“… the good news of righteousness in the great assembly …”
(Ps. 40:9, NKJV)
A long, long time ago, before any light shone on earth, or anything had come into being, God made public His glorious plan regarding creation and the salvation of His spiritual sons, who were then already chosen in Christ. He chose us as sons, and designed His blueprint for the fulfilment of all things long before the fall!
Every rhema identity in Christ is a unique creation, a one of a kind word that is sent from the heart and mouth of God to the earth, with a very particular purpose. Without having achieved anything you were chosen by Him, given favour “in Him,” as Eph. 1:4 suggests: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Long before your birth you were personally chosen to receive “immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness” (Eph. 1:19, AMP) from Him. This state of being chosen is the conclusion of the “eternal gospel” (Rev. 14:6) of which we have been extensively writing for so long.
One of the most pertinent parables that deal with this is the well-known one found in Luke 15:11-32, concerning the prodigal son. Luke 15 is the lost-and-found chapter in the Bible, containing a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. In the latter story, there are actually two lost sons – one who stayed, and one who left.
The father in the story points to “God, the Father” (John 6:27). The older son who stayed home represents the old order, “the Pharisees and scribes” (Luke 15:2) who cling to tradition (Matt. 15:6) and can’t believe that God is opening a new way, “a new and living way which He consecrated for us” (Heb. 10:20). He chose to stay within the safe, cherished space of religion. The younger son here represents the son who is chosen and called for greatness. Initially he is rebellious, and comes to a fall, and then REMEMBERS that he has a home, with a father, and returns to the home, the table and the authority of his rightful position. Along with 1 John 3:1 and all the prodigal sons we can exclaim: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called sons of God!”
Luke 15:20 lists five characteristic actions of the Father heart of God that re-align us as prodigal but ultimately chosen sons: “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” (Perhaps more on this later.) Paul explains the phrase “still a great way off” beautifully in Eph. 2:13 as “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near …” The verse before this makes the spiritual distance or backlog or circumstance clear: “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world”.
In that distant ‘time’ God and His Son made an eternal covenant in which you and I were also included, but without us ever having chosen it! This “eternal covenant” (Heb. 13:2) brings about “eternal salvation” (Heb. 5:9) for the chosen, and makes it possible to “complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ” (Heb. 13:21). Please selah about this for a while, for the immense implications it holds. The Message translates it beautifully as “provide you with everything you need to please him, make us into what gives him most pleasure”. That which you received before time through God’s free will and choice, is the sum total of everything that is currently needed to have Him become completely manifested on earth, WITHIN YOU. It is interesting that the root word of sum is Head. Jesus is the Head in whom everything is encapsulated – He is the sum total of everything. Col. 1:19 (AMP) phrases it as such: “it has pleased [the Father] that all the divine fullness (the sum total of the divine perfection, powers, and attributes) should dwell in Him permanently”. And this fullness is already in Christ IN each member of the Bride. It is of the utmost importance that we “know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12), as there are many believers who, because of complete ignorance, have received this grace of God in vain (2 Cor. 6:1).
Before any person or chosen son had set a foot on this earth, an eternal covenant had been cut in which we had no hand, but which is intimately concerned with us. You are predestined to receive an enormous harvest for which you sowed not a single seed. Indeed, in the words of Jesus: “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.” (John 4:38). He has blessed us immensely “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world …” (Eph. 1:3-4).
This eternal covenant between Father and Son is referred to, in theological terms, as inter-theistic (a term that Arnold Farquharson in his Strategic Planning from God’s Perspective – the Vision, p. 78, explains beautifully), in other words, a set agreement, relation or covenant that occurs between two of the persons of the traditional Trinity. (This view is however not unproblematic, but for now, it is a term that explains a difficult concept, even if we discard it later.) The theologian Steven Everett explains inter-theistic as follows: “Nevertheless the fulfilment of the Inter-theistic Covenant is based upon the integrity of God’s heart and His commitment to keep His own agreement … Jesus signed and secured the Inter-theistic Covenant and sealed it with His own blood; and then, He left it as His last will and testament, which gives it finality. Everyone knows that legally once the testator dies the will is unchangeable. The certainty of truth is that God will get exactly what He wants, with nothing lacking. And remember, truth is the original information conceived in the heart of God and spoken as the living, breathing Word of God.” (http://www.stepheneverett.net).
One of the most powerful demonstrations of this inter-theistic covenant is seen in the life of Abraham. In Gen. 15:5-6 we read: “Then He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” In verse 8 Abraham asks, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” God then asks of Abraham to bring a particular sacrifice, and then we find in verse 17: “And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.” These theophanic manifestations can be explained as follows:
- The “smoking furnace” (KJV) is a manifestation of God the Father. Scriptures supporting this include Ex. 19:18, Deut. 29:20, 2 Sam. 22:9, Ps. 144:5 and Isa. 6:4.
- The “burning lamp” (KJV) or “a flaming torch” (ACV) is a manifestation of Jesus the Son, “the Light of the world” (John 8:12). Scriptures to support this include Ex. 27:20, Ps. 119:105, Isa. 9:2, 62:1, Mal. 4:2, Matt. 4:14-16, Luke 2:32, John 1:4-9, 3:19, 9:5 and Acts 26:23.
In Heb. 6:13-14, the instance where this event is reported in the New Testament, an absolutely illuminating revelation follows: “For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’” In Gen. 15 this is reported with regards to the initial covenant – in the original cutting of the covenant there is however no reference to God Himself swearing (this only occurs much later, more than 33 years after, when Abraham is willing to sacrifice Isaac). During this epoch-making event, reported in Gen.22:15-18, the acting Person is called the Angel of the Lord, in other words, Jesus! Gen. 22:15-17: “Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.”
From this you can clearly see that the inter-theistic view is hard to defend, as Deut. 6:4 clearly points out: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”, a statement that Jesus repeats in Mark 12:29. Jesus’s statement in John 10:30 is still that the mystery of the manifold unity of the Godhead cannot be that easily explained by theology. Jesus does after all clearly note: “I and My Father are one.”
Yet the theophany of the Father and the Son are found in two related, but different manifestations – a smoking furnace and flaming torch. Please take note – this is two subsections of the same manifestation, as the article a is elided when referring to the flaming torch (absolutely correctly translated as such in Brenton’s English Septuagint – the English version of the Hebrew Bible in Greek). It is thus: a (smoking furnace and flaming torch)! This finding always reminds me of the famous quote by Annie Dillard: “We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery …”
To just again highlight the golden thread of this teaching – in eternity a covenant was cut, which was mainly concerned with the fulfilment of the general and overarching goal God has with all things (Eph. 1:10). This eternal covenant was cut before time, during a gathering or meeting, with this special agenda. That agenda makes clear God’s plan in two main points: the calling and purpose of the Son as Firstborn of all things, and flowing from that, the manifestation of the Body of Christ. Ps. 40:9 describes this very important event: “I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness in the great assembly …” In the following verse, he again speaks of an assembly: “I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly.”
In Greek, the word gospel means “good news”. We know that God anointed Jesus to bring “good tidings” (Isa. 61:1). The good news of the word of the Lord, a strategy of God’s plan of salvation, the Good News, is proclaimed at this assembly. Ps. 22:22, the psalm that prophetically points to the detail of Jesus’s life, also mentions that Jesus “will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You”. God is in this assembly, and clearly Jesus is also in this assembly, but Jesus’s brothers (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11), in other words His Bride (Rev. 21:2), are also there, WITHIN HIM!
In Heb. 10:7 & 5 Jesus declares: “Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God … But a body You have prepared for Me.” Here the two agenda points of the eternal covenant are spelled out in the assembly taking place before time. Selah.
In Job. 9:33 (NIV), the oldest historical book in the Bible, the following wish is voiced: “If only there were someone to arbitrate between us …” Jesus, the Son, rose to the challenge.
When He was wrestling with God in the garden of Gethsemane, beseeching God in prayer: “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Here Jesus is obviously speaking of the cup of the new testament or covenant (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25), which was His calling and purpose. He did after all say that He would come to earth to do God’s will during that assembly before time. Then already Jesus knew what awaits Him, as Rev. 13:8 (NIRV) notes that “He is the Lamb whose death was planned before the world was created.”
In the next teaching, we will try to tie together all the threads of this mystery.
- Selah: Understand that your calling and purpose is closely linked to this assembly before time.
- Read: 1 Cor. 5-13
- Memorise: 1 Cor. 11:25
- For a more in-depth understanding: Read one of the books/articles mentioned in the teaching.
