Unqualified Fulfilment in Christ by John R Gavazzoni

Several years ago, as of the date of this writing, brother J. Preston Eby, during a conference in which he delivered a message on the Word of God, spoke of his awareness that God was "fine-tuning" His Word in our day. I found that to be-- typical of our brother's ministry-- wonderfully expressive of a central feature of the Spirit's intense obsession with the purity and clarity of the Word of God. For years I have experienced the mighty, yet delicately skillful hand of God adjusting the knob on my own receiver.

Of course, though we are now becoming highly sensitized to this activity of God, it has been going on from the immediate moment after Eve heard the serpent say, "Hath God said...." For four thousand years God wrote, through the lives of men and women, an introduction to the Book of Life, the Book which is the multiplication and unfolding the Word of God, both being Christ Himself, and in that introduction, among other things, He highlighted the three feasts that Israel had been commanded to observe as types or shadows of the substantive work of God in Christ on our behalf.

As many who read this message know, it became standard teaching in most of the evangelical world that the feasts of Passover and Pentecost had been historically fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ, with the immediate confirmation of that fulfillment in the transformed lives of the Lord's disciples as they passed from death to life, from cowardly inconsistency to faithfully testifying to the Truth, their Lord Jesus.

But after centuries of the corrupting of the Word of God, it came to be held that the Feast of Tabernacles awaited fulfillment some day up in heaven. That was, of course, part and parcel, of the perversion of the gospel, a perversion that claimed that missing hell and gaining heaven were central to the intention of God's saving grace in Christ. The "hell" of that scenario was a religious invention, and the "heaven," a fanciful product of the imagination of men.

God set about to correct such nonsense and brought about, among other things, the beginning of seeing Tabernacles in a different and better light. Ministers of the Word began to proclaim that Tabernacles was to be fulfilled on earth relative to the manifestation of the sons of God through whom God would deliver creation from its bondage to decay. This was now more clearly seen, as a matter of heaven coming to earth, rather than escaping earth to get to heaven. But this was the beginning of a correction that would reach the point of fine-tuning that brother Eby spoke of.

It was conceded that there was a sense in which the Reality of what Tabernacles pictured was already in process, but, by and large, the fulfillment was considered to be something in the future. My understanding of the writings of dear men of God who were used in that phase of correction, is that they considered there to be a perfect provision by Christ for the fulfillment whose consummation was yet to come, but they would not say, unequivocally, that Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles had all been fulfilled in Christ. This somewhat skewed perspective of the relationship of provision and fulfillment really affected the understanding of all three feasts.

The thought seemed to be that Christ had made provision for fulfillment, but not effected fulfillment itself. Provision for fulfillment and fulfillment itself took on a certain separateness. Please note this principle: Provision proceeds out from fulfillment, not visa versa. I must repeat: Fulfillment does not proceed out from provision, rather our provision in Christ grows out of God's already accomplished and continuing fulfillment in Him.

The feasts of Israel are included in the law; in fact the content of the first five books of the old testament is what is meant by "the law" by the writers of the new testament, and any properly instructed person, especially any Israelite understood that to be so. The law consisted of the record of actual historical incidents.

It's very nature belongs to the dimension of that which is "about" God and His people, while all the time pointing back into the heart of God and forward to the mission of Christ, which are the Substance, Reality and Actuality of that about which the law speaks. I could, for instance, write a book "about" our marriage of forty six years, but the marriage itself is the thing, not the book.

Consider this, if you will, that the fulfillment of the types in the Old Testament, including all three of Israel's feasts, were completely fulfilled in the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection and glorification of our Lord Jesus, with us in Him. Oh, Lord, fine-tune this to our hearts for there is still much essential confusion. Either He fulfilled the law, all of it, or He didn't, and of course, by fulfilled, I mean that His Person and accomplishments were the Reality of all that had previously simply been shadow and type. In short, and to rephrase, His human experience was the substance of all that had been foreshadowed.

What I'm getting to is that we are not looking forward personally or corporately to the promises of God inherent in the types and shadows of the law becoming fulfilled. We are proceeding from a complete fulfillment of the entirety of the law in the Christ event from incarnation to glorification. That's what the three feasts pointed forward to. But, I'll grant you, this creates what I've called an almost intolerable intellectual tension, for just where does our experience as the historic people of God, or lack of the same, individually and corporately. with all the accompanying apparent contradictions fit in?

While participating in an Internet forum along these lines, I underwent a flashback to wrestling with this years ago. I'd been disciplined by the Lord to always keep foremost in my thinking the perfecting of our Lord by the things which He experienced and the things that our Father accomplished through Him as my ultimate reference point regarding truth, so I've had to take the high ground, so to speak, of an already, fully accomplished eternal purpose in Him, and from there to extrapolate to the true meaning of our earthly experiences.

I had seen God's perfect Son from eternity, confirm His completeness in space-time, and had seen that we all have been, and continue to be included in that perfected Personhood. I saw that what Paul meant by His beloved expression, "in Christ," was that all that Christ is, all that the Father accomplished through Him, and His relationship to the Father all accrued to us in union with Him. We are indeed heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

During the course of the aforementioned Internet discussion greater clarity came to me from the Spirit as I realized that Christ had eternalize every moment of His aeonian experience so that the Christ event, belongs to eternity now. Let me explain: Eternity invaded time in the Person of our Lord, and time was raised up into the eternal by Him. He totally sanctified and eternalize the human experience in Himself, so that when we experience any or all of the elements of His human experience which are now in the Spirt, though it seems to be on a linear time-line, it is not really a matter of some elements having been fulfilled and others requiring further experience on our part before we can say that they're fulfilled (whether we're talking about events or growth), but that all of our experiences of Christ through the filling of the Spirit belong to the eternal moment, that moment in which all things have been made new.

We are having our eyes opened, not to what still awaits fulfillment, but to the presence of the already completed New Man in the eternal Day of the Lord, which is Christ, Himself, and us in Him. Does that mean that we must deal with the contradictions that plague us forever? Does that mean that there is no experiential consummation? Absolutely not. What is happening is not the substance of the feasts still coming into being linearly, but a demonstration linearly of what already is in the eternal moment, that moment of the fullness of the times when eternity and time were made one in our Lord, when God sent forth His Son, born of a woman. And when I say, "eternity," I mean God, Himself, for He is Eternity.

That's why Paul could say that God causes us always to triumph in Christ. Wow, no hedging there, no qualifying compromise. No chipping away at the edges of Reality in order to make room for present appearances. Always caused to triumph. The swallowing up of death, an accomplished fact in the death and resurrection of Christ is always being demonstrated in us and death's lie will be accorded a place as long as the Lord wants to extend the linear demonstration.

With whatever is involved, the manifold wisdom of God is being played out before an audience of principalities and powers, a symphony, as it were, building to an awesome crescendo. The Reality is appearing over and over again in history, but what is appearing is not something that has not yet been, but what IS in I AM. The lie of un-fulfillment is daily being exposed by the fire of God in us. I hope I don't sound like I'm floating around in esoteric space, but it really has resonated with me when I've heard brethren say that there's a sense in which our someday expectations are a kingdom/sonship equivalent of rapture in the bye and bye.

Recently after ministering this truth at a conference, a dear mother in the faith came to me with an enthusiasm that belied her eighty plus years and she said to me that here is where she had taken her stand, here is the only place where she had found the rest that belongs to the people of God. There was a awesome fierceness about her demeanor, behind that face lit with the glory of God. The devil and his demons wanted nothing to do with the fire in her eyes as she made her magnificent confession of faith. So be it.

Much Love

John R Gavazzoni

Here is the index of his writings
http://greater-emmanuel.org/jg/jgindex.html

FOT10 A Change of Priesthood - The Feast of Pentecost

"If we were called to just live a renewed human life, the Feasts of the Lord could happily stop at the Waving of the Sheaf of First Fruits. But we are not."from FOT9.

1 Peter 2: ^9-10But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.
^11-12Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they'll be won over to God's side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives. The Message
⁹and ye [are] a choice race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired, that the excellences ye may shew forth of Him who out of darkness did call you to His wondrous light;

¹⁰who [were] once not a people, and [are] now the people of God; who had not found kindness, and now have found kindness.

¹¹Beloved, I call upon [you], as strangers and sojourners, to keep from the fleshly desires, that war against the soul,

¹²having your behaviour among the nations right, that in that which they speak against you as evil-doers, of the good works having beheld, they may glorify God in a day of inspection.same thing Youngs Literal

At this point everything is going to change.....
which is a phrase similar in effect to the 60s Gerry Anderson Puppet series

"Anything could happen in the next half hour."

Up until now you have a certain image of yourself.
You've been convicted in various ways about your need for God. He has come into your life in an amazing way.Maybe you have begun sharing about your newfound faith.
In some ways there have been both internal and external changes going on, but broadly
you are carrying on

• thinking about your self and who you are much the same,

• it's just that there has been this added dimension to your life of faith that you didn't really know existed before.
  

Then Jesus interrupts your existence with yet more incredible truths....
Though you have always thought of yourself as a soul, and that is all,
it turns out you are primarily a spirit being with a soul and personality, inside the mechanics of a body.
There are things about you ,you a) didn't know at all from your secular environment or b) have learned wrongly in environments that do make use of the supernatural, like witchcraft, voodoo, horoscopes,ouija boards,tarot readings etc etc or wrong religions. Or more recently have been referred to as strong psychic or soul powers.
Proverbs 20 :27 the spirit or breath of man is Yahweh/Jehovah's lamp searching all the inner parts of the heart Youngs Literal Translation
Romans 8:

²⁶( In the same way, )the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.NIV
- the Spirit doth help our weaknesses; for, what we may pray for, as it behoveth [us], we have not known, but the Spirit himself doth make intercession for us with groanings unutterable,....Youngs Literal Translation
The first churches in the New Testament were not like today's churches. They were formed with leadership coming from men who knew they had "died" and their new identity was in Christ. They knew , in the case of the 12 apostles when the Holy Spirit was breathed into them by Jesus in the upper room, and when the Holy Spirit had been fully released upon them in the baptism of the Holy Spirit that occurred in Acts 2. St Paul had a combined experience when at his conversion he had hands laid on him. There was ONLY this type of supernatural Christianity. Now many today claim supernatural Christianity, but there are many leaders who know little of the sort of Spirit and Word training the apostles had with Jesus for 3 years. And yet THIS is the PRECISE task and office that the Holy Spirit is commissioned to do. The devil's work has been to both blind us to this , so we end up blocking it, or if we do actually experience a kind of Baptism in the Holy Spirit, it is laid on top of a poor spiritual foundation, which effectively denies that "we have died, and it is not us who now live, but Christ (FUSED AS ONE) with our spirit, our old man having completely died at the Cross."
This denial is what Jesus referred to as building ON SAND, and not ON ROCK.

The Feast of Pentecost and the Inundation of the Holy Spirit's power, the clothing of His Power, GOD ON FLESH, is God empowering us to function as priests, as a priesthood nation. It is Christ the Anointed One.Christ means Anointing.
When Christ ascended on high to sit at the right hand of God the Father and there to rule and reign UNTIL He made all His enemies His footstool, He was anointed by the Holy Spirit to do so.His High Priesthood as it is now is described in the later chapters of Hebrews using the term the Melchizedek Order.

Now the reason we have had to retrace our steps as the Body of Christ to celebrate again the Waving of the Sheaf of Firstfuits, is so that the Holy Spirit could further lead us into ALL TRUTH. He had to put the whole movement across the Earth on a better footing. As the Pillars were again being exported from the Heavenly Building Supply Depot for the work ahead during all the 1900s, they were unfortunately being driven into sandy soil. The Holy Spirit Contractor was insisting that BUILDING ON SAND is not going to work, and so has spent the last years since the Word of Faith Movement, creating an extreme dissatisfaction in the saints, nay nausea.... characterised in people like myself withdrawing from the initial glory we had experienced as the people of God. In more recent years this has been characterised also by Darin Hufford and Daniel and Heidi Venie.

ALL OF US ARE TO BE BUILDERS ON ROCK. Our building process is OUR spoken confession of what we SEE internally by revelation in what Christ has already performed for us.

The Anointing Oil of Pentecost is Jesus Anointing Oil at the Righthand of the Father. Except that He is the Head of the Body, and the oil starts at the Head and trickles down "the collar of His robes Ps133" down the rest of His Body which is Us.

Please dont think YOU have to struggle and strive and screw up your eyes and faith to get anointed as a SEPARATE BEING. No wonder you've had problems struggling and striving. Our Life is Hidden in Christ.
The Anointing you will receive comes because it's been tipped all over Jesus Head.
When Jesus was raised from the dead the Spirit quickened LIFE in His Body and it was raised a NEW BODY that could walk through walls. But, as we , the whole human race DIED with Him spiritually on Golgotha, our spirits lay dead in Hades with Him. The Holy Spirit quickened us IN HIM, and raised us to a position at the right hand of God the Father in Him. Baptism in the Spirit occurs because it was and is the Anointing oil of the Melchisedek Priesthood, which now being IN CHRIST we share. The task of ruling and reigning as priests. Christ's present mission of bringing everything VISIBLY under His feet that He may present it to the Father, this whole operation, is based on the total victory Jesus won against the Devil , death and hell, and His having brought into existence a totally new priesthood to carry out His instructions and plan on earth.
Evangelicals' theology of Jesus returning to do the job for us had to be totally overturned by Ern Baxter, and other leading authorities in the Body like De Vern Fromke.
But Pentecostals and Charismatics had to be totally reducated WHY they are priests, where the Anointing Oil comes from, and WHOSE it is.

Baptised into Moses 1 Cor:10
¹ For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. ² They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. ³ They all ate the same spiritual food ⁴ and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. ⁵ Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
This was the Old Testament equivalent experience of BEING BAPTISED into Christ.
I have to spell this out, for many believers have their own imagination of the phrase BAPTISED into Christ.
They think something akin to the Laver experience. The experience I have described above of our inclusion in Christ's death, which IS in fact the basis for all that follows.

The reason I am highlighting "baptised into Moses" is because this has a "jarring" effect on the limitations of the phrase of our "individual baptism into Christ.". Because what I am about to describe is relevant to THIS POST and not to the post about the Laver, or Francois DuToit's Mirror version of the Bible.
I believe "baptised into Moses" is a corporate experience the the Israelites had. They believed and obeyed completely by faith, the instructions of the I AM through this man Moses. The act of following him through the sea, being baptised LITERALLY into the corporate plan of God for His people, no holds barred, no turning back, following UNIQUELY the Pillar of Fire and Pillar of Cloud as a people, was to them a different kind of baptism. It has to do with Priesthood. It has to do with what Pentecost births in us.

We are BAPTISED not just into a Personal Christ. For this we didnt need the full on Power of the Holy Spirit's inundation. No, we need the full on HolySpirit Baptism to baptise us into the Corporate experience of BEING the Body of Christ here on earth. Of Being a co-race of Priests, who begin to operate IN and UNDER the Headship of the Son Now.
Before the Baptism in the Spirit, we had our own names. We were Baptists, Methodists,Anglicans,Free Believers. After the Baptism of the Holy Spirit we "see" only the Body of Christ. We see God stuff. We are never again interested in the externals, because , now seeing INTERNALS as clear as we see Xrays at hospital, we KNOW what is internal is going to become external anyway.

This is our entrance CORPORATELY into a new way of life. We actually enter the next stage of the Tabernacle, which is the Holy Place, there to function as priests. The manner of our meeting together changes completely OVERNIGHT. There is "no natural light" in the Holy Place. It is lit only by the candlestick. It is nolonger good ideas. Our planned structures. Our own vision and agenda. "Here a little , there a little, with stammering lips..." Christ puts together the whole vision , layer upon layer into our spirit.
After we are baptised in the Holy Spirit, God doesn't put us into some inferior Holy Place until we've passed our priest exams. We begin to function immediately in the REAL THING. This is also how it was for the disciples. Virtually from the word go they were sent out to ministry. To proclaim what they now believed. to get them used to ministry in the Spirit.
When we start, our experience is in ,out, and all over the place, but our Holy Spirit input is not inferior, it's just that we need to be ESTABLISHED in our priest walk. Our corporate experience together is that we have to maintain the Unity of the Spirit until we attain to the unity of the faith. This means there is a place where our faith grabs us, and won't put us down. It is an inner place where we are seeing God only in all things. We are seeing with a "single " eye. UNTIL we each get here, any permanent unity is hopeless and unmanageable, just as until the spokes of a wheel are all properly embedded between wheel rim and hub, that wheel is absolutely unusable....but once every spoke is in its proper position, strength and use come automatically to the whole wheel.
The Counterfeit
As if to prepare for this post, in the last few days we have been discussing the counterfeit priesthood as outlined in Frank Viola's 5th chapter of Pagan Christianity. This traces the history of where things went off track. The fake is entirely supported through tithes, but imposed from the top down as a kind of salary.
This malpractice supports a whole edifice of wrongdoing. It sets apart a whole human priesthood that has nothing to do with Spirit and Word as a basis. Living by faith from gifts , offerings, and even the work of our own hands is the Spirit way of running His work. Just as when we see the fields are white unto harvest we dont rush out and programme operations, but we pray to the Father who thrusts out workers....so doing things the right way financially puts the necessary spoke in the wheel to human endeavours to keep flesh from controlling the Spirit...or trying to do so.
It is the Holy Spirit who sets apart ministry. And ONLY in the context of every member ministry anyway.
Chapter Five, and also the whole of Jack Fortenberry's book "Corinthian Elders" explains clearly how
there is ONLY GRACE in God's work for doing things God's way.

One man church leadership, the false view that a pastor runs the show, is actually inviting demons in to crush the pastor personally under the burden of all the work he feels he must carry out, and it is inviting in demons of jealousy and malice among believers who are now excluded from doing anything other than overhead projection or loo cleaning, because of the pyramid structure, and their only means of getting on within is to topple the pastor, who was never given this role anyway by the Holy Spirit. In the local body are many pastors and teachers, and it is Jesus Christ who leads every church, as discerned by all the Body in the Spirit, and guided by mature believers who themselves by practice have trained their senses to discern good from evil.
Love and War

• Love. Our priesthood is not duty-based. A clue is God's First commandment. Deuteronomy 6 ^:4`Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God [is] one Jehovah;

⁵and thou hast loved Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might,Youngs Literal Translation

The experience of the Baptism in the Spirit releases the Spirit such that we learn how to approach God, to love on Him, to wait on Him, to delight ourselves in Him. One of the biggest single things the Holy Spirit loves to do in leading us into all Truth is to "take what is mine (Jesus speaking) and show or reveal it unto you." He shows the secrets of the Kingdom. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear,respect,give value to,reverence Him.
All this is wheels within wheels, and those wheels are LOVE. For the Spirit teaches His people according to the arc shape that is embedded in the Lord's Prayer itself, how we as a BODY enter the heavenly Tabernacle and go right through the Holy Place and into the Holiest Place. IN EXPERIENCE. WHEN WE GATHER. If there are any who read Spanish, read Congregados Para Darle Gloria by Jorge Pradas. Free PDF of his book.So if the first work of the Spirit is to FORM the priest, the next work of the Spirit, and this begins at once, is to teach the priest how to function. How faith operates and how the weapons of Ephesians 6 are used. This is deepened later, but in microcosm, everything you will ever learn will in a real sense come out from these first experiences as a priest of the Most High.

• War. If worship comes alive as never before, almost the first thing after that is an immediate awareness of what we just never were able to see before. The devil is real and he is actively resisting the work and plans of God. As long as we were "locked" in our day to day form of thinking, and had not handed the "control" of our thought life , and the rest of our bodies and lives to God, as in Proverbs 3:5-12, so the Spirit of God was not allowed to release the whole of us into the sense of this New Heavenly Kingdom.
• The Holy Spirit "trains our hands for war". War in the Spirit. He teaches us to battle through on the basis of what God has spoken into our hearts as a promise and not what we "see with our eyes".

Every meeting.
Every day of our lives.
Like the puppet introduction, we literally have no idea of the power of our priesthood to be exercised in the Earth. Literally "Anything can happen in the next half hour!."
One of the biggest things God is speaking anew to His people is a new respect for the role of the priestly Body of Christ in the Earth...for if Christ cannot operate through His Body...
NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.... and history will extend. But we are told that WE CAN HASTEN HIS COMING. The Church literally has hardly any idea that the whole of history AWAITS THEM. One brother in Emsworth (Graham Kemp) put it....."If things don't change, they remain exactly the same!!!!"
Some examples I've lived through (yesterday on Facebook)
Even now there is an authority vested upon those who are really God's that is, frankly terrifying. I am not writing this, like i've got any power...God's power could just as easily be turned loose against Me if I wilfully choose. God says He raises up nations and puts down nations for the sake of His people whom He loves. In my lifetime this is what I have seen. I have seen Mother Basilea Schlink shake the living daylights out of Mao Tse Tung who was assembling his troops to conquer Europe. She did this in the Spirit. next thing we know Kissinger and Nixon are visiting Mao for a cuppa tea!. I have seen Polish Roman Catholic prayer groups in houses all over their country bring down the Iron Curtain without any bloodshed. I personally have been witness to The Yorkshire Ripper's whole operation being shut down suddenly and in an instant by the people of God. I have seen a father in my congregation give his bone marrow to his 12 year old with leukaemia, then 5 years later the healed son give it back to his Dad. The Dad only died eventually because of radiation therapy!!! a few years ago...neither died from leukaemia. They were on every channel in the world because no one anywhere had given bone marrow two ways. I have seen Tony Fitzgerald's wife about to die in a Brighton hospital commanded whole at 11am in an Emsworth meeting at the highpoint of anointing in worship, and at precisely 11am she was healed. I have seen the whole Body in Emsworth activated to bring healing to a member who spent all day every day paralysed on her back in a darkened room. I was given two breakthrough commands in meetings. But nothing happened for months.Another sister Norita was used by God to bring a lot of the practical breakthroughs...but all sorts of people had roles. The authority of Jesus upon His people is truly frightening, and people who play religion are putting their lives in such danger. God stuff is the most real stuff in the universe. One time we held praise meetings in a public hall in Emsworth, and the person I met years later said she could not hold her yoga classes in there the next day. I could write a book, well the whole church could....

Feast of Tabernacles - George H. Warnock

CHAPTER 5 - FEAST OF PENTECOST

The Feast of Pentecost was the second of Israel's three annual Feasts. As the Scriptures reveal, the Feast is also called the Feast of Harvest, of Firstfruits, or of Weeks. Pentecost is the New Testament name, and is so called because Pentecost means "fiftieth." An examination of Lev. 23:15, 16 will reveal why the Feast is called Fiftieth. It was because the Feast began on the fiftieth day after the Passover sabbath, or "the morrow after the seventh sabbath." This, of course, parallels exactly with the fulfillment of the type in the New Testament. When Christ arose from the dead, He continued with the disciples for the space of forty days, "speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." (Acts 1:3). Then He departed into Heaven, and after ten days (at the time of Israel's Feast of Pentecost), He sent forth the Holy Ghost upon the waiting disciples.

THIS IS THE AGE OF PENTECOST

Pentecost! What a vast subject looms before us as we contemplate the tremendous implications of the word! Many books have been written on the power and glory of this Feast, and men who have appropriated in some measure the experience of Pentecost have proved by the Word and by experience its reality, and the Word has been confirmed with signs following. We could not begin to adequately explain the meaning of the Feast in this study, nor is it our intention to do so. Our prime concern is to prepare to ground for truth concerning the Feast of Tabernacles, which surpasses the glory of Pentecost even as the noon-day surpasses the glory of early dawn. How strange, it seems, that good men of God who have discerned by the Spirit the fulfillment of Passover and Pentecost in the Church, should now close the door to further revelation and deny that the last Feast has any application to our day and age! At the turn of this century, when God began to restore pentecost--and right up to the present time, many evangelical circles have gone to considerable trouble in an attempt to prove that Pentecost was an event of ancient history, and that its power and glory were not for present-day experience. But a large group of hungry souls have proved by the Word and by experience that Pentecost was and is for personal appropriation by faith, just as the Passover was. Therefore let us not stop at the Passover; but let us go on to enjoy the fruits for which Christ died, even the glories of Pentecost. And let us not stop at this partial restoration of Pentecost, but let us go on to enjoy the fullness of the Pentecostal experience as recorded in the Book of Acts. And even then, let us not stop at the fullness of Pentecost, but let us go on to appropriate and experience the glories of the Feast of Tabernacles--for which Pentecost has paved the way.

Even among the saints who are hungering and thirsting for more of God there is a tendency to believe that a restoration of early apostolic Pentecost is the hope of the Church, and many will be satisfied with a return of apostolic power and blessing. True, we have a long way to go yet to equal the power and glory of the early Church; but that power and glory is by no means the sum and substance of genuine Christianity. That was Pentecost in the early hours of dawn; the Church must go on to the Pentecost of the noon-day sun; and then on, and on, and on to the Feast of Tabernacles, which will utterly eclipse the glory of any people in any past dispensation. Of course, we must enter into this glorious experience one step at a time. And we will certainly have to enter fully into the glory of Pentecost before we can hope to enter the glory of Tabernacles. Our generation has had a foretaste of Pentecost, that is true. But we have by no means seen the fullness of the Pentecostal experience, as recorded in the Book of Acts, when tongues like as of fire came down and sat upon each of the disciples, and they were given the ability to speak the languages of all nations.

But thank God, He is continuing the great work of restoration which He began in the days of Luther. The former foundations must be relaid, the gates re-established, and the walls of the Temple re-erected. "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept: line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: for with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear." (Isa. 28:10-12).

An examination of the passages concerning the typical Pentecost are most enlightening, especially in view of the real spiritual Pentecost in the New Testament. Having a historical record of the actual fulfillment of the Feast, it is comparatively easy for us to look back into the type, and see exactly what it was intended to signify.

PENTECOST WAS A NEW FEAST

"Ye shall offer a new meat (meal) offering unto the Lord." (Lev. 23:16). The Passover was wonderful--and an experimental appropriation of the Passover produces pardon and justification from all our sins. But that is really a negative experience: the old is taken away, sins are forgiven, the past life is forgotten, and the sinner is left with a clean record before God and ready to start a new life. In conformity with this happy state, therefore, the God of grace and glory invites the justified man to receive a new experience in the Holy Spirit, whereby he can offer a "new... offering unto the Lord." He is invited to drink into God's Spirit, and be baptized with the Holy Ghost. In justification he is pardoned; in this new experience he is empowered for service. The early disciples were cleansed by the Word which Jesus had spoken unto them during His earthly ministry. (Jn. 15:3). Furthermore, on resurrection day "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost." (Jn. 20:22). The original Greek of the word "receive ye" proves conclusively that right there and then the Spirit of God entered into the disciples--and that imparted life brought them into the experience which we call regeneration or new birth. Just as truly as God in the beginning breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life and man "became a living soul,"--so now the Last Adam (who had now become, by virtue of His death and resurrection, a "life-giving Spirit"--1 Cor. 15:45)--so now the Last Adam breathed into the disciples the breath of spiritual life, and they passed experimentally from death unto life.

This experience, however, was not sufficient by way of equipping them for the great and mighty tasks which lay just ahead of them; and so the Lord "commanded that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." (Acts 1:4, 5). And so they tarried in Jerusalem for the "promise of the Father," and after ten days the Holy Ghost came down upon them, and literally revolutionized their whole concept of life and service by transforming weak and humble vessels into the mighty apostles of truth and power and authority.

PENTECOST WAS A HARVEST FEAST

In one instance it is called "the feast of harvest." (Ex. 23:16). It was so called because they had just completed the harvesting of their grain. The sheaf had already been waved before the Lord fifty days before, heralding the coming of the harvest; and now the harvest time had come. And what a tremendous harvest there was! Peter preached his dynamic sermon under the "dunamis," the "power" of the Holy Ghost, and some three thousand souls were added to the disciples. A few days later there was another harvest, and we are told "the number of the men was about five thousand." (Acts 4:4)--to say nothing of the hundreds or thousands of women and children who also must have believed at the same time. The revival continued with ever-increasing power from day to day, "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." (Acts 5:14). Great and mighty signs and miracles were wrought amongst the people, until--in very short order--Jerusalem, and then Samaria, and then the uttermost parts of the earth literally rocked under the mighty impact of the Holy Ghost through His anointed ministers. Truly the Day of Pentecost was a great Day... but the Day is not finished yet... that was but the dawning of the Day. We have yet to witness the noon-day splendour of the Feast of Pentecost.

PENTECOST SIGNIFIED THE FORMATION OF THE BODY

"Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord." (Lev. 23:17). The loaves of bread would speak to us of God's people in union with Christ. "For we being many are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread." (1 Cor. 10:17). The number "two" is quite significant in that it refers to Christ in the fullness of His Body. It would be interesting to follow the meaning of the number "two" through the Scriptures. There is Adam and Eve, two and yet, one,--Eve being the complement, the likeness, the counterpart of Adam. Then there is the sun and moon--the latter being the glory of the former, having no light of its own. Then there were two rows of bread on the table of shewbread in the holy place of the tabernacle; and the two tables of stone in the ark of the covenant--the law written first on the heart and mind of the only begotten Son, and finally on the heart and mind of His people. Then there were the two trumpets that were used for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps. And so we read concerning Christ and His Body, that He died and rose again that He might "make in Himself of twain one new man." (Eph. 2:15).

Hence in the "two" loaves of this new meal-offering we have the completion of this new Body of believers known as the Church, wherein all the believers were "made... one" by the grace and Spirit of Christ. (Eph. 2:14). The grain had been harvested, and now instead of a sheaf we have two loaves, a body of believers. The loaves were "baked with leaven" because from the time of Pentecost right until now, the Church of Christ has never been really free from division, sectarianism, and carnality. How wonderful it is to know that God knew exactly what the Church would be like throughout her long history, and made the type to fit accordingly!

PENTECOST SIGNIFIES THE GATHERING OF THE FIRSTFRUITS

Pentecost signifies a great harvest, that is true. But compared to the coming glory, it is really but a harvest of firstfruits. "The feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours..." (Ex. 23:16; Lev. 23:17). And so Christ as the Sheaf that was waved, was the "firstfruits" of a great harvest to follow. Pentecost is that harvest. But even the harvest of Pentecost is the firstfruits of the coming harvest of the Feast of Tabernacles! Pentecost is wonderful, as we shall discover--when the real fullness of this experience is restored to the Church. But wonderful as it is, Pentecost is but the firstfruits of great and mighty things awaiting the Church of Jesus Christ in the Feast of Tabernacles.

PENTECOSTAL POWER

If there was to be a great ingathering of souls at Pentecost then truly it would require the power of the Holy Ghost to accomplish so great a task. Therefore God imparted not only great miracle-working power, but a new language to the people--that men of all nations might hear the wonderful works of God proclaimed in their own tongue, and be won to Christ. This was a day when a "new meal-offering" was to be presented to the Lord; hence God imparted a new language. See what a great secret remained locked up in the counsels of God until the Day of Pentecost was revealed! For if it was God's plan that the nations should at first be scattered abroad over the face of the earth by means of the confusion of languages--why should it be thought incredible that God should now restore the gift of languages to His disciples, that they might preach the Gospel in the tongues of many nations, and reverse the order (or shall we say the disorder) of Babel? And that is exactly what the all-wise God did. In the beginning He confused the languages of the disobedient, to scatter them over the face of the earth and make many nations out of one. (Gen. 11:1-9). But now in the time of the harvest, God in grace and wisdom imparts to His own disciples the gift of languages (languages which came into being because of Babel), that He might gather together a people for His name, and create one holy nation out of the midst of many nations--a nation that would serve Him in obedience and love and unity, even the holy nation and the holy priesthood of the Church. (Some would object to the statement that God gave His disciples the gift of languages to preach the Gospel to the nations. They insist that the disciples declared "the wonderful works of God," and not the Gospel! As if there was a more "wonderful" work of God than the story of redeeming Grace!)

And so the pattern of Pentecost takes on real meaning. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come (was being fulfilled), they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind (a violent impetuous blowing), and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language." (Acts 2:1-6).

THE DISORDER OF BABEL REVERSED

Notice the contrast between Pentecost and Babel. There the Lord did "confound the language of all the earth," but here at Pentecost harmony is restored by the gift of languages, and the people are "confounded." At Babel the people were "confounded" because they could not understand the language of their own fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens; here at Pentecost the people are "confounded" because they can actually hear and understand the tongue of foreigners! O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! Shall a God of wisdom and power bring judgment upon the nations, and shall He not bring grace? Shall He curse and not bless? Shall He slay and not make alive? And shall He not bring grace out of the midst of judgment, and blessing out of cursing, and life out of death? Should we deem it an incredible thing therefore, that in the fullness of the Pentecostal experience the saints of God shall receive a gift of languages so perfect and so real and so genuine, that just as the people of Babel were "confounded" by hearing strange languages they could not understand,--so now in the day of restoration the people of Babel shall be "confounded," but this time even unto repentance, by hearing their own languages from the lips of foreigners?

Thank God for the truth of Pentecost, and for the hope and confidence that the Lord has implanted in the hearts of His people, that we are yet to receive and experience a real Pentecostal experience, when the saints of God shall go forth into the world preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ in all the languages of the heathen. Praise His Name!

But even then we must go on, and on, and on... on from Pentecost to the greatest Feast of the Church, the Feast of Tabernacles.

Some diagrams which show what Jesus has done followed by James A Fowler's Study

Today a friend on Facebook wrote to me after I had sent her a Facebook Great person award."The only great person is Jesus; nobody else is great, we may think we are but the only great part about us is Jesus in us, the rest is wretched.
Now I know my friend very well...or think I do...and have let this sort of sentence rest because at one level it seems fine doesn't it. But lately she has been sharing a lot about depression. So today, I felt to dig a bit.
I wrote :"Jesus isn't in us. He wouldn't associate with us.Can God dwell with Baal, Paul says? God replaced us at the Cross. He doesn't share any space with you or me. That's why He has made us wonderful. You my friend are Jesus in your body and personality, but He's not in you as you think."
Now because even this is a half truth I got clobbered by two other saints. But I was speaking back to her according to her truth...or what I suspect her truth is.
In both the UK and USA church - in fact just about everywhere this is what you are taught.
It's in the Bob and Rose Weiner teaching books.
It's in the Four spiritual Laws
It's even in Watchman Nee and the 2 dog story....(which one wins?...the one I feed the most).
In these books the diagram appears as a throne with me or Christ on it.
Below, instead I've put a ball representing a seat of power residing in our innermost part.



Now, this is what I heard I think from my friend and again from brother Steve Cattell
who later writes :"we all strive to be Christ like.and we have the Holy spirit to guide us in times of struggle."
That is :the belief that before I was a Christian I was the seat of power and as I am selfish this led to all the sin and mess of my unsaved life. Now I am a Christian there are two equal spheres of power and as long as I am struggling to turn myself over to Christ, the Holy Spirit will guide me through, or to use my friend's phrase Jesus will keep me from inevitable wretchedness.

It doesn't matter which church you say that in in the UK and the USA, they'll know what you mean and heartily concur with you. Probably Steve has said as much over and over again as he tours the UK churches, and everyone has thought, "What an amazing brother." By far the most disturbing thing to me is not these guys, but my own church. This sort of phrase gets doled out quite a lot. Havant should know better.They should be grown up in God by now.

The fact is both diagrams above are complete and utter mythology, believed by just about everyone in UK churches, and surprisingly the charismatic ones are some of the worst. At least Keswick evangelicals actually listen to their Bible sermons, so some of them would realise it is utter tosh. So I will now interpret for you the answer I gave to my friend, as other Christians have really reacted to it again on Facebook.
The fact is both diagrams above are complete and utter mythology, believed by just about everyone in UK churches
"I wrote::"Jesus isn't in us. He wouldn't associate with us.Can God dwell with Baal, Paul says? God replaced us at the Cross. He doesn't share any space with you or me. "
What I'm saying is...if you are going to speak to me with an image of me as the mythological red ball above, then i can tell you plainly Christ IS NOT GOING TO SHARE LIVING QUARTERS WITH YOU IN THE MANNER OF ANOTHER RED BALL.
Why
1.Jesus is Lord , he doesn't do part-Lordship.
2. God doesn't share His glory with any man or woman. Now hold that last sentence, we'll come back to it.


No the Bible description of us before and after conversion is below . But first........
This is a Walls Viennetta. It is layers of chocolate layered in a Lasagna like fashion and embedded in ice cream. 'Licious!!!
Advert over!
This is one of the best and most Biblical descriptions for our spirit. Our spirit, the real me. The absolute core of me. My essential identity......cannot, I repeat cannot function on its own. It never was independant. It never will be independant,it just wasn't made to be so. It has to be powered and energised by a deity spirit. Deity here being the one true God, or the faker, faking it as a god, the devil.
Our spirit is embedded, totally joined with another spirit like in a Viennetta. You cannot really tell which is the chocolate and which is the ice cream...it is now ONE THING!

Adam and Eve before the fall were totally joined at spirit level with our heavenly Dad...Abba Father. Through lies and decption the devil wheedled his way in, made out that Abba was a bad Dad, and if we'd just take one incy step....we'd be independent!!!!! like gods. What he didn't tell us was that we'd have to exchange one Viennetta for another! And ever since, every unborn again person is totally meshed in with Satan. Even on his or her good days. Why? Because living from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil contains both good and evil, right? But it is still empowered by this Satan false independence.




However, when we hear the gospel message, when we respond in faith, when we accept Jesus as the Only One True Lord again,when we believe in our hearts and confess Him with our mouth....we receive salvation. The old Satan-I configuration gets booted out.There's not one bit of it God could scrub clean, so He took us into His own death at the Cross with Him, and when He was resurrected so were we. And God even provided a visual witness for the rest of time, as loads of saints broke out of their graves and were seen doing a sightseeing tour of their old home town!!!!Yes...check the Bible out!!
So what I wrote to my friend is the new reality :"God replaced us at the Cross. He doesn't share any space with you or me.(like those red balls side by side) That's why He has made us wonderful. You my friend are Jesus in your body and personality, but He's not in you as you think. Or to turn it round He doesn't share the space that we are calling us in our spirit centre.The cross did such a hatchet job on us that there is no us,(that is,- no independent red sphere trying our best in this Christian life) just me Viennetta'd in Him in swirls in our spirit containers.





It is NOLONGER I who live, but Christ who lives in me.The life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.

Put that in terms of Jesus life on Earth. "The life I now live is by faith in the Father. I am not independent, My Father and I are one. I can only do what I "see"/"perceive" in my spirit the Father is NOW doing.

And this phrase also " My life is hidden/embedded/interleaved/Viennetta'd with Christ in God." The Walls Viennetta Bible.
So when God says He will not share His glory with any man, He means "you" in your independent delusion...which isn't really independent anyway. No, through the Body and Blood death of His Son, He has utterly ousted our sin spirit and fused/joined/brought us into complete union with His Son....and with the Christ-I He has no problem at all about sharing His glory. We are now bone of His bone. While Adam was asleep, a rib was taken out and Eve was fashioned. While Christ was dead for 3 days, a spiritual rib was taken out and we, the Church were formed without spot or wrinkle....so ofcourse God is going to share His glory with her....which is why in all our thinking and imagining and communing we have to get caught up with the now true heavenly realities...We must MEET HIM IN THE AIR! May be one day our generation will actually meet Him in the air....but right now...more important is to get Ephesians 1 and 2 chapters into our daily bloodstream!!!!



So repeat after me
"Chris, those first two diagrams are trash which need wheeling out of all USA and UK churches.
They are utter utter baloney."
Merrill Thompson, I believe was inspired to send James A Fowler's detailed Bible breakdown
on precisely this subject. Those that can , take time to go through it....you will understand scripture how it was written, and not how "humanistic church teaching has bent it out of shape". Jesus said "Your teachings have made God's Word null and void." Nowhere is this more plain than in both our countries. It paralyses Christians. It leaves most of them in depression. My friends, the DEVIL does not want you getting hold of this.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Man's Problem and God's Provision:
Spiritual or Psychological?

A study designed to clarify that man's need of renewal is spiritual rather than psychological.

©1999 by James A. Fowler. All rights reserved.
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Man's Problem and God's Provision:
Spiritual or Psychological?

The waters of human thought are so muddied by humanistic premises, and "evangelical humanism" has so muddied the theological waters, that it is difficult to understand what others are talking about and how they are using the terms and vocabulary that they employ. It leads to a morass of semantic confusion!
In particular, there is much confusion concerning the failure to distinguish between the spiritual and the psychological. This is a result of the failure to distinguish between the spirit and the soul of man. In I Thess. 5:23 Paul writes, "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." The writer of Hebrews states that "the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit..." (Heb. 4:12). Differentiation is obviously made between spirit and soul.
The question to be considered in this study is whether the predicament of mankind, and thence the solution of God to the predicament of mankind, is specifically spiritual or psychological. Such clarification will have numerous ramifications for the presentation of the gospel.
We will commence by attempting to illustrate and document what the Scripture indicates concerning the spiritual problem of mankind and the spiritual provision of God for man's spiritual problem. Then we will compare what appears to be a predominate psychological emphasis most prevalent in evangelical teaching today.



The "spiritual condition" of the unregenerate, those who are not Christians, is characterized in Scripture by the following designations (though not exhaustive):
(1) Spiritual death. The unregenerate are said to be spiritually dead. This was first explained to mankind in Gen. 2:17 when God said to Adam, "In the day that you eat thereof (from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"), you shall surely die." Paul explains in Rom. 6:23, "the wages of sin is death."
This spiritual death which is predicated to all mankind because of Adam is historically explained by Paul in Romans chapter five: Rom. 5:12 - "through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men." Romans 5:15 - "...by the transgression of the one, the many died..." Romans 5:17 - "...by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one." To the Ephesians Paul explains their pre-regenerate spiritual condition as "you were dead in your trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1); "...dead in our transgressions" (Eph. 2:5).
This condition of spiritual death is not to be defined by merely the absence or privation of God's spiritual life. It is an active death expression. In Romans 5:17, Paul explains that "death reigned" in all men because of Adam's choice. The writer of Hebrews refers to "him having (present participle) the power of death, that is, the devil." (Heb. 2:14). Spiritual death involves diabolic spiritual presence and activity.
(2) Made sinners. In explaining the "spiritual condition" of the unregenerate, Paul states in Romans 5:19, "through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners." Earlier in Romans 5:8 Paul wrote, "God demonstrates His love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." To his protege, Timothy, Paul noted that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (I Tim. 1:15).
It is due to this universal "spiritual condition" of having been "made sinners" that all men express sinful behavior in soul and body. We sin because we are sinners. All men inevitably express sinful behavior in thought and action because they are born physically with a "spiritual condition" of having been "made sinners."
Again, this "spiritual condition" of being "made sinners" involves an activating resource of sin which is more than an impersonal "principle" of sin. There is a personified actuator who "reigns" in us as a false-lord, and to whom all unregenerate are subject. Paul indicates in Romans 3:9 that "both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;" not just under the indictment of, or the penal consequences of sin, but under the personal reign of one who actuates sin. In Romans 5:21, Paul explains that "sin reigned in death," and later in chapter six he states that sin can "reign" in our mortal bodies (12) and can "master" us (14), obviously personifying sin. Jesus, Himself, indicated that the unregenerate were "slaves" of sin (John 8:34,35).
(3) Unrighteous. In terms of their spiritual identity the unregenerate are referred to as the "unrighteous." Paul reminds the Corinthians that "the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (I Cor. 6:9), but goes on to point out that the "spiritual condition" of the Corinthian Christians had undergone a radical change: "but you were washed...you were sanctified, you were justified (made righteous)" (I Cor. 6:11). In II Peter 2:9, Peter writes that "the Lord keeps the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment," contrasting such with the "spiritual condition" of the "godly."
(4) Evil. There is an indwelling evil in the spirit of the unregenerate. Matthew records Jesus as saying, "the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil" (Matthew 12:35). Evil behavior is derived from an inner "evil treasure." Elsewhere Jesus refers to those "being evil" in contrast to God's activity (Matthew 7:11; Luke 11:13). This spiritual condition of "being evil" is a result of spiritual identification with the Evil One. I John 5:19 - "the whole world lies in the Evil One."
(5) Deceitful heart. The spiritual condition, i.e. the heart, of the unregenerate individual is "not right before God" (Acts 8:21). The prophet Jeremiah explained that "the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). The unregenerate heart is "deceitful" because the Deceiver is functioning therein. The unregenerate heart is "wicked" because the Wicked One is at work therein.
(6) Nature. The spiritual condition of the unregenerate has to do with the nature of the spiritual personage who indwells their spirit, the spirit with whom they are identified spiritually. Jesus referred to those who were "of their father, the devil" (John 8:44). John later identified them as "children of the devil" (I John 3:10). The apostle Paul refers to the unregenerate condition of the Ephesians, reminding them that they were "by nature children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3).
(7) Old Man. The spiritual identity of the unregenerate is referred to as "old man." Such a spiritual identity has to be "laid aside" (Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9), yes "crucified" (Romans 6:6), in order for a person to be regenerated and become a Christian.
All of these Scriptural designations can be summed up in the theological terminology of "spiritual depravity." Depravity, as properly defined, is the spiritual condition of fallen man apart from the regenerative and sanctifying work of God's Holy Spirit.
Such a depraved "spiritual condition" in the unregenerate will inevitably manifest itself in "behavioral expressions" within the soul and body of the unregenerate. Their active "spiritual death" will issue forth in "dead works" (Hebrews 6:1; James 1:15). As "sinners," they will manifest sinful behavior. Because they are "unrighteous" they will manifest unrighteous behavior; they will "obey unrighteousness" (Romans 2:8). "Being evil" in spiritual condition, there will be "evil deeds" (John 3:19; 7:7). The deceit and wickedness of their heart will issue forth in deceitful and wicked behavior. Their "nature of wrath" will be evidenced in behavioral expressions of wrath and anger (Galatians 5:19-21). The behavioral "fruit" will reveal the spiritual "root." "You will know them by their fruits," Jesus said. (Matthew 7:20)
Further explanation needs to be made concerning the God-given "desires" of the soul and body. As part of our created humanness God gives every person basic human desires such as the desire to eat, sleep, belong, etc. These desires are amoral; there is nothing wrong or inherently evil about these desires. But in light of the spiritual personage functioning within the unregenerate, these desires become warped and twisted through diabolic misuse and abuse. From the very beginning of our lives these desires are fulfilled in self-oriented ways. They thus become "fleshly desires" (I Peter 2:11) or "desires of the flesh" (Ephesians 2:3; Romans 13:14). There is a diabolic development of a pattern of selfishness and sinfulness (of unrighteous, evil, deceitful and angry behavior), in consistency with Satan's desires (John 8:44; I John 2;16). This developed patterning of our desires, this "warp," these developed inclinations and tendencies and propensities toward sin and selfishness; this is the behavioral condition that Scripture refers to as the "flesh." (cf. Romans 7:18-25; Galatians 5:16-24) Every person has their "own desires" (James 1:14); their own idiosyncracies of patterned selfishness and sinfulness. Your "bent" toward sin is different from mine, and vice-versa.




What happens when an individual is regenerated, "born from above" (John 3:3,7)? What is the "spiritual condition" and consequent "behavioral expression" of the Christian?
A radical spiritual exchange has taken place in the individual who is regenerated. The Scriptures explain the "spiritual condition" of a Christian with these designations:
(1) Spiritual life. Instead of the actuating, generating power of death, the Christian has spiritual life. Jesus explained His redemptive mission as, 'I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). He further explained, "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6). Paul states that we have been "raised to newness of life" (Romans 6:4), wherein "Christ is our life" (Colossians 3:4). The apostle John writes, "we have passed out of death into life" (I John 3:14); "he that has the Son has life; he that does not have the Son of God has not life" (I John 5:12). The spirit of the Christian is alive (Romans 8:10) with the life of Jesus Christ.
(2) Saint. Instead of the spiritual condition and identity of "sinner," the Christian has the spiritual condition and identity of a "saint." Like the Romans Christians, we have been "called to be saints" (Romans 1:7). We have "His inheritance in (us as) saints" (Ephesians 1:18). A saint is one who has been "made holy" by the presence of the Holy One, God in Christ in us.
(3) Made righteous. Instead of a spiritual identity as "unrighteous," the Christian has been "made righteous." The contrast in Romans 5:19 demands a spiritual interpretation: "as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so, through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous ." Later in the epistle to the Romans Paul notes that "the spirit is alive because of righteousness" (Romans 8:10). To the Corinthians Paul writes, "Christ Jesus...became to us...righteousness" (I Corinthians 1:30); and then on another occasion, "He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21). The Ephesians are told that they have become new creatures "created in righteousness" (Ephesians 4:24). This righteous spiritual condition is a result of "Jesus Christ, the Righteous" (I John 2:1) living in the Christian.
(4) Good. Instead of an evil spiritual condition because of the evil treasure of the Evil one, Christians have a "good treasure" indwelling their spirit, designed to bring forth what is behaviorally good (Matthew 12:35). This spiritual treasure is the presence of Jesus Christ in our earthen vessels (II Corinthians 4:7). As Jesus explains elsewhere, we have become "good seed...sons of the kingdom" (Matthew 13:38). Our spiritual condition can be called "good" because the God of all goodness dwells in us.
(5) New Heart. Instead of the spiritual condition of a "desperately wicked heart," Christians have the fulfillment of Ezekiel's promise. We have been given "a new heart, a new spirit has been put within us, God has put His Spirit within us" (Ezekiel 36:26,27). The Spirit of God in Christ Jesus has been sent forth into our hearts (Galatians 4:6; II Corinthians 1:22), and has "shown in our hearts" (II Corinthians 4:6). God's laws have been written upon our hearts (Hebrews 8:10; 10:16) in fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:33.
(6) Divine Nature. Instead of the "nature of wrath," Christians "have become partakers of the divine nature" (II Peter 1:4). The very nature, essence and character of God dwells in us.
(7) New Man. Instead of having a spiritual identity as an "old man," we "have put on the new man" identity (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). We have become "new creatures in Christ, the old things have passed away, behold new things have come" (II Corinthians 5:17).
In summation it can be said that Christians are no longer "depraved;" rather, they have the Holy Spirit of God indwelling and functioning within them. A radical spiritual exchange has taken place in the spirit of the Christian, an exchange of spiritual personages (Acts 26:18). This spiritual exchange has been accomplished for us by the "finished work" of Jesus Christ on the cross, when He exclaimed "It is finished" (John 19:30); "I've paid the price; I've accomplished the restoration of God in man."
In the soul and body of the Christian there are to be consistent "behavioral expressions" of our new "spiritual condition." The "saving life of Christ" (Romans 5:10) is to become operative in "abundant life" (John 10:10), as we "live through Him" (I John 4:9) and the life of Jesus is manifested in our mortal bodies (II Corinthians 4:10,11). Our spiritual "saintliness" as "holy ones" is to be evidenced in holy behavior that exhibits God's Holy character (I Peter 1:15,16), and we share His holiness (Hebrews 12:10). Jesus Christ, the Righteous One in us, wants to use our members as "instruments of righteousness (Romans 6:13) to manifest the fruit of righteousness (James 3:18). As the good treasure within us, God wants to exemplify His character of goodness in "good works" (Ephesians 2:10) derived only from God (II John 11). By the laws written upon our new heart, Christ the Law-keeper desires to express the character of God indicative of His nature in our behavio r.
Oh yes, Christians still have those warped "desires of the flesh," those patterned propensities of selfishness and sinfulness within the soul and body, even though they have been spiritually regenerated. As Christians we are to engage in the process of re-patterning those desires through the "renewing of the mind" (Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23). It took time to develop those old patterns; it will take time to re-pattern those desires consistent with God's desires so that the God-given desires can be fulfilled in God's way.




In the meantime, the tempter tempts us via those desires (James 1:14,15), which he abused, misused and patterned in accord with his desires. But the Christian should not view the "flesh," that old patterning of selfishness and sinfulness, as a "bogey-man" inside of us. Paul writes in Romans 8:9 that "we are no longer in the flesh," that is obligated to fulfill those selfish desires. To the Galatians he writes, "we have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5:24). We are to consider the members of our body as dead to the behavioral outcomes of those desires (Colossians 3:5).
Satan has no rightful authority or power over the Christian, or else the cross was not effective (Hebrews 2:14; I John 3:8). "Greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world," writes John in I John 4:4. As Christians we need to understand the position of victory we have in Jesus Christ because of the spiritual exchange in our spiritual condition and the indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ.
In contrast to the above documented explanation of man's problem and God's solution being spiritual, there is an abundance of popular religious teaching today which fails to understand spiritual realities, and instead relegates man's problem to a primarily psychological problem without any real remedies. Much of this is precipitated by a failure to differentiate the spiritual from the psychological, a failure to differentiate the spirit from the soul. In fact, there is an adamant obtuseness amongst evangelical theologians and teachers that refuses to consider the Biblical evidence of these differentiations and explains them away, and thus persists in perpetuating the problem of misunderstanding man's problem and God's provision in Jesus Christ.
Satan's subtle lie is to draw people away from consideration of the "spiritual condition" of the unregenerate and regenerate, for he does not want to be exposed. So instead he encourages men to be engaged in psychological considerations of "selfism" within a theological system that might be called "Evangelical Humanism."
Popular religious teaching often explains the condition of the unregenerate in the following manner:
(1) Spiritual death. The unregenerate person is regarded as spiritually dead, but the explanation given for this condition is that it is an inactive condition, a non-functional cessation of spiritual activity, a spiritual vacuum or spiritual void. Death is defined as merely the absence or deprivation of life. "Death is nothing!"
Satan, if they give him credence at all, is ambiguously regarded as removed in the mist of the "world," influencing man via his "world system," but having no personal contact or indwelling presence in the unregenerate.




The other Biblical designations are then explained as psychological phenomena pertaining to the soulical condition of man:
(2) Made sinners. It is explained that all unregenerate mankind were "made sinners" on the basis of Adam's disobedience, but that this is a condition wherein mankind have been constituted sinful in the individuality of their soul or psyche. Sin is also defined as merely the absence or deprivation of godliness, a non-entity. "Sin is nothing!"
(3) Unrighteous. Unrighteousness is also considered as an inherent condition of the soul of all fallen men. Unrighteousness is defined as the absence or deprivation of righteousness.
(4) Evil. The personality of man in the soul is regarded as inherently evil. Evil is defined as the absence or deprivation of all good.
(5) Deceitful heart. The heart is identified with the soul, the behavior mechanism of man's mind, emotion and will. This is regarded as inherently deceitful and wicked.
(6) Nature. The soul is regarded as containing or constituting an "old nature," also referred to as "sin-nature," "sinful human nature," "Adam-nature," etc.
(7) Old Man. The "old nature" is often equated with the "old man" designation, and explained as "the dirty old man" in every one of us.
Thus it is that the fallen condition of man is regarded primarily as a "psychological depravity." This psychological condition is then identified as the "flesh," an evil entity or power intrinsic to the psychological condition of all men because of Adam. Sometimes the intrinsic psychological evil is extended to an intrinsic physiological evil because the term "flesh" carries connotations of physicality. This, then, becomes the old Platonic idea of the physical body being evil. If our created humanness as soul and body is inherently evil, then God created evil beings and evil is attributable to God. Impossible! To explain away this logical conclusion, not wanting to attribute the generative and actuating source of evil to the devil, they then posit a "selfism" of self-generating sin, evil, wickedness and depravity in man. Will-power becomes the "power of sin" in contradiction to Hebrews 2:14.
The God-given desires of the soul and body are regarded as having been "bent" or "warped" to sin from the time of one's physical birth. This psychological condition accords well with the understanding of secular humanistic psychology which advocates that people are born with a "bent" or "inclination" or "disease" of homosexuality, alcoholism, gambling, etc.
If man's problem is primarily and predominantly a psychological problem instead of a spiritual problem, then the remedy must be psychological. Sigmund Freud is our savior! God forbid!
We proceed then to consider how popular religious teaching explains what transpires in regeneration:
(1) Spiritual life. At regeneration one receives "eternal life." "The issue is life or death," they say, not a spiritual exchange. But if spiritual death has been defined as inactive non-existence, then what is spiritual life? Is "eternal life" some"thing" in place of nothing? So often "eternal life" is portrayed as a product, commodity, entity or package dispensed by the divine benefactor, a "thing" called "eternal life." This "package deal" is said to be but a deposit or down-payment on a futuristic eschatological heavenly objective. Such an inadequate explanation fails to account for the Biblical evidence that Jesus Christ is the personified spiritual life received at regeneration.
God is then viewed with a separated concept, not actually and actively living in the Christian, but removed in the mist of heaven somewhere and only in some general way influencing Christians to righteous behavior in accord with ethical and moral standards.




In popular religious teaching the soul of the regenerate individual is considered to retain the same psychological condition of the unregenerate with the same intrinsic psychological perversity and depravity. The psychological condition of the Christian is unchanged from that of his previous unregenerate function.
(2) Sinner. The Christian is regarded as yet still a "sinner." Even though a "sinner saved by grace," the psychological identity remains an identity based on one's perverse condition and behavioral failures. "I am a sinner; I am a worm."
(3) Unrighteous. The psychological condition of the Christian is considered to be still inherently unrighteous. If "made sinners" in Romans 5:19 is interpreted as a psychological condition, one has to interpret "made righteous" to be a psychological condition also, in order to be consistent. Unwilling to assert that they are "made righteous" in all their behavior (perfectionism), religious teaching since the Reformation has tended to view "made righteous" as merely "declared righteous" in a judicial, forensic sense by the Heavenly Judge. Such a concept of justification as merely "declared righteousness" easily degenerates in practical consideration to just a "legal fiction" whereby God views man "as if" he were righteous, and has no practical behavioral benefit to the Christian life.
(4) Evil. The mind, emotion and will (and sometimes the body) of the Christian are regarded as still essentially evil. Evil behavior is self-actuated by the inherent evil of man's decision-making.
(5) Deceitful heart. The heart, identified as the soul, is regarded as still deceitful and desperately wicked. To regard the "new heart" as a phenomena of the soul would lead to some form of perfectionism.
(6) Nature. The Christian is regarded as retaining the so-called "sin-nature" or "Adam-nature" in the soul. If credence is given to the Christian being a "partaker of the divine nature" (II Peter 1:4), then the Christian must have both an "old nature" and a "new nature," and such is the popular religious teaching. As one (the so-called "old nature") is considered to be a psychological phenomena, and the other (the "new nature") is considered to be a spiritual phenomena, this is like comparing apples and oranges.
(7) Old man. The "old man" is said to be retained in the soul, and the believer is continually trying to "put on" the "new man" as a behavioral cover-up for the "old man." What is this but the psychological process of "behavior modification?"
This mismatched and inaccurate comparison of "old nature" and "new nature," "old man" and "new man," engenders several damaging psychological processes in the Christian. First of all, it creates "schizophrenic duality." The Christian individual does not know whether he has a spiritual identity or a psychological identity. "Am I really made new? Or am I just kidding myself, because everything seems to keep functioning in the context of the old behavioral condition?" Secondly, it fosters "paranoid uncertainty" as to what is motivating me to do what I do. "Is it my old nature or my new nature?" "How can I know the will of God anyway?" Thirdly, it leads to "antinomian excuses." "Yes, I know I have received eternal life, but I can't help sinning. It must be because of that 'dirty old man' still in me."
Focusing, as they do, on sin-consciousness and one's alleged intrinsic evil sin-nature, this religious system breeds several religious aberrations. Some engage in "confessionalism," an obsessive need to be confessing one's sins, even exaggerating those sins to create a contrasting sense of piety. Thus we see the "altar-athletes" who run to the so-called "altars" several times a week to confess their sins. For others the sin-consciousness leads to "defeatism" and lingering doubts of their salvation. "I don't seem to ever be able to do it right." "Perhaps I am not really a Christian after all." Others turn to "masochistic crucifixionism." Many mis-informed Christians are trying to beat themselves into conformity to an idealistic behavior pattern. They are constantly berating and belittling themselves for their ineffectiveness in the Christian endeavor with self-depreciation and self-deprecation for their inadequate self-efforts. They are told that they need to " die to self" or "crucify self." The Bible never refers to a Christian needing to "die to self." What it does say is that we are to "deny ourselves" (Luke 9:23), by resisting and saying "No" to the temptation of personal self-interest, selfishness, as we allow Jesus Christ to express His life and character in us.
The failure to differentiate between spirit and soul and the consequent psychological orientation of one's theology creates an experiential focus that fosters subjectivism, experientialism, emotionalism and feeling-oriented religion. Such emphases make persons vulnerable to the "New Age" teaching of "finding oneself," and to the perfectionistic teaching of a "second work of grace" to allegedly "finish" the work not finished at the cross or in regeneration. Such persons are also susceptible to a dominant personality who is willing to "play Holy Spirit" in their life and to continually advise what they should do next in order to overcome their psychological perversity and depravity. The formulas, techniques and procedures keep them on the performance treadmill trying to meet up to God's expectations and trying to "change their lives."
Popular religion has short-changed the glorious spiritual exchange of conversion and regeneration. They have watered-down the glorious reality of the indwelling Christ and His sufficiency to live in and through us, focusing instead on the retention of an alleged intrinsic and perverse psychological condition. They cannot appreciate the victory of restored life in Jesus Christ. The extent of their appreciation is: "It's so nice that you got converted and received eternal life. It will serve you well when you get to heaven, but the present living is the 'pits,' unaffected by any spiritual phenomena." Popular religion offers no real antidote to the present problems of life.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the "good news" of a radical spiritual exchange from Satan to God (Acts 26:18), whereby we are "complete in Christ" (Col. 2:10) as "new creatures" (II Corinthians 5:17) with the complete sufficiency of the "saving life of Christ" (Romans 5:10) operative in and through us, to demonstrate Christ-activated behavior to the glory of God. There is hope in Jesus Christ (I Timothy 1:1) for the restoration of mankind unto God's intent, both individually and in collective society.
So to answer the question, "Is man's problem and God's provision, spiritual or psychological?", I must conclude that the human problem and the divine provision are essentially spiritual. The essence of the gospel is that the Spirit of Christ can dwell in the spirit of man (Romans 8:9,16), the reinvestiture of God in man, Christ in a Christian .