To Understand the Gospel ! 2
To Understand the Gospel ! 2
We have by the Grace and Mercy of God attempt to show that the True Nature of Believing the Gospel of God is that its heard with Spiritual Ears and with an Element of Understanding, which see that man by nature is void of. See Rom 3:11 !
Now to give more evidence of the unregenerate, of which we all are by nature, that we have no understanding to believe the Gospel or Spiritual Truth here is Eph 4:18
18
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,
because of the blindness of their heart:
Now don't go the finger pointing route and say that only applies to the gentiles, it applies to all who are by nature alienated from the Life of God !
That word alienated means:
I.
to alienate, estrange
II.
to be shut out from one's fellowship and intimacy
It goes deeper though, It also means being an alien, belonging to another:
belonging to another
foreign, strange, not of one's own family, alien, an enemy
This denotes that while unregenerate we belong to the possession of the devil, his slave, and by nature we are the children of wrath as his children are. We are in his grasp, his domain of darkness.
And so by that, our natural understanding, to the things of God, His Gospel, His Kingdom, Our understanding is darkened Eph 4:18
The word darkened . The word darkened here is the greek word skotizō:
I.
to cover with darkness, to darken
II.
to be covered with darkness, be darkened
A.
of heavenly bodies as
deprived of light
B.
metaph.
i.
of the eyes
ii.
of the understanding
iii.
of the mind
And its in the perfect tense, that's how it is when born into this world, and continues to be to the present unless a Divine Intervention tales Place, something supernatural.
In this state the mind is permanently darkened.
We are in Blindness of heart and ignorance, To Spiritual Things, Things of God, Like the scriptures !
The word blindness is pōrōsis:
I.
the covering with a callus
II.
obtrusiveness of mental discernment, dulled perception
III.
the mind of one has been blunted
A.
of stubbornness, obduracy
We are in Blindness of Heart ! Meaning:
I.the heart
A.
that organ in the animal body which is the centre of the circulation of the blood, and hence was regarded as the seat of physical life
B.
denotes the centre of all physical and spiritual life
i.
the vigour and sense of physical life
ii.
the centre and seat of spiritual life
a.
the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavours
b.
of the understanding, the faculty and seat of the intelligence
c.
of the will and character
d.
of the soul so far as it is affected and stirred in a bad way or good, or of the soul as the seat of the sensibilities, affections, emotions, desires, appetites, passions
C.
of the middle or central or inmost part of anything, even though inanimate
Folks this is the condition of our heart to Spiritual Matters by nature. Eph 4:18 is speaking of each and one of us by nature, jew or gentiles, black or white, male or female, it does not matter. It goes for John the Baptist, Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Enoch, Job, Jeremiah and the list can on and on King David ! It included all the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb, every person born of a women with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ !
Save Him, we are all born spiritually dead and alienated from the Life of God, and in this condition are understandings are permanently darkened,It is only by Regeneration, New Birth are we delivered from this plight Eph 4:23-24
23 And
be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And
that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Its when the Covenant Blood is as applied by New Birth that we begin to Understand Heb 8:10;
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord;
I will put my laws into their mind, G1271 and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Heb 10:16
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord,
I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds G1271 will I write them;
Mind here is the same word as in Eph 4:18 for understanding. God's Laws are Spiritual Rom 7:14
14 For we know
that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
The Law of Zion, the Gospel is Spiritual Isa 2:4
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths:
for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
The Law is the Word of the Lord, the Gospel,it converts the Souls Ps 19:7
7
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The Testimony of the Gospel makes wise the simple unto Salvation which is in Christ Jesus 2 Tim 3:15,16
15 And that
from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16
All scripture is given by inspiration of God
The Scripture, given by inspiriation of God, which the Gospel is from 1 Cor 15:3-4 is from the Inspirationof God, it is only reasonable to conclude, to understand the Inspiration, we are equipped with an understanding that receives the same.
The word inspiration means I.inspired by God and its made up the word pneō:
I.to breathe, to blow
A.
of the wind
The same word used here Jn 3:8
The
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:
so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
That's who understands the Scripture unto Salvation, those Born of the Spirit, who works as He pleases as the Wind !
