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"Teaching
the things concerning the
By J.
Table of Contents:
Chapter
1
Some
time ago I read the following report: "On the morning of November 1, 1952, an event
took place which was to forever change our world. It happened on Elugelab, a small island
in the Pacific, about one mile wide. On it were a number of buildings and weapons.
Floating in the bay were several ships. Early that morning the first full-scale hydrogen
bomb was exploded there and the
"It
had been speculated since 1934 that such a thing as fusion energy or a fusion explosion
was possible. Fission was first discovered whereby the heavy element of uranium was split
in two. It was known, however, that it was possible to create energy in the way stars
create energy, by taking the light element of hydrogen and fusing the atoms of hydrogen
together into an atom of helium. That is the way suns create their energy. But it was
considered entirely impractical and impossible because in order to produce this fusion it
was necessary to create a heat of twenty million degrees centigrade. Such a thing was
totally beyond the realm of possibility in 1934. After 1945, however, after
I
trust it is clear to all who read these lines what fusion is. It is a joining, a blending,
an intermixture, a merging, an amalgamation, a unification of two or more items. It is
more than an adhering. It is different from merely gluing something together. It is a
commingling of the elements. We have come today to participate in an event of spiritual
fusion, whereby we are told that we, being many separate individuals (atoms as it were),
are fused together into one in Christ Jesus. "For we being many are one bread, and
one body..." (I Cor. 10:17). "And the glory which You gave me I have given them;
that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and You in me, that they may be made
perfect in one..." (Jn. 17:22-23).
So
we are talking about union by fusion. How does this come about? It comes about because of
the white heat of the passion of Jesus Christ causing a spiritual fusion in three parts:
First, the tremendous heat of the love of Christ, then the breaking down of the
individuality and selfhood and the fusion of a whole new element, our spirit joined to His
Spirit, making one spirit, one mind, one will, one nature, one purpose, one Elohim!
Finally there is the release of the tremendous energy of Christ through the body. That is
what Christ has called us to experience. That is what it means to be a part of the body of
Christ – to be fused into Him who is the Head. "Therefore if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new" (II Cor. 5:17). What does that mean – a new creation in Christ – old
things passed away? It means that we are something that never really existed, yet we know
that we existed before in a different form and state.
When
you come to the New Creation you get into all kinds of paradoxes. Our Creator is a God of
super-abundant generosity. Look at the universe and the world around you. His generosity
is evident. He has given us more than enough air to breathe. He has given us water to
waste. He has given us an earth with resources vast and unlimited. We have the moon to
stimulate our romantic impulses and to decorate the night sky. In addition to the sun and
moon, God has provided the dazzling planets for our wonder. Then He unselfishly filled the
shimmering heavens with myriads and multitudes of countless twinkling stars. He could have
given only a few hundred stars, but our super-abundant God MORE than filled the vast
entities of space with them. The Bible states in Jer. 33:22 that "the host of heaven
CANNOT BE NUMBERED." During the thousands of years before Galileo's invention of the
telescope, such a statement was considered to be either false or at least a gross
exaggeration. The stars uncountable? The universe, they said, was too small to contain
that many stars! However, using such giant telescopes as the "200 inch" on Mount
Palomar in
Now
God has produced this immense universe of suns, stars, planets and moons, vast galaxies
composed of hundreds of billions of heavenly bodies. In all of its majesty, splendor and
glory the fact remains that the totality of it is made of some mixture of less than one
hundred elements. The scientist, Dr. Harry Rimmer, recorded the following incident.
"The clearest discussion of this problem of the whence of physical matter was
presented to us one evening by a little lad who perhaps did not realize that fools may ask
questions that the wise cannot answer. In this case, however, he challenged our interest
by the rather abrupt query, 'In all the whole world, how many different kinds of things
are there?' His mother interrupted to say, 'You don't need to answer that question,
doctor; I didn't know what he was going to ask you.' But we said that we would like to try
to answer that question. Turning to the boy we said, 'Freddie, I don't know much, but I
happen to know that. In all the whole world, the heaven, the earth, all the stars and suns
and moons and planets, there are less than one hundred different things.' The boy looked
at us in amazement and said, 'Aw, you must be spoofing me. I know there are more than a
million, because I know a million different things myself.' Matching his seriousness with
a like mien, we replied, 'Now let's examine this and see. You can't know a million
different things, for in all the universe there are only ninety-six different things,
which are called elements.' The lad shook his head with stubbornness and said, 'I know
there are more than that!' Entering into the spirit of the argument, we said, 'All right,
what is one of those things that you know?' Being in sight of the supper table, he said,
'Well, salt is one thing.' That one was easy. We said, 'No, Freddie, salt is not one
thing; salt is two things. Somebody has taken a piece of metal called sodium and a piece
of a gas called chlorine, and mixed the two things together. The result is what chemists
call sodium chloride and we common folks call salt. But salt is not one thing; it is two
things in combination.'
"'How
about water? That's one thing!' 'No, water is two things. Two pieces of a gas called
hydrogen and one piece of a gas called oxygen are mixed together, and they make water.'
'How about air? Isn't that one thing?' 'Wrong again. Air is always three things.
Seventy-nine pieces of a gas called nitrogen mixed with twenty-one pieces of a gas called
oxygen, and a tiny, tiny portion of carbonic acid gas, make up the simplest kind of air.
Air is not one thing. It might be as many as twelve or fourteen things, depending on how
close you live to a glue factory or a garbage dump!' The boy laughed with keen
appreciation and said, 'Oh, I see! It is kind of like arithmetic, or like the alphabet.'
"That
is the perfect figure of creation. The whole world of mathematics resolves itself into two
divisions. First, we have the factors that men call the numerals. These factors are
figures from one to nine, with the cipher added for convenience in multiplication. With
these ten factors, combined with intelligence, we can solve the problems of mathematics,
and arrive at the solution of the most intricate of these problems. Mathematics, then, is
predicated first upon factors, and secondly upon intelligence to manipulate those factors!
The science of figures would be utterly impossible without intelligence of a high order,
capable of making absolutely innumerable combinations of the few factors. The universe,
then, is a combination of factors on purely mathematical formulae. These factors number
ninety-six. But factors alone cannot be resolved into mathematics. Intelligence is the
more important element in the juggling and arranging of these factors. The entire physical
creation is a solved problem in mathematics, for these various elements are combined in
different proportions to make up all the intricacy of the physical creation" –
end quote.
Ninety-six
individual elements – and the almighty Creator takes of those ninety-six elements and
joins them in innumerable ways by an omniscient pre-arranged plan to make everything that
exists in all the unbounded heavens! Oh, the mystery of it! Oh, the wonder of it! Will any
such terms as Spontaneous Generation, Struggle for Existence, or Survival of the Fittest
suffice as an explanation for the majesty of the universe and the beauty, complexity and
nobility of life? The question answers itself. Only an infinite MIND can be behind the
origin and composition of matter. It is a wonderful fact that your body is composed of
just twenty of those elements. One fifth of all the physical substances in the universe
was used to produce the body that you inhabit on this planet. So when God makes anything
on the material plane, He reaches into that storehouse of ninety-six elements and devises
a formula, some measurement and process, to manufacture a new thing. The new thing is
something that has never existed before, and yet it has been before.
There
is a wonder beyond even this. These ninety-six elements we call matter. We now know that
matter is primarily energy. We can agree to call it matter, if by matter we mean that form
which energy takes so that we can see it, or hear it, or feel it. What is the nature of
this substance that occupies space, and makes a visible, audible, tangible universe? Of
what does it consist? Modern physics and chemistry find, first and basic in matter: –
energy – vast, unknown, unseen, a primal thing, out of which all things in the
physical universe come. Energy is not the result of the ninety-six elements – rather
energy is itself the cause. Energy is first. That is self-evident. Second, modern physics
and chemistry find, growing out of energy, embodying energy is motion – that great,
unceasing, unresting motion of waves, of electrons, which fills and which is the physical
universe. Motion, which embodies energy, is second. That is equally clear. Third, there
are phenomena, through which motion touches the senses – light, sound, heat,
hardness, scent, moisture, dryness – all the multitudinous impacts of motion upon our
sight, hearing and touch. Motion issues in phenomena. This is the absolute order in
matter. Energy is the source. It begets motion. It begets it perpetually. It embodies
itself in motion. It works and acts through motion. Phenomena proceed from motion. They
are the ways in which motion touches human beings. They reveal and interpret motion. But
remember – all begins with energy.
It
will be a wonderful day for you, dear one, when first your soul becomes enthralled with
the revelation that God, before ever the world began or ever the ages were formed, looked
forth from His temple of wisdom and omnipotence to chart with resolute care the course and
purpose of all things. Your heart will throb as you read the opening proclamation of
scripture, "In the beginning – GOD!" In the beginning of what? Not in the
beginning of God, certainly, but in the beginning of His creation of all things, in the
beginning of time, in the beginning of the orderly procession of the divinely destined
ages. In the beginning stands God, omnipotent and omniscient, creating, sustaining and
guiding all things and all people and all ages of time according to the purpose of His own
will. No purpose ordained by God from the beginning can possibly go astray or be hindered
by the efforts of devil or man. Oh, for the hour when creation will grasp the beautiful
message, "From Him everything comes, by Him everything exists, and in Him everything
ends!" (Rom. 11:36).
If
God be the Creator of all things, then it must of necessity follow that GOD IS THE SOURCE
OF ALL THINGS. We read the passage quoted above from
Let
me emphasize this wonderful and important truth: "He is before all things." This
can mean nothing else but that God is not one of the "things." He is before all
things. He is before all things. And just as majestic is the truth that "by Him ALL
THINGS CONSIST." Young's Literal Translation renders this literally from the Greek:
"Because in Him were the all things created, and HIMSELF IS BEFORE ALL, and the all
things IN HIM HAVE CONSISTED." This means not merely that God existed before any
thing, but that apart from Him no thing could have existed – He is the great CAUSE!
This
raises an important and interesting question. If God was "before all things,"
then OUT OF WHAT did He CREATE the all things? When I was a boy we had a "Sunday
School" definition of the word create. "To create," I was told, "means
to make something out of nothing." That was a satisfactory answer at the time. To my
young and unlearned mind it sounded altogether logical. After all, I thought, if God is
God, and God can do anything, then surely it is no problem to God to make something out of
nothing! But as I grew older and learned something of the laws of physics, I discovered a
simple but demonstrable fact, namely, that out of nothing – nothing comes! Also, out
of something you get no more than that thing is able to contain. You cannot take a gallon
of milk out of a pint bottle unless you refill the bottle again and again. You cannot put
a hundred dollars in the bank and take out a thousand. The man who seeks to take out of
the bank more than he put in will find himself a recipient of free board and room for many
months to come! This, then, is a fundamental point of natural law. We recognize that out
of nothing, nothing comes. And even God, in all His omnipotence, does not violate His own
creative principle, and MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING!
If
there was only God, and absolutely no thing other than God, what kind of material did God
have at His disposal out of which to construct all things? If you were standing completely
alone, with nothing outside your own being existent, what material would be available for
making something other than yourself? The answer is, of course, NOTHING! YOU WOULD HAVE TO
MAKE THE "THINGS" OUT OF YOURSELF! And friend, this is exactly what God did. Now
we can understand the full import of those words inspired by the blessed Holy Spirit
through the apostle Paul: "Because IN HIM were the all things created, and Himself is
before all, and the all things IN HIM HAVE CONSISTED" (Col. 1:16-17, Young's
Literal).
God
could not at that time make everything out of the ninety-six elements, because the
elements are themselves the "things" created. He couldn't form the stars and
planets of any combination of atoms, for atoms themselves are the "building
blocks" or raw material of which "things" are composed; furthermore, atoms,
with their electrons, protons and neutrons, are "things". Can we not see by this
that God pre-dated and pre-existed the whole universe of atoms, elements, and compounds!
It should be abundantly clear to any thinking mind that since God is before all
"things", it was IN HIM that all "things" were created, and IN HIM all
"things" were set together and arranged in order – the very source and
substance of all "things" is GOD HIMSELF! OUT OF THE ENERGY AND SUBSTANCE OF HIS
OWN BEING GOD BROUGHT
THE FORMATION OF
GOD
There
is an interesting and significant statement in Isaiah 43:10. "You are my witnesses,
says the Lord...that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am He: before me
there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." Now, let us hear this!
"Before me there was no god..." No god – what? "FORMED!" Before
me! He didn't simply say, "Before me there was no god." It is not the existence
of God that is in question in this passage. We know that God has eternally existed, from
everlasting unto everlasting. He is greater than all, before all, and after all. The
subject here is not the eternal existence of God, rather, the FORMATION of God.
"Before me there was no god formed." It is interesting that the word
"formed" is from the Hebrew word YATSAR meaning "to squeeze into a shape,
to mold into a form as a potter, fashion, frame, make." In other words it means to
produce an effect – a phenomenon. So God is saying that before Him there was no god
that was squeezed into a shape, there was no god that was molded into a form. There was no
god whose energy was set into motion to produce a phenomenon! There was no visible One
made visible, no intangible One made tangible, no inaudible One made audible. There was no
god that had produced an effect by which he could be seen, touched, heard, and felt –
known and understood on the level of creation. So, "Before Me there was no god
formed."
How
did God become formed? What do we mean by "formed"? We mean that God projected
Himself into an image – a likeness. All the ancient gods of the heathen had images
– but they were dead images – statues made by men's hands. The pagans liked gods
they could stroke and behold and form into little olivewood or stone incarnations. But our
God was "formed" or given an image and likeness before any god! And independent
of men's hands! So we must go back in history beyond any of the gods of the nations,
beyond the gods of ancient
More
and more we are becoming aware of the wonderful fact that the book of Genesis deals
largely in typical representations, that is, figures of spiritual realities, brought forth
in the language and form of the physical world, the old creation, but pointing to that
which is higher and grander, the NEW CREATION IN CHRIST JESUS. One cannot read Paul's
epistles under the illuminating light of the Spirit without perceiving that he saw far
more in Genesis than the mere letter. The creation with him is the figure of another work,
which God accomplishes in every man who experiences the redeeming, transforming power of
Christ. Says Paul, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ" (II Cor. 4:6). Again, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (II
Cor. 5:17).
It
should be clear to all who have the eyes of their understanding enlightened that the
apostle is showing how, just as God began to work upon this earth, when all was dark and
without form and void, and worked upon it, step by step, bringing order out of chaos,
light, warmth, life – vegetation and animal forms – until finally the image of
God, the man created in righteousness, was seen to rule it all; so it is in the life of
every man, darkened, unconverted, unregenerate, without spiritual form and void, lacking
understanding, psychologically disoriented, living out his life in emptiness and spiritual
destitution, without God and without hope in the world. What form or shape can be
attributed to such purposelessness as a life without the Lord? Darkness hangs like a
shroud over the soul that is dead in trespasses and in sins, a man stumbles blindly
through life knowing not from whence he came, why he is here, or where he is going. But
then! comes the life-giving wind of the Spirit of God, brooding upon the void, breathing
into the chaos, and the Word of God pierces the darkness with this command: "Let
there be light!" and there is light. It is when God says, "Let there be
light," that the Spirit illumines our minds with the light and the glory of Himself,
and it is only when the blessed Holy Spirit moves upon our lifeless souls that we are
suddenly awakened from our long sleep of death in sin – and life, truth and reality
spring forth within. Then, step by step, from one stage of development to another, the
creative processes of God continue in the apprehended one until as a new creation in
Christ Jesus the new man within is brought to maturity and rules every faculty within and
power without.
In
order to understand God's purpose for mankind we must return to His original order.
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: so God created man
in His own image..." In this text the fall is shown not to be man's normal state. Man
today, like Adam, may be far from God, yet in his heart, as in the scriptures, a witness
will be heard, saying that this distance is through self-will. He may live in sin and
sorrow; but deep in his conscience he knows that such a life is in opposition to the will
and purpose of his Creator. Therefore the man in God's image is shown before the fall
– to confirm the voice that speaks to every human heart, and declare that though all
men walk as Adam, sin and death are not a part of God's eternal order, but a mere
temporary arrangement in the working out of God's great plan. Man's proper place is seen
IN CHRIST, the last Adam, prefigured by the first Adam before he fell. Adam, in the image
and glory of God, ruling all the works of God's hands, is the type of man in Christ, as
God ordains him.
By
such stature, nobility and rulership committed to Adam we get some idea of what sort of
beings we are. One might be so impressed with the majesty of the silent, speechless
mountain that lifts its white peak high above the clouds as to worship in silence at its
altar – so suggestive is it of the Infinite. But what is a mountain, or a star for
that matter, or billions of galaxies of stars and suns and planets and moons as compared
with a man? They think not, they speak not, neither do they feel or hope or love or plan
or build or have a duty or a destiny. Man is God's image and likeness! It is interesting
to note that the almighty Creator fashioned and formed everything of nature throughout all
the unbounded heavens and unto the depths of the earth and then, after completing and
ordaining all, He gave us the true estimate of man's greatness and purpose when He said,
"Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness: and let them have
dominion." Man therefore is not only the most important creature on the earth, but
the most important creature anywhere in the universe. Can we not see by this that Adam
stood in the midst of the vast creation as the REVELATION OF GOD to it all. In man in
God's image the invisible God became visible to the natural creation. God's purpose was to
reveal Himself to His creation and bring everything everywhere into intimacy of fellowship
and vital union with Himself.
Adam
was God's special gift to the entire creation, from the highest heaven to the lowest hell.
He came not from the brute ancestry, nor from the muck of some primordial sea, nor from
the mire of the jungle but from the hand and spirit and breath of the Divine Creator. Time
will not allow us to dwell on the glories of man in God's image, but Adam was perfect,
pure and powerful. He was without spot or stain, taint or tarnish, pure in character,
perfect in holiness, powerful in personality. He was the embodiment of all wisdom and
knowledge. He was able to do on the morn of creation what no sage, scientist, or
naturalist could do today. He found himself surrounded from the beginning with vast
kingdoms of living things – fish, birds, animals. These were brought to him and at
the command of God he gave them names. In the typology of scripture a name denotes a
nature. Make no mistake about it, my friend, Adam did something greater far than merely
classifying all the creatures which God had created in the world. When he
"named" these creatures the wonderful truth is that he "natured" them
– that is, he spoke creatively into them the nature that his mind of wisdom and
knowledge conceived. Sovereignty and authority rested like a crown of glory upon the head
of Adam the magnificent. He was made the Lord over all the creation of God to rule and
reign as the visible expression of the invisible Creator. In him God was to be seen and
known and touched by everything everywhere.
We
are never told how long Adam lived in that wonderful Garden where the glory of God was
revealed through him in dominion and blessing to creation, but that glorious reign of
wonder and peace under the direction of a son in the image and likeness of God was but a
dim figure of the day when a whole company of sons in God's image would reign in splendor
over all things in all realms throughout all worlds and all things in heaven and in earth
would be gathered together into union with God in His life and purpose. Our Lord Jesus
Christ is the first and Head of this glorious company, and as typified and shadowed by the
first man Adam He is the connecting link between God and creation – in spirit from
God, in body from creation – the revelation of the invisible Father to the physical
worlds. A God who is unseen and unknown, or who is only the product of inferences from
creation, or providence, or the mysteries of history, or the wonders of my own inner life,
the creature of logic or of reflection, is very powerless to sway or influence men or to
affect creation. The limitations of our physical faculties and the boundlessness of our
hearts both cry out for a God who is nearer to us than that, whom we can see and love and
know. The whole world wants the making visible of Divinity as its deepest want.
Christ
meets this need. How can you make wisdom visible? How can a creature see love or purity?
How do I see your spirit? By the expression and deeds of your body! The only way by which
God can ever come near enough to the material creation to be a constant power of eternal
life and light and love is by creation seeing Him at work in a Man who is His image and
revelation. Christ's whole life is the making visible of the invisible God. Christ is God
speaking in a language all can understand. He is the manifestation to the world of the
unseen Father. Jesus Christ in all His words and in all His works is the perfect
instrument of the heavenly Father, so that His words are God's words, and His works are
God's works; so that, when He speaks, His gentle wisdom, His loving sympathy, His melting
tenderness, His authoritative commands, His prophetic threatenings, are the speech of God,
and that when He acts, whether it be by miracle, by wonder, by transforming grace, by
creative energy, what we see is God working before our eyes as we never see Him in any
other creature or thing anywhere in the whole universe.
I
do not hesitate to tell you that the name of God is Jesus. The Hebrew form of the name,
Yahshua, means YAHWEH IS SALVATION. "God has highly exalted Him and has freely
bestowed on Him THE NAME that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth..." (Phil. 2:9, Amplified).
The name of Jesus, or the nature of Yahweh as Salvation revealed in the man Christ Jesus,
is higher than ANY OTHER NAME IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH – higher than Elohim, higher
than Yahweh, higher than El Shaddai, higher even than the Old Testament El Elyon –
Jesus is the only name before whom all things should and must and shall bow. So we say to
creation, "Come and let us introduce you to God. His name is Jesus." But you
cannot mean that seriously, you say. You don't honestly think that a Galilean peasant
could really reveal to men and angels and demons the Creator of the world? Surely this
sort of talk belongs to a bygone age, an age when man lived in a little world, with small
ideas of space and time? Look up at the stars, and think of them in terms of modern
astronomy, and you will see how absurd this is. The calling of the Creator by a pet name,
is like trying to domesticate
Let
us pause here. The grand fact is that this Jesus of Nazareth, by the sheer force of His
personality, has so impressed Himself upon mankind, and upon human history, and upon
principalities and powers in the heavens, and upon spirits in the darkest underworld, and
continues to impress Himself, that the only adequate description we can give of Him is
that He is Emmanuel – God with us; that in the Man Jesus dwelt and dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead, under bodily conditions. In Him all we can ever know of the
invisible Creator becomes concrete, and therefore becomes powerful to save. If all this
has been effected by one son of God revealing the Father to creation, what, I ask, shall
be the result when a vast company of sons shall be brought to rule and reign in His
glorious image and likeness over all the earth and throughout the vastnesses of infinity
forevermore. Ah! What an Eden of God's glory shall be when judgment is given TO THE SAINTS
of the Most High, when all the OVERCOMERS out of all the ages SIT WITH THE CHRIST OF GOD
IN HIS THRONE even as He overcame and is set down with His Father in His throne, when
SAVIOURS shall come upon Mount Zion to judge the house of Esau (flesh) and THE KINGDOM
SHALL BE THE LORD'S (Obadiah 21). Then shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the
Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then shall all things in heaven and in earth be
reconciled and gathered together into one in Christ. Then shall God be All-in-all.
You
see, there is an image of God. There is a likeness of God. And before our God, there was
no god who ever had a form, who ever had a likeness, and neither shall there be after Him.
God is the God who is FORMED; the God who projects Himself into an image. Now the
scripture says of Jesus, "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God" (Phil. 2:6). Do you want to know what the form of God is, what the
formed God looks like? Look at the Lord Jesus Christ and you see the form of God.
"Philip says unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us. Jesus said unto
him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known Me, Philip? He that has
seen Me has seen the Father; and how can you say then, Show us the Father?" (Jn.
14:8-9). Further, the apostle Paul wrote to the saints in
The
energy of creation is God. Creation is the energy of God in motion producing phenomena.
This means that you as a person, a personality, are ENERGY. Energy has many forms, but it
is not something that you can see or hold in your hand. You can think of energy as
something that can make things change. For example, a moving object has energy because it
can change things by crashing into them. Heat is another form of energy. It is a sort of
motion, too – the disorderly motion of the tiny atoms and molecules that make up all
materials. Heat energy can melt ice, changing it to water, and heat it more, changing it
to vapor. It can run the engine of an automobile, jet plane or rocket. There is another
kind of energy, called chemical energy. It is in the coal or oil that heats buildings. It
is in the food that nourishes your body and keeps you active. There is atomic energy which
can be set free from the atoms of some materials. Then there is the energy carried by
light waves, called electromagnetic energy. It is the electromagnetic energy in sunlight
that warms the earth. Light waves, streaming out of the sun, carry energy to us across
nearly a hundred million miles of space. When the energy of the light hits the earth, part
of it changes to heat.
Another
kind of energy that we, the people of God, are aware of is SPIRIT ENERGY. In physics
energy is known as the capacity for doing work. The Greek word for energy is ENERGEIA or
ENERGO. These words are used in the Greek New Testament a number of times. Because of the
association between "doing work" and "energy," the words are generally
translated into English as "working." Since so much has been learned about
energy in recent years it would now be better to translate these words for just what they
mean – energy or energize. Let us look at a couple of scriptures. "That you may
know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the
working (energizing) of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him
from the dead" (Eph. 1:18-20). Yes, it was ENERGY, GOD'S ENERGY, which raised Christ
from the dead! The record further states that He was raised up by the SPIRIT of God! Not
only did Paul say that it was God's energy that raised Christ up, but he went on to say in
Eph. 3:7 that it was that same energy of God that transformed his own life and made him a
minister of Jesus Christ. "Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of
the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working (energy) of His power." Then
on top of this Paul declares that it is this SPIRIT ENERGY of God that is working within
us to bring us unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. "From whom
the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies,
according to the effectual working (energizing) in the measure of every part" (Eph.
4:16). Finally, this energy of God shall so work in us, shall so change us, that we shall
be changed even in the atomical structure of our bodies, as it is written, "Who shall
change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to
the working (energizing) whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself"
(Phil. 3:21). All spirit is ENERGY, and exerts a force, or influence, upon our lives. God
is the supreme source of energy – the highest and purest form of energy!
The
Holy Spirit is God's ENERGY FORCE. It is God's motion, action and influence in one measure
or another upon, in, and through man. Yahweh accomplished the creation of the universe by
His Spirit or ENERGY FORCE. Regarding the planet earth in its early formative stages, the
record states that "The Spirit (energy force) of God was moving to and fro over the
surface of the waters" (Gen. 1:2). Psalm 33:6 says, "By the word of the Lord
were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath (spirit) of His mouth."
Like a powerful breath or living wind, God's Spirit can be sent forth to exert power even
though there is no bodily or physical contact with that which is acted upon. Where a human
craftsman would use the force of his hands and fingers to produce things, God uses His
Spirit. Hence, that Spirit is also spoken of as God's "hand" or
"fingers." Jesus told the Pharisees, "If I cast out devils by the Spirit of
God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you" (Mat. 12:28). But Luke, in recording
the same event, expresses it thus: "If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no
doubt the Kingdom of God is come upon you" (Lk. 11:20). The Spirit of God is the
finger of God, the working, the activity of God usward. How great is His working!
The
invisible and powerful INWARD ENERGY FORCE that motivates and transforms our lives into
the image of God is the HOLY SPIRIT. Only by the Holy Spirit are we guided beyond the
outer senses, and beyond the letter of the Word, into the glorious and eternal reality of
"the deep things of God," even all those things which God has in reservation for
them that truly love Him, which the human eye has not seen, the human ear has not heard,
neither has entered into the human heart to understand and appreciate. Each of the
characteristics of God is a form of the energy of God, one of the elements of God. This
energy is transmitted from the spirit into the soul and body to produce its power within
us, just as electricity is transmitted from a battery to an engine to make it function in
a certain way. When the "Spirit of Holiness" is transmitted into our lives and
consciousness we begin to function in our personality in that characteristic of God's
holiness, thus becoming holy. When the "Spirit of Wisdom" is transmitted into
our consciousness we cease from our own natural reasoning and commence to act in
accordance with the higher wisdom of God. When the "Spirit of Life" permeates
our being even our bodies shall be quickened by His life within until this corruptible
shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality. Then shall
be fulfilled the word which was spoken, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed" (I Cor. 15:51).
The
Bible declares that God is LOVE. It doesn't say that God has love, but God IS LOVE. That
is His nature. Did you know that love is energy? You won't have to think about that very
long to realize that it is true. Love is a powerful force that can influence and CHANGE
THINGS. Love is invisible, like the wind, but it is powerful! And love can be transmitted,
invisibly, from person to person, even as light rays are transmitted from the sun to the
earth. We read in Rom. 14:17, "For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but
righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." Do you believe peace is real? What
does peace look like? Is it round? Is it square? Can you measure it? Can you buy a bottle
full of peace, or a truckload? No! Peace is invisible, isn't it? And peace is powerful,
isn't it? Peace is SPIRIT! And spirit is ENERGY! You can know when peace is present. You
can sense peace, experience peace, speak peace, manifest peace and minister peace. How
about joy? You cannot put joy in your pocket or roll it up like a wad of bills. Joy is
SPIRIT! Joy is ENERGY! Righteousness is SPIRIT! Righteousness is ENERGY! Righteousness is
attainable on this earth now because of the right spirit, the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit. I
have good news for you – you can receive a new spirit, a new ENERGY FORCE, Holy
Spirit, Holy Energy, and as a result attain a walk in righteousness. HOLY ENERGY –
this is what God IS! God is revealing the energy flow of His life today through New
Creation Men.
THE NEW CREATION
– ONE SPIRIT
Great
is the mystery and the wonder of it, but the apostle Paul explains in I Cor. 6:17 that
"He that is joined unto the Lord IS ONE SPIRIT." One Spirit! He that is joined
(fused) is one. We can easily understand this in the natural creation. Have you drunk a
glass of water today? How many things is water? To us water is one thing, one item, one
substance. But no – water is actually two things! Two parts of a gas called hydrogen
and one part of a gas called oxygen are fused, and they make water. But water is not gas!
When the two gases are mixed they produce an effect. You have something new, something
different, something of another quality – liquid. God has used that simple principle
of compounding to make everything that appears in the material creation. So now we can
understand how it is that he that is joined or fused to the Lord IS ONE SPIRIT. I didn't
get up this morning and tell myself that I needed a glass of H2O. It was unnecessary to
bother with the chemical formula. I just knew that I needed a glass of water. If I never
knew anything about hydrogen or oxygen it would make no difference. Water is water. God
knows how He made it. Scientists discovered God's formula, but God invented it. You don't
go into someone's house and ask for a glass of cold H2O. You just ask for water – the
one item. In like manner it is no longer necessary to see God and yourself as two persons
or two different items – for HE THAT IS JOINED UNTO THE LORD IS O-N-E S-P-I-R-I-T.
As
I pointed out in a recent article – when the Spirit of God came in and quickened your
human spirit, His Spirit and your spirit became ONE. One spirit – just as when a man
is joined to a harlot they become one flesh – one humanity, male and female, Adam.
Bible translators have found it difficult to decide whether "spirit" in some
passages refers to the Holy Spirit or the spirit of man. The reason for this difficulty
lies in the fact that in the believer the Holy Spirit and the human spirit are joined as
ONE SPIRIT! So, when Paul says that if we walk after the spirit we shall live – does
he mean the Holy Spirit or our spirit? The solution lies in the knowledge that we are one
spirit with the Lord. When you look at the water or drink the water you cannot tell what
is hydrogen or what is oxygen. In their combination they have formed a new substance
– water. In the water the two are one. In like manner, such a united spirit makes it
difficult for anyone to say whether this is the Holy Spirit or the human spirit. The two
are compounded and fused as one. We may say it is the Holy Spirit, and yet we can also say
it is the human spirit. Sometimes we make a beverage by mixing two kinds of juices –
apple and cranberry. After it is mixed it is difficult by taste to tell what kind of juice
it is. Is it apple or cranberry? We would have to call it apple-cranberry. In the realm of
the spirit it is wonderful to see that the two spirits, the Holy Spirit joined with our
spirit, ARE ONE SPIRIT.
Ah
– Christ is in us today – but where is He within us? In what part? It is
abundantly clear – Christ is in our spirit. There is no need to be vague and say,
"Oh, the Lord is in you and the Lord is in me." The last verse of II Timothy 4
definitely states that Christ is in our spirit. "The Lord be with your spirit."
The preposition "with" is from the Greek SUN which denotes "union."
The Lord is in union with our spirit! There is a mighty working taking place within God's
people – no more to have that duality – our spirit, His Spirit, but to be so
fully merged into one with Him that HIS Spirit is mine, and my spirit, quickened by His
Spirit, is swallowed up into His. "There is ONE SPIRIT," says the Lord (Eph.
4:4). That one spirit is neither the Holy Spirit nor our spirit – it is His Spirit
joined with our spirit, the ONE SPIRIT of God in His sons and daughters. Whenever you move
by the spirit, that is God moving. Whenever you speak out of the spirit, that is God
speaking. Whenever you act by the spirit, that is God acting. It is not merely God moving,
speaking, and acting through you – it is God moving, speaking and acting as you. It
is you moving, speaking and acting as God! And it is the Spirit of God in you that is now
speaking to your mind and heart, saying, "You are my son." The import of that
word is now germinating in your consciousness. You are letting that precious mind be in
you which was in Christ Jesus, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
Since
there is ONE spirit I should not concern myself about upper case or lower case S's. It's
completely irrelevant. It doesn't have anything to do with anything. He that is joined to
the Lord IS. And what is he? He is the One Spirit. That's all there is. It's not my
spirit. It's not His spirit. My spirit is not the One Spirit and, believe it or not,
precious friend of mine, God's Spirit is not the One Spirit. The One Spirit is the one
that is fused to the Lord. The One Spirit is my spirit and God's spirit in union. There is
one spirit, just as there is one body. God is combining. God is joining. God is fusing.
God is creating! God is mingling the elements in His heavenly laboratory, making a New
Creation in Christ Jesus the Lord – something that never was before!
Chapter
2
I
want to make abundantly clear to all who read these lines exactly what fusion is. It is a
joining, a blending, an intermixture, a merging, an amalgamation, a unification of two or
more items. It is more than an adhering. It is different from merely gluing some things
together. It is a commingling of the elements. As members of the body of Christ we have
come today to participate in an event of spiritual fusion, whereby we, being many separate
individuals (atoms as it were), are fused into one in Christ Jesus. "For we being
many are one bread, and one body..." (I Cor. 10:17). "And the glory which You
gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and You in
me, that they may be made perfect in one" (Jn. 17:22-23).
So
we are talking about union by fusion. How does this come about? It comes about because of
the white heat of the passion of Jesus Christ causing a spiritual fusion in three parts:
First, the tremendous heat of the love of Christ, then the breaking down of the
individuality and selfhood and the fusion of a whole new element, our spirit joined to His
Spirit making one spirit, one mind, one will, one nature, one purpose – one Elohim!
Finally, there is the tremendous release of the energy of Christ through the body. That is
what Christ has called us to experience. That is what it means to be a part of the body of
the Christ – to be fused into Him who is the Head. "Therefore if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new" (II Cor. 5:17). What does that mean – a new creation in Christ – old
things passed away? It means that we are something that never really existed, yet we know
that we existed before in a different form and state.
The
So
Jesus came to reveal the cross. And it is there at the cross that Paul says of this outer,
carnal, failing and perishing man, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST." You must see
that by the spirit. If the apostle was speaking in the natural he would have put it in the
past tense – "I was crucified with Christ" – because it is a great
historical fact that Christ Jesus was ignominiously crucified on a hill outside
In
spite of the awful fact of
It
is my deep conviction, and I say it with all reverence and respect to my blessed Lord and
Saviour, but the truth is that Jesus in the natural suffered no more on the cross than
thousands of others who were nailed to a tree, or thousands of others who died on the rack
during the Roman inquisition, or thousands of others who were burned at the stake, fed to
the lions, or made blazing human torches at the Circus in Rome. The physical suffering was
no greater. The cross of Christ refers to a greater spiritual cross and a greater
spiritual death. The cross of Christ had its beginning that day in heaven, when the Word
of God, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but
made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in
the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Fierce as was His suffering at
Calvary, that fearful hour of agony and blood was but the final act of a life of the cross
as step by step He descended from the majesty and glory of equality with God to the
fearsome moment when in anguish He cried, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken
me?" Truly, as the scripture testifies, He was the Lamb "slain from the
foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). The cross did not begin at
Though
I am sure it is impossible to plumb the shining depths and the inexhaustible riches of the
meaning of the cross, I would like to endeavor to set before you the deeper meaning of the
cross of Christ. We will never understand the mystery of the cross until by the spirit of
wisdom and revelation from God our eyes perceive the eternal cross in the heart of God
Himself. The only true and eternal life in the universe is the life of God. He alone is
self-existent. He alone is reality. He alone is eternal substance. If we are to fully know
and partake of that life, we must die to all that is contrary to that life. Everything
that exists in the universe has its opposite – and as surely as God exists there is
the opposite for all that He is. God is love – and the opposite of love is hate. God
is light – and the opposite of light is darkness. God is truth – and the
opposite of the truth is the lie. God is life – and the opposite of life is death.
Each positive has its negative, and all the laws of the universe reveal this principle of
opposites. Jesus enunciated the fundamental principle of life when He said that except a
grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die it brings
forth the increase of life. Every negative must be brought to death. Everything in the
universe must die to all that is contrary to divine life and nature, being born again of
the spirit. This is the meaning of, "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5).
This has been the Father's plan for man – man in the image and glory of the
incorruptible God.
The
principle was set in motion with the first man, Adam. Adam had to fall into darkness, sin
and death, not because he was inherently evil or rebellious, but because all that is
contradictory to God must be stirred up, experienced, faced, understood, repented of,
overcome and eternally put to rest in man's will before the image of God can shine safely
and eternally through him. In recent times my whole understanding of why the cross is the
gateway to LIFE has been clarified and crystallized within my spirit. I have come to see
that God Himself dies to everything but His self-giving Self, which is love. God Himself
dies to every dark principle that would sow selfishness, pride, strife, bitterness,
trouble, bigotry, hatred, viciousness, pain, sorrow, chaos, disappointment, weakness,
limitation or evil of any kind. The cross is the very heart of God, and the basis of why
He is the ETERNAL GOD. He is eternally God just because He IS ETERNALLY all that makes Him
God.
But
how is it that God is unchangeable in His nature – is it because He cannot change or
because He chooses not to change? Truly God "cannot lie" and God cannot be
anything other than Life, Light and Love. But why cannot He be? The answer that the
blessed spirit of Truth has revealed in my heart is because HE HAS ETERNALLY DIED TO THE
POSSIBILITY THAT DARKNESS CAN ARISE IN HIS LIFE! The entire principle of darkness has its
foundation in the life of God, for was it not God Himself who "divided the light from
the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night" (Gen.
1:5). "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil. I the
Lord do all these things" (Isa. 45:7). This mystery of darkness in God's nature
remains unrevealed because He has eternally willed to be Life, Light and Love. All the
negative potential is there – the law of opposites – but there is a cross in
God's heart – by which He eternally dies to all that would make Him anything less
than GOD. This is ALWAYS happening in God's life, because the cross is an eternal fact.
"Eternity" doesn't mean unbeginning time in the long ago or unending time in the
inscrutable future. Eternity means NO TIME. Eternity is TIME-LESS. This means that the
decision to die to the negative principle is not subject to review or change – it is
forever settled and determined in the heart of God. That's why He says over and over,
"I am the Lord; I change not." It is not that He is intrinsically set so that He
cannot change. Rather it is that He has ETERNALLY CHOSEN not to change. It is an eternal,
accomplished, irrevocable choice, born of wisdom and understanding. It is the eternal
cross in His heart. Therefore He cannot change. He is forever love. He is forever pure. He
is forever righteous. He is forever wisdom. He is forever light. He is forever life. And
all that He is, is forever SAFE!
The
cross is the secret of God's gift of love. It means that God does not live for HIMSELF.
All the selfhood of God is forever crucified upon the cross in God's heart. Selfhood must
be a vital characteristic in any life. The selfish desire that would cause God to live for
Himself, and therefore be uncaring, vindictive, spiteful or cruel to His creatures –
to this God eternally dies. He has willed to be a Self for others, instead of a Self for
self, by eternally dying to the dark, selfish principle. Andrew Murray said that the
spirit of love is AN ETERNAL WILL TO ALL GOODNESS. The best and the most wonderful word in
the universe is Love. For God is love. What is love? The deep desire to give itself for
the beloved. Love finds its joy in imparting all that it has, all that it is, to make the
loved one happy and fulfilled. This is THE ONE ETERNAL, IMMUTABLE GOD that, from eternity
to eternity, changes not, that can be neither more nor less, but an ETERNAL WILL TO ALL
THE GOODNESS that is in Himself and comes from Him. The creation of ever so many worlds
adds nothing to, nor takes anything from, this immutable God: He always was, and always
will be the same immutable WILL TO ALL GOODNESS. So that as certainly as He is the
Creator, so certainly He is the Blesser of every created thing, and can give nothing but
Blessing, Goodness and Happiness from Himself, because He has in Himself nothing else to
give.
The
spirit of love does not want to be rewarded or honored; its only desire is to become the
blessing and happiness of everything that needs it. The wrath of an enemy, the treachery
of a friend, only gives the spirit of love opportunity to be more triumphant. The
rebellion (selfhood) of Adam but opened up avenues for mankind to experience and know the
incredible depths of the love of God! God IS LOVE! And His sons are of His own nature. The
Sons of Love! What a blessed title! Little wonder, then, that the whole vast creation,
sold under slavery and bondage to sin, sorrow, and death groans for the manifestation of
THE SONS OF LOVE!
From
this flash-point, Life sheds forth Light and Love. The whole creation sprang out from this
unselfish love, for God said, "Let there be..." and "God SO LOVED THE WORLD
that He gave..." Life begins after the cross, even in the life of God. The cross is
more than
All
the books in the world, though written with pens of silver and ink of gold, could never
fully describe the glories of His cross, nor could all the learned tongues of men or the
heavenly voices of angels explain to the mind of man how He, who was rich, for our sakes
became poor that we through His poverty might be made rich. Eternity itself will not be
too long to sing the praises of such a One, who came from the cross in the bosom of God to
shed His life blood that all creation might find eternal life in Him.
Notice
now these wonderfully meaningful words penned by John the Revelator. "And all that
dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the beast), whose names are not written in the
book of life of the Lamb SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD" (Rev. 13:8). Let us
notice just what truth is stated here. A better rendering would be, "The Lamb that
was put to death from the founding of the cosmos."
It
was when the Christ hung upon the cross before the foundation of the world, and upon the
cross of
When
God brings the cross into our lives, he doesn't bring it to us out of two millenniums ago
– He brings it as a living reality out of the dimension of spirit right now! When by
the quickening of the Spirit you saw Christ dying, you did not see Him dying twenty
centuries ago, but in spirit you beheld Him. God brought Him out of that long ago into
your NOW. God brought Him into your present. And you saw Him bleeding and dying, not two
thousand years ago, but right now in this moment you beheld Him by spirit. And in spirit
Paul exults with unspeakable joy, "I AM crucified with Christ!" Not then –
NOW! Not was – I AM! It is neither history nor a future event. It's an accomplished
fact in the eternal NOW. The eternal cross in the heart of God, the eternal cross of the
Christ, now becomes your cross and you are crucified with Him, a participator in that same
eternal death to all that is unlike God, to all that falls short of what God has chosen to
be. I am crucified, nevertheless I do live, it's not the "I" that lives but the
Christ who lives in me! The outer sense realm, the carnal, the vain, the fleshly, the
passing, is placed upon that cross and crucified in order that the inner life of the
spirit might find release. We only become holy as He is holy and pure as He is pure when
the cross becomes an eternal reality in our lives. When the cross is no longer a
historical event, or a doctrine, or a truth to be believed, but the cross is forever
established in our heart, the cross in our heart will produce His nature within, the
nature that willingly surrenders and cancels all that is not of life, light and love.
It
is a great and glorious fact that your spirit is not crucified. If your spirit is
crucified you could not say, "I AM crucified, and I LIVE." When we speak of
death and resurrection we speak of two corresponding, parallel principles in the present.
I AM crucified and I AM alive. Those are dual present and continuous realities. I am and I
am. I AM crucified and I AM living. But what is crucified? Not my inward man – but my
outward man. Paul put it this way: "Though our outward man is perishing, yet the
inward man is being renewed day by day" (II Cor. 6:16). The outer man, the sensual
man, the soulical man, the carnal mind, the flesh – IS crucified. There is a work of
the cross for all the negative realm, but just as the outward is perishing, the inward man
is being joined and fused to the Lord – one spirit. The spirit is not conformed into
the image of God by crucifixion but by union. Its form is changed by adding an ingredient.
His Spirit is joined to our spirit. Our spirit is quickened by His Spirit. The outer man
is put to the cross and is dying. But the inner man is receiving life and being renewed.
It was on the cross that Jesus poured out His blood (life, spirit) for the life of the
world. That is the divine paradox! It is both death and life. I am crucified and I live. I
am perishing and I am quickened. Something is taken away and something is added. It is
divine chemistry! It is union by fusion! And an entirely NEW CREATION is the result!
Nowhere
is this beautiful truth of union by fusion more powerfully set forth than in John
17:20-23. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on
me through their word; that they all may be one; as You, Father, are in me, and I in You,
that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that You have sent me. And the
glory which You gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in
them, and You in me, that they may be made perfect in one..." That they all may be
ONE! How does God effect this? May the blessed spirit of truth help all who read these
lines to see the commingling here. God is so in us, and we so in Him, that you can't tell
where He ends and we begin. This is the principle I want you to see – union by fusion
– not gluing people together, not making them one by some kind of close association,
not taking a dog and a cat and tying them up together with a rope – that's not union,
and it definitely is not fusion!
Furthermore,
this mystery of union with God is entirely beyond our being containers of God. We have had
the notion that we are containers of God, in the way a bucket is a container for water,
and that God is a great container for us. But when we see God in us as that which fills a
container there is still a separation from God. When you fill a bucket with water there is
no mixture, no commingling, no union, no oneness between the bucket and the water. The two
touch one another, there is a relationship and association, but no blending of substance.
The water is still water and the bucket remains the same. Each is separate and distinct
from the other. When we see ourselves as a container for God and God as a container for us
we remain one element while God remains another element. There is no fusion. And,
therefore, THERE IS NO NEW CREATION. In fusion everything is so blended and compounded
until each element loses its own identity and an entirely new thing comes forth. Something
that neither element inherently possessed is brought into manifestation. How great is the
majesty and the wonder of it! "Therefore," says the apostle, "if any man be
IN CHRIST, he is a NEW CREATION: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new" (II Cor. 5:17). Oh, may God help my reader to see this and cease separating
between himself and the Christ! God is making a New Creation. It is the Word again made
flesh, it is God birthed again as man. It is the glory of the incarnation. It is the
compounding of the divine elements of God Himself with the elements of the human
personality that God may be formed into an expression as man. There is ONE SPIRIT.
"He that is joined unto the Lord IS ONE SPIRIT." The one spirit is not just IN
you – it IS you. The one spirit is not merely God in you – it is God and you
joined in union.
Stacy
Wood has given an eloquent example of this truth. He says, "The scripture states in I
Cor. 6:15-17, 'Know not that your bodies
are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the
members of an harlot? God forbid. What? Don't you know that he which is joined to an
harlot is one body? For the two, He said, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto
the Lord is one spirit.' I realize the subject in this passage is fornication, verse
eighteen tells us that clearly. But I also believe that Paul was reaching deeper into a
principle, and where in this principle Paul was touching a physical act, he also takes it
right on into a spiritual revelation. Verse seventeen makes that clear. So we need to
understand that we are not on the physical level involved in fornication and adulteries
– those things are of the flesh and are cut off in the first Adam. Let's get into the
New Humanity now and see what the apostle is telling us.
"I
was in
"Paul
says it very plainly in the passage we have quoted. He says that one man joined to one
harlot equals one flesh. Therefore Paul says that one plus one equals one. So when two
things are joined and fused together they are no longer two things, but become one thing.
Another example of this is found in Ephesians 5:30-32. 'For we are members of His body, of
His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and
shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery:
but I speak concerning Christ and the church.' This is a great mystery, but what Paul is
declaring is the divine formula – 1+1=1. He shows that we are made one in the body of
Christ. We must lose that vision of our uniqueness, particularness and individuality and
grasp hold of the concept that we are one, not many.
"It
is the principle of marriage. A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife,
and joined to his wife, one man and one woman become one flesh. Most of us that are
married look at that verse and try to imagine that in some mystical way we are one
somehow, but we don't understand the conflicts and disagreements! We do our best to get
beyond the differences and misunderstandings to truly become one so that we always think
alike, desire alike and act alike. But that is not what Paul is saying. The reality is
that God took one individual, me, and one individual, my wife, and has made an expression
of one. I can tell you exactly when it happened – it happened when my daughter was
born, and again when my son was born. For Jana and Stacy are Sheri and Stacy as one. When
God joined Sheri and I, He put us together in such a way that we can never be separated.
He took all of the structure of my life and all of the structure of my wife's life, and He
joined them together between a sperm and an ovum and brought forth one new creation that
is neither Sheri or Stacy – and yet it is both of us. It is a perfect joining and
blending of the complete whole of both of us into one new whole.
"When
we traveled with our children years ago, we made note of people's reactions when they
would see our children. Often people would look at our son and say, 'He's the spitting
image of your wife; and your daughter, man, she is so much like you – you can surely
tell who belongs to whom.' Then we would go to the next group and someone would say, 'Your
son looks so much like you, he doesn't look like your wife at all; and your daughter looks
so much like your wife, she doesn't look anything like you.' After several years I was
quite puzzled and meditated on this phenomenon for a while. Why is it, I wondered, that
some people think Jana looks like Sheri, whereas others think she looks like me? And some
think Stacy looks like Sheri, while others think he looks like me. Then it dawned on me
– they are bound to look like Mama and they are bound to look like Daddy because all
that we are, all our genetics are brought together and combined into one new form; both of
us are so joined together that you really can't distinguish or divide between what is
Stacy and what is Sheri. You can't tell where Stacy ends and Sheri begins in them, or
where Sheri ends and Stacy begins. They are one new creation, one flesh of us two"
– end quote. Can you hear the mystery that is great in that? When Jesus Christ, who
is masculine, is joined to the church, who is feminine, His Spirit joined with our spirit
equals one spirit. When the two are joined together you get a brand new spiritual
dimension that has not yet been, and that spiritual dimension is called "the
Christ." There is a joining of one plus one that equals – ONE!
The
Tabernacle in the wilderness, with its High Priest entering within the veil into the Most
Holy Place, and coming out again from that glorious precinct invested with the authority,
power and glory of God to bless the whole nation of Israel – is surely a parable of
our union with God. We now have boldness by the blood of Jesus to enter into the Holiest
– but that is only one half of the divine equation. The other half is God entering
into us. That's what union is – each entering into and becoming part of the other by
fusion. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the (Most)
To
the faithful in Christ Jesus I now proclaim this message: As much as we desire to enter
in, the God who dwells in the Holiest of all desires to get OUT! At the same time we are
entering in, God is coming out. Not only does God intend to bring you, my beloved, into
the fullness of Himself, but He intends to bring all that He is out into every dimension.
So we are on the way in and God is on the way out. The inspired writer to the Hebrew
saints says of our Lord Jesus Christ: "We have such an high priest, who is set on the
right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a MINISTER OF THE SANCTUARY, and
of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man" (Heb. 8:1-2). What does
he mean when he says that Christ is the "Minister of the Sanctuary"? In every
temple there was a god, an unseen god, to whom the temple was devoted; there was a priest,
the priest of that temple, who was to receive the petitions or the sacrifices of the
worshipper and to get the answer back from God. So it was with Aaron in the Old Testament.
It is said of him and of the priests of
There
is both a Godward and a manward work in reconciliation and redemption. So our great High
Priest, Jesus, stands as the Minister of the Sanctuary, as the Priest of the Tabernacle,
the realm of His dwelling, and He ministers in a dual way. Christ as the Minister of the
Sanctuary, has done these things: First of all, He opened the Sanctuary, the way into the
fullness of the presence and life and power and glory of God. This He did by His blood,
pouring out His life, making it available so that in its power we have access to God. When
He ascended into the heavenlies He entered, with His own blood, by the energies of His own
divine life, into the Holiest place. We read that with that blood, with that sacrifice
– the better sacrifice of a divine life – the heavenly things were cleansed, and
that in opening up the Holiest with His blood, He secured for us complete access into
God's presence and glory. In Himself He brings us nigh unto God. He does more. There flows
back from the Father to the Son, in whom He delights, a stream of life and blessing to
impart to His people upon earth. Even so, as the sunlight streams from the sun, there
flows forth unceasingly from the Son of God a river of life and light and love and power
and glory unto all who believe. It is flowing even now. Just as surely as Jesus ascended
into the heavens, just so surely "there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing
mighty wind, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Ah, yes, Jesus opened up
heaven to us, and has raised us up and made us sit together in the heavenly realms in
Christ Jesus. But God has also come down from heaven and has entered powerfully into us.
Oh! we must realize this. We are entering in, and God is coming out. Christ Jesus brings
us nigh to God, yea, into God in Himself; and in Himself He brings God into us. "To
wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (II Cor. 5:19).
In
the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement, and on that day alone, the High Priest entered
in beyond the veil, from the
The
mystery of it is that ALL ISRAEL – every man, woman and child – were on that day
identified in the person of the High Priest. He was a representative man, a corporate man
as it were. The whole congregation of
The
High Priest was thus the mediator between God and the people. He carried the people into
the presence of God in him. He obtained from God the power to declare the remission of sin
and the right of blessing the people. God drew nigh unto the people in the person of the
Priest. God ministered of Himself through the blessing of the Priest. "And Moses and
Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people:
and THE GLORY OF THE LORD APPEARED UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE" (Lev. 9:23). The service of
the priesthood is clear – to bring man unto God, and to bring God into man –
effecting union. That is reconciliation – making two one again. This is the reality
of the New Creation. This is the power of full salvation. This is the actualization of our
inheritance in God and of His inheritance in the saints!
Let
me illustrate. God is in our spirit. On the individual level our spirit is the
A
tremendous revelation was given to John the beloved on
As
soon as this point was made abundantly plain John heard a voice saying, "Come up here
and I will show you things that must be hereafter." After what? Why, bless your
heart, after the candlestick realm! The promises had already been given, not to the
churches themselves, but to "him that overcomes" – a company out of the
church. "Come up hither," the voice commanded. John is now shown another realm
HIGHER THAN THE CANDLESTICK REALM! It is the realm of the overcomer, of the throne, of the
four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. John is invited to leave the candlestick
realm to ASCEND IN THE SPIRIT TO THIS HIGHER REALM where the Lamb is in the throne. This
is what the brethren don't want to do! They don't want a change of order. How they cling
to the candlestick realm with its five-fold ministry, with its old order system, methods
and structure, with its rituals, ceremonies, and ordinances, with its limitation,
imperfection, carnality, weakness, mixture, and duality. This revelation was given to John
in the year A.D. 96. The churches of his generation refused to leave the candlestick realm
and rise to a higher place in God, and within only a few years the great apostasy set in,
and by the third and fourth centuries the apostasy was complete, followed by an awful
night of great and terrible darkness. Even secular history refers to that time as
"The Dark Ages." It was the great "falling way" that Paul prophesied
in which the man of sin was revealed in the church, the
Today,
my beloved, if we would be overcomers, pressing into sonship, caught up to the throne, we
must hear and heed the call "Come up hither" and forsake the carnality and
limitation of the candlestick realm to become related to CHRIST IN THAT PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIP WHERE HIS LORDSHIP SWALLOWS UP OUR LIVES, WHERE HE IS ALL IN ALL, WHERE HIS
SPIRIT, MIND AND LIFE REPLACE THE OUTWARD STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH SYSTEM. But do not
forget, the Lord is still out there in the candlestick realm, for John saw in the midst of
the candlesticks "One like unto the Son of man." Oh yes, He is there,
ministering on that level, blessing by His grace, saving and healing and helping. What
love! What condescension! That Christ Jesus the Lord would "stand in the midst"
of all the foolishness of creeds and doctrines, of rituals and ceremonies, of programs and
promotions, to minister something of life on whatever level it can be received in spite of
all. Oh, the mystery of it! Oh, the wonder of it!
If
Christ is not standing on the outside of the church – where is He knocking? Is He
knocking to get in, or is He knocking to get out? Christ is on the inside, in the spirit
of man. There is a pure realm within man, an inner sanctum, an eternal dimension –
the Holiest of all. Christ is in our spirit, knocking on the door of our soul. He is in
our spirit, knocking on the door of our body. He is saying, "If any man will hear my
voice, and open the door, I will not only be joined to your spirit and be one with you in
spirit, but I will come out into your soul and be fused with your soul; I will come out
into your body and be fused with your body, and you will know in your whole being the
fullness of my perfection, wisdom, power and incorruptibility!" It is in this
experience that the soul is truly saved and this mortal puts on immortality and this
corruptible puts on incorruption, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. So you
see, dear one, while we are entering into Him from without, He is entering into us from
within! WE begin in the
You
can never in a million years transform your soul by imposing laws or demanding
reformation. And there is nothing you can do for this body that will bestow immortality.
The Holy Spirit could not have used a more descriptive term than "dust" in
describing man. "Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19). A
chemical analysis of the human body reveals that twenty of the ninety-six elements that
comprise the universe are present in man – substances such as carbon, nitrogen,
calcium, phosphorous, sulfur, chlorine, fluorine, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, etc.
All the elements are those found on the surface of the earth. Health foods, vitamins,
minerals, natural cures, exercise, herbs – at best these can only slow down the
process of corruption and disintegration, postponing for a little season the inevitable
catastrophe. You can eat bean sprouts and yogurt and drink teas and swallow vitamins, all
of which are themselves but corruptible substances of earth, and have not one whit of
power to administer eternal life to a corruptible organism. It is merely adding corruption
to corruption! Immortality does not come through any natural, earthly, material, physical
or temporal element that can be added to the body. So Jesus says – If you want a
transformed soul and an incorruptible body – Behold, I stand at the door and knock!
I'm knocking from the inside, and I'm coming out! When He marches triumphantly through the
corridors of your soul and steps into the territory of your body, when His Lordship is
established there, when the divine fusion takes place in those spheres, there will be a
full and complete salvation of the WHOLE MAN! Hallelujah!
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