The Experience of Christ

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Taste and see that the Lord is good implies experience.
Knowing God implies experience.
Fellowship with God implies experience.
Knowing the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings implies experience.
Being filled with all the fullness of God implies experience.
And how can you be one with God without experiencing it eventually?

"Be doers of the word and not merely hearers" implies experience. But what is it to "do" the word? Obey. Not attend meetings and shout slogans, which may or may not be related to the word.

But in today's post-modern, relativistic world it isn't easy to know whether I love, whether I have compassion, whether I have patience and kindness and generosity. I'm good at talking about it...

Ultimately I am left with "seek and you will find." I seek the experience. By God's mercy I may find it.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

"Be doers of the word and not merely hearers" implies experience. But what is it to "do" the word? Obey. Not attend meetings and shout slogans, which may or may not be related to the word.

But in today's post-modern, relativistic world it isn't easy to know whether I love, whether I have compassion, whether I have patience and kindness and generosity. I'm good at talking about it...

Ultimately I am left with "seek and you will find." I seek the experience. By God's mercy I may find it.

I don't think you can truly know what to "do" without the experiencing the Spirit's enlightenment in the first place. I see too many doers of the word operating under their own interpretation. Yes, seeking is important and finding is important. Both in their genuine manifestation are experiences of Christ.

Obviously the LCM distorted experience to the point of error. But that's not a good reason to have a problem with experience itself or with the idea that we need to have it, anymore than the fact that some fraternity guy killed himself by trying to drink 10 gallons of water in 10 minutes should make us hesitant to drink water.

Experience is a general word. So is know. It's even more general than experience. But the Bible uses it. Know can mean know information (Gk. oida) or denote personal involvement (Gk. ginosko). The Hebrew word for "to know" is (surprise!) yada. It implies personal knowledge. When it says "Adam knew his wife" it wasn't talking about him knowing something he read about her. It was talking about a very intimate experience of her.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

"Be doers of the word and not merely hearers" implies experience. But what is it to "do" the word? Obey. Not attend meetings and shout slogans, which may or may not be related to the word.

LSM definitely crossed the line when they condemned the GLA young people for visiting old folks homes and the like, condemning as "dead works" what the Bible would call "good works." Lee and LSM messed with all our heads on this one. They condemned what the Spirit directed others to do in serving others. They only saw "good" in that which built up their little empire. Thus, screaming in meetings all day long was "good," but loving your neighbor could not be an "experience" of God.

Originally Posted by Igzy

Obviously the LCM distorted experience to the point of error. But that's not a good reason to have a problem with experience itself or with the idea that we need to have it, anymore than the fact that some fraternity guy killed himself by trying to drink 10 gallons of water in 10 minutes should make us hesitant to drink water.

Some might say, "Can the church meet too much?" or might say, "Can we experience the Lord too much?" It all depends.

The problem with LSM is that they redefined and distorted what the "experience" of God was to the point of error. Shouting can easily become vain babbling, but no one dares to address this when they are bubbling forth ministry-approved slogans. They frown upon any leading of the Lord which does not build up their program, and in this regard, they are anti-Christ because they are against the anointing of the Spirit in the individual children of God. Elders, churches, and saints must all align with LSM or their "experiences" are invalidated by the ministry.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

I see too many doers of the word operating under their own interpretation.

I was not there, on the holy mountain with Peter and John and James.

2 Peter 1:17-19 "For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased "-- and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.…"

John 1:14 "And we saw his glory, the glory of the only begotten son of the Father..."

No, I was not there. But I have the record. I have the truth. And in that truth I'm invited to behold glory, of which nothing is equal. All works that matter flow out of that vision. And nothing else.

Originally Posted by Igzy

Obviously the LCM distorted experience to the point of error. But that's not a good reason to have a problem with experience itself or with the idea that we need to have it...

But there's reason to have a problem with charismatic experiences that are at best tangenitally (i.e. tenuously, barely) related to the word of God. Like letting a chicken run through a room where water is boiling, and then calling it chicken soup; aahhh, not really. But thanks anyway.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

No, I was not there. But I have the record. I have the truth. And in that truth I'm invited to behold glory, of which nothing is equal. All works that matter flow out of that vision. And nothing else.

YOU have the written word. Praise God. But you cannot interpret it without experiencing HIM as the Spirit of truth.

But there's reason to have a problem with charismatic experiences that are at best tangenitally (i.e. tenuously, barely) related to the word of God. Like letting a chicken run through a room where water is boiling, and then calling it chicken soup; aahhh, not really. But thanks anyway.

Those are the exception. And the exception is not the rule. Rather, the exception proves the rule. Which means we still need to experience the Spirit. BTW, the Spirit is a Person, not a force that cooks chickens. Experiencing God's Power means experiencing his Person--his character, his likes and dislikes. Keep that in mind and you'll do fine.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Igzy

YOU have the written word. Praise God. But you cannot interpret it without experiencing HIM as the Spirit of truth.

This is a defining scripture for all proper experience: "But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes He will guide you into all the reality." John 16.13

Originally Posted by Igzy

Those are the exception. And the exception is not the rule. Rather, the exception proves the rule.

Interesting. Can you say more. Never mind the chickens.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Ohio

This is a defining scripture for all proper experience: "But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes He will guide you into all the reality." John 16.13

I agree.

Interesting. Can you say more. Never mind the chickens.

The fact that the exception is called an exception shows there is a rule it is an exception to. People argue about exceptions as if their existence trumps the rule. But they actually establish it. For example, if I say all swans are white and you respond that 1% are not, you've just said that 99% of the time I'm right. I'll take that any day.

People who are always pointing out exceptions are the same people who play the lottery. Overall, what is possible is not as important as what is likely. The more someone tends to make a big deal about exceptions the more you are dealing with a theoretician and not a pragmatist.

[Cal]

Here's another thought. The Bible tells us to "walk in the Spirit." Is that significantly less general than saying "experience Christ"? To me they are saying basically the same thing. I don't see much difference at all. Now some might be able to nitpick a difference, but what would be the point of doing that, other than to make a point? So if the Bible feels safe with the general "walk in the Spirit," are we wrong for feeling safe with the general "experience Christ"?

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

YOU have the written word. Praise God. But you cannot interpret it without experiencing HIM as the Spirit of truth.

Probably we're arguing past each other. Because I wouldn't put "but" to start the last sentence; rather I'd put "and" to start it.

I've gradually decided over the past year or so that the entire corpus of the NT was largely an attempt to convince its readers that Jesus the Nazarene was the promised Messiah of scriptures, "scriptures" being what we'd call the OT. The law, the prophets, the psalms, Jesus' disciples felt, all pointed to the coming Savior who would redeem Israel and rule the world. Now, some of those scriptures are gone -- "Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water" was cited, but from what text? The Book of Enoch was part of NT discourse, but was lost. However the bulk of the work was carefully preserved. And we can see that the NT writers felt that the work, as a whole, pointed to the coming Savior of the world.

Isaiah 9:7 "Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this."

To a people chafing under Roman rule, after centuries of Greeks, Babylonians, Assyrians, and whatnot, this promise loomed large. All those OT references sprinkled through the NT were presenting their readers with the foundation for understanding who Jesus was, according to the promises of God. I've recently covered, on another thread, Peter's speech in Acts 2 and Paul's speech in Acts 13, both of whom it must be stressed were aimed at not merely Jews but "God-fearing people".

Yet 2,000 years later we assume the validity of the NT argument, and skim past the references. It has gotten so bad that we, a bunch of otherwise intelligent people, spent years under an expositor like WL who'd bring out all sorts of pictures from the "types and shadows" of the OT, and essentially ignore the incarnated Word, Jesus Christ. Instead we got all sorts of things: we got "ChristAndTheChurch" and "God'sEconomy" and "TheProcessedTriuneGod" etc. And, tellingly, WL gave us messages telling us the the OT was "natural" and "fallen" where WL couldn't line it up with his "NT economy". That we could disregard the word of God at our profit. And we sat there and took it.

Now, my point is this: any spirit that confesses Jesus Christ from the Bible (both OT and NT) is to be at least considered, and any spirit that comes into the Assembly of Jesus' Name (i.e. "the church") and begins to push other things from the word of God is to be examined very, very skeptically. This is where we have to "prove the spirits" that come among us. When our attention begins to be diverted to arguments over God's trinity, over the structure of the assembly, over dispensation, and over the experiences of hand-waving and shouting as "the Spirit", I fear we've lost our way.

This is where I lumped the LC in with the Charismatic movement, which gets the assembled audience all in an agitated state: shouting, chanting, arm waving, "declaring" and so forth. But shouting what? Yes, "Jesus is Lord" among other things. But that's the problem. We think we are experiencing The Spirit of Christ but we are experiencing "Christ plus", we are experiencing the spirit of other things... some additive spirit has come in. So we can presumably "experience Christ" while we eat toast, while our actual living, and our assembly resembles the Christ presented in the Bible hardly at all.

Where is the love? The humility? The exhortations to good works? The charity toward those who cannot repay us in this age? The receiving of one another? And so forth. Yes we "experience the Spirit". But what spirit?

Originally Posted by Igzy

Those are the exception. And the exception is not the rule. Rather, the exception proves the rule. Which means we still need to experience the Spirit. BTW, the Spirit is a Person, not a force that cooks chickens. Experiencing God's Power means experiencing his Person--his character, his likes and dislikes. Keep that in mind and you'll do fine.

I am reacting to what I saw, and was under for a time. Am I seeking the kingdom? Only partly. Partly I am reacting to a situation. Was Moses seeking God's glory? Or was he seeking a lost sheep? Was Nathaniel seeking the Messiah or was he snoozing under a fig tree? Our seeking is leavened by our situation and our predispositions. Ultimately the Word is the living sword that cuts one from the other. Otherwise we may find ourselves beguiled by some seducing spirit. In WL's case the seeking seems to have been some combination of mercantilism and a need for control. In my case I'm not sure. Stay tuned. But I know that the Word shows us the way, even if I can hardly see it. Really I "feel" it. It's like the StarWarsian "force". I know it's there.

And maybe that is your "Spirit". That's why I said we're probably saying the same thing. But really all I can say for sure is to stay tuned.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

Probably we're arguing past each other.

It happens. We all come from different angles. I guess that's why Paul said arriving at the unity of the faith was a matter in the future.