6-20-16
Rivers
The commandment of Acts 1:4 is a commandment to saturate yourself with the Holy Spirit. To be full of the Spirit is to be saturated. To be filled with the Spirit is to be in process of saturation. A river only saturates when it overflows its banks as in a flood. A town or city is saturated when a river overflows its banks. The river floods when the volume of water is greater than the channel the river runs in ability to channel the water. The channel is filled with water as long as the river is running through it but it only saturates when it overflows the channel. When Jesus said, “All who believe on me will have river(s) of Living Water flowing out of the bellies” (Jn.7:38-39), He was indicating a flood of Living Water. The Holy Spirit runs through a channel inside the believer, starting inside the believer’s spirit. He moves out through the soul and finally out through the mouth. To saturate yourself you must flood the channel with Living Water, causing it to overflow its banks.
This is not a token obedience; we are not trying to appease the Lord, we aren’t looking for the minimum requirement. The Lord commanded whosoever will to saturate themselves with Living Water. It is a completely voluntary commandment but those who keep this commandment are transformed from sons of men to sons of God by the Living Water saturating them daily. This is not figuratively speaking; it is not a hollow adoption, in name only, it is a true adoption into God’s family with all the power and authority that goes with being a Son of God. This is a receiving of the inheritance of the estate of God. It is because we flood ourselves with Living Water daily that we are transformed from sons of men to sons of God. A failure to saturate is a failure to become a Son of God. The point is; we transform ourselves. It is not God who transforms us into sons. Therefore, if we do not become a son, if we fail to access the blessings of the new covenant, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
Every single person who accepts Jesus’ payment for sins is given the ability and power to saturate themselves with the Living Water. A failure to do so is on the person who fails to avail themselves of what has been provided for them. God bears no responsibility. He has provided everything necessary. Each person who has received Jesus’ payment for sins into their lives also receives the seed of the Holy Spirit. This seed wants to grow. Jesus called this seed a well of Living Water springing up to everlasting life (Jn.4:10&14). Like any living thing; its desire is to become more than a well. To yield to this desire is to have the gift of tongues pouring out of your belly. Moreover, the commandment to saturate yourself with the Holy Spirit is still in the scripture in its original form, in spite of two thousand years of interpretation. In addition, the scriptures issue a warning not to partake of the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner. In that it is the Lord’s Supper that is observed, to disobey a commandment of the Lord would be dishonoring to the Lord and make one unworthy to partake of His body and blood, which both represent the new covenant, sealed with Jesus’ blood (1Cor.11:25-32).
It is not the body and blood of the Saviour that is observed at this most solemn observance because it is not the body and blood of the Saviour that instituted the new covenant. The new covenant is the covenant of the Lord Christ Jesus. Titles are important and when Jesus was made Lord, the title of Saviour dropped away from Him. The title of Lord superseded the title of Saviour. In the movie, The Lord of the Rings, the man who was of the line of the kings was asked to lay aside the title of Ranger to become who he was meant to be. The title, King of Gondor, was a greater title and carried more authority than the title of Ranger of the North. When he took up the title of King of Gondor, the title of Ranger of the North fell away from him. Thus when he stood before the dead of the mountain to command them to fight for the men of middle earth, he did not command them as the Ranger of the North; he commanded them as the King of Gondor and they obeyed.
This changing of titles is what has happened to Jesus. He has laid aside the titles of Saviour and Son of Man and Son of God and took up the titles of Lord of All and Blessed Only Potentate and Mighty Judge. He laid aside the role of suffering servant and took up the role of Almighty God.
It is the body of Christ that redeems us from the old covenant but the blood of Jesus ratified the new covenant. It is faith in the death of Jesus that provides remission of sins and the seed of the promise of the Spirit, the promise being the Spirit pouring out of your belly on all flesh, Joel 2:24, but it is faith in the blood of Jesus, the blood of God that provides the promise of the Spirit and everlasting life. One cannot receive the promise until they have received the seed. The two are inexorably linked.
But, the choice to make Jesus Lord is entirely voluntary. Talk about grace; even after Jesus suffered the ridicule at the hands of the soldiers, the lashes across His back, the rejection of the Jews, the pain of the nails of the cross and the humiliation of dying publicly, stripped naked on a busy Jerusalem street; even after He died for mankind, in the place of mankind, for mankind’s sin; even after, He does not exercise Lordship over them. He invites them to make Him Lord. The grace of God is not found in Jesus dying for our sin, the grace of God is found in the fact that Jesus, after all He did to save mankind from their sin, is still gracious toward mankind in spite of their rebellion against His Lordship.
It should go without saying that to make Jesus Lord is to keep the commandments of the Lord. Keeping all the other commandments of the scriptures and those devised by men does not enforce the Lordship of Christ in your life. Keeping these other commandments is you, exercising discipline over yourself. The only commandments pertinent to the Lordship of Christ are the Lord’s commandments. In spite of this seemingly obvious truth, the commandments of the Lord are ignored and interpreted by Christians until there is no resemblance between the interpretation and the actual commandment and still Jesus loves us and reaches out to us with compassion. The Church has illustrated the grace, love, and kindnesses of God beautifully, just not by their obedience but by their disobedience.
What I mean to say is this, it is not in spite of our unworthiness that Jesus came to die for us; it is because of God’s great love. John 3:16 should read: “For God so desperately loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish,” because, “To as many as receive Him, to them He gives power to become a son of God, even to them who believe on His name” (Jn.1:12). The power to become a son of God is given to them who receive Him, but if we do not exercise that power, we will fail to become a son of God in spite of receiving Him. You see, God intended that mankind would receive His Son’s death on the cross to cleanse them from their sin and go on to become sons of God that He might show through the ages of time His great love and compassion, but that has not happened.
Instead, what has happened is that Christians, those who have received the benefits of Jesus’ torture and death, have rejected the power to become Sons of God and flaunted their disobedience against God in HIs face. In spite of God’s will for humanity being thwarted by the very men Jesus died to save, the great love, mercy, and kindnesses of our God are illustrated by the fact that He still reaches out to us in kindness despite this most awful rebellion against Him. So instead of illustrating the great love of God through obedience, Christians have illustrated the great love of God through disobedience.
In Acts 1:4, the commandment is issued with all authority in heaven and in earth (Matt.28:18), the authority and title conveyed on Jesus at His resurrection (Phil.2:8-10). There is no greater authority than that conveyed on Jesus and no single being has ever wielded this level of authority before, but; Jesus is not so much commanding His disciples as He is commanding that power to become a Son of God be given to all who come to Him. The well of Living Water Jesus promised the woman at the well springs up to everlasting life. In other words, the seed wants to grow into the promise. The well is constantly trying to become a river; it is trying to flow out but until the well is yielded to, it can only spring up. There is a mandate issued by the all powerful being of the universe that says, “Anyone who wants to can become a Son of God,” but there is no compulsion to do so. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” So, although the commandment is issued with the strongest word meaning to command in the Greek language and it is issued with all the authority of heaven and of earth, it is still a voluntary commandment. No single individual is commanded to obey, but without obedience, the new covenant cannot be accessed, eternal life cannot be realized and you cannot become a Son of God.
Jesus wanted to be careful to issue this commandment in such a way as to ensure obedience; He wanted to remove all doubt as to what behavior was appropriate. It is without reason that Christians ignore this commandment in the light of its importance but they do. The significance of obedience should be obvious; it should be without question but we find ourselves ignorant of all aspects of its weight and the ramifications of disobedience. Our pastors and teachers avoid it altogether or interpret it till there is no resemblance to the truth. Yet, it is the only commandment ever issued with the authority of the Lord, the only commandment ever issued by the Lord to Christians and the only commandment ever issued with this level of authority.
There is no penalty for disobedience but it is only through obedience that we are truly saved. The choice to obey is given to every soul who accepts Jesus’ payment for sins but in order to make that choice, the choice must be made to put Jesus first; to place obedience to His commandment above all else that we have on our agenda each day. Time must be given to obedience that would otherwise serve our needs and wants. Jesus is given the place of Lord over us as we preempt our schedules to accommodate His commandment. Jesus is now Lord, not Saviour, and it is the commandment of the Lord that is integral to salvation.
The voluntary nature of this commandment means that the Holy Spirit does not compel you to speak in tongues. He might encourage obedience, He might prompt obedience as the well of Living Water does spring up, it attempts to flow out; but if Jesus does not command or compel obedience then neither does His representative (Jn.16:14). Thus it is left to us to see that it was the Lord Christ Jesus who issued this commandment with all power in heaven and in earth and it is this same Jesus who still sets on the throne of heaven and compel ourselves to obedience of the Lord’s commandment. It is all up to us.
We will all stand before the Lord Christ Jesus one day and we will all hear either, “I never knew you who broke my commandment” (workers of iniquity)(Matt.7:23), or, “Welcome my precious,” because the title of Jesus and the role of Jesus has changed. To know the Saviour who laid aside His Godhood like a cloak, stripped Himself of all power and authority and came to earth as the suffering servant (Phil.2:6-8) is not the same as to know the Lord God Almighty whose eyes are flames of fire and who dwells in unapproachable light (1Tim.6:14-15&Rev.1) and even though you know the Saviour; if you do not know the Lord, the Lord does not know you. Jesus is not the same now as He was when He died for our sins. His roles and titles are as far apart as darkness is from light, as far as one side of the universe is from the other. We must know the Lord.