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human mind through the human spirit cannot acquire. It would have given him
the very love of God--a love that transcends all love made possible through the
mere human spirit.
Adam chose to take to himself the knowledge of good and evil. That
limited
him to the power of good on the human level, which is always self-centered --
selfish. With this single human spirit humanity has been limited to selfish love
and too often an attitude of competition and hostility toward others. He resents
authority over him.
On Adam's making that decision God closed up the Tree of Life (the gift
of
his Holy Spirit) until after the coming of Christ, the second Adam. The only
exception to this was the prophets and the few righteous mentioned in the Old
Testament--Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the prophets for
the writing of the scriptures.
After Jesus paid the penalty of human sin in our stead, God opened his
Holy Spirit, but only to those drawn by God to repentance, which means an
altogether changed life, and to believing Christ--believing what Christ said.
This repentance and believing in Christ means turning completely away
from an attitude of rebellion against authority, an attitude of vanity,
coveting,
competition and hostility. That is what Jesus meant when he said we must become
like a little child to inherit the Kingdom of God.
The Holy Spirit means many things but primary among them is a spirit of
surrender toward God and God's authority, a complete departure from a spirit of
controversy and anger--a complete surrender to the will of God.
When we find that hostile attitude of disagreement, disrespect for
authority,
lack of kindness and patience we may consider that as the evidence of a carnal
mind. It is still hostile against God (Rom. 8:7), in the form of hostility
against those
whom God has put over them in authority.
The Church is merely the embryo that will develop into the Kingdom of
God. In the Kingdom of God there will not be found a single particle of
contention, controversy, opposition, hostility and impatient anger. Therefore,
we
cannot tolerate any such attitude in the Church. The apostle Paul instructs that
in
the Church we must be of one accord all speaking the same thing (I Cor. 1:10).
We are to mark those who, in hostile attitude, cause division and controversy
among brethren and avoid them.
If the entire Church had followed these commandments from God's Word
we would not have had the troubles in the Church in 1974 and the later 1970s.
Let us remember that Christ said, "By this shall all men know that ye are
my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35).
God's Church must follow these biblical instructions, and we shall have
peace with happiness and joy throughout the whole Church from now on, and