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In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. Jesus' words - one hour earlier.
When Jesus said, "In that day," He did not mean that someday we would be in Him and He in us; He meant that at a certain DAY in our lives, we would discover and thus know something that is true. "That day," in the gospel, is always today. "Today is THE day of salvation." "Today, if you will hear His voice."
Look back at the words of Gethsemane. When Jesus says, "You in Me," I believe what He says. Should we do anything else with what He says? I was not in Him, as He traversed this dark passage, figuratively, but literally. I was not in Jesus in a metaphorical sense, but actually. Notice that He said "You IN Me and I IN you."
I sit here groaning over this word, IN, as Jesus used it here, in great perplexity and agony of spirit. Do we dare to limit God; does anyone in Christendom dare to say, "Well, it certainly does NOT mean A, B, or C; it means only what my limited box-knowledge of God allows it to mean"?
I am inside of every word, every moment, every action of Jesus in Gethsemane, and every word, moment and action of Gethsemane is inside of me. The words God uses to define "IN" is "FILLED with ALL the FULLNESS."
Gethsemane is the beginning of the Covenant. We begin the Blood Covenant with God inside of Jesus in Gethsemane. Gethsemane inside of Jesus inside of us is the beginning of full Covenant Union between us and God. We "begin" full Covenant union with God by discovering - in that day you shall KNOW - that our union with Him in Gethsemane is already true.
I want to insert this understanding here. I am using the tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness as a metaphor of our entering into full covenant relationship with God. God gave us that picture because it helps us to speak meaningfully about the various aspects of God's work in our lives. This metaphor, however, we apply at two different levels, always both at the same time. We see all things as finished and complete; we see that by faith. By faith I know that I already sit upon the Mercy Seat at the right hand of the Father inside of Jesus. As I see anything that crosses my path, I know that I am looking out from the throne of God; I see all things from that throne.
At the same time, God applies this same metaphor to our walk into the fullness of God made visible and complete - the manifestation of the sons of God in full glory upon this earth. We will know without question when that walk is complete - our bodies will be transformed into immortality, visibly and openly. There's no faking that, nor any doubt when it happens.
Thus the tabernacle shows us what we already are, and it shows us how we become what we already are.
In my last letter, I stated that I do not understand why those who dwell in all the experience of the Holy Spirit will not enter into the Holy of Holies. I now understand. Outwardly, I have been saying why all along, but I understand it now for the first time. Most Christians, including those with much experience and knowledge of God, looking at the things God says about life in the Holy of Holies, are absolutely convinced that those things are speaking of "heaven." And so they have reduced grace and the gospel down to the non-Biblical idea that God has promised us that we will experience Holy-of-Holies life, that is, third-level life, in heaven. They don't mean heaven right now, as God means, they mean "go to" heaven at some future time. And that "grace" means only that we don't "earn" this "going to" heaven. So right now we are just happy and later, someday, "going to heaven" is entering the Holiest of All.
Now, this much I understood. What I did not fully see is this. Paul says that we are in heaven right now - seated with Christ in the "epouranios." He says that, since we live in the Spirit, that is, in heaven, let's walk in the Spirit, that is walk in heaven, as well. What does that mean?
It takes tremendous faith to walk in heaven right now, a bold and daring heart of faith and absolute confidence in our union with the Lord Jesus Christ - that what He says, all that He says, is actually true. The reason it takes tremendous faith is that we are blind; God has not yet opened our spirit-eyes to see the obvious. Therefore, every step is a step in darkness, trusting absolutely that what our Guide, the Lord Jesus, speaks, is absolutely true and trustworthy.
And so again, the reason most Christians who live in the light and experience of the Holy Place, refuse to walk in the Holy of Holies right now, is that they simply do not trust Jesus. They are convinced He is speaking nonsense, and that they will know what He means and can then TRUST Him ONLY after their eyes see and they can confidently maneuver heaven on their own.
In other words, they want the same self-reliance in heaven that they walk in upon the earth. Thus they have concocted the "go to" heaven fantasy, rejecting the idea that they are already there in fullness, as God says. And when they hear us speaking about the salvation of heaven revealed in all fullness through us right now in this earth, they imagine we are speaking something other than the gospel; their gospel being reduced to a full rejection of Hebrews 10:19, that we enter into the Holiest, all the life of heaven, right now in boldness and by the blood of Jesus.
They are convinced that if they do not see reality, then reality cannot be real. Thus they walk by sight, having reduced faith to silly talk about happiness "in heaven," all the while refusing a heaven they live in, but cannot see right now.
And so, I must say something about all the "union with Christ" teaching across the entire spectrum, and many are rejoicing in many different expressions of our discovery of union with Christ. I must say what I see, not because I want to elevate myself or put anyone down, but simply - how can I be found faithful if I do not share in the gentleness of the Lord Jesus what I see?
I see so many speaking union with Christ at the door, and then speaking separation, separation, separation regarding everything of Christ beyond the door. WHY? Because they are absolutely convinced that REAL union with Christ can be known only after we "go to" heaven. And thus they draw a line through everything God says in the gospel concerning the reality of the Holy of Holies fulfilled now in and through us into this earth, convinced that we CANNOT know such union with God, not until AFTER we die and "go to" heaven.
And that is why God has promised to shatter heaven. Because all of these precious dear ones can never know union with Christ in full reality as God says it in the New Testament until their white-knuckled grip on "go to" heaven fantasies is broken. And so, in the travail of the Holy Spirit in groanings inside of me, I give myself to the Lord Jesus as He shatters heaven through me, here, in Gethsemane.
Many may rejoice in their present knowledge of union with Christ, and that is wonderful, I in no way speak against their joy. But they cannot walk this path of the Atonement inside of Jesus because this is an unseen path. As long as they insist the heaven they live in right now is real only when they can SEE it, then they cannot know full union with God.
Why can't they know it? Unbelief, as the gospel says. Thus God must shatter our heaven fantasies before we can continue in the Atonement of Jesus revealed through us.
We must place Gethsemane into context.
Jesus spoke the Kingdom of God, the new creation, into existence in John chapter 17. From that moment until He sat down at the right hand of the Throne, He walked through every step of the birthing of that Kingdom. In John chapter 17, Jesus took you and me into Himself, thus establishing the gospel revealed through Paul, that Jesus did not do these things for us, as the earlier apostles had thought, but that we were in Him and He in us through every step of that path - literally and actually.
The Atonement begins in Gethsemane and is finished in the Throne. The revelation of God to all creation as who and what He really is begins in Gethsemane and is made complete in the Throne. The birthing of the Kingdom begins in Gethsemane and is revealed in the Throne. Our full union with God in a Blood Covenant relationship, complete and made manifest, begins in Gethsemane and finishes in the Throne.
Rebellion and the darkening of the present creation began in Adam's will. Obedience and the light of the new creation begins in Jesus' will.
Just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Gate into the knowledge of Jesus as Savior, and just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Door into the knowledge of Jesus as Baptizer, so it is the will of the human that speaks the words that opens the Veil into the knowledge of Jesus as our very and only Life.
Yet it is not our human will by which we spoke those words, but His. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you." Thus, for us, Gethsemane is NOT, "Obey God, loser, do His will and not your own." Gethsemane is not something we "copy" in an outward way, though God gives us the words to speak. In complete contrast, Gethsemane is a complete surrender into Jesus AS our will, having already, Himself, chosen God and thus, WE ALSO.
When Jesus said, three times, "Not My will, but Thine be done," I said three times, "Not my will, but Thine be done." His agony is my agony; His choice is my choice; His words are my words. My surrender is to accept my place inside of Him and the place of that surrendered One inside of me.
This point is the turning of the Covenant. Everything that comes after, the trial, the crucifixion, even the resurrection, all of it flows out of this moment.
We entered the Outer Court by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Savior - the Way - was found in us.
We entered the Holy Place by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Baptizer - the Truth - was found in us.
In just the same way, we enter the Holy of Holies by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we enter into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Fulfiller - the Life - is found in us.
Gethsemane is the Gate, the Door, the Veil. Three times Jesus said, "Not My will, but Thine be done." Three times we said those words inside of Him. Three times we enter into a deeper place of knowing God.
Jesus said, "Take this cup away from Me."
What is that cup?
We dare not fall short of the glory of God in our answer to that question; we are speaking of the Becoming One.
Paul's gospel is radical and most Christians have never known it. Yes, many Christians can mouth the concepts of Paul's gospel - Jesus became our sin that we might be the righteousness of God. Dead in Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, seated in heaven now in Christ. Yet these things are little more than theological talking points.
Why? Because Paul's gospel is too radical to actually believe, that is, to make it personal and here and now.
And so for most, the sacrifice of Jesus is something God did for us - that's how the other disciples understood it before Paul preached his revelation of Christ, and that's how most of the church sees it. Then, in the latter rain outpouring, came a vision of our place in that same Atonement, only it was seen in this way, that Jesus is our Pattern, and that we ourselves must follow the same path, we must choose God, we must enter full crucifixion ourselves, and so on, and that God will "help" us follow Jesus' pattern. Yet this view remained entirely inside the rebellion and separation of Adam.
Let me give a different view of the path of the Atonement beginning here in Gethsemane. Let me give a view of the cup Jesus drank, a view that comes out from the Holy of Holies, a third feast view, a third level view.
In the upper room, in Jesus' prayer in John 17, Jesus did something radical, something God. Jesus reached forward and back, He extended Himself out to all things, and He drew all things, that is, you and me, into Himself, literally and actually. It does no good for us to contemplate the "all things" part, what we must know is, the "you and me" part.
But including you and me into Himself was only one side of the equation. You see, Jesus said we would know three things. We would know that He is in the Father. We would know that we are in Him - that's the first side of the equation. But He said also that we would know that He is in us.
We became the Jesus who walked through the Atonement, and the Jesus who walked through the Atonement became us as we walk through our appointed times in this present age.
Jesus took His shattered creation into Himself, that He might carry it all the way to the Father, AND Jesus became His shattered creation that He might walk it all the way to the Father.
Jesus had already taken us into Himself before He entered Gethsemane and wept over the cup His Father asked Him to drink. It was His joy to take us into Himself. Yet the transition must be complete - God would complete it upon the cross. Jesus must become us.
Jesus must become all the darkness and difficulty of our path. He became our sin and took it into death upon the cross; He must become us that He might take us into life upon the throne.
Jesus was not drinking three twenty-four-hour days of difficulty; He drank three one-thousand-year days of difficulty.
Jesus agreed to become me.
And He asks me to accept Him as myself.
He asks me to stop "choosing" between "His way" and "my way" - that is the rebellion of Adam. He asks me to sink utterly into Him and to see Him alone in all things I find in me. He asks me for the most complete surrender I have ever known.
Let's do that here. Let's follow the pattern. We know how we passed through the Gate into the Outer Court. We know how we passed through the Door into the Holy Place. The Veil into the Holy of Holies is no different. Let's ask.
"Lord Jesus, I ask You to be my life, to be all that I am, all that I find myself to be in this world. I ask You to be the end of whatever "I" of me that once existed before I knew You. I will never look at or consider that former "I" again. Lord Jesus, I ask you to be me, the present me, walking through all the difficulties and ineptitude of my life in this world. I ask you to be all of my failures, all of my short-comings, all of my down-fallings. I cannot carry myself, Lord Jesus. I have tried and I have failed. Forgive me, Lord, for trying to be Christ-like. I give You my permission, Lord Jesus, to be me, to be all of me as myself.
"And, Lord Jesus, I ask You to be me as Yourself. I ask You to be me, to be my life as the King of Glory, as the Risen and Ascended Christ, as the Living and Ever-Coming Son of God.
"Lord Jesus, forgive me for ever saying, "Maybe someday, I'd like to be"; forgive me, Lord. From this moment on, I will say only, "I am." I am the firstfruits unto God. I am the manifestation of the sons of God. I am the manchild caught up to God's throne. I am the second witness of Christ. I am the Mercy-Seat. I am the throne of heaven. I am the revelation of God.
"Lord Jesus, I am just like You, for You and I are one. All that I am in this present world, You are, and all that You are, the Son of God, I am. You are my breath, You are my life, You are my every moment.
"And Lord Jesus, having asked You to be me, to be my very life, I believe that I receive all that I ask for. I walk forward expecting that I am filled with all the fullness of God. I walk forward expecting that rivers of living water flow out of my belly. I walk forward expecting that kingdoms of darkness are falling into ruin all around me. I walk forward KNOWING that in my weakness, in all of my glorious weakness, Your strength is proven, Your strength is MADE perfect. For You, Lord Jesus, are strong enough to drink the Cup, the precious Cup, Your Father gave You. You are strong enough to become me."
If you have prayed this prayer, not necessarily my words, but yours, in your own intimate knowing of Jesus inside of you, if you have prayed this prayer in sincerity of heart before God, in the Spirit who alone gives you power to believe what God says, then turn around. Your way into the Father is complete. You are now seated upon the Mercy Seat. You are the Ark, the carrier, the embodiment of the Covenant.
As you look out upon an entirely different-looking world, you see through the Veil you just passed. To your astonishment, it was always wide open. And now you are looking out, first you see your precious brethren in the Holy Place, then you see your precious brethren in the outer court, then you see all the people of this world, then you see all creation, heaven and earth.
God is in you reconciling the world to Himself.
And every moment of your life, all your joys and sorrows, all your triumphs and failures, all your doing well and doing badly, all of it is the Intercession of God, the Lord Jesus, inside of you, reconciling all creation to Himself.
From this moment on, not one moment of your life is your "redemption." It is finished. Every moment of your life now is mission, it is sending; it is Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Every moment of your life is now the revelation of God into this world. Every moment of your life is God Himself proving Himself through you to His creation.
But, in spite of our unlimited view of all things out from God's throne, what is it we see first? What part of God's reality is closest to our eyes?
The Altar of Incense, and all of our precious brethren, close to our hearts, who labor there.
And suddenly we know that, having passed through Gethsemane inside of Jesus, now, Gethsemane passes through us.
For there, right in front of us, is the precious Woman of God, caught in the jaws of the dragon.
And now we must KNOW this Atoning One, this Becoming One who is our very life. Let us look upon Him, this Revelation of the Person and Nature and Being of the Father as He walks the Path of Revelation.
The upper room is not far from the east side of the city of Jerusalem. It is a short walk from there down to the bottom of the sharp cleft below the eastern wall of the city in which runs the brook Kidron. It is April, so the brook is running water, though small. Jesus and the disciples cross over the brook and immediately begin climbing the steep slope of the Mount of Olives, higher than Jerusalem to the east. Gethsemane is a little garden in a flat and sheltered spot among the olive trees part way up that slope. By the time they reach the garden, Jesus is already laboring under unfathomable pain.
From the moment Jesus steps across the Brook Kidron, all demonic realms assault Him with all the fury of their madness. Remember, in the midst of the storm, Jesus slept. When they tried to stone Him to death, He just walked through their midst and they did not even notice. He is the unflappable One.
Yet here, He is unflappable no more. Sorrow deeper than anything known by man before or since grips His soul. Death mocks Him, and He stumbles under its terror. Two-and-a-half hours of praying, three times of surrendering Himself to God, and still, it gets worse. An angel shows himself, a cherub of the throne, putting his arm around this very broken Man. Yet the agony only increases until blood flows out of His pores.
Jesus did not do this "for us." We were there, utterly and actually, inside of Him.
Yet the darkest moment of internal torment, of unmitigated demonic assault inside of Jesus, comes shortly before it ends. After three hours, the internal assault simply ceases. Now the external assault begins, a demonic fury never manifested through men before or since as it shows itself through the next few hours.
As Jesus rises from prayer, the first thing He sees is His friend, his brother, this one who has walked with Him, laughed with Him, eaten with Him, now filled with Satan - possessed by the person of Satan, not by his demons. Jesus rises from Gethsemane into the jaws of the dragon.
Jesus' friend kisses Him on the cheek. And all of His other friends run in terror as far and as fast as they can in the darkness. Mark is there, following from a distance; he runs away stark naked.
Jesus is alone. And the beating begins.
At first it's just the soldiers of the High Priest. But all the demons of the Abyss are there as well, and so the men who mock Jesus, mock Him at the core and center of Christ, the revelation of God. "Prophesy! Who hit you? Aren't you the Christ?"
Why did they hate Him? They hate Him because He is weak. They hate Him because He is only a Man. They hate Him because there is no "Super-Christ." They hate Him because He is the opposite of everything they lust after.
He stands before Israel in the place of Moses, the priests of God inspecting the Passover Lamb. Again, the hard, cold fury centers on the issue of Christ. They reject utterly a Christ of flesh, a Lamb who lays down His life, who becomes them. They will not have a God of weakness. They inspect Him and find Him guilty of being one with a God whom they despise.
Peter screams and curses, "Damn you; I do NOT know Him." His words pierce the center of Jesus' heart.
They bind Jesus with ropes. They do not have the authority to kill Him; the Romans tore that authority away from them and they dare not challenge the Romans who are more than willing to bloody all Jerusalem and to desecrate the temple if they have to. Pilate's citadel is on the north side of the temple wall, higher than the temple and thus looking down into it. The Jews will not enter that citadel; therefore Pilate must come out to them.
But it is some distance from the court of the Sanhedrin to Pilate's court. While they push Jesus before them, Judas, empty now, and horrifically alone, comes weeping back to the remaining priests. They laugh at him; he goes out in black despair and hangs himself.
Jesus knows.
Pilate comes out and looks down at the Jews. Suddenly he knows that there is something terribly wrong with the universe. They bring Jesus up to Him. "I find no fault with this man," he says. But he wants nothing to do with the hellish fury he sees before him, so he sends Jesus to Herod.
Herod is a playboy. Herod is the life of the party. Herod makes everyone laugh. "Oh, goodie, do a miracle for me. I'd just love to see a miracle." Everyone laughs. Jesus is silent.
Back to Pilate.
Let me give you what are supposedly Pilate's own words as written in the government accounts required by all Roman governors. Whether this is actually Pilate's writing, as I read it now, I doubt. Facts of Christian knowledge and ideas gathered over centuries are all cobbled together in this account. However, it does give the picture I want to draw and so I will include a portion here.
By this time the marble stair groaned under the weight of the multitude. The Nazarene was brought back to me. I proceeded to the halls of justice, followed by my guard, and asked the people in a severe tone what they demanded. . .
"Crucify him! Crucify Him!" cried the relentless rabble. The vociferations of the infuriated mob shook the palace to its foundations.
I then ordered Jesus to be scourged, hoping this might satisfy them; but it only increased their fury. I then called for a basin, and washed my hands in the presence of the clamorous multitude, thus testifying that in my judgment Jesus of Nazareth had done nothing deserving of death; but in vain. It was his life these wretches thirsted for.
Often in our civil commotions have I witnessed the furious anger of the multitude, but nothing could be compared to what I witnessed on this occasion. It might have been truly said that all the phantoms of the infernal regions had assembled at Jerusalem. The crowd appeared not to walk, but to be borne off and whirled as a vortex, rolling along in living waves from the portals of the praetorium even unto Mount Zion, with howling screams, shrieks, and vociferations such as were never heard in the seditions of the (Pandemonium), or in the tumults of the forum. (The Archko Volume, 138-141)
Man and Satan together scream, "Crucify him!"
Then the physical pain begins again. They strip Jesus, scourging Him until his back is strips of flesh and visible bones. They press a crown of thorns upon Him and pluck out His beard until His face is a bloody and mangled pulp.
They mock Him. They drive Him forward, placing a cross upon His back.
Passing through the crowds of people lining the way, screaming their fury at Him, He stumbles and falls.
This Jesus, this One who is weak, He is no Christ for us. We will not have a God revealed through weakness. Give us power; give us miracles; give us thunderbolts; but the very last God we will accept is a Man who lays down His life, who does not fight back.
It is not my purpose to replicate The Passion of the Christ, and so I will go no further. It is my purpose to unveil for us Man as God revealed.
This is the One whom we are in, and this is the One who is in us.
Christianity would teach us that it was our sin that "did this" to Jesus, that we were "there inside that crowd." NO WE WERE NOT!!! But we were there, all right; we were there inside of Him.
Let's return to the Covenant.
In the Covenant, God's concern is ours and our concern is His. God looks out for our concern while we look out for His concern. We give no thought to our concerns, not because they are unimportant - but because God holds every tiny concern we have inside His heart and He meets each concern more wondrously than we can think or even imagine. At the same time, the One who is our Life - He carries in Himself God's concerns, and in us, He expresses those concerns. That is, He is our embracing of all the concerns and interests of God.
KNOWING that God utterly has our back, we take up God's back. And when we say, "WE," we mean Jesus, for we never separate ourselves from Him nor He from us.
And here, sitting upon the throne of God, looking out as the expression of the Heart and Concern of God, we see the woman filling the Holy Place, a woman clothed with the sun, a woman in travail.
Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:13-17
These words are not for "figuring out" in any way, shape, or form. These words are Spirit and they are Life.
Think - sitting upon the Mercy Seat, looking out with the eyes of God - the first thing we see is our precious brethren in the Altar of Incense, in the Holy Place, who have not yet entered into the Holy of Holies. The angel told John that the Outer Court is not now being measured by the measurement of Christ, only the Holy Place. That is not a put-down; each one will come in his or her season.
The King James says, "And they shall nourish her there."
We are the "THEY." The Bowels of God long over the Bride of Christ, right now upon this earth in the year of our Lord, 2012. He longs over her as she enters her hour of trial, not understanding a thing about what is happening to her. This is the God who fills us, who has made Covenant with us to accomplish His purposes in creation.
Let me fix our eyes on this one point. The God of the Covenant will nourish His woman through you and through me and He will do it in the face of the serpent.
It is here, at the point of the Word God speaks, of a woman in travail, and the face of the serpent that God shows Himself as He really is.
– Through us.
Believe in Jesus!
The Kingdom of God series is just being finalised ready for publishing as a book in the next few weeks. Here is your chance to read it for free, and if you like it buy copies for your your friends.
The PDF and audio versions are available here
I have read nothing quite like it. AC Welch
The PDF and audio versions are available here
I have read nothing quite like it. AC Welch
© Daniel Yordy - 2012 - Our Path Home
Part 4. Gethsemane
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane . . . and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me." He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done." And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So He left them, went away again - And He knelt down and prayed - the third time - saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Matthew 26:36-43 and Luke 22:41-44 combinedIn that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. Jesus' words - one hour earlier.
When Jesus said, "In that day," He did not mean that someday we would be in Him and He in us; He meant that at a certain DAY in our lives, we would discover and thus know something that is true. "That day," in the gospel, is always today. "Today is THE day of salvation." "Today, if you will hear His voice."
Look back at the words of Gethsemane. When Jesus says, "You in Me," I believe what He says. Should we do anything else with what He says? I was not in Him, as He traversed this dark passage, figuratively, but literally. I was not in Jesus in a metaphorical sense, but actually. Notice that He said "You IN Me and I IN you."
I sit here groaning over this word, IN, as Jesus used it here, in great perplexity and agony of spirit. Do we dare to limit God; does anyone in Christendom dare to say, "Well, it certainly does NOT mean A, B, or C; it means only what my limited box-knowledge of God allows it to mean"?
I am inside of every word, every moment, every action of Jesus in Gethsemane, and every word, moment and action of Gethsemane is inside of me. The words God uses to define "IN" is "FILLED with ALL the FULLNESS."
Gethsemane is the beginning of the Covenant. We begin the Blood Covenant with God inside of Jesus in Gethsemane. Gethsemane inside of Jesus inside of us is the beginning of full Covenant Union between us and God. We "begin" full Covenant union with God by discovering - in that day you shall KNOW - that our union with Him in Gethsemane is already true.
I want to insert this understanding here. I am using the tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness as a metaphor of our entering into full covenant relationship with God. God gave us that picture because it helps us to speak meaningfully about the various aspects of God's work in our lives. This metaphor, however, we apply at two different levels, always both at the same time. We see all things as finished and complete; we see that by faith. By faith I know that I already sit upon the Mercy Seat at the right hand of the Father inside of Jesus. As I see anything that crosses my path, I know that I am looking out from the throne of God; I see all things from that throne.
At the same time, God applies this same metaphor to our walk into the fullness of God made visible and complete - the manifestation of the sons of God in full glory upon this earth. We will know without question when that walk is complete - our bodies will be transformed into immortality, visibly and openly. There's no faking that, nor any doubt when it happens.
Thus the tabernacle shows us what we already are, and it shows us how we become what we already are.
In my last letter, I stated that I do not understand why those who dwell in all the experience of the Holy Spirit will not enter into the Holy of Holies. I now understand. Outwardly, I have been saying why all along, but I understand it now for the first time. Most Christians, including those with much experience and knowledge of God, looking at the things God says about life in the Holy of Holies, are absolutely convinced that those things are speaking of "heaven." And so they have reduced grace and the gospel down to the non-Biblical idea that God has promised us that we will experience Holy-of-Holies life, that is, third-level life, in heaven. They don't mean heaven right now, as God means, they mean "go to" heaven at some future time. And that "grace" means only that we don't "earn" this "going to" heaven. So right now we are just happy and later, someday, "going to heaven" is entering the Holiest of All.
Now, this much I understood. What I did not fully see is this. Paul says that we are in heaven right now - seated with Christ in the "epouranios." He says that, since we live in the Spirit, that is, in heaven, let's walk in the Spirit, that is walk in heaven, as well. What does that mean?
It takes tremendous faith to walk in heaven right now, a bold and daring heart of faith and absolute confidence in our union with the Lord Jesus Christ - that what He says, all that He says, is actually true. The reason it takes tremendous faith is that we are blind; God has not yet opened our spirit-eyes to see the obvious. Therefore, every step is a step in darkness, trusting absolutely that what our Guide, the Lord Jesus, speaks, is absolutely true and trustworthy.
And so again, the reason most Christians who live in the light and experience of the Holy Place, refuse to walk in the Holy of Holies right now, is that they simply do not trust Jesus. They are convinced He is speaking nonsense, and that they will know what He means and can then TRUST Him ONLY after their eyes see and they can confidently maneuver heaven on their own.
In other words, they want the same self-reliance in heaven that they walk in upon the earth. Thus they have concocted the "go to" heaven fantasy, rejecting the idea that they are already there in fullness, as God says. And when they hear us speaking about the salvation of heaven revealed in all fullness through us right now in this earth, they imagine we are speaking something other than the gospel; their gospel being reduced to a full rejection of Hebrews 10:19, that we enter into the Holiest, all the life of heaven, right now in boldness and by the blood of Jesus.
They are convinced that if they do not see reality, then reality cannot be real. Thus they walk by sight, having reduced faith to silly talk about happiness "in heaven," all the while refusing a heaven they live in, but cannot see right now.
And so, I must say something about all the "union with Christ" teaching across the entire spectrum, and many are rejoicing in many different expressions of our discovery of union with Christ. I must say what I see, not because I want to elevate myself or put anyone down, but simply - how can I be found faithful if I do not share in the gentleness of the Lord Jesus what I see?
I see so many speaking union with Christ at the door, and then speaking separation, separation, separation regarding everything of Christ beyond the door. WHY? Because they are absolutely convinced that REAL union with Christ can be known only after we "go to" heaven. And thus they draw a line through everything God says in the gospel concerning the reality of the Holy of Holies fulfilled now in and through us into this earth, convinced that we CANNOT know such union with God, not until AFTER we die and "go to" heaven.
And that is why God has promised to shatter heaven. Because all of these precious dear ones can never know union with Christ in full reality as God says it in the New Testament until their white-knuckled grip on "go to" heaven fantasies is broken. And so, in the travail of the Holy Spirit in groanings inside of me, I give myself to the Lord Jesus as He shatters heaven through me, here, in Gethsemane.
Many may rejoice in their present knowledge of union with Christ, and that is wonderful, I in no way speak against their joy. But they cannot walk this path of the Atonement inside of Jesus because this is an unseen path. As long as they insist the heaven they live in right now is real only when they can SEE it, then they cannot know full union with God.
Why can't they know it? Unbelief, as the gospel says. Thus God must shatter our heaven fantasies before we can continue in the Atonement of Jesus revealed through us.
Jesus spoke the Kingdom of God, the new creation, into existence in John chapter 17. From that moment until He sat down at the right hand of the Throne, He walked through every step of the birthing of that Kingdom. In John chapter 17, Jesus took you and me into Himself, thus establishing the gospel revealed through Paul, that Jesus did not do these things for us, as the earlier apostles had thought, but that we were in Him and He in us through every step of that path - literally and actually.
The Atonement begins in Gethsemane and is finished in the Throne. The revelation of God to all creation as who and what He really is begins in Gethsemane and is made complete in the Throne. The birthing of the Kingdom begins in Gethsemane and is revealed in the Throne. Our full union with God in a Blood Covenant relationship, complete and made manifest, begins in Gethsemane and finishes in the Throne.
Rebellion and the darkening of the present creation began in Adam's will. Obedience and the light of the new creation begins in Jesus' will.
Just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Gate into the knowledge of Jesus as Savior, and just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Door into the knowledge of Jesus as Baptizer, so it is the will of the human that speaks the words that opens the Veil into the knowledge of Jesus as our very and only Life.
Yet it is not our human will by which we spoke those words, but His. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you." Thus, for us, Gethsemane is NOT, "Obey God, loser, do His will and not your own." Gethsemane is not something we "copy" in an outward way, though God gives us the words to speak. In complete contrast, Gethsemane is a complete surrender into Jesus AS our will, having already, Himself, chosen God and thus, WE ALSO.
When Jesus said, three times, "Not My will, but Thine be done," I said three times, "Not my will, but Thine be done." His agony is my agony; His choice is my choice; His words are my words. My surrender is to accept my place inside of Him and the place of that surrendered One inside of me.
This point is the turning of the Covenant. Everything that comes after, the trial, the crucifixion, even the resurrection, all of it flows out of this moment.
We entered the Outer Court by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Savior - the Way - was found in us.
We entered the Holy Place by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Baptizer - the Truth - was found in us.
In just the same way, we enter the Holy of Holies by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we enter into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Fulfiller - the Life - is found in us.
Gethsemane is the Gate, the Door, the Veil. Three times Jesus said, "Not My will, but Thine be done." Three times we said those words inside of Him. Three times we enter into a deeper place of knowing God.
Jesus said, "Take this cup away from Me."
What is that cup?
We dare not fall short of the glory of God in our answer to that question; we are speaking of the Becoming One.
Paul's gospel is radical and most Christians have never known it. Yes, many Christians can mouth the concepts of Paul's gospel - Jesus became our sin that we might be the righteousness of God. Dead in Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, seated in heaven now in Christ. Yet these things are little more than theological talking points.
Why? Because Paul's gospel is too radical to actually believe, that is, to make it personal and here and now.
And so for most, the sacrifice of Jesus is something God did for us - that's how the other disciples understood it before Paul preached his revelation of Christ, and that's how most of the church sees it. Then, in the latter rain outpouring, came a vision of our place in that same Atonement, only it was seen in this way, that Jesus is our Pattern, and that we ourselves must follow the same path, we must choose God, we must enter full crucifixion ourselves, and so on, and that God will "help" us follow Jesus' pattern. Yet this view remained entirely inside the rebellion and separation of Adam.
Let me give a different view of the path of the Atonement beginning here in Gethsemane. Let me give a view of the cup Jesus drank, a view that comes out from the Holy of Holies, a third feast view, a third level view.
In the upper room, in Jesus' prayer in John 17, Jesus did something radical, something God. Jesus reached forward and back, He extended Himself out to all things, and He drew all things, that is, you and me, into Himself, literally and actually. It does no good for us to contemplate the "all things" part, what we must know is, the "you and me" part.
But including you and me into Himself was only one side of the equation. You see, Jesus said we would know three things. We would know that He is in the Father. We would know that we are in Him - that's the first side of the equation. But He said also that we would know that He is in us.
We became the Jesus who walked through the Atonement, and the Jesus who walked through the Atonement became us as we walk through our appointed times in this present age.
Jesus took His shattered creation into Himself, that He might carry it all the way to the Father, AND Jesus became His shattered creation that He might walk it all the way to the Father.
Jesus had already taken us into Himself before He entered Gethsemane and wept over the cup His Father asked Him to drink. It was His joy to take us into Himself. Yet the transition must be complete - God would complete it upon the cross. Jesus must become us.
Jesus must become all the darkness and difficulty of our path. He became our sin and took it into death upon the cross; He must become us that He might take us into life upon the throne.
Jesus was not drinking three twenty-four-hour days of difficulty; He drank three one-thousand-year days of difficulty.
Jesus agreed to become me.
And He asks me to accept Him as myself.
He asks me to stop "choosing" between "His way" and "my way" - that is the rebellion of Adam. He asks me to sink utterly into Him and to see Him alone in all things I find in me. He asks me for the most complete surrender I have ever known.
Let's do that here. Let's follow the pattern. We know how we passed through the Gate into the Outer Court. We know how we passed through the Door into the Holy Place. The Veil into the Holy of Holies is no different. Let's ask.
"Lord Jesus, I ask You to be my life, to be all that I am, all that I find myself to be in this world. I ask You to be the end of whatever "I" of me that once existed before I knew You. I will never look at or consider that former "I" again. Lord Jesus, I ask you to be me, the present me, walking through all the difficulties and ineptitude of my life in this world. I ask you to be all of my failures, all of my short-comings, all of my down-fallings. I cannot carry myself, Lord Jesus. I have tried and I have failed. Forgive me, Lord, for trying to be Christ-like. I give You my permission, Lord Jesus, to be me, to be all of me as myself.
"And, Lord Jesus, I ask You to be me as Yourself. I ask You to be me, to be my life as the King of Glory, as the Risen and Ascended Christ, as the Living and Ever-Coming Son of God.
"Lord Jesus, forgive me for ever saying, "Maybe someday, I'd like to be"; forgive me, Lord. From this moment on, I will say only, "I am." I am the firstfruits unto God. I am the manifestation of the sons of God. I am the manchild caught up to God's throne. I am the second witness of Christ. I am the Mercy-Seat. I am the throne of heaven. I am the revelation of God.
"Lord Jesus, I am just like You, for You and I are one. All that I am in this present world, You are, and all that You are, the Son of God, I am. You are my breath, You are my life, You are my every moment.
"And Lord Jesus, having asked You to be me, to be my very life, I believe that I receive all that I ask for. I walk forward expecting that I am filled with all the fullness of God. I walk forward expecting that rivers of living water flow out of my belly. I walk forward expecting that kingdoms of darkness are falling into ruin all around me. I walk forward KNOWING that in my weakness, in all of my glorious weakness, Your strength is proven, Your strength is MADE perfect. For You, Lord Jesus, are strong enough to drink the Cup, the precious Cup, Your Father gave You. You are strong enough to become me."
If you have prayed this prayer, not necessarily my words, but yours, in your own intimate knowing of Jesus inside of you, if you have prayed this prayer in sincerity of heart before God, in the Spirit who alone gives you power to believe what God says, then turn around. Your way into the Father is complete. You are now seated upon the Mercy Seat. You are the Ark, the carrier, the embodiment of the Covenant.
As you look out upon an entirely different-looking world, you see through the Veil you just passed. To your astonishment, it was always wide open. And now you are looking out, first you see your precious brethren in the Holy Place, then you see your precious brethren in the outer court, then you see all the people of this world, then you see all creation, heaven and earth.
God is in you reconciling the world to Himself.
And every moment of your life, all your joys and sorrows, all your triumphs and failures, all your doing well and doing badly, all of it is the Intercession of God, the Lord Jesus, inside of you, reconciling all creation to Himself.
From this moment on, not one moment of your life is your "redemption." It is finished. Every moment of your life now is mission, it is sending; it is Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Every moment of your life is now the revelation of God into this world. Every moment of your life is God Himself proving Himself through you to His creation.
But, in spite of our unlimited view of all things out from God's throne, what is it we see first? What part of God's reality is closest to our eyes?
The Altar of Incense, and all of our precious brethren, close to our hearts, who labor there.
And suddenly we know that, having passed through Gethsemane inside of Jesus, now, Gethsemane passes through us.
For there, right in front of us, is the precious Woman of God, caught in the jaws of the dragon.
And now we must KNOW this Atoning One, this Becoming One who is our very life. Let us look upon Him, this Revelation of the Person and Nature and Being of the Father as He walks the Path of Revelation.
The upper room is not far from the east side of the city of Jerusalem. It is a short walk from there down to the bottom of the sharp cleft below the eastern wall of the city in which runs the brook Kidron. It is April, so the brook is running water, though small. Jesus and the disciples cross over the brook and immediately begin climbing the steep slope of the Mount of Olives, higher than Jerusalem to the east. Gethsemane is a little garden in a flat and sheltered spot among the olive trees part way up that slope. By the time they reach the garden, Jesus is already laboring under unfathomable pain.
From the moment Jesus steps across the Brook Kidron, all demonic realms assault Him with all the fury of their madness. Remember, in the midst of the storm, Jesus slept. When they tried to stone Him to death, He just walked through their midst and they did not even notice. He is the unflappable One.
Yet here, He is unflappable no more. Sorrow deeper than anything known by man before or since grips His soul. Death mocks Him, and He stumbles under its terror. Two-and-a-half hours of praying, three times of surrendering Himself to God, and still, it gets worse. An angel shows himself, a cherub of the throne, putting his arm around this very broken Man. Yet the agony only increases until blood flows out of His pores.
Jesus did not do this "for us." We were there, utterly and actually, inside of Him.
Yet the darkest moment of internal torment, of unmitigated demonic assault inside of Jesus, comes shortly before it ends. After three hours, the internal assault simply ceases. Now the external assault begins, a demonic fury never manifested through men before or since as it shows itself through the next few hours.
As Jesus rises from prayer, the first thing He sees is His friend, his brother, this one who has walked with Him, laughed with Him, eaten with Him, now filled with Satan - possessed by the person of Satan, not by his demons. Jesus rises from Gethsemane into the jaws of the dragon.
Jesus' friend kisses Him on the cheek. And all of His other friends run in terror as far and as fast as they can in the darkness. Mark is there, following from a distance; he runs away stark naked.
Jesus is alone. And the beating begins.
At first it's just the soldiers of the High Priest. But all the demons of the Abyss are there as well, and so the men who mock Jesus, mock Him at the core and center of Christ, the revelation of God. "Prophesy! Who hit you? Aren't you the Christ?"
Why did they hate Him? They hate Him because He is weak. They hate Him because He is only a Man. They hate Him because there is no "Super-Christ." They hate Him because He is the opposite of everything they lust after.
He stands before Israel in the place of Moses, the priests of God inspecting the Passover Lamb. Again, the hard, cold fury centers on the issue of Christ. They reject utterly a Christ of flesh, a Lamb who lays down His life, who becomes them. They will not have a God of weakness. They inspect Him and find Him guilty of being one with a God whom they despise.
Peter screams and curses, "Damn you; I do NOT know Him." His words pierce the center of Jesus' heart.
They bind Jesus with ropes. They do not have the authority to kill Him; the Romans tore that authority away from them and they dare not challenge the Romans who are more than willing to bloody all Jerusalem and to desecrate the temple if they have to. Pilate's citadel is on the north side of the temple wall, higher than the temple and thus looking down into it. The Jews will not enter that citadel; therefore Pilate must come out to them.
But it is some distance from the court of the Sanhedrin to Pilate's court. While they push Jesus before them, Judas, empty now, and horrifically alone, comes weeping back to the remaining priests. They laugh at him; he goes out in black despair and hangs himself.
Jesus knows.
Pilate comes out and looks down at the Jews. Suddenly he knows that there is something terribly wrong with the universe. They bring Jesus up to Him. "I find no fault with this man," he says. But he wants nothing to do with the hellish fury he sees before him, so he sends Jesus to Herod.
Herod is a playboy. Herod is the life of the party. Herod makes everyone laugh. "Oh, goodie, do a miracle for me. I'd just love to see a miracle." Everyone laughs. Jesus is silent.
Back to Pilate.
Let me give you what are supposedly Pilate's own words as written in the government accounts required by all Roman governors. Whether this is actually Pilate's writing, as I read it now, I doubt. Facts of Christian knowledge and ideas gathered over centuries are all cobbled together in this account. However, it does give the picture I want to draw and so I will include a portion here.
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Jesus was dragged before the High Priest and condemned to death . . . Caiaphas . . . sent his prisoner to me to confirm his condemnation and secure his execution . . . Soon my palace assumed the aspect of a besieged citadel. Every moment increased the number of malcontents. . . All Judea appeared to be pouring into the city . . .By this time the marble stair groaned under the weight of the multitude. The Nazarene was brought back to me. I proceeded to the halls of justice, followed by my guard, and asked the people in a severe tone what they demanded. . .
"Crucify him! Crucify Him!" cried the relentless rabble. The vociferations of the infuriated mob shook the palace to its foundations.
I then ordered Jesus to be scourged, hoping this might satisfy them; but it only increased their fury. I then called for a basin, and washed my hands in the presence of the clamorous multitude, thus testifying that in my judgment Jesus of Nazareth had done nothing deserving of death; but in vain. It was his life these wretches thirsted for.
Often in our civil commotions have I witnessed the furious anger of the multitude, but nothing could be compared to what I witnessed on this occasion. It might have been truly said that all the phantoms of the infernal regions had assembled at Jerusalem. The crowd appeared not to walk, but to be borne off and whirled as a vortex, rolling along in living waves from the portals of the praetorium even unto Mount Zion, with howling screams, shrieks, and vociferations such as were never heard in the seditions of the (Pandemonium), or in the tumults of the forum. (The Archko Volume, 138-141)
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In the garden, only Satan himself appeared to Eve as a serpent, a solitary and fairly quiet creature in the beauty of Paradise. In Jerusalem, Satan appeared in Jesus' friend, and all the angels fallen from heaven possessed all the people Jesus came to save, His people, possessed them with all the fury of rebellion and separation from God, all the vomit of the abyss.Man and Satan together scream, "Crucify him!"
Then the physical pain begins again. They strip Jesus, scourging Him until his back is strips of flesh and visible bones. They press a crown of thorns upon Him and pluck out His beard until His face is a bloody and mangled pulp.
They mock Him. They drive Him forward, placing a cross upon His back.
Passing through the crowds of people lining the way, screaming their fury at Him, He stumbles and falls.
This Jesus, this One who is weak, He is no Christ for us. We will not have a God revealed through weakness. Give us power; give us miracles; give us thunderbolts; but the very last God we will accept is a Man who lays down His life, who does not fight back.
It is not my purpose to replicate The Passion of the Christ, and so I will go no further. It is my purpose to unveil for us Man as God revealed.
This is the One whom we are in, and this is the One who is in us.
Christianity would teach us that it was our sin that "did this" to Jesus, that we were "there inside that crowd." NO WE WERE NOT!!! But we were there, all right; we were there inside of Him.
Let's return to the Covenant.
In the Covenant, God's concern is ours and our concern is His. God looks out for our concern while we look out for His concern. We give no thought to our concerns, not because they are unimportant - but because God holds every tiny concern we have inside His heart and He meets each concern more wondrously than we can think or even imagine. At the same time, the One who is our Life - He carries in Himself God's concerns, and in us, He expresses those concerns. That is, He is our embracing of all the concerns and interests of God.
KNOWING that God utterly has our back, we take up God's back. And when we say, "WE," we mean Jesus, for we never separate ourselves from Him nor He from us.
And here, sitting upon the throne of God, looking out as the expression of the Heart and Concern of God, we see the woman filling the Holy Place, a woman clothed with the sun, a woman in travail.
Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:13-17
These words are not for "figuring out" in any way, shape, or form. These words are Spirit and they are Life.
Think - sitting upon the Mercy Seat, looking out with the eyes of God - the first thing we see is our precious brethren in the Altar of Incense, in the Holy Place, who have not yet entered into the Holy of Holies. The angel told John that the Outer Court is not now being measured by the measurement of Christ, only the Holy Place. That is not a put-down; each one will come in his or her season.
The King James says, "And they shall nourish her there."
We are the "THEY." The Bowels of God long over the Bride of Christ, right now upon this earth in the year of our Lord, 2012. He longs over her as she enters her hour of trial, not understanding a thing about what is happening to her. This is the God who fills us, who has made Covenant with us to accomplish His purposes in creation.
Let me fix our eyes on this one point. The God of the Covenant will nourish His woman through you and through me and He will do it in the face of the serpent.
It is here, at the point of the Word God speaks, of a woman in travail, and the face of the serpent that God shows Himself as He really is.
– Through us.
Believe in Jesus!
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