Word of God and the Present Tense

Jesus continued in John 16 by saying, “However, when He, the Spirit

of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth”

( John 16:13). Notice that He does not say when the Scriptures come, or

when the New Testament is finished, or when the cannon is closed

you will understand. No, He says when the Spirit of truth comes,

He will guide us into all truth. Truth is always revealed by the Holy

Spirit––never stumbled upon but guided to.

Why is this important? Glad you asked. It has been pointed

out, “Faith comes by hearing, not by having heard.” Faith is based

on hearing God in the present tense. Let me give you an example

that will show you the danger of misunderstanding layers of truth.

God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but later God said the opposite,

“Do not lay your hand on the lad” (Genesis 22:12). I bet Isaac is

glad Abraham kept listening to God!

If Abraham would have kept doing what God had said at the

expense of what God was currently saying to him, he would have

been guilty of the blood of Isaac. In the same way, when the church

clings to what God has said at the expense of what He is currently

saying, the church sacrifices its future on the altar of its traditions.

The church then becomes guilty of murdering its young and its

future. The church then dies and looks to God and wonders why

He would allow such a thing. Or we create a theology that makes

our defeat and ineffectiveness “God’s will for the end times,” which

in turn eases our conscience and removes any responsibility away

from us and makes fruitlessness somehow pleasing to God.

God was saying something in the Old Testament and built on

that in the New Testament, which made the message different—

complete. The Old Testament message was incomplete; it needed

Jesus. For example, the Old Testament pointed out how horrible

sin is; the New Testament pointed out how powerful grace and love

are. It is incorrect exegesis to look at an Old Testament principle

without seeing it through the lens of Christ. For example, David

sinned with Bathsheba, and God struck his child with sickness, and

the child died. The principle is simple: the wages of sin is death. Yet

to look at this story and conclude that today God gives sickness and

kills babies is an incorrect interpretation. The correct one would

be seeing this analogy in light of redemption: “My sin deserved death,

but Jesus died for me and as me; therefore, God does not kill

babies, because it is unjust to pay for a sin twice. If we cling to the

guard rather than embracing the guide, we will be guilty of killing

our future!