A Reasonable Mystic

As a folower of Jesus I know that I have been reborn when I accepted Jesus as my Saviour. But I have sometimes wondered just how that rebirth comes about. How does God actually create that new life in me?

While reading Fuchsia Pickett’s excellent series of books on the Holy Spirit I came across a description, in Walking in the Anointing of the Holy Spirit: Book II (Holy Spirit’s Work in You), of how the Holy Spirit ‘overshadowed’ Mary in order to conceive the infant Jesus within her womb. I then remembered how, after God had shaped Adam’s body from the earth, “he breathed (enspirited) life into him and he became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7)

I also remembered how Paul drew on the Holy Spirit’s part in the resurrection of Jesus (Romans 8:11) to describe how our mortal bodies are “quickened” by that same Holy Spirit that dwells in us.

It becomes clear, then, that rebirth is not simply a legal transaction where we say to Jesus, “I accept your death for my sins and receive you as my Saviour”, and God then says, “Ok, now you can live!” I’m afraid that a lot of our Evangelical teaching comes across just like this.

No, God is far more directly and intimately involved in the process than this. The Holy Spirt, the very source and power of life, enters into our mortal body and changes it forever. He awakens or rekindles our sleeping or ‘dead’ spirit to once again connect with Father God, the Source. In fact, the Holy Spirit ‘overshadows’ us, as he did with mary, and creates a new life in us.

So, to believe that we can be a Christian, but not be aware of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit within us, and hence to largely ignore him, is at best rampant foolishness, and must be highly grieving to the Spirit of God.

This re-creative act is surely the greatest miracle and the most amazing wonder and sign of God’s love and goodness to us.

When God made us he gave us a body, mind and spirit. Because of our western way of viewing the world, inherited from the ancient Greeks, by way of the church fathers and thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, and others, we tend to separate them from each other. We find it easier to understand things if we can take them apart and examine the separate components.

Of course, just like a small boy dismantling a wind-up gramophone to see how it works (which I once did), we are unable to put them back together again (as I wasn’t) because, while examining the parts we have neglected to study the relationships between them.

So, we agree we have a body, mind and spirit, but we don’t know how they go together, nor how they function in harmony. This is ironic, because none of those three parts can even exist (alive) without the others, let alone function!

The Hebrews, unlike the Greeks, understood a human being to be a whole, not a collection of parts.

Remember what happened at Pentecost – the Holy Spirit was poured out on a group of Jewish followers of Jesus. What was their response? Did they say, “Hey, this is different! Something physical just happened, tongues of fire fell. My mind can’t understand it, because I’ve never seen this before. But something changed in my spirit. I’m no longer afraid like I was a moment ago, and I am filled with a desire to praise God!”

No, I doubt if this is what they did. What it says they did do, was to go outside and praise God. And as people heard them tell of what happened they asked questions about it. So Peter, full of courage, told them that this fulfilled what Jesus, who they had murdered, had promised. And many believed in Jesus and joined them.

What was it Jesus had promised? Read John 14: 15-27 and 16: 5-15 to find out.
What does Jesus mean when he says he is in the Father and the Father is in him? And, he is in us? And, he and the Father are one? And, we will be one with each other and him and the Father?

Jesus is talking about a real joining of our spirits, both with his Spirit, with Father God, and with each other’s spirits. Our minds have difficulty with this, mainly because of all the things in this world we understand the nature of spirit least.

Is this surprising? Does a rock or a tree understand the nature of an animal? Does a man or woman understand the nature of God? No, the lesser does not understand the greater; rather the other way around. Neither does the mind understand the spirit any more than the body understands the mind.

God made humans in his image. And God is a Spirit (John 4: 24). So, it is reasonable to suppose that our being made in God’s image has to do with our spirit. This is how we are distinct from the rest of creation.

Can the part of us made from the dust of the ground understand the part of us breathed in by the Spirit of God? (Genesis 2:7)

In our Friday fellowship meeting at Beth Tephillah we looked at the relationship between knowing and doing, believing and acting, doing and being. To the Hebrew, to Jesus, to James, to the early Christians, these are the same thing! Believing is acting. Knowing is doing. Having faith is the same as obeying.

In a book by James Sire that I really enjoyed, Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life As a Christian Calling, he says:

Heart and mind are already together in the way God has made us, Whatever we are,
we are in fact one in our being … Being brings together knowing and doing, belief and obedience, for good or ill; for Christ?s disciples it will be eventually for good, of course. For when time shall be no more, our perfected, glorified being will bring
together in a perfect harmony a perfected heart, mind, body – and every other aspect of our human nature. We would do well to get on with it now. Such integration is a major aspect of seeking first the kingdom of God (p 162)

The whole point of Pentecost was to begin something. And that something is still continuing to be born and shaped – it is not completed yet. Jesus is building a people who are gathered together to be one with him and the Father and each other, and who will only do things the father is doing, and will not act in their own strength but in the power in the power of the Holy Spirit. We call this the Church.

And, as James Sire says, we would do well to get on with this form of living now! It is for now, not in heaven. “The kingdom of God is among you!” Jesus said.