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Worshipping God in the Spirit [John 4:24]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: In John 4:24 Jesus was talking to the woman at the well, and He says, "God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth." How do you worship Him in spirit?
HC: The question is concerning John 4:24: "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth."
When we look at the religions of the world, normally they go through some kind of an outward action of worship. In other words, they have an idol that they look at, an image that they look at and say, "That is God," whether it's the Buddha or whether it's a crocodile, or the sun, or whatever it might be. They have a certain amount of ritual that they go through. And what God is emphasizing here is that the essence of worship is what is in. our own personality, our own spirit, which is identified with the Spirit of God and with Christ Himself, because Christ in the truth. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."
Really God is saying, first of all, that we worship Him in the Holy Spirit and in Christ Himself. We can't worship Him unless we are born again, unless we are children of God. It just has nothing to do with some kind of an outward observance or some kind of a ritual that we go through. It requires, if we're really going to worship Him, that we are born again, that we are born of the Spirit, that we are born of the Word of God, that we are in Christ. This is really the first great meaning of this verse, I believe.
CALLER: The reference that God is Spirit, is that one hundred percent accurate then?
HC: Yes, that's altogether accurate. God is Spirit. Now it's true that Jesus took on a human nature. He became of the earth, earthly, so that He was flesh and bone like we are. But when He went back into Heaven, He can't be in Heaven in flesh and bone. He would be there in His glorified spiritual body. And a spiritual body is spirit. Now we don't know what a spirit is. You can't make a drawing of a spirit. You can't give a word picture of a spirit. Nobody can, because that's outside of our frame of reference. That is of the heavenlies, and we are of the earth. So we just use that word, or the Bible uses that word spirit and we don't really know what it is.
CALLER: What about I Corinthians 12:3, where it says, "Therefore I want you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed and that no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit."
HC: The question now is I Corinthians 12:3. What does God mean when He says, "No man speaketh by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed, and no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit."
First of all, God is not interested in what we say with our lips. In Matthew 7 Jesus talks about a false prophet and He says, they will say in that day, at Judgment, they will be convinced they have been serving Christ, and they'll argue with Christ, because they're subject to judgment, and they'll argue, "Lord, Lord, did we not do many mighty works in Thy Name? Did we not prophesy in Thy Name?" And the Lord will say, "I never knew you. Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity."
In other words, the fact that somebody uses the words Lord Jesus, the fact that they speak of Him as the Lord Jesus with their mouth, that doesn't mean that they are saved or that they're saying that by the Holy Spirit. But what God means here, that no one can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit, has to be, what are we saying in our heart? If we say that Jesus is Lord, do we really mean that? Does it mean that we have been born again so that Christ indeed has become Lord of our life? And that can only happen by the Holy Spirit.
And if we have the Holy Spirit within us, then we cannot say that Jesus is accursed. That would be an impossibility, because we have surrendered our will to Him. He has become the Lord of our life, and we know with our very being that He is the Lord God and therefore would be altogether the opposite of being accursed He is most blessed.
CALLER: The way I read it there, it says, "No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit."
HC: If you just read the verse as it stands, then we have to conclude that everybody in the world who says Jesus is Lord, who talk about the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit is motivating them to do that. But when we read this in the light of everything else the Bible says concerning this, and remember, the Biblical rule, when we study the Bible, is to compare spiritual things with spiritual. We take any verse and see if there is any other verse that impinges upon it. Now Satan says Jesus is Lord. The demons said, "We know who You are. You are the Holy One of God. Have You come to torment us before our time?" That was an acknowledgement that they were subservient to Him. Effectively they were saying He was Lord. But they're not saved. They weren't saved, and they weren't filled with the Holy Spirit in any sense, either. But nevertheless they still acknowledged that Jesus was Lord.
But in order to really say that He is Lord so that we are moved by the Holy Spirit, it means that we have become a child of God.
CALLER: When I go through a chapter, I'll use highlighters, and I'll take all of the words, like down in verse 14, where it talks about the body and members. I'll outline those with highlighters as I go through it. And then I'll go back through and try to pick off the key words to the particular chapter that I'm studying. And sometimes I get confused.
HC: Well, in the study of the Bible there will be confusion. But the wonderful thing is, if we patiently keep going and reading scripture and comparing scripture with scripture, praying God for wisdom (this is very important), because we don't have the wisdom in ourselves, then the light will dawn, a little here and a little there. And when you come to a truth that really also identifies with a lot of other concepts of salvation that you may have had and that you have been rather certain of, then you'll know that that little nugget of truth is solid, because it fits so many places.