Invisible Cloud

            Without the understanding of how Paul could reference an entire city, which very possibly had thousands of converts within it, and not write to specific local gatherings, we can’t understand our unity with the invisible cloud of witnesses. We think it is about the here and now, that which is seen and heard. We consider those whom we know and whom we’ve come in contact with. Most days, it doesn’t even pass through our minds to pray for those in India. How, then, can we grasp that in God there is an unbroken continuum and an unbroken link between those who are on this earth and those who are asleep?
            The invisible cloud of witnesses are with us. They are here, along side, next to us. They battle with us. They are unseen, yet still present. And, in fact, they are possibly able to do battle and to aid the saints to an even greater degree now that they are past. They have left the realm of the physical an entered into the spiritual realm. Here they do battle with Satan along side of us. It is almost as if while we’re here on this earth, our characters is what does battle by revealing the glory of God to all of creation, but when we’ve passed, it is not only our characters, but our legacy.
            In this, all I can seem to do is assume. What is safe is that the legacy of those who have passed is continuing to sharpen and fine-tune the characters of those who live on. Can the number of people be counted to get great benefit from reading Spurgeon or Wesley or Augustine or Saint John of the cross? These are people who have long passed on, yet their stories and their lives and their teaching remains and continues to persuade and lead people into deeper relations with God.
            As one Greek philosopher had said, “You can’t enter the same river twice.” The river might have the same name, but it is always flowing. There is new water every second. The Body of Christ is, in the same way, a river with a continual flow. When a righteous person passes, they aren’t gone. They don’t disappear for a while, and then they are resurrected at the end of the age. Their soul must go somewhere. (We must assume.)
            Jesus references the soul in Matthew 10:28: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Now, my question is about the soul. When we pass on, where does our soul go? Obviously our body is in the ground. Yet, our soul isn’t buried there with us.
            Watchman Nee had given most of his life to the understanding of the body, soul, and spirit. Though I disagree with much of what he stated, one thing I do agree with is that the soul is a non-physical part of our bodies that has it’s own characteristics. This is obvious, however, Nee takes it to another level. I highly recommend his book, The Latent Power of the Soul. In this he expresses that the soul has a power, and that power can be released. Other religions have learned how to release this soul power by fastings, meditations, and other forms of self-exhaustion. The point is to try and destroy the flesh so that your body is only a shell. You don’t give yourself to your carnal habits. This produces in you a breach in your flesh so that your soul can be released.
            Though this is highly philosophical, and I’m very skeptical of the way it is worded, I like the idea of the soul having a power in it. There seems to be something that sits right within me when considering that mediums can contact “the dead” (whether those dead are truly those who have passed on or only demons) through their souls. Through soul power, people in India can read minds, levetate, calm animals, and even make objects move without touching them.
            These are real phemonema. There are actual events and people have been recorded as having these abilities. Though we think them of fantasy and nonsense here in America, and most of Europe, they are common realities in some parts of Asia. How does this relate to the invisible cloud of witnesses? It is only to say that the soul might not actually get buried in the ground with our bodies, and that there might indeed be some sort of a power in our souls that can either aid or rebel against the purposes of God.
             I don’t know that there is a way to explain this, nor do I know if there are too many Biblical references. Certainly, I can take verses and stories and apply them, but there aren’t any concrete Scriptures to validate these opinions. I’m willing to admit that.
            Yet, one of the problems that needs to be considered is the problem of eternity and time. What most believe is that when we die, we go out of time and into the eternal realm, where we stand before God in judgment, and He then declares us to be blessed or cursed. This comes from Scriptures such as Revelation 21:11 and Hebrews 9:27.
            Even if we believe that there is some sort of a waiting time for the consummation of all things, we hold to the idea that eternity (whether in Heaven or Hell) is timeless. I must beg the question: what if it isn’t? What if time and eternity are as much one as the fabric of space and time? What if eternity is actually just another age with days, years, decades, and millennia? Lets go even further. What if these days, years, decades, and millennia are actually corespondant to our days, months, years, and decades? What if time for us is time for them?
            We can see that in Daniel 10, the angel comes to Daniel and tells him, “The prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days.” Wait… an angel was resisted, and that somehow caused for him to be post-poned in delievering his message? It was an actual 21 days? Or was it just the angel’s way of speaking in terms that we know? But if it was only a figure of speech, then what did the angel really mean?
            What about Saul and Samuel? Saul contacts a medium, and the medium goes to contact the man in whom Saul wishes to speak… Then Samuel comes and speaks with Saul. There’s only one problem: Samuel is dead. Did God allow Samuel to come back in a specific moment of time, seeing as Samuel was in eternity and timelessness? Or was time still active and Samuel’s appearing was granted by God? The same question can be asked about when Jesus met with Elijah and Moses on the mount of transfiguation? Was Samuel still here and present on this earth, though invisible? And then when Saul needed his counsel, God allowed for this dead man to be made visible again? Can that really be a valid answer? Can we really put our faith in the idea that God would send us back to a specific time in space-time? It might be what is most simple, but it isn’t what is most logical. There are great depths that seem to be revealed in simply asking these questions.
            What about Elisha and the chariots of fire? Obviously, there is indeed an invisible realm that is parallel to this one. There is a spiritual world that fights along side of us. Elisha was able to see an army of chariots of fire. He was able to understand that the Lord’s army stood along side of His people. So, then, when the servant of Elisha was afraid, God openned his eyes, and the servant saw. Was this possibly a revealing of something greater than we know? Was God revealing to this servant, and to us who read the story, of an invisible realm that is always here and now and with us? Was God showing that eternity is not bound by our physical cosmos, but is still within time?
            The invisible cloud is always here and with us. It reminds us of our past. It wars with us for righteousness to prevail. It helps us in our times of need. It speaks words of counsel, and it beckons us to be greater than we are. They who have passed on call us forward to be the end-time people of God. They, together with us, help us to hasten the day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:12). What if those of history continue to war even after life?
            The Greek word describing “the age to come” is aion. It is literally translated as an age or era or period of time. When Jesus refers to the age to come, which is most commonly believed to be Heaven, He is speaking of a new era. It is the dawn of a new time. It isn’t going into timelessness, but instead of timelessness and eternity and heaven crashing into this time based cosmos. I speak only speculatively, for I only know that the invisible cloud fights along side of us in their legacy. The rest is assumption and playing with thoughts and ideas. Yet, what if…
            The Hebrew word is Olam. It speaks of something to respect of “to the distance of the horizon, and then some.” So, basically, olam is as far back in time, or as far forward in time as the eye can see, and then beyond. It is usually translated as eternal, or eternity. In the New Testament, the word for eternal, when speaking of “eternal life,” is aionios. This is different than aion. Aion is simply another time. It is sometimes translated as forever, but it doesn’t mean that, and it certainly doesn’t mean outside of time. The word aionios means without time; from the beginning to the end; forever; never ending; eternity as we know it.
            If you start to study this out, you start to see that Jesus speaks of both an eternity that has no beginning or end, just as God has no beginning or end, and an eternity that is within time, has a specific beginning and end. He speaks of them synonymously. They are happening at the same time, in the same place, and we are a part of both. The idea of olam is only given to God, because He is the only one who is everlasting. Yet, the New Testament seems to blow the Old Testament idea out of the water and say, “Not only are you going to be God’s Bride, but in being God’s Bride, the two really do become one flesh, and now you are granted certain Godlike qualities.”
            Excuse me while I venture into heresy (joke). That which has always been attributed to God only, now we have. Eternity… Timelessness… Beyond this physical cosmos… These are not things that we would consider to be for people, but only for God. Yet, Christ seems to invite us into that realm, here and now, and in being a part of that here and now, we also get to see and slight understanding of what He might also be speaking of when He talks of an age to come (aion). Timelessness in the bounds of time. Eternity within the bounds of that which is chthonic. Can you imagine the immensity of such a statement? Is there anyone who could possibly imagine what God really is trying to say? It is beyond the grasp of the human mind, and that is why we’re left to speculation here. That is why we can’t give definitive answers.
            We are in a continuum of time. That which had happened in times past, which we most likely don’t even know of, is at war with that that is happening now. We are in touch with the saints that have gone on before us, and they are pushing and speaking to us to continue their work for the glory of God. At the same time, there is a demonic continuum of the glory of man (which is a glory of Satan). Both are at war with each other, and we are the generation to choose which river to stand in. When we aren’t willing to stand with those who were martyred and opposed within our own localities and nations, we cannot truly apprehend the apostolic perception and authority that is rightfully ours. In tapping into this kind of awareness and this kind of reality, we open ourselves to those who are around us to hate us with the same ferocity that they hated the saints of the past. It most likely isn’t that the people who oppose Christ are going to war against us in the heavenly realms, but that as this present age continues, Satan wars. It makes more sense theologically to expect Satan to war alone with his unholy angels than for those who die in opposition to Christ to continue in their opposition to Christ in the heavenly realms. That which they have decided here and now they will continue to decide in eternity, therefore love wins by giving them exactly what they have always asked for: hellfire.
            Now, without the understanding of this Church militant and Church triumphant (Karl Barth’s wording), we miss out on our purposes in God, and our place within the Body of Christ. It is for the lack of this understanding of being One Body (both between present, past, and future, and between Israel and Gentile) that both Jews and Christians alike suffer an anemic religion that provides nothing but successions of Sundays and programs and events. They both provide morale, but neither provides the glory of God (John 17:21). The failure to see the Lord in His own people will lead to Him saying, “Depart from me, you cursed ones, unto everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” Matthew 25:41. And the men and women will reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you,” Matthew 25:44, because they could not see the interconnection between the Lord and His people Israel, nor could they see the connection between the Lord and His people past and present.
            For, our being One Body is both past and present, but also Church and Israel. We are interconnected. We are both one, because we both have the same Head. Failing to see this is failing to see everything with right perspective. We can play our games, clap our hands and sing our songs, and enjoy our fellowships and gatherings, but without the weight and significance of the total interconnection of all of the Body of Christ, we fall short of the glory of God. We are left bankrupt, because it leaves us to ourselves.
            I’ve already gone through this, but it needs to be restated for the idea of One Body, One Spirit. We are indeed one Body. It is the idea of agape love that would view people as already forgiven that compels us to view Israel through the eyes of they have already been forgiven. Though they are not, we love them and accept them as though they are. It’s not easy, but neither is anything in the Christian faith. It is the power of Christ in us, the hope of glory, that strengthens and enables us to succeed in all things that God has given us to subdue.
            The Christianity of God is based upon all these things. All that has been written, all that has been said, is summed up in this last chapter. We are one. We are beautiful. We are perfect. Together with the saints of old, we are the Bride of Christ. This is how we act. This is how we display ourselves. These chapters are only an introduction to authenticity. So, then, go and find the deeper things of God. Learn all that you can learn, and have no fear, for if God be for us, then who can be against us? In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, may God bless us all, and especially those who are truly searching, amen.
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