Beyond the Veil

Much of the problem that I see with the Christian church in this generation, is our myopic vision of God. We say we believe in the Trinity, but we don’t act as if we do.  We are introduced to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, and we sit gazing at His manhood.  Whether or not we are distracted, we spend little time wondering about the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One Whom Christ was so intent upon bringing us to. 

   
The Holy Scriptures described the flesh of Jesus Christ as the “Veil” which hung in the temple between the people of God, and the Holy of Holies, and upon Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, this veil was torn in half, from top to bottom.  This was an indisputable act of God and a visual testimony of what had just been accomplished.  As the veil which hung between the people of God, and the Holy of Holies, we see this veil on the one side, mankind, and on the other side of this same veil “the Holy of Holies”.  It is the type of fully man, fully divine image that is consistent with our understanding of who Jesus Christ was and is.  One veil, two distinct sides….fully man, fully God. 

It seems that we then spend the rest of our days looking at the limitations of the manhood of Christ, rather than the boundless eternity of the “Godhood” of Christ which lay beyond the veil. The veil was torn, that we might enter in. The intention is that we might now be clothed with the righteousness of God in Christ, and then know the Father as intimately as Jesus Christ knows the Father. He is in the Father and we are in Christ who is in the Father.  Christ is our means of knowing the Father, and the Holy Spirit communicates this knowledge to our spirit. 

Somewhere along the way, people have forgotten about the “Father”. Back in the day of Christ’s resurrection, the people understood the grandness of the Father. They understood the Holiness of God, and they knew the stories of God’s divine intervention in the lives of their ancestors.  They understood the “fear of the Lord” and lived their lives under the banner of having been chosen by this great and Mighty albeit inapproachable Holy God. 

  Who they didn’t know, was the Son of God.  They had wrong ideas of who the Messiah was, and how He would enter into history.  The Father gave faith to as many as He called, to recognize and believe in His Son, and then many did indeed search the Scriptures and believe in Jesus Christ.  In those early days, the Holy Spirit was neglected by those who came to believe in Christ, but had never heard of the Holy Spirit Whom Jesus said He would send to His followers upon His ascension.  Until they learned of Him, they did not and could not live by the power of the Holy Spirit. They never sought the Baptism of the Holy spirit.

In this generation and point on the timeline of history, we have come full circle.  We are a people who by the grace of God, have come to believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and by the grace of God and by means of the study of His Word, have come to some understanding of the Holy Spirit (in varying degrees) but other than mentioning the Father in addressing our prayers, we have not the “fear of the Lord” which is the “beginning of wisdom”.  We have not an appreciation of His Majesty, Glory or Sovereignty.  If we did, we would not say much of what we say about God, nor have such a flippant attitude regarding sin.  We fail to fully appreciate the Providence of God and His attention to the details of our lives.  

This is not entirely our fault. We have learned to compartmentalize our faith in a society that has brainwashed people that there is such a thing as “secular”.  So we tread life with a secular mindset throughout the day, where things happen seemingly haphazardly and with no rhyme nor reason, while we only give lip service to the Sovereignty of God.  We have had no idea how undermining this is to faith. We just accept that fallacy and our experience is dampened because of this error.

If there were such a thing as “secular”, a so called “God-Free” zone, then we would have no basis to trust God in this place.  In fact, God would not be God at all if one single molecule was rogue and unmanageable. We don’t see the connection of one event to the other, so we dismiss the events of the day and conclude with a prayer of thanksgiving that our heads were kept above water.  We never consider that He may have sent the events our way, therefore, we fail to learn from them. This is not the reality of this life on earth, this is the ungodly version of it.  This is living in the enemy’s camp completely naked and ignorant.  We should thank God for His patience with us, as we trudge on in our “lack of knowledge” by which so many are destroyed. We can thank God that He has us in His hand, even though we seem to wander aimlessly in our ignorance or plunge into activities of our own design, blissfully ignorant of what the Father is doing. We have envisioned God as “out there somewhere”, when in actuality, in Him we live and move and have our being. 

 We must start to pay attention and deprogram our pattern of thinking to align with the Word of God.  If God knows the number of the hairs on your head, we have to start to understand that He knows and is in control of EVERYTHING. 

I will at some other time, address the bad things that happen in this life which seem to reinforce the erroneous notion that there must be “secular God-free” zones. That is a topic that will only distract from the point of this article, but is fully explainable given the spiritual condition of this world system.  Suffice it to say that all the while that the Israelites were trudging through the desert those 40 years, being fed by manna, being given drink from a rock, having the sea split in two in order to cross…there was a world of the ungodly demon worshipers going on elsewhere where many “bad things” happened. God was giving His attention to His people, and those who joined themselves to His people in the worship of the God of all creation. 

We, as the blood bought people of God, who are joined to Christ and have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, must gaze beyond the veil to the God side of Christ and the Father.  If we fail to gaze from the “God” side of the veil, we will not believe for the impossible.  We have allowed the limitations of our mind to define who God is. In limiting God to our limited “concept” of Him, we have created an idol.  Our minds cannot contain God, we “see through a glass darkly”. I believe this is why God strongly warned against using carved images and pictures of any animals, birds, sea creatures or man to assist in our worship of Him.  These things cannot define God and only serve to exchange the truth of God for a lie. It is offensive to God that we should gaze upon a thing of our own making, and worship it. People may say that they are not “worshiping the thing, but the god behind the thing”, but the Scriptures claim that the “god” of that image is a demon…so it is little wonder that this is odious to God.

We cannot know God apart from Christ, but Christ reveals Him to us as we abide in Him and earnestly seek to know Him. We must know the God of the Bible, the “whole” counsel of God.  We must think upon the details of God’s intervention on behalf of men to accomplish His purpose in history.  We must think upon the goodness and severity of God. We have the confidence of His love in Christ, but if we don’t understand His Holiness, we will continue to make light of sin and hinder our ability to ever know Him as He should be known. If we continue in sin, we have reason to doubt the reality of our conversion and union with Christ. Jesus did not have any good things to say about the “hypocrite”. If that charge is true in our lives, we must confess it to God, repent of it, and walk in the light of truth with integrity. He is faithful and just to forgive us…but God is not mocked, so if we are not sincere, we are wasting our time and deceiving ourselves. The Scriptures speak of the hypocrite being “cut in two and cast into outer darkness” when face to face with God. 

 By His grace, we are saved through faith in His Beloved Son, and in Him we are accepted.  He could have just as easily cast us off to hell with the rest of the unpenitent and ungodly. So fear Him who has the power to cast both soul and body into hell. But trust in Him who saved us from such a fate and continue in Him. See…the goodness and severity of God.

Our view of God is too small.  God is greater than our minds can imagine, and our minds cannot truly know Him.  Sinful man can never know Him. He sent His Word to lead us to Christ. He sent Christ to make atonement for our souls, cleanse us and make a way into the Holy of holies and He sent the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us.  He gave us faith to believe, hope to press on, and love to communicate intimately with us. We must abide in Christ, and look beyond the veil.