22. Side by Side

Jesus wants to marry a woman who sits by His side on a “garden bench,” who is equal to Him in heart and mind, who walks through the difficult places together with Him, leaning upon His shoulder, who knows that her union with Him is because she loves Him and He loves her. Jesus will marry only a woman who knows Him in the deepest and most intimate of friendships. Jesus will marry only a woman who knows that He has conformed Himself to her, that He loves what she loves, enjoys what she enjoys.

 

Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Genesis 3:21

Adam could not escape God. The certain knowledge of God filled his consciousness. He tried, desperately, to hide. He covered himself with fig leaves; he hid behind tree trunks – both typifying all the many ways his descendants have developed to try, somehow, to hide from the reality of God.

Those fig leaves and tree trunks symbolize the world, Adam attempting to create a life for himself out of the serpent’s open contradiction of the Story.

None of it worked for Adam. Nothing shielded him in his sin and shame from the light of a pure and holy God. To have lived his entire life in that light, in sinfulness and shame, attempting to persevere in the presence of holiness, would have been a lake of fire for Adam.

God, of course, did not condemn Adam. Adam condemned Adam – that is the nature of independent self.

But God had a different purpose for Adam and for his descendants. God’s purpose was first to redeem Adam’s seed, and then to form Christ within those whom He elected as a firstfruits out of Adam’s seed. But that could not happen, so long as Adam was unshielded from God. Independent self, striving to exist in the full light of God, is hell.

So God wrapped Adam and Eve in the skin of an animal.

The skin of the beast is the mercy and kindness of God. The beast skin allows Adam and his seed to live long enough for Christ to come, first as our Redeemer, and then as our Life.

It is easy for us to know that we are encased in the skin of a beast. Look around the room in which you are sitting right now. You are completely surrounded by all the Shekinah glory and power of Almighty God. There is no place in heaven more holy and more filled with God’s glory than the room you are looking at right now. How do you keep your head up? How do you go about your business without falling flat on your face in terror?

Very simple – we are blind. We can’t see the obvious. But even a blind man senses someone else in the room. We can’t. And the reason we can’t see the obvious, sensing the presence of other persons in the room all around us, both holy and evil, is that we are more than blind, we are clothed with a beast skin.

The beast skin is what makes the people of this world so beastly. The poet, Alexander Pope, said, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” He spoke of man’s capacity to sin filthily and arrogantly in the very presence of Almighty God.

But the beast skin is also God’s kindness to us. We are not ready for His light, not until Christ is fully formed inside of us. Nor is He ready for us, not until we have abandoned all thought of independent selfhood.

Jesus was the last Adam; Adam ended upon the cross. The old man is dead. I am already crucified. Why, then, does the beast skin continue as part of my experience? In actuality, the skin of the beast remains upon us ONLY as cataracts over our eyes. That is why we walk through futility by faith.

For the creation was subjected to futility (the skin of the beast), not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Romans 8:20-21

Believing that Christ is our life does not come overnight. Even when God reveals to us that He did not lie when He says that we are already dead; even when He shows us that we are NOT an independent self, struggling somehow to please Him, but that Christ is the only life we have; even when He reveals to us that He did not lie when He said that old things are passed away, and that all things are made brand new; even then, it takes days and months, and even years, for the full knowledge of Christ living in us as us to permeate every part of our thinking.

We revert back to the old way of thinking so easily. Seeing ourselves separate from Jesus, now having to line up with a God who is surely displeased with us. We wake up in the middle of the night, feeling awful, certain that God has departed from us. Over and over, we have to stop in our tracks, stop all such thinking, in spite of what we feel, and think that Christ is living as me right now, that He is my life; He is one with me even as I feel so bad right now.

And every time we do that, we learn of Him. So long as I saw myself as someone separate from Jesus, I could not know Him, no matter how much I wanted to. The only way to know Jesus is to see yourself utterly inside of Him. Then you will know the sweet communion of His person.

Most believers in Jesus are not ready for the skin of the beast to be removed from off their eyes.

This word, the “revealing,” the “manifestation” of the sons of God, is the Greek word “apocalupsis.” It means to take the cover off. The cover that conceals Christ in us is the skin of the beast. That cover is coming off.

What will be found inside? An independent self, desperately trying to please the implacable requirements of a holy God? Or will there be one who, with joy, has abandoned all sense of a separated self, knowing that Christ is his only life?

~~~

Last night, the Lord showed me the real reason for the continued presence of this earthly blinder, the skin of the beast, that keeps us from seeing and knowing all that God is and all that we are in Him — the real reason why Christ arising in our hearts is the only cleansing from all filthiness of flesh and spirit.

I just finished a romance novel by Georgette Heyer, Sprig Muslin. Let me briefly give you the story line.

A wealthy man of 35, kind, well-loved by family and friends, was being pressured to marry. He had once before been in love with a vivacious girl, but she had died in an accident before they were married.

The man chose to ask a friend of his, aged 29, a plain and simple girl who had been passed up by all eligible suitors, to be his wife. Her family was convinced that the only possible choice she could make was to accept. With full respect, she refused him. She did not say why.

Meanwhile, he became involved in the life of a beautiful young runaway, who was trying to persuade her grandfather to let her marry an officer in Wellington’s army when she was just 16. He attempted to restore her to her family. In the process, he was accidentally shot. In desperation, his companions sent for the lady who had declined him to come nurse him. She went secretly, spending several days caring for him. Finally, they were found by her family members concerned about “propriety.” They demanded that the wounded man marry their sister to preserve her honor. He refused.

When they had all left, the two were sitting side by side, alone in a garden. They were finally comfortable together, having gotten to know one another in the midst of difficulty. Picture the most beautiful and romantic garden scene possible. He told her that he could not marry her for obligation, but only for love. She told him that she had refused him because, though she knew they were friends, she also knew that intimate love would not have been the beginning of their marriage.

But now they truly knew one another as friends, and they both knew that they loved one another.

I finished the book and went to bed. As my thoughts turned towards Jesus, I instantly knew the purpose for God allowing blindness to remain upon us in spite of the cross and resurrection of Jesus. God speaks to us through story.

This relationship we have with Jesus is about marriage. He is betrothed to us and we to Him. That is what our union with Christ is all about.

But Jesus will not marry a woman who honors and respects Him, who is grateful to Him for His great kindness. Nor even more will He marry a woman who fears Him and who does what He says because she believes she is under obligation to do so. Nor will He marry a woman who chooses Him because of His great power and wealth and how honored He is before all creation.

Jesus wants to marry a woman who sits by His side on a “garden bench,” who is equal to Him in heart and mind, who walks through the difficult places together with Him, leaning upon His shoulder, who knows that her union with Him is because she loves Him and He loves her. Jesus will marry only a woman who knows Him in the deepest and most intimate of friendships. Jesus will marry only a woman who knows that He has conformed Himself to her, that He loves what she loves, enjoys what she enjoys.

It is not up to the woman to conform herself to the man; it is up to the man to conform Himself to His beloved. This was the sacrifice that Jesus embraced in Gethsemane – for the joy set before Him – you and me. So long as I think that I must change to please Him, my heart is not comfortable side by side with His.

So long as you and I see ourselves as beneath Him in any way, we cannot love Him with the love that He alone will marry.

Jesus said the most extraordinary thing in Revelation Chapter 3. He said, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man opens the door, I will come in to him and I will sup with him, and he with Me.”

Jesus was not talking about those who did not know Him; He was talking about you and me. First we open the door to Him. Will you let Him be your sin and your shame? Will you let Him be your flesh? If Jesus could take your sin upon the cross 2000 years ago, why can He not take your self upon Himself now? Or, do we really believe that something happened 2000 years ago when we cannot believe that He swallows up our sinful flesh and all of our foolish mistakes today?

Then, it is He who comes in to us, and it is He who sups with us. There are few statements more precious in the Bible. To sup with us is to share an intimacy of closeness with every part of our being. It is Jesus who conforms Himself to us.

And finally, we sup with Him. It is only when we surrender our heart to His love for us will we be able to return the love that alone is acceptable to Him.

Obligation and duty will always keep Jesus at arm’s length, and it will keep us encased in the skin of the beast. He cannot marry a woman who is obliged to marry Him.

“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb (the absolute foundation of our return to the Father) and by the word of their testimony (we speak Christ and all that He is in us) and they loved not their lives to the death (we forsake any thought that we exist independently from Jesus Himself, knowing that all that we are is no more nor less than Jesus Himself).” Revelation 12:11

Jesus insists that His bride come to Him while she is still blind. He will marry a woman who considers herself His equal, equal in heart, in mind, in soul and who loves Him, not for His greatness of position, or for the mercy He has shown her, but who loves Him in an intimacy of equality – who “sees” Him by faith as the One who fills her heart.

It is out of that intimacy of union, we in Him and He in us, that the manchild of Revelation 12:5 is born.

Faith is that which walks in the reality of all that is unseen, now, while it is still unseen. Faith makes everything God speaks personal, right now.

God put spirit-blindness, vanity upon us. It is God who will remove it through us. And He will do so when we “see” all that He is in us. When God removes the cataracts, the opaque skin, that still limits us in this world, many will be astonished and amazed at what they see. But for those of us who “see” Him now in all things, both inside of us and outside of us, we will see nothing different at all. There will be no shock or surprise.

When we see in reality, we will see the same thing that we now see by faith. There will be no difference.  This “faith-seeing” is a miracle of the Holy Spirit; and He overshadows you right now for that purpose.

Yes, we humans are created to live in both heaven and earth at the same time, and we do. The problem is, we don’t “see” heaven because we are blind, not because we don’t live in heaven right now. But how can those who are blind describe what reality looks like?

Physical blindness is not like that. A physically blind person is usually a very trusting person. They have to be. They know they can’t see. So they allow others to tell them what they can’t see, and they believe what they are told. Then, believing that there is a chair right beneath of them, a chair they can in no way see, they sit down slowly and thus “prove” in their experience that what they were told and believed to be true is really true.

But it is not that way with man who is spiritually blind – and wears a beast skin. Man is convinced that anything he cannot see cannot be true, though God Himself tells him it is true.

I picture a blind woman I know. If you were to lead her by the hand into Buckingham Palace, sit her in the Queen’s throne, and say, “L___, you are seated upon the throne of the Queen.” She would have no personal way of knowing whether you are telling her the truth, no. But I can picture her face, all aglow.  She would look around her and say, “Cool! Tell me what I see.”

God says we are seated in the heavens upon the throne of Christ with Him. Many argue that since they don’t “see” anything different, it is just their “position,” and now, they themselves must “make their position their experience.” In other words, they are convinced that they are in fact not blind and can see all things as they really are. This is the arrogance of spirit-blindness, the difference between one who imagines they can see versus one who is simply blind.

A blind person, upon hearing from One she trusts, that she is seated with Him upon His throne, will say with great excitement, “Cool! Tell me what I am looking at.” And there are no religious theories anywhere near as they enjoy the moment together. He, showing her the glories of His Father’s house and she “seeing” with all her heart what she knows to be true, simply because she knows that although she cannot see, He can.

For us to leave our blindness behind forever, we ourselves must become blind. A spirit-blind person is convinced they can see. A blind person sees all things by what he or she is told by the Beloved.

This is why speaking what God says concerning us in the New Covenant is so important. As we speak what God says, His descriptions of reality fill our mind. The more we “see” His descriptions of reality, the more we see them. Everything God speaks becomes real to us because we believe what He says.

Those who believe they can actually see will judge what God says by the sight of their natural eyes and decide He is telling them stories that might be true, but aren’t really. However, they want to remain a “Christian,” so they create a theology allowing them to denounce as “deceived” anyone who believes, simply, that what God says is true, in spite of what they “see” inside their humanness.

There is a saying, “In a land where all are blind, the man with one eye will be king.” I don’t know where that saying comes from, but it is complete nonsense. “In a land where all are blind, the man who can see is immediately crucified,” is the reality.

There is a door into all the fullness of Christ. That door has a simple key to stepping through it. That key is this. Let us be blind so that Jesus, who is the word God is always speaking, might show us what He Himself sees.

How does that work? God says that you are filled with all the fullness of God. See God, in all that He is, filling you at all times.

God says that you are seated in the heavens with Christ – seated upon the throne at the right hand of the Father. See yourself sitting upon that very throne. You are not before the throne, you are in the throne, tucked into Him, looking out. Ask Him to describe for you what you are looking at, so that you can see as He sees. He will be delighted to tell you – but only if you are blind. If you think you can see, you won’t believe a word He says.

I mentioned previously that we are seated upon a garden bench side by side and heart to heart with our Beloved. That’s one precious way to see our relationship with Him. But don’t be fooled. He sits upon no “garden bench.” He sits upon the throne of His Father, and you sit there with Him.

Ask Him, ask Him, to show you what He sees.