Two Versions of Himself and the Cost of Running Both

Neither of them is a lie, and that is what makes it so expensive.

There is the man at church. He is real. He believes what he says in that building and he is not performing anything, and the things he does there he does because he wants to.

There is the man everywhere else. Also real. Same convictions, different vocabulary, different range of jokes, different willingness to say what he actually thinks about something.

The two overlap by about eighty per cent, and the twenty per cent is not sin. It is mostly things like tone, and what gets mentioned, and how a sentence is finished.

And running both costs something, in a way nobody warns you about, because the cost is not guilt. It is administration. There is a constant low-level process running that decides which version is required, and it never switches off, and it is the reason he is tired after a family gathering in a way he is not tired after a day of physical work.

Hebrews says something about all of this being open, and then says something in the very next sentence that nobody expects.

The first sentence sounds like exposure

Here is the one everybody knows, and it is usually preached alone.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Hebrews 4:13, King James Version)

Naked and opened. The second word is a butchery term, about a carcass laid open, and it is deliberately uncomfortable.

Read alone, that verse is a warning, and it is usually delivered as one. Nothing is hidden. He sees the whole thing, both versions, and the administration process, and what it is for.

And that is true. What is not true is that the paragraph stops there, and what a person does with verse 13 depends entirely on whether anybody ever read them verse 16.

You are fully seen, and the seeing includes the part nobody else knows is happening. Hebrews 4:13 says all things are naked and opened unto His eyes, and it is the Spirit who searches all things, 1 Corinthians 2:10, which is how a hidden process is known rather than deduced.

The next sentences change what the exposure is for

Immediately after it, without a paragraph break, comes this.

Seeing then that we have a great high priest... we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Let us therefore come boldly.

Therefore. It is a conclusion drawn from what was just said. The full exposure of verse 13 is the reason given for boldness in verse 16, which is the exact opposite of how anybody would arrange it.

The logic runs like this: everything is already open, and the one it is open to has been through all of it, so there is nothing left to manage on the way in.

That is the answer to the administration. The reason a man runs two versions is that both audiences might revise their opinion. Here there is one audience whose information is complete and whose position is settled, and a person going in that direction has no version to select.

You are able to go somewhere where no version has to be selected. Hebrews 4:16 draws boldness as a conclusion from the exposure in verse 13, and it is by the Spirit, Ephesians 2:18, that both have access by one and the same Spirit unto the Father.

Touched with the feeling of our infirmities

The middle clause is the one that makes the boldness possible and it is easy to read past.

Cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities is stated negatively so that the positive lands harder. He can be. He is.

And in all points tempted like as we are, which includes, presumably, the specific pressure of being in a room where a certain sort of sentence is expected. He grew up in a village where everybody knew Him and had opinions.

So the one before whom everything is open is not looking at it from outside. That is what separates this from being audited. An auditor knows the numbers and not the situation; this one knows both, and the knowing of the second is what makes the first bearable.

You are known by Somebody who has been in the position rather than only informed about it. Hebrews 4:15 says tempted in all points like as we are, and it is by the eternal Spirit named in Hebrews 9:14 as His Spirit that He offered Himself, which puts the whole thing inside one act rather than one assessment.

David asks to be searched, which is a strange thing to want

The psalm that ends with a request rather than a statement is worth putting beside this.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

He asks. That is the astonishing part. The psalm has spent twenty-two verses establishing that God already knows everything about him, and then he requests it anyway.

Which tells you that being searched is not the same as being caught. A man who asks to be searched has moved the whole thing from something that happens to him to something he participates in, and the last clause tells you what he wants out of it: lead me in the way everlasting. He is not asking for a verdict. He is asking for direction.

I would put that in the mouth of somebody tired of running two versions. Not a resolution to stop. A request to be searched, which is the opposite of the administration and takes about eight seconds.

You are able to ask for it rather than brace for it. Psalm 139:23 has him requesting the search after twenty-two verses of God already knowing, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:26, that a person prays what they cannot manage to want.

The man with no version at all

There is a moment in John where somebody is described in a way nobody in this article would be described, and it is offered as a compliment.

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! (John 1:47)

No guile. No second layer. Not: he is more devout than the others. He is described as having no administration running.

And Nathanael's response is not humility, it is bafflement: whence knowest thou me? Which is the reasonable question of somebody who has just been described accurately by a stranger.

What follows is the line about the fig tree, and the effect on Nathanael is instant and total. He had been seen, in a place where nobody was looking, and being seen there is what made him able to be seen anywhere.

You are able to be seen where nobody was looking, and that is what makes the rest possible. John 1:48 has Him naming the unwatched place, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:16, that the witness about a person is borne rather than assembled from what a room saw.