10.1 A Box of Acacia Wood
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height (Exodus 25:10). – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory (John 1:14).
The Hebrew word translated “ark” could just as well be translated “box” or “container,” or as Paul said it, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7). We have seen that you and I ARE the Covenant, Jesus in, as, and through us, towards God's creation as Father revealed through our life laid down and our love poured out.
This session will attempt to describe us as God knows us.
Utterly Human. God knows Christ. Therefore, when Christ is the only story we speak in full confidence of faith, then God knows us. Yet as we see Christ through all that we are as we find ourselves to be, it is our own stories that are the Christ God knows.
The Ark was made of acacia wood. The Ark is everything that is human, and everything in the Ark is utterly human. In this study, we are using these symbols to lay out for us the realities of the New Covenant. The gold covering over the wood inside and out is God Himself in Person. God is invisible. No one sees God, only man.
Acacia Wood. He that has seen Me has seen the Father.
I am including in the Appendix my article on The Ark of the Covenant from my earlier attempt to know The Covenant. Everything in that earlier article fits here, especially the formation of God’s chosen acacia wood, what it is and what it means in our own lives. The only thing anyone will ever “see” outwardly is the acacia wood itself, our human flesh. Yet God says that He Himself in Person covers us on the inside, that is, fills us full with ALL of His fullness. And that He covers over us on the outside, that is, flows out from us as rivers of Spirit setting creation free. We believe what God says.
God Himself. Let me draw in some statements from that earlier writing.
“The Covenant is not a package of things we get from God. The Covenant is God HIMSELF in Person, filling us full. God sends us nothing; He comes in Person to be Himself our insides and our outsides. God is very good at being God; it's what He does best. God knows exactly how to be God in me and how to be God flowing out from me. God's side of the equation is set and certain. All we have to know is that the largest part of who and what we are on the inside and on the outside IS God in Person. We know that by faith.”
Faith Alone. What does it take to stand before skeptical people and say to them, “In seeing me, Daniel Yordy, you are seeing God”? Faith. Faith alone will do this, the simple, quiet, and very human decision that God is telling us the truth. Yet it’s NOT that we go around saying such a thing, for God is meek and lowly of heart, always seeing others as better than Himself. The key is that we KNOW. And in the certainty of our knowing, others will be caught into life. No one is threatened by the real image of God, because the real image of God is always saying to them – “And you also are the expression of Christ, know Him inside of you.”
The Testimony of God. This is the testimony of God through Christ – Man is the appearance of God in His creation, man is what God looks like. I, in all of my weakness, in all of my undesirable appearance, AM what God looks like, NOT an angel of heaven exhibiting outward perfection and beauty and thinking highly of himself.
I have placed before you, over and over, the snapshots of God that God gives us of Himself, WHAT GOD LOOKS LIKE – a man embracing little children in his arms, a man on his knees to serve, a man rising to his feet in Gethsemane, a man stumbling under a cross he cannot carry, a man hanging bloody, bruised, and unashamed upon a cross of wood. God as He IS.
We Are this Box. It is only as we KNOW that we are just like Jesus in all ways right now, in all of our present humanity, as the revelation of Father through our stumbling and foolish weakness, that we have turned our backs forever on Adam’s wicked rebellion. And it is as we KNOW that we are just like Jesus right now, revealing Father through our every moment, exactly as Father wishes to reveal Himself, that we are this Box that carries inside itself a most wondrous treasure – the Covenant. For we have this treasure in earthen vessels. – Flesh of His flesh, one flesh with Him.
Read through my previous article on the Ark of the Covenant; here, however, I want to place this Box that we are under and into the Fire of God.
Utterly Personal. Let’s pull back into our thinking the picture of the Fire that is God touching us as we are seated there upon the Mercy Seat, upon the Blood. But there is no Mercy Seat apart from the Ark, for the Mercy Seat is simply the top part of that Box.
The Ark in the Holiest is utterly personal to each one of us. All of us together as one are the flowing out of that fire through the furniture of the Holy Place to become God revealed to all. But the Holiest, and in particular this Ark, refers only to each one of us as individual persons as if we are the only one in whom Christ is written.
Our Own Self. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him …a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it (Revelation 2:17).
This Jesus as every Word God speaks written upon my heart has become me, all that I am as I find myself to be in this present age. God starts here. Any connection between this Jesus as me and this same Jesus as you can come only as you and I, personally inside ourselves, KNOW this Jesus as our own self.
In the outward picture it seems that the Fire passes through the Mercy Seat first, but God did not say, “Make Me a mercy seat.” The FIRST thing He said was: “Make an ark of acacia wood.”
I Give You My Heart. Yet the Fire that is God comes into creation to consume and to transform all that is offered to Him. We have one thing only which we offer to God – our hearts. And upon our hearts all the writing that is Christ.
“Father, I give You my heart, and on my heart all that Christ is as every Word You speak and every thought You think regarding me. My heart is Jesus; my heart is me. Father, I give You my heart with all abandonment and joy. Father, consume my heart into Yourself, that You might show Yourself to me as my own self, that I might KNOW You.”
We see, however, that this Fire that is God, has become, not outward fire, but Resurrection as the energeia that consumes us.
Energeia. The exceeding greatness of His power penetrating with purpose into us who believe, down to the finest details of the energeia of the dominion of His ability to subdue which He energeoed in Christ when He raised Him out from the dead (Ephesians 1:19-20 modified to the Greek). Go back and forth in your mind between all the New Testament verses containing a God who energeoes as energeia inside of us and this Pillar of Fire upon the Mercy Seat, passing through each piece of furniture to consume what is offered to it, – as they are the same thing.
I have not thought much about Aaron’s rod that budded until now, yet now that Action is the Rule of this whole session and of all things that are God inside of us.
The Hidden Manna. The Fire of God as resurrection transforms our hearts, the written Covenant of Christ, into the hidden manna. This hidden manna is personal to each one of us and known only by ourselves inside ourselves. God’s thoughts concerning me are mine; He does not tell them to you. God’s thoughts concerning you are yours; He does not tell them to me.
Here is the hidden manna – that they might know Jesus whom You have sent.
But let’s trace the terms of the Covenant through this picture God gives us of the Ark, the wooden box, the earthen vessels that contain and carry this mighty Treasure.
The Terms of the Covenant. He that has seen Me has seen the Father. – For we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power (fire) may be of God and not of us (no strange fire). – For My strength is made perfect and is come to full completion inside all the sphere of your weakness. – That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. – Out of your belly will flow rivers of living water.
Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, written with the ink of the Spirit on the tablets of your heart of flesh. – Reckon yourselves to be alive INDEED unto God. – That they might know Jesus whom You have sent.
The first set of verses describe the box that we are, wood and gold together, the last three Covenant terms are the real treasure inside that box made of God and our human flesh.
The Action of the Fire. Notice carefully the verse I chose as Aaron’s rod that budded – Reckon yourselves to be alive indeed unto God (Romans 6:11). The Action of the Fire is our action inside this Covenant; it is the boldness of our faith. We are part of Christ IF we are confident that we ARE part of Christ. And from that CONFIDENCE comes the MOST precious knowledge of Jesus as ME that could ever be tasted, my own, personal hidden manna, known only in the fellowship between this Sent Jesus and me.
The truth of the Mercy Seat will most definitely blow us away; this Ark is our anchor, our own personal presence inside the Holiest.