26.3 Our Nature
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Being born full Covenant Sons, what, then, is our nature? What are we? That’s an easy one. We know exactly what we are by knowing exactly what Jesus is, for we are just like Him.
Now, let me qualify that statement. There is a very definite sense in which we are, by nature, fully inside the omnipresent and eternal Spirit as part of that Spirit – he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him. Jesus, as we know Him now, IS a Human, Life-giving Spirit, fully inside the Spirit of God, that is, fully in the form of God, infinite and eternal, that is all here and all now, but in this qualifying sense, that Jesus is found wherever Father is becoming known. Father is always greater than the Words that He speaks, though He exalts those Words above Himself.
Living in Here and Now. HOWEVER – being in this eternal and infinite Life-giving Spirit that is Jesus, immersed utterly as Oone Spirit with Him, that fact is not our center, not who and what we are as human persons. I have no interest as a HUMAN of being fully cognizant of being everywhere all at the same time as Jesus is.
The quality of our humanity is that we live fully and freely inside the present HERE and inside the present NOW! And all that Jesus is in His form is found comfortably as us inside our present Here and Now. Thus to know what we ARE – we look at Jesus as He is, in the present here and now on both sides of the resurrection.
Just as Jesus Walked. Even though we see certain differences in Jesus’ Being after His resurrection, yet it was clear to the disciples – Jesus made it clear – that He was the very same One they had always known. More than that, just as we walk as Jesus walked, so Jesus walked before the Resurrection as we also walk, that is, AS IF we are already fully declared sons of God. Jesus walked in a body of mortal flesh AS IF He were incorruptible and immortal. Jesus put the Father upon Himself just as we put Jesus upon ourselves.
Here is the clearest expression of Jesus (and our) nature. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
The Word Became Flesh. This verse cries for a more perfect rendering. And the Word, the Logos that God is, coming out of the Pro-knowing of God and into creation as a human, became FLESH, making His dwelling place inside our sphere, and we looked upon and contemplated His glory, a glory as the One Seed in the presence of Father, filled full with grace and truth.
There is zero reason that monogenes should be translated as “only begotten,” and every reason that it be translated “One Seed,” a Seed that will not be alone (mono) but will bring forth many just like itself (John 12:24). Prototokos – firstborn, the first One out of the womb, the first of our same KIND (Romans 8:29).
What Is Our Kind? So, what is our nature? What Kind, what species are we? Incorruptible and Immortal. No chance of decay or falling short and no knowledge of any form of death.
First, we have one source only, all that we are inside the Pro-Knowing of the Almighty. Consider that if you were to write out specific and individual thoughts God Knows as Himself, thoughts concerning you as an individual, after you have written out 200 quadrillion Bible’s worth, David claims that you have much MORE to write. Those thoughts that are God then become Words as they come out from God, Words that become you as you find yourself to be right now – flesh, visible form inside creation.
Our Only Source. We have no other source. All contrary words are a false speaking that we have long ago cast down.
Now – let me underline again the importance of not seeing ourselves as apart from God making Himself known through us when we “feel” utterly contrary to God. The moment you grab yourself by the shirt collar to make yourself remember “who you are,” you have departed from God in your imagination and are now boasting in your own fleshy works before God. – “I will do this thing.” In complete contrast, we sink even more utterly into Jesus when we feel contrary, knowing that inside this sphere of God-not-being-known, we ARE the travail of Father.
God Made Visible. Now, when we say “flesh,” we are including our spirit as well, because spirit and body cannot be separated except as dead, and we are not dead. Our human spirit is as much a part of our human nature in the present moment as is our physical body. You cannot split apart spirit and matter, heaven and earth, for they are one place. Our humanity is one place in which God dwells.
And thus this Spirit Word that is the Ekenosen of God, an invisible God, by travail, by the hammering of the Mercy Seat, coming out into being known as our own flesh, this Spirit Word is the cause of all that we are.
Glory. You and I, as Full Covenant Sons, are the visible form to heaven and earth of the Spirit Word that is Christ Jesus. That is our nature.
Now, let’s bring in again our definition of “beholding His glory.” – That they might behold My glory. Glory is proving, through full and utter weakness, that God speaks the truth.
Here, then, is our nature; we SEE, in every moment and in every circumstance, the Lord Jesus Christ alive in our hearts, now the only Life we are, proving through our utter weakness that God always speaks the truth. This quality of seeing IS our glory.
Speaking of a Man. FULL of grace and truth. Now, let’s be specific about what John is saying. In fact, in 1 John 1, he said that not only did his eyes see this Human Person full of grace and truth, but that he had, with his own hands, touched Him. John is speaking of a Man, a Man he had known from his childhood. John was 16 and Jesus 30 when he and Andrew followed after Him, but John would have known of Jesus, for Nazareth was only about 20 miles from where John grew up and they were distantly related.
The extraordinary pronouncement of the New Testament is NOT that Jesus is “God,” but that this Word, making God visible, became a Human Being.
Full of Grace and Truth. So, when John said, “Full of grace and truth,” he was speaking entirely of a fellow human being, his distant cousin. (I am fairly satisfied that James, the brother of Jesus, was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples – James “the son of Alpheus,” Alpheus being the Aramaic form of “Joseph.” Thus John also knew very well Jesus’ human half-brother.)
What I am getting at is that this human that John said was “full of grace and truth” was utterly common and familiar, the Man next door. Just like Jesus, then, our humanity is FULL of grace and truth in all that grace and truth mean. Grace and truth are our nature as human Covenant Sons.
The Gift of Father. Grace is the gift of Father Himself now filling us full, the largest part of our inheritance. And truth is Jesus, the only life we are. To be Oone with these Persons, Father and Son, one in Pperson with them, one in union, two (three – and all of us together) in fellowship, and one in expression, yet very varied and personal in that expression, is beyond measurable value. This is the mystery that is Symmorphy.
And the difference we are as Full Covenant Sons is that we know that God is telling us the truth. Yet grace and truth as tangible human qualities have a very specific aroma of Christ.
Seeing only Christ. Grace, Father full in us, has a very specific quality of emanation.
First, grace sees no evil. When grace looks upon another person, no knowledge of any evil or falling short exists in that judgment. We see only the person. We do see that person as they are, in all stumbling and misstep, most certainly, but there is no imputation of “falling short,” only that quality of love that picks someone up and sets them again upon the path of Christ.
Second, grace sees the good-speaking of Christ by which that person exists – and acknowledges only the good things of Christ inside of them.
Father Becoming Known. It makes no difference to grace that the other person has no knowledge whatsoever of the “good things of Christ” (that is, is not “born again”). Grace, seeing only Christ, is then the becoming known of Father in every heart where Father is becoming known – or is about to become known. How else will ALL know Father except by this emanation that is grace? The disciples, not born again, saw grace emanating out of Jesus towards themselves every moment. They saw, and thus knew Father, even though they, at first, had no realization of that fact.
Accepting Weakness. Then truth, in a sense, is the counterpart of grace. Yet, we do not mean as opposing, but rather, as drawing, as the female draws the male. Truth is that which accepts fully the way God made us, our human limitation.
“I can of My own self do nothing” is the full expression of truth. There is no pretending to be something other than a human inside this quality of truth. Jesus did not “pretend” to be “God.” Thus the twisting of Calvinism, that “truth” means, you are a wicked sinner, sinner, is spoken entirely outside of Christ. Of ourselves we can do nothing, but we are never of ourselves.
Just Like Jesus. …but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19). In other words, BECAUSE I am a limited human, I never see myself as of myself, and because I walk in the truth of what I am, being real about myself, GRACE fills me full, the Father directing my eyes, directing my steps, being Himself through me.
In other words, this declaration of John that Jesus was full of grace and truth is the simple statement that, (1) Jesus was utterly real as a human, with no pretension whatsoever, and (2) Jesus treated them as He would treat the Father, with all honor and regard.
And you and I ARE just like Jesus; this is our nature as well.