18.3 Patterns of Light
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing—Life forevermore (Psalm 133).
Arrange interior spaces to gather light, each according to its needs, over the course of a day and over the course of the seasons. Important rooms deserve balanced light from at least two sides. And try to let light surprise you somewhere: a drop of light on a landing, a wash of light on a north wall. (From Patterns of Home by Max Jacobson, Murray Silverstein, and Barbara Winslow – 2005)
Incredible Wealth. I think that David is using the metaphors he knew to express the same thing the metaphor of “capturing light” expresses for us as we apply it to brethren dwelling together in unity. In fact, it is easy, when studying David’s two metaphors, the anointing oil flowing down Aaron’s beard and the dew flowing down from Mt. Hermon, to forget what it is the metaphor is showing is and to expand endlessly on the oil or on the dew.
The wondrous thing David was expressing, and the wondrous thing we are using the pattern, “Capturing Light” to express is all the goodness and pleasantness coming out of many individual persons sharing of themselves together. The incredible wealth that is found in each member giving all that they are freely and without obligation is beyond measure.
We See by Light. The Lord has, however, thrust into my travail a view of this topic that is Kingdom instead of Covenant. Of course, the two cannot be separated, for Kingdom is always coming out from Covenant and Covenant is always sending forth Kingdom. Indeed Covenant is just a focused word for Word and Kingdom is just a focused word for Spirit.
And yet, as I think about this issue, I realize that this view of God’s House is, indeed, the center point of the Covenant, the target of all accusation, and the proving of the Lord Jesus Christ. Light is that which enables seeing; we see only by light. When you look at Christians across this earth what do you see?
Two Lights. When I say, “Christian,” I mean any individual person who calls upon or looks to the Lord Jesus in any way. We do not have the authority to decide who belongs to Jesus and who does not, and to imagine that we do is sheer folly. Jesus IS Savior and Salvation; He alone saves in every moment of every day; He alone carries all through death and into life.
There are two lights in the Tabernacle of Moses, the light of the sun and the light of the seven lamps of the lampstand, that is, the light of the Church. On our way into the Holiest, our time of trying to understand God on the one hand, and seeing our brethren on the other, was by the light of the natural mind, entirely inside of God’s season for us.
Refusing to See. I now understand the precise reason why so many, in entering into the Holy Place and in going on to the Altar of Incense, refuse to enter the Holy of Holies. The reason is simple. They want to see God through the light of the Spirit, but they refuse to see their fleshy brethren by that same light. No one will enter the Holiest except those who carry inside their own hearts ALL of their fleshy, vacillating, carnal, unbelieving, pretending, deceitful brethren with them into all that Jesus is.
The REAL Altar of Incense is Gethsemane, Jesus taking into Himself all that we are, in all of our fleshy and wicked rebellion. And we also enter the Holiest with the same heart agreement with God for the sake of our brethren.
Floods versus Fire. As I look across the earth right now, I see two powerful forces in full and present opposition to each other. Only one of these two is visible to those who see by the light of human distress; the second is completely unknown by most.
So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood (Revelation 12:15). We are mixing metaphors here, but it is VERY important to understand that we are talking about the same thing. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire (Revelation 1:14).
ACCUSATION against COMMENDATION
The Fire of Our Eyes. It is the FIRE of the seeing of Jesus through us that transforms everything out from the old creation and into the New.
Yet as we come out with God from the Holy of Holies into the Church, the Fire burning out of our eyes hits smack up against the flood vomiting forth from the jaws of the dragon. The Fire of our eyes is for the Church; the vomit of the dragon is against the Church. And when I say “Church,” I mean the definition I just gave of a “Christian.” What is it that you see when you look upon Christians?
Here is that same contention. To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure (Titus 1:15).
Inside of Jesus. Here is another way of saying the same thing. – To Christ all things are Christ, but to not-Christ, all things are not-Christ.
I want to bring into our picture Colossians 1:16-17 modified from the Greek before getting down to the brass tacks. Inside of all the sphere that is Jesus God created all things, that is, all things in the spiritual heavens and all things in the physical earth, all things that can be seen and all things that cannot be seen… All things come through Jesus and all things are created entirely inside of His purposes. And Jesus is the source of all things and all things are commended, hold together, stand together, and proven out – entirely inside of Him.
All Things. Remember that “all things” refers only to those things that exist. All actions of sin and death are not, for in Jesus all died (2 Corinthians 5) and by Him all sin is expiated (1 John 2:1). And in Him there exists neither sin nor death. As we learned in Symmorphy II: Essence, justice and restitution have nothing to do with atonement, but are simply functions of the river of Life.
Now, let’s get down to the brass tacks. The driving force of all that is contrary to Christ in Christianity is the loathing contempt for other Christians. The vomit of the dragon against Christians began immediately upon the passing of John.
The Vomit of the Dragon. The vomit of the dragon does not come through non-Christians; it comes through the mouths of Christians. This reality became quite stark to me during this recent flooding of Houston. Someone lied about Joel Osteen, and instantly the lie went viral, echoing through the mouths of all those who love the sound of accusation flowing through their souls. You see, God has given Joel Osteen the incredible ability to “swallow up” the flood from the dragon’s mouth without it bothering him at all. But Joel is not the accuser’s biggest threat in Houston; I am. The accuser sees Joel, while I go unnoticed.
The Soulish Believer. Accusation has always defined this world and Christianity in this world, but it seems to me that accusation, coming out of envy, has taken on in our present day a dimension and a capacity that it has never known in human history.
When Watchman Nee was just 21, he wrote a book called The Spiritual Man, which I also read when I was just 21, during my first experiences of Christian community. I saw myself at that time as a “mature” Christian truly seeking the things of God. Then I read Nee’s chapter titled “The Soulish Believer.” It was describing me in its entirety. I was so devastated it took me a full week to recover.
All humans and all Christians are not just a mess, we are a disgusting, odious, and reprehensible mess.
7000 Christians. Over the last two years, I have looked at the Facebook pages of more than 7000 individuals who call themselves Christians by some definition. These are across the English-speaking world including British Africa, British India, and British China. Let me define the outward appearance of what I have seen. Shallow, contentious, fleshy, religious, deceived, pretentious, arguing over meaningless mental ideas, putting on a strutting show, little knowledge or acknowledgment of a personal Jesus, exaltation of the world, contempt for one another. And yet, here and there, in just a few, I also saw the simplicity of love for Jesus. The difference was staggering. We are talking about Gethsemane, about Christ in this world.
Contempt. From the passing of John on, the great NEED to keep all these squabbling, flesh-ridden Christians in some sort of “Christian” order became the drive of all theological definitions. In fact much of what makes the New Testament so confusing is the back and forth between the vision of Paul’s gospel confirmed by John and their same attempts to keep all these pretentious and squabbling Christians in some kind of decent order.
By the time of Tertullian in the AD 200’s, the deep contempt for Christians held by those in ministry, especially a contempt for women, had created out of the flood of the dragon the doctrine of “eternal hellfire.” Jerome, who put the tare of “eternal hellfire” into our Bibles, despised most everyone. And always at the center of “fleshiness” was sex, thus the contempt for women.
Above the Storm. In Symmorphy III: Kingdom, in Lesson 27.2 The Second Witness of Christ, I included an Annie vision that I have shared many times, “The Wave of Pure Light.” I use this vision because it shows with great clarity those who live above the present storm of evil now in full hurricane mode across this earth, and how they give strength and blessing to those believers in Jesus caught under the storm.
Let me define living “above the storm.” To live above the storm means not living below the storm. I have always hated this definition, but it does work here. I CANNOT see Christians by outward appearance. I have never known anything more life-laid-down than this.
The Wrath of God. Since 9/11/2001, the American government has destroyed or helped to destroy the lives of some 100,000,000 people across more than six nations including being directly responsible for the deaths of more than 2,000,000 people. And my brethren in this country support the illegal actions of the American military and the wicked government that directs it as “God Himself in the earth.” Now they are baying for the murder of millions of Koreans including millions of Korean Christians.
My heart is absolutely broken especially for the Libyan and Syrian people whom we have decimated without reason. And I want to send the wrath of God upon the American Christians who make this evil possible. Yet I have chosen to be the revelation of my Father in His Church, and thus I must lay down my life for these same people.
Against Me. Let’s be very plain here. – He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad (Matthew 12:30).
A few years ago, a brother who wanted to connect his ministry with mine was speaking accusations publicly against other Christians. I shared with him privately that I cannot connect this word of Christ our life with such a practice. His reply to me was, “I call it like I see it.” – And so do I. – I refuse to see any Christian except as the Lord Jesus Himself. I do NOT care about ANY outward appearance.
The question you must answer for yourself is who will win? Will accusation, the same old same old, continue to define Jesus as His people or will eyes of FIRE change the universe?
Breaking Hell from Me. Those who see Christians as fleshy, sex-addicted, and obnoxious wastrels are seeing Jesus through the hell fires of accusation. The dragon does not win. And those who see Christians as all the glory of Jesus in all of His manifold expressions are setting creation free.
I lived in the affliction of intense Church, Christian community, for about fourteen years before God caused me to see my own perverse judgment and selfish complaining against His precious people. God took me through hell to break hell from me. And when that filthy perversity was fully gone from me, only then did I begin to see the immense treasure that you are.
Accusing the Holy Spirit. Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? (Romans 8:33). – Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men (Matthew 12:31 – right after “He who is not with Me is against Me”).
All accusation against Christians IS accusation against the Holy Spirit; it is the vomit of the serpent. The shortcomings of all Christians are forgiven them, but to hold contempt against their outward appearance, regardless of how it stinks, is to set one’s self against the Holy Spirit.
Now, let’s bring this whole topic back into the power of the Covenant, the very foundation of the Kingdom.
By the Sight of Our Eyes. Only after all accusation and complaining was broken in me, from 1992 to 1996, did I begin to discover the extraordinary wonder and richness to be found in all of my brethren, in each one who belongs to Jesus.
Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16). Few concepts in the Bible have been more rejected and spoken against among Christians than this one.
Can you and I change the universe by the sight of our eyes? Will our brethren become all the fulness of Christ now in this age entirely out from you and me seeing them to be so?
Light Is You. When you aggravate the tar out of me, when you fail me, when you turn your back on me and betray me, when you do and say all the things I hate, will I SEE you as the Lord Jesus Himself in all perfection and will I honor and regard you as Him?
Being a channel of the accuser is common and blasé. Haven’t we had enough history to prove the falseness of such filthiness?
Light is all the colors of the tapestry, all the hues, all the variations of shade and brightness. Light is all the individual Christians carried by Jesus inside Himself. Light is wealth. Light is treasure. Light is you.
Those who accuse live in abject poverty. Those who see the goodness of Jesus in each one know realms of abundance and wealth never before conceived by the human mind.
Let Light Surprise You. Everyone imagines that in “going to” heaven, that is, in dying, they will find all these things. The Bible says we find all this treasure of Christ only in Church.
For where two or three gather together in My name, there I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20). This is Covenant. And I am willing to cast my entire being, in all rejection of all desire to accuse, into the practical fulfillment of this Word, at whatever cost to me.
I am willing first because accusation isn’t worth crap, and mostly because I believe in God, but also because I know for real just how great of a treasure you are. The church, which is His body, the fullness of Jesus who fills all in all.
– “Let light surprise you.” –