What is the difference of validity between freedom and slavery? If we are to decide that freedom is better than slavery simply on the basis of comparison we might not be willing to put ourselves in vulnerable positions for the Lord’s sake because we think that one is better than the other to be pursued. It seems to me very frequently in the churches of Christ that if we look at individuals who are pursuing what we think of as the regularities of life, we often make gradations based on this concept of the mental culture of comparisons and contrasts instead of making distinctions on the basis of the double embrace and how a plenary personality would come to bear on the external world.

How do we make a gradation between peace and persecution? Is peace better than persecution? It depends upon the mind that is making the contrast and the comparisons. In the book of 1 Peter, they were placed in the position of persecution in order to achieve the Lord’s much greater purposes. So the validity of one over the other cannot be determined on the basis of comparisons and contrasts. It’s a very different thing. I might suggest that the restoration movement is embedded in the mental culture of comparisons and contrasts where doctrinal structures are often championed because one does this when others do not in spite of the fact of whether or not doctrinal practices are sanctioned by scripture or not. We do not arrive at the validity of doctrinal practices on the basis of comparisons and contrasts.

I have a friend who was preaching in a distant city not too long ago about such things. At one point in his presentation, he paused and looked up and looked at the faces of his students and he could "read" their thoughts almost as if they were saying, "This is too much to believe!" Why? Because comparison and contrast had determined for them that it was too much to believe. That often happens in presentations about representational truth. We often "try out" preachers for local congregations, which involves the preacher "putting on their best front" to "sell themselves" to the congregation as one that would be an asset and certainly not a detraction from the general agenda that has been established. It’s built on comparisons and contrasts. This is a mental culture. Often when there are family failures, one party might say, "You sinned, I didn’t. Therefore I’m better than you. The fact of the matter is that we’ve all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We cannot arrive at these gradations on the mental culture of comparisons and contrasts.

Stress and frustration I imagine to be mainly related to comparisons and contrasts. Choices would also be another manifestation of this mental culture. "Choose wisely, choose this particular continuum in life," we say to our children. But we don’t make choices based on the mental culture of comparisons and contrasts. Choices should be made and subordinated to the double embrace. And the plenary personality that comes from the double embrace knows how to view its experience at a much more advanced level. Socialization (or one manifestation of socialization, which is public and general education) is by nature comparative and built on contrasts. In our socialized world, we are quick to discern the "odd" or those who don’t "fit in." We are quick to point out the eccentric. We are immediately trained to recognize those who are "out of step." We recognize those who are antisocial. We can see a distinction between personalities that are relevant as opposed to those who are irrelevant. It’s built on a mental culture of comparisons and contrast.

Daniel did not compare nor did he contrast himself to others. His interest apparently, his focus was that of the double embrace. He was not interested in drawing delineation between himself and other men on the basis of comparisons and contrasts. He was operating on an entirely different basis. He had exited the mental culture of comparisons and contrast. He had not embraced Babylonian society. He embraces the non-situational and therefore it is relatively easy to depict the way in which the double embrace functioned in his life and the way it shaped his relationship to the Babylonian empire, to its literature, to its language and to its leaders and to the temporal reality that surrounded him as well as his three friends, Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael. Matters of fellowship cannot be formulated on comparisons and contrasts. This concept is clearly taught in the book of James 2, where he describes the scenario where poor people would come in among those who were a little bit well off and they would be treated in a rather shabby fashion. They would be exported to the rear of the meeting place where they would be more obscure and out of sight whereas the more affluent and sophisticated would be issued into positions of prominence. That matter of fellowship was built on comparison and contrast. It is a horrible practice in the eyes of the Lord.

Now let’s move from those kinds of representations regarding this mental culture of comparison and contrast to another way of looking at this antipode to the double embrace. The mental action of induction and the mental action of deduction, both themselves involve the idea of comparison and contrast. Here is an illustration of that. If we see a stove and six times previously in our life we have touched stoves and we have been burned, we will now compare our seventh stove to the previous six episodes, which is the mental action of induction. Or perhaps a child is told, as I was as a boy growing up "Do not cross the street alone." That is a deduction and I am to compare my action at all the opportunities presented to the deductive statement that mother gave me, which was "Do not cross the street alone." Now the structure of this is: Antecedent leads to the subsequence. Antecedent followed by the subsequence. The antecedent in the case of induction would be the six previous episodes relating to stoves; and the antecedent in the case of deduction would be the statements of mother relative to the behavior of her son. So the subsequence is related to the antecedent by comparison and by contrast.

We know that anything that is antecedent is always prior. And that is to say that the subsequence is compared or contrasted to that which is prior which is contrasted to the antecedent. So let’s rewrite the structure this way. Let’s write "prior" and "subsequence" so that the subsequence is compared or contrasted to that which is prior. In our world, we know that it is always human intelligence that is prior to the observable universe and to all observable situations. We use the word prior because it requires an intelligence to have an experience. If we had the intelligence of geraniums or the intelligence of rocks, no kind of experience could ever be had. Therefore, in the prior position before any observable experience or before the observable universe can be understood, or before we can appreciate any observable situation, there has to be something prior, something before that. The very entity that is before that is the priority of human intelligence. Human intelligence is always prior to experience.

That brings up for discussion the concept of priority. In terms of the double embrace, human intelligence simply has to forfeit its position of priority. There is always danger in holding the position of priority as human intelligence often does because human intelligence begins to think that it is certain, that it is correct, that it is always accurate in its appraisals. That is the sin of pride. Human intelligence comes to the conclusion that it was here first and therefore it makes the observations and it becomes that to which observable things are to be compared or to be contrasted. So it turns out that human priority unfortunately determines relations to situations. This of course is a mistake. Notice in the book of Daniel that he forfeited his position of human priority and he became a subsequence (or subsequency). This may be an avenue that affords us some understanding of a little of the rhetoric that human beings often use. It certainly is to be appreciated as an oversimplification by those who say and who insist that, "well God gave us a brain and therefore there is the expectation that we must use that brain and that we must reason based on common sense to certain conclusions." Or those who seek for "balance." We have the scripture but we also have human intelligence and therefore there must be a balance between the two.

There must be a reason why we would come to a conclusion that God gave us a brain and we have the expectancy to use or the reason we would pursue what we think of as balance is because of the priority of human intelligence. The priority of human intelligence is the reason that we think those kinds of thoughts. But according to the book of Daniel non-situational intelligence is the only intelligence that can determine our relationships to all things. Non-situational intelligence alone determines our relationship to the observable universe and to the observable situations of life (not the priority of human intelligence). Non-situational intelligence insists from the biblical point of view that there is an absolute priority in the universe. That absolute priority is nothing more or less than the mind of the Lord himself. The issue may be formulated maybe in a question. The question might be, "Is human intelligence right all the time that it makes observations of the observable universe?" or another way of stating it would be, "Is it appropriate that human intelligence should be in the prior position?" Pride, of course, would answer, "yes." It simply makes the statement "I am." "I am" means that I am in the prior position and that everything is subsequent to human personality. Often in local church work, we find that congregational life is a subsequency, but it is a subsequency of human priority, it is a subsequency of human intelligence, it is a subsequency of common-sense approaches or situational approaches to the observable aspects of life. Personalities are manifestations of the priority of that person’s intelligence over their bodies and over their actions and over the ways in which they comport themselves relative to the observable situational world in which we live.

This prompted a study in some, not all, of the great "I am" statements made in the bible, especially in the Old Testament. Absolute priority—that is the priority of God over human intelligence—would be an antipode to pride. Suppose that we suggest that pride is nothing more than the error of holding priority. If human intelligence pursues and retains the holding of priority, then we would be guilty or that personality would be guilty of the sin of pride because it puts itself in the prior position. It demands that everything else be subsequent to human intelligence, and then understanding is sought through the mental culture of comparing or contrasting all subsequencies to that which holds priority, which in this case would be human intelligence. However, much prior to human intelligence is the intelligence of the non-situational order. Consequently, absolute priority is the antipode to pride. Let’s take a look at some of the great "I am" statements to be appreciated in the bible.

The first one of these is found in Genesis 17:1. This is a statement that has a great deal of implications for those who wish to abandon the error of holding priority. "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him, and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.’" This statement teaches among other things that all intelligence is declarative. That is, it declares itself within the world situation. That would be true of human intelligence as well as non-situational intelligence. Both of those are going to be declarative in the world situation. Absolute intelligence (when the Lord says, "I am" that is absolute intelligence) first and foremost declares its priority. We know that’s the case because in Genesis 17:1, this absolute priority makes human intelligence a subsequence. Therefore since it is a subsequence it has not priority. That has to be the case because the Lord says "I am" and then he turns to Abraham and then says, "walk before me and be blameless." We walk before God as a subsequence because it is God who will determine what the walk is. When we are "blameless," it is from the perspective of the Lord himself, not according to human points of view. Therefore human intelligence as represented in the case of Abraham, his own personality, and his own potential of holding priority is simply removed. His intelligence clearly is to be converted into a "subsequency" here. It’s very clear. It is a movement from human priority by an act of the will recognizing itself as subsequent to the Lord’s intelligence. Therefore, the path is cleared for the Lord to assume the position of absolute priority in our mind.

Of course, he has already assumed that over all of creation and we are a part of creation. But the human mind does not always recognize that fact and so we see the Lord as he truly is—in the absolute prior position and therefore human intelligence has been shifted from a position of priority to a position of subsequency. The error of holding priority would have to produce a cross-classification where we often confuse the mind of God with the mind of man. That is we might confuse our interpretation of the word of God for the word of God itself. We might confuse situational intelligence for non-situational intelligence. We might confuse situational priority for absolute priority. There is confusion. We cross-classify. We can’t see the distinction between the two. Someone who says let’s seek for balance has cross-classified. He puts himself in a prior position over the observable universe and he thinks that this is right and that God has put him in the prior position. But the biblical statement is quite to the contrary. God has never allowed this man to have the position of priority. He is always to be seen as a subsequency. But in our world human intelligence has never acted as a subsequency except in very rare cases which we call cases of "true faith."

When we go back to the text and find all the pragmatic exemplars of people who marched according to true faith, in every case without exception we will find that their intelligence had been turned into a subsequency and that they had absolved themselves of the error of holding priority. Therefore, they are no longer guilty of the intellectual error of cross-classification. Human intelligence often is considered to precede. The intelligence of Abraham is a manifestation of all human intelligence, which we can safely assume is to be converted into a subsequency. But Abraham had to free himself of what he thought was the privilege of holding priority. His allowing his intelligence to operate in the position of priority is exactly the explanation for what he did with Hagar. He was convinced that human intelligence was in the prior position over the subsequency of the situation relative to the birth of the son that had been promised. He was wrong about that. But when he repents of this error and when his intelligence is converted into a subsequency, he is no longer guilty of the error of cross-classification. What happens if human intelligence is put in the prior position over the scripture? There is going to be cross-classification, where human intelligence will often pass for biblical wisdom. This happens on a regular basis.

What we wish to do is to rid ourselves of the error of cross-classification. Human intelligence is not prior to an understanding of scripture. Rather human intelligence puts itself into a subsequent position to the revelation of God. The personality of God assumes the position of absolute priority. The revelation of God also assumes the position of absolute priority. Therefore, human intelligence as always has only one posture in the universe. It fits into only one place in the observable world and that is in a position of subsequency. Daniel was always a subsequency.

Now this brings up a reminiscence of the vine corollary where the absolute priority is the vine and where the subsequences act as branches and off of the branches comes the fruit. So we are dealing with an absolute priority, followed by a subsequency (human intelligence submitting itself to be formed by the absolute abstractions of the Lord) and followed by another subsequency (material content being converted into a subsequency to the intelligence of God by the submission of human intelligence and human will to the Lord). These are analogic relations.

It is convenient and accurate for us to observe that what the book of Daniel refers to as "understanding" and "wisdom," and the "wisdom" that is referred to in the book of James 1 are all subsequencies. In James 1, we are told when the people of God seek wisdom and ask the Lord for his wisdom, (by asking, putting ourselves into a position of subsequency) that he would lavishly yield that for which we seek. In James 4, he admonishes us that our operations in life are to be seen as subsequencies. In James 4:13-17, it was human intelligence that had ignited this chain of events that led to a conclusion only of human pride as referring to those who said "today or tomorrow let’s go over here and spend a year and make money." They were guilty of the sin of pride. Why? Because human intelligence had been put into the position of priority and made the temporal order nothing but a subsequency of human intelligence and really had turned the word of God into a subsequency of human intelligence as well. The very presence of revelation in the universe makes human intelligence, and what we think of as situational priority, nothing more than subsequences. They have been acted upon in precisely that way. God’s intelligence through revelation and through his might power has declared itself in the prior position over the subsequent intelligence of man. Not to yield to that, not to be subordinated to that, is to make us guilty of the sin of pride.

In Exodus 3:14, a very interesting statement is made there where we learn something in addition to what we already know about the nature of absolute priority--it is absolutely incomparable. In this context, Moses was being sent back to Egypt to free the captives. Moses asks the question, "If I go back and I expose my brother Israelites to all of these things that you have said to me this day, they are going to likely ask me under whose authority am I saying these things. By what right am I approaching them with these statements? Why should they believe me?" The Lord responds to his questions by saying, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you." Slavery and hardship cannot compare to absolute priority. This I AM has no beginning and he has no end. This is the one that stands outside of all human situations, even the situations of slavery and hardship, or disappointment and death. Heartache, suffering, all situations have beginnings and have endings. But the I AM has no such thing and this is the one who speaks to the nation of besieged Israelites. "You cannot compare your slavery to me. You cannot compare your circumstances of heartache and disappointment and suffering and sacrifice to the great I AM."

He is incomparable and yet the Jews almost always sought to hold priority over certain circumstances. A few illustrations would be in order. In Exodus Chapter 5, they complained when the straw was removed from them. They still had to make the same quota of bricks, but without the advantage of having the straw provided. So they complained bitterly about this lack of straw. They complained on more than one occasion to Moses and about Moses because of the difficulty that was beginning to ensue. The reason they complained, and the reason why they drew the conclusions that they did such as "this is going to make matters worse" or "perhaps Pharaoh is going to exercise greater vigor in his discipline of the Jewish people" and "therefore we think that we have come to the right conclusion. We are right to hold our anger. We are right to feel disappointed. We are right to feel betrayed. We are right to feel put upon." They felt that way because they sought to hold priority. Sounds very familiar to the contemporary mind. But in all circumstances of disappointment and discouragement, we dare not try to seek or believe that human intelligence has priority over these things.

In Exodus 13:17, another interesting statement is made to us in the text about the behavior of the Israelites under these very difficult circumstances, "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, through that was shorter. For God said, ‘If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.’" He knew what they were thinking. He knew that they still held priority. A man who says, "I will not go that direction because my mind tells me that it’s dangerous and it’s difficult, it’s fruitless, it’s a dead end, it’s a futile exercise of human activity, and I’m not going in that direction" has put himself in a position of priority. They were wrong to hold the position of priority because God was impressing upon them (and already had by that time by bringing his power to bear in the plagues against Egypt) that absolute priority was driving the machinery, not human priority. They should have come to this conclusion. But the error of Pharaoh is that he continued to hold priority presumably up until the day of his death. It is wrong to hold on to the sense that human intelligence has priority over any situation.

In Exodus 17, when the people of God reached the place of Rephidim and find no water, they question whether or not God is with them because of the difficulty. When difficulties ensued they complained to their leader Moses and demanded water because their little ones and their flocks were in need. Moses told them that he had no water to give them. The reason they felt the way they did and the reason why they questioned God is because of the holding of priority of human intelligence over the situation. This happens when we face crisis after crisis. When our little ones face death and sometimes unfortunately do die or when other great and disorienting events strike us, in these circumstance, we seek to hold priority. This is the thing that drives us to make foolish statements and to act unbiblically in the face of these realities.

In Deuteronomy Chapter 1, when the population of Israel had reached Kadesh Barnea and when the spies are dispatched and spend forty days in the land of promise, upon returning there is a deplorable scene that follows, where 10 of the 12 spies achieving a position of priority and being given a position of priority by the rest of the populace declare "this is a fruitless endeavor." We have been brought here to face our deaths. There are giants in the land with fortifications between us and these cities up to the sky and we are outnumbered and we have none of the appropriate machinery to conduct this kind of a war. They felt that way and they held priority and it was determined by the Lord to be an act of faithlessness. So they were sent back to the desert to pay with their lives for their holding of priority.

In 1 Samuel Chapters 7 and 8, when they came to Samuel and they wanted a king so that they could be like all the other nations around them, it was because of the error of holding priority. However, absolute priority in the universe is incomparable. Human intelligence cannot compare itself to absolute priority. It cannot compare itself or put itself in the position of priority over the subsequence of the material content of the material world around us. Often if something affects me directly, I have the tendency to think that I have priority and I must act, I must do something, I must follow what the world considers to be human wisdom and human intelligence. I must take appropriate steps to protect myself and to ensure that certain actions that are very negative in their impact do not take place. Daniel rescued himself from holding priority. Human intelligence thinks sometimes that it can get this wisdom from God as something tacked on to their intelligence without it needing to become a subsequency. Perhaps we pray for wisdom from the Lord simply thinking that the Lord will tack this wisdom on to us while we still hold and cling to the position of priority. But that is not the statement that the Lord has made to use through scripture. It requires the death of human priority. That death is issued forth in a change into a subsequency. Certainly the action of baptism is an act of subsequency of the first order, of the first magnitude. We must become a subsequence. The wisdom of God is not simply measured out and tacked on. It’s different.

Isaiah Chapter 41, especially isolating verse 10, teaches that absolute priority is a determinant in the world of men. It would really behoove us to read the context before and after verse 10 because it explains to us some significant things. But I isolate verse 10 just to highlight this particular context. We’ll begin reading in verse 8: "But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth (showing their subsequency) and from its further corners I called you. I said you are my servant (a manifestation of subsequency); I have chosen you and have not rejected you (still showing their subsequency); So do not fear, for I am with you (God is in the absolute prior position, therefore fear is a subsequency that is eliminated); do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Notice that this determining quality of absolute priority is not a process. It is quite relational. It depends upon our relationship or our embrace of the non-situational and the embracing of us by the non-situational.

In the action of exegesis, an approach to biblical study, we often think that we arrive at truth on the basis of some processing of the text. I rather doubt if there is a lot of wisdom to be found in that idea. So I would propose that we need to rearrange our understanding of how to approach the text in the first place because it stands in a position of absolute priority over the mind and therefore determines what the mind of man will think. This is not a process, this is a relationship. In the book of John 11, the resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus, is the focus of this text. There is a great deal of heartache and loss because of the death of Lazarus and because of all that death involves. There is some degree of anger. The reason that Martha feels the way she does in the context is somewhat relative to her overarching sadness some of which is understandable. Her anger is also somewhat a manifestation of her disappointment in Jesus for not having come when he was previously summoned, thinking that would have precluded the death of her brother. Of course, John 11 says that Jesus had delayed and by the time he arrives, Lazarus has been in the tomb four days. The reason she thinks the way she thinks about that situation is because she is holding to priority. It is her intelligence that has made all the events relative to the death of her brother subsequent. She is comparing the subsequencies and contrasting it to her own intelligence. She has put herself in the prior position. Well holding our human intelligence in the prior position relative to situations causes a lot of things to occur.

Back to the text in Isaiah 41, it can result in fear. It can result in being overwhelmed and dismayed as the text records. It gives us the sense of weakness. It perhaps spawns in us a sense of hopelessness. That is the origin of these things. Hopelessness is not sourced in any circumstance. Hopelessness is not derived from the situational. Hopelessness derives from the position of human priority as a determinant over these things. Then we believe what we have stated about the situational is quite correct. Among other things, Isaiah 41:10 tells us plainly and bluntly that we must guard our subsequency to the non-situational intelligence of the Lord. Guarding subsequency is not always easy to do.

There is a little thing floating around the universe that we call credit cards. Credit cards if used biblically could be a convenience and perhaps an advantage in some ways. But a lot of times we use credit cards in a manner (put in a subsequent position to human priority) that results in debt because we decide what we want and what we think we ought to have. We are not always geared to relying upon the Lord. So the provision of subsequency simply evaporates from our thinking. It is often experienced that someone might buy a house. If questioned as to why they bought the house, they will often refer to convenient location, good price range, and preferences of taste. That is because human intelligence is in the prior position—not geared to let the Lord lead us to things, to shape in us what ought to be bought and when it ought to be bought because that’s not the province of the eternal. We have decided incorrectly that the province of the eternal is to protect our souls and to give us the kind of moral direction that we really need and that human intelligence will generally take care of life on the earth.

This often shows up in books that are written about Christian decision making and whether or not God is interested in some of these mundane and routine decisions that we make. That also grows out of the position of human priority over the world of material content. Farmers often have turned the holding of priority into a virtue because of their proximity to the soil. Apparently they think that they must act according to the realities that are there. But that comes not from the realities that are there. That comes from the error of holding human intelligence in a position of priority. The advertisement industry in this country is a multi-billion dollar business because they rely on the fact that people generally hold human priority over their situations. So any influencing of the position of priority turns out to be a great boon to a company because it turns into revenue. Waiting is not always a popular position to take, I would suggest, because waiting takes us out of holding priority and puts us into the position of being subsequencies to the intelligence and will of the Lord over all situations. We don’t like that very often because we are not geared to think that this is how the universe operates. There are suggestions made about how to reach decisions about some of the more important aspects of life. So we get a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of it and put pros on the one hand and cons on the other. When we reduce decisions into components defined as pros and cons, it’s because of the error of holding human priority.

What would happen in our country and around the world to racial prejudice if people no longer held the position of priority? The interesting euphemism of ethnic cleansing that we hear so much about relating to life in the Balkans would simply be removed immediately if people no longer held on to the position of priority. The actions of so many of our American citizens relative to the unborn would not take place if they were no longer in the position of holding human priority. In our own back yard in terms of the famous church splits—the divisions that often occur within the body of Christ as are mentioned in the 1^st Corinthian letter and other places happen because of the error of holding human priority. And even a periodicized text which states that the text was written in a distant period and a distant culture and a distant language, inferring that its value apart from the historical aspects and moral values is really somewhat lean, is the result of a human intelligence that has assumed the position of priority. The legalism that we have often combated and that was often reminiscent in the Jewish people and that we have experienced in recent generations in the church of Christ and other places would be completely removed if human intelligence absolved itself of the position of human priority.

We will continue our discussion in Part III of this study.