15.3 Planted in the Earth
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19).God has given us several clear and powerful metaphors so that we might KNOW how the process of Gethsemane is fulfilled, unfolds, in our lives now upon this earth. One metaphor is the scapegoat, the living goat, that carried the sinfulness of the people of Israel inside itself. A second is the metaphor of a seed, a grain of wheat, planted into the earth and becoming a plant out from which comes many seeds just like the first. And third is a woman, carrying in her womb the life of God in Person, bringing forth that very Life as many sons to glory.
The Scapegoat
On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest took two goats from the people and cast lots over them. Aaron then placed upon one goat the sins of the people and took that goat to the altar of burnt offerings and sacrificed it in representation of the death of Christ upon the cross. After the sins of the people had died in the sacrifice, Aaron placed the life of the people upon the head of the other goat. The second goat, the scapegoat sent into the wilderness, then carried the living lives of the people in all of their sinfulness as a present offering every moment.
The scapegoat lived as their present iniquity, carrying it in their place.
No Substitute
The Old Covenant presented a substitute sacrifice to the people as God’s atonement for their sins and their sinfulness. The disciples understood the New Covenant sacrifice in that same way until Paul’s gospel blew that narrow and limited thinking right out of the water. In the New Covenant there is NO substitute sacrifice. It was not just our sin that went into Jesus, but ourselves, literally and actually.
Understand, God is eternal – ALL NOW. You and I ARE – always NOW – inside of God reconciling the world to Himself inside of Jesus.
Jesus Did Not Take My Place
Jesus did not take my place upon the cross. Jesus took me into Himself before He ever made it to the cross, and there, inside of Jesus, I also died.
It is the prefix syn/sym, utterly together with, that Paul used, over and over, attaching that prefix to every aspect of Jesus’ walk through the Atonement. Together with His death. – Together with His burial. Together with His resurrection. – Together with Him now seated upon the throne of heaven. None of this is “spiritualized” or “positional.” All of it is absolute and literal, spirit, soul, and body – heaven and earth.
A Grain of Wheat
Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain (John 12:24). Many attempt to apply these words of Jesus to us only because they do not understand Gethsemane.
He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for age-abiding (MY) life (John 12:25).
Jesus ALONE is the grain of wheat planted into the earth. That single seed, the mono seed, the alone Seed, “dies” by appearance only, then He comes up from the earth as the plant, as the Church, as you and me. John 12:25 is us trading our life, our psuche, for His.
As the Plant
The Church IS Jesus walking this earth. We ARE the Body of Christ.
BUT! – We appear nothing like the original seed. We appear as the plant. And inside that plant, inside the Church of Jesus Christ, a process is taking place, Christ is being formed in us.
We are speaking of the defining phrase of the Bible and of the universe. Conformed to the Image of His Son. Symmorphy – symmorphose.
Symmorphy
Symmorphy (noun):
- The state or condition of a human being fused utterly together with God such that the two persons, God and the human, exist and express themselves together as one.
- Two persons, God and a human, sharing the same form.
- Initiating the processes by which a human being and God are fused together as one.
- Being formed together, formed together with, having the same form, being fashioned together.
- To actively engage with God as one person with you.
Jesus is planted in our earth, appearing now as us. You and I are the appearance of Jesus, right now, in the universe. Jesus is the Substance; we are the appearance. Yet we “look” nothing like Him, or so we have imagined. But we are just like Him as we see Him as He is. Jesus drank us into Himself willingly; we also do the same.
He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him (John 6:56). To eat Jesus’ flesh and to drink His blood is to know and to speak Galatians 2:20: Christ is my life; I have NO other life.
A Life for a Life
Salvation is a trade, a life for a life. God has given us age-abiding life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life (1 John 5:11b-12a).
Just as Jesus WILLINGLY gave us His life as our very own, so, in the exact same way, we also must WILLINGLY give Him our false self. We cannot keep it; we cannot keep the imagination of our minds claiming that we are a self separate from Jesus. We MUST let it go. That false self is not and never has existed. It is a spin of imagination only, borne out from accusation. Let it go.
We Flee into Christ
He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for age-abiding (MY) life (John 12:25).
Those Christians who say, “There are two lives in me. Oh me, oh my, I have to die,” LOVE their false self. They love looking for sin in their hearts. They love being right in themselves. They love the sense of ego that “putting my self to death” strokes across their lusts. They intend to glory in the flesh: “Look, God, I ‘obeyed’ You.”
We thinking nothing of the sort. We hate all thought of being somebody other than Jesus. We flee into Christ alone; we live only inside of Him and He inside of us.
KNOWING Gethsemane
What is it that gives us the power to cast down the accuser? To never again hear of ourselves as anything other than Jesus? HOW, God, do we make this exchange complete and final?
By knowing Gethsemane. By knowing that a MAN, an intensely Personal Man, WILLINGLY and with all His heart, agreed with the Father to take every moment of our lives, to take ALL of our sinfulness, ALL of our iniquity, ALL of our darkness into Himself, to bear all that we are every step that we live, entirely inside Himself.
And then to BECOME the only life that we are right now. Jesus has already become us.
Knowing the Cross
KNOWING THIS that our old man was crucified with Him. – Christ I have been crucified with. The cross has set me free, absolute and today; Jesus IS the only life I am.
And when I KNOW that my flesh in all that it is in all that I find myself to be right now IS the flesh of God, flesh of His flesh, something happens inside of me. I no longer glory in the flesh. I have no need to do so. Jesus is my life; I have no other life.
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:10).
The Woman
The metaphor of the woman, clothed with Jesus, bringing forth a manchild, replicates in every way for us the truth found in the planting of a seed in the earth. Jesus is the SEED, whether typified by plant seed or human seed. We are the appearance of Jesus now, whether typified by a stalk of wheat or by a woman clothed with the sun. And out from Christ Jesus living as us, you and I, symmorphosed together with Jesus, are transformed into His same image from glory to glory.
But it all happened already in Gethsemane, inside a God who labors in travail to bring forth His life seen and known by all.
Much Grain
We are transformed by changing our minds. The very Personal-ness of Gethsemane, Jesus willfully calling you and me into Himself by name, is the Rock, the Image, that allows us to change every way by which we think. To see ourselves as we find ourselves to be as Christ Jesus now.
It produces much grain. It is Jesus alone that is Himself in, as, and through us. As we are, right now. As we see Him as He IS. Many sons – just like Jesus – to glory.
We know the cross only by KNOWING Jesus now as the One who lives as us.