New Covenant Grace

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Category Archives: God doesn’t live in manmade buildings

The “External God” Phenomenon Pt2

Believers receive the Holy Spirit when they receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior through faith (Eph 1:13). Biblical events always portray that the Holy Spirit comes or falls on people when they receive Him for the first time (Act 2:2-4; Act 2:38; Act 10:44; Act 19:2-6; Eph 1:13). The only historical event that appears to record a second filling by the Holy Spirit, is found in Acts 4:

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. (Acts 4:31 ESV, emphasis added)

Here we have an example in the New Covenant where believers were apparently “re-filled” with the Holy Spirit… Or were they?

The very first outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit occurred when the 120 believers were assembled together in the upper room in Jerusalem and the tongues of fire appeared above their heads. From that day on the Holy Spirit would live and manifest from inside them. The same pattern occurs in the lives of believers today: The Holy Spirit falls on a person at salvation and thereafter abides within. He doesn’t leave the temple of our bodies ever again after that – to be without the Holy Spirit would mean that a person has lost their salvation.

You are no longer ruled by your desires, but by God’s Spirit, who lives in you. People who don’t have the Spirit of Christ in them don’t belong to him. (Rom 8:9 CEV, emphasis added)

Back to Acts 4:31, the Greek word used for “filled” in this passage has actually been translated in very diverse ways throughout the New Testament, such as “accomplished”, “full”, “completed”, “become”, to be “overcome” by something, to be “filled”, etc. It all depends on the context:

And when eight days were fulfilled to circumcise the child… (Luk 2:21a, MKJV, emphasis added)

When the people in the meeting place heard Jesus say this, they became so angry [filled with anger]… (Luk 4:28 CEV, emphasis and annotations added)

And all the city was filled with confusion. (Act 19:29a LITV, emphasis added)

With that, Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, let loose: “Rulers and leaders of the people… (Act 4:8 MSG, emphasis added)


Revival Meetings

The Acts 4 event has been used and abused by a myriad of people to get believers to “wait” on God for “more” of the Holy Spirit. The notion that “waiting on the Lord” and outcries for outpourings of the Spirit will eventually bring about Revival, has bred a powerless, passive generation of believers.

If all the money and time that has been spent on so called “revival meetings” has instead been poured into taking the gospel to the streets, the world would have been a different place. The enemy wants us on our faces, pleading with God for something that has already been completed in Christ and is preventing us from taking the gospel to the world. What do we have to show for all the years of crying out for revival, the breaking down of strongholds in the atmosphere and endless meetings to beg God for mercy?

When we understand that God lives in us and that we are ONE spirit with Him, all sorts of beliefs will go out the door, like praying for open heavens, asking God to show up in meetings, looking for signs and manifestations to believe that God is really moving among us, etc. People will begin to realise that everything they will ever need to grow, live, do miracles, succeed and know the truth is already inside them!

By this we are not refuting God’s omnipotence, but to think that we can achieve a greater measure of being spirit filled borders on superstition. God gave us the entire Holy Spirit, not just the little toe or the bottom or top half.

God is omnipresent and powerful, but people very conveniently externalise His presence to dodge the responsibility and acknowledgement that all the help they will ever need is already fully present inside them. There is no “greater measure” of being spirit filled required:

For in Him [Christ] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.  And you are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power. (Col 2:9-10 MKJV, emphasis and annotations added)


John the Baptist

What clenches the fact that the Acts 4 event does not refer to a second filling with the Holy Spirit, is the use of the same Greek word to describe what happened to John the Baptist:

For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall neither drink wine nor strong drink. And he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. (Luk 1:15 MKJV, emphasis added)

G4130 (fill)

pletho (play’-tho, pleh’-o)

A prolonged form of a primary word pleo (which appears only as an alternate in certain tenses and in the reduplicated form of pimple mi to “fill” (literally or figuratively [imbue, influence, supply]); specifically to fulfil (time): – accomplish, full (. . . come), furnish.

John the Baptist was the last prophet who operated under the Old Covenant. The promised Holy Spirit would only be poured out at Pentecost, which was long after John had died. Therefore to interpret this verse to mean that John the Baptist was continually filled with the Holy Spirit is incorrect, because Jesus was the first man to walk the earth fully Spirit filled!

As we saw a little earlier, the Greek word for “filled” can be interpreted in many different ways, depending on the context. Luke 1:15 (above) should therefore be interpreted in the sense that John was overcome by or convinced of the Holy Spirit. The same applies to the believers in Acts 4:31 and Peter in Acts 4:8 (above) – since they had already been filled by the Holy Spirit previously, in both these instances they simply came under the power of the Spirit who already lived inside them!

The well known verse in Ephesians 5 can be interpreted in exactly the same way:

And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. (Eph 5:18 MKJV, emphasis added)

This verse simply provokes us to give ourselves over to the influence of the Holy Spirit inside us!


Being “Baptized” with the Holy Spirit

There is also no Biblical evidence to support the doctrine that being baptized with the Holy Spirit means something different than being filled with the Holy Spirit, yet a clear distinction has been made in the past between these two so-called different events. It is widely believed that after being filled with the Spirit, a believer also needs to be baptized in the Spirit to be able to operate in the gifts.

This manmade doctrine creates the notion that the full measure of the Holy Spirit which is given to a believer at salvation (Col 2:10) is not enough and that the heavens have to be bombarded with pleas for God to send down “more” of His Spirit. Why on earth would God not give us the WHOLE Holy Spirit in the first place? If He did not even spare His own Son, why would He hold back with the Holy Spirit? In any case, how can a person (the Holy Spirit) only be partially present?


Anointing

Another interesting practice in the modern church world is to ask God for more anointing, as though it were something that could be measured in certain “levels”. Let’s look at the Greek meaning of the word:

G5545

Chrisma (khris’-mah)

From G5548; an unguent or smearing, that is, (figuratively) the special endowment (“chrism”) of the Holy Spirit: – anointing, unction.

Only in two verses in the entire Bible (1 John 2:27 and Acts 10:38) is the word “anointing” used in the context where it refers to a supernatural enabling or endowment. In all the other cases it either refers to being smeared with oil or to somebody’s position or function, such as being called “God’s anointed”. Yet countless doctrines have been formulated to somehow try and lure God’s presence and “anointing” into buildings and meetings all over the world. Wouldn’t it be incredible if people started using what they already have for a change?

In 1 John 2:27 where it talks about the supernatural endowment, it says “the anointing which you received from Him abides in you” – so much for asking for more anointing or saying that the anointing can “lift”.


The Woman Who Touched Jesus’ Garment

The incident when the woman with an issue of blood touched Jesus’ garment and He felt power “leave” Him (Mark 5:25-34), is often used as an argument that Christians need to be “recharged” with new or fresh anointing after they had ministered to other people. The problem with this view is that it treats the Holy Spirit like petrol again, as though He can “run out”. A PERSON cannot run out! He is the ultimate, endless, infinite source of life. There is no limit to His capacity and He doesn’t have a tank that can run empty.

A good picture of this is when the prophet Elisha had the widow pour oil from her small jar into the other containers. The oil kept on pouring and pouring until there were no more jars left to fill. Only then did the oil in the small jar run out (2 King 4:1-7). When we minister the Spirit to other people, we are pouring from an endless supply which will continue to pour out until we run out of people to minister to, which of course will only be when we die. And even then our spirits will still remain fused to the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:17).


It’s Not Just Semantics

Having people pray for something which they think they don’t have yet, contributes to a mindset of insufficiency and creates the idea that if we can get focused or serious enough, God will honor our efforts with His presence. What’s interesting is that the same tactic is employed by mediums and psychics to conjure up evil spirits. People have fasted, shouted, cried, sacrificed and prayed for hours and days on end for God to “come” when all the while He was right there with them.

It’s time to come to terms with New Covenant realities. It’s time the church realised how powerful she is. It’s time we started understanding the meaning of Immanuel: God with us.

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The “External-God” Phenomenon

A peculiar trend in the majority of organized Christian meetings is the way people earnestly cry out to God (especially during “worship” services) with words like “We are hungry for You Lord! Lord we are so thirsty for Your presence! Come Lord, fill this place with Your presence! God we are desperate for You!”

This flies straight in the face of what was accomplished at the cross.

The truth is that believers carry the abiding indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, who is a person. A person is either present or they are absent. Bottom line. And since the Holy Spirit is the sign of whether somebody is saved or not, it means that if they don’t have the Holy Spirit, they need to believe in Jesus and get saved. God never promised that the Holy Spirit would live among us; He sent His Spirit to live inside us.

You are no longer ruled by your desires, but by God’s Spirit, who lives in you. People who don’t have the Spirit of Christ in them don’t belong to him. (Rom 8:9 CEV, emphasis added)


The Holy Spirit Is Not Petrol

In lots of places the Holy Spirit is treated like He is fuel. On Sundays people come to church to have their tanks filled up again for the week. By the next weekend their tanks are almost empty and by Sunday morning they can barely muster up the strength to drag their deprived bodies off to church again for a refill.

We cannot have half of the Holy Spirit – He either lives in us or He doesn’t.


Hungry and Thirsty for God?

If somebody claims to be hungry or thirsty for God, then they need to get born again, because it’s impossible to be hungry or thirsty for something when in fact you are saturated by it! Here’s what scripture says:

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. (John 6:35 NKJV)

The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. (Isa 58:11 NKJV)

They must thank the LORD for his constant love, for the wonderful things he did for them. He satisfies those who are thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. (Psa 107:8-9 GNB)


“We Welcome You in this Place Holy Spirit!”

What are we saying when we pray this way? In 1 Cor 6:15-20 we see that even when the believers had sex with the temple prostitutes, the Holy Spirit didn’t leave them or lift off them. In v. 17 it says that our spirits are literally “fused” with the Holy Spirit at salvation – there’s no separating what God bound together! Yes it definitely grieved Him to be forced into a situation where He would be made an up close and personal witness of such an act of foolishness, but not once in the entire New Covenant we find mention of the Holy Spirit forsaking a believer. A believer is sealed with the Holy Spirit at salvation:

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13 ESV, emphasis added)

G4972 (sealed)
sphragizo? (sfrag-id’-zo)
From G4973; to stamp (with a signet or private mark) for security or preservation (literally or figuratively); by implication to keep secret, to attest: – (set a, set to) seal up, stop.

It’s the same principle as when canned / preserved food is manufactured – the good stuff is sealed on the inside for freshness.

So when someone prays for the presence of God or the Holy Spirit to “come” into a meeting, it simply shows they have a very limited idea about what happens to a person when they are born again.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16 ESV)

Under the Old Covenant the Holy Spirit rested on people or controlled them for certain periods, endowing them with short-term supernatural abilities (Num 11:25; 1 Sam 19:20; Jdg 3:10; Jdg 11:29; Jdg 14:19), but it was always a temporary thing.

Under the Old Covenant system the presence of God also used to fill buildings and temples, but in the New Covenant we are the temples!  An increased awareness of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is often confused for some sort of external presence. When we continually look for an external presence to come and fill us, we are creating a mentality of lack on our side – we keep on asking God for something that He’s already given us!

Revival Meetings

If all the money and time that has been spent on so called “revival meetings” had instead been poured into taking the gospel to the streets, the world would have been a different place. The enemy wants us on our faces, pleading with God for something that has already been completed in Christ and preventing us from taking the gospel to the world. What do we have to show for all the years of crying out for revival, the breaking down of strongholds in the atmosphere and endless meetings to beg God for mercy?

When we understand that God lives in us and that we are ONE spirit with Him, all sorts of beliefs will go out the door, like praying for open heavens, asking God to show up in meetings, looking for signs and manifestations to believe that God is really moving among us, etc. People will begin to realise that everything they will ever need to grow, live, do miracles, succeed and know the truth is already inside them!

Focus Inwardly!

By this we are not denying God’s omnipotence, but to think that we can achieve a greater measure of being “spirit filled” borders on superstition. God gave us the entire Holy Spirit, not just the little toe or the bottom of top half.

God is omnipresent and powerful, but people want to dodge the responsibility and acknowledgement that all the help they will ever need is already inside them.

 

 

In our next message we will look at the highly controversial issue of being “continually filled” with the Holy Spirit. The events recorded in Acts 4 plus a few other scriptures have been interpreted in the sense that it is our efforts which determine the “degree” to which to we are filled with the Spirit, which of course turns all of it into works again. It’s actually quite odd to believe that we could become depleted of a Person, which is exactly what the Holy Spirit is.

 

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How Can We Go to “Church” if We ARE the Church?

Most of us have grown up to understand “church” to be a structured Sunday morning meeting with some room for the Holy Spirit to come in and do His thing. Yet he’s only allowed to move within the allocated time slot, the non-offensive Christian jargon or comfort zone we allow Him to move in. In some churches still the Holy Spirit is just about as welcome as the Devil himself…

Very few people reach the sobering point in their walk with God where they actually stop and question their motives for going through their religious motions. Some people attend Sunday meetings for years and years without even wondering why. Because we tend to relate to God on the basis of how good we perform (read Bible, pray, attend church, etc.), we never try and stay away for a few weeks or months at a time because the feeling of guilt just gets too much to deal with. So we put on our Sunday best and go back for more…

The sad thing is that most church goers seem to have based quite a large degree of their spiritual identity and security in their association with the church movement or institution that they attend. It’s remarkable though that they never stop and wonder what will happen to their spiritual walk if that carpet is pulled from underneath their feet. How long will they be able to stand if their local church closed its doors? How secure is their relationship with God AWAY from that institution?

“Christianity started in the Middle East as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise” – Sam Pascoe.

Throughout the centuries all kinds of clever manmade doctrines have been introduced to keep people spellbound to the spectacular Sunday performances, for example that we have to be “Accountable” or under the “Covering” of an institution or church movement somewhere. Yet we never see this example modeled by Jesus.

“The doctrine of covering is an old lie with a new name. It is fundamental to the maintenance of a false hierarchical religious system controlling many Christians in this day. Without the power of this erroneous mindset, it is even doubtful that some sections of the “church” could survive” – Cheryl McGrath.

Our Bodies: God’s Temple

In the Old Testament God used to live in temples built with human hands. During the dedication of the Tabernacle (Ex 4:34) and also of Solomon’s temple (2 Chr 5:11-14) God’s presence filled the building like a cloud and that was where He chose to dwell among His people. The building was not made for people; only the high priest could enter once per year to make sacrifices. The building was for God alone.

In the New Covenant God does not live in buildings anymore – He dwells in people: [1 Cor 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?].

Now we are His holy priests, given free access into the Holy of Holies: [1 Pet 2:5 Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ] (GNB). The only reason we should have for wanting to meet in a physical building is to prevent the rain from falling on our heads or being scorched by the sun. The building only serves to accommodate the people. So to say that we are “going to church” or that “we attend church” is actually erroneous, since we ARE the church.

Getting together in buildings on Sundays has also had the regrettable effect of making people more “meeting focused” than “Christ focused”, to the extent that believers have nearly become incapable of functioning effectively outside their structured meetings on Sundays. We shouldn’t need a special sermon, “anointed” worship or anything of the sort to be intimate with our Father. He’s right there with us every step of the way, simply enjoying us because we are His own.

Are Sunday Morning Meetings Unbiblical?

The simple reason why Sunday meetings work so well for most, is because that’s when everyone’s free. If people for example had Mondays off, then church meetings would probably have been held on Mondays. No day is more special than another day (Gal 4:9-10).

As for the fact that Sunday morning meetings are labeled as unbiblical by some, that’s utter garbage. Everybody should have a place of fellowship to connect with the rest of the body (on whichever day of the week they want to); we weren’t meant to run this race on our own: [Heb 10:25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching].

We are all part of the same body and none of us are supposed to try and function in isolation. It’s a sad reality though that many parts of the body are being forced to connect with each other outside of the formal church setting, since the biggest part of the body is rampantly infected with the diseases of traditions, formalism, religion and rules.

When we found ourselves stuck in the same spiritual rut year after year, we should really be asking ourselves whether our church attendance is doing us any good. Perhaps we need to come out from the manipulative bondage that some church leaders impose on their people, and taste and see for ourselves that God is good.

Personal Testimony

I’ve come to experience that there is no difference between the way I feel when I’m at a “church” meeting or when I’m alone at home, or at work, or with friends or in the street, where I’m actually supposed to BE the church. Over the past 7 or 8 months, having not been formally involved with any “church”, it’s become natural to lay our hands on sick people at BBQ’s, to talk about the Kingdom with friends at restaurants or in the living room and to enjoy God’s residing presence with us every day.

We meet with some friends every 2nd Friday evening simply to chat, eat and fellowship. If we are led to talk about a certain subject, we do so. If someone feels they want to pray, they do it. When we sense the Spirit wanting to infuse the room with prophesy, words of knowledge, songs of worship or tongues, we let Him. And we let everybody contribute, not just one lonesome warrior who comes with his revelation of God every Sunday, requiring the rest to remain passive while the message is delivered. Yes there is a time to sit quietly and listen, but not the way it is done Sunday after Sunday, week after week.

There aren’t any people or movements that I know of who have managed to set into place a structure for this type of freedom. I would imagine it gets a bit tricky when you have lots of people. If anybody is part of something like this, I’d like to find out what you are doing, because I’m trusting God to show us how to plant a church this side, without it just being another institution. This I believe is the key to seeing the worldwide move of God manifest: The revelation of BEING the church – Christ in us, the hope of glory.

In Grace
Andre van der Merwe

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