11. The Spirit Shared with Us

We share form with God our Father through Jesus, and that form is pure and intrinsic GOODNESS. – Symmorphy.

A wonderful thing about the word “form” or “morph” is that it is quite general. Each one of us shares only one personal form with the Father, of course, but inside of that one form are many “forms,” seeing and hearing, heart and compassion, every moment of every day, all circumstances, these things are all part of that one form.

Then, besides that one personal form each of us shares with God our Father through Jesus, there is the larger form for God, the gathering together of the Body of Christ, each local fellowship of believers. This also is the Form for God through Jesus; this also is pure and intrinsic GOODNESS.

We do not call any part of the form we share with God “into” goodness; rather, we call it already GOOD. Yet we also synergeo with God, turning all things in creation beyond our own form into goodness. We do not call the things outside of ourselves, things in the world, “good,” for the world is under the sway of the evil one. Yet we do call the outcome of every intention of evil into goodness.

Two parts of that form we share with the Father are the most important, at least for this present study. One part is our energeoing Spirit and the other part is our dying body. Our dying body is intrinsically good in all ways, and it is CLEAN. More than that, it is far more important to God right now than we have ever known. But that is for the next letter.

Here we want to know the meaning of the Spirit God shares with us and we with Him. The Spirit is form, yes, but the Spirit is also the Energeia of God. God has given His Spirit to us.

The One who is presently and actively establishing us, planting us firmly together with you into Christ, and who has anointed us, is God. He is the One also who sealed us, having given us the down-payment of the Spirit inside our hearts. (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).

At least fourteen times in the New Testament God says that He has given His Spirit to us. This is besides Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 6, that, in being joined together with the Lord Jesus, we are one Spirit with Him. Yet that count does include Ruling Verse 3, as it implies that Jesus is glorified as the Spirit is given to us. Let me include four more of those verses as representative of all.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Devoted Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13). – For God has given us a Spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7 – reduced).

Now He who has prepared us for this very thing (our dying bodies swallowed up by life) is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee (2 Corinthians 5:5). – By this we know that we abide inside of Him, and He inside of us, because He has given us of His Spirit (1 John 4:13).

Think of the implications of this word. “God gave us His Spirit.” If God gave me His Spirit, then the Spirit of God is now part of me! But then we have the confirmation of this Truth in 1 Corinthians 6, “He who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him.”

At this point I must become very bold, for if we do not strike down the Nicene definition of “the Trinity,” especially as Augustine defined “the Trinity” in On Christian Doctrine, then we will never know the Salvation of God now into our world.

Twice Paul said, “There is one God, the Father.” And Jesus said, “The Father is greater and mightier than I.

Regarding the Son, the Nicene definition of “the Trinity” prevents absolutely the fulfillment of the New Covenant, that we are made just like the Lord Jesus Christ, and it makes “Put the Lord Jesus Christ upon yourself” to be a statement without meaning. But regarding the Spirit inside the Gospel of our Salvation, that definition becomes even worse.

Specifically, the Nicene definition of “the Trinity” posits three separate, distinct, and equal Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to constitute the totality of what is “God.” Never does God Himself ever say “God the Son” or “God the Holy Spirit.” More than that, John, and Paul as well, said, “Father and Son.” And John 14:20 insists on God the Father in Person inside of Jesus, a Person; who is now inside of us as persons, who are inside of Jesus, a Person; who is inside of God, a Person.

I have always been disturbed whenever I have heard any preacher yacking about a back and forth relationship with the Spirit as a distinct Person. I always remembered that Jesus said that the Spirit speaks only of Him, the Lord Jesus, and never of “Himself” as a distinct and separate “Person.” Now, I’m going to take that sense that “something’s wrong here” a full step further.

  In all my translation of the JSV, I have been troubled by the practice of referencing the Spirit of God as “He,” “Him,” or “It.” And in removing such reference, thought it’s not always possible, I have found that I am NOT violating the wording of the Greek. In fact, often, though not always, the Greek article we translate as “the” is not there. Thus we have in Galatians 5, “walk inside of Spirit,” not “the” Spirit.

Of truth, I find little in the New Testament that supports the concept of the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ as a distinct Person, completely separate from Jesus or the Father. And even that little can easily be understood as “the Spirit now given to us.”

But let’s think about “God the Holy Spirit” as Augustine defines such a concept. Paul says several times that the Spirit resides in our hearts. Yet he also says that the Spirit resides in our physical bodies. Consider “God the Holy Spirit” as a distinct Person inside your heart and body, irrespective of whatever Father and Son might be doing. Augustine said that we are never to mix them up, for “They” are always distinct from each other.

Whatever might be said about “God the Holy Spirit” inside of you CANNOT be talking about you in any way. Thus the definition of “the Trinity” demands that God did not and cannot give His Spirit to you.

Because, you see, the Spirit GIVEN to you has become part of your humanity. For it is only the Spirit now part of your humanity by which you are able to receive Seed from God, the Lord Jesus, for you are of His same Kind, as Paul said in Romans 8:29, born of the same womb. It is only the Spirit now part of your humanity by which you are a son birthed out from God.

God has given His Spirit to you. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, is your own spirit as well. Then we have these two incredible lines, from Galatians 4 and Romans 8.

And BECAUSE you are sons, God commissioned and sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying loudly, “My Daddy, the Father!” For that reason, you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if you are now a son, then you are also an heir through God. – For you have received the Spirit of placement and setting forth as sons, inside of whom we cry, “My Daddy, the Father!” The Spirit personally shares witness together with our spirit, that we are children born out from God. And if children, then also heirs, heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs shared together with Christ.

Now, I do not “need to be correct” about the Devoted Spirit of God, neither do I need to know anything about that Spirit in realms not given to me. What I NEED to know is my Father through the Words of the Gospel and by the Spirit He has made to be part of me. And I find that I can know these many wondrous words relating the Spirit with me, not as another Person bouncing around inside of me, distinct from Jesus and distinct from me, but rather, as an integral part of the fabric of my own being. When I KNOW that, the Words my Father speaks find a meaning inside of me that I sense, by the Spirit, to be True.

The JSV in its wording amplifies the meaning of God’s Spirit given to us, what the Spirit is and does, that are not as visible in most other translations. Our key verse for this letter is Romans 8:26-27, but I want to go through a number of other verses first that we might gain some idea of the awe-struck wonder of being filled with the Spirit.

The One who continuously and lavishly supplies the Spirit to you, who continuously and actively energeoes power inside of and among you (Galatians 3:5). – There are many varieties of the expressions of graces, but the same Spirit… There are varieties of operations or effects of Energeia, but the same God who energeoes all inside of all. To each one is given the appearance or disclosure of the Spirit for shared profit (1 Corinthians 12:4-7).

That you may perceive what is the hope of His calling and summons, and what are the riches of His glory and value regarding His inheritance found inside the devoted ones, and what is the surpassing and beyond-all greatness of His power into us. For we are actively believing out from the Energeia of His mighty and absolute strength which He energeoed inside of Christ, having awakened and raised Him out from the dead, and having seated Him inside of His right hand inside the heavenly realms (Ephesians 1:18-20). – If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus out from the dead dwells inside of you, then the One who raised Christ out from the dead will also continuously and actively give life to your dying bodies through His Spirit dwelling inside of you (Romans 8:11).

That we might present every person perfect and complete inside of Christ. Into this also I labor, contending according to His Energeia energeoing in power inside of me (Colossians 1:28-29).

The thing is, I don’t necessarily know what all this means; I just need to have the Words of my Father set before my eyes and flowing into me that they might become all that I am. Yet we see that Spirit and Energeia go together, energeoing inside of us mightily. We see that Spirit and inheritance go together, as well as Spirit and Resurrection Life swallowing up all death.

We can now bring in the text for this letter, Romans 8:23 & 26-27.

Not only that, but even we personally, possessing the firstfruit of the Spirit, we also groan inside our own persons, eagerly expecting the placement and setting forth as sons, that is, the redemption of our body. – In the same way, the Spirit also joins as help together with our weakness, that is, personally seizes hold of our need as our help; for we are not aware of the things that are necessary for us to pray, but the Spirit personally brings us in line with Father for the sake of others, with inexpressible groanings. Even more than that, the One [Jesus as Word] who is actively searching hearts to know present needs, is aware of the heart-gut thinking of the Spirit, because, according to all that is God, He joins us together with God – inside complete and absolute connection [the Mercy Seat] – for the sake of those who are devoted [the Church].

This is a deeply profound verse, a verse that rules over every similar thing in the Bible regarding the purpose of the Spirit joined with us – specifically, joined together with our human weakness in a symbiotic and necessary relationship. – “I will pour out My Spirit upon [your] flesh” (Joel 3 & Peter in Acts 2).

It is a companion verse to Ruling Verse 3 and Ruling Verse 9, showing how they are joined together, giving us God’s purpose for Rivers of Spirit flowing out from us, showing how it is that we set creation free, beginning with the Church.

Although this letter is the Spirit shared with us, and the next letter is our dying bodies shared with God, we cannot talk about one without also including the other, for the relationship between the outpoured and energeoing Spirit and the weakness of our dying bodies is far more than we have ever considered or been told.

First, we groan inside our own persons AND the Spirit groans inside of us with inexpressible groanings. These two groanings are one thing in our knowing, but they point in two directions with two purposes. These two directions and purposes are BOTH/AND, never one or the other, but both always at the same time; both of critical importance to the other.

We GROAN for our dying bodies to be swallowed up by LIFE, and the Spirit groans through a joining with our weak and dying bodies as intercession for the sake of others. When we give our dying bodies to the Father for His purposes, we do not set aside our deep cry for these bodies to be swallowed up by life. And when we “aggressively pursue to seize hold of resurrection” (Philippians 3:12), we in no way set aside the immense desire of the Spirit to move through our grief and hurt as God’s travail for the sake of His people.

Here's another way to say the same thing. – If you want to know God; if you want to experience LIFE, then bring your brothers and sisters with you into God. Indeed, it is these two groanings, always together, through which we know sharing Hheart with God.

As I shared in the last letter, the Greek word for “joins as help together with” – our human weakness, is sunantilambanomai. It means to take two things that appear to be very different, even opposite of each other, and to join them together as one. Our mortal bodies and the Spirit of God are one in purpose together inside of God’s set-forth Purpose.

As I also shared, great anguish has always been a significant part of my soul. Although it is no way near the same now as it was in my teens and twenties, it still continues. I always interpreted that anguish as two things. First, that it was an exposure that I was fake and would now be found out by all these people “out there.” And second that it was a massive chasm in-between me and God.

What if – I was completely and utterly wrong?

I continue to look at that anguish, as it shows up regularly, whether out from present circumstances or towards things in the last few years, or towards remembrances hitting me hard without warning, out from the distant past, I look at it and call it GOOD, God with me for the sake of those with whom I was interacting.

That is not easy, especially since the sense of “exposure – that I am just an idiot in sending out these letters or sharing this word, for now everyone sees just how fake I must be,” is still quite current. To call it good, to call it God with me for others, feels similar inside to the agony of outward travail. It’s not easy; it takes time to KNOW God True.

Yet inside this travail, I find just as real the presence of the Lord Jesus enabling me, causing me to know Him sharing all with me. I find recent pains vanishing into God with me for the other person. And I find myself so profoundly inside of God my Father that I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what it means.  (I have a third letter coming up titled “The Meaning of the Great Travail.”)

Let me set out the premise of the Gospel before we continue looking at specific verses regarding the Spirit of God now shared with us. Before setting out the premise of the Gospel, however, let’s state succinctly the premise of the anti-Gospel.

1. We live right now inside of evil. We continue to sin, even though we are not supposed to sin, because of our bodies of flesh always pulling us down.
2. Jesus is far away from us right now, over there in heaven somewhere.
3. Our goal is to “go to” heaven after we lose our cursed and sin-filled fleshy bodies. There we will finally get to be with Jesus. There, in that other “place,” everything will be hunky dory.
4. Therefore, the KEY, the whole point of everything found in the Bible, is to possess the ticket, the key, so that after death, the pearly gates will open, and I will be allowed to enter heaven instead of falling into that other place where everyone is screaming in torment and fear. Thus, the whole argument and contention among ALL groups of Christians, even including “deeper truth,” is who has the right key to unlock the pearly gates and who will be out of luck.

Writing the Flow of Gospel Word for The Open Scroll has demonstrated the complete absence of this whole way of thinking from the Bible. Indeed, it takes great violence against the Bible, coming out from a great hatred of God, to even conceive of such serpentine gobbledygook.

Now for the premise of the Gospel.

1. God wants to be known as He is inside of His creation, that all might know Him. For that purpose, He sent us into this world and into our present lives.
2. God sent Christ Jesus into us as Word and as Spirit, to enable us to fulfill the purpose for which He placed us into this world.
3. The goal of the Father is to enter through us into our world as Love among us, that all creation would know God as they see believers in Jesus loving one another with pure hearts fervently.
4. Therefore the KEY, the whole point of everything found in the Bible, is how we open the Door to the Father, that He might have a wide-open Highway into being known by all. That KEY begins with giving thanks inside of and for the sake of all, and it becomes complete in sharing with Jesus a life lived for the sake of others, for Father’s sake. This key is also known as Travail and as the Ekenosis, the entrance of the knowledge of God.

Writing the Flow of Gospel Word for The Open Scroll has demonstrated the extraordinary extent in the Bible of Jesus presented as Covenant, connecting us utterly with the Father – Symmorphy, and the Spirit as Kingdom, God through us into our world – Synergeia. The entire Bible, really, speaks of nothing other than Jesus inside of us making us to be just like Himself.

Of course, we could just as easily say that Jesus is Kingdom, His Heart now our tender love for one another, and that the Spirit is Covenant, causing us to know God our Father. And indeed, we never separate Son from Spirit or Spirit from Son. This is why the word “Flow” is the best descriptive word.

Let’s now consider several more passages regarding the Spirit given to us.

To us indeed, God has unveiled it through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the things of the man except the spirit of the man inside of him? Even so also, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. And we have received… the Spirit who is out from God, that we might know the things God has already given to us (1 Corinthians 2:10-12).

The first thing God gives us is Himself. There is no greater gift than to know the Father. The Spirit of God, now one Spirit with ours, causes us to know the Father – on our side of things. Yet on God’s side of things, that same Spirit searches all of God, bringing to us an endless increase of wondrous and intimate knowing forever.

Your body is a temple of the Devoted Spirit inside of you, whom you possess from God (1 Corinthians 6:19). – This one is pretty blunt.

Indeed, we also, inside of one Spirit, were immersed into one body… and have all been given one Spirit to drink (1 Corinthians 12:13). – The Spirit of God is a shared Spirit. Yet fully belonging uniquely to each one of us, yet shared with one another and with Father and Son. This one is a bit incomprehensible, nonetheless True. In fact, the Spirit “shared with us” is actually more accurate than the Spirit “given to us.”

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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 3:17-18).

The Spirit is on our side of things in this equation, reconstituting us to be whatever it is we behold – so long it is Jesus we are seeing. (When we “see” NOT-Jesus, another spirit is actually doing something similar, although always half-baked and twisted.)

God continuously and lavishly supplies the Spirit to you; He continuously and actively energeoes power inside of and among you (Galatians 3:5 – modified),

God is doing this towards us, both personally and together, all the time. This is why we speak Christ, so that we don’t, as James said, go away and forget the incredible reality happening in us and among us every moment.

If Christ is inside of you, then the Spirit is life through the declaration of just innocence out from just approval. More than that, if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus out from the dead dwells inside of you, then the One who raised Christ out from the dead will also continuously and actively give life to your dying bodies through His Spirit dwelling inside of you (Romans 8:10-11 reduced).

We must completely re-think and re-define the meaning of our dying bodies and the Life of the Spirit. I think that it was the actuality of physical death, Christians still dying, contrary to the Promise of the Gospel, that was the first lever the spell-caster used to turn Christian theology away from what God actually says.

What God actually means by “the Spirit giving life to our dying bodies” is discovered ONLY by those who live inside of God, having turned around, now seated upon Mercy, and now going out with that same Spirit into the Church. What God means is clearly in the Bible, but unseeable by anyone else. But that is the topic of the next letter.

Be filled with Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord (Ephesians 5:18-19).

Finally, we have the profound things Jesus said about the Spirit given to us in John 14, 15, and 16.

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper-Advocate, that He might be with you into the age, the Spirit of truth… You know Him, for He abides, lives, dwells alongside of you, and will become inside of you. – the Helper-Advocate, the Devoted Spirit, whom the Father will send inside of My name, He will teach you all, and will bring into your mind all that I have said to you.

These verses do require the use of a pronoun to reference the Spirit of God. Yet the “He’s” kind of merge together. The first “He” is the Father. Is it not then the Father who abides with us and dwells inside of us – through His Spirit?

It is also interesting that Jesus does not mention the Spirit in His prayer that birthed the Kingdom, a communication between Son and Father. The Spirit is the essence of God touching creation, not the communication between Father and Son. But it is also in John 17 that Jesus places us into that same communication between Father and Son; we know that, on our side of things, it is the Spirit that enables us to know and to participate.

Then, we must consider the word that I have translated “Helper-Advocate,” which is paraklétos. I see now that inside of this context, and in light of Romans 8:26, this term in English is simply not adequate, yet there is no other word that is adequate, and bringing paraklétos into English would not work.

Technically, the Greek word meant a defense attorney, one who speaks for you in court. But this is the Spirit of God of whom we are speaking, One Spirit with us, dwelling in our physical bodies, the One who has come into union with our human weakness, the One who gives us Life, the One who enables and energeoes us.

When not speaking of God, “para” means “alongside of,” but it also means “in the presence of.” For that reason, when referencing God, I always translate “para” as “inside of His Presence.” Then, kletos is the verb form of kaleo, and it means “to call.”

We are the ones who call, for we are the ones possessing the authority of God inside creation. The Spirit, then, enables us to call, first, to call upon Jesus, and then, in completion, to call God through us into our world, the Ekenosis. Thus paraklétos carries the same meaning as sunantilambanomai in Romans 8:26.

With this in mind, I now see that same meaning underneath many specific references to the Spirit of God, including Luke 12:11-12. – “Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say. For the Devoted Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Jesus’ words clearly apply to ever deeper meanings of the Spirit enabling us to speak, even to call life out from death.

But when the Helper-Advocate comes, whom I will send you inside the presence of the Father, the Spirit of truth, who goes forth and is spread abroad in the presence of the Father, He will bear witness concerning Me. You also bear witness, because you are with Me from the beginning and origin.

When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide and instruct you inside of all truth; indeed, He will not speak from Himself, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and the things coming [from God] He will report fully to you. He will glorify Me, for He will receive what is Mine and report it fully to you. All things the Father possesses are Mine; for this reason I said that He will receive what is Mine and report it fully to you.

As Jesus says right after this, He is speaking figuratively in using human concepts to speak of the Spirit given to us. For instance, the translation, “The Spirit will guide you into all truth,” is where we start. But the preposition is actually en, inside of, for this is a relationship of immersion, of Floods flowing through, of Rivers flowing out, of Winds carrying you, you know not where.

I feel, as I typically do when writing about the Spirit of God, that I hardly know what I am saying. Yet I believe that God is etching a deeper picture of Himself inside of us, upon our hearts and inside our understanding. It is entirely through faith, through our confidence that God is, that we give ourselves now to our Father. It is the Spirit that enables us to do such a thing.

I also think that I will be able to write the next two letters with greater understanding after perusing these words out from God concerning the Spirit shared with us.