The Spirit and The Word

Transcript

GRM 1190
07/08/2018
The Spirit and the Word
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We have been looking a little bit on the subject of the spiritual gifts. We started this last time and we want to talk a little bit more about it but maybe diverge a little bit. Things are happening in the evangelical world and it affects the subject of spiritual gifts, what we call the charismatic movement and so on and the way people are approaching that. I think we ought to be aware of some of these things that are going on as we talk about and emphasize.

We believe the Bible is the Word of God. We believe in the full verbal inspiration of Scripture. This is God’s Word. Now, that being true, and I don’t think you can be considered an evangelical if you do not believe that, although they have given such breadth to the meaning of evangelical that many who deny the full inspiration of Scriptures still claim to be evangelicals. But for those of us who do believe in full inspiration, something else follows up. If we don’t interpret it correctly we still are in error. Now that doesn’t mean that everybody has perfect understanding who is a believer but when we begin to change the way we interpret Scripture, we begin to undermine its authority and transfer authority from the Scriptures themselves to those who are in interpreting the Scripture and we inject the subjectivity of those interpreting the Scripture into the discussion. And we can expect that some of these things will come from the top down, if I can put it that way.

In other words that which impacts and affects the churches often comes through the training grounds for pastors like seminaries, because seminaries supposedly train men for the pastorate and then when churches get men from those seminaries, if they have not been trained properly in handling the Word of God, they come now and the corruption then is spread through the churches and that has been a pattern that has happened again and again.

Part of the problem that we have with seminaries that are supposedly training pastors, if I can say this properly, they have become intellectual centers and we make the standard for pastors to be the same as the world looks at for scholars in other areas and we, in effect, sometimes set aside what the Bible requires.

Remember the Bible wasn’t written by scholars nor was it written to scholars, but Israel in the Old Testament, basically a shepherd people. In the New Testament who did Christ pick? He chose fisherman and tax gatherers.

So, the problem comes to be recognized as a scholar, you have to demonstrate the breadth of your knowledge and you end up getting involved in all kinds of scholarly things and many scholars do not hold to the full inspiration of Scripture, do not hold that it is the verbal Word of God and they have all kinds of ideas on how it ought to be interpreted. Now that all has come to affect a variety of areas and we are going to talk about the area of gifts as well.

Let me just remind you of the principles that we use in interpretation. We looked at this when we began this series on Sunday evening. Let me just remind you. What we call literal interpretation. It is historical. It is interpreted in light of the history of the time, its setting, its culture. In other words, when reading the Old Testament, we need to study something of that time period; what is going on, how Israel functioned, what it meant with the laws given to them regulating their conduct and so on. So, the historical setting, when it was given.

The grammatical usage. In other words, the grammar. We learn that in English. We learn how to put sentences together with subjects and verbs and objects. We have to interpret the Bible according to the rules of grammar. What is the verb in this sentence, the action word and so on? What is the subject? What are the modifiers here explaining more fully?

We interpret in the context, the context, the sentence, paragraph, the book. You know it is the same in basically dealing with anything. You use a word and sometimes you will say, “Put that word in a sentence for me.” Because the context of the sentence helps you to grasp the meaning and then we put things into paragraph where that helps, this paragraph, that fuller unit of thought and so on.

We compare Scripture with Scripture. Sometimes called the analogy of faith but basically it just means comparing Scripture with Scripture. Scripture is consistent with itself. In other words, it won’t say one thing in one passage and the opposite in another claiming both are true. It might seem that way at first, so we go back and work through it more consistently comparing Scripture with Scripture and other Scriptures to get a clearer understanding because Scripture is consistent with itself and that is why we say the best interpreter is Scripture.

For example, we find when we are in the book of Revelation dealing with prophecy, we go back to the Old Testament and read prophetic passages and understand them basically in the same light as the later revelation. There may be more clarity given, more information given, but one helps us understand the other.

Single meaning, sometimes called the univocal meaning in language. There is one interpretation of a passage of a word. If you start giving multiple meanings to a word you have to have a good reason. Words can be used differently in different contexts, but you just can’t decide, oh well, we give this meaning here, this meaning here. That is why we have dictionaries and lexicons and so on. We go to find out the meaning of a word. It can have a range of meaning and so on, but if words don’t have a meaning and have multiple meanings then we have a hard time knowing what we are talking about. So, in a context, it will have one meaning and not different meanings.

Progressive revelation, the progress of revelation. This is important because it distinguishes us from some in covenant theology for example. Later revelation does not change prior revelation. In other words, the promises for Israel, for example, in Old Testament prophecy cannot be changed by revelation given in the New Testament. So now Israel doesn’t have any promises because now we reinterpret them. Progressive revelation is there but it has to be understood. It can give further information. It can give more clarity, but it doesn’t change the meaning of what had been given before.

And I put the last one down. Choose the simplest interpretation. We are not looking to complicate it. Remember, this was written to common ordinary people, Israelites who spent the day taking care of their flocks yet God said when He sent them His Word, you better listen to it. You better obey it. Well they couldn’t do that if they don’t have any idea what He was talking about. So, He didn’t speak in languages that were geared to just people at a certain scholarly level. And that is true in the New Testament; Peter, James and John from taking care of fishing boats. They weren’t locked up in a library somewhere studying the various philosophical ideas of the day. They were ordinary people. So, Scripture is written for us. These are just some basic reminders. There are changes going on.

These are the principles of literal interpretation, but some things have changed now in applying these. We would apply it to say, well, we go to like the epistles to get our doctrine. We study like the Gospels. There is doctrine in them but basically they are telling us something of the history, the life of Christ during His time on earth. The book of Acts is talking about the life of the early church.

I mentioned narrative theology last time. Some of you asked me what that is. Well a narrative is the story. And what is changing is some areas in evangelicalism, they believe that narratives in the Bible are just as instructive for us as we would call the didactic portions, the teaching portions like the epistles. So, in other words, it is not just written there for history, but we should be doing what is written.

This becomes key when we talk about spiritual gifts. They started to do this with the book of Acts. So, the book of Acts is not just a record of the history of the early church. It is telling us what we ought to be doing and experiencing today. The Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, that should be repeatable for us down to today. The doing of certain miracles and so on that should be being done down to today.

That’s what I mean. These stories become authoritative for our conduct. We would say, “Well that helps us understand about the development of the early church. We appreciate the sovereignty of God in it.” That is true, but it is not instructing us for what we are to do. And you can see the subjectivity that comes into this because at the end of Matthew 9, Jesus tells His disciples to lift up your eyes. The fields are white to harvest. Pray the Lord will send out laborers into the field. We use that and say we should, but you know what He immediately goes on in chapter 10 and remember there was no chapter break. He calls the 12 and sends them out. You know what He tells them? Don’t go into the city of the Samaritans, don’t go to the Gentiles. You only go to Israel. Well that is part of the narrative we wouldn’t think we would hold today less we begin to spiritualize it and say this is our Israel and who decides what part of that historical story is to be implemented? Well the part that you have decided, the interpreter has decided.

So, when you hear about, read about narrative theology, we could see this coming, everybody telling quote, their stories. And their stories become truth and now we are doing that in Scripture and the book of Acts becomes key when we talk about spiritual gifts. Part of that is, now they have readjusted and so scholars can fit into this.

Before we used to talk about Pentecostal theology as being just emotional but now they say “Well we have some theological foundation for this. We are to be putting into practice” and scholars have begun to develop this and so when you read their literature they will talk about narrative theology. Well it is not in the epistles but here you can get this in the book of Acts because look what Peter did. Why should that only be for Peter’s time? We should be doing that kind of thing in interpreting the Bible.

I mentioned to you a book put together in a series by scholars. There is 11 of them. I think six of them have their doctor’s degrees from Dallas Seminary and either teach there or graduated from there. I mention that not to be on the attack just of Dallas, but we know and have appreciated Dallas Seminary over the years and where they have stood but there are changes going on.

Interestingly there is another adjustment going on. They are moving away from what we call literal interpretation of Scripture. That is too confining, too restrictive. Now they start out in claiming they are cessationalists still. In other words, they don’t believe the miracle gifts are for today. But, and I will explain to you what that “but” means. In the preface to this, the editors of the book, both Dallas men said they “faced trauma in their lives and in the lives of their family. Our rationalistic theological training left us unequipped to deal with this.” Now they had some life experiences and their rationalistic theological training. What they mean by that – “looking at the Scripture just in a rational, logical way wasn’t sufficient any more. The propositions of our theology left us cold.” In other words, here is what the Scripture states as true or not true. That just left us cold. “It failed to speak vitally to the pain we each felt.”

They go on… “It was a sterile sensationalism that essentially locks the Spirit in the pages of Scripture. Now we are going to see a movement here. They say we are going to have to experience the Spirit but that is separate from the Scripture. That is why I say we are moving out to a serious departure from where the church has been.

And when they tell you who the contributors are, that tells you we’ve got men on the drift. Here is one who got one of his degrees from the seminary I graduated from and I am somewhat familiar with his writings. He is also the director of the Spiritual Formation Forum. Some of you have become aware of Spiritual Formation and certain things that you do, some of this goes back to monastic periods and there are things…it is not the Scripture alone working. Well if you are involved in Spiritual Formation, you are in a realm that I don’t see as Biblical.

There is another one of the authors of this. He specializes in the Old Testament and Spiritual Formation. Your spirituality is developed through well, then they go back to, like I say, the early days of monasticism and other things. It is the forms you go through, the religious practices you do. This is not Biblical.

The professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas, he teaches courses in preaching, drama, voice, creative writing, and creative radio production. Here is another one who is a specialist in worship in Christian spirituality.

Well let me read you a few statements here. This is from one of the editors who was a professor and has written a great Greek grammar, so he is well familiar with New Testament Greek. He would be one them, I think, the foremost Greek scholars of the New Testament. Some of you have used his book who have studied Greek. It is an intermediate grammar. “Through my experience (and he talks about his particular experience. I am not going to go into and his family) I came to grips with the inadequacy of the Bible alone to handle life’s crisis. I needed an existential experience with God. So, I got in touch with my early years as a charismatic.” And he had been saved back to contacts in Melodyland which a number of years ago was the center of charismatic activity in theology. You see, he needs an existential experience and these men seem to have an appreciation of Karl Barth.

Karl Barth was a Swiss theologian, sometimes called the greatest Protestant theologian of the twentieth century. But as far as I can tell, Karl Barth was not a believer. Some would disagree. He was really the father of neo-orthodoxy, the new orthodoxy which was not orthodox. In fact, Charles Ryrie, who was a professor at Dallas, wrote a booklet in 1956 on neo-orthodoxy. He called it pseudo orthodoxy. That tells you how changes go at schools. Charles Ryrie was a professor for many years at Dallas Seminary.

But Karl Barth promoted existential theology. In other words, let me give you an example. “It is not important whether you believe in the literal, physical resurrection of Christ. What is important is that you have an existential experience, resurrection experience with Christ.”

Now you say, “Just exactly what does that mean?” If the physical resurrection doesn’t matter, the Word of God is just something that can put you in touch with God in an existential, experiential way. So, we are not caught up.

Why people thought he was orthodox? He reacted against German liberalism and said “We need an authoritative God, an authoritative Bible.” But he didn’t believe in the inspiration of Scripture.

So, some of this stuff I read, and I think this is wonderful? You will find Karl Barth referred to here by these men. Let God be God.

But when you divorce God from an authoritative binding Scripture, you have a subjective God. A God you come to know through experience, not through His Word. So, he said, “I need an existential experience.” What he is talking about is, I had to have it in the realm of experience. So, he is going to separate that from the Word and the rational logical approach to the Word of God with what we would call literal interpretation. There is a place for that. But and he goes on to say, “I am a cessationist. I believe certain gifts of the Holy Spirit were for the earliest stage of Christianity to authenticate that God was doing something new. These sign gifts, the gift of healing, tongues, miracles ceased with the death of the last apostle and you say this is where we are. Well he is where we are on that, but he has picked up the charismatic side, separating the ministry of the Spirit of God from the Word of God and that is the danger. And he goes on to share his life experience.

Let me read you just some quotes from here. “Through this experience (the trials he was going on in his family) I found that the Bible was not adequate. I needed God in a personal way. I needed an existential experience of the holy One. Quite frankly I found that the Bible was not the answer. I found the Scriptures to be helpful, even authoritatively helpful as a guide but without feeling God.” And he’s got that word “feeling” in italics. The Bible gave me little solace.

Now there is an element of truth here. I feared from the days of my seminary study that there is a tendency to just intellectualize the study of Scripture and it becomes like you are studying any other intellectual study. You are studying to be a medical doctor. You are studying in the field of philosophy or something. It just becomes intellectual activity. That is not true for true believers or it shouldn’t be.

The Scriptures, you know, are not the answer and he goes on to say, “Let me state this bluntly. The Bible is not a member of the trinity.” We have a chapter in here, “The Father, the Son and the Holy Scripture,” sort of making fun of this idea. But how do you know about the trinity apart from Scripture? They are saying you get to know it by existential experience, by God bringing you experience, and it is not the Word of God working in your life.

I sometimes read this here, “Evangelical rationalism can lead to spiritual defection. I am referring to the suffocation of the Spirit in post-graduate theological training as well as the seduction of academia.” Now I agree with that.

I think I mentioned to you at a previous study, John Frame, who is a theologian, written some volumes I appreciated even though he is covenantal. But he wrote a little booklet called The Academic Captivity of Theology. And in that book, he said, “We ought to trash our system of training pastors because it is geared to try to just make scholars out of men. That doesn’t necessarily prepare them for ministry of God’s truth.” I agree with that.

So yes, to get into seminary you know what they want? They want to know how you did academically. They want to know that you excel in these things and then they want to have degrees of the men who teach there.

One of the current theological seminaries that we are all familiar with, that men go to, they have a great man there. He has pastored, he has taught, he has a graduate degree, a master’s degree but they said you are not going to be able to continue to teach here unless you get a doctor’s degree. So, you have to go and get that. Why? Because we want the accreditation of the state.

When you want to be recognized by the world you have to make the compromise. There is no compromise in the world. And this comes out here. He talks about the suffocation of the Spirit in post-graduate theological training because it is all about scholarly academic success, nothing about real spiritual life. And we can make the Bible just an object and unbelievers do that all the time. They read the Bible, they write on it and so on.

He gives an example of one of his students, “One of my brightest master students (not master as in a seminary that you are familiar with. This is Dallas, but he was in the master’s degree program under this man that is writing the article) prepared him well in exegesis. It did not prepare him well in prayer. Some years later I had opportunity to meet with him. He has not only confused about his evangelical heritage, he was even questioning the uniqueness of Jesus. This student has suppressed part of the arsenal at his disposal, the witness of the Spirit.” Now you see what he has done. He has separated the work of the Spirit of God from the Word of God. Well you know the problem and I don’t even read you that part of it. “One of my brightest students in my master’s program went on for doctrinal work at Oxford.”

Now if you want to learn good theology and the Bible why do you go to Oxford? You go to Oxford because that gives you academic recognition but what does it do? It tears apart your theological convictions because you are constantly being dealt with by men who are not believers but are handling the Word of God and explaining to you why it cannot be trusted, why it is not fully the Word of God.

On other occasions I have referred to a biography of George Eldon Ladd who is somewhat known as the popularizer, at least in our day, of post-tribulationism and particularly of the “already, not yet” theology regarding the kingdom.

George Eldon Ladd was a dispensationalist, but he went to Harvard for his doctorate and he thought he went through Harvard because his goal in his biography, this is what it is all about. He wanted to be recognized as a scholar not just among Christians, but he thought among the world of scholars and that would help get the Bible recognition. But you know what happened at Harvard? He got corrupted. Even his biographer noted that. George Eldon Ladd thought he came out just with more knowledge. His biographer said he did not realize how much he was impacted and changed by his study there.

You just can’t go and sit under these men. So, this way he thinks, “Well he hadn’t learned enough about prayer and the work of the Spirit.” So, he is abandoning the truth of the Word of God. No, he abandoned. He went and subjected himself to false teachers. What does Paul say about false teachers in the church? Throw them out!

I told you I was in a doctrinal program in a seminary and I finally went and told the dean, “I can’t stay. I might come out like you.” You don’t just go and sit and allow the devil’s teachers to teach you. “but I am too strong to be corrupted.”

But at any rate here is the point that he makes. He is giving the points why you can’t interpret the Scripture in this normal, literal way as I summarize this. One of his points – “Many of the power brokers of evangelism (and in his way he puts down those who hold to the literal, consistent interpretation) since the turn of the Scripture have been white, obsessive, compulsive males.” Now I say we have theology intruded here. What is a white, obsessive, compulsive male? I don’t quite find that in the pages here, but you can go to the phycologist of today, which is the new religion. Now it is getting old. “Ever since the day of the Princtonians, Hodge, Warfield, Macheon, et al, American non-charismatic evangelicalism has been dominated by Scottish common sense post enlightenment, left-brain, obsessive, compulsive white males.”

I am so sick of reading this talking about where we really got our ideas of interpreting the Scripture literally in a logical normal way was from Scottish realism or the enlightenment. We interpreted the way Paul interpreted it. We interpret it the way Christ interpreted it. We interpret it the way God says it was to be interpreted. When Israel veered from interpreting it, as we would see it, literally, God punished them. There was no excuse for it.

This idea now we inject psychological evaluation of what is wrong with white males and they have to be in control and they’re obsessive compulsive and so they want to be rationalistic so now you are going to live your life irrationally.

You can see how the thinking of world becomes the thinking of those in theology. We live in a world that has become irrational. You know it is Alice in Wonderland and we can be what we want to be. If the one you thought was a male, thinks of himself as a female, he is a female. And if a person who you would have thought was a female thinks of themselves as a male, they are male.

Now I see there is this movement, you shouldn’t be able to put gender on a birth certificate because you won’t know what the gender is until that person decides what they think they are. Yes, let’s all just be irrational. Pretty soon Peter Rabbit will be bounding down.

So, here is the problem, here’s how we correct this problem with Scottish, common sense, post-enlightenment, left-brain, obsessive, compulsive white males. Number one “The white evangelical community needs to listen and learn (Learn in italics.) from the black evangelical community.” Now see what we are doing here. We have moved the authority from the Word of God itself to those interpreting the Word of God. Should a black evangelical Christian get something different out of the Word of God than a white evangelical Christian or a yellow evangelical Christian or a red evangelical Christian? Red and white and yellow and black… but you see now the interpreter becomes the authority, and in a way if you are just a white male, you can’t you know to interpret the Bible correctly. You need the input of a black male but what about the yellow male? Well better include him and so he goes on “A full orbed experience of God must take place in the context of community and that community must be hetero,” you know, and I think of getting it out will be too late. Community interpretation.

You know Bob Thomas, Robert Thomas went home to be with the Lord about a year ago. He spoke here many years ago. He has written on hermeneutics and he did a journal article before this book was even written and he pointed out the errors coming into evangelical interpretation. One of them was community interpretation. This is where you get, this is what brings us into this charismatic kind of interpreting the Bible. Well you can’t know the Bible if you are just a white person studying the Bible. You don’t know its true meaning.

It takes a community of people coming together to study the Bible and so the Bible is not an independent, authoritative source. The source is in the ones interpreting it and so when we get the input of this color of person and this color of person and this color of person and then why don’t we bring in other things because you should also have some poor people and some rich people and some in-between people because they may have a different perspective as they come to Scripture and so all of this is your pre-understanding of Scripture. Their idea is everybody comes to the Bible with a pre-understanding so there is no such thing as the ability to objectively understand the Word of God. You see it is subtle and it’s not so subtle. What the devil is doing is undermining people’s confidence in the Bible.

This is authoritative. It doesn’t mean one thing to a white, left-brained, obsessive, compulsive male and a different thing to a black whatever he is male. Or, we are not done. The Holy Spirit does not work just on the left-brain. Again, you have this is what a full college education does for you, but you don’t find out the left-brain and the right-brain in Scripture.

“He also works on the right-brain. He sparks our imagination, causes us to rejoice, to laugh, to sing and create. Few Christians are engaged and fully committed to the arts today.” Well that has to do with Bible interpretation? I think I have viewed believers in a variety of kinds of occupations and we have talents and so on that we use in whatever we are doing we use them to the glory of God, but the seminaries ought to be encouraging and developing these. Well, in the church we learn the Word, we grow and you ought to faithfully represent Christ whatever you are doing, wherever you are.

Now you go to seminary to learn how to be a painter. I like painters. I like artists. My dad was something of an artist and I have some of his works hanging in our home and that is great. He didn’t have to go to seminary to learn that. You go to art school and learn it for example. And it doesn’t mean that ability can’t be used in a context of the church. And we benefit and appreciate. You don’t have to go to seminary to learn. You see everything getting and you have to have these people helping interpret the Scripture or you might not get out of the Scripture what they would get out of it.

Again, the Scripture doesn’t have a fixed meaning. Each of these people come and get something out of Scripture you don’t get. So, you have to all come together as a community and get community interpretation because the painter might get something out of the Scripture now that I don’t know, the Greek student might not and then there is the third. And we men have failed to listen to the women in our midst and thus failure is related to our not hearing the voice of the Spirit and so without women being involved and Dallas Seminary fully involved in training women for example. Well wait a minute, a woman is supposed to get something different out of Scripture than a man?

You see what has happened. We lay down the principles of interpreting Scripture and these have been you know I think they go back to the writers of Scripture, the people of God in the Old and New Testament but now well, you really don’t know what the Scripture is saying so you bring these people and then what do you do? Well when the artists have told you what they get out of Scripture and the people of the different races tell you what they get out of Scripture and the people of different social standing tell you what they get out, we can all pool together and maybe we will have an idea of what the Bible says.

You see really the authority of the Scriptures is gone. It is a tragedy and if I was reading this from just like a radical, charismatic or something or a radical anybody, unbeliever, and not know where we are.

Alright, I remember my dad telling me, “Remember when you are reading all those things, not everybody is as interested in it as you are.” That is the fun of being the preacher.

Let me read you what another writer in this, writes. “In our tradition we have often effectively locked God into the pages of the text of Scripture. He was free to speak there and then but not free to speak now and anything beyond that has been understood as a denial of the finality of the message.” You realize what they are saying, “It is not done.” That’s why I say they are really, they would say they hold certain things true in agreement with what we would hold about the gifts, but God is not done speaking. He is not done speaking authoritatively. You don’t lock Him into the pages of Scripture. He speaks to you experientially, directly.

One of the banes of modern evangelicalism is rationalism. Now if you are going to become irrational in interpreting Scripture I just don’t know how you get anything said out of it. I mean how do you function in your life? I realize that the world has become irrational and you can’t even agree on what is a male and what is a female. Well I expect the world to become irrational. Sin makes you stupid. And we read again this morning that those who reject the Word of God have no wisdom. That is one of the banes of modern evangelicalism, its rationalism. Being rational required a rational, logical interpretation of Scripture – that is what happens when you go to feeling.

Part of the problem being dealt with, “Truth was to be discovered strictly through the inductive method.” We come to Scripture. We study it in its details and we come to truth. Jesus said in John 17, “Your Word is truth.” “The method assumes that there was objective truth available to man and such truth was unchanging.” That is the very assumption I come to Scripture with? This is objective truth available to man. It is unchanging truth. They are criticizing that. Again, these are men teaching in evangelical schools, teachers teaching the future pastors and they are going to come out and tell their people “Don’t be confused. This is not objective truth available to you. It is not unchanging truth.” What did Jesus mean when He said, “Not one jot, one tittle will pass away until it is all fulfilled.” What does He mean when He said, “You can’t add to it, you can’t take away from it?” What do you talk about blessing when you obey the Word, when it is not unchanging? I thought this was eternal truth. I have a whole list of passages calling the Word of God eternal but you would be familiar with that.

Well let me see if there is anything else you just can’t get by without. “To put it another way, certainty of knowledge cannot ultimately be built on propositional revelation. That certainty must come through the Spirit.” You see what you do? You divorce the work of the Spirit of God from the Word of God. Objective truth cannot come just through the Word of God. It has to come through the Spirit. Now we would say, well, the Spirit works through the Word but he divorces it from the Word. You have that existential experience outside the Word.

That all brings confusion into the whole world of the work of the Spirit today. They wouldn’t be classical charismatics, but they are saying you directly experience the Holy Spirit in your life apart from the Word and He may speak to you and so on. I believe the Lord leads in lives, individually and personally. I prayed about whether I ought to come to be pastor at Indian Hills. My family prayed about it. Marilyn and I prayed about it. These kinds of things I believe as we look and consider the Lord does lead us. That is different than talking about God operating outside and apart from His Word.

Come over to John chapter 15; this whole work of the Spirit. John 14 you can come to first. Jesus on His last night explaining to the disciples something of what is going to happen. He is leaving. The Spirit is going to come. Verse 15 of chapter 14, “If you love Me you will keep My commandments.” Incidentally some read this is and say, “Well the commandments, that must mean the Mosaic Law.” John used two different words for law, entole and nomos. One when he is talking about the Mosaic Law. The other when he is talking about commandments, like now. These are new commandments, commandments of Christ. “If you love Me you will keep My commandments.” After you have brought together a Gentile and a Jew and someone from other nations and you have a community understanding they are expected to understand what He says, and the evidence of love is, you keep it. “I will ask the Father. He will give you another helper that He may be with you forever. The Spirit of truth,” and you ought to underline that, the Spirit of truth, (the Holy Spirit) is the Spirit of truth. He is the author of the truth in the sense it was the Spirit of God moving upon the writers, so they wrote God’s Word. It is the truth of God. The Spirit of God works in concert with the truth of God.

Verse 21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.” Verse 23, “If one loves Me he will keep My Word. He who does not love Me does not keep My Word.” Verse 26, “But the helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name He will teach you all things, bring to your remembrance all that I said.”

You know scholars have all kinds of issues over how we got the Gospels and remember, those men were just men. Their minds wouldn’t remember correctly. They have even created a document outside the Gospels and I was taught this in seminary, an evangelical school way back then. Que – what is que? I even asked my professor what is que? Where do you get that? Well that is what scholars have done to help explain. There was this central document that they all drew from and it just tells you right here when the Holy Spirit comes He tells His disciples, “He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” You know what? Matthew didn’t forget what Christ said. John didn’t forget? Why? Well he had a better mind than you have, no. The Holy Spirit was supernaturally working. And I was sitting there, and I remember so clearly, yes, because the Holy Spirit was bringing to his mind. It is not complicated unless you really just don’t want to let the Word be its own interpreter and authority.

Come to chapter 15, verse 26, “When the Helper comes whom I will send to you, from the Father, the Spirit of truth.” He is also called the “Spirit of truth” down in chapter 16, verse 13, “But when He, the Spirit of truth comes He will guide you into all the truth.” And He will be speaking the Word from God who is the Author of Scripture and then moving men to write it. And you will note the end of verse 26 and chapter 15 because there is a lot of discussion among these men and we haven’t given enough attention to the Holy Spirit. Maybe sometime here we will talk about more in depth the Biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit doesn’t get the same attention that Christ does. In the Old Testament you get more focused on the Father, Christ more focus on Him. What is the Holy Spirit going to do in verse 26 of chapter 15? “The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father He will testify about Himself.” No, “He will testify about Me.”

So, you see the work of the Holy Spirit in the Scripture that directs our attention primarily to the Holy Spirit giving the writer of Scripture the clarity of understanding to write the truth about Christ. It is not surprising that there is not the same emphasis on the Holy Spirit. We don’t want to minimize. It is worth the study and there are books written on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit both in the Old Testament and the New Testament and we will talk maybe more about that in the future. He works through the Word.

Now I believe in the experiential dimension of our lives. We are emotional creatures, but I think the Word of God moves us that way and should and that is the danger of a purely academic environment where you can graduate and be sent out into the ministry just because you scored high in Hebrew and Greek and other academic areas. Is the Word of God alive? Is it rich? You know the Bible says the Word of God is living and active, more powerful than a two-edged sword. It pierces into the inner resources of our very being. If that is not happening, then I need to stop and consider where am I spiritually.

Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 15:16, “Your Word was found and I ate it and Your Word became the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” That inner person was revived. There was joy, there was rejoicing. Why? He fed upon the Word. It is an alive Word. It is not just words on a page in a book. It is living and active. It is different than any other book that has ever been written. It has spiritual life. So, this disassociation of my emotions from the Word and my personal relationship and walk with God, they talk about love in this book as though it is something the Spirit produces in us, what, love, the Spirit of truth. Jesus said, “If you love Me you will keep My commandments.” This is not just some emotional feeling. How do we disassociate this from a member of the cults who can give a testimony and so you know I came and when I came into these religious practices I read somebody who had converted to Catholicism and he said it was not until I came to know Mary in that personal way that my spiritual life came alive? I said, would that validate it? He has an existential experience because he began to focus his spiritual life on Mary? But now we are saying we need this existential? But who says our existential experience is real? Jesus said, “If you love Me you will keep My commandments.” You don’t just go and sit there and try to get a feeling with Me. Do My Word and you know we walk in fellowship, it is real? It is emotional but that comes out of our taking in the Word, living it out. Alright, I think I emphasized that enough but I’ve got a lot of good stuff here, but I will leave it go.

I am going to answer a couple of questions. If you’ve got one I will take that first and if I don’t get to the questions I have written down like I said, next week we have communion and then I will take the evening because I do have a number of questions. I appreciate them coming but I got caught up in my hermeneutics this week and I just had to get it out. I had preached it to the walls of my study at home and said, well I’ve got to do it with some people.

Let me go to my file. I am going to take an easy one. “Can a person be saved who holds to covenant theology? Of course not, no, of course. I believe covenant theologians can be saved. I mentioned John Frame. I enjoy his theology although I think he is wrong on eschatology and so on. Some of them are very clear with the Gospel.

I think there is a danger in covenant theology because when they move to prophetic portions of Scripture they abandon the literal interpretation that guides them in their interpreting like the Gospel portions of Scripture. But once you open the door to say well we interpret parts of the Scripture literally and parts of it not literally unless there are obvious reasons. It is not that complicated. But who decides where you stop interpreting the Scriptures literally?

Karl Barth said it doesn’t matter whether you interpret the resurrection of Christ literally. It is just important if you have a resurrection experience with Christ. Well wait a minute! We say like Paul, “If you don’t believe in a literal resurrection of Christ then you are not saved.”

So, the danger of covenant theology, as well as the sad thing – they miss the joys of understanding what God has said about future prophecy is they open the door and that can lead to, and often does, interpreting other portions of Scripture non literally but I do believe covenant theologians and people who hold to covenant theology, some of them are saved undoubtedly.

One question here and this relates, and I appreciate it because it is not a clear line. How would you define doctrine especially in terms of women teaching doctrine? Isn’t all Biblical truth doctrine and that is true. I have mentioned in our women’s groups, we emphasize for the women more teaching the application of doctrine and it is true. You could say, well that is a form of doctrine. The word doctrine just means teaching but I take it like from Titus 2 the older women are to teach the younger women and they are more related to the practical things and that would be true with the rest of Scripture. More guiding women and what it means.

If I can find Titus. “Older women are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, not enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good.” Sometimes it is amazing to me that the Bible is, you know, it has a high standard and it does but you have to put here they shouldn’t be enslaved to much wine. I mean that ought to be a given you would think but here it is. “Not malicious gossips not enslaved but teaching what is good.” And some writers will say, “Well see, women are to teach” as though that is not even you are just breaking off the sentence. It is not even a complete sentence that they have. “So that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands so the Word of God will not be dishonored.”

You see it is more in the application of the truth rather than teaching the Biblical doctrine of the election work through a detailed study of the book of Romans. I would assume they would have been in part of those studies but how do we as women implement this in our relationship with our husband? How do we deal in submission to a husband that we disagree with? We can have strong opinions, all of us do, men and women, but I am to be submissive to my husband. What do I do?

So, you learn, you teach these things. That is what I am trying to make the distinction of what we try to hold here and primarily we try to provide teaching for men and women by men teachers, but you know women are to be involved in one another’s lives and use the Word in one another’s lives but more in that dimension.

So, it is not as maybe as clear of a line as you would say because it is true. Anytime we are using the Word to that extent, it is teaching but we would distinguish between applying the Word and there is one meaning in a passage but there are multiple applications.

For example when we are applying the Word for a woman in being submissive to her husband, applying the Word to a man in loving his wife, well that is being applied in a different setting. Teaching a wife how to be submissive is not the same thing as teaching a man what he should be doing in loving his wife. So, an application of that we might expand that. This means you taking her into consideration, she becomes a priority in your life, you are making decisions for her good, not selfish so you are applying that teaching in that sense to those you are dealing with.

So that is a little bit what we have in mind, but I agree it is not a clear cut here you have crossed the line because we are dealing with the Word and all of that in one degree or another is teaching but that is the distinction.

Question: We have discussed forgiveness and church discipline over the past few weeks. There seems to be a difference if someone is causing dissentions or teaching, false teaching within the body though. Can you speak to that? There appears to be no leniency there.

Yes – I think forgiveness when any kind of sinful conduct is going on whether it is false teaching or sinful behavior, false teaching is sinful conduct. The forgiveness we are talking about is a believer who recognizes what he is doing is sinful, wrong and stops it. So those teaching wrong doctrine, they are silenced. They are not to teach it anymore. So, you go to them, you show them from the Word what they are teaching is not Biblical. They may say, “Oh, I didn’t realize that. I want to repent of that before the Lord. I was, you know, corrupting His Word.” Well you, then it is dealt with and you are forgiven, you are welcome. We may say, “It would be better for you not to continue teaching until you are better instructed.” You know things like that but as far as the forgiveness that comes with the repentance.

Now if he is going to continue the conduct, whether it is false teaching or wrong behavior, then he has to be disciplined. “No, I am going to continue to teach that you are saved by baptism.” “Well you can’t teach that here. That is false doctrine.” So then the discipline would take place or any other false doctrine. The same with the behavior and they may recognize. “I knew when I was doing it that it was wrong. I want to repent. I want to stop it. I want to get right with the Lord and move on.” Well then there is forgiveness. So, it depends on whether the behavior is corrected and dealt with. That is the goal of discipline. Remember restoration, God’s is not willing that any of His sheep would perish and so part of what He has built in, your correction.

It is like your children. Your discipline is not to drive them out of the family. It is to correct them, so they can be a right fitting member of the family. But as they get older if they persist in certain behavior you may say you have to move out.

My dad said we used to arm wrestle and that, but my dad has a way of always winning because he said, “You know, the first time you beat me you have to move out.” So, I would always push him down to almost and then poof. Well I am not ready. It is just sort of a way we deal.

I think keeping in mind the goal is restoration, not humiliation, not vengeance, not so we go and that is why there are steps because you want to help them. And that is why I mention the Puritans all the time. John Owen, the Puritan said, “There is a reason God gave three steps. Don’t rush them. Give time for it to work. Because the first time you confront him he may be defensive. Give him time to soak on it for a little bit. Then take two or three. Some things are more clear than others, but yes, so that is when the forgiveness kicks in when he has indicated I recognize it is sin. I want to stop. I want to get on right. So, whether it is false doctrine or false behavior – does that get to the point? Good.

Forgiveness is key. You know John MacArthur says, “Forgiveness is perhaps a major mark.” We talk about love being the mark of a believer and it is, but he believes forgiveness is a mark. “Forgive us as we have forgiven others” and so on. It is a key thing. But sin cannot be tolerated under the guise of love or forgiveness.

Question: You talked about emotions in our spiritual life. Is Biblical love an emotion or feeling? Or what role do emotions play in Biblical love.

Good question, because you know in a way, love is both. But agape or agapao love is love of action and so “For God so loved the world” that He had strong feelings and emotions of us. No, “For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son.” This is the demonstration of God’s love “in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” There is another word Phileo love which is more of a family reciprocal love which is a good love. It is used of God also. Eros love, erotic love is not used in the Bible, but emotions flow out of that.

We want to be careful. We are emotional beings. You know our lives, you know we are not stones. I mean we are people with feelings, but our feelings are to flow out of our actions. You know I want to please God, I want to honor Him, I want to be obedient to Him in every area of my life and I walk in fellowship with Him. So, feelings are there. You know when I talk to God I can express to Him, “I know You love me.” I may be going through something and saying, “Lord, I don’t feel that love but I know it is there. It is true. You love me. Your Son died for me.” Because I can’t depend on my emotions. My emotions come and go. You know you are married to your husband and to your wife and she say, “I love you.” “Well I don’t feel like I love you today.” Well that is irrelevant. I love her whether I feel like it or not today. I love you too but don’t bother me. I am reading a book.

You know we all have times where the love feeling is stronger. You know you just don’t walk around hugging each other all the time. You have other things you do and because you love one another you do things for one another. You know she prepared a meal for you because she loves you. You went and worked that day because you wanted to provide for your family because you love them.

I remember asking my mother when I was a kid and I never forgot it. I said, “Why is dad at work all the time?” “Because he loves us and wants to provide for us, so you have clothes to wear to school, food to eat.” That helped me to understand his love. It wasn’t that he was there every day putting his arm around me, telling me how much he loved me. He was expressing that love in taking care of me.

So primarily love, the fruit of the Spirit is love, is an action love. That is why we say, “Well I love my wife, but I don’t treat her like I love her.” Something is wrong because actions should follow and demonstrate that love and be displayed by that love and then feelings come out of that and we know you start to love someone when you have that relationship in that way.

So it is, I don’t want to divorce emotions but you can’t put the emotions out front. Then you’ve got the worlds kind of love. They fall in love and out of love, in love and out of love.

I just read the news this week of a man, he is marrying his fifth wife. I am sure he is in love, but he may not be in love next month. You know that is the world’s view of love. It is more of an erotic feeling driven love and that is my concern when you put emotions out front. My emotions come and go. And we all know that. There are some days you don’t feel like going to church. You don’t feel like reading your Bible. You don’t feel like doing it. You tell your kids what? They get up and say, “I don’t feel like going to school today.” “Well you better get ready and go or you will have something you don’t want to feel.” You know that kind of thing because they can’t be driven by their feelings.

Feelings are to come from action. And that is my concern about divorcing the emotion from the Word. The Word is emotional in and of itself. It pierces the inner recesses of my heart. It brings me joy and rejoicing as it did Jeremiah with all his tribulation. When I begin to seek that feeling outside the Word, I get feelings for all kinds of things. We have that sad movie, always make me cry. Well yes, you can watch a sad movie, you cry. You don’t know those people and you they are just actors and their acting may have never happened. What are you crying about? Stop it. Well it was geared to impact your emotions you know. That person is dying. I know. They died in the last movie too. Get over it. But it is sad and look at their kids, they are just actors, but our emotions can be moved. That is why we don’t want to put those out there separate from the Word of God. They flow out of the Word. And our walk with God in light of His Word and keeping His commandments and obeying and feelings develop out of that.

So, don’t go away saying, “Oh Gil, he doesn’t believe in emotions. Just that hard hearted. This is just the way it is.” There is time when that is the way it is. God didn’t say “I am concerned about how you feel about Me. I am concerned you are not obeying Me.” Sometimes Jeremiah was depressed. He is known as the weeping prophet. That didn’t mean God didn’t love him, he didn’t love the Lord. I am sure his emotions in feeling God with him when he is in the mud pit probably weren’t as strong as they were in other occasions. So, get the emotions in the right sense but if anybody tells you, “Oh Gil doesn’t believe in emotions,” just ask Marilyn. I am very emotional, a feeling kind of guy. Don’t ask her.

Okay, let’s have a word of prayer together. Thank You Lord for the riches of Your Word. Lord Your word is precious to us, more precious than gold. It is a Word that is alive and all of us may go through times when we feel dull and insensitive and Your Word can become just words on a page and Lord we need to refresh our spirit by being in Your Word, by submitting to the truths of Your Word, having the Spirit impress these wonderful living truths on our hearts and minds so they do enrich our lives, bring joy and rejoicing and peace and Your happiness and even in the most difficult of circumstances. The assurance even when our emotions seem dead, Your Word is true. You are sovereign. You are in control. You are working. We can trust You and that sustains us through those kinds of times. Lord we are blessed to belong to You. We are blessed to have Your Word as a treasure that feeds our souls. We pray that each day of the week that lies before us might be precious and our walk with You might be real, alive and You might use us as a testimony of the grace that brought us to salvation as the grace that sustains and provides for us throughout every moment of every day. We commit ourselves to You in Christ’s name, amen.