Walking in the Light, Fellowship Gal. 5:16; Eph. 5:8;
1 Jn. 1:9
Open your
bibles to Galatians 5:16, we are going to continue our study of what it means
to walk by means of the Spirit.
We started last
week with the introduction to the concept and we will probably conclude the
introduction this morning. One of the greatest areas of confusion among
pastors and theologians is in the whole realm of sanctification.
What
makes this so confusing for many people is that about 90% of what people say is
the same, but it is that small percent of the difference that is so difficult
to pin down. When you listen to three, four or five people, they may all
basically say the same thing, it sounds like the same thing. And yet, if
you know what you are listening for, you will 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. What we discover is that it is in the one or two or
three distinctions between the different schools of theology that make all the
difference in the world.
Let’s have a
quick review of what we covered last week regarding sanctification. We
introduced the doctrine of sanctification which is a theological term that
describes the Christian life. You want to have one word to hang that on,
it’s is the Christian life, the Christian walk. It is the unique dynamics by
which the believer is moved from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity in the
church age. How is that accomplished? What are the means God uses to
bring that about and what does it look like?
Unfortunately
there is much confusion today about the ministry of God the Holy Spirit and how
He relates to the believers life.
Last time we
reviewed the various ministries of God the Holy Spirit in the life of the
believer: efficacious grace, regeneration, the baptism of the Holy Spirit,
which is not an experience but which takes place at the moment of salvation for
every believer, the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, the sealing of the
Spirit, the bestowing of spiritual gifts and the filling of the
Spirit. That is a quick summary of what we covered last time.
When we get
into this particular section of Galatians the Apostle Paul has been building an
argument from the beginning of Chapter 3 related to the spiritual life. I
want to remind you because it is important, and I am amazed at how often this
verse is overlooked in the analysis of Galatians as a whole, verse 3 of chapter
3 Paul said, 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 looks like the spiritual life, an overt
spirituality, let’s say, that is really a pseudo spirituality and that is too
often, what people do is confuse morality with spirituality. They do not
understand that whatever the unbeliever can do is not part of the spiritual
life.
The spiritual
life for the church age believer is a supernatural way of life and demands a
supernatural means of executing that spiritual life.
No one is
asking, much less answering, the question, how do you distinguish morality,
which is the product of the flesh, the sin nature, and spirituality? What is
the essential difference? How can you tell if what is going on in your life is
the production of God the Holy Spirit or simply the production of your own
flesh and your own ability?
We begin our
study in Galatians 5:16 where we have the mandate, But I say, walk by means of the Spirit and
you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. This section is bracketed by two
different commands which appear to be the same in English but they 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 in verse 25 is stoicheo, which means to follow in the
track of someone, to follow in the path of someone, to follow in the footsteps
of someone. So there is a slightly different nuance between the
two.
Having begun our
study last week we started off with the Doctrine of Walking. This is an
introduction to walking by means of the Spirit and we need to begin by looking
at the metaphor of walking that is used throughout the New Testament to
describe the spiritual life.
First we looked
at the basic words that are involved. We saw that there are four words,
the two main words are peripateo
and stoicheo. Two other
words that are used in the Greek are poreuo
which means to walk, to go about one’s daily activities, to proceed and to
travel, and orthopodeo which means
to walk straight, to walk in a straight path.
The key word we
are going to focus on, the primary word used in the New Testament for the Christian
way of life is the word peripateo. It
is the basic word used for physical walking but is also used figuratively or
metaphorically for the conduct of one’s life. The metaphorical meaning
represents the entire panorama of a person’s life, both the thought life and
overt actions.
Let’s think a
minute about this analogy. I want to build on something I said last week,
I did not go this far with it, but I want to expand it a little bit.
Physical walking is one of the best forms of exercise. When you walk the
circulation of your blood stream is developed, your breathing improves, there
is an aerobic effect on your cardiovascular system, the regular elimination of
waste is supported, and your heart muscle is strengthened.
Let’s take
those factors and develop the analogy to the spiritual life. First, when
it comes to walking in the spiritual life all the muscles of the spiritual
life, the stress busters which are spiritual skills, are worked out. So
when you walk step by step in the spiritual life you are exercising all of the
spiritual skills, you are developing the muscles of the spiritual life.
Secondly, the
circulation of doctrine in your soul increases. 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.
Third, just as
physical walking has an aerobic effect on the body it has a spiritual aerobic
effect in the soul, improving 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.
Fourth, it will
eliminate the waste of human viewpoint in the soul as you renovate the thinking
in the soul and replace the waste of human viewpoint with divine viewpoint of
bible doctrine.
Fifth, in the
process, your soul will be strengthened or edified through the construction of
the soul fortress which protects and defends the soul from the outside pressure
of adversity and prosperity. There is a lot more we can do with the
walking metaphor, but this gives you an idea of the many different ways the
physical act of walking can help us understand the spiritual concept. That is peripateo.
stoicheo means to walk
in a straight line and it is used metaphorically to mean march in step, march
in ranks, walk in agreement with and walk forward in an orderly manner. 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 second
thing we saw when we moved beyond basic etymology was the central issue of
walking in the scripture. 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 scripture and I find that
whenever the Holy Spirit takes the time to repeat something, then we need to
pay attention to it.
Walk worthy is
mandated in Ephesians 4:1, Colossians 1:10, and 1Thessalonians 2:12. We are to walk in
a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called.
That is
motivated by grace orientation. When we have grace orientation that means
we understand the grace of God, that God has done everything for us, and 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.
In the Latin
the two words are etymologically related, there is a connection between grace
and gratitude. Out of grace orientation we are moved to gratitude for all
that God has done for us and then we realize we should live our lives in a
manner consistent with His plans and purposes for us.
For He saved us,
as we shall see, for
the purpose of the production of good works.
When we analyze
the use of the word walking in the New Testament, there are three categories we
can summarize from the various mandates.
1.
We have the
phrase en plus the dative of sphere. We are to walk in the day, Romans
13:13, or in the light, same concept, Ephesians 5:8,
and 1 John 1:6. Negatively, we are not to walk
in the sphere of darkness, 1John1:7.
Our Christian life is to be in
a certain sphere. We will analyze what this means later, but we just want
to summarize the concept now.
2. We are to walk in the sphere of our newness of life,
Romans 6:4.
3. We are to walk in the sphere of love, Ephesians 5:2
and 2John 6.
4. We are to walk in the sphere of good works. We
were saved for that purpose according to Ephesians 2:10. That is divine good
produced by the Holy Spirit.
5. We are to walk in wisdom, Colossians 4:5.
6. We are to walk in truth. 2 John 4, and 3 John:
3&4.
Negatively, we
are not to walk in the emptiness of vanity, referring to the vacuum in the soul
created by human viewpoint. We are not to walk in 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 is panourgia, which
means deceitful cunning. The context refers to utilizing the word of God
for our own personal gain, power, prestige, financial gain or personal
approbation.
Unfortunately,
that is true for many people who go into the ministry. They give in to the
lust of the sin nature, and before long they discover they are in the ministry
to improve their power over people, to increase the size of their bank account,
to get approval from people, they rely on that feedback and they are constantly
seeking approbation.
So, we are not
to walk in deceitful cunning.
The next way
this preposition en plus the
dative in the Greek is used is to express instrumentality or means.
There are two
concepts here, we are to walk by means of faith, this is the faith rest drill
in 2Corinthians 5:7, and this is contrasted, not by sight, which is empiricism. This
relates to the ultimate way in which we think. Do we base our thinking on
the scriptures or do we base it on human viewpoint systems of knowledge such as
rationalism or empiricism?
I am talking
about the ultimate, the final basis for our thinking. Is the ultimate
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 you than your experience, your feelings, what you have
been taught in school, then you are beginning to understand what it means to
exercise the faith rest drill.
The second is
in our passage here in Galatians 5:16 and 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 in light, in newness of life, good works,
wisdom, truth, not in the emptiness of mind, craftiness.
Then we have en plus the instrumental dative of
means, by means of faith, not by means of sight, and by means of God the Holy
Spirit.
We have another
prepositional phrase that is often associated with walking and that uses the
Greek preposition kata which 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,
in Romans 8:4.
According to the standard of love in Romans 14:15.
And then
negatively, we are not to walk according to the standard of men, 1 Corinthians 3:3,
which refers to carnality and the unbeliever.
Not according to an unruly,
disorderly or licentious manner, 2 Thessalonians 3:6.
And then
Ephesians 2:2, Not
according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, referring
to the lifestyle of the unbeliever. Ephesians 2:2.
That is a
summary to see how critical walking is in describing the Christian life.
In Galatians
5:16 walking by means of the Spirit is contrasted with walking by means of the
flesh. Here is the point: throughout Galatians and the New Testament
walking is used in one of two states, you always have this contrast between two
states or conditions. 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 some other terms
that are used are light, promise, faith and grace. These are all
contrasted with darkness, law and antinomianism. Antinomianism means
without law and it refers to unrestrained immorality or
licentiousness.
This is an
important point to understand because there are a lot of people who believe
that because you have a sin nature you never do anything from a pure motive, so
there is always a little bit of the sin nature involved in everything. You
are walking with a little bit of light and a little bit of darkness. You
have one foot on one side and one foot on the other.
Yet, what we
see 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 violate the
righteousness of God? The idea that we are a little bit righteous, a little bit
spiritual, and a little bit carnal does not take into account the nature of sin
in relation to the integrity of God and its impact. We have to realize
that the scriptures clearly identify two spheres or states in which we can
live.
Now we are
going to start a detailed analysis of the passages that relate to the
believers walk.
The basis for the
believers walk is his new position in Jesus Christ, Romans 6: 4. Turn with
me now to Romans 6, a very important passage for understanding the spiritual
life. In fact, other than Galatians 5, Romans 6-8 is the text that has the most
significance in understanding the spiritual life. We don’t have time to do
a detailed exegesis of Romans 6-8. For context of the description in verse
4 we will look at Romans 6: 1-6.
Paul begins
with a rhetorical question.
What shall we say, then, having discussed in Chapter 5 the grace of God in
giving perfect righteousness to us, imputing righteousness to us on the basis
of what Christ did on the cross. That despite our sinfulness and
carnality, Christ died as our substitute, He paid the penalty for our
sin. So if grace abounded so much when we were rebels to God and
sinned, Paul is going to head the rationalization off at the pass with this
rhetorical question. What shall we to say, then, are we to continue in sin that grace might
increase? If we were sinners and we got that much grace, well, let’s
just continue in sin so there can be even more grace.
That is the
rationalization, and I think that at one time or another each of us, if we are
honest, has used that to rationalize and justify some carnality in our lives.
Paul says, may
it never be! me genoito,
which is one of the strongest negations in the Greek language.
No! He rejects
that as being a totally invalid inference. The question he asks is, how
shall we, as believers, who died to sin, still live in it?
We have to ask
the question here, what kind of death is Paul referring to? Too often,
people superficially jump to some simple solution, and the bible has many
different categories of death. This is not spiritual death here, or
physical death.
The categories
of death in scripture are spiritual death, physical death, sexual death,
positional death, carnal or temporal death, operational death in the life of
the believer, and eternal death.
Which is
it? Here we are going to see that it is clear from the context that he 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 positional death.
This is not
talking about the eradication of the sin nature. There are those in
Christianity who have looked at this and said that we have died to sin. They
take the term death to mean cessation of existence. But the bible never
uses death to refer to something that has completely ceased from
existence. It is talking about separation. Even in physical death,
it is talking about the soul separated from the body. The soul, the real
you, does not cease to exist, neither the believer nor the unbeliever.
How shall we who died to sin still
live in it?
One of the
greatest heresies that has come out in the last couple of hundred years is the
doctrine of perfection from John Wesley. The idea was that the believer was to
experience a second work of grace after salvation, sometimes called the second
blessing, referred to as entire sanctification. Those who accept this
heresy believe that at the cross you are saved from the penalty of sin, you
continue to live your life and at some point you have a crisis experience, a
dedication, whatever, there are different ways in which it is described, and at
that point you are elevated, you receive a second work of grace, and you are
elevated to a higher plane, which is called entire sanctification. This
doctrine was picked up by the holiness crowd in the United States in the middle
of the late 19th century. So you have one step of grace at the cross,
and you have second step later.
Then a group
came along toward the end of the 19th century that said, okay, if
you have entire sanctification then the third step is baptism of the Holy
Spirit which is going to be signified by speaking in tongues. That is
where the tongues doctrine came in and the first person to speak in tongues was
Agnes Osmond on January 1, 1901, starting the 20th century. So
you have three steppers, that is what they are called. Their big term is
called entire sanctification.
In 1910 a
Pentecostal pastor from Chicago came along and started teaching a doctrine
called the finished work of Christ. He came out of a Baptist background
and he said look, you get it all at the cross, the only thing that comes after
the cross is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which is signified by speaking in
tongues, and these became known as two steppers.
Most
Pentecostals are of the two stepper variety. Although today there are some
three steppers and they are the ones who talk about entire
sanctification. That is just a little historical background for you.
They tend to
take phrases like ‘you have died to sin’ as a cessation of the sin
nature. The problem is, that is not what this passage is saying in
context. The concept of death of the sin nature is further described in
the next verse, Romans 6:3. Paul says, Or do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus, and there we have the very important phrase,
the verb is baptizo in the
Greek, plus the phrase eis and
then Christ Jesus.
Every other
time we see a reference to baptism, where the ultimate goal, which is expressed
by the preposition eis, in Christ
Jesus, it is a reference to baptism by means of the Holy Spirit and we have
studied that in detail.
To briefly
summarize it, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was prophesied by John the
Baptist. He said it would be future. But in Acts 10 Peter refers to
it as having already happened and so we isolate Acts 2, the day of Pentecost,
as the time when baptism by means of the Holy Spirit took place.
When John the
Baptist prophesied, and when Jesus also prophesied of the baptism of the Holy
Spirit in Acts 1, they said that Christ would be the one who baptized by means
of the Spirit, and Spirit was put in the instrumental case.
1Corinthians
12:13 says we
have all been
baptized, instrumental case, by means of the Holy Spirit. The
Pentecostals come along and say you have one baptism, that Christ does it in the
Gospels, He will baptize you with the Spirit and fire, and then you have
another baptism in 1Corinthians 12:13, which refers to the Holy Spirit doing
it. This is a grammatical error, it is the same phrase. In the Greek
it is en plus the dative of instrumentality
of pneuma. Pneuma is the
Greek for the Holy Spirit.
Now, as I have
said before, impersonal means does not reflect upon the personality of the one
involved. This is a problem we got into in an earlier generation that was
fighting tooth and nail to preserve the doctrine of the personhood of the Holy
Spirit.
Every time they
saw a phrase like this they took it as agency, because the Greek category is
personal agency and they said because the Holy Spirit is a person, it has to be
personal agency. The mistake was, these are grammatical terms, not terms
that reflect personhood.
A person can be
the object of an instrumental dative, and the person is being viewed
grammatically as the means by which the goal is accomplished. Christ is clearly
the performer of the action of the verb in the prophecies in the gospels.
He will baptize you, future tense.
In 1Corinthians
12:13 you still have that same phrase. This phrase is used when it says, He will baptize you by
means of the Holy Spirit, or with the Holy Spirit, correctly by means of
the Holy Spirit. In the Gospels it is en
pneumati, the same phrase used in 1Corinthians 12:13, and we should
translate it the same way. It is a passive verb, the subject is not stated
in 1 Corinthians 12:13, so it is very clear the subject should still be
Jesus Christ.
At the point of
salvation Jesus Christ utilizes the Holy Spirit as the instrument for
identifying the believer with His own death, burial and resurrection, the
doctrine of Positional Truth. We should most accurately translate the
phrase the
baptism by
means of the Holy Spirit. He is not the one who performs it, Christ is the
one Who performs it and utilizes the Holy Spirit to identify the believer with
His death, burial and resurrection.
Romans 6:3 says,
Or do you no
know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized
into His death.
The
significance of baptism, as we have seen, is always identification. We
have been identified with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
specifically in verse 3, the death of Christ.
Therefore, as
Paul says, let’s draw conclusions. We have been buried with Him through
baptism, identification into death, in order that, now why did all this happen?
We have a purpose clause here, there is a reason for this. There is a purpose
for your identification with Christ’s death on the cross. God has a
specific plan and purpose for that identification, what is it?
In order that just as Christ was raised
from the dead, through the glory of the Father so we too might walk in newness
of life.
That is the
phrase, the aorist active subjunctive of peripateo,
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. That is why it is in the
subjunctive mood, it is up to your volition whether or not you are going to
walk the Christian life.
The purpose for
your salvation, though, was for you to walk in newness of life. That is
the basis for the believers walk, what happened positionally with us in terms
of our identification with Christ. That frees us from the power of the sin
nature in our lives and breaks its enslaving power as we see in the next two
verses.
For if we have become united with
Him in the likeness of His death, and we have, first class condition, so we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.
Because we know
this, because we know a point of doctrine, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our
body of sin might be done away with, again, this is a subjunctive verb, indicating the
potentiality dependent upon on our volition, that our body of sin might be done away with
that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
That is the
point, if the sin nature were dead and gone that would no longer be an
issue. If the sin nature were limited or paralyzed in some sense, that
would no longer be the issue.
Let’s summarize
this in four points. This is all under point four, the basis for the spiritual
walk.
1. The basis for walking, i.e. the Christian way of
life, is our identification with Christ’s death. Positional death which
happens at the instant of salvation. It is not a second work of
grace. At the moment when you trusted Christ as your savior, whether you
realized it or not, because it is not experiential, at that instant, the power
of the sin nature in your life was broken. Now the issue is your
volition. You can put yourself back under the power of the sin nature
through negative volition and yielding to the temptation of the sin nature, but
you now have the freedom to go in another direction. That is why Paul said
in Galatians 5, it
was for freedom that Christ has set us free.
2. Positional death frees us from slavery to the
sin nature, according to Galatians 6:6, but it does not free us from the sin
nature. You still have a sin nature. When your children trust in Christ as
their savior, they still have a sin nature. When you have a sin nature you
still have the capacity, the potentiality, to commit any sin that any
unbeliever can commit. Sometimes you can do it longer and better because you
are in reaction to God and it just sets a little more. Positional death
frees us from slavery to the sin nature but does not free us from the presence
of the sin nature until Phase 3 glorification when you are absent from the body
and face to face with the Lord.
3. 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. It is up to your volition. Whether or not you are
going to utilize the power provisions of the spiritual life, the filling of the
Holy Spirit and whether or not you are going to utilize the mandates of
scripture, doctrinal orientation, as the basis for your life. The
potential is there for every believer but it is activated, realized, only by
your volition.
4. The goal or purpose is to no longer obey the dictates
of the sin nature so that you can advance spiritually. That is the
purpose. It is not so you can get away with sins. It is not so you
don’t have to worry about the consequences anymore, because you will have
consequences. God promises that He is going to discipline you because He
loves you. You are now in the royal family of God and He has a purpose for your
life, and that is, as we have seen in Ephesians 2:10, to walk in the production
of good works, works of intrinsic value. God will discipline you and do
whatever is necessary to bring you to a point to encourage your positive
volition. If you remain negative in carnality you will be taken out under
the sin unto death and have a very miserable life. All of that is under point
4, the basis of the spiritual life.
5. The sphere of light in the believer’s life. We are
to walk in the sphere of light. Walking in the sphere of light. Let’s turn
to Ephesians
5:8. This is a very important verse and passage to understand the
dynamics of what it means to walk by means of God the Holy Spirit.
Much of
Ephesians, especially starting in Ephesians 4:1, the second half of Ephesians
is dedicated to developing the whole concept of
the
believer’s walk. We are not going to do even a cursory summary of those
three chapters, we are just going to look at the specifics
of the
mandates.
Ephesians 5:8
states, for
you (believers) were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
It is very
interesting when you look at the Greek here. You have the phrase, for you
were formerly
darkness,
and then in the second phrase, the verb is left out, that is called an
ellipsis, the second phrase says, but now light. The verb is left out for
emphasis. You
were formerly darkness, but now light. The emphasis is on your present
status. You
are light. And then there is the present active imperative of peripateo, the command to walk as children
of light.
This is crucial
because here we learn that even though we are positionally light, because of our
identification with Jesus Christ and our position in the family of God, we are
called sons of light. Remember, we saw this term in the John series, when
Jesus said He was the Son of God, the significance of that was that this is an
adjectival phrase which doesn’t necessarily reflect descent as much as, in the
Hebrew idiom, it is an adjectival description. So that someone that
was a rebel was called the son of disobedience because he was characterized by
disobedience. Barnabas was called a son of encouragement, not because his
father’s name was encouragement, but because encouragement characterized
Barnabas’s life. When Jesus said He is the Son of God, He is claiming
Deity. When we are called sons of light scripture is saying, you are
light. This is your status, your position. This is who you are as a
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then there is
the mandate to walk as children of light, which implies that you can not walk
as children of light. In fact, Paul makes this clear back in verse 17, of
chapter 4, he says, this I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk
no longer just as the gentiles also walk, in the emptiness of their mentality,
being darkened
in their understanding, being excluded from the life of God.
In other words,
Paul is saying quit doing that. No longer walk as the unbeliever
walks. The implication is that believers clearly can live a life that is
not discernibly different from an unbeliever because they are living in
carnality and the power of the sin nature. This is very important because
it establishes two categories of life.
In the
positional category you are light which establishes the experiential category
of walking consistently with your ultimate reality. Here we see the two
spheres of operation, positional and experiential. You were formerly
darkness but now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of light.
Look at verse
9, which says, the
fruit, that is, karpos in the
Greek, the production of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and
truth.
This is a real
quick summary of the production of walking in the light, parallel to what we
will see in Galatians 5. The production of walking in the light is
comparable to the fruit of the Spirit.
Here we see a
parallel, that walking in the light and walking by means of the Holy Spirit are
tantamount to the same thing. They have the same production.
Light
represents absolute perfection in the scripture, whereas darkness represents
all that has been tainted by sin. Light, in fact, represents the absolute
righteousness and perfection of God.
1Timothy
6:15 &16: He who is the blessed and only
Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable
light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion!
1 John 1: 5
says, and this
is the message we have heard from Him, and announce to you, that God is light
and in Him there is no darkness at all. Darkness is completely incompatible
with God’s perfection.
This reminds us
of the character of God, so let’s go back and review the essence box. God
is sovereign, absolute perfect righteousness, He is just, and He is
love. We will focus on these three.
Remember what
we have learned about the integrity of God, the righteousness of God is the
absolute standard of His character, absolute perfection.
The justice of
God is the application of His standards.
The love of God
is the initiator within the essence box.
What the
righteousness of God demands the justice of God executes. When we look at
it in terms of sin, what the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God
condemns. Think about this for a moment. When Adam and Isha were in
the garden and Adam ate the fruit, eating a piece of fruit doesn’t rank in most
people’s category of the ten worst sins, it is not like adultery, it is not
like murder, it is not like mass murder or genocide, in fact, it would probably
not be on the list of anybody’s rank of sins. And yet, what it involved
was disobedience to God’s mandate. Therefore, it violated God’s absolute
perfection. It doesn’t matter how small, how little, how insignificant how
short in time a sinful act is, what matters is whether or not it violates the
character of God. Any sin, no matter what it is, mental, overt, verbal,
all sin violates the integrity of God and puts the believer in the realm of
darkness so there is a break in fellowship with God. Because as 2
Corinthian says, what
fellowship has light with darkness?
Now, let’s
continue our analysis here:
Point A was
that light represented absolute perfection and represented the absolute
righteousness of God.
Point
B: we become sons of light at the moment of salvation, so that becomes a
description of our position in Christ. We have positional righteousness,
we receive the imputation of Christ’s righteousness at the moment of
salvation.
Jesus said in
John 12:36, while
you have the light believe in the light. That is the issue of salvation, it is
not works, it is not baptism, it is not joining the church, it not having an
experience, it is believing in Jesus Christ. Believe in the light in order that you may
become sons of light. It is in the subjunctive mood because it
emphasizes your volition, whether or not you believe in Christ determines
whether or not you become classified as a son of light, which means to have
Christ’s righteousness.
Point
C: we are transferred positionally into light. We have to trace these
metaphors. It is so important to understand, we are going to see a
fantastic one in the second hour. Just an incredible one that I don’t find too
many people are articulating because it takes so much time and effort, most
pastors don’t want to do that on a Sunday morning.
1Peter 2:9, but you are a
chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own
possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you
out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
You have been
called into light. That is your position as a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and part of the positional reality you have in the top circle.
Acts 26:18
says, to open
their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the dominion
of Satan to God in order that they may receive forgiveness from sins and an
inheritance from among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.
That introduces
the concept of inheritance, I skipped over it in Ephesians, but earlier in
Ephesians 5 there is also a reference to inheritance, so inheritance is a crucial
concept related to walking in the light and we will develop that as we get
further into our study of Galatians 5.
We are
transferred from darkness to light so that we can receive forgiveness and an
inheritance.
Colossians
1:13, for
He delivered us from the domain, and here we have the Greek word, exousia, which means authority or power. He delivered us
from the authority or power of darkness, whether you realized it or not,
when you were an unbeliever you were under the authority of and in the domain
of Satan, the domain of darkness, no matter how good, how wonderful, how
pleasing you were. The same is true for everybody you know who is not a
believer, including your children. As parents you have a tremendous
privilege and responsibility to be the ones to explain the gospel to your
children, and you should begin presenting that, reading stories at bedtime from
the scriptures and preparing the soil for the introduction of the gospel.
At the point of
salvation we are delivered from the authority of darkness and transferred into
the kingdom of His beloved Son.
All of this is
to emphasize the simple point that positionally we are in the top circle, in
the light. But not experientially, that follows following the mandate
walk by means of the light.
Point D:
scripture clearly affirms that believers still possess sin natures and still
perform works of darkness. And even though they are sons of light, they
can live in darkness. The bible affirms you have a sin nature even though
you are positionally a son of light, you can still perform deeds of
darkness. Romans 13:12 says, the night is almost gone, the day is at hand.
Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness.
Paul
would not say let
us lay aside the deeds of darkness if we weren’t performing deeds of darkness. Lay aside the
deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Point E:
Darkness and light are clearly seen as absolute, inconsistent
categories. You are either light or darkness. You either walk in
light or walk in darkness. But being in the light and walking in the light
are not the same thing. That is important to understand when we get to
1John 1 that will be crucial to understanding that passage.
You are either
light or darkness, that relates to salvation. You either walk in light or
walk in darkness—that relates to the spiritual life. You cannot be
walking with one foot in both. Scripture says, what fellowship has light with darkness? They
are mutually exclusive, 2 Corinthians 6:14. How much sin violates the
righteousness of God? Any sin violates the righteousness of God and has an
impact on our relationship with Him. Sin destroys our fellowship with
Him.
Of the Godhead,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Who has the primary sphere of operation in
fellowship?
The Holy
Spirit, 2Corinthians 13:14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
So first and
foremost, when we commit sin, any infraction that violates the character of
God, it breaks fellowship with the Holy Spirit who is perfect righteousness,
because the Father and Son are also perfect righteousness, it breaks fellowship
with the entire trinity.
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.
This is found
in 1Thessalonians 5:19. In the context they are commanded not to quench
the Spirit. In verse 20 they are told not to despise prophetic
statements. Now the immediate context of the command is you don’t put out
the Spirit because there is a relationship between the Holy Spirit and the
giving of scripture and prophesy.
Prophecy has ceased
now, we have the completed canon of scripture. The direct interpretation
of that verse is that you quench the Spirit by ignoring or despising or
treating lightly the mandates of scripture. In terms of application, you
do that anytime you sin, you quench the Holy Spirit. 1Thessalonians 5:19.
The second
phrase that is used here to describe the destruction of our fellowship with God
is in Ephesians 4:30 where we read, 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. It is a human emotion which God does not
possess.
Do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
If we look
at the context of that, let’s go back to verse 28: let him who steals steal no longer, but
rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that
he may have something to share with him who has need. Let no unwholesome
word proceed
from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to
the need of the moment, so it will give grace to those who hear. Do not
grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of
redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger
and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
So if we
compare the various categories here, we see that various overt sins, mental
attitude sins and sins of the tongue, are what grieve the Holy Spirit. We
quench the Holy Spirit and we grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin and that moves
us out of the bottom circle, from walking in the light to walking in darkness,
which is referred to in the old English of the King James version as carnality
in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. In the newer version it is referred to as being
fleshly, operating in the power of the sin nature.
Let’s make
a couple of more observations on Ephesians 5 before we make a connection with
1John, another passage crucial in understanding light and darkness. You were formerly
darkness, now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of light. Then
we have production in verse 9, verse 10 motivation, pleasing the Lord, verse 11
and do not
participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead, expose them; for
it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in
secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the
light.
Notice the
analogy there, light exposes sin. For everything that becomes visible is light.
For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, (a
description of confession)
And arise from the
dead, (that is carnal death)
And Christ will shine on you.” (that is fellowship)
This is a quote from a popular hymn of the day.
Verse 15: Therefore [j]be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, again, we have absolute categories, you are either walking as wise, unwise or a fool.
And all of this
ends up in verse 18: And do not get drunk with wine, [l]for that is dissipation, but be filled by means of the Spirit,
Notice the
context of Ephesians 5: 18 deals with the metaphor of light and darkness,
fellowship with God, walking by means of the Holy Spirit versus walking by
means of the sin nature.
Now turn to 1
John 1:3: what we have seen and heard we proclaim to
you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us;
What is he talking about? He is talking about fellowship. Specifically fellowship with God.
And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
The emphasis here is that it is fellowship with God that is the basis for human fellowship.
1John1:4: These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. 5: This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
Sounds
familiar, doesn’t it?
6
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie
and do not practice the truth;
See, by looking
at these other passages, we have already established that fellowship with God
is analogous to walking in the light. And there are so many people who will say
walking in the darkness means an unbeliever. But we have seen that in the
darkness, in the light, are positional. That has to do with salvation or the
lack of it. Walking has to do with that practice, that experience in the
bottom circle.
If
we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet, we are living in sin, any kind
of sin, we are out of fellowship, we lie and do not practice the truth.
7:
but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship
with one another,
See, you
cannot have Christian fellowship with someone who is in carnality, someone who
is out of fellowship with God. It is impossible. That is why churches
have these fellowship hours and they bandy that term about so much, and yet, it
doesn’t stack up to what scripture says. In fact, most of the time,
fellowship in scripture has to do with rapport with God and not social
interaction among believers.
But if we 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 us from all sin.
This is the
judicial function of the atonement. At the point of salvation you were
judicially cleansed from all pre salvation sins. When you go throughout
your spiritual life, every time you sin you do not die spiritually
again. Why don’t you die spiritually again? Adam died spiritually
when he sinned. Why don’t you die spiritually again? Because the
judicial function of the atonement continually applies day in and day
out. It is not experiential. I am not talking about experiential
forgiveness, I am talking about judicial forgiveness. Because of judicial
forgiveness, the blood of Christ continually keeps you from having to go
through spiritual death again. That is eternal security.
There is a
distinction that must be made between judicial forgiveness and experiential
forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness, which happened at the cross, is the
basis for experiential forgiveness. Experiential forgiveness is covered in
1 John 1:9.
1 John 1:8
says, If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving
ourselves and the truth is not in us.
And then 1:9: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That is experiential forgiveness. There are a lot of people who are teaching some funny things about this. I am going to have to come back and spend a little more time on this in the next hour. I thought we would have time to get through it this morning, but we don’t. It is too important to just run through. So we will wrap up and come back and talk about walking in the light and what this means.