Biblical “Inspiration” Includes Careful Crafting And Purposeful Selection Of What Was Recorded

Biblical “Inspiration” Includes Careful Crafting And Purposeful Selection Of What Was Recorded

“There are many other things that Jesus did. If every one of them were written down, I suppose the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

[What the apostle John wrote about his gospel’s contents is certainly true for virtually every other book of the Bible, whether Old or New Testaments, no? Just try and imagine how long the books of Genesis or Exodus MIGHT have been! This tells us that God’s Spirit had inspired John about the precise “subset” of all that Jesus taught and did to be recorded. And, of course, that was done for a very well thought out reason, by a Creator who knows what is in the very heart of men (Psalm 44:21, Acts 15:8).]

“Now these things happened as examples for us … and they were written for OUR instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:6,11). “Remember this, and be assured; Recall it to mind, you wrongdoers. Remember the former things long past… (Isaiah 46:8).

[No matter how different the individual prophetic writers may have been in their temperaments, their memories, or their writing styles, it was GOD who was directing what they wrote down. And He was recording precisely what He considered to be important in order to guide those who came AFTER the events being recorded, but not exclusively for those in OUR particular age! The primary way that He wants us to get to “know” Him is to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” what He caused to be written down!]

“For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done…” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

[This necessarily implies that the God who both foresees all, AND causes some, future events, also knew ALL the events that He would cause to be record from the beginning: He had the Book of Revelation in mind when He was inspiring the Book of Genesis to be written down! Never, EVER forget the degree of scientific and engineering brilliance of a mind that could invent nuclear fusion, or could contain the entire semi-infinite complexity of your own body in his memory prior to speaking it into being on a single day! Satan has slipped into Christian churches the idea that God’s Scriptures can be treated in the same way that other “works of man” can be processed – for example, that there are commands and promises in His New Covenant writings that merely reflect something appropriate only for the first century, as if being something that we humans can REGARD as “inspired” by God and yet be something that WE have the right to judge as not applicable for our day and culture. The God who warned us about the scoffers who will be saying, “where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue JUST AS THEY WERE FROM THE BEGINNING OF CREATION” (2 Peter 3:3-7) – that God knew precisely where (Scotland) and when (1833) the atheistic geologist Charles Lyell would propose what is now called “uniformitarianism,” the idea that “the earth was shaped by the same natural processes still in operation today, operating at similar intensities” (Wikipedia.com, “Charles Lyell”).]

What all of these revelations about our Creator tell us is that if those “inspired” writings ever seem to reflect ideas or commands that are less “civilized” or less “scientific” that we are, it has nothing to do with their Author, but only reflects the condition of the people that He was dealing with at the time when those writings occurred. In an age when He was dealing with a world full of violent and vengeful humans that knew so little about Him and were so easily manipulated by the “god” and “ruler” of this world (including His own chosen people), in THAT age He did give commands to eradicate entire people groups who were quite literally the slaves of “the evil one,” burning their own first-born to death for their demonic deity! Back then, as with now, He starts with us WHERE WE ARE! But, even when he commanded specific deeds of violence for them back then, He already had a very different future in mind for them, when “the fulness of time” (Galatians 4:4) would come: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do NOT resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well” (Matthew 5:38-39). God had not changed, but through the centuries He had changed one group of people to get ready to enter into the Kingdom that comes down from Heaven! That is why He said to that Samaritan woman, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because the salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).

Even though the Old and New Covenants are quite different from each other in what they require and what they promise, they are the product of the same infinitely insightful and foresightful creative mind! And no matter what each of the prophetic writers may have had in their minds, they were serving a far higher and deeper creativity than they probably could have known. He made sure to imbed clues in the literature of the Old Covenant so that his God-hungry “remnant” would be able to recognize His Anointed One who had brought them their long-anticipated New Covenant, inaugurating the eventual age when “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9)!

And those prophetic “clues” could be quite detailed.

We are told that when He was bringing them deliverance – from slavery – out of Egypt under Moses, that He already had in mind about having His new Deliverer – from sin – come out of Egypt as well: “When Israel was a young man, I loved him like a son, and I summoned my son out of Egypt” (Hosea 11:1). “Then he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and went to Egypt. He stayed there until Herod died. In this way what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet was fulfilled: “I called my Son out of Egypt” (Matthew 2:14-15).

We are told that when He chose to destroy the old world by water, He already had the saving water of a disciple’s baptism in mind: “ they were disobedient long ago when God patiently waited in the days of Noah as an ark was being constructed. In the ark a few, that is eight souls, were delivered through water. And this prefigured baptism, which now saves you —not the washing off of physical dirt but the pledge of a good conscience to God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:20-21).

And He even provided clues from the temple architecture that would describe the sequential events that lead to the experienced presence of God in His New Covenant. In Exodus, God specifies the construction and location of the Temple. The Presence of God is located in the heavily veiled Holy of Holies within the Temple itself. But the steps leading to His Presence are sequentially: the altar upon which sacrifice for sin is made; then the “bronze laver,” a large basin from which “they shall wash with water, LEST THEY DIE” (Exodus 30:20); then the Sanctuary into which only the cleansed priest can enter and minister. And on either side in front of the veil were the altar of incense and the table of “showbread”. The incense is the symbol (or “sacrament”) of the prayer that rises to God. What is often translated as “showbread” is actually “bread of the presence” (literally, “bread of the face”). Only those OLD covenant priests could eat that sacred bread, just as we NEW covenant priestly people are permitted to eat the new sacred bread to which He has joined His own glorified humanity! Once I entered into the sacramental faith of the plain sense of the Scriptures and of the ancient church, the deep symbolism became obvious to me: Christ has already entered into the Holy of Holies – something to occur in our future. But while still on the other side of that vail, we enter into the presence of our Holy God through Spirit filled prayer and through feeding on that glorified and “spiritualized” (1 Corinthians 15:42ff) humanity of Jesus (His “body and blood”).

The literature of the inspired Scriptures, whether Old OR New Testament, portray a God who is both highly poetic and sacramental in His dealings with us. Most of Protestantism has virtually eliminated that sense of God, creating theologies that turn things like the Holy Communion and baptism into mere “symbols” that remind you of what He had done in the past (Lord’s Supper), or that you do just to be obedient (baptism). But in both of His covenants it is clear that God MINISTERS through those appointed actions or objects, whether it is gazing upon the serpent on the pole (Numbers 21:6ff); or by entering into the salvation of His “New Covenant” by openly confessing his identity and authority by burial into the water (Roman 10:9-10; 1 Peter 3:21; Romans 6:3ff); or by receiving all that He is – Spirit, and soul, and body – into all that we are – spirit, and soul, and body – through the eating of that bread and wine over which we have given thanks! The only ones in the first Christian centuries who denied such association between God’s created matter and that which was “spiritual” were the heretical Gnostics. In their zeal to reform the Roman Catholic additions to those sacraments, all of the Reformers except Luther unfortunately wound up “throwing out the baby along with the dirty bath water.” Jesus intends for us the recognize HIM “in, with, and under” that bread and wine; to become one with HIM (spirit and soul AND material body) “in, with, and under” that bread and wine. It is in that bread and wine, and in the eating of that bread and wine, that we are invited to experience the fulfillment of such of His promises as:

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe into me through their word; that they all may be one, JUST as You, Father, are in me and I in You; that in Us they also may be one” (John 17:20-21).

“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides IN Me, and I IN him” (John 6:56)

“Now the one who loves me will be loved by my Father; and I will love him and reveal myself TO him” (14:21). [Note the personal encounter!]

“God resolved to make known who is the wealth of the glory of this mystery among the nations, namely Christ IN you, the hope of glory;” (Colossians 1:27).

“ “If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our DWELLING with him” (John 14:23).

“Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and IN all. (Colossians 3;11)

“… the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be IN you. I will not leave you orphans; I WILL COME TO YOU” (John 14:17).

Jesus expects both his commands AND HIS PROMISES to be taken much more literally and experientially than most of our versions of Christianity now teach us!

Once you realize how very carefully and purposefully crafted God’s writing was done in creating His inspired literature, you can engage in your own search and find much for yourself.

I, for example, see His purposeful planning when I see how He got His Church to gather His literature in the ORDER we have it. His apostles were commanded to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, immersing (a.k.a., “baptizing”) them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19ff). The inspired books were compiled exactly in that order: the gospel show us in detail what being a “disciple” means (e.g., that Sermon on the Mount); the Book of Acts show us in detail what being immersed into Jesus in water and then being experientially immersed into His Holy Spirit results in; all of the remaining epistles show in detail those remaining “all things that I have commanded you” which were only partially mentioned in the Gospels (e.g., that it is JESUS who is our creator (John 1:2, Colossians 1:15-19); and the Book of Revelation shows in a veiled way how he began to exercise His “being with them, even to the end of the age” – whether disciplining and guiding specific congregations (Revelation 1-3), or in His combat with Satan and his tragic victims (chapters 4-20), or in the consummation of all things (21-22).

This “literary sequence” also demonstrates why Jesus caused to be recorded in the Book of Acts the specific instances describing how and when His Spirit may be personally “received.” Before He left them, Jesus had promised those whom He loved, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains WITH you and WILL be IN you” (John 14:16-17). He was revealing to them an experiential difference between “with” and “in” that they could not possibly understand until that “in” actually happened (in Acts 2). When I was asking Him to let me know whether He was already “IN” me back in 1972, I was edified to see in the Book of Acts those five DIFFERENT descriptions of how Jesus fulfilled that promise that He had made in John (14:16-26; 15:26; 16:4-12), regarding how and when He was going to release His Spirit upon them. Those descriptions occur in:

Acts 2 [the original 120 apostles and disciples, who waited a little over a week, with overflowing tongues and prophecy];

Acts 8:4-24 [the Samaritans who were powerfully converted by Philip but nevertheless had to wait some weeks weeks for apostolic hands to be laid upon them to receive His Spirit; probably accompanied by those “tongues” and prophecy, since even the false Simon Magus could “see” that His Spirit had come upon them.];

Acts 9:10-19 [Paul, who was converted, healed, received the Holy Spirit with the laying on of hands, and baptized by Anias, and either then or later had that “language of angels” (1 Corinthians 13:1) ministered to him (1 Corinthians 14:18)];

Acts 10 [The Roman centurion and “God fearer” Cornelius and household, who were in the act of being evangelized by Peter when the Holy Spirit fell upon them all, bursting out in those “tongues of angels” and “praising God” (a.k.a., prophesying), with NO laying on of hands required or given – but then followed by being baptized into Christ’s new covenant];

Acts 19 [Twelve men in Ephesus who were already “disciples” of Jesus but had only been baptized in response to John’s call to repent. Paul asked them, “DID you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” That “when you believed” necessarily means that HE acknowledged them to be as much of a “believer” as he was. “That “DID” also NECESSARILY means that it is very possible to be a truly apostolic disciple and “believer” in Jesus and have not yet personally experienced the “receiving of” or “filling by” His Pentecostal Spirit. The way Paul posed that “DID” question also necessarily requires that if they HAD received His Holy Spirit, they would definitely remember the event, in the way that all others had – with a powerful entrance and resulting outburst of powerful praise, “language of angels,” and/or prophesying. He was asking them to remember the event, which is especially pertinent in our day.

Of the literally thousands of examples in Acts of people receiving Christ and then receiving His Pentecostal promise, God chose to mention these five examples – and, once again, we must assume that He had a specific reason for selecting these PARTICULAR examples out of the thousands that could have been selected. As I have meditated upon these examples and joined with them my own personal experience of having received His joyous Pentecostal Spirit, one thing that became obvious is that you MUST eliminate any idea that you can ASSUME you have received His Pentecostal Spirit because of some OTHER event that has happened to you, like “believing in Jesus,” or “being baptized,” or “getting confirmed by the bishop.” Those original 120 disciples, those Samaritans, and the Ephesian disciples had already believed in Jesus in an APOSTOLICALLY approved version of “believing.” They had undoubtedly received a Spirit-anointed and empowered ministry that is deeper than most Protestant evangelicals who have vaguely “accepted Christ as Lord and Savior.” And yet they only experienced the person “receiving,” “falling,” or “filling” of His Holy Spirit AFTER some period of time whether days, weeks – or in the case of those Ephesians, possibly a few YEARS after becoming true “disciples” of the risen Christ! Anyone who tells you to believe that you “must have” received His Holy Spirit BECAUSE you “believed” or “were baptized” or “had hands laid on you” is both in error and obviously has not received His Holy Spirit yet for themselves. I am convinced that is the very reason WHY God chose to record those specific differing examples! The “bottom line” is that in order to follow the path of those apostolic Christians, we are to:

1. Surrender our lives EXCLUSIVELY to the claimed authority, the identity, the teachings, the commands and the promises of Jesus without conditions or qualifications.

2. Verbally confess to that surrender and being “buried” in water.

IF the Holy Spirit does not choose to fall there and then, then continue to aggressively pursue His promise in the manner that Jesus Himself taught: “So I say to you, ask, and it WILL be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit TO THOSE WHO ASK HIM!” (Luke 11:9-13).

And regarding the passion involved in that active verb “ask,” meditate upon what God Himself commanded through Isaiah (although in a different context):

“I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; They shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the LORD, do NOT keep silent, and give HIM no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”

God HIMSELF is, in effect, saying: “Give ME no rest until I fulfill my promise to you.” It is not that HE needs to hear our cries, but that we NEED to be crying:

“And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with ALL your heart. I will let Myself be found by you,’ declares the LORD…” (Jeremiah 29:13-14).

When I finished my Scriptural studies about this “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and my praying for His guidance, it became clear to me that, while I may well have been experiencing His Spirit’s influence “WITH” me, I now needed to seek for the fulfillment of His promise to be “IN” me! After some months of very life changing “re-plowing” by Him, through deepening my repentance before Him, and revealing a much deeper need for His forgiveness that can only be found before His Cross, He found me ready for the fulfillment of His wonderful and peace-filled Promise! And although it took him a week or so to overcome some fear of losing control over my own speech, He was kind enough to “sneak up on me” at a Sunday meeting full of wonderful praise and hymns and made it possible to experience that which, “from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks!”

With the marvelous tools now at their disposal, nuclear physicists seen to be finding increasingly smaller “worlds within worlds” at the microscopic level. Those tiny things called “atoms” are now turning out to be hosts for even tinier “solar systems” within themselves! Well, the recorded writings that have come from the mind and the heart of a Creative genius Who is also surprisingly more tender hearted than I had ever dared to imagine – those writings also contain “worlds within worlds” of wonderful and edifying “packets” of His edifying creativity, waiting to expand our minds and our hearts!

Joshua’s exhortation to Israel regarding the Law of Moses, certainly holds true also for the writings of God’s Son’s New Covenant literature:

“Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:7-9).

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Amen?

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