1.3 Finding the Ten
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Finding the Ten. What, then, should be our path to finding the ten ruling verses of the Bible, ten “verses” that put us entirely inside the purpose and intentions of God, ten ruling ideas that will turn every other verse in the Bible into an entirely different direction? First, this cannot be a deductive exercise of the human mind; that is, we cannot create a larger list of many verses and then “reduce down” to the remaining ten.
In complete contrast, we must begin with the one verse that is at the core of God’s purpose, the one verse that gives us the central WORD of our Father to us, His intentions in Christ regarding us now and forever. But before we can find this one verse, we must set out its required parameters.
Paul’s Gospel. Paul said in his letter to the Galatians, in so many words, “It’s my gospel or no gospel at all.” Either Paul was lying or he was telling us the truth. I operate on the assumption that Paul was telling us the truth and that, unless we find what Paul actually presented as “the gospel” we remain in “no gospel at all.” Thus I conclude that the ruling verse of the Bible MUST BE a Paul verse, most likely in Romans, his clearest rendition of his gospel, written a few months after his heated claim to the Galatians, and most likely in Romans 8, the central chapter of Paul’s gospel.
But that is only one parameter for finding this one ruling verse out from which alone we can discover the other nine.
The “Image” of God. Our second parameter for the ruling verse comes to me from what I consider the most important verse in the Old Testament – Genesis 1:26a. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion…” Long has this word “image” rested in my heart as I pondered through many years what it is and what it must mean. What am I? What did God make me to be? Thirty some years ago I found a definition of this word that made sense to me – image is “a visible representation of an invisible God.” Yet most other “definitions” seemed to speak more of what image “can’t be,” than what it is.
The Covenant. I have also understood, for forty years now, the critical meaning of our Covenant with God, the “New Covenant.” And here are the words that define the meaning of that Covenant for God, that is, what God gains from entering into a Covenant with us, from Hebrews 8:10-11 – condensed. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: …all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. An invisible and unknowable God – seen and known by all!
The Covenant then takes us straight to the only definition of “eternal life” found in the Bible. – that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
My Own Decision. And thus, for me, the ruling verse of the Bible must give us the full answer to HOW God’s Covenant, God known and God seen, becomes our experience first and then the experience of all creation. Twenty years ago, after seeking to know the Lord with all my heart for over twenty years, I had come to the end of all hope. I had come to an end of any ability to please God or to know even what He is about. I could not be a “man of God”; I could not “be like Christ” no matter how I called upon Him. Yet in my hopelessness, I would never even think of letting go of Jesus. And in that place of searing inability and icy failure, I made a firm and final decision for myself as to what MUST BE the ruling verse of the Bible.
The Ruling Verse. The ruling verse of the Bible must be Romans 8:29, specifically this phrase – conformed to the image of His Son. Me, Daniel Yordy, completely incapable of ever pleasing God, conformed (whatever that means to God) to the IMAGE of the Lord Jesus, my Savior and my heart. I do not want to be a “man of God,” and I especially do not want to die and “go to” heaven. I want to be conformed to the same image as the Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t want anything else.
Yet we see very quickly that this phrase, whatever it might mean, cannot be taken out of context, and thus we look at the entirety of Romans 8:28-30 as the most important verse in the Bible, the verse to which every other verse in the Bible must bend.
What Is Man? When I first placed this larger “verse” at the center of all my desire, knowing that I cannot ever “please” God, but not wanting to live anywhere else except inside of Jesus, I had no idea what this verse might mean. But over the next ten years, three other verses in the New Testament, one from Paul and two from John, came into my picture, three verses that must follow right along with this most important verse extending it into God’s intentions.
You see, Romans 8:29 demands the answer to a most significant question – WHAT IS MAN? What am I??????? What does God intend me to be? What three New Testament verses define man as God intends?
Filled with God? Let us make man in Our image and after Our likeness and let him have dominion…” The visible representation of an invisible God. He that has seen Me has seen the Father – spoken by a very human man to a small group of other men. God seen and God known – the Covenant.
(2) Filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19) and (3) Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). Humans – designed by God to contain ALL that God is and to reveal God Himself out to all creation as rivers of Spirit flowing out of us. MANKIND! – Say what?
To Overcome. The writer of Hebrews indicates that this word “have dominion” or “subdue” means authority over all things in creation, both in the spiritual realms of heaven and in the physical realms of earth. What one verse best expresses, then, our victory over all that opposes God and the Word that He speaks? (4) And they overcame (the accuser) (Revelation 12:11).
But wait a minute. Stop right there. I will NOT leave the one LOVE of my heart – I will never leave Jesus, not for any power or glory on offer. He is my Savior, the One who fills my heart with His care for me, the One upon whose breast I always lean my head.
Inside of Jesus. What ONE VERSE puts me INSIDE of Jesus and Jesus INSIDE of me, now and forever, the ONLY place I will live, the ONLY thing that “salvation,” whatever that might mean, contains that holds my interest. (10) Know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you (John 14:20).
You see, here is the dilemma of “ordering” the ruling verses of the Bible. John 14:20 is #1 for me personally. Yet it does not give us the purpose and heart determination of God Almighty. Thus Romans 8:29 must remain the ruling verse of the Bible. And so, I place John 14:20 as #10 because, after all the excitement, we must come back to and be grounded fully in the only place we live, inside of JESUS!
Cross and Blood. You see, I must have Jesus inside the ruling verses in the Bible, Jesus in me and me in Jesus. And I must have the Cross, right at the heart of everything. What one verse in the Bible best expresses the meaning of the cross for us? (5) I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ (Galatians 2:20). And I must have the Blood, right at the heart of everything. What one verse in the Bible best expresses the meaning of the blood for us? (6) Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… having our hearts sprinkled (Hebrews 10:19-22).
Resurrection Life. But Cross and Blood cannot be complete without the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, this LIFE in which we now walk. What one verse in the Bible best expresses the meaning of walking now in the resurrection life of Christ? You see, we must also have the strongest jeopardy verse in the Bible, God’s CONDITION by which we possess the life of Christ. (7) We have become partakers of Christ – IF we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end (Hebrews 3:6 & 14). CONFIDENCE! – We are part of a living Christ IF we are fully confident that we are part of Christ right now.
That gives us eight most important verses, then, but two things still seem to be missing.
Walking in Love. One of those two is easy – the heart of Father, the intense desire of the Lord Jesus Christ towards us together. (8) This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12). And this one verse opens to us all of our relationship together as the body of Christ, brethren walking together IN love.
But the final verse of our list of ruling “ten,” to my mind, must include God’s definitive purpose for and end of all creation, that is Paul’s defining verse – all things restored, God all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). Yet it must also include our role in God’s end for His creation. If we are the image of God, what, then is our mission?
Setting Creation Free. And thus we return to Romans 8, the heart of Paul’s gospel. (9) For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. …because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:19-21).
What if we made these ten verses, out from the heart of God and out from the core of Paul’s gospel confirmed at every point by John, the rule over how we read every other verse in the Bible. What if we swept aside the dark prevailing “counter verses” that have been the rule over most Christian thinking?
Finding Glory. And what if we followed a deliberate path that will make these ten verses, whatever they might mean, as the only way by which we know God and the Bible, man and salvation?
Here is my experience. From the time that I set Romans 8:29 as the verse that would RULE everything I knew about God or read in the Bible, replacing that un-Biblical goal of “go to” heaven, a most extraordinary thing has happened. At first it happened slowly, but now it is happening faster and faster. Every other verse in the Bible has fled the many places into which a darkened “Christian theology” had forced them and rushed joyfully to find their place in glory and wonder inside of Jesus inside the Father and we inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us – inside of Father – as His visible image forever.