1.3 An Always Choice
God did not give Adam a choice between obedience and disobedience, for those two things are found only inside the tree of knowing good and evil. That is a shocking statement, I realize, but I hope to make clear what that means as we continue.
God gave Adam a choice between eating of life or eating of death. And God places that exact same choice before every single human every moment that they draw breath. Yet even more than that, God places the same choice of the trees of the garden, life versus death, before EVERY Bible reader. Every single verse in the Bible can be read and known inside the tree of death and every single verse in the Bible can be read and known inside the tree of life.
Using the Bible. As Paul said, “a New Covenant, not of letter, but of Spirit; indeed, letter kills, but Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).
Let’s paraphrase Jesus words in John 5. “You search the Bible thinking that in knowing the verses of the Bible, you will have age-unfolding life, but the Bible speaks of Me, and you will not come to Me that you might have Life.”
Here are two groups of people, all of whom study the Bible. In fact, two might be sitting side by side in Bible school. One of these studies and knows the Bible in order to know the Bible, placing the word into his human intellect whereby he might assert what is “true theology.” The other hides God’s word in his heart that he might know Jesus and through Jesus, that he might know God.
As Death or Life. The first Bible student chooses every moment to eat the Bible as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, obedience and disobedience. His eyes are on himself, and the Bible is all about his role in this world.
The second Bible student loves the Bible, but his attention is caught by ANOTHER TREE in the garden – the Tree of Life. This second student chooses every moment to take the Bible verses into the Lord Jesus as every Word God speaks, that he might eat of Him as the Tree of Life, connecting always with God his Father through Jesus.
The same verse that is death unto death for one is Life unto Life for the other.
Placing Bible Verses. The one who lives inside of death uses Bible verses to “improve self,” something that never happens because the cross is ineffective.
The one who lives inside of Life uses Bible verses as Jesus his only Life, in order to know the Father.
Running for Our Life. Consider these words of Jesus, “Depart from Me, for I never knew you.” I don’t know about you, but placing these words upon “someone else” is not inside my sphere. I care about one thing only, I care that I will NEVER hear them. Yet that’s not entirely true, for I also care for you, that you also will never hear those words.
And so we are not the least bit concerned about the meaning of God towards anyone else; we want to know only what God means by placing before us, inside our own souls, this “always choice” between a tree of death and a Tree of Life. And indeed, this choice has always been as close to us and as constant as our own breath through our entire life.
We are running for our lives. We do not want to die; we want to live.
In a Single Moment. Life began for us the moment we asked Jesus to come into our hearts and to cleanse us from all our disconnection from God. - Christ lives inside of your hearts through faith.
Paul said that in that very moment, in a “split-second flash,” one might say, our old man vanished and a new spirit was regenerated inside of us, a spirit, or as John said, “a through-mind,” that was now capable of knowing God. Paul said that in a single moment, God transferred us out from the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His dear Son. Paul said that now we are entirely a new creation, that old things are passed away, that all things are brand new, and that now all things in our lives are out from God.
Knowing What Is. We have a problem, however. Our problem is that we don’t really know all that or what it means, mostly because we don’t believe it. Life is not what is – God is, but God-Is does us no good at all. Life is KNOWING God-Is and knowing nothing else.
Adam’s first experience of death was reversed in us the moment we were conceived of God, happening in a split-second. In the same way, Adam’s third experience with death will take place for us in the same “split-second,” as Paul said, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” when the physical part of our bodies is swallowed up by LIFE and we know death no more.
The Real Issue. But these two moments are not the real issue, even though both are very much part of God’s one definition of life and death. In a split-second a believer becomes capable of knowing God. In another split-second a believer becomes incapable of not-knowing God, that is, “incorruptible.” God alone does both of those in response to our faith, to our saying, “Yes, Lord.”
The issue is the long years of the in-between, the central meaning of life or death, a self-story all of Christ or a self-story all of self. The issue is what is happening in our souls, in the story of our minds, in the words that we speak, in where we place our very human desires and emotions.
Running to Jesus. Consider the two “students” sitting side by side in Bible class. One of them is receiving every verse as death and the other is receiving every verse as Life. That “receiving” is entirely and only of the human person, the one thing reserved for us that God does not touch. I do think we want to know what, exactly, makes the difference, mostly because we want to LIVE!
The difference in the two receivers is very simple and the easiest thing for any human, no matter how limited we might be or how tangled up we are with death. Remember the guy filled with a legion of demons? Two thousand demons controlled the man’s mouth, but they could NOT prevent his feet from running to Jesus.
No Sufficiency in Self. Here is the response of death. - “All that the Lord says, I will do.” First, the person who says that is lying, absolutely and always. But that’s not the worst part of it. The worst part is that the person just does not care. The person has placed himself first above all and imagines he now has the power to control other people, God, and the Bible.
Here is the response of life. - “Look at me, God; I belong to you. Let it be to me according to Your Word.” Yet look at the overwhelming cost of these words, for God is now free to do everything He has determined inside of this one. This one chooses no sufficiency in himself, but all sufficiency in Jesus. Look out, for God is coming through.
My Purpose. Having set out, as clearly as I am presently able, the difference between Life and death, I want to explain my purpose for writing this book and what will be found in the chapters ahead. Even though I considered and then taught the “most important verses of the Bible” for many years, I did not actually look closely at the words of my list of ten ruling “verses” until I wrote Symmorphy I: Purpose through 2015, now seven years ago. It was afterwards that I revised my little book, The Most Important Verses of the Bible, into its present form. Then, Symmorphy V: Life became a second look at twelve ruling verses, but from a different perspective.
Increase Forever. When I wrote Symmorphy I: Purpose, I was astonished to discover how little I knew about these ruling verses, what they actually said, and I have been seeking to understand them ever more clearly from then on. I often think, “How would I write Symmorphy I: Purpose differently if I wrote it today?” Yet I don’t want to revise it, for God leads others from where they are, not from where I am. I have recently realized that my count of seven Symmorphy texts, ending with Completion, is complete for that approach and that I need a different approach to writing an explanation of the twelve ruling verses of the Bible as I know them now.
Understand that the knowledge of God entering into us through God’s RULING verses will never end.
The Remainder of This Text. In the remainder of this text, you will find the clearest explanation of the ten ruling verses of the Bible as I know them now, placed inside of and at the heart of the Church, that is, “verses eleven and twelve.” Along with that, we must also place the anti-verse, the verse of death, and match the tree of life all the way through with its corresponding tree of death. Jesus alone removes the awfulness of death from us, but only when we say, “Yes, Lord.” This volume will be disciplined on the one hand, but not limited on the other. It will be entirely a “writing to teach,” and thus I will speak with authority out from what I know to be true.
Your Purpose. Yet my purpose in every page and sentence is one thing only, to cause you to KNOW Jesus, who alone lives in your heart and who alone connects you with your Father. I want you to know God. I want you to live.
The Tree of Life is another Person, Jesus, inside of whom you live and who lives inside of you. The cross is your wall of protection, freeing you to busy yourself with knowing Jesus as He is, now your only Life, so that you might live every moment in the knowledge of Father building Home together with you. This is your purpose, hitting the mark. This is the Salvation of God.