Part IVd, The Lord vs. Satan: SupCtHeaven;

So the fourth "R", Realization, will be the hypostatic printout from one or the other triad of R's you choose for your life. There are four other "R's" flowing from them: Result, Reproduction, Rest and Rapture. So we have a total of eight "R's" which get put through their paces in the Evidence Test. 'God's Side' of these eight, are as follows:

• Rescue, which on God's Side are salvation and post-salvation 'rescues' from the frailty of being human;
• Relationship, which on God's Side is a progressively EXCLUSIVE Relationship with Him, conquering all other 'loves' in your life;
• Remaining in the Relationship, which on God's Side is the Passing-Grade criterion of the Test;
• Realization, which on God's Side is the Reality of the Togetherness/Oneness with Him, the contract of John 17 realized in the believer;
• Result of the Test, which on God's Side and His Testimony, is that you should be Crowned;
• Reproduction, which on God's Side is the 'progeny' of your thinking Like His Son;
• Rest, which on God's Side is proof that the Trial Is Over with respect to you -- you win, get Crowned, and then (maybe shortly afterwards) die. So the Prosecution Rests.
• Rapture, which occurs when the accumulated Prosecution Rest with respect to each Successful Trial Witness, completes. God has proved his point.

  Conversely, Satan has his own R's in reply, but look at the Part II "Dungheap" table meanings they signify when they play:

• Resentment, man is his own god, 'rescued' from having to look up to anyone else. When man admires someone else, he considers himself a good person for doing that, so is really patting himself on the back.
• Revolution, a progressively EXCLUSIVE Relationship with 'white' evil conquering all other 'loves' in your life. The good you do is proof you should be rewarded, so "evil" is white, not black.
• Remaining in the Relationship, ennui leading to a sense-of-self as victim, martyr, messiah, a toy-for-the-gods, the quintessential philosophy of the ancient Greeks.
• Realization, self is the unappreciated hero, brooking no competition.
• Result of the Test, hell is the kingdom one inherits so to keep on enjoying his heroic suffering.
• Reproduction, 'progeny' of resentment, revolution, pious hatred.
• arRest, the Trial Is Over, Satan thinks he wins, having proved God wrong.
• Rapture, Satan's call for a Mistrial. Notice that the Rapture happens when both God has finished his Testimony, and Satan thinks he's finally proven God wrong.

It's hard to separately exhibit these "R's" in the following description, since they are all intertwined. So try to spot them as you read. Helpful Hint: as you read what follows, at least pretend YOU are in Evidence Testing, for everything prior to Pleroma builds up to it, so your life right now will be governed by the same testing essentials as what follows. So you grow faster if you approach your life as if you were already IN this Testing Phase. Just keep voting to know and live on Bible more and better! If a person just wants to know God, and keeps wanting to know God and keeps on keeping on in Bible, he'll come to these issues in his own life. So how much faster do you get there, if you know in advance what awaits? My pastor has taught this doctrine for years, and though I can't find anyone else who teaches it, Bible is plain enough on the parameters. So it's not invented here, but rather recast in the overall context of the Trial.

1. Test Structure Basics. Your very soul is tested in a basic way, in the Evidence Test: do you just BASICALLY want God.. no matter what BAD stuff you get? Invisible Testing, therefore, just as Heb11:1 says. That's what happened to That Visitor on the Cross, so that's what happens to you. For God doesn't want our goodies, and won't flash His cash, to get our votes. Because, He doesn't want us to want HIM for HIS goodies. So the Evidence Test is not about our goodies, either. For Evidence Testing centers on this Basic Love Question: do you Want Me for Myself, as I AM? You might want to review "2-3-4-5 Evidence Testing" table in Part III alongside. In Part III, Evidence Testing was categorized in this fashion:
   • Two Test Categories, Relationship to God and Relationship to Life; this is covered in more detail here in Part IVd.
   • Three Phases of Intensity, private, public, private+public. This is summarized below.
   • Four Stages of Victory per Phase, a kind of internal-progress-measure you can use. This webpage focuses on the macro role of Evidence Testing, so doesn't cover the Four Stages.
   • Five micro-benchmarks of development per Stage. Again, those are micro issues, so not covered in this webpage.

   So what follows below is an succinct upgrade stressing the macroeconomic Trial role of Evidence Testing, versus the earlier Part III content (which covers the 'microeconomics' of internal spiritual development). Ergo: flowing from the eight macro R's we just saw prior to this section, we have an outline of Trial Testing Issues. All these issues are playing AT ONCE in any given moment of the test.
   • Rescue or Resentment? Post-salvation, the 'rescue' is for your soul to be 'saved' from all its bad thinking. To Replace (yes, another "r") all that human thinking with Divine Thinking. Two kinds of bad thinking: 1) that which is is TOO SMALL, and 2) thinking which is contra God. You have to unlearn much, and go against your humanity in progressively-more-intense phases of spiritual growth. So resentment is a real likelihood, and most Christians you'll meet get very resentful from middle age onward, because they don't see the payoff for all their good deeds. Yeah, they aren't in Evidence Testing, though they'll crow that the devil is after them: they're rather in Divine Discpline, testifying FOR Satan in the Trial. So in Evidence Testing, do you just wait on God, or do you try to solve the suffering yourself, do you resent it? Very very hard to go through. 1Jn1:9 is a lifesaver, rescuing you from resentment. Doctrine needs to aggressively circulate in your head, like the Lord was screaming Ps22:1 while on the Cross. Barrage time.
   • Relationship or Revolution? Hebrew nouns for sin are of three types: one focuses on revolting against God (pesha), one on twisting or hiding the truth (awon), and one on anything anti-God (het). Obviously if you are twisting or anti-God, you won't necessarily know or mean to be. But it's a revolting, just the same. And it's ugly-revolting, too. Evil is in the revolting category. Again, 'white' evil is the worst kind, the i-am-good category. Satan promulgates as much human good as he can, for that best fosters rebellion against the Relationship. So Christianity is made to look like any other moral crusade, nothing special about it. But Christianity is a RELATIONSHIP with God, not any religion (which Satan invented, in Gen3). So the Relationship is tested for its BREAKING POINT. It doesn't break if you fail, it breaks if you quit the spiritual life. So just use 1Jn1:9 and keep truckin'.
   • Remaining in which Relationship? With God.. or with Satan? The bulk of this Part IVd will cover the "remaining" nature of the test, for it is multi-faceted, unbelievably subtle, and its protracted nature wears you down. Matt4 is the pattern of it, and you have to keep pondering the meaning of those three Temptations for months, they are so deftly presented. This Part IVd will seek to unzip many of the Matt4 issues specific to Evidence Testing itself. Matt4 is extensively treated passim in this webseries, as its meaning is the heart of the Trial, and the very structure of Satan's strategy against the human race. Again, the entire Trial is about whether you want God or not, and how much.
   • Realization of what? John 17 oneness-with God? Or, self on the pedestal, like Satan? There's no middle ground. [Phili3:18-19, 2Tim2:26-3:7 (which 1Jn2:19&22 reference), 1Cor4:8, 1Jn1:6,8,10, 2:4,9, 11, 16, 19, 22; 3:12,15, 17-18 (v.18 is scathing, see DDNA1.htm on its corrected translation); 4:20, 5:16-17. It gets real subtle here in Evidence Testing. Love for God EXCLUSIVELY, versus what seems to be a love for people and other lesser moralities. That's how Satan tested Christ, by claiming the lesser moralities counted. In each temptation, you'll notice Christ countered with something about Father Being Supreme. So 1Jn is about how the First Commandment is the only way to love the brethren, and all else is anti-Christ. It's real hard to see John's very pointed, First-Commandment Only stress, in translations. John isn't talking about just any kind of love. It's only the FIRST Commandment to Divine Love which is in view: if you don't love God, you don't love people. He's refuting the many anti-christ believers at that point who were contending religiosity, like the strawman good-deeder in Jas 2:18.]
   • Resulting in what? God decreeing you should be crowned? Or, you crowning yourself as the messiah martyr, like Satan does in the Third Temptation of Matt4?
   • Reproduction of what? 'Progeny' of your thinking Like His Son? Or, like Satan?
   • Rest or arRest? Trial Is Over with respect to you. Do you win, get Crowned by God? Or lose, crowned by Satan? So the Prosecution Rests and the Defense, arRests.
   • Rapture Hastened or Delayed? Did the Prosecution Rest with respect to your Successful Trial Witness? Or must the Rapture be delayed, because you were booted out of the Witness box, having QUIT?

   This Evidence Testing runs in three phases, with 'rest' intervals in between to alert you to a phase's end. You have to pass the prior phase before you are 'moved' to the next one. These phases are all imposed and you consent to the imposition -- you don't seek the testing and you don't refuse it, either:
   i) a "fasting" or "adversity" phase which is internal/private (no one else knows or sees), analogous to Matt4;
   ii) a "prosperity" or "public" phase, analogous to His public ministry;
   iii) a "humiliation" or "high suffering" final phase which is public+private, analogous to the Cross (publicly humiliated, but the imputation and judgement of sins was wholly invisible).
   Generally, the Testing Period runs the last decade or more of your life, to adequately cover all three phases; but it could be much shorter, i.e., the Lord's last three years were all Evidence Testing. "Public" could be just those in your immediate periphery, i.e., friends, family, co-workers, etc. Isaiah 52:13-14 tells you the Testing is a High-low spanning, see also the dokimazw clause in Rom12:2, and the spanning tenor of Phili2:5-10 (which parallels Isa52:13-14, 53:10-12). Eph1:23's "Filling all in all" includes divergence (a kind of leveraging); so Testing will include material prosperity (usually in the middle phase, to set you up for bigger humiliation in the final phase).

   Again, the Lord is the 'poster boy' for this structure, but you can see the same structure in the lives of Noah, Abraham, Job, Paul. I can see them in my own pastor's life (he's now in iii)), which helped immensely to spot more details about these patterns in Bible and test their Biblicity over the past seven years. [I've never met my pastor, but from decades of hearing his Bible class lessons on tape, one learns much. By the way, this paragraph is written in 2007.] Evidence Testing also exhibits some coordination with significant dates in your life (i.e., your birthday): that's a pattern for awards too, ever since Adam. Click here to download GeneYrs.xls, a Bible-derived timeline from Adam through 2007 (not yet finished, post-Cross). When you load the spreadsheet, click on View, then Custom Views in Excel's menu. A dialogue box appears which helps you pick the period in the timeline you want. Spreadsheet views best in widest window, ends at Col. M so you can see all columns on-screen. Right half has comments about this birthday coordination. You can prove from Bible that God coordinated events as gifts for (inter alia) Adam's, Noah's, Abraham's, and Christ's birthdays, and the 'birthday' of David's consolidated kingship, etc. So He coordinates to a believer's personal dates in some manner, as well. The pattern varies, and not only birthdays are targeted. So I can't be more specific, here. Ask God about it for your own life.

   The Trial Answer is in nine parts, all of them intertwined and complex. And they all lay bare how you THINK. Again, this is an Invisible Trial before Heaven, so it's not something you talk about. The Answer basically divides into the following categories, all of which play at once, each 'part' reinforcing the other. Nomenclature below dovetails with the A-H Precedence categories listed at the beginning of Part IVb, since Evidence Testing is an Angelic Trial Witness which speeds the completion of the Body of Christ, thus hastening the Rapture. The good news about the complexity is that you can't influence the answer. It happens TO you, and over time you come to understand it. Again, God does all the doing: that's the central issue in the Trial: if you want God, you want HIM to be doing the doing, not you. If you don't want God, you want to be your own god, hence doing all the doing, yourself.

   • Archegos Association Answer: Bible over body, spiritual over splashy, freedom over fantasy. We saw this in Part I. These are the ideas behind the three answers the Lord made to Satan in Matt4, and all of them are under the rubric of "For FATHER or forget it". What Dad wants is supreme, and everything else is irrelevant. [When my pastor coined the term "Evidence Testing" back in 1986 (or prior), he would always cite Matthew 4 as Precedence. I can't find any other pastor who teaches this doctrine, but original-language Bible text plain enough. If you're interested, the 1985 Ephesians series (seven years long) and the 1992 Spiritual Dynamics series (12 years long) focus on Evidence Testing from time to time (in 92SD, start around lesson 800 or classes in late 1996, through the year 2000).]
   • Bridal Battle Testimony: "It's CHRIST or nothing." That testimony is a Bema upgrade due to His kata-Melchizedek Priesthood, light-years higher than the same type of testing which applied to Noah, then Job, Abraham, etc. It's attitudinal, silent. Again, this is a Testimony which gets produced in you. However, those intimate with you will notice this change and will comment or even make ultimatums, though you hide your attitude (which you should: Christ didn't 'sell' Himself so we shouldn't, either). [Yes, we should witness. Yes we should have missionaries. But we aren't salesmen (point Danny DeVito also makes in the movie, "The Big Kahuna", near the end of it). Fact is from Bible: if you are growing spiritually God brings the audience TO you, you don't seek them or spurn them. Notice how PEOPLE sought and followed Christ, Paul, or someone else God appointed, in Bible.]

   • Crown Crafting Combat: Evidence Testing comes in two basic flavors: Relationship to God, and Relationship to Life. Idea is that Relationship to God is everything, and relationship to life is but the expression of Relationship to God. Else life itself has no meaning. The "crafting" is a progressive defeat of all other loves in your life, relative to Him. It's not that you give up other loves. Rather, they become inconsequential in comparison to the Relationship with God, pattern of Abraham sacrificing his son, Christ on the Cross. This is a developing attitude you cannot force, and is not a behavior i.e., you don't run away from society, make yourself a hermit, swear off possessions, leave your family, etc. The Lord did none of those things, and neither do you.

   • Depositional Deadline Readiness: a false witness is 'prepared', 'rehearsed', so the objective of cross-examination is to catch the witness in something unawares, to expose any hidden falsehood or playacting. So this is a test of your genuineness, Rom12:2's dokimazw clause (etymological idea of testing a metal for alloys, or a gemstone for genuineness or purity). Romans 12:2 is mistranslated, the translation mistakenly reversing subject and object in the verse. God tests Doctrine in you to approve you, i.e., do you know the Will of God? LOL, you don't test Him as the translation mistakenly says! See Rom12:1-3.htm. Following is the translation directly from the Greek, taken from that page:
     "In fact, STOP BEING CONFORMED to this AGE, but BE TRANSFORMED (it's a play on words: don't copy someone else, become like CHRIST!) by means of the RENOVATION OF YOUR THINKING, in order for IT [your renovated thinking] to approve YOU as genuine, competent (dokimazw, like testing a gemstone versus a fake; another play on words, hard to explain) regarding [still part of eis to clause, content of "it"] what's the Will of God, the Divine Good-and-well-pleasing-and-complete." (Greek hendiadys might be appositional, but it looks like a listing which Paul doesn't complete because they know the list. Similar structure is in Heb6:1ff.)

     If Bible in your head is real, you're living on it all the time, test or no test. If Bible in your head is real, you just love it. So when suddenly hit, the Bible in your head anyway, comes to the RESCUE. The "deadline" element varies with how the test progresses, but there always is one. So it's unpredictable, sudden-death-abrupt, like the Rapture. The test comes suddenly, stops suddenly. Here, "hurry up and wait", the bane of the combat soldier, is the test as well. "Be ready in season and out of season", for you never know when God will bring you a situation. Trial Witness is before heaven. It's a 24/7 "situation". You are a strategic person. You don't act on your own. Christ never did a thing without looking at Father, first.

   • Excellency Examination Evidence: The world is all about 'performance', and makes big stinks about performance, using that as the sine qua non for all relationships. Therefore, Matthew 4 is as subtle as it gets. Mankind routinely flunks Matt4 and calls his flunking, holy: so you are tested in the same way as the Lord was. Like us, Satan keeps claiming God invented us to get some kind of PERFORMANCE from His Creation, as if God needed pets to do pet tricks for amusement. So he tests the Lord in Matt4, to 'perform'. Conversely, Satan's contending God SHOULD do pet tricks for the weak human race, which reverses "God" into "dog". Insulting, huh. Why the Lord didn't zap Satan into oblivion for that insult, Satan himself wonders.

     So it's the same temptation to perform, for us. As any combat soldier, you don't know how well you're doing, you're too busy fighting (i.e., the onslaught of temptations, including guilt if you have prosperity). As any combat soldier, you see the failure all around you, so you're tempted to quit. So that's part of the Trial Answer too: your awareness of and reaction to, 'performance'. Yours, or someone/something else's. Especially, God's.

     It's natural to want to be competent. So, here you are not. Or, you are but it achieves nothing. Disappointment, failure, despair, impotence, all drain a person. Doesn't matter if it's his own failure, or someone else's with which he must live (i.e., at work, in the home, whether a small failure like a Windows glitch or a big one like your house burning down). These things accumulate in a kind of attrition war, so take their toll on the psyche. The test of a person's real attitude is best seen when failure characterises the life. A spy who is not backed up by his government, does he stay loyal? When God seems to abandon us, do we stay loyal? Satan contends "no", as he did with Job (beginning of Job 1 and 2). It's easy, conversely, to blame the self for the problem, especially if one loves God. That's not the right answer either, in Evidence Testing. For in Evidence Testing, you are examined on what you got right about God, not on what's still wrong with you. If you succumb to guilt you lost the battle, here. Evidence Testing is only about whether God is good, and whether He made good ON you. It's never about you. You got paid for, 2000 years ago. Your INHERITANCE in Christ and how it's been built in you, is what's being examined. Again, Romans 12:2 above: IT (Word-in-you, your inheritance, booty from Christ) approves you, not the other way around.

     This examination proves the "excellency of the knowledge" (Phili3:8), the superior performance of Genuine Gemstone Word ON you. Not, you on yourself. It also proves that performance FROM you is not required to get or keep the RELATIONSHIP. God instead will RESCUE you from whatever failure. So God basically turns Satan's contention on its head, here: yea, it's about performance alright -- God's. Now you know why 2Cor12:9-10 reads as it does! Boasting in what GOD does!

     And here's the boast: it doesn't matter what life does to you. You have Him. So the 'performance' is irrelevant: end Romans 8. RELATIONSHIP to Him is happiness, inviolate; and all else matters, not at all. Body will feel otherwise, but the soul attitude's tandem reply is Phili1:21. Both are side-by-side. Hupostasis: when I'm weak, then I'm strong, 2Cor12:9-10.

     Of course, this Evidence demonstrates that the Elongating Exit Resurrection Precedence in Part IVb (first section) is valid. That Time has gone on so long, your Evidentiary Witness 'redeems', Eph5:16. So the 8th "R", the RAPTURE is hastened.

   • Forensic Fulfillment Evidence: Examination Evidence leads to Fulfillment Evidence: Omnipotence doesn't need performance. God doesn't need anything. Love is not amused by performance, let alone any of God's Attributes. Sovereignty doesn't want performance, Sovereignty Wants RELATIONSHIP. The "performance", is something He can just WILL any time He likes. So you should think of yourself as "Forensic Evidence", since you didn't create yourself, nor did you create the Evidence which is on Trial, even though you are that Evidence. Yeah, you love Him with all your heart and soul and mind, at this stage. But your ability to 'perform' that love, really? Zero. God makes it perform, because you want Him RECIPROCATED, the quintessential measure of RELATIONSHIP. The world is all about reciprocation, but misvalues it. Only God can make for true reciprocation. And He does. In you. That's forensically demonstrated, here.
   • God's Grace Evidence: which desire-for-Relationship is thus obvious, for we are not made perfect little Stepford wives from the get-go. For nothing finity ever is or does, can possibly 'perform' well enough for Infinite God. So there must be another reason for wanting the relationship. Yeah, it's LOVE. And the believer here, is shown that he likewise doesn't seek 'performance' from God.

   • Heaven's Historical Mistrial Rejoinder: Evidence Testing is an ANTI-TEST. Not of Performance, but instead (=anti, Greek), Evidence of Wanting God. Any 'performance' God might want also, He can just will in us (and does, i.e., Luke 12:11, Phili2:12-13). So again, this is a Test of Relationship, not good deeds. You could also call this "Heaven's Happiness Rejoinder", because God proves that Happiness Does Not Depend On Creature Nature, however high or low -- but on Knowing God. For even God Himself is Happy due to what He knows, ergo the Lord got all those Rom5:5 deposits, so BECAME the Truth, and hence even the Cross was Happiness to Him, Heb12:2. (For Satan's contention that creature nature determines happiness and that God's at fault for how He made creatures, see Part I's "Core Trial Issues", and the Fifth Facet of Part IVb.)

   • "Invisible Hero" (my pastor's term) Inheritance: so GOD-DEEDS get done in you and to you, since only God is Good, and HIS performance -- Eph2:10 -- is thus demonstrated. What distinguishes Evidence Testing is that you are helpless -- and want to be. Anything you can do, you eschew; you will seem masochistic and even immoral for 'doing nothing.' For if God doesn't deliver you, you don't want to be delivered. Precedence is Christ: He could have done the things Satan tempted Him to do, He could have done lots of flash during His Public Ministry, and He could have delivered Himself on and through the Cross. But He didn't. Instead, He kept being aggressively passive, like a Lamb. Because, the ONLY "morality" is that FATHER DETERMINES. Period. All lesser morality arguments are completely irrelevant. It's Dad's Way or No Way. [Fourth Reasons in Part III cover this issue. Theology calls this "kenosis" but some theologians misconstrue that doctrine as some kind of loss, an inability. They don't get it that He kept on WILLING to have His Godness and human abilities go UNUSED, in favor of what Holy Spirit or Father would do to Him. You know it's not a loss or emptying or inability, but rather an AGGRESSIVE willingness, a foregoing, from Matt4 and Phili2:5-10, Isa53:7,10-11.]

     God's into MAKING Heroes. He likes doing that. So it's not arrogant to BE such a Hero, because GOD did it. Boasting in Him: that's a big theme of Paul's. To someone arrogant, Paul looks arrogant in his writing: it's absolutely incredible, all the calumny said against Paul in theology. God MADE Paul The Poster Boy Of Believer Ultra-Maturity, and we are to learn from what happened to him. Paul, the worst sinner (1Tim1:15) made into the Biggest NT Hero (1Cor15:10). Paul's not shy about it, because he's supposed to show them how it works (i.e., freely admitting it in 1Cor15:1-10, Eph3, 1Tim1, all of Philippians, 2Cor12). So He boasts in what God DID to him. What God did to him the worst sinner, therefore, God want to do to anyone.

     So tested here, is whether you follow Satan's plan of making yourself a hero in the world's eyes, inheriting it -- just like mainstream Christianity does, following Satan with all its hunger for world recognition -- or whether you keep on in the Word, and God MAKES you into His Son. Invisibly. In the latter case, you become a "great one", Hebrew "atsum"; getting your share of "shalal", Hebrew word for "booty", Inheritance (both terms are in Isa53:12).

   As Hebrews 11 explains this nine-part Trial Answer, the superior 'performance' of God's Deeds in reply to our merely wanting the Relationship, was Evidenced right away, at the Fall. We saw in Part II how Adam and the woman merely admitted they were wrong, so God saved them based on their mere BELIEF in the coming Savior (Gen3:15 promise, 'sealed' by the sacrifice of animals, hence the animals' skins for clothing). We then saw in Part II how for the OT heroes, the Evidence Test was a Vote of "So, what?" to everything else in life, but God. Abraham longed for but one son; God wanted to make a universe of sons out from those longing loins. Then, He did. Then, Abraham was told to go sacrifice that son on Mt. Moriah. At that point, Abraham learned only God mattered to him. God already knew that. Abraham did not. For love never accounts itself as loving enough. So that's the precedence, the prologue, giving rise to the Cross. Giving Risen Evidence, therefore, of Church's Legated Royal Spiritual Life. So the Test is now upgraded to His Eph4:13 level. At which level, everything else in life is a "So, what" -- including, life itself.

   Hence the Basic RELATIONSHIP Goal God has for your life, is to build His Son's Thinking in yours; the Basic Reason to even want life, is for Him to do just that. Not the goodies. Not the crowns and rewards you'll get as Pleroma if you pass these tests. Not the fame forever, the millions admiring you. No, none of those things: life is ONLY good for Seeing Him Who Is Invisible, and the admiration you get is only pleasing because you know that's their way of thanking HIM, enjoying HIM -- you are but a conduit. All else is a happy throwaway: especially, yourself. Which seeing and throwaway, you do invisibly: in your soul. The real you sees the Real Him, and basically you need and want nuthin' else. All that, the Evidence Tests are designed to accomplish and prove. In you, by Personal Agency of the Holy Spirit. To you. To Satan&Co. And in the eternal state, all the results will be on a pillar with your name on it (Rev3:12), for others to enjoy and learn from. Eternally. [Bible verses about pillars refer to historical records, since those records were inscribed on columns which held up buildings. At the time of writing Bible (throughout), kings made monuments with inscriptions about their exploits. Common example extant today, are the pyramids. Paper dies, but stone lasts.]

2. What basically constitutes a Passing Grade, in Evidence Testing? The entire Trial Witness isn't at all about works, but rather "ABIDING IN HIM", in the Word. You only abide in Christ Himself if you abide in His WORD, main theme of John 15 and 1Jn. Here's the flipside Test: what 'expense' will motivate you to quit doing that, and instead Divorce God? For this is a Divorce Trial. We are the evidence of Him to the world; but invisibly and more importantly -- we are Evidence of Him in the Angelic Divorce Trial. So our "work", as 1Jn4 keeps stressing, is to "abide". Rest. Be at-home with Christ's Mind circulating in us, which results in knowing God, and loving: so, we become Fit Bride, and "have confidence in the Day of Evaluation" (1Jn4:17). Hence the Basic Marital Question: we all know we are IN Christ from the moment of salvation forward, but is OUR thinking also "in" Him? In, on, about, with, towards, focused on, SEEING? If you are around another human being, you are aware of that person, you interact with that person, and you think about that person. So, that person is IN you; and you are also IN that person, because your thinking is ON that person.

   So, the Evidence Test: Are you as much in Christ in YOUR own thinking, as you are in Him in HIS Own Thinking? The totality of your focus on Him using Bible in your head to live, is tested per #IV, below. So it's a MOTIVE test, not a works test. WHY do you love God? It's a valid question: is 'love' given due to the attractiveness or goodies of the object, breaking or fading quickly if that attractiveness or goodies disappear? God is innately attractive, but in Evidence Testing He seems to 'act' unfaithful. Cross is an unfair thing, really. But if you really love someone, the unfairness doesn't matter. Of course God is not ever unfair, but Satan contends He is, and the human needs the 'stretch' of what goes against his nature (i.e., morality, which is a natural instinct). So although much unfairness transpiring in life has zippo to do with God, it always remains true that God can just bing! it away. See the analogy to Matt4? The Lord could have ended all hunger, all disbelief, taken over from Satan AT WILL and at any time. But wouldn't. Why isn't it unfair of Him to refuse, Satan taunts. Satan really thinks it's wrong. So do we. Evil exists, and God does nothing?

   Therefore here in Evidence Testing, you STAY in the Word, because you WANT to. That's your abode-of-thinking. Where you are, 'at home'. Of course the next question is, 'what does that mean?' It means every thought you have gravitates to Bible ideas, concepts, principles. You decide or want based on Bible, you even react based on Bible, and it's all cognizant. Bible is constantly on your mind, and you want it to be, whether you are brushing your teeth, inheriting a million dollars, just diagnosed with cancer. The lesser body issues -- even the grave and dramatic ones -- all of them, take a back seat or are re-routed into some Bible 'thought'. Because you want them to. Struggle is constant, but always Bible is the arbiter. You fall down, but get up with Bible. You awaken with Bible on your mind. You fall asleep with it. Just like Moses said for Israel in Deuteronomy 6:1-9. Bible's 'home' in your head, 24/7. Because, that's where you WANT to 'abide'. And you can't abide, anything else.

   Greek verb "menw" ("w" is a long "oh" sound) means many things: abide, live in, stay in, cling to or keep-returning-to in your thoughts, live with, remain in. In short, it's all about your own volition's wanting to be somewhere in your thinking, your life, your day. Consistently. Often. All-the-time, 'where' you are in your own thinking by your own CHOICE. The 'place' you stay in, is your 'abode', home. You have a 'home' in your thinking, some pattern or topic to which you keep loving to return. It's all about where you want to be whether physically, or mentally. And wherever that place, it's 'home' to you. "Where the treasure is, there the heart will be also", Matt6:21, Luke 6:45, 12:34. So the two root ideas in "menw" are STAYing somewhere, and WANTing to do that. Stay, because Want-to. [God runs this. You cannot. You vote, He replies. For example, in the above "Where the treasure is" quote, I didn't even look at the Bible, and for some reason I said "the" instead of "your" in both places, and 'just knew' I was typing differently from the translations. I've not seen that verse in a very long time. Looked up the citations, after typing it. So I didn't know I was translating it from the literal Greek of Matt6:21. But God did. Leaving out the two "your" words states the principle generically. It's common in Bible for a quote to be re-rendered to make an interpretation. That's what just got done, here. Now tell me: who wouldn't want to abide in the Word, since that's where GOD is? And so witty, His re-rendering of the quote? It was HIM who brought that quote to my mind in the first place, interrupting the typing! Again, who wouldn't WANT to stay in His Word, since that's where HE lives?]

   Christ used the verb "menw" a lot during the First Advent (i.e., John 15) to illustrate the RELATIONSHIP with Him, post-salvation. It's one of the most common verbs in the Bible. As you'll see in the "Staying" link section below, all the NT writers play off His use of the verb and its many cognate verbs and nouns. Translations render these as "abide", "remain", "stay" somewhere. But those translations are vague, and strip out the motive inherent in the term. Again, the root meaning of "menw" is to live-at-home. Idea of love, comfort, wanting-to-be-there. Not just a location. Interestingly, it also has both LEGAL and MILITARY connotations -- idea of remaining-true, remaining-at-post, remaining-in-witness-box (because the opposing attorney couldn't discredit your testimony). Again, based on your attitude. In a word, Love is stressed.

   So the Evidence Test is a Love-Conquers-All Test. People can't abide God, really. He's regarded as a chore you must finish on Sunday, trot out on holidays, Someone you have to appease to get goodies in this life, to avoid roasting in hell. To them, God is a have-to, not a want-to. So they don't pant to talk about or hear the latest discovery in the Word; but oh boy, mindless details regarding a celebrity they like, well they're enthralled for hours. We Christians are frequently accused of being pushy -- well, that's because the Person we are enthralled with, the world hates. Else, they'd beg us for more details. So people are preoccupied with other people and things, 24/7. Our minds are on everything and everyone but God. It's not a sin question, or a works question, but a Thinking Question. Moreover, when we are "in" all these non-God preoccupations, our thinking is pretty ugly. We blame, we manipulate, we fear, we constantly are trying to get something to 'work' as we want. The object is of interest if we are attracted, but bam! goes that attraction, if the smallest thing goes awry. GOD, well.. He was in a movie, once -- wasn't it "The Ten Commandments"? Hence it's a sheer miracle for a believer to come to focus on Christ. In the Evidence Test, that miracle has already completed, but all the "competition" against the believer's FOCUS on Christ, hasn't yet been defeated. So an individual "Operation Footstool" ensues, where all the enemies to Functional Union with Christ in the believer's Own Thinking are defeated.

   Notice how the believer who passes Evidence Testing, is progressively RESCUED from all the competition. So, then: shall God Who rescued him via the Tests, not also use him to rescue his own brethren? "For He is not ashamed to call them brothers", says Hebrews 2. Well, if you pass the Evidence Tests, the God of Rescue will rescue your brothers. Who are, any humans. Good Samaritan concept. If some among those humans don't believe in Him or, having believed, don't grow up in Him, well the Rescue Was Provided. And you are used to Rescue them from what they missed down here, even if you never meet those people. You will be the ruler over some of them, and thus their teacher forever. Teaching about Him. Our Water. Our Bread. Forever. The "Facets" link sections of Part IVb, and the "Divine Benefit Valuation" link section of Part IVc cover the enormous blessing-by-association which results from passing Evidence Testing. It's phenomenal, "more than we can ask or imagine", as Paul puts it in Eph3:20. Again, due to GOD-DEEDS, not puny man's overrated good deeds.

3. God's Rebuttal Testimony about His John 17 Oneness Goal is Completed via the Pleroma. In Evidence Testing, God 'answers' Satan's (Examination Evidence) 'performance' arguments via the believer (i.e., in I.H., above, +Fifth Facet of Part IVb): God doesn't want 'performance', HE rather wants TOGETHERNESS, flat. Just to Be IN Everything, and Share Himself Fully. This is distinct from Omnipresence. God is Everywhere, but wanting to be there, is quite another thing. God doesn't have to be Everywhere, He WANTS to. No Limits. No Boundaries. Uniting Everything To Himself, as Paul says in Ephesians, "filling all in all", a phrase he repeats in variant ways in all his letters. Plerow, to fill up, fulfill. Pleroma, filled up, pregnant with God's Seed. And the Seed, is the Son. His Thinking.

   Togetherness requires like-mindedness, to be enjoyable. Compatibility, Shared Inner Environment, not outer environment. Above all, the Cross is about maxing Togetherness. To do that, the juridical barriers between God and creation must be removed BY the Cross. These barriers are of two types:

   1) the barriers of finity, and
   2) the barriers of sin within finity.
   So note the genius solution: Unite the Sin IN Christ, Who is GOD-MAN.
   The very union of His Own Dual Nature solves 1) if He completes the Cross, which He did.
   The solution for 2) is the same, since for creation to 'share' in Him, all sins must 'place' in Him.
   • So on the Cross, His Beautimous Thoughts 'reply' to the imputation and judgement of those sins;
   • thus is forged a Connection which otherwise couldn't be Justified.
   • Hence the opportunity cost (best-use value) of all creation is realized, via Cross:
   • the 'reply' literally MANUFACTURES Divine Good out of the sins themselves, bedato yatsdiq clause in Isa53:11's Hebrew, plus (or explanatory-translated by) the five Greek infinitives in Isa53:10-11 in LXX.
   • So now all is holy, no longer separated FROM God, but separated TO God: Barriers DOWN! Togetherness, flat!

   Consequently, Father's Gift to Son is to make us One In Him. Remember the Fourth Facet of Part IVb? Our "hupostasis" is with The Hupostasis, Christ, the YHWH, God-Man. It's real:
   • we are positionally united in Him at the Cross, theme of Rom6;
   • then experientially, we are progressively united TO Him in our thinking as we use 1Jn1:9 and study under our own right pastors, Romans 8 and Eph4.
   • Hence during this final "Pleroma" stage of spiritual growth, experiential union with His Thinking "completes", Eph3:15-19, 4:13 (which use plerow, filling up to completion).
   • Evidence Testing accomplishes this completion if we "endure to the end," really, completion, telos: it's a variantly worded catchphrase in 1Jn, Paul, Hebrews, James.
   • We'll either finish (tetelestai, like He said on the Cross),
   • or we'll spin out permanently.
   • Lots of falling downs along the way mean many lost battles,
   • But you don't lose the 'war' unless you permanently quit. So just use 1Jn1:9 and get up again, kata skopon diokw, eis to Brabeion, tes anw klesews, tou theou! en Christoi Iesou! Phili 3:14.

   For Christ Our Archegos wanted TOTAL RAPPORT with Father, and given the nature of the 'knowledge' of sin, its imputation and judgement, He Had To Remain Sinless -- even as Father is sinless -- To Get All That Knowledge. (Sin deadens, hence deadens the ability to know it.) So No Barriers in knowings, sharings, between Son's Humanity and Father (nor Son-Spirit, etc.), due TO Cross: which, Omniscience perpetually 'sees', so The Cross Is Always 'On', Always Shared.
   • Father 'shares' in that He does the imputing and judging;
   • Spirit 'shares' in that He empowers and runs the Truth IN Christ;
   • Christ of course 'shares' in that He Receives, Like A Lamb, all this horrific knowledge.
   • IT'S A ONENESS. What was separated due to sin, is now Connected "in Him" (frequent NT catchphrase).
   • So we died in Him (got judicially connected at Cross), theme of Rom5-8, esp. Chap6.
   • So we live TO Him, theme of same chapters, esp. 8, and 2Cor5.
   • In this Pleroma Stage you are United to Him functionally, Eph4:13 realized. The potential of soul rapport created on the Cross, now gets functional fulfillment.
   • For in Pleroma, enough growth has occurred for everything to merge, as my pastor likes to put it (merging of parallel lines of troops, Doctrine and Reciprocal Love for God -- sunesis in Greek has this etymological meaning, too).
   • In this Pleroma stage, all that daily Bible learning has coalesced into a shared-soul view. Bible is no longer a 'disembodied' book to you, but through it you see HIM with the 'eyes' of your soul, 24/7. You constantly 'look at' Him in your thoughts, i.e., Heb12:2a.
   • This living TO Him is therefore Intimate, even at the deepest, lowest points.
   • You're not just seeing the principles of Bible, anymore;
   • you're not just going through the mechanics of using Bible, anymore:
   • you are SEEING HIM.
   • Bible is your eyeglasses, Spirit is your power of sight, the FOCUS is Christ Himself, 24/7.
   • Philippians 1:21 is the fourth "R", THE Hupostasis, Reality of your life, and Heb11:1 is constantly turned 'on'.

   This isn't a have-to thing, but a WANT-TO thing. You'll never make it if you keep living like a child, viewing everything as some parental rule. That's why over 99% of Christians historically don't advance beyond spiritual age 8. The kid is supposed to grow up from "thou shalt" to "I will." Because you want to. Greek verb menw (covered above in II and below in the "Staying" section), is all about want-to. And you can't want to, unless you want the Togetherness. And you can't want the Togetherness, unless you know God. And you can't know God, unless you live in God's System. It takes some years. Took Paul almost 40 years (30-68AD) to go from new believer to Victorious Death. Took Christ 30 years to ready for His Testing from Satan and for the lead-up to the Cross. No two individuals are alike, and what's an easy fast growth today, can easily get bogged down or reversed tomorrow. We all have our knotted kinks, and God knows exactly how to untie us. But Love never coerces volition. So this isn't a have-to thing, but a want-to thing.

4. It's Basic, this TOGETHERNESS Focus, and therefore it gets Evidence Tested: for the Trial is all about whether Life with God is really worth all that trouble. For as we've seen since Part I, it's God Who's On Trial. Not us. But because we believed in Him -- we are On Trial, Heb11:1, 1Jn4:17. So here in Pleroma, God's Seven-Faceted Doctrine Diamond Bucks (from Part IVb) fully VEST in the believer (see Eph1). [For exegesis and interpretation of the Trial meaning in 1Jn4:12-17 I heartily recommend my pastor's 92 Spiritual Dynamics (series 376) lessons 1217-1274. No one else on the internet, anyway, seems to understand it; else I'd recommend anyone else I found, as well. Also get his verse-by-verse exegesis of 1Jn back in 1980 or so.]

   In America, your retirement plan at work provides a required disclosure booklet called a "Summary Plan Description", aka "SPD". [Other countries often have the same rules, but I don't know their vocabulary.] This "SPD" defines certain legal terms so you can better understand your benefits. One of these legal terms is "VESTING", the percentage of the money in your accounts you can freely take if you leave the company right now. Often, there's a sliding scale of percentages based on how many years you've worked for your employer. So too, in the Divine Benefit Plan for Eternity, you must vest. In God's Plan, you must "endure to the end" to vest in your inheritance. You can't lose salvation, that's based solely on the Cross, and Christ already Vested ON the Cross, so HE already vested IN you before you were born, Isa53:10-12. Therefore, that first nanosecond you believed in Him, you became His Fully Vested Property, Isa53:12; so you cannot even get lost once you believe in Him, John 3:16+John 10:28.

   Subsequently, Now it's our turn to vest IN Him, which means INvesting IN the Word to INgest it and become like Him, 2Cor5:14-21. Accordingly, the only vesting issue for any believer is the INheritance atop salvation, which is a primary focus of the New Testament -- Testament, meaning conditions of INheritance, he kaine diatheke, in Greek: term is in Book of Hebrews, elaborating on what the Lord INvented at the Last Supper, Luke 22:18-20 (term is in v.20, ties back to Jer31:33). Hence the conditions for His INvestiture pass on to us: He ate Word, Got Fat, Got Slaughtered -- so we are to do the same: IN Him.

   God uses what in secular pension lingo is called "cliff vesting". Your Divine Benefits were already funded fully in eternity past, Eph1. So you have a kingly INheritance on deposit you can lose, Rev3:11, 2Tim2:5, James 1:12, 1Pet5:4, Rev2:10. So don't fall off the cliff: Stay IN, or you get nothing. You have to "endure to the end" to INherit atop salvation, IN God's Plan. It's all or nothing. If you Stay IN the Word until the end, you INherit a kingdom, get crowned, 2Tim4:7-8 example. If you don't, you are a Royal Priest Peasant forever, UNder some other believer who didn't quit. Stay, Abide=win. Quit=lose, Rev3:11. No middle ground.

   If you stay in the Word you will mature spiritually. It gets harder to stay in, yet easier. Your motive grows as you understand Him better. You come to be like-minded with Christ. Of course, if you don't learn the Word, this doesn't happen. Of course, if you don't live on the Word, this doesn't happen. 99.9% of Christians won't learn the Word, because they find God boring. So the Word is boring. Variant degrees of disinterest among believers make it seem like they want the Word, but upon closer examination, you find their interest has a very low threshold. Your interest must keep growing with the learning. If not, you will quit before you die. And you'll be happy in heaven, to be sure. But you won't have the inheritance God laid up for you from eternity past, and it will instead forfeit to someone else. The Evidence Test is designed to VEST you.

   • How much you INvest in growing like-minded, is the RELATIONSHIP Test.
   • How much you become like-minded as a RESULT, is the Trial Answer.
   • So you are INvesting IN Togetherness-with-Him, flat! and as you mature, your values will change so much that being IN Him is ALL that matters to you.
   • The meanwhile, your life 'plays' banal on the outside, as you go through whatever is your day.
   • You progressively associate your Archegos with more and more in your life, until you get to the point that everything you do and think relates to Him in some way. Else, it has no meaning to you.
   • This is a mindset, a constant status quo. Doesn't mean you don't sin. Does mean it's a habitual thinking no matter what else goes on in your life. Christ-centric thinking means HE is the Subject and Object of your very breathing, and it's a very natural thing.
   • During immaturity you keep on seeking the habit of associating everything in your life with Him. It's like practicing piano scales, a football pass or racquetball swing, endless repetition, mostly with some degree of failure, resulting. You seldom seem to get it right. But the Holy Spirit 'responds' to that 'vote' by actually MAKING you Occupied with Christ. It takes years.
   • Bible class under your right pastor will often seem boring. Trying to practice the habit of remembering 1Jn1:9, of associating Bible with your life 24/7 will often seem unpleasant. But then there are those bright moments when the Holy Spirit puts together concepts in your head, and you realize all that plodding, pays off. So you keep going.
   • You will experience many disruptions. Or (worse), absolutely none.
   • People and things will 'come' to antagonize you, to entice you, to distract you, and even to attack you (especially, if they know you are studying Doctrine).
   • The prosperity and the adversity are progressively unbalancing. Whatever unbalances you, that you will get in Evidence Testing, all-at-once in progressive cycles, as the "2-3-4-5" table in Part III, explained.
   • Temptation to feel guilty will be a major attack.
   • In Evidence Testing, you are NOT tested based on anything you do or did wrong. You're Tested Because You ARE Staying. ('Not your straying spikes which receive 1Jn1:9 and you bounce right back.)
   • Your basic motives for Staying IN Doctrine, your basic needs, your basic weaknesses, are all tapped, hit, and developed. You will feel great, bad, mad, sad, all things in-between.
   • And throughout it all, One Basic Question Keeps On Being Tested: Do You Abide In Him?
   • Hence, all the corollaries: are you Looking at Him?
   • Motivated to do or not do BECAUSE of Him?
   • How do you choose what, when so motivated?
   • In practice, you won't be thinking about these questions, because you're busy trying to execute your Focus on the One You Have Come to Love, Eph3:19.
   • For, you are intimate with Him, now. That's basic.
   • So you don't keep going in order to get goodies. To you at this point, the goodies are only worth having IF IF IF you can spend them ON Him. Else, they have no value at all to you. Fine if they are there, fine if they are not. So now there is a reason to be rich OR poor -- whatever you've got, you've got so you can enjoy spending it ON Him. For you are Rich IN His Thinking.
   • So, the RESULT: you will be crowned. You know about this shortly before you die. Your dying will seem ignominious, to others.

   Hebrew11:1 is the quintessential statement about this Togetherness Love Test. In Greek, the verse says: "Estin.de pístis elpizoménwn, hupóstasis pragmátwn, élegchos ou Blepoménwn." Translation (not in any Bible I've seen): "Now Doctrine confidently-believed, is the [Christ-]Substance of The Trial: Evidence, unseen." Then there's 1Jn4:12-17, which is too long to review, here: DDNA1.htm is dedicated to it. V.17 also baldly says, as does Heb11:1's "wn" case endings, that Our Learning Of Him ("hupostasis"=Christ -- look it up in Heb11:3) is Trial Evidence. Not works, but believed doctrine (first meaning of pistis is What is Believed, not the act of believing -- see Bauer or other lexicon).

5. Evidence Testing proves the Superior Merit of DEPENDENCE on God, Heb 11:1, 10, 15, 39. From spiritual infancy through Pleroma Stage, there's been but One Trial Demonstration: do you want God, or not? If yes, then FAITH is demonstrated, Heb11:1. Faith is non-meritorious, for you believe due to the Merit in the Object. So the MERIT OF GOD is on Trial in Evidence Testing, not you. The Merit of God is On Trial through you. For as we saw in Part II, sin continually makes me-be-good arguments; for Disbelief in Favor of Religion was the Impetus for the "Fall": the Eden couple wanting to be good-as-God, but INdependent of Him.

   Our ghoulish, pettifogging sin nature keeps making stinks about lesser, dead issues like some wrong you or someone else did, politics, junk related to the body. But God makes irrelevant, all sin and human good or human anything for that matter, due to the Cross. So what's really BAD, is that we are hostile to God -- in the name of what INdependent GOOD we do. We are thus evil, for we claim these lesser issues should have standing before God. But look:

   • If even one earthly thing was ever relevant, creation couldn't be justified in the first place: the entire sin question and all its many disinterested-in-God 'children', Must Be Denied Jurisdiction, Rom8:1-8. That's a kind of separation, but God wants togetherness, as we saw in III above, "Togetherness, flat". So finity and the sin in it are two types of barriers which were removed from any standing or jurisdiction, else creation itself could not be justifiably made.
   • For if that stuff had jurisdiction, it would have standing, so God would have to see it have that relevance, and That's Not Fair To God.
   • So before even Decreeing Creation, the purpose for all things had to be justifiably defined so that NO lesser-than-benefitting-God meaning, could ever have jurisdiction.

   • For here's the Decree, Isa52:13: God should never 'see' anything less-than-God-Quality anywhere He 'looks'. This is The Fundamental Justice Issue, why we have a Cross, and it's about way more than sin. Cross is a contract where be we are to be MADE gods from the Son of God. Any lesser outcome is Not Fair To God, and creation would be unjustifiable. There's a reason why the angels are called bene-ha-elohim. There's a reason why they were given superior nature. It's not fair that God should see inferiority, and the Togetherness Goal wouldn't work if the being thus created, was inferior. This is what the Lord is saying in John 10:34, alluding back not only to Psalm 82:6, but also to His making-us-into-gods contract with Father, in Isa53:10-11 (ratified in John 17:11,20-21). That's what Isaiah is talking about in 53:11 when he says "bedato yatsdiq" -- "by means of His Thinking He makes Righteous". There's only ONE kind of Righteousness which God accredits, His Own: Gen15:6, 2Cor5:21. Atop that He pours in His Son's Thinking, Romans 5:5+8:4, which makes us BECOME what we were not: functionally ONE with Him. You can't become One with God unless you get HIS Nature. So, that makes you a 'god'. Now, it's okay to 'look' at you. We are functionally inferior now, but will not stay that way, Hebrews 2 and 1Jn3. We get that functional compatibility by means of learning His Thinking -- aka Bible -- and living on it, Eph3:15-19, 4:11-16, 1Jn4:12-17, 2Pet3:18, Col1:27. It's real. Infinity can replicate itself, since it has no mass or energy. Thoughts on this page replicated in your head without mass or energy. That's what spirituality is. Immaterial replication. Him being replicated in you. [It's egregious, how people with their fake piety balk at the idea of God making us into gods. If God doesn't make us equals, then it's a waste of His Time. Would you want to have a drooling baby as a companion forever? NO! The most horrific condition is to live with anyone who is inferior to you. Rapport is thus truncated, and the relationship is painful. So how much more, between God and creation? It would be HELL for God, to have to live with inferiors! So too, obviously only God can make this transformation occur. Obviously too, He'd not settle for a lesser standard than His Own Nature. Else He's cheating Himself.]

   • So God's Apodoses, aka Bible get Decreed True, Ps138:2b (KJV), Ps89:14, 33:4-5, Isa55:11etc. All else is irrelevant. Now everyone can look up at Superior Truth, so Now we all have basis for mutual Rapport! Seeing Him!
   • That's why salvation and the post-salvation growth can never be related to works, for works are LESSER. Hell essentially exists because people reject what God says has jurisdiction. So, they get a place to live which matches what they claim DOES have jurisdiction, and its flame matches their inner flame. See how the rich guy in Luke 16:19ff thinks, to realize the flames around him don't do anything but add to his inflamed opinion of himself! See also KJV (or Greek) of Rev20:11-15, to see everyone there has a similar inflamed opinion, using their good deeds as a claim of juridical standing before Infinite, Holy Christ.

   • All lessers are therefore re-routed to have the Only Justifiable Replacement Meaning, which is To Teach Christ, To Display Christ, to for in by of due.. all prepositions, Christ, Col1:16-19, Eph1.
   • So sin is not relevant, in and of itself -- except to Teach Christ, John 16:9, Heb5:8-9, Eph1 (whole chapter, esp. 1:23).
   • Since all sin would be Connected in Him on the Cross, this Replacement Meaning is justifiable, and has Exclusive Juridical Standing. As Joseph put it (Gen50:20), you meant it for harm, but God meant it for good. As Paul puts it at the end of Romans 8, nothing shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. Hence Acts 4:12's Greek, there is no other Person under heaven through Whom we MUST be saved. [Greek onoma first means person, the name or title signifying quality. And it's MUST be saved, not might be or shall be, Greek verb dei, impersonal verb of obligation, meaning there's no condition under which that verb would ever cease to apply.]

   So anyone making an issue of sin or good deeds, makes an issue of something INdependent, and therefore evil. God throws all that out of Court, Zech3:1-5, Ps103:12, Jer31:34, Isa64:6, John 16:9, all of Hebrews 3 (parallel to Jn16:9, esp. 3:12-19), 1Jn1:9's "adikia", Rev20:11-15. [Noun "adikia" means a judge who abuses his office, etymologically. Worse than sin is to NOT use 1Jn1:9, because then the Holy Spirit cannot justify Filling you and furthering your growth in Christ's Thinking. So the sin itself is of zero significance, compared to the Rejection of the Pardon. Peter really excoriated that in 2Pet1:9, covered in corrected translation, in TrueSpirituality.htm. Fourth Reason for Invisibility in Part III went over "adikia" in much more detail.]
   1. Sin is evil, Adikia; because the person choosing to sin, chooses to be INdependent of God.
   2. That's a fundamental irrationality, for every Breath you take depends on God willing you to breathe.
   3. Your ability to breathe on your own is Corollary to Him willing it, hence Dependent.
   4. So to Decide something against God is to say you want to be independent of Him, "something" in your own right.
   5. So notice, "works" Elects the same argument that sin does: something you do of YOURSELF is supposed to be accredited independently.
   6. So "works" is evil Filth, too -- Isa64:6.
   7. So human Good is evil, just as the Genesis 2 Hebrew says, when it calls Satan's plan, "The Tree of the Knowledge Of Good-And-Evil." In the Hebrew, good=evil. It's the Hebrew equivalent of a hendiadys.
   8. So the Heart of evil=good=works=sin, is a claim of INdependence from God.
   9. That's a hatred motive. Love never wants to be Independent of the love object, but hatred always does.
   10. So notice how all the good deeds on the planet, only dig you deeper in Jealousy, sense of being unrequited for all your effort. That's why moral people are so often hateful people. Now you know why the "M" in Satan's "STOP OMEGA" Plan of Part IVc, is "Morality". Anyone who makes big stinks about his good deeds betrays a hateful, and supremely Jealous nature.
   11. By Kingly contrast, God=Kurios, is Love. Love never makes an issue of how good it is, its works, 1Cor13:4.
   12. In Love, God invented Freedoms for the human race, one of which is morality and doing good.
   13. But notice: Morality and good remain DEpendent on God at all times, just as your breath does.
   14. Hence the Law=Nomos, to show you the 'corridor' of obedience, so you stay Nested within that DEpendency.
   15. Hence the Overriding, Obliterating-all-else First Commandment, is Love FOR God, which requires Knowing God, which requires Learning God, which requires Wanting To Learn God, which requires Wanting God for Himself.
   16. And if you do want God, if you do love God, then you Prefer to be DEpendent.
   17. This desire to depend on God is completely anti-human, an impossible Quixotic dichotomy, as shown in the Fourth Facet of Part IVb.
   18. So it's this super-human RELATIONSHIP desire for God -- nonmeritorious for sure, but nonetheless impossible for a human to maintain -- it's this superhuman RELATIONSHIP desire for God, which is Evidence-Tested in the Trial.
   19. Not your works, they are Superfluous, because independent.
   20. Not your sins, they are Tainted, because independent.
   21. Not your human good, attractiveness, or any ability or inability you have, they are all Useless, because independent.
   22. Rather, only what DEPENDS on God, is Valuable, within the true corridor of Good. Divine-Value Good, else no good; hence 1Jn1:9 versus adikia. (See Part III's "Fourth Reason for Invisibility" link section on adikia.)
   23. So, your seemingly-Wasteful DEPENDENCY on God, is what gets tested, as you'll see in the "Wasting" table later on in this page.
   24. The wasting is the Test Xpistos=Christ passed but Satan flunked and contends against, as we saw in the Fifth Facet of Part IVb, and in Part I.
   25. All Barriers have to Yield, go down, in relationship to God.
   26. But finity can do Zippo to break down its barriers, since finity depends on barriers, to stay propped up, intact. But Zippo, nothing is impossible for God, Luke 1:37. Note the context in that verse: the angel talking to Mary in Adar, the sixth month on the calendar, uses that language to explain how she will become pregnant without human means.
   27. Satan contends God is Absolute Adikia: a sadist to create us independent, yet require we throw that independence away, to be Together With Him.
   28. Satan therefore contends that God is Absolutely Bad, to make anyone go to the Lake of Fire (or hell, the temporary location) for wanting to keep the very independence, God gave him.
   29. So, in the Angelic Conflict -- when you throw your own independent nature away in Pleroma, you defeat Satan in the Trial.
   30. Your Absolute Dependence on God the Absolutely-Dependable Holy Spirit, enables this throwing-away, even as only He runs everything spiritual: hence the need for 1Jn1:9 like breathing, so you can Avoid Defeat.
   31. Just as, He Absolutely Enabled Christ ON the Cross.
   32. Same Absolutely Fabulous Testing, same issues, happening now: to you.
   33. So Absolute Good, Dependence on God, Triumphs.

6. So this Love Evidence Togetherness Testing, is a Superhuman High-Low, quintessentially expressed in Eph1:23, and in Isa52:13-14's Hebrew. Paul's 'looking' at Psalm 110 and Isa52:13-14 when he writes Ephesians 1. Isaiah uses the min preposition throughout the chapter, to stress His God-Man nature, and also to stress how He birthed us sterile, on what would be the Cross. In v.14, "min" is "me": notice how God-Man is referenced, filling all in all because filled up with All The Bad, too: k' asher shamemu aleyká rabbim, ken mishhat ME ish mareyhu; wa toaro ME bene adam. There's no way to translate it properly. On the surface, the (too tame!) antiphonal meaning is Just as much as they are appalled up-at You, so also You, The Beyond-Man, will be abused/tortured beyond human semblance -- by mankind. The Hypostatic Union is stressed: hence Beyond-Human, gets below-human. The Ubermensch treated like an untermensch, even by God Himself. That's pretty basic. So the resulting glorification OF Him is intimate, too (52:13)! LXX of 52:14 demonstrates that with its two (Hupostasis!) "apo" clauses, playing on the 'circle' nature of "wa toaro me bene adam" in the Hebrew: His Incarnation, from BEYOND the sons of men, because He is God -- 'generates' abuse so vile, He's more tortured than all mankind put together -- so He is glorified more than all mankind put together! (Even beyond all angels, theme of Heb1:4ff, just as Isa52:13's last word promised: me'odth in Hebrew, vehemently glorified! See TWOT.)

   What a child enjoys, an adult does not. What man enjoys, God does not. So if you want Oneness with God, you must grow BEYOND your own human nature, just as a baby must grow past his childhood. Spiritual childhood means you have a lot of human proclivities ruling your life. Spiritual adulthood, less so. Spiritual Maturity means you are shedding human proclivities, and Pleroma means they fall down. Doesn't mean you stop sinning. Means that God's Ways Of Thinking become so preferable to everything human, you yearn to suffer loss. It's not masochism. Everything in life actually stops being meaningful, except Him. It's not that what's nice in life stops being nice. Rather, it stops being IMPORTANT. To the world, "nice" is all-important, and God's Name is slapped on so that man can call himself holy for wanting what he wants. But as you truly age spiritually, all else in life becomes insignificant. It's a harrowing process, not unlike the time you first realized your parents (here, the world) weren't the idols you imagined as a child. There's a crusading phase in spiritual adulthood where the puny thinking you now see (because you grew bigger), you fantasize fixing. That's when you find out you're not human, anymore. It takes some years, because you don't evaluate yourself as high -- that's not even an attractive idea -- so everyone else must just be uninformed. So you try to inform them. Big mistake. When you hit your head against the wall enough -- with plenty of Divine Discipline to wake you up -- you settle into just learning Him, again. Then you mature enough to get into this final stage. And by this point, you are not human, in your thinking. So are ready for testing.

   So Bible you've believed and live on in God's System -- via the Spirit -- has grown you past the sin nature's pettifogging religious proclivity for blaming self- or others (and hence rebelling), to see the real point of it all: God just uses our puniness to teach us about His Son. Sure, you are constantly bombarded with the sin nature, and habitually 'reply' by picking/voting for God's Apodoses -- Bible in your head, in God's System. So you know all the bad stuff is really purposed to teach you the clause in 1Cor5:21, "He Who Knew No Sin was MADE Sin as a Substitute for Us"; which is a summary of Isa53:10-11's contract of Eternity past. You get that same experience, paradigmally, to Learn Christ. Not because you are bad, or someone else is bad, etc. But those lesser issues really lacerate the soul -- again, teaching what happened to Him -- so make great training mechanisms for Developing Love to Completion. For as you go through this stage, even though you know what it is and why it's happening -- it's extremely wearing, and the desire to quit is extreme. Knowing that desire itself is even more wearing, for you realize you can't be loyal, yourself. But you can Vote For the Doctrine to Sustain you (2Cor5:14), which is precisely what Christ did on the Cross, sunesis and da'ath keywords in the Greek and Hebrew texts of Isa53:11: evidenced (in Matt27:46, Mark 15:34) by His shouting Ps22:1 while on the Cross (claiming the entire Psalm to stay motivated, esp. v.6). The Same Holy Spirit Who did it to Him, does it to you. You are CARRIED, in the Evidence Tests. Hence the Test is about ABIDING, not you 'doing' something. But it's a superhuman thing, to abide in Him. Only the Holy Spirit can make that happen. Your vote, but only His Power. Your weakness, His Strength.

   • Remember #III about God's Oneness Goal of Togetherness, flat!
   • So now remember what we just saw in #V, how He has to MAKE us gods, for creation to be even worth His Time!
   • Remember the contract to MAKE gods from the Son of God, Isa53:10-12?
   • Well, that's why the spiritual life is SUPERHUMAN, and human stuff (i.e., works, feelings, ritual, magic) has NO place in it.
   • Any works are "dead works" (Hebrews 6:1, 9:14). So if works are dead, then emotions and rituals are, too. Even the Eucharist is profane, if you're not filled with the Spirit when you partake: Paul chewed out the Corinthians about it, in 1Cor11:28-31.
   • Only Divine Thought Makes Alive, Third Facet in Part IVb -- well, that's superhuman.
   • God's SuperHuman, so the God-Man is Superhuman, so the spiritual life He crafted is Superhuman.
   • It was Superhuman Truth in Him which converted our sins on the Cross.
   • So now, our human souls are to be converted into His Superhuman Thinking, as we saw in #III, thus delivering on the John 17 contract of Oneness, Togetherness, flat! Not inferiors, anymore. We couldn't even BE "Body of Christ", else!

   Again, the lesser issues which preoccupy the sin nature and the human race will 'compete'. Winning means you can be hit but the Love remains. Again, it's not about 'performance' (i.e., the fact you are so easily beset). It's about WHETHER YOU QUIT the spiritual life, due to the pressure. Loving Him means a tendency to be perfectionistic, to be demoralized as you see yourself continually fail the Standard of Obedience you feel He should receive from you. So whatever most makes you call yourself a failure, will be a big Test category. Conversely, if your penchant is to be a bull in a china shop (an expression of aggressive Love), you'll be tested there. The LOVE is always what's tested, just as in Matt4; and of course any sin-nature proclivities glom onto genuine Love like flies on doo-doo. So you will constantly experience failure, and that 'competing' sin nature will tempt your focus onto lesser issues of blaming, despondency, etc. Atop that, the boys at Satan&Co. wanna help the sin nature, so give it lots of oomph by sending you thoughts, messing with your periphery (people and things). Anything to get you to give up. For togetherness is the antithesis of divorce, and they need you to divorce: they hope the many fall downs will be so demoralizing, you'll either blame God or yourself so much, you'll morph out of the spiritual life. 99.9% of the time they succeed well. God empowers you (Holy Spirit), so the boys on the other side of the Trial gotta have their chance, too. You're always picking between the two, and 99% of the time you fall down. Just get up again. Think of it like practicing a golf swing, racquetball strokes, learning a language. Many failures, but persistence results in success, Heb10:36 (not "receive what was promised" but "carry off the prize", my pastor always notes); Phili3:14 (note the Greek's plodding, slogging cadence), Heb12:7 (NJB is good, here).

   And as you keep on keeping on (Phili3:14) over time you'll notice an amazing thing: the worse it gets, the better it gets. Moreover, the worse it gets, the less attracted you are to the nice things of this world, and the more attracted you are to the bad stuff, paradigm of Luke 22:15. It's exactly the reverse of what should happen. You literally grow out of your normal human nature. It becomes progressively unimportant, only worth throwing away. This isn't masochism, but Maturity. Spiritual Maturity. For God is not threatened by bad stuff, nor compromised in any way. So by the Pleroma stage, only the really nettlesome stuff remains (tailored to you personally, what 'gets' to you); so lots of ABnormal stuff needs to be added in cycles, to keep 'trying' to get you to divorce. You fall down a lot, but get up again, and it's a prolonged thing; but over time the fall downs are of much shorter duration and an aggressive desire to actually have what bothers you, grows and remains. Eventually that desire conquers -- yet the pressure becomes worse, not better. Until, there's nothing that can divorce you. Then you usually die, victorious. The Love is Victorious. Part III's "You, in Me!" Table, +Fourth+Fifth Facets in Part IVb: Barriers All Down, baby, "nothing shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus"! No Divorce! Totally DEpendent!

   You can't go through this kind of torture except because you love God. Knowing His Thinking alone carries you. You are beyond-human, here. God is glorified, megalunw'd, here. So God Carries You Through It. The High of Knowing Him and the low of this earthly life -- nice or painful, makes no difference, it's all unacceptable by now, has completely lost jurisdiction -- that divergence, is what's tested.

   So it's not at all like the tests of childhood. Childhood tests are basic too, but blatant and limited. The OT testing was blatant and limited. Adulthood and especially Royal testing is subtle, a thinking thing, very easy to miss: see Matt4. Most people don't even understand that chapter. They don't see that the temptations are to GOOD DEEDS, are MORAL, with Satan basically accusing Father and Son of being immoral and unloving of the human race and Each Other. So the human race actually pants after the very same things Satan does, and believes itself holy for doing so.. just as Satan contends, in Matt4. So a child falls for those temptations. Even an adult falls for them. But when you're in Evidence Testing, you have a Superhuman Understanding of these issues, and like Christ you conclude: FOR FATHER OR FORGET IT. No matter how 'moral' a thing might seem on a lesser level, to you at this point there's but One Morality: Does DAD want it? If "no", then you don't, either.

   But the human is completely tapped out. The crushing Divine knowledge of what everything means -- which you now know well -- juxtaposed with what you now recognize is this impossibly puny life.. is unbearable. Divine Standard in your head, and it can never be met by the body you are in; unending frustration of being stuck with all those other ghouls, and boy oh boy you are one too -- but you are nonetheless alive? And you want to keep trying? No harder task than to ride into the Valley of Death, a quixotic Charge of the Light Brigade in a briganded world with a branding at the end, accomplishing nothing. Sheer waste. Which even while living, surrounds you. Dead minds, endlessly preoccupied with banalities, and your body is no different. Romans 7! Who will deliver us from these bodies of death? A child is buffered by his ignorance. Yours left, long ago.

   So it's not at all like the normal human tests in life. The knowledge of God is egregious in every way. If you are going to be compatible with Him, you need to have that same knowledge. People quit or lose their reason to live for far lower causes: divorce, loss of a loved one, abuse by another, loss of trust, etc. Well, those things are basic knowledge for you, just to even know what Truth is. After all, even Abram was promised a universe of kids, but in Gen15:13 notice how God said that first they'd have 400 whopping years of slavery! And Abram was supposed to accept that? Not yet having even one kid? And that lone kid didn't even arrive until some 25 years later, so the long waiting tired out Sarai, who then got witchy with her slave girl (hence the Arab-Israeli conflict, the true cause). So Abram had to say "yes" to a promise of tortured kids! Before he even had one. Then, he had to wait and himself be tortured for nearly another generation -- before that one was allowed to be born. So knowing God carries with it a superhuman burden, for God's Knowledge is me ish, beyond-human. So the demon boys who are also beyond-human, get to supernaturally attack you. Goes with the territory. Their attacks are blatant+subtle, because you're not a spiritual child, anymore.

   The previous (pre-maturity) "yesses" become "no's", and vice versa. When a child, you had lots of do's. The child can't think, so can't reason, so teaching a child principles requires teaching him things to DO. Hopefully he'll become curious and want to know the 'why' behind the 'do'. Then he learns to reason and associate do's with know's. The adult, by contrast, should only think in terms of principles, and CRAFT do's from them. We have a Royally-Adult spiritual life legated from Christ, so our daily 'do's' are KNOWINGS. Much harder. So in practice and in this stage especially, what was once prohibited, circumscribed, imposed: is either allowed, or even mandated. Christ had to say "no" to sin all His Life. And for what? To be MADE INTO sin by Father on the Cross! So that lifetime of "no no no" got Him a bizillion "yesses" by all of us. And He had to say "yes" to receiving that imputation (yet not resent it, etc., sinning Himself).

   So paradigmally, we too have to say "yes" to conditions during this test which seem WRONG. That's anti-human. The specifics vary per person, but Matt4 is the pattern of them. We have to say "yes" to doing nothing. Before, when younger, you should do moral things; but now, you're too old for that. DAD is superior to people. So what DAD wants, however strange it seems (i.e., don't eat, don't feed people, don't jump and prove you're God, don't defeat Satan, don't withhold the knife from Isaac) -- that's what you do. And what DAD wants, is for you to do nothing, or do something when it seems like you ought to do nothing. Everything reverses, totally the opposite of what even human common sense would dictate. You can only 'do' what DAD wants from knowing the Doctrine -- Him -- intimately. Very subtle, tangled, passive, listening. The aggressiveness is passive.

   A business owner, president, or general can easily remember the many times in his life he had to make a decision which was right but seemed wrong to others. Classic case in point was dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No sane person wants to kill people, especially in masses. Yet that hard decision saved millions of lives on both sides of the war. It cost hundreds of thousands of lives in both cities, to save the many more. A less-mature man than Harry Truman wouldn't have made that call, and many of us alive today would never have been born. Exodus, Lev26 and Tribulation punishments all show that same kind of kill-the-masses decision -- made by God. See also Isa63:1-9. Part V will cover this kind of decision in more detail, for it's a fact of life that we humans need disaster, in order to look UP from our puny preoccupations. Point here is that you will be making decisions which seem wrong, in the Pleroma phase. Takes Superhuman understanding, therefore, to make them properly.

   Same for the Cross: to elect it rather than the Three Temptations ended up meaning that millions of people went hungry, millions more didn't believe in Him, and Satan got to keep on running this world. Seems immoral, right? Yeah, and none of us would even be alive today, plus heaven would be under Satan, if the Lord hadn't chosen the Cross over all those lesser moralities. See? Immature understanding has its own sense of rights and wrongs; something more advanced, seems wrong. God is Infinite Maturity. So here in Evidence Testing, the Exclusive Love For and Right of FATHER over everyone else, is On Trial.

   The crowning Superhuman event, is ignominy. In the last phase of Testing you will be exposed and humiliated, whether to the 'public' of just your immediate family, or to some larger group of folks. It's not like the movies. In God's Trial, the hero always looks like a fool, Isa52:14, 53:2-5,7-9. That's inhuman, too. Again, only Bible-in-you-head enables you to keep going to the end.

7. Hence Satan is defeated in the Trial. Completion of Evidence Testing proves the Superior Happiness of Knowing God despite suffering, and versus all the good Satan can pour into the human race. Hence Evidence Testing is a kind of Deposition by you, and then Testimony about you from God, same courtroom pattern as in Job. Issues in Church are far higher, but the legal structure is the same. "20" is the number of "battle", "years of service to retirement", "city or Temple building", and "adulthood" in the Bible. So here are 20+1 Legal Structure Features of your Evidentiary Testing:
   • As was noted in Part I and Part II, Satan's Trial Argument is based on a contention that
     • happiness is and should be based on creature abilities and merit;
     • if it is not, then God made creatures defectively,
     • or had a 'hidden agenda' of getting creatures to grovel,
     • in which case God is not what He claims to be.
     • Satan really believes that, or he'd never have rebelled in the first place.
     • God seems Unfair and Unloving to Satan.
     • So if humans are happier simply knowing God despite even suffering, well.. there's no answer to that.
   • So the Witness -- you -- is being "deposed" on these issues.
   • Which means, both sides in the Trial put forth questions and issues which you answer.
   • The goal of deposition is to QUALIFY the Witness.
   • If you don't qualify (if you rebel, not merely sin, and quit the spiritual life) -- you're maybe booted out. Discipline ensues, and it hurts a lot (Ps32:4 which my pastor called "awesome suffering, in the Hebrew").
   • But you use 1Jn1:9, get back up, get back in (maybe after awhile, maybe right away).
   • The Discipline might end, or continues as deeper Testimony. In the latter case, your spiritual growth might skyrocket like it did with Paul after his Acts 22 denouement: he stayed in jail maybe four years after he used 1Jn1:9, but the prison epistles are probably the most concentrated and sophisticated in Bible. ["Paul's Fall" subsection of Bible classes in 1999 is on Paul's denouement due to rejecting God's will he park himself in Rome, and the aftermath of his writing those epistles, theme of recovery from a bad fall, even by a Bible hero. Those classes skyrocketed my own growth.]
   • If you do qualify you stay in, and the depositions get worse (the three phases mentioned in I., above).
   • But of course, both sides are invisible to the Witness, Heb 11:1.

   • What are the Questions? They will all be on themes of the 8 R's we saw in #1, as those themes apply personally to you in your own life.
   • What Are The Answers? They will all be on themes of the Trial Answer in #A-I. of #I, as those themes apply personally to you in your own life.
   • You don't generally spend much time guessing or trying to answer, and you don't always know you are On Trial, especially early on in the first Evidence Testing phase. Yet as time passes you will be 'told'. That 'telling' is a kind of insight, as you turn over the doctrinal issues relevant to your situation, a usage of John 14:26 (Holy Spirit causing you to know the interpretation, in addition to recall). Romans 12:2's Greek, which we saw in #H of #I above, tells you the testing meaning is depositional, Greek verb dokimazw, testing for the genuineness of the Witness.

   • For key to the Trial, is you can't see what's going on. At first you don't even know it's happening to you, because you are too focused on Christ to care about anything else.
   • As the Tests build in intensity, you get to the point where you ask God (i.e., Job 6-9, Paul in 2Cor12:8, root idea behind that verse and its context is an awareness of trouble). So you'll then know.
   • Ignorance is harder for awhile, but there's a crossover point when advance knowledge is harder than ignorance. So it's a full-spectrum thing, going from the pressure of being blind, to the pressure of seeing too clearly. The Lord had to know and then vote on what was the plan for His Life, Luke 2:49, Matt3:15ff, John 6, Matt16, Luke 22:42. So will you.
   • So you just plug along with Bible you know, living on it. You parry the onslaught of temptations and otherwise go through your day.
   • But you're really on Tralfamador, under the glass. [Look up Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, on the web; it's probably in Wikipedia. It's great satire, and there's a movie version on cable, same name.]
   • The actual Witness is the RESULT of what happens TO you, and this is God's Testimony, not yours: see the beginning of Job 1 and Job 2, Isa53:9's last two clauses, 'al LO hamas asah, wa LO mirmah b'piw. "Before Father NO violent rebelling did He [Christ] do; and NO deceit/treachery/lying was in His [Christ's] Mouth." [Hebrew "al" is here translated idiomatically. It literally means "above", but in the verse it's God Who Is Above Declaring the Result: so "Before Father" is the meaning. Hebrew "hamas" means a violence-of-revolt-against-authority, so the LXX stresses the 'revolting' quality, usu. translated 'lawlessness'. The translation is too vague. I wonder if the Hamas in Lebanon realize their very choice of name declares their evil nature?]
   • That Result and Testimony, you often cannot detect during the phase, though you become progressively aware. But even if you do know, you can't influence the outcome. Knowing the answer makes it harder; you can of yourself, do things. But you must eschew those options. All you can do, is keep on voting Phili3:14. Only God makes the result, you cannot do anything, and you learn to love being helpless, 2Cor12:10. Sheep don't shear themselves!
   • There is a distinct, hypostatic besidedness quality to this Testing. There's a kind of duality-of-recognition you come to have, á la Rom12:2: you're a nothing in your own estimation, and the Testing stresses that. But you can objectively see what God has done to you, and why it's true you should get a Passing Grade. You really are happy -- well, "content" is a better word -- despite the pressure. Paul frequently displays his awareness of this besidedness in what he writes, as does Job. The Lord often talks about Himself in the third person, especially when saying how important He is, which also depicts this duality-of-recognition.
   • TIME TO (7th R) REST, RETIRE! Prosecution Rests. Given the end of Job, +2Tim4:7-8, you do come to know what was tested and proven after-the-fact, no matter how little you knew during.

   Fourth Reason for Royalty in Part III focuses on how passing the Evidence Tests defeats Satan, as does the Fifth Facet in Part IVb. You'll recall from the "Bible remains a mystery to Church" link section of Part IVa that the A-N Trial term categories for Church, all had to be met. One by one, the Witnesses complete, with any one of us potentially among that number. So I.B. "Bridal Battle Testimony", above, having successfully completed, results in I.H. "Heaven's Historical Mistrial Rejoinder" above, with respect to that (your) Witness. This dramatically shortens the remaining time to the 8th R, RAPTURE, for each such completion. The I.H. "Heaven's.. Rejoinder" Testimony is that creature nature doesn't matter, Happiness is knowing God irrespective of anything else no matter how bad or good (prosperity is the harder pressure to bear).

   The believer undergoing this testing literally changes nature, so there's no faking the 5th-R RESULTS. Again, "20" is the number of "battle", "years of service to retirement", "city or Temple building", and "adulthood" in the Bible. So the 2nd 20, means a "40", the number of Testing, in Bible:

   • The believer undergoing this testing, even when he knows he's in Pleroma, doesn't think well of himself. For in Pleroma, you're too busy looking at CHRIST to have much room for anything else.
   • That's the problem: you still have a body life and need to attend to it. Lots of adjusting to do. Depending on your personality, the kinks remaining in it get worked out during this stage (or maybe just prior, my pastor kept on varying his assessment on the kink timing).

   • So although maybe only 100-300 other people on the planet are in the same spiritual growth stage 'you' are, it's nothing to crow about -- well, lots to crow about GOD, 2Cor12:10.
   • Self is boring, not worth thinking about except when you must.
   • You come to view yourself as a 'house' for the Word HE builds in you, 2Cor5:15-16, Rom 1:14, 15:18-20, 1Cor9:16-18, 2Cor10:15-18.
   • All the usual human ideas about the self progressively cease to be meaningful by comparison.
   • It's thinking about the self in the third person (which psychology erroneously derides). See how the Lord talks about Himself in the third person throughout the Gospels.
   • That's Objective Thinking. You can't be a ruler if you don't think of yourself in the third person.
   • Ego must die, or you'll never be fit to rule. That's even true on a secular level. A child can't think beyond himself. A small-souled person can't think beyond his small periphery. So to be in CHARGE, you must learn to ignore the self.
   • Ego is unable to die, unless you have Someone replace it. Paul isn't kidding around when he writes 2Cor5:14-21. That's the REPLACEMENT RESULT.
   • Ego is rather fulfilled this way: You have Someone Better to Look At Now, Heb2:9-10, 11:39, 12:2.
   • Oddly enough, that's the Victory in the Trial, the fact that you keep looking at HIM to the progressive exclusion of all else, Phili1:21, 2:5-10.
   • It's not about what you do, but how you THINK. And what you progressively think, is that DEpendence on God is more enjoyable than every alternative. And it really is better, so there is nothing you can fake.
   • It's a killer life, constantly monitoring your thinking so to have Perfect Thoughts before Father, so obviously you constantly fail, too; but nothing else in life is satisfying, either.
   • Becomes real easy to understand how Christ would come to long for the Cross, Luke 22:15.
   • And why is that? Because your nature is changing, so He makes sense and progressively, anything anti-Him does not.
   • Shared thinking means you understand the other person. Well, you share that person's thinking, which means you are more LIKE that person. See? RESULT of Togetherness, Like-Mindedness.
   • Again, you can't fake this. You of yourself can only cause problems. God does all the solving and proving IN you, as we saw in Romans 12:2.
   • You can keep on voting for it by living in God's System, but the result happens TO you. You become aware of the results, you don't create them.
   • The 'tares' of your sin nature remain, too. Two crops are growing, not just one. Satan gets defeated because the 'tares' didn't stop the Word Wheat from producing His Crop, Luke 8. Um, it should be obvious that you can't grow yourself. Wheat doesn't grow itself, but something happening TO it, makes it grow. That's why it's such a devastating defeat: it's patent you didn't do this to yourself, and it's likewise patent that all life's weeds, didn't choke your growth. See why mainstream Christianity is sooo far off the mark, what with its many political crusades, works and rituals and singalongs and rallies? All that public stuff is SATAN's Rev17 Fake Church, aka "mystery of lawlessness" in 2Thess 2:7! They don't even know they're being fooled. Strong delusion, 2Thess2:11. Pray for them. So long as the Christian values PUBLICNESS as a criterion for spirituality, he will never grow up, and will instead be choked by the 'tares'.
   • TIME TO (7th R) REST, RETIRE! Satan is thus defeated, and you are
     • Crowned from what the Holy Spirit Crafted in you. All because,
     • Your Archegos Association led to a
     • Bridal Battle Testimony
     • by the Depositional Deadline (for you)
     • that the Excellency of Knowing Him (Phili1:21, 3:8)
     • Fulfills you the more;
     • so God's Grace you Depend on,
     • and His Historical Rejoinder to Satan
     • is that you should be an Invisible Hero.
     Thus the nine parts of the Trial Answer, play in your own life. And you didn't do a lick of work! Yet you are EXHAUSTED! Trial Over!

8. So now watch the ETERNAL EFFECT of this Superhuman Intimacy won in Evidence Testing. As noted above and in the Second and Third Facets of PartIVb, Father is Pleased to Hear us be so Intimate with His Son. For Omniscience lives with seeing unbearable amounts of ugly thinking forever. We are soooo incredibly disinterested in Him, interested in earthly things, petty towards each other, no real love at all. Being Omniscient, He has to see all this forever. Even once we are perfect, we will still be small. So will our thoughts be small, compared to the quality of His. Something Has To Compensate For That Problem, And Forever. Sin only worsens the problem, birthing hostility-toward-God, the good-and-evil thought pattern of Satan.

   So, how to make up for this horror? The Cross underwrites the entire present value of the opportunity cost for all time, as we saw in the "Opportunity Cost" table of Part II; followed by, believers in Church who get so filled up with Son's Thinking, that their own quality of thinking justifies all the rest of the believers, who remain small because they didn't want to learn Christ's thinking. [This is the major thrust of Hebrews, from the macro view, esp in the wordplay on hagiazw in Heb10, a consecration-of-Temple verb: we were separated from God, so are now SET APART (root meaning of verb) to God forever, idea of the full opportunity cost (present value) being fully paid by Christ. So, Heb10:15-17 is a testimony by the Spirit, to show how the Word in Us is the fulfillment of the Jer31:31-34 promise. So also, Ephesians, but the latter also explains the mechanic of the individual variance among believers being knitted together by God. 1Cor is also on the topic. Watch keywords carefully, because many metaphors are used. You'll need the original languages, for the English always strips out the special meanings in verbs and nouns. Very careful precision in the original-language words, and a ton of wordplay.]

   Romans 6 makes a huge point out of the fact that Our Redeemer is Living Forever. Hebrews stresses that also, in Hebrews Chaps 6-10. If you know anything about present values (i.e., as covered in Part IVb's "God is the Perfect Actuary"), you understand that Funds On Deposit have to generate an ongoing income of a particular amount, to justify themselves. Else, you should invest or spend the money another way. Here the Funds on Deposit, are His Thinking (also covered extensively in the "Facets" links of Part IVb). So those Funds, are Living. The Innate Value of Christ's Own Thinking In Him, keeps on living. So also, the 'dividends' -- little stones, us -- are themselves, present values with Funds of His Own Thinking, DDNA. So, as DDNA3.htm explains in more detail, a whole Divine Kingdom of Thinking circulates. All those Funds of Thinking thus throw off dividends of their own. As in any economy, the circulation of money (here, "true riches", His Thinking) comes from those who are the wealthiest. For no matter how they spend their money, they create jobs (i.e., those who want to sell to the rich employ people to make products/services to sell). So it's only the rich who basically underwrite the polity's costs; since the poor, have no money. So the poor get jobs from the rich, since any way the rich spend, however outlandishly -- their money goes to someone.

   The richer you are, the more you hold the money, but it isn't idle. It's invested, and hence whole industries can afford to exist which thus provide, jobs. God isn't stupid like human governments who tax the rich and thereby perpetuate the poor. So this Thinking isn't taxing, either. But it is true wealth, the reason you want even to be alive. So in the eternal state, the thinking of the Pleroma will 'finance' the much-lower thinking of those who rejected God while down here. So all get more Thinking in them, and hence are much happier. And thus Father Hears His Son, everywhere. Fully.

   Hell is also living, and all the thinking there, is sin. But because His Thinking is so big, and replicated in those of Heaven, the sin-thinking perpetuated is actually a bonus, not a cost: Matt4:4 wouldn't exist, if there was no Matt4:3. So the beauty of His Matt4:4 thought wouldn't exist, absent the juridical occasion of Matt4:3. That's how God accounts sin, as fuel for More Beautimous Thinking in His Son. DDNA webseries thus is a huge elaboration on the inner mechanics and results of this Part IVd, explaining how megalunw -- the Magnifying, Enlarging of Christ -- occurred IN Him on the Cross (the five infinitives of Isa53:10-11 in the LXX). Here in Part IVd, the focus is instead on the summary result of the macro-level Trial Relevance of that Magnification, and its Trial Victory in us. Frankly, it's faster and clearer to just read Isaiah 52:13-54:1, since that chapter (should all be called "Chapter 53", syntactically) tells you plainly that this is the perpetuated structure. Isa53trans.htm has a tentative translation, since you can't get a good translation in any published Bible (including those online). [Language in Isaiah is too graphic, and any public translation -- including mine, but less so -- must 'hedge' on the words used. Best to study it in the original languages of both Hebrew and Greek LXX. Be sure to have lexicons which focus on etymology. Isaiah plays on the etymological meanings with 'al and min, toar, anah, amal, etc. LXX picks up on that etymological wryness.]

   Again, the key is the juridical connection and eternality of the Thinking. The Payment has to be Living, since all souls ever born are always living (including all angels, of course). Hence a Circle of Thinking, 'occasioned' by those poor in Heaven's eternity (and in hell) will justify new thoughts in those richer, occurring. So the poor can even be there. And get enriched by the volume of thinking around them. Growth never stops. But the inherited spiritual-thinking 'capital bases' all vary, derived from how much of His Thinking you learned down here, since God's Love never goes beyond the corridor of consent. So your capital base is built down here. It determines how rich you are in eternity.

   Post-death, all believers will be light-years higher in nature than we are now (1Jn3), but we will still vary due to our decisions down here; so the Pleroma believer is literally caused to underwrite the cost of the remaining shortness in the rest of Church (recurring theme of 1Cor, Ephesians and Hebrews, Romans 8, Colossians). Forever. Because, he is more Connected, Compatible with Son's Thinking, so the farther-away others are connected through him, to God. The shortfall in the others' thinking is compensated for by the high quality of the Pleroma believer's, analogous to how sins created a separatist shortfall which Christ paid for. Now no longer separated, believers nonetheless are unequally compatible in shared thinking. Something must make up for that, something must connect the 'dots' of us, so to speak. We are connected at our linking points of compatibility, as noted in Part IVb's "Criterion 3F" numbers property of "variety". But here, focus is on What Father Hears en toto from Body of Christ, its King-PRIEST kata Melchizedek.

   So this flowthrough of Christ's Thinking in Church is a Priestly thing, even within the "holy nation" (Peter's term), Church. Hence the Greek of Eph4:11-16 uses epichoregew (financial equipping of a Greek play) and "haphe" (pastor-teacher, the one getting the spiritual money to equip us actors) to explain this flowthrough. Hence the keyword "oikonomia", economy, as we saw in the "Fit Bride" table of PartIVb.

   Hopefully it's becoming clear that the problem isn't God's ability to be compatible, but ours. If you were to diagram the problem, it's like a 'circle' of God, whose Lone Judicial Connection to an underlying 'pyramid' of mankind, is the topmost 'stone': Christ. So the rest of the TOP part of the pyramid, is the Body. Since the lower stones among these are not directly touching the the Capstone, they get fellowship by their connections to other stones; and their own positions IN the pyramid are forever determined down here, based on how much of the Capstone's Thinking, they acquired down here. The other, lower stones are believers under the other lower covenants, like OT, Trib, Mill. Now you know what the Lord meant when He said that the last will be first, and the first last -- for we are the Last Phase of the Trial. (Everything after that is a type of postscript, as Part V will explain in more detail.)

   The 'stone' analogy is very important. No two stones are exactly alike. Rather, stones vary in attributes, strengths, sizes, color, etc. So to Fit Them Together, they first must be quarried (analogous to us getting His Thinking in us); then, cut and shaped (the Evidence Test); finally, fitted into the structure. Compatibility is related to the 'job' of the stone: how much loading must it bear, what environment must it be in, etc. Obviously, there have to be more stones at the bottom, for those at the top to do their 'job', so All Stones Need Each Other. The 'glory' of the upper stones thus passes TO those lower, since they all need each other, just as Paul keeps on saying (using Head and Body analogy), in all his epistles. Stones are permanent, too: not made of wood (man's nature and works, in Bible). So the Structure, lasts.

   Consequently it's not a lording-over thing, this eventual hierarchical 'economy' of Christ's Thinking, flowing through all of us. Rather, those higher will think like those highest angels in Rev4:10, Thrilled To Spend Themselves on Him and on all those whom they rule. The ruled are, in their variant capacities and compatibilities, likewise thrilled to spend themselves on those above and below themselves. It's a very happy picture: for once and forever, everyone LOVES each other, truly. You don't lord it over someone you love, you're too busy trying to bless them! So none of the crap (sorry) of power-hungry nitwits who run around today, pretending to be 'holy'. Those old things really will have passed away! Looking up at God, spending self on God, is not an emotional thing, but far far more fulfilling. (Emotion is way too puny.) Sine qua non of life. Nothing else in life compares; everything else is boring and anticlimactic. And in heaven, that's our privilege forever!

Let's elaborate on how Relationship Basics #I through #VII 'play' in both the Trial and your life; with emphasis on II., the Evidence-Test "Passing Grade" of "Remaining" -- here called "Staying", as in "staying together". Essentially, you pass if you prove Faithfully-Fit Bride, and Fertile: so 'staying together in the Vine, Christ' is what's On Trial. These are TRIAL "matters", issues to be resolved at court. In legal lingo of the Bible, a "matter" is something before the court which resolves the case at issue. The frequent Hebrew term is "riv", in the OT. Greek equivalent is "pragma" and other words. Bible also uses other legal terms. So in this section, we'll see the major "matters" before the Supreme Court of Heaven with respect to Church On Trial, in Evidence Testing.

Of paramount concern: when the believer gets filled up with Christ's Thinking, he becomes Compatible, and it's time for.. ahem, maximum intimacy. Hence, the labor pains. So all the commandments, all the pushing for compatibility, all the huff-and-puff, is really.. making spiritual LOVE. Before, we were spiritually too young to make love, so we had to learn in a different 'language', like commandments and do's, and think Doctrine as if it were a 'work', etc. But now old enough, we find out hey, it's all about Being Together! HAYAH. HAWAH. BEING. YHWH. The Self-Existing One wants to Be One With All Things. And if you want that also, you'll Get It From Him! Here in the Evidence Tests that union "completes" (teleiow). Perfection of contract, meaning its completion.

The art of Ruling is to BE the Embodiment of the Royal Standard, as we saw in Part III's First and Second Reasons for Royalty. People look up to royalty. So without legislation or coercion, people are 'ruled' by their OWN desire to 'ape' what they see in a celebrity -- and especially, in a Royal. So the Royal doesn't have to make many rules for others, but himself is a walking textbook of rules he loves to impose on himself. The people seeing him are inspired to emulate, and THAT's how rulership is accomplished. We all seek to emulate Christ -- no one is putting a gun to our heads, or setting enforcement over our lives. So Christ rules us without having to 'do' anything.

Since one rules by BEING the Embodiment, ideally one is BRED for rule, from childhood. This is especially true, for the Royal Spiritual Future we have. Therefore:

• In the ancient world, royal children were betrothed early, sometimes from infancy.
• The future bride would typically enter the groom-to-be's palace and be reared by his parents.
• This way, she would be 'molded' to suit him and his future role;
• when she reached marriageable age, the couple would marry.
• Until then, they were betrothed, and often in childhood they became good friends.
• Royal training requires many complex, educated skills:
  • you must become skilled in discourse (i.e., competent/fluent in several languages, literature, public topics),
  • in diplomacy,
  • in being able to quickly grasp the right meaning and policy amid complex issues;
  • you must learn to read people, and instantly;
  • you must develop finely-honed socializing skills, for royalty requires a great deal of entertaining;
  • poise and stamina amidst any number of very tiring circumstances must become as natural as breathing.
  • Above all, you must completely obliterate ego, in order to be objective and rule wisely.
  • Whatever you are as a private person, is thrown away.
  Obviously, all these skills take years of daily drilling to acquire, for the skills MUST BE INSTINCTIVE. For you are to BECOME something, not 'do' something.
• So being a 'bride' in that setup was a BREEDING, not merely a marriage.
• It's the same thing in our Royal Spiritual Life.
• The moment you believed in Christ you were entered into Father's house, and reared.
• When you are of marriageable spiritual age, you enter Son's House, in your thinking.
• He becomes your focus. The training steps up then, as was explained in the spiritual childhood through Pleroma subsections in Part III.
• So here in Pleroma, He is your entire life. Every thought you have is tied to Him in some way, and it's NATURAL to think that way.
• For you have been Spiritually Bred as Bride.
• So now, it's time for you to be TESTED for your FERTILITY.
• All Barriers to Maximum Intimacy come down.
• What once were "no's", are now "yesses". For everything reverses.
• Testing is subtle (a reversal), not blatant.
• Constant, not intermittant.
• Adult-oriented, not childish.
• Invisible, not visible.
• Often prosperous, not adverse.
• For Rulers are prosperous people, and it's a LOT harder to retain your integrity when you have so many options.
• The Testing always has a 'muchness' quality about it. Complex, subtle, many-things-at-once. That's what rulership is like, so that's the Testing you need.
• For if you PASS you get CROWNED, 2Tim4:7-8. "Having done all, to stand", Eph6:13.

Marriage is BASIC, and EXCLUSIVE. As my pastor liked to say, Adam wasn't created just a man, but a husband. Isha wasn't created just a woman, but a wife. No greater intimacy, no greater potential for heartache or happiness exists, as in marriage. A person grows up three times, in life: first, physically/mentally (normal growth); second, and ideally, in learning Him; thirdly, in Marriage. For in marriage, a couple grow up together. That's why, ideally, they first became mature before marrying. Well here in the Evidence Test, you've grown up enough not only to marry Him -- which by this point is already true in your mind -- but you are ready to bear Him kids. From the Seed in you, His Thinking. Forever. Through which Tests, you also grow bigger -- to delivery! Rescue!

God isn't 'merely' God in Nature, but Ruler. The Ruler is the Most Ruled, by SOVEREIGN CHOICE. So Christ isn't 'merely' a God-Man, but Ruler. So He submits the most, BY CHOICE. It is this Rulership SUBMISSION which theology has missed for centuries, constantly misdiagnosing which of God's Attributes 'rules' Him, consigning Him to being 'unable' to sin, etc., understanding nothing. The Ruler is the Most Ruled, by Divine Choice. Hence Love is His Head Attribute, and Love is always foregoing. He CHOOSES to Love Righteousness, and 'submits' to it, again by Sovereign Choice.

So in Evidence Testing, Rulership of Love is tested. Sovereign Love, a King's Love built up in you over all those decades of Bible class, Rom5:5. For if you would be close to God, you too must become a Ruler in your mentality -- like He is, in His Essence. So that buildup is tested, here.

You've married Him in your mind by the time you enter that "Spiritual Maturity" stage explained in Part III's "First Reason for Invisibility". You are occupied with Him, and Phili1:21 is your life. But just as in a marriage between two people who are right for each other, this twin pull of dependence and independence, is bewildering. You are already 'complete' in the sense that the Structure of His Thinking is fully in you. But it's not fully functioning. The Evidence Test phase will complete that function. The form of marriage has become the full-fledged Intimacy of Marriage, total coalescence of souls.

The world focuses on the middle to the exclusion of what's outside it. Hence, "earthly things", as Paul puts it in his letters. So when mankind understands "God", even when saved, they look at Him with a middling interest. Light this candle, get this blessing, follow these forms of worship, get these goodies, do this behavior, pooh-pooh those who don't. They orient to everything based on middles: what happens down here, laterals with each other, right/wrong (irrespective of truth, which is quite different), and on and on and on. Life is a trip to the supermarket, and everyone has his own produce to sell. They get right the idea that they have a life, promises God will bless them, etc. What they don't get, is the Totality of the Intimacy. God is not a partial being, but Absolute. So the relationship to Him is Absolute. As in, "First Commandment". God is the Only Love Object, and Christ made it clear to Satan that all the kingdoms of the world -- all people, and all benefit TO people -- is of zero significance, Matt4:10. Christ essentially says in Matt4, "For FATHER or forget it!" There is only One Morality: FOR FATHER. Everything else is of zero consequence.

You now think the same way. See, this stage is no child's thing, no performance thing, no works thing, it's marriage, which is EXCLUSIVE.

• Everything else is outside, irrelevant.
• It's not wrong to have needs; it's not wrong to feel deprivation; it's not wrong to want something for yourself.
• But competing rights become wrongs, even while they remain right, until and unless they harmoniously dock in a hierarchy under your now Mature, Love for Christ.
• You can't do that docking, anymore than you could have grown spiritually, of yourself: only the Holy Spirit accomplishes all this.
• So in the beginning of the spiritual life, all this development was happening but you didn't know, couldn't see; all you knew was I better get in and stay in God's System. So you did.
• But after some years, all that seemingly-chaotic, disparate learning and usage of Bible, coalesces, merges in your head: and you see Him.
• As a result, your entire focus, motivation, internal definitions of life itself, all CHANGE to Seeing Him. Philippians centers on this dramatic shift of focus from the world to HIM, due to getting that much knowledge of Him: Paul's used as the 'poster boy' for it (i.e., in Phili3), so you can see what happens, how it's not at all about sin (Paul was the biggest sinner who ever lived, 1Tim1:15); it's only and always about CHRIST.
• So now, all this tangle of basic wants, needs, attitudes can be docked.
• And that's why Abiding in Him is the way you pass the Test. It's an aggressive attitude to PASSIVELY STAY on the Heb4:12, Matt4:4 Operating Table, while the Holy Spirit finishes you off. Your own cross, essentially.
• And you come to yearn for it. In the human race, love is a priced object, as we've seen since Part I. But Divine Word and hence Divine Love which comes from that Word being poured in you (Rom5:5) is without money and without price, Isa55. So the Word becomes priceless to you. So you yearn to have some way to reciprocate Him, knowing full well you cannot. That's why you yearn for a cross: but again, He alone makes it work, so you do a lot of waiting while He builds you up for it. You don't seek any crosses, yourself. Sheep don't shear themselves, remember (from the first #19 in VII).

Remember how the "First Reason for Invisibility" in Part III explained the Bible verses for each growth stage? Well, at maturity you yourself are able to bear children, and the 'children' come from all the Bible Doctrine you've accumulated and used for so very long (at that point). Royal issue: can the wife bear an heir? This is the 6th R, Reproduction. As you may know, many times in history a royal husband had to have more than one wife, simply to assure the royal bloodline. So, the completion of the Evidence Test proves you CAN bear spiritual children, and you DO. Just as the Cross depicts: that's our paradigm.

That's why the "God is a Perfect Actuary" section in Part IVb notes in its purple table, that Pleroma benefits go on forever to periphery. Those are the 'children'. Everything Divine is immaterial, a thinking. God just thinks a thing, and it is so. That kind of immaterial 'begetting' must be produced prior to the believer's death, even as it was produced prior to Christ's death on and via, the Cross. Such 'begetting' is vital to a free-yet-sinless, eternity. We saw that in #VIII of the "Relationship Basics" division, above. That's why the mass of Bride who reject the spiritual life -- and hence prove sterile -- can even get an eternal inheritance, because enough Divine Doctrine is available via the Pleroma person to 'feed' them all. See? It's Deut8:3, Matt4:4! The Real Bread, The Real Way To Feed The Poor is to be Full of Truth, yourself. Don't know how the Bible could make it any plainer, than that.

It's bad English to mix metaphors, but great Hebrew and Greek. Bible mixes metaphors together in the very words chosen, if you study the etymology of them. We'll see some of these terms in the next section. For the moment, remember the themes of Divine Benefit Plan 'financing' of thought, expressed in Part IVa, b, c. Also, the metaphor of a polity: King's Thinking circulates such that all the people Fit Together as a Hierarchical and Unified Society, 2nd Criterion of the Fit Bride table in Part IVb. Tandem with that was the Part III "Summing up the Reasons" and "Summing Up the Conclusions" sections. Christ is the Head of the Universe. So His Thinking must be High Enough and Big Enough to 'hold together' all those under Him. You are in training to become a King of a kingdom under Him. So your thinking must become high enough and big enough to 'hold' your kingdom. This means you lose your personal life to the Job of Ruling. So here in Evidence Testing, that 'holding power' of 'staying' is tested, to see if your thinking is High Enough and Big Enough. If so, you inherit a certain number of believers as your kingdom, and you will rule them forever. Those are your 'children', and their thinking will literally be based on yours. It's an awesome role. 100% of you must be 100% dedicated to Christ, for this structure to both work perfectly, and for you to enjoy it. God never gives gifts without first developing in the recipient, the capacity to enjoy them. Hence the royal-breeding analogy which began this "STAYING" division.

So all the other Bible metaphors signifying Word -- food, shelter, clothing, riches, life, breath, love, happiness, freedom -- these are all personal needs, but also polity needs. And in you they are to 'house'. So you will get in eternity all those material things to 'feed' your polity, if enough Word is in you. Again, that's the purpose of Evidence Testing, to complete that Word in you, so it will REPRODUCE in them. For Father, under Him your Husband forever.

For the spiritual life down here is about whether you want to relate intimately to God, and how much. Your choices forge a kind of METHOD of RELATIONSHIP: distant, or close. If distant, there need to be many intermediaries between God and you, in order for the totality of Divine Thought Father wants, to occur. 99.9% of Christians choose distance, being instead intimate with other people, works, ritual. That's the method of relating to God they choose, so that's what they get. The Pleroma make the opposite choice: they want exclusive relationship directly with God, and all else is extra, designed to be subordinated TO that exclusive relationship, i.e., the 144,000 in Revelation chose exclusivity, so they become the Lord's personal entourage it seems (Rev14:4). The 24 seraphim in Rev 4:10 are right there in the throne room, in His immediate proximity. So by analogy, the Pleroma get to be closer to Him. So they get kingdoms, because that status makes them have exclusive, marital-intimacy relationship with God their King: close, intimate. So everyone gets what he wants, from God.

Marital Oneness as a metaphor of Spiritual Life with God is the most-stressed theme in Bible. So the bullets here on how Scripture covers spiritual intimacy with God are quite limited, focusing rather on the STAYING criterion for Victory. Additionally, this Extreme Divine Desire For Togetherness often goes unnoticed in theology, not merely because Christians tend to be ascetic so avoid proper teaching about marital intimacy; but because in Bible, foundational doctrines are foundationally expressed: by the use of a preposition, a case ending, juxtaposition of words, intransitive verbs used transitively -- every nuance of grammar and syntax is 'employed'. That rhetorical style reflects God as Foundation for Everything, Omnipresence Unseen and Universality of Applicability.

Infinite Unseen Sovereignty is Everywhere, but that's not why He's in Everything. He WANTS to be in Everything, because He is the Everything, and Everything about Infinite God is a Desire for Togetherness, flat! Hence the Cross which accomplishes that Desire, Isa53:12, Eph1:23. Compatibility, therefore, isn't a "work", but a goal: Absolute Togetherness. That they may be one even as We are One, Christ prayed in John 17.

• Per Romans 6, we were married to Him back when He was ON the Cross, positionally. Paul uses the marital and childbearing analogies to depict our Relationship to Christ often; that's his main rhetorical framework from Romans 6:1 through the end of Romans 8. So he depicts Christ paying for the Bride in Romans 6; as the chapter goes on he shows how in time, when we first believed in Christ, we ourselves consented to the marriage (even though we didn't know that). From that moment onward, spiritual babies, we grow UP in Father's House so to speak, being readied by Father and Spirit for the Contract to be Consummated, and we are DIVORCED from our sin nature. So Romans 7 is about how it tries to woo us back. (My pastor taught this extensively, exegeting Romans verse by verse in his 1977 Romans series (four years long). If you are under him you might want to get that series. This Scriptural analogy displays in many ways; but the marital is the most common. Again, it was common practice in the ancient world, especially among royal/noble houses, to arrange marriage; for heirs' future brides to be raised in the future bridegroom's house to thoroughly train her, and protect her virginity. You can find this practice pretty much anywhere in the world in any time period; and even today, though modified, it is still practiced. National Geographic just had an issue about Shiites where a 14-year-old Shiite girl 'marries' a cousin to help her own family reduce their poverty (due to the brideprice). Whether she actually mates with her husband right away, depends on the custom and terms. China often married royals at age 5; some of that practice was common among European royalty, i.e., Mary Queen of Scots as a kid went to live in her husband's house, in France (I think it was her).)

• So John writes of basics, weaving together Marital and Togetherness, in everything he writes. And everything he writes, all add up to, if you don't Eat the Bread of Life, His Thinking, you won't have the Truth in you; so you are divorced, a walking corpse, a ghoulish adulterer (esp. in 1Jn3:17-18). Of course, if you do eat the Bread of Life, He is IN you, and you in Him: "Christ in you, the confidence of Glory" Paul shouts (Col1:27, Greek "elpis" means Confidence of a Future Thing). So, you are 'abiding', 'remaining', 'resting', staying-in-the-Witness-Box, staying at your post. Happily. 1Jn4:17 says the same thing.

• So let's come back to that verb menw, which is a Togetherness Verb, as we saw in #II of the "Relationship Basics" section. Mental attitude of being 'in' or 'with' due to Love. Love of Person (God), love of principle (Righteousness), love of right action (justice, virtue), love of perseverance (endurance, patience, loyalty), love of Home. Love is the driver, here. Any good produced, is but an exhale. Like making love. Home with Your Husband.

  Greek verb "menw" ("w" is a long "oh" sound) means many things. Christ used the verb during the First Advent to illustrate the RELATIONSHIP with Him, post-salvation. As you'll soon see here, all the NT writers play off His use of the verb and its many cognate verbs and nouns. In 1Jn, for example, menw is usually translated "abide", in the sense of Remaining, Staying somewhere. Really, staying at home. For the root meaning of "menw" is to live-at-home. Idea of love, comfort, wanting-to-be-there. Not just a location. You'll see this word often used in the NT; interestingly, it also has both LEGAL and MILITARY connotations -- idea of remaining-true, remaining-at-post, remaining-in-witness-box (because the opposing attorney couldn't discredit your testimony). [Unfortunately, due to the insane translation rules taught in seminaries (one English for one Greek word!), English Bibles often translate menw in so many different ways, you miss its live-at-home-comfort/fealty idea. This word is worth all the time you can spend researching using some detailled lexicon: Strong's is not strong enough! Use some 'biggie', like full Kittle or Bauer Danker Arndt Gingrich et. al. Add to these the smaller, insightful lexicons like Thayer, sometimes Friberg or Liddell-Scott. Amazingly, some of the smaller ones, though seemingly shallow, actually afford more insight. Read through as many as you can find.]

  As just noted, "menw" was coined by the Lord to describe our relationship to Him, in John 15. Vine and Branches. In all 60 uses of "vine" in Bible, the metaphor always has sexual connotations; it's tangentially referenced elsewhere, as in the command to creatures to "be fruitful and multiply", in Gen1. Husband fills the wife, so kids result, the "fruit". He makes this same analogy about sex in many ways within the Gospels and the beginning of Acts; baldly prays for such a marriage in John 17's "that they may be one" with the Godhead repeatedly, and makes it clear Truth being IN us is the way to do this (v.11,17,19,21-23; see also 1Cor6:16-20); and of course His Discourse in Rev Chaps1-3 are Husband-y. One of His many methods of analogizing the spiritual life to marriage is His comment that once a mother gives birth to a child, she forgets all about her 'labor pains' (Jn16:21). Bible uses that metaphor a lot, usu. translated 'travail' in KJV.

  So the verb menw is 'husband' to the famous and oft-repeated hupomenw, for obvious reasons: the Greek prefix "hupo" means "under" or "underneath", and the compound verb of hupo+menw is variously translated "to be patient", "to endure", "to obey". My pastor likes to translate hupomenw as 'having staying power', and crafted a whole doctrine frequently taught us about "the Staying Power of the Cross". Hupomenw is a RESPONSIVE verb, compared to "menw" alone; but obviously still means be-at-home-underneath love, Authority. (BTW: -menw suffixed nouns change to -mone.) Hupomenw and hupotassw (latter means being under orders, is often used in a military sense) are favorite verbs of the NT writers, but it's really interesting that John strips out the "hupo", and stresses just the "staying-at-home" root of menw alone. Why? Because John focuses on Motive, which is Love. He's known for that focus among Greek scholars, and with good reason: if you don't Love being under the Lord's Thinking, what's the point of being alive? And, of course, as John develops the menw keyword in 1Jn, he's saying just that: if you don't menw in Doctrine, you aren't but a walking corpse.

  Considering John's big stress on the initial Garden marriage via his "in the beginning" and other very subtle keyword uses (which my pastor stresses over and over, tying the Garden marriage to the Church, and especially to Christian marriage), I can't escape noticing a sort of 'making love' nuance in John's use of menw. The better lexicons will tell you menw has a long history in Greek drama, also sotto voce: the idea being to dedicate oneself to a god (i.e., in Euripides' play Ion). In the Greek religions, you had a communion with a god via both sexual and mental uniting.

  John seems to be making a play on that principle in both his Gospel and 1Jn; and given his repeated stress on the Indwelling ( skenoo, but "menw" means "to dwell IN", too, and is frequently translated as such in the NT), it's clear John is talking about all the aspects of marital intimacy with the Real God; just that the spiritual equivalent of our responsive sexual act is the Word being "in" us. My pastor, when talking about sex, nearly always reminds us that the biggest reason why sex apart from one's spouse is horrible, is that marital sex is designed to "build the castle walls" of the marital bond. So, too, with the Spiritual Bond circulating Bible Doctrine creates in the soul under the Spirit. Hence anything not Word is horrible, disgusting. Fidelity alone is attractive. This is why learning Him is the Only Way to Stop Sinning. Something Better -- SomeOne Better -- has to REPLACE the old attractions. Fidelity exists for a reason: you are more in love with the Object than anything else in life. It's a happiness, not a preening.

  The world's sense of pleasure and rightness is always animalistic: shallow, rotelike, grunting, with mere feeling passing itself off as truth ("feels right", ugh), love or spirituality. So religion caters to that worldly sense with its endless Stepford-wife strictures, robotic. Set prayers, rituals, works, etc., all conveying "God" as painful and animalistic, himself. Spin this prayer wheel, eat this food, chant this mantra, light incense or a candle, live a deprived life. Every religion has features like those (Asian ones) just listed. Same ol' game dressed up in different cultural clothing. Magic comes from the robotic observances. See? No brains, just movement: for animals are to be herded and led wherever the brains want them to go. So is it any surprise that sex is sold like animals rutting? Many partners, all about having some physical pleasure which magically turns into love if you make the right movements. No different than religion. Same with drugs, wealth, you name it. Exact same formula as that Satan's magic-fruit pitch in the Garden.

  The Christian God is the Real God and He doesn't prescribe us to live like animals. True Righteousness is truly enjoyable. Animals don't know how to enjoy anything but what's animalistic. But we can't stop living like animals, until we learn the Word and come to enjoy His Superior Taste, Hebrews 6:5. Taste the Lord, for He is Good, Ps34:8. God is an Acquired Taste, and that's the purpose of the spiritual life: So Tasty, that the Lord wanted to taste ( geuw, thoroughly savor) Death, Heb2:9. As a result, He was Completed (v.10). See? Once you taste Him long enough, everything else is.. well, animalistic. So your fealty to Him, is for a reason: He TASTES BETTER.

• Each NT writer uses his own keyword system to communicate this same menw'ing, REMAINING IN THE RELATIONSHIP idea. In short, each NT writer highlights in different ways the concept of spiritual marriage to Christ, but in all cases the Intimacy and Staying Faithful, Being At Home, Love, and REPRODUCING CHILDREN from that Love, are stressed. No loveless marriage of religious observance with its many sterile children, here. Paul and Peter use hupomenw and hupotassw a lot, and flavor its use with stess on authority, but Love is always underneath. Paul, of course, is the main teacher the Holy Spirit appointed to discuss marriage (how ironic), and in Paul's typical style he constantly references the macro-epic side: UNITY of Head and Body (Ephesians 1, 3, passim), of body (1Cor6-7), of Oneness (Eph5-6), and always does so with the Trial Witness in the Angelic Appeal Trial lurking somewhere nearby. Peter addresses the same topic from the micro end (1Pet1-3), tying our relationship to God as a marriage with us as 'wife' (hence his love for hupo-prefixed words); which has its lateral counterpart in human marriage. So his discussion is micro and pragmatic, yet brief.

• The writer of Hebrews takes a more legal approach, stressing the completion of Church in terms of our role in completing the Structure of the New Covenant Christ will implement at the 2nd Advent. This, because his audience is Hebraic and Law-oriented, and he wants them to understand that the "new covenant" promise is in the process of being structurally completed. For him, what John would call "menw" is depicted as waiting for the "promise" of the new covenant: that's why he makes a crescendo out of Hebrews 11, ending it with the point that the OT people never got the promise, because the promise to them cannot be completed until we are completed. So, it's not too surprising that he next has Hebrews Chaps 12-13 focus on intimacy, marriage, and above all, parenting. Starting with, God parenting us. Notice the clever sotto voce message in Heb12 of us responding to seeing Our Husband, then discipline as God's Children (allusion to wife growing up in future husband's house, tutored): with the crescendo analogy (12:23) to Christ&Church like Paul so often made (i.e., 1Cor6, 7, 12, Eph5). Unity. Completion. Coalescence. Then as Chapter 13 opens, you see grown-up and distinctly childbearing analogies about Love and Marriage, conduct as Paul often wrote, especially in Philippians. For the fruit of the Spirit being Love (Gal5:22ff), it will naturally reflect in the body life as well. All the while, one Rests in Him. Promise of Rest, 7th "day" of the Trial, Church. For "promise" in OT Hebrew, is literally, "to seven": writer of Hebrews uses that Hebrew meaning in all his Greek wordplay, as a Completion concept. Seven, As in The Day God Rested because HE Finished: therefore, Holy. For this Seventh Day of Trial is the end of it. So that characterizes how we live, too (Heb4). REST. REMAIN. SEVEN. Remain In the Word of God, Heb4:12. Combat is REST, as the Machaira of the Lord goes out in front, Doctrine on FLOT (my pastor's term), fighting your battles for you, while you Rest In The Promised One. In His 'bosom', euphemism. Rest in the Rest. Hence, the to-people 'progeny' blessing of your being "salt". Remnant.

• Of course, this marital analogy of exclusive, unconditional love began right away, in Gen1; it never lets up, after that. John 17 is asking for a marital relationship, using the sexual uniting verb from the OT (in Gen 2:24, compare to John 17:11). 1Jn keeps referring back to it, my pastor continually reminds us. Demons make fun of it, by promoting phallicism throughout the world. It's so bald, the Bible stress! Hebrew equivalent of plerow, to fill up/fulfill, w/heavy pregnancy connotation, is male (MAHL-eh); from which in English we probably derive the word, "male" (no wonder)! and it is used in exactly the same way in Gen1:22, for example (usu. translated fill up). The Word is spoken and filling up, occurs. All the NT uses this analogy in every usage of plerow in all its morphologies and cognates, which are many.

• Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac demonstrates this Precedent of exclusive, unconditional love. The story usually shocks thinking people. Seems inhuman and wrong, that God would ask Abraham for such a thing. But if you look at that story in Genesis, then look at what the writer of Hebrews says about it, you realize the truth: ABRAHAM needed to know that his love for El was total. So what could prove it to him? Sacrifice Isaac. Because, it WAS unfair. Made El look like a liar, since He forbade human sacrifice, unlike all other 'gods' who insisted on it. Made Him look sadistic. Besides that, make Abraham become a murderer of his own son? Could Abraham really do such a thing? [Nerd note: just because "El" is a name for 'god' defined in other cultures' religious terms, doesn't mean that Bible's "El" comes from those other cultures. Just as today Muslims call "God" "Allah", but mean (they think) the same Person. So don't fall into the ludicrous trap so many pseudo-intellectuals fall into, by matching up similar names and concluding that one comes from the other.]

  Yep. In Gen22:5, Abraham says he and the lad will return. The "lad", Isaac, was no boy: he was between 25-40 years old, signified by the Hebrew word na'ar (Isaac married at age 40 (Gen25:20), so this passage happened sometime earlier.) So both of them needed to know how much they loved El. El already knew, of course. Hebrews explains how Abraham was able to do it: he deemed Isaac to be returned from the dead. Because, his love WAS total. For this, he became "Friend of God", James 2:22 et seq. Not for any works: James makes this fact screamingly clear in the Greek, by using the intransitive verb, sunergew -- so the 'works' weren't done by Abraham, but by the Doctrine ("faith") in him. (See also Rom8:28, same usage.) Because Abraham's love had been grown fully, nothing separated El and him. Which, he needed to know -- and the Testing Proved it to him. And to Satan&Co. So based on this one man, all of history continued. He is the father of all nations, since believers will be from all nations (see Rom4 and 9). Chief is the Son, the Christ.

  That's the meaning of the Evidence Test: Togetherness, flat! even under what seem to be 'immoral' conditions. For God is #1, and any other loves are immoral, by comparison. Total Love for Christ, SURPASSING all your other loves (and hates), whatever they may be. On Trial. That's the meaning of the Cross, as we saw in #7 of Part II, the Third and Fourth Reasons of Part III, and will see again in this section's "Combat" table.

• OT analogies talk about a "full heart" (usu. mistranslated "whole heart"), i.e., in 2Kings20:3. It means, Pregnant With Word, Truth, Doctrine. Note in that verse how King Hezekiah, Israel's greatest king (considered as a whole, not the two kingdoms), reasons judicially in his prayer: I have a full believed Word circulating in me, Sir, which I HAVE BEEN CAUSED TO WALK in [by You], so please hear my prayer. [Verb halak, is in the hithpael, meaning God causes it. Same is in Eph2:10!] Some parallel NT verses are Heb11:6, Heb5:8-9. It's a refrain, in Bible, and is used a lot to demonstrate the goal of the spiritual life in the NT (though often using "full" and "heart" separately). Hebrew noun couplet of b'emeth ub'lebab of 2Ki20:3 literally says that the deposited truth in him 'ravished' his heart ('ravish' being a euphemism for the sex act, aggressive passion): look up the etymology of lebab and emeth, because other layers of meaning are included in their roots (like bread, believe). So the LXX Greek of that verse recognizes that 'ravished' meaning, hence translates the Hebrew with en kardiai plerei. Fabulous. [Prove this to yourself: search on morphs of Hebrew "male", plerow in Greek. Then, as you search, you'll realize there are literally hundreds if not thousands of other ways the same sexual-analogy meaning is communicated. So You can't miss the sexual analogy God uses, unless you close your eyes!]

• Teleiow is the RESULT, root sense of completing what the Word set out to do, way back in Gen1:22. Teleiow is usually translated "to perfect", which is misleading: unless you know the English legal verb "to perfect"=Completion of Contract. So it's a filling-up-to-completion-of-contract. Filling up the earth with life, filling it with man, filling up the Tabernacle and later the Temple with Glory, filling up Israel with the Law; filling it with THE MAN; thus filing up Time, filling up Purpose, filling Him up with Church (see Ephesians wordplay). Greek verb suntelew is thus used in Daniel 9:24, showing that even Time exists to complete the CONTRACT set for it.

• Paul dedicates Phillipians to that theme, using megalunw, an "exaltation" which comes from bearing children: "Christ enlarged in my body!" Paul exclaims in Philippians 1:20. This and the many other frequent Biblical sexual analogies to spiritual fellowship with Him are to show God's real Goal: Unity, not ascetism. I can't prove it, but maybe Paul is playing on Mary's clever use of megalunw as well, in talking about the meaning of her pregnancy (what a witty lady she was): see the Greek of Luke 1:46ff. See also Galatians 4:19, where Paul likens himself to a pregnant mother trying to bring the Galatians to spiritual maturity, which he likens to birthing them.

  Phili 1:20 Exegetical notes:

  • Dunno about you, but when I see verses in English with the words "praise" or "glorify" in them, the first thought hitting my brain is, how can my complimenting God, do squat of benefit to Him? Answer: it can't. So "glorify" and "praise" gotta have other meanings.
  • So here in Philippians 1:20, you find out what they are: His Thinking multiplying in you and making 'kids' in you, essentially. Very witty: Paul's apparently the DDNA specialist in the NT, for he never deviates from the sexual analogy theme of His Head in your head as 'intercourse' which makes Thought Progeny for Son which Father Loves to Hear/See; so Paul specializes in elaborating on the effects of the DDNA Love Contract of Isa53:10-12.
  • Verse's immediate impetus is v.19's apobainw and sotereia, very funny thesauretical play on birthing (as if disembarking safely from ardous ship journey).
  • Greek verb megalunw does means exalt, magnify, praise: but look up the etymology; idea is "magnify" in SIZE, not so much number, and is always related to PROGENY (see also Ps138:2b; there are many other OT verses with the term).
  • As usual, Paul plays with etymology when he writes. So his marital metaphor really began in v.6 (or v.3), and v.8's epipothew is a possessive verb. (That verb gives scholars no end of trouble in Jas4:5, but for no reason: "Jas4:5" link in Bumpkin.htm has details.)
  • In the OT verb megalunw is used for Hebrew meod gadol (see gadal in TWOT lexicon), and Paul is using the term Hebraistically, as in the OT -- which the context makes clear, since "megalunw" is actually the theme of the entire letter (how to do that): very witty.
  • The Hebrew sense of "be fruitful and multiply" type of "abundance" and "enlarge" connotations is the focus; LXX translations using megalunw thus stress INCREASE, ENLARGE: growth, not number, though in Heb gadol, it's the idea of many in number being BIG.
  • So Paul is stressing the greatness of His Thinking in us, multiplying; the number of Infinitely-High Thoughts (as you'll see, when you research the OT usage).
  • As usual, Paul plays on Marital Intimacy and the Growth of the Many Children who RESULT, playing on Isa53:12-54:1!
  • Because obviously Paul is making a sexual analogy, you don't find this significance in the sanitized translations; and I'm not sure how they could fix it, since both the GROWTH and PRAISE idea are intended; but you can prove its analogy by how megalunw is used in the OT.
  • Frankly, it looks like all of Philippians is woven around Isa52:13-14, and Isa53:10-54:1; see both the BHS and LXX texts, especially with reference to how last half of v.52:14 in the LXX states the accomplishment mechanic for v.13, given how the Cross plays in 53:10-11; so megalunw is the primary keyword for Philippians, which is all about RECIPROCITY -- beyond human, yet via a human body, He is exalted now and forever!

• So bearing children means Labor, Combat. Pregnancy 'combat' of labor pains, Athletic combat, military combat, many kinds. Paul's athletic-combat analogies are many. Military terms are fuzzed over in translation but even translations can't mask them all. Isaiah 53 uses many combat terms, most especially the combat of people abusing you. You can open up Bible to almost any page and find some kind of combat analogy in it.

• Accordingly, think of the Evidence Test as being in labor to be 'delivered' of Pleroma. For, you get Evidence Testing only when you are not merely 'pregnant', but nearly 'full-term' with Bible Doctrine. This is what prolife really means: pro GOD's life, forget about people. For anything less than His Thinking is dead, fetus never exiting the womb, stillborn for lack of knowledge of God, David's analogy in Psalm 139:16-17, would that anyone properly translate that passage. [See NoWombLife.htm for a corrected translation and exegesis of Psalm 139:13-17, in the "Don't Abort My Word" table.]

See the irony of REST: God seems to 'just sit there', yet no one is busier. Same, for Royalty. Again, the Consummate Ruling Role of Royalty is to BE the Embodiment of the Royal Standard. The true enjoyment of Ruling is to fulfill Righteous Standards, oneself. Thus the life is actually forever busy, especially in one's THINKING. One lives for the Righteous Standards upon self, not others. That attitude inspires people, and to communicate the high value of the Standards, a Royal is generally public, yet 'distant'. The 'distance' is to give the ruled 'space', privacy, freedom to emulate or not. Granted, ruling also requires governance, but governance never inspires people: it merely regulates them. Ideally, governance would help facilitate the Standard people want to emulate anyway -- from seeing the Royal. In our world, that facilitation never happens. All any human government can do, is mess things up: for we humans are all messed up.

But God Inspires -- just to look at Him. And why? Because God Infinitely ENJOYS Living the Divine Standard. That's why He'll never sin. Only the Divine Standard is Desirable. We see Him LOVE it, and are inspired to do the same, Ps89:14-15, 2Cor5:14, Phili2:5, Rom5:8, etc. Accordingly, STAYING in the Royal Spiritual Life, is a Trial Matter of Inspired Motive, and Informed Marital Maturity: im tasim asham naphesho, "If He will Appoint His Own SOUL as a Substitute for sin", Isa53:10. Hebrew "im" means "if", so IF you keep RESTING as He did on the Cross, that's a Trial Victory. Of course, the reverse of "im" is "mi", the short form of Hebrew birthing preposition, "min". And so IF you REST, you BIRTH for your Husband Whom you have come to love with all your heart and soul and mind, in Evidence Testing.

Consequently, Evidence Testing is designed to
PRODUCE the Restful Divinely-Royal Togetherness, Eph4:12-16, 2Pet3:18.
DEMONSTRATE the Restful Staying Power of Divinely-Royal Togetherness to you and everyone else in heaven (God already knows all about it), Eph3:15-19, 1Jn4:12-17.
PROVE the Resting Superior Nature in the person thus Restfully Developed, to answer Satan's ARResting Arguments in the Trial: Heb 3:14, 4:4-5, 11-12, 6:19, 7:18-22, 8:6, 9:14, 10:10-17, 11:1, 6, 10, 16, 26, 12:2, 23-24, 27; Col 1:27, Rom12:2.

Notice how STAYING and therefore RESTING, address the 8 R's of Evidence Testing.

1. Rescue. By Staying in the Word, you are progressively rescued from inconstancy, 1Jn4:17-19.
2. Relationship. Staying produces a progressively EXCLUSIVE Relationship with Him, conquers all other 'loves' in your life, Eph 3:19, Col 1:27 (witty oneness phrase, "Christ in you" signifying Bible-in-your-head, also used in Gal4:19, same pregnant meaning).
3. Remaining in the Relationship. This Passing-Grade criterion of the Test, is already your dearest wish -- not because you care about winning, but because you care about HIM. You want to win because you want to RECIPROCATE Him, Phili3:8, 10. And you thus want as much wealth as you can get, to SPEND on Him. God can't use worldly wealth. The "true riches" are His Thinking, and that you should be utterly greedy to get. It lasts forever, and the valuation of the material blessings you receive, are gauged by how much of His Thinking impregnated you down here, James 1:21, Luke 8. We had this really great song about that in my church, which my pastor wrote? It ends with the line, "Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more! Feeeed me till I want no more..." Yeah, don't EVER stop wanting it! The material wealth you have or lack down here is specifically designed to develop your spiritual wealth, so don't feel guilty if you are rich, nor resentful if you are poor. Full-spectrum is God's goal, so there will be times of plenty, and times of want. Paul explained all that, in Phili 4:12.
4. Realization. Togetherness/Oneness with Him, the contract of John 17 realized in you, is your complete desire.
5. Result of the Test. You should be Crowned -- but you want it to spend what you get ON Him, like those angels in Rev 4:10, see Paul's excitement in 2Tim4:7-8.
6. Reproduction. 'Progeny' of your thinking Like His Son, will be a KINGDOM you can spend on Him. Your 'body of thinking' is fertile, enough to fund an entire polity. And that polity will be quite happy to have your thinking, too. Read all of Philippians, see how Paul keeps on talking about his effect on them, and their effect on him.
7. Rest. Trial Is Over with respect to you -- you win, get Crowned, and then (maybe shortly afterwards) die. So the Prosecution Rests. And so do you. All the "crown" verses tie in here. So to pass Evidence Testing you REST, as you'll see in this section. In effect, you attest that the Trial is already over, for YOU are at rest about Him, your life, everything. This mental attitude will be side-by-side with a lot of upset coming from the sin nature's reaction to pressure, so it 'plays' like combat, not rest. But the REST is shown by
   your RESPONSE to pressure.
   You REPEATEDLY desire
   to RECIPROCATE Him.
   So you RULE yourself.
   You keep RETURNING to Him, as
   the RELATIONSHIP matters more.
   So this REMAINING is Evidenced
   by the continual RECALL of Bible
   in REPLY to what's hitting you. See the added ROYAL "R's"
   you're REPRODUCING?

8. Rapture. You've hastened it. "Hasten" is the usual translation in Hebrew for the verb mahar; see also ahishennah, (hiphil of hush, last word in Isa60:22), both Rapture-precedent terms, both with hastening-pregnancy-to-delivery overtones. God has again proved #I.H., Heaven's Historical Mistrial Rejoinder Argument.. via you. Peter picked up on that, in 2 Pet3:12 using one of his fav words, speudw: means enthusiatically going after something, same verb is used in Heb4:11, which also ties here. (Both verses' use of the verb get legalistic 'spin' in translation, as if life with God should be dour. Translations strip out the enjoyment, and drily mistranslate the verb "be diligent", or something else equally sterile. Neither the Rah-Rah God nor the Dour God portrayals, both so popular in Christianity, are the Real God of the Bible.)

Hence your fealty during Evidence Testing is due to COMFORT, even under pressure. It is not comfort as the world gives; but rather, comfort in knowing Him so great, the world's enticements and discomforts can't interfere. You are hit but don't quit, 2Cor4:7-10, 5:14-21, 12:9-10. Word in your head is the Comfort now: so the hits occur and even knock you flat -- but they don't defeat the Love. You remain because you WANT to. Satisfied despite suffering, because Full. Pleroma. Full of FOOD, Bible Doctrine, "the unhidden" (lit. trans of aletheia), Truth. So full of the Seed (Gal3) are you, that you are 'pregnant' with His Seed, it's all hanging out there, unhidden: you are the verge of delivery. So will you keep on abiding DURING LABOR, or abort? Just as, Christ "abided" in Doctrine, in the Father, in the Spirit -- even on the Cross. No glamour, no flash, but instead: demeaning and messy and, well.. BASIC. So basically, Rest. Not work. Rest, not (arrogance+rest) arrest.

Ironically, it's a lot tougher to do 'nothing', than to do something. First, we've got the sin nature inherited from Adam, which equates to an incessant do-something urge hitting the soul. Second, our bodies just can't sit still for long. Thirdly, the body (and the soul, too) has certain 'survival reflexes'. For example, if you smell smoke, your first instinct will be to get out of whatever room you are in; if you hear a sudden noise, you'll want to hide, get up to investigate..something. If you've ever had a CAT scan or other medical test (or even dental surgery) in which it was critical you stay very still: didn't you at that moment want to move more than ever? Paul talks about this problem in Romans 7 when he quips that he didn't covet, until the Law forbade it. In short, RESTING is really not something our body can handle. We seek it constantly, but.. oh, gotta turn on that TV or radio!

Hence it's a Superhuman thing (#VI above), nay, even a Demonstration of the Superior Dependence on God (#V above) -- if we can just SIT STILL while Superhuman Doctrine and the demon boys, are hitting us!

Psalm 22, triumphant, His Last Words, Ps31:5. So, then: all this utter, loathsome terror, into this Perfect Human Soul? All within 3 hours? And He lived? He remained sane? Even Enjoyed it? How? Bible Doctrine. The Truth is so Gorgeous, so unutterably Magnificent -- the pain itself 'atones' for the wonder having such Priceless Diamonds. Get that paronomasia?

• The Truth atones for the pain of the sins, but the pain of the sins 'atones' for the unending PLEASURE of the Truth!
• That's a LOVE Expression: needing Thanksgiving Outlet to balance to the extreme Enjoyment of Word.
• The Word on the Cross is so utterly self-compensating, there is nothing to add, nothing to compete, either -- tetelestai, the Finished Results Go On Forever!
• See why Prosperity, not adversity, is the harder 'thorn' to tolerate?
• See now why Heb12:2 reads as it does? See Him Confidently Relaxing in Doctrine, never wanting to stop the pain?
• Do you see now why Father decreed creation?
• The Truth is so Beautiful, Very God 'needed' the Thanksgiving Outlet.
• Even though, and especially because, Truth Is His Attribute. Each "He".
• Each of Them 'needed' the Outlet to Thank Each Other. And we get to be the interim beneficiaries! Forever!

• We don't understand all this. For when we see the Cross, we think PAIN and feel guilty about it. We make up all kinds of silly religious penances and observances with the mistaken notion that they somehow honor or even 'atone' for the Cross. Thus we twist and yet reflect, the underlying Justice Conclusion of the above bullets: It's UNFAIR to get Someone So Gorgeous, for free. A Cost is needed.
• Aha. That's how He thinks, and that's why the Cross is a JOY to Him, Heb12:2. To See Gorgeous Father for Free, to live a life totally DEPENDING on the Holy Spirit for Free.. is unfair.
• "I need a Cost, Dad!" He cries every day while down here, theme of Hebrews 5, and Luke 22:15-20 quotes Him on it, thus instituting the Eucharist. Greek verb eucharistew means THANK YOU, DAD! He's doing the thanking FOR the Cross, and BEFORE the Cross, because Dad will GIVE Him the Cross, again Luke 22:15-20.
• So, Dad gave Him a Cost as Large as His Soul, and to Enlarge His Soul forever, megalunw baby, yireh zera ya'arik yamim, Isa53:10! Children from He Who Had No Descendants, Isa53:8+Isa53:10+Isa53:12+Isa54:1!
• Hebrews 2 goes ballistic over this, building the letter around Isa53 and Jer31, showing how the first covenant got converted ON the Cross, to the new covenant Church is used to execute at a Higher Royal Upgrade Israel never even dreamed of. Which benefits Israel FAR more, than the original 'new covenant' even promised! For God never lives up to your expectations. He EXCEEDS them!
• Paul goes ballistic about it too, in each of his letters. Paul, the Christ-matured poster boy of the NT, himself went happily wacko wanting the same thing, see Romans 9:3 and Philippians 1:21, 3:8-11 (Translations of Phili3:11 are appalling, even blasphemous, making it look like Paul is doing God some big favor by giving up everything, and even implying that he earns his own resurrection, i.e., that "attain" mistranslation for Greek verb katantanw, which means really "to arrive at a destination", famous Greek cultural verb for "the journey of life", used also in Eph4:13.)

• Christ wanted it. He loved it. He doesn't want it to stop. Pick the thing you most love to do in life (eat, sleep, travel, you-name-it) and do you want anyone to feel guilty that you enjoy it so much? Of course not. Enjoyment discounts pain. Absolute enjoyment absolutely discounts pain. So He enjoyed the Cross, and doesn't want it to end.
• Cross was a Joy to Him while ON it. And He's STILL on it. So, if a Joy while on the Cross the 'first' time, and Omniscient in His Deity and Cycled as Omniscient in His Humanity, what must we conclude? In all the Omniscient/Sharing-With-Father, He always sees His Joy. He in His Humanity always sees it, not simply from human memory, but because the Cross so Enlarged His Soul, He has Total Rapport with Father, even in His Humanity. [My pastor once speculated that maybe Divine and Human Attributes 'blend' in some way, post-Session; but the term is really not the right one; and it's hard to yet know what term better would explain the result. So I'm using the regular Bible term "enlarge" (usu. from auxzanw), and deriving the idea from passages like Heb1 on the result, and John's "the Way the Truth and the Life", which He already was, before the Cross, adding them up.]
• Joy of PAYING. You absolutely adore paying for something you absolutely love to get. Surely you own something that you love so much, the cost of it is a joy to you, and you'd pay for it over and over again, without hesitation. That's how Christ feels about the Cross, per Bible.
• To Him, it is a Birthing Joy, a fact stressed often by Isaiah and the NT writers. If you can, memorize Isa53 in the Hebrew, and keep on reciting it, the meanwhile pondering how often Isaiah stresses the Birthing Purpose of the Cross with every ounce of Divine Wit. For example, In Isa53:11's Hebrew me amal [out-from-the-pregnancy-labor] naphesho [of His Soul] , yireh [He will see] yisbah [He will be satisfied]. The "me" there is the quintessential BIRTHING preposition, min.
• Isa53 (which starts in 52:13) is all about the birthing of our salvation from the rape of the Cross. Preposition min's root meaning is OUTSIDE and BESIDE; so it also has an adjectival/adverbial usage of BEYOND, above-and-beyond, incomparable (so anything 'beside' it is dead, inferior, not-worth-comparing). So it's used to distinguish the dead fetal biology, absent soul, versus the real you, which is a soul God makes at birth, pattern of Gen2:7. So Isaiah (and the NT writers, for that matter) plays on this essential Outside Source Of Your Origin being God -- to show how sins got paid for on the Cross -- via using m-sounds constantly in the verses. Very clever. Note the m's here in Isa52:14: "ka'asher shamemu aleKA rabbim, ken mishhat me'ish mareyhu, wa toaro me'beni adam." That 9-8-9 syllable structure is so full of multilayered meanings -- one of the most gruesome verses in all the OT, and yet one explaining His Hypostatic Union, the best. Beyond Human, what was done to Him Who was Beyond Human. OUTSIDE Human. Born from human, not from inside, but from outside. Since all the humans are spiritually dead, even while living. Just like a fetus is soulishly dead, even though mindless biological tissue in the making. (Bible uses this pregnancy labor metaphor a lot in Job and Psalms, maybe elsewhere too, I didn't check all the many references.)

• For Evidence Testing displays THE THANKSGIVING NATURE of Truth's Meaning versus vanity's. More specifically, Truth Meaning Bonding TO vanity and making 'kids' out from it. Unity. COMMunity. COMMUNION, get it? Communion is the spiritual version of spouses making love, The Reason Why God Invented Sex -- to COMMunicate how relationship with God should be: totally intimate, Never Divorced. No matter what 'interference', pleasant or unpleasant, exists. Thus we barren, bear children. Isa54:1! From this, the DDNA webseries was born (beginning with DDNA.htm).

• Remember, the Real Goal of God Is To Forge TOGETHERNESS (III, IV) out of what is dead and separated. That's what the Cross does, so that's how the spiritual life is lived, Connecting Doctrine to everything else. Which Father sees, 'smells' and 'ahhhhhs' over, sweet savor, Second Facet of Part IVb. That which was sterile, separate, small, rejecting Him is Now Connected through Christ. Through the believer who passes Evidence Testing. Forever. So what once had no meaning, now has meaning. What was not-my-people (see Hosea), is now my-people. Those who were once too far away because Rejecting the learning of Him, are now Near Due to Pleroma believers. In short, the very resultant structure of the Cross itself is likewise the paradigm of not only the spiritual life itself, but how everyone 'connects'. Forever.

• Satan's Matt4 rationales essentially contend that the Cross is sadistic, a meaningless WASTE. So Dependence on God (V) is a bad thing. Probably what felled him, as Part I's brown font depicted, was his advance knowledge that the Son would take on Humanity and pay for sins. To Satan, this would be an ignoble act of God. Why would God so denigrate Himself? Something must be wrong; God cannot be God and do such a foolish thing. So every strategy, tactic, item in all Satan&Co. are and do, mocks. Ridicule/Derision is the central message in every idea/action they sponsor. (Appendix covers this Satanic signature characteristic in much more detail, with many examples.)

Can't divorce Doctrine, and still Love. 1Cor13 is all about this. So TRUE WASTE of your spiritual life, is Works. Paul deftly proves this, in 1Cor13:1-3, where he contrasts true love for Christ, which is Bible-in-your head (called "Love" in Chapter 13, the "Head" being drolly referenced by huperbole in 12:31), verses 4-13. Versus, pseudo-love in those first 3 verses. Pseudo-love, there, is expressed in terms of getting all high on self due to some (now obsolete) spiritual gift, or due to spectacular good deeds. Real Love is contrasted. [Agape in Bible's Greek always means VIRTUE-LOVE, not mere human love. Term has a whole lot of Greek etymology on its use, and Paul's Greek in 1Cor13 is ATTIC DRAMA, so the Attic Drama meaning of agape (the Virtue Love) is what he means. My pastor spent nearly every day in Bible class harping on this message from 1997 forward, though he himself didn't recognize it until 2000. But once you hear his recognition and go back to those taped live classes, you realize God birthed it in him back in 1997 -- well, maybe as far back as 1985, in the Ephesians series, when covering the Fallaise-Argentan gap as a metaphor of Doctrine and Motivation growing in you. In one of my other sites I have the exact lesson number.]

Misspelling is a form of mismatching to cause confusion or divorce, and is the cleverest of lawyer/terrorist tricks. Something which almost makes it, but doesn't. If a rivet for an airplane fuselage isn't tooled exactly, it will loosen in flight, and the plane can fall apart. Loosen confidence just a little, and the person falls apart -- that's what Iago did to Othello, which of course is what Satan did to the woman in the Garden. For by clever 'mispelling' of the facts, you destroy; hence rush pell-mell into disaster and true shame.

So key misinterpretations or 'misspellings' of Bible verses will make your spiritual life fall apart. That, too, is a type of litmus -- in reverse. Hence the need to continually audit one's faith for errors, rather than standing pat and getting huffy about how good you are. The religious types and those who make a big stink about sin, are DIVORCED from God, just like the Pharisees: forever misspelling the spiritual life, and all their works will be burnt up at the Bema. If they are even saved, that is -- for typically these people feel somehow the Lord's Own Words in John 3:16 are inaccurate or abstruse -- He, the best communicator of all time! -- because they ADD verbs or otherwise dispute that Gospel. And their substitute gospels save exactly no one, Cain's vegetables! For it's only "Believe" which saves -- a thing you can only do with your HEAD dummy, since the heart has no thought, duh.

Just like, the Byzantine scribe who misspelled kauchesomai in order to ADD works, in 1Cor13:3. Which scribal er-rogance proves the point, DUE TO the misspelling. [L1631-6 92SD covers this verb.] In these MSS (on BibleWorks software), the verb is variantly spelt

• "kauchesomai", or
• (Tischendorf only) "kauchthesomai", or
• "kauthesomai".
• With ONLY the "ch", the verb is usually translated "to boast", and is in fact a word Paul uses a lot;
• with ONLY the "th", the verb is translated "to self-immolate" -- but THAT word would have to be in the future passive subjunctive, a tense which did not exist until Byzantine Greek, a few centuries after Paul.
• So, it can't belong to the original Autograph, even though the anti-Biblical practice of self-immolation as a form of penance was still very common in Paul's day. The first spelling is more in keeping with the time of writing, with what Paul is saying, so most new translations recognize the first spelling.
• However, the fake word (kauthesomai) is still supported, even by a famous, now-deceased, etymologist named Carl Ludwig Schmidt (sp), on the grounds that since the practice of self-immolation was popular in Paul's day, that [fake Byzantine] kauthesomai "possibly" should be accepted (per Kittle, Vol.III). Wow.

  So, we know that "kauthesomai" is a scribal error, made during the time Byzantine Greek was commonly spoken. (By the way, a "ch" looks like our modern "X", and is pronounced like a soft "k". By contrast, "th" looks like a typed zero with a hyphen inside, and there's very little throughput with the tongue, so it sounds almost like a hard "t". If spoken, the change in letters would be barely discernible.) Subsequent copies made from that one MSS. would continue the errant spelling. Our three best MSS., known as Codices Aleph (Sinaiticus), A (Alexindrinus) and B (Vaticanus) use the "X", not the "th".

  My pastor makes a big stink about how this word was deliberately adulterated by a Byzantine scribe. Since it is extremely rare for my pastor to say such a thing, I spent more time on the issue than normally. He says that the scribe did this thing because he was legalistic, and didn't like Paul's statement that people gave away their goods or got themselves martyred just so they could boast. I had to think about my pastor's contention for awhile, because I didn't see how the meaning would much change: then, the light bulb went on.

  Here's how I think the meaning changes: as is, the verse plainly says that good deeds like these are ONLY motivated by self-attention, parallel to the verses where the Lord warns folks not to imitate the Pharisees. So, they do NOT have agape (virtue-love, in Greek drama &Biblical meaning); so the one doing them gains nothing: the Deeds and Love are Mutually Exclusive. However, as altered, the verse appears to say that if one also has agape, then the deeds are valid; so, the deeds can evidence agape, or are valid on their own, irrespective of motive. Wrongo. Motive is Everything. The guy who volunteers to give away all he has is but another flashy Ananias; the guy who volunteers to burn himself up in the middle of the street (or equivalent martyrdom) isn't doing it to honor God, either. For, no verse in BIBLE commands or commends such stuff; but these and like practices were popular. Rather, Bible condemns such stuff everywhere; Zech 7, the Lord's statements against the Pharisees, and don't-tell-your-right-hand-what-your-left-is-doing, are but three well-known categories of passages.

  Note how satanically clever: by simply changing one letter, the scribe REVERSES the entire meaning of the verse. Instead of 'giving all, giving body in order to boast, thus having no agape'; the CHANGE says 'giving all, giving body to be burned BUT WITHOUT agape', gains nothing. [Nerd note: "de" has several uses, but unfortunately is usually mistranslated "and" or "but". The essence of "de" is TRANSITION, not necessarily (though often), contrast; meaning, there is a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP between the clause/sentence BEFORE the word, and what follows AFTER. So "thus" is a good translation of "de" here, because Paul's clauses are hypothetical, and this is the third one; so it is to be presumed that there is a CAUSE-EFFECT link, since the expected answer is worthlessness; plus, obviously the one who boasts in himself isn't loving God at that moment. Moreover, vv.1-2 are all really boasting problems, which is partly (heh: play on 'meros', keyword in Chap12:14ff) why Paul brings them up. You change the translation as you think best: I did my best so far, here. My pastor seems to regard "de" as a "but" for the giving-all portion of the double protasis, because on rare occasions (viz., Barnabas) one can do this thing from the right motivation. The idea of using "de" as "thus" for the second protasis he did not mention.]

  So that little "th" adulteration thus DENIES that to give all, be martyred, is ever done to boast! For, what human onlooker would conclude that the one giving, being burned, didn't love? Do you see how God is maligned, here? Paul's point that Love, not works, counts is REVERSED into, spectacular works count -- thus the entire theme he's developing since 1Cor12:14 is negated, contradicted, fuzzed up, confused. Same kind of screwup folks make out of James 2:18ff. Takes satanic help, to be THAT clever at reversing a meaning. Takes continued satanic help to keep on motivating Bible publishers even through today, to accept and translate so obvious an adulterated verb. Of course, Satan's tactics always employ Obviousness and Reversal. (Appendix has much more on how to detect the satanic signature in anything.)

  Now: look at How Great God Is. Didn't He know from eternity past that some scribe would spell the word one way, and another, another? That subsequent scholars would be too legalistic, scared, harried, or lazy, like today's scholars (welcome-to-the-human-race), to check against other Manuscripts? Good ol' boy network: just keep on repeating an error, so the prior work isn't discredited, rather than own up to a mistake and fixing it like you would a broken window, doo-doo happens. Tischendorf, in particular, spent a bunch of time collecting original-language manuscripts (while Joseph Smith was translating his 'plates', ironically enough). During this process, "TIS" made what he felt were needed corrections for scribal errors. So, look: TIS included both letters, both the "ch" and the "th", though surely he knew no Greek verb had such spelling. What's even harder to understand is how an etymologist could support what he had to know was a deliberate adulteration which had to be done during the Byzantine era (475AD et seq.), on the spurious grounds that the practice of self-immolation was common in Paul's day (and is still common now, i.e., among some Asian Buddhists). As the Appendix link illustrates in great detail, this kind of adulterative rationalizing is a hallmark characteristic of satanic influence: process Scripture into caricatures of the truth, to deride God. So these people cannot be blamed for missing it. We are all vulnerable. Remember the "Apathy" section in the MEGA table of Part IVc ("STOP OMEGA" link)? Apathy is all about, fitting in with PEOPLE. God is just a designer label, the real god is people. So that's why this error never gets corrected. Sick, huh.

  Why would God allow such a thing? Wouldn't someone lose faith because, oh, there's this scribal adulteration in the Infallible and Inerrant Word of God! Won't God subject His Own Word to ridicule and criticism because of this error? How could God allow one of the greatest Biblical scholars of history to use both letters? How could God allow a very famous etymologist to insist on using a bogus word, as God's? Seems like Satan's right -- something's wrong with God.

  Oh, yeah, right. Do you get what communication God accomplished with this 'mistake'? There's no Greek verb of that spelling (which has both letters); there's no "kauthesomai" in ANY dialect of Greek at or before the time Paul wrote Corinthians: nor will there be, until (maybe) Constantine (or later). But there WAS indeed a practice of self-immolation in Paul's day, to gain fame, money, and a (false) sense of forgiveness (usu. for sexual sins).

  So, idou, Watch What God Does With Error! Both verbs end up being reviewed! Boasting by self-immolation! What a great way to 'marry' look-alike verbs which Each Negate The Spiritual Life, the very point Paul makes in the passage: Christian, beware! You misspell the spiritual life if you do the works! For, if you are divorced from Virtue-Love, you gain nothing but hot air (boasting); then, you really do burn/waste all at the Bema (see 1Cor3). Now tell me, is any human that clever? Do you see how even the smallest mistake is used by God? So how much more do you think He's using every ounce of suffering you or anyone else ever has had or ever will have, especially since He's been stuck knowing that suffering, since forever past and future? Because, Nothing Is Divorced From Infinity. Not now, not ever.

So notice how, despite the very common knowledge of the error in 1Cor13:3, Satan's grunting version of Christianity is nevertheless the common norm: hustle pain hustle oooh hustle ahhh. Blither clang glow oomph boast flame; ohhhhh, how spiritual I am, giving away everything to the poor -- Barnabas, eat your heart out! OOOOOh, boast flame; Zarmolchegos, eat your heart out! Inflame burst boast hotair pride vacuum blow up! Nothing. Outhen.

Neat word, "outhen" (1Cor13:2). It's Attic Greek Drama and is used in the predicate accusative, the strongest possible way to express an attribute of the noun to which the predicate refers. NOTHING. From nothing to nothing. Nothing as subject, I. Nothing as object, me. So all the works, all the self-sacrifice, all Satan's preferences do what? Make me be still nothing. Make me gain still nothing. So it's even funnier that Paul switches to koine for "nothing" in 1Cor13:3 ("ouden"), still predicate accusative. Heck, all this sacrifice doesn't even gain anything common! My pastor emphasized that "ouden", because it uses the dental "d", is more guttural than the Attic "outhen" used in verse 2. So, my corollary: works, only buy throat sounds.

Granted, all children start out this way. However, absent growth in the FIRST COMMANDMENT one eventually hardens (Bible term), from childhood into.. bullyhood. This hardening makes for a prickly, tit-for-tat, intolerant, and above all hypocritical personality. The surface might be sweetness-and-light, but its shallow veneer wipes off quickly. Loveless morality just can't maintain a smile unless it's pasted on. It's not that most Christians (and Jews, for that matter) are insincere. They are very sincere -- but it's "zeal without knowledge". So, imbalance. So, the works-stress, the self-worth stress, the emotionality-stress, the apathy; in all cases, one inevitably ends life in bitterness and soul shrinkage -- or, insane fantasy. So, the extreme pleasure of Knowing God, which was supposed to Come First, is unexperienced and unloved, having been substituted with body-things. So the extreme pleasure of Knowing God First, is not the account of Christianity written in our history books. Instead we find that Rah-Rah God and Dour God MASKS, predominate the Christian Apostacy Play since 96AD.

The list of fodder-foibles goes on and on, tragically: incredibly, since these were folks who had a version of Greek for a native tongue! They couldn't figure out if God made heavens and earth (what, no Gen1?), or if the angels did it; they couldn't tell if man had free will after the Fall; they couldn't tell if salvation was permanent(!), either. And so it goes. In fact, they couldn't tell very much from their Bible studies, at all. Their body-preoccupations got sooo bad they had to convene endless councils to FIGURE OUT what "God" means, and if God is Trinity: what, did 2 Cor13:14 disappear? It got sooo bad they had to figure out whether the Lord was also God: what, did Philippians 2:5-10, John's use of "ho own" and all of John 1, not to mention "Before Abraham was I am" -- did all these verses disappear, too? Weirdest of all, to them the Hypostatic Union was an enigma: they had to figure out how many wills(!) Christ had, since He had two natures (yeah, and two hands and two feet; body and soul, too) -- so, maybe He was two persons? Yikes!

Really, now: does the 'will' of the left hand ever feed to the right one? NO. So when the Whole Person Lord Jesus Christ wills something, He wills it AS God (right hand) or AS Humanity (left hand) or AS both (both hands). Do you remember the verse about not 'telling' your right hand what your left hand is doing? Well, The Humanity had to keep on Willing that Deity's Power (i.e., knowledge) Stay Separate From Humanity. So in answer to the needless yet ancient conundrum, was Christ as Human, AWARE of His Deity.. yes, dummy! That's why it was Harder For Him To Live As A Human Being, than we will ever know! If you had a billion dollars in your unlocked closet, beside which you ate and slept and worked, 24/7 -- but had to live as if the money WASN'T there -- that money's AVAILABILITY isn't the more tempting?

Sheesh, we Christians were Scriptural dolts back then, and not much better now! For this stupid debate goes on, even today! Look how obvious is the answer:

• Will is not knowledge, but a separate faculty.
• So He had to keep on WILLING Not to Peek or Use His Deity;
• at the same time, He had to keep on WILLING to Hold the Universe Together Since He is God, Hebrews 1:3. My pastor stressed that previous sentence and verse so many times, I can't forget it.
• You surely know what it's like to keep on willing to hold certain knowledge at bay, in favor of something else:
• it's called CONCENTRATION,
• which SHUTS OUT,
• as well as FOCUSES ON.
• So now when you review Isa53trans.htm and see all the stress on knowledge, concentration, soul function there, you can see the Hupostasis better: ken mishhat me ish -- devastated BEYOND HUMAN (me ish), because He is Beyond Human, wa toaro me bene adam (His Incarnation, Beyond Human). [all those "from the womb" and "in the womb" would be most clearly rendered either "from birth", or "from BEYOND the womb", so people would get the wordplay of Hupostasis in that gruesome setting of Isa52:14. "me" is "min" preposition when prefixed.]

• Which fact of One Person One Will Two Natures, Matt4 makes easily clear: it's NOT a temptation if Christ CANNOT DO what Satan says! Duh.
• It was thus a temptation to Humanity, but not to Deity, to violate that separation: which Satan counted on, in Matt4!
• So the 'left hand' had to Keep On Willing Not To Know Or Use The 'Right Hand' For His Own Benefit,
• but yes, to use 'the right hand' to keep on holding the entire universe together;
• to do an occasional miracle to Show His Deity if Father ordered it.
What's so hard to understand? Do you know, people killed each other over the definition of His Hypostatic Nature? Sheesh! [Again, think of His God-man nature as a problem of having a bizillion dollars you own and keep at hand; but you only spend it occasionally, and never to benefit yourself, even when you are tortured: how could anyone resist such temptation? Of course, I should admit that until I thought about what I learned In Bible Class a bizillion times, I didn't understand the Hypostatic Union, either: just like every other dufus on the planet. What a difference 1Jn1:9 and being under the Spirit makes!]

See? Those Church forebears which today's institutionalized religions so laud, were often retarded babies. So, they engaged in body-thinking, Energizer-Bunny controlled: rather than using 1Jn1:9, being controlled by The Spirit, and growing up spiritually. So, they were spiritual retards. Pure Satan-fodder. So of course by Justinian's day, persecution was no longer the evil provenance of ecumenism and government: the people themselves mobbed the Circus Maximus and slaughtered each other over their differing definitions. In God's Name, of course! Talk about true waste!

So, spiritual black holes that they became, they sucked in all the world to believe that their retarded, sick idea of the Bible was 'holy' and 'true'. If so holy and true, why is the history of the Bible under Christianity one long series of kidnaps and breakouts? Oh, can't let the masses actually have the Bible for themselves, must keep it chained to the altar for the elites! Yeah, and that occasional servant girl or monk or Duke/Duchess who got to dust some Bible or own a copy of it, being curious, got to reading.. and quietly grew to Pleroma. Despite all the best satanic kidnapping schemes ever devised. God's History books are the opposite of ours. Most of the 'famous' people we accredit in history will turn out to be the least important.. and if they are in heaven, they will be busily saying, "I TOLD you not to credit me!" Laughing, all of us. So we get the last laugh, we pitiful creatures: for He Laughed on the Cross, Heb12:2!

The world has been suffering from their same apostacy, ever since. Satan's not stupid: the same ploys worked in the Garden to make Isha and Adam fall, so still work now. Upgraded, of course: by Matt4's appeals! (Appendix is almost wholly about this topic, so you can empirically test whatever-in-the-world and see Satan's gamesmanship play live, for yourself.)

It becomes a question then, of whether 'you' or 'me' will be on that Roster, at the Bema. We've now seen that:

• Evidence Testing Combat means REMAINING in the Word which is a RESTING, rather than arResting in works.
• This REMAINING means Bible-in-your-head aggressively cycles 24/7, because you LOVE Him. So the thinking OF Him is fluent and you see Him, 24/7.
• The pressure of everything else being too small and hitting you tries to make you DIVORCE, but you don't.
• For to you, the THANKSGIVING Meaning is all-important, and you don't 'misspell' it, so you don't unwittingly divorce the spiritual life, either.
• So you get WASTED by Satan and by God, to maximally pressure you to quit. But you don't.
• Instead, the WASTING makes you even more THANKFUL.
• So you are PREGNANT with His Thinking, demonstrating fertility.
• So God rules you should be CROWNED.

We've just seen the Impact of Evidence Testing on the Church believer. So how does Evidence Testing in Church, compare to believers under other spiritual covenants? The following links cover much of the answer to that question:

• Part II's "So What" Evidence Test section,
• Part II's "Christ's Evidence Testimony",
• Part II's "Covenant Properties" section,
• Part III, which is wholly dedicated to the topic, with special Trial focus in
• Part III's Third Reason for Invisibility,
• Part III's Third Reason for Royalty,
• Part III's Fourth Reason for Invisibility, and
• Part III's Fourth Reason for Royalty. Finally,
• Part IVa's Bridal Contract Table summarizes the differences between Israel's and the NT covenants.

Church is unique, because Christ is Unique. Hence the format of development and testing have unique features. We inherit His Spiritual Life which He invented down here, even as He invented a then-future entity, Church -- to become His Future Bride. As a result, the pattern differences between our covenant versus others', parallel the differences between His Unique Covenant, and everyone else's: this pattern differential is a big theme in the Book of Hebrews, especially in Chapters 9-10. There, the author takes great pains to parallel the significant features of the Temple and Levitical Priesthood, versus what Christ is and accomplished. For the main theme in Hebrews is how the covenant changed, why, and how the Trial Witness of Church is thus unique and a precondition for the continuance of Time itself. Whole book can be considered a treatise on why the Rapture precedes the Trib (Heb11:40), as a consequence.

So our format of Evidence Testing will be like that of His Covenant, not like others'. Again, the above links elaborate, but one could summarily classify the format similarities and differences, thus:

• Our ET: Scope-of-Relationship to God, Unlimited. We Church get the opportunity to know God more intimately than any other group of humans in history, past or future. Forever. Theirs: Scope limited, because Christ's soul had not been completed, so a 'copy' could not be made of it, John 3:34, 7:39, 1Pet2:21, Hebrews 10, 1Cor13:9-12. [The 1Cor passage was taught this way, since 1Cor13 is about the Head being completed, by my pastor, year 2000. Also, he's taught on this scope differential extensively, in 1985 Ephesians and 1992 Spiritual Dynamics series. It's a frequent running topic. '77 Romans and '72 Hebrews exegetical series are also quite helpful.]
• Our ET: Royally-Ruling active, cycling Bible. Theirs: passive, 'ruled' faith demonstrations.
• Our ET: a Qorban, Priestly, EXCLUSIVE Intimacy with Christ superceding all else in life, including life itself. Theirs: a besidedness of God first, and the rest of life, too. In other words, Passing Evidence Testing for them proved God was the Most Important PART of their life, more important than all else. But for us, He is the Only Life -- there is no other 'part', Phili1:21. That's why we are to be Rulers. We have no other life. Thus you see the Scope Difference. The main reason Christians who advance into Pleroma flunk, is that they fail to accept the EXCLUSIVITY. Yet that's the payoff, as we just saw in the above green "Payoff" table. Above all, a 'cross' renders the Relationship to Him, exclusive. For us, it's 100% or zero, "bringing every thought into captivity", 2Cor10:5. So Church believers -- 99.99% of them -- don't accept those terms, so they will be far away from Him, though forever happy in heaven.
  This doesn't mean you go join a monastery or live like a hermit. It's how you THINK about everything in your life. If you want the 100%, your thinking changes to become that way, and no matter what you are doing , it's "unto the Lord", the quintessential expression of the 100% standard in the NT. Part III's Third Reason links above, cover this in more detail.

• Our ET: prosperity, really. The outward adversity is there to unbalance. Theirs: adversity, really. Their outward prosperity was there to unbalance.
• Our ET: kenosis, doing nothing when you can do something of yourself. Theirs: patience under helplessness, else doing despite maximum pressure against doing.
• Our ET: invisible, not tactile, thought-related. Theirs: visible and tactile, body-related. Thought drove them, too; expression was body action.
• Our ET: abstract, crafting principles and then actions from them. Theirs: concrete, actions from a more-limited set of given principles, dreams, visions.
• Our ET: subtle, sophisticated, internal like Matt4. Theirs: blatant, relatively uncomplicated (though stark), external.
• Our ET: wealth of revelation, in writing. Theirs: relative to us, a poverty of revelation.

Here the macro Trial issues raised or addressed, are covered. Only Angelic Trial terms govern any pan-covenant continuities within Evidence Testing. Victorious Witness is consequently a God-First-and-Only Testimony, with everything else being a "So What?" as explained in Part II. The needs vary, what bothered these believers varied, their progressive docking of everything under Him also varied in time and content; but in every case God was #1 to them.

Covenant Design Issues are used by Satan to allege God has erred. Trial has been about the Propriety of God's Design of creation, with Satan always alleging that Design is flawed, wrong, even immoral. Covenants and their tests roughly divide over the following Essential Design parameters:

1. Full/Perfectly-Balanced Knowledge (angels, Garden couple) versus Progressive Knowledge (post-Fall). At issue is whether the AMOUNT or TYPE of knowledge inhibits spiritual growth or love for God. Conversely, whether man is benefitted by the covenant, or is given an unfair set of conditions.
   • In a state of perfection, knowledge is full and perfectly balanced to creature nature and 'size'. It thereafter grows, shrinks or shapes, only by creature consent. Idea was to begin with a particular knowledge base which would preserve freedom yet not tempt by ignorance.
     • Angels. All created at once, full knowledge, highest abilities. None of these features prevented Satan&Co. from rebellion. Rather, they were too enamored of their abilities.
     • Garden. Smaller creatures, mankind, not created at the same time but also of perfectly-balanced knowledge and adults. Didn't stop them from deciding to sin, so didn't make them happy, either.
     • Trial Answer: being perfectly knowing, and having perfect environment, doesn't help one stop sinning, and doesn't make one happy, irrespective of creature 'size'.

   • Post-Fall, Progressive knowledge. By contrast, this starts by nothing and per covenant, is granted a certain amount of knowledge-of-God within the covenant parameters. Each succeeding covenant received greater 'deposits' of knowledge and higher status than pertained prior, as we saw in Part II. Church, being but an insertion due to the exigency of Israel's rejection, is the highest of these covenants; afterwards the covenant reverts to the previous 'highest', the Mosaic Law, since the covenant to Israel resumes post-Church.
     • Adam-Abram. Priesthood was head of family. Limited ritual used to teach covenant properties; material prosperity hallmarked successful spirituality; bloodline of the Christ developed within successful Witnesses only. Limited relationship with God, therefore, though contact was direct. Gen5 and 11 roster demonstrated God Alone mattered despite the limitations, demon pressure, and horrific violence in the world among mankind. Covenant ends with Abraham receiving his covenant. Inter alia (see the roster in Hebrews 11), Star Witnesses were Adam and Jared (their sons were 490 years apart), Enoch, Noah (with whom God made a separate covenant on behalf of the human race).

     • Abraham-Moses. Priesthood were the patriarchs descended from Abraham and beginning with him. Covenant ends with the Exodus. Higher version of the previous covenant, plus the following added hardship: acceptance of prophesied suffering of slavery imposed on Abraham's descendants, was a precondition for continuing the bloodline to the Christ through an eventual priest-nation of sons. Despite this added precondition, the Witnesses demonstrated that God Alone mattered. Star Witnesses were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, for God severally contracted covenant continuance with each of them. With Moses, He made the priesthood and nationhood contract which eventuated in Israel; when they rebelled, Moses twice refused the offer to wipe Israel out and start over with him, Deut 9:14 & Num14:12ff.

     • Israel. Levitical priesthood, Mosaic Law for the nation. The priesthood and the Law were used as tutors to train the nation for a potential added contract of kata-Melchizedek 'Bride', as well. Breaking from the past familial pattern of covenants, the priesthood and the Law applied to the nation, only. Extensive rituals, knowledge, and promises given to teach covenant properties; also, extensive material prosperity and adversity clauses, for this was to be the nation from which the Christ would come; this was to be the nation to represent Him to the world. Covenant abrogates with the Crucifixion due to the nation's rejection; but a 40-year grace period followed, and the covenant will again resume at the 2nd Advent. Despite the added hardships which accompanied the exalted covenantal parameters, the Witnesses demonstrated that God Alone mattered. Star Witnesses were David, writers of the OT canon and some of the prophets.

     • Christ.
       • Two kingships, one priesthood. Son of David kingship, and kata-Melchizedek King-Priesthood. Flagship book on this is Hebrews.
       • Son of David Kingship includes all the previous covenantal inheritances (i.e., from Noah forward), so all those covenants VEST IN CHRIST. The one to David is separate from Israel, and is directly about Christ, which explains why Israel's rejection didn't invalidate His Son of David kingship (see 2Sam7).
       • The other, kata-Melchizedek Covenant, is Isa53+1Tim2:5+Ps110 -- to make sons for Father, requiring the Cross. Hardest and highest of all covenants to have, sudden-death of contract if even one thought of sin occurs.
       • The Christ would have to INVENT the parameters, because as God-Man it would be His right to refuse any part of the contract, Heb Chaps 1-10, 12:2 (see also Isa52:13, 53:10-11).
       • His Melchizedek Covenant is wholly separate from and light-years higher than the Mosaic Law (which allowed for sin). Everything about its construction is INVISIBLE due to the Cross Payment Nature; and ROYAL, due to it being a Battlefield Royal Patent for defeating Satan; so all its parameters are likewise invisible and royal.
       • Yet the Law was used as a tutor, just as for Israel.
       • Covenant received a codicil of Church during the Incarnation, which was attached to the kata-Melchizedek King-Priesthood FOR FATHER, Matt16:18, John 17:20-21, Eph1.
       • By contrast, the Levitical priesthood memorializes and serves Christ Himself, so He is not a priest in it; rather, He is King of Israel forever.
       • His Covenants never end. For despite the beyond-human hardships which accompanied His exalted contractural parameters -- magnified beyond reckoning, with the added cost of Church and the consequent addition of billions of future humans who will not believe -- This Star Witness of All History demonstrated that God Alone matters, even if one is MADE SIN as a substitute for all the human race.
     • Church. "Bride" codicil in the kata-Melchizedek Covenant for "Christ", requiring the same Royal Spiritual Life as He crafted, down here. For Church, sinlessness is not required, but rather 1Jn1:9, absent which usage, spiritual life is comatose until death. Spiritual development takes the same form, has the same issues as for Christ: Church is "Bride", and a Bride must be kitted out with a station and dowry fit for her Royal Husband. So the legated 'cross' paradigm she inherits 'pays' for the requisite spiritual thinking maturity at Christ's Level, to result in a hierarchical federation of king-priestly kingdoms in eternity (Eph3:15-19, 4:12-13, Col 1:27). Church covenant never ends. Star Witnesses are Paul and some of the other folks rostered in the NT, plus those post-Canon's completion in 96AD whose names we will know at the Bema.

     • Trial Answer: progressive learning and ever-higher covenants do not improve or worsen the results, do not make man more or less happy. Man likewise either wants God or not based on what he does know, or based on his ignorance. To the degree he wants to know God, he is happy.

2. Visible (Angels, Garden, all OT, Trib, Mill) versus Invisible (Church). At issue is whether visibility better or worse benefits man versus invisibility. The default is visibility, for until Christ and after Church, the covenants are all marked by visibility. Since the covenant parameters were outlined above with respect to the conveyance of knowledge, here we'll just summarize the respective roles and problems which visibility vs. invisibility, present.
   • Visibility creates its own problems in RELATIONSHIPS.
   • Makes it easier to believe,
   • but also makes it easier to want the 'goodies' which come from that visibility, rather than the One providing them (i.e., miracles).
   • Relationships under Visibility are often hampered by it, so relationships become more limited, even shallow, as the 'goodies' distract, i.e., you're spending so much time on the rituals or ogling the benefits, the underlying meaning is forgotten.
   • The flipside is that Visibility makes the relationship more shocking. The in-your-face quality of feeling, seeing is a kind of pressure.

   • By contrast, Invisibility is like "absence", so its abstract nature makes it harder to learn, know, love Someone you can't see; harder to relate to that Person, whether there are 'goodies' or not. So first God went the "visible" route with respect to His covenants, and now it's the "invisible" route. Christ's Covenantal period (1st Advent) was an exact hypostatic hybrid of both Visibility and Invisibility: this meant He had the worst and best of both.

     Trial Answer: Neither visibility nor invisibility improve or worsen the results, nor is man happier with or without. Man just wants God or does not, and wanting God is what makes man happy.

3. Perfect (Angels, Garden, Mill) versus Imperfect (OT, Church, Trib) Outer Environment. At issue here: does perfect environment aid or impede obedience? The breakdown of the problems are roughly the same as with Visibility versus Invisibility. Trial Answer: perfect INNER environment due to RELATIONSHIP with God alone works.

4. Common (Angels, Garden, all OT, Trib, Mill) versus Royal (Christ, Church) Spiritual Standards. At issue here is the impossibility of finite creatures meeting Divine Standards which by nature are the utmost in Royalty. So previous covenants all required Divine Empowerment at some level; for mankind, the empowerment was provided within a limited corridor of spirituality that man could learn and live on, in harmony with God. Hence the stress on visibility, to enhance that limitation. But with Christ Who is God-Man, only the full Divine Royal Standard would be acceptable. That Standard is in turn legated to Church, and its covenantal properties result in an empowerment level equal to what Christ had in His Humanity. For He did not use either His Deity or His Humanity to execute His Contract (that was a precondition of it). So the Evidence Test for Church centers on whether this same Standard is too high, even as it should have been too high for Christ's Own Humanity. Trial Answer: If God empowers the life, then Divine Standards can be met even by finity whether sinner or perfect -- His God-Man Nature and His Perfection did not 'contribute' to success. Moreover, because of the Cross, the Full Divine Royal Standard has flowthrough which ETERNALLY upgrades all creation under all covenants, to wit:

Hence we Church have a unique role in both history and eternity.

• So our Evidence Testing is Unique.
• It is ROYALLY INVISIBLE, because forever we are to be Royally in charge, from the least to the greatest among us Church.
• A whole federation of kingdoms wholly dedicated to PRIESTHOOD for FATHER.
• Hence as noted in the "Bridal Contract" table in PartIVa, our spiritual life is the REVERSE of the OT's structure.

Hence we get the Evidence Test when we are nearly 'full-term' with His Thinking. Like all Bible metaphors, the pregnancy metaphor is multilayered. First pregnancy, the Cross; that set up the potential for the second, creation; thus the third, our own physical body, hence our births; which set up the next pregnancy, our potential to be saved; hence the next one once saved, to be filled up with His Thinking. Once filled up with His Thinking, it's time to demonstrate Isa54:1! We are sterile, because sinners can't bear God children; but also sterile, because the world can't bear to hear us. So, spiritual parthenogenesis and fusion via the Evidence Test, occurs. Then, heh -- the Wedding (lol, gotta prove fertile, first) Supper. The Bible metaphors keep on rolling, don't they?

So until Christ came, all the tests are trusting IN His Coming, IN His deliverance, IN His Love despite weakness or apparent abandonment. Thus, the one trusting metaphorically depicts being like that future Lamb -- for he is Trusting, yet seemingly led to the slaughter by God: Job is afflicted, Jeremiah is afflicted, Moses is afflicted, David is afflicted, and on and on and on.

So once Christ comes, He Is The Fulfillment, Himself. So, fattens up on the learning, OT-style. So, Crafts from the learning, what we know as the NT style of being filled up, directly from the Holy Spirit -- since HE IS THE FULFILLMENT, not merely looking toward a Fulfillment.

So, next: Church, the extension of Him in a no-want-fulfillment, world (theme of 1Jn, esp. chapter 4:17; see also John Chaps 14-17). We get filled up like HE did, and of course no one wants our meat, either. But God fattens us, then abandons us, then slaughters us, and all that time and because of us, the world can 'eat' of God's blessing, as the "Facets" of PartIVb explained.

So Church, like its Christ, is a Fulfillment: filling HIM up, even as He was filled up with our sins. Even as He was filled up with God's Thinking to PAY for our sins, so we get filled up with His Thinking in order to fill Him up so God will be filled with Sweet Savor Thinking in His 'ears' forever, main theme of Isa53:10-12, Romans 8, all of Ephesians (esp. the quintessential marital analogy in 4:13,16 which is fuzzed over in translation).

Note therefore how our fattened-up learning of Him is absolutely essential to getting this Test, as well as PASSING this Test, the highest in all history, for fallen humans. Again, it's easier to pass the adversity you have, than to pass the PROSPERITY you have. It's easier to pass when you can't do something, than when you can do something. For, the latter kind of test is the harder one, for it is a test of Wealth. Power. Holding. Rev3:11 (corr.trans of clause), "Krátei Ho EXeis", "Rule/Master what you HAVE". Not 'explain' or 'share'. Heh: He tells you how to rule in the very text, for "eXeis" is the command (implicit in kratei): it means, "HAVE! HOLD!"

Ask just about anyone you know what would they do, if they won the lottery? Oh, they'd buy this, and that, and pay off debt, and give money to this and that and...on and on. What kind of activity do they enumerate? Spending. Spend, spend, spend. Do, do, do. NOT! hold, wait, invest! But no one who gets wealth keeps it unless he holds, waits, invests! So a baby Christian, he'd flunk Evidence Testing, for he'd spend it crying, moaning, martyring -- spend, spend, spend. Or, he'd spend it by doing, doing, doing. Not by holding off. Certainly not by being quiet, like a little lamb!

So Christians who hustle in activism will never actually get the true Evidence Test. They are too immature. So, they spend. They choose to squander their spiritual time-to-learn assets off-balance sheet, as Enron (allegedly) did: 'in flashy 'works' partnerships, rather than in the Son's Mind (their Employer)! So, of course they will go into debt and become bankrupt. Choked seeds (Luke 8), they didn't burrow into the soil of the Word, so they didn't produce anything but a crop of tares, weeds, a multiplier tax upon mankind. So of course, they will never vest in their Evidence/Ruler escrows (#IV). They are a shame to Christ, for they fail Matt4, and call it "virtue". Of them it will be said (1Cor4:8), "and I wish you really had become kings, so that we might rule with you!"

Therefore, those who grow up in Christ are used to hasten the Conflict's end. All knowledge-and-power "covenant" levels are displayed; in every generation, not only in this covenantal period/dispensation, but in all others, sufficient witnesses reached (each covenant's version of) spiritual maturity, and Jeshurun/Pleroma (Uprightness/Fullness). So Satan's argument that God made angels/humans defective is proven false. So, Satan's argument that he can better benefit man than God the Son can do, is proven false.

We who passed the Evidence Tests prove to be qualified to receive our Eph1 escrowed Divine Benefit Plan blessings, and will co-rule with Christ. After all, the Trial is about who is the more-qualified to rule, based on the RESULTS of the sovereign programs which ruled us. So we are made INTO RULERS via completion of the spiritual life, and both during and after we are made fit -- our very lives are used to bless others. And, That Blessing Is Superior to the counter-rulers' plans. So, WE get to co-rule, having become superior rulers. IN HIM.

We who fail permanently will stay saved, but the rewards reserved for us in the Divine Benefit Plan, aka "escrow" (my pastor's term), instead 'forfeit' to the Pleroma (see Part IVa and c); for down here, we who fail had spurned our Assets (Corollary 3A, Part III) and instead, spun down into the "sin unto death". (1Jn5:16, capital punishment of the believer, not a loss of salvation -- the context of 1Jn5 makes it clear you can't lose eternal life, only body life.) We become the mass, progeny of the progenitors (Corollary 3B, Part III, Isa53:12): their 'periphery'. Forever. That is the only way we can get any "portion", see. As a RESULT, our "substitute inheritance" is as a passive beneficiary. We are beneficiaries through them, since we are still Royal Family, and Royalty takes care of its own. Like the "infirm cousin" in Part III's Corollary 3B, we will be provided for. But oh, what we missed! In eternity past, to Honor His Son, God had reserved for each of us the title and estates of "King"; we were Crown Princes, down here, for that reason; but, alas, like England's Edward VIII, we abdicated. So, instead, we become but relatives of a King. Forever. That is why John warns us to learn Him so to "have confidence in the day of Evaluation", 1Jn4:17. 'Which of course, is the Rapture (ulp). We'd better get rid of our "Rap the Rapture" (Part IVc) defense mechanisms, then, and Look sharp! Grow up!

As we've seen, the blessing-by-association isn't a "cliff". While we are growing, God compensates the world as it were, for our "down-time" in study. God being God, even the smallest thing He does is infinitely greater than the greatest things we (think we) do. In the "Facets" of Part IVb, we saw the phenomenal blessings God grants the world due to our training down here. Back in Part III, we saw these phenomenal blessings as well, with stress on our status as Crown Princes (i.e., the Corollaries). In Part IVa and IVc, we saw the Divine Benefit Plan valuation system by which He runs it all, and how that plays in history. In Mirroring.htm and its associated worksheet and Word.doc, we saw how TIME ITSELF is granted the world owing to believers who sufficiently mature. Christ Himself could not have arrived on time, but for those grants of time. So how much more Now, does Time depend on us completing? ENTIRELY, as we saw in Part IVa and IVb. We are the very Bridge to Time: Israel's time, which Messiah won back on His Cross, now 2000 years ago.

This shouldn't have to be said, but Christians famously overvalue their works. If they witness, if they give money, if they visit the sick, etc. they imagine that their good deeds really amount to something. What hogwash. You can be nice to someone for years, but just become cross once -- and watch all those nicenesses count for nothing. People aren't so nicely impacted by good deeds as is claimed. It's all eyewash. That is, hogwash. Why? Because being nice, doing nice things -- don't affect the soul. They only entertain the body. Like Satan&Co., like Satan's 'love-plan', the body is likewise fickle. It only 'loves' you for as long as you are nice to it. The minute you stop, you're doubted or hated. "What have you done for me lately?" is body-thinking, and it's endemic in society. So much for 'good deeds', even human-to-human!

God knows that we overestimate our value founded on base-body-thinking, so we underestimate what He does. God knows what really needs mending, so we can grow out of our childish ideas about works, sin, and enjoyment -- mend the soul with Truth, and the recipient will GROW UP. When Christ was here, oh, how the groupies congregated around Him -- yet once He was accused, everyone deserted Him. Everyone became a judas. So if even the Christ's good deeds didn't avail anything, how much less, ours? So: Christ focused on the Word, and kept looking at the Father. Fulfilling the Royal Law (named such after Him, in Jas2:8), He didn't value 'works', but rather the Word. Which sustained Him on the Cross. So the 'little', 'invisible' thing of sticking to study -- leveraged the entire salvation of mankind. For He is not only the Author, but the Finisher of our salvation! (Heb12:2.) With that 'little thing', circulating Bible Doctrine in His Mind. The 'little thing' of study had an uncountable "multiplier effect". That's GOD'S economics.

But also man's, for look: the big, visible helping-the-poor body stuff -- is quickly forgotten by mankind (cf John 2:25). And saves them not at all. What about all the men who have died in war? The thousands upon thousands of soldiers who were slain, or maimed? What did they buy? A plot of land, for maybe a month -- until the next war came along. Go to any spot in Europe; or, to Gettysburg, PA; and realize that the ground you walk on was soaking in blood! What did those soldiers buy? Exhaustion, which now manifests as a lot of stupid Americans blaming each other based on what? Allegations. Accuse accuse accuse. So, did they die in vain?

Do you remember Scipio Africanus? Stilicho? Belisarius? The whole Roman world cheered these guys -- for about a month, during a triumph. That's why the slave standing beside them in their chariots kept chanting, amidst the cheers of the crowds who lined (for example) the Appian way, "sic transit gloria mundi". So the glory of the world passes. And passed them right by, for each of these truly remarkable generals of history were in the end betrayed by the very people they saved; by the jealousy and greed of their own people. Dead. Who remembers them now? They each saved Rome! Who remembers them now? And, how do we remember them? As facts in schoolbooks. Some dumb thing we gotta remember to pass a test. Whoopee. Wow, man's works really do something for the poor, don't they? Yeah, like food: you eat it, and it turns into urine, and feces. Whooppee.

Indeed, "the poor you will have with you always." Why? Because we only care for a moment. That's all our puny bodies can do: care, and then pass it on, into urine and feces. So, we name a building or a park after the one who did those good deeds -- and thus we're free to forget him; and thus we're free to look for the next idiot on which to feed. Dracula looks like Mary Poppins, by comparison! Oh, yeah: we praise anyone who'll give us goodies. Sure, Mr./Ms. Philanthropist, we'll name a building after you: the fact that only the edifice will actually 'remember', goes unsaid. Yeah, baby: like the guy who'll say anything to flatter a girl into the bedroom. Slam-bam-thank-you-m'am. Yep, yep, yep: and we seed the world with Satan's me-be-god/Sugar Daddy contagion, in the process. 'Pure hypocrisy, and no dang good to anyone. Like Paul noted, giving away all you have produces nothing but Satan's noise (1Cor13, 1Tim4:1ff, 2Tim4:1ff).

Only God remembers, because only God is Eternal. Remember the Third Reason for Royalty in Part III? What does Infinity mean, what does Infinity see? Those people are still dying on battlefields: to Him, their deaths are not in vain, because what He always sees, is Bible Doctrine, His Thinking -- applied to them. Christ's Deaths (substitutionary spiritual, and unique physical) are still occurring, to Omniscience. So, not in vain. So, then: what lasts? His Thinking. So, then, to Whom should we live, and how can anyone get anything of lasting value, except from and through HIM? And how can they get anything via us, if we have no Doctrine in us -- which we can't have, unless 1) saved, 2) in the Spirit (1Jn1:9 used), and 3) Learning And Using Scripture Every Second? See: we need, as it were, triune spiritual function. That's how the poor get helped. We need become reproductive, heh. Multipliers of His Thinking, even. Because, nothing else lasts: "Heaven and earth will pass away [sic transit gloria mundi, see also 2Pet2-3], But My Words Will Not Pass Away".[NAS] All else is a perpetually dead battery you must jumpstart each time you wanna drive.

So if we want to bless the world, we need to fatten up on the Word. After all, we're the only ones with spiritual bellies! Unbelievers don't have a spiritual life. So how can they get help from us? We Need To Feed On The Word, so God can justify blessing them: cf 2Tim3:16-17; Deut6:4, 30:11ff; Isa55; Zech7; John 8:31-32; Romans 10:9-10, 12:2-3; Eph3:15-19; Heb4, Jas1-2:8, 1Pet1:7ff, 2Peter1-2,3:18, 1Jn. (Greek of Eph4:11-16 explains how the feeding works via diakonia, fabulous.) Else, we and they will only get Satan's 'food.'

Indeed, what value is any of the thinking in such a soul? Look at almost any philosopher, from Plato to Sartre, and see how they all run in circles. Note how they never begin with God, but rather with man and his world. Even so, they do begin well, have many brilliant and incisive analyses (especially, imo, Plato & Aristotle)..but in the end, because they started their lines of thinking in the wrong place, nothing gets learned. They do get some great insight, but inevitably crash it below tons of rumination, like Descartes did with his exhausted conclusion, "Cogito ergo sum". See? His me-be-god depravity put an "o" where there should have been an "a": "Cogita ergo sum", GOD Thinks Therefore I Exist. 'Sure would have saved him a lot of hand-cramped writing, if he began his determination of whether God exists, with GOD!

Or, look at early philosophers through Aristotle (and onward, really): because they started with physicalities like the elements and "movement", then moved upwards to derive the "ousia" of godness, rather than beginning with the (duh) obvious implication that Absoluteness, Infinity had to be Alive independent of space and time (and hence, "movement" only applies to finity) -- they kept tangling themselves in their intellectual shoelaces (e.g., Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book XII, Chapters 6 and following). So much so, "one" remained a spatial concept, which Aristotle himself continually warned was inaccurate!

Aristotle's reasoning thus is the most tragic. Like everyone else, Aristotle mistakenly starts his analysis with relatives, rather than beginning with the "necessary" properties of Absolute. Granted, Aristotle does this to set his ideas in context with past and current other "thinkers"; so, he gets lost. Oh, how close he comes to recognizing True Infinity, in On the Soul, only to end up tangled, in the distinguishing of sense versus thinking! So that, by the time he gets to Metaphysics Book XII, Chapter 6 and following, he ends up dissolving into a version of the same stupid "circle" and "movement" conclusions about the "Unmoved Mover" who must be Eternal! [Einstein ended up doing this same thing with his Theory of Relativity, I think -- a theory which Aristotle first proposes, that time is but movement. The slowing-up Einstein observed was, I bet, the mathematical hint that true Infinity is Static, and time/space is but a subset of it; a point which the Hebrew Bible has long communicated, by use of its verb "to be". See Thorleif Boman's Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, the "Time" chapters, if you're interested in this topic. Moreover, for the same reason Aristotle is right about light not "travelling" (On the Soul, Book II, Chapter 7), with respect to our ability to see it. In short, because Infinity Is Static, God's the Base/Source/Cause of all existence, and any 'movement' can only occur among finity; that is to say, mass: so it is NOT true that the starlight we see is x millions/billions of years old; the non-visual properties of light have mass, so would have to "travel", but our ability to see it, as Aristotle explains, is a function of the intervening distance being of the right contrast, our position relative to the thing viewed, etc.

Finally, because Infinity Is Static, "number" can only apply to finity (a point Aristotle does make, then forgets); so, to say that there are Three Persons who are Each Unique And Infinite is neither a contradiction, nor a "diminution" (Catholic Unicity term) of Godness; nor is tritheism being advocated. See, people mix up the finite number of beings with the finite-or-infinite Quality of them. {Using Aristotle's definitions of "quantity" and "quality" (which are the reverse of common usage), Spatialness is a Quality, and is thus finite; Infinity is Quantitative, hence cannot be spatial, and may be of any "number" without loss of uniqueness nor diminution}. It's Personhood which is unique, because each Person has His Own Will&Existence, indivisible: however many persons there may be. All else has to do with the quality of such person(s) -- or, even things. Look: you are human, I am human, but there can only be, forever, only one "me", and only one "you". The fact that we are each finite has nothing whatsoever to do with our personhood. So also, even with a speck of dust: IT is unique; all other specks of dust are not the same as that one speck. They have attributes in common, but each independently exists (whether alive, or not). So also, with God's Infinity. Therefore, the existence of how-many-Unique, Infinite Gods is instead related to the truth of what 'number' of Unique Persons is "necessary" for STASIS. That is to say, what number of Persons must there be for each of Them to Want To Stay God? Love, Righteousness, Justice as motives for stasis are relevant to Alive Infinity. And, if you think over how justice must work to be free and impartial, the only proper 'number of Persons' can be Three. Both the beginning of Part II, and the "Does God Exist" link (on my Home Page) evaluate that issue in more detail.]

No wonder then, that the Jews and Christians went wacko about what "one" means. So, look: if even all these famous and educated people can't 'get it'..our brains just don't work (thanks to the sin nature we inherited at the Fall). So, our "substance", is garbage. So, all our vaunted philosophies, beautiful as many of them are, end up in the garbage dump. And save no one.

So instead of recognizing the Divine Design is to Cycle Infinity Inside Finity, hence a Circle of Love, subjective-and-objective genitive, we chase our tails in philosophic circles, and call the John 17 ONENESS, a 'mystery'. LOL -- yeah, Church is One in Him -- and we don't get it? Yikes! So we follow Satan's Mystery Math Class (see link by that name in Part IVa), and argue over Trinity, to make God an Egg. Sheesh.

By contrast, as noted in the "Your Thinking" section of Part IVc, God uses whatever Divine Thinking we are learning, to "catch" to our periphery. True Rulers reign by just BEING the Embodiment of the Rule, rather than telling others what to do, as we saw in the "Staying" section of this page, and in Part III's Second Reason for Royalty. Being the Rule rather than telling the rules is far more influential than heavy philosophical tomes, academic and political kudos, or other cups of water Satan gives to foster his visible, me-be-god morality. We are the defense against his body-works seduction technique. The only defense the world has: our "treasure in earthen vessels", 2Cor4:7. So if we aren't learning Christ, we are alone responsible for the world's troubles. And we'll be royally disciplined for it (Heb5:11-6:6, 12:5ff). Justly.

Of course, the first person He heals is the one growing in His Son, to PUT that "treasure" into us "earthen vessels". Therefore, growth in Christ is no easy life, either. It's continual surgery! Hebrews 4:12! Growing in Him is far tougher than all the world's works, put together. As we saw in Part III, God's Script is quite intense! So here are some of the Daily Combat Issues we face:

1. The purpose of this Our Royal Training, is to learn to live in and love living in, God's Royal Righteousness Standard. True Love just loves the object. It doesn't seek to make others conform to its own love. Rather, it is utterly in thrall to the object, so wants to give its all TO the object, as explained in Part I's "Integrity Properties" section. God really LOVES Righteousness. It's a Total love. So, pretend you loved eating chocolate so much, you yearned to be eating it every moment you couldn't. Would you get mad at someone who didn't share that love? Of course not. Even so, True Love isn't affected if that love isn't shared by others. However, when it is shared, the Rapport with those others, is increased. So you are learning to love Righteousnes as God does. Once you do, you'll have a really hard time calling anything you do for it, a sacrifice. To you, it's like eating your favorite chocolate. This is the essence of Ruling well. YOU LOVE YOUR JOB so much, if you must do something not related to it, you 'pine' to get back.

   Humans can't love Righteousness. They use it to get things. So, the norm in Christianity is to bludgeon people about sin and good deeds. That's not love for Righteousness. Children do the same with respect to how they 'obey', expecting to get a reward, not having yet learned to value the obedience for itself. They tattle on others who do not obey, constantly compare themselves to others, etc. So too, we spiritual children, even when going on age 65. Only Bible in your head cycling under the Spirit on a daily basis over some years, develops a true taste for and hence love for, Righteousness.

2. We must learn to bring EVERY THOUGHT INTO CAPTIVITY, 2Cor10:5. That rule we inherited from Christ, for it is the ultimate function of the Royal Law. No fallen human has had so stringent a rule. No fallen human prior or after Church gets a standard of living every MOMENT "as unto the Lord", because He'd not yet been Seated. So, every moment is to be lived as a test of the Divine Broadcasting System: "This is a test..what does the Father want you to be thinking, Now?" Is the thought in your mind doctrinal? If not, what would make it so? This becomes the most fun you will ever have in life, I don't care what 'competition' is proposed against it (i.e., sex, fame, wealth, the usual stuff people think enjoyable). But in the beginning, this is a hard habit to learn, and will be upsetting. Just keep on trying to be aware when you're not thinking toward Father, and keep testing your thoughts with Bible. It becomes fun faster if you truly enjoy thinking toward God and truly enjoy Bible. Else, you're in for a long slog before the payoff of enjoyment, comes.

   Granted, the OT people were also supposed to think of Him all the time. However, their lives were simple, and the extent of the rule for them is our childhood. They lived on faith-doctrine, too, just as we are commanded, but for them, it was merely a believing-in life: passive, like a child's. For, as John 7:39 explains, Christ had not yet come; as Heb2 and 7 add, Christ had higher 'stakes'! His Life was not at all passive. He Crafted A New Spiritual Life Out From the OT. That is what made Him the "Author of our salvation", as Hebrews explains. So, then: our lives are patterned after His, and thus the most complex of all fallen humans'. Of course, just as the OT witnesses proved Satan's plan no-good, by every "So what?", so also we must learn to say "So what": yet, to the ever-more-intense adult tests we face.

   Childhood is nice because you don't know much. Ignorance really is bliss, and so every adult longs for those simpler days. Frankly, the upset of life is to realize all those nice childhood dreams are largely fairy tales, and in the real world, nothing is nice. Hellish, even. So long as some dream is not yet realized, some answer still looks like it will work, hope remains. It's when you get all the dreams, get all the answers, that hope is seen for what it is: sic transit gloria mundi.

   You get a better purpose for living when you live for God. As you learn to bring every thought into captivity, your values change. After awhile, occasionally you will look back and realize you've had a happier time of it than those around you, because they live for the world, and you are weaning off it. So it's a different "sic transit" for you, and it won't make you sick with ennui at the end.

3. As you grow, your own spiritual competence, creates problems. For example, it's eons harder to just sit around once you have 'all the answers.' And you have to get the answers, to think toward Father, then be occupied with Christ Himself. So everyone around you, so needy, soo seemingly desirous of the answers.. until you try to explain. Eyes glaze over, hostility, recognition you are right so.. jealousy. Everything He faced, when He was here. The hard part of being rich is that life becomes refined and subtle. Real killer, especially since there is no fix, and you realize that. So long as you are poor, you can fantasize a fix. But this wealth, even more than the worldly kind, removes all fantasies. So you either become jaded, or.. learn to become a lamb.

4. "Bringing every thought into captivity" encompasses everything; yet the hardest group of thoughts to "capture", are the reactions to helplessness. Love motivates such reactions. So does offense. So does hatred. Everything motivates those reactions, for helplessness is the antithesis of Doctrine. Yet, you are to Do Nothing. Eat, eat, hold forego silence Jonah stand eat, eat, do stupid meaningless things while the world falls down around you. All the while, you know what would help. But you are a lamb no one but Father Son Spirit (and the elect angels, but they are standing, too), want. Well, Satan&Co. want you big-time.. to help them further their whitewashing plan. Because you now know all the answers. They trip you into whitewashing by motivating your true desire to help.

5. Yet any help (i.e., answers) you can give, will only cause Royal Resentment. Christ Knew All The Answers. Yet couldn't even tell them to us. For, we were already angry over what little He could say in parables, etc. All of which, was Good News: John Chaps 6-7 are particularly poignant. But we hated Him and crucified Him for it, as Part IVa's "and of His History" link, demonstrated. So, we are an extension of Him in this world, so we will get treated the same way, 1Jn3: do not be surprised if the world hates you, for it hated Him. So what to do? Find Out From God what to do, lest you act outside His Divine Benefit Plan and thus drown otherwise-fertile, fields.
6. As we saw in Part III's Corollary 3C, no fallen human until Church could have a spiritual marriage standard (Eph5) which is also a corporate Evidence Witness Now, because we are Bride. So if you are married, these Daily Combat Issues are a Daily Double for you and your spouse. [According to my pastor, Christian marriage depicts the larger and foundational marriage trial in the Garden, so is a Spiritual Standard for the first and only time, in Church. Because, He is Our Husband. Scary role!]

7. Paul repeatedly likens our spiritual training to the Olympics. Back then, there were many different sites where the "games" were held. You had to enrol in a gymnasium, during which there were extremely strict rules about your diet, your social life, etc. If you violated even the smallest of the rules, you could be disqualified from training. Which meant, You Couldn't Go To The Games. Moreover, you had to train in lots of events which you wouldn't be entering, because you were supposed to become qualifed in many ways, not just your selected specialty. Again, if you bucked the rules, you were OUT. Completely. On the other hand, if you went through the (usually) 18 months, you were qualified to enter the "games". If you actually won in the event, you received Great Wealth. Not just some little ribbon. So, too, is the reward of this spiritual life, a life only the Holy Spirit can build in you. 'Via, 1Jn's Script in Part I: Heb 10:36's Greek calls it carrying-off-the-winner's prize of the Escrow Deposit (epangelian). My pastor teaches it this way. You can verify that by looking in a good lexicon at the verb and noun.

   English translations blandly say, "receive the promise". It's much more than that! Writer of Hebrews and others realized the "to seven" OT meaning of "make an oath", "promise", "swear". Yet they often use Greek epangelian or its cognate verbs (two g's are "ng" in pronounciation). The writer of Hebrews, especially: it's a keyword in the epistle, a tracking device. Greek epangelian is not just a promise, but a specific public PLEDGE, like announcing in advance What Amount Would Be Won, in a contest. So the shift is meaningful, because Hebrew "to seven" (sheba, shin beth ayin root) is not normally translated in LXX with epangelian (I couldn't find one instance -- diatheke or some other word is used). In Heb10:36 means to carry off a PRIZE due to the verb komizo, middle voice: To Carry Off A Prize Laid Up For You. Personalized. So writer of Hebrews uses the term epangelian throughout, and that 10:36 is climactic. Fascinating to link promise with prize. Like Paul talks of winner's prizes! Always, referring back to the carry-off, lift-up, carry-away rhetorical structure of Isa52:12-54:1, especially in 53:12!

   The analogy to the gymnasium training is quite apt. Your daily life seems so remote from anything you would call 'spiritual'. What's really happening, is this: as you vote using whatever Bible you know to get through some task or moment, God the Holy Spirit is literally RECRAFTING YOUR SOUL via that association. So even were you brushing your teeth -- and of course, because Father is seeing it, you want to do the right job -- your SOUL is being built up. "DDNA" is what I call that building up process, in the DDNA webseries (due to Isa53:10-54:1). So something QUITE Spiritual is occurring. You are to become a Ruler, and the becomingness is accomplished by ASSOCIATING Bible with every second in your life. Again, developing this habit is hard to do, at first. As you keep on trying, think of it like learning a language, painting, golf stroke, etc: practice practice practice. Fluency comes with time. And with fluency, comes enjoyment. You are becoming a spiritual athlete for ALL TIME, one brushstroke AT a time!

8. Ergo Our Spiritual Olympics Training: Bible Doctrine must circulate in, and thus shield your soul. Bible must be running in your head, be on your mind, as often as possible. Thinking toward Father is your priesthood, meaning you must cultivate the habit of being aware of Him, like breathing. It takes time to develop that habit. Part III's "Tips for Max'ing" link sketches out a plan for developing that habit.

   Bible Doctrine shields your soul in two basic ways. First, as you learn Him, The Knowledge Changes How You Value Whatever You Know. Your entire view of life changes gradually. It's very refreshing. It's very engrossing. It's very enjoyable. Secondly, you come to enjoy this view so much, it's always "on". So, in every detail of your day, you are reminded of some aspect of Scripture. This process-of-association is what makes you progressively happy, thus competent -- and, strong.

   This shielding is critical to times when you are under pressure. The "Secondly" becomes a habit, so you become progressively less apt to be snared by the temptations around you. You're instead 'on the lookout' for 'whatever' might reveal something about Him, in your life; so life's many man-centered 'bullets', whizz right by you. The "First" is also critical for handling pressures which break through when "Secondly" isn't engaged. See, however 'grownup', man becomes childish under sufficient pressure (which varies by individual vulnerabilities, and can be feel-good or bad); so at that point you need the knowledge to act as your drill sargeant. Saves your life!

   Pressure which is basic to human needs tends to go below radar, and even if you don't give into it, it accumulates, thus weakening at least your body. So as the pressure continues, even if at some low level, the accumulation wears you down. So 'hits' of other types, even if simple things, can have a more devastating impact. Too little sleep, too little food, too little companionship, too little something.. and you'll find yourself uncharacteristically reacting, kinda like a child would. It will be demoralizing, which is why you need as much Doctrine cycling 24/7, as you can get!

9. The progressively-intense spiritual gymnastics (cycling of believed Doctrine) 'muscle out' sin. For example, sins which trouble you gradually lose their ability to hold your attention -- for you don't value them so much, anymore. Their value is being replaced. That's why, in the beginning of your internal 'Operation Footstool' you will feel the "competition" more keenly -- there's a 'new Guy in town' to battle those sins. You get to watch how recalls of His Thinking gradually defeat the competition -- within your own body. After all, "the Battle is the Lord's." 1Sam17:47. And sin is 'fat'! But, "all fat is the Lord's." Lev3:16. Designed to be burnt on the altar, along with all the other unhealthful stuff man shouldn't eat! So, God's Script, learning Doctrine, 'sacrifices' all that harmful stuff, and makes a "sweet savor" out of it! Ahhh. How nice to see the destruction of what's harmful. How wonderful is the barbeque!

10. The good news is, by this we learn to be so constantly alert, so enamored of God, that no thought can provoke much of a reaction. To each stimulus, we learn to say, "So what? What's the doctrine here?" See? Following the pattern of Christ in Heb12:2, we come to "disregard" the non-God value, in favor of the God-value. Eventually, it happens in the blink of an eye. That quickness takes a LOT of skill, a lot of practice -- so it takes a lot of time to reach competency. Ahhh, but we then fly! not walk.

11. Now for the bad news: unlike the OT, our tests are Royally, Deadly-Invisible. People are used, outer systems are used (i.e., government, one's job), but on the surface, all these tests seem innocuous. Like germs on a spoon, they don't "seem" to be anything much. That is the danger. A little traffic accident, a little tiff with the spouse, a little good deed, here and there -- can undo the spiritual life. 'Permanently. They sneak up on you, and accumulate below radar, too. That's why "bringing every thought into captivity" is so vital. More on this accumulation's many dangers, follow in the remaining points of this section.

12. Hence Satan gets to us using the same method as for learning doctrine: bit by bit. Chinese water torture: drip drip drip drip drip drip drip. They all add up. One is supposed to constantly "bring every thought into captivity" to Christ. Under His Feet, not Satan's. So every "bit" gets fought over. Between the manipulative trends in one's own "old man" (sin nature), and any 'help' from Satan&Co., it's a real struggle to "rightly divide the Word of Truth." 'Especially, when applying doctrine you've eaten, to your personal life. The precision required to "capture" the wrong thoughts, the habitual recognition and diagnosis -- is beyond description. It's a horrendous drain on the psyche. Our spiritual warfare is a war of attrition.

    For example, in the first temptation of Matt4, one of the many levels of attack in Satan's seemingly-innocuous request -- was the power of suggestion. Remember, Christ is God, too. If His Humanity, so very hungry after 40 days, even imagined using His Deity to turn the stones into bread -- it would have happened! Christ didn't surrender or turn off His Deity. He just kept on looking away from it, until and unless the Father dictated otherwise. That took Enormous, Full, Constant Awareness, Alertness, Attention, Concentration, Focus. Enormous, Full, Constant Jeweler's Skill. Which had to keep on operating -- even in His Sleep! The slightest slip in thinking would have wrecked everything. So, Satan was tempting Him to imagine -- and thus, to slip.

    Talk to anyone who's been starved for over a month, and you learn an interesting thing -- the body keeps beeping the brain for food, by sending up sensations of look, or taste -- so, one imagines food, in an attempt to substitute for eating. It's a natural body process, a protection mechanism. Which, in Christ's case, could have prevented the Cross, had His Thinking not been so STRONG.

    SPIRITUAL SUCCESS KEY → He learned to "associate" every thought with a doctrine. So, when some image, say -- of bread -- hits His Brain, He immediately remembers a doctrine, a verse -- like He does in Matt 4. See how skillfully the Doctrine catches, filters, interprets that image? The non-God value doesn't even get a "glance". Such so-what fluidity, we too are to learn. Expertly. So we gotta keep using 1Jn1:9, staying in the Spirit, to aim toward THAT much virtuoso control.

    People gloss over Bible passages, gloss over things in life, too. So when they read Matt4, they 'get' that the Lord was hungry, but limit the meaning to their own temporary hunger if they missed lunch. Big mistake. We are all constantly hungry for a lot of things.

13. Doctrine increases all the hungers you have, and adds to them, the Hunger for Unity. Because, that's how Infinite God Thinks. Cross unifies, is a type of intercourse, as the above "Your Combat" table had explained. So -- don't underestimate the power of a little suggestion to undo your spiritual life. It's just as fast as happened to Him, in Matt4.

14. When you are hungry, your maturity takes a holiday. Because, hunger is BASIC. As humans, we all remember something in our childhood as nice, and there remains a kind of yearning to 'go back' to those simpler days. That's a psychological motive. Atop that is this fact: the body basically IS childish, so it reacts in a childish way when basic pressure of sufficient amount (for you) is 'applied'. The person who doesn't learn doctrine becomes progressively body-controlled as he ages, so becomes more childish; he may be an intellectual, but apply a little personalized pressure, and bam! he's five years old. Well, he's got no defenses. Again, in Evidence Testing it's all about BASICS, and all the barriers to full intimacy to God, come down in the soul. So the basic nature of the Testing, just like Matt4, can make one blubber like a baby.

15. So, the body's childishness will rear itself periodically. When you have doctrinal defenses, when you are growing and finally in the Evidence Test phase of the spiritual life -- and, even before -- you run the danger of being demoralized when you think you have uncharacteristic childish motives. Some of these motives are not childish; instead, they are Maximally Adult ones. For, a Coalesced Absoluteness Motive is developing, too. Absoluteness is basic, simple. So, will look childish to the foolish (i.e., all those simple statements in the OT look foolish to the foolish intellectual, who wouldn't recognize absolute faith, if it bit him). A child, believes. All the child knows, is trust. The adult is supposed to be skeptical (oh, how the intellectuals pride themselves on their skepticism) -- so Absolute Trust in the spiritual adult has a sin nature, piggybacking connotation of shame or embarrassment: He's God, that's all I know, is the thought. So one feels silly or childish.

    You are naked then. So, you feel like Adam did -- after His fall. Not before. Adam wasn't ashamed of trusting before he fell, and he was genius. Nor, of course, was he ashamed of being naked. Naked Love Looks Childish. Even, when maximally mature. When you are Maximally Hungry For Obeying God, you will reason like a child, though not one. But will feel like one. God is thus Glorified. But you won't feel that's true. Because, you are not a child, and you expect your reasoning to be higher than a child's. But naked love, mature, reasons in the same manner as a child. Because, There Is No Price. The child, doesn't know of price. The adult does, but Has No Price. So, 'looks' like a child, just trusting. It's not that you don't know better, but at that moment you are blindsided by the hunger for Him: He's God, that's all I know. You don't need justification, to believe. Neither did Christ, in Matt4!

    When a person is deprived of something basic, however vaunted his achievements, his abilities, he becomes like a child. Illness, hunger, sleep deprivation, etc. all hit the body, and the body affects the mind, so the mind can't think. Interrogators know this. Satan knows this. So whatever wealth, health, success, they all count for nothing. You become five years old, under basic deprivations. Read Josephus' account of the siege of Jerusalem, sometime.

16. Intimacy is another type of basic situation in which the parties involved, feel childish. You are growing toward God in Intimacy, especially toward the Lord, so this is a daily issue of VULNERABILITY. Trust is again paramount. Rationales take a holiday, because in a situation of maximum intimacy, the 'reasoning' boils down to, 'just because'. Just because in a foxhole. Just because in love. Just because husband-and-wife. No justification needed. Which, no child even knows how to need. Which, no one absolutely loving, needs. It plays like any kind of basic need -- because, it is.

17. The Royal Doctrinal Training you get under the Spirit prepares you for these deprivations. You will have basic rationales at such time, no matter how mature you are in Him. Because, you are under torture. You're under torture as a spiritual child, because you don't know enough. You're under torture as a spiritually-mature believer, because you do know enough. It is always the same drip drip drip. And it's always basic, because -- as happened to Christ in Matt4:3 -- the body is the weak link.

18. So the mature believer training for Evidence Testing, will undervalue his thinking, because he's under so much pressure. For, loving God as he does, he will lowly evaluate himself. Only time will prove otherwise. Like Christ said in the Gospels, God will move you up to a more honorable sitting place "at table". God Vindicates His Word. So, keep on living ON it, Matt4:4.

19. Whether we grow up in Bible Doctrine or not, we nonetheless inherit the Matt4 temptation-subtlety, and are constantly victims of it. Granted, one slip for us is not so drastic. One slip -- aww, so small. Yeah...until it drip drip drip drip drips us into apostacy. (I call this the "long, slow slide".) Below-radar, this ongoing power of suggestion appeals to our depraved hunger to "be good". It surrounds the world, and it positively smothers us. After all, we are to "be good", and can -- that's our job, right?

    See that sly question? See how easy it is to 'cave in'? That's the prime category in the Evidence Test. What you can do, you must eschew. What you can't do, you must go after. So you are always staring FAILURE in the face. So, you feel helpless. So, you feel childish. So, the physical stuff which hits you (internal or external, the objective is to crush you with ineptitude), makes you feel worthless to God. That's what happened on the Cross -- Christ Became What He Was Not -- Worthless, Sin, 2Cor5:21.

20. So the hunger to redress the helplessness, is extreme. And in the drip drip drip of the Evidence Test phase, that hunger keeps on going. When you finally pass one test, another hits. So if you finally learn to BE helpless, then everything reverses (no no no becomes yes yes yes, as explained earlier in #VI). You are always off-balance, internally, and Are Not Supposed To Say Anything About It. Yet, people will bug you (those who 'get' to you the most) to say something. Just like they did to the Lord, during the Trials (six or seven) and during the Cross (before the imputation 'darkness' hit). So the hunger to explain, to do something, anything to relieve the pressure.. is extreme.

21. So, to develop this Doctrine-body coordination as preparation for the Evidence Test phase, we definitely get many "do's". We need them, for balance. We need them, to solidify our control over our bodies, lest they overturn our doctrine, due to lack of practice. Regard every little thing -- even brushing teeth -- as a doctrinal test or opportunity to use doctrine, however banal the activity. Just like for the OT folks, who were constantly doing menial tasks for the Temple, constantly drilling in military preparation for war though God often went before them and just wiped the enemy out (i.e., Sennacharib's army, the night before their Rabshakeh said they would invade, 2Kings 19:35, Isa37:36), we too must constantly be on alert: yet, when the attack comes, we just stand there, doing nothing. Our own "valley of Berachah" (2Chron20:26) is Every Day. Even in teeth cleaning.

    Just as it was, for Christ. What, how do you think He learned to become so strong? By constant, never-ending, punctilious repetition. Close-order drill. Especially regarding "inane" matters. Even David with his sheep had known the importance of being "faithful in the little things." How much more, should we? After all, the Father is LISTENING. What does He hear? Is His Pleasure in hearing, a "small" thing? So: what's "small"? Nothing Is Small For The Christian. Nothing nothing nothing. Just as nothing was small, for Christ.

    Satan likes to make us think "Big". Visible-big, that is. If he can get our eyes on the "big" stuff -- which is really small, that's the irony -- then the small stuff -- which is really BIG -- escapes our attention. Busy doing or wanting the "big", we miss the real way to become trained: to spot the mosquito. After all, it's a lot easier to escape the elephant. But the mosquito -- he carries spiritual "malaria". Deadly. Small. Invisible. After all, when we fly, our reaction-time must be instantaneous.

22. Look at the genius of God, again. The faithfulness in the little things we also know is important, because "He who is faithful in little, is faithful also in much" (Matt25:21-23, Luke 16:10). But why? 'Because it's structural. It doesn't matter how "small" the thing is. A thought-habit, that of association with Him, is being formed. See the paronomasia? God associates our sins with Christ, so every sin of ours He sees, "recalls", as it were, a thought Christ had to PAY for that sin. So, God is propitiated. Likewise, every "association" we make, of doctrine to whatever, forms a habit of associating doctrine. We know that habits are hard to break, right? Heh -- so, our "association" makes us BECOME "blessing-by-association". Or -- well -- cursing, if we don't learn to associate doctrine, to "capture" every thought with it.

23. Case Study Time: watch how God's genius makes even the most-handicapped person capable of attaining that rarest of awards, Pleroma status (Fit Bride). Pretend you're bedridden. What's the most difficult part of that state? Its visibility. As with Job, the worst test is the moral attitude of those around you, not the loss of normalcy. They pity you. They wonder why God allows this to happen to you. They won't leave you in privacy, in peace. They want to keep "helping". Worse, you have to let them, for you cannot do for yourself, physically. You are utterly exposed, utterly dependent; and, to top it off, most of the people you must depend on, are extremely obnoxious to be around. Due to their morality, they know what's best. Due to their morality, you have to listen to them in exchange for them "helping" you. Reciprocity. Ugly, isn't it? See how ugly unmediated morality is?

    Then, there's the swarm of mosquito-inconveniences. Every movement is a major logistical operation. Going to the bathroom can take hours. Consumed with minutiae, how can one think? And then, there's the pain, for which maybe you need drugs.

    Ah, but this version of "Hamburger Hill" has all the same solutions one would have if perfectly healthy. You can "baptise" (associate) every second with some doctrine, some promise. Even if you were only 8 years old, even if all you understand is 1Jn1:9 and salvation, two doctrines which even a child's "common sense" can deduce, you can repeatedly USE those doctrines to parlay into spiritual strength. Further, God will provide a pastor -- many have DVD or tape ministries -- so one can still get spiritual food. And grow Rich. And grow to Pleroma. Despite all the cackling of unwanted "helpers", all the inconvenience (can't one think Doctrine in the bathroom?), all the pain. Because your human limitations don't matter a bit. You have Divine Power - the Spirit's. Just as Christ had. No one will probably even know you are growing. So what? God knows.

24. "Hamburger Hill" comes in every flavor. Another Case Study: say you're a movie director or other celebrity, in the proverbial "Hollywood". Prosperous. Rich. Noticed. Busy. These pressures are every bit as complex, every bit as paralyzing, as being bedridden. So, they can be handled the same way as if bedridden. In some respects, the believer in this position has a greater chance of persecution-by-derision, than the bedridden person. On the other hand, the bedridden person suffers persecution-by-sympathy. Which is worse? Depends on your reaction. DOESN'T depend on your outward "accoutrements".

25. Next "Hamburger Hill" flavor as Case Study? Suppose you are Joe Blow believer. Nothing much marks your life. You're not famous, you're not sick. You've got an average job, and average life. Doesn't seem like you're much of a Christian, for you don't have any big 'production' or tests.

    Guess again. Remember from the MEGA table in Part IVc, how morality and apathy are the jewels in Satan's crown? The "average" person is lukewarm. You look average, so you will feel pressure to be average. "Average" has two contradicting pressures: the need to "fit in", and the need to break out. Bringing every thought into captivity for you will make you VERY uncomfortable being "average". Count on it.

    For the "A" in "average" is exactly the "A" in "apathetic". Average people are apathetic about everything. On purpose. Don't get too involved, don't be too interested, don't stick out, BE average, emphasize form not substance, talk about banalities, be 'politic' -- herding, for SAFETY. Politicians cater to the 'average' mind, which is why nothing ever gets done! Decisions by committee are always blanded out, so never effective. It's the 'average' person who is the most responsible for the evil in the world: goes to church on Sunday, obeys forms, is respectable, Goes Along With The Crowd. Nurenberg mentality. There'd have been no Hitler, no Khomeni, no Taliban, no Hussain -- if it weren't for the 'average' German, Iranian, Afghani, Iraqi of their day.

    Christianity perennially suffers from the 'average' Christian, depicted by the Laodicean, in Revelation 3. These are the worst people on the planet, totally apathetic about God, doing everything in His Name. Satan's emissaries, thinking how spiritual they are because they have nice things. The Lord calls them vomit (Rev3:16, usually euphemized in translation), invoking His Faithful and True Witness title: the Word is not in them, so He will vomit them out (obviously, what comes out when you vomit, IS vomit). See Revelation 3:14ff. [So vomitable, that the 'average' Christian interprets the "knock" verse in the passage to the unbeliever, not noticing that the passage is to a Church -- so means believers. But of course, the Laodiceans act like unbelievers, all bound up with the world and its sick ideas of worth, the visibilities. Not, the Word. So at the Bema all those who spurned God and instead practiced a whitewashed-sepulchre version of Rev17, will be "naked". One shudders at the thought. Look: this passage isn't against wealth (though other Laodicean idiots try to claim it is), but against DISINTEREST in God (the "lukewarm" moniker, ties to the origin and importance of Laodicea as a town). It's real easy to think you must be a spiritual giant, when you get physical stuff -- Satan uses that tactic all the time, and pulpits today sell his lies. Just last week I stumbled across one on Sunday morning TV, a sermon on how you can get the house of your dreams, because God thinks BIG. Sheesh. If he knew how big, he'd stop talking about such small goals! That's the essence of the apathetic mentality, the Laodicean mentality. Think and grow rich, regurgitated. Vomit is what the Christian absent 1Jn1:9 sees in Bible, thinking it wealth, because he puts a body slant on Bible, when he has no Spirit Breathing Brains into him. So he spits out vomit, and deems it wisdom.]

    Notice well Rev3:21 -- you have to overcome the 'average' crowd. If you compare that verse with the other "overcome" verses, you'll realize God assesses overcoming being 'average' as big an achievement, as all the greatness the other overcoming verses address. It's A Big Deal To Overcome being, 'average'. Hardest thing to do. More about the Laodicean isagogics is in Part V's "Our Role in the Tribulation" link.

    So anyone who doesn't fit in, yet belongs to the 'average' group, is discussed. Gossip and disapproval accompany anyone who is 'different', see. For if you are average yet not like them, you are a THREAT to them. They are the scum, not you, and your difference makes that clear. Even, if you don't want it to; even if you say nothing.

    Moreover, "average" tends to want visibility and routine. Your life will have glitches you can't even begin to imagine, so to denigrate your (unbeknownst to you) testimony. Glitches which will cause trouble to those around you. You'll be tempted to use the standards of the "average" in your Christian life -- visibly trying to win folks for Christ, for example -- at times when you shouldn't do so. You'll get sucked into the potlucks, the nod-to-Godders, the Brave New World Leninas, who think all those lukewarm "works" aren't vomit. 'Because the standard for the "average" is that nothing should be out-of-the-way, you'll be tempted to think your spiritual life is not going anywhere. That's the weight of the masses, pressing on you to give up, because "doctrine doesn't work". Of course, Satan's goal is to make you vomit up the spiritual life, by such lukewarm surroundings. You have a true "Hamburger Hill", alright.

26. The ultimate "Hamburger Hill"? When Christ was on the Cross, he kept on shouting "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani!" (Greek tense of boaw is linear aktion sart, continuous, Mark 15:34; it's a participle in Matt27:46, of legw.) He's shouting Ps22, of which that is a partial quote. He's shouting it -- in triumph. He's not whimpering. If you look at the whole of Ps22, you'll see why. It's the Psalm about bearing our sins: the "worm" there is a "tola", Hebrew word for a worm whose blood was used to make the crimson robes -- of kings.

    Remember the "Superhuman Thanksgiving Pleasure" section earlier in this page? He's thinking of US while on that Cross. He's using our repugnancy to remind Him that He's paying for us. That's the ultimate thought: the very thing which is most repugnant, is also your joy! Can there be any more inviolate a happiness than this? Can there be a greater Righteousness, than the Righteousness which can forego itself? Think that one over. He's not Righteous, if He permits sin to exist unpaid -- but He's also not Righteous if He doesn't permit it. What, is Righteousness so weak, it can't live with sin?

    See why Righteousness is Gorgeous? Morality, bah! It is picayune, compared to such Thinking, Mediated by LOVE. His Righteousness pays for our sins, so we "become the Righteousness of God in Him". It was an exchange, as 2Cor 5 and Romans 6 explain. So, how did Christ Get Paid? By the Doctrine -- in advance! He spent the Doctrine on the sins, as a gift to the Father! So, no cost to Him. The Father, He gets paid from the Doctrinal thinking of Christ, so no cost to Him. So -- get this -- Righteousness is simultaneously paid and unpaid for sins ("Paradox" green table in Part V will climactically explain this point). Thus, inviolate: because paid, the standard is met. Because unpaid (in the sense that sin exists), provably unmoved. Total Integrity. Who, tell me -- thinks like Our God? Was ever there a GLORY like this?

    Love is God's Head Attribute, as ArchiDes.htm explains. For 2000 years somehow Christendom has missed that, though the fact stares us in the face: John 3:16, Rom5:8, all those subjective and objective genitive uses of "Love of God", Psalm 89:14-15, even the famous Ps23:6 (usu. chesed is mistranslated "mercy", but it means the Kindness of Love). Pursuing, running out in front. As we saw in the "Core Integrity Properties" of Part I, Love alone can SOLVE Righteousness and Justice. For if either +R or +J tried to solve what each juridicates, then +R and +J would be violated. So there must be an above-and-beyond, Isa52:14's last clause, a "ken mishhat meish merayhu wa toaro me bene adam" -- beyond Human, Love.. to unite, make peace, SATISFY +R and +J. "He shall see, be satisfied" -- Isa 53:11. He, God. Above and beyond, satisfies. Not, morality of some short people towards other short people, no one going beyond to look UP at God.

27. So, as shown in #VI, we are made to live the Superhuman, above-and-beyond life, me ish (more than human).. we associate with HIM, now, Phili2:5, 1Cor2:16, 2Pet3:18, Heb12:2, etc. As they said of the Peace Corps, this is the "toughest job you'll ever love." Combat. TRUE combat, not the silly visible junk of potlucks or door-knocking witness. Rather, we have the true combat of "Concentrating on Jesus" (Heb12:2a, 3a), so we can finish "the race set before us" (Heb12:1) with Joy -- the same Joy that was set before Him. Associate our "cross" with Joy (Heb12:2b), just as He did -- in crushing triumph.

    Whenever my pastor exegetes Heb12:2 (he does everything repeatedly), he always translates the participle prokeimenes (which is also used in 12:1 to draw parallel), "exhibited"; rather than the normal finite-verb translation, "set before". The term really connotes a PUBLIC DISPLAY, something assigned to you to complete, so you will be ashamed if you don't make it. Your audience here is God and the angels, not so much the human race -- but if any derision can be made out of you before man, baby -- you'll get that, too. Especially, in the last phase of Evidence Testing (analogous to Cross). The trick here is to Keep Looking At Him, as Heb12:2 mandates: we saw this in the "Your Combat" table, earlier. Because, then you're looking at what's 'set before' you, your own shamefulness, through His Eyes. It really really really matters to do this. Paul wasn't kidding when he said we walk by Doctrine, not by sight! Remember how Peter only fell into the water, when he stopped looking at the Lord, and instead, down at his feet? Personal testimony: I can only get through a day, this way. Wouldn't matter what the circumstances are, unless looking at Him, there's no reason to breathe. Try it.

28. For, the tests are crushing. Like we saw in Part III's Third and Fourth Reasons, we are worms of the Worm. Knowledge is what makes the tests so crushing. 'Just as it was for Satan. 'Just as it was, the most -- for Christ. See? To help us use what we are learning, we get progressive tests and do's, for exercise. We are being trained in how well we MAKE the rules of our lives (apply Bible Doctrine), how well we have learned the principles of Righteousness, Justice, Love (driver-components of God's Integrity).
    • Note these tests are internal, because they are thinking tests -- Doctrinal versus non-doctrinal THINKING.
    • So they may have no external (i.e., adversity) manifestations at all.
    • 'Subtle, like the tests of Matt4 are subtle (and FAR more varied, all-at-once, than I'm describing in this piece). Gone are the days when testing was simple, like whether you'd observe the Sabbath, or bring in that animal to the priest for temporary atonement (Heb 10).
    • As outlined in Part III's "First Reason..Invisibility", the tests increase with frequency and intensity as one ages in Christ.
    • He's weaning you away from dependence on the world.
    • Your ability to see how ugly the world is, grows.
    • At some point you will, if you keep on growing, come to see how futile and silly are the world's preoccupations.
    • You'll come to see how "good" is the worst kind of evil.
    • You'll come to see how your own "past" was meaningless; how others around you are terrifically small.
    • You will be severely tempted to either try to fit in with your rapidly-shrinking friends, or -- to become cynical, jaded.
    • Your friends and family, in turn, will begin to think you strange for spending so much time 'just studying'.
    • Thus you will be tempted to hide it, or explain yourself. Or, to convert them.
    • The pressure is extremely intense, and below-radar, so Satan&Co. can drip drip drip drip you into exploding.
    • Why? 'Because this knowledge is crushing. The differential between the Gorgeous Doctrine you know and the menial to-humans life you're stuck with is a constant source of pressure.
    • Thus you come to understand how truly awful was the temptation for Him to "fix" it, just so HE could get a rest!

    • If you manage to keep growing after that, you will hit "weakness": situations in which your abilities are stripped from you; or, situations in which your abilities count for nothing.
    • The "weakness" always hits the areas where you like using your abilities the most.
    • For, you need to learn your own kenosis, to set aside like an old garment your own abilities (Cf. Phil2:5-7).
    • The temptation here is to think God has abandoned you. It will be hard to keep plugging.
    • You'll hit your "thorn". 2Cor12:7-10 is the way to think, at that time.
    • This knowledge is more crushing: for, it's one thing to see how 'the world' is worthless; but it's "Skin for Skin!" (Job2:4, very bitter) INTENSE! to see how your own abilities are impotent; or worse, unimportant. The crushing burden of this knowledge is what probably felled Satan.

    • Then, when you hit Pleroma stage, your Trial Witness reaches its Evidence-Test peak: you will be tested the way Christ was tested, to DO IT YOURSELF. Look carefully at Matt4: all those tests are to good deeds, and tempt Christ in the name of LOVE, to do it HIMSELF For Father. Man's natural reciprocity reflex is to do of himself something to benefit another. Love makes that reflex almost impossible to resist. You will feel immoral, unloving, quite wrong to just do nothing. Only Doctrine can mediate this reflex, just as it did for Christ in Matt4. Constant barrage: shouldn't I do something? Am I misapplying Doctrine? Am I abusing God by being passive? It's relentless.
    • This series of Evidence Tests is much harder than Matt4's English depicts them. Because the person who gets them is already spiritually-mature, the tests really amount to this: do something for God, or wait on Him? For, at that high stage, you indeed can do a lot! The subtlety is lost, on the less-mature. The temptation here is to do it yourself, in the name of love for Him -- a love which, at that point, is extreme! The twin H's of Hunger and Helplessness in points 4, 13-20 of this section are ravenous at this point. Because, you love Him so much!

    • The tests first seem to be wholly-internal and defensive; passing these, you progress into the body-sphere (which complicates thinking) in what appear to be two added stages. These latter two stages seem to include all of what you always wanted as love expressions toward God and mankind, and all of what you never wanted, personally. AT ONCE. [I get this impression from looking at how Job's tests were divided; the Lord's Tests seem to have the same divisions: defensive first, then progressive offensive tests. The offensive ones are harder, because you have to push ex nihilo. Also, I get the foregoing idea from how Matt4 preceded the Lord entering His public ministry, and how His public ministry preceded the Cross.) So as noted in #I "Structure Basics" section, there are three phases of Evidence Testing, the latter two of which involve the offensive wearing-out of the body as you keep up Divine Thinking. (Public-ness and dying aren't so much the pattern, as the wearing-down.)]

29. Throughout, you are being tested on whether you DEPEND ON GOD. That's the Central Issue in the Trial, Who does the Doing, God or you? We saw that in #V-#VII. Only God is Righteous. So only if He does the spiritual life TO you, will you grow up. Only God's Good is True Good. So absent 1Jn1:9 and living in God's System, you're toast, being burned up at the Bema, escaping with just your life. Happy after that in heaven, surely -- but you could have gotten a kingdom, instead. Seek to be Rich, for then you will have more to spend on Him. Whether getting to that destination requires He make you materially wealthy down here, only He would know. So Depend on God, seek His Opinion on Everything, and then you'll get Him doing it to you. Gold Silver Precious Stones. Not wood hay and stubble of the idolizing, works-addicted world. They look for things they can do so they can pat themselves on the back or feel secure. God is the Only Surety, the Only Wealth. All else isn't even worth the powder it takes to blow it to hell. Which is where it all goes eventually, 2Pet3:10-12.

30. In the Bible, "30" is the savior number, the number of maturity, of eligibility to become king (see Mirroring.htm). David was crowned at age 30, and the Lord announced Himself Messiah at age 30. So, if you eventually pass, you VEST (#IV): you thus inherit the rest of your personal full panoply of blessing-by-association and other escrow benefits in the Divine Benefit Plan -- forever. That panoply is not blotted out of the Book of Life. And another ruling member of the Body has been added, thus materially shortening Satan's time for maneuver.

Passing the Evidence Tests is a far greater 'work' for mankind than anyone could ever do. For, God blesses the nation, the world, by association with such a "winner believer" (to borrow from Rev's "nikao") -- just as He always has done -- as with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Daniel, the prophets, the Christ.

Since Part I, we've seen how the Trial is about our decisions, not about our works. In Part II, we saw that "works" is man's totally-depraved mentality, so God condemned man to work: that was a punishment, not something rewardable. Also, since man is so totally-depraved in his thinking, he gets language-of-accomodation do's, In Order To Associatively-Learn something: just like a child. So "works" are training aids, not inherently worthy at all. It's the learning, not the 'earning', which has always been God's objective. Moreover, we've seen that the "works" named in the Bible are always preceded by a command to Know Something, and the "works" don't work if that knowledge isn't operating.

ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE KEY→Why? Well, we've seen that the spiritual life has always been, essentially, a learning to execute the First Commandment: Loving God, which entirely depends on your thinking, which in turn depends on how well you know Him -- not at all upon your deeds. After all, God is Omnipresent: what does the Father HEAR? Moreover, if your thoughts don't 'tie' to Love-for-God, you can't even love, so your 'works' will be completely incompetent (running subtheme in 1Jn). Even for sheer competence' sake, one must be ASSOCIATED with Him (running subtheme in Rom5-9).

Could God make the proof of all this more obvious? Look: because God the Father heard Christ's thoughts while imputing and judging our sins upon Him, we are saved (see Isa53trans.htm for a corrected translation). After all, what does one have to offer God, but thinking? Does God need food, or clothing? Granted, such smaller thoughtfulnesses will receive their rewards..but how much more, what God wants to HEAR? So also, even among we puny humans: isn't it ONLY the thought that counts? What, if you get a nice gift from someone who hates you, doesn't that associated-knowledge-of-hatred make you not want the gift (cf Proverbs 23)?

Remember the Facets in Part IVb? Seven of them, to show how blessing by association is due to Father's Being Pleased With What He Hears The Believer Think. Even sheer logic would prove that Thinking, not doing, is all-important. But heck -- we stupidly, even at the highest levels in theological seminaries, teach Christ paid for sin with His Physical death -- so we have no logic. So God is not pleased with our thinking, we are maligning the very Cross! That's the doo-doo facets, operating. Which would you rather think God wants? Your doo-doo thinking but nice deeds which even the unbeliever can do (Iranians are very moral, you know) -- or the thinking of Christ, Who Nailed To A Cross, obviously could do, nothing? ["Grail" link in DDNA.htm goes through the incredible stupidity of mainstream Christianity's idea that Christ paid for sin with His Physical death. Sick idea! But absent 1Jn1:9, Scripture is just sav lasav, bodily interpreted, Isa28:10-12, a foreign language which sounds like drunken speech...]

So, the Test: do you want the meaning of your life's blood to merely soak in the ground, which can only make the grass people trample a lush green; or, your thoughts to be made to please the Eternal One? So, which kind of pleasing is even better for people, for crying out loud?!

Of course, stones can be used to harm also. If we aren't "alive" with the Son's Thinking running in our souls, then during that time we are dead stones, not living ones, and of course then whatever we do is "dead works", Heb5:11-6:6 and (sarcastically) 6:10 (see also vv11-12), plus Heb9:14, first half of Chapters 7 and 10. So, God is not pleased with such folks, who are Laodiceans. So, Satan can and does use us dead stones to harm the human race. So, the Gospel gets stoned-to-death in nearly every 'Christian' pulpit, with Not-In-The-Bible garbage verbs like "repent of your sins", "invite", and "make Christ Lord" being evilly added to John 3:16's only right verb, "believe". Thus saving, no one. Thus cursing comes by association with those folks, who are avidly becoming like Satan through his cosmic do-good plan. Dying, from the rocks in their bellies.

More on the toxic nature of this Rev17 gambit is covered in the beginning of Part V, but for the moment, notice: all the stoning nature of mainstream Christianity. It seeks victims, it hallows its own witch-hunts, it tyrannizes folks with doo-doo plans, and all in God's Name. Lord, Lord people who are probably not Christian (if they can't say the Gospel correctly, then maybe they aren't even saved) -- 90+% of 'Christianity', today! So if they ARE believers, what do you think the Lord will be saying to them at the Bema? Better to be boiled in oil down here, than have to face Him, then.

The blessing-by-association isn't merely about life-or-death. They get goodies from God, solely because He is pleased with the "sweet savor" of our learning His Son. Moreover, we also need them to get those goodies. After all, they are 'into' the worldy-stuff, and we've not really much time for that: study takes up a lot of our time. So we need them blessed, to a) get logistical support ourselves, and b) compensate them for what we aren't doing for their bodies. So, they get goodies, and thus we do too. It's just support, to us. To them, it's like life-or-death. So, we can enjoy their enjoying the goodies (which by our Royal Standards are merely tools). Everyone benefits. Kinda like Abraham said to the rich man in Torments (Luke 16:20ff): We get to watch them have those things, and they get to watch us have spiritual things. Which gives everyone an opportunity to get more of both. (That's why those in Torments could see those in Paradise, maybe: Part V's end will have much more on this topic.)

We also saw in Part IVc how Time itself, plus the actual pattern of history, is DIRECTLY affected by our decisions, alone: for we ARE the Conduit of History itself, since we are Christ's "Body", "Bride", Royal Family -- forever. Satan's activities are directly impacted, for the time he's got left affects what decisions he makes about what to do. The more of us getting added to the Pleroma (ruling) class among the Bride, the less time he has to pull off his anti-Millenium.

So, then: Our decisions make or break history, just as the decisions of Royalty always have. That's Royalty's JOB, for crying out loud.

From Part III and this Part IV, we've also seen that Blessing-by-Association-with-Us, is the SOLE Conduit for Divine Blessing to the world. All those fake gods people worship are demons, and Satan's 'blessing' plan is Gotterdammerung, as we saw in Part IVc, and will see again, in Part V. So the Divine Benefit Plan can't flow to the world, absent us. Does this blessing come through our works? Oh no -- but only because we're breathing, and that becaue we inherited our Royal Status from Christ due to His Victory at the Cross and consequent Session, as Hebrews painstakingly explains. So also, people gain from watching us -- our thinking affects their own, directly, because we all have reciprocity desires/reflexes, and thought is contagious. And, as noted earlier, God uses this exposure to us to provide a freedom-from-poverty only God can do: heal and grow the soul. THAT is how the world's ills are fixed, not by body-works. Again, as always, Only Bible Doctrine Works.

Look even on a secular level, to see the parallel about thinking, not works. For over two generations now, the world has been engaged in countless welfare programs and other legislation, charity, etc. to help the 'poor'. Nothing has worked: there are more poor, and they are all more poor, than before. But when you examine the successes in Africa, you notice that the successes only come because people got the idea that they have to improve their own lot. They start schools, they educate each other about AIDS, they take matters in their own hands. And from where did they get that idea? From the idea of self-responsibility, which is part of what's (erroneously) deemed "Western" culture -- for the West is (in)famous for its stress on individualism. The Middle East is breaking into various (for them) kinds of new freedoms. Again, because of an idea -- not because of all our warring and diplomacy, political maneuvers. The idea of free speech, the right to be an individual with his own beliefs, loosens the cultural stranglehold that has predominated not only in the Middle East, but in Africa and Asia.

And all that breakup started, because the West looked prosperous; people wanted to have a better economic life. So with that desire, came the idea underlying that superior economic life -- man must be FREE. Of course, the West didn't learn the very lesson it taught the rest of the world, and has been descending into cultural slavery. But hopefully by the time we in the West all crash and burn, the rest of the world will have learned the lesson, and they will carry the freedom baton.

So now see how that secular breakup reflects its parent, spiritual truth: You Are To Be Set Free By The Truth, Not By Good Deeds, Gal5:1 (theme of chapter), John 8:32. [Notice how in Gal5, as in Romans 2-4, Paul equates the immoral with the legalist. Awesome stuff.] Truth is the ultimate prosperity, for if you have it, you don't need to hate, steal, be vindictive, back-biting, cheat, immoral, etc. For the Truth is satisfying to the soul. Which then makes for a happier body, too. So that body will be free to have whatever life, and since you have logistical needs if you'll be studying Scripture, well.. God will provide. He might give you a Bugati for Bible class, or a bicycle, but you'll get what your body needs, so your soul can get fed. Now, think: if God will bless your periphery due to what you need, then.. is that not better a "work" than all the world's demonstrably impotent, charity?

Charity chains, too. If you feed a wild animal enough, he forgets how to forage for himself. That's why in national parks, you'll often see "Don't feed the animals" signs. They have to be responsible for themselves. People, even more, since people have souls. A child stays a child, if you don't at some point STOP doing for him. Nations stay children, if they are saddled with childish cultures. Tribalism, family, religion are all used to enslave and keep childish, a people. God invented competing barriers against these satanic tyrannies, but man loves tyranny, being himself, tyrannical by nature. Children are tyrannical, since they don't know how else to be. Hence we give them commands to go against their nature, so they can grow UP. Charity and do-goodism break down those barriers, and like a virus, seed into the healthy. So that we all become victims, demanding of our governments, our authorities, our neighbors, our families, our spouses. Demanding demanding demanding whining blaming self-pity. Yeah. That's what doo-doo thinking begets. Love is not so encumbered, Gal5:1-22.

People who promote good deeds have no faith. Like the straw man in Jas2:18, they think their works are as good as the Word. James proved that wrong; so of course the works-crowd, which can't read Bible except with body slants (true eisegesis), uses that same passage to claim their faith must be evidenced by works, lol -- WHICH JAMES PROVES FALSE in that very verse! So they read Bible, bass-ackwards! [Prove it to yourself: pretend for the sake of argument that wherever the word "faith" is used in James, it means Doctrine You Believed, then read your favorite translation. See if it suddenly makes a lot more sense.] So, they prove they do not believe in GOD when they make their stinks about works. So God does no work in them, for them, from them, of them, Matt13:54. So their works are sterile, their charity impotent. Seek God's Opinion before you even think about doing a work, lest you waste your time!

Good thinking teaches a man to fish. Then he can feed himself. Divine thinking teaches a man to reach Pleroma. Then he can rule a kingdom. Um, it's ONLY the Thought That Counts.

Indeed, why should Christians want it? How many jaded Christians do you know? How many depressed, maybe neurotic, obsessed, Christians do you know? Deut28:28 describes far too many of us today. We obsess over politics, as if man was more important than God. We think by electing the "right" people, passing the "right" laws, God will reward us for our efforts. Isn't this insane thinking? What, the God of grace wants us to do the work? What happened to "not of my own righteousness", and "not of works, lest any man should boast?" What happened to "grow in GRACE and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior"? What happened to Romans 13, and 1Tim2? These passages, plus the slavery ones, don't argue for changing the world. Yet we are obsessed with it today..just as much as we were during the Dark and Middle Ages.

Obsession is the first characteristic of mental illness. In California, for example, Christians are in mental hospitals in record numbers. "And I will strike you with madness" warns God in Deut28:28. "Strong delusion" is not reserved only for the unbeliever, but also for the believer, "whose god is their emotion" (Rom1, Phil3:18). "But you did not so learn Christ!" Paul shouted (Eph4:20; RSV leaves out "de", which means "But").

We become mentally ill when we replace God with our own ideas of Him, our own versions of spirituality, far more quickly than an unbeliever will become so ill. Why? Because we are more dependent. Royalty is more dependent than the peasant, that's the irony.

So, shall we grow up in Christ, or buy Satan's version? God's Script, or Satan's? Satan's leads to insanity, since that is the nicest way he can denigrate us in the eyes of the world, and get God to order our capital punishment (1Jn5:16), calling us home, in shame. As we saw since Part IVa (and especially in Part IVc) that's why the Rapture happens, too. Because Rev17 is Satan's plan so to make the official Tribulation work -- and he doesn't know when it will happen, so he started Right Away To Create The Fake Church -- Satan finally achieves such a high level of apostacy within Christendom God has to wipe us all out, like He did with the Exodus generation -- but en masse. Not exactly the boon most enRaptured folks think of that Day, huh?

Granted, we are still victorious in Christ (1Cor15:52-57), but..our victory could have been still greater. Instead, forfeited to the Pleroma, are our Divine Benefit Plan blessings for time and eternity. All we will know of them directly is by memorial to what they would have been; all blessings we get will be INDIRECT via the Pleroma, Isa53:12. But wait! There's still time, down here -- so long as one is breathing. Time to get with God's Script, and learn it "full"y. Our erudition can't substitute for that Script; our works can't substitute for it. No one is too handicapped, no one is too intelligent, for We All Lost Our Brains When We Were Born Spiritually In Christ, John 3, Eph4:23's clever genitive (He's also THE Breath of our Thinking, so we have no other brains, what wit). So everyone gets God's Script only one way: just as Christ did, in the Power Brains of the Holy Spirit. So we, like the unbeliever, also "are without excuse", Romans 1.

Worse, we become cursing by association to our nation and the world, bringing on it the judgement which our learning had forestalled. We lost our saltiness, so the world is less preserved, and more tormented. Satan is not to blame; we will be, though: for rejecting the Grace, the Love of Christ. By means of good deedism, we wreck the world! Just as Jewish apostacy, manifested in good deedism, nearly wrecked the world, so Christ came, so also at the end of the Church's completion, good deedism will require the Rapture. Then, that highest-good-deedism period dawns: The Tribulation. Are you beginning to get the impression that "doing good" is dangerous?

Let's now illustrate how such legacies affect mankind, RIGHT NOW. Unfortunately, the legacy currently operating (unless enough folks change), is negative. This, because believer apostacy has intensified rapidly since the Korean War ended. So, let's look at the "legacy" of such failure.

Ask anyone who's been a POW about how loneliness can more quickly drive one mad than anything else. In Russia, for example, if they locked you inside a red room, alone -- in 40 days, you'd be completely mad. Well, Satan's plan is like a red room, only you don't notice you're going nuts, because folks around you are also deteriorating. So, you think you're "normal". You, like everyone else, hustle and scramble to "improve", never satisfied, always on that hamster wheel -- I-am-good, I-am-good -- only self is NOT good. Self is ALONE. Why? Because Satan's plan begets progressive self-absorption. The self-is-good mantra can't survive much scrutiny. So, it hides. So, people talk "at", rather than "with", each other. So, the TV screen is a better "friend". So, good deeds have to multiply, right down to one's hair gel choices. So, one must increasingly criticise whoever disagrees -- even over hair gel. Thus driven, one becomes automatonic, since the mantra is -- sorry -- a type of masturbation. Interpersonal intercourse threatens the mantra, you see. Self can't withstand comparison! So Grace threatens the mantra, too. So, one must run! Escape!

The pace must become ever faster, faster, faster! to get the same thrill of being "right", of making someone else "wrong". One thus becomes frustrated, maddened, trying to keep up the needed pace. At some point, one quits -- or, more likely, resorts to power lust. Why? Because morality never pays off, when it's divorced from God.

So, then: if we have the "treasure in earthen vessels", but instead of GROWING UP in it, we hide that truth unused, like the stingy servant hid his Master's talent.. no one ELSE has any defense, because we don't have the right counteracting 'contagion' to give them. So we fail in Part III's Corollary 3C, "Caring Charge", as a "nation under God". We do not keep our Pledge of Allegiance: instead, we even sue against it, just like that guy in California did, piously claiming to defend his son's rights! Tell me: would YOU want to be that son? So, then: just as the Mosaic Law had been the sole defense against man's me-be-god degeneration into animalism, so now our Royal Treasure is the only way to "choose life"(Deut30:19). Else, Satan's vampiric, vulturic plan runs unhindered. Unless we wake up and get with God's Script.

By contrast, God makes the Pleroma Legacy from "the Riches of His Glory" (look up all verses with that phrase). He even uses it to REVERSE the decline-into-vulturism. (Cf. 2Chron7:14, Isa35-37, and "Hezekiah" passages.) 'Bonus gift. "Just because". And why not? See how the contentment of the spiritually-mature believer is superior to Satan's goodies? Imagine, as you read how the mature believer thinks, below -- imagine how wonderfully enjoyable life with humans would be, if they thought the same way.

For, a mature believer's not shackled, anymore: "living, Christ! Dying, Profit!" (Phil1:21). So, everything else in life is just a "So, what?" to him. He can take it or leave it. He doesn't need power. He doesn't need to bemoan any injustices done to him. He doesn't need someone else to "fix" his problems. So he's not a burden to anyone. This, because his me-be-good nature is under Christ's feet. For the same reason, any "works" he does -- unlike most of Christendom's -- are actually competent, for a change. This, because Christ is His Standard, and thus he can discern what really works.

Armed with God-knowledge, developed in Love, he doesn't seek crusades. He's not discontented, so is not obsessing over improvements. Others' sins merely mean they have freedom to learn Christ, too. So he doesn't take offense at them. His soul is uncluttered by the ever-draining needs to get compensation from others. Therefore, he himself can be poor, or rich -- it doesn't matter which one. Nor does it matter who else is poor or rich. So his relationships with others are hallmarked by contentment, and others who relate to him find themselves refreshed by that association. For them, he's an oasis in a desert of rules.

So they learn from him. What do they learn? They Learn To View Things Differently. Life's preoccupations don't hold him, unlike most others they know. What seems shocking or bad to most people, doesn't faze him much. So their own flaws as they perceive them, they notice don't bother him. He looks past stuff which would normally trap someone else, and they wonder, how can he be so calm? For, he doesn't wear his faith on his sleeve, but in his heart.

And, when he evaluates anything, his doctrinal associations supplant the me-be-god urges, so he actually comes up with the right answer -- which is normally, "Rest: do nothing". So, in whatever he does, he is far more competent. He won't encourage others to spend their money; he won't argue for taking up causes, seeking revenge; he won't sell anything. For, he will be self-sufficient. So, whatever he does, is from this self-sufficiency, and thus actually works. Ahhhhh.

So he represents an alternative lifestyle, one that refreshes, rather than drains. For he's Spiritually-grown, so he's relaxed. Christ is the center of his attention, not the world. So, unlike the rest of the world, he doesn't need 'excitement' to escape the desperate boredom which embitters them over time; because he, unlike them, finds every speck of dust full of spiritual meaning: something depicting Christ. So, the few but highly strategic good deeds he does are from a base of love for God, and competently chosen. They don't seem like effort to him, even though great effort is required. He comes to like giving, "just because". He doesn't need to do "good" to propitiate his me-be-good depraved nature.

Because he's so centered on how every speck of dust depicts Christ, he's not looking at himself. What a freedom he has: he's busy looking at Christ, so not busy looking at the traffic jam, the snide remark, his sex appeal, his good deeds; he's not looking at whether he's rich or important to his neighbors or the world. So he's not competing with anyone, and he's not weighed down with the million frustrations which come from trying to compete. So he's not trying to convert anyone, use holy tones, dress in black or manifest other ascetisms, to 'advertise'. When disaster strikes, he might react, but it will be short-lived, as the Doctrine kicks in to remind him of what's really going on -- Royal Training. So, he relaxes. And those around him, who see this suffering 'whatever', are amazed. They say nothing, or something -- but whatever they say, he soon notices the Doctrinal meaning, and brushes aside any compliments he gets. For, His Eyes Are On Christ; not much else can get in his Line of Sight. It's not that he is unaware of the world, but he Enjoys Seeing His Lord, the more.

He thus doesn't need reciprocation, approbation, recognition, for the good deeds do nothing for his self-esteem. Instead, the good deeds are refreshment, like tasty food. 'Not sacrifice, but received enjoyment. So, he doesn't need anyone to "know" about them. So, they are without "strings". So, 'satisfying. So, 'dispensable. Satan can't "hook" him. And Satan can't beat such a believer's happiness, either, because his happiness is expressed in the good deeds -- not caused by them. Most of all, Satan can't duplicate the blessing-by-association benefits God does to show HIS Refreshment -- in the believer's name, "just because".

At times, he won't look more competent to the outside world, because his life will be harder, a Hamburger Hill. But he will handle it with equanimity. 'Whether he is to die slowly and painfully, or quietly in his sleep. 'Whether he is to lose those he most loves, or enjoy the prosperity of their earthly happiness. Makes no difference. Christ matters, and all else is -- "So, what?" So, he is free to love those in his periphery, and free to love anyone. Anytime. Everything is extra, therefore everything is free. So, his love for them is free -- not based on needs he himself has. He's not loving in order to gain something from them. That is GLORY. Glory which took a lifetime! to acquire, GOD's Way. Never man's way.

Because, in the Royally-Invisible Spiritual Life, "Less is More". Less time on works, more time on learning Christ. Less time in redressing grievances, so more time to spend on what's enjoyable: Christ. Less time in "big" stuff, more time in constant small stuff: line upon line, precept on precept. Every moment, every day. Low, slow, and constant. Therefore, a habit. Therefore, easy. Therefore, enjoyable. Against this, all the goodies of the world have no attraction power. Against this, Satan has no reply. Against this, the entire world cannot stand. "Having done all, to stand"(Eph6:13,KJV) will be this believer's future. Shall it become yours? Shall it become mine? Our choice. Every moment of every day.

What responsibility we have, to learn Christ. Not only does history literally continue because a FEW believers are grown up, have passed Evidence Testing, and have reached Pleroma (Eph3:19); not only do such believers massively aid even the secular happiness for billions; but ALL mankind gets the continued opportunity to see Him, grow in Him. Can't have a greater impact on mankind, than that. Can't do anything remotely like that Except By God's Script.

So this, the highest of the knowledge-and-power level covenantal periods -- Church, Body of Christ under development -- will continue until no one wants it anymore. This "Age over the Ages" (Paul's phrase, in Ephesians 3:21 and elsewhere, a lexeme) -- this is the both the best-and-worst time to be alive, not the official (7-year) Tribulation. The official Tribulation is easier, and short. 'And DEPENDENT, for its own wellbeing, on us who reach Pleroma status -- even after our deaths -- as Part V will further explain.