Front & Rear Sights

In my last post I wrote about the need to see God with both eyes open – two points of reference. In this post I want to support what was said there by writing about the need for front and rear sights, again, two points of reference, in fact the same two points. As between The Written Word of God, on reference point, and the creation of God, the second reference point, Romans Chapter one says that if we don’t understand God from His revelation in the things created we are “without excuse,” Romans 1:20. These two revelations are critical to our understanding of what God is hoping for.

Fasten Seat Belts Please

When The Word became flesh and dwelt for a while among us, a mind-boggling shift took place in our understanding of God or misunderstanding, as the case may be. This paradigm shift did not throw out the then Scriptures, but it did open up a whole new way of understanding them that was set free of religious paradigms. So far from being all about religion, the Scriptures turned out to be all about Jesus, (at least that’s what He told the religious experts of His day). The letters written during the New Testament period went on to talk about the fullness of Him, including He in us, and us in Him. But, almost from the beginning scholars and theologians have dragged a lot of obsolete baggage from the Old Covenant into the New.

Jesus made the old rules and understandings about God obsolete, Hebrews 8:13. The old rules of understanding God, rather than making us functional, were and remain the cause of our dysfunction, (1 Corinthians 15:56). Nowhere is this more apparent than in our inability to live the “more abundant life” that Jesus came to give us, especially in relationship to one another.

Another way of looking at this paradigm shift is Daniel 2:34, Daniel 9:27, and Hebrews 9:26. Jesus came as a “stone, not cut out with human hands.” Jesus Christ is The Rock. As the “Rock” He smashed most of what we are still trying to work and communicate with. What we need now is the same thing they needed then, we need the “I Am” Jesus. We don’t need the “I was” or the “I will be” Jesus. The “I Am” Jesus made it clear that His words were Spirit. I’m satisfied that He was, not only referring to the words then coming from His lips, but also to those written aforetime from which He was quoting.

In order to understand God, and the things of God we need, at least, two witnesses, both of which are readily available to carnal or fallen man, 1 John 4:1, and 1 John 5:7, 8. The “spirits must be tested” by both the written word of God and the revelation of God in the things created – not one or the other, but both. There must be alignment between the two, kind of like front and rear sights of a rifle designed to take aim at the TRUTH of The Spirit.

Natural man does not have the Spirit, but since the printing press and the Internet, he does have the other two witnesses – the written Word, and the Creation. Where the created things are concerned, it is well known, and said that we can “look up and see the stars,” but what I want to focus on here is closer to home. It is even, and perhaps especially, in the details, things like “male and female in the image of God,” Genesis 1:26, 27. In its simplest essence this is about relationship.

Both the front & rear sights can be very messed up.

There are essentially two audiences for what needs to be said here. One is made up of unbelievers, who have little or no regard for the written Word of God. The other honors the written Word, but has little or no regard for the witness of created things. Neither group seems to appreciate the effect of the windage of The Spirit on The Word of God, John 6:63. Without excuse, the rear sight is all messed for both groups. It is out of line due to the confused paradigms of a polluted culture.

For the most part religious experts, and their constituencies haven’t so much as heard there be a rear sight, (created witness) Acts 18:24-19:2. Translators, for instance don’t seem to know the difference between filth and menstruation, Isaiah 64:6. This group is also of various opinions concerning the front sight, (written Word) especially as relates to allowing for the windage of the Spirit.

Sad to say: there is a third witness, a false one, but so imposing it has obscured the revelation in creation. This third witness is what has been calling itself “church.” That’s enough to mislead even the best of us where God’s intention is concerned. Paul saw it coming, Acts 20:28-31. He also saw it in action, (1 Corinthians 11:17).

We need to be very clear about this. This is not about sorting out the Scriptures, playing some kind of quality control games with Biblical truth. This is about understanding what has been written, all of it, at least, as much as is possible in those who for the present know only in part. This is not about allegory or figures of speech. This is about discovering and understanding multi-dimensional truth, whether carved in stone or in the Spirit.

We can never understand creation, except for God’s Word, nor can we understand God’s Word except for Creation. History has indeed shown that one without the other is confusion. Without both, we are still in spiritual Babylon, whether geographical or intellectual. This has to do with our understanding of God. To understand the things of heaven, including the church/bride that comes down from there, we must see God in the created things. Failure to do so is “without excuse.”

There are many ways to elaborate on the truth. Whether Truth is contained in the words of Jesus or the written Scriptures Where Jesus’ elaboration took the form of words – word pictures – parables. We could also do it with drawings, and even models. These can all be understood as illustrative parables. God, The Creator is in possession of a greater and more powerful parable palette than we are. He is able to illustrate invisible truth by “Creation.” Sex and money are two very powerful parables that God has built into the things created. For the present perhaps it is enough to point out that these two go a very long way in helping us to understand relationship, and the medium of exchange relationship requires.

Some years ago now I saw that there are attitudinal doorkeepers in the mind of each of us. These doorkeepers either prevent or blur our ability to see the Truth, whether in the Word or in the Creation. These doorkeepers are not always so obvious or easy to reach or get past. Some of them take the form of strongholds. Paul provides us with some pretty good lists: Romans 1:29-31, Galatians 5:19-21, 2 Timothy 3:2-5.

Here is a short list of the kind of thing we have in mind here: fear, insecurity, feeling “less than,” wounds, misinformation, especially religious misinformation, denial, repression, especially religious repression, agendas, both hidden and open, ambition, love of preeminence, need to be center stage, spiritual retardation, systems, programs, institutional bondage, and on the list could go. The bottom line of them all is that they don’t understand God from the things created. For instance, rather than seeing Christ and the church, they see sex, and are left hung up on the plumbing.

It is these strongholds that bar or blur the Truth. We need to get better at pulling them down, and we have been given the very powerful weapons necessary for doing so, whether in ourselves or in others, 2 Corinthians 10:4.

If any of you would like some examples from the Scriptures that illustrate what I am writing about here, please feel free to drop me an email: (on the About page).   I will send you in private the rest of the text from which the above has been extracted for present purposes. What I have shared here is already longer than I would like to put in a single post, and we must continue with our pursuit of “this love that surpasses knowledge,” what God is hoping for, and our relational inheritance in Christ.