A Relationship Only Some Can Have?

What is this page about?

Many Christians today learn this: a real relationship with Jesus means that you hear him speak to you personally. He speaks often. He speaks about exact things in your life, more than the Bible says. And this is what a grown-up Christian looks like.

People who do not have this experience can feel second-class.

This page asks three things. Is this what the Bible and the old Church teach? Or is it a modern idea? And how does the Bible say we can recognise a person who loves Jesus?

There are three views.

The short answer

1. Every baptized Christian is joined to Christ. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Galatians 3:27) The Bible uses pictures: a vine and its branches, a head and its body. Each picture is about the whole church. No branch is joined to the vine more than another branch.
2. The Bible has no upper class of spiritual people. The church at Corinth had the most spiritual gifts. But Paul said that this church was still like babies. His proof was that they were jealous and they quarrelled (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). The Bible says that a grown-up Christian is steady and can tell good from evil (Ephesians 4:14; Hebrews 5:14).
3. The Spirit shapes us. He does not tell us every step. The Bible makes a Christian “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). We are told to ask God for wisdom (James 1:5). And when the Bible names “the will of God”, it is mostly about what kind of person you are: “For this is the will of God: your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
4. In the book of Acts, God sometimes speaks directly. But this is rare, it is clear, and it is mostly about the mission of the church. Most decisions in Acts were made by thinking and talking. This is true of most of Paul’s decisions too.
5. To ask God for hidden information whenever you want it is more like fortune-telling than wisdom. The Bible forbids fortune-telling (Deuteronomy 18). It sends people to God’s written word (Isaiah 8:20).
6. Jesus told us how to recognise love for him. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) And his commandment is love. Other people can see this and test it. They cannot see or test a private message.
7. No true word from God commands hatred. “If a man says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20). Once two apostles wanted to call fire from the sky on a village. Jesus rebuked them (Luke 9:54-55). You cannot preach hatred and say that God told you to.
8. Ask for advice gladly. But you do not need a person between you and God. The Bible praises many advisers (Proverbs 11:14). But “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). And every “word from God” must be tested (1 John 4:1).
9. The idea is mostly modern. The great teachers of the Church warned against looking for private messages. These include Luther, Calvin, John of the Cross, John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards. The idea that every Christian should expect a daily conversation grew between the 1870s and the 1930s. It spread widely only in the last sixty years.
10. It is not Gnosticism, but it has the same shape. See the box below, and Part 5.

For all Christians, or for some?

Here are eight things that the New Testament says Christians have. Is each one said about all the believers, or only about some?

Look at the list. The things that join a person to Christ are for all. The special gifts and experiences are for some. And the Bible never uses a special experience to show who is closer to Christ.

How does the Spirit usually lead us?

The Holy Spirit does not usually lead Christians by many private instructions. Then how does he lead them? The Bible’s answer is ordinary, and it covers everything:

• through the Bible;
• through prayer (the Lord’s Prayer asks that God’s will be done; it does not ask God to explain it);
• through the Church;
• through the Lord’s Supper;
• through wisdom;
• through a mind that God is making new (Romans 12:2);
• through the work God has given us;
• through God’s care in the things that happen to us.

God has told us the big things plainly. Be holy. Give thanks. Forgive. Tell the truth. Look after widows and orphans.

The smaller choices are different. Which job? Which city? Often, which person to marry? God leaves these to wisdom, inside what he has told us. James expects Christians to make plans. He only tells them to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” (James 4:15)

John Wesley preached about the work of the Spirit for fifty years. In 1750 he warned against people who expect

particular directions from God … in the most trifling circumstances of life

John Wesley, 1750

In simple words: exact instructions from God, even in the smallest things of life

Then how do you find God’s will? Wesley answered:

Not by waiting for supernatural dreams … not by looking for any particular impressions or sudden impulses on his mind: no; but by consulting the oracles of God.

John Wesley, 1750

In simple words: Do not wait for special dreams. Do not look for strong feelings or sudden ideas in your mind. No. Read the words of God in the Bible.

And he added that the Spirit helps “during the whole process”.

Cousin Harriet and Aunt Ellen

Austin Farrer was a teacher of theology at Oxford. In a sermon, he told a true story from his own family. The sermon is in his book The End of Man (1973).

A doctor told his cousin Harriet that her leg must be cut off. But she said that on that very night the Holy Spirit told her not to do it. Farrer says that she was

useless to herself, and a care to others, for the remaining forty years of her life.

Austin Farrer

In simple words: She could not help herself, and other people had to look after her, for the next forty years.

His small aunt Ellen fainted when she saw blood. But all through her teenage years, one belief grew in her: Christ wanted her to go to India as a missionary doctor. And she went. Farrer says that her calling grew like this:

slowly maturing in patience and fidelity, with no excitement, no tension, no oracles from the skies.

Austin Farrer

In simple words: It grew slowly, as she was patient and faithful. There was no excitement, no strain, and no voice from the sky.

His advice was this:

always suspect claims to inspired guidance which bypass reasoned argument.

Austin Farrer

In simple words: Be careful every time a person says, “God guided me”, and gives no reasons.

Are ordinary Christians inspired by the Spirit? Farrer answered: “Yes, he is indeed. Just as inspired as he is Christian.”

How were decisions made in Acts?

Here are eight decisions from Acts and from Paul’s letters. How does the Bible say each one was made?

So God did speak directly, a few times, and it was about the mission. Most of the time the apostles prayed, thought, talked, and decided.

“If you love me”

On the night before he died, Jesus spoke to his disciples for a long time. He told them what their relationship with him would be like after he had gone. He said the same thing again and again.

If you love me, keep my commandments.

John 14:15 · World English Bible

In simple words: If you love me, do what I have told you to do.

One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me.

John 14:21 · World English Bible

In simple words: The person who knows my commands and does them is the person who loves me.

This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.

John 15:12 · World English Bible

In simple words: This is my command: love each other in the same way that I have loved you.

And he gave a promise:

If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.

John 14:23 · World English Bible

In simple words: If a person loves me, he will do what I say. My Father will love him. My Father and I will come to him and live with him.

What would the Holy Spirit do? Jesus said that the Spirit “will remind you of all that I said to you” (John 14:26). The Spirit reminds us of the words of Jesus. He does not put other words in their place.

The first letter of John gives the tests.

• We know that we know him “if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).
• We know that we have life “because we love the brothers” (1 John 3:14).
• And if a person sees someone in need and closes his heart, “how does God’s love remain in him?” (1 John 3:17)

Other people can see every one of these, over time. Not one of them is a private message.

This gives us a firm rule. A “word from God” cannot be stronger than what Christ has already commanded. Someone may say that God told him to hate a group of people, or to stay away from a family, or to leave his wife. Then he has shown that the message is not from God. Paul says that we must refuse even “an angel from heaven” (Galatians 1:8) who preaches something different.

Test the word

Here are seven things that a person might say God told him. This page made them all up. For each one there are three possible answers. It goes against what Jesus taught. Or it is already in the Bible. Or it is only advice, and you must think about it.

Where did the idea come from?

People have said that they had direct messages from God since the second century. The Church always tested them.

About the year 170, a group called the Montanists said that the Holy Spirit was giving new instructions through their prophets. The churches rejected this.

About 180, a church leader named Irenaeus wrote about a teacher named Marcus. Marcus told his followers:

Open your mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to you, and you shall prophesy

Marcus, as reported by Irenaeus, about 180

In simple words: Open your mouth. Say anything that comes into your mind. Then you will be speaking a message from God.

In the end his followers thanked him and gave him their money.

The Reformers Luther and Calvin warned against people who claim the Spirit without the Bible. John of the Cross was a Catholic teacher of prayer. He told people who loved prayer not to look for visions or voices, because God has said everything in his Son. Wesley and Jonathan Edwards led the great revivals of the 1700s. They gave the same warning.

The early Quakers were an honest exception. They did teach that an inner light could guide every believer.

The modern picture came later, in steps.

• From the 1870s. Some movements taught a “higher Christian life”. This was a second stage, above ordinary faith.
• In the 1920s and 1930s. A movement called the Oxford Group taught people to sit each morning with a notebook. They wrote down their thoughts and took them as God’s guidance.
• In 1935. A book called God Calling printed daily messages. They were written as if Jesus was speaking.
• In 2004. The best-known later book of this kind was Jesus Calling. At the start, its author explains that she knew God spoke through the Bible, “but I yearned for more.” In simple words: “but I wanted more, very much.”

Is this Gnostic? Not really. People who hold the second view believe that God made the world, that Jesus became a man, and that he rose from the dead. The Gnostics denied these things.

But the shape is the same in two ways. Christians are divided into “spiritual” people and ordinary people. And the ordinary people depend on those who say they have special knowledge. Irenaeus fought exactly this. His answer is still good. The truth is

within the power of all … in every Church

Irenaeus, about 180

In simple words: something that every person can reach, in every church

And there is good news for the ordinary Christian. On the first Easter evening, the risen Jesus walked with two disciples. How did he talk with them? “he opened the Scriptures to us” (Luke 24:32), they said. And how did they recognise him? “in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35). Their hearts burned inside them.

This is still how he meets every one of his people, not only some.

Check it yourself

Here are six things. All are short, and almost all are free.

1. Read John 14-15 and the first letter of John. Do this one. It takes thirty minutes. Mark every sentence that says how love for Jesus is recognised.
2. Read 1 Corinthians 1-3 and 12-13. Twenty minutes. This is the church with every gift. See what Paul says it did not have.
3. Read Acts 13-18. Twenty minutes. Notice how each decision is made.
4. Read Deuteronomy 18:9-22 and Isaiah 8:19-20. Five minutes. Fortune-telling is forbidden. See what God gives in its place.
5. Read John Wesley, *The Nature of Enthusiasm* (1750), sections 18-26. Fifteen minutes. It is free at the Wesley Center Online. The English is old and not easy.
6. Ask one question to the Christian you respect most. Do this one too. Ask, “How has Christ led you?” Then listen.