Chapter # 5 Paragraph # 4 Study # 4
May 10, 2015
Dayton, Texas
(138)
1769 Translation:
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [
I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful [
is] he that calleth you, who also will do [
it].
1901 ASV Translation:
23 And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it.
- I. The Primary "Actor": The God of The Peace [see notes for 4/26/2015 (133)].
- II. The "Actions": Sanctification and Preservation [see notes for 5/3/2015 (135)].
- III. The Areas Affected By the Actions.
- A. The Spirit.
- 1. "Spirit" is used universally in the Bible to refer to the Root of the power of activity. Even with God, the Spirit of God is cast in the light of "Doer".
- 2. When used of human beings, "spirit" is the root of the body's abilities to take action.
- a. Apart from this ability, the body is considered "dead" (James 2:26).
- b. Apart from the presence of the Spirit of God, the "body" is yet considered "dead" even though the human spirit within it can produce all manner of activities through it (Romans 8:10).
- 1) This form of "deadness" is the inability to produce activities that are sufficiently godly as to be acceptable to God.
- 2) It is only by the Spirit of God that this form of "deadness" is overcome.
- 3) "Deadness" in the Bible is never the cessation of existence; it is always the lack of ability to "activate".
- 3. As an entity that requires "sanctification" unto the preservation of the inheritance, the "spirit" is not presented as "fixed" or "repaired".
- a. In the New Testament believers are never encouraged to allow their bodies to be controlled by their own "spirits"; the fundamental exhortations are "be filled with the Spirit" and "walk by the Spirit".
- b. But, there is little to indicate that the Spirit of God ever actually "takes over" the function of the human spirit, but, instead, is presented as "sanctifying" the heart and mind so that the human spirit becomes dominated by Love and Truth. Even the phenomenal "gift" of speaking in unlearned languages does not indicate that God's Spirit has actually taken over the function of the human spirit; it merely indicates that the "ability" is supernaturally imposed upon the "mind" so that the body can be energized by the spirit to form and utter the words (1 Corinthians 14:14-15).
- 4. As an entity that requires "sanctification" unto the preservation of the inheritance, the "spirit" must be understood in terms of its "liabilities".
- a. Since "sanctification" has to do with addressing evil impulses and productions so that they are overridden by good impulses and productions, to understand the liabilities of the "spirit" all we need to do is look at the temptation accounts to see where the problems lie.
- b. In the records regarding areas of temptation, the one that best fits the issue of "spirit" is the temptation to be "as Elohim".
- 1) From this we can see that the greatest "liability" of the fallen human spirit is its penchant to seek two things...
- a) Status in the eyes of others so that they shower approval upon the person.
- i. This "seeking" has been distorted methodologically so as to use functional abilities as the basis for such approval.
- ii. The truth about "Love" in regard to the search for status is that one either already has it, or it can not be obtained: "Love" is a grant given; not a commodity to be earned. Jesus' "Love thine enemies" assumes that "enemies" can do nothing to obtain our "Love" except "exist" as creatures of God Whose creation activities are the root of the "Love".
- iii. The grace doctrine of "the crucifixion of the Christ" establishes the value of even "enemies" for some cause in God that we do not share naturally.
- b) Escape from humiliation so that others do not take their "glory" and give it to someone else.
- i. This is actually the heart of "works salvation" as it posits a method for getting God to not take His "glory" away from us to give it to another.
- ii. This is a self-destructive doctrinal concept that holds no legitimacy at all.
- 2) From this we can see that "sanctification" of our "spirits" will have a most fundamental focus upon getting us to "love" the approval of God above all and to "believe" what God says regardless of what others tell us.
- a) This must be coincidental with a deliberate rejection of "glory seeking" with men as the extenders of the "glory" (John 5:44).
- b) It also must be coincidental with a deliberate rejection of the "glory" others may, or may not, possess (Galatians 2:6).
- c) This decision covers both the coveting of the approval of men and the fear of the disapproval by men.
- 5. As an issue of "The Peace", the decision to relegate the "spirit's liabilities" to the authority and power of the Holy Spirit is both a matter of seeking to experience "The Peace of The God" and to endure the "conflict" created by the adversaries of The God.
- a. This most fundamentally means that we do not shy away from the conflict that others generate against us because of their own agendas because we have the over-compensation of the Peace of The God of The Peace. ("The peace of God surpasses understanding and guards both heart and mind").
- b. However, we must be sure that it is the conflict that others generate and not a conflict that we have created by our own agendas.