TEF18 - The Other Lamb by Daniel Yordy

We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are transformed as the true Lamb replaces the other lamb.

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© Daniel Yordy 2013

There are two lambs in the Bible, not one. The second lamb is not incidental or peripheral. In fact, we find that the second lamb is more prominent in church history than the first. The second lamb is the other Main thing. If the second lamb did not exist, the beast would have no power in the church. Although outwardly the Lamb wages war with the Beast, inwardly, in our minds and hearts, in the womb of the church, the true Lamb wages a war of life or death against the other lamb. It is a war of faith.

We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are transformed as the true Lamb replaces the other lamb. Much of Jesus' effort during His ministry was to break the hold of the other lamb, the Pharisees' definition of God, that would have kept His hearers from receiving Him.

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. Revelation 13:11

In John's vision, the “sea” pictures to us all non-Christians while the earth refers to nominal Christianity. The dividing line in the church for God is the altar of incense. Those who enter into the chastisement of God in the travail of the Spirit, He marks. Those who remain happy Christians will most certainly find blessing; they just won't enter into the Holiest at present. They remain, in the present season, as the earth.

A lamb's horns begin to grow around six months. Thus, the Passover lamb, at one year old, would have had horns a few inches long. Horns are common to male lambs, so the true Lamb also would have had horns. Yet these horns are mentioned, which means they are significant.

Two horns represent power. Have you ever seen two fully horned rams butt heads in full fury? I have not seen rams, but I have seen male goats do so. You would not want to stand between. In this case, the horns represent the power of the forehead. It's interesting, but whenever a bully attempted to do his thing to me, the image that was left in my mind was the thrusting forward of the forehead, the strength of the brow. Though I have known many bullies, I was never susceptible to them. No matter how much their words hurt me, I simply turned my back and continued on. I did not fight back, but neither did I come under that forehead.

There are two kinds of power, the power of life and the power of death. On the two lambs, the horns look the same, but the one Lamb carries us into life, and the other drives into death.

Both lambs are Christ in the church. The one Lamb carries all for real; the other lamb is an image of Christ that has dominated Christianity since the passing of John.

But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Revelation 2:6 – the church of Ephesus, representing the early church under the apostles.

Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth. Revelation 2:15-16 – the church of Pergamos, the compromised church, beginning in AD 311 and culminating in Augustine's version of The City of God.

“Nicolaitans” is a form of the Greek, nike, that is, overcome. It is interesting that the definition of God, of Jesus, of man, and of salvation that rules almost all Christianity is the Nicene Creed, nike, Nicolaitan, coming out of the church compromised under Constantine and defined under the influence of alcohol.

But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

If the guy on the white horse, conquering and to conquer, is not Christ, then it likely refers in a significant way to Constantine and the definition of “the conquering” Christ that came into the church by him, that is Apollo, the sun god, the one who defeats his enemies by hacking them to pieces. In fact, having written already concerning this white horse fellow, I lean more now to seeing it as the Other lamb. That does not remove the truth I shared earlier.

This is a very realistic way to understand church history. Inside this same time period, as part of the same severe alteration of Christian understanding, the statue of Jupiter, the god of Rome, was given a new name, Peter. You can go to Rome today and see endless lines of Christians kissing the feet of Jupiter, the exact same piece of stone worshiped by the pagan Romans, yet these Christians call that piece of stone, Peter.

In the same way, Apollo, the sun god of the Greeks, was given a new name – Christ. Constantine, the Beast in that place at that time, needed the Nicene Christ in order to control the church.

The Nicene Creed presents to us the Nicolaitan Christ. On almost any Christian website that has a “What We Believe” page, you click on that page and you find the Nicene Creed.

You see, if you have arrived at a place where the great argument is between whether Jesus was God the Son, having taken human flesh on momentarily versus whether Jesus was a man who showed us a little bit of God, if that is your debate, you've already bought into the entire second lamb, the entire Nicolaitan Christ.

The Debate at the Nicene Council was a debate between Nicolaitans and Nicolaitans. Neither the debate nor any “side” has anything to do with us. God is not what they think.

There is only ONE picture and definition of God given to the entire universe: a Man laying down His life for His friends. We know Him only by placing ourselves utterly inside of Him all the way through.

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.” John 14:7-10

The Nicene Creed presents to us the Nicolaitan Christ. On almost any Christian website that has a “What We Believe” page, you click on that page and you find the Nicene Creed.

There is a great human lust to turn these words into fodder for argument and debate. Those who do so already love the second lamb.

There is one way only by which we can know these words of Jesus. That is by knowing these following words of Jesus: In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. John 14:20

If you do not know these words, then don't let go of God until you do. We will never come to the end of knowing these words, therefore, we will never let go of God revealing Himself in us.

The Nicolaitan Christ is an image created by looking at, and thus engaging in debate over ideas. The true Lamb is known by looking out from, through eyes of fire, and thus the words – AND WE ALSO.

In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. John 14:20

That is the gospel according to Paul; it is the revelation of John. John 14:10 and John 14:20 are the same; they can never be separated.

Look through the Nicene Creed; make note of the severe separation between God and man, all the way through. The Nicene lamb defeats his enemies by hacking them to pieces. The true Lamb carries even His enemies inside Himself all the way into life.

The Nicene lamb's power is forehead only; in the end, he is a wimp. Yet this is the Superman “Christ” that most Christians look for to come. The true Lamb is real power, the power that turns enemies into friends, the power who arises from beneath of us and carries us in His tender arms all the way into life.

Man is the image and likeness of God; man is God revealed. God is known to us only by a Man, a Man laying down His life for His friends – AND WE ALSO. This is God; know Him.

Now, you can see that I am recasting what I shared in my series: The Kingdom Rising, particularly the chapters, Christ Versus Superman, Must We Repent of Augustine, Defining God and Man, The Weakness of God, and The Foolishness of God. I want to continue, here, attempting to re-cast this second lamb in the light of John's vision.

Let's position the battle. There are actually two battles going on simultaneously. One is the battle between the true Lamb and the false in the hearts and minds of believers, the second is the battle between the Lamb through us and the Beast regarding the inheritance, that is, possession of the earth. I have an upcoming article on the second called “The Battle.” The first battle is casting down the accuser; it is the battle of the lambs. Which lamb do you follow?

I have shared before that when I was 21 years old, I heard the words “and THEY shall nourish her there” (Revelation 12) presented as a calling from God, a Sending, a Mission. In my own private heart before the Lord, I raised my hand. “Yes, Lord, I would like to answer that Call.” I was just a boy; I did not know how such a thing could be possible.

“And they shall nourish her there” is at the core of the first battle. It is the warfare in which I am engaged by every word I write. My desire is to change your mind by the Spirit of God and by speaking all that God speaks.
“and THEY shall nourish her there” 

Let's present the two foreheads just before they hit head on.

I will fight against them with the sword of My mouth versus and spoke like a dragon: Did God indeed say?

This is what I have written in every letter I send out.

The enemy has sown his word into the church, as Jesus said.

The truth of God is found all through Christian theology, but so are the words of the serpent, “Did God really say that.” It is almost impossible to separate the words of the serpent from Christ; everyone who has tried only rips out truth right along with the lies, creating a whole new arrangement of serpent word mixed with Christ word.

Almost everyone I know who left the move of God, the fellowship of communities in which I once lived, threw out the truth right along with the lies. Most have completely forgotten the vision God once birthed in their hearts.

Almost everyone I know who discovers a new revelation in God that they had not known before, turns and attacks those verses they once regarded. That is, they don't attack the verses, they just attack those who imagine that those particular verses are actually God speaking. Those who believe that God's whole purpose for us in this life is judgment cannot even see any of the blessing verses in the Bible. Those who believe that God's whole purpose for us in this life is blessing cannot even see any of the judgment verses in the Bible.

That's why Jesus said, “Don't remove the lies until the time of the end.”

There is one group of people only who are capable of ripping out the lies without harming one thing God speaks. They are the ones who live utterly and only inside of John 14:20, who eat of the tree of life, who tremble when God speaks in ALL that He speaks, who engage with God until He fulfills every single Word of Christ in their lives in all fulness. Those who say with Mary, “Let it be to me according to Your word.”

Those who call those things that be not as though they are. Those who have God in their mouths. Those who refuse to speak anything God does not speak. Those who speak all that He speaks as their very and only life.

Speak Christ. Some of you who read this still see yourself and speak of yourself as if you are other than Christ Jesus. Let the true Lamb win. Let His victory be finished.

Those who believe that God's whole purpose for us in this life is judgment cannot even see any of the blessing verses in the Bible. Those who believe that God's whole purpose for us in this life is blessing cannot even see any of the judgment verses in the Bible.

You see, it's a simple equation. Either the Lamb carries us or the lamb commands us. The first is Salvation, the second is existential hopelessness. No matter how powerful, how assertive, or how anointed are those who preach a lamb commanding from the outside of us, they never, themselves measure up. Never. All fall short; all fail to achieve His glory. And here's the thing, in the end, the promoters of a lamb who commands are dishonest. They will never admit their failure to obey perfectly. And remember, if you disobey God just once, one little, tiny bit, you have disobeyed Him in all.

Command and control is the opposite of God's order, the opposite of the body of Christ.

All present human government operates under the full spectrum of command and control. It is the curse spoken by God, the certain outcome of drawing one's heart and mind away from Christ our life to a false self.

But here I do not want to speak of the Beast in the world, but of the other lamb in the church. And yes, science and technology does come into the human experience out of that other lamb. That's why science blesses and curses at the same time. That's why the same technologies that do so much good also do so much evil.

Suddenly, I am beginning to see the story of the scroll sealed with seven seals, the opening of those seals, and the seal of God upon His own, from Revelation 5:1 through 8:1 in a clearer light, though not all the way clear yet. The guy on the white horse in Revelation 6:2 sure looks like Christ, the problem is, he doesn't feel like Christ and that which follows certainly is not that which flows out of Christ.

Command and control is the opposite of God's order, the opposite of the body of Christ.

Yet calling the guy on the white horse a coming “Antichrist,” that is, some future world dictator, does not describe any form of reality in the church.

Here is what we see. The Nicene Christ was established by imperial law in AD 325 (It was the Beast who commanded all to regard the Nicene Christ only, and actually killed those who would not). By AD 385 the first Christian was killed by other Christians (peace taken from the earth). That was the same year Jerome began his translation of the Bible into Latin, and the same year that Augustine began to write The City of God.

There are two definitions of Christ, two images of Christ, two lambs all the way down through church history. The problem is not antichrist, but Christ falsely defined. Almost all of Christianity regards the other lamb. Now, I wrote about the seals in my letter, “Overcome.” Yet, reading back, I don't see anything to change. We are walking up a path upon which we have never trod. Everything looks different to us every few feet up that path. Truth does not change, but our seeing does.

The guy on the white horse is not the antichrist, but Christ far above, Christ far away, Christ coming only some day, the Christ as most of Christianity has defined Him to be, and that image is, in the end, anti-Christ.

The chief characteristic of this Christ, this other lamb, is that He is far separate from the earth, far separate from our lowly, fleshy, sinful lives right now. The testimony of the church for 1900 years is that Christ Jesus is absent from the earth, and that He has appointed certain powers in church and state to take His place. Read the reasoning underneath the role of the pope in the church. I will bring in a most clear example here.

This is excerpts from a recent article, “Benedict the Brave,” by Judge Andrew Napolitano found at the following link. I highly respect Judge Napolitano as a political thinker and would never make light of his religious understanding. I do not quote him to call him “wrong,” but simply to clarify the thinking of so many. Jesus does what He wills with His own, and He asks no man's pleasure. He asks only that we receive all who call themselves by His name in just the same way that He receives us. The article refers to the recent resignation of Pope Benedict.

http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano88.1.html

When Jesus established the papacy, the gospels report that he told St. Peter: "Amen I say to you: You are Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." These words are emblazoned in Latin across the front of St. Peter’s Basilica... But the Petrine ministry is more than work. And being Papa Petrus is not a job; it is a calling in which a man has been chosen by the direct descendants of the 12 apostles as agents of God to be the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

When Benedict was elected to the papacy in 2005, I wept with joy that such a faithful custodian of the Church’s teachings and traditions and such a worthy bridge to Christ in heaven had been chosen by the cardinals... The Holy Spirit must have recognized all of this, as well, as He sent us Pope John Paul II, the rock star, to blaze a path where no pope had gone before – touching millions of youths with language they understood – and then He sent us Pope Benedict XVI, the lion of orthodoxy, to lay down the intellectual mechanisms for travels along that path. The path is the bridge to heaven. The way to travel upon it is personal sanctity. The first traveler is the Holy Father.

But some, like Benedict, are called to more than just personal sanctity. Benedict was called to carry a cross of personal sacrifice, as well... The essence of Jesus’s suffering was His decision to eschew the exercise of power and submit to His Father’s will... When Benedict decided that the mystical body of Christ needed another bridge to heaven, he, too, gave up power and glory that he, too, could easily have exercised and retained. He, too, searched his conscience in a supreme effort to elevate submission to divine will above personal preference.

Such a quiet, personal, Christ-like submission of the will is not the essence of a rock star; it is the essence of a Rock. Human salvation has been advanced immeasurably because the Church had both popes at its helm – each to complement the other in ways we could not have imagined.

~~~

Now, before anyone cries foul against the Pope, we must understand that the same reasoning underneath this view of the Pope is underneath almost all Christian view of Christ.

Right now, at this moment, Christ is absent from the earth. In His absence, He has assigned certain individuals to take His place in our lives. You can call them Popes or pastors, bishops or apostles, priests or elders, it makes no difference; we define all of them by the absence of Christ.

Everyone who speaks of the soon return of the Lord Jesus, His coming, define that Christ as one who is presently absent. As Preston Eby teaches so clearly in Looking for His Appearing, that is not how the writers of the New Testament understood the words they used to speak of His appearing. They never saw Him as absent.

I was taught that the elders and apostles in the church stood in the place of Christ towards me and that their role in my life was to help me not follow my own wicked heart as it attempted to take me away from obedience to Christ. Thus I was required to submit to the elders and apostles as a whole as unto Christ if I desired to connect with the salvation of God being revealed in the earth.

This is no different from any Christian thought, any church thought, that Christ is absent from the earth in the present moment and that he is represented in authority by His appointed substitutes.

And from this same view and reasoning, the absent Christ has also given a measure of His authority to kings, to presidents, to human governments. They rule in the earth “by divine right,” (and not by the prince of this world).

And thus, this absent Christ rules by power over, a top-down hierarchy of command and control. “Know your place.” A sister wrote to me that her pastor recently told her that “by rebelling against my covering you have exposed yourself to demonic activity.”

“Do what I say or demons will get you.” This is not the Lamb of God, it is the other lamb. Jesus lives in their hearts, yes, they just don't know it.

A brother wrote to me recently for my perspective on how to reply to a brother who sent him the following note:

Jesus was crucified Wednesday mid week; rose after 3 full days and full nights on Sunday... He breathed the Holy Spirit upon His disciples and ascended into heaven that Sunday evening taking Satan captive. He again appears to the disciples on various occasions until His final departure to heaven when He promises the Power of the Holy Spirit. The thousand years is not an exact 1000 years; it is metaphorical, representing a long extended period of time. Satan is in heaven condemning the Saints before God. He will be cast down to earth for a short time and earth's woes really begin. Jesus will return, the great Resurrection will take place of the Wheat and the Tares...

Here is my reply:

First, much of what he says are true facts held by him as knowledge. He obtains no life from them, but rather, uses them as debate points. The primary thing missing is the mystery of the gospel, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Now, when I read your article, I see a true heart desire to know the Lord Jesus as He is in you. When I read this brother's words, I do not see such a thing. That desire may be there in his heart underneath of knowledge, but it is not the guide of his words.

As you well know, to most of our brethren, correct knowledge is everything, knowing Jesus as life inside is peripheral. "Jesus lives in my heart," is, for most, a cute Sunday School saying.

Although some of his facts may be "correct," yet they are seen out from a perspective that causes both the "not correct" stuff and the skewed understanding of the true facts. You see, facts are facts, but how we interpret them, where they fit in our scheme of things, is entirely dependent on what overall theory we apply. Because of that, discussing facts against facts is a waste of time, because you are speaking out from utterly conflicted theories.

Some might say, "Well, if God isn't speaking to the brother, then there's nothing you can say that would penetrate into his heart." And that can often be true. The problem with that "Calvinist" viewpoint, though, is that God is in you, in your words. God does move in power as you expect Him to, the Holy Spirit will attend your words. Yet allow them to move out from His seeing.

In one sense, theory gives answer to three specifics: motive, means, and opportunity. I realize I'm mixing science with jurisprudence, but it works. In fact, I like this. I will develop this further in later writing.

This brother's theory is 100% Augustinian, though he does not know that. In Augustinian theory, God's motive is to rescue a bunch of unworthy sinners and take them to an undeserved future in heaven in order to re-populate His heavenly city with worshipers. The means is something back then, someone up there, and something some day. Do you see how absent the Lord Jesus is from His body by this brother's facts? And the opportunity has two parts: 1. subscribe to correct doctrine and 2. attend the right church (be under the right authority structure).

Here is the theory that I teach.

Motive: God desires to be seen and known and touched by His creation through man, His image, through a company of sons, just like Jesus, the express image of the Father. Motive is the first part of theory, and thus, Romans 8:29 must be the most important verse in the Bible.

Means: A seed planted in the earth. Now, I kept that short, but it is very large - it contains all that Christ is. When we say "seed," we mean the metaphor of both kinds of seed, plant seed and human seed. The metaphor of a seed is what the entire Bible is written around from Genesis to Revelation. Every fact in the Bible appears in a different light and fits in a different place by that metaphor. In contrast, the "back then, up there, someday" means of Nicene Christianity creates disjointed events and occurrences, evident in the brother's layout of facts.

Opportunity: In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. You know, that says it all. All that is Salvation carries all that we are and all that is Salvation fills us as our very life – Christ Jesus, our only life. We could go on endlessly.

The problem is that these two theories are mutually exclusive. No part of one can be found in the other. Yet they each gather into themselves the same facts. That's why most believers, coming across my writing, no matter how they might be drawn to particulars, facts they recognize, yet they end up bouncing off. There is no way they can buy into the theory I teach without letting go of all their Nicene theory. It requires a total transfer.

And that's why so much of what I write is an open and clearly defined assault against the Nicene theory. The facts will easily find their rightful place whenever a heart is truly won to Christ and to life.

So, let's look at the brother's facts. The narrative of the gospel places Jesus' death on Friday, not Wednesday. Jesus' words, "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," force some zealous souls to say, "No, He had to be crucified on Wednesday, and since I believe "correct" doctrine, I have the opportunity to progress." But Jesus spoke a Spirit Word out of God's all-pervasive metaphor of a seed planted in the earth. Yes, for three thousand years, Jesus in Person is planted in the earth of humanity to bring forth all the purposes of God as us and through us.

Then, the layout of Jesus' victory over Satan – you see how it is a series of disconnected events with no reference to a seed that must be planted. We can say, "Satan is fully defeated," AND "Satan will be fully defeated," both at the same time without contradiction. It is the same thing as holding one bean seed in one hand and many bean seeds in the other. This one seed was planted in the earth, it birthed a plant, out of which came these many seeds, just like the original one. The one defeating the accuser becomes the many defeating the accuser. In the brother's disjointed arrangement of facts, there is no place for the many coming forth as the one seed that birthed them.

And the someday coming of Christ as an event taking place apart from this brother requires that he be among those who weep in shame. Christ in us is our only hope of glory. Those who see Him outside of themselves weep. The false means of Nicene Christianity results in missed opportunity. That the life of Jesus also might be apocalypsed in our mortal flesh.

Opportunity requires bodies of weakness. When the bodies of weakness are no more, the opportunity ceases. Wow, this is a great way to explain things!

~~~

As I said, the unveiling of Jesus Christ is a path yet untrod. It is very much in my heart to share with you the path up which I am being led, thus I include my progression of thought. But I tell you what! I am excited about developing more fully this conflict between two theories of the gospel, the battle of the lambs.

The Lamb of God is never absent from the earth. He is here now in all ways in all fulness, walking this earth in His body, as us. This is the mystery, the secret, and when He is unveiled, He will catch all of His enemies utterly unawares. But that's coming up in “The Battle.” When I write six articles at the same time, I have to be sure I put things in the right letter.

This letter is about the other lamb. Both lambs are found in a church. In fact, we can understand the other lamb as we go back and forth between him and his church. Let's attempt to define both, though we will investigate the other lamb's woman in a later article.

Let's re-iterate the theory of Nicene Christianity; we are describing the Nicene Christ. All of this takes place inside of separation; all of it comes out of the tree of knowledge.

Motive: God's motive is to rescue a bunch of unworthy sinners and take them to an undeserved future in heaven in order to re-populate His heavenly city with worshipers.

Inside this motive, image, then, has become thus: since God is a self-conscious Person, so we are self-conscious persons, higher than the animals. As Aquinas said, “Hence it is according to his intelligence and reason that man is said to be according to the image of God.” In other words, we are the image of God because we eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, because we are independent and isolated persons.

Inside the woman, the response to this motive is the telling of a very different story. It requires the creation of eternal torment, an idea not found in the first two hundred years of Christian thinking. It requires the creation of a far-away heaven as our eternal “home,” where we will float in bliss forever. Oh how the story was twisted by the Nicene Christ. I must write more on it than the space in this letter allows.

Means: The means is something back then, someone up there, and something some day.

God accomplishes His purposes in the earth by sending God the Son into something abnormal for God, a momentary clothing of human flesh, in which Jesus was punished for sin, that is, God the Father unleashed all of His hatred and anger for sin against God the Son. This Jesus is now far away from man, far away from this earth, looking down from afar, yes, but also begging God not to punish us. Someday, far in the future, this same Jesus will come back to earth to punish all sinners, that is, all those who failed to take advantage of the opportunity. He will also reward those who did correctly take advantage of the opportunity.

Inside the woman, then, the response to this means of God is, to put it quite bluntly, idolatry. She “deifies” this far-away “savior.” That is, she puts him high on a pedestal in her imagination and grovels before him. She turns the apostles into demigods and the Bible into magic. She worships the saints. She worships the crucifix. She wails over the passion of the Christ. And I am not just speaking of Catholics. Deifying the King James Version of the Bible is identical to any Catholic worship of saints. Deifying the modern nation of Israel is the same, as is pledging allegiance to flags and killing people for Jesus, that is, praying for the troops.

You see, the evangelical, the charismatic, and the deeper truth church has approached the true life of Christ, yes. But they allow the present salvation of Jesus to find its place ONLY inside a Nicene Christ; they define everything by the same definitions as the Catholics. Even many who teach union see union as with a Nicene Christ.

Opportunity: The opportunity has two parts: 1. subscribe to correct doctrine and 2. attend the right church (be under the right authority structure).

These two things often go hand in hand. To the Catholics, correct doctrine is to mouth agreement with the Pope, and to partake of the Sacraments. At the same time, being under the “covering” of the priest who administers the Sacraments is essential. Yet Protestant opportunity is only different in appearance, not in substance. For most evangelicals, correct doctrine IS the Nicene Creed. “Be sure to go to church” is also essential.

And it is true, if you differ from the Nicene Creed on any point, you are considered lost by most Christians I know, no matter how much you think you trust in Jesus.

In the woman opportunity always takes the form of human works, of human righteousness, of man walking the path of atonement himself. In the move of God, it was “perfect obedience,” the same old same old. At the same time, the terrible threat of “the life of Jesus manifest in our mortal flesh” must be eliminated. Thus the flesh is turned into the enemy, utterly evil and down-pulling.

Part of Nicolaitan is the sharp division between ministry and laity, victory over the laity. The ministry have an in with God, the laity are utterly fleshy and under the control of Christ ONLY by obeying the ministry in all things. This attitude is actually more pronounced in deeper truth circles than anywhere besides Catholicism. I see now that there were a number of things in the move, the fellowship I was a part of for many years, that were a return to Catholicism and not to Christ, things which short-circuited the wonderful teaching of Christ in us, things that won out in the end over “see Christ in your brother.” We saw the flesh instead, the flesh as the enemy.
You see, the evangelical, the charismatic, and the deeper truth church has approached the true life of Christ, yes. But they allow the present salvation of Jesus to find its place ONLY inside a Nicene Christ; they define everything by the same definitions as the Catholics. Even many who teach union see union as with a Nicene Christ.

I heard the Nicene Christ proclaimed at church just a few weeks ago. “Jesus IS coming back.” And through those words came the iron of savage separation. It is the battle of the lambs. All of the facts of the Bible and of the gospel are found in both lambs. (Except that the Nicene lamb will not touch the two most important verses of the Bible and utterly limits and waters down the other seven.) Yet all the facts of the Bible and of the gospel are arranged in an entirely different order from one Lamb to the Other.

You see, here is the problem in full. No one believes that we are the body of Christ.

Everyone has been fooled by the Master Military Strategist of the universe. He has a purpose up His sleeve, a purpose more wonderful and glorious than we can imagine.

God is filled with hope; we are His hope.

Three Assertions - by John Stevens

Some interesting things have been happening to John Stevens over the years since Christine and I met him at Exeter University. Not least various events last year. I've been trying to get his thoughts onto here for a while. Here they are: that Christianity has split into schisms,but that all is not lost...but in fact if anything finding itself again, that there is a state best functionally described as evangelical atheism , and that Christianity isn't so much about being saved from....but saved in order to....


The three assertions
1. It’s difficult to lose things
2. Evangelical atheism is alive and well
3. The aim of Christianity is not so much to populate heaven but to populate the earth with the sons of God

Roughly translated number one is concerned with unexpectedly stumbling across hidden treasure; number two is to do with real spirituality replacing false notions of doctrine; and number three? Number three almost speaks for itself.

It’s difficult to lose things.

Jesus said ‘for nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to the light’.


I love these ‘Confucious says’ type aphorisms. My hunch is that they express universal spiritual truth that is blindingly obvious to anyone with an ear to hear and that Jesus applied these truths to the many contexts that he was immersed in. It cuts both ways. On the one hand the hidden (evil) leaven of the Pharisees would eventually come to light in the grotesque manner in which they rid themselves of that inconvenient and dangerous Jewish upstart, Jesus, and on the other hand the gospel - a minority pursuit in 1st Century Israel would also come to light and transform the lives of countless individuals and civilisations.

The truth is that I often lose things temporarily quite often. After the blissful ignorance of the loss is shattered frustration and frantic searching set in and threaten to overwhelm me as I search desperately for my keys, or my diary, or...well it’s usually my keys or diary. It doesn’t take long before I find my whole being is pouring out prayers to God to help me find ‘it’ ‘after all Lord, You know where it is and, by the way, I’m sorry for being a clot – again. Have mercy...please’. In direct proportion to the anguish and reminder of personal weakness is the sheer joy on finding the lost item. Smiles, sometimes tears, certainly woops, and probably impromptu dancing all tumble out and life it seems can begin again.

In 1054 the church finally split in what has been known as The Great Schism. Jerusalem had long been replaced by three great centres of Christian leadership; Alexandria (in the West), Rome (in the middle), and Constantinople (representing the east). The great split – which some say would have occurred anyway due the increasingly different geographies, language, political persuasions and cultures at play – divided the church into two halves; Alexandria and Rome in the Catholic west and Constantinople in the Orthodox East.

So deep has this schism been that each ‘church’ has, over time, developed its theology in different directions. My assertion is that some of the good news landed up in the East and some in the West and there has been a mutual sense of loss. But Jesus said there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed – and I believe Him. Perhaps our blissful state of ignorance of what we’ve lost is about to experience a jolt?

One of the criticisms of the East of the West is that the Western version of Christianity – meaning, at the time, the Bishops who looked to Rome - bases its theology largely on reason and thus exalted the mind above the heart. Symptomatic of this approach, says the East, is the appeal to Greek philosophy and in particular the philosopher Aristotle 384 BC – 322 BC.

Thomas Aquinas 1225–1274AD lived near Rome at the time when Aristotelean literature became freely available in Latin. Aquinas’ influence on western civilization cannot be underestimated. He was known as a teacher and philosopher and – despite the overthrow of the Aristotlean geocentric universe in the 16th Century - Pope Benedict XV 1854 – 1922 declared that ‘The Church has declared Thomas' doctrines to be her own’ and to this day they are used in the preparation of the Catholic priesthood. Fifty years after his death he was canonized as St Thomas Aquinas.

Aquinas developed much of his theology from St Augustine of Hippo. The Orthodox Church, for example, has a high regard for St Augustine of Hippo (354–430AD) as does the western Catholic and Protestant church. St Augustine is considered by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint and a great theologian; in the East he is considered to be a saint but not a theologian!

A theologian in the east is someone who demonstrably ‘knows God’ through direct spiritual experience and engagement with the divine – called ‘theoria’ - whilst in the west a theologian’s personal experience of God is not considered to be important at all, simply his or her ability to make sense of spiritual and biblical interpretation.

You’ll search in vain, for example, for an Eastern Orthodox commentary on Romans that explains salvation in terms of a forensic courtroom scene between
God the righteous judge and the guilty sinner in the dock awaiting the intervention of Christ to take His punishment so that the judge can pronounce the verdict ‘Not guilty. Justified and acquitted’.

In the West the emphasis to explain salvation is to ask ‘saved from what?’, in the East it is far more ‘saved for what?’.

Late in Thomas Aquinas’ life he had a direct experience of God. He said the effect of this experience was for him to realise that all his work had been like ‘straw’ alluding to 1 Cor3v12,13 ‘if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become manifest for the Day will declare it, it will be revealed by fire’. As a consequence Aquinas dedicated the final two years of his life to the reconciliation between East and West but died two months before he had a chance to attend the Council called in May 1274 to attempt this reconciliation.

Watchman Nee (Normal Christian Life p150f)

speaks of one of the consequences of Adam eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil as leaving man inheriting an ‘over developed soul’. So fallen man is left to attempt to live a life from the soul rather than, as has been made possible through Christ, from the life of His Son. (Chris has written fairly extensively about the in-built deception in this soul-living as if man can live without spiritual power and how fallen man, in fact, ‘walks according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience’ Eph 2 v 2)

James A Fowler (http://www.christinyou.net/pages/3divineonenesses.html) has written an extensive examination of Christ in us and Christ as us in the light of the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘Theosis’; otherwise translated as ‘divinisation’ or ‘deification’. His article will go far further than this little jab or provocation to realise that what perhaps was lost in the great schism cannot be lost forever.

God regularly allows us in our fallibility to lose things. There is something deeply human and therefore deeply divine in the joy of finding the lost. It is beyond emotion. It contradicts systematic searching – often a waste of time – and, like running out of petrol, it is often when we have spent the last drops of our own will that the wretched and beautiful lost object reveals itself. If God is opening our eyes to see what has been hidden by western theologians (and here I include Catholic and Protestant together) let it be. God will do what Aquinas could do not.

Theosis directs our attention to seeing ourselves as a living temple in whom God lives; and as Jesus Christ was 100% human and 100% God so, in Christ, God has come to dwell in us. To say more is to drift from the point of assertion one that God will bring to light all that is hidden. It’s the way things are.

ps If you are after a shorter version of James A Fowler’s article maybe start with the October 2008 Christianity Today article ‘Keeping the End in View’ by James R. Payton Jr. To quote: ‘Orthodox understanding of theosis reminds us that salvation is less about what we get than about what God gets. It is about his purposes being accomplished in us’


Evangelical Atheism

The strangest things can become quite appealing. This is one. I’m using the word ‘evangelical’ not to describe unemotional, grey suited, black-bibled church goers. Nor am I restricting the definition to those who believe in the infallibility of scripture or, indeed, ‘sola scripture’. Contained in those five syllables are those who are rejoicing in Christ and the salvation he has procured for them through His death and resurrection. You’re the guilty one and God has had mercy on you and declared you acquitted and justified. The charges levelled at you have been dropped; nailed to the cross in fact. Christ has taken the punishment you deserved and you are free to go. And this is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I can barely sing the following verses without falling apart at the seams:


And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's blood!
Died he for me? who caused his pain!
For me? who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?


No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine;
alive in him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
bold I approach the eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.

But, good as this is, this is also where the deepest trouble begins. This forgiven sinner, free to exit the courtroom, declared an innocent and justified man, is forgiven but not changed. If that is all that Christianity is then we are right to use language like ‘forgiven sinners’ for that is what we are. Many have lived lives so transformed by this wonderful salvation that maybe this is what it’s all about. In gratitude for this amazing love the forgiven sinner amends his ways and sets about life with new determination to do x, y, z. But this is a form of atheism. Not atheism in a philosophical sense declaring that there is no God, but living a life, full of thanks to God for salvation but now left with the human task to ‘work out his salvation with fear and trembling ‘.

There may well be teaching given to enable the believer to see that he has received the free gift of righteousness and or eternal life. But essentially the ministry of the church is complete, the gospel has been preached and the sinner has believed, has received the grace of God and all is well. But all is not well because God is a wind, He’s an oil, He’s Spirit, He’s alive. He cannot be detached from His righteousness, or His eternal life, or His holiness.

The evangelical atheist is a believer who has never drunk of the Spirit, never realised that the widow’s pot is to be filled with oil, or that the cross and resurrection has led to some fundamental change for the believer. No longer a slave to sin but a son. No longer a sinner in Adam but a new creation in Christ. And if a son then an heir a co-heir of...let’s leave that for a moment...but a co-heir with Christ.

Through Christ dying for us we receive the contents of the Will and Testament, the New Covenant, we have become co-heirs with Christ. What do we receive? What’s in the Will?

‘The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of GOD and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him together’ Rom 8 v 16,17.

We receive God Himself. We really do. This is what is taught in the Eastern Orthodox Church under the banner of ‘theosis’ hence the emphasis on experience rather than analysis and comprehension.

Is this right brain v left brain? Both are good but those of us in the west must realise that our discomfort (i.e. rumbling that rationality is insufficient in spiritual matters) is divine and that we need all that is in Christ not just the ‘western portion of Him’ if you can forgive that crude description.

And this goes for Pentecostal, Charismatic believers who now have the Holy Spirit poured into a cup that still hasn’t been fundamentally changed. Maybe you’ve had a baptism in the Holy Spirit experience and you speak in tongues. That is wonderful. Maybe your life is forever changed and you have a greater expectation of God doing all manner of amazing things. And that is good. But deep down, under the robes of righteousness, you’re still wondering whether anything has really changed or whether underneath it all there is still a ‘forgiven sinner’ i.e a sinner who has been ‘covered’ with the blood of the Lamb but only to ‘hide’ the sinner. There has been no real change. This thought is there and you battle with it. On Monday you think it’s from the devil and so you ignore it. On Tuesday you think it’s gone and you get a fresh filling anyway so the thought recedes. But on Wednesday it’s back and you’re questioning your sanity and you suppress the thought. (If this is you, by the way, God loves you – you know that. Understand that the question is not entirely from ‘you’ as if you are independent from God. The question has come from deep down and the fact that you’re asking it is an indication that the Holy Spirit is leading you into the truth as Jesus said he would. Be encouraged!).

And this also applies to ‘Christ in you as you’ believers. The thing is not only that we rejoice in all that Christ has done but that we live in the now experience of the grace of God, the continual outpouring of His grace to us, through us, and as us in the world.

Galatians 2 v 20 is familiar territory but it goes on to say ‘and I do not set aside the grace of God’. We may know we have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me’ but, in reality, shut the door. All the while God is encouraging us – who have read the manual and understood it – ‘come on My son, you can do it, walk in My Spirit, see I am pouring out my grace on you today just as I did with Jesus. Listen to Him. ‘I do nothing of Myself’. He knew that before He did His first miracle. He did this every day. Now it’s your turn.’

Let me tell you I struggle with this. I am as forgetful with spiritual things as with material things. I look at my bank account and I think that is the amount of money I have and forget that it’s not mine. I teach Chemistry and the Laws of Physics knowing but forgetting the greater reality that enabled Jesus to walk on the water. I make plans in my head and ignore the small voice saying ‘phone Louise’. And then I remember that God is not there to answer my prayers but to teach me to live like Jesus, as Jesus in this world and everything changes. My heart is open and I know that glory and suffering are my meat and drink. I’m walking in the Spirit.


Populating the earth

God, perhaps to our surprise, is very keen on reproduction. It’s programmed into our DNA literally and, if you want to keep soul and nucleic acids apart, our psyche. But the real truth ultimately is spiritual in nature and to do with abundance and life. Fruitfulness is written into the fabric of biblical revelation from Genesis to Revelation. It starts with man eating fruit and ends with the same: ‘the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month’ Rev 22v2.

Jesus said ‘Most assuredly I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone but if it dies it produces much grain’ John 12v 23.

This perspective on the purpose of His own death takes us beyond understanding the crucifixion as solely a substitutionary or representative death. Here, the clues scattered about scripture and under our own noses, find their fulfilment in Christ.

Place one apple seed in the ground.
The seed has to die. If you hadn’t thought about it the seed contains the nutrients for the new plant to get its initial food as it grows under the ground making its way inevitably to the surface. The seed that is placed in the ground is not dead. It may look dead but it is – in homage to Monty Python – dormant! It is resting. Whilst it’s in the ground it is alive but in its dying and eventual death it brings forth new life. And that life is genetically identical to the life in the seed.

How does this translate to Christ and us? Jesus the seed dies on the cross and the life of Jesus is reproduced in us. Just as the life of the new apple tree is derived entirely from the life contained in the tree so us. We are a new apple tree and our life is the life of the Son. This is great. God has achieved His eternal purpose in Christ to bring forth sons; a race of men united with His Son whose life is the life of the Son. But perhaps there’s something more?

Commenting on the Parable of the Tares Jesus says: ‘He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one, the enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is at the end of the age and the reapers are the angels’ Matt 13v36.

The picture here is of the sons of God being sown into the earth. Just like Jesus. Seeds are sown under the soil so we can look again at John 12 - with a twist. Jesus’ whole life was a form of dying. His death on the cross was the finality of that death and the guarantee of the resurrection as with a normal seed. The same is true for us. It is true that God has made us His sons in Christ. And this is wonderful. But it is with this dual purpose for suffering and for glory; the one contingent upon the other. We have the same DNA as Jesus – I speak metaphorically of course.

If we grasp this we can read 2 Corinthians in particular with a few Amens. I could quote many verses in 2Corinthians that deal with this but two are sufficient to turn everything upside down:

‘...we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death to death, and to the other the aroma of life to life ‘ 2v15,16.

Many commentators assume that Paul inverted the order; death to death for the unsaved and life to life for the saved, but not so. Paul’s perspective throughout 2Corinthians is ‘dying’ that others – those being saved - may have life.

He continues:

‘we are...always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body...so then death is working in us but life in you’ 2Cor4v10,12.

If we see salvation mostly in terms of a substitutionary sacrifice we will be full of gratefulness but left with some bothersome questions about sanctification and discipleship. We will be plagued with the thought that the ‘old man’ is still alive and kicking and needing improvement which becomes for us a life-long and hopeless pursuit of sanctification and holiness. We will be waiting to go to heaven where at last all the rubbish will have finally dealt with and we have finally escaped and be home with the Lord. We may have various experiences of God including baptisms of the Holy Spirit but questions remain.

If we realise that we were included in the crucifixion and are now found in Christ as a new creation, a ‘son of God’, part of a new race in Christ we are rejoicing that Christ not only forgave our sins but dealt with our sin by our crucifixion with Christ then we see Christianity differently: as an exchanged life. The life of the Son is now our life. We walk in this world as a copy of Jesus Christ; a living temple with God in the temple. We become partakers of the divine nature. We don’t become God but God makes us His sons and lives in us. Our experience of God tallies with our theology.

Now we understand that God’s purpose is not simply to populate heaven but to sow His sons now in this age in the Earth. We who share in His life now live as Him. We now are grains of wheat. And one way or another we experience death; ‘the dying of the Lord Jesus’ as Paul puts it.

Like Jesus we don’t go looking for suffering, neither do we embrace it cheerfully. Remember Jesus’ anguish as He prayed great drops of blood ‘if it is possible take this cup away from Me. Nevertheless...’. Paul equally writes: ‘for we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of our trouble in Asia that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life...that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead...’.

Isaiah 53 prophesied of Jesus that he would pour Himself unto death. Paul said echoed this in two places:
‘I am being poured out as a drink offering’ (Philippians 2:17)
‘I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand..’ (2 Timothy 4:6

In conclusion

I’ve tried to capture the process going on in me.

Assertion One: revelation, greater understanding
Assertion Two: a calling to true spirituality
Assertion Three: ‘ooo-er’.