CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SPIRIT AS MATERIAL FACT
We live in a time where the word spirit is tossed around like a volleyball in a pick-up game on the beach open to all. In fact, few words in the history of language have been more used and so little defined. Paul never tossed the word around, and he did everything in his power to define the word so anybody could understand spirit. To Paul, the word spirit was a key player in his ministry that stood for something real, a material aspect of reality that any person could perceive if they would just look. For this reason he defined the word spirit in very specific terms. In I Corinthians 2:11a, Paul tells us, "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him?"
Look closely at those words. Paul is defining the word "spirit." What does the word mean to Paul? A person's spirit was that aspect of a person's mind that monitored thought (who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him). If you close your eyes at this moment and count silently in your mind from one to five, you will be able to identify what Paul referred to when he used the word spirit. But you've got to actually do it if you want to get in touch with the material aspect of reality that Paul calls spirit. So do it. Close your eyes and count silently to yourself from one to five.
As you counted silently, you heard yourself, your mind, utter the words, one, two, three, four, five. That aspect of yourself that heard those numbers in your mind was your spirit. The numbers you repeated to yourself were thoughts, and that which heard those thoughts was your spirit. "Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him." See what Paul was trying to show us? A person's spirit is a material fact present in the minds of everyone on earth. It is a material fact because everyone can experience spirit for themselves.
Here's another example of how your spirit works: as you read these words, my words impact your spirit in the same fashion your own thoughts impacted your spirit. Any words that enter your consciousness arrive at your spirit in the same form: thoughts. Therefore, according to Paul's definition, I am talking to your spirit.
Hello, spirit of my reader. I love you and want to help you understand what God has done in Christ Jesus for all us spirits. Even though we all feel like we're trapped in these fleshly bodies that are destined to disintegrate into nothing, and even though we're all afraid we'll disintegrate and disappear into nothingness, us spirits have been given a chance to know we're going to live forever, no matter what happens to these bodies we're now trapped in. But we can only really understand this salvation when we listen real closely to the Apostle Paul try to help us understand the role of spirit in our lives.
Now Paul wants us to know that just as we have a spirit within us, so too does God have a Spirit within Himself. I Cor. 2:11b "In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." Paul wants us to know that just as our process of consciousness can be shown to have distinctions between thoughts and that which hears the thoughts--spirit, so too does God's process of consciousness possess those same distinctions.
If the spirit is that aspect of our mind that is responsible for knowing our thoughts, then it is the spirit that is responsible for choosing what to do with the thoughts encountered by the spirit. That which is normally explained to be an activity of will is, when Paul's definition of spirit is understood, more accurately understood as an activity performed by a person's spirit. A person's spirit that rejected the thoughts projected into their mind by the Spirit of God would have shut the door to consciousness of God and, according to Paul, would be dead.
When we understand what Paul means by the word spirit, the presence of spirit in this world is a material fact visible to every person on this planet. Now this material fact is not visible when we look at other people. We simply cannot see what is going on in their consciousness. We cannot see what their spirit is being exposed to unless they tell us. But we can see what our personal spirit is up to. We can see the activity of our personal spirit as a material fact just like any other material fact in the universe. If we look closely we can watch what is happening in and to our spirit. And we can infer that what is happening in our personal spirit is happening in the spirits of all the people on this planet.
Today it is a material fact that the Spirit of God is striving to establish contact with the spirit of every individual on this planet. Now this material fact is not visible when we look at other people. But look what has happened in our lives. The Spirit of God moved his prophets and Apostles to bring us his word of salvation. The Spirit of God moved those called to the gospel ministry to bring that Word to us. Our spirit heard the words sent by the Spirit of God. And at a certain point the Spirit of God moved our spirit to believe that Jesus is alive. Because we believed that Jesus is alive, we were able to believe that Jesus had died for our sins. We found our salvation in Christ Jesus.
This process of salvation occurred as a transaction between your spirit and the Spirit of God. And the process through which this transaction occurred is a secret between yourself and God. It is a secret because no one else on the planet can actually perceive what transpired between your spirit and the Spirit of God. But you must understand that what transpired, if it transpired, constitutes a material fact, not a faith fact. The transaction occurred between your spirit and the Spirit of God. The message you heard played a part, but what caused your salvation to occur was the fact that the Spirit of God revealed Himself to you, to your Spirit. He revealed Himself to you in words, but the presence of the words was the message, it was the presence of the messenger in the words that created the material fact. In exactly the same way that my words to you prove to you that I, as the messenger, am a material fact, so too the words sent to you by the Spirit of God prove to you that the Spirit of God is a material fact.
In Romans 2:14-15 Paul tells us God has a way to communicate with everybody, even people who never heard of the Bible, "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." Later in the same chapter, Paul tells us who God is pleased with by continuing to contrast the distinction between the Jew and the Gentile, "Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirement, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
"A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God."
At first glance, the message Paul is sending sounds like good news: not only has God made himself known to the Jews as God's Spirit gave the Jews the words of God through the Prophets, but God has also made himself known to the Gentiles by writing his words on their hearts, on their consciences. How did God write His Word on the hearts of the Gentiles? By the Spirit. Clearly Paul intends for us that God's Spirit had been in communication with both the Jews and the Gentiles: the Jews through the law and the Gentiles through the Spirit of God writing His word on their hearts.
Isn't that good news? Actually, it's not. Because the point Paul is trying to make with his analysis is this: even though God talked to both Jew and Gentile, nobody really listened! Hear Paul's conclusion: "What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, 'There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.' 'Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.' 'The poison of vipers is on their lips.' 'Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.' 'Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.' 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.'
"Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."
Gentiles who hear the law of God from the Spirit of God in their hearts do not do what God says do; Jews who hear the law of God from the Spirit of God revealed in Holy Scripture do not do what God says do.
But what about Christians? This is what Paul says to us: "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ."
Paul tells us that we understand "what God has freely given us" because we have received the "Spirit who is from God." The point is we cannot believe Jesus is alive unless the Spirit of God moves us to believe that. If we believe it, we can know for a material fact that the Spirit of God is real, and active: a material fact as real as any other material fact in the universe. Paul goes on to tell us that "the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." Is Paul telling us that there are some people who simply can't receive the gospel because they have not received the Spirit of God that allows them to grasp the things of God? There are a lot of christians who would answer yes to that question. They believe that God chooses some people to receive His Spirit and refuses His Spirit to others. I believe those people are wrong; I believe they need to catch up with what God is doing in this world because they are about two thousand years behind the time. It is possible that God intends to save everybody except Satan and his angels--who of course are actually no body.
There was a time when God chose some people and rejected others. That's why He called the Jews the "chosen people." There was a time when only the Jews could know anything about the God revealed in Scripture. But in Christ Jesus God reached out His arms and enfolded the whole world. Luke tells us about the prophesy that began to be fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
In Christ Jesus the dividing wall of hostility that God had erected between Himself and mankind was torn down. Where before God had only revealed Himself to the chosen few, in Christ Jesus He revealed Himself to all people, he gave Himself as a living sacrifice for all people, and, as the Prophesy foretold, he poured out his Spirit on all people. Anybody who today says that God is withholding his Spirit from some people, and refusing to allow those people to understand what God has given to us in Christ Jesus is sending a message that will be used by Satan to ease people into hell. The fact that such a message is being sent by Christians goes a long way toward explaining why the world is going to hell.
Christians today feel compelled to tell people that God is not going to lead everyone to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior because God had not chosen to reveal Himself to everyone during the period when the Apostle's were living in the flesh. As Christians, we feel obligated to say to the world exactly what the Apostles said to the world. If Paul said that there were some who could not receive Jesus as Lord and Savior because they had "not received the Spirit who is from God", then we should say the same thing, shouldn't we?
We should, if that's all the Apostles said. But if the Apostles said that a day would come when all would believe, then we should also realize that that day could be at hand and include that message in our communication with the world.
There is no way I can avoid telling you about Cornelius Van Til. Van Til is--was--a Christian philosopher who spent his life trying to demonstrate to the Church and the world that there is no such thing as a "brute fact." Van Til suggested that every image in our mind that we call a "fact" is actually an image filtered through layers of preexisting images in our consciousness, and those filters transformed the images we received from the objective world. As a result, what ends up being called "fact" by an individual is not an actual picture of the things around us, but an image of the things around that is filtered through our preconceptions about reality. His point was to demonstrate to science, the Church, and the world, that none of us has access to the raw, unfiltered stuff that comprises the reality around us. Our presuppositions actually create the things we call facts. And anybody who proposed they had access to the brute, unfiltered, raw stuff of reality was Van Til's target. He meant to prove them wrong.
Van Til understood that the scientific success of the modern age had led millions on this planet to think they no longer needed an image like the Creator God revealed in Scripture. These people actually believed they could have access to the facts without the assistance of the God revealed in the Bible. But Van Til knew something about the people in the new age that these people didn't know about themselves: the only reason they knew anything at all was because the same God revealed in the Bible had given them a gift. Van Til called it God's common grace--grace He extended to everyone, regardless of their attitude toward the God who extended the grace. Because of God's common grace, people could see, people could know, people could understand. The problem was most people did not understand God.
But Van Til did. Because Van Til clearly understood God's common grace, Van Til could easily see that God had a relationship with everyone on earth, whether they knew it or not. Van Til developed a method of evangelism and proposed that we see our point of contact with the world in the fact that there are no brute facts. He meant by this that the world, as well as we, live in a reality where every fact is a "faith fact". He understood that the world, as well as we, lived by faith; that everything understood to be a fact was a subjective interpretation of the things outside ourselves. Reality, insofar as we knew it, was subjective. Van Til believed that when we confronted the world with this understanding of reality we established contact--found our point of contact with the world.
While I agree with Van Til's analysis I must hasten to add that his point of contact is not a meaningful contact. In fact, if all we understand about reality is that it is present in the mind of man, and that man's subjective interpretation is the only actual ground of being, Van Til's point of contact is actually more of a point of conflict. Two subjective interpretations of reality colliding, both of which presuppose their subjective interpretation of reality is Truth, is a recipe for conflict, not contact. The result of such a collision is war, not salvation.
I propose an evangelistic enterprise that is not based on the premise that my subjective interpretation of reality is Truth. And that is where I differ with Van Til, and, I suspect, with most Christians alive today. In fact, I propose a point of contact that is based on the premise that no person's subjective interpretation of reality, no person's "faith facts" are Truth. I propose, instead, to establish contact with the world by contending that there is only one point of view in the universe from which Truth can be seen: the mind of God. Everything I have to say about our union with Christ, I believe, is capable of leading people, in their individual subjective world view, to view reality as if they were contained in the mind of God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in this union, I believe, we can find our real relationship with Truth, a relationship where Truth is not something that is seen to exist in the mind of mankind, but in a Person, the risen Jesus of Nazareth, who is Truth.
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