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Yesterday, we began a treatise on spiritual warfare taken from a small book in my library. I withheld the title of it until you had finished reading the introduction for the simple reason that most readers—aside from a few peculiarities in the writing style—will likely realize that it could have been written yesterday.
The book was written by a British minister in 1938—just a year before the outbreak of the second world war. The title is Spiritual Law in the Natural World.
We have not edited the material except for style—such as breaking up large paragraphs for legibility purposes on our modern electronic devices. We have left the English spellings as is, such as in the word “Endeavours,” as opposed to the correct spelling of “Endeavors.” (A bit of humor there to tease our dear friends across the pond.) All boldface and underlined portions indicate my emphasis. However, italics are by the author. All comments in [brackets] are mine. QUOTE:
Chapter 1: Consistency
The removal of certain difficulties that separate exponents of the Bible is our first task. Endeavours to breach the gulf between evangelical stalwarts on the one hand, and other sections of Christians on the other hand, have failed largely because each have become extremists to a greater or lesser degree. It is extremism in the one that the other resents and the problem is to remove the extremes in order to bring together the contending parties.
The absence of vital spiritual principles in operation has caused an emphasis upon ritual formality which has robbed revealed religion of its greatest power. Religion has become a thing of outward seeming rather than a power of inward experience.
In revolt from this the evangelically minded have concentrated upon the experiment of spiritual principles which has centred in the person of Jesus Christ, coupled with an extreme repudiation of all form and ceremony. To such the person of Christ and individual relationship to Him became everything.
Their personal lives and circumstances brought problems which, however varied, were nevertheless answered in Him and in Him alone. All their prejudices, therefore, are on the side of individual experience of spiritual principles. Capacity among them is varied; appropriation depends upon conscious need. Nothing normal satisfies. Theory is regarded with suspicion; outward forms as useless and empty.
Much of this would be to the good, if it were not, on the one hand, limited to the individual and, on the other hand, often carried to fantastic extremes. So fervent, indeed, have been some evangelical exponents that, riding rough-shod over all the rules of interpretation and exegesis, they have ruthlessly torn from their very contexts whole portions of Scripture in order to provide illustrations of spiritual experience.
Interpretations have bordered on the ridiculous and, in consequence, have gravely affected faith in the Bible itself. There can be no excuse for a spiritualizing interpretation which, pronounced as the only interpretation of the Scripture, drives man away from the only authentic source of revelation.
Coupled with this revolt from formalism, and concentrating on the purpose of revealed religion in the individual, there has been also a revolt against any identification of religion with the affairs of this life. Soaring away into the realm of “otherworldliness”, created by the intense spiritualizing of all passages of Scripture, there are those who care little or nothing for this world and its problems, being occupied only with heaven and their entrance into heaven.
Christian leaders have been occupied with the higher ethical teaching of Jesus Christ, and have allowed the development of that, limited to the individual, to supersede all other teaching of the Scriptures. If they have given any thought at all to the development of the material side of God’s Kingdom, it has either been in relationship to the distant past, up to 2,000 years ago, or else to a dimly-distant and indefinite future.
Let our evangelical friends, and among them our spiritualizing expositors, realize how true to Scripture is our desire to apply spiritual law and experience to natural and material conditions; to apply them, not only to the solution of the individual’s problems, but also to the solution of the problems of the nation of God’s choice, and through that nation to the solution of world problems.
Now let us consider the other side of the matter.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Timothy 3: 16, 17.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, . . .”
and, in consequence, no part can be less esteemed than another. Each and all having a common origin—the breath of God—we are bound to admit that, as surely as “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the “Holy Ghost” for the writing of the Old Testament Scriptures, so were like men moved from the same source and by the same power to write the New Testament Scriptures.
Such an emphasis is neither out of place nor unnecessary. Let us be as careful in the understanding of the one as of the other. Let our knowledge and experience of the principles and precepts of the New Covenant be as real as of those of the Old Covenant. Let us be as concerned for obedience to the King and His commands, as we are concerned for an understanding of the prophetic word concerning the King’s Kingdom.
“And is profitable,…”
This sentence silences at once the quibblers who would relegate the passages hard to be understood to the realms of the non-essential, and the passages hard to be obeyed to the sea of forgetfulness. It must be remembered that it is “all* Scripture” which is profitable. Whether they be the genealogies of the Chronicles, the depths of John’s Gospel, the heights of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, or the visions of John’s Apocalypse; all is* profitable
“For doctrine . . .”
for teaching—sound doctrine—is essential to those who would emulate the early Christians who “continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine. . . in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2: 46.
“For reproof . . . .” or, as the literal rendering has it, for conviction; and woe to the man who, reading the Scriptures and seeking to frame a conception of their contents, is not brought constantly under conviction. If the Scriptures do not gain this primary objective, whether in the individual or the nation, they fail in their final objective. But since the fault will not be with the Scriptures, but with those who read and hear them, then to fail of conviction is to fail of the necessary step to the goal here defined.
“For correction . . . .”
Correction of life, national and individual, is the necessary corollary to conviction. It is the evident sign of a genuine repentance. Adjustments and corrections should be continually in progress as we become more intimately acquainted with the Lord and His will.
“To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” James 4: 17, and, let it be noted, it is not for the individual to wait for the nation, but for each man to know conviction and subsequent correction for himself.
“And for instruction in righteousness . . . . .”
Disciplinary instruction in righteousness forms the next step, that there may be worked out all the righteousness of God.
“That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
There is no measure of presumptuous pride when those who are jealous for God’s glory assume the description “men of God.” Only let the term be descriptive and not merely titular whether for individual or nation.
God has a goal—that is the idea of the word “perfect” —for the nation and the individual, and to both the nation and individual, to obey the Scriptures is the appointed means of reaching the goal.
Character is that which is needed. Now ability does not make character; yet character is necessary to ability. Character is relative to the ethical standard established. Character from God’s standpoint is relative to the standard of righteousness as expressed in His law. It is men of such character who alone can hope to be useful in His Kingdom now, and during the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth so soon to begin.
Again, enthusiasm does not make up for inability and lack of character, but enthusiasm is necessary to ability and character if the goal is to be gained.
The performance of good works for the Kingdom of God is, therefore, possible only for those who have a perfected equipment: an equipment such as can be obtained only by study of, and obedience to, all Scriptures.
Men of God let us use them! And, while possessed of a Vision glorious, let us attain unto that which shall equip us to qualify for the blessings of the Vision, and qualify too for greater usefulness to the Lord of the Vision.
“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8: 31,32.
Free from what? From sin in all its forms.
There is a sin dealt with in the context of this passage. It is the sin of spiritual pride which rests in the assumption that being of Abraham’s seed is the be all and end all of the matter: that rejoices in position rather than possession. From such sin, in regard to any part of truth, may we be delivered, proving our discipleship to the Lord Jesus as we abide in His words.
We have realized that as all Scripture is given by inspirations, each part of the whole will be, therefore,
“profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction and instruction in righteousness,” that we may be “thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
If it were possible for these principles to apply to some parts of Scripture more than to others, it would seem that those parts will be such as guide us to the experimental out-working of the rest.
Historical and dispensational truth, with which is included prophetic truth, is knowledge; which, while necessary and essential, is still but knowledge. And knowledge of the facts of God’s purposes without the sanctifying influence of deeper experience in the Spirit, “puffeth up.”
Let us have all knowledge—historical, dispensational, doctrinal—for we need it all, and at the same time let us have all experience: experience of grace, of the operation of God’s spirit, of communion with God and intimate contact with our Lord Jesus Christ. END QUOTE
(To be continued.)
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