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| “...who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come...” |
most abused of books, generally known as the Bible, a perspective is presented to us which often becomes lost to the mind of the reader in our preoccupation with personal issues and in the mass of detail concerning the historical process of God's restoration purpose.
The purpose of Christianity is a far bigger issue than life after death. It goes beyond issues of Heaven and Hell! |
use evangelical language, the scripture quoted above is simply saying in its own context that a believer cannot be born-again again, but in so doing this quote also gives us a summary description of how God sees our practical human experience of this new born-again identity.
that God does not see Christianity as a religion but as a restoration of His original purpose, and the very public emphasis which the Lord Jesus placed on His "son of man"* identity during His exemplary ministry to first-century Israel, the original Genesis One design of a human being (made in "His image"), which was meant to be as a practical revelation of God's supervisory management relationship to His creation ("have dominion"), was a design to represent Him fully; as angels do not but are simply messengers.
*A semitic idiom for 'human' and nothing else (eg. Ps.8:4). |
is the perspective on humanity which Jesus shows in His direct rebuke of His panicking disciples in the Galilee storm before addressing the problem, and also in His strange reply to Peter's surprise at the instant death of a rebuked fig tree at Jerusalem.
It is the perspective of God's original intention for humanity.
| 1. | Individually: |
This restoration of original purpose is first of all an individual personal response.
can be no substitute for this, either in a parent having a child 'christened' or through church actions of mass/holy communion/eucharist, etc. Nothing but the personal response of the individual to God opens the door to the restoration of God's purpose through that individual life.
this biblical perspective that gave us Christ's use of the term 'born-again' when declaring to Sanhedrin member Nicodemus that being Jewish was not enough. As a religious leader he would have presided at the baptismal initiation of a Gentile convert into Judaism by dipping in the mikveh water, when that new-born terminology would have been used of the Gentile-convert, but not for him for he was 'born Jewish', hence his confused surprise at Christ's words to him of needing to be born-of-water (discipleship baptism).
He had come to talk to Jesus at night to avoid tarnishing his image. John 3:2. |
the Christ of God demonstrated for us the personal life of a restored human in all He did and said.
But God's gift of the Holy Spirit to Christ's disciples at Pentecost took that individual-restoration a step further.
Jesus had described this coming event as a transfer of leadership from Himself to the Spirit of God in the lives of His anxious disciples.
Jesus had described this coming event as a transfer of leadership from Himself to the Spirit of God in the lives of His anxious disciples.
| "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you." |
other 'Helper' (that is, in the place of Jesus, Jn.14:16): He who would come with the same authority as Jesus ("from the Father" Jn.15:26) in His personal relationship to the disciples.
(In the original Hellenistic Greek language of our New Testament text, such as in Jn.14:17,26;15:26;16:13, the word "Spirit" is neuter so its pronoun must grammatically also therefore be the neuter 'it', but the apostle John, in recording Christ's words for us, deliberately violates the Greek grammar in order to be spiritually accurate – for the Spirit of God is no less 'person' than Jesus Himself in His personal relationship to us).
in Rev.1:4.
unique Pentecost event is as unrepeatable as the resurrection of Jesus through which we now receive new life (Eph.2:5-6), even though individuals and group may discover this reality as if it were new, for in that Pentecost event began the corporate identity of all God's people everywhere, making them the one Body of Christ worldwide for the continuance of His ministry in history here on earth.
| 2. | Corporately: |
In this sense therefore no individual Christian is ever complete.
Every believer at best is part of a larger whole – to complete the ministry of Christ to his/her generation.
the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit are individual parts of this larger whole.
It is the visible identity of this corporate reality of the restoration, that Jesus said is the ultimate persuasive sign of the authenticity of His restoration ministry –
| "By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" |
individual ministry goes beyond church meetings to the building up of the whole (the Body of Christ, beyond the limit of a local congregation/denomination); from each individual part –
"to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ"
| 3. | Consequently: |
THE FORETASTE
the spiritual unity of the believers meeting daily in the Jerusalem temple's outer court (court of the Gentiles) was preserved by the public rebuke and sudden death of Ananias and his wife Sapphira, the public attitude toward Simon Peter changed and consequently even the touch of his shadow healed the sick brought in from the villages around Jerusalem. Was this because Peter was Peter? No!
was just a deacon, part of the welfare management of the needy among the believers, not an apostle or specially gifted, until he dared to reach out to the despised Samaritans with the gospel, even though it initially evoked suspicion among his fellow Jerusalem believers so that they sent Peter and John to check on the authenticity of his work. From there the Spirit's gift of 'evangelist' became his and we find him on the road to Gaza baptising a court official of Queen Candace of Ethiopia and suddenly –
| "...when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and ...Philip found himself at Azotus" |
34 miles in an instant.
transfer? That sounds like the appearance of the resurrected Jesus in the upper room. They had thought He might be a spirit/ghost for the doors were locked and He had suddenly just appeared among them.
When the Bible says "powers of the age to come", quoted in the heading above, it is powers of the kingdom of the resurrected Christ of God.
For instance, when the Lord Jesus said –
| "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father" |
the Lord was not exaggerating, nor did He mean, as too many foolish preachers says under the misguided impression that they are protecting the unique greatness of Jesus, that 'greater' only means 'more than' by multiplication for no one can do 'greater' than Jesus.
| See: Common 'Christian' Fallacies |
meant exactly what He said, as much "greater" than speaking to a mountain to move was greater than telling a fig tree to die (Mattt.21:21). That common avoidance of the limitless nature of this foretaste of the future demeans the words of Jesus to mean simply a replication of the past, and is not true!
foretaste samples among us today, just as those recorded in Holy Scripture, are simply a foretaste to help us understand that –
we belong to the future if we belong to the Lord.
So every supernatural event, whether it be physical healing (as by Peter's shadow) or any other impossible event (as Philip's instant translocation), is only a foretaste of the future and never an end in itself.
is a supernatural foretaste which dwells NOW in all those in whom the Spirit of God dwells:
| "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father ...I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you." |
so that we each are now a temple where the world around us can meet God!
