6.1 The Site
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Inside of Jesus the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a temple holy inside the Lord, inside of whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God inside the sphere of Spirit (Ephesians 2:21-22 – modified by the Greek).
I did not include this verse from Ephesians in my list of the ten most important, but bring it in, now as a supporting verse for Christ as a many-membered body. Yet the line, “being built together into a dwelling place of God,” has always been a primary focus of my knowledge of God.
Two Directions. We are drawing the blueprints for a house; for that reason, we must establish an important way of seeing this house. There is only one house, but that house goes in two directions both at the same time. Or we could say, we are building two distinctly different houses both together as one.
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God (Revelation 21:3). God’s House is with men in the earth; our House is with God in the Spirit. Same House. God lives in us together; we together live in God.
Individual AND Assembly. God’s house is being built together upon the earth inside of heaven. Our house is being built together in the heavens upon the earth. Same house. As we are inhabiting God in all that God is, so God is inhabiting us in all that humans are. Or – we could just say it this way. You in Me and I in you.
Here is another distinction. When we are looking at God inhabiting us, we are concerned more with each individual member of His House as a unique person. When we are looking at us inhabiting God, we are concerned more with our togetherness in the Spirit. God in the individual is honored in the assembly; the assembly together honors God.
A House Together. And yet, seeing from a slightly different view, God inhabiting us is to show Himself through all of us together and we inhabiting God is to know and live in our own personal God-thoughts regarding us. Let’s lay these differing things out in a chart.
| God known by and as the heart of each member | God known as He is through us together inside of Him | God dwelling in us |
| Each of us inside of God’s Pro-knowing of us | Knowing God as He is inside our worship together | We dwelling in God |
| Personal Knowledge | Corporate Revelation | A House Together |
Two Questions. And so, for every element or consideration in the design and construction of this house, we are always asking two questions simultaneously. First, how does God enjoy us in the human experience through this aspect of the house. And second, how do we together enjoy God in the Spirit experience through this aspect of the house.
Never do we separate heaven from earth, for that is death. Neither do we regard one as superior to the other, for without heaven there is no life and without earth there is no body. Our humanity in the earth is God’s treasure and dwelling place. God’s divinity in the heavens is our treasure and dwelling place. And both together, though two, are not separated, for they are one.
Working Together. As we design and build the natural aspects of a community, the buildings and driveways, the gardens and workshops, AND as we consider a place for each individual member, we are concerned with where God lives. Then, as God designs and builds us in the spiritual aspects of the assembly, the worship, the sharing of Communion together, AND as He considers a place for Himself, He is concerned with where we live.
In our every action of building a House for God, God is, in and as that same action, building a house for us. And in God’s every action of building a house for us, we are, in and as that same action, building a House for God. This is God’s Pro-Thesis, God and us working together – and together, making all things good.
Working with the Pattern Let’s turn, now, to Patterns of Home, “Pattern One: Inhabiting the Site.” We will simply list a series of bullet points from the text.
Working with the Pattern:
- Protect the heart of the site by keeping driveways and parking toward the edges and by blocking objectionable views with buildings or plantings.
- Put the main social and communal spaces on the more public part of the site as a shield for the private spaces tucked into the more remote part.
- Decide what part of the site is the most special; then preserve it. Put the building close enough to enjoy it, but far enough away not to destroy it.
- Extend the building’s wings, decks, and garden walls out into the site to knit the house strongly to the land.
- Orient the wings and rooms to the best views.
- As you locate and arrange the main elements of the building on the site, try to make a positive contribution to the larger surroundings, to the neighborhood.
God Knows Us. If I owned a large and lovely property upon which I was commissioned to build the structure of a Community of Christ, I would spend days walking that site, getting to know its every aspect before I drew one line on paper, let alone driving in the first stake.
For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:18). God knows the site of His House. And the site of God’s House is humans, living inside this heaven/earth realm, all things of the physical bathed with all things of the spiritual. (All of Hebrews 2 speaks to God knowing personally the site of His House.)
We Know God. We also know the Site of our house. Much of an infinite God is entirely beyond our ken right now, but what does belong to us, God has placed Himself entirely inside this same heaven/earth and made Himself known in our hearts.
Our house in God is our place inside His Pro-knowing. Thus the phrase, “not built with hands, eternal in the heavens” is a figurative idiom meaning already and entirely existing inside the vast extent and the pure domain of the Pro-Knowing of God. That Pro-Knowing is the substance of the Site, but the appearance remains a family of humans walking together in love.
Fitting Romans 8:28-30. And that brings us to our double question. How do we fit Romans 8:28-30 into life together in every practical application? How does the Lord Jesus use Romans 8:28-30 in practical ways as He designs and builds us together as the Father’s Home? Or, more specifically, how does “inhabiting the site,” a concept always going in both directions, God in humans and humans in God, help us to understand and apply Romans 8:28-30 to our design of the community structures and of life together?
Thus, I will attempt a full paraphrase of Romans 8:28-30, from the Greek, from my own way of saying things, and from all the joy God has taught us thus far regarding these things.
Romans 8:28-30 as Present Word. 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.
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, to be 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.
Even more than that, those whom God has seized in His Pro-Determination, God also first called them (out from His Pro-Knowing); and those whom God called, God also first justified them, placing them into incorruptible sinlessness, that is, into Christ; and even more than that, those whom God justified and made pure and holy, God also glorified them, placing them out into His creation as His image and likeness, God revealed through them now.
I do believe that I am fully justified in calling this passage THE MOST important verse in the Bible. And our doing so, now, over many years, and through the specific investigation of these Symmorphy texts, has yielded for us a reward of the knowledge of God regarding us beyond all comparison.
Seven Points. Let’s layout several points we can draw from these verses. And remember, we are referring to God living in humans and to humans living in God always together in all.
- Everything is about God and us together, working together to turn all created things into goodness and life.
- Everything is built according to the original Pattern, God’s Pro-Thesis, Christ Jesus.
- The underlying essence of everything is God’s Pro-Knowing, all of His unending thoughts regarding each one of us through all the seasons of our lives forever.
- God is one determined carpenter. (Instantly, the man who taught me carpentry, Jimmy Barkley, comes to mind as an example of a determined carpenter.)
- Symmorphy is an “out-there” proposition, a mess by outward appearance, that is, Spirit fused together with flesh; symmorphy is the most difficult aspiration in the universe and in God.
- Many brethren of Jesus’ same Kind.
- God finished every part of the construction of His House before the construction program actually began.
We hope to weave all these together in practical application.
Inside of Jesus. Consider the first words of this lesson in terms of “inhabiting the site.” Inside of Jesus the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a temple holy inside the Lord. – Inside of Jesus you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God.
Inside of Jesus is a place for us to live; inside of Jesus is a place for God to live. And thus we will make point number two to be our first specific practical application. – See that you make all things according to the Pattern. EVERYTHING taking place inside of the Church is and must be taking place inside of Jesus, not just in essence, but also in our immediate and ongoing knowledge.
How We See. I am ever more aware of the critical importance of how we see. How we see God IS how we see ourselves. How we see ourselves IS how we see other people. And how we see other people IS how we see God. If we want to know what we really think about God, all we need to do is assess what we really think about “all those Christians out there.”
Yet the drive of this unending circle is the lens through which we see God, either a human, life-giving Jesus personal in us as that lens or a solitary superiority.
All humans and all Christians are blind; our propensity to run away from, or not trust utterly in Jesus is staggering. Only one thing opens our eyes, that Jesus might cause us to know His active union with us. That one thing is speaking Christ personally as me, a practice that must be visible and incorporated into all of life together.
Speaking Christ Personal. In spite of any reader enthusiastically embracing what I teach, that does not mean that reader knows what our full and present union with Christ really means on the inside, personally.
- Teach one another in every practical way how to know Jesus living now as you.
- Place in visible prominence plaques inscribed with the words of speaking Christ Jesus the only life we are.
- Teach one another to call your difficulty to be Jesus sharing of Himself with you – do NOT fix yourself!
- Make the knowledge of each individual person’s union with Jesus to be the materials out of which everything is built.
Spirit in Heaven/Earth. You see, when we construct the elements of earth, the heaven elements corresponding to those earth elements are equally in our consideration. What that means, I don’t have a clue, but I am excited to learn.
Now, in the past I have stated that the Spirit reveals Father in the heavens and the Son reveals Father in the earth. Yet, though there was some sense behind that thought, it did not quite fit with two very specific verses in 1 Corinthians 6. He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him – Don’t you know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so we see that beyond, beneath, and all the way through every element of both the physical and the heavenly is found the Holy Spirit quietly working all things according to God’s will.
The Soul. And yet we haven’t come to the most important part of God’s House at every level and that is the relationships among the people inhabiting this series of structures located fully in heaven/earth inside the Spirit. These relationships take place at the junction of heaven and earth – they are the living soul of God’s Body.
Greater love has no one than this, than to set forth one’s soul for his friends. You are My friends… (John 15:13-14a). Of all the considerations inside of “inhabiting the site,” none are more important in my estimation than “protecting the heart of the site.” We will devote an entire session to that one factor at the heart of everything, and that is – friendship.
All of It Together. And so, Christ Jesus is found as friendship all through the relationships taking place among those people, many brethren, who are the site of God, and who are in turn inhabiting a local site inside heaven/earth inside the Spirit.
In the next several lessons, we will continue to weave the elements of inhabiting the site together with the unending depths of Romans 8:28-30 together with the practical realities of Communities of Christ taking form inside the arising of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
The final question, then, is where does Father fit into all of this? Father is found in all of it together, a house finished from the start. Father is fully there from the beginning when everything is a mess, though hardly noticed by most; Father is fully revealed in the end when all things are complete in the unfolding of the seasons of Christ.
Church by Father.