Today’s quote shows how we need the Holy Spirit as our teacher. We don’t try to add to Scripture. The human mind does it without our effort.

(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

We can easily go beyond Scripture. When we interpret Scripture, we can add to it without realizing we’re adding anything to it. Each of us has a deceitful and deceptive fleshly nature. Each of us has learned doctrines that seem true but may not be true. That’s why we need to build on the Foundation of Christ rather than our doctrines. We have strongholds in our minds the Holy Spirit will need to correct. The Scripture cannot be broken. However, we can misinterpret it. May the church yield itself to Christ so the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. We should not fully trust independent teachers. They’ll make mistakes from time to time just as we do. The order God originally established included several apostles who were in submission to each other. Each one worked under the government of all the others. And the Bible shows us how Paul had to correct Peter when he got off course. Independent teachers don’t have the benefit of that order today, and it makes it difficult for them. Some of them surround themselves with people who are willing to agree, so they insulate themselves from correction.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

God is real, and we know He’s real because He does what He says He does. He speaks to us. But how does He speak to us? He speaks through Scripture, observation, and every other method mentioned in Scripture. However, when He speaks, He speaks only the truth. When He speaks, He gives us a true premise and a sound basis for thinking. But what if we add to His words or diminish His words through speculative explanations or interpretations? If we add to His words or diminish them, we destroy the true premise. We need that true premise if we’re going to think rationally. So He asks us not to add to His words or diminish His words through theories, unrevealed theologies, or other forms of speculation.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

The Bible is a way of knowing the truth since God imparts divine revelation through the Bible to all who seek Him as they search the Scriptures. However, the Foundation of the Bible is God, but many thinkers are trying to interpret the Bible by the power of the fallen human mind. In other words, they’re using assumptions to interpret Scripture, adding to God’s words and dismissing God’s words. And this practice can’t lead to knowing anything. It ignores the voice of God speaking through the Scripture and leaves only the dead letter. On the other hand, whoever continually and patiently seeks the mind of the Holy Spirit while reading Scripture will receive knowledge as the Holy Spirit streams through the pages of the Bible. God imparts knowledge through Scripture, but He also imparts knowledge through every method that He mentions in Scripture. And yet, not one of those other methods will ever conflict with the revelation He gives through the Bible.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Humans can sense the world around them and react with animalistic instinct without divine revelation. Humans can also memorize Scripture, poems, songs, hand motions, and lies without divine revelation. They can learn to playact, pretend, deceive, or persuade without divine revelation. They need divine revelation to reason rationally to a conclusion. They need divine revelation to know the truth.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Divine revelation is the only way we can know anything about anything, and without divine revelation, we can’t truly know anything. Of course, we’re defining “knowledge” as precise, correct, and accurate knowledge of reality. It’s knowing the truth with certainty. And truth is reality. Truth is absolute and excludes everything that isn’t part of reality. Therefore, we don’t include such things as knowledge of made-up stuff in our definition of “knowledge.”

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

We studied this verse “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” “IF you continue in my word (logos), THEN you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” We learned that we’re set free from slavery. The slavery is sin. If we continue, then we dwell or endure or are present in His word, His logos, His utterance. In other words, we stand in His presence and listen to Him continually in everything we do at every moment. We yield ourselves to listen to Him in willing obedience to receive His genuine righteousness. Then, if we do that, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Here’s the problem. Many people read the Bible without having any spiritual experience. They commune with their own deceitful and desperately wicked heart rather than communing with the Holy Spirit. And so, they have no spiritual experience. They may have a theoretical belief and make themselves believe it, but they never come to know Jesus Christ or His Truth. Some say, “I have a relationship with Christ,” but it’s just a saying. They never hear His voice. God speaks through the Bible and every means of divine revelation mentioned in the Bible. God gives us these means so He can build Christ in us. If we reject the Holy Spirit, we reject Christ.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Some people think we need to choose between the Bible and spiritual experience. They think the dead letter is the test of truth, but they separate the Bible from the Holy Spirit. They can’t see the Bible because of the veil of their flesh. They only see their fleshly ideas about the Bible. Without the Spirit of God, no one can understand the Bible. They don’t understand that. They don’t know the Holy Spirit speaks through the Bible and breathes the life of God into the Bible.

Someone always explains the words written in the Bible. One of these three will interpret Scripture:

• the Holy Spirit
• the fallen human mind and its rationalizations
• demonic powers

So, we must guard against the false dichotomy of claiming we either read the Bible or have a spiritual experience. We can read the Bible and hear God’s voice. No one can hear God’s voice without having a spiritual experience. However, if we focus our mind and will toward our own intellects we won’t hear the voice of God. We’ll shout Him down with our rambling minds. Worse yet, when we continually refuse to thank and glorify God for His divine revelation, we become subject to principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in the high places. If a person reading the Bible is submissive to the Holy Spirit, that person will acknowledge God is speaking to him or her.

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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)

Divine Revelation as a Way of Knowing

Here, we return to the major point of this journey. Christ is THE Light. He lights every person who comes into the world. Some turn from the Light. Others embrace the Light and walk into ever-increasing Light. They walk from glory to glory. They shine more and more until God’s totally complete Day.

In volume one of Real Faith & Reason, we discussed truth, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and goodness in some depth. We discovered how they’re interrelated. We discovered something about wisdom and understanding. To turn away from evil is understanding. Turning away from evil is righteousness. Jesus Christ has become our wisdom, and wisdom consists of righteousness, holiness, and redemption. We enter His righteousness when we listen to the voice of God. As He leads, teaches, and corrects us, His faith comes to us. Then, His faith gives us access into His grace. His grace, in turn, does His works through us. That’s the gift of righteousness, and righteousness is free. The grace of God does God’s works through us. Nothing else is ever true righteousness. The grace that’s through the faith of God does the work. Holiness is the purity that results when the righteousness of God cleanses us. And redemption is setting the slave free. We have been slaves to sin, habits, desires, demonic influence, the influence of the culture, and our own fallen fleshly natures. We ask God to set us free from all that, and He will complete the work in us.

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