Do You Follow the Letter or the Spirit of the Law?

Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: “Dear Dave and T.A., I have a friend who complains that when I challenge him to show me from the Scriptures where I can find the latest experiential spiritual thing he’s into, he complains that I’m too much of a literalist and I’m grieving the Spirit because ‘the letter kills, but the Spirit giveth life.’ How should I answer him?”

Tom: What’s that, 2 Corinthians?

Dave:  “The letter kills, but the Spirit giveth life.” Well, if you are imposing the Bible on someone without the Spirit, you divorce the Bible from the Holy Spirit who inspired it. And there will be no understanding, so you have moved into legalism…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: …There’s no grace, there’s no mercy in legalism. But you don’t have the Spirit without the Word. So this person seems to be saying, “I don’t want to get back to these rules.” It’s like the New Agers today…

Tom: Or the Emerging Church—the experientialism that we’ve been talking about, Dave.

Dave: The New Ager says, “Oh, I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.” What he means is he doesn’t want to be tied down to any rules. So you can just kind of be a space cadet, floating off, and wow! Having wonderful experiences. That’s not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God…

Tom: The Spirit of truth.

Dave: Right. And you don’t just…otherwise, what would you have? Just feelings. “Oh, we feel really spiritual about this.” Well, what is that? All kinds of people can feel spiritual.

So, I go by the Bible. And the Spirit of God will apply the Word of God into my heart, but the letter kills, the Spirit gives life. That’s not saying that I must abandon the Bible. Nor is it saying that the Spirit of God will give me these wonderful feelings without the Word.

Tom: Dave, this reminds me of what the Scripture teaches about the last days, that in terms of prophecy that people are not going to put up with sound doctrine, turning to things that tickle their ears, and so on.

Dave: Fables, in fact.

Tom: Right. And certainly the experiential. You know, along this line, I think about the word-faith teaching—you remember for a while, looking to the Word, that was Logos. What we needed was Rhema. We needed to hear from God personally and move into the subjective realm of really not just hearing from God but experiencing God. This is the same thing we’re hearing today.

Dave: Actually, the Assemblies of God did a very good…you could call it a “White Paper,” on that very subject, and they pointed out that…there are two words used for “word”: “rhema” and “logos.” And they pointed out that they’re used in the same way. You can’t make a distinction between them. When it’s translated “word,” but behind it is “rhema,” or it’s translated “word,” and behind it is “logos.” They’re basically used in the same way. And people are being led astray by thinking, “Well, I’ve got to get my own personal word out of the Bible.”

Now your own personal word…but, wait a minute! The Bible says something. It is expressed in words. That’s the value of words. You can’t escape words. Words mean something. Now there may be some Greek words that have several different meanings, but when you put them together in a sentence, you can only get one thing out of this.

Tom: Yeah, context is critical.

Dave: Right. And atheists or skeptics often say, “Oh, well, you can make the Bible say anything you want.” Well, if you could, on that count alone, the Bible would be miraculous. If you can write a sentence and it means anything you want, wow! That’s incredible! No! Words mean something, and so we’re going to stick to the Word—the Word of God. We’re going to study the Word of God here in a few minutes in the Book of Acts, and Peter writes to us, inspired of the Holy Spirit, he says, “We are born again by the Word of God.” We’re not born again by somebody dancing. We’re not born again by someone who gets an inspiration, a personal inspiration, and “Oh, this is what it means!”

No, we’re born again by the Word of God, and then he says, “And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. So we’re going to stick to the Word. It is expressed in words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And if we are willing to submit to the Holy Spirit and to the Word of God, we will understand what it says.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Dave, it seems to me, as we move into the subjective realm of the experiential, then Scripture says everyone can do what is right in their own mind. But if we stay with the Word, and we have the objective Word before us, you and I can sit down—we may have some issues about what the Word of God says, but it’s the Word of God. It’s the objective Word of God, not just your subjective experiences or mine.

Dave: Mm-hmm. Peter says that Paul teaches some things that are hard to be understood, and he says that those who are unlearned and unstable twist them, as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction. We’re not saying that everything in the Bible is very simple. There are some issues that are difficult. Anything that is worth believing, it involves something that you may have to verify. You may have to put some study into it. This is not baby talk, you know? And there are sincere Christians who have differences about the meaning of the Word of God. So we’re not suggesting that. But we’re saying, at least as you just said, Tom, let’s go back to the Word. Now, if we don’t understand it, let’s compare the scripture with scripture—the Bible is its own interpreter, and let’s see what the Bible itself says, not what somebody interprets by dance or by icons, or whatever.