49. Inside of Me

Covering John Chapter 14:1-28:

The word “Ekenosis” is a noun. Paul did not invent a noun, but a verb, an action. What I have written is not wrong, but it’s incomplete. To “ekenose,” then, is to call God into visibility through humbling ourselves for the sake of others. Jesus, in saying, “the one who sees Me sees the Father,” was pointing towards the many pictures of Himself showing a God who humbles Himself that He might share all with us. This, then, is the SEED planted into us, the very likeness of God, writing its same code upon all that we are.

Yet that’s just for starters. You see, this is how we can now relate fully with God in intimate union, for we are made compatible with Him.

John’s View of Symmorphy. Being made compatible with God, now we can KNOW Him. Now we can sing with His singing, write with His writing, laugh with His joy, care with His compassion. There is no end to God, nor an end to what He shares of Himself with us.

John 14, then, is a description of sharing Life with God and God with us. It is John’s view of what Paul meant when he said “grace” and when he said “symmorphosed.” The fact that none of those who heard Jesus speaking wrote about any of John 14 to 17, except John years later, shows us the problem Jesus faced, that these men, as they were then, were incapable of knowing God, nor of understanding the realms of Spirit, nor even of comprehending Paul’s gospel.

Life, the Tree of Life, is something entirely different.

A Life Way of Thinking. • 1 Do not let your heart be agitated; you believe into God, believe also into Me. • 2 There are many rooms in which to dwell inside My Father’s house; if not, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? • 3 And if I go to prepare a place for you [inside of the Father], then I am already coming and will receive you towards Myself, that where I AM, you also might be. 4 And you know the way by which I am being led.

Bible readers must be drawn out from a geographical way of thinking into a LIFE way of thinking. John 14 must be ruled inside of us by John 6:63 – My words are Spirit and Life. In verse 1, Jesus is inviting us into Himself, into His own Person. – I am the Way. Ruling Verse 1 is the best description of everything, but Ruling Verse 10 is WHERE everything else is found, inside a Personal Jesus taking us into a Personal Father.

Defining God. 14:1 Ruling Verse 10: With tenderness, Jesus invites us into Himself, into His own Person, for He alone carries us into God. In Verse 1, Jesus invites us into Verses 6 and 20.

God is NOT created. He fits NO created conceptualization. Yet most insist on visualizing Him as formed and located, especially those who refuse to be filled with His Spirit. We must have an absolute conceptualization of God that fits Him.

2 Definition: God is NOT formed; God is NOT located. God is NOT timed. God is ALL HERE NOW. God is all here now from deeper than the atomic to greater than the cosmic. And God is a PERSON. God as a Person is the one human way by which we must conceptualize God. God is All-Pervasive, All-Energeoing Spirit formed by and filled with Word. We know such a God only by being FILLED with His Spirit.

Dwelling inside of God. 2 Definition: God must use human words to speak to us, that is, when God speaks to us about Himself, He must speak with figurative language. In doing so, He is conveying to us things that are not static and bound, but are living and energeoing (see Hebrews 4:12-13). We exist only inside ALL that God is.

2 The Form for God through Jesus: The “many rooms” inside Father’s house goes in both directions together. As members of His Church, each one of us is a personal room in which the Father dwells. And inside of God, inside of His Being and Person, is also a place designed carefully for each one of us.

3 Ruling Verse 10: Jesus is taking us straight into the second critical verse in the Bible, John 14:20, which is John’s version of Romans 8:29 – symmorphosed. “Where I am” MEANS “I am inside of the Father.” Person inside of Person.

The Three How’s Together. • 6 Jesus replied, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one connects with the Father except through Me. • 7 If you had known Me, you would have known the Father also; from this present moment on you know Him and have seen Him.”

“I am the Way” – Ruling Verse 6. “I am the Truth” – Ruling Verse 7. “I am the Life” – Ruling Verse 5. The HOW’S of God.

The entire ISSUE, framed by the questions of the disciples, is WHERE. Where are You taking us? And this is one of the great lies spoken by Christan preachers, that Jesus is “taking us” to heaven. – Jesus is taking us into the Father, who is neither a place nor a form nor a time, but who is a Person. Jesus takes us into One who is All Here Now and deeply, utterly Personal – FATHER. And Jesus is the ONLY Way there. We need the next set of verses before the comments.

The Appearance of God. 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show, demonstrate, make known to us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus replied, “I have been so long a time with you, Philip, and yet you have not known Me? • The one who has seen Me, has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show and make known to us the Father?’ • 10 Do you not believe that I am inside of the Father and the Father is inside of Me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak from Myself, but the Father dwelling inside of Me does His works. 11 Believe Me that I am inside of the Father and the Father inside of Me; at least believe because of the works themselves.”

When God appears inside creation, He appears first as a single Man, and then again, as many made just like Jesus, together as the Church. God is Love, and the ONLY Way God is seen is as the reciprocal Flow of Love among His people.

A Great Riddle. Here is a great riddle. It was impossible for Jesus to show us reciprocal Love, for there was none other like Himself. God is made fully visible only as MANY “Jesus’s” Love one Another. Thus we have the words, “This is My full completion – that you love one another exactly as I love you.” – This is a great mystery, but we are speaking of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5).

As you can see, everything in these chapters is found in a completely different way of thinking than what the disciples possessed, and what most Christians insist on using. Thus our comments must break the earthly way of thinking, even while conveying how God is through Jesus’ words. And I see, now, that all of this must be framed out from the binding absoluteness of Covenant.

The Way to Life. 6-7 Covenant: God’s Covenant with us, the Lord Jesus dwelling in and written upon our hearts, has nothing to do with “going to” a geographical “heaven.” Jesus takes us to and connects us with God our Father, who is ALL HERE NOW and utterly Personal inside of Jesus inside of each one of us.

6 Ruling Verses 6, 7, & 5: Jesus presents Himself as being, in His own Person, the three “How’s” of God, by which we are carried into knowing the Father (see John 17:3). Ruling Verse 6 is the Way by which Jesus has already carried us into God by His Blood. The confidence and celebration of Victory, in Ruling Verse 7, is the Truth we confess every moment. And Ruling Verse 5 is the Life Jesus shares with us in intimate union.

7 Ruling Verse 10: It’s all about knowing the Father through knowing Jesus Sent into us. This KNOWING is our Life.

God’s Appearance and Proof. 9 Definition: When God shows up inside of creation, He appears only in the form of a Man, Christ Jesus, or through many inside of that Man, the Church. And when God appears, He humbles Himself through our love for one another. Jesus, as we know Him in the Gospels and in our hearts, is the ONLY image of God, the only lens through which we perceive who and what God is. We look through no other lens.

10-11 Ruling Verse 10: “I am inside of the Father and the Father inside of Me.” Person inside of Person, two Persons inside of One Another, this is how God reveals Himself. God is Symmorphic. John 14:20 becomes only inside of John 14:10-11.

10-11 Definition: The Flow of Gospel Word begins inside of God and comes through the speaking of Christ Jesus. Jesus’ works and ours are the result of that Flow and it’s proof.

The Proving of Word. 12 It is as I say to you. • The one who believes into Me, the works that I do, he also will do, and greater than these he will do, because I am always going towards the Father. • 13 And whatever you ask inside of My name, I will do, that the Father might be glorified inside of the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything inside of My name, I will do it.

12 Kingdom: God’s earnest determination is to PROVE that He speaks the Truth, that is, Jesus faithful and True. Because Jesus is the continuous and absolute Energeia flowing between God and us, even greater works come through us, again to prove God True through Jesus.

13-14 Ruling Verse 7: We ask God to fulfill every Gospel Word in our lives, and we believe we receive all that we ask. We are confident that God’s Word is made complete in us.

Word Before Stuff. • 15 If you love me, you will keep, guard and watch over My full completion [of word], 16 and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper-Advocate, that He might be with you into the age, • 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world-cosmos is not able to receive because it does not see or know Him. But you know Him, for He abides, lives, dwells alongside of you, and will become inside of you.

Christians ask God for all kinds of outward and temporal stuff. That is not wrong, unless it is the only thing asked. Jesus makes it clear that the most important thing we watch over to see it happen is His Word, that He speaks the Truth. Jesus is again hinting at His mysterious “disappearance” that He might come again on the day of Pentecost to fill His Church as a Life-Giving Spirit, the same Jesus now in us.

Two Trees Only. It is inside the completion of Word, the proof of God, that Jesus introduces the Spirit of Truth, our Helper-Advocate, which Paul asserts has become part of our own humanity.

15 Definition: There are two ways only by which humans attempt to approach God, the tree of death or the Tree of Life. And inside that approach is the one issue – Do you keep His Word? Some try to do His Word, then they lie about it, then, when they are found out, they cry. These “eat” of themselves, of their own failed “ability.” The Tree of Life is John 14:20. Some, knowing they cannot, run entirely into Jesus, into the full union with them He has extended over them, that Jesus Himself might be the full completion of Word inside of them.

16-17 Ruling Verse 3: The Spirit of Truth given to us, filling our souls, is now part of our humanity, showing us Jesus.

When We Know. Ruling Verse 10 is three related thoughts woven together, as is Ruling Verse 1. And we have seen how John 14:6 places the three “how” verses together into one line. At the same time, for this Flow of Gospel Word, I am including John 15:4. I had thought I might need to add more pages to fully explain each of these parts. Instead, as I continued to write, I found them all flowing together succinctly and beautifully.

We must KNOW three things first before we can know John 14:20. 1. God is a Person and Personal. 2. Jesus in Person dwells in our hearts. 3. Symmorphosed means sharing the same form. “In that day” is when we know all three. At the same time, I am finding that every Gospel Word in John 14 flows into or comes out from John 14:20 and must be carefully woven in throughout its Gospel Comments.

We Must See. • 19 Yet a little while and the world sees me no more, but you see Me. Because I live, you also will live.

As I read John out loud into audio, I find that using “world-cosmos” every time is cumbersome, even giving a wrong impression at times. I will now use “world-cosmos” only when it is appropriate for full meaning. Now we see that verse 20 is framed by verse 19. Jesus has reversed course. He had said, “You will not see Me,” now He says we will. This “switch” is the ACTION of our Faith. Then, “Because I live” means that John 14:20 is Resurrection Life.

19 Ruling Verse 2: Christ lives inside of our hearts through faith. Faith means that we SEE for real what the world cannot see. Faith is specific to the speaking of Jesus. Jesus, in Person inside of us, for REAL, is the only way into John 14:20.

Ruling Verse 10: The Tree of Life. • 20 In that day you will know that I am inside of My Father, and you inside of Me and I inside of you.

Let’s put all three parts together, and adding John 15:4. This is age-unfolding life, to know You, the One True God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. – In that day you will know that I am inside of My Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you. – Put the Lord Jesus Christ upon yourself without regard to anything else. – Dwell, stay, abide inside of Me and I inside of you.

“Put on” and “stay in” mean to acknowledge what is already True. Of truth, these verses together state that we KNOW four things and that we ACKNOWLEDGE three things. John 14:20 is the Tree of Life. In it John makes Paul’s “symmorphosed” utterly personal to Jesus and to us.

To Know and to Acknowledge. Okay, I have added two mysterious thoughts. The cross is called “the tree” in reference to the Tree of Life, but not because of an ever-dead Jesus. Rather, because of a Jesus, having given Himself to God for us, now alive forevermore. The Tree of Life, Resurrection Life, is the giving of the Lamb to enable us to know the Father.

Then, first we KNOW God our Father. Second, we know Jesus Sent into us. Third, we know that we share all form with Jesus and He with us. And fourth, we know that our sharing of form with Jesus is found INSIDE of the Symmorphic relationship between Father and Son. Finally, our first acknowledgement is of Jesus having been Sent into us. Second is the active ferocity by which we place Jesus upon all that we are, making “inside of” to be “enclothed with,” and third, that we REST utterly and only inside of Him.

Expanded and Personal. This is age-unfolding life (the only definition in the Bible), to know the One True God, our Father, and to know Jesus Christ sent into us. – In that day (today as you hear and believe) you will know that I am inside of My Father and you will know that you are inside of Me and I inside of you, Person inside of person, inside of Person. – Put the Lord Jesus Christ upon yourself, actively acknowledge that you are enclothed entirely and only with Him in all, and without regard to anything else. – Dwell, stay, abide inside of Me and I inside of you, rest in the full acknowledgement that nothing else can be true.

Christ Made Personal: Today is my day, today I know that I am inside of Jesus inside of the Father and that the Father is inside of Jesus inside of me, for REAL. I share form with Jesus. I know God my Father; I put Jesus upon all that I am.

Defining the Rule. The Flow of Gospel Word brings everything found in John 14, 15, 16, and 17 into the meaning of Ruling Verse 10, and as an even greater focus, into John 14:20. I cannot be satisfied with any of these “definitions of the rule,” and thus I must keep working on them – maybe forever.

Defining the Rule: Life is knowing the Father. Age-unfolding means every next step shared with God. We know the Father through first knowing Jesus Sent into us. Jesus in Person inside of us means that He has first included us entirely inside of Himself, and with Him inside of the Father. This Personal togetherness is the symmorphy of Ruling Verse 1. Our response is to aggressively put the Lord Jesus Christ upon ourselves, all of Him upon all that we are, regardless, and thus to rest utterly inside of Him, that we live nowhere else.

Life and Covenant. Life: Knowing God is age-unfolding Life. “Age-unfolding” means one thing, every next step shared with God forever. 

Covenant: ~ Living inside of Jesus is my Way to connect with the Father sharing my life with me. Jesus living inside of me is the Father’s Way to connect with me sharing His life with Him, that God might enter creation through me. Life itself is my Way, moment by moment and step by step, not ‘to’ something, but rather life-unfolding, the living and dynamic expression of God with me unveiled new every morning forever ~ (from the JS2).

Speak Christ: I know the Father; I know Jesus Sent into me. I share all of myself with Jesus because He shares all of Himself with me. I put the Lord Jesus Christ upon all that I am and upon every moment of my life. I stay always inside of Him.

Symmorphosed and Filled! Ruling Verse 1: Being symmorphosed with the image of God’s Son, that is, sharing the same form with Jesus as the Father made known, is a very personal sharing, Jesus in Person inside of us and we in person inside of Him, and together inside of Father. Synergeoing with God becomes the greater works of Jesus with us, making all good. Being found inside the embrace of Father and Son is the meaning of “already glorified.”

Ruling Verse 2: Knowing the Father, comprehending the full extent that is God, is a task given to us to do together, as we are the many rooms that God fills with all fulness. For knowing the Father is Love, and the Love of Christ, the reciprocal Love that we share together, is the Father now seen. Indeed, rooted and grounded inside of such Love, we put the Lord Jesus Christ, not only upon ourselves, but upon one another.

From Rivers to Intimacy. Ruling Verse 3: John 14:20 is the Tree of Life, out from which flows the River of Life, bringing life into all creation. Jesus shares all form with us and we with Him, including our belly, our heart, our innermost being out from which the Spirit flows.

Ruling Verse 4: Jesus is the Seed planted deep inside our earth. Putting Him upon ourselves, resting utterly inside of Him, includes giving ourselves with Jesus to the Father for the sake of others, that all our Christian brethren might know God.

Ruling Verse 5: The Cross has already removed all that is sin and death far away from us, keeping us ever safe. But its greater purpose is to ensure for us that we are utterly inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us. This symmorphy is an intimate sharing of soul with Soul, of heart with Heart. It is the purest and most devoted Fellowship of union together. Christ is our LIFE.

From Boldness to Love. Ruling Verse 6: Jesus is the WAY into the Father, having already carried us there inside of Himself and through His Blood. That Blood is where we sit inside of God, with Jesus upon Mercy, all the authority of Jesus now shared with us.

Ruling Verse 7: Jesus is the TRUTH we speak as we go forth in every place, celebrating together all Victory. Person inside of person sharing all together is the cause of the Kingdom. Putting Jesus upon ourselves is resurrection and immortality.

Ruling Verse 8: To know the Father is to know and to be Love. Jesus, Sent by the Father into us to include us entirely inside Himself, has carried us with Him into the Father. Jesus is the Hheart we share with God. By Jesus, we know Love, and with Jesus, we set forth our souls for our Christian brethren. Putting Jesus upon ourselves is the bowels of Compassion.

The Rock and the Fire. Ruling Verse 9: God is inside of Jesus inside of us, reconciling the world to Himself. We are inside of Jesus inside of God, setting creation free. Every form that Jesus fills, including His ministry as the Son Revealed, is a form He shares with us. To abide inside of Jesus is to be the Rock, the refuge for all.

Ruling Verse 10: Each of the Ruling Verses flows together with each of the other Ruling Verses, and with all together, so beautifully and with such power. Each gives meaning to the others. Placing the Ruling Verses into a circle makes Ruling Verse 10 to be at the right hand of Ruling Verse 1. Above all, these two give meaning to each other. Because we KNOW that Jesus enclothes us already, we now, with Him, put Him upon all who belong to Him. We enclothe His Church with Fire through eyes of Fire shared with Jesus.

The Kingdom as Father Made Known. Kingdom: Personal Symmorphy, our Symmorphy with Jesus inside of His Symmorphy with the Father, becoming the Father made visible, is the Source and Cause of the Kingdom. Symmorphy is the beginning of all other science; knowing God is the first of all other study. The pattern of the City of God fits those who birth it out from their bellies, out from their own souls-set-forth, shared with Jesus.

The Form for God through Jesus: Symmorphy with Jesus as individuals becomes Fellowship together as His Body. The living vibrancy of a shared life with Jesus, Person inside of person inside of Person, then becomes the same living vibrancy by which we share life together as the dwelling place of God. The Heart of God’s House is our knowing the Father together; its appearance is Love as Father made known.

Our Hearts. • 21 “The one who possesses My full completion [of words] and keeps guard over them, he is the one who loves Me. Even more, the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father. And I will love him and will appear in person and make Myself visible to him.” – • 23 “If anyone loves Me, he will keep, guard, and watch over My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make Our home in intimate closeness and participation with him.”

These two lines are the greatest personal meaning to us in the Bible. From age 20, they have been the set of my heart and my desire. Verse 23 is what I meant when I said to God, at 22, “I will know You, and I will walk with a people who know You.” This is Covenant, this is Kingdom, this is Heart, this is Desire, this is the Apocalypse. This is God inside of us.

Jesus Coming to Us. “Keep My Word” is the great proving coming to every human every moment. The law says, “Either you do or you don’t.” But the Gospel asks, “What do you want?”  The difference is honesty – no sufficiency in self, all sufficiency in God.

21 Ruling Verse 7: Hebrews 3 is the jeopardy of the Gospel. “Keep My Word” is all or nothing. Do we love Jesus? Do we WANT Him to show Himself to us in Person? The dishonest “try” to keep His Word and do not care that they FAIL. Those who love Jesus run into Him, that He alone is the Keeping of All Word. No sufficiency in self, all-sufficiency in God.

21 Covenant: This experience with Jesus, as He comes to each of us personally, and reveals Himself to us, that we might see Him as He is, this experience is the only way we are just like Him. “Keep My Word” penetrates deep. What do you want?

Father at Home in Our Hearts. Then, John 14:23 is the greatest depths of Desire. – What do you want? Either the Promise Jesus makes to us in verse 23 is our one desire, or nothing in the Bible means anything.

23 Covenant: Jesus showing Himself to us, His Person inside of us, is the catalyst for something far, far greater, the Father coming with Jesus to make His Home in intimate closeness and participation with us. To us, Father at Home in our hearts inside of Jesus is the only thing that matters, the one thing we MUST know, all we ever wanted.

23 The Form for God through Jesus: Our hearts, Father at Home in our hearts, is the first Form God takes as He enters into His creation. It is only as we share hearts together, in the Fellowship of Worship, that God Flows out from each into making His Home in our togetherness, God seen and known.

The Devoted Spirit. 25 These things I have said to you as I have remained with you, • 26 but the Helper-Advocate, the Devoted Spirit, whom the Father will send inside of My name, He will teach you all, and will bring into your mind all that I have said to you. • 27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be agitated, nor let it be fearful or timid. 28 You heard Me say to you that I am continuously going away and continuously coming towards you. • If you love Me, you would rejoice that I am going towards the Father, for the Father is larger and greater than I am.

We would be wrong to think that the other disciples “forgot” what Jesus said in John 14-17. The Spirit in them would have mulled over those things always, yet only John was able to express a full understanding.

Our Devotion and Our Covenant Bond. 26 Ruling Verse 3: The mind is part of our souls; the Spirit of God must FLOOD our souls, so that we might perceive and know God as a Life-Giving Spirit. The Spirit is described by three words, Helper, Advocate, and Devoted. The energeoing of the Spirit enables us in all; the Spirit flows out from us as our representative carrying LIFE into all. And the Spirit is the wondrous Devotion flowing from God to us and us to God.

27 Ruling Verse 7: We rest inside of Jesus in utter peace.

28 Definition: The action of Jesus in “coming out from” and “going towards” the Father is continuous, all here now. This action of Jesus between God and us is the living and energeoing Covenant. – We speak of God only with His own words. There is one God, the Father, far greater and far larger than Jesus, who is the Son out from God, our Covenant Bond.

The Tree of Life. Consider this. All three elements in Ruling Verse 10 refer to a way of thinking, and not to any outward action of ours. We do not “put ourselves” into Jesus, for God already has. We do not actually “put Jesus upon” ourselves, for we are already inside of Him. These are things we must know, and thus our “action” is our response, that we ACKNOWLEDGE God to be True already. Faith is response to specific Word.

Thus the Tree of Life, living inside of Jesus inside of us, is a mind, a way of thinking, that is, God’s thoughts flowing as Jesus through all that we are, from our heart to our mouth to our eyes. And the tree of death is nothing more than refusal. Thus the image we hold of Jesus is either all Life or all death. Thus I say that I must change your definition of God. In fact, Ruling Verse 10 has become absolute in definition, live or die.

Let’s Pray Together. “Lord Jesus, You have come to us and shown yourself to us inside our hearts, in Person and as every Word Kept. We know that as we acknowledge You, as we keep our eyes fixed upon You, so You make us to be just like Yourself. And Lord Jesus, what wonder is this, that You have brought God our Father with You inside of You and now inside of us. All we have ever wanted is to know God our Father at Home in our hearts, sharing every moment of our lives with us.

“God, our Father, You participate with us in all things, in every moment, in intimate closeness and belonging. We possess all; we are complete. And we KNOW now, oh Father, that our Devoted Spirit flows out from us together, bringing this same LIFE to all our Christian brethren, inside of Jesus’ name now ours.”