THE SILENCING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

“Never use the word silence, until you have heard a heart stop beating.”

Wherever we look in the Bible we find predictions that speak of a Silence of God to come.We read of the awesome silence of our Lord when he would not respond to the taunts and calumnies of his accusers.We read that there would at some time be a distinct silence from the Word of God itself. A frantic search would ensue for that most needed of communications, it will occur said the prophet Amos.When would that silence come? There was a silence for 400 odd years between the end of Malachi and the beginning of Matthew.But the fearsome silence of God is also experienced by individuals. When the crown on king Saul has slipped down over his ears he found that : “When Saul inquired of the Lord, the LORD did not answer him either by dreams, or by Urim or by prophets.”

We read of the deafening of ears of God’s people and Gods enemies alike.“Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.” “With hearing ears they hear not.”(see my other posting on that theme)

There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.

But we also are told that severe silencing of the Holy Spirit of God would eventually happen. And it would be done by the Church itself!

Is the church of Christ on an upward evolutionary path?

Do you find that question odd? If so I suggest it is because a large majority of the population have so thoroughly been brainwashed by a theory of ‘ever upward development of all things’ that it is now by some sort of nebulous reasoning taken for granted that everything that is now must be better than that which was in the past, simply because it is newer. If I look without those blinkers I see a few things that speak of the absolute opposite of upward development.

Already during the last teachings of the Lord Jesus there is an ominous warning: “The son of Man, when he comes, shall he find the faith on the earth?”

Although it is part of the task of the Church to spread the gospel over the whole earth, and holding out a promise that the whole world may be ‘evangelized’, there is also the truth of parallel reality of only a Remnant, the Elect, the Chosen being saved. There is certainly the task of preaching the good news to all, but not a prognosis that any majority in any time will be saved and serving.

Before the ultimate throne of God there all nations will stand under judgment but no whole nations will be among the redeemed. But only those of whom it was said: ‘and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;’, surely a great throng, a multitude, but not ever the majority of mankind.

Not only is the idea of ‘the whole world saved’ not very well attested but it is also true that quality of the same church would also not be on an upward movement but rather the contrary.

As Paul is about to leave the Church at Ephesos for the last time he makes a prediction of bad things to come: ‘For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.’

To Timothy Paul is even sharper in tone and to the extent of his warning: ‘For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.’Note that Paul in no way suffers from the delusion of an inevitable upward spiral of maturity. And when you add what he wrote to Timothy a short while before, you will be rallied to realize that it is the Holy Spirit himself who gives this futuristic scenario: ’Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

And to complete the prognosis of what the end times will look like, even within the assembly of the saints; Read 2 Timothy 3. In view of how large parts of the Church have become more worldly than the world itself this is indeed eye-watering.‘This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

It is an illusion to believe that the church of today is an upward and onward development from the early Church. The Church of Christ is a remnant of what she was from the beginning. A remnant of what God gave her from the beginning is still there. The essentials have never been lost. The Word and the Spirit!

Why reformation?

Large parts of the now existing churches claim to be “Reformed Churches”. But what was it they needed to be reformed by, for and why? The Church in the beginning was given the fullness of Christ. Over the centuries until the Reformation it lost virtually on every point ‘that which was in the beginning’.
And when the reformation age came some of the original treasure of the Church was regained, but only in part. What was created from this mixture of clay and iron is what you see today.

Tradition and Church sovereignty over the WORD by various means, such as a long list of theologies, did not disappear. The reformation created a new and equally solid prison for the Word of Truth in the Spirit as ever there was before the Reformation. The prisoner does not thank you much for being moved from a dungeon to an ivory tower, his imprisonment remains the same. And only freedom will satisfy him. The need for reformation today stems from one major source. The silencing of the Spirit of God in the Church.

The unchanging Trinity

An unholy thing has happened to the Holy Spirit over time. He has been separated from the Father and the Son in a most despicable manner. And He has also been separated from the Word of God in another unholy manner.

One of the aspects of the Godhead is its immutability. God, says the scripture is unchanging from eternity to eternity. God is forever the same and does not accommodate Himself to our changing nature nor is there a shadow of changing with him.“Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us by the word of truth forth , so that we might be as it were, the first fruits of his creatures.”

Equally the scriptures declare that the Son, the Saviour, the Christ is equally unchanging.” Jesus Christ, the same today, yesterday and forever.”And naturally the Word also declares the unchanging nature of the Spirit. “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? “There is no room for an evolution of God, in God three in one itself. God is not an evolving entity, what ever the theologians say. Man’s perceptions change and mankind’s morals change, but God changes not. It stretches across the ages to his people. “For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.”

But now the great (unholy) mystery.

The third member of the Godhead does not change in Himself, in his true Personhood, in his power and ability to promote the holiness without which it is impossible to see God. Nor does he withdraw his gifts and calling, since he acts in total union with the Father and the Son and they have given tasks to the subservient Spirit. Gifts which neither Father or Son has ever changed. They were given in the past, not only for the past but for ever, as long as it is called today. Since only ‘today’ it is the day of full salvation. Without change until the end of the Ages. Any change in one and all must change. And an unreliable God is no God at all.

And yet: The Church possesses the outrageous ability to render the Spirit of God inoperative and outcast from the very church! A stranger in his own home. A missing High Priest in the temple. A giver of perfect gifts whose treasures are roughly shunned by the very people for whom they are designed.

Well may you ask: how is that done, and is it even possible?

One basic assumption that we should agree on is that ‘all scripture is God breathed, or God aspired and hence Spirit driven. So the scriptures must never be given the status of independence from the Spirit itself. Scripture without the Spirit is mere words. To this there are several testimonies in the scriptures.

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us to enter into his rest, any of us should seem to come short of it. For the gospel was preached to us as well as to them. But to them it was of no profit, because they did not receive it and mix it with their own faith. “If the words alone were effective then no personal involvement would be necessary. Faith is the gift of the same Spirit who first made sure that the word was written down. ‘Without Faith it is impossible to please God.’ The words only follow through on the Spirit taking the words of Christ and teaching them to us. Spirit cannot operate without the word, nor can the word do anything at all without the Spirit. A solid and reliable truth.

Claiming that it is enough to expound the word in semantic acrobaticsand telling people that: if you know the word you also have what it says’ is untenable by the one standard of verity that is left to us. The Word himself declares it in absolute terms. ‘My words are spirit and truth’, ”But an hour is coming, and has come, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is Spirit and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.”

And most centrally Jesus explained the relationship between the written words and himself in unassailable clarity in John 5:39 ‘You search the scriptures, because you are of the opinion and think that knowing them is having the eternal life; and , yes they are true testimonies about me. And still, you will not come to me to receive that very life.’ A few verses later in the same chapter: ‘If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?’

The word must become flesh

It is not enough to know the truth as a knowledge in the head. It is truth when it has worked out in my life what the Spirit worked into the meaning behind the words. What the written word can do is inform us as to the certainty of something’ s existence. What the Spirit does with the information is to instruct us one a life changing scale, and when he has done so it becomes an intuitive knowledge, a constant walking in the Spirit.

The principal difference between the former covenant and the new is the indwelling of the Spirit in the believer. Whereas the former covenant saw the words of God being like the bit and bridle of a horse, being kept in reins by outward means, the new covenant sees the horse as having accepted the master as part of his flock and therefore follows in the safety zone that is created by trust.

That is the meaning of Jeremiah 31:33-34 as given again by Paul in 2 Cor 3.‘ You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifest that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.’

The mere words about the matters of faith are information and that information can simply result in a life lived in a straight jacket of do’s and don’ts. Much like the Highway code determines what you must do however you feel about it. You may have all the right information but never know the instruction that brings those words from the paper to the heart. Knowing the Highway code never prevents you from breaking it unless you firmly believe in it. It is the doer of the word that truly believes. And I claim to be on safe ground when I say that we only truly believe what we actually have learned to do. Or to put it in other words: ‘Orthodoxy’ in teaching must lead to ‘Orthopraxis’ in doing. Correct doctrine is in the scriptures always seen as correct living.

If the word is separated from the Spirit and the direct teaching of the Spirit to the church is ignored then all that is left of preaching is the speaker’s use of the Word of God to preach his version of the Truth. The incarnation is something utterly other: We are to be transformed by the Word so that we become the message that we preach. Only the Spirit of the Incarnate God will accomplish that transformation.

That is where the gifts of the Spirit come in. The Spirit is not needed in order to launch a one hour homily on say ‘the doctrine concerning the immutability of God’. A fair acquaintance with a few textbooks of the preferred theology and a few hours of swotting over the wisdom of other men, is enough to create a homily or sermon on any topic. Add stamina and a good voice and the ability to master the speaker’s arsenal and you may bring any matter for information to any body of believers or unbelievers.

But when does it become the words of the Spirit in the hearts of the believers? The scriptures given by the Holy Spirit spell it out clearly.

‘But a natural (not spiritually born) man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are to be appraised in a spiritual manner. It takes a spiritual man to appraise all things spiritual, and the spiritual man is not appraised by the any (natural) man.’

Only the Spirit knows how to make the mind of Christ known to those who have the mind of Christ by regeneration.

If we attempt to better the unregenerate man by preaching then we are attempting the animation of a dead corpse, yea, we try to raise Lazarus by incantation and loud shouting. We saw how Jesus did it: ‘Lazarus come out’ and will emulate that for the next ten years, always hoping that the dead will rise by words alone.

‘The kingdom of God is not in eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Spirit.’
‘For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power.’
‘My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.’

The power of God transforms lives, it does not merely pre- or conserve members of an organisation.

Aborted mission?

The total scope of the work and mission of Jesus Christ in the Church of Christ can not be understood apart from the Spirit. The Spirit has no agenda of His own at all. But He carries out the will of the Father and the Son and glorifies them both in a very self-effacing way. While being the operational agent behind all of the following, they all contribute to the creation of the new man in Christ.

All these works are interlinked with one another, and they are the works of the Trinity. They are in total agreement and unity and what is done is approved by them all.

The silencing of the Spirit?

Telling the Church that the Spirit no longer does this and that and that is to curtail the work of the Spirit and bring the Church into confusion, since what is now no longer believed has not been removed from the very scriptures the same Spirit inspired. So there is no encouragement to read the scriptures except those parts that are ‘safe’ and away from the focus of the Church.

Whereas the Father and Son are somewhat unaffected by what the Church does the Spirit is much more vulnerable and can in fact be horrendously maltreated by the children of God. Note these things can only happen in the CHURCH.

The personality of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is not a container of this or that commodity. He is the full person of the Godhead and you cannot have a little of him or see him as a sort of spiritual tank station where you go to top up. It is true that an occasional ‘double portion’ and ‘infilling’ can occur as a special equipping for a specific task, and that may be translated into a view that the Holy Spirit is something like a resource, but first and foremost the Spirit is an indivisible unity. He is either alive in you or he is not. You cannot have a partial tide of Spirit in and Spirit out as if it was a seashore. You cannot have more or less of the Spirit. It is you who allow him to rule over more or less of your life.

Neither can you pick and chose which bits you like or don’t like. His gifts are his sovereign belongings. They are given to us relative to the service to which we are called. But they remain the gifts of the Spirit. To divide the indivisible is quenching the Spirit. To deny prophesying is one such quenching.

To deny a part of the work and ministry of the Spirit is to deny Him entirely. The Spirit is not given in instalments.

The somersault of unbelief:

I will conclude with a few observations from the word about the working of the Spirit and the word together. When someone stands up and denies part of the Spirit’s work and operation by saying that this or that has ceased, then in effect what is claimed is this:

“I, who am born again by the Spirit, have been made part of the body of Christ by the same Spirit, have learned to worship in the Spirit, endeavour to walk in daily communion with the Spirit, spend parts of my life in the words given by the Spirit, I have it from the Spirit and the Word that the Spirit no longer does what he is manifestly was doing right through the Bible. He has told me so, trust me.”

Is that not a rather tall order? Did the Spirit lie in the Bible, or is the lie spoken by those who, while claiming the Bible to be the true communication of God to all people in all ages, cross their fingers behind their backs and deny large parts of what is written? Because unless you outright deny that God and the Holy Spirit never change you cannot remove a third of the New Testament and still be considered an honest person. If God changes then nothing of the Bible is safe.

In particular there is much folly spoken about the ‘signs and wonders’ of the early church. Have they ceased? They are significant in one respect. They have an outburst in the beginning of a breakthrough by the Gospel into a new area or new people. So what happened on the day of Pentecost did what it was designed for and it kept on for a while. But then the people needed to hear the life changing message which was preached by Peter and they were added to the Church with less need for the confirmation in signs and wonders.

But when the gospel reached the Samarians another breakthrough was confirmed by signs and wonders and a fresh outpouring of the Spirit. Acts 8:4-17 The next breakthrough came to the Romans. The household of Cornelius being the first fruits. Peter comes to them after beings moved there by a series of revelations none of which follow from any written word. In fact he tried to defend himself against the revelation by referring to scripture. God Himself overruled. Acts 10:44-48. But the real hammer is what he tells the Jerusalem contingent of apostles and believers. Acts 11:15-18. ‘It happened in the household of Cornelius as it had happened on us in the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord how he used to say John baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

Deny the deliberate and conscious baptism with the Spirit and you will also deny the works and gifts of the Spirit.

The rest is salvation history. Right through Paul’s ministry and that of many others and then right through Romans and Corinthians and so on the signs and wonders are not routine but exceptions. It is easy to see how the fallacy arose. If you landed in one of the interim periods you would interpret the latent signs as absent signs. But to draw the conclusion that they therefore have ceased is plain folly. The gospel is even today breaching into new constellations of people and languages and where that happens the original signs and wonders occur.

Yes it is true that the role of an Apostle included signs and wonders. So therefore the allegation is made that the signs and miracles ceased with them. ‘The distinguishing marks of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs, wonders, and miracles.’ 2 Cor 12:11-13

But no such claim can be sustained for long. Because not only the apostles did signs and miracles but also those who heard that first generation. The gifts of Christ to the Church in all ages are ‘And he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.’

Has not every generation of the Church been given all these? Those who deny the full work of the Spirit also deny these gifts. And the dead man’s grip of a theology of denial cannot create a Church akin to that which was in the beginning.

‘After it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.’ Hebrews 2:1-5

When Jesus prayed for the church in John 14 to 17 he entirely omitted saying anything about different conditions for the next generations of believer. He in fact established that what was relevant for the twelve would be relevant for generations to come among those: ‘As you sent me into the world, so send I them.’ ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;’ Is there the slightest evidence that the coming generations would labour under different conditions?

And by proxy we are told that in the end times there will be many false signs and wonders designed to lure the believers away from the simplicity of faith in Christ. If the signs and wonders had by then been gone for 2000 years there would not have been any believers that believed in them, so that they could be fooled by the counterfeit stuff. See Matthew 24:23-24 It is only in among the true things that a counterfeit stands a chance of success.

And I have not even breathed a word of the 2000 years of church history during which signs and wonders and miracles intermittently have been manifested, and as soon as they appeared were suppressed by the likes of those who still deny them today.

Hold fast to what you have

‘You however continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.’ And the continuity of the same teaching is safeguarded by Paul to Timothy in 2 Tim 2:2 ‘And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.’ Theologies seem to have a need to renew themselves, the Truth of the Word has no such need.

Like a babe in a manger

When Christ was born he was helpless and dependent on his parents. This child was soon threatened and singled out for destruction by those whose very position as King the babe questioned. The Holy Spirit may also receive such treatment. He may be silenced by the very people to whom he was sent. Coming to their own and being rejected is an experience shared by the Son and the Spirit.

I have made the point that the Holy Spirit is vulnerable to what the Church does. And it follows from what the ministry of Jesus suffered while on earth. Frequently the scriptures tell us that Jesus could not do any great works in this place or that, and the reason is always the same: ‘And He could not do any miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was amazed at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages, teaching.’ Mark 6:5-7. Take good note: he could teach in the midst of unbelief, but accomplish nothing else. But teaching that is not testified to by the signs may lead nowhere. Even for Christ the same applied.

It is no accident that Jesus in his farewell message to the disciples promised: ‘And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in my name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will pick up serpents and if they drink any deadly poison it shall not hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.’

The rest of the NT confirms that the continued works of Christ through the Church did all of that. Jesus said it was an integral, if not essential, part of evangelizing. Churches adamant about the cessation of the gifts do not generally appear among the churches that grow.

Unbelief and the elevation of ignorance about the gifts of the Spirit are dead certain ways to never experience them. The Holy Spirit may brood over the primeval waters. He may have all executive power in the universe. But he will be silenced by unbelief.

As in the beginning.

Is it not a terrible silence?

The text is a bit gloomy, right? You might react and say that you believe that you are saved while recognizing that some of what I wrote above is familiar to you from your own Church life. Comfort yourself. If you know the Lord and have the testimony of adoption, knowing yourself to be a child of God, then you shall be saved. But our individual salvation happens in order for us to become the Church together with others. The order must be right. Contrary to some teachings there is Salvation outside the Church because you are saved in order to become the Church. It is never the Church that saves you but the Lord Jesus by the work of the Spirit. Salvation is individual, Church is the collective of the saved. Salvation’s further purpose is what the rest of the Work of the Spirit is all about.

I said in the beginning that you should never use the word silence until you have heard a heart stop beating. Lay your ear to the church and listen. You may hear the awesome silence of the quenched Holy Spirit. But even that will be drowned out by the voices of unbelief.

There are numerous passages that declare the necessity of holding fast to that which once and for all was given the church. There are no passages that tell us that the future will be different than the beginning, or that you are entitled to ignore large parts of the Word in the future. ’Heaven and earth may pass, but my words shall not.’

Separating the Word from the Spirit is one major ‘silencer’. What is omitted in the teaching of the Church does not reach the heart of the church and cannot grow and make an impact. The command ‘to teach all that I have commanded them’, ‘to not withhold from the church any of the counsel of God’ is much neglected in every shade and hue of Church round the globe. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the words of Christ, how shall they have faith if not taught the fullness?

There is a very ill boding correlation between certain styles of preaching and a firm denial of many of the above mentioned works of the Spirit. Many of the modes of operation and gifts to the church are today denied by large segments of the Church.

It was predicted to happen, and the fulfilment of that prediction is here. Need it stay that way?

Teddy Donobauer, Doncaster