FIVE
Holy Communication
Man believes that God can be inside. Now, while primitive man was, shall we say: primitive, we may not think him so ignorant as to consider that a universal entity could fit inside himself. That would be the bulb claiming a bigger bulb was within. Like as with that bulb, we would be forced to consider the primitive to be ‘cracked’. But, primitive man knew that something of the nature of God had been placed inside of him. Let us assume, then, that primitive man knew that ‘spirit’ had been communicated. That is, of course, without regard to whether or not he actually understood the nature
of the communicated spirit.
We, ourselves, are pretty much in that same boat. I wonder sometimes if the ‘spirit communicated’ might not be the ‘spirit of communication’. We are, after all, called upon to freely give what we have freely gotten. Man knows that the nature of God is inside, and the very language that couches that understanding is the language of ‘impartation’.
See Job 27:3, “All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils.”
God created a living soul by impartation; that is, the breathing of life into clay. Similarly, Jesus imparted the Holy Ghost by breathing onto His disciples. Breathing is a matter of communication. It would appear that communication, like spirit, requires a vessel to contain it.
See vessels of communication in 2 Samuel 23:2, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue.”
Let us consider, for a moment, the spirit as communication. See man possessed of communication in Job 32:8, “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”
See man’s understanding of the difference between the communicated, and uncommunicated mind in Proverbs 14:29, “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.”
It appears very plainly in the writing of the Bible, that primitive man had a clear conceptualization of spirituality, mentality, and the communication between them.
Read Proverbs 17:27, “He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.”
Spirit is pointedly identified with mentality in Isaiah 11:2, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him (be plainly understood by the beholder), the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.”
In the verse just cited, three sets of mental attributes are offered. They are ‘wisdom and understanding’, ‘counsel and might’, and ‘knowledge and fear’. These sets are paired correctly, so I wish only to elaborate on the third set: knowledge and fear. The concept of fear, shown here, is not the one-dimensional concept of the world. That concept provides only terror. The concept of fear as provided in Isaiah is a three-dimensional concept.
To be afraid of a thing is but one dimension of the whole. Also, inherent in this word are the connotations of ‘respect’ and ‘appreciation’. When one builds one’s first fire, in all likelihood, the hand has come close to the flame. Fear to be burned is the corporeal dimension. But, the mind goes a step further in realizing that one is only just in control. Should the fire jump its boundaries, much loss would be incurred: respect of the fire’s wrath is an intermediary dimension of moral decision making. When one makes a fire, it is in the course of self-maintenance. One wants to be warm; one wants to cook food. Dependence on the fire is realized with gratitude, for one is smart enough to know these advantages are not within one’s natural abilities. These advantages are given. Appreciation is the communicated mental dimension. We take it to mean therefore that the ‘knowing and appreciating’, mentioned in the verse of Isaiah, are of the things of God.
What are those things of God, that through the communication of the spirit, we come to know and appreciate?
Jeremiah 9:24 states it plainly, “Let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.”
Mankind has grappled with the issue of how to deal with his brothers and sisters. Many times we have failed utterly, but the very traits we reach for, in our ‘quest to be’, are the very things that our spiritual God exercises in this corporeal world. When He imparts these things into our minds, that we may use them, that is His exercise, and by that, He is magnified; that is, made greater thereby.
When these spiritual, or mental, qualities are communicated to us, we can say, as does Colossians 1:9, that we are “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.”
The authors of the Bible wrestled with these real issues. They put them forth as an argument against the false beliefs of all misguided people. The ceremonial washing of the early Jew, spiritual-upgrade-wise, is as much an absolute zero as the bead counting of the modern Catholic. The exercise of the physical never elevates the spiritual. If one’s religion is no more than ceremonial physical motion, there can be no spiritual momentum.
The New Testament authors argued against the laws of the Old Testament Jews thusly: Galatians 3:5, “He therefore that ministereth (communicates) to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works (ceremonial hand waving) of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (communication of the new mind).”
When man first began to clearly see that the nature of God could exist within man, that spirit of God, that Holy Spirit, was ever couched in terms of mentality. Communication is key. It was by the communicated word of God that the worlds were framed. It is seen in black and white, from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, that the communication of the Holy Spirit of God is a dispatch to the mind of man. In the following verse, words denoting mentality are liberally in use. Rightfully, a colon belongs where the coma is placed behind the expression “spirit of God.”
It’s a little thing I do; you might try it yourself: when I read “wisdom,” I replace it with “spirit of God”; when I read “understanding”, I replace it with “spirit of God”; when I read “knowledge”, I replace it with “spirit of God.” Go ahead, try it on for size.
Exodus 31:3, “And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.”
Contemporary Christians are such a dyspeptic lot. I offer no seltzer, only more meat. God is in my head, as Job put it, my 'spirit of God' causes me to answer.
Job 20:3, “The spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.”
But, I am somewhat of a literalist: if I speak by the spirit of God, the spirit of God is communication.
See 1 Corinthians 12:3, “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”
No bitter indictment here, but I think that the contemporary Christian believes more in ‘being the Christian’ than he believes in Christ, Himself: It’s fine that the Holy Ghost lives within, as long as the voice can remain their own.
In reality, however, if we speak by the Holy Ghost, it is His work and not our own. If we are speaking
by the spirit of God, we are the vessels of that communication. Does that mean we are nothing? Not
at all. By extension, we are “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding.” We are not the electricity, but we are no longer merely the bulb. We are not the
light, but we are the light bulb.
When to our minds is communicated the Holy Spirit of God, should the Holiness be dropped to maintain the distance from God that contemporary Christians insist upon? New Testament authors would answer a resounding ‘No!’
See Ephesians 3:5, “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His Holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit.”
Again, see men made Holy by the communication of the new mind in 2 Peter 1:21, “The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
It is an open eye, indeed, that sees the spirit as communication. When we, ourselves, communicate - in speaking and in writing - we write or we say the things we know and believe. The things we know and believe were, themselves, communicated. In this, I hold in common with the seeker on the other side of the world, who is wholly unknown to me, the very same communicated spiritual quality.
See that shared quality in 2 Corinthians 4:13, “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.”
Not all of our actions spring from the continuous input of physical information; some, necessarily, must come from the communicated mind. As we walk, we note the road ahead of us is smooth. We adjust our actions according to the input. If we trip on that smooth road, as many of us do daily, we are surprised. If physical input indicates that the road rises, we lift our feet a little higher. If upon our next step, our senses show us that there is nothing under our feet, we jerk to a halt, seeking things previously sensed. Then comes the embarrassed laugh of realization that we stand on a glass bridge. We mentally give ourselves a kick for not comporting ourselves with a bit more faith. In other words, we failed ourselves because we could have done better. There is a real difference between the old uncommunicated mind and the new communicated mind.
See 2 Corinthians 5:7, “(For we walk by faith, not by sight:).”
The spirit is communication. Communication is spirit. It is communication that imbues with life, as John 6:63 says, “It is the spirit that quickeneth (enlivens); the flesh profiteth nothing (does not have such power): the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
The spirit gives life; the spirit is life. But, there is a type of communication that is of corporeality. It is a formula; it is of the brain, but not of the mind. The formula allows for one thing: sameness. It allows that the acceptable is that which has been previously sensed, known, and performed. It is the law of rote: The law of the rut. And, it has been said that the difference between a rut and a grave is merely the depth. It is the unchanging letter of the law that allows not for movement; for growth; for life. If we recall that the communication imparts the nature of the communicator, then it becomes all too easy to see where the law fails.
See 2 Corinthians 3:6, “Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
Man struggles to understand the nature of the new mind. The new mind contains the communicated nature of the communicator. Our new mind is so much more than the functional brain: an organ whose purpose is to process input and respond with decisions. Formerly, all input was of the senses. Over time, man derived emotional states, which were gestalts of the myriad sensory I/O functions. But now, the brain receives input from the mind, the spiritual counterpart, and this input is changing the brain with every communication: making the brain more mind-like. Formerly, man traveled the smooth highway of rote. Everyone that washed his hands was good; everyone that did not wash his hands was bad. That was the outer man, and his momentum was smooth and comforting - that is until he hit the speed bump of progress.
Feel the jolt of Romans 2:28-29, “He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart (mind), in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”
If the heart is the new mind, then circumcision is the removal of all old and static hindrances. The struggle of man with the spirit is a struggle to overcome preconceptions. The former man walked in darkness; therefore, he had a formula rather than a flashlight. Counting two steps forward, then three steps to the right, then another five steps forward was how he navigated the dark back alleys of existence. If he encountered a man walking at cross currents to him, that man was considered to be going in the wrong direction. The new sons of men are very much different. It’s not that they have replaced the formula with a flashlight: that is just seeing the steps you are still counting off, but, the sun has risen on the sons of men. Everything is bathed in new light.
Now they see that the formula only got the blind from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. The sons of men need not count steps; the light exposes not just the point, but the surrounding landscape. The new sons of men may now be guided by something so much bigger than a formula: the new nature is their guide. Yet, even in such a verse as the next, we see man holding the flashlight just in case.
See Galatians 5:16-17, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”
Man sees spirituality and corporeality as ‘contrary’, but are they really? Let me ask a simple, but brow-raising question: If the power struggle was gone, would there be contrariness? Put another way, if man’s will submitted to God’s will, would the spirit and the flesh be complimentary instead of contrary?
If the flesh profiteth nothing, then what does this next verse really say about a fleshy communication of the nature of the living God?
See 2 Corinthians 3:3, “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart (mind).”
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