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Discussion Forum : Scriptures and Doctrine : Why did the apostles have to come down?

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 Re:

Quote:
However, at this point (2007 AD), that sign for the Jews is not necessary.

Are there no more Jews in the world?

 2007/5/22 16:03









 Re:

Quote:
Are there no more Jews in the world?



Sure... but this was at a time when the church was being established. It's interesting that when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70AD, it was about that time that the early church "fathers" were recording that the gift of tongues seemed to be fading out.

I'm conjecturing here... but here's a thought... once the Jews were scattered to the wind, it seems that history records the "sign" gifts began to fade. Is this just coincidence...?

(Some Charismatics have been lied to, and have been tought that tongues was active all down church history, but that just isnt true.)

Pentacostals at least can admit that tongues was "revitalized" around 1900 at Azusa Street... which implied it was at least somewhat dorment up until then.

And even if tongues are legit for today... interesting that it's re-emergence on the scene seems to coincide with the re-gathering of the Jews in Israel.

Just something to think about.

Krispy

 2007/5/22 16:52
philologos
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Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
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 Re:

Quote:
Romans 8:14-17 (NKJV)

"14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

Are we to conclude that the 'receiving of the spirit' in this context is something other than the moment we believe?(NKJV)


The norm of New Testament experience seems to have been that people consciously received the Spirit. We can see this particularly in...“This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:2-3 NKJV) The point here is that Paul is working on the basis that his hearers had consciously received the Spirit.


Quote:
Ephesians 1:11-14 (NKJV)

"11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory."

Does verse 13 not clearly say that a person who hears the word of truth and believes is 'sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is the guarantee of our inheritance'?


Were these the same Ephesians that Paul asked "When you believed did you receive the Spirit?' For this question to make sense it must be possible to believe and yet not receive AND it must be possible to know whether or not they had received the Spirit, otherwise there can be no answer to the question.

Quote:
I don't understand where you are going with this Ron.


I am trying to persuade people to think about the implications of so much that we take for granted as evangelicals. For many the pattern is believe, confess your sin, ask Christ into your life, believe he has come... go on your way rejoicing. I am asking is this really New Testament Christianity or is an evangelical culture that we have embraced.

I can understand no Christianity apart from the Spirit of God but every record we have concerning the early Christians indicates that receiving the Spirit was a conscious event, not 'a logical deduction drawn from proof texts'. (that is a classical A W Tozer quotation, BTW)

The New Testament letters were not written to people who had gone through our evangelical counselling procedures but to people who had 'received the Spirit'. It is not automatically true of every reader but only those who fulfil the pattern of the Ephesian recipients. If a 'stranger to the covenant' were to open Ephesians and read its contents would its contents be true of the reader? And yet we think we can apply the truths of Ephesians to our own lives because it says them in the book.

We CAN apply them if we are the same kind of people as those to whom the letter was sent, but are we? Are we genuine 'saints' in the New Testament sense or are we the products of an evangelical system which has created a kind of Christian of which the New Testament knows nothing?

I know these are challenging questions, but I think we need to ask them. Many have adopted a pattern which assures people that they have 'received the Spirit' because they have gone through an evangelical process. I am asking whether we have any justification for giving people such an assurance. The oft-repeated statement that 'every one who is saved has received the Spirit' is not a biblical statement.

The Bible question is not 'are you saved?' but 'did you receive the Spirit?'.


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Ron Bailey

 2007/5/22 17:20Profile
PassingThru
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Joined: 2005/5/7
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 Re:

Quote:

The norm of New Testament experience seems to have been that people consciously received the Spirit.


This might be slightly off topic, but this reminds me of the phrase 'praying through' I've read mostly in a text by G.C Bevington. (I know nothing about GC Bevington, but I've also seen the phrase elsewhere) He remarked a lot on people successfully 'praying through' and some that didn't succeed. The striking point was the certainty of whether someone had succeeded or not.

He didn't explain the phrase, so I guess it was common terminology at one point. Any ideas on what is meant by this phrase? Baptism in the Holy Ghost, a supernatural answer to prayer, a supernatural assurance that the prayer was heard or of salvation itself?

PassingThru

 2007/5/22 17:50Profile
philologos
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Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
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 Re:

Quote:
GC Bevington


...was a Holiness preacher at the turn of the century. He believed and experienced healings and was a great pray-er. He used the phrase 'Baptism in the Spirit' in the terminology of 'second blessing holiness'.

The book [url=http://www.amazon.com/Remarkable-Miracles-C-G-Bevington/dp/0882707035/ref=sr_1_1/103-8306081-1252661?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179871920&sr=1-1]"Remarkable Miracles"[/url] is well worth reading.


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Ron Bailey

 2007/5/22 18:12Profile
JaySaved
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Joined: 2005/7/11
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 Re:

Quote:
The point here is that Paul is working on the basis that his hearers had consciously received the Spirit.



Who doesn't consciously receive the spirit when they believe?

What Acts records is the receiving of the Spirit designed to help the Jewish Disciples understand that the Gentiles are included in the gospel kingdom. Only a few instances are highlighted and as Krispy said earlier, these were designed by God to help the Jewish believers understand that this was a worldwide gospel.

When I believed, I received the Holy Spirit. This was a conscience event on my part. I have the Spirit of God within me right now, I have never sought a 'second blessing' of any type.

Quote:
Were these the same Ephesians that Paul asked "When you believed did you receive the Spirit?' For this question to make sense it must be possible to believe and yet not receive AND it must be possible to know whether or not they had received the Spirit, otherwise there can be no answer to the question.



Yes, the ones who had only received the baptism of John. What this shows was that it was possible to receive the baptism of John and not receive the Holy Spirit.

 2007/5/22 21:59Profile
JaySaved
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Joined: 2005/7/11
Posts: 1132
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 Re:

Here is an excerpt from a Study I did earlier: My words are in the brackets.

Acts 19

Paul in Ephesus
1While Apollos [See Acts 18:24-28] was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2and asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?"
They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."
3So Paul asked, "Then what baptism did you receive?"
"John's [as in John the Baptist] baptism," they replied.

4Paul said, "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. [Acts 13:23-25, “From this man's (David’s) descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. As John was completing his work, he said: 'Who do you think I am? I am not that one. No, but he is coming after me, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.' He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”] 5On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 6When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. 7There were about twelve men in all. [These men were in the same position as Apollos was in Chapter 18. They were believers in Christ but they had not been instructed about Christ fully. They had experienced John’s baptism of repentance but they had not been filled with the Holy Spirit. Rev. Dwight McKissic in a sermon before the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary chapel said the following about these believers, “In Acts 19:1-7, we find an encounter of Paul with the disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus. Paul asked them, in verse 3, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” Behind the question is the assumption that this was usually when it happened – when you believe, when we believe, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, according to Ephesians 1. They pled ignorant of the Holy Spirit, stating that they had been baptized into John’s baptism. Paul related John’s baptism to the ministry of Jesus, and they were baptized in water a second time and received the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” He then goes on to speak about when a person receives the Holy Spirit and says the following, “…It is my belief that Pentecost (Acts 2) instituted the Church, then all that remained was for Samaritans, Gentiles, Ethiopians, and Jews who were unaware of the gospel to be brought into the church representatively. This occurred in Acts 8 for Samaritans and Ethiopians; Acts 10 for Gentiles; and Acts 19 for the belated believers from John’s baptism. Once this representative baptism with the Holy Spirit had occurred the normal pattern applied. Baptism with the Spirit at the time that each person, of whatever background, believed on Jesus Christ. Baptism with the Holy Spirit is the initial experience of every believer at conversion.
Eph 1:3 says that “we have been blessed with spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” And one of those spiritual blessings, whether we realize it or not, that we received when we were saved is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.]

 2007/5/22 22:21Profile
ADisciple
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Joined: 2007/2/3
Posts: 835
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 Re:

Quote:

philologos wrote:
I am trying to persuade people to think about the implications of so much that we take for granted as evangelicals. For many the pattern is believe, confess your sin, ask Christ into your life, believe he has come... go on your way rejoicing. I am asking is this really New Testament Christianity or is an evangelical culture that we have embraced.

The New Testament letters were not written to people who had gone through our evangelical counselling procedures but to people who had 'received the Spirit'. It is not automatically true of every reader but only those who fulfil the pattern of the Ephesian recipients. If a 'stranger to the covenant' were to open Ephesians and read its contents would its contents be true of the reader? And yet we think we can apply the truths of Ephesians to our own lives because it says them in the book.

I know these are challenging questions, but I think we need to ask them. Many have adopted a pattern which assures people that they have 'received the Spirit' because they have gone through an evangelical process. I am asking whether we have any justification for giving people such an assurance. The oft-repeated statement that 'every one who is saved has received the Spirit' is not a biblical statement.

The Bible question is not 'are you saved?' but 'did you receive the Spirit?'.



Excuse me for editing your post in the above quote, Philologos, which leaves out much of what you have said. But what you have said needs to be listened to. Considering the hour we are in, and the apostasy around us, we need to be brave enough to take "challenging questions" to heart.

We are so often very short of what we read in the Scriptures. And I wonder, is it fear of missing out on the vastness of it all that makes us want to say we have got it all at the moment of regeneration? Or at the moment of "the Baptism"?

This whole matter of the Spirit of God is a very big thing. Jesus Himself was born of the Holy Spirit. Was that enough? But when He was baptized in water the Holy Spirit came upon Him "in bodily shape like a dove." Was that enough? Or after the resurrection, when He breathed upon His disciples, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." Was that enough? Was He satisfied yet? But then when He ascended, He received from the Father "the Promise of the Holy Spirit..." (Acts 2.33). Was that enough for Him? But He calls that just "the earnest" of the Spirit He poured out at Pentecost: the "downpayment," the "engagement ring," is what it signifies (2 Cor. 1.22). Is that enough? It seems, from our point of view, it is often enough. "Take my cup, Lord, fill it up, Lord... Thank you, Lord, we have it all now." But from His point of view? Not enough. He continues to move forward-- for His own Name's sake-- till we shall be filled "unto all the fulness of God."

Jesus said those who believe on Him, out of their innermost being would flow rivers of living water. "This spake He of the Spirit...:

What I am saying is that the Holy Spirit is a River, not a puddle. We must have Him from the moment of new birth till... when? The earnest, then the adoption, then... glorified... When does it end? "That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2.7).

...So I think it very likely that the apostles had something deeper in the Holy Spirit back then than anlything the Church has YET experienced. They had an anointing, an authoritative anointing, that by the laying on of their hands men received the Holy Spirit. That's what Scripture seems to say. That's what Simon the sorcerer obviously saw. "And when Simon saw that through laying on of hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this gift, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost."

I want to leave the Scriptures where they are, ans ask God to bring my experience up to the Scriptures, not the other way around, and try to "lower" the Scriptures down to my experience. There is a very powerful authority God desires to restore to His church. He will yet do it. I think there was a taste of it at the Battleford revival in 1948, when they experienced once again prophesy and the laying on of hands. In a measure. There is more, much more, to come. When God sees we are ready for it. (By His own preparing work, I mean.) As someome has said, the world will yet see what God will do with men who will not touch the glory.

Lord, open us up to face "challenging questions" without fear that our doctrinal puddles will be drowned; let us, like Ezekiel, seek out that River that cannot be passed over, waters to swim in... "And this we will do if God permit."

AD


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Allan Halton

 2007/5/23 0:23Profile
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Joined: 2003/7/18
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 Re:


Quote:
Yes, the ones who had only received the baptism of John. What this shows was that it was possible to receive the baptism of John and not receive the Holy Spirit.


the Samaritan incident shows that it is possible to receive Christian baptism and still not have the Spirit.

Quote:
Who doesn't consciously receive the spirit when they believe?


Well, I certainly didn't, for one. And I doubt that many folks are told that the essence of Christianity is 'receiving the Spirit'. We are told to believe certain facts. Sometimes even that we must repent but that God's coming is a conscious event, not many are told this I think.

Simon the Magician, saw something which he identified as 'giving' and 'receiving' the Spirit. He was not a Jew and did not need to be convinced that God was including the Samaritans. What did he see? Would he have offered money to buy the ability to do what happens in most counselling contexts? I think not.

I am not talking about tongues or tingles, BTW


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Ron Bailey

 2007/5/23 1:19Profile
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Joined: 2007/1/21
Posts: 528
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 Re:

Reply to Jeff
Jeff wrote:

“Why not when Phillip prayed for them?”

In what chapter and verse did the one whom the Apostle Philip lay hands on and pray for fail to receive the Holy Spirit? Sorry Eddie


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Eddie

 2007/5/23 6:23Profile





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