5.1 God as Spirit Word
For out from Him and through Him and to Him are all.
In this chapter we are no longer considering God as the transcendent One, for there is nothing more we could ever know about God in that way. Rather, we are considering God as the Source of all things, the Becoming One, and as our Source as well.
We know this God through Jesus Sent into us. We know that the Son out from God IS presently and actively come and has given us an understanding, a through-mind, so that we might know [Him who is] the true; and we are inside of [Him who is] the true, inside of His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20).
Out From God. 1 John 5:20 is one of those many gospel verses that will never come to an end of its unfolding to us the knowledge of God. All are “out from” God, including the Son and the Spirit. The Son out from God is Word because God is Word. The Spirit out from God is Spirit because God is Spirit. Spirit and Word can no more be separated than God could be split apart.
1 John 5:20 is also written out from the absolute in-between role that Christ Jesus is between us and the knowledge of God. Nonetheless, this chapter is not about that out from God movement of Spirit and Son through whom we exist, but rather the Father as Word, out from whom we come, not just as part of “all,” but in utterly unique and personal ways, known only by humans who share Father’s Heart.
A Story of Words. We are not tip-toeing into the knowledge of this Mighty Being, however, for we are instructed by God to enter Him as children playing pirates, with all public boldness, seizing everything we find as our own.
We are considering the pro-gnosis, the Pro-Knowing of God; that is, all of His thoughts concerning each one of us. God is a Story of Words inside of a Spirit Self-Awareness. And inside this God are an infinite number of specific sets of thoughts each containing an infinite number of thoughts made of the purposeful arrangement of words. God never gets any of His thoughts mixed up, for each one flows in its set forth path in all perfection.
In Your Book. Let’s set in front of us passages on God’s Pro-Knowing.
My frame {all the structure that is me in You} was not hidden from You, when I was accomplished [completed] in secret {Psalm 91, In the secret place of the Most High}, and woven together in the lowest land on the earth {He humbled Himself}. Your eyes saw my substance [as an embryo], and all that I am is written in Your book {Your Pro-Knowing}, my days [my unfolding] fashioned for me, before I am in them {before my days exist in time and appearance}. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You (Psalm 139:15-18).
In the Scroll of the Book. Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts concerning us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire [delight in]; my ears You have opened. …Then I said, “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book {God’s Pro-Knowing} it is written of me. I delight to accomplish Your goodwill, O my God, and Your direction is within my heart” (Psalm 40:5-8).
The word “Your thoughts” includes the meaning of intricate and brilliant design. Notice that the connection between God’s thoughts and human delight passes only through the heart.
So Shall My Word Be. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please [delight in], and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11).
This line means the same as John 17:3, Ephesians 3:17, and 1 John 5:20 – knowing God through knowing Jesus as Word Sent into us. Jesus – declared and set forth from God by the determined counsel and Pro-Knowing of God (Acts 2:22-23).
I Know My Thoughts of You. – For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of soundness and completion and not of evil {the same word as in the knowledge of good and evil}, to give you a future and a cord of expectation (Jeremiah 29:11).
The English word “thoughts” as translated in the New Testament means only the thoughts of the mind and does not correspond to the Hebrew word. Rather, the corresponding meaning of the Hebrew word is found in the New Testament words “Pro-Thesis” and “counsel.”
[God] selected us inside of Jesus… He also pro-determined us placed and set forth as sons all the way through Jesus Christ and into Himself [Father God], down to the finest details of the good pleasure of His desire (Ephesians 1:4-5).
Energeoing All. Inside this same Jesus, we also have already been pro-determined according to God’s Pro-Thesis, His set-forth purpose, Christ, Who is energeoing all down to the finest details of the counsel and deliberate wisdom arising out of God’s desire; which is that we… might be… the full outward expression of His glory (Ephesians 1:11-12 – reduced).
Then, we add this understanding, that the word “Pro-Thesis,” the original words inside of God that place God’s purpose and intentions as the Source and Cause of all created things, is also used to describe the Bread of the Tabernacle, that is, John 6, eating of Christ, that is, transubstantiation, that as we eat of Him as Word, so we become that same Word He is. God’s thoughts becoming us – but with our participation.
Ability to Cause All. And this is the thing – God’s thoughts becoming us are NOT God controlling us, for God thinks no evil, as Jeremiah said.
Here is the most amazing ability in the universe. The Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the outer appearance of our lowly individual physical bodies, as we are 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 (Philippians 3:20-21). This is the ability of the Word to accomplish what God pleases, as Isaiah said, in sending that Word to become us.
God Is a Book! To know God’s Pro-Knowing of us, we must draw into our consideration all these passages that give us a view into the very fabric and Being of our Father. In essence, God is presenting Himself to us as a Book. That’s a very interesting thought, that God is a Book, and each one of us is a chapter in that Book, yet a chapter that is infinitely long, as Jeremiah said, a cord stretching into forever.
What we will do, then, is write a simple list of things we know about God’s Pro-Knowing from all of these passages. We must set before our eyes what God says. And understand, this is a most wondrous topic, yes, to venture into the fabric of God, but one we have hardly known.
God Is True. One more verse before we begin our list. – God… having blessed and spoken well concerning us with every spiritual speaking of goodness and blessing in the heavenly realms inside of Christ (Ephesians 1:3).
Now, there is much through these verses concerning the becoming known of God that is Christ Jesus. Here we want to focus primarily on an All-Here-Now God who is all these good thoughts separate from His becoming known.
1. God is true. And all things exist inside this true Personal God.
2. We exist already completed inside the secret place of God.
3. God knows our frame – all the structure of our life – as part of Himself, already woven together inside of God.
The Unfolding of His Thoughts.
4. God sees us, Pro-Sees, that is, our substance, as an embryo, that is, the entire genetic code of all we are and will be.
5. All that we are and all the days of our lives are written in full and fashioned for us inside God’s Pro-Knowing.
6. God has an infinite number of thoughts concerning each of us, these thoughts are of the highest value to us.
7. As we live in self-awareness, we know that we live in God.
8. We declare and speak God’s thoughts concerning us as they are new forever.
9. God’s great delight is the unfolding of His thoughts into our lives, written in our hearts, directing our desires.
A Hope That Guides Us.
10. As God’s Word enters into our heaven-earth, spirit and physic together, so it accomplishes all that delights God and prospers in all God’s purposes.
11. God’s thoughts concerning us are thoughts of soundness and completion with no shadow of evil or hurt in them.
12. God’s thoughts are like a cord stretching into our completion forever, as a hope and expectation that guides us forward.
13. God sets us forth as sons according to all the pleasure of His desire, which is that we be the full outward expression of His value and glory.
14. Jesus is the Energeia that accomplishes all God’s Words becoming us as He shares form with us.
Every Good Word.
15. We live in a bath of the created heavens as they are breathed out from God’s Spirit containing all good Words and mighty blessings concerning each one of us. We live and walk in EVERY spiritual good-speaking that God possesses.
All of these things come out from the verses quoted above. It would be good for you to write them out as your own list and place them before your eyes to consider this wonder you are. Of truth, that’s all we can do, is to see ourselves here in this mighty bath that is God’s Pro-Knowing of us, the Mighty and Good Words out from which we come every moment. Can we trust that God’s Thoughts becoming us as Words are all-pervasive, that they are utterly good, and that they give us a guideline into our futures every next step and forever?
The Woven Fabric of God. God is Spirit Word. And it is out from God as Spirit Word that both Word and Spirit come into our lives to become us as the visible appearance of all God’s glory and value. Word is Structure and Form; Spirit is Energeia and Life. The two are the woven fabric that is God.
The word “Pro,” when referencing God, cannot mean “a long time ago,” but it must mean All-Here-Now. We think of God’s thoughts “stretching out into our already completed futures,” yet we know that all those thoughts are right now. – Every spiritual speaking of goodness and blessing.
When We “Awake.” Consider the importance of David’s words. – When I awake, I am still with You. God is invisible, so when we “awake,” He disappears. Every good Word and every Spirit blessing that causes us to be and inside of which we live “disappears” from our view as we are “awake” in self-consciousness.
And so, God with us and we with God is an element of faith. We can know this invisible God filled with thoughts concerning us only through Christ Jesus – the topic of the next chapter. God knows that as we are self-aware, so we cannot see the wondrous thoughts in which we live. He knows this, and so He provides for this “problem” in every purposeful way.
No Change or Shadow. Consider the importance of Jeremiah’s words. – I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of soundness and completion and not of evil, to give you a future and a cord of expectation. God knows His thoughts concerning us even when we do not know them.
Then consider James’s words. – Every good act of giving, and every perfect gift, is from above [from the Source], coming out from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or shadow of turning. Out from His own desire, He gave birth to us by the Word of truth, for us to be specific firstfruits of His created beings (James 1:17-18).
Utterly and Absolutely True. Consider the vast and infinite fields of God-thoughts concerning all created things, and then beyond, for God has infinite sets of thoughts concerning things not of our universe. Inside all those vast fields of energeoing thoughts, there is not one shadow, not one sense of hurt or wrong intention, those thoughts never turn, they are utterly and absolutely TRUE.
Our visible form and the circumstances of our lives are the outward appearance in creation of the value and glory of those GOOD thoughts that are God Himself. This is a wonder beyond all knowing, a world of JOY in which we live and have always lived. – For out from Him and through Him and to Him are all.