The uncertainty over whether certain "S"s should be upper or lower case has dulled the study of the word "spirit" itself. Such uncertainty is a grief to the Spirit of God since he has promised us a perfect Bible and fulfilled it with the Pure Cambridge Text of the King James Bible. To have a Bible in which every word, every capitalization, verse marking, italicization, punctuation, spelling, heading and subscript was exactly the same as the one sitting on a pulpit in heaven, would give a Christian the exact same view on every single biblical precept possible as God the Father himself has.
I believe that. Why would God promise us that he would preserve every "jot and tittle" and then not do so, or cop out and say that he only meant that for the original Greek? When Evangelical Protestants see two different Greek texts that differ one with another, they drop their pointy little heads and bemoan the lack of a perfect text. They cop out and teach their followers that God never intended to preserve every exact word, and that they should be happy with 95%.
We can all laugh at the blindness and corruption that has led once mighty denominations and movements to print the modern bibles, but the same spirit reigns in too many Baptist churches. When the average Baptist preacher sees two contradictory texts of the King James Bible he assumes that none are correct. To insist that the Bible in his hand is just as sharp as the one on a pulpit in heaven is beyond his faith and trust in the promises of God.
Let me set this straight. When I hold my Bible which was printed by Local Church Bible Publishers over a decade ago (prior to tampering), I believe that it is absolutely infallible. There is not a single item in its text that I doubt. I will change and conform my innermost thoughts about God based on what it says. I do not want to have any concept of God that does not come from its text. I judge every insight I have by its words. I judge every spiritual feeling or unction that I get by the book I hold in my hands. To do otherwise is to be led by devils, or worse, to be led by my own heart.
When I was in my mid twenties I was hired by a company that owned some large rolling mills for fabricating and forming metal. Each one weighed tons. They were underneath tarps in a back room of a large plant. I knew how to operate them and received permission from the owner to utilize them if I could ever get them set up. That night, I looked at the largest one and took a long metal bar like a crow bar. I put it under the machine and strained. I couldn't move it.
I walked around that machine and kept probing for spots that would let me budge it. I found one. I strained and I heard a screech as the machine moved an inch on the cement floor. I knew that if I could move it an inch, I could move it any where I wanted. When the shop opened in the morning, the workers were astounded to see that huge rolling mill sitting on the main floor ready to operate.
There are two things I do not want. I do not want a Bible that has any place wherein it is in doubt and can be moved by man, even if that tampering is ever so small. Also, I do not want to have a belief that needs me to squelch a portion of my intellect in order to believe it. The Pure Cambridge Text of the King James Bible answers both of those. I can prove it doctrinally and historically. Its detractors cannot detract from it on either ground in a prolonged honest discussion, therefore they run from such discussion.
This view has not blinded me or painted me into some theological corner. It has liberated me to see things that the Spirit of God has been trying to show men for centuries. I challenge my detractors to read the post on the word, "Bishoprick" or the post on "The Seed of the Jews" and tell me that my confidence in the text has blinded me. With that in mind, we will look more closely at the seven spirits of carnal man.
The spirit of bondage (Romans 8:15) is born into every son of Adam. It is a spiritual bondage that will make man yearn for spiritual rules and ceremonies as a substitute for God himself. Sometimes, as a result of trauma, that spirit of bondage might keep a person locked in unreasonable bondage to a psychosis. Sometimes, as a result of intemperance, that spirit of bondage keeps a person in bondage to drugs, alcohol, sexual sin or some other chain.
What a pastor needs to know is that God's answer to that spirit of bondage is the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, Romans 8:15. The Spirit of Adoption is not synonymous with the Holy Spirit. It is a work of the Father whereby he promises to adopt the actual body of a believer. Keep in mind, the inward man of a believer does not need imputed righteousness. It is born righteous in the born again experience.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, II Corinthians 5:21. Our inward man does not need imputed righteousness, it is the righteousness of God. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God, I John 3:9. Therein is eternal security. My new man, my inward man, will never sin. It cannot sin. It is currently sharing an habitat called my body with my old Adamic nature wherein they lust one against another for the preeminence; (Galatians 5:17).
It is my flesh that needs imputed righteousness. The father of my flesh is a man by the name of Russell Maynard Asquith who was also a sinner. When Paul spoke of imputed righteousness, he spoke of the flesh. What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Romans 4:1. God has to impute righteousness to our flesh because it was not born righteous as is the case with our new man. God will then adopt our flesh as he tells us in Romans 8. Until our flesh is in subjection to the Spirit of Adoption, and until we learn to walk in the Spirit, we are subject to the spirit of bondage again to fear unreasonable fears.
In my next post we will look at Romans 8 being the rapture chapter, the chapter that explains the rapture itself. I can do that because I have a text as infallible as God.