22.1 Fire Against Fire
22.1 Fire Against Fire
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Fire Against Fire. We cannot call forth Christ into the human experience unless we first have a clear idea of the human experience.
There is NO group salvation. There is no group anything. There are only two – ME and God. God goes forth from me to love you and God goes forth from you to love me – that is the Body of Christ, the expression of Salvation. But Salvation is One and one. Salvation is a confrontation between God and each individual person. Yet it is true that this One-and-one confrontation can happen simultaneously among many.
The Altar of Sacrifice. In this lesson, we are referring back to the purpose of Symmorphy II: Essence, for we cannot know the Altar of Burnt Offering unless we know what it is and does. Indeed, this Altar of Sacrifice is the bedrock of our Salvation and the basis of our Covenant with God.
In both the heavens and the earth there are many “geographical” places. In God there are many dwelling places. But the distinction of place is the outward appearance of creation only; the distinction of place has no relationship with the reality of God in which each individual entity exists. In order for us to grasp the meaning of the Altar of Sacrifice, we must possess a full picture of our individual reality.
Two Conditions. Consider these two conditions of relationship with God.
The yellow is God. All Here Now. Personal. In Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). The small black circles are individual humans who exist ONLY inside of God, yet these remain ignorant of God by replacing God with their own story of self. Look carefully, then, to find the individual humans inside of God in the right circle.
God Is Fire. Let’s understand these two forms of existence, both entirely inside of God. First, we know God as Fire. Yet God is two very different kinds of Fire, depending entirely on the story of self inside the bubble of each individual person. For our God is a consuming Fire (Hebrews 12:29). This word, “consuming” is katanaliskó, which means to consume utterly. This consuming Fire is represented by the fire on the Altar of Burnt Offering.
Yet God is also a life-giving Fire, Fire as we have come to know this critical gospel Word – Energeia.
I Am in Father. Consider carefully those who live inside of God, having put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the story line that forms the basis of all their existence. “I am in Father and Father is in me.”Notice the complete absence of “I am right” inside that story line. They have no need of such a claim for the white circle of Christ, their only enclothing, is the One who is right with God. Thus we see that the Fire of God inside of them, a Fire they know as their own heart, is the Energeo, the working of God, which is Love. And thus love goes out from them through faith, that is, through God to others. Love energeoing through faith.
The representation of the white circle, you and me, clothed with Christ, inside of God-Fire and filled with God-Fire, is the normal state of being human, God’s only intention for human existence.
The False Story. To understand the Altar of Sacrifice, then, we must understand the false story, the strange fire, burning inside of the fallen human condition.
The black circle is the skin of the beast placed by God upon Adam and Eve in the garden, God’s mercy upon them. Inside that black circle is the raging fire of the false story of self, a story that is a unique and constant version of “I AM RIGHT.
” We can see by the yellow circle the full reality of every individual false story, whether human or angelic. Each one exists ONLY inside of God. God – each one.God as Hades. Nonetheless, no false story sees God as He is. Therefore, we must give a different representation of each one’s perceived reality. The grey circle remains God, for there is no such thing as no-God. What we are looking at is God as He is perceived, not as He is – which is Love.
And thus this perception of God has a name and is actually identified as a “place” – Hades. And God Himself is called “Wrath.” God is Love, not Wrath, yet strange fire is capable of perceiving God only as Wrath, not as Love at all.
Accusation. Now, let’s look more closely at what is actually going on inside this false story of self. Note first that physical death does not alter this reality of Hades in which each false story perceives its existence.
The arrows, then, coming out of the individual monologue version of “I am right” are the ACCUSATION – “God, You Are WRONG.” But notice that no accusation ever leaves the bubble, all of it bounces back upon self, thus reinforcing the need to cry, ever louder, “I am right.” All accusation is against Christ, the good speaking of God. Let’s hold that thought as preeminent in comprehending the Altar of Sacrifice.The Little Gray Bubbles. What, then, are the little gray bubbles inside each individual human’s false story of self? They are the real source of the strange fire. In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now ENERGEOS inside of the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2). Humans are symmorphic. Not being filled with God MEANS being filled with demonic, unclean, spirits.
Gehenna. Let’s understand the human reality. Demons are as familiar to every human being as their own breath – and that includes you, dear reader. So much of what you once called “myself” in your past was not you at all, but another person inside of you, secreting his animosity at just the right level for you to imagine that his poop was your own view of things. In just the same way, our physical body is filled with bacteria, both good and bad, as well as worms, all bad and all pooping.
So, what are we looking at inside each human existing by their own false story? Gehenna – where the fire of “I am right” never ends and the eating of worms continues.
Gehenna Within Means Hades Without. Gehenna, the name of the garbage dump for the city of Jerusalem, where refuse was always burning and rotting animal carcasses were always being eaten by worms, was used by Jesus as a graphic depiction of the condition of soul in every human not clothed with Christ. To every false story, Gehenna is within and Hades is without. Losing one’s physical body does not alter this condition.
Here is the gospel. The story is false; it contains no reality at all. Let it go BY taking upon yourself a new story, Christ Jesus. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not “get rid of” the beast skin, for doing so will only expose your flesh. First, put on the Lord Jesus Christ as your only story, after that, the false story will just dry up and fall away.
Dealing with Fire. Now, we must understand this condition of Fire against fire.
You see, carnal Christians, perceiving God through the image of the serpent and not knowing God as all here now, but rather as a formed Thing up there somewhere, not knowing God as Love, but rather as Wrath, have then interpreted all the discussion of FIRE in the New Testament as external and literal. Then, other carnal Christians, perceiving that God redeems all, but not knowing God as the Fire in whom they live and who fills them full, pull out their knives and cut all the FIRE verses out of their Bibles.
You and I, receiving into ourselves all that God speaks as Christ Jesus our only life, discover this incredible word ENERGEIA, and realize that all the Fire stuff is our Father.
Strange Fire. Now, in God’s patterns, the strange fire in the Old Testament was a literal fire started by Nadab and Abihu themselves. In the New Testament, the strange fire was Annanias and Saphira LYING about themselves in the face of other Christians in order to appear “holy.” Peter, however, perceived this outward motive for lying as nothing other than lying against the Holy Spirit.
Let’s take this perception, then, to every accusation uttered by all humans. To the human, the accusation is against other people. In reality the accusation is only against God. Yet in accusing other humans, the accusation only comes back upon self. Thus the strange fire speaks “I am right; they are wrong,” but hears back only “You are wrong.”
The Psychology of Self. Now, let me make an assertion here, something I rarely do. I am willing to assert that this layout accurately describes the psychology of the human self living separate from God. By this layout we can understand the horror in which all humans live and the necessary elements in any Sacrifice intended by God to penetrate all that falseness with the truth.
We can also understand the entrances in the Tabernacle, that is, the signatures of the Covenant, as their progression in our lives from living in all accusation TO redeeming all as the good speaking of Jesus. And we can understand what God really means by all the Fire and Wrath verses of the New Testament. “Wrath upon” describes, not God as He is, but their perception of God. Saying “there is no wrath” brings no one out of Wrath.
Story against Story. God-Fire, God-Story speaks in this wise with every breath. “I love you. I see you as better than Myself. I lay down My life for you.” Strange fire, false story speaks in this wise. “I see myself as superior, as right. All of my problems are caused by these other people who are so wrong. I will manipulate them to serve my own exalted sense of rightness and privilege.”
Do you see how incompatible these two stories are? The false story is SO UNREAL. Yet there it percolates inside of God’s All-Here-Now story of “I love you.” Two human questions will NEVER EVER be answered. “What is wrong with me?” and “Why did this happen to me?” The only thing that will happen is the questions will cease.
Which Fire Wins? Let’s increase our understanding of how incompatible these two fires really are. Most of humanity, including most of our Christian brethren, call this FIRE that is God – Hellfire. You and I call this very same FIRE – Jesus. To them God is a consuming Fire; to us He is the Energeia of our lives. “I love you; I lay down My life for you” – AGAINST – “I am right; You are wrong.”
We have a very simple question here; which story will win? Which fire will consume the other? But do you see how utterly incongruous and without purpose the false story really is?
A False Definition. Now, inside the false definitions of God and man inside Nicene Christianity, human reason concocted a definition of redemption that is NOT what God says. The worst element in that definition, and its core, is this assertion. God hates sin and sinners. God was determined to cast all humans into Hell forever. BUT – Jesus came and paid to God by His sacrifice the price God was demanding of us. Thus God backed off, just a bit (although Jesus still has to plead with Him for our sakes) and agreed to allow some humans to be happy in heaven forever – the rest will burn in Hellfire, something quite agreeable to Jesus. This reasoning takes place only inside the false story of ACCUSATION, seeing God through the lens of the serpent.
For Us. We cannot know the Altar of Sacrifice by any particle of that false definition. Nothing in the Sacrifice of Jesus was “for God.” All of it, every aspect, in every way, IS FOR US. Is that not what the Scriptures say? For us, For us, For our sakes?
The false story inside that bubble of self has no meaning. It is irrelevant. There is NO purpose whatsoever in its continuation for one second more – in any human. But the human grips “I am right” with a white-knuckled tenacity in the firm conviction that to let go of “I am right” is to lose everything. What is God to do?
My Savior. God cannot sin; He does not know rape. God cannot force His knowledge through that bubble of self to persuade the human speaker to shut up. Nor can God force anyone to take upon themselves the true story of the Good-Speaking of Christ, the only story by which all live.
What is the ONE THING, the ONLY thing, that will catch my attention inside this desperate argument of “I am right; you are wrong. I am right; you are wrong,” in order to look, for one brief moment, at something beyond mySELF?
There is only one thing. A Man, an ordinary human being just like me, but an innocent man, step by stumbling step, laying down His life FOR me. – My own personal Savior.