Spiritual
versus “natural”
An OAC member wrote:
“...John 4v24…God is SPIRIT and does who serve Him
must serve Him in Spirit and in Truth.What do I want to tell you through this
vers? I want to make know unto you that you interpret the Scriptures NATURALLY
and exactly as it is written in the Bible.When God speaks to His people…he
speaks in a language that only they will understand-SPIRITUAL.Seeing that they
have His Spirit ,they are able to understand Him...” Sic
OAC members love
quoting John
4:24 but they have more faith in the spoken words of the physical
person whom they know as their “owergestelde”. When the Spirit of
God is in us then He speaks with us through His Spirit (John 14:17, 1 Corinthians 3:16).
Now let us
read John
4:24 in context with the other verses before it:
John 4:20-24 Our
fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is
the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe
me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we
worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the
Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth.
From the
context it is clear that because God is a Spirit, He is not limited
geographically, He can be worshipped wherever the true worshippers may find
themselves geographically. It has absolutely nothing to do with literal interpretation
of the Scriptures. Jesus was speaking to a
Samaritan woman (John 4:9). The major issue between Jews and Samaritans has
always been the location of the Chosen Place to worship God; Mount Zion in
Jerusalem according to the Jewish faith or Mount Gerizim according to the
Samaritan faith (Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition).
It’s all
about perspective, in Hebrew the words for “matter” (chômer - חֹמֶר) and “spirit” (rûach
- רוּחַ) are interchangeable. The letters that spell chômer also spell rûach,
all you have to do is drop the letter mem
(מֶ). The difference between the
spiritual and material world is a matter of perspective.
If you look
at the world in one way, you see a material world.
“We are the product of primordial quantum fluctuations” –
Excerpt from ‘The Origin of (almost) Everything’ by Prof. Stephen Hawking
If you
change the quality of your perception and look at things in a new and fresh
way, then the very same world becomes spiritual. It’s the same world but it’s
the quality of your relationship with the material world which makes it
spiritual.
“A point worth noting is that the universe, nature, is itself a
communication to us from G-d. The vastness, the boundless variety, the sense of
structure and the sense of a constant interplay of dynamic forces express
something about G-d, who causes every detail in the universe to exist. A
painting in an art gallery tells us something about the painter; existence
tells us something about G-d.” – Excerpt from ‘Nature as Divine
Communication’ by Dr. Tali Loewenthal
As a child
we sang the following hymn at primary school:
Refrain:
All things bright and
beautiful,
All creatures great and
small,
All things wise and
wonderful:
The Lord God made them
all.
Each little flow’r that
opens,
Each little bird that
sings,
He made their glowing
colors,
He made their tiny wings.
The purple-headed
mountains,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning
That brightens up the sky.
The cold wind in the
winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the
garden,
He made them every one.
The tall trees in the
greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
To gather every day.
He gave us eyes to see
them,
And lips that we might
tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things
well.
As a child
this hymn didn’t make me more “carnally
minded” by understanding creation “naturally”. Since the creation of the world
His invisible nature and attributes, His eternal power and divinity, have been
made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have
been made (Romans
1:20).
There is a
common view in the OAC that the
opposite of “spiritual” is “natural”. We are literally sown as “natural” bodies
and after we die, our bodies will literally return to dust (1 Corinthians
15:44-49).
An OAC member wrote:
“...I'am sorry it's either natural or spiritual! I
am reading fruit salad! Mengelmoes sou jy natuur en gees mix!
Lol
it's either naturally or spiritually! You cannot mix the two then you have
fruidsalad!
God
demands that we choose one way or the other—but not straddle the fence. We
cannot have it both ways. Unless in the battle between the spirit and the flesh
we throw down the gauntlet in favor of our spiritual selves, we run the risk of
being torn to pieces psychologically and emotionally.
Recall
Psalm 119:113: "I hate the double-minded, but I love Your law."
Notice that the antidote to double-mindedness is yielding to God's law.
Wholeness and singleness of purpose are the result of keeping God's law through
the power of Christ working in us. As our Lord reminds us in His Sermon on the
Mount, "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good
[single, KJV; focused, directed], your whole body will be full of light"
(Matthew 6:22)...”
Another OAC member
responded: “...Indeed, beloved [name deleted] we cannot be lukewarm in
the mouth of God it's either we are cold or hot. But when we are lukewarm he'll
spew us out of his mouth.
None
can serve two masters at once : flesh and Spirit
We
should lay upon our treasures in heaven/spiritual realm not upon earth/natural
things where moth and thieves can break in and steal our treasure.
Jesus
is you and Christ is the born again soul that gives life to the world through
the testimony...”
According to
the Bible it is the flesh (carnal)
which is the opposite of the Spirit.
Romans 8:5-7 For
they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;
but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For
to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be.
Galatians 5:16 This I
say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that
ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Literal
interpretation of the Bible is not
walking in the flesh or being carnally minded by any stretch of the imagination
(Matthew
22:29, Mark 12:24, Acts 17:10-12, Romans 15:4,
2 Timothy
3:15-17).
Walking in
the flesh refers to adultery, fornication, uncleanness, covetousness,
filthiness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,
greediness, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness,
revellings and such like (Matthew 15:18-20, Mark 7:20-23, Romans 1:25-32,
1
Corinthians 5:9-11, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Corinthians 6:15-20, Galatians
5:19-21, Ephesians 4:17-31, Ephesians 5:3-7, Colossians 3:5-9,
1
Thessalonians 4:3-8, Hebrews 13:4-5, 2 Peter 2:4-10, Revelation 21:8,
Revelation
22:15). It is the fleshly
lusts (carnal mindedness) which war against the soul (1 Peter 2:11), not literal
interpretations of the Bible.
A verse that
OAC members love
quoting out of context is that the “letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life”. By this they try to imply that reading the
Bible is fatal to the soul and that “breaking bread” on each verse and “spiritualising” it gives it life. Let’s read
that verse in context and see what it really means.
2 Corinthians 3:3-7 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. But if the ministration of
death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children
of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his
countenance; which glory was to be done away:
The letter
that kills is the Mosaic law chiselled in stone because it was a literal death sentence
to the sinner who broke the law (Leviticus 20:10-21, Deuteronomy 22:22-27, John 8:4-12).
The words that Jesus spoke are spirit and
life and they are written in the Bible (John 6:63).
Another
verse that OAC members love to
quote to explain why they don’t read the Bible as it’s written is Jude 1:10.
When this verse is read in context, it mentions nothing about reading the Bible
any differently to how it’s written.
Jude 1:7-11 Even as
Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving
themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set
forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these
filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak
evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the
devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a
railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of
those things which they know not:
but
what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they
corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain,
and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished
in the gainsaying of Core.
Those giving
themselves over to fornication are filthy dreamers that defile the flesh
because of what they know naturally as brute beasts. What they know is like
animal instinct instead of rational knowledge and without rational thought.
They speak evil of those things they know not and what they know not is the
Word of God. Instead their pride lies in their so-called special knowledge.
A true and practical
example: My “priest” did not interpret
the Bible “naturally” but he had an affair with an unmarried young-member
sister and made her pregnant. Understanding the whole Bible as an allegory did
not make him spiritual; he still followed his fleshly lusts to commit adultery.
According to the Bible we can safely say my “priest” was carnally
minded.
The fruit of
the Spirit is not a parable. It is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. They that are Christ's have crucified the
flesh with the affections and lusts (Galatians 5:22-25, Ephesians 5:8-11, 2 Peter 1:4-8).
Trying to understand “mysteries” to become “spiritually minded” is highly exaggerated
(1
Corinthians 13:1-3).
 |
| Understanding this literally will not harm your soul |
An OAC member berated
another OAC member’s literal
interpretation of the Bible as follows: “...To
interpret and to believe the bible is spiritually is one of the main things
that seperates Old Apostolics from the rest of the world and other churches..
So now we can sommer join the NG kerk because you believe everything in the
bible is natural happenings that happened 2000+ years ago.. My brother, you
must go to you’re underdeacon so that he can explain all these things to you so
that God can take out your heart of stone, and give you a fleshy heart so that
He can write His word on your heart...”
Another OAC member wrote:
“...what today makes the Old Apostolic Church
Gnostic? To answer that we have to look at what they belief in...”
Gnosticism
believes matter is the opposite of spirit; therefore matter is evil because
spirit is good. As a result, Gnostics believe that anything you do in your body
irrespective of any sin you commit has no meaning because real life exists only
in spirit. This belief reflects the behaviour of the “priest” I mentioned earlier. Compare this view
with what’s written in your Bible (Romans 6:12, Romans 13:13-14, 2 Corinthians 4:11,
Galatians
5:16-24, Ephesians 2:1-3, James 1:12-16, 1 Peter 2:11-12,
1 Peter 4:1-6).
Gnostics
claim to possess “elevated” knowledge (gnosis) known only
to their inner circle. This knowledge is not from the Bible but acquired from
some or other mystical higher plane of existence. Gnostics believe this makes
them privileged and elevated above everyone else because they claim to have a deeper knowledge of God. Gnostics believe
salvation is gained by acquiring some kind of divine knowledge. This is not what the
Bible teaches. The salvation that Christ offers is a free gift
from God and available to everyone who believes in Jesus (John 3:16, John 14:6, Ephesians 2:8-9). Salvation is
not only available to a select few with some secret knowledge.
Gnostics
don’t believe Jesus physically existed, but only
seemed to be physical and that His spirit descended at baptism and left Him
before He was crucified. The Bible however affirms His complete humanity and
His full deity (Luke
24:39-40, John 20:24-29, Acts 1:2-3, Romans 5:15, 1 Corinthians
15:12-19, 1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 2:9).
Gnosticism
is clearly unbiblical. Is the OAC Gnostic? Examine
your beliefs and compare them to what’s written in the Bible. If the shoe fits,
wear it.
