The gigantic embrace

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

The gigantic embrace

“We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” (1Jn. 4:16).

“My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies." (Song 2:16).

The Koine Greek had several words for love. Two of those words were eros and agape. In the Song of Solomon Solomon used the Hebraism that appropriated the second Greek concept of love to express the first and greatest concept of love, divine love. 

Every requirement and every privilege of the Holy Writ is ours. Not only for people way back then; not just for people way over there. “The beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” (Psa. 90:17), here and now. For the purpose of this post, the embrace is not between lovers, but is a parent to child, friend to friend embrace, purest and most holy. But more than anything earthly, the God-man embrace is most assuredly arms-wrapped-around-bodies love. The God-man embrace is the Creators’ SPIRIT joyfully engulfing, and the creatures’ spirits happily being engulfed.

“The relationship! The relationship! It’s all about the relationship!” I hear people cry. True, it is all about our relationship with God through Jesus. But, is our relationship with God valid? Is it honest? are the big questions. It must go way beyond formal. It must be true, and it must be in Spirit. And of course, it must be more than superheated on the outside while zero degrees Kelvin on the inside fanaticism. 

Jesus said we must be “in Spirit”. And not only in Spirit but truly “in Spirit”. “God is a Spirit (that is, God expresses His selfless soul in supreme holiness and ever debars dissimulation): and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24). “The Father seeketh such to worship Him.” (John 4:23). Such people will have no pretense. “In their mouth was found no guile.” (Rev. 14:5).

Am I genuine before God? Or is my profession only for show? Do I follow hard after the God of Abraham and king David and Paul like they did, all the time? These must be the most important questions for constant self-examination in this quickly shrinking Investigative Judgment period, when deceptions and delusions abound in us and around us. It’s not simply that worship is the big test of Revelation. But true worship is the big Revelation test.

The embrace, the embrace! Heaven is all about the embrace between the Creators’ Spirit and creation. And Earth is certainly included in that boon of health.

Another thought connected to the embrace of God: the union of your heart in worship cannot go simply to any supernatural person other than the Father and Son, even if that person takes it upon himself to capitalize his name and his title in all the religious literature of the Christian religion, and be central to the other world religions.

True worship must be a union directed to the correct supernatural Person, One begotten into the purest, most holy love of God the Father and into submission to the holy Law of His kingdom, the law of self-sacrificing love.  Being born again we can have true worship in His embrace. The real relationship is all about being engulfed by the Father’s love! True worship is all about being invited into the Father’s infinite love for His children, especially His only begotten Child. His Son was dead and is alive again; He was lost for our sakes but now He is found. It’s about the Father’s promised reconciliation with an alienated Earth!

Jesus always had the embrace of His Father, from the very beginning. “The only begotten Son... in the bosom of the Father....”(John 1:18). He prayed for His disciples, “I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me.” (John 17:8). Before Jesus came out from God in order to impregnate Miriam, He was in, or within, God and His comforting glory. Can we see Jesus forever dwelling in His Father’s love? Can we see ourselves also forever dwelling in the Father’s bosom with Jesus? 

If we overcome sin through our own diligent effort that is empowered by God’s embrace we will sit with Jesus on His throne, engulfed in His glory that comes from our being loved, which is His Spirit to us, which is His own self in us, which is His embrace around us. But, it's also His Father’s glory and bosom and embrace that engulfs His Son because He overcame the devil through His own diligent effort that was empowered by His Father’s embrace.

“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.... I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one.” (John 17:20-23).

The Father’s union with His only Begotten was inexpressible. So at Jesus’ baptism straight from the Almighty’s heart sped a package of glory, emblematic of His Spirit without reservation, given to Jesus’ heart that day. “Direct from the throne issue the beams of His glory....purest light—fit emblem of Him, the meek and lowly one.” Desire of Ages, p. 112.

Unceasingly in the Father’s bosom, surrounded and filled with the essence of His Father’s own self, the Son could minister non-stop to a resistant nation and world. Compared to the majestic peace and comfort from union with His God the daily need for food, water, sleep, warmth, or coolness, even loving acceptance from family and friends, were much lesser necessities. “Jesus saith unto them, My [food] and my drink, is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34). To His beloved Son “God giveth not the Spirit by measure.” (John 3:34). In His Father’s bosom, the embrace was not euphoria or ecstasy, but an abiding peaceful trust. 

The definition of Embrace: “To hold someone closely in one’s arms, especially as a sign of affection. To accept or support willingly and enthusiastically. The act of holding someone closely in one's arms.”

The Spirit of God through Jesus’ embrace, brings with it the embrace of God. The Spirit is God’s embrace. What exactly does the embrace look like? It is what Paul called, “the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge”, being “filled with all the fulness of God”, “the peace of God”.

“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 fulness of God.” (Eph. 3:16-19).

“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:7).

The divine embrace “shall keep your hearts and minds”. By God’s reconciliation we are “in Him” (Eph. 1:10), and in His peace that the world doesn’t possess, and therefore cannot give us. His love brings life and light to our brains and bodies. By His love the dead and blind have life and light. “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4).

The beauty of the Lord our God gives us soundness of mind. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2Tim. 1:7).

His imparted love keeps our minds sound. It’s not by modern psychology or psychiatry that the mind receives health. The sound mind comes only by the “new Spirit” (Eze. 36:26) that He promises, “I will give you”. By His love (Spirit) we can have real, long-lasting mental health. No one who doesn’t have the embrace of God has true mental health.

In His embrace obedience to the Law of God is ours for the taking. This was Paul’s great discovery in Romans 7:6, 25.

“In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” (Col. 2:11).

No earthly, human means, not even human relationships, can heal the emptiness caused by alienation from the God of love. Only by the operation of the great Physician, through faith in the Physician, can spiritual things be injected into our newly re-made spirit. And our follow-up is simple—constant, tight union with the Physician, receiving His embrace continually and doing for Him. 

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. Rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.” (Col. 2:6-10).

Our oneness with God comes from the embrace from Jesus. “He that is joined (G. kollao,  ‘glued’, ‘stuck’) unto the Lord is one Spirit.” (1Cor. 6:17).

God’s true bonding to and real embracing of our spirits must come by hearts divinely humbled, made unselfish and willing to serve others. Then the Spirit of divine love can unify us and bind our hearts to the Father and Son, and to each other. The counsel of peace between Father and Son reverberates Their union to all by Their one Spirit that pervades Their one universe. The flux of Their pervading Spirit cuts through our unloved dominion of Satan and its unloved inhabitants, giving us life and blessings and salvation. 

No one can avoid the benefits of the Spirit of union that emanates from Them. But, Satan can distract the children of Adam and disallow Christ’s Spirit in the humans’ spirits , and thus the humans focus their thoughts upon their deleterious errors and on the ugly self-exaltation of the destroyer.

“With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” (Eph. 4:2-4).

“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. 

Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.” (1Jn. 4:9-13).

To exterminate the Son of God, and to usurp His one and only unique place with the Father has ever been Satan’s effort, even calling himself a third person of the Godhead Spirit. By this Trinity Satan has effectively taken the place of the precious Child of God, so that, rather than embrace Christ here and now, the world is embracing Satan, “whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.” (Acts 19:27). Everyone who embraces someone from heaven besides Jesus, embraces Satan. And everyone who pours out his soul to the Trinity god cannot know the embrace of the Lord or of the only true God, and so does not know life and peace.

Nowadays when one says that the Trinity god is not the scriptural God but of man-made construction he finds that the Trinity god is protected by rather violent guardians, just as it was 2,000 years ago. 

“Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.” (Acts 19:26,27). A few minutes later Paul was almost martyred.

Everybody who pours his heart into the third person of a Trinity god misses out on the gigantic embrace from God’s holy Spirit. He does not know the embrace from the Son of “the only true God”. And everyone who does not have the embrace of the Son does not know life and health. Those worshipers are subsisting off of a forbidden tree. 

Satan promised Eve everlasting life if she would trust and depend upon him. Then she immediately evangelized her best friend, and Adam became a disciple of the new god who his Father, Jesus, never knew.

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Gen. 3:1-6).

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.... And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1Jn. 4:1-5,14,15).

Satan has so effectively deceived this world that many would as verily say today as did people of old, “We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” (Acts 19:2). They would say this not because they have never heard of the term, “Holy Ghost”, but because they haven't known it as the wonderful embrace of God. The unknown, but true, non-Trinity God has had an unknown, un-felt, un-received embrace, which has the sole purpose of bringing life and health to souls, minds, and bodies of humanity. But, “whosoever will” must seek out that unknown, unpopular, anti-Queen of heaven, non-Trinity God.

Obedience to the Law of God comes through the loving embrace of the Spirit of the God of Law. The Spirit is the Father’s truth and embrace, the embrace of His reconciliation, His gladly embracing reconciled Spirit, the gift of His reconciliation to the repentant sinner. The Spirit is God’s reconciled embrace for all who have surrendered to His strong convictions. To them He gives “the Spirit of His Son” (Gal. 4:6). And by His loving embrace our love is brought to life.

“Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world’s dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, ‘with healing in His wings.’” Malach 4:2.

The soundness of mind from the great Creator, through His Son’s Spirit, allows us to love God’s will and His Law. Through His Spirit embrace dominating us we will finally learn how the Law of God is a Law of love. Through the embrace of the embracing Father and Son we possess the power of God unto salvation.

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous.

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1Jn. 5:1-5).

Through the embrace of God we receive the powerful will of God to do righteousness. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1,2). “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Heb. 10:10).

The Spirit of God, the embrace of God, is the love of both God and His Son. When we see Their close embrace we naturally want to be part of that because we were made in Their spiritual image. Then we embrace Them and everything They stand for because They first embraced us, Their children.

We see Their love of embracing in Jesus’ ministry to little children. “He took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when He had taken him in His arms...” (Mark 9:36). “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.” (Mark 10:15,16).

Little children are naturally meek and diffident, and belittled by life. When we can be belittled and meek by the mighty power of God that towers over our self-proclaimed greatness; when we hate our pride and dispense with it like the filthy rags that it is, then we can enter the embrace of God like the little ones did that day long ago. Only little children can enter and appreciate the gigantic union of a holy Godhead.

“He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.… If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:21,23).

Through the embrace of God we are empowered to speak the truth calmly, but fearlessly. We have no fear of loss, for God’s love for us is greater than a world that doesn’t love us.

“Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before Me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.

And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.

And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.” (Jer. 15:19-21).

Wrapped in the Spirit of God we are bound in a bundle of life with Jesus.

“The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out, as out of the middle of a sling.” (1Sam. 25:29).