"The things of
the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:14)
In our first part, we
noted seven things:
Firstly, the fact of
the existence of a vast realm of what the Apostle calls
"the deep things of God", which he says God has
"prepared for them that love Him", and then
that they have already been "revealed" by His
Spirit.
Secondly, the fact that
the "natural man", as the Apostle describes
him, is totally incapacitated for receiving or knowing
these things.
Thirdly, the fact that,
by new birth and the incoming of the Holy Spirit, the
faculty for such receiving and knowing is re-born and
linked up with the Holy Spirit, so that what was
impossible, now becomes possible. The spirit of man -
"the lamp of the Lord", as the Scripture calls
it - has been re-lit.
Fourthly, that this new
birth and union with the Holy Spirit is the basis of all
the Holy Spirit's activities in revealing, in teaching,
in leading, in transforming, and in constituting
everything according to Christ.
Fifthly, that this
work, being wholly spiritual, requires that the believer
has his or her life in the spirit, as distinct from in
the soul - 'soulical' being, as we pointed out, the
original meaning of the word translated 'natural'. That
is, the believer is to have his life, not, in the first
place, in the realm of intellect or reason, nor in the
realm of feelings, nor in the realm of will, but in the
realm of the spirit. And the Apostle further emphasizes
that it must certainly not be in the flesh, in the
'carnal' realm - that is, in the positive self-element of
the soul, that element which is always drawing to itself,
seeking its own satisfaction, fulfilling its own desires.
That is certainly not the way of the Spirit.
Sixthly, that if
Christians approach or take up the things of God on the
mere basis of their souls - intellect or reason, or
feeling, or their own will - that is the way to
deception, that is the way to confusion, and to many
other troubles, both for themselves and for all whom they
influence.
Seventh, and last, that
growth in knowledge and spiritual stature is governed by
spiritual revelation and apprehension, according to
Ephesians 1:17 and 3:17,18: "a spirit of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of him", and: "that
ye... may be strong to apprehend". We were at pains
to explain that what is meant by "revelation"
now is not something extra to the Scriptures, but the
Spirit's meaning in the Scriptures.
The
Difference Between Information and Spiritual Knowledge
We are now going to
resume at that point, for a little further enlargement
and emphasis, focusing upon one point in relation to the
things of the Spirit, namely, the difference between
information and spiritual knowledge. That is a point upon
which very much hangs, as to consequences. There is a
very great and real and definite difference between
information and spiritual knowledge. It is possible to
have a vast amount of perfectly accurate information
acquired through reading, through study, through hearing,
and through all those ways and means by which information
is accumulated, and yet, withal, however great that
information may be, it may still have no transforming
influence or effect upon the nature and character of the
person who possesses it.
To illustrate, consider
an astronomer, whose whole life is taken up with the
contemplation of the immensities of space, the vast
expanses of the universe. Yet it is possible for such a
man, with his vast accumulation of information about the
universe, after a whole lifetime of such occupation, to
be a very petty man in himself, a little man, a man of
jealousies, a man of pride, of conceit, and all those
things which speak of littleness of character. It is a
strange anomaly, but it is true. And that is true of any
other of the realms of natural and physical science, and
of other departments of knowledge: it is possible to have
an immensely informed mind, and yet for the character to
be untouched, the nature to be unchanged.
And what is true in
secular or natural realms is equally true in the realm of
Christianity. We may be possessed of a tremendous
knowledge of the Bible; we may be very widely informed on
all that the Bible contains and teaches - all its themes
and subjects - and upon Christian doctrine and history
and practice, and everything else that that word
'Christianity' encompasses: I say, we may have the most
extensive information, and yet the whole thing may fail
to effect any real transformation in our characters. It
is possible to be exceedingly well-informed on all
matters of Christian evangelical truth, and still be very
small as to spiritual stature.
That is a tragedy. It
is terrible to find such contradictions. It is a terrible
thing to find it in the natural realm, such as that of
the hypothetical astronomer to whom I have referred - to
find such a little man in such a big world. But it is far
more tragic to find a Christian - well-informed, but
still spiritually small in stature. You see, the realm of
Christian knowledge may be one thing, and the realm of
spiritual knowledge quite another. They may be worlds
apart, entirely different in their nature and in their
effects. This indicates the difference to which we are
referring between information, though it be large and
accurate, in Christian things, and real spiritual
knowledge, the knowledge to which Paul refers when he
says: "I cease not... making mention of you in my
prayers, that God... may give unto you a spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of him".
Spiritual
Knowledge Firstly Life
Spiritual knowledge is
therefore something which touches the life, and that is
the difference. Spiritual knowledge is as it were
something that happens. The obtaining of any one
little bit of genuine, pure, spiritual knowledge is
always an event, a happening. It is almost like a fiat.
To put it in this way - once our eyes have really
been opened we can never again be the same as we were
before. That is the difference. When once we have come
genuinely to the place to which that man born blind came,
when the Lord gave him his sight, and are able to say,
"One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see"
(John 9:25), we can never be the same again. Once we are
able to exclaim, against the background of the teaching
of the Spirit of God, 'I see! I see!', we are
free, we are liberated; we are in life, we are in
assurance. The end of all argument is just there - 'I
see!' Spiritual knowledge is an effective thing -
it does something; whereas all the other leaves us
in ourselves just where we are naturally.
Spiritual knowledge,
then, is firstly life; and, dear friends, we must examine
our whole accumulation in the light of its effect in the
matter of life. Just how much does all that we know - or
think we know - work out in us in terms of life?
Spiritual knowledge is firstly life. "This is life
eternal", said the Lord Jesus, "this is life
eternal, that they should know..." (John 17:3)
- that they should know. There is a knowledge
which is life, and all true spiritual knowledge is life.
You do not need that I
attempt to define life. Life itself is a thing altogether
outside of human possibility to define or explain; and
yet we all know life when we meet it, or when we
experience it. What is life? No one can tell you, but you
know it when you meet it. And spiritual knowledge is of
that order: something which, while it may be
inexplicable, is potent - is a force, an energy, a power
- the power of life. And for life to be triumphant over
death - spiritual death, working all around and upon us -
for life to conquer all its enemies of whatever kind, we
need spiritual knowledge, not information. We cannot just
use information in this matter; that does not get us
anywhere. We must have inward knowledge by the Spirit.
The first mark, then, of spiritual knowledge is life.
Spiritual
Knowledge the Way of Growth and Fulness
And then the way, and
the only way, of spiritual growth and fulness is
spiritual knowledge. This surely is what lies behind the
words of the Apostle, whether you take this wonderful
chapter, this profound chapter, this immensely practical
chapter - the second of the first letter to the
Corinthians - or whether you go over to Ephesians, to the
two wonderful prayers of Paul in the first and the third
chapters. This is all set against spiritual limitation
and immaturity. It was obvious in the case of the
Corinthians - the Apostle says so in actual words. He
could not speak to them as to spiritual, but only as unto
babes (3:1): there was spiritual arrest, smallness, with
all its terrible marks, as we read in that letter. In the
case of the Ephesians, there seems to have been nothing
of that which was at Corinth, positively set against
spiritual growth, but just the simple fact that even
those who are going on with the Lord have yet a long way
to go; those who have some knowledge of the Lord have yet
far more to know of the Lord. For the Lord's people,
wherever they may be, there are immensities beyond, and
the Apostle says that the way, and the only way, of
spiritual growth unto spiritual fulness is spiritual
knowledge, knowledge of the kind of which we have spoken.
How
Spiritual Knowledge Comes
(a)
By the Vital Hearing of Faith
Now, how does spiritual
knowledge come? Shall we put it in the first place in
this way: it comes by vital hearing of the Word of Truth
- vital hearing or receiving. The Thessalonians,
we have often pointed out, were a model people, who from
spiritual beginnings went on and became 'an example to
all them that believe', and the Apostle lets us into the
secret of their spiritual advance and growth. He tells us
that when they heard the word, they received it 'not as
the word of man, but, as it is indeed, the Word of God'
(1 Thess. 2:13). They received it in faith, and faith is
the vital factor in hearing. The Apostle has elsewhere
said: "The word of hearing did not profit them,
because it was not united by faith with them that
heard" (Heb. 4:2, R.V. mg). It profited them
nothing, not being mingled with faith. Faith is the vital
factor in hearing.
Perhaps that is not
very explicit. You can hear critically, you can hear with
prejudice and bias, you can hear cynically, you can hear
indifferently, you can hear in many other ways, and it
can all come to nought and mean nothing to you; but if
you hear in faith, it gives the Holy Spirit an
opportunity to bear witness to the truth, and that
witness of the Spirit to the truth causes us at once to
react in a right way. That is the reaction of faith. It
is not the reaction of unbelief, of doubt, of
questioning. It is the attitude of faith, and it is a
vital thing. You look at your whole New Testament in the
light of that, and you will see that it is a most
discriminating thing. Faith simply means this: that, if
there is something of God here, I am going to have that;
if there is something from the Lord for me in this, no
prejudice, no bias, no suspicion, no criticism, nothing
else, is going to bar the way to my having that. That is
a spirit of faith.
The whole of the Jewish
world in the days of our Lord's flesh were debarred from
the very knowledge of who He was, because they did not
listen in that attitude which said 'With all the
difficulties that this involves, if this man Jesus, has
something from God, then we will have it.' You see, it is
faith, and it is a vital thing, and the Holy Spirit looks
for that: and then, on the basis of that, He reveals,
brings spiritual knowledge, and something happens. It happens!
This, of course, is the
difference between what is merely objective and what
is within: not imitation, but inward revelation. We
cannot stay with that, although it would be, I think, to
great advantage to consider the meaning of that
difference. If you take even the Bible and the New
Testament, and from it constitute some kind of model and
pattern, and then try to create that or work it out, it
does not get anywhere, other than setting up a lot of
things which you are sorry afterward that you ever did
set up, But when the thing comes by revelation of the
Holy Spirit, then it comes about organically. There is
all the difference. But we must leave that. Spiritual
knowledge comes by vital hearing.
(b)
By the Obedience of Faith
And it comes by the
obedience of faith. Dear friends, why is it that we can
receive so much information year after year, almost to
the point of saturation, where we can hardly bear any
more, and yet there is so little vital consequence? Why?
Such a situation can be. It is because we do not do
something about it. I do not think we are alive to one
fact: that there are spirits that are ever on the alert
to dissipate all that we have heard, and before we reach
home the thing is more or less forgotten. Now it is
necessary, when the Word of the Lord comes to us, for us
immediately to do something about it - that is, make a
committal, either before we leave the place, or as our
first business when we get home; to say: 'Now, that thing
has got to become true - I commit myself to that'. Have a
transaction in your spirit with the Holy Spirit about the
Lord's Word, and you will see things happening. I said,
at the beginning, that the difference between information
and spiritual knowledge is great in the matter of consequences:
and really we are concerned with consequences, are we
not?
(c)
By a Deepening Experience of Christ's Death and
Resurrection
Spiritual knowledge
comes, in the third place, by the deepening work of the
death and resurrection of Christ in us. Do not forget
that - it is always so - that the meaning of Christ's
death has to come ever more deeply into us, and the
meaning of His resurrection correspondingly; and as that
is being wrought into us - the meaning of the Cross, our
death with Christ and our risen life with Christ - as
that is being wrought into us, so we grow in knowledge.
It comes that way. You will find that it is through
deeper experiences of death with Christ that you come to
a fuller knowledge, a real knowledge, a living knowledge.
(d)
By Fellowship with Christ in His Sufferings
And finally, for the
present, spiritual knowledge comes along the line of our
experiencing the sufferings of Christ, our accepting
fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. If Paul was a
man of large spiritual knowledge, as certainly he was, it
was because he could say: "I... fill up on my part
that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my
flesh for his body's sake, which is the church"
(Col. 1:24). Or again: "That I may know him... and
the fellowship of his sufferings" (Phil. 3:10). It
is our reactions to, or our attitude toward, Christ's
sufferings, into the fellowship of which we are brought,
that decides whether we are going to have more light or
spiritual knowledge, or not.
You see, a reaction to
suffering, if it is bitterness, rebellion, murmuring, can
close the door. That is what it did with Israel. They
murmured at their trials and their adversities - and it
closed the door. If, on the other hand, by the grace of
God, our attitude toward the sufferings of Christ which
are come upon us is a right one: one of faith and not of
unbelief, one of submission and not of rebellion - I
hesitate to say, one of joy instead of sorrow: if we can
come, by the grace of God, to a right attitude toward
suffering, it opens the door for the Lord to reveal a
great deal to us, through that very suffering. Sufferings
can be wonderfully profitable in our getting to know the
Lord: but everything depends upon our attitude toward the
sufferings.
The Lord teach us more
of "the things of the Spirit".