~ The Prison Bars

The Prison Bars - for Notes

The Prison Bars - PP

In the fall of 2011, when I made the decision to see God only through Jesus, and in particular, Jesus through the path of the Atonement from Gethsemane to the Resurrection, God turned me right-side up, and I saw Him for the first time as the One who carries us.

From then until now, I have seen a continual increase in Biblical evidence that God indeed is the One who carries. This transformation of God in my understanding was the first significant result of my inner desire to remove all accusation against God that He “knows” evil.

More changes would come through the next four years.

The Image of God. Chief among those subsequent transformations of my understanding was realizing that the Bible does not say that the actions of Jesus in redemption were “for God,” but for us, for our sakes.

Consider the image of God, that we are inside of Him.

The Nicene definition of “redemption” posits that it is the Roman soldiers who show us a God who knows evil and who punishes Jesus because of our sins.

Knowing such a ‘God.’ Then consider these words. – This is age-unfolding life, to know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

If the Nicene definition of redemption is “correct,” then no human can ever know such a God, for as we are made, we would be terrified on the one hand and alternate between obsequiousness and manipulation on the other hand.

And we would not be responding to such a ‘God’ in that way because we are evil, but because we are like the true God on the one hand and because we don’t know the true God on the other hand.

What Does the Bible Say? God PUNISHED Jesus BECAUSE OF our sins?

~

Or does Jesus show us God carrying us through death and into life?

Two opposing images; only one can be true.

Which does the Bible say?










Removing Accusation. Two chapters in my life story cover the years from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2015, first “A Vision of God,” and second, “Time to Turn Around.”

Here’s the thing, I did not know until now that the drive inside of me that caused all the changes in my knowledge of God through these 3 ½ years was my great need to remove all accusation against God, that He knows evil, from every aspect of the gospel.

I was aware of that need, but I could not yet see its significance. It was not mental, but God Himself in me. (I am driving here towards understanding the prison bars.)

Changes in Understanding. I want to list here in order, then, the massive changes that came to my understanding from October 9, 2011 when God became the All-Carrying One in my seeing until the beginning of “A Season of Symmorphy” when “becoming something else” vanished forever and “sharing the same form” entered my knowing.

And I am using this layout to prepare for writing those chapters, because this layout is critical and must be clear.

In the early months of 2012, right after I had written “God always reveals Himself through weakness,” the words from 1 John 3:16, AND WE ALSO, poked their nose under my tent and would not stay out.

The Atonement. I knew this to be true long before, however, that whatever Jesus is, we cannot know it apart from an equal and real “and we also.”

Then, in the first week of June 2012, I wrote “Filled with God,” and from then on knew for real a God who fills me with all that He is. Then through the summer of 2012 I looked more closely at that path of the Atonement through which Jesus walked.

By the fall of 2012 a brand-new understanding of the Mercy Seat, drawing those who offend into our hearts and setting them free into the Father introduced itself to me. This was scary because I still thought I might be blaspheming.

Ready to Deal with Evil. Then, on May 24, 2013, I read “Sealed in the Midst of the Storm” into audio. As I spoke those words out loud, something permanent happened inside of me. This was not a change of understanding, but a change of me inside.

Now I was ready to deal with evil. And immediately it came clear to me that sin did NOT come through the serpent, but through Adam, that the angel in the garden could not have sinned apart from Adam.

God did NOT take evil or darkness out from Himself and make the devil evil in himself. Evil did not become through Jesus.

More Changes. But how do you see a world that appears evil as anything else? How can all things now be “of God” as Paul says? And in my search for the answer to that question, God’s mighty principle of substance versus appearance came into my understanding, that what we see is not what things are.

Then, in March of 2014, I wrote “The Humility of Christ,” coming out from an experience of deep humiliation for me. My seeing was ready to change even more.

In quick succession then, as I wrote The Feast of Tabernacles, these things came quickly. A first view of “turn around.” A first view of the Ekenosis. Then, a new view of redemption.

Knowing Redemption. The Ekenosis and a new view of redemption came in May of 2014, and this is the primary thing I want to address.

But the final wondrous piece of understanding that marked the end of this time period came in May of 2015, when the little phrase from Hebrews 1:3 became the definition of all things that exist in my understanding. Sustaining ALL things by the word of His power. Everything real, including every created thing, comes out from the good-speaking of Jesus every moment.

In May of 2014, however, in order to know redemption, I wrote out every redemption verse in the New Testament.

Redemption Is Difficult. I was satisfied, then, that not one of those verses required a “God” who punished Jesus, or a “God” who had to be “paid off” or “appeased” in order to “forgive” us.
 
I was fully satisfied that every one of those verses supported a different view of redemption, that every part of it was meant for our sakes, to win our hearts, to persuade us to step out from the prison bars of Adam’s mental rebellion, and to know Jesus and the Father without fear of evil.

From then until now we have come to appreciate how DIFFICULT redemption truly is. Our brethren shout that they are “FREE” even while clinging tightly to the prison bars of their own design.

A Mental State. God does not burn people in flames without hope. How could a God who does not know evil do such an evil thing? If Hitler was ‘evil’ for killing the Jews, how could a ‘God’ who now burns those same people in torment forever be anything less?

Yet, our brethren are convinced, inside their mental prison of “correct ideas,” that ‘God’ is determined to torture us in hellfire forever, no matter how much we love Jesus, because we dare to believe that our Father does no such thing!

Hades is a mental state; hades is that mind of “correct ideas” that binds people to a ‘God’ who knows evil.

Fleeing from Hell. Look back at the illustrations I used in my life story, that of running the gauntlet and of Eliza fleeing with her baby across the ice flows of the St. Lawrence. I lived in Hell, and it was Hell that I was fleeing. And I’m not saying that lightly. I was terrified out of my wits by my inability to “please” a God who could never be pleased.

Now, if you want to look again at that list of redemption verses as well as my three chapters on a new view of redemption, you will find the first here: https://christrevealed.info/tabernacles/sacrificei

It was just recently, however, that I again saw the coldness of those prison bars inside the Christian mind.

Knowing Our Friend. I remember clearly the hardness of my former mental ideas about God. Yet they are so far removed from my present knowing that when I hear them again, it is overwhelming. I wonder that anyone could speak such evil things – and yet, I walked with God and knew His grace when I also spoke them.

We also know our Friend who is inside of them, carrying them despite their present refusals, just as He carried us.

It is easy for us to see Jesus in their hearts, but they see only the prison bars of “correct ideas” they call “Jesus,” and thus are unable to see the Glorious ONE who fills them full.

An Illustration. If I could draw, I would draw out the illustration. Picture a man or a woman inside a prison cell looking out from their wide window filled with iron bars. The bars are unattached on the inside and the person inside the cage could easily pull them out and walk free.

We notice a bright and glorious Jesus sitting comfortably on the bench inside of their hearts, but they are oblivious. We say – “Look there at Jesus inside your heart.”

But the person grabs one of the bars and whacks you over the head with it. You stagger stunned, but you point again at Jesus, but they whack again, for they will not turn to look.

“Correct Ideas.” We define the prison bars as “correct ideas.” Of truth, that’s all they are – the “carnal mind.”

The carnal mind is “correct ideas” about God. For those ideas are the work of the human, carefully studied out and chosen over many years. The specific arrangement of the correct ideas in one is unique to them, entirely different from the arrangement of correct ideas of every other.

And the great work of building these correct ideas is lifelong and of great value to them. “Look at this wondrous confusion which I myself have built. – This is me!”

No Correct Idea Gives Life. Yet they also call their correct ideas “the truth of God,” that is, Christ Jesus to them.

Here’s the thing. No correct idea, no matter how correct it is can ever give life or save anyone. In fact, one can have all the correct ideas about God that there are and remain entirely dead. Conversely, if there is a trust in the grace of Jesus inside one’s heart, despite all the “correct” ideas, then NO “incorrect idea” can kill anyone or cause anyone to be lost!

Neither life nor death are found in the ideas of the mind. Life is Jesus inside the heart; and death is not knowing God.

Not Knowing God. Therefore, although incorrect ideas cannot separate anyone from God, calling the ideas of the mind “God,” prevents the person from knowing God. And thus, all mental ideas separate from knowing Jesus inside the heart do KILL in the end.

In February of 1998, I came to the end of all mental ideas about God, period. As I left the communities, I wanted nothing more to do with any “Christian” idea.

And I have never sought mental ideas since, but only that I might know my Father. Yet false ideas do prevent us from knowing God, and thus they must be replaced with true.

No Accusation. Here is the bottom line of true ideas. There is inside of them NO accusation against God that He knows evil.

And so, my pursuit from 2009 on was to KNOW no evil in my thinking about God. That pursuit was no small thing, for evil fills all the Christian definitions of “God” we have known. Yet those definitions filled me with great horror. I was escaping the last tentacles of a nightmare.

Here is the difference between me and most. Most say, “I will study what Christianity says the Bible says that I might be safe inside of correct ideas.” I always said inside, “God, what do You say in Your word – that I might be safe in You.”

Whacking Each Other. Those who live inside of Jesus inside their hearts see another believer also living inside of Jesus inside of them.

But those who live inside their carefully constructed iron bars of “correct ideas,” see the one who says, “BUT John 14:20” as just another purveyor of a different set of ideas which HAVE TO BE WRONG.

And so they pull out the appropriate iron bar to whack you, and they determine that your pointing at their heart and saying, “Life is Jesus Himself inside of you,” as being an incorrect iron bar whacking back at them. A ‘correct’ Jesus is far away right now; He has not come back.

Iron Bar against Iron Bar. The iron bars, the correct ideas, have NO meaning and we must never fight against them, that is, we never argue idea against idea. “My prison bars are better than your prison bars.” Yeah!

But here’s the trick. The enemy will inspire a lesser idea to discuss, one that can easily be “disagreed upon,” as Paul explains in Romans 14-15, without consequence. And when you fall for that trap, the ideas have you, and you cannot speak more of Jesus inside the heart.

You cannot remove any one iron bar, for there are plenty more ready to take its place in the design of mental fantasy.

“Be Silent.” Redemption is no easy thing, for what you are attempting to do, entirely in full alliance with Jesus inside your brother, is to coax him out into knowing Jesus in Person.

And this is exactly why God said through Moses, “HOLD YOUR PEACE (shut up), stand still and see – Jesus.” And through Paul, “Be silent – you are already toast!” “Shut up” means NO MORE correct ideas at all, but rather, an utter trust in the Person living inside your heart who already shares your life with you.

The nightmare continues, however, for “My heart is evil, and if I look at my heart, I will come into union with SIN.”

And We Also. The only thing I know to do, then, is to practice the Mercy Seat, together with my Father – to place my brother upon the Blood and release him into the expectation of God, regardless of all the pain Father and I bear together. And we also.

This is the only path to redemption, that our brothers and sisters can step out from their useless mental fantasies in order to know the Father inside of whom they already live. That’s all it is, just a bunch of made-up mental stuff without purpose or meaning.

Christ lives inside of your heart through faith.

Let’s Pray Together. I think that we should continue to pray for ourselves in these parenthetical sessions, that Jesus might strengthen us in this battle. Indeed, that’s what I mean by “Stay with me,” that Jesus might be our all.

“Lord Jesus, thank You for saving us from hell, from the nightmare imagination that our Father knows evil. Lord Jesus, let us just rest inside of You for this moment, for we do not have to be or do anything. You are already all.

“Lord Jesus, thank You for being in us NO NEED to counter ideas with ideas, but rather the Mercy Seat.

You Claimed Life. “Lord Jesus, we know that redemption is not an idea, but a power of our Holy Spirit.

“And we know that You turned Your back against the face of all whom You loved, and, instead, carried us inside Yourself through every stumbling step. In Your agony, Lord Jesus, You received us as part of Yourself, and You presented us to God as utterly WITH YOU as You claimed LIFE for Yourself in every step.

“Lord Jesus, regardless of our offense, You would not live without us living with You; You would not rise without us rising with You.

And We Also. “And there, inside the agony of Your troubled human soul upon the cross, Lord Jesus, You joined us together with Father above the Blood of Your Heart poured out for us. It is in that secret place that we live.

“Lord Jesus, we ask You for that carrying and sustaining, enabling and energeoing grace of the presence of God that we might also carry our brothers and sisters inside our hearts, that we might receive them as You receive us.

“And as we also arise into LIFE with You, Lord Jesus, so we also require that our brothers and sisters, many millions who love You, would rise into LIFE with us.”