6. I Set Forth My Soul
These two lessons cover just six verses, 1 John 3:13-18, yet inside these six is found the ruling verse, not only of John’s epistles, but also of God’s only entrance into our world.
At the same time that I am writing this, I am also writing the final version of “A New Altar” in my life story, a topic I have labored over in agony for a year-and-a-half without answer – until now. I will not have a title on the second page in The Jesus Secret II, and so I intend to write these two lessons as one long lesson delivered in two Zoom meetings. I also intend to write back and forth constantly between this and “A New Altar.”
The Ruling Verse. Here is the entirety of the eighth ruling verse of the Bible, and remember that the word “eighth” means only a necessary list, for God is one and God is Love. This is the first box on our two pages, John 15:12-13 & 1 John 3:16.
~ This is My full completion, that you love one another in full reciprocity just exactly as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that he should set forth his soul for the sake of his friends. – By this we have known love because He set forth His soul for us, for our sakes, and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters. ~
The Two Pages. Before continuing, I want to insert the layout of the two pages so that you have the whole picture in sight. On the first page, after the ruling verse, there are three boxes, “The Law of Giving,” “A Soul Set-Forth for Me,” and “Ask and Believe.” Then, the second page begins with the enflowing of the statements of faith from our passage followed by four boxes, “God’s Awaited Entrance, “Committed” (from the dictionary), “My Soul Set-Forth for Others,” and “For Their Sake.”
To begin with “The Law of Giving,” however, we must look again at the Covenant.
The In-Between. To see God’s picture, we first place the ruling verses of John and Revelation. Know the Father – Protect the Church. (I have already laid out the Jesus Secret pages for Revelation, the center and the driving purpose of which is the page/lesson – “Protect the Church.”
Knowing the Father is Covenant. Protecting the Church is what Father and we do together out from Covenant. But what goes in-between? What is the passage? – And we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters.
The Covenant. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord, I will place My laws in their through-minds and upon their hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God inside of them, and they will be people inside of me. And no one will teach each their neighbor and each their brother saying, ‘Know the Lord’; because all will know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, because I will propitiate their acts of injustice and their falling short will not be in My thoughts anymore (Hebrews 8:10-12).
I used to think the KJV of this Covenant to be “weak.” Now I know it as mighty with every part fitting perfectly.
A Blood Covenant. We know that this is a Blood Covenant. Regardless of their former conditions, two who enter into a Blood Covenant together make themselves equal in standing and commit themselves not only to the other’s well-being for life, but also to making available to the other ALL that they are and have.
Because our entrance into this Covenant is the cross, our passage inside Jesus’ death, we enter into it with nothing. Never do we offer to God anything of ourselves, for such is imagination only and we are offering nothing. We give to God ONLY what He has first given to us.
The Faith of Jesus. Thus God gives His ALL to us first, before we then give the same, now as our own, back to Him. The first part of God that we give back to Him is the faith of the Son of God. That faith places all that we are utterly into God, including all our human folly.
I recently did something probably foolish and was feeling “condemnation.” By the Spirit, I said to myself – “You have no right to feel condemned, for God shares all with you.” Feeling condemned is rebellion, the exaltation of the old self. It is the faith of the Son of God by which we give thanks, ask and believe, and speak Christ made personal as us.
The Most Critical Thing. Giving thanks, asking and believing, and speaking Christ, then, are simply us giving back to God what He has first given us out from Himself.
We go, then, to the most critical thing God gave to us – a Soul set-forth for us, that we might give Him the same in return, our souls set forth for others. A Soul set-forth for us is Jesus as us. Setting forth our soul for others is giving Jesus back to God, now as our own soul. This is what Abraham offering back Isaac MEANS.
The issue, however, is the “for us” becoming “for others.” This is the Day of Atonement, first for us, then for others.
I Am the Way. As I look, now, across the span of my life, I see, to my great astonishment, that this issue is the meaning of everything I have experienced through all my years, not only that I might know what I am now sharing with you, but that I might, with you, be a firstfruits of this very “setting-forth.”
But here’s the thing. God WANTS an entrance into creation that He might be KNOWN by all. God gives us Jesus as our entrance into God. Then, God awaits our giving God Jesus as His entrance into our world. This is a very narrow passage and very specific. It must be what God needs. Yet it is WIDE OPEN for us and for God. “I am the Way” goes in both directions.
The Law of Giving. ~ I can give to God only that which He has first given to me out from Himself. I love God only with the love with which He first loves me. Through the Covenant, God gives me all of Himself, yet God never gives except to receive that which He has given in return, carrying the one who received it. As I know what God has given me and make it my own, so I then give the same back to Him. God’s appearance towards me is my brothers and sisters inside of Christ. I give in return to God only by giving God to my brothers and sisters. I know the love of Jesus towards me; I give the same love to my brothers and sisters. ~
We Must First Know. Consider our verse. – By this we have known love because He set forth His soul for us, for our sakes, and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters.
This is a “be just like God” verse. And now we understand all “be just like God” verses. – Offer back to God that which He has first given freely to you. BUT – with this caveat always in place. We do not “give to God” directly. Rather, we give to God by giving God to others. THIS is what “just like Jesus” really means. We cannot give ignorantly, however. We must first KNOW exactly what God has given to us and how and why.
Tithemi Psuche. He set forth His soul for us. – What does this mean? What did Jesus do for us and how and why?
This last year and a half has been for me the greatest wonder of knowing Completion matched with a continuation of my great travail, with the last several weeks being heavier on the “travail” side of things. Having passed through that travail, however, I am sitting here now KNOWING what tithemi psuche, “set-forth soul” really means and how and why it is the most important thing for God through us. God’s perfection is utter goodness.
Defining “Set Forth.” I now have a definition of “set-forth” that I believe is God’s definition because it fits Him and us. Something that is “set-forth” is placed into a set-apart, but conspicuous place, where it is now freely available to all those who are appointed to partake of it.
The Pro-Thesis of God is His purpose and intentions from the beginning, every Word He speaks, placed by God into a set-apart, but conspicuous place, our hearts, where that Word as Jesus is now freely available to those who refuse to be anything else but appointed to partake. A “set-forth soul,” however, is incredibly more personal.
The Appointed Place. The Table of “Show-bread” should rather be called the Table of “Set-Forth” Bread. The bread was baked fresh every morning, placed on the appointed table, and then eaten in the evening by the priests – those appointed to eat. Every part of that picture is found in John Chapter 6.
Consider also the tithes. One third of all tithes collected each year was devoted to buying the food and drink and all other costs of the biggest party of the year – the Feast of Tabernacles. The tithe was for the pleasure of the people rejoicing inside of God – but only in the appointed place, Jerusalem, now for us, Christ Community.
Utterly Personal. God is saying to us – “I am Word and I am Spirit. I give Myself to You, all that I am, in a Covenant bond forever. Partake freely of Me, but only inside the appointed place, inside of Jesus inside your heart.”
And there’s the rub, as the bard says. Jesus is a person, a human inside of all that is God, yet existing in the form of God, all here now, not “in general,” but in the hearts of those who receive Him. Salvation is utterly personal, personal as Jesus and personal as us. Union with Christ does not make Jesus “disappear”; on the contrary, it makes Him utterly real, yet part of us.
Defining a “Soul.” So what is a soul? A soul is not something in itself; there is no “life” of the soul. The soul is a happening that takes place at the junction of flesh and spirit, of God and creation.
My soul is my mind(s) with all their thoughts, my emotions with all their feelings, and my desires with all their choices. Yes, we do have three levels and places of thinking. And it is because we are a living soul that we are most like God. The Bible clearly portrays to us a God who desires, even what He does not have, a God whose emotions are “all over the place,” and a God who thinks all the time.
“Yes, Lord.” Consider these words, spoken by David, applied to Jesus, and turned into song. “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures evermore. Joy to the full till my cup runneth over. In Thy presence is fullness of joy.” Jesus and we are more like God than we understand.
Jesus is utterly personal, and God never violates any person ever. Doing such a thing never enters His thinking; He does not know it. The entirety of how I know God inside my heart comes only through one thing, it comes through the quality of meaning found in my “Yes, Lord,” over many years.
Authority Resides in Us. But God’s inability to violate any person is matched by His inability to violate His Word. God cannot violate the Word He spoke to Adam inside His first words entering the knowledge of humans, - “Subdue.”
Hebrews tells us that this means that God gave all authority in heaven-earth to mankind. Paul tells us that what God gives He never takes away. And Isaiah tells us that the Word God speaks must be fulfilled IN THE EARTH. The authority now does not reside in Jesus as a “Spirit being in the heavens,” nor in Christians not on this earth. The authority resides only in us now walking this earth. The Head CANNOT say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”
What Jesus Did for Me. Finally, we are able to zero in on exactly what Jesus did for me (say “me” as yourself), by setting forth His soul for me.
For Jesus to “set-forth” His soul for me is to make His thoughts, His desires, and His emotions available to me to partake as my own, as I call it to be so. Yet at the same moment, Jesus sets forth His soul for the Father, that the Father might be inside of Jesus’ thoughts, desires, and emotions.
And there inside that very personal soul, set forth for me in great agony, I meet with my Father and my Father meets with me in Covenant Bond together, forever.
Receiving Me into Himself. My salvation has nothing to do with Jesus “appeasing” God, getting Him to “back off.” My salvation has everything to do with a Man receiving me into Himself. It is for this reason that we know that the LOUDEST words in the universe were spoken to God inside of Jesus as He rose to His feet in Gethsemane. – “HERE AM I! I and the children whom You have given Me.”
We saw in our study of John’s gospel that the most despicable of human responses showed themselves in offence against Jesus the moment after He said those words, in the form of Judas and Peter.
I Will Drink Your Cup. It is clear that Jesus had already chosen, personally and in agony, to receive into Himself even those. When He was faced with their deeds, it was already finished inside Himself. I believe that God transferred all authority from Adam to Jesus the moment when Jesus said, “I will drink Your cup.”
Jesus, personally and willingly, drank me into Himself, in all my dregs of sin and rebellion. And Jesus, personally and willingly, gave me Himself, His own soul, to call as my own. I honor Jesus only by receiving with joy all that He has given me – Himself. Then I turn and do the same for my brothers and sisters.
Contempt versus Honor. The issue is contempt. Adam ate of death out from contempt, that he might rule over those whom he despised. Contempt versus Honor.
There is only one way that I can receive in honor those whose actions towards me are, in my soul, the most contemptuous, those whom I naturally hold in scorn. He humbled Himself. – Just like Jesus, I must choose humility, the lowest place, taking the blame upon myself, being silent before those who mock. Speaking only the very SWORD of God, “Father, forgive them.” This is what Jesus does for me every moment. This is the authority through which God moves in power.
A Soul Set-Forth for Me. ~ The Greek phrase “tithemi psuche” means “set-forth soul.” I know love because I know and receive Jesus’ soul set forth for me. Jesus set forth His soul for me in two specific places, in the final hours in Gethsemane and on the cross. I know the agony and confusion of soul that Jesus knew by knowing Psalm 22 with the gospel accounts. In Gethsemane and in agony, Jesus willingly drank me into Himself, in all my sin and rebellion, that He might carry me all the way through death into life. ~
~ And it was inside the confusion of His human soul upon the cross, imagining for a dark moment that God was far away, reeling in pain from the human awfulness against Him, that Jesus received me, personally, into His own soul, that I might share soul with Him. In that same moment, Jesus also acknowledged Father with Him, not driving Him away in spite of my offensiveness. And there, inside His Heart, there above the Blood, Jesus joined me with Father and Father with me, that we might share life in Covenant Bond forever. Jesus gives me His own soul that I might call His thoughts, desires, and emotions my own. This is LOVE given to me; I must give the same love back to God. ~
In Just the Same Way. My salvation happens only as a personal Jesus chooses to include me personally inside His own soul and there to join me together with the Father forever. When He chose to do that, I was an enemy of God raging in false accusation, the most contemptible human on earth. Yet He called me, “Friend.” And then He said to me, “Receive your brother and sister in just the same way that I received you.”
Then, just as with Jesus, God sends us those particular fellow believers most conducive to tripping us up, varying kinds of hurtful expressions over the seasons of our life.
In All Things, We Ask. In doing so, God is not doing something cruel and unusual, but rather, sharing Himself with us, for it is He first who carries in Himself all this pain and offence.
Here’s the thing, though. The, “Yes, Lord,” was me, the human me, every step along the way; then, everything beyond that, God Himself did. I did not remove rebellion from my heart. When my time came, Lo and Behold, it was already gone from me. We never imagine that we must accomplish “receiving one another” with our “set-forth soul,” of ourselves. In all things, we ask God, and then we believe we have received.
Ask and Believe. ~ Lord Jesus, You have received me into Yourself that I might make all that You are to be all that I am. All I can do is place myself into Your goodness with all joy. Yet You also ask me to receive my brothers and sisters in the same way, to set-forth my soul for them just as You set forth Your soul for me. I know that this is something You do in and through me with my permission. I give You my all, Lord Jesus, be through me all that You speak. I know that in every instance, You and I together will be all love for all. ~
The Day of Atonement. I had thought that I needed more to complete “A Soul Set Forth for Me.” As I wrote, however, I found that I had all I needed; indeed I had to stop because the box was full.
It is this willingness to receive another into ourselves to join them with God, regardless of offense, that is God’s doorway into being seen and known. Receiving my brother regardless is how I share the suffering of Jesus. Yet, God-known is LIFE for my brother. Thus my brother won to life is my sharing of Jesus’ glory.
We are the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the life of the Church, the entrance of an ABSOLUTE redemption.
Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is part 2 of “I Set Forth My Soul.” As such, read 1 John 3:13-18 in the JSV several times. Always let the word be planted in your heart; let it go deeply.
This first half of the lesson is the “By this we know love” part, the second half is the “And we also” part. As I’ve said many times, this verse first stuck its nose under my tent soon after I saw a stumbling Jesus as the revelation of Father in October 2011. And it insisted on placing itself, unbidden by me, into many, many lessons ever since. A Highway for God was all about God’s entrance into our world. “And we also” is become that FULL ENTRANCE.
Our Prayer. God asked me to place upon the altar my desire to be part of a specific community of Christ now, but in trade for His entire Church won to the revelation of Jesus Christ. Therefore our prayer has been that 100 million or more believers in Jesus might be turned around upon the Mercy Seat right now and might rush into Christ Community as the fulfillment of Tabernacles.
We are praying that hearts all over the world might be HIT HARD, right now, with the absolute profundity of the sacrifice of Jesus, that all redemption is complete, that they are “going” nowhere except to Church, but that Salvation is coming through them as the Church into the world-cosmos.
Let’s Pray Together. “God our Father, we are bound together with You by Covenant forever, through the Lord Jesus. Father, You have given us to share Your Heart with You. Out from You, Oh God, we speak with all authority into this world-cosmos, into the entirety of heaven-earth; we command all the work of Your hands.
“Let our Devoted Spirit with Your holy angels, cast down the tree of the knowledge of good and evil out from the hearts and minds of millions of believers in Jesus all across this earth right now. Let it be burned; let it be gone. Cause Your people to see the Tree of Life alone.
“God our Father, by Your outpoured Spirit, cause Your people, a hundred million or more, to SEE the Cross as a Door wide-open for them into all the Life of Christ, a Door and a Life that is absolute and finished.
“Cause Your people to see the Blood shed for them, of greater value than all else, binding You to them and them to You together forever, with NO consciousness of sins, no thought of being separate from You ever again.
“And God our Father, by Your outpoured Spirit, cause Your Church to SEE the Salvation of God inside of whom they live. That All COMPLETION is fulfilled NOW. That they are “going” nowhere except into Church, into Christ Community, Your Jerusalem. Cause them to be Your Salvation flowing out into all heaven-earth right now. It is so.”