Reflections on Hebrews with Andrew Murray (11)

 

“Who, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Hebrews 1:3.

 

As Murray continues to ponder Hebrews 1:3 he writes:

 

“Christ seated on the throne in heaven means our being actually brought, in the supernatural power which the coming down of the Holy Spirit supplies, into God’s holy presence, and living there our daily life…It is so much easier to take in the doctrine of a Substitute and an atonement, of repentance and pardon, than of a High Priest bringing us into God’s presence, and keeping us in loving communion with Him.”

 

“Let no one think that I speak of what is too high. I speak of what is your heritage and destiny. The same share you have in Jesus on the cross, you have in Jesus on the throne. Be ready to sacrifice the earthly life for the heavenly; to follow Christ fully in His separation from the world and His surrender to God’s will; and Christ in heaven will prove in you the reality and the power of His heavenly priesthood.”

 

There is a dynamic mystery in which we are brought into the Holy of Holies through Christ (Hebrews 4:14 – 16; 10:19 – 22), while at the same time our hearts are made the dwelling place of God (John 14:17, 23). That is, Christ lives in us and we live in Christ. We live before the Throne and our hearts and souls are made God’s Throne. We do not understand this but we can experience it…in fact it becomes our Way of Life in Christ.

 

We live “before” God as we live before His Throne and He as lives within us. We abide in His Tabernacle as we are before the Throne; also our hearts are made His tabernacle and also His Tabernacle. What I mean by our hearts being made His tabernacle and His Tabernacle is that as an individual I am a temple of the Living God (1 Cor. 6:19), and also that as individuals joined together we are His Body, His Church, His Bride…His Living Tabernacle (Ephesians 2:19 – 22; 1 Peter 2:4 – 10).

 

God’s Presence is in the Holy of Holies, God’s Presence is within me in Christ, God’s Presence is in us, His People. God’s Presence is in us as we are gathered, and His Presence is in us as we are scattered. Whether we are gathered or we are scattered we are called to live in the Holy of Holies; whether we are gathered or we are scattered His Presence is with us on our collective pilgrimage. As His People, we are called to be the particular place where God dwells on earth – not just a few hours a week, but throughout each moment, each day, we are Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven with the glory of God for the blessing and healing of the peoples of the earth.

 

Murray writes, “It is so much easier to take in the doctrine of a Substitute and an atonement, of repentance and pardon, than of a High Priest bringing us into God’s presence, and keeping us in loving communion with Him.” Well, for sure we seldom speak of the latter, and without the former we cannot have the latter, either objectively or subjectively. In my own experience I seldom see believers who actually live in either one of these realities in Christ, so many Christians remain at “first base”, not realizing the completeness of the Atonement, never living securely in a relationship with Jesus Christ. As the book of Hebrews will illustrate, many of us have been religiously raised to live in the mindset of the Old Covenant rather than the New Covenant.

 

The depths of having a “Substitute and an atonement, of repentance and pardon” can no more be fully plumbed than can the heights of having “a High Priest bringing us into God’s presence, and keeping us in loving communion with Him,” be scaled. The wonder and grandeur of the Trinity and of the Atonement, in all of its facets, is beyond us – and yet God’s grace continually draws us deeper into God’s life, His friendship, His fellowship (koinonia).

 

To live “in loving communion with Him” is the reason we exist, it is our purpose for living, it is why we were created in the image of God, and why we were redeemed by Jesus Christ.

 

As you read this, are you living both “at the Cross” and “before the Throne of God”? Is this our Way of Life?

 

We’ll continue with the above quote in our next post in this series.

 

Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 2)

 

“And they overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.

 

If you have already died, then no one can take away your life. If you belong to Another, then no one can take away the life you do have because your life belongs to Christ, your life is Christ, your life is not your own. Paul writes, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives within me…” (Galatians 2:20). In Colossians 3:3 – 4 we read, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”

 

Consider what Jesus says about following Him, does this sound like a typical “invitation” in churches in the United States? Mark 8:34 – 38:

 

“And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, If anyone desires to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

 

“For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

Is this the call we give to the Gospel in our preaching, teaching, and witnessing? Is this the ethos of our individual and church life? Is this how we live? Perhaps it would be wiser if we taught our children this call of Jesus Christ rather than teaching them to memorize the books of the Bible?

 

The context of Revelation 12:11 is extreme conflict between the saints of God, the People of Christ, and the dragon and the concentrated powers of evil. An enraged enemy is making “war with the rest of her [the woman of Revelation 12:1] seed, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

 

The Scriptures are clear that we who follow Jesus Christ are called to follow Him in His sufferings, and that “through much tribulation we enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Peter and Paul both write of our communion (koinonia) in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:12-14; Philippians 3:10); with Paul teaching that there is an intercessory dimension to our sufferings in Christ (Colossians 1:24; 2 Corinthians 1:1 – 11).

 

How does the foregoing compare with the church in the United States? What does it look like in my life? In your life? In the life of our congregations?

 

How is it that most professing Christians in the United States have never shared the Gospel with another person? How is it that sharing the Gospel as a way of life is foreign to most professing Christians in the United Sates? How can this be if we have died and our lives are hidden in Christ? How can this be if we are not loving our lives unto death? Instead of relying on sales techniques and psychological and sociological methods to teach people “witnessing”, perhaps we should focus on grounding them in a crucified life in Jesus Christ? When love and obedience for Christ, and sacrificial love for others, reign supreme – we will share the Gospel with others.

 

I cringe when I hear Christians talk about whether they would physically die for Christ; when they will not die for Christ when it comes to money, possessions, social reputation, the values of the world, pride, ego, rejection, and sin. How can we entertain the question of whether we would physically die for Christ when we spend most of our lives avoiding the Cross and Christ’s sufferings? When our churches and our preaching focus on our therapy rather than on the Lamb slain for our sins and reconciliation? When a major section of our particularly American eschatology is focused on escaping suffering rather than loving not our lives to death?

 

The fact is that while many of us say we regard the Bible as the Word of God, that we may as well take scissors and cut out those passages which explicitly teach us about the sufferings of Christ and His Body – for we ignore them, we explain them away, and manufacture hundreds of reasons why those passages do not apply to us. We are as offended at the idea of the Cross and suffering as was Peter when he played the role of Satan (Matthew 16:21- 23). The difference between Peter and us is that Peter accepted the Lord’s rebuke, “Get behind Me, Satan!”, while we fill our ears with self-centered religious noise to drown out the words of Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him ‘Come and die.’”

 

Jim Elliot wrote, “He is no fool, who loses what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

 

Job cried out, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!” (Job 13:15)

 

David prayed, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none on earth I desire besides You.” (Psalm 73:25).

 

Paul said to the Ephesian elders, “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.” (Acts 20:24).

 

Dear friends, if we would truly know Jesus then we will know Him in His sufferings. The holy Trinity invites us into the sufferings of God in Christ, the Great Mystery of Mysteries. As we increasingly know Him in His sufferings an intimacy envelops us that is too sacred for words; exquisite in its beauty, terrible in its majesty, all consuming in its passion, lovely in its splendor, incomparable in its grandeur. Little wonder that Paul wrote, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:2).

 

Make My Heart An Altar

Robert L. Withers

 

Make my heart an altar

An altar of prayer

Of devotion

Of intercession

Of adoration

Of thanksgiving

Of sacrifice

 

Make my heart an altar

May it bear the sorrows of others

Their conflicts, fears, despairs

Let it bear their sufferings and heartbreaks

To the throne of my Lord Jesus

With the incense of care and compassion

With the fragrance of love

 

Let my heart be an altar

Let it be one with the Sacred Heart

Let it eat the Bread and drink the Cup

Let the Cross be deep within my heart

May my heart be pierced with nails and spear

May I drink of His sufferings, As He is

May I be, both priest and sacrifice.

Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 1)

 

Robert L. Withers, January 15, 2021

 

“And they overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.

 

Those who call Jesus Christ their Lord are called to overcome as a way of life; whether facing temptation, the power of sin, the forces of the present age, or the concentrated onslaughts of the dragon, “the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan” (Rev. 12:9).

 

In Revelation chapters two and three Jesus gives promises to those who overcome. In 21:7, the One who sits on the throne says, “He who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.” In referring to the “spirit of antichrist,” John writes (1 John 4:4), “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” Then of course we have Paul’s Himalayan, “But in all these things we are super-overcomers through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37ff).

 

Before we explore the dynamics of overcoming in Revelation 12, let’s remind ourselves of why Revelation was written:

 

“…the book of Revelation is a discipleship manual, not a crystal ball. John is not a kind of first-century Nostradamus. It is sad to see how this powerfully hope-giving book is turned into predictor-of-the-next-horrible-thing-that-will-happen-in-the-world. The British journalist G.K. Chesterton once quipped that “though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.”” Discipleship on the Edge, Darrell W. Johnson, Regent College Publishing, 2004, page 380.

 

Regarding the two-fold purpose of Revelation Johnson writes, “It seeks to set the present moment in all its brokenness, violence, uncertainty in light of the unseen realities of the future…But more importantly it seeks to set the present moment in light of the unseen realities of the present. The fundamental conviction of apocalyptic is “things are not as they seem.” There is more to reality that we can know with our unaided senses and intellect and emotions. The great purpose – the pastoral purpose – of Revelation is to open up that more and see Jesus in the midst of it all.” Johnson, page 381.

 

In considering the context of Revelation 12:11, let’s note that Satan is characterized as deceiving the whole world and that he and his angels are “thrown down to earth” (12:9). Let’s also consider that in 12:12 we see that while those who tabernacle in the heavens are to rejoice because “there was no longer a place found” for Satan and his angels in heaven (12:8); that those who inhabit the earth and the sea are told that a great woe has come upon them, “because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath.”

 

This brings us to the first principle of overcoming in Christ in Revelation 12, let’s express it with a question, “Where are we living?” May I ask, as you are reading this, where are you living? What has occupied your mind today? What is your heart holding deep within it? What are your most ardent desires? What do you want with all that you are? What is important to you, what is vital to your sense of well-being?

 

Revelation 12 presents us with a choice of where we are going to live; the heavens, or the earth and the sea? Just as Jesus says that we cannot serve two masters, for if we try we will hate one and love the other, so we cannot live in two different realms, our residence cannot be in two countries, we cannot be citizens of the City of God and the city of this world, we cannot serve the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God – we must choose, by the grace of Christ, where we will live; where we will focus our minds, our thoughts, what our hearts will desire and entertain, into what we will invest our souls.

 

Will we worship the Father and the Lamb in the heavens, or will we worship the things of this age? What we desire we worship, and we will be transformed into the image of that which we worship…make no mistake about this.

 

Let’s look at the dangerous reality of living on the earth first, then we’ll focus our affection and attention on Christ above.

 

“Woe to the earth and sea dwellers, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath” (12:12). In verse 11 the overcomers are not overcoming a nebulous evil, they are not confronting a scattered dominion of darkness of various hues and shades; it is clear that they are overcoming “him,” the dragon, the serpent, the devil, Satan – they are overcoming the head of the evil system that arrays itself against the true and living God and enslaves humanity. It is not the general army of the Philistines that we face, but rather Goliath.

 

This very serpent is pictured as being cast down to the earth, and being cast down to the earth it will feed on the people who live on the earth. The serpent is pictured in Genesis as eating dust, certainly a facet of this dust is fallen humanity; in Revelation this is particularly the old humanity in rebellion against God and the Lamb. The sea speaks to us of roiling humanity, chaotic humanity, in which the serpent has his way until his defeat is consummated.

 

The serpent feeds off the earth-dwellers, and he teaches the earth-dwellers to feed off himself. Can you see that this question of where we live is critical to us if we desire to be overcomers? If we live on the earth we will be consumed by the dragon.

 

When I ponder what is occurring in our society and especially the professing church, when I see Christians functionally repudiating the Gospel and Christ by advocating violence and idolatry; I see people living on the earth, consuming the serpent and being consumed by him. When I see professing Christians consumed by political and economic agendas, when I see them glued to media talking heads, seduced by conspiracy theories, enthralled by preachers who give them what they want; I see earth-dwellers being consumed by the one who feeds off dust.

 

Contrast this way of death with the Way of Life in Jesus Christ. “Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4).

 

We are either fixing our minds on the things above, or on the things that are on earth; we are either living in the heavens in Christ, or we are living as earth-dwellers.

 

Paul writes that when God made us alive in Christ, that He “raised us up with Him [Christ], and seated us with him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4 – 6). Where are we living? Are we abdicating our position in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus? Are we trading our birthright for dust?

 

In Romans 12:1 – 2 we are taught that we are to present ourselves as living and holy sacrifices to God, not as sacrifices to this present age. We are not to be “conformed to this world,” but rather “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” Are we feeding off dust and the serpent, or off the One that bids us eat His flesh and drink His blood (John Chapter 6)?

 

As we behold Christ we are transformed into His image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:17 -  18), for when our eye is single our body is filled with light (Matt. 6:22 – 23). However, if our eye is fractured, if it is consuming the images of the earth, then it will be consumed by the earth’s images, images propagated by the dragon. We cannot consume the provender of the dragon with impunity; we will be engulfed with the collective insanity of the present age – an insanity more hideous within the professing church than without it.

 

Where are we living? Where am I living? Where are you living?

 

If I should write you a letter or send you a card, will the zip code be the 666 of the enemy, or that of the Father and the Lamb (Rev. 13:18 – 14:5)?