The Spirit and Scripture (3)

Paul is talking about the wisdom of God, which had been hidden in ages past, but was revealed to the apostles. And it's wisdom, it's information, it's knowledge that you cannot learn through the normal avenues of human attainment of knowledge. That's why he says, in verse 9, no I see, no ears heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. We saw that although that's often used as a reference for heaven, that's not what Paul's talking about here. He's talking about the truth of God revealed in Scripture because he says in verse 10, God has revealed it to us, the apostles. So he's not saying nobody can know what's in heaven. He's saying nobody can know the truth of God unless it's revealed by God. And it has been revealed. It's been revealed to the apostles. And he says later on, we recorded that in words, verse 13. What we speak, this is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. So God revealed his truth to the apostles. They then spoke that truth in their preaching, but also expressed it in their writing of Scripture. They expressed these spiritual truths in spiritual words. They put them down on paper in the words of Scripture. Now that's the revelation of the Spirit to these men. Now, verse 14 jumps to the response. What is the response of people who then pick up these words that have been recorded by the apostles? What is the response of people? Well, verse 14 tells us about a certain kind of person. Verse 14 says, the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually deserved. Let's move back to the beginning of the verse and just take our time, unpack it. Make sure we get all the information out of the verse. The person that he's talking about here is described as the man without the Spirit. Some translations will say the natural man, the Greek word literally is Pseuke, which is the soul. It's the soul man. It's a person who only has the equipment that he's born with, his soul. He does not have the Holy Spirit. He only has that which comes to him naturally. The ability to think, the ability to relate to those around him and to himself, his soul. And so he is a natural man, and the NIV, I think, has translated it adequately, the man without the Spirit. He is only a natural person. He does not have the Spirit of God. So we're talking here about an unsaved person, right? The person without the Spirit who, the only equipment he has to pick up this book and understand it is what he was born with, his natural soul, mind. He does not have the Holy Spirit. And so that person, the person without the Spirit, notice what it says. It says he does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. Notice it does not yet say he doesn't understand them. It says he doesn't accept them. Now, it will say a little bit later he doesn't understand them, and that's where both parts of the definition I gave you earlier come in. It's important to understand that an unsaved person rejects the truth of God because he doesn't have the ability to receive it, to welcome it. And the word literally is welcome there. He does not welcome. He does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. And that is so true. I mean, we can see it all around us. You know, unsaved people who refuse, reject, just think it's absolutely crazy. What, you know, we say this book says or it teaches, reject it, refuse to receive it. Now, why do they refuse to receive it? Because I'll explain why. It does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. Why? For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them. They seem foolish because he doesn't get it. He doesn't grasp it. He does not have the receiver, the Holy Spirit, to be able to pick up God's sound waves through his word. He does not have the equipment that he needs to understand what this book is saying, what God is saying. And why can't he understand it? Why does it sound like foolishness to him, end of the verse? Because they are spiritually deserned. The word deserned, spiritually deserns, an interesting word. The word deserned means to appraise, to examine, to evaluate. It was actually used in New Testament times of a preliminary hearing to get the facts before you presented them in a trial. So the idea is to evaluate things, examine things, to be able to make proper judgments about the facts. So put all that together, and what Paul is saying here is that the person who only has the equipment he was born with, he or she, only has natural mind, just the person does not have the Holy Spirit. First of all, he doesn't have the necessary equipment to be able to make proper judgments on spiritual things. He can't make proper evaluations of spiritual things. So for that reason, they sound like foolishness to him. Sounds like crazy stuff. Why would you believe that? And because it sounds like foolishness to him, then he won't accept it. He rejects it. There's a three-stage process there, as you work your way backwards up from the end of the verse. Because he doesn't have the Spirit, he's not able to make proper evaluations, proper judgments about what this book is saying. So it all sounds like gobbledygook to that person. It just sounds crazy, foolishness, weird stuff. And for that reason, I'm going to believe that. So you reject that. The problem is, no Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not there. So that is the clearest text in all the Bible about the need for the Holy Spirit and the reason for that need being because, as sinners, our hearts and minds are blinded to the truth of God. We can't get it on our own. We simply cannot. Okay, so the need for illumination is the fact that we're sinners. And because of that, we cannot grasp scripture on our own. Okay? I've done all the talking so far. Let me pause for a moment and give you a chance. Any questions or comments? Pardon me? How do you get him past that? Get him saved. Well, that's why it requires the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God to bring conviction. And we'll talk about that later when we talk about the Holy Spirit's ministry to the unsaved person. It is absolutely essential that in an unsaved person's heart, the Holy Spirit do His work of causing them to come into conviction from this book. And only He can do that because, like Second Corinthians 4, 4 says, our minds are blinded to the gospel. It's like, we can't see it. We do not see it. We're blinded by Satan himself. That passage says, so it requires a work of the Holy Spirit. But once the Holy Spirit brings that person under conviction and through the living Word of God, which is like a seed, the Bible says, that gets planted in the heart. So the Holy Spirit does that kind of gardening work and plants that seed and brings conviction about sin. And what the Bible is saying, when the Holy Spirit opens a person's heart and mind to that, then they get saved and then they can start to understand the scriptures. Great question. That's a key step in this whole process. Okay. Anything else? What kind of things do you want to convey to the Word to convey to the Holy Spirit? No. Karen's asking, if it requires the Holy Spirit's work to convict, is that a one-time thing? I guess maybe answered too quickly. It could be that a person, the first time they hear the gospel, they are ready and the Spirit of God works and they receive. But it doesn't often work that way. Usually there's more than one ministry of the Spirit to a person. Like Stephen said, in Acts 7, 51, to the people who are stoning into death, you always resist the Holy Spirit. Thank you. Oh. Is that the only opportunity? Once they're convicted and realized they need to trust Christ, is it the only opportunity? Again, it's difficult to say for some people it might be, but not necessarily. There's evidence in the scriptures that the Holy Spirit sometimes works over a long period of time on people. Like Paul, in Acts 9, the Lord said to him, why do you kick against the pricks? The pricks were evidently the conviction of the Holy Spirit and Paul had been resisting that for a while and been kicking against that. And it had probably been happening since he heard Stephen in chapter 7. So I think it's, you know, I don't know the percentages, nobody but God knows. But with many people, there's a repeated ministry of the Spirit of God and convicting before that person comes to Christ. And with some people, there are repeated ministries of the Spirit to convict and they never come to Christ. With some, it may be one opportunity and that's it. Who knows? Okay, good questions. Thanks. Any others? John? I think it's Paul, one of the things you've ever wanted to do at all. Yes. That's a great point. He was, you know, he was the arch enemy of Christianity, wasn't he? And he got saved. The Holy Spirit did work in his heart. Pardon me? I'm sorry? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Evidently, the Spirit of God was working pretty hard on him to see a blinding light get struck with blindness. You know, that's pretty drastic. Now, I'm just going to ask a little about how long I've worked with someone who appears that people from the Spirit of God, I can have a look. I've been working on the 15 years. I mean, he's the one that always leads us to the living. I can see why he's not. That we all go out to dinner or go to some kind of activity. He's the one that always brings us up to people's houses. And we can walk with him in the house. We have to do this for the sake of the wall and the wall. Yeah. I think that's a tremendous question. And I think my response would be, that's a very delicate thing that takes sensitivity to the Spirit on our part. Obviously, you don't want to give up on someone, but obviously there are times too when you realize you may be pushing too hard. And if you sense that you're pushing them away, then maybe a different approach or backing off for a while. You know, Jesus did tell his disciples when he sent him out to preach two by two in in Galilee and in the gospels. He said, if you go into a town and they don't receive your message, shake the dust off your feet and go somewhere else. And he also said, don't cast your pearls before swine. Now, that doesn't mean that the first time a person rejects, obviously we turn away, but it does at least leave the door open to the fact that there is a time for moving on. Again, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is an important thing here because we don't want to give up on anyone either. There's always a time when it's not really moving on. It's not not easy to have a sense, because there are years that have been done from that. And if there are years, it's not all of us. You know, it's really easy. You have to look at what Holy Spirit is, many people have someone else that they don't want to be put at. Sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in most people's salvation, there's a chain of people that God uses, like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, you know, I planted a polished water, God gave the increase. So somewhere along the line, God works and he may not use us, but use someone else. If someone is coming to you though and asking questions, I think I would see that as okay. It's still on the table. So I'm still going to go after this person. But again, that takes sensitivity too. Are they bringing it up just because they want to fight? And they want to show you how much they're rejecting? It's a very delicate thing. Kind of tricky. Okay. Very good. Anything else? All right. We're going to stick here in 1 Corinthians 2 because we're going to move from the response of the man without the spirit, the unsaved person in verse 14 to the person who does have the spirit. So what this tells us is that the work of illumination is begun in regeneration. And by regeneration, we're talking about the new birth, salvation. So when a person gets saved, when a person is born again, that's when the Holy Spirit's work begins in illumination. That's when the Holy Spirit's work of helping us understand and submit to the scriptures begins. And verse 15 opens the door for that. Verse 15 says, the spiritual man. Okay. This is a different person now. Verse 14 was the natural man, the man without the spirit, the unsaved man. Now this is the spiritual man. The word spiritual, excuse me, does not mean one who is spiritual in the sense of they're on a higher plane. You know, they've been saved for 30 years and they've really grown a lot. It's actually just means the person characterized by the spirit. It's pneumatocost, which the ending it costs ending in Greek always means one characterized by. So it's just one who's characterized by the spirit. It's not, it's not a person who's been saved a long time and gotten real spiritual. That's not the idea. And the word may throw us the idea is this person is characterized by the Holy Spirit. Verse 14, the person does not have the Holy Spirit. Verse 15, this person does have the Holy Spirit. He's characterized by the spirit of God in his life or her life. So this is a saved person. Okay. The spiritual person then, the spiritual man is someone who's saved. So don't read this as a, as a new believer or maybe an immature believer and think, well, I haven't gotten there yet. I'm not really spiritual yet. Now, he's talking about anyone that's saved, anyone who has the Holy Spirit, anyone who could be characterized as being someone who has the spirit, the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit comes to indowell all believers. So, okay, he's talking about a believer here. The spiritual man, now notice what he says about him, makes judgments about all things. Now, that sounds pretty lofty, doesn't it? Does that mean that if I'm saved, I can start telling anybody how to do brain surgery or I can start lecturing on nuclear physics? I can make judgments on all things, right? No, no, no, no. Remember the context. What are the all things that are being talked about here? Go back to verse 14, the things that come from the Spirit of God. Well, what things come from the Spirit of God? Back to verse 13. Things that are not taught by human wisdom, but words taught by the Spirit expressing spiritual truth. The scriptures. That's what he's talking about. Not talking about nuclear physics, not talking about brain surgery. He's not saying, okay, now you're saved, you're an authority on everything. Of course not. That's the height of arrogance. What he is saying is that because you have the Holy Spirit, you have the ability to make judgments. And remember that word, judgments is the same thing as spiritually discerned, which means, now you are able to make evaluations about spiritual things. It's not saying that all your judgments, all your evaluations, all your appraisals are going to be right. It's just saying, now you've got the right equipment. Now you have the possibility of making spiritual evaluations. The natural man doesn't have it, but you do because you have the Holy Spirit. So you have the possibility of making spiritual appraisals and evaluations because about scripture because you have the Holy Spirit. But then he says something that sounds even stranger at the end of the verse, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment. Boy, that has been the cause of a lot of misinterpretation. There are some people who say, oh, that means if I speak on some spiritual matter, nobody can contradict me, right? No, of course not. He's not saying we're infallible. We can't make any mistakes when we speak about spiritual things. Remember, the word judgment means to make a good appraisal of, a good evaluation of spiritually. What he's saying here is that, okay, you as a saved person are now able to understand and make proper evaluations about spiritual truth. You can understand the scriptures because you have the Holy Spirit. And you know what? Unsaid people look at you and say, what in the world is wrong with that person? They cannot make proper spiritual evaluations about you because they don't have the same understanding of scripture you do. That's what he's talking about. He's not saying we're above criticism, we're infallible, everything we say is right. Not saying that. He's just saying you sound kind of crazy to an unsaid person because they don't see things the way you see them. It doesn't take long talking to neighbors and coworkers to run into that, does it? When you start talking about spiritual things and what the Bible teaches, things that are just obvious to you, things that the Bible clearly teaches, people are looking at you and saying, what? What are you talking about? That's crazy. And they do not have, because they don't have the Spirit, they don't have the ability to make proper spiritual appraisals or evaluation about you and what you believe. Not only about the scriptures, but about you and what you're saying. So that's what that's talking about. It's not talking about, I can now be in authority on all subjects and nobody can contradict me. It's not saying that. It's just saying now that I have the Holy Spirit, I have the ability to make appraisals and evaluations and judgments about spiritual things, the word of God, I can now understand it and unsaid people are going to look at me and shake their head and say, God's nuts. They're not able to make serious and write appraisals about us. That's what it's saying. That clears mud. Any questions about that? Okay? So we've got two people, two different responses to the Bible. The unsaid person doesn't have the equipment, doesn't have what's needed to begin to understand the scriptures. A believer is able to make those evaluations. What I like to call it is now that we've gotten saved, we have the spectacles of faith. God has given us the ability to see, to understand the scriptures. Doesn't mean that we know everything automatically yet. We're going to see a little bit later, that's not true. But it does mean we now have the spectacles that we can now see. We have the glasses of faith and we can now see clearly what the scriptures teach. And then he ends in verse 16 by verse we looked at earlier, who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. And he's talking there about the apostles, have the mind of Christ. He's talked about that all through this passage. The only person who knows the mind of God is the Holy Spirit. He communicates that to the apostles. They communicate it in words, expressing spiritual truths and spiritual words. It's quite clear that process of revelation is what he's kind of summarizing here. We can't know the mind of the Lord on our own, but the apostles were revealed, the mind of God, the mind of Christ. And they recorded it in scripture. And as a believer who has the Holy Spirit looks at the scripture, you can start to understand it. That's the beauty of this whole process. So you've got the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing the scripture, revealing the mind of God to the apostles, then guarding them, that's revelation. Guarding them as they wrote it, that's inspiration. And now opening up our hearts and minds as we read it, that's illumination. Amazing, what the Holy Spirit does in relation to scriptures. So that is begun in regeneration. Quickly we're going to look at some other passages we're going to have them on the screen for you, that just reinforce this idea that when you get saved, now you have the opportunity to understand scripture. Romans 229. He's talking about religious people and Jews who are religious but lost. And he says, no, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person's praise is not from other people from God. What he's drawing a distinction between Jews who are unsaved, who have not yet received the Messiah, not trusted Christ, and it's clear in the flow of thought in Romans 2, he's talking about different groups of unsaved people. And a person who's just an outward Jew, they go by the law, they do all the religious rituals, they do all the ceremonies, but they've never received Christ, they're just outwardly a Jew. A real Jew, one who is in Paul's words in Galatians 3, a child of faith, a child of Abraham, is one who has not only been born a Jew, but they've also been born again, and they're saved. And what happens is that now the real religious ritual is not the outward observance, but what's been done in the heart? God cleaning up our heart, doing spiritual surgery on our heart through Christ. And so that's done by the Spirit. It is salvation that changes a person from being an unbeliever to a believer, from being one who's just religious, to one who now has the Holy Spirit. Now the next couple of passages, I think I believe even a little clearer, Romans 2 Corinthians 3, 14. Again, he's talking about Jews who are looking at the Old Testament, trying to read it and understand it. He says, but their minds were made dull. For to this day, the same veil, covering hindrance and ability to see through it, the same veil remains when the Old Covenant is read. The Old Covenant, speaking of the Old Testament, it has not been removed. The veil has not been removed. Why? Because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their heart, speaking of religious Jews who are unsaved, who read the Old Testament, but there's something that blocks them from understanding it. It's a veil. But whenever he says, whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. So it's regeneration. It's salvation that removes that blindness, that removes that veil, and enables us now to see, understand Scripture. The other passage, 1 John 5-20, we know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true by being in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God in eternal light. So if you are in Christ, if you know Christ, then you also have been given understanding. It's another way of saying, we have the spectacles of faith, we have the Holy Spirit's presence to now enable us to understand the Scriptures. So this work of illumination to summarize, this work of illumination, the Holy Spirit opening up our hearts and minds to the truth of God's Word, is begun in regeneration. The moment of the new birth, you now have the Holy Spirit and you have the ability, the opportunity to understand Scripture. And not only that, if you are really believer, if you have the Holy Spirit, you also have the conviction that this is God's authority, and I need to be obedient, submissive. We don't always do that, but that conviction is there. Okay, so that's begun in regeneration, but it is also a continuing work. Okay, just because you're saved does not mean, okay, boom, I've got full knowledge of the Scriptures now. No, this work of illumination is a growing, continuing process, and let's stick with 1 Corinthians now into chapter 3. 1 Corinthians 3 verse 1, brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly, mere infants in Christ. Now who's he talking about here? Okay, back in verse 14, talking about the unsaved person, natural person. Verse 15, spiritual person, person characterized by the spirit, the saved person. Now, verse 1, he's talking to saved people, he calls them brothers, but he says, I couldn't address you as spiritual, but as worldly, mere infants in Christ. In other words, you just got to save, you're still babes in Christ, and so, you know, what am I going to do with you? Verse 2, I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Now there's no blame in that, there's no condemnation in that. When you're first saved, when you're still an infant in Christ, it's not like you understand everything, you've got to grow in your understanding. And so you start out with milk, just like a baby, you start out with something that's easy to digest, something that's, you know, it's not steak. So you start out with simple things, but as you grow out of that spiritual infancy, you're able to take some meat, you're able to take some deeper stuff. So what he's saying is this is a growing process, this process of illumination is not, okay, now that I have the spectacles, I've got full blown knowledge of everything in the Bible. No, you start with simple things, and you build on that, and you grow in your understanding of Scripture. Now, here's the problem, middle of verse 2, end of verse 2, he says, indeed, you are still not ready. You're still worldly, now there's blame in that, okay, there's some reproach in that. What he's saying basically is, come on now, you've had some time where you ought to graduate off of the bottle. You should have gotten to some solid food, at least a little rice or something, you know, you should have gotten off milk, but you've been saved long enough, but you still haven't grown like you should. And so I'm still having to, you know, feed you the simple things, and he goes on to give some evidence of their worldliness and simpleness, quarreling jealousy, and so forth. He goes on to talk about chapter 3, but the idea is this, salvation begins the process of illumination. It gives us the ability to understand Scripture, but that understanding of Scripture and that work of the Spirit is a continuing work of growing us. And so we've got to grow, and as we grow, then we're able to take deeper stuff and more meat from the Word, okay? So it is a continuing process as well. Ephesians 1.18 says this, Paul says to a very spiritual group of people, not like the Corinthians. These people and Ephesians were pretty far advanced spiritually. He says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he's called you, the riches of the glorious inheritance in his holy people. What he's saying to these good, solid Christians that he gives a lot of meat to in Ephesians is, I'm still praying for you to be enlightened. You know, you still got things to learn, and all of us do, right, about God and His Word. And so this is a continuing work of the Spirit of God. I would like to touch on, we're not going to have time to get through this, but at least we can start on it. Would you turn to 1 John 2.2? The two verses in 1 John 2 that talk about this continuing work of the Holy Spirit in helping us to understand the truth of God's Word. And it's a couple of verses that are sometimes again misused, misunderstood, talking about the anointing of the Spirit. All right. And as with most verses, they're misused because they're ripped out of context. In the context, beginning in verse 18, John is warning the people he's writing to who are believers. He's made that clear in chapters 1 and 2, their believers. He says in verse 18, dear children, this is the last hour. And as you've heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us, but they're going to show that none of them belonged to us. That is a lot to grasp there. But basically what he's saying is these were people who were among us. They claimed to be Christians, but they left us and obviously began teaching false doctrine. Antichrists are people who are opposed to Christ and the Word of God and the Gospel. And they really didn't belong to us. I mean, they were associated with us, but they really didn't belong to us, which indicates they were not true believers. These were the false teachers that he's warning them about. And he's going to continue this warning all the way through verse 27. But notice what he says in verse 20. But he says, but you, okay, who's the you, the dear children that he's addressing in verse 18, believers, but you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. Okay, here's what he's saying. Unlike false professors, people who claim to be saved or really not, who end up teaching false doctrine and leave us and show that they really weren't among us, really didn't belong to us in the first place, you're different. You have an anointing from the Holy One. Because of that, you know the truth. And he says, all of you know the truth. Not just some of you, all of you have the capacity to understand the truth and to discern truth from error. And he's going to go right on through verse 21. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, because no lie comes from the truth, who is the liar, the man who denies it, Jesus is the Christ, okay, teaching false doctrine. So forth. Now look, look, look, number 27. He says, ask for you the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about all things. And, and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit, just as it is taught you remain in him. Okay, we got one minute. Wow. Okay. What is often said about this anointing of the spirit is that the anointing of the spirit is the power of the spirit. Not here. In the Old Testament, the whole concept of anointing was was was done for instance when David was anointed king or something like that. And, and the whole purpose of anointing was symbolic. People would literally be anointed with oil, and it was initiation ceremony into their role as king or proper or whatever, but it was also symbolic of the Holy spirit's doing a special work among them now. In first Corinthians, or excuse me, in the first Samuel, I believe it is 1613, do we have that? Yeah, there it is very. Thank you. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him. This is David, anointed David in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on, the spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David, Samuel then went to Rama. In the Old Testament, this literal act of anointing someone with oil to initiate them into their work like David is king also was symbolic of the Holy spirit coming on them to give them the power to do that. So in the Old Testament, yeah, the spirit was identified with anointing in the sense of the power of the spirit. And we don't have time. We'll look at a couple of other verses next time, but what I want to get to, I'll just mention it and then we'll try to show it next week. Here in this passage, he's talking more about the presence of the spirit, not the power of the spirit, because he says, all of you have this. This is something that all of you as their children have. And because you have it, you know the truth. So what he's talking about is illumination. He's talking about the presence of the spirit that enables us to understand the truth of God's Word and distinguish truth from error. And again, just like first print Institute doesn't mean we're always going to be perfect, right? We won't make any misjudgments, but it means we have the capacity to understand truth and distinguish it from error. And we'll talk next week about what he means when he says, because you have that anointing that presence of the spirit to give you illumination. You don't need anybody to teach you. We'll talk about that. That raises a few questions. Some of you will be calling for my resignation because of that verse. Don't need anyone to teach you anymore. So we'll see what that means next week. Let me stay another week, okay? All right. We're going to have to go times up. Let's pray.