1. Designed by Word

God is Word (John 1:1). That means that God is an infinite number of infinite numbers of thoughts, with each thought delineated by words, inside of a bubble or bath of Spirit Self-awareness. Yet every single thought that is God is all here now and utterly Personal. In fact, that’s part of what Jesus meant when He said that “God is Spirit.” All-here-now is a quality of Spirit as well as the word “Personal,” that is, “Self-awareness.”

A large portion of those thoughts inside of God is regarding His creation. No aspect of creation exists separately from those thoughts concerning it that are part of God Himself. As David said, “How precious also are Your thoughts concerning me, O God! How great is the sum of them” (Psalm 139:17)! David was referencing those specific thoughts inside of God that were unfolding as David himself through the seasons of his life.

Now, here is something critically important to understand. God’s thoughts are NOT, themselves, the creation. The creation can be found in its substance inside those thoughts, but the thoughts themselves do not and cannot cause creation to exist. The thoughts are substance; creation is appearance. Something else must exist in-between the thoughts that are part of God and the visible appearance that is creation.

God’s thoughts must be “spoken aloud.” The “speaking aloud” of every thought inside of God, enabling that thought to become its form and season inside the outward appearance of every part of creation IS the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the beginning [the source, the generation of life] {Christ Jesus} in action was the word, and the word actively was towards God, and God was the word. The same was actively in the source, the generation of life, towards God. All through Him became, and without him not even one thing became that has become (John 1:1-3).

At many times and in various ways in the past, God, having spoken to the fathers [from] inside the prophets, has in these [present] final days spoken us inside His Son, whom He appointed heir of all, through whom He made [formed] the ages, who, being the radiance, expression and revelation of His glory and the character or exact expression of His substance [the visible image of God’s reality], carrying, upholding and sustaining all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:1-3).

The substance of God, coming through the exact expression of that substance, the Lord Jesus Christ, becomes us – God speaks us – and all things of creation, then, are sustained every moment by that good speaking that IS Jesus.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light (Genesis 1:3). Light inside of God became light in creation through the speaking of Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus we call Jesus the Pattern, the Blueprint, the Bond of the Covenant, the Connection between God and all things, the Mediator. There is no getting to His creation for God except through the Person of Christ Jesus; there is no getting of creation to God except through the Person of Christ Jesus. – No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6).

The substance of all things is the thoughts inside of God that are God Himself, a quality of God’s Being that Paul refers to by the word “proginosko,” poorly translated as “foreknowledge.” “Foreknowledge” is a poor translation of that word in Romans 8:29 & 30 because it forces God Himself into time, making God a creature of time. Instead, we use the word “Pro-Knowing,” and we understand that word to mean, not “God knowing about things before they happen,” but rather, those thoughts inside of God concerning us, thoughts that are God Himself first, and then through Christ become us in the unfolding of our lives.

Thus, the thoughts inside of God are the substance of everything that exists and the appearance of everything that exists through the unfolding of the ages is the outward expression of those thoughts. In-between the substance and the appearance is Jesus in Person.

Before God whom he believed, the One giving life to the dead and calling into existence things not existing (Romans 4:17). Or as the New King James puts it – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.

The word “calling” or “calls” is that spoken Word of God which is the essence and Person of Christ Jesus. At the same time, it is the Spirit who “gives life” (John 6:63).

What, then, does this reality mean for you and me?

David continues his expression of our existence inside of God’s thoughts. This is from the JSV. – My frame {all the structure that is me in You} was not hidden from You, when I was accomplished [completed] in secret {same word as Psalm 91, In the secret place of the Most High}, and woven together in the lowest land on the earth {the Jordan – He humbled Himself}. Your eyes saw my substance [as an embryo}, and all that I am is written in Your book [Your Pro-Knowing], my days [my unfolding] fashioned for me, before I am in them {before my days exist in time and appearance}.

Specifically, we exist in substance inside of God as His thoughts concerning us BEFORE we come into existence in time and space. Nonetheless, those thoughts cannot become us in our appearance inside time and space except they be SPOKEN as the Lord Jesus Christ – sustaining all things {that’s you and me} by the Word of His power.

It is in this practical way, then, that we are able to say that “Christ lives as us.”

We exist in substance (in embryo form) as thoughts inside of God, thoughts that are God. We are designed, then, in every expression of the unfolding of our lives by Word, that is, the thoughts of God spoken as the Person of Jesus.

That is one aspect of what we mean by “designed by word,” but there is a second aspect as well, directly related to this first. To introduce that second aspect, we go back to Genesis 1.

In the beginning [the source, the generation of life] God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light (Genesis 1:1-3).

First, we must define “in the beginning” biblically. The phrase is not a reference to time, but rather to source. – [Christ Jesus] the Beginning [the source] of the creation of God (Revelation 3:14). –  so as to create inside of Himself [Christ Jesus] one new man (Ephesians 2:15).

But look at the two things that are in “existence” inside of Christ Jesus before God speaks “Let there be light” directly. Those two things are the heavens, that is the Spirit qualities of God becoming the fabric of the heavenly part of creation and the earth, that is the outward appearance of the form of the Word. Yet here the earth, the appearance of Word, is “without form.” It has not yet taken shape, that is, not until God SPEAKS.

Then we see that the Spirit of God is “hovering over the face of the waters.” The “face of the waters” refers to all the multitudes of human beings existing inside of God, but not yet spoken into the seasons of their lives.

And so we have two things, form that is not yet form and Spirit that has not yet made alive. Yet both of these are ready and waiting for something. They are ready and waiting for the Word God speaks into them – “Let there be light.”

Those are WORDS coming out from God, words that are the Lord Jesus in Person, entering into form and spirit in order to implant meaning and life.

Here is how John said the same thing. – All through Him became, and without him not even one thing became that has become. In Him was life, and the life was actively the light of men. And the light is made visible in the darkness… (John 1:3-4).

This very same thing is happening, then, in Genesis 2. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7).

We have form, “the dust of the ground” and spirit, “the breath of life,” but then we must know what God means by “a living soul.” Sadly, the concept of being “a living soul” has been twisted away from God’s wondrous meaning by Nicene theology and Calvinist translation.

We set aside all such dark, fallen, and temporary definitions as we seek to know the real meaning of God in making us to be “living souls.” As I am writing this, I am seeing that being a living soul is just the most wondrous thing there is that we could be.

What is a living soul?

First, let’s bring in Paul’s definition of God and of humans created just like God.

…for the Spirit searches all, even the depths of God. Who indeed among men knows the things of the man if not the spirit of the man that is inside of him? Even so also, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. More than that, we have… received… the Spirit who is out of God, that we might know the things having been given to us by God (1 Corinthians 2:10-12).

Now, this passage is typically understood from a temporal and human point of view, and by “human,” I mean that mind that judges all things by an assumed “sight” (your eyes will be opened – Genesis 3:5), even though it is entirely blind.

My human spirit KNOWS my “things” inside of me. God’s Spirit knows God’s “things” inside of Him. What are those “things?” Those “things” are words, our story of self.

Paul is defining human consciousness and in doing so, asserting that human consciousness and God consciousness operate in exactly the same way. Human consciousness is a story of words inside of a spirit self-awareness. God consciousness is a story of Words inside of a Spirit self-awareness.

And the connection between the two is Jesus, God’s story of Words spoken and becoming our story of words – God speaks us… sustaining all things by the Word of His power.

Think about yourself. Is that not what you are, a story of words rolling around inside of a bubble of self, a bubble of spirit-self-awareness?

There are accounts of human beings who were completely isolated at birth and thus grew up without ever learning any words, not until they were in their twenties. Then, once that individual learned human words and could communicate with others, he became real, one might say. His memory of himself prior to possessing words was little more than of a vague series of feelings. A vague series of feelings is not what makes us human or like God.

This person’s real human life began for him with the introduction into him of words, of a story of himself rolling around as thoughts inside his awareness of himself. Feelings remain, of course, as part of the human, but as the color and sensation of the words. Feelings without words have nothing towards which to give color or sensation.

Then we come to two of the most extraordinary statements in the New Testament regarding what we are as human believers in Jesus.

The word {Christ, the Word God speaks} is near you in place and time, inside of your mouth and inside of your heart; that is, the word of faith which we proclaim. That, if you speak the same word in your mouth, speaking the Lord Jesus indeed… (Romans 10:8-9). – It is fully made visible that you ARE a letter of Christ, with us under your service, having [already] been written… with the Spirit of the living God… inside tablets of hearts of flesh (2 Corinthians 3:3 – condensed).

This Word, then, coming out from God’s thoughts, this Word that is the Lord Jesus Himself, is inside our mouth and written all through the pathways of our hearts.

We are designed by Word, we live by Word, we speak words, and we are a story of words.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – that is – STORY.

Let me define what I mean by the word “story.” First, story is the unfolding of meaningful words into the drama of a human life (design). Second, story is the words that are our knowing of ourselves, words that we think, words that reside all through our hearts (life – a living soul). And third, word is that which we speak as it comes out of what we know regarding ourselves (story as the witness of Christ).

Paul said that the word we speak is Christ in our mouth, homologia – speaking the same word. And we are witnesses of Christ, speaking the same word, because the Spirit of Christ has come upon us (Acts 1:8).

Word and Spirit are always together in God, in Christ, and in us. They are utterly part of each other.

~~~

What, then, did the serpent do in the garden? The serpent spoke into the human consciousness an anti-word, a word that screeches in utter discord and that disconnects the human from Christ, not in reality, but in the knowing of the human psyche. That false word is carefully and specifically designed in every way needed to become, then, in all human thinking, the anti-Design.

My purpose in writing this present series is to understand that anti-Word and how it works inside of the human soul, even in those who love Jesus and are filled with His Spirit. You see, it’s not that theologians study Genesis 3 in order to apply the serpent’s words to their thinking; rather, such thinking permeates the human psyche in the first place, and demons continue to whisper those same ideas as suggestions into the minds of all who give heed. More than that, those same words appeal to the same human rebellion shared with Adam. As Paul said, “Death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

What I have long sensed and now hope to demonstrate is that every nuance of “Christian” thinking that stands against the actual teaching of the New Testament as I have pondered over for years and have finally understood enough to set forth in Knowing Jesus as He Is can be found first in the specific psychological force of the words of the serpent in Genesis 3:1-5.

Let me take that a step further. Just as the human is designed by Word, brought forth through Word, sustained by Word, and meant to speak and think and live that Word, so those few short phrases spoken by the serpent are all that is needed to counteract that living Word towards the human at every point. And thus, armed with the ideas of the serpent found in Genesis 3 along with the same dislike of human weakness, love of angelic greatness, and desire to control other humans, people have all that is needed to construct their false human self, the story of self that is contrary to Christ at every point.

How else could a true-hearted brother in Christ anointed of God stand before thousands of mature Spirit-filled believers in Jesus and present to them the exact same temptation the serpent presented to Eve in the garden and receive from them full agreement as if he were preaching Christ Himself? How else – except that an enemy has done this.

Rather than being designed by Word as God intends, the false human story of self, then, is designed by accusation, by an anti-Word – the anti-Design.

In order to understand that anti-Word fully, however, we must also array the true Word of Christ against it. And thus, we discover God’s intention all along – the Word God speaks proven faithful and true inside of utter weakness and against the face of all accusation (Revelation12:1-5).

Now, let me set before you the deep concern of my heart over the last few years.

That concern is this – How do we impart to our brethren, members of us, the wondrous knowledge of Christ as them as all the fullness of God’s salvation fulfilled now through them into the universe? And the reason we must seek the answer for such a question is that we find a completely contradictory word coming out from them striking down every word that is Christ, even though they love Jesus and are filled with His Spirit.

What is this contradictory word, and how do we remove it from the hearts and minds of our precious brethren?

Look at what I have written in the first pages of this letter, up until the ~~~. What you are seeing is writing to teach; it is focused and direct, building from point to point as if I know what I am talking about. But I cannot write to teach unless I first write to learn. Most of my writing until recently has been writing to learn. In fact, even though my Symmorphy texts are written as if I am teaching, they are still, in large part, my writing to learn.

It is only after completing Symmorphy V: Life that I finally can believe that I might have something to teach. And thus, having something to teach, I wrote Knowing Jesus as He Is, a condensed form of everything of Christ that I learned through writing the Symmorphy courses. In other words, if you find the five Symmorphy texts to be a bit much in size, you can read the same thing in condensed form by reading Knowing Jesus as He Is.

Writing to learn is rambling. As I ramble, I have some impression of what I am searching for, but often I can’t even state it. Verses arise in my heart, I plant them into the text, and then I see what might come out from them. I express a thought, and then I see where it might go next. Very often, I have no idea what will show up by the end of any letter. And I am regularly surprised and overwhelmed by the wondrous things the Lord gives me as He sings out from my heart.

Writing to teach is a bit different. When I write to teach, I have a pretty good idea of what I must convey. Although I often see things in a new way as I write to teach, I pretty much already know what must be found in each lesson. Then, my sentences must be direct and focused with nothing that isn’t necessary.

As I said, the first pages of this letter are my writing to teach. And I was able to do that only because I have already written most of the writing-to-learn chapters of this series. In fact, what I have articulated in the first several pages of this letter is a clarity I have been reaching for through the last several years, a clarity that could not have come prior to now.

This book, Designed by Word, is writing to learn. I am writing it because I want to write a second book that I have titled, Set My People Free. That book will be addressed to the second ministry of Christ at the end of this age, and its purpose will be to give them the tools they need to cast down the image of the serpent in the minds of our fellow believers in Jesus so that they might see and know Jesus as He really is, already their only life.

My problem is that, as I started to write such a focused series, I discovered that I still did not know what on earth I might be talking about. To resolve my problem, then, I have written this book in the form of writing to learn, that is, just rambling through many of the things that must show up in Set My People Free so that I might discover what those things are.

These two books, Designed by Word and Set My People Free, will share the same topic all the way through but written from two very different approaches. I am convinced that both will be of utmost value to us as we cast down every accusation that has ruined our lives and the lives of our brethren and kept them from knowing the wondrous Salvation in which they already live.

The thief does not come except that he might steal and might kill and might destroy. I came that they might possess life and may possess it abundantly [excessively – beyond all expectation] (John 10:10).

Let me now explain what it is you will find as you go forward in this text.

First, this issue of how we plant the knowledge of Christ our ONLY life into the minds and hearts of our brethren, that is, how we persuade them to let go of a false image that is not Christ in order to know and to live in the Jesus they do love, the Jesus of their hearts – this issue has been in my heart for several years.

After I completed Musings on Union in late 2014 and before I started the Symmorphy texts in early 2015 as a new approach to writing, I wrote several letters that did not get put into any book. This question, however, was the primary issue I had in my heart as I wrote those several letters. Now, when I look back at them, I discover that they fit perfectly right here with this present topic.

For that reason, I am inserting those several letters as chapters in this book, Designed by Word. They will serve an excellent purpose in giving us a slightly different view of these same things. I had titled that unfinished series, “The Song of the Lamb,” and thus I reference that topic through them. “The Song of the Lamb” and “Designed by Word” are two ways of saying the same thing, just from slightly different expressions – singing a song and writing a story.

The earlier letters then are “2. My Yoke Is Easy,” “3. The Measure of Christ,” “4. Sing of Good Things,” and “5. Sustained.” It was in writing these that I first saw the reality of everything being sustained every moment by the good speaking of Jesus. I had never heard of such a concept before in all my knowledge of Christendom. Then, scattered through my present letters, there is also “10. The Importance of Being Wrong,” “13. Prophetic Words of Power,” and “16. Masquerade.” You will see how well each of these fits in their place, giving a slightly different view of the same difficulties. I will also modify the wording of those letters a bit in order to fit the present context.

Chapters 2-5, then, lay the background of thinking for this series. Chapters 6-16 are my attempt to place this great issue of serpent word perpetuated inside of Christian thinking into our understanding of the framework of what it means to be human. Chapters 17-23 are a more thorough investigation into the words of the serpent. There you will discover just how perfectly designed those words are in order to alter effectively the thinking of all humans, including, sadly, all of Nicene Christianity. Words that are successful in counteracting the good speaking of Jesus inside the human soul in every conceivable way.

 Finally, Chapters 24-26 will be a return to the Word of Christ our life, but from the view point of understanding that Word as it stands in contrast to the serpent’s words.

As I am working through these chapters, I am seeing more clearly the content and layout that must be found, by God’s grace, in Set My People Free.

One more thing. You may feel as if I left the topic of the first part of this letter, how we are designed by every Word coming forth from the speaking of God, just a bit unfinished. That was purposeful. Much of the completion of this topic of how we are designed by word will unfold through the chapters of this text. Then, I am including near the end “Designed by Christ” in which I hope to give a completion of this wondrous reality of our existence. That is, I want to give a focused and specific view of how we share our story of self with Jesus and His with ours, that we might be a part of that living soul that is Father revealing Himself inside of and to His creation.

And that unfolding of Father through us forever is the telling of a Story, the singing of a Song.