Here is
probably the clearest and best example:
The
disciples walked and talked with Jesus for over three years. They were with Him
constantly, listening to Him teach, seeing His miracles, asking Him questions,
seeing Him in all the aspects and circumstances of life. But they did not
understand. They did not perceive His purpose in coming, until after the
resurrection...and even then, they continued to ask questions that exposed
their ignorance. “We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem
Israel”… They asked him; “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the
kingdom to Israel?”… It wasn’t until they were gathered in the upper room, and
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they stepped out onto the streets
of Jerusalem...
Now I
want you to take notice here... they weren’t given a crash course in theology.
They didn’t stay sequestered in the upper room for another 13 weeks while Jesus
appeared to them with a dry erase board and a box of scrolls and taught them
doctrine and homiletics and how to properly apply the scriptures…They had a
certain knowledge, a learning that He had stored up in them while He was with
them, but they had no revelation of the Spirit, until He came and filled them;
and baptized them, there in that upper room.
And when He did, these disciples who only days before stood gazing into the sky as He ascended...now stepped immediately out of the upper room and preached a Holy Spirit inspired sermons that had even those who crucified their Lord crying, “What must we do to be saved?”
And when He did, these disciples who only days before stood gazing into the sky as He ascended...now stepped immediately out of the upper room and preached a Holy Spirit inspired sermons that had even those who crucified their Lord crying, “What must we do to be saved?”
So you
see, it is not enough to have just a head-knowledge of Jesus. To examine Him
and scrutinize His word and His actions and think to understand Him that way.
Our relationship to Him must be based on the revelation of Himself through His
Spirit to our spirits; it will only be in the spirit and by the Spirit of
wisdom and revelation…as Paul prays … that we will begin to understand His
mission in the world, His purpose in us; and that we begin to know the Father.
I want
to finish today by sharing with you an excerpt from D. Martin Lloyd-Jones’
commentary on this verse. I enjoyed what he said, and I want to share it with
you;
“We have been considering one of the most
important doctrines of the Christian faith. The Protestant Reformers used to
tell their hearers that there is a double action of the Holy Spirit. There is
the ‘Testimonium Spiritus Externus’ - the Spirit that is in the Word, as it
were, the Spirit that inspired the men who produced the Word. That is
essential. But it is not enough. Before I know that this is God’s Word and
God’s truth, before I can read the Bible and discover health and food for my
soul, something additional is necessary - the ‘Testimonium Spiritus Internus’.
The Spirit in the reader! And without the Spirit in him, no man will be able to
understand the meaning of the Word. The two operations are absolutely
essential."
In other
words we have seen that the Apostle Paul prays for the Ephesian believers that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give them ‘the
Spirit of wisdom (the Spirit in the Word) and ‘the Spirit of revelation’ The
Spirit in the believer, taking the Word and from it revealing God in all His
glory.