1.3 Connections to Pro-Thesis
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The ruling verse of the Bible is Romans 8:28-30. – God determines me conformed as one person together with Jesus as the revelation of the Father. Everything in the Bible and in all reality must come under and be known by the universe-shaping words in these three verses together as one.
This course is based entirely on the courses Symmorphy I: Purpose, Symmorphy II: Essence, Symmorphy III: Kingdom, and Symmorphy IV: Covenant. Thus, on a regular basis, this course assumes that the learner has completed every element in the prior four courses and knows by experience living as the Mercy Seat of God.
Ruling Words. Five HUGE Greek words, then, coming into English, come out from this most important verse, the first defining verse of everything in our minds. Pro-Thesis; Pro-Knowing; Pro-Determined; Symmorphosed; and Image.
Pro-Thesis is the set forth purpose of God out from which all things flow and towards which all things work, God’s intention, the Father’s DESIRE. Pro-Thesis is the Word by which all things are created.
Pro-Knowing is the intimate knowing of the Heart of God out from which all things proceed, a knowledge that IS God, His KNOWING of you and me at all times and in every way.
Pro-Determined is the action of God, out from the core of His Being, a Determination that has seized you and me in its grip, a Determination that WILL accomplish all that the Father intends.
Symmorphosed is the ruling verb of the nature and Being of God, Person inside of Persons inside of persons, God and us merged together as one person by every word that is Christ, sharing the same form.
Finally, Image is the outer expression of God’s purpose, God Himself appearing to His creation as you and me, the revelation of Jesus Christ, that the Father might be seen and known, touched and handled by all of His creation.
Adding Prophecy and Inheritance. As we proceeded through Symmorphy IV: Covenant, God added two further words to this list of five – Pro-Calling Forth and Inheritance. Since these two words are also foundational to any study of life together, we include them in these connections to pro-thesis.
Pro-calling forth is the Word of the Spirit now in our mouths by which we call forth Christ into the human experience, that Word, by which we, together with Father, turn all things towards good.
Inheritance is our responsibility over all that belongs to us as we are the revelation of Father. Inheritance is our care and our joy. Inheritance is all things, but especially Father and especially one another.
One Body and One Spirit. The first defining verse of this course I have called the eleventh and twelfth most important verses in the Bible. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).
The importance of this verse is first that it defines Christ as a “many-membered body,” second, it asserts that we share together in the same Spirit, and third, it shows the integral relationship between Spirit and Body, heaven and earth, two things that are always together.
Loving One Another. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends (John 15:12-13). – Then I… saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. … “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people” (Revelation 21:2-3).
These two verses position the inner and the outer of God’s Salvation. – A people who love one another having become the dwelling place of God inside this heaven/earth. Love one another with a pure heart fervently (1 Peter 1:22).
Being Built Together. Here are the verses of our togetherness. We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another (Romans 12:5).
In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:21-22). – Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective energeia by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16).
Pro-Thesis. To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to – heaven (Ephesians 2:10). God’s set forth purpose is that He would reveal Himself to the universe through mankind, and specifically, through a called-out people who walk together as family.
Everything must be turned deliberately towards goodness. God intends to work together with and through this family of people called the Church, or New Jerusalem, to enable creation to see and know their God and thus to be able to live in the light and abundance of God. God will not do such a thing through individuals alone, but through the Community of Christ.
Pro-Knowing. You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). As with all Scripture, our full Action in the Day of Atonement, that is, turning around, enables us to see statements like this, not by looking at them, but by seeing out from Father’s eyes. This is the verse that came to me when considering the Pro-Knowing that is God’s Heart.
Known to God from eternity are all His works (Acts 15:18). Our role of “offering up spiritual sacrifices” is not us giving something “to” God, but rather, God, releasing through us together all of His works already found inside His pro-knowing.
Pro-Determination. Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up” (John 2:17). Yes, Jesus seeks out and saves all that is lost. But that is not the first passion that consumes Him; it is rather, a means to an end.
The passion of Jesus is towards the Father’s House, that is, you and me together. As God determines us symmorphosed with Jesus as the Father’s revelation, it is us together as one Body, the family of God, that fills the determination of the Almighty. To set ourselves into the course of Tabernacles Community is to be seized in the grip of God.
Symmorphy. Let’s use our recent paraphrase of Philippians 3:21. The Lord Jesus Christ will transform the outer appearance of our lowly (individual) physical bodies, symmorphosed with (sharing the same form with) His (entire) glorious Body (the Church), down to the finest details of the energeia (the mighty continuous and swirling action) of His ability to cause ALL (by symmorphy) to be subject to Himself.
The word in Romans 8:29 that qualifies symmorphy for us is prototokos, the first one of His kind, and the outcome of the monogenes, the One Seed, never remaining alone, but becoming many. Christ Jesus inhabits a many-membered Body.
Image. In the beginning, Elohim (God) created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Elohim is plural; Elohim is family.
We could paraphrase this present revelation of God in this way. Inside of Christ Jesus, God the Family brings forth a new heaven/earth. There is one God, the Father – BUT!! “Father” is the continuous progenitor of Family. Family alone is the image and revelation of God, a family of humans, of which you and I are members. And as we learned, a Family God is a servant God, meek and lowly of Heart.
This course, then, is a study of Family as Image.
Prophecy. The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (Romans 10:8). The Word by which all things are created and sustained is in your mouth, proceeding out from your heart. That Word will go forth from you as a River of Spirit as you speak it forth, and it will accomplish all that God intends.
And thus we speak in two directions. First, we call forth the Church of Christ into her place as the Family of God. And second, we together, as the Family that reveals God, speak His goodness and abundance into the knowledge and experience of all creation. Homologia, speaking the same Word.
Inheritance. And he who overcomes… to him I will give authority over the peoples— ‘He shall shepherd them with a rod of iron; …—as I also have received from My Father (Revelation 2:26-27). “He will shepherd them” is Christ in His Church, the Tabernacle of God among men.
This is not us “controlling all,” but us bearing all for all, our heart-care undergirding of all that belongs to Father and us together, that is, all things. And thus we see that 1 Corinthians 13:7 is speaking of our inheritance, inheriting Father on the one hand, His Heart now ours, and inheriting all things on the other hand, our care for all. Father in us bears for all, believes for all, hopes for all, endures for all.
God Among Men. Do you see how the application of these, now seven, primary Words of God turn the thinking of our study onto very definite directions of life laid-down and love poured-out? Family. – Father. The Tabernacle of God among men. – Tabernacles.
“The Tabernacle” is what we called our main building in Christian community, the place where we ate meals together and where we held services together, both in the same room – Communion – Fellowship. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people (Acts 2:46-47).
To Whom I Write. Because of the great opposition that arises from all directions against this one topic of life together as the Church, as I write this text, I must place blinders upon my eyes in order that I might set forth what is in my heart in purity and goodness. Thus I am specifying for myself those individuals to whom I am writing this text, my “audience” in writing terms.
I am writing to those individuals who have carried inside their hearts the same knowing inside of mine. Their own outward expression of that knowing is unique, of course, but inwardly it is the same. The following four points are a description of those individuals to whom I am writing.
Secure in Union. First, I am writing to those who are complete and secure inside their perfect union with the Lord Jesus Christ. They are one with Him in union, two in communion, and one in expression in all the seeing of their eyes and in all the speaking of their words.
Yet they also see this Jesus as every Word God speaks, coming into them to be in and through them what that Word IS. And they are fully at peace with whatever that Word intends to do with them. Never seeing themselves as separate from Jesus for any reason regardless, they rest in the joy of living utterly together with God.
Yet they also see that just as Christ lives as them, so He also lives as all who belong to Him.
Acting as the Mercy Seat. Second, I am writing to those who have turned around upon the Mercy Seat of God, seeing themselves now as one together with Father in all things. They know the fire; they know His fear; they know His Love.
And in that place of knowing that every step is Father together with them, reconciling the world to Himself, they speak life and blessing and the expectation of God into all that exists outside their own bubbles. Yet, as they do, they bear in themselves the tremendous personal cost of seeing others as they are and not as they appear.
Yet these also practice being the Mercy Seat together with others of like faith.
Loving the Church. Third, I am writing to those who, knowing themselves every moment as Father together with them, sharing heart with God, see the entire Church of Christ. And knowing that the Passion of the Heart of Jesus is their heart as well, they say, inside themselves, “You, Oh, Jerusalem, belong to me.”
These enlarge their knowing of themselves to know that they are now as Christ in His Church. And in that knowing, they COMMIT themselves, signing their signature upon God’s signature upon them the fifth time. “I commit myself without reservation to your Church as You, Jesus, my Lord and my Heart, as ALL that You speak regarding her.”
Those Ready and Willing. Finally, I am writing to those who are ready and willing in the Day of His power, committed now to that essential expression called the local church. They are committed to Christian Community in some way, as Christian Community unfolds itself in endlessly varied appearances, yet always the same core reality, that is, brethren, perfectly free in Christ, bound to one another by their own desire and volition, walking together in love, married.
In short, I am writing this present series to those who are ready, right now, to join with me in a tangible and intentional Community of Christ on a shared property.
Welcome to This Course. As learners going through this course and all courses at Christ Revealed Bible Institute, you will know the Spirit of God leading you, personally, into all truth, into all the knowledge of Jesus alive and real inside your heart. There is no other purpose for anything, yet all things of joy and goodness flow out of our hearts, the Mercy Seat, the throne of God, out of Father in all abundance.
As you work your way through this course, stay always with Jesus. He alone teaches you. The pages of this text have no meaning at all unless Jesus is making Himself known to you by using what is written here just a little bit. I am confident that is exactly what He is doing in you.