9.2 Substance and Appearance

This One who is continuously giving life to the dead and calling into existence things not existing (Romans 4:17). – Now, faith is the substance and underlying reality of things hoped for, the proof of things not now being perceived (Hebrews 11:1).

It is not possible to understand God or ourselves without knowing and applying God’s principle of “substance and appearance” at every level at which it operates. Every appearance has an underlying cause or substance, and every underlying substance has one or more appearances. More than that, the substance behind an appearance can also have a deeper substance causing it.

Union with Word. Substance is on the God-side of things, the causation, as in – through Him all things become. Appearance is the visible outward form something takes inside the human and physical experience. Everything in the physical has a spiritual and heavenly substance operating behind it, as in – the physic without the spirit is dead. Yet the things of the heavens are created as well, and thus they also have a deeper substance behind them.

The substance of all things is the Word God is continuously speaking, the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, Personal Living Spirit Word. Faith is our union with that Word, thus faith is called substance.

Our “Little” Faith. Faith is the substance and underlying reality of things hoped for, the proof of things not now being perceived. When God speaks His Word, that Word is completed and fulfilled absolutely in its beginnings (Romans 8:30). Faith is that human quality, part of our design as humans, that enables us to enter into complete union with that Word being spoken.

There is a human side to that faith, a side that says, “Yes, Lord.” Nonetheless, the Lord Jesus, as every Word God speaks, joins Himself to that human faith, though it might be tiny, and adds to it “the faith of the Son of God.” At every point, then, we know that our “little” human faith is larger than all things created and unwavering.

Look and See! Here is a prime example of substance and appearance connecting together through our faith. – If anyone be inside of Christ, he is a new creation. Look and see, old things are passed away and now all things are brand new; all things are of God (2 Corinthians 5).

Look around you at the world in which you live; look and see. Do you see everything as the new creation, or do you “see” the old creation remaining among all the humans of your world? What do you see? It is evident that the Word God speaks stands as absolute reality. If you “see” the operation of the old creation, is there a problem with your seeing? Do appearances sometimes “deceive?”

False Seeing. When we say, “This is not what it appears to be,” we don’t actually mean that the appearance is false. What we mean is that the seeing is false. False “appearance” is not a breakdown in God’s order of reality, but rather a willful manipulation of the eyes by the human heart.

And thus we see that deceit also has a “substance” and an “appearance.” The substance of deceit has to do with our symmorphic nature, and that is our identity, the story we tell ourselves about what we are (separate from Christ) – “This is me.” This fake “identity” then commands the eyes to see wrongly.

Our Fatal Flaw. Lesson 10.2 “Our Fatal Flaw” will expand on this identity of deceit that unthankful humans create in order to refuse the knowledge of God.

Here’s the thing. God actually makes the relationship between substance and appearance very clear to us, and in fact, God has placed us as humans at the very pivot of that relationship. The reason for all hurt is not just that humans are not doing their job, but that they are, in fact, using their place, in God’s order for everything, to seal and increase the hurt. All hurt is an “appearance” caused by the “substance” of the wicked human identity of arrogance and contempt. Thus the human heart, empty of the knowledge of God, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17).

A Dynamic Relationship. But Christ lives inside of our hearts through faith, through the substance of Jesus’ union with us.

God’s order, then, for the relationship between substance and appearance has three parts – hope, calling, and proof. God placed humans into His universe as the “callers.” Calling is what we do, but callers is what we are. God does not enter into His creation except through humans.

The remainder of this course, then, is about our role inside creation as callers, as those appointed to synergeo with God to turn all things towards pure and intrinsic goodness. We are callers, and calling substance into appearance is what we do.

Hope and Calling. The process of substance becoming appearance begins with hope. As Paul said, “We hope for what we do not yet see.” Hope, however, is NOT “someday.” “Someday” is nothing more than a sleight of hand employed by a deceitful identity. God speaks His Word in all completion. Hope, then, is the expectation of an All-Here-Now God. Hope is the immediacy of God-with-me, though God remains forever invisible.

Then, God calls into existence those things that do not yet exist. Paul said that the Word by which God calls His goodness into the experience of creation is in our mouths and in our hearts, the Word of faith which we speak. Thus our role is to speak the same word God speaks and to believe in our hearts that it is true.

Proof. The final part of this dynamic relationship between substance and appearance is proof, the proof of Christ, every Word God speaks, faithful and true. Proof does have an outward appearance, that is, all things good, but proof is first our faith, the faith of the Son of God.

There is only one proof that I am a son of God and that my Father shares my life with me and reveals Himself through me – the absolute confidence of my FAITH. – Faith is the proof. – Without faith one is incapable of pleasing God; indeed, it is required of the one approaching God [in the Holiest] to believe that God is and that He becomes the rewarder of those seeking out and requiring of Him (Hebrews 11:6).

The Entrance of Word. Let’s trace out this relationship between substance and appearance, first in creation, then in Jesus, and finally in us.

The earth begins “void,” that is, no life. Nothing created can be good or living in itself. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. – It is the Spirit that gives life, not that which is created. This role of the Spirit, however, is HOPE, that is, the expectation of the entrance of Word as the knowledge of God causing life.

Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. – This is God calling that which did not exist into existence; this is the entrance of Word as the Seed of God into creation.

Seeing All Things Good. Yet there is one final step that is absolutely critical. – And God saw the light that it was good. This is the PROOF of that Word that is Christ Jesus, faithful and true, and that proof is found in the seeing of the eye. This is why Paul said, “LOOK and SEE – all things good, all things brand new, all things of God.”

The pivot in this whole process, then, is the calling, the speaking of Word into its fulfillment. This pivot point is the “mystery of Christ,” or, as we call it, the Jesus Secret, for God has placed this same word in our mouths. You will find this same pattern, then, throughout the Bible.

Spirit and Flesh. Then consider this description of Jesus as the Word made flesh. …Great is the mystery of godliness: “The One who was made visible inside of flesh, was made just and innocent inside of Spirit… (1 Timothy 3:16). Just and innocent is the substance, found inside of Spirit; the flesh, then, is God made visible, the outward appearance of God. As Jesus said, “He who sees Me sees the Father.”

But what about the in-between? How did Jesus call an invisible God into visibility through His human flesh? Paul called this wondrous action of Jesus the “Ekenosis.”

The Ekenosis. This process of the Ekenosis, Jesus calling an invisible God into being seen and known inside of creation as Jesus’ own flesh, will be part of much study in the remainder of this text.

Here, then, is the same thing for us. – That the life of Jesus also may be made visible inside of our dying flesh (2 Corinthians 4:11). The proof of Christ made visible, faithful and true, is not found in the resurrection of our bodies, as wondrous as that experience will be. The proof of Christ is found right now in our dying flesh, in these bodies of weakness, a spirit and physic that are so unable to hold onto each other.

Where a Thing Fits. We cannot know what a human is unless we first know where a human FITS! We have used the illustration of a spark plug. A brand new spark plug sitting on a shelf has the potential of being what it is, but no meaning at all in the present moment. Look at that thing, a bit of metal formed in funny shapes and surrounded by a ceramic shell. Of what use is such a silly object? Yet you put that spark plug into its place in the engine and send power through it, and bang, every part of the spark plug has full meaning and its role in the working of the entire engine is central to everything.

Becoming What We Are. So also is the human. Until you are in your place doing what you are created to do, your life has no meaning and all your parts seem to be without purpose.

Humans are living beings, of course, and much more than the limited metaphor of a spark plug. And thus empty of the knowledge of God, humans fail to develop huge parts of themselves on the one hand and turn other parts of themselves into a false use on the other hand. We become what we are, however, when we are fitted into our place in God’s great dynamics of substance becoming appearance, calling God our Father into visibility through us.

Symmorphosed With. In all this discussion, then, we have done nothing more than take the ruling verse of the Bible and fit it together with the verse of our creation. – Symmorphosed with the same image that is Jesus as the revelation of the Father – synergeoing with God calling all things good and all things finished right from the start. – “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion.”

We are now ready to attempt our first definition of the human. This first attempt will be a “working definition,” a framework that will then enable us to “flesh out” all the upcoming description of what we ARE as humans.