October 2006

Monday, October 2, 2006

FELLOWSHIPING IN THE WOUNDS OF JESUS CHRIST

JOHN AND THE ISSUE OF PROXIMITY
There are few people in the Scriptures that interest me as much as the
Apostle John. I am not minimizing the importance of the other Apostles and
Prophets. I am simply saying that there is something about John that is so
inescapable.
Regardless of where we stand in the Lord, there is not one person that is
more saved than another. All Christians have been saved to the uttermost. Yet
in spite of this fact, it cannot be denied that some Christians have a closer
relationship with the Lord than others. This is not a pride issue but rather an
issue of brokenness. Permit me to share the Scriptures to illustrate this.
It is recorded in the Scriptures that 500 saw Jesus after He rose from the
dead. John was in that company. Likewise it is recorded in the Scriptures that
there was 120 present on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell and they
all spake with other tongues. John was in that company. In the days when
Jesus walked this earth He sent forth 70 disciples to cast out devils and heal the
sick. John was in that company. After Jesus was all night in prayer to His Father,
He selected His apostles. John was in that company. When Jesus was
transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration and revealed His God-form to three
of His twelve apostles, John was in that company.
At the Last Supper when Judas went out to betray Jesus and the disciples
were troubled in their hearts about betrayal, John rested his head on the bosom
of Jesus and heard His heart pumping the blood that would redeem the world.
After the disciples were scattered from Jesus in the midst of His betrayal, none
returned to the cross except John who Jesus instructed to adopt His mother and
natural family. When it comes to proximity or nearness, though many gathered
around Jesus, none continuously remained as close to Him as John.
JOHN’S INSTRUCTION OF THEAOMAI
John’s writings by the Holy Spirit are some of the last books
chronologically written. The Gospel of John was the last Gospel and perhaps the
last book left to the church. His Gospel came forth after the book of Revelation.
His Epistles are likewise of tremendous interest. In John’s first Epistle he relates
to us a four-fold aspect which I believe is a reflection of why he was in such close
proximity to the Lord. The first thing that John causes us to see in this Epistle is
his proclamation that Jesus was from the beginning. It is a repetition of his
Gospel wherein he states that “In the beginning was the Word.”
The word from which the word beginning is translated is the word arche.
This word means that Jesus is from the dateless past. His origin is a mystery, for
He is God and God always was. He is the alpha; He is the beginning and He is
the creator of all things which have their origin in the beginning. He is the
preexistent “I Am that I Am.” John was profoundly affected by this reality and
used it as an introduction for both his Gospel and his first Epistle.
There are four aspects that he touches when dealing with the One who is
from the beginning. The first aspect is that of hearing, hearing that which is from
the dateless past. Before there was a creation there was God. This God is
eternally full of thought and intention. When His thought and intention, from
before the foundations of the world, takes on words and we hear Him from such
a position, we can say with John, “That which we have heard.”
HEARING WITH PROXIMITY
John heard God speaking from the beginning. John heard words come
from the dateless past. These words told him God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom
brought forth God’s faith. Faith is that which frameworks our spirit-man to the
eternal and to that which is from the beginning. God’s faith brought forth the
Word of God and the life we now live we live by the faith of the Son of God.
God’s wisdom and God’s faith are the substance of God’s love which is higher
than all things. God’s love is what caused God’s mind to express to John that
there was a Lamb slain from before the foundations of the world, Revelation 13:8.
That Lamb had before John’s eyes become flesh and he heard Him speak words
from the beginning.
SEEING WITH PROXIMITY
That which has most profoundly affected me and released His ministry in
me can be found in the first three chapters of the book of Revelation. If it was up
to me I would sentence all pastors to three days of fasting and praying and
require them to read the first three chapters of the book of Revelation
continuously over those three days. One of my very favorite portions comes with
the revelation that John was in the Holy Spirit on the Lord’s Day. On this Lord’s
Day John “heard the Lord’s voice and it was a great voice as of a trumpet.”
(Revelation 1:12). John did more than hear that voice for he states, “And I turned
to see the voice that spake with me.”
It is a wonderful thing to hear the voice of God. His voice calls us unto
Him but as we draw closer to the voice we hear, the voice brings us to the place
where we see Him, “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me.” These
words should dwell in us and grip us until we see the voice as John saw the
voice. That voice will bring you to the church that is being searched in the
overwhelming presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. We find in His voice a mighty
Niagara that flows into our inner most being. There that voice makes us to see
the powerful wisdom of the Ancient of Days. There that voice makes us see the
eyes that are filled with lamps of fire. It is in those eyes that the burning lampstand,
known as the church, becomes the apple of His eye.
FROM SEEING TO BEHOLDING
In John we learn that he has heard that which is from the beginning. In
John we learn to see what is manifested from the voice which is from the
beginning. But there is something more than seeing that must take place. There
must be theaomai. Theaomai means to gaze upon as a great spectacle. It
means to behold Him. John in beholding Jesus saw the manifestation of the
seven Spirits of God. He came to see Jesus Christ as apprehending the fallen
creation unto Himself. Truly all things shall be gathered into Jesus Christ. Truly
everything is working to the counsel of His will. Truly in creation from beginning
to end, He has set up kingdoms and taken them down and none dare say unto
Him, “What doest thou?” (Daniel 4:35).
In his beholding the Lord Jesus Christ as the whole reason we are alive,
John is drawn into a deep brokenness and falling wherein he finds himself as a
dead man. This is a reoccurring expression that takes place in men who hear
and see and behold the Living God. This profound expression causes men to
behold that God’s throne reigns in the affairs of men and all things answer to
Jesus Christ. To those who hear, see, and behold Him as a spectacle, He will
make the nations to fall before and show them how He has loved us. The
marking of ears and eyes for revelation is the marking of an overcomer.
John sees in Jesus, while he beholds Him as a spectacle, the seven
Spirits of God (Revelation 5:6). He sees Jesus clothed with the garment of
adoption; such garment held together with the golden sash of wisdom. He sees
in Jesus the head and hair of the Ancient of Days. His hair has been purified by
the light that caused His body to pass through grave clothes. He sees in the
headship of Jesus the Spirit of prophesy which is the testimony of the mind of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
He sees in Jesus eyes like flames of fire, as the Lord searches the earth
for men who will tremble in His presence because they know He is holy and there
is none like Him. He sees in His feet the fire of sacrifice, for His feet are as brass
burning in a fire. In His feet that bore nails, John finds the Spirit of burning and
judgment. He hears in His voice the sounds of every water that has ever flowed
through creation. He hears the voice that ever lives to make intercession for the
fallen race of man. He sees in His right hand the Spirit of life manifesting in
seven stars that bear the mystery of fellowship that translates us out of death and
into life. Finally John sees from the mouth of Jesus Christ the double-edged
sword that separates that which is antichrist from that which is apprehended to
His truth. The sword of His mouth is the Spirit of truth, whereby all things will be
judged. In all of this John theaomais the Lord Jesus as He shines brighter than a
million suns in all their strength.
John has written to us of what he has heard and what he has seen and
what he has gazed upon and beheld. But he likewise states that he has handled
the Word of Life. This Word of Life has manifested and shows us the Father and
manifests unto us now. When John wrote down the words of his books, he was
handling the very Words of God from before the foundations of the world. He
was handling the very wisdom, faith, and divine love that caused Jesus to
manifest Himself unto us. He handled the very Words of God from before the
foundations of the world. These are the four issues of life that bring us into the
proximity that God desires.
FELLOWSHIPING IN THE VERY WOUNDS OF JESUS CHRIST
Our beloved Apostle Paul wrote these amazingly endearing words, “That I
may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.” (Philippians 3:10). The
Apostle Paul also wrote that no man was to trouble him for he bore in his body
the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:17). It is interesting that the book
of Galatians was the first book written in the New Testament from a chronological
standpoint. Men had taken their relationship with Jesus Christ and judiazed it
into a Christian systemization wherein the law was an additional requirement for
salvation. How did Paul finalize his letter of correction? He pointed to the marks
of Jesus’ sufferings manifesting in his own body.
Jesus’ sufferings touch many fascists. One of His greatest sufferings is
found in the fact that He desires to gather men unto Himself that He may reveal
Himself as He is unto them. Men constantly refuse Jesus in His heart cry for
intimacy. That is the entire testimony of Jerusalem and Israel. I have stood on
the very Mount of Olives where Jesus looked down into Jerusalem and cried, “Oh
Jerusalem Jerusalem, How often would I gather thee as a mother hen gather her
chicks and thou wouldest not.” When I read Revelation 1-3, I see Jesus gazing
into the churches. I can almost hear Him say over the ancient Christian church
of the ancient world the very words that He spoke to Jerusalem. Yes there is
variation from church to church, but His cry is always the same. It is a cry to
repent and overcome and be gathered into Him. This is the divine wisdom of
God. The Apostle Paul expresses it perfectly in Ephesians 1:10: “That in the
dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him.”
CORRESPONDING WOUNDS
To fellowship in the wounds of Jesus Christ is a calling to the church for
the greatest kind of intimacy. Let us consider the four wounds as they
correspond to John’s attributes of proximity; the attributes of hearing, seeing,
beholding, and handling the very Words of Life.
THE WOUNDS TO HIS CROWN-THE WOUND OF THORNS
One of the attributes of the overcomer is that he will bear a crown of life.
This is how Jesus addressed the church of Smyrna who was called to be faithful
unto death. Jesus bore the crown of thorns to the road of crucifixion. These are
the thorns that Adam’s rebellion made to come forth from the earth in which men
would sweat. Jesus would sweat blood and wear the crown of thorns to His
death. In the crown of thorns His head was wounded. In His head was the very
thought of God and the very thought of God took on words that we can hear.
THE WOUNDS TO HIS BACK-THE WOUND OF THE WHIP
When we begin to see that Jesus carries us where we cannot go, we can
fellowship in the stripes wherein we are healed. When we begin to see that He
bore upon His back the cross wherein we were crucified with Him, there is much
revelation. When we begin to see the blood flowing from His back, those wounds
can speak to us and sight can come. It is then that what we have heard makes
us see that He was wounded that we could be healed. We now can walk in what
Jesus sees our lives to be. We can now walk in His wounds unto that cross
which becomes an open door of resurrection into the presence of the immortal,
invisible God who causes us to dwell in an eternal temple. In those wounds He
causes us to be clothed with the eternal unseen kingdom that we might not be
found naked. The whip that opened His back opened unto us a fellowship
wherein He has borne us unto His very Father.
WOUNDS TO HIS FEET AND HANDS-THE WOUNDS OF NAILS
When we consider nails we must consider the earth that God cursed,
wherein men would sweat. Men sweat when they bring the ore up from the earth
and place it under fire. Men sweat when they form it into nails wherein they build.
It would be nails that would pierce Jesus’ hands and feet. There before John’s
eyes, all of the sins of the world would be gathered up in Jesus’ body. There as
he hung upon nails, dark clouds, thunder, lightening and darkness would cover
the whole earth and Jesus would become the spectacle of spectacles, the Lamb
who takes away the sins of the world. As we fellowship in the wounds of His
thorns we hear His mind. As we fellowship in the wounds of the whip, we see
Him bearing our fallen state. As we fellowship in the wounds of those nails, we
 gaze upon Him in an unending fashion and wonder for all of eternity about the
amazing love of God. One could behold the spectacle of the cross from before
the foundations of the world until time is no more and never grasp the incredible
depths of love that made Jesus to lay His life down for ones so unworthy. It is in
such wounds that we fellowship.
THE WOUND TO HIS SIDE-THE SPEAR
In Psalm 22 the Psalmist King David prophesied that the death of the
Messiah would show every bone pulled out of joint and none broken. This only
comes by crucifixion which was invented by the Phoenicians 600 years before
the coming of Jesus Christ. It was adopted by the Romans as a means of
causing cruelty to reign over a subjected people. These facts prove the truth of
King David the prophet who prophesied this 1000 years before Jesus was
crucified.
The cruel Romans would break the arms and legs of the crucified so that
death would come. When they came to Jesus He was dead already, as King
David had prophesied by the Holy Ghost. Their test of death was that they would
jam a spear into our Lord’s side. Out of that wound, the blood and the water
would come flowing down. May we drink that blood and water in deeply, for it is
the wound of the heart burst for us. May we fellowship in His broken heart that
has made our hearts whole and has caused His resurrection life to come and
dwell in us. We can now say with John that we handled the very Word of Life.
We can now say that the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead
dwells in us because the spear pierced His side.
LET US LEARN TO FELLOWSHIP IN HIS WOUNDS
John came into proximity in nearness to Jesus because he heard, saw,
beheld, and handled the very life of Jesus Christ. Because of His thorns we can
hear the mind of God. Because of the whip we can see the purpose of God as a
spectacle as Jesus bore us to the cross of life. Because of the nails we can
eternally behold the incredible sacrifice He has made for us. Because of the
spear we can receive His very heart and handle the very Words of Life given to
us from before the foundations of the world and recorded on the pages of the
beloved Sacred Scriptures. Let us not disappoint him, but rather run into the
fellowship of His wounds, experiencing His power, and being conformed unto His
death. There no man can trouble us or hinder our fellowship, for we bear in the
church body of Christ the marks of the Lord Jesus.

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