13.2 The Holy Place
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
One would naturally think that a discussion of the Veil should precede our placement of the Holy Place inside the Covenant. Yet we cannot really understand the Veil as it has become to us now until we have a view of the Holy Place as God intends His Church to be. For that reason, we will picture the Holy Place before we look at this incredible transformation of the Veil from that which blocks to that which reveals.
Look at pages 54-55 in the Rose Guide to the Tabernacle to see a representation of the Holy Place. This room is 10 cubits wide, 20 cubits long, and 10 cubits high, the same as the Holiest, except twice as long.
An Extension of the Holiest. You will see that the two side walls of the Holy of Holies, gold-covered wood boards draped with four layers of covering, continue on out into the Holy Place, making this place simply the outward expression of the Holiest. Remember that in our view of the Holy Place by Covenant, we are seeing it as God intends as His revelation.
The Holy Place itself is the place of the journeying of the Ark of the Covenant. Let me explain what I mean. The Holy Place has two passages, two screens. On the west side is the Veil that is now the face of the Father to His Church, and on the east side is the Door that is the face of the Father to all creation.
The Face of God. Let’s bring in again this most extraordinary statement. …the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak with you. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory (Exodus 29:42-43).
The word “before” is actually, “in the face of,” making the Door into the Holy Place, that is, the face of the Holy Place which everyone sees, to be the very face of God to His creation. And so this “face” looking out from the New Jerusalem to all creation, the “face” of God’s elect (the veil) looking out from the Holiest into God’s church, and the ceiling of the Tabernacle, the first covering, are all white linen embroidered with many-colored threads.
The Face of Christ. Consider this entire statement of Paul as he intended it to be interpreted out from Moses’ Tabernacle representing to us Jesus as the Way having become now Jesus as our Life.
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:3-7).
The Barrier Becomes the Face. The white linen embroidered with colored design represents the face of this treasure we contain, that is the Word made flesh, Christ, the image of God, written upon our hearts, now seen and known by all as He is through us. The words, “we …preach …ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake” represent the face of the Holiest to the Church inside the Church. “The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” is, then, the full knowledge of God in all creation through a family of people, believers in Jesus, walking together, loving one another with a pure heart fervently.
Every “barrier” into the knowledge of God then becomes the face of God on His way out into the knowledge of all.
What God Looks Like! And in all of it, including the first covering being Jesus as every Word God speaks, God going first to the Bread of Life, the faces of Veil and Door, all of it is Jesus as the Word, sustaining all things by the word of His power, the good speaking of God, the Word made flesh, God among us. We are the Body of Christ.
The BARRIERS on the way in – HUMAN FLESH – become the face of God on His way out into the knowledge of all.
“Whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe.” The great issue is – WHAT GOD LOOKS LIKE! And the great rebellion, the barrier, is “God has to look like an angel from heaven; God cannot look like me.”
God in the Church. But the process by which the Barrier becomes the Face, called transubstantiation by the Catholics, is the topic of the next lesson. Our study of the Holy Place is a study of the workings, the energeia of God, operating inside the Church.
Now, the full expression of that life force that is God operating through a family of people forever is the topic of Symmorphy V: Life. Our purpose in this course is to establish the Covenant-basis out from which all of that life expression proceeds and upon which it is based. We have seen the outline of the Holy Place; let’s now look at the functions taking place inside of it.
The Energeia of God. In the picture on pages 54-55 of the Rose Guide, you can see clear representations of the three pieces of furniture, the “fire” pertaining to each, and the functions of the priestly ministry in regard to this energeia of God transforming Christ substance into Christ appearance. I like the strong role of the priestly ministry in this picture. We will look at the true role of God’s ministry in His Church when we get to the sessions on each piece of furniture.
But look at this statement – It is the Energeia of God that transforms Christ substance (Word) into Christ appearance (became flesh). Not by outward strength nor by inward ability, but by My Spirit, says the Lord (Zechariah 4:6).
Fire and Strange Fire. We must understand this point of contention for God inside the Covenant.
And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting, and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people, and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord (Leviticus 9:23-24 & 10:1-2).
No Human Effort. Here are the “negative” terms of the Covenant. – No strange fire – no human effort to “perform” Christ. It is not just unbelief that keeps our brethren out of the Holiest, but the Hand of God against them, that is, Mercy. No human effort to “perform” Christ is ever found inside the Holiest. One who turns back to trying, lying, and crying has never really known the Holiest.
Faith in the Word God speaks, that Jesus Himself fulfills all that He is inside of us, does have its own fire, fire meeting Fire – faith which energeoes through love. The translation of energeia/energeo into work/working has robbed us of an essential element in the knowledge of God.
The Work of God. Here is the term of the Covenant we are seeking. Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:28-29).
Now, this is not the word energeia, the inward fire, but ergon, that is the outward performance of work. Our outward performance in the Covenant is to believe IN the Energeia that is Jesus Sent into us, the One who transforms Christ Word into Christ made flesh.
Notice, however, that it was in the Holy Place, and in mimicking the Altar of Incense, that strange fire was offered to God.
Inside the Church. Let us view the Holy Place, that is, the Church, now working by the Energeia of God. It is inside the Church, many together as one, wherein the Bread of Life provides sustenance to all. It is inside the Church, many together as one, wherein the Light of the Anointing directs the steps of all. It is inside the Church, many together as one, wherein the Aroma of Christ fills God’s Heart with joy and goes forth as Christ into every place.
The Holy Place is the Working of the Holy Spirit inside and through the Church, a family of people, walking together, loving one another.
Spirit and Body. Here are the eleventh and twelfth most important verses in the Bible. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).
And here are the two primary supporting verses. The Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life (John 6:63). – 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).
The Energeia of Christ. Just as Spirit and Word are always together, never ever separate, Word coming in the form of Spirit, Spirit coming as Word, so it is the same in the New Testament with Spirit and Body – Spirit and Church. Awhile back I counted eighteen New Testament references pairing Spirit and Body or Spirit and Church. Those verses, then, form the basic structure or outline of Symmorphy V: Life.
The effective working by which every part does its share – that word “working” is Energeia. This is the Energeia of Christ: Christ sharing Christ with Christ. This is the work of the Holy Place, out from which all that is the Witness of Christ proceeds.
True Salvation. This journey we are on, as God’s Ark of the Covenant through whom Father is seen and known, going out now into all the concourses of Christianity in this world, is glorious, yes, but very disconcerting – disturbing, even. For we see just how awful the “gospel” our brethren hold in their minds really is, a gospel of holding the right ideas about some Faraway Thing and of offering this Thing the strange fire of human effort, “trying their best.” Even those who teach grace will not enter the Holiest and turn around in order to give God His Body.
But we are comforted in this – that we have the true Salvation. His name is Jesus, and He carries all inside Himself as Salvation regardless of all their confusion.