Spirit and Word
W. Carl Ketcherside
[Page 38] |
It is my intention, if God wills, to share with all of you the answers to certain questions raised by readers and related to the Holy Spirit. I concur with the feeling of the ancient Athenaeus, who said, "We feed on questions." I also recognize the truth of the statement of Publius Syrus, "Not every question deserves an answer." I am not at all interested in binding my views upon anyone. You are under no compulsion to agree with me. I shall love you just as much if you do not as if you did.
The subject of the power and working of the Holy Spirit is a live issue in our day. This is as it should be. However, the human mind is so constructed that it often clamps down upon a conclusion and after that no fact is strong enough to pry the jaws open. A recognition of our fallibility should cause us to be a little less dogmatic. One need not have an empty head because he has an open mind.
We have already had one question a dozen times. The wording is not always the same, but boiled down and simmered away it is this. "Do you think that the Spirit operates independent of the word of God?" Most of you will at once recognize this as a "Church of Christ question." Every religious party has its own peculiar questions. This is true of Adventists, Baptists and Catholics. I just chose those three because their special titles begin with A, B, and C. I could have substituted "Church of Christ" for the latter, but our brethren do not like to be placed that close to Baptists.
Peculiar questions grow out of particular views and interpretations, and it is these which separate and herd us into various corrals. You can generally tell
[Page 39] |
All sectarians must be able to categorize and pigeon-hole those with whom they speak. They at once begin sorting persons and filing them in various slots. The easiest way to do this is by asking certain "basic questions." The Jehovah's Witness cult is almost as adept at this as personal workers for the Church of Christ. I get a real kick out of the fact that I do not give the answer the "Witnesses" expect. They become fumblingly frantic because I keep my feet on the ground and smile when they expect me to run up a tree and growl.
What do my brethren mean by "not operating independent of the word of God?" Do they think that the Holy Spirit is now captured in and contained by the book we call the Bible? Did the Holy Spirit write himself out of existence and render himself into the "cracklings" of words, so that he is now bound in morocco, nylon-stitched and stamped in gold? Do they imply that the only help I can derive from the Spirit in time of severe temptation and deep distress is to stumble on to a verse which, if properly understood and applied, will serve as a crutch on which to hobble out of the problem area and clamber out of the danger zone? If that is what they mean (and in a lot of cases it is), I do not need prayer as much as I need an exhaustive concordance and time to search it before the Devil closes in and breathes his sulphuric breath down the collar of my Arrow shirt.
We need to face up realistically to the fact that many people in the Church of Christ do not really believe in the Holy Spirit at all. This will be protested to high heaven. There will be agonized denials, but when you sort out all of the factional verbiage and burrow through the pile of cliches and traditional explanations you will see that this is true. The Spirit is equated with the word. He is a book. It isn't a question of how he works because he doesn't really work at all. You do the work. You search the scriptures. You try to live up to them. You sink or swim. And Jesus and the angels look down to see whether you can beat the sharks off with the right quotations, or whether they will cut you to ribbons because you are "a brother in error."
I believe the holy scriptures are the product of the Holy Spirit. I recognize in them the revelation of the divine mind. They constitute a weapon in the use of which I must become proficient because I enlisted to fight an enemy and not just fuss with the brethren. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit, but there is as much difference between the Spirit and his sword as there is between a man and his pocketknife. That sword was supplied for me to use and not for the Spirit to use. The Holy Spirit existed before one word of revelation was given. He was active in creation of this universe before man ever came into being.
The Spirit did not retire when sixty-six documents were gathered up after a considerable debate and bound in a single cover. And the Spirit possesses unlimited power. He did not reveal himself out of existence. He ante-dated the revelation of the first word beamed to a human mind and there is no indication that he later "passed a law" to handcuff himself to the fence he built around men. Certainly he functions in harmony with the word. He will not contradict what he revealed. The word is God's word. The Spirit is the divine agent of its transmission.
I believe that the revelation of God's purpose in word was completed with the apostles and prophets whom he prepared as qualified human vehicles. I do not believe the Spirit is revealing additional material today. We have in the scriptures all the revelation we need and all God wants us to have. It will do until the Lord shouts and we rise to meet him in the air. And what I know about what the Spirit does I learn from the word. How-
[Page 40] |
There are two kinds of people on earth as respects the kingdom of heaven--aliens and citizens. And there are two messages, one for each, and addressed to their particular needs. The gospel is for aliens. When they have obeyed it they are no longer aliens. The gospel is the good news about Jesus. The Spirit operates on the heart of an alien only through this. No one was ever led to receive Jesus as Christ and Lord by the Spirit where the gospel was not proclaimed. Men must be born again of the incorruptible seed of the word of God. That word is the gospel which is proclaimed. It consists of facts about Jesus.
But the function of the Holy Spirit in the saints of God is different. The world cannot receive the Spirit because the world does not see him or know him. But the disciples of Christ know him because he dwells with them and in them. And he was in them before the first apostolic letter was written. They were filled with the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit from the day the good news was first announced as a fact. It was twenty years before Paul wrote to the Thessalonians. The Spirit did not suddenly switch over and start operating in Christians "solely through the word," because the new covenant scriptures were not collated and compiled for a hundred years.
Do you want to know what the Spirit personally does for me? Let me tell you. He sheds abroad and pours forth the love of God in my heart (Romans 5:5). That love is a fruit of the Spirit, and it enables God to love through me. It creates within me a divine nature, a sharing in the very life and essence of God, for God is love.
The Spirit puts to death all of the base pursuits of the body (Rom. 8:13). He makes it possible for me to cry "Abba! Father!" and this is one of the splendid blessings of our relationship (Rom. 8:15). This does not mean that he makes it possible for me to pronounce these words. Any one in the third grade could say them. A vile sinner could utter them. But the Spirit brings me into a genuine relationship with the Father, so that these words become meaningful as a cry of praise and gladness, and as a call in time of need.
The Spirit comes to my aid in times of weakness in prayer and when I do not know how to ask. He pleads for me when I am not articulate. He translates my very groanings into words which reach the ear of heaven as the unburdening of deep yearnings (Rom. 8:26). He conveys to me strength and power in my inner being (Eph. 3:16). I have often experienced this, making me utterly unafraid in conditions under which I would be frightened if I had to rely upon my own strength. He provides that eternal life which I share, since he is the very source of life to God's children (Gal. 5:25).
All of this the Holy Spirit does in conformity with the word of God and not in contravention of it. But he does it personally, and not simply through my feeble human mind, grasping and groping for the significance of words and sentences. The theory advanced and adopted by a lot of brethren actually argues the Spirit out of existence. He becomes a mere anomaly. Instead of being a powerful helper he is powerfully helpless. I do not buy that kind of thinking. It negates and makes void a great part of the new covenant scriptures.
I am thrilled that I have been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit. I have experienced the goodness of God's word and the spiritual energies of the age to come. I know the power which dwells within my physical frame, this tent which I must some day discard. I know the surging strength which comes to help me be more than a conqueror when the enemy comes in like a flood.
I am resolved that no one will revere the scriptures more than I do. They mean more to me every day that I live. I love to wander through the mental vistas which they open to my wondering eyes. I love to gaze at the far-off horizons of intellectual comprehension to which
[Page 41] |
The glorious faith did not begin with a book but a baby. The Lord was not a body reduced to words. He was the Word received in a body. And the Spirit cannot be trapped and shut up in a library, not even a divine one. Yet he dwells in me as a royal guest visiting a rude tenement of crumbling clay. He invests me with a divine nature so I can love as God loves and respond as Jesus would to the stark agonies and screaming heartaches of this life.
And my reaction must be spontaneous and natural, not plotted, planned, or perpetrated for personal gain or political prestige. If I have to run home and get my lawbook and look up what I should do every time I am confronted with an emergency I am a legal puppet and not a living person in Christ Jesus. The Spirit helps my weaknesses. The Spirit furnishes the power that I need. And he does this because he is the helper and the comforter which my precious Lord promised.
Let men quibble and dispute about whether the Spirit operates only by citing a passage, or quoting a scripture. I have no time for such debate any longer. I have given up the thought that my human comprehension will ever enable me to be strong enough to even overcome myself. I am surrendered absolutely and unreservedly to Christ Jesus. I am trusting in His righteousness and not in my own. I am looking to him for life and light. As the Spirit within opens up new insights when I hold the sacred book in my hand and read it, I am drawn ever closer to him who left heaven to become closer to me.
Let me answer the question boldly and unashamedly. Yes, the Spirit operates in my heart and in the inner man directly, personally and powerfully. This makes it possible for me to experience how great is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know, though it is beyond all knowledge, the love of God. That is why I can truly say without reservation, "To him who is able by the power at work in us to do more than all, far beyond all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus, through all ages, for ever and ever."