The Christian Interpretative Center

An interpretative center is not a museum. It is a place that communicates heritage for a natural, cultural, or historical site. Christian heritage has a story to tell, too. Therefore, every believer in Jesus serves as an interpretative center for the Gospel of grace.

God has decreed people, places, times, and events. Who knows the thoughts of God that we might rightly interpret history? The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit is the One who searches the depth of God (1 Cor 2:10). This is analogous to the exclusivity of the spirit of a man, who alone knows his own thoughts (1 Cor 2:11).

The deity of the Holy Spirit is found in this analogy, for we would never say that the spirit of an individual is not that individual (although his spirit may be overpowered by demon-possession). In the same way, the Spirit of God knows every thought of God because He is God, having the mind of God (Rom 8:27).

When the thoughts of the mind are communicated, they become words. Words can be spoken or written, but when they are transferred from one person to another, meaning is conveyed.

Until the meaning of words and thoughts moves from one to another, or others, they remain hidden. The wisdom possessed by someone remains a hidden mystery, until that wisdom is communicated to another. There is also the issue of wisdom being received and understood.

God progressively revealed the hidden mystery of His incarnate Son, the Messiah, Jesus Christ (Jn 1:14). God spoke to men at various times (Heb 1:1–2), and these men spoke to us in speech and the written Word. Their forth-telling and fore-telling was prophetic, especially as it pertains to the first and second advents of the Son of God, who became the Son of Man (Jn 1:14; 3:16).

The key Person in the revelation of God, from God, is the Holy Spirit. The third Person of the Godhead was integral in the communication to the prophets, whom He carried along to write the revelation of God, which became the Holy Scriptures, the Bible (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:20–21).

The Holy Spirit remained essential in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ (Mt 4:1). He also inspired the apostles of the New Testament era, in their ministries of preaching and writing the Word of God (Rom 8:14; Gal 5:18).

The Holy Spirit and the Word of God remain inseparable (2 Sam 23:2; Job 26:4; 32:18; Prv 1:23; Is 59:21; Jn 3:34; 6:63; 17:17; Acts 4:31; 10:44). When the Holy Spirit communicated the thoughts of God to chosen men, those thoughts were carefully brought into words by the Spirit. Those same Words that were written then become the very revelation that taught us the knowledge of God in Christ.

When one reads about the baptism and indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Mt 3:11; Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11), he learns from the Bible about his own conversion, from being a natural man to becoming, “he that is spiritual (1 Cor 2:14–15).” The Spirit, who brought the Bible into written existence, is the same Spirit who illumines the Scripture, so that the born again are taught to have the same mind (1 Cor 1:10), which is the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16).

The Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to His chosen people (Rom 5:5; Eph 1:4–5), redeemed by Christ (Eph 5:25), makes the elect alive, spiritually (Eph 2:5; Col 2:13). The life-giving Spirit then brings the saint into vital relationship with God the Father, through union with Christ the Son. It is the Word that captures the thoughts of God and the Spirit who interprets the meaning, so we have an understanding of who God is and what He has done to save us (Titus 3:5).

Without the Spirit of God living in a soul, the Word of God is not loved (2 Thess 2:10) because it is not understood (1 Cor 2:14). In fact, it is considered, “foolishness (1 Cor 1:18).” The devil has sent demons of delusion, to deceive the minds of those who are perishing. These people are spiritually blind, not seeing the light of the Gospel (2 Cor 4:3–4). Jude wrote, “These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit (Jude 1:9).”

When God sends the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of the spiritually blind, the seer not only sees what things God has freely given to him (1 Cor 2:12), but he is given the wisdom and power of God that enables his spiritual discernment (1 Cor 1:24). Paul wrote, “I know whom I have believed…(2 Tim 1:12).” Faith is not a leap; it is a spiritual knowledge gifted to the regenerate (Phil 1:29).

He that is spiritual has the indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom 8:9, 11; 1 Cor 2:15), who brings the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16) to the spiritual man because He is the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9). In this, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5).”

Thus, it is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive (Jn 14:17), who guides us into all truth (Jn 16:13). God is true (Rom 3:4), and His thoughts have been written as the Word of truth (Ps 119:160), which reveals to us, Him who is truth (Jn 14:6). In the face of Christ, who is the image of God (Rom 8:29), we see, receive, know, understand, and experience our Triune God, with the help of an internal interpreter, the Helper, our teacher whose very presence makes each Christian an interpretative center for communicating Christ to others.

David Norczyk

Missoula, Montana

August 3, 2022