4.1 Spirit Word
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord. – Not by inward ability nor by outward devices, but by My Spirit says the Lord (Zechariah 4).
In the last session we saw the Lord Jesus Christ now in our mouth as ten different types of words, human words, which we speak reciprocally, together with one another. Think of that, these words we speak are human words, our own language. In fact, as we speak Christ into one another, our interest is to frame Him in terms of the language of our brother or sister in their present moment. You see, without human words, we hardly exist as distinct persons. We are, to a large extent, the woven fabric of our language – just like God.
Families of Seeds. Now, these words that we speak are seeds which we are planting into one another’s hearts, seeds that are, in fact, the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. – We are gardeners.
Think of the seeds you select when planting a garden. You select many different types of seed according to your interest. Yet the seeds you select are grouped by nature into families. Think of the cucurbit family of seeds. There are many types of cucumber, many types of summer squash, and many types of winter squash, yet all of these are in the same family of seed and bear the same characteristic of fruit grown on a vine. Then there is the nightshade family: potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. The fruit is good, but we never eat any of the plant parts of anything in this family.
The Families of Christ Seed. So, let’s consider each type of word in our list as a family of related seeds. Each family contains a number of differing plants, each one of which comes in many different varieties.
Here are the families of Christ Seed which we listed. Words of encouragement, words of comfort, words of healing, words of faith, words of good grace, words of Christ within the heart, words of calling forth the knowledge of God, words of setting free, words of shepherding, and words of creation.
Inside of each of these “families” of word are different specific words spoken, each of which comes in many varieties of taste and appearance. This way of thinking allows us to see the extraordinary riches that are Christ Jesus, riches God has placed in our mouth.
Seed Requires Spirit. No seed can bring forth life in and of itself. If you completely seal a seed, the life that is in it will remain for centuries, but it will not bring forth that life except it be placed into the conditions by which life springs forth. It is the Spirit who gives life… the words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life (John 6:63).
Consider the environment of the garden, all the things the seed needs in order to bring forth its life. The seed needs five things: a prepared soil (earth), sunlight (fire), elements of the air and water, and other living organisms. Every one of these things speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit hovering over that seed, causing it to be Jesus Himself in us.
The Environment of the Spirit. A successful Christian Community, that is, Church, will contain an environment of the tangible knowledge of the Holy Spirit always at work among us. There is no Christ as us, no Christ among us, and no Body of Christ without the definitive, tangible, all-pervasive environment of a very Personal Holy Spirit. Christ Jesus remains a Seed, a living Spirit Word, but no life will ever come from that Seed into our life together as the Church apart from the total environment of the Spirit.
Inside the Holy Spirit. Paul said two things in different letters that we place together as one thought. – For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:5). – My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:4-5).
Let’s cast Paul’s argument into the positive. The words of Christ which we spoke into you came inside the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and in power. Church does not exist except inside the environment of the Holy Spirit. A group of people getting together in a building, saying nice “Bible things,” and agreeing on the same theology are not the Church, even if they are all “born again.” Good words, apart from the Holy Spirit, cannot be Christ.
Miraculous Power. Consider a Being, showing Himself in Person through a “swarm,” a body of many persons. The connection that causes the many to be one is the tangible and knowable Holy Spirit. The Spirit is filled with Word, yes, but the Word is Christ only inside the full bath of the Spirit among us.
Those who shepherd the flock of Christ will always be nurturing that environment by which the Holy Spirit demonstrates power, miraculous power that causes our words to become Jesus Himself in Person in the hearts of each. Each of those five elements of the environment into which a seed is planted can be productive to that seed in enabling it to bring forth its life, or hostile to the life of the seed.
Earth and Air, Fire and Water. Now, earth – air – fire – water is considered a pagan concept. And yet grouping those four is Biblical as well as scientific. A plant is half in earth and half in air, drawing most of its nutrients from the soil, but drawing the building block of life, carbon dioxide, from the air. We live in a body that is fully earth immersed in fully heaven. Most of what we are comes from Christ as us, but the building block of life, Christ Jesus, comes into us from the Spirit. Water enters into the plant to become its own internal movement, but it takes the fire from the sun to generate photosynthesis, the formation of life. We plant Spirit Word into our hearts, but it takes the energeia of God, via His Holy Spirit, to generate the appearance of Himself in our gathering together.
Quenching the Holy Spirit. Do not quench the Holy Spirit; do not grieve the Holy Spirit; do not call the work of the Holy Spirit the work of demons. The Holy Spirit is a dove; it is the nature of a dove to quietly hide itself when its immediate surroundings are filled with strife or hardness.
It is normal for humans to speak. But observe the words humans speak into one another, including Christians. The majority of what humans say to one another fits into the category of one word – accusation. Words of belittling, words of discouragement, words of hurt, words of unbelief, words of cursing, words of evil written upon the heart, words of the ignorance of God, words of slavery, words of control, and words of death.
Two Kinds of Words. I am simply overwhelmed as I go back and forth between these two lists of human words. In one list is the continual presence of the Holy Spirit; in the other list is utter darkness.
I know well, both in myself and in gathering together with other believers, the extent and the awfulness of speaking any and all of these dark types of word. I have never actually experienced a life in which believers speak only Christ into one another. Although I have certainly known the good speaking of Christ into me from others many times in my Christian experience, sadly, one or another of these dark words has been the norm, both to me and by me.
Nurturing the Holy Spirit. If we are to “nurture” an environment of the Holy Spirit, how, specifically, do we do that?
We cannot if we hold to any particle of the “transaction theory” of redemption. Transaction is any form of “we do this so that God does that.” Or even “we do this to ‘prove’ that God has done that.” Transaction is relating with a “split-soul God.” The problem is dealing with God either as a Person far away or as an impersonal life force filling all things. To us God is an utterly close and Personal life force filling all things, but especially our hearts, and even more extraordinarily, filling all our interactions together. Yet God is always a Person, private, personal, and unique.
A Unique and Personal Story. We recognize God as a Person like ourselves, a living Soul, an alive personal Story, yet also as a life-giving Spirit, personal in all and showing Himself through our togetherness. This personal Story, though it adapts to and fills every particle of our own stories, yet He is also unique.
Part of God’s personal uniqueness is that He is BIG. He is also Fire – unlimited power. And jealous, yes. There is a reason why a husband or wife would be devastated if their spouse committed adultery. It’s because God made us like Himself. We must know this God as fully One with ourselves, yet inside that union, we know Him as unique, scary, awesome – Father.
Communion. So, if we are to “nurture” an environment of the Holy Spirit, how, specifically, do we do that? That’s a large part of what this course is about.
It is inside our Communion with Father that the Spirit feels welcome, not just in our hearts, but among us, in all our relationships together. And that Communion takes on specific forms and actions, the first of which is the acknowledgement of thanksgiving. How would we receive into our home a visitor who means the world to us? Our every response would be welcoming, tender, and filled with the deepest regard. If we are like that, why would we think that our Father was in any way different? – We are His appearance, after all.
Speaking Good into People. Now, I am astonished that the Lord would have me teaching others about speaking good words into one another. You see, speaking good words into other people is not something most people are able to do, especially me.
One of the most important persons in my life, an elder with whom I walked for several years, Don Howat, was a man who always spoke good things into people. Then I met Don’s brother. He was the same, always speaking encouragement into people. Yet the two were also very different, for Don’s words were always anointed by the Holy Spirit and his brother’s words, though similar in sound, were not. Don’s words were unto life; his brother’s words, though good, were not.
A Constant Connection. Let’s establish what we are doing in this session on a Life-giving Spirit. The matching, through the New Testament, of Spirit and body, Spirit and bride, Spirit and believer, Spirit and assembly, Spirit and son of God, are constant. For example: They who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8). Yet we know that a “life-giving Spirit” is Spirit coming as Words, and containing words etched by Spirit, yet always Personal and always containing and revealing Father.
Although the larger structure of this course is the ten most important verses of the Bible, in the order and from the view of the ten patterns of home, the content and filler of that larger structure will be this same pattern of Spirit and Church.
The Body of Christ. A Community of Christ is the embodiment, the outward appearance, of a Spirit Word in a local place inside heaven/earth, and through that reciprocal flow of Spirit Word, Father causes Himself to be seen and known. Even though this Spirit Word is a bath “among us,” its source is clear, out from our hearts and through our mouths.
What is a Church in which the members are always speaking the various good words that are Christ into one another, words coming out from their definition of God and their seeing of the universe, inside an environment of the continuous demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit? The answer to that question is – the return of the Lord Jesus Christ bodily upon this earth. We ARE the Body of Christ.
Written with Spirit. Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written with the Spirit of the living God on tablets of flesh, that is, the heart (2 Corinthians 3:3 – condensed). Consider these words inside the context of 2 Corinthians 3, remembering that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” follows in Chapter 4 (Please read the chapters).
Growing up in “the Bible,” we gained early on the image of the God of the Old Testament to be a demonstration of power and glory far beyond what we could know anything about now. But Paul says that this ministry of the Spirit, in which we are bathed in the Church, makes that former glory to be nothing. God’s appearance is NOT outward demonstrations of power; God’s appearance is family walking together in love.
A Far Greater Glory. Further, in 2 Corinthians 3, we see this same Jesus, now as Spirit Word written all through the pathways of our hearts, as being far more glorious than anything from a faraway God. But we all, with unveiled face, reflecting (the actual Greek word) as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).
And the GLORY of God’s Christ that we see when we look at Christ-as-us in the mirror of each other’s faces is infinitely more glorious than anything anyone sees or has ever seen of this same Christ outside themselves, including “in heaven.” And this distinction for us rests on parrhesia – great boldness of speech.
Seeing and Speaking Boldly. Inside this bath of Spirit, then, in the context of the Church, we are doing two things, according to Paul. First we are speaking mighty and bold statements of Christ our only life – the concept of “freedom to speak” is inside the word parrhesia – thus we see, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And second, we acknowledge the glory coming back to us from one another’s faces, steadily, without ever diminishing or attempting to cover over that glory that is the light of Christ upon our faces.
As we speak and as we see, that is, tongue connected to eyeballs by way of the heart, so we together are transformed into the same image that is Christ, the revelation of Father.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. I speak what I see. I see Jesus in all glory upon your face; therefore, I speak bold statements of Christ as you into your heart and you into mine.
Now, God begins our becoming just like Jesus in all ways (our great hope) as individuals looking in our own mirror in the night. Yet we know that Father shows Himself AS HE IS only in the context, the “swarm,” the Body, of life together. I have never known a Church gathering in which this seeing one another as Jesus Himself, the greatest glory, and speaking Christ boldly into one another’s hearts has ever happened.
What would a Church be that practices this seeing and this speaking inside this bath of the Spirit daily and through all the doings of human life? – The revelation of Jesus Christ.