The Scriptural Variables

Through the foregoing combustion experiment, the form and general characteristics of the Hidden Code in Scriptures—the Combustion Wedge—has been revealed. To decipher this Code and thus understand the spiritual meaning of the Structure, the keys to the Code would be needed.

Like any three-dimensional picture, the Combustion Wedge has three axes corresponding to three variables. The variables are oxygen concentration, fuel concentration (CO), and combustion heat. Two of the axes, the oxygen and the fuel axes, are on the ground plane, while the third axis, the combustion heat axis, is perpendicular to that plane. The spiritual correlates of these experimental variables—the fundamental key to the Code—will first be identified from the Scriptures, and then paired with the corresponding axes of the Combustion Wedge.

Faith

Faith, in essence, involves belief and trust in One God, Its revealed nature and will concerning humanity’s ultimate goal of eternal peace. God is by nature Tripartite: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—or God the Mother—each character distinguishable from the others within the Unity. At the same time, God is also Dual, as It exhibits opposite qualities Good and Evil; ultimately, It creates and destroys, gives life and brings death. Thus, there are Three Persons in Two opposing forms common to them, in One universal God. This is the nature of God which figures ineluctably in human destiny.

The Dual Nature of God, Its impartial nature, relates to Divine Justice; no matter that one of Its components, Evil, appears ruthless in the circumstances it presents, it is, on the whole, the benchmark against which Its creatures are judged.

1. Divine Goodness—one attribute of God’s Dual Nature—is the seat of Its supreme power, wisdom, and benevolence. It is the positive perdurable force innate in God by which Its faithful creatures are sanctified. Thus, only by righteousness is positive union with God, and eternal bliss, possible.
2. Divine Evil—the complementary attribute of God’s Dual Nature—is the abode of Its maleficent, and relatively weaker power. In contrast to Divine Goodness, its associative powers are alluringly accessible (but ephemeral) in this world, and thus irresistible to reprobates. 

Imperfection was imposed on humanity by God at creation, rendering it incapable of the sanctity required for eternal bliss. As a result, humanity is inherently separated from its cherished goal of eternal bliss with God by an Abyss. This dilemma necessitated Divine intervention, with a solution offered conditionally via the Trinity. The Trinitarian Nature of God is, therefore, the positive response to the negative bias of human imperfection.

In His grand plan, God the Father, the first person of the Trinity, devised a plan for uniting humanity with Himself positively, through the second and third persons. This plan involved erecting a Bridge—Divine Wisdom—across the Eternal Gulf allowing the obedient faithful to journey to sanctuary in God’s Abode. Even so, the evidence of an Omnificent Being would remain relatively obscure, preserving the individual’s freewill to undertake this pilgrimage, since salvation necessitates a choice between Good and Evil, upon which Divine Justice rests. Therefore, the exercise of the human free will, granted to decide whether or not to undertake the journey, is the stipulated condition for salvation.

God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, was sent to bridge the Chasm, taking the form of Jesus to initiate the mission:

For God so loved the world that He gave His . . . Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

(The sonship of Jesus is strictly in spirit, and not in a carnal sense*.) In keeping with the Divine Plan, Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and on the third day rose from the dead, and ascended bodily into Heaven. Through His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus laid the girders for the Divine Bridge, demonstrating the quintessential criterion for salvation: the complete self-sacrifice expected of all believers, in service to the Divine.

It would require the actions of God the Holy Spirit to complete the Bridge Deck, reveal utterly this mystery of God’s Kingdom, and thereby provide guidance to the faithful on their pilgrimage, as Jesus testified:

When He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak by Himself; but whatever He hears, that will He speak; and He will show you things to come (John 16:13).

Furthermore:

. . . He will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you (John 14:26).

The Bridge would be the sole medium for the absolution of humanity’s sins, sanctifying itself progressively toward Perfection in its ultimate quest for union with God the Father. Pilgrims advance on this Bridge only by living out the teachings of God through the Son and the Spirit in their daily experiences. Theoretical knowledge of God would not suffice; experiential understanding is crucial. As noted in Scriptures: “One never put to the proof knows little” (Sirach 34:10).

The pilgrimage continues until Judgment Day, when the gateway to this Bridge would be shut forever, and all who have willingly embarked on this journey shall receive their reward, commensurate with their deeds. 

From the Supreme Godhead, humanity came into existence by imperfection, and has since fallen, and to Him all must strive freely to rise and thereby return to Perfection.

Salvation, as a universal, evolutionary process, has been set in motion by God, but it requires a human response to be realized. Although the incarnation of the Son and the Holy Spirit occurred at specified moments in history, all those who strove for righteousness before these events are also embraced in the process of salvation. The historicity of Divine Revelation, though intellectually gratifying, is of minor spiritual consequence. The essential element is the realization of the Spirit through belief in the Divine Plan and righteousness.

The above discourse constitutes the fundamental assent of a pilgrim. Although faith is multifaceted and entails more, what is articulated here represent those prophetic features, essential to salvation, which distinguish this faith from all others. While the foregoing article is not, per se, persuasive of its Divine sanction, the subsequent and resulting scientific synthesis of prior Divine Revelations, in accordance with prophecy, are what constitute proof.

Inasmuch as faith is essential to salvation, it is identified as one of the spiritual variables of the Structure.

Divine Service

The Scriptures teach that one cannot lay claim to God’s grace on faith alone. James likened faith without good works to a body without a spirit:

Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the Word and not hearers only (James 1:21-22).

Jesus dwelt at length on this subject, as witnessed by John’s Gospel: “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me” (John 14:21).

Faith in God must be coupled with positive action, in accordance with one’s endowments and opportunities in life, if one is to realize spirituality. This positive action, referred to in the Scriptures as obedience to God’s Will or Commandment, is identified as another spiritual variable. It is referred to here as divine service: in part, to connote responsibility and one’s comprehensive duties in life.

It inheres, that since only specified actions are acceptable, there must be unacceptable negative actions. Thus, an individual retains, also, the freedom to act. The independent freedoms to believe and to act are essential features of Divine Justice.

Divine Grace

The Lord bestows His grace on all who obey His commands. This grace is essential for salvation. The Scriptures certify: “For by grace are you saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Because grace is a requisite for salvation, it is identified as the third scriptural variable. While faith and divine service are independent variables in the religious system, grace is the dependent variable. It is a function of faith and divine service; “For by grace are you saved through faith [and divine service]”. Divine grace is synonymous with holiness, and the attainment of Perfection in God is grace par excellence. One is cautioned:

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God . . . (Hebrew 12:14-15). 

The Independent Variables

Before matching the spiritual variables with the axes of the Graphic Structure, it is important to establish that faith and divine service are independent of one another: the presence of one does not imply the presence of the other. In the Scriptures, this distinction is not always obvious. James wrote in his Epistle that faith without good works is dead (James 2:26). Yet, in discussing faith, Paul cited the passage which states that Abraham’s faith was counted as justice (Romans 4:3). How can this be possible, if faith is said to be dead without good works? Paul’s usage of faith implied action. Abraham obeyed God by leaving his birthplace to dwell in a foreign land. He was also willing to sacrifice Isaac when he was tested, even though it was through Isaac that God’s promise to him was to be fulfilled. These examples illustrate positive actions by Abraham that were rooted in faith.

Faith was used in different ways by James and Paul: One’s usage of faith was independent of action, while the other’s reference to faith implied action.

Jesus’s view of the relationships between faith and positive action can be gleaned from the “Parable of the Seed” (Mark 4:1-20). In that parable, the seed, which is the Word of God, was received by four groups of people. The first group refused to believe, while the other three believed, but in varying degrees. The second group had no roots and therefore failed to produce fruit; it was unable to persevere under trial. The third group also failed to produce fruit, as it was lured by carnal desires due to lack of discipline. The fourth group, however, produced abundantly by acting on the word it received through patient endurance.

Four points can be made from this parable:

1. Faith is, fundamentally, independent of action: In this parable, not all who believed produced fruit. Faith which is independent of action will be referred to as psychic faith. It is this psychic faith that is represented by one of the graph axes. (Whenever the word faith is used alone here, it will be in reference to psychic faith.)
2. In order to produce fruit, psychic faith must be coupled with positive action. In the “Parable of the Seed”, two of the three groups that believed failed to produce fruit, because their actions were not defined by the Word they received, psychic faith. Faith that is affirmed through positive action will be referred to as productive faith.
3. Inherent in the above point is the fact that not all actions yield divine grace. Just as faith is independent of action, so too action is independent of faith.
4. Faith and action are not absolute; they have magnitude. As seen in this parable, the Word of God resulted in different levels of productivity.

Application of the Key to the Code: The Cryptogram

Having established that faith and divine service are independent of one another, the application of the key to the Code—the exact correlations of the experimental or natural variables with the spiritual variables—follows. The natural variables share certain common features with the spiritual; it is through these shared characteristics that the natural variables acquire their spiritual connotations. Thus, the disparate sets of variables are paired according to the parallels which exist between them.

Faith is the spiritual correlate of oxygen. Both of these variables are life sustaining elements. Whereas oxygen supports physical life on Earth through the process of combustion (metabolism, home, and industrial heating), faith in the Trinity leads to eternal, blissful life with God through the baptism of fire (life’s ordeals). Just as oxygen is freely available to all living, breathing things, faith is freely bestowed on all who are called to life in the Holy Spirit. Like oxygen—air—which in nature is ethereal, psychic faith is invisible, even mystical.

Divine service and fuel are another corresponding pair of variables with common characteristics. Divine service is the fuel that supports the fire of God’s love for pilgrims. Unlike faith and oxygen, which are free commodities, divine service and fuel (acquisition) involve work. Also, in contrast to faith and oxygen, which are subtle, divine service (action) and fuel (food, coal, oil et cetera) are evident commodities.

The remaining pair of variables consist of divine grace and combustion heat (or product). Both are forms of efficacious power or force essential to life: One sustains natural life, while the other nourishes the spiritual. Both are also dependent variables: God’s grace is dependent on faith and divine service, while combustion heat is dependent on oxygen and fuel.

The identification of the spiritual variables with the graph axes, and hence the spiritual implication of the Pictogram can, now, be achieved, by substituting the natural variables with their corresponding spiritual correlates: oxygen concentration with faith, fuel concentration with divine service, and combustion heat with divine grace. The decoded Cryptogram is shown in Figure 4. The independent variables of faith and divine service are contained within the same plane, the earthly plane, which depicts the state of no grace. However, the dependent variable of divine grace, which represents the mercy and love of God, is awarded from above for faith and divine service; as such, its axis is appropriately above the earthly plane.

The mere identification of the spiritual variables with the Pictogram is meaningless, unless, of course, the implied Spiritual Structure (which it portrays) can be authenticated from the Scriptures. Therefore, the identification of the Structure in the Scriptures, and the verification of Its attributes are among the major objectives of this treatise.

*Indeed, Paul testified under the influence of the Holy Spirit that Jesus descended from David, according to the flesh, but was made [not born] Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by His resurrection from the dead [and ascension into Heaven] (Romans 1:3-4). Jesus’s Divine Sonship was consummated by His entry inside the Veil.

                                          Structural Details

Spiritual Classifications

In accordance with the foregoing portraiture, the Spiritual Structure embodies the Numinous Power—Divine Grace—by which humanity can gain access to the Divine, through prescribed Principles. Since the Structure is distinctly partitioned into regions with uniform characteristics, pilgrims who access the Structure are classified according to their positions on It.

The Complacent Pilgrims

Surface-b represents the paths traversed by pilgrims who seek salvation through faith, but lack the firm, spiritual discipline necessary for producing lasting fruit. Detracted by the comforts of this world, they become complacent. Their spiritual maturity is impeded by passion for the worldly. The returns on the faith God invested in them fall short of His expectations. To the complacent believers, divine service is limited to specific events and periods. if no serious crisis or dramatic religious experience occurs, they are content to continue their worship in the same routine manner, neither growing in spiritual insight nor living up to God’s will for them.

The Apostates or Self-righteous Pilgrims

Surface-a depicts the paths of pilgrims who forsake truth for falsehoods: backsliders who reject righteous ways (surface-b) for sanctimonious ones. After having embarked on straight paths, these pilgrims resort to crooked ways. Thus, they abrogate faith in the Word of God—the Holy Spirit—in preference for self-righteousness. Self-righteousness, a form of apostasy, stems from arrogance; marked by shortsightedness, it is a sin of pride. These pilgrims delude themselves, feign authority, and are overconfident of their own judgments. Blind to the Truth, they reject the Authority of reason. Not only do these pilgrims fail to live up to their divinely appointed role, but they also violate their unique, higher nature.

The Sons of God

The third group, the sons of God, represents the ideal pilgrims. They are distinguished by their unswerving devotion to the Divine Purpose. The pathway of this group is depicted on the Spiritual Structure by the long narrow strip: the efficiency line. (See figure 4a). As portrayed in the Cryptogram, the narrow ridge represents the highest grace points, thus evidencing the group’s holiness. Jesus exhorted pilgrims to follow this narrow path:

Enter through the strait gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many follow this way. But because strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leads to life, few there are who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14).

Extreme care is needed to tread this efficient path, as it demands caution similar to that required of a tightrope walker. One can no more walk on the efficiency line without the guidance of the True Spirit than can a tightrope walker tread an inclined rope blindfolded.

The sons of God are located in the Sanctuary of the Mystical Temple of God, depicted by the Cryptogram. The Spirit of God, which is lavished on this group, functions through their consciences.

The Unbelievers

To cover the gamut of God’s Kingdom, mention must be made also of the unbelievers, who, though, are informed about God, choose not to believe in Him or serve Him. The unbelievers are depicted by the ground plane of the Structure, where the spiritual spark fails to ignite. For unbelievers, the focus of worship is always the altar of materialism.

Evidence for the Spiritual Classifications

The four classes of believers referred to in the “Parable of the Seed” pertain to the spiritual classification of the Structure (cf., Mark 4:1-20; Matthew 13:1-23; Luke 8:4-15; Gospel of Thomas 9).

The seeds that fell on the path are the disbelievers on the earthly plane of the Structure (where the divine spark fails to ignite). Those that fell on rocky ground correspond to the apostates on surface-a, who receive the Word initially with joy, but when tribulation comes, they fall away (extinguishing the spiritual fire.) The seeds that landed among the briers are analogous to the complacent pilgrims on surface-b, in whom worldly desires choke off the Word, and it bears no fruit (yet a glimmer of spiritual fire remains, suggesting hope.) Finally, the seeds that fell on good ground represents the sons of God on the efficiency line (where the divine flames burn brightly in the Heavenly Sanctuary.)

The Spiritual Pathways

Attention will now focus on the spiritual composition of the Pictogram. Surfaces a-and-b consist of two families of curves a-and-b, respectively.  

See Figure 5. Each curve comprises coordinate points representing varying levels of divine grace. Curve-b represents the spiritual journeys of pilgrims seeking salvation, while curve-a depicts the trajectory of those descending toward damnation. Originating from the earthly plane, pathway-b rises with increasing grace, and terminates at the efficiency line’s junction, where pathway-a originates. Conversely, pathway-a falls with decreasing grace, culminating back on the earthly plane. Thus, every point on the efficiency line marks the convergence of pathways a-and-b, with the highest junction being the Peak of the Structure.

The Spiritual Structure consists of an infinite number of potential latent pathways—termed the Potential Structure—and it is of infinite height and size. However, it is the pilgrims traversing these pathways that essentially outline or reveal the Spiritual Structure, thereby defining the size of the Apparent Structure. Growth in the population of the pilgrims, and their advancement to higher spiritual heights, result in increases in the size and height of the Apparent Structure. Consequently, the structure features both a Potential or Absolute Peak of infinite height, and an Apparent Peak capable of infinite growth. Jesus’s “Parable of the Mustard Seed” and “the Leaven Bread” relate to this growth process (Matthew 13:31-35; Mark 4:30-34; Luke 13:18-21).

The Spiritual Light

The Cryptogram portrayed in Figure 4 lacks detail for completeness. Often, concepts such as truth, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, peace, et cetera, embodied by divine grace, are symbolized spiritually in the Scriptures by light.

Thus, imagine a light source—a star—at each juncture of the efficiency line, signifying God in the Son. The brilliance of each star is determined by its position at the efficiency line; the closer to the Peak, the brighter is the star. The efficiency line is, therefore, a huge composite light source, with increasing brightness, from the origin of the line to the Infinite Peak of the Structure. The variation in the brightness of the stars indicates the varying degrees of holiness and authority along the efficiency line. Stars closest to the origin are dull, indicating the spiritual immaturity of these positions, in contrast to the brighter stars toward the Peak. Each star casts light downward along its path, guiding pilgrims to salvation. However, the light’s intensity wanes further from the star, plunging the earthly realm in total darkness.

Figure 6 depicts the Cryptogram shaded to convey this gradation of light, symbolizing the influence of the Holy Spirit.

The Cryptogram thus embodies both the heat and the light attributes of fire, through its outline and detailing, respectively.

In view of this portrayal of God’s Kingdom—the Gospel—the following scriptural admonition acquires a different, and deeper insight: a sense of realism:

And so, we have confirmed the Prophetic Word. You [complacent pilgrims*] will do well to focus on It as you would a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the Morning Star arises in your hearts (2 Peter 1:19; Gospel of Thomas 77).

The Prophetic Word proclaims Jesus as the Son of God, a declaration confirmed by the Divine Voice on the mountain and certified by the apostolic witness of the preceding passages: 2 Peter 1:16-18. To truly understand this passage, view it through the lens of the Cryptogram. Imagine a pilgrim at the start of pathway-b in darkness, and at the end of this path, on the efficiency line, there is a solitary twinkling star. Its light intensifies with every step the pilgrim takes, culminating in their union with the star.

Observe the structural differences between pathways a-and-b, which constitute surfaces a-and-b. Pathway-a is crooked, as such its radiant light cannot travel far. Nevertheless, the occupants of this path are already in the dark, as their backs are toward the star. This observation from the Cryptogram is in accord with Scripture’s portrayal of the “apostates” (on surface-a) as individuals:

Who leave the paths of uprightness [pathways-b] to walk in the ways of darkness [pathways-a]; who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in perversion; whose ways are crooked, and devious their paths (Proverbs 2:13-15).

Pathway-b, in contrast, is straight, enabling the star’s light to travel farther down this path than pathway-a, thus providing greater illumination to the pilgrims on this path; moreover, the pilgrims are actually facing the star. And so, the straight paths are identified with wisdom, a concept that is exemplified in the Scriptures:

I guide you on the way of wisdom, and I lead you on straight paths (Proverbs 4:11).

In his wisdom, the psalmist also petitioned God accordingly:

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness, because of mine enemies make your way straight before my face (Psalms 5:8).

A star on the efficiency line is to a pilgrim as a lighthouse, or a beacon, is to a ship. The light from a beacon may not be bright enough to completely illuminate the dark for an approaching ship, yet it is sufficient to provide guidance. To a receding ship—a divergent one—however, it serves no purpose. Like the receding ship, the apostate is lost in darkness in spite of the guiding star, while the complacent pilgrim receives guidance from the spiritual light, akin to the vessel approaching the beacon, as affirmed in the Scriptures:

The path of the just [pathway-b] is as the shining light, that shines more unto perfect day. The way of the wicked [pathway-a] is as darkness: they know not what they stumble** (Proverbs 4:18-19).

This passage indicates a gradation of light on the spiritual paths, consistent with the portrayal of the Cryptogram which shows increasing brightness on surface-b toward the efficiency line, and ultimately toward the Peak of the Structure. See Figure 6.

Although the complacent pilgrims on pathway-b perceive the light, they merely experience the radiant energy; hence, only the reflections of the Holy Spirit are at work in them. Conversely, the pilgrims on the efficiency line are permeated by the light source, indicating that the Holy Spirit actually dwells within them.

Pilgrims on pathway-b are vulnerable to visual impairment, and spiritual disorientation, since they experience only the image of the Holy Spirit. Since pilgrims share a common goal, it is incumbent on all to assist each other along the straight paths, through encouraging words and deeds, heeding the lesson from Scriptures: “Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (Psalms 119:105). True fellowship in the Trinity should be an unselfish human partnership in God. Scripture promised: “Whoever brings a sinner back from error shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).

Pilgrims reaching the efficiency line enter the realm of salvation. This milestone, while significant, is not the journey’s conclusion but the end of one phase and the beginning of another. The goal of the second phase involves maintaining one’s position on the efficiency line—the Abode of the Holy Spirit—while advancing toward Absolute Perfection at the Infinite Peak. This is a different kind of experience from the initial journey. The Holy Spirit is present in the efficiency line—the Heavenly Sanctuary—by varying degrees. Accordingly, pilgrims who attain to the Heavenly Sanctuary experience the True Spirit by varying degrees, reflecting their positions within the Structure. The benefit of the Spirit increases as one ascends toward the Potential Peak, and since that Peak is infinite, the journey continues until God’s appointed time.

While the sons of God in the Heavenly Sanctuary are assured of protection from evil’s allure, the complacent pilgrims, still en route to the Sanctuary, are not. The complacent pilgrim is likened to an astronaut outside their spaceship in deep space whose only link with the ship is their umbilical cord—their life support. Just as the astronaut’s safety is compromised by their remoteness from the haven of their ship, so too is the complacent pilgrim’s life jeopardized when removed from the Heavenly Sanctuary. And the farther away both are from sanctuary, the graver the risks.

It may seem ironic that the sons of God, who are perched precariously on the critical edge between life and death, are protected from danger, while the complacent, on seemingly safe ground, are not. This observation from the Cryptogram is in accord with Jesus’s saying:

Whoever desires to save his life shall lose it; and whoever [risks] his life for my sake shall find it (Matthew 16:25).

The possibilities of the complacent pilgrims falling from grace are real. Peter discussed the fate of those who fall away:

After they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known it, to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered unto them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘the dog has turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:20-22).

Indeed, it is far better not to ascend the spiritual heights than to fall from grace once one attains it. Again, the Scriptures affirmed this point:

It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the Heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame (Hebrews 6:4-6).

These passages refer to the apostates, who, having fallen from grace on surface-b are now depicted as backsliding on surface-a of the Cryptogram.

*Imagine a complacent pilgrim at the bottom of pathway-b in the dark; and far atop this path is a lone twinkling star on the efficiency line, its brightness growing with each approaching step.

**Pathway-b is like a ray of light of “rising” brightness, and pathway-a is its inverse: a ray of “falling” brightness (which ends in darkness), where the unjust wind up following their “stumble” from pathway-b (cf., Proverb 2:13-15, above). As portrayed too by the vector arrows in Figure 4, those on pathway-a were once on pathway-b.