28.2 One Voice
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
To know that the entire Church of Christ loves me more than I can know is one thing; speaking that same reality together with one voice is something a bit different.
Consider the absolute reality of these words. And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely – even so come Lord Jesus (Revelation 22:17 & 20b).
These words pre-suppose absolute and total salvation, the fullness of the gospel of Christ, everything you have learned in these five Symmorphy texts already complete in our lives. These words are spoken out from Symmorphy fulfilled.
The Church Is One. When the Spirit says, “Come,” the Church is saying, “Come,” in that same breath. And when the Church says, “Come,” the Spirit is saying, “Come,” in that same breath. In every instance, that “Come,” beckons “whomsoever will,” and it beckons Jesus as the revelation of Father.
I am never separate from my Father, regardless, and He is never separate from me. We walk together through all things; we share all things as one. And thus, I am never separate from you, for your love towards me is the very love of my Father. – And you are never separate from me.
The Church is one, one Spirit and one flesh; she has never been anything else.
The Calling. Let’s put these four things into a chart so we can see them more clearly.
| The Bride | Whosoever Will Drink | Out of Humanity |
| The Spirit | The Revelation of Jesus Christ | Out of God |
| The One Speaking | The One Being Called |
We are looking at the marriage of God and man, of heaven and earth. And this coming together happens as we speak together. The Bride, coming out of humanity speaks together with the Spirit coming out of God and together with one voice and as one they call the revelation of Jesus Christ out from God and whosoever will drink out from humanity.
Speaking as One. It is the purpose of the Church to speak as one voice, calling forth Christ as the knowledge of God into the human experience. Speaking is something that we can “learn to do,” especially speaking together with one voice. Christ Jesus is the Words already spoken; we cannot produce Him. But we can learn to speak Him together.
Yet we must know the context inside of which we speak. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:26). We live in a cosmos of death, heaven as much as earth. Death does not mean the absence of living things, but rather the absence of the knowledge of God.
“Knowing” What Is Not True. We have never known a cosmos of life, and neither does any who has died and exists now in heaven-only. Paul said so clearly in Ephesians 1:22-23 that the Church is the Lord Jesus Christ walking bodily upon this earth. We together are His physical body, and there is nothing we can do to change that, to “make” it either true or false.
The problem is knowing. More than that, the problem is “knowing” what is not true. As I completed Lesson 27.3 “Designed by Word,” I understood just how far away from Nicene Christianity my thinking now is. I know the danger into which I have led us. People don’t like to discover they’ve been worshipping God through the image of the devil or that they have been preaching the very words of the serpent.
Just Like Jesus Now. Here’s what I am getting at. The words of the gospel, the words on the pages of the Bible, make us to be just exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ right now in all ways except two. And those two ways in which Jesus is different from us are, specifically, honor and form. First and always, Jesus is above all in honor. And second, Jesus is a universal, all-here-now and Personal life-giving Spirit.
Yet it is this very quality of Jesus’ present “form,” that causes us to be, not only “just like Him,” but His very expression. For as Jesus is All-Personal in me, so I am an expression of His Person – and especially, we together.
Through the Church. The River of Life can bring forth into outward appearance a cosmos of life ONLY as it flows out from the Church upon this earth. God will never have His Heart’s desire apart from Christ through His Church – Christ through us together.
The Church all across the earth is already the fullness of Jesus who fills all in all, but she does not know that. And the fact that she defines God by the serpent, the fact that the preachers in every sermon speak the gospel of the serpent – “You’re not like Jesus now, but you can be IF you try a little harder,” makes NO difference at all – Except this, we must teach her to speak what God says she already is.
What We See. When you and I speak Christ our only life with one voice together, we are changing the fabric of the cosmos. When Jesus told the Judeans who believed on Him that they were of their father the devil, He was not condemning them. Rather, He was attempting to wake them up. Jesus knew Paul’s gospel far better than Paul ever did, and He saw Himself in all, speaking as one voice through all. Indeed, He was already their Sustainer by the Spirit every moment.
And so we are well able to see God as Love loving us through our brothers and sisters even when we tell them they are worshipping God by the devil and preaching the serpent’s gospel.
Destroying What Opposes. And yes, we will get the same reaction Jesus received. – He came unto His own and His own did not seize hold of Him. And so we will “put our brethren to death,” to the one death of Christ and with the sword coming out of our mouths.
His name is called The Word of God… Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the peoples (Revelation 19:13-15). That sword is “Father, forgive them,” the mighty destroyer of all that opposes God. We speak what we see, and we see all things as the Lord Jesus, for we believe in Him. We speak the words God speaks in the Covenant we signed with Him.
One Voice Together. But we have not yet learned to speak Christ as one voice together. You see, it is not the same thing that you speak Christ, as I do but on opposite sides of the planet, for our speaking is not in the thrust and difficulty of walking together. So what if I see as Christ Jesus when I’m feeling great, when I have superior thoughts regarding my wondrous self! Such speaking is a necessary step, but it will not change the cosmos.
It is when we speak Christ as one voice together in the hard press of daily life, side by side, arm in arm, that the River begins to flow. It is there that believing in Jesus becomes real.
Fulfill My Joy. This is the final content session of Life Together. Everything of which I am speaking is intended for the context of Christian Community, in whatever outward form any local church walks together.
Fulfill my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being united in soul {sympsuchos – sharing the same soul), in the same gut-level thinking (Philippians 2:2 – JSV). Sharing the same mind, sharing the same love, sharing the same soul, the same self-story, sharing the same gut-level thinking. The key, here, is “sharing,” and sharing is an active back and forth. This is fellowship, the communion of the Covenant.
The Voice of Many Waters. His head and His hairs were white, as if wool, white as snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine bronze as having been refined in a furnace; and His voice was like the voice of many waters (Revelation 1:14-15 – JSV). – They sing… the song of the Lamb (Revelation 15:3).
As we share together the same mind, as we share together the same love, as we share together the same self-story, as we share together the same gut-level thinking that was in Christ as He called forth an invisible God into visibility, so we speak as one voice, as the voice of many waters. It is this speaking Christ together that is the witness of Christian Community, to show the Church to the Church.
The Voice of the Son of God. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour… now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live (John 5:25).
Life will come into the cosmos only through faith, only as we believe in Jesus in all ways. Yet “our” faith is the faith of the Son of God, so at every point our faith is more than adequate. It is not us that “hear the voice”; the voice itself is ours, one voice with Him. Jesus cannot speak to the dead except He speak through us as one voice together because God cannot sin, the thought of bypassing man on this earth never enters God’s mind.
More than that, our enemy is death, and the only victory over death is life.
The Real Enemy. The Covenant is God’s Life for our bodies together and our bodies together for God’s Life. You see, the river of death is flowing out from a knowledge of good against evil coming through humans continuously. This is entirely why the cosmos continues to know only death.
The enemy is not death as an end; the enemy is death as the source.
In the world, the enemy is specifically the Anglo-Pharisee elite whose death-grip and hatred against Christ is overwhelming, and generally, all political government manipulating and controlling all. Many see this enemy in one way or another and are devoting themselves to a fight against it in the way they know. They are fighting the WRONG thing.
Victory over Death. In the Church, the enemy is perceived to be “going to hell.” Many see this enemy in one way or another and are devoting themselves to a fight against it in the way they know. They are fighting the WRONG thing.
There is one enemy and one enemy only, and that is death as the source flowing through man as the channel. And there is one victory over death as the source and one victory only, and that is life as the source flowing through man as the channel. The operation of that flow is called “the voice of the Son of God,” and that voice requires one Body together. – Sharing the same mind, sharing the same heart, sharing the same self-story, sharing the same gut-level thinking.
Learning to Speak Together. We cannot learn to be one together, for we ARE one together. But we can learn to speak as one voice together, that we might know what we are. And there is only one place in which we can learn to speak as one voice together and that is in the gathering together of the local church.
Don’t get me wrong about “natural family.” In Christ there is no “natural family,” for we are all one inside of Christ Jesus. The individuals who are part of our natural family are every bit as much a part of our gathering together as anyone else. For that reason, if those around us in God’s present season for us are natural family only, then we speak Christ together.
Jesus through Us. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. – Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! …For there the Lord commanded the blessing—Life forevermore (Psalm 133).
The Church, that is, Christian Community, is the channel through which the flow of life comes to transform the cosmos into a universe of life. It is in life together, sharing together the same Heart, that is, Father’s Heart, that Jesus speaks through us in such a way that all can hear and know Him and Father through Him.
I want to remove death from the human experience, and I want to do it together with you, speaking the same voice.
Speaking God. But what is it that we speak together? We speak together the acknowledgment that God among us MEANS that you love me more than I can know, that you think more highly of me than you do of yourself, that you lay down your life for me – AND that I love you more than you can know, that I think more highly of you than I do of myself, that I lay down my life for you.
We are speaking God-Is. We are speaking I AM. And when we speak God-Is, all arrogance vanishes from us.
To KNOW that you actually do love me in such a way, and to KNOW that I actually do love you in such a way, is to know God. – Life forevermore!