1.2 Focus and Layout
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Focus and Layout
The guiding idea of this course is that the Word God speaks is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that this Person lives inside of us as the meaning and the fulfillment of every Word God speaks. Underlying that guiding idea is this assumption, that we know our inclusion inside of this Person, Jesus, out from the core of Paul’s gospel, confirmed at every point by John.
In this lesson, we first want to refine our focus for this course. Then, we will construct a brief layout and explanation of the course sessions. How will we approach our need to hear the purpose of God in Christ as God actually speaks it?
Purpose Defined
What is purpose? The Greek word Paul used to denote purpose is pro-thesis, the setting forth of the intentions of God. God’s ultimate purpose is to be known and seen, touched and handled by His creation, that He might be KNOWN. This is difficult for an invisible God who loves, One who cannot be known and who never pushes anyone around.
Thus this God has seized you and me in His determination to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ, that He might be seen and known through us. Thus God’s immediate purpose for us is that we might know the Father.
Conditions
How do we know the Father? We return to the guiding idea of this course. We can know the Father only through knowing Jesus Sent. And we know Jesus Sent only by abiding in Him and He in us. We know Jesus Sent, Jesus and Spirit together, personally as the One who lives now as us, our very and only life. This Jesus Sent is 100% responsible for all that we are; He alone lives us into life.
Yet at the same time, the same Jesus that lives in me lives in you; Christ is a many-membered body. Thus we also know Jesus by our fellowship of love together.
Focus #1: Our Union with Christ
Christ is first the Word God speaks. Christ Jesus comes out of an invisible God first as Word. That Word, the Lord Jesus, is the Light and Life, the Source and Sustainer of all creation.
But then the Word does something incredible, something utterly unexpected. The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us - And we behold His glory (John 1:14). The glory of a Man revealing the Father to us - Full of grace and truth.
Jesus Becomes Us
But in Gethsemane something far more incredible happens. Jesus, the Word God is always speaking, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, a Man on His knees in tears, does something beyond all understanding. Jesus agrees to become you and He agrees to become me. Jesus drinks His Father’s cup; Jesus drinks you and me into Himself.
Jesus becomes the scapegoat, the living Christ carrying always in Himself our sinfulness into the forgetfulness of God. This same Jesus is planted in the earth. This same Jesus has become us.
Abide in Me
The first task of the believer is to know this glorious One living in their heart, this One who fills them with all of Himself.
Abide in Me and I in you (John 15:3). There is no other commandment in the Bible. As we keep this commandment, Christ Himself fulfills the entire Bible in our lives. Those who fail to keep this commandment, though they “keep” all others, live only separated from Christ in their minds and can never please or know God. Inside of “Abide in Me and I in you” we find all of God. Outside of that place, everything is all wrong, including every word in the Bible.
Absolute and Today
Paul says that Jesus lives in our hearts by faith. John says that we are in Him by faith. We know that means today; now is the day of salvation (1 Corinthians 6:2) – Today if you will hear His voice… (Hebrews 3:15). Today we abide in Him and He in us.
In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you (John 14:20). Today is that day. Today we know, today we see that everything that we are right now in this world is IN the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus Christ fills every particle we are. Absolute and today.
Abide in Me and I in you. There is no other commandment in the Bible, and even this word is an invitation only.
Christ Personal
Whatever we know of the Lord Jesus, we must know of Him as that Personal in us.
There is no separation or distinction between Jesus and me, or between Jesus and you. Whatever you say about Jesus, you say also about yourself. We are not Jesus, but we do abide in Him and He in us. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” Jesus then teaches us to say, “I am the light of the world.”
All that Jesus is we speak as ourselves. All that Christ is I am. Christ Personal in and as me is where everything must begin.
Focus # 2: Christ Is Community
Christ begins as me, but Christ never ends with me. If Christ lives as me, then Christ lives also as you. Thus, when I see you, I see the glorious and precious Savior whom I love. When I see you, I see you filled with my Lord and my God.
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body . . . and have all been made to drink into one Spirit . . . The body is not one member but many (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).
Members of One Another
We are members one of another (Romans 12:4).
Each one of us must know Christ filling us full with all of Himself, personally as us. But God never limits Himself to one individual; God is family. God reveals Himself through many, walking together as one.
Church is when I take of Christ in me and share that same Christ with you. Then, as you share Christ in you with me, I receive you into myself as Christ Himself. The increase of our knowledge of Him expressed through His body, a community of believers – family – will never end.
Focus # 3: The Bible
You will find the Bible magnified throughout this course.
Yet, I suspect that you will also find it serving a slightly different purpose than you may have known elsewhere. The Bible is as the clearing in the center of Eden, two trees, one of life and the other of death. The Bible, separated from Jesus as the Word God is always speaking, personal and alive inside of us, can only kill. And the Bible does kill; so many build great edifices of knowledge from the Bible, knowledge that keeps them always falling short of God. But the Bible is also something else; the Bible is Life.
Defining the Bible
Let me give you my definition of “the Bible.”
God unfolds Himself to be known by His creation first as Word, the All-Speaking of God. This Word comes, by the Holy Spirit, into the hearts and mouths of those to whom God reveals Himself. That Word in their hearts and mouths remains the Lord Jesus Christ in Person.
These to whom God has given His Word, speak that word into the hearts and mouths of their hearers; they also write it down sometimes. There the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ in Person, sits quietly upon the page.
Jesus in Person
Then I, Daniel Yordy, read those words. They come into me by the same Holy Spirit through whom they were spoken and written. As I look into the eyes of my Father, I hear Him speaking the creative Word of Christ into me. I believe that word, not as something on the outside of me that I must “perform,” but as Christ Jesus in Person on the inside of me now living as me and now fulfilling through me all the All-Speaking of God. The question for me, then, is how do I hear Him? To know how, I must discover the key verses of Scripture.
The Course Layout
What if we deliberately set out to replace all the rules and definitions by which we read the Bible with specific phrases from the Word, things God actually says? The questions pressing upon us then are these. What core ideas or realities already rule over our believing as we read the Bible? And what core ideas should, by the heart of God, rule over our believing?
We must start with God, the Person of the Father. We do not assess all the possible verses that could fit our list of “the ten most important,” rather, we start with the Heart of the Father and reason out from there. What does the Father want?
The Covenant
It is the core of the Covenant we signed with God and He with us that takes us to the one key phrase of God’s purpose. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord … all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them (Hebrews 8:10-11).
Then Jesus’ words in John 17:3. And this is age-abiding life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. The Father wants to be known, to be seen and touched. The Father wants everyone to see and know His Heart. How, then, does this happen?
The Key Verse
We look for the one verse that is the core of God’s purpose in this whole thing called creation. What is the single clearest line expressing to us what God wants to have for Himself out from the human experience?
The core statement of the Bible in the Greek is: symmorphos tes ikonos tou Huiou autou. Conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). Here is a better translation of the Greek words. – To share together the same form with Jesus as Father made known. Then, considering the nature of the Father, the function of the Word, and the overshadowing of the Spirit, we reason out from that one core statement to know what it really means.
Recasting Our Definitions
You see, this is big.
If this statement is true, conformed to the image of His Son, with the Greek word proorisen preceding it in Romans 8:29, that is, out from the core determination of God's heart, then it must rule all of our knowledge of God. BUT - if it is true, then the popular Christian definitions of Jesus and of us must be bogus. And if it is not true, then the Bible must be a hoax.
Yet to count Romans 8:29 to be the ruling verse of the Bible, setting for us all of our definitions and rules of understanding, means that our entire knowledge of God, of Christ, of man, and of salvation must be recast.
Re-Defining Man
Thus, to reason out from the core of WHAT GOD WANTS, we must first re-define man. Which two verses totally redefine for us the design of God when He created us? They must be the two verses that claim that all of God is inside of us and that we reveal and release God into all of His creation. Containing all of God and revealing God to all. Of course, filled with all the fullness of God is simply the largest concept in the universe. It MUST BE grappled with and it must rule. These first three key and ruling concepts must overwhelm us.
Overcome
But we still haven't grappled fully with the question WHY? Yes, rivers of living water flowing out of our belly is our ministry forever, but still, the question WHY is not satisfied. And thus we must bring in the great story of God.
To find the core meaning of Salvation we must include the action verb of the universe, nike - overcome/subdue. Here is the line that will take us to the fourth Why verse, the verse that sets before us the great story of God. Let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That You may be justified in Your words, and may overcome when You are judged” (Romans 3:4).
The Great Story of God
It is impossible to address the core meaning of Salvation without addressing the accuser (Did God indeed say?), the action verb of the universe, overcome, and the casting off of the curse from mankind and heaven/earth. More than that, the final end of all creation must be clearly in view through our limit of ten verses. Thus we find how we cast down the accuser – they overcame him, and then, back to the most important chapter, Romans 8, for our ministry - setting creation free.
Between these two verses we will weave the great story of God along with Mary’s critical response to God applied to every word God speaks.
The How Verses
But the first four, verses which I have placed before myself and my readers from the first, must still leave us hanging, for they hardly answer the question HOW. How on earth, Lord, do we get to be part of this?
And thus the three primary how verses, applying in their full meaning the cross, the blood, and the resurrection, must be present in our list. What is the real meaning of the Cross for us right now? What is the real meaning of the Blood for us right now? What is the real meaning of the Resurrection for every moment of our lives right now?
Love One Another
Yet our list is not complete. Two other truths must rule everything else God says in His word. The first is the Heart of Jesus for His church. Love one another with a pure heart fervently.
The second and final verse is the most important for each one of us, personally. Yes, Romans 8:29 gives us God’s purpose, but look at all those other BIG things, - filled with all the fullness of God, rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies, casting down the accuser. These things are just too much for us.
Salvation
What must I have to know any of these “most important” claims God makes about His intentions towards me? I NEED Salvation. That is, I need Jesus.
What is the one line that gives me Jesus, entwines the Person of Jesus my Savior, the One upon whose breast I always lean my head, utterly together with me and me with Him? And here I say “me” (you read this word as yourself) because this line MUST BE personal and intimate and close. John 14:20. Know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. Though placed tenth, this verse makes all the others mine.
The Entire Bible
These ten verses should be woven through all the warp and woof, the weave and fabric, of our theology, our preaching, our teaching, our Bible study, our thinking, and our living.
These truths alone should rule over how we understand and apply every other line in the Bible. Everything else God says in the entire Bible, then, serves one of two purposes. Every other verse either helps us to understand more clearly these ten verses, or it helps us to know more clearly how these ten verses are fulfilled in our lives.
And thus, through the lessons of this course, I hope to open to your heart and joy the ten most important verses in the Bible.