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The History of the De-Emphasis Of The New Birth

Compiled By Robert Wurtz II (used with permission)

Section X - From Glory Unto Glory

We have a wonderful picture of what it means to be changed into His image from glory to glory again with Moses in the wilderness. In Exodus 24:1-4 God called Moses up unto Himself to give to him a covenant that according to Paul in II Corinthians 3:13 had a fading glory. Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy of the elders of Israel; were to come up with Moses, but were to worship ‘afar off’.

Moses alone was allowed to come near. Why? We know later that Aaron would assist the people in the making of a golden calf (Exodus 32) and Nadab and Abihu would offer strange fire to the Lord (Leviticus 10:1). Moses had long since forsaken the trappings of Egypt, but it still dwelled in the hearts of these other men. We know with certainty that none of that generation save Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land.

Moses came near to God in as much as his face began to shine with the glory of God. It was when Moses was near that God gave Moses the Law on the tables of stone. In this I see a picture of the hearts of the people; hearts of stone. This deals with the unwillingness of the people to ‘hear’. We are given this WARNING in Hebrews:

Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

If we read this passage in reverse we find that the deceitfulness of Sin was the ‘means’ by which the hearts of the people were hardened. It would appear that the deceitfulness of Sin had supplanted their faith in God and His Word. They listened to the enemies lies instead of listening to God. They would ‘hear’ the lies and ‘hearden’ their hearts against God. What has happened when something hardens? The water has gone out. It has been ‘quenched’.

I have used the illustration of what it means to ‘quench’ the Spirit by referring to the sound that a hot poker makes when it touches a wet cloth. SHHHHHHHH. And if I might make the connection, it is no different when man quenches the Spirit. They have essentially put their index finger to their lips and told Him, “SHHHHH, I don’t want to hear what you have to say!, I’m asserting MY will, not YOURS!” This, I think, is how we sear our conscience and harden our hearts. We tell the Holy Spirit His orders are not welcome. Charles Finney writes;

What is it to harden the heart? It is to commit the will or mind against the claims of God and of humanity. To harden the heart is to commit the soul in a spirit of disobedience, and self-will, and stubbornness, against God and his government. It is always a voluntary act to harden the heart, and a voluntary state when the hardness of heart is continued.

The mind always assigns to itself some reason for taking this position of self-will, and for maintaining this position of stubbornness against God. It is a matter of consciousness that the will has indirectly a great control of the feelings. If the mind commits itself by an act of will to any position, the feelings are brought to adjust themselves to the will’s position; not always directly and instantly, but the feelings will soon come to sympathize with the attitude taken by the will.

The reason is very obvious, the feelings are influenced by the thoughts, and the thoughts are directed by the will. When the will, then, is committed to a dishonest position, it will always use the intellect dishonestly; and by a dishonest use of the intellect will foster such thoughts as to prevent the feelings.

This is common experience, as every one knows who has paid any particular attention to his own state of mind. A voluntary stubbornness always locks up the sensibility, and closes it against that class of emotions that would naturally result from a different attitude of the will. If the mind takes a position against God, it will use the intellect to justify its position, or to excuse it; consequently it will indulge only in thoughts, and arguments, and reflections, that justify its position, and therefore that poison and pervert the feelings and bring them into sympathy with the will.

Men harden their hearts, then, by an uncandid and selfish use of the intellect, assigning to themselves such reasons for their conduct as to justify their taking this position. if you harden your heart and continue to do so, it will surely be fatal to you. There is no power in the universe that can save you, if you will persist in hardening your heart against God. (C.G. Finney HARDEN NOT YOUR HEART)

Can God write His laws into a heart that has made the Holy Spirit unwelcomed? Will man behave like Christ with his/her heart hardened as a stone? No. This is why man needed his stoney heart removed and a heart of flesh installed in its place. This is a heart with a readiness to ‘hear’, ‘trust’ and ‘obey’. I love this connection in Paul’s writings:

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart

II Corinthians 3:3

Is Paul saying that because we are changed into His image from glory to glory that our faces will glow with a radiance? We are used to thinking of glory as a ‘glowing’ or ‘light’.

What are we talking about? We are talking about real ‘evidence’. Evidence that we have been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). When we keep our hearts tender and right towards God He can put His laws in them until they are woven into the very fabric of our personality. Our behavior will illuminate. Our actions will manifest the person of Christ. It is ‘His image’ that we are changed into from glory to glory.

THE DIVIDING OF SOUL AND SPIRIT

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart

Hebrews 4:12

One of the first lessons we find in scripture is that of Cain and Abel. This lesson is among the first of many that comprise a body of revelation from God to man that we call the Scriptures (the Bible from biblion ‘book’ ). The Bible is not intended to be a complete history of events, it is intended to convey specific truths about God and man. God carefully selected the stories and their characters for a definite purpose.

Consider that billions of people’s stories could have been recorded over the course of human history in the pages of scripture; but God revealed these specific events and story lines of the people of God and specifically Israel for our instruction and learning (I Corinthians 10:11). The backdrop of the New Testament is the Old Testament. Therefore, there are NO insignificant details in God word; not even the ‘begats’. Every entry has a purpose or it would not be recorded. The Bible is not a history book in the sense that it exhaustively records the details of peoples and nations existence; it is a specific selection of history meant to reveal God and His dealing with man. (R.B) This is the revelation that is sharper than any two edged sword.

In order to gain a right perspective of God’s dealing with man we have to look at the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. The real life story of Cain and Abel is one of the first pictures we get of the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. Here were two brothers born first to the fallen race. At this juncture in history there is still ’some’ dealings with God as both at some point brought to God an ‘offering.’ We are not told the details of why or how, but we are certain that they have been trained in the matter of offerings or they would not be bringing them. In either case, we understand that God accepted one offering and rejected the other. Cain is mentioned first that he brought an offering of the fruit of the ground. Abel brought a sacrifice to God according to God’s design and specifications, that is, the firstlings of his flock with its fat portions.

We can make some safe assumptions here while first looking at why Cain should have known fruits and vegatables are not an accptable offering to the Lord. First, may it be known, that God judges man based upon the light that he/she is given. If you know the right way or should no excuse (Romans 1). Adam and Eve did that what was right in their own eyes and sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness. God took animal skins to cover them. There is a bit of a mystery here. Yet we know with certainty that God revealed ‘leaves’ or the ‘fruit of the ground’ as insufficient to cover mans sin.

So why would Cain want to kick against the pricks? He knew that God had given a right way to approach Him. He knew what that path was. God only expected Cain to walk in the revelation he had available. He did not ask him to be Melchezidek.

Cain rejected revelation. He rejected knowledge. We could read some things into this behavior, but suffice it to say that Cain was in rebellion. Cain divised his own method of coming to God as if God was supposed to accept any ole’ offering from Cain. He had totally hardened himself to his own sinfulness and God’s holiness.

Unregenerate man is in no position to offer God ‘gifts’ as he/she is eternally and immeasurably indebted to God in the first place. That would be like bringing a birthday gift to your banker while in default on a trillion dollar loan. There is only one posture to present yourself when in that condition and that is for total obedience and utter humility and denial of self. The right response? “Your wish is my command.” But this was NOT Cain’s attitude. He expected God to accept his silly offering as if he were doing God a service or something. But it was Cain’s own mind and will that put together what was right in Cain’s eyes. This is Cain’s will and not God’s. This is the essense of ’soulishness’.

What about Abel? He did that which was accepted. Why? Because he responded rightly to what God had revealed. What could be more simple than to say that genuine faith is simply responding rightly to God will and way? It is NOT faith to try to come to God some other way. He gave the method and we follow it.

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

Hebrews 11

This is the nature of the ’spiritual.’ Cain brought to God what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6). This is the nature of man operating from the soul or ’soulishly’. Abel walking in the light that he was given. That is all God asks. We have to believe God. Not whats right in my own eyes. But God’s prescribed means and methods alone. Nothing added and nothing taken away.

SOUL AND SPIRIT

Our passage states that the word of God is able to distinguish between the soul and the spirit. This is a most interesting passage in that folk are not generally thinking in terms of spiritual and soulish. When we talk about the spirit of man we are talking about that faculty that allows him to be conscious of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is that which allows him to worship in spirit and in truth.

This human spirit is dead towards God in the unsaved and alive to God in the regenerate. The soul of man is that part that contains the mind, will, and emotions. At the center of the soul is the heart, which is the seat of the affections. Simply put, we find man’s will being established within his/her soul, while man is made conscious of God’s will by the Holy Spirit and through our human spirit.

Remember our text, For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. It takes the word of God to make the distinction because the issue is one of profound difficulty. Yet, the distinction must be made in order that we learn to walk in the Spirit and not according to our own will and imaginations.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Evangelism, The Betrayal of the Ages, Theocracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.