How do we find the truth? The answer to this question is crucial for us Christians, because we want to know the will of God to be able to glorify Him. Other ways to ask basically the same question are: How do we find the will of God? How are we as Christians constrained; what kind of law or rule or way do we use to keep us in the will of God? How do we know what doctrines to follow?
Thankfully, God has not left us in the dark concerning this issue. We have a way in which we can walk (as the Scripture says, “show me thy ways” and “cause me to know the way wherein I should walk,” Ps. 25:4, and 143:8), by which we can glorify God. We have a law that works, that brings us into obedience to God and which causes us to love Him and to love all people. We have a Word which is sure, which teaches us all that we need to know in terms of how to obey God, how to find and do His will. This Word is so wonderful, that absolutely nothing will be lacking in the lives of those who pay careful attention to this Word. Oh yes, there will not be perfect maturity instantaneously, but as we feed on this Word daily, and are careful to abide in it and do it, we will not be lacking in any good fruit as we grow up into maturity. This Word is able to round us out into all that we are supposed to be in Christ. This Word works. Hallelujah!
Let me tell you what this Word is according to the Bible: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Joh 1:1). “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (Joh 1:14). “And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called ‘The Word of God’ ” (Rev 19:13).
Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ the Lord is this Word of God that we need, in order to bring us into obedience to God. Oh, and look at the Scriptures concerning how wonderful this Word is: “God. . . hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb 1:2-3). God speaks to us now in His Son Jesus. He is the express image of God’s person. He is an exact representation of what God is like. He perfectly reveals what God wants His people to be like and to do. Words before this were in dark shadows, but in Christ Jesus we get exactness. Hallelujah, the shadows are fading away and the true light is shining. Now we can see clearly. Now we can know exactly.
And it gets better yet: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2Co 13:5) Praise God, this Word does not come to us externally, but it is already inside of us. And it gets still better yet: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1Co 12:27). Not only is this Word inside of us, but we are the very embodiment of it. In other words, Jesus is the Word brought down into little human form, and now in His glorified body humanity has been brought up into the divine nature. Humanity is IN GOD. Humanity, in Jesus, is IN GOD, and ONE WITH GOD (see Gal. 3:20-21 and I Cor. 6:17 also). And we are that human body of Jesus. We are the very body of the one who is THE Word of God. We are that Word brought into that human form by the Holy Spirit imparting Jesus’ glorified humanity right into our little humanity. This is why Paul can be so bold as to call the Christians in Corinth, and by implication to call each of us, an “epistle of Christ” (II Cor. 3:3).
Praise God, Jesus is the complete Word, and we are epistles in that Word. What a wonderful privilege. The Word of God has been plugged into our very being! The Greek word for “Word” is “logos,” which fundamentally means “projection.” Our words are what we project outside of us, so that others can know what we are like, or what we think, or so we can plan things, etc. Jesus is the projection of God to speak and form and do whatever He wants. That is why He is also called “The Image of God” (II Cor. 4:4, and Col. 1:15). When God wants to be known, His being flows forth to speak and reveal – and that flowing forth of the divine nature is His Word, Jesus. And praise God, He invites you and me to be partakers of that same image. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Co 3:18). “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom 8:29).
In Him, we also are the image of God. Our very being is changed by the operation of the Holy Spirit as He works the cross of Jesus Christ into us, causing us to die to what we were and to live in the very nature of Jesus Christ. This is the good news. We used to sin so easily because it was our nature to do so. It came naturally. So, in the same way, God’s nature woven into our being in the life of Jesus Christ within us causes us to come up into our new nature, which sees the Father continuously, and walks in that which is seen there.
So, the Word of God is not something external that we “keep” by just doing what we hear. Rather, we are one with the Word of God. The Word of God has become our very nature, and we are a part of the Word of God. This is why the Scripture says, “But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (Rom. 10:6-8). In others words, Christ has already come down (even to the point of humiliation and death), and risen from the dead, so to us who believe this Word is in our hearts (deep inside of our nature) and in our mouths (comes out in our words and behavior).
Isn’t this so much better than some external word that we “keep” by obeying it as best we know how?
Yes, we must move from the theoretical to the practical, that is, “what do we actually do?” Yet let us pause for just one moment and think that even if no one were able to let us know how to make this practical, isn’t this glorious truth one of the most amazing things you have ever heard? God promised a change of nature, where the very inner moving of our being is a projection from God of the image of His being and His works. If we would simply believe this truth with all of our hearts, and hold fast to it, and never let it go, and pray in accordance with it, then the truth would work inside of us. God would come forth inside of us, and teach us how to walk being full of God and His nature, just because we believe Him to do so, according to His own promise and faithfulness.
Yet, thankfully, the Scriptures say yet more along a practical line, and the Spirit of God has taught us more along a practical line, so that these truths can be shared also. We quoted from II Corinthians chapter three briefly above, but let us take a close look at it now: “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Co 3:18).
This is a very wonderful passage of Scripture, giving great illumination (as the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see what it is saying) into the real inner workings of a healthy Christian. What it is saying is that when the Old Testament is read (or really any Scripture), there tends to be a veil, a curtain over the heart keeping us from seeing the spiritual reality of what it is really meant by what we read. But when the heart “turns to” the Holy Spirit (this is what Paul means by “the Lord is that Spirit”), the blinders are removed. The veil is destroyed in Christ, so that we can see.
In other words, when we turn to God in faith and fellowship with Him, the heart is anointed by the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us. And by the working of the Holy Spirit, the veil of the flesh is removed so that we can see spiritual realities in God. By the Holy Spirit shining the light of God’s being into our hearts, we see the reality of what the Scriptures are talking about.
Also, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty – freedom from the flesh and fleshly understandings of the Scriptures and fleshly applications of the Scriptures – freedom to know and experience God, being free from the flesh and free from all laws which attempt to govern the flesh. It is in this Holy Place of the Spirit of God writing the image of God within us, that we are changed, each time having more and more glory. Glory means God revealed. And, again, it is written and knit into the very fabric of our being. We grow up into being more and more like Jesus.
Indeed, when this passage says, “as in a glass,” which means as in a mirror, it tells us yet more about this whole process. In a mirror, we see an image of what we really are. So, in the mirror of the Holy Spirit’s unveiling the glory of the Lord Jesus, what we are seeing is who we are in Him. That mirror of truth shows us what we are like, because we are the body of Christ. We are saints (meaning “holy ones” – separated to God, different from the world because we have the nature of God). We are believers (a people full of faith, even the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ). And many more attributes of Christ, which are ours by inheritance, are revealed. When we see the glory of the Lord Jesus, we are seeing who we are in Him. We are “the fullness of Him” (Eph. 1:23) – we, in our being, are a complete manifestation of Jesus, as He is a complete manifestation of the Father. Yes, we are little children in that divine nature, so we have a lot of growing to do, but that wonderful nature of Jesus is in us as the structure of our spiritual life, just as physical genes and DNA are the structure of our physical life. His mature life is where we are headed (Eph. 4:13,15).
But it is not like we come to the Scriptures and one by one we read them, then the Lord shines and we understand them. In other words, we don’t turn to a passage that we want to understand and tell the Lord that He needs to make us understand it. It is not at our will that the Holy Spirit teaches us the Scriptures; rather, it is at His beckoning and in His timing that He teaches us the Scriptures. We need to read the Scriptures, and have them in our mind. And sometimes the Spirit will urge us to read a certain passage, then right away shines His glorious light within us to cause us to understand it. With me, however, the Scriptures seem to come alive to me most often as I am praying and communing with God directly. Very often, it is as I am praying in tongues, or praying some anointed prayer with understanding for someone or for some situation, that the Holy Spirit brings passages to mind and causes me to understand with spiritual understanding. At other times, as I am praying, a whole bunch of Scripture verses are instantaneously woven together with the yarn of understanding, so that I see some spiritual reality by the Holy Spirit. (It often can take hours of study looking up what the King inside has shown in a moment of time by His spiritual power.) At yet other times, as I am praying, I can sense some spiritual truth apart from a specific Scripture coming to mind – the Spirit just makes me know and understand something. When this happens, He always, either right away or some time later, confirms that Word/understanding with an enlightenment of some Scripture. Another way the Holy Spirit frequently speaks is in an “almost audible” voice within my thoughts (which idea can be seen in Scriptures like Acts 10:19-20).
These are the kinds of things Paul means by “when it [the heart] turns to the Lord . . . the Spirit.” When our spirits and hearts are in the flow of the moving of God’s being, then we can see spiritual realities. Otherwise we cannot. Any other kind of understanding of the scriptures is a carnal (fleshly) understanding, which we need to shun.
By the way, Paul completes this thought a few verses later when he says that this light shines in our hearts “in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. 4:6), which simply means it is in the form of Jesus’ humanity that the Holy Spirit imparts real spiritual knowledge and understanding to us. In other words, “in the face of Jesus Christ” means it is Jesus’ glorified humanity impressed into our humanity that the Holy Spirit imparts to us. By the Holy Spirit, He flows into us in human thoughts, feelings, understanding, all in our human inner workings. This is what it means that He is one with us. This is why the Bible says things like, “we have the mind of Christ,” and “the bowels [inner feelings and emotions] of Christ,” and the “knowledge of Christ,” and “the faith of Christ,” etc.
Jesus is like movie projector film, as the image of God, the revelation of who God is and what He is like, etc., written into human form. Emanating from the Father is the Holy Spirit, like a light, flowing through the image of God, Jesus, which image impinges upon our hearts to give the knowledge of God in our hearts like the movie upon the projector screen. Again, in this analogy, the Father is the light source, Jesus is the film, the Holy Spirit is the flowing of the light rays through Jesus, and our hearts are the movie screen.
This truth is what Jesus meant when He talked about the work of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, in John 14:16-17, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7, and 16:13-14. That very last verse is perhaps the clearest of all, “He will take of mine and show it to you.” Nothing short of this will do. He takes Jesus’ righteous human nature, which is full of God, and is in line with God, and causes our hearts to know it.
Without this light coming by the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures are essentially a closed book. They are like someone looking at those old rolls of movie film directly without the aid of a movie projector; that is, it is as if you tried to understand the movie by just looking directly at the film – it doesn’t make much sense. Sure, a few images will be able to be seen, and the person may feel that they are getting a little of what the movie is about, but it is really only as the roll of film is put on the movie projector, and the projector is turned on and shined at a screen, and all other light sources are turned off, that the movie “comes alive” on the screen. Similarly, it is only as the Scriptures are brought into the inner working of God’s being that the Scriptures “come alive” into spiritual reality within us.
These ideas, that our understanding of the Bible does not come from our own effort, study, or interpretation, but rather by the working of the Holy Spirit, is what Peter is referring to in II Peter 1:19-21. In short, he is saying that Scripture came as men were moved by the Holy Spirit (and not by men’s wills), so also the light of understanding does not come from our own means (reasoning, logic, study – which is what the word “private” means there in King James; it means “of ones own self”), but by the moving of the Holy Spirit.
It is not only as we pray, or read the Bible under the direct illumination of the Spirit, that the Word of God comes in glory to enlighten our hearts. It is also as we fellowship with other believers that this happens. They may teach us. They may prophesy to us. Their very lives may be of such an “epistle” nature that we just observe their lives and receive a revelation by the Holy Spirit. Or we may be the ones anointed to speak the truth, and the very truth that the Holy Spirit anoints us to share may be new to us too, so that we are also edified by the things we share. As we fellowship, the life of Jesus which we mutually share comes forth to build us all up in the faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “On this rock [of the revelation of Christ by a direct operation of God] I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18). The word “build” here is in Greek the same as the word “edify” in verses like I Thes. 5:11, Ro. 14:19, and I Cor. 14:4. So, we could translate, “On this rock [of revelation of Christ] I will edify my church.” As the knowledge of Christ comes out in our midst as we fellowship in the Holy Spirit, we are edified, or built up in knowledge, in spiritual power, in wisdom, and in life.
But, when others share things with us and teach things to us, we must spiritually discern if what they are saying is of God. If it is of God, it will taste like God. It will feel in our spirit and heart like the same one who teaches us that Jesus is risen from the dead, and that Jesus is Lord, and how great Jesus is. It will taste like life and like spiritual power. It will not settle on our heart with a thud of deadness, but will spark our hearts to see the wonders of our God. The best teachings I have ever sat under are ones where I became aware of how great Jesus is, and how wonderful His working is within us and through us. These words come with power. That is why Paul said that, when he came to Corinth that he would “know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1Co 4:19-20). The working of God within us, bringing us in line with God by His Kingdom, is in power, not in talk, explanations, and human reasoning. So, let us come together and build one another up by the power and working of the Holy Spirit.
Leaders are to feed people with that living Word, that God has filled these leaders with. This will nourish the saints, and cause them to grow by that very truth growing within them. They also need to teach and instruct the saints on crucial, first principle issues, such as how to get and stay full of the Holy Spirit, how to be led of the Holy Spirit, and how to receive life-giving Words from God on their own – first at the milk level, but then growing up to be able to discern the meat (solid food) of the word (Heb. 5:12-14). All the saints are to be ministering to one another, and all the more as each one grows in stature in Christ.
Leaders who do not lead this way are not true spiritual leaders at all.
Do not follow anyone whose ministry is not full of the power of life, which makes us aware of the greatness of Jesus. Mere good ideas and good principles are not enough.
So far, so good. But, as we begin to look at the idea of “difficult passages,” this is where we sometimes begin to lose people. Let us take as a paradigm difficult passage Matthew 5:29-30: “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
One idea that some people express on how to handle difficult passages is to just obey them, and if need be the understanding will follow later. Somehow, however, people do not tend to do this with this Matthew 5 passage. But with other passages they do just do them, as though they were a law. If we all did “just obey the commandments of Jesus” or “just obey the Scriptures,” then we would all be without at least one hand and one eye.
But the answer to “what do we do?” is simple: we wait for the Holy Spirit to enlighten and lead us. We hunger and thirst after righteousness, asking God to cause us to understand the Scriptures, asking to know and understand ALL the will of God, and seeking and knocking – and when the Holy Spirit does reveal and lead, there comes forth the fruits of righteousness in our lives. But until such a time as the Holy Spirit causes us to understand something by life and by power, we just wait. If our heart troubles us about it, we pray, and say things like “cause me to know and do all of your will. But also keep me from dead religious works.”
We must also keep from falling in the trap of thinking that we have to get everything in our lives lined up with everything we have heard or read that sounds right. Such a way of thinking leads to an exhausting, bondage-filled life. Under the law (the knowledge of good and evil, lived out in our weak human efforts), if you mess up or are lacking in one thing, you are not righteous. Yet in the New Covenant, our calling is to be just like God (Matt. 5:48). God, however, has an infinite number of wonderful characteristics. Even if we did get everything we thought was good and spiritual correct, there would always be another aspect God could reveal to us which we had never heard of or considered.
Paul brings out these kinds of thoughts beautifully in Gal. 3:5-14. Especially important is the fact that all the works of the law are under a curse, for “cursed is every one that continueth not in ALL things which are written . . .” (v. 10). We could never get everything right by our own doing. Such a way is a curse, because we so often “mess up,” and so often become aware of our limitations. But Christ became a curse for us (v. 13) by hanging on the cross, so that instead we can receive the blessing of the gift of the Holy Spirit (v. 14) by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Now we are one with God (vv. 20-21), so that His life is what leads us into all maturity. We are not under the law. Not the law of Moses, nor the New Testament Scriptures taken as law. We are not under the bondage of any man’s interpretation of the Scriptures.
The Scriptures are indeed very important to us, because they came from God, and God uses them to teach us about Jesus. But they are not what we approach God through, in the sense that we come to please God by reading and doing what we read. This is an Old Covenant concept. Rather, the Scriptures are tools in the hand of the Holy Spirit that He uses to teach us and to direct us, and to lead us into the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The difference between these two approaches to God is the difference between day and night. One is by faith in God’s working, the other is our working to try to please God. The first is life, and the second is death.
But, praise God we have freedom from our dead works, and in their place we get God’s living works working within and through us. We are not the head, deciding by our knowledge of the Bible how to please God, but rather Jesus is the head, and He calls the shots by being alive within us, and teaching us daily.
Remember, Jesus promised that the Spirit of Truth would lead us into all of the truth (John 16:13, I Jn. 2:27). We need to lean on this promise as we seek to understand difficult passages.
Also, if we are to understand certain issues, such as did Jesus really mean for us to cut off our hands, we must first understand the core issues of the faith. We must first understand things like: the fact that our hearts are cleansed by faith; that we are made righteous by faith; the new life in Christ; the power of the Holy Spirit; being lead and taught by the Spirit; being full of the Holy Spirit; how not to judge with the flesh but with the spirit; that we are not under law but under grace; liberty; the fact that we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit; etc. We must understand these things which are the essence of the Christian life before we can possibly understand more difficult or fringe issues. How often we find the people of God doing and teaching things in such a way as belies the central core issues of the faith. May God grant us spiritual eyes to see.
As we wait for God to reveal difficult passages, or to reveal what to do when others make claims that we should be doing this or that (which previously the Holy Spirit had not directed us into), we need to abide in peace, because we are right with God by faith (faith in God’s right-ness), not by our perfect understanding and perfect doing of all things. When true spiritual understanding does come in God’s time, what peace and joy and fullness of the Holy Spirit it produces.
And when it comes from God instead of from the mind and pressure and reasoning of men, it comes with a power (and a sense of the presence of God) that builds a true faith within us.
I still remember when God opened up that passage in Matthew 5:29-30 to me, the one about cutting off your hand and plucking out your eye. I had not been anxious about it, but I longed to understand what truth and reality of walk with God that Jesus was getting at. The Holy Spirit gave it to me this way – this cutting off of the flesh is what Jesus did for us on the cross. This is what Paul meant by “mortify [put to death] therefore your members which are upon the earth,” and we “through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body” (Col. 3:5, Ro. 8:13). Of course – it is a spiritual reality, which we experience daily as we walk in the Spirit. He was not talking about some ridiculous act of carnal religion.
So, brothers and sisters, wait for the Lord to speak and reveal in power. He will guide all of us who trust Him into the fullness of the mind of Christ, and of the righteousness of God. He promised. You can rest in Him.
We often call the books from Matthew to Revelation “the New Testament,” which is just another way to say the New Covenant. Strictly speaking, however, this is not true. They are the Holy Scriptures indeed written in the New Testament times, and we deeply appreciate them. The Old Testament was written on stone and on paper. But Paul makes it clear that the New is different; it is written on the hearts with the ink of the Holy Spirit (II Cor. 3:3). God Himself says, in Jeremiah 31:31 and following, that the New would not be like the Old, because the New Covenant would be put inside of us, and the New Law would be inside of us.
A covenant is an agreement between two people or two parties, so that the two can have a relationship (say a business relationship). In such a covenant, there is a document called the covenant document that governs how the two parties are to relate to each other. Often, the document itself is called “the covenant.” In the Old Testament, the law of Moses was written on stone (the ten commandments) and paper (the rest of the laws).
But the New Covenant document is our heart, our inner being. God writes there what He wants us to be and to do in order to have proper relationship with Him. This writing of God inside our being is so rich and deep, that mere human words could never capture the richness of God’s inward writing. The New Covenant could not be written on paper. But it can be alluded to and talked about and referred to on paper. It is just like this paper which you are reading now. If the Holy Spirit causes you to see and understand what is being written, you will see rich depths of the wondrous working of God that goes way beyond what could be written in any paper. God’s inner working shows us depths of spiritual reality that words alone are not effective enough to capture. Also, God’s inner working can cut right to our motives of heart, and by His light shining within us, bring our heart in line with God’s nature in a way that a thousand pages of careful explanation could never do. God speaks to us in the realm of spirit, and by that lifts us up into the spiritual life of God. Hallelujah!
Very often you will hear the following kind of statements from God’s people: “We follow the Bible.” “We are a Bible believing church.” “Take your Bible literally. Just read what is says, and do it.” And there are many other ways these attitudes are expressed. These kinds of statement all sound good, but they are deceptive.
By the way some people talk, you would think that what God had promised, during Old Covenant times, was that what would be given in the New Covenant was a lot more Scriptures. I do not think you will find any promises for more Scriptures. One man even went so far as to indicate that what God meant by “the Comforter” was the New Testament Scriptures. I hope everyone reading these lines finds that thought an absolute absurdity. The great promise for the New Covenant was the Holy Spirit; indeed, the promise that God Himself would move into us and become one with us, and lead us by His own life within us (Gal. 3:14, Luke 11:13, Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4-5, Is. 32:15, 44:3, Ez. 11:19, 36:26-27). God within is a better teacher than a thousand well written books could ever be. Yes, the Scriptures are very profitable, but it is the Holy Spirit who uses them to teach us the life of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit that makes them profitable. He wrote them. He interprets them.
Any other way of using the Scriptures is an unscriptural way. Also, any other way of using the Scriptures is to make them into an idol. For some people, the Bible itself is an idol. For others, pet doctrines of carnal reasoning are idols. Sometimes even some spiritual truth itself can become an idol, when people let it drop down out of the realm of spiritual reality into mere human thought that they love and worship.
People like idols, because they can get their hands around them. They are very tangible. Carnal religious people love to say, “we are a Bible believing people,” and “I don’t know about you, but we are going to follow the Bible.” It all sounds so religious and good, but if by these words they mean “just read them and do them” in human understanding, energy and strength, then it is Old Covenant thinking. It is something we can get our hands around, and do for God. It makes us feel good about ourselves, that we are very religious, very zealous for God, that we do not compromise the Word of God like all of those liberals out there. This is pride and arrogance, and stinks of the dead works of fleshly men.
These kinds of unbiblical attitudes concerning the Bible are actually very detrimental to true spiritual health. Oh yes, we need to read and study the Bible, but in the Holy Spirit. We need to learn to be led of the Holy Spirit. We need to learn to perceive spiritual words and understandings by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Himself says, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40). In other words, we do not have life in the Scriptures, but in Jesus, the living Word. The Scriptures bear witness to who He is. But only by the light of the Holy Spirit can we really see Jesus, the risen and glorified Savior, in the Scriptures. We understand them by life. The Scriptures have no inherent life in themselves. This is what Paul meant by Gal. 3:21 -- if Scriptures (and the truth they speak of, and the constraints they place on us to keep us in line with God’s will) could give life, then God would have done it that way. But it can’t work. It took the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that we could come into the life of God.
Significantly, the verse before the ones quoted above says, “You do not have His Word abiding in you” (John 5:38). Jesus, as a righteous man, had God’s Word living inside of Him, and He saw God (v. 37). And it was this kind of life that Jesus gave us by death and resurrection – for experiencing today.
The main arguments Paul makes in the book of Galatians are not really about circumcision at all, but rather about the issue we have at hand in this paper. Circumcision was just the specific vehicle that brought this whole issue to light. In chapters 4 and 5, Paul brings out a wonderful allegory. He says, “ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” (Gal. 4:21). He then goes on to say that Hagar corresponds to fleshly religion, and Sarah corresponds to the grace of God fulfilling the promises of His own work within His people. He then quotes Sarah, “Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman” (Gal. 4:30). In other words, cast out the ways of fleshly religion, or else you will not inherit the wonderful things of Christ as promised by God.
The bondwoman represents being in bondage to the flesh, to sin, and to the world, including to being in bondage to fleshly religion. And if we come under the Scriptures as law (something we have to do for God to please Him), then we are under the bondage of the flesh. The freewoman represents being set free from ourselves and our sin and our ways to serve God in spiritual life and power. Oh, what freedom. Oh, what liberty. Oh what deliverance from being in bondage “under the elements” of what you eat or don’t eat, wear or don’t wear, of special days, etc. Oh, what deliverance from the heavy labor of trying to be good for God – we cannot be good. Rather, God’s goodness fills us, anoints us, and bears us along in the divine life, to please God in God’s way, by God’s life.
If men convince us of any other way, they bring us into bondage, and we no longer inherit the wonderful nature and power and wisdom and knowledge and love of God promised only to those who truly have become the sons of God. That is why Paul’s next statement in Galatians after the allegory is, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. . . For I testify to every man that is circumcised, that . . . Christ is become of NO EFFECT unto you” (Gal 5:1,3,4). In other words, you have lost the privilege of sonship – you no longer inherit the things of God.
These are sobering words to us. All the Galatians did was add being circumcised to their lives, just to be safe because the Scriptures do teach that. And, by the way, one could argue that circumcision was really given before the law, so maybe it is an eternal ordinance bigger than the Law of Moses. No! The New Covenant is not made of such things. We are clean by faith. We are alive in the Spirit. We are not under “carnal commandments” (laws that govern the life of people in the flesh, fleshly commandments – Heb. 7:16) – do’s and don’ts, laws about foods, clothing, special days, special meeting places, special meeting times, the perfect way to do this or that.
See how different New Covenant teaching is in Col. 3:1-17. Paul did not here give us a list of do’s and don’ts. Rather, he told us that we are in heaven. And Christ is our life. And our life is in Him in God. Therefore, we are to pursue those heavenly, spiritual wonders that are in God. And, instead of do’s and don’ts, he tells us to “put off” (by the cross) certain things, and to “put on” Christ and all of His glorious attributes listed there. It is by the life, and working, and power of Christ.
We have a much better law than that of do’s and don’ts, and it is called “the power of an endless life” (Heb. 7:12,16). This is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2). It is the law of the Holy Spirit working within us. It is the law of life growing in us. It is the law of Christ Jesus as the living Word we experience in the Spirit. This is also the law of faith and the law of love, working in the heart by Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:27, 13:8-9, I John 3:23). It is really only one new law (expressed different ways), that of the New Covenant, within our hearts.
Don’t let anyone steal from you the power of God and love of God and faith of Christ, which are yours by inheritance (not by works, but by inheriting the promise of God doing the work, just like Abraham could not work to get Isaac, but had to believe God to do it). Don’t let anyone bring you down out of the heavenly plane in the spirit, to the low earthly, carnal religion realm. Be one with God, and live the life of God.
The Question we opened this study with is, “How do we find the truth?” The short version of the answer is, “by faith.” Faith means believing God to do the works. Jesus promised that His sheep hear His voice (John 10:27). The point He is making is quite clear: He is the Good Shepherd, and He knows how to lead and care for His sheep. He knows how to train the sheep to hear His voice. He did not say, “Good sheep know how to follow my voice (Word).” The goodness is all His. Our part is to believe how great this Shepherd is. The wonderful thing is, as we believe and set our heart on His great capability and His great promises, we start hearing Him clearly. He starts speaking and revealing within our being. He knows how to make it happen.
Jesus is that living Word which comes inside of us to re-orient our hearts to love and serve God in divine wisdom. He is so strong that He transforms our weak natures by writing His wonderful nature into our human frames. Thus we become the embodiment of His life on the earth. By His own being living inside of us, He causes us to perceive realities in God with divine understanding. The divine nature has been written into the human nature in Jesus Christ, so that we can perceive God Himself with God’s kind of spiritual perceptions. Then as we bring forth the fruit of His life working in us, we please and glorify the Father. Thank God for such a wonderful gift as the divine Word being alive in us, and merging with our inner workings, thus making us a part of God’s workings! Thus the works of God come forth in our lives. This is the New Covenant way of being in relationship to God, and coming to do the things that please Him.