Perspectives

The truth of our spiritual and eternal realities in God.

Let’s glimpse this truth by understanding Isaiah’s open vision. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Isaiah 6:1-3). And this vision concurs with what Ezekiel and John saw in Revelation.

What is the practical implication? The throne of God, and the Ancient of Days sitting on it, is also in the Temple as Isaiah saw. In other words, because of God’s desire to help us understand things better, we are given representations and paradigms. Romans 1:20 substantiates this – “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature.”

Returning to Isaiah, in a vision, people might perceive the Throne room - the Court of Heaven, the New Jerusalem and the strategy room - quite vividly, but the reality is that God does not go from one room to another, He is endeavouring to help us understand the concepts and realities of heaven.

Our problem is to overthink things – trying to categorize God and heaven, instead of absorbing the truths coming from Him. Analysis can be useful, and we must base our faith on a thorough understanding of His being, nature and kingdom. And for most of the time, we have used the written word to achieve this, allowing the Scriptures to introduce us to the things of God. This is valid - but the calling is much higher, to enter the eternal Presence you must “come up and see”.

Paul taught that the foundation or basis of our faith is the Person of Jesus Christ, not the teachings of or about Him. Faith is love-based, love creates the trust for vision, and then hope which will give birth to faith. Faith comes by hearing the spoken word (rhema) of God. And we enter the [Sabbath] rest of God when the spoken word discerns us. 

The spoken word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, revealing the true intents of our hearts. This means our “eternal-faith” must be based not on understanding, as important as that is, but on personal revelation and divine wisdom, encountering Holy Spirit as Paul taught the Ephesians.

But to assimilate the truth and absorb His person, we must understand His language. This is a problem for many Christians. For instance – The Cross.  Jesus is represented as a goat when His blood atones for us at the Ark of the Covenant on the Day of atonement, He is a Serpent when He is high and lifted up on Moses’ rod, bringing salvation and healing to His people, He is the Lamb that was slain from before the foundation of the earth, and in the Gospels, He is characterized as the lion, the eagle, the ox and as the complete man. On the Cross even the perspectives and facets are of a composite understanding – He saved us from this world and death, He made it possible for us to be adopted to Father-God, He atoned for our sins and reconciled us with Father-God, He triumphed over the enemy, He made us righteous by paying the penalties we were due, He absolved us from the requirements of the Law by redeeming us and He glorified us by encapsulating us in Him on His eternal throne.

The key is that even though we are called the spouse, the Bride, the friend, the child or captive and/or bondslave of Christ; it means nothing if I am not one with Holy Spirit, one with God and becoming more like Him. All of nature and the diverse aspects of life, and in particular the Scriptures, are of no use when we artificially try and overthink and over-analyze it.

Identity is not what the Bible says who you are, your identity is rooted in who God says you are, which will most certainly be affirmed in Scripture. The best reality I can give to demonstrate what Holy Spirit wants to convey here is that we are called the friends of God in Romans 5, but I assure you, knowing that is very different when God actually speaks and says to you personally, “You are my friend!”

Blessings

Ben

 Our thanks to Ben for this month's Blog contribution

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