Seeing Grace

Saints,

Think about what Hebrews 9:8-9 and 9:14 are saying.  Take a look at that chapter again.  The Holy Spirit is saying that the secret to going beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies (i.e., a present experience on earth of engaging and communing with the living God within our spirit while in our body) is a cleansed and perfect conscience.  We now have that perfect conscience by revelation and faith in Christ and His work of death and resurrection on our behalf. The enemy knows this.  He continually accuses the children of God through religious systems and religious thinking to try to keep your conscience active accusing you.  But there is a higher authority than your conscience.  “If our heart (conscience) condemns us, God is greater than our heart (conscience), for He knows all things,” John writes in his letter.  (John refers to the inner working of the conscience as the “heart” in his letter.)  What does God know about you?  God knows you are His child, if you have believed on His Son.  The Lord knows those who are His, and if you are a son or daughter, then you are His heir.  Period.

It is not what we do.  It is who we are.  The conscience knows nothing of who we are, it only responds to what we do.  Fallen man has a conscience, but fallen man does not have the Spirit of God.  Only the Spirit of God, joined to our human spirit (as a result of being born from above), can reveal to us who we are in Jesus.  See it?  Because we have believed on Jesus, we have received the Spirit of the Son, crying “Abba” or “Daddy” to God our Father.

The cheribum who held the flaming swords to guard the way to the Tree of Life and to keep man away from that tree are like the conscience.  It is no accident that God had Moses put pictures of the cheribum on the great veil that concealed and blocked the way to the Holy of Holies, a picture on earth of the realm of heaven itself.  When the veil was torn from top to bottom at the very moment of Jesus’ death, the pictures of the cheribum were split and divided.  In other words, the angels stood aside, so to speak, when the veil was torn.  The message from heaven was clear.  The death of Jesus removed all our sin from us and God has stopped counting our sins against us forever.  “I will remember their sins no more,” says the Lord.  With this understanding, your conscience will no longer be able to keep you from coming boldly to the throne of grace to find help and mercy in time of need.  The way to the Tree of Life is open again and His name is Jesus, the way, the truth and the life.  And you are in union with the Tree of Life now, grafted in, bearing His fruit.  In union with Jesus Himself.

Religion is in the business of “sin management” (and without a doubt it is a multi-billion dollar business) and to take away sin is to put religion out of business.  That is exactly what Jesus did.

In Him who lives,
James