1.2 Focus and Layout
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The premise of this course is that another Person, God Almighty, lives inside of each one of us as ALL that He is, and that this Person connects together with us in our persons in specific and knowable ways. More than that, those specific and knowable ways by which God in Person connects together with our persons are found in the words of the Bible, are revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, and come into us as Christ Jesus Himself.
The guiding idea of this course, then, is that the Lord Jesus Christ, in His own Person, utterly Human, existing in the form of a life-giving Spirit, is the entire connection between our persons and the Person of God Almighty. As we know Jesus connecting us with Father, so we know the Covenant.
Defining Covenant
A covenant is first a legally binding contract between two parties in furtherance of a shared goal. By joining their resources together, both parties hope to achieve what they could not on their own. Unlike a contract which is temporal and limited, however, a covenant is a much greater binding together. A marriage covenant is limited to this age, but is total in its joining of two in all of their persons and resources. A blood covenant is similar to a marriage covenant, although it does not include becoming one flesh.
A Symmorphic Covenant, on the other hand, is far beyond either; a Symmorphic Covenant is Person inside of person, a merging of all things inside and out forever.
Conditions
This course is different from the prior three courses in Symmorphy. For the last couple of months, as we approached the end of Symmorphy III: Kingdom, the responsibility of God upon me regarding Covenant has been increasing. Writing this text is the greatest and most important task my Father has ever placed upon me. I proceed with the deepest of carefulness, the knowing that I must remain entirely inside the CONFIDENCE that God utterly directs my steps, Father and I together in all things.
We will discover nothing, in this course, that is not out from the words of God on the pages of the Bible, yet the Father intends to open to us things from those words that the Spirit has never yet revealed to any created beings.
Focus # 1
The first focus of this course is that our relationship with God, a Being filling us with ALL of Himself, exists in the context and by the definitions of a Covenant. And moving forward from what a Covenant is and does, we find that Romans 8:28-30 is the central expression of the Covenant binding God with us and we with God. Romans 8:28-30 is not “the Covenant”; Jesus is the Covenant. But this most important verse in the Bible contains the words that are Jesus by which we know Him as Covenant. Thus, a very large part of our task in this course is to discover what God actually says and means through Romans 8:28-30, its context, its words and phrases, and the unimaginable implications flowing out of it.
The Context
When we say, “context,” we mean, in part, not only Romans Chapter 8, but the entire book, inside of which are two key men of the Old Testament, Abraham and David, who lived inside the reality and meaning of Blood Covenant. We also include the other key New Testament verses and passages that support and extend the Covenant based inside the key phrase of Romans 8:29. Out from His pro-knowing Heart, God is determined to symmorphose us together with Jesus as the express image of God’s Person, that Jesus might be the first-born among many sons of God just like Himself.
We shall be like Him – transformed into His same image.
Words and Implications
By “words and phrases,” we include the investigation of this determined God, of the deepest levels of His Heart and intentions as opened to us by these huge Greek words employed by Paul in this verse. More than that, the word “first-born” as well as the life-meaning of Covenant requires a deeper investigation of human DNA and of the conception and formation of a child in the womb. This course, Covenant, is where the full reality of Symmorphy comes home to us.
And by “implications,” we mean – well, come along with me, if you will, and let’s find out what on earth God might mean by dwelling inside of us.
Focus #2
The second focus of this course is a premise of my own, a premise not coming directly out from a Bible verse, yet drawn from many woven together.
Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isaiah 40:3). The clearest picture God gives us in the Bible of the way of God, the path He walks down as He seizes for Himself all of His determination, is the tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness. Thus I assert that we cannot know the Covenant except we walk with God through His path beginning from the Holy of Holies and out into all creation.
This is not “our” path into God, but God’s path out through us; yet He walks this path as one Pperson utterly together with us.
The Tabernacle
For that reason, the tabernacle of Moses, its parts, its materials, and its furnishings, is the central structure or outline of this course. Except we are doing something beyond incredible. We are not progressing through the tabernacle with God in the manner set before all Christians who would believe in Jesus. Rather, we will begin with the Pillar of Fire upon the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies. We will begin with all incorruptible perfection, first, entirely inside of LIFE.
To understand how the Tabernacle works for God and how we will see it in this course, consider the following diagram.
His Own Arm
God endured the old creation shattered by Adam for 4,000 years. Inside that time He entered into a covenant with the children of Israel based on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – in order to prove to us that “good” people beget only evil, that knowing right from wrong cannot give LIFE. Then, Jesus entered Adam’s creation in order to kill everyone. If One died for all, then all died (2 Corinthians 5:14).
For 2000 years the invitation has stood before all humans to enter into life, but all have refused, and have turned “life” into being dead that they might continue as Christians in unbelief. Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him (Isaiah 59:16). God Himself enters the appearance of the old once more to seize all into life, starting with His Church.
Focus # 3
Our third focus all through this Covenant course will be that every particle, element, and truth found in our Covenant with God, each one of us as individuals, correlates directly with the same bond connecting us together as one Body. There are differences between our individual union with God and our union with one another, but only in scale, not in kind. Each particle of our union together as the Body of Christ comes out from the same source as that same reality found in our union with God. We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another (Romans 12:5).
Members one of another.
With One Another
We have no Covenant with God except we walk in that same Covenant with one another, that is the Church. Yet our individual Covenant with God, walking with Father as one Pperson together, always comes first and is the source of that outflow that is our Covenant with one another. Yet even our Covenant with one another, though it shapes the outflow of Kingdom, yet it is still inner, found entirely inside the Heart of God, for we dwell together nowhere else.
Every Word found in the Bible, including all that present Christians wrongly fantasize onto being “in heaven,” is fulfilled in all fullness in one place ONLY – inside of CHURCH, Christian community, brethren walking together in love.
Two Directions
And thus we find that this Covenant course is pointing us in two directions at the same time. First, having caught a vision of the Kingdom of God flowing out from us ordering all creation by LIFE, by Father made visible through us, and seeing the defeat of death and the casting of the curse from off this planet, we now must know, each one of us as individuals, the extent and reality of our Covenant with God. But then, we find that the same Covenant binds us together as one Body, and thus we also look forward from this place to Symmorphy V: Life. The Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Jesus who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:23).
Limiting the Focus
In spite of those two directions of seeing, however, the focus of this course remains tightly limited. We are looking at the Covenant that enables Kingdom, not Kingdom itself. We are looking at the Covenant that enables Life together, not Life together itself.
And this Covenant is a Bond. And this Bond is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus this one line contains all that Covenant is and means: Christ lives in your hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:17). For in Christ is Father, and in Christ we are one together.
Course Layout with Rationale
How do we approach this topic? How do we lay out its parts?
When I wrote my book titled The Covenant, I placed two things side by side as the pattern to follow in my desire to know how God binds us to Himself and Himself to us. The first of those things was the walk of Jesus through the Atonement, from the upper room to the resurrection, and the second was our walk through the Tabernacle and through its seven pieces of furniture.
But now we know that those who live in the Holy of Holies have turned completely around, God now moving through every particle and circumstance of their lives to reveal Himself. Covenant is already true, and God now moves from that Covenant to transform all outward appearance.
Paul’s Gospel
BUT – Christ lives in your hearts through faith IS Covenant, and thus we must begin only with Paul’s gospel and with an attempt to define what a Covenant with God might mean out from that gospel. Thus, defining Covenant requires a deeper look at Romans 8:28-30. Pro-Thesis and the nature of our Covenant Bond, that is, Jesus Sent, must come before the Tabernacle to set the direction of everything that will follow.
Then, before we begin with the Holiest, we must take a look at the structure and layout, the materials and ingredients that make up this Tabernacle. This course also requires the following book, Rose Guide to the Tabernacle; order it from Amazon, it will be invaluable to you for understanding.
The Holy of Holies
Moses’ actual assembly of the Tabernacle is found in Exodus 40:17-35. This is the pattern we will follow (mostly), God’s path out into His creation through the Tabernacle. The second part of the course will be an investigation of the Holy of Holies. Already, the diagram above, “Locating the Tabernacle,” has altered my entire understanding of the universe and of the Bible. The Pillar of Fire is the Ekenosen of God, our great ministry of calling forth all that is God into the knowledge of all.
Inside this study of the Holiest, we will find the Pro-Knowing of God, His very Heart in which we live. We will study the conception of life and come to know the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat upon it as we have never known before.
Through the Veil
Then, from the Mercy Seat, we look through the Veil, now our flesh, having given our flesh utterly to Jesus as His own, and we see our fellow Christians who are drawing near to the Holiest, but are afraid to enter into LIFE. Thus we investigate more deeply the Pro-Determination of God, the Zeal of the Lord of Hosts as He, by His own Arm, brings forth Salvation.
This next part covers the Holy Place, including the gestation of the child in the womb, and the full knowledge of already being symmorphosed with Christ out from which comes our covenant as believers together as Bread, together as Light, and together as Incense, and resulting in the image of God, Father revealed.
All Creation Made Subject
In the last portion of the course, then, we look at the final ending of the appearance of the old creation, of Adam’s sorry death of make-believe and pretending, as Wwe, Father and us together, bring into LIFE every individual person, Christian and non-Christian, still hiding inside the old. This part of the course places the outer court, evangelical Christians who refuse to trust God enough to receive immersion into His Spirit, the birthing as Full Covenant Sons, the meaning of prophecy, or Pro-Calling Forth, as well as the consuming fire and the cleansing water that eliminates the appearance of the old in those who once gnashed their teeth, before all creation is made subject to Father through Christ.
Yet in all this layout, we limit our study entirely to Covenant.
Restatement of Guiding Idea
The guiding idea of this course is that the Lord Jesus Christ, in His own Person, utterly Human, existing in the form of a life-giving Spirit, is the entire connection between our persons and the Person of God Almighty. As we know Jesus connecting us with Father, so we know the Covenant. Thus our study of Covenant is the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, placing Him into His full and complete role in our own knowledge and experience, that Bond by which God Almighty walks together with us, Person inside of Person inside of our persons together as one Body.
And out of this Covenant alone, our knowledge of the One who lives in our hearts, flows all the outward appearance of the New Creation, swallowing up all into LIFE.