27.3 Heaven Opens
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened (Revelation 15:5b). – Now I saw heaven opened, and behold… (Revelation 19:11a).
I awoke in the night, pondering three things, our present existence in heaven, though we see it not, and this vision that has caught me entirely in its grip – a fully successful Church, millions of Spirit-filled believers walking this earth in all the fullness of all that God speaks.
And then these words: Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God (Revelation 21:2-3).
John’s Vision
Then I opened my Bible and began to peruse the book of Revelation. Suddenly my seeing changed and with it the entirety of John’s vision. Now, everything I have taught using the elements of John’s vision remains the same; it’s the things I have not taught from this vision that will now become possible.
I have long understood that John’s vision is NOT chronological. Small portions of it are, but not the whole. In other words, some portions of the vision are parallel, or are speaking of different things throughout the church age and in God’s fullness of times. Yet now I see that reality of understanding more clearly.
Understanding Visions
First, let me explain visions. In the move fellowship of which I was once a part, visions were common. Everywhere Sam Fife had preached, people who never saw visions, started seeing them. Visions were seen in most every service over many years, given to confirm the word preached. Visions were also sought for confirmation of God’s direction. The visions seen in that fellowship and the visions God gave in the Bible were very similar in nature and interpretation, and similar as well, with the Annie visions, except that Annie’s seeing was more directly with the Lord than most.
Last night, I realized that John’s vision was not one vision, but a series of separate visions, divided by the words, “And then I saw.” “Then” refers to John’s experience, not to interpretation.
Re-Occurring Themes
You see, John could not have handled a straight 3-4 hours of such seeing in the heavens and then written it all down afterwards. Certainly, he saw this series of visions over a close several days. But I have no doubt that he had breaks in-between during which he wrote down what he had just seen.
When you read the Annie visions, you see that the Lord changes the subject from one vision to the next, but then takes her back to a previous subject, on a re-occurring basis. For instance, the Lord might show “D” to Annie in a vision, then show her “E, F, and G” in the following visions, then show her more on “D” again in the next vision after, and in others ahead, but scattered among seeing different things in the heavens.
Heaven/Earth Connection
That was one thing I saw last night, but then I saw something else. I was pondering a topic I raised on Facebook to which one of my readers responded with a Biblical confirmation – that of the fact that we live now in heaven all around us. Everything in the earth is connected directly at all times to things in the heavens. And “everything” includes physical things, living creatures, humans, moral and immoral actions, speaking, decisions – everything. The flow from heaven reality to earth reality and from earth reality to heaven reality is complete and constant. The occultic phrase “as above so below” is not sufficient to describe this constant and all-encompassing connection of heaven and earth, of things both of good and of evil.
Seeing Present Heavenly Reality
I am convinced that God does not “predict” the future, nor control everything as the “fates.” The reason I do not believe that is that such actions would be to play mind games with humans. God does not play such games.
The prophetic word of Scripture does two things. First, it is always a calling forth of Christ into the human experience, and second, it is a seeing of heavenly realities as they are right now and always impacting earthly substance and experience.
It is in this way that the Lord gave me to understand John’s vision as I looked at it anew. John was simply seeing many different ways by which the things of the heavens impact things in the earth – and vice versa; he was not seeing a chronology of “future events” per se.
The Fullness of Times
Now, let me qualify that last statement. In order to understand and to be a part of the arising Kingdom of God upon this earth, we must understand God’s “fullness of times.” Most things in the book of Revelation, and in all prophetic Scripture, speak to every generation of the Church age and to every place in which Christians are found. Yet at the same time, God brings everything to its natural completion in what He calls the “fullness of times.”
In other words, there comes a time when God requires everything to be what it is without hiding, that is, the apocalypse. We saw in Symmorphy II: Essence that the covering is removed from darkness as much as from Christ.
Everything Becomes What It Is
For instance, the American government once maintained the appearance of “goodness” and “rightness,” but that was appearance only, in reality it has always been part of the beast. Yet now, in the fullness of times, God is showing to all what has always been. The American government (and all governments with it) is not “becoming” more evil; rather, the lights are turning on, and people can now see what has always been true. Thus, everything becomes what it really is in the fullness of times, the same as always, only more so.
Now, I have laid all this out, the nature of visions and the prophetic word, including John’s vision, and the direct connection always between heaven and earth, because this way of seeing is of utmost importance to us.
Foundation and Capstone
You see, I am laying the foundation out from which I will write the entirety of the next course, Symmorphy IV: Covenant. Yet I am also showing you the capstone of this course: Kingdom.
The problem with interpreting Revelation has always been the fierce break caused by the short vision John saw in Revelation 19:11-16, followed by another short vision in verses 17-21. This vision lodges in the mind of Christians as a graphic and startling picture of a solitary “Jesus coming back,” something that must be “far in the future.” They do not see it as the continuous reality of heaven acting upon earth through all the generations of the church and even more so in the fullness of times in which we now live.
Paul’s Gospel Rules
And for that reason ONLY, John’s vision in Revelation 21 is seen as AFTER Jesus “comes back.”
One more point before we come to the purpose of this lesson. This vision that John saw came long AFTER every other apostle and New Testament writer were long dead and gone, except, of course, for the pseudo “Peter” and “Jude” of 2 Peter and Jude, who wrote 50 + years after John’s passing and whose texts were stuck into the Bible by Jerome against the counsel and witness of everyone else including Augustine. No New Testament writer considered John’s vision.
Here is an absolute RULE: Paul's gospel confirmed at every point by John RULES OVER every element in John’s vision.
All Things New
Yet here is what the church has done, the darkened Christian mind has created a carnal and un-God-like interpretation of John’s vision and then used that darkness to RULE OVER Paul’s gospel and everything in it.
For instance – the verse that RULES: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God… (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a). And then the verse that follows: Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. – Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:1 & 5a).
We know the follower ONLY out from the RULER.
The Same Woman
John’s vision shows us the heavenly side of the constant interaction of heaven/earth as first expressed by the truth of the present gospel given to us by Paul.
Now, I require more than one piece of evidence that Revelation Chapters 21 and 22 are concurrent with Revelation 12 and Romans 8 and our lives right now today. And there is plenty more than one piece of evidence found in those two chapters. The woman John sees fleeing from the face of the dragon, and the woman John sees “coming down out of heaven from God” are the same woman and at the same time in every generation of the church, but especially now in the fullness of times.
The Bride
Revelation 19 and 20 DO NOT MEAN that Revelation 21 happens only after “Jesus comes back,” or, in our case, “after the resurrection,” a realization that I saw fully for the first time only last night. Yes, Revelation 20 is speaking primarily of future things, clearly things that have not yet occurred and things following the resurrection. But in Revelation 21 and 22, Jesus comes back to the topic closest to His heart – His Church alive now upon this earth.
And thus Jesus closes out His word to His Church with “and the Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come.’” This bride, “coming out of the heavens,” IS millions of Spirit-filled Christians walking this earth right now as all that Christ is.
Tying It All Together
I had first placed as this particular lesson the topic of “tying it all together.” You see, I had imagined that I had left many threads of discussion throughout this course just flapping in the breeze, and not tied into my conclusions regarding our three-fold Victory. So I read through each lesson, placing every significant point into the three columns of Tabernacles: the First Day, the in-between days, and the Final Great Day of the Feast. I discovered that nothing (or very little) was “flapping in the breeze,” but that everything going before in this course fits into one of those three columns. I have also realized something I had not expected and that is how meaningless the things of darkness really are and how little we are concerned about them.
Now Is Come the Kingdom
This session is titled “Now Is Come the Kingdom,” from the fourth most important verse in the Bible. This reality is our present great concern.
But as I laid out every element of this course inside the three parts of Tabernacles, I saw three things quite clearly. First, the fulfillment of the Great Day of the Feast is a given; it happens in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. We seek to understand it only to set it before us as our full expectation of God; other than that, it has little present concern for us.
What concerns us most is this alluring, beckoning, enchanting, enthralling, intriguing Woman, the Bride of the Lord Jesus, fully His expression now upon the earth.
The Marriage of the Lamb
Here is the RULING verse: And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22-23). And here is the verse that follows: Let us be glad… for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” (Revelation 19:7-9).
But there are two other verses that concern us even more right now.
Every Part Does Its Share
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 12:12-14). And then this: But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—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 4:15-16).
John’s vision simply shows us Paul’s gospel in full operation, that is, heaven’s view of the Church.
The Task Set Before Us
These things we will explore in depth in Symmorphy V: Life, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:27).
Symmorphy III: Kingdom has shown us this task set before us of teaching these millions of Spirit-filled Christians to be this holy Bride of Christ walking on this earth now in full marriage union with the Lord Jesus, the fullness of Christ. And we have seen the utter importance of God’s firstfruits, His elect, the beating Heart of Father, those who open the Doors to all that this wondrous vision means. And for that reason, our hearts turn from what we cannot “do” to this One whom we KNOW.
Father’s Heart
You see, whoever God’s elect might be, we know that we have no qualification; we cannot measure up to any such thing. Yet, vagabonds and has-beens we might be, we will not be left out. But we will climb into God’s pocket, into His Heart, and we will stay there until He makes us that very Heart.
For we, you and me, will NOT be found anywhere else.
And thus we turn, just for a moment, from a task far beyond any and all human ability, and we look to the First Day of Tabernacles, a Day now upon us, a Day which we must know. And we see, inside that Day, Symmorphy IV: Covenant. We see Father’s Heart. And we see ourselves only there, inside that Heart, sharing forever its beating flow.