Faith and Healing

Most people believe that it is ‘faith healing’, meaning that if you have faith to believe Jesus can and will heal you, then that is all it takes to be healed. Much damage has been done through this erroneous approach to healing, and it is the primary inroad into all that is false and misleading concerning the realities of faith and of salvation and Christ. It is also the most grievous distortion of the work and will of God in Christ, and is in truth one of the two golden calves of Jeroboam, as concerns the charismatic church. (The other is prosperity and abundance, but that is another post).

The Tabernacle of God was not put together in just any old fashion. God walked Moses through it once on the Mount Zion, He guided Bezaleel through it once again to build it, and He instructed Moses in the erecting of it. Three times in Exodus, the issues that pertain to the Tabernacle of God were gone over in great detail, with the admonition of God to Moses to make sure that it was built exactly according to the pattern shown him.  Likewise when David was given the blueprints for the Temple, and when Ezra and Nehemiah and the Levites restored the Temple after the captivity of Babylon.

It is also known and understood that Christ Jesus Himself is the Tabernacle, the true Tabernacle and that all things that pertain to the Tabernacle are summed up and contained in Him. There have been a number of works written to explain how the layout of the Tabernacle resembles the cross, and a great number of expositions concerning them, so I wont go over it here in this post.

However, in all of these things, we have missed the primary point of what has been shown to us through the Tabernacle, which is also the truth and the reality of what it means to be healed and restored and made whole in Christ, the end of our salvation and faith, and our hope of glory.

God does not, has not and will not separate obedience to His commandments from the salvation that has been promised us in Christ. To be given the light of the truth and the strength to obey in Christ is one thing, but the outworking of that salvation is our wholeness, the full restoration of our lives and all that pertains to it from the curses and ravages of sin, rebellion and transgression, the epitomy of which will be our new and glorified bodies which we will receive either upon our resurrection or in the moment that we are caught up unto the Lord.

It is written in the Gospels that Jesus ‘healed them by His word.’ Many are the instances whereby faith was made evident through another’s faith in the word that Jesus spoke. Other instances have been the healings that occured by others touching Him or the hem of His garment, which represents the tzit-tzits or tassels of the prayer shawl which were the reminders of the commandments of God. In matter of fact, salvation can only be yours upon the recognition that you are where you are because of your rebellion against God, and the evidence of your return to God is a new-found desire and ability to now obey Him and desire to do so. This is the witness and testimony of Christ in you, that which makes us prophets before God, that which makes us kings and priests unto God.

We are the temples of God. That means that each one of us that has received the salvation made known to us and made manifest in us through the indwelling Christ, the fulfillment of the prophecy of God dwelling in the midst of us, are the Tabernacles of God. That would also indicate to us that the realities of our sanctification, our healing, and our restoration, in the height, breadth, and the depth of our lives, body, soul and spirit, can also be understood and worked out in us, through understanding how it is that the Tabernacle relates to us, and us to the Tabernacle.

Perhaps it would be best to see it like this:

Overview:

Briefly, for you would do well to take this diagram and study it and the Scriptures in the light of it, here are some things to consider:

The entrance into the Tabernacle or into the knowledge of the things of God begins with the issues of how you regard the vessel that is your body, particularly your sexual participations.  Sexual conduct is one of the foremost issues of Scripture, and this is why.  Those who choose carnal knowledge over the knowledge of God will suffer accordingly, aligning themselves with the flesh, rather than with the Spirit.  Adam did not know Eve until they fell and were evicted from the Garden.  The way back in, is through the total cleansing and purging and renouncing of all sexual activities and participations that are contrary to the way of God.

The Altar of Sacrifice relates to the navel – the source of all of our fallen lusts, desires and ambitions and the seat of the god of the belly, who exalts himself above all that is God.  This area is the Outer Court, the form of godliness, accessible by natural light, and relates to natural understandings versus spiritual ones.  This area relates to religion in all its forms and guises, and declares that it is only through our willingness to take up the cross and die to all that is ’self’, as did Christ, that we will ever come to progress further into the knowledge of God and the ways of holiness.

The Bronze Laver relates to the liver.  The liver cleanses and filters or purifies the blood, removing the bad, and replacing it with good.  It essentially washes the blood.  The Laver of the Tabernacle was made from the looking glasses of the women.  We are called to look into the Word of God and see ourselves in it. As we come to see and acknowledge the truth, we are washed from our sins and unrighteousness.   Jesus Christ did not come to save the righteous, but the sinner.  If what you see are the filthy rags of your own self-righteousnesses, then you can be cleansed, purged and purified unto life, by faith in the blood of Christ that was shed for you.

The first veil is that of the flesh, and signifies the baptism into the death of Christ.  Die to self, and the veil of the flesh is stripped way, and you enter into the light of the Spirit, the light of regeneration.  We are saved by faith, not by intellectual considerations and reasonings.  Salvation is by faith, and if you do not sense or see your need for salvation, then you will never see or know God.  God gives His grace to the humble, to those who are willing to receive the truth that He has spoken concerning their need, and the redemption that He has made available to them in Christ.

The Holy Place contains the 7-branched Menorah, the Table of the Shewbread or Table of Presence, and the Altar of Incense.   The Menorah  are the lungs, the breath of life.  The Table of Presence is the heart.  We judge ourselves through the Table of Presence, the Eucharist, as outlined for us in 1 Cor. 11:23-32.  This is where the true healing and restoration of the life and the spirit take place, which brings about the health of the body – that which is inward, working out.  The 7-branched Menorah speaks of the seven spirits of God, the seven Churches, the seven-fold outpouring of the glory of God.

The Altar of Incense is that which unites all of these items, all of which point to that which is behind the second veil – the Ark of the Covenant.  We receive the truths of the Word of God, we judge ourselves, or better yet, ask God to open our eyes and judge us.  We repent and renounce, and walk according to the light of that which was shown us.  We cleanse our ways before God.  We grow in the grace and the light of God.  Those who order their ways aright will be shown the salvation of God – the revelations of God, that which He has laid up for those who love Him, that which fills our spiritual houses with substance, that which feeds His sheep, that which is the hearing of faith.

The Altar of Incense relates to the voice box.  Life and death is in the power of the tongue – to pray, to speak unto God, to speak unto others, to edifgy or to destroy.  The words of our own mouths will be our judges, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.  As God abides in our heart, and we obey that which is of the heart, of His righteousness, our words become cleansed and renewed to right words concerning God and the realities of His kingdom.  This is what is to guide our prayers, and it is how we grow into ever increasing authority in the issues of intercession for others.  Jesus was the Intercessor of Intercessors, and God heard Him in all things, because He ever walked in the righteousness of God.  It comes through maturity, through having your senses exercised to discern truth from error.

The second veil is that of the ’self’ life.  Those who have truly died to self abide in the secret place of the Most HIgh. It is where you become crucified to the world, and the world to you.  Your robes are now washed clean in the blood of the Lamb,  your mind is renewed unto holiness, and the righteousness of God is now the strength and purpose of your life.  Those who do not make it past this veil, will be those who will be spewed out of the mouth of the Lord, as lukewarm – the hypocrites that are making a lie out of the Way of LIfe, who will not die to self, but prefer instead to rewrite the intents and purposes of God to justify themselves and their ways.  These are the false prophets, the lying seducers, the lovers of self more than the lovers of God.

Behind this veil is the Ark of the Covenant, which holds the Commandments of God, the Pot of Manna, and the Rod of authority, and it answers to the Scripture of Revelation 3:21:

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne.

This is the seat that we have been raised up to in heavenly places, not just because the general riff-raff of the mixed multitude claim it to be so, but it belongs unto those who, by faith and a single minded, single-hearted love of the truth that mortifies all that is a lie, have fought through and overcome the world unto the overcoming victory of faith that is Christ now made manifiest in us, our hope of glory!

It is here that we hear the voice of our Lord.  He is set between the two cherubim, those which guard the entrance into the Garden of God, the Garden of Eden, which keep the way of life.  Christ is the one who is the flaming sword that turns every which way in the midst of them, the double-edged sword which is the Word of Life, which is able to sever soul from spirit, and is able to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.

This is the light that we are called to come to, the light that we are called to abide in, the light wherein there is no shadow of darkness, the fullness of our salvation, where every tear is wiped away, and every hear filled with joy.  This is where we neither hunger nor thirst, the place of the fountain of the living waters, thr throne of righteousness and mercy, where we serve God before His throne for all eternity.

We are constant called to renew our mind from the vanity of the Gentiles.  A carnal mind is in enmity against God.  The mind must be renewed to the truth of God, which can only come about, not by memorizing Scripture or wallpapering your understandings with your own interpretation of Scripture, but through receiving the truths that the Scriptures are pointing to, and abiding in the Wisdom and Righteousness of them.  This is the way of holiness, the way to a clear conscience before God and man, that brings about the boldness or confidence of those who are truly righteous, and not just putting it on.

This is the reality of our salvation, wherein is our healing, to the height, depth and breadth, body, soul and spirit.  It is the way of the cross, the mark of the son. It is the power of the resurrection made manifest in us, which will lift us up and out of our graces on the day of the Lord, and which will bring healing and wholeness of mind and soul now.

God has spoken many, many times throughout the Scriptures that sickness, disease, infirmity, and all the attendant miseries that we have enshrined as being the new normal of our lives are the products and results of our rebellions and disobediences against Him and against righteousness and truth.  There is not one that cannot say that they do not suffer in one form or another for the wounding of their conscience, whether it be by their own deeds or those of another.

It is for this cause and this reason that we adomonish you to seek unto the Lord for your health and your healing.  Receive the Word against your sins and wrongdoing that you might be cleansed, healed and restored.  Renounce your participations with the ways and wisdom of this world, a way that is eternally enshrouded in death, that you might live.  Wash yourself clean in the blood of the Lamb and do it God’s way, for the end of His ways are life, and glory, and a place before Him for all eternity.

After the captivity of Israel in Babylon, the foremost issue was a return to Jerusalem, which entailed the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple of God.  Two books of Scripture, Ezra and Nehemiah both pertain to this time, as well as the mnistries of the last of the prophets,  Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.