7.1 Our Human Weakness
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In searching for supporting verses for Ephesians 3:19b, we do not consider verses that say much the same thing. Being filled with all the fullness of God is simply too much. We are compelled, then, to bring in those verses that seem to speak of what we would consider the “opposite” of God.
We have this treasure (God) IN earthen vessels. The question before us is HOW can two such seeming opposites, God and man, be formed together as one person. God designed the fabric and makeup of the human to fit Himself as His counterpoint in innumerable ways. Our human weakness fits God; our human weakness IS our glory.
Likeness and Image
In my understanding, likeness and image mean two slightly different things. Likeness means that we are custom made to fit God. Image means that we are especially designed to reveal God. God does not and will never enter into symmorphic union with angels or with animals. It is a law of God’s universe that like comes into union ONLY with like, kind only with kind. Sheep and dolphins do not mate. God cannot come into union with us or we with Him except we be of the same kind, of His same species.
God’s Counterpoint
We must understand this incredible reality. Being like God means that we are God’s counterpoint. Yet at every point that God is strong – we find ourselves to be weak. We are not “God.” Yet God fills us with all that He is in a personal and intimate way and for incredible purpose.
The supporting verses to the second most important – and the biggest – verse in the Bible show us how our human weakness matches the glory of God. (The diagram of the DNA is becoming larger and larger to me.)
Respect
How can two individuals be formed together as one without violating the respect or integrity of either individual? The popular notion that God commands and we obey is disrespect first and slavery/rape second. Whenever I have seen “Christian” husbands command and the wife “obey,” it has always hit me in the gut as vicious disrespect. God will never violate the honor or integrity of any person.
Remember that a God who is meek and lowly of heart thinks more highly of us than of Himself. We love Him because He first loves us.
Complete and perfect symmorphy with God is a union of absolute respect.
Likeness
We can determine how such a union must exist by reasoning backwards from what is.
Likeness means two very different, though very compatible, things. My wife and I are a lot alike. We share the same views and approaches on many essential elements of living. My wife and I are very different. Yet our differences uniquely complement each other. In contrast, the differences between me and other women I have known are not compatible. However, even when the differences between my wife and I are not compatible on the surface, we still have the capacity to love and bear with one another regardless.
Look in the Mirror
This symmorphic, active, restful, entwined union between God and us is far beyond the limited picture of marriage union.
You and I are the way we find ourselves to be BECAUSE that’s exactly what God is like, and we are like Him. You and I are the way we find ourselves to be BECAUSE we are compatibly the opposite of God in that area. And when God is too bizarre for us, we bear with Him because we love Him, and He also with us.
If we really were filled with all of God, what would we look like? Look in the mirror. You are filled with all of God; you see, now, exactly what God revealed looks like.
The Required Distinction
God does not want to “look powerful.” God wants to look like you.
We cannot understand the symmorphic union taking place between a Mighty but invisible God and men and women of flesh without having a full regard, front and center, of what the root cause and source of all sin and rebellion really is. In the next lesson I hope to do just that, to convince you of what sin is. But it will be in the development of the seventh most important verse in the Bible, the HOW of resurrection life, that we will learn how to practice not-sin. This lesson, however, is meant to expand on these weakness statements of Paul that support being filled with all of God.
God Made Us the Way We ARE!
But first, in this one slide, I want to put some thoughts in front of your mind.
For he who comes to God must believe that He is (Hebrews 11:6).
The word “God IS” contains all things.
Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves (Psalm 100:3). You did NOT make yourself, nor any part of yourself.
God is not a man, that He should lie. – Balaam, speaking in Numbers 23:19 of Adamic man, not the Lord Jesus Christ. The essence of all sin is lying; it is dishonest pretending.
A False Root
At the beginning of this session, I asked you to read the weakness verses from 2 Corinthians, and to memorize portions of the New King James Version. I ask you here to open that page and read it all again, especially my paraphrase, drawn carefully from the meaning of the Greek. Understand that I am looking at all these things anew and afresh and I am seeing wonders I had never considered before.
There is a root belief all through the human mind AND all through the Christian reading of the Bible that asserts that the source of all sin is the weakness of human flesh. BUT – consider this word: My strength is MADE PERFECT in your weakness.
The Prepositions
The entire key to these weakness verses being the very life of Christ Jesus made personal inside of us is not found in the big words, and not even in the verbs. The key is found in the prepositions. The difference between my paraphrase and the New King James is almost entirely found in giving the Greek prepositions their full meaning, meanings that English prepositions simply do not possess. For instance:
- ek ("out of") is one of the most under-translated (and therefore mis-translated) Greek prepositions – often being confined to the meaning "by." (ek) has a two-layered meaning ("out from and to") which makes it out-come oriented (out of the depths of the source and extending to its impact on the object). [from biblehub.com – bold and underlined are added by me.]
Most of the bigger words in these passages carry the same meaning in English that they do in Greek. But one Greek verb in these passages is of importance to us.
- teleó: to bring to an end, complete, fulfill.
- teléō (from télos, "consummation, completion") – properly, to complete (consummate), i.e. finish (qualitatively) the necessary process – with the results "rolling-over" to the next level (phase) of consummation. This root (tel-) means "reaching the end (aim)." It is well-illustrated with the old pirate's telescope, unfolding (extending out) one stage at a time to function at full-strength (capacity effectiveness). [from biblehub.com]
My strength is MADE PERFECT in your weakness.
- en (a preposition) – properly, in (inside, within); (figuratively) "in the realm (sphere) of," as in the condition (state) in which something operates from the inside (within).
Power
The question is POWER. That the power may be of God and not of us.
This is the clearest statement of God’s intention in creating us weak. He has given us great favor, including many human gifts and abilities, but He has reserved power entirely for Himself. Yes, as God is revealed through us, power will be part of our appearance, but only as we know that we are never its source.
According to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:21). This is the clearest definition of power, the ability to do, in the Bible; however, it is an accomplishing of what God speaks.
The Human Heart
The tricky part of symmorphy for God is the human heart. In order for God to enter into Covenant Union with us, He had to create in us a heart compatible to Himself, that is, a heart of daring boldness. Here are two definitions of the human heart as God created it, yes, but empty of God Himself.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” (Alexander Pope).
There can be no New Covenant without first a new human heart, as Paul said, “Hearts of flesh” (instead of hearts of stone).
Heart and Power
Heart commands power by God’s design. Your heart is the key to everything; Christ lives in your heart. Yet God must break your heart, for it is out from brokenness that the image of Christ is revealed.
Men and women desire power above all things, power to command, power to satiate lust, power to appear “powerful.” There are four approaches to power available to humans empty of God: violence and seduction, money and knowledge. If I had $20 million in my bank account, I could accomplish most of the (Godly) desires of my heart. I could do so by buying human labor to work for me, to command and to do.
The Heart and the Flesh
At the center of symmorphic Covenant Union, God places all of His Almighty Power at the disposal of the human heart. To command His power, God created the human heart bold, but then, that the power would always be of God, God placed that human heart in vessels of weakness. Understand that our human spirit is weak in the heavens just as our human body is weak in the earth.
It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps (Jeremiah 10:23). – I can of Myself do nothing. Jesus in John 5:30
Many people “try” union with Christ for a season and then reject it, because it does not make them “look like” the image of “Christ in power” that they hold in their minds.
The Power of Christ
We cannot comprehend the glory of our weakness until we accept with all of our hearts God’s definition of the power of Christ.
The power of Satan is to command and to control, to force his will upon others by outward means, to use violence or seduction, money or knowledge to win the upper hand over others. The power of Satan gets others to serve self.
The power of Christ is to love and to carry, to treat all with utmost respect, never violating their integrity, to believe the best in all, to bear all difficulties, to hope in the expectation of God always arising into life, to touch with gentle regard, to give a cup of cold water. The power of Christ always places Himself beneath, always gives of Himself to serve others.
Our Glory
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory . . . full of grace and truth (John 1:14). It IS our human flesh, spirit body as well as physical body, through which the power of God directed by our human hearts shines forth as the tender kindness of Christ, full of grace and truth. – Our human weakness is our glory. Yes, our appearance will “look” more powerful in the revelation of Jesus Christ, but forever we will know the glory of our weakness and the honor of being the revelation of the Father. But right now, we do already bear in our bodies the very dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, that His life might also appear out from within our dying flesh – by faith first and then by victory.
The Heart of Glory
One part of the definition of the Greek word for glory, doxa, is that thing which is the deepest desire of one’s heart. We know that the deepest desire of God’s heart is the Lord Jesus Christ, the word God is always speaking. We know that the culmination of the Word God speaks is to restore ALL that is lost back to the Father. We know that Jesus accomplishes this glory by laying down His life, bearing all in Himself through death and into life, that is, by revealing the Father. Father revealed IS life laid down and love poured out. Father revealed IS glory.
Glory Again
Here are two further definitions of glory, first, one that I penned, and in the next slide, one that Paul penned but that I have paraphrased.
Glory is the capacity to put your arm around a hurting, confused, and lost individual in full compassion, BECAUSE you have been there, and then show them your heart, and the absence of all their fault, there inside your own heart, the throne of God, and then to affirm to them that they also are loved, that they also are respected and honored just as they find themselves to be.
Glory is being the hands that touch; glory is being the heart that cares. How could we love just as God loves if we have not suffered with those who suffer, just as God does?
Glory Revealed
God Himself in Person lives in the vessels of our human flesh; this means that we never imagine that being filled with God ever makes us into “super-humans.” In contrast, as we go through the normal difficulty, confusion, painfulness, and failure of being a human in this world, we know that we bear in our bodies the same revelation of Father through weakness that Jesus bore as He took the whole creation into death. For the death of the Lord Jesus penetrates unceasingly and successfully all the way through all that we are. In exactly the same manner, it is the same life of Jesus that appears, is made clear and visible in full and open view right now, out from within our physical body, our presently dying flesh.
Glory revealed – God through weakness arising into LIFE.