Sunday, October 20, 2019

What’s the one thing in Christianity that can’t be faked? Did New Testament Christians actually experience hearing and seeing Jesus? Can Jesus actually be heard and seen today? If this is true what are the implications for those who attend church and have done neither? How are modern day Christians being built into a table of showbread?

1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing [of wine at the Lord’s Supper] upon which we ask [God’s] blessing, does it not mean [that in drinking it] we participate in and share a fellowship (a communion) in the blood of Christ (the Messiah)? The bread which we break, does it not mean [that in eating it] we participate in and share a fellowship (a communion) in the body of Christ?

The Greek word for communion is the word koinonia. The Bible will often translate this word as fellowship. This identical word is used in several passages of the book of 1 John and for good reason. 1 John 1:3 states: What we have seen and [ourselves] heard, we are also telling you, so that you too may realize and enjoy fellowship as partners and partakers with us. And [this] fellowship that we have [which is a distinguishing mark of Christians] is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

There are many things an unbeliever can fake regarding popular Christianity in the west. You can fake worship, reverence, love for the Word, love for Jesus, love for the Father, and prayer. But the one thing you cannot fake is true, Jesus-centered, koinonia. Why do I say this? Because true koinonia is based on a personal interaction with the Godhead. A relationship of common union, conversation, co-sharing. The crazy thing? You are doing all of that with the Creator of the Universe. Those who have had communion or fellowship with the Godhead know about it. You don’t guess or even hope you’ve had it – you know it. And once Heaven has touched your earth you can’t get enough. (I’m just smiling typing this up and thinking about it). The passage in 1 John really emphasizes this personal interaction when it states: What we have seen and [ourselves] heard, we are also telling you, so that you too may realize and enjoy fellowship as partners and partakers with us. The implication is what we have seen and heard is also available for you to see and hear. In John’s seven letters to the churches of Revelation one of the “stinker” churches was the Church of Laodicea. They were in such bad shape they couldn’t even see that they had left Jesus outside of His Worship service. Not only were they blind to His absence they also failed to hear Him knocking trying to get into the front door of His Church. The Church of Laodicean was deaf and blind spiritually. Before you get too critical recall the skepticism expressed when the Vice President of the United States expressed that he could hear God.

The Good News? Jesus offered a promise that if anyone would hear Him knocking and open the door He would come in and have fellowship with them. Why wouldn’t He?That’s the implication in the very definition of the word expressed throughout the New Testament. Why is that significant and what does it have to do with the next station in Priestly Tabernacle? Everything actually. The next station was called the Table of Shewbread or Showbread. In the Hebrew it literally meant the Bread of His Face or Presence. On this table were 12 stacks of unleavened bread, a symbol for each of the 12 tribes of Israel, and a flagon of Wine.

Recall that Scripture refers to us being a temple being built into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit? We grow in becoming through fellowshipping in the blood and body of Jesus. Another way of saying this is that we fellowship in His sufferings. This fellowship doesn’t have to come through being martyred, persecuted, or imprisoned. But it can and does come through simply picking up Jesus’ Cross and following His example of obedience in a difficult situation. When ever we choose obedience over personal comfort we are experiencing to some degree His sufferings. Now before you think that I have watered down our participation in Jesus sufferings take a look at 1 Peter 4:1: So, since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose [patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [having the mind of Christ] is done with [intentional] sin [has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God],…

At first I believed the message conveyed was regarding Jesus’ crucifixion. But the last part of the verse really bothered me. My doubt was regarding my own experience. I knew that I have suffered in the flesh but that hasn’t stopped me from sinning. Sometimes the suffering almost seemed to justify the sinning. So what was Peter seeking to express? I prayed and was reminded Hebrews 5:8: Although He was a Son, He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered.

Jesus was free of demons, generational curses, sins of the fathers, and soul and spirit wounds – yet, He suffered as He obeyed the Father in spite of the temptation. He was tempted in every way that you and I are tempted, yet He never sinned. He was comforted by angels after the 40 day fast and temptation in the wilderness. He wrestled over the will of the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating drops of blood. Obedience to the Father is costly. The greater the outcome, the greater the suffering. Jesus’ Table of Showbread, the Bread of His Face is built in us as we do the will of the Father, interacting with Jesus through the process. Romans 8:17 states: And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory. 

Mark 10:38 shines some more light on this concept. It states: But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  Jesus provides some clarity regarding what cup the disciples were so presumptuously willing to drink in Luke 22:42:Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” 

The good news is that the Table of Showbread wasn’t just a table of fellowshipping with Jesus’ sufferings. John 6:55-58 explains the enjoyable side of the Table: For My flesh is true and genuine food, and My blood is true and genuine drink. He who feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood dwells continually in Me, and I [in like manner dwell continually] in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me [whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me] shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me. This is the Bread that came down from heaven. It is not like the manna which our forefathers ate, and yet died; he who takes this Bread for his food shall live forever.

Did you catch the three promises: dwells continually in Me, shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me, and shall live forever.  When we feed or commune with the Bread of His Presence, or drink the Blood of His Sacrifice we dwell continually in Him; we live through Him; and we live forever with Him. Why wouldn’t we? We are His Body. What the Western Christian must understand is that through knowing and doing His Word He reveals Himself to us. John 14:21 states it: Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”  And now we’ve come full circle. The Koinonia of Jesus-centered, Christianity, is about what we have seen, heard, and are partakers of. We become the Table of His Presence as we obey and know Him. You can’t fake that. If you have been go to the Bread of Life and let Him know that you are dying to know Him.