believe that I'm going to get it, who or what is my faith in? Is my faith in God? Am I simply depending on God, just letting Him do what He wants to do? No, my faith, in the case I've described, would be in the efficacy of my prayers. I'd really be believing in myself and my own prayers or my own “faith.” I may have convinced myself that my faith was in God to give me the million dollars, but in reality, my faith was in myself.

In Matthew 21:21-22, the "faith" and the "believing" that are mentioned in these verses are plainly faith and belief in God and His Word. Only He is the object of biblical faith.

That fact is not quite as plain from the way it's stated in Mark 11:23-24. But back up to the verse that comes immediately before verse twenty-three. "So Jesus answered and said to them, 'Have faith in God' " (Mark 11:22).

What follows is in the context of that statement. The faith must be in God. Not in our own prayers. Not in anything we can do. Only God.

How does that context adjust our understanding of Matthew 21:21-22 and Mark 11:23-24?

Well, if the only object of my faith is God — if I'm simply depending on Him, letting Him be God, letting Him be in control — in that case, when would I ever tell a mountain to go and jump into the lake? When would I ask in prayer, believing and not doubting that I would receive? The answer should be apparent in light of what faith really is: When He's told me to. When I'm acting in obedience to what I've heard from Him.

If He's instructed me to tell a mountain to move, that's the only way I would be having faith in God by speaking to that particular mountain. That's the only way I can pray believing that what I ask for I'll receive and still be exercising faith in God. If I believe I'm praying in God's will. If I'm simply acting in obedience.

Now, the obvious problem arises: How on earth can I ever be sure I've heard from God? If I'm supposed to speak to a mountain and tell it to move, how can I be sure I'm doing so in accordance with God's instructions rather than acting on some hare-brained scheme of my own that I've convinced myself is God's will?

The question has a simple answer. It's found in Matthew 21:21-22 and Mark 11:23-24.

The mountain will move.

If I'm firmly convinced that God has told me He wants to give me a million dollars and I pray, believing I'll get it, if my faith is in God and I have heard from Him on the issue, then I'll know it when He gives me the million dollars.

And if the mountain doesn't move? If I don't get my million dollars? Well, what's my faith in? Is my faith in God? Or in my ability to hear from Him? If my faith is in God rather than my own ability to hear His voice, then I can simply admit that God is in control and that moving the mountain or getting the million dollars was just some hare-brained scheme of my own contriving.

If faith is simply depending on God, then when I believe I'm hearing from Him on a certain issue, I'll move ahead in the direction I think I've been shown if I have faith in Him. If I'm wrong about the certain issue, but yet, my faith is in God, not in me, then I'll admit I must have been wrong and be content to let Him do whatever He wants to do.

For instance, when I prayed for healing for the people I mentioned earlier, sincerely believing I was doing so in obedience to God, was my faith in God? Or in my own prayers? Or in my own ability to hear from Him? It may have started out in my own ability to hear from Him. But after it was all said and done and I arrived back at a place of saying, "Thy will be done," my faith in God was strengthened. Not because I got to see those particular mountains move but because I realized that I didn't always hear from Him perfectly, and it didn't matter in the end; He would do what He had to do. I could rest in that fact.

Any attempt to force God to do what we think He should do is emphatically not biblical faith. (And it doesn't work!)

In that case, why would Jesus make statements that could so easily be misconstrued as permission to "boss" God — to tell Him how He must do things?

Well, obviously, I don't know. But here's what I believe.

Jesus gave us permission to act in, what we think is, obedience — no matter how crazy the idea seems to us. And it seems a fairly crazy thing to do — to tell a mountain to go and throw itself into the sea.

Do you see what Matthew 21:21-22 and Mark 11:23-24 encourage? These passages encourage stepping out in faith. They encourage a little risk-taking. They encourage acting in obedience. And when we do and we have heard from God, the results are dynamite. Only a little dynamite can move a mountain, and that's what God promises when faith exercises itself in an act of obedience. Now, there's some power!

And here's the sobering thought: If I'm missing either the "faith" or the "obedience" part of the equation, I'll also be losing out on the power. If I don't believe God enough to tell that mountain to move when He's instructed me to, then that mountain is just going to sit there.

But as long as we're doing our part, seeking Him, then acting in obedience according to our best lights, and leaving the results to Him, mountains will be moved. Maybe not every time. Sometimes the idea to move a certain mountain may have originated in my own little pea-brain. But better to tell a mountain to move, sincerely believing I'm acting in obedience, only to have it sit there, rather than to have it sit there (where it doesn't belong) because I haven't acted in obedience.

From the story of the Israelites crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land in Joshua 3, it occurs to me to wonder what would have happened if the priests going ahead of the rest of the company had looked at the Jordan overflowing its banks and said to themselves, "Right, then! As soon as I see the waters part, I'll step in. If this is really of God, He'll have to show me by drying those waters up. I'll be content just to wait on Him." Would the Israelites ever have made it the Promised Land? Nothing happened until the soles of the priests' feet hit the water. That was how God had it planned on that occasion.

There are times to wait on the Lord, of course. At times, maybe even most of the time, when He wants mountains to get out of the way, He Himself will tell them to move. But when we think He's told us to do a thing, if we want to see it happen, we'd better just go ahead and do it.

All book-long, I've been telling you that one of the main ideas I want you to go away from reading this book with is the idea that the work is God's. His work in our lives is His work, and He'll do it. He is doing it.

Yet the paradox is that part of His work in our lives is to get us working, too. Realizing that all of God's work in my life is really His work certainly doesn't mean that I do no work at all. But I need to do the work He shows me to do. I simply need to do as I'm told, resting in His ability to tell me. My faith must always be in God and His ability to speak to me. Not in my ability to hear from Him.

When I'm mishearing and acting on some hare-brained scheme of my own, sincerely believing I'm acting in obedience, He's still in control. As long as I'm seeking Him and trying to obey Him, He'll find ways to show me what it is I should be doing. “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Prov. 3:6). We can't go wrong if we're following Him.

When I prayed for healing for the people I mentioned earlier, was I acting outside of His will? No. We're allowed to make all kinds of requests, even if they're ones that He isn't planning on granting quite the way we ask them. We can make all kinds of requests, knowing that the ones that are in God's plan will be granted. If we're sincere in seeking Him, we can act on all kinds of ideas we think have come from God (as long as they're not contrary to His revealed will from Scripture — as long as they're not sinful), resting in His ability to correct our misunderstandings.

I should tell you here that I would be leaving you with a false impression if I neglect to mention that I have seen other people I know healed over time. These healings were of relatively minor ailments, but there's no medical reason I can think of for an elderly lady's crippling arthritis to disappear completely or for serious oedema to leave badly swollen feet and ankles. Those results didn't occur overnight, but I can't help seeing a cause-and-effect in the specific prayers for healing that were offered in both of these cases. Both of these cases changed dramatically and for no apparent medical reason. It's given me more confidence just to ask! Even when I don't know if I'm praying in God's will, if there's something I want to see happen, I can always just ask! I'd hate to have not because I was too timid and unbelieving even to ask.

Perhaps some people see more of God's visible, obvious power in their lives because they ask. Or because they take risks. Or because their needs are more visible and obvious. Or because they have no fall-back plan if God doesn't answer in the way they hope He will. Or because they take risks, they are in the position of having more visible, obvious needs, and they have no option but to ask because they have no fall-back plan.

Having moved in missionary circles for a few years, I've noticed a bit of a trend. People on the front-lines are more likely to see God's power in action than those of us who don't dare to venture out of our cushioned church pews.

I've never seen God's power at work in casting out a demon. Maybe that's because I live in an area where I've never met anyone who was visibly demon-possessed. In a place where people have traditionally dabbled in witchcraft and the worship of spirits, demon possession is common. Does God still have the power to cast out demons? Is He still willing to use that power on our behalfs? I believe He is. Of course, I've never had the occasion to test out that belief. Maybe that's because I'm not on the front-lines.

When people in my country get sick, first we go to a doctor and then, after the doctor has done everything he can for us, we might resort to prayer. If the nearest doctor was completely inaccessible in an emergency, we just might see more obviously supernatural healings.

I don't have any great need for the gift of tongues. Most of the people around me already speak English. Those who don't are busy trying to learn it. If I found myself in a country where I couldn't communicate in English, I might begin to see the sense behind a spiritual gift like the gift of tongues.

But how did those on the front-lines get there? They stepped out in obedience. Small wonder that missionary stories are full of the kind of power of the Spirit that I rarely see.

Now, the rubber hits the road. I've confessed that I've seen a lack of power in my own Christian life. My life does not look like the lives of the early Christians in the book of Acts (or the lives of some of the missionaries I've known). What's gone wrong? As I told you last chapter, the problem is that I'm not as full of the Spirit as I could be. I'm too busy being full of myself. And why is that?

Ultimately, it comes down to a lack of faith. I'm believing some wrong ideas about God, and those wrong ideas take the form of action. Somewhere, I've gone wrong in my thinking in believing that God isn't really able to do what He says He can do, and then I go wrong in my action by not resting my weight entirely on Him. That's the conclusion I keep coming back to. If I believed rightly, I would act rightly.

There are all kinds of things I haven't done when I thought maybe I should. There are all kinds of steps I haven't taken, all kinds of words I haven't spoken, when I've felt an inner nudging to do or say something I just wasn't willing to do or say.

I've told you that the power I'm looking for is the power promised in Acts 1:8: the power to witness. I'm not primarily interested in seeing signs and wonders. But I do want to see all the power happening in my own life to do all that God has for me to do. And part of what He has for me to do is to be a witness for Him.

Now, it's not true that I have never seen God's power at work in my life in this area. But all the times I have seen God work through me in speaking some little word for Him were times when I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, and jumped feet-first into that old Jordan He set before me. There was some obedience required to see the power.

Though I do not live a very Spirit-filled or power-filled Christian life, I am so grateful for the fact I keep coming back to. Philippians 2:13. It is His work in me. Even my own obedience ends up being His work. And He is doing it. I've seen it. As I've told you, even I, even li'l ol' powerless me, have seen Him at work in my life. It's encouraging when I see it happen.

I'm afraid the words I've felt that inner nudging to write in this book aren't all encouraging ones, however. I allow for the possibility of being wrong, of course, but it seems to me that my acting in obedience will mean speaking on a subject I'd really rather not.

Next chapter, we'll be looking at some specific areas (okay, one main one, really) where our society as a whole has been living in a lack of dependence and a lack of obedience to God and His Word, and the church has unfortunately not escaped unscathed from her cultural influences. Could this one area be a reason why, in many ways, we don't experience the same degree of Spirit-power the early church did? Remember, if we're putting our trust in the right object and stepping out on that trust to act in obedience, I believe we will see the power necessary for those steps. If we're not seeing all the power God has for us, we're probably, at least in some specific ways, putting our trust in the wrong object and acting accordingly.

~ 13~

Some Bumps in the Road

The seven churches of Asia addressed in Revelation 2-3 were in an unusual position. It may have been an enviable position; it may not have been an enviable position. But it would be an unusual position for a church to be in — to receive a message directly from the Lord, a spiritual report card so to speak, letting them know how they were doing in their Christian walk as a congregation; what was going well or what needed improvement.

I've often wondered what message I would receive — how I'd be graded; what grade the local church I attend would receive; what grade the church in my country (Canada) would receive, what grade the modern church of North America or Europe would receive. Would we be commended? Would we be chastened? Or would the message be a mixture of commendation and chastening? How are we doing spiritually? It's hard to know, isn't it? The natural human tendency is to be either far too lenient or too hard on ourselves. We paint ourselves only in very bright or very dark colours — so seldom in neutrals.

Sometimes, I can't help but envy even the unenviable position of the churches in Asia from Revelation. Even those who didn't receive words of commendation, at least they knew! They knew where they stood. They knew where they'd gone off the rails. They knew what needed fixing. They knew what their bumps in the road were, keeping them from getting where they needed to go.

While it's very easy at times to notice the bumps in someone else's road, it's frequently difficult to notice the bumps in my own road. Why is it that the speck in my brother's or my sister's eye can be seen a mile away while I can look around the two-by-four in my own with ease? I know there are some bumps in my own road, some areas that need changing. Terrifying as the idea is, sometimes I can't help wishing I could catch a peek at my own spiritual report card. At least, then I'd know.

That would be a terrifying prospect were it not for Chapter Ten of this book. Knowing that God is not angry at me, knowing that any chastening I receive is being done out of love, knowing, ultimately, that my sins are cast into the deepest ocean trench, makes all the difference.

But knowing all those things doesn't negate the fact that God is hard at work in my life, transforming me into the image of His Son. And there are certainly areas of sin that He wants to deal with.

But this is true for all of us. Though one of the main truths I'm writing this effort to communicate is, "God is not angry with His children," there needs to be the balance of also saying, "Yet there are some bumps in our road that are keeping us from going where we need to go — that keep us from experiencing the power we've been promised and living the Christian life the way it was meant to be lived."

There is no message in Revelation spoken to, "... the angel of the church of New York, the church of London, the church of Paris, the church of Toronto," but we can examine the messages in Revelation 2-3 to the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea and ask the Holy Spirit to speak His message to any of us the shoe fits.

There is a pattern to the messages. Two churches received only words of commendation, two received only words of chastening, and three received mixed messages.

For the churches who received messages of chastening, there are two different and seemingly opposite directions in which the churches had strayed off the path. I think the root of both of these problems was the same, however.

Let's call these two ditches legalism and license (for a nice alliterative memory hook). In the middle is the path of love and liberty. To me, it looks like the root of both legalism and license is the first issue that is mentioned in Revelation 2: the bump in the road of the Ephesian church — leaving their first love.

Let me define what I mean by both legalism and license. If legalism is keeping the rules for the sake of keeping the rules, then license is not keeping any rules at all.

The root problem for both legalism and license is the wrong focus. On the one hand, legalism focuses on keeping the rules. License focuses on doing whatever happens to feel good at the moment. While God does have some rules for us, the focus is never to be the rules. He must be our focus. If He is our focus, obedience to Him and to His rules follows out of our love for Him. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with everything we've got. The rest of living the Christian life flows out of that loving.

Now, let's look at each church in a little greater detail, taking them in order.

The church in Ephesus had a classic case of "legalitis." Sound in their doctrine, they had no time for false teachers or false teaching. And they did all the right things. Jesus knew their works, their labour, their patience, their perseverance. Yet He had one thing against them — they had left their first love.

They did all the right things — just from the wrong motives. I'm sure they must have been astonished to hear that the grade they'd been given was the same as the grade given to churches which had been allowing sexual immorality and the eating of things offered to idols to continue unhindered in their midsts.

Yet Jesus says to the Ephesian church that He has "this" against them. They'd left their first love. Doing all the right things wasn't enough for Him. He desired that love relationship with them that Paul had written to them about in Ephesians 5. The intimacy of a husband-and-wife relationship. What husband is content to have a wife who does dutifully what he wants her to do but feels nothing for him? Certainly no husband who loves his wife to the extent of giving himself for her — his own life for hers. Cold, outward-only obedience is certainly not going to satisfy such a warm-blooded, passionate kind of husband.

The next church addressed in Revelation 2 is the church in Smyrna — a church undergoing persecution for their faith. Jesus had only words of encouragement and commendation for this church's report card.

Then came Pergamos — another church experiencing persecution. And Jesus commends this church for holding fast His name and the faith. But He has "a few things" against them. This was a church which had fallen into the "license" ditch. There was sexual immorality and idolatry in their midst. There were those who'd stopped trying to keep any of the few rules God (through the decision of an early church council) had laid out for the Gentile believers in Acts 15:23-29.

The next church, Thyatira, had also fallen into license and in the very same areas. But this church also received the same mixture of commendation and chastening that Pergamos did. Jesus praises the works, love, service, faith, and patience of the church in Thyatira. Then He adds, "Nevertheless I have a few things against you ..." (Rev. 2:20), and we discover that those "few things" are the same sexual immorality and idolatry that persisted in the church in Pergamos.

These major problems are "a few things"? Looks to me like the grading is not what we would expect. The church of Ephesus, a church who kept all the rules and had good reason to believe their report card would show some flying colours, received the same mixed grade as the churches of Pergamos and Thyatira who were continuing in blatant disobedience (or allowing some in the church to continue in blatant disobedience) to two of the very few rules God had laid out for them. Their Lord had something against them. Against all three churches. Yet He first spelled out to them what He saw that was right in their lives. You have to love this kind of Schoolmaster!

The next church is the first where Jesus can find nothing good to say. The only positive message He has for Sardis is the message that they still have a chance to get back on the right path. They can always repent. And even in Sardis, there were those who "hadn't defiled their garments." But to the church as a whole, Jesus had not found their "works" "perfect." In fact, He pronounced them clinically dead. They had a name for being alive, but Sardis was, in fact, a dead church.

We don't read that the church in Sardis was engaging in the same practices as the churches in Pergamos and Thyatira. We don't read about sexual immorality or idolatry. We just read that they were "dead." Or at least "mostly dead."

While I'm not qualified to comment on what Jesus meant in His message to the church of Sardis, I'm going to, anyway. I don't really know, of course, but I'm guessing that Sardis was a church who had succumbed entirely to "legalitis." In fact, I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say that we can be fairly certain that Sardis was a legalistic church. I don't know if they were a legalistic church because they, like the church in Ephesus, had become very focused on keeping the rules and doing all the right things. Whatever the cause and whatever the state of their outward obedience looked like, we know that the church in Sardis had left their first love. The heart beat of love and passion and fervency toward the One who had died to save them had stilled. And that is the definition of legalism and its root cause. Though legalism is so-called because the legalist usually ends up very concerned with how things look on the outside, the cause of legalism is that the legalist has stopped being concerned with the inside. This does indeed seem to be the case for the church of Sardis. And Jesus can find almost nothing positive to tell them in that state.

Next up, the church in Philadelphia was another church living through persecution (or so it would seem, reading between the lines of Revelation 3:7-10). This is the second church, like Smyrna — also undergoing persecution — for whom Jesus has nothing but words of encouragement.

And last, but certainly not least, are Jesus' words to the church of Laodicea. Of all the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 and of all the messages to those seven churches, this one is probably the best-known.

Laodicea was the second church that Jesus could find almost nothing positive to say. Except, again, His assurances of undying, unending love and the truth that repentance was possible — and His glorious invitation in Revelation 3:18-22. "I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

This "lukewarm" church, like the "mostly dead" church of Sardis, had certainly left its first love. We're not told how they were at keeping the rules. We don't know if their legalism took the form of focusing on the rules. We do know that it took the form of losing their heart of love and desire for their Saviour.

Unlike the church of Sardis, we can know a little more about the reason for the church of Laodicea's fall from where they needed to be. We can know a little more about one particular bump in their road. And it's this bump in our own road where I want to spend the majority of time in this chapter. (The sexual sin prevalent in the churches of Pergamos and Thyatira is allowed to continue unchecked in many churches today, too. And it is a serious problem. But sexual sin in the church is perhaps not as widespread as the issue that will take up the rest of this chapter. And sexual sin is more obvious than the Laodicean issue. Because of its obvious nature, I have less to say on the issue of sexual sin, so I'll leave it there.)

Notice verses sixteen and seventeen of chapter three. "So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing' — and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked —"

Did you notice the cause-and-effect word in verse seventeen? "Because." "Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing...' "

One thing we know about the church of Laodicea is that they were a rich, self-satisfied, and self-sufficient church. They were rich and prone to trust in their riches rather than trusting in God.

I see at least two kinds of "times of testing" God had allowed these churches in Revelation 2-3 to undergo. By "times of testing," we usually think of hard times. Times of sorrow. Times of poverty or loss. But I believe easy times — times of happiness, times of prosperity and gain — are truly testing times, as well. And I believe that, while hard times are certainly the times that are, well, harder (to live through, anyway), the easy times are by far the harder tests to pass.

We tend to think of the prosperous, easy times as the times of God's blessing. And that is true. If we have the faith to see it we can also see the hard times as times of God's blessing, as well. When all things work together for good, God has only blessing for His own. For those who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose.

We rightly see the hard times as testing times. But we could also rightly see the easy times as testing times. So hard times and easy times could both be seen rightly as times of blessing and as times of testing. Like fire that serves only to purify and strengthen gold, God tests only to bless. As Deuteronomy 8:16 b. says (regarding the testings of the Israelites in the wilderness), "... that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end —"

In Revelation 2-3, God had allowed some churches to experience the test of persecution. But He had also allowed some churches to experience the test of prosperity.

Don't you imagine His heart was blessed to see the churches who were being persecuted for Jesus' name persevering, growing in faith and love for their Lord and Saviour? That comes through loud and clear in His addresses to those churches. It thrills His heart that the faithful in the midst of persecution loved Him more than they loved their possessions, even more than they loved their physical lives. Their losses would be amply repaid with true riches that would never perish and life that would never end.

But don't you imagine it would have blessed His heart equally to see the wealthy church of Laodicea persevering in the midst of her prosperity, growing in faith and love for her Lord and Saviour? But the test of prosperity is a much more subtle one than the test of persecution and also, (history would tell us) a harder one to pass. Almost invariably, persecution serves to purify and strengthen a church. Prosperity so often has the tendency to do the opposite.

Remember from the parable of the sower, the seeds, and the soils that the sun scorching the seeds on the stony, shallow soil represented tribulation and persecution while the weeds or thorns springing up represented "...the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches..." (Matt. 13:22). The thorns were a test just as much as the scorching sun was.

Interestingly, plants need the sun. As long as a plant has good soil, good roots, and enough water, the sun is unable to hurt the plant. It only makes plants grow stronger and taller. Weeds, on the other hand, just need to be got rid of. They do a plant no good at all.

The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches aren't good things as long as they're only in small doses. In small doses, they're small weeds. The plant may survive the presence of small weeds if it's stronger than the weeds, but it's far better to have no weeds at all.

I believe that we, as the church of North America and Europe, are undergoing, on the whole, the test of prosperity.

Some may challenge that statement. After all, individually, we're not all wealthy individuals (when we compare ourselves to other, wealthier individuals). But when we compare ourselves to less wealthy individuals — say, two-thirds of the rest of the world — we can see just how very wealthy we are.

Comparing the way the church of the one-third world lives to the rest of the world, I would say it must be indisputable that we are being tested with prosperity — recessions and national fiscal crashes notwithstanding. We are a wealthy people here in my country, and chances are very good, if you're reading these words, you are also among the wealthy of the world.

So we've been given the same test as the church of Laodicea. How are we doing? What grade would we receive? What would our report card say?

I don't want to put words in the mouth of God. I can see the obvious similarities in the test we've been given as a church and the test given to Laodicea. But I don't want to state with certainty that I know just exactly how we're doing with that test. I don't want to sound as though I think that God has made me privy to that information. I'm not saying that the wealthy churches of North America and Europe are graded as lukewarm by the One responsible for grading.

Personally, I don't feel lukewarm. I don't feel as though I've left my first love. I don't feel as though my passion for the One who feels passionately for me has disappeared. (I know feelings can be deceiving, but that is how I feel.) And I don't see those effects in the lives of the Christians I know well. (I know appearances can be deceiving, too, but that is how I see it). Individually, most of the Christians I know are loving, fervent, faithful, giving, and generous.

However, in our wealthy churches as a whole, I can see what I can only call a bump in our road.

Without presuming to say just exactly how God would grade us, I'll explain that bump in the road to you the way I see it, what my observations have been, and what it is that perhaps God has laid on my heart to say to our wealthy church.

As the church of North America and Europe, we have too much money. That's what I observe. That's the message I've felt laid on my heart to say through this chapter. The love of money is a bump in our road. Our wealth, or at least our attitude to our wealth, is keeping us from getting where we need to be.

I don't know that the church of the one-third-world is lukewarm. But I believe we could be in danger of heading in that direction.

What's my reasoning for saying that we, as the church of Europe and North America, have too much money? The comparison between how much we have and how much the rest of the world has. Not trying to search any hearts or minds and basing my statement purely on the math — on the figures in our collective bank books — there is too great a financial disparity between the churches in our one-third of the world and the people in the rest of it. And there would be no reason for that state of affairs to exist other than the reason that we're keeping too much for ourselves. And there would be no reason for that state of affairs to exist other than the reason that we want to keep too much for ourselves.

And now the question arises, "Why do we want to keep too much for ourselves?" I mean, after all our needs are met and even all our wants, why do we feel a need to amass great stashes of "treasure" stored up on earth, contravening Jesus' clear instructions in Matthew 6:19?

Obviously, I can't answer that question for anyone else. I can only look within my own heart and see why storing up treasure on earth is a temptation to me. And the only answer I can see is that I'm tempted to store up treasure on earth because I'm looking to the future with concern. Again in direct contravention of Jesus' clear instructions from Matthew 6:25, 31, and 34: "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink ..." "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' " "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things ..."

And why do I look to the future with concern? Lack of faith. Lack of dependence on God. Because I'm not trusting God and His revealed Word.

Without attempting to search any minds and the hearts, let me ask you a question or two, and you can search your own mind and heart.

Let's set up an imaginary situation (very imaginary, I'm afraid): let's say you're having a conversation with a fellow Christian, and it comes up casually that he has no savings, no mutual funds, no R.R.S.P.s, no college accounts or trust funds for his children. He gives away whatever he doesn't use for the immediate needs (or wants) of himself and his family, and he looks to God to provide for their futures.

And now my questions: what would your reaction be? Would you view this Christian as a hopeless idealist, an unrealistic dreamer — in short, a fool? And now my next question: if so, why?

Ouch! There's the rub, isn't it? Of course, most of us would say that such a person is a fool. But when we're forced to explain ourselves...

We may try to spiritualize; put the correct, biblical spin on our answer by calling such behaviour “irresponsible” and “poor stewardship.” We may reference Jesus' instructions on being a “faithful and wise steward” from Luke 12:42. Or maybe the parable of the unjust steward from Luke 16.

Has anyone who talks about “stewardship” in this way ever sat down to read through either of those passages? If so, he manages to take away from them a much different meaning than I manage to take away.

The passage on the “faithful and wise steward” comes immediately after the story of the rich man who stored up all his crops and goods for a rainy day, and God calls him a fool. Then, Jesus finishes off the story of the rich fool with this statement, "So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:21).

Next, there follows another discussion on not worrying about tomorrow, not seeking after what you should eat and what you should drink, wrapped up by, "Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Luke 12:33-34).

Then, comes the discussion of the faithful and wise steward, who, when the discussion is actually read, we discover was the steward whom "...his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season..." (Luke 12:42). Not the steward who stored up treasures on earth to prepare “responsibly” for his earthly future.

The “unjust steward” from Luke 16, we learn (when the parable is actually read) was commended, not for his “unjustness” or dishonesty, but for his shrewdness in using his master's money when he knew his tenure as steward was at an end to make friends of those who would be able to help him when he was out on his ear. Then, Jesus tells His audience, "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home" (Luke 16:9).

The implication? Looks to me like Jesus is telling His audience, "Put your money where your eternity is. Do something with your Master's money that's going to count toward eternity."

The only places where stewardship is mentioned in the Bible as having bearing on money matters do not seem immediately to lend any support to the popular idea that "good stewardship" means saving as much money as we possibly can. Rather "good financial stewardship" from a biblical perspective seems to be giving away as much as we possibly can. Interesting how we've flipped those two around and called the hoarding "good stewardship."

Now, let's talk about another biblical passage we're probably all familiar with because we all like to explain it away and find reasons why it can't possibly apply to ourselves.

When the rich young man of Matthew 19 and Mark 10 came to Jesus to ask Him what good thing he could do to have eternal life, an extremely interesting exchange occurs.

First of all, Jesus challenges the young man on his usage of the title "Good teacher" in reference to Jesus. Jesus lets him know in no uncertain terms that none is good except God. Besides letting us know that He is, in fact, God (because He is certainly good), I believe He is letting the young man know that he (the young man) wasn't quite as good as he thought he was.

Then, Jesus informed the young man that eternal life could be gained by keeping the commandments. After all, He was responding to the young man's question, and the young man had asked what good thing he could do to earn eternal life.

Does that startle anyone else? I mean, we all know that eternal life can't be had simply by keeping all the commandments, can it? Sure, it can. We have Jesus' word on it.

But I love the tongue-in-cheek way Jesus so often interacts with people. The truths hidden below the surface of His words are delightful to unearth.

What's the catch? The catch is that none of us can keep all the commandments. If we could, certainly we could obtain eternal life by living a perfect life. The problem is that, "No one is good but One, that is, God." And we all need His goodness, imparted to us in the Great Exchange at the cross.

Even the young man who thought he could attain eternal life by his own efforts — because he believed there might be two or three good, at least (and he was one of them) — was driven to question Jesus further.

"Keep the commandments? Which ones? (I know you can't possibly mean all of them)."

And Jesus picked out about six that He knew would be ones with which the young man felt he was on fairly safe ground. Interesting thing! Jesus leaves out the first — the one about having no other gods before the One True God. (That is, He doesn't bring it up at first.)

When the young man happily replies, "Is that all? Oh, good! Done deal!" Jesus brings Him up short with, "Well, there is just one more thing. Go and sell all you have and give it to the poor to have treasure in heaven, and then come and follow Me."

Don't you love it? Jesus unerringly puts His finger on the commandment that the young man was not capable of keeping. The first one. Yet if He had asked the rich young man, "Do you have any other gods before the One True God?" the young man would have replied in the negative. He couldn't see it.

How can we be sure that the rich young man was not keeping the first commandment? Because when asked to give up his money to follow Jesus, he wasn't willing. Something else had first priority.

What does this incident have to do with us? Jesus called the rich young man to get rid of all his possessions, give them to the poor, and follow Him, but He doesn't do so with everyone who desires to follow Him, does He? We don't read that He opened up the subject of money at all with Zacchaeus — another rich man (and one who hadn't come by his riches quite so honourably as the rich young man presumably had). It was Zacchaeus' idea to give away half of his money (plus restore any fourfold that was gained dishonestly). And Jesus seems perfectly content with that arrangement (Luke 19:1-10). He doesn't tell Zacchaeus that half just wouldn't cut it — that it had to be all or nothing. No, we never read that Zacchaeus was told to give up all of his money.

Ah, but it seems to me that Zacchaeus and the first rich young man served different gods.

I don't believe that the main issue is how much money I have. Perhaps the main issue is not even how much money I keep and how much I give away (after all, He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and a few more than that — God doesn't need our money for its own sake). Then, what is the issue — the primary issue? Very simply, the primary issue seems to me to be, "Which god do I serve?" But the answer to that question will unavoidably have an effect on how much money I keep and how much I give away.

How can I know? How can I be sure which god I'm serving and which god has my trust and my dependence? Well, I could always try the test that Jesus gave the rich young man. Am I willing to give away everything I own to the poor and follow Jesus? Am I even willing to give away half?

I might not be called to such a radical choice, but could I — would I, if I were called?

It's all very well and good to say, "Sure, I would. I would give away everything I own if Jesus Himself called me to do it. I love Him more than I love money." It's easy enough to say when I'm pretty sure He would never ask such a thing from me.

But if I'm not giving away enough that I'm even slightly uncomfortable occasionally — that I, at times, have to make some small sacrifice to give, that I can't always treat myself to everything I desire in any moment in order to give — then, I need to question whether I would be willing give it all up if I were called to such a step?

Now, true, unlike the rich young man, we realize that we're not saved by keeping all the commandments. We're saved by trusting the only One who could keep them all on our behalf. We're saved by accepting His righteousness in exchange for our unrighteousness.

But as saved people, as possessors of the righteousness of Christ, there will be differences in our lives. There will be differences in our want-tos. (We'll talk about one in a moment and how it relates.)

So many of the Old Testament kings of Judah (even the good ones) stumbled when it came to breaking down "the high places." In a general sense, they were God's men. They served the One True God. Yet idolatry wasn't completely eradicated.

I can see it in my own life: it's a trust issue. It is an issue of which god I'm serving. In a general sense, I may be serving the One True God. I may be acknowledging Him as the God of my life while keeping certain, sacred areas all to myself — keeping those high places standing.

When I trust God with my eternal salvation but don't trust Him with my finances, there is a pocket of idolatry in my life. And wherever there is idolatry in my life, there will be bondage in that particular area.

If you admitted earlier, when I gave you the imaginary scenario of the Christian who had made no provision for his future on earth because he was busy looking after his future in heaven, that such a person would be a fool (because, after all, God can't really be trusted to keep His promises, God can't really be counted on to provide our needs if we take His instructions seriously), you need to consider the idea that maybe Jesus is calling you to give it all away and come follow Him on the road to the cross. Because you just may be the rich young man who failed out on the first commandment.

Now, let's get back to the subject I promised you we'd get back to. What about those differences in the lives and in the want-tos of all those who are saved? How does the topic of the changes salvation makes in our lives tie in to the topic of how we handle money?

In Chapter Four, we had a look at one of those differences that will and must follow in the lives of all those who are saved: Love. And part of that love means doing something to help those in need.

We live in a very needy world. As the church of North America/Europe, there is too great a difference between our lifestyles and those of the needy. That's the conclusion I keep being drawn back to.

As I've also told you, it looks to me like the individual Christians I know are loving, fervent, faithful, giving, and generous. I'm not sure how it happens that the individual Christians I know can be loving, fervent, faithful, giving, and generous and how, as a body, we can still have far too much money, but there it is. That is how I see things.

The riches of the Laodiceans led them to the temptation to trust in their riches, and that led them into a state that was so unattractive to God, He said He would vomit them out of His mouth. Maybe we need to get rid of some of our wealth in order to put ourselves out of temptation's way — the temptation to trust in our money. Maybe our unwillingness to get by with less wealth is symptomatic of the state of already having put our trust in it. Maybe we need to care more about the needy in our world. (It surely couldn't be hard to find a good avenue for getting rid of a little money.) Maybe if we'd like to see more of God's power in our lives and our world, we could try stepping out in obedience in this area. Maybe it's time we get serious about what God says on the subject of money and how to use it. Maybe we need to get serious about depending on Him and only Him.

Having been so bold as to make such a suggestion, let me add this: in any areas where God has changes He wants to make in our lives, I don't believe that we are ever called to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps — just to try harder and do better. That was not Jesus' recommendation to the church of Laodicea. If self-sufficiency and self-reliance were the cause of the problem in the first place, “try harder, do better” could not be the solution. A problem cannot be fixed by dumping a little more cause on it.

His recommendation to the church of Laodicea was the opposite of their self-sufficiency and self-reliance. His solution was for them to come to Him and rely on Him for the solution to their problem. He recommended that they ask Him for His gold, His white garments, His eye salve. They needed to rely on Him for the faith, righteousness, and healing of their blindness that they needed.

His recommendation to the church of Laodicea boiled down to one word: “Repent.” Repentance, I'm told, means a change of mind. It means a 180 degree turn in the thinking. If self-sufficiency was the sin of the Laodiceans, then for them, repentance was simply acknowledging that sin and acknowledging Christ's sufficiency to fix it.

Maybe what's required of us in this area is just a change of heart and mind. In any area of sin in my life, the answer is still faith + obedience. I simply believe Him and what He says about the issue. I admit He's right and I'm wrong. Then, I ask Him to make the necessary changes in me. Next, I lean all of my weight on Him and let Him do the work in me while, at the same time, step-by-step, doing as He shows me.

And it is His work in me. But He often begins that work by pointing out to me (in a variety of ways) the areas that need changing. I'm not sure, but maybe that's why I had to write this chapter.

~ 14~

A Matter of Timing

If we're not seeing obvious power in our lives — signs and wonders, tongues and prophecies, healings and any other, visibly supernatural happenings; if we're not seeing the same miracle-working that the Holy Spirit did through the early church in the book of Acts — is that state of affairs caused by a lack of faith and some area of persistent disobedience in our lives? Not necessarily. A lack of faith and obedience will result in a lack of power in the Christian life, but that power is not necessarily a signs-and-wonders kind of power. The power shortage produced by a lack of faith and obedience is a shortage of the power we need to do what God wants. The only reason we could ever be experiencing that kind of a power shortage is because of a failure to believe and the resulting failure to step out in obedience.

For example, I've told you that I often grieve over my lack of power to witness. When I've been in situations where I've felt God telling me to speak for Him and I just, plain don't, my power shortage in that situation starts with some wrong believing and moves into some wrong acting.

The kind of power I'm after is the power to live the life I should be living. As I've told you before, I don't regret the fact that I've never received the gift of tongues or healing or any other of the spectacular gifts. Those gifts will be handed out to those whom God sees fit to hand them out.

It could be that God might be willing to give us more gifts than we're willing to ask Him for, and the reasons we're not willing to ask Him may be a lack of faith or a lack of desire.

But in general, I don't believe we need to assume that those who haven't received any of the spectacular gifts of the Spirit are somehow on a lower spiritual plane than those who have. The power of the Spirit to live an obedient life is for every Christian. The power to speak in tongues, heal, prophesy, etc. isn't.

I'm covering old ground here. All these are points I've made before. And one of the main points I've attempted to drive home all book-long is that all these gifts will be granted "according to His own will." (And that granting does not depend on how good we've been. He doesn't work His gift-giving like some cosmic Santa Claus based on "naughty" and "nice" columns. We see this from the abundance of spectacular, miraculous gifts the "naughty" church in Corinth had received.)

This chapter, I'd like to explore the idea that God's work in our world (or its apparent lack) may come down to a matter of timing. The times He seems to have turned His face away may just be the times He's the hardest at work in our lives.

Sometimes, of course, we simply don't recognize His work because it looks so everyday and ordinary.

I have to chuckle a little over Psalm 74, a psalm of Asaph. In verse nine, he writes, "We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet; nor is there any among us who knows how long."

You have to appreciate the irony of one who was decidedly a prophet writing that there was no longer any prophet. I mean, how many psalms that ended up in the pages of Scripture did the guy write? I haven't counted them but more than a few.

Yet Asaph didn't seem to realize God was speaking through the songs he was inspired to write.

I understand his sentiments in the psalm, however. When it feels like God's not speaking to me, the silence is deafening. That was the experience Asaph described in Psalm 74.

Even the most godly of men went through times of beating on heaven's doors and hearing only a resounding, hollow echo in return. Job, David, and Jesus Himself all went through their times of, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me."

It was all a matter of timing. God had apparently turned His face away from His own for (in light of eternity) brief moments in time. But those moments of silence were all part of His plan.

In those times of silence — on occasions of speaking to mountains that just sit there, in seasons of not seeing God work in obvious, visible, supernatural ways, in years of unanswered prayer — those are the times where our faith has a chance to exercise its muscles. If we always saw God do exactly what we want Him to when we want Him to, how immature our trust in Him would be! And we would certainly begin to blur the lines between who is the Ruler of the universe and who is the subject, a fault we're all too prone-by-nature to, anyway.

It's when God emphatically does not do what we want Him to and we don't even get an explanation from Him on the topic, yet we go on believing and seeking and loving Him, that our faith is rare and precious to Him. Can you imagine how it thrills His heart to know that His child loves Him for more than just the goodies He dishes out? I know it thrilled His heart to see the tried and tested and true faith of Job and David and His own precious Son — to see them hanging onto Him, clinging to Him through the times when it looked to them like He'd forsaken them, but to see them hanging on, anyway, because there was just nothing else worth hanging onto.

In our individual lives, we all must go through times of silence or times of testing. But I think we can see that what happens in individual lives on a smaller scale happens in the world on a bigger scale.

In 1 Samuel 3:1, we read this about the situation in Israel under Eli's governance before Samuel took over from him: "And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation."

Should we assume the people of Israel weren't hearing from God because they were living in a state of disobedience?

I don't think we'd be safe to assume any such thing. After all, as you'll notice from reading the books of the prophets, His people's disobedience was one very good reason God had for speaking up. He spoke more before judgment fell than at any other time. (Hang onto that thought for a moment! We'll come back to it.)

Remember that there were four hundred years of silence between Genesis and Exodus where all of the action happened off-stage and another four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments. Do those four hundred years indicate God's displeasure? Do they indicate that God wasn't working during those years?

No, they just indicate that He'd said everything He needed to say for a little while. Or everything we needed to hear about, at any rate.

As I mentioned in Chapter Eight, for centuries of church history, there is no record that the spectacular, miraculous gifts of the Spirit were granted in any kind of general way as they were in Acts. Yet during some of these times, there were certainly widespread revivals and other definite works of the Spirit. It seems as though God just didn't see fit to deal in "signs and wonders" in a big way during those times.

Why? Obviously, I don't really know, but I'd like to suggest a possible answer: because He didn't need to. His work got done without the signs and wonders.

Now again, in the past century and this one, we've begun to see a recurrence of the spectacular and miraculous. While I'm not gullibly about to take as gospel truth everything I hear on the subject and call it all a work of God, neither can I say that none of it can possibly be God's work.

Why would the early church have experienced the miraculous? Why would the church of the intervening centuries not have experienced the miraculous? Why would we begin to be experiencing the miraculous again? Could it all be a matter of timing?

A moment ago, I mentioned that we can see from the Old Testament that God spoke more before judgment fell than at any other time. In the Bible, “signs and wonders” often accompanied God's speaking when He spoke loudly and clearly through His prophets. Could the absence of “signs and wonders” for centuries of church history and their apparent reinstatement now be indicative that a time of judgment on the earth is in the works?

If you've ever read the book of Revelation, you'll be drawn to one inescapable conclusion from even a precursory reading of it. There may not be a lot that's crystal clear from that mysterious book, but one fact is indisputable: in the days of the end of the ages, the world will enter a time of judgment unlike any ever experienced before.

I don't want to make any predictions as to days and hours (or even years) for the start of that end of the ages, but one thing we know: it's now two thousand years closer than it was when the first disciples lived. And they were constantly on the look-out for the return of their Lord. If the early disciples were constantly on the look-out, we should certainly follow their example.

If the world will someday soon enter a period of judgment unlike any other, could that be the reason we're beginning to see a return of signs and wonders?

These are just possibilities I'm throwing out here. I'm not preaching as hard-and-fast doctrine that here's why I believe we've begun to see signs and wonders in our day and age again. But let's consider some possibilities.

When Jesus came to earth the first time, it was a time of polarization. On the one hand, it was a time of great harvest. It was a time of the planting of the early church which, as a disapproving society said, "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). God made sure His new work in the world got started with a bang.

On the other hand, it was a time of great hardness of heart — a hardness of heart unlike any other seen previously. We can see this through the statements that Jesus made to the Jewish authorities who rejected Him. "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here" (Matt. 12:39-41). (See also Luke 10:12-15).

There are other passages on the extraordinary hardness of heart of those who rejected Jesus that could be pointed out — the parable of the vineyard owner from Matthew 21 and Mark 12, for instance. If it was a terrible thing for the leaders of Israel to beat and stone the prophets God had sent to them, how much more culpable were the ones who rejected God's own Son and killed Him!

There are also the passages where we have Jesus' teaching on blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matt.12:31-32, Mark 3:28-29, Luke 12:10). Two of the three Gospels that record Jesus' words on the subject record them as being spoken in the context of the Jewish leaders calling the obvious works of the Spirit that Jesus was doing right in front of them the works of Satan.

To my understanding, there is only one sin for which there is no forgiveness. And that sin is resisting to the bitter end the Holy Spirit and His call to repentance.

When Jesus taught on the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and looked at those Jewish leaders who opposed Him — opposed Him even though it seems that they must have, in their heart of hearts, known the truth about Him and rejected it — He recognized the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; a deliberate hardening of the heart that already knows the truth but spits in its face rather than give in to it. I believe Jesus was saying that there is no hope for the one who knows the truth absolutely but rejects it wilfully. There is a point past which no repentance is possible simply because a person will not repent. A heart can be hardened past the point of no return.

Isn't this exactly what we see after Jesus' resurrection when the guards at Jesus' tomb ran to the chief priests in deadly fear with their story about the risen Jesus? (Matt. 28:11-15).

What was the reaction of the chief priests? "We have sinned! Only the Son of God could rise from the dead. Surely, this Man was the Son of God!"?

Not at all. Their reaction was to tell the guards, "Here's some money. Go and spread lies about what really happened. Say His disciples stole the body while you slept, and if anyone gives you any hassle about it, we'll cover your backs."

They knew the truth absolutely. They knew the story they told the guards to tell was a ridiculous fabrication that a child could have seen through. They invented it; they certainly didn't believe it. You can bet they went over that empty tomb with a fine-toothed comb, looking for any nook or cranny a body could hide itself, just to make sure it was, in fact, empty.

Yet there was only one alternative to standing by their ridiculous story, so they stood by their ridiculous story.

They knew the truth, and they rejected it knowingly rather than lose face. They loved power and prestige more than truth. What a prime example of that extraordinary hardness of heart which, I believe, is the blasphemy against (or the final, wilful resistance of) the Holy Spirit!

The Jewish leaders called the work of the Holy Spirit that Jesus did in front of their very eyes the work of Satan. Calling the Holy Spirit Satan is certainly blasphemy. And in another sense, that act of blasphemy was the same one involved in resisting the Holy Spirit's convicting work in their hearts. They denied that it was the Holy Spirit at work and hardened their hearts to the truth.

Let's go back to Jesus' discourse on an evil and adulterous generation for just a moment.

Did Jesus say that no sign would be given an evil and adulterous generation? Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I mean, He did use those words, but He followed them with a very important exception. "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah..." (Matt. 12:39, emphasis added). And then we learn that the "sign of the prophet Jonah" is His own resurrection (Matt. 12:40).

As those of that particular adulterous and evil generation were listening at that moment to the words of the greatest prophet — One much greater than Jonah — so also they saw the greatest sign ever seen.

Many people scoff at “Jonah and the whale” as simply the most unbelievable claim of all the Bible's claims to the miraculous. It was a great miracle and, as such, takes a little faith to believe it when we weren't there to see it happen.

It certainly wasn't the greatest miracle recorded in the Bible, however. The greatest miracle is the one that Jonah's three days and nights in the belly of a fish foreshadowed.

And many of those who were right on the scene, who saw it happen, chose to disbelieve its implications. Seeing is not believing; not for those who know the truth and reject it.

But on the other hand, that greatest of great miracles was a powerful convincer to those who were on the scene at the time and who were willing to be convinced.

We can see this fact from the three thousand who came to faith on the Day of Pentecost. Peter's sermon on that occasion had as its key points the events that had taken place right on the spot only a short time earlier, right under the noses of many of the listening crowd. The resurrection was a strong convincer to the willing-to-be-convinced that day. The historical likelihood of the resurrection of Jesus remains a strong convincer today to those willing to be convinced.

I'm coming to think that the polarization effect we see from the two different reactions people had to the signs and wonders of Jesus' day is almost the whole point of signs and wonders.

On the one hand, God uses signs and wonders as a convincer to those who are willing to be convinced but just need a little solid evidence for being convinced. On the other hand, through signs and wonders, He removes any vestiges of an excuse from those who are not willing to be convinced at any price.

Those who are not willing to be convinced by God's signs and wonders in the last days will allow themselves to be convinced by the signs and wonders for which Satan will be responsible, however. II Thessalonians 2:9-11 remarks on this phenomenon and attributes it to God sending them a delusion after many have chosen one intentionally. If an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign and isn't too picky about where the sign comes from, God will let them have their signs. (As I've said, let's not get obsessed with seeking signs and wonders. Let's not get wrapped up in the gifts. Let's get wrapped up in the Giver. The first and best Gift He gives us is the Gift of Himself. Let's get obsessed with that Gift.)

When I read the book of Revelation (or any passages dealing with the end times), there are a whole lot of signs and wonders we see happening there. Luke 21:25 talks about, "...signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and waves roaring..." Joel 2:30-32 describes similar signs in the sun and moon and heavens in the time of the end.

"And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved ..."

Interestingly, the verses immediately before those ones in Joel speak about the Spirit being poured out on all flesh: sons and daughters prophesying, old men dreaming dreams, young men seeing visions, and the Spirit being poured on menservants and maidservants (Joel 2:28-29).

Peter uses these verses to explain to the listening crowd what was happening before their eyes on the Day of Pentecost. And the Day of Pentecost was one fulfillment of the verses on the pouring out of the Spirit in Joel.

But there is no break in thought in the Joel passage — not even a pause for breath — between the verses about the pouring out of the Spirit and the verses about the signs in the sun, moon, and skies. The prophecies about the signs in the skies were not fulfilled in the time of the early church. They are prophecies relating to the coming of “the great and awesome day of the LORD.” It looks to me as though there's going to be another fulfillment of the prophecy about the Spirit being poured out in obvious, visible, spectacular ways. We might be seeing the beginning of it.

And I think it very possible that the point to the Spirit being poured out in obvious, visible, spectacular ways will be to draw the battle lines. On the one hand, to turn the world upside-down again for Christ. On the other, to remove any excuse from the willfully unbelieving.

I've been reading almost non-stop in the book of Revelation lately, and I couldn't help but notice in it the polarization that was so noticeable in Jesus' day.

Revelation 16 records repeated instances of, what I can only believe is, that blatantly obvious resistance of the truth — that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit we see from the chief priests after Jesus' resurrection.

And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory [...] They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds [...] And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great (Rev. 16:9, 11, 21).

This is not honest doubt. This is blasphemy. These are people who know good and well that there is a God who rules the universe. They know they can't win. And they don't care. They will do anything rather than give in and surrender to Him.

On the other hand, there are also repeated indications in Revelation (and other end time passages) of a great harvest in the last days.

"And they sang a new song, saying: 'You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation' " (Rev. 5:9, emphasis added).

"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb ..." (Rev. 7:9a., emphasis added).

Matthew 24:14 tells us plainly, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."

Mark 13:10 says (in reference to the end of the ages), "And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations."

When Jesus left His disciples with these words, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth," in Acts 1:8 (emphasis added), it was a promise. It is a promise. They would receive the power necessary to do the job. We have received the power necessary to do the job. They would be witnesses. We will be witnesses. And the job will get done.

We can trust in that fact. God is in control. He can use signs and wonders and visible displays of the power of the Spirit if He chooses to in these late days. It is His work, and He'll do it. However He chooses to do it.

But as we watch it play out in whatever days we have left on this earth, we can remember that it is a matter of timing. And God's timing isn't exactly our timing. But it is perfect.

~ 15~

“...But the Fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace...”

It seems to me that the last chapter of a book should be the most important. It should wrap up everything that was said in the book into one neat package and leave the reader with the main points encapsulated in a form that will stick in the memory.

Instead, in this, my last chapter for this book, I find myself embarking on a whole new topic.

And a huge one. It may still be the most important chapter of the book, however. Along with the first main point I've drilled home every step of the way — God is the One in control (oh, me of little faith! Just believe Him! Rest in Him!) — this chapter's point will be the second “main-est” point that I'd like to make this book. If there are only two points you take away with you, I hope the point of this chapter will be one of them. (I'll let you know by the end of it what that point is. It may take me awhile to get to that point.)

Any book written on the topic — even touching on the topic, even dancing around the topic — of the Holy Spirit would be off-base to focus entirely on the power of the Holy Spirit and ignore the fruit of the Holy Spirit completely.

The power of the Holy Spirit is a fruit-bearing power.

I realized something about fruit, lately.

When the Bible speaks about "fruit" in the Christian life or "bearing fruit" (other than in Galatians 5 on the fruit of the Spirit), I've always tended to assume the fruit being spoken of was the reproductive kind of fruit — the making of new disciples.

For instance, when Jesus speaks to His disciples on the subject of bearing fruit in John 15, saying things like, "By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples" (John 15:8), I've always imagined Jesus was talking about His disciples making new disciples.

I mean, that's what fruit does, right? It makes more fruit. It makes baby trees which make more fruit. Doesn't it?

That was my idea about fruit in the Christian life.

I'd always assumed there were two kinds of "fruit," biblically speaking. There was the character kind — those traits and attributes listed in Galatians 5 — and there was the reproductive kind.

Take the parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13. Speaking about the seed of the Word of the God, verse eight says, "But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." Surely, the kind of fruit we're seeing from this passage is the reproductive kind — the multiplying kind.

I've lived in a fruit-growing area for most of my life, so I should have known better. I should have known a little more about fruit and seed.

What I've come to realize about fruit lately is that it is not essentially reproductive. Seed is essentially reproductive. Fruit is essentially delicious, nutritious, and seed-bearing. Fruit is the seed-bearing vehicle. It contains the seed. It is not the seed.

And do you remember what the seed is from the parable of the sower and the seed? (Well, you should. I just reminded you what it is.) It's the Word of God.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

It's the seed that produces new life. The fruit just carries the seed.

As I mentioned when I wrote the first chapter for this book, the kind of power of the Spirit I'm after — the kind of power of the Spirit I want to see in my life — is the power to witness, the power to make new disciples. And yet, my role in this world, in my Christian walk, is not to make new disciples.

Now, I know, I know. Jesus told His disciples to make new disciples (Matt. 28:19). Yet we have to realize that none of us can make new disciples. Not even one li'l ol' new disciple can I make.

We know it, of course. Only God can create life. Only God can make new disciples.

When Jesus told His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples, He prefaced His command by saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18). In other words, we'll make disciples only because He makes them through us.

Lately, I've begun to see that my only responsibility in this life is to bear fruit. Let me rephrase that. My only responsibility in this life is to abide in the Vine. That is the bit I have some control over. That is the bit that requires a little action of the will on my part. From there on in, the rest is up to the Vine. And the fruit is a promised result of abiding in the Vine.

Let's examine the relationship between the fruit and the seeds a little further.

If fruit (biblically-speaking) is just the character stuff that God wants to do in my life, the seed is the Word of God, and it's the seed that is essentially reproductive (capable of making new disciples), how does that seed get carried? By the fruit.

God is very concerned about spreading the knowledge of Himself into all the world. He's concerned about spreading the knowledge of Himself to my next-door neighbour. He's concerned about spreading the knowledge of Himself to the lady behind the till at the grocery store where I shop. He's concerned about spreading the knowledge of Himself to the kids I'll see this evening when I go to help out the kids' club at my church.

But He wants to do that through the character stuff He's working out in my life. Now, that's not to say that all I ever need to do is silently walk my walk of faith and hope others will notice. No, there is certainly a time and place for speaking up. But the words that need to be spoken from time to time will be part of the fruit of obedience in my life — just more of that character stuff. Just more of me resting in the Vine, depending on Him, letting Him do His work in my life, doing what He tells me to do, and leaving the results to Him.

I'd like to point out something I noticed just now from John 15 and 16. I had always assumed Jesus was talking about reproductive fruit in John 15 in His last supper discourse, but reading the chapter again in light of the character fruits of the Spirit, I notice that love, joy, and peace all play a large part in that discourse, and I begin to realize that those are the kinds of fruit Jesus was speaking of in this chapter.

Love, of course, is all over John 15. That's one of the main components for which John 15 is known — verses like verse twelve, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you," or verse nine, (immediately after a discussion on bearing much fruit), "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love."

John 15:11 says, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." There's the joy. And, again, it's His joy. We abide in the Vine, and His joy abides in us.

After a lengthy passage of warning regarding the world hating the disciples and the trouble that was shortly to follow, Jesus says in John 16:33, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

There's the peace. And how is that peace available? In Him. Again, by abiding in the Vine.

Putting together all these verses brings a picture into my mind — a picture of a little branch on an apple tree. (Because we have a lot of apples in my area, I'm more familiar with apple trees than I am with grape vines.) And that little branch is not doing much and not being very exciting. Just abiding. Just sticking with the tree. And from that tree and its roots, the little branch derives all its nourishment. It takes in water; it takes in nutrients; it takes in life. And that life flows through the "veins" of the tree and into that little branch. And suddenly, one day without warning, there's a sign of life on the little branch. Suddenly, there's a bud. Then, there's a blossom. Then, a baby apple. And at long last, a full-grown, crisp, juicy, enticing apple.

But the fruit is all a product of the life of the tree. The branch accesses that life only through its position on the tree.

The love, joy, and peace are all His. They flow into me only as I abide in Him.

I see it now from John 15. The fruit the Father will be glorified when I bear (John 15:8) is the love, joy, peace, etc. that comes from Him.

And that brings me to peace, the first of the three fruits listed in the chapter title that I'd like to talk about this chapter. (I'll talk about the fruit in the order of "peace, joy, love." Love, being "the greatest of these," I'll save till the end as of highest importance and the thought I'd like to leave you with.)

I can see from verses like John 16:33 that the peace that's promised to us is an internal one. We're never promised that our circumstances will all be peaceful ones. In the world all around us, things may be falling apart. But, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace" (italics mine). We will have tribulation in the world. Somehow, in spite of that fact, peace is promised to us in Him.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about peace lately. Mostly because I don't have any.

I am not a very peaceable person. I don't mean that I'm a fighter, that I enjoy a good scrap with anyone around me. But there are three kinds of peace: vertical (peace with God), horizontal (peace with other people), and inner (peace within). And I am not usually at peace within myself.

As I mentioned in Chapter Ten, right now my church is going through a very tough time. The past four months have been hard on me, and I spend a lot of time worrying. Still, God has been doing a lot of working with me in this area of peace lately.

Abiding in the Vine and being filled with the Spirit boil down exactly the same, as far as I can tell. Abiding is depending. It's resting. It's letting God be in control. And how can I know if I'm filled with the Spirit? Or at least, how can I know for sure that I'm not very full of the Spirit? I may not be able to measure my fullness of the Spirit as such, but I have a much better idea of how to measure the peace I don't have.

God has been peeling back the scales from off my eyes for the past couple months now to show me the bondage to fear that I've lived under for so much of my life I wasn't aware of the chains. I'd come to accept them as normal.

Besides just simply abiding, depending on the Vine, there is an act of obedience I'm called to in this matter of my bondage to fear and worry. The act of obedience is found in Philippians 4:6-7. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

And I do continually turn my worries into requests which I make known to God. Yet why is it that I let my requests be made known to God, cast my cares on Him, and two minutes later, find myself needing to do the same thing all over again? The endless process of turning over my worries to Him repeatedly doesn't somehow feel like the perfect peace of Isaiah 26:3 promised to the one whose mind is stayed on God.

"Sure," I think, "if I could keep my mind stayed on God that would be perfect peace." It's my inability to keep my mind stayed on Him that frustrates me. And that's because I cannot create my own peace, no matter how hard I try.

But isn't Philippians 4:6-7 a promise? Aren't we promised the peace which surpasses understanding if we, instead of worrying, keep on turning our requests over to God with thanksgiving?

I believe it is a promise, but perhaps the key is in the "keeping on." Peace is a fruit, and fruit grows over time.

My obedience will not produce fruit. Only the Creator of life can create fruit. But obedience is all part and parcel of abiding in the Vine. And abiding in the Vine will produce fruit.

I'm not sure yet where He's going with the lessons He's been teaching me on peace and the peace I can have in Him (except that I'm pretty sure He wants to give me His peace). One thing I have been able to see clearly is that peace is a fruit. It's a result of God's presence. And it's a peace in the midst of turmoil. It doesn't depend on circumstances.

So I'm waiting. I'm waiting on Him for that peace. And rather than seeking the fruit, I'm trying instead to seek Him and let the fruit happen when He decides it will.

Like the little branch on the apple tree, it doesn't look very exciting so far. It looks to me like just sitting there waiting and not seeing anything happening. But His Word tells me that I will bear much fruit if I abide in Him. So I go on waiting.

Although I'm still waiting for a few little buds of peace on my branch, that's not to say that I have never seen God do anything exciting in my life.

In the area of joy, I have seen a few little buds of joy on my branch.

I can see from John 15 that the Christian life is meant to be a life of joy. I don't think that statement means that we don't have times of mourning or that we're not allowed to grieve. We are. I've told you about my struggles with depression. God may want to heal me outright someday, but till then, I believe that natural tendency in me is part of the cross He's asked me to carry to help conform me to His image. Yet in spite of my struggles with depression, real joy is possible. And I have been able to see some of the fruit of joy in my life (or at least the buds of it).

I'm not sure I could explain it to you in a way that would make sense. But I think we can catch a glimpse of that paradox even from the life of Jesus.

In Isaiah 53:3, we read about Jesus as "...a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief..." Yet, knowing He was always completely full of the Holy Spirit at all times, I know He was also a Man of joy. John 15:11 talks about His joy. Like His peace, it's a joy that "passes understanding." It's a joy that doesn't depend on circumstances.

There's an act of obedience called for in this matter of joy, as well. It's a command repeated often in the epistles of Paul. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 puts it this way: "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Do you ever obsess over what God's will for your life is? There it is. Whatever else it is, "In everything give thanks," is His will for you. And for me. And for everyone.

I'm just coming off of a rough couple of days. Things seemed to fall apart mid-chapter after I started writing about joy and giving thanks in everything (which is God's will for my life). I got a good chance to practise what I preached.

I was so grateful for the book of Job during those couple of days. (Okay, my rough couple of days weren't that rough.) But I was refreshed to see Job's total honesty with God, and God's response to Job in the end of the book. God was not offended at Job even though Job, at one point, was offended. With God.

"In everything give thanks," doesn't mean pretending. It means saying, "thank you" as an act of obedience, regardless of feelings.

And I've seen God, through this simple (but persistently repeated) act of obedience, turn situations around in my mind more times than I can count — even though the act of obedience usually starts off without any emotion of genuine thanksgiving involved in it. I'll even say to Him, "You know I'm not feeling this, but You said to say 'thank you,' and so, thank you."

The situation may not change. But the act of saying "thank you" has a way of changing my attitude toward the situation.

The reason we can give thanks in everything goes back to God's good and loving control. Over everything. The basis of Christian joy is the acceptance of every circumstance as being worked out in our lives for some good purpose of God's.

But again, the emotion of joy may take some time to follow the decision of joy. Joy is fruit, don't forget.

And as fruit, joy can't be artificially produced any more than the peace can. Only God can create fruit (through the life of the Vine). But the abiding must and will produce obedience. And it seems to me that the obedience is a necessary first fruit toward seeing more fruit happen. It's the old formula "faith+obedience" again.

Now, let's talk about "the greatest of these" and any signs of the fruit of love I've seen in my own life. God keeps teaching me lessons about love, too. I'm a slow leaner, but He keeps on.

Maybe the single most important thing that I'd like to communicate through this book (besides my main point that God really is the One in control) is the heart of God toward people. (There it is — the main point I want you to take away from this chapter.) I think even a partial grasp on the love of God is the single most life-changing thing there is.

The first and greatest commandment is that I must have no other gods before the One True God, or that I love Him with all that's in me. (I believe those two commandments are one and the same.) Everything else necessary in the Christian life flows out of keeping that commandment.

But here's the thing: my love for Him can and will only grow out of my understanding of His love for me. “We love Him because He first loved us,” John tells us in 1 John 4:19. And John was in a position to know as “the disciple Jesus loved.” We have it on good authority. I can only love God because He loves me.

Perhaps the only thing we're responsible for is just to get to know Him better and let all else come out of that knowing. You don't have to get very far along the path of knowing Him, I mean really knowing Him, before you begin to catch a glimpse of God's heart. And it is that knowledge — that experiential knowledge, not just a factual knowledge — of what that heart is like that will change ours. To know that I am loved, fully and unconditionally and passionately, loving and obeying Him can't help but grow out of that experience of His love.

But as with peace and joy, there is also an act of obedience we're called to in this area of loving. And the act of obedience we're called to in the area of love is to love.

I can't find any passage of Scriptural exhortation that commands us to have peace or to have joy. Peace and joy are spoken of as promises rather than commands. Commands are given only in areas of choice. We're commanded to turn our anxieties over to God with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving. We're called to rejoice and give thanks. But the peace and the joy are the promised results of the abiding and the obedience. Peace and joy are fruit. Peace and joy are states of mind that are out of our direct control. The peace and the joy themselves are not under the jurisdiction of our choices.

But we are commanded repeatedly to love. And yet love is certainly also a fruit. Love seems to be both a deliberate choice and the result of the choice — both the act of obedience and the fruit of the abiding and the obedience. Love, perhaps, is a two-part deal.

Some would like to convince us that love is simply a choice or an action; that love — God's kind of love — has nothing to do with our emotions. Is love just doing nice things for other people? Just acting toward others the way we'd like others to act toward us? There is a school of thought that would tell us there is nothing more to God's love, agape love, than this.

It is perhaps true that love is not primarily an emotion. Love is a choice. It is primarily a choice. But it is not a choice that leaves no emotional impact.

Peace may not be primarily an emotion; joy may not be primarily an emotion. Yet the kind of peace or joy that has zero effect on my emotions is a pretty poor and shabby kind of peace and joy. It's the kind that calls itself peace or joy without really being peace or joy.

Love is a choice, but it's a choice that will have a profound emotional effect. It may not always be a pleasant emotional effect. But I can't be convinced that God's love doesn't encompass emotion. That sort of cold, outward-action-only kind of love is not what I see from Scripture. What I see in Scripture is God's heart-rending passion for people, for all people.

But His heart-rending passion can be heart-rending. For Him and for us. The emotion of love may sometimes be the most painful of all emotions.

Yet how do we make the choice to love if our emotions are not responding accordingly?

I don't know exactly what the act of obedience of love is. Though we talked about two basic areas love must certainly include (a long, long time ago in Chapter Four), I think there is much more to love than just meeting needs and just extending forgiveness (though it certainly must include those two basics).

1 Corinthians 13 gives us a detailed description of what love looks like. Because that chapter describes love as a whole, part of the description may be about the fruit kind of love that we have no direct control over. Yet certainly part of the description must be about the decision or obedience kind of love.

Look at the opening statement of the detailed description of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4: "Love suffers long ..." Now, check out the closing statement of the description of love in verses seven and the first part of eight. "[Love]...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails ..."

If I had to put it into one sentence, I'd say that love doesn't give up. Maybe that's the only choice I can make in this area of loving a person whom I don't yet love emotionally. I can refuse to give up. I can refuse to decide that I just don't love So-and-so and that I'm done trying. Remember that for the Christian loving others is not an optional extra. It will and must happen.

I used to imagine that love, as a fruit, would be an automatic result of abiding in the vine. I could see, Scripturally, that loving God and loving others were part and parcel. I used to think that loving God would bear some fruit of loving others just as a matter of course.

Though it must and will happen, I no longer believe it's quite as automatic as I once thought. This one does take some work on the part of the branch. It takes a deliberate act of the will.

And why is that? If we're abiding, shouldn't the love flowing from the Vine flow automatically into the branch? If we're loving God, won't He give us His love for others without any work on our part?

To love God with everything that's in us is the greatest commandment. And the second is like it. To love others. If the second flows out of the first, why would we need to be told to do the second? If loving God must and will produce the fruit of loving others, why would He have bothered to tell us that we must love others?

If I could keep the first commandment, if I could love God like I should, wouldn't I love others without having to be told? So then, God could have given us just the first and greatest commandment, and every other necessary thing would happen naturally as a result of my loving God. Wouldn't it? If, "we love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19) shouldn't we love others just because we first love Him?

I suppose we should. And yes, the two loves — a love for God and a love for those He made — are part and parcel of each other. Scripture is abundantly clear on that subject.

But when I start to think about all the times we're commanded to love others — our brother, our neighbour, our enemy — I begin to realize that there must be a bigger gap between loving God and loving others than I imagined.

If I love God, I will desire to obey Him. But in some areas, I need to be educated on how to obey Him. In some areas, I need to be informed what it is He wants me to do.

Sometimes loving God seems to come pretty naturally. He's perfect, after all. "We love Him because He first loved us," and when I think about the way He loves, I am overwhelmed with love. The more I get to know Him, the more my love for Him grows.

Yet I don't find loving imperfect others coming all that easily. He's perfect. We're not. He's easy to love when we get to know Him. We're not. Not always.

So we have to be told to love each other. He needed to tell us straight out that loving Him means we'll decide to love those He loves. Otherwise, we wouldn't know that's just how it has to work.

For another personal illustration and one that's still a little hard for me to talk about, I saw in a new way how it all fits together about ten or so years ago when my brother and his wife (who live a province away) decided to take a trip to Europe for a month. I agreed to stay with their seven children (ages three to fourteen). I have no idea what I was thinking.

It was the dead of winter (well, it was March but that's the dead of winter where my brother lives). In the first week of my stay, I came down with something that I'm still positive was pneumonia. I've never been that sick in my life before or since (and I've had pneumonia before). My brother and his family live in the certifiable boonies, a twenty-minute drive to the nearest town and a twenty-minute walk to the nearest anything (a small gas station/store/post office). I had pneumonia (I'm sure) and no vehicle of my own, so I was housebound except for two weekly trips into town. And the temperature that March was regularly minus twenty degrees Celsius (I'm not exaggerating). I knew no one at all in the area other than my nieces and nephews, and I didn't know them well, having lived in different provinces all our lives. We didn't have the solid foundation of an already-established relationship to start with. All seven kids were home-schooled (except the three-year-old), and I had to do the home schooling.

All those factors alone would have made that month the longest month of my life. But to add to the pneumonia and the cabin fever and the weather, because I hadn't known those nieces and nephews well before my month's stay with them (I knew them too well after that month), I didn't realize what they were capable of. The kids let loose with all the old Adam they had in them (which made them pretty normal kids). And I had no escape.

By the end of that month, I remember saying to God, "God, I don't even love these kids. I'm sorry about that. I know you want me to, but I just don't, and there's no good my saying I do if I don't. I really don't have it in me to love these kids. And I don't even care. I just want outta here."

I remember God's answer so clearly. It was one of those times where there can be no doubt if the voice I heard was God's voice or my own thinking. It was God's voice.

"Do you love your brother?" He asked me. In spite of the situation he'd got me into, I knew beyond doubt that I loved my brother very much.

"How would he feel if he knew that you don't love his kids?" God asked me.

Whoa! That put a knife in my heart. I would never want to hurt my brother like that. He'd be devastated to know that the sister he loved didn't love the kids he adored.

"Do you see how it works? Love your brother, love his kids."

Ouch! I did not have the option of giving up on those kids! Surviving my month with them, then going home and washing my hands of them was out of the question. Not when my brother meant as much to me as he did and not when his kids meant as much to him as they did.

And then God spoke to me again.

"You see how it works? Love Me, love My kids."

Even as I write this, the tears are welling up in my eyes, remembering what God taught me about the way He loves through that experience. Giving up on any of His kids is not an option for us. Love Him, love His kids. It's because of the way He loves us that He has not given us the option of giving up on any of His kids. He doesn't, so we can't.

I need to tell you how the story ends with me and my nieces and nephews (it hasn't ended yet, but where the story's at right now, I mean). They're mostly all grown up now. They turned out marvellously (in spite of the month they had to spend with me). I'm proud of each and every one of them, and I love them all dearly. Again, here come the tears. Praise God He doesn't allow us to give up on the people He loves so passionately!

I've seen God at work in me; I've seen Him leading me into small, baby steps of obedience. Am I seeing fruit? Am I seeing love, joy, and peace (and all those other Galatians 5:22-23 fruits) on my branches?

No tree bears fruit overnight, no tree bears all its fruit all at once, and every tree goes through seasons. It's called growth.

I'm so glad He chose to use fruit and fruit-bearing as the illustration of His work in our lives.

Living in a fruit-growing area, I find tremendous encouragement through watching the fruit trees around me do what they're supposed to. For one thing, you'll never see an apple tree struggle and work and sweat and strain to pop out one little apple on its branches. How encouraging it is to realize I don't have to struggle, work, sweat, and strain either. I only need to abide in the Vine — to learn to get to know God better. And from that knowing Him will grow the trust in Him and the love for Him and the obedience to Him that I need to see the fruit grow.

Then, to see those apple trees in winter, you'd think there was no life left in them. But just wait till spring, and signs of life abound! Yet there's another long wait till autumn to be able to eat any of the fruit. An apple tree can't be judged by the hard, little, sour, green rocks on its branches in early summer. "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season" (Psalm 1:3a., italics, mine).

Is that encouraging? Knowing about the long wait for the fruit and the seasons of bare branches? It is to me when I look at my own branches and see the little, hard, green rocks that may not look like much now but show me that God is doing His work.

Yes, it's His work. I can rest in Him, trusting Him to do it. All I really need to work at is getting to know Him better. Loving Him, trusting Him, obeying Him will all grow out of that knowledge of who He really is and how He loves. "...the greatest of these is love."

Table of Contents

Copyright

~ 1~ So What's the Problem?

~ 2~ The Bottom Line

~ 3~ “What Must I Do to Be Saved?”

~ 4~ The (Super) Natural Results

~ 5~ About Baptism

~ 6~ About Baptism and Spirit Baptism

~ 7~ The Other Exceptions

~ 8~ Objective Meets Subjective

~ 9~ Objective Meets Subjective, Part II

~ 10~ Is God Angry?

~ 11~ So What's Our Problem?

~ 12~ “...For There's No Other Way...”

~ 13~ Some Bumps in the Road

~ 14~ A Matter of Timing

~ 15~ “...But the Fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace...”