The True Christian’s Faith and Experience #008 Chapter 03 and Chapter 04

Ohio Yearly Meeting's Podcast

Session #008 is devoted both to chapter 3 on the true Christian’s faith and experience concerning the Holy Spirit, and to chapter 4, on the Holy Scriptures.

The true Christian believes in the Holy Spirit and obeys it. He witnesses being led by the Holy Spirit in the way of holiness, and is made holy and is purified from the cravings of the flesh. He is taught by the Spirit. The law of the Spirit is in him. The Spirit dwells in him. He displays the fruits of the Spirit.

However, for the titular, nominal Christian, it seems a strange teaching that fleshly and bodily cravings could be put to death by the Spirit, and that everything should be done in the Spirit. He is a stranger to the law of the Spirit of Eternal Life and is ignorant of the indwelling of that Spirit. He cannot see the glory of God when it appears in the inward temple of his body. He does not display the fruits of the Spirit in his conduct but only talks of them.

The true Christian honors the Holy Scriptures in their places, trusting and accepting their testimony, and is a witness of their testimony. He demonstrates this by trusting, accepting and obeying him, i.e., Christ Jesus, of whom they testify, through whom he receives power to conduct his life in accordance with them. He trusts that they were spoken and written through the movement and inspiration of the Spirit of God in their authors. He waits upon God to receive the spirit of which they testify, in order to understand them, to be comforted by them and to be made wise by them. He knows that academic learning is not able to give the true knowledge of the mind of the Spirit in them. Worldly wisdom cannot do this.

The titular Christian, the Christian in name only, does not obey the exhortations in Holy Scriptures. He pays lip service to what they say. He repeats their words, but in his actions he rejects them.

He calls them the “Word of God” though in actuality the Holy Scriptures themselves speak only of Christ as being the “Word of God”. Nominal Christians do not understand this inward speaking word or voice of God, so they are ignorant of the meaning of the words of God in the Holy Scriptures. Regrettably he takes the history, description and declaration of the true Word of God, the Spirit of Christ, to be that actual Word of God, the living Spirit of Christ.
References:

• The True Christian’s Faith and Experience Briefly Declared.
• The quote in our introduction was from The letters of Isaac Pennington. Several different versions of this book have been published. Our quote is from the 16th letter of a version published online by The Missing Cross to Purity. Neither this reference, nor any other reference we may site is intended as an endorsement of any organization.

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