13. The Day of Atonement

In the summer of 2013, God sealed me into the certainty that I would never again leave the Atonement as the result of any foolish thinking, meaningless emotions, or insensitive actions. Nonetheless, I was teaching the reality and meaning of that Atonement from the first Christ Our Life letter on. A prime example is my letter titled “The Absolute Profundity of the Blood, the Cross, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” In fact, writing The Jesus Secret was my first venture into the Day of Atonement.

The PRIMARY meaning of the gospel that has been taught in Christianity from the passing of John until now is that the Atonement offered by the Lord Jesus Christ is NOT ENOUGH, it is insufficient and incomplete, that God needs something else in order to fulfill His Word in our lives. That God CANNOT do what He says in and through us because the Atonement is just a little, half-baked thing, of very little relevance and consequence.

And the primary thing God seems to need BEFORE He will be capable of doing what He says is the DEATH of our physical bodies.

You can see, then, why we must go back and forth in this series between The Feast of Tabernacles and Through Eyes of Fire, why rivers of Spirit flowing out must go hand in hand with breaking the false image of the serpent and the wicked exaltation of death.

But that wicked enemy, death, is for an upcoming chapter. Here we want to know the full extent and meaning of the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in our lives and in the life of the Church.

Here is the essence of the Day of Atonement – It is finished. And again – When He had by Himself purged our sins. And again – one unbroken [bearing of all sin] sacrifice for sins. And again – For by one offering, He has perfected those who are continuously being made holy [by God].

Nicene theology, and thus most Christians, rejects absolutely the Day of Atonement fulfilled in our lives today.

Now, I accept that I am an odd person having held a number of really weird ideas right from the start. When I was twenty years old and presented with the question of – Can a believer in Jesus walk without sin in this present time? – my extremely odd way of thinking saw God. And in seeing God, I saw God being able to do what He says. All the normal Christians around me saw humans only and saw that humans do not “measure up.”

I have never understood why Christians think that God doing what He says in our lives is up to human abilities and performances, or lack thereof.

What is the Veil that blocks God’s people, preventing them from living inside the Holiest, inside of the Christian life expressed in my little book, Knowing Jesus as He Is?

That one thing IS:

SIN IN THE FLESH

And in cornering the Christian with Jesus’ question – Who do you say that I am? – their shield of unbelief is one question only in reply.

WHAT ABOUT SIN?

The Feast of Trumpets enables God’s people to hear what living only inside of Christ, inside of John 14:20, might actually be. But I know individuals who have lived for many decades inside that hearing, and yet, this awful wall of unbelief – What about sin in the flesh? – remains as the stumbling stone keeping them out of the normal Christian life, that is, the Holiest.

When you read about the fulfillment of the Feast of Passover in the New Testament, you are reading a very specific story of a Man walking a path from Gethsemane to the Resurrection. Every element of the fulfillment of Passover is rooted in this earth, in the human frame, in the weakness of man, in pain and tears, in blood and dirt and sweat. We are talking about the events of one day.

When you read about the fulfillment of the Feast of Pentecost in the New Testament, you are reading a very specific story of a group of people gathered together, of a mighty experience in the demonstration of the Spirit and power, of thousands being swept into the Kingdom in one day, of many rushing into Christian community together in total spontaneity. Every element of the fulfillment of Pentecost is rooted in this earth, in the human story, in people hearing and believing and learning to get along with one another, in pain and glory, in tears and power, in mighty miracles demonstrating a new reality birthed upon this planet. We are talking about the events flowing out from one specific day.

When you read about the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets in my description, you are reading about a very specific story of a group of named people in a named place on this planet, North Battleford, Saskatchewan. You are reading about travail in the Church, about God showing Himself as has never before been known in history. You are reading about a specific book, written by a named man, George Warnock, with whom I have had personal, though brief, communication. Every element of the fulfillment of Trumpets is rooted in the many experiences of God’s people all across this earth over the last seventy years, experiences that you and I have been very much a part of, in practical terms, in human agony and joy, in faith and contention, in travail and in the power of God. We are talking about the events flowing out from one specific day.

I attest to you by the witness and power of the Holy Spirit that the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the life of the Church is the same.

Yet look at this slight difference unveiled in the previous paragraphs. Pentecost and Trumpets began entirely inside the specific boundaries of one literal day inside the human experience, yet those two feasts continued to unfold their meaning over some years out from that one day.

Passover and the Day of Atonement are slightly different. These two feasts are fulfilled entirely and only inside the perimeters of one day. Of course, with Jesus, we see that we are speaking of three days, from Gethsemane to the Resurrection. The point is this, however, atoning for sin is defined in this way – ONE sacrifice for sins forever.

There is NO gradual unfolding of the reality of the Atonement. Our knowledge of that Atonement unfolds through time, most certainly. BUT – the actuality of making atonement for sins happens in one moment. And that part of the Atonement – “It is finished” – did take place inside of only one day, and in one moment of time.

Now, the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the life of the Church is NOT a reproduction of the Atonement of Jesus. It is not adding anything to that one offering by which we are perfected and made holy.

Here is how I see the Day of Atonement now. The fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the life of the Church of Jesus Christ now upon this earth is that one day of power in which millions of Spirit-filled believers in Jesus are confronted with the absolute profundity of the Atonement already accomplished, and by that confrontation, cease forever all their useless blither about “sin in the flesh” and in its place embrace fully the Person of Jesus, now their only life.

I am talking about a Day of Power, a Day of Elijah.

Now, I have a very definite direction in which I intend to take this letter. That direction is very much inside of these lines – That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, having already been symmorphosed [sharing the same form] with His death (Philippians 3:10). And – I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church (Colossians 1:24).

Before I continue, however, I intend to listen to and read my article “The Day of Atonement” found in my book The Feast of Tabernacles. I would urge you to do the same.

In that article, I go through, step by step, the meaning of that first Day of Atonement in the experience of the children of Israel. I intend to write out from everything expressed in that explanation, but I will not re-write it here. For that reason, in order to be in step with me through the rest of this letter, you will need to read/listen to that first explanation of this great Day.

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Okay, I have gone through my earlier letter. I did a new audio recording using the slightly improved version from the book and have put both into the webpage. This gives me a better handle on the specifics of the original Day of Atonement through Moses.

That chapter, “The Day of Atonement,” is the most important in my book, The Feast of Tabernacles, and I find that everything in it fits perfectly into this present stream of thought. I do not want to repeat it here, however, but rather go further in one part only, and that is the meaning and experience of the second time that you and I turn around.

The fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the life and experience of the Church of Jesus Christ, now at the closing out of this present age of folly and the dawning of the Age of Tabernacles, is all about you and me turning around the second time. Here is the one quote I will bring in from that earlier piece.

– We turn around twice, first for ourselves, and second for every other person in the Body of Christ. Our second turning around is the very action that flings the doors wide open for the fulfillment of Tabernacles itself in the life of the Church upon this planet. – We cannot turn around towards all other believers in Christ until we have first turned around fully for ourselves, turned around without one thought of ever turning back. –

So, what, exactly, is this experience I have termed “turn around,” and what does it mean?

Specifically, we are referring to that moment when Aaron, the High Priest, having offered the required atonement to God, there inside the Holiest before the Mercy Seat, having accepted in his heart that God had received the sacrifice, he turned around inside the Holiest, in the face of the Mercy Seat, in order to go back out to the people, no longer an emissary of the people to God, but now an emissary of God to the people, carrying to them the complete removal of everything that had stood between them and the knowledge of God with them.

Of all the elements in the feasts of Israel, the only two that are described in length are that one moment of the Feast of Passover, when the angel of death passed over the houses with the blood of the lamb upon them, and the Day of Atonement, when the blood of the sacrificed goat and the life of the scapegoat, removed the sins of the people. It is these two accounts, then, that enable us to know just exactly what Jesus’ walk of the Atonement was all about.

Our Atonement has three parts, blood, death, and life.

The Blood is infinitely greater than ALL consciousness of sins – having hearts sprinkled from an evil consciousness.

The Cross eliminated ALL that is old. – If One died for all, then all died. – I am crucified with Christ. – Already symmorphosed with His death.

And the Life of the Lord Jesus Christ, now our only life, is ALL that we are, Jesus and us living in a perfect symmorphic relationship, yet our knowledge of that Life will increase daily forever. – We are saved by His life. – Christ who is our life. – Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ.

We see the Blood from Gethsemane to the dirt beneath the cross. We see the Cross, rooted in the earth, a Man hanging bloody and naked, saying, “It is finished” as He dies. We see the resurrection, the center and meaning of our faith and life, the stone rolled away, Jesus, alive forevermore, becoming a life-giving Spirit and living now as Himself in each one of our hearts.

You see, the Atonement is simple, specific, rooted in human history and in the earth, and carrying absoluteness that is larger than the universe, absoluteness that is as solid as God.

Of the ten most important verses of the Bible, the three verses of the Atonement, then, are right in the center, culminating with the writer of Hebrews stating twice – Upon firm we stand.

For you and me to “turn around,” then, is for us to live every moment of the rest of our lives and forever out from that absolute certainty that NOTHING ever slips into the space between us and Father God, to disconnect us in any way from God inside of Christ inside of us, sharing our lives, walking as one together with us, expressing Himself through us as individuals and through us together exactly as He wishes in every present moment.

The immediate and continuous result of living turned around, then, is that we alternate between living the normal things of human life as one with Father, as His expression, AND, as our minds and hearts tend towards Father, we engage in the one task given to us as our life – to know Father and to know Jesus Sent.

Inside this way of living, our travail, our resistance to temptation, consists of one thing. That we NEVER allow any thought of any disconnect or any shadow of sin or any falling short, or any foolish and stupid mistakes, or any awful feeling, or any terrible or any exciting circumstance, to tempt us into imagining that God is not utterly with us, part of us, and sharing all things with us.

My practice, then, of living “turned around,” in regard to myself, consists of taking every moment of my life, and especially when I did something stupid or am feeling awful or something happens that I don’t like, taking every one of those things into my heart with Father and saying something alone this line.

“Father, this is You, sharing Your own Heart travail with me, causing me to be part of your own agony for Your people’s sake. Father, You are utterly with me, sharing this awfulness and this stupidity entirely with me. And we together are walking through these difficult things and these awful feelings for the sake of Your people.”

Every single time I have felt bad, I have prayed something along these lines. And every single time I have prayed this, the temptation to see myself “disconnected” passed from me, and I knew only the sweet communion we share with Father.

The way out of the one temptation that could kill us is the simple inner acceptance of Father with me. This inner acceptance, a complete surrender to God-All Carrying, here and now, is what it means to live “turned around.”

Yet, in a larger sense, living turned around means that all thought of “going to” heaven vanishes from us, not in the sense that we may not actually die physically inside of faith until our time comes to return, but rather in the sense that there is nothing for us in being dead “in heaven.” Rather, all things that are God with us are here and now, and going out through us into this creation, first for the sake of our brethren, and second to set all creation free.

We live as if we are already fully resurrected, all that Jesus is, now living as us. And we do so inside our present human weakness and limitations, accepting both fully. Our enemy is any thought that “something more” is needed, that we must, somehow, “reconnect” with God.

BUT – our question then is this, how does this reality of a completed Atonement, a life and joy we are only beginning to know, hit the Church of Jesus Christ full in the face, as Elijah on Mt. Carmel, such that millions of Spirit-filled believers turn entirely away from Christ AND Sin-in-the-Flesh, to see Christ alone?

The fulfillment of the Day of Atonement is that mighty action of power coming out from one place. That one place is those individuals across this earth, called of God, who have already entered into the full measure of union with Jesus inside and as His already accomplished Atonement.

Here is what I mean.

O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant… please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned (Nehemiah 1:5-6).

Nehemiah was born in Babylon. He had nothing to do with the sins committed by those who were destroyed in Jerusalem by the Babylonian army. What Nehemiah was doing was foreshadowing the Lord Jesus Christ, in taking the sins of the people upon himself before God.

Here, then, is the same thing in the instructions of the New Testament towards us. – By this we have known love, because He set forth his soul, His story of self, for us, for our sakes {the word hyper includes the concept of a trade, story for story, life for life}; and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

The Atonement is the work and action of one day, beginning with Jesus’ entrance into Gethsemane and ending with His final words – “It is finished,” a time period of right at twelve hours. More than that, the full measure and meaning of the Atonement is found inside of human history in that one brief moment of Jesus’ utterance – “It is finished.”

Nonetheless, we know that God and everything that is of God, is continuous and dynamic all-here-now action. For that reason, although we KNOW that the Atonement is fixed absolutely inside of one moment of time and one set of circumstances, the blood of Jesus mixing with the dirt of this earth, nonetheless we also know that the Atonement is a continuous and dynamic action inside of God inside of us right now.

You and I are called of God to be the revelation to His people of ALL that the Atonement is and means. And the revelation of that Atonement is NOT outward human perfection; rather, it is something entirely different.

Outward human perfection is the image of Satan and results in one thing only – arrogance and contempt. The revelation of the Atonement is that which carries all for all, utterly inside of human weakness and failure, just as Jesus did.

So, what exactly are we talking about when we say that the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement is about to come upon Christians now all across this earth? We are talking about two things specifically. We are talking, second, about a massive “event.” And we are talking, first, about what it is out from which that “event” comes.

Let’s talk about the first thing first. The source of that event of “Elijah,” however it might play out in “Christian newspaper headlines,” so to speak, comes out from the hearts of God’s people, you and me, who engage directly with God as sharing all things as one Pperson together with us, regarding the fulfillment in full measure of one short line of Scripture, half of a verse.

And we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

This action of our commitment does not “add to” Jesus’ Atonement, but rather is the full revelation of that Atonement now as Jesus through us towards His Church.

In late 2011, as I was writing the letters that became The Kingdom Rising, these three words, “And we also,” intruded themselves into my consciousness and onto my pages, worming themselves right into the center of every book or series since, sharing heart with God.

What does it mean for us to set forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters? And to do so in the same way and for the same purposes that Jesus set forth His soul for us?

Tithemi Psuche.

Set forth soul.

This question will be a major recurring theme as we continue through this series, including in the upcoming letter, “The Eucharist.” In fact, I hope to shape much of what I will write going forward around this question of our practice of tithemi psuche FOR THE SAKE OF our brethren.

In my recent letter, “The Latter Glory,” I talked about receiving one another in exactly the same way that Jesus receives us. I also talked about the misuse of “discernment” in analyzing those “others” who “must be” far away from God in our fleshy opinions.

Let me give, now, the balance, that is, what real discernment is for.

There is a huge difference between “receiving” all who call upon Jesus’ name and trusting or committing to walk in close community together with all. You know as well as I do the innumerable bullies, manipulators, and abusers who seem to fill Christian gatherings. To allow such a one into the close fellowship of trust that is Christian Community is to guarantee a rot that, as the writer of Hebrews expressed – Looking carefully lest any be falling short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up should crowd against to disturb you, and through this many might be stained {in their story of self} (Hebrews 12:15).

True discernment is a careful practice of ensuring that abuse does not happen inside the close community of the Church, abuse that causes the story of self inside of many to go contrary to Christ.

Nonetheless, in that letter I set before you the practice of seeing all other believers in Jesus as without consciousness of sins, regardless. What does that mean?

When Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” He was speaking to the most vile and vicious abusers ever to congregate in the house of God.

Seeing no consciousness of sins is the very opposite of a flippant and shallow, “Who cares, doesn’t God forgive everybody?” Seeing no consciousness of sins is the greatest and costliest price ever paid for the sake of another.

For Jesus to speak those words, inside the state of mind that we see through David in Psalm 22, is simply the costliest act any human could ever do.

God, moreover, demonstrates and proves Himself [as] love into us, that our being still sinners, Christ died for us, for our sakes (Romans 5:8).

By this we know love – and we also.

Let me get specific. The vice-president of the United States, Mike Pence, is a born-again believer in Jesus. I saw him speaking on a news clip yesterday.

Now, I typically stay far away from listening to almost all American politicians. They are shameful and utterly deluded. Many of them are wicked beyond measure, filled with demons. The presidents are the very worst, having long ago sold their souls to Satan for a pittance in this world. They are owned, and they KNOW who owns them, that is, the human representatives of Satan in this world, men and women utterly committed to the triumph of evil on this planet and the death of billions. (I would actually place Jimmy Carter outside of this definition, a sincere and good man even when wrong, but few others from dishonest Abe Lincoln on.) But – let me not run down that rabbit trail.

Mike Pence was assuring the people of Venezuela that the intentions of the American government towards them were entirely pure and good, that we were on their side, wanting them to be free.

I watched Mike Pence speaking for less than one minute. In those seconds, I perceived one thing about him, and I made one set of judgments concerning him and his words.

I perceived that Mike Pence is a true believer in Jesus, that, however limited his knowledge of Christ might be, he loves Him. And I judged that Mike Pence was not lying; the man is utterly and woefully deceived. More than that, his deception will contribute to the horrific pain, suffering, and death of thousands of people, just as the controllers who own Mike Pence intend.

Now, it is not my purpose to describe the great evil being committed by the US government against millions of people across the in-between, resource-rich third world, along with its desire to commit the same evil against the most important in-between resource-rich society, Russia. Here is John’s description of the world which we see unfolding before our eyes today.

– And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, like frogs. These are the spirits of demons performing signs, which go forth upon the kings of the entire inhabited land, to gather them together into battle – and again – These have one mind, and they shill give up their own power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb (Revelation 16 & 17).

Mike Pence, a typical American Christian, utterly deluded, has joined himself with the wicked den of thieves that call themselves “the government” and in his delusion that he is serving “Jesus,” is very much a part of this final great assault against the Lord Jesus Christ.

A simple believer in Jesus is giving himself to unspeakable evil, imagining the opposite.
No war crimes ever committed in history are “above” the criminality of the American government ever since 1991. The lives of 100 million people have been devastated. For most of those years, an average of 70 terrorist bombs were exploded every day across a large chunk of the Middle East, maiming and killing and burning, every single day, but Trump has increased that to an average of 120 such bombings, every day, each one as bad or worse than anything the news channels depict regarding “bombings” taking place in the West.

Just because it’s not shown to you by the image of the beast does not mean that it is not happening to thousands of people all the time. It is wicked. It is evil. And if I am ashamed of one thing, I am ashamed of being a part of that deluded nation that blesses itself in “God” on the one hand and murders and destroys so many lives indiscriminately on the other hand.

I am talking about my fellow believers in Jesus, millions of them, throughout this country.
They love Jesus; they commit horrific acts of wickedness, even if they don’t know that they are. That’s what “deception” is, doing evil, even while imagining that it’s all “good.”

Millions of German Christians were destroyed, from 1942 to 1947, even though they had no way of knowing the evil being committed by their government. American Christians are different. American Christians are well able to know; they just refuse to do so.

These are the people, including Mike Pence, whom I must receive in exactly the same way that Jesus receives me. These are the people for whom it is my calling to “set forth my soul” for their sakes.

Did not Jesus die for me while I was raging hostile against God?

And we also – for the sake of our brethren.

Well, “The Day of Atonement” was a long chapter in my earlier book, and this letter must continue as well, at least one more page.

Here is my point. The Mercy Seat of God is the most terrible judgment against sin that can be. Mercy cannot “excuse” sin. Mercy puts sin to death, and then raises the former sinner back into life again.

Having been symmorphosed with His death – We are saved by His life.

When you set someone free inside the Mercy Seat that is now your heart, you are bearing, with Jesus, the cost of their freedom. You are not “atoning” for them, you are sharing the fellowship of the Atonement already accomplished.

For me, to take Mike Pence into my heart, in spite of the great evil that I know is intended to hit thousands of decent and innocent people as a result of his lying deception, is to believe in Jesus as I never have before.

The Atonement costs everything and wins everything.

Let’s turn briefly, now, to that “event” that is the Day of Atonement fulfilled in the Church of Christ, an event that turns millions of Spirit-filled believers in Jesus away from their mindless pursuit of death and their participation with the wickedness of this world into the revelation of Jesus Christ. In fact, this is also a theme I see already developing in upcoming letters.

Elijah on Mt. Carmel. I really can’t see this happening in any other way than a similar mighty event that gets the full attention of Christians across this earth, that they might hear the Atonement and might turn into the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

People are not “gradually” convinced. The knowledge of God comes step-by-step, yes, but something happens that gets millions of people to turn all at once.

That’s something else to consider. Jesus AND death. Jesus AND this world. Both of these things must be shattered. As well as Jesus AND the serpent as the image of God.

Shattering. Absolutely shattering the serpent’s image as “what God looks like.”

I have never looked this specifically at this Day before. What event will SHATTER everything that must be eliminated inside the Christian mind?

Yet it is a Day that comes only out from simple believers in Jesus, you and me, setting forth our souls for the sake of our brethren.

The accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one accusing them before our God day and night. And they have overcome him…

The truth is, I have no idea what the answer to my question might be. It is my great hope that, not just an understanding will come as we continue to ramble, but the actual Day itself upon the Church of Christ.