Part IIIb, The Lord vs. Satan: SupCtHeaven;

Secondly, We Church the Bride-Evidence are Royal, like our Betrothed. As Ephesians 5 explains and we'll see in Part IV, We got that Royalty in Him on the Cross, when He committed to paying for untold billions of extra people to rescue both Time and Israel, in Matt16:18: thus He stopped Satan's motion for a Mistrial in light of Israel's rejection, as we saw at the end of Part II. He ratified this commitment in John 17:20-21 -- and then paid for us, before we even existed. We are only alive because He did that. We are only Royal because He did that. So this Royalty He purchased for us on the Cross at Father's Discretion, is no light thing. Royalty of any kind is essentially separated, distant -- even (in many ways), "Invisible": just as Christ Himself, The Lexeme of Lexemes, The King Over Kings, the Lord Over Lords, is currently Invisible to the World.

1. As we saw at the beginning of this Part III, we are Royal Family of God in Christ, for the purposes of serving FATHER as Royal Priests -- potentially, as King-Priests under THE King-Priest, Christ. So now hear this: We need to be made Royally High, not because we deserve anything, But Because God Deserves Everything. Unendingly. Pleromized, 'fully'. So, for this our permanent role throughout all eternity, we must be Royal, because THE King-Priest, Our Lord's Humanity, is the Highest Royalty in the Universe. Forever. No other priesthood will last. No other Member of the Godhead will have a priesthood.

   Theology doesn't recognize the significance of His King-Priesthood, though Book of Hebrews even in translation, is pretty plain. The OT priests were not priests to the Father. They were training to grow up corporately so that when Messiah did come, He Being The Priest, could make the whole nation a Royal Priesthood under Him. So He was the object of worship, and the sacrifices depicted Him being sacrificed to Father, which everyone knew (you don't see anyone in the Gospels ask Christ Who "Father" is, and a whole month of the Hebrew calendar, July-Aug, is named "Ab", "father"). So they weren't priests to Father, because too low in their Thinking. They had the Mosaic Law as a boy-leader (paidaywywv, Gal3:25) for that Training; hence, their future role was conditional, as Gal3, Hebrews 3 explain. But since they rejected that Marriage when the Groom came -- we got it. Else there'd be no Church, Matt16:18's Greek. (Part IVa will exhaustively cover this changeover, since it is the reason why Rapture kicks off the official Tribulation.)

   So: we are Royal Priests to FATHER. That's new. So: we think toward Father, Our High Priest's Thoughts. That's new. New Covenant, in fact (main theme in Hebrews is the change in covenant). So if new, 2Cor5:17, new spiritual species (kaine ktsis). So if new spiritual species, then all those old wineskins get tossed out, Heb7:18 (and passim in that book). So if new, then we need to be trained so other potential or actual Royal Priests can learn to think toward Father, too. Of course, we'd have to first know we are Royal Priests, to know we need to be trained. Christendom has routinely failed to communicate this to the Body, for 20 centuries. It's pathetic: instead of teaching us the Bible as a THINKING we need to learn and practice, we've been given chippie satanic substitutes like body works and rituals. Satan laughs his head off. Search all the so-called Church Fathers, the internet, anywhere you like -- see how almost no one recognizes the importance of how we think toward Father, k? It's embarrassingly pathetic! Matt4:4 is accurate in translation, so what gives? If THE LORD LIVED ON BIBLE, as that verse clearly says He did -- then what do you think we are supposed to do? Duh!

2. Hence of all the choices the Lord Himself could have made, while still 'solely' God He Chose To Add Humanity to Himself -- so He could SERVE FATHER as King-Priest (1Tim2:5, Ps110), a contract from eternity past, theme of Hebrews 1. That tells you how wonderful it is. How important it is. How high it is. So for us to turn it down or piously protest Oh shucks, i'm-not-worthy! -- is to spit in His Face. For HE didn't turn it down, did He? We don't mean to spit in His Face. We mean to be humble. But as you read this Reason, you'll see it's NOT 'humble' to think self low. Let's start with God's Own Reasoning...
   • God can do whatever He likes, whenever He likes.
   • For God the question is WHAT does He want to do, not whether He can do it.
   • So what He wanted to do, is make us low and then make us gods for His Son, John 10:34: "filling all in all" clause at the end of Ephesians 1, parallel to the high-low Decree of Isa52:13-14.
   • God likes infinite filling: it's a poetic Justice to Him, that nothing low was missed or shaved, and nothing high is missed or shaved.
   • It's a Creative Act, an Artistry, Eph2:10's Greek (search on "His Craftsmanship", this page, to quickly see Eph2:10 in corrected trans). It's poetic, to take something low and promote it. Very satisfying, Isa54:1!
   • We all like making good on something bad, it's very satisfying to turn a piece of trash into a treasure -- so FROM WHERE do you think we got that kind of enjoyment? From Him Who is the Ultimate Opportunist and Recycler -- God! [These webpages started in April 2000, because a janitor in my building found a Windows computer in the trash -- and became obsessed with giving it to me. The janitor's name was Jesus, and he barely knew me. Poor guy didn't know I was writing webpages, I'm not sure he knew what a 'webpage' was. So he didn't know I'd decided before God -- silently -- that I couldn't write webpages anymore, as my phone bills were astronomical (I was then using webtv). The guy waited for two weeks to spot me in the parking garage, since he didn't know where I lived. I'd never have purchased a Windows computer, else. I love DOS. So God nudged me, clearly.]

   • So making us initially low, is no hindrance or compromise to His Righteousness or Creative Ability. Because He shouldn't view anyone less than His Son, it's completely valid and even Righteous, to make us high. So He did that: we don't see it Now, as Hebrews 2 explains, because He wants us to consent to His Plan for us. To the degree we consent, we will be made high. That's who you are, Royal Priest Crown Prince-in-Training, the first nanosecond you first 'did' John 3:16. And if you don't complete the Royal Training He designed for you, you will be the most miserable sop on the face of this earth. For God is absolutely drop-dead Gorgeous in Nature -- and you'll regret spurning His Grace, at the Bema. He won't punish you. You'll want to punish yourself, when you see Him. We all will.

   • Here's a dramatic interlude to show how the Bible means that our Royal Priesthood Slaveship is RULING FAMILY, so the terms "priest" and "slave" are turned on their heads! Paul has Euripides' famous play "Ion" ("Venom", thinly-veiled euphemism for semen) firmly in mind when he writes Ephesians, with the result that in Ephesians he parallels this play to explain Father's purpose of SONS. It's extremely funny and profound to read Ephesians, if you know this play.

     In Greek Drama, wordplay is everything. Double-entendres are very popular. Ergo, the key to this play: the word "doulos" means either and both "son" and "slave". That was very well known, the humorous double-entendre, at the time Scripture was penned. Euripides' "Ion" uses the term as the basis for his play: Ion, a 'slave' of Phoebus Apollo, who is really Ion's father. See, the god (really demon, Gen6 time period) Phoebus Apollo raped the human Creusa; and she, ashamed, hid the kid to let him die (with snake charms, get it?); but, unknown to her, Phoebus took the kid and delivered him to the priestess of his temple at Delphi (famous Oracle of Delphi). Then years later, after Creusa married (and of course is barren), Phoebus arranges to get Creusa to visit that temple. There's an exchange between Ion and Creusa which plays with this dual meaning to the term "doulos":

     • "Ion. Is it to seek earth's produce or fruit of offspring that ye come [to seek aid of Phoebus as oracle]?"
     • "Cr. We are childless, though wedded these many years."
     • "Ion. Hast thou never been a mother? art though wholly childless?"
     • "Cr. Phoebus knows whether I am childless [lol, of course he does, he raped her!]"
     • "Ion. Unhappy wife! how this doth mar thy fortune else so happy!"
     • "Cr. but who art thou? how blest I count thy mother [lol!]"
     • "Ion. "Lady, I am called the servant of Apollo, and so I am."
     • "Cr. [Were you given to the Phoebus as] An offering of the city, or sold to him by some master?"
     • "Ion. Naught know I but this, that I am called the slave [doulos!] of Loxias."

     The play goes on: Creusa finds out that Ion is her son by Phoebus; but not before she almost kills him, due to another joke which Phoebus plays upon them both, making Ion out to be the son of her husband, conceived anonymously during some Bacchic orgy (per the Oracle). Athena comes down at the end of the play (stock ending), and announces that Phoebus is repentant, so will make Ion a great nation: the Ionic race, which is the first of the Greek races (origin of the Greek sea peoples).

     Paul thus tweaks the play in Ephesians, by showing the origin of the Real God's peoples, from Christ! So Slaveson is the progenitor of many sonslaves, Gal4, Eph2. Get it?

3. So "Priesthood" means a love so great, one wants to dedicate himself to the Love Object. In which case, one wants "low", to max out Love Expression. So first, God-to-God Absolutely Dedicated Love: notice that They call Themselves "Father", "Son", and "Spirit", thus denoting unequal authority. Theology is all tangled up about that, because theology has yet to discover that "Love is the Integrity of God!" which means Voluntary Subordination, Love's innate quality. In God, that means Absolute Love, so Absolute Deference, Ps138:2, 89:14-15. So although Equal, "Son" wants to subordinate to become a King-Priest, in the Psalm 110, Isa53:10-12 contract (Decree, really) to make creation. So although Equal, "Spirit" wants to subordinate to 'mother' that creation, poignantly depicted in such verses as Gen1:2, Isa63:10-14, Titus 3:5, Eph4:30, 5:18, John 4:24, etc. "Father" for His Part, has the toughest job: He has to impute and judge Son for all the sins of creation, Isa53:10a -- notice how it's dependent on Son agreeing to that, so obviously this is a contract between Equals. But They choose not to function as Equals, but rather in a Priestly manner -- to Father. See: no Westminster Confession or Catholic Unicity befuddling language, here. It's pure 2Cor13:14, easy to understand. Sometimes it's best just to chuck centuries of theology, and go back to the Bible -- which GOD wrote. [DueDisclosure.htm, the "Kingship" link at pagetop, has a section entitled, "Hupostasis in Trinity" which goes into more detail of the Real Nature of Trinity versus Westminster Confession definition.]

4. "Priesthood" also means the intermediation of interpersonal differences, a DIPLOMATIC role. For if freedom, then freedom will be unequally used by unique persons. You and I are each unique. There will never be another "you" in the universe. There will never be another "me". And each of us will live forever. Now chances are, if you and I met down here, we'd be of differing social status, temperment, likes and dislikes. If one of us was very rich or good-looking and the other not, there would be a tension. The differential would interfere with the compatibility, because these conventions of societal differences make people group with those most like them. The deeper reason is that if one of us is rich and the other poor, there's a lack of understanding between us about that difference. Were I the poor one, I'd likely have bad manners, bad speech, and bad values, too. I wouldn't know any better, because it takes some amount of wealth to get the proper breeding, in this world. You (pretend) being the rich one, would presumably have that breeding, so my behavior and thinking would be quaint, and at least mildly distasteful. So our relationship would be strained whether we wanted it to be, or not. I'd be intimidated by how great you were, and you'd be constrained to deal with me based on the honor concepts you'd learned. I'd not be acceptable in your society, and you'd be totally out of place, in mine. You can substitute good looks or any other attribute man craves as valuable for wealth and poverty, in this paragraph: the strain would be different, but it would be there.

5. How much more, then, the societal difference between God and man? Imagine you are God, and it's Sunday. When you look down on the planet, you see most Christians howling how they love Jesus, yeah! But they don't spend ANY time really learning Jesus' Word. They thump and howl and holler and do all kinds of rituals and good deeds around the church -- but learning Him? Nope. So how do you talk to those people? They want "Jesus" to be a song, a good-deeder, a flashy person -- just as Satan tempted Him to be, in Matt4. So Being the Father of Freedom, you as God can just bing those people, discipline them -- or you can make the Real Word available through other people who are really learning His Divine Breeding Program in God's System. And then come the Bema, those other people become the rulers of the thumpers. For the thumpers' souls don't have any Real Bible in them, when they die. They have lots of songs in them, lots of rituals in them, lots of works in them. Earthly things that all got burned up at the Bema. So they are ruled, low. Just as they voted to be, while down here.
   1. Hence the need for a Priesthood, which is INTERMEDIARY. For to the extent you think like God, you will be close to Him. To the extent you do not, you will need someone between God and you, to MEDIATE your lack of compatibility.
      • Works and ritual don't create a thinking compatibility, for they are behaviors, not soul nature.
      • In any society, there are classes, groups: a commonality of soul nature is really the basis for them.
      • Because, these groups form based on aggregate SHARED choices of association which are attitudinal, people electing certain values to have in common, as the 'definition' of that class or group.
      • Hence each class or group has its own culture. So you learn that group's culture, if you belong or want to belong to that group.
      • So if you wanted to work at Buckingham Palace, you'd have to learn and accept the values of the Royal House, else you can't fit in there.
      • If you wanted to marry a prince, you'd have to learn His Culture, else you can't marry.
      • God's "culture" therefore needs to be learnt, which means the THINKING of God Himself.
      • Your consequent fit into His Kingdom depends on how much you learn BIBLE, since that's His Instruction Manual about Himself.
      • If you abuse that Manual to create some other culture of ritual, works, human approbation but you slap God's Name on what you create -- that's no different from the pagans who worship dead idols of wood and stone. They call those things "god", too. And that's what Christianity does, make up its own ideas and call them Biblical. So many Christians will not but distantly fit in with God's Culture of the Eternal State.

   2. So the eternal state has a priesthood, Rev1:6, 5:10. The Lord Himself is the King-Priest of it, Psalm 110. Consequently you know people in heaven are UNEQUAL in their relationship with God, because they didn't equally choose to learn God's Book. Yeah, we'll all be "in His Presence" forever. But God is everywhere. His Throne will be in one place. So you might be a bizillion miles away from that throne, or in the very throne room itself, depending on how INTIMATE you become with Him. That's the condition of association, since we are to be BRIDE, and that means INTIMACY must be learned. Everyone who didn't choose intimacy will be relatively poor and far away -- so they need intermediaries between Him and themselves. If you graduate the Pleroma course (First Reason for Invisibility, 4th row in red box at pagetop) -- they will also need intermediaries between themselves and you.

   3. Heaven is a big place, so most people have to be quite far away from Christ's Throne. You're tipped off to this by the size of the Lord's personal (intimate!) Jewish chorus who go with Him everywhere He goes, the 144,000 martyrs in Rev14 (compare to Chap 7). In Part IVb's "God's GAAP Balancing" link I tried to come up with a population number of humans just to get a sense of scale, based on Bible ratios -- whether or not the methodology is right, I came up with a future size of at least 100 billion, going by infant mortality and other human factors since Adam. That's a good 60 PLANETS, given a current Earth population of about 6 billion. And that is probably too small a number. In any event, you can see that there need to be intermediaries between all those humans, and God -- forever. Church is that Intermediary, as Body of Christ. Within Church, we also need intermediaries, since we aren't equal among ourselves, either. But inequality in Heaven is only due to us unequally choosing how much intimacy we wanted with Christ, versus intimacy with other things. So your choices to learn and live on Bible in God's System, determine where in that Forever-Church-Body-Priesthood, you will be. (Nerd Note about population sizing: anyone who dies too young or diseased, malnourished -- anything to impair development of the brain -- so could not yet understand-and-reject the Gospel, is permanently saved. So heaven is big. Don't forget to factor in something for infant mortality and brain-morbidity since Adam, in your own computations.)

   4. We have unlimited access to Him while we are down here: it's an NT refrain (see format of Rom5:1, so you can spot it elsewhere). Access post-death will not be unlimited, because what we choose down here determines the entire shape of our post-death, eternal life. When we were kids, we were warned to learn in school and develop good habits for our life as adults. We largely didn't listen. We largely don't listen to God now. So we largely will have a rare glimpse of the Lord, in eternity. Think how hard it is to get an audience with the President; how you must have "connections" to even get contact with one of his aides! So think how much harder ought it to be, to get an audience with the Lord Jesus Christ! His Humanity remains forever. Glorified, but physically still occupying one moment-by-moment location, in time and space. So physical access to Him will be limited. Especially, since His Kingdom will be the entire universe.

   5. Most people never want to learn His Thinking, historically and now, so they are far away from Christ in heaven/eternal state. Popular Christianity throughout the centuries, is the kind which gets you shame at the Bema. So if it's popular -- avoid it. For Christianity took 18 centuries just for the Gospel to become widely taught despite the Reformation; the massive, unprecedented rollout of Scripture in the original languages resolved that no-Gospel-taught problem for a generation or two, but since the 1960's, the Gospel is as falsified (with extra verbs, etc.) as it ever was, even pre-Reformation. Hence our ideas of God and spirituality are still in 'the 3rd grade' of spiritual grammar school, which is embarrassing: 20 centuries have passed and we still don't know that Trinity is a Voluntary Association, not a hydra-headed monster? Four centuries have passed and the Calvinists still don't know that Love is an exercise of Sovereignty so no, Adam did not lose his free will? If you look on the internet, out of every 100 pastors' websites telling you how to be saved, at best only 1 gets the Gospel right (believe only in Christ only). So how many of those congregations, are even saved? Sheesh. Now I know why my pastor harped on the Gospel being John 3:16 so much beginning in the 1990's. (It was common knowledge in the 1950's, my mother tells stories about her having to use John 3:16 and going door to door with it, lol.) We can't read Bible, even when it's correctly translated! So our votes to learn Him over the centuries, have been pitiful.

      Most Christians today will be far away from Christ in heaven. Why? They don't know they need 1Jn1:9 to be Filled with the Spirit, so are filled with Satan&Co., instead. For today in Christian media, circles and pulpits, witness all the loose talk and loose cash spent on books and tapes, how you need more faith, increase your faith, and how to have faith "exclusively exclusively exclusively" in Christ. Each one offers a little 12-step program or other 'magic' set of do's or affirmations which promise spiritual growth and Holy Spirit Power -- as if God's Power were a machine for 20 minutes a day to better "abs". Like this pitch: Oh, you must admit to God that you can't do it, only the Holy Spirit can, this is a special revelation I received from Him! Yeah, that's true, duh -- but um, you don't have to pay $20 for another book, to learn it: John 4:24, 14:26 tell you all that at NO cost and with no fuzzball prose in large print for blind eyes on how the Holy Spirit Works. God flat tells you it's 1Jn1:9, which turns on the Holy Spirit's power. Else, it's Satan&Co. working in your life, 1Jn1:6,8,10.

      • So you won't but waste your money, since you can't increase your faith, until you increase your Word intake.
      • You can't do squat with that Word intake, if you're not breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed. See Psalm 32:5, 66:18, look up all the "katharizw" morphologies in the LXX, same verb as in 1Jn1:9. Sheer logic would tell you that God the Holy Spirit Fills you With Divine Brains To Understand Bible, John 4:24; and that, ONLY when you are between sins, just as with the OT Temple. I knew that when I was a child (as did my best friend), though I didn't even know the verse!
      • Pastors don't even teach 1Jn1:9, so then their congregations have no Spirit in them, either: except the spirits of Satan&Co. They can't read 1Jn1:9, so of course aren't using it either, and mistake their tongues or their feelings for spirituality -- yeah, Satan&Co. do the tongues thingy, the feelings thingy, beguiling us all! Spiritual AIDS!
        It's positively frightening that nearly all the famous pastors I could find on the internet don't teach or even seem to know about, this verse. I want to kill myself like Paul says in Romans 9:3. Wouldn't do any good. Now I know why my own pastor kept shoving 1Jn1:9 in our faces -- a Priestly Function -- many of us left off listening to him temporarily, tired of that repetition. Yeah, well he didn't repeat enough! Look on the internet, go to seminary, ask pastors -- do they teach that 1Jn1:9 usage fills you with the Spirit? Greek verb katharizw makes clear it does, since that's a famous OT Temple-Filling prerequisite, to purify the temple from what defiled it. And sin defiles the temple of our bodies, where the Holy Spirit indwells. That's why John uses the verb katharizw in 1Jn1:9 (parallel verse is in 2Pet1:9, but translations leave out one of the Greek keywords, see TrueSpirituality.htm). So if you want to get increased faith, get increased Bible in your head, by living in God's System. Or else just stop going to church, etc. If you'll not live in God's System, try to make as little wood, hay, stubble of Churchinanity as possible. Then at least your burning at the Bema, will be short!

      • So the pastor claiming "direct revelations" isn't getting them from God Who uses BIBLE to reveal, John 4:24, Heb4:12, Matt4:4, John 17:17, Hebrews 1, 1Jn3:18. The "spirits" are demonic, lol -- making you FEEL holy, beguiling you with "revelations" and "tongues" they pass off as being from the Spirit -- which of course all Contradict The Bible You're Not Reading, since you think you're getting special direct revelation, thus MORE IMPORTANT than the Word?! What-the-bleep is the difference between that claim, and the satanic claim of a pope speaking ex cathedra as being on par with the Word of God? Really, do we never think? Of course not, we have no brains, we lost them at salvation. Human brains are full of the sin nature, God can't use them. So we are all brainouts apart from 1Jn1:9! Guess you know who's saved, huh, by the wacko claims made and believed. No unbeliever would be so stupid.
      • Of course if he claims tongues, then he can't read 1Cor14:10: which proves tongues were normal human languages you didn't know yourself, to give the Gospel to foreign unbelievers who happened then to be in the congregation (see v.22). 1Cor14:21 tells you it was a temporary gift, lasting until Temple destroyed (quoting Isa28:10-17). And of course in Greek culture, the demon filling up the revelers at Bacchic orgies or the Oracle (i.e., of Delphi) would cause "ecstatic utterance" (that's the origin 'angelic tongues', not the Bible, see how Paul makes fun of that as a clanging, in 1Cor13:1). But hey: Bible proof today's tongues claims are satanic, goes unheeded.

      • So you become a babbling priest to Satan&Co. but not to God, absent 1Jn1:9. See 1Jn1:6, 8, 10, 2:4, 2:16, 1Tim4:1, 2Tim2:26-3:7, 4:3-4.
      • So you become intimate with Revelation 17, not with God.
      • So you become a Royal Peasant for all eternity, a bizillion miles away from His Throne, lucky if you can see Him pass by your planet of residence, every billion years or so.
      • Therefore use 1Jn1:9, ask Father in Son's name for pastors to know about 1Jn1:9. That's one of the best PRIESTLY prayers, and it will help us all be closer to God in eternity. For there is zero ability to read Bible and spiritual growth, without it.

      As you can see, Heaven will be a big place full of BABIES who didn't Learn the Book because they didn't get into God's System. So babies need overseers to take care of them. Babies need smaller roles in life, for they can't handle the bigger stuff. So they need parenting. So Heaven is a big, unequal place, full of people who died as chronological and spiritual babies. So the rulers can learn why it is God so loves us all -- for even the biggest Pleroma ruler will be a 'baby' in size, compared to Him with Whom we get to live forever.

6. Hence it's critical the Christian understand he cannot lose his salvation, for he is IRREVOCABLY Royal, upon the rebirth in Christ. If he doesn't know that, he'll keep trying to 'work' for or 'atone' for it, and thus will never mature. Look at 2Cor5:17: "kaine ktsis" there means "new-in-species creation". Just as the Jews became blessing by association to the world owing to the faith of just 3 men, so also we who believe in Christ are designed to be blessing-by-association -- married to Him, and born-from-Him spiritually. So, our "bloodline" is spiritually-generated, just as the Jewish line had been. Theirs is a physical Royalty, of which Christ was born. Ours is a spiritual royalty -- our human spirits are different from other believers', born of His John 17 prayer. Your Eternal Security can be no more "undone" by any human action, than the Jew can undo his bloodline. That's the point of 2Cor5:17, which of course is echoed famously in John 3, Romans 9, Ephesians, Hebrews, Peter, 1Jn5; in hundreds of passages throughout Scripture! (Click here for a partially-detailed list.)

   BEWARE: Don't say "So what?" to this unalterable position in Christ. Don't rebuff this status, to make self feel so holy for being 'low'. Don't denigrate His Work on the Cross in the high-sounding name of 'humility' or 'compassion'. If you do, you're just as evil as Satan. For Satan says "So what?" to Christ, in favor of his own merit. So do you, if you also say or believe garbage like "I don't know if I'm saved, only God knows"; or, "I don't expect anything from God, I'm not after any reward"; or, if you think that a puny human can either contribute to his salvation or lose it. All these and like statements are pure satanic arrogance: why should you borrow his venom? Nothing compares to God's Work. Don't even try.

   Yeah, baby. Satan encourages that Uriah-Heep thinking because he wants you to rebuff your Royalty, to motivate you to think more cheaply of what God has accomplished in Christ; so to make you think more cheaply of God, and thus more cheaply of Christ, and thus become a 'Brother Foot'! in your spiritual life. So other people will say "So, what?" to your works -- which will look just like Satan's other minions' works. Counterfeit serpents. So, what? Who's "so what" do you want to represent? Satan's, or God's? If God's, you've got to get a grip on your highborn status. Now.

   Until the Christian grasps the irrevocability of his status, he can't adjust to it. For one thing, he can't relax and grow; for another, he can't spot Satan's do-good landmines, Heb6:13-14, Eph4:14. Writer of Hebrews threads that warning throughout his letter, since the basis for it is the Royal Priest Upgrade Christ wrought on the Cross: a BATTLEFIELD Royalty (Heb1:1-2:11, esp. 2:5-14). So he's very scathing when he introduces that new Royal Priesthood in Heb 5, interrupting the discourse in Heb5:11-6:6 to show the readers how they are behaving like peasants under a DEAD standard of "works". Mere babies. Spiritual Retards. "Dull knives" (Greek, mistranslated) in 5:11 and 6:12. Dull knives are dangerous (references dull-of-Word, not on the operating table of Heb4:12). So are you, if you don't get a grip on the reality of your Royal status which no one, even God -- can cancel. For He took an oath already (Heb 6:13ff).

   Moreover, such a Christian is prone to psychosomatic illness, like the paralytic in Matt 9: whose friends had to bring him to Christ, so the paralytic could FINALLY realize his debt was forever paid. All these weaknesses torment the believer who thinks he can lose his salvation, who thinks he has to earn it. He's total putty in Satan's hands, and will never be able to grow up, and thus get beyond his humanity. He is the person "crucifying the Son afresh" in Heb 5:11-6:6. Such a believer is the Laodicean, who had to be warned of his lapse into Brother-Foot peasantry versus the Royal Living Standard of his Master: thus the Lord invokes His Royal Titles of "Faithful and True Witness", and "Ruler of the Creation of God", in Rev3. So, beware. The Son will vomit out from this life (capital punishment, 1Jn5:16) the one who arrogantly insists on living like a peasant, though irrevocably Royal. Greatest sin you can commit is unbelief, John 16:9.

   So you just sit down with your Bible software or Bible and search on the following verses before the Lord, if you doubt the irrevocability of your Royal Spiritual Status and Nature in Christ. God will not give His Precious Son, an inferior Gift. We only start out that way, so we can choose what kind of "gift" we'll be. For Our Mutual Dad, is kitting us out (Greek verb katartizw, common keyword in NT). As Bride, we get to choose where we want to be within Heaven, John 14:2 -- forever.

   • Start with the Book of Hebrews, which is the flagship book on our Battlefield Royal Inheritance in Him,
   • because He strategically defeated Satan on the Cross: main theme of the book, how our Royalty does not derive from Israel, but is a consequence of her rejection and His Matt16:18 commitment in rescuing response.
   • Focus especially on Hebrews Chapters 2-3, 5-10, the "Church of the Firstborn" reference (12:23).
   • Book of Hebrews is a post-Paul (Heb13:23 compared to end 2Timothy) followup book to
   • Ephesians, which explained our Royalty as something purposed in Eternity Past, so read that Book a bizillion times too: especially Chapters 1-2, 5 (especially verses 16 and 29-33 which look back to Matt16:18), 6 (which is on defeating Satan).
   • Christ is Royal. We are in Him. That makes us Royal.
   • That's why we have the same Royal job as His (i.e., to redeem time and defeat Satan via growing up to Eph4:13 level, Eph5:16, 6:13).
   • That study will lead you to the Head and Body metaphor, Paul's main theme.
   • If the Head is Royal, the whole Body is Royal.
   • So now you must read 1Cor (preferably in Greek, as the English translation cuts God's Head off),
   • Romans 5-9,
   • 2Cor5,
   • Philippians 2-3,
   • Colossians 1-2.
   • Of course, Paul wasn't the only one writing about it, for Peter wrote about our Royalty in 1Pet2:5, 9.
   • James -- who was true Jewish Royalty, the Lord's half brother -- even James wrote about it (whole theme of the book, represented by James 1:12, 21-22 and 2:8, 26).
   • John of course wrote about it a lot with the most famous passages, beginning with us being of Father's Royal House, in John 14:2, continuing with Our Royal Progenitor as the Vine for that Royal Wine Spiritual Bloodline in John 15, which explains why we get the Spirit. Which again, the Lord Himself ratified, in John 17. Writer of Hebrews picks up on this in Hebrews 3.
   • That John 17 ratification was preceded by lots of Royal Wedding parables (analogous to Esther), in Matt16 (keys means ruling royalty -- notice He has all the Keys again in Revelation, because we flunked). He keeps on that theme in Matt17:26 -- followed by Matt18 (especially last half); Matt20-23, 25 His Kingship and our inheritance is the main theme -- for Israel needed warning so she might change her mind and recoup the promise.
   • Of course, "promise" and "prize" and "crown" (Rev1-3, esp. 1:6, see also 5:10) and "inherit the kingdom" are catchphrases throughout the NT to alert you to the Royalty Which God Hath Wrought in Him for us on the Cross.

   • Consequently, the term "in Christ" , "in God", "in Him" etc. is frequently used in Scripture to keep reminding readers of this awesome positional fact which was accomplished apart from our volition; as well as to explain how this Royalty functions. The Greek employs what used to be called the "locative of sphere" case ending, which means your location is IN CHRIST. It's called "positional sanctification" in theology, and is critical to understanding what Christ bought for you on the Cross. For example, in 2Cor5:21 we are made "the righteousness of God in Him". Think about that for a moment. Think back to Part I's "Bride" section, which explained how you are now Good Enough. As Good As God, because you have His Infinite Righteousness residing in that human spirit the Holy Spirit made for you the first moment you believed Christ paid for your sins.
     Get it? You are Good Enough, now. No justification for pious i-am-low thinking, for the most obvious reason: it's now a LIE to say you are low! What, is Infinite Righteousness, low? Perish the thought: see how evil it is to say one is low? Why, you denigrate Christ and His Payment; you denigrate Father's Decree to impute you with Infinite Righteousness, you denigrate the Holy Spirit's work at salvation, to claim self low! So also, no need to breastbeat, either; no need to bemoan your failures: lol, all man's failures are but training aids! Would God allow bad to exist, if not for a good purpose? So, then: do what Paul counseled, "forgetting what is behind" (Philippians 3:13); do what Jabez did in the OT -- move forward, enlarge your borders! You are Structurally Compatible with Very God. God doesn't want inferiors for companionship. Can't undo Infinite Righteousness. IN Him. Not, in your works. Not, in your behavior. Not, in your failures. But, IN HIM. You can't undo what's in Him, can you? Do you have the power to undo what's in HIM? Nope.

   • Hebrews 9 makes a big stink about how what we get in Him is analogous to receiving ASSETS due to a TESTAMENTARY WILL (mistranslated "covenant", analogy begins in the Greek in 9:15, goes all the way to end of chapter10). Think a minute: if your rich aunt left you a bunch of money, would you turn it down, saying, "I don't deserve this!" Wouldn't you dishonor your aunt that way? How much more, then, do we dishonor Christ, if we turn down the Legacy His Will granted us? How much more arrogant can one be, to turn down what God grants? Isn't that what unbelievers do, turn down the gift of the Gospel?

   • Take a gander at the scathing rhetoric of Hebrews 3. Author's point of departure is the Lord's statement in what comes down to us as John 14:1-2. So, between the bookending Hebrews 3:12 and 3:19, are all other sin types in history, because those believers committed them all -- yet only the unbelief, is cited as the cause for killing them all. So unbelief is worse than all other sins. A murderer who believes will get into heaven before the moral person who never believes. King David had Uriah the Hittite conveniently placed in battle so that the latter would die, to cover up David's adultery with Bathsheba, Uriah's wife, when she became pregnant as a result (2Sam11:15, see context). King David is called "Beloved" of God (David=Beloved, in Hebrew), and Bathsheba's second son was Solomon, whom God chose to succeed David (1Chron 28:5, investiture speech). So here's a guy who did what most Christians would consider something worthy of hell, but look -- God makes Messiah come from Davie, 2Sam7 -- prior to the affair with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, which surely God foreknew.

   • So unbelief in God is THE "sin" definition in the Book of Hebrews, outclassing even the murdering abuse of justice by a king. Unbelief is called "disobedience" in translated Bibles -- but even lexicons stronger than Strong's, show you the term means to hear and NOT believe the Truth, in the Greek (parakoe and apeitheia, Heb2:2, 4:6,4:11). No wonder, the sanctified sarcasm which characterizes Hebrews, which was written in the shadow of 2nd Temple's imminent destruction, to people who were still following the Law, ignoring Christ (worse -- mentally crucifying Him afresh, Heb6:6). So unbelief is the worst thing you can do. That's falling away. You don't enter your inheritance (analogy to entering His Rest, Chapter 3-4), just like the Exodus people. You are saved, just as they were (Exodus was of believers, which is why they left). But you have elected to forfeit your inheritance -- which spits on God. Hebrews burns off the page sometimes, even in translations you can see it. Try reading the whole book over and over about 30 times in your favorite translation. See for yourself.

   • Not believing What God Hath Wrought prevents one from inheriting, whether it is the inheritance of salvation, which cannot be lost once obtained via John 3:16; or, the post-salvation inheritance of Kingship, which is indeed ours to lose, Rev3:11. So if God laid up an inheritance for you and you say no -- you are arrogant and hate Him and dishonor Him. For Then You're Claiming God Wrong, just as the unbeliever belittles salvation.

   So you just sit down with God and talk about this Royal Status you have in Him, if you are inclined to doubt it. Use 1Jn1:9 and talk with God until you are blue in the face, to reflect your spiritual "blueblood" origin. For if you reject this Royal Inheritance in favor of a claim that it's arrogant or too high to call oneself this -- you are more arrogant than them all. No Royal lives up to his heritage by rejecting it. You are not your own. Beware of the positively disgusting arrogance of alleged 'lowness', Brother-Foot Churchinanity pandered by Satan, on which Christianity gluttonizes itself.

   These words are harsh. They must be. His Payment was harsh. We were bought with Royal blood, and God help the person who rejects that fact. If you can't stand the harsh tone you've just read, please stop reading all 'my' webpages and go somewhere else that appeals to your satanic tastes. For surely you are too sold under, to comprehend anything. People who spit on the Cross fancy themselves in the light so are in Satan's darkness, 1Jn1:6,8,10, and 1Jn2 (passim), 2Tim2:26-3:7, Phili3:18-19, whole book of Jude, last half 2Peter. Of course, if you are still reading, then please accept my apologies. Peasant riff-raff shouldn't be reading this page, and if you stuck it out, then you are willing to accept the toughness which goes along with learning one's Undeserved Royal Status. Grace is not wimpy.

   Of course, there's a whole lot of nonsense made out of the "Kingdom" also, people mistaking it for something Jewish or political on earth, rather than a spiritual kingdom which will only become a political entity when Christ returns. Meanwhile, we Church are in that Kingdom, but are training for our future visible role -- royalty always trains for decades, before ruling. For us, this is a lifetime of Royal Training, main theme of Romans 5:17, Chapter 8, 2Tim2:12. So this is not something to preen over, our Royalty. It's something to be frightened of screwing up. Everyone wants to be a 'prince' but no one wants to live up to the Royal Standard: like peasants, they only want to grab at the goodies. They wouldn't know royalty, if it bit them. Neither do we. For we are all peasants, at physical birth. We need breeding. God has a Royal Breeding Program. We saw its invisible tenets in the First Main Characteristic of Invisibility. Here, we see the underlying Royalty provisions.

7. Upshot: You inherited the Most Noble Name, The Most Royal Name, in the Universe -- CHRIST. Christ is Messiah, Savior. So, that's what we Bride-Evidence (1Jn4:17's legal Greek) are to also be. For, even mere secular royalty is for messianic reasons, always: 'saving', 'protecting', 'guiding', 'parenting'. First Father of the country. So we also are to be used as mini-messiahs, emissaries of Our King, saving, protecting, guiding, parenting the world; but Invisibly, since Satan is still the ruler of it, and this is the Rebuttal (God's answer) stage of the Angelic Appeal Trial.

   DueDisclosure.htm ("Kingship" link at pagetop) says more on this topic, but for the moment, know this: You Are A Conduit Of Blessing To The World, for ever since Adam's Fall, the world only gets blessed via believers on this planet. As you'll see throughout the rest of this Part III and Part IV, the entire world depends on the spiritual growth of Christians for its welfare. For, if you are Royal, Everyone Depends On You. That, too, is something no one born royal ever escapes. That's why the Church must be raptured up for the Trib to begin. Judgement that severe is not allowed to happen so long as any member of Church is on earth. The world rejects God. It is so hardened to Him that it needs a wakeup call in the only language it can understand: disaster. Surely the hurricanes of 2005, a year which started with a tsunami of unprecedented geographical range, proves to you how hard we are. All we did, was shake our fists at God. All we did, was shake our fists at each other, everyone blaming someone for aid delivered or not delivered; no gratitude or humility at all. So if you are not down here, God can only justify wiping out more people who hate His Son. So your Royalty is innately protective, just by your bleeping breathing. That has always been true for secular royalty, even -- how much more, the True Royalty for All Eternity?

   Rulership is super-parenting. So it's exhausting, frustrating -- but you can't live without it, and it's the only thing in life which will ever fulfill you. Of course, you can't become a parent until you first grow up. Same is true in secular royalty: it's the Royal Training which makes the difference, and the biology of the royal is the same as any other human biology (there's no 'magic' in any bloodline). By contrast, our very spiritual nature the moment we are saved, is only suited to His Royal Purpose, 2Cor5:17. That's why we Christians can be such prima donnas. We also need the Training, since we are still in these peasant bodies, and our souls are now SAVED trash, rescued from being thrown out with the other self-willed refuse walking on this planet, wheat and tares parable in Gospels. So we get The Royal Advisor, the Maker of Kings: the Holy Spirit. We never outgrow 'Mom' (a Name He uses for Himself, via "rahaph" in Gen1:2's Hebrew). Again: you will never be happy if you don't grow up in this Royal Role, I don't care how many goodies you accumulate. They will bore you, eventually. The only alternative a Royal has (even secularly) to growing up in his intended ruling role -- is boredom. It's a killer outcome. Don't tempt fate, k?

   God makes you great. So God makes you responsible, even before He's made you able to function in your Royal Greatness. History we hear is not the true story. Gen5 is the true story, and it's now upgraded to believers in Christ, Who is Seated and Ruling. I don't care what you think of yourself or what others think of you, God made you Royal, that first nanosecond you believed in Christ, and He sealed it with an oath (Heb6:13ff). Then, the Holy Spirit Himself sealed you, Eph4:30, Eph1:13, 2Cor1:22. Sealing meant ownership in the ancient world (seals opening in Rev are ownership title deed sovereignties, exercised). So you are great; me too. Let's live up to that Eph1 inheritance, and be the mini-messiahs God designed by living on God's Script, in God's System, on the operating table of Heb4:12.

   Most people prefer to be childish. That's 'happiness' to them, and misery to everyone else. In heaven, they will not be childish, but they will be children, compared to the Pleroma rulers over them. Perfection doesn't mean equality. It means "fit". Synergy owing to free "fit" among all persons of widely-variant personalities and abilities. In heaven, those abilities and personalities are solely determined by how much one lived in God's System. Our version of "the System" is the Royal one for all eternity. So among us, sadly 99.9% of Christians opt to be peasants, though of the same Royal Spiritual Bloodline. So they won't be ruling, they will be ruled, for they abdicated from the Royal Training program down here. So this 'saving' isn't just of the world and now -- invisibly, not via works -- but for all eternity, and of our own fellow believers. Salvation that gets you into heaven, requires added saves after that, to provide for the TYPE of eternal future there you will have. And Your Choices Are Decreed to Determine What Kind Of Life You Want, And What It Will Be. Choose wisely, stay in God's System.

   Your vote, my vote, and the vote of any individual, has never been compromised by the masses, and still is not. And as you know even with a secular election, the lower the voter turnout, the more each vote matters. In the Election of God, each vote matters like His Son's does per Eph1's "every spiritual blessing" clause. That's why (John14:14) "if you ask anything in My Name, I will do it." Do you realize, that's a carte blanche which only the Son had, down here? ANYTHING you ask. Not just some things. So James notes we should ask for wisdom (James 1:5). Yeah, because you can really get in trouble if you pray for something you'd later regret! Kings say a thing -- and it happens. That's what we're in training to become! [Important Nerd Note: initial context of John 14:14 was for the apostles to ask Him then, directly. Don't pray to Christ, but to the Father. The Lord Himself explained that's the procedure post-Cross, in John 15:16, 16:23ff. So all those people who only read John 14:14 and try praying "to Jesus" will NOT be heard. Christ Himself prayed to Father, in John 17, and even the Lord's Prayer outline is to Father, so there's no excuse for not knowing Father is the only Recipient of prayer. Not any saint, either. Sheesh we don't know our Bibles!]

   Hence the mandate is to get filled up with His Son, and we can get there, per Eph3:15-19, Eph4:13, 2Pet3:18. Whoa. Voting for God has Divine effects, each time! Noah was only one person voting -- and through him the whole human race was spared. So yes, one person makes a difference. The fact that the masses are so many tells you how successful Satan is. That God's heroes are so few, tells you how much more successful God is. So choose God's System, and let the masses fool themselves with their large numbers, as indeed they always have. Christ is One Person. So are you. That is enough!

   God didn't create Himself, so no one else does, either. Problem with the world is that like Satan, they want to TRY to create themselves, á la Isa14:13-14, making themselves high. IT DOESN'T WORK. People huff and puff and become jaded one way or another, at the end. Heroes are many and all of them have bad endings, in this world. Just read any famous person's biography, notice how tragedy always permeates his life. The only worthwhile heroism in this world is God's -- because HE does all the making, not you. You basically watch Him do this to you, as you learn and live Bible in God's System. It's kinda like the Battle of Jericho or Berachah where the Jews trained and trained and trained, prior -- but on the days of actual battle, The Lord Did It All In Advance. They just came in to collect the spoil. That's how Christ 'did' it, Matt4:4. Christ didn't make Himself, but relied on the Spirit. We get that same privilege. Frankly, that's the only happiness in life. This life -- or, the next one. Else you're stuck with trying to become a star; if you make it, you'll find out a devastating fact: everyone hates you or gloms onto you for goodies or status or something else which makes them feel good about themselves. It's never you they really love. That's how it is in 'worshipping god', too. All fake. All a waste of time. Avoid it. Just learn God, and let the dead bury their own dead. For if you try to win their favor, they will be out to bury you.

   In sum, based on your choices to learn Him, down here you will have varying amounts of wealth and poverty, health and sickness, heartaches and happinesses as training aids. You are not better if you have the nice ones, and you are not better if you have the not-nice ones. Your own soul is unique, so the circumstances needed to train you will be in concert with your own soul. But after death, those who became more intimate have the higher status and wealth. That, because the only way anyone in heaven wants to spend himself, is on Christ. Because, God is drop-dead Gorgeous in Nature. Everything else we hold so dear down here, will have passed away as valuable. Everyone will have his dreams come true -- but the New Dream will be then, to spend whatever one has, on Him. That's Priesthood, internally. That's your future and mine. Ours to choose down here, how much we get to spend on Him, by how much we learned His Thinking. The more time and thought you spend on learning and living His Thinking, the more material wealth you'll have to express that Thinking -- forever. So just keep learning and living on Bible in God's System, if you want to get that Intimacy. This is the one area in which you must become greedy!

8. Fundamentally, therefore, the Bridal Role we have in Christ, makes us higher than any group of humans in history and for all eternity. This Bridal Role is a Gift to Christ, and was designed by Father for His Son in eternity past, theme of Ephesians 1. Dark side is, woe to us if we undervalue His Bridal Design. The most important role of a wife is to be intimate with Her Husband, particularly with His Thinking. Anticipating it, catering to it, loving it, living on it. Every man wants that in his wife. Every wife who loves her husband wants that in herself. It's natural: if you love someone, you drink in every thought that person has, and live on it, even pining over the memories if the loved one is absent. So how is it, with God we suddenly act like the frigid wife, relegating the relationship to cold do's and rituals, robotic and shallow, tit-for-tat? If your spouse treated you like that, you'd want a divorce -- or at least, a vacation!

   You are thus to learn Our Mutual Husband's thinking. Only then can you function honorably in this your Royal Role; your new spiritual nature In Christ will be utterly and completely miserable to the extent you don't grow up to function in that nature. This was explained in the "Priesthood +potential Crowning" table (first row of red-table links at pagetop). That's the 'curse' of being born high, and there is no escaping it. Woe to us individually, then, if we don't grow up. Woe to our nations, if we don't grow up. When a king is out of sorts, of course no one tells him. So if you leave God's System, everyone else will know you're miserable: but you won't, until it's almost too late.

   Obviously if Father chose this Bridal Gifting of Church as the way to Honor His Son's Humanity, the Gift must be worthy of Him. God doesn't give unworthy gifts. So notice the magnitude from the flipside, the kind of sins only we Church, can commit:

   • What believer in the past could sin against God by rejecting his own Royal-Priesthood-To-Father position in Christ? It wasn't available: only RICH ROYALS can sin this way; the OT believer didn't have a Royal Priesthood, to reject!
   • What believer in the past could sin by grieving the Spirit, quenching the Spirit, lying against the Spirit,
   • rejecting Christ's work on the Cross by alleging it wasn't enough (me-must-be-god, me-must-be-good, me-must-help)?
   • What believer could sin against God by not attaining the "fullness of Christ", Eph4:13?
   • What believer had the option to sin against God by saying, "no, I don't want to vest as Priest-King like you did", thus refusing Revelation 1:6, Revelation 5:10, and leaving dormant his office as priest the meanwhile, down here (1Pet2:5,9)?
   • When could ANY believer in history ask for ANYTHING HE WANTED in Christ's Name, and get it (John 14:14, 15:16, 16:23ff)? Have you ever tried claiming that contractural promise? I have. It works! Scary, how much! So what happens, if I refuse to use it, or use it wrongly? Big Time Discipline! To whom much is given, much is expected. Yet we Christians don't even know how to pray, and we pray wrongly (James 4:2e). Yikes, no wonder we get spanked so much. [You realize, of course, that as God He could just say a thing and it was so. Here, He's giving us that same authority. That helps us get a somber sense of what it was like for Him to be Him, down here. As you practice praying and getting what you asked, you come to realize you never have enough facts, so it had better instead be what "Dad" wants as the prayer request, lest it be a bad ruling on your part. "Thy Will be done" is the smart way to pray! Don't ASSume that God's Will gets done down here automatically. That's not the protocol, because this is the devil's world. So there are rules for what constitutes valid, legally-binding prayer. (Satan obfuscates what those few rules are, so millions of Christians don't pray correctly, and hence conclude negatively about God.) Hence we are Priests for a reason: we have a monopoly on prayer. What we ask for will be done, if we ask rightly. So "Thy Will be done" (or your own words to the same effect) is important to ask. You thus call on GOD to rule right down here in the devil's world! It won't happen if you don't vote for it, 2Chron 7:14 principle. Took me years to learn the wisdom of that vote: if I feel I must affirmatively pray something specific, I always put in a clause making the entire prayer subject to God's will, with a clause saying that anything He wants should be done, carte blanche. That way anything HE wants, is the "anything I ask", so everything He wants, is invoked as applicable, down here. Prayer is a nuclear weapon. Follow the protocol, see #5 in GodSystem.htm or read PrayProc.htm. If you don't follow the simple protocol, your prayer goes no higher than the ceiling. Like anything else, you must practice prayer, to learn it. Don't use set prayers, use Bible you know to think out what to say and talk to God normally. It's your thinking out the doctrinal issues that's being developed, since you are to be a ruler someday. So, use prayer as if you were a ruler deciding and voting on issues, hence talk with God about them. Don't worry about screwing up. Just condition your prayers upon God's Will being done, and you'll be alright. Pray as conversation with God, most of all: social life with Him, not just asking for stuff. That's what the Lord and David and Paul did, constantly.]
   What believer in history, what human, even, ever had such opportunities to sin? See how devastating it is to think self so holy one can lose his salvation -- or that one must "contribute" to it? How sad a thing for us to not realize our Royalty. Dead or alive, Royal is Royal. A dead prince or princess doesn't stop being royal. A bad prince or princess doesn't stop being royal. It's inherited, at birth. Can't undo that.

   This is an intimidating inheritance. No wonder Paul counseled us to "operate" the salvation we have, give it a workout with fear and trembling, in Phili2:12; adding (whew) that it's God Who does all that work, in Phili2:13. Parallel passage is in Eph6, where you don all the armor and then go into battle. You are saved, armored: NOW USE IT, don't be like the stingy servant who hid it away in a "napkin" (Luke 19:20, ties to similar parable in Matt25:25). [Greek word "phobew" is negatively, fear; but positively, awe. Respect so high, you 'fear' not obeying. Apt term. You mature from fear to awe only in God's System.]

   Thus we have more power to sin than any humans yet born. We also have the highest and most difficult spiritual life ever given to fallen humans. It is more difficult, because we don't have the paint-by-numbers spiritual life rules of the Mosaic Law. Then, if you just did what Daddy told you, no matter what you were thinking, you "obeyed". Now, oh no, that's not enough. It's the thought that counts, and if you don't get the thought exactly right -- the whole thing is wrong, and you are punished. 'Reminds you of the high price of any failure on His Part, had He Himself failed. 'Difference is, we can't lose our salvation: but we can lose our extensive rewards, and instead end up naked: "but he himself shall be saved, as though through fire". (The "wood hay stubble" verse in 1Cor3).

   Remember, toward the top of Part II (brown font section), where I speculated that Satan was to be the #1 Ruler, but he flunked out? Remember how God must have designed the structure of the person for rule -- so, as Romans 5-8 say, it could be filled up/out by Love's capacity? And how the person would become "supremely frustrated" if he doesn't thus grow up to become that ruler? Guess how you'll end up if you don't grow up. How I will. How any of the Bride will. Miserable. Royally miserable. That's a promise from God, in every epistle. What do you think the "shame" warning means, anyway? Christian, beware of not staying the course. "[E]ndure" in the doctrine ("faith", in English bibles) -- "until the end."

   Notice how enduring to the end is a problem because you are permanently, Royally saved. If you were a peasant, endurance wouldn't even be an issue, for no one watches peasants, for crying out loud! And, if you could lose your salvation, you couldn't endure to the end, so there'd be no warning like this in Scripture. It would be irrelevant, get it? You can't 'endure' what you don't have! What, would the Bible tell you to 'endure' pain, if you had none? What would there BE, to endure? Get it? 'Salvation' is something you have to endure to completion, because you have it forever. [Maybe the quickest way to see this point about "shame" is to search all English-language versions, like you can in BibleWorks software. Search on all verses in the whole Bible which have both "shame" and "glory" in them. Note that the two terms are always used for on-earth discipline, never a loss of salvation. Phili3:19 is talking about "shame" at the Bema, which obviously means you got saved -- ties to 1Cor3's description. You can also do the same search with "endure" and "end", but since English translations variantly translate these, you won't get all the verses they are in. Try "faith" and "endure" and "end", or "faith" and "end". Better still, find a pastor who teaches in the original languages.]

   My pastor is dying of Alzheiemer's here on 1/1/2006. For over 50 years he was a pastor, faithfully teaching from the original-language texts of Scripture to a dull-of-hearing congregation, of which I am a part (long-distance now). So it seems to me God took away his memory, because we were so forgetful and disinterested; a kind of substitutionary thing. So here's the upshot: the above text is very similar to his warnings to us over the past 50+ years, and are validly provable in Bible. [This sounds like a condemnation of my own church. It's all on tape, my pastor told us we were like that, you can hear him say so yourself from about 1996 onward, more and more frequently. I witnessed the dullness myself in both others and myself. I was spanked, too. Since it's all on tape for anyone to acquire and hear for free, this is not a condemnation, but an admission. Bible isn't coy about failure. Neither should we be. Calling a spade a spade is Royal Honesty, before the Lord. More battles have been lost from dishonest reporting -- most famously, in Hitler's regime -- than for any other cause. One can't diagnose problems and fix them if the problems are covered up. We all make mistakes. That's why we have 1Jn1:9.]

   So whomever is your own right pastor, learn under him well? Don't be like we were and just sit and nod in class, because you agree with what your pastor says; turn it over, investigate in the Word. Then you truly honor him. Then you will believe. Don't just mouth, go to the potlucks, 'fellowship' with Christians -- forget the people, fellowship with God in His Word on your own, turning over what you learned in Bible Class! Or you will be utterly embarrassed at the Bema, and wreck havoc on the world as well. Yes, you are that important. The world really does depend on you. It's not a lie or arrogance. Look: I'm a dufus, yet the world depends on me, too. On each of us, Col3:25. Did you read 2Sam24:17, and see how David got punished by others being executed? Do you want that on your conscience?

   See: we are true royalty. We should then royally learn this our so-great salvation. And we are not learning! How much bigger a hint do you need, than all those water judgements which characterized 2005, even drought being included? These things happened all over the world in an orchestrated fashion, like a rollout, measured: even Europe got some of the weirdest flooding it's ever had (American news didn't cover those catastrophes very well). Doesn't that gradual, repeated orchestration, same THEMED DELIBERATENESS quality as what happened to Pharaoh, so you can't mistake it for natural phenomena unless you are willfully blind -- remind you of the epic scale of the Trib judgements? All of which, are patterned after what happened to Egypt under Pharaoh Amenotep II? Do you see why? Lev26 is no joke: when you see it play live just as it does in Bible, with the obviousness of a THEME behind it -- so a MIND is behind it, not happenstance -- then you should take your role seriously. For God surely takes your role seriously: a Royal Role He created to Gift His Son. [Exodate.htm and Mirroring.htm covers the Pharaonic timing, which modern scholarship universally screws up. No excuse for it, Bible is plain and you can too verify it historically.]

9. In sum, Royalty in Christ means Responsibility in Christ, and that Responsibility cannot be fulfilled until and unless 1) you come to grips with the fact that you are both Irrevocably a Royal Priest and a Crown-Prince in Training, and 2) YOU LEARN HOW HE THINKS. For the Royal Life is a Thinking Life. Peasants "do", Royals "rule". So the Royal Life is far harder than the peasant's, as you'll see in the next Reason.

Salvation, because you have it permanently, is Now like school (John's analogy), or (Paul's term) an athletic competition (Hebrews calls it a long-distance footrace, in Heb12:1's Greek): question is, what grade or place level(s) do you complete? So if you quit God's Script, then you flunk the "course", rather than pass it; you don't finish the course, because you flunk. So your "grade" arrests, and you don't graduate. Or, in athletic terms, if you quit God's Script, you quit the event for which God's training you. [The word "telos", Greek word often translated "end" in English, really means to "the point-of-completion", and is only and always used for the post-salvation life, because that life is a parallel to Christ's. (It should be obvious that His life is not a parallel to our pre-salvation life, lol.) Romans 8 explains that Doctrine completes the Infinite Righteousness we got at salvation: see also 2Cor5:21. Parallel passage to the prior verses is succinctly summarized in Phil2:12-13 -- God completes you.]

And what, precisely, are you in 'school' to learn? What 'event' are you being trained for? To be a King! [No gender distinctions post-death: Matt22:30, Mark 12:25; also Luke 20:35, but English trans is legalistically distorted.] For, He is the King of Kings, and we are to be the Bride: the "of Kings" is a subgroup among us who actually complete the training "to the end" of our lives. Yes, it takes that long.

Why? Royalty is a lifelong thing, not a "9-to-5 job". So even down here on earth, it takes nearly a lifetime to train for it; since once you ascend the throne, there's no way out (except the shame of abdication). Look: Royalty's "work" is invisible and constant; because, it is thinking amidst a bizillion others who watch. Constantly. The pressure is enormous. You grow up under the pressure of all eyes judging every eyebrow movement you make, whether your cravat is properly tied, whether you misuse a preposition. All that petty judging going on. It's enough to drive anyone bats! Worst hell on earth, is to be born royal in this world. Yet all we commoners see is that calm exterior, usually clothed richly and housed richly. We wonder, what do those folks do, sit around all day looking good? We don't see what goes on, and what we call "work" is rigidly defined in childish, visible terms, so -- we don't think Royalty does anything worthwhile. Well, 'except to visit hospitals, and such.

On the contrary, the work of Royalty (ideally) is rougher than any job ever conceived. As in the case of the Lord (in Matt4), our thought must be quick! and precisely correct! (Satan was tempting the Lord to visibly use His Humanity for the "good" of mankind.) A slightly wrong thought can send shockwaves through the country, since Royalty lives in a glass bowl, and every move is viewed with magnifying glasses. And why is all this true?

'Because Royalty sets policy. Royalty sets standards. Then Royalty Spends Its Life Living Those Standards, For The Sake Of The Ruled. 'So that the ruled benefit by seeing, and thus trying to emulate, those Standards. Royalty doesn't even have to make law, to fulfill its Role. It merely needs to exist: for the trick in successful Ruling, is to realize that "less, is more". The Queen of England has more power in her "little" wave to influence people, than all of Parliament's laws. That's God's Will, by the way. For, "rule" means "standard", "ought-to", "best". The best way to live. The beneficial way to live. So, the only valid purpose of "law", is to benefit from obeying its standards. Yet the problem with legislation is, laws by nature impose. On the other hand, seeing a person choose to live high standards, causes enjoyment -- and thus, emulation. So, see? Royalty needs to exist, and by 'merely' existing, provides the best "rule": by example. Free. That's why we want to emulate Our Royal Ruler, the King of Kings. Because, it's not about imposition. It's about the Gorgeousness of His Standard!

And why is this true? Because Royal Thinking is inherently attractive. It is gracious, considerate, appreciates, and respects. It is relaxed, and values life not by things, but by ideas: virtues matter, "goodies" do not. Aren't we all attracted to the phenomenal Love And Strength of our Gorgeous Lord? Who did not consider even His Godness a thing to be seized and held (power, baby!), but rather Loved His Father and us so much that He added on lowly Humanity to Himself, and even went to the Cross? (Phil2:5-10.)

By contrast, peasant thinking is ugly, for it is childish, animalistic. Grab this, grab that. Feel this, feel that. Dirty, disorganized. No discernment. Goes by appetite, rather than by reason. Has to be told what to do, because has no initiative. Can't think. Uneducated. Therefore, insecure. Therefore, can only 'relate' to Royal Standards by wanting the "goodies", for "goodies" are all its animalistic appetite wants. Responsibility for its own sake is not valued. Graciousness might be aped, but as a child apes her mother by dressing up in her clothes, or smearing her lipstick. Rent the movie, "The Elephant Man", and watch how horrible the peasanty-sin-nature of man truly is. So, in that cry-your-eyes-out movie of man's cruelty to man, the Queen, a sensitive doctor, and a leading noble actress befriend tortured John Merrick. No peasant would do such a thing: peasants gawk. Oh, Who will deliver us from these bodies of death! Thanks to God Our Father, The Lord Jesus Christ! [End Rom7.] Walking trash, the peasant. Walking trash, we.

So the peasant is intimidated by the Royal Standards, especially since they are so demanding of virtue, of selflessness. Peasant-thinking doesn't want to work that hard. Since people are fallible, whether "high" or "low", any "high" person who misuses his status naturally is a convenient excuse for charging that his status was at the cost of peasant labor. And, peasantly, that charge is extended to the entire upper class, thus justifying never working that hard. So, laziness becomes a virtue. So, theft of property from the higher classes becomes a virtue, in the name of 'taking back' something 'stolen' from the peasant. So, the peasant often revolts. So, the higher classes are made to feel guilty, because maybe maybe maybe a few among their number abused wealth/authority. Thus has our so-called "modern, enlightened" attitude today come to be. [Read up on the French Revolution, Flight of the Romanovs, Mao Tse Tung's Hundred Flowers campaign, or other what-happened-when-China-became-Communist books. There are a lot of good ones out, now. See how much destruction occurred in any of these so-called 'freedom fights'; priceless stuff wrecked, rather than sold to help the poor. Millions of people murdered, and especially peasants. Just like people in Watts (section of Los Angeles, CA) trashed each others' neighborhoods. For what?? Because they were mad at the 'establishment'? So why trash other poor victims? It's the same stupid trashing thing, in all those oh-so-hallowed 'revolutions'. The film "Dr. Zhivago" well illustrates what really happened: a break out of the sin nature, manifesting its true rejecting, jealous nature. Check it yourself, don't take my word for it.]

So, in our modern, "egalitarian" times, we praise being "equal" as if it were a good thing, as if it were even potentially true. What rubbish. Just walk around (well, drive around, and in daylight) any 'ghetto' area: notice how trashed up it is. What, is there no sense of cleanliness? Of course not. Like 1Jn says repeatedly, because God first loves us, we are only then enabled to love, and even that must be learned (Chapter 4) via the Holy Spirit. So, until then, dirty. Not equal, but rather swine, trampling down everything underfoot. Nobility requires noble nurture, for nobility is superior. Left to their own devices, even properly-reared children revert to savagery: Fielding's Lord of the Flies records man's true, vile, nature. Needing, therefore, all the noble nurture he can get!

Besides, we don't want to be equal -- why are we so hypocritical, telling such lies to ourselves? We each want to be special, needed, unusual in some key way. Why? To buttress ego. However, even assuming we didn't have the depraved "me-be-good" need of "ego", there's another reason: we want to matter. We don't want our living to be empty. So, we try to carve out niches for ourselves, and then say "this niche is what makes my existence worthwhile". So, "being equal" is the antithesis of that normal wanna-be-worthwhile need.

Nor is it possible for anyone to be worthwhile, were we all equal. Without the rich, the poor can't get paid to do something worthwhile. Without the rich, there are neither markets nor innovations for products: everyone wants to sell to the 'rich', and so markets are driven where the profits seem best -- which means, toward the 'rich'. Think about that. We ooohh and ahhhh over great architecture, art, philosophy, music. Who do you think paid for all that? The rich. (Study up on it, see for yourself: every great building, every budding artist or philosopher had some rich patron.) So, then: innovation, too, depends on there being rich. Which means, on INequality. So, by that system, everyone can do something worthwhile, unique. because unequal. Think it over. God isn't kidding in 1Cor12 and 1Tim2:13 when He talks about never saying 'I don't need you.' He created a need for you or you wouldn't exist. So, you're not equal to anyone. You're unique.

One hopes that the lessons of the 20th century will at least be these:

• yes, abuse by monopoly/oligarchy/royalty is bad, but the so-called 'democratic' version, abjuring the past, only worsened monopolistic abuse in the name of the 'state';
• yes, some rich hurt some poor, but the same is true vice versa; to blame all rich or all poor is to ignore human nature.
• Companies, countries, 'wealthy' entities are but amalgams of all kinds of people, so don't throw out all the entity because of whatever proved evil was in a few.
• Even the worst rich person, simply because he has money to spend, will be of benefit to the poor, so don't crucify him (even if he buys a yacht, that yacht's cost paid for the wages of the poor who helped build it -- so was in fact spent for the poor, duh);
• Even the worst poor person is capable of learning, so don't enslave him by handouts. Charity addiction is far worse than drug or alcohol addiction; those latter merely addict the body, but charity addicts the soul into i-am-victim thinking.
• We need to find some middle road, this century, rather than following our typical swing too far to either left or right. And that depends on believers learning Him, and thus on the development of virtue in the common man. Led well, by virtuous leaders -- but our leaders will never be any better than we are. Responsibility begins in the mirror, and nowhere else. Because, even the unbeliever has a Royal Destiny, if he believes in Christ.

So, too, freedom to be poor or rich means there must be inequality, with royal-rich at the top (God, for example!) and common-poor, at the bottom. The trick is, to have freedom of mobility, which the so-called 'equality' economies (like socialism) would erase, trapping everyone. Look: many folks just love being peasants. That's their thinking style, that's their living style, that's their "niche". What's wrong with it? Well, the only thing that's wrong with it, is peasant ignorance and arrogance. Ok, but "peasants" don't have a monopoly on ignorance and arrogance, do they? Of course not. Moreover, maybe one who is a "peasant" doesn't want to be one. Can such a person get out? Is he locked into that status, like some caste system? Ahhhh.

Truly Good Standards are INSPIRING. So you ENJOY trying to reach them, motivated and inspired by them. So Good Standards make all the difference in the quality of one's life. If one's standard is 'revenge', for example, he will spend his entire life chasing after the (alleged or real) object who wronged him -- and himself has no life worth the name. For, he spent it on revenge. By contrast, the Leviticus 19:18 standard "thou shalt not take/seek revenge" frees such a soul! God will handle it! Ahhhh. That's inspiring. You can breathe now, freed from the tyranny of trying to get revenge yourself: God will handle it, His Standard prevails.

Standards thus enable happiness or misery, depending on the intrinsic properties of those standards. Therefore, one must learn them, in order to USE them. A peasant therefore cannot get out of peasanthood unless he learns higher standards. His natural thinking is low, to-the-ground, petty, needy, grasping. On the nicer side, he's childlike, so can be trained, and is capable of great (and very touching!) loyalty. So, how to help him? Well, all the money in the world can't teach him how to want the standards. All the money in the world, if given him absent him first having learned the standards, can't make him want the standards.

So, secularly, if the peasant/child habitually sees a nicely-dressed clean person who reads, writes, acts responsibly and gracefully -- the peasant/child will want to imitate what he sees. He might start taking a bath. He might try to practice walking the same way. Count on it, he'll memorize every little detail, and try to improve his own lot -- by imitation. After all, absent the royal, the only standard the peasant knows, is -- other peasants'.

So, seeing a Royal, in the beginning the peasant will just ape the outers he sees. He apes them, because he is insecure; he obeys, not to honor the standards, but peasantly, childishly -- to feel better about himself, to get approbation from others. Funny thing about aping: as you practice the outers (aha! just like the Mosaic Law!) you begin to change your inner values, too. Suddenly it's no longer alright to just throw your jacket on the floor. Suddenly it's no longer alright to have grimy skin. Suddenly it's no longer alright to just hit anyone who disagrees with you in the tavern. Suddenly it's no longer alright to just take someone else's property, or rape a woman. For, "suddenly" the inner values are different. All because someone with different and more-attractive standards was habitually seen.

That's why, in older times, Royalty actually wielded the final governmental powers: military and taxation. Royalty is looked-up to, on the grounds that it is free of corruption. For this reason, Royalty is (supposed to be) financially independent, owing no one. For this reason, Royalty is (supposed to be) wholly dedicated to the benefit of the ruled. So, we often ascribe parental qualities to Royalty, and celebrate them, if we recognize the benefit we receive from them. And what is that benefit? To learn the Standards, and thus ourselves have a happier life!

Therefore True Royalty is necessarily intense, and thus not visible to the public-at-large except in passing -- in short, at a distance. The true behind-the-scenes Royal lifestyle is fraught with meaning, roles, rules. One born royal is thus intensively trained in these things, and often is deprived of simple pleasures most "peasants" take for granted. For example (I type from memory -- book cites are further down the webpage),

• Russia, mid- or late 1800's: some of Tsar Alexander's family were only allowed bread and water while children, to teach them self-discipline (a memoir of Dmitri Romanov?);
• England, 20th century: George V's kids (elder one would become Edward VIII; younger, George VI) had very strict rules of behavior even when very young;
• Germany, same time period (roughly): Kaiser Wilhelm's grandfather slept on a cot! even when old.
• No public or royal person in our media age, and even before it, can just jump off the couch and buy a pack of gum -- it's a major logistical operation!
• No public person today, and especially if royal, can just express his opinion, scratch, have an embarrassing moment, or do anything spontaneous -- there are always repercussions!
• NO royal can just buy what he likes or say what he dislikes -- many jobs are affected!

  Not as thrilling a life as you imagined, huh? (Frankly, the dress codes alone would cancel any royal attraction, imo!)

  That strictness is the heart of what ROYAL means. It's done to make the ROYAL independent of goodies, so "goodies" don't have remotely the glamour value the masses imagine. In fact, if you are intimate with anyone who is noble, wealthy, or Royal, you can tell by their conversation and behavior that they are more occupied with the right use of what they have, rather than the status that they have. [It should be no surprise that the rich romanticize poverty just as much as the poor romanticize wealth. Rich children are constantly taught to HONOR the poor, so naturally grow up with some romantic notions about what poverty is like. Grass is always greener in your neighbor's yard!]

What makes abdication so vile, is the betrayal of Royal Standards. As a human being, of course, any Royal is entitled to wants, needs. But the Royal who will rule is no longer allowed to be human. For the sake of his country, he rules. His own life is of no consequence to him. Else, he should not rule. To be Royal, to have been trained for this role and then to reject it, is beyond all crime. Personally, one can empathize. However, one doesn't have the luxury of personal desires. That is why the Royal upbringing is what most would consider, sadistic. The one trained who survives all that, becomes truly great. To not survive, is betrayal. For, the Royal Standard is BIGGER than the self; to dishonor it, is betrayal beyond all betrayals. Period. Death is preferable.

While some particulars of a royal standard in human affairs (and especially, the traditions, protocols) might be wrong, the essential idea is still at heart right. This, the true Royal learns from the beginning, and comes to wholly love with all his heart: it's The Standard, Whole. Right, or wrong. Loved, or not loved -- but still wholly honored with all his being. This, is what the abdicating Christian will not do. Instead of learning his Dread Lord's Royal Thinking, the abdicating Christian opts for tavern-like spirituality, with the rituals, the songs, the deeds based on ego. Yet notice the contrast: the Lord lived on the Word, Matt4:4. This, Our Lord wholly loved and obeyed in His Humanity, even through that most unfair act of history, being judged for our sins (Phili2:5-10, again). This, can only be truly done via the Uniquely Royal Spiritual Life which was granted to us through Jesus the Christ; which is to say, through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit utilizing Bible Doctrine we learn and live on daily, in God's System.

Unlike normal earthly royalty, since we are His DDNA at the new birth (2Cor5:17, Titus 3:5) we cannot be happy except via this most-demanding, Royally Invisible Spiritual Life crafted by Father for His Son: Brideship. Ephesians focuses on this topic, saying in Chapter 1 and Eph2 (esp. v.10) that it's the entire point of history, this making of Body of Christ. So, we are truly born Royal, in Him. We can't get out of that destiny, it's built into our new-birth DDNA nature, as we saw in the Synopsis (top row of the red table at pagetop). Woe to us if we abdicate, via rejecting our apprenticeship period down here: that is why, for crying out loud, life apart from Him is so demonstrably empty! Don't we all notice that? How many jaded Christians do you know, huh?

The world has known about Messiah's First Coming for all its history. That story was progressively revealed, and you can trace that fact through the morphed god stories and holy books. No set can contain itself. Largest "god" dataset is Bible's. All else that morphs, subtracts one or more data attributes, to derive the morphing. Same principle in tracing DNA or the origin of a language. Look for the mutations. As a result, this oldest of God disclosures, about the Coming-World-Ruler-Who'll-End-the-World-When-He-Comes, is rather unpopular by now. But not unknown. Part IVa will spend more time on that topic, but for the moment, reflect: who in the world has not heard of Jesus Christ? Even remote African tribes sent the US a few cows to show sympathy for our 9/11 massacre. So how could they not know about Christ? See, it's a myth to say the heathen haven't heard: just check out their myths. Any anthropologist will tell you all these myths are so similar (but since evolutionists don't recognize that no set can contain itself, they can't trace origins very well).

Hence Satan&Co., realizing we are so blind and the world is getting the silent treatment from God, well they seek to derisively advertise the Bible every chance they get. They advertise their involvement in the fake holy books, in the way they polarize all religious topics to Christianity, in the way they mistranslate the Bible. You can prove all this and it goes back for centuries, same pattern. So it's not really all that invisible to the world -- but rather, is hiding in plain sight. God the meanwhile, is mum. You don't talk to the other party in a negotiation until that other party is willing to talk to you. Barkus is willing, but in the world-at-large, all the Peggities, would rather flirt with someone else.

The world hates Christianity due to its content, yes; but even more so, due to the thoughtlessness of Christians. We are rightly held accountable as representing God. Even though the world does not believe in Him, they nonetheless know we are His, and are far less tolerant of us for that reason. It's not merely our bad behavior which makes folks hate Christianity. In a 'subterranean' way, folks know we're Royal: because both God and Satan&Co. keep pointing us out. Else, how would folks be able to know where to go for the Gospel? Why do you think Paul kept stressing behavior, in Corinthians, Timothy, 12-14 Romans?

Pick up any Royal biography, from Clovis to Diana, sometime. See how hard it is to be Royal. The childhood training is far more rigorous than even a soldier's, in boot camp! There are literally thousands of rules for etiquette, protocol, and every minute of the day is often scheduled. Every glance, every inflection of the voice, is interpreted by the audience -- and commented upon, in the papers! Everyone is staring at you all the time; reporters and 'fans' try to find your private trash dump to see if they can learn something 'secret' about you; what you wear, suddenly is mass-marketed! If you dislike a thing and, forgetting, make an offhand remark, well -- that manufacturer loses millions of dollars! And all this, simply because you are always being watched and imitated! Tell me: how pleasant would you find that kind of life? I bet, "NOT!"

In short, the Royal has no privacy. Glass bowl. Servants. Dependence on "underlings". Gossip. Intrigue. Can't be sure of anyone's love. Can't take even the simplest peasant rest. Solomon recorded these many problems in Ecclesiastes (while carnal), Proverbs (while spiritual) and Song of Solomon. David's story, in Samuel and Kings, helps portray how "heavy hangs the head, who wears the crown." King Achish, upon hearing 'madman' David sought sanctuary in Gath, away from Saul, said "Haven't I got enough madmen already?" (1Sam21:14-15.)

Do you get what "Royal" really means? The Royal never has a moment's peace from careful thinking. 'Just as Christ never had. The Royal has to come to love constant self-control amidst every kind of subtle torture -- if not, he publicly self-destructs. Who wouldn't go 'ballistic' from all that pressing attention? Or, look how everyone pressed against the Lord in the Gospels! Why do you think he said to the groupie, "Foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head" (I paraphrase)?

Get This Point: Without the "Mind of Christ" circulating in our own souls, we'll never make it. Satan&Co. want to make a spectacle of you (cf 1Cor4:9, which uses gladiator terminology). So does God -- just as He made a spectacle of Christ. Count on it, you're being watched. Any slip which can be used to denigrate Christ in others' eyes, will be capitalized upon. Pray as hard as you can for every pastor or person who works in Bible. They get hit on the most, and their many egregious errors are all public now, let alone at the Bema. They need all the prayer support they can get. Isn't it nice to know how you're being used to 'shame' Him in the eyes of the world?

You can trace this same fixation throughout history. Satan is so fixated, his minions' authorship of the world's 'holy books', all point derisively to Bible, and deride anyone who doesn't believe in Bible, all at the same time! Notice also, how all the ghost/UFO/'spirits' stuff is so promoted, worldwide throughout history -- and every time the characteristics of these 'beings' is exactly the same as the character of the demons in the Gospels and the OT. Fascinating: Appendix link examines some of their salient gambits (SatTacExamp.htm). No one catches on. But then the same colors as in Rev17, are worn by the chief among the Rev17 fake Church, the RCC. Which all the independents since about 1960, are rapidly rushing to emulate. Much more religified, the independents, than before 1960. So all this FOCUS on Christianity, century after century, um -- don't you wonder why? Yeah, you're on Divine TV, alright. Hiding in plain sight. After you read Part IVa and its Mirroring.htm inset, you'll be breathless with recognition. It's soo obvious, one wonders how we could be so blind. Guess why.

Want some quick examples? Look at the so-called development of "Western" Civilization. It took off dramatically after Christ died. Do you think that was because it was "western"? LOL! We Europeans were savages, for crying out loud. What tamed us? Christianity. No, it wasn't Catholicism, but rather the simple faith of a lot of simple people, who couldn't even read: most of whom weren't even allowed to see a Bible. They merely believed. And that Standard influenced their lives so much, the "West" prospered. It's not a racial thing, a Church Institution thing, a regional thing. It's Christ. As always. In every country of the world where grass-roots Christianity itself flourished you'll find a parallel flourishing of the economy and the polity within a generation.

And, so, those of Him are the more watched -- and the more ridiculed. No way around it. Royalty rejects the peasant standard, so is exclusivist. It does this in honor, but the "rejection" looms large in the minds of peasants. So, reciprocating, peasants don't allow Royalty the peasant standard, either. And the world (consciously or unconsciously) makes sure we Christians are punctiliarly observed (mostly, reviled).

Think all this over. See if it's not true. Funny: "even the wrath of man" proves the accuracy of the Word of God. Indeed, "to whom much is given, much is expected". Of course, Satan&Co. are accusing us even more than they ever did believers in the Old Testament. And rightly so: for to which of the angels did the Son ever say, "He is not ashamed to call them brothers"? (Heb 2, 'play on words in that passage.)

Do you begin to get the idea that our Royal Spiritual Life due to Christ's Session is rather complex? 'Rather higher, eh, than what most Christians think it is? And shouldn't it be higher? Weren't we peasants once? But now, due to Him, Royal? So where will our fellow peasants, our brothers, get to learn how to escape their crass animalism, if not from the Doctrine, His Thinking, Our Royal Legacy? So, then: isn't our real duty to help the poor by means of thinking His Thoughts? So that they can see in us a Royal Standard they can come to want, emulate? For, we, too are not ashamed to call them "brothers"!

It's pretty intimidating to recognize just how vastly important our status is. As you read the next two Reasons, you'll be even more intimidated. For we are doo-doo, let's face it. But Father's plan, for the sake of Son, is to make us like Him: Diamonds (see Ephesians+Hebrews, whole books -- reread 'em over 30 times). Via, learning His Thinking! So, then: for what it's worth, when I'm on the verge of (or actually) fainting over all this importance Christ wrought for us, I recall two things: a) post-death, we will all know as we are known -- 1Jn3. So it's really hard to get upset about self or someone else, when that person will one day know how he missed the mark. No punishment devisable by all mankind can be so frightful as totally knowing The Truth. [Nerd note: There's a different "know as we are known" catchphrase Paul uses in places like Gal4:9, 1Cor8:3, and 1Cor13:10 or thereabouts which is an egregious mistranslation -- it should have been translated "we will know as we are CAUSED to know BY GOD" -- meaning, via the Holy Spirit's Teaching Ministry, and has zippo to do with the eternal state. Greek prefix hupo is how you tell the difference.]

Then, b) what we see play now, life down here, is what we all woulda been stuck with, had He not saved us to The Standard of Becoming Royal Priests in Him for Father. What we see, woulda been the reality -- forever. True Hell. Empty. Vile. Everyone using everyone else. No real love, just the name of love, 'fair weather' love. 'Just like Guy de Maupassant's short stories, which spotlight the hypocrisy of man. In short, ennui, both garbed and naked: always occurring.

Of course, living for the sake of a good witness to potential and actual 'brethren' is not at all the main reason why Christ wanted the Cross. The main reason, the Sine Qua Non Reason, is Father Father FATHER FATHER FATHER. Divine Thought Pleasing Father, Always Occurring! So now let's get into the root why He Legated Us His Own Royal Spiritual Life, and let's see just how IMPOSSIBLE and impossibly wonderful it is, to be Church...

Funny how "Aletheia"=nothing escapes God's notice, Greek word meaning "Truth" -- is also, Absolute Love. Funny how Love always finds excuses to get what it wants. So, then: Perfect Love finds them all, and without compromise, too! Think how God's Love works: we can't become "big enough" on our own, and yet He wants us, anyway (Part I's "Integrity Properties", remember)? He could have opted for perfectly-obedient automatons, but instead nonetheless wants free-will sinners? 'So much so, He takes on Humanity and pays for us yet again (creating us being the first 'cost')? Oh, how many excuses are there, for This Perfect Love?

Infinite, that's how many. See the jubilant last half of Romans 5. (Greek shouts a lot.) Talk about excuses! What's this, God allows sin so Grace may abound the more? See why Paul has to word the beginning of Romans 6 the way he does? "For God loved the world SO MUCH.."For God demonstrates His Love toward us" (first two clauses in John 3:16 and Romans 5:8, corr. trans). Unendingly.

Therefore, in many ways this Infinity-Of-Love-'excuse' is the biggest reason for our Royalty, from Our Lord's Perspective. He wants infinite ways to express His Love for the Father! Nothing less will do! That's why He yearned for the Cross! It's as if the Lord constantly said, "Please, Please, Please give Me a Way to Pour Out My Love For You! Please? I need it." (1Tim2:5 expresses this attitude. English masks the intensity.)

And He did, too. For while Israel was in training to become His Bride, He wasn't yet Human, so the way they could relate to Him and to Father, was very limited. Through things. Hence all the rituals, etc. were mnemonic training aids, as we saw in Part II and in the Third Reason for Invisibility, in Part III. Aids to remember constantly, like tfellin, that He would come down and pay for sins; that they would be disciplined time and again for their apostacy, but in the end it would all work out, and they would live with Him forever, as chief among the nations, in the Millennium. Time and again the prophets promised this. But the meanwhile, the Word they knew so well, was buffered. For the Word hadn't yet, become flesh. Until that Word was also a Soul with that Word in it, the Word would have to be mediated by a boy-leader, as Paul explained in Galatians (also referenced by Hebrews 3). But now, He's Come and Paid!

So think also how, given that God is Omniscient, every thought you will ever have was "live" to Him since forever past. Will be, too, since forever-future. Adam is still sinning his first sin. Abram is just finally leaving Ur after a long shock at God's initial 'hello' (Acts 7 compared to Gen11:26ff). Moses is still showing Pharaoh those miracles. Caleb is still fighting those giants. What a guy. Good ol' First King Saul is still squatting in the cave, defecating. David has just left him, having snatched a small remnant from his cloak. Hitler has just come to power, too. You are just being born. Your death is occurring. And Christ is still on the Cross, to Omniscience. Forever.

A really great sample Bible passage to read which shows this continuity-of-time threading Omniscient Thought Pattern, is Isaiah Chapter 7-11. Notice the weaving: a rhetorical style of marbling and shifting between the 'current' time (Ahaz' day) and the coming of Messiah and the end of the Millennium. Constant side-by-side parallels between current and future are the norm in prophecy, demonstrating the Omniscient 'picture' God sees, showing how the past events 'fit' with those yet future. An all-at-once 'fabric' of meaning, like the Temple Veil. Very intimately viewed and told, shot through with Absolute Love, hence Absolute Justice is never compromised. Notice how Messiah is prominent, whether in the prophecy of His Virgin Birth (chapter 7), or the prophecy of His Eternal Rule beginning in the Millennium (Chapter 9); then, back to the epic saga of how Israel will be judged and then justified, all her enemies defeated: all by and for and from Her Rock, that Root of Jesse (Chaps 10-11). In a word, multilevel. All-at-once viewed. Everything fits together, and He sees it ALL. That's Our God!

So God likes the picture He sees. He likes the weaving of the fabric. He likes weaving that fabric, Himself. He must Absolutely Love what He sees: for since He's Omniscient, the picture is always the same. Being Omnipotent, He can change that picture anytime He wants, with less effort than it takes to brush food off your dinner plate. But He won't do that. Why? For surely He sees all the horror, too. It's all part of the same picture, ever before Him, every horrible thought and action by mankind, let alone by Satan&Co. Why?

Do you ever recognize that the Godhead went out of Their Way to make life with creation difficult? Look: He's PERFECT. No problems, no needs, no sins, no compromises. Why, oh why did He elect weakness? To marry it? Here we are, constantly scratching and biting and conniving to lessen our many weaknesses, but God -- elected us free creation? So, then: God doesn't want the easy way. If God did, we'd be automatons, pets, unable to sin; we'd just be chirping away praise, etc. Isn't it obvious, then, that Infinity Wants it All -- sinners, rather than sinning Itself. For, Infinite Love wants to give good, but -- because Love, because Infinite -- also receive bad. Not merely good. So, Infinite God Never Wants to Restrict Life to the Easy, the Partial, the Unbalanced. But rather, Full-Spectrum. Just as was proven in the second olive/sage table of Part II (and will be proven again in the "Paradox" olive/sage table of Part V, and Fixes.htm's first section).

He does enjoy us, because He enjoys everything. Infinity. Thus, His Infinite Capacity for Appreciation. His Infinite Capacity to make good on whatever He wants -- without violating free will. It's not a power-trip, but Capacity. Appreciation. For God, being Infinite, is Total Capacity. Multilevel Thinking to the Uttermost. No one empathizes more than God, end Heb4. Whatever you are going through, He's right there with you in it, Ps23:4b. But now IN you, if you ever 'obeyed' John 3:16. Forever IN you, not just with you. OT people couldn't get that much intimacy, for the DDNA conversion that is the Cross, wasn't yet 'done'. So now the relationship is totally connected. Sure, God is in every thing, and is intimate with all things and empathizes totally. But before the Cross, the relationship is one-sided, Gal3:20. Only One Party in the Mediation was at peace. But now that barrier, is wiped away. Total Empathy, which is another way of saying True Love, Absolute -- can be poured into every soul. So you can empathize as God does. And therefore enjoy, as God does. Barriers are down forever, due to the Cross!

If we were frank, we'd have to admit that relationships in life are one-sided. Someone is always at the giving end, being beaten up by a weaker one who is demanding. The petulant child. The petulant boss. The petulant liberal. The petulant conservative. Everyone grabbing at everyone else, and frankly only those who respond with empathy, are the givers. Then as a 'reward' for their giving, they get beat up the more. Then, discarded when they have nothing left to give. So goes the intimate relationship in life; so goes world history. So many heroes, all discarded, given lipservice or a scrawl in some monument somewhere, collecting pigeon poop and ink -- written somewhere, memorized to pass a test, and then forgotten. God of course is forgotten the most: nodded at on Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas -- oh, we can't say "Christmas" anymore, can't put up signs or creches with "Christ" in them, it must be "happy holidays"! Some human demander, might get his fragile feelings hurt!

For with us, it's only an insult to one's freedom or a violation of Church and State, if Christ is mentioned. It's okay to say "Happy Ramadan", but not "Merry Christmas", in our stores. Yeah, and we yet wonder who God is?

So, then: how is it He can enjoy even judging His Own Son for us puny wretches who always magnetize against Him, thus advertising He is the Real One: particularly since that judging is always in front of His 'Face'? Sweet Savor, My Beloved Son. See the Righteous Beauty of His Thoughts, even though He is suffering more than all creation put together! Magnificent, Him; still loving Me So much, even though I make Him become sin! See? Total Appreciation. Always occurring.

For with God, not only is nothing impossible, but nothing is ignoble, either. Even our sins are ennobled: by the Cross!

How is this enjoyable to Him? Well, think: God didn't create Himself. So, He's Totally Appreciative of the 'grace' of just being God, without having to 'work' for it. So, He's totally appreciative of everything, however low, because that's grace, too. So, He wants to pour Himself out into everything, good or bad. Happiness, Love. Love of freedom to be Free. Free to be bad, or good. Free to be made into good, too -- while, at the same time, preserving the freedom of the bad thing to be bad. Always occurring! Romans 8:28! Intransitive made transitive! Isa54:1ff! Barren made bounteous! Opposites, united! Lovingly, appreciatingly: Full-Spectrum. Flip through your Bible, see the proof for yourself (in corrected translations): "therefore, no condemnation in Christ Jesus!" "Not-my-people" become "My People"! "Stand up and walk"! "Lost, but [now] found"! "Dead, but [now] living!" "Shall live, even if he dies"! "To a living Hope"! "Anchor behind the Veil"! For absolutely nothing is impossible for Absolute, Full-Spectrum, nothing-beyond-Him, God! So, "by Grace..not by works"! Oh, how "God loves the world so much!" "For He cannot deny Himself."

Romans 8 is the quintessential chapter on this topic. Galatians explains how mankind is changed by it; Ephesians and Hebrews, explain how all human history is changed by it. From doo-doo, to Diamonds. Romans 6 sets up chapter 8, with 7 being the reaction to chapter 6. (As with all Scripture, every verse is of multilevel interpretation, all fitting together: this is but one way to read import.) See, Christ put death to death, Rom6-8; so HE in His Humanity gave birth to Eternal Life (Isa53:10-12, ref'd in Rom6, 2Cor5). Death is what we are now, in this body; and that's why our lives are so dead-empty with meaninglessness. But these barren things, this barren life, is but a pregnancy! That, is a central topic of Romans 8. Read it yourself, then read the other chapters; see if you can't tell the design, the brilliance, the enjoyment that awaits.

So God Makes Good On The Bad By Baptising It With Righteousness. That's essentially what happened when all mankind's sins were imputed and judged in the Lord's body on the Cross, as Romans 6 explains. That's exactly what "Baptism of the Spirit" means -- at the opposite end, 2Cor5:21, we are Placed in Union with Christ and have His Righteousness, that first nanosecond we got saved. It's a Legal Justification, the dikaiow infinitive in the LXX of Isa53:11, "bedato yatsdiq" clause in the Hebrew of that verse. This point is so critical, it's necessary to review what "BAPTIZO" (the Greek verb) means. The verb is very ancient (predates Homer). The etymological root had to do with the blacksmith's changing a sword into a permanent fighting tool after he shaped it with fire: by 'baptising' that hot sword in water, the metal was permanently tempered, and the shape was likewise permanized. So, via the identification of thing "A" with thing "B", "A" permanently CHANGES due to "B". So, our "A", our adikia (unrighteousness) was "B", "Baptised" with His "B"lood on the Cross. Just like the ancient Hoplite Greek recruits would do in their graduation ceremony, thrusting their swords in vats of pig's blood to "identify" with victory in combat, so also the Father thrust Our Savior through with all our sins in order to identify us with His Victory. That's why Isaiah 53:5 reads "but He was pierced through [javelin-pierces, actually]..were healed." Remember further that "healed" is really the verb "raphah", which means to sew-up-a-belly-wound-in-order-to-heal. We were Sewn up In Him: made "one". This is what the "Baptism of Christ" means. [It's hard to find the stitchup significance of raphah in lexicons, but my pastor stresses the stitch-up-belly wound every time he covers Isa53:5. Brown Driver Briggs lexicon says the stictchup is the etymological root meaning. I don't have Kittle yet, so don't know what it says. Other lexicons are more dismissive with respect to raphah's meaning. Given the wound context, the stitchup meaning should be translated, rather than the lame "healed".]

Oh: you need to remember that "blood" always represents thought, in the Bible. For real life is in the soul, and what the soul does, is think. Hence an animal was sacrificed by slitting its carotid artery (which cut off the pain), and the animal bled to death by breathing out its blood ("breath"="Spirit"="soul"="life", again depicting Christ paying via Filling of the Spirit). Hence all the prohibitions against eating animal blood, in the OT (=don't desecrate His Upcoming Thinking payment for our sins).

Now, let's go through the parallel again, to see how our "Baptism of the Spirit" works; meaning, as Romans 6-8 explain, The Permanent Union with Christ due to identification with Him in His Deaths; due to identification with Him in His Resurrection. A generation ago, these two permanent positions were commonly known theologically as "retroactive" and "current" "positional truth." Again, Isa 53:5's "healed", 1Pet2:24 and 2Cor5:21 all add the explanation that this Baptismos was bi-directional: our being made "righteous in Him" was an Exchange. This is not an experience, it's a LEGAL POSITION which gives rise to your REAL SALVATION. [Anyone who calls the Baptism of the Spirit an experiential thing in which you froth at the mouth or speak tongues is getting the baptism of demons. Avoid such people, pray for them, they are too far gone in demon influence, God will help them. Bible never ever classifies the Baptism of the Spirit as an experience of any kind whatsoever. So those who do, are getting their information from Satan&Co. and seriously need 1Jn1:9 and alone time with God. Demons made the Greeks speak in "ecstatic utterance", i.e., in the Oracle of Delphi. It's the very same thing with tongues. Paul himself explained that tongues was giving the Gospel in a foreign language the speaker did not know, and that was all it was, see 1Cor14 which references Isa28. By this, Israel was to know Christ had come and left, Acts 2. So even pre-Temple Destruction when tongues were valid, they did NOT operate the way claimed today. So the claimants today, are demon-influenced or possessed. Avoid them like the plague -- or, just cut out their false teaching on Baptism of the Spirit and tongues, testing the rest of what is taught. Surprisingly, a lot of Pentecostals get the Gospel and Pre-Trib Rapture basics right -- unlike most other denominations -- so maybe the demons target Pentecostals more, to obfuscate what truth Pentecostals do understand. So it might be harder to dislodge demon influence, and God is getting out what basics are right via them, anyway. By the way, "Spiritual Adulthood" #VI Trial Status section explained 2Cor5:21 in fine print: search in LordvSatan3.htm on "KNOWLEDGE KEY" in caps.]

Isaiah 53:10-11 explains how your salvation works. It also explains the structure of the cosmos, and solves the quest for "unified field theory" which Dr. Stephen Hawking and other physicists have been seeking for so long. Most importantly, it solves the spiritual maturation process, which resolves the REAL problem of the universe, the Infinity-finity dichotomy, as we just saw in the above "You, in Me!" table and in the First Reason for Invisibility. DDNA webseries goes through the analogy in more detail. Here, we're focusing on how Absolute Love solves the problem by Baptising, as the foundation for how you think toward God. Later on in this section we'll get to the spiritual thinking skills you use daily, to take advantage of this Thinking-Toward-God Priestly Role you inherited from Christ.

Again, when you learn and live on Doctrine, you "baptise" God's Apodoses to the questions in your life. That's how you grow spiritually. It's a RULING you make in your own soul, to choose God's Answer versus the world's. Exact same juridical function. That's exactly how Christ in His Humanity, fully became One with God on the Cross via those five infinitives, as shown in the First Reason for Invisibility. Bigger, therefore. So needs a Body to complement, so gets all the booty, Isa53:12, Romans 6:11ff (beginning of marital analogy, the old sin husband being divorced). So Romans 6-8, show how that same baptising process, characterises the spiritual life. You BAPTISE your life with Bible in your head you 'ate' (learned and believed). Spiritual dendrites thus get made, and you become more intimate with God. It's a knowing thing, a building of His Thinking, dynamic. [My pastor's 1977 Romans tapes are an extensive verse-by-verse exegesis of the book, and it takes four years of daily 90-minute study, to go through all those classes. The divorce/death and marriage-to-Christ ON the Cross is a strong theme in Romans 6-8, which his exegesis stresses. Just so you know I didn't make this up: you can't see all this in the English, of course. Marital/Sex topics always get fuzzed over in translation.]

This Unity thus creates a Divine System to implement the function of the five infinitives in that Body, which is Church: Greek word for "Divine System" (always mistranslated) is "henotes". It's used several times in Eph4 in wordplay with "henos", meaning "one": Oneness System. God's. Our friend "henotes" is a very pregnant word in Greek literature, esp. in Plato. Idea of becoming one with the gods, being in harmony with them, by living in their system of thinking. It's not about harmony with people. That's a result, but is way secondary: for if we harmonize Vertically, we'll naturally harmonize horizontally. Multisphere, therefore. So the Real God takes a real Greek idea and shows how it really works: via the Cross.

Notice how the one-sidedness of relationships, is now an advantage. For Christ unilaterally paid, just because He wanted to Gift Father. Father unilaterally judged, Spirit unilaterally empowered. They stop short of "work" each time, but instead unilaterally and without strings, Gift to Each Other. Then, the Recipient can do 'whatever' with that Gift. So also, now us. For we get His Thinking gratis, it's a unilateral transaction (Holy Spirit runs the entire thing), and then it stops for us to decide yes or no on the learning/living on His System's Script. We unilaterally decide "yes", and those horizontal to us, are blessed. It no longer matters if they grab at us, or we at them. The Vertical Sphere takes primacy, since "unity" is about Union with Christ. Whew: now, you can have some peace in human relations, since it no longer matters how well they treat you, or you them!

Better still, you really have something Valuable to gift God. Only God's Level gifts God -- we are forever thinking too low, here -- which is why you have to be made a god, to even be eligible for salvation (true in the OT also, Gen15:6, 2Cor5:21). Christ became Man, so we could become gods in Him, as He kept on trying to explain to the fake-humility Pharisees, in John 10:34, quoting Ps82:6 from the LXX. We just saw the "You, in Me!" table's mechanism to accomplish that, a transferance of Divine Attributes (Righteousness and Eternal Life), and then the building Attribute of Truth upon them. All via the same five infinitives which did the same thing to Christ on the Cross. See, the sin problem isn't the first problem, but the second: the first problem is our finity, 2nd prong of Rom3:23. So He solves both at once, on the Cross. So now, you can think God's Thoughts in 'reply' (or initiating) to any circumstance, 24/7, no matter how banal your life, no matter how noble. For it will never be noble enough for God: only His Thinking is enough. But it IS enough, so it IS a Divine Gift, manufactured by the Holy Spirit IN your soul, so it comes out from you. Now, that's worth Omniscience's Always-Occurring Sight! What a relief!

Now you're beginning to understand why God can look at the same picture for eons, and not get bored. "Treasure in earthen vessels! My Son's Thinking in them! You, in Me! Us, in them! Them, in us! Dichotomy resolved!" One never tires of a beloved activity. Repetition only enhances that love. So how much more, in God? So now you see why all those valley-exalted and like verses rampant in Bible are always exclamations. Isa54:1c's ecstatic "WatsaHalí, lo-hala!" = "Burst forth in neighing trill, you who never writhed in pregnancy labor!" God's the Ultimate Recycler!

So every dang time you learn a verse and use it, think it, love it -- God will see that moment forever. And be screaming, watsahali, lo-hala! See? It's a valid gift the Holy Spirit creates via Him in you! Every second!

Thus, even the worst becomes ennobled, "for the purpose of bringing many sons to glory", as the writer of Hebrews puts it (Chap2). As Paul put it in Galatians: "you are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus". Instantly. That's why Paul exults so in Romans 6: just as Christ was baptised with our sins, so we also then were baptised in His Deaths (substitutionary spiritual, and after "It is finished", physical -- 2 "deaths", Isa53:9's bemotayw -- not just one). So, as 2Cor5 echoes, since He substituted for us, we now live for Him: Full-Spectrum. Best is united to Worst, so now everything becomes "best" to all those who thirst (Isa55); for, once they drink, like the Lord told the Samaritan woman, they will never need to drink from the world's wells, ever again (see also John 6:27, 45-55 for definitions). Eph4:5, therefore: One Baptism. One Lord. And one Bible/Truth/Doctrine/"Faith", all of which are synonyms for His Thinking (1Cor2:16,Heb4:12, etc). One System, and One System only: God's. God's DDNA-making, God's Apodosis-making, Glory: "You, in Me!" One. In Him.

We saw from the Third Reason for Invisibility that the OT people were restricted in how they could relate to Him, but we are not. They were stuck with a mere besideness enhancement of human powers, outers by the Spirit -- since Christ's 'Outer', the WH in YHWH, His becoming Man, hadn't yet happened. So the OT people could indeed feel something of the Spirit's endowing power, since that power went through -- in very small doses, lest He kill them -- their human soul and body. By contrast, we Church get the Total Power of the Spirit, which is too big to feel -- spirituality is immaterial, so is never a feeling, anyway -- which Power is used to make you able to learn and use spiritual information, aka the Bible. That's why no unbeliever or carnal believer understands Bible today. That's we must be Indwelt. The Indwelling is a buffer so that the Full Divine Power can Function in us. Hence you can't feel it, and you'd be dead if you could.

Hebrews explains that contrast. We are the Temple, now, so it's just as well the other one is gone, Dan9:26, Jer3:16. For now, Jer31:31-34 is implemented, as Heb8:8-10:17 explains: He is behind the Veil in Heaven, so His Thinking fills us, since Shekinah is Incarnate and Ruling. So we can Vote To Have His Thinking; can vote to have His Thinking apply to anything, anytime, and that Gifts God, God's Way. No need for rituals, emotions, works, do's. Only the thinking can defile, so only the Divine Thinking can ennoble, too. Which it did, on the Cross. Which is therefore available as a Voting Privilege 24/7, whether in the bathroom or the boardroom. For we are Royal Priests by Nature, as we saw in the "Your Priesthood" table (in first row of links, red box at pagetop).

For on the Cross, surely sins weren't themselves noble. So Christ kept on Voting for the DDNA conversion, and that was therefore a judicial justification, since He Voted for it. The sins lacerated Him, and He kept voting for them, just the same; so that the DDNA conversion, could complete. So now, we can keep voting for whatever in our life, to likewise convert, since we are in HIM. That makes sweet savor for Father, justifies the five infinitives 'going to work' on the always-too-small-for-God stuff in our lives. True Priesthood, this: we get paid to be here, to do this voting. That's essentially how the spiritual life 'plays'. Forever.

Voting equals
Learning and Living on Bible in God's System
equals using God's Apodoses, which results in
DDNA exchange via 5 LXX verbs of Isa53:10-11,
as Spirit does the baptising surgery, Heb 4:12,
katharizw   aphairew   deiknumi   plassw dikaiow,
which Father Forever Sees: "You, in Me!"
Always-occuring Baptism!
Matt4:4 emulated!
Sweet Savor!
Treasure in earthen vessels!

1. Since God is Full-Spectrum, will our puny, horizontal, one-sphere thinking about "earthly things" be sufficient for Rapport with Him? Of course not. That's why we get the "Thinking of Christ", 1Cor2:16. His Thinking is that Eph4:5 "One Faith": 1st meaning of Greek "pistis" is passive, What Is Believed. So doesn't refer to any of man's doctrines or man's faculty of believing. In ancient Greek culture, "Pistis Sophia" is the Personification of the Credal Wisdom of the gods. And "henotes" was the system for getting that Credal Wisdom, living in harmony/rapport with it. In the Philebus you see Socrates use the henotes idea as a jumping-off point to define elpis, the quintessential Greek word for confidence. Idea that you can only have confidence and thus happiness, if you are living in harmony with the gods. So too, here. Again, the Real God takes real Greek ideas and then fixes them to show Whose Thinking one ought to acquire and believe in, to get that oneness rapport. Just One Person: Christ, Our Mediator. And we are His Diakonia Diplomats, His Representative Body. So we are to live on His Dianoia, His Understanding. So we need to get His Divine Aletheia Dendrites, DDNA, for Dad. Yeah! D.A.D. for Dad! [Sometimes I use "Plato" and "Socrates" interchangeably in my websites. It's really hard to tell what Socrates actually said, and what Plato says 'through' Socrates' mouth. Here, it's probably really Socrates.]

   You know, to see the media version of life, you'd get the impression that what's important down here is sex and violence, having nice things and knowing important people; that what matters, are your 'connections', what causes you fight for, what competitions you win, what recognition you get. What a load of hogwash. For when you look inside any home: who enjoys being around one whose thinking is incompatible? Would any amount of wealth, achievement, looks, fame, whatever -- atone for that person's ugly thinking? If you are normal, you'd say, "No!" For, what makes life enjoyable, is rapport-in-thinking. If that exists, nothing else matters. If that doesn't exist, all is hell, pretending to be heaven. We pretend these differences don't matter. They matter altogether. We just live behind closed, hypocritical doors. For no one likes being around incompatible persons (or circumstances, things, etc). It's normal, to want compatibility.

   So, then: if rapport-in-thinking makes life heavenly, how much more, rapport-in-thinking with very God? All life after salvation is designed to give you the same appreciation basis as God Himself has. Like Paul says in Romans 6 and elsewhere, we all died on the Cross with Him. So now, we see on a negative level, what He's saved us FROM: our own and others' failings, meaninglessness, and death. Bigger: on the uppermost level, we see what He's saved us TO: Life forever with God and in God's Thinking, His Absolute-because-Infinite, Appreciating, Empathic Love.

2. God is Infinite-Level Thinking. So we must become MultiSphere in our thinking, 2Pet3:11. So a growing Rapport with Him means we need the SKILLS of Multilevel Learning, Thinking, Living. For, the uppermost truth is most unseen, because Infinite. And all the lesser truths, rank below. So here we are at the bottom, with all those levels to Learn And Live Toward Father, because we are Royal Priests.

   Multilevel also, because mankind is multivalent. We have a simultaneity of thinking D.A.D. toward "Dad", but also, toward people. So many levels of thinking are thus required laterally, as well. Father hears all those lateral levels, too. So coordinating all these levels, is a goal in spiritual maturation, but also in our eternal "jobs" as Royal Priests. For we each differ in our values; we differ a lot over our preferred intimacies with who and what. Variety is everywhere, +1 property of uniqueness. Such differences create antagonisms, since each person is his own god, passing judgement in favor of "x", but in DISfavor of "y". So incompatibility is everywhere, too.

   Hence the need for diplomats: especially, between God and mankind. Hence the Cross, as we saw in the above "You, in Me!" table: to provide a cycling mechanism whereby the incompatibility can be healed. But of course, +1 property of uniqueness, we won't all avail ourselves equally of this mechanism God gifted to the entire human race. So again, diplomats are needed. For many beings mean many connections and hence many mediations, even absent conflict. These differences between us therefore require a hierarchical societal structure to provide and enhance, a cycling synergy; thus the incompatibilities, harmonize in aggregate.

3. Not everyone embraces this Royal-Priestly, MultiSphere lifestyle of Thinking Toward Him. So those who reject God's Script, will live far away from Him. Forever. Bible is real adamant about this and even rude, in the prophets, Gospels, and Revelation. For, it's your choice Now how close you want to be. Like Christ, you only get to vote your future structure, down here. Once you die, you've cast in stone how close you want to be to Him -- forever.
   1. There are three basic reasons for eternal distance from God, i.e., why the Gospel has its stark "believe or burn" alternatives. First, if Omnipotent God ever sinned, He'd stop being God. He doesn't sin due to what He Knows And Values. He knows sin is ugly, and would never want to do it. The 'threat' of what He'd become if He ever did sin is a non-issue, because He's not even remotely attracted to sin. Are you remotely attracted to eating dog feces? No. So it doesn't matter that you CAN eat dog feces; it doesn't matter that if you ate dog feces, you'd get sick. Same concept here, on infinite scale: God finds sin disgusting, never mind how it would affect Him if He ever chose to do it. [Man shackles God erroneously by saying God "can't" do something, yet calls Him Omnipotent? Ooops. Man's theology needs maturing, huh. So go with the El-Shaddai, ho-pantokrator Word, instead.]

      Second reason, He gives His Own Son as a Substitute for Sin, John 3:16, 2Cor5:21, many other passages, esp. Isa 52:13-54:1. So to spurn that Gift, one must be evil indeed. To spurn the Gift, is an election of Extreme Distance. Hell, even. And we all did spurn it before we became believers, so we are all evil. Some of us woke up to that via God's continual due-diligence disclosure, and some will not. Still in these evil bodies post-salvation, we want or do not want to learn Him.

      Hence the third reason: it's totally evil not to learn Him, post-salvation. That's an election of extreme distance, too. Even though saved. So watch how God adjudicates "distance":

      • Once saved, always saved: salvation is noncancellable since Christ is noncancellable, and all sins are IN Him on the Cross, forever occurring to Omniscience. So that never changes.
      • But Heaven is a big place. The eternal state is a big 'place', its own universe. You can be very close, or very far away.
      • Close in Thinking, means close in physical proximity. Far away in thinking, means far away in proximity.
      • Those farther away have less, are owned by those close.
      • It's only fair since God's all about, "You, in Me!" so we can VOTE how much of Him, goes into us.
      • Votes stick. They are legal. This is God's Expression of His Own Sovereign Freedom, that Love never coerce, and Voting be legally binding. Forever.
      • What you vote as your life, you get; down here you can change a previous vote, but of course as that voting accumulates any reversals will have to be repeated the more.
      • After death, all your votes have been cast. Every believer voted John 3:16, so voted at least once for God's Life to become his own, no matter whether he understood it at the time.
      • A vote is a vote: ignorant or cognizant, it's an expression of free will, and Free Will God ensures its proper effects. Forever.

   2. Divine Physics, this. And secular physics (or atomic/biological behavior) will always exactly reflect the Divine.
      • Everything is in a hupostasis, a union of opposites.
      • So the high negative, are far away from the high positive. Principle of the differential, leverage -- due to that selfsame hupostasis, "filling all in all", Eph1:23.
      • Divine Truth is the ultimate math, and secular math will always reflect it.
      • So: we all learned mathematical progression in school. We also learned that in real life, there are no negative numbers, but only negative directions. Hence an atom bomb triggers by means of a small negative direction.
      • That's the secular reflection of the Cross hupostasis of our sins going into Him, showing fission turned into fusion within the "singularity" of Christ; destroying death, and creating salvation.
      • Post-salvation and just as in physics, the heavier you become in His Word, the more 'pull' you have. So more revolves around you. The more magnetism you have. So more is attracted to you. Hence the more power you have, so those weakly distant are more related -- and orbit around you, like a galaxy might 'orbit' around a black hole, which itself is 'rooted' in a singularity.
      • For we are all routed in Christ, 1Jn2:2.

   3. Consequently, when you look up at the sky, all those bodies of various types --- represent people. A society, if you will. Bible calls the angels "stars", so the heavens depict societal relationships. So next notice that if Earth were the 'head' of the universe, its asymmetrical position in a corner makes most of the universe be rather far away, relatively. Colder. Weaker. So if God's Throne will be here -- and it will, Rev22 -- most of the people saved will be rather far away. Seeing Him only once in a billion years, perhaps. Do you want that to be your future? I sure don't. So learning His Thinking means you will be closer to Earth, maybe even living on it, near Him. That's the place to be. For when you scan the sky at night, you view an imperfect vacuum; wherein those very distant bodies receive and give off amalgamated ripple effects to and from other bodies; such that the entire universe, is held in a concerted dendritic 'web' of alignment. Yet all these bodies are travelling at fantastic speeds -- in concert. Yet they are all staying in place, due to their ripple effects of gravity, magnetism, etc. Yet they are all slowly dying, now -- won't be true in the eternal state, but we all know the universe has a finite life, just not how long -- yet they are all being born, too. Constant cycling. That tells you everything about Bible. It's on display every night, Rom1:19-21. Gravity and God begin with a G for a reason.

4. Enter the need for Our Royal Priesthood both now and forever, toward mankind. Priesthood means forming a diplomatic relationship link between God and non-priests; that link is a soul filled with His Thoughts which those others can also learn through you. You become a Royal Conduit. That's what "Priesthood" basically means, toward man. So consider the tremendous value to you and to others, of getting and being a conduit! Believers who reject their Destinies down here, and believers in other covenants who are thus not royal, are farther away from God. They will not have the spiritual-dendrite 'capital' of the Pleroma; they will be relatively "poor" (Rev3 warning to the Laodiceans). This poverty-of-thinking will have material counterparts. The Pleroma will be the richest persons in the universe. Everyone else will rank under them.

   Sure, everyone will be happy, and even the least of us will probably know more about Him than the best of us down here; but compared to what vast increase will have been 'invested' by the Holy Spirit in those whom He grew to Pleroma, everyone else will be poor indeed. So, flunking Royal Family will be excited about every opportunity to be close to a Pleroma Member, to get a taste of that 'gain'. So, every believer who is not Royal Family will be excited to be close to a Royal Family Member, to get a taste of the 'gain' even the lowest of Royal Family will have. It really is a spectrum of relationships much like (what ought to be) a free polity/economy: a few very very very rich, an upper class, middle-upper, middle, middle-lower, lower, and destitute. In Thinking. And hence, in accoutrements, compared to each other. After all, if you are living on a billion dollars a day, someone who only gets a million a day is "poor".

   There is no physical Temple in the eternal state, Rev22; instead, we are the Temple, Body of Christ. So we will have to be deployed throughout the new universe, to represent Him. The Pleroma will be the owners and will be closer to Him; they delegate positions to those under them. Just as a rich man might own a yacht he seldom visits but he has employees taking care of it all the time, so also the Rich Christ will be delegating His Body to take care of His Dominions. Pleroma will be closest underneath Him, and underneath them, will be the rest of the Body. So that Body will be deployed throughout the universe, kinda like the Levites were spread out over Israel -- for the sake of other distant folk who aren't Body. The deployment will metaphorically resemble all those stars, asteroids, planets and other bodies you see at night, now. So everyone is connected -- but not, up close. The closeness was determined by volition's choice to learn Him, down here.

   Consequently in the eternal state, everyone will be very clear on his relative inferiority or superiority, and will NOT want to be close to those higher. It will be regarded then as a breach of good justice, to be close to someone high who made the right choice when 'you' did not. That's the central theme of Galatians: there is no inequality in Christ -- unless one rejects the spiritual life. That's why Paul alternately upbraids the legalists and the lascivious crowd among those cantankerous Celts (Galatians=Celts who moved to Galatia). Equal Opportunity but unequally-used positive volition, yields an unequal hierarchical society, forever. Like a progression or regression of numbers, -100, -99, -98 .. +98, +99, +100. That Recognition of Justice will then satisfy everyone, from the greatest among us (then) to the least of us. For then we will all be nearest those with whom we are most compatible.

5. Enter the need for Our Royal Priesthood Role to Father, to think like Christ and thus compensate for all the MISSING thinking in others.
   • Christ's Thinking on the Cross compensated Father in that He 'replied' with God's Apodoses to every incoming sin; that He kept on replying with God's Apodoses to the judgement on those sins.
   • So they all were converted into DDNA, because all God need 'do', is say a thing -- and it is so.
   • Christ essentially DECREED RELATIONSHIPS between the incoming sin, judgement, and His Reply.
   • And that was a Vote. So, it was legally binding. So, it has real effects, our salvation.
   • Thus we inherit His Vote, hence our being able to learn the same Apodoses, in our own heads.
   • The Ultimate Pleroma, is Christ. His Thinking is the "sweet savor" which paid for our sins on the Cross. Remember too, the other problem between God and mankind, the lack of Rapport: "My ways are not your ways, nor My thoughts your thoughts", Isa 55:8. So, as we saw in the Third Reason for Invisibility, man's ability to think about God was also very limited -- until the intimate thinking toward Father was developed in Christ, and permanized due to the successful completion of the Cross. Just as our sins became 'sweet' to God owing to the Thinking of Christ, so too are we due to His Thinking uniquely able to think intimately toward Father, as we are caused to grow in "You, in Me!"
   • We variantly will agree to do this.
   • So there are and will be many billions of believers in Heaven who opted out.
   • So the Pleroma will be thinking compensating thoughts, to make up for all that shortfall, thus pleasing Father.
   • That's why the Pleroma get allotted all the people-booty and wealth, Isa53:12's "atsumim" clause (usually translated "the strong" in English Bibles).
   • Your choice, whether you want to be among the "atsumim" -- or, mere booty given them.

   All that booty's thinking, Father hears forever. Their thinking will then be perfect like the Pleroma, but far smaller than the Pleroma's. Given what DDNA does to a soul, and the justice of Father getting full sweet savor of Divine Thinking, I'm not 100% sure whether everyone will have the same amount of knowledge but we vary by how we can process it; or, whether the knowledge is also unequal. Certainly the processing is very unequal: for spiritual growth down here produces spiritual DDNA 'dendrites' in your soul; the amount of 'dendrites' determines how well you can think. (DDNA.htm's "Production to Love" link explains the analogy to brain dendrites.)

   In either event, once we see God face-to-face, we will ardently wish we had gotten to Pleroma, just to be near Him; just to have more to express ourselves in thanksgiving. So everyone, great and small, will want to have more to give Him. Via the higher thinking in the Pleroma, not only will Father have the sweet savor from them, but also because they RULE kingdoms, the resulting higher thinking in the kingdoms themselves, will be yet more sweet savor than the booty could otherwise think: for the Pleroma's thinking will INFUSE and INSPIRE his kingdom, adding to the quantity and quality of what Father hears. That's the Role of the Royal Leader, always. And what will the Rulers, then think? Well, look: the 24 (head) seraphim in Rev4:10 are constantly throwing down their crowns, enthusiastically demonstrating their ardent desire to give Him all they have. They don't ever want to stop! So the ruled will have the same attitude, as the Rulers leading them.

   Especially post-death, the self sees Love and Justice perfectly; all that ego claptrap we are diseased with down here will be gone, thank God. Christ will be the only topic of interest. You won't give a flip about seeing your dead relatives, though you're glad they're safe; you won't give a flip about all those dippy ideas of heaven you had down here -- you know, being able to do all the things you never got to do -- you will only care about Christ. And you will get everything you missed down here -- but you won't think of those things the same way. Instead, you will only be interested in how those things can be used to honor Him. All else will be utterly boring. Relationships to each other, who cares? Can we use each other so to see Him better? That's how Christ was when He was here: all that mattered to Him, was FATHER. So how much more, now that He's Ruling? We are of His Body, His Nature, we share everything He is. So what will we be like, in heaven? Like Him! So He is alone of interest to anyone in heaven. Now, and forever.

   Don't believe it? My pastor spent repeated time emphasizing how 1Pet1:12 uses a Greek verb indicating angels are "craning their necks" to watch us, parakuptw. With it is a really strong "desire" verb, "epithumew": same word the Lord used of the Passover, in Luke 22:15, and it has 'overtones' I dare not write in a public website. See epithumew's meaning #2 in Bauer, Danker lexicon (glad they were honest, this time). Let's just translate the clause in 1Pet1:12, "into which [God's revelation to us] the angels, craning their necks, most ardently desire to see." Yeah, that makes it more accurate yet not dangerous in a public site. I wanna say "consumed with desire" is more accurate, still.

   So if humans up there can watch us down here, bet your bippy they don't give a flip about you except for what helps you see Him better. Because that's really loving you. Rooting for you to get the best -- seeing Him. Of course down here, seeing Him is the last on our list of interests. What a surprise Heaven will be. So think about how important what you learn about Him and take home to heaven, will be to your loved ones. To strangers up there. To anyone. You're the expert on God-Who-Is-Now-Distant. They'll hang on your every word. Frankly, there are only two reasons to want to go to heaven: 1) to be as close to Him as possible, and 2) to hear/talk about Him as much as possible. Anything else is hell, sorry. Well burning forever isn't good, so at least 'obey' John 3:16.

6. When Father is pleased that we are MultiSphere Thinking like Christ, He BLESSES the world both now and forever. So how you vote to spiritually mature, have more of Him in You, affects millions of lives: for Father blesses the world to express His Being Compensated by His Son's Thinking. Part IVb's "First Facet" link lists some of awesome blessings He provides to the world due to the growing believers on it. So it's an entirely different 'work' relationship we have down here, versus the world's ideas. This Royally Invisible Spiritual Lifestyle is Compensated, and hence Compensating. From God, To God. That's Divine Economics. Bible always says you should live your life in light of eternity: what you will be, not what you are now. Where you are going, not where you are. Where you are, is in a leftover, defeated world, and this is just a harvesting of believers and Pleroma. But since you are among that harvest, God BLESSES the world for your sake. As Part IV will dramatically demonstrate, when the last believer has been harvested, the Rapture occurs. Then, Israel's time -- the Tribulation -- is measured back to her. (Principle of Matt7:1-2 playing out historically, due to Isa53:12, same "metron" keyword, see also Mark 4:24, Rom12:3, Eph4:13, 16; then compare how metron and henos and henotes are used in Eph4:3,4,7,13,16. Awesome stuff.)

7. Therefore this Royal Priesthood is unique in another way. Other priesthoods DID things: especially, handling other items or animals to be sacrificed. By contrast, the Royal Priest under Him to Father, 'sacrifices' only himself, just as Christ did: by Thinking Royal Thoughts, the Lord's. Hence this Royal Spiritual "breeding", like any noble nurture, must be taught and then assiduously practiced, 24/7. For which lifelong teaching we've a Script, a System, and a Teacher Who also Personally selects a human conduit to teach us the Script within the System. From all that Royal Provision, we must learn multisphere thinking, the functional fulfillment of "You, in Me!" So in your 'head', you are to simultaneously 'live' the Royal Spiritual Life in Heaven (so to speak) -- and on earth. This multisphere thinking faculty must become a natural part of you. Royal and noble houses have long recognized the importance of "breeding". You can't be a buffoon in high society, and especially, not in God's Society. So you get a Royal Teacher, the Holy Spirit Who can Royally Train you, however much a buffoon you are! God is not limited. So your limitations, never hinder Him. Only your refusal can hinder you!

One conclusion should jump right out at you, even after this all-too-brief description of what multilevel, multilayer thinking constitutes the spiritual life: what Christians call "works" can't ever be multi-sphere, because works themselves don't think. Isn't it weird, how we humans value inanimate objects, more than our own souls? Think really hard: would God value you more, or less, than some thing you did, didn't do, gave up, or made? Well, did He save that item(s), or did He save you??? So, which is more important? Reminds you of the family member which surely every family has, who every holiday goes over the who-gets-what-if-I-die list, as if those things were the more important! LOL! Works are by nature earthly, and they are inanimate, to boot. What, can't God bing the 'work' faster and better than we can? Of course He can. So, then: what are we here for, except to hear Him? To grow up, so to have rapport with Him? In a word, to Love? "We love, because He first loved us" wrote John.

So, consistently using the 1Jn's Script steps in Part I will build a multilevel spiritual capacity on top of your imputed Righteousness. Romans 8 explains this mechanic as being filled up with the Righteous Word (pointing back to Rom5:5), esp. in 8:4 (NIV best conveys the meaning among the English translations I have). Capacity means strength. Capacity means 'more'. More of everything. Big 'glass', not a small one. Think what this means. You must get the capacity to think competently on more than one level, even though under pressure. Once you have it, though, you enjoy it. What's difficult for someone smaller is easy, now, for you. That's an enjoyment. Spiritual intelligence, spiritual fluency, spiritual intimacy. Aha!

Jobs that pay more money do so because such jobs require more thinking, and it's harder to think, because thinking always has to be two-sphere (or more) -- in order to coordinate with one's own body, and the other bodies one deals with in that job! So, it takes a lot more thinking to run a company than to push a broom; any kind of planning, computer programming, even wordprocessing, means you have to think on multiple levels (lots of what-ifs have to be handled in the designing of a thing). So, if you want more money, learn to think better. So, if you want rapport with God, learn His Son's Thinking Better. It's really that simple.

Spiritual Capacity begets all the others: mental, physical, social, etc. That doesn't mean money will rain down from heaven, you'll get the Mr. or Ms. Gorgeous as your mate; nor does it mean that you will have a life of relentless drudgery. God knows what you want the most. He wants to give you much more than that. But give it time. Your wants are determined by your know's, and Doctrinal learning under the Holy Spirit will result in your changing a lot of what you think valuable, now.

In all events, though, your enjoyment of anything, anyone, anytime, anywhere exponentially increases, over time, due to spiritual growth. That makes sense, no? God enjoys to the uttermost! In man, the process tends to be a back-ended development, so you won't see some 'magical' transformation (God can bing magic anytime, ho-hum: even Christ spent 30 years training, and He was perfect!), but it is steady, real -- and makes the difference between ending up a shrivelled soul, or a truly happy one. With many an enjoyment along the way.

Again, all OT prophecy (and frankly any verse in the original-language texts) demonstrates how Omniscience 'sees'. Earlier in this Reason, Isa Chaps 7-11 were cited as a great sample for seeing how Omniscience 'sees' the sweep of history, with all these tie-backs between Ahaz's day, the development of Messiah, and the Millennium. For, seeing the results from Omniscience means He's always enjoying them. And what are those results? Our Royal Multilevel Enjoyment. Our own. See, "one": the interpersonal empathy is total. What's the pleasure of Person "A" is ipse the pleasure of Person "B", in B's own valuation of it. We, here in 'this' moment, well we aren't grown up yet. But we can grow up -- in Him. Our Groom led the way, leaves us a Copybook, so we can indeed copy Him: and come to share in His Happiness. [See John 17 prayer, Acts 1:5,8; and especially 1Pet2:21, though all English versions egregiously mistranslate that verse, though even mere Strong's shows the "copy the handwriting-copybook" meaning of hupolimpano hupogrammos!] No one is denied the grace to fully grow up into this unique Bridal Intimacy. No one. We alone ourselves deny it to ourselves. Our Royal choice.

So, then: the daily function of God's Script changes you, so changes your capacity for life. The Trinity indwell you, so They share Their Life with you; and, you with Them. Like in marital intimacy (without goofy phallic or emotional ideas). It's not at all mysticism or works, but the enthusiastic pouring-out results of the Bible Doctrine, His Thinking. He's Alive, and His Thinking is Alive. The Holy Spirit supernaturally directed the apostles to put this Thinking in writing, and then the Holy Spirit puts it in us. Kinda like a zip-file, this Thinking expands, gradually taking over everything. Non-coerced. So, then, you grow up with reference to Infinity. What once you considered mean or degrading, you now appreciate, and even enthusiastically love: what once you considered too high, is now comfortably and competently yours. And, you come to want to pour yourself into everything: even and sometimes especially, into what was once most repugnant to you. The smallness and yuckiness and repugnance don't change: instead, you change. This changeover doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lifetime, as was explained in the First Reason for Invisibility's spiritual growth stages.

As noted there, my pastor classifies the spiritual growth process in the following stages: spiritual childhood, adolescence, adulthood in two substages, maturity, and "Pleroma" ("Fullness", a very pregnant word in both Greek lit. and the Bible). Each of these stages has defining characteristics, covered in the "First Reason for Invisibility" link. So, then: by late spiritual adulthood and beyond, one really comes to know HIM, every second, even while sleeping. Resulting in a real online Relationship, Knowing Real Persons. So, one comes to want to pour self out into everything. Everything painful comes to be appreciated, as well as everything pleasant. Total enjoyment. See how the Lord does it in Matt4. See how Paul cycles it in Romans 5 and following. That's kinda how each day 'feels', eventually. See, the Lord could disregard the shame, because there was none. Why? Because, He enjoyed everything. Even, the Cross. Best of all -- the sufferings of life become the most intimate moments, with Him. It's as if God grants the suffering to balance seeing Him so intensely in those moments. Because, He enjoyed everything. Even, the Cross.

"Enjoy" in human thinking is limited to what feels good. Not so, in true enjoyment. That is one of the Trial demonstrations of great significance: feeling dominates the soul, in the human, owing to Adam's sin. Very difficult to overcome feeling, especially since it substitutes for Truth. So if with the Truth, you prefer bad-feeling stuff, then you are operating on God's Truth and God's Love -- despite being a sinner human. Satan cannot match that demonstration. Not possible. "Evidence Testing" is where this demonstration reaches its highest phase. The "2-3-4-5" table link at pagetop shows you how rigorous it is. And it's all a Thinking Thing. For only the soul, can Think God's DDNA Apodoses.

Resultant internal Happiness is extreme, and it's a Knowing (contentment, enthusiasm, honor), not a feeling (feeling is only in the body -- body feedback is why you think you feel in the soul). Emotion is restricting; frankly, the body only 'recognizes' stimulation (good or bad). The body is too limited to handle true happiness. There's also a gradual docking of all else in life, as was explained in Part II. Life becomes more intense mainly because there's a growing discrepancy between the high Happiness of Knowing Him versus the low quality of earthly existence. The next subsection will explain something of that problem. God uses the differential to leverage an even higher happiness, by integrating the doctrine one lives on in the Spirit, with the low earthly life. The ultimate integration is the Cross. So, enfin, nothing high or low interferes with Love, enjoyment, happiness; instead, everything unifies, parallel to how Infinity enjoys virtually everything, no matter how good/bad/high/low.

You really can know God intimately. You really can live a multisphere spiritual life. Nothing beats it, sorry.

The Third Reason for Invisibility and the Third Reason for Royalty team up with the Fourth Reason for Invisibility to make you, in your daily intimate contact with Father and Son, become more like the Son. That, of course, is the goal of the spiritual life. For, your life is designed to parallel His down here, as we saw in the Third Reason for Invisibility; for, your spiritual growth means you are learning to think toward the Father (Third Reason for Royalty); which results in a kenotic spiritual life (Fourth Reason for Invisibility). So, when you've grown to Spiritual Maturity, you inevitably come to be like Him, and 1Jn4:17 is your life.

So at that point, two extremely important Trial Witness aspects 'turn on', so to speak: a twin parallel to "the Bread and the Cup". Bread represents the perfection of Christ in His Humanity, and the Cup represents the Wine of His Thinking in paying for our sins, aka "His Work on the Cross". We know that we get the same test, due to Hebrews 11:1, which in corrected translation reads:

Translation here tries to reflect the Greek Drama style, which is anephoric and heptameter and in parallelism. I couldn't do it in English with three clauses of seven syllables, so opted for five.

The usage of "Hupostasis" as a moniker for Christ (Heb1:3, 3:14) in apposition tells you that we are put on Trial as He was. Same kind of Trial, not the same scope. And how is it the same kind of Trial? Word in you, tested. So that's the "Bread", and the "Cup" is how you think that Word under testing (Evidence Unseen). It's a Communion Test, a Prosperity Test. Hence it is at once your Dream Come True and Worst Nightmare.

1. You began as a spiritual baby, born in Him Spiritual Royalty, a Priest. You knew nothing. Like the rest of the world, you thought in terms of body things, so your definition of "God" and "spiritual" were all body things, definitions the world buys: Satan's definitions. So you thought relationship with God was gauged by something you did or didn't do, how nice you were to people, whether you engaged in certain rituals or practices like going to church, working around the church, giving money, singing songs, observing certain holidays, dress codes, food eatings, washings or intonations, set prayers or 'holy language', etc. "Bible" was an enigma to you, but its words sounded good, so you memorized some verses and aped the other legalistic believers around you, fancying yourself holy. Or, conversely, you reacted to those people, and were tempted to chuck the whole thing as you spent time in that lifestyle.

2. Then, somewhere in all that babyish experience, something happened. Somehow, some way, "God" became Someone you wanted to actually know. So at times you found yourself sneaking off somewhere or sitting down and just opening your Bible trying to understand what it said. The moments when you did this were halting, at first. But you kept doing them. As you did, you somehow ran across 1Jn1:9 and its plain language made sense to you, and you started to use it -- again, haltingly at first. You kept on reading, and the Bible started to make some sense. Suddenly you realized you needed a teacher, and not long after that, you found one. So you started more Bible study, and even became regular at it.

3. During this time, you began to cultivate using 1Jn1:9 as a habit, for all this study made you more aware of God throughout the day and you didn't want to be sinning. This made you more aware of what sin was. Which made you more aware of who God was. So you started to become more aware of other things in the Bible, like the promises, which you started to memorize. Especially, promises which related to how God was. So during your day, you came to think about Him more and more at odd moments, when in bathroom or bedroom, dressing; when stopped at a street corner, waiting for transport; when getting ready for bed at night. You found yourself seeking more time to be alone and study, go over what your pastor was then teaching, to understand it better. And, you started praying to God.

4. As you went through this gradual infusion of Bible into your life, you didn't know you were growing spiritually. You certainly didn't know you were in a Trial, all you knew was this "God" person was increasingly interesting to you, and you wanted to know Him better. So, you kept studying, and as the years passed it became a daily habit, now with increasing time spent, such that you started to spend your leisure hours trying to write out what you were learning, looking up verses, analyzing what the pastor said, talking ever more with God about the meaning of what you learned. And, you started to know how to look up stuff in the Bible. So, you started to regularly set aside time for further study. Meanwhile, you started to grow apart from your old life and friends, a kind of mental wall growing between them and you, which of course you didn't know was happening, either.

5. Life starts to settle for you. Nice circumstances allowed you to devote more and more of your time to studying this Bible, and of course your increasing isolation meant that some people close to you, were becoming annoyed. So right alongside with the nice circumstances, were some incipient conflicts; quiet at first, then louder. Other people came into your life, and they were attractive to you, so you started spending time with them. This cut into your Bible study time, and so you slacked off awhile. Then something bad happened, you realized you'd not been studying, so you started in again. Then other bad things happened, but this time you just kept on wanting to study, because after the bad, you realized that God was more important. You didn't understand that you were being tested. You didn't know that Satan&Co. were trying to deflect you from study, because at this point you're in Spiritual Adolescence. You didn't know anything about spiritual growth, so you didn't know you were in a testing stage. What you did know, was that God was beginning to make more sense than your own life, and the life around you suddenly looked smaller. You didn't know you were changing, you thought it was. Bible was beginning to be something you rather preferred to the stuff in your life, so now you dropped off talking to the new friends you'd made, gradually at first. And you kept on studying.

6. Now suddenly during your day, you're thinking about whole doctrines of the Bible, all the whys of salvation, and you're asking God many questions. You're doing this because you want to know, and the urge to know becomes a strong desire, often interrupting whatever you're doing during the day. It becomes difficult to concentrate, and you long for time alone so you can work out the many questions and issues and insights which keep burgeoning in your mind. So you don't know that you entered Spiritual Adulthood, and are progressing rapidly. All you know is that now your life is becoming topsy-turvy, a kind of war beginning over whether you study or whether you do what 'normal' people do. And you don't feel 'normal', anymore. What you feel, is that you have to make a choice between devoting your time to study, or to the 'normal' things of life around you. You decide on study.

7. Then the spit hits the fan. Stuff in your life begins to go wrong. Weirdly wrong. So when you study it becomes hard to concentrate, but you manage somehow. As you go through the weirdness of things going wrong, you find yourself suddenly understanding the 'big picture' about God Himself, and you increasingly become aware that God has an agenda for your life, and you want to know what it is. What you'd been living prior to this point, suddenly becomes a kind of loss, in your mind. "What does God want?" begins to dominate, and you become somewhat anal about knowing the answer to that now pressing, question. So more begins to go wrong in your life, but you find yourself using whole doctrines to keep going, and of course 1Jn1:9 is an instinctive habit by now. So you don't know you're in a testing phase of Spiritual Adulthood, to bridge into Spiritual Adulthood II, on the verge of maturity. What you do know, is that you want to obey God, and as far as you're concerned, you're not doing it well enough. You mistake the spit hitting the fan as a warning that you're disobedient, and of course under that pressure, you fail a lot, so you develop a new habit of feeling guilty. Takes awhile before you use 1Jn1:9 on that guilt, but you know God saved you, so pretty much all the Bible you've ever learned, you fire at the increasing pressure, just to keep moving. You become cocky, too, as you realize you know Bible rather well now, and as you look out upon the world it suddenly occurs to you that the world is a rather futile place, people so preoccupied with the banal and silly. So you become a tad iconoclastic. So you decide to isolate the more, and just study Bible, as everything else is ever more annoying and boring. Again, you don't know you are changing, you think the world is getting worse -- or, that you're seeing its stupidity for the first time and are disillusioned.

8. At this point, amidst all the problems which occur, all that Bible you've learned starts to become a kind of wholistic picture in your mind. You see patterns. You begin to understand the difference between OT and NT covenants, the big sweep of God's plan for mankind; there begins to be a 'body' to all those disparate Bible doctrines you'd been learning and instinctively using. A panoramic view. And most of all, you're beginning to see God in wholistic terms, a Real Person with a Personality and Goals -- and you fall in love with Him. So now, His Plan for your life is a burning issue, and you see yourself as a jerk. You want to do something for Him. So you go through this phase of trying to do stuff, which often takes the form of good deeds of one kind or another, and instead of being quiet about your faith as you had been, you start becoming 'involved' in talking to others. You become something of a crusading pest, after awhile. You get spanked, and you come to know it's from God, the spanking. So you come to realize that straightening out the world or people around you -- why don't they see Him, why are they so preoccupied with small things -- well, you realize you can't be upset about that. Again, you don't know you are being tested. You only know that you must hunker down and study more. Frankly, at this point study is the only thing you want to do, everything else being boring. So you don't know that you've just entered Spiritual Adulthood II.

9. Peace suddenly ensues. All that time you wanted to study, all those burning questions you have, all begin to get answers, now. You begin to see God in palpable terms, as real as anyone you could meet on the street, though of course that 'sight' is all conceptual, in your soul's awareness. You are aware of Him when you wake, when you sleep, all the time during the day, and conversation with Him becomes almost non-stop. The world, meanwhile, annoys you more than ever. You find yourself completely inadequate, but the guilt doesn't last long, because the questions related to Him or Bible, interrupt the guilt and occupy your time. You are constantly finding some Bible parallel to something in your life, mainly because that's the only way you can stand doing the thing in your life: it stops being worthy, of itself. And every spare moment you have, you spend learning Bible better. For now, the Bible makes entire sense, and your ability to recall or read it, is pretty good. Your cockiness about that remains, but at least you've left off trying to explain Bible to other people -- well, your restraint doesn't always hold -- but you seek more isolation and that helps.

10. Your isolation lasts a little while, maybe a year, maybe two, maybe only a few months. Your understanding of Bible and God, His Plan for your life and virtually everything you ever wanted to know, skyrockets. You ache to study when you can't, and you begin to stop doing normal things like eat, sleep, shower, take care of your residence, so you can find time to study. You are addicted, now. Then life starts to intrude. People in your life, authorities with whom you deal, financial or other circumstances, all start to command ever more attention, and it's all annoying to you. Takes you away from your addiction. So to get through it, you first go ballistic, and probably fail bigtime, maybe stopping study for awhile, resenting the problems. So you get spanked. So, you recover, because now you see life in terms of living with Him -- or, without Him. The latter alternative is completely unacceptable. So you get up, maybe slowly at first, but you use 1Jn1:9 like breathing, and your study intensifies. You come to survive on using Bible to view what's going on, as only living on Bible, makes your circumstances palatable, now. Then, suddenly some problems go away, and something unexpectedly nice happens to give you a breather. It's something you always wanted from life, and you're surprised to have it. The wonderfulness of it surprises you, and you even forget God for a little while. So of course you don't know you're going through a prosperity phase of "Momentum testing" (my pastor's term), that final phase of Trial tests to qualify you for the Witness Box in Spiritual Maturity. You just keep doggedly going on, failing often, now used to your constant sense of inadequacy.

11. Something in your circumstances bothers you more than anything else, and it keeps on nagging your life: so of course you don't know that's your version of "thorn", a test to keep your feet on the ground as you cope with the now HUGE understanding you have of God and Bible. So you are on the edge of Spiritual Maturity. But you don't actually know that, even if you had been taught the stages of spiritual maturation by your pastor, since of course you undervalue your own soul, and consider yourself not to love God enough. What instead you know is that Christ Himself is increasingly a Whole Person in your mind, and you find yourself spending ever more time drawing parallels to what happened to Him down here. In fact, at this point you become somewhat anal about knowing Him better. Just Him. So of course you don't know that you're entering Spiritual Maturity, for the hallmark characteristic of it, is Occupation with Christ Himself. For even if you know of that hallmark, you don't consider yourself Occupied with Him, but rather you value yourself as being a spiritual dog, compared to Him, always failing Him in some way. And at this point, you use 1Jn1:9 even on temptations, considering them sins. Why? Because you are so in love with God -- and increasingly, Christ Himself -- that you are completely ANAL about your thinking measuring up to what God should hear. And to you, it never does. You view yourself as a constant failure.

12. You're one weird bird, at this point. So you yet don't know you've just entered the Pleroma phase and will enter Evidence Testing. You've long since dropped off contact with friends and family to the extent you can, and even if you can't, you're so mentally distant from them, they wonder if something's wrong with you. Rightly and wrongly, they attribute your distance to all that "study" you do, thinking that you're in a cult or something. They complain openly or just let you be. If you were married, by now you're probably divorced; if you were close to your family, by now you're distant. If you have kids, they polarize about you, either getting into study like you are, or finding reasons to think you are a bad person -- depending on their own attitudes toward God. In your work you have become very competent, and people value your work; but now this "obsession" over God begins to intrude. So you have trouble shifting between work and your study. Yet you begin to find ways to use your life as a way to understand Bible better, and life itself becomes a kind of Bible class. This had been true ever since you'd hit Spiritual Adolescence, but now you know that's what you're doing with it. For life now is about Christ, and you want to insert Him into everything, as an excuse to study while you must ostensibly do something else. So you begin to draw parallels, realizing that He had to do mundane stuff throughout His Day, too, so an internal running dialogue ensues, with you asking God for what parallels your life has, to His. And you begin to know the answers. And rehearse them.

13. In fact, you begin to know the answers in spades. Answers to anything. When you study Bible you know not only the answers, but how verses interrelate, and in such technical profusion, it flattens you to realize how much you know. And thus you come to know you are in Spiritual Maturity. Everything comes in a whoosh! now. God is your life, Christ is your life, all else is but a dividend of Him, and the coalesced understanding is so vast, you almost can't breathe. Becomes very hard to even eat, sleep, your focus on Him is so strong, little of you is left for anything else. So another brief interlude ensues, a kind of peace, as this whooshing coalescence occurs. Quiet time. Whatever problems you had, suddenly slack off. So you are free to think out what's happened, but you find instead that all you want to do, is think about Christ. So you do. Constantly. The view you have of Father, Son, Spirit, is well defined by now. All the doctrines you know, are well defined and integrated, by now. So now you can appreciate the sweep of Father's Plan, and you feel as if you couldn't know God and Christ better, were you already dead and in heaven. It is here that you begin to understand you're in Spiritual Maturity. And you want to reciprocate Him.

14. After some while, this understanding leads you into realizing you are in Evidence Testing, a Witness for Prosecution in the Trial. Probably, that recognition occurred when something newly wonderful and horrible suddenly came into your life which you'd always wanted when a spiritual child -- and you realized it doesn't matter to you anymore. This realization might be slow in coming. What happens is your constantly seeing Him, 'mediates' the experience, and there's a distinct simultaneity of the human side being always intense, yet at the same time, the knowing-Him is increasingly dominant over it. So you won't recognize that the the "newly wonderful and horrible" doesn't matter to you, you'll think it matters too much, and that you're not dealing with it well enough, before Him. But what's happening really, is that you're redefining it in terms of Him, so really this is a Victory, a kind of Operation Footstool Attitude which dominates your thinking during the day. That's Occupation with Christ, maturing. But it won't feel like victory. It never does, during Evidence Testing. For Evidence Testing is always about WASTE -- in favor of seeing Him Who is Invisible. And that's what happens, too. So humanly there's no 'compensation': the nice is not nice enough -- not even your version of "all the kingdoms of the world" which offer is made during this time, as you'll come to understand -- and the not-nice is of course more annoying than ever. You do not feel like you're winning. Only living on Bible before Him matters, though, so you keep on going as Paul describes in Phili3:14. You only come to know of the victory, that way; nothing in your circumstances will actually agree with that knowledge. So you become independent of those circumstances, Bible being more real than they are. This independence began in spiritual adulthood, but here it is a mature knowing of the divergence. In any event, you only want to honor Christ. That becomes your all-consuming passion, and of course you always evaluate yourself as Paul does, NOT having attained Phili3:13. But Christ is your life, now, Phili1:20-21, and that's all you care about. You think toward God 24/7. You don't know another life, anymore.

The above vicissitudes are of course sketchy, as no two people experience spiritual growth in exactly the same way. But notice how in all events, the focus shifts from the me-ness and world-ness of childhood preoccupations, to God, Bible and eventually, Christ Himself. It does play as a gradual addiction/obsession, with a progressive abnormalcy 'look' to the life. Depending on how conventional you are as a person, how disciplined, what kind of routine you have, spiritual progression can be rather tumultuous, or it just quietly happens until Spiritual Maturity hits you. In all events, at Spiritual Maturity your understanding of God and Bible and especially Christ Himself, skyrockets and coalesces in such huge volume, you almost can't bear it. The knowledge is crushing. That's the "wine" function, with the Word itself being the Bread you've come to eat in such quantities, you find it impossible to get through a day without that Word being constantly in your spiritual mouth (believing part of your soul). So whatever the pattern of your life, the overwhelming understanding will characterize it during Spiritual Maturity and you will indeed come to know you are in Evidence Testing.

Evidence Testing answers Satan's objections to God from before the human race was created. Essentially, the objection was that God is unfair to put creation through this growth process. That we can't take it, it's too painful, no one is as good as God anyway, so the standards and the pressure make life with God miserable for creatures. Therefore God is not Loving, to have created this relationship. So in Evidence Testing, it's shown how the believer has a superior happiness and life with God, versus Satan's plan for the human race.

Satan's plan all along, rested on certain 'pillars':

1. The creature must receive nice circumstances.
2. The creature must be given something to 'do' which makes him feel worthy, within the confines of his abilities.
3. The creature must receive real credit from God, for using his nature morally.
4. That credit should be power, so the creature's nature should increase in size and scope and ability, as result of using his nature morally.

God has a different opinion, as we saw in Part I.

1. Nice circumstances don't make for happiness, but instead, knowing God makes one happy.
2. Anything finity can do is unworthy of Divine Righteousness and irrelevant, for what God wants is relationship, not "performance".
3. So no credit ought to be given for moral or any other 'performance', as it would be a lie to accredit what is below the Divine Standard of Righteousness, and 'credit' is not the point of relationship, in the first place.
4. Rather, growing in the knowledge of God makes the creature change nature into God's Own, and hence that enhances the relationship, as the creature grows closer to God, by becoming more like God. So yes, the creature increases in size and scope and power, but not for the sake of better performance. Rather, he becomes weaker, as Divine Knowledge is too much for the creature, but since that creates the real happiness, it doesn't matter that the creature is weaker. His happiness increases with that weakness, instead. For God will carry him through the weakness. Again, since it's only the relationship which matters, only the relationship which makes for happiness, and it's only the relationship, which God wants. Not, 'performance'.

As you can see, then, Evidence Testing will demonstrate how your weakness is your strength, just as Paul said in 2Cor12:10. So you don't feel good here. You feel overwhelmed, wasted, and in fact your life will BE wasted, just as Christ's was. But you have a contentment in knowing God which even you come to know, is superior to all other forms or ideas of happiness you or the world once believed valid. So here in Evidence Testing, like Christ you come to have a series of tests which culminate in your own personalized "cross". Your thinking during this time demonstrates God's points as superior to Satan's, and if you persist to the end, you are crowned. You defeat Satan in the Trial, by being helpless. Which of course you are. But you will experience a number of subtests in this phase which tempt you to use your abilities -- especially, your perception and comprehension abilities, which at this point frankly are superhuman. Because, you're living on Bible. So in material terms, that could translate into a variety of activities which would give you prosperity, relief from the debilitating sense of weakness -- in the name of reciprocating Him. That's a Love test, and it's a doozie. For you are given ways to reciprocate Him which are truly valid, but the point of the test is not reciprocation, but weakness. You must learn to say no to your abilities, even as Christ learned to say no to His Own Godness and Perfect Humanity: first, in not doing the good deeds Satan tempted Him to do, Matt4; next, in not using His Power to 'help' people believe, even going so far as to speak in parables, rather than wow people with His Absolute Command of Scripture; finally, in not fighting the injustice against Him, which led to the Cross on which Father executed that ultimate Injustice, the imputation and judgement of our sins on Him Who Knew No Sin. Again, we don't get the same scope of testing, but the paradigmal structure is the same. Reason? To know Him better. And, here -- to prove the point to Satan in the Trial.

So Evidence Testing is at foundation, a prosperity test. The weakness makes that prosperity ever more attractive, so you will be constantly on edge about choosing to be weak, not merely being in circumstances which make you weak.

Both the "Pleroma" link (fourth row of red box near pagetop) and Part IVd (link at pagetop), extensively explain Evidence Testing parameters and experience, so more won't be said now. Here, the point is that the Fourth Reason you are created Royal Priest with potential Kingship inheritance, is to answer Satan in the Trial. Your successful Witness here, is what gets you Crowned. Forever. For that's what happened to Christ, and paradigmally, that's what happens to you. In this stage, your focus on Christ matures, and you come to know what it was like for Him to be here. You come to emulate His Motives, Reasonings, thoughts, and fortitude. But it doesn't feel like victory. It feels like a continual series of defeats. Everything which ever conflicted with your priority to learn God, will play here. Nice and not nice, and often playing at once. There are rest periods, and the tests notch up afterwards. You don't always know you are being tested, but you will come to know and by the end, you know all the time. For the knowing is a kind of pressure. Here you are, living toward God and toward life, with the latter being of such progressive deadness to you, it becomes unbearable, the 'stretch' between seeing Him, and seeing life. You become satisfied only if you can fight. At first, the desire to fight is hard to develop, as the pressure of knowing Him is so wonderful, you seek to avoid fighting. Or, conversely, if you liked fighting upon coming into Spiritual Maturity, you tend to fight too much. So you learn to be defeated, to stop fighting. Again, this is a personalized series of tests wholly keyed to your own personality and life circumstances, so generalization can only be sketchy. But you yourself will know and in some detail, what's happening to you and why. For Christ had to know, and in advance. So will you.

As you've also hopefully guessed by now, if you don't stick with the spiritual life you'll also get an increasingly-crushing life: but as discipline. The long-carnal believer's soul progressively descends into animalism. [Gal6:7,Hosea8:7,Col3:25, Matt7:2, Eph3:18ff, "brute beasts" passage in Peter, etc.] Because, if we aren't en train to becoming the Bread and Cup like Our Precedence did, we're debauching the Communion. [See 1Cor11:30 in context + 2Tim2:26's "come to..senses" is really the Greek word for recovering from being drunk, and the following verses include self-righteousness in the satanic imbibing. See also 1Tim4:1 and 2Tim4:3-4.]. As a consequence, we'll shrink inside (e.g., skotizo and skleroo passages+"brute beasts" again); because absent 1Jn1:9, the body and Satan&Co! run the life (2Tim2:26-3:7 and like passages). 'Not God the Holy Spirit, Who's "grieved" and "quenched" during the time one is carnal. [Those passages really say STOP grieving/quenching(squelching) -- Greek imperative of prohibition means to stop something you are doing.]

1. The believer, of course, is "born again" and hence positionally freed of the sin nature (Romans 5-8 are on this topic). But that doesn't mean functionally freed. As we saw in the "Crowning" table (first row of links in red table at pagetop), "salvation" only made you a spiritual being, which you cannot detect. Yeah, you go to heaven when you die; but your soul isn't changed except by living on God's Script in God's System. So the carnal believer is controlled by his feelings, which are all sin-tainted by the "ME" thing, as explained in the flesh-colored "Dungheap" table of Part II.

2. The carnal believer's soul thus shrinks. This shrinkage problem is visible, for spiritual pathology has visible manifestations, if it is prolonged. More importantly, the soul's shrinkage needs discipline as surgery. See, the enormous suffering the long-carnal believer progressively gets is first needed to keep his soul large enough to enjoy his eternal future.

3. Kinda like the Tree-of-Life prohibition at Adam's fall, you too can't 'eat' the Eternal State and enjoy it, if your soul (the real 'you') is too small - but you did get Eternal Life, because you once believed in the One Who Hung on the Tree to give us life. So, you are too small for 'Heaven' (so to speak), even though you are guaranteed to live there. But, will you enjoy it? Ergo, you need the suffering discipline to prevent undue shrinkage. For, God keeps His promises, and He's promised that "no one shall pluck them out of My Hand" (John10:28). And, "there will be no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, no more death: the old things have passed away (Rev21:4)." To keep such promises to the nonetheless-permanently-saved carnal believer requires Divine Discipline.

4. Carnality is addictive, viral; the only effective antibiotic is habitual use of 1Jn1:9, coupled with habitual use of the 1Jn's Script bullets in Part I. For, carnality is a disease of the soul, due to sin getting in the soul (remember, sin nature is genetic, so volition had to say Yes to the body temptation, for sin to get in soul). Since volition is attracted to carnality, and can addict itself to carnality, volition is responsible; yet, the disease is real enough. So one can't blame the person who has the disease, because it's a disease; yet one must quarantine himself from the disease, as well.

5. Prolonged carnality shrinks the soul; as a consequence, the ability to enjoy anything, shrinks. We saw that in Part II, the "testimony" of the Exodus generation (cites are there): "Our souls are dried up." God tells the story of the Exodus generation to show a litany of paradigmal characteristics which span the progress of spiritual disease in a believer. You'll see Paul (and the writer of Hebrews) refer back to the Exodus generation's maladies again and again, in his epistles. The NT is also chock full of verses which tick off a listing of the symptoms of prolonged carnality (be it moral, or immoral, degeneration). Gospel narratives also are rife with examples; the Lord repeatedly observed the devastating effect of prolonged carnality on a soul, and repeatedly instructed and warned His hearers about this oh-so-common killer disease.

6. Shrunken souls exhibit very definite traits: self-righteousness, bitterness, prickliness, i-deserve, blamesmanship, nothing-is-enough, babyish values (petty, activistic, complainey, etc), and above all, treachery. This, because if you don't grow in God's System, you're growing in Satan's. So you're growing in hatred, and hence in the lust to hurt someone. There's no middle ground.

7. See, if you're not learning God, then you are empty. So you have to find a replacement, but the "ME" thing must always be appeased. So one inevitably focuses on people and things, trying to appease that "ME". But it can't work. So then one is disappointed, and blames the object of previous glomming -- so turns treacherous. This is why husbands cheat. This is why wives are bitchy. This is why children misbehave. We all grab at each other and -- truth to tell -- no one is happy. Can't be happy, apart from God. Horizontal relationships always depend on the Vertical, from the get-go. Same for angels, same for us. Satan is the most unhappy person in the universe, but has everything. Hint hint.

8. Hence inside characteristics, constitute the litmus of your 'status' with God. Outside characteristics which look like prosperity don't mean one is 'right with God'. Just as the wicked seem to prosper but one day, they're gone! like Sennacharib's army; or, gone like Sennacharib, in 701BC (murdered by his sons); like, Assyria, in 612BC. So also the wicked believer will be removed tachú, without warning. Hebrews 12:4ff is the (Father-must-discipline-to-protect) alternate road, to the 'agony' of Heb12:1!

9. It's an awesome way to suffer: no physical pain is comparable to the soul and spiritual desolation I've seen perpetually-carnal believers go through. The person ends up something like a burned-out building. 'Inside, a 1945-Dresden: you can see it in the eyes. It's a fate far worse than an unbeliever can have, down here. For, after all, what unbeliever can suffer spiritually? What unbeliever can be desolated by failing to fill up his own imputed Divine Righteousness with Bible Doctrine? See? Salvation makes the person much bigger, to start with. For, in order to grow up with reference to God, one has to be 'born again' with a much bigger internal foundation. Can't get any bigger foundation than a human spirit in which resides Infinite Righteousness and Eternal Life! So, if the bigger person doesn't eat what his bigness needs (Bible Doctrine), he hurts 'bigger', too! [The "tumbleweed" passage (Jer17:5-6) ties in here. So also, Heb6:6 and the three above-cited Pauline passages, plus the end of Hebrews 10.]

My pastor calls this failure the "law of double punishment" -- he spends over a hundred hours explaining it. Not for sins -- those were judged on the Cross -- but, for failure to execute our Uniquely-Royal-Spiritual-Life which Our Lord bought for us, on the Cross. The Fourth Reason for Invisibility dwelt on this "adikia" issue at some length, so won't be repeated here. Here, the Trial application is in view: Satan seeks to get advancing believers punished under this law so that others who see them will be even more inclined to reject God; with any luck, the believer being punished will peel out of the spiritual life permanently. So, then: expect a far worse punishment than if you were punished for sins!

The Holy Spirit is "grieved" (short-term), or "quenched" (long-term) by carnality. So it's not the sin per se but the failure to fellowship with Him that brings on such 'double' Discipline. That's what the "knock..sup" warning in Rev3 is talking about to Laodicean believers. All this negativity, infects others; so, for the sake of the world, the long-carnal believer will eventually be "cauterized", treated the way the Levitical priests had to treat leprous articles. Meaning, isolation of some kind. However: you can use 1Jn1:9, immediately. Any Divine Discipline will either cease or convert to the blessing version the advancing believer gets. For, if you repeatedly get back in fellowship with the Holy Spirit via 1Jn1:9 and you repeatedly use God's Script, you too will be an advancing believer. 'Never too late to get going :) After all, the apostle Paul was the worst sinner who ever lived, as he autobiographically tells Timothy in 1Timothy (verse 15). So, cheer up: God has big plans! Move! Forget what's behind, and don't look back, Phili3:14!