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The Creative Word
John R Gavazzoni
December, 2001
Thousand Oaks, CA
I have shared portions of the following in previous spoken and written messages and was impressed to combine those portions to express a new and fresh sense of awe and wonderment in reflecting on the place of the Word of God in the economy of God. As I undertake to do so, the intention to present a more complete word containing and summing up that which was previously in portions coincides with the Bible's presentation of the Word as having at one time been spoken in portions but now in summary completeness.
As you may know, the Book of Hebrews sets before us the matter of revelation in portions and "in toto." In the opening of the book we are told that "In many separate revelations [each of which set forth a portion of the Truth] and in different ways God spoke of old to [our]forefathers in and by the prophets, [But] in the last of these days He has spoken to us in [the person of a] Son, Whom He appointed Heir and lawful Owner of all things, also by and through Whom He created the worlds and the reaches of space and the ages of time [He made, produced, built, operated and arranged them in order]" (Heb. 1:1-2 Amp).
So the scriptures make a distinction between the Truth conveyed "in part" through vessels that are not themselves the Truth independently, and the Truth perfectly, completely and incarnately present in the One who is the explanation, definition, revelation and reproduction of the Divine Speaker.
That God has fully expressed Himself in His Son as opposed to how He apportioned His thought through the prophets is clearly seen in verse 3 in words of magnificent import. "He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God's] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power" (Heb. 1:3). I do not know of anything else, other than the presence of the Lord Himself, that can more quickly bring me in worshipful admiration to the feet of my Savior than those words.
Clearly when God chooses to act in order to both initiate and consummate His purpose, He does so by speaking, and when He has fully spoken, His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. He does not speak to some audience hoping that they will take His word and carry it to fulfillment. Rather, He sends forth His Word and it accomplishes exactly what He sent it forth to do and it does not return to Him void (Isa. 55:11).
It is a self-fulfilling word containing in itself the intention and fruition of the will of God. Men, with their religious sense of self-importance and responsibility, see the Word of God as something in need of their care and handling lest it come to naught and they be held responsible for its failure. What utter nonsense, what foolish speculation and haughty imagination, what a pretentious stronghold is that concept which shall be broken in pieces and fall in a heap of rubble under the mighty blows of the very Word that they presume to touch with unholy hands. Away with it once and for all!
Allow me to trace for you the inspired record in scripture of the unfolding progression of God's Word from the utterance of it's first syllables until that Word is completely articulated. We first, of course, see the Word in Genesis as God creates the entire cosmos by its utterance. The first, natural creation comes into being by the Word of God and according to Hebrews all things were not only created BY that Word but IN that Word.
The cosmos was contained in the Word and released from it's containment when the Word was uttered by Elohim. Unspeakably awesome as is that creation of the heavens and the earth, especially as science has enlarged our understanding of the infinity of both the macrocosm and microcosm, it pales before the greater accomplishment of God through His Word in the creation of the new heavens and new earth.
In the total picture of the administration of His eternal purpose, that first divine utterance was incomplete and awaited the day when God would speak in a way so as to not only bring forth a material universe by His Word but would fuse into a perfect union that universe and all within it with that which He has birthed in His Son in eternity. For the eternal Word is a such that, in the final analysis, it is a Word that is spoken by being birthed.
In the eternal conception and begetting of the Son by the Father, the Word, the perfect expression of the thought of the I AM of God burst forth from the womb of God, containing in Himself, a visible universe of time, space and matter, but more importantly also the universe of relationship within God. He contained all this and He contained it all in perfect unity without any thing to disturb that union.
That Word has been heard in portions, and until the final articulation, the apportionment left a place for the alien disruption of sin and death; entropy both natural and spiritual. When the Word is fully spoken there will be no place for those aberrations. Jesus said that the devil had no place in Him. Now there is to be an expansion of the Word that He is, so that by multiplying Himself in many it will follow that in them, the devil will have no place. In fact, if they knew themselves to be who they are in Christ they would presently experience the same insulation from evil as did Christ. But I am getting ahead of myself.
This creative Word is coming into its fulness. Let me explain. According to the Gospel of John which spiritually summarizes the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). This Word of God was not mere air forced out of the lungs of God and formed into magical syllables in His mouth. This Word---this final, all-inclusive Word--- came to us by birthing, a birthing that brought God and man, heaven and earth, into perfect harmony on earth as it is in heaven and out of the womb of a virgin the Message (the Reality which was the Message) came; that in God, there is no real separation between God and His creation, that all is One and out from the chaff of the lie that has hidden the kernel of Truth, the restoration of all things to their Original, Primal Origin shall come forth, shorn of the chaff by the shaking of God and the chaff consumed by the Fire of God.
The full articulation of this Word, not in mere portions but in the fullness of the Godhead bodily can be seen in sequential unfolding in the sovereign arrangement of the canon of the New Testament. In the Gospel of John, summing up the section of the gospels, we see the Word singularly made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:14). In the next section of the canon, the Book of Acts, we see that singular Word, the Divine Seed, sown into the hearts of a remnant multitude so that it was recorded that the Word grew, multiplied and prevailed (Acts 12:24, 19:20).
This language of the Spirit is meant to convey to the spiritually literate, something more than simply a proliferation of gospel preaching. At the heart of this description of the activity of the Word is the truth, that the Christ, the living Word of God has been sown into the hearts of many and that One Word has become many words, growing and multiplying in and by them, but still retaining it's essential message, the Father revealed to men by the Son, but also by the Son in the sons. And wherever that Word goes it prevails.
Next we come to the next section of the New Testament, the epistles, and with remarkable continuity of principle, the apostle Paul exalts in the progression of the articulation of the Word as He describes the Corinthian believers as a living epistle, known and read of all men (2 Cor. 3:1-3). This goes beyond individualism so that we see the gathering of the Word multiplied into words, growing, prevailing, united into a corporate expression; a letter from God to the world.
But God is not through yet. When we come to the last section of the New Testament, (though there has been a brief allusion to it already by Paul in Phil. 4:3), highlighted, center stage, in the Book of Revelation, something comes into prominence as central to the consummation of God's creative Word.
St. John, caught up in the Spirit, sees a special book opened. The book is the Book of Life. From a singular, all-inclusive Word, Christ has multiplied Himself to be epistles. Wherever believers are knit together in love they are an epistle and there are many epistles in the earth and together in the Spirit they form a book, the Book of Life, in which God has fully expanded the Message which is Christ.
God has been writing this book for thousands of years and it is a remarkable book for every word in it is a unique expression of the One Word, Christ. This vivid imagery in the Book of Revelation is saying the same thing that Paul spoke of in Eph. 2:7, "in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
In the reading of this book, past, present and future, all the world shall understand how desirable is His grace, and the world shall see what the will of God is. It is a people captured by the grace of God in Christ, a city set on a hill that cannot be hid, the community of the blood-bought holding forth the Word of Life drawing all to share in the grace that they personify.
When this book is complete and opened fully the Word will be articulated in all it's meaning and it shall, as it always does, return to the Father having accomplished that for which it was sent. He, the Word, shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. The pleasure of God shall prosper in His hand and all nations shall come to the New Jerusalem to learn His law, the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.
We can see this also in a marvelously simple yet astute outline of the whole Bible: The Old Testament is to be understood as a record of PREPARATION for an astounding event. That event is recorded in the Gospels; that which has been in PREPARATION comes into MANIFESTATION, namely, the Incarnation, Emmanuel, God with us in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. The epistles give us an inspired EXPLANATION of the implications of that MANIFESTATION. And the Book of Revelation unveils the CONSUMMATION. Preparation, manifestation, explanation, consummation; the whole Bible record in four words.
Another has succinctly summed it up saying that in the Old Testament we have God in a nation. In the Gospels we have God in Christ. In the Book of Acts we have God in Christ in the Spirit. In the Epistles we have God in Christ in the Spirit in the church and in Revelation we have God in Christ in the Spirit in the church in glory.
May I remind my readers of a simple fact that is often missed. The record of the consummation is titled "The Revelation of Jesus Christ," yet over and over again I hear people refer to it as the Book of Revelations; plural. It is the book of a singular revelation; the revelation of Jesus Christ. God has only one thing to reveal to us; that is Himself in His Son and when the Son has been fully revealed in the manifestation of the sons of God, the creative Word shall echo through the whole of creation, not in portions but in the unveiling of the Father in the Son, in the sons and we shall witness the creation of a new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
This new heaven and new earth are in the Word and by the Word and nothing else is required except that God speak that Word and in the speaking release the Reality that "In Him all things consist" (Col. 1:17).
Stay tuned for future serious, seminal samplings.
John Gavazzoni
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