This is an issue that I have tried to address before because it has come up in discussion with people in my church and other Christian friends. I have a huge desire to study God’s Word, and more specifically theology and doctrine. I have been asked probably 6 times, “What do you need to take all those classes for, you have the Holy Spirit to tell you what the Bible means, right?” This question frustrated me for some time. Of course you cannot say that the Holy Spirit cannot reveal the meaning of the Scriptures to you, but then again you want to press the point that the person has a role to study the Bible as well. I think that most times people interpret their feelings on the text as the "guidance" of the Holy Spirit. Just as in Chapter 11 of our text book, they showed how people looked for the “super spiritual” meaning of the text. They do not use the head knowledge and common sense that God has given them to try and see what the author originally intended.
What are the prerequisites to receiving illumination? I think in order for a person to receive illumination from the Holy Spirit, the first requirement would be to actually have the Holy Spirit. Salvation, repentance and faith in Christ, is the deciding factor on whether or not a person receives the Holy Spirit. I also believe that a person must be diligent to be in the Word of God on a constant basis. How much is that? I don’t know, but I believe that it must be some amount. Whether a person spends 20 minutes or two hours ad ay, how will you ever receive illumination if you do not hear from God (read His word)?
What does illumination really look (or feel) like? I don’t like the idea of a person relying on their feelings too much. I think that is how we get so much of our confusion and misinformation and bad doctrine that are out in our churches today. On the other hand, could the Holy Spirit speak to a Christian through feelings, yes, as long as it matches what Scripture tells us? I think that illumination is the understanding that you get when you learn something new. Just as my son finally understands that 2 + 2 = 4, I think that is the illumination (feeling) that I get when I understand what the author of the text was trying to say. This includes a lot of head knowledge, but all this head knowledge also needs the Holy Spirit to arrange that knowledge in such a way to show us what the author was originally intending to say.
What is the Scriptural basis for illumination? I think that Scripture itself is the standard that we use for illumination. If some goofball thinks that Moses was using a tent peg to represent Jesus, then we as a church need to address that. I think that developing a correct Hermeneutic is vital to correctly interpreting Scripture.
Can you provide testimony of having received illumination?
Illumination for me mostly comes through study. I listen to a lot of Biblical preaching throughout the day (podcast MacArthur, Piper, Begg), and I get a lot of illumination from listening to those preachers open up the Scripture. I will often take notes and go back over the passages or bring them up in discussion with other Christian’s. I recently finished a class on Romans through Liberty. Studying, memorizing, and going over the book verse by verse really opened my mind to the message that Paul was trying to get across to the church/churches in Rome.
How does illumination relate to academics, education, hard work and the study of the Bible?
You may already know how I feel about this question by now, but if not, I think that academics, education, hard work, and the study of the Bible have everything to do with illumination. I believe that the more a person puts into their study of the Bible, the more that they memorize, the more they learn about how to interpret it correctly, the more illumination they will have.
I believe that God speaks to His children through His word, and the more time the child spends listening to the Father the better that child will know Him. I do think that there needs to be some guidance in interpretation as well. My son needed to learn addition before he figure out that 2 + 2 = 4.
There are a lot of people who have some goofy interpretations. Brian McLaren and the Emergent Church are a good example of this. It almost seems like they have taken a post-modern approach to the Bible in which nobody can really know what the author was originally trying to say, and all interpretation's are correct…….as long as you don’t disagree with them on too many areas. The Jehovah’s witnesses and Unitarian Universalist read the same Bible (somewhat), but they have misinterpreted it in such a way that they have come up with some really crazy doctrines. I’ll give a good example from a Jehovah’s Witness that I was witnessing to at one of their conferences. He took 2 Peter 3:8 “but do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day,” and with this passage he tried to explain that the 6 days of creation, and the one day of rest, were actually 7000 years. He then explained that because of Genesis 2:17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” He said that Adam died the same day that he sinned. Adam lived 930 years, which is aparently less than one Jehovah’s Witness day, 1000 years. My question to him was when did that time interval change, or am I really 29000 years old? My point is that if you do not study how to properly interpret Scripture, then you can really get off on some goofy interpretations that God never intended.
I believe 100% that it is a complete work of the Holy Spirit through Liberty University and this class that I am learning how to better understand and interpret the Bible. What the Holy Spirit has revealed to me about how to read and study the Bible through this class is another testimony to illumination.
Brian Davis
Me and my family thank you for your prayers during the birth of my son Cohen.
