01. The Divine Pattern

1 Cor 8:6  But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

All life and all blessings we receive in this life come to us through the divine pattern. This pattern is revealed to us in through the persons of the Father and the Son. This divine pattern finds its source with the Father “Of whom are all things” and then is passed onto us through the person of Christ “by whom are all things”.

It is vitally important for us as the recipients of these blessings to clearly discern the personality and individuality of each person in this divine pattern.

Heb 1:1-3  God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,  (2)  Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;  (3)  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

John 5:26  For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;  

The Bible clearly reveals the Father as the great source of all and that His Son is His express image and received all things from Him. Since the Son has received all things from His Father and is His express image, the only way we can mentally tell them apart is that the Son came from the Father and inherited all things from Him. His inheritance is the secret to preserving the personality and individuality of each. His inheritance also makes clear and distinct the “Of Whom” and “By Whom” sequence which forms the divine pattern.

As we read through Scripture we can find several examples where the “Of Whom” and “By Whom” pattern is replicated. Some of these examples overlap because of the cascading nature of God’s blessings flowing through several vessels.

The more fully this divine pattern is followed the more blessings will flow upon us and our families. For instance when we honour our father and mother, we are promised long life. When we esteem those highly in love who are over us, we are blessed by their preaching of the Word and exhortations to a godly life.

Apart from the direct blessings of joy, happiness and fellowship that flow to us through this divine pattern there is also the protective blessings that we cab accrue through the channel. In each case, the one “through whom” things come, is under the protection and possesses the authority of the one “by whom things come” An example of how much protection a child can have, we see:

The child is protected by the mother who is protected by her husband who is protected by the police who are protected by the government who are ordained of God. Taking this in a spiritual direction we see the father is exhorted by the elders or pastor who is subject to the Word of God which is given by Christ who received it from His Father. The more we move into positions reflecting the divine pattern the greater our protection, blessing, peace and joy.

The key principle of the Father’s plan is that all things are received through a channel and not directly and all things are patterned on the Father and His Son.

The rebellion of Satan introduced concepts and ideas that marred this divine pattern. The order of heaven meant that originally Lucifer was under the authority of Christ who was under the authority of His Father.

Satan, the chief of the fallen angels, once had an exalted position in Heaven. He was next in honor to Christ. RH Feb 24, 1874

The Scripture tells us how Satan wished to alter the divine pattern.

Isa 14:12-14  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!  (13)  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:  (14)  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

In this verse we see a being who does not seek to be under the protection and care of the divine pattern but rather seeks to be like, meaning to resemble, the Most High. Originally this meant that Satan wanted to be made equal to Christ rather than be under His authority, so that he could report directly to the Father without being under Christ. The Father via the divine pattern moved to defend and protect His Son and declared the relationship that He sustained to all the creation. Christ did not defend Himself or speak in His own defence, all this was done by the Father. Satan rejected the Father’s command to worship and honour His Son and then desired to be exactly like the Most High.

Our worship of God is based only upon our reading of the Word of God. Our knowledge of Him comes to us through what He has revealed to us through His Word and by what He has created. Our understanding of who God is and our worship of Him while we live in this sinful world only occurs in the mind. If we deviate from the explicit statements of Scripture our minds will immediately fall into idolatry. This is Satan’s objective, to cause us to go beyond the Word in order to perceive God in our minds some form other than the divine pattern. Thus he takes from us the hedge of protection and gains more access to control, possess and destroy us.

Notice carefully that Satan desired to be the same as the Most High. Through a cunning process Satan has deceived the Christian world into making Christ exactly the same as the Father and by making the Christian world worship God through its various creeds, the person perceived as the Second person of the Godhead is actually a creation coming from the mind of Satan. And in seeking to present Christ as exactly the same as the Father in every way, the human mind becomes vulnerable to the law of indiscernibles, meaning that two things possess the exact same qualities so that they no longer can be discerned separately, they become one through their loss of individuality.

So the key to Satan’s efforts to strip away our blessing and protection is to cause a corruption in our minds concerning the divine pattern. He seeks to seduce us by granting to the “One through whom” the same attributes as the “One Of Whom”. We are seduced by what appears to be a desire to exalt the person in the channel, but the opposite occurs. As the one who was originally “By whom” becomes more and more like the one “Of Whom” the less we are able to discern the difference until the only thing left is two or even three “Of Whoms” that causes reason to collapse opening the door to the mystical.

There are several places we can point to show where this warping and twisting has occurred to the divine pattern to create perversion. I will offer only a few examples here.

Catholicism
Catholicism took the words of the priest and made it equal to the word of the prophets which were contained in the Bible. The net effect of making the Bible and Popes have the same authority was to eliminate the Bible completely.

Protestantism
As a reaction to this perversion, Protestantism restored the Word as the sole authority for the conscience but Satan then manages to pervert this process through taking away any authority from the pastors or leaders of the church. Each man reads the Bible for himself which is correct but then each man feels at complete liberty to rebuke and overturn the position of leaders whenever he chooses. Satan does not care which direction you go as long as you miss the divine pattern of “Of Whom” and “By Whom”. The net effect of Protestantism is to split and divide, split and divide and become vulnerable to every wind of doctrine and every rising of charismatic leadership.       

Ordination
Once again Satan has moved Catholicism one way and Protestantism the other. Satan moved the Catholic Church to give male priests absolute power and control causing untold misery and sorrow for women. He then moves within protestant churches through a positive desire to lift the role of women and given them a voice in the church by granting them the same position as elders so that they become “like the elder or pastor” This process then has an immediate cascade into the perception of husbands and wives all the way down, causing the mind to merge the two parts of the divine pattern into one and then taking it one way (male) or the other (female)

As each section of the divine pattern becomes confused and mystified, the protection system begins to fall apart and Satan then can move in and harm our children, our wives, our churches, our pastors, our governments and our world.

An observation of western society should tell us that every aspect of the divine pattern has been marred and therefore all levels of protection have been severely penetrated by the wicked one.

The natural desire of Adventist church members to seeing truth being perverted is to take the protestant approach and take the sword to the leaders of the church and blame them for all the events. Satan is content for this work to occur, he knows it still breaks the divine pattern and will keep churches from being blessed.

I hope in a following article to address aspects of what to do when the divine pattern is completely marred in the church and what process do we need to go through to restore the channel of blessing and reclaim the divine pattern.