There
are many times I understand God’s words by watching for the plumb line of truth
that rests between the pendulum extremes.[1] I find
that many people seem to see only two possibilities for living out what they
read in God’s word, and often these possibilities seem quite at odds with each
other.
While
there are many variations of this dichotomy, they often come down to some
expression of doctrine in contrast to experience. One extreme isolates doctrine
into such heartless words that those who long to feel the work of God in
relation to the deep needs of the soul cannot go there. The other extreme so isolates
the experiences of life from sound doctrine that those who love the beauty of God’s
truth cannot join those who pay it no mind.
The
plumb line of God’s word constantly shows sound doctrine in real life. The
epitome of this reality is revealed in the life of Jesus Christ our Savior. The
word of God writes in heart-moving expressions of truth, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”[2] and
"Come to me, all who labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”[3]
Everything about Jesus was truth fleshed-out in real life, demanding the
expectation that we would experience the rest for our souls Jesus continues to
offer us today.
My
quest in life is to live by the word of God, and to experience everything it
teaches of fellowship with him in this foreign land of the world. If God says
that we can know him by experience in the life of the Church, I want to be true
to the doctrines that teach these things, and experience them as fully as God
intended.
Recently,
my children took me out for a birthday dinner at a steak-and-seafood restaurant.[4] As
soon as I discovered where we were (I had to close my eyes for the last bit of
the trip), and heard that it was lobster-season, I began to anticipate an
amazing meal.
Looking
through the menu told me what this restaurant offered, but I would not be
satisfied sitting in a lobster-saturated environment only reading the menu.
People just don’t do that. We read the menu believing that it is an accurate
description of the food that is served. We place an order with the expectation
that we will enjoy the taste of real food. We believe that the words on the
menu describe meals that can be enjoyed by experience.
In
a similar way, the Scriptures speak of things that the Church not only can
experience, but must experience. It is God’s Scripture that tells us to “taste and see that the LORD is good!”[5] If
I accept the truth of this exhortation, I must then expect to experience
tasting and seeing the goodness of my God.
Scripture
tells me, “Like newborn infants, long for
the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed
you have tasted that the Lord is good.”[6]
The sound doctrine tells me that there is such a thing as “pure spiritual milk;” that it enables us to “grow up into salvation;” that we should feel the longing for this
milk in a similar way to “newborn infants;”
and that this is based on us already having the experience of tasting “that the Lord is good.”
All
of this speaks of that perfect fellowship between truth and experience. Reading
such Scriptures tells us that we are in the presence of truth, but the truth we
read demands that we have the experience it teaches. Our parched souls should
feel that they have just read the most soothing and comforting item on the
menu, and that we can put in our order, and soon know what it feels like to have
our hunger and thirst satisfied by the realities the Scriptures reveal.[7]
When
we remind ourselves that the true worshippers of God worship in both “spirit and in truth,”[8] we
can go looking for that experience of God that has a spiritual reality
saturated with the beauty of true revelation from the word of God. We can read
the truth of God’s word knowing that there is some spiritual encounter waiting
for us in real life.
For
example, when we read the doctrinal exhortation to the Church, “do not get drunk with wine, for that is
debauchery, be filled with the Spirit,”[9] we
can determine that we will avoid the experience of getting drunk on wine, and,
instead, will experience the filling of the Holy Spirit.
When
we read in the sound doctrine of Scripture that we are to “walk by the Spirit,” so we “will
not gratify the desires of the flesh,”[10]
we must expect some experience in life that will feel just like taking a walk
with the Holy Spirit, with a corresponding lack of experience in gratifying the
real desires of the flesh. In the same way that reading a brochure for a hike
in a particular location holds the expectation of going to that location and
experiencing the hike the brochure described, so reading Scripture’s truth
holds the parallel experience of walking in the things it reveals.
Along
with this, when Scripture tells us to be “led
by the Spirit,”[11] to
exemplify the “fruit of the Spirit,”[12]
to “live by the Spirit,” and “keep in step with the Spirit,”[13] we
must expect that these expressions of sound doctrine will turn into real
experiences of life as we seek to hear Jesus’ words and do them.[14]
Even
in the way Jesus describes himself, we find that he must be experienced.
Doctrine tells us that he is the door to the sheepfold,[15]
but in real life we must know when we entered the fold through that door.
Doctrine tells us that he is the only Way to the Father,[16]
but real life must hold some historical event when we first discovered he was
leading us along that way of personal relationship with him that brought us to
know his Father as our Father in heaven.
The
same doctrine tells us that Jesus is the only Truth that brings us to the
Father,[17]
but life experience must tell of a time when that truth became a genuine
relationship with God. Doctrine tells us that Jesus is the only Life that makes
as alive towards the holy God of heaven,[18]
but we must be able to speak of an experience where Jesus applied his life to
our dead condition,[19]
where we were transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s
beloved Son.[20]
One
of the reasons for all the extremes we see in churches is that people see the
failing of the “other guys” and assume that the only option is to swing to the opposite
extreme. Those who have languished in churches that are strong on doctrine but
do not minister that doctrine into the broken condition of its people, go
looking for something that addresses the way they are feeling on the inside.
Others
who look at those feel-good churches that sacrifice any doctrine in order to
satisfy the people, go looking for churches that appear to remain true to the
wonderful revelations of Scripture. The extremes end up being so far from the plumb
line that both sides see the other as “off," and cannot see how fellowship
could take place.
The
truth is that fellowship would become very real if both sides came to the plumb
line of God. He speaks through his word,[21]
and he is with us.[22]
We must know the truth of who he is, and the experience of what that truth
feels like when it happens in our souls.
If
the doctrine of God’s word tells me that God heals the brokenhearted and binds
up their wounds,[23]
I want to affirm in my mind that this truly is the kind of God I can know. At
the same time, I want to know what it feels like to bring my heartbroken
condition to him and experience it healing.
When
God’s word tells me that, “the One who is
high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy,” not only
dwells “in the high and holy place,”
but also, “with him who is of a contrite
and lowly spirit,” I want to know what that sound doctrine feels like in
real life. If he says that he dwells with such as me “to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the
contrite,” I want to experience the reviving of the spirit and heart in the
actual circumstances of life, just as God has spoken. [24]
In
the same way as I would go to a doctor believing he is good at his job, and
that I would come away from whatever treatment he prescribes with the
experience of healing, so I look at the wonderful doctrines of God’s word that
tell me what kind of God he is, and then look at the real circumstances of my
life to see how I can know him by experience in the way his sound doctrine has
revealed.
If
the sound doctrine of God’s word speaks to me about the ways God affects his
people so that we are “transformed by the
renewal of your mind,”[25] I
want to experience what the renewal of the mind thinks like, with the
corresponding experience of transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
In other words, if God’s word teaches the sound doctrine that we “are being transformed into the same image
from one degree of glory to another,”[26] I
want to be able to look back over the years, or even over the last few days,
and know that I am experiencing the transformation God has revealed in his
word.
I
hope it is clear that I am truly seeking to avoid the extremes of
truthless-experience, and experienceless-doctrine. I also hope that all of us
can see it is the written truth of Scripture that demands a corresponding
experience of everything the truth of God’s word reveals to us.
After
all, if God’s word clearly speaks to me, “In
him we live and move and have our being,”[27]
that is exactly what I want my life to feel like, for real.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
[1] God’s word uses the
imagery of the plumbline on a few occasions, notably: Isaiah 28:17; Amos 7:7-8;
Zechariah 4:10
[2] John 1:14
[3] Matthew 11:28-30
[4] This illustration
equally applies to any restaurant offering whatever we consider to be a
favorite food.
[5] Psalm 34:8
[6] I Peter 2:2-3
[7] Psalm 63:1-11; Matthew
5:6
[8] John 4:23-24
[9] Ephesians 5:18
[10] Galatians 5:16
[11] Galatians 5:18
[12] Galatians 5:22-23
[13] Galatians 5:25
[14] Matthew 7:24-27
[15] John 10:7,9
[16] John 14:6
[17] John 14:6
[18] John 14:6
[19] Ephesians 2:1-10
[20] Colossians 1:13
[21] Psalm 95:7; John
10:3,27; Jesus often repeated the phrase, “he who has ears to hear, let him
hear” cf Mark 4:9,23; all seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3
include some form of exhortation to “hear what the Spirit says to the churches,”
Revelation 2:7,11,17,29; 3:6,13,22; and the fact that the Scripture is the
breathed-out words of God (II Timothy 3:16-17) holds the expectation that we
will hear God speaking to us through his words.
[22] Matthew 1:23; Matthew
28:20
[23] Psalm 147:3
[24] Isaiah 57:15
[25] Romans 12:1-2
[26] II Corinthians 3:18
[27] Acts 17:28
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