1.1 The Purpose of This Course
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Purpose of Course
The purpose of this course, Symmorphy I: Purpose, is to provide a complete picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ and of living in salvation now as is defined through the ten most important verses of the Bible. This course is not intended to go into depths on any one aspect of these ten “verses,” but rather to paint the whole picture first with broad strokes as an introduction to a topic that will increase forever.
Thus Symmorphy I: Purpose serves as the pre-requisite and an introductory course to all other Bible courses offered at Christ Revealed Bible Institute. The meaning of “symmorphy” will unfold through the lessons.
God’s Aim
God has His heart set on you, dear reader, not because you picked up this book or signed up for this course, but because you came out of His heart in the beginning and He longs to share joy together with you again. But there is one way only that God can win your heart for Himself, and that is by Jesus Sent as Jesus is to you every Word God speaks connecting you to Him and He to you.
The Word is the most important thing in the universe to God; He wants you to know His word, not as ideas for your mind, but as the living Lord Jesus, the One who lives in your heart and fills you with His glory. Word alive inside of you is what this course is all about.
Benefits for the Learner
Consider the benefits coming your way as you take this course. God lives inside of you, does He not? And this other Person, living inside of you, would like you to know Him in the same way that He knows you.
The primary benefit from completing this course will be your active engagement with these other Persons, Father and Son, living inside of you, an engagement that grows from a wonder into the only life you live. You will come to know a life of Joy and Victory with a complete end to all condemnation and accusation. You will catch a glimpse of how much God loves you.
Even More Benefits
I’m not selling you on this course, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. By completing this course, you will know that gospel, not as an idea, but as life, the life of God lived through your daily human life.
You will know the Word of the New Covenant, the Word that binds you together with the Father and the Father with you. You will see rivers of healing and joy flowing out of you. You will see kingdoms of darkness falling into ruin. You will see Jesus, the only life you are. You will know the Father.
The Problem
Why is a course such as this needed? Why do Christians not know the actual gospel of Jesus Christ? Everyone has a Bible; everyone reads their Bible; everyone hears the words of the Bible according to the framework of thinking already established in their minds.
The problem is not the Bible; the problem is not the hearts of dear believers who love Jesus and who want to know Him. The problem is the mechanism of thinking that stands between the Bible and the heart of the believer. The problem is how we read the Bible, how we hear the words God speaks.
Only What Is Allowed
Everyone reads the Bible entirely by a set of rules deep in their thinking, rules and definitions hardly known by the reader. Those rules and definitions are applied rigidly, and the Bible is required to say only what those rules and definitions allow.
Believing always comes first; seeing only comes second – in all things. You will see in the Bible ONLY what you already believe is there. There are so many things in the Bible, especially at the core of the Covenant we signed with God and He with us that too many dear believers in Jesus cannot see at all. They cannot see those things because they already believe something entirely different.
Our Task
It becomes a necessary task for us, then, to discover what are the rules and definitions we use to impose our own “believing,” our own meaning, upon the lines and phrases of the Bible. That is not a task easily done.
First we discover that many of the rules and definitions, the ruling thoughts, that we impose upon Bible verses do not come from the Bible itself, but from the reasoning and traditions of scholars and theologians through the history of Christianity. Sometimes those rules and definitions we have known from childhood defiantly oppose what God actually says. And sometimes we engage in silly mental exercises, trying to force things God says to fit our already believed rules.
An Untrue Purpose
The thing most believers in Jesus do not reckon with is that the key definition locked in their minds regarding God’s purpose for creation and for redemption, the ruling assumption by which they define everything they read in the Bible, is not something God says. Moreover, it is a definition that rejects Paul’s gospel of Christ our only life.
Most believers in Jesus imagine that God’s Salvation is that we might live forever in heaven after we die. Nothing could be further from the truth; in fact this belief, this ruling definition, is the largest obstacle keeping our dear brethren from seeing and KNOWING Salvation.
The Means This Course Uses
This course seeks to unveil the Purpose of God for all things by discovering and expanding on the key verses from Paul and John’s gospel, verses that should be our ruling definitions for everything we read in the Bible.
You will be amazed at how many powerful New Testament verses find a fit place throughout this course. You will see the Lord Jesus Christ honored on every page – but even more so, in your own heart. You will find the cross, the blood, and the resurrection of Christ at the center of everything. You will learn the only thing that matters, out from which all things flow – Jesus lives in your heart.
Purpose Defined
This course is titled “Purpose.”
- Purpose (from Webster’s 1926 - noun): 1. That which one sets before himself as an object to be attained; the end or aim to be kept in view in any plan, measure, exertion, or operation; design; intention. 2. The object, affect, or result aimed at, intended, or attained; as energy applied to a purpose.
- Purpose (verb): To propose as an aim to one’s self; to determine upon; to design; to resolve.
- Purposeful: Full of purpose or determination; having an aim in view.
The Ruling Verse
That ruling verse is Romans 8:28-30, the capstone of Paul’s gospel, the verse by which all things God speaks are known. Here is that purpose stated simply and made personal to us. Out of His knowing of me, God is determined to form me with Jesus as one person together (symmorphy – sharing the same form), as the revelation of Father.
Here is the only thing Salvation is. Know that I am in the Father, and you in Me and I in you. Here is the only thing that eternal life is. That they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
A Call to Action
Read this book; take this course. Spend careful time on each lesson; review and reflect regularly; tackle and complete each assignment. Engage directly with God in Person inside of you. As you do, the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself to you as the One who fills your heart with all of His glory.
This course, Symmorphy I: Purpose, as you spend time in it, will cause you to know the gospel of Jesus Christ, not as ideas about a far-away Thing, but as Life and Power and Joy, as Jesus inside of you. And it will do so by opening to you the ten most important verses in the Bible.