22.2 Clothed with the Sun
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth (Revelation 12:1-2). This statement is clearly the very same thing Paul is setting before us in Romans 8, the same travail, the same expectation of the springing forth of the knowledge of God.
Now, in the next lesson, I want to talk about the tip point of the Pillar of Fire above the Mercy Seat, the real singularity. In order for us to comprehend this glorious liberty in which we live, however, we need to picture that very point, and then we need to understand what it is we are seeing.The Tip Point. Consider the diagram. The arrow represents the Pillar of Fire that is the Energeia of God. The tip point of that arrow is just above the heart, that is, just above the blood. The tip point is us.
But here’s the thing. There is one Energeia only; there are many, many of us. There is one place only, but that one place is filled with many. None of us is sitting alone; we are part of one another. For by one Spirit we were immersed into one body … and have been made to drink one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13).
Only One Christ. What is a woman, that is, a local Church, “clothed with the sun?” It is only in recent years that we know what that actually means (that is, how we are to understand “put on the Lord Jesus Christ”). You see, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” is the same singularity. There are not many “Christ’s,” allowing each of us to put on our own different Jesus, just as there are not many “mercy seats” for each of us to have our own.
Nonetheless, “clothed with the sun” gives us the exact picture we need to understand this wondrous place of liberty. The sun is, in itself, nothing more than a dull gas object, the same as Jupiter, only far, far larger. What we call “the sun” is not that object itself.
What Is the “Sun?” Because that object possesses such a large surface, it attracts the discharge of the great Birkeland currents that power the Milky Way. That discharge, however, takes place thousands of miles above the surface of the inactive object underneath. What we see, that we call “the sun,” is actually the discharge of electricity, as in an electrical arc lamp, a discharge that is happening out from the surface of the object, that is, we are seeing the “clothing” and calling that “clothing,” the sun.
Now, that discharge, then, takes the form of an innumerable number of pillars of fire, each one larger than any pillar of fire seen upon the earth prior to around 800 BC.
Clothed with Fire. Here is an artist’s rendition of a pillar of fire happening far out from the surface of the large neutral object. These are electrical phenomena. This “enclothing” is what we call “the sun.”
In discharge, one original binary current becomes many pillars of fire.
One Becomes Many. Here is what we are saying. One Pillar of Fire becomes many pillars of fire – clothed with the sun. One Energeia, Christ Jesus, becomes many, Christ as us. We are not talking about symbolism and metaphor, but of the life power by which we exist, drinking the same Spirit. Yet that Personal Energeia that is in you is the very same Personal Energeia that is in me – Jesus.
What all this means, just before we bring back in the ninth most important verse, is that everything inside of the last session, the Ekenosis, we know together, here together upon this one Mercy Seat. Here is the glory that fills us full; here is the freedom in which we abide – God made visible.
Life Together. The sun produces nothing of itself. It is created by the flowing Birkeland currents and it reveals those same flowing currents. We produce nothing of ourselves; we have no energeia, we are not “moral” beings. All that we are comes out from and is sustained by Jesus. All that we reveal is Father made known.
Yet He calls each one of us by name. We are personal because Father is Personal. Symmorphy means Person inside of person.
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 (1 Corinthians 12:12). Our liberty is life together with one another and with Father.
Set Creation Free. Let’s look again at the ninth most important verse in the Bible. I reckon indeed that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy, have no value compared towards the glory ready to be unveiled inside of us. For the earnest expectation [the eager anticipation] of the creation awaits intently for the unveiling of the sons of God. Indeed, the creation was made subject to vanity and purposelessness, not willingly, but through being subjected on the basis of hope that creation itself also will be made free from slavery and corruption into the freedom [the liberty] of the glory of the children birthed out from God. Indeed we know that all the creation groans together and travails together until now (Romans 8:18-22 – JSV).
Understanding Our Reality. Again, many lists of points arranged in order worked wonderfully well for the other verses, but this is not the same. You see, Refuge and Outlook is more of an understanding of reality than it is a manipulation of lines on a blueprint.
The Sheltering Roof is the refuge where we live; the Windows of the Spirit give us the seeing through which we look out. The creation we see is both beautiful and broken, beloved of God, yet cruel in its present appearance. Yet we live inside of Love and Love carries us everywhere we go. We are filled with God; we are enveloped with God. And Rivers of Spirit go out from us.
Love One Another. I will attempt to list the points in a different arrangement than the verses, and a bit differently from prior listings.
1. We are filled with glory and we live in liberty.
Being filled with glory means specifically that we are filled with the practical workings of love taking place upon the Mercy Seat. Living in liberty means that, knowing that the Mercy Seat upon which we sit together has made us free of all disconnection from God, we then extend that same release to all who offend. It means no consciousness of sins. Actually this is just another way of saying “owe no one anything {freedom} except to love one another {glory}.” Or “Share Hheart with God together as family.”
Love Turns Us Around. Basically, point number one is placing everything from Sessions 18 and 19, which we could call, Love One Another and Be the Revelation of God (same thing), here as the continuous and ongoing reality inside of which we live, out from which we look, and into which we are placing all creation. It is love alone that turns us around.
2. Creation does not know God. God cannot be known.
This condition is empty and without purpose. It has to be our momentary experience because God cannot force Himself upon anyone; such a thought never enters His mind. But it is NOT His will. Mankind, of course, chose the serpent’s blither and hot air, and thus became filled with all the cruel delusions of “self.”
We See Beauty Together. 3. Not one thing in or part of creation likes its present condition. In fact every particle of creation is groaning together in travail, eagerly anticipating the moment when God becomes visible to all.
4. You and I, sitting here inside of God, upon the Mercy Seat, the throne of heaven, look out upon all that mess. Our hearts are broken by its beauty and by its affliction. We are astonished to know just how much what we see, in actuality, longs to know purpose and love.
5. We are many sons, plural, walking together, members of one another. Setting creation free is no one-man ministry. There are no solitary “great prophets” striding around zapping things into submission. Setting creation free flows out from life together.
6. Our great task, utterly together with God as His revelation, Father made visible through us, is to set creation free.
Synergeo. Setting creation free MEANS drawing each individual person out from the old and into the New through the Mercy Seat of our hearts that releases them from all knowledge of ever falling short of God so that they might live in our same liberty. This is a work we do together.
I want to bring in here one of the best words in the New Testament. That is the word, anglicized, “to synergeo.” To synergeo is the action of a shared energeia. To synergeo is two pillars of fire working together; to synergeo is many pillars of fire working as one.
Filling Fire with Fire. Even though this word is key in one of the ruling verses of the Bible, we have not expanded on the word itself before now. We know that we love God, and we know that God and us are synergeoing all into pure and utter goodness. This synergeoing together is the very purpose of God to which we are called (Romans 8:28 – JSV). (One thing I like about the JSV is that it is quite flexible, not to “bend” the word, but to fit the Word into us in every conceivable way.)
God does not eliminate our own fire, nor does He “replace” our fire with His. God fills our fire with His fire, so that we, Father and us together, energeoing together, that is, synergeoing, are together bringing all into good.
Seeing Good Together. Nothing created can be good in itself. Nothing created can know “God” in itself. That’s just the way it is. In theory, Adam could have remained forever never eating of the tree of knowledge and never eating of the tree of life, being neither living nor dead. In practice, no such vacuum can remain. Everything not filled with the knowledge of God becomes filled with the knowledge of all things not true.
Let’s restate all this into a seventh point. 7. Here, inside the Love of God, and bearing in our hearts the Sacrifice of Jesus, the Living Lamb-Slain, that is, loving one another, we look out upon all things and we together SEE all things good.
Seeing through Eyes of Fire. Number 7, then, would be the singularity, that point out from which all things new proceed, that narrow point through which everything of the old passes into the new. Number 7, then, is our mighty action of breaking the image of the serpent.
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good (Genesis 1:3-4).
The serpent can say all he wants, “Did God really say all things good?” We don’t know it, though, for we cannot hear him. We speak together with our Father; we see together with our Father; we see through eyes of fire. We see all things good, here inside of Loving One Another.
Seven Action Points. Let’s run through our seven action points; I rearranged the order just a bit.
1. Live life laid-down; remain always in liberty (that is, love one another). 2. Understand the pause between being created and knowing God. 3. Hear the groaning of every being and particle of the entire creation. 4. Look out upon God’s people blocked by a veil that is not there. 5. As the proof of Jesus faithful and true, see together all things good. 6. Be members together with other believers in Jesus. 7. Set creation free together with Father and with other sons.
Wow, this gives us some practical stuff. It also makes our “Refuge” absolute. We know nothing else. And that fact alone is the singularity, the removal of the image of the serpent.
A Complete Transformation. The pattern of Refuge and Outlook has positioned our understanding, how it is we see our great task of setting all creation free.
More than that, I am sitting here experiencing a complete transformation of my thinking. Here it is in brief. “Work out your own salvation” means “be the revelation of Father,” means, “love one another”; reciprocal love/God among us – the consummation of all that salvation is and means. “Set creation free” means bring all creation into the new arrangement of reciprocal love/God among us.
In the next session, “The Proof of Christ,” we want to see how this new arrangement flows just naturally out from many local Christ Communities into all of society, heaven and earth.
Our Ministry Together. Then, in “Places in Between” and “Led by the Spirit,” we will consider the practical parts of that ministry together.
The cross and the blood take us boldly into the Holiest, where, in turning around, we discover that loving one another is God’s end-purpose. There, turned around, we go out together and with Father, bringing God’s original intention into the lives and relationships of all.
But before we consider any outward ministry, I want to know this incredible moment when something that has been sitting upon us and upon all humanity on this earth is BROKEN. It is that mighty break that I am calling “the singularity.” Yet “to break” is a negative. What is that one positive that changes everything?