The Highest Life Form Part 2

We took pure pagan subjects, psychology and philosophy, and we made Christian people professors in those classes, and therefore we announced that the university was Christian. And today, it is said with great wisdom, Son, you are a Christian; therefore, you need to go to a Christian university. See, there isn’t any such thing, any more than there are underwater swimming lessons for angels. The very word Christian designates a specific life form, just as fish, reptiles, and homo sapiens designate a specific life form.

Now, wait a minute. Don’t you believe that Christians should get a university education? Well, I can say no to that and get hanged, or I can say yes, all Christians should go to the university and get an education, and spend the rest of my life not being able to live with myself. But I would like to turn that back and say that that question is irrelevant; it should never be asked. The very fact that a question like that is being asked really shows us that we do not understand the Lord, nor what He has done, and what we really are. But most of all, it shows that we don’t even know the first thing about how to live by this higher life that is in us.

I’ll answer the question. First of all, it is a question only a lower life form would ask. It’s a “man” question. This question is based on the proposition of good and evil. I am supposed to say to myself, I am a Christian. Christians should be the best of citizens. Therefore, a Christian should have a good education so that I can use my talents to serve the Lord, maybe become a really good Christian businessman. Or is it a singer? Or is it a guitar player? Or is it an artist? A great Christian lawyer? Whatever! And serve God with my God-given talents. Hogwash! That is a concept that first-century believers would have fainted dead away in the presence of. You’re only being logical. You are a believer speaking as the unbeliever; you are the believer living by your lower life. You are judging by good and evil; you are deciding according to past traditions, reasonableness, and past group precedent. You’re thinking on your own, apart from God, but because of human influence, because of what’s around us, and because we have not really understood the vast difference between His life form and our life form, and that we can live by that life, therefore, we walk around making all of our decisions above the neck. God’s Life form in you does everything that it does below the Adam’s apple, but we’ll not get into that now. No, it’s a human trait to think in those terms of being a good Christian, a witness, a good businessman, a this or that. Therefore, I must have a Christian education.

No sane man would ask if an angel needed a higher education. Brothers and sisters, it has never occurred to an angel to take this premise into his life; he is not sitting around considering this proposition. And despite the fact that this may be a view that we should all be enrolled in Christian institutions, the fact of the matter is that the institution is not Christian. Unless Jesus Christ Himself had come to earth, a life form higher than any other that this human eye had ever seen or this earth had ever seen, if He had come and founded one, that would have been the work of a higher form of life, but He did not come interested in riches. He did not come interested. He didn’t even come so greatly interested in the needs of animals or the lost human world. He only spoke to those of us who would be redeemed and spoke of caring for our brethren, and our brethren are those who carry in them a common life with US.

I realize that questioning this sacred cow could incite a riot, but what I have just described is not how Divine Life operates. Divine Life does not conduct itself, nor apprehend, nor lay hold on this level; we, therefore, must leave the level of human life that we’re so used to living, and start out slowly and surely. It’ll only take 70 years to learn to live by a Life not human. To do that is to launch out on the greatest of all adventures and to enter into a totally different realm.

I’m going to pursue this just a little bit further. Is there such a thing as a Christian college? There are pagan subjects taught; there are subjects rooted in an unbelieving tradition, nonetheless, taught by believing men. That does not make the activity on that campus divine activity. As a Christian going to college, you may say, Here I am, saved with divine life in me, but I am still living my human life, and I am about to go to an institution to learn pagan knowledge that will cause me to live even more, and depend more, on human life. And then you would be correct in that proposition. If it is a Christian college you are considering, or that you go to or have gone to, then you would be going there to learn to live by a life not your own, not one to absorb the traditions of pagan information. Higher education, technology, and business are all components of civilization that are human life activities.

I give the illustration of the potter who made the goblet, the cup to fill with wine. The vase was stolen, damaged, and dirtied. Now, if the vase is found clean and mended, its purpose is not yet fulfilled. Its purpose is not to return it as a sort of missionary to clay, to go back to a clay pit and stand there as a goblet – with a nonprofit tax-exempt organization behind it, of course – prevailing upon clay to do something. A vase that is living has no place going out to prevent abuse to clay. No, a vase that is living is human. Mine is divine, for that’s what you are, a vase, a goblet, a cup for Divine Life. You do not turn around and go back and tell the human beings to live differently. You might invite them to become partakers of divinity, but you do not go back as a missionary to straighten up their source of living, which is pure humanity.

Well, we need so much to see these things clearly in our minds and realize that we are entrenched in such human concepts, and that they must be abandoned, and in some cases, put in reverse. God does not want you to learn more about the chemical components of the dirt out of which you were made; He wants to fill you with new wine.

There’s a whole new land out there in front of you, more than a concept; there’s a very antithesis of human life, a Life that doesn’t think like, act like, or react like, or do anything like a human does, and He has come to you and your level to reach down, impart to you from His level, and bring you up to the Life source that He lives by.

I know that you’re probably wondering what my view of education is, but again, I will say that’s a human concept. I don’t have to have an opinion on a college education. Do I think that you should get a college education? I’m sorry, but I am lukewarm. It’s none of your business. I would say you shouldn’t decide whether you’re going to college. In this society, if you make your decision, you’ll almost certainly go. It’s the thing that humans do, and the reason you will go is based on reason, logic, and earthly wisdom.

But forget college. I’m speaking about anything. We do it by the intricate goings on within our heads, taught to us as far back as the reasonings of Plato and Socrates, or through the didactics of Aristotle. The Christian does not base his decisions on these viewpoints. Divine life is not logical, it is not reasonable, it does not base its acts on social acceptance or do something because it’s the thing to do. You do not go to college, you do not make any decision in your life according to motivations that guarantee you security; that is not the attribute of the higher form of life. He is not motivated by security, nor is He afraid of suffering. Therefore, he does not care to protect himself in the way that humanity protects itself. Divine life is not moved by things such as poverty or riches. Divine Life does not see these things as men see them. The Lord came with total disregard for one and, having lived in the other, showed virtually no interest in it as a lifestyle, or in abandoning it because it was a poor one. His interests were somewhere else.

How, then, do you live Divine Life? The answer is…we need about 30 more meetings just to scratch the surface, that’s the answer. One thing is for sure: living by Divine Life is nothing like you imagine, and Divine Life has a way of being monumentally disinterested in pursuing the ways of fallen human life.