Seeking the Spirit of the Kingdom, chapter two
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CHAPTER 2:
THE HOLY SPIRIT, FAITH AND THE GOSPEL
THERE IS AN EVIL TRINITY
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| The adjoining chapter is from this book |
“You foolish Galatians” (Gal. 3:1). I wonder what would happen to Paul, if he
could speak so forcefully to Twenty-first Century Christians. He certainly
would not have many people in his congregation, because today we are expected
to speak in a way that is “politically correct”. People are very sensitive and
are easily offended by any little word of criticism or by something that might
damage their self-esteem. Today, Paul would be accused of being judgmental and
lacking in love.
I
can assure anyone, who is a convert in this new generation, that the
presentation of the truths of God to His people in this time is not what it
used to be. I can remember passion, directness (using the pronoun you)
and a lot of frankness in preaching. What would be the reaction today to a
message like Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”? I think
the answer is obvious and has much to do with the difference between the
results of preaching in those times and the kind of success we see today. Paul
commanded Titus, “Reprove them severely
so that they may be sound in the faith.” He accused the Galatians of
being bewitched, besides asking them, “Are
you so foolish?” (verse 3).
J.
C. Ryle (1816-1900, a bishop in the Anglican Church) said in his book, Warning
to the Churches, “Let us not be detained for fear of controversy. A
thief likes dogs that do not bark and watchmen, who do not raise their voice to
alarm. The devil is a thief. If we are quiet and do not defend against false
doctrine, we please him and displease God. To maintain the truth of Christ in
the Church is even more important than maintaining peace.”
Because
of the preoccupation with diplomacy from the pulpits in our day, many Christian
people are asleep. Often, we hear it said, “We are not what we should be”, but
that isn’t the confession that needs to be heard, nor is it adequate. The
correct confession is, “We are not who we profess and seem to be.” We invite
people to join us, but perhaps it would not be too good, if they would come
close. If they knew about the adultery, percentage of divorces, thievery, abuse
of minors, and other crimes among those, who profess to be the people of God,
they might flee from us.
As
in the days of Jeremiah, the ministers of our day heal “the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, Peace’, and
there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14 & 8:11). The consequence is that the
people’s commitment to the purposes of God breaks sooner or later, when the
opportunity comes to give place to the desires of the flesh or when the cares
of this world take priority.
When
the angel gave to Zechariah the message for Zerubabel, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit”… he roused him, “as a man who is awakened from his sleep” (Zech.
4:1). He wanted him to know the reality of God consciously in broad daylight.
God spoke to Jeremiah about the obsession in his day of one person recounting
dreams to another and also pointed at the dreaming prophets. Then He made a
comparison, saying that those who dream are like straw and those who speak the
true word that He had given were like grain (Jer. 23:27-28). The need in our
day is to directly confront the Word of God, the Scripture, understand it
clearly and not give too much credit to dubious and nebulous “revelations” that
can easily deceive.
In
any case, it is abrupt and unpleasant to awaken from a good sleep, but
especially so, when spiritual things are involved. We wish we could dream on,
believing that we are among the most informed and committed in our walk with
Christ. Peter had left all to follow Jesus and, after three and a half years of
discipleship, he was sure that he was ready for anything that could happen. He
said, “Even though all may fall away,
yet I will not… Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You” (Mk.
14:29, 31). He was totally convinced that his love was genuine and faithful,
but the rooster awakened him from his dream. He discovered that he did not
have, what he professed to have. I wonder if we are any better than he.
In
a much better day than ours, Paul had to say to the Romans, “Knowing the time, that it is already the
hour for you to awaken from sleep… The night is almost gone, and the day is
near” (Rom. 13:11, 12). In this day, when the gospel is so perverted and
superficial, we ought to be awakened to the reality of who we are, of our
condition before God, and the state of the work, with which we are associated.
There
is no one so foolish as the person, who has known the spiritual truth of God
and then abandoned it to follow an inferior and opposite way. This is an
incomprehensible and irrational foolishness. The only way to explain it would
be to say that it is the result of interference by supernatural forces in that
person’s soul. Evil spirits have taken control of his good senses, not only
deceiving him, but bewitching him. “Who
has bewitched you?” (Gal. 3:1). The Galatians had not only been deceived
by men, but also by demons. Wycliffe Commentary says, “They must have been
bewitched, victims of an enchantment or an evil spell.”
It
is interesting to see that one of the works of the flesh mentioned in Galatians
5:19-21, is witchcraft. The fruits of the Spirit follow, which we
understand to be the results of the active presence of the Holy Spirit in a
human being. Fruit always is something coming from a living and growing
organism. Paul uses the word works to describe the results of a life
governed by the flesh, which stems from things that are mechanical and
artificial. The efforts, beginning in the flesh, end as something diabolical,
henceforth witchcraft. So fruit and works are the two
possible end results of Christian experience.
King
Saul was a living example of someone controlled by the flesh, from the
beginning to the end of his story. He came to be king, because of a carnal and
worldly longing in the hearts of the elders of Israel, who wanted to be
governed by a man, like the rest of the nations of the world. The entire reign
of Saul showed carnal activities, initiated by a king with a carnal mentality.
As time went on, he became more and more influenced by demons, until finally he
went to consult with a witch. He was totally bewitched.
The
first error that Israel committed in this matter was to take into consideration
the ways of the governments of the world. There is an evil trinity consisting
of the flesh, the world and the devil. Speaking of the Ephesians’ past, Paul
puts these three elements into two verses: “You formerly walked according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air… we too all formerly lived in the
lusts of our flesh” (2:2, 3). The three join and cooperate,
opposing all that has to do with God. In Galatians 1:4, Paul tells us that the
Lord Jesus Christ “gave Himself for our
sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age”. It is
another way of saying that He rescued us from the world. Peter expresses it in
yet another manner: “You were…
redeemed… from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers.” (1
Pet. 1:18). He is referring to the ambience, the customs, including the
culture, in which we were born and raised. This is the world, its system and
its way of life and thinking. In his first apostolic sermon, Peter preached
about the need to repent and leave the world behind: “Be saved from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40).
All
the religions of men form part of this perverse, wicked world. In them, men are
limited to understanding things from a human and natural standpoint, based on
that which is visible, physical and material. They cannot come to see things as
God sees them, but function according to natural powers and abilities. They are
tied to the system of this present age. We, who are in Christ, in order to
enter totally into the sphere of the Holy Spirit and faith, must be liberated
from this age for, if we are not, we will walk according to the flesh and end
up bewitched by Satan.
THE WEAKNESS AND FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS
Paul
saw the Galatians as God saw them and he called them foolish. They had left the
incomparable, heavenly way in order to follow an inferior one. He made a
comparison between their actual situation and the revelation they had received
originally, based upon the cross, “before
whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (3:1).
The
world considers this message of the cross insanity. “We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles
foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23). Finally, Paul came to the conclusion that
the “natural man does not accept the
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot
understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14).
If
we could mention one message that requires spiritual eyes, more than any other,
it would be the message of the cross. In order to accept it, we need plenty of
help from God, because naturally it is unacceptable. To present a bleeding
savior, a dying champion and a liberator, executed as a criminal, is insanity
to the uninspired mind and it is rejected by the human race. Only the eyes that
are enlightened by the Spirit can see the beauty hidden in such an act and the
Galatians had seen it. With hands and feet nailed to a cross, with His
lifeblood flowing and falling to the earth, weak and unable to defend Himself,
Jesus offered Himself in sacrifice. However, Paul taught us that “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1
Cor. 1:25). For three hours, dense darkness covered the earth and, as He
expired, the ground trembled, the rocks split, the veil of the temple was torn
in two, the graves opened and the dead rose.
“The foolishness of God is wiser than men.” Here is the highest display of the wisdom of God
available, working towards man’s salvation. In the cross, by death, Jesus took
the sins of the world upon Him and offered Himself as a substitute in our
place. There as well, He took the corrupted nature of Adam and dealt it a death
blow and there, death died. In this unique manner, God offers hope and life to
a condemned race. Human understanding cannot capture this truth, but the light
of the Holy Spirit had illuminated the Galatians, its reality was revealed to
them and they experienced it.
Paul
said, “I determined to know nothing
among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). That’s
all he wanted, even though he knew that it was an unacceptable message to the
human mentality of the world’s races, whether they be Jew or Greek. Seven
hundred years before, Isaiah asked, “Who
has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
(Is. 53:1). Only those, to whom God has supernaturally manifested his
power and wisdom, can believe. Why is it that many of those, who attempt to
evangelize today, want to present a message that has been adjusted to the logic
and natural reasoning of men? They do it without any help from heaven,
presenting something that is pleasing and tasty, so that the gospel will appear
acceptable. Instead, they actually corrupt the message and grieve the Holy
Spirit.
It
is exactly what had happened to the Galatians. It was a satanic plan, as every
plan is today that compromises that which is divine. It changes what should be
spiritual for something natural, and cheapens it. As someone has said,
“Compromise is the language of the devil.”
HEARING WITH FAITH
Faith
is always the way to God and the only way that pleases Him. What power there is
when we hear with faith! By hearing with faith, the Galatians could receive God
and His Holy Spirit from heaven (3:2), as a reality in their lives and region.
By the same means, they could experience miraculous things that they could have
never believed possible before. They entered into spiritual riches, never seen
nor imagined before by them or by their ancestors throughout their history.
When Paul came to them and opened the Scripture, a flame began to burn in their
souls, something that they never had experienced. They began to believe the
impossible, because “faith comes from
hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Faith was born
within them.
An
example taken from the book of Acts will help us understand a little better
what happened in Galatia: “At Listra a
man was sitting who had no strength in his feet, lame from his mother’s womb,
who had never walked. This man was listening to Paul as he spoke, who,
when he had fixed his gaze on him and had seen that he had faith to be
made well, said with a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet.’ And he leaped
and walked” (Acts 14:8-10).
The
path of faith is the way of the Spirit (3:5). It is the Holy Spirit who sows
faith in us and we only can walk in the Spirit by faith. The preaching of the
gospel must be accompanied by the Spirit of God and the supernatural results obtained
are the proof that He is moving. The work of evangelization can never be only a
mere human effort. If men can do it, and if there is a way to explain in human
terms what has happened, then what has been presented is not the gospel of God.
Christ
was He, who provided the Spirit and did miracles among the Galatians (3:5); He
does it wherever the gospel has been received with faith. Those, who attribute
miracles solely to the time of the apostles, say that God manifested Himself
only to the Jews in this form and not to the Gentile church. They ascribe the
multiplied miracles that they encounter in the Gospels and in the book of Acts
only to that epoch. They believe that the epistles, especially those of Paul,
are the parts of Scriptures that we should apply to the Gentile church.
Therefore, we will do a little search, only in the epistles, to convince
ourselves that the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit is essential in the
preaching of the gospel, even among us, who are not Jews and who live in the 21st Century.
We
have Galatians 3:5 before us: “Does He
who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the
works of the Law or by hearing with faith?” In Romans 15:18-19, Paul
declared that the miraculous power that Christ manifested through him was not
for the benefit of the Jews, but for the Gentiles. To try to make a difference,
between the Gentiles of those days and those of today, would be pure
speculation without Biblical base: “I
will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished
through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, in the
power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit; so that from Jerusalem
and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of
Christ.” Paul did not confide in his natural faculties in proclaiming
the gospel and convincing his listeners, because he did not want to direct
their attention towards himself, but towards faith in God. So that they would
deposit faith in Him, they had to see a real and powerful God: “My message and my preaching were not in
persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so
that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (1
Cor. 2:4-5). Paul wanted the Thessalonians to know that the arrival of the
gospel through him was legitimately from God, because… “our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in
the Holy Spirit and with full conviction…” (1 Thes. 1:5). In the same
manner, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews assured his readers that any
message of salvation must be confirmed by supernatural signs from God. If that
does not happen, it is probable that it has only been an invention of men: “How will we escape if we neglect so great a
salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed
to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and
wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to
His own will” (Heb. 2:3, 4). Peter also affirmed that the gospel is
always announced under the anointing of the Spirit: “It was revealed to them (the prophets) that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now
have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the
Holy Spirit sent from heaven”(1 Pet. 1:12). According to Paul, the
essence of the Kingdom of God, “does
not consist in words but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20). The supernatural power
of the Spirit of God is an indispensable part of the preaching of the gospel
and, without the demonstration of His power, we are presenting a gospel that is
something less than that presented in the New Testament.
Faith
is the only means through which a
non-Jew can enter into God and His wonders. I never tire of thinking and
talking of the Canaanite woman (Matt. 15:21-28), who was ignored y repudiated
on the basis of her race, since she had no right to receive anything from the
Messiah of the Jews. Nevertheless, she could approach and experience the
benefits of God through that mysterious and powerful thing called faith. We
who are “Gentiles in the flesh…
separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers
to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But
now in Christ Jesus… have been brought near” (Eph. 2:11-13).
“Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as
righteousness” (Gal. 3:6). What did Abraham
believe? Let’s go for a moment to the story in Genesis 15. We see that Abraham
still did not have a son and the heir of everything he had was Eliezer, a
slave. There were no indications of a future blessed of God and much less was
there an assurance of receiving eternal life. However, God told him that he
would give him a son miraculously and that, by that means, He would give him a seed.
Paul emphasized that the word used is singular (seed), not plural (seeds)
(Gal. 3:6), and that the fulfillment of this promise was Christ Himself.
Abraham believed in Christ, by means of Whom he received hope without limit or
end. He believed the word of God, the gospel, by faith: “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be
blessed in you” (Gal. 3:8).
We
receive God’s blessings as heirs with Abraham by faith: “God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the
unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath” (Heb. 6:17).
When God gave this promise to Abraham, He not only wanted to assure him that
His purpose would not change, but also wanted that future heirs of the promise
could be sure of it and “take hold of
the hope set before us” (verse 18). God possesses a most powerful word,
capable of creating light, stars, the world and the universe. He cannot lie and
His word cannot fail, but He did something that He should never have to do: He
swore! Why? “So that by two unchangeable
things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we… would have strong encouragement
to take hold of the hope set before us.” He wanted to do it for us. He
did not simply want to show it, but to show it even more. Two things
assure us – His infallible word and his oath. He not only wanted us to be
encouraged, but to have strong encouragement. May the Holy Spirit enable
us to hear this word (and the oath) with faith!
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