To Put It All Simple Yet Radically
by Norman Grubb

We humans are created in God’s image in infinite wonderulness and potential of spirit, soul and body. We have the quantity of our being (Acts 17:28), but not the quality by which we can express the kind of persons we are. We are on the container level–vessels, branches, temples, body-members, slaves.

God is the only One in the universe who can express Himself, and there is only His nature. But nothing can be expressed except by its opposite: hot/cold, light/dark, sweet/bitter, possitive/negative of electricity. Even so, God Himself, as the fire-self (Heb. 12:29) expressing just self, chose from eternity to beget His own beloved Son. Thus His eternal light-self (1 John 1:5) of fixed other-love, and the Spirit is the Reproducer.

But then there was a created being, Lucifer, who refused to make that same transforming choice (Isa. 14:12-15 and Ez. 28:11-19). He chose to remain in that opposite nature of self-getting love and is called ‘the god of this world’ (2 Cor. 4:4).

We humans, therefore, can only be conscious selves by being confronted with the opposites, and were temporarily taken over by Satan at the Fall. Thus, we express his Satan-Sin nature of self-for-self and fulfill his lusts (Eph. 2:1-3 and John 8:44).

From this captive condition there is no escape for any member of the human race, except that God’s own Son became a human. As us, for us, on the cross, He was–"made sin"–capable of manifesting that sin nature that dwells in us in our fallen condition. But then by dying on the cross, He "died to son," and in His resurrection the Spirit of Truth replaced in us that spirit of error (2 Cor. 5:14, 21 and Rom. 8:10-11).

So, through Him, we fallen humans can exercise our one faculty of choice–faith. We can receive, yield and recognize by Him, the Spirit of Truth replacing the spirit of error. We do not "commit" ourselves, as thought we had a quality of self (a "nature") which needs changing. No change is necessary in the self He created as "very good."

We accept ourselves and simply recognize that in our centrally empty container-selves, we are now occupied by His divine Self in His nature (2 Pet. 1:4). As branches, we no longer bear the fruit of the false vine of which we are now ashamed, but are joined to the True Vine whose fruit is holiness (Rom. 6:21-22). The exchange through Christ has taken place of indwelling Christ for the indwelling sin (Rom. 8:9 in place of 7:17).

We have been delivered from that false deceit we acquired from Satan (Rev. 12:9) of an independent qulaity of self. We had thought we were self-operating, self-relying, self-expressing. But we have no such thing as a self-operating self either to "commit" or be rid of. It is a ceceit and a lie. We are opreated by one or other of the "deity" spirits–formerly the false, now the true One.

Thus, now we move into a thousand times more vigorous human action, because we are freed to be ourselves by the Spirit. He has inwardly revealed to us that Galatians 2:20 is a fact: Christ lives in us in place of Satan.

We accept ourselves and freely fucntion by the permanent inner knowing that He is our life and motivator. The Spirit of Love, as us, now thrusts us out into our share of bringing Him to our fellow humans who are redeemed and don’t know it. We were Satan-I but now are  Christ-I, and never were Just I-I!