13.3 The Veil
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The picture of the broken-down Altar has overwhelmed me. I feel like weeping, as Jeremiah wept walking around a broken city, as Elijah wept as he lifted each stone back into place.
We are speaking of Jesus as the Way, with every step in God’s path through the Tabernacle as an essential point inside of knowing the Person of Jesus as that Way. The real Jesus, the Jesus that we know alive in our hearts, living now as us, is not known. In His place in the minds of our brethren is a broken-down image, a tiny, limited, ineffective, and faraway “Jesus.” Every step God’s people take in the Way is in the real Jesus, but then they turn that step into a broken picture of His true Self.
Ravenous Wolves. The Way into living in God and God in us, that is, to Life, was not broken down in Christianity by neglect. In complete contrast, the knowledge of that Way has sustained fierce and unrelenting assault from the start. Paul warned the Christians of Ephesus that “ravenous wolves” were coming who would destroy the knowledge of the way. Paul called them “ravenous wolves”; Christianity calls them “the Church Fathers.”
Now, when our brethren picture “Jesus,” they image a faraway humanoid demigod, not unlike Thor or Zeus. They know nothing of Jesus as the WAY, here and now, by which God makes Himself visible through us.
Two Ways in One. We have learned that there are two Ways in one. There is the Way into Life for all who will continue on to know the Lord, and there is the Way for God to proceed out into His creation to be known by all. We could say – the Way to Life and the Way to Body, or – our Way to Substance and God’s Way to Appearance.
Of the Way for believers into Life, God says that it is broken down. Of the Way for God into being seen and known, God says that it is filled with debris. Repairing the “altar” and removing the debris happens simultaneously. But it can happen only as a people, living only by the REAL Jesus, come through the Veil as the Covenant.
Transubstantiation. We now have the framework through which God can give us a present understanding of the two BIG aspects of His own Being, Pro-Determination and Symmorphy. But before we do that, let’s take one final look at the incredible transformation that has taken place in our flesh, now the appearance of Christ revealed through all of its mortal sphere. – Transubstantiation.
He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood has LIFE (John 6). – God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has LIFE (1 John 5). – We ARE the Body of Christ (Romans 12 & 1 Corinthians 12). You see, the Catholic definition of transubstantiation speaks something different to me than to them.
A Catholic Definition. Paragraph 1376 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states: The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation (CCC, 1376).
An English Definition. Let’s break apart this big word from the Latin. The root is substance, which itself has the root of “to stand” qualified by the pre-fix, sub, or under. – Substance is that which stands under all existence. Sustaining all things by the Word of His Power – Substance Under all. The suffix “iation” means the condition or action of, and “trans” means to go across, or to transfer something from one to another.
Transubstantiation – the Action of Jesus by which He transfers the Substance of His Flesh from Himself to us as we eat of Him.
Our Definition. And the Word BECAME Flesh.
Because Christ said that it is truly His flesh that He offers us to eat, it is our conviction as the Church of God that by His consecration of this new and alive way through the Veil, that is His flesh, there takes place a change, a transformation, of the whole substance of His Flesh as the Word into the appearance of our flesh as the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of His Blood as our only Life into the appearance of our life together as the Church as we together eat and drink of Him in the fellowship of communion. This change we could call transubstantiation, but we prefer to call it Jesus as the only Life we are, that is, Jesus Sent INTO us, that is, symmorphy.
Turning Word into Flesh. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). This really is what we are talking about, the center point, the fulcrum of the Covenant, the turning of Word substance into flesh appearance, the turning of flesh as our expression into flesh as the Father’s expression.
How does the Word become flesh? How does God appear in and to His creation? These two questions are the same. On the one hand we have a God who cannot be known and a creation which cannot know God. And on the other hand we have God’s incredible proposal and intention – that All may KNOW Me!
Flesh of His Flesh. This is the transformation prior to the resurrection, that our flesh becomes the face of God to His Church. In other words, this is part of the reality of the fulfillment of Tabernacles Day One in human history.
Now, in a long history of writing provocative statements, I have never written something more “OUT THERE” than this – “that our flesh becomes the face of God to His Church.” And yet, so many core New Testament truths are arising into my mind that are saying exactly that.
I want to refer you back to Session 18: Flesh of His Flesh in Symmorphy I: Purpose. I will draw from the truths in those lessons here, but without needing to repeat what you find there.
The Flesh of Christ. Human flesh empty of God is all wrong. Human flesh filled with God is His image.
And the Word became flesh and we beheld His glory – Who being the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His (God’s) person. Then – when He had by Himself purged our sins (Hebrews 1:3). Note the strong emphasis on “BY HIMSELF.”
Having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus consecrating for us a newly sacrificed AND a living way through the veil. – (His flesh) (Hebrews 10:19-20 modified). The Living Way through the Veil into all the knowledge of God is the flesh of Christ.
God Made Visible. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:30-32).
We ARE the Body of Christ – we are the flesh of Christ. Before the resurrection? – that the life of Jesus also might be made visible in our dying flesh (2 Corinthians 4:11). Made visible – that is, the face of God to the Church. One word best defines that face – Kindness. And one adjective best describes that definition – Abundance, or, shall we say, exuberance.
The next two sub-sections are from Symmorphy II: Essence.
The Covenant. The Covenant has three parts.
Part 1 – the Source: This is the covenant – that all shall know Me. – This is eternal life, to know You, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Part 2 – the Fulcrum: God is determined to symmorphose us together with the image of Christ – We are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory – We shall be LIKE HIM for we shall see Him as He IS.
Part 3 – the Expression: That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us… And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.
The Fulcrum. Fulcrum means turning point, or the point of leverage by which the Covenant is turned from Source to Expression. The turning point of the Covenant is that we, you and me, humans walking this earth in this present age, will BE exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ without any limitation and in all ways except in place of honor. And the action that will cause us to be exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ is SEEING Him as He IS.
The expression of the Covenant, of course, is even more purely blasphemous, for Jesus placed you and me entirely into the fellowship of Father and Son, walking as one Pperson together with the Father by every Word that is Jesus.
The Singularity. If we could reduce the Covenant down to a singularity, a solitary and fixed point, before which there is no Covenant in Action and after which the Covenant is all for all, that singularity would be this one thing – our flesh become the face of God to His Church.
How does the Word become our flesh?
Become – Ginomai: to come into being, to happen, to become. I come into being; I am born; I become; I come about; I happen. According to Vincent’s Word Studies, gínomai means a manifestation implying motion, movement, or growth. Thus it means the unfolding of God out from His ALL HERE NOW, but invisible being, into being known in time and space.
The Jesus Secret. Only the Fire of God, Energeia, receiving into itself our flesh offered freely to Him, can cause this transformation to happen. Yet it is the Word, coming as Spirit, that becomes our flesh.
I wrote The Jesus Secret before I knew anything about our precious union with Christ. In fact, my entrance into that knowledge, my entrance into the Holiest, took place as a direct result of writing and re-writing The Jesus Secret. Yet, at this singularity of the Covenant, we find that the premise I set forth in The Jesus Secret is, for us that very transformation. The Word becomes Personal in our mouths as we speak Christ the only life we are. As we speak Christ, seeing His face in our mirror, we are transformed into the same image BY the Spirit of the Lord.
The Ekenosis. The gospel has never been anything else. Now, the Veil has two sides to it, the side facing God in us and the side facing one another together.
This “transformation” of our flesh is the Ekenosis of God. I put “transformation” in quotation marks because it is not our bodies that change at this point; they remain mortal. It is God Himself who transforms Himself from being invisible to being seen and known. That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
Strange fire is Adam’s rebellion, trying to “act like” God without God, trying to be “godly” as a “responsible” agent separate from God, and then lying followed by crying.
When the Covenant Becomes the Covenant. Our flesh must become the face of God to His Church BEFORE the resurrection, while our flesh is still dying, otherwise every Word God speaks in the Covenant is of no effect. Our flesh becoming the face of God to His Church is God writing His signature, “Father,” upon our foreheads, our human flesh. It is the moment when the Covenant becomes the Covenant.
This is God doing, God working, God Fire, God Energeoing. Our position is HANDS OFF – except for one thing, and that is our part of the Work of God – faith energeoing through love – the faith of the Son of God.
The Ark into Jerusalem. Look at the heading of 2 Samuel 6 – The Ark Brought to Jerusalem. This is God’s picture of God passing through our flesh into His Church.
So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with gladness (v. 12). Then David danced before the Lord with all his might… So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet (v. 14-15). So they brought the ark of the Lord, and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had erected for it… And… he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts (v 17-18).
Rebuilding the Tabernacle of David. After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up (Acts 15:16 & Amos 9:11).
The restoration of the Tabernacle of David – which is “fallen down” and “in ruins,” and the rebuilding of the Altar that is broken down, and the making straight of the Way for our God, all these are speaking of the same reality. And that reality is a Church that KNOWS God! And for that purpose God has seized us in His grip, in His PRO-DETERMINATION, to make His Church REAL.
So God brought the Ark of His Covenant into His City, the New Jerusalem, with GLADNESS.
Our Flesh Is for the Church! Love one another – Just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church (Ephesians 5:26-27).
Our flesh is FOR the Church. I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church (Colossians 1:24).
This is your calling, dear reader, the very thing God is determined to do through you. And you and I have one response only – Look at me, God, I belong to You. Let it be to me according to Your Word.