13. Biblical Counseling: The Persons in Counseling

Biblical Counseling as Crisis Discipleship

Okay, we're in Lesson 13 on the subject of euthetic or biblical counseling. Just a short review. We started off by doing an introduction to biblical counseling, and then we looked at the crisis in counseling.

What is the difference between counseling from the Scriptures as opposed to psychological counseling? We talked extensively in that third session on the role of the Holy Spirit in counseling, and we'll get back to that again even tonight.

We looked at a whole session on what is euthetic counseling, where euthetic comes from, etc., and then we looked at directive versus non-directive counseling. In other words, the difference between confrontational counseling, which is biblical, and the non-directive counseling, which is psychological in nature.

Then we talked about how to solve problems biblically, and then we spent two weeks on communication, which is obviously extremely important in the realm of counseling. Tonight we're going to start a new topic, and we'll just introduce it tonight because it's kind of meaty, and it would have taken too long to do it all in one, so I've broken it out into two parts.

Biblical Counseling for Every Believer

The title is The Persons in Counseling and The Persons Involved. Let me just recap a couple of things here before I get into it tonight. Biblical counseling is something for every believer. There are those who are specifically commanded to counseling, and we'll get into that tonight, but the idea is if you're sitting there and you're thinking, well, I'm not a counselor, so this doesn't apply to me, you couldn't be further from the truth because we are all called to counsel, we're all called to share our faith, and how we do that, and we're all going to have friends.

If nothing else, you're going to have a friend who comes up, you know, who's really despondent, has a problem, and they're going to ask you for some advice. The only question, and everybody's going to give advice, the only question is how good is the advice?

So that's one of the purposes for this, not just for those who are going to counsel. Getting right into it, there are always more than two persons involved in counseling, and I'll show you what that means.

However, bringing persons not involved in the problem is not biblical, and I put that little note in there acting as a superego. Anybody remember where that term superego comes from? Where does it come from?

Nobody remembers? It comes from Sigmund Freud, who was a very ungodly man, the father of modern psychotherapy, and he said, remember he said that the personality is broken into three parts, every human being, the ego, the id, and the superego.

And in Freudian counsel, what they do is they'll bring in a third person to act somewhat as an arbitrator, besides the counselor, and to speak to the person as authoritative. Bringing somebody else into the mix who's not involved in the problem is never a good idea, and it's not biblical.

And so we have to remember, we always have to remember to avoid humanistic therapy concepts and models. Our society is so psychologized, and remember there's no such thing as Christian psychology. There are Christians who are psychologists, but there's no separate field of Christian psychology.

And some of the things that we looked at, humanistic therapy concepts, is transference. Anybody remember what transference is? Transference is what a secular counselor will do at times, is tell you to take your anger that you have towards whatever person is, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, and direct it towards him.

Transferring the anger from the person that you have the problem with to him. That is patently non-biblical, because now it brings one more person. You haven't dealt with the anger, you've just moved it into another person, if that's even possible.

So we must avoid things such as that. And genetic determinism. What do you think genetic determinism is? This is a big one. Yeah. Now again, there's no question we all inherit sin from Adam, so in one respect, we're all genetically determined to be sinners, all right?

But the idea, it goes even further than that, though. When they talk about genetic determinism, they're saying, it's not your fault, because you just inherited bad genes. And of course, that's not a biblical concept either.

Moral Responsibility Before God

So keep in mind the fundamental principles of biblical counseling. And first is that God holds each individual responsible for his thoughts, words, and actions. Okay? Let me repeat that. God holds each individual responsible for his thoughts, words, and actions.

There's no such thing as, you know, it's my mother's fault, it's my father's fault. When you have a sin issue, you are held responsible for it. And we are responsible regardless of any external pressure or influence.

You may have, a lot of people grow up in what they call dysfunctional homes, or even abusive homes. Even those things, as terrible as they are, are not excuses for us to sin. That's all according to the scripture.

And here are some important scriptures on this topic, just so that it's always good to have the biblical foundation. Second Corinthians 5 .10, Paul says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he's done, whether good or bad.

Notice, each one, everybody. What does he recompense for? The deeds, the things that he does, what he has done, whether good or bad. Then we have another verse, Hebrews 4, verses 12 and 13. For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow.

And look at this, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. We're responsible not only for what we do, but for what we think and what our motivations are. Matthew 16 .27, for the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.

Look at what I've underlined. He will repay every man according to his deeds. So we are all accountable for what we do. Hebrews 9 .27, and then as much as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes the judgment.

It's a subject we don't like to talk about too much, but it certainly shows. Now, I have a question. So the Scripture clearly teaches responsibility, moral responsibility, for what we do, what we think, etc.

And everybody's going to be judged according to his deeds. Is there any way of escaping the punishment for our sin? Okay, what? Yeah, I mean, that's the whole reason that Jesus Christ came. He took our sin, and he has paid for it.

So we don't come under that judgment at the end of the world. Colossians 1 .28, we proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.

Here's the alternative, every man complete in Christ. So biblical counseling, getting back to our theme. Biblical counseling always involves a minimum of three persons. The counselee, and these are, you know, you don't have to use the technical terms.

The person with the problem, the counselor or the one who is helping. Who's the third person? Go ahead, Maria. Yeah, the Holy Spirit. He's the real counselor. I always make a point to that when somebody comes into the study for counseling.

You know, don't depend on my expertise. Don't depend on me giving fantastic advice. The real counselor is the Holy Spirit. That's why we always start, what do we do again if we have somebody come into the counseling room, or somebody comes up to you, and they're not a believer in Christ, and yet they have these spiritual issues.

What's the first thing that we do? How do we help? How do we help a non-believer if the Holy Spirit is involved? Yeah, the man's first and foremost, his greatest need, is he needs the gospel. So that's, that would be the first step in any counseling of a non-believer.

And in this context, Christ is present as the counselor in charge. I want to point out again, notice how theology matters. What theological designation comes into play here when we say that Christ is present as counselor in charge?

What doctrine is foremost here? What doctrine do you have to believe, if not fully understand, to understand how Christ is present in the counseling room? Well, yeah, but that's a little too general. How can Christ be present in the counseling room?

Yeah, how? Go ahead. Yep, that's true. That's true, too. But how is, how is Christ present with us? Go ahead. Yeah, it's the doctrine of the Trinity. Christ is said to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit because we serve one God, so Christ can be said to be in us when it is the Holy Spirit who indwells us, because God is one.

That's why you have to at least, I hesitate to say understand the doctrine of the Trinity, because none of us really understands the doctrine of the Trinity, but we have to understand that that's what the Bible teaches, that God is three and yet he is one, okay?

And that's why it's crucial, and you see that as we go through, especially in the counseling room or counseling somebody, you know, even in your own living room, it's important that we understand the great doctrines of Scripture, because what we believe is what determines what we do, all right?

The Holy Spirit as Counselor in the Church

So the principal person in biblical counseling is the Holy Spirit, all right, because Jesus is now said to dwell invisibly in his church in the person of the Holy Spirit, and we know that because Jesus promised in John 14 verses 16 and 17 that he would send another counselor, and if you use different translations of the Bible, you can see sometimes that that same word, that parakletos, is translated in different ways.

It can be a counselor, a helper, a comforter, all right, and Jesus was the counselor, all right? For three and a half years, Jesus acted as counselor to his church, which was limited at first to the Apostles, all right, but now he is said to be the counselor in charge through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, all right?

So, and in fact, we can see that Jesus was the counselor. Look at the activities that he engaged in as compared to what we have seen over these last several weeks in the role of a biblical counselor. Jesus guided them, all right?

He instructed them in wisdom. He was always showing them what the biblical way, what the godly thing to do was. He rebuked or confronted them, all right, which, as we know, is a hallmark of biblical confrontation, of his biblical counseling with confrontation in mind.

He encouraged them, all right? He taught them, and we could go on and on, but these are all things that we are told to do as we counsel one another, as we look at the scripture regarding, you know, helping one another.

Part of one-anothering is counseling one another, so Jesus engaged in this counseling with everyone he came in contact with, even outside his own disciples. That's why, if you want to understand the role of a counselor, you can't neglect the role of Jesus when he walked on the earth, because he, again, he was the counselor par excellence.

In fact, one of the greatest prophecies concerning Christ calls him wonderful counselor. Remember from Isaiah 9, 6? We always read that at Christmastime, but look at the, this is a name that is ascribed to Jesus.

He was a wonderful counselor, and as we read through the Gospels, we can see that clearly played out through his encounter with everyone, and we also see how Jesus adapted his counseling technique, depending on who he was speaking to.

He spoke to the Pharisees in one way. He spoke to the woman by the well in another way. He spoke to those who were afflicted with always with compassion, and always a great love in his heart towards them, all right?

So we see he was a wonderful counselor. The Holy Spirit is identified as the spirit of truth in that same passage of Scripture in John 14, 16. So we can say without any fear of contradiction that the Holy Spirit is the source of all holiness, and remember what holiness is.

Holiness is more than just righteousness. Holiness has a bigger concept. Remember, holiness in its basic form means to be set apart, and in fact, one of the things that we're going through in our study of 1st John on Sunday mornings, we're coming up to a section, we're going to identify some of this a little bit.

Being holy is not just abstaining from sin. Holiness is more positive than negative, all right? We are to not only stop sinning, we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to become holy, just as it's commanded in both the Old and New Testaments.

You shall be holy, for I am holy. So we see that's holiness, and that's only possible through the ministry of the Holy Spirit as he ministers through the Word to our souls. So the holiness of God's people, as a result of sanctification, must be attributed entirely to the work of the Holy Spirit as he works through God's Word.

Somebody had mentioned that before, but it's the Holy Spirit always works through the Word, never apart from it. Why do you think that is? Why does not the Holy Spirit work apart from his Word, from the Word of God?

Come on, that's an easy one. That's a tennis lob. Yes, because he's the one who inspired it. It was breathed out by the Holy Spirit into the, so that the words coming out of the pens of the apostles are the very words of God.

So to ignore the Holy Spirit, or to avoid the use of Scripture in counseling, approaches an act of autonomous rebellion. I took those words from Jay Adams, if you just, because I don't normally talk that way.

I have that kind of Brooklyn, Long Island thing going on. So to ignore the Holy Spirit or avoid the use of Scriptures, an act of autonomous rebellion. It is, in fact, to sin against God, and it wrongs the person being counseled.

Why would it be wrong? Why does it wrong the person who's being counseled? Not bad analogy. Yeah, because you're, what you're really doing, if you don't give this, if you don't use the Scriptures, you're not giving the best medicine, if I can use that analogy.

So you're withholding, you're withholding the cure. So any counsel that ignores these elements is distinctively non-Christian. In fact, even a Christian who counsels apart from these elements is engaging, excuse me, is engaging in non-biblical counseling.

That's what I was talking about earlier. There are, unfortunately, there are Christians who are counselors, and yet they've adopted some humanistic, secular methodologies of counseling, and they don't use the Scripture.

I've had run-ins with some of these people over the years that I've been counseling. In fact, there was this one woman who came to me, she was referred to me for some counseling for some issues, and she had, she told me that she had come from a church that had a large counseling ministry, okay, and I started asking her about how she was counseled.

I wanted to see how far they had gotten, and it was determined that they never prayed with her, and they never read Scripture with her. They never assigned Scripture to read. So there is, this was called a Christian counseling center, and yet they didn't use, they didn't use prayer, and they didn't use the Scripture.

How can that possibly be called Christian counseling? It just doesn't make sense. The fact that a counselor is a Christian does not mean his counseling is Christian, so we need to be careful. Then we find out that Jesus, this work of counseling we're talking about now, the Holy Spirit counseling through his church, Jesus told his disciples that they would be sent to do it, to do a greater work than he had done.

Did you, everybody familiar with that? Jesus says you're going to do something, you're going to do greater works than I do. What would, let me ask you, what was your thought when you first read that? Yeah, when I first read that, I said, what?

This doesn't make any sense. But, anyone want to take a stab? How are they doing greater works? Yeah, that's that's one way. They picked up, Jesus was limited. This was made possible through the Holy Spirit taking his place on earth.

Remember, Jesus said it was advantageous that he ascended into heaven and sent his spirit, because Jesus, when he took humanity upon himself, he was limited to local space. Jesus came for a very specific purpose.

When he finished that mission and ascended back into heaven, the mission was to be carried out by the disciples and then the church at large. So, even be by the time the New Testament canon was complete, Paul notes that the gospel had gone to the whole world, something that Jesus, in his earthly body, was not here to accomplish.

So, in that sense, it's a greater work. Certainly, yes, go ahead, Ted. Also, the Pharisees and scribes were.

Warning themselves, they said, if we don't stop him, he's gonna turn the whole world upside down.

Yeah, which actually, they had that wrong, too. He was actually turning the world right side up. So, in that sense, and that ministry goes on even today, through the power of the Holy Spirit given to the church, the Apostles went to the remotest places on earth.

And then, the more general counseling work of the Holy Spirit continued, even after the death of the Apostles, and continues right on through our age today. And any time that there are spiritual issues at hand, where people are involved in spiritual warfare, emotional distress, and those type of things, the work of the Holy Spirit is right there.

And remember, the church is God's representative on the earth. We are to advance his kingdom. So, today, the Holy Spirit carries on his work of counseling through preaching, reading, explaining, and application of the word, all right?

Remember, we've made a point of what counseling is, is really crisis discipleship. It's almost a shame that we've adopted the word counseling because it has a ring of secularism or therapy to it, which it's not.

It's really crisis discipleship. It's the other side of the coin. What the preacher does on Sunday morning is minister the word. He explains it. He exposes it and tells you what to do with it, okay? The counseling process is taking the same thing, just on a more personal level.

So, it's one-on-one or one-on-two. So, it's really the same thing. So, according to the scriptures, it's the Holy Spirit who regenerates the heart and gives faith to believers. That's why you must always keep in mind, whenever you're engaged in, whether it's street evangelism, whether it's counseling somebody in their living room, whether it's preaching from a pulpit, it's the Holy Spirit who takes the word and applies it and gives the results.

As believers, again, whether it's through official pulpit preaching or whether it's preaching on the streets, regardless of what it is, it's always a ministry of the word and the Holy Spirit is not calling us to success.

He's calling us to faithfulness. If somebody is saved or somebody, you know, their heart is regenerated, they're given a gift of faith, that's God's providence, not ours. The Holy Spirit enables believers to understand and to live according to God's will revealed in the scriptures.

Paul has a great exposition of that. You ever wonder why you can be, you can wax so eloquent in explaining the gospel and somebody looks at you and goes, nah. You say, but it's so obvious, right? That's because it's a work of the Spirit.

The Spirit needs to change the heart. The Spirit needs to take the words and impress them on a heart that has been plowed furrow. Otherwise, they'll never understand it. So let's take a look at that section of Scripture.

I think it's important that we read it. First Corinthians 2, starting in verse 9, but just as it is written, and this is a quotation from the Old Testament, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man.

All that God has prepared for those who love him. For to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. Look how Paul is explaining this. How is anybody ever saved?

The Holy Spirit takes the things that have been revealed and he searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, the thoughts of God, no one knows except the Spirit of God.

In an unregenerate state, there's no way that we can understand what's in the heart of God, nor do we want to. It's revealed through the Spirit. Notice he searches all things. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.

Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.

That says it just so plainly. How is anybody ever saved? It's a work of the Holy Spirit. If you're counseling with somebody and they're having emotional depression, or any other kind of problem, you minister the Word to them, and it's the job of the Holy Spirit to take that Word and to make it understandable to them, not us.

We do our job, but we leave this job to the Spirit to him. But he who appraises, who is spiritual, appraises all things that he himself has appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures bring about salvation and sanctification. For 2 Timothy 3 .15, that's just prior to those verses that we use all the time to talk about the inspiration of Scripture.

All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction. You all know that. But just before that, Paul says, Timothy, you have the Scriptures from your childhood which have taught you the way of salvation.

And that's what he's talking about. And that's the Holy Spirit. Why was Timothy saved? The Holy Spirit regenerated his heart. Bottom line, you cannot be saved apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, who then indwells every believer.

Questions on Transference and Rage Wounds

Now this, the next thing we're going to be looking at on this is the human counselor. But we're saving that for a subsequent week because it just would take us too long. So meanwhile, any questions? Any questions on today?

Earlier you talked about the transfer of our anger to something or someone else. And now we have things called rage wounds, where people go and smash things and try to cope with their anger in physical ways and that led to what they're suppressing in their hearts.

And that helps a lot.

Well, that's the American way, isn't it? Take somebody's depression and make money on it. Any other thoughts, comments, questions? Okay.