24.1 The Bronze Laver
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The Bronze Laver is the last piece of furniture put into its place by Moses. You can see its position in the Rose Guide to the Tabernacle on page 29 and its description on page 35. Moses did not give a clear description of the shape of the laver, so you will see differing representations. This washbasin was made – from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting (Exodus 38:8).
Here is Moses’ instruction to all priests. When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the Lord, they shall wash with water, lest they die. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they die (Exodus 30:20-21).
The Water of the Word. This washing, then, is brought specifically into the New Covenant. Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27).
And again – Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil consciousness and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10: 22). The Word cleanses us as well as the Blood.
From All Filthiness. Let’s consider this quality of the Word a bit more. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it (Hebrews 4:2). – Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit… Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you (1 Peter 1:25).
There are, then, two sides to this cleansing process. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you (John 15:3-4). – Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Corinthians 7:1).
Knowledge Not in Everyone. We must understand the specific work of this cleansing water in our lives before we continue. What is cleansed? What is “all filthiness of flesh and spirit?”
Paul used the same root when speaking of our consciousness, which the writer of Hebrews said is “sprinkled.” Yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with habitual remembrance of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their consciousness, being weak, is defiled. But food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse (1 Corinthians 8:6-8 – modified from the Greek).
Placing the Bronze Laver. Putting these seven New Testament verses together allows us to arrive at a clear understanding of what God means by our being cleansed and how that cleansing is accomplished in us. Yet before we begin to explore that understanding, let’s first place this bronze laver of washing into our study of Covenant.
On our way into the knowledge of God, this washing of the water of the Word begins in the outer court, immediately upon our inclusion in the Sacrifice of Jesus. On our way out as the knowledge of God, this washing of the water of the Word, this River of Spirit flowing out from the Mercy Seat of our hearts, cleanses all things wherever it goes. The cleansing is for us going in – and for creation coming out.
The Laver in the Covenant. Let’s further place this Laver into the Covenant. – Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).
A reader has pointed out to me that Paul said in Ephesians 4 that there is ONE baptism and that the baptism in water was little more than the baptism of John the Baptist. Indeed, when Paul came to a certain place, he found they had only been baptized in water – the baptism of John the Baptist, and thus he led them into the one baptism of Christ – immersion into the Spirit.
One Baptism. In the Tabernacle, this Water, then, is placed immediately in front of the entrance into the Holy Spirit. It is interesting that, although water baptism was certainly practiced by the other disciples and even by the followers of Paul, yet Paul himself never baptized anyone in water, only into the Holy Spirit.
Water baptism serves only one thing – to point immediately to the One baptism of the faith, immersion into the Holy Spirit. More than that, without this baptism into Christ Jesus, that is, into the Spirit, we could not know except by the Spirit what it means to be immersed IN the death of Christ and what it means to live now IN His life.
The Great Divide. I have always understood water baptism as our first signature to the Covenant. This signature comes after we are born again, for only now do we have any knowledge of what a Covenant with God might mean.
Yet here is the great divide in the Word of God. God NEVER intended any kind of “Christian walk” separate from full immersion into His Spirit.
| Water Baptism The Letter of the Word, the Bible as mental knowledge. |
T H E D O O R |
Spirit Baptism The Living Bread, the Word now Jesus inside. |
The Way God Intends. I see now that in this study, we have transferred the signing of signature to the Door instead of the Laver. And that is exactly what the Laver tells us.
When we use the Bible to know righteousness during God’s appointed season for us in the outer court, then we make use of the letter of the word in the limited way God intends. But the moment a born-again believer refuses to enter into full immersion in the Spirit – by unbelief, as the writer of Hebrews states, then the Brass Laver, the letter of the Bible, is turned into something else.
The “water” is then used to make people filthy, not to make them clean. And this is exactly what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 8:7.
God’s Right Actions. Let’s look briefly at Godly righteousness coming to us from the letter of the word (in contrast to ungodly “righteousness”). At no point do we ever use “Christ living as me” to justify any outward actions of unrighteousness.
Let’s define an action of unrighteousness. An action of unrighteousness is any means by which we might treat other people with willful intent to abuse them for our gain. Here are some of those actions – murder, adultery, theft, lying in order to hurt, and physical, sexual, or spiritual abuse. As we embrace the Sacrifice of Jesus for us, we see, from the Bible, that these practices of hurting other people for our carnal gain have no place in our lives. This is Godly cleansing.
Walking Cleansed. Yet when I look at the lives of those of you who, with me, rejoice in Christ having become all that we are, including our sinful actions, I see those who cannot imagine willfully hurting someone for calculated benefit. I see people who care deeply about others and are saddened when their momentary foolishness does bring hurt to someone. Yet they place such normal human bumbling into Jesus.
There is a huge difference between speaking angrily out from limited seeing and human frustration VERSUS speaking angrily with the sole purpose of causing someone hurt. But when we have not yet entered into the Spirit, the Bible does teach us about these distinctions and how to walk cleansed.
Removing the Mixture. But – the Bible cannot cleanse anyone. We know that is true, the moment we step through the Door, which is the One Baptism of the Christian faith, full immersion into God’s Holy Spirit, and see that it is the living Bread, the Lord Jesus Himself, now living in our hearts, who is the only One who cleanses us. And this is the entire point of the cleansing verses at which we looked.
The Greek word for “cleanse” is katherizo, verb and kathors, noun. It has become our English word, catharsis. It means to remove all mixture, to remove out from the consciousness, the spirit self-story, things that are untrue.
The Bible Cannot Give Life. One of the tenets of Nicene theology is the “inerrancy of Scripture.” As I considered that claim, my only thought was, “So what!” You see, the mental belief, stating the words, “The Bible is without error,” CANNOT give life to anyone. So, you have an “error-free” Bible; yet you will not, by that Bible, come to Jesus alone that you might have Life.
The truth is, the concept of “error-free” has no relationship to the Bible as I have come to know it, especially as we have discovered so many willful errors in the translation. The Bible is God fitting His word into and through the lives, the experiences, and the minds of limited humans seeking to know an unknowable God.
The Spirit Gives Life. My strength is made perfect IN your weakness.
The Bible, in itself, is not a magic book. It contains nothing that can impart life to any reader. It is the Spirit who gives life, the mental study of the Bible profits nothing. The Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life (John 6:63 paraphrased).
So, what does the “Bible” do in the hands of those who will not enter into the next place in God. And you see, this refers to those preachers who will not enter the Holiest just as much as those preachers who will not enter the Holy Place. Both evangelical and deeper truth preachers stand with their backs turned against the next place in God and use the Bible for the opposite purpose of God’s intention.
Making God’s People Dirty. These preachers, refusing to enter, use the Bible to make God’s people DIRTY.
Let’s look carefully at 1 Corinthians 8:6-8 before drawing in the other verses. Paul begins by stating the present essence of our lives. EVERYTHING we are, EVERYTHING in which we exist, comes out of the Father and is for the sake of Father. AND – everything we are, everything in which we exist, is found inside and coming THROUGH the Lord Jesus and is known by us only inside of Him. Paul makes it very clear – There ain’t nothing else.
Holding to a False Idea. But then something happens, Paul says, something not God’s intentions. And this something takes place only inside the false thinking of the individual person.
Think of that. Paul said – there is not in everyone that knowledge. – This KNOWLEDGE of God all in all, of Christ our only life, of we in Him and He in us, does not exist inside of all Christians. Some Christians still hold the idea that this or that is our “sin.”
The first “conscience” used by Paul is a different word than the second. The second is our consciousness, our spirit self-story. The first, being aware of the claims of an idol, means “sharing the same moral view,” that is, an entrenched habit.
A Shadow of Condemnation. Let me give an example. When the Lord brought me back to Himself at age nineteen, in that instant, all desire to continue smoking vanished from me. I simply no longer smoked. Yet, awhile later, I fellowshipped with a good Christian couple, Spirit filled, of whom the man continued in addiction to cigarettes, which his experiences with God had not removed. Because of “Christian teaching,” this brother in Christ lived under a constant shadow of condemnation, believing that, by the Bible, he was dirty.
But look at Paul’s conclusion in verse 8. – So what if you eat, so what if you don’t eat, neither one puts you in God. – So what if you smoke, so what if you don’t smoke, neither one puts you in or removes you from God.
A Mirror of Evil. The brother should have laughed with joy and enjoyed his cigarettes with the Lord Jesus. If, perchance, the Lord had removed the desire to smoke from him, then quitting smoking would have been the wise thing to do. But smoking is not sin.
You see, by seeing “the flesh” as evil, preachers have done exactly what the Pharisees did, adding unending things to the list, calling all of them “sin.” And thus, by the Bible, they lay on God’s people reason after reason why they are “filthy” and thus why they are not allowed to go any further into God. They use the Bible as a false mirror of judgment to see evil in their brother’s heart and not Christ.
No Mixture. With this thinking, now, we can better understand each of the other New Testament references to the Cleansing Water of the Word. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. You are already clean; now, live inside of Me and I inside of you and don’t live anymore in the false story of separation.
Here is the mixture of filthiness from which we must be cleansed. “I am responsible for my own sin before God. – All that the Lord says, I will do.” And we are cleansed from such filthy separation of mixing “Christ AND self” in our spirit as much as in our flesh.
Every Whit Clean. He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him – flesh of His flesh, one flesh with Him.
As the words from the Bible come to us, we receive them into ourselves through FAITH as the Lord Jesus Himself alive inside of us, now the only life we are. By mixing those words with our faith – Be it unto me according to Your Word (the faith of the Son of God), we are made every whit clean by those words.
Jesus is the only life I am.
And thus at no point and for no reason do we ever draw back from our Father, but we enter with joy into every place inside of Him into which He leads us. – And this is the gospel.