I’m Confused about God (Protestant/Evangelical Caucus)

I grew up religious and always felt that, if I could ever believe the religious stuff, I would somehow find meaning, reality and joy. Then, years later, after much agonizing doubt, I came to believe the truth that God had revealed. I finally knew the truth and believed all of it. Then I waited for the promised meaning, reality and joy—and, for a very long while, I thought I had it.

Sometimes, during those days, I had the feeling that God was saying that it was nice that I now knew the truth and even tried to live it. But I came to suspect that belief in, defense of and the promulgation of the truth to as many people as possible weren't even the point.

The difference between you and me is that I’m not supposed to be confused. In fact, if I ever start sounding confused, people will stop listening to me and reading my books. If that happens, I could lose my job. Nevertheless, I'm confused about God and I’m confused a lot (but if you say I said that, I’ll say you lied).

I know. I don’t sound confused. I have this deep voice and, even when I’m scared, I sound like I’m not. Not only that, I know a lot more than most people about the Bible, about theology, about the church and about God. So, if you put my deep voice with my lifetime of knowledge, even if I don’t know what I’m talking about, I sound like I do. That is, I suppose, a blessing of sorts.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to become a Buddhist or anything. I’m not confused about the verities of the faith. I still believe that the Bible is true…all of it. I know Christ and I trust him alone for my salvation. I believe in the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Christ and that he is coming back…really. I support the mission enterprise of the church and I’m still big on evangelism. I believe there are a heaven and a hell. I can repeat The Westminster Confession of Faith backwards, believing and accepting it as my standard of faith. I'm still confused.

But it doesn't matter that I'm confused. In fact, my confusion is the natural state of a real Christian. Paul put the point in the form of a rhetorical question: "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?" (Romans 11:34). The obvious answer is "Nobody…absolutely, nobody!" Isaiah said that God said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways, My ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Correct doctrine and correct theology (as important as they are) have only one purpose. The purpose is to point to him and, insofar as we can proclaim truth to others, to enable them come to him too. He is not a doctrine. The relationship between doctrine and God is the same relationship of Gray's Anatomy to the human body. It is a description of a reality. It is not the reality itself.

The Psalmist understood that when he wrote: "O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too profound for me. I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother" (Psalm 131:1-2). Are you confused about God?

Good. If you aren’t confused, then you are probably worshiping an idol. Be careful—be very careful—of those who seem to have God in their back pockets, have answers to every question and who are sure that they are right about everything. Frankly, God isn’t in anybody’s back pocket, we don’t even know the right questions much less have the answers, and nobody is right all the time.

But doesn’t the Bible say somewhere that God isn’t a God of confusion? Yes, it does in 1 Corinthians 14:33. “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace.”

But Paul was talking about worship and the confusion that was taking place in the Corinthian church. And that’s not what I’m talking…uh…well, maybe I am. Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what I’m talking about—worshiping a God who isn’t confused, even if you are. Standing before a God who really is God and knowing that you aren’t.

God ought to be very angry…but he’s not. God should have destroyed the fallen and rebellious world…but he hasn’t. God should not have come to us…but he did. God’s love should not be unconditional…but it is. God should have washed his hands of us a long time ago…but he hasn’t. Knowing your secrets and my secrets, God should have turned away…but he didn’t. The last thing God should do is to give us forgiveness, eternal life, and joy…but that’s exactly what he does.

That confuses me, but it’s a good confusion. It’s the kind of confusion that tells me that I don’t have to be right, or acceptable, or perfect, or wise, or knowledgeable, or religious, or smart, or beautiful, or great, or famous, or spiritual, or good. It’s the kind of confusion that allows me to go to him.

I don’t have to explain it or even understand it. It’s enough. Time to Draw Away

Are you confused about God? In what ways does he confuse you? You really can trust God in the midst of your questions, confusion, uncertainty and doubt. In fact, confusion can be a good thing. It points out that God is God and we’re not. And frankly, that is a relief. We can now rest in his arms.

The nature of our abiding in Christ, and Him in us, must be understood by what we're told in the Scriptures, and not from what we imagine or want it to be. This is why I posted the following excerpt earlier:

"He that abideth in me, and I in him....If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you....If a man abide not in me..."

Note also the following parallel passages, one of which you quoted:

"And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord"

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God." - Col. 3:16

There is no great mystery in how Christ and the Holy Ghost abide in the disciple, and he in Them; no confusion as to how They lead him, and keep him from sin. Consider what the Psalmist said in Ps. 119:

"Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed thereto according to thy word...

Thy word have I laid up in my heart,
That I might not sin against thee...

My soul melteth for heaviness:
Strengthen thou me according unto thy word...

I will lift up my hands also unto thy commandments, which I have loved;
And I will meditate on thy statutes...

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
And light unto my path."

There is no mystery in how we're led by the Spirit. It's the same way as David was led by God in the passage above. He loved the commandments and statutes of God.

God gave the Law and the Prophets to Israel. Then Jesus came preaching, and then sent the Holy Spirit. Every word of Scripture is from God, delivered either by inspired men of the Old Testament, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit in the apostles and other writers of the New Testament.

But some people aren't satisfied with God's way. Unlike David, to them God's Word is a dry thing, or sterile, or dead. They are not moved by it to praise and obey Him. So they want something more.

And some even say that the sinner cannot come to God without some mystical moving of the Holy Spirit. But it is faith that a sinner needs - the faith described in Heb. 11, the faith that trusts in God and yields to Him, the faith of David who turned to God's Word to hear what he ought to do and then did it.

I think what you are teaching here is a form of Campbellism. Campbell was a man with many man-made opinions, often derived it seems from taking in too much of the strident rationalism of his era. This doctrine that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is essentially nothing more than our own response of obedience to the Scriptures is just a man-made opinion that has no sound basis in Scripture. Rather, it bows to human rationalism, almost it seems making our own obedience to the word a virtual substitute for the supernatural operation of the third Person of the Trinity in the life of the believer. It is utterly impossible to reconcile it with the teaching of many Scriptures. One example:

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
(Romans 5:5)

Notice the passive voice. Our hearts do not create the love of God. The Holy Spirit is the actor. The love of God comes to us through His work in us. You can say this is all by us sitting around and hearing the word, and the word certainly plays an active role. But Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, does not frame this as an entirely intellectual or even volitional process that produces obedience. Paul knows the language of obedience, and often speaks of the operation of the word of God on the mind. But in his inspired words here he doesn't use that language, but instead portrays the Holy Spirit as an active Person Who has been given to us, and is acting on our hearts to fill them with the love of God, which love human intellect can neither contain nor even faintly begin to describe.

As here:

Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost:
(1 Thessalonians 1:4-6)

In which we see Paul making a clear distinction between a Gospel in word only versus a Gospel come in both words and in Holy Spirit power. If the word and the Spirit were the functionally same thing, there'd be no point in making the distinction.

And you see they follow Paul, and follow Jesus as well, in which it is clear we can follow good teachers who teach us how to follow Jesus, and when we do so, and suffer affliction for it, we still have that one-of-a-kind joy that comes only from the Holy Spirit.

But what about obedience? Remember this?

Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
(Luke 17:9-10)

Obedience without the life of the Spirit is nothing. Jesus is basically saying that even if you do everything your master tells you to do, so what? That's what servants are supposed to do. Nothing special. But there is much more to being a believer:

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
(John 7:38-39)

This is a vital union, a walking with God, a real, personal communion with the Spirit of the living God. This is much more than simple, mechanical obedience. This love is the response of a transformed heart, truly full of the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps we can explore this by looking at the other end of the spectrum. A demon is a spiritual being. Yet such beings in Scripture are said to possess their victim, and when they are confronted with divine power, they "go out" of their victim. Here it is incontrovertible that spiritual beings can indeed cohabit a human dwelling, and not in the sense of learning and doing bad things because of some spoken or written word, but in terms of a dramatic level of direct spiritual control over the person who is the "host."

My point is this. In my previous post, the Scriptures recited persistently use language that speaks of the Spirit indwelling us in the sense of a living fellowship within our hearts and minds, such an intimate relationship that obedience by itself does not account for the whole thing. For example, if the word is, in effect, the only Holy Spirit one acknowledges, how in Heaven or earth can we do this to Him?:

And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
(Ephesians 4:30)

Words do not grieve. Persons grieve. He says right there we have that seal of the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption, so He is not going anywhere, even when we grieve Him. This is entirely the language of vital union, two people handcuffed to each other for life, and believe me when the Holy Spirit is grieved with some unresolved sin in a believer there is no peace for that person until there is repentance.

In sum, Campbellism appears to me to be a kind of radical cessationism, the idea that the Holy Spirit has totally left off any involvement with believers other than leaving them with the text of Scripture. But that is simply not possible under any plain reading of Scripture. God does not change, and has not given us mere moral persuasion to keep us company in this life while we wait for His return, but this:

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
(Romans 8:15)

Amen that.

Peace,

SR

Paul knows the language of obedience, and often speaks of the operation of the word of God on the mind. But in his inspired words here he doesn't use that language, but instead portrays the Holy Spirit as an active Person Who has been given to us, and is acting on our hearts to fill them with the love of God, which love human intellect can neither contain nor even faintly begin to describe.

One has to wonder, then, why Paul bothered to make such an exhaustive case for the gospel in Romans (and elsewhere). Let's look again at Rom. 5:5, noting that he doesn't start there, nor does he stop there.

"And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

Note the use of "because" to explain why our hope maketh not ashamed. The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. How did that happen? We see the answer in the next several verses, as Paul explains what the love of God did:

"For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: for peradventure for the good man some one would even dare to die. But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life; and not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."

The love of God is plainly seen in Paul's summary here, and seeing it makes us "rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." Did he get this from intellectual pondering or discussions at the Aeropagus? No, the Holy Spirit revealed it to him, and he preached it to the lost so it could be shed abroad in their hearts.

In which we see Paul making a clear distinction between a Gospel in word only versus a Gospel come in both words and in Holy Spirit power. If the word and the Spirit were the functionally same thing, there'd be no point in making the distinction.

From the beginning in Acts 1, we see that the apostles were to be equipped for their task of testifying to the resurrection and preaching the gospel:

"But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." - Acts 1:8

The fulfillment of that promise, their equipping for the task, comes in Acts 2. And throughout Acts we see God authenticating these preachers by signs and wonders through the Holy Spirit, just as He had done with His Son. The gospel came "not in word only, but also in power". As intended, this was convincing to the Thessalonians. Who among them wouldn't rejoice at such a gospel?

This is much more than simple, mechanical obedience.

Indeed it is, and I wouldn't argue otherwise. In Ps. 119 (and elsewhere), we see the joy David found in studying and obeying the word of God. Did he have an indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Did he have "a real, personal communion with the Spirit of the living God"?

Words do not grieve. Persons grieve. He says right there we have that seal of the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption, so He is not going anywhere, even when we grieve Him.

The Holy Spirit is indeed a person. And disciples are sealed (authenticated, attested to, preserved) by Him. How does this happen? How does the child of God avoid grieving the Holy Spirit? And how did he become authenticated? The answer is found throughout that chapter (your excerpt of v. 30 falls right in the midst of it), in the warnings and instructions Paul gives the Ephesian Christians, contrasting them with the ungodly, those who are not sealed by the Holy Ghost:

"But ye did not so learn Christ; if so be that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus..." (vv. 20-21)

In sum, Campbellism appears to me to be a kind of radical cessationism, the idea that the Holy Spirit has totally left off any involvement with believers other than leaving them with the text of Scripture.

If you wish to debate Campbell, feel free to do so. But I ain't him. Nor am I a disciple of his, but of Christ's.

The text of Scripture is nothing to take lightly. It is the very word of the King. To disparage, reject, ignore, or be ashamed of it is to do likewise to the King (Luke 6:47, Mark 8:38, etc.) God spoke, and the worlds came into existence.

"...so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." - Is. 51:16

"...how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? which having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will." - Heb. 2:3

God has spoken to us through His Son and through those whom He inspired and authenticated by the Holy Spirit. We disparage God's message to our peril.

"For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for he giveth not the Spirit by measure." - John 3:34

"For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." - Heb. 4:12

This word, delivered to us by God, by the Son, and by the Spirit, guides the disciple, guards him, saves him, seals him, fills him, gives him joy, and on and on.

This is God doing it. And Jesus doing it. And the Spirit doing it.

This is God living in him. And Jesus abiding in him. And the Sprit dwelling in him.

My argument is not with someone dead and gone like Campbell, but with the legacy of his false teaching that lives on in Campbellism.

Having said that, I will be honest. I am having a hard time tracking your argument. Yes, in Romans 5:5 Paul speaks of the love that the Holy Spirit:, Who has been given to us, as being "poured out" ("ekxeo") in our heart, but you draw an odd and counterintuitive set of causal connections. The passage begins at verse 1 with our justification by faith (as opposed to works). Paul then goes on with a series of consequences to this justification grounded in faith:

1. Peace with God,
2. Access by faith into the grace that gives us this standing before God
3. As a result of our new standing, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God
4. We even glory in tribulation, because tribulation produces certain effects:
    a) patience, which produces
    b) experience, which produces
    c) hope

Now this hope is not like false hope. It has a sound basis in objective truth. No matter what happens to us in this life, we know where we stand with God. We know our hope in Him will not come up short. And here's the causal link: We know this because God's Holy Spirit has poured love into our hearts! Epistemologically, God gives us certainty.

By contrast, consider this:

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
(Proverbs 13:12)

Paul and Solomon are both addressing the inner workings of the human heart. In Solomon's case, he understands how hard it is to go on when we realize some dear hope we have will never, ever be realized. I have lived that. It can feel like dying. Solomon understood the heart well.

And so does Paul, in these equally inspired words. This new hope we have, being justified by faith, will not be deferred, but we have the indwelling Holy Spirit as the seal, the down-payment on the greater inheritance to come, and this living relationship, this love He pours out in our hearts, is not transitory as in the Old Covenant, but gives us a certainty of our standing before God.

And as if some Doubting Thomas might raise the objection that we don't really know if God loves us, Paul jumps right from our subjective experience of that love into objective proof of that love, how Christ in giving Himself for our sins shows that love unmistakably. We can, as those justified by faith, have absolute confidence in His love for us, and His protection of us from the divine wrath against sin which we so richly deserve. Our hope will not be disappointed.

So again this looks mainly like a false dilemma. There is no one here that I know of suggesting disobedience to Jesus. For myself at least, I am assuming that everyone here wants to obey Him. So that isn't even an issue. Nor is it even a question whether He uses His word to accomplish His purifying work among His people. Of course He does. No one is arguing against either of those propositions.

The problem comes in the added language, the extra baggage added to Scripture that isn't there. In the case of Campbellism, the added term would be this, that the Holy Spirit indwells by the word only, and not as the Comforter, the Paraclete, the one who comes along side us, who prays for us in our stead, saying for us what we need to say to God when we can't even think of how to form the words, who pours the love of God into our hearts personally and individually, testifying to us of the reality of our blessed hope:

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
(Romans 8:16)

We don't say that we know how that works. But taking the surrounding context of the passage, it is obvious once again that Paul is describing a vital union that is based on an objective reality and has many happy subjective effects. It is a false dilemma to position those two things as if they were in conflict with one another. They are perfectly harmonious.

Are there those who abuse the Scriptural teachings on the indwelling of the Spirit? Sure. But just because a truth can be abused doesn't make it untrue. Are there things we don't understand about the workings of God's Spirit with the spirit of the believer? Absolutely. Does that give us an excuse to convert all those gaps in our knowledge into something more "manageable?" Probably not a good idea. It's one thing to try and explain the word, or to have thoughts about what it means. It's quite another thing altogether to take multiple passages and cancel their plain sense meaning in order to preserve some other doctrinal objective, whatever that might be. We don't have that authority. The Pharisees canceled out the plain sense of honoring mother and father by their "creative" Corban rule. Spiritually, that is a high risk area, and there isn't enough hazard pay in the world to make it worth my while to go there. Just sayin ...

Peace,

SR

Let me first say that I subscribe to neither Campbell nor Campbellism. Where Campbell stood with the Bible, he was right. Where he departed from it, he was wrong. My aim is to stand only with the Bible, as I trust yours is as well, my friend.

Let me also explain more fully my remarks on Romans 5:5, so you can at least understand me, and then agree or disagree.

What Paul says was shed abroad in our hearts is not the Holy Spirit, but the love of God. What are you talking about, Paul? What is this love of God?

It is all that God did for us. But let's first back up a bit. What is this hope we rejoice in? It's the hope of the glory of God - the glory which God has in store for the saints, I believe. (As in 9:19ff: "For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God...the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.")

Not only do we rejoice in that hope, but also in the tribulations, which work stedfastness. And in the stedfastness, which works approvedness. And in the approvedness, which works hope. All these things work to strengthen the hope of what's in store for us.

Nor does this hope put us to shame. Why? (I assume an ellipsis here.) Because God is reliable, and will keep His promise. As in 8:32ff: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?" If God has done even this, our hope is secure.

(The reason I assume such an ellipsis is that Paul explains our hope as resting on the basis of God's love. And if our hope rests on God's love, then something about that love gives surety to hope.)

In vv. 7-11, he tells of that great love. This "wonderful story of love" is the gospel Paul preached, as he was inspired by God through the Holy Spirit. In this way, this message of the love of God was shed abroad in hearts through the Holy Spirit. This is no man-made story. Anyone who reads and receives this message of God's love receives it of the Holy Spirit, because that's Who delivered it.

I hope that explains my earlier comments on 5:5. I'll try and address the rest of your post shortly.

If you don’t have the Holy Spirit in you, then you don’t belong to God.

What does it mean to have the Holy Spirit in you?

Does the Spirit dwell in the disciple the same way faith does (2 Tim. 1:5)? The same way God dwelt among the children of Israel (2 Cor. 6:16)? The same way the word of Christ dwells in the saints (Col. 3:16)?

Is it anything like this?...

"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." - John 14:23

"Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed." - John 8:31

"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." - John 15:4

"And he that keepeth his commandments abideth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us." - 1 John 3:24

Is it an indwelling like this?...

"Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not...Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." - Rom. 7:17-19, 20

I applaud and share your commitment to fidelity to the Scriptures. If we're told one place that Christ dwells in us, and told in another place HOW Christ dwells in us, it seems to me we've been given the "plain sense meaning" of indwelling. Would you agree?

False Dilemma again. The Scriptures never say that our obedience to the word is the only sense or even the best sense in which to understand the indwelling of the Spirit. I showed you in an earlier post that Paul makes a distinction between a Gospel preached in word only versus a Gospel preached and received in the power of the Spirit. Unregenerate sinners are carnal and cannot obey the word no matter how much you throw it at them. But those born from above are new creations, are led by the Spirit, are indwelt by the Spirit, and so have not only obedience but joy and love and peace and all the fruits of the sanctifying work of the Spirit. They are a living miracle. The life of a believer MUST begin with a miracle:

And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
(Acts 16:14)

You see how both things are happening here? The Lord opened her heart. Miracle of grace! It is not enough to sit and listen to the word, nod your head in agreement, go and do all you think is required, because if the Lord doesn't work in your heart, if the Lord doesn't raise you from spiritual death, then anything and everything you do is carnal, fleshly, because it is not grounded in faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God.

Which gets us back to the problem of interpretation. It is just as erroneous to oversimplify something because we do not fully understand it, as it is to add undue complexity. It is our intent to veer neither to the left nor to the right, but to stay on the straight path. We know the Holy Spirit, a Person, indwells the believer, also a person. That language is plain. What we lack is an exhaustive catalog of all the ways in which that personal relationship might play out. We have some understanding that the word of God can also dwell in us, and be instrumental in how the Holy Spirit leads us and works with us.

But this in no way prevents us from taking "indwelling" in the ordinary sense we encounter in so many passages, that of a close proximity of and intimate interaction between two living persons. What we never see is any passage which says that ONLY the word of God indwells us, that there is no OTHER sense in which the Spirit of God inhabits us. You remember the Shekinah Glory? The Glory of the Lord at the burning bush, then manifesting in the wilderness as the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, filling the tabernacle, and filling Solomon's Temple, with the presence of God in such a direct and powerful way?

We who believe are that Temple now. Like the ark of the covenant, we have the word of God written on our hearts, and no more just on stone. But we also have the same fire of the burning bush, the same fire by night and cloud by day, to lead us where we should go. We still have the glory of the Lord filling us, the Temple that He has chosen to occupy, and within which He still manifests Himself as He sees fit, and not with any preconditions we can place on Him with our limited understanding of His ways.

Peace,

SR

SR: I showed you in an earlier post that Paul makes a distinction between a Gospel preached in word only versus a Gospel preached and received in the power of the Spirit.

What's difficult to understand about that? God bore witness to the apostles' preaching with signs and wonders through the Spirit. This is an element of the equipping Jesus promised them in Acts 1, Mark 16, etc.

"Long time therefore they tarried there speaking boldly in the Lord, who bare witness unto the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands." - Acts 14:3

Here we read again of the gospel coming not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.

SR: Unregenerate sinners are carnal and cannot obey the word no matter how much you throw it at them.

But that's precisely who needs the gospel. How else can one be regenerated except by obedience to the gospel?

SR: The Lord opened her heart. Miracle of grace!

What's so miraculous about the Lord opening Lydia's heart to Paul's preaching? Here's a woman gathering with other women at a riverside place of prayer on the Sabbath. And along comes the first preacher of the gospel in that region. Of course her heart is going to be opened to listen.

Any surprise, then, that she was receptive to the gospel? She was a woman serving God according to the knowledge she had, obedient in accord with what she knew. Like Apollos and the Ephesians, she was ignorant of "the rest of the story." And like they, once she heard the gospel, she was baptized into Christ. These are those who "have ears to hear".

Not everyone is that way. Some don't have ears to hear, and so the things of God are hidden from them:

"Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them."

They've distorted their hearts, and dulled their hearing, and closed their eyes. Does that sound like Lydia? Such people WOULD need a miracle! But God won't force open a heart like that, nor shout into such an ear, nor force open such eyes. Lydia's heart, by contrast, was closed to truth only in the sense that she hadn't heard it yet.

But what did Jesus say?

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." - Matt. 7:7-8

That sounds like someone whose heart the Lord will open to pay attention to the gospel when the preacher comes by, doesn't it? It's what we find all through the Bible stories of gospel preaching. Nor is it anything new:

"But from thence ye shall seek Jehovah thy God, and thou shalt find him, when thou searchest after him with all thy heart and with all thy soul." - Deut. 4:29

Anything miraculous going on there? Or has it always been this way with God and those who serve Him?

SR: we have the word of God written on our hearts, and no more just on stone.

This, too, is the way it's always been with God and those who serve Him:

"And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates." - Deut. 6:6-9

And all that, without even a miracle! :-) Do you begin to see how God becomes such a part of one's life that He can be said to dwell in him?

So what have we got so far?

- Two ways in which God, Jesus, and the Spirit dwell/abide within us: the Bible way and some other way.

- And two ways in which the Lord opens hearts: the Bible way and some other way.

False dilemmas? No, just a choice between what's in the Bible and what isn't.

God bore witness to the apostles' preaching with signs and wonders through the Spirit.

Why should we assume no work of the Spirit occurred other than the outward miracles and the presentation of the word? As I pointed out before, the Lord opened Lydia's heart, as a condition precedent to her hearing Paul's preaching of the Gospel. And as I originally posted much earlier, many places speak of the work of the Spirit in a manner that can be understood as interpersonal, and not simply as the moral persuasion of the word on the natural mind.

This presumption against a supernatural process of conversion is begging the question, anticipating the desired answer in the forming of the question. That is a sure path to injecting a baseless human opinion into the word of God. The analysis must begin with no unnecessary assumptions. If you believe in "word-onlyism," you are sure to see it wherever you look. Any passage, even if it really was speaking of a dynamic spiritual communion between the Holy Spirit and our spirit, could be wrenched into meaning less by appending the supposed missing clause, "by the word only," which in fact is NOT there, anywhere, and is completely an invention of mortal man.

But that's precisely who needs the gospel. How else can one be regenerated except by obedience to the gospel?

Exactly. Quite the conundrum. The very man who need the Gospel is the one who will not listen to it. Unless of course the Lord opens that person's heart, as He did for Lydia, and as He did for every lost, spiritually dead sinner who ever came to faith in Him..

Of course her heart is going to be opened to listen.

No sir, there is nothing "of course" about it. It was an act of God, as all miracles are, and a necessary intervention. If it was so unremarkable, so matter of fact, why would the Holy Spirit inspire Doctor Luke to take the verbal equivalent of a yellow marker and highlight that it was the Lord who opened her heart as a precondition to hearing Paul's words? I dare say the Holy Spirit understood the situation far better that either of us, and if she was UN-supernaturally ready to hear Paul, why would He say the opposite? The words of Paul didn't get her ready to hear Paul. That doesn't make sense and it isn't what the text says:

And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
(Acts 16:14)

Where in there does it say "but she didn't actually need the Lord to open her heart because she would have listened anyway?" What manuscript is that "missing fragment" in? If we are to examine the teaching of Scripture, I think we must begin with the assumption that if the Holy Spirit says the Lord acted in some way, that action was necessary, and so important that it is required reading for all believers. Not one word of Scripture is wasted. It is all there for a divine purpose. So if Luke says the Lord opened her heart, with the result of her attending to the preaching of Paul, then that is the order of events. The opening came first, by the power of God's Spirit, and then the words of the Gospel. It is beyond argument.

As for whether a miracle is needed as a general principle, Jesus said so:

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
(John 6:44)

There you see we do not even have the power to come to Jesus, unless God acts first, on us personally and individually. Same order of events as Lydia. Imagine that. :)

But would God ever shout? Oh yes. What was the Damascus road experience? A pleasant whisper? Or a two-by-four upside the head of Paul? God got Paul's attention rather forcefully, and was well justified in doing so. God is God, and can do as He pleases:

And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?
(Daniel 4:34-35)

BTW, I looked a little more into Campbell, and apparently he was much influenced by John Locke. As I understand it, he wanted to concoct a scheme for Christian unity, where the subjective beliefs that often were the basis of conflict could be eliminated by appealing to a strict rationalism, in which the divine workings of the Holy Spirit were reduced to nothing but moral persuasion of the natural mind, because Campbell in his rationalism could not imagine anything beyond that.

What he doubtless could not have seen coming was how that selfsame rationalism would become the basis for a complete removal of the supernatural from Christian faith. Like leaven it corrupted the whole loaf. Yet in hindsight that is his legacy, the removal of the supernatural workings of God's Spirit in bringing the elect to a supernatural faith in Christ. No doubt this is part of why some groups descended from him (Disciples of Christ, for example) are on the forefront of our deep slide into liberalism (aka national apostasy). Tragic consequences always flow from abandoning the word of God.

Peace,

SR

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