Do you have friends who ask you, “How can you believe that?” To try to answer the question intellectually is to bypass an opportunity to testify and say, “In my old life I wouldn’t have believed it either, but in the renewing of my mind I know what the Holy Spirit reveals is truth.” It might not satisfy them as an answer, but it allows that you know that normal logical, deductive or intellectual capacities won’t be able to verify some things we regard as the truths of scripture.
Popular Christian author Neil Anderson (Bondage Breaker, Victory over the Darkenss) has been blogging since January of last year at the Freedom in Christ website. Yesterday he posted this article about Spiritual Wisdom, to which we’ve added the referenced scriptures.
The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, enables us to discern good from evil and live a righteous life. How He does this is difficult for the finite mind to comprehend, but Paul offers some explanation of the process in 1 Cor. 2:6-16.
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”But we have the mind of Christ.
First, the natural person cannot understand spiritual truth. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (vs. 9). It is humanly impossible to understand the wisdom of God through our natural channels of perception and our limited ability to reason, “but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (vs. 10a).
Second, the Holy Spirit knows all things and reveals the nature of God and His will. “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (vs. 10b). Third, as believers we have not received the spirit of this world, but we have received the Spirit who is from God. The Spirit makes known to us the things freely given by God. Fourth, we have the mind of Christ, because the very presence of God is within us. Fifth, the Holy Spirit takes words (logos), that are not taught by human wisdom but by the Spirit, and combines (brings together, or explains) them. The original language literally reads, “spirituals with spirituals.” That phrase is translated in the NIV Bible as, “words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truth in spiritual words” (vs. 13b).
Recall that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2).
Paul says, we are to be made new in the attitudes [literally, the spirit] of our minds
23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; (Ephesians 4:23).
The Holy Spirit discloses to us the mind of Christ as we study God’s Word. The Holy Spirit then enables our thoughts and renews our minds with the Logos. The peace of Christ rules in our hearts as the Words of Christ richly dwell within us
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.(Col. 3:15,16).
Finally, the peace of God guards our hearts and our minds
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:7).
We may not fully understand how God does this, but we don’t have to in order to believe that He does. Nobody can fully explain the virgin birth of Jesus, the mystery of the incarnation, the Holy Trinity, and the miracle of our new birth, but liberated Christians believe it. When we choose to believe what God says is true the Holy Spirit renews our mind and we begin to understand and see more clearly. Those who refuse to believe God and His word until they fully understand will never fully understand. Those who choose to trust God and live accordingly by faith are blessed and began to understand more fully as they mature in Christ. Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus and believed prompting Jesus to say,
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20: 29).
Christianity 201 