10.3 The Setting of Victory
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In defining the Kingdom of God, we spent the third lesson investigating the relationships between members of the Body of Christ in proximity to each other. The Kingdom of God is righteousness, but more specifically, friendship.
Here, we want to look briefly at the unrighteousness that is the relating together among members of the world, humans living in proximity to each other. Then, we want to set the framework of the world as the setting of God’s victory, that is, the stage upon which Jesus proves that God is speaking the truth and that all accusation ever spoken is 100% without foundation.
Self-Knowledge
All relating that takes place between humans, not counting those who walk in the full knowledge of union with Christ, comes out from false judgment. As we learned in prior Symmorphy texts, we humans live inside a protective sheathe or bubble just like a human cell. Nothing from outside our bubble can enter into us except by our permission. What we “know,” we know only inside that bubble; we cannot know anything outside our bubble. And when any new knowledge comes our way, we fit it immediately into the structures of self-knowledge we have already carefully crafted over years.
Accusation
The center of all our construction of self-knowledge is our own accusation against God, that He made a huge mistake when He designed us. But since we cannot know God inside our bubble (apart from radical faith in His Word as you are learning in these courses), the accusation is against all those parts of ourselves we deem to be insufficient or inadequate or not measuring up to our expectations of “godhood.”
This accusation against ourselves is not, however, at the forefront of our self-knowing; it is, rather, at the base, in the shadows, governing how we know while remaining partly unseen.
Other Humans
All other humans are entirely outside our bubble. We cannot know other humans, and we can hardly see them. All we see is an outward appearance, and we are making constant judgments regarding the meaning of that outward appearance.
What is the foundation of our constant judgments of the very peripheral elements of appearance by which we “know” other people? Our constant judgments must be only self-knowledge for that is the only thing we can know. Thus the foundation of our constant assessment of these “other’s” hovering on our radar screen is self-accusation.
False Judgments
We are constantly imputing to these foreign “others” our own dislike of our own worst shortcomings. And we do it automatically, not even knowing what we are doing. One of the most shattering moments of your life is when you are hit with the falseness of your constant evaluations of other people.
However, when humans then communicate in some way with other humans, that connection is always based on the momentary false judgments of self-accusation. We do NOT know the other person; we cannot know them. Yet we assume that our self-knowledge is all we need to know how to “deal with” these “others.”
Self-Righteousness
I do believe I have laid out in these last four subsections the clear source of all the heartache and mistreatment of humans against humans in every relationship under the sun. False judgment of self, with one’s back turned against the good speaking of Jesus, results only in false judgment of the meaning of these other “entities” bouncing around in one’s peripheral vision of self.
How can we solve this problem ourselves? Ask. Simply ask the other person what they meant, or what they were thinking. The majority of the time that will solve all difficulty. Yet asking is something humans never do, especially Christians who have built a story of excessive self-righteousness.
Unrighteousness
In the end, every hurtful and inconsiderate treatment of one human by another human is nothing more than an attack against God for designing and making us so badly. This is the essence of unrighteousness.
The “good deeds” any human might do come from the opposite side of the same accusation. “I will make myself ‘good,’ unlike God who clearly did not know what He was doing.” Thus all the “good” humans do, as their backs continue turned against the good speaking of Jesus, remains entirely inside the confined bubble of self-knowledge, the forefront of which is every human effort to “appear like” an angel of beauty, power, and wisdom.
Self-Serving
More than that, the purpose behind every human action towards others is the same self-serving. Even those who die for another human, or give away all their possessions to the poor, as Paul said, none of that is anything more than the same self-serving, unless the source is Love, that is, God. Our every effort is to get other humans, in some way, to serve us. The opposite of that is subservience, that is, doing things for others as under the whip or in an obsequious mind, that is, hoping for some improvement for self.
Both tyranny and slavery are two faces of the same thing. Tyrants can be tyrants only if slaves agree for some self-gain.
Appearance versus Substance
I want to qualify, in a parenthetical statement, however, everything I have described thus far in this lesson. In speaking of self-knowledge, false accusation, and acting only for some self-gain, I am speaking of outward appearance only, the false story in which people live.
None of that has anything to do with the substance of Christ speaking all things good and the purpose of God through Christ in and through every person and the bending of all things towards goodness. And for that reason, we also see the image of God all through the stories of individual humans, in honor, in sacrifice, in the joy of friendship, the expression of the substance of Christ.
A Different Universe
Back to appearance. We can study to great depth all the meanings and ramifications of the face of Jesus on the cross against the face of the Pharisees mocking Him. And here is what we mean by a different universe.
Nothing in human reality can comprehend or place or know the meaning of a Man, out from God, laying down His life for these animals screaming against Him, especially since He made it clear that He was fully capable of taking them out (calling on ten thousand angels). This is an entirely different universe than human reality, operating on an entirely different set of laws, and I’m not speaking of heaven, either, for heaven does not know this God.
Actions of Unrighteousness
Let’s think this one through.
In the scenario Jesus deliberately placed before us as a valid potential option for Himself, all the righteous and holy angels of heaven would have obeyed Him had He called upon them to do so. And in obeying such a command from Jesus, all the righteous angels of heaven would have hurled, together with Jesus, into the actions of unrighteousness. And in doing so, those angels of heaven would have only been moving entirely inside the universe God made for them.
This is what I mean by life laid down and love poured out being a different universe, even than all of heaven.
Just Plain Wrong
And yet all humans on earth would, not only have agreed with heaven moving in unrighteousness “for Jesus’ sake,” but would have expected nothing else. It is inconceivable to any human mind that Jesus did not fight back. If your family is attacked by a gang of vicious thugs and you do nothing to stop them, but stand there quietly, allowing them to kill you first before scattering your family like wolves scattering sheep, that would be judged by every human self to be in-human and just plain wrong.
And we discover that we have arrived at the exact picture we need to know the meaning of God using the setting of this world to prove Jesus faithful and true as the ending of this age.
A Framework
We will spend quite a number of upcoming lessons exploring the victory of Christ as the Kingdom of God arises in the swallowing up of this present age. Here we want to give the framework or the foundation of that exploration.
The contention began in the garden, from the beginning. Let there be light – Did God indeed say? The face of Jesus on the cross – the face of the Pharisees screaming against Him; the full visible appearance of this same contention. Jesus is accused of being false all through the experience of men and angels, from the beginning until now.
The Very Setting
And most of our Christian brethren are as much a part of that same accusation as the serpent who started it and as Adam who seized the accusation for himself. It is men who take possession of demons, for the sake of accusation, not the other way around.
Joseph Stalin, a man who controlled demons more successfully than anyone I have ever studied, spent the last two weeks of his life wandering the halls of the Kremlin screaming accusation in terror at everyone and everything.
And it is in this very setting that the new universe arises, a universe governed by the actions of you and me laying down our lives, together with Father, even for our enemies.
The Second Witness of Christ
Think of the world as it exists right now. Consider everything in it and all the interlocking relationships of control and violence. All of it, as it is right now, is the very stage of the fullness of the proving of Christ.
And I will give to My two witnesses, and they will prophecy (Revelation 11:3). Let’s paraphrase that line by our present knowledge of what God means. “I will reveal Myself through My body walking this earth as the second witness of Christ, and they will call forth all the proving of Christ into the human experience.”
Something Is Happening
Anyone who has not despaired of this world or is not deeply concerned regarding what is coming our way over the next few years is entirely out of touch with reality. At any time in the past, knowing what I know about the world in these closing months of the year of our Lord, 2016, would have placed me in solid fear.
Yet amazingly, I know none of that. In complete contrast, I find arising in me such hope and expectation. Something is happening on this earth, something that hardly anyone knows. That something is you and me. That something is a completely brand new universe coming out of our bellies.
In the Midst of
In the midst of the greatest darkness, light arises forever. In the context of raging hatred, love establishes its reign.
On the field of endless murder, you and I lay down our lives, Father through us, for all. On the stage of all accusation, the good speaking of Jesus becomes heard by all – and all accusation is silenced forever.
Against the greatest of cruelties, the most tender of compassions prevails. In the face of the greatest disrespect ever spoken, a Man, hanging naked and unashamed, responds, “Father, forgive them.”
Look at Your Invitation
You and I will watch life laid down and love poured out into this present world scene swallow up death itself. And we will watch all of that, flowing out of our bellies.
Did I ever mention to you that this invitation to the Kingdom is an invitation to be, not in the front row seats, but as the performers on the stage of this, the most exciting display of God the universe has ever known?
God made visible and known. Father just being Himself. Through you and me, normal and every day humans.
His visible appearance. – Father Revealed.