7.3 Resurrection and Fire
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
No writer of the New Testament books, including Paul, wrote out a comprehensive and organized layout of the meaning and path of salvation. In complete contrast, those who actually wrote simply addressed this or that present concern with elements of the gospel and salvation scattered hither and yon with no clear connection. This lack has, of course, created a complete mess in Christian thinking, especially since they wrote so many seemingly contradictory things, especially Paul, but also John.
Most Christians don't even know what Salvation is, though they use the word as if they do.
We Do Not Know the Way. Thomas's question applies to the entirety of Christianity: “We don't know WHERE You are going, Jesus, so how could we possibly know the way?”
Where = salvation. The way = the path of the gospel.
The great thinkers of Christianity used a number of ways, all quite similar, to organize in their thinking and subsequent teaching all the disconnected points of truth scattered throughout the New Testament in an effort to lay out a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the answer to these two objections of Thomas, the where (salvation) and the way (the gospel path). Of these two, the where is far more important, because it's much easier to plot your route when you first know your destination.
The Where and the Way. All Christian thinkers, however, got the where 100% wrong, even to a ridiculous absurdity – that the “where” is being dead in heaven. Thus the gospel path they present, though containing many of the truths of the gospel, yet it takes no one to WHERE Jesus is (salvation), for they missed completely that where.
They missed completely – I AM the Life – and – I AM in the Father –. Those two things ARE the where – that where I am, there you may be also. – In that day you shall know that I am IN the Father AND you in Me and I in you. You see, having alighted upon the only WHERE you and I ever wish to live, it is much easier for us to mark out the path there.
Connecting the Dots. HOWEVER! We do not make the same mistake of creating any path for ourselves out from disconnected Bible verses by using the same organizational patterns used by all Christian theologians in their attempt to lay out that path. And this is what I am driving at. Scattered all through the New Testament are so many profound and powerful statements of life and awesomeness, statements that grow ever larger and deeper the more closely we look at them. Yet all those statements of power are separate from each other, appearing in the New Testament here and there in an entirely haphazard manner.
Now, organizing all these powerful statements of life into a meaningful whole is not an option. All humans MUST, by the very nature of all rational thinking, connect the dots, so to speak, in some way. It does no good to claim one does not, for that is dishonesty. All already do, far more than they realize.
God's Pattern. Either the “dots” will be connected in our minds by the reasonings coming through Augustine and Calvin, or all those disconnected powerful verses will be connected for us by God's chosen pattern. One thing that made Sam Fife unique, and George Warnock before him, was the use of God's own patterns by which to fit together all these disconnected New Testament life and power verses into God's actual gospel WAY.
God's patterns, on the one hand, are first the Tabernacle, followed by the Feasts and the journey of Israel, and on the other hand, the reproduction of life followed by story(ies) and the riddle of a mystery. Of these, the reproduction of life is the largest and most comprehensive. But how God brings forth life is not the focus of this course, though it is certainly included in the Covenant.
According to the Pattern. You see, when we are seeking to know the WAY to our destination, only one method of organizing all the disconnected gospel statements into a meaningful whole is God's intention, the Tabernacle of Moses. Especially since it is evident that the New Testament writers used that pattern almost entirely. It is not wrong to seek a meaningful and comprehensive layout of the Way to full salvation; in complete contrast, it is required. See that you make all things according to the pattern.
Even more specifically than seeking the way to being with Jesus in Father, however, in this course we seek to know the exact terms of the Covenant by which we walk forever as one Pperson with God, that we might walk in absolute confidence.
Ignoring the Negative. Now, I am realizing something of great importance out from reading again the prophets of the Old Testament. Hosea, for instance, might be > 80% on “obey, do not disobey,” and < 20% on life coming through faith. But the New Testament writers and speakers drew only from the life Scriptures, bringing these into the New Covenant and ignoring the rest. Only in Romans 3, in his attempt to bring all guilty before the cross, does Paul draw together many negative Old Testament statements. And there Paul eliminates the negative by faith in Christ. By this same PATTERN we are free in God to ignore the “negative” aspects found in the New Testament, using them, as Paul did, only to magnify some aspect of the finished cross, and to draw into our Covenant picture primarily those verses of faith and life.
I have said all this to position this radical intention of mine in this text, Symmorphy IV: Covenant.
My Intention. My radical intention is to use God's layout in the Tabernacle of Moses, coming primarily from the actual assembly of that Tabernacle, as a life-filled organizational structure upon which to fit together these many threads of powerful New Testament verses. In this way I hope to obtain from God a clear and precise rendition of my covenant with Him and He with me, a covenant that reaches out to include you together with me as well. (I say “my/me” because God is personal. Use the same “my/me” to speak of yourself.)
This model of the Tabernacle allows us, then, to fit verses together as that Covenant. At the center of the Covenant is this: For our God is a consuming Fire – and the immediate impact of that pillar of fire as it touches the earth is this – Let brotherly love continue (Hebrews 12:29-13:1). Notice that is phileo, “brotherly” love, love among us together as humans, not just agape “God” love.
The Model of the Heart. Now, our chart layout of the Holiest – Holy Place, as well as the limitation of the Tabernacle as a model, places the furniture of the Holiest into a separate space from the furniture of the Holy Pace. And this layout is, of course, God's path for us into the knowledge of Him. As I ponder these things, however, out from our going out with God from the Holiest, I see that the Mercy Seat as the heart is at the center of all the activity of the Body of Christ together in the Holy Place. Let's, then, put these pieces of furniture in the layout given to us by the location of the human heart.
The focus of this lesson is the fire that consumes each thing that is offered to God. In the session on the Ark of the Covenant, we will look at how Aaron's rod that budded typifies the Covenant becoming our very life. Here we are more concerned with placing this Fire, and in doing so, we include resurrection as part of that same Fire.
A Model of the Fire. First, we have an outer banded circle that is the front of the Holy Place, that is, the face of Jesus Christ. The Band, however, is the Fire as the Actions or Energeia of God transforming the elements of the Holy Place furniture into their fruit through us for the sake of all. This outer band, the face of Jesus Christ, is a complete circle as our body surrounds our heart. At the center of the model is the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat upon it and the Pillar of Fire touching down upon that Seat.
This Holiest Place is positioned, then, not as the end of the journey as our walk into the knowledge of God, but as the Heart of the Body of Christ, God in each one of us personally, out from which we are Covenanted together. Then, each piece of Holy Place furniture radiates out from that center as we together are Bread, Light, and Favor for all.
Fire/Energeia. First, we can equate this fire, the pillar of fire coming out of the heavens, out of the Being of God, with the energeia of God in us. This fire/energeia comes out from God and passing through the Blood becomes itself the authority of the Mercy Seat, the throne of God, God and us together making all things good. This same fire/energeia passing through the Covenant causes the Covenant, word written upon our hearts, to become the life of Christ inside of us as individuals.
Then, this same fire, passing through us, connects us together as the Holy Place, the soul of Christ, all of us together. As this fire/energeia passes through the bread, it transforms the bread into sustenance and provision for all. As the fire passes through the oil, the fire itself becomes the light of God made known. And as the fire/energeia passes through the incense, it transforms the incense into the aroma of Christ through us in every place.
Symmorphy. The Fire is God Himself. Even though we have placed the term, symmorphose, upon the lampstand, symmorphy is the essence of every other part of this layout as well. The lampstand is that most wondrous expression of symmorphy, Christ in His church.
The fire does not burn the Blood, nor does it “transform” the Blood into something else. Rather, the Blood is the point at which the Fire that is God can enter into the human experience. But here is the most extraordinary thing, the deepest level of symmorphy, God with us and we with God. God says that He meets with us first, there, above the Blood, before the Fire that is God passes through His designated door into His creation. We are with God before God-Fire-Energeia transforms anything.
Transformation. The Fire does not transform the Blood into authority. The Blood IS; the Fire passes through the Blood, both to become authority and to enter every part of our human experience. Because the Mercy Seat is solid gold, we know that, even though God and us together direct the flow of that authority to transform all things meant for evil into goodness for everyone, yet it is the Holy Spirit alone who does this work. We do not put our hands upon that work, and neither, actually, does Father.
The Fire does transform the Words of the Covenant by resurrection to become the very life of Jesus inside of us. That Fire cannot transform words of some Bible/Christianity mix found in the mind into Christ, but only His own words, the Words God has spoken planted in our hearts. Christ is not written with Spirit ink upon our minds, but upon our hearts. Only out from hearts as the Word of God do we have the mind of Christ.
Transformation through Us Together. This is a fascinating reality, that God-Fire-Energeia, passing out through the Veil of our flesh, the very flesh of Christ, in connecting us together as one body in the Holy Place, does not consider the Altar of Incense which is our passage into the Holiest. Rather God places the Table of Showbread as the first revelation of Himself among His people. We hope to discover why when we study that Table. Then, as Fire/Energeia, God consumes the Bread, transforming that Bread into provision and sustenance, not just for us together as His Body, but out from us as the face of Jesus Christ to all creation.
Next, the Fire as God Himself, though it burns the oil, yet the Fire itself becomes light, God seen and known. You see, the Fire does turn the Bread into sustenance, but it is the oil being burned that turns the Fire into Light. This is a mystery, one we hope to investigate in the session on the Lampstand.
God Working. And finally, the Fire as God Himself through us transforms the Incense into the Aroma of Christ going forth from us as the Fragrance of God in every place. We see that all Energeia, that is, all WORKING, must be the Fire of God Himself, God Personal and very present, All Here Now. It is this Fire, pictured to us as the Pillar of Fire gaining its force only from outer space, that shows us the immediacy and necessity of God Himself in this whole business.
The purpose of all the pieces of furniture and all elements upon or within those pieces of furniture is to give us a graphic picture of how God Himself passes through us to become part of His creation, that He might be seen and known by all. In Numbers Chapter 10, this horror of presenting to God a fire that is not God Himself is called “Strange Fire.” It meant instant death the first time humans attempted to work themselves the Work of God.
Strange Fire. We do NOT line ourselves up with God. We do NOT make God's will happen in our lives. We do not transform ourselves. God lines us up with Himself as He Himself lines up with us. God makes His will happen in our lives, the will and the doing of His good pleasure. And it is God who alone transforms us.
All human effort towards being right with God is an abomination to God. You will not know Christ as your only life until you abandon all thought that you could ever please or obey God or “find His will and not your own.” You will not. And all human effort to persevere in such workings is the bold proclamation to God that being with Him now is not in that one's interest. More than that, as Father and us together send forth Oour Holy Spirit to accomplish the Workings of God, we do not put our hand out to manipulate other people in order to “get the Holy Spirit to be doing what He ought.”
Rest and Covenant. Our work is to believe in Jesus Christ, to put Him entirely upon ourselves. Our work is expectation. And thus we are seeing the importance of the counter verse to the seventh most important verse in the Bible, our walk in utter Confidence, as an essential line of the Covenant. For we who have believed do enter that rest. – For He who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His (Hebrews 4:3 & 10).
This is really cool. To enter into rest and to enter into the Covenant are the same thing. The reason is that, in Covenant, just as God does not work, now, by Himself, neither do we. All work we do now is utterly with God, and all work God does now is utterly with us. And both Father and us together rely entirely upon Oour Holy Spirit to accomplish all Oour desire as a River of Life flowing out of us. Rest IS the working of the Covenant.
Tying Everything Together. You can see how easily New Testament verses find their way into a perfect fit together as the Covenant when we see all things through God's own Pattern. Through the upcoming sessions on the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, with each of their pieces of furniture, we will pencil out specific parts of our Covenant with God along with the New Testament verses that are those parts.
Our purpose in thus knowing the specifics of our Covenant with God is so that we might walk forward with all confidence in the task set before Father and us together, that is, of setting creation free. And specifically, of establishing upon this earth and in this age a fully successful Christian Church walking in all that is the speaking of Christ.