| << | Contents | >> |
Articles 2021-2023
As God’s people learn to abide in Him and to discover in His glory the freedom from the corruptive effects of sin, we are in fact leading the way out of the entropy/decay affecting the whole creation. In observing our world, many can see that the heavens and the earth are starting to resemble a threadbare shirt. But our God upholds and holds together the creation by His word. And since the primary locale for declaring His word on earth is in His house, the guarantee for the continuation of the planet will not be found primarily in the various environmental conferences held at various times and places around the world but among those in whom the Creator of all dwells and reveals Himself. This demonstrates the significance and relevance of the Church.
Christianity is always lived on the edge of inheriting Heaven’s unfolding salvation. To be saved is not simply a one-time experience; it is the ongoing encountering of and submission to the One who is making us whole. When He was on earth, Jesus was Heaven’s authoritative invasion into the fallen world. But the authority He exercised was revelatory, not political. He did not come to set up a political system but to invite all who would listen into a relationship that would harmonize them with Heaven. Today, the invasion continues. As we increasingly come into oneness with our God and then proclaim His heart over our region, our nation, and even the whole earth, He will impart through His creative words the power for many to be changed.
The premise of this book has been that God determined to colonize His creation. As Heaven’s Apostle, Christ came revealing God to us. And as our High Priest, He has gone back to the Father bearing us before Him. If it is true that He was totally successful in His apostleship on earth, then we must also believe that He will be just as successful in His priestly ministry in heaven. O Lord, teach us how to pray in accordance with Your high priestly ministry that what is on Your heart would come to full fruition before the eyes of the whole earth. God’s creation of man was the inaugurating of His work to colonize the creation, to establish on earth the culture, the ways, and the priorities of Heaven. When Adam rebelled, God did not simply pull back and cease His colonizing project. Rather, in the giving of the Law, in the taking of the Promised Land, in the sending of the prophets, in the incarnation of Christ, and in the ongoing outpourings of the Holy Spirit beginning from Acts Chapter 2 through today, His project has continued on unabated.
But His people seem so divided. One part of the problem is that if we are hearing a fragmented word, we will be a fragmented people. Thankfully, He has a plan to unify His word in us. For those who have ears to hear, our God will be bringing His voice among us into greater clarity in the coming years. And His increasingly united word in us will bear the fruit of an increasingly united people.
God’s goal in human history is that those who know Him would participate with Him in bringing the culture of heaven into the earth. When Israel took possession of the Promised Land, it was among other things a foreshadowing of an even greater spiritual victory unfolding in our day. As great as the victory was that Israel achieved in Joshua’s day, Heaven’s far greater present success is still coming to fruition across the earth.
So, the question arises – “As His kingdom is coming from heaven among us, how are we to recognize it?” Very simply, it is as we discern His operative grace in and through His people, that we will discover the present expression of His rule. After all, His throne is a throne of grace. The result is that we will walk not in harmony with the world’s narrative but with His – the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And Heaven’s colonization will continue. The future that the world envisions for itself does not line up with what is inexorably emerging from heaven. But God’s plan is well underway. As many repent and go into water in the name of Christ at many different times and in many different places, yet from the water, one man is emerging all across the earth. Christ/Israel’s Messiah is slowly coming into view on earth in a corporate body.
We are to no longer stand at a distance. We have One who has gone before us into the inner place of intimacy with God and who now stands beckoning us to follow Him there. Too many think simply in terms of our going to heaven when we die or what Jesus will accomplish at His return. But God is in the process of making a statement to the nations based on Christ’s present intercessory ministry as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. And the nations will yet see the full expression of what was in His heart when He started this project.
In the first century, the physical practice of temple worship was pointing toward a greater reality now operative in the heavens. And because Christ was now functioning as a high priest in Heaven’s perfect tabernacle, good things were coming from there into the earth. The blood of animals had been sufficient for cleansing on earth the copies of what was now established in the heavens. But from those heavenly realms, something based on a far greater cleansing could now emerge on earth.
Church history is the account of Heaven’s work of bringing Christ’s enemies under His feet. After Calvary, everyone had to now choose – specifically concerning the person of Jesus Christ. They had to decide to no longer stay in alignment with the one who was influencing humanity to rebel against God’s King. In other words, they had to cease being squatters in God’s world, weeds in His wheatfield (Matthew 13:24 - 30). Those things that the world defines as strong and normal have a God–defined future. They are being brought to nothing (1Corinthians 1:28).
On the other hand, when we repent of our sins and when we partake of the Lord’s table, we look into the past and participate in the present power of the Calvary event whose effect has not waned and whose future impact among men is still unfolding. Both the ages of time and the physical creation were brought into being through His spoken word so that His eternal glory would over the span of time permeate the whole of His handiwork.
All of human history is irrevocably moving toward the full revelation of God’s city, the bride of Christ. In our own day, we must have our eyes opened to discern its ongoing construction.
As faithful as the Old Testament heroes of faith were, they could not come into the fulfillment of God’s promise apart from those Jewish believers in the first century who had come into it through personal relationship with the promised Redeemer, the One who would build God’s temple while combining the offices of priest and king (Zechariah 6:12). This One, the foundation, the designer, and the builder of Heaven’s city – even the Lord Jesus Christ was now being made known not only in the hearts of Jewish believers, but also arising into all nations. The realization of what was in God’s heart when He first created man would now unfold worldwide.
The precipitating event to cause the influx of people from all over the earth would be when the rebuilt temple of Haggai’s day would be filled with the glory of God. That second temple was filled with the greatest expression of God’s glory in all of history when Jesus of Nazareth walked into it. It would take only one creation–shaking event – even Calvary, the repercussions of which would then be the ongoing shaking of all nations. At that one event, God would definitively defeat the powers of hell and of sin to begin the removal of everything among men that could be shaken, everything not built on the proper foundation. Based on Calvary, God’s unshakeable kingdom, His colonizing project among the nations began to come into clarity.
Donald Rumble – April 2022
Search Comments
This page has been visited 0093 times.
| << | Contents | >> |
10 per page