By
The Rev. B.E. Palmer, Chaplain to the University of Florida
Outline
I. Forces in Human Experience
A. Definitions of the Terms
B. A Biblical Example
C. Encounter with Forces Invisible
1. Within Consciousness
2. Within Circumstances
D. Confrontation with Evil
E. Confrontation with Good
II. Biblical Anthropology
A. Definitions of Terms
B. The Importance of the Heart in the Spiritual Life
C. How God's Spirit Connects with Us
D. How We May Be Positioned to Connect with God
III. Victory in the Heart
IV. Victory in the Personality
V. Victory at the End: Judgment, Salvation and Final Outcomes
Introduction
This article describes the interplay of spiritual forces in everyday human existence. Biblical language uses five terms to understand the invisible realities impacting human life, and three terms to understand human beings.
In the Bible the human soul is understood in much the same way as the modern world understands human personality... as mind, emotion and desire. All terms are discussed with regard to their interrelatedness.
The work of Jesus Christ is introduced as having profound and decisive impact on these relationships. Ways are described in which God operates in human beings invisibly but discernibly, and how humanity may then respond in ways which continue God's work in them begun. Such response leads to what is called in scripture "victorious life" and what we might call a personality in the process of redemption, or, in general religious terms, a soul in the process of salvation. Closing comments touch on the doctrinal issues of judgment, salvation, and final outcomes. The author is Episcopal Chaplain to the University of Florida. He may be reached at [email protected]
Biblical Anthropology and the Spiritual Life
This is not written for academic theologians or seminary students. This is written for people who are simply trying to make sense out of their lives and are wondering if the Bible would be of any help to them. The answer to this wonderment is yes... which is why the Bible is still the best seller year after year. This article will explain five central Biblical words as they relate to God and humanity, to Biblical psychological terminology, and to the ever present need to make helpful sense out of life as we live it. The Book of Common Prayer 1928, gathers these familiar Biblical terms together in the prayers for baptism. There we begin to see how closely they are interrelated. After reading this article you will understand them better and will hopefully find the understanding to be helpful to you in your daily living.
In the prayers for one being baptized a Christian (BCP 1928,) is this request: "Grant that he (or she) may have power and strength to have victory, and to triumph, against the devil, the world, and the flesh. Amen." Later in the liturgy after the actual baptism is this added request: "Grant you to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that, Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith, ye may be filled with all the fullness of God. Amen." Here there are five terms that will help you understand the Bible and Christianity, and will help you understand your life. They are:
1) the devil
2) the world
3) the flesh
4) the heart
5) God
These five terms identify invisible realities which the Bible consistently refers to as major forces operating in the lives of human beings. If we are not aware of these and do not understand how they relate to our everyday existence, then it is little wonder that we find ourselves perplexed by scriptural promises like "victorious life," "freedom in Christ," "being transformed into His likeness," and "entering into the Kingdom of Heaven." The common response to such perplexity is to assume that these promises are to be experienced in some future afterlife. Scripture however seems to indicate that these promises are to be experienced in this life, and the writers of the New Testament testify to such outcomes in their own lives. Both the Gospels and the Epistles were written by Christians who understood their lives in terms of the invisible forces listed above.
Forces in Human Experience
"What is going on here?" humankind has been crying out for millennia. From a Biblical point of view, this is an answerable question. What is going on is an encounter between human beings and forces that affect 1) their survival (life, death, quality of life), 2) their inner life (e.g., happiness, dullness, misery, confusion), 3) the outcome of their deepest desires (fulfillment, frustration, distraction, despair).
We are all aware that our lives are subject to impact by visible forces (people, animals, things). But there also are invisible forces (psychological, social, spiritual), which powerfully impact human life. The Bible is a great source of wisdom concerning both the visible and the invisible realities. Human effort over the greater part of history has characteristically sought to improve human life by attempting to understand, connect with, placate, control or cooperate with the invisible forces. These efforts have universally been expressed in some form of religion, for humans everywhere have intuitively sensed that the invisible world has a sort of primary and decisive impact on human life. For the past four hundred years, however, western civilization has mainly dealt with developing "the power and strength to have victory and triumph over" the visible forces. To be sure, through science and technology the standard of living has improved...we survive a bit longer and perhaps with less physical misery. And yet this fascination with the visible world has been a huge spiritual distraction it has diverted our attention from the invisible forces which are inexorably at work whether we are aware of them or not. Despite the claims of modernity, it is not at all apparent that humanity as a whole has advanced much psychologically, socially, or spiritually. Inattention to invisible realities makes us vulnerable to their power. This article deals primarily with those invisible forces: where they come from, what their power is, and how humanity can cope with them.
The Invisible Forces
Humankind has always experienced these invisible forces as either benevolent or malevolent, as bringing about good or as bringing about evil. Thus Judeo Christianity has generally understood their origin to be either from the devil or from God. While the Bible generally asserts that this is basically true, there is more complexity to the issue. As we shall see, forces for good and for evil operate invisibly in the spiritual realm, the social arena, and in the human personality.
Definitions of the Terms
1) the Devil... spiritual being organized against God...described in Scripture as a liar, a thief, a deceiver, a destroyer... a malicious benighted fiend, enemy of all that is good, all that is honorable, all that is true, all that is gracious, all that is lovely, all that is beautiful, all that is joyful, all that is peaceful, all that is excellent, all that is godly...understood in Scripture to be the Prince of the World (see below). It is very unsettling to think that we have an enemy who hates us for no reason other than that we are creations of God (and so we don't think about it), but this is the Biblical understanding...the devil's major access to humans is through the soul or personality...he works in the physical world mainly through the disorder of the Fall and impact of human culture.
2) "The World" is often used in scripture as a technical spiritual term...there it refers to the culture and its spiritual (interior) impact on the experience and behavior of human beings...this culture is a society, a human community of associations not organized for God, but for power (control) and security (wealth) ...all cultures are organized in this way, even though they may seem to be extremely religious...thus far no recorded culture (except perhaps ancient Israel at its best) has ever really sought first the Kingdom of God...without humanity seeming to notice, cultures and societies inexorably go in the direction of the Prince of the World... this may be hard to swallow, but it is the Biblical view... the culture we live in has a powerful formative impact on us, as obviously evidenced by the modern industries of advertising, computer technology and media communication... other people are also part of this culture in which we grow... the influence of our culture, our parents, siblings, peers, or people significant to us shapes in us a world view which invariably conflicts with the world view of the Bible. "The world" is a shorthand term for any non Biblical world view and the culture which supports it.
3) "The Flesh" is another technical term which points to the spiritually fallible and fallen individual soul... to be "fallen" refers to the invariable gap in human nature between our potential for love and goodness and our actual self centered and evil behavior... blessed by freedom, we transform it to a curse by our misuse of it... and ever since the Fall (which is Scripture's description of the human condition), unredeemed human personhood (what we would call "personality") is not organized for God, but for self... for survival, pleasure, security, self esteem, accomplishment... in some translations "flesh" (carnos) is helpfully translated "sinful nature" (NIV)... "the flesh" describes the human soul as unconnected to God (i.e. lost)... all evangelists seem in agreement with one another about this Biblical understanding: that it is the soul that needs to be saved...all that happens in the soul/personality is invisible, and yet in behavior, this inner world of humans becomes more observable... the invisible forces have access to the mind, emotion, and inclinations of the human soul... it is one of the battlegrounds of the spiritual realm.
4) The Heart is the deepest will of a person... it is the defining human core from which the action of a human life emanates... note: the heart is not to be understood as the emotions or feelings... these are part of the human soul or personality... the heart is rather the "inner man," who we really are deep inside, where our true tendencies are...Jesus confirms this view: "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." Our heart influences our personality, our personality produces our behavior, our behaviors create our culture (i.e., the world)...it is in our hearts that our freedom lies, and that is why the teaching of Jesus is so concerned with the heart...here we are free... here we can choose...in our hearts we can decide, if need be, against our own personality, against the invisible forces of the devil, even against the culture that has shaped and grown us... the heart of the matter for humans is the heart...this is where "conversion" happens...
5) God...everywhere understood in Scripture as the Creator of all that is, the Sustainer of the universe and all earthly life, the Supreme Spiritual Being, the beginning and ending of all things... God is revealed in the Bible as both great and good ... the Biblical God interacts with His creation as Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit... in each mysterious dimension of His Being, the Bible reveals God as the lover of Humankind, and the hater of Sin (which brings about the evil that is always destructive of human life and goodness)...the Bible reveals God as one who cherishes human beings and Who never stops working on their behalf and for their betterment...God's desire for humanity is that our personalities get redeemed, we that live victoriously in (but not of) the world, and that we become lovers of mankind who can ourselves destroy the works of the devil.
As we reflect on the terms above we see that human life has a hard row to hoe. So much seems to contribute to our tendency to be skewed toward evil and oriented away from God. Our very nature irresistibly inclines us toward selfishness and all its attendant evils. The culture (the "world") in which we naturally live and move and have our being, with its decidedly ungodly orientation profoundly and invisibly impacts far more than we are ever aware of. We can not escape being in the world any more than we can escape our fallen nature. We are so accustomed to the world that we rarely notice how locked in to its cultural presuppositions we are. To make matters worse, the Bible informs us that "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." The attitude of the inspired Biblical writers stands against the modern view that we are all "O.K." The great prophet Isaiah sums up the Biblical view by confessing, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips." Therefore, the Biblical evaluation of human life is that it is seriously flawed, hopelessly vulnerable, and requires Divine intervention.
A Biblical Example
A Biblical example of the importance and foundational nature of the terminology being described in this article is found at the very beginning of the Bible. There Scripture depicts in visible story form the interplay of the invisible forces at work in human life. In Genesis, chapters 2 and 3, we read the Biblical story of the Fall. This story is the first installment of the profound perspective of the Scriptures which we know as "salvation history." Briefly notice the cast of characters in this story. First, there is God who creates the garden, the creatures, and the man and woman. Then, there is Adam the man and Eve the woman. Their personalities are revealed as fallible and self seeking. They will unfortunately go the way of all flesh. They form for one another the first human culture (the world). Finally, there is the devil who is pictured as a subtle and crafty serpent. The scene unfolds: God who desires to be helpful to Adam and Eve gives them clear and crucial directions, but the devil counters those directions with a rendition of his own which appeals to the woman's flesh/soul/personality:
to her mind ("it will make one wise"),
to her feelings ("it was a delight to the eyes"),
and to her desires ("the tree was good for food").
The woman's flesh goes astray through the beguilement of the devil, and thus she assumes the role of the world (misdirected human community) to her husband and he, acting from his flesh, readily follows her lead. There you have it. The man and the woman did not have power and strength enough to triumph over the devil, the world, or the flesh. Therefore the man's and the woman's survival were of course severely impacted: their quality of life diminished, and despite what they were told by the serpent, they ultimately died. Their inner life was damaged: pain, relational conflict, physical misery ensued and they were driven from the presence of God. The outcome of their deepest desires were frustrated: they wanted goodness, delight, and wisdom, but estranged themselves from the very source of fulfillment. Here in the opening lines of the Bible we find depicted the interplay of forces which invisibly affect all humans throughout all time. Human life flawed and vulnerable has the obvious need of some sort of strong, benevolent and effective intervention. The New Testament is an account of that stunning intervention that began through the life, death, resurrection of Jesus. With his ascension, and in the coming of the Holy Spirit, humanity has become able to receive strength and power to live in this visible/invisible interplay victoriously, and to triumph over the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Encounter with Forces Invisible
Consciousness
In order to get a sense of the how the above Biblical scenario might be playing out in our own lives, think of your consciousness as a television screen upon which images appear in your awareness...picture four channels transmitting to this screen...realize that all four channels look and sound much the same...there are no icons identifying the channels... recognize that we implicitly trust all four channels... after all they are on our screen ...we are like the simple schoolboy who believes that because something got written in a book, it must be true...we may find this naiveté humorous, but the fact is that our consciousness unawares is being formed and informed by the four invisible forces described above: the world, the flesh, the devil, and God. Thoughts, feelings and desires come into our awareness and we naively assume they originate with us. As C.S. Lewis has pointed out, the devil plants evil thoughts in our minds and then condemns us for them. For these we need not repent, but rather resist... i.e. refuse to think them. Some evil contents of course do come from us, our flesh. These thoughts, feelings or desires need to be repented of. And we need to ask God to change our hearts in these areas. With regard to the input of the world, academic sociology and psychology are replete with study after study of the manipulation of the human psyche by social and cultural input. The phrase "garbage in, garbage out" comes to mind. Here we must take care that the "garbage in" phase does not occur. If it does, we must pray for God to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts and souls, for invisible bad apples will spoil our inner life.
In terms of this word picture, the key to fruitful living is obviously to begin to recognize God's channel and to be very cautious about any other thing on our screen of consciousness. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding from the mouth of God" (Jesus to the devil in the wilderness). The Bible is adamant about the Word of God as the way to life as it is best lived out, and familiarity with the Biblical content and intent enables us to actually discern where the contents of our consciousness are coming from. With competency in the Scripture we become able to sort out the complexity of our own consciousness.
Circumstances
We do not live life only in our awareness, but also in our experience. We not only want, think, and feel. We act. And we are acted upon. We may be cherished by those around us, or we may be abused. We may have an advantaged life style, or we may have almost unbearable difficulty (see Jesus' parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus). Circumstances can often be understood as due to previous observable causes, but not always. The Bible assumes and expects that invisible forces will influence circumstances. Our modern tendency is to try to understand everything as natural cause and effect. To think thus is to have a naïve and limited view of reality. While the Biblical writers clearly understand observable natural cause, the Bible never assumes that natural cause explains every human circumstance, or that every circumstance can be explained by human beings. Clearly, in Biblical thought the devil is actively involved in much that happens in human experience, either directly, or through the invisible impact of the culture, or through the interior fallenness of human nature. Much of the healing of Jesus has to do with invisible realities... sometimes he breaks the invisible attack of the evil one, sometimes he forgives the sin of the human one. Throughout, the Bible affirms and reports that God may actively involve Himself in both the awareness and the circumstances of humanity.
Confrontation with Evil
"What is going on here?" Invisible forces of darkness and evil intend to confuse us. Their effects, however, eventually surface and can be recognized... "An enemy has done this!" cries out the farmer in Jesus' parable of the weeds sown among the wheat. He recognizes that this is the work of evil, not of good. Jesus said, "By their fruits you shall know them." We may not be conscious of evil invisibly at work in our lives, but eventually its outcome in our circumstances will reveal it. We may find ourselves suddenly lost and confused, we may get sucked into sins, we may see the good formerly in our lives disappear, we may become filled with invisible pain and emptiness. We will find ourselves not able to do the good things that we want to do, and be shocked at ourselves when we do just the things we don't want to do.
Why are we surprised? This is simply the human condition the Bible repeatedly describes. We obviously need help with this. The Lord's Prayer implores God to "deliver us from evil." The Garasene demoniac tortured by invisible forces within him screamed at Jesus "Have you come to destroy us?" The answer to that is "Yes!" (I John 3.8 flatly says that "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.") From the Biblical point of view the obvious solution to our three most pressing problems in life is for Jesus to overpower evil forces (the devil) in our behalf, for the Holy Spirit to begin to transform our self centered personalities (the flesh), and for us to learn from God how to be in the culture (the world) but not of the culture.
Confrontation with Good
Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God, has come. As a Son of Man he sought out a confrontation with the invisible devil and with all his invisible evil spirits, demons, and minions of darkness. In the course of that conflict Jesus battled valiantly but ultimately appeared to lose. His life was wrecked, his friends deserted him, he was falsely accused, tried and sentenced. He was humiliated, tortured, crucified and died. In the midst of that observable horrible defeat, however, an invisible and unexpected victory was being won. As Son of God, Jesus Christ had taken on the invisible work of conclusively dealing with humanity's burden of sin. In the process of losing the battle to sin as Son of Man (he was one of us) He was taking upon Himself and into Himself (as Son of God) the burden of the "sins of the world." No matter how terrible the visible bodily suffering during his torture and crucifixion, (as for example depicted in the recent film The Passion) there can be no comparison to the horror occurring within Jesus, within his personality, his heart and his spirit, as his sinless inner being "became sin for us." This is the greatest of sacrifices, the definition of Divine Love, and the act which won back on the cross what was lost in the garden.
Thou art the King of glory, O Christ
Thou art the everlasting son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thyself to deliver man,
thou didst humble thyself to be born of a Virgin,
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come to be our judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants,
Whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy saints,
In glory everlasting. (Te Deum, BCP 1979 p. 53)
This great work Jesus took on is done: Jesus has overcome death, has opened the Kingdom of Heaven, and has delivered man from the power of sin. Jesus has destroyed the works of the devil. Yet Jesus has more work to do. We pray for His help in our present situation. He has redeemed us, yet there is more He desires to do for us. He has the authority to grant to us "power and strength to have victory" over the forces which affect our survival, our inner life, and the outcome of our deepest desires.
The New Testament writers all agree that accessing this work of Christ is the greater part of what life is all about. To understand how this may happen for human beings, we need to understand how the Bible understands human life.
Biblical Anthropology
Strictly speaking anthropology is the study of man. Anthropology comes from the word anthropos "man" and logos "study of." We think of the Bible as a revelation of God and His nature, but the Bible equally reveals to us with piercing accuracy a studied account of the nature of humankind. For the past four hundred years mankind has been increasingly understood as a duality: body and soul, or more recently body and mind. In distinct contrast to these views, the Bible understands human being as a trinity: body, soul, and spirit.
Definitions of the Terms
Body... this we have in common with other creatures... Judeo Christianity places high value on the body... it is to be regarded as the temple of God...while other religions may talk about the immortal soul, the Creeds speak of the Resurrection of the body... the body may have certain inclinations which dispose it to sinful behavior, but it is not thought of as an enemy...
Soul... in Biblical Greek the word for soul is "psyche", from which we of course get our discipline of psychology... the Greek and English agree in meaning here. Today we tend to call the soul 'the personality.' Psychology is the study of the soul. The Bible understands the soul to be a trinity:
1) the mind or intellect
2) the feelings or emotions
3) the desires
These three components of the personality are what in most cases dictate the observable behavior expressed through the actions of our bodies. We are in close touch with our souls: to greater or lesser degrees, we think the thoughts, we feel the emotions, we are moved by the desires. The problem for our souls from the Bible's perspective is that they are fallen. The technical theological term for the fallen soul in scripture is "the flesh." Thoughts, feelings and desires that originate from our flesh will be inevitably by tainted by selfishness. Modern advertising is built upon the fact that thoughts, feelings and desires can also be influenced powerfully by the culture. So that is a complication. Even worse, thoughts, feelings and desires also can and will arise in us from the evil one. The devil has access to our soul, and he plants weeds in our fields of awareness.
Spirit... this is a mysterious term... since it is not empirically observable, the modern cultures assume it does not exist... since we as individuals are not in touch with our own spirits, we assume that they do not exist...usually we think the spirit is just a synonymous term for soul...but this is not at all the case... Scripture understands that there are many spirits... there are human spirits, evil spirits, and there is the Holy Spirit (the spirit of God, the spirit of Jesus). Jesus said that "God is Spirit" and at least part of what it means to be made in the image of God is that humans are spiritual creatures. A very powerful way in which the love and presence of God comes to us is via the spirit God's spirit to our spirit.
The Importance of the Heart in the Spiritual Life
As we have mentioned the heart is considered to be of central importance in scripture. The heart is the interchange of action between spirit and soul. The heart is our personal key that unlocks the spiritual life. Repentance occurs in the heart. When Jesus first preached for people to repent, He was calling them to the spiritual life. One can be an extremely "religious" person and have no spiritual life at all. Repentance opens us to God the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is an act in the heart. Forgiving all others keeps us open to the spirit. From the other direction, when God's spirit connects with our spirit, God's grace flows first to our heart (the deepest will) and only then on to our soul. The personality is not transformed until the will is changed and the heart is rightly ordered. Because of this the Prayer Book Communion Liturgy always begins with the Collect for Purity "Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts O Lord by the inspiration (in spiriting) of your Holy Spirit."
Here's how the process of the spiritual life goes:
1) God's spirit connects with our spirit. We repent (i.e., turn toward God)
2) Spiritual grace flows to our heart cleansing it with regard to a particular issue or aspect of life (God's forgiveness) thus
3) The will of the inner man is turned in the right direction with regard to this issue or aspect. Here is where the work of man begins. Before him/her has been set the choices of spiritual life and death...we can choose our direction.
4) If we so choose, this right order flows up into our soul and our mind is changed, our emotions become appropriate and helpful, and our desires are altered...
5) This is a personality change which then may be expressed in our observable bodily behavior. We have become different. God has changed us, and we have played a part in it. This is the spiritual life.
How God's Spirit Connects with Us
Let's see how this may happen. Since we are largely unaware of our spirit, when God connects with us via the spirit we are not likely to be aware of it. This is an example of a benevolent invisible force working in us of which we are most likely not conscious. God, of course, is not limited to connecting in this way, but it is His most common way of working with us. Since we usually will not know when this is happening we may assume that it does not happen. But that would be an incorrect assumption. The Biblical view assumes that this spiritual connection from God can happen for believers and that it can happen consistently and powerfully. How can we know that this connection with God has taken place? Remember Jesus' parable of the weeds sown among the wheat. The farmer discovers the deed done in secret by observing appearance of the weeds. In the very same way, we discover the invisible work of God begun in our spirit by beginning to observe some unusually beautiful plants growing in our fields of awareness. Where did they come from? We see our thoughts beginning to turn away from ourselves and toward God and other people. We see our emotional responses to difficult life circumstances becoming more patient, more peaceful. We notice that our desire for personal affirmation is no longer driving our behavior as it once did. We actually behave in ways which are admirable. We ask ourselves, how is this happening? The insight comes to us: a Friend has done this invisible thing... and that Friend is the Spirit of God working invisibly in our spirit ("for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" Philippians 2.13). Jesus said, "By their fruits you shall know them" and when good fruit surprisingly starts appearing in our lives we shall know that the spirit of God had been at work in us, in our spirit. This is grace as it is experienced in the human personality. It is the Father rewarding in secret those who approach him in secret.
How We May Be Positioned to Connect with God
Approaching God in secret is one of the ways in which we position ourselves to receive grace from God. This is one way in which Jesus described prayer...it is an act of the invisible order. Prayer impacts our relationship to God, and positions us to begin to experience victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. As mentioned before, repentance and forgiveness open us up toward God. These are also acts of the invisible order. Reading and studying scripture, worship, fellowship, acts of kindness and generosity, obedience to God... all these are also helpful in preparing us to encounter God. And yet, it is not prayer, nor scripture, nor worship, nor fellowship, nor good deeds, nor almsgiving, nor dedication to ministry, nor all of these together which works the miracle of transformation in us... no! it is God sovereignly connecting with our spirit in the secret places of our inner being. It is very mysterious. Yet prayer, scripture, worship, fellowship etc. does position us to be open to God's spirit when He begins to work... Power and strength in the invisible world do not come to us as a result of what we do, but as a result of what God does. We are not filled by the "fullness of ourselves", but rather emptied of ourselves so that we might be filled with the "fullness of God".
WE CANNOT CAUSE THIS TRANFORMATION TO HAPPEN. WE CAN ONLY PREPARE OURSELVES FOR ITS HAPPENING. WE WILL NOT DEFEAT THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL BY OUR EFFORTS. BUT OUR EFFORTS WILL PREPARE US TO BE CONNECTED TO THE SPIRIT AND TO BE TRANSFORMED INTO VICTORY BY THE POWER OF GOD.
What will this victory look like?
VICTORY IN THE HEART
We can observe the victory of God in us beginning in our deepest will, our heart. We may notice that something is different within us... what we now want is different from what we have ever wanted before ... we seem to be caught in a gravitational pull toward the things of God... instead of personal happiness, we want personal goodness...instead projecting a certain image, we wish to be authentic... instead of being in control, we desire to be in obedience...instead of being bored by the Bible, we have a hunger to read scripture...instead of voracious need to be loved and affirmed, something in us wants to sacrificially love others, often those who seem most unlovable... there is something strange happening, and it is happening in us. Our hearts are inclined toward a different reality than we have participated in before. It is an astonishing thing, this victory of God in us. Yet, this should not be the end of the matter. When God wins some victory in us, it yet remains for us to express this victory in the world. What God does in us is something that is "not of the world", but what we then do in response is to be done "in the world." The work of God in us is not for us alone. God's work is like seed sown in us, meant to bring forth a harvest in the world. God comes to us so that we may bear fruit... remember the teaching of Jesus: "by their fruits ye shall know them."
VICTORY IN THE PERSONALITY
It's not a done deal... When God works, He works in our hearts. Our freedom is challenged then by whether we will carry this work on into our lives, and further, into the lives of others. The touch of God in our hearts can remain there to go no farther. It is up to us. Do not think that the Pharisee Saul, when confronted by Jesus on Damascus Road was overwhelmed in his personality. No! He remained free. And he had some choices to make. Some new realities had opened up to him, but he had to choose whether to move forward into those realities or not. He had thinking to do, thoughts to readjust, new feelings to take into account, old desires to follow, reconcile, or resist. True, the appearing of the Lord Jesus is a stunning experience, and yet as is apparent on every page of the Gospels, men and women remained free in the presence of Jesus. The Pharisee became the Apostle by implementing in his personality (soul) the work of God done in his heart. This he called "working out your salvation in fear and trembling." To do this is a life's work. As often as God's spirit comes to us, we are confronted with the challenge to act from our deepest will that our persons might be transformed. This is what is called the saving of the soul. The process of salvation (i.e., the spiritual life) is carried out by God's spirit in changing our hearts, and then by our choices which transform our character, our experience and our behavior. The Pharisee Saul was free to simply reject the experience on Damascus Road, but he did not. He adjusted his thinking with regard to Jesus, trusted his emotional response to Jesus, and allowed his previous desires to be transmuted by the experience of the grace of God in his deepest will. God did not change his thinking. Saul was to be responsible for that. Saul did not have to trust his emotional affect with regard to his vision. He could have rationalized it away, as Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol tried to do. Saul's plans did not have to change, but Saul himself changed them (having been inspired by the experience of God)! The point here is this. God works with people. God does his part... a part we are incapable of doing... and then we are to do what we can do. The spiritual life (i.e., salvation) is a partnership between God and man. Too often is preached the Gospel that Jesus did it all. What this actually means is that Jesus did all that He needed to do, and what He did was well beyond our capabilities. But there remain things for us to do, and Jesus will not do them for us. God through His Spirit inclines our hearts, but the choice is always ours. What awesome authority God has entrusted us with. "See I have set before you this day life and death. Therefore choose life that you may live." We will experience resistance when we are presented with choices from God. The culture in which we live will never encourage the life of faith. Of course, the powers of darkness will muster in alarm as one inclines toward the living out of the work of God. And our flesh...our mind, feelings, and desires have well established habits and customs which we are loath to change. So the salvation set before us does not automatically become a reality. There is always a battle...always difficulty... always the possibility that we will allow the work of God to be crowded out by the cares of the world, the lusts of the flesh, or the deceit of the devil. By continuing to seek the help of God, however, battles become winnable. The Christian faith has been passed down to us by those who have lived the spiritual life, experienced victory in the inner man, and led fruitful lives in the world. The very same difficulties we face, they overcame with the help of God.
Victory at the End: Judgment, Salvation, and Final Outcomes
Where does that leave us with respect to judgment? Judgment is a promise. So Christians are not exempt from judgment. My sense is that we Christians should welcome the judgment of God in this life if we are serious about seeking to live lives following Jesus. How will we know if we are headed right if we do not get feedback from God? As has been said, the judgment of God for Christians is convicting and clarifying, not condemning. Judgment is a serious reality check and gives us the opportunity to repent, confess our sins, get forgiven, and begin afresh in the spiritual life. Judgment is the invitation to grace in this world. Even if our hearts condemn us, scripture says, God is greater than our hearts.
Salvation is a process that takes place in us by the transforming power of the Spirit. It requires the acting of God within us, our reception of that action, our choosing to go forward with what God has begun, God's help in enabling a personality transformation to take place, and at last characteristic action of our own in the world consistent with the changes wrought within us. Once again, this is the spiritual life. People who live life in this way don't seem to get too hung up either with their final outcome nor with their present inadequacies. Both are to be given into the hands of God. Sin in their lives is a reality, as it is in all human life. But it is not the determining reality.
That there will be some final outcome is a promise of scripture. Christians believe this to be a future reality. But it is not the determining reality. The determining reality for them, of course, is this God who has created all things visible and invisible and who is present to them by His spirit, and whom they serve with their spirit, heart, soul and body, as an outcome of the spiritual life.
Serving God in our present lives becomes more possible when we understand that as Christians "we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places"... that is, against the world, the flesh and the devil.
The Rev. B.E. Palmer
January, 2005
