9. Placing the Throne

The one presently and actively overcoming, I will give him to sit with Me inside of My throne, just exactly as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father inside of His throne. The one having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches (Revelation 3:21-22).

As we have seen, the authority of God expressed inside all created reality is the Mercy Seat – “and there I will meet with you.” The writer of Hebrews calls it “the throne of grace” before which we should speak boldly.

One thing alone gives that throne such authority, and that is the Blood sprinkled upon it. Those who sit upon this throne are seated upon Blood. “And there, above the Blood, I will meet with you.”

Ezekiel, in his vision, called that Mercy Seat upon the Ark of the Covenant, the “throne of God.” And both John and Ezekiel, in their visions, saw that the rivers of living water, which Jesus said flow out of our bellies, flowing out from that very throne.

Yet Jesus claims that we are meant to sit there with Him inside of His Father’s throne.
The river flowing forth is Kingdom, but this throne is Covenant. There is no Kingdom that is not first and always flowing out from Covenant.

Here is the clearest expression of the Covenant and the Throne in the Bible.

Christ lives in your hearts through faith.

The beginning and source of our Christian life is the same as its consummation and completion.

I am the A and the Z, the source and the completion, says the Lord God, the One who is existing and who has continuously existed and who is continuously and actively coming, the One who takes hold of all, who sustains and carries all (Revelation 1:8).

What I really want to do in this letter is to connect the definition of apostolic ministry as the foundation of the Church, sending forth the covering of the knowledge of Jesus-as-He-is over all who belong to Him – together with – this Hheart throne sprinkled with Blood.

Spend time drawing the words of Revelation 1:8 in the Jesus Secret Version into your heart and understanding. These English words give a closer expression of what John wrote than most translations. The difference is primarily between a God who is all here now, continuously active as all that He is, versus a distant God split apart by time.

We could say that New Age thinking places the creation as the thing that carries “God” inside itself. Nicene Christianity conceives of God as “transcendent,” and thus, far away from the despicable and low things that He created. The actual words of the New Testament show us a God who carries all creation inside Himself.

I am the Source and the Completion. These two concepts are not separated by thousands of years; they are not separated at all. In every moment, towards every created thing and through every circumstance of time, God through Christ is the generator of all things. In every moment, towards every created thing and through every circumstance of time, God through Christ is the finality, the finishing, the perfection of all things.

In between the Source and the Completion, then, is the River.

In a very real sense, Revelation 1:8 is just another way of saying Romans 8:28-30.

The “has been” part is verse 30, everything already finished. The “I am” part is verse 29, determined symmorphosed with the revelation of Father. And the “continuously and actively coming” part is verse 28, a God who energeoes all things, but together with us.

And the primary meaning of the Greek word typically translated “the Almighty” is, rather, the All-Responsible. “I take hold of all; I am responsible for all.”

I’m just rambling, I know, but I’m trying to place the throne. The throne John sees in His vision IS not “Love,” but “Love one another.” God is love but love one another is God among us.

“Love one another” creates absolute authority over everything created.

I have the authority from God and the power, the might and the dominion to love you as I know that you love me.

You know, to be honest with you, I cannot recall an instance inside my present remembrance of everything I have read or heard or known regarding Christian thinking through the centuries and through all the sects that takes “love one another” seriously.

Basically, “love one another” is an irrelevant ideal. It is not required for the securing of salvation and as a human expression it remains an “ideal,” that is, something nice to talk about, but not something that will ever actually happen.

Go to a typical once or twice-a-week church gathering where love, love, love is emphasized constantly. When I find myself in such an environment, why is it that I find nothing real to connect myself and my family with? Why do I know, instinctively, that these people do not, in fact, take “love one another” seriously?

The problem is the imagination that they can love one another. They can’t.

Here is the importance of “love one another.” First, if “Love one another” does not happen among Christians inside this present age, then God does not exist. Second, you and I are incapable of “love one another.”

At this point we are at a total impasse. IF you and I cannot “love one another,” does that mean that God cannot exist? In the end, that proposition is the only “proof” offered by Nicene Christianity. That’s why die and “go to” heaven is so important. Such an imaginary and un-Biblical “faith” is the only thread to some sort of “real” God in their minds, a someday God.

Let me put it another way. If we do not sit together inside the throne of God, inside the high authority over all that John saw in his vision, then God does not exist and the words of the Bible are untrue and therefore, meaningless.

Sit together inside the throne – Love one another – same thing.

I am a desperate man. I cannot love you as you love me, and I don’t even want to. I am created to be filled with all of God. I cannot live except I be filled with all of God. I don’t want to die; I want to live.

I am a desperate man. If God be not God among us, then we are entirely and utterly lost.
The throne is underneath of all. The one who subdues all is the one who is responsible for all, not as command and control for no sin enters our minds. Love covers all for all, love hopes all for all, love believes all for all, love carries all for all.

This ain’t us. This must be us.

This is My commandment that you love one another exactly as I love you.
We can’t do it; we can’t get away from it. There is nothing that is God anywhere else. If we are not knowing God inside of REAL love one another, then whatever we “know” cannot be God. In fact, God cannot be.

I lived in Christian community for eighteen years together with the best Christians I have ever known in my life. Take any Christian fellowship where “love” just seems to exude everywhere on Sunday morning, take those people and place them together inside the context of community as I knew it, and all the masks will drop away, and they will tear each other to pieces. The majority will flee from the “worst” experience of their lives.

Sunday morning “love” will never stand.

Nonetheless, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil places the focus and responsibility entirely upon the human. The tree of life places the focus and responsibility entirely upon God.

I am the Source and the Completion. I am God All-Carrying.

Subdue-all MEANS Love-all MEANS God-all.

And the God who is beneath of all is the One above all.

What is the difference between Church as I have known it and Church as I teach it must be?

And I continue inside the book of Revelation, inside of this glorious throne that John sees.

The one presently and actively overcoming, I will give him to sit with Me inside of My throne, just exactly as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father inside of His throne. The one having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Thus we see that the very action of “overcoming” that is, “subdue all,” is the action that is sitting together with one another inside of Jesus upon that center of all authority sending out power inside of God.

What is the difference between Church as I have known it and Church as I teach it must be?

In all Church that I have ever experienced, we hoped that God would. In Church as I teach it must be, we KNOW that God is, regardless.

In Church that I have experienced, unloving actions were seen as God not-here and God not-now, with the fault for the absence of God placed entirely on the offender. “Get in the Spirit, brother.” Such a stance towards the offender costs nothing and wins nothing.

In Church as I teach it must be, unloving actions are placed utterly inside of God in our seeing and we together, energeoing together with God, turn every hurtful thing towards the outcome of goodness.

This action IS the THRONE of God. Romans 8:28, synergeoing, is the THRONE, an always here-now action of God and us together. This action costs everything and wins everything.

Now, consider unloving actions coming from the human versus “loving” actions coming from the human – NOT! You see, just because something appears to be a loving action does not mean that there is any confidence in synergeoing together with Father to turn all things towards goodness. And thus the “loving actions,” not coming out from the confidence of God among us, are just as empty as the unloving actions. Isn’t that what Paul said?

And if I give away all my possessions [all my being] and even deliver up my body that it might be exalted, and have not love [that is, Father], I profit nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3).

If it ain’t Father Himself here and now together with us through our absolute confidence that God IS, it cannot be love. And when we are confident that ALL of our interaction together IS God among us, then we see Father with us carrying all things, we see God All-Holding.

It’s all about the seeing. But seeing is the last of four; it is always the end result of God found in three other places in progression. From the heart the mouth speaks. From the speaking of the mouth the mind thinks. And from the thinking of the mind, the eyes see.

God is in our hearts as Word; God is in our mouth as speaking; God is in our minds, we have the mind of Christ; God is in our seeing and God carrying all is all that we see.

The one having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. I hope to talk more of this “hearing” later on in this series. But the hearing, then, is the entrance of this God into us and into all our interaction together.

Hearing is our confidence that God is.

A fuller understanding of setting forth our souls for one another is also coming up. But before we can understand such a thing, we must first place it. It is the throne. It is our hearts. It is God among us.

In other words, when you abuse me with mockery and contempt, and I respond with hurtful things just as bad, and we can’t get away from each other because there we are, at the same table, on the same work task, unable to escape from each other’s company – what do we do with that?

I am instinctively frightened inside because I don’t know how I can escape your bullying. Yet you think its me that’s doing the bullying – what do we do with that?

Do we together put our awfulness together into GOD-IS or do we put it into God-is-not? But God-is-not has a name – Satan. “Get out of your flesh, brother, you’re being controlled by demons.”

Or – “Father in you, Father through you, loves me more than I could ever know.”

When I look at you in my fear and contempt, and say to myself, “You love me more than I can know, you think more highly of me than you do of yourself, you lay down your life for me, regardless. God is all there is coming from you to me and from me to you,” what have I done?

I have, together with you, subdued all, I have placed all things into Love, that is, into God. I know, together with you, God for real, God here and now, God among us, the All-Holding One.

Love, that is, God, does not exist among humans except we KNOW that God IS always fully reciprocal, you and me utterly together, regardless.

BUT – here you and I are, with blood running down our foreheads and each other’s skin under our finger nails. We are terrified of each other; we despise each other. (And through this next bit, I am using “blood and skin” only figuratively. I have never known such an actuality in any community experience. Rather, I am referring to the inward wounds, which are usually more painful than anything outward.)

Consider the bankruptcy of our past “Christian” thinking.

We know we are removed out from death, penetrating utterly into life, because we love our brothers and sisters. The one not loving remains inside of death. Everyone hating his brother is a murderer; and you know that any murderer does not possess life unfolding the ages living inside of him (1 John 3:14-15).

By “Christian” definitions, no Christian has ever possessed age-unfolding life because no Christian has ever loved. And trying, crying, and lying cannot ever substitute for love. Therefore, all Christians must be “going to hell.”

BUT – if all “true” Christians are going to heaven, then “love one another” is not important.
I have a mental/emotional difficulty called high-performing autism. There is an essential human quality that I do not have. I cannot pretend to myself that I “love” when I don’t. And I cannot pretend to myself that “go to” heaven is a successful evasion of the WORD God speaks.

I tried, I really, really tried to pretend for over twenty years, and I failed utterly and completely. I am a desperate, desperate man. If it ain’t God, I am LOST.

Do you see why I have wrestled with God, pressing His Word into His face and upon my heart for more than forty years now? When I see people who are passively content in their mental theology, I see people who are lying to themselves, to God, and to one another.

I must have God here and now; I must have God as the ONLY connection there is between you and me REGARDLESS of our momentary human agony.

Now, in these last few pages, I am attempting to enlarge for us this one word. – “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (John 15). And in enlarging these words, I hope to drive away the incredibly illogical definition that has always been given to these words, that is, “Step out of the way, brother, so that Jesus can be seen and not you.” That is, “You ARE, in fact, doing all sorts of things that are not Jesus, so stop it and start doing only those things that are Jesus.”

So – here you and I are, with “blood running down our foreheads and each other’s skin under our finger nails.” We are terrified of each other; we despise each other. And in all our confidence together, we KNOW together, that God IS our only connection together.

I have been deeply involved with trying, lying, and crying for many years, and never once have I seen any modicum of “love one another” coming out as the fruit of such a “Christian” life.

The blood on our foreheads is “real,” and it came from knocking head against head. The skin under our fingernails is “real”; it came from those awful scratch marks on each other’s arms.” Will we put ourselves into God in all the knowing of our hearts and in all the seeing of our eyes anyway? Will we know that apart from Jesus we can do NOTHING anyway?

After more than 43 years of walking with God inside the “Christian” life, I am beginning to see the possibility of “love one another” actually happening in our lives upon this earth.

What is the ONE thing that happens to us when we together see God alone regardless? We instantly go under. We are instantly underneath of one another together with Father. And inside that place of synergeoing with God and one another, everything changes.

Consider that picture; here is the exact same thing. – I was inside Spirit and behold, a throne was set inside of heaven (Revelation 4:2).

Let’s make the authority of God in the universe a bit more specific. – And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:19).

I am caught between a rock and a hard place right now. I MUST do something to earn a living. I MUST relieve my wife from much of that burden.

Yet it’s not long into pursuing some idea that could make money before I am hanging over an abyss, and I discover, once again, that I have no such gift. I could try to get a full-time position teaching English courses in a community college. Although I love the classroom, full-time employment is more than overwhelming to me. Yet there is no path forward more sensible.

Then I look at the Symmorphy texts sitting on my shelf, and I weep.

God’s people all across this earth NEED far more teaching of the truth than they understand. The mind does not change overnight. I am made for the classroom. I would pour all that God has given me into many out from these great stores of food stored up for the famine.

I think of Symmorphy I: Purpose. I think of how critical the truths in it are. I think of how it changed the lives of those who went part way through it as an online course together with me and a few others. And there it sits upon my shelf imparting life to no one.

How could I turn away from all the hope that has placed my heart upon the altar before God for over forty years and try to make a living with pursuits my heart cannot embrace. I must have God to be God through me. I must see His hand. I must see heaven opened.

I am disabled, just as all humans are disabled, that is, I am like a God who lacks the thing most important to Him – a Body. I do not have the ability to make provision and the flow of provision to happen. Nor do I have the ability to gather together. God has not given me those two abilities and does not intend to do so. He has given those abilities to others.

There is, right now, somewhere, a specific person whom I may not know right now who has that gift from God of provision and the flow of provision. And there is another person, somewhere, who has that gift from God to draw many into the gathering together. These persons have hearts to place their gifts alongside of mine, to provide for me what God has not given me.

Please pray together with me for the full release of all who share some part in the teaching of these Symmorphy texts.

“Father, we ask together that you would release those brothers and sisters who have the gifts that are needed, those whose hearts are to join their gift with ours, so that this word of Christ our life, through Christ Revealed Bible Institute wherever and however it is to be, might be available to Your people across this earth. Father, we ask for this release in Jesus’ name, that heaven and earth be loosed, and that Your provision would be poured out for the purpose of gathering many together to learn the Symmorphy Bible Studies program together.

“For that reason, Father, we together believe that we have received all that we ask. We know that these specific brothers and sisters are right now on their way, to join their gifts with mine, that we together might prepare a place for your people.”

James said that we have not because we ask not. I have seen that principle working in many areas of life. When we ask together, knowing that we have now all that we ask, then what we have asked for comes to us in all overflowing abundance (John 16).

The throne is love one another. Love one another is symmorphy with God and koinonia with one another. God’s people know neither one because they don’t know.

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? (Romans 10:14-15).

Here am I, send me. – The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

You and I together, as we walk together, are that throne.

Now, someone might say that when it is God’s season, then all these things will open to me. And I myself teach that we must know that God IS, right now, doing all He desires with and through me. These things are true; nonetheless, I have never been satisfied with settling for an in-part experience with God and with one another. To most, it seems, “waiting for God’s season” is little more than “go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.” And they wait until they die.

Symmorphy is not like that. God’s throne is symmorphy expressed through koinonia, God and us together, in full fellowship, acknowledgement, and action.

More than that, God’s “seasons” are not found in the concept of a fixed “plan.” In complete contrast, I am convinced that God is in travail to bring forth out from Himself and through us something that has never existed before, even in God’s experience.

The throne of heaven is you and me sharing heart with God and with one another.

What does it take for God to make His heart beat together with ours? It takes the beating and beating of hammers upon the pure gold of God’s Heart until every detail of our human hearts is etched inside of His. And that is a much bigger deal than the other side of the process, that is, our hearts being shaped to beat together with God’s.

More than that, the completion of this harmony of Heart with heart cannot be completed separate from the koinonia of our fellowship together.

Here is God’s season. – It is that very moment when His Heart is in perfect tune with our human hearts and our human hearts are in perfect tune with His heart, beating together in all things, in the context of His Home, life together.

And from this throne, setting forth our souls for one another, none of us having all we need ourselves, but only as we place ourselves together, from this very Throne, there arches over all the Church of Christ a covering of the full knowledge of Jesus as He is, and she, just like Him, a woman, clothed with the sun, a Church who has put the Lord Jesus Christ upon all that she is.