Introduction
There are sicknesses of the soul, mind and spirit, that cannot be cured by the finest of doctrinal exposition. Even the reading of Scripture — the record of other people finding God — is a poor substitute for finding and talking with God yourself. The pressures of modern living demand more of our time, nervous energy and substance, leaving us fewer opportunities to maintain a PERSONAL contact with God. Big mortgages commit folk for decades — who hears of young people starting in garages these days? A room EACH for the children to facilitate their studies, etc. Wives working to supplement incomes or occupy stimulated minds, or both. TV — the thief of time and thought. Two cars to allow a family to be in at least two places at once, and enough money to keep them all on the move. Bible schools, camps, study weekends, conferences, committee meetings, preaching efforts. In the breakneck speed of any normal ecclesial family life today, it may be difficult suddenly to find the sort of help you need from God when disaster strikes or emotional stress looms large.
An exposition on the unbreakable marriage bond is a poor response to one who feels it is too difficult to carry on with a marriage. “Be ye not unequally yoked together,” though true, is no helpful rejoinder to a desperately lonely one who has unsuccessfully tried hard to find a partner in the Truth. “Cast your burden on the Lord” is a useless remark to one so depressed that they are past knowing how to. It is not easy to help these people in meaningful ways to find comfort, inner peace and instruction to the heart that comes from knowing how God works with us and where He may be found. “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” (James 2:1516).
There are disillusioned brethren and sisters who find it difficult to find God working among our ecclesias at all in the present climate of strife and division; and some who are determined that their growing children must come into a brotherhood with a healthier approach to spiritual values. We are a long way down the road to doctrinal understanding, but we haven’t, by any means, perfected the art of communicating with God and discovering how He works with us. This series of articles merely touches on some of the broad principles.
(1) The Ministry Of The Word
The cornerstone of our fundamental faith is our dependence on the Holy Scriptures —the Bible — God’s words to us in these latter days. Right at the outset, it is necessary that we clearly lay down our absolute dependence on the Bible for all knowledge of God’s salvation, the mechanical transmission of the details of God’s requirements, and the revelation of God’s purpose when “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). We cannot admit of any further detail by whatever means nor acknowledge any authority whatever apart from the received Scriptures.
But we need to be perfectly clear what Scripture says and what it does not necessarily say. We need to differentiate between SCRIPTURE and INTERPRETATION of Scripture, between revealed detail and uncertain detail. We have to be wary of what is stated as fact and what is inferred; because it is easy to build, on inference and interpretation, a cult from which are excluded those who base their beliefs on the simple fundamental facts of Scripture. History abounds in “exclusive orders” and exaggerated interpretations, in unnecessary complications of fundamentally simple beliefs, in “foolish questions… that are unprofitable and vain” (Titus 3:9), in the unstable who “wrest, as they do the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16).
Man’s creeds and statements of faith, often helpful, can become his own invention and downfall. Having added to the word of God, he may stand in danger of the curse of Revelation 22:18. “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.”
Taking Away From Scripture
The reverse is equally true. Precisely because this danger also exists today, the point is amplified here. Where Scripture is absolutely and unequivocally clear that certain Biblical principles do not apply today, then we have the authority of the Holy Spirit not to require their observance. But there is no Biblical authority at all to deny, for example, the work among us of the Holy Spirit apart from gifts. The plain instructions of Holy Writ are being set aside in favour of man’s interpretation when it is said that the observances of James, chapter 5, do not apply today. Scripture can be made to fit ANY such interpretation simply by making it exclusively applicable to some far off period. It requires a very clear mandate from Scripture itself before men can lay aside the current application of God’s word. We have such a clear mandate for laying aside many of the observances of the Law of Moses, but certainly not for laying aside the current authority of James, in chapter 5. There are a number of key Scriptures in the field of spiritual response, the help of which some would deny us by maintaining, without Bible authority, that they don’t apply today. In this respect, the Word of God, claimed to be so strongly embraced, is, in reality, set at naught.
The Spirit-Word
We also need to resist the habit of some to change God’s word. Do we believe that God, in inspiring the writers, chose the exact word He meant? Of course we do! Yet there are some who, when ‘spirit’ has been chosen by God, THEMSELVES add to God’s writing `word’ and coin a man-made phrase ‘spirit-word’. Perhaps this comes about by a misconception of Eph. 6:17, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”. Ephesians is saying that the SWORD IS THE WORD. It is the SWORD that is equated with WORD, both of which are the agents of “the Spirit” who is far loftier than the sword (word) and actually, in figure, wields the sword (word). It is not Spirit that is equivalent to word; it is sword that is equated with word. We are not entitled to write ‘word’ for ‘spirit’ or even hyphenate them ‘spirit-word’. This term is non-Scriptural. The spirit of God and the word of God are two separate agencies for which God chose two distinct and separate words. Yet God’s chosen term ‘spirit’ is often transmuted to ‘spirit-word’ and is then understood to mean intermediately “a spirit of understanding that comes from reading God’s word” and finally made to mean “Bible understanding” or “Bible knowledge”.
Not only has this changed the meaning of `spirit’ from God’s presence to Bible understanding, but has mistakenly blended spirit and word together and totally confused the ministry of the spirit with the ministry of the word. How can we identify the distinction between the ministry of the spirit and the ministry of the word if we mistakenly bundle them together as “spirit-word”? (It is not necessary to have a distinction if one wrongfully claims that the ministry of the spirit is not applicable today!)
Understanding And Applying The Word
The ministry of the spirit of God is a separate and complex subject to be expanded, God willing, later in this series, but touched on here briefly where the two ministries —that of word and that of spirit come together. Knowledge comes to us by our reading of the Bible. As we seek knowledge and read and learn the word of God, as the love for and respect of the Bible and God’s purpose sinks into our hearts, we are receiving the ministry of the word. But it is useless to us unless we understand it, apply it and be changed by it, and we can only do this by the ministry of God’s spirit.
When we pray to understand what we are reading, God grants understanding by His spirit. Just as belief without baptism is useless, so is knowledge of the Scriptures without understanding, change of heart and application. One ministry goes hand in hand with the other; but THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT COMES BECAUSE OF THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD.
Although it is a parallel operation in the life of a true believer, we must get our priorities right. We need to read our Bibles first to know about God and how to communicate with Him. Only in one sense, a sense which only and entirely is God’s business —the ministry of the calling — does anything precede the knowledge that comes from God’s word. But as we earnestly seek, as we read and yearn to understand, God grants an understanding and a change of heart and a capacity to apply, by His spirit.
Daniel is a classic example. Oh, he earnestly read alright; but the ministry of the word was insufficient until God granted an angelic ministration to give him understanding. (Daniel 10: 12), “Then he said unto me, Fear not Daniel; for from the first day thou didst set thine heart to understand and to chasten thyself before thy God, THY WORDS WERE HEARD AND I AM COME FOR THY WORDS’ SAKE (R.V.). When the key was given him, then the ministry of the word took on a meaningful character by a parallel operation of the spirit and was then of great value and instruction. Cornelius and the Ethiopian eunuch are two more examples of the necessity of these two ministries to go hand in hand; but one before the other and not to be confused by terms such as spirit-word.
In Singapore, the writer met an Asian gentleman, a collector-of-religions, who had read the Word thoroughly. He was completely familiar with it and answered the A.C.B.M. Correspondence Course questions perfectly; but HE DIDN’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. The Word by itself will not save; the process of understanding and the wonderful change in a believer’s heart to accept in faith a new life is the work of God’s spirit. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17) defines the basic and fundamental priority of the Word of God (or Christ) in the process of salvation, yet the very same Scripture highlights the futility of hearing the word without the ability to draw nigh in the spirit. “Did not Israel know?” Of course they did — but “All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people”. Whilst hearing the word is essential, by itself it is not able to achieve the “drawing nigh unto God” and produce God’s corresponding reaction that is part of saving grace.
The importance of the word in a believer’s life is stressed by Jesus in passages such as John 15:3, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you”. But the cleansing process goes further than just hearing Jesus speak — hearing the word starts a chain reaction that leads through repentance to baptism and beyond, before the cleansing process is complete. But it BEGINS with the word. “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). Ephesians opens up the process a little more (5:25-26), “Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word”. Here, both the process of baptism into a crucified Christ and the word that leads to knowledge and acceptance of that sacrifice are put together.
Titus takes us further steps down the road to complete salvation by stressing God’s mercy and the change in the inner man, “… according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (3:5). Inward regeneration in hardened sinners (“and such were some of you”, 1 Cor. 6:11) comes about, not in our own strength, but by emptying ourselves and calling upon God in His mercy to take us and regenerate us; which He does by the power of the Holy Spirit. The prime importance of the word is that the process begins there.
Other Changes
Another attempt to change the Bible, particularly the New Testament, is the use of Hebrew names for Lord and God. These are appropriate in an Old Testament context as a revealed name of God. But, as Bro. James Carter in “The ‘Name’ in the New Testament” (TESTIMONY, Dec. 1973, p.478) explained, God’s purpose in being manifested, as His name required, was fulfilled in Jesus and then God became something more significant — a Father — THE Father of Jesus, and spiritually of us as junior brethren of Jesus.
Not only is Father a descriptive noun, it is a title as well as God’s name from that time on. The Hebrew names of God are ENTIRELY ABSENT FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. Have the writers of the gospels and epistles been led astray? Certainly not! Is the very change THAT GOD INSTITUTED THROUGH INSPIRED WRITERS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT to go unheeded? Will we follow the development of God’s word in reading or conversation? Will we follow Jesus’ example? He called God, my father, our father, your father, father. “When ye pray, say, Our Father”.
Think for a moment! Do you call your father by his first name? Do you call him Bert or Bill? Is not his name by which you call him, also his title and description? “As in the natural, so in the spiritual”. It is discourteous for children to call their father by his first name, and Jesus asks us to courteously reflect the new relationship he has achieved, and call God, Father. Let’s leave New Testament usage unchanged! Furthermore, the name Abba, Father, well reflects the new and more intimate relationship that Christ established for believers. This new name is well established for us in Romans 8:15 and appropriately expresses a far more intimate “closeness” to God than hitherto had been possible.
It was perhaps unfortunate that we chose the Roman Catholic form “ecclesia” to denote our congregations. The true Greek form “Ekklesia” would have added weight to our desire to be close to the first century ‘ekklesia’. There are those who want to change Scripture yet again by Romanising its form from ‘church’ to ‘ecclesia’, as Scripture is read and written. If we keep making changes to the Bible when quoting it, and inaccurate ones at that, where does it end? A tower of Babel?
Conclusion
Our respect for God’s word will be demonstrated by keeping it unchanged, making every part of it as relevant as possible for today and not rolling together and confusing its separate principles. Its blessings come only by being prepared to be CHANGED BY IT and not the reverse; by learning how, in its fullness, it can apply today. It is the beginning of wisdom, the source of precious knowledge, the starting point for the wonderful and complex process of salvation. The ministry of the word will bring grace, mercy and peace, to those who understand.
Is Pentecost Happening Today? (Part 7) – Tongues Shall Cease