This is illumination-a work of God’s Spirit upon a believer whereby he recognizes the beauty and glory of the gospel and therefore willingly submits himself to it. Believers accept and submit to the gospel only because God has enlightened their hearts:įor God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 4 makes a similar assertion, this time using explicit language of “enlightening.” The gospel is “veiled to those who are perishing” (2 Cor 4:3), Paul argues. Though the concept of illumination or enlightening don’t really appear in this passage, it does clearly teach that a key difference between believers and unbelievers is the fact that unbelievers simply do not recognize the truthfulness, beauty, and authority of God’s Word (specifically the gospel), while a believer is one who has come to recognize Scripture as such, not because of any human persuasion, but simply through “the Spirit and of power” (2:4). In this passage, Paul describes the fact that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18). One of the key texts is 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:16. The term illumination does not appear in Scripture rather, it describes a collection of concepts involving the Spirit’s work in relation to his Word in the believer’s life. Neither of these are what the biblical doctrine of illumination means. Intentional or not, many believers seem to expect that the Spirit is going to help us understand what Scripture means or that he is going to “speak” to us specific ways that the Word applies to our personal situations. Often we hear prayers like, “Lord, please illumine your Word so that we can understand what it says,” or other similar language. This influence can be seen in a number of ways, but one that I’d like to focus on here is with our understanding and use of the term illumination. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, 284. Henry was right when he observed, “The modern openness to charismatic emphases is directly traceable to the neglect by mainstream Christian denominations of an adequate doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” 1 Carl F. I am convinced that a charismatic theology of the Holy Spirit has infected most of evangelicalism in ways we don’t often recognize.
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