Language Needed

Some Background:

When John Wycliffe translated the Latin Vulgate into the common English language of his day in the 14^th century, the process resulted in a transformation of the language. This endeavor gave the commoner the scriptures in their own language freeing them from the papal tyranny in England.

Wycliffe, now known as the Morning Star of the Reformation was considered a heresiarch of the Lollard movement for his translation of the Vulgate into English. His work in the translation of Scripture and dissemination of theology in the English vernacular served to raise the English language to a footing more on par with Latin and French within the sphere of religion.

The Catholic church’s hatred for Wycliffe was so vile that years after his death, his remains, under papal order, were dug up, burned and the ashes thrown into the River Swift.

Similarly, Martin Luther 100 years later changed the German language forever with his translation of the Latin Bible. Finally, all German people, and not only the educated, could read the Bible. Luther unified the Germans because they received a common form of the German language. Luther’s Bible created a uniform style for the language that could serve as a reference for the language itself.

The Revolutionary War had just ended, and Noah Webster felt there was a need to create a national language in America, distinct from that spoken in the former British motherland from whom we were trying to separate. Americans were already speaking their own unique “Americanisms,” words influenced from Native American and African words and repurposed or revived British English words.  Webster wanted to make sure, however, that all Americans were speaking the same words, and spelling them and pronouncing them the same way. This would be the unifying force that would connect a country that already at that time was linguistically and ethnically diverse.  

This brief history lesson is to illustrate the importance of a language and its inherent power to unite a nation’s people, but more important, to give expression to immerging spiritual realities. The realities I am referring to are the dynamics of a new creation brought about by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

These New Creation realities require a language birthed in truth and articulated by those whose eyes have been opened by the Holy Spirit. Sadly, it has been my experience to hear a vernacular steeped in what was, instead of what is hid with Christ in God. The church needs a language much like colonial America needed one to distinguish itself from the motherland in England. The church needs a fresh vernacular that expresses New Creation truth instead of religious rhetoric carried over from an old life ceded to sentiment that is acceptable to man but blasphemous to God. The church is in desperate need of a language that expresses what it has not expressed, an expression ablaze with shekinah.  

The enormous task of translating scripture into a common tongue or forging a distinct language not used before is a labor of dedicated and inspired men like Noah Webster who were imbued with life from another world. Filled with the Holy Spirit and determined to craft expression to communicate that endowment was what their lives were about. The church of Jesus Christ needs that type of transformation in its vernacular now in order to strengthen itself in Love. If not, the body of Christ will be straddling two worlds in a futile effort to be relevant while losing its strength and beauty.

The Power of Language:

We must remember that language is a gift from God, not an invention of man. In the creation account in Genesis man was endowed with the gift of language, primarily to communicate with God and use that language to take dominion over the whole earth. The fall of man through original sin separated man from God in his desperate attempt in living life under his terms. Not only was man separated from God, but he became fragmented in his own being; viz., he lost his own real identity, his true self. He experienced for the first time what it is like to be unlike the image of God – fragmented. What was once united in one being was torn asunder into separate distinctives. The spiritual was severed from the physical. The spiritual was bartered for the natural leaving the natural man divorced from his real life, the life that was hid in and one with God.

Fragmented mankind birthed a fragmented language. Before Sin entered the world, man’s language was robust with creative power. God brought the animals to him for Adam to name and whatever he called them, that was their name. He was part of the creation process through the language gifted to him by his creator. Man’s language was a powerful distinctive element within his creation.

Ever since this separation man has tried to repair the breach through a religious show of things using a fragmented language. From rituals all the way through to strong scriptural doctrine seen through a flawed perspective, his pursuits and performances demonstrate a willingness to become everything from the hero to the foolish in proving that he really is good, albeit pocked with weaknesses. This show of things is quite unlike the life hid with Christ in God. In his pain, man is addicted to religion and religious behavior to kill it, but it never goes away.

Separation from God imprisoned mankind to a life of limited small thinking, which is evidenced by man groping in the dark describing the environment by what he can simply feel through his senses. People use their language to describe their environment, share their beliefs and how they feel. So, language is really a representation of the individual or group. How you speak reveals more about you than what you can imagine.

“You will declare a thing and it will be established for you”. – Job 22:28  

The Language Barrier:

Without the presence of Liberty, senses are all that I have. My sensate life is driven by a self-centered desire to not only please me but assure me the security that comes though my senses. From the feelings of peace, to being loved, etc. etc., I am driven to maintain the status quo and rest on the comfort that comes from my current state, or squirm over my discomfort as only my senses can report. This separated life is described by Jesus in the gospel of Luke 11:21. The separated live inside the palace walls of the strongman. This culture of living provides everything he needs to maintain the life he has come to know, enjoy, and manage by keeping a strong armor in peak condition. It is very peaceful here and the satanically managed individual receives huge pay offs for affording his senate self all the luxury it deserves.

Sense dominated life separates a man from God. There are as many ways to describe this lifestyle as there are ways to enable it. The Son of Man came into our world of senses to draw us into His world of Reality. His entrance into our sensate world offers the kind of testimony to us that pleads for extenuation. In other words, if in our circumstances what we see in our actual life does not match our understanding, the rightness of our own judgment rules and the case is dismissed rather curtly. And I continue to survive being led by my senses until the tyranny is broken. Generally speaking, man lives in an exceedingly small world managed by this routine. Our senses look for certainty in the actualities of life. Being certain of my actual life is rewarding to my senses and I continue living thus, addicted to my sensate mode. I try incessantly to make sense of life and all its challenges and will not relent until my senses receive the confirmation of certitude. Living by our sensory perception leading the way will never take us to the truth.

Because memory and intellect are part of our sensory faculties, I can study the scriptures with my mind and gain a perspective about the revelation of Christ without knowing Him personally. Knowing Jesus personally is not possible with intellectual understanding alone. – (Luke 10:22) I need a relationship with God where my knowledge of doctrine does not outstep an intimacy with the Holy Spirit. And yet, this is typically the average experience.

Another peculiar thing happens also. A barrier develops around me that has a certain language to it. It is a religious language that favors the abuse of separation rather than oneness with God. Unless you have been given new ears to hear it, this expression will sound normal. It is the language of the Christian culture formulated by centuries of communication, but it betrays the Truth by giving an expression that describes fragmentation in the person and maintains a respectable separation from God. The vernacular may even have a pseudo-humility but wrenches the heart of the Holy Spirit.

In my opinion, the language barrier came as a result of hearing with no understanding. We must realize that our language has deeps roots in what we hear. We hear, then we speak. Primarily, our language is a product of our hearing. Unless we hear something that we have never heard before, we will speak only what has always been said. A new language is birthed in new hearing and that hearing is by revelation from the Holy Spirit.

Two Life Realms:

I want to touch briefly on two distinctives in life that I feel must be noticed. The world of reality and the world of actualities. We live in a world full of experiences from pleasant to horrific, for which I refer to as the actual world with its life’s experiences. This is the everyday hands-on physical world, our world of actualities. It has always existed, but before the great fall in Eden, this world with its actualities was one with the world of reality. The world of reality is beyond our actual state and man, before his great separation from God, lived a life where the actual was one with the real. Life simply was a conjunction of other worldliness. A world where the earth and all that was in it was in complete harmony with the One who created all things for Himself. I know that may seems very self-centered where God is concerned, because that is how we see things from an actual perspective.

Creation before the Fall, and subsequently Redemption are the only realities in this or any other world. Because of the Fall in Eden, Redemption remains as the only Reality. An example of what I mean is this; the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatian church (Galatians 2:20), “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me”. In other words, Paul and Christ lived in the same body at the same time unified in his actual being. So, it was not Paul who endured the persecution from the Jews, but rather Christ in Paul that received that treatment. This is only possible by the truth of Redemption, viz., that God recreated man through the life of the resurrected Christ.

A Peculiar Language:

The scriptures define the church as God’s unique inheritance. It is a royal priesthood, a holy nation and a peculiar people purchased by God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. A peculiar people should have a peculiar language that represents the nature and government of the people. By government here, I mean that which controls, regulates, and directs us. Government is first and foremost internal and so, our language represents us completely revealing our nature and character.

What is needed is a language that can express that which up until now, has been hard to express. Let me explain – When I was first born again into the Kingdom of God, I found it easy to parrot what I heard from others more experienced than myself. I was encouraged, taught, and blessed by what I heard others say about their own relationship with God. So, I adopted a style that was more a reflection of what I heard from others rather than what I internalized. Aided by what I heard, I studied the scriptures and read books with the appetite of a hungry lion. I soon found myself starting to express my own views and found I had a love for teaching. The more I taught I became aware my language was becoming familiar and soon started to sound different from what I was seeing in scripture and revelation.

For example, I started to notice things like how very much I am like God – now! Slowly realizing that I am made in the image of and after His likeness, it sounded blasphemous to say, “If you see me, you see my Father”. That sounds and is blasphemous, but only to a fragmented person. However, it is music to my Father’s heart.  I would hear from others over and over that they are sinners saved by grace. That rhetoric became increasingly puzzling to me and as I studied the scriptures, I found that expression to be carry over language from a time that does not exist any longer.

There are many more examples of divided language that come from the body of Christ, but suffice it to say, these expressions that have become so ubiquitous are holding back the church’s presence and mission in a dying culture. I have not arrived by any means to an end that I can celebrate, but I refuse to be comfortable with old language that came from stale experiences, however awesome they may have been at the time. What I am celebrating is the process of change that is emerging with a new language that represents who I am in Christ. Each of us has the responsibility to express for ourselves in our words the wonderous endless majesty of our Father’s Life in us by the Holy Spirit.

Mankind is the pinnacle of God’s creation and the human mind wondrously complex. He risked everything by giving them the freedom to think for themself. This God-like quality forever sets them apart from animals placing them precariously close to deity. “I said, ‘You are gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ – Psalms 82:6

Let our language reflect that.