THE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRIT

John 3:27

Morning Meditation 11/22/2013

Verse 27 says, “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”

If you wonder how much John understood about the Messiah he preached you will have to read John 1:25-36. Other passages give us a glimpse of what he believed and preached but this passage is a confession of John’s faith. It could not be clearer. Not only did John make a great explanation of his faith in Christ but he made a statement in verse 27 that explains the absence of any depth to spiritual understanding in our day. After we look at this verse, I want to share with you several things that A.W. Tozer says about this truth.

This statement of John comes about as a result of a question that arose among John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying (verse 25). This is the reason for the words, “John answered and said . . .” So this confession of Christ was John’s answer to the question about purifying. The purifying here is a reference to his baptizing which was symbolic. We are cleansed by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and our faith in him is our entrance into eternal life (verse 36). Unbelief leaves the sinner where he was born, i.e., under the wrath of God. It is not the rejection of Christ that causes one to be under the wrath of God. Jesus came to a condemned race whose destiny was eternal death to provide a way out. The message of the gospel does not condemn the world. It is good news to those already condemned on death row (3:18).

John says, “A man can receive nothing except it were given him from heaven.” They were trying to get a question about purifying answered. And John looks at them and makes this statement. I can just hear one of John’s disciples say, “John, just make it simple. Just give us a simple rational answer to our question. We are rational beings and we can understand human speech. Just tell us what this baptism is about.” And John says, “A man can receive nothing except it were given him from heaven.” Can you see the puzzled looks on the disciple’s faces? John is saying, “I’m going to give you God’s answer to your question. But you are not going to understand it unless God opens your heart to it’s understanding..” Then John proceeds to tell them about Christ and about his message, his anointing, about how the Father has given all things into his hands and how much the Father loves him and how faith in him is the means to obtaining eternal life. Does this sound like a direct answer to why John baptized with water? Only if God reveals to you that baptism speaks of the fact that Jesus came to die on a cross, be buried and raised again the third day which is the sum and substance of the gospel and this is the means of cleansing for the believer and all of this is pictured in baptism.

Tozer said in his comments on this verse, “Man by reason cannot know God; he can only know about God. Through the light of reason certain important facts about God may be discovered. ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse’” (Rom. 1:19-20). Then he says, “Through the light of nature man’s moral reason may be enlightened, but the deeper mysteries of God remain hidden to him until he has received illumination from above.”

Again Tozer says, “The inability of human reason as an organ of divine knowledge arises not from its own weakness but from its unfittedness for the task by its own nature.”

Tozer says, “The doctrine of the inability of the human mind and the need for divine illumination is so fully developed in the New Testament that it is nothing short of astonishing that we should have gone so far astray about the whole thing. Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the Liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost. Everywhere among Conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught . . . There is no truth apart from the Spirit . . . For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired the text . . . the textualism of our times is based upon the same premise as the old-line rationalism, that is, the belief that the human mind is the supreme authority in the judgment of truth. Or otherwise stated, it is confidence in the ability of the human mind to do that which the Bible declares it was never created to do and consequently is wholly incapable of doing. Philosophical rationalism is honest enough to reject the Bible flatly. Theological rationalism rejects it while pretending to accept it and in so doing puts out its own eyes . . . The inward kernel of truth has the same configuration as the outward shell. The mind can grasp the shell but only the Spirit of God can lay hold of the internal essence.”

Tozer claimed that fundamentalism was slowly dying because of what he called “this mortal error.” He says, “Those overtones of religious delight which accompany truth when the Spirit illuminates it are all but missing from the Church today.”

John said, “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” Then, John went on to speak a Spirit given message concerning Christ. But he says that what I am about to say must also come as a Divine illumination if you are to understand. When there is Divine illumination on the Word of revelation there is the experience of God. We have emphasized the understanding intellectually of the revelation (God’s Word) to the neglect of illumination. The educated preacher is uneasy around an “unlearned and ignorant man” (Acts 4:13), on whom is the evident power of God. He has to explain his own absence of power by becoming critical of the “ignorant man’s” lack of formal studies represented by degrees. Then the “ignorant man” in response to his lack of degrees, must criticize the learned man’s education and bring attention to his powerlessness. So the “unlearned and ignorant man” gives up his power because of his critical spirit and the “man of degrees” lives on in his deadness because he refuses to face the fact that he has overemphasized the “revelation” and copped out on the “illumination.”

People are dying in Churches because they have a message without illumination. There is no experience of God. Vance Havner said, “We are as straight as a gun barrel doctrinally and as empty as a gun barrel spiritually.. I believe he is right. I am not accusing anyone in this meditation. I’m just trying to draw attention to truth that I need to practice and share it with others who may also need it.

May the Lord bless each of you.

In Christ

Bro. White