The Bible: Taught By The Holy Spirit
(1 Cor. 2:12-13)
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Before we begin today, let’s take a moment to silently confess our sins to God. This insures that we have the filling, the control, of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we study the Scriptures. The main theme of my message today is that if born-again believers listen to, and believe, God’s word while walking in the Holy Spirit, we all have the same chance to understand the spiritual teachings from God, and to then reach spiritual maturity. So as we are told to do in 1 John 1:9, let’s take a minute to silently confess our sins to God.
Father, we thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit to teach your holy Scriptures to our own human spirits. May your Spirit help us to understand and believe those things in your Word as we look at it now. In Jesus name I pray, amen.
Today I’m going to continue the theme that the pastor has been teaching all of this month, and that is, of course, the importance of studying the Bible. What I’d like to talk about is something that I think few believers know or believe. The main Bible passage we will look at is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, although that whole chapter deals with this topic.
One of the things I find most exciting about Bible study is when a pastor-teacher points out something from the Word that has always been right there in front of me, clearly taught, but I’ve read past it many times without seeing. Often, these are exciting things to learn because such truths help me make more sense out of the doctrines I’ve already learned, or tell me how to use God’s Word better in daily life. So I think that’s the reason I love to show the same kinds of Bible teachings to others.
That’s the kind of topic I want to deal with today, one that I hope will surprise and excite you as much as it did me when I learned it.
Can All Believers Learn God's Word?
The Bible teaches that all Christians have the same privileges and opportunities to listen to, and to believe, God’s word, and therefore to grow to spiritual maturity. In grace, God freely gives us His word in written form, and He also gives us the way to understand it, by His indwelling Holy Spirit. Your human IQ, your physical or mental abilities, have nothing to do with learning the word. God also gives you a free will and faith. All you have to do in this process is to hear the word, and to believe it while walking in the Spirit. God does all of the rest.
Since any believer can listen to the Word, and since any Christian can choose to believe it, God is perfectly fair to all. If your human experience were a factor, or if your academic training or human IQ mattered in this process, God would be unfair. Some believers would have an advantage over others. Since God’s attributes include perfect justice and perfect love, it is not possible for Him to be unfair, to give greater advantage to some Christians, and less to others.
Some evangelists, missionaries, and pastors seem to have the attitude that they are somehow closer to God than are other believers. They view themselves as being in "full time Christian service", because they get paid for the ministry that they perform. The rest of us are "lay people", second class Christians who have a limited commitment to the Lord because our spiritual gifts and areas of ministry are different than theirs. The fact that we are all believer-priests ministering to people daily, just in some other way, is sometimes overlooked.
A result of this arrogant attitude is that pastors and missionaries are generally viewed as having some kind of advantage over the rest of us in learning God's word. Not only do they usually view themselves in this way, but the rest of us often fall victim to the same type of thinking. The Bible teaches us something very different, and so my first point today is this.
1. God has freely provided the indwelling Holy Spirit to teach His word to our human spirits.
As I’ve already said, the Bible tells us that learning the word of God is not a matter of human ability, but that it is the Holy Spirit who does all of the work in revealing Bible doctrine to our human spirit. Let's first look at:
1 Cor. 2, verse 12:
"We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. (1 Cor. 2:12, NIV)
This verse tells us that we have received the Spirit who is from God. Every believer, at the moment they believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, has many things happen to them, but I'm going to focus on a couple here. First, a saved person is "born again", that is, the human spirit that is dead inside us at birth because of our sin natures, is regenerated by God when we are saved. Second, every believer receives the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit actually comes to live within each one of us. Why? The verse goes on to show us a good reason, that we may understand what God has freely given us. It is the Holy Spirit inside us who helps us to understand spiritual things, those things which the verse says God has freely given us. At salvation, God freely regenerates the human spirit of every believer, and freely gives us His Holy Spirit to live in us, so that we can understand all of the other blessings He freely gives us and tells us about in His word. It's all by grace, all freely given us. Therefore, no one earns or deserves it, but it is all a free gift. Since a human spirit and the same Holy Spirit is given freely to all believers, we are all equal in this regard.
In 1 Cor. 2, verse 13, we are then told,
1 Cor. 2:13
"This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. (1 Cor. 2:13, NIV)
The apostle Paul tells us in this verse that the words he speaks are not in words taught us by human wisdom. When God's word is taught, human IQ and human wisdom are not the things that should be used in the process. Spiritual wisdom from the Bible should be in words taught by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit inside us takes the spiritual truths from the Scriptures, and teaches them to our human spirits. The verse tells us that when this is done, the pastor-teacher is then expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The Holy Spirit will teach spiritual truths to the human spirits of every believer.
This means that all believers have equal opportunity and equal ability to study and learn God's word, because it does not depend on human ability. Rather, it depends entirely on the work of the Holy Spirit. This is consistent with the perfect essence of God. His perfect justice and perfect love means that He is not unfair and so does not give some believers certain spiritual advantages over others. Just as all unbelievers have an equal chance for salvation because God (Jesus Christ) did all of the work, so too can all believers grow equally to spiritual maturity because God (the Holy Spirit) does all of the work in teaching us the Bible.
If this is so, and the Bible says it is, then why do many of us fail to experience this when we study the Bible? In a Bible study I had attended, a person admitted that he had once studied the Bible every day for about a year, and he didn’t see any results in his life. He said that couldn’t handle his problems any better, and that he didn’t feel any closer to God, so he gave up and stopped. He wanted to know how, if a believer studies the Scriptures regularly as we are told to do, why it "didn’t work" when he did it? I had two answers for him, and the first answer I gave him is my next point.
2. We need to regularly use confession of sin to regain the filling of the Holy Spirit.
The key to learning the word of God for all believers is to be filled with (controlled by) the Holy Spirit. This is also the primary requirement for having prayers answered, and for performing divine good which will be rewarded at the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ. It is the single determining factor as to whether a Christian is carnal (under the control of the Old Sin Nature), or spiritual (under the control of the Holy Spirit).
At the moment a person is saved by believing in Jesus Christ, that believer is filled with (controlled by) the Holy Spirit. But all believers still have an Old Sin Nature, and the first time a believer sins, he makes a decision to take control of his life away from the Holy Spirit (spirituality), and give it back to himself, that is, to his Old Sin Nature (carnality).
Therefore, the way to ‘rebound’ back from carnality to spirituality is to utilize 1 John 1:9 by confessing (naming) known sins.
1 John 1:9
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9, KJV).
The word for "confess" in the original Koine Greek language of the New Testament is "homolegeo", which means to name or to cite (as in a legal case). We name our known sins to God, in essence citing these sins as offenses that were paid for by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. There is no Biblical requirement that we feel sorry for our sins, promise to never commit them again, or make restitution in order for God to forgive us. Now please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. While we may rightfully feel the need to do these things in certain situations because of the damage our sin has caused, God does not require anything but naming our sins for them to be forgiven.
An expanded translation of 1 John 1:9 says:
"If we (as believers freely choose to) name our known sins, He (God) is faithful (He will always do it) and just (because Jesus paid for our sins on the cross) to forgive us our (known) sins, and to cleanse us (forgive us) from all unrighteousness (our unknown sins).
Again, we see something freely given to us based solely on God's grace!
As Christians with a sin nature, we sin all of the time. If we say that we don’t. the Bible tells us in 1 John chapter 1 that we call God a liar! That entire chapter tells us that we can choose to walk in the light, in fellowship with God (spirituality), or we can choose to "walk in darkness" as the result of sin.
If we study God’s word while "walking in darkness", without "rebounding" from our sin first, then we are not "walking in the Spirit". With unconfessed sin, we are in a state of carnality. We still have the human spirit we received at salvation, and we still have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, both of which we can never lose again. However, until we confess that sin, we have voluntarily given control of our lives from the Holy Spirit, back to our sin natures.
While our lives are under our own carnal control, the Holy Spirit is no longer in control and so does not teach our human spirit the Bible. At that time, studying the Bible is just an academic process, and it does rely solely upon our own human abilities. It’s just like studying history, geography, or literature. That’s why many believers study the Bible for a while, but then tire of it. It’s a purely academic process that is hard work, and is in fact tiring, with no help from the Holy Spirit, and thus no spiritual benefits, until confession of sin (rebound) occurs.
When you name your sins to God, He always forgives you of your known and unknown sins, restores you to fellowship with Him, and the Holy Spirit again regains control of your life. At that time, you are again "spiritual", you again "walk in the light as He is in the light". The Holy Spirit can again teach God’s word to your human spirit when you allow Him back in control to do so.
The second answer I gave to the man who asked me why Bible study "didn’t work" when he did it, is my next point.
3. Believers need to get their primary Bible study under a pastor-teacher who studies and teaches God’s word from the original languages in a correct and consistent manner.
God doesn’t give the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher to some men so that believers can get together and ignore such men and teach themselves the Bible. You wouldn’t allow a doctor to perform surgery upon you if you knew he never got proper medical training, but instead, just read the books himself at home or got together with a group of similar people who "taught themselves" medicine. You wouldn’t want an electrician to re-wire your home if he wasn’t trained by other qualified electricians, but rather taught it to himself from a book at home.
This is not to say that a believer can not benefit from studying the Bible each day on His own. The Bible tells us to do this, and says in Isaiah 55:8-12:
Isaiah 55:8-12
8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
9 "For {as} the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth, and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11 So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding {in the matter} for which I sent it.
12 "For you will go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap {their} hands. (NAS)
However, a Christian should be getting their primary teaching and direction from a qualified pastor-teacher who has been trained by a Biblically-sound seminary or by other qualified pastors. I’ve received my own training over the last 9 years from a qualified group of pastors who all teach me the Bible from the original Bible languages. The doctrines they teach are accurate, complete, consistent, and in almost complete agreement with recognized seminaries such as Dallas Theological Seminary, and Philadelphia College Of Bible.
The Holy Spirit gives the gift of pastor-teacher to some men, not to give them an advantage to reach spiritual maturity over the rest of us. The spiritual gift of pastor-teacher aids them in studying and teaching a book that right now:
- is not in the more precise original languages in which it was inspired;
- contains idioms (expressions that once had a meaning of their own);
- contains history and social customs we wouldn’t otherwise understand;
- contains scattered but related information that needs to be categorized into topics (doctrines).
Let me just give you one example of the first area in which the gift of pastor-teacher helps us understand the Bible. This is the fact that our current Bible translated into English, and is not in the more precise original languages such as Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Chaldean.
Acts 16:31 says in the English,
Acts 16:31
"…Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved…" (NAS)
In the original New Testament Koine Greek language, which has tenses and voices not found in the English, this verse teaches two doctrines:
- Salvation is a one-time decision, not a series of them;
- Eternal Security, that you can never lose your salvation.
From the English translation, you can argue what this verse means forever and have no answer. In the original Koine Greek, with the additional tenses and voices of the verbs known, the verse actually means:
"…Believe [once, at a single point of time] in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved [continually, for all time]…" (NAS)
Another problem to learning the God’s word without a pastor-teacher is that of idioms, expressions that meant something different to the people of those times, than the same words mean to us today. For instance, Jesus said in three places in the gospels:
Matt 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25
"…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (NAS)
Was Jesus saying that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God? If that’s what He said, then it’s impossible for a rich man to get into heaven. But in fact, the expression "eye of a needle" is an idiom that meant something different back then. To protect themselves from enemies, many people built huge walls around their cities with large gates to enter in or out. At night, when enemies were more likely to attack, the people locked their large gates. If someone came along at night who they wanted to let in, this would be done through a small door in the gate. This small door in the city gates was called the "eye of a needle". A man would have no problem entering through this door. However, a camel which was often carrying lots of goods and supplies was too tall and wide. The goods and supplies might have to be removed first, and then the tall and proud camel itself had to bend its legs and get down on its knees to get through. Once we understand the meaning of the idiom "eye of a needle", the spiritual meaning of what Jesus said becomes clear. While it’s possible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, the riches he carries, and the height of his pride, can make it hard for him to come to God empty-handed and on his knees. Because of a man’s lusts and pride, it’s easier for a camel than for a man to do this.
The third problem to learning the word without a pastor-teacher, is that the Bible contains history and social customs that we need to understand. Here’s an old Testament example, where God is talking to Abram:
Genesis 15
7 And He [God] said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it."
8 And he [Abram] said, "O Lord GOD, how may I know that I shall possess it?"
9 So He said to him, "Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon."
10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.
12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror {and} great darkness fell upon him.
17 And it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, {there appeared} a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: (NAS)
I used to read this passage, and say to myself, "What is going on here? What’s with all the slaughtered animals, the oven and torch? Why did God put Abram to sleep?" I learned in an Old Testament seminary course that God was making a Chaldean covenant with Abram, because remember that Abram was from Ur of the Chaldees and would recognize this. When two Chaldeans made a covenant, they would seal it by cutting animals into pieces, spreading out the pieces, and walking between the pieces together, saying in essence, "May this happen to me if I violate my part of our covenant". In theses verses from Genesis, God put Abram to sleep and God passed through the pieces alone as the torch and fiery furnace. He passed through alone without Abram because the covenant didn’t depend upon Abram, only upon God. It was a unilateral covenant, and only God was promising to do something. He passed through as the oven and torch because remember what God told Moses in:
Exodus 33:20
"You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!" (NAS)
A believer who only studies the Bible on his or her own, without ever relying on a qualified pastor-teacher, would have great difficulty coming to a proper understanding of this passage.
The last problem in studying the Bible without a pastor-teacher is that of categorizing doctrines. The Bible does not list all of the truths related to most major topics in just one place. For example, a doctrine such as the person and work of Jesus Christ has information throughout the Scriptures. There are prophecies and rituals in the Old Testament that teach about Him. The Gospels tell us about His life on earth here, and the Epistles to the church tell us so many more things about Jesus Christ meant only for the Church Age believer. Other doctrines relate to Jesus Christ as well, such as the fall of mankind, Satan, grace, and God’s essence. A man with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher can go through the Scriptures and categorize these doctrines properly. This lessens the chance that false teachers can lead you away from the truth of God’s word by taking verses out of context and distorting them, as Satan does to Jesus during the desert temptations in Matthew chapter 4.
As we learn each doctrine correctly from a qualified pastor-teacher, it becomes more difficult for someone to fool us with a false doctrine.
For instance, let’s say you’re a new Christian who correctly understands salvation but nothing else. Some jerk believer comes to you and says you are not saved because you haven’t spoken in tongues. That actually happened to me, by the way, right after I was saved. But if you understand salvation and nothing else, you can think, "Wait a minute. The Bible says ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’. I did that! Jesus also said ‘Whosoever believes in Me will not perish but have eternal life’. I don’t know anything about this ‘tongues’ stuff, but I do know I’m saved!"
Or let’s say another mixed-up believer comes to you and says you can lose your salvation if you don’t "blah blah blah". If you understand salvation, you can think. "Hey, when I was an unbeliever and God’s worst enemy, He saved me totally by grace. I didn’t have to do anything except believe. Now that I’m His son and He’s my Father, how can he not treat me even better? God’s doesn’t disown His children. I don’t know what this ‘eternal security’ is about, but I know that now that I’m a member of God’s family, that can never change!"
So it is important that you learn God’s word ultimately from a pastor who is equipped to study and teach it properly, and who gives primary importance to this part of His ministry. We have such a pastor here at First Mennonite or I wouldn’t be coming here. Since 1990, I have been listening to such teaching on cassette tapes for an average of an hour a day. If you want to supplement your study in this way, there are only a small number of men I can recommend, and I do so on my web site. I generally test a pastor’s ministry in a few key areas:
- Does He teach salvation correctly? Is it solely by faith in Jesus Christ, or does he have people jump through a whole lot of other emotional and ritual hoops to get saved?
- Does he know and teach that spirituality (the filling of the Holy Spirit) is maintained through confession of sin, or does he confuse spirituality with emotional experience and doing good works?
- Is the Bible alone His source of divine revelation, or does God speak to him personally in dreams, visions, and voices? I run as fast as I can from anyone who claims direct revelation from God, claims to perform miracles, or who says he has real physical contact with Satan, like wrestling with him in his study or bedroom!
- Can I get his books and tapes without any money? This criteria alone will eliminate most ministries, but it shows in part how they put God’s grace into actual practice. I won’t even give a second of my time to a ministry that takes VISA and Mastercard, as they put it, "for my convenience".
Of course, these are my own personal tests and criteria, so feel free to use your own.
In Summary
So in summary, all believers in Jesus Christ have the same spiritual tools to learn God’s word, and to advance to spiritual maturity. Those tools are:
- The indwelling Holy Spirit and a human spirit. God freely gave every believer these two things at salvation, among many others, and both are permanent. They can not be lost by personal sin. The Holy Spirit takes God’s word and teaches it to our human spirits.
- Confession of sin (Rebound). When we sin, we lose the filling (the control) of the Holy Spirit in our lives and are then carnal. Studying the Bible is then merely an academic process. When we confess (name) our sins to God, we regain the control of the Holy Spirit and are then spiritual. The Holy Spirit can once again teach God’s word to our human spirit.
- Spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. God gives this gift to certain men to study and teach God’s word to us. This enables us to know the real meanings in the original languages, understand the idioms or expressions used, understand the history and social customs, and correctly categorize Bible doctrines (topics).
What it comes down to us something else that God gives to all believers as a free gift, and that is, free will and faith. You have free will to decide if you’re going to confess your sins and study God’s word regularly. You have faith to believe what you hear from your pastor-teacher or to reject it. But this entire process is one of grace, of using a spiritual process in which God does all of the work, and all we have to do is freely decide to listen and believe. This is the decision each believer has to make for him or herself.
As eternal rewards are being given out to believers at the Judgement Seat of Jesus Christ, no one is going to be able to argue that other believers had opportunities or privileges that you didn’t have. God put the tools in place for you to grow to spiritual maturity, and now the choice is yours.
Copyright © 2000, Frank J. Gallagher,
Abiding In The Word,
http://members.aol.com/abidingitw
All materials are written by me and are copyrighted. These materials may be freely copied and distributed for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and my copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold nor used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. God the Holy Spirit freely provides this knowledge in grace, and so do I. My copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.
