The Harmony of Truth 2
(week 22/02)
Olubi Johnson
In our last article on the harmony of truth we saw that truth is reality and all reality was created by God through His Word by the power of His Spirit, so God’s Word is truth (John 17:17).
We also saw that truth is revealed to us at three levels: natural creation, the written Word, and hidden truth in the written Word.
There is a harmony amongst these three levels of revelation of truth. All truth revealed in the Word hidden or explicit have a natural analogue that reminds and assures us of the reality of spiritual truth that we cannot yet see or have experienced.
Romans 1:20 (KJV) For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
This scripture reveals to us that the invisible or spiritual things of God are understood by natural physical things that we can see that God has made. This is the underlying principle of the harmony of truth.
We will presently look at more examples of this wonderful harmony.
More examples of the harmony of Truth
The Word of God and natural food
The Bible describes the Word of God as spiritual food:
Matthew 4:4 (KJV) But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Hebrews 5:12-14 (NIV) In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Now natural food is divided into 5 types: protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals.
In the same way as we have to feed on these 5 types of food daily in the right proportion for balanced physical growth, we should feed: read and meditate upon on 5 parts of Word of God daily for balanced spiritual growth. These 5 parts of the Word of God are:
Proteins: The New Testament: Acts- Revelation. For the principles of who you are, what you have and can do in Christ that will build you up into the measure of the fullness of Christ.
Carbohydrates: The Old Testament. This contains the history of Israel, which are prophetic types, shadows and examples of what we are presently experiencing as Christians. They are to inspire us to not to make the mistakes Israel made, and more importantly to copy the examples of those in Israel that fulfilled God’s purposes in spite of the unfaithfulness of the majority, knowing that God is faithful to fulfill His Word in spite of impossible odds.(1 Cor. 10:11, Heb. 6:12, 11: 39-40, )
Fats: The gospels. These contain complementary biographical sketches of the life of Christ, to inspire and instruct us to be conformed to His image.
Vitamins: The proverbs these contain the wisdom and instruction of God to enable you to practically act upon the principles you learn from other areas of the Word of God so that you can obtain the results. You need the wisdom from proverbs in small but essential quantities daily just like vitamins.
Minerals: The Psalms. These contain encouraging accounts of songs and prophetic declarations from the life of David primarily. Now the New Testament church is called the Tabernacle of David (Acts 15: 16). Many of the prophetic declarations in the Psalms have direct application firstly to Christ and then secondly to the New Testament Christian. They, like natural minerals, are needed in small but essential quantities daily to encourage, inspire and strengthen the Christian to attain victory in this life, like David did in spite of failures and temporary set backs and ultimately fulfill the destiny of being conformed to the image of Christ.
See our Bible reading guide for more details.
Different kinds of prayer and natural transportation
Ephesians 6:18 (KJV) Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Different kinds of prayer as mentioned in Eph. 6: 18 above can be likened to the natural transportation systems that exist:
Praying with your thoughts is like walking with your legs: this can only take you so far before fatigue sets in.
Praying with words in your understanding can be likened using a vehicle: like a car, or boat, or in ancient times horse, camel or mule. This will take you further than your legs can, but is still greatly limited in speed and the terrain that can be covered.
Praying in the spirit, with other tongues or a supernatural language given by the Holy Spirit can be likened to flying with a propeller powered vehicle like a small plane or helicopter. This is much faster than cars or other terrestrial vehicles and gives you an elevated view of the earth. In the same way praying in tongues enables us to pray with more power, detail and thus efficiency than just praying with your understanding. Furthermore praying in tongues enables you to get revelation and the mind of Christ giving you an elevated or divine perspective on situations. (See 1 Cor. 14:2, 2: 7,9,10, 13, 16, Rom. 8:26)
Praying in the spirit with groanings or travail in addition to tongues can be likened to flying with a jet or rocket powered vehicle. This is even faster than the propeller powered vehicle. In the same way travail or groanings in the spirit causes you to get breakthroughs in the spirit that ordinary tongues alone will not get. Travail births spiritual reality into physical manifestation (Is. 66:8).
Notice however that all the different kinds of transportation are necessary in their place.
For instance to travel from my home in Nigeria to the top of a mountain in South Dakota in the US I need all the types of transportation:
My legs will take me from inside my home into a car. The car will take me to the airport.
My legs again will take me into the airport and into the plane.
The plane will taxi like a car, take off like a propeller plane, and fly as jet over the ocean, taxi and land like a car in an airport in South Dakota.
Then a helicopter and my legs can actually take me to the place at the top of the mountain.
In the same way many times our prayer destinations require the combination of all types of prayer to get us to effectively commune with God and get answers to our prayers. We need to pray with our thoughts, words, in tongues and with groanings and travail to get to where God wants us to: the top of the mountain: the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
