The Consequential Homework Assignment

In all this discussion so far, I have still not told you how the union with God is to be realized and consummated. I have not shown you how you can realize the best and most complete happiness you can ever know for all time and eternity. I haven’t shown you how you can enter into the fellowship which the Godhead has among its Persons.

I have shown you a model of some mechanisms for how it might be working. I have given you metaphors for the moving parts of the things you cannot directly know about because they concern the parts of you that cannot be seen, or heard, or touched. But I have not told you how the union with God is accomplished, how the Spirit of God comes into you heart, comes to reside with your own spirit and begins to give witness to it that your union with God is indeed consummated.

This is where the consequential homework assignment comes in.

Your assignment is to pick up a Bible (what I have all this time been calling The Record), look at the table of contents, and pick one of what are called the Gospels. As I said earlier, "Gospel" is the Middle English word for "good news." And they contain very good news indeed, though it looks very bad at first. There are four of them, so you should choose one unless you want to read all of them.

I have one little side note before you start. If you are the kind of person who is upset by momentary contraventions of the so-called "laws of nature," you may want to read a little book by C.S. Lewis, called Miracles. That book of his will help you out a great deal, and will help you to relax and accept the way the universe really works.

If you do not have the time to read that whole book, I’ll give you something briefer, though less satisfying. It is this: remember what Arthur C. Clark said about sufficiently advanced technologies. Specifically he said: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Replace the word "magic" with "miracle," and you are all set to go.

Now to return to the gospels, the gospel according to Matthew was written specifically for people of the Jewish faith. If you are Jewish, you will see many familiar things in Matthew. It presents Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Messiah of Israel.

The gospel according to Luke is for philosophical types. It was written by a Greek physician, and begins as a letter written with a classical Greek form of address, and goes on to give an eyewitness account of the story being told. Its theme is Christ, the perfect man, as Son of Man from Heaven (the Greeks had been long looking for a perfect man since they considered Man to be "the measure of all things").

If you are of a mystical bent, read the gospel according to John. In some old Bibles, that gospel is called "The Gospel According to St. John the Divine." Divine in that context is the old English word for theologian. If that is your thing, that’s the gospel you may want to read. It presents Christ as the Son of God from Heaven.

The gospel according to Mark is for regular "working stiffs." It is a brief, no frills account that (in the King James Version) uses the word "straightway" ("right away!") a good deal. It presents Christ as the perfect "doer" (He gets things done!).

Now why am I asking you to read one of the gospels? Because the Bible itself recommends it:

"faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."

Does it seem strange to you to think of the Bible as being "the Word of God? Well just remember this: the same Holy Spirit of God, the third Person of the Trinity, that wants to reside with your own spirit and witness to it that you are in union with God, is the same Holy Spirit that was in all the different men of all those different times who each wrote one or more of the books that make up the Bible. Or as the Bible itself puts it:

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost [Spirit]."

Is there something specific you should be doing while you read one or more of the gospels? Yes, and I will give you a metaphor for it.

A Spaceship Lands

Picture a spaceship from an advanced civilization landing on a planet whose people are still living in a Stone Age. Now lets say a member of the crew, say Lt. So-and-so, starts to become good friends with one of the Stone Age cavemen on this planet, whom we will call "Unk." Over time, they learn a good deal about each other, but Lt So-and-so never shows Unk how his "raygun" works or what it does.

Now suppose one day, Unk is beside a hill somewhere, and Lt. So-and-so is within object-throwing distance of Unk. Unk can see behind the hill. Lt. So-and-so cannot see behind the hill because the hill is in his way. Suddenly, Unk and Lt. So-and-so, can hear the charge of a large beast coming from behind the hill. Unk looks behind him and can see the beast coming towards him. Lt. So-and-so can hear the beast going after Unk, but cannot hit the beast with his tiny raygun because the hill is in the way. So Lt. So-and-so throws his raygun to Unk and implores him to use it on the beast.

Unk now has a choice to make that will mean he either lives or dies. His friend, Lt. So-and-so, had just thrown him an object that cannot be used as a club and is smaller than any stone that might possibly be thrown to good affect. But there is a button on it, and it can be pointed. Under what conditions will Unk point the raygun at the beast and push the button?

1.) if he believes Lt. So-and-so. I.e., if he believes that Lt. So-and-so has correctly determined what kind of trouble he is in, and that Lt. So-and-so has provided the correct remedy for his immediate predicament.

2.) if he believes in Lt. So-and-so. I.e. if he has come to trust in the character of Lt. So-and-so so that he believes Lt So-and-so would want him to continue living, and would not play him false in an emergency.

This is not "positive thinking," because the ray gun does not work because Unk’s thinking it will work will make it work, but rather because he is using a thing brought into being in the realm that Lt. So-and-so comes from. All Unk knows is that he trusts Lt. So-and-so.

And so the tiny little gizmo brings down the big bad beast quicker the blink of an eye. Unk doesn’t know how it was done, or how the gizmo works, but he does know that he trusted Lt. So-and-so, and Lt. So-and-so’s timely provision saved his life.

So what is this story a metaphor of? It is a metaphor of faith.

While you read a given gospel, as the gospel shows you its picture of Christ (His words and His deeds, what He says about the human race that you are part of, and what He says about Himself), begin to ask yourself:

1.) Do I believe Jesus Christ?
2.) Do I believe in Jesus Christ?

It is all He asks for.

"Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake."

"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

"This" - the belief of Christ and in Christ, is what forges the union of the Holy Spirit of God with your spirit. It is the belief in and of Christ and His finished work for you on the cross that allows the Holy Spirit of God to enter your spirit and begin to witness to you that you are now His, and He is now yours, and that eternally. And therein is all the happiness you will ever want or need, both now and forever.