1.3 Connections to Pro-Thesis
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The ruling verse of the Bible is Romans 8:28-30. – God is determined to conform me as one person together with Jesus as the revelation of the Father. Everything in the Bible and in all reality must come under and be known by the universe-shaping words in these three verses together as one.
This course is based entirely on the course Symmorphy I: Purpose. Thus, on a regular basis, this course assumes that the learner has completed every element in the first course on Symmorphy and thus knows, at least a little bit, the wondrous purpose of God for us and for creation.
Ruling Words
Five HUGE Greek words, then, coming into English, come out from this most important verse, the first defining verse of everything in our minds. Pro-Thesis; Pro-Knowing; Pro-Determination; Symmorphose; and Image.
Pro-Thesis is the set forth purpose of God out from which all things flow and towards which all things work, God’s intention, the Father’s DESIRE. Pro-Thesis is the Word by which all things are created.
Pro-Knowing is the intimate knowing of the Heart of God out from which all things proceed, a knowledge that IS God, His KNOWING of you and me at all times and in every way.
Pro-Determination is the action of God, out from the core of His Being, a Determination that has seized you and me in its grip, a Determination that WILL accomplish all that the Father intends.
Symmorphose is the ruling verb of the nature and Being of God, Person inside of Persons inside of persons, God and us merged together as one person by every word that is Christ, sharing the same form.
Finally, Image is the outer expression of God’s purpose, God Himself appearing to His creation as you and me, the revelation of Jesus Christ, that the Father might be seen and known, touched and handled by all of His creation.
The First Question
Image is Jesus, the first one of our kind, and we just like Him, merged together, sharing one form as the revelation of Father. In short – you and I as normal human beings, living the normal Christian life.
The first question in this course is this. Just exactly how does the purpose, the focus, and the layout of this course connect us together with God’s Pro-Thesis, His set forth purpose, to make Himself known by His creation through us, His image, symmorphosed together with Jesus in all ways? Four verses will make this connection for us.
Proving the Will of God
Romans 8:2. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind – that you may prove … the will of God. “Be transformed” (metamorphosed) is a word that is similar to, but serves the greater word, symmorphosed; the “will of God” is the prothesis, the intentions of God.
Transformed is what happens to our outward appearance as we live by a renewed mind, a mind that sees and knows all things first by union with Christ and by His substance always sustaining us. Yet the goal of this transformation is to prove all the will of God. Our minds must change until we think as God thinks.
Casting Down Arguments
2 Corinthians 10:5. Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
“Arguments” are the false underlying assumptions and un-Biblical definitions that have ruled our thinking, assumptions of separation and the rule of outward appearance. “Bringing every thought into captivity” is placing everything we know upon the ruling definitions of Christ our only life, that is, Jesus, alive and real, Personal in us. We do that by speaking only what God speaks about Christ in and out from our own hearts and mouths.
Seeing Jesus As He Is
1 John 3:2. …We know that IF Jesus appears to us (the actual meaning of the Greek), we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. If we are not like Jesus, then we clearly do not see Him as He is. And if we do not see Jesus as He is, then we clearly hold a definition of Jesus that is false. Yet the intentions of God are that we see Jesus as He is that we might know that we are just like Him.
Always, the purpose of changing our minds, altering the underlying assumptions and ruling definitions by which we have thought, is God’s set forth purpose, to symmorphose us together with Jesus, two persons sharing one form.
What Do You See?
2 Corinthians 3:18. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed (metamorphosed) into the same image, from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
When you look in the mirror in the middle of the night, do you see by outward appearance or do you see by substance? Do you see Jesus in His glory filling all that you are, or do you see a fleshy human always falling short of God? Do you come every moment out of the good speaking of Jesus?
What you see is determined entirely by the underlying assumptions, the ruling definitions you hold in your mind by which you determine the meaning and essence of everything.
Pro-Thesis
We begin any study with the set-forth purpose of God. What does the Father want? What is His heart regarding this?
The pro-thesis, the set forth purpose of God, IS the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His dimensions and capacities. We cannot know anything, what it is and what it’s purpose is, without first knowing Jesus Sent, not just about Him, but the Person living inside of us, connecting us as one person with the Father by every Word that He is. As we know Jesus Sent as God’s pattern, as God’s pro-thesis, then we can know the answers to every question we might ask in this course, starting with – What is God?
Pro-Knowing
Everything that exists originates in the heart of the Father, out from His knowing. This knowing is not a “knowing about”; neither is it something God “knew” a long time ago. This knowing is the birth of all things every moment out from the intentions and desire of God.
You and I exist because God knows us, because we come out of the knowing of His heart. As we know God’s knowing of us, we can begin to place and to understand the meaning and definition of all of God’s workings towards us.
Pro-Determination
God has set the end of all things by His Pro-Thesis, His intentions towards all. An essential element of God’s pro-thesis is that God sets all things free of Himself. Yet God wins all things back; He wins only by love. This Love, this unquenchable DESIRE inside of God has set all the course of our lives. This Love has seized us in His grip for His purposes alone.
As we KNOW the certainty of God towards us, so we receive His understanding of all things with absolute confidence. God is telling us the truth.
Symmorphy
Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me for I am meek and lowly of heart . . . (Matthew 11:29). It is Jesus alone who connects us to the Father by every Word that He is. This connection is symmorphy. Learn of Me – our task and our joy forever.
Yet as we learn of Him, we discover that it is the Father Whom we now know. We discover that Jesus is in us exactly what He is in Father. Knowing the essential meaning of those realities critical to the gospel is the only possible way we can learn of Him. We must know Jesus AS HE IS in order to know age-abiding life.
Image
Here is the clearest rendition of God’s pro-thesis. He that has seen Me has seen the Father – We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
Image – the revelation of Father for all to see and know. We cannot be the revelation of Father unless we know what man is. We cannot be the revelation of Father unless we know what Christ is. We cannot be the revelation of Father unless we know what God is.
Let us follow on to know the Lord that we might reveal Him.
My Testimony
The more I live and think only inside of John 14:20, placing me in Jesus and Jesus in me as my very and only life, speaking Christ with my mouth, the more my thinking changes. And my thinking always changes by a massive change first in my underlying definitions, beginning with my knowledge of what is God. When a verse “leaps” off the page, and I see and know, what really happened is that now I believe that God is telling me the truth by that verse. But even more, when I know that verse as Jesus in me and I in Him, only then do the words become real.
I testify to you that ALL things, including every word in the Bible, appear entirely different from here.
Union versus Separation
I know the thinking of the minds of most Christians, and I know that seeing out from Christ alone causes everything to be entirely different from that thinking. The same words of the Bible, heard out from the tree of life, mean something entirely different – not the opposite, but an entirely different universe than anything those words could ever mean when heard by those continuing to live in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of hear what God says (from a distance) and be sure to do it, the tree of obey, do not disobey.
The tree of life is union and substance; the tree of knowledge is separation and outward appearance.
Life
It’s not the Word that has changed, but our seeing and hearing. Before, every word was death to us – “You are fallen short of God.” Now, every word is life to us, “Peace, My child, I AM the Word God speaks; I AM the only Life you are.”
And we are free to busy ourselves with the one task given to us, knowing the Father and knowing Jesus Sent. Life, age-abiding life.
Thus every lesson in this course is written for that purpose, to cause us to know God, that God’s intentions might be fulfilled through us.
Welcome to This Course
As learners going through this course and all courses at Christ Revealed Bible Institute, you will know the Spirit of God leading you, personally, into all truth, into all the knowledge of Jesus alive and real inside your heart. There is no other purpose for anything, yet all things of joy and goodness flow out of our hearts, the Mercy Seat, the throne of God, out of Father in all abundance.
As you work your way through this course, stay always with Jesus. He alone teaches you. The pages of this text have no meaning at all unless Jesus is making Himself known to you by using what is written here just a little bit.
I am confident that is exactly what He is doing in you.