Since the beginning of time, our nature has been to wonder. We can see that it happened in the garden when man fell through the curiosity of another seed (Lk 8:11, Gen 3:4-6, Gen 3:15), as well as the two men on the road to Emmaus, who proclaimed, “did our heart not burn within us” after walking with Jesus. Even you, as you read this, have begun to wonder (Lk 24:32). As children, we wondered at the rules our parents set before us, but as we grew we began to learn and understand.
Interestingly, the word “wonder” is not what most people think. In Ancient Hebrew, this word translates to môphêth, which speaks of “the act of intercourse”. It also means to “entice,” “the vagina for intercourse,” or “an amazing sight or event as a piercing.” [1]
Now, let us contemplate this. Yeshua said the seed is the Word of God (Lk 8:11). The word “seed” in Greek is symbolic of the seed of man or sperm. When Jesus ministered to the disciples, it says
“He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures”.
(Luke 24:45)
The word for “opened” is the Greek word dianoigō, which, according to the Thayer Bible Dictionary, is “a male opening the womb” pertaining to “the eyes and the ears,” “to open the mind of one, i.e., to cause to understand a thing,” and “to open one’s soul, i.e., to rouse in one the faculty of understanding or the desire of learning.” [2]
This is why ‘to wonder’ is paralleled to one of the most intimate things we can do. We have been wired for intimacy and groomed for obtaining understanding. When applied to the word of God, it goes far past merely understanding in the mind. Through this pure form of intimacy is the ability to purify our minds back into the state of innocence. Spiritually speaking, we become virgins again, or return to the state before man took in the wicked seed of the enemy (Gen 3:4-6).
“Not without reason do we say that the powers of perception of all who have come to know divine things, no matter how they have received the WORD of God, “whether by chance or by truth” (Phil 2:18) are “virgins”—made virgins by the WORD of God in which they have believed or wished to believe. For such is the WORD of God that it shares of its purity with all who through its teaching have withdrawn from the service of idols or from the service of the elements of God’s creation (cf. 1 Co 10:14; Gal 4:3), and have come to the service of God through Jesus Christ even if they have nor carried out good works nor prepared themselves for beatitude.” [3]
Origen – Spirit & Fire
One could say that purity is being restored through the understanding of who Christ really is (Jn 1:1,14). One could also say that we share in God’s purity through His teaching. The virgins, awakened from their slumber to chase after God, filled their vessels with oil (teaching) so they would never run dry in their hearts or minds. In Matthew it says both, the wise and the foolish awoke when they heard the voice cry out and trimmed their lamps (Mat 25:6-7); yet, only the wise made it into the bridal chamber (Mat 25:10-11). The parable of the ten virgins is a parabolic teaching that shows the difference between those that were after intimacy with God and those that were not.
“They fill their vessels of their souls from this WORD, buying it from the teachers and keepers of the tradition who sell it, as much as is needed, even if their end is late and the Word coming to their fulfillment is delayed; for they hasten to him to be fulfilled and to be set outside the world. But those who, after becoming Christian, were concerned to receive only enough teaching to last them to the end, . . . these are “foolish.”They accepted their lamps, which of course were lit at first, but they did not take oil along for such a long journey to go meet the spouse.” [4]
Origen – Spirit & Fire
The wise moved with hastency, meaning they were running and chasing after the Lord with urgency. The intimacy they were after resulted in them running with excitement and expectation – chasing the “fragrance of thine ointments” on their way to meet the Bridegroom (Son 1:3). Paul speaks about running the race of endurance after a stripping away from the weight of sin (Heb 12:1). Sin is a weight unto our bodies. Jesus says if we are yoked to Him and learn from Him, or “fill the vessels of the souls” from the Word, that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Mat 11:29). The faster we run is dependent upon the amount of weight we take off. The wise, as Origen describes, hastened to Him in order to become fulfilled by Him. That means you could have taken everything away from them and they wouldn’t waiver – their deepest desire was to become one with the bridegroom.
The Word coming to their fulfillment, which was delayed, was the bridegroom, Yeshua. The wise are those that have a strong desire for the manifestation of God in their lives. They desire to be in constant intercession with the Father, to dwell in the throne room with a longing and thirsting for God’s heart. The foolish, as Origen describes, “were concerned to receive only enough teaching to last them to the end.” The intimacy within them is extinguished by other lovers. The Lord reminds us of the great commandment when He said,
“we should love Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind” (Matt 22:37-38).
This can only happen through the purification of the heart, soul, and mind. In Hebrew thought, they are all the same. Your heart and mind are the same thing; your soul is what you think, what you feel, and what you believe. The Lord wants to purify all of that so we have motives that are after His own heart (1 Sam 16:7, 1 Sam 13:14, Num 31:23). The fire of God purifies our heart.
“But when He shall have judged the righteousness, He will also try them with fire. Then they whose sins exceed either in weight or in number, shall be scorched by the fire and burnt: but they whom are full of justice and maturity of virtue has imbued will not perceive that fire; for they have something of God in themselves which repels and rejects the violence of the flame. So great is the force of innocence, that the flame shrinks from it without doing harm; which has received from God this power, that it burns the wicked, and is under the command of the righteous.” [5]
Lactantius Divine Institutes VII
The fire of God is revelation. It is the unveiling of something you didn’t know before, but now you do. When you understand the mysteries of scripture, which are revealed to you, they purify you to a state of innocence. The fire will not hurt these ones because they have become the fire –
“having something of God in themselves”.
(Romans 1:19)
They burn with a passion; like a heart that has been made flammable that even the smallest drop of oil causes them to burn brighter. The illuminance of their understanding is manifested in the way they live, so that others might see, and the virgins within them might hear the voice cry out (Jn 8:12, Matt 5:14, Matt 25:6).
The more you seek to know His face and the purer your heart becomes, the closer you get to Him; the closer the wise virgins get to purity and to the WORD coming to their fulfillment. Having a pure heart, mind, and soul means the way you perceive becomes purified as well. The virgins are also symbolic of the five senses: hearing, seeing, taste, smell, and touch.
“And as Thallousa said that there is a chasty of the eyes and of the ears, and of the tongue, and so on of the other senses; so here she who keeps inviolate the faith of the five pathways of virtue-sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing- is called by the name of the five virgins, because she has kept the five forms of the senses pure to Christ, as a lamp, causing the light of holiness to shine forth clearly from each of them.” [6]
Methodius
What Methodius calls the “five pathways of virtue” are the purified senses. When we refer to the senses, we are also referring to how we understand or our levels of perceiving. Jesus tells us that the lamp of the body is the eye, and if our eyes are good, our whole body will be full of light (Matt 6:22). What does it mean to have a good eye?
It is, as Jesus and Isaiah said, “eyes that would see, and ears that would hear” (Matt 13;14-15, Isa 6:10). That is, to see the spiritual meaning of the scriptures, which are the mysteries of the kingdom that have been given to us to know (Matt 13:11).
“For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light”
(Mark 4:22)
The meaning of light is so divine when looked at from a Hebraic point of view. In Hebrew, the word light is the word ôr, which actually speaks of order. [7] This means that darkness could easily mean disorder. Let’s look at it in this way: have you ever been in a room where you could not see because the lights were off? In the same way it is parabolic. The light removes the darkness in order for us to see; the senses become illuminated through their purification and we are able to spiritually see. We then become the lights that show others how to chase after God.
Before the Lord came and lit up our understanding, “causing the light of holiness to shine forth”, we were in darkness, and our senses were asleep to the voice of God. As it was in the beginning –
“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness”.
(Gen 1:4-5)
Just as light is good and brings order and understanding to the mind, darkness is a state of disorder or confusion. Jesus says that if our eyes are bad, our whole body will be full of darkness (Matt 6:23).
If the word is what brings our understanding, and the seed is the word of God, then that must mean there is a seed that brings light and a seed that brings darkness (Lk 8:11, Gen 3:15). Since the beginning, there has been a battle between light and darkness. The seed that caused man to fall, out of curiosity, was the seed (word) of the enemy who planted doubt into their minds. The scriptures are very clear about false teachers puffed up in their carnal understanding, knowing nothing, corrupting minds, and destituting the truth for their own gain (1 Tim 6:3-5).
“Be on your guard, therefore, against such persons. And this will be the case with you if you are not puffed up, and continue in intimate union with Jesus Christ our God, and the bishop, and the enactments of the apostles. He that is within the altar is pure, but he that is without is not pure; that is, he who does anything apart from the bishop, and presbytery, and deacons, such a man is not pure in his conscience.” [8]
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians (Chap. VII. — The Same Continued)
If we continue in an intimate union with Jesus Christ, we approach the altar of the Lord’s heart in purity, in union, and in one mind with Christ- who is the head of the church. The altar of incense is the place the high priest goes to intercede before he enters the last veil into the Holy of Holies.
Everytime we have a revelation, we go through the veil or flesh, which is our carnal understanding or our literal reasoning (Heb 10:20). When the veil is removed from our understanding of the scriptures, Christ’s mind has now increased in us. It is the crucifixion of our own flesh, and this is why Paul said we must die daily (1 Co 15:31). Every day we should be getting revelation that we would live with Him, having been crucified with Him, so our bodies of sin would be done away with and become liberated as Christ was.
“Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me”.
(Luke 9:23)
The word deny in Greek is the word aparneomai, which means “to forget one’s self, lose sight of one’s self and one’s own interests.” [9] Dying to our old understanding brings a death to self, which, as a result, increases the Christ in us. Just as some animals shed skin in order for a new one to take its place. The greatest exchange we can give is our desires for the desires of God. The Lord will not leave us void, empty, or unsatisfied. There is a greater level of intimacy we come to with the Lord when we have been crucified with Christ because it will no longer be us who lives, but Christ living through us (Gal 2:20).
“Wherefore he rejoiced over the tranquil state of the Church, when the persecution ceased for a little time, but was grieved as to himself, that he had not yet attained to a true love to Christ, nor reached the perfect rank of a disciple. For he inwardly reflected that the confession which is made by martyrdom, would bring him into a yet more intimate relation to the Lord. Wherefore, continuing a few years longer with the Church, and, like a divine lamp, enlightening every one’s understanding by his expositions of the [Holy] Scriptures, he [at length] attained the object of his desire.” [10]
Chap. I. Vol 1. — Desire of Ignatius for Martyrdom
Early church father, Ignatius, who was a disciple of John the revelator, expresses a cry in grieving for intimacy with the Lord. The martyrs of our early Christian faith show us the suffering of Christ, which was His fiery passion, in order to become fulfilled with the presence of God. In Greek, the words suffering and passion are the same word. Ignatius inwardly reflected that death to self was the beginning of our life with Christ. The spirit of martyrdom is the laying down of our own desires, needs, wants, and passions in exchange for purity and oneness with God.
After the constant, chasing and pursuing, Ignatius, “like a divine lamp,” enlightened people through his understanding of divine things. Let us wonder into the light to chase the bridegroom and let our hearts burn for intimacy like never before.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God”.
(Matthew 5:8)
References:
- Ancient Hebrew Lexicon Bible
- Thayer Bible Dictionary
- Origen – Spirit & Fire
- Origen – Spirit & Fire
- Lactantius Divine Institutes VII
- Methodius
- Ancient Hebrew Lexicon Bible
- The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians (Chap. VII. — The Same Continued)
- Thayer Bible Dictionary
- Chap. I. Vol 1. — Desire of Ignatius for Martyrdom