6. An Historical Path
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
There is a mind-set that rules in Christian thinking out from the ignorance of Christ living as His Church. That mind-set sees the Church as divided and filled with disconnected individuals each doing his or her thing with no reference to the whole. This mind-set sees the opposing denominations and segments of the church as a problem, with the question – Which is the ‘right’ church? as having some sort of meaning.
I see no such thing, either in the present time or regarding the Church as a whole from the Day of Pentecost until now. The Church is and has always been one, and every individual who loves Jesus, then and now, is part of what I write.
Tracing the Connection. I am not writing for myself (I am taking a different tack from my earlier claim), but I am giving voice to many down through the centuries who gave themselves towards the revelation of Jesus Christ through and as His Church. For this reason, I want to take the time to trace out the direct connection between many down through the centuries and what I am sharing in this text.
Shared community, life together, has been part of the Christian experience from the Day of Pentecost until now. At the same time, travail for the fullness of Christ revealed in and through His Church has also been part of that same Christian experience all the way through.
Two Threads. Now, this short lesson cannot lay out that entire history; it can, however, make the immediate connection to what I write.
Again, as I said, we are looking at two different threads through Church history; sometimes these two are intertwined in the same fellowships and sometimes they run through differing fellowships separately. The one thread is Christ living as Christian Community, the fulfilment of all that salvation is and means, and the other is the fullness of Christ revealed in the Church upon this earth. I come out from the intertwining of these two threads, and so I write.
Let’s start with Christ Community first.
The Anabaptists. I grew up in the Mennonite church, one of several fellowships of people coming out from the Anabaptist fellowships in central Europe during the Reformation times. I have traced my ancestral line, through two different threads, to brethren living together in Christian community in Switzerland during the 1500’s. My Mennonite experience did not include actual community, and my family left the Mennonite church in the 1970’s after receiving the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Nonetheless, the principles and concepts of living in peace together with believers in Jesus and towards all was embedded in my understanding through my childhood years.
Christian Communities. When I first visited Christian community at Graham River Farm in British Columbia in 1977, I found myself already connected inside with every part of that way of living.
Now, the Bible Studies Program at Christ Revealed Bible Institute includes a course on Christian Community through the centuries that runs concurrently with this course, Symmorphy V: Life. For that reason, we will go no further in tracing that line here.
The thing is, although the way of living as the Church, inside of the Anabaptist experience, was of the Lord, they still held to the cross and flesh of Nicene Christianity and had no knowledge of the power of the Holy Spirit or any “fullness” of Christ.
Travail in the Church. The other thread, then, is the experience of travail down through the centuries, a calling forth of Christ into the human experience. I traced this thread in my book, The Feast of Tabernacles, Chapter 23. “Trumpets.” Let me recount a part of that here.
The river of the Holy Spirit in the church began in earnest in 1738 through the life and ministry of John Wesley, a man who, in my understanding, is the most important apostolic ministry between the passing of John around AD 100 and 1948. The fact of the matter is, if you read Wesley’s actual writing, you will find much more in common with what I teach than you will in the Methodist church.
John Wesley On. John Wesley taught Christian community as I teach it and he taught the fullness of Christ as I teach it. As with Paul, much of Wesley’s understanding of Christ did not pass on permanently to those who followed in his wake.
Nonetheless, we can trace a direct connection from Wesley through the great revivals of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the late 1700’s, through the Holiness movement of the 1800’s and into the Pentecostal outpouring around the world during the early 1900’s. And thus we can trace the travail and intercession with God for the fulfillment of the Feast of Pentecost in the life of the Church from 1738 to the Pentecostal experience beginning in 1900.
Ivan and Minnie Spencer. It is here that we pick up that thread. Many, in entering into the fulfillment of Pentecost, also saw in their Bibles a third feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, not just the metaphor, but the reality of the fulness of Christ expressed in the New Testament. Here is one such picture of this travail of God in His Church, an experience with God that happened to Minnie Spencer in 1935 (from Ivan Spencer: Willow in the Wind, by Marion Meloon).
Then she (Minnie Spencer) remembered the strange stirring in her heart of late regarding the Body of Christ. The more she had sought the Lord, the more her vision of the Church had expanded, and she sensed in a new way the potential of the Church universal—but also its shortcomings in the face of such potential.
An inward groan escaped her lips as her concern deepened into intercession. Suddenly she saw the Church in a vision as a literal body, but oh, so disjointed and sickly. There was even flesh missing from its right arm, and the elbow joint was stiff and inoperable. Then God began to speak to her in a most personal way.
There must be travail to bring forth the members of the Body in unity, and with Christ formed in them, He said, and it seemed He was actually taking her through an experience of childbirth—as physical as it was spiritual, and just as demanding in suffering . . . She sensed she was but a representative of the whole Body of Christ that must struggle in suffering before bringing forth that people who would be without spot or wrinkle.
Minnie was aware that God had given her a revelation of a secret endtime ministry—one for which He had been preparing her, and one that would be shared by many others . . . And there was an expectancy of spiritual blessing that belied the tears and groans of the experience—akin to the joy of a mother upon delivery of her babe.
The Beginning of Tabernacles. In The Feast of Tabernacles, I then presented what is called the Latter Rain outpouring beginning in North Battleford, Saskatchewan and which included the writing of the little book, Feast of Tabernacles, by George Warnock in 1951. It remains my firm conviction that the Feast of Trumpets fulfilled in the Church began with the writing of that book.
A Guide for Many. George Warnock’s proposal, that God was about to fulfill the Feast of Tabernacles in the experience of the Church, that is, the fullness of Christ walking this earth in His church, the revelation of Jesus Christ, had a major impact throughout the Church. His book, Feast of Tabernacles, became a guide for many, including John Osteen here in Houston along with others throughout the charismatic movement.
I want to bring in, now, two men whose ministries and teachings were shaped enormously by George Warnock and the Latter Rain outpouring, Preston Eby and Sam Fife. When I read Preston Eby, I am reading Sam Fife. They taught the same word, and were together, in fact, for a short time in the 1960’s.
Preston Eby and Sam Fife. There is only one meaningful difference between Preston Eby’s teachings and Sam Fife’s. Sam Fife added a strict sectarianism that is not found in Eby, as well as Christian Community. And Preston Eby teaches that judgment is only for an age and not forever. The two separated from each other on these two issues. I thank God that Sam Fife taught a sectarian message that included Christian Community, and I thank God that Preston Eby teaches the full redemption of Christ.
Of all the individuals in my life, Sam Fife had more impact on me and on what I teach than any other. Through Sam Fife’s ministry, these two threads, the travail for the revelation of Jesus Christ and Christ as a Corporate Body, came together.
Why I Refer to Sam Fife. Now, someone objected to my occasional reference to Sam Fife (as a cult leader no one knows about – am I trying to start my own cult?)
I refer to Sam Fife for three reasons. The first reason is this. I first heard Sam Fife speaking on a tape recording in April of 1977. He was then killed in a plane crash in April of 1979. During those two years, I heard him speak (or pray or prophecy) publicly in five conventions, and a number of times during the four months I lived in his home community in Citra, Florida, during which time he was present a full two weeks inside of our daily life.
The Knowing in Me. When Sam Fife spoke, always more deeply anointed of God than anyone I have heard before or since, the KNOWING inside of me connected directly through the heavens with the KNOWING inside of God. When Sam Fife was speaking, I knew the knowing in me and I knew the knowing in God. I knew that it was the same knowing and the connection between those two knowings was filled with ENERGEIA.
I can assure you of this, I was not connecting with Sam Fife. I have never done such a thing. More than that, there are plenty of things Sam Fife said, even while the heavens were open to me, that have no place in what I teach now.
The Same Knowing. A good bit of Sam Fife’s interpretation of how that knowing of Christ was to work its way out in our lives is fully rejected inside my present knowledge of Christ as me. On the other hand, I am realizing more and more that the knowing I know is the same knowing he knew. Just as I am fumbling and limited in my attempts to articulate that knowing and to see it birthed in this earth for the sake of all, so it was with him – though expressed in different ways.
The second reason is that I bear a responsibility towards the Church of Christ and towards human history. I carry the notion that Jesus might want to use what I share for the sake of His Church, and in that responsibility, I write. (Although Jesus is free not to use any of it. I can bear the loss of everything except His presence in my life.)
The Same Word. It is essential that this word of Christ our life inside of our life together be known through its historical context. As I mentioned, I traced that context partly in my book The Feast of Tabernacles.
This word, of God dwelling in His Church upon this earth fulfilled, began in the fulfillment of Tabernacles, as the Feast of Trumpets, in 1948, in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, called the “latter rain” outpouring. That word was articulated by George Warnock and published in his little book, Feast of Tabernacles, then through that book to Sam Fife, through Sam Fife to me, and through me to you. If you are reading me, you are reading that same word, the fulfillment of Tabernacles beginning with Latter Rain.
Christ Personal as Me. You are inside a very specific historical context coming out from God into His church. That does not need to mean anything to you, but it means a whole lot to me, and I suspect to God as well, since He is big on tracing history in His Word.
The third reason I bring in Sam Fife and the move of God fellowship, the Christian communities in which I lived, on a regular basis, is that I cannot talk about Christ without talking about Christ personal as me, and I cannot talk about Christ personal as me without referencing what I am.
Nonetheless, I will not ever refer you directly to Sam Fife primarily because of his gross sectarianism, along with his continued holding to the false cross and the exaltation of the flesh as our “great enemy.”
Union with Christ. When I first started writing the Christ Our Life letter, after having been fully immersed into my present knowledge of union with Christ, I came across a brother in England who was calling for a merging of the revelation of Jesus Christ as taught by Sam Fife and union with Christ as taught by Norman Grubb.
I teach that merging, but as expressed by Paul. And He put all under the feet of Jesus and gave Him to be head [that which unites] for the sake of all the Church, all the gathering together, which is His body, the fullness of Christ [the full meaning that is Christ] filling all in all, Jesus filling with Himself everything in everyone (Ephesians 1:22-23 – JSV).
The Same Anointing. What I shared from Minnie Spencer, we knew in full measure through my years in move-of-God Christian community. That anointing upon Ivan and Minnie Spencer was even more upon Sam Fife and many others in that fellowship. I know that travail and its power. And through that travail, I, with many others, sought together the knowledge of the fulness of God in a way we had never known before.
And that same anointing is upon me as I write these letters early in the morning. In reading what I share, you are connecting directly with many streams of God in His Church through history all coming together into one word and one revelation of Jesus Christ.
We Will Know Them. And as you and I step forth into the full appearance of Christ revealed, we will find ourselves alongside of many coming out of all the centuries of the Church. We will know them and they us, for we will see the same word we carry as the same word inside of which they travailed before God during their season of life.
But one thing you will not find as you step forth into the full revelation of Jesus Christ, is any solitary experience or any Christ as you only. By yourself, you do know your own personal union with Christ, but there is no revelation of Jesus Christ apart from the gathering together of His Church.
The Jerusalem of God. The fullness of Christ revealed is Church Life, brethren, dwelling together in unity. The fulfillment of all the Salvation of God is Church Life, brothers and sisters, walking together through normal daily life, loving one another with a pure heart fervently.
Those who want the knowledge of Christ as their own self only, will find nothing for themselves in what I write.
You and I are part of a Church, the Jerusalem of God, and she is one; she is whole and complete. And that Church lives together as one as the Body of God, the revelation of Jesus Christ, through each local fellowship, now and forever.