This is an unveiling of what we are before the Father, and how the Father looks upon us in Christ.
Jesus said- I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father (John 16:28)
Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
The believer is born of God. He comes out of the very womb of God.
For whoever is born of God overcomes the world (1 John 5:4)
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body…and have been all made to drink “motion into” one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13)
Just as truly as Jesus came out from the Father, so we have come out from the Father, and were born from above.
“You are of God, little children.” (1 John 4:4)
We are a part of the very life of God. God’s very nature has been poured into our spirits, for we are of God.
Now we can understand Jesus’s confession. It staggered the Jews. It startled the disciples.
I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father (John 16:28)
Just as truly as we came out from the Father, when we leave our bodies, we go back to our Father.
Jesus said, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above.” Jesus was ever conscious of His heavenly origin and of His heavenly relationship. (John 8:23)
Nothing would help us so much as to be aware that we do not belong to the earth. We are on the earth, but we are not of it. Our citizenship is in heaven.
We are no longer a part of this Satan-ruled world. We are born from above. We have the nature and the life of the Father. “We are in Christ”.
Believers are in danger of being attracted to earthly things, such as money and the pleasures of natural life.
If we could know we are not of the earth, and our highest joy is to be found “in Christ”, it would make a great difference in our walk with God.
Jesus said, “A greater than Solomon is here.” He dared to confess who He was. He dared to tell that generation that looked on Him with suspicion and jealousy and hatred, who He was. (Matthew 12:42)
“A greater than Solomon is here.”
Do you realize who you are. We belong to another race of beings.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [a new species]: old things [that belong to the earth] are passed away; behold, all things have become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself. (2 Corinthians 5:17–18)
Have we not yet realized that the least in the kingdom of God is greater than Solomon. He was but a servant, who was given a gift of immense wisdom to govern the Lords people as a prayer request.
We are the sons of God and Jesus has been made unto us wisdom.
Solomon was but a natural man who lived in the realm of the physical senses. Yet He had no conception of this divine life that has been given to us.
But we tend not to think of that. We have not yet realized our position in Christ, our position in the family of God. We are the very sons and daughters of God Almighty. Solomon was but a son of David.
John 8:12 is perhaps one of the greatest sentences that ever came out of the mouth of the Jesus.
“I am the light of the world”: he that follows me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life.
Jesus dared to say that He represented a new order, a new type of man, that in Him was the light of life; that is, the wisdom that comes from eternal life.
The people who follow Him, walk in His footsteps, and obey His word, should never step into the realm of darkness where they cannot see.
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. (Colossians 1:13)
You see, we have been taken out of the realm of darkness where men and women walk by the physical senses.
We have been translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love, into the very family of God.
We have become partakers of His divine nature. The same life that was in the Son of God is in us. The same light that He had is in us.
Now we can understand 2 Corinthians 6:14:
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)
Philippians 2: 14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.
We have taken Jesus’s place in the world. His life in us is the source of light.
Light means wisdom and ability to do things, and the Greater One has not only imparted to us His own nature, but He has come into us and lives in us—as a part of us.
So, when Jesus said, “I am the light of the world,” that places tremendous responsibility upon those who follow in His steps.
If we are partakers of His life, then we must shine as lights and John 1:4 becomes our challenge: “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”
We have that life. With that life has come the light, and we must walk in the light as He is in the light.
To step out of that light is to step into darkness, which means broken fellowship.
It means to step out of the realm of love, for that light is really love shining out through us, in our conduct and in our words.
The new kind of love and the new kind of light which Jesus brought are the very nature of the Father.
When we step out of love we step out of light, out of fellowship with heaven.
If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship not only with the Father, but with one another.
But when we are drawn aside for even a moment by the adversary, we step into darkness.
1 John 2:9 He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. 10 He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
His spirit has stepped back into darkness. Physical Sense knowledge cannot light the path now; we must be able to see with our spiritual eyes.
We have taken the Jesus’ place as lights in the world.
Just as Paul says, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1), so every one of us are lights in the world, and we are saying to the world, “Follow me, as I follow Christ.”
When we step out of light into darkness, we spread confusion around us and people do not know how to respond to us.
We should always remember “what we are in Christ”. We should remember we are the lights of the world, and those who follow us must not be led into darkness.
John 14:6 has not only been a challenge but has been a awe-inspiring joy. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” What a confession that was!
When the Jesus said, “I am the way,” the Spirit at once began to bring to my mind passages from Acts 9, of Paul going to Damascus to see if he could find any who were “of the way,” whether men or women, so he could bring them to Jerusalem.
Christianity was “the way”. But some “were hardened, and believed not, but spoke evil of the way” (Acts 19:9).
What did they mean by calling Christianity “the way”?
Back in the garden eastward in Eden, Adam lost the way-“the way into the Father’s presence, the way into the Father’s heart”.
He left the place of light and glory and went out into the world without light.
All down through human history men have been searching blindly with uncertainty for the lost way, the way back into fellowship with the Father, back into that Edenic condition where condemnation could not rule as a Master over the heart.
When Jesus said, “I am the way,” He meant He was the way to the Father’s heart—the way of life.
Every one of us is a light, a road sign pointing to the way.
You are taking Jesus’ place in the world; you represent “the way”, and if your life is not in tune with the Spirit, and you are not living the Word, you may be pointing people the wrong way.
He not only said, “I am the way,” but He said, “I am the truth,” or “I am the reality.”
Jesus is the answer of that age-old cry of the human spirit for reality.
Romans 1:25 reads, “Who changed the truth [reality] of God into a lie.”
Satan is the god of vanity. The major pleasures of the Physical senses of the natural man have no actual reality in them.
There is no reality in the motion pictures, in the dance hall, in gambling, or in drinking or taking drugs. It is all part of the passing scene.
There is nothing in them that our spirit can feed upon. Satan has not given to mankind one thing that has in it any permanent value.
The pleasures of the physical senses perish with the using.
When Jesus said, in effect, “I am the way, the reality, and the life,” He was pointing to something that is different.
In John 16:13, Jesus said, “When he, the Spirit of truth [reality], is come, he will guide you into all true [reality].”
Jesus is the way into the thing that the heart has craved throughout the ages—reality.
It is realistic truth that no one who has ever experienced the eternal life of God, has ever turned to any other religion.
The metaphysical or new age religions that are born of the physical senses have no appeal for the person who has found reality.
The human heart can find no reality outside of Jesus Christ. The new creation is real.
Our fellowship with the Father is real.
The Living Word is the real message to the spirit of the new creation. We walk in the light of reality.
Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth [reality], and the life.”
The Greek word here for life is zoe. That is the new kind of life Jesus brought to the world.
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). What is life? It is the nature of the Father.
In that nature of the Father is all wisdom, all ability, all love. “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47).
Believing is actual possession, so the believer is a possessor of this, the greatest gift ever given to man—eternal life.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4)
How little we have appreciated the fact that eternal life in humans has given to us all the creative ability manifested in this internet age.
No heathen nation ever had any inventors or creators until eternal life came to them.
There are basically two words translated life in the New Testament: Zoe-the nature of the Father that Jesus gives the new creation; and psuche—the natural human life.
Psuche has never produced any great literature, has never given to man anything that was of any real value.
Let this become clear in our minds, that zoe, this new kind of life, is the nature of the Father, and the Father is Love.
So, when this new kind of life comes into a human, it drives out the old nature, and the new nature takes possession.
It is just like Israel moving into the Promised Land, driving out the inhabitants, and taking over the country for themselves. Eternal life has taken us over.
It has captivated our reasoning faculties, illuminating them, making them the servants of this new order of Jesus as Lord over our spirit, and bringing our soul and body under subject to it.
So that wherever the new creation goes, you see the trails of it in the spirit realm. No one lives just unto themselves; their life affects everyone around them.
We are the new creation. We belong to the new order of things. We have a new kind of love (agape love, a divine love that never fails)-and that love makes a home in which it is safe for babies to be born.
The other kind of love is a human love (basically self-centered), the love that springs from the natural human heart.
It is the parent of all our divorces and broken homes.
Where a man and woman have agape, the new kind of love that springs out of this new kind of life and is perfected in the believer, there is never a divorce.
This is the greatest thing in the world.
The believer is the road sign pointing toward Jesus—the way, the truth, and the life, and we must be bold in our confession that we are in the way; that we have the reality and are enjoying the fullness of this marvelous life.
Jesus made another confession. “I am the good shepherd:
John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.
What a confession, “I am the good Shepard.”
Psalm 23:1–2: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be needy. He makes me to lie down in new vegetation habitations: he leads me beside the quiet waters.” He restores my thinking processes so I can think God’s thoughts and feel His emotions.
He is the Caretaker, the Bread-provider, the Shield, and the Protector of His people.
His ministry is guiding and leading us into real pastures where our spirit learns to feed.
Can you see what this means to you?
The moment we receive eternal life, that moment we become under-shepherds of the flock: we become leaders and teachers of this new order, this new life.
We are the protectors of the lambs from the adversary that would destroy them.
What a ministry of love that shepherd has! What a life of love caring for them, watching over them, feeding them, pointing the way to the water of life, and leading them into the quiet place under the shadow of the great Rock in this weary land.
We ought to make confession of our shepherd responsibility and our ability to guide and lead men and women.
I was amazed when I found the Greek word translated power meant ability, being able, capable and that Jesus wanted the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they had received this divine ability—the Father’s ability that Jesus had been manifesting among men.
Now we, the under-shepherds, have His ability. We are partakers of that ability.
He is made unto us wisdom so we may know where to lead the sheep and what to feed them.
The greatest concern I have ever had regarding my ministry was ability to rightly divide the Word so I could give people the food, the milk, bread and meat of the Father.
I want to be a faith builder. I want to lead God’s children out of the wilderness of physical sense knowledge into the heavenly places in Christ, which is a Shepherd’s responsibility.
Here is another confession of Jesus “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).
How few of us have realized the power of words. But Jesus knew. Jesus’s words healed the sick, fed the multitudes, calmed the sea, and raised the dead.
Not only that, but his words manifested the hatred in the hearts of the leaders of Israel that they finally nailed Him to the cross, just because of the words that He had spoken.
Paul makes us see it with a vividness of ecstasies. Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
God created the universe with words.
You remember those three words, “Let there be.”
Eight or nine times, those words are recorded in the first chapter of Genesis.
God brought everything that is in the universe into being with words.
But the Spirit highpoints it in John 1:1–3:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Jesus took our words and filled them with Himself.
He made our words creative things.
He filled our words with the very genius of love.
Jesus’ words dominated.
He indwelled words and made them work for Him.
He counted the things that were not as though they were, and they sprang into being.
Words create.
Then, in Hebrews 1:3 words dominated the things that words had created:
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
He had brought the world into being with His Word. Now that vast universe is sustained and governed by His Word.
Oh, my heart desires for the hour to come when we begin to appreciate what words can accomplish.
Everything that happens in the world is with words.
With words we love people.
With words we break people’s hearts.
With words—God-filled words—we build faith into the lives of men and women.
With words that are filled with Physical sense knowledge, we destroy the faith of men and women.
Physical Sense knowledge has no other means but words, and so our universities are filled with words, oftentimes destructive words, demoralizing words.
Our high schools are destroying the faith of our nation with false teachings with words.
There is nothing holy any longer.
An ideology born of physical sense knowledge is dominating our nation, and unless the Word of God gains the ascendency again, all the ideals of our republic will fall away, and a new type of authoritarianism that is destructive to Christianity will take its place.
Men and women without God have used the inventions that God has given to the new creation to destroy all God has wrought through the church through the restoration.
When Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63), He was lifting the curtain and letting us see the realities.
Think about it! “The words that I speak” have in them the power and energy and creative ability of God.
“The words that I speak unto you” are life-giving words, love-building words, faith-creating words.
Now what is our confession?
Our confession is that we are the creations of Jesus’ words, that His words have given to our spirits the very nature of the Father, and that the law that governs this new life is the law of the New Covenant.
A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you. (John 13:34)
This new law that grows out of the love nature of the Father is the law that governs us.
We are walking in the light of this new law, this creative, dominating law, this victorious law of love.
What a confession we must make. God help us to hold fast to it.
In John 14:9, Jesus says, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
That statement should astonish you.
Jesus said, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? (John 14:9).
He said, in effect, “You have been living and walking with God.
“You have seen Him heal the sick and raise the dead.
“You have seen Him feed the multitudes through Me.
“You have felt His love nature in My voice and in My words, and so I say to you today, ‘He that has seen me has seen the Father.’
“You need never say again, ‘Show us the Father,’ for He is with you.”
What a confession that was!
How it has remained in the very atmosphere through the ages!
Then, one day, I caught a glimpse of the revelation of the new creation in the Pauline Epistles, and I saw we were actually taking Jesus’s place; that we had the same life in us Jesus had, and the same nature of the Father has been imparted to us.
With that nature have come all the attributes that made Jesus so majestic to the world and made Him stand out as the most unusual character the ages have ever seen.
Every attribute in Jesus that made Him beautiful is in the new creation.
We have the same life that dominated Him—that love nature. We have the same kind of love He had.
He is made unto us wisdom from God.
He is made unto us redemption from God.
He is made unto us sanctification from God.
He is made unto us righteousness from God.
Those four attributes of the very nature of the Father were manifest in Jesus.
Redemption from the hand of the adversary had not yet been accomplished when Jesus walked the earth, but it was manifested in Him.
He was the Master of demons.
Sanctification was revealed in Him in His utter separation from the world that surrounded Him.
Righteousness, the ability to stand in the Father’s presence without the sense of inferiority, the ability to stand in the presence of Satan as a Master—all those gracious manifestations of the divine life were seen in Him.
As I read John 14:6–10, my whole being seems to open up toward Him and my heart cries, “Lord, make this real by your grace in my life so those who see me will see you; so I can say, perhaps not in words,
‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’
What a confession Jesus made to the world, and what a confession we have the privilege of making today.
Jesus said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches” (John 15:5).
If my heart could only grasp the reality of our union with Him, of our unusual ability to feed upon the very nature and life of God in Christ.
You see, no branch can be closer to the vine than another branch. Every branch has the same union with the vine for its individual ministry of fruit bearing.
When Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” it brought us into the fullest union with Deity.
We are actually partakers of the divine nature.
The very life and substance of deity pours out of the vine into the branch.
Then Jesus prayed, And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. (John 17:22–23).
Why? “That they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (verse 23).
That is the vine life.
That is where the branch is glorified and the fruitage becomes like the fruitage of Jesus in His earth walk.
We can understand now what He meant when He said, “Greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12).
Jesus was limited to physical things.
He could heal the sick, feed the multitudes, raise the dead, and turn water into wine, but He could not regenerate anyone.
He could not give anyone eternal life because it was not available until after He had put sin away, until He had satisfied the claims of justice, conquered Satan, arose from the dead, carried His blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies