2.4 Jesus as the Pattern
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
I realize that I have given you quite a lot to think about really fast. Please forgive me for that. You have an enemy who has been speaking against the Lord Jesus from the beginning. His effort is to convince you that your failure and inability places you into “trouble with God.”
Paul said, If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies (Romans 8:31-33). Yet the evil one is always bringing such accusations against those who belong to Jesus, even to the extent of tempting them to see sin all through themselves and the Bible and not to see Christ.
God’s Blueprint. And so, my hope is to move you quickly through these first essential things you must know about who and what this Jesus is who lives inside your heart. In the next chapter, I hope to connect you with God’s own knowing of Himself, that is, the only One who can enable you to know this Jesus alive in you – God’s Holy Spirit. But first, I want to establish one more absolute in your present understanding of just what this Jesus really is.
Jesus is the pattern of everything. Jesus is the blueprint by which God designed everything in the spiritual realms, everything in the physical, and everything in His design of you as a human.
Sustaining All Things. All things [appearing in creation] became through Him [as the spoken Word of God], and without Him not even one thing became that has become (John 1:3).
God… has… spoken us inside His Son, whom He appointed heir of all, through whom He formed the ages, who, being the radiance [expression or revelation] of His glory and the character or exact expression [image] of His substance, carrying [upholding or sustaining] all, moreover, by the word of His power, having made through Himself purification of sins, He sat down inside the right hand of the Majesty inside the high (Hebrews 1:1-3 – condensed).
Much more than being the pattern or design of all things that exist, this Jesus who lives in your heart is also sustaining all things every moment by His own good-speaking.
Figurative Language. Here is something very important to understand when we read about God in the Bible. Here is almost the last thing Jesus said to His disciples before His death. – These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; but the time is coming when… I will tell you plainly about the Father. (John 16:25).
“Figurative language” means that when people speak of God, they must use symbolic words like “before” or “on high” for us to even begin to understand Him. God is all here now. That means that in every place and in every moment, God IS ALL that He is. God cannot be chopped up, part of God here and another part over there. God is ALL here. God is ALL now.
The Right Hand of God. And so, when the Bible writers state that Jesus is seated “at the right hand of God,” they are not speaking “geographically.” If God is inside of Jesus, and if Jesus is inside your heart in all that He is, then, “seated at the right hand of God” is speaking only of Jesus in you.
Here is how I define Jesus “seated at the right hand of God.” – “Jesus is the becoming known of Father in every heart where Father is becoming known.”
Yet here is the most extraordinary thing. This same human Jesus, your Friend and Your Savior, who lives in Person inside your heart, lives also inside mine in the same way. And this same Jesus also sustains all things that exist every moment by His good speaking!
It Shall Prosper. I must continue to take your breath away. Here is one of the most important verses in the Old Testament. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11).
God is giving us a very important way by which we are to picture the Lord Jesus Christ written as Word all through our own hearts of flesh.
Our Only Response. Jesus as every Word God speaks has come into your heart to live. This same Jesus is commissioned by God to accomplish all that the Father intends. It’s not up to you to “make God’s word happen,” but only Jesus. Your part is to believe in Him.
And this personal Jesus is not just written on your heart as every Word God speaks, this Jesus alive in you does not just accomplish all that God means by what He speaks, but He is also the pattern and design by which God forms you.
Here is the ONLY response God ever wants to hear from you as you read any and every verse in the Bible. – “Behold, I am your handmaiden, let it be to me according to Your word” (Luke 1:38).
Every Word Is Jesus. Shout these words out loud.
Look at me God. I belong to You.
Let Your Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, be fulfilled in me
in all that You mean by what You say.
And as you speak these words in response to every verse in the Bible, without trying to “figure out” for yourself what God “has to mean,” then believe in Jesus, believe that Jesus does in you what He is. Every word in the Bible is Jesus, the all-speaking of God. To every word, we respond only with “Let it be to me according to Your word.” And thus every Word that is Jesus, He Himself fulfills in and through us as He shares form together with us through our faith.
God and Us Together. There are many ways by which Jesus is our pattern, that is, the design by which God forms us. One of those ways is as God’s purpose and desire, from the beginning, to work together with humans in all things.
We know moreover that those who are actively loving God are working together with God to turn with purpose all—all things, all entities, all circumstances, all moments—into pure and intrinsic goodness, that is, into the knowledge of God. These are those who are continuously being called as and by the precise details of God’s Pro-Thesis, His set-forth purpose from the beginning, the Blueprint of His House, the Lord Jesus (Romans 8:28 – expanded).
Sharing the Same Form. A second way in which Jesus acts as our design is in our sharing together the same form as the image and revelation of Father to all.
Because, these who are summoned out from God’s Pro-knowing, knowing God’s knowing of them, God Pro-Determined them, with all the passion of His Being, as already symmorphosed with, merged together with, sharing one form with the image of His Son, the revelation of Father, into the reality of Christ Jesus being the firstborn among and in many brethren, the first one of our kind (Romans 8:29 – expanded).
“Symmorphosed” is the Greek word Paul invented, usually translated into “conformed,” but far more powerful.
A Man on His Knees to Serve. And inside of our sharing the same form with the Lord Jesus, we discover that Jesus is also the design of our own relationship with the Father. Just as Jesus relates together with the Father, so He causes us to relate with the Father in the same way.
Now, as part of God’s “figurative language,” by which He helps us to know Him, God has given us specific “pictures” or images regarding the Lord Jesus, that is, how we are to know Him. At the same time, the evil one has developed his own “images” of man and of God to counteract Jesus at every point.
Here is the picture God gives us of the Christ who reveals God. A Man on His knees to serve (John 13:3-5). A Man taking children into His arms to bless them (Mark 10:13-16).
He Humbled Himself. Man in weakness is the image of God, the pattern of all that God creates. He humbled Himself (Philippians 2:8). I am gentle and lowly of heart (Matthew 11:29). He that has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14). Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13).
In complete contrast, from the very start, the evil one contradicted God at the level of speaking. For every word God speaks, the serpent speaks, “Did God really say that?” (Genesis 3:1). You will sometimes hear it this way – “You don’t really believe that, do you?” And humans respond with “All that the Lord says, we will do” (Exodus 19:8). Except they are ALWAYS lying.
“You Can Be.” Even further, however, this FACT, that Jesus is the pattern by which Adam, that is, all mankind including yourself, is fashioned, is the primary target of the serpent. God said to Adam, “I have made you like Me (that is, like God’s pattern, the Lord Jesus) and you are My image inside of creation.” And the serpent said, “You can be like God IF-.”
By dealing his mighty blow against Jesus as God’s design of us, the serpent eliminated every other word God might speak. Over and over, when God says, “You ARE,” the serpent inserts the words, “You can be,” meaning, “You obviously are not, loser.”
In complete contrast, we respond to every Word God speaks only with “Let it be to me according to Your Word.” And then, we believe in Jesus.
Three More Parts of Knowing Jesus. Let’s restate some of the critical things we have learned in this chapter.
4. The Bible can be the Word of God, but only as the words of the Bible enter through your faith and by the Spirit to become Jesus Himself alive in you as every Word God speaks.
5. Jesus is our Savior and Friend, the One who carries us, the One upon whose breast we always lean our heads, connecting us together with God our Father in every way.
6. Jesus is the design and pattern of everything that exists, sustaining all things by His good speaking. Jesus, especially, is our design as humans, fulfilling God’s intentions to work together with us, making all things good, and to reveal Himself to all through us.