Is It Any Wonder?

[HKHaugan]

Is It Any Wonder?

I

“For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness (Gen.1:3),” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2Cor.4:6).”

II

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2Cor.2:7).”

In these two verses we have, in essence, the whole picture of the Gospel and our mission, our personal mission. Vs.6-7 lift us into the presence of God.

I. So lets look first at vs.6.

Here we see “God said.” This shows that what He says, His Word, becomes our authority. Second, He immediately establishes that there is a two dimensional spiritual existence, light and darkness based on Gen.1:3. Third, within that light there are two lights, physical and spiritual. The physical light displaces the physical darkness. ‘His light’ is spiritual and shines within our hearts displacing the darkness of sin and evil.

Heart knowledge is different than intellect. It’s a ‘light’ knowledge, an ‘oh-now-I-see” knowledge, which means it is how the heart sees things. It’s an attitudinal shift from self protecting defensiveness to honest openness. It is vertically oriented in God. Heart knowledge is spiritual insight and different than the mind accumulating facts and concepts. Spiritual insight is God’s wisdom that comes through faith. Faith is the glory of God motivating His will to be revealed spiritually, personally and relationally. The knowledge of God is the experience we have of how God acts through our faith in Him. In Christ it is spiritual experience that guides our intellect, making it a tool to expand our ability to think and act.

Intellectual knowledge when separated from God is oriented in this world. It is knowledge based on human observation without God involved. It’s goal is being in control. It’s self-centered and develops attitudes that categorize experience and people for social survival, avoidance of conflict and personal control. It pits intellect against equality, separating people according to what any culture defines as individual weaknesses. It flies under the cultural authority of manipulation, fear and worldly power. It is social class, ethnic and elitist in attitude, dividing and separating people from one another. Obviously, there is another intellectual knowledge that is positive and that is research and education in the sciences and support for the arts promoting the progress and welfare of our physical being. What we need to be alert and opposed to is the anti-spiritual use of the mind. What we strive for is the mind, heart and spirit working in balance. That balance is the work of the Holy Spirit as we yield to His direction.

The Lord Jesus gives us the all-governing principles in balanced decision-making and action: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself (M:12:30-31).” That’s it, isn’t it?

Who can look at the universe, our planet, the bodies we all have and not be awed by the complexity, both in its minute cells, our massive environment and how it all works together? Then, how in turn, we all are made to fit in it? We have been given a glance at the glory of God and the Person, Jesus, who has opened the door for each of us to apprehend Him and His glory personally. For through Him we see, both physically and spiritually, the backdrop created for us.

II. Now we come to vs.7

First, Jesus is a treasure, a spiritual ‘mother lode,’ so to speak. His presence comes through the rich spiritual ore of the Holy Spirit given us as a personal companion. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. Paul expresses it beautifully in Php.4:19 as the ‘riches of Christ.” The treasure is not only His presence but the fruit of the Spirit, the power surge of that fruit, the strengthening of our mind, heart and spirit. Then we have the richness of Scripture that opens up the continual support in our inner growth. From these come confidence, endurance, peace, stability and courage.

Second, we are His images that Paul rightly names ‘jars of clay.’ Clay can be shaped into magnificent forms but even in their glorious beauty they are fragile and need to be handled with care. Even the toughest, roughest and most powerful of us contain hearts that feel, sense and struggle for their place in the sun. Heart weaknesses due to sin make us all vulnerable. When we see Christ we are seeing a heart of strength that nothing can dent or defeat and totally absorbed in honoring His Father wherever He was.

Third, to show that heart power, the spiritual driving force of our being human, is from God, He has made us to live life in a fragile physical mechanism. We are given a share of His ultimate power to be a reflection of Him, that behind the entire universe His power is what maintains and sustains us. This is what a faith relationship is all about. It starts with believing who He is, then trusting him personally which allows us to act in faith relationally. So spiritual motivation is the key to heart strength. Paul goes on to say, when we use that key, we may be pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but without despair, persecuted but not abandoned and struck down but not destroyed (vs.8-9). In all of this the Lord is emphasizing one major insight, the understanding that our ultimate reality, our final destination, our real home Heaven, is spiritual, personal and relational. Thus, to prove that truth, Jesus goes to the Cross in faith for each one of us and rises from the dead to show His way is exactly that---spiritual, personal and relational. He is the way for our heart, the truth for our mind and the life for our spirit (Jn.14:6).

Is it any wonder that His message is that we must be born spiritually, born again, born from above to become a spiritual child of the Father (Jn.3:1-21)?