21. Entering the Land
We do not know the way into the full revelation of Jesus Christ through His body because we have not been this way before. But we KNOW that the same living God who revealed Himself through Jesus now reveals Himself through us BECAUSE we see the Ark of the Covenant, this same Jesus, now residing fully in all glory in our hearts, having passed this same way before us. And thus we KNOW that all that is not Christ vanishes away by the brightness of His glory alone, now and complete in us.
Wandering in the wilderness has nothing to do with God's purpose or any part of our Christian life. God, however, makes use of everything and thus gives a purpose to such insanity after the fact, turning all things intended for evil into the benefit of good.
Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. Hebrews 4:11
That “rest” is union with Christ, Christ living as us, sweet communion existing always inside of already perfected union. This rest is our life from the very moment of Passover on.
Thus God makes this use of the stupidity of remaining in the horror of the Christian Hades, holding the life of Christ in one hand and sin in the other. He uses it only to say, with all clarity, “Don't live there; run into Christ alone.” (Thus we have Romans 7, the delineation of the Christian form of hell.)
The problem, however, is simply this. Living in union with Christ always exists inside the gathering together of the body of Christ. The moment Jesus immerses us into His Spirit, that same Spirit immerses us into one body. Thus we are members of one another.
It's easy to know and rejoice in full union with Christ when we are by ourselves.
But the moment we gather together, it's not quite so simple. The lust to judge not-Christ against the outward performance of “those who should know better,” especially when they offend us, and they will, is overwhelming. All other believers in Jesus will offend you.
Entering the land is bringing our full personal knowledge of union with Christ into our walk together as one body of Christ.
The only way it will ever work is to be continually, every moment, drawing all others in all their continual offence into the Mercy Seat, above the Blood upon our hearts. There, all that is offence vanishes instantly into the annihilation of God and our brother and sister arise in our hearts inside the God who is always ascending on high.
Moses died on March 6, 1423 BC. For thirty days, the children of Israel, the new generation who were born in the wilderness, never having known slavery in Egypt, wept over their loss. God honored their sorrow, but it was clear to all that the same anointing that had rested upon Moses now rested upon Joshua.
I like seeing clearly. Joshua was twenty years old when he walked behind Moses out of Egypt, the same age that I drove north into the Canadian wilderness seeking to know the living God and finding His path for me in Christian community. Thus Joshua was 21 or 22 when he stood beside Caleb saying, “We are well able to overcome.”
Now, upon the death of Moses, Joshua is 60 years old. Amazingly, he has fifty years of triumph ahead of him, for God enables Joshua to pass through the first fifty years in the promised land and to see the first year of Jubilee, possibly the only year of Jubilee honored in Israel's history. Joshua does not die until after the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in that great beginning year of Jubilee, late October, 1372 BC.
May I suggest that you read Joshua Chapter 1 as God speaking right now to you. But read it as the New Covenant; that is, the “land” is all the revelation of Jesus Christ manifest through His Body upon this earth and “the words of the law” is the word of Christ, the all-speaking of God ever springing up within our hearts and through our mouths.
Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. – I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.
Walk just as Jesus walked – Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you.
We are speaking of Christ revealed through His Body.
Jesus returns to this earth bodily.
We ARE His body.
I am now convinced by the unfolding of God that we will not “see” a “Jesus” apart from His Body.
Jesus remains fully human; Jesus lives as us.
God speaks to Joshua on April 4, 1422 BC. It is the time of preparation for Passover. Joshua sends over the spies on April 5; they return on the 9th. During that time, Joshua has given instruction to the people of Israel and moved them closer to the Jordan River. They are all in full view of Jericho, the first mighty fortress city sitting on a spur jutting out from the twisted wall of the mountains of Jerusalem. In between them and Jericho rushes a mighty river swollen in flood and brown with churning dirt.
Israel crosses the Jordan on April 10, 1422 BC, the day the lamb is chosen for the Passover offering. Here is how it happens. (You should read all of Joshua 3; I want to bring in only the primary truth.)
. . . the officers went through the camp; and they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before. Joshua 3:2-4
. . . By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites: Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan.Joshua 3:10-11
As soon as the four priests carrying the Ark upon their shoulders were standing fully in the water of the river, they stopped. As they stopped, the waters ceased, piling up far up river. Then, those priests stood there holding the Ark on their shoulders as the entirety of Israel passed around them into the land, probably the entire day.
Let's have the picture clear; it is so Powerful.
That you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before. – By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you (all that is not Christ shall vanish away). – Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you.
Remember that the first person to step around the Ark standing in its place was Salmon, the forefather of Jesus. The incredible thing is that this same Salmon, the prince of Judah, was one of the two spies who had already crossed this same Jordan, probably by boat, probably at night, in secrecy and daring bravado. This same Salmon married Rahab the harlot who had protected them and by her birthed Boaz, the great grandfather of David. Boaz was born in the Promised Land.
Salmon was the first to step around the ark and to stride up the other bank of the Jordan in the face of this same Jericho from which he had escaped just two nights before. (This would make a great historical novel.)
We do not know the way into the full revelation of Jesus Christ through His body because we have not been this way before. But we KNOW that the same living God who revealed Himself through Jesus now reveals Himself through us BECAUSE we see the Ark of the Covenant, this same Jesus, now residing fully in all glory in our hearts, having passed this same way before us. And thus we KNOW that all that is not Christ vanishes away by the brightness of His glory alone, now and complete in us.
It is by this picture, so graphic and clear, that God now speaks to us: Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9
You know, in the end, that one line is the entirety of God revealed through us; that one line is the entirety of the mind of Christ by which we now walk in all the manifest revelation of God, which is not something superhuman or angelic, but rather all that we presently are as we find ourselves to be.
I want to bring in Sam Fife. Sam Fife preached powerful words out from Joshua Chapters 3-5, basing much of the revelation of God through him on the truth portrayed in these three chapters specifically. Those words shaped my life mightily from age 20 on. Inside those words Sam Fife preached was great truth of Christ, truth that continues to reverberate all through me right now. And inside those words Sam Fife preached was great error, error that we lived and walked under for many years, error from which few have escaped.
You see, for the most part, that same fellowship over the next few decades threw out the truth part, calling it error, and kept tight hold of the error part, calling it the truth of God. Sadly, that's how it always works.
Joshua Chapter 5 is where that same error is cut away, therefore, I want to drive the sword of the Lord right through this false bond of the wilderness, of Christian evil, this false bond between Christ in one hand and not-Christ in the other.
Sam Fife spoke a line that became the definition of my knowledge of God. – Christ life is corporate life. It has never been anything but corporate life; it will never be anything but corporate life. –
In this line is the very truth of God; in this line is mind-numbing, soul-crushing, heart-breaking error.
Christ life is corporate life.
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. 1 Corinthians 12:12-14
For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Romans 12:4-5
It's just the way it is. All who belong to Jesus are members of one another, vitally joined as one body.
Christ is a many-membered body; therefore Christ life IS corporate life.
Corporate life is Body of Christ life, that is, life together, Christian community, walking together as members of one another inside of whatever outer form that might take in our present place and season. In the next letter, I want to explore what that means out from the intentions of God for Israel in their Promised Land.
The horrific error in Sam Fife's words came out of a wrong definition of God and of Christ. Yes, Sam Fife preached against the Nicene definitions of Christ, but he did not know Christ as we know Him now, though he was close.
Yes, Christ life is always corporate life revealed as the ever flowing revelation of that life of Christ coming as God shaping Himself through travail into that form by which He can be known, the word of His mouth, the all speaking of God entering into us. That corporate life is then always coming out from that same word in our mouths as we, each member in particular, areChrist living as ME. Then, by Christ as a Spirit of Power always flowing out of Christ living as us always flowing out of Christ as God unfolding Himself into space and time by the Word of His mouth, by that Spirit of Christ, we are continually joined together as one body, members of one another, God manifest to all creation.
That is God's order, and it can never be altered. Because Sam Fife preached only the final outward visible form of Christ life, he failed to ground us in the most important, the most precious part of Christ life, Christ as me, our personal communion inside of God, our most precious treasure. He knew little of speaking Christ.
The second letter ahead is “The Feast of Trumpets,” the first part of the Feast of Tabernacles. Remember that the Feast of Trumpets is disconnected in time from the other parts of Tabernacles. It is a pointing towards, a calling forth of the revelation of Christ upon this earth through His body.
The feast of Trumpets has already been fulfilled for real in the life of the church upon this earth. That powerful call going out across the earth, calling forth Christ into manifest visibility through a body of people walking together took place from 1948 to 1951, in the outpouring of the Spirit called “Latter Rain,” coming in response to the groaning travail of many saints of God inside the outpourings of Pentecost. That latter rain outpouring, the sounding of Trumpets in the life of the church, culminated in the writing of the most important book of the twentieth century, The Feast of Tabernacles, by George Warnock.
Since everything in the journey of Israel is driving towards the fulfillment of Tabernacles, I want to use this crossing of Jordan and the first Passover in the Promised Land to lay the foundation for Trumpets.
Through the 1960's and the 1970's three men (of my knowledge, though there were others for different people's place and experience) went forth in the power of that word penned by George Warnock, two of them by direct knowledge of it, Sam Fife and Preston Eby, one in the same spirit, Norman Grubb.
Those decades were the decades of radical revolution in every arena of life on this earth including in the church of Christ and the calling travail of the Spirit. A sister shared with me her encounter as a young woman with Norman Grubb during those decades; her story was identical to the story of those who encountered Sam Fife and others of like stature. It was the same story of sixteen-year-old John and Andrew seeing Jesus for the first time, hearts caught by something not of this world, something beyond all glory.
This history is of great importance to us now, for not only are we members of one another today, but we are also members together of the entire body of Christ, all who have gone before and are now waiting on us to finish this thing so that they might return to the revelation of God in the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Norman Grubb, Sam Fife, and Preston Eby each had a part of the revelation of Christ needed by the others. Sam Fife and Preston Eby knew each other, but parted ways on the very points at which they should have joined together to balance each other. Norman Grubb did not know them or they him, but he also held one of three keys needed to come together.
Preston Eby had the right definition of God, but an incomplete definition of us and of the body of Christ. Sam Fife had the right definition of the body of Christ, but a wrong definition of us and of God. Norman Grubb had the right definition of us, but an incomplete definition of God and the body of Christ.
I teach out from all three together. That's why I have so few readers. Those who heard Preston Eby are leary of Sam Fife and reject Norman Grubb. Those who heard Sam Fife are leary of Preston Eby and reject Norman Grubb. And those who heard Norman Grubb want nothing to do with Sam Fife and are leary of Preston Eby.
But, amazingly, reading these letters with you right now are a few who heard and knew Sam Fife, a few who heard and knew Preston Eby, and a few who heard and knew Norman Grubb. And they, with me, draw the revelation of Jesus Christ coming in part through each of those, into one whole.
I think I will come back to this layout in the next letters.
I want to use another primary teaching of Sam Fife, then, as a contrast to what actually happened, by metaphor, there in the Jordan River.
Sam Fife used this line from Joshua 3 to teach savage separation in the church, coming out from his definition of God as essential separation.
When you see the ark of the covenant . . . then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go.
Yes, there is clearly a space between us and Jesus, about two thousand years by measure. That space is the space between the fulfillment of Passover/Pentecost in the experience of the church and the fulfillment of Tabernacles.
But Sam Fife taught that it is the ministry, the apostles and elders, who carry the ark of God and that we who are not elders, and elders who are not apostles, do not have the anointing or wisdom to know the way to go, thus we must never seek to join ourselves to those who are so anointed by God as one of them, but always keep our distance and follow by submission and obedience.
As I said, Sam Fife, in spite of the anointing upon him, spoke out of a mis-definition of God. HOWEVER, there is no question whatever that God will use such temporal wineskins to deal with Korah/Absalom inside of us until he is forever gone, vanished in the bright light of Christ.
Let me give you the knowledge of Christ by this metaphor.
The Ark of God is the Mercy Seat upon human flesh and the Covenant which it carries within human flesh, all the speaking of God, which that Mercy Seat covers.
It is my full contention, argument, revelation, and the foundation of all that I teach, that this same Ark, this same Covenant, this same Mercy Seat is the Heart of the Lord Jesus Christ residing now inside of us as our own human heart, sprinkled always with Blood, life laid down, love poured out.
There is no Christ life, there is no walking together, there is no Body of Christ, there is no revelation of God, there is no manifestation of the sons of God, there is no setting creation free, there is no victory except it come entirely and only out of this Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat upon it, the Heart of the Lord Jesus Christ beating in our chests.
The two staves are in the Ark. Four men, Levites, pick up that Ark and set it, each one the end of a stave, upon their shoulders. Thus, in the picture, these four men become just an extension of that Ark. They walk forward in confidence until the waters of the Jordan swirl around their knees. Then they stop as the waters disappear. All day long they stand there without moving.
Jordan is yardan in Hebrew. It comes from the Hebrew word, yarad, which means “to go down, descend.” Where they stand in the Jordan, to their left about six miles, is the mouth of the Jordan at the Dead Sea, the lowest place on dry ground on the planet.
Here is the Jordan in the New Testament. He humbled Himself. – He laid down His life for us. Here is the Jordan in our lives: And we also ought to lay down our lives for our brethren.
– Let this same mind be in you.
It's a funny thing, but my last name is actually this same Yardan, or Yordy in German/English, from the Jordan. Thus my name happens to be Daniel David Yordy, or God-is-my-Judge Beloved He-humbled-himself. That doesn't make me special. Being chosen of God does not make us special; it makes us all special together.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
Defining that treasure as strongly and as vividly as I can is at the center of my purpose in this series.
It is here, at the lowest place in the human experience, that a most wonderful thing happens, an exchange, a heart for a heart, that very treasure placed into this earthen vessel.
As the Ark stands there where the waters of Jordan no longer flow, a man steps forward at the head of a long column of two million people. That man is Salmon the son of Nashon, prince of Judah.
Here is the picture God has for us.
As Salmon walks forward, he must veer out of the path slightly to go around that Ark. There is nothing in the text to suggest that he does not pass close by that Ark. Two thousand cubits is the better part of a mile. It is not in this picture. As Salmon passes the Ark, stepping forward to the Promised Land, all the life of the Body of Christ, that Ark enters into him. He is now that Ark and from it alone flows all the life of Christ in outward experience.
And behind Salmon walks every member of Israel, that same Ark becoming their own hearts as they pass it by in the lowest spot on earth.
Christ lives in your heart by faith – rooted and grounded in love – that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.
Galatians 2:20 is how we enter, our Passover into Christ, John 14:20 is where we live, our Pentecost, Christ written upon our hearts, and 1 John 3:16 is our going forth into all the life of the Promised Land, Tabernacles, the revelation of Jesus Christ bodily upon this earth.
It is no longer I, but Christ – you in Me and I in you – And we also ought to lay down our lives for one another.
As the final little member of Israel came up out of the Jordan trench, the Levites carrying the Ark finally moved from their place, coming up out of the Jordan just behind them. Only then were the waters released back into their course. At the same time, the heads of each of the tribes, having picked up each a stone (Salmon the first) from the bottom of the Jordan, placed those stones together as a memorial of what God and they had done together that day. It was April 10.
Then all Israel turned away from Jericho to Gilgal, just a few miles south at the head of the Dead Sea. On April 11, there in Gilgal, God came back to the thing Moses wanted no part of, circumcision. Not only did Moses make his own wife circumcise his twenty-five-year-old son, but he failed to require anyone in Israel to do it either. Thus the entire generation born in the wilderness were uncircumcised.
But God reveals Himself through the weakness of man and thus turned Moses' failure into the next part of the revelation of Christ.
We will not make graphic the next three bloody days, only to say that all that is not Christ vanishes away in the entrance into full union with Christ first. On the fourteenth they celebrated the Passover at evening, and on the fifteenth day, the first Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, they ate grain they had found, grain grown inside the borders of the Promised Land. When they woke up on the next morning, the morning of the sixteenth, the day of Firstfruits, the day of resurrection, there was no more manna. That which was temporary had ceased.
Now, Joshua and Jesus are two different names in English, but in Hebrew they are identical, Yeshua, the Salvation of God. Thus both Joshua, bearing the same name, and Salmon, bearing Jesus in his seed, represent to us the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then, on the Day of Firstfruits, the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the day on which the count to Pentecost begins, the day of plucking the first stalk of wheat coming up through the soil, now for the first time inside the Promised Land, God confronts Joshua face to face, confronting him to show Joshua for himself, that Joshua might know of certainty that there was no Korah inside of him.
This is the vital importance of the most difficult years of our lives, the times when people throw spears at us and we do not throw them back. It's not for God, it's for us, that we might KNOW that there is no scorn in us.
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” Then the Commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so. Joshua 5:13-15
Everyone fighting in some way for some cause upon this earth wants Jesus to be on their side – insists that Jesus is on their side. The Christian left wants to prove that Jesus is with them; the Christian right wants to prove that Jesus is with them. The Baptists, the Catholics, Christians for Israel, Christians against Israel, Christians for war, Christians against war, every cause, every issue, every one argues that Jesus is with them. And every single one uses Bible verses to prove their case.
Take your sandal off your foot!
Check it out in Revelation 1; the Body of Christ, the order of Melchizedek, wears no shoes.
There is not one ounce of sectarianism, of tribalism found in God's ministry in this end of the age. People pray “for the troops”; why aren't they praying for the troops on the other side? God has no sides in this world. And more than that, why aren't they praying for all those being raped and murdered by “the troops.”
I do NOT connect you with Sam Fife's actual teachings because he was grossly sectarian. Every truth of God he preached that was right on, he couched its fulfillment into his sect alone. God is finished with such ministries, though they served a temporal place.
The Heart of the Lord Jesus Christ extends itself right now over every single one who belongs to Him. Some of those are homosexuals right now, some are raging on death row, some are Muslims, others atheists. Some are Catholics, some are Baptists; His own are scattered across the entire earth in every nook and cranny. When America drops bombs, they burn with fire those who belong to Jesus and are members of us.
The Heart of the Lord Jesus does not extend over us. Rather, His Heart beats through us and in that beating, He has already expended us for the sake of His Bride. We are already poured out; there is nothing to hold onto or to grasp. The fiercest determination in the universe has seized us in His grip for one purpose only, that He might pour us out for the sake of His Woman, His beloved Bride.
That sword of the Lord cuts through all walls, all barriers between people, all demarcations of superiority and isolation. All of them come out of scorn; all of them come out of arrogant superiority.
There is no Korah in the house of God.
You see what takes place AFTER entering the Land, and AFTER becoming the Ark of God. Christ is always all before anything not Christ could ever vanish away. Yet that same Christ is a consuming fire, and all that is not of Him does vanish away. We know that it does because we see the cross, the empty tomb, and the resurrection. We know that it does because we see that same Mercy Seat beating in our chests.
This is the heart of the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Circumcision was Israel signing their covenant with God, just as baptism in water is our signature.
Sam Fife also taught from this passage that circumcision was our responsibility, defining it as cutting away from our lives and practice everything that is not Christ – before Christ, then, could fully come in our lives.
Paul presented circumcision as the opposite. To Paul, circumcision was eliminating from our minds and hearts any thought of not-Christ. And Paul taught that such a thing happens only by acknowledging the good things of Christ already complete inside of us.
The circumcision of Gilgal, just inside the experience of the body of Christ, is where that same error is cut away, this false bond of the wilderness, of Christian evil, this false bond between Christ in one hand and not-Christ in the other.
God doesn't want us to be “getting rid of the old man” or to transform ourselves. Why? Because we don't have a clue. Everything we try to “get rid of” will be Christ. And everything we try to keep will be self-righteousness. Those who “help their brother get rid of the old skin” are always hacking out chunks of the new, leaving bloody scars behind. The old skin just naturally falls away only BECAUSE the new is full and complete.
There is no cutting needed – except to cut away the concept of not-Christ.
Attempting to change one's behavior in the face of other Christians will ALWAYS create self-righteousness and nothing else. And it will always leave dear believers in Jesus crippled and in pain. But worse than that, their outer actions MUST become only a pretending, a putting on a face to “prove” to those from whom they seek approval that they “love Jesus” after all.
In complete contrast, those who rest utterly in Christ their only life discover changes coming bit by bit, but always arising up from joy, from the goodness of God springing up always within. At no point do they pretend to be what they are not, but are content in all ways with being the image of God.
Now, this entrance into the Promised Land, that is, being baptized into the one body of Christ, as shown to us by metaphor in the crossing of the Jordan is a big deal. I am seeing far more here than I had thought. Remember, this is not Tabernacles, as God first intended, but Passover again. Yet it points directly to the beginning of our walk together as the church of Christ.
You see, this picture of the crossing of the Jordan, of descending to the lowest parts of the earth, passing through the waters, and coming up on the other side to victory over Jericho, is not a metaphor of our being born again and becoming Christ living as us. It is entirely a picture of our being immersed, upon baptism in water, by the Holy Spirit, into the body of Christ, into Church life, into walking together.
All that is of the Promised Land speaks of our relationships together as the Body of Christ. Thus, the beginnings of that relationship is marked by God with many momentous and deeply meaningful pictures. Every element inside of crossing the Jordan is essential to us specifically for our walk together as the Church.
One such amazing picture is the stark contrast between Salmon and Achan, both men of Judah. You see, God had ordered the entirety of Jericho to be destroyed. Yet two men carried something out of Jericho. Salmon carried a prostitute and all her family, and Achan carried a wedge of gold, a bag of silver, and a Babylonian garment. The first God honored as He honored David; the second God destroyed. The contrast teaches us much; we do not want to pretend. Why have we never heard of Salmon before?
But the most important part of this whole picture is the Ark of the Covenant becoming the heart of Israel by metaphor, there, in the lowest parts of the earth. That metaphor was not fulfilled in Israel for Christ did not live in their hearts. But that metaphor is fulfilled inside of us.
The Body of Christ can exist only as each one of us draws all others in all their continual offence into the Mercy Seat, into our own hearts, there above the blood, and there release each one arising into the God who always carries them. This is the order of Melchizedek, the Heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.