Hello Body,

Greetings!

Can anyone help me with a contrast between the holy spirit’s function as teacher, and that of teachers in the body?

Please help!

YBIC,

M____

 

Hi M_____,

Thank you for this question. It will serve to help us all to see just a little more clearly how closely Christ identifies with His body, the church, and all of its members.

You ask:

“Can anyone help me with a contrast between the holy spirit’s function as teacher, and that of teachers in the body?”

“The body” you reference is “the church which is His body”.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church: 

Christ tells us that if we know Him we know His Father and we are in Him and His Father:

Joh 14:8  Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Joh 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

Joh 14:20  At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

1Co 6:17  But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 

Christ tells us time and again that He and His Father are “one”, and that there is but “one spirit”.

Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.

Then He tells us that we, through the spirit are one with Him and His Father, in the same manner that He and His Father are one:

Joh 17:22  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

The way we are all “one” with Christ and His Father is through the spirit of His Father, which ‘He gives to those that ask Him’:

Luk 11:13  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? .

The holy spirit is “the holy spirit of God”, and it is through God’s holy spirit that Christ taught His disciples who He was, and yet He could still truthfully say this of what He had taught them:

Mat 16:17  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

What this shows us is how the holy spirit prepares our hearts and opens our eyes and ears to receive the Truth, which is Christ and His doctrines. Then Christ uses “the church which is His body” to confirm what the holy spirit has already revealed to us and placed within our hearts and minds. That is what is taking place every time we read or hear a truth which we have never before understood, and we recognize immediately that we are ‘hear[ing the] voice of the [true] shepherd’.

Joh 10:25  Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.
Joh 10:26  But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
Joh 10:27  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

That is what has happened to all of us when we have heard a truth, and we say within ourselves, and sometimes out loud, ‘Yes, that is right! I knew that already, I just didn’t know how to say it!’

There is your answer. “You believe not because you are not of my sheep… My sheep hear my voice… and follow me”.

But Christ is not here in a physical body, so how do we “hear [His] voice” today? Well, this is what the scriptures tell us. This is how the holy spirit speaks to us today:

Eph 3:9  And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
Eph 3:10  To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,

Now there are many people in many churches who claim to be teachers and prophets and who claim that their words come directly from God without the need of scriptural backing. This is what the scriptures say about everything we think, say or do:

1Co 4:6  And these things, brethren, I did transfer to myself and to Apollos because of you, that in us ye may learn not to think above that which hath been written, that ye may not be puffed up one for one against the other, (YLT)

“The church” by which the holy spirit makes “known… the manifold wisdom of God” is also called “His body”.

Col 1:24  Now, am I rejoicing in the sufferings on your behalf, and am filling up the things that lack of the tribulations of the Christ, in my flesh, in behalf of his body, which is the assembly, (REV)

1Co 12:13  For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 

1Co 12:12  For, just as, the body, is one, and yet hath many members, but, all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so, also, the Christ;

“His body… the Christ” is His “assembly” which the King James calls “the church”. “The church, which is His body”, has many members, and some of those members of that body are prophets and teachers.

1Co 12:28  And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

Sometimes those prophets and teachers make mistakes. How then does the holy spirit go about correcting those teachers? This is how that is to be done:

1Jn 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

“Many” means ‘the majority’ of prophets and teachers are “false prophets” who are gone out into the world with false spirits which are false doctrines which must be tried, and the only way to “try the spirits whether they are of God” is by the instructions we were given in 1 Corinthians 4:

1Co 4:6  And these things, brethren, I did transfer to myself and to Apollos because of you, that in us ye may learn not to think above that which hath been written, that ye may not be puffed up one for one against the other, (YLT)

Here are a few examples of how the holy spirit corrected some New Testament prophets and teachers, and a very prominent man:

Mat 16:23  But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

The holy spirit, through Christ, corrected Peter who had already been teaching others with Christ for over three years at this time, which was just before Christ’s crucifixion.

Gal 2:11  But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

The holy spirit, through Christ in Paul, corrected Peter for his hypocrisy.

Here is what happened with the apostle John:

3Jn 1:9  I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10  Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. 

The holy spirit through Christ in John, admonished an entire church and one of its prominent leaders, Diotrephes.

So the Biblical answer to your question is that there is no “contrast between the holy spirit’s function as teacher, and that of teachers in the body?”

We are expected to “try the spirits to see whether they are of God” by being familiar with the words of the True Shepherd. Those who know “what is written” will have no trouble recognizing “the voice of a stranger” instead of the voice of the True Shepherd, when they hear a minister tell them to ‘Go and sign up for the military and kill your enemies’. That is not the voice of Christ. That is the voice of anti-Christ, and Christ’s sheep will flee from that minister.

Joh 10:4  And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. 
Joh 10:5  And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.

“Know not the voice of strangers” means that Christ’s true sheep know from “that which is written”, that anyone who says ‘Go kill your enemy’ is not the voice of the True Shepherd, the Christ.

So we have been told that “the manifold wisdom of God [is being] made known by the church, [by] prophets and… teachers [whom] God has set in the church”, and we have been told by “that which is written”, that is how the holy spirit teaches us.

Christ Himself made that as clear as it can be made:

Luk 12:11  And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: 
Luk 12:12  For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say [“not think(ing)] above that which is written”.

There it is. The holy spirit teaches through true men of God, who never “think above what is written”.

I hope this helps you to understand that the holy spirit and teachers in the body of Christ “are one spirit” and of “one mind” and are not distinguishable for that reason.

On the other hand “many false prophets” are easily tried and found to be so by simply knowing “that which is written” and recognizing whether what is being preached and taught is the voice of the True Shepherd, who has but “one spirit and one mind”:

Php 1:27  Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;

Your brother in that “one spirit and one mind” of Christ,

Mike