God's Spiritual Language
A symbol is a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. A metaphor is a way of speaking that furthers our understanding of the unfamiliar by illustrating its truth with something with which we are familiar, often from the world around us.
Both are used as a pattern or representative of something literal. Neither are the actual, literal things that they are being used to represent. The word of God is full of symbols and metaphors. Our God is an expert at spiritual symbols and metaphors. He uses “types and shadows” from the earthly world to explain and clarify His world of the spirit. We need a relationship with God to understand Him and that is just what He desires.
Jesus Christ only spoke what the Father gave Him to say, often speaking in parables utilizing metaphors and symbols. It is impossible to understand this spiritual book full of metaphors and symbols without the holy spirit. God is spirit and we need His spirit to understand spiritual language. Yet there are those who insist that the Bible is to be understood literally. The literalists think we should not spiritualize the word because it will lead to error.
But there is plenty of error in the standard translations of the Bible, written by human men who did the best they could. And even more error when God used words meant to be spiritually understood but are applied to the actual, literal things of this earth. A frequent example is “He who has ears to hear” which is not referencing these appendages on either side of our heads. Jesus is speaking of our spiritual ears necessary to understand Jesus Christ and Father God, Who are spirits.
Not very many in those days had spiritual ears to hear what the Lord was saying, including His own disciples. Then and now, He veiled His word to carnal minds so we must go beyond our natural understanding. God laid out a precise and detailed pattern in the Old Testament to teach us about our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who was to come. The old laws of Moses regarding worship in the Tabernacle are but a “shadow” of what is to come:
“Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.” Colossians 2:17 Berean
“Yet death ruled [over mankind] from Adam to Moses [the Lawgiver], even over those who had not sinned as Adam did. Adam is a type of Him (Christ) who was to come [but in reverse—Adam brought destruction, Christ brought salvation].” Romans 5:14 Amplified
Here is the word “type,” used in Romans. It comes from the Greek word “tupos”, meaning “figure, a die or shape, a model, form, a pattern.” God has a plan that uses layer upon layer, through the centuries unfolding His plan laying a pattern for His own. God uses everything at His disposal to further our spiritual understanding of Him and the world of the spirit.
From the beginning, Adam was the perfect “pattern son,” walking in fellowship with the Father until the fall. Throughout the Old Testament, we read of historical events that further our understanding through a type or a model of each event. What our Christian ancestors experienced in Old Testament days are not only powerful and entertaining accounts of their lives, they show us a pattern of how our life will proceed back to full fellowship with our Father through what Jesus Christ has done.
God’s plan for the return of His people to such fellowship through His son, Jesus Christ is patterned, foreshadowed in the Old Testament ways of worship. We are to learn many things from our Abrahamic heritage, as this scripture confirms:
“Now these things happened to them [the tribes of Israel] as an example and warning [to us]; they were written for our instruction [to admonish and equip us], upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11 Amplified
It is not surprising that the book of Hebrews, written to the Jews, talks about the traditional patterns of the Israelite worship in the Tabernacle as a “copy of heaven.” God talked directly to Moses about exactly how the Tabernacle of worship was to be built because it is predictive of our Lord Jesus Christ:
“Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer gifts according to the law. The place where they serve is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the Tabernacle:
‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’ Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises.” Hebrews 8:4-6 Berean
We learn much from the Old Testament when the spirit grants us an understanding of the patterns revealed there. It’s fascinating to learn just how thorough and specific are the stories of our spiritual ancestors, laying out the steps for us. An example is the study of the names of Jacob’s twelve sons, revealing a pattern of qualities for spiritual growth. The life of David teaches much about how to worship and praise the Lord, ask for God’s specific guidance when in conflict and how to humbly repent of sin.
The Old Testament prophets were given visions from God, though it was not given to them to see or understand what God was revealing to them. They were cloaked in spiritual language until the time for the meaning to be revealed. Daniel was the prophet of time, given the ability to interpret symbolic dreams and see visions. He asked what the visions God gave him meant and God told him it wasn’t given to him to understand. The prophet Joel saw the future Day of the Lord, given in spiritual symbols and metaphors to predict the eventual restoration and reconciliation of all.
And the prophet Isaiah speaks directly of the coming of the Lord:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of His government and peace, there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” Isaiah 9:6–7, NIV
In the New Testament, Jesus taught in parables, a Jewish style of storytelling, to convey messages through allegory and symbolism. Drawn from ordinary life, Jesus ensured that people could choose whether or not to think about and accept his messages. He knew only a few would see beyond the metaphors and parallels to the deeper spiritual truths He was ministering. His disciples asked why He spoke in parables to the crowds:
'“Jesus replied, ‘Because they haven’t received the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but you have. For those who have will receive more and they will have more than enough. But as for those who don’t have, even the little they have will be taken away from them.
This is why I speak to the crowds in parables: although they see, they don’t really see; and although they hear, they don’t really hear or understand. What Isaiah prophesied has become completely true for them:
You will hear, to be sure, but never understand; and you will certainly see but never recognize what you are seeing.For this people’s senses have become calloused, and they’ve become hard of hearing, and they’ve shut their eyes so that they won’t see with their eyes or hear with their ears or understand with their minds, and change their hearts and lives that I may heal them.
Happy are your eyes because they see. Happy are your ears because they hear. I assure you that many prophets and righteous people wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.’” Matthew 13:10-17 NIV
God revealed the meaning to those He was drawing at that time. The disciples often had to ask Jesus to explain the meaning of the parables He ministered. They did not yet have the Holy Spirit within them, so the spiritual depth of what Jesus was saying was often hidden even from them:
“But the disciples did not understand any of these things. The meaning was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend what He was saying.” Luke 18:14 Berean
“Do you still not understand? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
How do you not understand that I was not telling you about bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Matthew 16:10 Berean
When Jesus talked about bread, He was not worried about what to eat. He meant the bread of heaven, the word of God. Though He told them about His crucifixion and resurrection more than once, they could not fully understand what was to come. Jesus called His body a temple, a tabernacle of God. He spoke of how it would be torn down and raised up again. Because the disciples did not comprehend with their limited natural understanding, they were devastated and lost when He died.
It did not matter that they had walked with Him and learned from Him for over three years. They did not have the spiritual capacity through the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ to know what to anticipate. He spoke in metaphors, using spiritual language that cannot be understood literally. Why would the Lord not teach us, today, in the same way that He taught the disciples? He is with us, within our hearts, as He was with them in the days of His flesh. He desires us to come closer to Him, to connect with our Father, who will reveal the spiritual meaning of His words.
The holy spirit is our source of spiritual understanding of the special, veiled God-language used in the Bible. What God said happened in the Old Testament happened. Period. What it is to mean to us, today, requires a relationship with God that reveals His spiritual truth and wisdom in it all. Paul said:
“But as it is written, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’ But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:9-16 KJV
Paul states clearly and unequivocally that our natural mind, our soul’s understanding, cannot receive and understand the deep things of God. Compared to us, everything about God is deep! He does not say we will have the mind of Christ, but that we have it already! God knows what is in His spirit and we are enabled to know as well because we have the mind of Christ. Through His mind, we receive instruction, edification concerning the things of God which are spiritual, revealed by the holy spirit. We cannot receive it in any other way.
Man’s wisdom from our natural mind, our fleshly understanding, cannot be compared to spiritual wisdom from our Lord. We are to compare spiritual things with spiritual! The disciples thought of their Lord’s future rule from their earthly perspective, just as we often do today. They had a portion of spiritual understanding because they followed and were intimately in fellowship with Him, but not the depth the Holy Spirit would bring later to them.
Jesus knew the disciples could not understand His words in their present state, but it still wore on Him. Jesus told them:
“I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.
For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…” John 12:14-16 Berean
Because all believers have Jesus Christ in their hearts, we have a measure of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus spoke of more than that. On the Day of Pentecost, all 120 disciples of Christ were gathered together in one accord and were filled with the Holy Ghost, all at the same time. They were strengthened, given access to understand spiritual things, learning and teaching the truth of what the Lord was saying. They were empowered to spread the gospel, though under great persecution.
Does this not tell us that we, too, need the Holy Spirit to be guided into all the truth of His word? If it could be understood just by the words, the disciples who were with Him would have understood His teachings. God spoke in veiled spiritual language purposefully, to draw whosoever will to come to Him. We are drawn to learn of Him and His spiritual thoughts and ways that are higher than human thoughts and ways. We need more than initial salvation to understand the types and shadows of the Bible.
This is why Paul said we need to move on:
“Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God.” Hebrews 6:1 Berean
There is a tendency for us humans to settle, to stay in the “comfort zone” of what is familiar, what we already believe. The Israelites showed this in their longing to return to the bondage of Egypt. They became weary in the 40 years it took them to get through the wilderness to the Promised Land. Early on, they were complaining to Moses about wanting to go back to the familiar leeks and garlic of their lives as slaves in Egypt. Eating manna every day in the wilderness must have been boring! And it surely took a lot longer than they had hoped!
How tempting the familiar can be, even the Israelites’ former “familiar hell” of slavery in Egypt. God begins to take the “feathers out of our nest” until we become uncomfortable enough to leave it. When we hang on to where God has led us in the past, eventually He moves on without us. He takes the light, the “candlestick” of His presence from us, so it becomes dead to us. Dead works and dead worship can go on for many years as change is resisted by God’s people. Sometimes His own do not even realize He has left!
We need to remember that the disciples had never heard anything like what Jesus told them! If they had not left their Jewish beliefs to embrace something new, even though they did not understand its depths, we would not have the foundation of faith they were enabled to lay down for us. Our hearts should rejoice when He brings something new by the spirit. We can trust God to confirm new truth as we turn to Him and His word. He also reveals our spiritual errors in understanding Him, continually correcting any lack of wisdom that our carnal mind has designed or absorbed from others.
God is more than able to show us not just His acts, but His ways, like He did with Moses. God surely can choose to whom He speaks in revealing His ways. God usually spoke to His prophets in visions and dreams, such as Daniel’s prophetic vision. Moses, however,needed to understand God, face to face because Moses was charged with doing things in the right way as a pattern for us:
"Hear now My words: if there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream.
Not so, with My servant Moses, he is faithful in all My household; with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of the Lord." Numbers 12: 6-8
God speaks in dark sayings that are murky and unclear unless we understand by His spirit what He is saying to us. Alternately translated as “dark speech”, the Hebrew root is “chiydah”, meaning “a puzzle, a trick, hard question, proverb or riddle.” He did not make His communications to the people easily understood. They had to get closer to God, be in intimate fellowship with Him to understand His ways.
For those in leadership, such as prominent Old Testament saints like David, Isaiah, and Daniel, God often granted more understanding by the Holy Spirit because of their calling. They needed to understand God’s ways, and His communication with them, to do what God had set before them. Often, even these saints did not understand completely—sometimes not at all—what these visions and messages meant.
The prophet Daniel was given a most powerful vision, a word for future that included events at the end of the ages. It troubled him that he did not know what these things meant but obediently recorded what God showed him regardless. After the angel, God’s messenger, had shown all to Daniel in powerful spiritual language, Daniel said:
“I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, ‘My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?’ He replied, ‘Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end.
Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.’” Daniel 12:8-9 NIV
God has sealed His word until it is time for us, His people, to understand. It is hidden from the wicked but the wise in God will understand. We too hear things from God and wait to be given further understanding of what He means. He now resides in our hearts and talks to those who have spiritual ears to hear Him. There’s a reason John’s Revelation from the Lord says seven times in the 2nd and 3rd chapters: “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.” (KJV)
It is His job to open the eyes and ears of our spiritual understanding for those who love Him and desire to know His ways. He reveals Himself to us when it is our time to move on, just as He showed the Israelites to move on in the wilderness. We have a natural body and we have a spiritual body, having metaphorical spiritual eyes and ears to understand our Lord and His spiritual language.
“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” 1 Corinthians 15:44 Berean
We have a spiritual body now so we are able to understand our Lord in an ever-growing measure through the mind of Christ. He uses our spiritual eyes and ears to teach us His ways. He cannot rely on our body’s physical eyes and ears to teach us as they are of the earth, “earthly,” and cannot grasp spiritual things. Jesus called this “being carnal,” a limitation present with us since the fall of Adam.
We have no wish to go back to our former days as He faithfully teaches us the present truth required for this time in His plan and for our lives. As we walk with the Lord, and have the pleasure of getting to know Him, more is revealed to us about the meaning of His symbolic language. He shares further truth about “dark sayings” that can only be understood by the spirit. Since the resurrection of our Lord and His gift of the Holy Spirit, we can grow in knowledge and understanding.
Spiritual types and shadows, the patterns and examples used by Him, are to be comprehended as He builds us up into Him. We go higher and higher, always seeking to be where He is. There are varying times and seasons in the Lord, though He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His plan is ever-changing and evolving as we walk with our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus the Son is ruling with our same Father God whose purpose is to make us like His firstborn son:
“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his glory and goodness.
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” 2 Peter 1:3-4 NIV
When Peter wrote these words, he made it clear that participation in our Lord’s divine nature was available and promised to them now, in this life. He did not say to have patience until you could be like Him when you die and go to heaven. No, Peter said the divine power of Jesus Christ gives us everything we need to do this now. God’s promises are kept, though we wait upon the Lord for the fullness of their time to be completed.
When we understand more of God’s spiritual language, the entire vastness of God and the rulership of our Lord Jesus Christ begins to unfold in greater depth. God gave me a chorus years ago that calls us to ever increasing intimacy with the Lord:
Get Closer to God
Get closer to God.
Get closer to God.
Hearken to His heavenly rod.
Like Him, you’ll be
And the whole world will see.
Get closer, get closer to God.
(B. Mikelson 1982)
To be close to the Father as we walk with Jesus Christ our Lord. He brings us more deeply to the fellowship of Father God who reveals His plan is even better than we knew! He changes our understanding of revelation while working a character change in our hearts, from our earthly nature to God’s kingdom of love, peace, and joy. Without the nature of Christ working within, an abundance of revelation that builds our intellect just “puff up” pride and ego.
Head knowledge about God can amaze others but it is empty words unless God’s truth is written within. It’s time for our words of ministry about godly living and our Christian behaviors to match. Then others will see Jesus in us and be able to trust what we are saying about Him. We Christians have been accused of not practicing what we preach, but, as someone said, “We are practicing our faith–we’re just not very good at it!!”
I would further add that we cannot be while we are still trying to get this flesh-man to do it. Working to become righteous in our flesh is worthless as no flesh can enter into the Kingdom. We will fail in any fleshly works of self-improvement, rules and laws, in order to please God. There’s no fixing up and improving our “old man.” It must be reckoned as dead as the spirit forms the Christ within us.
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, and that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we die with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.
For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.'" Romans 6:1-10 NIV
We are free from sin ruling us by what Jesus has done, but we still must walk in it. We need to walk out all He has accomplished and put within us. We are to consider or “reckon” the old man of sin as dead even though we still see it. We continually turn again and again to the Lord, seeking what only He can provide for the overcoming of the world, the flesh and the devil. If that old man was dead for us all already, others would truly see the Christ, the Love of God, rather than our human lack and failings.
Some object to needing to overcome, to do more because Jesus Christ took care of everything on the cross. And so He did, but are we walking in all He has done? Would the New Testament apostles such as Paul speak so much to what we ought to be if it were accomplished? We must apprehend all for which we have been apprehended. Paul encourages the Philippians to seek more of the character of Christ working within the heart:
“Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’
Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.” Philippians 2:14-16 NIV
Paul was working toward the building up of the Christ within those he taught. Just so, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to focus upon and live in Him, recognizing that the sin remaining in our flesh has lost its power to rule us. We continually turn to Christ for our victory so that He rules over every sin that still works within us. We are to consider or “reckon” the old man of sin as dead, not to consider it as who we are now, even though we still see it.
All of us have areas where our words do not match our behavior. These are an important area of focus in God’s refining of His own. Our characteristics, what is in our hearts that falls short of God’s fruit of the spirit, prevent the shining of the pure light of His countenance outward. Then God cannot be seen because of the remaining spots of darkness in us. Our religious words and works at these times lack the power of truth and love behind them. How can others be drawn to Him and learn to trust Him and His word if His light within us is fractured and bent by our own character?
Our own flesh, what remains in our hearts that falls short of God’s fruit of the spirit, prevent the shining of the pure light of His countenance outward. Our religious words and works at these times lack the power of truth and love behind them. What is in the heart does come out, if not in words, then in tone of voice and expression. But we are His workmanship, as God develops and nurtures sons and daughters to be just like like Jesus, the firstborn of many brethren:
“For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.” Romans 8:29 Berean
In other passages, our Lord tells us that we are to be perfect (complete), as He is perfect. He would not have said it if it was not possible. This is the day for our hearts to be changed to be like His heart of mercy and justice, compassion and truth. We “come up hither” to where Jesus is in the spirit, in Zion where God is perfecting the saints in His presence. The bible does not say we must wait until after we die to be perfected or complete in His fullness. Search for it and you will not find it.
God sets the limits on our life span, so how far can we go before He takes us to the other side?There are many such promises yet to be fulfilled, waiting for this Third Day we are in to more completely unfold. God’s symbols and metaphors promise many more things than this call to perfection that our earthly understanding of words does not catch. The keys are all there, revealed by the spirit, shown in the original concordant meaning of Hebrew and Greek, comparing scripture to scripture, gifted to humans by spiritual revelation, confirmed in the hearts of faithful ones who are coming to know Him.
The Book of Revelation is a spiritual book filled with symbolic language. Some believers just leave it alone, confessing that they don’t understand it. The book of Revelation has been much misunderstood, a source of theological arguments and differing denominational teaching. This is the revelation—the revealing—of Jesus Christ in all His majesty. And it is written to His people, His slaves! Full of symbols and metaphors, Revelation has been bringing much confusion and disagreement in Christian leadership.
Revelation can only be understood by the spirit as God reveals His truth in the spiritual language He used with John. But now is the time to understand the truth of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, revealed by the Apostle John. The Revealing of Jesus Christ to His own could not be more vital or timely to understand. The first three chapters explicitly speak to sevel of the early churches, representative of stages of growth that modern Christianity now may experience. It is a blessing to read and begin to understand this precious book!
Revelation applies to us, His bondservants:
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything that he saw.
Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near.” Revelation 1:1-3 NASB
We, the people of God, are to be judged first, to ready us for what is to unfold. The message that God relates through John to the seven churches is to us, His people. Each church is confronted with factors that limit or stop their growth, hindering His further blessing and presence. “To those that can hear, let them hear.” He warns more than once that if they do not repent—change—He will take their candlestick, the presence of the Lord, from their midst.
As we are moving out of the church age, we are leaving what God has caused us to outgrow and keeping what is a valuable part of our salvation. We go beyond the camp, the place where others have settled, to where He is now. He chooses our path and we follow on to know the Lord.
Brother Joshua Gwinnup wrote a beautiful piece on the true Body of Jesus Christ and how that differs from what we have called “church”. The portion shared below unfolds a present-day understanding of what it is to gather in His name. Bro. Gwinnup clarifies what two or three gathered together means from what is unnecessary, and how carnal teachings have obscured such prophetic teachings to limit our understanding. (Find more on his website, Wells in the Desert):
“God may lead you by the Holy Spirit to be joined unto people who attend a Baptist Church, or a Pentecostal Church, or a Non-Denominational Church, or perhaps a Home Fellowship.
Moreover, the Lord may lead you into fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and with Him alone for a season. Wherever or whomever the Lord leads you unto, let it be impressed in your heart and mind that the joining must be by the Spirit or there is no true fellowship or assembling at all.
God is looking at the heart of His people. Our joining is heart-to-heart –and we are free to be joined by all of God’s people wherever they are in this season and time.
Nevertheless, we are not joined to the religious systems of Babylon – although many of God’s people still live there.” Bro. Joshua Gwinnup, The Kingdom of God is Within You, 2022.
God surely is looking at our hearts. Our joining is to be “heart to heart” by the love of the brethren in Christ. Bro. Gwinnup makes a critical point about our understanding of the gatherings of the saints. It is not when, where, how, or with whom that is important. It is not that we need to “go here…” or “go there...” to find Him. He is within us and all such joining must be by the Spirit. We can only be joined together when there is unity in our hearts, with God and with each other. Love unites, it is not divided.
No true fellowship or assembling is possible lest the Holy Spirit do it. Such is the true assembling not to be forsaken. We are to leave dutiful assembling, restricted to forms and traditions rather than led by the Holy Ghost. We are to move on to our Promised Land, not settling in the various camps along the way. Of course, many gatherings have the spirit of God present in between rituals and pre-planned programs. God loves His own and is present within as people who love Him gather.
But far too often, Jesus is left at the door, knocking to be let in like the Laodicean assembly in Revelation.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Revelation 3:20 NIV
Meditate on the Lord standing outside the door and what this means. Is He outside the door of our hearts, outside of our structured and pre-planned gatherings, outside of our busy days laboring in the church realm, knocking to get in? The early church had a few years of glorious growth and freedom in Him, then began to fall to division from the rule of man. By the message in Revelation, He is standing outside, knocking to get in. Isn’t it time for all our gatherings to be led by Him, as best we can allow in our current level of maturity? May we let go of the rules and regulations that are so familiar, even traditional, but are not God’s leading by the Holy Spirit.
What does it mean for us now that He “makes all things new?” He is about the business of freeing His people from the bondage of fleshly ideas and ways, traditions and habits that do not cause growth of His character. Of what use is our presence, our participation, if God has not led us to gather or present and in charge of our meetings? We know we cannot do it, but He can! What difference does it make when, where, how or who we fellowship with when God is leading us by the spirit?
Many of us prefer not to gather with others in a mixture of flesh and spirit—including our own. We need more purging as God’s time for us is revealed to again experience precious gatherings in the Lord. We have had wonderful fellowship through the years with many beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord. These were holy times of communion with God and His people. But it is a new day!
God is calling those who can hear to free themselves of religious bondage in all Babylonish systems established by the traditions of men. This is not just one church or denomination or non-denomination or organization. It is all organizations that carry the name Christian who have practiced and promoted their “brand,” fostering division and strife for personal gain in stature, power, influence and wealth. However, neither poverty nor wealth is a sign of godliness, let alone correct doctrine.
Some of us have left these external systems, being “outside the camp” but still need God’s purging from Babylonish ways within us. We are no longer in Babylon but Babylonish ways were imprinted in our hearts. We learned to minister in the former realms of glory, using the manner we were taught. We were shown how to worship in ways that may be familiar imprints from the past, using catch phrases and common mannerisms as we learned to fellowhip and share in our church fellowships.
But there is no one way to speak God’s word, one right way to preach, teach, or prophesy. Let us allow God to teach us the present way He chooses to use us as His mouthpiece. We want to be free of the past, no longer modeling or mimicking former religious styles and mannerism of our elders. Though gaining much gold from their treasure houses, Jesus is the pattern Son, not humans. There should not be such a mark of human leadership on us that others can tell who we have followed in the past.
Our God is focused upon each heart in those desiring to show forth Who He is now. We are pursuing that prize Paul diligently sought:
“But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things.
I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.
I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:7-14 Berean
All of Paul’s external achievements, the religious stature and knowledge he had gained, the credentials he had among the Jews, the multitude of religious ways he learned as the best Hebrew he could be, were rubbish! Paul taught that the gathering is to be unto Christ. Carefully consider this: can we honestly say that we manifest the power of His resurrection? If Paul desired and pursued more, despite the magnitude and abundance of revelation given to him, it seems obvious that there is more for the rest of us. Settling for salvation to get us out of hell is not sufficient as an entry into His glorious kingdom.
Fortunately, it’s not up to us only to be led by the spirit to understand the deep things of God. He will lead us to brethren and sisters God has gifted to teach the depth of God’s symbols and metaphors. We learn much from such anointed teachers and preachers as they write and share the meaning of God’s spiritual language. We are meant to receive the blessings that come from understanding and living the words of John’s prophecy (Revelation 1:3) along with many other messages in the Bible.
We see signs of this change now. Look around you and you will see many empty buildings from this era, either abandoned or with a few faithful trying to keep it going. When those who represent God’s leadership do not heed the call to change, but hang on to what they’ve built, God will eventually bring it to an end. They will find themselves sitting on a great pile of ashes, trying to breathe life into their old, dead works. As it happened with the great Pentecostal ministries of the past and the earlier charismatic outpourings of the spirit, God has moved on. Those heavens, glorious though they were, are gone.
Heed the call to come out:
“Then I heard another voice from heaven say: ‘Come out of her, my people,’ so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues…” Revelation 18:4 NIV
We may have been taught that Babylon is one specific domination, one group of God’s own that are stuck in this whorish system that has been in bed with all kinds of earthly rulers and kingdoms, but that is simply not the truth. Symbols such as those of prophecy, of revelation, of Jesus’s teachings, are understood as taught by God, leading to a change in character, which we all require to grow up into Him. We are learning to lay down what we thought we knew so He can give us His understanding and tell us about what He has planned for us now.
And it is a glorious future! Take another prayerful look at the book of Revelation. The whole Bible is wonderful, of course, but this book is particularly for our time now. Read enlightened writers on Revelation such as my husband Rich’s Feast of Tabernacles website, Bro. J. Preston Eby’s Kingdom Bible Studies series on the book of Revelation, and Bro. Josh Gwinnup’s Wells in the Desert, along with many other associated ministries God is using to speak to us now.
The truth of God is, indeed, good news! We can be equipped with spiritual truths in order to share them:
“Therefore My people will know My name [nature]: therefore they will know on that day that I am He who speaks. ‘Here I am!’
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, and together they shout for joy. For every eye will see when the Lord returns to Zion.” Isaiah 52:6-8 Berean
There is a deep longing in our hearts to be among those used in this hour to roar out of Zion with good news for the people of God. It is time for the good news of the plan of salvation for all that God has for the world He loves. Enough of frightening people into conversion rather than drawing them by Love into the kingdom of God. Enough bad news! All God’s news is “yes and amen” as we await more of His kingdom to unfold within us to flow out from the Zion saints in a mighty river to others.
“But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy—was not ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’ but in him it has always been ‘Yes.’
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through Him, the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1 NIV