The Receiving of Texts (1)
The subject about which we hope to write a few articles is a sensitive one. This is an area, unfortunately, which is fraught with much that is nonauthentic, and in which much misconception and over-appropriation occurs. Therefore, it seemed good to us to expose some aspects related to this subject.
What must we understand by “the receiving of texts”? Some years ago, the well-known Rev. I. Kievit wrote a brochure worth reading about this subject from which I borrowed the necessary material for these articles. He provides the following title: “To hear texts immediately in our conscious being.” The Holy Spirit is able to carry directly into our consciousness all manner of Scripture words, promises, and truths. When the Holy Spirit does this, such a word from Scripture will work powerfully in our heart and mind. Our forefathers sometimes used to say “then faith comes with it” This all takes place in our inner being. Hence, we need not think of a hearing or seeing involving our senses. The Holy Spirit is able to cause a word from Scripture to enter our consciousness powerfully to instruct, discover, comfort, encourage, or to put to shame. God’s people know what all this means.
Yet we wish to emphasize that this receiving of texts is not the one and only part of spiritual life. The Lord works in the first place by the hearing of the Word, namely, preaching. That is God’s common way of teaching His children. But the Lord is also willing, under special circumstances, to bring a word from Scripture into the soul’s consciousness unto the strengthening of and guidance in spiritual life, while at that moment we are neither under the preaching of the Word nor searching it. God’s common way continues to be the preaching and searching of God’s Word. For a healthy development of spiritual life it is of utmost importance to hold firm to this.
With the receiving of texts we enter the realm of the Word as a means of grace, and in particular the area of the relationship between Word and Spirit. The Lord works in the heart of His children by Word and Spirit. Hereby we must watch, however, in speaking about inner light and inner revelations by which the preached and written Word as means of grace are pushed to the background. The Lord speaks primarily through the proclamation of the Word! During the Reformation it was powerfully emphasized that it is God’s common way to work faith and regeneration through the preaching of the Word. Thus, our Heidelberg Catechism says that the Lord will have Christians taught “by the lively preaching of His Word.” In Article 24 of our Belgic Confession of Faith we read, “... that this true faith, being wrought in man by the hearing of the Word of God and the operation of the Holy Ghost, doth regenerate and make him a new man.” So you see that our fathers placed all emphasis in the confession on the proclamation, the preaching of the Word of God.
Besides the preaching, we must also think of the reading and searching of the Holy Scriptures. The Lord has hereby joined the administration of His Word and Spirit to the administration of the office which He has instituted in His church. The greater Office-bearer works by means of the offices instituted by Him in His church. When we let go of this, we enter individualistic and subjective waters and the danger of over-appropriation becomes very great. So the Word as means of grace is closely related to the office-bearing administration of Christ in His church. The apostle says in Romans 10:17 that “faith cometh by hearing” and by this we must understand the hearing of the Word as it is brought to us by the office. “And this is a remarkable passage with regard to the efficacy of preaching; for he testifies that by it faith is produced” (Calvin on Romans 10:17). So the Lord speaks in particular through preaching as the official administration of the Word. Faith originates through the Word of the speaking God in Christ and lives by that identical Word. Faith is inclined to hear. God’s child wants to hear what God will speak to him. Calvin says that faith is nothing else than “to hang on God’s lips.” In an external sense that Word comes to all those who hear it. The Lord makes that Word powerful through His Spirit by the internal calling (vacatio interna).
In certain circles some join Word and Spirit more or less automatically. Then the external calling (vocatio externa) is sufficient. Then the Spirit is locked away as it were within the Word, which no longer needs to be accompanied by a special work of the Spirit Over against that there exist many forms of “fanaticism” by which the external Word is despised. There everything is expected from the internal Word and the internal light. The Bible is then viewed as a dead letter. The Anabaptists accused the Reformers of making a “paper pope” of the Bible. In these circles, much allegorizing or spiritualizing of the Word of God takes place. They want to make the Word more spiritual than it already is. All solidity disappears. The Word receives a meaning which was first put there by man. Calvin remarks that he considers this allegorizing an invention of the devil. The internal Word is then esteemed higher than Scripture which is viewed as merely a Word of paper. Then man insists on immediate revelation. If the receiving of texts is placed in this context the written and proclaimed Word are pushed aside; Christ is pushed aside and all manner of emotions are placed in the center.
We protest against this. Of course faith cannot be separated from the emotions and of course we will never know the power of the Word unto salvation without the administration of the Holy Spirit, but where the Holy Spirit works faith in the heart there faith directs itself to the proclaimed and written Word, to that “it is written,” to the Christ of the Scriptures.
We must see to it that the preaching of the Word as the primary means of grace is not pushed aside from its place and put far back by the frames of the pious heart. Through His Word, God speaks by means of His servants to those to whom the Word comes. Many words of God come to us through preaching. This is also a form of “receiving texts” and certainly not an unimportant one. Do we realize this enough? Before God’s judgment seat we will know that many words of God came to us in our life.
Calvin says that faith learns to shoot its roots deep into God’s Word. Over-exerting people, he says, expect inspirations from heaven and thereby despise the servants of God by whose hand they must be governed. Christ has said to His disciples, and in them to all His office-bearers, “He that heareth you heareth Me” (Luke 10:16). And Paul speaks about the receiving of the Word preached “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God” (1 Thes. 2:13).
In the receiving of texts as described above, faith is passive. We must not forget, however, that faith also has an active side. Saving faith directs itself to the Word of God, searches it diligently and continually, and gathers food for the soul from it. It goes up to God’s house praying and is made active with the Word of the Lord. If it is right, we do not live lazily by words that enter our mind, but faith lives by the hearing and searching of the Word of God.
Thus, we heartily believe that the Holy Spirit teaches God’s children sometimes by bringing certain words from Scripture into their consciousness for instruction, comfort, and exercise of spiritual life. But yet the Lord works primarily through the proclamation and diligent searching of His Word. Let us know ourselves to be bound to the preaching of God’s Word. The well-known line from Psalter 337 also refers to this: “Direct my footsteps in Thy Word.”
In special circumstances, however, the Lord is willing to teach His people, in addition to the means of preaching, also by imprinting words from Scripture directly into their soul. We will consider this the next time.
Rev. J.J. Van Eckeveld is pastor of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Zeist, The Netherlands.
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Bekijk de hele uitgave van donderdag 1 april 1993
The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's
Bekijk de hele uitgave van donderdag 1 april 1993
The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's