14. The Altar and the Veil
Audio Only14. The Altar and the Veil - for Notes
The Altar serves one purpose, and that is to send believers in Jesus through the Veil and into where they already live. It is only your imagination that has kept you out, that is, your ability to fantasize things that cannot be true.
[Again, I am speaking of “you” as one who has not yet embraced their full and present union with Christ.]
As I am thinking right now, I see that three fantasies keep each individual person out from living only inside of John 14:20, you inside of Me and I inside of you. Two of those things are common to all and the third varies to each individual.
Reasons for Refusing. The first thing common to all is the refusal to believe that God is telling us the truth in the gospel. The second thing common to all is a morbid attachment to the law of sin and death.
The first comes from hearing personally the same words the serpent spoke to Adam and giving heed to those words. The second comes from choosing the same thing Adam chose, to eat of the knowledge of good and evil for control.
Then, the third thing that varies from one to the next is an attachment to something in this world. This can vary from worshipping criminal governments to loving contempt.
The Parable of the Sower. Look at that. This is exactly the three things in Jesus’ “Parable of the Sower” in Matthew 13.
First is the removal of the word as seed by demons. Second is the “shallowness” caused by an attachment to law and human performance. And third is our identity with the things of this world crowding out the plant of Christ.
Now, no human connects with these three things because they possess a “fallen sinful nature” inherited from Adam. Each individual person connects with these three things of themselves, facing the same choices Adam faced and themselves choosing death for the EXACT SAME reasons.
Only the Veil. The Altar of Incense cannot remove these three things, only passing through the Veil can do such a thing. The Altar “softens us up” or “weakens our grip,” so to speak, so that we will choose life.
But the “dealings of God” cannot give life, anymore than the law could. He who has the Son has the life – Christ lives in your hearts through faith. You are already filled to overflowing with LIFE – the problem is the “through faith” part. You have to believe.
This lesson is mostly about the Veil, for only the Veil is the passage into the Holiest.
The Flesh of Jesus. To those inside the Holiest, the Veil is not there, but to those remaining in the Holy Place, the Veil appears thick and impenetrable. This is God’s intention.
The Veil is the Lord Jesus Christ the third time.
Having already a free and bold proclamation of entrance into the Holiest inside the blood of Jesus consecrating for us a newly sacrificed as well as a living way through the Veil, that is, through His flesh… (Hebrews 10:19-20).
The Veil is the flesh of Jesus. To enter the Holiest, you must get down on your knees and place the FLESH of the Lord Jesus Christ upon yourself.
Jesus IS Your Flesh. Flesh of His flesh, one flesh with Him (Ephesians 5:30-32 – reduced). You will never know God until you allow the Lord Jesus to BE your flesh.
Jesus is planted – in your earth. Jesus bought your field because He values the treasure of your heart above all. Jesus is the scapegoat, the living sacrifice, carrying ALL of your present sinfulness inside of Himself as His own.
Either your fleshy sinfulness belongs to Jesus or it belongs to you, one or the other. Jesus will not share your sinfulness with you; either He gets it all, or you will not live in Him.
Responding to the Word. Understand, however, that placing Jesus’ flesh upon your flesh does not draw you through the Veil. You must do that in order to pass, yes, but what draws you through the Veil is your response to the Word, the Seed that is Christ.
Here is the required response to every word God speaks, the simplest of things, within the reach of every human no matter how limited or incapable.
Look at me, God. I belong to You.
Let it be to me according to Your Word.
Adam’s Choice. This simple response to every Word God speaks eliminates the arguments of the serpent, as a vapor that vanishes.
Sin, however, was not Adam’s giving heed to the serpent’s words, as awful as that was. Sin was Adam’s own hard choice, for his own purposes. Sin was Adam eating of the law of sin and death for the sole purpose of dominating his wife. – CONTEMPT.
I have watched individuals follow the Word God speaks into the Holiest only to draw back the moment they realize that contempt for their brother or sister cannot go in with them.
The Law of Sin and Death. In the end, all individuals who hold to the law of sin and death do so because it is the only thing that allows them to despise other people.
The law of sin and death is the covenant God gave through Moses. Paul made it clear that the promise to Abraham was an opposing covenant. It’s one covenant or the other, not both.
Ezekiel stated the law of sin and death this way – the soul that sinneth shall die. Paul said it this way – the wages of sin are death. You sin, you die. It’s over with.
Hear the Law. The law of sin and death is the law of “hear and obey.” It is the law that gives you the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. – By the law is the knowledge of sin.
Paul was intensely upset when he said, “Those who preach the law refuse to hear the law.”
Let’s hear the law. You walk with God all the days of your life, let’s say for 999 years. You hear God speak and you obey. You follow God’s law to perfection. Never once in 999 years do you sin against God. You have a neighbor, however, who has cursed you daily for 999 years. On the day before your 1000th birthday, you regard hatred in your heart against your neighbor.
Death versus Life. Bang – you’re dead. 999 years of sinless perfection means nothing. James and Paul both said that you violate the law once, and you violate it all. You are thrown into outer darkness. Your perfect obedience means absolutely nothing. You’re dead.
“Hear and obey” (All that the Lord says, we will do) is rebellion and death.
Hear and believe (Let it be to me according to Your word) is the entrance of LIFE. – The law of the Spirit of LIFE inside of Christ Jesus (the tree of life) has made you free from the law of sin and death (the tree of contempt) (Romans 8:2).
“I Cannot Obey.” “Hear and obey” is the exaltation of self. “Look at me, God, I did it.” – Even though the speaker KNOWS he is lying.
Hear and believe is the exaltation of Christ. “Lord Jesus, You are the only life I am. You are what God speaks into me.”
Look at what Paul really said as his conclusion in Romans 7. “I cannot obey God.”
Paul was the most obedient human ever to walk this earth. He called all of it “dog crap” (Phil. 3), and he entered into the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus by his agreement with God, “I cannot obey.” He also said, “I boast in my weaknesses, that I might know Christ (2 Cor. 12).
Two Fires. The fire on the Altar of Incense was a fire lit by God and not by humans, but the priests fed that fire with incense. When the sons of Aaron tried to light their own fire, the fire of God destroyed them.
The New Testament word for that fire is Energeia. We will look further at Energeia inside the Holiest soon.
For they being ignorant of God’s Fire of Energeia, and seeking to establish their own fire of energeia, have not submitted to the Fire of God. For Christ is the end of “I can obey God” to everyone who hears and believes (Romans 10:3-4 – modified).
Submission to God-Fire. Here is your submission to the Fire of God upon the Altar of Incense – “Apart from You, Jesus, my only life, I can do nothing” (John 15:5 & Colossians 3:4 – modified). Trying, lying, and crying – NO MORE.
Now, understand that Fire/Energeia is identity, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves – “This is me.”
There are two identities only – Christ as me or sin as me. The first is the Fire of God, the second is the “strange fire” of the human. And it is “strange” because it is a delusion. All who refuse “Christ as me” (Galatians 2:20) share the same identity of self-arrogance and contempt for others.
Do Not Love the World. But each individual latches onto other things in this world by which they spin their story of self as not-Christ.
Because people work hard on spinning their fantasy story of self, they don’t take kindly to abandoning it.
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone should love the world, the love of the Father is not inside of him. Because all that is in the world, the desire of the flesh (identifying with self) and the desire of the eyes (identifying with other selfs), and the boastful ostentation of biological life (arrogance and contempt), is not out from the Father, but is out from the world (1 John 2:15-16).
Self-Identity. There are moments in our lives when God requires us to let go of things of this world to which we have attached our identity, but the issue is NOT letting go, the issue is identifying ourselves by Christ – speaking the same word.
When God told to me get rid of the 1000 books I was trying to take with me, it was not the books at issue, but the severe attachment of my self-story to having those books.
Now I have 2000 books (down from 3500), including many of the same ones as before. The difference is huge; my books are not my identity. If I had to walk away from all of them, I would do so with joy.
The Word Is Jesus in Me. Let me expand on that to make my point. If we had to flee our home quickly, I would grab my New King James Bible and my two different concordances, nothing else, not even any of the books I have written. (A few more if I had time.)
The reason is simple. Wherever I end up, pen and paper will be at hand, and the Word of Jesus written all through my heart will just take up where I left off. The Bible and two concordances are there only as mental aides, to get the exact wording or to find where a verse is.
My identity is entirely the Lord Jesus, living as me and written upon my heart as all that God speaks. I have spoken the same word that is Jesus for almost 14 years now.
Preferred Identities. Self-identity, however, can be wrapped around many things in this world.
One can be a member of that dark religious cult called “God bless America,” and worship at the altar of Fox News, even while still living in the Holy Place, anointed of God. Another can hold natural family as their “life,” unwilling to embrace the family of God. Another can prefer to manipulate other Christians, identifying themselves as superior and contemptuous. “I am a minister of Christ, a ‘man’ of God (you worm).”
John is clear – they cannot know Father-Love inside themselves. Paul is clear – all of their “lovey-dovey” is fake.
Rest in the Fire. Here is the bottom-line. If we prefer any made-up pretending, including “Look at how the Spirit of God through me did thus and so,” we will not enter into Life.
Rest yourself upon the Fire of God and let it all go. No more pretending. No more seeing yourself as separate from Jesus when you are at your worst. No more attachment to the emptiness of this world.
But here is the incredible thing, when we put our flesh upon Jesus and let go of our fake “self-identity,” we discover out true selves for the first time, Jesus utterly with me. Now everything belongs to us to overflowing.
The Greatest Treasure of All. BUT – even though we possess all things in overflowing abundance, yet we count all of it as nothing. We count it as nothing because we have discovered the GREATEST TREASURE of all inside the Holy of Holies.
We have discovered that we share Hheart with God, that Father shares all things of ourselves with us and we share all things of Himself with Him.
And we have discovered that our true REWARD, our joy, our glory, and our crown of rejoicing, is one another. – We get to love one another forever, God among us.