20. Glorious Liberty

Our first task is to complete the last five pages for Galatians in the JS2. On three pages, I must make the statements of faith more complete. I will not bring those into this lesson. But on two pages I need to add a small box each. On the page “I Live Spirit; I Walk Spirit,” I will add “The Spirit.” And on the page “I Sow into Spirit,” I will add “The Spirit as My Field.”

Inside of Romans, then, everything is finished through 8:17. I added an entire page for the ninth ruling verse, “I Bring All into Glorious Liberty.” I must also tighten up the statements of faith through the remainder of Romans 8, and I am adding the box “Joined with God” to the page “The Spirit Joins Me Together with God.”

In the Promise. Paul said that the gift of the Spirit is the promise and the blessing of Abraham. – In blessing I will bless you. When we live and walk in the Spirit, we are living and walking in the promise God gave to Abraham.

Galatians Chapter 5 is a problematic chapter. Paul begins with the exhortation to stand fast in liberty, specifically liberty from the slavery of the law. But then it seems that he splits us into two, flesh versus Spirit, thus producing among devoted Christians a different kind of slavery, the awful “struggle against the flesh.” In my own experience, I watched this “struggle” produce an aristocracy, and not the humility of Christ, those “in the spirit” over those “in the flesh,” enslaved to always falling short.

Fakery and Refusal. Yes, there is a “walking in the flesh” that is destructive to the knowledge of God. Such walking has two aspects, first any fakery of soul done to manipulate others for self-gain and second refusing to be like the Lord Jesus in giving yourself to God for the sake of others (Hebrews 12:2-5).

Looking with purpose into Jesus, the source and completion of our faith, who, looking instead at the joy and delight set before Him [the Church] endured the cross, thinking nothing of the shame… Consider fully the One who patiently endured such great anti-speaking from sinners against Himself, that you should not grow weary to the point of fainting in your souls. You have not yet set the blood towards the antagonizing of sin, and you have forgotten the encouragement that He addresses to you as sons…

God’s Offering for Others. In both Galatians and Hebrews, the ruling verse has TURNED US AROUND so that now, every moment of our lives is an offering to the Father for the sake of others just like Jesus. And in both Galatians and Hebrews, the meaning of the Spirit is just such a way of living and thinking, that is, life shared with Father through Jesus, carrying our brethren in our hearts.

The so-called “struggle against sin” is deceit, for the one who SEES sin is worshipping sin and refusing to see Jesus. Rather, the fight we are in is against the anti-speaking and the antagonizing coming from those who prefer to see sin, and it is the Blood alone by which we cast down all accusation against our brethren. We are now God’s offering for others, that is the meaning of all of God’s training in our lives.

Gentleness and Faith. So when Paul says, “Live in Spirit; walk in Spirit,” what is that Spirit in which we live and walk? Two phrases indicate what Spirit, “faith energeoing through love,” and “restore inside the Spirit of gentleness.” Specifically, the Spirit is the energeoing bath in which we live that causes our faith in Christ to become our love for one another. The Spirit is both gentleness and faith, a bath or atmosphere of kindness teaching us Jesus, that we are just like Him.

Both Galatians and Hebrews say this. – SEE the Salvation of God (the Lord Jesus) – shut up about your self – for the Egyptians (sin in the flesh) you will SEE no more forever.

The Spirit. The Spirit is the atmosphere in which I live, the water in which I swim. The Spirit is the continuous environment in which I live and breathe. That bath of Spirit is all gentleness, teaching me always of Jesus, that I am just like Jesus, His word always in my mouth, His kindness always in my hands. I rest always in the gentleness of the Spirit; I am confident that I am led always by the Spirit. I know that the Spirit always shows me Jesus. I know that the Spirit knows how I should pray and that the Spirit always helps me.

The Sowing of Seed. Then, the sowing of seed is a powerful metaphor of Spirit and Word always together. The Seed sown is Word, the Field is Spirit. Those who sow seed of anti-speaking, (look at yourself, NOT Jesus), do so in order to control the flesh of their fellow Christians. The fruit is knowing all about SIN and not God, that is, death.

I sow the Seed of knowing Jesus Sent into you as every word God speaks. I sow into the expectation of the Spirit, that the knowing of the Spirit inside of you, the Spirit now part of you, would receive that Seed, that you are just like Jesus, and thus bring forth in you the knowing of a life shared with the Father, that is, age-unfolding Life.

The Spirit as My Field. I know that everything and everyone lives and breathes inside the same Spirit in which I live. I know that my brethren drink of that same Spirit with me. I never perceive others as “by themselves,” but always inside the gentle care of the Spirit. For this reason, I speak only words of Christ into others, for I am sowing only into the Spirit. I know that the Spirit takes my seeds of faith and causes them to spring forth as Life.

I Bring All into Glorious Liberty. I have made this terrible claim. I have claimed that the teaching in Christianity, that we are to exalt sin in the flesh in our seeing and knowing, rather than putting the Lord Jesus upon ourselves, is the CAUSE of the continuation of death.

The Gospel is clear – Old things are GONE, look and SEE, all things are brand new, now all things are out from God. The Gospel is clear – One unlimited sacrifice for sins becoming a consciousness cleansed from all thought of sin or any separation from God.

Yet the knowing of such a Gospel vanished from the Christian Church with the passing of John. In its place came the wicked exaltation of sin in the flesh and the exaltation of death, that death alone will cause you to “see” Jesus.

The Ninth Ruling Verse. Before continuing, here is our passage, the ninth ruling verse. – For the eager anticipation of the creation awaits intently for the unveiling of the sons of God [the removal of that which hides]. For the creation was made subject to purposelessness, not willingly, but through being subjected based in the hope that creation itself will also be made free from the slavery of decay into the freedom of the glory of the children birthed out from God. Indeed, we are aware that the entire creation groans together and travails together until now.

We begin the JS2 page with the box, “In Hope.” In order to understand God’s Hope and ours, we must have the whole picture, and so I will make it as concise as I can.

God Expects a Return. Hope is the Father and us together placing our confidence upon the Devoted Spirit, that the Spirit will find, win the heart of, and bring back the Bride made ready for Jesus, and as the dwelling-place of God. Life, and all glorious liberty, must come to creation through a glorious Church and through no other channel.

The problem is that God cannot sin. When He speaks a Word, it never enters His mind to take that Word back. Yet, when He speaks a Word, He does expect, that is, hope, in that Word entering into the darkness and void, finding FAITH, and thus returning to Him fulfilled. Upon this HOPE, God sent Jesus into the Church, planted into the earth, expecting a return as many seeds just like Him.

A History. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created (Genesis 2:3-4).

By devoting the seventh “day” to Himself, God set forth six thousand years of the Word seeking faith in the earth, and then bringing fulfilment back to the Father through the seventh “day,” the Age of Tabernacles. Thus the Age of Tabernacles becomes the full Sabbath rest of God inside of all. This setting forth contained no thought of the entrance of sin and death, and when sin did enter, it could not thwart God’s set-forth Thesis. He did go silent for 1500 years, telling Noah, “I think I made a mistake.” But His purpose did not change.

Planted in Hope. And so God spoke the same thing again – in HOPE. – And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:3). Notice the role of the Spirit. I am confident that the “120 years” are 120 years of Jubilee, the proclamation of the coming glorious liberty into which we bring creation, that is, six thousand years of sowing seed, bringing fulfillment in the seventh “day,” the now-arising Age of Tabernacles.

God planted Jesus into the Church – in HOPE, that Jesus would return to the Father, bringing you and me inside Himself, just like Him, you and me carrying all of our brethren in our hearts as well – the meaning of Hebrews 12. It never enters God’s mind to change His Pro-Thesis.

The Pro-Thesis. Here again is the Pro-Thesis of God, His set-forth purpose from the beginning. – From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day (Matthew 16:21). And again – And He said to them, “Go, tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be made complete’” (Luke 13:32).

The “third day” comes 3 times. After 2,000 years of pain, God brought forth Abraham at the dawning of the third day. After 2,000 years of a natural Israel, God brought forth Jesus at the dawning of the third day. And after 2,000 years of Christians refusing to believe, God brings forth us as His firstfruits, Jesus made complete, at the dawning of the third (and 7^th) day.

Our Own Travail. Immediately after creation’s travail, Paul brings our own travail, together with the Spirit, into the same picture. Our own travail is the KEY to the entire Pro-Thesis of God, for our travail is the Faith Jesus is looking for, His own Faith coming back to Him in return. For Jesus to convince us to trust in Him, to embrace an absolute Atonement, to turn around, to see our brethren, to travail in thanksgiving with the Spirit joining us with Father, to share in His same redemption for others, this is almost impossible, it is a work of great care, having taken decades.

I no longer see 6000 or 2000 years as the question, but rather, how on earth this wondrous miracle of the Glorious Salvation of humans could ever happen at all – in Hope.

In Hope. Winning the hearts of even a few humans, convincing them of Truth, leading them to turn around and to be the Salvation of God through them for others, this is almost impossible. Yet God spoke His Word into the darkness from the beginning; He never thinks to take that word back unfulfilled. Rather, God hopes, and He subjected all creation to vanity inside that Hope. But Hope is not seen; hope almost seems vain. For four thousand years the Word God speaks searched the earth for faith, for any human who would hear and believe. Then the Word became flesh and was planted inside His Church. Yet God still hopes, for that Word must return to Him fulfilled, carrying many sons into glory.

The Heresy Verse. Now we switch our thinking to creation itself. Just as the mind of hostility against God has turned “salvation” into an everlasting struggle of good versus evil, a struggle that cannot ever be resolved, so the same wicked mind of death has re-defined creation itself, making it inherently, by nature, at war against God, in the delusion of human rebellion. This is part of the reason why this critical ruling verse of Paul’s gospel has been turned into the “heresy” verse, for in it, Paul defines creation as something VERY different.

Paul uses three words to define all created things –  apokaradokia: Eager expectation, earnest longing; sustenazó: To groan together, to lament together; and sunódinó: To travail together, to suffer birth pangs together.

God Hopes. Every created thing EARNESTLY expects, EAGERLY anticipates, GROANS together, and labors in BIRTH PANGS together — FOR the Victory of the Church.

If you were to penetrate all the hostility of Satan, piercing through all of his lying, down to his inner core, you would discover to all amazement that, according to Paul’s gospel, the devil WANTS the Church to win. Yes, God bound the devil, and all creation, to purposelessness, to a vain and empty struggle, but He did so in His own HOPE that a Glorious Church clothed with Jesus, right here on this earth, right now in this age, would bring forth the knowledge of God into the knowledge of all.

God HOPES that His Word will find Faith in the earth.

Earnest Expectation; Eager Anticipation; Groaning Together; Travailing Together. I define creation only by Paul’s gospel. Evil has no substance; there is no such thing as a “sin nature.” All things come out from Jesus every moment and are sustained only by Him. Every created thing that does evil, does so by refusing to be what they are. Every created thing feels lost and longs for liberty, in spite of all the antics. When I look at any human or angel, I know the truth. Regardless of all their wicked actions, deep inside, they earnestly expect, they eagerly anticipate - the Victory of the Church. I see every created thing groaning in travail together, longing, hoping, waiting for my brethren and I to love one another as Jesus loves us.

Your Apocalypse. There is NOTHING more important to God right now, nothing else that He even cares about, but that you would be just like the Lord Jesus Christ, carrying your brothers and sisters inside your heart all the way through the darkness and into all the Life of Christ, into the arising of the Third Day that is happening right now.

And so we come to the very heart of what Glorious Liberty means, the Apocalypse of the sons of God, the sons of the faith of Abraham, the removal of blindness from our eyes. This is quite the thought, dear reader, for you have an Apocalypse of your own. What is “My Apocalypse?” Your apocalypse is that moment when you SEE Jesus as He is, and you KNOW that you are just like Him.

Jesus Faithful and True. Indeed, it was fitting and suitable for God, through whom are all and by whom are all, having already brought many sons into glory (see Romans 8:30), to complete the Archetype of their salvation through endured passions and sufferings (Hebrews 2:10). On the one hand God, and on the other hand all creation, WANTS you to be just like the Lord Jesus, carrying His Church inside the agony of your own soul, all the way through the darkness and into GLORY and LIBERTY – for the JOY set before Him and before us.

“Did you see that, dear? Did you see those Christians loving one another with pure hearts fervently? You know what – we saw God! And now we know that God sent Jesus into our world, Jesus faithful and True.”

My Apocalypse. God has given to me my own part of the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. My own apocalypse begins with the cover removed from my eyes, that I might see Jesus as He is and know that I am just like Him. And to know that the Love of God is shed abroad from my heart. But then there comes that moment when God removes the cover from the seeing of those around me and they see that same Love flowing reciprocally between my brethren and me. In that moment, God Himself becomes visible to all as the interactions of Love among His people. My own apocalypse is how creation can know that they are welcome to enter into the same liberty of Christ in which my brethren and I dwell.

Brought into Liberty. We are finally able to consider the Glorious Liberty into which we bring all creation, each in its season, and beginning with our fellow Christians. We are able to know what it might mean because we now know where it fits.

1. We cannot bring anyone into Glorious Liberty except it be first the definition of our lives and of our entire story of self.

2. Glorious Liberty requires the costliness of God, for no one can be free except we continuously set them free of ourselves, even as we are those who possess all the authority of God.

3. Liberty, then, comes out from the Desire of another. We are free because Jesus wanted us to be with Him inside His glory. Creation is free only when we WANT each one to be with us in glory. We bring each one into our desire.

Freedom From. 4. Liberty begins with freedom from decay. In essence, decay, disintegration, loss, these are speaking of our “property,” that which belongs to each one, given by God. Freedom from decay becomes freedom over all that is one’s own.

5. Then, liberty is freedom from addiction. All addiction comes from unthankfulness, reaching for something not given to you, that is, theft. But stealing comes with chains of slavery. The answer – the freedom to give thanks, to be content.

6. A third “freedom from” is freedom from death. Death is the deliberate ignorance of God, that is, unbelief. It is perpetrated only to spin a false story of self, that is, to lie. Freedom from death becomes the freedom to know the living God, to know that “I can do nothing of myself,” but “I am filled with God in Grace,” that is, truth in the inward parts.

Freedom Into. “Freedom from” then gives way to “freedom into,” that is, we are no longer concerned with loss, but with gain. What is there that belongs to us that we have not yet known?

7. Liberty is the boldness to find everything inside the Person and Being of God our Father that belongs to us, to seize hold of it and to make it our own. This is the faith that pleases God.

8. Liberty is the joy of apprehending all the riches of Word fulfilled. This liberty begins with the right to speak every Word that is Jesus made personal as us – ever-increasing.

9. And liberty is the flow of the Spirit, riding on the wind, free to soar, to dance, to worship, free to be led by and to move in all the expression of the Spirit.

The Liberty of Home. 10. The ultimate personal freedom, I believe, is the freedom to belong, to be loved, to be received, to know the place made for me. This freedom also includes the freedom of solitude.

11. The freedom to belong is followed by the freedom to give. I am free to give only when my expressions of God’s Person through me are valued by you. I belong in the light turning on in my student’s eyes; I belong in your sharing of Christ out from your reading of the bits that I write.

12. The greatest freedom, however, is the freedom to share Hheart with God, the freedom of a Father utterly free to be Himself through me. The Father’s freedom to carry others through me, to lift others up, to bless and to be a blessing, is released utterly, a God coming HOME through me. God FREE is Glorious Liberty indeed.

Glorious Liberty. Glorious Liberty is the condition of the Glorious Church of which I am a member. We together bring each created thing into our Liberty by joining each with the Father in our own souls, setting them free of ourselves, the same costliness of God through Jesus. We do this because we want each one to be with us in glory. I bring those whom God has given to me into freedom from all loss and all addiction to a meaningless story of self by the giving of thanks, by being content with knowing God.
I bring each created thing into truth, into no sufficiency in self and all-sufficiency in God, that is, into Grace. I bring all into apprehending all of God given to them, into knowing the wondrous riches of every Word that is Christ Jesus, now becoming them, and into the liberty of the Spirit, to be led in joy, to know the way of each next step shared with God. I bring each into belonging with me, into the joy of giving, of being valued, to the peace of being at Home. But most of all, I bring God my Father into the Freedom to be Himself through me.

The Spirit of Travail. Not only that, but even we personally, possessing the firstfruit of the Spirit, we also groan inside our own persons… – The Spirit also joins as help together with our weakness [personally seizes hold of our need as our help]; for we are not aware of the things that are necessary for us to pray, but the Spirit personally brings us in line [with Father] for the sake of others, with inexpressible groanings. Even more than that, the One who is actively searching hearts [Jesus as Word] to know present needs, is aware of the heart-gut thinking of the Spirit, because, according to all that is God, He joins us together with God – inside complete and absolute connection [the Mercy Seat] – for the sake of those who are devoted [the Church] (Romans 8:23-27). Followed by Synergeoing with God.

Joined with God. The Spirit of God is the Energeia of my togetherness with my Father. By the Spirit, I synergeo with God. By the Spirit, I share Hheart with the Father. The Father and I then place our expectation upon the Spirit flowing out from us to accomplish all that we speak in the lives of others. The Spirit is the expression of the mighty faith of the Son of God inside of me, always expecting a return. The Spirit, now part of me, causes me to be part of God. The Spirit is God’s travail for others shared with me.

Ever Larger. Our understanding of the Spirit has grown enormously in the last few lessons for the JS2, even beginning with our first of Studies in Paul, 1 Corinthians 2. I don’t claim to “know” any “depths” of God. Instead, I place the patterns of the Word out on the page so that the Spirit can teach each of us what God might mean. What I mean is that the “list” regarding Liberty is just a beginning means to talking about something we have not known.

I love the enlargement to us of each ruling verse of the Bible. At the start, the third and ninth ruling verses were smaller, it seemed, than the others. Now they are growing ever larger and more detailed in scope and meaning.

Reading for Next Time. We have one more page to complete Romans in the JS2, a second page for “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” along with a bit of filler for “Speaking the Same Word that Is Jesus.”

For next time, however, I would like you to think back to this lesson, and out from the understanding you have received from it, read again from The Jesus Secret II: Hebrews. But read specifically in this way. First read carefully all the pages from “God Has Bound Himself to Me by Covenant” through “I Please God with the Boldness of My Faith.” Then, out from knowing that you are already just like Jesus, read the pages from “I Choose the Affliction of Christ” through “Through Affliction, I Receive the Kingdom.” See the meaning of all your “training” only as 1 John 3:16, And we also.

Let’s Pray Together. “Lord Jesus, we are free inside of You because You want us to be with You inside of the Father, with great desire. Your desire to share our lives with us is the only way we know ourselves. Lord Jesus, You have opened our eyes to see You as You really are, in God, in ourselves, and in one another. As we see You steadfastly, Lord Jesus, we know that we are just like You, sharing with You the visibility of God.

“Now, Lord Jesus, we ask inside of Your name that You would open the eyes of our brethren, all who belong to You across the earth, that they would see You in the same way. Lord Jesus, just as You want us to be with You, so we also want them to be with us inside of You in like manner. Let it be so, Lord Jesus, we are as You speak.”