Chapter 9 – Dynamics of Identity Transformation
Take responsibility for your life:
don’t take charge of it.
A human being is born with a physical body infused with the natural life force of good and evil, which is after the likeness (molded in flesh) and in the (fallen or corrupted) image of God. When Adam and Eve were made, their life force was eternal. That original breath of life came from God’s own mouth signifying spiritual connectedness in harmony with God, but not immutably so. They had the choice to make: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or the Tree of Life. They chose the former, which had been created by Heyl-el ben Shachar’s (Lucifer’s) rebellion that added darkness to light, a broken harmony of corrupted righteousness manifested as the extended death present in the material universe subject to entropy. In other words, when Hel-el ben Shachar became Satan the Enemy, he immediately died from eternity being automatically separated from God’s presence. His conscious activity is an extended fall from omnipotent energy to absolute zero through the dimension of time.
The last chapters of Revelation promise that Satan and time will end together in the future following the millennial restoration of Israel and the nations under Messianic dominion. Since Adam and Eve’s choice of the wrong spiritual tree, human beings are born in the melded good and evil corrupted image of God. That is, the natural life force each person receives at birth is both temporal, subject to death, and inherently mixed good and evil subject to the influences of the Prince of the Power of the Air responsible for its default creation from distortion. But being born in the (fallen) image of God does not deny each person the responsibility of free will wielded as the power of decision.
To be human is to discover and express our capacity for imaginative creativity as well as to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. Sadly, history testifies that too few people have been able to exercise their unique creativity for one reason or another. Some of the reasons are due to external problems, limits and pressures and some are due to internal, self-imposed limitations or expectations. How we express our creativity and the decisions we make contribute hugely to how we see ourselves and behave as persons – our identity.
Indentity Formation
Each person’s identity comes about from the interactive union of a genetically distinct body and the natural life force as tuned at birth. The natural life force is an inseparable combination of good and evil. The life force’s mixture of good and evil goes through complex cycles described more or less accurately represented the various astrological theories mentioned in chapter 8. Just as each of us has a slightly different genetic heritage, it also seems that our tuned reception of the life force is also something set at birth.
Although the combinations of these two variables are not endless, there are so many of them that it often seems like each of us is born with an almost unique set of life challenges. This is where free will or the power of decision comes to bear on who we are and who we can become because the human identity also has a behavioral component. We are not only creative souls; we are also identity creations of our chosen characteristic habits and actions. Our exercise of free will is the most important determinant of who we are and become. The human power of decision is so much more potent and more important than astrological inclinations or social position in a culture.
While the modern materialistic perspective excuses human weaknesses due to the “unfairness” of life or as a result of human abuse and/or social inequality, the human power of decision is so strong that most traditional religions and classic philosophies give it the ability to overcome or compensate for the natural inequalities attributed to birth. What a person says and does are universally held important by all of the world’s moral traditions. Furthermore, spiritual consequences are associated with our actions and our thoughts. Accountability is factored into every theology in one manner or another – be it the automatic operation of karma or the last judgment of God on His Great White Throne.
Identity creation, formation, transformation and nature in the ultimate reality are usually expressed in the concept of human purpose. Why are we born? What is the purpose for my life? How do I accomplish that purpose? Who am I, really? Other similar questions are asked and answered as a part of our consciousness aas well. Too often the questions, as well as the answers, are suppressed. Many have an uneasy truce with the simple, but deeply felt, “I don’t know.” At times we may feel like we are the exception not to know. On other occasions we might rationally conclude that almost no one knows their purpose in life. Those who seem to know are honored as saints, heroes or celebrities.
As discussed previously, the Bible reveals that what we find on earth is a reflection of what is found in heaven. It is not the only spiritual tradition to make this claim. Furthermore, the Bible specifically reveals the potential for metaphysical bodies as well as the existence of a Holy Spirit that is pure goodness in perfect love with immeasurable joy and peace included.
How does one acquire or grow into such a spiritual potential? How does a person overcome the pulls of the flesh attuned to the evil aspect of the life force? How do we cross the gap of mortal death and inherit eternity?
The Source of Human Nature
But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren…
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. (Hebrews 2:9-11, 14-16)
Information found in the verses above is key to understanding what drives human nature. It provides essential context to the spiritual focus of the Bible in regards to humanity as well as our relationship to God and angels. First of all, angels will not receive the “help” of Jesus called salvation. They cannot become “sons to glory” or called “brethren.” Angels are ministering spirits of immutable metaphysical composition who cannot be transformed because their bodies are not flesh. They are metaphysical beings who seek fleshly bodies through possession for a short term reason and a long term false hope.
The short-term reason is that possession gives them an extra source of life force energy to draw on: it is like a high. Long term, I suspect they hope to avoid their coming certain destruction and inherit eternity by masquerading as a human. Only humans have the potential to become immortal children of God because they are born of mutable flesh and blood with creative minds and bodies that can change through the miracle of faith in Jesus as the Mediator of eternal life. Regardless of past sins and evil thoughts, the Bible promises an eternal inheritance in Jesus (in Hebrew, Yeshua=Savior) to repentant humans. Jesus’ sufferings and death may be mediated through honest faith evidenced in biblically congruent deeds to free anyone still bound to the devil.
Human mortality is fated certain from birth. People only live by the union of fleshly body and the breath of life. The separation of the body and life force results in death. Subconsciously, the brain and body are programmed through foundational fears to do anything required to maintain and prolong biological life, including procreation. While faith liberates, the fear of death enslaves us through our ingrained pre-occupation with self-preservation our way. Sigmund Freud was the first to examine this nature human phenomenon methodically.
As discussed in depth later, the faithful believer will be resurrected from the dead to an immutable (eternal) life as a son of God. Fleshly minds and bodies, though bound by a nature that is an indivisible mixture of good and evil from the first breath of the life force, also give people the change potential to become “brethren” of the Son, which means that they are “born again” sons through Jesus as promised to Abraham and Israel thousands of years ago.
Death is something that angels do not suffer, but as a result, neither can they receive the help of salvation, which is to be born a son of glory. This is because angels were not made in the image and after the likeness of God. Although angels do have a kind of free choice to obey or not, they do not have the creative imaginative capacity built into them that people do, and the Bible describes angels that look like animals as well as those who appear in a form somewhat like a human.
Death, as defined by the separation of body and spirit (James 2:26), was experienced by Yeshua as a fleshly descendant of Abraham. As God “for whom are all things, and through whom are all things,” Jesus chose to dwell on earth for a time with a created body. Because he came in the flesh, was tempted, shed His blood and died, Jesus demonstrated full humanity. He was not a spirit being that possessed a human body, which is to say that a being of metaphysical body and spirit was hiding inside a material body of some kind. That would be a “walk-in” possession, which is what happens to humans who give themselves over to a spirit guide or angel. Natural and “born again” humans are not spirit beings trapped within fleshly bodies.
Neither was Yeshua a spirit materializing a metaphysical body with an appearance of flesh. He was God in the flesh: the Holy Spirit joined with and empowering a mortal body attuned to the natural good and evil pulls of the life force that pervades the world. At death He voluntarily gave up the Holy Spirit, by essence inherently eternal, to simultaneously take on the sins and evils of the world and die as defined in James 2:26. Because he was sinless, Jesus’ surrender of the Holy Spirit was voluntary. It was impossible for him to die without him surrendering the Holy Spirit, because that Spirit is life eternal and omnipotent. He had to do it because Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit without measured limit. The Spirit of God is unapproachable light, a consuming purity of a fire that could not reside in the same body as sin or any of the least kind of evil.
At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" which is translated, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" (Mark 15:34)
At death Yeshua’s separation from the Father and all that is God was complete. This voluntary sacrifice on the symbolic tree of the stake or cross is inconceivable to us and far more profound a sacrifice than the fleshly tortures and death that He also suffered. The emphasis that so many place on Jesus’ bloody body ignore the most critical aspect of His total sacrifice: to be God and yet to voluntarily give up His unimpeachable right to divinity. He was sinless: there was no sentence of death demanded. The Son had personally defeated Satan for all. Such was His love and faith that He would be resurrected according to the divine justice and omnipotence of the Father.
That He died nailed to a rootless, lifeless wooden “tree” symbolized an end to the Spirit of Good and Evil’s inevitable death sentence for all humans. Yeshua's death broke the power of the devil over humanity within the continuum of space and time. By personal application of Yeshua's sacrifice to their own sins, people may now be liberated from the kingdom of darkness and death mandated by the Tree of Knowledge chosen by Adam and Eve.
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. (Colossians 1:13-16)
Yeshua, the Second Adam
One reason Yeshua is called the Second Adam is that He was the second special human creation through His mother Mary’s miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit. Adam’s spirit was the first tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Jesus’ Spirit was the second tree, the Tree of Life. By His resurrection from the death this Holy Spirit was made available to the rest of humanity. His body was transformed from material flesh to metaphysical substance. His access to and use of the Holy Spirit was from that moment total. His voluntary role of mediator makes possible a similar human transformation to the divine so that through Him those who believe may receive an earnest or seed presence of the Holy Spirit today with the promise of the Spirit’s fullness in the future.
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:16-18)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.
In all wisdom and insight. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:3-14)
The Concept of Messiah
Messiah is English for mashiach, which means anointed. The Greek term commonly used for this is concept is Christ. The implied anointing is spiritual from God, the gods or the divine. As discussed previously, being anointed could also simply refer to the concentrated presence of the natural life force as well, which can result in healing and departures from physical science known as miracles.
From a biblical perspective, the concept of anointing may also be expressed as presence. Hence the Jerusalem Temple of stone built by Solomon enshrined the Presence of Eternal Creator God in the Ark of the Covenant set within the Holy of Holies or Holiest Place. Other symbolic or manifested witness of the Holy Spirit Presence in the Temple are the Wind of God or the Fire of God. The latter is associated with sacrifice and judgment. The former often represents renewal and resurrection.
Consequently a Messianic or Christ presence in the Bible simply means the presence or activity of the Creator God of Israel’s Spirit. While the fullness of God’s Presence gave life to Yeshua/Jesus in the womb of Mary, the divine Spirit of God intervened in human lives prior to Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. The existence of God’s anointed, or Christ, interventions in human affairs does not rationally equate with a theologically held pre-existent human consciousness for Yeshua/Jesus.
The biologically mortal person known in history as Yeshua the Messiah experienced a beginning and an ending, a birth and a death. His resurrection to immortality is another matter because he who is immortal immediately exists outside of the bounded dimensions of time, as the metaphysical is not bound by the physical. Thus, an understood Christ presence prior to Jesus’ birth was simply the Holy Spirit at work, though it is the same Spirit that indwelt Yeshua fully so that every word and deed of his ministry conformed to and was fully harmonious with the Will of the Father. (John 5:19, 30) Yeshua knew Abraham through God’s Spirit and not through direct human consciousness projected backwards through time. (John 8:58)
In Jer.23:5, 33:15, Zech.3:8, 6:12 there is a word "Tzemach" (Plant; Grain) In Isaiah 11:10 we read about the Root of Yishai (Jesse). So we see these images of Mashiach (Messiah): Netzer, Tzemach and Shoresh (Branch, Plant and Root).
God is the Creator of all Life, which means growth and action. So Yeshua is a living branch of the human family, who is also the vine rooted in the eternal Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is pure eternal expression of who and what God is, was and will be - omnipotent righteous love.
Managing Human Nature
So how does the life of Jesus guide the normal person with all of his or her failings? Jesus did not have the natural life force of good and evil inherently present within Him, so He was not born with original sin, but His fleshly body would have been subject to the pulls of the life force and capable of any sin that people have done or could do, if He had let it happen or consciously chosen to do so.
While alive in the flesh, Jesus was tempted by the mortal needs and/or fears and desires of the flesh as any mortal could be. He was vulnerable to them, so Matthew 4 relates how Satan came and tried to defeat Him in those areas, which included the lure of increased power over the material world of people, nations, the environment and fallen angels that Satan offered Him.
The natural pulls of the body are rooted in the “fear of death.” The “power of death” lies in the hands of the devil, who uses it to enslave humanity through fears, desires or lusts, deception and lying promises. Satan would like us to believe that He is equal to God – the Competition, if you will. But no angel possesses inherent creativity or original imagination. Not being a creator, Satan is the Great Imitator who offers everything that he can steal from God with a twist. He allures with the provision of what a person desires above all else and permits it to happen temporarily according to the mortal’s terms.
People can have it their way for a while, but the ultimate power of death is inescapable. To put it off for a bit more, the enslaved person will do any bidding of the fallen master angel or his demonic cohorts. Intense or willfully chosen service of the devil can distort a person beyond help from Jesus because he or she will not want that help or consider it desirable. Mortal existence is replete with choice opportunities, and the ultimate choice of life eternal is one that must be freely made or spiritual transformation is impossible.
After His great temptation by Satan, Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, which is the master lecture on how to choose correctly, if you desire a life of healthy, good spirituality. In this message He shows how the way to life or death is paved by many small choices. Each part of His advice counters the naturally present fear of death found in every human heart. We express it differently from each other, but in essence every human fear is ultimately rooted in the fear of death. Thus, human nature is driven by self-preservation and extension of control, influence or personal mark over the environment surrounding our mortal life and/or psychospiritual identity. The naturally human desire is to have eternity our own way, to defeat mortality by descendants who carry our names forward, by legacies of creative art or organization and by belief systems that deny mortality.
Jesus deals with our human fears by overcoming them through a process of spiritual balancing. That is what “love your neighbor as yourself” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” means. If you have a need, then give what you need to another. If someone demands something from you, give it them plus. In other words, overcome evil with good to achieve a balance that preserves your free choice of life. If we become slaves of material needs, we permit the default choice of death to dominate our everyday existence as so become enslaved to the devil.
Since the devil enslaves us through the fear of death, Jesus’ antidote is faith in life, which is to say faith in His words of life and promise to humanity first made to Adam and Eve and guaranteed through Abraham and his descendants, including Jesus. Books have been written on how this one principle appears repeatedly in the Bible and in life as lived by real people during any period of history. Perhaps the cause and effect links are not so plainly stated, but the message is the same and applicable because it works regardless of specific spiritual or religious context.
As an example, read what Jesus had to say about the basic necessities of life:
For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'
For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25-34)
Clearly, He recommends faith in the Creator who made the earth and sustains all that lives within it. Animals do not exercise faith as humans must because they do not have the choice not to live as if they will survive. That they die, goes back to the sins of Eden and the creation’s suffering at the hands of humanity since. We humans have not managed the beautifully productive estate given us very well, so in many places creatures suffer today without access to the housing and food they were designed for so they die out. Where the natural environment flourishes, Jesus’ words about provision for the creatures of nature abide truly.
Similarly, where humans abide in an environment of faith, God will provide. “Gentiles” here means the “nations” of the world living according to the mortal fears of this age under the enslavement of the devil. Those who seek the heavenly kingdom of the Father are exercising faith; they will not suffer the same lacks as those who do not live by faith. It is a spiritual law that works in the natural world of the life force that deals with biological needs as well as in the supernatural realm and the requirements for salvation or eternal life.
Again, this principle is not formulaically bound to a particular dogma or religious organization. God is bigger than any social creation of men or women. He supersedes our imaginative efforts to define or limit Him. This level of spiritual truth is found expressed in slightly different terms around the world. However, the Bible clearly differentiates between successful balance of an earthly life and participation in eternity. Eternity is forever, a long, long time that requires a lifestyle conformable to the Inventor of Eternity, God. Only God knows how to live forever, and He insists that the only way is His way, which fortunately is broad enough for billions of unique personalities, each one an originally creative expression of love as defined by God.
That’s right. When it comes to eternity, God says that it is His way or the highway. It is our choice, and choice is the vehicle of spiritual transformation. Jesus is the way of spiritual transformation to perfect our unique identities in the image and likeness of God, the Father. Jesus’ mortal life gave us many examples of how to life today in order to enhance and effect positive spiritual transformation. It involves the rejection of the materialist perspective and fear-driven desires of the fleshly identity – be they biological, sensual or psychosocial. “Wealth” is the agent of materialism because it represents the power to buy, or acquire through exchange, just about anything and everything necessary for this temporal existence.
The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:22-24)
Like so many spiritual concepts, the true nature and expression of spiritual love is not clearly obvious. True spiritual love is reflected in physical behavior and attitudes. It is indeed tangible although the inner motivations may be hidden to view. The motives make all of the difference, and modern discussion provides us with linguistic terms that can give us valuable insights on love. So before I describe spiritual transformation according to digital spirituality, it is important to better understand what love is and what it is all about.
Love Conditional and Unconditional
The distinction between unconditional and conditional love is at once obvious and profound, yet its application in personal life surprisingly obtuse and difficult. The human heart of motivation is incredibly self-deceptive and complex. Honesty about the deepest bottom line of our whys is essential to spiritual transformation. Behavior can change and be modified to the benefit of all, but if the spiritual core is not transformed the external good deeds become empty. Even in the business of service, one’s core motive ultimately cannot be hidden. Those who truly enjoy serving others beyond concerns for remuneration are rare and valued partners of any service business. How much more vital this quality is to one’s own life!
The Sermon on the Mount by Jesus is one of the most repeated set of lessons from His life on planet earth in Judea under the Roman military occupation of the first century AD. It is well understood at a certain level - and even more admired, but the full impact of His words rarely breaks through the natural shell of human consciousness to arouse true and lasting spiritual transformation. Although historical and cultural context adds to understanding these words of life, their full impact is even better understood within the context of the social contracts we humans habitually construct without analytic evaluation of what we are doing.
First, let me introduce some definitive concepts, then I will illustrate from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Unconditional love is what the seeker of spirituality desires and aspires to realize in life lived now and beyond. It is the love that “conquers all” and is not dependant on any mortal power source, advantage or condition. It denies apparent self-advantage to the benefit of another as expressed in Jesus’ description of a true friend who lays his or her “life down for another.” Unconditional love meets the needs of the beloved without concern of one’s own requirements or necessities in a confident attitude of material abundance. A person exercising unconditional love values, accepts and helps to sustain the positive creative process of the unique identity of another as a complete package that contains both the beautiful and ugly, the desirable and regretful qualities of personness and being. This core honesty of acceptance, expressed out of an abundance of forgiveness or grace, helps to create the conditions required for spiritual transformation.
In the natural order of healthy human experience, this lesson is portrayed in the care that a mother usually has for her babies. Yes, the father, too, most of the time; however, social biologists know that there is a built-in biogenetic drive for us to take care of offspring. Furthermore, in the course of temporal mortality one’s continued identity is satisfied when a person has living offspring. The tension between a parent’s extended ego in the child versus the child’s autonomous personal identity is played out generation after generation in a search for a good balance between these two competing human drives. Increased understanding often arrives once the independently minded offspring has her or his own child(ren).
Conditional love is based on the pre-supposition of scarcity or limitation that requires us to supply our own need from what is perceived or thought to be available at hand. It is a realistic approach from the materialist perspective that does not recognize any potential metaphysical source for the supply of a material need or desire. In almost all modern and historical societies wealth or power is concentrated in the hands of a few. Most people have lived with little material security or abundance, and the growth of a substantial middle class possessing wealth beyond immediate needs remains a reliable and broad measure of society’s functioning level of justice and economic success. Thus, a rational person rations his resources according to his priorities, which are usually directly or indirectly self-serving and preserving.
Time is also limited because life births with certain mortality. In the course of normal life, one does not know the date of his or her death, but as a person matures there is a growing awareness of life’s unpredictable precariousness. “Time is money,” is a common western adage. It reflects the limits of materialism that can only modify or redistribute what already exists. Creativity is expressed concretely in the redesign of material productions and processes. Creation out of nothing is relegated to the realm of theological or philosophical speculation beyond sensible practicality.
The practice of conditional love recognizes one’s own lack or needs and then seeks those perceived needs outside of self. Since these things or relationships are supplied by or to be found in others, transactions and/or arrangements must be made. Deals must be struck with other people, or the desired goods must be found in the recognized resources that are shared freely in common or open to anyone to take. Otherwise material wealth or essential resources may be seized from others who are not as powerful. In most cases people exchange some of what they have (labor-time or goods) for some of what they want according to a system of agreed value or worth. Self worth is measured by the valuables and status one possesses.
Geographic and social differences in perceived valuation have led to the creation of sophisticated trading systems throughout history. As population and fiat currency have increased, human and animal life has become commodified. Everything has been precisely priced and the increased quantities have reduced intrinsic valuations. Expanded through the increased speed and extended web of electronic communications, even time has been multiplied. Perhaps intensified is a better word to describe how the speed of life has accelerated. People work in environments that run around the globe and around the clock 24/7. Time has been multiplied by its increased division into smaller and smaller units of productive measurement. Because infinity is approached by traveling in either direction of a continuum, our advancing technology expands the minute and explores the remote with detection of data at rates beyond our sensual capacity.
All functioning human societies are based on aspects of conditional love. Sociologists often refer to these arrangements as social contracts. Absolute or relative parity are rare in these arrangements, which are typically unbalanced to a certain degree: one party of the social contract is usually dominant. Dominance is established by the party that has the power to finalize the terms of the relationship. Conditional love is an expression of material or natural spirituality with all of the indivisibly mixed good and evil aspects that implies. The presence and maintenance of functional balance of the benefits given and received by all parties of a social contract is essential for healthy function. Imbalance leads to instability and destruction of the relationship, which is the social equivalent of death.
Determining the dominant party in these arrangements is not as obvious as it may seem. Those who may seem to be the subordinate party of a social contract actually manipulate it to their advantage. For example, children may dominate their relationships with their parents. Socially, these arrangements usually work well as long as the imbalance is not too skewed; however, if the benefits extracted by the dominant party greatly exceed those received by the subordinate in exchange, then he is corrupted by the relationship and the subordinate party is oppressed.
Because conditional love is an expression of natural spirituality, the innate unfairness of such a situation is quickly perceived and judged by all people as a violation of human decency. The concepts and growth (as well as the abuse) of human rights has naturally come from the natural spiritual potential of people. Usually the naturally positive expression of human rights grows in response to exposure to the goodness of ultimate spiritual reality, and the repression of human decency results from the presence and activity of evil spiritual beings that draw the life energies away from the humans involved in both sides of oppressive social arrangements to feed their own metaphysical power needs.
The Practice of Unconditional Love
Unconditional love is not giving someone what they want or demand, it is giving them what God enables you to give at that moment in time.
Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. And a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple.
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, "Look at us!" And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them.
But Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene--walk!"
And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
And all the people saw him walking and praising God; and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. (Acts 3:1-10)
The lame man thought he knew what he needed – money to buy food and other necessities for physical life, but God knew his true needs – to be healed physically and spiritually. Furthermore, God’s exercise of unconditional love benefited not only the lame man but also Peter, John and everyone who saw what happened or who knew about him. Peter knew what the man wanted. In fact he had probably gone past him numerous times to enter the Temple with Jesus during the previous years of His gospel ministry. But Jesus had not healed this man then because it had not been the Father’s timing or wish for Him to do so. The disciples may have even given him alms in the past, but by Acts 3 Peter recognized both his own human lack of power (no sliver or gold) as well as God’s purpose and divine empowerment to heal the beggar’s lameness, and so also bring glory to God’s name in the furtherance of His purpose to save thousands of lives spiritually.
Jesus expressed the Father’s sovereign enabling in several ways. Personally, he referred to His intimate relationship with the Father. Since they were one Spirit, Jesus could sense or “see and hear” what the Father willed and so fulfill it.
Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.
"For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” (John 5:19-20)
"I can do nothing on My own initiative As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 5:30)
Jesus also expressed this same concept when He taught us to only lend what we could give without loss or strings attached. In other words it is a gift of grace, material goods with forgiveness attached – even when the demands would be forced from us. We are to overcome the needy demands of conditional love driven by the fear of death by acting in faithful expression of God’s eternal, omnipotent and unconditional love. When we act on this truth as reality we exercise a godly faith. With this frame of mind we can better understand and apply the following verses from the Sermon on the Mount:
You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' [Conditional love’s even exchange - the revenge of no forgiveness in either blessing or curse.]
But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:38-48, brackets my comment)
Jesus begins with the human wisdom of conditional love, of behavioral righteousness and judgment under even the inspired laws of human social contract. This form of justice balances and maintains a biologically and socially sustainable society. By itself it cannot and will not transcend or transform the internal spiritual nature of the person, as we will soon discuss in some depth.
He then gives examples of transcendent behavior. This is the kind of reaction that the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of omnipotent goodness would inspire and empower. Not only does it materially bless the receiver to the physical benefits noted, but it abounds to spiritual reward and growth for the giver even as it sows the seed to eventually awaken the same quality of spiritual growth in the receiver, if he or she would choose to humbly submit to receive it.
The sacrifice of the giver transcends the perceived temporal reality of scarcity in an act of faith that attests to and counts on the ultimate reality of the eternal God’s living ability to fulfill His promises. He has replaced the social contract of conditional love with the divine contract of unconditional love and so moved from the dimension of temporal and natural spirituality to that of the eternal Spirit of pure and omnipotent love: to become perfect as the Father is perfect.
Other examples from the Sermon on the Mount serve to confirm this interpretation of Jesus’ teaching. In particular He clarifies that humans serve one of two gods: the Eternal Living God of Israel or mammon-materialism. The former is the Creator Provider of all and the latter is the god of material deficiency that can only re-arrange, re-sort or re-distribute what may be perceived as wealth or temporary/biological/psychospiritual need satisfying that ends in death.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and wealth.
For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Mathew 6:19-34)
If we seek the Kingdom of God by practicing unconditional love in faith, then God has promised to provide all of our material needs as they may help us to grow spiritually. God practices unconditional love. Remember the example of Peter, John and the lame beggar. God does not give tit for tat. He does not make deals on human terms: He has offered a divine contract that recognizes and heals human weaknesses called sin. In serving God the believer’s human needs are met, but the definition of “needs” remains the prerogative of God. He may be influenced through prayer, but He is sovereign and perfect in what He provides.
Faith
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!
In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:7-12)
Faith is the tool by which the physical is manifested from the metaphysical. It is also the means by which a person’s identity may be transformed from the distorted good and evil image molded from the natural spirit to a personally unique expression of the pure goodness of God’s Holy Spirit. Free will’s exercise of faith is the process by which persons are perfected into the image of God’s character qualifying them to live forever. God owns eternity. He defines how to live forever and enjoy it. He is never bored, and He knows that His way is the only way to live forever without eternity becoming Hell instead of Heaven.
In the verse above we see how God created the world by faith according to His Word of purpose. Faith is the evidence humans can touch or access now as the evidence for the ultimate reality to come. However, consistent with digital spirituality, faith operates in two modes: naturally by the null spirit of good and evil and supernaturally by the Holy Spirit of pure goodness and unconditional love. Abel and Cain both had faith, but Abel’s was from God.
In comparing faith to asking Jesus describes how it works, and He cues us in on how to work it. Every person has the ability use faith to get ahead in this world. There are tons of self-help books that explain this process in detail according to various traditions of human experience. Visualization, self-hypnosis, planning and persevering commitment to an idea bigger than one’s self all draw on the human being’s creation in the image of the Creator.
People possess the intrinsic capacity for creating material substance out of the material spirit, the natural life force. The creative capacity of each person is not distributed evenly, nor is it utilized consistently – either within one life or with the totality of humanity. These two variables explain why it seems that we have some more artistically gifted than others, and some are more successful or wealthier than others, for example.
Natural faith creates material images to the god of mammon, which is the power of mortal life gathered as wealth in one form or another. It works without God’s intervention, and it can yield results that are not necessarily the best for us, evenly though they may be keenly desired and sought after. “Careful what you wish for,” is the old adage, “because you might actually get it.” The implication is that a person can be deceived by an illusion, self-generated or dreamed up and sold by another, to focus all his or her power (invest time, energy and money) on something desired that will only be a problem, an empty disappointment or even total destruction of this life’s potential.
You will get what you ask for taught Jesus, so ask the right spiritual source or g/God. Jesus’ words communicate the truth of human creative power and also point to the different fruits from the two different kinds of spirit “trees” that faith can work on. Of course, I refer back to Eden and the Tree of the Knowledge (Learning Experience) of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. The divine faith working through the Holy Spirit only produces good fruit leading to the best life now and into eternity from the Father above because that spiritual source is polarized by His pure love. Unlike the fruits of the life force, it is incapable of evil or anything leading to death.
So how can we discern and manage between these two modes of faith? Jesus responds by citing what we today call the “Golden Rule” – “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” This is how we approach matters from the front side, before some aspect of the dance of life begins: do not seek unfair advantage or an imbalance of life’s blessings. In modern parlance, Jesus taught the “win-win” philosophy, and He meant it to be a blessing to all parties at all levels, which would include those left outside of any specific “win-win” partnership or deal. God’s way does not provide for some to experience the goodness while others experience the evil, or even a mixture of good and evil.
Jesus taught a way of life different from how most people live. He admitted the difficulty of the search and the fact that few would find it in our present world system of spiritual illusion. Some think that doing miracles in God’s name is evidence that the Spirit of God resides within them, but Jesus taught that they may be deceiving themselves because spiritually powerful miracles may be a manifestation of the natural life force in concentrated form.
The ultimate test is the source. Which tree does the power of your life flow from? The Tree of Death or the Tree of Life, the Tree of Experienced Good and Evil or the Tree of Pure Blessing to All? From the backside of self-reflection on life’s progress, Jesus said we would know the answer from the fruits of the life being examined. Of course, we should do this primarily in our own lives, but that requires us to learn how to discern the between the two spirits operating in this physical dimension of mortal life. Here Jesus applies it to discerning between true and false ministers/prophets of God. We will discuss the matter more fully below. For now, read the following:
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'
And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' (Matthew 7:13-23)
Seemingly good deeds and good miracles can be accomplished through the power of the breath of mortal life, the natural spiritual power of the life force. Similarly, we can praise the true God and call Jesus “Lord” through our natural spiritual strength. These declarations of worship and faith as well as any good deeds and miracles empowered apart from the Spirit of God are in a primary sense “unknown” to God because they are not a part of Him. They did not come from eternity and so they do not reside there to eternal benefit. God knows everything that happens throughout the universe. He knows what is done in accordance with His will by the power of His Holy Spirit, and He knows what is done by the material spirit of death as a result of lawlessness, which is a separating variation from His divine will.
“Lawlessness” is anything powered by the natural life force of inseparably bound good and evil as focused, directed or imaged by autonomous human decision, will and/or activity. All such fruits and their agents will be driven from God’s presence because of their imperfection, the presence of some evil in them. Remember, eternity is forever, which is a “long, long, long, long, long time.” Even the smallest smidgeon of evil would become insidiously and terribly great given the leverage of eternity and the omnipotence that inherently comes with it.
In all of this discussion we see the contrasting parallelisms of Hebrew expression: Good and evil is not equal to life. Ask and you will receive, but perhaps what you receive will not come from the Father. Human beings are molded after the likeness of God’s form but are different from Him being male and female. We are made in His image but in the medium of the flesh, which creative power is both limited and twisted by the natural life force of good and evil ending in death. However, His promised ultimate reality, the reward of our diligent search for spirituality, is eternal life experienced in the creative, individually expressed refraction of His fullness of pure love and perfect peace, which is synchronized in righteousness, joy and goodness.
Personally, my search for spirituality resulted in experiencing how an impure, temporally bound physical identity can be transformed into an individually creative, unique expression of immortally transcendent perfect character and love as expressed in the nature of the biblical God of Israel. Of course, I have not finished the process, so the search does continue. In the next section I will show how the tension between human works and faith balance out to either success or failure in this quest and share my understanding of why Jesus came from the metaphysical realm of omnipotent eternity to this earth to live, teach and die in weak, temporal flesh.
Identity Transformation
I perceive the purposes and processes for human life as identity transformation. It is a creative process of learning. Not surprisingly, its challenges and parameters are perceived differently based on perspective, and these perspectives have traditionally been expressed in theological and philosophical terms. I cannot totally escape the linguistic terms traditionally used in describing spiritual matters, but the systems approach of Digital Spirituality takes a functional, problem-solving perspective used in math and science.
The structural problems of spirituality reside in the binary nature of the universe. The natural is separated from the supernatural by the barrier of time-eternity. The physical is delineated from the metaphysical by what we observe as the speed of light. The physical is bound by time, which is slowing even as the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that energy dissipates. The physical dimension of the universe naturally winds down. The metaphysical dimension is typified by eternity. Its transcendent properties of force and substance do not wear out or dissipate. Eternity by logical extrapolation of biblical revelation must be self-sustaining and self-generating. The mechanics of how this works are not revealed.
The Bible also reveals that the natural mirrors the supernatural even though the two operate on different forms of energy, which I believe are represented by the two trees in the Garden of Eden. Each tree clearly symbolizes a spiritual power. In the natural world the life force is paralleled by physical forces such as electricity, magnetism and gravity. The same may be true in the supernatural realm. The closest physical example of self-generating power is the fusion that takes place in a star, but even that immense display of released energy eventually runs down.
The Bible describes metaphysical bodies that do not die just as there are fleshly ones that do. This is the “likeness” subassembly of a person. The “image” subassembly refers to the spirit power of conscious creativity. Bodies come with variations of appearance in both realms. The natural life force is mutable because it is a varying mixture of good and evil. Each person impresses a decision pattern of choices on the “breath” or spirit of mortal life that is uniquely our own. It records the living identity that results from the union of the natural spirit and fleshly body.
The Holy Spirit is immutable because it is God, His nature and character of righteous unconditional love. God’s love is unconditional in essence towards all, but due to the perfection of its comprehension and desire for goodness only, God does not grant unconditional access to the Holy Spirit to every person. Eternity can only be lived, only empowered by the Holy Spirit form of energy. It cannot be changed in essence because it is the only way the eternity may be experienced. We must choose it above our own definitions or concepts of love, joy, peace, goodness and rightness. We must choose the Tree of Life over the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: we must choose the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit over the life force that can be bent to human desire and willpower.
But the Bible reveals that metaphysical bodies do differ from each other. Not only do angels appear in forms distinct from God, there are different glories within the ranks of angels and the born sons of God from the flesh. Several terms are used to reference the metaphysical and physical bodies. Bodies are both singularly distinct as well as composite wholes. They may be referred to as houses, temples, building blocks of a temple, a bodily organ or the whole being.
Each person has a hand in the molding of his or her metaphysical body. It reflects the decisions we make in life as transmitted through the barriers of eternity by the Holy Spirit. This uniquely each of us eternal body, designed through the exercise of our free and creative choices, will refract and reveal the divine glories of the Holy Spirit uniquely and identifiably by person. The essence of the love and goodness is the same as the Father or the Son and everyone born of that same Holy Spirit, but its expression will be individually our own. Much of that is determined by how we live our lives today, but there are a number of indications in the Bible that personal growth and creative expression never cease. Because of the structural dependence on the one Holy Spirit, division or disagreement (rebellion) is impossible.
But someone will say, "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?"
You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.
All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
So also is the resurrection of the dead It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, "The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.
"O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. (1Corinthians 15:35-58)
To be continued.
Possession
The metaphysical dimension is currently populated by God, angels and fallen angels or demons. What is the difference between them? How do they help or hinder humans in the quest for identity transformation?
To be continued.
Peck, M. Scott, The Road Less Traveled, Simon & Schuster, page 9.
[7-26-2007]
