#274 Kingdom: The Tabernacle of the Fall

This is such an inadequate title for what I want to share but we discover how inadequate words are to convey spiritual thoughts. The Holy Spirit must give us spiritual words to convey spiritual thoughts that have been given by the Spirit. We find ourselves totally inadequate to do even the simplest spiritual things.

The Tabernacle of the Fall is a fantasy idea to emphasize the reality of the Tabernacle of the Restoration. Until we see the reverse of the Tabernacle of the Recovery, we won’t really understand the reality of the restoration and the completion of God’s eternal purpose, both in us subjectively and through us objectively.

The Tabernacle of Moses is a graphic with types and shadows of the reality that is depicted by “furniture” arranged in a structure with veils for gates and separations that reveal stages of the restoration of all things about which the prophets spoke. Also the experiences of the priests with garments, anointing, cleansings, the applications of blood and consecrations are graphics depicting the restoration of man back to the purpose of God. Many of these restorations refer to our inner man to wean us away from wandering in the path of humanity and to begin to learn of eternal things directly from the author of eternity and the designer spiritual things.

In the Tabernacle of Moses there are both the description of the various articles of worship and word pictures to tell the story of the restoration process of the total recovery to God’s original purpose. Of course these are only shadows of the reality and require some revelation to make a spiritual application to our lives personally.

In the Tabernacle of the Fall we are limited to word pictures to explain why we must have all the various recovery experiences to return to the purpose of God. These word pictures will come primarily from the scriptures from Genesis 1:1 to the beginning of the restoration process that begins in Matthew 1:1. From Genesis to Malachi we are given word pictures to explain the total inability of man to fulfill the purpose of God by his own devises.

Therefore, the Tabernacle of the Fall will depict the exact opposite of the Tabernacle of the Recovery. For example; It we could picture the exact opposite of the furniture in Tabernacle of Moses, we could speculate on the furniture in the Tabernacle of the fall. If we could picture the preparation of the priests in their approach to God we could picture the exact opposite as a graphic of man’s fall. For example; The Altar of Incense is the last of the Holy Place experiences but is the first to be neglected by the man who is beginning to fall. The bronze Altar is the first experience in our approach to God and neglecting the forgiveness of sins is the last experience before departing completely from the Presence of God and before refusing to repent at the gate.

Since “the Fall” is so abstract and inadequate to reveal the magnitude of what happened we must add some definition to clarify the principle of man losing his first estate and descending rapidly into an out of control drop to the lowest level of existence. Man passed into a “defined state of being” where it was impossible for him to recover himself to fulfill God’s purpose for creating man in the first place. He even lost his comprehension that he was created by God to fulfill a specific purpose in eternity future. Man lost his capacity to even acknowledge God any longer and ended up worshiping the creature rather than the Creator.

The downward spiral recorded in Romans 1 is a very compressed view of what took place from Genesis 1:1 until today. If we drew a graphic of Romans 1:18-32 we could call it the Tabernacle of the Fall where man begins in the Garden of God walking and talking with God and very soon one sons kills his brother and the downward trend toward Babylon continues. This shows how man fell into this “fallen state of being” where he lost his capacity to even recognize the God who created man. Man was reduced to a piece of garbage that was only fit for the hell that was designed for the devil and his angels.

The Tabernacle of the Fall then comes into conflict with every “degree of restoration” in the Tabernacle of the Recovery. Man becomes his own worst enemy in resisting these various degrees of recovery. Man is shooting himself in the foot every step of the way simply because he has no idea how far he has fallen or of God’s recovery process.

At Mt. Sinai God established a Covenant of Law with Israel with a view to a recovery that was to come hundreds of years later. Before God could establish the Covenant of Restoration, man had to come to the utter end of himself in attempting to rebuild himself. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube it is very difficult to put in back in. Still man in his carnal genius may attempt to do it. Once man fell to the pits of despair he was unable to lift himself out again. Still man in his carnal genius has thought the natural man could recover himself if given another Romans 7 chance. This attempt by the carnal genius is now called religion. In the economy of God the thing that has fallen cannot pick itself up and return to its original position. The Humpty-Dumpty syndrome!

In Genesis 1 and 2 it is not that God did not know that man would fall but He knew that man must come to an utter end of himself and put all his confidence in God alone before man could complete the purpose for which he was created.. Man must have the free will to discover that he is only dust and that God has to put absolutely everything in man before He can use man to complete His eternal purpose. This fact is completely compressed in Genesis 2 but it is seen in the Tree of Life. As long as man thinks he is cleaver enough to complete the purpose of God by his own genius or his own intelligence and knowledge he is of no use to God in that purpose.

If we want to sum up the message of the history of man from Genesis 1:1 to Malachi 4:6 all we have to do is read Romans 1:18-32. It is so difficult for man to acknowledge that he can do absolutely nothing to recover himself back to the purpose of God. The history of religion is the history of man’s attempt to accomplish the impossible. The Tower of Babel is that religious attempt.

The history of man begins with the history of the first Adam and his sons and the complete disaster they brought upon the earth. Since Calvary the history of the recovery begins with Jesus Christ and His sons and the restoration of all things about which the prophets spoke. The first Adam and his sons shows the independence of man and what happens when man devises his own plans and purposes and sets out to please himself.

The Last Adam and His sons reveals that His sons are in an organic Life union with Christ so there can be no independence from the Head and still fulfill God’s eternal purpose. When we look from the viewpoint of religion we might call this the “bondage of the body.” In the “body of religion” [as opposed to the body of Christ] every member insists upon doing their own will. No member in the true body of Christ can possibly do their own will because the Head makes all the decisions.

From God’s viewpoint of the church as His body, we could call this “the security and rest of the body” to corporately fulfill God’s eternal purpose. In His body every member only has one concern and that is doing the will of the Head. In this body there is ONLY one will. For that reason “religion” will never complete the purpose of God because of a confusion of wills.

In the Tabernacle of the Recovery man is restored, transformed and rebuilt into the body of the High Priest and every “son of the High Priest” only does the will of the High Priest. Our High Priest only functions under the sovereignty of the Father to do His will. If man has no idea of how far he fell he will have no idea how many experiences he must endure to return to a complete recovery. The Tabernacle of the Recovery is the graphic of the return to God and to His purpose. The Tabernacle of Moses then is the Tabernacle of the recovery until we attain to the Tabernacle of God.

In the full recovery man must regain more that Adam lost. Through the “forgiveness of sins” under the Old Covenant man who was set as a priest could only advance through the second veil and up to the Altar of Incense. We must recover to that place and then go on to perfection. Our goal under the New Covenant is to pass through the third veil and take our seat with Christ [or in Christ] on the throne of God. While that opportunity is “legally” open to us, the final City of God is still in the process of being built. One day the first heaven and this first earth will pass away and a New Heaven and a New Earth will appear along with the City of God, the New Jerusalem. At that time our place will be assigned according to our maturity and Christlikeness. The standard of measure will be pure gold. When the perfected saints are ruling and reigning with Christ from the throne of God, the purpose revealed in Genesis 1 and 2 will be complete. God will have His Man and His woman and they will be given dominion over all the works of His hands.

The “recovery process” must reverse and restore every thing that man has lost since Genesis 3. Until then the process of our perfection is continuing as God takes us through many trials, testings and sufferings as He is rebuilding us into His eternal purpose. Those who don’t endure the process will be assigned a place commensurate with their development.

If this is true then what is the goal of this Christian Life during this church age? It is to advance through the Outer Court, pass through the Second Veil, be built into the Lampstand church, eat from the Showbread and live within the revelation and illumination of the seven Spirits of God. All this is preparation for the goal of standing with God at the Altar of Incense and cooperating with God to get His will done on earth as it is being done at the present time in heaven. Every experience in the Tabernacle of Recovery culminates at the Altar of Incense. It is here that God’s first commission to man in Genesis 1 is fulfilled for the church age. It is here at the Altar of Incense that man functions under the absolute sovereignty of God and cooperates with Him in ruling over the fish of the sea, over the birds and over everything that creeps upon the earth and over all the earth.

Man ONLY has authority under the absolute sovereignty of God. When the first Adam came out from under God’s absolute sovereignty man lost ALL his authority. However, God didn’t take it away. When man removed himself from under the sovereignty of God man lost his sovereignty to rule over the earth. Therefore, an important part of the recovery for redeemed man is for him to come back under God’s absolute authority and sovereignty. For independent man to speak of doing spiritual warfare is a fantasy.

The graphic of the Tabernacle of Restoration reveals that without full consecration there is no hope of man coming back to ruling authority. Consecration then must result in man functioning fully under the sovereignty of God and not working independently, doing the best he can and call it “serving God.” The revelation of the Second Veil reduces man down to dust and the understanding that man is helpless to serve God or do His will out of his own genius. He will soon understand that unless God rebuilds the person in total recovery and development the “saint” will be worthless in the Kingdom of God and unfit to rule with Christ.

Unless man can understand from the Tabernacle of the Fall the depths to which man fell he will underestimate the full process of recovery that is necessary for man to fulfill the commission of Genesis 1. The ignorant think that all that is required for full restoration to God’s purpose is forgiveness of sins. That is because they have no idea of the desperate wickedness and corruption that is in the heart of mankind. They see no reason for the full death and burial and total separation from the first Adam. They don’t understand the effect the fall had on their vision and on their integrity and character. Even though their sins are forgiven they, themselves, are still lawless and are far from living under the sovereignty of God or of doing His will. Unless the recovery deals effectively with each of these areas of the fall, man is not equipped to participate in the ruling over the works of God’s hands. An example of man ruling out of the fallen life can be seen today in Cuba, Haiti and many such places in the world. It can also be seen in the history of the kings and priests in the Old Testament and the ones who condemned Christ to the cross.

God cannot accept into His eternal Kingdom government those who have not been healed and released for every defect imprinted upon us by the fall. As long as traces of the old Adam are found in us, the work of removing and rebuilding our lives into the measure and stature and fulness of Christ must continue. None of us can say we are complete yet. Therefore, the fulness of the Life of Christ lies ahead of us. It is foolishness for us to look back and say on a certain date I reached perfection because of something I believed. This is the mistake of those who have delayed around the Bronze Altar too long and move into the illumination of the seven Spirits of God. They are confessing the blood but have not approached the Second Veil. They have been blinded by the natural light in the Outer Court. Even eye-salve may not help for those who have already been indoctrinated in the gospel of forgiveness of sins. Reality of Life is not a high priority for those content with forgiveness of sins!

The Tabernacle of Moses is an invaluable graphic to reveal the position of the Bronze Altar in its relationship to the Altar of Incense and to God’s eternal purpose. Just listening to some gospel preached for several years may not reveal this reality that can be clearly seen in a few minutes in the Tabernacle of Moses. The Tabernacle of Moses may be rejected as some Old Testament history but when we call it the Tabernacle of Restoration it becomes New Testament revelation. The Tabernacle of Recovery brings it into the present day reality.

From the Tabernacle we can refer to the many aspects of the Recovery Process and the reason for each New Testament experience. When we set the goal of total recovery as the Throne of God and ruling under His absolute sovereignty forever, each Restoration experience becomes exceedingly important. Since we don’t have a graphic of the Tabernacle of the Fall we have to limit our message to word pictures similar to what Jesus used with the parables. However, the “Fall” was not a parable but a devastating experience that affected every person ever born.

The testimony of Romans 1 is a kind of word picture graphic of the history of man. We may excuse ourselves from Romans 1 because we haven’t fallen down to worship spiders and crawling things but the potential is still there. One purpose of the recovery is to remove the potential. After Israel was delivered from Egypt they still fell down and worshiped the golden calf so the potential was still there and that was demonstrated throughout the history of Israel. Since this is common to all men we should not be so confident that we didn’t fall as far as others.

In this next restoration the difference between our “legal position in Christ” and our experiential position will be much more clarified and our actual ruling with Christ at the Altar of Incense will be sought after. That is already ours legally but experientially we are far from it.