The quest for truth

The bible is true and accurate. It is trustworthy and can be used to identify the truth. 

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

2 Timothy 3:16

One must take the whole of scripture as well as the verse and the chapter in context. If one verse is interpreted in such a way as to make it disagree with the rest of scripture then the interpretation is incorrect. 

So, we go to the bible and we use the Word to accurately interpret what it is saying. In context. In whole. 

We walk by faith not by sight

We walk by faith not by seeing–feeling. We do not base our faith on feelings or experiences. Those seeking more miraculous signs from Jesus were denied. Our feelings are not trustworthy, to say the least. I am sure you have heard, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” It’s true. 

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.

Hebrews 11:1

The Word tells us what is fact and what is not fact. We are not to interpret the Word to fit our feelings. 

God first–we are lost without Him

When we look at scripture we see that we are to sacrifice ourselves. We are to put others first. We are to recognize that God is LORD. That Jesus is LORD. That we are in need of HIS mercy and grace. We are so lost in our sin that we have no ability to turn to God on our own. We can do nothing without Christ. He called us. We did not call Him. 

But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!

Matthew 6:23

Who are we to tell God what to do?

Seeking power for yourself is a no-no

There is, in fact, someone in the New Testament that did seek after the gifts. He wanted to buy them even. He wanted the power. What does the Word say about that?

But Peter replied, “May your money be destroyed with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right with God. Repent of your wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts, for I can see that you are full of bitter jealousy and are held captive by sin.”

Acts 8:20-23

The gifts we are explicitly told to seek are the most helpful gifts. Paul goes on to say Love is the most important of all. Without love everything you seek is pointless. Pointless. 

He alone decides who gets what

It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

1 Corinthians 12:11

Is the “baptism of the Holy spirit” different from being saved?

When we are born again we are a part of Christ. We are a part of his body. We all share the same spirit. 

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.

All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. 

1 Corinthians 12

In 2 Corinthians we see that He identified us as His own by placing the Holy spirit in our hearts. Chapter 1 starting with verse 22.

We share the same spirit, but have different gifts for different purposes. All of these gifts given by the Holy spirit as he alone decides what you get and what you don’t get. This is quite different than, 

“This experience is distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth.”

I am certainly not seeing any evidence of this. What I am seeing is one baptism. One induction into Christ’s body. He adopted us at that point. There isn’t any second delivery of the Holy spirit. When Jesus left, the Holy spirit came. He came once. He didn’t come twice. When the apostles received the Holy spirit, they received Him. He didn’t come to them again. Just once. A better understanding of the baptism of the Holy spirit would be immersion in Him. Instead of walking your own path, you sacrifice yourself, to His wishes. His will. The choice to please the flesh or do the will of God, is a very real choice. When you walk with Him, you are giving your saved, Holy spirit-filled body, to Him and letting Him have control. This is the immersion I am speaking of. 

We sometimes use the phraseology that a person can be filled with rage. This means that they are so angry that they are letting the anger control them. It consumes them. Being filled with the Holy spirit is the same type of thing in that it consumes you. 

Does this mean we can raise the dead?

Raise the dead, or speak in different languages. Do we see evidence of this? Why? Why not?

The bible says each gift is given solely at His discretion. He has a divine purpose for each gift. We can read further as to what the purpose is for. So the question now seems to be is the Holy spirit giving the same gifts to Christians now as He did during the birth of the new church? It appears He is not. We can see this for ourselves. Is anyone raising the dead? Is there anyone growing limbs, or restoring sight? Are miracles being performed today? (miracles being defined as something that breaks all of the laws of nature). 

Remember, the purpose of the gifts is to build up the church. For example, speaking in tongues …. Speaking another language was proof that God was a part of the new church. Speaking another language could be helpful and proof of something more supernatural, but speaking nonsense doesn’t prove anything at all. Speaking in gibberish does nothing for the edification of the church. It doesn’t serve to do anything for the unbeliever. 

So you see that speaking in tongues is a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers.

Do we have divine healers out there? If we do, why aren’t they in the hospitals curing all of the children of cancer?  Is anyone immune to poison, or snake bites? Jesus told us that,

These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”

Mark 16

The signs were given to a select few for a specific reason. Validation. Proof of the church being Christ’s church. Just as the signs He performed were evidence of His Holiness. 

If everyone could do what Jesus did, or what His apostles did, then what makes Jesus unique in anyway? It would be easy to conclude that we are all little gods. 

God gave the apostles the gifts for a specific reason. He gave the new church gifts for a specific reason. To prove His church is His church. 

Based on what the Word says if you do not have the gift of fill in the blank, then it is because the Holy Spirit has decided that you do not get it. It doesn’t mean we are not saved and lack the Holy spirit. Not at all. It also doesn’t mean we need to have the Holy spirit to come into us again. He is there at salvation. 

Why are people deciding who has the Holy spirit based on things like speaking gibberish, sickness or direct revelation from God Himself? What does any of that have to do with it? 

Our ardently seeking XYZ doesn’t change anything if it is not in God’s will. Who are we to tell God what gifts to give us? He alone decides. Not us. And He alone decided that the early church was to have gifts of different languages, healing and so on. We do not have these gifts for a reason. Why fight God and insist that you have something you do not? 

Seeking after experience or a sign

One problem I have with seeking after a sign or experience is how easily one can be deceived. The Mormons state that they know they are saved because of a feeling they get in their belly. 

Another problem I have with it is how it divides the believers. You have a situation where we end up with the haves and the have-nots. Some even go so far as to claim that there are people with a special anointing. When my dad died of cancer some people questioned his faith. Sounds like something similar to what happened to Job, doesn’t it? I went to a church near Seattle in my youth that tried to teach people how to speak in tongues. They took you to a separate room and then spent their time trying to teach something that they were doing incorrectly, and something that cannot be taught!! Some young believers thought they were doing the right thing by learning to speak gibberish. They thought it was going to prove they belonged to the group. This, to me, is extremely sad. No where in the Word of God is anyone learning how to heal others. Or teaching other how to speak in tongues. Teaching someone how to have a gift from God that only God gets to decide whether or not you have it, is all just a scam. A scam based on a feeling; an experience. 

What they should have done was take people into special rooms and teach them how to love or pray or live a righteous life… etc. Sigh

When Jesus was asked about the end times the first thing He said was to not be deceived. In the early church there were a lot of false teachers. Paul addressed this time and time again. To me, this is a very important issue. 

Divine healing. What is it?

So, to address divine healing…. 

God heals who He wants to heal and when He wants to heal. God is currently not restoring sight or limbs in a miraculous manner. Are we seeing miraculous healings during this age of the church? Nope. I am sorry, but we are not. If anyone was truly healing others it would be front page news. The next miraculous group of signs will be coming from the anti-Christ. Cancer in remission is not a sign of “divine healing”. It happens to Christians as well as atheists. Placebos–same thing. 

Divine healing is not simple health, otherwise why put the divine in front of the word healing? Divine healing is more than taking pain meds to cure a headache. It is instantly growing a hand where there was once no hand, or fully restoring a cripple. All of which is simply not occurring now. And again, if you have the power to heal, get over to the hospital immediately and start healing people.

Will God heal your sickness, or illness, possibly. Perhaps He put that doctor you see through medical school so that he would have the knowledge to help you get over your illness sooner. No one is discounting God helping you get over the flu more quickly. But supernatural, miraculous, healing is not something that is currently a part of our generation. 

Using Isaiah 53 to support the idea that divine healing is actually occuring right now is mind-baffling. I strongly encourage you to read Isaiah 53 a few times. There is no way that chapter is referring to the death and sacrifice of our Messiah so that we could be healed physically. There is absolutely no connection between that verse and divine healing, UNLESS, when you say divine healing you mean spiritual healing, but why would you say that when it is the point of being a Christian in the first place? No, the King’s Chapel is making healing into a miraculous event that Christians have the power to perform. 

I also fail to see the connection between Matthew 3:16-17 and healing. 

Lastly, James 5:16 may have something to do with sickness, but probably more in the spiritual sin sickness kind of way than physical health way. Again take the verse, paragraph, and chapter in context. Study the phrase ‘rise up’. What was James talking about? The physical health or spiritual health and sin? You see the word sick and think it must mean physical, but the bible refers to spiritual health in the same way. Like Isaiah 53 and now James 5.  

Conclusion

We are living in the church age, which is very different than when the early church was just starting out. Miraculous signs to prove the church was real and of Christ are no longer needed. We have everything we need in the Word of God. Plus seeking additional powers and experiences is not biblical or necessary for one to be a devoted Christian. It places everything on the outward appearance and experience instead of on your heart. You don’t need to fast in public, pray in public, or speak gibberish in public to prove you are walking with Jesus. What does show that you are walking with Jesus can be seen in the fruits of the spirit.