Portrait of the Modern, Self-righteous Pharisee

[cj]

Re: Covenants

We will only be close to being like God when we go to heaven......... So no, we will never be God. But only when we die will all that's left in us be the Spirit.

So I guess you're saying the Spirit is not God then, just almost like God.

Seeing that is, if all that's left of us is the Spirit and yet we will only be close to being like God when we go to heaven.


In love,
cj

 

[farley]

Since AV is now gone, I don't know who to address my questions to. So, I'm going to ask them of Heidi because she and AV seemed to agree on most everything. Hence, my thinking that her perspective may be real close to what AV's would possibily be. But, anyone's opinion will be welcome.

Heidi...

I just happen to be doing some research today on the requirements for "elders", when I was struck by how this topic falls into the categories AV posted at the beginning of this thread.

Unless my searches were flawed, all verses governing the requirements of eldership are found in 1 Timothy. Now, does this mean that only Gentile churches are required/authorized to have elders and deacons? If this is true, it should have a pretty significant impact on many congregations, world-wide!

While I've been pondering this question, more questions began to emerge.

What if a churches congregation consisted of a mix of Gentile and Hebrew Christian families?

And, taking this logic a step further, what if a Christian is of mixed heritage...Gentile and Hebrew. What parts of the Bible should s/he obey, and where should s/he worship?

Furthermore, how many more topics, like this, are going to be found to be only dealt with in a single book, thus binding/exempting people and congregations differently?

Can anyone shed any light here? AaaaaeeVvvveeeeeE, where are you?

In Christ,

farley

 

[Heidi]

Re: Covenants

We will only be close to being like God when we go to heaven......... So no, we will never be God. But only when we die will all that's left in us be the Spirit.

So I guess you're saying the Spirit is not God then, just almost like God.

Seeing that is, if all that's left of us is the Spirit and yet we will only be close to being like God when we go to heaven.


In love,
cj

Are you saying that all things in heaven will be under our feet, or Christ's? Which one do you think will sit at the right hand of the Father? :o If you know the answer to that question, then you would not make the comments you did.

 

[cj]

Re: Covenants

Are you saying that all things in heaven will be under our feet, or Christ's? Which one do you think will sit at the right hand of the Father? :o If you know the answer to that question, then you would not make the comments you did.

Heidi, I know you from what you've written on these boards, and so I'll just ignore your concluding remark.


As for the matter of headship,....... I have never said that God shares His Headship, just His life and nature.


But, maybe you can remember where in the bible it speaks about the Son being in the Father and the Father being in the Son?

Well, in the bible it also speaks about a believer being in the Son.

So tell me, if you are in the Son (God) and the Son (God) is in the Father (God),, then are you not in God's Headship, since the Father is the source and the Son is the expression of God.


Also, tell me where you think the "glory" of God is found?


In love,
cj

 

[Klee shay]

So tell me, if you are in the Son (God) and the Son (God) is in the Father (God),, then are you not in God's Headship, since the Father is the source and the Son is the expression of God.

Isn't that contradicting the Body of Christ if we also decide to become part in the Godhead? I'm not sure if I've misinterpreted what you were trying to illustrate to Heidi, but it sounds like you're saying the body can also lead the head?

In the bible, we're only allowed to enter into the Body of Christ of which he is the singular Godhead.

 

[cj]

So tell me, if you are in the Son (God) and the Son (God) is in the Father (God),, then are you not in God's Headship, since the Father is the source and the Son is the expression of God.

Isn't that contradicting the Body of Christ if we also decide to become part in the Godhead? I'm not sure if I've misinterpreted what you were trying to illustrate to Heidi, but it sounds like you're saying the body can also lead the head?

In the bible, we're only allowed to enter into the Body of Christ of which he is the singular Godhead.

Consider this Klee Shay,..... when the hand moves what is seen in its movement?


In love,
cj

 

[Klee shay]

Consider this Klee Shay,..... when the hand moves what is seen in its movement?

My answer would be the mind which instructs the hand. How does that make the hand which is of the body, part of the mind which instructs it though?

They are two separate things and Jesus taught this as well. There is only one Godhead and the body of Christ with many members. We are the many members which obey the Godhead but we are not the Godhead instructing our own members.

Again, I may have misrepresented exactly what you were trying to illustrate to Heidi - if so, please forgive me and expand on the issue you were addressing.

 

[cj]

My answer would be the mind which instructs the hand. How does that make the hand which is of the body, part of the mind which instructs it though?

It is the minds expression.

They are two separate things and Jesus taught this as well. There is only one Godhead and the body of Christ with many members. We are the many members which obey the Godhead but we are not the Godhead instructing our own members.

The hand does not get instructed by the mind, the mind simple thinks and the hand acts.

What you describe above is not the body of Christ but a religious form of service.

Again, I may have misrepresented exactly what you were trying to illustrate to Heidi - if so, please forgive me and expand on the issue you were addressing.

No you did fine. This is a huge subject and so I though we could eat it one bite at a time.


In love,
cj

 

[Klee shay]

I'm bowing out of this particular discussion because you're answering in riddles. This may just be your personal style of communication, but it's just confusing to me.

No offence. :wink:

 

[cj]

I'm bowing out of this particular discussion because you're answering in riddles. This may just be your personal style of communication, but it's just confusing to me.

No offence. :wink:

I see no riddles; where is the riddle in the movement of a hand being the expression of the mind? Sounds pretty straight-forward to me.


Contrary to your thinking that the hand gets "instructed" by the mind, the truth is the entire body knows what's going on an is involved.

It is a physical fact that the head of a man is not something seperate from his body; the two aspects, head and body, are just one whole.



KleeShay, a major problem within the great body of believers today is the VIEWPOINT from which they are attempting to gain sight of God from.

Try and understand this,...... God did not say to Abraham, "Go over to that high mountain and use it to have a good view of Me."

No,... what God did say is "I am going to bring you to the mountain from which I VIEW all things, so that My view and your view will be the same view."

As believers, we are one with God in all things, and though we will never be higher than God, meaning we will never be the Head, we will be the perfect expression of Him as the Head, and in this way we become one with His Headship.

What is a King without a kingdom? Can a King be a king without a kingdom?

Have you ever heard of a kingdomless King?

Yet, the kingdom of the King is not the King in His headship, but it most certainly the expression of the headship of the King.


Don't allow Satan to rob you of the full reality of your oneness with God.

This is what religious institutions perpetrate on men, they attempt to place certain men inbetween other men and God, thus disrupting the oneness that each believe has individually and corporately with God.

The Romanist claim the Pope is closer to God than any other man on this earth, but this is a lie.

The Orthodox claim that their institution is the true church of God, yet in claimimg this utterly contradict themselves, as their claim is founded on the traditions of men and not on God Himself. The truth is the Orthodox institution is "the church of the doctrines and traditions of men", as if you strip these doctrines and traditions away there would be no uniqueness to the Orthodox institution.

God does not need men's traditions and doctrines to be unique.

And th church, being of God, is the same.

The church is just God Himself expressed; the body that expresses the Head.

It is the enlargement of God.


In love,
cj

 

[Klee shay]

we will be the perfect expression of Him as the Head, and in this way we become one with His Headship.

We cannot become one with his headship until we become full heirs with Christ, after his second coming. If we reflect his expression before then, it is not because we've become one with God's Headship.

"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit". 1 Corinthians 12:12-13.

Spirit and body - bond or free. The headship will always belong to God and only understood by God. The riddles I speak of which confuse me, is entwining the Godhead with the body and the spirit as if we are somehow to partake in it before the second coming of Christ.

We are baptised into one body, bond or free, by one spirit - of Christ.

In case you are under the wrong impression - I am not in bondage to any particular religious denomination. I am not trapped into one understanding to serve the purpose of men. I am made free by Christ to understand him as he sees I am ready to understand that which he chooses. Not for my sake, not for mankind's sake, but for Christ's sake.

To say I am one with his Godhead, is to say I understand that which God did not ordain man to understand.

"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Genesis 3:22-24

We already knew that which was good and evil, but God drove out man all the same to keep the way of the tree of life. We cannot become one with the headship until after the day of judgement; so that through Christ man can live for ever.

 

[cj]

we will be the perfect expression of Him as the Head, and in this way we become one with His Headship.

We cannot become one with his headship until we become full heirs with Christ,.....

Well said.

But you need to go further with your thought in order to gain a full view of the reality of what being an heir is.

Just have a clear view that this oneness we have with God is in..... LIFE, HIS DIVINE LIFE,..... and,..... NATURE, HIS DIVINE NATURE.

In fact, the two, life and nature, are in a sense just one, as every ubique life contains a unique nature.

The life of a rabbit will only ever produce the nature of a rabbit. The life of a might oak tree will only ever produce a might oak tree. And the divine life of God will only ever produce the divine nature of God.

.... after his second coming.

Not so well said.

The bible tells us that we are (are + present) heirs.

Galatians  4 : 7, "So then you are no longer a slave but a son; and if a son,..... an heir also..... through God."

The New Testament believer is no longer a slave to works under law but is a son in life under grace.

And being a son, we are thus heirs, persons who are of full age according to the law (the Roman law is used for illustration) and who is qualified to inherit the father's estate.

The New Testament believers become heirs of God not through the law (Moses) nor through their fleshly father (Adam) but through God, even the Triune God  the Father, who sent forth the Son and the Spirit (vv. 4, 6); the Son, who accomplished redemption for sonship (v. 5); and the Spirit, who carries out the sonship within us (v. 6).

So here we can know that we ARE already heirs.

But, and this is a big butt,......... there are two aspect to being and heir,..... 1 - being made legally an heir, and 2 - receiving the inheritence that comes with being an heir.

Amd this is where many believer get confused; for every believer (sons and therefore heirs of God) must "receive" thier inheritence.

And how does a believer "receive" his or her inheritence?

First let us understand what this "inheritence" is.......

The basic understanding behind an "inheritence" is something that enriches the inheritor.

Therefore, what is it that God has that can enrich His many sons?

Ephesians  3 : 8, "To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel..."

The apostle announced not doctrines but the riches of Christ. The riches of Christ are what Christ is to us, such as light, life, righteousness, and holiness, what He has for us, and what He accomplished, attained, and obtained for us. These riches of Christ are unsearchable and untraceable.

Christ is the riches of God. And Christ is God Himself.

Our inheritence as sons of God is this unending supply of divine mercy, divine grace, and divine glory,..... divine light, divine life, and divine love,.... divine rignteousness and divine holiness.



Lets read how we receive this inheritence, in the following scriptures........

Romans  8 : 17, "And if children, heirs also; on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other, joint heirs with Christ,..... if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him."

Titus  3 : 7, "In order that having been justified by His grace,.... we might become heirs...... according to..... the hope of eternal life."

Not merely sons but heirs who are qualified to inherit the Father's estate (Rom. 4:14; 8:17; Gal. 3:29; 4:7). Such heirs are born (John 1:12-13) of God's eternal life (John 3:16).

This eternal life enables them not only to live and enjoy God in this age but also to inherit in the coming age and in eternity all the riches of what God is to them.

Hence, there is the hope of eternal life. God's eternal life is our enjoyment today and our hope for tomorrow.

According to this hope we become heirs of God to inherit all His riches for eternity. This is the climax, the eternal goal, of His eternal salvation with His eternal life, which has been given to us by grace in Christ.

So from one scripture we can see that we ARE heirs, but from other scriptures we see that we need to receive the inheritence to complete the full process of "heirship".

First step,... become a son.

Second step,.... suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him.

But how do we attain to these two steps?

First, we receive the offered gift of sonship by receiving Christ,....

John  1 : 12 ---- John  1 : 13, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority.... to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

For human beings to become children of God is for man to have the divine life and the divine nature.

And second, we receive the substance of the inheritence..... for the answer we need to go to one of Paul's most wonderful series of verses, Philippians 3 : 7-11,..... read very carefully the wonderful thing that Paul is saying, and remember, the second step is "suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him.".....

"But what things were gains to me, these I have counted as loss on account of Christ........ But moreover I also count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is out of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is out of God and based on faith, to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if perhaps I may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead."

The suffering of Christ is that He came to this earth for the sole purpose of dying on the cross so that He might come into resurrection life and bring all creation with Him.

This is the suffering of Christ,.... and this is the suffering that we must participate in so that we might receive the inheritence of our sonship.

Resurrection life, operating in us and through us, is our inheritence.

And resurrection life is simply Christ. And Christ is God.

In resurrection men inherit God.


This is God's ultimate gift to those who believe,..... Himself.


How wonderful is this.

There is nothing more wonderful.


And no, we do not need to wait on the Lord to return in order to be brought into the reality of this inheritence, for scripture says.....

Romans 8:11, "And if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies..... through His Spirit who indwells you."

2 Corinthians 3:6, "Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills,..... but the Spirit gives life."

Romans 8:2, "For the law of.... the Spirit of life.... has (present tense).... freed.... me... in Christ Jesus.... from the law of sin and of death."


Scriptures tells us that we believers have a kind of foretaste of our hope to come,..... this foretaste is the Spirit of life that has come to dwell in us.


But what is this Spirit of life that dwells in us?

Not what, but Who.....

Philippians 1:19, "For I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of.... the Spirit of Jesus Christ,"

1 Peter 1:1, "Searching into what time or what manner of time.... the Spirit of Christ in them.... was making clear, testifying beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories after these."

Romans 8:9, "But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit,... if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.

Romans 8:10, "But.... if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness."

This Spirit of life that dwells in us is Christ Jesus as the Spirit of Life.



I'll end here because this is getting long.


But have a clear view of the following,....

Having believed, we instantly become heirs.

But heirs must receive.

And for us to receive is a suffering, the death of the self/old man.

We cannot do this on our own; we do not have the strength to overcome our fallen state, and God knows this.

So God, upon our believing, placed Himself, His entire Godhead, in us as the Spirit of Life, so that we might have Him as the source, the strength provision from which we can live out of and thus overcome our fallen state.

It is while we are living out of this source/provision that we actually receive our inheritence. For our inheritence is actually God as our source/provision for all our living and being.

And thus, since God is dwelling in us right now, and is available to us right now, we can come into our inheritence right now.

Oh Lord Jesus,..... what a great and awesome mercy and grace this is; to be able to live a life in resurrection on this earth right now. To be able to have God as our source and provision for our moment to moment living and being.... right now, right here, on this earth at this moment.


This is a fact,...... Jesus has returned, secretly, not openly as He will in the time to come...... but secretly as the Life-Giving Spirit who comes to dwells in our regenerated spirit.

This is what the Lord Jesus told us Himself,....

John  14 : 16

"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever,"

Jesus is the Comforter; He has sent Himself in the Spirit to those who believe.


In love,
cj

 

[Klee shay]

I do not disagree with what you have posted above. However, I do not see how receiving of the spirit makes us one with the Godhead. It makes us one with the spirit - would you not agree?

It may be a logical conclusion to say we become one with all that is God; and in this regards I believe we do - but only in spirit, not in the knowledge which the Godhead represents.

Hopefully this has explained my position better.

 

[cj]

I do not disagree with what you have posted above. However, I do not see how receiving of the spirit makes us one with the Godhead. It makes us one with the spirit - would you not agree?

It may be a logical conclusion to say we become one with all that is God; and in this regards I believe we do - but only in spirit, not in the knowledge which the Godhead represents.

Hopefully this has explained my position better.

Not only does it explain your position better, but you have asked the question I hoped you would ask.

It is the question that we all need to ask and have answered, for in the answer is found the ministry of Paul, the completing ministry of God.

See, God's desire in eternity past was not just to have a bunch of created beings running around obeying Him on a planet called earth. God's desire was far more than that.

In Psalms 132 we find out what God's desire is; and from this we can is something called Zion.

Psalms 132 : 13-14,

"For Jehovah has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. "This is My resting place forever; Here will I dwell, for I have desired it."


From what we can see in the NT scriptures we can know that God desires to indwell men, and actually has accomplished this in and through the Son.

To fully understand how God's actions with men are related to His desire for the "Zion" of Psalms 132 we need to find the link between God dwelling in men and God's desire fo this Zion.

Nothing that God does is an individual act; everything He does is according to His one overall desire.

Zion is His desired eternal rest, therefore we can know that this is His overall desire, the one desire under which all other desires of God fall.

Or in other words, everything God does is for His gaining of this thing called Zion.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves, lets go back to your questions....

However, I do not see how receiving of the (S)pirit makes us one with the Godhead.

The Spirit of God is the fullness of the Godhead, revealed in the doing of the Godhead.

The Father is the source, the Son the expression, and the Spirit the application.

God is three, but God is also one, and as this One none of the three are seperate from each other. The Father is In the Son and the Son is In the Father.

And the Spirit???? Where is the Spirit in all of this????

The Spirit is found in the "In" of the sentence.

How is the Father in the Son? By the Spirit.

And how is the Son in the Father? By the Spirit.

God, the entire triune God is Spirit; this tells us that the abiding/application of God is in Spirit.

The source is the Father, the expression is the Son, and the abiding/application is the Spirit.


Think of when we say, "In the Name of Jesus."

What do we mean? Are we in a Name? Are we doing something in a Name?

Well, by faith we are,..... in spirit by the Spirit.

Likewise, when the Father desires and the Son expresses, it is in Spirit.

Therefore, if we are one with the Spirit we are one with the Godhead. For there is no seperation of the Spirit from the Godhead.

It may be a logical conclusion to say we become one with all that is God; and in this regards I believe we do - but only in spirit, not in the knowledge which the Godhead represents.

Scripture tells us that we will come to know the fullness of God, and that Christ is God's wisdom expressed.

And scripture tells us that we become one with this Christ, therefore we become one with God's expressed wisdom.

Be careful about the word knowledge, for knowledge is not the greatest thing (remember the tree of knowledge that Adam ate from?),..... what is the greatest thing is life.

Having life means a person has both light/truth and love.

Life is light/truth and love.

And possessing truth and love is the key to all knowledge and understanding.

This is why Jesus came to give us life, and not knowledge.

The bible is not firstly a book of knowledge,.... it is first and foremost a book of life; it begins with God creating life and man losing the access to the tree of life, and it ends with man once more gaining access to the tree of life.

In-between though, God has given to some men a great gift. For to those that have believed into Christ by faith God has made each and every believer one with life.

For the NT believer there will be no need to eat of the leaves of the tree of life for every believer will be eternally constituted with life.


The aspect of God that every man should desire is God as our life, not God as our knowledge. For in His life is all knowledge, bt in His knowledge is not eternal life.

Adam knew God intimately, yet failed. Noah, David, Solomon John the Baptist, all had God's knowledge, yet all failed at some point, why? No life of God.

And this is why Jesus came. so that men may have eternal life.


And it is at this point that we can move to Paul's completing ministry,..... for Paul's ministry tells us how, having once received God's life at rebirth, a man needs to excercise this new divine life as we live out our practical life here on the earth so that this life, in the principle of the seed, may grow out of our regenerated spirit where the Seed of life has been installed in us, and enter into the rest of our being, mind, emotion, will,... and eventually body. This is what is referred to as transformation, and it is a slow process in time.


Fast-forward to the Lord's return...

This is what is going to happen, however this return takes place - one or more raptures,....... the Christ that is coming outwardly from His throne in the heavens will meet the corporate Christ who is coming out of the spirit of men.

Visualize it,.... Christ the Head will meet corporate Christ the body in the air.

But before this can happen, Christ the body must become Christ the body. And this is accomplished by Christ as the Seed of life in our regenerated spirit growing out of our spirit into the rest of our being all the time infusing our being with life, which life is just Christ Himself. And Christ is God.

One day every believer will not just say "I live", each will be able to say "I live Christ."

Just as Paul did.

Even more, Christ being God means, every believer will be able to say "I live God."

Just as Christ said.

Remember, Christ is lifting us up to Him and all that He is.


A note on the Godhead,..... being one with the Godhead does not mean we have the ambition or way to do what the Godhead does, it just means that everything that the Godhead is, is expressed in the vessels of this oneness.

Consider this, is a mirror one with you? Try doing something that is not seen in the mirror.

So the answer is in a sense yes, but in another sense no.

This is our relationship with the Godhead...... Beholding and reflecting like a mirror we go from glory to glory.


In love,
cj