God All in All
I have to start, however, with theology, for I have no understanding of man except in his relationship to God. I understand that God is the One Person in the universe. Besides Him there is no other. He is Power, Peace, Joy. Christ is the Way, Truth, Life. He is made unto us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification. His name is I am, not I have. Finally He is declared as “All in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). So He can only manifest Himself in all these and a hundred other characteristics by being Himself expressed in an infinite variety of forms, not a Giver, but an Is-er. God created man in His own image that He might have a visible means of expressing and manifesting Himself, The Invisible in visible form. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world,” and then He also said, “Ye are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). On the material level, light is invisible electricity which can only manifest in visible form by a lamp. In doing so, the light so possesses the lamp that we don’t say, “Turn on the lamp,” but, “Turn on the light.” Thus we humans express Him in a union relationship.
Jesus, the Second Man
Jesus, as God manifest in the flesh, is called “The Second Man” (1 Cor. 15:47), thus the perfect form of redeemed man. As such, He was His Father in manifestation. The Spirit of God in the visible form of a dove was seen by John to descend upon Him. From that time onward, it was the Spirit speaking and acting by Him (Luke 4:14-21). It was the Spirit who took Him to Calvary (Heb. 9:14), and by the Spirit He rose again (1 Pet. 3:18). At the supper table when about to leave His disciples, He said the purpose of His leaving them was that the same Spirit should possess them. This was fulfilled at Pentecost, and the Spirit is spoken of by Paul in Romans 8:11 as dwelling in us.
Thus, if Jesus spoke of Himself as only seeing and speaking and doing what the Father was doing by Him, and doing nothing of Himself, and finally saying that “if you see Me, you see the Father,” then it is now the same of us. Those who see us, see Him! So Paul says, “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16); “God works in you to will and do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13); Christ, “our life” (Col. 3:4); and John, in his first epistle, caps it all by saying, “As He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Thus we are “in the light as He is in the light,” we “walk as He walked,” we “know as He knows,” we are “righteous as He is righteous,” we “love as He loves,” we “believe as He believes.” Our humanity is expressing His deity in all the forms of His nature.
We Humans Have No Nature
We are called temples. In the Old Covenant days that could have been the tabernacle by which God manifested Himself in Shekinah Glory, or alternatively a temple of Baal.
The emphasis is not the nature of the temple, but of the deity who manifests himself by it. And now in the New Covenant, our bodies are the temple of the Spirit, and God is spoken of as “dwelling in us and walking in us” (2 Cor. 6:16). We are the body of Christ, but the nature is that of the Head, Christ, not the body. Only in the sense of the whole body and its actions (the Head included) is the “body” called “Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).
The emphasis is not the nature of the temple, but of the deity who manifests himself by it. And now in the New Covenant, our bodies are the temple of the Spirit, and God is spoken of as “dwelling in us and walking in us” (2 Cor. 6:16). We are the body of Christ, but the nature is that of the Head, Christ, not the body. Only in the sense of the whole body and its actions (the Head included) is the “body” called “Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).
We are called “slaves” (mistranslated in the King James Version as “servants”). But a slave has no operating nature of his own in relation to his owner, and solely reproduces the activities of his owner, whether of Satan (sin) or Christ (righteousness) (Rom. 6:16). We are the wives reproducing the nature (seed) of the husband, and in that, sense with only the husband’s nature (Rom. 7:4, 5).
We humans are symbolized in the Scriptures as being containers, expressers, developers, but not originators. We have our “being” in Him (Acts 17:28) —the quantity, the potential (much like a computer). But then also, the quality of what is expressed by our being is not we, but He in His nature (like the programmer of the computer). Thus He is named “All in all”—not just the One being invisible, but having derived created beings by whom He can express His Allness. Not just the “All,” but also “in all,” which is why the coming of His Son taking flesh, and now, in the resurrection, still being “the man Christ Jesus,” confirms the eternal truth as being the Person in the persons, and not some vague dissolution of essence into essence as in a religion without an incarnate Christ.
These symbols used to describe us humans are all those which express no nature of their own but the nature of that to which they are attached. Vessels contain the liquid, but are not the liquid; the cup is not the coffee. We don’t, speak of a cup and coffee. So we are branches, but the branch is not the nature. Rather the nature is that, of the vine which reproduces itself in leal7 and fruit, form on the branch. Thus in Romans 6:20-22, we were bearing fruit of which we are now ashamed, but now the same branch (no difference in that) is bearing “fruit unto holiness” —solely vine-nature expressed by the branch, which has no separate nature of its own.
We humans are symbolized in the Scriptures as being containers, expressers, developers, but not originators. We have our “being” in Him (Acts 17:28) —the quantity, the potential (much like a computer). But then also, the quality of what is expressed by our being is not we, but He in His nature (like the programmer of the computer). Thus He is named “All in all”—not just the One being invisible, but having derived created beings by whom He can express His Allness. Not just the “All,” but also “in all,” which is why the coming of His Son taking flesh, and now, in the resurrection, still being “the man Christ Jesus,” confirms the eternal truth as being the Person in the persons, and not some vague dissolution of essence into essence as in a religion without an incarnate Christ.
These symbols used to describe us humans are all those which express no nature of their own but the nature of that to which they are attached. Vessels contain the liquid, but are not the liquid; the cup is not the coffee. We don’t, speak of a cup and coffee. So we are branches, but the branch is not the nature. Rather the nature is that, of the vine which reproduces itself in leal7 and fruit, form on the branch. Thus in Romans 6:20-22, we were bearing fruit of which we are now ashamed, but now the same branch (no difference in that) is bearing “fruit unto holiness” —solely vine-nature expressed by the branch, which has no separate nature of its own.
We are called temples. In the Old Covenant days that could have been the tabernacle by which God manifested Himself in Shekinah Glory, or alternatively a temple of Baal. The emphasis is not the nature of the temple, but of the deity who manifests himself by it. And now in the New Covenant, our bodies are the temple of the Spirit, and God is spoken of as “dwelling in us and walking in us” (2 Cor. 6:16). We are the body of Christ, but the nature is that of the Head, Christ, not the body. Only in the sense of the whole body and its actions (the Head included) is the “body” called “Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). We are called “slaves” (mistranslated in the King James Version as “servants”). But a slave has no operating nature of his own in relation to his owner, and solely reproduces the activities of his owner, whether of Satan (sin) or Christ (righteousness) (Rom. 6:16). We are the wives reproducing the nature (seed) of the husband, and in that, sense with only the husband’s nature (Rom. 7:4, 5).
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