“The Cut”
God’s First “C” (Cut) = “Conviction”
We are considering the 4 Cs of a diamond and how they represent the diamond cut, color, clarity, and carat weight. We also want to see how the 4 Cs can illustrate aspects of Christian Character. Remember how some people who have just become Christians are referred to as diamonds in the rough, because of the moral and spiritual condition they are in at the time they met the Lord and experienced salvation.
The ”Cut” is the first step in the work it takes to transform a diamond in the rough into a bright, shiny, and valued gem. So, what is involved when God takes the first step in transforming a newly mined Christian (a spiritual diamond in the rough) into a bright, shiny, and valued believer (spiritual gem)? What happens to us when God does His “Cut” (Cutting) in our lives?
Of the 4 Cs, diamond cut has the greatest effect on a diamond’s beauty. The more precise the diamond is cut, the more captivating the diamond is to the eye. During the cutting, the craftsman must shape a diamond from a rough stone into a faceted gem.
Diamond cutting is the practice of shaping a diamond from a rough stone into a faceted gem. Cutting diamonds requires specialized knowledge, tools, equipment, and techniques, because of its extreme difficulty. A diamond’s cut refers to the stone’s proportions and ability to reflect light. These are some of the most popular diamond cuts:
- Round brilliant cut: the classic round-shaped diamond.
- Cushion cut: also called pillow cut, is a square or rectangular shape with slightly rounded corners and sides.
- Princess cut: a square or rectangular cut.
- Emerald cut: a rectangular cut with rectangular facets.
If the only way to cut a diamond is with another diamond, how was the cutting diamond cut to be used for cutting? Diamonds are typically cut using other diamonds. However, the initial diamond that is used to cut other diamonds is typically created through a process called "sawing." This involves using a diamond-coated wire or a diamond-impregnated blade to gradually cut through the rough diamond. Once this process has created a rough diamond that is roughly the shape and size desired, it can then be cut and polished using other diamonds. (ChatGPT)
Diamond cutters use these four basic techniques:
The cut of a diamond will determine how well the diamond’s facets interact with light, the proportions of the diamond, and the overall finish of the diamond. A well-cut diamond will have more life and sparkle than one with a lesser cut quality. In fact, it can even appear to have a better face-up color or clarity! And, if you compare a well-cut small diamond side by side with a slightly larger diamond of lesser cut quality, the smaller diamond may look larger to the naked eye.
The Planning
With right planning, a rough or uncut diamond that resembles a lump of glass can be transformed into one or more brilliant valuable diamonds.
... With precise sovereign planning, the Holy Spirit made the necessary cuts in your new Christian nature and personality and character for you to begin the transformation process into a brilliant Christ-like disciple who is very valuable to the kingdom of God.
Therefore, diamonds are analyzed from an economic perspective because manufacturers need to consider the return on their investment and how quickly they can sell a finished diamond.
... Just as diamonds are analyzed from an economic perspective because manufacturers need to consider the return on their investment and how quickly they can sell a finished diamond – You are analyzed from a service perspective, because the Lord Jesus wants to see His ROI (return on investment). How soon can you become fruitful and multiply and reproduce yourself in the Kingdom of God on earth?
Special devices scan rough stones to get three-dimensional models. Inclusions taken from photographs are also placed on the model. After inspecting the model, the best cuts for the stone can be determined.
... How long have you been a Christian now? How fruitful have you been? Have you reproduced yourself and multiplied yourself in the kingdom of God on earth (led others to Christ)? Have you fulfilled your purpose as a disciple of Christ? Has the Lord Jesus seen His ROI in you?
The Planning
Cleaving - To cut a rough diamond down to a manageable size, the cutter must cleave it along the diamond's tetrahedral plane, where it is the weakest. A wax or cement mold holds the diamond in place while the cutter carves a sharp groove along the plane. The cutter places a steel blade in the groove and forcefully strikes it, cutting the rough diamond in two.
After the planning stage is complete, cutting the diamond down to a manageable size is next.
... In one way or another, each of us must be cut down to size (humbled) to a manageable size. Things like pride, arrogance, conceit, vanity, high-mindedness, overbearance, pretentiousness, loftiness, smugness, or selfish ambition must go. This can be painful, but the more we cooperate, the quicker it goes.
... In the Book of Daniel, you can read how God cut King Nebuchadnezzar down to size. You can see how the King refused to humble himself (even though he had been warned by the prophet Daniel) and God had to take the steps to humble him for his own good. God drove the king out into the wilderness, where he lived alone, ate grass, and lived like a wild animal for seven years. His hair and fingernails grew until he was compared to an eagle. After seven years, God came to him, restored his sanity, gave the Kingdom of Babylon back to him. Now, the King had a different perspective and proclaimed this in Daniel 4:34-35:
At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High. I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him ... what have you done?
This was a very painful lesson for the mighty King Nebuchadnezzar, but it led to his salvation and eternal life, and it gave him the right spirit for ruling the most powerful kingdom on earth at that time, according to the will of God. Because of his pride and stubbornness, he would not cooperate, and he prolonged his cutting time, but you do not have to.
To separate and make the stone the desired size, the cutter needs to either cleave or saw the diamond.
... The Holy Spirit knew how you needed cleaving or cutting or both. This also can be painful, but Christ gives His grace for us to endure and again, the more we cooperate, the quicker it goes.
... 1 Peter 5:10: And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong (stronger), firm, and steadfast.
Cleaving is the splitting of the diamond along its natural line. A wax or cement mold holds the diamond in place so a groove can be made.
... The Holy Spirit splits us along the lines of our natural strengths. God does not need our natural strengths. He knows we tend to trust in our natural strengths and abilities. He plans for Christ to be our strength. When we are weak, then His strengths are seen in us (2 Corinthians 12:9-11). During the 40 years Moses spent in the wilderness, God stripped Moses of all confidence in himself, so that when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, through all the miracles, it was God’s power that was seen.
The groove is carved along the weakest part of the diamond known as the tetrahedral plane. Afterward, a steel blade is placed in the groove and is struck to cut the diamond in two.
... Sometimes we may feel like we have been cut in two, as we look back at our old lives and then see our new lives in Christ. Seeing the comparison sure makes us appreciate that we are God’s handiwork (Poema in the Greek or Poem in English), created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
Sawing - Sometimes, diamonds must be cut where there is no plane of weakness, which cannot be done with cleaving. Instead, the cutter saws the diamond using a phosphor-bronze blade rotating at about 15,000 rpm. Lasers can also be used to saw diamonds, but the process takes hours. During the sawing step, the cutter decides which parts of the diamond will become the table (the flat top of the stone with the greatest surface area) and the girdle (the outside rim of the diamond at the point of largest diameter). Then, he proceeds to cutting.
.... Just as sawing is necessary when there is no weak plane where the diamond needs to be cut, so once again the Spirit has perfect understanding of where the sawing needs to be done in our inner condition (spiritually, morally, psychologically, emotionally, or physically) and nothing is off limits for Him. He will go work in those areas where we think we have no weak plane in our character and therefore will not depend on the Lord, but simply fall back and depend on ourselves. This is where we learn to abide in Him, realizing that without Christ in our lives, we can do nothing (John 15:4-5) ... nothing of value to God and the kingdom.
In these cases, cutters can use a phosphor-bronze blade to saw. The blade rotates and can cut through the diamond to get it down to a manageable size. A laser can also be used to saw the diamonds into separate pieces.
... Do we loom large in our own eyes where the Spirit may have to cut us in two, so to speak? Let us consider the verses carefully, if we feel God’s phosphor-bronze blade or His spiritual laser cutting through us.
Romans 12:3: For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Galatians 6:3: For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Proverbs 26:12: Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Philippians 2:3: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
1 Corinthians 4:7: For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
2 Corinthians 3:5: Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,
Giving Diamonds Their Shape
Bruiting to Round the Roughs - This technique gives diamonds their shape. When diamonds are cut by hand, the technique is called bruiting -- cutting refers to bruiting by machine. When the cutter shapes diamonds by hand, he relies on the diamond's hardness as his tool -- he uses diamonds to cut diamonds {Have you ever felt like you were being “cut” by other Christians?}. He uses a small, stick-like instrument with a cement-filled bowl at the tip to hold the diamond. The diamond is inserted in cement with just one corner exposed. Using one of these sticks in each hand, the cutter rubs the exposed diamond parts together to bruit them. In the mechanical process, the diamond is placed in a lathe, and another diamond in the lathe rubs against it to create the rough finish of the girdle. Mechanical bruting forms the outline of the polished diamond.
After you as a spiritual diamond have been cleaved or sawed, you can then be shaped by spiritual Bruting or Cutting.
... Spiritual Bruting is when God uses the words and actions of others to cut away that which is blocking the light of Christ from being reflected through us.
Proverbs 27:5: Better to correct someone openly than to let him think you don't care for him at all.
Proverbs 25:6: Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
Galatians 2:11: But when Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.
... Spiritual Cutting refers to cutting Christians via a mechanical process when God uses any or all providential circumstances we find ourselves going through, to do His work in cutting away those superficial, carnal, selfish, offending issues that are blocking the light of Christ from being reflected through us.
... Also, just as a diamond is first put in a lathe where it rotates while another diamond rubs against it to create the desired shape, Spiritual Cutting is when God deals with issues in our lives directly. He reveals to us in strong undeniable ways to deal with this or with that and He does not stop reminding us until we cooperate (obey). We have no peace until we do what He says. God would not leave Moses alone until Moses took off for Egypt to deliver God’s message to Pharoah. God does not accept excuses and we will only make ourselves and others miserable if we resist and delay cooperating with Him.
Polishing the Diamond Facets
Polishing creates the diamond's finished look, the cutter places it onto the arm above a rotating polishing wheel. The wheel is coated with an abrasive diamond powder that smooths the diamond as it is pressed against the wheel. After planning, cleaving and bruting, the diamond is ready to be polished.
... After the Lord finishes His spiritual and moral cleaving and bruting in our lives, then He lays the spiritual template (blueprint) of Christ's character over our lives and begins polishing away everything that falls outside of Christ’s perfect template.
...If the graphic below represented Christ's perfect character in a human body and He laid our character in a human body template over His, ours would fall outside of the template of perfection in so many places. The Spirit would then go to work polishing off all our flaws that don’t fit into the template of Christ (the image of Christ).
For a diamond to be polished, it must sit on an arm above a rotating wheel that is covered in an abrasive diamond powder. The rotating wheel smooths the diamond’s surface and polishes the stone, resulting in a smooth, finished look.
... There will be many times from the day we get saved until the day we die and go to heaven, that we can find ourselves sitting up on one of Gods providential hands, while His other sovereign hand does more polishing – resulting in an even smoother and complete Christ-like look. You may notice the dust from the polishing falling on the ground beside you, like seeing the hair from your head laying on floor after a good haircut. You may feel spiritually lighter after each polishing.
Polishing is an important step to the process. Poor polishing masks a diamond’s light return. However, an excellent polish job results in an extremely smooth surface, which allows for more brilliance, fire, and scintillation on a diamond.
... The Holy Spirit does not do poor polishing. In every round of polishing, He will make sure even more of Christ’s brilliance, fire, and scintillation (rapid changes in the brightness of a celestial body) is shining/reflecting through you.
In the graphic above, a rough diamond is being facetted on a polishing wheel. A polisher forces a diamond against a spinning abrasive disk.
Once the rounded shape of the “rough” is formed, the next stage is to create and form the facets of the diamond. The cutter places the rough on a rotating arm and uses a spinning wheel to polish the rough. This creates the smooth and reflective facets on the diamond. Interestingly, this polishing procedure is further divided into 2 steps: blocking and brillianteering.
In the blocking process, 8 pavilion mains, 8 crowns, 1 culet and 1 table facet are added to make a single cut stone. The importance of this step is to create a template for the next stage. The brillianteer will then finish up the job by adding in the remaining facets and bringing it to a total of 57 facets. He holds great responsibility as the fire and brilliance of the diamond are determined at this stage.
... When the Holy Spirit is blocking and brillanteering us, we can feel it and we should rejoice and thank Him for His willingness to do whatever work is necessary for us to be the brightest and clearest spiritual diamond we can be. Christ’s glory reflecting through us depends on this.
The Final Inspection (Quality Control)
The diamond is now ready to go through the final step. It is thoroughly cleaned in acids and then goes through careful examination to make sure that it meets the manufacturer’s expectations and standards
... Have you ever felt Gods spiritual acids cleansing you? If so, you are blessed!
A grading facility then grades the diamond for a final review. The diamond is checked for carat weight, color, clarity and cut.
Our Heavenly Father will do His inspection to approve us or disprove us for the next, higher stage of service. He will decide if we have the needed Christ-like weight (carat weight), Christ-like color, Christ-like clarity, and Christ-like cut to move into a more difficult and challenging level of Christian service and spiritual warfare.
Diamond cutting is a difficult process, taking a lot of work to transform a rough stone into a brilliant, finished diamond. Similarly, the spiritual cutting of a Christian is a difficult process and takes a lot of work to transform us from a rough stone in Christ into a brilliant, finished spiritual diamond. BUT nothing is too hard for the Lord (Jeremiah 32:17) and He has great patience in getting us to where He wants us to be in each stage of our lives (James 1:2-4, 2 Peter 1:5-7).
How do we sum up what is involved when God takes the first step in transforming a newly mined Christian (a spiritual diamond in the rough) into a bright, shiny, and valued believer (spiritual gem)? What happens to us when God does His “Cut” in our lives?
… The first “C” in God’s “spiritual cut” is “conviction”.
… Without experiencing “the conviction of our sinfulness”, no one would ever feel any need to repent or feel any need for the “Savior”.
… Each diamond has many surfaces known as facets and the angles at which these surfaces are cut determine how light penetrates or exits the stone. So, the “facet” just refers to the many surfaces of a diamond (usually 57) that come from a “cut”.
… Each “spiritual cut” in our lives cuts away the veneer and false concepts we have of ourselves, so we can see ourselves the way God sees us spiritually the day we get saved (meet Jesus Christ).
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (without Christ). Who can understand it (without Christ)?
Isaiah 64:6 says, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we put on our prized robes of righteousness, we find they are but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves we fade, wither, and fall. And our sins, like the wind, sweep us away. {In the Hebrew, “filthy rags” means dirty, bloody menstrual rags.}
A person who cuts gems (diamonds) is called a “gem cutter” or a “lapidary”. English diction also allows for the term “lapidarist” {thediamondreserve.com/diamonds/the-people-who-cut-diamonds}. The Holy Spirit is God’s “lapidarist”. He is the “convicter". He is the one who does the spiritual cutting perfectly. He never makes any surgical mistakes.
In Luke 18:13, there is such a vivid and accurate illustration of a man under deep, deep conviction from the Holy Spirit (God’s “lapidarist”), that he cannot stand himself anymore. He manifests genuine Biblical repentance and surrender to Christ.
Luke 18:13: But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’. This translation is from the Legacy Standard Bible, which reads the way this verse does in the original Greek. Notice the tax collector sees himself as “the sinner”.
If you will permit me to, I would like to paraphrase this tax collector’s prayer of repentance and surrender, which was due to the spiritual cutting the Holy Spirit did in his life to bring him to this point.
… God I am so ashamed of my sinful and depraved life, that I cannot even bear to look up at you in all your holiness and purity.
… All I can do is look down and beat my chest and cry out for mercy, which I know I do not deserve.
… But I beg you Lord to please have mercy on me and forgive me and save me…the sinner.
The Greek really does convey the concept of “the sinner”. In other words, “Lord I am not just a sinner (as most translations word it), but I am the sinner or the worst sinner there is”. In fact, in the Greek language, there is no indefinite article like "a" or "an".
(See christswords.com/main/content/differences-between-ancient-greek-and-english)
There is only one way this wealthy Jewish Tax Collector could have reached this conclusion in his heart and mind. The Holy Spirit, God’s “lapidarist”, brought him to this place, so he could turn away from himself and sincerely surrender his life to the Lordship of Christ. This is real salvation.
Just as the cut of a diamond refers to how well the diamond’s facets interact with light, so the cut of a Christian’s salvation experience refers to how well the Christian’s character facets interact with the light of Christ. Each facet of a diamond should reflect light, just as each Christian should reflect the light of Christ, no matter what angle someone else sees that Christian from (whatever environment, circumstance, condition, or situation that Christian is viewed from - the many different facets of life a Christian will be seen in or from).
Remember how a diamond is formed deep below the earth’s surface where the temperature and pressure will cause carbon atoms to bond together into a diamond? So, a Christian’s character that will have the ability to reflect the light of Christ from any angle, is formed under the great pressures of spiritual conviction by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes the time and the effort to reveal to a lost person how depraved and sinful they really are, to the point that this person will detest themself.
He or she will not be able to stand to go on living in such a sinful condition and he or she will cry out day and night in desperation for spiritual deliverance and salvation. Paul demonstrated this desperation over his sinfulness in Romans 7:24 where he cried out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this depraved, sinful life that leads to death?” Isaiah said it this way in Isaiah 6:5-9, “Then I said, Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips…for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
This time of conviction by the Holy Spirit, deep in the heart of a sinner (where the spiritual temperatures and pressures are great and prepare the sinner for the “CUT”) is crucial to the true spirit of repentance, where the sinner will completely turn away from himself (herself) and will completely surrender to Jesus Christ. This person will hate their sinful life and no longer want anything to do with it. The only thing he or she will want is to have Christ take over their life and redeem it and control it.
If this process of conviction and repentance over one’s sinfulness is missing in their salvation experience, then there will be things lacking in this professing Christian’s life. Their ability to reflect the light of Christ through their character will be diminished (dimmed). If those spiritual carbon atoms were not exposed to high enough temperatures and pressures (of conviction) to form that spiritual tetrahedral bond with Christ, then the potential of the rigid lattice structure of Christ’s character is weakened or maybe never formed at all.
Remember … the diamond’s name is derived from the Greek word adamas, which translates to “unconquerable”. When that rigid lattice structure of Christ’s character is formed properly through conviction and repentance, then that spiritual tetrahedral bond is strong or “unconquerable” or to put it in Biblical terms, Romans 8:37 says we are “we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us”. In the Greek it says we are “over-conquerors”.
The substance developed in a sinner being transformed into a saint (Christ-like one) could be compared to the parable of the soils in Luke 8:4-15. Only one soil produced fruit once the seed had been planted in it. Something was missing in the other 3 soils.
Therefore, when the spiritual temperatures and pressures of conviction are sufficient, the character of Christ formed in that sinner will have strong bonding, so that the precise cut can be done. Then, the new Christian will have the ability to reflect the light of Christ from any angle (environment, circumstance, condition, or situation) that others will view that Christian from. The Christian’s faith and character will be bright and shiny, like the many different facets of a precisely cut diamond.
Next week we will study the 2nd C of how a diamond is graded…the color and how the color of a diamond can illustrate the character of a Christian.
Thanks again for your precious time!
Gene
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