18.2 By Substance
18.2 By Substance
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
By Substance
I received the following question from a reader. – I still don't get the immanence thing. How is it possible that a thing is not GOD while being "run" by God? Is it only the thing, that the thing is not knowing GOD in a personal way? What makes it not-God while being totally in God? –
Part of our problem as humans with finite brains is that we want God to be either/or, that is, either transcendent or immanent. And when we see qualities of both, we want to run a sliding scale, this much transcendent and that much immanent. Accepting both/and, 100% transcendent and 100% immanent, is something we do by faith – but faith is substance.
Layers
The illustration that comes to me is Shrek. Shrek is an ogre, and, according to Shrek, “Ogres are like onions.” That is, “Ogres have layers.” Now, this is a silly illustration, but sometimes a child’s story shows us truth better than much adult reasoning.
So, let’s picture God as an onion, that is, with layers. And one layer of God certainly looks to us like an ogre. However, as we use this picture, we never leave the understanding that whatever God is at any point of His vast complexity, He IS all here now and Personal in us. At the center of all of God’s “layers” is Heart. And Heart is the most transcendent part of God and the most immanent.
Appearance and Substance
Maybe we can think of transcendence as God’s appearance and immanence as God’s substance. God must be transcendent by appearance for the simple fact that, if created beings, and especially humans, understood God to be in every created thing, then they would worship that created form as if it were God. For that reason, we can say that God is light, but we cannot say that light is God. We can say that God is Spirit, but we cannot say that spirit is God – and so on.
That which is created and has form will always dominate the mind of any created being, and thus the knowledge of God Himself is always left out in the cold.
A Need for Transcendence
The first two commandments separate God from all created things as transcendent to humans who do not know God. This is where God holds all contrary humans, those who would play games with Him, including most Christians.
And for that reason, the immanence-of-God phrases in the New Testament are ignored by most, remaining almost invisible, things such as “You in Me and I in you,” or “God all in all.” Anyone who speaks of these things is called “new age,” and accused of promoting the “other” Jesus. In other words, the sliding scale from transcendence to immanence is not found inside of God, but rather inside the experience of those who would know Him above all.
Our Passage
And here is where the concept of “layers” fits. The outer parts of God appear to be completely other, and in a certain way, all of God is completely other. God is uncreated and incorruptible. All created things are corruptible; even Jesus was corruptible, otherwise He could not have died.
The picture I have in mind is this. There is a direct corollary between our step by step walk into all the knowledge of God, that is, the shaping of our hearts to contain and to reveal God, and our passage from seeing a transcendent God to living in an utterly immanent God. Yet inside the heart of this God immanent in us, we look out, and we see that God is so very different than all that out there.
God’s Perfect Workshop
We are the ones who have passed from transcendence to immanence, and that passage has taken place inside of two arenas that operate utterly together; our knowledge of God and the shaping of our hearts to reveal Father. And so we see that God reveals Himself to us by layers in our passage from transcendence to immanence. This revelation of God to us will continue forever. Yet there will be that moment in the resurrection when we are sealed forever into all the incorruptibility, that is, all the immanence of God.
And this is God’s purpose in our lives right now, His perfect workshop, the in-part church that does not truly know Him.
Calling Forth Christ
Now, as we call every instance of our lives as Christ, we find God’s present purpose for us in this in-part-church age. God cannot be immanent in anything for us until we see and call every moment of our lives as Jesus, as a rich and abundant blessing and experience.
As we do that, as we acknowledge the good things of Christ inside of us, the greatest thing happening to us is the increase in our knowledge of God. It is the same Word we knew all along, but each “layer” of God shows us ever deeper and more intimate levels of reality inside of every Word God speaks. The calling forth of Christ in the Kingdom is in our mouths.
Fashioning Our Hearts
We see that the substance of God in the present in-part church is the fashioning of our hearts as the Mercy Seat of heaven. Everything is perfect. Every moment and every circumstance is doing its perfect work in the hearts of those who have given their hearts to the revelation of Jesus Christ. The in-part church is the quarry where the stones, the individual members of God’s temple, are cut and shaped. And the principal instrument of God in His workshop is the hammer.
The great cry that arose in my heart every time I read the Annie visions over the years was, “Oh, God, do not leave me out.” But when I read them again after knowing Christ as my only life, here is what I say. “All of His ways concerning me are perfect. He has never led me wrong; He has never not led me.”
Of Hammered Work
You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold… And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat (Exodus 25:17).
But we must add the instructions for the lampstand to get the full picture, for the same truth applies to the Mercy Seat. You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and flowers shall be of one piece. - Their knobs and their branches shall be of one piece; all of it shall be one hammered piece of pure gold (Exodus 25:31 & 36).
ONE piece of gold (God), hammered into the Mercy Seat.
All His Ways Are Perfect
It is through our faith that God passes from transcendence to immanence in our knowledge. I look at every moment in my life, past and present, and I call Christ forth into that moment. I call each moment perfect, exactly the perfect hammer blow hitting the right spot at the right moment to effect the right dent in the shaping of my heart, a dent designed perfectly to fit the Heart of God. All of His ways concerning me are perfect.
Now here is the most amazing thing. The Mercy Seat is gold; the Mercy Seat is God. It is God who is being hammered into shape, and God’s shape is my heart.
Father’s Heart Hammered
You have never shed a tear that was not also the Father’s tear shed with you. You have never laughed in joy that was not also the Father’s exuberance laughing with you. You have never been pressed down under pain and difficulty that was not also the Father being pressed down by that same pain and difficulty, utterly together with you.
It is not just our hearts being shaped to contain and to reveal the Heart of God Almighty, but the Father’s heart being hammered and fitted to shape our own hearts. This hammering is of a God utterly immanent in us, that God might be seen and known by all.
The Ekenosis
God’s great work, this calling forth of God out of invisibility into being seen and known by all, is His ekenosis through our appearance. When He is finished, God’s heart will have been hammered and shaped to fit our hearts as much as and utterly together with our hearts being hammered and shaped to fit His.
God is as affected by your heart as you are by His. God is as moved and touched and described and known by your heart as you are by His. All of it shall be one hammered piece of pure gold. One Hheart only, a heart utterly human and utterly Father.
Justify God
As you can see, this Hheart is God most immanent. And it is God most transcendent, for nothing in all creation compares to this greatest of all treasures, sharing heart with God.
One of the father figures in my life in move community was Jim Fant of Bowens Mill Christian Community. Jim Fant taught me to justify God in all things. To call God faithful and true, regardless of the blows of confusion and heartache, regardless of all the wrongs and sorrows and loss. To find God just, and to blame no one, not even myself.
I was never taught anything more important in my life. All of His ways concerning me are perfect.
Sharing All Things
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives (Hebrews 12:5-6).
This word is no longer “God doing something to me.” Rather, it has become God sharing all things with me as one Pperson together. In equal measure, however, we do not despise the blessing and favor of God – for those things are also as critical for the shaping of Oour shared Hheart as the hammer blows. And it is entirely our response, our interaction with God by faith that counts.
Sad Responses
In this in-part church that is God’s perfect workshop, however, there are two other kinds of responses to God’s instruments that are shaping our human heart. The most obvious response is rejection. I was told by someone who walked through the exact same difficult experiences in the same community as I that “God was not there.” And I experienced the knife point thrown at me of the bitterness of heart shaped inside of that one – through the same experiences through which I knew and justified God. But worse than rejection is the response of self-righteousness, the buckling down into self-effort to “prove” to God that “I can do this thing.”
Tucked into Father
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (said by Jesus six times in Matthew’s gospel).
What indescribable treasure we have been given through this in-part church age, to share Hheart with God as the Mercy Seat forever. But it is the Ark of the Covenant that shows us the true relationship between transcendence and immanence, a box of wood, a body of flesh, covered on the inside and on the outside with God. We are flesh, yet we are filled with God, and God is our appearance. I see that little “h” inside of Hheart as me tucked utterly inside of my Father. – Yet it is me, yet it is He.
Our faith is God’s substance in the Church.