Walking by the Spirit

 

Galatians chapter five

This is probably the most crucial passage in the New Testament for understanding the dynamics of the spiritual life.

 

The doctrine of sanctification

  1. Definition. Basically it comes from the Greek word HAGIASMOS [a(giasamoj] which means to set apart. It doesn’t mean, as commonly thought, moral purity.  The Old Testament word, qadash: add to the masculine ending of the noun and make it a feminine noun it refers to temple prostitutes and the worship of the Baalim, the Baal gods of the Canaanites. Obviously, if that is the root meaning and it refers to temple prostitutes, how can that mean moral purity? It doesn’t. It also refers to the in animate objects in the temple, that they were set apart to God, they were sanctified, they were made holy.  The root meaning, therefore, is something that is set apart to the service of God. In the case of the temple prostitutes, they were set apart to the service of their god. The process of sanctification in the spiritual life is the process whereby we are made more and more useful to God as we advance spiritually. A more precise definition: Sanctification is a technical term which means to be set apart to God for a special purpose. Every Church Age believer is set apart to God in three ways and they correspond to the three different senses of salvation: phase one at salvation—at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone we are saved from the penalty of sin and positionally set apart to God (positional sanctification); phase two salvation—as we advance spiritually and we are saved from the power of sin this is referred to as experiential sanctification or progressive sanctification; phase three salvation—when we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord and we are saved from the presence of sin because we are no longer in a mortal body with a sin nature this is sometimes called perfect sanctification or completed sanctification, or similar terms to develop the category of glorification or ultimate sanctification. The one that we are concerned about in this study is experiential or progressive sanctification because in essence this is referring to the dynamic of the Christian way of life. In other words, how do we grow? Galatians 5:16—“But I say, walk by means of the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” If we are interacting at all with what the text says the first thing we ought to ask is what exactly does it mean to walk by the Spirit, and how do you do that? It is amazing how few people ask the question. It is sort of assumed that we know how to do that, and that it is something just related to morality.
  2. This refers to the process by which the believers grow in phase two under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. This is the process of the believer’s growth in phase two under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. We must remember that the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the Church Age, the age in which we are living is unique. Never before in human history has so much been given to the every-day ordinary believer. Every believer in this Church Age has been the recipient of different ministries from God the Holy Spirit. Regeneration and efficacious grace were available in the Old Testament, but the other ministries were not available in the Old Testament; they are unique to the New testament, and so that tells us up front that our relationship to God the Holy Spirit is crucial in this Church Age. It is crucial to our growth spiritually. It is not just learning doctrine, not just doing certain activities overtly or even thinking certain thoughts inwardly as much as it is something that is empowered and motivated by a right relationship with God the Holy Spirit. 

 

a)                          Efficacious grace: the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to the believer at the moment of salvation—Romans 8:28-30. This is the specific ministry of the Holy Spirit who acknowledges the faith of the unbeliever and transforms the faith of that spiritually dead person into something effective for salvation. Remember we are not saved because of our faith, we are saved through faith. Ephesians 2:8,9 makes that clear, it is the preposition DIA [dia] plus the genitive of PISTIS [pistij]. Genitive means “through”. DIA plus the genitive means “through.” If it was the accusative case it would mean “because.” God the Holy Spirit is very precise. We are not saved because we believe, that would put the location of the merit on us because we were wise enough to believe. But when it is through faith, faith is simply the means of appropriating salvation and it puts all of the merit in the object of faith which is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

b)                          Regeneration is defined as spiritual birth or being born again—John3:3-7; Titus 3:5. At that moment we pass from spiritual death to spiritual life, and at the same instant that the human spirit is imparted to us God the Father imputes to it His very own life, eternal life. So we have eternal life as a possession that can never be lost.   

c)                          Baptism by means of the Holy Spirit—1 Corinthians 12:13. This occurs also at the instant of salvation and at that instant every believer is identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. At the moment of faith lone in Christ alone God the Holy Spirit identifies us (that is the significance of baptism. The literal meaning of baptism is to dip, plunge, or immerse, but the significance is identification) We enter into an eternal union with Christ. He places us into Christ, into His body. At that instant we are created a new spiritual species, 2 Corinthians 5:17. So the believer is placed in a permanent union with Christ and this is the basis of our positional sanctification.

d)                          The indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There is a difference between the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, the baptism of God the Holy Spirit, and the filling of God the Holy Spirit. They are distinct words and they are distinct ministries. Unfortunately, especially in the Pentecostal holiness camp, they have viewed those words as synonyms, so they really get confused because they think the indwelling and the baptism are all the same. The indwelling of God the Holy Spirit is a Holy Spirit is a permanent possession of every single believer—1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19. At the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in the believer. He transforms our bodies into a temple for the simultaneous indwelling of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory. We are indwelt by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This has never happened before in human history. In the Old Testament the filling of the Holy Spirit was not based on a relationship with God the Holy Spirit because they did not have a relationship with God the Holy Spirit. Only a very few people, less than a hundred, in all of the Old Testament were endued by God the Holy Spirit and it was always related to their job or their function in terms of theocratic leadership. It could be lost and it was a ministry that was designed to give them wisdom and skill in the arena of leadership. The best illustration is the temple and tabernacle craftsmen. The basic mean of the Hebrew word is skill, and it came to mean wisdom because wisdom is the ability to learn information and then to transform that and apply it skillfully in life, to create something beautiful with your life that glorifies God. But its root meaning is skill and we see that in the craftsmen who worked on the tabernacle and temple. Enduement was simply to give them that skill, and it was the same thing with the rulers, the prophets and priests under the ministry of inspiration. In the Old Testament it was a temporary ministry of God the Holy Spirit; in the New Testament it is permanent. No believer can lose the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, it is a permanent possession.

e)                          The filling of the Holy Spirit. However Old Testament enduement is contrasted with the New Testament filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit mandated in Ephesians 5:18. Because it is an imperative mood there for PLEROO [plhrow] that means you either will or you will not be filled. The believer is always indwelt but he may or may not be filled. The filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit, therefore, is going to be related to the believer’s volition, because whenever you have an imperative that is directed toward your volition and you can either apply it or not apply it, obey or disobey, it is specifically related to the recall and application of Bible doctrine. So we see that the two sources of power in the Church Age relate to the filling of the Holy Spirit and Bible doctrine.

f)                           The sealing ministry of God the Holy Spirit. This takes place at the moment of salvation and is related to the doctrine of eternal security. The seal is an analogy taken from the Roman empire where it was a signature of ownership. At salvation the believer has the seal of God placed upon him. This is a signature guarantee which means that he can never lose his salvation because he is in Christ—Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.

g)                          The distribution of spiritual gifts. At the moment of salvation every believer is given at least one spiritual gift. Do not confuse the spiritual gifts with natural abilities, to natural talent. Spiritual gifts are specific ministries to be used in the local church. That means that their development and use is going to be related to the believer’s advance to spiritual maturity.

 

In this passage there is an initial mandate given in verse 16: “walk by means of” is an instrumental dative, “the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” So here in verses 16-18 we see the initial command from the apostle Paul to believers to live on the basis of the power of God the Holy Spirit. This is contrasted with carrying out the desire of the flesh. In verses 17 and 18 he explains the nature of this conflict. “For the flesh [a term for the sin nature] sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do that which you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.”  That is the basis for the conflict in the spiritual life that we have to overcome if we are going to advance spiritually.

The next paragraph is verses 19-21 which list the deeds of the flesh. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident.” Then we have what is basically a grocery list of characteristics that are produced by the sin nature” “immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery [the use of drugs], enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these …”

In verses 22-23 we have the list of the production of God the Holy Spirit. We have to distinguish this from false production, counterfeit production, which comes from the sin nature. Obviously unbelievers can have some kind of love, some measure of happiness, some level of contentment and tranquility. They can be patient, gentle, good; they can have these characteristics to some degree. So when the Scripture says that these are the production of the Holy Spirit we have to understand what the dynamic is so that these characteristics are produced in our life, not in the sense of holding ourselves up by the bootstrap type of approach, but in understanding that this is the Holy Spirit doing this in our life and not ourselves. If we are doing it from the flesh it doesn’t count.

Verses 24-25—a conclusion. “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” In the English this looks like a restatement of what we have in verse 16 but it is a different Greek word for “walk” in verse 25.

Backing up to verse 16 – this clearly indicates a shift in topic. Paul uses the particle DE [de] which is translated “but,” “I say” – he is emphasizing this – “walk by the Spirit.” The command is a present active imperative of the verb PERIPATEO [peripatew], the standard word for walking. When you have a present imperative (an imperative is the mood of command; this is a mandate for the spiritual life) the present tense is usually continual action, but when you have the combination of a present tense and an imperative mood it looks at the action as continuing, and the present imperative as opposed to the aorist imperative is used with general principles related to the spiritual life, specifically for habit or behaviour patterns that should characterize our life. The active voice means that you and I, each believer, is the one who performs the action. The Holy Spirit does not do this for us; He does not override our volition. God always respects our volition and never makes us conform. So we have to make the decision as to whether or not we are going to walk by means of the Spirit. This means that the ultimate issue is a volitional issue. The thrust of the mandate is ingressive progressive, i.e. we are to begin doing it and to continue doing it and making it a customary pattern in our life. To “walk” is used as a metaphor basically for living life or the conduct of one’s life. We are to conduct our lives “by means of the Spirit”. This is the dative case of PNEUMA [pneuma], the standard word for the Holy Spirit, and here it does not have the modifier HAGIOS [a(gioj] for “holy”, but we know from the context it is always talking about the Holy Spirit and not the human spirit. This is a dative of means or an instrumental dative. The Holy Spirit is the means by which the walk, the life, the conduct of the believer is advanced. The emphasis is on dependency on God the Holy Spirit as opposed to the flesh.

 

The doctrine of walking

1.                          The word PERIPATEO [peripatew] is usually used of forward step by step motion. Learning to walk as a small child takes concentration. Eventually it requires less thought. At the beginning of the spiritual life there has to be a lot of focus and concentration on just who you are depending on in this thing called the spiritual life. The word PERIPATEO is used metaphorically to represent the entire panorama of a person’s life, both his thought life and his overt activity.

2.                          The second word that is used is STOICHEO [stoixew]. It means to walk in a straight line and it is used metaphorically to march in step, to march in rank, to walk in agreement with, to walk forward in an orderly manner. It is primarily used in this passage for advancing in the spiritual life in relation to the mandates given in the Word of God under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. So it is used for advancing according to a standard, following the footsteps of the Spirit. What are those footsteps? The steps are the mandates of Scripture. God’s Holy Spirit specifically lays out a track down which we are to walk, and that track is spelled out specifically for us in all the mandates and prohibitions in the New Testament.

3.                          A third word is ORTHOPODEO [o)rqopodew], and it means to set something straight. In Galatians 2:14 it was used in a negative sense n challenging Peter because he was no longer walking a straight course, he had caved in to the gospel of legalism.

4.                          A fourth word is a very general word, POREUO [poreuw], and it means to walk about, to journey, to travel. Sometimes it is used in the sense of going about one’s daily activity.

5.                          We are told in Romans 6:4 that we are to walk in newness of life. “Walk according to the norm of the Spirit and not the flesh—Romans 8:4. “Walk in honesty”—Romans 13:13; “Walk by means of faith and not by means of sight”—2 Corinthians 5:7 (faith-rest drill); “Walk in the sphere of good works” – Ephesians 2:10; “Walk in love—Ephesians 5:2; “Walk in wisdom”—Colossians4:5; “Walk in truth”—2 John 4; “Walk according to the norm of divine mandates” – 2 John 6; “Walk in the light”—Ephesians 5:8. Negatively, we are not to walk according to the standard of the sin nature—Romans 8:4; not according to the standard of men—1 Corinthians 3:3; not in craftiness—2 Corinthians 4:2; not by sight—2 Corinthians5:7; not in the emptiness of the mind—Ephesians 4:17; not in a disorderly manner—2 Thessalonians 3:6.

 

  1. In Galatians 5:16 walking by means of the Spirit is contrasted with carrying out the desires of the flesh. So there is obviously a battle going on. We are either walking by means of the Spirit or we are carrying out the desires of the flesh, the sin nature. So it is going to be the Holy Spirit versus the sin nature.
  2. In Galatians 2:20 the Christian life which is said to be lived by faith is contrasted with the Galatian attempt to live the Christian life by means of the flesh in Galatians 3:3—“having begun by the Spirit are you now trying to be matured by the sin nature?” There we see that the sin nature is a counterfeit which produces pseudo-spirituality. So Galatians 2:20 contrasts the spiritual life based on faith with that living in the flesh. The conclusion from all of this is that we have two options, two absolute states. That is fundamental to understand because there are many people who think that you can be a little spiritual and a little carnal. We need to see the contrasts: grace or law; the Holy Spirit or the flesh.

 

Summary

One of the greatest areas of confusion is in the whole realm of sanctification. What makes this so confusing for many people is that about ninety per cent of what people say is the same thing. It is that small ten per cent or five per cent difference that is so difficult to pin down, so when you listen to any three, four or five people they are all basically saying the same thing or sound like they are saying the same thing; and yet, if you know what you are listening for you will pick up on a few things and perceive a few things that will distinguish them one from another. But unfortunately most people do not always understand these minor differences, and they are not always minor because what we discover is that it is in these one or two or three distinctions between the different schools of theology that make all the difference in the world.

            When we get into this particular section of Galatians the apostle Paul has been building an argument, from the beginning of chapter three, related to the spiritual life. Verse 3 of chapter 3: “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being matured by the flesh?” What that implies is that there is a way that is really a pseudo-spirituality, and that is too often what happens when people confuse morality with spirituality. They do not understand that whatever the unbeliever can do is not part of the spiritual life. The spiritual life of the Church Age believer is a supernatural way of life and demands a supernatural means of executing that spiritual life. No one is asking the question, much less answering the question, How do you distinguish morality which is a product of the flesh (sin nature) and spirituality? What is the essential difference? What is going on in your life? Is it production of God the Holy Spirit or simply a production of your own flesh and your own ability?

            So we begin in 5:16 where we have the mandate: “But I say, walk by means of the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.” This section is bracketed by two different commands which appear to be the same in English but are different in the Greek. In verse 25 we read: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” The word for “walk” there is STOICHEO [stoixew] which means to follow in the track of someone, to follow in the path of someone, follow in the footsteps of someone, and so there is a slightly different nuance between the two. 

            Walking is one of the best forms of exercise. Whenever you walk it develops a circulation of your bloodstream; it improves your breathing, it has an aerobic effect on your cardiovascular system; it supports the regular elimination of waste; and it strengthens your heart muscle. So let’s take those factors and develop the analogy to the spiritual life.

a)                            When it comes to walking in the spiritual life, first of all it works out all the muscles of the spiritual life which are the spiritual skills. So when you walk by the Spirit you are exercising all of the spiritual skills; you are developing the muscles of the spiritual life.  

b)                            It increases the circulation of doctrine in your soul. The more you use doctrine in your soul the more you will develop the ability to utilize it. The less you use it the more you will lose it.

c)                            Just as physical walking has an aerobic effect on the body it has a spiritual aerobic effect and improves the inhale and exhale of Bible doctrine. The more you walk by means of the Spirit the more you will be taking in the Word of God and the more you will be applying the Word of God.

d)                            It will eliminate the waste of human viewpoint in the soul as you renovate the thinking of the soul. It will eliminate the waste of human viewpoint and replace it with the divine viewpoint of Bible doctrine.

e)                            In the process your soul will be strengthened and edified through the construction of the soul fortress which protects and defends the soul from the outside pressure of adversity and prosperity.

 

STOICHEO means to walk in a straight line and it is used primarily for moving forward in the spiritual life, following the mandates given in the Word of God

under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

            The central issue of walking in the Scripture is that it is one of the key terms used to describe the characteristics of the believer’s life. The overall mandate is to “walk worthy.” This is repeated three times in the Scriptures, and whenever the Holy Spirit repeats something we need to pay attention to it. The mandate is repeated in Ephesians 4:1; Colossians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:12. We are to walk in a manner worthy of that with which we have been called. That is motivated by grace orientation. When we have grace orientation that means that we understand the grace of God, that God has done everything for us, and that we merely accept it or receive it by faith. As a result of understanding what God has done for us we are moved to gratitude, and we realise that we should live our lives in a manner consistent with His plans and purposes for us. He saved us for the purpose of production of good works. When we analyze the use of the word “walking” in the New Testament there are three categories that we can summarize. First, we have the phrase EN [e)n] plus the dative, or sometimes just the dative, of sphere. We are to walk in the day—Romans 13:13; in the light—Ephesians 5:8; and negatively, we are not to walk in the sphere of darkness—1 John 1:7. So our Christian life is to be in a certain sphere. Secondly, we are to walk in [the sphere of] newness of life—Romans 6:4. We are to walk in the sphere of love—Ephesians 5:2; 2 John 6. We are to walk in [the sphere of] good works [divine good produced by the Holy Spirit] and were saved for that purpose—Ephesians 2:10. We are to walk in wisdom—Colossians 4:5. We are to walk in truth—2 John 4; 3 John 3,4. Negatively, we are not to walk in the emptiness (vanity—the vacuum in the soul created by human viewpoint) of the emptiness of the mentality of our soul “like the Gentiles do”—Ephesians 4:17. We are not to walk in craftiness—2 Corinthians 4:2, the Greek word means deceitful cunning, and the context refers to utilizing the Word of God for our own personal gain, power, prestige, financial gain, or personal approbation.

            The next way this preposition EN plus the dative is used is to express instrumentality or means. There are two concepts here: we are to walk by means of faith, the faith-rest drill in 2 Corinthians 5:7, and this is contrasted, “not by sight.” This is empiricism and relates to the ultimate way in which we think, the basis for our thought. Do we base our thinking on the Scriptures or do we base it on human viewpoint systems of knowledge such as rationalism or empiricism? This is a reference to the ultimate, the final basis for our thinking: Is the final authority in our life, the Word of God, or is it human experience or human thought? When the Word of God is more real to us than our feelings, experience, or what we have been taught in school, then we are beginning to understand what it means to exercise the faith-rest drill. The second is in Galatians 5:16 & 25, and that is by means of the Holy Spirit. So we have EN plus the dative of sphere to describe the sphere in which we are to walk, and then we have EN plus the instrumental dative of means—“by means of faith, not by sight,” and by means of God the Holy Spirit.

            Then we have another prepositional phrase that is often associated with walking, and that uses the Greek preposition KATA [kata], and that means to walk according to a norm or standard. We are to walk according to the norm of the Holy Spirit and not according to the norm or standard of the flesh—Romans 8:4. According to the standard of love—Romans 14:15. Negatively, Not according to the standard of men—1 Corinthians 3:3, referring to carnality and the unbeliever (not according to normal human standards); not according to disorderly or licentious manner—2 Thessalonians 3:6; not according to the course of this world—Ephesians 3:2, referring to the lifestyle of the unbeliever.

            So that is a summary describing how critical walking is in the Christian life.   

 

            3. In Galatians 5:16 walking by means of the Spirit is contrasted with walking by means of the flesh. The point is, throughout Galatians and the New Testament walking is used of one of two states. You always have this contrast between two states of condition. One is in the sphere of the Holy Spirit or by means of the Holy Spirit and the other is flesh. But there are other words that are used. In terms of the spiritual life other terms that are used are light, promise, faith and grace. These are all contrasted with darkness, law, and antinomianism (without law), referring to unrestrained immorality. Always in the Scripture is this stark contrast between two states. The question we are going to ask is how much sin does it take to really violate the righteousness of God. The idea that we are a little bit righteous, a little bit spiritual, and a little bit carnal doesn’t take into account the nature of sin in relation to the integrity of God, and its impact. So we have to realize that the Scripture clearly identifies two spheres or states in which we can live.

            4.  The basis for the believer’s walk is his new position in Jesus Christ—Romans 6:4. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? The passage is talking about positional death which is defined as the believer’s identification at the point of salvation with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are positionally identified with His death so that His death on the cross is tied to and produces our separation from the enslaving power of the sin nature. This is not talking about the eradication of the sin nature. We have been baptized into His death, and the significance of baptism is always identification. There is a reason, a purpose for the believer’s identification with Christ’s death on the cross: “in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” The word “walk” is the aorist active subjunctive of PERIPATEO [peripatew], and the reason it is in the subjunctive is because it expresses the contingency of the believer’s volition. It is potential. You may choose not to walk in the newness of life that you have.

            Summary of point 4:

a)      The basis for walking, i.e. the Christian way of life, is our identification with Christ’s death (our positional death) which happens at the instant of salvation. At that instant the power of the sin nature in the believer’s life is broken. The issue now is volition.

b)      Positional death frees us from the slavery to the sin nature, according to 6:6, but it does not free us from the sin nature. 

c)      The potential is there for every believer but it is activated only by his volition. Whether or not you walk in newness of life is up to you. 

d) The goal or purpose is to no longer obey the dictates of the sin nature, so that you can advance spiritually.

 

5. The sphere of light in the believer’s life—Ephesians 5:8, “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of the light.”

The emphasis is on the believer’s present state: you are light. Then there is a command: “walk”, present active imperative of PERIPATEO [peripatew], “as children of light.” This is crucial because here we learn that even though we are positionally “light” we can live a life that is not discernably different from the unbeliever because of living in carnality and the power of the sin nature. This is very important because it establishes two categories. In the positional category you are light, and it establishes the experiential category of walking consistently with your ultimate reality. So here we see the two spheres of operation, positional and experiential. In verse 9 we see that the production of walking in the light is comparable to the fruit of the Spirit. Here we see the parallel that walking in the light and walking by means of the Holy Spirit are tantamount to the same thing and both have the same production.

a)      Light represents absolute perfection in the Scriptures, whereas darkness represents all that has been tainted by sin. Light, in fact, represents the absolute righteousness and perfection of God—1 Timothy 6:15,16; 1 John 1:5.

b)      We become sons of light at the moment of salvation, so that becomes a description of our position in Christ. That is, we have positional righteousness, we have the imputation of Christ’s righteousness at the moment of salvation.

c)      We are transferred positionally into light—1 Peter 2:9; Acts 26:18—so that we can receive an inheritance. Colossians 1:13—“He delivered us from the domain,” and here we have the word EXOUSIA [e)cousia] which means authority or power. When you were an unbeliever you were under the authority and the domain of Satan, the domain of darkness no matter how good, how wonderful, how pleasing you were. The same is true for everyone who is not a believer.

d)      Scripture clearly affirms that believers still possess sin natures and thus still perform works of darkness. Even though they are sons of light they can live in darkness—Romans 13:12. Paul would not say “lay aside the works of darkness” if we were not performing deeds of darkness. This is the aorist middle subjunctive of the verb APOTITHEMI [a)potiqhmi]. This word is used sometimes for removing clothing. It means to put away, to put out of the way, to remove, to take off. So the imagery here is of someone changing clothes, taking off one set of clothes and putting on a set of armour. The subjunctive mood is the mood of potentiality and it is sometimes used in certain constructions to emphasize a certain kind of command, and this is called a hortatory subjunctive—hortatory refers to the fact that it is an exhortation. It is an exhortation or a mandate and the subjunctive mood is used in order to emphasize it is a potential. That potential is going to be activated by one’s volition. The believer’s volition determines whether or not this action is going to take place. He is going to make decisions regarding the application of doctrine in his life, it is not automatic. 

e)      In principle, light and darkness therefore are clearly seen as absolute, inconsistent categories. You either walk in light or you walk in darkness. But being in the light and walking in the light are not the same thing. That is important. You are either light or darkness; that relates to salvation. And you either walk in light or walk in darkness; that relates to spiritual life. You cannot be walking with one foot in both.

           

The New Testament utilizes two different words to describe what happens to our relationship with the Holy Spirit at the moment of sin. The first is the phrase

“quenching the Holy Spirit.” You quench a fire by putting it out. 1 Thessalonians 5:19. In the next verse, verse 20, they are told not to despise prophetic statements. The immediate context of the command is that you don’t put out the Spirit because there is a relationship between the Holy Spirit and the giving of Scripture (prophecy). Prophecy has ceased now, we have the completed canon of Scripture; so the direct interpretation of that verse is that you quench the Spirit by ignoring or despising, treating lightly, the mandates of Scripture. I terms of application you do that any time you sin. The second phrase which is used to describe the destruction of our fellowship with God is in Ephesians 4:30: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption.” Grieving the Holy Spirit is an anthropopathism, which is applying to God a human emotion in order to understand the policies of God—a human emotion which God does not possess. If we look at the context of this verse and compare the various categories there we see that these overt sins and mental attitude sins and sins of the tongue are what grieves the Holy Spirit. Quenching or grieving the Holy Spirit moves us out of the bottom circle, from walking in the light to walking in darkness, referred to as carnality—1 Corinthians 3:1-3.

            1 John 1:3-7, John is talking specifically about fellowship with God. The emphasis here is that fellowship with God is the basis for human fellowship.

Real life in the spiritual life doesn’t begin until we begin to get some spiritual maturity under our belt, the same way that it happens in life. It is amazing that some believers seem to just be happy knowing that they are going to heaven and yet have no concept of what it means to really grow or advance to spiritual maturity, so that they can really begin to live and operate and benefit from all of the incredible assets that God has given us for living the spiritual life. So we are taking some time in Galatians to really get a handle on this subject, starting from 5:16 which deals with the spiritual walk. Walking by means of the Spirit is the command in this verse, and this is a present active imperative, which means this is to be the standard operating procedure for the believer’s life. It is that step by step, day by day, moment by moment dependence upon God the Holy Spirit as the energizing power and enabler in the spiritual life. So we are taking a look at all of the passages related to walking.

1 John 1:6—John is going to use three conditional clauses to represent different responses to God in the life of believers. “If we say” [3rd class condition, emphasizing potentiality: maybe it is and maybe it is not. It presents the condition as uncertain of fulfillment]. In other words, you might say this or you might not say this. It treats this as though it is a likely happening: “that we have fellowship with him.” Someone comes along and claims to have fellowship with God, claiming to be walking with the Lord; “and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” What is he saying here? First of all we have seen that we are positionally in the light. We become a son of light at the moment of salvation, this is the top circle. So walking in the light has to do with a step by step process and progress. It is different from a status, which is “in the light.” There are those who say that walking in the light or darkness are terms for believer and unbeliever, but as we have seen that is completely erroneous. Walking in the light and walking in darkness are terms that relate to the bottom circle, the moment by moment life of the believer in terms of his spiritual life.

            The word for practicing the truth here is the Greek word POIEO [poiew], and it means to do, to make, to practice, to apply. This is the word seen time and again in James chapter one from verse 21 down through 2:26. There it was translated “apply” because it had to do with the application of doctrine. The second word in this phrase is the Greek word ALETHEIA [a)lhqeia], meaning truth, absolute truth, not relative truth. So this is comparable to doctrine and is John’s terminology. Whenever John is using this word he is talking about absolute truth. So walking in the truth is tantamount to walking in accordance with divine mandates, which we call Bible doctrine. In essence, what John is saying here is what James is saying in James 1 & 2.

            Contrast in verse 7 – “but if we walk in the light.” So there we have a clear indication that the believer can either walk in darkness or walk in the light; :as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses from all sin.” Blood is an analogy or metaphor for the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the cross. When God told Adam in the garden that the day he ate of the fruit he would die, and he did, he died spiritually. When Jesus died on the cross as our substitute it had to be a death in kind. The penalty for sin is spiritual death, eternal separation from God the Father. Then there is a penalty which has to do with the consequences in time, and this comes under the category of whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. It is the negative consequences in time that are the results of sin. So that when Adam and Eve sinned they died spiritually—penalty #1, but everything in life was cursed and they lived in a fallen environment from that point on, suffering from the curse of sin, and that was penalty #2. As a result God is going to deal with this in two different ways. The spiritual death on the cross of Jesus Christ is a judicial death. God judged Him judicially on the cross by imputing to Him our sins. Jesus Christ remained sinless: “He who knew no sin was made sin for us.” Our sins imputed to Him were not His experientially but they were His judicially. The word theologians use to describe this is not only the term judicial but forensic. Forensic has to do with the study of things that have to do with the judiciary, with criminality, so it is called a forensic punishment. But there is experiential punishment. We need to draw this distinction. There are two kinds of punishment. We have a judicial forensic punishment at the cross which dealt with spiritual death, and then we have experiential consequences or penalties in time. When John says, “and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin,” we have the verb KATHARIZO  [kaqarizw], which means to purify or to cleanse. It is a word that was used in the Septuagint to relate to all the cleansing that took place in the temple before a priest could go into the presence of God. Because this is in the present tense some people will come along and say that this is the standard operating procedure here, and if you are believer in the Lord Jesus Christ then you will always be cleansed from sin, so you don’t ever have to do anything about it; whenever you sin just realize that whatever you do God is going to cleanse because the blood of Christ cleanses you continuously and you don’t have to do anything else. In other words, you never have to confess your sins is what they are saying. But what about 1 John 1:9? John would be contradicting himself if he meant by 1:7 that you don’t have to confess your sins any more. What we realize here is that 1 John 1:7 is dealing with Penalty #1 consequences, spiritual death consequences. This means that when you enter into the top circle and you are in a positional reality with Jesus Christ, that is an eternal relationship and you can never lose it. Yet we sin! Five second after you put your faith alone in Christ alone you sin. Do you die spiritually? No, you don’t. Why? Because P1 has been taken care of on the cross. You do not die spiritually again. Jesus Christ’s blood continually cleanses you so that that forensic application of the blood of Christ, meaning His spiritual substitutionary death on the cross, continually cleanses you from the moment of faith in Christ until you are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord and minus the sin nature. 1 John 1:7 is talking about the continual effect of the death of Christ in terms of never having to deal with P1 consequences of spiritual death ever again. That will not happen to you as a believer, you cannot lose your salvation.

            Verse 8 – “If we say [maybe we will, maybe we will not] that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves.” In other words, there is no such thing as perfection in the spiritual life, every believer is going to sin and continue to sin to some degree or another. If you say that you have no sin you are operating on arrogance and self-deception and the truth [Bible doctrine] is not in you, you are not operating on doctrine, you are once again operating outside the bottom circle. Truth is not in you, you are over in carnality denying the fact that you are a sinner.

            Verse 9 – in contrast. “If we confess (HOMOLOGEO [o(mologew], which means to admit or to acknowledge your sin) our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.” This means that there are two categories of forgiveness. One category of forgiveness deals with what happens at the cross and is judicial or forensic forgiveness that is ours continuously because we are in the top circle. We constantly have that and we can never lose it. But then there is experiential forgiveness which is related to phase two, and this is related to the use of 1 John 1:9 and to P2 consequences, those consequences whether they are natural consequences, cause and effect consequences, or divine discipline consequences, that are ours in time as a result of the sin that we commit. The believer cannot sin with impunity.

            In Ephesians 5 there are various absolute states mentioned. We have the command in verse 8 to walk as children of the light. Verse 9 is the consequences of walking in the light—production. The goal of all is this is production of character, “all goodness and righteousness and truth.” This is the transformation of character. It is designed to produce in us the character of Jesus Christ. The fruit of the light is comparable to the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In verse 11 it says “do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” Then we have in verse 14 a reminder of rebound: “Awake sleeper, and arise from the dead [temporal death/carnality], and Christ will shine on you.” Verse 15 – the unwise is the fool in carnality, the wise is the believer operating on doctrine. Verse 17 – “So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” It is either one or the other, not a little bit of one and a little bit of the other. Culminating in verse 18: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” So we see that we have two states. Then we have a new concept: the filling of the Holy Spirit. The term in the Greek is instrumental dative of means. We are to be filled by means of God the Holy Spirit. The verb is PLEROO [plhrow] and it means to fill up a deficiency. The deficiency is the vacuum in our soul caused by a lack of doctrine. What are we filled with? The phrase “filled with the Spirit” is somewhat ambiguous. Does that means that the Spirit Himself fills us up, that He is the content of the filling? That would have to be expressed in the Greek with the genitive case because the genitive expresses content. The dative expresses means. So it is the Holy Spirit who is the dynamic element that fills us with something. This should be more accurately translated “filled by means of the Spirit.” The content of the filling is doctrine—Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” The result is going to be given by a descriptive genitive using the Greek adjective PLERES [plhrhj] which comes from the same root as PLEROO. There is another Greek word that comes in here. The verb PIMPLEMI [pimplhmi] also has to do with being filled. PIMPLEMI and PLEROO are translated the same way in the English, yet they are two different words in the Greek and they refer to two different kinds of filling. Failure to recognize that has led to some real problems.

 

The reason the believer moves from light to darkness is his volition, and there must be a mechanism whereby he recovers and moves from darkness back to the light. That mechanism is 1 John 1:9 and is volitional. The volition must be exercised for recovery.

            As we move further into Galatians 5 we will see that our natural ability produces certain works. The Holy Spirit also has certain fruit and production in our lives. We can also in the flesh produce ‘pseudo-works’—human good. It looks like divine good and masquerades as divine good. If you do not have a mechanism, a means of moving from walking in the darkness to walking in the light how do you ascertain whether or not you are walking by the Spirit or walking in the flesh? There has to be some means for determining the realm in which you are walking and how you recover. 1 John 1:9 supplies that. Just because you confess your sins and you move back into the sphere of light doesn’t mean you are going anywhere, it just puts you in a position back where you can go somewhere. Confession doesn’t move you anywhere other than back into the sphere of light. It is from that point on that the issue is determined.

 

Summary

  1. Walking in the light refers to the Christian living his life in fellowship with God.
  2. Just as the darkness is incompatible with light, so sin, whether overt, mental or verbal, is incompatible with fellowship with God. What the righteousness of God reject the justice of God condemns.
  3. When we sin we quit walking in the light and begin walking in darkness.
  4. Walking in darkness is an absolute that is compared to other absolutes in Ephesians chapter five.
  5. The command to be filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:18 is tantamount to the mandate to walk by the Spirit—they are related. They both relate to walking by means of the light.
  6. The continuous light metaphor in Ephesians chapter five and in 1 John chapter one shows the connection between fellowship with God and the filling of the Holy Spirit; the context in Ephesians 5 is walking in the light. The context in 1 John 1 is walking in the light. Both passages recognize that you can move outside the light. In Ephesians the focus is on one aspect, which is to be filled by means of the Spirit. In 1 John, John is addressing a different issue: confession of sin. When you put these together you realize that the similarities are there in many different points but the difference is the command to be filled with the Spirit and confession of sin.
  7. Confession is the means for the recovery of the filling of the Spirit.

 

The doctrine of the filling of the Holy Spirit

      Introduction

Ephesians 5:18—the first verb is the negation of a command, a present passive imperative of METHUSKO [mequskw]. With the negative it is an imperative of prohibition, and this indicates in the present tense that this is a complete prohibition for the entire life of the believer. That is followed by the dative of means for the word for wine, OINO [o)inw]. The dative indicates means, so the command is, “Do not get drunk by means of wine”; “for that is dissipation”— wasting of time. In contrast there is a second command and that is indicated by the strong adversative ALLA [a)lla], which indicates a strong contrast between the two statements, “but be filled.” This is the positive command, also a present passive imperative. The present imperative indicates a standard or general rule for the believer’s life. It comes from the verb PLEROO [plhrow], and that emphasizes to fill something up. The question needs to be asked: What are you filled up with? It seems in the English that the content of the filling is the Spirit. In the Greek the dative is used to indicate means, and here we have an instrumental dative: “by means of the Holy Spirit.” Colossians 3:16—“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” If we compare Ephesians 5 & 6 with Colossians 3 and what comes after that command there are the same consequences, all of which flow from both mandates. In Ephesians the emphasis is on the means of filling and in Colossians the emphasis is on the content of the filling which is Bible doctrine.

a)      Both verbs are present passive imperatives indicating that the believer is acted upon by that which is in the dative. The passive voice indicates that the believer is the recipient of the action. In the first case he is acted upon by wine and is made drunk. In the second he is acted upon by the Holy Spirit and he is filled up with something. The imperative mood indicates that this is a command or a mandate. The imperative is always addressed to the volition of the individual. It is up to the believer as to whether or not he will implement the mandate.

b)      In the past in terms of the history of the interpretation of this passage drunkenness has been taken as the key issue in the metaphor. Obviously we are dealing with an analogy here and drunkenness has been taken as the key issue, and the emphasis has been on the idea of control; that when you drink wine and get drunk it is the wine controlling you. So the analogy would then mean that the Holy Spirit is supposed to control you. What’s wrong with that? Recent studies in the religious practices common in Ephesus at the time reveal that one of the very popular cults in Ephesus was the worship of the god Dionysus, also known by the Latin name Bacchus. Among other things he was the god of wine and his worship was very much associated with the mystery religions at that time in which participation in drinking enormous amounts of wine in order to get drunk and get into some kind of altar state of consciousness so that you could have communion or fellowship with the god. And of you really got lucky then the god would speak to you in glossalalia or gibberish. In Ephesus they had the same kind of problem. They were thinking that to become spiritual and have fellowship with God was by getting drunk. In terms of their religious background they were using wine in order to have a deeper fellowship with God. So Paul is saying don’t get drunk with wine because that’s not going to get you in fellowship with God, but be filled by means of the Spirit because that is what gets you in fellowship with God. As long as the believer is in fellowship with God and is learning the Word of God the Holy Spirit is going to be filling up his soul with doctrine, making it understandable so that there is something there for Him to bring to his mind at the proper time.

c)      Conclusion: The filling of the Holy Spirit means to be filled by means of the Holy Spirit and is the means to fellowship and spirituality.

d)      In earlier writings by various theologians who fail to understand the original languages an argument was made for repeated fillings. The imperative mood of Ephesians 5:18 indicates that you can lose the filling of the Spirit. Nowhere in Acts does it indicate that you can lose the filling of the Holy Spirit. The reason is that the word that is used in all of these passages is the word PIMPLEMI [pimplhmi]and the word that is used in Ephesians 5:18 is PLEROO. They are not synonymous. Luke 1:15 in reference to John the Baptist—PIMPLEMI. What dispensation is John the Baptist living in? The dispensation of Israel, not the Church Age where we have the unique filling of the Holy Spirit, PLEROO [plhrow]. Cf. Luke 1:41, 67; Acts 2:4; 4:8—there is a relation between filling and speaking, it has a revelatory significance. This word PIMPLEMI would have more in common with the Old Testament temporary enduement than it does with New Testament filling, because it is temporary and exclusively related to some kind of verbal utterance, just as the prophets in the Old testament were filled with the Spirit in order to write the Scriptures.

e)      There is a failure to distinguish between the verb PLEROO and the related adjective PLERES. PLERES is an adjective and as such is descriptive. PLERES plus a genitive of description is going to give us a character analysis of a person. Acts 13:10 is a description of one of the various characters who were in opposition to the apostles in Acts. “You who are full of all deceit and fraud”—PLERES. Another example is in Acts 9:36—“full of good works and mercy [lit.].” This is a character description of the woman. These descriptions are not related to the Holy Spirit at all. In Acts 6:3 they are going to choose the deacons—“full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” Here it is PLERES again. He is not talking about PLEROO, that these men are filled with the Spirit. It is obvious from the passage that if you are going to choose such men you are not going to choose men who are going to be filled with the Spirit and the next moment not. Secondly, you are not filled with the wisdom one moment and not filled with wisdom the next. That is clearly an adjectival description of somebody whose whole life is characterized by the Holy Spirit and wisdom. So PLERES is different from PLEROO. PLEROO is the means of filling; PLERES describes the ultimate, mature result of filling. So what we would say is that the reason that they are full of the Spirit and wisdom is because these men have grown to spiritual maturity and they have spent a maximum amount of time being filled with doctrine under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and it is exemplified in their life. Acts 6:8—“And Stephen, full of grace and power.” That describes his life. Cf. Acts 11:24. PLERES indicates the character results of PLEROO. The Bible is saying that character matters! The ultimate goal is not to be filled with the Spirit, not to be in fellowship; it is to advance to spiritual maturity and exemplify the character of Jesus Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is PLERES, the result of continuous filling by means of God the Holy Spirit. So the conclusion is that PIMPLEMI relates to the pre-Church Age enduement of the Holy Spirit for special revelation. PLEROO relates to the work of the Holy Spirit in filling the believer with doctrine. The content of the filling is always doctrine and the result is expressed by PLERES, and that is Christ-like character. So there we see the entire process from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. The means is the Holy Spirit filling the believer with doctrine. The process is continuous walking. The result is transformed character expressed by PLERES.

 

Contrary to the way spiritual warfare is taught by so many people today the real battle, no matter who the enemy is, whether the enemy is outside of you in terms of Satan or the demons, or whether it is the cosmic system, or whether the enemy is the internal enemy of our own sin nature, the way to respond to that enemy and defeat that enemy is always the same. It never involves going out and taking Satan captive or rebuking the devil, or any of that sort of nonsense, but it is always related to thinking. The real battle takes place between your ears. So the issue is ultimately and always volition. 

            Galatians 5:16—“Walk by means of the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.” The present active indicative indicates that walking by means of the Spirit is a standard operating procedure for living the spiritual life. We have to walk a moment by moment, day by day conscious dependence upon God the Holy Spirit, moving forward. Walking by the Spirit works because, first and foremost, we have made a decision to depend upon God the Holy Spirit. This is not something mystical, it is done primarily through learning and applying the Word of God. But we have seen that when we sin we grieve the Holy Spirit and we quench the Holy Spirit. We are then out of fellowship and the Bible says that this is walking in darkness. As long as we walk in darkness we do not have fellowship with God. The only way to recover is through 1 John 1:9, confession of sin. Then we begin to walk in the light, it puts us experientially back into the bottom circle. Here the issue once again is volition, obedience and application to divine mandates. These are mutually exclusive categories: either you are out in carnality, walking in darkness, or in walking in the light. There is no middle ground.

            “Walk by means of the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh [lit.].” The verb is the aorist active subjunctive of TELEIOO [teleiow], which means to bring to completion. Often this is translated “perfect,” but not in the sense of sinlessness. The main idea is to bring something to completion. In Greek, if you wanted to say something and negate it in the strongest possible terms, what you would do is put it in the subjunctive mood because that is the mood of potentiality. What you are going to do in your negation is show that there is absolutely no potential here. So you would take two negatives, OU and ME [o)u and mh]. In English it is bad form to use a double negative. However in Greek if you want to say no and you mean it, then what you do is double your negative. So if you take the double negative plus an aorist subjunctive verb, what you are saying is that there is no possibility whatsoever that this can occur. It is the most absolute form of negation possible. So it indicates that these are mutually exclusive concepts: either walking by the Spirit or carrying out the desires of the flesh. You can’t be a little spiritual and a little carnal, it has to be one or the other. The Greek word for “flesh” is SARKOS [sarkoj] which can refer to the literal muscles and meat that wraps around the bones of the body, but it has a metaphorical meaning that relates to the sin nature.

 

The doctrine of the sin nature

1.       Terminology: SARX [sarc] is used figuratively for that which inhabits, or has as its source, the genetic structure of the human being and produces the inclination and propensity to sin. Prediction: That any day there may be discovered a gene that means that you will be an alcoholic, or a certain gene that means that you will be a murderer, or a certain gene that means that you will be a homosexual. The Bible does not negate that. But to say that this is necessarily where you will be is wrong. The Bible says that the sin nature has its source genetically and is transmitted genetically through procreation, but that this genetic material is merely a predisposition in certain directions. Ultimately it is your volition that determines whether or not that is brought to fruition. So every person has certain proclivities of their sin nature. Whether or not you activate those things depends entirely upon your volition. An unbeliever is a slave to his sin nature and can do nothing but obey his sin nature, but a believer is free from the power of the sin nature. Cf. Romans 7:5, 18; 8:4ff.

2.       Definition: The Westminster larger catechism defines sin as “any want or conformity to, or transgression of, any law of God given as a rule to the reasonable creature.” L. S. Chafer modified that a little. Instead of saying it is a want or conformity to the law of God it was better to put the character of God, because the law of God is the verbal expression of the character of God. Further he said that the general term for sin is the Greek word HAMARTIA [a(martia] meaning that a prescribed mark or ideal has been missed. This mark or ideal is the essential character of God which is made known to man by God’s revealed will or law. John Calvin had a very extended comment on sin: “Original sin, then, may be defined as a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed “works of the flesh.” So clearly talks about sin as not some illness but a corruption and depravity. He concludes by saying, “Nay, the whole nature, as it were, is a seed-bed of sin and therefore cannot be but odious and abominable to God. Hence it follows that it is properly deemed sinful in the sight of God for there could be no condemnation without guilt. Next comes the other point, that this perversity in us never ceases. It constantly produces new fruits, just as a lighted furnace sends forth sparks and flames, or a fountain without ceasing pours out water. Hence, those who have defined original sin as the lack of the original righteousness which we ought to have had, though they substantially comprehend the whole case, do not significantly enough express its power and energy. For our nature is not only utterly devoid of goodness but so prolific in all kinds of evil that it can never be idle. Those who term it concupiscence [modern definition: sexual lust, and not a good term for the sin nature] use the word not very inappropriately provided it were added that everything which is in man from the intellect to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, I defiled and pervaded with this concupiscence, or to express it more briefly, that the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence.” In other words, we are totally depraved. So when we talk about sin we will define it this way: Sin is any mental, verbal or overt act which violates the character, standards and will of God which are revealed in the Word of God. What that tells us right away is that there is an absolute standard, and that is in the person and character of God. We live in an age which rejects the notion that there are absolute standards. The technical term for the ideology dominating our current culture is postmodernism. It walks hand in hand with something called “multiculturalism” which says that every culture is equal and has equal value, and all parts of each culture are equal and have equal value. So if you are a Satanist or an animist in the darkest of Africa, or if you are an intellectual at Harvard university, or if you are a white male European or a female Asian, whatever your culture is the greatest sin you can commit is to say that one is better than the other. What lies behind that is a system of values which says you cannot say something is right or something is wrong anymore, because that simply reflects your own cultural bias. And if you are the” worst of all sinners,” a white male, then you can never use terms such as right and wrong because that simply reflects your chauvinistic bias! You don’t hear today that behaviour is right or wrong anymore, especially in the schools. What you hear over and over again is something is “appropriate” or is “inappropriate.” The root of that terminology is postmodernism: there is nothing right or wrong anymore. The second definition we need to address is the sin nature. The sin nature is the capacity, the propensity and the inclination in every human being to make life work independently of God. Sin in its essence says, “I make the decision, I am the authority, not God. I will determine what right and wrong is and not God.” It is an assertion of independence, and that is exactly what took place in the original angelic fall and also in the garden of Eden.   

3.       Sin originated in the universe when Lucifer first sinned—Ezekiel 28 & Isaiah 14. If we look at the beginning of Ezekiel we see that the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel to address an oracle of condemnation against the “leader” [NASB] of Tyre, but it is really the “prince” of Tyre as in the King James version. Today, most Old Testament scholars don’t think either of these two passages have anything to do with Satan/Lucifer. It is absurd. If we look at what is said here in relationship to the prince of Tyre in verses 2-10 that obviously will apply to a human ruler. But what is said starting in verse 11, and what is addressed t the king of Tyre, is something else again. The king of Tyre cannot be a human being. In fact it refers to the power behind the throne, someone who is not up front but who is manipulating things behind the scene. That is the scenario we have starting in verse 12. The human king of Tyre is really a puppet who is being manipulated by someone else, and this someone else is identified as the true ruler of Tyre. And this personage cannot be a human being because of what is said about him, and must refer to an angelic personage. “You had the seal of perfection,” past tense; “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” This terminology in Hebrew indicates that this creature was at one time the most perfect creature ever to come from the hand of God—the most beautiful, the most brilliant, the most intelligent creature. That describes Lucifer, the highest of all of the angels. Then in verse 13, “In Eden you were,” Eden being a term describing the throne room of God; “the garden of God,” not to be confused with the garden of Eden where man was placed; “every precious stone was your covering…” The jewels mentioned remind us of the jewels that the high priest of Israel was to wear in his breastplate. If you were Jewish and read this what would come to your mind is the breast of the high priest of Israel. So from this we get the hint that in his original function before he fell Lucifer had something of a priestly function in relationship to all of the angels. Then in verse 14, “You were the anointed cherub who covers …” This is a pregnant verse in terms of the implications here. First of all he is called the “anointed” cherub, the Hebrew word mashiach—messiah. Messiah relates to Jesus Christ, it simply means the anointed one; but it shows that this role that Lucifer held prior to the fall is a special role, he had a unique role. The cherubs are almost always implicated in the throne of God and associated with His righteousness and justice. The word “covering”: remember there is the covering of sin on the mercy seat in the ark of the covenant, so this is a term that carries with it the sense of atonement. So there are all kinds of nuances to these words that are used here to describe Lucifer’s function prior to the fall that speak of some kind of a priestly role. God create Lucifer perfect, but like all rational creatures that God creates he had volition. He exercised his volition against God one day and unrighteousness was discovered in him. Verse 16 is interesting: “By the abundance of your trade” – talking about Tyre, a major commercial centre in the ancient world; “you were internally filled with violence.” What was Lucifer trading? We can’t say for sure but the suggestion is that because of the priestly terminology used to describe him that what he is trafficking in is that he is carrying the praise and worship of the angelic host to God, just as the high priest of Israel would be carrying the praise and worship of the people of Israel to God. The high priest is the representative of all the people and they approach God through him. So all the angels would approach God through Lucifer as their high priest. As he trafficked in that trade what happened was that he decided he wanted all of that praise and worship for himself instead of giving it to God. So he begins to want to be like God. The result is give” “you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.” Isaiah 14:12—“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning [Lucifer], son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You have weakened the nations!” This starts off where Ezekiel 28 stops. Here we have the sin of Lucifer, the five “I wills.” This is asserting his will over against God’s will. That’s why the sin nature may be defined as essentially that inclination towards asserting independence from God: I am the final authority, not God.

4.       Sin is an act of volition against God, producing sin in four categories: commission, omission, ignorance, cognizance. Sins of commission are when you actively perform or engage in overt, mental, or verbal acts which violate the character of God. A sin of omission is a sin because you fail to attain the high standards revealed by God. For example, you have the opportunity to demonstrate impersonal love toward someone. You don’t hate them or hurt them, you just don’t do anything and you ignore the situation. You fail to do what you should have done. Sins of ignorance is doing those things which you did not know was a sin. Because you wanted to do it you are culpable. Ignorance is not an excuse. A sin of cognizance is where you know it is a sin, you want to do it, and you do it.

5.       As we have seen from all of this sin is ultimately a sin of independence against God, so all sins are first and foremost sins against God no matter who else they might affect.

6.       When God created Adam and Isha, man was originally created in the image and likeness of God, according to Genesis 1:26, 27. Being created in the image of God they were created perfect and had absolute righteousness, even though this was an untested and unconfirmed righteousness. They were placed in perfect environment and God provided everything that they would need to supply every single necessity that could be imagined. There are a couple of things to note with regard to the prohibition in the garden. First of all, God supplied all kinds of food for Adam and Isha. There was nothing inherent in the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that made it wrong. It was not poisonous. There was not something in it that changed them. It was not physically wrong. It was wrong because God said it was wrong. And it was not some sort of allegory for sex. The issue was obedience or disobedience to God. That is what made it sinful, not that there was something inherently wrong with the fruit. For man to eat that fruit was to say, I know more than God knows, and I will make the determination for my life in opposition to God. So there was a test: the test of the tree. And there was a penalty, which is stated in a very strong Hebrew phrase, the use of the qal imperative plus the qal infinitive absolute. When you take a qal imperative of prohibition plus a qal infinitive absolute that emphasizes the certainty of the prohibition. It has been said that because of the double verb here, it should be translated, “Dying you will die.” But it has been demonstrated that if you translate it like that anywhere else in the Scriptures it is nonsense. What this means is that at the moment of eating the fruit death would occur. The death that occurred was spiritual death which is defined as separation from God, the essential meaning of death, not a failure to exist. Spiritual death is the cause of all other kinds of death, of which there are six other kinds in the Bible. Spiritual death affects the entire dimension of creation. There are certain consequences spelled out by God in Genesis 3:14-19. This is called the curse. These are not simply consequences, it is a negative curse that God places on the planet and on creation and on man because of sin. First of all to the serpent, verse 14. At this moment there was a major physiological transformation in the serpent. From this moment he would no longer move about the way he did before. Then to the woman, verse 15. “Your seed” – all that would follow Lucifer, all that would be involved in the cosmic system; “her seed” refers to the coming Messiah. This is the first promise of the gospel. “He shall bruise you [Satan] on the head” – a fatal wound. Jesus Christ bruised Satan on the head at the cross. “And you shall bruise him [Christ] on the heel.” It would be a temporary but not a permanent wounding. That is what took place at the cross. To the woman: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth”. This doesn’t say that childbirth is part of the curse. God intended for the woman to bear children from her inception. “Yet your desire shall be for your husband”—not sexual desire, the Hebrew word means desire for control. It is the same word God used when He was speaking to Cain in Genesis 4:7 when God told him about the temptation he was going through, and He told Cain that “if you do not do well sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you.” It is a desire to control, a desire to master, a desire to manipulate So what we see here is that sin is going to impact on human relationships, so that rather than peace and harmony there will be continuous struggle for dominion, authority and leadership. “And he shall rule over you.” The word for “rule” there is a word that implies tyrannical control. So what we see here is that generally speaking in history (it doesn’t mean that every lady is a contentious woman who wants to go out and dominate her husband) this is the tendency throughout the species. Of course, to whatever degree a woman has been taught biblical principles this can be overcome. The whole purpose of sanctification is rolling back various aspects of the curse. The same thing is true for the husband. The indication here is that men will want to gain a tyrannical position over women. That also is played out in history and is going to be radically transformed by the application of doctrine. Then man has to deal with the fact that nature is being transformed, so there is an aspect of sin that impacts creation, verse 18. As a result of sin every aspect of creation was radically transformed. What the earth was like after the fall bore little resemblance to what it was like before the fall. And God provides the perfect solution in Jesus Christ who begins the process of rolling back the curse because He is the one who dies and pays the penalty. This is rolled back sequentially, it starts with the redemption of mankind, and then we see historically it takes place at a second stage in the Millennial kingdom where part of the curse is rolled back so that the lion lies down with the lamb, etc.

7.       At the instant of Adam’s sin he died spiritually and acquired a sin nature which inhabits the cell structure or DNA code of the human race. So the sin nature is passed on genetically to every member of the human race through the male of the species. As a result of that sin Adam’s basic nature was transformed. Prior to the fall he was to subdue the earth; now it would be covered with thorns and thistles, there would be warfare on the earth, and conflict between man and nature. So sin has a certain physical consequence.

8.       The result of this is that every person is born physically alive and spiritually dead. It is the sin nature that produces spiritual death, separation from God. The reason it is called spiritual death is because man was originally created trichotomous—three parts: body, soul, spirit. The body is the material part of mankind, the soul is the immaterial part (self-consciousness, mentality, emotion, volition, conscience), the soul is that immaterial part of man which is intimately linked to the soul (the spirit doesn’t think, it is the mentality of the soul that thinks and makes decisions) and allows the soul to have a relationship with God and to understand the things of God. When Adam sinned the human spirit was lost; he became spiritually dead, so that man was divorced from an understanding of spiritual reality. That is why it is important for man to be born again because at the instant he puts his faith alone in Jesus Christ, at that instant God the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit, and instantly and simultaneously imparts that to the believer so that he becomes spiritually alive at that particular point and is then able to grow spiritually, to have a spiritual life, and to understand the things of God. The technical theological term for this is total depravity, and it is often misunderstood. By total it does not mean that man is as bad as he can be, it means that man’s soul or being in its entirety—every aspect—is affected by sin. This means that we are absolutely helpless to do anything about our fallen status. There is nothing that man can do to gain God’s approbation. That does not mean that God cannot do relatively good things, but what good things he does cannot gain the approval of God. Depravity also means that every aspect of our being is corrupted and polluted by sin. That means that if we look at our self-consciousness our concept of who and what we are as creatures, as human beings, is going to be distorted by sin. It means that in our mentality, in the thinking part of our soul, even the very starting point of our thinking (rationalism, empiricism) is affected. The only other alternative is revelation, that God directly instructs us and teaches us what the starting points are. That doesn’t mean that God tells us everything but He gives us the starting point and then we work it out from there, but always consistent with the revelation of God. Our mentality id affected; our emotions are affected, so that we are constantly living in emotional reaction and emotional sin. Our volition is affected and our conscience is affected, the norms and standards of our soul are distorted. And every human being who is born is obnoxious to God, something that runs counter to the natural inclination of mankind. We want to think somehow that after a child is born that he is not really obnoxious to God until he reaches a certain point when maybe he commits certain sins or he is at the age of God-consciousness or accountability, and it is only at that point that he becomes a sinner. But that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that at the point of birth every human being is minus-R, lacking the perfect righteousness of God. We also learn that as unbelievers, fallen