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with Martha Kilpatrick and John Enslow
(J) Martha, we’re here in Madrid, Spain. We just arrived last night. We had a little bit of a crisis; we lost a bag and had to go shopping. And the lovely De Roe family, who are hosting us while we’re here, who have been really wonderful, they went through and were willing to help me get all of the more clothing and toiletries. And it was kind of a fiasco, because not knowing any of the items that they have, and looking for clothes in the right size.
(M) Their sizing.
(J) The right size, yeah, that doesn’t fit… European for this now forty year old man. It was definitely interesting. So, but this morning I’m kind of on something about the personality. And I had a question for you, and we decided to make it into a pod-cast because I really feel like it’s important. I am very demonstratively human. And ah, you will tell me that it’s delightful. And I appreciate that very, very much. But because I am so demonstratively human, I often condemn my humanity. I often want to squelch it, push it down. I told you recently that as a child that’s what I would do; I would squelch it. I would say ok, we’re starting a brand new year; it’s after the summer. Ok, so what we’re going to do is, I’m not going to say anything, and then everything will be fine. And then within a week I’d already opened my mouth, and it was ruined for the next year. (Laughter) Everybody knew who I was, so um, what I’d like to do is, I want to understand the difference between my humanity, my created humanity, and God’s delight in that, and my personality, that He’s obviously formed and fashioned in me. And the humanity, that’s the human sin nature…. I mean right when I said it, you read Oswald’s explanation, and you said that the humanity that God created is delightful. The sin nature is not. And so, but often, I’m wondering, ok am I in the sin nature in my humanity, or not. And you also will say that ‘we just need to be’; we need to be where we’re at, and allow Christ to deal with wherever that is. And so often, demonstratively, (Laughter) I’m a mini explosion over there, a little fire-works show of his own. And ah, and I go, oh, God.
(M) You sure you want me to just ‘be’? (Martha laughs.) You really mean it?
(J) Yeah, are You positive? So ah, I really, I want to hear your perspective of this because ah…. And I’m… The reason I’m bringing this into a podcast is because I believe that it is more widespread than just myself. And, I believe that we as humans tend to condemn. You know, that’s where the whole aesthetic thing went; ok, let’s squelch anything that’s creative, anything that’s alive, so that we can be holy. Well that’s wrong, that’s incorrect. And then the other extreme, the charismatic stream that’s just explosive… And I do want to say, we are charismatic, ok, that’s why we can speak into the charismatic realm, is because we are charismatic. And I don’t want people to think that we’re anti-charismatic, because you know, we are charismatic. But because we are charismatic, we also smell the body odor so to speak, of the charismatic, you know, and we can say oh ‘p-you’. This area stinks. So, but please Martha, I would like to hear what you found in Oswald, as well as just what the Lord has shown you in this.
(M) This is exciting John, because I have been trying to express this in the Manna. And I have been so frustrated, because of not being able to express it. Many years ago I taught this in Baptist type circles. And some really received it and understood it. But what I said was, there is a created self, and there is a sin nature. And I separate them very clearly. I said in our created self we’re individual, different, unique. In our sin nature we’re all the same, boringly the same. We have the same potential. We have the same tendencies. That sin nature is very predictable and boring, and we are all level. And I understood it back then because God was encouraging me even many years ago, thirty years ago, ‘to be’. What that means is, be natural, be truthful. And I’m always saying, I’m always trying to give this message but I have, I think I’ve given it poorly many times. But I do know that the human and the divine is the miracle. And the verse that God’s given me so much is Ro.12:1, “Present your body a living sacrifice.” And God said, ‘I have a life, I don’t want your life.’ And what He meant by that was, I don’t want your sin nature. I want your body and all its temperament that I created, and the personality. As I’m using the word in the podcast, the personality is my choices of values and principles; but the life is Christ.
(J) Well I’ve never understood that. I’ve always thought that present your life basically was the eradication of my temperament, my personality, my individuality; it was like lay it all down and let Christ live His life through you. But you’re, the way you’re saying this now is that that’s not the way.
(M) Well I’ve implied it John. I’ve implied it that we’re annihilated; yet I’ve known we aren’t. And it seems like… Well it’s this verse, “For God has shown in our hearts, so to beam forth the Light for the illumination of the knowledge of the majesty and glory of God as it is manifest in the person and is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ the Messiah.” However, 2Cor.4:6-7, this is what… “However, we possess this precious treasure, the divine Light of the Gospel, in frail human vessels of earth, that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be from God and not ourselves.” See our created identity is what God wants to restore apart from the sin nature. And I’ve been struggling to say it in the Manna, because I do know that we think we cannot be human, so we try to be ‘divine’. And it’s a lie. It doesn’t bare witness and it doesn’t bare fruit. But as I was on the airplane I read this in Oswald’s “Biblical Ethic’s.” It’s a book with three books that we carry on the website and it’s wonderful. And I started quoting him as we began to travel. I started quoting his insights because he really has God in it. He says here “the purely spiritual line, if it ignores the human will be useless”; that’s religion, super-spirituality. It’s in every camp of believers. We think we have to try to be like Christ, and try not to be human. “The purely spiritual line, if it ignore the human will be useless, and the purely human will not be any good. There must be the amalgam.” If we are just human that’s useless, if we are just super-spiritual that’s useless, is what he’s saying. We must be the combination. Because that’s how God set it up. So Oswald goes on to say, “The Word became flesh.” And that’s the very verse that God has illumined to me these days about this subject, John 1:14. Jesus Christ was not pure divine; He was unique, divine and human. And the marvelous thing to me is that it appears in His resurrection He was still in a human body, transformed human body, but nevertheless, He has confined himself to humanity, to the perfect humanity God had in mind for eternity. And that is amazing to me. But here’s what Oswald says, and I’ll have to read it, and I’ll try to pause so we can take it in. “In the Holy Spirit the individual receives from God a new heredity, the Life of the Son of God. “Until Christ is formed in you.” Gal.4:19 Human nature is the home where the divine manifests itself.” And that is the marvel, John. “Holiness movements are apt to ignore the human and bank all on the divine. They tell us that human nature is sinful, forgetting that Jesus took on himself human nature, and in Him there was not sin. It was God who made human nature, not the devil. Sin came into human nature and cut it off from the divine. And Jesus brings the pure divine and the pure human together.” This explains to me what Paul meant when he wrote Ro.7, when he said, “It is not I who sin, it’s the sin living within me.” He could separate… His revelation was such that he knew there was a human self created by God that didn’t want to sin. And it’s not that he wasn’t responsible, but it was that there was another issue that he seemed to treat as an entity. And this is how Oswald explains it. “Sin is a wrong thing all together and is not to be allowed for a moment. Human nature is earthy, it is sordid, but it is not bad. The thing that makes it bad is sin.” Now this is Oswald’s explanation, and I believe it. “Sin is the outcome of a relationship set up between humanity and the devil; whereby human beings become bosses over themselves, their own gods. No one was ever created to be his or her own master, or to master other people. There’s only one Master of humanity, and that is Jesus Christ.” Doesn’t that really sum up what we’ve been talking about for weeks, that control of others and of myself comes from that sin nature.
(J) I’m thinking about an individual who is very jovial and expressive, but their joking comes out of a woundedness and out of a self-protectiveness. But obviously, that woundedness, out of the sin nature, presented something that looked like a personality but it wasn’t. I think that that person’s innate jovialness… And you know, they’re funny. They are funny, but when it comes and emanates out of that wounded self-protection which is sin, it’s not.
(M) It wounds you, or me. I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it doesn’t matter. If it comes out of the sin nature, whatever expression of humanity that comes out of the sin nature is going to be sin and be bad fruit.
(J) Ok, but what’s the difference in that now, ok, let’s go in this direction real quick; this little rest stop. Ok, all humanity is woundable. And sometimes I am… My personality is developed through my woundedness. So where’s the difference? Where does, where does… Do you agree with that statement, that our personality is sometimes developed through our woundedness?
(M) Umhum.
(J) OK, so where’s the difference between the pleasurable temperament and personality that God has created, through circumstance, through His own way, and when it pops up out of the wounded sin nature as a means of coping? Do you understand the question?
(M) John I think our woundeness… My spontaneous answer from my spirit is the difference is the blood. But that makes it very… The bottom line is whether you’ve received the blood for your response to the woundedness. If you received the blood for your response to your woundedness, it’s a matter of forgiveness, not wounding. It’s a matter of letting the divine come in and deal with the woundedness. See the sin-nature responds to wounds with bitterness and unforgiveness. The divine comes in with grace and you’re able to endure it and forgive it and be forgiven; and after that you see the entire purpose for that wound. I don’t know if that’s making it too complicated. It’s whether your relationship with Christ has to do with the divine ruling your woundedness.
