15. The Form of God
Most people view God as the biggest Dude in a place called heaven. And by biggest Dude, they mean an overwhelming outward appearance. BUT!!!! If all of God is inside of me, yet He is not known, then God cannot, cannot, cannot be an overwhelming outward appearance.
What is God?
Everyone thinks they know. Everyone just assumes that the image, the definition, the picture they hold in their minds of “God” is accurate and true. This picture of God held by almost all contains two powerful characteristics. The first is an overwhelming outward appearance. The second is directly related to this overwhelming outward appearance, and that is a rigid geographical form. God is “UP” there. Now, this outward appearance is a heavenly appearance, that is, the appearance of God in the heavens. Thus the violent geography forced upon God, this finiteness, herding Him into a restricted location, requires a merging of God with the heavenly forms.
Most people view God as the biggest Dude in a place called heaven. And by biggest Dude, they mean an overwhelming outward appearance.
BUT!!!! If all of God is inside of me, yet He is not known, then God cannot, cannot, cannot be an overwhelming outward appearance. God's appearance in the heavens is NOT the revelation of God. If it were, then no angel would desire to know God as we know Him.
The Old Testament is filled with statements concerning an outward appearance of God, either seen in the earth, as in the “Shekinah glory” of God or as seen in the heavens by some of the prophets such as Isaiah and Ezekiel. Thus, everyone imagines that these outward appearances are the real deal.
Jesus blows this thought right out of the water.
But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Matthew 13:16-17
Take every sight of God in the Old Testament, every single one, the pillar of fire, the glory filling Solomon's temple, the appearance of God in the heavens as seen by Ezekiel – all of it, both earthly glory and heavenly glory, and Jesus says, right here, that not one of those men in the Old Testament ever saw what they wanted to see.
They never saw God. – Until they saw a man named Jesus.
No man has seen God at any time. – He that has seen Me has seen the Father.
Outward appearance in either heaven or earth is not God. God reveals Himself as He REALLY ISonly through a man, walking this earth in human flesh.
Yes, this form is also outward appearance. But it is the outward appearance chosen by God to reveal His Heart. (In the place that I have chosen.) And that revelation is REAL glory.
The question came concerning where does God say that Jesus' laying down His life is the glory of God revealed. This knowledge of Christ is John's continual presentation, the one who knew Jesus better than anyone, but who did not write a thing until all the others were long gone.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory. – He who has seen me has seen the Father.
I simply take these words literally. – Then the writer of Hebrews says this: Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Hebrews 1:3
It was the brightness of God's glory, the express image of God's Person who purged our sins. How did He do so? By the sword of His mouth by which Jesus slays all of His enemies, by the word of His power by which Jesus sustains all things: “Father, forgive them.”
Was there anything else that won your heart, that turned you from His enemy into His friend? What else can God do to show us Himself?
It is a mistake to define God's glory by the limited knowledge of the Old Testament prophets as they saw God only by outward heavenly appearances. Jesus is the One who shows us the Father. The greatest and mightiest angels of heaven long to know the glory we hold in our hearts. They have never seen God's real glory; they've seen only heaven's representation of that glory.
So, when Jesus said, And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world (the cosmos) was, by those words, He excluded ALL “glory” as it had appeared in both heaven and earth. Cosmos includes all appearance of God in all the realms of heaven. Jesus excluded that outward glorious appearance. When Jesus said, “Now,” He meant that, for the first time, God's REAL glory would show itself into the cosmos, into the entirety of both heaven and earth.
What is the glory that is the heart of God revealed as never seen, ever before, in the entire cosmos?
A Lamb Slain. – A Man laying down His life for His friends.
A life layed down, a love poured out. – Heart.
As I write the letters on Sacrifice, I want to hold in my knowing of God the deepest and broadest expanse of His reality as I can presently know it. I am finding, just over the last few days, that my view of God is changing dramatically. I must confess that even up until the last few days, I have viewed God as a form; I have not seen Him as literal Substance found in all fullness at every point in the realms of the spiritual heavens and at every point of the physical universe every moment – ALL. Yet utterly invisible, and thus utterly unknowable.
When I wrote out statements of faith from each book in the Bible in September of 2006, the list from which I wrote The Jesus Secret, I wrote the words, “I am filled with all the fullness of God,” from Ephesians. But I did not connect with those words then. I have searched through to discover when I first began to speak with understanding, “I am filled with all the fullness of God.” I'm not sure where it is, but I know that it came slowly, and its coming began with writing the letter, “Ask.” Asking God to fulfill His word in me and then believing that He has done so already is the only way that those words can begin to find a dwelling place in us. I know that I spoke those words boldly at the end of The Kingdom Rising series, in June of 2012. I suspect they came out fully only by the change of God's form in my knowing that happened in the letters of anguish that began that series.
I have been saying, “I am filled with all the fullness of God,” for only a little more than two years, it seems. Here is what I wrote in June of 2012.
– Right now I am filled with all the fullness of God, but I don't know that, not yet, not really. The moment my eyes open, the moment I KNOW that all of God in all fullness fills all of me, my body will be transformed and I will live from that moment in all the visible manifestation of the resurrection life of Christ.
God flowing out of me is the obvious second to God filling me full. But God filling me with all of His fullness is the most impossible, odd, out-of-place statement ever written or uttered on this planet. And to most people, the most BLASPHEMOUS!
For about six months now, I know, every moment, that the person of God fills me. This knowing began when I wrote "The Weakness of God" and first understood God, not as the separated God defined by Augustine, but as the becoming God shown to us by the only definition God gave us of Himself – the passage of Jesus through the atonement. Since writing those words, I have known that God fills me and I know that knowing every moment, and I get so beside-myself happy sometimes, because I know that this intimate, precious knowing of the Person of God resting fully inside of me is forever and will only grow and increase.
~~~
Why is it that obvious reality – God omnipresent/infinite and God eternal/all now – is viewed as the most blasphemous thing one could believe in this world? Why is it that seeing God as a Thing, an object, a definitive form, an appearance – and far away is considered proper “Christian” thought?
Yet I am driving toward “Sacrifice.” – Christianity holds a particular view of the Sacrifice of Jesus. At the center of that view is the concept of punishment. I am convinced that punishment does not exist in God and it does not exist in the Sacrifice of Jesus. I am convinced that punishment is the upside down, inside out image forged by Satan in the ignorant minds and darkened hearts of mankind.
Yet to go boldly AGAINST Christian theology is a daring, some would call foolhardy, thing to do. I can do it only out from what God actually says. Over and over, in my years of seeking God and studying His word, when I have written out all that God says on every subject under the sun, I discover that what God actually says and what Christian theology says God says are so very often in complete opposition.
People scream (I just read this the other day) “This is what God says!!!!” So I pull in the unmistakeably clear verses from Paul, and God actually says the opposite at every point all the way through.
Therefore, in my desire to know Sacrifice, I compiled a list of every New Testament verse that points with meaning in some way to Jesus' death. That list can be found as a PDF here:
Sacrifice-TheVerses.pdf
Remember, however, as you read through this list of verses, that you WILL BE forcing by violence your preconceived notions received from Christian theology and a separated and cold definition of God onto what you read – except by an immediate miracle of God. Allowing God's words to say ONLY what they say and nothing else is a gift of God's grace and ESSENTIAL to knowing Him. Here is what I say to introduce that study:
– I have gathered here (almost) all of the New Testament references to the meaning of the sacrifice of Jesus. I selected those verses that shed any kind of light on the purpose of that sacrifice and its connection to us. In compiling this list, I have a definite purpose. There are a number of “ideas” concerning the sacrifice of Jesus, what it means, in Christianity that come by the traditions and arguments of human reason.
Here are some of them.
• Jesus was “punished for our sins.”
• Jesus “took our place upon the cross.”
• Jesus “paid a debt that we owed, but could not pay.”
• Jesus died “because of” our sins.
These ideas do not sound right to me, nor consistent with the revelation of Jesus Christ and the purposes of God, thus I must know what God actually says.
After compiling this entirety of the New Testament statements concerning the sacrifice of Jesus, I see that my gut instinct concerning these things is correct. Yes, there are a very few of these statements that can be taken in the direction of the bulleted points, but only by those looking AT Jesus from a distance, not by those walking in union with Him, seeing out from His eyes alone.
More than that, these verses confirm my conviction that the sacrifice of Jesus is not something God “did,” but rather God as He is, revealed for the first time for all creation to see. Yes, one can look at all these verses and not see such a thing at all. We see what we are looking for; we find exactly what we seek.
He who has seen Me has seen the Father. – We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
~~~
– The form of God? This is a most incongruous statement.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him . . . Philippians 2:5-9
I want to talk about the most important word in this passage last. Before we do that, lets look at this incredible series of words. In fact, I will simply recreate the columns from www.biblehub.com here. However, I have ordered the words to fit the English above, not the order of the Greek. The Greek words contain the link to their definitions out from Strong's Concordance. “Verse” takes you to a similar chart with all the words.
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Who |
Himself |
having been found |
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being in (I am) |
made no reputation |
in appearance |
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form of God |
having taken on |
as a man |
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did not consider it |
form |
He humbled |
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robbery |
of a servant |
Himself |
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to be equal |
coming |
became |
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with God |
likeness |
obedient |
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|
|
of men |
unto death |
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The form of God!?! The form of God is 100% formlessness, no boundaries in space, no cessation in time. The form of God is also 100% INVISIBLE. The form of God, Substance, cannot appear in creation or to creation.
Consider the form of God as held by almost all of our brethren – as we have held up to now, except God change our minds. God is envisioned as the biggest Dude in a far-away place called “heaven,” the One who is most outwardly amazing. All other things in this far-away place are not as amazing in appearance as this biggest Thing. And they call this outwardly amazing appearance “glory,” as does God.
May I suggest that this definition of “God,” is, in fact, a definition of Lucifer. In my letters on Sacrifice, I want to show precisely how that works. The serpent wanted his appearance to be the express image of God's Person; Adam agreed fully. They rebelled against God in agreement together; they traded places. The serpent wanted his outward heavenly glory to be called God's image, and Adam wanted to look like such a “god.”
How can a man be the clearest representation of God's invisible Person and Heart?
Yes, angels are outwardly glorious, and by their glory, they show forth aspects of an invisible God. Thus that heavenly “glory” is entirely part of God revealing Himself.
But heavenly glory is not God's Person, and it is not His heart.
Notice that the form, morphe, of God becomes the form, morphen, not of man, but of a servant. In contrast, the appearance of God, schemati, is man.
The closest form of God out from Himself is the form of a servant. Thus we place God in every point in space at every moment of time, in both heaven and earth, as that which is coming up from beneath as a Servant, carrying us in Himself all the way out of death into life. Every departure of God out from invisibility unfolds first as a Servant. When the first dim rays of light shine upon this unknown God, Servant is the form first seen.
The clearest picture of this servant-God is these words of Jesus.
Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into age-abiding life. John 4
That fountain of water continuously springing up from within as unending life is the clearest “form” of God that we can envision. I know that God fills everything everywhere I look at every moment. BUT I know Him Personal and Real only as that continuous upwelling of Himself inside of me.
But that is not glory, for glory is, in fact, outward appearance.
Now, let me place myself in relation to the Covenant; this is my conviction, where I stand as inside an unmoving Rock. The core of the Covenant God signed with me and I with Him, the very thing I signed myself up for, the very thing God signed Himself up for, is that I, Daniel Yordy, will be exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ, in every conceivable way, except one. That one way, the only way the Lord Jesus, the resurrected and ascended Christ of God, will be different from me in being and makeup, in purpose and work, is that of honor. He is pre-eminent, the most honored One of His/our kind.
These words are absolute: We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. If they are not absolute, then the Covenant is broken, there is no God, the Bible is a compilation of human nonsense, and we, along with all humans, are stark raving mad.
The phrase, “God the Son,” something God never ever says, breaks that Covenant and thus, eliminates God. May I suggest that the infantile, heavenly angels as “god” way in which Christians have defined and worshipped God out from the cold, separated harshness of Nicene Christianity, is not how we will ever know Him. May I suggest that we will know Him only by speaking Christ, by speaking what God actually says as the Lord Jesus Himself springing up from within ourselves every moment.
Here is what God says, There is one God, the Father, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man, Christ Jesus. We will know this God who fills us full only as we know Him out from God's own testimony of Himself and not by the reasoning of the darkened human mind taking snips and bits of Scripture from here and there, and using them to force his own FORM upon a God who is both All in all and entirely invisible.
We take the words that are the core of the Covenant and place them alongside the words that are the ONLY real revelation of God ever in heaven and earth, God's most accurate outward appearance.
He who has seen Me has seen the Father.
We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
The fulfillment of Sacrifice in our lives as the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the experience of the church requires this accurate understanding of the continual distinction between God's “form” and all the visible appearances of all the unending discoveries of everything proceeding out from this invisible All in all.
We must speak of God plainly, now, instead of figuratively. Eternal means that All of God is always right now, this moment. Infinite means that All of God is always right here. And God means all of God always Personal inside of me. The only God that exists is the God who is all right now, right here, Personal and real, inside of me. The same is true of every person in whom He dwells wherever they might be in every present moment; it is also true of every point in space and time in heaven and earth. Yet this God is known to us first as fountains of water springing up from God-All at every point of our own being and person and in our every moment.
Here's the thing, when we speak of Blood poured out, we are defining God. What we see of Jesus in His Sacrifice is the Father revealed as He IS, always all right now. Blood, life poured out, water springing up, servanthood, is the nature of God at the core of His Heart. Other created things, angels, animals, heavenly substance, and rocks, are all reflective of one aspect or another of this God who is All and invisible. But only man reveals the Heart of God.
[Wow, I suddenly see something amazing in the above paragraph. – Just as Eve was taken out of Adam's side, so the church was taken out of Jesus' side upon the cross. Thus blood and water poured out was the church coming out from Jesus into all the earth, Christ planted as us. But look at what the figurative picture (looking at) means literally. The action of the sacrifice, piercing Jesus' side, was Jesus extending the beating of His heart out of which His life poured out flows, His blood, into you and me. It was an operation in which His pumping blood was forever attached to us, becoming the only heart we have. How could God transplant Jesus' heart into us except by what is pictured figuratively – by outward appearance – of His side being cut open?]
From that understanding, we can see that the word "relationship" means two very opposing things. If we treat with God literally, then relationship means precious communion with this incredible Person who is always right here right now in me in all that He is. This communion is never broken and cannot ever be broken.
But if we treat with God figuratively, then relationship means separation, one Being reaching out from His otherness, His location, to touch and associate with another being driven by the unending whips of time. This relationship, then, must be maintained, always trying to connect with this "other" God in order to relate; that is, the ticking of the clock requires another connection to a far-way Being.
I am convinced that we cannot know Jesus' sacrifice except we place ourselves entirely inside of Him through every step, not as "sin" but as children and as His joy. Just as we cannot really know blood poured out except as that which fills us full, so we cannot know Jesus' sacrifice by the figurative, that is, outward appearance – looking at – but only by the literal, that is, out from His eyes.
I learned something important in Poetry class. It is difficult to translate prose from one language to another, such translation must be skewed, altered by the strong prejudice of the translator and by the different world view of the language into which the original is being translated. But poetry is another matter. Poetry cannot be translated. When you read a poem that is supposedly a translation of a poem originally written in another language, you are NOT reading the poem that, Virgil, say, wrote. What you are reading is a poem written by the translator that is made to sort of resemble the original poem, though it must fail at almost every point.
Paul dealt with language in a similar way as Shakespeare; that is, he regularly made up his own words or used Greek words in ways that no one else used them. The key term used to define Jesus' “leaving God to come to earth,” ekenosen, is used only once in the New Testament and only in Philippians 2:7 by Paul in a manner that no one else besides Paul ever used it. Kenosmeans "I deprive of content; I make unreal." But Paul added ek, to kenos; ek means out from, as in ec-clesia, called out ones.
Now, ekenosen is the primary word upon which the Nicene Christ is built, a far-away Christ who "came" having "left" His Godhood, and now, for a short time, "became" a man, giving us that false image and definition of Christ. Did Jesus empty Himself of God? Did Jesus force God into finiteness and temporariness? Did Jesus drive God all in all out of Himself? Did Jesus harden His heart not to know God, to hide from All in all?
I now see an entirely different definition of that same word. Note that labon, “take what is offered,” is present perfect, which means that the form of servant came before ekenosen. Thusekenosen is a calling out from that which is “unreal,” that is, that which is invisible, God becoming seen and known. Look at the word genomenos, “coming – became,” let's re-definegenemenos as God “unfolding as” this appearance in heaven or earth.
Since God is Personal, then when God calls Himself out into visibility, to be seen and known by His creation, He must appear as a Person (Jesus) out from Himself. Since God is BIG, He can truly be revealed only through many persons, many sons to glory, that is, many persons as the visible expression, ekenosen, “called out into view” (glory), of this Invisible One – who longs to be seen and known and touched.
Now, the ruling verb that must govern the entirety of Philippians 2:5-8 is not ekenosen, but rather, "let be." "Let be" is the very same words God spoke in the beginning. "Let there be light" and there was light. Only the Greek verb is phroneite. “Let this mind be" in you.Phroneite, however, almost cannot be translated out of Greek. No English word, including "mind" catches its meaning.
Here is the online Greek definition: http://biblehub.com/greek/5426.htm
5426 phronéo; (from 5424 /phren, "the midriff or diaphragm; the parts around the heart," J. Thayer) – properly, regulate (moderate) from within, as inner-perspective (insight) shows itself in corresponding, outward behavior. 5426 (phronéo;) essentially equates to personal opinion fleshing itself out in action (see J. Thayer). This idea is difficult to translate into English because it combines the visceral and cognitive aspects of thinking.
– Now, the word Paul used was not phroneo, but phroneite, which also includes "let be." It is not mind, but thinking, and not surface mental thinking, but the deep and sober thinking that underlies the actions coming out of a person's gut. In other words, God is speaking Himself (creation) into us with this passage, Philippians 2:5-8. Thus the entirety of these verses is not God telling us something about a Jesus way back when, but God speaking us into existence, out from Himself (ekenosen), as the same as this prototokos, this first One of our kind. By these words, God is speaking the fulfillment of His Covenant into us as He speaks us out of Himself.
The Nicene God, a God who is granted form and location by human reasoning out from figurative language, does not exist. The Father of the Lord Jesus Christ can be known only as He is. That is, here, now, Personal in us in all that He is, especially His heart, that is blood/life poured out, here, now, all, Personal, inside of you and me. – AND we entirely and only inside of Him in all that He is. To destroy that Nicene God, we must speak of God literally only, and no longer figuratively; that is, we can speak of God using only His words directly, that is, "I am," which is what Philippians 2:5-8 really is.
I am driving towards something definite in the Day of Atonement – the faith of the Son of God. (Gal. 2:20) He is the pattern; what does that mean? Are we willing to think, to speak, and to walk as if we are, right now, the full extent of what "pattern" means? How far does this "wormhole" go? What is the radical transformation of all things that comes out from the one primary action of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement?
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not grasp at His equality with God in substance, rather, through the form of a servant, He called Himself out of invisibility, unfolding Himself in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man – the express image of God's person – He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him . . .
This mind IS in me, Daniel Yordy, the same mind that is in Christ Jesus. I, being inside the form of God, God all in all, but invisible, I do not grasp tightly to my equality, my union, with the Substance of God, but rather, I choose to be God made visible, first, in the closest form out from God Himself, the form of a servant. I am made out from God, in outward appearance, as a man,the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person. As the clearest representation of an invisible God in all creation, I humble myself. I become 1 John 3:16. In this we know love, because He laid down His life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Therefore, I am the highest glory of God revealed, just like Jesus, the most honored One of our kind.
How far does this wormhole, this Covenant, take us? We have looked upon it from afar, we are just now being caught in its full reality. I can assure you, this is all beyond me. If I did not know God, if I did not believe that He speaks the truth, if I did not love Him, I would be running back into the comfort of blind Christianity just as fast as I can. I find myself so aghast and so astonished that I can hardly think.
There is one way only that we can be like Jesus and that is to be like Jesus. And being just like Jesus is the scariest thing I have ever considered – the faith of the Son of God.
Look at that word, THEREFORE – God also has highly exalted Him. As humans living in time, we see, and thus God speaks, as if this is a sequence of time. First, Jesus did this, then, after Jesus did what He did, then later on, God exalted Him above all. But that is not what it means, for this reality comes out from God as He is. “Therefore” is not a time word, but an unfolding word. A word that means “this IS that.” This Lamb Slain, this life poured out, this beating Heart of God IS the highest expression of God's glory in all creation.
This is the only outward appearance that truly shows us the Substance of an Invisible God. There are unending outward appearances, all of which show us some aspect of this Invisible God. But the only outward appearance that shows us His heart at the core of His Person is a Man laying down His life, giving Himself away, pouring Himself out to the uttermost, for His friends.
It's okay to pause a moment and wipe the tears from your eyes before you say: – And we also.
Listen, I have never in my life confused daydreaming with reality. I am 100% cognizant of the insanity and blasphemy into which I have written myself. If you are shaken to the core, I more so.
We will never be like Jesus until we be just like Jesus. And to BE just like Jesus is the faith of the Son of God.
The words spoken in the paragraph: – This mind is in me, Daniel Yordy – are the continual thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ as He looked out upon the world, as He understood Himself, as He walked every step along the way. Every moment He thought, “God is always springing up, arising in Me. I am in every way the highest glory of God revealed into all creation. In every step I take, in every word I say, in every circumstance in which I find Myself, God in Me is flowing out from Me through that step, through that word, into every person, into every circumstance, reconciling the world to Himself, causing all creation to know Him through My present appearance.”
A few years ago (way back it seems), in writing the Union with Christ series, I made this statement.
– The only difference between ourselves right now and Jesus as He walked this earth, including during His time of ministry, is believing. We do not see what is true because we do not believe what God says. Jesus did.
Then I said this.
– Jesus always remembered His glory; never once did the certainty of His glory pass out of His mind.
These quotes are from Walk as Jesus Walked. Then, out from these statements I wrote Remember Your Glory. I promise you, I had no idea then what I am trying to share with you now. Yet when I peruse now through those letters, I discover that I am saying nothing different. I am completely astonished; I don't know what to say. I wrote back then what I knew must be true because God says. I wrote entirely in hope.
God has two forms. The first form is formlessness, an Invisible All in all. The second form, coming always at every point in every moment out of the first, is the form of a Servant. These two “forms” of God we call Substance. Then, as God becomes visible in outward appearance as He really is, we see a man, and we see that man stooping down onto his knees to serve.
Now faith is the Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1
The faith of the Son of God.
“God is always springing up, arising in me. I am in every way the highest glory of God revealed into all creation. In every step I take, in every word I say, in every circumstance in which I find myself, God in me is flowing out from me through that step, through that word, into every person, into every circumstance, reconciling the world to Himself, causing all creation to know Him through my present appearance.”
We know that this is not blasphemy, not at all. Jesus was the first normal human be