TEXTUALISM;
JOY; GOD: HIS LOVE

I cannot help but believe that in our generation there is a great, concealing cloud over much of the fundamental, gospel church which has practically shut off our consciousness of the smiling face of God.

Textualism, a system of rigid adherence to words, has largely captured the church, with the language of the New Testament still being used but with the Spirit of the New Testament grieved.

The doctrine of verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, for instance, is still held, but in such a way that its illumination and life are gone and rigor mortis has set in. As a result religious yearning is choked down, religious imagination has been stultified and religious aspiration smothered.…

It is glorious knowledge indeed that the smiling face of God is turned toward us. Why, then, do we not capture the wondrous, divine illumination of our Savior, Jesus Christ? Why do we not know the divine fire in our own souls? Why do we not strive to sense and experience the knowledge of exhilaration of reconciliation with God?

Let me tell you why—it is because there is between us and the smiling face of God a cloud of concealment.…

I believe the smiling face of God is always turned toward us—but the cloud of concealment is of our own making.…

What is the answer to this growing list of cloud-forming attitudes? I think it is the willingness to put the cloud which is above us under our feet by faith and through grace!

Romans 5:20; 2 Corinthians 3:15–18; 2 Corinthians 5:10–21

I Talk Back to the Devil, 111, 113, 117.