PART  VI  –     Transitional Aspects of the Lamp-Stand Model

Subpart E  –  Messiah-Body; Trumpets unto the Day of Atonement

Article 4  –  Times & Seasons

Section (b)   –  SEASONS OF THE TIMELESS & ETERNAL

By Daniel Irving

i.    Redemption as Ever Turning & Returning to God’s Holy & Eternal Person

ii.   Reprobation as the Rejection from God’s Holy and Eternal Person

iii.  The Inadequacy of Feast Day Symbolism in View of God’s Eternal Nature   

Section (b)  –  SEASONS OF THE TIMELESS & ETERNAL 

i.  Redemption as Ever Turning & Returning to God’s Holy & Eternal Person

Men typically enter into presumption when they begin to focus upon the when of God’s work.  While the work of man operates within principles of natural time,[1] God’s work transcends natural time.  Scripture does not subordinate God’s work to principles of natural time, and, therefore, neither should we.  Peter expressly warned us against bringing natural time into our view of redemption.  When writing on the subject of salvation, Peter relates:

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing,  that one day is with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.     II Pet. 3:8

Peter’s context is the fulfillment of the work of God in the salvation of some, and in the destruction of all things.  But Peter cautions us that our own apprehension of Time is apt to confuse us, given that God’s nature, which is the very substance of salvation, is eternal.  When we begin to view the plan of redemption in futuristic and human terms, we begin stray from its meaning and present-moment vitality.  To abide in Christ, is to grow in this knowledge of God’s eternal nature, which is holiness.  Christ is that eternal dwelling, of which Moses speaks.  In fact, in cautioning the Church on this issue, Peter is actually using the prayer of Moses found in the 90^th Psalm, which begins:

Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.          Ps. 90:1

This timeless nature of God belongs to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Who said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.”[2]

When Peter explains the last-days error of the ungodly, he draws from this prayer of Moses, which states that God’s people have a “dwelling place in all generations.”  This dwelling place, is Jesus Christ.  We have an eternal dwelling place in Jesus Christ because in Him, God’s eternal nature dwelt among us, and sacrificed Himself for us.  Therefore the next verse of the prayer declares Christ’s eternal nature:

even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.                                                               Ps. 90:2

Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega.[3]  He is not waiting to become the Omega.  As all things are finished in Him, so is His work an eternal work.  His work began before the foundation of the world, and it was finished as well before the foundation of the world.[4]  As the purpose of His coming was to save men, this makes His presence among men through the agency of His Spirit, a vital matter.  For it is through His Spirit, he draws men back to their Creator. The Spirit of Christ beckons the sinner to “return.” Therefore, in the next verse, Moses prophesies of the work of Christ, saying:

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, “Return ye children of men.”                                                                                      Ps. 90:3

The Spirit of Christ beckons men to return to their Creator, through their Redeemer, the One True and Living God.  Therefore, His salvation is not one that operates despite men heading in the way of destruction.  No.  But His salvation operates through the Spirit of prophecy beckoning the sinner  “return.”  The salvation is His eternal Word, calling the elect to “return” unto Him.  And this is true not only for the most depraved sinner, but for the most perfected of saints as well.  For all have fallen short of the glory of God, and there is no way home but the Cross.  Therefore all must be brought through the means of that prophetic call of the Spirit of God which says “Return.”  This is true for the first instant of Faith, and it is true for each moment of redemption’s walk.  And this is why God is married to the backslider, and why His eternal Word is:

Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:       Jer. 3:14

And what is the means through which these may “return,” and through which they may walk in God’s way?  The answer, is through the means of the atonement which He has provided, continually justifying the heart that turns to Him.  Whether first awakened to Faith, or having walked many roads with the Lord before, all who come, come at the call of His eternal Word to “return.” They return to their Maker, through their Redeemer.  The means is through His eternal Spirit.  Repentance is an eternal principle, because it is paid for by the Everlasting One, effectuated by the Everlasting One, and forever maintained by the Everlasting One.  God’s salvation is even Himself.  And therefore God’s salvation is eternal, as derived from His holy nature.  Therefore the same principle of eternity that is the nature of God, applies to the nature of redemption.  Thus Moses follows up his explanation of salvation as the purpose of God, with statement, utilized by Peter:

For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.                                               Ps. 90:4

This is precisely what Peter is saying in his second epistle; ie. the work of God in redeeming men is innate to the timeless nature of God.  They are not saved in the conventional way we suppose.  Therefore the work of God in the affairs of men and the eventual destruction of the rebellious is not to be viewed as a far-off and futuristic event.  If “now is the day of salvation,”[5] then “now is the day of its loss,” if not apprehended through Faith.  And if the fruit of eternal life may be experienced today, then the fruit of its loss may be experienced today.  Paul did not speak of God’s wrath in purely futuristic terms when he spoke of those rejecting Christ.  He wrote, “for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.”[6]  God’s love is as true and efficacious today as tomorrow.  But so is His wrath.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;   Rom 1:18 

What operates within the realm of Time is the revelation of these things with respect to ourselves; for we reside in temporal bodies, subject to the progression of natural time.

ii.  Reprobation as the Rejection from God’s Holy and Eternal Nature

Further, Peter foretells that it will be the passage of ordinary Time, which facilitates the rise of scoffers, who in their carnal thinking in terms of salvation, will reject the Gospel entirely.  He writes:

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.                                    II Peter 3:3-4

The sign of the end-time apostasy is when men, even as a matter of profession, give up striving for the soul’s sanctification, and dispense with inhibition in respect to the carnal appetites.  Their unbelief will assume new dimensions once the revelation of Christ to their inner-man has been rejected.  The outward sign of their reprobation will be the open exhibition of their passions and cravings.  Earthly lust and indulgence is therefore the sign of spiritual reprobation, that principle of which Peter speaks.

Reprobation operates the more heatedly as the presence of God grows in the earth absent the response of repentance, which characterizes the elect.  This is why unbelief is such an horrific condition.  While their works constitute an implied denial of Christ, their inner thoughts will spill over as blasphemy and an express rejection of Christ as God’s presence draws closer.  While their mouth is even denying Christ, their apostasy will itself be fulfilling God’s purposes in their destruction.

The passage of natural time will exacerbate what is their more basic error, which  lies in respect to their non-apprehension of the eternal Personhood and work of God.  Not discerning the eternal nature of holiness, they did not discern the eternal nature of His works.  Not discerning the eternal nature of His works, the revelation they shall receive, shall be that of their own temporality.  Thus they shall be joined to that spirit fallen from heaven, who suddenly perceives as well, that “he has but a short time.”  The reprobate are destroyed by the revelation of their own temporality; a revelation which will drive them ever deeper into the quest to satiate carnal nature, giving feast to the world of the demonic.

iii.  The Inadequacy of Feast Day Symbolism in View of God’s Eternal Nature  

We are in the fourth article of the Subpart dealing with the transitional relationship between the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement, entitled, Times and Seasons.  This seems a particularly appropriate place to address this principle of spiritual seasons, as it is generally subsequent to our response to the Gospel (ie. that having representation in the feast of Trumpets) and our experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, when we become particularly sensitive of the reality of spiritual seasons in Israel.  These seasons find structure in the Hebrew calendar established under Moses, and are represented in the Levitical Feasts of the Lord.  These feasts were celebrations appointed for their particular seasons.

These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.          Lev. 23:4 

Thus here is where the Law provides explanation for the seasons, or they would remain vague theological concepts.  Through the Mosaic ordinances, we are provided with explanations, symbols, forms, and rituals, which serve to give a semblance of shape and form to the formless realm of spiritual things.  Naturally, they are insufficient for the task.  Yet they are nonetheless useful in gaining insight and learning doctrine.  The Mosaic feast days describe God’s plan of redemption for Israel, which is the Church.[7]  In their mean form, as literal days of the year, the feasts were to be kept by Israel after the flesh, ie. by natural born Jews.  But in their heavenly form, they are to be kept by Israel after the Spirit.

If we understand that redemption, is not a principle which lends itself to the human concept of Time, then we might perceive that neither do these Levitical feast days lend themselves to natural time.  While, in the natural and historical sense, they were used to mark dates and times on the literal Hebrew calendar, the true meaning of the feasts are spiritual.

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year  continually make the comers thereunto perfect.     Heb. 10:1

Just as the sacrifices of the Law have no real spiritual efficacy, so neither do ordinances or rites of the Law have any spiritual efficacy.  They serve only to provide a shadow, ie. a conceptual representation of something that cannot be seen. Its priests and Levites were those . . .

Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things,                                                                                    Heb. 8:5 

And what did they serve as a symbolic representation of?  Spiritual truths relating to the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ; things pertaining to the invisible realm of heaven.  The Law, and therefore the feast days which are a part thereof, are earthly representations of spiritual things.  Therefore they are also temporal representations of eternal things; the substance being the eternal.

  Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respected to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day – things which are of a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.                                                                                      Col. 2:16-17 (NASV)

Therefore, we understand that crude, material representations of God’s plan of redemption are insufficient.  They are void of substance, except as objects of contemplation, useful only as tools to glean natural insights.  The true matter of spiritual things cannot be represented.  Whereas God’s nature is eternal, so is redemption made a part and substance with God’s eternal nature.  If redemption is an eternal and timeless concept, then what can it mean to break a timeless concept into parts for thoughtful examination?  Each part is itself infinite.  It cannot be done.  This itself is an insight to hold when considering the lamp-stand model.