Smokin’ Wife
Smokin’ Wife, in popular parlance, elicits thoughts of a hot, sexy, passionate woman. In this article the Smokin’ Wife is the Church, not so much as she is today, but as she is called to be. I teach on this subject with hesitancy for the simple reason that I am reactive to outside interests. These include the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City which I visited years ago and whose keynote spirituality is Bridal and whose emphasis is included in this teaching. I also have hesitance about a piety dependent on The Passion translation of the Song of Solomon (https://www.facebook.com/MDayAus/posts/1663106213890151) {facebook login is required to view this}, readers can test for themselves the Spirit in the teaching below (1 Thess 5:19-20).
Background
One of the brothers I regularly pray with has become, in severe affliction (1 Thess 1:6), a regular source of anointed hymns and poems. (http://cross-connect.net.au/worship-songs-david-stephens/ ) In my, hopefully well-informed and Christ-centred opinion, they are very rich spiritually (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16). They always point to the greater glory of God, Father, Son and Spirit, and the worthiness of the Lamb. I believe they are a sort of prophetic model of the worship in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24) that the Lord wants to release in our city. As someone was reading this brother’s latest song in our prayer meeting, I had a distinct and strange awareness of smoke arising as if in a temple. I started to search my mind for scriptures about this. The key one wasn’t hard to find and has led me to deeper reflection about the very costly intercession and worship the Lord wants to release in our midst.
The Smoke of Glory
The worship scenes in Revelation are crucial to understanding these things. The creatures and elders “fell down before the Lamb, reach holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song…And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God…” (Rev 5:8-9; 8:3-4). These scenes have become a paradigm for a “harp (song) and bowl (prayer)” approach to worship. (At times called “intercessory worship”. The smoke in heaven is created by God’s richest presence, “the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power” (Rev 15:8). It is that Isaiah experienced when he saw the glory of the Lord and “the temple was filled with smoke” (Isa 6:3-4). Since John tell us Isaiah “saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him” (John 12:41) the final truth about this otherworldly smoke is found in Christ. To understand how the Lamb of God creates smoke in heaven we must go back to the foundational truth of sacrifice.
Smoke and Heaven
Long before the Law of Moses, Noah offered burnt offerings to the Lord as a pleasing aroma to God which drew out a covenant of peace (Gen 8:20-22). Even more profoundly we read. “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…offer him…as a burnt offering on one of the mountains” (Gen 22:2). In Hebrew the “burn offering” (Lev 1 etc.) means, “that which ascends”, a total burnt offering turns the visible into the invisible and takes it upwards to God in heaven. The totality of God’s promises to father-Abraham for the salvation of the world (Rom 4:13) embedded in Isaac as the only beloved son were to be returned to God through incineration. This is a type of Jesus, and points to his bearing all of God’s fiery wrath. Sodom and Gomorrah are burnt as in “the smoke of a furnace” (Gen 19:28), the jealousy and anger of the Lord “smoke” (Deut 29:20; Ps 74:1) against the idolatry of Israel. The prophets speak of an end time inferno which will consume the enemies of God so that their “smoke shall go up forever” (Isa 34:9-10). Such holy zeal is fulfilled in the imagery of hell; “the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Rev 14:11). Everlasting smoke signifies an enduring memorial before God of sin overcome in the total victory of the Lamb! Jesus is the only escape, but an escape marvellously made possible through the Church!
Where the Fire Goes
John the Baptist prophesied that the coming one would burn the chaff “with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:17). When Jesus did not manifest this wrath, his faith collapsed, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Luke 7:19). John failed to recognise the fulness of Jesus sacrifice meant he must absorb the fire. “I came to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already set ablaze! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how it consumes me until it is finished!” (Luke 12:49-50 CSB). Jesus will not only drink the cup of God’s wrath (Mark 10:38-39; 14:36) but take the baptism of unquenchable fire on himself at the cross. The cry of dereliction (Mark 15:34) is the beloved Son’s descent into hell as a total burnt offering. “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph 5:2). The impact of the all-loving ascending offering so totally pleased the Father in heaven that total forgiveness was released for all his people forever (Ezek 20:41). The stench of sin has been annihilated. This is the saving meaning of the heavenly smoke.
The Smoking Bride
Jesus is calling into being a holy Bride (Eph 5:27) whose dedication to him as her Lord partakes of the whole burnt offering consummated at the cross. In our heaven-directed intercessory worship we share in the savour of the suffering of God-man which brings both the aroma of eternal life to those who believe and of eternal death to unbelieving humanity (2 Cor 2:14-15). These profound eternal things are the richness of what I discerned within the temple smoke (cf. Rev 15:8) of my anointed brother’s hymns. We are in the times of the end when the “columns of smoke” prophesied by Joel and announced as having come at Pentecost (Joel 2:30; Acts 2:19) are emerging in our midst. Prophetically, they are like the presence of Christ in the wilderness (Ex 13:21; 1 Cor 10:1-3) and his appearance to Isaiah (Isa 6:1ff=John 12:41). Jesus is manifesting himself. Something of great intensity is arising in our city and emerging in the Church of God. Lest we be led astray however we must remain true to the biblical context.
Conclusion
Against all the romanticism and eroticism of our “nightclub churches”, Christ is intensifying a call to war and creating a “smoking Bride” whose passion will embrace fasting and longing for the Return of her Lord. This she will “hasten” his coming through holiness, godliness and a sharing in the all-consuming fire which will in the End present the whole current cosmos as a burnt offering to God (2 Pet 3:11-13). As a Bride burning with an all-consuming love for Jesus that devours sin we are the forerunner of a renewed cosmos, a new creation. Such spiritual adoration is what God the Father who in Love has given us to Jesus is seeking today (John 4:24). Let us offer ourselves totally to Christ.