News

This month we are going to consider questions relating to the Biblical teaching about the Holy Spirit. As we begin to think about the topic, consider the following excerpt from James Boice and the importance of the Holy Spirit to our life EVERY RELIGION HAS A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF INTELLECTUAL CONTENT WHICH the follower of the religion presumably wants to get to know. But Christians face two specific dangers as they grapple with Christianity’s doctrines. On the one hand, they often become unduly subjective. Christian teaching concerns the nature of God and what he has done for our salvation through the death of Jesus Christ. But because this is both mind expanding and emotionally moving, these believers retreat from the hard work of understanding their faith intellectually and instead try to emphasize feeling and experience, sometimes to the point of detaching these from the work of God in history and even from the clear propositions of the Bible. When the experiences they seek are absent or at a low ebb, they try to work up spiritual feelings for God and fall prey to autosuggestion, circumstances or even the machinations of the devil who, we are told, at times appears to us as “an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). This emphasis is not always so extreme. Sometimes it is merely the assumption, often not entirely thought through, that a certain intensity of religious experience is necessary if one is to be saved. Certain kinds of revival meetings suggest this. Or, on a more sophisticated level, one might gain that impression from a book such as The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.1 This classic study of the psychology of religion attempts to reflect a wide breadth of experience and provide an impartial analysis. People may read this or another book like it and sense, perhaps wrongly, that they are not Christians simply because nothing of comparable intensity has occurred in their lives. The other danger is equally bad: an overly objective Christian faith. Someone may have vast amounts of biblical knowledge and even a certain intellectual assent and commitment to these truths, but still fail to be changed. There is faith. But it may be the kind of faith James speaks of when he says, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder” (Jas. 2:19). This danger is particularly present among conservative Christians. Harold O. J. Brown says, “Insisting as we rightly do upon the objective nature of the atonement and the effective nature of its application to individual human beings in salvation, we sometimes appear in danger of having a doctrine that is purely historical and judicial, without any believable, human dimensions in the time and space in which we live.… [We forget that] we are also in process, and sanctification, the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, is process” and must exist among us.2 How may we avoid these dangers? How shall we solve the problem of having both an objective revelation of God in history and a vital appropriation of that salvation? Left to ourselves there probably is no answer. But the Bible tells us that God has a solution. Just as the Father sent his Son to perform the objective, historical work of the atonement as the ground of our salvation, so also he sends the Holy Spirit to apply that manifold salvation to us personally. This is not one simple and indivisible act. Rather, it involves a series of acts and processes: God’s calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification. In each case the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ to us personally. This third section of the book deals with these processes and thus with the work of God’s Holy Spirit. As Calvin puts it in the title to the third major section of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, it means “the way in which we receive the grace of Christ, what benefits come to us from it, and what effects follow.”3 James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 372–374.

Something to think about regarding God's goodness from Millard Erickson, a pastor and theologian, ... "God’s benevolence, the actual caring and providing for those he loves, is seen in numerous ways. God even cares for and provides for the subhuman creation. The psalmist wrote, “You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing” (Ps. 145:16). Jesus taught that the Father feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field (Matt. 6:26, 28). Not a sparrow can fall to the earth without the Father’s will (Matt. 10:29). The principle that God is benevolent in his provision and protection is extended in the latter two passages to his human children as well (Matt. 6:25, 30–33; 10:30–31). While we may tend to take these promises somewhat exclusively to ourselves as believers, the Bible indicates that God is benevolent to the whole human race. He “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). Paul told the Lystrans that God “has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17). God inherently not only feels in a particular positive way toward the objects of his love, but he acts for their welfare. Love is an active matter." Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology., 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1998), 320.

Everyone who shares in our discussions together or online should keep in mind the following guidelines: 1. All conversations will reflect biblical values of love toward others and respect toward all men and women as sharing the image of God. 2. The focus of discussions will be seeking to further understand the Bible, the truth communicated in its pages, and the expressions of Christianity in history and should avoid personal political agendas for another format. 3. Personal agendas will not be allowed to control the flow of the discussion.  All discussions should have the intention of seeking out the truth and clarifying the meaning of the Bible. 4. Any discussion in person or online will not be allowed to diminish the ministry or doctrinal standards of Cumberland County Community Church or other ministries faithfully serving the Lord Jesus Christ.. 5. Our discussions and conclusions will recognize the final authority of the Word of God as inerrant in the original autographs under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and interpreted according to the standards of normal, historical, grammatical hermeneutics.