Exposition of salvation
Heat is the definition of the beginnings of movement of any sort so it is both a pushing and a pulling, and perhaps merely a pushing because to pull means to grab hold of something from behind a part of it that protrudes out the front (including something lassoed and tugged like a tug boat or the hitch of a trailer). All words are reflective of the meanings of things which means that all we say is descriptive and if it has any meaning it is called true (in some amount) but for what is abstract (a description of anything beyond what someone is used to) the truths are more general and tend to be getting at what is under the surface (which is precisely why they are so difficult for the empirically minded).
Think about this, what are we to be saved from? It is sin that we are saved from, but sin by itself (the word and it's object) is merely the description of what occurs whenever anyone in any way violates any part of what is sacred, and it's source is irreverence of that which is truly holy. Irreverence is the opposite of to revere and reverence is the first true righteousness when it is directed to God. To revere a thing means to both love it (devoted to the point of the willingness to sacrifice yourself) and to believe it to be worthy of your affections, or, in other words, to be true. Irreverence begins once we have legitimate hopes and dreams as well as loves but when we have only faith enough in what we've been given and not in the one who is solely responsible for it's giving. This bad faith is called pride and it is spawned as we fear the necessary sacrifice and love what we have or who we are more than the one who loved us first, tremendously, in order for us to receive what we loath to be taken from so we take what we have and, seeing the goal, believe we are capable of making an equally valid one at an equal distance from ourselves all on our own, and the action of that lust is called sin. Really, everyone is born with a bit of pride because they are not thinking of the Father in all they do but themselves or others more (even if you gain the whole world you'll lose yourself for your stubbornness) and God allows this because He creates with love as bred from His longing in hope that what He forms will return to Him in the salvation which is called faith.
Therefore it is erroneous what many who claim to be Christians say that fear is the root of all evil, but it is also false to say that self love is the root of all evil as others say, it is bad faith which is the merger of both. A selfish person or a fearful person may be forgiven but who can save a man who is prideful before God? Such a person thinks himself his own master and so in the perversion of self-discipline as well as subjugation of others destroys himself and heaps up gobs of what will decay into his bones and distort his mind, all such men, it is true, sprint towards Hell and as Milton says end in it's lowest rung. If this is embraced knowlingly life will come for a time but as is said to the Hebrews only with the fearful expectation of destruction lingering behind.
So much for the dead, now lets move on to life.
When at the point of decision where there is life and death before you and when the only two masters are before you you have the chance for freedom from the one who haunts you perpetually, relentlessly, and maliciously like a roaring lion. I have come to realize that when Jesus called us to perfection He was not being funny and wasn't just talking about after we die in the flesh but was talking about a way of life, the only true way of peace and way of the warrior.
When the rich young ruler went away from Christ, Jesus told His disciples not that it is difficult for the rich to enter Heaven, but that it is impossible for anyone who believes he owns something to enter Heaven or, harder for a camel (literally) to go through the eye of a needle (literally, and think small). See, all who seek God through anything they do, any action whatsoever, are being very Jewish, and any who are subject to the law and don't know how to stop breaking it yet keep on breaking it though they don't want to are being very heathen. I have been both but neither are damnable yet if you go to the extreme of either both paths end is death. This is reflective of the nature of God who is both spirit and truth in one (in faith). When we are being orderly and trying to keep the peace and be disciplined we are seeking truth but when we are uncontrolled and impulsive we are acting by our spirits, but the height of the truth is the law (like a speed limit) and the height of the spirit is the moment just after the one you can act in (it eludes every existentialist). So who then can be saved as the disciples perceptively pondered?
Leading up to the point of decision we have restraint and control, levels of truth that we know and have been given either by our own effort and then it's settling down or as others reveal things to us by their grace to us and it's settling down, and both are like cement that flows until it hardens (like a foundation or structure). We also have desires and passions, the things that truly motivate us and drive us (or the parts of us that are driven; the heat within us if you will), but we often break the things that we've been given and that have been built up within us by the intensity of our hungers for things that we truly do require yet do not already have. As James says though we do not have because we do not ask God and even when we do ask we do not receive because our motives are corrupted as we lust in envy for what others have. So the problem is manifold, it is pandemic and leads to pandemonium.
So who can save us from this thing? Other people surely can't save us, and we can't save ourselves (I've tried both and failed both times, others are insufficient and I do more harm than good), so people turn to spirituality and in flows the sources of deception.... We err in following spirits and that which we cannot see that is reflective of us, or that looks similar to us yet that is more powerful than we are because it is not a matter of ability or possibility but of nature and birth; who can deliver us out of this wretched host? Ahh, but there inlay the further problem, if we are indeed saved we now know what we are saved from and that we cannot save ourselves and that others cannot and that spirits cannot no matter how powerful they are, but even if we are to be saved where can we go? I mean, don't we need a place to live or are we just supposed to float around into nothing?
Here we come to the payoff...and the price is high.
A shepherd can only lead his sheep and he may even protect them and do all he can for them, even dying to love them, but if it is merely the work of another person it falls under the category of others which means that I cannot be saved by others (entirely...there's a catch). One of the most lasting pursuits of all mankind is freedom for after all we are born seemingly free and then become enslaved, though even at birth our freedom is limited in every way except that which has been given. True salvation is the rebirth into the brotherhood of the shepherd, the sonship of the only God. Truth is a magnificent pursuit and it is the foundation stone of all things which is why the law is the cornerstone of our faith but for all who work by their own effort (whether cognizant or ignorant of the fact) it is the capstone, the highest point and that which will crush them.
At the height of truth we see the perfection of the law, it's fulfillment in Christ who came in the flesh to undermine the work of Lucifer who became the Devil in all things, but what is understanding without the movement towards it. Christ gives all people a great gift that is worth more than anything we could ever do or think or say or produce and this measure is what He refers to as talents (tons of purest gold) and all men have received many such gifts and in fact that is all we can ever strive for (we only ever reach for some sorts of substance else we grasp at the vapor). These stones of gold are to be stepping stones and so upon reaching the tops of each one we must leave the previous one behind, which is the death of us, and so it is at the very top of all of these stones, the capstone, that we have the opportunity to leap beyond into the highest place, the true Holy of Holies where only those with such a cleaned garment may enter.
I think of a temple and as it is being built the kinds of stones may be chosen and pieced together until the last stones are laid on it's top which put a cap on it's construction. The one who commissioned it's construction is ahead of us, above us, and the one who drives us on is under us so that we are always being called higher as we build and may, at any time, descend to rest in what is completed. This is true unless we begin to follow another leader or another driver who commands towards what is harmful and drives us into disaster which is bathed in the sounds of sweetness. So, it is true to say that Christ died for us and even to say that He died so that it is not necessary for us to, but the main death, the one He undermined, is the core death which also results in manual malfunctions and ultimately the death of our mortal frames which means that we do not have to be in Hell or suffer in Hellish ways because of our rejection of Him, but not that we will not be persecuted or even die (which hurts).
It is my firm belief and conviction that I've gained through experience that salvation, like the perfection of Christ, is through suffering, it is when we face the false masters seeking domination over us inside (including ourselves if we have that tendency...and all do) while standing on the work of Christ within us and leading up to that central struggle and choose the promises of God over the spurious glitter of the temptation to be your own master (or even live in service to Satan). Even Jesus was tempted towards this in the desert just before He started towards helping others (I think it was then that His righteousness was completed on the personal level internally; before He faced anyone as the teacher) as the Devil told Him that if He bowed down and worshiped Satan he'd give Him all the kingdoms of the world (also where Christ got the saying that it's empty to gain the whole world and lose your soul, He knew what was going on). This struggle can go on at any time (it's always being waged on our behalf by the Father ahead of us and Christ behind us) but the point at which we are personally saved is when we make that personal and spiritual assent towards the Father from the Son through the Devil and that spells the death of us so we often avoid it afraid.
See, if we draw near to Him in that moment He will draw near to us and raise us from that death in the exact same way He raised Christ from the dead. So this dual fact and participation is the way of salvation, that we confess with our mouths that "Jesus is Lord" and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead so that the salvation of faith because of the grace of God and striking hands in pledge with the replication of the love of God. We cannot have just the confession (truth) nor just the belief that God raised Him from the dead (spirit), but we must have both spirit and truth working together, and not just the spirit and truth of ourselves or of Christ but of God. This is a difficult truth but it is solid.
See, freedom is always from something to something, but in the case of relationships we are freed from ourselves to others by the sacrifice of love for them, in laying down our own pursuits and lives for others. Christ's work within us is to make us just like Him as far as we can be (He will always be the Head and we will never be), but if we do not make this final step internally it can never work it's way outwards in the way in which it did in Christ (who was born in this freedom from Mary, which is why we must be born again to truly be His disciple, born like Him, of the Spirit of God. This is consequently the same reason it is logical that He was born of a virgin, no man's righteousness is complete so no seed would be potent enough, but it is possible to be in a virgin because of her passion for God...I think Mary had that internal salvation which is what made this possible, that she was so zealous for the Messiah and the Father that both came in her womb in love for her. Joseph probably wasn't as zealous for God as Mary but that doesn't mean God couldn't have used Joseph's seed, just that He didn't). If we are saved from Satan to God we are then reformed through what has previously been built to become free to all things though the only way to have a true and valid relationship with another person is if they've also gone through this and you reach each other on this deep level working through the surface of things.
It is like a wineskin that is made new, for it was old, and then once all the holes are all patched up so that nothing can escape and all the old wine is drained so that there is a nice empty vessel the new wine of our oneness with the Father and the Son and the Spirit begins to pour in. Like a fountain that is alive what is poured into us spills out once we have been filled to the brim and we can then use our water to wash the bodies of others so that God can work in their hearts and once their feet are washed their bath is complete. Our problem is that we either try to wash others before we have water to spare or that we try to give new wine to people who prefer their old wine just fine and would really just like us to back off because our wine, though it seems new to us, becomes completely unpalatable to them and in disgust they vomit it up quite naturally and then return to that which we forced out of them; even by the finger of God (what's a finger within us but without a gentle touch? sounds like rape, no?). We need to get our hands out of others who are hurting with the righteousness of our own that is to God like menstrual rags wiping things all over them and getting filth all in them...and ourselves; it's quite disgusting really. But the Kingdom of Heaven is amazingly wonderful and far beyond the scope of any crusade, the imaginings of any yogi, or the wisdom of any sage so make every effort to enter through the narrow way, it is small, very small, but don't be afraid, God is patient and kind He will not rush you though it would be expedient to seek the Kingdom before anything else no matter what the cost or the ridicule....it's worth it.
Now, what about what we store up in our longings for truth and the quest for righteousness that unites in wisdom? These nuggets of gold are like treasure that is stored up for others if we do not devote it all, and our service (if we devote our ourselves to Him at that critical point we must include all that we have in that worshipful sacrifice), completely to the Father and also like the parable of the talents it will be given to those who are in Him if we are not in Him, like a building all built and shiny but empty, so another occupant takes it instead if we misuse it. We can gain a great deal in the pursuits after good and legitimate things but if it is all for ends not for God or in Him at every single moment as Linkin Park says famously, "in the end it doesn't even matter." By the way, the rest of that song seems to fit well too so give it a listen if you'd like.
Oh, one more thing. About the commission and those who don't have the law. The world is coming into being under the law of God more and more and some people are just ignorant to it's source and so they are pagan yet because Christ worked in them to form them initially He still works in them and so when they do what is in accordance with the law they are, as Paul says, a law unto themselves. Those who have been subjected by the proud who have the law Jesus called the lost sheep of the house of Israel because they'd been crushed under the weight of it all already by others like the scribes and Pharisees and there are many in each category today (I was in both). To the pagans God works from the heart outwards but for those who are more like the Jews He works from the head downwards. Those who are under subjection by those who purport to be teachers but who are not saved live like the pagans because they have no other choice, yet seek to follow God with all their hearts, they are nearest to the Kingdom of all men (These people I want to reach out to first because I was so subjected and zealous as I've come to realize as I've thought back on my life a lot recently). Those under the law and who have it and who know the source of it are called Jews whether they are born Jewish and from Israel or not, and those who are pagan and unbelieving are called gentiles no matter where they are, but the number of gentiles is growing smaller and of Jews is increasing though neither is nearly good enough on their own to be saved. The difference is that it is more often that the pagans recognize this and least often that the Jews recognize this (many who claim to be Christians are really just Jews according to this definition).
In the conversation Christ had with the woman at the well He revealed this by saying that the gentiles (Samaritans were a mix of ethnic Jews and Gentiles so they were like Americans) worship what they do not know but the Jews worship what they do know but that there is a time coming and that has now come in which the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth for these are the kind He seeks. This means that there are false worshipers all over, or, those on the broad path which ends in death. I think the utterly destitute have more in them than those who are so self-disciplined and that pagans are often closer to God in spirit (worship without knowledge) while the Hebrew are closer to Him in truth (with knowledge). So all over there are sheep, for all men are born as sheep who go wherever they are led, who are without a shepherd; the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few so we are to call out to God to raise up workmen (not to necessarily go make them that, though that's also good, but to call to Him because He will make them shepherds and teachers who can reach the wise and foolish, all people for they become all things to all people).
Among the Gentiles and the Jews it is the ones who have been wounded the deepest who God will used the deepest because they are the good soil into which the seeds of spiritual truth go in and plant and dig deep and sprout into such wonderful trees with plenty of food for all. That also doesn't mean that others are hopeless, but it is said that we should go to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles because it is through the truth that God's spirit floods a man with life. Therefore those Christ sets free and makes free and brings to freedom are truly free to all things and all people because they are free to God who is sovereign and imminent and who is Holy, yet Fathers us in His kindness and grace, and this fact brings tears to my eyes every time I consider it. It is to the depressed and the wounded, the deserted and abandoned, the lonely and the suicidal and the addicted and the beaten and burdened that God goes first, the rest refuse to be wounded so much so that they can grow so much though they already know based on what they have that it must come...which amounts to pride mixed with fear and the uncertainty of what accompanies the lies they've bought into.
This whole predicament is both a thing of deep joy and sorrow for me, but it is good that I get to be so moved and I know that I am far from worthy of it which is why I often don't know how to respond to praise, or just ignore it.
I've been asked to try to expound on the symbolism in a recent movie that I watched today called 3:10 to Yuma by a good friend of mine so I'll try to write about that next time.
Have a wonderful day, it's full of every good thing.
Think about this, what are we to be saved from? It is sin that we are saved from, but sin by itself (the word and it's object) is merely the description of what occurs whenever anyone in any way violates any part of what is sacred, and it's source is irreverence of that which is truly holy. Irreverence is the opposite of to revere and reverence is the first true righteousness when it is directed to God. To revere a thing means to both love it (devoted to the point of the willingness to sacrifice yourself) and to believe it to be worthy of your affections, or, in other words, to be true. Irreverence begins once we have legitimate hopes and dreams as well as loves but when we have only faith enough in what we've been given and not in the one who is solely responsible for it's giving. This bad faith is called pride and it is spawned as we fear the necessary sacrifice and love what we have or who we are more than the one who loved us first, tremendously, in order for us to receive what we loath to be taken from so we take what we have and, seeing the goal, believe we are capable of making an equally valid one at an equal distance from ourselves all on our own, and the action of that lust is called sin. Really, everyone is born with a bit of pride because they are not thinking of the Father in all they do but themselves or others more (even if you gain the whole world you'll lose yourself for your stubbornness) and God allows this because He creates with love as bred from His longing in hope that what He forms will return to Him in the salvation which is called faith.
Therefore it is erroneous what many who claim to be Christians say that fear is the root of all evil, but it is also false to say that self love is the root of all evil as others say, it is bad faith which is the merger of both. A selfish person or a fearful person may be forgiven but who can save a man who is prideful before God? Such a person thinks himself his own master and so in the perversion of self-discipline as well as subjugation of others destroys himself and heaps up gobs of what will decay into his bones and distort his mind, all such men, it is true, sprint towards Hell and as Milton says end in it's lowest rung. If this is embraced knowlingly life will come for a time but as is said to the Hebrews only with the fearful expectation of destruction lingering behind.
So much for the dead, now lets move on to life.
When at the point of decision where there is life and death before you and when the only two masters are before you you have the chance for freedom from the one who haunts you perpetually, relentlessly, and maliciously like a roaring lion. I have come to realize that when Jesus called us to perfection He was not being funny and wasn't just talking about after we die in the flesh but was talking about a way of life, the only true way of peace and way of the warrior.
When the rich young ruler went away from Christ, Jesus told His disciples not that it is difficult for the rich to enter Heaven, but that it is impossible for anyone who believes he owns something to enter Heaven or, harder for a camel (literally) to go through the eye of a needle (literally, and think small). See, all who seek God through anything they do, any action whatsoever, are being very Jewish, and any who are subject to the law and don't know how to stop breaking it yet keep on breaking it though they don't want to are being very heathen. I have been both but neither are damnable yet if you go to the extreme of either both paths end is death. This is reflective of the nature of God who is both spirit and truth in one (in faith). When we are being orderly and trying to keep the peace and be disciplined we are seeking truth but when we are uncontrolled and impulsive we are acting by our spirits, but the height of the truth is the law (like a speed limit) and the height of the spirit is the moment just after the one you can act in (it eludes every existentialist). So who then can be saved as the disciples perceptively pondered?
Leading up to the point of decision we have restraint and control, levels of truth that we know and have been given either by our own effort and then it's settling down or as others reveal things to us by their grace to us and it's settling down, and both are like cement that flows until it hardens (like a foundation or structure). We also have desires and passions, the things that truly motivate us and drive us (or the parts of us that are driven; the heat within us if you will), but we often break the things that we've been given and that have been built up within us by the intensity of our hungers for things that we truly do require yet do not already have. As James says though we do not have because we do not ask God and even when we do ask we do not receive because our motives are corrupted as we lust in envy for what others have. So the problem is manifold, it is pandemic and leads to pandemonium.
So who can save us from this thing? Other people surely can't save us, and we can't save ourselves (I've tried both and failed both times, others are insufficient and I do more harm than good), so people turn to spirituality and in flows the sources of deception.... We err in following spirits and that which we cannot see that is reflective of us, or that looks similar to us yet that is more powerful than we are because it is not a matter of ability or possibility but of nature and birth; who can deliver us out of this wretched host? Ahh, but there inlay the further problem, if we are indeed saved we now know what we are saved from and that we cannot save ourselves and that others cannot and that spirits cannot no matter how powerful they are, but even if we are to be saved where can we go? I mean, don't we need a place to live or are we just supposed to float around into nothing?
Here we come to the payoff...and the price is high.
A shepherd can only lead his sheep and he may even protect them and do all he can for them, even dying to love them, but if it is merely the work of another person it falls under the category of others which means that I cannot be saved by others (entirely...there's a catch). One of the most lasting pursuits of all mankind is freedom for after all we are born seemingly free and then become enslaved, though even at birth our freedom is limited in every way except that which has been given. True salvation is the rebirth into the brotherhood of the shepherd, the sonship of the only God. Truth is a magnificent pursuit and it is the foundation stone of all things which is why the law is the cornerstone of our faith but for all who work by their own effort (whether cognizant or ignorant of the fact) it is the capstone, the highest point and that which will crush them.
At the height of truth we see the perfection of the law, it's fulfillment in Christ who came in the flesh to undermine the work of Lucifer who became the Devil in all things, but what is understanding without the movement towards it. Christ gives all people a great gift that is worth more than anything we could ever do or think or say or produce and this measure is what He refers to as talents (tons of purest gold) and all men have received many such gifts and in fact that is all we can ever strive for (we only ever reach for some sorts of substance else we grasp at the vapor). These stones of gold are to be stepping stones and so upon reaching the tops of each one we must leave the previous one behind, which is the death of us, and so it is at the very top of all of these stones, the capstone, that we have the opportunity to leap beyond into the highest place, the true Holy of Holies where only those with such a cleaned garment may enter.
I think of a temple and as it is being built the kinds of stones may be chosen and pieced together until the last stones are laid on it's top which put a cap on it's construction. The one who commissioned it's construction is ahead of us, above us, and the one who drives us on is under us so that we are always being called higher as we build and may, at any time, descend to rest in what is completed. This is true unless we begin to follow another leader or another driver who commands towards what is harmful and drives us into disaster which is bathed in the sounds of sweetness. So, it is true to say that Christ died for us and even to say that He died so that it is not necessary for us to, but the main death, the one He undermined, is the core death which also results in manual malfunctions and ultimately the death of our mortal frames which means that we do not have to be in Hell or suffer in Hellish ways because of our rejection of Him, but not that we will not be persecuted or even die (which hurts).
It is my firm belief and conviction that I've gained through experience that salvation, like the perfection of Christ, is through suffering, it is when we face the false masters seeking domination over us inside (including ourselves if we have that tendency...and all do) while standing on the work of Christ within us and leading up to that central struggle and choose the promises of God over the spurious glitter of the temptation to be your own master (or even live in service to Satan). Even Jesus was tempted towards this in the desert just before He started towards helping others (I think it was then that His righteousness was completed on the personal level internally; before He faced anyone as the teacher) as the Devil told Him that if He bowed down and worshiped Satan he'd give Him all the kingdoms of the world (also where Christ got the saying that it's empty to gain the whole world and lose your soul, He knew what was going on). This struggle can go on at any time (it's always being waged on our behalf by the Father ahead of us and Christ behind us) but the point at which we are personally saved is when we make that personal and spiritual assent towards the Father from the Son through the Devil and that spells the death of us so we often avoid it afraid.
See, if we draw near to Him in that moment He will draw near to us and raise us from that death in the exact same way He raised Christ from the dead. So this dual fact and participation is the way of salvation, that we confess with our mouths that "Jesus is Lord" and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead so that the salvation of faith because of the grace of God and striking hands in pledge with the replication of the love of God. We cannot have just the confession (truth) nor just the belief that God raised Him from the dead (spirit), but we must have both spirit and truth working together, and not just the spirit and truth of ourselves or of Christ but of God. This is a difficult truth but it is solid.
See, freedom is always from something to something, but in the case of relationships we are freed from ourselves to others by the sacrifice of love for them, in laying down our own pursuits and lives for others. Christ's work within us is to make us just like Him as far as we can be (He will always be the Head and we will never be), but if we do not make this final step internally it can never work it's way outwards in the way in which it did in Christ (who was born in this freedom from Mary, which is why we must be born again to truly be His disciple, born like Him, of the Spirit of God. This is consequently the same reason it is logical that He was born of a virgin, no man's righteousness is complete so no seed would be potent enough, but it is possible to be in a virgin because of her passion for God...I think Mary had that internal salvation which is what made this possible, that she was so zealous for the Messiah and the Father that both came in her womb in love for her. Joseph probably wasn't as zealous for God as Mary but that doesn't mean God couldn't have used Joseph's seed, just that He didn't). If we are saved from Satan to God we are then reformed through what has previously been built to become free to all things though the only way to have a true and valid relationship with another person is if they've also gone through this and you reach each other on this deep level working through the surface of things.
It is like a wineskin that is made new, for it was old, and then once all the holes are all patched up so that nothing can escape and all the old wine is drained so that there is a nice empty vessel the new wine of our oneness with the Father and the Son and the Spirit begins to pour in. Like a fountain that is alive what is poured into us spills out once we have been filled to the brim and we can then use our water to wash the bodies of others so that God can work in their hearts and once their feet are washed their bath is complete. Our problem is that we either try to wash others before we have water to spare or that we try to give new wine to people who prefer their old wine just fine and would really just like us to back off because our wine, though it seems new to us, becomes completely unpalatable to them and in disgust they vomit it up quite naturally and then return to that which we forced out of them; even by the finger of God (what's a finger within us but without a gentle touch? sounds like rape, no?). We need to get our hands out of others who are hurting with the righteousness of our own that is to God like menstrual rags wiping things all over them and getting filth all in them...and ourselves; it's quite disgusting really. But the Kingdom of Heaven is amazingly wonderful and far beyond the scope of any crusade, the imaginings of any yogi, or the wisdom of any sage so make every effort to enter through the narrow way, it is small, very small, but don't be afraid, God is patient and kind He will not rush you though it would be expedient to seek the Kingdom before anything else no matter what the cost or the ridicule....it's worth it.
Now, what about what we store up in our longings for truth and the quest for righteousness that unites in wisdom? These nuggets of gold are like treasure that is stored up for others if we do not devote it all, and our service (if we devote our ourselves to Him at that critical point we must include all that we have in that worshipful sacrifice), completely to the Father and also like the parable of the talents it will be given to those who are in Him if we are not in Him, like a building all built and shiny but empty, so another occupant takes it instead if we misuse it. We can gain a great deal in the pursuits after good and legitimate things but if it is all for ends not for God or in Him at every single moment as Linkin Park says famously, "in the end it doesn't even matter." By the way, the rest of that song seems to fit well too so give it a listen if you'd like.
Oh, one more thing. About the commission and those who don't have the law. The world is coming into being under the law of God more and more and some people are just ignorant to it's source and so they are pagan yet because Christ worked in them to form them initially He still works in them and so when they do what is in accordance with the law they are, as Paul says, a law unto themselves. Those who have been subjected by the proud who have the law Jesus called the lost sheep of the house of Israel because they'd been crushed under the weight of it all already by others like the scribes and Pharisees and there are many in each category today (I was in both). To the pagans God works from the heart outwards but for those who are more like the Jews He works from the head downwards. Those who are under subjection by those who purport to be teachers but who are not saved live like the pagans because they have no other choice, yet seek to follow God with all their hearts, they are nearest to the Kingdom of all men (These people I want to reach out to first because I was so subjected and zealous as I've come to realize as I've thought back on my life a lot recently). Those under the law and who have it and who know the source of it are called Jews whether they are born Jewish and from Israel or not, and those who are pagan and unbelieving are called gentiles no matter where they are, but the number of gentiles is growing smaller and of Jews is increasing though neither is nearly good enough on their own to be saved. The difference is that it is more often that the pagans recognize this and least often that the Jews recognize this (many who claim to be Christians are really just Jews according to this definition).
In the conversation Christ had with the woman at the well He revealed this by saying that the gentiles (Samaritans were a mix of ethnic Jews and Gentiles so they were like Americans) worship what they do not know but the Jews worship what they do know but that there is a time coming and that has now come in which the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth for these are the kind He seeks. This means that there are false worshipers all over, or, those on the broad path which ends in death. I think the utterly destitute have more in them than those who are so self-disciplined and that pagans are often closer to God in spirit (worship without knowledge) while the Hebrew are closer to Him in truth (with knowledge). So all over there are sheep, for all men are born as sheep who go wherever they are led, who are without a shepherd; the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few so we are to call out to God to raise up workmen (not to necessarily go make them that, though that's also good, but to call to Him because He will make them shepherds and teachers who can reach the wise and foolish, all people for they become all things to all people).
Among the Gentiles and the Jews it is the ones who have been wounded the deepest who God will used the deepest because they are the good soil into which the seeds of spiritual truth go in and plant and dig deep and sprout into such wonderful trees with plenty of food for all. That also doesn't mean that others are hopeless, but it is said that we should go to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles because it is through the truth that God's spirit floods a man with life. Therefore those Christ sets free and makes free and brings to freedom are truly free to all things and all people because they are free to God who is sovereign and imminent and who is Holy, yet Fathers us in His kindness and grace, and this fact brings tears to my eyes every time I consider it. It is to the depressed and the wounded, the deserted and abandoned, the lonely and the suicidal and the addicted and the beaten and burdened that God goes first, the rest refuse to be wounded so much so that they can grow so much though they already know based on what they have that it must come...which amounts to pride mixed with fear and the uncertainty of what accompanies the lies they've bought into.
This whole predicament is both a thing of deep joy and sorrow for me, but it is good that I get to be so moved and I know that I am far from worthy of it which is why I often don't know how to respond to praise, or just ignore it.
I've been asked to try to expound on the symbolism in a recent movie that I watched today called 3:10 to Yuma by a good friend of mine so I'll try to write about that next time.
Have a wonderful day, it's full of every good thing.