Biblical Psychology

N. B. "The entire province of life, both in its lowest forms or stages and in its highest, is the province of spirit."

(1) An Instructive Parallel — God and Man. 1 Cor. 2: 9-11. (2> What the Bible says about Godhead. John 4: 24.

THE ESSENTIAL NATUEE of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

1. WILL. Ex. 3:14; John 10:17, 18; 16:8-11.

2. LOVE. 1 John 4: 8; Eev. 1:5; Eom. 5: 5.

3. LIGHT. 1 John 1:5; John 8:12: John 16:13.

The Spirit is the first power we practically experience anything of, but it is the last power we understand anything about. The whole working of the Spirit of God is much easier to experience than it is to try and understand. The chief reason of this is that we only form our ideas out of things we have seen and handled and touched, and when we come to talk about the Godhead and the Spirit, language is strained to its limit. We can only use pictures to try to convey the ideas that make us think; yet, in spite of this difficulty, it is very necessary that we should think, and learn to think as Christians; it is not sufficient to experience the reality of the Spirit of God within us, it is not sufficient to experience His wonderful work, but we must bring our brains into line, so that we can think and understand along Christian lines, and it is because so few Christians do think along Christian lines, that it is easy for wTrong teaching and wrong thinking to get in, especially along the line of the Spirit.

An Instructive Parallel. (1 Cor. 2:9-11.) "What Paul is referring to here is the basis of how to think. He is quite simple and clear and logical. The way you understand the things of a man, he says,, is by the spirit of man; and the way you understand the things of God is by the Spirit of God, and the spirit of a man cannot understand the things of God, the Spirit of God alone can understand the things of God. That is the first principle he lays down, and we must see that it is clearly grasped and understood by us. The next step is very clear, viz.: that you cannot expound the things of God unless you have the Spirit of God, and you can only expound the things of God to others who have His Spirit. He says there is an analogy; there is a spirit in the natural world whereby you can compare and think and argue about natural things, but it is not the same law which runs through the spiritual world; as there is a law in the natural world, so there is a law in the spiritual world; and you will find Paul says that we cannot discern the spiritual law by our spirit, but only by the Spirit of God, and if we have not received the Spirit of God, we will never discern it, nor will we understand it; we will be continually moving in a dark world, and we will come slowly to a conclusion that the language of the New Testament is put very exaggeratedly and very wrongly; whereas immediately after receiving the Spirit of God, we learn to think along the line of the Bible; we compare spiritual things with spiritual, and we do not speak of the things of God in the " words which man's wisdom teacheth," viz.: we cannot expound the things of God by the spirit of man, but only the Spirit of God.

Verse 14. Again the point is quite clear in Paul's mind, he says that naturally our heart does not understand the things of God, and not only does it not understand, but when it hears them expounded, it says they are "foolishness." Take for instance the attitude of the "master in Israel" to Jesus Christ. He held strongly that the germ was there in him, and in all who were like him, and Jesus Christ brought this view (that Paul is expounding) to Nicodemus; He said, "Marvel not that I say unto you, You must be born from above; that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

So let us get that plain, fundamental distinction clearly in our minds; we cannot penetrate the things of God by intelligence, we cannot understand them; the only way we can penetrate and understand and practice and fairly grasp and think about the things of God, is by the Spirit of God. I would like to emphasize in this connection that Paul states emphatically that we must be agnostic mentally about God. Every Christian is unquestionably agnostic, mentally, for all we know about God we accept by revelation, we did not find it out ourselves, we did not worry it out by thinking, we did not work it out by reason, we did not say, "Because so and so is true in the natural world, therefore it must be in the spiritual.' ' You cannot find out God that way, and we find practically what Jesus Christ meant when He said, "If you would know My doctrine, My logic and My reasoning and My thinking, do My will, first believe in Me, commit yourself to Me, obey Me, receive the Spirit, then you will get to thinking along the way I reason.' '

Verse 15. Paul here is at the very fundamental heart of everything, as he nearly always is, because he is not only inspired by the Spirit of God in the way w^e all understand inspiration, but he is moved in a thoroughly special manner to expound the whole basis for Christian intelligence and Christian thinking.

You will find the teaching abroad to-day that we have the Spirit of God in us, and all that is needed is to develop that germ; if you will put people in the right conditions, put them into the right understanding of things, that Spirit will develop and grow, and they will grasp and understand God. That is contrary to Jesus Christ's teaching, and quite contrary to the New Testament all through. There has to come a stage in your life and mine, when we are " paupers " in our own spirit; we have no power of our own, we cannot grasp God, we cannot begin to understand Him; if we are going to understand Him, we must have the Holy Spirit, and He will begin to expound to us His mind; if we will put our machines, our bodily machines, into line with the Spirit which He gives, we will begin to understand. The way we understand the things of the world is by our natural intelligence, and the very same thing is true spiritually, viz.: the way we understand spiritual things is by our spiritual intelligence.

What the Bible says about the Godhead. (John 4:24.) Jesus Christ in saying "God is Spirit/ ' does not imply therefore I must worship Him sincerely. The term " Spirit' ' there has nothing whatever to do with human sincerity, it has to do with His Spirit in me; I must have the same Spirit in me, or I cannot worship Him.

Now what is the Spirit? Instantly you find insuperable barriers to thought. Did you ever try for one minute to think of God? "Why, you cannot think of a Being who has had no beginning and has no end, consequently men without the Spirit of God make God out of ideas of their own. It is a great moment in your life and mine, when we do realize we are agnostics, when we realize we cannot get hold of God unless Jesus Christ is able to do for us what He said He was able to do, give us the Holy Spirit, and lift us into a new life whereby we will be able to understand what He reveals, and live the life He wants us to live.

The first thing we have to deal with is the Trinity, the Godhead itself. We have called it the "Process of the Trinity," Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The first thing to notice is this, that what is true of the Father is true of the Son, and also of the Holy Ghost. There are three main characteristics in God the Father, there are three main characteristics in God the Son, and three main characteristics in God the Holy Ghost, because they are one. The three characteristics of God the Father are will, love, and light. Now we know nothing about God the Father saving as Jesus Christ has revealed Him. " Philip saith to Him, Show us the Father." "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' * And the characteristics in the Lord Jesus Christ are- those three, will, love, and light. So in like manner take the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the Godhead manifested now. He is not an ethereal influence, we do not see God the Father, we do not see God the Son nowadays, but God the Holy Ghost is here, and the three characteristics of God the Holy Ghost are, will, love, and light; for these Three are one.

Take the records of God the Father. He entered into His Sabbath rest, and men despised Him; God the Son entered into His Sabbath rest, and men despised Him; God the Holy Ghost has not yet entered into His Sabbath rest, and men are despising Him. The point to convey is this, that the essential nature of one is the essential nature of the others and if you understand the Spirit of God, you understand Jesus Christ, and you understand God the Father, consequently the first thing to do is to receive the Spirit of God.

Now we will look at the essential nature of the Father. In order to show how difficult it is to get this in words, ask yourself this: "How much room does thinking take up?" No room at all, so it is with your spirit whereby you understand the things you come in contact with. Now, God is a Spirit, and if I am going to understand God, I must have the Spirit of God, and because my thinking and because God's Spirit take up no room they act very easily, work and inter-work with one another in my body, and what the Spirit of God does when He comes into me b^ the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ is to re-energize my spirit. My spirit in itself has no power to get hold of God; God's Spirit comes into my spirit and re-energizes that, then the rest depends on me; if I do not obey, if I do not bring into the light of the Spirit of God the dark and the wrong things in my soul, and get them dealt with by the light of the Spirit of God which He gives, then I shall grieve the Spirit of God, and grieve Him away. The first fundamental characteristic of God the Father, or God Almighty, is given in Exodus 3: 14. There is the description of pure will as being the basis of God Almighty. Now there is no such thing as pure will in a man, God Almighty is the only Being who can have an act of pure will, and the Bible reveals that the essential nature of God is this tremendous power of will. By His will He created what His breath sustains.

What is the main characteristic of Jesus Christ? (John 10:17, 18.) There again that is not a man's power, no man has the power to lay down his life in the way Jesus Christ is referring to. Jesus Christ, remember, is God incarnate, and the basal nature of God is the basal nature of Jesus Christ. "I lay down My life because I choose to, and I take it again be- cause I choose to; I am not here by any haphazard choice, I am here by the direct, determined will of God. "

Then take the characteristic of God the Holy Ghost. (John 16:8-11.) There again the basal characteristic, of the Godhead is will, no man has that.

Now with regard to the free will of man. Free will is a most limited subject; human free will is nearly always understated, or overstated, no man has the power to make an act of pure free will. There is a pre-determination in a man's spirit that makes him will along certain lines. You will find when we come to deal with man that Jesus Christ teaches that when the Spirit of God comes into him, the Spirit of God brings His own generating will power, and consequently causes the man to will on lines with God Almighty, and you have this lamazing fact, that the saints' free choices are God the Father's pre-determinations.

That is one of the most wonderful things in Christian psychology, that a saint chooses exactly what God determines he should choose. It is beyond the limits of language. If you have not received the Spirit of God, that is one of the things the apostle Paul says sounds so foolish, but when you have received the Spirit, and if you will obey Him, you will find that the Spirit of God puts your spirit into complete harmony with God's, and the sounds of your goings, and the sounds of God's goings are one and the same thing.

We have dealt with the physical world, and you will find that everything is leading back to what the Bible reveals, viz.: that at the back of everything is spirit force, not matter; not material things. What is that tremendous force? The Bible tells you, the force behind everything is this great Spirit of God. 16 New Theology," " Christian Science," and "Theosophy." are all the same; they teach this, that God, in order to help Himself to realize Himself, created something called His Son. If you read their statements, you will find they say in effect, "The Son of God is not only Jesus Christ, the Son of God is the whole creation of man and God is •all, and the whole creation of men and women is helping God to realize Himself.' ' The practical outcome of this line of thinking seems logical, but logical conclusions bring the mind to saying, "It is absurd to talk about 'sin'; sin is only a defect; and to talk about the need of an c atonement' by Jesus Christ is an old Orientalism, it is absurd to talk about there being a 'fall.'" The Bible never anywhere says that God created the world to help Him to realize Himself. The Bible reveals that God was absolutely self-sufficient, that the manifestation of Him as God the Son was for another purpose altogether, not for Himself at all, but for the solution of a gigantic problem, and the whole marvel of this new creation is that it is made of the earth earthy, and the great Spirit of God allows the enemy to be at work on this creation in a way he cannot work in any other creation. God overthrows the rule of His spiritual enemy by a being that is a little lower than the angels, viz.: man, and when God came into this order of things He did not come as an angel, He came as a man, and took on Himself human nature, that is the marvel of the incarnation, and the characteristics of the great God are mirrored in the Lord Jesus Christ, and if we want to know what God is like, study Jesus Christ. Let us thank God that the basis of the mighty nature of God is will, consequently when His Spirit comes into my spirit, I can will to do wrhat God wants me to do. Will simply means the whole nature active; will is not a faculty. We talk about people having a "weak will" or a "strong will"; that is a misleading idea. Will simply means the whole nature active, and by the energizing of the Spirit of God, we <are energized, and are able to do what we never could do before; that is, we are able to obey God, if we will.

Then take the next great characteristic — love. (1 John 4: 8.) "God is love." The Bible does not say God is loving, the Bible says "'God is love." The phrase "lovingkindness" is used' often in the Bible, but when the true nature of God is revealed, it does not say God is a loving being, it says, "God is love." The whole great basis of God is active will, and that will is love. Jesus Christ's characteristic is seen in Revelation 1:5; there the basal characteristic of Jesus Christ is love, and instantly the kind of love is shown; not lovingkindness in overlooking sin, but the essential nature of love that delivers us from sin. "Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood."

Now take the essential characteristic of God the Holy Ghost. (Rom. 5:5.) There again the essential characteristic of the active power of God's will is "love." When the Spirit of God, is received by me, the meaning in Romans 5: 5 is not that He enables me to have a capacity for loving God but tbat He sheds abroad in my heart the love of God, a very much more fundamental and marvelous thing; not that He gives me the ability to work out a love for God, but He sheds abroad in me the essential nature of God. Paul tries to put that in Galatians 2: 20, a verse which is perfectly familiar to us all, but none of us will ever fathom it no matter how long we live, nor how much we experience. He is stating this receiving of the very nature of Jesus Christ. Again Paul says, "When it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb, to reveal His Son in me." That is the true idea, of a saint, a saint is not <a human being who is trying to be good, a saint is not a human being who is trying by effort and prayer and longing and obedience to get as many of the saintly characteristics as possible, a saint is a being who is recreated, "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation, " and we have to be solemnly careful we do not travesty the work of God, or the atonement of the Lord Jesus. If we belittle it in the tiniest degree, although we may do it in ignorance, we will surely suffer, and the first thing that will make us belittle it, is when we get out of sympathy! with God, and into sympathy with human beings; when we begin to drag down the tremendous truths of God's revelation that the essential nature of God's Spirit is will, and love, and light. It is those characteristics that are imparted to us by the Holy Ghost; we have not them naturally, because, by nature, our hearts are darkened away from God, and we have not the power1 to generate will within ourselves, we have not the power to make an act of pure will, we have no power to love God when we like; and the number of people who are piously trying to make their poor human heart love God, is pathetic,

Then take the last characteristic, the essential nature of God the Father is light. (1 John 1:5.) That is an amazing declaration, there is no variableness caused by His turning. There is no shadow of a turn. "We are told that wherever there is light and substance, there must be a shadow, but there is no shadow in God, none whatever. What is the characteristic of Jesus Christ? Take it on His own terms, "I am the Light of the world"; no shadow; in Jesus Christ. (John 8:12.)

Then take the Holy Spirit. Active will, pervading love showing itself as light in God the Father; active will, pervading love showing itself as light in the Lord Jesus Christ; all-pervading energy and will and all-pervading love showing itself as light in the Holy Ghost. (John 16:13.) There is the active working again of these fundamental characteristics of the Godhead in God the Holy Ghost. They were the fundamental characteristics of Jesus Christ, and they were the fundamental characteristics of God Almighty as God the Father.

Let us revise again. "God is love." No man ever believes that who is wide-awake naturally, tmless he has received the Spirit of God. Why, the thing, as Paul says, "is foolishness," it is absurd. Watch the basal characteristic of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus 'Christ says, in effect, that the basis in everyone of His disciples, after they have been initiated into the life He is living, will be to find that God is their Father and is love. Then you get the wonderful working out in your life; not "I won't worry," but you will come to the place where you "cannot worry," for you have the Spirit of God shedding abroad in your heart the love of God, and you will find you can never think of anything that God your Father will forget. That is why our Lord talked so much about the great difference in the people who are where He wants them to be, and although great clouds and perplexities may come, as in Job 's case, and as in the case of Paul, and as in the case of every saint, they never touch the secret place of the Most High in your life. "Therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea." Why? The Spirit of God has got us so rightly centered that everything now is rightly adjusted.

You cannot give yourself the Spirit of God, that is God Almighty's gift if you will simply become poor enough to ask Him (Luke 11:13), but once He is in, there is something you can do, and God cannot do, I mean you can obey Him. If you don't obey Him, you will grieve Him and He will go. Over and over again we need to be reminded of Paul's counsel, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure." Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Spirit can work in me the very nature of Jesus

Christ, if I will obey Him, until in and through my mortal flesh may be manifested works that will make men glorify My Father which is in Heaven, and men will take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus.

Light is the most marvelous description of clear, beautiful moral character from God's standpoint. 1 John 1:7: "Walk in the light with nothing to hide." What light?— God. What light?— Jesus Christ. What light? — the Holy Spirit. "This is the condemnation/ ' says Jesus, "that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." What is my darkness? My own point of view, my own prejudices, preconceived determinations; if the Spirit of God agrees with that, all well and good; if He does not, I shall go my own way. That is darkness, and that is the very moment of determination. The weaning that goes on when a soul is being taken out of its own convictions into the light of Christ, is a time of perils in a soul life. When a child is being weaned, it is fractious, and when God is trying to wean us from our own ways of looking at things to get us into the full light of the Holy Spirit, we are very fractious too. We call it conviction of sin, and if I persist in keeping to my own light, I will end in darkness, said Jesus, but if I will keep walking in the light, recognizing and relying on the absolute authority of God the Holy Spirit to expound to me the Bible, to bring me into a complete understanding of His way, then I shall have fellowship with others.

But then comes the wonderful thing, I will have a purity of life that is pure in God's sight; that means too pure for me to begin to understand. Anything less — I say it measuring every word — anything less would be blasphemous. If 1 John 1: 7 is not true, if God cannot cleanse me from all sin, if God cannot make me unblameable in holiness in His sight, then Jesus Christ has totally misled us, and His great, mighty work of atonement is not what it pretends to be. Oh, if we would only get into the way of facing God with our limitations, and tell Him He cannot do it, we would begin to see the awful wickedness of unbelief, and why Jesus Christ was so vigorous against unbelief, and why, in the Book of Eevelation, unbelief is placed at' the very head of all the awful sins! When the Holy Spirit comes in, that unbelief is turned out, and by obedience, the will, the energy of God is put into us, and He can make us will to do His good pleasure, and He can shed abroad in our hearts the love of God. Then I will be able to show the same love to my fellowmen that God showed to me, and He will make me light. My morality, my religious conduct and my spirituality will exceed the righteousness, the morality and the spirituality of all the naturally pious people, because the supernatural, by God's Spirit, has been made natural in the life I now live.