A Second Look at the Doctrine of the Indwelling Spirit – 3

Continuing on with our study on the indwelling Spirit, let us consider the figures used to describe the church as God’s habitation in the spirit.

INDWELLING DEFINED. From the word oikos, “house,” we get the verb oikeo, which means “to dwell,” “to inhabit as one’s abode” (Vine, 344). Figuratively, God is said to be “dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto” (Greek phos oikon aprositon, literally “light inhabiting unapproachable”) (1 Timothy 6:16). God dwelling in the light is not the same as you dwelling in your house.

The verb oikeo is also accompanied by its prepositions. Paul says “sin dwells in” him (oikousa en emoi hamartia, “sin dwelling in me,” Romans 7:20); oikeo with preposition en here is used figuratively to mean “to inhabit, to remain, to inhere” (Strong Greek Dictionary, quoted from e-Sword.net).

When Paul says that in his flesh “dwelleth no good,” this is understood to mean the absence of good in his mortal flesh. That also is to be understood figuratively.

By our statement that the church is God’s habitation in spirit, we mean that God spiritually dwells in the church, the prepositional phrase “in spirit” without article being understood to be an adverb of manner.

If we say that the church is God’s habitation through the Spirit, the Spirit becomes the instrument, the agency by which God dwells. It means that God representatively, not personally, dwells in the church.

I am at a loss to explain how something can dwell in a human body literally. If man’s body is matter, and matter possesses that characteristic called “impenetrability,” so anything that penetrates it will surely draw out blood. Now, if you have your sixty-cents worth of opinion, I am willing to listen to it. What do you think?

Abandoning the literal idea of the indwelling will probably solve this bafflement.

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Robert James Fischer, 64

January 17 YahooNews says Robert James Fischer, 64, has died. Cause of death: kidney failure. He was interred at Laugardaelir church outside the town of Selfoss, and was buried in a private ceremony at a Catholic churchyard in southern Iceland. The funeral was attended by only a handful of people, mostly close friends, as well as Fischer’s long-time companion, Miyoko Watai, a Japanese chess player.

A chess genius with personality quirks that bordered on the eccentric and the disgusting, Fisher gained world fame in 1972 when he defeated USSR’s Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland, becoming the first officially recognized world champion born in America. The match, played out at the height of the Cold War between the US and the USSR, took on mythic dimensions as a clash between two world superpowers. Add to this Fischer’s legendary hatred of the Russians, whom he thought had cheated in the games. As Fred Waitzkin described it in his book Searching for Bobby Fischer, “Each man bore responsibility for his country’s national honor. Spassky would be Russia’s greatest hero if he won, and would fall into disgrace if he didn’t…. Fischer wanted to annihilate the Russians, whom he had hated since he had decided as a teenager that they cheated in international tournaments. If he won he would instantly become a legend; if he lost he would be dismissed by many as a crackpot” (Quoted from Answers.com).

The 1972 world chess match showed an eccentric who was true to form, very difficult to get along with. Friends would reserve a space for him on the plane bound for Iceland, which at the last minute they would cancel, for Bobby Fischer was nowhere to be found, and if he was somewhere, he was munching sandwiches, or sleeping on a bench in the park. In Reykjavik, “he wanted television coverage, but when a television deal was arranged … he refused to play in front of the cameras, claiming that they were too distracting,” wrote Waitzkin, recalling Fischer’s match with Spassky. “He forfeited a game and threatened to leave unless Spassky agreed to play in a small room with no audience and no cameras. He argued about the choice of chess table, about his hotel room, about the noise in the auditorium, about the proximity of the audience to the players and about the lighting” (Quoted from Answers.com). And still, Fischer won the tournament with great style.

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A Second Look at the Doctrine of the Indwelling Spirit – 2

In approaching the question, I try to look at ALL the facts related to it and based on a good number of reasons, I may make my conclusion. But, that conclusion is subject to further investigation and examination. The reason I do this is because I am not an inspired man and neither have I a hotline connection to the office of the Deity.

This doctrine is like a puzzle, and I am trying to find the pieces that fit. Like any specimen in the lab, the Bible too may be examined, by us, and by those who are very critical of it. The facts about that specimen, its character and nature– they do not change–and if those facts are printed and published by machines configured only to print and publish what they see, these facts would come out the same. But in the eyes of men whose hearts have been configured to believe only what they want to believe, you would hear different conclusions.

This study is an invitation to you to learn with me.

Does the Holy Spirit dwell in us through the Word? The proponent of this theory argues that “the Holy Spirit dwells in the Christian indirectly, that is, through a medium,” which is the Word of God. Citing Romans 8:1-2, he says that the “Holy Spirit has a law that set us free from the slavery we were under, from the law of sin and death,” and that law is “the word of God, the good news of Jesus Christ.”

The paragraph in Romans 8 begins with a “therefore,” or “consequently,” an inference drawn from the argument which Paul made in Romans 7. That argument shows that in Christ the disciples are delivered from sin and from the curse of the Law. Since they have been delivered, they are now in Christ, and since they are now in Christ, they are no longer under condemnation or punishment. Romans 8:2 literally reads, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ FREED you from the law of sin and of death” (Alfred Marshall’s translation). “Freed” is from the Greek, eleutherosen, which means “liberated,” aorist indicative active of eleutheroo, to liberate. As this law liberated Paul and other Christians of long ago, it too could liberate anyone from the law of sin and death today.

The question is what law? The proponent argues that the Holy Spirit has a law, and that is the Bible. He argues from the use of the genitive, the of-phrase. “The Bible is the law of the Spirit, and since you keep the Spirit’s law within you, then He also resides, or dwells within you.”

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Things That Never Get Outdated

Today I bade goodbye to Penny. Three years ago, she became mine for a measly price of P2,800. Now as she grows older, and SLOWER, her upgrading price has gone up, while her usability has gone low. But she is one machine I’d learned to love. She watched me grow from one who knew nothing about Microsoft Word to one who knew something, like hacking–CPUs, memories, disks, legacy and I/O devices. Our three years journey was one most fruitful, because she had honed my skills to the utmost. I had adapted to her ways (”Checksum error”), her idiosyncrasies (”Try Safe mode”), her habits (”Your computer maybe at risk. Click here to update”) and her tantrums (”Could not find boot ini.”). Because she’s grown tired of Windows 98, she shacked up with Windows 2000, but finally settled with Windows XP. No one, definitely no one understood her more than I did; no one lovingly cared for her more than I did. You could say that today our parting was a tearful one. Penny it was who kept me company in my early blogging days. But I have to move on. Since she refused to be upgraded, rather, she could no longer be upgraded, I gave her away, and took on a new laptop.

My youngest daughter was too happy to have Penny the Pentium 2.

Things in this world get old or outdated. I thought about it last night too as I talked to a fellow preacher who’s on his last semester in a graduate school. He and his fellow students are on the cutting edge, the laptop-carrying generation, not just the ordinary laptops, mind you, but the Dual Core Centrino, 1 gig RAM, 180 gig hard disk, Windows Vista OS. Because they’re groomed to be counselors, teaching and lecturing became common affairs, and the DLP (”digital live projector”) became the common gadget they attach to their Neo Emprivas. The suns of modern technology definitely shine so brightly in the classrooms.

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A Second Look at the Doctrine of the Indwelling Spirit – 1

This is admittedly one of the most difficult topics we have tackled thus far. The difficulty, for one, lies in the fact that we who live in these modern times are attempting to understand the descriptions of one of the most baffling subjects using the language of the first century. It is not that easy. There is a chasm that separates us and the people of the New Testament times. It is we who are seeking to understand them, and therefore the responsibility of knowing their culture, their idioms, and their grammar lies on us. New Testament Greek, being a dead language, is static (and thank God because this limits our search); while modern languages keep changing. Knowledge keeps evolving and dialects multiply. Every generation since the time of Tyndale looks for a translation or Bible version it can comfortably read and connect with, and translations are every generation of translators’ way of trying to look at the Book and telling us what it means. There is no perfect translation. I am saying this at the outset of this discussion because we sometimes insist on arguments based on the points that we have lifted from the translations. Lets us take the discussion to the much higher plane. Go to the Greek New Testament. What do the ancients say?

I call this series of studies “The Holy Spirit’s Indwelling: A Second Look at the Doctrine that Baffles Religious People.” A second look is necessary because of the caveat against false teachers (1 John 4:1). In obedience to this injunction, we test the spirits of those who are in our own backyard and in other backyards. In the book of Acts there is also an example of disciples who received the Word with open hearts, examining the Scriptures daily whether those things were so (cf. Acts 17:11). We are not to take everything everybody is saying as gospel truth. (Posted by Ed Maquiling). Click here: A Second Look at the Doctrine of the Indwelling Spirit.

Name With a Big G

I think you ought to remember me. You must remember me. I’ll give you a thousand and one reasons why you should remember me. Better listen.

Know this: Justice has not always been a part of my nature. Am not fair to everyone. Am just fair to myself. Ow, come on. Do not complain. I won’t listen anyway. (Posted by Ed Maquiling)…Read more……..

A Burial One Afternoon

It is not often that I attended burials, and if I did, it would be for one reason: To pay my last respects to the dead.

But today was different: They would be burying the man who, while still living, had often considered me his enemy.

Indeed I was, for I was the essence of everything that he had fought against, both in morals and religion. He had despised my teetotalism, criticized my scripture-quoting sermons, belittled my warnings about hell, laughed at my preaching about heaven. He would mimic me, or make fun of my gestures. It was he who once accused me of being a subversive, but I was thankful that only he believed his story– the rest of them did not. As a result of his gossips, many attended my lectures. I was thankful too that he had become my best recruiter. (Posted by Ed Maquiling) Read more….