This
is probably the most crucial passage in the New Testament for understanding the
dynamics of the spiritual life.
a)
Efficacious grace: the
ministry of God the Holy Spirit to the believer at the moment of salvation—Romans
a)
Regeneration is defined as
spiritual birth or being born again—John3:3-7; Titus 3:5. At that moment we
pass from spiritual death to spiritual life, and at the same instant that the
human spirit is imparted to us God the Father imputes to it His very own life,
eternal life. So we have eternal life as a possession that can never be
lost.
b)
Baptism by means of the Holy
Spirit—1 Corinthians
c)
The indwelling of the Holy
Spirit. There is a difference between the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit,
the baptism of God the Holy Spirit, and the filling of God the Holy Spirit.
They are distinct words and they are distinct ministries. Unfortunately,
especially in the Pentecostal holiness camp, they have viewed those words as
synonyms, so they really get confused because they think the indwelling and the
baptism are all the same. The indwelling of God the Holy Spirit is a Holy
Spirit is a permanent possession of every single believer—1 Corinthians 3:16;
6:19. At the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit takes up permanent
residence in the believer. He transforms our bodies into a temple for the
simultaneous indwelling of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory. We are indwelt
by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This has never happened
before in human history. In the Old Testament the filling of the Holy Spirit
was not based on a relationship with God the Holy Spirit because they did not
have a relationship with God the Holy Spirit. Only a very few people, less than
a hundred, in all of the Old Testament were endued by God the Holy Spirit and
it was always related to their job or their function in terms of theocratic
leadership. It could be lost and it was a ministry that was designed to give
them wisdom and skill in the arena of leadership. The best illustration is the
temple and tabernacle craftsmen. The basic mean of the Hebrew word is skill,
and it came to mean wisdom because wisdom is the ability to learn information
and then to transform that and apply it skillfully in life, to create something
beautiful with your life that glorifies God. But its root meaning is skill and
we see that in the craftsmen who worked on the tabernacle and temple. Enduement
was simply to give them that skill, and it was the same thing with the rulers,
the prophets and priests under the ministry of inspiration. In the Old
Testament it was a temporary ministry of God the Holy Spirit; in the New
Testament it is permanent. No believer can lose the indwelling of God the Holy
Spirit, it is a permanent possession.
d)
The filling of the Holy
Spirit. However Old Testament enduement is contrasted with the New Testament
filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit mandated in Ephesians 5:18. Because it
is an imperative mood there for PLEROO [plhrow] that means you either will or you will not be filled. The believer is
always indwelt but he may or may not be filled. The filling ministry of God the
Holy Spirit, therefore, is going to be related to the believer’s volition,
because whenever you have an imperative that is directed toward your volition
and you can either apply it or not apply it, obey or disobey, it is
specifically related to the recall and application of Bible doctrine. So we see
that the two sources of power in the Church Age relate to the filling of the
Holy Spirit and Bible doctrine.
e)
The sealing ministry of God
the Holy Spirit. This takes place at the moment of salvation and is related to
the doctrine of eternal security. The seal is an analogy taken from the Roman
empire where it was a signature of ownership. At salvation the believer has the
seal of God placed upon him. This is a signature guarantee which means that he
can never lose his salvation because he is in Christ—Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.
f)
The distribution of
spiritual gifts. At the moment of salvation every believer is given at least
one spiritual gift. Do not confuse the spiritual gifts with natural abilities,
to natural talent. Spiritual gifts are specific ministries to be used in the
local church. That means that their development and use is going to be related
to the believer’s advance to spiritual maturity.
In this passage there is an initial mandate given in verse 16: “walk by
means of” is an instrumental dative, “the Spirit, and you will not carry out
the desire of the flesh.” So here in verses 16-18 we see the initial command
from the apostle Paul to believers to live on the basis of the power of God the
Holy Spirit. This is contrasted with carrying out the desire of the flesh. In
verses 17 and 18 he explains the nature of this conflict. “For the flesh [a
term for the sin nature] sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may
not do that which you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not
under the Law.” That is the basis for
the conflict in the spiritual life that we have to overcome if we are going to
advance spiritually.
The next paragraph is verses 19-21 which list the deeds of the flesh.
“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident.” Then we have what is basically a
grocery list of characteristics that are produced by the sin nature”
“immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery [the use of drugs],
enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions,
factions, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these …”
In verses 22-23 we have the list of the production of God the Holy
Spirit. We have to distinguish this from false production, counterfeit
production, which comes from the sin nature. Obviously unbelievers can have
some kind of love, some measure of happiness, some level of contentment and
tranquility. They can be patient, gentle, good; they can have these
characteristics to some degree. So when the Scripture says that these are the
production of the Holy Spirit we have to understand what the dynamic is so that
these characteristics are produced in our life, not in the sense of holding
ourselves up by the bootstrap type of approach, but in understanding that this
is the Holy Spirit doing this in our life and not ourselves. If we are doing it
from the flesh it doesn’t count.
Verses 24-25—a conclusion. “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have
crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit,
let us also walk by the Spirit.” In the English this looks like a restatement
of what we have in verse 16 but it is a different Greek word for “walk” in
verse 25.
Backing up to verse 16 – this clearly indicates a shift in topic. Paul
uses the particle DE [de] which is translated “but,”
“I say” – he is emphasizing this – “walk by the Spirit.” The command is a
present active imperative of the verb PERIPATEO [peripatew], the standard word for walking. When you have a present imperative (an
imperative is the mood of command; this is a mandate for the spiritual life)
the present tense is usually continual action, but when you have the
combination of a present tense and an imperative mood it looks at the action as
continuing, and the present imperative as opposed to the aorist imperative is
used with general principles related to the spiritual life, specifically for
habit or behaviour patterns that should characterize our life. The active voice
means that you and I, each believer, is the one who performs the action. The
Holy Spirit does not do this for us; He does not override our volition. God
always respects our volition and never makes us conform. So we have to make the
decision as to whether or not we are going to walk by means of the Spirit. This
means that the ultimate issue is a volitional issue. The thrust of the mandate
is ingressive progressive, i.e. we are to begin doing it and to continue doing
it and making it a customary pattern in our life. To “walk” is used as a
metaphor basically for living life or the conduct of one’s life. We are to
conduct our lives “by means of the Spirit”. This is the dative case of PNEUMA [pneuma], the standard word for the Holy Spirit, and here it does not have the
modifier HAGIOS [a(gioj] for “holy”, but we know
from the context it is always talking about the Holy Spirit and not the human
spirit. This is a dative of means or an instrumental dative. The Holy Spirit is
the means by which the walk, the life, the conduct of the believer is advanced.
The emphasis is on dependency on God the Holy Spirit as opposed to the flesh.
1.
The word PERIPATEO [peripatew] is usually used of forward step by step motion. Learning to walk as a
small child takes concentration. Eventually it requires less thought. At the
beginning of the spiritual life there has to be a lot of focus and
concentration on just who you are depending on in this thing called the
spiritual life. The word PERIPATEO is used metaphorically to represent the entire panorama of a person’s
life, both his thought life and his overt activity.
2.
The second word that is used
is STOICHEO [stoixew]. It means to walk in a
straight line and it is used metaphorically to march in step, to march in rank,
to walk in agreement with, to walk forward in an orderly manner. It is
primarily used in this passage for advancing in the spiritual life in relation
to the mandates given in the Word of God under the inspiration of God the Holy
Spirit. So it is used for advancing according to a standard, following the
footsteps of the Spirit. What are those footsteps? The steps are the mandates
of Scripture. God’s Holy Spirit specifically lays out a track down which we are
to walk, and that track is spelled out specifically for us in all the mandates
and prohibitions in the New Testament.
3.
A third word is ORTHOPODEO [o)rqopodew], and it means to set something straight. In Galatians 2:14 it was used
in a negative sense n challenging Peter because he was no longer walking a
straight course, he had caved in to the gospel of legalism.
4.
A fourth word is a very
general word, POREUO [poreuw], and it means to walk
about, to journey, to travel. Sometimes it is used in the sense of going about
one’s daily activity.
5.
We are told in Romans 6:4
that we are to walk in newness of life. “Walk according to the norm of the
Spirit and not the flesh—Romans 8:4. “Walk in honesty”—Romans 13:13; “Walk by
means of faith and not by means of sight”—2 Corinthians 5:7 (faith-rest drill);
“Walk in the sphere of good works” – Ephesians 2:10; “Walk in love—Ephesians
5:2; “Walk in wisdom”—Colossians4:5; “Walk in truth”—2 John 4; “Walk according
to the norm of divine mandates” – 2 John 6; “Walk in the light”—Ephesians 5:8.
Negatively, we are not to walk according to the standard of the sin
nature—Romans 8:4; not according to the standard of men—1 Corinthians 3:3; not
in craftiness—2 Corinthians 4:2; not by sight—2 Corinthians5:7; not in the
emptiness of the mind—Ephesians 4:17; not in a disorderly manner—2
Thessalonians 3:6.
One of the greatest areas of confusion is in the whole realm of
sanctification. What makes this so confusing for many people is that about
ninety per cent of what people say is the same thing. It is that small ten per
cent or five per cent difference that is so difficult to pin down, so when you
listen to any three, four or five people they are all basically saying the same
thing or sound like they are saying the same thing; and yet, if you know what
you are listening for you will pick up on a few things and perceive a few
things that will distinguish them one from another. But unfortunately most
people do not always understand these minor differences, and they are not
always minor because what we discover is that it is in these one or two or
three distinctions between the different schools of theology that make all the
difference in the world.
When we get into this particular
section of Galatians the apostle Paul has been building an argument, from the
beginning of chapter three, related to the spiritual life. Verse 3 of chapter
3: “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being matured
by the flesh?” What that implies is that there is a way that is really a
pseudo-spirituality, and that is too often what happens when people confuse
morality with spirituality. They do not understand that whatever the unbeliever
can do is not part of the spiritual life. The spiritual life of the Church Age
believer is a supernatural way of life and demands a supernatural means of
executing that spiritual life. No one is asking the question, much less
answering the question, How do you distinguish morality which is a product of
the flesh (sin nature) and spirituality? What is the essential difference? What
is going on in your life? Is it production of God the Holy Spirit or simply a
production of your own flesh and your own ability?
So we begin in 5:16 where we have the
mandate: “But I say, walk by means of the Spirit, and you will not carry out
the desires of the flesh.” This section is bracketed by two different commands
which appear to be the same in English but are different in the Greek. In verse
25 we read: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” The
word for “walk” there is STOICHEO [stoixew] which means to follow in the track of someone, to follow in the path
of someone, follow in the footsteps of someone, and so there is a slightly
different nuance between the two.
Walking is one of the best forms of
exercise. Whenever you walk it develops a circulation of your bloodstream; it
improves your breathing, it has an aerobic effect on your cardiovascular
system; it supports the regular elimination of waste; and it strengthens your
heart muscle. So let’s take those factors and develop the analogy to the
spiritual life.
a)
When it comes to walking in
the spiritual life, first of all it works out all the muscles of the spiritual
life which are the spiritual skills. So when you walk by the Spirit you are
exercising all of the spiritual skills; you are developing the muscles of the
spiritual life.
b)
It increases the circulation
of doctrine in your soul. The more you use doctrine in your soul the more you
will develop the ability to utilize it. The less you use it the more you will
lose it.
c)
Just as physical walking has
an aerobic effect on the body it has a spiritual aerobic effect and improves
the inhale and exhale of Bible doctrine. The more you walk by means of the
Spirit the more you will be taking in the Word of God and the more you will be
applying the Word of God.
d)
It will eliminate the waste
of human viewpoint in the soul as you renovate the thinking of the soul. It
will eliminate the waste of human viewpoint and replace it with the divine
viewpoint of Bible doctrine.
e)
In the process your soul
will be strengthened and edified through the construction of the soul fortress
which protects and defends the soul from the outside pressure of adversity and
prosperity.
STOICHEO means to walk in a straight line and it is used primarily for moving
forward in the spiritual life, following the mandates given in the Word of God
under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The central issue of walking in the
Scripture is that it is one of the key terms used to describe the
characteristics of the believer’s life. The overall mandate is to “walk
worthy.” This is repeated three times in the Scriptures, and whenever the Holy
Spirit repeats something we need to pay attention to it. The mandate is
repeated in Ephesians 4:1; Colossians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:12. We are to
walk in a manner worthy of that with which we have been called. That is
motivated by grace orientation. When we have grace orientation that means that we
understand the grace of God, that God has done everything for us, and that we
merely accept it or receive it by faith. As a result of understanding what God
has done for us we are moved to gratitude, and we realise that we should live
our lives in a manner consistent with His plans and purposes for us. He saved
us for the purpose of production of good works. When we analyze the use of the
word “walking” in the New Testament there are three categories that we can
summarize. First, we have the phrase EN [e)n]
plus the dative, or sometimes just the dative, of sphere. We are to walk in the
day—Romans 13:13; in the light—Ephesians 5:8; and negatively, we are not to
walk in the sphere of darkness—1 John 1:7. So our Christian life is to be in a
certain sphere. Secondly, we are to walk in [the sphere of] newness of
life—Romans 6:4. We are to walk in the sphere of love—Ephesians 5:2; 2 John 6.
We are to walk in [the sphere of] good works [divine good produced by the Holy
Spirit] and were saved for that purpose—Ephesians 2:10. We are to walk in
wisdom—Colossians 4:5. We are to walk in truth—2 John 4; 3 John 3,4.
Negatively, we are not to walk in the emptiness (vanity—the vacuum in the soul
created by human viewpoint) of the emptiness of the mentality of our soul “like
the Gentiles do”—Ephesians 4:17. We are not to walk in craftiness—2 Corinthians
4:2, the Greek word means deceitful cunning, and the context refers to
utilizing the Word of God for our own personal gain, power, prestige, financial
gain, or personal approbation.
The next way this preposition EN plus the dative is used is to express
instrumentality or means. There are two concepts here: we are to walk by means
of faith, the faith-rest drill in 2 Corinthians 5:7, and this is contrasted,
“not by sight.” This is empiricism and relates to the ultimate way in which we
think, the basis for our thought. Do we base our thinking on the Scriptures or
do we base it on human viewpoint systems of knowledge such as rationalism or
empiricism? This is a reference to the ultimate, the final basis for our
thinking: Is the final authority in our life, the Word of God, or is it human
experience or human thought? When the Word of God is more real to us than our
feelings, experience, or what we have been taught in school, then we are
beginning to understand what it means to exercise the faith-rest drill. The
second is in Galatians 5:16 & 25, and that is by means of the Holy Spirit.
So we have EN plus the dative of
sphere to describe the sphere in which we are to walk, and then we have EN plus the instrumental dative of means—“by
means of faith, not by sight,” and by means of God the Holy Spirit.
Then we have another prepositional
phrase that is often associated with walking, and that uses the Greek
preposition KATA [kata], and that means to walk
according to a norm or standard. We are to walk according to the norm of the
Holy Spirit and not according to the norm or standard of the flesh—Romans 8:4.
According to the standard of love—Romans 14:15. Negatively, Not according to
the standard of men—1 Corinthians 3:3, referring to carnality and the
unbeliever (not according to normal human standards); not according to
disorderly or licentious manner—2 Thessalonians 3:6; not according to the
course of this world—Ephesians 3:2, referring to the lifestyle of the
unbeliever.
So that is a summary describing how
critical walking is in the Christian life.
3. In Galatians 5:16 walking by
means of the Spirit is contrasted with walking by means of the flesh. The point
is, throughout Galatians and the New Testament walking is used of one of two
states. You always have this contrast between two states of condition. One is
in the sphere of the Holy Spirit or by means of the Holy Spirit and the other
is flesh. But there are other words that are used. In terms of the spiritual
life other terms that are used are light, promise, faith and grace. These are
all contrasted with darkness, law, and antinomianism (without law), referring
to unrestrained immorality. Always in the Scripture is this stark contrast
between two states. The question we are going to ask is how much sin does it
take to really violate the righteousness of God. The idea that we are a little
bit righteous, a little bit spiritual, and a little bit carnal doesn’t take
into account the nature of sin in relation to the integrity of God, and its
impact. So we have to realize that the Scripture clearly identifies two spheres
or states in which we can live.
4.
The basis for the believer’s walk is his new position in Jesus Christ—Romans
6:4. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? The passage is talking
about positional death which is defined as the believer’s identification at the
point of salvation with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are
positionally identified with His death so that His death on the cross is tied
to and produces our separation from the enslaving power of the sin nature. This
is not talking about the eradication of the sin nature. We have been baptized
into His death, and the significance of baptism is always identification. There
is a reason, a purpose for the believer’s identification with Christ’s death on
the cross: “in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory
of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” The word “walk” is the
aorist active subjunctive of PERIPATEO [peripatew], and the reason it is in the subjunctive is because it expresses the
contingency of the believer’s volition. It is potential. You may choose not to
walk in the newness of life that you have.
Summary
of point 4:
a) The basis for walking, i.e. the Christian way of life, is our
identification with Christ’s death (our positional death) which happens at the
instant of salvation. At that instant the power of the sin nature in the believer’s
life is broken. The issue now is volition.
b) Positional death frees us from the slavery to the sin nature, according
to 6:6, but it does not free us from the sin nature.
c) The potential is there for every believer but it is activated only by
his volition. Whether or not you walk in newness of life is up to you.
d)
The goal or purpose is to no longer obey the dictates of the sin nature, so
that you can advance spiritually.
5.
The sphere of light in the believer’s life—Ephesians 5:8, “for you were formerly
darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of the light.”
The
emphasis is on the believer’s present state: you are light. Then there is a
command: “walk”, present active imperative of PERIPATEO [peripatew], “as children of light.” This is crucial because here we learn that
even though we are positionally “light” we can live a life that is not
discernably different from the unbeliever because of living in carnality and
the power of the sin nature. This is very important because it establishes two
categories. In the positional category you are light, and it establishes the
experiential category of walking consistently with your ultimate reality. So
here we see the two spheres of operation, positional and experiential. In verse
9 we see that the production of walking in the light is comparable to the fruit
of the Spirit. Here we see the parallel that walking in the light and walking
by means of the Holy Spirit are tantamount to the same thing and both have the
same production.
a) Light represents absolute perfection in the Scriptures, whereas darkness
represents all that has been tainted by sin. Light, in fact, represents the
absolute righteousness and perfection of God—1 Timothy 6:15,16; 1 John 1:5.
b) We become sons of light at the moment of salvation, so that becomes a
description of our position in Christ. That is, we have positional
righteousness, we have the imputation of Christ’s righteousness at the moment
of salvation.
c) We are transferred positionally into light—1 Peter 2:9; Acts 26:18—so
that we can receive an inheritance. Colossians 1:13—“He delivered us from the
domain,” and here we have the word EXOUSIA [e)cousia] which means authority or power. When you were an unbeliever you were
under the authority and the domain of Satan, the domain of darkness no matter
how good, how wonderful, how pleasing you were. The same is true for everyone
who is not a believer.
d) Scripture clearly affirms that believers still possess sin natures and
thus still perform works of darkness. Even though they are sons of light they
can live in darkness—Romans 13:12. Paul would not say “lay aside the works of
darkness” if we were not performing deeds of darkness. This is the aorist
middle subjunctive of the verb APOTITHEMI [a)potiqhmi]. This word is used sometimes for removing clothing. It means to put
away, to put out of the way, to remove, to take off. So the imagery here is of
someone changing clothes, taking off one set of clothes and putting on a set of
armour. The subjunctive mood is the mood of potentiality and it is sometimes
used in certain constructions to emphasize a certain kind of command, and this
is called a hortatory subjunctive—hortatory refers to the fact that it is an
exhortation. It is an exhortation or a mandate and the subjunctive mood is used
in order to emphasize it is a potential. That potential is going to be
activated by one’s volition. The believer’s volition determines whether or not
this action is going to take place. He is going to make decisions regarding the
application of doctrine in his life, it is not automatic.
e) In principle, light and darkness therefore are clearly seen as absolute,
inconsistent categories. You either walk in light or you walk in darkness. But
being in the light and walking in the light are not the same thing. That is
important. You are either light or darkness; that relates to salvation. And you
either walk in light or walk in darkness; that relates to spiritual life. You
cannot be walking with one foot in both.
The
New Testament utilizes two different words to describe what happens to our
relationship with the Holy Spirit at the moment of sin. The first is the phrase
“quenching
the Holy Spirit.” You quench a fire by putting it out. 1 Thessalonians 5:19. In
the next verse, verse 20, they are told not to despise prophetic statements.
The immediate context of the command is that you don’t put out the Spirit
because there is a relationship between the Holy Spirit and the giving of
Scripture (prophecy). Prophecy has ceased now, we have the completed canon of Scripture;
so the direct interpretation of that verse is that you quench the Spirit by
ignoring or despising, treating lightly, the mandates of Scripture. I terms of
application you do that any time you sin. The second phrase which is used to
describe the destruction of our fellowship with God is in Ephesians 4:30: “Do
not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed for the day of
redemption.” Grieving the Holy Spirit is an anthropopathism, which is applying
to God a human emotion in order to understand the policies of God—a human
emotion which God does not possess. If we look at the context of this verse and
compare the various categories there we see that these overt sins and mental
attitude sins and sins of the tongue are what grieves the Holy Spirit.
Quenching or grieving the Holy Spirit moves us out of the bottom circle, from
walking in the light to walking in darkness, referred to as carnality—1
Corinthians 3:1-3.
1 John 1:3-7, John is talking
specifically about fellowship with God. The emphasis here is that fellowship
with God is the basis for human fellowship.
Real life in the spiritual life doesn’t begin until we begin to get some
spiritual maturity under our belt, the same way that it happens in life. It is
amazing that some believers seem to just be happy knowing that they are going
to heaven and yet have no concept of what it means to really grow or advance to
spiritual maturity, so that they can really begin to live and operate and
benefit from all of the incredible assets that God has given us for living the
spiritual life. So we are taking some time in Galatians to really get a handle
on this subject, starting from 5:16 which deals with the spiritual walk.
Walking by means of the Spirit is the command in this verse, and this is a present
active imperative, which means this is to be the standard operating procedure
for the believer’s life. It is that step by step, day by day, moment by moment
dependence upon God the Holy Spirit as the energizing power and enabler in the
spiritual life. So we are taking a look at all of the passages related to
walking.
1 John 1:6—John is going to use three conditional clauses to represent
different responses to God in the life of believers. “If we say” [3rd class
condition, emphasizing potentiality: maybe it is and maybe it is not. It
presents the condition as uncertain of fulfillment]. In other words, you might
say this or you might not say this. It treats this as though it is a likely
happening: “that we have fellowship with him.” Someone comes along and claims
to have fellowship with God, claiming to be walking with the Lord; “and yet
walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” What is he saying
here? First of all we have seen that we are positionally in the light. We
become a son of light at the moment of salvation, this is the top circle. So
walking in the light has to do with a step by step process and progress. It is
different from a status, which is “in the light.” There are those who say that
walking in the light or darkness are terms for believer and unbeliever, but as
we have seen that is completely erroneous. Walking in the light and walking in
darkness are terms that relate to the bottom circle, the moment by moment life
of the believer in terms of his spiritual life.
The word for practicing the truth
here is the Greek word POIEO [poiew], and it means to do, to make, to practice, to apply. This is the word
seen time and again in James chapter one from verse 21 down through 2:26. There
it was translated “apply” because it had to do with the application of
doctrine. The second word in this phrase is the Greek word ALETHEIA [a)lhqeia], meaning truth, absolute truth, not relative truth. So this is
comparable to doctrine and is John’s terminology. Whenever John is using this
word he is talking about absolute truth. So walking in the truth is tantamount
to walking in accordance with divine mandates, which we call Bible doctrine. In
essence, what John is saying here is what James is saying in James 1 & 2.
Contrast in verse 7 – “but if we
walk in the light.” So there we have a clear indication that the believer can
either walk in darkness or walk in the light; :as He Himself is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses
from all sin.” Blood is an analogy or metaphor for the spiritual death of Jesus
Christ on the cross. When God told Adam in the garden that the day he ate of
the fruit he would die, and he did, he died spiritually. When Jesus died on the
cross as our substitute it had to be a death in kind. The penalty for sin is
spiritual death, eternal separation from God the Father. Then there is a
penalty which has to do with the consequences in time, and this comes under the
category of whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. It is the negative
consequences in time that are the results of sin. So that when Adam and Eve
sinned they died spiritually—penalty #1, but everything in life was cursed and
they lived in a fallen environment from that point on, suffering from the curse
of sin, and that was penalty #2. As a result God is going to deal with this in
two different ways. The spiritual death on the cross of Jesus Christ is a
judicial death. God judged Him judicially on the cross by imputing to Him our
sins. Jesus Christ remained sinless: “He who knew no sin was made sin for us.”
Our sins imputed to Him were not His experientially but they were His
judicially. The word theologians use to describe this is not only the term
judicial but forensic. Forensic has to do with the study of things that have to
do with the judiciary, with criminality, so it is called a forensic punishment.
But there is experiential punishment. We need to draw this distinction. There
are two kinds of punishment. We have a judicial forensic punishment at the cross
which dealt with spiritual death, and then we have experiential consequences or
penalties in time. When John says, “and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us
from all sin,” we have the verb KATHARIZO [kaqarizw], which means to purify or
to cleanse. It is a word that was used in the Septuagint to relate to all the
cleansing that took place in the temple before a priest could go into the
presence of God. Because this is in the present tense some people will come
along and say that this is the standard operating procedure here, and if you
are believer in the Lord Jesus Christ then you will always be cleansed from
sin, so you don’t ever have to do anything about it; whenever you sin just
realize that whatever you do God is going to cleanse because the blood of
Christ cleanses you continuously and you don’t have to do anything else. In
other words, you never have to confess your sins is what they are saying. But
what about 1 John 1:9? John would be contradicting himself if he meant by 1:7
that you don’t have to confess your sins any more. What we realize here is that
1 John 1:7 is dealing with Penalty #1 consequences, spiritual death
consequences. This means that when you enter into the top circle and you are in
a positional reality with Jesus Christ, that is an eternal relationship and you
can never lose it. Yet we sin! Five second after you put your faith alone in
Christ alone you sin. Do you die spiritually? No, you don’t. Why? Because P1
has been taken care of on the cross. You do not die spiritually again. Jesus
Christ’s blood continually cleanses you so that that forensic application of
the blood of Christ, meaning His spiritual substitutionary death on the cross,
continually cleanses you from the moment of faith in Christ until you are
absent from the body and face to face with the Lord and minus the sin nature. 1
John 1:7 is talking about the continual effect of the death of Christ in terms
of never having to deal with P1 consequences of spiritual death ever
again. That will not happen to you as a believer, you cannot lose your
salvation.
Verse 8 – “If we say [maybe we will,
maybe we will not] that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves.” In other
words, there is no such thing as perfection in the spiritual life, every
believer is going to sin and continue to sin to some degree or another. If you
say that you have no sin you are operating on arrogance and self-deception and
the truth [Bible doctrine] is not in you, you are not operating on doctrine,
you are once again operating outside the bottom circle. Truth is not in you,
you are over in carnality denying the fact that you are a sinner.
Verse 9 – in contrast. “If we
confess (HOMOLOGEO [o(mologew], which means to
admit or to acknowledge your sin) our sins, He is faithful and righteous to
forgive us our sins.” This means that there are two categories of forgiveness.
One category of forgiveness deals with what happens at the cross and is
judicial or forensic forgiveness that is ours continuously because we are in
the top circle. We constantly have that and we can never lose it. But then
there is experiential forgiveness which is related to phase two, and this is
related to the use of 1 John 1:9 and to P2 consequences, those
consequences whether they are natural consequences, cause and effect
consequences, or divine discipline consequences, that are ours in time as a
result of the sin that we commit. The believer cannot sin with impunity.
In Ephesians 5 there are various
absolute states mentioned. We have the command in verse 8 to walk as children
of the light. Verse 9 is the consequences of walking in the light—production.
The goal of all is this is production of character, “all goodness and
righteousness and truth.” This is the transformation of character. It is
designed to produce in us the character of Jesus Christ. The fruit of the light
is comparable to the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In verse 11 it says “do not
participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.”
Then we have in verse 14 a reminder of rebound: “Awake sleeper, and arise from
the dead [temporal death/carnality], and Christ will shine on you.” Verse 15 –
the unwise is the fool in carnality, the wise is the believer operating on
doctrine. Verse 17 – “So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will
of the Lord is.” It is either one or the other, not a little bit of one and a
little bit of the other. Culminating in verse 18: “And do not get drunk with
wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” So we see that
we have two states. Then we have a new concept: the filling of the Holy Spirit.
The term in the Greek is instrumental dative of means. We are to be filled by
means of God the Holy Spirit. The verb is PLEROO [plhrow] and it means to fill up a deficiency. The deficiency is the vacuum in
our soul caused by a lack of doctrine. What are we filled with? The phrase
“filled with the Spirit” is somewhat ambiguous. Does that means that the Spirit
Himself fills us up, that He is the content of the filling? That would have to
be expressed in the Greek with the genitive case because the genitive expresses
content. The dative expresses means. So it is the Holy Spirit who is the
dynamic element that fills us with something. This should be more accurately
translated “filled by means of the Spirit.” The content of the filling is
doctrine—Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” The
result is going to be given by a descriptive genitive using the Greek adjective
PLERES [plhrhj] which comes from the same
root as PLEROO. There is another
Greek word that comes in here. The verb PIMPLEMI [pimplhmi] also has to do with being filled. PIMPLEMI and PLEROO are translated the
same way in the English, yet they are two different words in the Greek and they
refer to two different kinds of filling. Failure to recognize that has led to
some real problems.
The reason the believer moves from light to darkness is his volition,
and there must be a mechanism whereby he recovers and moves from darkness back
to the light. That mechanism is 1 John 1:9 and is volitional. The volition must
be exercised for recovery.
As we move further into Galatians 5
we will see that our natural ability produces certain works. The Holy Spirit
also has certain fruit and production in our lives. We can also in the flesh produce
‘pseudo-works’—human good. It looks like divine good and masquerades as divine
good. If you do not have a mechanism, a means of moving from walking in the
darkness to walking in the light how do you ascertain whether or not you are
walking by the Spirit or walking in the flesh? There has to be some means for
determining the realm in which you are walking and how you recover. 1 John 1:9
supplies that. Just because you confess your sins and you move back into the
sphere of light doesn’t mean you are going anywhere, it just puts you in a
position back where you can go somewhere. Confession doesn’t move you anywhere
other than back into the sphere of light. It is from that point on that the
issue is determined.
Summary
1. Walking in the light refers to the Christian living his life in
fellowship with God.
2. Just as the darkness is incompatible with light, so sin, whether overt,
mental or verbal, is incompatible with fellowship with God. What the
righteousness of God reject the justice of God condemns.
3. When we sin we quit walking in the light and begin walking in darkness.
4. Walking in darkness is an absolute that is compared to other absolutes
in Ephesians chapter five.
5. The command to be filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:18 is tantamount
to the mandate to walk by the Spirit—they are related. They both relate to
walking by means of the light.
6. The continuous light metaphor in Ephesians chapter five and in 1 John
chapter one shows the connection between fellowship with God and the filling of
the Holy Spirit; the context in Ephesians 5 is walking in the light. The
context in 1 John 1 is walking in the light. Both passages recognize that you
can move outside the light. In Ephesians the focus is on one aspect, which is
to be filled by means of the Spirit. In 1 John, John is addressing a different
issue: confession of sin. When you put these together you realize that the
similarities are there in many different points but the difference is the
command to be filled with the Spirit and confession of sin.
7. Confession is the means for the recovery of the filling of the Spirit.
Introduction
Ephesians
5:18—the first verb is the negation of a command, a present passive imperative
of METHUSKO [mequskw]. With the negative it is
an imperative of prohibition, and this indicates in the present tense that this
is a complete prohibition for the entire life of the believer. That is followed
by the dative of means for the word for wine, OINO [o)inw]. The dative indicates
means, so the command is, “Do not get drunk by means of wine”; “for that is
dissipation”— wasting of time. In contrast there is a second command and that
is indicated by the strong adversative ALLA [a)lla], which indicates a strong contrast between the two statements, “but be
filled.” This is the positive command, also a present passive imperative. The
present imperative indicates a standard or general rule for the believer’s
life. It comes from the verb PLEROO [plhrow], and that emphasizes to fill something up. The question needs to be
asked: What are you filled up with? It seems in the English that the content of
the filling is the Spirit. In the Greek the dative is used to indicate means,
and here we have an instrumental dative: “by means of the Holy Spirit.” Colossians
3:16—“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” If we compare Ephesians
5 & 6 with Colossians 3 and what comes after that command there are the
same consequences, all of which flow from both mandates. In Ephesians the
emphasis is on the means of filling and in Colossians the emphasis is on the
content of the filling which is Bible doctrine.
a) Both verbs are present passive imperatives indicating that the believer
is acted upon by that which is in the dative. The passive voice indicates that
the believer is the recipient of the action. In the first case he is acted upon
by wine and is made drunk. In the second he is acted upon by the Holy Spirit
and he is filled up with something. The imperative mood indicates that this is
a command or a mandate. The imperative is always addressed to the volition of
the individual. It is up to the believer as to whether or not he will implement
the mandate.
b) In the past in terms of the history of the interpretation of this
passage drunkenness has been taken as the key issue in the metaphor. Obviously
we are dealing with an analogy here and drunkenness has been taken as the key
issue, and the emphasis has been on the idea of control; that when you drink
wine and get drunk it is the wine controlling you. So the analogy would then
mean that the Holy Spirit is supposed to control you. What’s wrong with that?
Recent studies in the religious practices common in Ephesus at the time reveal
that one of the very popular cults in Ephesus was the worship of the god
Dionysus, also known by the Latin name Bacchus. Among other things he was the
god of wine and his worship was very much associated with the mystery religions
at that time in which participation in drinking enormous amounts of wine in
order to get drunk and get into some kind of altar state of consciousness so
that you could have communion or fellowship with the god. And of you really got
lucky then the god would speak to you in glossalalia or gibberish. In Ephesus
they had the same kind of problem. They were thinking that to become spiritual
and have fellowship with God was by getting drunk. In terms of their religious
background they were using wine in order to have a deeper fellowship with God.
So Paul is saying don’t get drunk with wine because that’s not going to get you
in fellowship with God, but be filled by means of the Spirit because that is
what gets you in fellowship with God. As long as the believer is in fellowship
with God and is learning the Word of God the Holy Spirit is going to be filling
up his soul with doctrine, making it understandable so that there is something
there for Him to bring to his mind at the proper time.
c) Conclusion: The filling of the Holy Spirit means to be filled by means
of the Holy Spirit and is the means to fellowship and spirituality.
d) In earlier writings by various theologians who fail to understand the
original languages an argument was made for repeated fillings. The imperative
mood of Ephesians 5:18 indicates that you can lose the filling of the Spirit.
Nowhere in Acts does it indicate that you can lose the filling of the Holy
Spirit. The reason is that the word that is used in all of these passages is
the word PIMPLEMI [pimplhmi]and the word that is used
in Ephesians 5:18 is PLEROO. They are not synonymous. Luke 1:15 in reference to John the
Baptist—PIMPLEMI. What dispensation is John the Baptist living in? The
dispensation of Israel, not the Church Age where we have the unique filling of
the Holy Spirit, PLEROO [plhrow]. Cf. Luke 1:41, 67; Acts
2:4; 4:8—there is a relation between filling and speaking, it has a revelatory
significance. This word PIMPLEMI would have more in common with the Old Testament temporary enduement
than it does with New Testament filling, because it is temporary and
exclusively related to some kind of verbal utterance, just as the prophets in
the Old testament were filled with the Spirit in order to write the Scriptures.
e) There is a failure to distinguish between the verb PLEROO and the related adjective PLERES. PLERES is an adjective and as such is
descriptive. PLERES plus a genitive of description is going to give us a
character analysis of a person. Acts 13:10 is a description of one of the
various characters who were in opposition to the apostles in Acts. “You who are
full of all deceit and fraud”—PLERES. Another example is in Acts 9:36—“full of
good works and mercy [lit.].” This is a character description of the woman.
These descriptions are not related to the Holy Spirit at all. In Acts 6:3 they
are going to choose the deacons—“full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” Here it is PLERES again. He is not talking about PLEROO, that these men are filled with the Spirit. It
is obvious from the passage that if you are going to choose such men you are
not going to choose men who are going to be filled with the Spirit and the next
moment not. Secondly, you are not filled with the wisdom one moment and not
filled with wisdom the next. That is clearly an adjectival description of
somebody whose whole life is characterized by the Holy Spirit and wisdom. So PLERES is different from PLEROO.
PLEROO is the means of filling; PLERES describes the ultimate, mature result of filling. So what we would say
is that the reason that they are full of the Spirit and wisdom is because these
men have grown to spiritual maturity and they have spent a maximum amount of
time being filled with doctrine under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and
it is exemplified in their life. Acts 6:8—“And Stephen, full of grace and
power.” That describes his life. Cf. Acts 11:24. PLERES indicates the character
results of PLEROO. The Bible is saying
that character matters! The ultimate goal is not to be filled with the Spirit,
not to be in fellowship; it is to advance to spiritual maturity and exemplify
the character of Jesus Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is PLERES, the result of continuous filling by means of
God the Holy Spirit. So the conclusion is that PIMPLEMI relates to the pre-Church Age enduement of the Holy Spirit for special
revelation. PLEROO relates to the work
of the Holy Spirit in filling the believer with doctrine. The content of the
filling is always doctrine and the result is expressed by PLERES, and that is
Christ-like character. So there we see the entire process from spiritual
infancy to spiritual maturity. The means is the Holy Spirit filling the
believer with doctrine. The process is continuous walking. The result is
transformed character expressed by PLERES.
Contrary to the way spiritual warfare is taught by so many people today
the real battle, no matter who the enemy is, whether the enemy is outside of
you in terms of Satan or the demons, or whether it is the cosmic system, or
whether the enemy is the internal enemy of our own sin nature, the way to
respond to that enemy and defeat that enemy is always the same. It never
involves going out and taking Satan captive or rebuking the devil, or any of
that sort of nonsense, but it is always related to thinking. The real battle
takes place between your ears. So the issue is ultimately and always
volition.
Galatians
5:16—“Walk by means of the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of
the flesh.” The present active indicative indicates that walking by means of
the Spirit is a standard operating procedure for living the spiritual life. We
have to walk a moment by moment, day by day conscious dependence upon God the
Holy Spirit, moving forward. Walking by the Spirit works because, first and
foremost, we have made a decision to depend upon God the Holy Spirit. This is
not something mystical, it is done primarily through learning and applying the
Word of God. But we have seen that when we sin we grieve the Holy Spirit and we
quench the Holy Spirit. We are then out of fellowship and the Bible says that
this is walking in darkness. As long as we walk in darkness we do not have
fellowship with God. The only way to recover is through 1 John 1:9, confession
of sin. Then we begin to walk in the light, it puts us experientially back into
the bottom circle. Here the issue once again is volition, obedience and
application to divine mandates. These are mutually exclusive categories: either
you are out in carnality, walking in darkness, or in walking in the light.
There is no middle ground.
“Walk by means of the Spirit, and
you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh [lit.].” The verb is the aorist
active subjunctive of TELEIOO [teleiow], which means to bring to completion. Often this is translated
“perfect,” but not in the sense of sinlessness. The main idea is to bring
something to completion. In Greek, if you wanted to say something and negate it
in the strongest possible terms, what you would do is put it in the subjunctive
mood because that is the mood of potentiality. What you are going to do in your
negation is show that there is absolutely no potential here. So you would take
two negatives, OU and ME [o)u and mh].
In English it is bad form to use a double negative. However in Greek if you
want to say no and you mean it, then what you do is double your negative. So if
you take the double negative plus an aorist subjunctive verb, what you are
saying is that there is no possibility whatsoever that this can occur. It is
the most absolute form of negation possible. So it indicates that these are
mutually exclusive concepts: either walking by the Spirit or carrying out the
desires of the flesh. You can’t be a little spiritual and a little carnal, it
has to be one or the other. The Greek word for “flesh” is SARKOS [sarkoj] which can refer to the literal muscles and meat that wraps around the
bones of the body, but it has a metaphorical meaning that relates to the sin
nature.
1. Terminology: SARX [sarc] is used figuratively for
that which inhabits, or has as its source, the genetic structure of the human
being and produces the inclination and propensity to sin. Prediction: That any
day there may be discovered a gene that means that you will be an alcoholic, or
a certain gene that means that you will be a murderer, or a certain gene that
means that you will be a homosexual. The Bible does not negate that. But to say
that this is necessarily where you will be is wrong. The Bible says that the
sin nature has its source genetically and is transmitted genetically through
procreation, but that this genetic material is merely a predisposition in
certain directions. Ultimately it is your volition that determines whether or
not that is brought to fruition. So every person has certain proclivities of
their sin nature. Whether or not you activate those things depends entirely
upon your volition. An unbeliever is a slave to his sin nature and can do
nothing but obey his sin nature, but a believer is free from the power of the
sin nature. Cf. Romans 7:5, 18; 8:4ff.
2.
Definition: The Westminster
larger catechism defines sin as “any want or conformity to, or transgression
of, any law of God given as a rule to the reasonable creature.” L. S. Chafer
modified that a little. Instead of saying it is a want or conformity to the law
of God it was better to put the character of God, because the law of God is the
verbal expression of the character of God. Further he said that the general
term for sin is the Greek word HAMARTIA [a(martia] meaning that a prescribed mark or ideal has been missed. This mark or
ideal is the essential character of God which is made known to man by God’s
revealed will or law. John Calvin had a very extended comment on sin: “Original
sin, then, may be defined as a hereditary corruption and depravity of our
nature, extending to all the parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to
the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed
“works of the flesh.” So clearly talks about sin as not some illness but a
corruption and depravity. He concludes by saying, “Nay, the whole nature, as it
were, is a seed-bed of sin and therefore cannot be but odious and abominable to
God. Hence it follows that it is properly deemed sinful in the sight of God for
there could be no condemnation without guilt. Next comes the other point, that
this perversity in us never ceases. It constantly produces new fruits, just as
a lighted furnace sends forth sparks and flames, or a fountain without ceasing
pours out water. Hence, those who have defined original sin as the lack of the
original righteousness which we ought to have had, though they substantially
comprehend the whole case, do not significantly enough express its power and
energy. For our nature is not only utterly devoid of goodness but so prolific
in all kinds of evil that it can never be idle. Those who term it concupiscence
[modern definition: sexual lust, and not a good term for the sin nature] use
the word not very inappropriately provided it were added that everything which
is in man from the intellect to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, I
defiled and pervaded with this concupiscence, or to express it more briefly,
that the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence.” In other
words, we are totally depraved. So when we talk about sin we will define it
this way: Sin is any mental, verbal or overt act which violates the character,
standards and will of God which are revealed in the Word of God. What that
tells us right away is that there is an absolute standard, and that is in the
person and character of God. We live in an age which rejects the notion that
there are absolute standards. The technical term for the ideology dominating
our current culture is postmodernism. It walks hand in hand with something
called “multiculturalism” which says that every culture is equal and has equal
value, and all parts of each culture are equal and have equal value. So if you
are a Satanist or an animist in the darkest of Africa, or if you are an
intellectual at Harvard university, or if you are a white male European or a
female Asian, whatever your culture is the greatest sin you can commit is to
say that one is better than the other. What lies behind that is a system of
values which says you cannot say something is right or something is wrong
anymore, because that simply reflects your own cultural bias. And if you are the”
worst of all sinners,” a white male, then you can never use terms such as right
and wrong because that simply reflects your chauvinistic bias! You don’t hear
today that behaviour is right or wrong anymore, especially in the schools. What
you hear over and over again is something is “appropriate” or is
“inappropriate.” The root of that terminology is postmodernism: there is
nothing right or wrong anymore. The second definition we need to address is the
sin nature. The sin nature is the capacity, the propensity and the inclination
in every human being to make life work independently of God. Sin in its essence
says, “I make the decision, I am the authority, not God. I will determine what
right and wrong is and not God.” It is an assertion of independence, and that
is exactly what took place in the original angelic fall and also in the garden
of Eden.
3.
Sin originated in the
universe when Lucifer first sinned—Ezekiel 28 & Isaiah 14. If we look at
the beginning of Ezekiel we see that the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel to
address an oracle of condemnation against the “leader” [NASB] of Tyre, but it is really the “prince” of
Tyre as in the King James version. Today, most Old Testament scholars don’t
think either of these two passages have anything to do with Satan/Lucifer. It
is absurd. If we look at what is said here in relationship to the prince of
Tyre in verses 2-10 that obviously will apply to a human ruler. But what is
said starting in verse 11, and what is addressed t the king of Tyre, is
something else again. The king of Tyre cannot be a human being. In fact it
refers to the power behind the throne, someone who is not up front but who is
manipulating things behind the scene. That is the scenario we have starting in
verse 12. The human king of Tyre is really a puppet who is being manipulated by
someone else, and this someone else is identified as the true ruler of Tyre.
And this personage cannot be a human being because of what is said about him,
and must refer to an angelic personage. “You had the seal of perfection,” past
tense; “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” This terminology in Hebrew
indicates that this creature was at one time the most perfect creature ever to
come from the hand of God—the most beautiful, the most brilliant, the most
intelligent creature. That describes Lucifer, the highest of all of the angels.
Then in verse 13, “In Eden you were,” Eden being a term describing the throne
room of God; “the garden of God,” not to be confused with the garden of Eden
where man was placed; “every precious stone was your covering…” The jewels
mentioned remind us of the jewels that the high priest of Israel was to wear in
his breastplate. If you were Jewish and read this what would come to your mind
is the breast of the high priest of Israel. So from this we get the hint that
in his original function before he fell Lucifer had something of a priestly
function in relationship to all of the angels. Then in verse 14, “You were the
anointed cherub who covers …” This is a pregnant verse in terms of the implications
here. First of all he is called the “anointed” cherub, the Hebrew word mashiach—messiah. Messiah relates to
Jesus Christ, it simply means the anointed one; but it shows that this role
that Lucifer held prior to the fall is a special role, he had a unique role.
The cherubs are almost always implicated in the throne of God and associated
with His righteousness and justice. The word “covering”: remember there is the
covering of sin on the mercy seat in the ark of the covenant, so this is a term
that carries with it the sense of atonement. So there are all kinds of nuances
to these words that are used here to describe Lucifer’s function prior to the
fall that speak of some kind of a priestly role. God create Lucifer perfect,
but like all rational creatures that God creates he had volition. He exercised
his volition against God one day and unrighteousness was discovered in him.
Verse 16 is interesting: “By the abundance of your trade” – talking about Tyre,
a major commercial centre in the ancient world; “you were internally filled
with violence.” What was Lucifer trading? We can’t say for sure but the
suggestion is that because of the priestly terminology used to describe him
that what he is trafficking in is that he is carrying the praise and worship of
the angelic host to God, just as the high priest of Israel would be carrying
the praise and worship of the people of Israel to God. The high priest is the
representative of all the people and they approach God through him. So all the
angels would approach God through Lucifer as their high priest. As he
trafficked in that trade what happened was that he decided he wanted all of
that praise and worship for himself instead of giving it to God. So he begins
to want to be like God. The result is give” “you sinned; therefore I have cast
you as profane from the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering
cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because
of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.” Isaiah
14:12—“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning [Lucifer], son of
the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You have weakened the nations!”
This starts off where Ezekiel 28 stops. Here we have the sin of Lucifer, the
five “I wills.” This is asserting his will over against God’s will. That’s why
the sin nature may be defined as essentially that inclination towards asserting
independence from God: I am the final authority, not God.
4.
Sin is an act of volition
against God, producing sin in four categories: commission, omission, ignorance,
cognizance. Sins of commission are when you actively perform or engage in
overt, mental, or verbal acts which violate the character of God. A sin of
omission is a sin because you fail to attain the high standards revealed by
God. For example, you have the opportunity to demonstrate impersonal love
toward someone. You don’t hate them or hurt them, you just don’t do anything
and you ignore the situation. You fail to do what you should have done. Sins of
ignorance is doing those things which you did not know was a sin. Because you
wanted to do it you are culpable. Ignorance is not an excuse. A sin of
cognizance is where you know it is a sin, you want to do it, and you do it.
5.
As we have seen from all of
this sin is ultimately a sin of independence against God, so all sins are first
and foremost sins against God no matter who else they might affect.
6.
When God created Adam and
Isha, man was originally created in the image and likeness of God, according to
Genesis 1:26, 27. Being created in the image of God they were created perfect
and had absolute righteousness, even though this was an untested and
unconfirmed righteousness. They were placed in perfect environment and God
provided everything that they would need to supply every single necessity that
could be imagined. There are a couple of things to note with regard to the
prohibition in the garden. First of all, God supplied all kinds of food for
Adam and Isha. There was nothing inherent in the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil that made it wrong. It was not poisonous. There was
not something in it that changed them. It was not physically wrong. It was
wrong because God said it was wrong. And it was not some sort of allegory for
sex. The issue was obedience or disobedience to God. That is what made it
sinful, not that there was something inherently wrong with the fruit. For man
to eat that fruit was to say, I know more than God knows, and I will make the
determination for my life in opposition to God. So there was a test: the test
of the tree. And there was a penalty, which is stated in a very strong Hebrew
phrase, the use of the qal imperative plus the qal infinitive absolute. When
you take a qal imperative of prohibition plus a qal infinitive absolute that
emphasizes the certainty of the prohibition. It has been said that because of
the double verb here, it should be translated, “Dying you will die.” But it has
been demonstrated that if you translate it like that anywhere else in the
Scriptures it is nonsense. What this means is that at the moment of eating the
fruit death would occur. The death that occurred was spiritual death which is
defined as separation from God, the essential meaning of death, not a failure
to exist. Spiritual death is the cause of all other kinds of death, of which
there are six other kinds in the Bible. Spiritual death affects the entire
dimension of creation. There are certain consequences spelled out by God in
Genesis 3:14-19. This is called the curse. These are not simply consequences,
it is a negative curse that God places on the planet and on creation and on man
because of sin. First of all to the serpent, verse 14. At this moment there was
a major physiological transformation in the serpent. From this moment he would
no longer move about the way he did before. Then to the woman, verse 15. “Your
seed” – all that would follow Lucifer, all that would be involved in the cosmic
system; “her seed” refers to the coming Messiah. This is the first promise of
the gospel. “He shall bruise you [Satan] on the head” – a fatal wound. Jesus
Christ bruised Satan on the head at the cross. “And you shall bruise him
[Christ] on the heel.” It would be a temporary but not a permanent wounding.
That is what took place at the cross. To the woman: “I will greatly multiply
your pain in childbirth”. This doesn’t say that childbirth is part of the
curse. God intended for the woman to bear children from her inception. “Yet
your desire shall be for your
husband”—not sexual desire, the Hebrew word means desire for control. It is the
same word God used when He was speaking to Cain in Genesis 4:7 when God told
him about the temptation he was going through, and He told Cain that “if you do
not do well sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you.” It is a desire to control, a desire to master,
a desire to manipulate So what we see here is that sin is going to impact on
human relationships, so that rather than peace and harmony there will be
continuous struggle for dominion, authority and leadership. “And he shall rule
over you.” The word for “rule” there is a word that implies tyrannical control.
So what we see here is that generally speaking in history (it doesn’t mean that
every lady is a contentious woman who wants to go out and dominate her husband)
this is the tendency throughout the species. Of course, to whatever degree a
woman has been taught biblical principles this can be overcome. The whole
purpose of sanctification is rolling back various aspects of the curse. The
same thing is true for the husband. The indication here is that men will want
to gain a tyrannical position over women. That also is played out in history
and is going to be radically transformed by the application of doctrine. Then
man has to deal with the fact that nature is being transformed, so there is an
aspect of sin that impacts creation, verse 18. As a result of sin every aspect
of creation was radically transformed. What the earth was like after the fall
bore little resemblance to what it was like before the fall. And God provides
the perfect solution in Jesus Christ who begins the process of rolling back the
curse because He is the one who dies and pays the penalty. This is rolled back
sequentially, it starts with the redemption of mankind, and then we see
historically it takes place at a second stage in the Millennial kingdom where
part of the curse is rolled back so that the lion lies down with the lamb, etc.
7.
At the instant of Adam’s sin
he died spiritually and acquired a sin nature which inhabits the cell structure
or DNA code of the human race. So the sin nature is passed on genetically to
every member of the human race through the male of the species. As a result of
that sin Adam’s basic nature was transformed. Prior to the fall he was to
subdue the earth; now it would be covered with thorns and thistles, there would
be warfare on the earth, and conflict between man and nature. So sin has a
certain physical consequence.
8.
The result of this is that
every person is born physically alive and spiritually dead. It is the sin
nature that produces spiritual death, separation from God. The reason it is
called spiritual death is because man was originally created trichotomous—three
parts: body, soul, spirit. The body is the material part of mankind, the soul
is the immaterial part (self-consciousness, mentality, emotion, volition,
conscience), the soul is that immaterial part of man which is intimately linked
to the soul (the spirit doesn’t think, it is the mentality of the soul that
thinks and makes decisions) and allows the soul to have a relationship with God
and to understand the things of God. When Adam sinned the human spirit was
lost; he became spiritually dead, so that man was divorced from an
understanding of spiritual reality. That is why it is important for man to be born
again because at the instant he puts his faith alone in Jesus Christ, at that
instant God the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit, and instantly and
simultaneously imparts that to the believer so that he becomes spiritually
alive at that particular point and is then able to grow spiritually, to have a
spiritual life, and to understand the things of God. The technical theological
term for this is total depravity, and it is often misunderstood. By total it
does not mean that man is as bad as he can be, it means that man’s soul or
being in its entirety—every aspect—is affected by sin. This means that we are
absolutely helpless to do anything about our fallen status. There is nothing
that man can do to gain God’s approbation. That does not mean that God cannot
do relatively good things, but what good things he does cannot gain the
approval of God. Depravity also means that every aspect of our being is
corrupted and polluted by sin. That means that if we look at our
self-consciousness our concept of who and what we are as creatures, as human
beings, is going to be distorted by sin. It means that in our mentality, in the
thinking part of our soul, even the very starting point of our thinking
(rationalism, empiricism) is affected. The only other alternative is revelation,
that God directly instructs us and teaches us what the starting points are.
That doesn’t mean that God tells us everything but He gives us the starting
point and then we work it out from there, but always consistent with the
revelation of God. Our mentality id affected; our emotions are affected, so
that we are constantly living in emotional reaction and emotional sin. Our
volition is affected and our conscience is affected, the norms and standards of
our soul are distorted. And every human being who is born is obnoxious to God,
something that runs counter to the natural inclination of mankind. We want to
think somehow that after a child is born that he is not really obnoxious to God
until he reaches a certain point when maybe he commits certain sins or he is at
the age of God-consciousness or accountability, and it is only at that point
that he becomes a sinner. But that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible
teaches that at the point of birth every human being is minus-R, lacking the
perfect righteousness of God. We also learn that as unbelievers, fallen
creatures, we are naturally unable to understand spiritual phenomena because we
do not possess a human spirit—1 Corinthians 2:14, the word natural is the Greek word PSUCHIKOS [yuxikoj] from the word meaning “soul.” It is a “soulish man”, i.e. he has a
human body and a human soul but lacks a human spirit. The text says that a
soulish man cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God because they are
spiritually discerned. In other words, there has to be a human spirit present
in order for spiritual phenomena to be understood. In the case of the gospel
being presented to the unbeliever, the Holy Spirit acts as a stand-in for the
human spirit in order to make the gospel clear to the unbeliever.
9.
Adam became a sinner by
sinning; we sin because we are sinners. Adam’s sin was unique. He was perfect;
he became a sinner by sinning. We were born a sinner, so we sinned. Adam’s
personal sin caused his sin nature, but our sin nature produces personal sins.
10.
Sin changed man
constitutionally. The word “constitution” refers to the basic composition or
structure of something. Sin is not simply a disease or that you are lacking
perfect righteousness. Sin is much more than that. Sin means that there is a
constitutional defect in the basic nature of man. The constitution or nature of
man changed downward. After Adam’s sin he no longer was what he was when he
came from the hand of God, his human nature had been degenerated. The result of
that is that all of his descendants are born in his image rather than in the
full, perfect image of God.
11.
Sin permeates every aspect
of our humanity—Genesis 6:5; Job 14:4; 15:14; Psalm 51:5; Ecclesiastes 7:20,
29. The Scriptures clearly identify that man is deeply infected and constitutionally
defected by sin.
12.
There are various
misconceptions about sin. Sometimes people define sin as selfishness. While all
selfishness is sin, not all sin is selfishness. Sin is not merely unbelief.
While Scriptures clearly say that anything done apart from faith is sin, sin is
not merely unbelief. All sin is not a violation of law, it goes beyond that to
the violation of the character of God which lies behind all law.
13.
Our sinfulness has had a
tremendous effect upon God. It has affected God because God in His mercy and
grace and love has chosen to solve the sin problem. If God could have solved
the sin problem in any other way He would have done so, but God could only
solve the sin problem by sending His Son, the second Person of the Trinity, to
become flesh and to go to the cross where He would die spiritually and be
separated from God and all the sins of humanity would be poured out on him, and
He who knew no sin would be made sin for us. That is how it affected God.
14.
All of our sins—past,
present and future—were paid for in full by Jesus Christ on the cross.
Therefore because sins were paid for sin is no longer the issue. The issue is,
What do you think about Jesus Christ? Sin will not be the issue at the final
judgment, the issue will be righteousness or works. Because sins have already
been judged the issue is going to be works, and because works do not add up to
perfect righteousness the unbeliever will spend eternity in the lake of fire.
The Scripture says that he who believes in the Son is not condemned, but he who
believes not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of
the only-begotten Son of God. Failure to put one’s faith in Jesus Christ means
that they die minus-R. Faith in Jesus Christ means that at that instant God
imputes to the believer the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
15.
The believer still possesses
a sin nature, it is not wiped out by salvation; but the believer is no longer a
slave to the sin nature. He now has a new nature which is the human spirit and
is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. The human spirit regenerated at the moment
of salvation is not enough in itself to overcome the problems of sin and to
overcome the lusts of the flesh. In the Old Testament every believer was
regenerated. They had a human spirit and yet they were not able on the basis of
the Mosaic law which was an external standard of life, comparable to a standard
of morality, to overcome the flesh because to live the spiritual life involved
something more. In one sense what is taught throughout the Old Testament
dispensation is that if we are truly going to live for God man by man’s efforts
cannot do it, he cannot save himself, neither can he live the kind of life that
would like for him to. So in the Church Age we have the unique spiritual life
that is based upon God the Holy Spirit. In 5:16 – “walk by the Spirit,” EN PNEUMATI [e)n
pneumati] indicates the instrument or means. So what we
learn here is that the means for living the spiritual life or having victory
over the sin nature is primarily going to have something to do with the Holy
Spirit. The way that we know that this is the Holy Spirit (the word HAGOIS [a(gioj] is not used here) is because some of the things said later on—e.g. the
fruit of the Spirit, vv. 22, 25—can only apply to the Holy Spirit and can’t
apply to the human spirit. So we know that the dynamic for living the spiritual
life is going to be the Holy Spirit. The propensity of the human spirit is
toward God. The natural inclination of the human spirit is to direct the
believer toward a life with God. The sin nature has a different inclination and
that is toward independence and this is why there is now a battle in the
believer’s soul and the human spirit itself is not enough to overcome the
problems of the sin nature. So in the Church Age we have the unique ministry of
God the Holy Spirit in three ways: the baptism of the Holy Spirit, an
instantaneous act that takes place at the moment of faith in Jesus Christ
whereby the believer is transferred and identified with Christ in His death,
burial and resurrection, so that he becomes positionally identified with Christ
and entered into union with Him so that we are new creatures in Christ; indwelt
by the Holy Spirit who take up His residence in every believer at the instant
of salvation and He makes our body a temple through the indwelling of the
Shekinah glory. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all take up
residence in the believer at the instant of salvation; the filling ministry of
God the Holy Spirit where He works in our life to teach us doctrine, to recall
doctrine to our mind, to store doctrine in our souls, to fulfil the whole
process of metabolisation, and then to produce in us a transformed character,
to change us into the character of Jesus Christ and to produce in us certain
character qualities that reflect Jesus Christ. So it is these three ministries
of the Holy Spirit that make the spiritual life of the Church Age believer
radically different from that of any believer in human history. We have access
and privileges as a result of this that no other believer in history ever had.
This is why the least believer in the Church Age is greater than the greatest
believer of the Age of Israel—because of all that has been done for us and
provided for us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So it is through the
ministry of the Holy Spirit that we are going to be able to have victory over
the sin nature, because this battle continues. It is a battle between the sin
nature and the Holy Spirit who indwells and fills us. This is the thrust of
Galatians 5:16.
16.
In the Church Age the Holy
Spirit has been provided to enable the believer to fulfill the divine mandates
for living out the spiritual life. In this passage it involves the concept of
walking, and in Ephesians 5:18 the concept of the filling of the Holy Spirit
which is part for the mechanics of being able to walk.
17.
We need to remember Jeremiah
17:9, that the heart (thinking part of the soul, the mentality) is more
deceitful than all else. This is the rationalization qualities of the mind,
that we rationalize away our wickedness, our sinfulness, and we get caught up
in arrogance and self-deception where we say, Well that’s not really a sin, and
get caught up in self-justification and try to justify our sins. The sin nature
has an area of strength, and an area of weakness where we are most prone to
sin. The area of strength is where we don’t yield to sin but we do produce many
good deeds—human good or dead works, Hebrews 6:1. The motivator of the sin
nature is in the middle. This is the lust pattern which produces lust in a
variety of categories, a combination of categories—power lust, approbation lust
(the desire for approval), money lust, materialism lust (the desire for the
things that money can buy), social lust (the desire to have, and putting an
emphasis on, friends), sex lust, chemical lust, pleasure lust, crusader lust
(the desire that when anything happens that you disagree with you want to go on
a political campaign in order to straighten everybody out), revenge lust,
inordinate ambition resulting in inordinate competition. The trouble with lust
is that it divorces a person from reality. Lust places a certain object,
whatever it is, and defines happiness and meaning to life in terms of that
object.
1. Definition: Pathology is the scientific study of the nature of a
disease. In this case the sin nature is not a disease but a constitutional
defect. We will define it as the scientific study of the nature of this
constitutional defect and its causes, processes, development and consequences.
The way you do a scientific study is collect all of the available data on the
subject and then correlate it, categorize it, and classify it. The data that we
are examining is the information in the Scriptures. That is how we do theology
and why it is said that theology is the queen of the sciences, not in the sense
that it is a science like biology or botany or zoology or physics but it is a
science in the sense that we have a field of data—the Bible; and that through
the use of observation and inductive study methods we correlate all of the
facts that we have in the Scriptures, relate them together, classify them
according to topics and categorize them. As a result of that we learn what the
mind of God, the mind of Christ, has to say about all of the various subjects
addressed in the Scriptures.
2. The sin nature was originally acquired when Adam sinned, so this means
it is not normal. Everything since the fall of man, everything in human
environment, is abnormal. By that is meant that God created the universe
perfect, He created the earth perfect, He created the environment perfect, He
created the animal and plant kingdom perfect, and He created man perfect. He
placed man in a perfect environment and gave man volition. That volition is the
issue. Man represented by Adam had one choice before him. There was only one
sin that Adam could commit in the garden and that had to do with whether or not
he obeyed God with respect to the prohibition of eating the fruit on the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. All of his conditions were perfect and yet
once he sinned he acquired a sin nature which totally changed his makeup and
had a devastating effect on his environment. So the environment was no longer
perfect and he was no longer perfect. That sin nature is passed on genetically
to all of his descendants. The only human being who has been born without a sin
nature is our Lord Jesus Christ, who because He was born of a virgin did not
acquire the genetically-passed-on sin nature. He was born without a sin nature,
and He was born perfect and lived His life perfect, and He never committed any
act of sin. For that reason He was able to go to the cross and die as our
substitute. Every single person in human history is born with this
constitutional defect. That means we are all marred at the very essence of our
being by the sin nature. We lack perfect righteousness; we are all born minus
righteousness. And God, because God is +R, and because the
righteousness of God cannot have fellowship with the unrighteousness of man,
what the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God condemns. So that
mankind is repugnant to God and obnoxious to God.
3. No person is born innocent because they have all received the guilt of
Adam’s sin. This is not guilt because they have committed sin, this is guilt
because Adam’s original sin has been imputed to their sin nature, and so they
are guilty. We sin because we are by nature sinners; we are not sinners because
we sin. Man is inherently evil when left to his own devices; he is bent on
making life work apart from God. When we come to talk about children it is
important to lay down a few definitions and a few important points. If a child
dies before the age of accountability, then they are saved. They go directly to
heaven on the basis of the fact that God is righteous and the issue of
salvation—and the issue of the fall was volition, they have not reached a
chronological and/or spiritual and mental age whereby they can understand the
issue and make a responsible choice in relation to the gospel. This age of
accountability varies from culture to culture. The age of accountability,
therefore, means the age at which a child becomes conscious of the existence of
God. Remember that according to Romans 1:19-20 there is plenty of evidence
throughout the creation of the invisible attributes of God, so that, as the
Scripture says, they are without excuse. Every human being knows God exists.
Even the atheist who shouts from the mountain top is fully aware in the deepest
recesses of his soul, although he would never admit it, that God exists.
Because man is unrighteous the orientation of his soul is to “suppress the
truth in unrighteousness”—Romans 1:18. Some would make this a gnomic present
which would make this a characteristic of every human being, and that is a
subjective decision that is usually informed by hyper-Calvinism. What this
means is that those who suppress the truth means negative volition at
God-consciousness. Negative volition at God-consciousness means that they know
the truth, they have perceived the truth, and from that point on they are
actively suppressing the truth. Romans 1:19—God made it evident to them, i.e.
those who are suppressing the truth. They know about God because God made it
evident to them, but they are suppressing the truth. Verse 20—they are without
excuse. Note: The age of accountability does not mean that you are not
accountable or responsible for decisions and actions during that age. From the
point a child is born until about age three, four or five, we have a tendency
to think of them as innocent, as not guilty. What needs to be understood as the
basis of our thinking is that that is not reality. Reality is they have a sin
nature, and that sin nature affects every aspect of their being and
decision-making process from the point of birth on.
4. The sin nature is orientation to independence from God. That is the
essential meaning of the sin nature. It means that we are asserting our
autonomy: AUTOS [a)utoj] = self; NOMOS [monoj] = law. “I will determine my own destiny, I will define reality on my
own terms, I can make my life work apart from God.” That is a reminder of the
five “I wills” of Lucifer in Isaiah chapter 14. Therefore the sin nature is
defined as the propensity, inclination and proclivity to violate the character
and standards of God and the desire to make life work without God. We think
that we can define meaning, purpose, and happiness in life. We think that on
the basis of our own experience, intellect, native ability that we not only can
come to an actual understanding of these concepts but that we can define how to
get there. The sin nature is motivated by lust patterns at its very core. These
lust patterns will move the sin nature in one of two directions—trends, toward
either asceticism or legalism, or toward antinomianism and lasciviousness.
Furthermore, there is the tendency to operate in one of two areas, the area of
weakness which produces personal sins or an area of strength that produces
human good or dead works.
5. The sin nature is the only and exclusive control factor for the soul at
birth. Whether we realize it or not we are always functioning volitionally. We
may not be aware that we are making choices but we are making choices. The sin
nature has a material force and an immaterial influence and it is continually
seeking control of the soul. As an unbeliever that is the only control factor.
That means that as far as the production is concerned the only production is
that which is human good or personal sins. The unbeliever because he does not
possess a human spirit and there s no doctrine resident in the soul whatsoever,
not Holy Spirit resident in the soul, cannot produce anything else, cannot make
a decision that is based on anything other than human viewpoint, and therefore
no matter how good, wonderful or nice it might be or how close it might line up
with Scripture it is still human good or personal sin. Isaiah 64:6. We are born
enslaved to the sin nature—Romans 6:16, 17. The believer is no longer a slave
to sin, the power of the sin nature has been broken at the point of salvation.
From birth to salvation a person is a slave to sin, and so the only decisions
and actions he can make flow from the sin nature.
6. Since no child is born a believer there is no option in life for any
child but the sin nature’s control and human viewpoint problem-solving
techniques. So that whenever the unbeliever faces the onslaught of adversity or
the pleasures of prosperity the only way to deal with it is the sin nature’s
control. When pleasant or adverse circumstances present themselves that young
child growing up has to make certain decisions as to how it is going to respond
or react to those circumstances, and the only options available are wrong.
Think about the implications of that! Environment is not the issue, the issue
is what is in the soul, and the only thing that is in the soul for every single
person is the sin nature’s control. So what happens in the pathology of sin is
when a child begins to grow he is going to receive input through his senses. He
learns to taste, and it takes a while for all of those taste buds to connect
and get to a point where a fairly sophisticated palate is developed. A child
begins to recognize voices, develop a sense of smell, etc. At the same time the
child begins to go through various pleasurable and painful experiences. They
don’t have the ability or maturity to know how to deal with experiences such as
the pain of losing a loved one, and that God has decided that that time is what
God has decided to take that person. They can’t operate on that, they are not a
believer and don’t understand anything about doctrine. So they have to deal
with that pain in some way and they develop a strategy for doing it. The same
thing applies to various pleasures and they decide which might take care of
that pain they are going through. That might be extrapolated out further into
areas where there is abuse and all kinds of scenarios that are horrible to
think about. They develop various strategies for achieving what they think is
happiness and stability, meaning and purpose in life. So all of this is a
process in maturing, but if the only solutions available are human viewpoint
solutions then the end result is always going to be catastrophic. The
Scriptures call it temporal death. Because even if the solution is socially
acceptable, provides a modicum of happiness and stability and not overtly
self-destructive, the Scripture says that because it flows from the sin nature
it can have only one result.
7. As we grow we develop various techniques and strategies for gaining our
objective and these are related to certain factors:
a)
There are always certain
genetic predispositions. Just because you have a genetic predisposition it
doesn’t mean that you have to yield to that.
b)
We have certain lusts and
trends.
c)
We learn from observing
behaviour patterns, and by imitation.
d)
We learn from instilled
behaviour patterns.
e)
Personal likes and
dislikes.
The issue is always volition. We do what we do because we are sinners
and there is only one solution, our volition. If we have some doctrine we have
an alternative. We have a new power system and that is the Holy Spirit, and we
are going to walk by means of the Holy Spirit and by applying doctrine, and
that is going to change our life. That is the process of the spiritual life. It
shifts responsibility completely to our own shoulders, it is not blamed on what
happened to us as kids.
1. Options are always available whether we realize them or not, whether we
are aware of them or not or whether we want to admit it or not. We are
accountable for our decisions and we are going to reap the consequences of
those decisions in our life. As we grow up we are going to develop strategies
for dealing with pleasure, pain, and adversity and hostility all through life.
Some of those techniques are going to be helpful and beneficial and some are
going to be personally destructive, but they all have their root in the sin
nature and a deep-seated commitment to make life work apart from God. Therefore
no matter how functional they might make you, no matter how much pleasure they
might bring you, no matter how successful you might become as a result of that,
God looks at all of those strategies that you develop from the sin nature and
He says that they don’t amount to anything and are all wrong. What are the
mechanics of this? James 1:13, the word “temptation” relates to the sin nature
which solicits the soul to a certain response which is either going to be human
good or personal sin. Once the soul goes negative to doctrine and chooses
personal sin then you may react immediately to human good and from thereon out
be involved in human good. There are three sources of temptation, two are overt
and one is inside of us. Satan and the whole demonic realm usually work through
an orderly system of ideas which the Bible calls the cosmos. The cosmos is that
orderly system of ideas devised by Satan and which we sometimes call human
viewpoint and the Bible also calls “foolishness.” The bottom line is that it is
a way of solving life’s problems that is totally independent of God. Verse 14:
It is not a sin to be tempted. We will always be tempted by our sin nature.
Yielding to temptation is the sin. The word for “lust” in v. 14 is EPITHUMIA [e)piqumia], also found in Galatians 5:16ff where it talks about the sin nature
lusting against the spirit and there is a constant warfare. This word is used
to describe that warfare, the desire to control. Verse 15: “when lust has
conceived” – when lust is united with negative volition that is when it
produces personal sin; “it brings forth death.” When anything flows from the sin
nature—personal sin or human good—God says that the end result is always going
to be death, not life. Here the death is operational death or temporal death
which is sin nature control of the soul. It is not a permanent enslavement, we
can confess our sins and are forgiven and at that point are free from the
control of the sin nature and back under the filling of God the Holy Spirit.
For the unbeliever there is no option, he is always in carnality and in
temporal death. The result is that when the believer continues to operate in
temporal death the long-term result is devastating. It fragments his soul—he is
described as being “double-minded”, DIAPSEUCHOS [diayeuxoj]. Such a believer can end up living a life that is indistinguishable
from an unbeliever.
2. The consequence of all human viewpoint problem-solving is death, no
matter how much it makes a life functional. The issue for the believer is not
functionality, the issue is not being able to handle life’s problems and be a
success; the issue is spiritual growth and maturity operating exclusively on
the power of God the Holy Spirit, walking by means of the Spirit, and handling
life’s problems through the principles of God’s Word extrapolated in the ten
stress-busters found in James. It is God’s problem-solving devices that are the
issue and unless we are solving problems that way the result is going to be
destructive. Human viewpoint always seems to focus on the enormity of the
problem, the horror of the circumstances, and it always tends to emphasize the innocence
of the person and therefore suddenly shifts the blame to the person who causes
the victimization. That is why we have a society today that emphasizes
victimization because it shifts responsibility from the person who is acted
upon to the person who performs the action. The issue is not who does what to
you, it is how are you going to choose to respond to whatever adversity there
is in your life.
3. The only hope, the only real answer is biblical Christianity. It starts
at the cross where Jesus Christ paid the penalty for every single sin in human
history. The biggest problem we face in life is the problem of sin because that
underlies every problem in life. Every problem in life is the result of Adam’s
sin and the introduction of sin into our environment and into our constitution.
As a result of that Jesus Christ solved the greatest problem we will ever face
which is the problem of sin, and we know that Jesus Christ can solve every
other problem in life.
4. Along with the Word of God we have the indwelling Spirit of God who is
the power of the spiritual life under His filling ministry, and through whom
all things are possible.
Just because you are believer that
is no guarantee that you cannot sink into the most extreme, the most depraved
form of sin and carnality known to man, and just because somebody is living a
life like that does not mean that the person is not a believer. Some of the
worst people in history have been believers in the Lord Jesus Christ giving
free reign to the sin nature and knowing nothing about the spiritual life and
walking by means of the Spirit. Walking by means of the Spirit is a major
priority of every believer—that our spiritual life is the emphasis of walking.
Walking describes that moment by moment characteristic of the believer’s life,
that we are to “walk by means of” God the Holy Spirit. The life of the believer
in the Church Age is unique from any other age in history because we have three
ministries of the Spirit unique to this age: the baptism of the Holy Spirit,
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Verse 17—“For the flesh sets its desire against the
Spirit.” The Greek begins here with the particle GAR [gar]
which is almost always causal, i.e. it should be translated “because.” So we are
going to be given a reason here: the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh. There is warfare here, so once again we have
the sin nature on the one hand and the Holy Spirit on the other, and there is
complete antagonism between the two, represented in the Greek by the
preposition KATA [kata] plus the genitive,
indicating opposition, standing against something. This is the war that goes on
inside every believer. The sin nature is driving the believer on one direction,
and the problem with that is that from the moment he was born until the moment
he is saved he develops innumerable habits from the sin nature: either personal
sin habits or human good habits. He has learned them so well that he doesn’t
even think about them any more. In fact he is executing those sinful responses
or human good responses before he even thinks about them, they become so
ingrained in the thinking, personality and life, that it is only through a
conscious effort that doctrine is learned and then applied under the filling
ministry of God the Holy Spirit. We have to go through that very difficult
process of putting doctrine into practice and retooling from the ground up
everything in our mentality. But what happens is that as soon as we hit some adversity
the first thing that pops into our mind and out of our mouth is something that
is generated by the sin nature. That’s why it is such a difficult struggle.
Then we have another explanation
with the same particle GAR:
“for these are in opposition to one another.” Here we have the present middle
indicative from the verb ANTIKEIMAI [a)ntikeimai] which means to oppose, to be against, to be antithetical to. The
present tense indicate continual action here. These are continually in
opposition to one another. The middle voice is a dynamic middle for emphasis.
The indicative indicates the reality of this warfare. What we see by the use of
this particular verb is that these are two opposites, there is no way that they
are going to be brought together in any form of compromise. It is either one or
the other. The believer is either operating under the filling ministry of God
the Holy Spirit or under the sin nature. It is either one or the other, not
both. You cannot be partially spiritual and partially carnal and this is one of
the verses in the Scripture that makes that very clear.
Then a HINA [i(na]
clause in the Greek which can indicate purpose or result, and here we have a
result clause, i.e. that there will be a level of frustration because of this
struggle: “so that you may not do the things that you please.” Here Paul
recognize that when the believer is not living in the power of the Holy Spirit
there is continual failure in the spiritual life, even though through knowing
doctrine he knows that there is a certain standard expected of him and he
desires to please the Lord. This is because of the struggle and because of the
sin nature. The issue is always volition.
Verse 18—“But if you are led by
means of the Spirit, you are not under the Law.” The Galatians had been
evangelized by the apostle Paul on his first missionary journey. After he left
a group of false teachers came in (Judaizers) and saying that it was great what
Paul taught but you need to be in line with everything that God taught in the
Old Testament, including Mosaic law, so you have to start applying the Mosaic
law in every area of life and become identified with Abraham just as the Jews
are through circumcision, and then you have to make the Mosaic law the dynamic
force in your life. They did what many people do today, they confused morality
with spirituality, and there is a vast difference. Morality is for every member
of the human race, believer and unbeliever alike. But that has nothing to do
with spirituality, and this is the point that Paul is making: don’t confuse
morality with spirituality because morality can be a product of human good and
therefore a product of the sin nature. So he comes back to this concept of the
law by reminding them that if you are led by the Spirit (1st class condition:
if, and I’m assuming you are) you are not under the law. Legalistic obedience
and legalistic concepts of the spiritual life are completely antithetical to a
life based upon the Holy Spirit. When the believer is in fellowship he is going
to be led by the Spirit. When he is in carnality and operating on legalism then
the influential factor in the soul is the flesh, the sin nature. So if he is
being led by the Spirit then he is not under the Mosaic law. These are mutually
exclusive concepts. Spirituality by morality is going to destroy any hope of
advancing in the spiritual life.
1. Every single believer at the moment of salvation is indwelt by God the
Holy Spirit and therefore is going to be led under the guidance ministry of the
Holy Spirit—Romans 8:14. This is the general ministry of leading. If the
believer is out of fellowship this is done by the convicting ministry of the
Holy Spirit, and if in fellowship it is by His active leading which is done on
the basis of Bible doctrine. This is not some kind of mystical, intuitive
leading.
2. In this passage being led by the Spirit is more than simple divine
guidance. This is a summary of all that is involved in the work of the Holy
Spirit in bringing the believer to spiritual maturity. The emphasis in verse 18
is that it is not just the concept of general leading that is expressed in
Romans chapter eight but the active aspect of that leading whereby you are
following. If someone is leading you then they are on point and they are out
there blazing that trail and pointing you in the direction you should go. So if
they are on point and you are following them, what are you going to be doing?
Walking!
3. We start off by walking by means of the Spirit, which is a mandate addressed
to our volition and emphasizes the continual step by step nature of that
progress. But what are we doing? We are following something, so we are led by
the Spirit. He is directing us and this relates to the teaching of His Word—the
mandates and the prohibitions in doctrine. The path is clearly laid out by the
overt objective mandates and prohibitions of Scripture. We walk, but our
walking is by following Him. This is further emphasized in Galatians 5:25: “If
we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit,” and the Greek shifts
words. In verse 16 it is PERIPATEO [peripatew] which emphasizes that moment by moment, step by step walking, and in
verse 25 is STOICHEO [stoixew] which emphasizes following
in someone’s footsteps. So we see how the three images—walking, leading, and
following in the footsteps—all blend together. When you see that imagery of
following in the footsteps you know that there must be some clear objective
path to follow, and that is laid out by the mandates of God’s Word.
4. In terms of the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life
He is convicting the believer of sin, He is teaching the believer doctrine, He
is helping the believer understand doctrine and correlate one doctrine with
another doctrine, He is reminding the believer of the doctrine that is stored
in his soul, He is assuring the believer of his salvation, He is providing
divine guidance, He is interceding for the believer in prayer, He is
transforming our character into the character of Jesus Christ, and He is
gifting us for Christian service. All of that is under the category of being
led by the Holy Spirit when we are operating under the filling of the Holy
Spirit and walking by the Spirit.
5. The teaching of the Holy Spirit. In John 16:12 Jesus said to His disciples,
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” That
tells us that in the whole realm of doctrine there are certain doctrines—very
basic or elementary doctrines of the Old Testament because there was no Holy
Spirit there to teach, to help them understand. Apparently, on the basis of
what Jesus is saying in John 16 and some things in 1 Corinthians 2—that can be
understood because the regenerate believer has the human spirit; v. 13 “But
when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for
he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak;
and he will disclose to you what is to come.” Here we see that the Holy Spirit
is specifically referred to as the Spirit of truth. He is called the Spirit of
truth because He is the one who will be communicating truth, Bible doctrine.
Furthermore, it says He will guide us into all the truth. He doesn’t say he
will guide you to buy a house in a certain suburb, whether to go to one
university or another, whether or not to marry this person or that person; it
says He will guide you into all truth, i.e. Bible doctrine. So once again we
have the emphasis on truth. These are absolute concepts revealed in the Word of
God. So the leading of the Holy Spirit is related to teaching doctrine.
6. The Holy Spirit therefore leads, provides direction, and guides the
believer through objective information. Guidance therefore is not guidance by
intuitive insights or hot flashes but guidance by means of objective revelation.
So we have to understand what God has said, and God has communicated His Word
to us to be understood. It is to be lucid, clear, understandable.
7. Divine guidance comes from the mandates and prohibitions of the Word of
God.
In verses 19-21 Paul is going to give us evidence of how we can tell if
we are in sin nature control versus Holy Spirit control. Verse 19—“Now the
deeds of the flesh are evident.” The Greek adjective here is PHANEROS [fanhrwj] and it relates to something that is perceptible, something that is
clear, obvious, manifest or conspicuous. What Paul is saying is that if you are
operating on the sin nature you are not going to have to sit back and guess
whether the sin nature is in control or the Holy Spirit. There are going to be
certain things that are going to be evident which are the works of the flesh—ERGOS [e)rgoj] means “works.” There is an emphasis on the external consequences here.
This is how the sin nature’s control will ultimately manifest itself, there
will be no doubt whatsoever about what is going on. Romans 6:14—a reminder of
the basic principle: “For sin shall not be master over you (at the point of
salvation we are freed from the penalty of sin and at that instant of
justification we enter into the spiritual life, but the whole process of the
spiritual life is to be saved from the power of the sin nature. The sin
nature’s mastery over us is broken at the cross), for you are not under law,
but under grace.” The rest of this chapter and into chapter 7 relates Paul’s
own personal experience as a believer trying to understand what it means as a
believer to live on the basis of grace and not on the basis of law.
In chapter 7:14, 15 Paul says, “For we know that the law is spiritual
(the law has spiritual value, it does not make you spiritual); but I am of
flesh, sold into bondage to sin, for that which I am doing, I do not
understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the
very thing I hate.” That should remind us of Galatians 5:17, that there is a warfare
between the flesh and the Spirit so that you may not do the things that you
please. Here Paul is saying that this is true in his experience, that he knew
what he wanted to do (please God), but he couldn’t do it. There was a law in
his members, the sin nature, that was driving him in a particular
direction.
Verses 16-26 outline for us the issues in the spiritual life. This is
one of the most crucial passages to understand if we are going to go anywhere
in our spiritual life. The sad thing is that too many people don’t realize that
they are to go somewhere in their spiritual life. They think the end result is
getting saved, that they are going to heaven, and they don’t give any thought
to the fact that that is the beginning of a new life and not the end of a
course of action. The issues in this chapter deal with what is involved in
advancing from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. The issue is very clear
for salvation: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” As a
part of regeneration God imparts to the believer a new spiritual life. Just as
in physical life you begin as a spiritual infant but it is the believer’s
responsibility now to grow, to advance. How does a believer grow? This
spiritual life is uniquely powered by God the Holy Spirit. That is, it is
different from a life of simple morality. Since this new life that we have in
Christ is a supernatural life it demands a supernatural method or means, and
that is through God the Holy Spirit. So we have to ask the further question:
How do we distinguish between the life that we are living just on the basis of
our own ability and energy and a life that is produced by the Holy Spirit? That
is a most important question. The average believer today does not realize that
he can live a moral life and it is the production of his sin nature. That is a
profound concept. The conclusion is that morality is not the spiritual life.
The spiritual life of the Church Age is a far higher life than that of mere
human morality because it is energized by God the Holy Spirit.
Verse 19 – a grocery list of what is produced when walking under the
control of the sin nature. “Now the deeds of the flesh are made manifest.” The
first three listed relate to sexual sins. God designed sexuality to be enjoyed
by mankind as a course of pleasure, recreation, and secondarily procreation.
Its primary purpose was to be a celebration of love between a man and a woman
and it was designed to be in the context of marriage. Here we have “immorality”
– fornication, i.e. sex between two people who are not married, to adultery
which is sex between two people, one of whom at least is married to someone
else; “impurity” – relating to the whole realm of perverse sins, from
homosexuality, bestiality, etc.; “sensuality”.
Verse 20 – this person would probably be motivated by a trend toward
legalism: “idolatry” – includes all forms of idolatry. Usually pictured as
worship some physical image to which is attributed various attributes of deity.
But idolatry is not restricted to the worship of a physical object, it can also
involve the worship of something that is abstract. For example, in Colossians
3:5 – “greed,” materialism lust, money lust; greed which amounts to idolatry.
Idolatry is looking to anything other than God as the source of meaning and
purpose in life, value and happiness as the solution to life’s problems. The
second category here is translated “sorcery” but it comes from a Greek word PHARMEKEIA [farmekeia], from which we get our English word “pharmacy.” It has to do with the
use of hallucinogenic drugs for the purpose of reaching a certain kind of
consciousness so that one can contact the various gods [demons] in order to
have certain power. So here it relates to drug use, not for the legitimate use
of drugs for curing disease but for the illegitimate use in order to achieve
happiness or power, or something along that line. It was often associated with
religious rites and witchcraft. Following that we have a series of activities,
both mental and overt, which relate to the consequences of sin on human
relationships and how personal sin is devastating and destructive to human
relationships. The first is “enmities” – EKTHRA [e)kqra] which relates to the development of hostile feeling, animosity,
hostile behaviour, sharpness or bitterness in expression or manner. It includes
both mental attitude rancor, anger, bitterness and overt activities of
contentiousness; “strife” – ERIS [e)rij] or discord between people, quarrelsome or argumentative, someone who
is always in a bad mood and picking a fight, someone who is always arguing over
something simply for the sake of arguing; “jealousy” – ZELOS [zhloj], the result of self-absorption, an orientation of one’s thinking to
self. It is a subjectiveness. Such an attitude results in self-indulgence. You
begin to give in to whatever it is that you want, to what your desires are; you
indulge the lusts of your sin nature. This leads to self-justification. You
have to justify why you are involved in this. Jealousy focuses on what somebody
else has and the fact that you don’t have it, think you want it, and deserve
it. This is going to differ from envy which seeks to destroy what someone else
has that you think you deserve; “outbursts of anger” – THUMOS [qumoj] refers to anger, wrath, rage, passion, losing one’s temper. The
believer who is walking by means of the Spirit will not be given to outbursts
of anger; “disputes” – ERITHEIA [e)riqeia] means selfish ambition, disputations from selfish ambition,
self-centered advancement at whatever the cost; “dissensions” – DICOSTASIA [dixostasia] means divisions and discord. So we have three words here that talk
about the breakdown of relationships. Cf. Romans 16:17; “factions” – HAIRESEIS [a(ireseij] from which we get our English word “heresies” and it means sects,
divisions, divisiveness. This what happens when people get caught up in
following the lusts of the flesh. The sin nature is in control of the soul and
they start interpreting the Word of God through their own subjective, arrogant
grid instead of by the accepted canons of interpretation handed down through
the centuries. They get involved in different views and start arguing over
their different views, and that just creates division in the church.
Verse 21 – The last word in the list is “envyings” PHTHONOI [fqonoi], it emphasizes the result of self-absorption, is an emotional sin in
reaction to the prosperity and blessing of others. Envy seeks to destroy what
others have and jealousy seeks to have what others enjoy. The last two words
refer to extreme partying. This is not having a good time and a bowl of punch,
it refers to the drunken revelries that were so typical in Greek culture. Many
times it was related to the licentious worship of the time. METHAI [meqai] = drunkenness, and KOMOI [kwmoi] = revelry. This is all involved in partying with the intent of
becoming inebriated and removing all inhibitions. All of this defines and
describes the works of the sin nature; “and things like this” – HOMOIA [o(moia], of the same nature, similar, like, resembling, something belonging to
the same class.—“and things belonging to the same class.” This is a
representative list of the works of the sin nature.
“that they which do practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom
of God” – this is very important to understand. What does this mean? The phrase
translated “those who practice” is the present active participle of the verb PRASSO [prassw] which means to practice, to continually carry out, continually do
something. It means to have something which characterizes your lifestyle;
“shall not inherit the kingdom of God” – What does it mean to inherit the
kingdom? It refers to something different to simply inheritance. There is a
descriptive genitive here which modifies the word “inherit.” We are inheriting
the kingdom of God, so there would be a difference between inheritance
generally and inheriting the kingdom of God. There are two options that are
usually given for interpreting this phrase. One is that it is synonymous for
entering heaven or gaining eternal life. This is the first way most people want
to take this. That would then mean that if you practice any of these things
you’re not going to get into heaven. The second interpretation is that it
refers to special blessing and rewards in heaven to believers who advance to
spiritual maturity. The problem with the first view is that if this means
entering heaven or gaining eternal life then it is basing salvation upon works,
or on moral reformation of the life. That is in direct contradiction to
passages like Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:8,9. Cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10—“Or do you
not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ….” If
“inherit the kingdom of God” means to be saved then what this passage is saying
is that thieves can’t be saved. Furthermore, if this is what it means then the
thief on the cross couldn’t have been saved. Yet Jesus said to him, “Today you
will be with me in Paradise.” The idea violates the principle of salvation by
grace. Ephesians 5:8—“you are light … walk as children of the light.” Even
though a believer is in the kingdom of light he can still walk in darkness.
Back to verses 3-5 – in verse 3 the mandate to avoid carnality. Verse 5, the
contrast: “no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolator, has
an inheritance in the kingdom of God.” So it is clear that if you live a
certain kind of lifestyle under the control of the sin nature that you are
going to be forfeiting inheritance. But what kind of inheritance? Inheritance
in the kingdom. A second problem comes up in how the meaning of PRASSO [prassw] in Galatians 5:20 is defined. Does this mean to do something a few
times? Does it means to practice this activity after salvation for some time
but then later in life you don’t do this any more? Or does this mean that you
continue to do this activity from the time of salvation all the way to death?
What Paul is saying here is that it is something that characterizes the
person’s lifestyle and eventually there is a point where spiritual maturity is
reached and one stops doing these things. Legalism says that you automatically
stop doing these things once you are saved. The issue as things are presented
in Scripture is that as you grow to maturity as a believer the Holy Spirit will
at some point eventually deal with these sins in your life and you will move
beyond that. It takes time, and the trouble with superficial legalism is that
it expects everything to happen over night, which is not realistic. Everybody
grows at a different rate and everybody has different trends, different lust
patterns. For you to impose your standards on somebody else is the height of
arrogance and self-righteousness.
The other thing that needs to be dealt with in interpreting this passage
is that there are three different views. There is the Arminian view that if you
trust Christ as saviour but fail to give up these activities then you lose your
salvation. They take inheriting the kingdom as being salvation and that if you
are a believer but continue in these activities ten you lose salvation. There
is the lordship view, the extreme Calvinist view, which says that if you have
faith in Christ but continue to do these things then that faith in Christ is
not a saving faith, it wasn’t a genuine faith, and that the only way you know
it was a genuine faith when you believed is by whether or not you quit doing
these things. The grace position says that the issue here is not gaining
eternal life, the issue is eternal destiny or eternal rewards, your position in
the kingdom. If a believer has failed to advance in the spiritual life, failed
to deal with the sin nature through the principles of doctrine, then he will
forfeit rewards and his position to rule and reign with Christ in the kingdom.
He will be in the kingdom but will not be a possessor of the kingdom.
In the early years of our spiritual life after we first become saved we
are motivated by a desire to learn, to know more, to answer questions. How do
we understand prophecy? What is God going to do in the future? Or how exactly
does salvation work? What is this thing called election and how does the
sovereignty of God relate to the free will of man? All of these kinds of
questions drive us and so we are motivated by an intellectual sort of
motivation to learn new information. But by the time we get into spiritual
adolescence many of those questions are answered. You’ve learned what you
wanted to learn. The things that drove you by means of intellectual curiosity
have now been satisfied, so you have to replace that initial instant oriented
motivation with the motivation of maturity. The motivation of infancy differs
from the motivation of maturity and what happens is as you move through
spiritual adolescence you begin to realize that you are living not for today,
not for tomorrow, but for eternity. We are determining right now by the
decisions we make what we will be for all eternity, and that is one of the
major motivators in the spiritual life of the believer.
When we face adversity in life we have to decide whether we are going to
handle these on the basis of divine resources or human resources. God has
provided everything we need in the spiritual life to handle any and every
situation in life on the basis of His Word. This has been outlined under the
category of ten problem-solving devices. It begins with confession (1 John
1:9), the entry point into that fortress that God provides for the soul. He is
our fortress, the psalmist says, our shield, our buckler, our refuge in time of
trouble; and the entry point is confession. When we are outside that fortress
we are operating under the sin nature and on our own resources, so we have to
exercise grace recovery to get back into the fortress. Then the power base of
the spiritual life is the filling of the Holy Spirit, so we handle problems
under the ministry of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Next are three basic
problem-solving devices: the faith-rest drill which produces the faith-rest
life; doctrinal orientation; grace orientation. These are all part of spiritual
infancy and the building blocks to the whole spiritual life. As you master
those techniques/spiritual skills you will be able to advance beyond spiritual
childhood. He transitional stage is when you come to a sense of your eternal
destiny because it is at that point that you begin to realize that every
decision you are making right now affects all of eternity: when we start
thinking about our present life in terms of eternal ramifications of that. That
is what the doctrine of the inheritance of the kingdom of God relates to. Then
for the advanced problem-solving devices are personal love for God the Father,
impersonal love for all mankind, and occupation with Christ. It is our love for
God, our focus on Christ, our emulation of His example of unconditional love
for all mankind that is critical in all of our relationships. The ultimate
result of that is inner happiness, that perfect tranquility and peace that we
have.
Inheritance is an issue that is not understood and which is very
confusing to a number of different people. “Inherit the kingdom of God” is not
simply talking about inheritance. In Romans chapter eight there is a reference
about being heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Each of these
adjectival phrases that go along with the concept of heirship or inheritance
are important for defining the subject matter. “Kingdom of God” is a technical
term that is related to the messianic kingdom that will be brought into
existence when Jesus Christ is personally ruling and reigning on the throne of
David in Jerusalem. That has not occurred yet, that was the kingdom that Jesus
offered when He came during the first advent and which was postponed. At the
time that Jesus came at the first advent His last three years of public
ministry culminated in the crucifixion. He came offering the messianic kingdom
of David to the Jews and they rejected it. If was offered and postponed; it was
not inaugurated. (There is a false view [“progressive” dispensationalism] that
Jesus came an inaugurated the kingdom but it is not fully here) At the second
advent when Jesus returns to the earth bodily He sets up His kingdom—the
Millennium, which refers to the 1000-year reign of Christ described in
Revelation chapter 20. In between are two major events. Beginning on the day of
Pentecost and extending to the Rapture of the Church when Jesus Christ comes in
the air and those who are dead in Christ shall rise first, and we who are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the clouds. It takes place
in the twinkling of an eye, there is no prophecy that needs to be fulfilled
before Jesus comes back. Then there will be a period of seven years called the
Tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble, the Great Tribulation. It is when
Satan throws his last great temper tantrum in human history in order to try to
achieve his plan and purposes. What takes place in the “heavenlies” during this
time is what is called the judgment seat of Christ, the evaluation throne of
Jesus Christ when all believers are evaluated. When we talk about inheriting
the kingdom we are talking about the place, the role, the function of Church
Age believers when they return to the earth in their resurrection bodies with
the Lord Jesus Christ at His second coming to establish the Millennial kingdom.
What is your role going to be in that Millennial kingdom? The Scripture has a
lot to say about that. If you are a successful believer and advance to
spiritual maturity, or are advancing to spiritual maturity, you will be an
inheritor of the kingdom. But if you do not you will not inherit the kingdom.
What does inherit the kingdom mean?
1. It comes from the Greek word KLERONOMOS [klhronomoj] which means to inherit, to possess, to own. In English we all know
that there is a difference between somebody who just enters into a house and
lives in a house and somebody who owns and possesses the house. If that
distinction is understood then so will the basic distinction Scripture makes
between being an heir of the kingdom and being saved. Someone who is saved but
not an heir will live in the kingdom but they will not own or possess the
kingdom. So the issue: Is it something that is simply synonymous with entering
into heaven and gaining eternal life, or does it refer to special blessings and
rewards in heaven for believers who advance to spiritual maturity? The
conclusion is that it is not salvation, entering into heaven or gaining eternal
life. If that was true then works would be an issue.
2. The problem with the view that it means entering into heaven is that
several passages are contradictive. So inheriting the kingdom must refer to
something else. It must refer to a category of believer in heaven. When we get
to heaven there will be two categories of believers: heirs and non-heirs. But
all will be in heaven.
3. A second problem to be addressed is the meaning of the word “practice” –
PRASSO [prassw]. It is a present active participle which means continual action, but
when we talk about continual action that could cover any range of meanings.
Does it mean to do something a few times? Does it mean to practice something
after salvation for maybe ten, fifteen, or twenty years, and then the last
years of life you don’t practice it? Does it refer to continuous action from
the point of salvation all the way until you are taken home to be with the
Lord? There are problems with each of those views. Where does it stop? How much
is too much?
4. It is important to realize that the entire phrase “inherit the kingdom
of God” must be taken into account. There are three historic views for
understanding this. The first is the Arminian view. The Arminians believed in a
conditional election, which means that you could lose salvation because you had
to keep up that condition or God would stop choosing you. So there is a
conditional election, an unlimited atonement, and they taught that the ministry
of God the Holy Spirit is resistable. The Calvinist position was a reaction to
this: the five points of Calvinism under the acronym TULIP. The Arminians would interpret this passage on inheriting the kingdom
of God as being able to lose one’s salvation—by continuing to practice the sins
mentioned. In the hyper-Calvinist position they interpret this to mean that if
you practice these things you weren’t really saved at all. There is a third
position that is being developed today but has been around for a long time. It
is being defined and developed in new ways. It is called the free grace
position which makes a distinction between salvation and inheriting the
kingdom. The issue here, then, is not our eternal destiny but our role in the
eternal kingdom and reward.
5. The problem is that these passages, like Galatians 3:29; 4:1; 1 Peter
1:4,5 speak of our inheritance as a permanent possession based on faith alone
in Christ alone. In other passages such as Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:24 the
inheritance is seen as a reward, something given for works. Salvation is not
given for works, it is a grace gift. So there is a distinction made between
gifts and rewards for works. How do we correlate these concepts?
6. There are two categories of inheritance: inheriting the kingdom, which
is being a joint heir with Christ because we have endured in the spiritual
life, following His pattern; the category of being an heir of God, which is
inheriting simply eternal life, an eternal destiny in heaven—Hebrews 1:14;
Romans 8:17.
Luke 19:11-27, the parable of the minas. A parable is a fictitious story
designed to communicate a doctrinal principle. The kingdom had been offered and
rejected and Jesus wanted to make it clear that it had been postponed. A mina
was approximately three months’ income. Verse 15: the slaves are not the
citizens, they are not unbelievers here. The citizens represent the unbelievers
who are living in the kingdom; the slaves are believers. His citizens hated
him—the nationalistic response of unbelievers. They do not want God involved in
their world and they are shaking their fist at Him. The calling of the slaves
is comparable to the judgment seat of Christ; the evaluation of the servants.
The mina represents all the spiritual assets and physical assets that God has
given the believer. There is going to be accountability for how these are used.
This accountability is not related to getting into heaven, it is related to the
believer’s position in the kingdom. Verse 16 – because the slave used his gift
and developed capacity and shown responsibility he is rewarded with a rule over
ten cities in the kingdom. Verse 18 – he didn’t work so hard; there is no
praise. His reward was five cities, a fivefold return. Verse 20—the mina was
hidden. Verse 22—“By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave.” The
Greek word translated “worthless” is very interesting; it means evil. This is
the believer who does not utilize the assets that God gives him. Verse 26—“I
tell you, that to everyone who has shall more be given, but from the one who
does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.” Loss at the
judgment seat of Christ. Are we living today in the light of eternity and what
is going to happen at the judgment seat of Christ?
There are going to be Church Age
believers who fail to live the Christian life. They continue to live in
carnality, they never utilize 1 John 1:9, they never advance in the spiritual
life, the continue to operate under the sin nature, and when the Lord comes
back at the judgment seat of Christ they will lose rewards and will be in the
kingdom but not heirs of the kingdom. God’s plan for the believer is to be an
heir of the kingdom, a joint heir with Jesus Christ.
1. We need to distinguish between the judgment seat of Christ and the great
white throne judgment described in Revelation 20. The great white throne
judgment takes place at the end of the Millennium. Its purpose is condemnation
of unbelievers only. The purpose of the judgment seat of Christ is to evaluate
what believers have done with what their life on earth.
2. Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:10. There is accountability, not for sin but
for lost opportunities and failure to advance in the spiritual life. Here we
have the word BEMA [bhma], a technical term. This was a raised dais that was set up in the public
square and the moderator of the assembly in Athens executed judgment. It was
the place where law suits would be settled, where criminals would be tried, and
it is the place of evaluation and judgment. “We must all,” i.e. every single
believer, “appear.” It is required; “that each one may be recompensed”—this is
the aorist middle subjunctive of KOMIZO [komizw]. The word’s basic meaning is to receive something. Here we are going
to receive either reward or a loss of reward. An aorist subjunctive plus i(na indicates purpose, and so
there is a purpose in our appearing before the judgment seat of Christ. The
subjunctive mood indicates potential and reward is dependent upon how the
believer exercises his volition while he is alive on earth. The word here for
deeds is not ERGON [e)rgon], instead there is an
article used as a relative pronoun meaning “what,” and then the aorist active
indicative of PRASSO [prassw]. So the aorist tense
bundles up all of the acts that we have done on earth and looks at them as one
act. This is an active voice, which emphasizes the things that we did from our
volition. The indicative indicates the mood of reality. The reward is for
people who have endured in the struggle; “that each one might receive for what
he practiced in the body.” (Think of what is said in Galatians 5:21—“that those
who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Lifestyle is
what is in view here) “ … for what he has done, whether good or bad.” The word
for “good” here is AGATHOS [a)gaqoj] and means intrinsic good
and refers to divine good, that which is produced under the power of God the
Holy Spirit. The word for “bad” is PHAULOS [fauloj] which means evil, worthless, bad, slight, trivial or common. 1
Corinthians 3:10-15. What are you constructing on the foundation of the gospel?
Paul warns that we should be careful and need to pay attention to what we
construct upon that foundation. There are various materials one can use to
construct his life. There are two groups, those which have eternal value and
that which have temporal value. They are listed as gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, and straw. The point here is that there are different kinds
of human good, different kinds of divine good from which the believer is going
to construct, and the whole edifice is a mix of these things. This edifice is
the mix which is our life. Then Paul says, “each man’s work will become
evident.” The only time this is going to be made manifest is at the judgment
seat of Christ. In the mix is gold, silver and jewels, and a lot of garbage, so
the only way to find out what is there of value is to set the whole thing on
fire. What is evaluated and left on the foundation—the word here is DOKIMAZO [dokimazw] which means to evaluate something for the purpose of praise, not for
the purpose of condemnation—is what is going to be rewarded; “if any man’s work
is burned up, he shall suffer loss.” He is not going to lose his salvation. He
loses what was built above the foundation but he still has the foundation which
is Jesus Christ—“but he himself shall be saved, yet as through fire.” This is
the person who receives nothing, there is no inheritance of the kingdom. There
is inheritance of eternal life but not inheritance of the kingdom. Cf. 1 John
2:28—“And now little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may
have confidence and not shrink away in shame at His coming.”
2 Timothy 2:11-13—what
is the context, the flow of the author’s reasoning? What is Paul telling
Timothy to do? Timothy is a pastor and Paul is encouraging him to hang in there
through tough times as a pastor-teacher. He is to be “strong in the grace that
is in Christ Jesus.” He has to understand grace orientation; “these things [the
doctrine he has been teaching] entrust to faithful men who will be able to
teach others also.” So here Paul is relating specifically that part of the
responsibility of a pastor is to make sure he is communicating doctrine to specific
men who will in turn be able to communicate that doctrine to other men. This is
the concept of teaching within a local congregation. Within that congregation
there will be men who have the gift of pastor-teacher and it is the
responsibility of the pastor-teacher to teach in such a way that those men as
well are being matured so that they can go and do likewise. The basic command
is to continue to be strong in grace. As he develops that he gives three
illustrations, beginning in verse 3: “Suffer hardship with me, as a good
soldier in Christ Jesus.” This is why one has to be grace oriented as a pastor
when going through the various trials and testing in order to make it through
because it is not as simple as some think it is. So the first image is of a soldier
who is out in the field and going through difficult times. Verse 4 – the
analogy of the soldier is further: not to be entangled in the things that would
distract him from the ministry of teaching the Word of God. Verse 5 – the
illustration of an athlete. “… if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not
win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.” By interpretation
these apply to Timothy but by application they apply to every believer. You
have to suffer hardship as a believer. There are things as a believer you are
not going to be able to do, that other believers who do not care about the
spiritual life do and that unbelievers do, because you know it will distract
you from the goal of spiritual growth. Secondly, there are rules in the spiritual
life. One of the greatest dangers is antinomianism, taking grace for granted:
because Christ died on the cross and paid for my sins so I can do just whatever
I want to and it is not going to make a difference. It will make a difference!
Paul says that if you don’t run like an athlete and follow the rules you will
be disqualified—1 Corinthians 7. Even Paul realized the possibility of sin and
failure in his life that would disqualify him from the reward. The third
illustration is of a farmer: “The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to
receive his share of the crops.” This brings in the idea of reward for the
effort put forth. So we have in this passage the idea of endurance in difficult
times, following the rules, and receiving reward for the effort put forth. In
verses 7-10 Paul is simply encouraging Timothy to pay attention to what he has
said, and relating his own example. In verse 10 he uses the word “salvation” SOTER [swthr] which means simply “deliverance,” so it is always necessary to look at
the context to see what kind of deliverance is being spoken of. Here it is not
phase one salvation; “for the sake of those who are chosen,” and he is using
the word “elect” here as a synonym for those who are saved; “that they also may
obtain salvation” – not phase one because they are already phase one, this is
phase three, the culmination of the spiritual life when the believer is face to
face with the Lord. He is using this to encompass the entire framework of God’s
plan for their life. Then he is going to summarize this in verses 11-13 through
the use of what appears to be a hymn that was commonly sung in the church at
that time, and because this hymn accurately reflects the truth, the apostle
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit includes this much of the hymn is
Scripture in order to make the point.
There are four
conditional clauses listed here. In the parable in the minas in Luke 19 there
were three servants involved. The nobleman went off to a far land to receive
his kingdom. Before he left he called his servants and gave each a mina and we
are told what happened to three of them. The first one is faithful and the one
mina is turned into ten. The second one is faithful, he doesn’t receive verbal
praise but he does receive rulership in the kingdom. He turns his one mina into
five. And the last one because he is afraid of the accountability procedure he
just hides the mina, doesn’t do anything with it; and that is comparable to the
believer who does nothing with the assets of God’s grace, and so he is
chastised and rebuked and his mina is taken away and given to the others. The
third group of people in that parable which represents the unbelievers is put
to death; the servants are not, even the unfaithful servant. The unfaithful
servant is denied possession of what was given him. There is a denial of
rewards.
Verse 11 – “It is a
trustworthy statement [a doctrinally true statement],” and it is derived from
what is supposed as a popular song/hymn of that day. “For if we died with him
[and we have], we shall also live with him.” This begins with a first class
condition: if, and we assume it to be true. The main verb is SUNAPOTHNESKO [sunapoqnhskw] which has to do with a joint death’ “we shall also live with him” is
in the future tense, which indicates a future life, phase three glorification.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation identifies the
believer with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection—Romans 6:1-4. If we
died with Him we will live with Him. This death is positional. We still possess
a sin nature but it is no longer the undisputed master of our soul. The point
of verse 11 is that if we died with Him positionally, and we have, once
positional truth takes place it cannot be repeated and it cannot be lost. “We
shall also live with him” is a promise.
Stanza number two,
verse 12: “If we endure, we shall also reign with him.” There again it is a
first class condition because Paul is assuming that we endure. He is being
optimistic. There we have the same idea that we saw in the parable of the
minas, that the believer who is obedient and faithful has a position ruling and
reigning with Jesus Christ. “If we endure” comes from the present active
indicative of HUPOMENO [u(pomenw]. The present tense is
continuous action in present time, emphasizing the importance of endurance in
the spiritual life in phase two. Endurance is the key to going through the
test—the test of hardship here. Application of doctrine is going to lead to
maturity, capacity for blessing in time and eternity. “We shall also reign with
him”—phase two is the training ground for the believer’s position as a ruler in
the Millennial kingdom. If we do not pass the test during this time there is no
ruling and reigning, there is no responsibility in phase three, because there
is no capacity or ability to do that. The believer learns how to do it in phase
two during this lifetime.
Verse 13 – “If we are
faithless [1st class condition: and some will be].” That means to be
disobedient, to not trust the Lord, to not grow to spiritual maturity, to treat
God’s grace in a light manner; “he remains faithful” – so while we might be
unfaithful, disobedient, etc., He remains faithful because that is His
character. He is immutable, the same today, yesterday and forever; “because he
cannot deny himself.” He cannot change; He cannot go back on His word. So back
to the last clause in verse 12: “If we deny him, he also will deny us.” Many
have recanted the faith under persecution. Denial here speaks of rejecting
Christ as saviour after one has accept Him as saviour. So He will deny us what?
Deny us reward. This is not to deny us salvation because as we have already
seen in verse 13, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful.”
The result: 1 John
2:28—“And now little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may
have confidence and not shrink away in shame at His coming.”
“Abide in him” is
Johannine terminology for HUPOMENO, endurance. Hang in there, stay in fellowship, walk by means of the
Holy Spirit. There will be many believers who have been given this incredible
array of spiritual assets to live the spiritual life, but do not use them, who
will be ashamed when Jesus Christ returns. There will be shame at the judgment
seat of Christ because rather than hearing the Lord say, “Well done good and
faithful servant,” there will be either nothing or hearing the Lord ask why we
did what we did or failed to use what we were given, as he did with the
unfaithful servant.
The timing of our evaluation judgment is uncertain. Revelation
22:12—“Behold, I am coming quickly.” It could happen at any moment. It is the
Greek word which means that when these things start happening everything will
roll out very rapidly; “and my reward is with me to render to every man
according to what he has done.” So there we see that rewards are based on
merit, not on grace. Salvation is based on grace but reward is based on what
you do with what God has graciously given you—all of the spiritual assets that
God has graciously bestowed upon you. Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:10.
In our society we look upon
inheritance as that which when anybody dies whatever property they own is
automatically transferred to his descendants. Primarily it has the idea of
transference at death. The inheritance in the Bible primarily has the
connotation of possession.
1. In the Old Testament inheritance refers to the ownership of property,
especially property which is passed down from one generation to another. The
reason passing down from one generation to another is emphasized is because it
is something that is not lost, it is a permanent possession.
2. An example of this is Numbers 36:2. The emphasis here is on family and
the tribal allotment that God had designated in the land. To each of the tribes
of Israel there is given an inheritance in the land, with the exception of the tribe
of Levi. This passage is referring to the tribe of Manasseh. Zelophedad had died and had no heirs. Inheritance in Israel always went
to the male child but Zelophedad had died and hand only daughters, so there was
a problem. If Zelophedad’s daughters married outside the tribe of Manasseh then
this land which is Manasseh’s land by right as their possession given by Moses
would have the risk of being transferred outside the possession of Manasseh. So
in order to protect this property right and in order that this property stays
within the tribe of Manasseh, Moses said, verse 6: “Let them marry whom they
wish; only they must marry within the family of the tribe of their father.”
Verse 7 – there will be no transfer of inheritance. So here we see that
inheritance is treated as property right, and the daughters of Zelophedad are
restricted in their marriage to marry only within the tribe of Manasseh. In
that way Manasseh will not lose any of their real estate. Inheritance is
related to real property. Inheritance, property and possession are all
interchangeable ideas. So inheritance, therefore, means to have ownership of
something. So inheritance in the kingdom means to have ownership, property
rights, within the Messianic kingdom.
3. Did everybody have ownership and property rights in the theocratic
kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament? They did not. There were different
groups who lived in the kingdom but did not have an inheritance or possession
within the kingdom. Exodus 12:48, 49 deals with the stranger, the non-Jew, the
Gentile who was living in the land or even a proselyte. Notice, “he shall be
like a native.” He can participate in the ritual but he is still not a Jew, not
an Israelite. Cf. Numbers 18:20, 24. Aaron is the high priest; this is not a
reference to salvation. We see in this verse that there are two distinct
inheritances or possessions in Israel. One is possession of the land, the other
is possession of God. There is something that all believers had: inheritance
with God and a second additional inheritance which is the possession in the
land. Possession in the land is going to be conditioned upon obedience to the
Mosaic law. That is the reason for the five cycles of discipline mentioned at
the end of Deuteronomy as a warning that if they did not obey the law the land
would be taken from them. They would still have an inheritance with God but no
longer a possession in the land. So we see that even in the Old Testament we
have this distinction.
4. In 1 Corinthians 10 we are told that all of these things happened in the
Old Testament as a type, as an example to us in the New Testament. So in going
back and looking at what happened in Israel it is a sort of teaching model, a
concrete way of illustration of what the New Testament s going to talk about in
terms of the believer’s future inheritance. Verse 24: the whole tribe of Levi
do not own land, they do not have an inheritance in the land. The point is that
in the Old Testament inheritance means possession and not everyone who lived in
the theocratic kingdom had a possession in the theocratic kingdom. So it was
possible to live in the kingdom but not be an owner in the kingdom.
Furthermore, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived in the promised land but they never
owned any of the promised land. Hebrews 11:13.
5. Even in the Millennial kingdom, not all who dwell there will possess
it—1 Corinthians 15:50. “…that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” There is a clear
reference to Jesus prior to the resurrection of Christ as flesh as blood, but
the reference interestingly of His resurrection body describes it a flesh and
bone. So when coming into the Millennial kingdom you can’t be an owner,
possessor of the kingdom if you are flesh and blood. But during the Tribulation
period there are going to be a number of Tribulational saints who survive and
go into the Millennial kingdom, and they marry and have children, they still
have their physical bodies. They don’t have a resurrection body, they are still
“flesh and blood.” So the earthly inhabitants of the Millennial kingdom, the
Tribulation saints who survive, are flesh and blood; they are living in the
Millennial kingdom but they are not possessors of the Millennial kingdom.
6. Inheritance was viewed as a reward for obedience, it was not given on
the basis of grace—Joshua 14:8, 9. This is a reference to what occurred at
Kadesh-Barnea. Joshua and Caleb had an inheritance in the land because they
obeyed the Lord.
7. Possession of the land was therefore conditioned on obedience, and being
conditioned on obedience it could be lost. Principle: Inheritance is
conditioned on obedience and it can be lost through disobedience. Genesis
17:14—if a Jew refused circumcision he would lose his inheritance. So his
possession was predicated to his obedience to the Mosaic law. Numbers 14:24
refers to Caleb.
8. The entire Exodus generation had become God’s first-born son—Exodus
4:22, 23. They were to receive a double portion of inheritance. Yet with the
exception of Caleb and Joshua they forfeited that inheritance through
disobedience. God disinherited them at Kadesh-Barnea but they did not lose
their salvation.
9. Tough not all have an inheritance in the land all have God as their
inheritance and possession—Psalm 73:26; 119;57; 142:5.
10. Inheritance is difference from entrance or living in the land.
Inheritance refers to possession, so inheriting the kingdom of God indicates
possessing and owning the kingdom of God and refers to those like the two
faithful servants—those who will rule and reign in the Millennial kingdom.
What
we are in pursuit of is an inheritance, a reward in the Millennial kingdom. We
are living in the Church Age and given roughly three-score and ten years to
live.
Ephesians 5:16 says we are to redeem the time. We are given a vast array of
spiritual assets—Ephesians 1:3. We have the completed canon of Scripture, the Word
of God, a vast array of Bible doctrine, and we are to take this phenomenal
wealth of resources, spiritual assets and physical talents, and invest them in
time for the eternal kingdom of God. Then when the judgment seat of Christ
takes place we will be evaluated on the basis of that. Everyone will be an heir
of God but only those who endure and suffer with Jesus (Romans 8:17) will be
considered joint heirs with Jesus Christ. These will receive rewards and
inheritance and will rule and reign with Him; all other believers will suffer
loss, there will be shame at the judgment seat of Christ, and they will live in
the kingdom but they will not be heirs of the kingdom.
1. Jesus Christ is the firstborn; He is the heir of the kingdom—Romans
8:29.
2. The firstborn receives a double portion of inheritance—Deuteronomy
21:15-17.
3.
Who owns or possesses the
kingdom? It is Jesus—Psalm 89:27; Luke 1:32, 33; Psalm 2:8; Hebrews 1:2.
Everything is given to Jesus Christ as the double portion given to the
firstborn, the preeminent one of all creation. Firstborn, PROTOTOKOS [prwtotokoj], refers to His
preeminence.
4. The believer then becomes a joint heir with Christ and it is different
from being an heir with God. Romans 8:16, 17—there are no punctuation marks in
the original Greek, it is accomplished by style. The verses should be
translated: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are
children of God, and if children, heirs also of God”—that is category one heir;
then category #2 heir: “and joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with
Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” If heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ are the same thing, then what is the conditional
clause? “If indeed we suffer with Him would then be the condition for being an
heir of God and a child of God. That is placing the condition upon salvation
and making salvation works and not grace. So that is why you have to be very
careful with these things. “If children, heirs of God” – eternal life is your
possession based on faith alone in Christ alone; it is by grace. Category #2:
“joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him.” This is tantamount to
2 Timothy 2:11, 12. One inheritance is based on grace and the second is based
on merit. This distinction is reiterated in Revelation 2:26, 27; 3:21.
1. Inheritance means possession and there are two kinds of inheritance.
2. The first is heirs of God which is tantamount to eternal life. This is
free and is based on the unmerited favour of God—John 3:16; 5:24; 6:40;
Revelation 22:17.
3. There are aspects of eternal life which are said to be earned. Of the
forty-two times in the Greek that the phrase AIONOS ZOE [a)iwnoj zwh] (eternal life) occurs, in eleven
of them it is worked for. This adds a dimension to the
quality of life in eternity that is based on a closer relationship with the
Lord. Cf. John 12:25—based upon making God the highest priority in life; also
verse 26; John 17:3—eternal life is defined as a special category of intimate
knowledge of God that goes beyond salvation; Galatians 6:8.
4. Rulership and reigning in the kingdom is presented as being a result of
obedience and spiritual growth in this life—Luke 19; 1 Timothy 2:11-13.
5. At the judgment seat of Christ there are rewards given to those who
advance to spiritual maturity and who are advancing to spiritual maturity, and
there are rewards that are taken away—loss on inheritance in the kingdom.
6. Inheriting the kingdom refers to those believers who advance to maturity
and have their character renovated into the image of Christ. In the kingdom of
God character matters. Colossians 3:10.
Verses 22, 23 – the
production or the fruit of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit” begins the
contrast between the production of the sin nature and the production of the
Holy Spirit. What we see in all of this is that the filling of the Holy Spirit
is a condition, it is not an experience. How do you know that you are filled
with the Spirit? It is not because you feel like it, it has nothing to do with
emotional stimulation. Therefore the fruit of the Spirit is character, not
emotion. Character matters, and the whole issue here is the transformation of
our character, our inner core nature, from that which is tainted by sin to that
which reflects the image of Jesus Christ. So the goal is that which is
mentioned in Galatians 4:19—“My children, with whom I am again in labour until
Christ is formed in you,” the formation of the character of Christ in the
believer. This first phrase gives us a clue as to what is going on. First, we
have the noun KARPOS [karpoj] which literally means
fruit, but fruit is that which is produced from a tree. What this is talking
about is a system which is going to produce something, it has to do with
production. It is a figure of speech indicating the activity, the result of
deeds, or what we will call the production of the Holy Spirit. This is in
contrast to the works of the flesh.
1. The fruit is specifically stated to be from the source of the Holy
Spirit—the noun KARPOS and then the
genitive of PNEUMA [pneuma], the Greek for the Holy
Spirit. The genitive is a genitive of source telling us that the source is not
our own energy, our own desire to reform ourselves and pull ourselves up by our
moral bootstraps. This is something that is uniquely produced by God the Holy
Spirit. It is the result of the command to walk by means of the Holy Spirit. So
this once again emphasizes the principle that this character must be the result
of the Holy Spirit in the believer, otherwise it is called wood, hay, and straw
at the judgment seat of Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is uniquely from the
source of the Holy Spirit.
2. This is in contrast to the work or activities which are from the source
of the sin nature. The determiner is the believer’s volition.
3. There is no middle ground. The fact that these virtues and qualities are
said to be from the source of the Holy Spirit immediately elevates them beyond
any natural or human virtue. These are supernatural qualities because the life
of the believer is a supernatural life which requires a supernatural power
source. We cannot do this on our own.
4. These can only be produced in the believer who is walking by means of
God the Holy Spirit—a moment by moment dependence upon God and based on the
filling of God the Holy Spirit.
The two power sources of the spiritual life are the Spirit of God and
the Word of God. They do not operate independently of one another, they operate
in tandem. When we are walking by means of the Holy Spirit we are learning the
Word of God and assimilating it into our thinking so that it is transforming
our thinking according to the principle of Romans 12:2, and we are advancing
spiritually. As a result of that the Holy Spirit is doing something internally
in terms of our character, with the Word of God. Our volition is exercised to
go to church, to be at Bible class at every opportunity, to study the Word of
God, to meditate on it, to learn it, to assimilate it into our thinking. But
then God the Holy Spirit works inside us to transform us and to produce
something in our life. We can’t make that happen. There is a part of this where
our volition is active and part of it where our volition is passive.
Illustration, eating: you decide what to eat, how to eat, how fast to eat, and
you exercise your volition to put the food in your mouth and to swallow. After
you swallow automatic reflexes follow which do not involve anything volitional
on your part. Once those nutrients have been broken down and assimilated into
the cell structure of the body, after this metabolism has taken place, then we
exercise our muscles in terms of production. The passive part is the
assimilation; that is up to God the Holy Spirit. We decide to take in the Word
of God, we think about it and we believe it. That is analogous to swallowing.
Then the Holy Spirit is the one who breaks it down and makes it usable, and
then volition becomes active again and we use it. This is the process where
fruit production takes place. And fruit production is not to be confused with
Christian service. This is a very simple mistake that is often made. Christian
service is the production in your life related to your royal priesthood and
your royal ambassadorship. This is a totally different category from the fruit
of the Spirit. In fact the fruit of the Spirit has to be there before this has
any value, otherwise this is no more than what the unbeliever does and going
out there trying to perform certain things under his own strength.
Since the fruit of the Spirit is a condition and not an experience or an
emotion, and since it has to do with character, Paul gives us criterion to
determine whether or not the Holy Spirit is producing in our lives. Over a period
of time you will see a transformation taking place in your life, in your
character. If you do not see this transformation taking place in your character
then you are not walking by means of the Holy Spirit. Somewhere there is a
short-circuit and you need to take a look at your life and see where that is.
In our passage we next have a grocery list of various characteristics of
the believer who is walking by means of the Spirit. This is not an
all-inclusive list; neither is it given in any order. The first three have to
do with mental attitude transformation. They are not emotion, they have to do
with the orientation of your thinking produced by the Holy Spirit. Emotion is
not produced by the Holy Spirit. The first of these characteristics is love and
it is not an emotional love. This is a mental attitude that completely
overrides emotion so that when emotions want to go one way in terms of
reaction, anger, resentment, bitterness, or hostility, this love overrides
these so that there is stability, forgiveness, and there is grace in action.
This is the Greek word AGAPE [a)gaph]. The other word used in the New testament for love is PHILOS [filoj], and it is related to a close, intimate friendship. AGAPE is a different concept, it goes far beyond
emotion and is the kind of love that will enable the believer to handle people
testing in all of its forms. It enables him to handle rejection, hostility,
animosity, anger, resentment, and all sorts of system testing that is
antagonistic to him. So whenever he runs into anything that is hostile he has
an option: a) to react, and the sin nature controls the soul; b) to respond to
the application of doctrine. The first thing to do in a hostile situation is to
think, not emote. The kind of love we are talking about is unconditional love
or impersonal love. That is, all of the value, all of the virtue is in the
person doing the loving, and operates even when the person being loved in
unattractive, unlovable and obnoxious in terms of their basic character and
attributes to the person doing the loving. The person loves because of virtue,
and that is unconditional love. It does not even require a personal
relationship. It is impersonal love. Everything depends upon the person loving
and nothing depends upon the object of love. It is a non-emotional love which
seeks the highest and best for the object of love. This means that
unconditional love in impersonal love is also objective love. Personal love is
often subjective. Personal love when it comes from sinners is inherently unstable.
You can never have a long-time relationship with anyone when the only kind of
love that is present is personal love. The only way that there can be any kind
of permanent or long-term stability in love is to have impersonal or
unconditional love. The example of love is what took place at the cross: “But
God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died as a substitute for us.” We were obnoxious to God as an unbeliever—a
sinner, at enmity with God. The actions of love, then, were dependent
exclusively on the character of God and had nothing to do with the character of
the object. Cf. John 13:35—the hallmark of a believer is this kind of
unconditional love for other believers. John 15:9,10—“If you keep my
commandments.” You have to know the commandments [mandates] before you can keep
them. He is talking about obedience. You learn the Word, then assimilate it,
and then you apply it. Keeping is application; you cannot apply what you
haven’t learned. And you can’t learn something unless you make it a priority
and you exercise discipline and consistency and concentration; and you think
about it a lot to assimilate it into your thinking. Then there is application.
What Jesus says is that love is not divorced from this process. 1 Corinthians
13:4 describes the characteristics of love—patient, kind, is not jealous, does
not brag, is not arrogant.
The second characteristic is joy. This is defined as inner happiness,
sharing the happiness of God. It is not an emotional excitement, it is an inner
happiness that goes beyond mere human happiness. It is a stable happiness, a
happiness that is despite the circumstances, not based on circumstances. This
is a joy that has as its focus who God is and what He has done for us. When our
focus is on God then it will not matter what the circumstances are.
The third characteristic is peace, the Greek word EIRENE [e)irhnh]. This is not world peace, the absence of conflict; this is peace in
the soul that has to do with tranquility, contentment and inner harmony. It has
its roots in the peace we have with God because of reconciliation. Man now has
peace with God because the sin problem has been dealt with, therefore the
believer can now have a mental attitude of peace. John 14:27—“Peace I leave with
you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not
your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” Notice, peace us juxtaposed to
mental attitude fear, worry and anxiety. It is just the opposite of mental
instability. It is based on our relationship to God—Romans 5:1. If the believer
is living in carnality based on the sin nature he will not have this level of
peace and stability—Romans 8:6; Philippians 4:6. God has provided a defensive
structure for our souls; it is produced by God the Holy Spirit. This is the
soul fortress. Our soul is strengthened by the Word of God, and as the Holy
Spirit teaches us and as we assimilate it into our souls it is strengthened so
this becomes a defensive structure surrounding our souls so that we can handle
any circumstance and situation in life.
These first three deal with the mental attitude transformation in the
believer. Because your mental attitude has been transformed then it affects
your relationship.
From “patience” on the passage deals with application. This is MAKROTHUMIA [makroqumia] and it relates to steadfastness, endurance, endurance in relationship
to people testing, hanging in there is difficult circumstances, continuing to
apply the Word of God no matter how difficult it might be, waiting upon the
Lord even though it might be years before you see answers to prayer. Isaiah
40:31; Colossians 3:12.
“Kindness” – CHRESTOTES [xrhstothj] and has to do with
kindness. It relates to grace orientation. As you realize that everything that
you have in Christ is related to the work that God did for you, and you didn’t
earn and deserve any of it, that begins to impact on the way you deal with
other people. Kindness is graciousness towards people because you understand
people. It is dealing with people not on the basis of what they deserve but on
the basis of God’s character. Ephesians 2:7. Just as God exercises kindness
toward us we are to exercise that kindness toward others.
“Goodness” –AGATHOSUNE [a)gaqosunh] is intrinsic good
and has to do with a generosity of spirit, application of doctrine.
“Faithfulness” is a bad translation. The Greek is PISTIS [pistij], not PISTOS [pistoj]. If you translate PISTIS as “faithful” you have a lot of theological
problems. PISTIS is faith, not faithfulness, and it has to do
with the fact that as we grow God the Holy Spirit strengthens our faith. We
need very little faith to be saved (as a mustard seed), but as the believer
grows by learning the Word of God, God the Holy Spirit strengthens and
intensifies that faith, that ability to trust God. That faith grows, and it is
the result of learning and applying the Word.
Verse 23—“gentleness and self-control.”
“Gentleness” is the word PRAUTES [prauthj], which doesn’t mean gentleness at all. There two different Greek words
for humility and this is one of them. It describes humility in action and is
the grace orientation which takes place in the soul. The more the believer is
oriented to God’s grace the more there is a development of the internal
attitude which is a recognition of one’s proper place in the plan of God. When
this genuine transformation of humility takes place it produces a result in our
external behaviour. This is not some form of self-effacement, putting one’s
self down, or having some sort of false humility or low view of one’s self, but
it is a virtue towards other people in treating them in kindness. It is
sometimes translated “meekness” and it is strength in virtue because we know
who we are and are properly oriented to the plan of God. Cf. Ephesians 4:2.
“Self-control”—ENKRATEIA [e)nkrateia] means self-mastery,
self-control, self-discipline. This is the production of the Holy Spirit. Any
unbeliever can have a level of discipline and self-control, but this is talking
specifically about self-mastery in relationship to control of the lusts of the
flesh, control of the sin nature, and application of doctrine; “against such
things there is no law” – so this indicates a character quality and there is
nothing out there that can prevent the believer from developing these qualities
in his life, as long as he is studying God’s Word and applying God’s Word.
Verse 24 – “Now those who belong to
Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” We need
to understand the dynamics here. Reaching a conclusion in verse 24 and taking
us to a new level in the battle between the sin nature and the Holy Spirit. In
the Greek this begins with a postpositive conjunction—it becomes second in the
sentence and is translated first—DE [de]. This word can be used in
the framework of an explanation to indicate the development of thought to the
next level. It should be translated here, “Now you see.” Paul has explained the
basics of the argument. It is then explained in terms of the cause of the
battle, then of being led by the Spirit, followed by the manifestations and how
one can determine whether they are walking by means of the flesh or the Spirit,
and now he is going to take this to a concluding level. He is going to describe
a crucial principle for understanding the dynamics of the spiritual life as
something that happened at the point of salvation. It is what we call
retroactive [going back] positional truth. It is what takes place at the moment
of salvation in the life of the believer. The believer is identified with the
work of Jesus Christ on the cross by means of the baptism of the Holy
Spirit—His death, burial and resurrection. That identification frees from the
bondage to the sin nature.
“Now those who belong to Christ”
begins with a nominative plural HOI [o(i]which is a relative
pronoun, and should be translated “those who.” But then the phrase TOU CHISTOU [tou
xristou] which is a genitive singular indicating
relationship. This doesn’t have the word
“belong” but that is inherent in the construction. It refers to every single
person who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. What Paul is saying is that
every person who is a believer in Jesus Christ belongs to Jesus Christ.
“have crucified” – the word is STAUROO [staurow], from STAUROS
which originally meant a stake and refers to crucifixion. Here it is an aorist
passive indicative. The aorist indicates it is just simple past, referring to
the fact that as believers this has happened in our past. The passive voice
indicates that we have received the action of the verb, we don’t crucify
ourselves. The indicative mood is the mood of reality, a statement of doctrine.
In chapter two, verse twenty, Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.”
There we have a different form of the word STAUROO, it is a compound, SUNSTAUROO (SUN = the preposition which means with), indicating co-crucifixion with
Christ. And there it is a perfect passive indicative. The perfect tense always
indicates past action but the emphasis is usually on the present ongoing result
from that past action. So what Paul is saying is that we have been crucified
with Christ, indicating that at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone
something happened which has results that go on throughout our spiritual life.
It is “no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” – no longer me and my
character but Christ and His character, and this is the result of something
that happened at the point of salvation. Romans chapter six is the chapter in
the New Testament for the doctrine of positional truth. All that Paul has been
saying is that because we have been crucified with Christ that absolute control
by the sin nature has been severed and broken. We are not under law but under
grace and we need to recognize that because of the principle of retroactive
positional truth we need not, should not, and ought no follow the lusts of the
flesh, its passions and desires.
Verse 25—“If we live by the Spirit” is in contrast to what Paul has been
saying in verse 24: crucifying the flesh. The flesh is positionally dead and
because it is we can live by means of the Spirit. This is a first class
condition in the Greek which means “If we live by the Spirit, and we do”—if,
and it is assumed to be true. Walking by means of the Spirit in verse 16 and
walking by means of the Spirit in verse 25 frame this entire section, but there
is something we don’t see in the English text. That is that the Greek word
translated “walk” in verse 25 is STOICHEO [stoixeo], not PERIPATEO [peripatew] the word used in
verse 16. This is a synonym here for walking to bring out another aspect of the
doctrine of walking. STOICHEO goes back to classical Greek where it was a military term which was
used of troops lining up in a row or in ranks. Later it was applied to anything
that was in a direct line, a group that marched in rank and file, and by New
Testament times it came to mean to follow a certain course of action, to follow
a preset pattern, to stay in line, and it is used to refer to walking in a
closely regulated life, living according to set of definite rules. The concept
here is not simply the day by day lifestyle that is emphasized in verse 16 but
it moves it to the next stage which is living by a set of rules. These are the
mandates set up in the New Testament for the spiritual life. We are to walk by
means of the Spirit and that walk follows a preset pattern or path. Where do we
find that path that we are to proceed down? The path is set up by the Word of
God which has been revealed by the Spirit of God. So it is the Word of God that
defines the course of action for the believer’s life. So Paul is saying here
that we should walk according to the pattern that is revealed in the
Scriptures. It is walking by an objective standard or pattern, and that is the
Word of God. (Review the doctrine of
walking)