If I heard it once in my original Bible-believing church, I heard it a dozen times: Let the Spirit of God use the Word of God to do the Work of God. What the pastor meant was that the greatest thing you and I can share with others for the greatest spiritual impact is scripture. Then God’s Spirit uses the power of the Word of God to penetrate hearts to bring about the necessary results. (Remember Heb. 4:12 says the Word of God is quick and powerful?) Back then, it was such a simple and obvious truth, it hardly needed to be said.
Well, that was 40-plus years ago. Times have changed. Here’s what I see now: Let the Spirit of God do the Work of God. And don’t let the Word of God rain on that parade.
That’s because we equate the Holy Spirit with a feeling that we must conjure. If we rouse enough emotion, happiness and tears might follow, and we think that is the Spirit of God at work. But here’s a ponderous thing from the lips of Jesus. It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)
His words and the Spirit are intertwined. They work together to accomplish the work of God.
Knowing that, look at something Paul said in Ephesians and Colossians. And if you’ve never noticed, Colossians greatly mirrors the book of Ephesians. An 1800s theologian (E.W. Bullinger) noted that 78 out of the 95 verses in the book of Colossians have a marked resemblance to verses in Ephesians. To our point of the work of the Spirit and the Word intertwined, look at how Paul nearly interchanges the two in these verses in Ephesians and Colossians:
Be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; (Eph. 5:18b-19) |
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Col. 3:16) |
When you consider how we got the Bible in the first place, the dual action between the Spirit and the word was in play. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Pet. 1:21)
The Word came by the Holy Spirit and it is understood by the Holy Spirit.
But I have one last ponderous verse to put our understanding across the finish line. I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. (Ps. 138:2) Holy Spirit is one of His names. And He’s magnified His word above all His name. If God elevates His word, so should we. Let’s not raise up the Holy Spirit and tamp down the Bible. They work together. So, remember, Let the Spirit of God use the Word of God to do the Work of God.
R&J Shee
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