10.1 Victory as Cause

The majority of this text is a study of the Age of Tabernacles, its foundations and its life. Through the Age of Tabernacles, all that God intended for human life on this earth is brought to full completion. The cause of the Age of Tabernacles is Victory. Victory is what gives to the Age of Tabernacles its shape and focus, its essence and meaning.

Though we have already possessed this Victory as Jesus inside of us, yet the outward experiences of our knowing of that Victory are more valuable to God than we can comprehend. In these two chapters, “What Victory Has Wrought” and “Salvation Revealed,” we hope to see what Victory does inside of us.

How God Becomes Known. When I first penciled in these two chapters, I knew their importance, but I had little idea of what would be in them. As I approached the writing of them, over the last couple of weeks, I saw wonderful things, yes, but not how they should flow together. Yet I have felt an immense urgency that these two chapters convey great clarity and definitive Truth.

Specifically, we are approaching the final battle. Our strategy must be certain. Our path forward must be clear. God’s intentions must be KNOWN. The weapons of our warfare must be laid out in front of us. The purpose of this short lesson is to set out what will be found in these two chapters, how God becomes known.

Shaping the Human Soul. This chapter, “What Victory Has Wrought” is every way in which Jesus shapes us with His Victory given to us. Jesus’ Victory is the very moment of His Resurrection. Yet this Victory was never Jesus “fighting against.” Rather, it was Jesus fulfilling the Father’s command by joining us with the Father. Thus Victory is “out from.” Death vanished because Jesus did not regard it, as He did not regard either Satan or the world.

There is nothing more powerful in its quality of shaping the human soul than knowing LIFE out from death. Yet that LIFE is the Lamb out from death, a Personal nature that reveals Father. Thus our faith is also the Victory, our certainty that Jesus shares all that He is with us.

God Being Himself. Then, “Salvation Revealed” is how Father actually enters into being known through His Church over the next few years. Salvation is one thing. Salvation is Father known.

In our study of Paul’s gospel, we said that Salvation has two parts – for us. Those two parts are first, knowing the Father, and second, life shared together as the Church. But that is from our point of view. From Father’s point of view, the salvation of creation is God Being Himself inside of that creation. Think of the entrance of light through a crystal. The point of entrance is individual believers knowing God, but the display of light as colors is the Church, God Love among many.

Compassion and Abundance. “Salvation revealed” is another way of saying “Father made known.” And Father becomes visible as two things. The first visibility of Father is Compassion. Then, Compassion is always followed by Abundance. Think of the Parable of the Exuberant Father.

Yet the criticality of the next several years is the “by” and the “through,” male and female. God is made known to the Church BY the second witness of Christ, and God is made known to creation THROUGH the Church. What Victory has wrought, then, is the operation of Covenant, that which is within. But Salvation revealed is the operation of Kingdom, that which is made visible outwardly.

These Two Chapters. Thus we have penciled out the six content lessons of these two chapters, “Victory as Life,” “Victory as Faith,” “Victory as the Lamb,” “Father Made Known,” “By the Second Witness of Christ,” and “Through the Church.”

All through these six topics we must weave two things. The first is a pure and Personal Spirit Word, Living and Energeoing, shaping the thinking of every human soul and the fabric of all human interaction, that is, human society. The second is sharing with Jesus the deepest quality of the Lamb, our soul given to the Father for the sake of another, for Father’s sake, that is, a place inside the authority given to us, our hearts, wherein the Father might be joined with the other.

The Fourth Ruling Verse. These two qualities, Father and Son, assume a third quality already inherent in us, and that is the Spirit causing us to know all things already True, our redemption, and our participation inside the Fellowship of Salvation. Thus we see that these two chapters are an expansion of the fourth ruling verse of the Bible, beyond what we have known.

Now have come the salvation, the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one who has accused them in the presence of our God day and night. And THEY have overcome him through the blood of the Lamb, and through the word of their testimony; and they have not loved their souls unto death.

The Purpose of this Course. I suggested that you read the three lessons found in Chapter 12 “War and Peace” in Symmorphy VI: Mankind prior to this lesson. If you have not read/listened to them yet, do so. Then, we want to re-visit the introductory chapter of this course, written over a year ago, so that we might be reminded of the purpose and guiding idea behind each of these lessons.

The purpose of this course is to consider the completion of God among humans. That is – What is God in completion inside His creation as He wishes Himself to be? And the guiding idea of this course is that the Kingdom of God emanates forth, unfolds every moment, from Father and us sharing life together.

The Most Powerful Blow. In Mankind Chapter 12, I presented our Victory as a fight. Yet that text was Covenant, and from the point of view of Covenant, we fight. This text is Kingdom, and in it I am suggesting that we “do not fight,” but stand in the certainty of Covenant. Thus, our certain confidence in God, our faith, is the fight, just as it was with Jesus.

Saying to God, “You have answered me,” inside of “for Father’s sake,” is the most powerful blow sin and death can be dealt. It is the blow that swallows them up. Thus it is those who are fully turned around, “God through me into my world,” who reveal the Father’s Compassion.

Urgency. I want to go back to the urgency I feel and the criticality of the hour in which we live. There is no more time.

Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled’ (Luke 14:21-23). Jesus is describing the gathering of the woman to be clothed with the sun and the second witness of Christ who brings her into the knowledge of God inside of her.

A Pure Mess. God’s House is the Church as Community, right here on this earth, right now in this age. Outwardly, this rapid, even compulsory, gathering into Christ will look like a mess, as does most everything God does. But inwardly, everything is coming out from a pure and Personal Spirit Word, living and energeoing, penetrating into everything, shaping all things as the Kingdom now come.

God has not anointed me with the demonstration of power; He has anointed me with a zeal over the Word, that it flow in all purity and Truth. And so I have devoted seven chapters to the largest section of this text, “Building the Kingdom,” a Word out from Victory.

What Happens? What happens inside of us as we speak the Word that is Christ, the all-speaking of God, and watch as that Word overturns everything, swallowing up all the awfulness of this world and establishing a Church that is altogether glorious? We add one thing only to that Word, and that is the confidence of our faith, the faith of the Son of God, the only faith we know.

What happens is that we will KNOW God. And we will know ourselves, that we come out from Him. We will KNOW Victory, a Victory that causes all the revelation of the Father as Love dwelling among us expressed through the Age of Tabernacles already begun.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “Victory as Life,” that is, Life swallowing up death. Again, our focus is on what kind of persons we become as we know all Victory made visible out from us inside of all darkness. I want to set the reading of four chapters in front of you as we proceed through the next six lessons. Those chapters are 12 of Mankind and 1-3 of Completion. For next time, read/listen to Chapter 1 of this text, “Perspectives and Layout.”

Then the word having been written will become, “Death has been swallowed up into and eliminated by victory.” – To God be thanks, however, the One giving us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, we dwell inside of You where we know the Determination and the urgency of Your Heart. The time is now; there is no more delay. Today is the Day of Salvation; today is the Day of our Lord.

“Father, we ask You to cause the Lord Jesus to be the confidence of our faith, that You might possess a wide-open door through the authority of our hearts, Your Word mixed with our faith having become the unveiling of Jesus Christ. And Father, we ask You for that mighty gathering together of Your Church into Christ from all heaven-earth, that this present Age of Your Patience might be swallowed up by the Age of God Tabernacling Among Us, right here on this earth.

“We know, Oh God, that You have answered us. It is so.”