11.1 Must Come Together
In this chapter we are looking at the relationship between power and authority, how they must come together, and how, in their coming together, all creation will know God. We are getting right at the crux and meaning of Salvation revealed, of what everything is all about. A man is not known by what he is, but by what he does. We can know what we are only by the most important thing we do.
Consider all the realms of awfulness of mankind as they are on this planet in the year of our Lord, 2021. To even begin to describe all the awfulness would take many large volumes. Yet the cause of all the horror and degradation is one thing only, one simple little thing. – God is not known.
A Strange Clue. God known is life and peace; God not known is death and war.
There is a strange and seemingly insignificant clue in John’s vision that I hold at the back of my mind. It’s one of those things that must be answered before the real solution to the mystery is known. – Satan will be released out of his prison and will go out to lead astray the ethnic groups in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together into the war, of whom the number is like the sand of the sea (Revelation 20:7-8).
How is it possible that, after a thousand years of the rule of Christ, of the knowledge of the glory of God filling the earth as the waters cover the sea, of life laid down and love poured out, how is it that MILLIONS of humans turn and choose demons?
Narrow Is the Gate. The answer to that question cannot be that “man is bad.” Man is a vessel, either filled with or empty of the knowledge of God. More than that, “man is bad,” takes the focus off of LIFE, off of Christ sustaining all, and places it entirely on humans inside of knowing good and evil. At the same time, as we have seen, the KNOWLEDGE of God is life, not the fact of God All Here Now. Knowledge, the knowing of self, is entirely under individual human control.
This strange clue also shows us that the “rule of Christ” contains NO violence. There is no enforcement of ‘obedience,’ no command and control. Narrow is the gate and pressed in is the way by which [all creation] is led into LIFE… (Matthew 7:14).
A Door. And thus we see that this pin-point of a DOOR from a world knowing only death to a world knowing only life is not personal redemption, but rather the door of Salvation revealed. Yes, Jesus was speaking of Himself as our Doorway into the knowledge of God. But that which is true for the individual is also true for all creation. So, let’s place that specific door.
By this we have known love, in that He set forth His soul for us. – This line gives us everything found in Lesson 10.4 “Identity from the Lamb.” The Lamb Slain is the clearest report given to creation of God as He is. Then, God designed our human hearts to come into union with, to contain and to reveal, everything that the Lamb Slain and alive again is and means.
And We Also. Here, then, is the narrow door for creation to know God. – AND WE ALSO – are committed to setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters. Isn’t that what Jesus said? When Christians love one another, the world will KNOW? (John 17).
And we also is authority. The world will know is power.
These two lessons, “Identity from the Lamb” and “Must Come Together,” are the center of everything. We are driving towards one simple point, but that one point is absolutely the difference between a world of all death and a world of all LIFE. And so, before we arrive at that simple point, that tiny DOOR between death and life, we will approach it from two other directions of understanding.
A Second Clue. Our second “clue” that must be answered is the greatest accusation hurled against God by humans everywhere. – IF God is all Love, and IF God is all Power, then why the hell does He allow evil things to happen to innocent children? People blame God and not man for all evil actions and death.
And so we must trace again the place of authority, the place of power, and the relationship between the two. A judge has authority, but no power. A policeman has power, but no authority. A judge can sentence a man to prison, but he has no power to execute his judgment. A policeman can take a man to prison, but he has no authority to do so. Justice requires two different offices working together.
Separating Authority from Power. In fact, when you look at the perceptions of western culture, it is this separation between authority and power, and then the two working together, that is the essence of justice, separate from either tyranny or vengeance. A tyrant claims that power is his own. A vigilante claims that authority is his own. There is no real difference between the two except for scale.
The writer of Hebrews interprets the word “subdue,” spoken by God to a pure and just Adam and all humanity inside of him, as meaning authority over all created things in heaven-earth. – Humans in charge over the works of Your hands – Put all in subjection to humans – Nothing not subject to mankind (except the Father, as Paul had pointed out).
Authority to Jesus. We have seen that God took this authority away from Adam and to all inside of him and gave it to Jesus, BECAUSE He was human, and to all inside of Him. And Jesus makes it clear that authority is for heaven as much as earth. – “All authority in heaven and earth is given to Me”, – as He said in John 5, “Because I am human.”
What about power, then? A tyrant holds for himself the violence of many to be used against everyone. A vigilante (now called a terrorist), claims the personal authority to inflict violence on anyone he wishes. And this is how Nicene Christianity defines the rule of the Lord Jesus, that He will force obedience by outward compulsion.
The Opposite of the Tyrant. You see, both the tyrant and the terrorist seize both authority and power together in order to obtain for themselves what they WANT, without regard to anyone else. They use authority and power together to win their DESIRE.
However, we see Jesus [that is, we see God AS HE IS]… through the suffering of death, having been crowned with glory and honor, so that, by grace coming out from God, He might eat up death for the sake of all (Hebrews 2:9). Jesus does the opposite of both tyrant and terrorist to show us our Father as He is inside of us. God cannot sin. It never enters God’s mind to use physical or spiritual violence, in heaven or earth, to force His knowledge on anyone.
God’s ‘Policeman.’ Indeed, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). Having given all authority to mankind, it never enters God’s mind to take that authority back to Himself. It never enters God’s mind to intervene in human affairs apart from a living relationship with a human JUDGE.
And I saw thrones and THEY sat upon them and judgment was committed to THEM (Revelation 20:4). So, if humans are the judge, then who is the policeman?
The answer is so absolutely incredible. – Neither the Father nor the Son, but rather, the gentle, devoted, and hovering Spirit. By My Spirit, says the Lord. – It is the Spirit who gives LIFE. It is Jesus who eats up death, but it is the Spirit who then gives life.
Pro-Thesis. Now, let’s approach this one MOST CRITICAL door for God and for man, the ONLY way to God’s desire, from the direction of God’s Pro-Thesis, His purpose from the beginning.
We know moreover that those who are actively loving God are synergeoing 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 (Romans 8:28 – expanded).
This is the verse out from which all human action proceeds, and by human, we mean the action of the Lord Jesus through us.
Cannot Know God. Nothing created is or can be good in itself. Nothing created can know God of itself. Nothing created can live in itself. Nothing in heaven is free from decay. Michael and Gabriel cannot know God, not until they see humans loving one another.
You see, Michael and Gabriel were stunned when they saw the Lamb of God laying down His life for us. They knew they were seeing God as He is for the first time. BUT – they remain puzzled to this day, for they have yet to see – AND WE ALSO, they have yet to see Jesus revealed in us. Michael and Gabriel do NOT understand, and they cannot know God, except, as Paul and Peter said, through the Church.
Cannot Impart Life. NO law ever given can impart life. NO human doing can ever impart life (Galatians 3). No human action arising as “obedience” to a perceived word coming to the human can ever give life, that is, can ever place a human into the tree of life, into the knowledge of God, into John 14:20. No human violence can impart life. All violence of any kind is death and results in death. No compulsion can impart life. Forcing people to do “what is right” cannot ever result in goodness. Imposed order results in one thing only – it results in the chaos of death, the continuance of God NOT KNOWN.
Not Symmorphic. Now, we have suggested that in these two things, authority and power, there is no symmorphy. We mean that power will never be shared together and that authority will never be shared together. You and God will NOT share power together. You and God will NOT share authority together. Forever, you retain all authority in yourself. Forever, God retains all power in Himself, that is, in His devoted Spirit. It never enters God’s mind to change this arrangement or to alter His Pro-Thesis.
The answer, then, lies in one thing only – the answer to all death and to all life.
There I Will Meet with You. If I had the ability, if I were capable, I would enlarge this verse in your knowing until it is embedded as the only thing you are. – You shall put the Mercy Seat on top of the Ark, and in the Ark you shall put the Covenant that I will give you. And there I will meet WITH you, and I will speak WITH you from above the Mercy Seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the Ark of the Covenant… (Exodus 25:21-22).
The answer to all is one thing only – you and God must come together. No death will ever be swallowed up by life, no justice will ever triumph, apart from you and God come together. Synergeoing – God and the human ENERGEOING together. God and the human TOGETHER turning everything created into the path of pure and intrinsic goodness.
The Equation. And how does this happen? It happens only through faith. God will never be known by human “sight” except by seeing Christians placing God as their all-connection through faith.
But look at the God side of this equation. For God so loved you that He gave you His One-Seed Son…, that is, God gave you His own LIFE so that you might share it with Him. The other side of the equation is this. – And we also. We also allow God to share our life with us, “Father, this is You sharing all things with me. Father, I feel far away from You, but Father, I KNOW that You are sharing even this tearing open of my humanity utterly together with me. And Father, whatever awfulness we endure together, it is all for the sake of others.”
Must Come Together. God possesses all power; man possesses all authority. Nothing good can happen inside our world UNLESS God and man come together in pure fellowship found only in perfect union. You and God must come together; you and God must become part of one another in knowing and experience, in fellowship and joy. There is no other option; there is no other door. No death will ever vanish and no life will ever arise inside this heaven-earth except you and I come into this ongoing and active, humbling and uplifting fellowship with the All-Carrying One.
This shared Fellowship, God and the human synergeoing together with outward purpose, is the source and cause of all true human action and doing. This is what Wwe do.