55. Placing the Millenium
And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
When we place the Gospel upon Revelation, we find that the metaphors of the vision are directly intended to show the verses of that Gospel in power in the heavens. Although many of the symbols of the vision are not necessarily literal, the Spirit of God does use even that which is literal to speak Christ to us. Yet even after all the wondrous transformation of John’s vision that has taken place thus far, I still see this “thousand years,” previously called “the Millenium,” but now, the Age of Tabernacles, to be a literal period of time.
A Layout of Events. Let’s begin with the structure of “events.” I use quotation marks because we must see all things through God’s principle of substance and appearance. Thus these events are found inside of the meta-schemata, that is, the transformation of appearance.
1. And the beast was captured, and with him the fake prophet… The two were cast living into the lake of fire burning with sulfur. Religious power, the fake prophet, always turns people towards the rule of political power. Both are removed from the human experience.
Replacing Authority. 2. An angel… seized the dragon, the original serpent, who is the devil, and bound him for a thousand years. The devil and all his demons are removed from the human experience. The bath of spiritual evil in the heavens no longer surrounds humans on this earth.
3. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. The sons of God move into the places of authority, first in the heavenly realms surrounding all humans, and second, in their shepherding watchcare over all with the iron of Love. Life has swallowed up death in their bodies.
Bracketing the Thousand Years. 4. [I saw] the souls of those who were beheaded through the testimony of Jesus and through the word of God… This is not lots of Christians who had their heads chopped off. Rather, this is the multitude of believers, the bride clothed with the sun, the New Jerusalem. “Beheaded” means all those who received a Jesus coming into union with them as every Word God speaks, and thus no longer needed any sufficiency in themselves.
5. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. – This is the first resurrection.
6. But when the thousand years are completed – Satan.
7. Then I saw a great white throne.
Breaking the Covenant of Death. And so we see this order. All the press of the world is gone first. All the realms of demonic influence are gone second. Death in our bodies is gone third. God deals with Adam’s sin first. He deals with the serpent’s sin second. Then, when the covenant between the two has ceased, death, the result of that covenant, no longer remains. This is a profound way of seeing, something we hold inside.
And the thing that breaks the covenant of death is a Church, millions of believers here on this earth, who have “lost their heads” to union with Christ, the Tree of Life, and who have put the Lord Jesus Christ upon all that they are.
No More Hiding. I have no interest in speculating on the state of the unregenerate, the great white throne, or the second death. I see “the lake of fire” in the same way as we saw “being tormented in the presence of the Lamb.”
Our God is a consuming Fire (Moses and Hebrews). – Who can dwell with everlasting Fire? – Those who are upright (Isaiah). – The “lake of fire” is God; it is Love.
Humans hide behind fig leaves and the skin of a beast. Demons hide behind human flesh. There is no more hiding. Being naked in the presence of God-Love is torment, until that moment when each one says, “Yes, Lord,” as Paul said all will.
Through Active Faith. The purpose of this lesson is to position the Age of Tabernacles as well as to touch briefly on those events in John’s vision which are future. I want to bring in one more thing about the “before” the Age of Tabernacles and another about the “after.”
But first, there is no such thing as God “waving a magic wand,” ever, in anything. God has no authority to act, for He gave all authority to humans, now Jesus through us. Thus God moves only through active faith. All actions of God, before and after, come through His Church, both ministry and Bride.
Keeping Watch. Scattered through the parts of John’s vision are a scattering of verses, words of life or warning spoken separate from whatever else is being revealed. We have often not brought those statements into the picture. One of them is this line from Chapter 16. Blessed is the one who is wakeful and alert, keeping watch over his garments, so that he should not walk naked, so that they might not see his indecency.
Regardless of what happens to us, inside or out, regardless of what we “feel” like, we must keep ourselves clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ in all the thinking of our mind. There are times when we do not speak (definitionally) what we feel.
Jeopardy and Nakedness. Read Psalm 22 again. Jesus’ great jeopardy moment was when He said, “Why have You forsaken Me?” Then we see all the turmoil of His emotions, yet He does not speak those things. Rather, He speaks, “Father, forgive them.” Finally, we see the thought that is His bottom line, “God, You are with Me.”
Some people imagine that they are being “real” when they speak their twisted emotions as the definition of themselves and of God. If I “feel” it, it must be who I am. What is actually happening is that others now see the shame of their nakedness exposed, for they have cast off the Lord Jesus Christ in their effort to be “real.”
A Short Period of Time. Just as it was fierce for Jesus, so this press to cast off being clothed with Jesus in the speaking of our bottom line will also be fierce for us at times. We must keep watch over our garments even more fiercely. God never forsakes us; He never has. In all things, He has shared and will share the agony of our souls with us.
I believe that there could be a short period of time, several months perhaps, between all things being finished inside of us and the beginning of the massive alteration of appearance in outward things, that is, the removal of human “power-over” and all demonic influence.
Enter Your Chambers. It is during this time that we keep close to our hearts, that we surround ourselves and our brethren with two lines, one from Moses, and the other from Isaiah. We have already looked at Psalm 91: He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
The whole context of these lines from Isaiah 26 speaks of keeping careful watch over clothing yourself with Jesus in the midst of all agony and loss. – Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past.
Until the Birthing. For behold, the Lord comes out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth will also disclose her blood, and will no more cover her slain.
The wicked cruelty that the world is rapidly descending into is beyond all comprehension. There must come a brief space of time when God hides us together inside of Himself and says to us, “Keep your eyes on Jesus,” even while awful things are taking place in a time of reckoning and destruction. There are seven years from Passover to Passover, then six months from Passover to Tabernacles, then three more months until the birthing and the dedication.
The Day of Tabernacles. I am convinced that just as the New Covenant fulfillment of Passover took place on the Day of Passover, and the New Covenant fulfillment of Pentecost took place on the Day of Pentecost, so also, the New Covenant fulfillment of Tabernacles, marked by the resurrection of our bodies, will take place on the Day of Tabernacles.
We do not speculate on how things will actually happen, rather, we hold all that God speaks deep inside our hearts, and we allow His Word to shape our understanding. This is the essence of knowing Jesus as every Word God speaks Sent into us as our very life. It is keeping ourselves clothed with the Lord Jesus.
The Task of the Ages. Now, let’s consider briefly what comes after the Age of Tabernacles, what things are indicated by Scripture. What is the great task of the ages to come?
First, the ages unfold out from our bellies and are directed by the passion of Christ inside of us. Then we have this, from Matthew 18. – I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Shall Not Prevail. The gates of hades shall not prevail against the Church. This has always been interpreted backward, as if “the gates” themselves are an attacking force against the Church.
The gates are the entrance into. A place whose “gates fail” is a fortress under attack by the Church. Neither is hades the “abode of demons” in a geographical sense. Jesus was not speaking of demons. Hades is the state of lostness in the heavens, human lostness. But all humans dwell in the heavens from conception, and so the lostness of hades is known by all – and is the prison of demons. Since the resurrection of Jesus, lostness has no defense.
From Darkness into Joy. I love The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, and suggest that you read it if you have not. Lewis shows how lostness “fights against” those sent to win the heart to Jesus. And he shows that moment when that gate of lostness is defeated in one human soul and the person passes from darkness into joy.
This will be our great task, the task of the ages to come, to seek and to save what is lost. The end result is the end of Paul’s gospel, every created thing giving thanks and speaking Christ, all creation restored back to the Father.
Resurrection and Authority. Now we come to the Age of Tabernacles itself. The point in time that marks the beginning of the Age of Tabernacles is that moment, in the twinkling of an eye, when our physical bodies are swallowed up by life. That “event” corresponds immediately with another far-reaching event, which is the insertion of the authority of the sons of God throughout all the heavens surrounding human affairs, into the spaces vacated by the false.
Nonetheless, the total time of transition covers a much wider period, beginning with the sounding of the Trumpets in 1948, and ending with a fully cleansed earth some decades after the resurrection of our bodies.
The Seventh Day. The Age of Tabernacles, in its essence, is defined by these words. – And I heard a great voice out of the throne, saying: “Look and see, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself, their God, will be with them.” A lesson titled “We Are the Tabernacle” is coming up soon.
These words correspond with the words of the New Covenant spoken by Jeremiah and found in Hebrews 8. They also correspond with the Mercy Seat in the tabernacle of Moses, God among His people. Humans had “six days” to get it wrong; now God gives a “seventh day” showing how He intended it from the start.
Proof and Evidence. Here is the primary purpose of the Age of Tabernacles – God intends, and indeed must prove that Christ our life is a better way of living upon this earth than word under human control. For Jesus to be proven faithful and True, in God’s parameters, requires “the span of a human life,” that is, more than a thousand years of time as evidence. The point is that never again will anyone ever want to say, “Did God really say that?”
Yet this proof means – in us – proven in us and to us. We are the ones who will KNOW that God is True. The certainty of Christ in us will be greater than we can imagine.
Patterns of Word. I am aware of those who envision “science fiction” novels from a “Christian” point of view concerning life in the future, as they envision a “heavenly” future on this earth. In none of those ideas is there found the WORD God speaks in the Gospel, the twelve ruling verses, with all their support, Old Testament and New, being the design and pattern of all human and angelic life.
It is my intention, in writing Symmorphy VII: Completion, to set out the patterns of Word, patters of Home, in the context of building the Kingdom of God in the Age of Tabernacles. We set ourselves on the desire to see God bring forth every Word in full into all human experience.
Out from Purpose. The remaining five lessons, with four Jesus Secret pages and a concluding session, are all pointing towards the arising through us and on this earth of the Kingdom as it will be through the Age of Tabernacles. It is my expectation that some of these things will begin to appear on the earth before the resurrection that marks the specific point of the turning of the ages.
From our list of events, however, #3 is the key to everything taking place, Revelation 20:4 – And I saw thrones and THEY sat upon them, and judgment was given to THEM. Everything flows out from the heart of intended purpose.
Beholden to Constantine. In the late AD 200’s, under the rule of Diocletian, Christians suffered through the time of greatest persecution during the Roman era. Yet this was a time of Christian darkness, when the exaltation of the flesh and of death had brought Christian thinking into no-Jesus-here. Then, when Constantine seized power, he brought the leaders of the Church out from the torture chambers and placed them as the rulers of the political world.
That did not work out well. These new politicians, beholden to Constantine, gave him the power he needed at the Nicene Council to dominate the empire with the Christian Church.
No Framework of Word. Years ago, I read a book that impacted me greatly, the autobiography of Haralan Popov, a Bulgarian Christian tortured for his faith in Communist prisons. During those years, God moved through him to touch many. Then, years later, I was shocked to read an account of how he and his brother had been sent to prison in California for bilking gullible Christians out of their money.
My point is this. You don’t take someone out from great difficulty and place them into wealth and power without a framework of Word inside of them. Persecuted Christians do not just become world rulers.
Word and Marriage. The last two lessons, “We Marry the Bride,” and “We Are the Word of God,” are much more important than I knew. Those who sit in thrones of judgment will be the fulfillment of Gospel Word and they will love the Church as the Lord Jesus. There is no other proof of Christ. Thus we see the critical importance that all things new MUST COME through knowing Gospel WORD and knowing God-LOVE, Jesus through us, faithful and True.
Yet now we see that, out from our present life in a very dark world, there proceeds a direct flow to how things will be, say, fifty years from now, a flow that means far more than the removal of evil and the resurrection of our bodies.
Our Eyes Are Set. As we look forward from here, our eyes are NOT set on the removal of evil. Nor are they even set on our bodies being swallowed up by life. Those things are given.
Our eyes are set on the unfolding of the Kingdom of God, on the outflow of the glory of His knowledge, and on the establishing of Christian Community, the New Jerusalem, in every land inside heaven-earth. Our eyes are set on glory, not “going to heaven” glory, but “heaven and earth married together” glory. A post-Apocalyptic world is a world of joy and abundance.
A Strong Limit. We are consumed with the unfolding of the age to come, the Age of Tabernacles, out from the life inside of us, age-unfolding life. How do we perceive the unfolding of that life?
First, God has placed a strong limit on this coming joyous age. That limit is expressed in one of the future “events” on our list, the release of Satan after a thousand years and the subsequent re-deceiving of most humans. This understanding is also found in Isaiah’s suggestion that a human who sins will die young, at a hundred years. Even without the presence of demons whispering in the human soul, the majority of humans will remain ambivalent towards Jesus in them.
The Tithe unto God. Thus we see that shepherding the ethnic families with a rod of iron is an essential element in the fabric of society. Zion, the ministry of Christ, will exercise that “rod of iron,” but that could never work without the mighty role of Jerusalem, the Church, Christian Community in every place, doing its job as the dynamic influencer of culture and society.
Thus I see ten percent of the population in every land on earth and among all the ethnic families, the tithe unto God, choosing Christian Community in a life of Spirit-filled joy and togetherness. Yet many other Spirit-filled families will live and work among the general population.
Three Elements of Society. Community cannot be by compulsion, and each must be free to go elsewhere for short or for long, and entirely inside of Christ living as them. At the same time, there are many forms and structures of Christ Community, yet all will know the same belonging and togetherness, the same knowing of one another.
And so we have three elements of society through the Age of Tabernacles. First is the New Jerusalem, Communities of Christ, second is the general population, yielded to love, but ambivalent towards Jesus in them, and third is that fascinating space of in-between, the flow and connection from one to the other.
We Are Caught Up. We assert that the unfolding of the Age of Tabernacles has already begun, and that we KNOW it and are part of it. It is important not to be sidetracked by the ending of evil or even by our great need to have our bodies swallowed up by life. The one thing we keep careful watch over is keeping ourselves clothed with the Lord Jesus in all our thinking and speaking.
What we are caught up with is the shaping of a new age out from Christ Jesus living as us, a new age that will prevail throughout all human society. The last few lessons of this study and most of Symmorphy VII: Completion will attempt to know what that means.
Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled, “We Sit in Judgment.” For that lesson, read Revelation 20:1-6 several times, noting every phrase, including the absence of the one who “leads astray.”
And I saw thrones, and THEY sat upon them, and judgment was given to THEM.
Again, we have “they” with no antecedent. Who are THEY? We cannot know the Age of Tabernacles and human society during the wondrous post-Apocalyptic world unless we first know the authority, the Pro-Thesis, out from which it is even now unfolding from our bellies. The Spirit is the River, but we are the authority.
Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, we thank You for the Grace that You are, in keeping us clothed with Jesus in all the thinking of our souls, even in moments of great jeopardy. And Father, we thank You that You have enabled us to see the Desire of the Lord Jesus as He fills our own hearts with His passion, that Desire to have all whom You have given to Him together with Him and with us.
“Father, we ask You to keep our eyes set on the unfolding of Your Kingdom, on the insertion of Your Spirit out from us and into the avenues of authority throughout the human heavens, that Your people are even now being released into the knowledge of Your Salvation.
“God, our Father, we see and call forth thousands of pastors all over the world, enclothing themselves and their people with the Lord Jesus Christ in all expectation of faith. Father, we see and call forth millions of believers in Jesus across the planet, rushing into the secret place of the Most High, into the fulness of Christ, into life together as the Tabernacle of God.
“God, we see and expect these things to unfold, even in the midst of calamity, in spite of all the wails of darkness and without regard to the dullness of unbelief. We expect to see the Church upon this earth filled with all the glory of God, loving one another with pure hearts fervently. Father, we ask inside of Jesus’ name, knowing that You always answer us.”