Manariwa

Richard Feynman, the noted theoretical physicist, relates his personal insights into the Manhattan Project on YouTube and how the group tasked with the job of creating an atomic bomb made crucial decisions. Each scientist, engineer and military officer involved was given a chance to give suggestions and the chairman chose the most efficient and feasible plan – the one presented by physicist Robert Oppenheimer. Thus, even without an explicit consensus, the group accepted the chairman’s decision.

Quite an impressive way to make a decision, considering the highly-technical nature of the project and the fact that most of them were equally capable geniuses in their own rights. The urgent need to beat the Germans in the race to make the first atomic bomb prevented them from letting any academic or speculative issues sabotage their goal. Which is not something we can say about many people nowadays, whether in government, politics, business and religion, although they all know the conditions today are no better and that Satan is way, way ahead in his own plans to destroy the world with his war of attrition against humanity.

Yes, time is running out and people, particularly followers of Christ, are nowhere near a consensus as to the real intent of the Lord — the “Chairman” — Who handed down the Manual, in the first place. People keep squabbling over who has the right message to bring to the whole world. Yes, the Allies won the Second World War; but it seems the Divine Arbiter may lose more than He can save in spite of the fact that He is sure to win the War-That-Will-End-All-Wars. What happened? Would a less-capable chairman allow this divisive wrangling to go on and not step in for their own sake?

Of course, we all know the all-wise God sees, knows and controls all things. While people lose control of their urges and defy Him, His Creation and His Kingdom continue to suffer many “violent storms”. For in spite of His disciplinary actions, humans and fallen angels continue to perpetrate their vicious attacks on the poor, innocent and the helpless masses. The blood spilt by wars, conflicts, murders and plagues throughout history would have tinted red all the dry ground on the Earth and, perhaps, even the oceans.

Will it ever stop? Are we aiding the enemy or helping our Maker’s cause? Is His Truth so inaccessible and so difficult to fathom we remain blindsided and see it as a mere flicker in the darkness and not the blinding brilliance of the noonday Sun revealing Truth as it was intended to be? Are we all caught in a helplessly-unending Q&A routine that settles nothing? Or should we plod on and keep seeking a consensus, if not the Covenant written once more in black-and-white that will bind us all to Him as one?

Basing then on the premise of the Gospel of Christ “we all know and read clearly”, we can “all sit around quietly” before the Chairman and hear Him once again lay down the first and final principles by which He meant to undo the works of the enemy and to preserve the lives of those whom He had saved by His great sacrifice. For now, no more suggestions from the gallery can be taken. The patriarchs, prophets, judges, apostles and gospel-writers had been given their time and heard directly by the Spirit of God as to all their possible needs, wants, whims and requests from Heaven. At one time, they wanted and were granted a worldly kingdom; but that has been replaced by a perfect, heavenly Kingdom. They were given abilities to perform signs and wonders to introduce that Kingdom; today, those “childish things” have ceased. (I Cor. 13:8-11)

The demands, in short, have been met and the price paid for all human debts – no, we cannot keep asking because we have received more than we deserve! All we need to do is deliver the bomb that will finally destroy the works of Satan. All is finished and the explosive message, so to speak, has been given. Why wait? We all have it on hand, on paper or in a smartphone. If we do have it in the heart and the spirit, then fly the message in to the target. Yet, the enemy has snipers moving about and ready to ambush and sabotage. Many then carry a message from spurious sources, making it a dud — useless or incomplete.

Here is the situation, as it stood then and now, 2,000 years after:

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (I Cor. 1:20-25)

The whole human history from Cain to Christ can be seen as a long narrative of humans interpreting the primeval instruction of God to Adam and Eve to “subdue the Earth”. However, it can be summarized as: Failed! Why? Because we neglected the wisdom of God. The part wherein Christ came and left us all with a clearer and better Covenant, written with His own blood, is not something we can really be proud of either. It would seem the Earth subdued us all in its clutches! The One Who overcame death for us all awaits until we get our act together before He returns.

The Spirit of God was there during Creation, “hovering over the face of the deep” – that is, contemplating upon the chaotic Pre-Universe – before Yahuwah spoke the Word and put order within a perfect Universe with perfect creatures made in His wisdom and in His image. When sin multiplied, the Spirit essentially departed from people and left them to their own devices until either they turned back to God or God decided to surrender them to Satan.

Is divine justice that harsh? Has He changed His parameters for judgments after having given us a final escape plan? Forgiveness and judgment are two entirely exclusive matters, in the same way that salvation and condemnation are poles apart.

One crucial event marked the return of God’s mercy for humans when Moses faced the Creator. What happened is recounted by Paul in 2 Cor. 3:12-16 where he described how Moses’ face shone and how the light faded gradually after a while. Whereas the empowering of the Spirit of God had been given only to kings, judges and prophets up to that time, God actually talking with a human (God only showed His back to Moses) never happened till that moment.

One dies upon seeing God in person. (Ex. 33:20) But Moses was allowed to stand literally on “new grounds”. His shining face gave people a preview of the glory once shared by Adam and Eve alone, that is, before they connived with the enemy. Yet, God has fulfilled His promise to Eve regarding her “seed” Who would destroy the Destroyer, Satan. (Gen. 3:15) The Seed of Eve did arrive bearing the perfect glory of the Father in body and spirit. He had shared that glory with the Father “from the beginning” and even before all things came into existence. (John 17:5)

Hence, according to Paul, Moses’ glowing face (imaging the Law he received) was fading; whereas Christ’s glory (imaging God’s grace He came to deliver) was unfading. Paul, thus, concluded that the Law could not harness the power from Heaven to bring humans back to the glory humans possessed in the Garden but could only be attained again through Christ, the unfading image of the glory of the Father on the face of the Earth, finally revealed! So, what did Christ do exactly?

He had to leave to regain the glory He had with the Father (I have to go — John 16:5) and promised to send the Holy Spirit to complete the work to regain for humans their lost divine heritage. And this is where we need to fully understand how the Holy Spirit delivers the Organic Faith that was “once for all delivered”. In short, the Holy Spirit today bridges the gap between the fallen human condition and the glorious gift once enjoyed by Adam and Eve, in the same way that He had contemplated upon the chaotic Pre-Universe before the perfect Universe appeared. Until we fully comprehend the work of the Holy Spirit today, we will remain captive to false or incomplete teachings that come from other “fading” or “faded” sources.

One primary criterion will serve us well: How and where can we find that unfading and glorious Truth that will set us free indeed? What is the key to wisdom so perfect, complete and undiminishing or ever-increasing in beauty and glory? Anything less is not worth having at all.   

A Triangle of Truth will help us visualize how God accomplishes His plan for humanity: (a) Creation or Nature, (b) the Written or Revealed Word, and (c) God-Imprinted or God-imaged Human Life. Let us clarify each. (See the diagram below.)

Creation or Nature is the God-given and God-designed environment wherein everything we experience occurs. We are part of it and it is part of our being. Our bodies and organs exist because God made us by His perfect wisdom. Therefore, the Truth or Wisdom of God is clearly manifested in Nature, meaning we can see or read that Truth or Wisdom through Nature. Moreover, that Truth or Wisdom is accessible to humans through the Written Revelation of God, disclosed through the facility of life, intelligence and the senses we also received through Creation. Nevertheless, in the beginning, that Truth was written or imprinted in the human spirit, body and organs. Meaning, with their super-intelligent minds (and photographic memory), Adam and Eve needed no “science” to comprehend Life and Nature. They could speak with animals and discern their being. They could observe the Earth, the Planets, the Moon and the Sun and discern their nature and their effects upon humans and their environment. Neither did they need books or journals to record their thoughts and experiences. They were literal gods.  

It was Enoch, the first scribe, who applied the facility of writing in God’s service. It became necessary as humans had acquired greatly-reduced physical, mental and spiritual abilities in their fallen state. In fact, worship (what we call adoration or praise) took the form of animal and plant sacrifices outside of Eden because humans no longer dwelt or “walked” with God in the Garden. An indirect way of communicating and relating with the “hidden” Creator (worship) had to be given to humans – not invented or discovered, as assumed. (Even the Tabernacle design and offerings later on came from God.) In short, God revealed His wisdom and His deeds through the written word to serve as a record of His dealings with humans and Creation. We cannot take credit for inventing writing or offering animals and other gifts to God – for if eating properly in order to avoid death had to be taught by Him, how much more with trying to seek His favor or grace?

The third part of the Truth-Triangle, God-imprinted Life, refers to the self-autonomous living part (all 3 are living: Word, Nature and, yes, Human Life), because it includes the power of choice, self-will, belief, volition, learning, desire, etc. It is where everything else in the triangle is processed or applied in order to attain what God had planned from the beginning. And what was that? To give birth to free, intelligent God-like beings who will share His life, glory, goodness, power, wealth, freedom, wisdom, joy and love. God, through the Spirit, imprinted His perfect image upon us humans. Any other plan humans propose is not worth a pinch of dust we are all made of. But foolish and presumptuous humans choose to do so to their own detriment.

Favor or grace is so foreign to many people, even if they were already schooled properly as kids in Sunday School. However, Adam and Eve knew it the moment they saw God face-to-face. How greatly disadvantaged we are today! We need then to go back to what we talked about earlier: “looking intently at the Holy Spirit face-to-face”. Happily, this process is no different from what Adam and Eve experienced. All because the Seed did His part to make that possible. John literally saw and touched the glory of Immanuel (God living with humans), along with other people. But God has not left us alone because He gave us the Holy Spirit. The Written Word says so and it still says so. You and I can experience the same grace:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor. 3:15)

So, that leaves us with one leg of the triangle to prove that grace does exist and is the only way given to us today to seek and follow. Specifically, how do we prove that Nature or Creation is one with the Word and with our Life-experiences (what we call “ongoing spiritual history”) of past and present believers to explain the essence of Organic Faith?

We need, first of all, an organic lesson in how the Holy Spirit reveals the Truth to us through the Word and through Creation so that we can fully experience that Truth in its spellbinding force and light with our own spirit, mind, body and life. 

Paul put it this way: The wisdom of God which Christ delivered can only be revealed when we gaze intently at the Holy Spirit, Who, through the Written Word (not the literal word, for it could be in any language but the innate wisdom of the Spirit) reveals unseen or spiritual things. Since we cannot see God Who is spirit, the Holy Spirit lets us look at Nature or material things to “compare” (NKJV) or “combine” (NASB) them with spiritual things (or invisible, heavenly thoughts). (I Cor. 2:13) For example, when Christ wanted to describe the purity of the Kingdom of God (which is spiritual, not material), He used the word “pearl”. The word could be perle in German or margaritari in Greek; but it always connotes the qualities of being precious, pure and beautiful to help us appreciate the invisible Kingdom of God through natural things. Obviously, the ugly and corrupt kingdoms of this world throughout history and even today would never qualify to be that glorious Kingdom of the Son. Many strive to convince us otherwise; but only the blinded in mind and spirit get deceived.

Moreover, Christ used “leaven” and the “one lump of dough” to bring out the progressive and expanding nature of the One Kingdom when the grace and power of God finally established it and spread it over the face of the world. Leaven is patubo in Cebuano and levadura in Spanish. Both contain the idea of growth and increase produced by yeast utilizing sugar and carbohydrates to produce fermentation and changing the chemical and physical characteristics of flour. Bread satisfies and nourishes us, another extended meaning of that parable, to describe our spiritual hunger for the Kingdom, which God fully and abundantly satisfies. Is God talking only about food or of His infinite grace which satisfies the soul and spirit?

These two simple words spoken by Christ and inspired by the Holy Spirit as they were revealed to the gospel writers allow us to enter into the perfect wisdom of God and acquire it for our benefit. Why? Because it whets our appetite for His wonderful gifts and satisfies our need to be in His presence. And yet, these are but two words first used by Christ to introduce the Kingdom. Today, faith has become a Babel of words with no basis in the Triangle of Truth: in the Word, in Nature and in human history. Rather, people invent words to describe false, unspiritual principles and doctrines based on unreal or contrived ideas or fables, such as apparitions, hallucinations, miracles or messages of celestial beings. Beware of later or new “truth” deliveries!

Apart from pearl and yeast, Christ used other created things to introduce the spiritual Kingdom: wheat, tares, trees, birds, wine and sheep. But one encompassing prophetic and spiritual principle He introduced, and which the apostles later on explained, came out of human life-experience: marriage. This Truth and Wisdom He had kept in a mystery and revealed through the Spirit in our times; yet, it remains a clouded concept, tradition or practice for so many people.

Marriage began in the Garden through the physical union of Adam and Eve, who both came from earthly dust and heavenly spirit. When God made them “one flesh”, He merged what came from His divine essence and what He had created by the power of His word: spirit (from His spiritual image) and body (from His material creation). That union of the life and love of Adam and Eve, thus, reproduced the oneness of God’s life and love with Creation and humans. Glory emanated from God unto His Creation. 

Hence, when Christ came to preach the coming Kingdom, He meant to restore that lost Covenant Yahuwah had established with Adam and Eve. The Promised Seed came and began that restoration. Yet, the final fulfillment would only occur when the Bride and the Groom are finally united and presented before the Father in Heaven – the final part of the revealed mystery of our whole existence and that of the Universe. (Eph. 5:25-33)       

The highest spiritual principle then is union, oneness and perfect unity, just as Christ and the Father are One. The spiritual thing and word combined or compared with that spiritual principle (thus, uniting the invisible with the visible) is the marriage or union of man and woman. The intervening period where humans commonly desecrate this institution is, likewise, exhibited in the desecration or disintegration of the Spiritual Body of Christ, hence, also the Covenant of oneness established by God with humans in the beginning. And what God begins will last for Eternity. Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End.    

As Paul pleaded then:

                Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. . . . Is Christ divided? (I Cor. 1:10-13 – Highlighted)

We know the answer to that. We are the organs or the parts of the Spiritual Body of Christ He purchased with His own body and blood. But are we fulfilling the unity of our organic functions with those of other organs in His Body? (1 Cor. 12) Will we be ready to claim our seat at the wedding of the Groom and the Bride and eat the Great Supper prepared there? Or has the food we feed our bodies and organs today made us spiritually-malnourished and unworthy of the glory of the Spirit we supposedly claim to behold? Remember the 5 foolish virgins who ran out of oil for their lamps? They were left in the darkness behind the door, unprepared and unworthy to enter. Go figure the spiritual combination of that one.   

In very simple terms, this is how the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual things and the complete Truth? Any person can attain such knowledge and understanding even without any sophisticated education or above-average intelligence to get the meaning. The Gospel is not so tough to decode into a simple, understandable and unified Organic Faith we can all accept without squabbling. We have wasted so much energy and time being divided.

The Holy Spirit, through Paul, exhorted the disciples to have the same love and same mind by having the mind of Christ, (Phil. 2:2-8, 1 Cor. 2:16) When the firstfruits received the one, simple and unified message of Christ on Pentecost (before it was written on paper but illustrated in Nature and lived in their lives), the Body attained real unity of faith and truth. Their fellowship was a genuine bond of love, peace and giving; and their worship was a common experience of joy, living and sacrifice at all times and in all places. As the Kingdom did grow in number and in spiritual strength then, we must also individually grow from glory to glory until we reach maturity in the faith, unity and love of Christ. (Eph. 4:13)

Today, we find many excuses and rationales for the divisions and differences among believers. There is no sincere and honest desire to seek out the Chairman’s chosen Plan of Action. Imprinting the glory of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, begins with this simple process of combining spiritual things with spiritual words.

Next time, we apply the key more extensively and show how many have concocted improper or fallacious conclusions in their teachings and practices. Divisions today arise from humans inventing false or incomplete keys applied in understanding the Gospel of Christ.