I am not divided. There is not one part of me that "must come under" another part of me. I am whole and complete. I don't even see my spirit as being "greater" than my body. Both are just vehicles through which the living Christ in me expresses Himself outwardly, one to heaven, one to earth. My heart I share with God, my mind is the mind of Christ, I do not walk in the flesh, I walk in the Spirit, everything inside of me is brand new - all those things are what God says.
When I used to be bothered by the dark teaching that there are opposing forces inside of what is me, I was, indeed bothered - all the time. Having committed myself only to what God says about me, I am now at complete rest in who and what I am. I am whole and complete. Yes, my mind doesn't think right, but that is not a "life" that is, rather, a computer program problem that is fixed by changing the way I think. There is no "soul life" or "soul power," my soul is just me, "Hi, my name is Daniel."
I am convinced that the Son of God is a human being, whole and complete - God revealed. We have never reckoned with who and what we are, what this living soul is, created in the image and likeness of God. We are not animals, we are not angels, we are not of Adam, we have no descent from him. We are born from above and God's seed inside of us is whole, it is also literal. This is, we are literally, not metaphorically, born of God and that revelation of God shows itself in the earth as much as in heaven. I speak as a simple man because that is what I am. But who and what a simple man is is far more radical than we have ever considered.
Beyond being unable to find separation inside myself, I cannot see separation between heaven and earth, flesh and spirit, either. They are two sides of the same thing. I find myself unable to say, "My identity is spirit," for that is a word that makes me a divided person, as if my physical body is not also Christ, as Paul says it is in 1 Cor. 6. My identity is Christ who is God revealed in both spirit and flesh, in both heaven and earth.
We have never reckoned with who and what we are, what this living soul is, created in the image and likeness of God.
Having changed my definition of "the flesh," from "evil" to "the place Christ is revealed" I am amazed at how differently all of the New Testament references to the "sarx" now read. For instance, when Jesus said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit," I used to read it as a dividing line between God and evil, now I see nothing of the sort and cannot comprehend the minds of those who still read it that way. Jesus was simply providing an allegory to show that just like something happens in the earth, so the same thing takes place in the heavens. Just as a natural birth happens, so, in the exact same why, a divine birth happens.The more God reveals the revelation of Jesus Christ to me, the further I find myself from all sorts of Christian talk. They just make no sense to me, even though, mentally, I know what they mean.
I have spent a lot of time looking back at Adam in the garden, and that is the Lord, for us to understand that. But I'm seeing a real need to break entirely from Adam, what he did or didn't do, and his descendants. My neighbors are descended from Adam, I am not. Yes, there was somebody who used to go by my name, who was descended from Adam, but that person died. I come out of God, I come straight out of His loins. God sent me into this world for the sake of His people. He placed me out from Himself under the vanity of this present creation, just as He did with Jesus, for a purpose. I am not here by fault, I am here for redemption.
Now, here's the interesting thing. You mention, Chris, "the division in the Body between "It's done" and "it's a process".(Steve McVey has just written an editorial for a new book). I have written these paragraphs out of "It's done." Yet, in recent letters, I have written about a "process." Or is this really from whence I am writing. Maybe not. Maybe the Apostle John was right, maybe we just do not know who we are and we just do not know why we are really on this earth. Maybe we are just like Jesus, and maybe, just like Jesus, we are here, going through what seems to be "a process" for the sake of others. Maybe, when we see Him as He really is, we'll discover that all along, we really were just like Him, sent out by God from out of His bosom under the vanity of this world that we might reveal to all creation the loving, carrying, becoming, tender, arising nature of our Father.
I do know this, I will not divide myself; I am whole. And I don't read people who teach division either, or any form of separation. Yes, I am many parts, my body has many organs, my soul has three parts, or is it four, and my spirit has many organs. All of those parts have varying functions, yet all are one me, whole and complete and filled with Christ as the revelation of God.
Changing the way we think about everything is a pretty big deal. But even that process God is taking us through for the sake of His body. What He does in us, He is doing it that He might then do the same thing in many. In other words, any "process" we are in is just an integral part of "it is finished."
I apologize for getting carried away, here. I tend to do that.
.....................Now I understand. When I wrote The Jesus Secret, I believed that I had found the key to the process, that seeing the finished work as who we really are before God is the way our change will come. Now I see the opposite. Our finished state in the bosom of God is the only thing that's real. The "process" we are walking through is how God reveals Himself to both heaven and earth.
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