m273p15c-
Thank you very much for your reasonable response to my last e-mail. I'm sorry that I have been unable to respond to it sooner but I am not as gifted as you are to quickly construct a letter that correctly expresses my thoughts. Please don't feel for a minute that I was hurt by anything you said in it. On the contrary, in spite of our differences I am strongly encouraged by your loving spirit and your willingness to discuss your point of view. I can't remember when I've had such a reasonable response from anyone who agreed to reason with me about differences in doctrine.
After pondering all that you said in this last response, I still find myself unable to agree with you about a number of things because I still believe that you have flaws in some of your reasoning. So permit me to come back at you to explain your error to you in the same loving fashion as you have had towards me. This time I'll address your last e-mail response to me Scripturally one point at a time. However, if you don't mind, I'm not going to bother to look up and use verse Identifiers unless when I'm mentioning a Scripture, the passage is obscure. I'm foregoing them because I'm sure that you're already quite familiar with those that I'm going to quote since they are basic Scriptures. But if you want each verse's identifiers, just let me know and I'll look them up and send them to you.
You started your last e-mail response to me by saying to me...
...it seems that you are being led by an inner voice that elevates you beyond the reach of Scripture. Now, I admit you reference Scripture, but you do not truly use it, as I would do, because you insert words to make application that cannot be found in the text. Only by your inner voice and inner movement can you make these applications. Context seems irrelevant, because the Spirit seems to help you make special application. You take liberties that I would not dare dream to presume...
m273p15c- I want to unequivocally declare to you that I do not feel that God would ever have me elevate myself beyond the Scriptures or listen to any spirit that would try get me to elevate myself beyond what is written in the Scriptures because plain and simple, we are told in the Word that we are not to go beyond what is written. However, that restriction in my opinion does not lock us into context at all so please let me explain what I believe to be its correct meaning.
What I believe that God has shown me is that He offers us a "Freedom in the Word" grace by which for us to (for lack of a better word)
stretch the application of His Word beyond its context
WHEN the
principles in a passage fit a particular situation in our lives. This idea is housed in the Words of God that say - "where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty" and "man shall...live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" and "the Word of God is living and active" and I Timothy 6:2b where we are instructed to teach and preach
principles.
What this expression, "Freedom in the Word" means to me is that there are
principles to be found within most verses in the Bible that will fit every situation in everyone's life. I believe that the Lord in His Almighty power has imprisoned every aspect of each of our lives so that they must be lived at one level or another within His inspired Word's context and / or its
principles. I believe that He has so constructed each of our lives that
principles within pertinent Scripture passages spring to life as they fit into the various situations in our lives.
m273p15c, I believe that only through their
principles can all of the Scriptures possibly be living and active for us today. If as Jesus and Moses said in the Scriptures, man shall...live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, how else could that be possible when the Scriptures were not written to each of us personally? To me the answer is obvious - only in
principal!
So, by stretching beyond context's letter, but never going beyond the
principles of what is written that might apply to one of our life situations,
AND by only doing that within the liberty that the Holy Spirit of God gives us for the situation, we stay within the spiritual grace that comes forth from within each passage that fits that our life situations. This is what I believe is living and active "Freedom in the Word" because as the Scriptures say, "the letter kills but the spirit brings life." I believe that God has shown me that holding to the letter of a verse's context - kills the spirit of its principles - and prevents them from being recognized as applying to the circumstances which His Holy Spirit is moving upon us to show us just how perfectly they fit.
For example, take the passage in Genesis 1 that says, "...darkness was over the surface of the deep (symbolizing understanding for a particular situation), and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters (the context or surface of His verse that contains a principle for that particular situation). Then God said, "Let there be light" (His voice in our inner man suddenly sheds His light upon that verse's
principle for the situation); and there was light (we, by faith in that verse's suddenly revealed
principle, gain a deep understanding for the situation)". This Genesis passage's
principle is that God's Spirit moves over Satan's darkness (which initially covers each of our life's events and hides the Lord's depths of understanding that are within it) to bring forth His light of revelation which overcomes that situation's darkness and gives us understanding.
m273p15c, I believe that it is not possible for anyone to truthfully live a life that stays within the strict confines of the context of all of Scripture! How can anyone do that? I believe that if we ponder the depths of human life with God, He will show us that it's impossible. Think about it. Context kills the spiritual principles of verses by imprisoning them within their "letter". So if they are imprisoned in context only, how can they possibly be completely living and active? Simple logic tells us that they can't and the Spirit tells us that He won't let them be so imprisoned! Yes, God's word is imprisoned within both context
AND principle - but no, it is not imprisoned in context alone! If you look at how the Holy Spirit quoted verses from the Old Testament thru the writers of the New Testament you will see this living and active "Freedom in the Word" concept shown right in the Word. He quite often applies out-of-context
principles found within the O.T. verses to living situations being discussed in the N.T.
For instance, Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit, said that Old Testament Scriptures on muzzling working oxen were speaking about New Testament Christians paying their ministers! Such a far out contention is obviously because he's seeing this O.T. passage in
principle, stretched far from its context. Can you see this? Is Paul's interpretation here (which is made under the movement of the Holy Spirit within him) not completely out of context and a huge stretch from it? How can oxen possibly be ministers? Only if they are oxen
in principle which is just what he goes on to explain. I believe that this is "Freedom in the Word" actively at work by the Holy Spirit of God within His Scriptures because (as you well know), the Scriptures declare that they are all inspired by Him. I also believe that this sets the precedent for Christians to open their minds to following the Holy Spirit of God's leading
beyond a verse's context and on into its principles for a given life situation, just as he did. This is exactly what I felt led to do with the verses that I quoted to you from Habakkuk and Deuteronomy (in effect, through my God-given faith in them as applying to our life situation, making them living and active to me for it).
But before you say it, I do whole heartedly agree with you that such freedom is fraught with dangers! These dangers I will discuss with you once we can agree that it is Scriptural to push past a passage's context and stretch out into its
principles, when led by God to do so for a matching situation. Let me continue....
In the New Testament gospels, Jesus is told of encountering a teacher of the Old Testament and in their discussion, besides explaining to him the huge N.T. concept of being born again, He also informed him that in the Old testament, the obscure passage about Moses' lifting up of the serpent statue on a pole in the desert was
in principle, symbolic of His own coming death and Resurrection! How could a serpent be said to represent God Himself when serpents were cursed by God in the garden of Eden? Only in the
principle of Jesus bearing our sin (our curse) upon Himself on the cross! He also told the pharisees that the story of Jonah (a seemingly far fetched tale that many would discard as not being Scriptural at all, had not Jesus made this important reference to it) was also a symbol
in principle of His coming death and resurrection. He also told his disciples that John the Baptist was Isaiah, if they could accept it. That obviously refers to accepting the idea of John,
in principle (not in person)
, as being a living and active Isaiah during his own lifetime. And of course there's all of the parables that are nothing but principles.
Those 2 verses in Habakkuk and Deuteronomy that I quoted to you, I feel were quickened / ignited to me within the spirit of my mind by the Holy Spirit of God, not by some other spirit. Each verse was like a file card flipped open in a Rolodex by the Holy Spirit of God for me to see as applying to our situation. To me the
principles in them seemed to fit our situation perfectly, just as to me your illness seemed to perfectly fit the timing of your meditations about my doctrines. To me, this was the Holy Spirit of God speaking to me, bringing me to remembrance of these particular Words of His and, as you said, making
special application of them to our situation. To me, I was moving in the Spirit of God's own liberty in so using them and in that sense they became living and active. But to you at this point, this was not God moving me but only my own inner voice or some unknown spirit within me, prodding me to make that
special application.
m273p15c, how else, or maybe I should ask, in what sense does the Word tell us that man shall...live by every Word from the mouth of God? Did not Jesus, who was not Jonah, live His own life and then go to His own death and resurrection, in the spirit or
principle of Jonah, just as He prophesied. Did He not do all of this within this concept of "Freedom in the Word" in which He went beyond the letter of what was written, by
stretching what was written, using the
principle of what was written, which He felt perfectly fit His own life situation?
m273p15c, I don't believe that I am being presumptuous (as you indicated that you would never dare to be) in declaring these Scriptural interpretations but it may turn out that I actually am! So in order to avoid presumptuousness in making them, I feel that I am repeatedly led by God to humbly hedge against that sin by preceding such contentions with the simple statement, "I believe...". What that injunction means to me is that I truly believe that I'm in touch with God on a particular thought or matter, yet it may actually be God's truth that I am not in touch with Him on it at all! So I believe that this hedge phrase was given to me by the Lord (within my thoughts years ago) in order to to keep me humble and away from the presumptuousness of following some incontrovertible voice. This hedge phrase shields me from having no avenue of retreat should the thoughts that I truly feel are coming from God, merely turn out to be my own thoughts or thoughts that are actually coming from the voice of some evil, misguiding spirit.
And once you hear the thoughts that I say I believe God has spoken to me, it is then up to you whether or not you too believe that they are from God. After all, we can reach agreement that they might or might not be from God, but neither of us can state unequivocally that they truly are or are not from Him! Therefore, for both of us to avoid presumption, we can only confess that we believe that our thoughts are or are not from Him, not that they actually are or are not from Him. So by using this statement, "I believe..." wholeheartedly, the presumptive sin of absolute certainty should not come forth from me in this discussion.
With this thought in place let us go on. You next said...
...
This presents a difficulty. For example, whatifI wrote this to you:
The other day, as I sat meditating upon our discussions, imploring Jesus for guidance, I stumbled across this verse, and I felt God speak to me in this way:
And then the lawless one (you) will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume (along with his stubbornness and false teachings) with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.The coming of thelawless one (you) is according to the working of Satan,with all power, (deniable) signs, and lying wonders,and with all unrighteous deception (even if done ignorantly) among those who perish,becausethey did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.And for this reasonGod will send them strong delusion(many deniable signs),that they should believe the lie(the false interpretations of these deniable signs),that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth(you refuse to look at Scripture) but had pleasure in unrighteousness (you take comfort and exalt yourself in your signs and divine guidance).(II Thessalonians 2:9-12)
How could you answer me? What could you possibly say? Maybe, that the Spirit couldn't have said that to me, because He said something else to you! But, that leaves us nowhere. Two different spirits are speaking to us, telling us two different things, and neither respects the other, because our personal experiences and voices say otherwise.
m273p15c- in that circumstance I would have to say to you that I believe that it was not the Holy Spirit who said that to you but that it was instead some other spirit and that I feel we need to discuss the matter more thoroughly in order to find out what spirit was actually at work within you giving you this revelation. In this way that difference would not leave us - nowhere. Yes, two different spirits are expressing different things that we can't agree upon but that would put me in a position (as I am with you and as you are with others in your forums) to open up a discussion about those differences. This is just what we two reasonable Christians are now doing here in conducting this discussion of our differences of belief in an effort to bring one or the other to a belief in God's truth about them. So let's proceed on that basis.
You next said...
...At our last worship service and Bible study (providence?), we were studying opposing "faiths" in an effort to equip our members to better seek the truth, salvation, and unity with their acquaintances. This particular class, we were studying a faith that relied on Holy Spirit testimony in addition to their texts. We discussed this problem: How do you answer someone whoultimatelyforsakes all writings and all objective standards? How do you reach someone, whoseultimatestandard is a personal, inner, incontrovertible voice? You can't! Such people are untouchable because they do not share common ground with anyone else - not even the gospel. They may start with Scripture, but they end with the "voice". The Bible is only useful to them when it agrees with their beliefs. If you corner them with the truth, their personal revelation from the Spirit trumps all!
(In answer to your above parenthetical interjection - providence ? - yesm273p15c, I do believe that your Bible study was Providentially ordained because it fits right in with what I felt led to tell you before about God sending you more and more deniable signs. Your ? tells me that you still are wondering if coincidental things like this can actually be a true sign from God)
In my case, even though I might somewhat appear to fit this mold, I don't believe that I do because I believe that the Holy Spirit only trumps the context of the Word, when He tells us to stretch it via its
principle(s) for our situations in order to show us more and more of how we live actively within every word that proceeds out of His mouth.
I also don't believe that He speaks to me with an incontrovertible voice as do the parties in your example. Look at Peter in Acts 10 struggling with the vision of the sheet full of animals and the voice of God telling him to kill and eat them. God's voice there wasn't incontrovertible to him. No, instead God spoke to him in a controversial vision and it left him perplexed and he stayed that way until God moved another event, a coincidental one, to confirm what He had said to Peter in the vision. The second confirming event convinced him of the legitimacy of the voice and its vision. So the voice of God was not, when heard, incontrovertible for him in that case just as it wasn't at first for Gideon and it wasn't at first for me either and it isn't for you right now. Therefore, even though I believe that I hear the voice of God at times, I agree with you that you can't reach anyone who follows an incontrovertible "voice of God". This I believe is what happened to Jim Jones and to David Koresh but it is not what goes on with me.
If you were to corner me with something that actually is God's truth that I was opposing, I believe that the Holy Spirit would confirm the truth of it within my heart, cutting me to the quick, just as He did to 3,000 people when Peter cornered them, under the power of the holy Spirit, when he preached the gospel to them. (by the way, the reason that I believe the Lord led me to confess my belief in the gospel to you in my last e-mail, was to show you that I am not one of those who deny it, even though I might appear to you to be off base on this issue). Then I would need to repent, just as they did, and accept the truth of the matter.
m273p15c- I believe that the Lord would have me to now go no further in this discussion than this last quote of yours because this is the issue that I feel God has shown me that we must settle first, in order to get to all of the other things that you bring up. So, let me now explain to you what I believe God is showing me to be your heart error on this particular issue.
The Lord Jesus Christ is quoted in the Word as saying that God seeks worshipers who will worship Him in spirit
AND in truth, not just in truth! I believe that God is showing me that you are not doing both. I believe that He is showing me that deep in your heart you too want to worship Him in spirit but because of a fear of all things supernatural, you can't get there. I believe that He is showing me that you lock yourself within only the letter of truth found in the context of God's Word because of this deep seated distrust of all things supernatural. This is why you feel that you must have undeniable signs from Him in order to believe that they are truly from Him. I believe that deep in your heart you're afraid of letting yourself go into the supernatural realm with Him.
You are worshiping God in truth yes, but not in the supernatural movements of His Spirit which manifest in His revelations of its hidden
principles, therefore you are not in nearly as much truth as you could be and deep in your heart you want to be as you worship Him. To me, you insist upon
undeniable direct communication with Him because of your fear of any supernatural manifestations as being truly from Him. So you just don't see how to get to direct communications with Him. This limits your spiritual growth and you don't experience the joys that His Spirit brings when He speaks to you by quickening within your intuition a verse's hidden underlying
principles that apply to a particular situation. And m273p15c, if you did somehow get an
undeniable communique from God, would you then not fall into the category you mentioned above, of one who puts the incontrovertible voice above all else?
To put this all plain and simply, I believe that He is showing me that you are hearing His Word but because of your underlying distrust of the supernatural, you are not hearing His voice within your mind speaking it! Jesus is quoted in the Scriptures as saying. "My sheep hear my voice (not just His Word [although that's the language His voice speaks]) and....they follow me (in the direction that He is telling them to go thru the context
AND the principles of the passages that apply to their life situations)."
What is the voice of God? I believe that it's the inner voice of The Holy Spirit speaking within a person's mind in their conscience and / or their intuition. People testify to His voice within them when they say that a particular verse spoke to them. That's same the inner voice or Spirit that you see moving me when I'm taking the kind of liberties with God's Word that you feel that you would never presume to take! I'm expressing His inner man voice within me that's speaking within my intuition when I'm making
special application of the
principles of His Word to a given situation.
So when you leave the Holy Spirit's supernatural movements out of your hermeneutics of the Word for any given situation, as all evangelicals are taught to do because of evangelical's universal distrust of things supernatural, you can't become spiritually mature beyond the Word's limiting context. Therefore, you can't begin to taste the powers of the age to come (that deep in your heart I believe that God is showing me that you really want to taste) that will only come to you when you begin to believe His internal revelations to you of Scripture passage
principles applying to your life situations. You do know the Word m273p15c- but you don't (out of fear of all supernatural things) hear the Spirit of the Lord's voice when He ignites its principles for you within you. So you're stuck in the cocoon of Scriptural context, unable to fly beautifully freely to communicate more with God as you so dearly desire to do and as He is here beckoning for you to do,. You can only better communicate with Him by doing it thru belief in His revelations in your inner man of the principles of passages applying to your life situations. In the Word we are told to fear only the Lord but you fear the supernatural and that is your error m273p15c!
So for now, let me just leave this one particular difference of ours to the Lord and wait upon Him for an answer to it so that we may proceed on to the other issues which you have brought up in your e-mails. Should He show me that I have been presumptuously wrong in my beliefs that I have ezxpressed to you here, I will contact you and confess such. I would hope that you would do the same towards me.
Sincerely
an anonymous apostle