That ought to tell us something. There are people who like to argue about words. But we are going to understand, and we are going to see, that the Bible defines its own terms.
Or, as I told you in another sermon several weeks ago, it more appropriately means straightly cutting. That is, to cut by the shortest distance between two points; to make a straight line; to plow in a straight direction. And so it is with God's Word. God's Word is called the Word of Truth.
The Word of truth agrees with the Spirit of truth; and we will be led into truth by that Spirit of truth.
Now, it ought to be obvious that the carnal mind (as Romans 8:7 says) is enmity against God. It lacks a quality for understanding the truth of God. Anything that is at war against God is not going to be open to accepting the Spirit of truth, nor the Word of truth. But such a mind, indeed, can come up with clever arguments that do nothing more than blur the situation.
Even though this person may be highly intelligent (having all kinds of letters behind his name, and before his name) - it does not mean a thing when we are dealing with spiritual things. And what is going to happen inevitably is that the person is going to come up with part of the truth, but they are not going to get enough of it, because they are not subject to it. It will be hidden from them. They simply do not have the tool that is necessary.
And thus it is that people of, we might say, lower intelligence level - but they nonetheless have the right childlike attitude and they have the Spirit of God, they have repented, they are obeying God as best they know how - these people will see it and get it.
God knows it; and a person having the Spirit of God can know it too. They can see it in themselves. But we have to be careful, because that spirit (that mind, that heart) still lurks in each of us. It can blur the matter too, because it wants to stick with that which is carnal.
There it is again - those who love Him. That is tied to understanding the Bible. A good understanding have all they that do His commandments. In verse 9, basically what He is saying is that the things of the spirit are not discerned by human intelligence on its own. God is not saying that intelligence is not needful; but He is saying there has to be a quality (an entity) that is added to that human intelligence - because it is simply not carnally, or physically, discernible.
Now there you have, in a nutshell, why there is so much confusion regarding the Passover. The Bible is not confusing regarding the Passover! Certainly, the parts that give us the picture are not all in one place. Line upon line, precept upon precept. But the Spirit of truth will - so that we will be able to see where the truth lies.
