Seeing Grace

In the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, Jesus is recorded as saying that in His Father’s House are many dwelling places. He said He would prepare a place for us that where He is we would be also. That place He prepared for us is in Himself.

He said He would raise up the true House of God in three days. Jesus is the true House of God for which the temple made with stones was just a picture. We have become the living stones in the true temple by the Spirit. He prepared the place for us in Himself in three days through His death and resurrection and then returned to His disciples on the third day as promised and received them into Himself even as He imparted Himself into them by the gift of the Spirit.

Where is Jesus now? He is in Heaven. So joined to Him we are where He is now, in Heaven. Seated with Him in heavenly places. That is how Heaven can be in us now. Because we are one with Him, and because He is the Door and only Mediator between God and men, we transcend this realm and live in two worlds at the same time. We are where He is in Heaven and He is where we are on earth. Even as Jesus was one with the Father and lived in Heaven in fellowship with the Father while He walked the earth, so we also live in Heaven through union with Him and our fellowship is truly with the Father and the Son by the Spirit while we walk the earth.

As Jesus is, so also are we now in this world. (I John 4:17)

These are the deep things of God that only the Spirit can show us. The Spirit has been given to reveal the thoughts of God to us, the apostle Paul taught. God’s great love for us has accomplished what was impossible for man. His Kingdom has come in us who believe. Through Jesus we live now in two worlds. He said we have His peace and His joy now within from His world and not as this world gives. He is with us always and we are never alone. On earth as it is in Heaven.

James Barron

The New Covenant brings us rest and it replaced the priesthood of the Old Covenant. This is huge. Priesthood is all about how to handle the problem of sin and man in his relationship with God. Priesthood is all about getting God and man together, in spite of man’s sin.

The Old Covenant priesthood could only cover man’s sins temporarily and God could only relate to man behind a thick veil. That all dramatically changed when Jesus came. Jesus is a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek pursuant to a New Covenant. This is really, really huge.

The Melchizedek priesthood is superior to the Levitical priesthood in that the Levitical priesthood, created temporarily under the law, could only “cover sins” through animal sacrifices but the Melchizedek priesthood has existed eternally, with no beginning and no end, and “took away sins” by the one sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God, forever. In the fullness of time Jesus was born a man, under the law, to fulfill all law and open the door to the new, yet ancient, priesthood. For He is the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world, yet not manifested to the world until the appointed time.

Because our faith is in Jesus, sin is no longer even counted against us nor remembered by God. What is counted for us is the righteousness of Christ as a gift and what is remembered by God is the great suffering and death of His Son.

Therefore there is no barrier ever between us and God as we walk the earth and especially when our bodies die and we leave this earth! This is the Gospel! The Good News! This is huge!!!

These are deep things that only the Spirit can show us. In our own minds with our own reasonings, we cannot see this or even imagine this. Religious thinking keeps us from grasping theses things. As Paul wrote, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it ever been imagined by men what God would do through Christ!”

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians said the Spirit is given to the believer to show the believer the deep things of God. The deep things of God. Think about that. The Spirit is not given to show us the deep things in our flesh. The Spirit’s work is not to show the believer sin. The flesh has been circumcised by God and God no longer recognizes the old man. All of the Spirit’s energy is focused on opening the eyes of the new man. Jesus said the Spirit will show the new man what belongs to Him, to Jesus, and what now belongs to the believer who is joined to this Christ!

Think about the Spirit as One who takes you by the hand and leads you to the resurrected Jesus. He does not take you by the hand and lead you to where the dead old man is buried to point out all his sins.

The Spirit is within you, if you are a believer, and He will open your eyes to this ancient priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. Under the Old Covenant God related to man from behind a thick veil but now under this amazing New Covenant God is inside the believer. Think about that. God is inside you. All the time.

The new priesthood is a priesthood that God established with His own oath, swearing by Himself, since He can swear by no one greater, that Jesus is your High Priest forever after the power of His endless life! He swore by Himself so that you would never doubt Him about this.

And what does that really mean? It means that as long as Jesus lives then your sins will never be counted against you again. And that means never!

Only by knowing this can you enter the rest of God and cease from your own works to try to earn His love. Only by seeing this will His light dawn within you and you will see your union with Him. Only by believing this can you finally experience His peace.

James Barron

What did Jesus mean when He said that God seeks those who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth? (John 4:24)

When Jesus said that to the Samaritan woman He was responding to her question of “where” should one worship God.

She said the Jews say we should worship on the mountain in Jerusalem where the temple is located but we Samaritans worship here in Samaria, on the mountain where Moses read the blessings and curses of the covenant over the people. Which mountain is correct?

Jesus said something new was coming. He said the hour is coming and now is that the true worshippers of God will not worship on either one of those mountains.

Then where?

Her question was about “where” and He answered her question.

He told her the “where” is not a place on earth. It is a place in a different realm. In the Spirit. God who is Spirit dwells in the invisible realm of the Spirit.

Jesus said the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, or in the reality. The word in the Greek language which is translated as “truth” in this passage is better translated as “the real” or “the reality.”

The mountains were just pictures of the real place to worship, not the reality itself. A mountain lifts you up above the earth as a picture of the heavenly realm. People get enamored with the copies of the heavenly things and not the heavenly things themselves. We tend to default to the natural and easily forget the spiritual. The temple, priesthood and sacrifices were but shadows of the good thing to come. Even today, many believers find their identity as a believer more in “a church building” than in the invisible reality of the true House of God in the Spirit.

The Father seeks the true worshippers who live by faith in the unseen reality of His realm and His present reality. When believers worship with this mindset, whether alone with Jesus, or with a few other believers or with hundreds of others, the unseen is vivid and experiential and “the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” All other “worship” is vain and meaningless and of the flesh.

Jesus fulfilled all things through His death and resurrection, removing all sin and bringing in an everlasting righteousness as a gift to all who would believe. He opened a door to another reality in the Spirit where true believers are in immediate contact with the real. God and man have become one in Christ, if we are a believer, and we are now where He is, seated with Him in the Heavenlies, and He is now with us, always, in our journeys all over this earth. An earth with no holy mountains and no holy lands and no holy places, just His Holy Spirit.

James Barron

I believe there are three concepts that are critical to keep in mind when studying the scriptures in order to get their true meaning. First, know that all scripture is designed to reveal Jesus, the Son of God, and what He accomplished in His coming to earth and His leaving the earth. Secondly, understand that the scriptures are written from two different perspectives, of law or grace, or in other words, from the perspective of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or the Tree of Life, and it is imperative to “rightly divide the scripture” accordingly. Thirdly, the concept of the “visible” reality and the “invisible” reality is a key to properly understand the scriptures.

All that is seen was made by the unseen to give us pictures of the unseen reality. To look at what has been created as a picture of the unseen reality is key. Paul said the invisible things of God are clearly seen and understood by the things that have been made or created. “Truth” in scripture means “reality” in the Greek language and one of Paul’s main emphasis was for the believer to look not at the seen but to look at the unseen. Look at the reality. It is impossible to grasp the finished work of Jesus without our focus being on the invisible reality. Paul said that which is seen is temporary but that which is unseen is eternal. Jesus told Pilate that He came to earth to reveal the truth, the invisible reality. Having this mindset of the visible and the invisible puts your mind on a track of thinking like God thinks and that is important for understanding the words of God.

The key to seeing the unseen reality in Christ is to focus on believing that your sins have been taken away by the death of Jesus and that God no longer counts your sins against you, but rather He counts His righteousness for you. Few believers really believe that their sins are no longer being counted against them. The whole confession teaching that is dominant in the church today from a misunderstanding of I John 1:9 has kept believers blind to unseen realities like the love of God. When Jesus died on the cross, at that moment, the “veil” of the temple was torn from top to bottom. More than just granting us access to God by Jesus’ death, He granted us vision. A veil hides something from view even more than it keeps someone out for it is easy to push aside a curtain with little effort and enter behind that curtain but a curtain or a veil can completely conceal what is behind it. Therefore the main work of a veil is to conceal from view, not necessarily to block access. God is teaching us through the torn veil that the complete forgiveness of sin (for the veil tore at the moment of Jesus’ death) is the key to “seeing” beyond the veil.