Preface: The Restoration of Genuine Discipleship
Session 001
The Latter House and The Order of the New Covenant
Part 1
A large portion of the prophecies written by Haggai and Zechariah are very pertinent to our time, a time when the Church Age is being summed up and the Kingdom Age ushered in. As a spiritual parallel, the remnant of the Israelites of their day are a prophetic picture of the remnant of God’s people in this day of our time.
This period in history is often called the Babylonian Exile. It is a story of God’s judgement and deliverance, as He did many times with their forefathers. Here, again, the Israelites had to navigate through this time and go from devastation and destitution to reunion and restoration; from desperation and confusion to hope and faith; and from their own earthly and temporal visions and endeavors, to God’s spiritual reality and eternal plan.
In retrospect, we are witnesses that the Lord, the almighty and all wise One, has ignited and has been orchestrating a similar work of restoration among God’s people today. If we more closely examine some of the relevant Biblical prophecies, we can venture to say that, we, as a generation, are actually fulfilling them in a literal way. As much as they remain invisible and undetectable to the earthly and unbelieving minds, they are becoming more and more evident and assured to those who have entered the Kingdom of God, to those who have the ear to hear and the eye to see by the power of the Spirit.
That being said, let us turn to one of these prophecies that bears great importance and implication for us as God’s remnant people today.
Hag. 2:6-9 [NIV]
6 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, ‘ says the Lord Almighty. 8 ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. 9 ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace, ‘ declares the Lord Almighty.”
In this scripture, “the desire of all nations”, is evidently speaking about our Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to His Heavenly Temple and fills it with His glory, like God did on the day when Solomon dedicated the first temple at the Feast of Ingathering or Tabernacles, or “the former house”. In this, the prophetic implication of the work of restoration finds its fulfillment in the revealing of His Son, Jesus Christ.
God had always intended to build up His spiritual house as His dwelling place through His son. It is not like any house that will only accommodate a loving family as desired or modeled after the experience of humanity. No, it is by nature holy and divine, set apart from the appeals and preferences of our earthly man. For the Son of God is here, in this House, to undo the work of the Devil, who had sown the seed of rebellion and carnality in the heart and mind of man from the very beginning. Don’t we know that through Adam all men had been locked in a covenant of sin and death by the evil one? All men were slaves to his powers which are sin and death.
However, our Lord Jesus is here to give us life and liberty. He cancelled for us the death penalty that should have been our doom. For through sin, we stand being accused according to the terms of the covenant of death, where redemption is absent. But Christ has come to set us free from sin, from its power and its consequences, which eventually lead to Death. By His blood shed on the cross as our atonement, or the price of redemption, we are freed from the power of sin which works in us through the covenant of death where our right and privilege as sons of God is deprived and also the grace that lends us life and freedom. These are restored in and through Christ and because of His sacrifice.
In essence, we now have the forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Jesus. More than that, we are given the real Gift of God, even the Holy Spirit of eternal life. With this seed after God’s own life, Christ has us restored us back to the “original” plan and place God the Father had for man when He created him. We are now sons of God who enjoy peace with God through the blood of Christ, the rights and privileges as citizens of the Kingdom of His beloved Son and are members of His Household. Because of the way He laid down His life for those given to Him, even us in the world, Jesus Christ, perfected by God the Father through His sufferings, is exalted on the Highest of Heavens, and is being installed as King of kings and Lord of lords on the throne of God, sitting at His right hand. He is the firstborn from among the dead, even us, inaugurating a new order of life, that being the new heavens and a new earth, which are yet to come. To Him, God the Father has bestowed a new creation, of which we are. This is done through the Spirit of Holiness and Power, the very substance (nature) and operations (work) of God, and in the Spirit, founded and increases itself as a heavenly reality, flowing into the spiritual kingdom and the eternal household of God. For God is Spirit, so is His work and His desired fruit of that work, which is the Maturation and Perfection of all things by, in and for His Son.
To sum up, this new order or new way of life, is none other than that which leads us back to our Heavenly Father and grants us the benefits and blessings in the Heavenly places in the House of God as His own chosen people. In this, Jesus is indeed our Great Apostle, commissioned and sent by God the Father to teach and lead us back to Him so that we can have a share in His life and wisdom. Jesus fulfilled His mission perfectly. That’s why He could overcome the Evil one and now stands as the Mediator for all those who believe in His Name in presence of God.
When Jesus the Christ was installed (seated at the right hand of God) after His ascension, did God the Father do this according to a particular order of things? Yes, He did, and at the appointed time. Just as, many times, He revealed to His trustworthy ones, such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and later Isaiah and Jeremiah, etc., He had long desired to reveal His Way of Divine Love and Order to a chosen people who would love Him enough to believe and follow His counsel and ways. Those who would practice His Wisdom or Teachings and be perfected in His Love. This is the order of His Kingdom and the Righteousness that comes down from heaven. Paul explained this purpose and this work of God in this way:
Eph. 1:3-14 [NIV]
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Now, is there a constitution (or covenant) of Heaven and an institution of God’s government in the Spiritual Body of Christ, through which He desires to reveal Himself to all mankind and all creation to rule and teach them?
Yes, there is. This is the order of Melchizedek. David, as God’s prophet, saw this in Psm. 110:
1 The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”
2 The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying, “Rule in the midst of your enemies!”
3 Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, your young men will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.
7 He will drink from a brook along the way, and so he will lift his head high.
According to this order, Jesus, the Eternal Son of God, after He finished what He was sent for during His earthly life, was appointed as the High Priest for a divine order that exists and functions in the Spiritual House of God. In this capacity He, as a spiritual man just like us who are blessed with the same spiritual life, has been acting as the Mediator of a new covenant in the Heavenly Tabernacle. We are the ones He serves and equips to serve with Him in the House of God, so that we will become the matured sons of God, co-heirs of God with Himself. In essence, we are to become a New Priesthood in Heaven. That is why Peter said in his first epistle:
1 Pet. 2:9-10 [NIV]
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
This order, or rather the New Covenant is what Jeremiah prophesied long before the revelation of the Son of God, even the living Word of God.
Jer. 31:31-38 [NIV]
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, ” declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord.”I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord.”For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
35 This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is his name:
36 “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the Lord, “will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.”
37 This is what the Lord says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the Lord.
38 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when this city will be rebuilt for me from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 The measuring line will stretch from there straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn to Goah. 40 The whole valley where dead bodies and ashes are thrown, and all the terraces out to the Kidron Valley on the east as far as the corner of the Horse Gate, will be holy to the Lord. The city will never again be uprooted or demolished.”
This is the main theme of the book of Hebrews. In Chapter 12, it says: “
Heb. 12:22-29 [NIV]
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25 See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”
(For audio only: In the next section, we will discussion more on the pattern of the construction of the Heavenly Temple in order to point out that the Work of God starts with building the foundations of His spiritual temple in each one of us as His precious living stones. )
Note: My special thanks to our dear brother Tim Pinson Jr. He has take great pain to edit my broken English and round up my thoughts. He will help us to do the audio recordings as well. My spoken English is even worse than my writings…:) May the Lord bless you as you take your precious time to read or listen to these teachings. Love, Sun