In our last segment we quoted Exodus 24:3-13. It related what took place at Sinai when God’s Word joined Himself to Israel in their bi-lateral Covenant. To understand more of what is contained in that text, let’s go through it again, in sections, and I will add amplification for you to consider. Ponder it while you keep in mind the Covenant union that God had already established through Abraham centuries before:
Exodus 24:3-4a
“Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do!’ Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. (Emphasis added.)
It’s vital that we remember what already took place. God had sent His living Word to reveal Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And through God’s Word, Abraham and his family and unborn descendants became one with God in His unilateral Blood Covenant. The Israelites of Moses’ day already knew this because Abraham revealed it to his family and they passed this legacy down throughout their generations by oral tradition. So at Sinai, when the children of Israel said, ‘All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do’, remember that, thanks to the Covenant union God created with them through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, when they said the word ‘we,’ God’s living Word was included in their promise… for He was already one with Israel!
And to insure that Israel’s part in the Covenants would be fulfilled, this same living Word would later promise to make still another Covenant with the same people. He would make that New Covenant so that Israel’s failure to meet the responsibilities and obligations she took upon herself at Sinai would be covered and perfectly fulfilled, later on:
Jeremiah 31:31-32
“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the Covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My Covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.” (Emphasis added.)
And then, centuries after Jeremiah and other prophets revealed the coming New Covenant, the same living Word of God appeared to Israel once more, in the first century C. E., as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth. And He ushered in the beginning of the New Covenant Era, in which Almighty God Himself would fulfill both sides of the Covenant agreements and make good on all the promises, which had passed between Him and Israel. Remember that God’s Perfect creative Word contains within His nature God’s Fullness. And He is the Perfect Fulfillment of everything God reveals, promises and commissions. God’s Word, once He gives His Word, IS the Fulfillment!
Isaiah 55:10-12
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will MY WORD be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it!” (Emphasis added.)
So when you see Israel at Mt. Sinai, don’t forget to see Yeshua, Israel’s Messiah, who is one with them, abiding in their midst. Although they do not realize it, He is even then, covering the spiritual nakedness of His chosen betrothed people. Throughout the centuries, most Israelites have not understood this or taken it to heart. But God most certainly did understand and take it to heart because since the day Abraham’s Covenant was cut and sealed in blood, God and Israel have been one! And the God who is Perfect, keeps and fulfills His Covenants…to Perfection…through His living Word who became one of us for that very purpose!
As we said before, the Word and Israel are like two ends of one Blood Covenant staff! Whatever pertains to the living Word… also pertains to Israel and includes her. And whatever pertains to Israel also pertains to and includes, God’s living Word. And so although Israel, like all the rest of Adam’s fallen children, was incapable of fulfilling the promises of her part of the Covenant, God’s living Word had already made Himself responsible for ‘filling in all of her blanks’ and covering and backing up her many weaknesses and spiritual bankruptcy. The one who is the Source of all Life gave His Word that He would cover and back up the deficiencies of His chosen people who were dead in trespasses and sins. God’s living Word is Israel’s ‘Covering’, her God-given Guarantee, that the fulfillment of the identity, purpose and eternal destiny He promised her will most certainly, ultimately, take place…for the good of the whole human race.
Romans 11:22-32
“Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you (believing Gentiles), God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.’‘This is My covenant with them when I take away their sins.’ From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers (Abraham, Isaac & Jacob). For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you (Gentiles) once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
So the Covenants Reveal God’s Living Incarnate Word
Everything God does with regard to the human race, He does through His Covenants… and He fulfills the Covenants through His creative Word. His Word creates, supplies, sustains, covers, defends and completely redeems us. We initiate nothing. We are creatures; therefore by nature, we must receive everything from our Creator on a perpetual basis. And because of this fact, we can thus see that our Master Yeshua must be considered to be preeminent in all that pertains to us, in this life, and in the one to come.
Ephesians 1:18-23
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the Glory of His Inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His Power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about IN Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as Head over all things, to the Church, which is His Body, the Fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (Emphasis added.)
This is why I believe it is so important to remember that when you see Israel mentioned throughout the Scriptures, starting in Genesis, we are to train ourselves to see Yeshua, abiding with her and covering, protecting and providing for her and for all those who have been grafted into her Root. Israel is the Word’s betrothed! He is eternally committed to her. And at the end of this Salvation Process, their union will be consummated to Perfection! God has given His Word to Israel. And once He gives His Word…His Word stands forever! So whenever you consider Yeshua, realize that Israel is one with Him, thanks to their God-initiated, eternal, Blood Covenant Bond. Israel will never fulfill her part in her own strength, by organized man-run religious or political or intellectual or military striving. She will never be able to claim any credit for how she is going to turn out in the end. It will only be due to the Perfect Finished Work of God’s living Word – Messiah Yeshua – that she will ever be able to boast:
Exodus 24:4b-8
Then he (Moses) arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.
“Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, ‘all that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!’
“So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, ‘behold the blood of the Covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’ (Emphasis added.)
So now perhaps you can better realize that Messiah Yeshua is also being revealed throughout these Torah passages. Here’s a good example: God is revealing His Son’s significance through the mention and significance of Biblical altars. Because all of fallen humanity is spiritually dead in its trespasses and sins, and abides in a state of enmity and disconnection with God, we are all incapable of approaching God’s holy Perfect Presence by any merit of our own. In ourselves, we have no merit, but only guilt and the condemnation and the curses that befell us after Adam’s fall (See Genesis 2-3).
The Incompatibility of Sin and Holiness
So in itself, our radically independent Sin-state is doomed to eternal separation from God. Our nature, as it originally stands, is completely incompatible with God’s Holy Righteous Nature. The nature of these Israelites was no different. So, before any of us humans can approach God again and interact with Him in peace and Covenant union, our return to God and our interactions with Him must always begin at an altar. The altar at Sinai had twelve pillars; each one represented one of Israel’s twelve tribes. So that altar was for Israel. Her decapitated, radically independent Sin-State had to be offered up in sacrificial atonement to God’s Perfect Justice, Righteousness and Order. Her state of Sin and its living death and her worldly radical independence from God would first have to be executed and sacrificed and completely consumed before anything else could happen between her and God and before He could become her Eternal Life. Once her unworthiness was removed from God’s Presence, nothing would stand between Almighty God and His chosen people. God is intent on redeeming and restoring His chosen ones. So rather than offering them on the altar, He uses the Blood Covenant substitute method. Innocent blood has to be shed and innocent substitute life has to be offered in their place. Then, and only then, can union and friendship between God and Israel be possible.
Deuteronomy 10:12-17
“Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. Yet on your fathers did the Lord set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day. So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer. For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe.” (Emphasis added.)
Israel is commanded and required to ‘walk in all HIS ways and serve Him with all their heart and soul and keep His commandments and statutes!’ But how can these poor Sin-corrupted, living dead people do such things in their own strength? How could they, in their wretched post-slavery condition, obey and serve the Perfect Infinite Almighty God and meet the Perfect Standards of His Perfect Nature and Perfect Righteousness, perfectly? What did they have in themselves that would have enabled them to do that?
Jeremiah 17:9-11
“The (fallen Sin-corrupted human) heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; who can understand it?I, the Lord, search the heart; I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds. As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, so is he who makes a fortune, but unjustly; in the midst of his days it will forsake him, and in the end he will be a fool.” (Emphasis added.)
Jeremiah is speaking of the futility and vanity of all personal striving that fallen human self-life, in its religiosity, tries to offer to God! He is contrasting the total lack of value of it in God’s sight, as opposed to the value of what God’s own infinitely authoritative Word and omnipotent Holy Spirit do in our name and on our behalf. God is once more revealing the difference between the offerings of Cain and Abel, the standing of the first Adam before His Perfect Standards of Righteousness, as opposed to the standing of His own Son, His living Word, who came to be our Last Adam, the Perfect Human Covenant Representative whose Perfect Atonement covers and redeems those who are His own, with His own shed Blood and sacrificed Life:
Jeremiah 17:5-7
“Thus says the Lord, ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant… Blessed is the man who trusts in the (Perfect Finished Covenant Representative work of the) Lord and whose trust IS the Lord!” (Emphasis added. Amplification and emphasis added.)
Leviticus 16:29-31
“This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you; for it is on this day that Atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is to be a Sabbath of solemn Rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute!” (Emphasis added.)
John 5:19
“Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.’”
His Living Word – Our Only Perfect Sacrifice
So this altar reveals once more, what has to happen, before God can transform His human enemies back into His image and likeness. We must repent of our state of radical independence and stop trying to be the hero of our story and star of our own show. We must admit our living death bankruptcy, humble ourselves before our Creator, and wholeheartedly embrace the covering Redeemer whom God sends to rescue us… looking only to Him and to the Perfection of what He has already done to please His Father and meet His Perfect Standards perfectly, in our name and in our place! Whatever is in us that comes from our original, former state of living death, must always be placed on the altar first, and offered up to God and consumed entirely, so that the only offering we will have to give to God will be what He has already provided for us to offer Him – His living Word, our Passover Lamb… our Messiah Redeemer… the Good Shepherd who has come to care for His flock Himself.
Ezekiel 34:1-6
“Then the Word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them.'”
Man-originated attempts to please, placate or impress Almighty God are an abomination in His sight. God is repulsed by any attempt on the part of fallen, Sin-contaminated human flesh to dare to insert itself in Heavenly matters in an attempt to preside over and control what is to take place between God and mankind. And whenever we dare try to offer Him something that did not first come to us from God’s Word and Holy Spirit, but rather originates in our Sin-corrupted original state of decapitation and living death, God points to the altar and demands that we put all of that self-originated corruption and falsehood upon it, so that it can be consumed and removed from His sight:
Ezekiel 34:11-16
“For thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so (through My living Word made flesh) I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest,” declares the Lord God. “I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Zechariah 4:6
“Then he said to me, “This is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.’” (Emphasis added.)
Romans 12:1
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship!“ (Emphasis added.)
So the altar also reveals how God must deal with our Sin and the state of living death with which the Sin of the Serpent has infected us all. Because of our Sin-contamination, we can originate nothing that God will accept. We cannot offer ourselves to God directly. We must do everything indirectly, through our God-appointed Mediator, His own Word, who is our utterly innocent, pure and Sin-less Blood Covenant Substitute Representative. As our Representative, He covered our spiritual nakedness by offering Himself in our place. Only after we identify ourselves with God’s Word, and what He has done through His Death and Resurrection, will God be able to receive us. We must continually be offering the Perfection of our Messiah’s Finished Work of Atonement so that we can perpetually abide with Him in the Glory of His Resurrection Presence and Righteousness that God’s Holy Spirit can now apply to us and that can now abide and work within us in the New Covenant Era:
Colossians 3:1-4
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ (Messiah), 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.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
When our Messiah was offered up on His Cross, we were also being offered up IN Him. This is the revelation of the altar and our Covenant union with God’s Word. This revelation shows us just how profoundly God’s Word had to identify Himself with us. He became all that was wrong with all of us and sacrificed Himself in our stead. This reveals that God will not accept us as we are in our original state. We must be placed on that altar, through God’s Eternal Covenant substitution, so that all of the residue of the Sin Corruption that remains in us, at this stage of our progressive restoration, can be continually eliminated from His sight. Then, thanks to the Perfect Spotless utterly Righteous Lamb that God has supplied for us, who has been offered on that altar, as us, God’s Justice and Judgment against our Adamic Sinfulness can be perfectly satisfied. And then, we can willingly continue to offer, in the same way, all of the Sin Residue that remains in us, forsaking it daily, and deferring continually to the Resurrection Life of our Messiah that God gives to us in exchange:
Matthew 3:16-17
“After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he (John the Immerser) saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.’” (Amplification added)
Luke 9:23
“And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me!’” ( Emphasis added.)
Once we have this firmly settled in our heart and soul, we can ‘baptize’ or submerge ourselves in our Messiah and identify with Him, just as truly and deeply as He has identified with us. It must be Him that the world around us sees living and operating from within us. This is why we must join Him in the fellowship of His atoning Death, considering it to be our death as well. Thus we can apply the Cross to whatever residue that remains in our flesh, as soon as it becomes aroused and tries once more to take over in some area of our daily existence. Our continuous, daily identification with, and deference to, the Lamb of God, ‘disconnects’ the flesh residue that remains in us from its demonic power source. The Serpent has his coils around us; but when Messiah is our Life, those coils are severed and Satan has no more hold on us. And what we originally were is removed from God’s sight on the altar He has provided for us. This is how we can join ourselves to Yeshua in the fellowship of His Death. His Death atones for us all. And our personal identification with Him purifies and frees us of our original personal share in the Serpent’s rebellion and enmity against God.
This is how we can exchange continually, what we were originally, for the holy, Perfect Righteousness and Acceptability that our Covenant Representative, the living Word of God, imparts to us in exchange. At present, He is the only one that has Resurrection Life. But He is our Head and Covenant Representative. Through the Gift of God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, we can be as one and abide with Him and the Righteousness and Eternal Life that is in Him, when we consider ourselves to be dead to what the Serpent and Sin originally made us to be. This is how, even now, our Redeemer is able to set us free from Sin, Death and all guilt and the curses that flow from the state of Sin!
And this is how our Heavenly Father can accept and restore us to our original union with Him. When He sees us identifying with His Son, we become His Son’s image and likeness. To be one with Him is to be one with the Father that sent Him. This is our New Covenant purpose and destiny. So the primary revelation made through the altars mentioned in the Bible is the revelation of God’s living Word and what His Covenant Representation of us will require of Him… and of us. God’s living Word is preeminent in all of God’s dealings with mankind. God will make everything right between Him and Israel, and all of mankind, through His living Word’s absolute and total Righteousness and Authority. And the rest of us must step aside and rest and allow Him to do it in our name, as we join with God in approving and proclaiming the Perfection of Yeshua’s Perfect Finished Work.
At the time God entered into this Sinai Covenant with Israel, His living Word had not yet arrived on Earth as Israel’s Messiah and Ultimate Passover Lamb. So before His physical death on the Cross, substitute sacrificial animals were used to reveal and symbolize what the Word would be to us and what He would do, and what His significance would be, once He arrived in time and space to embody and reveal His Eternal Sacrifice on the Cross. And His Sacrifice, which already existed in God’s mind and will in eternity before Creation ever came to be, is Perfectly Authoritative and Sufficient, both in eternity and also in the dimension of time and space. God’s Word is more than enough to set all of us free from the Serpent and from Sin and Death.
Ephesians 1:3-12
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places IN CHRIST, just as He chose us IN HIM before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons THROUGH JESUS CHRIST to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the Glory of His Grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. IN HIM we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed IN HIM with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things IN CHRIST, things in the heavens and things on the earth. IN HIM also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope IN CHRIST would be to the praise of His Glory.” (Emphasis added.)
Beloved, when you have the eyes to see what God’s written Word is revealing to us about the total preeminence of His living Word, you can realize how awesome the significance of God’s Torah truly is, and how magnificent its complete fulfillment will be by the time the fullness of the New Covenant Restoration appears in the fullness of time.
Hebrews 1:1-3
“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed Heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the Radiance of His Glory and the Exact Representation of His Nature, and upholds all things by the Word of His Power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…” (Emphasis added.)
John 14:10-15
“Do you not believe that I AM IN THE FATHER AND THE FATHER IS IN ME? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My Name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My Name, I will do it. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (Emphasis added.)
Yeshua, Our Kinsman Redeemer
Obviously only the living Word of Almighty God has the Authority to cleanse, release and redeem His fallen Creation. No mere animal, or combined number of animals, or myriads of rituals performed by Sin-corrupted humans, would have any authority or righteousness in themselves to atone for and remove our Sin. But, starting with the ‘covering’ God’s Word provided for Adam and Eve in the Garden, God taught men to use animals to symbolize the one Ultimate Perfect Lamb that abides with God in Eternity. One day He would come into our space and time dimension and offer Himself to His Father physically, on the altar of His Cross, in our name. Because of the Covenant God made with Abraham, God’s Word made flesh is able to serve as our perfect, flawless, Substitute Life. He is the ‘Kinsman Redeemer’ that has offered Himself to God in place of His beloved, Sin-corrupted, living dead Israel, and in the place of the human race that Israel was chosen to represent and instruct.
Genesis 22:7-8
“Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father!’ And he said, “Here I am, my son.’ And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide for Himself The Lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.” (Emphasis added.
The Substitute Life that would ultimately be offered as our Perfect Atonement would have to be large enough and pure and valuable enough to fully represent Israel and all the rest of the human race, legally and comprehensively. So by becoming one with Israel in the Covenant, and by becoming incarnate, the Word of God, the Maker of all Creation, became one of us. He shares our human nature, except for Sin. And He has poured out His perfect, Sin-less Human life on behalf of all humanity in order to redeem and fully restore us. And so we must all pour out our Sin-corrupted living death existence before God on the altar, so that we can be free to receive Yeshua Himself to be our new and Eternal Resurrection Life. When we are one with Yeshua in God’s New Covenant, we exchange our living death in which we all begin from conception, for the Perfect Substitute Life of God’s Son that God gives us in return.
What God is revealing to us in the books of Genesis and Exodus lays the foundation for our ability to realize that Yeshua, God’s Incarnated Word, comes to us from God and contains within Himself all of God’s Fullness. The Word that was raised from the dead makes it possible for God to reveal Himself to us and be to us whatever we need Him to be. This lets us know that from all eternity, God commissioned His Word to become one with Israel. And God can engraft any of the other, non-Jewish members, of the human race, who will believe and submit to the Covenant terms that He revealed to Israel, and through Israel, to the rest of the world. It is only through our obedient faith in Israel’s Messiah, who is one with Israel, that any human can be saved and restored. And, in keeping with His Covenant promises to Abraham, God can bless and engraft all the families of the world into His awesome Israelite Root of Salvation and Eternal Life, through His Word who is one with Israel.
Genesis 12:3
“And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Emphasis added.)
Exodus 24:9-11
Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. Yet He did not stretch out His hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, and they ate and drank.” (Emphasis added.)
The blood of the recently slain Covenant substitute animals had been sprinkled on the altar with its twelve pillars and upon the people that were present, to signify that the Word of God and the people of Israel were united in God’s Blood Covenant. So God considered them to be one unit, two ends of this Covenant Staff that God had created through which to make the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob His very own possession. And the sacrifice of the Word’s Sin-less human life as a substitute for Israel made it possible for Israel’s elders to approach God’s living Word, who made Himself visible to them, and join with Him in sealing the Covenant by sharing the customary meal. And despite such close proximity to Almighty God’s Holy Perfect Sin-less Presence, the Covenant Blood covered and protected them and enabled them to survive this encounter with Holiness and Purity and Righteousness Himself.
Yeshua’s Perfect, Finished Work
And then God began to reveal more of Himself to Moses, to equip him and Israel for the monumental Exodus task that God had entrusted to them. But now we can see that although Israel was not up to being able to fulfill her responsibilities herself, she is surely going to fulfill them, not by her efforts, but in and through the Perfect Finished Work of Creation and Redemption that has already been done by her Eternal Blood Covenant Friend, the living Word of God:
Matthew 11:27-29
“All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you Rest. Take My Yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find Rest for your souls.” (Emphasis added.)
This is what the New Covenant is meant to reveal and impart to the whole world! And so, at Sinai, when God began to provide the written revelation containing commandments and instructions for Israel’s ‘disciple training,’ He was already revealing that the fulfillment of all this was not going to be accomplished by Israel… it was implied that this Covenant union that was created between God’s Word and God’s chosen people, was going to be fulfilled in the New Covenant, even though Israel would stumble and falter and be unable to meet her terms of the Covenant. Her Messiah, Yeshua, would be the one commissioned by God, to stand in her place and fulfill her part. This revelation was embedded within the warning He gave to His personal disciples centuries later:
Matthew 16:24-25
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his (Sin-corrupted, self-reliant, living death existence) life will lose it; but whoever loses his life (surrenders it to be consumed on the altar of the Cross) for My sake, will find it.’” (Amplification added.)
So we can see that there is an unbreakable connection between the day God made His Covenant with Abraham and this Sinai generation of Israelites. And that Covenant connection continues forward in history and reaches out to and includes those first century Israelites that were going to be trained and commissioned as apostles and disciples of Messiah Yeshua, to introduce the New Covenant Era. By the end of that era, God’s Word, in His absolute Perfection, will Himself fulfill everything that in previous generations, Israel was never able to fulfill in her own, non-existent strength. How will He do it? He would do it in and through His Spirit-filled and empowered New Covenant disciples. And so, that connection extends all the way from Abraham’s Covenant, all the way to our day and time… all the way to us!
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
“And He has said to me, ‘My Grace is sufficient for you, for Power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak (crucified), then (in My resurrected Master Yeshua) I am strong.” (Amplification added.)
There is also a direct connection between the altars that were introduced in God’s Torah revelation… starting with Abel and his acceptable offering to God… and the Cross of God’s Incarnate Lamb. The Cross is the Ultimate Altar of all altars. So the message from God to us concerning our fallen Sin-corrupted flesh is the same from start to finish. Adam and Eve fell and became spiritually naked. God will not accept anything from them, which they initiate now that they’ve fallen into that state. He will use none of it. Nor will He accept anything it produces. He will only accept what He sends His own living Word to be and to do in our place and on our behalf.
This is what He revealed to Cain in Genesis 4. This was the difference between Cain’s rejected self-initiated offering to God, and the God-accepted offering that Abel presented to Him. Abel offered God the pure, Sin-less sacrificed life of a lamb, while Cain offered the best that he could come up with in his own strength and by his own self-originated devices. Abel’s offering was clean, pure and Sin-less; Cain’s was the dead product that came out of a dead source.
This is the constant underlying message contained in all of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. It is the message of the altars that God must continually give to all fallen human flesh in each generation. And this is the message that the apostles of our risen Messiah were sent to give to the entire world… to the Jew first, and then to the Gentiles:
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
“For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the Power of God!” (Emphasis added.)
Revelation 3:17-21
“Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me Gold refined by Fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My Voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne!”
The Covenant as a Testimony to the Nations of the World
As soon as God finished giving His Ten Commandments, He continued to give to Moses supplementary commandments and revelation that were all geared to teach, guide and govern Israel in the area that is of utmost importance to God – the area of Israel’s relationships – with God and with each other, and with the rest of the world. Chapters 21 – 23 contain those commands that were intended to reconfigure, recondition, transform and restore Israel to the image and likeness of God’s own living Word. For that reason, since you too were created and destined to be the Word’s image and likeness, I encourage you to read those chapters for yourself. Do it in the Lord’s Presence. Discuss them with your fellow disciples so that the risen Lord, who by the Holy Spirit abides within you, can begin to teach and show you why God places such prime importance in the way we interact with Him and with each other, and with the other families of the earth.
The Torah tells us that it is meant to be a ‘tutor,’ an instructor to Israel, and also to the rest of the world, through Israel. See if you can recognize and grasp God’s world-transforming and restoring intent that is embedded within these words:
Deuteronomy 4:5-14
“See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole Law which I am setting before you today?
“Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’ You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice. So He declared to you His Covenant, which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you (the additional supplementary) statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it.” (Amplification and emphasis added)
As the firstborn among all the nations of the world, Israel’s task was similar to that of the firstborn son of an Israelite family. The job of the firstborn is to serve as the model or example for the rest of the children of what the proper relationship between the father and the children of his family looks like, and how it works, and what it is to specialize in, and what it is to avoid. Israel was created to be the world’s ‘Watch me do it…now you try it,’ kind of instructor and demonstrator for all other nations. And what exactly was the world supposed to see God’s firstborn nation doing? They were supposed to see Israel demonstrating what it is like to abide with God’s living Word… and offering the Sin residue that remained in their flesh on the altar every day… while at the same time, offering on that altar the Perfect Sacrificial Lamb, God’s living Word Himself, as a worthy Offering to Almighty God. And how are they to offer God’s Word back to Him? They do it by allowing their risen Lord to live and operate and reveal Himself through their crucified flesh… through the thoughts, actions, reactions and interactions of their Word-filled daily lives. And all of this is to be done by the Power of God’s Holy Spirit from within Israel’s faithful, obedient Remnant.
So throughout all of the Tanach, through the prophets we see that Israel continued to fail to fulfill her part of her Covenant with God. However, because she is one with God’s Word, Yeshua, when the Word became flesh and lived His perfect, Sin-less, Israelite Life in the first century, and died the perfect, atoning death as her Blood Covenant Substitute Passover Lamb, Israel has fulfilled her part of the Covenant; not in her own strength, but IN HIM!
Galatians 2:15-21
“We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in (of) the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Israel’s Faithful, Obedient Remnant, the Word’s True Disciples
God intended to have His Self-revelation, along with this awesome Father/Son relationship He had with Israel, given to be taught to and shared with every human being in Creation. Every Israelite father was to serve this function with every child in his family; every family was to do this with their neighbors; and every Israelite community was to do this with the surrounding peoples of their respective regions. This is why Israel received it first. She was commissioned to demonstrate and teach God’s Reality and Truth, and desire for intimate union with us, to the rest of mankind. So in that sense, Israel is God’s prototype ‘disciple nation’. And this is the model, be it positive or negative, for what individual men and women whom our Master summons into His service to serve as Israel’s Faithful Remnant, are to learn what God intends to make of them in order to save them from themselves and the Serpent that deceived them.
Galatians 3:15-29
“Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his Seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your Seed,” that is, Christ. What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.
“Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the Seed would come to whom the promise had been made. Now a mediator is not for one party only, whereas God is only one. Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under Sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
“But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the Law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one IN Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”
Amazing Grace!
It isn’t possible for our Sin-wounded, terribly limited, finite minds to fully comprehend the infinite, eternal Love that is at the heart of God’s Perfect Nature. But we can at least begin to arrive at an ever-deepening understanding of it and what it means and how deeply it goes when we realize that God took the initiative to love and cover and redeem us even though He knew, in advance, everything we would ever do or fail to do. In His infinite foreknowledge and wisdom, He knew how maimed and mortally wounded and wickedly selfish and predatory we would become as a result of the Sin state into which we would fall. He knew each of us at our very worst, even before we were created! He knew how arrogant and hateful and wicked we, as a race, and as individuals, we would turn out to be, before it even happened! And yet… He chose to create us and put up with us and send His living Word to cover us, reconcile with us, make full atonement for us and redeem, restore and become our Eternal Life so that He could abide as one with us forever!
It is this perfect, self-less Love that underlies God’s motivation for sending His Word to take on our nature and become one of us so that He could legally represent and identify with and become one with us. Why? So that He could sacrifice Himself on the Ultimate Altar in our name and on our behalf. Can you see it, Beloved? Because God’s Nature is Perfect, nothing created was going to be able to stop God from coming after us and pursuing us and drawing us back to Himself so that we could be His eternal image and likeness. That is the nature and depth of the Perfect Love that God has for us. And this is what Yeshua was expressing to His disciples on the night before He was crucified and executed in our name.
John 15:8-10
“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (Emphasis added.)
In the Torah, the Holy Spirit gave us a beautiful expression of the kind of relationship God wants His chosen people to have with His living Word. This is how He inspired Moses to write it:
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Imagine generation after generation of well-intentioned Israelites doing their very best, trying with all of their might, to obey and embody the meaning of the above commands. Their leaders teach and exhort them; but their prophets, one after another, decry the abysmal failures of their current generations. Why? Why after all the blessings and spiritual advantages God gave them, why does Israel continue to fail so miserably to please and obey Almighty God who loves and has blessed and favored them so much? When will they ever learn? When will any of us ever grow and mature in order to become ‘good enough’ to do everything that all of the commandments require according to God’s Perfect Nature and Standard of Righteousness? When, O children of Adam? When, O you children of Jacob? When will you learn? When will you finally succeed and fulfill your awesome Covenants with God?
If we continue to look at Israel’s end of the Blood Covenant staff, we will wait in vain… forever. All we will see there is, ‘Jacob’. This is what God’s Torah is telling us, as well as all the other Scriptures that follow it in the Bible. There is only one way in which everything can be done properly, only one way in which God’s Perfect Standard can be met and perfectly fulfilled. But it will never take place at Jacob’s end of the staff. It is only at the other end, the Israel end…when the fallen world of men moves away from their end of the staff that is occupied by the fallen flesh of the Jewish and non-Jewish children of the first Adam and begins to look to and believe in, the one who is at the other end…the True Israel. That is the end of the staff that is occupied by Almighty God and His Perfect living Word and Holy Spirit… that we shall see and experience the awesome Fulfillment in all of its Glory and Perfection. Then, IN OUR COVENANT LAMB, in the Covenant Representation of God’s Perfect One, will we be able to satisfy God’s Perfect Standards to Perfection. God, as only He can do, must be the one to do it in our name.
Ezekiel 36:22-27
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I AM about to act, but for My Holy Name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of My great Name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I AM the Lord,” declares the Lord God, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” (Emphasis added.)
When you can see Israel’s Messiah, the living Word of God made flesh, abiding with and in Israel and working from within Israel’s spirit, soul and body, THEN you will see what the Scriptures have been saying to the world for all these thousands of years! It is only IN Messiah, only IN the living Word of God, that the Fulfillment can be achieved. And so it has been achieved! For it was done in God’s mind and heart and will from all eternity, as an expression of His Perfect Love Nature and Perfect Righteousness and Order as revealed throughout all of His Creation.
Genesis 2:1-3
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work, which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work, which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
John 19:28-30
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘IT IS FINISHED!’ And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” (Emphasis added.)
So, if you know you’ve been summoned by the risen Lord to follow Him into the Last Days Fulfillment of the New Covenant, and have been gathered by Him into the Follow Me Family of disciples-in-training, I ask you once more to ponder our FMM ‘Marching Orders.’ Read them and imagine the living Word of God giving those orders to Moses as He was preparing him to lead the children of Israel into the Wilderness. Imagine Moses being instructed to train the Israelites to carry out these orders as the ‘boot camp’ training they were going to need in order to prepare themselves to cross the Jordan River and enter the Land of Promise…and take it and truly own it!
These Marching Orders can serve as a paraphrase of what Moses wrote in Deuteronomy. They put what He wrote for Israel and the rest of the world in terms that spell out a little more what it is like to share in the Glory of what the apostles Peter, John, Paul, and others, wrote about Yeshua’s New Covenant Israelite identity, purpose and lifestyle. Generations of Jewish and non-Jewish people of all beliefs, cultures, religions and persuasions have come and gone. Many have tried to understand the Scriptures and fulfill them in their lifetimes. But still, even though the modern nation of Israel has risen miraculously out of the ashes of her latest Holocaust, despite her best efforts to take the Land and make it hers, she continues to fail to reach the Fulfillment. It’s hers, but only in name. In reality, true satisfying possession of the promised New Covenant Righteousness and true possession of the Land promised to the fathers of the Faith remain as elusive and ungraspable as a blob of mercury would be to human fingertips.
Our Goal and Destiny – Living as One with Our God
I submit to you that the reason for all this frustration is that all of this time, Jews and Christians have, for the most part, been striving to learn to be ‘like God.’ They’ve endeavored to work from the man-centered end of the Covenant staff. They’ve tried to work ‘for’ God and tried as hard as they could to do the work of God. They keep trying to do it in His place, to try to please Him by their Sin-corrupted efforts. But all of that self-generated effort keeps failing because it doesn’t spring out of a deep faith in God. It springs from deep mistrust of God and rejection of what He has revealed about His Perfect Finished Works of Creation and Redemption. It springs from unbelief that prompts our flesh to try to add to and improve, what God has already said is Finished! We keep trying to add to it…implying that it isn’t good enough as it stands. And this is why we must all take that first required step in our dealings with God. It always begins, continues and ends with… ‘the altar… the Altar of the Cross… Yeshua the Messiah… the Eternal Perfect Lamb of God… and Him crucified.’ He is the beginning, the middle and the final consummation of our Exodus Journey!
All self-centered, self-devised and self-originated striving must die. In all of that human striving that we’ve seen recorded in the annals of Israelite and world history, we have still not seen the Fullness of God’s Living Word living and acting from within His Covenant people. God’s Eternal Sabbath Rest, as revealed in Genesis 1:31 and 2:1-3 is what is missing. God supplied and covered everything right from the very beginning. He is the beginning, the middle and the end of our Journey out of Self-life:
Philippians 2:12b-13
“…Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; FOR IT IS GOD WHO IS AT WORK IN YOU…BOTH TO WILL AND TO WORK…FOR HIS GOOD PLEASURE!” (Emphasis added.)
Previous generations have missed it because they’ve tried to bypass the first step…the Altar of the Cross. Beloved, I beg you… do not dare to bypass that Altar! Do not dare try to approach Almighty God while still identifying with your original, Adamic, worldly past history and self-centered conditioning and priorities and perspectives. You must first repent of that and follow your beloved Lord to the Cross. He identified with you. In that capacity He picked up His Cross and died in your place to redeem you! Now you must pick up your own cross so that you can testify to the Perfection of what He has done in your name. By identifying with Him in His death, you validate what He had to do for you, and for us all. Agree with God! Follow His Word into your Redemption and Liberation. Let Him make a brand new creation of you. If you do, you will not be a ‘make-over.’ You will not be a ‘re-treaded human.’ You will not be a ‘new and improved version’ of the same old you! You will be what the New Covenant apostles were trained and commanded to teach and demonstrate to the believers of their generations. It is not about self-improvement. It is about joining our Messiah in His Death and Resurrection:
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
“Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is IN Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself THROUGH CHRIST and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that GOD WAS IN CHRIST RECONCILING THE WORLD TO HIMSELF, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the Word of Reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be Sin on our behalf, so that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him.” (Emphasis added.)
Can you see how profoundly and thoroughly our Covenant Representative has identified Himself with us? And can you see why God requires us to identify with Yeshua our Messiah to the same depth and degree of oneness? Our Messiah has become our Sin in order to make it possible for us to become His Righteousness! This can only be done IN HIM, through the Cross, but never in our own strength and religious striving. This is why we must die to that former identity we derived from this world and that false sense of Sin-loving radical independence with which it has conditioned us. From now on, we are to live only to God… in Messiah Yeshua… as Israel’s Faithful New Covenant Remnant!
Beloved I pray that this will help us all to understand more of what it’s like to be crucified with Christ and to live, not as radically independent agents with lives of our own; but to have Him, by the Holy Spirit’s Power, actually living in us and supplying everything for us from His Eternal Resurrection Life, from the Eternity side of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence. We must defer to Him so that He can apply to us the fruit of the Perfect Finished Work He has already accomplished in our name. We must allow Him to be and do what only He can be and do, from within our spirits, through our souls and bodies… while we interact with Him, and rest with Him, continually.
This is what our ‘Marching Orders’ articulate for us, as we make our way through our own ‘Wilderness’ regions and strive to learn the ‘boot camp’ lessons we will need to know in the Last Days combat with the powers of Darkness:
1. Take My people further in their understanding of what it is to be a temple of My Presence.
2. Teach them to think along with Me, in all things.
3. Teach them to listen to Me at all times, even as they are thinking!
4. Develop a great tenderness and sensitivity for My Presence within them. Teach them to worship Me in the depths of their spirits and innermost minds, in all things.
5. Teach them to understand clearly and thoroughly, what it means to be faithful to seek, in all things, My viewpoint and the purpose of My Kingdom, Kingship and Righteousness. If they do that, I, for My part, will add all other things for them.
6. Take them further in their understanding of the depths of the New Covenant relationship they have with Me. Teach them what their part is to be.
7. Teach them how to respond to Me in even the tiniest matters.
8. I am with them in all things and in all ways. I want them to be with Me in the same manner!
This is the interactive identification with our Messiah lifestyle by which the human heart becomes ‘circumcised.’ This is how New Covenant disciples must be trained and prepared to live. They must become experts who are proficient in abiding in, and drawing from, the Perfect Presence of their Lord and Master, day and night, through thick and thin, regardless of what circumstances or demonic opposition may be raging and roiling all around them.
This is how the Lord is going to fulfill His New Covenant promises in and through His Last Days generation of disciples. This is how the disciples will persevere and withstand the lies and attacks of the powers of Darkness. This is how they will overcome and be found still standing, still holding their God-given Resurrection Ground, still faithful and true, when the strife ends and the war between Light and Darkness is finally over. Lies will never replace Truth. Darkness will never overwhelm the Eternal Light of Almighty God’s Reality! Flesh will never replace SPIRIT. Nor will living Death be able to stop the advance and ultimate takeover of the Resurrection! So, the level of Covenant union and integrated synchronization that the world-wide Body of our Messiah will need in order to fulfill its God-given task amid excruciating circumstances must be derived from our total, uncontaminated identifying union with our Master in His Death to Sin!
And so, just as we can see the direct Covenant connection between God’s living Word when He encountered Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… and we see it moving forward to include Moses and the Israelites at Sinai… so does it continue to Joshua and Caleb and the prophets and into the first century. And there the same living Word of God begins to teach and train His New Covenant disciples, just as He had once attempted to do with Moses his generation. The times and generations of Israel changed over the centuries… but the purposes of God, and the commission upon which He had sent His living Word never change. The Word remains one with Israel, and through Israel, He came to Earth, in our flesh, to introduce the New Covenant Era, during which He promised to fulfill in the future, what Israel had never been able to do in her own strength in the past.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My Law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Emphasis added.)
God is intent on teaching us the lesson of the altar and why its purpose will never change in this life, and why the apostles were trained and taught to focus all attention on nothing but ‘Yeshua the Messiah, and Him crucified.’ The Fulfillment of God’s purpose to make us into His image and likeness, the human reflection and embodiment of The Perfect One, can only take place when the Perfect living Word of the Perfect One, is free to live and work and love and obey His Heavenly Father in us… through us… and as us. The Perfect image and likeness of God can never be one of His limited, imperfect creations. The Perfect image and likeness of God must be the living Word of God Himself… and because He is our Covenant Representative, who by the Holy Spirit is now free to live in us and work through us, He can be for us, what we can never be in ourselves. He is our Fulfillment. IN HIM is our Perfection. IN HIM we are Righteousness and Perfect Acceptability…in the sight of Almighty God!
Matthew 5:17-20
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Philippians 1:20b-21
“I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain!” (Emphasis added.)