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Emmanuel Part Four
The Spikes in the Road
John R Gavazzoni
Oct. 25, 2002
Thousand Oaks, CA
I questioned whether I should begin this final lesson in our series on the highly subjective note that has been part of the complex of the Spirit's dealing with me. That subjective element was and still is in the form of what I can only describe as a prophetic mental picture.
But I've overcome that reticence, believing that those to whom the Spirit is directing this study will not be put off by that approach and will, in fact, find as I did, that the pictorial element adds clarity since, with all of us, there seems to be some combination of words and pictures involved in our cognitive process. Even the scriptures speak to us using both words and word-pictures. Here is what I saw over and over again over a period of many months:
When reflecting on the subject at hand or one closely related, I kept seeing those steel spikes that one encounters when exiting a parking garage or parking lot, the ones that are depressed as your automobile tires pass over them allowing you to safely proceed when going in one direction, but not yielding should you attempt to back up after passing over them or to enter at that exit point. Such an attempt would result in "severe tire damage" as a sign on the premises always warns.
But in the prophetic picture in my mind's eye, the spikes were on a road between man and God. The picture became increasingly clear to me, and its symbolism was consistent with the biblical view of the relationship of God and His Son(s) with the created realm. The way from God to us is unhindered. God, by His choice, and in His time, moves toward us, reaches us, and makes contact, nothing hindering Him. But, we, proceeding from where we are to where He is, encounter the spikes in the road.
So it is also in the relationship of our sonship and our creaturehood.
As part of all creation, our own creatureliness is subject to futility, the futility of aiming for glory and missing the mark; that is sinning and dying instead of loving and living. But the spikes in the road that do not allow us to get to God also keep us from contributing anything to the relationship between us and Deity.We would bring with us impurities inconsistent with the already established relationship of perfect love that flows unhindered from Him to us. We are always the recipients of the divine administration and dispensation, even when we are unaware of it. The essential impurity that we would bring with us is the presumption that perfect love is not enough to constitute the relationship.
We might acknowledge the need of the flow from God to man, but insist that we must initiate an appropriate and matching flow from us to Him to make the relationship mutual. In that attempt we discover there is no flow, only a tedious, clumsy and self-deceiving attempt to prove that the spikes can't stop us. In the flow from heaven to earth, creation finds its Truth, the truth "full of glory" and "joy unspeakable.".
This is not a matter of God covering cosmic miles from super-planet heaven to lesser-planet earth; this is a matter of movement and connection within ourselves, pertaining to that which we are as the fruit of His loins and the work of His hands. We must have revealed to us that the eternal oneness of the birthed and the created can only be restored by and only by the impetus of that which has been birthed by the incorruptible Seed of God.
We cannot emphasize too greatly that the spikes are firmly set, always confronting us with the fact that creaturehood can bring nothing to sonship. It must wait to receive freely the glory of the sons of God. No matter by what means creaturehood attempts to cross over the spikes; bible study, prayer, acts of charity, human decency, meditation, discipline, consecration, sacrifice; they all meet the spikes in the road.
An impenetrable barrier has been erected between the created and procreated dimensions when the movement is from the earthy to the heavenly, but when the heavenly initiates movement toward the earthy, contact is made and dispensation occurs, the dispensing of God to man in Christ. Because of this NO ALIEN INFESTATION COULD CROSS THE BARRIER WHEN THE SON OF GOD SHARED CREATION'S BURDEN AS ADAM.
Adam, the son of God sinned, yes, but he did so in order that sin might enter into the world---a necessary intrusion that would be for the glory of God. But in that act whereby he led us all into death by taking us into its bowels with him, only the creaturely dimension of being was defiled, not the divinely begotten, and that defilement could not alter the essential heavenly character of that which is created, for the seal of God was affixed upon all materiality when "God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good." Sin defiles, victimizes, abuses and humiliates but it cannot alter intrinsic constitution. Therein is interplay of the mystery of iniquity and the mystery of godliness.
Though we have emphasized a distinction between the two dimensions in this final lesson, creation, nevertheless, is constituted by Sonship, but constituted in such a way as to provide Deity a way to be totally immanent in respect to creation, sharing its agony and humiliation, while Deity's purity remains undefiled as the Primal Origin of our Being. He, who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
There is no other Way. He has always been Emmanuel, God with us. Going into the grave and coming forth out of the grave. What He, as Adam began, He, as Jesus finished.
In closing, I want to share with you a remarkable observation of a friend and sister in Christ who prefers to remain anonymous. She responded to the first lesson in our series with these insightful comments of one has an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying:
"Dear John,
After reading your "letter" something struck me. In my Bible I had a note at the end of Chapter 3:38, of Luke's gospel dealing with Adam, the son of God. My note (I have no idea how old the note is) showed me that the son of God was number seventy-seven, and I must have counted names in the genealogy that Luke wrote down.
Knowing Jesus is the head of the Church, this makes sense to me because seven is the basic number of the Church, also the number of completion. It seem to me that seventy-seven would indicate the first and the last Adam as Paul writes about in First Corinthians fifteen."
End Quote.Stay tuned for future serious, seminal samplings.
John Gavazzoni
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