Npg Radio 1980 #1 - Radio Interview — Norman Grubb

The Search for Identity and Life’s Purpose

Week four, program one. This is David Ord with today's Union Life broadcast. One of the things that people are most interested in in our day and age is finding out who they are. It seems like everybody wants to know who am I?

What am I here on this earth for? What's the purpose of life? What's the meaning of it all? People want to become the full person they're meant to be. One man I've talked with on many occasions and who has written articles for Union Life magazine is a man who I believe can really help us in knowing who we are.

His name is Norman Grubb and we've got him on our program today. We're beginning a new series of programs and we're titling them, Who Am I? Norman is author of the book, Who Am I? which we're going to tell you about at the end of this program.

And I want to welcome Norman and ask you, Norman, if you would begin to unfold for us now in these programs, how you see it from the scriptures and from your life's experience as a Christian beginning on the mission field and to where you finally come now as a person who has a real grasp of the subject of who am I.

Norman, would you like to take over for us here?

Well, thank you, David. It seems obvious to me that there's no greater question that I as a human being or any human being can ask than who am I? In fact, it's really the only question I can ask. Because when I get down to it, all I have is myself.

And the reasons why I exist is, how can I be a satisfied self and conscious that I'm the kind of person I ought to be, want to be, and am, and so on. So it centers around the solution of this major question.

And who am I and why am I? So I think God's got a very central question. I take it for granted for myself and for us, I suppose, that our authority in what we say is the scriptures. We believe them to be God's written revelation.

And I wouldn't wish to say anything which hasn't got its foundations in what is already there in the Bible. And if I start from that basis, one thing obviously stands out, there is one person in the Bible, in the beginning God, that's all.

God as the One Living Person

Therefore, the whole start, we understand, of the universe is one person, in the beginning God. And the name he gave himself a little later on when he was speaking with Moses is, my name is I Am. I Am, that I Am, I Am, the I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am.

So here we start with the heart of the universe, a living person, one person. Jesus, in speaking of him when he was talking with the woman of the well, the woman of Samaria, made another important statement about him.

He said, God is spirit. So now we're getting a little closer. Now, we understand what spirit is because the Bible also says that we're spirits. The Bible says he fathered our spirits. So the basis of our being is spirit.

What spirit? Spirit, again, I Am. And Paul defines a spirit like this. He says, spirit is this, your spirit is this. What man knows the things of a man, say the spirit emerges in him. So my spirit's my knower, or my knower as I Am.

A person is a person who knows. We all operate from our knower, from our know-how. So an I Am is a knower. Then one other thing which is obvious of God and man, the whole universe, all being is created of desire.

All life is desiring, outreaching, love. Whether we look at the animate or inanimate creation, everything runs from the atoms upward. It consists of the urgencies of desires, one seeking another and so on.

So now we've got a person to be a person who is compounded of I desire, I love, I want, and I know. I know certain things, I desire certain things. Now, the way a person, a spirit, in a person functions is, out of my knowing and desiring, I make choices.

I have an invitation to go to a home. I know I can go. Then I desire to go. If I know I can go, I desire to go, what do I do? I say, I'll go. Now that's my inner self, which has made a choice. A person is a person who has knowing and desiring and willing, and that's what God is.

So we start from the beginning, because he's spirit, and he follows our spirits. He says we made us in his image, so we know like father, like son. So he is the first person in the universe who knows himself and desires, and we find as we go on that that desire means love, and in God's reality of God, love means that his love is for others, not for himself.

We'll talk about that a little later on. With love in the sense, my meaning of my being is to fulfill and complete and bless everything, I love. So God is knowing and desiring, and then after knowing and desiring, he chooses.

The Word, the Trinity, and Creation

Now what's the first thing he chooses? The Bible says that his son, his only begotten son, who is spoken of as the Word. In the beginning it was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God, the only begotten son.

Why a Word? Because the Word is you expressing yourself. I know, I desire, I'll go, I'll do that, I'll go there. So the Word is that which moves us into action. And so the Word made this, the Father now coming out in Trinity in his own manifested form as his son.

So it was the same with himself, with a son form, as it were. It was his spoken word which became a manifest fact, like our spoken word, I take a thing, I take it, becomes a fact. So here's the next process, this invisible, eternal, immortal person comes out in a manifested person.

Because the fact is about any universal, it's meaningless unless it comes out in a form. For instance, the electricity is universal. What do we know about electricity? Nothing except that it has a certain form, like a lamp, or it expresses itself as a light.

Here I am, I'm a light. Or a power, a wire, here I am as a power, or a heat. It has some means in which he expresses himself in the form of light or heat or power. So a universe must have a form in which it expresses itself and it comes out in its variety of forms.

Now the Bible reveals the heart of the universe is one person, and this is the first form which he manifests himself, father, son. He couldn't call himself a father until he had a son, so he's become manifested now as a son.

That is his word. So here's the first page in Revelation given from the Bible. And if we're to see that this is the first stage of one person manifesting himself in the whole universe, we find it says at the end of all things, when the end time has come, everything's been settled up, it says when the last enemy has been destroyed, which is death, it says the son will rent up the kingdom to the father, that God may be seen to be all in all.

Well, if God's all, he isn't some. If God's all in all, the whole universe is one person in infinite variety of forms, all in all his forms. The whole universe is one person. There is only one person in the universe, one living person, the knowing person and the loving person, and the choosing person, which means he comes out in his variety of forms.

It's all there is in his forms. And the first form inside the deity himself is his own son. And then the Bible goes on to say that as we move out in our choices, like then they take form. Like I say, I say, well, I'll go and I go.

So I do the thing, I do it. And my word becomes, takes a form. That's what the Bible means by spirit. It means a re-expression of ourselves. So his own first expression of his own perfect self was his son.

Now through his son, he re-expresses himself in further forms. Somewhat like if you get the father of any genius or father of the firm, like Henry Ford, as a genius in producing a certain kind of automobile.

Now he can't develop his automobile. He makes the first form, then he has another level of sons and executives who take his automobile and bring out the variety of automobiles, the variety of situations, makes a universal re-application of the original invention.

Now that's how the living father is universal. Now he only expresses himself when he comes out in a form. And then through that form, continues to re-express himself, which is the creation. So here we find the Bible says, through the son is called the word, in the meaning of the word, then himself as a person, speaks the word.

He himself is a reproduction of the person, so he speaks the word. So we read the creation is, let there be light, let there be thorns, so. This is how the father is coming out through his son in the forms, and the forms then are, the spirit is the one who brings the forms into reality.

For in terms of creation, for instance, it's the spirit moves upon the face of the water and produces so-and-so and so-and-so. Now the marvel of the expansion of that revelation in the Bible, is that from eternity, it always wants its purpose, not just to have its own son in a deity, but through its son, there are vast numbers of created sons who will be sons as he's a son, and who would themselves become co-sons and co-brothers with himself, in fulfilling his eternal postage in the universe.

So we find this revelation, that the summit of the creation was making man in his own image. He made, that's the ultimate of the creation. Norman, I want to thank you.

For what you've said on this program. Now I mentioned before, we're beginning on a whole new series of programs on the subject of Who Am I? Norman Grubb is a noted author and teacher. His books are available through this radio program.

And when you write to us at the address which will be given at just a moment at the close of this program, or call the number that will be given, we're going to be happy to send you a copy of Union Life Magazine.

Union Life is a bimonthly magazine. It's absolutely free of charge. We're delighted to send it to you. And every issue, it has a plethora of articles which get right down to the nitty gritty of what is a Christian, and how does it work out in real life.

Now in one of our issues recently, we had an article by Norman himself entitled The Foundation of Union Life. And it's all about who am I, about the way God wants to come and indwell his people and express himself through them.

We'd like you to have these articles if you'd write for Union Life Magazine. There's no charge, there's no request for money. We're delighted to send it to you. Just write to the address that you'll be given, or call the number that's going to be given in just a moment.

Request Union Life Magazine. We're on the station five days a week at the same time. Be sure to tune in for all of the series of programs on who am I. Program two. This is David Ord with today's Union Life broadcast.

Human Beings as Co-Heirs and Servants

We began on a whole new series of programs in our last broadcast about the subject of who am I. Today there's a tremendous interest among people of wanting to know who they are. Wanting to be the true person that they believe they are intended to be.

Wanting to find and discover themselves. Our guest on this series of programs is a man who is a noted author and teacher. Many of you know him through his book, Reese Howell's Intercessor. He's the author of many other books, and one of them is right on the subject we're discussing, who am I?

I want to welcome Norman Grubb to our broadcast today. Norman, we began to talk yesterday about the fact that God is expressing himself in his creation, and I'd like to ask you if you'd continue talking now with us on this subject of who am I.

Well, we were saying that the supreme, question a person can and must ask is, who am I and why am I? What is a self? And the Bible answer is that the universe is a part of one self, and that one self is the living God, in the beginning God.

And the Bible then says, through the word of Jesus, that this person's spirit, therefore an I am isn't an outer form, it's a spirit. And spirit isn't some vague, mystical idea, spirit is what a person consists of.

The Bible shows that spirit means, a person says I know, and I desire, and I choose. I know, I love, I choose. And that's what this original person is. He's a knower, he's a lover, and he's a chooser, a willer.

And we human spirits are the same. Now we read the Bible then says that this original person, in himself, in order to begin to manifest himself, he had to come out in a form. And the form it first came out of was his own son.

He'd be the only begotten son in the Trinity. So the father has a son, a son's a re-expression of himself. And that all comes into being with what's called a word. That's why it's called a word, because the word is how everything does come into being.

I know I can go to a home, I want to go, I say I'll go, that's a spirit acting. Then I go there, then the word becomes fact, there I am. So the word turns into deed, into reality. That's how everything comes into being.

So God's first word was, as you were, that his son should come into being, expression of himself, so the father has a son. And then the word goes on, the Bible goes on there to say, the son is the means by which he continues to re-express himself.

As we said, like any founder of a firm has to have his executives and sons to develop his firm and make it an international firm. So it's through his own son, the creation began to come into being. And the son began to speak his word, let there be, let there be light, let there be so and so.

And by the same process then, by the let there be meant that he knew what his father purposed to come in, in what form he purposed to reveal himself, light and matter and materials and so on. And he says that word, let there be, which is his word, and then through his word the spirit operates.

Like when we say we go to a place, we go to it. The next form is we're there. So in this case, when the son speaks, the spirit comes out, and the spirit comes out and begins to bring creation into being, and light and all everything else.

And the summit of the creation, the last form was, it says let us make man in his own image. The Bible would be the origin there to have, out of this reproducing process would come sons, created sons, who'd be lined up with the creator's son and make a vast family to whom he'd operate.

And this is how humans came into being. And we're told that the destiny, the Bible tells us, is this. When we know we're sons of God, we're also told we're co-heirs with Christ, his son. And the Bible says his son has been appointed by the Father to be heir of all things.

So the inheritance of his son is the whole universe. And therefore, if we're co-heirs, we're co-inheritors of the universe. Now the whole point of inheritance is, it may be wonderful to receive it, but it's a responsibility to manage it and develop it.

Now, this is a safe universe, because the Bible reveals to us that the original person is another person. He's love. He's knowledge, light is light, he's knowledge. God is light, and he's love. So God is a lover, self-giving love.

The universe has a basic harmony to it. That's why they have the Lord's universe, because they're products of a harmonious person, who brings everything into being in harmony. Just like mathematics is harmony, everything else.

Therefore, if the ultimate purpose of the universe is to be a harmonious universe, those imagined must be harmonizing people. They must be lover people like the Father's lover Father. So it's essential, therefore, he has a vast family of first his own son, then sons who are lover sons, and whose motivation would be, not that the universe will serve them, but they'll serve the universe.

That they'll like to be a servant and a fulfiller of those whom they're responsible. This is what the Bible reveals to be the basic meaning of the existence of the human family. Now, if we move out from that, that's saying a great deal.

We'd have to just pick out certain, we haven't in any length of time picked out any scriptures which bear those truths out. We then have to examine more closely, I am the kind of person I have to be, if this is the truth.

If it's created to be a son of God, if a son of God has the same motivation as the Father, which is the Father lives to serve and fulfill and complete his universe, he's delighted, and if so, he's delighted that his universe may be fulfilled.

Therefore, the sons who express the Fatherless have the same motivation. Whatever they're responsible for, they're there to perfect and fulfill it. They're lover sons. So we look at the history of humans to find out how we are the lover sons that we've been created to be.

The Fall and the Two Opposing Natures

That starts in the Genesis record of the creation of man, the God of Eden. And we come across the first few points. One is the atmosphere of love there. The Father poured all on the sons. And he said, they're all due to you.

For you to have dominion over them, you'll develop them. They're to your benefit, because he's a lover father. But one other central fact with that was that there was, in the midst of this garden full of blessing, an alternative.

There was, there were, everything that was there, including a tree of life, a tree of knowledge of good and evil. And the Father had said that everything is yours except one. You shouldn't eat of that tree of knowledge of good and evil.

So here is something opposite to come into this, this revelation of God's purposes through the human race at the start of it. As we look into that, we find that we find the reason because everything, everything has its perfect reason.

We look into the reason for that. The reason is that consciousness is a consciousness of opposites. You're only conscious of something because it has an opposite. You're not conscious of truth if it wasn't that there's such a thing as a lie.

You're not conscious of love if there wasn't such a thing as a hate. You're not conscious of sweet if there wasn't such a thing as bitter. You're conscious of male if there's such a thing as a female.

You can't say yes, but behind the yes is no. So every reality is known by its opposite. It has its opposite. And the meaning of life is to combine those opposites so that the positive builds on the foundational negative and kind of swallows it up.

You know that in cooking. If you want the thing sweet, the sweet's got to take things that are not sweet as its foundation, swallow them up and make them into agencies of sweetness. If you want the thing non-sweet, you've got to get some non-sweet element and take the sweet element and they become a foundation through which you can create non-sweetness.

So everything consists of opposites which combine together and the one builds its foundation on the other which it swallows up. For instance, if you make a decision, yes, I'll do something. Behind that decision, it's half a dozen no's.

You say, no, I won't do that. No, I won't do that. No, I won't do that. Yes, I will do that. And the sexual yes is built up on the fact that behind the yes, you settle out all the no's and all those things, you say, that's what I'll do.

And yes, it only has its face because its foundation is its negativity which it swallows up. So consciousness is only, the whole universe is only built on the opposites, both right and opposition and then the one that's needful must build on the foundation of the other, swallow it up.

That's why the Bible, for instance, says, life swallows up death. In Bible terms, mortality, swallowed up of life. Now it swallows up death. That's why in the beginning, the first verse of scripture isn't light.

It's darkness is on the face of the deep. So at the beginning of God, darkness was there. Then light shines and swallows up darkness. You couldn't see light in the morning unless at dawn, unless it was swallowing up the darkness.

Satan as the Self-Centered Nature

The supreme opposite upon which a human being is based, in which the God himself is based, is the opposite, possibly the inner self. Now we said the self consists of, I know things I desire, things I choose.

I'm a knower and a lover and a willer. Now immediately I get an opposite. My opposite is this, which form does my love take? My love may be to say, I love things for my ends. All I care is to get what I want and go to hell with you.

Or my love can be, I love you, I'll be for you, I'll go to hell for you. So immediately right in the heart of self you get to the point, is it going to be a self-getting self and go to hell with the rest of you?

Or is it going to be self-giving and say, I'll go to hell for you? Which is what God is. He sends his son, he's going to hell for us. He's a lover father. So we get right to the heart of the self of the universe.

It can only be a conscious self because it has two alternatives. One will swallow up the other. That's why it's so remarkable that the Bible says this, of God, he cannot lie. We say, how could God lie?

No, he couldn't be true if it isn't a truth, it's because it isn't a lie. God cannot lie. A liar is a self-getter. If I lie to you, I lie to get my answer,.

It's your expense, I don't care what happens to you. Now when it says God cannot lie, it means God cannot be a person who does things with his own ends. He cannot be a self-getting, self-seeking, self-gratifying person.

He cannot be. What's that mean? It means the other opposite, which he'd be for others, has swallowed the other up. It's foundation is he's swallowed up the self-loving, getting self to become a self-giving self.

Norman, I want to thank you for that. We'll be picking up with a subject on our program tomorrow. We're heard five days a week on this same station at the same time. Be sure to tune in, catch all of the programs in this series which we've entitled, Who Am I?

Norman Grubb, a noted author and speaker, has written on this subject in his book, Who Am I? You can learn about that book when you write to the address that will be given, or call the number that will be announced in just a moment, and request Union Life Magazine.

Union Life is a full-color cover magazine. It's 36 pages. It's well-produced. It's a quality magazine with a vast variety of articles on what the Christian life really means and how God is expressing himself through his people on earth today, how we are the body of Christ in this world.

Now, we'd like you to have this magazine. It's called Union Life. It's bimonthly. It's no charge whatever. Just write to the address in just a moment. Mention Union Life Magazine. No request for money.

We're happy to let you have it. Program three. This is David Ord with today's Union Life broadcast. Years ago, as a young Christian, I noticed that a great many believers have a daily experience of life that's a long way short of the joy unspeakable and the peace which passes understanding that Jesus talked about.

And I asked myself, why is it that so many Christians are discouraged? Why is it that they feel such failures? How do we live the victorious life now? And I was over a process of many years to find the answer in an understanding of the question, who am I?

Knowing Christ Within and the Human Self

Who am I in Christ? What does the Christian life mean? What does it mean in the scriptures when it says Christ in you, the hope of glory? And so we've begun a series of programs in which we're discussing this whole subject of who am I?

And we have on the program a guest whose name is known to many of you through his book, Reese Howell's Intercessor, and he's written many other books, one of which is entitled, Who Am I? And we've begun to talk about the fact of opposites and how we know a thing by knowing its opposite.

So I want to welcome to the program once again in this series, Norman Grubb. Norman, would you pick up here for us, please?

Well, it does mean that I have to understand what it is to be a human self and how I function as such if I'm to discover what it is to be a completed human self. And we discover that a human self exists to be an expression of the divine self.

And the divine self is the living person, the spirit, who knows, desires, and chooses. And out of that basic spirit self came all selves, of created selves. And a self is only a self because consciousness can only be two opposites.

If you can't know the opposite, you're not conscious. You've got to know that there is such things as life, no truth, and such things as hate, no love, and such things as dark, no light, and so on. So consciousness always is a relationship between the opposites and how one builds its foundation by swallowing up its opposites.

The truth swallows up a lie, love swallows up hate, and so on. So if we're created to become expressions of God as operating selves, we have to find out why it's said to be a self. Therefore, right in the Garden of Eden, when he first made man, he presented him with the opposites.

He expressed all his love in the creation of the garden and all the fullness of his giving, which he gave to them, but then he put the opposites there, and there's two trees. And one was the one with everything else, but not that tree.

Why? Because the fundamental of all opposites is myself. Which kind of self am I? Like a material may be sweet or bitter, or hard or soft, and so on. A self can be either a self-getting self or self-giving self.

I can express myself love, my self-fulfillment, by getting everything from myself. Or I can express myself fulfillment by giving myself to other people. God's fiction is self, because he's the lover self.

That's why it's said he can't lie, he can't be a self-getting self. So if we're to be his free agents by whom he marries his universe, we have to confront those opposites and have them settled. And that was the record in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve came face to face with the opposite tree.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil. Behind that tree, and through it, was this one who was there, and it was a serpent called the Devil. In the Revelation it speaks of that old serpent, the Devil.

Now when we trace back, we find the Devil was the first being who chose to be the opposite to God. God who can't lie means he's fixed, he cannot be a liar or a self-getter, he cannot be that. It's his own self standing between the opposites.

He has to wear a very cross in the sense of his deity, not the Lord Jesus Christ, the deity itself. The way he dies to be a serpent is to be a serpent for self-interest. And his love is a serpent for other people's interests.

And the first being who was the opposite of that was this created being who was called Lucifer in those days, who was there to reveal, to bear light. Light was the way by which the universe would understand the real being of God.

Just like, suppose, this thing as it really is. But in the beauty of his own self, he chose not to be that. He said, I'll be for myself. Life for me would be self-interest. And he later on revealed as a person in Azar 14 and Ezekiel 28 who said, I'll take God's place, I'll replace God, I'll be a self for self.

So he opened a false kingdom, a false unknown kingdom in God, a kingdom of self-getting, self-seeking, self-loathing self. That's why he's called the God of that kingdom, because he originated it. Now God had a purpose through that.

His purpose was to use this one who had to be cast out of heaven because he's the opposite spirit to heaven, the spirit of self-giving love, the spirit of self-getting love. And therefore God purposely used him, because God always uses the devil and evil with his own purposes.

There's just agencies in his purposes. And in this case, his purpose was that his human family, whom he's destined to inherit his universe, imagine his universe, must themselves find out the reality of these alternatives and become settled in the right one.

The alternatives being either self-getting self or self-giving self. And that came about through this temptation in the Garden of Eden when this false deity of self-getting self said, there's something here God's not giving you which you'd like to have.

He's hiding something from you. It stimulated self-getting self, self-getting love in Eve. Eve, that was in the wisdom of God. Because only when you're stimulated to want something can you discover that you've got wants.

So until you've got an opposite, you don't know it. Now before Adam and Eve were confronted with the opposite in the trilogy of good and evil, they just lived in the sea of God's love and didn't know it.

Unconscious, like a little infant, their unconscious love just lives in the care of his parents. They didn't know the opposite yet. So Adam and Eve were confronted with this sea they shouldn't take off.

And God's wisdom in saying that. And if they did, they'd lose their way, they'd die. And then being tempted to want it. That made them realize they've got wants. And so Eve suddenly found, I've got appetite.

I didn't know I had that before. So there had to be a temptation to want something they couldn't have or shouldn't have to make them find they had wants. And then suddenly see that the thing is beautiful.

They'd never observed before what beauty was. Oh, that's beautiful to look at. I didn't see it. Or I could find out the way that art and development is through with. And then Satan's temptation to them that things got hidden from their knowledge.

They didn't realize that they had the capacity for developing knowledge and mind. So the temptation was necessary to bring them to find, first of all, they're real people. They have appetites, and faculties, and wills, and desires.

They can function as such. But even then, the preparation was only partial. Because opposites, you only operate when you're conscious of both opposites. And then how they intermingle. Cooks got the consciousness of sweet and bitter to make them intermingle.

Carpenters got the consciousness of soft and hard to make a comfortable chair, and so on. The human race had to be conscious that it's possible for them to be self-getting selves or self-giving selves.

So they're confronted with this temptation. All right, take that for your own benefit. No matter what God says you shouldn't take it, take it. In other words, follow a line of self-getting self, which they did.

That was the first indication they were able to have of the fact that a human person has the nature of himself. He operates the nature of the deity who controls him. Therefore, when this temptation came to Adam or Eve, their human self was coming under the influence of the spirit of self-getting, Satan.

The spirit of self-myself. Not under the control of you, but under the influence of you. And so that self-wanted to have a thing its own way. Now the only way Eve could have escaped, she was a free person, she knew what the Heavenly Father said to her, she shouldn't have it.

She could have said, God, I want this thing, and if you don't stop me, I'll take it, because it's trapped in my attention, I'll take it. Is there a way out? And then the Father said, yes, that's another tree.

So I better add another tree. A tree of life. If you just take the fruit of the tree of life, you'll find no solution. Because the tree of life indicated the spirit of love coming into them. Because it says, if you take the tree of life, you'll receive eternal life.

Eternal life, we know, isn't a fruit. It's the symbol of a person. The Lord Jesus Christ is the life. He's the lover person. And if they received the spirit of love in them at that time, that would have swallowed up the spirit of self-getting, which was grabbing hold of them through Satan.

But they didn't do that. So there was a choice. Adam and Eve made a conscious choice, and they chose to go Satan's way. That put them in the power of Satan. And so by the way, a symbol of fruit, if you eat a fruit, it goes inside you.