WORD OF GOD
God's direct speaking to man in present tense.
THE BIBLE
The God-breathed scriptures containing past words of God and man.
LOGOS WORD
Christ: the EMBODIMENT of God's communication to and into man.
There have been many ways through Biblical history and beyond through which God has chosen to unveil Himself and reveal aspects of His character personality and work through the centuries. Although one must be careful and test out the source to make sure it was God and not the "other guy" by comparing it with the scripture and all the other tests as revealed therein, there have been and still are many means He chooses to unveil His mysteries to His creatures.
Although God sometimes still speaks through brothers and sisters, the stars, nature, the scriptures, our pains and joys and yes, even sometimes uses the wicked men to speak through if we are humble enough to receive it, still: ALL of this points toward His Ultimate revelation of Himself and reveals Christ to us!
God's ULTIMATE, Final and Complete Revelation!
God's final and greatest and all encompassing revelation (or in this case Revelation) of Himself was and still is THE WORD. That revelation was consummated through many historical and yet spiritual events that consummated in THE SPIRIT: the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the life giving, sevenfold intensified Spirit of the processed Triune God Who also is a man space time man. He is the perfect mingling of Deity and humanity. To begin with, He, by various processes, brought God into man and then man into God and so finalized through His incarnation, human living, all inclusive death, resurrection, ascension and glorification the new covenant (of which bequests we have in written form - now bequests are greater than promises: they are realities already freely given to us! They are ours!!). He transformed the promises of God into bequests that already belong to those who are thus joined to Christ's life and nature by faith. The Word became flesh so joining two natures in One Person and so the ultimate Revelation of God Himself is the Lord Jesus Christ and HE is God's final Word and there can be nothing added to this Word. HOWEVER, the WORD Who is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as the ultimate revelation and outshining of God the Father has to be communicated to humanity through many means and as the writer of Hebrews reveals to us in the first chapter: God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in [the person of the] Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; …… the words "in Son" reveal that God's final Word IS His Son. However, the need was seen by the Lord for the canon of the New Testament scriptures to convey this reality of His Son to us. Of course if you believe this New Testament that you read it authenticates also the Old Testament as being the written scriptures even as Peter in his epistle authenticates the writings of Paul of Tarsus as being scripture. Even the passage above also reveal that God spoke in many "parts and many ways…. in the prophets," . This must include dreams, visions and other means.
What about visions and dreams, etc., in this age of grace? Does God and will He continue to use such things to open the New Testament to open the ultimate revelation of God the WORD Himself so as to communicate Him to and into us? You bet! This is revealed in Joel the prophet (2:27-29). Peter confirms this as being applicable to the New Testament age in Acts ch. 2.'
Of all the things spoken both in the New Testament and Old by the law, prophets, Psalms, gospels or epistles whether they were conveyed to men of God by visions, dreams, revelations or direct visitations it seems to me that more of Christ is conveyed by allegory or pictures than any other means. A big example of this is the instructions made to Moses by direct visitation concerning the blueprint of both the materials and construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Now THAT was quite a revelation of Christ! Don't you think? Not only of Christ but the boards built together around such holy representations of His aspects, relations and unsearchable riches to us convey US, the believers, as the extension of His very being for the expression of His glory as His Body! What a revelation! And it is all written down in the Old Testament! I personally have seen (but do not presently know who all the authors are) at least 4 books written that are almost 2 inches thick! Them are big books!! They concern the subject of this tabernacle and they are trying to barely scratch the surface of the unsearchable significances of all Christ is to us and everything this picture could mean. There are many such pictures of Christ in the Old Testament.
Now you can read all this so far in my first chapter of the Lost Keys book at this link, however, on this page I will expand upon how this Word Who IS GOD and is WITH God communicates the fellowship of the Godhead to us, into us and through us by means of His processing!! His descending ascending processing! Why did God need to get processed? Well now, that is too too tough a question to answer, but surely I will instead answer why He wanted to be processed and why we need this processing applied to us by the ointment of God which is one and the same as the anointing that teaches us all things.
This is why we need to call "Oh Lord Jesus" that we may all drink into the one Spirit that makes us one and tabernacles us and builds us together. You can read about this calling on His Name and how it is related to the Word of God in my article on Romans 10 and after this go to experience His riches ESPECIALLY if you experience calling on Him with others with a like-godly thirst to know Him.
The term "The Spirit" was never seen in scripture anywhere until John 7. Don't think that just the first chapter ending with Jacob's Ladder is the only explanation of the Logos Word in John. That is why chapters and verses should be done away. The book of John starts with the term Logos but ends with following Christ and feeding His lambs. In chapter 1 He's the Lamb Stone for building and Peter is called a stone. In chapter 21 Jesus again implores Peter to follow Him and feed His lambs. So we also are the reproduction of Christ as living stones and lambs meant for the slaughter. The experiences of His death and resurrection are all for building the stones for the expression of His glory!! This is God's House, His Bethel! So the whole book of John is about the Word tabernacling among us and within us, not just "chapter one" (I speak in quotes because the deciding of what was "chapter 1" and "chapter 2", etc. proceeded from the mind/will of man not the mind/will of God.
Now what does this have to do with the term "the Spirit" which is mentioned in John 7? OK, well the phrase "the Spirit" with the "the" was never seen in any scripture before John wrote this term! He had the audacity (or maybe revelation!!!) to say that "this he said of the Spirit,(italics mine) which those believing in him were about to receive; for not yet was the Holy Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified."!! Now what does Jesus' glorification have to do with any of this? Well, His glorification was after His ascension! (Actually I have to correct myself here. Some of the glorification of God, in fact the greatest glory of all was revealed at the cross. what do I mean? Well, never was such compassion, condescension, humility, faith, obedience and downright LOVE EVER seen before or since. The glories revealed at Calvary are like a multi-faceted blinding rainbow made all the more colorful and brilliant by the background of wickedness and darkness seen in this most terrible, and ugly event ever to take place on planet earth ... or anywhere else for that manner.) Now, this is the glorification of a man!! Not God! He was ALREADY glorified as God! He didn't need that AS God. However, surely God was never more glorified and revealed as through Christ. So, the MAN Jesus needed to be glorified. And He had to go through quite a tough hard process to do it. So am I saying that before this glorification the Holy Spirit did not exist or that there was no Spirit of God? Well, do you think John was saying this? Of course not! What John (and me too!) is saying here is that THE Spirit - that NT reality we have now was not yet because, as Paul wrote, 'The first man Adam became a living creature,' the last Adam became (italics mine) a life-giving spirit, so the Last Adam (the man whose death terminated the fallen sinful man and all his works) became the life-giving Spirit!! In other words ALL the riches of His humanity (not just His Deity), human living, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and further descension on the day of Pentecost are elements of this life-giving Spirit!!!! It is that "the Spirit" that was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified!! THIS is what John meant! In other words, the elements of the new creation humanity and human living, the unsearchable glories and riches of His all-inclusive death and power of His regenerating resurrection and seating in the heavenlies of His ascension etc. etc. etc. etc. were not elements of the Spirit of God until the glorification of the God-Man Jesus Christ! So, how about Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28 and the end of John 1? What does this have to do with the revelation or unveiling of the living God through the Logos Word? That's easy to see. The ascending and descending messengers (which ARE the gifts Christ gives to men for the perfecting of the holy ones) are made qualified as messengers BY the experiences and processing of Christ's ascension and descension!! Does God really need all this? Well, you do!!!! We do!!! If we are ever going to be built up as His house, body and bride, then we not only need the positive joys of learning and experiencing what it means to all 'drink into one Spirit', but we also need processing through HIS processing which not only includes the reality of what baptism means by faith but a daily denying self, picking up the cross and following Him. AND .... DON'T think are ever going to enter this very real kingdom of God without going through many tribulations!!! It just is not going to happen that way, OK?
You can find the following passage in Ephesians 4 (Actually called Ephesians in error - actually it was sent to Colossae, Laidocea and Hieropolis ) somewhere: Paul is writing: " Call upon you, then, do I -- the prisoner of the Lord -- to walk worthily of the calling with which ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of the peace; one body and one Spirit, according as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who [is] over all, and through all, and in you all, and to each one of you was given the grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ, wherefore, he saith, `Having gone up on high he led captive captivity, and gave gifts to men,' -- and that, he went up, what is it except that he also went down first to the lower parts of the earth? he who went down is the same also who went up far above all the heavens, that He may fill all things -- and He gave some [as] apostles, and some [as] prophets, and some [as] proclaimers of good news, and some [as] shepherds and teachers, unto the perfecting of the saints, for a work of ministration, for a building up of the body of the Christ, till we may all come to the unity of the faith and of the recognition of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to a measure of stature of the fullness of the Christ," ... OK, so He took a prisoner of war it seems during His travels. Travels, you say? Oh yes from heaven to earth, out of infinite experience of Being (this was only for a time and absolutely by His choice) into the finite limitations of human living and it's dependencies. Then on and on until He led captivity captive. He not only led the captives captive but the very captivity itself. The whole realm captivity became His captive. He set us free! So what enslaves us? A REALM of darkness fought with the law of sin and death. This includes the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. This includes the world, the flesh and the devil and all things therein that enslave the old creation in bondage until the manifestation of the sons of God bring in the glorious liberty. Now, how did Jesus lead captivity, such an evil captivity, captive? Through His death! Even as Paul said the world had been crucified to him and him to the world - so all things have been crucified in Christ. So what is your choice today? To be crucified in Him or without Him?
Let's start at the beginning of these travels (and my weak, low attempt at trying to convey them) with His first descension. The Greek word used in Philippians is Kenosis. He took on the form of man. He became a real man through a real birth. Kenosis means self-emptying. He willingly laid aside His infinite attributes for a 33 year time span. Folks, most Americans call this the "incarnation." This brought God into man! God became a man but with this man God dwelt in His fullness unhindered. This is the one man Who ever lived who had no sin! During His lifetime He challenged the scribes and pharisees saying "which of you convinces Me of sin?" They could not answer!
But this was not enough to save us. Oh! How low He went to come down here among us! To His pure mind and heart this sinful, fallen depraved planet with it's stench of death must have been torture! This is why He climbed a mountain many times just to catch a breath of heavenly air from above and pray all night long frequently. But this sacrifice was not enough. Although I really think the descension from the heavenlies to this earth was perhaps even a greater sacrifice than the next step to the cross. So ... He had to descend into death. He 1st became a slave. A bond slave to God. This resulted in glorious manifestations of God's miracles, mercy, grace and truth. Please see my article on the Vision of Christ to try to catch a glimpse of how glorious His earthly life and walk was! No! You cannot fathom it! You cannot begin to comprehend it. This attractiveness of His Person was why the crowds flocked Him! And this was before easy transportation to get there, television, or advertising! But then He was also despised by others - others who were deep in the captivity to Satan's deception and rule. How did they get like that? Religion! Religion will blind folks more than anything else. At this point He became a dog to be kicked and beaten. Then according to Psalms 22 He became a worm. He said: I am a worm and no man: "Ps 22:6 And I am a worm, and no man, A reproach of man, and despised of the people." Then in His crucifixion something even worse happened. He became sin. You and I cannot even begin to enter in to what that meant. You and I can never become sin because only the spotless sinless One could do this and take the place of punishment for every man, woman and child. He not only became the sin of every man, woman and child before God but tasted death for everyone of us! No one can imagine the suffering, pain, sorrow, shame and grief. But He had no shame or sin of His own.
Something else happened. The whole universe was crucified!!! That's right! Not only did He satisfy God's justice against our sins and pay for them and take our death penalty so we can be forgiven, but His death was our death. Paul said the world was crucified to him and him to the world. How is this possible? Oh! That's easy! Easy for Him to do because nothing is impossible with God, but not easy in your small human mind, nor is it fathomable. It's just this. The death of Christ was the death of the Lord God and the Son of God. Now God can never die, but as man He did pass through death. IN HIM according to the 1st Colossians letter were ALL things created. Now you may ask how this is possible. Actually it was impossible to NOT create all things in the Son of God because the Son of God is God and being God He is infinite and the attributes of God include knowing everything = omniscience, having all power = omnipotence and being everywhere at the same time which =s: omnipresence (and I will add here He's eternal also so that means He is EVERYWHERE IN ALL TIMES ALL THE TIME!!!!!). Now, where else are you going to put everything that is being created??(By the way it is written that the Father created everything not only IN the Son but BY the Son, THROUGH the Son and FOR the Son!)????? Everything HAD to be created "IN SON" because there was no place else to put anything!!!!!! (See Col 1:16) So .... do you see this? Now, it is a little easier to understand that when the man Jesus was crucified, the entire universe was crucified because all things are already in Him!! Right now! Tomorrow and the next day! Now should you be worried about things present or things to come or America's economy or war, persecution or famine? No! HE has EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL!!!! Just trust in Him! All you need is one thing only!! ONE THING ONLY!!! That is to hear Him and follow Him! Amen! This is ALL that the assembly of God needs to do today. "But brother, we need this and that and the other ... etc. etc. etc." No!! Just sit at His feet, HEAR Him and OBEY! (I must mention here that one of the big hindrances to hearing is idols of the heart. This is brought out in a little book on "Hearing God's Voice" by Stephen Jones which I highly recommend on the subject as he is the only one I'm aware of who points out Ezekiel's words on idols of the heart. The link is: https://godskingdom.org/studies/books/hearing-gods-voice/chapter-2-hearing-without-idols)This, of course, is the best way to experience this processing on the ladder that I'm talking about. Of course, this awesome all-inclusive death of Jesus Christ that crucified the whole old creation is on every rung of the ladder! It is also available to you in all places and all times and every situation if only you just call on His Name, hear Him and follow believing you are dead to sin!! Now! Is there any excuse for you to be living in sin anymore! Of course not! There never was! Jesus has already set you free! The key is THE FREEDOM IS IN HIM! So STAY THERE!!! So you see the foolishness and shortsightedness of the statement Paul quoted in Romans 10 "Who shall go down to the abyss,' that is, Christ out of the dead to bring up."? Now do you see? Christ is at ALL the places of the ladder INCLUDING the abyss!!! He is AT the crucifixion, ascension, the mighty rushing wind and the happening of the all-powerful - millions of believers birthing replication session experience of the RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST at all times and all places all at once!! And THIS CHRIST Who lives IN YOU (!!!!!!!!) is your peace and everything you need at all places and all times for allllll His believers everywhere!! So .... do you have a problem with sin, or death? No! "It is finished!!!!" FINISHED!! Your problem is you live by the wrong life! Your life instead of His. So all the aspects of the ascensions and descension of the Ladder are on every part of the ladder but you still must experience the processing by walking by the Spirit, turning to Him, calling on Him ALL to LISTEN to Him and follow Him. This was the only secret of those 1st 12 sent ones. They spent the time in prayer but the Father had personally overshadowed them with a bright golden cloud on the mount of transfiguration and told them "This is my beloved SON: HEAR YE HIM"!!! Yup! They knew how to proceed from thereon! THAT is how one becomes one of the messengers on the ladder. And it is not just messages from God to man but messages of prayer FOR man to God. This is called in the scriptures priesthood. One who helps shorten the terrible gap between God and men by intercession on behalf of all men, then carrying the message back from God to man again. This is not just some pastor-preacher's job! This is the occupation of all believers, for whoever cares to hear the enlistment call. Oh! But how few are hearing the real call!
So what else was Jesus doing during His earthly life before this awesome all-inclusive death and resurrection? He was setting an example for 12 men (actually anyone else too who cared to notice - one of the twelve didn't even get it he was so possessed by Satan that he later betrayed Christ). He was replicating the Father's life pattern before the twelve so that when they received the inward filling of the Spirit on the day of resurrection and the outward filling on the day of Pentecost, they would know what to do.
In His death He crucified all of us - killing self and the old man. but, of course, we are still going to need the processing of these spiritual elements into us by eating, drinking and breathing Him into us and the trials and tribulations of faith. Through this death, He in resurrection and ascension was able to present His propitiating blood to the Father, then also through His death and descension into the lower parts of the hades He was able to preach to those in prison the good news of His sanctifying, justifying, transforming and liberating death and resurrection and this is how He led captivity captive. (Read I Peter 3:17-4:2) Yes, I believe that captivity is a realm of the old creation which Jesus led captive by just flat out killing it! However, this does include you and me. Someone said, although, I can't recall who, "He led forth a train of vanquished foes." Back in the days when Ephesians 4 (actually II Colossians) was written, this was understood because when warriors, princes and captains returned to the kingdom after a war campaign, they would bring with them a procession of prisoners of war (willing or unwilling!) as part of their "parade" and present them before the king and it would be quite a fanfare and even a city wide celebration. So does this contradict what I said before about this event setting us free! No! He both took us captive AND set us free! BOTH! How did He conquer you and me, the old sinners? Simple! He killed us by crucifixion! What warrior has been more violent, terrible and conquering than this? (!!!!) THEN, He resurrected us and set us free! Now it is your choice whether to become His bond-slave or not! If His love touches your heart you will choose to serve Him! (Again! Read I Peter 3:17-4:2)
In His ascension He was glorified (as a man like no other man ever was or ever will be!) and AS A MAN now sits on the throne of the universe!!!! Hallelujah!! Not only as God this time but also as a man, even still being the Son of Man. (And THIS One is my dearest humblest friend!! What amazing pity, wonder and mercy!) It was at this time He presented these vanquished ones, especially the 12, to the Father giving them to Him as gifts, laying them at His feet! The Father during Christ's glorification gave these gifts back to the Son laying them at HIS feet! Then He descended in the Spirit as the life-giving Spirit and mighty rushing wind for power from on high on the day Pentecost to give these gifts to us!! APOSTLESHIP WAS BORN! One of them stood up on that day and spoke through the anointing Spirit and 3000 were born again!
So wow! You may ask "what is the secret of all this?" Simple! HEAR YOU HIM. Get on your knees and spend time to pray. Don't make it a 1 way conversation though. Listen to Him. Repent of the idols in your heart that you may hear Him clearly and know His voice and not another. Then, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him as He leads. Eventually you will learn He does not wish for you to merely walk behind Him on this journey but with Him as His friend, part of His bride and brother in His forever family.
In 1983-1984 there were a series of events in my life. They were so unusual in their coincidence and setting and having come to such a person as myself who was under such an anointing of certain New Testament truths at that time as to properly understand what was being conveyed …. Well!!! I see now that it could not have happened in another time or another place or to anyone else and so the Divine Spirit bids me write The Revelation of the Lost Keys. Of course you will find nothing there that fails the test of being in accordance with the scripture. But rather it not only reveals the deep inner meaning of some of the things in God's heart that are precious to Him concerning His people but reveals some of the ways He views us as His children. So, as important as it is to see Christ, it may be even more important to get and inside view of Him and to see through His eyes!
Of course I have received things before and since from the Lord and share many of them in this book but THIS revelation is a PICTURE!!! And as has been said: "a picture paints a thousand words." So you see God can reveal more through a picture than through 10 books and that's why there are many such revelations in the scriptures.
A picture has a background. Sometimes it is only a white boring canvas or contains just grass or a sky which may be a sunset of many colors or possibly just a bleak sky. But of course that is not the main subject is it? Or is it? Some subjects may contain, as my Lost Keys book does, quite a bleak sky but hold on to your eyelids! The bleak sky will become a dark sky as a backdrop for an exciting story! If you'll bear through some of it's necessary boring facts of the backdrop then maybe …. Just maybe you'll see into the very heart of God!!