The author now takes another look at his notes with, "Our GOD Identity," so let's see what we may discover with him.
Our GOD Identity:
Revelation 3:4, "'Yet you do have a few [1]individual names in Sardis who have not forgotten their identity and [2]soiled their garments - they are those who walk with Me in [3]innocence and who mirror the reference of their [4]worth to be equal to My estimate of them.'" ( [1]Individual names - see significance of a name in John 1:41, He immediately fetched his own brother Simon, telling him, "We've found the Messiah," which in Greek means, "the Christ." (Aramaic was the spoken language and Greek the academic language in which the NT was written.) John 1:42, When he introduced him to Jesus, he gazed intently at him and said, 'you are Simon the son of Jonah; you will be known as Mr. Rock.' (The Hebrew word (H3123) yona, means dove. The word, (G2564) kaleo, means to surname, to identify by name. Kefas (G2786, compare [H3710]) is the Aramaic for (G4074) Petros, a stone or chip of rock - a chip of the old block! Look also at Matthew 16:13-18, "'Oh my dove [yona], in the clefts of the rock, in the crevice of the cliff, let Me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is comely. The crevice of the cliff is the address and home of the rock pigeon! The birds have nests!'"
The word, [2, G3435 from G3189] moluno, to soil, is from (G3189) melas, black ink; to soil, suggests a garment soiled with the stain of their own attempts to define their own worth and identity through personal efforts and religious disciplines. In Isaiah 64:6, We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. The word, [3, G3022] leukos, means, light, bright, brilliant from whiteness, dazzling white - a display of innocence.
The word, [4, G514] axios, means having weight, having the weight of another thing of like value, worth as much. )
1John 3:9, "To discover one's authentic sonship in GOD, is to discover true freedom from sin. We are born of Him and His seed remains in us; this is the only possible reference to sober up the mind from the intoxicating influence of deception." (The incorruptible seed of our Father carries the exact pattern of the authentic life of our design! Jesus calls the Devil [(G1228) diabolos - fallen mindset], the father of lies.)
John 8:31-32, 35-36, 44, 56-58, "Jesus then said to those Jews who were believing in Him, 'To take My word to its complete conclusion and then to abide in seamless union with its logic is to truly be My disciples.' (Here, He is not referring to some future, "red-letter-edition Bible" highlighting His "words;" Jesus is speaking about the Logos defining his "I-am-ness," face to face with GOD before time was (Genesis 1:26-27), then documented in prophetic language in ancient Scriptureiled in incarnate human form, as in a mirror.) In this abiding you will fully know the truth about who you are and this knowing will be your freedom. The difference between the slave and the son is that the slave only works there; for the son the father's house is home! ( John 14:2, 'What makes My Father's house home, is your place in it! If this was not the ultimate conclusion of My mission why would I even bother to do what I am about to do if it was not to prepare a place for you? I have come to persuade you of a place of seamless union where you belong.' What Jesus is about to accomplish in His death and resurrection will forever shift the idea of religious works and pretense and performance from the typical slave-mentality to the freedom and reality of sonship!) With the freedom found in sonship there is [1]no pretense! (Free indeed! The word, [1, G3689] ontoos, indeed, is the opposite to that which is pretense, pretended.)....You are the offspring of a [1] fallen mindset and you desire to prove its diabolic parenthood in your willingness to execute its cravings. This "cast down" mindset is what kills the [2] anthropos since the beginning - [it violently opposes the idea of the image and likeness of GOD in human form.] The diabolos mindset cannot abide the truth. There is no connection with truth - lying is its [3] language; in fact, the diabolos is the father of lies! The intention was to kill humanity's awateness of their god-identity. (The word, [1, G1228 from G1225 from G1223 and G906] diabolos, Devil, has two components, (G1223) dia, because of or through, and (G906) ballo, to cast down; thus referring to the cast down condition humanity suffered in association with Adam's fall of Genesis 3. The diabolos is a man-slayer, [2, G443 from G444 ] anthropoktonos is from (G444) anthropos, and from kteinoo, to kill, or (G5406) phoneus, to murder. The word for the human species, male and female is anthropos, is from ana, upwards, and tropos, manner of life; character, in like manner. Look at John 1:51, 2:25. The word, [3, G2980] lalia, means dialect or language.)....Your father Abraham was leaping with joy to see My day! What he saw made him exceedingly glad! Most certainly do I say to you that before Abram was born, I am!' (See note on John 1:1. Three times in this sentence John uses the imperfect of eimi , namely ane , to be, which conveys no idea of origin for GOD or for the Logos, but simply in John 1:14 for the beginning of the Incarnation of the Logos. The incarnation is not the origin of Jesus, neither of us! See the distinction sharply drawn in John 8:58, 'before Abraham was [born, genesthai from ginomai] I am.'" The word, eimi, I am; the essence of being, suggesting timeless existence. See 1Peter 1:16.) Two chapters later
Jesus addresses the same audience again:
John 10:30-34, My Father and I are One!' This filled the Jews with renewed rage and they picked up stones to stone him. Then Jesus questioned them saying, 'I have openly shown you many good works confirming My union with my Father; for which one of these works do you stone Me?' They said, "We are not stoning you for something that you have done but for what you have just said! You blasphemed GOD! You ate a mere man and you make yourself equal with GOD! (The penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning - Leviticus 24:16. ) Jesus said, 'Is it not written in your law, 'I said you are gods?'" (Here Jesus quotes from Psalm 82:6 'I say, You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you!'"
What does it mean to build your house upon the rock? "Son of man, I say you are Rock; you're a chip of the old block - the son of man is the son of GOD!' Dig deep = Gaze deeply, intently into the mirror likeness of the face of your birth!'" Luke 6:48; James 1:18, 23-25; Isaiah 51:1; Deuteronomy 32:18. Living your life from who you are in Christ [Grace] beats living your life from who you are in Adam [law of works] by far! Plus it is storm-proof!
See at Romans 9:33, The conclusion of the prophetic reference pointed towards the rock as the identity of human life. In Messiah, GOD has placed His testimony of humanity's identity in front of their eyes, in Zion, the center of their religious focus, yet blinded by their own efforts to justify themselves, they tripped over Him. But those who recognized Him by faith, as the Rock from which they were hewn, are freed from the shame of their sense of failure and inferiority. (Look at Deuteronomy 32:18, "you have forgotten the Rock that birthed you.....," and in Isaiah 51:1, "Look to the Rock from which you were hewn." It is only in Him that humanity will discover what they are looking for. "Who is the son of man?" Humanity's physical identity is defined by their spiritual origin, the very image and likeness of GOD," 'I say you are Petros, you are Rock, and upon this very rock - the revelation that the son of man is the son of GOD, I will build My Ekklesia!' [Matthew 16:13-19] Humanity's origin and true identity is preserved and revealed again in the Rock of ages. The term, "rock" in those days represented what we call the "hard drive" in a computer language; the place where data is securely preserved for a long time. Rock fossils carry the oldest data and evidence of life.)
Galatians 1:19, During this time I did not see any of te other Apostles except James, the youngest brother of Jesus. ( Saul (Panl), Peter (Kefus) and James shared a vital revelation; all three of them discovered their original identity beyond their natural birth: "From now on, we no longer know anyone according to the flesh," says Paul in 2Corinthians 5:16. 'Simon son of Jonah, flesh and blood did not reveal to you that as the son of man, I am the Christ, the Son of GOD; now that you known who I am, allow me to introduce you to you! I say that you are Rock, a chip of the old block.' [Mat. 16:17-18] James speaks about the effects of the Word as discovering the reflection of the face to face of our birth as in a mirror there! Rescuing us from our forgetfulness! "We have forgotten what manner of people we are!"
In David's dramatic account of the cross in Psalm 22, a thousand years BC, he concludes with this most significant statement, "The ends of the earth shall remember, and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before Him!" And again in the next Psalm, 23, he says, "by the waters of reflection, my soul remembers who I am! Now I can go through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil!"
One of the greatest teachers in the Celtic world, John Scotus Eriugena in ninth-century Ireland, also taught that Christ is our memory. We suffer from the "soul's forgetfulness," he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. he is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of GOD. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul. This leads the Celtic tradition to celebrate the relationship between nature and grace. Instead of grace being viewed as opposed to our essential nature or as somehow saving us from ourselves, nature and grace are viewed as flowing together from GOD. They are both sacred gifts. The gift of nature, says Eriugena, is the gift of "being;" the gift of grace, on the other hand, is the gift of, "well-being." Grace is given to reconnect us to out true nature. At the heart of our being is the image of GOD, and thus the wisdom of GOD, the creativity of GOD, the passions of GOD, the longings of GOD. Grace is opposed not to what is deepest in us but to what is false in us. It is given to restore us to the core of our being and to free us from the unnaturalness of what we are doing to one another and to the earth.
-form Christ of the Celts
The Hebrew word (H2015) in Genesis 3:24, הָפַךְ hâphak, is a primitive root; meaning to turn aboout, by implication to change, to return, to be converted, turn back. Also in the Septuagint the same thought is communicated in the Greek word, strepho, which is the strengthened form the base of tropay; to turn around or reverse:- convert, turn again, back again, to turn self about. The Sword would always point back to mankind's original identity. In Luke 15 the prodigal son returns to himself-Plato is quoted by Ackerman [Christians Element in Plato] as thinking of redemption as coming to oneself!
Garments of Identity
Revelation 3:5, Everyone who sees their victory in Me will I clothe in white garments - and they will realize that I am not in the business of fulfilling their law and performance based fears by blotting out their name from the Book of Life! Instead I am the one who endorses their identity face to face before My Father and His Shepherd-Messenger.
See extended notes at the end of chapter 17 on the Lamb's Book of Life and Humanity's Redeemed Identity.
[3] Garments: himation the upper garment, the cloak or mantel.
Romans 4:21, Abraham's confidence was his dress-code; he knew beyond doubt that the power of GOD to perform was equal to His promise. (plerophoreo, is from plero, to be completely covered in every part, +phoreo, to wear garments or armor; traditionally translated to be completely persuaded. His faith was his visible identity and armor; he wore his persuasion like he would his daily garments.)
Colossians 3:9-14, That old life was a lie, foreign to our design! Those garments of disguise are now thoroughly deleted us in our understanding of our union with Christ in His death and resurrection. We are no longer obliged to live under the identity and rule of the robes we wore before, neither are we cheating anyone through false pretensions. (The garments an actor would wear define his part in the play but cannot define him.) We stand fully identified in the new creation renewed in knowledge according to the pattern of the exact image of our Creator. The revelation of Christ in us gives identity to the individual beyond anything anyone could ever be as a Greek or a Jew, American or African, foreigner or famous, male or female, king or pawn. From now on everyone is defined by Christ; everyone is represented in Christ. ( In seeing him not just recorded in history but revealed in us, we discover the face of our birth as in a mirror! [James 1:18]) You are the product of GOD'S Agape; He restored you to His original thought. You belong to Him exclusively. It is like changing garments. Now that you have gotten rid of the old (grave clothes), clothe yourselves with inner compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, (Just like you were once identified by your appeal, the characteristics of these qualities define us now.) upholding one another in positive expectation. If anyone finds fault with another, restore that person to favor, remembering how the LORD'S forgiveness has transformed our lives. Wear Agape like a uniform; this is what completes the picture of our oneness.
1Thessalonians 5:8, So let us clothe ourselves with day-garments, protecting our sober seeing by having our hearts fully guarded bt the breastplate of agape-inspired faith, and having our minds encircled, like a helmet, with an expectation which is consistent with what salvation declares! (The Mirror, with editing.)
With our next visit, the LORD willing we shall look at the note titled, "The City Bride." Until then may the LORD increase our peace and understanding of Him.
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