FOUR MINDS OF GOD
by Robert D. Steffens, February, 2005
Symbols are used a great deal throughout the Bible, with perhaps the
greatest concentration of use, being in Revelations. We have trouble
understanding and comprehending symbols, because we are not accustomed to
communicating using symbols. A very basic example, such as "tree" as a symbol,
would give many different pictures to each person. One would see a giant oak,
another a pine or fir, another may see a fruit or nut tree, to another the vivid
colors of the leaves in the fall or the bare branches in the winter, or green
leaves of summer, a wood smith may see it as boards, or a romantic couple see it
as firewood. To convey the symbol "tree", one would probably only mean a small
portion of it's entire meaning, at that particular instance of description. Thus
when we take a symbol from the Bible, it's use may only refer to a small portion
of the entire meaning.
Such is the case with four symbols in Rev 4:7; being Lion, Calf, Man, and Eagle.
Most of us have an idea what each one looks like, but how is it being used here?
The lion symbol is referring to an animal which is the king of the animal world.
The world is physical, therefore the lion could be a symbol for physical,
as seems to the case here. The calf in time becomes a bull, and can become a
raging bull. This could symbolize emotion. A flying eagle, that at times
appears in the sky, where we thought there was nothing, could be like a fleeting
thought, that in less than an instant is there, as it wasn't or had ever
been before. Man, at his finest hour is full of spirit, so this could be a
symbol for Spiritual. Each symbol's description here is just a very small
part of all that it is, in it's entirety. Our current minds need this concept
broken down into parts, for our understanding. John is describing here the
Throne of God, which has an end result of "creating all things." We could think
of these four symbols as a small portion of the "creative mind of God", or we
might call it "four minds of God."
Lion would symbolize "all" that is in the physical
world manifestation, as could be associated with: see, touch, feel, smell, hear.
All "things" or "stuff" is of this physical mind, and some things have ONLY this
physical mind. A tree, whether it's growing or is a board in the table would be
an example. Also, a barnacle on the bottom of a boat. In a being we can think of
muscle, bone, and blood. Tree and barnacle do not have the higher minds of
emotions, rational thought, or Spirit.
Calf, or Bull, in addition to the physical mind, would have the
emotional mind, as do many animals. There are some human beings that could also
fall into this limited category, since they do not have the capability of
producing an original thought. Perhaps those who's ancestors have hunted for
centuries with sticks and it has never occurred to them to tie vines together to
make a trap, or build fences and capture and domesticate or dig, plant and
harvest. They never would be a participant of forming and establishing any
civilization, ever. They have only the option to continue what they have always
done, or die. Invention and patent is not in their vocabulary. This type of
person is often showcased on the evening news.
One of the greatest injustices being done on earth, is that it has been made
politically incorrect to accept that this may be so. It is so evident, that if
God in His Wisdom had not provided for that type of creature, they would not
exist. Yet we wish to ignore God's design and plan, and judge them as though
they were given capabilities equal to higher species. This is so unfair to them.
It is just like punishing a tree or a barnacle because it refuses to show
emotion. This unfair treatment thrusts them into a frustrating and difficult
world. How much better off those people would be if we could just allow God's
design to be politically correct.
The flying Eagle of rational thought is ever so exciting.
Adventure, improving, planning, inventing, comfort, less labor, new things,
better transportation, better communication, better technology and
understanding; are all products of original thought. Unfortunately the negative,
abusive, side of this is also a part, which gets expressed as greater
manipulation of others, deceit, fraud, maliciousness, and evil. Some come up
with new ways to harm each other in larger groups. Those with thought mind also
possess emotional and physical minds, so they have three of the four.
Spiritual mind is the highest form of mind that we
are aware of here in World. Perfect Spiritual Mind was in Adam and Eve before
they ate the apple. When they ate the apple (sex & conception), they were thrust
out of their garden into the world of manifestation, possessing the knowledge of
good and evil which caused them to then become an expression of the other three
minds, mostly. The Spiritual mind is of God and is only good. Those possessing
the Spiritual mind have an intense desire to know God, they love Jesus without
hesitation or shame, they would die for Him, gladly. They are the kindest, most
benevolent, loving, forgiving, tolerant, God fearing people on earth. These are
the children of the New Covenant in Heb 8:8; "I will put my laws into their
minds, and write them into their hearts." In John 10;27 "My sheep hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me." In Luke 6:44 "For every
tree is known by his own fruit" In Gen 26:4 "And in thy seed shall all
the nations be blessed" In Gal 5:22,23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and
temperance." In Mt 5:4 "ye are the light of the world." When Jesus
Christ returns, those who have developed their Spiritual minds will step out of
the flesh bodies of physical, emotional and intellectual minds in the twinkling
of an eye and return to the garden of God's perfection. This is not a conscious
choice of the individual; it is God's election. 1Thes 1:4 "Knowing, brethren
beloved, your election of God." Or as explained in Rom 9:4-22 and Rom 9:20
" Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me
thus?" And specifically Rom 9:4 "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth
the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and
the service of God and the promises. Whose are the fathers, and of whom as
concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen."
They were human beings in touch with that Spiritual mind that wrote the
Constitution and were the founding fathers of the greatest country in the entire
world, the United States of America, under God. It is those who lack this
Spiritual mind that erode and destroy the values that produced such greatness.
To chart this for better understanding, let's start with five columns:
Symbol:
MAN EAGLE
BULL LION
Mind:
Spiritual Mental
Emotional Physical
Action: Spirit Thought Word Deed
Seraphim: 6 wing 6 wing 6 wing 6 wing
Relationship: Love Material Expression Sense
God (
Satan, World, Manifest )
Children (
Dogs
)
Man
(
man
)
Spirit (
Flesh
)
Desert (
Egypt
)
House of Jacob (
House of All Else & non houses)
Temple of
Living God ( Idols, Buddha, Mohammed, Etc.)
Be
( Learn the Trades )
Looking at this chart, we could get a rough idea of one's proportionate makeup.
Spiritual Thinking Emotional
Physical
3/12 3/12
3/12
3/12 Spiritual being with all 4 minds.
4/12
4/12
4/12 Intellectual being with 3 minds.
6/12
6/12 Emotional and Physical minds
12/12 Physical only
Since these minds are the minds of God and not the minds in our individual
heads, we can assume they are divided as shown above. Emanations of the physical
mind appear to be so solid when compared to the other three categories. Have you
ever gone up against a tree. You lose. It's 100 percent physical. A Bull would
be 50/50 Emotional/Physical. Not a good option to compete with. The intellectual
would be 33/33/33 Thinking/Emotional/Physical. This category would do excellent
in the physical world. They would have all bases covered and be rewarded with
vast material successes. The Spiritual being would be 25/25/25/25 or ¼ in each
category. The intellectual having 33 percent in the Thinking category, compared
to the Spiritual having 25 percent in the Thinking category, would give the
intellectual an advantage of 8 percent (33-25), over the Spiritual being.
Why might Jesus have called us sheep? Perhaps this is how dominion is given to
Satan for part of an age, which ends when Christ returns.
We have in the denominational churches, what could be termed Emotional
Christians and Intellectual Christians. This is OK and should be encouraged
according to Jer 12:16 "if they will diligently learn the ways of my people,
to swear by my name, the Lord liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal;
then shall they be built in the midst of my people." That doesn't make them
the House of Jacob, or Spiritual beings.
2Cor 6 would bring further understanding, which would make clearer the advice
which could be taken for each of the four columns. 2Cor 6:14 "Be ye not
unequally yoked together with unbelievers" is meant for the Spiritual
children, but would likewise, also be prudent for the Intellectual vs Emotional
vs Physical, not to yoke with each other.
Let's see if this knowledge can shed light for understanding God's truth, in
more depth,. In many cases the symbols also mean other things, such as "lion" in
many places means "pounce, tear, devour" as a lion does. Let's temporarily set
that aside. Psalm 22 is the prophecy of Jesus' crucifixion, to which He referred
while dying on the cross. Verse 12 "many bulls have compassed me: strong
bulls of Bashan have beset me round." This is the emotion around Jesus,
much of which is hatred, which put Him on the cross. Verse 21 "Save me from
the lion's mouth" God was delivering Him from the physical. "Thou hast
heard me from the horns of the unicorn." An ancient definition of unicorn
is "a fowl", and there is a possibility that a unicorn does not exist except for
our thought, so this could be a substitution for eagle and this was the act of
intellectual thought, as Jesus prayed as a man to the Father, Lk 22:42 "Father,
if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine,
be done," when He was in Gethsemane. Ps 22:16 "dogs have compassed me"
refers to non-Spiritual beings that are around Him, doing this to Him, and verse
20 "my darling from the power of the dog," when He is returned to
Spirit, the non-Spiritual will no longer have the power to touch Him, as they
scourged and beat Him. Jesus referred to "dogs" in Mk 7:27 "It is not meet
to take the children's bread, and cast it unto the dogs," or Spiritual food
should not be given to the non-Spiritual beings. Also, stated in Mat 7:6 "Give
not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet." Pearls of wisdom should not be
wasted on non-Spiritual beings. Jesus pointed at this Psalm when He said "My
God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In that time, the people had
memorized many Psalms and they were not numbered, so one would just say the
first line, and all knew what the referenced Psalm was. Just as today saying
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" refers to the comfort of Ps 23
without reciting all of Ps 23.
Also, looking at the chart, one obtains understanding of the meaning of Jesus
being the "Son of Man." In His perfection, He was not the Son of Eagle, Bull, or
Lion because He was not of the world. The sin of the Spiritual children is that
they think they are "sons of eagle, bull, or lion" and get too caught up in the
world and forget who they are Spiritually, much like the Prodigal Son, who
forgot who he was, when he got too much into the world. He needed to lift up his
head, realize who he was and return to the Spiritual Father, just like the
Spiritual children of God (House of Jacob) need to do today. This realization
will bring the body of Christ into the unity that is described in Eph 4:12-18 "for
the perfecting of the saints, (House of Jacob), for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all
come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive;....from whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted......" THIS is when Christ will return! Jesus is
there and ready, and has been since He ascended. He just needs the Body (us) to
realize who we are, that we may be ready to join Him, the Head, and become that
unity that is in Christ. Jesus said even He didn't know when the day would be.
If, in the House of Jacob, there are 144,000 elect who must come into the
realization of who they are before this can happen, then even they wouldn't know
the date and time. If one of them comes to this realization, he would have no
idea if he was the first, the fifth, tenth, or 143,997th. Therefore the Bible is
truth that "no man will know."
Jesus made comments to the effect that we should "die to the world." Lk 9:58 "Foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where
to lay His head. Follow me." In the example; "suffer me first to go and
bury my father" it is significant to note; if his father was dead, the
Spirit Soul had left him, and this man was attending only the flesh body of
world. To Jesus, that was not important. Lk 9;25 "For what is a man
advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?"
Or the whole world is not worth one man getting lost. This is a major confusion
point for many Christians. There are many flesh men (born of flesh or world)
that appear to have gained the whole world and not gotten lost. It's their
world, they are not lost, they are where they belong. That doesn't mean it's
where WE belong. To make this even more confusing, we see Christians, that
become million-dollar-a-week Evangelists, hawking their books and tapes, that
are lost in the world, that are trying to teach us. They have huge followings,
including many of the House of Jacob. Hebrews 8:11 says you can not teach "Know
the Lord." "And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man
his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the
greatest." God has already taken care of this spiritual "knowing." Since it
is so obvious that the Eagle, Bull and Lion, all born of flesh, DON'T know Him
spiritually, does it make God wrong that the Spiritual man DOES know Him as He
is saying, "they all shall know me." In the world, one can teach the
trades and the how-to's, but for the Spiritual being, God is not in the world.
For those that have it written in their minds and hearts, they are to follow
that still small voice and quietly and patiently SEEK to know Him. We were told
59 times in the Old Testament and 7 times in the new Testament to "Seek Me."
"Knowing God," is not taught like a trade, but is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Eph 4:11 "And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some,
evangelists; and some pastors and teachers;" Please note what is being said
here in verse 12 "For the PERFECTING of the saints." This is different
than running about the world with a stack of applications, shouting "Who wants
to be a saint?" God has already taken care of this. This would be clearer if in
the Bible, reference to Man as Spiritual man, had a capital M in Man, and
references to the male figure or flesh man, had a small m in man.
Note the line in the chart: Seraphim. This refers to "four Living Beings had
each of them six wings about him" Rev 4:8, further explained in Is 6:2 "above
it stood the Seraphs: each one had six wings." Consider the association of
Rev 13:18 "Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:
for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six"
which equals 666. The three Seraphs of Eagle, Bull, and Lion, equal the three
sixes, which symbolize worldly man or flesh man, leaving off the fourth six of
Spiritual man. Rev 13:16 "to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads" is that with our hands and our worldly thoughts we are all
serving this manifestation called world which in turn gives "life unto the
image of the beast" Rev 13:15 "any that would not worship the image of
the beast should be killed." Without worshipping the beast: eating food,
drinking water, clothing to prevent freezing, etc. we would die. That's what
Jesus did on the cross, He gave up His physical flesh body, and He still lives,
only not in a flesh body.
Why does God do bad things to good people? Concerning the Spiritual being, the further we venture into the physical world, the more we are at dis-ease. Like the monkey, that won't open his fist to pull his hand out of a cookie jar, we won't open our hands and let go of the worldly possessions and attachments, so that we can begin our return back to our Heavenly Father. This alone is not the total solution, as we are still attached to our physical worldly bodies.
GOD'S BILLBOARD
One doesn't have to take a blood test or search his genealogical records to find
out which group he falls under. He simply has to ask, what is my nature? In this
country many things have been done at tax payer expense to beautify the
highways, parks and walkways. One who throws trash out the window of his
vehicle, dumps his garbage in public places and such, probably does not have the
nature of a Spiritual being. One with Spiritual nature notices such things with
disgust, and at times will even stop to clean up the mess. Does the programming
on TV bring you pleasure or disgust, especially their "programmed slips" that
bring embarrassment to your family for what is being put in front of children,
along with the violence, sex, homosexuality, trashing Christian values,
slapstick degradation, and support for abortion? Do you long for the old type
programs and movies that were wholesome for the whole family? Would you
hurriedly repossess a widow's house if she fell behind on a payment or two, or
would you work with her on it? If you were selling food products, would you put
in worthless fillers just to increase your profit? Would you give someone a
medication that might help one thing but make two or three other things worse,
and not even tell them, because you know that they will return and bring you
more money? If you found a credit card or a purse, would you return it to the
owner or use it yourself? If the government had a program to assist those that
were temporarily down, would you take advantage of it by signing up under
several names? In case of an accident, would you fake an injury, for the sake of
money? If your boss stepped out for a while, would this mean a break or goof off
time for you? If someone was lost, would you help him find their way? If someone
was thirsty, would you give him a drink? If someone was hungry, would you give
them food? Does the homosexual lifestyle appeal to you or do you find it
detestable? Are you for or against killing, even when it has different names
such as abortion or embryonic stem cell research. Are the laws something to be
broken or obeyed? It's pretty easy to tell someone's nature, as fruit doesn't
fall far from it's tree. You are either showing fruit of the Spirit, or you are
showing fruit of the flesh. This is not to say that occasionally a Spiritual
being doesn't make an error or poor judgment, but overall, what is the nature?
Just pay attention, don't lie to yourself about what you're seeing, because you
like the looks, or the fine talk, or he can do you a favor. What kind of
fruit does one produce? He or she will show you.
This is stated in another way in the Bible, in Gal 5:22,23 the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. And Gal 5:19,20,21 the fruit of the flesh is: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such. Again, don't get confused when observing some of the children of the Spirit getting too much into the world and expressing these things of the flesh. That is an error that the children of the Spirit should try very hard to avoid.
Perhaps we should stop trying to teach a tree how to laugh or cry, or to teach an emotional mind how to solve problems, or to teach an intellectual mind that he was born of Spirit. An even clearer example may be that perhaps we should stop standing in the flower garden trying to tell the annuals that they can become perennials. The Potter created all things as He chose. So be it.
I would like to thank Roger Hathaway for his insights on the initial interpretation of the four beasts, which he shared with me. Without that, I would not have had the further insights, that have made this article possible. May this article bring you further insights toward your understanding of The Word of God and His Truth.