Abide in the Glorified One

Aug 7, 2003

Dear Friend of Mary Craig Ministries,

Andrew Murray, in his book Abide in Christ, says "To testify of the Saviour as the Coming One, we must be abiding in and bearing the image of Him as the Glorified One. Not the correctness of the views we hold, nor the earnestness with which we advocate them, will prepare us for meeting Him, but only the abiding in Him." (Murray, Andrew, Abide in Christ. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1979, page 202)

Today we look for the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ as never before, and yet He is calling us to abide in Him, to dwell in the shelter of the Most High, to live life within the veil, to behold Him in His power and coming. It is a call to grow up into maturity, to live in oneness with the Godhead, and to embrace the truth of Tabernacles.

When we think of Tabernacles, we think of the three Feasts of the Lord connected together, (1) Trumpets, (2) the Day of Atonement, and (3) Tabernacles. These three Fall feasts were observed in the seventh month in Israel’s series of Feasts. By this time of the year, late September to early October, the weather gets cooler. The ingathering of the harvest has the potential of leaving people satisfied and comfortable. God commands the people to rejoice, but He also tells them to go and live in portable tents/booths/shacks for seven or eight days at the place the Lord chooses. What does this mean?

The blowing of trumpets signified more than one thing. It could signify the calling of the assembly, calling the people to move forward in the journeying of the camps, calling the tribes to prepare for war, and calling the people together to celebrate the solemn feasts of the Lord. (Numbers 10.1-10; Joel 2; 1 Corinthians 14.8; Psalm 81; Leviticus 23, e.g.)

On the tenth day of the seventh month there was to be a day of atonement, a holy convocation, a time when the people of Israel were to afflict their souls and offer offerings (Leviticus 23.27ff). Jesus Christ made this full and complete Atonement once for all. It is a finished work. Yet the call to us today is to appropriate fully the work of Christ in our lives.

The seventh month, a Sabbath month, speaks of rest, but on the tenth day of that month, after the blowing of trumpets, came a time when the people were called to a new repentance and humbling of themselves before God in preparation for the Feast of Tabernacles. The number "ten" reminds of trial and sifting (e.g. Exodus 20; Daniel 1.12; Acts 1; Revelation 2.10).

This has been the call to the Christian Church. We are to rejoice in the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us, but then move on to the appropriation of all that Jesus has done for us. We are to seek the impartation of holiness into our lives by the Holy Spirit. We are to seek identification with Christ as we are called to follow His steps (1 Peter 2). We are to believe Jesus as well as believe in Jesus and take Him at His Word, as in Romans 6-8, Galatians 5, and 1 John 3. We are to seek to be "even as He," not in an attitude of lofty pride, but in the humility and meekness of Christ. And how will the saints come into maturity? You can find the answer in Ephesians 4.1-13 and 1 John.

To enter the Holy of Holies required blood sacrifice. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus. We are but worms of the dust, yet the Blood of Jesus gives us access to the Father, to life within the veil. If we fail to honor the Blood of Jesus in our worship, in our hearts, and in our lives, we will soon find ourselves strutting before the Throne of Grace, puffed up in a luciferian self-exaltation of self-righteousness. Remembering just how we got back to the Father and honoring Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, that we are reconciled to God only because of His sacrifice, His Blood, keeps us humble.

Jesus’ Blood alone is the acceptable sacrifice to cleanse and carry away our sins. We have no righteousness in and of ourselves. He alone receives the glory in the process of bringing many sons into glory. Only Jesus makes us worthy. We have worth because of the One who has loved us and loosed us from our sins in His own blood, not because we are so this and that.

The Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the fruit harvest and is a reminder of the 40-year sojourn in the wilderness for God’s people. (Leviticus 23.42, 43) The Israelites were commanded to build booths or rough shelters and cover the roofs with branches as a reminder of the temporary dwellings during their wilderness wanderings. They were to rejoice before God and appear before Him in the place which He chose for the feast to present their offerings.

The booth also reminds celebrants of the bridal canopy and the awaited marriage or union between Messiah and His bride. God wants to live and dwell with His people (1 Corinthians 6.19, 2 Corinthians 6.1). The fruit harvest itself speaks of the final ingathering and the fact that God looks for the fruits of righteousness in His people. Jesus was the first fruits among many (1 Corinthians 15.20-23). He will come again to judge what is living and what is dead, to separate, and to seek fruit in the kingdom of God. We are to pass through the season of repentance and redemption to rest and rejoice in the dwelling place and refuge of the Almighty. (Isaiah 4.4-6)

Many themes emerge in the Feast of Tabernacles. The people of Israel were to take on the first day boughs of goodly trees, the branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook and rejoice before the Lord seven days. The trees used were the willow, palm, olive, pine, and myrtle trees. The palm tree symbolizes victory, the willow weeping, the myrtle joy, and the olive anointing.

The people were to dwell in booths seven days. In Exodus 23.16, it is called the Feast of Ingathering, when the people had gathered in their labors out of the field. The first day and the eighth day were to be a Sabbath, a rest. When Solomon’s Temple was dedicated, this Feast was observed. (1 Kings 8) Solomon asked, "Will God indeed dwell on the earth?" Jesus, the Word, became flesh and dwelt (tabernacled) among us (John 1.14). Tabernacles, therefore, is a feast of unity, a feast of ingathering, a feast of rest, and a feast of glory.

Tabernacles is also a feast of restoration. In Ezra 3.4 we find that the remnant, which had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem, kept the Feasts of the Lord in their season. Their heart was on restoration. They didn’t keep the feast of tabernacles in its fullness because the foundation of the house of the Lord had not been laid, but they observed the pattern as best they could, and God honored their hearts. They gathered together as one man. (Ezra 3.1)

In John 7 we read of Jesus’ connection with the Feast of Tabernacles. His brethren wanted Him to go into Judea so that His disciples could see the works that He was doing. Instead, Jesus remained where He was until His brethren had gone to the Feast and afterward He went up "as it were in secret." (John 7.10) For those who had eyes to see, Jesus appeared to them. It is so today with us. Our life is hidden in Christ with God. Colossians 3.3, 4 says, "Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory." He abides in us and we in Him, and so, Tabernacles also reminds us of this appearing and abiding.

Jesus tabernacled among us. (John 1.14) Jesus is the true tabernacle of God (Hebrews 9.11). He offered Himself to bear the sins of many in the true tabernacle in heaven and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9.28) By His own greater and more perfect tabernacle and by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. His Blood purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9.11-14)

Today believers have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way. We are to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10.19-22) We are to follow Christ and be in subjection unto the Father and live. We are to be holy as God is holy and dwell with God and He with us. We are to rejoice in the keeping of God’s commandments, in Him and His ways.

Where are you abiding? How is Christ appearing to you even now? What is your consciousness of Him? To what extent do you now enjoy the fellowship of the Father’s love and holiness, His loving care and power in your life? What is your expectation and hope?

Jesus taught about abiding in John 15. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be My disciples. (John 15.7, 8)

May He who is full of grace and truth impress His character upon yours.

Abiding in Him,

Mary Craig

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and
It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we
Know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him;
For we shall see Him as He is. And every man
That has this hope in him purifies himself,
Even as He is pure. (1 John 3.2, 3)

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God,
God dwells in him, and he in God. And we have
Known and believed the love that God has to us. God is
Love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and
God in him. Herein is our love made perfect,
That we may have boldness in the day of judgment:
Because as He is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4.15-17)