6.1 A Spirit Word
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63).
The computer is a wonderful metaphor that enables us to grasp what Jesus means by stating that the words He speaks are Spirit and Life. Of course, all metaphors are limited. No metaphor can give us the whole picture of God. Thus, we never use any metaphor to bind God, but rather, to understand a bit more of, in a small human way, this Fellow who tells us to call Him Father.
A computer is all word AND all power.
My Favorite Tool
Sustaining all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). “Power” in this phrase is the same as Spirit in John 6:63. Christ is a Spirit of Power.
Consider the computer. For our metaphor, I will use my favorite program, in fact, the favorite tool of all the tools I have been privileged to use in my life – Adobe InDesign. It is with Adobe InDesign that I create my books, the most fun thing I have ever done. InDesign is entirely written code, that is, words. Thus, when I use the word “words,” here, I am speaking of any kind of code, letters, numbers, and figures.
The Code
The code of InDesign would fill more than 400 Bibles. All of it is written by hundreds of software engineers, tedious and exacting. The code has to be right, or I don’t make books. That 400-Bibles-worth of code sits in my hard drive. It is 100% worthless to me. Having the entirety of InDesign on my hard drive profits me nothing. Having the entire Bible in your heart, fully memorized, and knowing what all of it means, will profit you nothing.
On the other hand, the engineers who design and build the hardware of my computer do not think as much about the code of the software. Their focus is primarily on the power flowing through the wires.
The Power
You can see the obvious connections of the metaphor. The code of computer software refers to Christ as Word, including every word in the Bible. The electricity flowing through the hardware and wires of the computer, the power, refers to Christ as a Spirit of power.
Let’s say I buy a brand-new power gaming computer. It has been thoroughly tested and everything in it works perfectly. That is, the power flows through every element of the computer hardware exactly as it should. Yet, inside this computer, there is not one word of written code. I turn it on – ? – the computer profits me nothing.
Merging Code and Electricity
A computer’s workings is NOT by code. A computer’s workings is NOT by power. A computer works by the complete merging of code and electricity, of Word and Spirit.
The power is the flow of electrons through the wires and hardware elements in the computer. That flow of electrons can be turned on and it can be turned off. That on-off is the ONLY distinction by which the entirety of the computer operates, regardless of how fast or big it is. Every single item in the written code is designated by a series of on/off flows in the electrons, similar to Morse Code, except Morse Code has three possibilities, a computer has only two.
The Electric Code
In order for InDesign to appear on my monitor so that I can use it, the processor of the computer must convert that code written in the hard drive into a series of on/off’s in the flow of the electrons. The code must become electricity. That electricity then flows through the computer wires entirely in the form of Word. It is not natural for electricity to exist in the on/off form of Word. That conversion is the work of the processor and other components in the hardware of a computer.
Consider that electric code. The power comes to the monitor in the form of words. The words come to the monitor as power.
Electricity as Word
Think about the hardware engineers. They KNOW that every element of power they design into their computer components, every minute element, must be designed entirely with the CODE in mind. That is, the power parts of the computer must carry electricity as word and word in the form of electricity. Electricity that is not word would do nothing more than fry the computer. The electricity MUST BE as word.
At the same time, the software engineers KNOW that their code has no meaning unless it can be converted into electricity. Thus they design their code with the POWER always in mind.
The Image
The engineers who design the power, think always of power in the form of word. The engineers who design the word, think always of word in the form of power. Why? They must, or I will not be happy. And if I am not happy, I will not buy their computer.
So here I am, sitting at my computer, using Adobe InDesign to create a book for you. Do I think about the 400-Bibles-worth of code in my hard drive? Do I think about the flow of electricity through the computer wires? Do I think about the constant conversion of word to power and power to word? Not at all. The only thing I care about is the IMAGE on my screen.
Power Issues
It is only with the image on my screen that I make good things for you, that I make all things good.
Now, in working on the pages of a website recently, I made use of Adobe Dreamweaver to tweak the code by which the image on the web page is governed. (In our illustration, the words that appear on the screen are part of the image, not the code. Those words are also in the code, but we are distinguishing between image and code.) But for some reason, Dreamweaver runs slow in my, now older, computer. That is, I have power issues. The code is fine, but the power is limited. The result is that I am not happy doing the work.
The Image Is the Thing
So, I tweak the code just a bit, then I endure the slow transfer of Power/Word to the website. Immediately, I look at the image. The image is the only thing I am concerned about. Did my tweaking of the code make the image exactly as I wished? If not, I go back and tweak the code again, and again endure the limited power to transfer that code into image.
The image is the thing. Every engineer working on the software code of Adobe InDesign goes back and forth constantly between the code and the image. Every engineer working on the power components of the computer is thinking always of the image.
What I Want to Do
But the engineers are thinking about the image in a very specific way. They are thinking about the image entirely in terms of ME! They are thinking about what I want to do with the image, how the image works best for me, how I want to create books for you with the image. Both the engineers of power and the engineers of code are thinking constantly about my complete pleasure in interacting with the image of InDesign as I use it to make all things good.
If you have one of my books, consider it. That book was created by me, certainly, but without InDesign, you would have no book. Yet InDesign can create nothing by itself.
A Power Word
The book comes out of the continual working union between me, its creator, and InDesign, the image by which I make all things good. And that book made its way from InDesign on my computer to the printer entirely in the form of a Power Word, a Power Word that was converted into light to pass, at the speed of light, through fiber optic cables, to the print machine that formed the book itself.
Those words that you see as an image on the pages of that book came to those pages first through light as a Power Word. Spirit and Word are not tacked together, they are merged as one. Yet Word is Word and Spirit is Spirit, yet they are one.
Profits Nothing
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
Spirit not containing words profits nothing, that is, the flesh. Word not in the form of Spirit profits nothing, that is, the flesh. A Spirit Word that does not produce the LIFE of the image of God in us profits nothing, that is, the flesh.
It never enters the minds of the code engineers that their code exists in any other form than electricity. It never enters the minds of the power engineers that their power exists in any other form than word.
Together
And it never enters the minds of either set of engineers that image, life, is not what the whole thing is all about.
Christians who say, “Word only, no Spirit,” are just dumb. Christians who say, “Spirit only, no Word,” are just dumb. They never exist in the real world, because in the real world, the only thing that profits is Life.
And the purpose of Life, the image of God as us, is that God and us together might do good things for others. I can do nothing apart from God. God does nothing except through me. Together, Father and I, we are just awesome!
Word Becoming Image
Sustaining all things by the word of His power. A Spirit Word, a Personal Spirit Word by which all outward appearance (image) exists. The image is 100% an expression of the Word, yet that Word becomes the image ONLY by the Spirit of power.
And the Word forming the image is incredibly complex, intricate and detailed code ruling every tiny element of that image and of all that the image can do. Yet the Word becoming the image is by a constant flow of Spirit, that is, the Word becomes the image only as it comes in the form of Spirit. This illustration truly shows us how Christ becomes us.
The True Image
It is impossible for the image on my computer screen to be anything other than the full expression of power code. It is impossible for you and I, who believe in Jesus, to be anything other than the full expression of Spirit Word, that is the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sustaining all things by the word of His power.
What if you hooked up a monitor to your computer that formed its own image and refused to display the Spirit Word always flowing into it from your computer? That true image is always coming to it by the power code; the monitor cannot and never has to “create” that power code. All it can do is block that flow of code coming into it.
Made for Glory
And that false monitor would block that power code always flowing into it by one means only, by creating its own false code, its own self story. The monitor is made entirely for glory, yet all it produces is images of shadow and uselessness by its own meaningless words coming by its own short-circuiting power. What would you do? You would set aside that monitor and find one that speaks only Christ.
We do not make ourselves to be “like Christ.” Christ, coming into us as a Spirit Word, becomes us, causing Himself to be all that we are. We know Him by speaking: “Christ Jesus is the only life I am.”
Upon Our Face
Now, God has given to every single monitor He has created its own on/off switch. God has given to each one a measure of faith.
The monitor cannot create or stop the word of His power always flowing into it. But the monitor itself must accept that inflow of power/code by turning on its own switch, that is, by faith. When the monitor accepts that Spirit Word flowing into it, the Spirit Word causes its own image to appear on the face of the monitor.
By accepting Jesus as the only life we are, Jesus Himself becomes all that we are, the image of God upon our face.