ONCE YOU HAVE ETERED WITHIN THE VEIL

ONCE YOU HAVE ENTERED WITHIN THE VEIL

                In God’s eyes marriage is a very sacred and holy thing. It was intended to be entered into by two virgins who lost their virginity to each other and then maintained that holy trust as long as they lived.

                A person is only a virgin once and once you have pierced that veil, you are no longer a virgin and will never be a virgin again as long as you live. So marriage is a very sacred and holy thing as it is designed by God and as such it is reflected in the Sanctuary. The outer court is where one’s virginity is lost with the shedding of blood, the Holy Place is the place of physical relationship and the Most Holy Place represents the womb where new life is conceived and brought to maturity as a son or daughter of God.

                By the same token, the outer court is the place of our encounter with Jesus Christ. There He sheds His blood on our behalf. And once having received His shed blood for forgiveness of our sins and we have been washed in the clean water for the renewal of our minds; then we are ready to enter within the veil. This initial washing and renewal of our minds, represents the idea that we must now move beyond the mentality of a single person and take on the life altering mentality of a married person who has been unalterably changed for life.

                So our marriage happens in the outer court, but it is in the Holy Place within the veil that we consummate the marriage. Here in the Holy Place we have not only become married mentally, but we are now married physically and as Hebrews 13:4 says:

                “Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”

                The church belongs to Jesus through marriage and that marriage is sealed by the Holy Spirit so that both our relationship in marriage and our relationship with Christ are holy. Even as members of the Body of Christ we have lost our virginity so to speak and we have engaged in a relationship with Jesus Christ that is forever and eternal.

                Paul said in Ephesians 5:22-30:

                “Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.”

Then Paul goes on to say in verse 32: “This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”

                Marriage should radically change every aspect of our lives. True marriage is a marriage of spirit, soul and body. We should have eyes only for each other… hearts that beat only for each other and spirits that are united by the Lord.

                So it is within the context of marriage that we better understand our relationship with Jesus.  At some point we were legally married, and as such that signed piece of paper is important. We are legally married. But as our relationship grows, we don’t need to keep digging the marriage contract out of the file and reading it every day to make sure that we are honoring our vows. Love itself dictates how we will cherish and love and treat one another.

                So it is within the context of marriage that the Law, our marriage contract, is hidden in a file, out of sight within our spirit, in the Ark of the Covenant, where it has been written on our hearts by God.

                How long would a marriage last if the husband or wife kept dragging the contract out of the file and demanding that the other spouse kept every letter of the contract and the vows? It would end up in divorce, I tell you, because the Law contains a ministry of condemnation and death to those who break their marriage vows, but it cannot produce the love relationship that that we hold dear.

                Just so, the law is hidden in our hearts, but it is expressed by the fruit of the Spirit, just as our marriage is expressed from day to day by the fruit of our love for each other.

                So when people harangue each other day after day saying, “The Law. The Law, the Law, they don’t understand what they are doing. They are ministering death to each other instead of life. The Law is not written to faithful marriage partners. It is written to those who break their marriage vows and allow their love and attentions to stray. That is the point where the Law comes in and usually it is manifested in a court of law where a divorce occurs.

                But as long as the marriage is healthy, then married couples remain happily united in spirit, soul and body and they bear fruit, both in terms of children and in terms of fruitful lives in the church and in the community and divorce is a burden to the church for it divides people and devastates everything that God intended for our pleasure and our good.

                The tabernacle of Moses, which we have been using for an illustration here, contains so many lessons that we can use it for practically everything. For instance, the three parts of the sanctuary represent Passover (The outer court where Jesus became our Passover Lamb) Pentecost (where our marriage to Christ is consummated by the entrance of the Holy Spirit into our lives.) And tabernacles where Jesus Christ, the man child is conceived in our spirit and where He grows up in us until He is not only Savior, but Lord.

                Our spirit grows in relationship to our intimacy in the Holy Place. And our intimacy (which we can understand as it pertains to marriage), is maintained in our spiritual life, by the Word of God as it is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit and prayer. And the Holy Spirit will even give us a prayer language so that He can mingle His incense with our prayers so that they come up before God within the veil as a sweet smelling savor.

                There is so much in our relationship with Christ as it is demonstrated within the Tabernacle that it can almost make a person blush… but for those who have experienced Pentecost, no amount of intimacy is too much, so that when someone comes their way waving the old contract and saying, “The Law, The Law, The Law, they look with a blank stare and say “What!!! I don’t need that old contract. I am married to Christ and as such I have been faithful and filled with His Spirit and as such a law is no longer necessary. I am faithfully married to Christ and as such, we have become one flesh and one spirit and one mind. All that the Law might have demanded, is being fulfilled and manifested in me by my love for Jesus and I wouldn’t think of breaking our marriage vows.

                I never liked dating. It seemed to require that we put on an act that was not always the real us. It seemed superficial and shallow and full of pressure as we tried to get acquainted on some level other than showing off or whatever. So when one finally enters into marriage, they also enter into rest. We are no longer out their beating the bushes for new prospects.  We are no longer purring on an act. We have entered the rest of marriage. We know and love each other for what we really are.

                Now, rest, mind you, does not represent either presumption or complacency. We don’t take our spouse for granted and we don’t take advantage of them by making them do all the work while we sit back and reap the benefits. Marriage is a partnership in which two people share in the responsibilities of life together and it is in that sharing of life’s responsibilities that we find rest. So the responsibilities of marriage are divided according to our various abilities and strengths and when we each do our part marriage is a wonderful and fulfilling adventure.

                For many in the Christian body, their marriage to Christ has never really been consummated. Oh, they came together on their wedding night, they lost their virginity together, but suddenly it was ten years ago and they are trying to remember why they got married and their love has grown cold… their intimacy lost and the union of their spirits all but dead. And so they begin looking outside the white walls of their marriage for other prospects. They get back into the dating scene mentally and finally physically and the covenant is broken and now they are suddenly faced with the Law again. It was there all along, but we were unaware of it until we broke it and then it rose up to condemn us.

                People who are Law oriented cannot understand how the Law is fulfilled by our intimate marriage to Christ. They feel that they must keep digging the marriage contract out of the file and waving it around, trying to apply it to healthy marriages. But this which usually ends up in death and separation rather than a healthy marriage. If your wife or husband brought out the marriage contract and started reading it to you, what would you think? Would you not begin to think that your relationship is somehow not adequate?

                Would you not say: “Okay then, if you want to relate to each other on the basis of Law, I will do so, but don’t expect any further intimacy from me. We can either have a relationship based on law, or one based on love, but you can’t have it both ways.  I will do everything strictly by the book, but even as I do so, we will lose the rest that our relationship once provided.

                This is what Paul means in Galatians 3:12, when he says that the Law is not of faith. And then he goes on in verses 19-26 to explain to us that the Law led us to the foot of the cross… to the death of our single life and to a new covenant in marriage and once we have entered into that marriage, the Law… (The marriage contract) has finished its work and from now on our relationship will grow by love and not by keeping the contract. But if we become unfaithful, the Law will kick in to condemn us.

                Am I teaching heresy here or am I telling you the truth? Are we in an intimate marriage relationship with Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit, or not? Are we growing in that relationship by bearing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, or do we need to dig the Law back out and return to a legalistic marriage? Is our rest in the Law or in Christ?

                Paul said in Galatians 2: 15-16

                “We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”

                So as we see from marriage, if our rest came as a result of our love relationship, so then our rest cannot come from the Law. The Law has finished its work in us and now we are resting in Christ. This is a fundamental truth about our marriage to Jesus Christ. He does in us what the Law could never do and that includes giving us Rest, for He said in Mt. 11:29 ”Come unto Me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you shall find REST for your souls.”               

                It is therefore our marriage to Jesus that brings us the true rest to which the Law could only point. And it is that rest that we enter in our marriage to Jesus Christ. And so it is within this same context that Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15. But to what was Jesus referring here. Was He referring to the Law of Moses? No, because, if He was, then Paul taught a whole lot of heresy. What Jesus was referring to was the commandment that He gave us in the New Covenant which He came to bring us.

                In John 13: 34, 35 Jesus said: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another; By this all men will know that you are My disciples if you have love one for another.”

                And so what Jesus said here fits perfectly with the fruit of the Spirit which the Holy Spirit will produce in us as seen in Galatians 5:22. So love is truly the fulfillment of the Law, just as a wonderfully intimate marriage is the fulfillment of the marriage contract. And it is not a wishy-washy love, but faithful and steadfast and long suffering and filled with unity and intimacy.

                When we keep digging out the Law, it shows that we have more faith in the Law to make us righteous than in the indwelling Holy Spirit of Christ who alone can transform us into His image. But the Law is not of faith and it will not make for a better marriage. We need to enter into the rest of a marriage relationship that only Christ can give to us for the Law was not written for the righteous man but for sinners… those who have broken their relationship with Jesus as well as those who have never come to Him.

                “Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law.” Gal. 3:21

                In other words, our marriage license is not contrary to our marriage, but neither can if produce a good marriage. Only love can produce a good marriage. So once the marriage Law has led us to the altar, it has finished its work, for now love must take over if we are to have a good marriage. And this is what the book of Galatians is all about.