Friday, March 09, 2007

God Died ???

John 12:24 "I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest."

One of the most exciting verses in the Bible reveals the purpose of our Holy Spirit and for creation.

God or spirit died to itSelf to become creation (all) so that creation (all) could become ourSelf.

Died? How could God possibly die you ask?

It was a death in the way of being a total transition from one condition into an entirely different one. It was a 'dying' or laying down of life in one reality to take it up as something else in another.

2 Cor. 8:9".. [in] that though He was [so very] rich, yet for your sakes He became [so very] poor, in order that by His poverty you might become enriched - abundantly supplied."

Don't all seeds have to become 'poor' or die to their 'seedness' in order to release their potential into another form - a green living plant?

Phil: 2:5-11"Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus - Let Him be your example in humility -

Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was thing to be eagerly grasped or retained.

But stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being.

And after He appeared in human form He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of [the] cross!

Therefore [because He stooped so low], 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 (must) bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

And every tongue [frankly and openly] confess and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Jesus, our Pioneer, provides a mirror, for those with eyes to see, just what their journey consists of.

OUR PIONEER:

Heb. 2:10 "For it was an act worthy [of God] and fitting [to the divine nature] that He, for Whose sake and by Whom all things have their existence, in bringing MANY SONS TO GLORY, should make the PIONEER OF THEIR SALVATION perfect [that is, should bring to maturity the human experience necessary for a perfect equipment for His office as High Priest], through suffering.

For both He Who sanctifies - making men holy - and those who are sanctified all have one [Father]. For this reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.

For He says, I will declare Your [the Father's] name to My brethren...Psa. 22:22

And again He says...Here I am, I and the children whom God has given Me. " Isa. 8:17

Without creation there is no experience and no choices.... "[that is, should bring to maturity the human experience necessary for a perfect equipment for His office as High Priest], "

So God died to Its orginal formlessness to become form and the many.

God who had become nothing, became all things, that these all things could 'consciously' now become No-thing.

Or...The One became the many (unconscious)...stripped and 'poor'..

So...that the Many through the further death of the cross could now(consciously) become the One......... following the pattern of our Pioneer.

*********************

I'm happy if the spirit witnessed in your heart with any of this we shared. But all any of us are doing is just helping each other remember what we already know.

And I, too, agree that what Love did for us is so vast and so profound.

I remember when I started getting a little clearer understanding of some of this, the following scripture came to light in a new way for me:

"He that loseth his life shall find it."

I said, "Oh my, God had to lose his life too, to find it as me." Or He had to be willing to release or 'lose' those parts of himself to find himself as us...and now we are losing our 'lower life' to find our 'higher life' as him.

Because He knew that by giving us His Life, we would be giving that Life a living. And God's experience of Himself would be expanded and magnified through us as co-creators.....because He has poured all of Himself into his Son or his ex-pression, because we see this when Jesus said, "All power has been given to me both in heaven and in earth."

As the Son, we are the Father expressed....Jesus was the express image of the invisible God or he gave the attributes of God visibility.....and because he is our pattern, we can know that is our calling.

Now they, the Son and the Father, are always only ONE in spirit - the same way that we can be one in spirit, but we all are different in expression. The scripture speaks of the 'manifold' wisdom of God or the many-sided wisdom of God.....so we are the 'many' sided expressions of that wisdom in all of its infinite variety.

Quote:
And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took [him] down from the tree, and laid [him] in a sepulchre. Act 13:30 But God raised him from the dead: His own BODY was the GRAVE He was "raised from".........The BODY OF DEATH is the FLESH................


Yes, Jesus did not walk in a glorified body before the resurrection for he himself said so in his John 17 prayer:

"And now, Father, glorify Me along with Yourself and restore Me to such majesty and honor in Your presence as I had with You before the world existed."

Before the resurrection his declarations were always about the glory or the Father being IN HIM.

We are all familiar with the passage in 1 John that tell us that “Every spirit which does not acknowledge and confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God..”

And “We have this treasure in an earthen vessel.”

I think that most of us would agree that he has come in our flesh. He is the light that lights every man coming into the world.

So, Jesus Christ has come in our flesh. But Paul tells us in Romans 8:10

But if Christ lives in you, [then although your natural] body is dead by reason of sin and guilt, the spirit is alive because of the righteousness[that He imputes to you.]

So our natural body is dead because of sin.....and I would like to add that I see 'sin' as a state of immaturity....or being short of the glory.....a terrestial vs. a celestial body.

We have a body of death – it continually ages, and progresses toward ultimate death and dissolution if not resurrected. But Paul asked, “ who will deliver me from this body of death? Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

He continues on to enlighten us to the reality that, “if that same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, dwell in you, it shall also quicken or make alive your dead body, or your mortal body.”

And how does that happen? By getting INTO your flesh, I believe. Please know for sure that I am not talking about our carnal flesh being made immortal, but by the brightness of his appearing, all carnality is consumed. We are His flesh manifested then.

What I am trying to highlight for us is the word INTO as opposed to the word IN.

As an example, you can have water in a glass but the water is not into the glass.

The appearing of the Lord that the apostles were excited about and still talking about even after his coming at Pentecost was not his first appearing IN OUR FLESH, but his appearing INTO OUR FLESH.

“In the beginning was the Word – the Word was made flesh – IN HIM was Life and the Life was the Light of men.” Or the Light that was IN HIM was the Life. Jesus even made this distinction - about what was IN him.

Jesus said he could do nothing of himself, but that it was the Father in him that doeth the works.

But Peter, James and John were invited “after six days” to ascend a high mountain with Jesus and it was there that he was transfigured before them. The Life that was his Inner Light now out-rayed him and the Inner and the Outer were as ONE. He turned himself inside out!

That's, I think, the difference between Jesus Christ - & Christ Jesus.

Remember the Ark of the Covenant in the OT? It was made of wood covered with gold. Wood, our humanity, covered or swallowed up in gold, the Glory of God!

Peter writes of this experience and this is what he says of that day and that experience in the high place:

“2Pe 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

Peter is trying to make known to his listeners that, “ this is no fable, guys, this is the COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, I was there, I am a personal eyewitness of the event of the coming of the Lord INTO FLESH. And it was majestic!!!

"O death where is thy sting? O grave where is your victory?

"Now sin is the sting of death" .......we have sinned or have been immature and short of the glory because we entered into this death realm.....we were 'stung' with death....lowered into futility....

"Therefore as sin came into the world through one man (1st man Adam) and death as the result of sin, SO DEATH SPREAD TO ALL MEN, ON WHICH ALL SINNED."

So its because of death or a lack or a lowering that we have fallen short of the glory,

"BUT GOD, BUT GOD, BUT GOD'S......

free gift is not at all to be compared to the trespass -

His GRACE is out of all proportion to the fall (lowering) of man. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive [God's] overflowing grace and the free gift of righteousness reign as kings in life through the One, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One."

Quote:
"Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;"


So yes, Jesus cried to be delivered from this death realm....not that he was crying to escape the death of the cross.....and he was heard!

Jesus Christ died to being Jesus Christ.....a man anointed of God or God wearing man... God hidden within.....the treasure in an earthen vessel...

to become

Christ Jesus......Man appearing as God.....man wearing God.....the earthen vessel swallowed up of the Glory of God.

What was IN HIM became AS HIM.

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