Subject: How? |
Bible Note: Dear IE, You wrote, "If the filling of the Holy Spirit were an absolute, as you have stated, then a mandate to be filled with the spirit would not be necessary." (sic) Have I been so unclear? Let me restate: If the filling of the Holy Spirit were not an indicative, as I have stated, then the imperative to be filled with the Holy Spirit would be impossible! Or, in a more positive fashion: Since the Holy Spirit has been gifted us, it is possible and necessary to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is only possible because it is already an accomplished fact. It's doable because it is done. Would it be more clear if I used the words objective and subjective? The gift of the Holy Spirit is an objective reality. Walking in the Holy Spirit is, therefore, a possible and necessary subjective experience. The epistle to the Ephesians is chock full of this kind of stuff! Live in the calling, for we have been called (1:18 and 4:1-2); maintain unity, for He has united us (2:14-15 and 4:3); arise to life, for He has raised us from the dead (2:11 and 5:14); don't walk in deception, for He has given us truth (14:8-15); don't act and speak like the corrupt, old man, for He has created in us the new man for righteousness and true holiness (4:22-24); etc. etc. Remember: practice always follows doctrine. There are no imperatives in the first three chapters of Ephesians. There are over thirty imperatives in the last three chapters of the epistle. Nevertheless, those imperatives are utterly useless without the indicatives of the first three chapters. It is like taking the Beatitudes to the world and offering them up as guidelines for godliness. Oh how many are misinformed by the foolish approach of taking things out of context! May the Lord have mercy! Furthermore, pinning a doctrine on a single verse -- in this case, only half a verse -- is dangerous at best. Context is crucial. So start by taking Ephesians 5:18b in the context of the book as a whole. Expose the passage to the light of the whole. (Paul never intended these instructions to stand outside of the context of all the other instructions, nor the theological grounding provided in advance!) Let's work through the passage for a moment: Don't walk like the foolish, but like the wise (v15), utilizing and optimizing the gift of time (v16a), for our day is morally culpable (v16b). Don't be a fool (v17a), but in contrast, understand the will of the Lord (v17b). Instead of filling yourself up with wine (v18a) -- a foolish act of profligacy -- fill yourself up with the Spirit (v18b), and express that filling in doctrinally sound expressions to one another (v19) [just as Paul had been doing throughout this epistle]. When you understand these truths, they can't help but bubble forth from the heart, to the lips (vv19b-20), and in humble service to the church, and humble obedience to the Lord (v21). Paul is a master of rhetoric and pedagogy. He builds logically up from foundational principles, repeating the lessons for us. He is able to play up the contrast between the wine-filled world and the Spirit-filled believer, because he has been going on and on about the distinction between the dead and the living, the estranged and the united, the heathen and the believer, the pure and the immoral, the child and the adult, the deceived and the enlightened, the corrupt and the righteous, the foolish and the wise, etc. etc. I'd almost summarize the whole of the epistle to the Ephesians with a single phrase: "These things are true, so act like they are true!" One can forge almost any doctrine from the Word by taking liberty with the text. But when rightly dividing the Word, it is impossible to pull such a teaching from the Pauline writings, just as it was impossible to pull such a teaching from the Johannine writings. You see, our Lord, in anticipation of just such hermeneutic carelessness, provided us with everything we need (see post #146497)... "so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes." (Ephesians 4:14 ESV). In Him, Doc |