EXPLORING THE FOURTH

DIMENSION - Parts one to five

EXPLORING THE FOURTH

DIMENSION - Part Two

The role of the imagination

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. That He would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

There has to be a reason for God leaving an unfinished clause in Eph. 3:18. The verse speaks of being able to “comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height …” but does not say what these measurements describe.

Most preachers say that these dimensions are those of Christ’s love. However, according to the Bible, the Lord’s love is so boundless that nothing, either in this world or the next, can “separate from us the love of God which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:39).

Actually Eph. 3:14-19 deals with three things that can only be achieved by believers being “strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” (vs. 16-17. They are …

1. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, length depth and height”
2. “To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge”.
3. “That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God”.

This study deals with the first of these, which is the ability through Christ’s indwelling to comprehend how God measures things, a concept foreign to normal human understanding. But first we should pray asking the Lord to strengthen us with his might in our inner man.

Then, through his grace and the imparted strength of his indwelling spiritual understanding, we can perhaps grasp what the Lord is teaching us on this subject through his appointed apostle of the mystery, Paul. Of course this will involve further Bible study. But just as importantly it will require the use of imagination by our now renewed mind.

Now the word imagination gets a bad press among Christians. They fear those using it will resort to fantasies and depart from the faith and, indeed, many have. But they did so, I would suggest, without having “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), still less his strengthening “with might in the inner man”.

In reality the questions is not whether we use our imagination or not; we all do. It is how we use it, whether for better understanding God and his word or to indulge our own desires and wishful thinking.

Now to understand Eph. 3:18 something more than ordinary understanding is definitely required. This because God has deliberately left out of the text what it is that the dimensions of “breadth and length and depth and height” describe. Could it be that God intends us to use our imagination to fill the gap? And would that also be the case in Gen. 3:22 where the Lord leaves the sentence unfinished?

            And the Lord God said, Behold man is become as one of us, to know good and  evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life,             and eat, and live for ever … Therefore the Lord sent him forth from the garden of Eden to  till the ground from whence he was taken.

What would have been the consequence of man eating of the tree of life after the fall? Only our imagination informed by the Lord can tell us. I believe it would have resulted in mankind plunging ever deeper into sin and living for ever – to God an utterly repugnant prospect.

Sadly our God-given imagination like every other human faculty has been plunged into darkness by sin. According to Rom. 1:21 men even when they knew God, glorified him not as God neither were thankful “… became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened”.

What then is our imagination? If we are saved and called into the “one body” then it is the ability to know that which we receive when we are renewed, or made anew, in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed in Paul’s latter epistles as the Creator of “the new man”.

However, apart from God and unredeemed by the blood of Christ the human imagination is fleshly, carnal, dark and thoroughly evil. It is part of the old man to be put off. It is powerfully bad; so powerful that three times God has felt compelled to step in to restrain it. The three occasions are set out in the following verses:

Gen. 1:22-24: And now , lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever … So He drove out the man and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.

Gen. 6:5-7: And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually… And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth…

Gen. 11:4-8: And they said to one another, Go to let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heave: and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth. And the Lord said, Behold the people is one and they all have on language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined  to do.

Way back in the garden Eden God had to prevent fallen man from using his imagination to take and eat of the tree of life and live for ever. Then, by the time of Noah’s flood man’s darkened imagination had developed to become “only evil continually”. And, ignoring the great lessons of the flood to heed God and obey his word, Noah’s descendants imagined that they could make a name for themselves by building a city and tower that would reach the heavens quite apart from the Almighty.

So powerful was fallen man’s imagination that unless God confused mankind’s language and scattered them across the earth nothing would have restrained them from what they imagined to do.

The extent to which fallen man’s imagination can be a powerhouse of evil even in the House of God is found in Ezekiel chapter eight. Here evil imagination penetrates the inner sanctum of God’s temple on earth, ultimately causing the Shekinah glory of God’s presence to depart from it (Ezek. 10:18).

In Ezek. 8:7-12 the Lord tells the prophet to dig in a hole in the wall of the temple. He uncovers a door. Then…

He said unto me, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.  So I went in and saw and behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel pourtrayed upon the wall round about.

And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand and a thick cloud of incense went up.

Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth

Ezekiel sees all this “in the visions of God” (Ezek. 8:3). While sitting with the elders of Judah in his house the spirit lifted him up and brought him to Jerusalem’s inner northern gate “where was the seat (pedestal) of the image (statue) of jealous, which provoketh to jealousy”. This image, note the word, was that of Astarte the pagan fertility goddess, or “Asheera”, the “queen of heaven” referred to in Jer. 44: 17, 25.

From the context it is clear that the Lord shows Ezekiel a picture of what is going on in the imaginations of Israel’s ruling Sanhedrin, the “seventy ancients”. To a man they are worshipping images of the very beasts and creeping things God had commanded them not to make images of or to bow down to.

Speaking of these “ancients, the Jamieson, Fausset Brown in their respected commentary astutely observe: “The ‘chambers of their imagery’ are their own perverse imaginations, answering to the priest’s chambers in the vision upon the walls of which the idolatrous images were portrayed”.

Fallen man’s imagination then is a dark power that not only runs “this present evil world” but can also pollute the mind of those called to be believers. But can the sanctified imagination of a saved believer ever be a power for good? Can it bring him closer to God? Can it lay hold on the deeper truth and purposes of the Father in this “the dispensation of the grace of God”? Can it be the key to unlocking the “mystery” Paul writes of in Eph. 3:3 and Col. 1:27?

Yes it can. Indeed, as pointed out in the first study of this series on Exploring the Fourth Dimension”, as those called to be members of the “one body” (Col. 3:15) we must use our imagination to understand what the four linear measurements mentioned in Eph. 3:18 describe.

And we who are risen with Christ must direct our gaze beyond “earthly things” (Col. 3:19) beyond the skies towards “heavenly things”. In fact we must “look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body …” (Col. 3:20-21).

There is much more to say about the power of the imagination and its connection to the Fourth Dimension, which is that of height as opposed to depth.  However, that will await a later study in this series.

For now let us look at Col. 3:9-10 where the Apostle Paul, at the Lord’s direction, offers instruction on how we in the mystery calling can exercise a Christ-led and holy imagination:

Lie not to one another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds. And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.

If we be “risen with Christ” (Col. 3:1), the apostle argues, then we have “put off” the old man and his corrupted imagination, which today is still only “evil continually”, just as it was back in Genesis 6:5-7.

Importantly, we have also “put on” the “new man” which is so renewed in his ability to know, see and perceive the heavenly things of God that he does so as the “image of Him who created him”.

That means in turn that the new man created by the Lord actually has and can use the very imagination of the Creator God Himself, Christ Jesus the Lord. He can see as God sees. So, if God sees four dimensions not three and height as well as depth, so will his “new man”.

Clearly imagination stems from the word image. Man and woman were originally made in the image of God and as such they had imagination, God’s imagination. That is, they could imagine, which means to think thoughts (see Rom. 2:15 where the same Greek word for imagination, logismos,  is translated as thoughts) just as God does, albeit in their case on an earthly, not heavenly, plane.

Then they fell in sin and “…became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened” (Rom. 1:21).   “Vain” means empty, empty of God that is, in that “when they knew God they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful”. That error took place in the garden of Eden, where instead of heeding God, Eve listened to the serpent. And instead of hearkening to the voice of God, as he should have, her husband Adam “hearkened to the voice” of his wife (Gen. 3:17).

Please note the role imagination plays in both creation and the fall. In Gen. 1:3 God says, or imagines if you will, “Let there be light and there was light”. And God saw the light, that it was good”. Like a sculptor, an engineer or an artist God first imagines and then speaks out loud the thing that He will create. Then He stands back as it were to view what He has created and declares it to be good. In doing all of this I would suggest the Lord God necessarily uses his divine imagination.

But Eve, although made  in the image of God, did not reflect or represent her Creator as she should have when she saw or imagined “that the tree was good for food” (Gen. 3:6). And Adam did not use his faculty of knowing as God knows, seeing as God sees, and thinking as God does, when he ate the fruit Eve gave him.

The tragic result was that both the man and his wife had “their eyes opened” (Gen. 3:7) and saw or imagined that they were naked.

That was then. But what is now? Well, in the dispensation of the grace of God and the mystery, members of the “one body” have been made a new creature in Christ. That is, as Col. 3:10 clearly states they have been recreated in the image of the Creator who created them. Consequently in putting on the “new man” they have both the mind and imagination of Christ.

It is important realise that all the references in Colossians are to the new, not old, creation and that the image they are created in is that of the New Creator, so to speak, not that of the maker of Adam of Eve.

As 2 Cor. 5:17 says: “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold (with your imagination, that is) all things are become new”.

Therefore the image of the new man in believers who know that they are risen with Christ is a new and very different image to that in which Adam and Eve were created. It is the image of the new creation not the old. Consequently those who have “put on the new man” have the mind and imagination of the Lord as He now is in glory, not a restored version of the divine image and imagination Adam and Eve forfeited back in Eden. The image we are created in now is heavenly; the one Adam was made in was, so to speak, earthy.

As 1 Cor. 15:47-49 states: “The first man is of the earth: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have born the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”.

To be continued

EXPLORING THE FOURTH

DIMENSION - Part Four

Imagination and the dimensions of the new

By John Aldworth

Published 6 November 2013-11-06

Eph. 3:18-19: May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the length and breadth and depth and height And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

Eph. 4:14: And that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Col. 3:10: And have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him.

According to 1 Pet. 3:4 Jewish wives are advised to let their adorning be the “hidden man of the heart which is not corruptible … a meek and quiet spirit”. Here the Apostle Peter states important truth for those whose hope is to be resurrected on earth; it is that of the inner man’s incorruptibility.

Similarly in 1 Cor. 15:53 Paul teaches that “… this corruption must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality”. He is referring to the incorruptibility of the revived bodies in which the Old Testament kingdom saints and those saved into the Acts period “Church of God” will be resurrected when they live again on earth. Clearly these believers hoped in a future resurrection.

But we as believers saved under the dispensation of grace and the mystery set out in Paul’s prison epistles – Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, etc – have no hope at all in any future resurrection.

Why so, you ask? Because already, meaning right now, we “are risen with Christ through the faith of the operation of God” (Col. 2:12). Accordingly, our “blessed hope” is to “appear” with Christ in glory when He Himself appears in glory (Titus 2:13 and Col. 3:4. This, of course, is the only way of going to “heaven” for believers today. It is the “blessed hope” of appearing in glory with Christ who has “ascended up far above all heavens” (Eph. 4:10). But perhaps you believe only in John 3:16 or the “gospel” of 1 Cor. 15:1-4. If so you are trusting in the doctrine of a former dispensation now superseded by the “grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men…”  (Titus 2:12).

Let me say again that our hope in grace is not to be resurrected on earth. For any such resurrection can only happen in the coming “Day of Christ” (2 Tim. 4:1) and then only if the Lord judges it to be appropriate in each believer’s case.

As such it is not a sure and certain, still less a “blessed hope”, for those who have spurned the “present truth” revelation of grace and glory and insist on trying to enter heaven by other means. For most that means being saved by the gospel and the doctrines of the Acts period Church of God which include water baptism, speaking in tongues, outward manifestation of miracles and salvation that is clearly conditional. How conditional, you ask? Well, Rom. 8:13 plainly teaches:

For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live.

Salvation in the Pentecostal dispensation into which most Christians would put themselves today then depends on how good one is in putting your evil nature to death, rather than having it done for you which is God’s promise to those called in the grace-mystery dispensation.  

In Col. 3:4, 5 and 10 we find that grace-mystery believers are not put on probation as their Acts period counterparts were. They are already “accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6) and “complete in Christ” (Col. 2:10). This is how the grace gospel of the prison epistles supersedes the “get yourself right or perish” gospel of the Acts period.

Today grace believers in mystery truth are assured that “… ye also shall appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4). What’s more we “…have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him”. Since God’s salvation is already “complete” in us it is now only by simply knowing and believing these wonderful assurances that we can obey Col. 3:5 and:

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness which is idolatry.

We should realise that “by faith of the operation of God” (Col. 2:12) we are already “risen with Christ” and that God hath “raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 2:6). Importantly God says we have already “put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Col. 2:10). And if God has said it, why should we argue or disagree with Him?

The truth is that long before the Day of Christ eventually dawns we as saints saved under the grace-mystery dispensation of God’s goodness, will have already taken our place with Christ in glory. In fact right now we are already there, positionally speaking.

However to realise in our direct spiritual experience both our present life in the Lord and lay hold of our future glory now hidden with Christ (Col. 3:3-4) we must use imagination. Not our imagination, that is, but the imagination of the new man, he who is created in the image of Christ and who after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:24).

There is a progression in the revelation to Paul concerning the “new man” from Eph. 4:24 going forward to Col. 3:10. While he urges the Ephesians to “put ye on the new man”, later, having realised the fuller work of God in the believer, he assures the Colossians that already they have “put on the new man”.

But did the Ephesians and Colossians believe the wonderful new truths about the “new man” that Paul put before them? Evidently not, for in 2 Tim. 1:15 the apostle laments, “This thou knowest that all they which in Asia be turned away from, me.” 

Now all means all without exception and since both Ephesus and Colosse lay in the Roman province of Asia, Ephesian and Colossian believers alike were among those who turned from the latest news from God, the Pauline revelation of the mystery. It also means they failed to put on the new man.

Similarly today most Christians when confronted with a call to grasp mystery truth spurn the offer. Trusting largely in what they can do to make themselves holy (the legacy of both the Catholic Church and the holiness, Pentecostal movement) they find themselves unable to “put on” the “new man which after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness”.

Indeed the very thought of abandoning their own “holiness” in order to do so is repugnant to nearly all of them. Perhaps they should view that accurate critique of the holiness/Pentecostal movement the film “The Apostle” to realise again the truth of Isaiah’s inspired words:

But we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Is. 64:6).

By nature man can no more be holy than a pig can fly. In fact it would be easier for the pig to fly. Saved though he may man cannot by his own will and thinking make himself holy. And if he can’t put on holiness by an effort of his will, how can he put on the “new man” which is so holy as to be so alien to his natural understanding. He can’t and that is why God has to put it on for him.

But how does God do this? By his grace is the answer. And how can a believer know God has clothed him with new man? Not through his ordinary thinking nor by “will worship”, i.e. by willing it, but by faith in God’s words and as explored through the fourth dimension of reality, height, that is by the new man’s imagination.

You see by the time of writing Colossians Paul had learned not only that the Father hath already caused us to “put on” the “new man” but also that He has “made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). Paul also knew that the Father has “delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. (Col. 1:13)

So, far from struggling to achieve holiness and righteousness by our own feeble efforts, we have been “strengthened with all might according to his glorious power” to undergo a momentous change, one based on the truth that in Christ “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”.

 Fact is that already we are fully forgiven, finally delivered from evil and totally translated into the Lord’s heavenly kingdom. All that is required for this to become absolutely real in every circumstance of our present experience is that we believe God when He says He has already accomplished this in us.

Significantly, in Phil. 3:10 the Apostle Paul describes this process of our believing as being “made conformable unto his death” so that we might know “the power of his resurrection”.  Please note it is not we who must make ourselves conformable unto his death but God that does the actual work. Our only part is to be willing to “suffer the loss of all things” if that is what it takes, in order to “win Christ and be found in Him” (Phil. 3 9).

There is one other prerequisite to progress upward toward heaven in “the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). It is that we should forget “the things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before”.

Many Christians start to progress in the truth of God as He reveals it to them. Sadly they then stop part way, pitch camp and refuse to go further. Pleas for them to heed Paul’s latest revelation that of the grace mystery dispensation, and to thus climb higher, fall on deaf ears.

Now we have all learned many wonderful things about God from the Old Testament, the gospels and the Acts period Pentecostal dispensation. But those who respond to the “upward call” find it necessary to leave them behind in the sense that they are not vital doctrine we must obey today. You see, there is no room for excess baggage as we set to scale the height(s), which is why Paul urges us to “forget the things which are behind”.

Recently I was given a graphic example of this by my friend and fellow Bible student Pravin Puna. He invited me to see a wonderful scriptural example of the difference between depth and height in terms of what we need to do to find acceptance in the Lord. I had always felt, without really thinking about it, that seriously serving the Lord was a requirement.

However, Pravin urged me to compare the following verses:

2 Cor. 5:9-10: Wherefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of Him. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ.

Eph. 1:6: To the praise of the glory of his grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.

Can you see what has changed here as Paul moves from the primarily Jewish dispensation in Acts to the new revelation of grace for all men, but Gentiles in particular, given him by the Lord in the prison epistles? In the pre-mystery Pentecostal dispensation believers are told they must labour to be accepted and that they must face judgement at the judgement seat of Christ.

By contrast in Eph. 1:6 no labouring is required because believers are now told they have already made fully acceptable. You see, once the dispensation of grace and of the mystery is brought in (see Eph. 3:1-4) the apostle strikes a far higher note. He is now operating in height not in depth (see Eph. 3:18).

You see in height there is no need for us to work to be accepted because through the glory of God the Father’s grace we have been “made” acceptable in the Lord. Not only is our acceptance guaranteed; it is already accomplished.

What’s more there is no mention in the prison epistles of anyone needing to be assessed at the judgement seat of Christ. This is because we have already been accepted “in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6) and have been “translated into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col.1:13).

And being so accepted in Christ, being lifted up to be seated with Him the highest place “above the heavens” and being translated (written in, if you will) into the Lord’s heavenly kingdom all involve us in “going up higher”, climbing in fact to reach the very height of the revelation of mystery truth in the “new man” which we have “put on”.

So this is what God means by height. It is being taken up far above what we could ever hope to achieve, to be found in a far higher realm not by our own efforts but by what only He can do in his grace. Height then is what we experience when we “comprehend” the fourth dimension of true spiritual experience in God.

Remember the Collins Dictionary definition of .image, quoted in an earlier study? It is: 1) A mental picture of an object and 2) A representation in three dimensions of a person or object.

Now the “image” of Col. 3:10 is indeed both these things. However, Collins’ definition falls short in one respect. It deals with only three dimensions whereas God expresses his image in us in four dimensions. Thus we see in the spiritual reality of the mystery as outlined in Ephesians a “representation in four dimensions of both a person and an object”.

Allow me to explain: The “person” in the definition is the risen ascended God of glory, Christ Jesus the Lord. Importantly for us Gentiles, it is in his image, as the Lord of glory and the Creator of the New Creation (see Col. 3:10), that our personal “new man” has been created. What’s more this “new man”, which we are told we have already “put on”,  has been created in his own image by no less a person than Christ Himself.

As to the “object” represented by the “image”, that is both the Lord’s personal glory and the glorious realm in which He now lives at the right hand of the Father. And at the same time it is also both of these in us as we are renewed in his image and in the glory which is to be our abode in future. Presently, however, this realm of glory is hid in God both from our view and that of mankind (see Col. 3:3-4).

But there’s more to the dictionary definition of “image” than that.  Collins says that philosophically it means “a mental scheme in which sensations are revived”. And it is in

such a sense in the mystery of Christ (Eph. 3:1-4) that we are revived in our Christian walk of faith. It is how we are “renewed” in our “sensations” of faith in and love for Him. Proof of this is that all who come into grace mystery truth find themselves revitalised, their love for the Lord much greater, their ministry and love of the truth much increased.

Collins also states that, optically, “image” means “the representation of an object formed at the focus of a lens or mirror by rays of light refracted or reflected to it from all parts of the object”. And in 2 Cor. 3:18 the Apostle Paul expounds the power of such “imagery” (Collins: “imagery n. images regarded collectively):

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass (or mirror) the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Several things need to be said about this passage. Firstly, that dispensationally speaking it is doctrine or teaching for the Acts period Church of God which was made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers called into the “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:1). Careful study of scripture reveals that in the Pentecostal dispensation miracles accompanied what was a “faith plus works” programme.

All this has now been superseded by the “grace plus faith alone” programme of the grace-mystery dispensation (Eph. 2:8-9 and 3:1-4). By contrast there is a works principle in 2 Cor. 3:18 in that being “changed into the same image from glory to glory” depended on the believer taking pains to behold the Lord’s glory “as in a glass”. If he did not then no transformation into greater glory took place.

And if “glass”, which means mirror, is correctly understood in the context of other scripture it will be seen to be the word of God (James 1:27, 1 Cor. 13:12). Thus even in the miraculous Acts period serious study of scripture was required. Today diligent Bible study is also required. However, now it must be done through the imagination of the new man.

Sadly, current charismatic teaching takes a short cut on that by erroneously asserting that the transformation from glory to glory is effected solely by the “Spirit of the Lord”. But pastors who preach this from 2 Cor. 3:18 do not “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). They fail to see that this is doctrine to the Acts period Church of God, but not present truth for the “church which is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:21-22), which is the only scriptural church God is running with today. The upshot is that many are deceived into wrongly believing that the more filled with the Spirit you are the more glorious you become.

This is wrong on two counts. Firstly because study of God’s written word is a prerequisite for spiritual progress in any dispensation; thus it can’t be achieved just through the Spirit. Secondly because the “from glory to glory” piecemeal process of glorification of the Acts period has been superseded by the completed work of being “translated into the kingdom of his dear Son” as set out in Col. 1:13.

Back in 2 Cor. 3:18 the Pentecostal believer had to behold the Lord’s glory with “an open face”. As it turned out few could do it, which begs the question how many could do it today. Do you and I always read God’s word with “open face”?

In other words, do we read the prison epistle revelation given to Paul; with an “open mind” relying on God the Father’s “spirit of wisdom and knowledge in the revelation of Him” (Eph. 1:17) to reveal its true and therefore not commonly accepted meaning, or not? Certainly the word is our “glass” or mirror in which we can see reflected the glory of the Lord. But then again are we now being changed into the “same glory” as the glory of the Lord by what we read? Or have we already been fully changed by the putting on of the “new man”, which has superseded that process?

The truth is that the Acts period Church of God people very largely rejected the mystery revelation of Christ in glory given to Paul (see 2 Tim. 1:15). So it seems unlikely that they would have progressed far in being “changed from glory to glory”. Had they truly been changed into the glory of the Lord surely they would have rejoiced in the new truth revealed to the Apostle Paul; and written for us in his prison epistles. The scriptural record is that they rejected both Paul and the new revelation the Lord gave him (2 Tim 1:15).

Importantly, that new truth includes the fact that believers are now “raised up together (and) made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). And if that is not being fully changed “from glory to glory” I don’t know what is.

It is crucial to understand that truths set out in Paul’s Acts period epistles are both earthly and conditional. They are earthly in that they pertain to entry by resurrection into the Lord’s kingdom on earth. They are conditional in that they require a “work” done by the believer to receive them.

Thus at Pentecost those convicted by the Apostle Peter’s preaching were commanded to “repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). In the grace dispensation, by contrast, salvation is by grace and God’s work alone. The believer’s only contribution is to believe that He does so. Thus in Titus 3:5:

Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

Accepting that now in the mystery “all things are become new and that all things are (now) of God” (2 Cor. 5:17-18) posed a gut-wrenching challenge for the Pentecostal believers, as it still does for many today. It is hard to let go totally of what man can do in order to receive what only God can do.

Thus we see that, in common with other aspects of the mystery, being changed into Christ’s glorious image is only glimpsed and certainly not fulfilled in Paul’s Acts period writings (Romans, Corinthians, Galatians and Thessalonians). Only in the Apostle’s prison epistles (Ephesians to Philemon) is the change into glory fully brought about in the believer, and then only because it is done entirely by God through his grace. Proof of this is found in Col. 3:9-10 where believers are told that:

…ye have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.

Note first that this is already an accomplished fact. Believers here “have put off” the old man and “have put on” the new. Consequently they are already “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him”. In the new dispensation then, the transformation has already taken place in God. Like finding oneself “complete in Christ” (Col. 2:10), it is a completed work that requires no contribution from the believer save believing that because God in his word has said it, then indeed it is so.

Similarly believers have been “delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13), “made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12) and indeed are “risen with Him (Christ) through the faith of the operation of God” (Col. 2:12).

Today many sincere followers of Christ struggle with issue of putting off the old man and putting on the new because they wrongly believe that this is something they must do themselves. But who can honestly say that in their own strength they have fully done so?

The only answer to this seemingly impossible task is found in God’s grace, the complete provision for our needs. Look carefully in Col. 3:9-10 and you will see that God has done the putting off and putting on for us, leaving us only the task of putting on “bowels of mercies, kindness humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, etc” as proof of the change that has already taken place.

In the same way we have already been “re-imaged”, or re-imagined if you will, into the very image of Christ. Thus the “new man” that we have now “put on” not only has the “mind of Christ” and is holy; he also has the Lord of glory’s very own imagination, which raises the question: Just what is imagination anyway?

It is often confused with imaginariness which is the quality of being imaginary or fanciful but that is not the word’s meaning. Collins Dictionary defines imagination as:

“The mental faculty which apprehends and forms ideas of external objects; the poetical faculty; inventive powers controlled by a dominant plan or purpose.”

It is in this sense that the word “image”, and by implication its derivative “imagination”, are used in the Bible. And the verb to “imagine” is used in scripture with exactly the meaning given by Collins Dictionary:

Imagine (verb transitive - to form in the mind an idea or image; to conceive; to devise to picture; to believe. Imagine (verb intransivitive) - to form an image of; to picture in the mind. 

To be continued.

EXPLORING THE FOURTH

DIMENSION - PART FIVE

By John Aldworth

Published 27 November 2013

Eph. 3:18-19: May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

Matt 21:9: And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.

What is height as God means it in the Bible? And what does the highest describe in spiritual terms? The answers to these questions are important as we seek to progress our understanding of the Fourth Dimension of Eph. 3:18.

I believe that height is where we experience the fullness of salvation. It is the spiritual state of being where we “know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” and where we can be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 4:19).

As to the “highest” I see this  not only as the realm in which God lives “far above all heavens” but also as a place of spiritual experience where God instantly saves in sudden power (scriptural proof of this later). Furthermore it is the location of the “high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14), that lofty plane above all heavens where we are bodily transformed into glory to live for ever with our Lord.

Thankfully, the good news for us presently earth bound creatures is that the “highest” can break into our life, into our world and that when it does we are instantly changed. This, of course, is what actually happened when you got saved. God’s power overwhelmed and changed you in a moment. Proof of that is that you’ve never been the same since.

But consider a scriptural example of the huge power of the Highest breaking loose on earth. Turn with me to Matt. 21:1-17 and picture the scene.

Israel had spurned her Messiah but look, the One whom thousands turned away from in John Chapter Six now rides into Jerusalem royally greeted by “a very great multitude”. What brought about such a change for the better in so many hearts? Answer: a visitation of power from the Highest. And we know that because those whose hearts were changed said so in Matt. 21:9:

And the multitudes that went before and followed after, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.

And in verse 10 we are told that “… when He was come into Jerusalem the whole city was moved, saying, Who is this?” Now to “move” (Strong's 4579) means to “rock, vibrate, shake to and fro, agitate and cause to tremble”. It’s not a gentle push, it’s a hard shove. That’s what happened to the people of Jerusalem at Jesus’s entry. It’s also what happened the moment you and I were saved. We were shoved suddenly into the realm of the Highest and changed from within.

Proof of that is found in the little known meaning of hosanna. It means “Save now, save immediately”. And “in the highest” means the highest place of power, that is, the very throne room of God which is “far above all heavens” (Eph. 4:24). Put the two together and you have: Save right now in the highest, or from the highest.

In other words people in Jerusalem at Jesus’s entry, and you and I when we were saved, were changed in an instant by the power of height, God’s height, that is, the Highest Himself. No wonder then that in Eph. 3:18 Paul prays that you and I might be able to “comprehend” the four dimensions of length, breadth, depth and height. And please note he prays that we grace-saved believers might comprehend these dimensions “with all saints”, meaning that other believers in other dispensations have experienced God breaking in upon them from the height above.

The height or the highest then is the sphere from whence the Lord saves instantly and with great power. It is also a name for God. Jesus Himself is called “the Son of the Highest” (Luke 1:32) and He was conceived in Mary when the “power of the Highest” overshadowed her (Luke 1:35). John the Baptist was called “the prophet of the Highest” (Luke 1:76) and the Lord’s disciples were told that if they loved their enemies they would be the “the children of the Highest” (Luke 6:35).

Importantly in the Old Testament God is often referred to as “the Most High” or “the Lord Most High” (Num. 24:16 and Ps. 47:2, for example). Nor is experience of the height or highness of God a thing of the past. As Psalm 92:8 puts it: “But Thou Lord art Most High for evermore”.

This why the words “Hosanna in the Highest” ring through the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke like a peal of bells:

Luke 2:13-14: And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Luke 19:37-38: And when He was come nigh even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives the whole multitude began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen. Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the Highest.

Mark 11:10: Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest.

In passages such as these it is well to ask what the words mean. Bless, for example, means to speak well of. And praise means to acknowledge God’s goodness and one’s desire for his glory. Bless does not mean a priest or minister can cast a spell of spiritual power upon you nor does praise mean God will be pleased if you sing the same chorus several times over.

When people and angels blessed and praised God in the verses above they did so because they were overcome with sudden emotion as power from the height above shook them. It was not something they tried to do to please God. To the contrary they did it because they wanted to thank Him. Collins Dictionary has it right when it says hosanna means “a cry of praise to God, an exclamation of adoration”.

But, I hear you say, these bursts of power from the height above occurred in the gospels and the Old Testament, so are they still relevant today? Yes, very much so. For us to be saved today the Highest still has to break in upon us from above.

By nature we are “dead in trespasses and sins” and unless we are “quickened together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5) by the Highest Himself we remain dead to the call of God.

We have already noted that it was the Apostle Paul’s prayer that grace-saved believers should “comprehend with all saints” the dimensions of Eph. 3:18, which include height. However, there is a huge difference between the meaning of height for those of earlier dispensations who have an earthly resurrection hope and it’s meaning for us whose calling is the “high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14).

The hope of Old Testament believers and those saved during the Lord’s earthly ministry and under the Pentecostal dispensation of the Acts period was definitely their “resurrection”. In fact Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 precisely to convince them of this truth. Hear his stern rebuke to doubters in 1 Cor. 15:13, 16 and 19.

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

However, Paul writes no such message for those saved under the dispensation of the grace of God and the mystery, which is detailed in Eph. 3 at the start of the prison epistles. Rather the apostle’s unequivocal statement in Col. 2:12 is that “ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead.”

Thus we who are called as members of the “church which is his body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:21-22) have already been resurrected – with Christ. This is why when the apostle discusses our future state he makes no mention of resurrection save to state in Col. 3:1:

If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

This is something Old Testament, gospel period and Acts period believers were never told to do. Nor were they ever told they were risen with Christ. Rather the message to them was that since God had raised up Christ He would also resurrect their bodies too.

Fact is that if you study the Old Testament, Matthew, Mark Luke and John and Acts and the pre-prison epistles carefully you will find no promise anywhere to believers that they either rise with Christ or that they would appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4) in that place “above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God”.

Let us be very clear. The place where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God is the place to which He “ascended up far above all heavens” (Eph. 4:10). As such it is far above the “heaven” pictured in the Book of Revelation and higher than the heaven which the author of Hebrews portrays as mount Sion, the “heavenly Jerusalem” where are found the “spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb.12:23).

Note that in the Book of Revelation the heavenly Jerusalem descends to earth; it is “the tabernacle of God” by which God will dwell with men on earth, not in heaven. So if your hope is that you will go to this heaven please realise that if you succeed (and that is doubtful given the watershed change that occurred  in Acts 28, ending the Jewish, earthly dispensation and replacing it with “blessed hope”  of appearing with Christ in glory) eventually you will end up back on earth.

To sum up, the hope of saints saved in the Old Testament, the gospels period or during Acts was and is to be resurrected back on earth Height to them meant heaven coming down to earth, breaking in upon them from above.

By contrast our hope in the grace-mystery dispensation is not one of resurrection at all because we are already risen with Christ. Instead our hope is that of change and our appearing with “Christ in glory”Our change will come when that which we are twice told to look for occurs and for this see Phil. 3:21 and Titus 2:13. In Phil. 3:20 we are told to look to heaven where our conversation is and in Titus 2:13 we are urged to be “looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”.

It is important to remember that this appearing of the Lord takes place in “glory”, that is in the realm “far above all heavens where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God”.  It most definitely does not take place on earth, nor is it a coming down to earth by the Lord. That takes place at the Second Coming.

            No, for us his appearing is in glory. As Col. 3:4 has it:

When Christ who is our life (not our death and then resurrection, because we are already risen with Him) shall appear then ye (we) shall also appear with Him in glory.

You see in grace just as we are risen with Him, so his appearing is to become our appearing. Importantly, this takes place not in heaven but in the “heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6) which according to Eph. 4:10 are “far above all heavens”.

Consequently our understanding of height is very different to that of earlier saints whose destiny is to be resurrected to live again on earth.  Their height rises no higher than the highest heaven while ours soars far above that to the place to which Christ ascended. They look to a heaven come down to earth; we look to a home with the Lord in glory in the very highest place that God Himself occupies.

Truly right now we need to be looking, believing, thinking and talking about the very highest things above. This is because we are destined to appear with Christ in the full glory of the very height of God Himself.

The end