There are many in evangelical circles,particularly the Reform/Calvinists,that rely very heavily on intellect in there approach to belief,& as I stated about Barth,He loved God with all the intellect that he had.That is kind of a loaves & fish statement.God gives to all a measure of gifts & talents.To those who are without God,the gifts are only natural gifts.To those who are,as Jesus speaks of in John chapter 3 "born again" the gifts are both natural & spiritual.It is so amazing how often the intellect can seem to get in the way.In 1st Corinthians 27 it states this:
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
It is brought home when Jesus said to Nicodemus in Chapter 3 of John:
10You are Israels teacher, said Jesus, and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaventhe Son of Man.d 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
Notice what Jesus said to Nicodemus.
10You are Israels teacher, said Jesus, and do you not understand these things?
Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin,which was the Jewish ruling council,& as such had to be at the top of his game theologically,at least as far as men were concerned.Jesus in effect said "You call yourself a teacher & you do not even know the 1st step?" There is a terrific word study here that goes deeply into the Old Testament scriptures,but suffice it to say that Nicodemus should have known exactly what Jesus was speaking of.Jesus would not have held him accountable for it otherwise.
A 2nd case study is found in the next chapter of John's gospel,About the Samaritan woman at the well.Look at what Jesus says to her.
21Jesus declared, Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
Notice what Jesus said to her? About the Samaritans worshipping what they did not know?That actually speaks volumes,but we will stay with a ground level point.Jesus said to her that Her theology was all messed up,& contrasted to Nicodemus,she actually knew very little about the depth of God's word.But let's look at what happened with her.She actually knew all that she needed to know as a starting point.read what she says next.
25The woman said, I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.
26Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am he.
She knew that Messiah was coming.That was the only truly valid thing she knew.Then Jesus did something that He rarely if ever did before this time or after this...going all the way to the cross...He actually told her that He is the Messiah.Jesus did not say that He is God or that He is Messiah because we are to arrive at that conclusion by faith.Jesus knew that this woman would believe,so He just came out & said it.Look at her response.
28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
You see what she did?She left her water jar.The most important thing in her life at that moment had been drawing water.Water vessels were not cheap to the average person in that day.But she left it.It was of secondary importance.That translation "Could this be the Christ?" does not speak doubt.She was a woman,& a woman rejected by that community based on the time of day she was drawing water.She had to go tell about Jesus.She could not contain this living water that had just come into her soul.
Sadly,unlike Barth,intellect gets in the way with most people.Most people want to figure out God.Most people want God in a convenient box.Sadly,but truly,most people want a God they build with their own intellect,if not actually building an image of wood or clay or gold or steel.
There is evidence that Nicodemus finally got it,based on his actions in John chapter 19 verse 39.Isn't it sad that it took 16 chapters to penetrate the wall of knowledge built up in the heart & mind of Nicodemus,when the woman who knew nothing more than "Messiah is coming" got it in a matter of verses.You may laugh at this analogy,& that is okay.But while laughing,think about it.It says in Romans 10:17 that "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ"
What I can tell you personally is that God found me when I was far from Him.I knew just enough of His word for Him to say to my heart
I who speak to you am he.
You may ask "Did you actually hear Jesus speak audibly?".It was not audibly.It was much louder than that.It was the presence of God Himself in my inmost being.
I am not waging war on intellect.I am only saying that it is the nature of man to use intellect to quantify God,&God is beyond our quantification.Look at what God said through Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 55:
8For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,
declares the LORD.
9As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I will leave you with the story of the personal testimony of CS Lewis.
In 1929 C.S. Lewis found himself challenged with Gods existence. This important milestone in his conversion journey was reached rather suddenly. As he tells the story, on one occasion during this time he happened to take a bus ride. When he got on the bus he was an atheist. When he came to his stop, he got off the bus believing in Gods existence. Not that Lewis was seeking God. He said he didnt really want to find him. The revelation about Gods existence was something of a fright to him. He wrote in Surprised by Joy: "Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about mans search for God. To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouses search for the cat."
But God was seeking C.S. Lewis and he found him. His call was coming and Lewis could find no place to hide. As Jonah running from the Lord, Lewis had been confronted with his own great "whale," so to speak. It was God beckoning to him. The reluctant prodigal finally knew it was time to come home. In Surprised by Joy, Lewis tells us about his feelings when he could no longer deny Gods existence to himself:
"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.... But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape."
When God drew Lewis heart to himself, he became conscious of the presence of his own sinfulness. "For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose," wrote Lewis. "And there I found what appalled me: a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name is legion."
When Christ comes calling
Though Lewis was frightened by what he saw in himself, the Holy Spirit would open Lewis heart and mind to Christs forgiveness and love. It happened in September 1931 when Lewis was converted to the faith. He had engaged in a lengthy conversation about Christianity with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson that started with dinner on the 19th and continued into the early morning hours of the 20th. The discussion challenged Lewis thinking and set the stage for what happened two days later.
It was on Sept. 22, 1931 that Lewis said yes to the Lords offer of himselfyes, according to his testimony, this was the exact day he became a Christian. It happened on a ride to the Whipsnade Zoo with his brother, Warren. Lewis tells about it in his book, Surprised by Joy: "I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion.... It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake."
One recalls the experience of the apostle Paul, who was also on a road trip, in his case from Jerusalem to Damascus. When Paul started out for Damascus, he did not know the Lord. He, no doubt, as a rabbi, had an ardent belief in the God of Israel. But he had not yet been encountered by the living Christ. So when he started his journey he did not know Christ, when he arrived at his destination at Damascus, he was a converted disciple of the Lord (Acts 9:1-20).
Lewis, of course, was not struck down with blindness on the road to the zoo and didnt hear the risen Christ audibly speaking to him. Nevertheless, the still quiet voice of Jesus had been dramatically impacting his mind and heart for some time, bringing him to the opportunity to utter the final yes.
In Surprised by Joy, Lewis described that final time before he put his faith in Christ as a period of free and enlightened choice: "The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice.... I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out.... I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armor or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corslet meant the incalculable."
On Christmas Day 1931, C.S. Lewis joined the Anglican Church and took communion. For the next three decades he devoted much of his time to writing and speaking about Christ and the Christian faith. He had truly become a disciple of Christ who makes disciples. After several months of ill health and intermittent recovery, Lewis died peacefully on Nov. 22, 1963on the very day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
God bless you.It is my sincere hope that if this has not occurred in your life,that you will just ask God to find you.He found me,& if He would stoop to me,He can bring that which is dead to life in anybody.Thank you for your time & your patience.I hope it helps you on the road you are on.
