All Salvation is "Not Alone, But With the Holy Spirit"

8/1/2022

Commenter Lao'c left the following on yesterday's post about "going it alone", which included the following excellent thought by Wm Jas Tychonievich - "The ultimate spiritual authority is the Holy Ghost speaking to each believer's mind and heart, and all other authorities are downstream from that."

The comment:

you make it sound too simple to 'walk with the Holy spirit'.

The problem is that is it very easy to make up some un-truth and then claim/believe it came 'into your mind and heart' from the Holy spirit.

As an example, the famous Dr.Charlton believes that Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, was a true prophet. Supposedly 'Holy spirit' told him that.

However, my own connection with Holy spirit tells me that Joseph Smith was a false prophet, with all that follows from this regarding Mormonism.

So necessarily, at least one of us' 'Holy spirit' is broken in a bad way. Clearly both cannot be true at the same time. And this is not a trivial matter, it is a matter of accepting or rejecting Mormonism.

So how are we going to find out which 'Holy spirit' is true in the style of 'Romantic Christianity'? Pistols at dawn?

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The core of what I am saying is that most people are not ready to walk with the Holy spirit alone. They are still too attached to their own favourite un-truths and will thus attribute these lies they believe to Holy spirit, which is sacrilegous and will lead them astray.

Listening properly to Holy spirit needs the person to be quite advanced on a spiritual path. That means that what you call 'Romantic Christianity' is a path for precious few people. It not a path for masses and it certainly is not a path for those who so much love it.

Good points. Got me thinking. I responded with the following:

I may be wrong, but your question seems of the devil’s advocate variety to me. Anyway, short and simple answer, as I understand things – Jesus provided us with the Holy Spirit to hear his call and freely accept his gift of Heaven and eternal life. The Holy Spirit is primarily available to guide us toward our individual salvation -- and at the end of the day, all salvation is individual – all salvation *just is* “not alone, but with the Holy Spirit” -- yes, and this also applies to salvation within church frameworks. Whether people accept it or not, they are and have always been walking alone with the Holy Spirit when it comes to matters of salvation, even when they choose to delegate some of the responsibility to an external spiritual authority. On top of that, they have always had to assume personal responsibility for their salvation, either within or outwith church frameworks. Having said that, I believe Jesus makes it easy to walk alone with the Holy Spirit, and it is we that complicate matters with our untruths (as you point out).

Longer answer to address your other points: Traditional Christian frameworks are supposed to help guide individuals toward salvation. Historically, they have done this. And to some extent, they still do this today. Traditional Christian frameworks provide added assistance for people to “go it alone” with the Holy Spirit, but at the end of the day, each individual is still going it alone, regardless of whether they believe that to be true or not.
The problem today is that many traditional Christian frameworks have been infiltrated and subverted; thus, the "safer" path to salvation is not as safe as it may have been in the past. This is a major problem facing conventional Christians (though I suspect very few are actually fully aware of the problem).

With this in mind, I don't think any individual can have an untruth connection with the Holy Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit only connects with truth and does not connect with untruth. A person may attribute untruths to the Holy Spirit, but when they do, they are not speaking from their divine selves but rather some false self or other.
Since each of us is unique, we will inevitably have widely varying paths toward salvation. Believers will hear the call, but they will ultimately approach it in different ways.

The knowledge and guidance the Holy Spirit provides us individually -- assuming our questions and motivations are of the right kind -- will help align our individual “truths” with the Truth, based on "personality", personal circumstances, experiences, consciousness, choices, etc.

Our discernment to follow a certain set of doctrines or traditions or "go-it-alone" help to shape rather than determine the "success" of our salvation.

After we have made the choice to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit will provide the guidance needed to attain salvation within the chosen framework. If the framework doesn't work, we could make another choice, and the Holy Spirit will respond accordingly -- as long as our motivation to follow Jesus to Heaven and life everlasting remains sincere and earnest!

With this in mind, I don't believe the Holy Spirit communicates much when it comes to denominational, sectarian, doctrinal matters. I believe this is more a matter of personal discernment. An individual who declares that his connection to the Holy Spirit is the *only* one is probably not communicating with the Holy Ghost but rather drawing on some aspect of doctrine or dogma. This approach reveals a "mass production" attitude toward salvation, when salvation is really more about the individual and the Holy Spirit custom-creating something tailor-made for the individual. And this applies to church-based frameworks as well. Note, I said the individual and the Holy Spirit, not the individual alone.

Thus, if following Mormonism helps an individual find a way to believe on Jesus and follow Him to eternal life and Heaven, then it is true for that individual, and I am glad for him. If following Catholicism or any other denomination helps an individual find a way to believe on Jesus and follow Him to eternal life and Heaven, then it is also true, and I am glad for him. If "going it alone" helps an individual believe on Jesus and accept everlasting life and Heaven, then this is also true, and I am glad for him.

Concerning "the advanced spiritual path", the Holy Spirit may provide individuals on such a path with knowledge and guidance concerning theosis, but once again, only if the individual's motivations are sincere and earnest.

I could have said much more on the subject, but it's probably best to leave the matter there for now.

2 Comments

Lady Mermaid link

8/2/2022 01:55:57

I've been wrestling w/ this entire discussion all day at work. There is much food for thought.

Lao'c's concern is quite valid. William Wildblood has an excellent post about the legitimate dangers of confusing divine guidance for your own selfish desires. There is no shortage of charlatans and charismatic cult leaders preying on the gullible (Jim Jones, David Koresh etc.)

However, there is an elephant in the room that is seldom discussed when addressing inner v. outer authority. Which authority do you submit to?

As a Baptist in the Bible Belt, my outer authority is Scripture. However, any cursory study of church history will show that sola scriptura is more complicated than it seems. The primary Protestant Reformers Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli all read the same Bible yet came to different conclusions about many issues. These were not trivial either. What began as a simple plea to focus on the Bible led to heated schisms over the nature of Communion, baptism, predestination, and ecclesial structure.

As a result, many Christians argue that an external church authority is necessary to resolve the conflicts that arise from individualized Bible interpretations. The approach would work if it were not for the fact that there is one than more church authority w/ valid apostolic succession. Roman and Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy mutually anathemized each other nearly a thousand years ago. Furthermore, Orthodoxy is further divided into Eastern v. Oriental. I've read debates between these groups. I'm not smart enough to delve into abstract theological issues to decide which is the true authority. Tragically, these divisions led to the Islam's conquest of North Africa and the Christian loss of the Crusades.

I believe that is the fundamental issue facing Christianity. I understand that consciousness does change. However, the interdenominational fighting during the 30 Year War in Europe and the War between the Three Kingdoms in Britain severely damaged the faith in the West. Tudor England witnessed four changes in faith within a period of 70 years from Henry VIII's Catholicism w/o the Pope, Edward VI's Puritan Calvinism, Mary I's restoration of Catholicism & Pope, and the Elizabethan settlement of the current Anglican Church. I feel a whiplash just typing that out. Throne and altar work when there is stability and consistency. What is one to do when the altar changes w/ the government?

When people literally judicially murdered a king (Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland) over the issue of appointing bishops versus presbyters, it's hard to see where Christ is present.

I believe that liberalism arose not necessarily due to change of consciousness, but due to the serious injuries that the Church had incurred due to various schisms over abstract theological questions. Competing authorities led people to simply give up on Christianity altogether. This post is nearly a decade old but quite pertinent to today's situation w/ the Church.

https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-significance-or-non-significance-of.html

bruce charlton

8/2/2022 10:46:45

"Going it alone" is a bit of a red herring, because almost nobody wants to do this and would prefer support and wise guidance from others.

On the other hand, I have no doubt at all that God makes provision for supporting and guiding those who are compelled to go it alone, in a society where all institutions are corrupted to the service of evil.

From my perspective, I see multiple instances of individual discernment and intuition at work in every pronouncement or statement from traditionalists.

Personal intuitions are everywhere and all the time in the modern world - and all traditionalism depends upon them. 'Ironically' - to be a traditionalist is already a major act of personal discernment - an act of rejecting the mainstream majority of church guidance.

But some traditionalists deny this personal (presumably intuitive) discernment - and claim instead that it is clear and objective to know what 'the church' has 'always' taught - and that they are called-upon simply to follow this obvious teaching.

In a world of vast variety and massive error and wickedness; this denial is just plain wrong: it a denial of the reality of all Christian faith including the most traditional.

And it is this denial (whether from lack of insight, dishonesty or false reasoning) that is the core, and oft lethal, weakness in the traditionalist position; because such denials of reality make difficult/ impossible the right choice when the need for personal discernment, intuition and choice is compelled - as seems unavoidable in these days.

The problem is (and surely This is obvious?) that staying unconscious of discernments, responsively following the guidance of senior authority, following the majority, following those with highest status and power - are all denying the need for here-and-now personal responsibility for ultimate decisions.

This self blindness to their own actual practice has already led many, many out from Christianity - and into the totalitarian leftist globalist agenda of evil. This is why it is so important that we all recognize and evaluate our own already-existing personal discernments.

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All Salvation is "Not Alone, But With the Holy Spirit"

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