Epistles Of Christ
"Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." (II Cor. 3:2-6)
These verses are a clear reference to regeneration, to being born again. I do not know of any Hardshell who would deny this. I have heard both Elder C.H. Cayce and Elder J.R. Daily argue in debate that it is so, but they also affirmed that this letter writing of Christ, upon the heart, is done by Christ without means. Yet, I never did accept their analysis of this metaphor as excluding the preachers of the gospel.
In any letter writing, one must have the following necessary things.
1. A writer or author who will be the efficient cause of the writing, the one who will use the means, whatever they are, to do this writing. In this case it is Christ who does the writing.
2. The paper, (or "tablet") which, by its signification in the metaphor, is none other than the "heart," which does not exclude the mind, the understanding, and the thoughts.
3. The ink, which, by its signification in the metaphor, is the "Spirit of the living God."
4. The quill or instrument by which the ink is applied to the paper. In the significance of this there is reference to those who "minister the Spirit" (Gal. 3:5), and to the "ministration of the Spirit." (II Cor. 3:8)
It is pure blindness and willful perversion of this teaching to exclude the preachers who are the quills (or pens) that Christ uses to minister the gospel and the ink. Paul clearly teaches this for he says, "ministered (written) by us." Paul is saying that Christ uses his ministers of the word in this writing. He says they are "able ministers of the new covenant," the Lord using them to bring the blessings of that covenant to elect sinners.
Here is what William Huntingdon wrote on this passage (who is sometimes said to have believed in regeneration without the preached gospel)
"Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men." We are the pens that the Spirit of God uses to write his laws of faith, truth, love, and liberty on your minds..." ("Moses unveiled in the face of Christ - A sermon by William Huntington preached at Monkwell Street meeting, August 12, 1794)
Spurgeon wrote this:
"I have heard of a minister who preached once about our being epistles, written not with ink, but with the Holy Spirit; and one of his divisions was that sometimes ministers were pens, and they could not write upon men’s hearts because they were not dipped in the ink.
I think that there is a great deal in that thought. If a minister comes forward with a good dip of ink in his pen, then he can write upon men’s hearts; when the Spirit of God fills us, and we are revived, then some good writing will be done; but not else." (A Prayer for Revival)
Martin Luther wrote:
"Paul says that the Spirit, through his preaching, has wrought in the hearts of his Corinthians, to the end that Christ lives and is mighty in them. After such statement he bursts into praise of the ministerial office, comparing the message, or preaching, of Moses with that of himself and the apostles. He says:
"Such confidence have we through Christ to Godward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God." (The Twofold Use of the Law & Gospel: Letter & Spirit)
Robert Murray MCheyne
"When you write with a dry pen without any ink in it, no impression is made upon the paper. Now, ministers are the pens, and the Spirit of God is the ink. Pray that the pen may be filled with the living ink - that the Word may remain in your heart, known and read for all - that you may be sanctified through the truth." ("Thanksgiving Obtains The Spirit")
The Spirit AND The Word
In the following comments the writer refutes both Campbellism and its "word alone" view of "regeneration" and Hardshellism and its "Spirit alone" view of the same.
"Recently, a number of Christian campuses have reported revival. As I have read case after case, one theme running throughout is the “testimony” that the Spirit was working directly in these meetings. Students and faculty alike appeared to applaud the fact that there was no preaching involved. “There wasn’t even a preacher,” one student exults. “The Holy Spirit was doing it, not some preacher.”
What is the assumption in such a comment? It is that the Holy Spirit working directly and immediately (i.e. without means) was superior to the Holy Spirit working through means. By circumventing the Word——and especially the preached Word——the Holy Spirit was perceived more intimately and powerfully involved. Historic Protestantism has always emphasized the preaching of God’s Word as sacramental. That is, it is not merely the communication of information, but the effectual means of producing conversion. God alone is the cause of the New Birth, but he calls women and men to himself through the weakness of preaching.
Nowhere in Scripture do we find a pattern of evangelism or revival in which individuals respond to the gospel by simply being “zapped” by the Spirit. They are always responding to the preached Word. It may be one-on-one, or in an assembly, but it is the Word proclaimed that gives life to those spiritually dead. Furthermore, even after they are converted, believers do not grow in their walk, deepen in their Christian experience, or learn new truths by the direct activity of the Spirit apart from God’s ordained means.
Apart from the Word, there is no salvation and no activity of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people. Where the Word is rightly preached, the Spirit is active in power. Where the Word is not rightly preached, the Spirit is not active in power. It is impossible to have a place in which the Word is preached clearly (as the proclamation of Christ), where the Spirit is absent in his power and saving strength. It is equally impossible for the Spirit to be actively present if the preaching of Christ is not the central focus.
The Reformers faced “the enthusiasts,” who were heirs to many of the tendencies of the ancient Gnostics. They believed that they knew a better way, a higher path, a secret tunnel of the Spirit that was a short-cut. Luther, for instance, in a sermon on Luke 2:22, warned of “those noxious spirits who say: a man acquires the Holy Spirit by sitting in a corner, etc. A hundred thousand devils you will acquire and you will not come to God. God has always worked with something physical.” True Christianity is not gained by sitting in a corner, watching and waiting to be filled with heavenly revelation. Rather, as we sit with other sinners in a church, hearing and believing the Word of God, God comes to his people in intimate communion, self-disclosure, and redemption. John Calvin declared, in his commentary on I Thessalonians 5:20,
"It is an illusory belief of the enthusiasts that those who keep reading Scripture or hearing the Word are children, as if no one were spiritual unless he scorned doctrine. In their pride, therefore, they despise the ministry of men and even Scripture itself, in order to attain the Spirit. They then proudly try to peddle all the delusions that Satan suggests to them as secret revelations of the Spirit.”
“Far from denigrating the preached Word over the Spirit’s direct “whisper” to the heart, the biblical accounts of conversions link the Spirit to the Word in every case. For instance, in the gospel accounts, people respond either in outrage or faith to Jesus’ teaching. This preaching of the Word is the Spirit’s means of bringing whole crowds to Christ. In fact, this is why Luther said it is difficult to preach the gospel to ourselves.”
“Education——though it is despised by Gnostics who feel that they have access to direct revelations——is indispensable. We believe that the Holy Spirit will link us to Christ through the preached Word, so we come with expectations of divine activity. Israel had the Word of God, but it was the Holy Spirit who, through Ezekiel’s preaching, made that Word the active, energetic power behind the spiritual resurrection.”
“...we must refuse to separate what God has joined together. The Word without the Spirit would be ineffective, and the Spirit without the Word is not the Spirit at all——but the lying delusions of our own imagination and fallible minds.”
“It’s time we recovered our confidence in the Word and Spirit once again. We must refuse to accept any version of spirituality that seeks the Word without the life-giving Spirit or the Spirit without the actual proclamation, teaching and doctrinal clarity of the actual text of Holy Scripture. Apart from sound doctrine and lively preaching of biblical truth, the Holy Spirit is silent; when that Word is faithfully proclaimed, the Holy Spirit is at work. Then there comes a rattling sound, as the bones come together one by one, forming an army of the Lord in the valley of death.”
(“Receiving Christ,” by Michael Horton, from his out of print book, “In the Face of God”)
Both Campbellism and Hardshellism are both denied by the Scriptures and comments given above.
Serving The Spirit
"This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Gal. 3:2-5)
These verses harmonize with those in II Corinthians chapter 3. It is about gospel preachers, as servants of God, "communicating the Spirit" to others, offering the "blessings of the new covenant" to Jews and Gentiles alike.
Receiving the Holy Spirit is what brings life, salvation, regeneration, conversion, and the new birth. The Holy Spirit is received "by faith," by believing the gospel preached. That is what the passage in Galatians tells us.
Gospel Preaching of Paul A Means To Eternally Save
"Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." (II Tim. 2:9,10)
Hardshells think this is "blasphemy." They believe that it is "blasphemy" to teach that the preachers of the gospel are instruments used by the Holy Spirit in regenerating dead sinners. They will not deny that some kind of "temporal salvation" is connected with or otherwise dependant upon the preached word of the gospel, but they deny it in the case of "eternal salvation." The above words of Paul were always a difficult nut to crack when I was a believer in Hardshellism and its regeneration apart from the word of God. I could not, however, in good conscience, make the "salvation" of the passage "temporal," for he describes this "salvation" as one that has "eternal glory." I could not, nor can any other "honest" Hardshell, make this anything but eternal salvation. If we go by the "context," this is perfectly clear.
Believing Unto Life
"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." (John 20: 29-31)
This was indeed an even harder "nut to crack" when I was a believer in Hardshellism. Here it is clearly affirmed that the written and preached word of God, the message of the gospel, is the means of bringing people to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the result of coming to this gospel faith was to give them "life." This is absolutely not Hardshell teaching and it would be difficult to find language any more clear in their refutation of the Hardshell views on how one comes to "saving faith" and "spiritual life."
I challenge any Hardshell to show, from Baptist writings, prior to the "rise of the Hardshells," that denied that the above words of John taught the necessity of gospel faith for salvation.
I will be extending these returned "hot shots" in the next chapter or two.
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