22.3 Sons of Father
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In the last lesson, I wrote: “Years later, the Graham River changed its course and ran over that artesian spring, sucking its life-giving waters into its own murky current.” The moment I wrote these words, I knew I was seeing a most powerful metaphor of the church age.
It seems, by outward appearance, that the 99.99% flow of the “murky” Graham River immediately dilutes that .01% output coming from the artesian well into just more murky water. Yet the waters of the Graham originated from springs as pristine as the artesian spring at the community farm. That pure water is the Father in His intense desire to be known, coming through Christ Jesus, Spirit and Word together.
Leaven
When Matthew recorded Jesus’ parable of the Tares, he inserted two more smaller parables just after, the parable of the Mustard Seed and the parable of the Leaven. Jesus said that not only would the enemy plant lies in the field of Christ, lies that would grow right along with the truth as part of Christian theology, but that this seed of Christ, as a mustard seed, would grow so large that all the birds of the air, typifying the unclean spirits of this age, would find a place in it.
And then Jesus said this: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened” (Matthew 13:33). Leaven is dishonesty, the murkiness added to the pure water.
Deep Calling
When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith in the earth?
You and I, having longed to know the living God from the first, have sunk to the bottom of a Christianity in which we did not find what we have sought. There, under the weight of decades of disappointment, we discover that we are clothed with the grip of that same desire, not diminished, but the only thing that fills our hearts. And here, on the bottom, we have found that same artesian well of Life that was lost in the murkiness of Christianity. And here we drink, for we have found Father, all the fullness of God filling us full; we have found Jesus alive in our hearts.
This is God’s method of finding His sons, Deep calling to deep.
Many Sons
In an upcoming session, What Is the Manchild, we will attempt to define Sons as they are in themselves. Here we continue with our desire to know what is a Fathering God; thus we want to use the Father’s sons as another means of knowing a God who begets.
First, sons are many. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12). To establish the meaning of many sons, however, we must know the relationship among three New Testament words, only-begotten, NOT alone, and firstborn.
Not Alone
John called Jesus the “only begotten Son” five times. The word he used for “only,” however, was the Greek word monos, which has become our English prefix, “one.” But Jesus repeated God’s statement in Genesis 2, It is not good that man should be alone, in this way. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain (John 12:24).
The word “alone” in John 12:24 is monos; thus we could say, the seed remains only, something Jesus intended to change. And thus God’s mono seed, only begotten, becomes the prototokos, the firstborn of a new creation, the first to be raised into resurrection life.
The Only Seed
This pattern we will continue to explore in upcoming sessions. Here we want to remain with this picture of once pure water now filled with murkiness – and the Fountains of Water that are a Fathering God.
When God called Jesus the “only begotten,” that is, the only seed, the only genetic material, He was not claiming that we would never be like Jesus, as most argue. God was speaking the very opposite. The Greek translators want to say that monogenes means “the only one of its kind.” I am convinced that monogenes means the only SEED that will produce His same kind.
And that Seed is Jesus as a Personal Spirit Word.
Mixing Words
Let me define what I mean by “deeper truth” Christians. Those Christians who see that God is forming them as sons, just like Jesus, those who hear “Christ in you.” Yet my own close knowledge of many “deeper truth” streams in the church informs me of two things. First, they want to be “christed” ones themselves, with little or no regard for Jesus, and second, they continue to use words God does not speak, mixed with a few words God does speak.
Let me define Nicene theology. Mixing a carefully selected handful of words God does speak along with a large number of words God does not speak, words that have completely replaced what I call “the most important verses of the Bible.”
Overwhelming Intensity
Finally, let me define the pollution of the pure water: Speaking what God does not speak – AND failing to speak Christ Jesus personal as our only story.
Inside this picture we have painted thus far, we place our knowing of this Fathering God. And the first thing we know is that, in the pursuit of His many sons, birthed out from that only-seed, Jesus, that is, Personal and Pure Spirit Word, there is only ONE Actor – Father.
We must know the overwhelming intensity of a Fathering God determined to be known through many sons just like Jesus. All the explosive power of the universe hardly casts a light upon the DESIRE for us inside of this God in us.
Father’s Heart
This Father God hurled Himself into our rescue, ripping Himself open upon the cross so that we could see His heart, so the we could KNOW the passion of our Maker. By this we know Father’s Heart, because Jesus laid down His life for us.
This Father God has contended with us every moment of our lives. It was always He. It was always He. This Father God lives now utterly inside of all that we are, all the fullness of God, all intensity beyond all creation. And this Father God, who has seized us utterly in His grip before we were ever conceived, is so pro-determined to reveal Himself through us that any thought otherwise cannot exist.
I Will NOT Let You Go
We are sons because God is Father.
Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”
But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:24-28).
Contend with God
I read someone who claimed that Jacob “wrestled with God” only because he did not know “oneness.” The person who said that did not know Father.
You see, I could give a rip about “oneness” or “the Christ within.” I am so en-sickened by all the murkiness in the water that I am simply closed off to all of it. I want to know Father, and I know Father through Jesus Sent into me, I know Father by every Word Jesus is.
There is one response only that we can give to a God who has always contended with us – we contend with Him. “Hey, God, look at me; I belong to You. Let it be to me according to Your Word.”
That Holy Thing
Like with like. Deep with deep. Father with sons.
Let me quote again from Annie Schissler’s vision: That Holy Thing. …in almost unbearable pain and in great love, He tore open, as it were, His own spiritual form or body. …after this great tearing open of Himself I could see within. – …so filled with holiness and God-life… Then He came forth… From this sweet, explosive breaking forth, He extended Himself over all; that is to say, He desired to manifest Himself, pouring this forth upon [through] those of His own ones who were waiting upon Him…
This is the meaning of the Atonement.
Through Me
God, ripped open for all to see who and what this Being is who tells us to call Him Father. God, taking out from His very Person, His Heart, and placing that Heart in ours – that He might be KNOWN.
This is the Seed that was planted in me when I was 21 years old, a Seed that has seized me in His grip and never let me go.
Yet this Father, who has seized us to be His sons, also connects with our own ferocity of contending with Him. And thus, just like Jacob, we contend with God eye to Eye, face to Face, body against Body. “I will not let You go until You reveal Yourself through me.”
Recklessly
The movie Taken with Liam Neeson spoke Father into me in a most profound way. Neeson’s character in the story, Brian Mills, had been a special agent for years. Now retired, he learns that his daughter has been kidnapped upon her arrival in Paris to be sold into the sex slave markets. Brian Mills knows he has only a 48-hour-window to find and rescue his daughter before she will be lost into a life of unimaginable horror.
The story line of the movie is a man throwing himself recklessly and with all abandon into the rescue of his daughter. Every cost required is paid without thought.
Daddy, You Came for Me
When he finally finds his daughter moments before it would have been too late, having eliminated all of her captivity, she falls into his arms with these words: “Daddy, you came for me.” The first time I heard his reply, it went all through me as the very words of my Father. “I told you that I would.”
There was only peace in that moment, but the viewers knew the extreme cost of that rescue. Our Father hurled Himself into our rescue with no thought of Himself or of the cost. It is this ONE who is a Fathering God, in whose grip we are utterly seized.
Sharing Utterly with Us
This is where we live. This is what it means to be sons of this Father. And because we have stopped lusting for heavenly glory, we are able to see Father now through us in the little mundane things of everyday life, through all of our difficulty that this reckless Father shares utterly with us as His own difficulty. We live as one with this Guy, and this beyond-all Fellow walks as one person together with us.
You see, I have made this observation. To the extent of Jesus, to that extent is also Father. To the lack of Jesus, to that lack is also Father.
Finding Pure Water
So many, even among those who hear “Christ in you,” want a Christ without Jesus and a God without Father. I felt at home at Lakewood Church because Jesus was present in a Spirit-filled environment, and thus Father was known as well. But where there is Christ without Jesus and God without Father, you will also find many words God does not speak.
For years we drank that water, originally from Father, but filled with words He does not speak; yet always our hearts called for pure water. We have found that pure water inside of John 14:20, and it is the cross that keeps us inside that fountain.
Our Father
What is a Fathering God? A Fathering God is a Father who has conceived us by His own Seed.
A Fathering God is a Father who has set all the passion of His determination upon us, who has recklessly hurled Himself into, not our “rescue,” for we were never really lost, but into His revelation through us, whatever it might cost Him and us. A Fathering God is a Father who fills us with all of Himself and who walks as One Person together with us, His Person inside of Jesus’ person inside of our person tucked utterly into Jesus inside of Father.
A Fathering God is our Father, and we know our Father.