36. The New World

You want to know what the New World will look like? When you KNOW that you are utterly turned around in the Holy of Holies, when you KNOW that every step you take, every breath you breathe, is God flowing through you reconciling the world to Himself, regardless of how you might interpret them, when you sit there in amazing contentment, knowing that all things are yours, starting with this most precious Person, the Father, who fills you full with all of Himself and walks with you in a fused Covenant Bond forever. When you know God without pretending or any need to be self-right, then check out your own being. All the things you love, all your ways of delight, all that makes your heart sing for joy, in you is the shape of the New World.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. – Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”Revelation 21:1 & 5

Because of the fantasy definitions of heaven and earth found in Christian thinking, the “new heavens” and the “new earth” are also seen as two separate things. Heaven and earth cannot ever be separated except as death. Death vanishing from the human experience – and heaven and earth no longer separated in anyone's sight are two sides of the same thing.

The Greek word usually translated “world” is cosmos, the orderly arrangement of all things.Cosmos must mean all things in heaven as well as all things in earth because in the orderly arrangement of all things, the two are utterly fused together. One does not exist without the other any more than our human body, the earth, can live except as it is infused with the human spirit, heaven. Yet cosmos is rightly translated “the world,” because the interactions of all human beings together take place inside a spirit, heavenly, environment. If there are wicked persons on earth, their wicked personhood comes only out from wicked persons in the heavens. If there is kindness on earth, that kindness comes only out from kindness in the heavens.

The heavens are as shattered by the agreement Adam made with the serpent as the earth is. The present world, then, is the shattered arrangement of all things coming out of that death.

A new heaven and a new earth MEANS a new world, a new orderly arrangement of all things. What that will look like no one knows. The writers of the Bible caught only glimpses of it, but they could not understand what they saw and could only express it with words and pictures found inside the present shattered world, a world flowing out of the tree of knowledge, out of “falling short” of God and trying, trying, trying, to connect back.

I cannot describe for you this New World about to come out of our bellies because it is not known by anyone at present, no one in heaven and no one on earth. Even those of our brethren now with the Lord in heaven only, Moses, David, Paul, or John, do not know what this new world is for they have not yet seen it, limited as they are to their spirits only and confined to the present heavens, a heaven that is passing away.

As I consider a study on the actual Feast of Tabernacles itself, I could easily add half a dozen more chapters to this series and hardly scratch the surface of all the relevant Bible passages. But doing so would not give us Tabernacles. One thing only can show us what Tabernacles looks like and that is its fulfilment in our lives. Then we will speak out of knowledge; now we can only surmise.

But to me, the what of Tabernacles is not nearly so important as its source. Tabernacles, the New World, the Life of the age to come, is that which comes out from a specific and knowable source. Whatever the New World might look like or be, one source alone shapes its courses.

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:13-14

In any series there seem to be always a handful of letters that impact my life in a big way, some by how they alter my knowing of God and others by how they affect my life in power. I typically need a space of time after, however, to know which letters have done either of those.

The most important letter in this series is “The Form of God,” for by it my knowledge of this One who fills me full has increased enormously, with “Seeing the Invisible One” as its necessary predecessor. At the same time, writing and speaking “The Day of Atonement,” placed a power of certainty into my life, that the Atonement is complete, that we are utterly turned around. The most important phrase and injunction in this series is, “Turn around.”

I lived for 21 years in a Spirit-filled fellowship of believers moving in an apostolic anointing and power who taught the Feast of Tabernacles fulfilled in our lives from beginning to end. They did not have a clue.

They did not know that the truths of Tabernacles are found only inside the tree of life, only inside of John 14:20. They did not know our precious union with Christ. Rather, they attempted to see Tabernacles fulfilled with power inside this present cosmos, this present arrangement of death.

Tabernacles is the most destructive force in the universe. It causes the present age and all of its definitions and relationships to cease. It is impossible to show anyone living in the present world anything about Tabernacles for real, for all of their present conception of God and Salvation must cease and be replaced by things they have not considered.

The biggest thing that must change is the definition of God. Indeed, God as known in the Christian world of darkness and separation is almost a different Being entirely from God as He is and as He reveals Himself to all by Tabernacles. Yet in the end, everything of God as He IS is found inside the words of the Bible as they actually say. At the same time, the Augustinian definitions of God vanish forever.

There are four very large things that pervert the definition of God as found in the mind of almost all of our brethren. These four perversions work together to make a perfect citadel of hostility against the penetration of anything God actually is or says. Everything we might speak concerning who God is and how He lives inside of us and reveals Himself through us is struck down instantly by these four things working always together. And the thing is, you cannot eliminate just one or two or three of them. Rather, all must go before anything of God as He really is can be known upwelling within each one as everlasting springs of God unfolding Himself through us to be seen and known and touched by all creation.

Let me list those four mighty perversions in short form first, and then explain them as succinctly as I can: (1) the lie, (2) heaven, (3) hell, and (4) unbelief in the Atonement. Heaven and the lie work always together on the one hand while hell and unbelief in the Atonement work together on the other hand. Yet all four continually buttress and support each other so that anywhere the goodness and reality of God might penetrate, all contribute their darkness to shovel that knowledge of God into the many sidetracks and dead end canyons found in Nicene Christianity.

Let's begin with the lie as it was the first perversion to enter into the mind of man.

Nicene Christianity, our brethren all across the Christian world, every little group preaching its revelation, BELIEVES without question that the serpent spoke the truth. This belief in the inherent truthfulness of the serpent is the foundation of all their theology. Thus anything we might say to contradict the “truth” as spoken by the serpent is struck down immediately as blasphemy. Jesus was killed primarily because He presented to the Jewish world a view of the possibility that the serpent had, in fact, lied.

Jesus, a man, said, “The Father and I are One.”

You see, it really is a no-brainer. The serpent lied; there was no truth of any kind found in his words.

The lie begins with the belief that God is like an angel, that is, a great and glorious heavenly being emanating perfection and strength who lives by knowing what is right and who does what is right by that knowledge. Thus “godliness” means to hear what God says and to be sure to do it. In fact, the idea that man is the image of God, though it is stated clearly in the text and repeated by many, means nothing because it is always struck down by the deeper belief that God is defined for us by the highest and most glorious of heavenly beings.

Then, the lie proceeds to the conviction that “to be like God” is evil, and anyone who wants to be like God desires iniquity. The serpent uses this belief promoted by himself to maintain his place of superiority in the minds of all as the image of God. At the same time, the tree of knowledge, “God” on the outside of us, knowing what is right and doing it, and knowing what is wrong and not doing it, becomes the only path of salvation.

Jesus, then, was effectively removed as a competitor to the angelic definition of “God” by being deified at the Nicene Council, that is, turned into a “God,” a super radiant heavenly being emanating perfection, looking just like the sun god, Apollo. Even though Jesus called Himself “the Son of Man,” over and over, His words were turned into a statement of angelic divinity. Even though the disciples wrote of Him exclusively as a Man, including the statement in Hebrews that it is a MAN who is seated at the right hand of the Father, all Bible testimony that man is the image of God, not a heavenly angel, simply does not stand. No one sees it, no matter how many times they read the words.

The second mighty perversion came as the first immediate consequence of death in the universe, the separation of heaven and earth in the minds and knowledge of man. Earth, then, and human flesh with it, became in their minds the source of all evil and perversion and “heaven” became a far-away “place” of light and beauty, lost now to us so long as we live in an earthly form. Thus, the only reality salvation can be is that we escape this vile earth by death and “go to” heaven far away after we die. Salvation, then, cannot be known on this earth – except the infantile idea that salvation, or “Jesus lives in my heart,” is simply the means, the ticket, by which we get to “go to” this far away “place” of bliss.

Thus, when anyone reads in the New Testament words that state that heaven is the source of evil, that heaven is temporary and will be destroyed, and that the meek will inherit the earth, those words are simply never seen or considered. They cannot mean what they say, after all.

But far, far worse than that, this ungodly, death definition of “heaven,” a definition not found in the Bible though forced upon the words of the Bible by the darkened minds of Christians living in the tree of knowledge, is also used to define in their entirety every statement in the New Testament concerning two utterly critical things, salvation and eternal life. Salvation and eternal life, in Nicene Christianity, in the minds of our brethren, are then defined entirely by the curse Adam forced upon the universe by his useless and unnecessary belief that the serpent was telling him the truth.

The Lion King is simply the best illustration I can think of. All the grief and horror that came upon all the lions and all the animals of the African plain for many years did stem directly from Scar's wickedness, yes. But really, the full responsibility for all that grief lay upon Simba who, rather than standing in the light saying, “Here I AM, oh God. I and all the children inside of me,” chose to believe the lie, and to run into darkness to hide from something that was simply not true. (I'm mixing Simba with Adam in this illustration.)

And thus salvation and eternal life, in the minds of almost all our brethren, is simply “Hakuna Matata” forever in the far-away bliss of “heaven.” Salvation and eternal life, in the minds of almost all our brethren, is actually something horrifically dark and evil, a hiding forever in the curse of Adam.

The third mighty perversion then came as Christians took the true nature of this glorious heavenly angel, this cherub, filled with envy and hatred, and fused that definition together with the obvious explanations of God found in the Bible. God is love; God so loved the world. – God creates billions of living beings filled with hopes and dreams for the sole purpose of torturing them forever in the hopeless agony of utterly penetrating torment.

This belief that God is, by definition, a demon rules the hearts and minds of almost all our brethren. Their every approach to God, while their hearts are drawn by love, is also shadowed by their absolute belief that this God they are approaching is an angelic being filled with demonic hatred. In fact, they believe that God will torture forever anyone, like you and me, who claims that God is not a demon.

You see, the sight, on a TV show, for instance, of a serial killer torturing his victims reverberates through the Christian and human soul as pure evil. Yet, their definition of God requires them to believe that the serial torturer hardly holds a candle to God who has continued to torture those very same people, fully conscious and aware of themselves, in agonizing hopelessness, in screams and wails of the deepest penetrating infliction of pain, and will do so forever.

Nicene Christianity inserted this definition of “God” into even the translation of the Bible, a definition that simply was not known by anyone for the first two hundred years of Christian history.

No one who defines God as a demon will ever know Him.

The fourth horrific perversion, in some ways the very worst, is the savage and brutal reduction of the Atonement won by the Lord Jesus Christ down to the very tiniest of things, a ticket that comes into play only after we die, a ticket to the great Hakuna Matata in the sky.

The Atonement is removed and restricted and reduced in every conceivable direction. It is cut in half, with the Living Christ carrying all of our “sinfulness” right now inside His empty tomb banished utterly from Christian theology. This far-off and limited atonement does not apply to the earth, nor to our lives now. It is not greater than the universe, but very limited and weak. The Blood is not absolute; the Cross is not finished; and Resurrection Life is something far, far away, known only by death taking us out.

Everyone who is busy approaching “God” despises the Blood. Everyone trying to do something to get right with God, including talking about “dying to the flesh,” which they only ever talk about but never actually do simply because it does not exist, despises the Cross. And everyone talking about going to heaven someday despises Christ our only life.

Turn around. Be the Salvation of God through you now, right here upon this earth.

Every single verse, every word in the Bible that might suggest something different, is taken by the Christian mind into the wilderness of these four awful perversions of darkness. Everything God says is required by them to find meaning only there.

You see, I suspect that I have scared a whole lot of people off with some of my statements in this series about our present relationship with God. Yet, I have said nothing that is not clearly stated in the New Testament. That's the whole problem, the reason behind the creation of all Christian “theology.” To believe what God actually says is to realize that the whole “the serpent spoke the truth” paradigm must be cast aside, and for most it is just too blasphemous to accept that man is the image of God, that God shows Himself as He is only through man.

Yet God WILL anoint us to win their hearts. I am sure of it, because, you see, Jesus lives in my heart.

This is the concluding letter of this series. My last concluding letter, “Victory” in The Two Gospels, was in some ways the most glorious thing I have ever written, the real rendition of the fulfilment of Tabernacles in our lives. I am in no way attempting to better it. Yet God and I have a very great purpose in presenting this dark picture of the awfulness that binds our brethren and prevents them from hearing and knowing this wonderful God who already fills them full and who carries them all the way home.

I can tell you nothing about the shape and form of the New World that God will sing into existence out from our hearts. But I can tell you about its source, though here language fails. Find every word in all languages that are synonyms of “most precious and glorious,” and you will not even begin to express the simple wonder of this thing I now know, this wondrous relationship of God and me, a relationship that always extends out to include you and all others.

The only definition of eternal life and thus of Salvation found in the Bible is these words of Jesus.

Know God and know Jesus Sent.

Know God can be found only out from these words: I am filled with all the fullness of God. Know God rests entirely on Blood Covenant, that is on Jesus Sent, on these words, never separated, but always and forever fused together:

He that has seen Me, has seen the Father. – We are just like Him for we see Him as He is.

To know Jesus Sent is to know the infinite and eternal absolute totality of the Atonement: one sacrifice for sins forever.

To know Jesus Sent is to put on the Lord Jesus Christ; it is to live only inside a Man rising to His feet in Gethsemane.

And yet, as ideas, these things remain ideas.

God is not an idea; God is a Person. God is a wonderful, amazing, brilliant, cool, fabulous and magnificent, pleasant, sensational, surprising, weird and eccentric, quirky, spontaneous, simple and complicated, funny, whimsical, hilarious, witty, compassionate and merciful, warm, charitable, tenderhearted, kind, affectionate, gentle, gracious and loving, thoughtful, amicable, glorious, magnificent, dazzling and brilliant, delightful, precious, adored, cherished, dearest and treasured PERSON who lives inside of ME. I share a body with this Guy, and a spirit, and a heart. The Father and I are one, utterly fused together, yet walking always together in wondrous communion. That communion is Christ Jesus living always as me.

God fits ME. God fits me so perfectly; that is, the entire way in which I am created, the entire way in which I find myself to be right now, is designed with incredible perfection to fit in all ways, in every direction, this incredible Person who has chosen to reveal Himself to the universe through ME.

I like God. I like Him a whole lot.

I like being just like Him. I like being filled with Him all the time.

I want to insert a little story told to me by Bonnie Morris, something she experienced just the other day.

– Oh, how I loved this (We ARE the Body of Christ). As I read it, I understood an experience I had yesterday. I work with a gal who has an outreach to homeless women with children. We answered a policeman's request to help a gal with 5 children. There was no home to put her in, so we drove over to the police station to get her a motel room for a couple of nights. While we were making the arrangements, I was talking with the women and the gal said, "Bon, pray for her"…

I froze! Literally! I could not speak! So, eventually the other gal prayed for her. I had already come to grips with telling this gal (we have known each other only for 2 months)… to tell her nicely never to tell me to pray again. I did and was free of the situation. She said, “Oh, all right.”

But, here is what happened. I am free. She was controlling the situation (innocently). If she had "asked", I would have been free to pray or not… but her exact words were "Bon, pray for her!" … Don't tell me what the Father is doing in me… leave me liberty… When you truly love, you do… In Pentecost, that's what we did. But, I pray when I am free to pray.

This woman has taken all the "how to do it courses in ministering" and I get that… but, it doesn't scratch where I itch any more. All the "how to" stuff is just too "mind' oriented if you will let me put it that way. There is not the freedom in it that I am now walking in. It has become darkness to me and when it was innocently forced on me, I couldn't move. I am hopeful that this experience is something God will use someday to open her eyes to Tabernacles as I know it puzzled her.

~~~

“What the Father is doing in me.”

As I read this story, I thought of how quirky God is, how He so utterly fits Himself to us, yet, at the same time, shows us Himself by ourselves. It could be that God and Bonnie “froze” together simply because God and Bonnie don't like to be put into a box, they together are spontaneous persons, or it could be that both together sensed something else, something dark, operating in the heavens.

Regardless, the Rivers of living water always flowing out of God and Bonnie together did far more for the gal being prayed for than the outward prayers. We don't need to see anything to know that living water is always flowing out of us transforming all things into goodness.

But the remarkable thing is how God so fits us as we are. Whatever I am, that's what God is in me, filling me full. You are different from me, but God is a big Fellow. He is in you in exactly what you are as you find yourself to be just as much.

God never “tells us what to do” and then expects us to do it. That's the tree of knowledge relationship with God; it is death. God shows us what He is doing through us by our own steps, by our own inclinations, reactions, feelings. God shares all those things with us and we with Him.

The difference is the tree of life; that is, God in Person in us filling us with all of Himself for real and in our immediate knowledge, and walking together with us in a fused union, sharing precious communion, and extending ourselves out to all as God fits us and no other way.

The rivers of Eden flowed out carrying inside of them the curse Adam and the serpent agreed upon together as they pretended to trade places. Everything in heaven/earth shaped itself, then, to the vibrations of that curse. Part of the change was immediate, part took place over centuries. But by the time Noah stepped out from the Ark onto the mountains of Ararat, the extent by which darkness and death would write it's expression upon creation was full.

The same pattern happens through us. As we partake of the tree of life, the rivers of Eden go out from our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, our full exchange with Him of a life for a life. Everything in the New World will shape itself to the vibrations of the Life flowing out of us.

Because I know that God designed me to fit Him perfectly, that He fills me as I am, His image, then I know that all the things I love, all my quirks and interests, must shape the new heavens and the new earth. God flows out from me.

And the same with you. God flows out from us together.

There will be no hint or shadow of “force” in the New World. Here is the proof.

None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. Hebrews 8:11

It's called the Covenant. Knowing God is the only life there is.

Now, in the last letter, I talked about the River of Life flowing out from us transforming this present heaven/earth, bringing life and healing to all things.

That is not the full New World, but rather, the precursor to the New World, the training time.

The New Heavens and the New Earth come out of our bellies after the Accuser and all of his demons are released back into a fully restored present heavens and present earth to challenge the work of the sons of God in just the same way that he challenged Adam and Jesus.

It will be a third proving of the Word God speaks. The third witness of Christ.

This is the time of Gog and Magog as prophesied by Ezekiel. The time of all things being consumed by fire.

God proves Christ through us a third time by the laying down of everything we have done over a thousand years of glory, the seventh Day of Rest, allowing God to take all of it into cessation, letting it all go, laying it all down.

Then after that will be the greatest of all the ages, the time we can rightly call “the next life.”

And that greatest of all the ages will be the full New World coming out of who and what God is in us.

Yes, from the moment of the Resurrection on, it is the New World, but the New World as seed first, a seed planted in the earth. We need not concern ourselves for that third great proving of the Word God speaks, for God will utterly prepare us for that hour. God says little about it, but He does place it there in John and Ezekiel's visions to show us the completion of His patterns.

Then, in my present perception, that greatest of all the ages, the final and permanent New World, will be the time when we will walk side by side with each individual person, humans first as they have been raised by the second resurrection, and angels second, drawing each one, step by little step, into the knowledge and Salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It will be a time of wonder. It will be a time of life-laid-down and love-poured-out.

It will be the time when the full Heart of Father will be shown to each individual person through us.

It will be the Lake of Fire; it will be the Heart of Love.

It will be God all in all.

The Feast of Tabernacles

Covenant Fulfilled Books

Feast of Tabernacles Chapters

36. The New World