SEVEN
Man and God: a two-sided coin
As I said at the beginning of the previous section, there is a special relationship between the spiritual and the corporeal. The spirit exists in relation to the corporeal. The mind of God exists in relation to man’s physical state. This is the mind of God: He said, ‘I think, therefore I Am’.
We explore the mystery of the Trinity.
What is the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? We have seen that the word ‘spirit’ may be interchangeable with the word ‘mind’. We have seen that the ‘Holy Ghost’ has been called the ‘Holy Spirit of God’. Jesus told us that God is a ‘spirit’. We have read that one of God’s names is ‘Holy and Reverend’. God is a spirit named Holy and Reverend. The ‘Spirit’ is never simply called ‘Ghost’, but is always named ‘Holy’. If the Holy Ghost is the mind of God in man, then God is that mind. How is that mind communicated to man? It is communicated by the ‘Word’: another name for Jesus. God communicates His nature and mind to Jesus, Who in turn, communicates the Holy Spirit to men.
It’s all the same, as you can see in 1 John 5:7, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
On the low-end, quantity ensures success. On the high-end quality ensures success. Many millions of single cells overcome the odds, and a few survive to carry on. Many cells combine into organs: a tactic of higher level survival. Many organs perish to bring about the survivor-organ. These further ensure success when competition ceases, and they team together to work as one. It’s called a body.
In our natural world, we see the low-end in salmon. Thousands of thousands perish to ensure success. In these low-end organisms, we see the gestalt mind. Flocks of sheep bolt as one; clouds of birds wheel as if a single entity. We also see, in the low-end, agreement, solidarity, oneness. But what is the thing about man? Where does man fit into such a scheme? In the low-end, all the instincts in a flock of sheep are the same; their working in unison gives the appearance of single-mindedness. In man, our thoughts are similar, yet diverse.
Only those things held in common may be considered the ‘glue’ of oneness. There is oneness, for example, in speaking the same language. There is oneness in a common faith. The analogy already given by Christ is the analogy of the grape. In a cluster of grapes, any one grape is like all other grapes. They are not alike, or one, for any quality of the grape as an individual. They are one because they all draw their oneness from the same vine.
See the great grape matter in 1 Corinthians 6:17, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.”
We draw, all of us, from the same vine. We must come to see that the things we draw into ourselves are the same things that others draw into themselves. We cannot say to the next grape over, one just as plump and purple as ourselves: hey, you’re bad. If we’ve drawn goodness, the other has also drawn goodness.
See 1 Thessalonians 4:8, “He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, Who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit.”
We behold mankind in the light of God’s special relationship with them. It is indeed special, but not as many have appointed it to be: a thing of rarity and distance.
See Genesis 41:38, “Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?”
It is all too easy to note the heroes of scripture in possession of the spirit of God. Note Numbers 27:18, “Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit.”
Also note Luke 23:46, “When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit: and having said thus, He gave up the ghost.”
It is all too easy to forget that the very life and mind are shared in common with those more recorded than ourselves. See Ephesians 2:22, “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
Moses was a temple of God, Joshua was too. Joseph was a temple of God, and, who can doubt that Christ had the mind of God? But, the mind of God also dwells in the common man.
See 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”
Right here, right now: God is in my head.
Some individuals prefer to cling to their individuality. They see themselves as singular and apart. They see themselves, under their own volition, as able to navigate any wave or waterway. Some, under their own volition, have traveled to the cluster. They say to themselves, ‘here I am in the body of grapes; therefore, I must be a grape’. I doubt you’ll ever find a Muscadine in a cluster of grapes: only the vine can make a grape.
See 1 Corinthians 6:15 & 19, “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”
It is only the mind of the vine that dictates the reality of the cluster. The mind of the grape is the mind of the vine. It is a process of development by which the grapes, being infused, reach maturity.
Read Romans 8:11, “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
That spirit, that mind that dwells in us, as this scripture indicates, is the very same spirit that dwelled in Jesus. The formula is this: Christ was a two-sided coin. He was physical man on the one side, and
Spirit of God on the other. More than just identification, Christ’s name is a reputation of high-end
quality. When I shop for the very best in jeans, I look for the name ‘Levi Strauss’. When we are “in
the name” of Jesus, it is no mere expression for verbal repetitions: it is an ambassadorship. While
not being the genuine article, we are as much the two-sided coin as our present level allows. We have
drunk into the same spirit, or mind. It can be said then, being more than the symbolic ceremony of
baptism, that our old mind is awash with new fluids. The clutter is washed away; the holy nature of
the new mind shines forth. Our drawing from the ‘vine’ is supported by all others who draw from
the same mind.
See 1 Corinthians 6:11, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
I know I’m going on and on about the grape, but, Hey! - I wouldn’t welch on you.
I am pointing to a direction. We do not initiate the process: it is not from man to God, but from God to man. There is no muscle we can flex that will cause the mind of God to develop from the flesh. The mind of God is A Priori, and as previously surmised, God is manifesting the spiritual into the corporeal.
You’ve heard of the pearl of great price: that is the mind of God in man.
See Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit.”
The process runs from thought to action; from spiritual to corporeal. Remember, it’s a dance in which God leads. I have asserted that our cognitive abilities are spiritual; that ‘spiritual’ and ‘communication’ go hand in hand; that there is no action without communication. Remember that? First is the spirit; then communication; finally comes action. From the highest and biggest to the smallest and lowest, mind truly is over matter.
See Job 26:13, “By His spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent.”
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