avenue of approach
Timothy Sutter
it's not exhaustive just an overview.
you'd probably have to live with it
to appreciate all the fine details.
[fixed width font]
perfect ---> Child of God ---> Tree of Life ---> Kingdom of God
human being ^
\ |
\ Christ
\ |
realization ---> personal works ---> failure
less than God \
\
\
Death
now, don't get the idea that Salvation thru Christ
means that you are now as if our Human Prototype,
let's call him Adam and Eve or just Adam
for simplicity's sake, had taken freely from
the Tree of Life.
don't get the idea that "we" are now "better"
than Adam would have been if he had eaten
from the Tree of Life
apparently, -that- avenue of approach ...we didn't go by.
but, even by that approach, our prototype
would have experienced some instantaneous change,
even if only from borrowed life to inherent Life,
and that may have been shocking or even painful
for a twinkling of an eye.
but what -could- be apparent to anyone looking
at that diagram may be something along these lines;
that Adam was created a perfect
human being but that human perfection
did not make him a perfected member
of God's little family.
and so, Adam was in need of perfecting
in 'Glory' as Spirit being, and this
thru the Tree of Life.
where 'Glory' is an honorable state in God.
but Adam, sort of jumped the gun and, became
aware of his less that God status before he
had the means to gain the necessary
perfecting as Child of God.
and so, he became aware of this
status and sought out his own perfection.
only, his own idea of perfection was simply
to cover up his less than God status.
and then the rest is history.
Man bloodied and beaten on and by his own device.
this is the brief version.
as they like to say,
a thorough working of this thing
is left to you as an exercise.
this is just a sketchy overview.
but look, God saw Adam was naked.
God didn't even point this out to them.
but God intended to clothe Adam
in the righteousness of God.
I'll look at this some more and
see if I can make it clearer to me.
but the distinction should be becoming clear;
a perfect human being is not a
Glorified Spirit Being in
the Kingdom of God.
and so, Adam, while created without flaw
or defect from the human standpoint,
was not yet clothed fully in
God's own righteousness.
[fixed width font]
perfect ---> Child of God ---> Tree of Life ---> Kingdom of God
human being ^
\ |
\ Christ
\ |
realization ---> personal works ---> failure
less than God \
\
\
Death
now, if you look at it this way;
you summarily merge Adam as pefect
Human being with Child of God, and reckon
that Child of God is still not yet
a perfected Glorified Being.
this does nothing to change the overall view.
and this view, i admit, has it's advantages.
and, of course, this "Child of God" would
be that vision God holds, as that transitiory
state between human being and Glorified Spirit
where the final outcome is as
if it were already a completed work.
there's probably some more details.
we'll see.
if it were to be placed all on a single line,
then the idea of "repentance" may be
a bit more clear.
really only one road, either
towards or away from dear old God.
and then you have to add in this stuff;
i made this up earlier and haven't edited,
but i'm sure it probably latches up properly.
this concerns repentance, forward progress,
bottlenecks, relapsing, captivity and freedoms.
[fixed width font]
_____ _____
\ / \ / \ /
\ / ? \ / ? \ /
\_____/ \___________/ \______/
/ /
--> -> - <-> -> -> - <-> --> -->
_____ \ ___________ \ ______
/ \ / \ / \
/ \ ? / \ ? / \
/ \_____/ \_____/ \
obviously, to the left in this diagram,
away from God will not lead to some
great freedom, but to a tiny little
hole in the ground.
to the right, in this diagram,
towards God, will lead to Life.
and a rich fulfilling life,
not a narrow slavery.
anyway, I'll try and make it short and sweet.
it's been told before time and time again,
i just have a cute diagram and it struck
me as interesting whilst daydreamimg.
oh, and whereas it has been described as
"two roads" it's really only one road,
either towards God or away from God.
suit yourself, but the way away from God is wide.
-but-, there may also be "bottlenecks" in the
road towards God, which open up to new
wide open spaces upon progression.
and herein may lie "danger" *but* the signals
of relapse and backsliding would be the
reappearance of bottlenecks that you
have already seen previously as opposed
to a new bottleneck that you
have not seen before.
see, the bottlenecks are somewhat safe
zones in that the path is limited and
more clearly dictated as opposed to
the wide freedom of the openings.
as some have said, freeedom ain't
all that easy a thing to handle.
but you don't want to revert to safe zones,
*just* because your freedom scares you.
especially if that safe zone is a difficult
prison that makes you feel miserable.
so, you turn towards God.
and you walk towards God.
and the road narrows.
the first narrowing may be a repulsion
for the things in the life that you had
up to the time you turned towards God.
it could trap you, or become a safe zone,
but an impedance to forward progress.
so, let's say you break thru that
bottleneck, and become free of a
trouble that so easily kills you.
then you are in a new freedom of open space.
and you could circle around
in the wilderness for years.
or, you could revert to an old problem
and find yourself in an old bottle neck,
feeling safe and miserable.
but let's say you persevere, and
get acquainted and happy in your free state,
but then you begin to see troubles that were
not so blatant under the first bottleneck.
and so, you enter a different sort of bottleneck.
and you have progressed, yes, but ....
Timothy Sutter
perfect <---> Child of God ---> Tree of Life ---> Kingdom of God
human being ^
\ |
\ Child of God
\ ^
\ |
\ turn to Christ
\ ^
\ |
realization ---> personal works ---> failure
less than God \
\
\
Death
"Adam's" nature as a -flesh-
being was not flawed.
the forging of his -character- was sidetracked.
Christ's character, for all practical
purposes, -is- "The Tree of Life"
that -is- the character of God.
had Adam taken from that, they would
have entered onto the Kingdom of God.
so, when -we- 'eat' of Christ
we are grafted into that identification
with the character of Christ
while, as yet, our personal characters
may yet be in shortfall, and our physical
beings of lesser 'glory' that the
original creation of Adam.
but we are again called "Child of God"
and God sees our reconditioned and
perfected selves off in the distance
as a matter of fact.
we are declared righteous, and we walk
toward the reality of that declaration.
God see us -as- Jesus Christ
and transforms us back in to that persona
which we were meant to be from before creation.
God did not let "Adam" die and abolish "Man"
and then form a new man from the dust of the
ground and breathe the breath of life in to
a new creation 'starting all over from scratch,'
as it were, and hope that -this- 'new' "Adam"
did not make the same false move, but took
from the Tree of Life instead.
didn't do that.
God perpetuated Adam's life thru childbirth.
and thru Jesus, repaired "Adam".
but Jesus is still a -little- bit different.
different from Adam and different from Adam's
progeny. much like Adam and much like Adam's
progeny, but a -little- bit different.
but also, _God_ didn't do anything wrong.
it wasn't God's fault that "Adam"
grabbed from that false intention.
and so, if God wiped out Adam and
started all over from scratch, one
may conclude that, somehow, God had
done something wrong of which God
intended to fix, 'the next time'
and like some of us can see and agree,
this is no "trial and error" experiment.
so, it's not -just- that God
addressed the problem, as it lay,
and worked out this Salvation,
but that Man's error was not God's error.
the Love which is God
is True Light and the
only source of Life.
"Adam" was formed by God and
God breathed the breath of life
into "Adam's" nostrils.
when Adam broke faith with God
he lost the vital connection to God
which was perpetuating his life.
like a lightbulb in a lamp provides no
light when unplugged from the wall socket.
there is no choosing involved here,
unplug the lamp, no light.
unplug from God, no life.
although this happens very fast
in our little likeness, when
you unplug a lamp from the wall
socket, the light remains on for
a fraction of a second as it 'turns off'
if you could take a high speed
film of it and slow it down a bit
you'd see the light slowly turn
off after the lamp was unplugged.
so, like that, human beings don't
just drop to the ground immediately
when they are unplugged from God.
at any rate, this is WHY Jesus.
WHY the blood
WHY the Cross
we all became/become unplugged from God
in short;
God lives as eternal Spirit, God is Life.
God forms the man, adam, from the earth.
God makes the man to continue to live thru God's Life.
God says to man, don't do this or you will die.
man does this, becomes detached from God, and dies.
God, perpetuates the man's natural
physical material existance thru childbirth.
we are all born as children of the man, adam.
we were not newly -formed- from the earth,
we are -born- of the flesh.
so, we 'inherit' the man's material physical life.
but we also, 'inherit' the
man's physical mortallity.
that is, we inherit death from adam.
"Adam and Eve" were enabled to pass
on that temporary life to the flesh
thru conception and child birth.
so, -we- get -that- temporary light of life
from our parents and ostensibly from "Adam"
God the eternal Spirit, takes on the flesh
material physical nature and dies a
physical death
as a substitute for our
eternal spiritual death.
the eternal Spirit experienced a physical
death as substitution for the material
being experiencing eternal spiritual death.
by and thru this substitution, the human
being becomes re-attached to the Life which
is the eternal Spirit which is God thru an
identification with this human being who
was God in the flesh material being.
we are now identified with Jesus Christ
and we re-inherit our lives from God.
now, human beings can enter into
the resurrection of Christ by personal
identification with Christ -as-
son of adam, the man.
in essence, -that-
set of actions
-by- God
conception-life-crucifixion
blood spillage-burial
and resurrection
make it possible for GOD
to plug -us- back in to Life.
it -is- an action of Love provided
by God to plug us back in while
we were yet dead.