THREE
Crook’d Staff in Hand
As I said, we gather individual sheep into a flock. What are these individualities, exactly? They are the various points of view held by the early writers; they are the myriad personalized notions, differing from one another in certain respects, but all built beneath the same roof. The sons of men have invested a great deal of time and effort in the attempt to ‘figure things out’. We point to some of those early efforts in the interpretation of invisibilities. We have heard that there is one God, and His name is One. We are assured that God is a spirit: Jesus said so. We have argued that ‘spirit’ and ‘mind’ are interchangeable. But - does God have more than one mind? Is the Holy Ghost (or spirit, or mind) but one of many?
See Revelation 4:5, “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits (minds) of God.”
Sevens abound in the book of Revelation. One point of reference to this profundity of sevens might be the seven stars of Orion. But, Revelation, the book, is laid out in this order: Jesus makes the revelation to His angel, then His angel conveys the message to John who, in turn, records the matter.
The very fact that Jesus has an angel suggests that spirit requires a vehicle, but we will leave that for now. Here, I merely wish to put forth the testimony of the Son of God. I wish to point out that the message of seven spirits, along with its reference to Orion, comes from the Only Begotten.
See Revelation 3:1, “And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits (minds) of God, and the seven stars.”
Since Jesus is the keeper of the seven spirits of God, it follows that they each will confess that Jesus is the genuine article. This supposition places good and evil spirits in opposition.
See 1 John 4:2, “Hereby know ye the Spirit (or spirits) of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.”
That notion is corroborated in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit (mind) of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”
The idea of seven minds is intriguing. Are they satellites circling the greater God-Mind, or are they constituents in the makeup of the God-Mind? I am not certain if the many different icons of the spirits; I.E.: ‘lamps’, ‘horns’, ‘eyes’, etc., are simply other colorful ways to describe the invisible, or wholly separate references, as in ‘stars’.
Nevertheless, any one of the seven minds is like a lamp; is like an eye (as in going to and fro in the earth); is like a horn, but, does this latter descriptor mean ‘trumpet’, or does it reference an ‘alter’?
I think the point to pay attention to in our next scriptural reference is that they were ‘sent’ into the world.
See Revelation 5:6, “And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits (minds) of God sent forth into all the (corporeal) earth.”
In reading the verse, I am made to wonder if the slaying of ‘the Lamb’ was not the impetus that caused the seven spirits of God to be sent forth: in that regard, recall Christ’s own words about a seed falling into the ground and dying.
We can, at this juncture, only guess, but such verses as these do give us valuable new insights into these topics. While many paths of investigation may follow the declaration of seven minds, I wish to address but one. I ask this: is there a hierarchy within the seven spirits? Our next scripture suggests a base for a hierarchy, or if you will, the four corners of the roof.
See four of the seven minds in Zechariah 6:5, “And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.”
I get the sense that they do not leave the Lord’s presence so much as issue, or radiate outward from Him. They are like the four winds or the four directions. Nevertheless, they are the four heavenly minds of God, and they have issued forth into the corporeal world; into the heads of men.
Are there four distinctly recognizable types of the spiritual individual? Or, does the spiritual type evince all four heavenly minds? And there is another jewel of information to be found in this verse: it is that our spiritual God is the Lord of all the earth. The connection is plain. Spiritual and corporeal are bound together: God may no longer be placed at inaccessible distances; He is right here beside us.
So, we move on to the remaining three spirits. Dare we hope that they have names? Well, one has a very familiar appellation.
See John 14:17, “Even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
Truth is everything that is; spirit is mind. The knowledge of everything that is (the knowledge of Jesus) is an eye-opening onto the spiritual realm. Men do not have such eyes; the sons of men do. So, one of the three remaining spirits is named ‘Spirit of Truth’.
Note from the verse that the world neither sees nor knows Him. Knowing is seeing. We don’t even have to ask who the Spirit of Truth is; He is the Comforter; He is the Holy Ghost; the mind of God. It was Jesus that declared the Holy Ghost to be the Spirit of Truth - that is, the mind of truth. He also said that spirit, or mind, issues or radiates out from the presence of the Lord of all the earth. As you read about that mind in the next verse, recall that one of Christ’s other names is ‘the Truth’.
Read about the mind of Truth in John 15:26, “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.”
In the book of Revelation, Jesus speaks to the seven angels of the seven churches. It might be that Jesus is the angel that houses the Mind of Truth. Conceivably, that housing of the Mind of Truth is what makes the angel ‘Truth’. The angel, as a glove, is built to fit the form and function of what it houses.
Perhaps the Mind of Truth is the central mind, leaving three minds on the left and three minds on the right. The innermost two minds on either side of the mind of Truth constitute the four spirits (minds)of the heavens. What the outermost two minds are remain to be seen. Just a thought.
There is some vague connection between the angel of the church (a group of people) and the mind of the angel. The message went out to the angel of the church. Was it then not intended for the church? Is the conglomerate mind of the body of believers the form that houses the form and function of the angel? Some synonyms for the word conglomerate are fusion, composite, amalgamation, union, and marriage.
Are we just talking levels, here? At any rate, to know is to see. Equally true: to know is to hear.
There is an expression that Jesus repeats in the book of Revelation, thus ascribing importance to it. Do you have a spiritual ear? What do you pick up on?
Hear Revelation 2:11, “He that hath an (spiritual) ear, let him hear what the Spirit (mind) saith unto the churches.”
Two unnamed spirits remain to be discovered. Let us hope that our ears are cocked in the right direction when those names are uttered.
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