“first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head”
(Mark 4:28, NKJV)
In discussing the nineteenth distinguishing characteristic of the corporate spirit or mantle of Zerubbabel, keeping in mind that which is noted in Zech. 4:10, “For who has despised the day of small things?” we spent the previous teaching speaking about two parables in Mark 4 that are concerned with these so-called “small” commodities that nonetheless have immense potential for increase. Both parables are concerned with seed, a prototypical “thing” that contains the built-in potential of great increase.
Mark 4:14 explains this seed as “the word,” here then the Greek word logos. The second part of the previous teaching was an extensive theological exploration and explanation of the important pair of terms logos and rhema. We did this because in the Greek these are the two words which have the meaning of word, and an investigation was necessary in order to exactly understand what happened when you, according to 1 Pet. 1:23, became born again from that eternal seed of the Logos, “the living word of God,” and that you, as logos-being received the seed of Christ (Gal. 3:16), your rhema-identity, in this way.
The Logos is thus the Total Utterance that consists from the chosen Smaller Utterances in which the Logos increased and made manifest. As the rhema identities gather and increase, this brings about that the Logos “appeared in another form” (Mark 16:12). The same mystery that shrouds God and Jesus, namely that there is only one God (Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:29), and that they can however be distinguished in distinctive Guises (Ps. 2:7; 89:27; Matt. 3:17; 16:16; John 1:18; Heb. 1:5; 5:5), is relevant here, to “our Lord and of His Christ” (Rev. 11:15):
- “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.” (John 14:10)
- “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)
- “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. (John 17:11)
- “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:21)
Obviously this is a process that starts with a “small beginning,” but eventually increases to the All-Encompassing One. The second parable in Mark 4:26-27 sheds light on this growth process with a beautiful image: “And He said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.” A few verses later, in another parable, He speaks about the smallest possible seed, with which He compares the coming of the kingdom, and thus of the coming of the King WITHIN us: “It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.” (Mark 4:31-32).
Interestingly enough the Greek gematria of the expression “a mustard seed” is 803, which is also the gematria of the word sword in Greek, for instance in Matt. 10:34 where Jesus states: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” But Jesus is also the Prince of Peace, the peacemaker who brought a “gospel of peace” (Rom. 10:15, Isa. 9:6, also 53:5; 72:7; Mic. 5:4-5; Luke 2:14; John 14:27; Acts 10:36; Rom. 5:1; 2 Cor. 5:19; Eph. 2:14-18; Col. 1:20; Heb. 7:2; 13:20) – “He … is our peace” (Eph. 2:14)? When Albert Barnes argues, in his Notes on the Bible, “But a sword – The sword is an instrument of death, and to send a sword is the same as to produce hostility and war”, then he loses the plot with this interpretation, as THIS SWORD brings peace, and it can only be one symbolic sword that brings this about – “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). The word word here is rhema! Thus: if the Greek gematria of the expression “a mustard seed” is equivalent to the gematria of sword, the mustard seed can clearly be likened to your rhema identity in Christ!
In Hebrew gematria 803 is also the numerical value of the concept Apocalypse! From this it is absolutely clear that the mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, which grows to the greatest tree, needs to slowly be unveiled, or, as Thayer declares it, as “things or states or persons hitherto withdrawn from view are made visible to all”. If the seed is sown in the right condition of the heart, the good ground, Mark 4:28 can take place: “For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.” Please note how the beautiful process of “small beginnings” also become “small opportunities,” and increase from something insignificant to something complete and full-grown, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).
If it is God’s desire “to reveal His Son in me” (Gal. 1:16), to apokaluptō, this happens by removing the veil (2 Cor. 3:16), and in this way we “are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (verse 18). The image to which Paul here refers, is Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col.1:15), and this is the image to which we are restored (Gen. 1:26-27), as Rom. 8:29 clearly notes: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son …” The words of the Body must, according to Col. 3:10, “put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”
In the teaching of Days 1004-1006 we referred to Martin Heidegger’s important study Being and Time, in which he argues that the nature of all things (physis), created or manufactured, exist on the basis of poiesis (ποιέω), which etymologically means “to make,” and he beautifully defines this as “bringing-forth.” All things are hidden until they are made visible – “the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is” (p. 98). Poiesis is the way in which things “come into ‘presence.’” Poiesis is thus a characteristic of all things that transform the existence, and eternally reproduces by reconciling all things to one another, specifically “mind, matter, time and person with the world”. Heidegger refers to the “the activity of poiesis” in German as “Herstellen”. This brings about “an emerging and rising in itself” of all things to the fore. “Earthly things cannot manifest themselves as what they truly are without the presence of human poiesis.” In his article, ‘The Concept of Poiesis in Heidegger’s An Introduction to Metaphysics,’ Alexander Ferrari Di Pippo explains how Heidegger “tries to demonstrate the original kinship between the notions of poiesis and noein [= “thinking” – TG] as they were originally conceived.” Di Pippo summarises this immensely important conclusion as follows: “poiesis is a mode of disclosure (a-letheia) of Being.” Later he phrases it as follows: “Poiesis becomes the original site of Being’s disclosure”!
If you are struggling with the philosophical terms, try to interpret this last sentence spiritually. From Eph. 2:10 we know that Christ is God’s “poiēma,” therefore we can say that each member of the Bride is a word in God’s poem. Read Rom. 1:19-20 along with this (added my me): because what may be known of God [=Being] is manifest in them [=apokalupsis], for God has shown it to them [=disclosure]. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes [=poiēma] are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse …”
It is also important to know that WITHIN the (eternal) seed is a secret life. In John 5:26 Jesus explains it as follows: “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” And then He makes it clear in John 6:57: “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” [What is meant by “he who feeds on Me” was already extensively discussed in the teaching of Day 1130-1135 – please read it again. It points out that you are eventually eating of the fruit of the Christ. A bit more on this later.]
The seed WITHIN you thus renders spiritual life possible. Rom. 5:10 does after all note that now that we are reconciled with Jesus through the cross, “much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life”. [Read “saved” here rather as “preserved” (TYN), or “delivered” (ABP), even “expand and deepen” (MSG).] Thus – “the life of Jesus” must “be manifested in our body” (2 Cor. 4:10). Col. 3:3-4 encapsulates it well: “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
This increase of Jesus’s life WITHIN us can have myriad different manifestations, most likely based on our obedience – according to the parable – “some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred” (Mark 4:20). It is of great importance that this increase be specified as fruit. Fruit is the measure to which all believers are known, measured, and judged (Matt. 7:20; 12:33; Luke 3:9). We know that the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, is especially characterised by the tree of life “in the middle of its street, and on either side of the river … which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month” (Rev. 22:2). This is the fullness of producing fruit!
It is interesting that the Father is glorified by one specific thing, Jesus notes in John 15:8: “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” His choosing of the rhema words from before time can/could only be measured according to the fruit they bear – therefore they were chosen and appointed (John 15:16). Being freed from hamartia, sin, in other words that which made it possible for you to walk in your calling and purpose, ipso facto rendered you serviceable to God, “you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life” (Rom. 6:22).
Very important, then – these “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22) are there so that the world may partake of it. Through this alone the “godly nature” is known, mainly that everyone who dies to themselves (John 12:24), sacrificing himself for the sake of others, “by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.” (2 Pet. 1:4-7). The fruit is there for others to eat, but with an amazingly hidden goal …
- Selah: What would this goal be?
- Read: 2 Chr. 25-33.
- Memorise: 2 Chr. 30:19 (what would this remarkable verse mean in the light of this teaching?)
