Worship of the Letter: A Denial of the Spirit, # 1

Worship of the Letter: A Denial of the Spirit, # 1

The Holy Scriptures are the divinely inspired Word of God, and therefore to be fully believed, highly reverenced, and strictly obeyed. Since faith comes from hearing the Word of God, and "the just live by faith" (Romans 1:17), we must remember that the basis of the Christian life is a constant meditation upon and simple acceptance of all that the Bible would say to us. But as Christ's work of redemption in the flesh was only preparatory to His future indwelling us by the Spirit, so the written doctrines of Scripture are only a means to all that inward teaching and powerful working of Christ's Spirit within us. As we must beware of neglecting the Word of God, so also we must beware of resting in the mere letter without expecting through the indwelling Holy Spirit a real and living experience of all that Scripture holds out to our faith. Nothing of divine love, life, or goodness can have birth or place in us but by inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. So they who imagine these virtues can be acquired by studying the letter of the gospels and epistles are under the same deception as the Jews that Christ said would not come to Him because they thought eternal life was in and by the Old Testament Scriptures alone.

The Bible should be reverenced as doing all that words can do to bring us to God - that is, to point the way. But the life-giving power of Christ does not reside in Greek and Hebrew syntax, but in the quickening of the Holy Spirit: for "the gospel is not in word only, but in power and in much assurance of the Holy Spirit" (1 Thess. 1:5). What folly to ascribe to the letter of Scripture that power which the words themselves most plainly tell us is solely in the quickening Spirit of God! Yet Scripture has suffered this very perversion of teaching at the hands of those who claim to uphold most ardently its infallible inspiration. Thus many profess a sound doctrinal understanding of the letter of Scripture, but at the same time they reject the very work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and lives to which the plainest meaning of the Scriptures they so zealously study and guard would point them!

This basic error is much encouraged by the pitiful reasoning of great Bible scholars and preachers who affirm that God no longer communicates with men except through the words of Scripture: and who, on the grounds of a completed canon, deny the reality of the Holy Spirit's inspiration and communion presently active in the soul and spirit of man. Let us put their doctrine into the letter of the text, which will best show how true or false it is. Our Lord says, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you" (John 16:7). That is, it is expedient that I discontinue teaching in audible words, that you may have the written page to look at with your eyes: for if I go away, I will send written words which shall lead you into a truth of doctrine as you could not have while they were only spoken from my mouth. These will be the heavenly Comforter abiding with you - the most supreme illumination you can receive from me. According to these teachers, the fellowship Jesus offers is nothing so extreme as the reality of the Holy Spirit actually manifesting Christ to our spirits and His words in our lives; rather it is the wonderful, heavenly, sublime communion between our intellects and the letter of Scripture.

What can this intellectual approach bring to the study of Scripture except that which the most wicked scholar could also boast through a knowledge of Greek and his natural memory? A historical, intellectual or grammatical learning of the words of Scripture can do no more towards removing the fleshly nature and its words from the soul of man than the same human knowledge of mathematics or literature. What more is then needed to prove that though the Scriptures are now complete, yet a completeness of words is not sufficient for our salvation? "The things of God knoweth no man, but by the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:11). Without the present inspiration of the Spirit, a man's knowledge of the letter of Scripture can be no more than ideas in his head. We need the same powerful working of the Holy Spirit today that made the apostles living examples of all they were inspired to write. In no other way can we know the reality of Christ's redemption which the early Christians daily experienced.

Yet Bible scholars are generally looked upon as having a divine knowledge when they are as ready at chapter and verse of Scripture as the learned philosopher is at every page of Plato or Aristotle. On the basis of a prescribed religious education, the clergyman is thought to be fully qualified to engage in that ministry for which the apostles had to receive as enduement of power from on high. This scholarly worship of the letter has greatly opposed the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and blinded men to the living reality which the gospel holds out to those who believe. The manner in which Greek and Hebrew scholarship is admired and sought after in the church would lead one to believe that a man has all the divine life and reality of a Paul if he can only say his epistles by heart. What could such a man truly be said to have, except the letter of the gospel without the Spirit? And what would be the advantage if he knew this letter in the original Greek, and had thoroughly mastered all the niceties of grammar and shades of ancient meanings? Such a man, while more thoroughly grounded in the letter, must remain just as empty of the reality of the gospel, unless he knows in his own experience the immediate inspiration and quickening power of the Holy Spirit.

Judas Iscariot knew Jesus Christ, and all that He said and did from the beginning of His ministry to His crucifixion. He knew what it was to be at the Lord's table, and to partake of the bread and wine fresh from the hand of the Saviour and under His blessing. Yet with much more truth it may be said that he knew nothing of all this, and had no better knowledge of Christ than a Pontius Pilate or a Barabbas. And all knowledge of Christ except that which is from the divine inspiration of the indwelling Holy Spirit is as poor and profitless as was Judas' knowledge.

Peter's acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, did not come from a mere outward knowledge of the words Christ spoke and the miracles He had done, but from that divine inspiration for which we here contend. Is not this what Christ meant when He said, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 16:17)? In like manner Paul wrote, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 15:50). Flesh and blood may say to Christ, "Hail Master," and betray Him with a kiss (Matthew 26:49); but no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

What fuller argument is needed for this divine inspiration as being beyond the poor power of mere words, than the self-evident fact that the natural man is everywhere in the church singing of his love for Jesus and calling Him Lord with his lips, while betraying Him to the world with his life! Nor could this lukewarm apostasy masquerade under the banner of Christ, except that our worship of the letter of the gospel has denied its power. Men are more concerned about proving who has the right doctrinal interpretation of Scriptures than they are concerned with whether or not the reality of the gospel is being demonstrated in their daily lives. And all because we assume that the Holy Spirit, having finished His inspiration of apostles and prophets for the writing of Scripture, now withholds that same necessary inspiration and illumination from those who today read these holy truths.

~William Law~

(continued with # 2)