9.1 Defining Pro-Ginosko
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
For those whom He pro-knew, He pro-determined to be symmorphosed with the image of His Son. Pro-Knowing, pro-ginosko, is poorly translated as “foreknowledge,” i.e., that God “knows about” everything before it happens. The problem is the forcing of God into time, making God a creature of time.
As I am preparing the first courses for Christ Revealed Bible Institute, I have found myself thrust into a quandary. I have selected a number of other authors and texts to present our union with Christ, our journey to know the Lord, and how to interpret the Bible. Yet, in spite of many good things in these books, the thinking of the tree of knowledge and the false definitions of God out from Nicene thinking keep inserting themselves in amongst those good things. And I have found things unacceptable to me, things I will not set before any CRBI student, that I have had to bypass entirely.
Reaching Those Living in Darkness. But other things, many such things, I can leave, even though they don't fit what God is teaching us. Thus I am presenting prospective students with a mixture of wonderful truth that will lead them into the knowledge and experience of their union with Christ together with wrong thinking that will limit that union and that will be counteracted as they continue into the Symmorphy courses. I justify such a mixture by realizing that the things I think are “wrong” are already quite familiar to most Christians; that is, God does not hit anyone living in darkness with the whole spectrum of light all at once.
Here's how it works. I walked with God all the years I was in the move of God fellowship. Now, I listen to things from back then and I hear terrible mixture, things that are just contrary to Christ. Yet I remember myself at that time – it was only God with whom I was connecting; the things that were not really of God were simply going in one ear and out the other, as Jesus said (actually, He said out the other end).
Understanding Pro. I am saying all this to place before you this thought, that the Bible, from beginning to end, is God fitting His understanding into our darkness. I suspect that a God who is All Here Now is a conception of God that few Christians, even, can comprehend or embrace. Thus for them, God allows such limited concepts as “foreknowledge (knowing about events before they happen)” to continue, even as He seeks to draw each one through that limited seeing into knowing Him as He is.
Since God is All Now, the Greek pre-fix pro cannot mean “a long time ago.” God does not exist “a long time ago.” God is always NOW. Now is the only moment in which God is always found. Thus we take pro to mean “that which is of, or out from, the core essence of God.”
Understanding Ginosko. There are a number of words that carry in themselves a sliding scale of meaning. Ginosko in Greek and “know” in English is probably the strongest of such sliding-scale concepts. Know/ginosko begins with the dimmest awareness that something else exists, all the way over to living entirely inside of one another. That dim awareness of awakening is to know. To live inside of one another is to know. And every gradual point from the first dim awareness to the deepest inclusion inside is also to know. (And this scale does not include the other side of “to know,” that is, to know in the wrong way or to know things that ain't so.)
You see, when I think of past situations, that which was not God had little relevance to me. In that moment, at whatever level, it was God Himself I was knowing. Thus Solomon said that the path of the just grows brighter and brighter and Paul said that we are transformed from glory to glory. We could also say “from know to know.”
Human Consciousness. We learned in Symmorphy II: Essence that human consciousness is the togetherness of two things, a spirit knowing called “self-awareness,” and the words of our language by which we tell a story of ourselves. Humans who have no language are only dimly aware of themselves as a series of changing feelings and little more. Spirit self-awareness is made meaningful and memorable only by words, by the speaking of a story.
And thus we see that the deepest level of God's pro-knowing is God's knowing of Himself, a knowing that has two parts, always entwined, a Spirit self-awareness and a story of Words.
The Father's Consciousness. When John said that God is Word, he did not mean that God is Jesus. The Father is Word, a Story told, inside Himself. Jesus is the coming forth of the Father's Word into the knowledge of creation. When John said that God is Spirit, he did not mean that God is the Holy Spirit. God is Spirit self-awareness inside Himself. The Holy Spirit is the coming forth of the Father's self-awareness into the knowledge of creation.
Yet these two, Spirit and Word, self-awareness and story told, cannot ever be separated; they are intrinsically entwined.
Heart and Name. Now, the deepest center of my knowing of myself, I call my heart. And when I say, “heart,” I mean the center of my self-awareness in which my deepest story of myself is found. Yet the deepest center of my story-told is my name – Daniel Yordy. I become very self-conscious when I hear my full name spoken. When my mother required my full and immediate attention, she hollered, “Daniel David Yordy.” I was fixated like a deer in the headlights. The totality of my story is captured inside the speaking (and the signing) of my name.
The two parts of God's pro-knowing, God's “consciousness,” we call, then, the Father's Heart and the Father's Name. The Father's Heart is the where of Covenant, and the Father's Name is the what of Covenant.
Part of Father's Story. So, when we say by the boldness of faith that God “pro-knows” us, we are saying that we are an intrinsic part of God's knowing of Himself. For God to pro-know us, we must be an intrinsic part of His own Self-awareness and an integral part of the Story our Father tells Himself about Himself.
Now, isn't that exactly what Jesus said? - In that day (today) you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you? You see, we are discovering that the word “in” is not just the largest defined word in the dictionary, but the largest in the universe. We cannot be IN Christ IN Father, except we are part of the Father's own awareness and Story of Himself.
Thus, when Paul said, “Those whom He pro-knows,” God meant, “those who are inside My own knowledge of Myself.”
The Holiest. Now, I want to place together the pro-knowing of God with the Holy of Holies. The pro-knowing of God is the entirety of the Holiest. Remember our picture of the Holiest, a perfect cube, gold boards, four coverings, etc., Ark and Mercy Seat, etc. The entirety of the Holiest, the essence of the Holiest, is pro-knowing, Father's Story of Himself inside of Father's awareness of Himself, God is Word inside of God is Spirit, God is Love inside of God is Light.
We understand pro-knowing as being limited to the infinite reality of the Holy of Holies. It is God's pro-determination that rushes out through the Veil into the old creation, out into the wilderness, seeking that one worthless lamb that got itself into trouble. But pro-knowing remains always the Holiest.
Signing the Covenant. In the third lesson of this session, we will look at pro-knowing as the essence of the Holiest, specifically as the Heart of Father revealed through us. In the next lesson, however, we want to begin our discussion of one of the most significant and critical parts of our Covenant with God – the Father's name, God's own signature written upon us and our name, our signature, written upon God.
Signing the Covenant is the essence of Covenant, for the Covenant is not until the moment it is signed; and in the moment it is signed, the Covenant, instantaneously, IS – in all fullness. Yet God has set four levels of signing, for He will not bind anyone to Himself and Himself to them except by their explicit and full knowledge of what they (and Him) are getting themselves into. God allows no one to sign that final line without full understanding of all the terms of the Covenant.
The Seven Overcomings. I made a brief attempt to fit the seven “overcomings” in Revelation 2 and 3 onto the several pieces of furniture, a “fit” that did not work. Then I realized that all seven of those “rewards” to the overcomers are found in the Holy of Holies alone. Some either are or emanate out from the Mercy Seat; some are found in the Ark of the Covenant; but some are found in the entire essence of the Holiest, in particular the name of God given to us.
One of the strongest lines of the New Covenant is John 17:26: I have declared to them Your name and will continue to declare it. We are speaking of the pro-knowing of God inside Father's Heart, the Story God tells Himself about Himself, the place we too lightly call, “salvation.”
The Sliding Scale. This is indeed interesting, for as the word “to know” is a full sliding scale of meaning from shallow to deep, so anywhere anyone wishes to stop and call “salvation” for themselves along that scale of knowing God is then, for them, their salvation. For some of us the depths of what is Salvation will never end.
Knowing God Infinity >
__________________________________________________________________________________________Aware Levels of Contract/Covenant (Individual’s choice of Salvation) IN
The point at which any individual is fully satisfied and finds no interest in any further knowledge of God is their level of contract/covenant with God. The negotiation, then, is of an agreement to live with God at that level or point along the continuum. I shall know as also I am known (1 Corinthians 13:12b). We could also say, “I shall be known by my knowledge of God.”
Levels of Signing. Although we will discuss in far more depth each point of our signature and God's signature upon Oour Covenant together, let's lay them out here inside this discussion of the Pro-Knowing of God in outline form, for here is where they fit. That is, the signing of the final binding signature takes place only after we are fully turned around and seated upon the Mercy Seat of heaven.
There are four double lines for signing this contract/covenant with God. They are double lines, for both God and us must sign each level of entering into Covenant. The first double line which God and us signed together we call being born again, or, asking Jesus into our hearts. At this point, we enter into our first real awareness of God. This level of signing is contract only. We do this much for God; God does this much for us. This signing is our entrance through the gate into the outer court.
The Second Signing. Our first signature allows us to see that there is a kingdom, according to Jesus in John Chapter 3, but it does not allow us to enter into that kingdom. The second double signing is a surrender to God Himself that did not really happen in our entrance through the gate. Yes, we said, “Jesus come into my heart,” but we had no idea of any binding agreement with God.
The second double signing is our entrance through Jesus as the Door into all that is Christ in the Spirit. It is here that we become fully cognizant of the fact that God desires to enter into Covenant with us. In fact, it is only by our entrance through the Door into the Holy Place that our contract with God becomes a Covenant, an initial joining together of person with Person.
The Third Signing. Our third signing, then, is our surrender to Christ as the ONLY life we are, our full abandonment of our “self” as an entity hovering between “doing God's will and not doing God's will,” that is, the tree of death. We enter only when we admit that we cannot and will not ever “please” God, but are still driven by the desire always upwelling within us, to live only inside of all that is Jesus, regardless.
Only pirates, like David, enter the Holiest, those willing to rush in where they do not belong and to seize hold of that which they have not earned. And they do so because the water of LIFE, living inside of God and God inside of them, is the only prize they want. Yet in entering they discover the most wondrous thing, that their weakness on the one hand, and the driving intensity of their heart on the other hand, is the very thing that makes them the image and likeness of God.
The Fourth Signing. God allows us to live for a few years, even, inside the Holiest, inside of knowing Him as He knows us, and of knowing ourselves as we know Him, learning to practice the Mercy Seat in its power to set others free of all dishonesty, before He leads us to that final double line placement of our signature and His signature.
Indeed, I see some who enjoy their union with Christ for a season, and then decide such boldness of faith is not for them. They are soon gone into whatever avenue of separation is most comfortable for them. God binds us to Himself only as we WILL HAVE nothing else.
I have said from the start that I am seized entirely in the Determination of God, and that He pours Himself out through and by me for others without any concern for Oour self-loss. What proof do I have that such is actual reality? My faith. My determination in myself not to be found anywhere else.
The Depths Ahead. We enter into our own knowledge of God's Pro-Knowing as we surrender to Christ as our very flesh, passing through His flesh into full union with Himself. Thus this session is not concerned, really, with the first three levels of signing our names to this contract/covenant with God.
We are concerned only with that fourth double-line signing point, our full and final signature and God's full and final signature upon the Covenant. And we are concerned with it in two ways. First, we want to know what it means, that's why God has brought us into this wondrous and most holy place, our pure and perfect union now with the Lord Jesus Christ.
But more than that, we want to sign our name upon God, and we want God to sign His name upon us. To sign this final line together with God is to be sealed into the full incorruptible Pro-Knowing of God's Heart forever. To sign this final line together with God is to share Heart with the Almighty.