6.2 Metamorphosed

To be saved means to be just like the Lord Jesus Christ, the Covenant fulfilled and unveiled. Only as we are just like Jesus can God enter through us into our world as All-Salvation. How does Jesus make us just like Himself? – And we never think in any other way but that this is the action of Jesus towards us, His purpose inside of us in all things.

Being just like Jesus begins with one thing only. – We can do nothing of ourselves. Anything further comes only out from this initial starting point. This is why the verb in Ephesians 4:11 is “come down to,” the fulness of Christ. This is why the critical Greek verb in Romans 13:14 is enduo, sink into Jesus as into a garment, as into the covers of one’s bed.

Seeing Jesus Alone. We have fully rejected the evil accusation that we cannot ever make ourselves like Jesus. – Of course we can’t! The meaning of metamorphosis, the change of our knowing as we spend time with Jesus, is that we see Him alone in all things and that we rest utterly that it is He acting towards us. Jesus wants to make us just like Himself more fiercely than we can comprehend, and He is well able to do so.

Nonetheless, God does nothing towards us without our full permission and through the faith He has given to us. Thus we see a number of simple things He has given us to do set out clearly in the gospel, as we work out our own salvation, being made just like Jesus, in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). We will list these simple things through the rest of this lesson.

Through Faith, Not Sight. The significance of Aaron’s rod, which Moses placed into the Ark with the Covenant, is that it sprang forth into life after spending a night season inside the darkness, inside the presence of God (Numbers 17:8).

We do not see Jesus outwardly, neither do we consider any outward aspect, performance, or judgment of our humanity. Yet we do see Jesus through the eyes of faith, we know He dwells personally in our hearts, and we love Him. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul tells us to “Look and see – all things are brand new.” We cannot “become” brand new, we cannot “become” like Jesus, for we already are. The unveiling of Jesus Christ is the cover removed from our eyes that we might see Jesus as He is in one another’s faces and in our own face.

Put on the Lord Jesus. We see only Jesus, our Salvation, and we see everything else, especially ourselves, only through Him, only through faith. The command of the Gospel is – Put the Lord Jesus Christ upon yourself (Romans 13:14). This is a seeing of faith, of calling ourselves by every Word that is Christ Jesus.

We are successful in seeing Jesus as the One enclothing all that we are in every present moment only as we place Him into every moment of our past, seeing His intentions only. We are always giving an account of our lives in the presence of God; the question is, what account are we giving? Only as we place Jesus upon our every moment, giving thanks for all, does our account become the Christ whom God knows.

Sinfulness. What about sinfulness? – What about it? We are not saved by Jesus’ death, but by His life. Jesus is our living Scapegoat; He carries all of our ongoing sinfulness inside His own Person, inside His empty, empty grave. Give your sin, your sinfulness, your propensity to exalt yourself and to hurt other people, give it to God. Give it to God right now; it does not belong to you. Do not love it; do not call yourself or define yourself by sin.

The word, “Hear and obey,” is not a Gospel word, for it causes you to look at yourself instead of Jesus. That’s why God told Adam not to eat of such a way of dying. Jesus ALONE removes sin from you, give it utterly to Him.

Give Thanks. Giving thanks inside of and for the sake of all things is our active rejection of Adam’s sin. It is the one thing God has given us to do that turns the path of our lives into God-with-us in all of our thinking and seeing. Giving thanks is our acknowledgement of God. It is inside of our giving of thanks that God is free to remove the perception of evil from our knowing. It is by giving thanks that we turn every pain of our lives into the Treasure of Christ.

Giving thanks is the real Eucharist, the real partaking of Christ; giving thanks is how we call Jesus, “Lord,” the acknowledgement that He already is. Giving thanks inside of and for the sake of all things is how we place the Lord Jesus upon every part of ourselves.

Ask and Believe. Whatever you ask the Father, He will give it to you (John 15:16). – Christians ask God for all sorts of things. Why would we not ask God to fulfill His Word in us? Is not His Word His will for us? In Mark 11, Jesus added this instruction to asking – “Believe you have already received.” Can we do that? Can we ask God to fulfill His Word in our lives as He means it, and then believe we have already received as Jesus in our hearts?

Let’s try the biggest Word. – That you might be filled with all the fulness of God. “Father, I ask that You fulfill this Word in my life to all completion. Having asked, I now believe that I have received all I have asked. God, I am truly filled with all of Your fulness in all that You could possibly mean.”

Let It Be to Me. Jesus came into our world because Mary responded to God with the only faith God wants. “Look at me, God, I belong to You, let it be to me according to Your word, according to all that You mean by what You speak” (Luke 1:38 – expanded). This, then, is our only response to every Gospel Word in the Bible, knowing that every negative word is fulfilled in the Cross and every promise of God is Christ Jesus inside of us.

Peter and James described what really happens in us when we respond to Gospel Word, in these ways. – You have been conceived from above… out from imperishable Seed, through the living and abiding Word of God. – Out from His own desire, He gave birth to us by the Word of truth. – We become sons birthed out from God through every Word.

Speak Christ. Having asked and believed, we now speak the same Word that is Christ Jesus, now made personal as ourselves. – “I am filled with all the fulness of God.” The teaching that we speak the same Word that is Christ, made personal as us, with all public boldness, is a teaching that FILLS the New Testament, though it has been obscured. – We believe, therefore we speak (2 Corinthians 4:13).

We never think that we speak Christ in this way “in order to make something happen.” Neither do we think, “these are just words” or “I’m just making it up.” What God speaks is already the only thing True. Our problem is that we have refused to believe. We speak Christ so that our minds can be renewed, so that we can finally know the True and faithful Jesus who alone lives inside of our hearts.
 
Embrace Weakness. It is God who has made us and not we ourselves (Psalm 100:3). – My grace, My presence with you, is all that you need, for My strength finds its full completion inside of your human weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

God made us the way He wants us, as His counterpart – that the excellency of our lives might be God filling us full. Never, not forever and ever, will we seek for some sort of “sufficiency” in ourselves. As we sang from Isaiah, “In acceptance, in acceptance, lieth peace.” Our human weakness is our glory, custom-made to fit perfectly with God, far more than we will ever comprehend. Our kind words and our gentle touch, utterly human, utterly God-Love, is God made visible forever.

Aaron’s Rod that Budded. The metaphor of Aaron’s rod that budded teaches us one thing in the Gospel. It is as we spend the long hours of the present darkness ONLY inside the acknowledged presence of God, receiving all that He speaks as our only definition, so we also are swallowed up by LIFE, even our physical bodies.

Having the glory of the Lord unveiled upon our faces, we all are reflecting the same image [to one another] as a mirror and are being metamorphosed from glory into glory, that is, as from the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). Metamorphosed does not mean “becoming something different.” It means you and me spending time with Jesus, with His form as Word fulfilled shining from our faces, and thus knowing Jesus Sent, our only LIFE, what we already are.

See as God Sees. Consider the picture of a man on his face in the mud under a cross he cannot carry, and then these words concerning that man. – God was inside of Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting to them their false steps [not knowing in His mind any transgression]… (2 Corinthians 5:19). We see as God sees, for the Father’s sake. Thus we count every moment of our lives shared with God as “for the sake of others.” This is not to obligation, for we give ourselves only to the Father. But it is for Love – just like Jesus.

As we do these simple things, things any human can actually do successfully, resting always in Jesus, even the most simple-minded, even the greatest sinner, so we become all that God speaks, by His Spirit alone, the revelation, the Apocalypse, the unveiling of Jesus Christ.