The Lord is teaching us how to move into His life. For example, time in the Scriptures represents relationship. God does not live in time. He lives in eternity where there is no time. There is no time or distance in the realm of Spirit. The cliché you hear so much, “Well, it wasn’t the timing of the Lord” or “In the timing of the Lord,” is not correct. Man lives on a horizontal time line, God does not.
I Thessalonians 5:1-2 But of
the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
2 For yourselves know
perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
In the past most Christian theologians have put the Day of the Lord in a time slot saying, “One of these days there is going to be a period of time called the Day of the Lord.” Well, the Day of the Lord is when His Lordship is required over you. You may experience the Day of the Lord when others do not; it has to do with your relationship with the Lord.
I Thessalonians 5:3-5 For
when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon
them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye, brethren, are not
in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 Ye are all the children of
light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
What does Paul mean when he says that you are children of light and children of the Day? Light can refer to revelation and it can refer to the Lord Himself for He is the light of the world (John 8:12). Peter, in his epistle, calls the Lord the Daystar that arises in our hearts (II Peter 1:19). We are children of the Day! We are children of the Lord! He is the Day. This speaks of our relationship with Him. A day in the Lord or a day of the Lord is a day of relationship. Seven days make a week. Days are relationships built upon one another. When you move into a new relationship with the Lord, you are moving into a new day.
The first chapter of the Book of Genesis begins, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then the earth became void and darkness covered the deep. The Spirit of the Lord hovered over the deep and on the first day God said, “Let there be light!” On the second day there was a division between the waters above and the waters below. The third day you have vegetation for the first time. On the fourth day you have the sun, moon, and stars. The fifth day is the creation of animals and birds. Then on the sixth day God creates man in His image and likeness. That is not talking about the natural creation of man. If you were already in the image of God, you wouldn’t need to be born again. This is speaking of what He is doing now – the creation of the Body of Christ.
Do you understand prophetic perfect? We are told that God created man in His own image (Genesis 1:27). It is written in past tense, which is really prophetic perfect. The Hebrew does not have past, present, and future as does the English language. Rather, there is perfect and imperfect. If it is perfect, it is past. If it is imperfect, it is not yet completed. Romans 4:17 says, God, who quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were. He calls things that are not as though they are. In other words, a thing that has not yet happened in the natural realm He speaks of it in past tense. So, you see, when it is said in the first chapter of Genesis that God created man in His image and likeness, it is prophetic perfect. It is spoken of as though it is already done.
Isaiah 9:6 is a very good example of prophetic perfect. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. That is obviously speaking of Jesus Christ. It will be hundreds of years before He is born in Bethlehem, but it is spoken as though He is already born. That is prophetic perfect. When God speaks a thing it is as good as done even if it hasn’t appeared yet. And so it is in Genesis where it says that God created man in His image and likeness. This is what He is doing now. He is creating us in His image, and it is spoken of in Psalm 102:16,18: When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory…This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.
The first chapter of Genesis is prophetically speaking of the creation of the Body of Christ in the image and likeness of God. The first day, “Let there be light!” is the light of revelation. It is the relationship you have with the Lord, who is the Light of God’s world, that brings the light of His glory to you. It is the beginning of His creation in you.
When you come to the second day, you are not moving horizontally in time but up to a second day relationship where there is a division between the waters above and the waters below making a firmament. The firmament is the realm of ministry (see Psalm 19:1-4).
The third day is not a different time period either but a higher level of relationship with the Lord. The third day speaks of resurrection. So it is prophetic of the beginnings of resurrection life in the Body of Christ. Each day is a relationship. Notice that the progression is not on a horizontal time line but is seen as vertical movement from one level to another.
When Jacob was running from Esau (Genesis 28), he fell upon a place, used a stone for a pillow, and had a dream. In the dream he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Jesus, in John 1:51, says that the ladder is the Son of man and His messengers are ascending and descending on it, meaning that ministries are ascending in God and then ministering heavenly things on earth. It is vertical movement. True ministry reaches into the heavenly realm of the Spirit and then ministers to those on the earthly realm. Scripture often pictures ministry as vertical movement.
This vertical movement is pictured as days in Genesis chapter one, not one following the other horizontally in time but each one representing a new relationship in the Lord as we grow higher in Him spiritually. Understanding this principle will cause many passages of Scripture to come alive to you. For example, look at II Peter 1:3. According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Notice the past tense – He has given. The provision has already been made. We don’t have to wait until some time in the future for God to give a particular thing to us. He has already given everything needed for life and godliness. The restrictions of time are removed. It is not a matter of waiting until a particular time but a matter of vertical movement, moving up to where the provision is and appropriating it.
Isaiah 66:8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
“Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day?” Or shall the Lord bring forth His life and nature within our earthen nature in one day? It is not a day in time; that day is Christ! In Him we shall be brought forth.
Acts 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
It has been said many times, “Sometime in the future of the last days God is going to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh.” Do you understand what is happening to your flesh nature right now? You say, “God is really dealing with me. He is going after things in my flesh nature that need to be eliminated that He may bring forth His nature in me.” That’s right! He is pouring out His Spirit upon your flesh. It is the last days of relationship; you are coming into maturity.
Hebrews 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great high Priest, that is passed into (lit. “through”) the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
Jesus passed through the heavens, one spirit level after another or, as we could say, one day after another. He emptied Himself and came to earth as a man (Philippians 2:6-9) with all the limitations of man (Hebrews 4:15). His passing through the heavens is not speaking of His resurrection after His crucifixion. It is referring to the different levels of relationship with the Father He passed through in becoming the Son of God. Then in Matthew 3:17, when He reached the age of thirty and was baptized by John the Baptist, God spoke from heaven saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Jesus had passed through the heavens; he had blazed a trail for us that we might pass through the heavens, too. Whither the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. Hebrews 6:20. We move into God’s life through one day-relationship after another, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has made it possible for us by being our Forerunner.
Copyright © 2003 by Henry DuBose