22.3 A Laid Down Life
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. — By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (John 15:12-13 & 1 John 3:16).
Three times in these three verses we find the words “lay down” “life.” (Actually four times, as it is implied in the first sentence – just as I have loved you.) Tithémi – psuche. In these words is the story line, the action, by which God opens His own heart wide open for all to see and to know Him.
The Father’s Opportunity
We must position everything. This lesson is an attempt to connect together the components of truth fashioned by the Spirit of God into an arrow speeding directly at the target. The target is setting creation free. The hit on the target is the proving of the Word God speaks through vessels of weakness in the face of all opposition. The result is Father revealed, Father made known, Father seen and touched and handled.
The Spirit of God has chosen you and me and made us now to be the Father’s opportunity.
Tithémi Psuche
Thus this lesson is not itself a cohesive whole; rather, we will bring together the various critical parts upon which the most important session in this course is grounded, the shaping of our hearts to reveal the heart of Father. The central component is tithémi psuche, a laid down life.
- Tithémi: to place, lay, set. I put, I place, I lay, I set, I fix, I establish.
- Psuché: breath, the soul. (a) the vital breath, breath of life, (b) the human soul, © the soul as the seat of affections and will, (d) the self, (e) a human person, an individual.
The word tithemi in its various forms is found 100 times in the New Testament. Looking through all the verses containing it, I can say truthfully that we have never known this word; it has been hidden until now.
I have stated in this course that the word nike, overcome, is the central action verb of God and the universe. That remains true. But underneath of that action verb is another action verb, tithémi, set forth or laid (down). The “down” is a rare application of this word, typically it can be translated “set forth,” the same as prothesis; but it is also used of placing a body in the grave, in a sense, a “setting forth.”
Psuche
Next, we must place the story. John did not use the word zoe, the Greek word for life in “age-abiding (eternal) life,” here, as in “laid down zoe.” John used the word psuche, the soul, the self, the human story, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. This is the part of us that tells the story, either of the good speaking of Christ or of the accusation of the evil one, either the breath of God or the breath of the prince of the air.
This same word has come into English as psyche, the root of psychology, the study of the mind, or one could say, the study of the invention of the stories people tell themselves about themselves, the stories out from which they live.
The Arrow
But we can know the story behind Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends, only by filling in the blanks, that is, by the use of reason.
Consider this picture, all verses from John.
He that has seen Me has seen the Father. – Greater love has no one than this, rephrased as, Greater God has no one seen than this. – NOW, I will tell you plainly of the Father (then Jesus stops speaking). – That they might KNOW You.
What Goes in the Blank?
Here is the absolute foundation of EVERYTHING I teach concerning and out from God. Only one thing can go in that blank – the walk of Jesus through the steps of the Atonement.
NOW I will tell you plainly of the Father – but not by speaking, by SHOWING you the Father’s Heart, seen, for the first time in creation.
Greater God has no one seen than this: a man setting forth his soul for his friends.
There is, however, one more piece missing from that arrow, another blank, following right after the first blank. What goes in that second blank?
The Second Blank
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. By this we KNOW God, because Jesus showed us God, and we also ought to reveal God for the brethren.
The goal is to set creation free – and that goal is pressing ever more upon us. Setting creation free is the most important task of all. You see, vanity is not the curse. The curse must be broken, but vanity sits upon creation, completely separate from the curse. Vanity is the normal state of a creation that CANNOT know a God that has no measurement or dimensions or form.
In Our Hearts
The answer, the cry filling all the passion of the Father’s Heart, is, “that they might know Me.” The covenant God makes with all is “And all shall know Me.”
Do we understand how impossible this is, impossible in every possible way, except God? This is the doing of the impossible, God Himself, showing Himself, causing Himself to be seen, making Himself known. And He does so through one means alone.
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Proving Patience
Let’s bring in, now, further elements that must all fit together before we can begin to explore the real meaning of tithemi psuche, laid down life, set forth soul, in the next session.
We must look at the point where the arrow hits the target. I will use the same English words for the Greek words, rather than switching them as most translators do.
Count it all joy when you fall into various tests. – God does not test anyone; neither is He tested (James 1). – For the proving of your faith produces patience. – Knowing that tribulation produces patience and patience produces PROVING and proving produces hope (James 1 & Romans 5).
Proving, NOT Testing
Testing, which is properly also translated, “tempting,” and proving are two very different things. The translators of James 1 imply that the “tests” and the “testing” are the same thing; they are NOT. And that the “tests” and the “temptations” are something different; they are NOT. The word, dokimion, however, rightly translated “proving,” is the very point at which the arrow strikes the target. God PROVES His Word true.
That the proving of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:7).
The Proof of God
There is one PROOF only that God’s Word is true, first the longer version.
That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me (John 17:21-23).
Then, the shorter version of the same thing. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Hupomeno
But it is the word hupomeno, patience or endurance, both English words carrying some of the meaning but not all, that is, not the arrow striking the target, but the target itself. To abide inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us through ALL difficulty, through all pressure, from without and within, is to BE something very definite inside of God.
It is to be the Mercy Seat. It is to be the throne of heaven. It is to be the revelation of Father. Patience, otherwise known as sharing heart with God. Here alone, in our own hearts, is creation set free.
The Mercy Seat
Now do we see how it is that “Love one another as I have love you” is the only opportunity the Father has to win the desire of His heart, to make Himself known to His creation?
What is the Mercy Seat?
You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat (Exodus 25:21-22b). – Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written … by the Spirit of the living God, NOT on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart (2 Corinthians 3:3).
God joins together with us upon our own hearts.
A Sweet-Smelling Aroma
And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma (Ephesians 5:2). – Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. (2 Corinthians 2:14).
This line in Ephesians 5:2, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, is the same line that is in Galatians 2:20. Something else besides the Blood of sacrifice entered the Holiest of All to dwell there above the Mercy Seat. Incense, from the altar of incense, a sweet-smelling aroma. Otherwise known as Gethsemane.
Our Entrance
This entrance of incense, of the fragrance of Gethsemane, is not our entrance into abiding in Christ, nor is it our entrance into knowing that we are filled with all the fullness of God. It is, rather, our entrance into setting creation free. And it is also the Father’s entrance into the desire of His heart, Father revealed, the essence of His heart, the aroma of life laid down and love poured out.
What I am attempting to do through this lesson is to position these words, that we might know them. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16).
A Way of Living
Life laid down, soul set forth, as Christ Jesus reveals such a thing through us, is one thing alone, the revelation to all creation of the Heart of Almighty God. What does this look like? I will let you know, not by speaking, but as Jesus did, by showing, as Jesus shows Himself by me.
Yet I do know this, we are not speaking of a way of “dying,” for there is no death in God. We are speaking of a way of living, the way of the Father. And I also know this: it all begins in one place only; it begins by you and me being utterly LOVED by Father in our own hearts.
Post Script
As I alluded earlier, I realize that I have not woven a complete tapestry in this lesson regarding the meaning of the story, “life laid down.” Instead, I attempted to include the specific elements that must undergird that story. Without the essential fibers that must be woven throughout, the story cannot take on its full meaning. Thus, as we see that story of life laid down unfold in our lives, we will know the real meaning of what is happening to us by referring back to the building blocks laid out in this lesson.