Gospel of John [Joh 16:8]. The Doctrine of the HS, part 12. Rom 8:12-17; 1Jo 5:9-12; Joh 2:23-25.

 

 

 

 Title: Gospel of John [JOH 16:8]. The Doctrine of the HS, part 12. ROM 8:12-17; 1JO 5:9-12; JOH 2:23-25.

 

The Spirit of Adoption (ROM 8:15) has reference to His revelation of our adoption as mature sons.

 

ROM 8:12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — 

 

ROM 8:13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

 

ROM 8:14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

 

ROM 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

 

ROM 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

 

We noted that it is disastrous to build theology on experience alone. This has been done to great detriment to doctrine in what is called existentialism. Any experience can be counterfeited. Any experience that is correct and a response to a divine truth must be based on divine truth. Emotion without thought is empty. Our witness of our relationship to God must be based on truth alone and then it can be enjoyed.

 

The word of God never says a child of God always feels a certain way or never feels a certain way. It is presented as a reality in the word of God for all who believe in the Church age and our experience of this stupendous reality must be based solely on that truth.

 

This witness of being a child of God could never come from man. It can only come from God. If not, it would never be believed.

 

1JO 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness concerning His Son.

 

He has borne witness is referring to the outward, objective, biblical witness that must not remain on the page but must allowed to speak to our hearts.

 

1JO 5:10 The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son.

 

1JO 5:11 And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

 

1JO 5:12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

 

How many people live their lives based on the witness of men. They live and react according to the opinions of others. People believe teachers of progressivism. People believe the news, history books, the internet, social media, rumors, gossip, etc. and they make adjustments in their lives accordingly. Funny enough, they haven't met and don't know most of the people who give this information. 

 

ROM 3:13-14

"Their throat is an open grave,

With their tongues they keep deceiving,"

"The poison of asps is under their lips";

"Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness";

 

JOH 2:23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing.

 

JOH 2:24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,

 

JOH 2:25 and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man.

 

Yet God cannot lie and knows all things. Why not rather believe Him over the opinions of men?

 

Being a son of God brings a certain sense to the person who understands it. It's not a feeling or an emotion, although it may invoke those, but it is a reality, emblazoned on the soul just as it is in the pages of scripture.

 

We must be careful about emotions and senses since they can often be wrong and fool us. Being a son is not to feel a certain way. Think of the gamut of emotions that our Lord experienced. Christianity is not based on feeling, even though it effects every part of our lives, but its basis is on thinking from doctrine.

 

The witness that the Spirit bears to us is based on truth and it is an intelligent and authoritative reality in the heart.

 

There are many cults that teach that a Christian must pass through a certain number of experiences. We must reject this immediately as a lie from the pit of hell. Any teaching that emphasizes an experience rather than the deep manifestation of the truth of the Word of God concerning the Person and work of Christ must be rejected immediately.

 

A person was once saying to another Christian at a gathering of one of these cults in Los Angeles some years ago and asking the well-balanced Christian if he ever had the witness of the Holy Spirit? The believer responded that he certainly had come to know that he was a child of God through the witness of God the Holy Spirit. Yet the cult member insisted that it was something more wonderful than that. He said that one night he had tarried all night in prayer and then had a marvelous experience. He said it was like a ball of fire came through the ceiling of my room and struck him in the breast, and burned all the sin out of him. And thus he received the witness of the Spirit. When asked if he ever had an experience like that the believer responded, "No, thank God, I never did. For if ever such an experience came to me, I would not be sure whether it came from God or the devil, but I would rather suspect the devil."

 

The truth from the Scripture is all that is needed. God the HS makes it such a reality in our hearts that we cry out "Abba, Father."

 

ROM 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

 

You and only you know if you truly see yourself as a child of God and if you do, you can thank God the Holy Spirit and not the pastor or the theologian, but the word of God witnessed unto your very heart by means of God the Holy Spirit.

 

I can write these principles down and you can read them. I can speak these principles and you can hear them. And that's as far as I go or any pastor or theologian can go, even the inspired writers of Scripture have no authority to go any farther. The journey from the eye and the ear to the heart of the soul is a matter up to you and God. You cannot make doctrine a reality in your heart on your own and God doesn't do it without you. You must concentrate, understand, and believe and God the Holy Spirit empowers you at each step, making that which is cold in print, a fire within you. The experience of joy and peace that results is your very own confirmation that God the Holy Spirit has made the trip with you from the eye and ear to the center of the heart.

 

This is who you are forever - a beloved son. Of the promises given of the work of the Son concerning our sin and therefore, everything that was once a barrier between us and Him:

 

The scripture says that our sins are forgiven, forgotten, cleansed, pardoned, atoned for, remitted, covered, cast into the depths of the sea, blotted out like a thick cloud, removed as far as the east is from the west, remembered against us no more, cast behind God's back.

 

What a place to be. How is it that Christians don't have the greatest joy in their hearts because of their Savior and because of the witness of GHS to their spirits within them?

 

It is significant that the text says that the HS bears witness with and not bears witness to. We must choose to search out the truth in the word of God and the Holy Spirit bears witness with us of its reality.

 

The believer at salvation is given a new, divine spirit with a divine new life and divine new knowledge. It cannot be contaminated, but only witnessed to by GHS.

 

In it is the perfect new life and it belongs to us and now is us. Not that any believer becomes perfect in his behaviour, but he is a partaker of the divine nature and a new creature in Christ. At the Rapture, nothing more needs to be added to the believer than what he now possesses other than a perfect house for the perfect spirit given from God.

 

Because of this new divine spirit and the indwelling Holy Spirit, absolute truth can be brought down from God and into our being. The spiritual man appraises all things.

 

1CO 2:14-15

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things

 

HEB 4:12

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

 

ROM 8:17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

 

The "if" is related to "children" and not heirs. If we are children we are definite heirs. Salvation is by grace as in heirship. No son of God can be disinherited.

 

Heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ is the most wonderful blesssings that any person could ever receive. All believers are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.

 

The Spirit is bearing witness that we are heirs and as to what that inheritance consists of.

 

Yet first we must tackle the ifs in this sentence. There are two of them and they are not the same.

 

"if children" - Ei tekna.

"if indeed we suffer with Him" - eiper sumpaschomen.