“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me”(John 14:1)
Some of us only believe in God as far as the laws and the prophets. And some of us only agree with Christ on certain subjects but not others.
But God himself has said, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” (Luke 9:35)
And Jesus himself has repeated prayed to His Father. He even prayed to His Father to send us the Holy Spirit.
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
It is a quite a shame to get on the bus without pay, but then protest that others should pay. That’s what theology promotes at times if not all the time.
We say it like a cliché, “I’m saved by grace through faith”, like a toddler repeating after others without yet understanding what grace and faith are according to Scripture.
I met with a friend, a brother in Christ, a while back to share some laughs and opinions on life in general and have a good time. Somewhere along the way, He said, “The Holy Spirit doesn’t exist!”. I responded, “what do you mean?” He replied the same thing again and this time added, “How do you know what the Bible is true…how do you know the Holy Spirit exist?”
My simple answer then was, “He lives in me.”
Then he replied again, “How do you know if it’s the Holy Spirit and not some other spirit?”
I said, “He filled me that’s how I know.”
Eventually, after our meeting, I shared with him, “I know it is the Holy Spirit because He reminds me of Christ every single day.”
His pressing of me didn’t seem like a show of interest in remembering the truth, but angry frustration that maybe his theological studies had long been causing him.
I recall a debate we once had in a car ride from visiting a long-distance friend. I don’t recall how the debate started, but his stand was the modalistic approach saying that God does not exist in three persons, and that when we enter heaven, we will see one person and not three. It’s a theological understanding, purely human understanding comparing God to water being in the form of solid, liquid and vapor. But what good is to a man to withhold such understanding? What does he get from it? His rest is only found then in the midst of those who agree with him, rather than in what God has done through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit as Peter witnessed himself (Acts 2:22-36).
After meeting with him that night, I felt a bit disturbed not for myself, but for him. I must tell you that he’s had his Master of Divinity from a seminary, he’s been ordained by a particular organization, he’s also a Ph. D. student. But yet he dismisses the simple truth that is laid by the gospel before him.
Reverse-engineering our salvation for the purpose of proving that we earned it or the purpose of dismissing Christ as the Son of God thus having the nature of God himself, God His Father and God the Holy Spirit, that is a shortfall of theology.
The dangers of theology is revealed when it asks questions that only the Holy Spirit will provide answers to. And the Holy Spirit will not provide an answer to the question just so that a certain individual would credit himself as the one who came up with such understanding. By then theology comes up with its own imaginable answers and mislead many.
If theology is holding your breath, which it should be doing since that’s all it could ever do, come to Christ and breathe.
As Christ said to all theologians,
“Stop grumbling among yourselves…No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.” (John 6:43-48)
I hope and pray that this friend of mine is released from all of his theology that traps his mind and made him so glorious to society and finds rest alone in the love of God demonstrated by Christ’s death and resurrection.
The promise
Jesus is the well of the living water, the Holy Spirit. 