The living God

This sequel to “As God Sees it” reveals incredibly beautiful and intimate details of God’s ways that opens an entirely new and personal revelation of Jesus; the focus and fulcrum of everything in God’s plan.

How this started

This article started out as part of “As God Sees it” but it grew into something I wanted to highlight in its own right. I still refer to sections in that article, so although it is not prerequisite reading, it is a very good article to prepare you for what is going to unfold here.

The living filter

Sometimes I want to be like a story teller who keeps the big climax hidden until the end, to keep the reader in suspense. But as an internet writer, you always try and hook the reader quickly so that he doesn’t browse somewhere else. In this case I just have to spell it out up front so that you can then see how all the bits of the puzzle fit together.

Jesus is a filter for our spirit just like our kidneys are to our body. Our kidneys filter something like 180 litres of blood a day and removes unwanted chemicals and waste products which are then excreted from the body in the urine. The purified blood then carries on its way through the body. What Jesus does for us is to remove all that rebellion and anti-god stuff from our spirit. The waste has to be dumped somewhere and that is what he did when he died on the cross and descended into Hell. Then, just as he rose from the dead, he delivers us purified and spotless to his Father in heaven.

Before I show a myriad of scriptures that support this analogy, can you see how unique this makes Jesus? There is no academic debate about right and wrong and the law or about good deeds and works. I just had some problems with my own kidneys and I can tell you that you will drown in your own body fluids if they fail. Do you recall anything about dying in your sin without Jesus? (John 8:21-24)

After Jesus died on the cross, his side was pierced and blood and water poured out (John 19:34). Many things can be read into this event, but in the context of the filter, we see this blood and water as a prophetic pointer. It reminds how Jesus carries away our sin and rebellion just as the urine from the kidneys carries away the body waste products. On the Cross it was his physical blood and perhaps urine that poured out, but in the spirit we can now see that this is confirming how Jesus’ life has become a filter for my life, and your life, if you with allow him. Do you notice that Jesus does this? It’s not dependant on how well we repent or how much we know. All we do is to choose him as Lord and God.

Now for miscellaneous supporting scriptures:

• Jesus is a living way to heaven (Hebrews 10:19-20). This paints Jesus blood and flesh as a living path through the veil. A veil filters the light.

• Everyone has sinned and only through Jesus can man be saved (Romans 3:19-24). But when it says ‘through Jesus’ we can now see that it is spiritual reality here because you must pass through the filter.

• Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. (John 14:6) Again, ‘through’ can now be seen as literally through the filter.

• Jesus is a life giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45).

• The life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11) but then John 6:63 says that “it is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing”. The emphasis here is that life, spirit and blood are connected and the kidney filters the blood, which is now associated with the spirit.

• Jesus said I am the bread that came from heaven and that we must eat his body and drink his blood (John 6:53). This is normally taken symbolically to point to his body broken for us, and his blood poured out for us on the cross. This is something we celebrate in communion. But it powerfully reminds us just how close and intimate we are to his life. (More on this later.)

• There are many scriptures talking about Jesus in me and me in Jesus (John 6:56). These have been discussed earlier, but the concept that we must be ‘in him’ is now very supportive of this filter analogy.

• There are many scriptures that talk about being cleansed through the blood of Jesus, for example Hebrews 9:14. In the Old Testament, scriptures like Ezekiel 36:33 and Ezekiel 37:23 talk about cleansing and it has to do with removing detestable things and washing, but in the New Testament it is via the blood—it is a living way.

The living God

God is frequently described as the ‘living God’ throughout the Bible. We often take the ‘living’ adjective as differentiating our God from lifeless idols and false gods. But the preceding sections here and in As God Sees it, allow us to see so many physically intimate issues. You might even say that He is an organic God because His ways are living ways, not mechanical.

The layout and utilities in the tabernacle were based on what Modes saw in heaven. But now we see that believers are a temple of the Holy Spirit. God made man in His image and likeness. So we discover more and more things in our physical makeup that is a reflection of God. The “God’s Anatomy” article expands on this.

This culminates with Jesus as the head of His body, the Church. The relationships of father and son, husband and wife are extremely powerful and reflected in the God-man relationship. These all involve two parties, but the analogies here deepens the relationship to the level of the interconnectedness of different organs in the body. Scriptures like 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 talk about all believers being part of the one body, like hands and feet, but it just leaves Jesus as the head and leader. This analogy to the kidney shows how Jesus is actively cleansing his body.

Ultimately, we look back to the very beginning. In Genesis 2:7, God breathed life into Adam. How exquisitely intimate. This was of course the imparting of a spirit into Adam’s body of flesh. Then we see that Eve was fashioned from one of Adam’s ribs. In Genesis 1:23-24 Adam saw her as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”. I imagine that Adam’s comment was a recognition that Eve was made of the same stuff as he was, unlike all the animals that he had just named. But Adam did not know the full story...

All through the Old Testament, special care of the bones is described. It was even prophesied and recorded in the Gospels that none of Jesus bones were broken (John 19:33-36, Psalm 34:20). Why did God require that none of the Passover lamb’s bones were to be broken in Numbers 9:12? Our hint is in 2 Kings 13:21, where we see that the bones of Elisha the prophet carried some anointing that raised a man from death. God regards spiritual life as being in the blood (Leviticus 17:11, John 6:63), and we know that the bone marrow produces the red and white blood cells. It would seem that some residue of the spirit can be held in the bones. So now we can picture the breath or spirit of life initially imparted from God into Adam, now being transferred to Eve via Adam’s rib. It was a living transfer!

Then, in Genesis 2:24, God said something amazing to Adam and Eve... He said that they shall become ‘one flesh’. The flesh is normally equated with the body, while the mind and emotions are seen as the soul, and the heart is regarded as the essence of a man, namely his spirit. How could they be as of one body? I don’t know, but God really sees a man as joined to his wife. No wonder God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16)—it is more akin to amputation than a breach of promise. Why did God ordain such an intimacy between a man and his wife that does not apply between any two other individuals? Yet, this is the closeness that Jesus has restored with His bride. It is a closeness that allows Jesus to breath for His bride and to cleans His bride through His own blood.

I had often wondered why Jesus said that he had to depart in order that the Holy Spirit could come in John 16:7. Jesus had previously given authority to his disciples to heal and cast out demons, and he had seen the Father reveal things to them. He was with them after His resurrection for 40 days. Yet they had to wait another 10 days after He was raised back into heaven, before the Holy Spirit arrived on the day of Pentecost. The answer is sort of too obvious yet rarely considered. Jesus had to take up His role as the head of the body. Now, at His Father’s side, the breath of God, the Spirit of God, could pass through Jesus into His body. The living way was now open!

Extending the living way

Some of the sections in As God Sees it, like “The Pipe” and “The Power Cable” emphasised the need for the dual action of dumping sin and connecting us to the righteousness of God, but they were inorganic analogies. The kidney is a living filter and being a living filter it emphasises why Jesus had to be born of man. Jesus had to be able to receive the sin of mortal man and also to impart spiritual life, so he had to be both son of man and son of God. But the kidney needs somewhere to dump the waste. Now I can see why Jesus had to die and physically descend into hell. And by the way, while he was there it seems he was able to save those already there that had believed in God’s promise to send a messiah (Matthew 27:52-53, John 5:25).

As discussed so far the kidney/filter just removes the junk. This allows Jesus to present us, purified, cleansed and spotless before his Father. But we don’t see how God’s righteousness flows back to us from the kidney analogy. However many scriptures, some already mentioned in here and in As God Sees it, talk about Jesus as the bread of heaven that we feed on. So, as the kidneys remove the rubbish, the other organs supply the food or energy. This energy can now be pictured as the righteousness of Jesus that flows to his body.

Our physical lungs are the source of oxygen that passes into our blood and subsequently empowers our body. Can you now picture the breath of God, (synonymous with the spirit of God) coming into the body of Jesus, that is believers. Wow, exactly what God did when He created Adam in Genesis 2:7. But did you notice that it is only possible to get this measure of the spirit of God by being in Jesus. That again stresses and explains the uniqueness of Jesus.

Eat my flesh and drink my blood

In John 6, Jesus feeds five thousand odd people miraculously. Then, as a brief interlude, He walks on water, but only His disciples saw this. The crowds again catch up with Him and they yearn to force His hand and make Him king. The conversations boil down to proof of His divinity via miraculous signs, which has already happened but the penny has not yet dropped. It seems that Jesus decides to get their minds off of the natural things, like food, and onto Him. This culminates in the declaration of John 6:53-54 to “eat my flesh and drink my blood”. It was too much for the crowds and many departed. His disciples, who had close intimate encounters with Him, even the night before in the boat, did not understand but they knew that Jesus had the words of eternal life—there was nowhere else to go (John 6:68).

OK, that was a beautiful account. We tend to see the references to his flesh and his blood pointing forward to the communion bread and wine (Luke 22:19-20, Matthew 26:26-28). This in turn points to the Cross where His body was broken and His blood poured out. All this is wonderful to behold, but all these things are events. What if it in turn, points forward to something even greater? It is not just pointing to this wonderful event of the Cross but it also points to our ongoing state as part of His body. Is not the bread, now His flesh; the food from which we derive our strength? Does not the blood point to the source of life? (John 6:54, Leviticus 17:11)

The point to catch here is that His flesh and His blood are not just indicators of our salvation through His sacrifice on the Cross. Our ongoing existence in Christ is fuelled by Jesus Himself. We derive our strength from his body and our life from His blood—in this world and the next. If you are catching what I am saying, then we no longer live just in thankfulness for what our glorious God has done for us, but we live in this amazing intimate relationship where our daily strength and life flows from Him; from His very own eternal life.

The unique, indispensable, inseparable being

Jesus is absolutely unique. He is indispensable and the only way that we can be separated from our sin and qualified for heaven. In him, in his supernatural being and inseparable from his being, is the path, the way, the filter, the fuel and the source of life to do this. He is fully able to do this no matter what our state is, if we will just let Him—if we will just acknowledge Him!

For days and weeks after I started “A consuming fire” and “The living filter” sections (Jan 2016), I was enthralled at seeing how scripture revealed these attributes of the Father and the Son. I started to see not just what unfolded but why it had to unfold the way it did. These attributes are life; they impart life; and they cleanse life. I still cannot grasp it all, just as David was overwhelmed by God’s intimate knowledge of him in Psalm 139.

Scriptures and parables that had always been beautiful were even more so because they no longer pictured some academic notion of my positon in Christ. You see, I used to picture myself as an individual who held a close affection and relation with this other individual called Jesus. Although we were connected through his Holy Spirit I was still an individual. But now, though still an individual, I am inside Jesus—not just connected to Jesus. My life is truly hidden in Christ (Colossians 3:1-4). A connection can be broken, but hidden in Jesus, I am held, cleansed and fed 24x7, irrespective of my conscious preoccupations of the moment. I somehow knew this academically but now it seems more real. I’m sure others, many others, have come to this place of revelation by different paths. Perhaps this was just for me to see, but perhaps you will also be blessed.