"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
UNION BY FUSION
Part 2
I want to make abundantly clear to all who read these lines exactly what fusion is. It is a joining, a blending, an intermixture, a merging, an amalgamation, a unification of two or more items. It is more than an adhering. It is different from merely gluing some things together. It is a commingling of the elements. As members of the body of Christ we have come today to participate in an event of spiritual fusion, whereby we, being many separate individuals (atoms as it were), are fused into one in Christ Jesus. "For we being many are one bread, and one body..." (I Cor. 10:17). "And the glory which You gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and You in me, that they may be made perfect in one" (Jn. 17:22-23).
So we are talking about union by fusion. How does this come about? It comes about because of the white heat of the passion of Jesus Christ causing a spiritual fusion in three parts: First, the tremendous heat of the love of Christ, then the breaking down of the individuality and selfhood and the fusion of a whole new element, our spirit joined to His Spirit making one spirit, one mind, one will, one nature, one purpose – one Elohim! Finally, there is the tremendous release of the energy of Christ through the body. That is what Christ has called us to experience. That is what it means to be a part of the body of the Christ – to be fused into Him who is the Head. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (II Cor. 5:17). What does that mean – a new creation in Christ – old things passed away? It means that we are something that never really existed, yet we know that we existed before in a different form and state.
The Kingdom of God is filled with divine paradoxes. Two of these great divine paradoxes are found in Galatians 2:20. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live" – that is the first paradox. I'm crucified, but I live. Paul didn't say, "I was crucified and I was resurrected." No! He says, "I am crucified and I do live." I like that. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live. I'm crucified, but in spite of it I am alive. What a paradox! The second paradox is no less amazing than the first. "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." So Paul says, "I am crucified but I live, but just in case you don't understand the mystery of it, it's really not I that is living, but Christ lives in me – the true personality within is Christ." Divine paradox! What are we talking about? We're talking about items, elements. When Paul says, "I am crucified," he is talking about the outer. There is an outer reality, an outer consciousness, an outward man. The outer man is composed of soul and body of this gross material realm we have known since our birth on planet earth. We have understood ourselves and all men in that outer realm. We have known ourselves according to that outward realm, according to the influences of our environment, and according to our heredity on the physical plane. We have known ourselves as creatures of the dust, men of the earth, full of faults, limitations, weaknesses, problems, sins, frustrations, hostility, fear, sorrow, pain and death. We have known, assessed and judged ourselves and others in the outer sense realm. We have discovered that all is vanity and vexation in that outer, temporal, passing order. We have condemned ourselves in that outer realm, because all have sinned in that realm and come short of the glory of God.
So Jesus came to reveal the cross. And it is there at the cross that Paul says of this outer, carnal, failing and perishing man, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST." You must see that by the spirit. If the apostle was speaking in the natural he would have put it in the past tense – "I was crucified with Christ" – because it is a great historical fact that Christ Jesus was ignominiously crucified on a hill outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago. If he was speaking of an historical event where twenty centuries ago Jesus hung suspended between heaven and earth – and if in some mystical sense we were there with Him on that cross, crucified on that cross, dying on that cross – he would say, "I was crucified with Christ." But in the Greek text the verb is in the present perfect tense. And while the present perfect tense denotes an action that is completed – I have been crucified with Christ – it may also, according to the rules of grammar, indicate action that is continuing unto the present. What the present perfect tense clearly is not is the PAST TENSE – I was crucified. This is why the King James translators chose the wording, "I AM crucified with Christ."
In spite of the awful fact of Calvary's dreadful scene I would be remiss if I failed to tell you that the cross of Christ was not a cross of wood. The cross on Golgotha's hill was undoubtedly a wooden cross, but the cross of Christ that the apostles preached, and in which they gloried, and by which the world is reconciled to God, and which does its powerful work within us, is something more than a wooden beam. When in wisdom and holy expectation our Lord exhorted His disciples, saying, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up HIS CROSS, and follow me," He was not making reference to a cross of wood, but to a cross that would bring death to one's own identity, will, and ways, and identify his life henceforth with the life of Christ. The DEATH OF THE CROSS is in some mysterious and divine way the gateway to the LIFE OF THE CROSS. The wooden Roman cross upon which Jesus was crucified was not actually HIS CROSS, for the cross of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, all the handwriting of ordinances of the law were nailed to His cross, He made peace and reconciled all things in heaven and in earth unto Himself by the blood of His cross, and by that cross we are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to us. No literal parchment was nailed to the cross of Calvary, there is no magical saving power emanating from the wood of that cross, the whole world is not today hanging somewhere upon that cross, being crucified unto us. Such literal thoughts are absurdities. The cross of Calvary does not even exist today, having decayed back into the dust long centuries ago.
It is my deep conviction, and I say it with all reverence and respect to my blessed Lord and Saviour, but the truth is that Jesus in the natural suffered no more on the cross than thousands of others who were nailed to a tree, or thousands of others who died on the rack during the Roman inquisition, or thousands of others who were burned at the stake, fed to the lions, or made blazing human torches at the Circus in Rome. The physical suffering was no greater. The cross of Christ refers to a greater spiritual cross and a greater spiritual death. The cross of Christ had its beginning that day in heaven, when the Word of God, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Fierce as was His suffering at Calvary, that fearful hour of agony and blood was but the final act of a life of the cross as step by step He descended from the majesty and glory of equality with God to the fearsome moment when in anguish He cried, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Truly, as the scripture testifies, He was the Lamb "slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). The cross did not begin at Calvary!
Though I am sure it is impossible to plumb the shining depths and the inexhaustible riches of the meaning of the cross, I would like to endeavor to set before you the deeper meaning of the cross of Christ. We will never understand the mystery of the cross until by the spirit of wisdom and revelation from God our eyes perceive the eternal cross in the heart of God Himself. The only true and eternal life in the universe is the life of God. He alone is self-existent. He alone is reality. He alone is eternal substance. If we are to fully know and partake of that life, we must die to all that is contrary to that life. Everything that exists in the universe has its opposite – and as surely as God exists there is the opposite for all that He is. God is love – and the opposite of love is hate. God is light – and the opposite of light is darkness. God is truth – and the opposite of the truth is the lie. God is life – and the opposite of life is death. Each positive has its negative, and all the laws of the universe reveal this principle of opposites. Jesus enunciated the fundamental principle of life when He said that except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die it brings forth the increase of life. Every negative must be brought to death. Everything in the universe must die to all that is contrary to divine life and nature, being born again of the spirit. This is the meaning of, "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5). This has been the Father's plan for man – man in the image and glory of the incorruptible God.
The principle was set in motion with the first man, Adam. Adam had to fall into darkness, sin and death, not because he was inherently evil or rebellious, but because all that is contradictory to God must be stirred up, experienced, faced, understood, repented of, overcome and eternally put to rest in man's will before the image of God can shine safely and eternally through him. In recent times my whole understanding of why the cross is the gateway to LIFE has been clarified and crystallized within my spirit. I have come to see that God Himself dies to everything but His self-giving Self, which is love. God Himself dies to every dark principle that would sow selfishness, pride, strife, bitterness, trouble, bigotry, hatred, viciousness, pain, sorrow, chaos, disappointment, weakness, limitation or evil of any kind. The cross is the very heart of God, and the basis of why He is the ETERNAL GOD. He is eternally God just because He IS ETERNALLY all that makes Him God.
But how is it that God is unchangeable in His nature – is it because He cannot change or because He chooses not to change? Truly God "cannot lie" and God cannot be anything other than Life, Light and Love. But why cannot He be? The answer that the blessed spirit of Truth has revealed in my heart is because HE HAS ETERNALLY DIED TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT DARKNESS CAN ARISE IN HIS LIFE! The entire principle of darkness has its foundation in the life of God, for was it not God Himself who "divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night" (Gen. 1:5). "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things" (Isa. 45:7). This mystery of darkness in God's nature remains unrevealed because He has eternally willed to be Life, Light and Love. All the negative potential is there – the law of opposites – but there is a cross in God's heart – by which He eternally dies to all that would make Him anything less than GOD. This is ALWAYS happening in God's life, because the cross is an eternal fact. "Eternity" doesn't mean unbeginning time in the long ago or unending time in the inscrutable future. Eternity means NO TIME. Eternity is TIME-LESS. This means that the decision to die to the negative principle is not subject to review or change – it is forever settled and determined in the heart of God. That's why He says over and over, "I am the Lord; I change not." It is not that He is intrinsically set so that He cannot change. Rather it is that He has ETERNALLY CHOSEN not to change. It is an eternal, accomplished, irrevocable choice, born of wisdom and understanding. It is the eternal cross in His heart. Therefore He cannot change. He is forever love. He is forever pure. He is forever righteous. He is forever wisdom. He is forever light. He is forever life. And all that He is, is forever SAFE!
The cross is the secret of God's gift of love. It means that God does not live for HIMSELF. All the selfhood of God is forever crucified upon the cross in God's heart. Selfhood must be a vital characteristic in any life. The selfish desire that would cause God to live for Himself, and therefore be uncaring, vindictive, spiteful or cruel to His creatures – to this God eternally dies. He has willed to be a Self for others, instead of a Self for self, by eternally dying to the dark, selfish principle. Andrew Murray said that the spirit of love is AN ETERNAL WILL TO ALL GOODNESS. The best and the most wonderful word in the universe is Love. For God is love. What is love? The deep desire to give itself for the beloved. Love finds its joy in imparting all that it has, all that it is, to make the loved one happy and fulfilled. This is THE ONE ETERNAL, IMMUTABLE GOD that, from eternity to eternity, changes not, that can be neither more nor less, but an ETERNAL WILL TO ALL THE GOODNESS that is in Himself and comes from Him. The creation of ever so many worlds adds nothing to, nor takes anything from, this immutable God: He always was, and always will be the same immutable WILL TO ALL GOODNESS. So that as certainly as He is the Creator, so certainly He is the Blesser of every created thing, and can give nothing but Blessing, Goodness and Happiness from Himself, because He has in Himself nothing else to give.
The spirit of love does not want to be rewarded or honored; its only desire is to become the blessing and happiness of everything that needs it. The wrath of an enemy, the treachery of a friend, only gives the spirit of love opportunity to be more triumphant. The rebellion (selfhood) of Adam but opened up avenues for mankind to experience and know the incredible depths of the love of God! God IS LOVE! And His sons are of His own nature. The Sons of Love! What a blessed title! Little wonder, then, that the whole vast creation, sold under slavery and bondage to sin, sorrow, and death groans for the manifestation of THE SONS OF LOVE!
From this flash-point, Life sheds forth Light and Love. The whole creation sprang out from this unselfish love, for God said, "Let there be..." and "God SO LOVED THE WORLD that He gave..." Life begins after the cross, even in the life of God. The cross is more than Calvary – it is the fulcrum or point of power in which the entire infinite might of the forces of divine desire issue in love, creation, and self-abnegation for others. This is why Jesus said, "Take up YOUR CROSS and follow me." We carry our cross with us in our walk in spirit – the cross that God has in His heart – not to suffer physically, necessarily, but to die to all negatives and all selfhood and selfishness and spring forth as rivers of living waters in life anew. So we become life and light for others. As Adam Parker wrote, "How does the sun in the sky give light? It is continually dying to produce light. We don't see the death, or the dark contracting forces in this great star. We only see the light. But death is the key to the light. And that light is the life of our world in the physical dimension. So also the Son, with the cross in His heart, is the Daystar risen in our lives. We share in His eternal death and new life, for He is our very life – and He in us is the light of the world that brings life to all men."
All the books in the world, though written with pens of silver and ink of gold, could never fully describe the glories of His cross, nor could all the learned tongues of men or the heavenly voices of angels explain to the mind of man how He, who was rich, for our sakes became poor that we through His poverty might be made rich. Eternity itself will not be too long to sing the praises of such a One, who came from the cross in the bosom of God to shed His life blood that all creation might find eternal life in Him.
Notice now these wonderfully meaningful words penned by John the Revelator. "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the beast), whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD" (Rev. 13:8). Let us notice just what truth is stated here. A better rendering would be, "The Lamb that was put to death from the founding of the cosmos." Weymouth's translation reads, "All the inhabitants of the earth will be found worshipping him; every one whose name is not recorded in the book of Life – the book of the Lamb offered in sacrifice FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD." The sacrifice and death of the Christ did not start with the events surrounding Calvary; it began away back there at the beginning, and culminated on Calvary. He was the Lamb who was put to death from the beginning. Just as the cross did not begin at Calvary, so the crucifixion of Christ did not begin at Calvary. Peter expressed the fact that the cross existed as a work of God before the foundation of the world in this manner: "Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was FOREORDAINED BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, but was manifest in these last times for you" (I Pet. 1:18-20). The Lamb whose offering was already a glorious and eternal reality in the heavens, remained only to cast its shadow upon the earth, on Calvary's hill. We would have thought that in calling our Lord "the Lamb" this name would have been used only in respect to His humiliation in His earthly life and death. However, in scripture it is most often used in reference to His glory in the heavenlies. Peter saw Him as a Lamb foreordained before the foundation of the world. John saw Him as a Lamb that had been put to death from the founding of the cosmos, highly exalted, standing in the midst of the throne. Actually, John saw the Lamb SLAIN IN THE MIDST OF THE THRONE! "And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne stood a Lamb as it had been slain..." (Rev. 5:6). What a wonder!
It was when the Christ hung upon the cross before the foundation of the world, and upon the cross of Calvary, that He became the one fruitful tree. He tasted death for every man and was made perfect through sufferings that He might lead many sons to glory. It was under the shadow of His cross, that we were found and were quickened by His Spirit. It is there He found us, and it is there that we found Him, and it is there that we are crucified with Him that He may live in us. It is there in the cross that streams of living water are poured out in the dry place; from that encounter the Rock follows us, and out of it, living streams are flowing more abundantly. It is the cross in our lives that brings the release of these living streams to mankind, for the body of Christ is the channel of His life by the extension of His cross. While we praise God for the cross of Calvary, and while the soul of man will ever love and thank Him who gave His life for us, yet I believe the triumph of the cross began at the cross in the heart of God before the foundation of the world and ends only when the race has received from God the Father, through the Christ, Head and body, the grace, power and glory of God that makes them sons of God like Himself. Hallelujah for the cross!
When God brings the cross into our lives, he doesn't bring it to us out of two millenniums ago – He brings it as a living reality out of the dimension of spirit right now! When by the quickening of the Spirit you saw Christ dying, you did not see Him dying twenty centuries ago, but in spirit you beheld Him. God brought Him out of that long ago into your NOW. God brought Him into your present. And you saw Him bleeding and dying, not two thousand years ago, but right now in this moment you beheld Him by spirit. And in spirit Paul exults with unspeakable joy, "I AM crucified with Christ!" Not then – NOW! Not was – I AM! It is neither history nor a future event. It's an accomplished fact in the eternal NOW. The eternal cross in the heart of God, the eternal cross of the Christ, now becomes your cross and you are crucified with Him, a participator in that same eternal death to all that is unlike God, to all that falls short of what God has chosen to be. I am crucified, nevertheless I do live, it's not the "I" that lives but the Christ who lives in me! The outer sense realm, the carnal, the vain, the fleshly, the passing, is placed upon that cross and crucified in order that the inner life of the spirit might find release. We only become holy as He is holy and pure as He is pure when the cross becomes an eternal reality in our lives. When the cross is no longer a historical event, or a doctrine, or a truth to be believed, but the cross is forever established in our heart, the cross in our heart will produce His nature within, the nature that willingly surrenders and cancels all that is not of life, light and love.
It is a great and glorious fact that your spirit is not crucified. If your spirit is crucified you could not say, "I AM crucified, and I LIVE." When we speak of death and resurrection we speak of two corresponding, parallel principles in the present. I AM crucified and I AM alive. Those are dual present and continuous realities. I am and I am. I AM crucified and I AM living. But what is crucified? Not my inward man – but my outward man. Paul put it this way: "Though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day" (II Cor. 6:16). The outer man, the sensual man, the soulical man, the carnal mind, the flesh – IS crucified. There is a work of the cross for all the negative realm, but just as the outward is perishing, the inward man is being joined and fused to the Lord – one spirit. The spirit is not conformed into the image of God by crucifixion but by union. Its form is changed by adding an ingredient. His Spirit is joined to our spirit. Our spirit is quickened by His Spirit. The outer man is put to the cross and is dying. But the inner man is receiving life and being renewed. It was on the cross that Jesus poured out His blood (life, spirit) for the life of the world. That is the divine paradox! It is both death and life. I am crucified and I live. I am perishing and I am quickened. Something is taken away and something is added. It is divine chemistry! It is union by fusion! And an entirely NEW CREATION is the result!
Nowhere is this beautiful truth of union by fusion more powerfully set forth than in John 17:20-23. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as You, Father, are in me, and I in You, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that You have sent me. And the glory which You gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and You in me, that they may be made perfect in one..." That they all may be ONE! How does God effect this? May the blessed spirit of truth help all who read these lines to see the commingling here. God is so in us, and we so in Him, that you can't tell where He ends and we begin. This is the principle I want you to see – union by fusion – not gluing people together, not making them one by some kind of close association, not taking a dog and a cat and tying them up together with a rope – that's not union, and it definitely is not fusion!
Furthermore, this mystery of union with God is entirely beyond our being containers of God. We have had the notion that we are containers of God, in the way a bucket is a container for water, and that God is a great container for us. But when we see God in us as that which fills a container there is still a separation from God. When you fill a bucket with water there is no mixture, no commingling, no union, no oneness between the bucket and the water. The two touch one another, there is a relationship and association, but no blending of substance. The water is still water and the bucket remains the same. Each is separate and distinct from the other. When we see ourselves as a container for God and God as a container for us we remain one element while God remains another element. There is no fusion. And, therefore, THERE IS NO NEW CREATION. In fusion everything is so blended and compounded until each element loses its own identity and an entirely new thing comes forth. Something that neither element inherently possessed is brought into manifestation. How great is the majesty and the wonder of it! "Therefore," says the apostle, "if any man be IN CHRIST, he is a NEW CREATION: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (II Cor. 5:17). Oh, may God help my reader to see this and cease separating between himself and the Christ! God is making a New Creation. It is the Word again made flesh, it is God birthed again as man. It is the glory of the incarnation. It is the compounding of the divine elements of God Himself with the elements of the human personality that God may be formed into an expression as man. There is ONE SPIRIT. "He that is joined unto the Lord IS ONE SPIRIT." The one spirit is not just IN you – it IS you. The one spirit is not merely God in you – it is God and you joined in union.
Stacy Wood has given an eloquent example of this truth. He says, "The scripture states in I Cor. 6:15-17, 'Know not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? Don't you know that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? For the two, He said, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.' I realize the subject in this passage is fornication, verse eighteen tells us that clearly. But I also believe that Paul was reaching deeper into a principle, and where in this principle Paul was touching a physical act, he also takes it right on into a spiritual revelation. Verse seventeen makes that clear. So we need to understand that we are not on the physical level involved in fornication and adulteries – those things are of the flesh and are cut off in the first Adam. Let's get into the New Humanity now and see what the apostle is telling us.
"I was in New Mexico a few years ago and while ministering to a group I made a statement that I was corrected on. The statement I made was simply this. I said, 'There are some things in the earth, and also things in God, that are certain, immutable, unchangeable, ever the same. For instance, 1+1=2. If you have an apple plus an apple, you have two apples – and no matter how you figure it, how you calculate it, one plus one always equals two.' After the service a young man came to me, a young man that has a Doctorate degree, a young man who speaks numerous languages, a young man who is in my opinion a genius, and he said, 'Stacy, I want to share something with you – one plus one does not always equal two.' Well, he took me back. I just stood there and looked at him as if to say, Now wait a minute! I've been taught all my life that one plus one equals two – what are you trying to tell me? He sat down and with a formula and a series of pages he expressed to me what he meant. The man is a nuclear physicist. Of course I didn't understand the formulas very well, but he convinced me after four pages that he had a valid point that I didn't fully understand – that one plus one doesn't always equal two. So I considered this and then in the scriptures I began to see the reality that one plus one, even in God's economy, does not always equal two.
"Paul says it very plainly in the passage we have quoted. He says that one man joined to one harlot equals one flesh. Therefore Paul says that one plus one equals one. So when two things are joined and fused together they are no longer two things, but become one thing. Another example of this is found in Ephesians 5:30-32. 'For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.' This is a great mystery, but what Paul is declaring is the divine formula – 1+1=1. He shows that we are made one in the body of Christ. We must lose that vision of our uniqueness, particularness and individuality and grasp hold of the concept that we are one, not many.
"It is the principle of marriage. A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and joined to his wife, one man and one woman become one flesh. Most of us that are married look at that verse and try to imagine that in some mystical way we are one somehow, but we don't understand the conflicts and disagreements! We do our best to get beyond the differences and misunderstandings to truly become one so that we always think alike, desire alike and act alike. But that is not what Paul is saying. The reality is that God took one individual, me, and one individual, my wife, and has made an expression of one. I can tell you exactly when it happened – it happened when my daughter was born, and again when my son was born. For Jana and Stacy are Sheri and Stacy as one. When God joined Sheri and I, He put us together in such a way that we can never be separated. He took all of the structure of my life and all of the structure of my wife's life, and He joined them together between a sperm and an ovum and brought forth one new creation that is neither Sheri or Stacy – and yet it is both of us. It is a perfect joining and blending of the complete whole of both of us into one new whole.
"When we traveled with our children years ago, we made note of people's reactions when they would see our children. Often people would look at our son and say, 'He's the spitting image of your wife; and your daughter, man, she is so much like you – you can surely tell who belongs to whom.' Then we would go to the next group and someone would say, 'Your son looks so much like you, he doesn't look like your wife at all; and your daughter looks so much like your wife, she doesn't look anything like you.' After several years I was quite puzzled and meditated on this phenomenon for a while. Why is it, I wondered, that some people think Jana looks like Sheri, whereas others think she looks like me? And some think Stacy looks like Sheri, while others think he looks like me. Then it dawned on me – they are bound to look like Mama and they are bound to look like Daddy because all that we are, all our genetics are brought together and combined into one new form; both of us are so joined together that you really can't distinguish or divide between what is Stacy and what is Sheri. You can't tell where Stacy ends and Sheri begins in them, or where Sheri ends and Stacy begins. They are one new creation, one flesh of us two" – end quote. Can you hear the mystery that is great in that? When Jesus Christ, who is masculine, is joined to the church, who is feminine, His Spirit joined with our spirit equals one spirit. When the two are joined together you get a brand new spiritual dimension that has not yet been, and that spiritual dimension is called "the Christ." There is a joining of one plus one that equals – ONE!
The Tabernacle in the wilderness, with its High Priest entering within the veil into the Most Holy Place, and coming out again from that glorious precinct invested with the authority, power and glory of God to bless the whole nation of Israel – is surely a parable of our union with God. We now have boldness by the blood of Jesus to enter into the Holiest – but that is only one half of the divine equation. The other half is God entering into us. That's what union is – each entering into and becoming part of the other by fusion. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the (Most) Holy Place; let us draw near" (Heb. 10:19). It is a call to God's elect to enter in through the rent veil, into the place into which the blood has been brought, and where the High Priest lives, and where the ineffable glory of the Most High God shines brightly, there to live and walk and work always in the fullness of the Father. Christ Jesus has opened the way into the Holiest! This is the full salvation and the full inheritance of God that belongs to the saints. Oh, the glory of the message! For fifteen centuries Israel had a sanctuary with a Most Holy Place into which, under pains of death, no one might enter. But now the call goes forth: Enter in! the veil is rent, the Holiest is open; God wants to welcome you into His bosom. Henceforth you are to live in union with Him. Son of God, daughter of God! Your Father longs for you to enter in, to know and dwell in His fullness forevermore!
To the faithful in Christ Jesus I now proclaim this message: As much as we desire to enter in, the God who dwells in the Holiest of all desires to get OUT! At the same time we are entering in, God is coming out. Not only does God intend to bring you, my beloved, into the fullness of Himself, but He intends to bring all that He is out into every dimension. So we are on the way in and God is on the way out. The inspired writer to the Hebrew saints says of our Lord Jesus Christ: "We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a MINISTER OF THE SANCTUARY, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man" (Heb. 8:1-2). What does he mean when he says that Christ is the "Minister of the Sanctuary"? In every temple there was a god, an unseen god, to whom the temple was devoted; there was a priest, the priest of that temple, who was to receive the petitions or the sacrifices of the worshipper and to get the answer back from God. So it was with Aaron in the Old Testament. It is said of him and of the priests of Israel, "they shall stand in My presence to minister," and "they shall go out and bless in My name."
There is both a Godward and a manward work in reconciliation and redemption. So our great High Priest, Jesus, stands as the Minister of the Sanctuary, as the Priest of the Tabernacle, the realm of His dwelling, and He ministers in a dual way. Christ as the Minister of the Sanctuary, has done these things: First of all, He opened the Sanctuary, the way into the fullness of the presence and life and power and glory of God. This He did by His blood, pouring out His life, making it available so that in its power we have access to God. When He ascended into the heavenlies He entered, with His own blood, by the energies of His own divine life, into the Holiest place. We read that with that blood, with that sacrifice – the better sacrifice of a divine life – the heavenly things were cleansed, and that in opening up the Holiest with His blood, He secured for us complete access into God's presence and glory. In Himself He brings us nigh unto God. He does more. There flows back from the Father to the Son, in whom He delights, a stream of life and blessing to impart to His people upon earth. Even so, as the sunlight streams from the sun, there flows forth unceasingly from the Son of God a river of life and light and love and power and glory unto all who believe. It is flowing even now. Just as surely as Jesus ascended into the heavens, just so surely "there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Ah, yes, Jesus opened up heaven to us, and has raised us up and made us sit together in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. But God has also come down from heaven and has entered powerfully into us. Oh! we must realize this. We are entering in, and God is coming out. Christ Jesus brings us nigh to God, yea, into God in Himself; and in Himself He brings God into us. "To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (II Cor. 5:19).
In the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement, and on that day alone, the High Priest entered in beyond the veil, from the Holy Place into the Holy of Holies. That great veil that hung there for so long kept out any who might enter into the presence of God. There in the Most Holy Place, in that secret place of the Most High, God dwelt in the Shekinah Glory between the outstretched wings of the cherubim on either side of the Ark of the Covenant, beneath which were the tablets of the law, the golden pot of manna, and the rod of priestly authority, and over which was the gold-covered Mercy Seat. Once each year, and only once, the High Priest could touch that veil. They had been carefully and sternly forewarned that should any man touch that veil, he would instantly be struck dead by God, reminding us that no man can enter into the realm of God unless he comes in God's way and in God's time and in God's appointed method. So the High Priest comes bearing the blood of the Everlasting Covenant.
The mystery of it is that ALL ISRAEL – every man, woman and child – were on that day identified in the person of the High Priest. He was a representative man, a corporate man as it were. The whole congregation of Israel went into the glory beyond that veil IN HIM. He drew nigh unto God on their behalf, and they were brought nigh unto God in him. The people of Israel never knew when the High Priest would come out again. They never knew whether the sacrifice for sin had been acceptable, and if he had done all things right, or that coming there in the secret place where God dwelt he might be struck dead. So they placed golden bells all around the hem of his robe. As long as they heard those bells tinkling they knew that the Priest was still alive and their hopes were alive in him. They knew that soon he would emerge from that awesome realm and come forth to bless them in the name of Yahweh. They knew that even as they had gone in beyond the veil in the High Priest, SO WOULD GOD COME FORTH FROM BEYOND THE VEIL IN THE PRIEST TO BLESS THEM, IMPARTING HIMSELF UNTO THEM.
The High Priest was thus the mediator between God and the people. He carried the people into the presence of God in him. He obtained from God the power to declare the remission of sin and the right of blessing the people. God drew nigh unto the people in the person of the Priest. God ministered of Himself through the blessing of the Priest. "And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and THE GLORY OF THE LORD APPEARED UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE" (Lev. 9:23). The service of the priesthood is clear – to bring man unto God, and to bring God into man – effecting union. That is reconciliation – making two one again. This is the reality of the New Creation. This is the power of full salvation. This is the actualization of our inheritance in God and of His inheritance in the saints!
Let me illustrate. God is in our spirit. On the individual level our spirit is the Most Holy Place. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. There is the fullness of God in the Most Holy Place of our spirit. In the words of the ascended Lord to the Laodicean church, we see a remarkable picture of God coming out of the Most Holy Place to fill all realms. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:20). We have traditionally understood this by the pictures we have seen of Jesus standing at the outside of a door, knocking, to gain admittance. The preachers have preached that Jesus is on the outside of the Laodicean church, standing at the door, knocking, trying to get inside the church – but Christ is NOT on the outside of the church, not even the lukewarm Laodicean church! The church is the very house of God, the saints are living stones built up a spiritual house, a habitation of God through the spirit. "For you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (II Cor. 6:16). No matter how weak, or how carnal, Christ is never on the outside of any Spirit-begotten child of God. I do not doubt that many who read these lines are convinced that He is outside some of the churches you know – and He indeed IS outside the systems of man. But the church is composed of people, not the system they belong to.
A tremendous revelation was given to John the beloved on Patmos. He was shown in holy vision the seven candlesticks "which are the seven churches" (Rev. 1:20). The seven churches represent THE WHOLE CHURCH REALM THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE CHURCH AGE. If you want to know what the church is like, look at the seven candlesticks! There you have the divinely inspired portrait of the church realm painted by the brush strokes of the Holy Spirit of revelation. Were they not imperfect, carnal, childish, idolatrous, heretical, rebuked – a realm of mixture and duality? The Lord commends and praises them on the one hand, while warning and rebuking them on the other hand. Some of the saints are praised for their works and faith and love, while others are warned of impending judgment if they fail to repent, and some are even threatened with extinction. These seven churches reveal the true state and condition of the whole church throughout the age, and history and personal experience both testify conclusively that John was shown aright. The early church was a church of mixture and duality – flesh and spirit, truth and error, law and grace, spirituality and carnality. Even a casual perusal of the New Testament reveals this! And from that day to this, make no mistake about it – ALL CHURCHES HAVE BEEN THE SAME! They are today! The church in El Paso is a carnal church. Whereas one says, "We are of Luther," and another says, "We are Baptist," and another says, "We are Pentecostal," and another says, "We are of Christ," are they not carnal and walk as men? There are indeed some spiritual people and some spiritual groups of saints in the church in El Paso, but the church in this city is a carnal church. And should the church age continue on for another thousand years the church would not have changed – the revelation of the seven candlesticks immutably declares it! The seven candlesticks are the seven churches, and the seven churches are the church throughout the entire church age!
As soon as this point was made abundantly plain John heard a voice saying, "Come up here and I will show you things that must be hereafter." After what? Why, bless your heart, after the candlestick realm! The promises had already been given, not to the churches themselves, but to "him that overcomes" – a company out of the church. "Come up hither," the voice commanded. John is now shown another realm HIGHER THAN THE CANDLESTICK REALM! It is the realm of the overcomer, of the throne, of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. John is invited to leave the candlestick realm to ASCEND IN THE SPIRIT TO THIS HIGHER REALM where the Lamb is in the throne. This is what the brethren don't want to do! They don't want a change of order. How they cling to the candlestick realm with its five-fold ministry, with its old order system, methods and structure, with its rituals, ceremonies, and ordinances, with its limitation, imperfection, carnality, weakness, mixture, and duality. This revelation was given to John in the year A.D. 96. The churches of his generation refused to leave the candlestick realm and rise to a higher place in God, and within only a few years the great apostasy set in, and by the third and fourth centuries the apostasy was complete, followed by an awful night of great and terrible darkness. Even secular history refers to that time as "The Dark Ages." It was the great "falling way" that Paul prophesied in which the man of sin was revealed in the church, the temple of God, in all his dread and stark reality. I have traveled to the sites of the seven churches in Asia and I can tell you that today there is nothing there – not one church exists, not one saint can be found. The seven churches were in Asia which is the modern nation of Turkey. Within the whole country of Turkey there are only 1,000 Christian believers – all the rest are Moslem. There are no churches to be seen anywhere.
Today, my beloved, if we would be overcomers, pressing into sonship, caught up to the throne, we must hear and heed the call "Come up hither" and forsake the carnality and limitation of the candlestick realm to become related to CHRIST IN THAT PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WHERE HIS LORDSHIP SWALLOWS UP OUR LIVES, WHERE HE IS ALL IN ALL, WHERE HIS SPIRIT, MIND AND LIFE REPLACE THE OUTWARD STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH SYSTEM. But do not forget, the Lord is still out there in the candlestick realm, for John saw in the midst of the candlesticks "One like unto the Son of man." Oh yes, He is there, ministering on that level, blessing by His grace, saving and healing and helping. What love! What condescension! That Christ Jesus the Lord would "stand in the midst" of all the foolishness of creeds and doctrines, of rituals and ceremonies, of programs and promotions, to minister something of life on whatever level it can be received in spite of all. Oh, the mystery of it! Oh, the wonder of it!
If Christ is not standing on the outside of the church – where is He knocking? Is He knocking to get in, or is He knocking to get out? Christ is on the inside, in the spirit of man. There is a pure realm within man, an inner sanctum, an eternal dimension – the Holiest of all. Christ is in our spirit, knocking on the door of our soul. He is in our spirit, knocking on the door of our body. He is saying, "If any man will hear my voice, and open the door, I will not only be joined to your spirit and be one with you in spirit, but I will come out into your soul and be fused with your soul; I will come out into your body and be fused with your body, and you will know in your whole being the fullness of my perfection, wisdom, power and incorruptibility!" It is in this experience that the soul is truly saved and this mortal puts on immortality and this corruptible puts on incorruption, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. So you see, dear one, while we are entering into Him from without, He is entering into us from within! WE begin in the Outer Court and press our way into the Innermost Holy Place. HE begins in the inner sanctuary of our spirit and comes out into soul and body. Truly He already dwells within the soul and body as containers – but I am talking about FUSION. What is in a container does nothing for the container, but when fusion takes place there is a mighty transformation and a New Creation. As we go in and He comes out there is effected a perfect union, and in this commingling there is the formation of a New Creation. Hallelujah! Herein lies the power and glory of the Kingdom of God.
You can never in a million years transform your soul by imposing laws or demanding reformation. And there is nothing you can do for this body that will bestow immortality. The Holy Spirit could not have used a more descriptive term than "dust" in describing man. "Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19). A chemical analysis of the human body reveals that twenty of the ninety-six elements that comprise the universe are present in man – substances such as carbon, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorous, sulfur, chlorine, fluorine, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, etc. All the elements are those found on the surface of the earth. Health foods, vitamins, minerals, natural cures, exercise, herbs – at best these can only slow down the process of corruption and disintegration, postponing for a little season the inevitable catastrophe. You can eat bean sprouts and yogurt and drink teas and swallow vitamins, all of which are themselves but corruptible substances of earth, and have not one whit of power to administer eternal life to a corruptible organism. It is merely adding corruption to corruption! Immortality does not come through any natural, earthly, material, physical or temporal element that can be added to the body. So Jesus says – If you want a transformed soul and an incorruptible body – Behold, I stand at the door and knock! I'm knocking from the inside, and I'm coming out! When He marches triumphantly through the corridors of your soul and steps into the territory of your body, when His Lordship is established there, when the divine fusion takes place in those spheres, there will be a full and complete salvation of the WHOLE MAN! Hallelujah!
J. Preston Eby
J. Preston Eby
P.O. Box 371240
El Paso TX 79937-1240
All writings are distributed on a free-will basis.
(Brother Eby does not have e-mail service)
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