2. The Absolute Profundity

As I sit here writing this, my heart and mind cry against all limitation of the extent and meaning of those red blood cells mixing with the dirt of this earth. My God, my God! Salvation is complete, right here, right now. To relegate any element of salvation to some future day is an open insult to the power and completeness of that blood in the dirt. Today is the day of salvation.

 Of the Blood, the Cross,
and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

 

‘Absolute’ means “free from imperfection; having no restriction, exception, or qualification.” ‘Profundity’ means “the state of extending far, all-encompassing.”

Christian theology and the human mind have found every possible way to limit and reduce the meaning and impact of the blood, the cross, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, each in their own spheres.

Central to the work God is doing in changing our minds, in opening our eyes so that we might see all things as they really are, is our heart-mind-faith embracing of how absolute the blood, death, and resurrection of Jesus really are, both in our own lives and in all creation.

The days of the limitation of God are over.

The blood is for sin. Sin is an offense that causes an imbalance of justice or a debt from the one sinning to the one being sinned against. All sin is an offense against God, but much sin is also an offense against one or more members of His creation. All sin is a willful act on the part of the one sinning that takes away the ‘property’ right of the one sinned against. All sin must be paid back.

Let me illustrate from the ten commandments. All offense is actually theft. If I worship other gods, I take from God what belongs to Him. If I murder, I take away life that belongs to someone else. If I commit adultery, I take what belongs to another man or woman; I also steal from the child who could be born. If I lie, I take away truth and integrity that rightfully belongs to someone else. And if I covet, I want to steal, even if I can’t.

God is absolutely just. Everything ever stolen (all sin) must be paid back. The law requires paying back double.

Evil is darkness. Evil produces nothing of itself; all evil is theft. Whatever evil possesses, it has stolen. All evil is an offense against the light of God and also an offense against some part of His creation. If the evil is not harming one’s neighbor, yet, it brings harm to the sinner who is of God’s creation and therefore is theft against even one’s own self.

Satan has robbed himself more than he has robbed anyone except God.

To most Christians, the blood of Christ allows God to forgive those who believe in Jesus so that they can go to heaven even though they are still sinners. Some go a little further and use the blood as a weapon to fight against demons.

Let God enlarge our understanding of the blood of Christ until there is no shadow of limitation. The blood shed by Christ answers all claims against all evil.

Take every offense ever committed from the fall of Lucifer until Jesus restores all things to the Father, every offense committed against God, against others, and against self, add them all together, and you have a fairly great weight of offense.

Yet the value of one drop of Jesus’ blood is greater than the value of all things ever stolen put together.

Yes, there is coming a time when all things will be restored. God requires justice. Yet all restoration of all things rests completely inside the absolute finality of the blood. It is already paid for. And inside of it already being paid for, now the individual who stole can freely restore that which was stolen.

I believe that for those who overcome in this age, all restoration takes place inside of our faith, our embracing of the absoluteness of the blood of Christ. At the same time, I suspect that those who do not embrace the full meaning of the blood of Christ will be required to bring restitution to those they have wronged. Some will spend an entire age doing so. Yet all restitution will be possible only because it is already restored fully and without question by the blood of Jesus.

This speaks of the extent of the blood, but another picture shows it’s depth.

Jesus was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. God is eternal. The blood and sacrifice of Christ was not ‘added’ to God’s nature and being after some historical incident. Christ as He walked this earth was simply revealing in time and space what was already eternally true.

Yet, even though the blood has always been, it had no effect in the history of man until red human corpuscles dripped into the dirt at the foot of a piece of wood stuck into the ground.

As I sit here writing this, my heart and mind cry against all limitation of the extent and meaning of those red blood cells mixing with the dirt of this earth.

My God, my God! Salvation is complete, right here, right now. To relegate any element of salvation to some future day is an open insult to the power and completeness of that blood in the dirt. Today is the day of salvation.

The blood was not shed in heaven, it was shed in the earth. The blood was not shed in some future age, it was shed in the present age of human folly. The blood did not mix with the ‘gold’ of heaven’s ‘streets,’ it mixed with the dust of this planet.

Do not ever weep over sin. That doesn’t mean we are not sorrowful if we cause hurt to someone else, or that we don’t ask forgiveness and do what is needful to make it right. It means that we walk in the light, without any consciousness of sin, because we walk at all times with the full extent of the blood of Christ mixing with every part of our human earth.

It is finished.  And it is finished for all creation as well.

Jesus was adamantly against those who got an emotional thrill out of accusing others. Religious accusation that exalts self while condemning another is the one thing that Jesus fought against with all the ferocity of His being. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Satan is cast out of the heavens as all accusation is cast out of our hearts.

“Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen . . .” Romans 8:33-34

The blood of Christ has already paid all claims against all offense. When you magnify sin, you diminish the blood. When you magnify the blood, sin vanishes from view. We must see all things both within ourselves and in our experience with others and in all creation through the blood of Christ, always.

The blood of Christ has more value than we can possibly ever know. You have been purchased with that blood; you are of supreme value.

If you had in your hands the largest diamond ever in history, worth millions of dollars, knowing its value, you would be mightily moved inside to treat that piece of earth with extreme carefulness.

To see all things through the blood of Jesus is to see all things created by God, each individual person, as having more value than all earth’s diamonds put together could ever possibly have.

The Blood of Jesus.  Remove all shadow of limitation from your heart and mind.

~

The cross is for the sinner. The blood is for the one sinned against, but the cross deals with the one who sinned.

There is no independent self. The great delusion of man is that he is independent of God. Paul told a group of pagans who never received Christ, “In Him you live and move and have your being.” ‘Self,’ then, is a mental delusion.  That is, the idea that man was ever created as some independent being and not as the container of God.

Fred Pruitt, in his book, The Axe Is Laid to the Root, lays out this understanding of the cross more clearly than I can. “Laid to the Root” is another way of saying “Absolute Profundity.” Obtain a copy of that book and read it more than once over a period of time. Our understanding always grows by steps.

The idea that we are an independent self comes out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is man’s fall.

The tree of knowledge says this: “Here I am, there God is. God speaks, I try to do what God says. I try, but sometimes I do good and sometimes I do evil. So I run back and forth between flesh and Christ, between sin and righteousness, between self and death to self. And so I am and remain until I die and go to heaven.”

Much Christian theology is rooted in the knowledge of good and evil.

The resurrection is the tree of life, but first I want to talk about death.

I am dead.

I am dead in three ways. I am dead to the tree of knowledge, that is to the life of ‘self.’ I am dead to Adam and to my ancestral connection from my natural father back to Adam. And I am dead to the world.

When I look at ‘self,’ I cannot see self, I can see only the cross. When I look at my natural father not as a brother in the Lord, but as a connection back to Adam, I cannot see any part of natural humanity, I can see only the cross. When I look at this world, and everything in this world, country, economy, associations, cults, flags, culture, the unending deception coming to us from the image of the beast (i.e. television news), I cannot see any part of the world, I can see only the cross.

Jesus said, “Whatever you ask, believe that you have received it, and you shall have it.”This is the law of faith. This is the law by which God brings all reality into existence. God calls those things that ‘be not’ as though they are.

This is why we must be careful of an unguarded use of the Old Testament. David said, “Create in me a clean heart, Oh God.” And we sing this over and over and pray it over and over. But our prayer is gross unbelief because we never allow ourselves to receive from God what we ask for. The Old Testament is God limited and confined by the tree of knowledge.

At what point, in asking God to create in us a clean heart, will we believe that we have already received what we ask for? Some even imagine that to believe we have received a clean heart is blasphemy, yet they weep for it over and over.

What gives?

I have no connection to any sinful self. I ask God for the full knowledge of my full and absolute freedom from sin and that separated self which sins, and I believe that I have received what I have asked.

I have no connection to Adam. I ask God for and I believe that I have received the full knowledge of my full and absolute severance from Adam and from all things connected to natural man upon this earth. I receive what I ask.

I have no connection to anything in this world. My heart is severed from any love for any element of this world. I can freely spurn the American flag. I can freely refuse to “honor the troops.” I can freely walk separately from any entanglement to any element of this world.

Do not think I am speaking nonsense. Jesus is coming in full glory to expose and consume all lies and all evil in this world. Any attachment still in our heart to any part of this world will cause us to deny Him and to fight against Him before this thing is over.

I ask for the full knowledge of my full separation from all hindrances or bonds or ties to anything in this fallen world. I receive that full knowledge.

By the cross I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me. Whether my eyes see it fully or not, I believe that I have it – now. I open my eyes to see what I believe.

The cross is absolute. And it puts to death absolutely all things that come out of the Lie or that have any connection whatsoever to that Lie.

To believe that I am a sinner or that I am bound to sin is to deny the cross and to disobey the express commandment of God.

To believe that I am a human in any way descended from Adam or to countenance any connection to Adam is to deny the cross.

To believe that I have any part of this wicked world, or any part in any of the wicked nations of this world, and especially in this hour of blasphemy, the cult of the worship of human government, is to deny the cross.

The cross is absolute. But I must know and see its absoluteness in every part of my existence. God, open my eyes. I ask and I believe that I have received what I ask for. And all seeing of all present reality as it truly is in God right now is mine.

~

I chose “Absolute Profundity” as a title to emphasize how we have limited the reality of the blood, cross, and resurrection of Jesus as they work in our lives and in creation. ‘Profundity’ means ‘depth’ or ‘extent’; ‘absolute’ means that there is no limit to what the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus has already accomplished.

Of these three, the cross is a negative, that is, it brings an end to something. The blood, while positive (the life is in the blood), makes the payment against all debt owed. The blood redeems us. But the resurrection is where we live!

These things cannot be theology for us: “Sounds nice - reality in heaven.” No, these things have already changed all reality. It is our minds, our thinking, that must now change to fit what is.

Christian thinking has focused much more on the cross of Jesus applied to our lives rather than the resurrection.

Consider death. When a person dies, we briefly honor the life of the person and then quickly get the corpse into the ground. From then on we no longer think about that which is dead. Yes, we remember the person as they were, but not the corpse. We don’t spend time thinking about what is the present state of rot and decay. That which is dead is over with; it occupies no concern whatsoever.

Consider life. My nine-year-old son is alive! Which is an understatement. He has all the energy and drive and love of “wind in the hair” and chasing balls down a field that a young boy can have. Containing and directing the life that is inside of him is a full-time job.

Paul says, “You are dead.” “Consider yourself to be dead indeed to sin.”

It’s over with. It’s buried. It’s corrupt and decayed. Yet we have thought that to be good Christians we needed to labor over the death as if it is not actually dead, but dying. And so with our theology, we have given life to a corpse and raised it to the level of concern that a normal person reserves to the living.

God said, “You are dead.” But we insist that God is wrong and that He should have said, “You must die.” And by doing so we give the essence of ‘life’ to a corpse instead of leaving it in the grave where it belongs.

That which needed to die is dead. Paul also said, “It is buried.” Leave it there.

But Paul said more than “You are dead,” he also said, “Christ is your life.” He says, “Consider yourself to be dead indeed to sin, but (consider yourself even more to be) ALIVE unto God.”

The life of Jesus inside of us is all that there is. And that life works its way through every part of our humanity, right now. Jesus is alive as me!

The resurrection is the most profound thing in the universe. It has already swallowed up everything. It is all there is in us. I am alive unto God! I am alive unto God! It is life that consumes us, that takes our focus and energy and time.

God left us in these weak human frames because that was His purpose from the beginning. He wanted to reveal His Son in the midst of and out from human weakness. The fall of Adam changed nothing of God’s purpose. You, as you are right now, are God’s original intent apart from the fall of Adam. He wants you to know weakness, that the power of Christ might be revealed first to you as you and then through you as a tender touch in a weary place, as a cup of cold water to him who is thirsty.

This is the glory of God, as we are right now.

Those who say, “But I am a sinner,” work against God’s intent in their lives.

Forget about death, except that we let it be complete in our understanding. I loved my father, but I do not spend any time or energy considering the present state of his corpse. Yes, I know where it is and I know that it is dead. And there I leave it. It is finished.

But my living son consumes much thought and energy.

We do not walk with the consciousness of sin or of Adam, anymore than I walk in the remembering of the state of my father’s corpse. I use that graphic image to get across the clear picture of truth. Christ is not death; He is life.

But we do boast in our weaknesses, our limitations and lacks, we BOAST in these things, because this is God’s glory and intent. Not that we spend undue time considering our weakness, but we glory in the power of Christ revealed in us as weak humans.

And that leaves us free to be that kind touch, that cup of living water, that is Christ revealed through us. We are just being ourselves.

It is easy for our human minds to picture and illustrate and think about death, but for some strange reason, life is not quite so easy to grasp. The absolute profundity of the resurrection life of Christ inside of us and throughout all creation!

The life that fills me right now is the essence of the Father from out of His innermost heart. The life that fills me right now is actually a greater measure than the life that filled Mary’s womb.

When some Greeks wanted to see Jesus, He ignored their request because seeing Him would do them absolutely no good. He said, (I paraphrase) “If I die and am buried, then I will come forth again in the life of many who will be just like Me. That is how I will do you good.”

We are the life that came out of His death. Yes, some of that seed is for planting again, but most of it is for feeding the hungry.

“As He is, so are we in this world.”

The resurrection of Christ is the greatest thing in the entire universe. The resurrection of Christ swallows up everything else. We live in that reality in all things. Every part of our being is found nowhere but in His resurrection. There is no part of us that is not flowing out of that resurrection.

This is something we must know. We cannot know it by reason, which is why I am groping for words and illustrations. We can know the full reality of His life in us only as He reveals Himself personally to us. Yet that knowledge must work its way out into every part of our reason and consciousness until we see and see out of His life alone.

We do not ‘make’ ourselves His life, we already are. We reckon it to be so.

God made me the way I am because that is how He wants me to be. Most people in my life have thought I ought to be different than what I am. All the years I believed they were right were years of hopelessness and separation from Jesus. Yes, I knew Him as my Savior; yes, I heard His voice and sought after Him, but Oh, Father.

This is one of the lessons the Lord wants me to draw from my eighteen years in “move of God” community. Christian community contains many wonderful experiences. But in the communities in which I lived, being something ‘other’ than what you were in yourself was everything. There was a definition of ‘Christ,’ how He looks and acts, but what we were in ourselves was fleshy and shameful.

The result was an entire culture of pretending to be something other than what we were. Yet, for all that pretending, nothing ever changed in reality. Yes, there was mighty anointing and many powerful demonstrations of the Spirit through all those years. God was with us. But we could never be real. Always, what we thought other people expected of us was the face we wore. Near the end of my time there, I thought of it as a ‘dance of faces.’ A different face for a different situation or set of people. And oh, how we were skilled in putting on those faces.

Pretending is not life.

There is no question of the power of Christ in us. But not one ounce of that power will ever be real until we are real. And when we are real, the power is not of us. And we are as blessed as the next guy as the river of life flows out.

Life is being yourself, as you are, comfortable and real, Jesus living in you and through you – as you.

I give thanks to God that He brought me all the way through the emotional chaos of separating my mind and heart from that culture of pretending. I am learning to just trust Him in me as me, in spite of the cauldron of emotions that I live with. I know that this resolution of weakness that He brings us to is both the doorway into and the foundation for all the glory that He also shares with us.

His life is revealed in my weakness, as I am right now. I refuse to pretend, to put on masks to meet the expectations of other people.

I am alive unto God. Nothing else is real.

I am alive unto God.

Look at me, God; I am Your servant.
Let it be to me according to all that You say!