14.2 The Wall and the Door
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The Cross is the great barrier of God by which all are kept away from any chance of eating of the tree of life. The Cross is the doorway through which many rush into all the life of Christ revealed now in them. We must know where to place the Cross.
The truth of God towards us must begin with His purpose for us, what He seeks to obtain for Himself, which is many sons symmorphosed together with Jesus as the image and revelation of the Father. For us to have any ability to comprehend what on earth such a thing could mean, then, requires three more great truths, branching out from that one verse that defines the Bible.
Three Mighty Realities
First, we must know that we are filled with all the fullness of God, rooted and grounded in Love. Second, we must know that the Spirit of God flows out of our hearts as rivers of life and joy, bringing restoration and the knowledge of God to all creation.
And third, we must know that we are symmorphosed together with the Word God speaks, that God has set His Word against all accusation, and that this Christ with whom we are joined in perfect union is the Victorious Warrior who brings all things into submission to Himself that He might restore all things back to the Father. – In short, that we cast down all that speaks against God’s Word.
How?
There is a huge problem inside this most wondrous scheme of God, however. When we look in the mirror, all we can say is, “HOW? How on earth, God, could any of this be real for us?”
And then we know that the HOW of God, the means by which God accomplishes the full expression in our lives of these three mighty things that establish our full union with Christ, must be simple and easy, something any child could do, something within reach of the most limited of humans. Something within our reach.
And that’s God’s trick. No pretender will drop down to the level of God’s simple entrance; only a child will enter.
The Pattern of Truth
But let’s continue looking at how we are to know the truth of God, how we are to arrange all the many things God says in His Word into a pattern by which everything fits and everything God says is fulfilled in our lives.
If being filled with all the fullness of God is a RULING verse over everything else God says, then how do all the other verses fit onto this one largest of all statements in the universe? And how do we fit onto such an impossible reality as well? The same goes for rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies and casting down the accuser. If these verses rule, then HOW do all the other verses and we ourselves fit into these beyond all concepts?
Three Hows
God has three HOWS: the Cross, the Blood, and the Resurrection. And God has three HOW verses that express the essence of these three things operating in our lives. You see, the first four most important verses in the Bible must be part of the simple every day fabric of our very normal and mundane human lives.
How?
Each of God’s three How verses apply to all three of the realities of God in and through us coming out of our symmorphy with Christ. But at the same time, we can see that each How verse also applies directly to one of the three God in us verses.
The Cross
We begin with the Cross. And we see that the Cross verse, Galatians 2:20, is the very thing that we need to know HOW casting down the accuser can work for us.
I have been crucified with Christ. I am dead. – I am dead, yet I live, yet not I, but Christ. How can accusation mean anything to me since I am dead and Christ is the only life I am? Simple, really, but how all stumble against the word of the cross! They will not know it.
The Great Wall
In the next lesson we want to know how the Cross is simple, practical and real, fully operating as God intends all through every part of our daily lives, entirely separate from our human ability. Here we want to see the picture of the great wall God has placed around the life and reality of Christ and the one little Door that gives us entrance.
I have studied the New Testament for years, reading and writing and hearing it taught many thousands of hours, and I have never even noticed a verse I just included in a recent lesson, 2 Corinthians 10:7a. Do you look at things according to the outward appearance?
Appearance vs Substance
Appearance versus substance is part of the essential underlying definitions that must sit in our subconscious mind, automatically defining and ruling over how we know all things. The substance of anything and the appearance of that same thing are always quite different, particularly in the transition between the substance of something in the heavens and the appearance of that same thing in its earth form.
God is invisible Spirit filling all things, all here now. Yet when God appears in His creation, inside of heaven/earth, He appears only in the form of a human, a babe lying in a manger. Everyone stumbles over outward appearance, everyone who prefers Adam’s contract with the devil.
The Way to Life
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become as one who knows good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— … So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24).
Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep … I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly (John 10:7-10).
Keeping out the Thieves
These two pictures God gives us in Genesis 3 and John 10 are 100% parallel, intended by God to be read and known together.
He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief … (John 10:1). Jesus is not talking about being born again, He is speaking of being symmorphosed together with you and me in a perfect binding union of Person inside of person, two sharing the same form.
No dishonesty, no lying, no unbelief, no treating of God’s word with contempt, will ever enter into such a union. The Cross forbids it.
Enter the Preachers
We are talking about eating of the tree of LIFE! To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God (Revelation 2:7).
The Cross stands there as a mighty barrier: “Either enter into full union with Christ by me or go away.” Yet most Christians, though born again, though filled with the Spirit, though drawing near to life with hearts yearning to know Him, take one look at the mighty wall of the Cross and stop right in their tracks, weeping, “Have mercy on me.”
And there right in front of the Wall, stands the preachers, blocking all sight of the little Door down low, and pointing everyone to the tree of “obey God, do not disobey.”
The Mighty Cherubs
God anoints these preachers with His Spirit and gives them words from the Bible to preach, just like He did the serpent before his sin. The preachers are, in fact, the outward appearance of the mighty cherubs set by God to guard the way to the tree of life. Only one kind of person will ignore the preachers, get down on his or her knees, and joyfully enter into that little Door. Let me explain.
Entering into full Blood Covenant with God, as we saw in earlier lessons, is a BIG deal, especially for God. God binds Himself in Person absolutely and without reservation to you and me. God commits all that He is into, as, and through us.
Shysters and Pretenders
How many shysters would just love to take advantage of God? All of them. There is not one pretender in the universe that does not lust after some sort of access to this incredible reality God is revealing through you and me. They want the advantage, though they want nothing to do with the Person. They want to use “God” for place and power over others, to feel “right” about their self. Everyone wants to climb into some sort of “Christ” expression, including the Christian fantasy for a place they call “heaven.” No one is interested in the Door because the Door is a Person.
No Hope
And all our dear Christian brethren, fixated on the Door as Lord and Savior, still, they will not enter in. They will not enter in because of the preachers keeping them away from union with Christ. God gave the law for one reason, to cause us to know just how guilty we are before God, so that we would shut up, so that we would know that we have NO hope of ever pleasing Him.
The preachers disagree. The preachers say, “No, you must obey God first before you will ever enter in. Look in the mirror, look at yourself. You surely do not measure up to Christ.” – “You must put yourself to death upon the cross of Christ, and then, after that, God will allow you to enter in.”
Outward Appearance
All Christians demand a Christ of outward appearance. “If you were really walking just as Jesus walked, then you would appear in a certain way, according to our definitions of ‘Christ.’”
It’s why they crucified Jesus; He surely did not look like Christ.
But how can Christian preachers, anointed by the Spirit, speak the words God speaks on the one hand and turn everyone away from entering into LIFE on the other hand? They have a little trick, a clever modification of the serpent’s words, “Did God indeed say?” I have been crucified with Christ. – “Look at yourself; that verse may be true, but it cannot be talking about you.”
Positional Truth
They call God’s words, “positional truth.” “What God says might become true for you someday, but it is only your ‘position.’ Now, it’s up to you to make your possible ‘position’ into your outward appearance, excuse me, into your ‘experience.’”
Here’s what they really mean. Let God be a liar until every man make Him true. They are convinced that outward appearance is the only thing real and that nothing God says can be true until it appears true.
So – we admit it. We know we cannot make it; we cannot ever measure up. We do not obey God. BUT! We want to be with Jesus and we will not be turned away.
What Kind of Person Does It Take?
So, what are the qualities of those individuals who enter in through the Door into all the life of Christ? What kind of person does it take?
Oh, how we laugh with joy. – Jesus lives in my heart. Jesus, my life, my joy, my Friend, He takes me in His arms and He carries me through.
Gethsemane. Jesus becomes us before we ever could become Him.
Those who enter into all the fullness of Christ are those who decide that what God says is true and nothing else.
I Am
I AM crucified with Christ. What I presently see and feel, how I presently judge reality, what I presently look like, CANNOT mean anything. The only thing real, the only thing true, is what God says. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
I have already entered in, and I live now in all the fullness of Christ, eating every moment of the tree of life, because I KNOW that the only substance there is, the only thing real, is the Word God speaks, my heart, Jesus, my very and only life.
I am. I just am.