The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth
5.The heavenly church

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Times of Refreshing: Summary and Application

Series 1:    “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”

Topic 5:       The Heavenly Church

Key Text:     Hebrews 12:18-24

1. The Heavenly Church in the New Testament

  1. Most efforts to respond to the moral and spiritual crises in the church are at the level of symptoms. To remedy this we need to see the church as essentially heavenly.
  1. Heaven” and “earth” are terms of opposition in the New Testament (Phil 3:19; Cf. 1 Cor 15:40; 2 Cor 5:1; Phil 2:10; Col 3:1- 2; James 3:15). Those who “dwell on the earth” (Rev 1:5,7; 3:10; 6:10,15; 8:13; 11:10; 13:8,14; 14:6; 16:18; 17:2,5,8,18; 19:2,19) are under the wrath of God.
  1. Jesus is in heaven (Acts 2:25,33,34; 5:31; 7:56; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; 1 Pet 3:22; Heb 1:3,13; 8:1; 10:12;12:2; Rev 5:1,7 etc) and spiritually we are with him (Eph 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12; Col 3:1).

Application Questions

Is awareness of the heavenly dimension of the life of the church a missing element in the spiritual community to which you belong?

According to the Bible, we are “aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Pet 2:11; cf. Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 1:1, 17). How is it that most Australian believers seem quite comfortable with living on this planet?

2. Losing the Vision of God

  1. The Satanic temptation in Eden was for Adam and Eve to enter into an direct knowledge of good and evil (Gen 3:5). God’s mediating Word would no longer be needed.
  1. The result of sin was an experience of guilt and shame that made the fallen human conscience the final mediator of spiritual and moral reality (Gen 3:7).
  1. Humans are under constant Satanic accusation that they deserve to die (Heb 2:14-15; Rom 2:14-15)
  2. As long as the conscience tells us good- and- evil, guilt and shame are a part of my identity I cannot be completely assured of my salvation.

Application Questions

“How we feel about ourselves has become our god”. When is this truest for you? You may want tot pray into this.

3. Jesus the Only Mediator

  1. All religious mediators stand in fear of death (Heb 12:21; Rom 6:23) so they cannot set people free.
  1. Christian sensual indulgence shows that the church is not living in resurrection power (1 Cor 15:32).
  1. As long as success on earth is promoted as a spiritual goal then the people of God will remain under bondage to the fear of death.

Application Questions

Have you ever repented of depending upon mediators other than Jesus?

At the level of surface appearances it doesn’t look like the Christian promoters of a “better life” are afraid of death. Yet is there an alternative biblical explanation for there materialism?

4. The Church of the Heavenly Lord

  1. The reality of the church as a heavenly body depends upon the mediatorship of the blood of Christ (Heb 12:22-24).
  1. It is the voluntary shedding of Jesus’ blood that defines the value of the church (John 10:18; Acts 20:28).
  1. In the New Testament, Jesus’ blood frees the believer from all guilt and shame (Rom 5:9; 1 Cor 1:8; Eph 1:4, 7; 5:27; Phil 1:10; 2:15; Col 1:20; 1 Thess 5:23; Heb 9:14; 10:14, 22; 11:40; Rev 14:5).
  1. Jesus “innocent blood” (Matt 27:4) means he alone can accept the verdict of the Father justly passed against the guilty. Only Jesus is able to die not on his own account but for others.

Application Questions

“Blood” seems an “uncool” or grotesque metaphor in our sophisticated times. Is this an adequate explanation for the failure of most of the church’s teachers to educate on this subject?

“The bloody whipping scenes in the film “The Passion of the Christ” tell us more about Mel Gibson’s uneasy conscience than they do about the death of Jesus as it is recorded in the Bible.” What was your emotional response to this film? (If you have not seen it, what have others told you?)

5. The Blood Opens Heaven

  1. The blood of Jesus cleansed the heavenly temple (Hebrews 9:11 -12, 23), which is the church (1 Cor 3:16; 1 Pet 1:2, 19, 22 – 23; Rev 13:6).
  2. Jesus selfless sacrifice means the Father in heaven is more than willing to forgive all sin.
  3. Holy apostles and prophets (Eph 3:5) reflect Jesus conquest of worldy forces and his heavenly status (1 Cor 15:29) by their visible suffering for Christ (2 Cor 4:8- 12; 6:3 -10; 11:23- 33; Gal 3:1; 6:17; Eph 3:13; Col 1:24).
  4. An “open heaven” is a response to the finished work of Christ (John 19:30) in a willingness to endure hardship that the kingdom of God may come with power.

Application Questions

“Nothing can pacify an offended conscience but that which has satisfied an offended God.” (Matthew Henry). Who is the gospel meant to satisfy, us or God?

Talk about some “holy apostles and prophets” that have impacted your life.

Pray for “an open heaven.”

Times of Refreshing:

Series 1:    “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”

Topic 5:       The Heavenly Church

Key Text:     Hebrews 12:18-24

Introduction

Last week we concluded that in the western church today we no longer seem capable of “seeing things” as they really are; we appear to be “spiritually blinded” by our affluence (2 Peter 1:3, 9; Rev 3:16-17). Despite the enormous amount of abuse, control, materialism, immorality and confused teaching that is in the church, most people seem to lack the ability to pick up the immensity of what is happening. In the realm of sex, money and power, contemporary Christianity has become like the church of the late Middle Ages. Despite the exposure of the problems of institutional religion in the media (21-22 August 2004 example) and the best efforts of concerned pastors, counsellors, prayer groups, care groups, and attempts at non-institutional forms of church (e.g. house churches) things seem to be getting worse .

This is because we are mostly still dealing with symptoms rather than the core issues of the church around us. We have become, more or less, “so earthly minded to be of no heavenly use”. We aren’t “seeing things” from a heavenly perspective because we have lost awareness of the heavenly dimension of the church as it appears in the New Testament.

The Heavenly Church in the New Testament.

“Heaven” and “earth” are constantly used as terms of opposition in the New Testament. “Their end is destruction…their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven.” (Phil 3:19; Cf. 1 Cor 15:40; 2 Cor 5:1; Phil 2:10; Col 3:1- 2; James 3:15). Despite popular Christian politics, publicity and the song “The Great South Land of the Holy Spirit”, the New Testament teaches us that Australia is neither our home nor our hope— we are “aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Pet 2:11; cf. Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 1:1, 17).

In the book of Revelation those who “dwell on the earth” (Rev 1:5,7; 3:10; 6:10,15; 8:13; 11:10; 13:8,14; 14:6; 16:18; 17:2,5,8,18; 19:2,19) are always people under the wrath of God, whereas true believers are “those who dwell in heaven” (Rev 13:6).

In apostolic teaching Jesus is “at the right hand of God” (Acts 2:25,33,34; 5:31; 7:56; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; 1 Pet 3:22; Heb 1:3,13; 8:1; 10:12;12:2; Rev 5:1,7 etc) in “heaven” (Acts 1:11; 2:2; 3:21), a place from which he speaks and works and from where he will return (Acts 7:55-56; 9:3; 10:11,16, 11:5,9-10; 22:6,16,19) to judge the earth (1 Cor 15:48; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:26; 2 Thess 1:7; Heb 12:5).

The writers of the scripture had a living awareness of being seated with Christ in the “heavenly places” (Eph 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12) “with Christ in God” (Col 3:1); they were in deep spiritual communion with the ascended Lord (Rom 10:6; Eph 4:8-10; 1 Tim 3:16).

Today, there is tremendous confusion about heavenly things. Everyone today is familiar with the term “born again”. Yet not one public sermon in the New Testament ever uses this expression. Why is this? After talking to Nicodemus about being “born again” [a better translation is “born from above”] Jesus goes on to say “If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things.” Being “born again” is an earthly thing, the eternal glory of Jesus, his ascension to heaven, his ruling at God’s right hand, his return from heaven etc, – these are “heavenly things”. The confidence of the church in talking about being “born again” and its failure to speak of these “heavenly things” reveals that it does not understand its heavenly identity.

To try to understand what has gone wrong the place to start is Genesis.

Losing the Vision of God

In the Garden of Eden, God’s invisible power and divine nature were “clearly seen” in the things that he made (Rom 1:20). Everything except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil simply radiated the goodness of God, only this object had the unknown “evil” associated with it. It was legitimate for Adam and Eve to “know about” evil, but good-and-evil was the one thing they were prohibited from seeing and knowing for themselves (Gen 2:17). .

When he appears, the Tempter (Gen 3:1) presents a radical alternative to this child-like state of innocence— “when you eat of it yours eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). You can know reality for yourself— just like God does.

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they… made loincloths for themselves.” (Gen 3:7). In setting themselves up as their own maker and judge, Adam and Eve put themselves at the origin of good and evil and they were plunged into a state of shame and guilt. The fallen human conscience was born with the status of a final mediator of moral reality between man and God.

The pleading and warning Word of God was replaced by another voice speaking into the human conscience— day and night, “You deserve to die. You will die.” This is the Satan’s power of death. [“14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb 2:14-15)]. No one can argue with this voice, because everyone’s conscience tells them they have broken their own standards (Rom 2:14-15). Even deeper than this, the very existence of conscience, which is not the voice of God, tells us that we are separated from God. As long as the conscience of any human being tells them that good- and- evil is a part of who they are, as long as I accept the Satanic accusation is true, even if I am a Christian, as long as I believe guilt and shame are a part of my identity I cannot be completely assured of my salvation.

Just as scripture says, “the whole world lies under the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Culture, family, school, advertising and religion control human behaviour by teaching us to feel good about ourselves or bad (evil) about ourselves. Whether it is self-righteousness or self-condemnation, joy or depression, pride or shame humanity is trapped in an assurance that it surely knows its own moral status. Our conscience (moral self-awareness) has become our god.

Jesus the Only Mediator

Institutional religion, involves law, priestly-mediators, offerings and an atmosphere of fear. Paradoxically, the climax of God’s redemptive purposes in the giving of the old covenant, illustrates this. In comparing the law with the gospel the writer of Hebrews says:

18 You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, 19 and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. 20 (For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.” [21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) (Hebrews 12:18-21)]

At Mount Sinai the people felt that they were going to die.  Moses was the greatest man of God in the Old Testament, but his own mortal conscience was so stricken that he said to himself “I tremble with fear”.(Deut 9:19 L.X.X.). If the mediator himself stood in fear of death (Rom 6:23)— whether that mediator was Moses or Mohammed or Buddha, how could the people be set free? The history of the Old Testament and organized religion shows that they are not set free from the fear of death— immediately after the glorious appearance of God at Sinai, when Moses disappeared up the mountain the Israelites made themselves idols to represent God and the “people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry” (Ex 32:6).

What has changed? Tell me that the priorities of many Christians today are not eating, drinking and sexual/sensual experience! Paul says “if the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.’” (1 Cor 15:32). The consumerism of the people of God leads me to reluctantly conclude that the resurrection is not a power in most of the churches of today. For this high profile church leadership must be held responsible. The materialistic and hedonistic disposition of many ministries who promote so audaciously that you must listen to their words (mediation) and give your tithes (offerings) in the way they teach you (law) reveal that they themselves are living in the fear of death.

[19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:19-21)]

As long as success on earth –financial success, ministry opportunities , family stability, emotional health or whatever is promoted as the goal of the gospel then the people of God will remain under the power of evil and death.

There is only one way to be freed from the fear of death— it is to be in union with someone who has already died in your place, rose again from the dead and lives in heaven.

The Church of the Heavenly Lord

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24)

According to this passage by simply being the church we are already relating to what is going on in heaven. We are connected to Mount Zion the home of true worship and the place where God’s people are guarded (Ps 78:18f; 12:3ff; Isa 4:2-3; 10:12), as we come boldly before the throne of grace (Heb 4:16) we are one with the numberless joyful angels (Deut 33:2; Jon 38:7; Dan 7:10). We are a church enrolled in heaven, with our names indelibly written in the Lamb’s book of life (Luke 10:20; Phil 4:3; Rev 13:8; 21:27) and the full rights of citizens of the heavenly city.

We have come to “God the judge of all”, to the one who has pronounced the inhabitants of his heaven as “righteous” and “perfect”. They understand that “the righteous live by faith” (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:37). Their heavenly position bears perfect witness to the mercy of the Father as judge (Heb 12:9) for through Jesus he has made their faith perfect (Heb 12:2).

All of this is possible because we 22 have come to… Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22- 24) In what way is Jesus mediatorship different from any other? The answer lies in the biblical understanding of blood. “Blood” stands for violent death. Abel is the first human person killed –his blood speaks of the enormity of human guilt. The blood of Abel cried out from the ground against his brother Cain and condemned him as a murderer before God (Gen 4:10). Blood always calls for God’s vengeance (Rev 6:10).

If the blood of Abel was taken from him by force, the blood of Jesus is given, “No one takes it (my life) from me, I lay it down of my own accord. [I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.” (John 10:18)]. [The Old Testament priests took the blood of animals, but Jesus took his “own blood” (Heb 9:12).] In saying to the elders at Ephesus “the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he bought with the blood of his own Son.” (Acts 20:28), Paul defines the value of the church (and its ministry) in terms of the blood of Jesus. What is the value of his blood?

It is not a value that could be understood in natural terms. For example, the centrality of the bloody whipping scenes in the film “The Passion of the Christ” tell us more about Mel Gibson’s uneasy conscience than they do about the death of Jesus as it is recorded in the Bible. In scripture, the value of the blood of Jesus is never put in terms of what it means to the human emotions but what it does to pacify the conscience.

The blood justifies (Rom 5:9); reconciles (Col 1:20); brings forgiveness (Eph 1:7); cleanses our conscience from death works to serve the living God (Heb 9:14); sprinkles our hearts clean from a guilty conscience (Heb 10:22), cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). It has the power so to renew the testimony of conscience to make it blameless (1 Cor 1:8; Eph 1:4; 5:27; Phil 1:10; 2:15; 1 Thess 5:23; Rev 14:5) or perfect (Heb 10:14; 11:40). Christians then, need not experience guilt and shame. How is this possible?

Fifteen years ago I heard a song I cannot forget, no doubt it is too gross for many of today’s song writers (in their state of denial about how wicked humans are) : “I have the blood of an innocent man all over me.” Over the life of a Christian is a “blood barrier” an impenetrable barrier of the blood of Jesus that Satan cannot penetrate— Satan can never tell God (the Judge!) that guilt/shame or evil are a part of your life.

Leviticus says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you to make atonement, for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.” (Lev 17:11). Blood brings atonement becomes it means the offering of a life in death.

The church is cleansed by the blood of Christ because, in the word of Judas, Christ’s blood is “innocent blood” (Matt 27:4). Judas was a man with a conscience, as “the son of destruction” (John 17:12) he knew within his own heart that he was guilty before God –he was, as they say, as guilty as hell and in his own self- centred remorse he tried to make atonement for his own sin by killing himself. This judgement of his own conscience, listening to it up to the very end as it were God, this was the cause of his damnation – not that he had betrayed Jesus.

What stirred up the conscience of traitor is what must stir up ours also- Judas knows that Jesus is an innocent man because Jesus refuses to resist the judgement of death. He does not try to resist those who arrest him, he does not seek to vindicate himself at his trial or protest innocence before the Sanhedrin, or Pilate.

This is because he accepts the judgement of his Father. Even in his great moment of despair his conscience refuses to know good or evil, he will not pas judgement on himself, all he wants is what he does not receive he simply wants to hear he verdict of his God (Mark 15:34). (This is the verdict that comes in the resurrection e.g. 1 Tim 3:16.)

In refusing to pass judgement way Jesus shows himself to be the one guiltless man who gives up his life on the cross – that is, sheds his blood, for all the guilty. It is the blood of a man made perfect through what he suffered (Heb 2:10; 5:9). If Jesus earthly life was characterized by a refusal to live for himself, the power of the blood is that it symbolises Jesus willingness to die not for himself but for others. This is what makes Jesus’ love completely God-like.

The Blood Opens Heaven

“11 when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:11-12). “it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these.” (9:23).

When Jesus went to heaven he passed beyond this visible world into the realm of God. There, the power of his sacrificial blood (a life laid down in death) was presented on the heavenly altar and cleansed the heavenly temple. This heavenly temple is not some material building, it is nothing other than the church (1 Cor 3:16; 1 Pet 1:2, 19, 22-23; Rev 13:6).

Someone once said, “Nothing can pacify an offended conscience but that which has satisfied an offended God.” (Matthew Henry). When the one mediator between man and God, “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5), appeared in heaven he did so through this blood, that is through this sacrificial death. This was the appearance of a selfless human being who infinitely pleased the heart of the Father. We may say that the blood impacts God to such an extent that that is more than willing forgive us all for all things for Jesus sake.

This is the Jesus that the apostles preached— the one “who brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (1 Tim 1:10). When the word of the cross is received by a heart of faith (Rom 10:8 -10)the conscience knows that it no longer can know good and evil as it once knew it— whether in self-condemnation or self-justification. Now, it is no longer the highest judge, now it bows to the verdict that God has passed on Christ.

“8 Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people…11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers”. (Eph 4:8, 11).

The holy apostles and prophets (Eph 3:5) of the New Testament, and of the suffering church today, signify by their freedom from earthly and material obsessions – that the church is indeed heavenly. Paul, who has so much to say in so many places about his sufferings (2 Cor 4:8-12; 6:3-10; 11:23-33; Eph 3:13; Col 1:24), could say to his most distressing church, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” (Gal 3:1). Jesus was not portrayed as someone who died to this world so we might enter into heaven through Paul’s inspirational addresses or sweet songs. Like the now famous “heavenly man” of our day, Brother Yun, Paul imaged the man from heaven (1 Cor 15:49) by “the marks of Jesus branded on my body” (Gal 6:17). His (Paul’s) shed blood was a testimony to the power of the blood of the cross to bring men to God (Eph 2:13) and compelling evidence that this world is not our true or final home.

By his refusal to avoid pain, suffering and death he revealed that in Christ he had overcome the strength of the world, the flesh and the devil, that his conscience was clear (1 Cor 4:3-4; 2 Cor 4:2) and he was in the sure possession of eternal life.

Many of you may have seen the first of the Transformations videos released a few years ago. After its screening to a group of pastors I had a very clear and powerful experience based on Galatians 4:26- 27, “But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. [For it is written, “Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children, burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs; for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the one who is married.”] [This is a citation from Isaiah 54:1, it follows the description of the cross in 53:10.]

As we were praying I could sense that the church on earth was being built from heaven, and that God was seeking to network cities all across the globe to image the one heavenly city of God (Rev 21:2, 26 etc.). I am sure that what provoked this experience was watching the story of Cali in Columbia where the leader of one of the churches was told by God that unity would come and revival would break out, but only at great cost to himself. In due course he was shot and bled to death on the streets of that city, his shed blood became the catalyst for what God had promised.

Conclusion

Every now and then you hear people praying for “an open heaven”. Whatever they mean by this there are three indisputable truths. Because of the death of Jesus the kingdom of heaven has been fully opened to all believers, this is an accomplished fact, “it is finished” (John 19:30). Secondly, without a revelation of the meaning of the blood of Christ it is impossible for Christians to live free from the fear of death and the Satanic strongholds of shame and guilt. Thirdly, for the church in this city to act as one with all those other nations across the globe where God is dynamically moving will require a deep willingness to endure hardship in order to see the kingdom of heaven come with power upon the earth.

We can do none of these things in our own strength (Phil 4:13). But we can pray – we can ask the Father to tell us what he knows about us in Christ, and so to put to death our confident self- knowledge that is preventing us being all he longs us to be.

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