30. Setting Forth Our Souls
© Daniel Yordy – 2019
It is a most extraordinary thing that I am writing these three chapters, “A Place Prepared,” “Setting Forth Our Souls,” and “No One Left in Her,” at the same time that I am writing the final three chapters of Set My People Free, that is, “Designed by Accusation,” “Join with Father,” and “Singing the Song.”
I am in the middle of writing “Join with Father,” but I cannot finish it until I write this letter first, for what I need in that can come only from here.
We are looking at the place where the horizontal bar of the cross is fitted together with the vertical bar of the cross. That point of connection is right above the heart of Jesus.
The heart pumps blood upward from itself. If you could see the pumping of the blood separate from the great blood vessels coming up from the top of the heart, you would see it as great founts of blood, just below the place where the two bars of the cross meet together.
And there I, God, will meet with you, humans (that is, you and me) – upon the Mercy Seat – just above the Blood.
Do you realize the extraordinary significance of Psalm 22? How could David be inside of Jesus’ bubble of self, as I have claimed, literally and substantially, except that all whom God has given to Jesus are there as well? David’s presence inside of Jesus’ bubble of self can only represent our presence there.
Do not think of Psalm 22 as a sequence of thoughts through time. Think of it rather as a whole swirl of thoughts going round and round inside of Jesus, thoughts of His mind, nous, bouncing off thoughts of His gut, phroneo, and vice versa.
What is the single most significant thing for our present walk that we gain from reading Psalm 22? It is the certain knowledge that Jesus failed. I cannot tell you what a wonder of overwhelming RELIEF that realization brings to us.
Jesus did not “save us”; God did.
The preacher said to me, the one to whom I looked to hear from God, the preacher said to me, anointed by the power of the Holy Spirit, the preacher said to me that if I make a mistake it is proof that I am walking in disobedience because – if I were hearing and obeying as a true son of God hears and obeys, then I would never make a mistake for God has nothing to do with mistakes, God only leads in perfect conduct.
The preacher lied to me. Thank you, My Father, the preacher lied to me.
What, then, did Jesus do for us? Jesus set forth His soul, for God and for us, that we, Father and us, might meet together inside of Him.
God has shown me, through the agony of my own difficult experiences in relationships with others over the last few days, just exactly what that means.
Salvation is a direct transaction between God and any individual human; Jesus offered His Soul, just above the pumping of the Blood, as the place where that meeting could take place. David makes us fully aware of that very HUMAN soul in all of its confusion and agony.
Calling death, “going to meet your Maker,” is a line I heard again recently. As if being alive on this earth means that we are “faraway” from God. And of course, Calvin said that when you meet face to Face with God, then you will know just how wicked and despicable you really are, worm.
Yet I will show you just exactly HOW Jesus drew the Father into His confused soul and just exactly HOW Jesus drew you and me into His confused soul. And what happens, then, when we meet with, that is, collide with our Maker, there at the place where the crossbars join together? What is that called? – Moses called it the Mercy Seat. Paul called it the Ekenosis. You and I call it sharing Hheart with God.
The Greek word tithemi, that is, to set forth, or deliberately place out into the crossroads, one might say, or into the marketplace, that is, set forth into the milieu where many are passing by each other, has a number of different forms and is more frequently used in the gospel than the translators have allowed us to know.
The most important form of tithemi is Pro-Thesis, the set forth purpose of God. Other than that form of tithemi, you will find in the Jesus Secret Version that I have typically included either “set forth” or “placed out” as its rendition. Tithemi, of course, has come directly into English as well, as the literary terms, thesis and theme. God did not “adopt” us as sons, rather, God set us forth, or placed us out as sons.
Then, in Lesson 10.2 of Set My People Free, “Self-Rightness,” we saw that one of the definitions of “to pretend” from Webster’s 1926, is “stretching forth an image.” We will see, there with David inside of Jesus’ bubble of self, that “stretching forth an image” is the very opposite of “setting forth our souls.” In fact, “stretching forth an image” is the very thing that prevents and strikes down any possibility that “setting forth our souls” could result in God and a human meeting together there.
At the same time, in writing “Self-Rightness,” I saw the real meaning of sin for the first time.
“Sin” is a smokescreen. Apart from that one moment of honesty and silence by which we step fully into Christ, the human who says, “I am a sinner,” is “stretching forth an image.” What they really mean is, “God, You have sinned against me.” The one who says, “I am fallen short of God,” is really saying, “God, You have fallen short of me. You do not measure up to what I require.”
The one who says, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me,” is really saying, “God, I drive You far away from Me in My foolish imagination.” Jesus failed. “He made Him who knew no falling short of God to be falling short of God for us” (2 Corinthians 5). “He made Him who never forced God away from Himself to imagine God far away from Himself – for us, for our sakes.”
The gospels make a clear distinction between Jesus’ first three hours on the cross and His last three hours on the cross. Yet David gives us snippets of thought from both time periods. Jesus thoughts and words during the first three hours were outward. During the last three hours, however, Jesus had retreated into Himself and thus His spoken words were the expression of His inward trauma. From Reese’s chronology, we can order those final words as (1) My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me, (2) I thirst, (3) Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit, and (4) It is finished. This order makes sense to me because it fits our pattern.
Let’s reiterate Jesus’ experience that day, from 3 AM until 3 PM, a twelve-hour period divided into four three-hour parts. Gethsemane was the agony of connecting His will as a human together with God’s will, the very birthing of our symmorphy with God. The next three hours were Jesus on trial. When we are thrust out into glaring public circumstances, things seem a bit surreal. What is happening doesn’t fully connect with us, not in our deepest awareness. Typically, we can do reasonably well such a time.
Then, for the first three hours on the cross, Jesus is looking outward, taking in the Pharisees, taking in His mother and John, taking in the two thieves on each side of Him. But in the final three hours on the cross, Jesus retreats into Himself, going silent for most of that time.
In complete opposition to Adam, Jesus is stark naked. He has no fig leaves to cover His “shame.” At no point does He “stretch forth an image” by which to drive God and people away from Himself.
I spent three hours the other day visiting with a Christian brother whom I hardly know, sharing with him good things from what I teach. I talked too much. He was being blessed, but I was being foolish, as you would have thought had you been eavesdropping. Then, when I woke in the middle of the night, I woke into the full autistic press of my folly having shredded me inside. Just before I awoke, I felt that raw ripped-apart-ness in my dream and I said to myself that my autistic agony fits Jesus perfectly and Jesus fits my autistic agony. That all the noise bouncing around inside of me from my own folly was perfectly acceptable to Jesus, that He shared it with me and I with Him.
When I awoke, I continued in that same thinking, placing Father with me and me with Father, sharing the agony of my foolish failure together. I did not drive Father from me. I allowed Him to remain as part of my trauma.
The final three hours on the cross were that same self-reflection of agony for Jesus. Through the trial and the first part of the cross, one is carried, we might say, as if in a bubble. But when the bubble goes, the reality hits the human gut imagination.
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(Brain thinking towards God.)
Why have You forsaken Me? I thirst. Dogs have surrounded Me – I am a worm and no man – Father, forgive them. You have answered Me. Father, You are with Me. I commit My Spirit into You. (Gut-thinking below the heart.) |
As you can see, this is meant to be in the shape of the cross. I want, with all my heart, somehow, to convey to you what God has shown me this all means.
“Why have You forsaken Me?” is the outer form of accusation against God. “I thirst” is the turning to self, “I am a worm and no man” is the inner form of accusation against God.
“God, I accuse You of separating Yourself from Me. God, I accuse you of making Me falsely.”
In His mind, Jesus failed. Yet look at what’s going on inside His gut. “Father, My total and absolute failure cannot separate You from Me, for You are utterly with Me, sharing all things with Me as part of Me. Father, YOU ARE responsible for Me. Father, You share the agony of My failure with Me.”
But then look at the tension of the two sides of Jesus’ response to humans, including His response to His own humanity. The “dogs” surrounding Jesus include all humans, including you and me. – When we were still hostile to God, Jesus died for us (Romans 5). You can see from David that Jesus was not impressed with what He saw. At the same time, as Jesus looked at the contemptibility and offensiveness of all humans, so He saw Himself as the same – “I am a worm and no man.” Yet what was the image set forth from Jesus? Father, forgive them.
So – here is the point of the issue. Why was God inside of Jesus? Because Jesus, in His gut, did not drive God away. Why were humans inside of Jesus? Because Jesus, in His soul, did not drive us away, but received us gladly into Himself.
And there, inside the confused agony of Jesus’ soul, in the midst of all His failure, you and I met together with God. And there God Himself saved us.
The failure of Jesus did not matter. The Father shared all of it with His Son, and the Father, freely received into Jesus’ gut, was free to meet with us, freely received into Jesus’ soul.
When I awoke in the agony of my own folly, I did not use it to accuse God of being separate from me, but rather, I welcomed my Father into our shared awfulness. That comes first. But then, what about the human person?
Listen, people are nothing more to me than something “other” that, while being enjoyable or profitable to me at times, yet all you “others” out there are also too much, offensive, and hostile to me so I will drive you out by making sure I find you “wrong.” (I am speaking of the reality of our inward stance, turmoil, and justification of ourselves.)
In other words, I protect myself from you by calling you “wrong”; that is, I drive you out from me, in the same way that I once drove God away from me by calling Him, that is, myself, a stupid sinner.
Look at Psalm 22. You are not inside of Jesus’ body in that Psalm; neither are you inside of Jesus’ Spirit. You are inside of His SOUL. And that SOUL is, to say the least, all-over-the-place confused. It is a very human soul.
So what did Jesus do?
Jesus, entirely by faith, that is, by confidence that God is, drew the knowledge of God with Him past all the confusion and into His Soul. And Jesus, entirely by faith, that is by giving favor for, Jesus drew you and me past all the animosity and into His Soul.
And there, inside the set-forth Soul of Jesus, God and we met together. Inside the set forth Soul of Jesus, we could know Father utterly with us as part of us and we as part of Him.
By this we know LOVE, because Jesus set forth His soul for us, for our sakes, so that we could be joined together with our Father, there in Jesus’ Soul, just above the blood of His heart. AND WE ALSO are committed to setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters.
When I allow God to be part of me, regardless of all my confusion – when I allow you to be part of me, regardless of all my hurt and animosity – then something beyond all belief happens inside that setting forth of my soul for you and for God.
For there, inside of my own failure as a human, you and Father are joined utterly together.
This is My full completion, that you love one another IN EXACTLY the same way that I love you, that is, by setting forth your souls for one another, that God and man might meet together in peace inside of you.
Most view “overcoming” as an achievement of human performance. That’s why Jesus’ failure is so shocking, something most would vehemently deny.
But overcoming is not an achievement of human performance; it is, rather, the joy of the confidence of faith that God IS and the willingness to receive one another.
And that brings us to something else that was very much part of Jesus’ picture and ours as well – CONFIDENCE.
There was no outward evidence whatsoever that God was with Jesus. There was no outward evidence whatsoever that the “dogs” screaming at Jesus were forgiven and drawn into His heart.
All that was visible to Jesus or to anyone else was a naked and bloody man hanging between heaven and earth, confused and thirsty in the grip of his death agony.
Now, the writer of Hebrews said this. – Jesus, the source and the 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… (Hebrews 12:2). But then this, concerning Abraham. – By [full assurance of] faith Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac, even his only begotten son… having reasoned that God was able even to raise him out from the dead, from whence also, as in a parable [figuratively], he receives him (Hebrews 11:17).
Jesus allowed Himself to be pushed into death because He was filled with the expectation that, regardless of whatever loss He might suffer, God would raise Him out of death.
I saw that same thing for myself for the first time these last few days.
To submit myself to other Christians in all their foolish theology and misuse of the anointing and all their manipulating and pretending is a horror to me. It is as death.
Yet for the first time, BECAUSE I never drive God away from sharing with me all the awfulness of my humanity, I am able also to see that, as I allow God to so use my soul that He might meet together inside of me with these who are my brethren, He will raise me up into LIFE.
Let me bring in two more verses before we work our way back to the Ekenosis. These are momentous verses, with profound and incredible meanings. Read them carefully and let all the phrases and concepts sink deep into your heart in the light of what you have read in this letter thus far.
Not only that, but even we ourselves, possessing the firstfruit of the Spirit, we also groan inside ourselves, eagerly expecting the placement and setting forth as sons, that is, the redemption of our body. – In the same way, the Spirit also joins as help together with our weakness; 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, that is, to know present needs, is aware of the thinking of the Spirit, because, according to all the details that are God, He joins us together with God – as on the Mercy Seat – for the sake of the holy ones [our brothers and sisters] (Romans 8:23 & 26-27).
For it is necessary for this decaying to put on, to enclothe itself with, the inability to decay; and this dying to put on, to enclothe itself with, the inability to die. Now when the decaying shall have put upon itself the inability to decay and when the dying shall have put upon itself the inability to die, then the word having been written will become, “Death has been swallowed up into [eliminated by] victory” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).
It is necessary for me to enclothe my decaying soul with the inability to decay. It is necessary for me to enclothe my dying body with the inability to die.
This enclothing is one thing only – the confidence of faith, that is, the expectation of God-life, not only arising always in me, but transforming my spirit, soul, and body into whatever God means by what He says becoming me.
Through every moment of those twelve hours, Jesus wrapped Himself with this expectation of God with Him, God inside of Him reconciling all humanity to Himself, God arising within Him and about to swallow up His dying body with LIFE.
Salvation is God’s doing, and Jesus never once thought to take such a thing to Himself. Rather, Jesus KNEW that God IS what God IS inside of Him and God DOES what God DOES, that is, ENERGEOES inside of Him, even when nothing can be seen outwardly.
There is no other source than this meeting of God with humans inside our souls, as I have laid out in this letter, out from which our confidence can come to envelope our dying bodies with the expectation of immediate resurrection.
Yet this is not for us, but for our brothers and sisters!
Something mighty, something miraculous, something “God-Life” takes place when you receive Father and other humans into the confusion of your own soul, allowing them both to be a part of you.
“Father, You share utterly in the agony of my failure. Brother or Sister, you share utterly in the joy of my favor.”
Let’s expand this prayer just a bit.
“Father, I allow You to be part of the agony of my messed-up humanity. The thought of driving You away never enters my mind. I am Your image, I am Your appearance inside of creation, and I accept that You have made me well. I accept that every step of our life together is good and utterly of You.
“Father, just as You receive me into Yourself, so that I might be with You where You are, even so I receive You into myself, so that You might be with me where I am.
“And Father, these people, sometimes I’m not sure I like them, sometimes I am frightened of the hardness of their foreheads and their harsh words against me. Yet I know that Oour Holy Spirit brings You and me into line together for their sake, and I know that Your Heart in me is towards my brothers and sisters in Christ.
“I am willing, Father, to draw these other humans into the confusion of my own soul, where they might share FAVOR together with me. I am willing to give them Your favor, the very favor You have given to me.
“And here, Father, inside the difficulty and confusion of my human soul, You and they are free to meet together as one, here above the Blood of Your Son sprinkled upon my heart. I know that something mighty, something world-transforming – life swallowing up death forever – happens between you and them, here inside my soul as I set forth my soul for their sakes.”
– A place prepared for her. –
Let’s bring back in the words of the Ekenosis from Philippians 2 and see if we can fit them into English.
Here is how I had it before.
Let this exact same gut-level manner of thinking be inside of you that was inside of Christ Jesus, who, existing [as a Man, our pattern as humans] in the form of God [that is, all here now and Personal in us] thought in His gut [in the essence of His inward story] that being equal in substance with God was not something to actively hold. Thus, having willingly taken to Himself the form of a servant, Himself ekenosen, Himself called forth an invisible God into visibility, and became, by the faith of others, the likeness of men, and having been found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself [He acted just like God], having become submitted unto death, that is, the cross.
Let’s draw next a translation straight from the definitions of the Greek words.
Jesus, existing continuously and actively [as human, our pattern and source] inside of the form of God, did not aggressively seize the gut assumption of being equal with God. Rather, having already willingly taken hold of the form of a slave, Himself ekenosen, that is, He Himself called an invisible God into visibility, becoming the same as humans. And being found in outward appearance as a human, He humbled Himself, actively becoming hearing-under [where Father is, carrying all] all the way to death, even the death of the cross.
Let this same gut-level manner of thinking BE inside of you.
(Regard this as in the direction of, but not necessarily the final version of the JSV.)
In a previous letter, “The In-Between Days,” I laid out seven arenas of conflict and difficulty inside the larger theater of war. Many of those places of victory are found inside this place prepared for God’s people described in this letter, setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters, sharing Hheart with God. Nonetheless, the most important arena, the bringing forth of a world of life underneath and in spite of a world of death, happens only here at this joining place of heaven and earth, of God and humans together, of many sharing favor and joy as one.
In the next letter we want to see the incredible impact our setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters has on the Church in this world – “No One Left in Her.”