"Respiration............................."

”And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins”…1st Corinthians 15:17.

In Wednesday evening’s study group, I pointed to the above verse as foundation for my claim that it is “the Holy Ghost in me” who confirms the Bible unto me, the reality of His promise with me as I go, meeting me in the next step. The fellow who teaches the class, strongly rooted in his perspective that the Book, itself, is infallible truth and therefore the sole instructor of what we are to believe, quickly gave me answer of Paul, here, speaking only of the Lord’s resurrection, in other words, His victory over death applying here of nothing more than our having hope that the grave, indeed, is not finality. Pausing and sensing that others were waiting to hear me respond, for a moment I examined my own case. Good theology is not a matter of securing who is right and who is wrong, a sword fight for the title being “Best Interpreter of the Word”. What we BOTH are pursuing is growth in Him. If language, history, and some other parts of our individual identities separate us in what we understand of our salvation, the “knot in our belly”, the Spirit’s grip on our heart, brings us together in our love for Him. When I suggested to him in return, therefore, that the latter part of this verse would seem to imply the empty tomb affords unto us deliverance on this side of eternity, not just Pearly Gate entrance once we’ve crossed over, that while we, ourselves, can create faith, it rests on nothing more than our own humanity until His inner presence breathes life into it, the lesson concluded with us all having gained something to take home and chew on: He, alone, is our assurance, the substance of our witness, the rock to which we are anchored……