The All In All
We humans are symbolized in the Scriptures as being containers, expressers, developers, but not originators. We have our ‘being’ in Him (Acts 17:28)-the quantity, the potential (much like a computer). But then also, the quality of what is expressed by our being is not we, but He in His nature (like the programmer of the computer). Thus He is named ‘All in all’-not just the One being invisible, but having derived created beings by whom he can express His Allness. Not just the ‘All,’ but also ‘in all,’ which is the the coming of His Son taking flesh, and now, in the resurrection, still being ‘the man Christ Jesus,’ confirms the eternal truth as being the Person in the persons, and not some vague dissolution of essence into essence as in a religion without an incarnate Christ.
These symbols used to describe us humans are all those which express no nature of their own but the nature of that to which they are attached. Vessels contain the liquid, but are not the liquid; the cup is not the coffee. We don’t speak of a cup and coffee. So we are the branches, but the branch is not the nature. Rather the nature is that of the vine which reproduces itself in leaf and fruit form on the branch. Thus in Romans 6:20-22, we were bearing fruit of which we are now ashamed, but now the same branch (no difference in that) is bearing ‘fruit unto holiness’-solely vine-nature expressed by the branch, which has no separate nature of its own.
Taken from: To All Believers… It’s As Simple as This, By Norman Grubb
