22.2 The Rest of God

Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” says the Lord. “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word (Isaiah 66:1-2).

And God rested on the seventh day from all His works. – So then there is left a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has already entered into His rest, he also has rested from his works, just as God did from His own (Hebrews 4:5 & 9-10).

Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business? (Luke 2:49).

Identity. When Jesus wept before God with strong crying and tears, that God would save Him from death, He was not afraid of doing something contrary to God, that is, something “of Himself.” The issue with Jesus was identity. The press against Him by the evil one was always identity – If You are the Son of God…

Jesus failed towards His disciples. After three and a half years of His teaching them as their example, they all ran away the moment there was any outward difficulty. Jesus failed towards His cross; He, the Christ of God, could not carry it. And Jesus failed upon the cross, crying out in confusion that God had abandoned Him, “I am a worm and no man.” Yet it was David who heard the words of our Salvation, spoken deep inside this troubled Man – You are with Me.

To Join Them Together. I suspect that it was only a few seconds between David hearing, “But You, O Lord, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me! – You have answered Me,” to John hearing, “It is finished.”

This is the work God sent Jesus to accomplish, to bring all raging humans into Himself, to bring the Father into Himself as sharing all of His failure and confusion, and there, inside His own human heart and identity, to join them together.

Jesus did not accomplish this work in strength, but in utter and hopeless weakness. Of Myself, I CAN DO NOTHING. Our union with God is the completion of Jesus’ work.

Indeed, It Was Very Good. The Calvinist translators chose “has ceased from his own works” in Hebrews 4:10 when they could have chosen “rested.” But this is a “just like God” verse. JUST AS God rested. Calvinist preachers insist that this means that what you are doing is bad, so stop doing your own bad things and start doing only what God tells you to do. And so I have heard preached so many times.

Did God cease from His works because they were bad? How absurd. God rested from His works because they were finished. Yet how were they finished? Six times God said, “It is good.” And the sixth time, He said, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”

It Is NOT Good! Then, for the seventh time, even inside of His rest, God said one of the most extraordinary statements in the Bible. He said, “It is not good” (Genesis 2:18).

This statement goes to the heart of everything that is God and that is His purposes. And it is the reason for God’s pleading question through Isaiah’s anointing, “Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?”

What was Jesus about? What was the Father’s business? For indeed, we cannot know the completion of God and we cannot know what we are as humans, unless we know God’s meaning for “It is NOT good!”

Of His Same Kind. And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper of his same kind.”

God purposefully left out the most important part of His work for two reasons. First, He wanted to drive home to Adam and to his children the glorious wonder of a woman of his same kind. But FAR MORE than that, God was setting before us His own Heart in its very depths, that God Himself does not want to be alone. God wants a woman of His same Kind, one who can receive His Seed and bring forth His Life into creation.

We are speaking of Christ and His Church. – For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. “Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined with his wife and into one flesh the two will be” (Ephesians 5:30-31).

The Rest of the Story. Yet the Church is a prostitute to this day, and so we also have been, for we have called ourselves by everything not-Christ.

Here is the rest of the story, and it is much more than union with Christ. God rested on the seventh day from all His works. – Done! It is finished. – Done! This One, having offered one unlimited sacrifice for sins, sat down inside of the right hand of God, from now on waiting expectantly for His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet (Hebrews 10). The Father and the Son rest, because they have completed their work. And the Spirit? The Spirit can only do that for which He is sent, and He is sent out from our innermost beings (John 7).

And We Also. What is the rest of the story? What is the completion of the work? Where is the place of God’s rest? What is the one thing that alone brings full satisfaction to God?

By this we have known love, because He set forth his soul, His story of self, for us, for our sakes; AND WE ALSO are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

For the one who has already entered into His rest, he also has rested from his works, just as God did from His own. – You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62:6-7).

Completing One Another. Having set all these thoughts in place, let’s go back, now, to the “It is not good” part of God’s work.

Maureen is my wife; Maureen is my completion. A man needs a completion. A woman needs to be a completion. This is how we are made. And the destruction of the answer to this deepest of human needs in our world today is a root cause of all that is wrong.

I have marveled how Maureen and I share the same heart-views of the important things of life. If you were to walk through our home, you would see my things and Maureen’s things, very different from each other, all merged together in warm harmony.

Completed Four Times. And where we seem opposed, we bear with one another in forgiveness and love. I have said to myself many times, “I accept this part of my wife that I don’t like because I love her.” I know full well that she has said the same far more concerning me.

Maureen and I are one. And yet – we do not see our togetherness as our real completion.  The astonishing thing is that Maureen and I are completed four different times. Our first completion we named Kyle. Our second completion we named Johanna. Our third completion we named Katrina. And our fourth completion we named James. In each of our completions, Maureen and I are utterly joined together.

Our Son. When I look at our son, Kyle, I see myself in him, as well as Maureen. Even more than that, I see in Kyle my father, Emerson, as well as my mother, Rhoda. And I see in Kyle Maureen’s father, Claude, as well as Maureen’s mother, Roberta. And yes, when I think about the essence of each of these, and then when I compare that to our son, I do see each one in him.

Yet here is the most extraordinary thing. Kyle is not any of us, but rather, he is his own person, utterly unique. And one of the most important moments of my completion was when I observed Kyle step into my place as the leader of the family and I was able to yield and to rest in my son. Yet this “manchild” who completes Maureen and me is also very much his own person.

The Nature of the Human. Maureen and I are this way because God made us like Himself, that He might reveal who and what He is through our human marriage.

For God is speaking of Christ and His Church. Yet that Church is a prostitute.

Here is the completion of God. Here is the nature of the human, meek and lowly of heart, trembling with His word. Here is the place of God’s rest. The completion of God is a firstfruits of humans, not many, but gathered together as one, born out from the union of Christ and the Church, who place themselves before God for the sake of all their brethren, and give Him no rest until the entire Church becomes the revelation of God.

Just Like the Lord Jesus. And in their failure and in their gross inability. In all their confused emotions and conflicting desires, they bring God their Father to be part of their lives, to share all with them. And in their anguish and in their nakedness. In all their dislike of other people and desire to punish, they bring each one of their brothers and sisters into their own hearts to be part of themselves. And there, inside their broken human souls, broken as an earthen vessel, they join the Father together with each one, and set them free into life.

This is what we are. This is what we are made to do. This is the definition of a human, just like the Lord Jesus Christ.

God Still Waits. I am speaking of the fulfillment of Tabernacles. I am speaking of those who WRESTLE all night long with God and never let Him go, never let Him rest, not until He has made His entire Church, millions of believers in Jesus all across the earth, into the REVELATION of Jesus Christ.

There is a completion in the man and the woman together, just as there is a completion in Christ and each one of us together. Yet God still waits, for the completion of all His works is a son, born of the union of Christ and His Church, who stands in his place inside creation as the RULE of Love. As one of the prophets said, “God knows the completion of all His works right from the very start.”

The Place of God’s Rest. Here is that same thing in the ruling verse of the Bible. – Those whom He made just and innocent, these He has already fully glorified.

God rests only in His completion. And here is the one line in the Bible that gives us the most vivid picture of that Completion. And the woman brought forth a male, a son, who is about to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was seized into God and into His throne (Revelation 12:5).

These are humans, walking together as one. These are broken vessels, meek and lowly of heart, who tremble with God’s Word. These are those who allow God to rule as Love through them. These are the place of God’s rest.