Whatever we conceive God to be in our consciousness is the way we experience God—because our experience is objectified consciousness—individual and collective.
When Adam and Eve entertained the idea that they were separated from God and had to do something to gain His acceptance, they saw themselves as “naked” and ashamed, causing them to fear God and conceive of Him as a god of wrath and punishment, judging them harshly for their actions. And that is precisely what they experienced. They lost their knowledge of God omnipotent who is only good and began to believe in an evil power opposed to God that was able to do them harm, not realizing that because they had been given dominion by God (having been made in His image and likeness) this so-called “evil” power which they called the serpent or “devil” was merely the God power given them turned against themselves which Paul called the “carnal mind” of man as opposed to “the mind of Christ” which they had from the beginning but did not “let” operate in themselves. It was, rather, the reasoning mind of humanity that thinks it has a life of its own to protect and preserve and thereby loses its identity with, and dependence upon, God who begat every man out of Himself.
Their descendants fell into such corruption that they almost completely self destructed, all the while attributing to God the evil that befell them—seeing it as God’s judgment rather than the inevitable result of the law of sowing and reaping. They were sowing to the flesh and reaping corruption (Galatians 6:8) because they had (with a few exceptions) lost sight of their spiritual origin in God. They were living examples of Paul’s words to Titus:
Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. 16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
Aside from Abel, Seth and Enoch, most of mankind following Adam were not “pure” but rather “defiled and unbelieving.”
Genesis 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
There was one man who had ears to hear and the courage to obey the voice of God from within. He had to completely ignore all the voices from without and even the voice of his own carnal mind to do something so “unreasonable” as build the ark that was to save mankind from annihilation. It was not because Noah was such a “righteous” man that he was able to hear and obey. On the contrary, as soon as he survived the flood and was blessed by God, he
Genesis 9:20 . . . began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
—an incident which led to the cursing of his own son and which has been used up until the present day to justify the most awful prejudice imaginable.
No, Noah had to find GRACE to do anything worthwhile—just as we do. Then, as now,
Genesis 6:5 . . . . the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and . . . every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
It cannot be otherwise, for in humanity,
Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
As it was for Noah, so is it with us:
Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. (See Mercy upon All and Out of Darkness into the Light.)
But Noah (unlike his contemporaries) was able to transcend his humanity to the extent that he could hear and heed God’s voice; that’s why it was said of him:
Genesis 6:9 . . . Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
What we want to see here is that we do indeed experience God according to our perception (consciousness) of Him. Noah was “just” and “perfect” (see Perfect in One) not because of his “goodness,” but because he “walked with God”; he recognized that he was not separated from, but rather inextricably connected to, God—and was thereby able to receive God’s mercy.
The same was true of Job:
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
He too was “perfect” because of his perception of God’s relationship to himself. Although his wife’s advice to him was to “curse God, and die,” Job retained his trust in God to the extent that he could say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). Job understood his connection to God and to his “brothers” (wife and so-called “friends”). He was able to hear God reprimanding him for his pride and self-righteousness and also able to hear God telling him to pray for those who reviled him. And his obedience to God’s instructions resulted in blessings that he could scarcely contain.
But it was not so with Cain. Unlike Job, he was not able to hear God’s reprimand and instructions which would result in his “doing well” and being “accepted” (Genesis 4:7). He perceived God, not as One with whom he was in intimate relationship and whom he could trust, but rather as a Being separate from himself giving orders and judging and punishing those who disobeyed. He couldn’t understand that his own “sin” (listening to his carnal mind which told him that he had to protect himself from his brother rather than love him as himself) (see From the Beginning)—that his own sin (not God judging him) produced in his life that which made him “a fugitive and a vagabond” “in the earth.”
Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Numbers 32:23 . . . be sure your sin will find you out.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death
Had Cain had Job’s consciousness of God, he too could have experienced God’s mercy which “triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13 NIV). No, he perceived God as one who punishes with a punishment greater than we can bear (Genesis 4:13). These are his words to God:
Genesis 4:14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
On the contrary, God “set a mark upon Cain” so that no one would kill him. Even that made no impression upon Cain. He “went out from the presence of the Lord.” Notice that the Lord didn’t banish him from His presence. It was a choice that Cain made because he did not perceive God to be One he could depend upon.
Of course David was aware that it is impossible to go “out from the presence of the Lord”:
Psalm 139:7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. 12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
But it is possible, as with Cain, to “go out from” the AWARENESS of God’s presence.
The whole of the Old Testament is a record of individuals, families, tribes and various other peoples experiencing God as they conceived Him to be. Almost without exception, they conceived of Him as a judge whom they must try very hard to appease in order to escape His horrific punishments. Thankfully, we also have a record of many who were able to see beyond the veil of the “flesh” into the Spirit realm enough to experience God’s love and mercy. The writer of Hebrews gives us a list of many of them who had the faith that is born of love (ch 11).
The descendants of Abraham profited from his encounters with the god who is ONE:
Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
They had the opportunity to take their knowledge of this God into the whole world, but they conceived of Him as a tribal god who favored them alone, fought their battles, killed their enemies and satisfied their fleshly desires for health, wealth, and whatever this material world has to offer.
Remember that man still had dominion in this earth and that they, even then as now, were able to receive what they prayed for when they could believe that they did. Even the “best” of them used their God power in ways contrary to all that Jesus taught about how we should treat one another. Elisha cursed his servant Gehazi (and all his descendants “forever”) with leprosy (2Kings 5:27). And Gehazi, believing Elisha to be God’s representative, accepted the curse. On another occasion when “little children” were mocking him because he was bald, Elisha “cursed them in the name of the Lord,” so that bears came out of the woods and “tare forty and two children” (2Kings 2:23-24).
But we can see what the “true God” (that Jesus was one with and whom He prayed we would know) thought about this. When James and John wanted to “command fire to come down from heaven” (“even as Elijah did”) to “consume” those whom they perceived to be the enemies of Jesus, He “rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”
Even David, the man both Samuel and Paul referred to as “after God’s own heart” (1Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22), certainly was not demonstrating God’s heart of love and forgiveness when he prayed this prayer against his enemy:
(Psalm 109:6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand. 7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. 8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office. 9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. 11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour. 12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. 13 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. 14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. 15 Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. 16 Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. 17 As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. 18 As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. 19 Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. 20 Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.)
Yes, David wanted his enemies to experience a god of wrath and cruel judgment. But when it came to himself, he wanted to experience God’s goodness and mercy (v 21). He wants his enemies to be “cursed” as he is “blessed,” to be “ashamed” while he “rejoices” (v 28).
But Jesus tells us that our “Father which is in heaven” “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” and that as His “children,” we must perceive Him as he is, as Jesus revealed Him to be. We have to stop ascribing to God all those activities ascribed to Him by those who perceived Him falsely and experienced Him the way they perceived Him to be.
Our Father who descended into this physical realm in the form of Jesus clearly indicates that those activities were none of His doing:
Matthew 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. 43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
There’s that word “perfect” again. Jesus knew that in His humanity (“sinful flesh”—Romans 8:3) He was not “perfect” of even “good”:
Mark 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
But He also knew that the Father within (whom He was one with—John 10:30) was perfect. We can know that also—that we are one with our Father within; and that is what makes us “perfect” (see Perfect in One). We don’t depend upon our own ability. Like Jesus, we just do only what we hear and see our Father do.
As we do that, it will produce in us the perception of our Father as the “true God” that Jesus revealed, the one that is “good,” the one whose “mercy endureth forever” (Psalm 136), “a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness” (Nehemiah 9:17).
And that is how we will experience Him. As we relate to the people in our world on this basis, that is also how they will experience Him.
Then (and only then) Jesus prayer recorded in John 17 will be answered:
John 17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.