41. Sacrifice, Wood, and Lamb

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Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. – “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—” (from Genesis 22).

By this we have known love, because He set forth his soul, His story of self, for us, for our sakes; and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

A Living Sacrifice. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, devoted to God and well-pleasing, for this is your reasonable worship. And …be metamorphosed [that is, share the same pattern of expression with Christ Jesus] by the renewing of your mind, into [becoming the proof of] God's desire, that which is good, well-pleasing, and complete (from Romans 12).

Now, I rejoice in sufferings for your sake, and I am filling up that which is lacking of the travailing pressures of Christ in my flesh for the sake of His Body, which is the Church (Colossians 1:24). What I will share in this lesson is absolutely Biblical.

The Heart of Revelation. We know that as He shows Himself to us, so we are just exactly like Him, because we are seeing Him as He truly is (1 John 3:2 – paraphrased).

I am so glad that the Lord had me add this lesson, because a study of Revelation without Genesis 22 at its heart, fulfilled now in us, cannot be the Revelation of Jesus Christ. I had formerly titled this “Judgment in Heaven,” and placed it after our study of Chapter 13, but I see now that this title and this topic is the real judgment against all that is false inside of heaven and upon earth. – This is My full completion, that you love one another in exactly the same way that I love you.

Our Three Actions of Faith. This lesson is not a Jesus Secret page. It is the foundation and background, however, of a page coming up – “The Lamb through Us,” Revelation 14.

We are looking again at Revelation 12:11, a verse that takes us ever deeper into the Heart of God. But we will use a different order for our three actions of faith, as if it said – And they gave themselves to the Father as a living sacrifice, as the Word made flesh, and as the Lamb through them, and the accuser fled away. To give ourselves to the Father is not a performance, it is an acceptance. It’s not something we can do; it’s something Jesus has already done.

God Gives. We are talking about God, the inner workings of His Being. This is the only place we live, inside of Jesus, and by the instruction of the sixth ruling verse of the Bible, we approach everything we find, here inside of God, with all bold speaking and full assurance of faith.

God gives, and in the action of giving, God always expects a return. This is how God exists, by dynamic reciprocity. – We love God because He first loves us. – God gives all good things to enjoy, yes, but there is also a giving that is God, of a very specific and special nature. The special giving can be called “sacrifice.”

Take Heed How You Hear. We must be careful how we hear a word like “sacrifice.” Every word in the Bible can be heard by the mind of good vs evil, of opposition to and negotiation with God. As such, it has carved out a dark definition, parts of which must still linger in the back of our mind.

No word in the Bible has such a meaning, however, for all words that are the Gospel come out from LIFE. We must be careful to hear the word “sacrifice” only out from life, out from our union with Jesus, and His wondrous role connecting us always with God. – This One who gives Himself for us, for our sakes.

The One Who Gives Himself. The Sacrifice inside of God is the Lord Jesus Christ, not as a one-time act, but as the One who gives Himself for us and for Father continuously forever, that we might live with Father and Father with us. Blood Covenant means that Jesus first gives all of God to us, here inside of us, and then Jesus second gives all of us to God, here inside of God.

Every reference to the concept of sacrifice in the Bible means only what the Sacrifice that is Jesus means. Sacrifice does not mean appeasing the blood-lust of a hostile “God” or taking punishment meant for us. That way of thinking is profoundly wicked.

That Which Joins Together. There is so much to teach on the meaning of Sacrifice, out from our present view, but I must set all that aside to focus on what is critical for our present action.

Sacrifice is that which joins together. Sacrifice is always Personal.

Paul’s statement to Timothy, “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him,” does not mean what we once thought. It means being just like Jesus in this wondrous dynamic of living for the sake of others. It is Love, God through us, that rules. We have the joy of giving LIFE, that is, enabling creation to know God.

What Abraham Saw. Abraham offered his promised son, Isaac, back to God without reservation. He did that because He saw God first giving His Promised Son, Jesus, to us without reservation. Is that not what Jesus said? “Abraham saw My day and was glad.”

Abraham said two things on the way up Mt. Moriah. He said, “WE will return to you.” Hebrews says that means Abraham expected God to raise Isaac from the dead. And Abraham said, “God will provide Himself the sacrifice.” According to Jesus, it was not the “ram in the thicket” that Abraham saw, but Jesus.

God’s Open Door. Abraham was God’s rebuke against Adam on the one hand, and the reciprocal means by which God was free to send Jesus into our world on the other hand. Abraham offering Isaac to God was the open Door God needed to send Jesus into our world through Abraham.

By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—… In your Seed [Jesus] all the nations of the earth shall be blessed… (Genesis 22). The place where Abraham offered his son to God was the exact place where God offered His Son to us. – Reciprocity.

Just Like Jesus. “THEY loved not their souls to the death” does NOT mean that they ceased or died physically and it does NOT mean, “I am bad, and bad me must die.” It means, “just exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ.” It means sharing Hheart with God.

We can say the same thing in this way. “THEY gave themselves to the Father as a living sacrifice for the sake of their brothers and sisters.” When God says that He is inside of Christ reconciling the world to Himself, He means that Christ Jesus is the living and active connection between humans and God.

And We Also. And when God says that we are just like the Lord Jesus, when God says, “And we also,” He means that God has made us to be part of the Lord Jesus and Jesus part of us in this wondrous dynamic and living function of enabling our brothers and sisters to KNOW God inside of them. Abraham TRUSTED God absolutely.

I was asked by a reader to put Psalm 91 into the speaking of Christ made personal as us. I am including it here. This reads as personal safety inside of God for each one of us, but read it also as “And we also.” Read it as sharing with Jesus an utter trust in God for the sake of others.

Psalm 91 Made Personal. I dwell in the secret place of the Most High; I abide under the shadow of the Almighty. The Lord is my refuge and fortress; I trust in my God. God delivers me [and my brethren with me] from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He covers me with His feathers and under His wings I take refuge.

His truth is my shield and buckler. I am not afraid of the terror by night nor of the arrow that flies by day. I am not afraid of the pestilence that walks in darkness nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand might fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand, but I know that it will not come near me. Only with my eyes will I see the reward of the wicked.

I have made the Lord my only refuge. I have made the Most High my dwelling place. No evil will befall me, nor will any plague come near my dwelling. God has given His angels charge over me, they keep me in all my ways. They bear me up in their hands lest I dash my foot against a stone. I tread upon the lion and cobra; the young lion and serpent I trample underfoot.

I have set my love upon my God, therefore He always delivers me [and my brethren with me]. God sets me on high because I know His name, because I call Him Father. I call upon my Father and He answers me. Father is with me in trouble; He delivers me and honors me. Father satisfies me with sharing life with Him, age-unfolding, and He shows me Jesus, His Salvation now through me.

The Word Became Flesh. There are two other parts to the Sacrifice, the Wood for the Fire and the Lamb for the Blood. Wood, in the Bible, is a metaphor for our humanity. Here is the “wood” for the Sacrifice. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1).

When Moses saw God, he saw a bush of wood on fire, but not burning up. The Ark of the Covenant is the exact same metaphor, a box of wood covered on the inside and the outside with gold, yet remaining wood. That gold is an extension of the Pillar of Fire that was God touching upon the Mercy Seat.

There I Will Meet with You. Wood, our humanity, is as crucial to God in the picture of a Sacrifice by Fire as it is in the picture of a human vessel covered inside and out with God.

And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything… (Exodus 25:22). – That the proving of your faith, which is more precious than perishing gold, being refined through fire, that your faith might be found into praise and glory and honor inside the unveiling of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:7).

The Fire and our faith, the faith of the Son of God, are one.

Speaking the Same Word. THEY overcame [the accuser] by the Word of their testimony [same root word as – martyr]. Again, this is not the old, “I’ve got a testimony of what Jesus did for me.” We hear this only by the New, by homologia, speaking the same Word that is Christ, the Word now made flesh as us.

“I am just like the Lord Jesus Christ in all ways because I see Him as He is, I inside of Him and He inside of me – AND as my brothers and sisters to me. Here inside of my soul, my story of self merged completely with Jesus’ story of self, I join my brethren with Father.”

The Heart of Sacrifice. Of truth, this is the heart of Sacrifice as God has brought me to, my own story of self inside my spirit self-awareness. It would not be possible for me to convey to you the depths of loss into which God has brought me and said to me, “Give it all to Me, you and Me together, for the sake of your brothers and sisters all across the earth.”

It is as Him saying, “Daniel, give to Me all your hopes and dreams, your great NEED for the sake of your children, the Promise I made to you, the Community of your heart. Give it all to Me in utter weakness and trust, keeping nothing for yourself, that I might have an open Door through you into My Church.”

That We Might Know the Father. Why do we speak Christ made personal as us as the Word of our testimony? – “I am filled with all the fulness of God; rivers of Spirit are always flowing out from me.”

1 John 3:2 is God’s sworn oath to us that we are just like the Lord Jesus Christ in our completion inside of Him, a reality established in God before we ever began. We speak Christ made personal as us to know the Jesus whom God Sent into us, that we might know the Father. Speaking, “Father, You are with me, sharing this awfulness and this unbearable loss with me, and we, You and me, are turning our loss into unending goodness for our Church.”

The Blood of the Lamb. The Word of our testimony is the heart of our Sacrifice, it is harmony with a God of Fire, it is the Song of the Lamb.

That brings us then to – And THEY defeated the accuser of the Church, ripped his strength right out of him, by the Blood of the Lamb. Our statement of faith for the first part of Revelation 14 is “The Lamb through Us.” This lesson sets the foundation for that wondrous reality, seen as “blasphemy” by most, inside of the critical and core verses of the Gospel, as well as inside of this God, this mighty Fire, in whom we dwell in full assurance of faith.

The LIFE Is in the Blood. Our Sacrifice and the Word made flesh are taking place deep on the inside of us in our continual engagement with a God who shares our life with us. But the Blood of the Lamb is that which goes forth from us in power, altering everything.

The LIFE is in the Blood. Knowing the Father is in the Blood.

Before that Life can go out from us, however, it must become everything to us first. I finally know what the Blood means to us; at least, I am beginning to know.

The Mind of Christ. Let’s compare two opposing ways of Christian thinking.

On the one hand, we speak every Word of the Gospel as Christ Jesus made Personal as us so that we might know and be in tune with the meaning of our God. Equal with this practice is giving thanks and justifying God, for any dishonesty in self and towards others strips us, in our imagination, away from any effectiveness of Christ.

Into this practice comes two critical Gospel lines that change how we think about ourselves and everything else. The first is “sustaining all by His power-filled word,” and the second is “and we also – set forth our souls – just like Jesus did.”

An Evil Mind. On the other hand, we once saw God as distant and “superior,” a God who hates sin and our sinful flesh. Yet this God is schizophrenic, and His love forces Him to do what His holiness detests, to punish Himself instead. For this reason, Jesus had to be “God the Son,” so that God could inflict all His anger upon this Jesus, completely separate from us. Thus Jesus’ death appeased the blood-lust of an angry God, and “God the Son” took the punishment God intended for us.

Then, we imagined, that if we did not believe that this schizophrenic God loves us, we would burn in hell forever. In this mind, to be “like Jesus” in Sacrifice is BLASPHEMY.

“You Are Still Sinful!” This second mind is the mind we once lived by and the mind in which most of our brethren still think. It is this way of thinking about “God,” then, that looks at the practice of speaking Christ and says, “Those are just words. Speaking into the air cannot alter your sinful self. You are still a fleshy sinner, and you are NOT changed.”

With that claim is the accuser, and the bath of accusation in the heavens backing up the legal charge against us. And when we do foolish things that hurt others, it seems we are providing evidence for such a claim.

ENTER – the Blood.

Our Consciousness. Speaking the Words of the Gospel as Christ Jesus made Personal as us does change the way we think in our story of self. But I have had to accept that there is another part of our human souls that speaking Christ does not change. That other part is our consciousness, our spirit self-awareness, our knowledge that we exist.

I have seen that speaking Christ while remaining dishonest towards God and others brings no real Life. And so I have emphasized the importance of justifying God on the one hand and of saying to our brethren, “I was wrong, please forgive me,” on the other hand. But my speaking Christ comes out from something else.

My Knowing of Myself. I have never before been able to articulate this as clearly as I can see now. It is so exciting that we can go through each of the ruling verses again, and they become ever bigger.

My spirit-self awareness, my consciousness and knowing of myself, has existed inside of BLOOD, and every word I write comes out from the knowing of that BLOOD, specifically, the Blood of Jesus shed for me. Yes, speaking Christ has changed my thinking and my story of self, but it is the Consciousness of BLOOD inside of which my knowledge of self has always been transformed.

Any honesty I might express comes out from BLOOD.

Blood Judges Me. It is Blood that judges me. It is Blood by which I know that I am more valuable to God than the entire universe. It is Blood by which I judge my brethren. It is Blood by which I know that you are my glory and my everlasting reward.

Blood comes first – NO consciousness of sins – speaking Christ comes second. Blood shed for me is all I need to KNOW about the actions of Jesus towards me and inside of me, and the actions of God inside of Him. Blood shed for you is all I need to KNOW about you.

The All-Consciousness of Blood. This Blood is the Blood of the Lamb. We will never come to an end of discovering the mind-blowing meanings found inside that phrase – the Blood of the Lamb, meanings which all become us by 1 John 3:16.

I was once asked, “When can we connect with God directly without needing to go through Jesus?” I do not know such a mind, nor the mind that splits apart Jesus and Christ.

I share form with the image of God’s Son, and I put the Lord Jesus Christ upon myself, upon all that I am. I do so INSIDE the All-Consciousness of Blood.

The Source and the Flow. It is this All-Consciousness of Blood, then, that sends forth the Life of God as Rivers of Spirit into all creation. It is this All-Consciousness of the Blood of Jesus shed for me that removes the last tiny frequency of accusation from the heavens in which my brethren dwell and from my own heavens towards them.

It is the Blood that changes my soul, making my soul, my consciousness of self and Jesus’ soul, His consciousness of Self, to fit together. Speaking Christ in honesty, then brings the words of my thinking into line with the REAL. It is the Lamb coming through us into our world.

Going Forward from Here. I want to underline something very important for us to understand as we complete our study of Revelation. Most everything coming in our study is an expansion only of the realities of God and of Salvation already found in Chapter 12. In going forward from here, we are NOT leaving Revelation 12; we are not proceeding through “later events in time.” In fact, only portions of Chapters 19 & 20 should be considered as later events in time.

I am so grateful that God has enabled me to iterate in this lesson the Sacrifice out from which comes all visible Victory.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is tentatively called “Placing the Beast.” I hope to make each of the “seven attachments” which we break off from the Church the core of a lesson. The layout will not be quite the same, however. For this next lesson, besides reading Revelation 13, read also “The Image of the Beast” in Through Eyes of Fire. My understanding remains the same as what I wrote then.

And the wound of its death was healed. Then all the earth marveled after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon who had given authority to the wild beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is equal to the beast?” And, “Who is able to war against it?”

Let’s Pray Together. We will now change the focus of our prayers a bit, into an utter trust in God and in our brethren, the real meaning of speaking Life into the Church.

“God, our Father, we know that our Devoted Spirit, out from the Blood of the Lamb and out from the Word of our Confidence in You, is going out into all the world, touching the hearts of many.”

“Right now, inside of the name of Jesus, thousands of pastors in every land on earth are hearing and seeing a LIFE inside their Bibles as they have never seen before. Right now, eyes are opening and hearts are turning away from a God who “knows evil” and to a God who always IS.

“Father, we know, in confident expectation, that the Devoted Spirit is right now wooing the hearts of millions of people, preparing them for the unveiling of Jesus Christ, whether they believe yet or not. Father, You need only our willingness that Jesus has given us to You as a living sacrifice of joy. We know that You are bursting through the wide-open Door of our hearts into the knowledge of many.

“Father, inside of the name of Jesus, millions of Bible readers are seeing John 14:20 explode in their consciousness, and the profound absoluteness of the Blood shed for their sakes. Right now, Father, millions of Christians, unnoticed by the outward world, are saying ‘Let it be to me according to every Word that You speak.’ It is as we declare, in Jesus’ name.”