WE ARE THE FRAGRANT SCENT THAT RISES TO GOD THROUGH CHRIST
Author: Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone wrote to me – and I quote from the letter in this writing only what I think may be relevant to you:
“Please can you give us your understanding concerning the following:
I was in a service where at some stage a pastor said the following to the congregation, and I quote:
‘Shoo, brothers and sisters I smell Jesus.’
My question is: Can we smell the Holy Spirit as that pastor said?
The pastor even described the smell as a ‘sweet scent.’”
I therefore will begin by saying that when I proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I only proclaim His Word and nothing else than His Word.
When I hear of something that someone proclaims as being part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I do not find any testimony of it in the Word, then in my opinion it is not of the Bible and it is therefore antibiblical [a] and in other words, because it is proclaimed as part of His Word, it is just evil.
Against this background –
Nowhere in the Word do I read that we will smell Jesus and literally to top it all it will have ‘a sweet scent’.
The closest mention of a ‘scent’ related to Jesus in His Gospel is in EPHESIANS 5:2 but I quote from verse 1.
We read:
EPH 5:1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children
EPH 5:2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Clearly Jesus was a fragrant offering to God:
EPH 5:2 … gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God..
I personally have been proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one or other capacity for more than 40 years and I have never smelt Jesus – but why would I want to smell Jesus?
A fragrance or a smell, so to say, is something that must come to me so that I can smell it.
Before it arrives by me, until I can smell it, the scent/fragrance has not come close enough for me to smell it.
From my conversion, my Jesus is within me!
Part of me:
GAL 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, (that lives in me and does not have to come to me) who loved me and gave himself for me.
The reason that I want to share this answer that I sent to someone with you is to caution you again, as with this person who wrote to me, that we do not accept everything that is proclaimed in some services – just to take it in like you would eat a sweet cake, but that we must be prepared by studying the Word so that we can immediately, like the writer of the letter to me was able, notice something that is antibiblical.
Remember that we are living in the last days and therefore, every so often, someone comes up with some or other thing or whatever you want to call it, which does not appear in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Furthermore I wanted to use this question that was sent to me, as a starting point just to be able to mention to you that you and I must certainly be a fragrant scent of Christ to the world:
2 COR 2:15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
Furthermore I want to remind those who are reading this, that we must always make certain that satan does not abuse our zeal for our Lord against us and that we attribute something to the Holy Spirit which is not of/from Him (our Lord).
I am only the messenger and when our Lord desires, the teacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the one that works within your heart and He does not need anything ‘what so ever’ to assist/nudge His work, which does not appear in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We must clearly take note of:
2 COR 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
In another section we read:
ROMANS 14:11-13
11 It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.”
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.
In closing and I certainly hope that no one thinks that I am conceited and that I am trying to tell preachers and evangelists how they must proclaim the Gospel. I will never, never be that presumptuous.
Our Lord knows my heart, it is certainly not my intention but with all the things that satan tries to bring into the Church of Christ, how terribly tragic, to proclaim a false gospel from the pulpits of the church of Christ, I just want to mention the following:
Let you and I just follow the instructions we have been given and proclaim the Gospel and leave further events in the ‘hands’ of the Holy Spirit that works as He desires.
Let us proclaim the Gospel as did my great hero Paul.
It did work for him.
It will also work for us, if we do it in truthful sincerity from our hearts.
1 COR 2:2-4
2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.
4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words (Just like Jesus’s, not full of all sorts of frills, flourice, fandangle etc.), but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.
Greetings,
Sakkie