17.2 A Balance of Wholeness
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17b).
Christian libertarians make the claim that to impose order is to create chaos, which leads to ever more imposition of order. Every attempt to regulate by decree increases the problems that need ever more “fixing.” In complete contrast, by libertarian argument, freedom is the mother of order. The result of freedom is peace and prosperity.
I embraced that understanding because it made sense to me intuitively. In the last lesson, I demonstrated this truth to be entirely Biblical. Not just Biblical, but central to the Holy Spirit in the Church.
As the Wind. We can’t control the wind; we can’t control one another. All we can do is set our sail by the wind. Jesus did not say in John 3 that the Holy Spirit blows where it wishes; He said that it is those who are born of the Spirit who are as the wind. “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14) is the most revolutionary political statement ever uttered in human history because it casts off forever the imposition of control by any form of violence.
We are as the wind, yet we do not fly alone. Rather, we fly together as one body filled with all of Jesus, His visible expression inside creation. And the rule of our togetherness is for-give-ness, the quality of giving for.
Giving Favor. And be kind with one another, tender-hearted, forgiving [giving favor to] each other, in exactly the same way that God inside of Christ gave favor freely to you (Ephesians 4:32 – JSV).
The Greek word is charizomai, to show favor, to give freely. Our English word “to forgive” carries inside of it a negative, forgiveness as a response to wrongful offense. Charizomai certainly includes that meaning of forgiveness, but in itself, the action is entirely positive.
We give favor to one another freely in all joy. This is the order of the Spirit among us, an order that works only in perfect liberty.
Freedom AND Love. Owe no one anything {perfect freedom} except to love one another {giving favor to}, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law {perfect Spirit order} (Romans 13:8). This serves, then, as an introduction to the topic of this lesson, which is the array of balances that must be maintained between and among many different things in order for life together to be WHOLESOME, that is the completion of salvation.
The first such balance is the perfect balance between Covenant and Kingdom, between internal Word and out-flowing Spirit. The importance of this balance is followed closely by the critical need for life together to be filled with the honoring of Christ in the individual and the honoring of Christ in the glory of the gathering together.
Relevant Points. Before we look at those many circles of balance, let’s bring back in the relevant points from “Parts in Proportion.”
- Balance the area and mass of the house around these (axis) lines of growth.
- Give the house visibly specialized parts: solid structural elements that can be seen supporting the building, generously shaped rooms to contain activities, and distinctive circulation paths to conduct movement and flow through the house.
- Create a rich variety of room sizes and orientations, always including human scale in the circulation, structure, trim, and openings.
You see, when the theory is wrong, all practical application flowing out must be wrong, everything forced together in all the wrong proportions. My job is to get the theory right for you, the essence of the Spirit in the Church – practical application in each local church then flows just naturally out from these truths.
Galatians 2:20. Galatians 2:20 is the “right theory” out from which flows all good order and right proportion. Galatians 2:20 orients the axis lines of the cross into living relationships of movement and growth inside of a living Christ. And at the heart of Galatians 2:20 is Gethsemane, Jesus, drawing each one of us into His Heart. Everything will find its perfect balance only as we treasure one another as the very Heart of Jesus, knowing one another as real human beings.
Everything of Christ was there to be found inside my years of experience in Christian community. But because we did not step through the cross to live inside of Jesus those things were not in balance.
Hebrews in the JSV. I just completed the first draft of the Jesus Secret version of Hebrews 8-13 in order to prepare for the next session. The difference between what the writer of Hebrews wrote and what the Calvinist translators chose to give us is subtle on the one hand and staggering on the other. The result for me is an incredible increase in my certainty regarding how I know God and His word – as well as a bit of confusion as to why Jesus allowed so many tares into His field, even though He told us it would be so.
Part of what I had to wrestle with was how to translate the word “aeonian” as in “eternal life.” In doing so, my understanding did a complete flip, and I now know what “eonian” life is and how it should be translated.
Life Is the Source. The translation “age-abiding” is an attempt to make better sense of the Greek word than “eternal.” I tried the phrase, “the life of the age to come,” which is how the King James translated aeonian one time – the power of the age to come. Both versions are completely backward from God’s reality. In both, the “ages to come” are fixed, the larger of the two concepts. Thus “life” is something small that “survives” across the fixed ages. Or – the ages to come, then means that there is a “life” out there that comes to us from the larger thing, the ages.
Nonsense. LIFE is the big thing; the ages are a little thing that comes out from the Life. Thus it is not “the life of the age to come,” but “the life that produces the ages to come and everything that will unfold in them.”
Ordered by Life. Eonian life, then, is not a life that survives the ages, but rather the source and the design of everything that will appear in the experience of creation forever.
Adam was the decider. The river flows out, which “order” will it carry? Adam chose death and a universe ordered by death is the only universe we know. We choose life, and a universe ordered by life is what is now coming out of our bellies.
As God has life in Himself, so He has granted to the Son to have life in Himself. – The life is in the Son. He who has the Son has the life. – Creating and sustaining all things by the Word of His power – LIFE. (John 5, 1 John 5, Hebrews 1)
Age-unfolding Life. You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give age-unfolding life to as many as You have given Him (John 17:2).
The ages to come have not come yet. They do not exist as anything in themselves. Rather, they unfold out from that quality inside of us called “LIFE,” that is that connection between God’s infinite thoughts inside Himself and our daily life. And life unfolds through us by a very specific order, and that order is that which flows naturally out of the Spirit of God, rivers of living water flowing out from us.
Life is the thing; the ages to come are just us having a whole lot of fun with LIFE.
Our Model. In the remainder of this lesson I want to list and explain the arenas of balance, then, that must be maintained in order for life together to be wholesome. How that is done must be interpreted by each local church free and real inside the Spirit.
Our model is Word in the form of Spirit/Spirit coming as Word. Our model is the perfect relationship between Son and Spirit. Not half and half, but all of one and all of the other. Every true measurement allows both sides of the balance to be perfect and complete. Balance is wholeness. To show the relationship between these many pairs, I will use this webdings symbol: (). We will call it “balanced with.”
Individual () Assembly. We could say “member q body” as well. But I do not want to say “individual q group” because “group” carries a negative connotation as “collectivism,” which is gross imbalance. It is easy to get so caught up in the doings of togetherness and to lose sight of each individual member. It is also easy to get so caught up in the distinction of each individual member and to lose sight of the gathering together. Balance does not mean that half of our focus is on the individual and half on togetherness. Balance means all honor to each individual inside of the full joy of togetherness.
Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves TOGETHER. – Honor ONE another in love.
Places for Both. The tabernacle of the community is the primary building of togetherness. The bedroom is the primary room of the individual, as well as that special “work” room that each member should enjoy as their own.
“I don’t feel like going to the tabernacle today” is typically an imbalance on the side of individualism. “Everyone must come to the tabernacle every time we gather together” is definitely an imbalance on the side of collectivism.
Without a commitment to assemble together regularly, community becomes a dead nothing. Without the liberty to do something else today, the gathering becomes unwholesome. The thing that makes the difference is our faith, the faith of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20).
Natural Family () Church Family. Church is family. And as family, we do all kinds of fun things together and we do many necessary things together. A healthy community is a community that ensures, in its design, that there are many different occasions, both work and play, in which everyone is involved together. Many of my best memories of Christ in His Church come from such times.
Yet the natural family is just as important. It is a great loss inside me that my children are all grown up. I don’t know that there is anything I have valued more in my life than going out and doing interesting things with my wife and children.
A healthy community builds space for healthy individual families.
Work q Recreation. I don’t think I need to comment on this one because the needed balance is obvious. Nonetheless, this speaks of a larger arena of similar balances.
Here is another – short term () long term. In the communities in which I lived, the first buildings were built entirely for the “five-year plan.” Some of those sad buildings are still being lived in today, 40 years later. There is always a tension between meeting the needs of today, and either preserving for the future or devoting present resources to quality that will last for decades, even centuries. If possible, any house I would build would be on the “500-year plan.” But we do NOT sacrifice people’s needs today in order to serve some future time that is imagination only. – Balance.
Inflow () Outflow. This is one of the most important balances, critical to the quality of the life of Christ in the Community. Inflow is the Lord in us building up one another in the Lord, both as individuals and in our life together. Inflow speaks directly of God meeting with us together. Outflow is the Spirit of God flowing out from us together to touch and bless people outside of the committed family.
Of truth, the next four sessions are on inflow and the following four sessions are on outflow. This is exciting, because now I know how to frame a full eight sessions. Without water flowing in, a pool must dry up as it will have nothing to send forth. Without water flowing out, a pool must stagnate and become filled with dead things.
Balances Everywhere. Let’s list some more balances. Sobriety () having fun. Sharing sorrow () sharing rejoicing.
In education a balance must be maintained between theory and practice. Theory without practice becomes filled with itself and stupid, disconnected from reality. Practice without theory makes innumerable stupid mistakes because it does not know what it’s doing. So – theory () practice.
In actuality, children growing up in community is a place where balance flowing by the Spirit is super critical. Taking responsibility () yielding to authority. Structure in which children can grow up in godliness () freedom to discover who they are.
Led by the Spirit. The more areas I think of that must be in balance, the more areas there are that appear to my thinking. And I would like very much to give examples and to explain the specifics of each of the many areas of balance. But that would, in actuality, defeat the source of all balance. – Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
In your gathering together, wherever that might be and with whomever that might be, this principle of a balance of wholeness should operate in every area of the human experience. Yet the decisions you make together regarding how to maintain wholesome balances must come out from the Spirit of God blowing as the wind as you together.
To Human Scale. I want to finish this lesson with one thought from Patterns of Home – “Create a rich variety of room sizes and orientations, always including human scale in the circulation, structure, trim, and openings.”
“Always including human scale.” – If it doesn’t fit people, it cannot fit God. If it doesn’t fit God, it cannot fit people. We are very private and very social beings. God is a very private and a very social being.
And the balance of everything is found entirely inside of Galatians 2:20, inside the protection of the cross. It’s Christ, yet it’s me. The life we live together inside the faith of the Son of God – inside the Heart we entered in Gethsemane.