20. The God of the Impossible
“The LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’” (Gen. 2:16-17 NASB Emphasis added.)
God’s living Word is the Creator, the Source of all life. Thus He is, ‘The Head’ of all Creation and most certainly, He is the Head of everyone that claims to be a believer and Covenant friend of God.
“Now then, if you will indeed obey My Voice and keep My Covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.” (Exodus 19:5-6)
“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also Head of the body, the church; and He is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.” (Colossians 1:17-18)
Because Adam was our common father and we were yet unborn, Adam was our connection to God’s Word who is also our Creator, Source and authoritative Head. So by his disobedience, Adam severed himself from his Head and Source of Life and ‘decapitated’ the rest of us as well. We were all separated…from Life Himself with one stroke. At that moment we, as a race, died spiritually and physically. That is why we are all born ‘Head-less’ and ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ in a spiritual, relationship with God sense of the word. And as long as we remain in that inherited state, we remain, ‘the living dead!’
It is impossible for the dead to do anything that is ‘alive’, that is, God-originated. So the issue between us and our Creator is not whether what we do is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, or ‘moral or ‘immoral’. It goes much deeper than that. God’s issue is this: are we alive or are we dead? Do we, and what we do, have His Life operating from within? Is God the source of our acts or do they come from a disconnected, dead source? Do our acts originate in God’s living creative Word and Holy Spirit? Our Life Source or His absence, determines the value of our acts. So it’s not about external behavior and appearances. If our minds, hearts and wills obey God’s Word, we abide with Him in obedient faith and trust. Then He is our Head and we are His living connected members…His human Body on Earth. What comes into us from our Head will come into and out from us, as the fruit of God’s living Word.
“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” (Gen. 3:6)
As soon as Adam ate…we died. After that it was impossible for us to operate at the level of our original God-approved humanity. Most people do not grasp or believe how lethal and destructive the results of this act actually are. This is why the Earth is cursed and so hostile to us. This is why we eat by the sweat of our brows. This is why our bodies are mortal and will inevitably wear out and stop operating completely. This is why God won’t accept anything that we offer Him that comes from our own radically independent initiatives. We died! So decapitated humans that have no clue about this spiritual reality naively assume a false self-righteousness and sense of adequacy. They remain convinced they are ‘just fine’ as they are. They feel no need for repentance or redemption because they have no idea of how desperately in need they really are of being redeemed and regenerated by God.
But Scripture reveals and proclaims this nevertheless. God’s beautiful ‘image and likeness’ human race committed suicide through Adam. So from the very beginning, from the third chapter of Bible’s first book, we are revealed to be a deviant, dead, sub-human race! The world system that emerges from the acts of such people is therefore, also, hopelessly dead, in a spiritual sense! It can’t ‘work’ or ‘succeed’. It’s too late. It has already died!
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us?” (Jas. 4:3-5 Emphases added.)
In Gen. 3, God’s Word describes humanity’s dreadful condition. But His words were not what cursed us; Adam’s disobedience and fall into decapitating Sin did that to us. We were cursed the moment he rebelled and separated himself from God’s Word. The Lord merely described the awful results – what spiritually dead people are like and what they can expect throughout their mortal, Sin-corrupted, decapitated existence on Earth. We are like separated, dead, branches cut off from their vine – bankrupt, helpless and doomed to futility and frustration. We can’t bear the fruit of God’s Word nor can we even hope to copy and duplicate the perfection of His Life. Without Him, we are dead and what we produce is just as dead as we are!
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good (living) tree cannot produce bad fruit (death), nor can a bad (dead) tree produce good fruit (life). Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.” (Mt. 7:15-20 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Gal. 6:7-8 Emphasis added.)
Absolute Authority Belongs to God Alone
Only the absolute authority of God’s eternal Word can create life out of nothingness or resurrect what has died. So He is our only hope of receiving the eternal resurrection life that only God can give us. As long as we are severed from God’s Word through disobedience, meeting God’s standards is impossible for us. God must ‘speak’ His own Perfection and Life and Love Nature into us before we can meet His perfect standards. His Word must do whatever is necessary to us, in us, and through us – in our name.
“Now to Him (God) who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ (His Word), according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations (Gentiles), leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.” (Rom. 16:25-27 Amplification and emphasis added.)
Can you see why God rejected Cain’s offering in Gen. 4? Cain’s heart remained radically independent, disobedient to God’s Word, and therefore, ‘worldly’. He acted according to his own opinions. He refused to humble himself; he did not obey and receive everything from God, as his brother Abel had done. And we are often like Cain. So we too must repent of our state of ‘Head-lessness’ (radical independence and habitual disobedience and misalignment with God’s Word). We must admit and declare our innate bankruptcy and then turn to God and His Word in total submission. When we do that, Life Himself becomes our Head and Source and we receive His Eternal Life and a new identity, purpose and destiny from Him. We are thus, ‘born again’. Just as a head lives through its body and a vines live and produce fruit through their branches, so will God’s Word share His life with us as we abide in Him and obey His commands. Through us, He can then produce His perfect supernatural fruit that meets His Father’s perfect standards, perfectly. And thus, He and the Righteousness He is in us, is able to redeem and save and transform us.
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (Jn. 15:5-11 Emphasis added.)
Obedience to God’s Word is the main issue between us and God. Our inherited state of ‘decapitation’ must be dealt with. Once we unite with our True Head, and God’s Life begins to flow into us; His holiness, righteousness and supernatural love appear and begin to work in us and produce His fruit in our lives, relationships and circumstances. This was implied in the summons God’s living Word gave to Abram:
“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My Covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”
“Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, ‘As for Me, behold, My Covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.” (Gen. 17:1-4)
Like us, Abram started out to be Head-less. But God chose him to serve as the initial ‘point of entry’, through whom His Word would invade this fallen world. So He revealed Himself to Abram and Abram responded and began to live in exclusive obedient faith before God’s Word. When he fell on his face in worship and submission, God’s Word became his Head and Abram became His disciple. Then Abram had the ‘Right Head’ on his spiritual shoulders. And he received the perfect nature and spiritual ‘genes’ that God’s Word and Spirit transmitted into him. Through the obedience of his faith, the original God-given identity, purpose and destiny that were contained in the Original Blessing given to Adam and Eve, through Abraham’s obedient submission, became available to the world once more.
Bearing His Holy Name
God brought Abram and Sarai into His eternal Covenant and gave them new names to signify their new life, identity and destiny. The proper Name of God is spelled with the Hebrew letters yud, hay, vav, hay (YHWH or YHVH). The H sound is prominent in His Name. So, as is common in human marriages when husbands share their surnames with their wives and their two families are joined, God shared part of His Name with Abram and Sarai. He inserted a ‘hay’ (H) into each of their names. Abram became Abraham (Father of a Multitude), and Sarai became Sarah (Mother of Nations). This expressed the spiritual union that now existed between God and His Covenant friends Abraham and Sarah. Now, God could supply all that they were to be and have and do. He gave Himself to them, and to their descendants that would believe and abide by the same Covenant. So Abraham’s entire family, present and future, were commissioned to embody, demonstrate, teach and share this Covenant bond they now had with God…with all the families of the earth throughout the generations. God’s Family is large enough and endowed enough to make room for all fallen sons of Adam.
God did a marvelous thing for all of us. But as is the case with all humans, even after they received this gift of union with God and underwent the enormous spiritual reality-shift it creates, Abraham and Sarah needed extensive training and correction before they could walk in it properly. They had to catch up mentally and emotionally with the new regenerated spirit God had given them. In the beginning, they were still mentally and neurologically programmed and wired for their old radically independent or, ‘decapitated’ ways of seeing, thinking and reacting. They were still conditioned to live by sight, rather than by faith in God and His promises. God’s promises seemed utterly impossible and beyond their reach. And because they were still not used to receiving everything from their Head, they assumed it was up to them to achieve the fulfillment of His seemingly impossible promises. That put them in an impossible situation. They were weak and incapable in themselves, but compelled to strive, in their own deluded self-centered way, to please God the way Cain had tried to do…through their own human devices.
Abraham and Sarah could not believe that God could empower people their age to generate a child and that they could become a mighty nation and possess a land already occupied by other peoples totally unwilling to give it up. So out of desperation, Sarah talked Abram into taking her servant girl, Hagar, as a concubine. She assumed this was the only way she could provide Abram with an heir, remove the shame of her barrenness, and make it possible for God to fulfill His promises.
But God didn’t need her help. Sarah’s unbelief and artificial ploy complicated matters enormously. The child God had in mind had to come from His promise, not from Sarah’s controlling manipulation. Nevertheless, like Adam, Abraham agreed with his wife and complied with her wishes and produced a son with Hagar. He named him, ‘Ishmael’ (God will hear). So Abraham still had much to learn about God and His ways. And in the days following, God began to intensify his training, which became much more rigorous and excruciatingly demanding.
Consider how impossible God’s promises would have seemed to Abraham. God had commanded him to walk before Him blamelessly (impossible)! And He said Abraham and Sarah would have a child (impossible!)…and become a mighty nation (impossible!) He said they and their descendants would one day possess the land of Canaan (this still seems impossible!) How could they, or anyone else that has Sin-corrupted flesh comprehend and achieve and fulfill all of this? And how can any of us possibly walk before this awesome God and meet His infinitely perfect standards…blamelessly?
Notice that every disciple of God’s living Word has to become a child of Abraham by being grafted into this Covenant. And they must continue to fulfill the Covenant requirements that Abraham and those that followed him had to fulfill! How can we ever accomplish such impossible things? In effect, God’s Word summoned Abraham to be His disciple! This is where it all started! That meant that God expected him to live as the image and likeness of His Word! And if we’re going to be grafted into the same Root, we will be expected to do the same!
‘Walk before Me and be blameless!’
Remember this: God’s nature is perfect. So he requires disciples of His perfect Word to be perfect too, even as He is perfect! When God’s Word says, ‘Follow Me’, He’s requiring us to take on and fulfill His own ‘job description’! He is the one that walks before God blamelessly! He is the only one in whom the Father is well pleased. Only He is the perfect living image and likeness of His Father. He and the Father are one! But what does that mean to Abram and the rest of us? We are commissioned to become the Word’s image and likeness! But how can any of that happen? It’s impossible, isn’t it? It’s impossible as long as any part of our former decapitated state and thought patterns and lifestyle habits continue to prevail over us and keep us separated and independent of our True Source and Head.
“And Jesus, looking around, *said to His disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who are wealthy (self-righteous and self-sufficient) to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus *answered again and *said to them, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were even more astonished and said to Him, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Looking at them, Jesus *said, ‘With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.’” (Mk. 10:23-27)
The secret is in the ‘oneness’ – the Covenant union – that bonds God’s Word to men, and men to God’s Word. The Word and faithful, obedient men are to become one working unit! When Abraham became one with God through believing and obeying His Word, God’s Word became the connecting link between God and Abraham. And the Word began to act in God’s Name as well as in Abraham’s name. That’s how thoroughly and perfectly the Word bonds us to God. The Word of God is God; but He can now also identify with us and represent us in the Covenant. If we embrace and identify with Him, He is free to live and act from within our innermost spiritual being. Thus He obeys God and meets His perfect standards, in our name. God’s Word and Holy Spirit live in us to fulfill God’s perfect requirements, through us and, ‘as us’. God’s Word is free to live and work in us as one, we are one with all that He is and one with the perfection of His finished work as it was revealed in Gen. 2:1-3:
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
“So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” (Isa. 55:11)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” (Jn. 5:19)
“I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (Jn. 5:30)
As soon as we identify with God’s Word, just as deeply as He first identified with us, He becomes our perfect obedience to God and imparts His righteousness and blamelessness to us! The Word of God becomes our new, indwelling, Spirit-empowered, Life. And we become sons and daughters of God…and children of Abraham as well. In this Covenant, through God’s Word, Abraham becomes part of us and we become part of him. Thus we are grafted into the original Covenant Root out of which God’s eternal Israel is continually emerging.
The Lifestyle of God’s ‘Image and Likeness’
It is not up to poor fallen flesh to keep its distance from God’s Word and then attempt to mimic or try to be ‘as God’. We are not to presume to have divine perfection and ability in ourselves. We are not to presume to do things ‘for God’, or, ‘like God’. When we do that, we continue to indulge in decapitated or radically independent thinking and behavior. To walk before God blamelessly means that we identify with and abide in and do everything from His Word, exclusively. When we do that, His blamelessness becomes ours. We must trust and allow the Word’s perfect finished work to be applied to us. So we must learn to live by faith in Him and trust only Him to be and to do whatever God requires of us. We learn to do this habitually and continually. Thus we live FROM God’s living Word… interacting with Him continuously, as one working unit, instead of remaining mired in our former, ‘do it yourself’ mode of thinking, acting, reacting and interacting.
Authentic disciple life resembles a perpetual ‘dance’ with God’s Word’. The Master and disciple move together in a perfect flowing oneness of motion. They are identical in the tempo, direction and movement of God’s perfect finished work. The Word and His disciple remain one in mind, heart, will and purpose as they both enjoy God’s eternal Sabbath Rest. Their union and agreement resemble a man dancing with his own image and likeness before a mirror. The mirror image reflects back everything the man does, perfectly. So do disciples that believe and receive and ‘own’ what God has revealed and given to them. They become what God has given them and they mirror back what He is in them and eternally does – to them, in them and through them. They rest always, in obedient, trust and resting reception of God’s revealed Word and fulfilled Promises.
That is how we can abide as one with all that God is and all He has provided. That’s what believing and relying on and resting in God as little children, is like. This does not happen if we keep thinking it’s up to us to always be trying to ‘get there’. We strive and strain like that when we do not believe and receive what God said He has done for us and is able to be from within us. But nevertheless, we must learn to believe…to the point of obedient rest and peace…abiding in a full sense of completion, perfection and joy…in and from our Master.
“…He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, ‘Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’” (Mt. 18:2-4)
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ” (Phil. 4:4-7)
The Bible often compares our Covenant relationship to a marriage union between a man and wife. We share everything with God, just like a wife shares in all her husband is, does and has. She doesn’t have to make that happen; nor does she have to become her husband. She rests in their covenant union. Their oneness is already an established fact. So now she has to learn to ‘grow into the job’. She has to train herself to think and act and react as if it’s already true that they are one so that she can enjoy and act out what is now completely hers. That describes the eternal and ongoing consummation of our covenant union with God! When we believe and receive, we reflect God’s Word back to Him just as He is and we operate as one with His perfection in everything we think, say and do. Then our radical independent ways disappear and a union with God emerges in us and truly reflects His perfection and authenticity and reality. And supernatural results that only God’s Word can produce actually appear in our lives and circumstances. And that gives living proof that He truly is our Life. This is what God had in mind when He sent His Word to reveal Himself to Abram. And it is what He intends when He sends His Son to us and picks us out of the crowd and says: ‘Follow Me!’
Follow Me!
The words, ‘Follow Me’ contain the same ‘image and likeness’ intent God had with Adam and all his offspring. And this is what He was restoring to the world through this Abrahamic Blood Covenant proposal. God requires us all to stop getting in His way so that His living Word can do The Impossible in our lives – in our name!
When we are one with Him, we are one with what He is and the perfection of all that He has done. And we also become one with Abraham and all his family members that are also one with God through His Word and His awesome Covenant. It is not a matter of what we try to do; it is a matter of what God, through His eternal Covenant, has already done…and what that fact makes us to be as we learn to release, reflect and embody Him!
The Bible is the official, God-given Blood Covenant document. It explains, guarantees and chronicles the history and requirements of God’s Covenant Family. And it summons the entire human race to repent of its arrogant, independent Head-lessness, regardless of ethnic and cultural background and gender and regardless of any pre-existing religions or creeds they may have inherited or were clinging to before God’s Word singled them out and pierced their hearts.
This Blood Covenant Reveals God’s Nature to us and in us
Just as a person’s spirit soul and body are united for life and only death can separate them, so does God’s Blood Covenant bond unite us with God. But this is an eternal bond. Death can’t touch it. God shares His eternal, never-ending Life with us. So this Covenant flows out of God’s eternal perfect nature and character. It can’t be broken, violated or betrayed. And our obedient faith in the Word’s perfect finished work allows God to ‘electrify’ and energize us with all that He is. And we can follow Him in a Spirit-synchronized dance in which God’s Word gives (leads) and we receive (follow), smoothly, effortlessly and gracefully.
We can’t dance with God’s Word by ‘trying to get there’ by endlessly engrossing ourselves in things about God…things that are two, three or four steps removed from God Himself. Reading books, listening to talks, engaging in Bible studies and forming creeds and theologies in our mind and taking part in discussions pertaining to God, will not get us there. As long as we keep trying to ‘get there’, we’re keeping God at arm’s length and rejecting the Perfection of His Finished Work. As long as we try do everything ourselves, we will never get close enough to our Head to become one. Thus we will never be able to dance with God Himself.
But when He can finally unite His Spirit to our spirit through our faith and trust and obedience, and we unite our souls with His, we can rest in the absolute Truth of God’s Word and the perfection of His indwelling presence. Then God is free to be what He is and apply to us the benefits of what only He has already done. And He continually transmits that into us and it begins to do its work from deep within us…while we rest in Him.
This awesome spiritual dance won’t flow smoothly and freely from within us until our faith mirrors God’s Word as He was truly revealed to us. All alien, contradictory and non-essential things must be forsaken and brushed aside so we can focus only on our Master and draw everything from His ever-present, never-faltering, completed perfection. That is what we must learn to do in each present ‘Now’ moment of our lives.
God will teach and train us Himself
He will lead us progressively and patiently, into the ultimate Perfection that will prevail throughout all of eternity. In the meantime, He will never give up on us, no matter how many mistakes we make or how many lapses we undergo. Because He is perfect faithfulness, He is relentless and eternally faithful to us. So we must not give up either. We must allow Him to continue to teach, train, correct and discipline us until we truly are one with Him on Earth in our souls, just as we are one with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven in our regenerated spirits. We will be our Master’s true ‘mirrors’ – when we focus exclusively on Him and the perfection of His finished work. That will enable us to respond in perfect synchronization with where He is taking us. In God’s good time, we will all learn to follow His tempo and stay in step and we will arrive at the destination to which His Spirit is leading us…Perfectly!
As He trains us, our skills will increase. We will practice following (depending and receiving)…and following (depending and receiving)…and following (depending and receiving)…until it is automatic and habitual. We will consider ourselves dead to our former radical independence and live only to God and from God, in our Messiah. We will no longer think radically independent thoughts, or react to anything in our former shame-based, ‘not good enough’, religious ‘lone ranger’ ways. We will be veteran members of the Holy Spirit’s ‘Dance Team’. Our divine Partner will lead us perfectly as our Source, Head, Life and Perfect Love. He will be responsible for whatever we are and do from now on.
This is what God sent His Word to ask Abram to consider doing. This is what He was sent to invite you to learn to do also. Remember that our God is infinitely perfect in all that He is and does. He knows everything; He never forgets or overlooks anything. He does everything perfectly, according to His infinitely perfect standards. When He judges, He does it according to His infinitely perfect nature and perfect standards. He never lowers His standards, or cuts corners. He never winks at Sin or allows a speck of it to pass unchallenged. Everything is dealt with by Him, to perfection. That’s why we can know that He must do everything Himself. And since His work is finished, we can abide in His Perfection and the Perfection of His Eternal Sabbath Rest, and draw from the endless benefits of it, as He transmits them into us, moment by moment, eternally.
It is an awesome thing to be asked by this incomprehensively holy, righteous and perfect God to follow Him. We know what we have been. We know our bankruptcy and chronic weakness and proneness to failure. We know how far short of His perfect standards we fall. So obviously our perfectly flawless God will not be unreasonable or unjust or unfair in dealing with us. He won’t require what is beyond our ability to do. So if He asks us to dance with Him, we can follow His lead perfectly, by trusting Him to have already done whatever it will take for us to succeed. He took it upon Himself to do all of that to us, in us, through us and for us! And He did it through His Covenant. How else could it work? We are only dust in ourselves! So He must continually fill in our blanks and supply all the things we do not have. He must empower us to operate at His level of perfection. So that is why we must first raise the crucified and risen Lamb of God up first, to the highest place first…in our own belief , estimation, trust and expectations. And then from that highest place, He will be able to raise us up to be with Him at that very highest level.
“Therefore if (since) you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died; and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” (Col. 3:1-4 Emphases added.)
The Tree of Life
Abram had to learn what Adam failed to remember. This awesome Covenant relationship completely kills our radical independence and makes us as one with our Creator as His image and likeness can and should be. It devastates the arrogant shame-based self-glorification that is the habit of the Head-less Serpent and those he entraps by his lies. Our life with God’s Word will take us as far from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil as is possible. God will see to it that we feed exclusively and continually on His ‘Tree of Life’, which is His living Word. Every other possibility will be taken completely out of our picture. Ponder these awesome words again:
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, BOTH TO WILL AND TO WORK for His good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:12-13 Emphasis added.)
Abram and Sarah learned this progressively. When they took matters into their own hands and as a result, Ishmael was conceived, that created enormous complications and negative ramifications that Abraham’s descendants, both through Ishmael and Isaac, continue to stagger under and suffer from to this very day. Ishmael was a child of fallen human flesh. But that is not what God promised to give to Abraham. So he and Sarah had to learn to wait on God and His time table for thirteen more years. Only then did Isaac, the child of God’s promise, appear. In the meantime, Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael had more to learn about God and His Blood Covenant ways in the midst of our impossibilities. And that is why, at a later time, God’s living Word came to Abraham again and said:
“…‘Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.’
“Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘Oh that Ishmael might live before You!’ But God said, ‘No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.’ When He finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.”
“Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the servants who were born in his house and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the very same day, as God had said to him. Now Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. In the very same day Abraham was circumcised, and Ishmael his son. All the men of his household, who were born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.” (Gen. 17:9-27)
Circumcision – the Mark of the Covenant
God gave Abraham and Ishmael all Abraham’s subsequent male descendants a perpetual reminder in their own bodies – of this awesome Covenant relationship and eternal bond they are privileged to share with God. The circumcision of flesh is like a sacramental token or symbol of the spiritual reality God created for us all. It reminds us of the real, spiritual heart circumcision that must truly take place in our heart of hearts, our mind, will, and deepest affections. We must repent of our living death. We must have the right spiritual Head on our spiritual shoulders. We must live in total dependence on and obedience to, God’s living Word. If we do, we are raised from the dead.
When the living Word of God became flesh and appeared as ‘Yeshua’, The Messiah and the Seed of Abraham’, He too was circumcised into this same Covenant that Isaac and Ishmael and all of Abraham’s descendants were to be brought into. Acting as the Son of Man, He obeyed the commandments that the living Word of God gave at an earlier time, first to Abraham, and later, to the descendants of Abraham from atop Mt. Sinai. So the Covenant God’s Word made with Abraham will last forever and it connects everything God will ever do with the ‘mighty nation’ that flows out of this original covenant union God entered into with His friend, Abraham. The Word has obeyed it perfectly, blamelessly, in our name. And that is The Root that gathers men together and feeds and supports them as God’s Covenant Family on Earth. This is the love bond, the love story, the union of hearts, minds, wills and destinies that only the living Word of God made flesh, Yeshua, can make possible for us to have with God and each other. And this is what Paul described with these words:
“For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the (decapitated) hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the (Head-obeying) doers of the Law will be justified. For when (Head-obeying) Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.
“But if you bear the name ‘Jew’ and rely upon the Law and boast in God, and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written.
“For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a (decapitated) transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So if the (Head-obeying) uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.” (Rom. 2:12-29)
This Covenant that God made with Abraham is ‘The Root’ from which God’s Word produces all of His God-approved ‘Fruit’. So being grafted into the Root is the basic issue God always brings up to the fallen human race. He summons all Jewish and non-Jewish men and women, of each generation, to hear and obey His Word. God will deal with us about being separated from or united to His living and written Word. This is about Righteousness vs. Sin; it’s about the first Adam vs. the Last Adam. It is about Death vs. Life! It’s about separation from God vs. total oneness with God. Every book of the Bible deals with this personal bond with our Creator. This is the issue underlying everything that goes on in this fallen world…with the nations, races, religions, governments and economies. It underlies whatever each individual man or woman thinks, believes, chooses and does…in relation to the revelation and commandments given through God’s living Word.
God’s final Judgment is coming. His living and written Word will be the ‘Plumb Line’ against which everything will be judged. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us to fulfill everything God sent Him to do. The Name God gave to Him, after He became flesh and was circumcised into the Covenant with Abraham is, Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel and the Seed of Abraham!