Written by Michael Nevins
"And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." (1 Cor 12:6 KJV)Man has a great deal of difficulty comprehending the total sovereignty of God, (the truth that God is all, and in all, in every moment and event), because the carnal mind will never see first principals about the Father. However, to understand that "God is All" is absolutely necessary before we can clearly understand ourselves. Solomon said, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding," (Prov 4:7 KJV). We know that the beginning of this "wisdom is to fear the Lord." This Wisdom is realizing that "God is All" and in all and that He created all things and they were all created for Him and by Him. He made the good the bad and the ugly, and meant all these things to be exactly what they are. For scripture proclaims that God "worketh all things after the counsel of His will." (Eph 1:11b KJV)
Job's righteousness was acredited to him and the faith of God expressed through him when he stated, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord…shall we not receive both good and evil at the hand of the Lord." Three times God said Job was perfect and he was not perfect because he had perfect behavior. He was perfect because he saw God in "all things" both the good and the evil. This was Job's salvation. It was the same salvation that all old testament believers saw. It was said of Abraham that he "believed God and it was counted unto him as righteousness." This was not a work done by Abraham, but the result of God's work in him. Abraham believed God was "working all things for his good." (Romans 8:28)
The flesh can never see God working in the evil. It looks upon this truth as insane and is deeply offended by it. The first thing the flesh will say is, "We are not robots we are free moral agents." While it is true that we are not robots, it is equally true that we are not free moral agents.
Jesus explained it this way, "the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the work," (John 14:10b). This is not the statement of a independent man. Could not a free man speak for himself? To the flesh it appears that he is a robot, helpless and in bondage, and he is, if you're judging by outward appearances. But there is much more than meets the eye. Jesus clearly stated that it was the Father indwelling him that did the works. It was not he but Him.
Man can do nothing apart from God. Yet man will not stop waving his flesh around with all of these edicts about human responsibility. Some have said, "We can not violate our humanity or our individual personalities, man needs to be responsible." When we claim such things we do not understand the true relationship of God and man. Man (the flesh) can do nothing, has nothing, and is nothing-period; he is impotent, dead, helpless and without strength! His personality is useless and vile apart from God and a vile personality is no personality at all. No where in scripture will we find Jesus making claims of a personal independent power which he possessed.
We must first do our exegesis from a gospel perspective taking Jesus own words as a clear explication of the truth about man. The fullness of the hidden mystery of union is revealed in Jesus's teachings regarding his relationship to the Father when Jesus said that he "could do nothing" as a man (in his flesh).
"I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me," (John 5:30 KJV) You will find on seven other occasions in the Gospel of John that this principle is vividly stated. (John 5:19, 6:38, 7:17, 8:28, 12:49-50, 14:31, 15:15) Nothing is not something! Jesus never focussed on his need to respond to or cooperate with the Father because he was always filled with that which he needed, and was never confused about the source. The real problem is that when we are focussing on the need to respond to or cooperate with we are focusing on our need not union, implying that we must now be in a place that is uncooperative and irresponsible which at the same time focusses on selve instead of God. The hidden danger here is that it takes us to a place of self-centeredness instead of God-centeredness and brings those who believe such things back into bondage.
Jesus did not see himself as incomplete and he never claimed a right to freedom, because freedom was not his right. This was do to the simple fact that he claimed nothing of personal equity. He understood the great privilege it was to be the spoken word of God, never desiring to speak independently of the Father. He simply expressed who he was. "If you have seen me you have seen the Father," (John 14:9b) It was the Father that was manifested in this particular fashion of a man. Because the Father is All, then Jesus was the humble expression of the Father as a man; man created in the Father's expressed image and likeness. Man as a perfect expression of the Father. Not a human being mixed with, but the Father expressed as. This takes the robot out of it. Jesus was the manifested Father in the form of a human, a pure Son; a perfect derivation of the Father, not a cheap imitation. The God man, not the man God. Jesus did not have a split personality or "two natures" as some evangelicals claim; sometimes behaving as man and sometimes behaving as God. His nature was that of the Father's. If we could invision this rich treasure we would have no difficulty understanding the total depravity of man, or the mystery of the incarnation. However, we have understood this clear truth as a cognitive dissonance, which has left us struggling in a degenerative state of carnality, always focusing on the lack of, instead of the fullness of. "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: (Col 2:9-10 KJV)
Sin's role has been to unveil our depravity and sorrow in order to drive us to our true complete identity as expressions of the All. These Sin attachments, brought to us from the Father, do serve their purpose in the destruction of the flesh, or sin principle, that carnal mind that looks at things as out of order, incomplete and separate and then states that it of its own volition can do something. When we cease the gnashing of teeth in our personal hell of unthankfulness long enough to catch our breath, we will soon see that He is All and in All. This is the will of the Father, to be thankful in All. We have no reputation or independent rightful dignity to defend as simple containers of that whole Person. Yet it is only in that place of nothingness that we will see that we are now the benefactors of that full portion of the Godhead; for which we, who are still in the body could not fully behold without being consumed by that Pure Fire. Adam sinned when he believed that he could choose independently of the Father. He was purposefully tricked into believing he possessed personal ability and power separate from the Father to partake of that tree of independence which promoted a self will. God said do not eat of that tree or you will die, and die he did. We know that it was a necessary fall, and that man needed to see his depravity first hand, having his eyes opened to the nakedness of the flesh. But we also know that man is either praising himself or comdeming himself when he is taught that he needs to choose between what is right or wrong becaue he does not know the difference. It was Satan who said, "you will know the difference between good and evil," not God!
Man is flesh; these terms are synonymous. If we say we have a free will, we are saying the flesh has a free will and are again entering into the lie of the tree of self-will. Either the flesh is impotent or omnipotent. There is no middle ground. "Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain." (Prov 25:14 KJV). The flesh has only one gift, itself, and that to will pass away! Whoso boasteth that the flesh has any gift is like clouds and wind without rain. We know that no "flesh will ever glory in His presence," because the "flesh profiteth nothing."
If Jesus admitted that he could do no things, but could only do what the Father did through him, why should it break our jaw to say it? What is the hellish embroilment all about? In (John 1:13) the will of the flesh and the will of man are synonymously compared as opposed to, and placed over against, that which is of God. Could the separate private will of that which is created, have power to perform that which is divine and holy? What is born of the flesh is flesh!
God's revelation of Himself is seen in the events of history and time, meaning that all events are purposefully predetermined to come to pass. God is all-wise in His planning and all-powerful in His performing. We see the universe as the product of His performing and creative power; the theater in which are displayed all of His forms of perfect providence and purposeful history, down to the last detail. DR. B.B. Warfield tells us that the writers of Scripture saw the divine plan as "broad enough to embrace the whole universe of things, yet minute enough to concern itself with the smallest details, and actualizing itself with inevitable certainty in every event that comes to pass." "In the infinite wisdom of the Lord of all the earth, each event falls with exact precision into its proper place in this unfolding of His ordering, or without its peculiar fitness for its place in the working out of His purposes; and the end of all shall be the manifestation of His glory, and accumulation of His praise. This is the Old Testament (as well as the New Testament) philosophy of the universe; a world-view which attains concrete unity in an absolute decree, or purpose, or plan of which all that comes to pass in the development in time."
The very premise of consonant theism is that God is revealing Himself in the manifestation of His sons in this world. If He foreordained only certain isolated events, confusion both in the natural world and in human affairs would be introduced into the system and He would need to be constantly developing new plans to accomplish what He desired. When making reference to human freedom in any regard we are arrogantly claiming an ability to placard the divine will and thus become God players, forcing Him to change His plans. This could be compared to a type of holy chest game with man thinking that he is a player with lesser but yet somehow admirable and competitive abilities. The more we start talking about man's freedom and his abilities the more we start preaching a type of Greek philosophy which promotes a humanistic arrogance on the same level as the old mythology of the "The Wars of the Lords." We find that the mystery of it all is really not a mystery when we realize that nothing has ever been out of order in this universe and that is still the case today. "To the pure all things are pure"!(Titus1:15 KJV)
The revelation of man's role in this system is clearly understood as we see that Jesus did all things as the expressed image of the Father. We will not experience true liberty, until we stop looking at our humanity as a separate thing or believing that somehow God has merged the old man {all our false claims to our humanity} with the new {Christ in us as us}. This would be joining darkness to light, and we know they are opposites. "For ye were once darkness, and now light in the Lord; as children of light walk ye," (Eph 5:8 YLT). What does darkness have in common with light? Paul said, "all things have become new!" walk ye now in it; it is true whether you see it or not.
Now the continuing difficulty in reconciling the total sovereignty of God and man (the Father's expression as us) are brought to a harmonious convergence; resulting in the true expression of His liberty in us. This is full liberation, there is no other. Spiritual freedom is in reality, total bondage and dependence on the Father. When the word free is used in the Bible it is always referring to a rest from our labors and a release from bondage and the law, never is it talking about the uninhibited volitional ability of man. We rest in the fact that there is only one God, one Power, one Person, one Will and one Image. We are not half-breed images. We were made in His perfect image and likeness. We are pure, complete manifestations of the Father. Everything we possess is an attribute of Him. Our consciousness, our will, and our desires are all His attributes in us. We have tried to delute this Oneness by defining God as three persons, seperating God into catagories and boxes, but God is One All-powerful I AM, this is the greater revelation. We destroy this oneness when we make claims to any personal freedom. Nothing is free as man defines it, because nothing is independent. Every volitional activity of man is done by the underlying contingencies of faith which are arranged by the Power of God.
When we read John 14:9-10 we find no human freedom there. It was simply the Father walking and speaking through Jesus. Now, "we are the Sons of God;" made as His offspring in righteousness by an act of God, not performance in the flesh. We are the Father walking and speaking through us and by us as individual expressions of Him; "for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people," (2 Cor 6:16 KJV). When the All has entered the dwelling place of the Holy of Holies nothing else may dwell there. We are now that tabernacle made without hands, the habitation of God, that Holy of Holies where all the fulness of the Godhead dwells. We are not are own. This vessel of flesh will surrender all its rights to nothing, because it has nothing. Paul used strong language when dealing with man's attaching accolades to his flesh. "For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself," (Gal 6:3KJV) To attach something to nothing is the very heart of the carnal principle.
We contain no private, personal, independent attributes. We are the personal expression of the unlimited God in one of His unique myriad of forms. We have no claims on this uniqueness, it is not ours to claim, it is His manifested uniqueness. When we realize this in its full maturity it is gloriously liberating. There was never a merger of the old and the new--"all things became new." The old man is dead period. The new man is the Father in you; there is no other life. "For he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." (John 14:17c;20b)
So we detach all claims to our humanity. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." "Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh." The flesh is never willing, responsible or cooperative, because it is always bent on cooperating with itself. "Keep awake, and pray that you may not enter into temptation: the spirit is right willing, but the flesh is frail {weak},"{Greek word meaning impotent} (Matthew 26:41 WEY)
As we move beyond flesh recognition, we will start believing the all of the Father is in us, and our joy will become unspeakable and full of glory. Our body is the cup that is and will be poured out, our heart is His perfect heart, our spirit is His perfect Spirit, and our mind is His perfect Mind. Out from that heart of God His will is manifest in every moment. The commands are for infants; do, be, want, need, yield, obey, trust, follow. We are complete because that which is perfect has entered the tabernacle and that which is imperfect has passed away. These things are fully manifest by His power in us.
The carnal mind that is focused on the me, the
mine, the want- is enmity against God. Have I been so long time in you and thou has not
seen me? Yet you say, show me the Father? Do we believe its Him? Or will we continue all
this foolish talk about our separated humanity.