TEF9 - Authority Revealed by Daniel Yordy

 from Eyes of Fire Series

© Daniel Yordy 2013
The original of this post with all relevant audio formats and downloadable PDF are to be found here.

My goal is to explore the prophetic word of Christ revealed now through us as shown by the vision John saw on Patmos. Yet I continue to find the need to lay a series of foundations before we can discover the full scope and meaning of that prophetic word.

The most essential reality that fills and surrounds, undergirds and uplifts our speaking this Word of Christ IS the Lamb in one hand and the Lamb in the other. Never is any speaking of Christ found anywhere else. We do not speak Christ “in order to.” We speak Christ only “because of” and “inside of” and “out from.” It is that word of Christ which we speak, then, that accomplishes all the will of God. That Word is able to Prove God's will because we speak it. It's called faith; it's called faithful and true.

Yet our speaking of Christ inside the Lamb is bold. It is very bold, as bold as Christ Himself.

Therefore, in order for us to see the truth as it is, I will speak boldly.

The end of the age is in our hands, in the hands of the sons of God, that is, this transition between two ages during which the birthing of the age to come upon this planet causes all the folly, the insanity of man to gasp one last time and then to cease.

Everything, from here on out, is coming through us.

That's why those who begin to speak Christ hit a wall of accusation greater than they have ever known, a wall that they discover has much less power than the condemnation under which they once lived. That's why the dragon stands before the woman to devour her child. It's his greatest mistake in a lifetime of oh-so-great mistakes.

If he were not so arrogant, he would not be so quickly defeated.

Now, those who knew Norman Grubb and who teach union with Christ, also say that there is no more battle. What they say is true, inside the arena of which they are speaking. The problem is simply this; they should say there is NO civil war. We are at peace with God; there is no battle inside of us.

But God has built the universe around the verb, “to conquer.” That is, “to overcome.”

We know Christ as the meek and lowly One; we know Christ as the victorious Warrior. Christ is fully both in us; not half and half, but all and all.

I am not so much a fighter as an explorer. The explorer is part of the victorious Warrior, His gift inside of me. Give me a map and a path or road ahead, and I am in heaven. I am obsessed with the joy of seeing what's in that next valley, drawing peace from that next little waterfall in the stream, gazing in reflection from the next ridge top, leaping down the mountainside like a deer. The next bend in the road is always brand-new to me.

Here now, let's not get side-tracked.

The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ.

The primary word in Revelation is apocalupsis. The purpose for everything is Christ, the Word God is always speaking, revealed in weakness through many, revealed in fullness in His body. The second word of Revelation is martureo, witness or testimony, the same word of Christ spoken by many. Martureo means the prophetic word of Christ which we speak.

Now, Paul defines that word in this way: “calling those things that “be not” as though they are.” That word does have a counterpart, also from Paul, “calling those things that “be” as though they are not.” The vision of John shows us both sides of that testimony. The Kingdom is, though no one sees it. The world system of this present age is not, though everyone thinks it's a big deal.

The Revelation (apokalupsis) of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, who bore witness (a form of martureo) to the word of God, and to the testimony (another form of martureo) of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. Revelation 1:1-2

One unveiling; two witnesses.

Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen. Revelation 1:7

Let me deal briefly with the question of Jesus' body.

Most Christians are convinced that the term “the body of Christ” is a metaphor only, a figure of speech, that we are not really His body. Now, consider the short-circuiting their image of Christ causes. They want two things: they want a Jesus whom they can see face to face, and they want Him to appear to all in that way. So if Jesus appears to me in His own physical body, the body that ascended with Him into the sky, and if He appears to my brother in China, in Australia, in Sweden at the same time, then what did He do? Does He produce for Himself many physical bodies, clones of that original one?

Some might say that His resurrected body is of Spirit substance and can thus duplicate itself in that strange way. That idea falls apart on two accounts. One is, there is no purpose in God giving Jesus or us a second spiritual body, we already have a first, our spirit, (as well as the Spirit of Christ) and our spirit is not our physical body (anymore than Jesus' Spirit is His body). Our spirit already walks in heaven; we need an earthly body to inherit the earth. When God swallows up our present body with life it will continue as a physical body, though on a higher plane. Second, angels have spirit bodies, and they cannot clone themselves; they cannot appear in many places at once.

But that argument beggars the point. Why would Jesus appear in a cloned multiplication of the body He walked in after His resurrection? Why would we, whom He died to win for Himself, whom He has become, why would our bodies be unacceptable to Him? Why would He prefer clones?

The concept of Jesus appearing in one physical body only requires that He can be seen face to face by only one person at a time. Get in line, brother, your fifteen-minute appointment is in 200 years.

So, if He is coming in the same physical body in which He ascended up into the sky, then every eye cannot see Him in a literal sense, unless He clones that particular body. But it seems so strange to me that He would so give Himself to win a body for God, the Cup turning to Joy inside of Him, and then completely bypass that body for this occasion, preferring the odd practice of divine, but sterile cloning, seed that did not bring forth life.

On the other hand, there are those who believe that Jesus will never appear in the physical body that ascended with Him before the eyes of His disciples, they are convinced that body is gone forever, and that we are the only body in which He will ever appear. I don't know if that is true, either.

Let me give the definitive answer to this question. It is, in fact, the only answer. “I don't know.”

But much of this is intellectual curiosity only and not the truth of the revelation of Christ. Look again at Revelation 1:7. Notice the reaction of everyone to what they see: “will mourn.” Here is the meaning of the Greek word. It is the same as in Matthew 24.

kóptō – properly, to cut; be incised (struck), resulting in severance ("being cut off"); (figuratively) to mourn (lament) with a cutting sense of personal, tragic loss, i.e. "cut to the heart." http://biblesuite.com/greek/2875.htm

Most believe that this response is because all the multitudes of those who see Him know that He is about to kill them first and torture them after. They believe that Jesus is a partisan and tribal military commander, and that His war is against all those funny-looking pagans who don't take a bath.

Jesus is Savior and Salvation; He is filled with grace and truth. He has already reconciled all to God; He has already propitiated all sin, that is, brought all human sin into the Mercy Seat inside the heart of God where He caused it all to cease. Sin is not the issue; Christ, the Word God speaks is.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Colossians 1:27-28

Those who see themselves on the outside of Jesus, looking at Him, will mourn. Those who see themselves on the inside of Jesus looking out will sing with all joy. This is not an us-versus-them; it is for the sakes of those who mourn that we rejoice. God will send us to them, each in his time until all creation is singing once again, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15 and in Philippians 2.

But those who will not put their sin into Jesus must bear sin themselves in the light of a Holy God. And those who will not put their self into Jesus must bear self themselves in the light of a Holy God. It is a place of judgment. It is a time of mourning.

Yes, judgment produces a measure of outward pain. But that pain does not come from God, rather, it comes from the will of the creature who prefers bearing his own self in this horrific mixture of self-love and self-loathing, rather than losing himself inside another, inside of the One who loves him and gave Himself for him.

Holding tightly to self-love/self-loathing when the lights turn on is the source of all mournful pain. All anyone needs to do is simply say, “Here I am, God. Here!” And all difficulty is forever gone.

In complete contrast, we give thanks for all things. We get excited when everything goes wrong. We count it all joy when we are hit with all kinds of strange adversity. Not because we are weird, but because we are so enmeshed in the God who fills us full that all we can see or know is His heart of grief and tender compassion reaching out to all.

Do you see how important it is for us never to say or write things about ourselves that are contrary to Christ Himself, our only life, expressing Himself through our humanity? Whenever our words place ourselves as anywhere but utterly part of the Lord Jesus Himself, then we are not where we must be.

So let me share the true reality of Jesus' body. Let's say that Jesus does show up in a solitary, individual body, the one that came out of the grave. I have no problem with that; I will never get in any line to see Him. Oh no. I am there, all of me, entirely, inside of Him looking out of that same body with Him. You will never find me anywhere else.

This is why I love to write. This question has been vague to me for all the 36 years I have pondered it. Now my eye is single. I know where I am, and that's the only thing that matters to me. And I also know that in His incredible favor to me, God has granted me all whom I love. He has given me you in that same place.

Now, it is not my purpose to provide a verse by verse explanation of my present understanding of Revelation. Such an exercise has no profit in itself. I will not say anything about any verse unless I have a present word of Christ to share with you, a word that enables you to find yourself utterly in Him. Thus I do draw much life from John's vision, while ignoring many things in it. When God wants us to know those things, we will know them. Yet I am always surprised when a word that our fellow believers apply carnally opens itself to us as a key understanding inside the revelation of Jesus Christ. The problem has always been our wrong seeing, “at” instead of “ out from.”

But look at verse 12: Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands. . . John turned to the voice and saw the church. Then, he says clearly that the One who was “like” the Son of Man was IN that very church. The next few lines are a description of Christ's body, the church, filled full with Him.

Then verse 19 is important to us. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.

First, I was presented with a curious teaching, years ago, in a Pentecostal church, that John “made up” all the things in his vision because that was the only way he could smuggle his thoughts to the churches of Asia past the guards on Patmos. Therefore, he used a “code language” that would be known only by them. That teaching bothered me, so I wrote out every verse in Revelation in which John mentions himself. “I saw. I heard. I saw. The angel said to me.” So if this teaching were true, then John lied all the way through.

John saw a vision, a seeing of spirit. The seeing in any vision is both symbolic and real. Let me explain.

When I married my wife, I placed a ring upon her finger. That ring is real gold and a real diamond. It is a real ring. Yet, of truth, I never really cared much for rings on fingers. I do like some jewelry, yes, but rings never did anything for me. In complete contrast, that ring is also a symbol, and as a symbol it is far more important to me than as a ring. The ring, of course, symbolizes our marriage and our love.

Thus, to say that something John saw is a symbol of something else is not to negate what he saw. Yet, some things that he saw are clearly symbolic only, with no literal substance. There will be no seven-headed leopard crawling up out of the ocean and taking control of the world, as some actually teach.

There are many things heavenly that are of literal spirit-substance, just as earthly things have physical substance.

John was instructed to write down exactly what he saw and heard. That seeing was of two things: things that are and things that will be. In reality, the things that are and the things that will be are the same. Every truth of Christ is fulfilled in every believer's life in every generation of the church. Yet God requires that all things come to their fullness in the fullness of times. Thus all things that are, will also be, if that doesn't sound too philosophical.

One more thing before we come back to the authority of Christ now released through the sons of God.

There are quite a number of fee-fie-fo-fum “millenial” dispensations of the revelatory osmotic interpretations of the book of Revelation. I am so uninterested in every single one of them. My God, does Jesus not say, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” which He sent (apostled) to us? This vision is Christ, and Christ is all that I am.

Actually, it is clear to me that those who write such arguments have not been immersed into the Holy Spirit. Thus their spirits are not released to know heavenly realities; they cannot comprehend a Spirit-Word; they cannot “see” that Christ is their life.

I have read carefully the argument that claims John wrote in the AD 60's, and that the Beast was Nero, that everything in this vision happened in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and that the entire book has absolutely nothing to do with us or this planet or anything Christ would be now in us in our day. I require evidence of some sort; I saw none in that argument, nor any reasonable or cogent explanation. These people are convinced that the vision John saw is utterly divorced from his gospel. I am convinced that Christ is revealed in the flesh, in the dirt and physicality of this world. And Nero was a tin-pot nobody; the only reason we know anything about him is that he just happened to be Caesar when Peter and Paul were executed. The real persecution of the church happened in the AD 90's under Domitian.

Why do people not want to know the living Christ who fills them full with all of His glory? Actually, it is clear to me that those who write such arguments have not been immersed into the Holy Spirit. Thus their spirits are not released to know heavenly realities; they cannot comprehend a Spirit-Word; they cannot “see” that Christ is their life. All they are able to do is hash over intellectual thoughts in the light of limited earthly thinking. And every intellectual argument not recognizing our very limited knowledge and not seeking a clear view of rigorous evidence is just fantasy. I much prefer Tolkein.

Now, the authority of Christ moving through the sons of God is unveiled in large measure through the letters to the seven churches and the seven words of overcoming found in chapters 2 and 3. But that subject is its own letter. Here, I will set the larger context of that authority.

First, consider Revelation 4:1: After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.”

The operative word is “after,” or the Greek word, meta, found twice in this verse. Strong's Concordance says that meta is not strictly a chronology term, that is, referring to the future. Rather it is a cause-effect term. “After these things” or “after this” has this specific meaning, “this is the result, the outcome, the necessary effect of that.” The authority of Christ in His church, an authority pictured for us from Revelation 1:1 to 3:22, has direct and specific results as that authority impacts the realms of confused and separated humanity caught in the web of deceit called the world. Thus everything that follows speaks of the results coming out of the authority of Christ released in all fullness through the sons of God.

Wow! This is really cool. I've never had the key to understand the book of Revelation before, not in this way – as a whole. That key is our union with Christ, the Word God is always speaking, that we are now the testimony of that very word in the earth, revealed personally as us. Part of that key is the full marriage between John's gospel, his epistles, and his vision, along with the gospel according to Paul. Now it seems that every phrase just lays itself open to Christ made personal in us.

Which means we go back to Chapter 1 and to the authority of Christ. But first!

In that day you shall know

that I am in the Father

 and you in Me and I in you. John 14:20

This Word is absolute; it stands above all. Any word in the Bible that we do not draw into and draw out from this WORD serves only as a ministry of death. This Word in John 14:20 is the be-all and the end-all. It is the sum of all other things and yet greater than the whole. Those who live absolutely and only inside all the reality of this Word know God and His revelation, no one else. Never, not in a trillion years, will we not be ever-expanding our knowledge in present experience of the reality of this Word in all that it means. The discoveries will never end. The expansion is ceaseless. The depths are unreachable.

Yet He is real and personal and true, our Friend and our life. The Lord Jesus Christ reveals all that He is as us.

There is nothing of Jesus that is not in the Father. There is nothing of me that is not in the Lord Jesus, and there is nothing of the Lord Jesus Christ that is not in me, as me, and revealed in all glory through me.

It is impossible for anyone to know the first thing about John's vision without John 14:20 being ALL that they know. If John 14:20 is not ALL that you know, the sum total of your present life, then you have one job to do, and it is not studying John's vision. Your entire concern is to plant yourself upon the floor on your face before God, holding John 14:20 ever before His face until He makes it your very and only life. It's okay to include Luke 1:38 as well. “Look at me God! I belong to you!!! Let every Word You speak be fulfilled in all fulness in me.”

John 14:20 is the tree of life. You ain't going nowhere without its fruit being you.

Now we can return to John's vision, a vision that comes only out from John 14:20.

Authority. Let's bring in one of the central words of authority – Revelation 12:10. Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.

This is NKJV and not translated correctly. It is “Now salvation, and power (dunamos) and the kingdom of our God, and the authority (exousia) of His Christ have come. . .”

The power is God, the authority is Christ. Jesus speaks; God does. The authority of Jesus' words commands the power inherent inside of God.

We speak Christ; God transforms the universe.

God is sovereign and absolute. The fact that He is also meek and lowly of heart does not mean that any iota of anything ever escapes His purposing. The first thing we must know about this God who fills us full is that He is entirely out of control, that we are seized in the unbreakable grip of a Mighty and uncontrollable God. Yet this terrible Being never violates our person, but wins our hearts by kindness and by love.

Now we are ready to look at Christ in His Body.

Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. Revelation 1:12-18

Now, we could “interpret the symbols,” that gold is the nature of God, that white as snow means pure and holy, that brass symbolizes judgment, that the word is a two-edged sword, and so on, and I have heard such layout presented in the past. The problem is those are all mental ideas, they are not Spirit-life that opens our hearts to the Glorious One who fills us full.

“I wear a garment down to the feet; a golden band encircles my chest. My head and hair are white like wool, white as the snow. My eyes are a flame of fire; my feet like fine brass, refined in a furnace. My voice is the sound of many waters. In my right hand are seven stars; out of my mouth goes a sharp two-edged sword. My face is like the sun shining in its strength. I am the design and the fulfillment. I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore. I possess the keys of Hades; I possess the keys of Death.”

Only Christ filling your heart can make these words alive and personal as you. Hold them before Him in His Spirit filling you full. His reality will flow through your mind and heart as tears and rivers of joy.

He is alive, you know; He lives in you.

Here's how it works, holding words like these as a Spirit Word inside your heart. You're tootling along, minding your own business, thinking about this or that, when all of a sudden one phrase from something like this fits into your thoughts in the light of the Holy Ghost and suddenly you see and know, and you either laugh with all joy or you fall on your face and worship God – or both at the same time.

~~~

Okay, I did that, I had a good night's sleep after writing these pages. This next morning, I have read again what I wrote yesterday. As I read, I understood what I wrote, that the operative word from Revelation 1:1 to Revelation 3:22 is “authority” – notice that the throne of God is the destination. Inside this explanation of the authority of Christ lies the action verb of the whole Bible and of the great story of God – overcome, repeated seven times.

What I did not see at all yesterday, is now life in me today.

First, leaf through any book analyzing the book of Revelation and see where they place this word “overcome.” Do they place it above all, as the action of God through us? Do they see it fulfilled in all fulness BEFORE they expand on anything else in the vision? Do they see everything else as the direct result, meta, caused by the fulfillment of this word “overcome,” seated in the throne of God?

You see, most teachings I have heard or read on Revelation abandon the overcomer in the throne at the end of Chapter 3 and see a sterile throne in Chapter 4, filled only with an Augustinian God. How can we write about God unless we know Him as the One who fills us full with all of His fullness? We certainly don't know a lot about Him, but this is the only place we must start.

Next, I have never before seen the seven places of overcoming in the churches of Christ as coming out from the authority of Christ in His church shown to us in Chapter 1. The reason I have never seen nor heard such a thing is that we never knew our full union with Christ. I saw in the past that John was describing “the body of Christ” in Chapter 1, but I saw both that glorified body and the “overcomers” as something far away, far ahead, far above, something I, in my weakness and gross inability, could only wish for, but never really produce. And so all I have ever seen or known is to chop these chapters apart. Chapter 1 is considered by itself. Chapters 2 & 3 by themselves, and Chapters 4-6, completely separate and unrelated.

Let's pull it all together into one story, Christ, revealed personally as us.

One word (among many) in Revelation 1:8 establishes authority as the theme, and that is the Greek word, pantokrator, translated, “Almighty.” Here is Strong's definition: pantokrátōr (from 3956 /pás, "all" and 2902 /kratéō, "prevail") – properly, almighty; unrestricted power exercising absolute dominion.

Unrestricted power exercising absolute dominion.

Here is where we place our forehead upon the ground in utter silence before Him. Yet He Himself puts His hand upon us and lifts us up to walk side by side as His equal, carried utterly inside of Him.

Now, the full unveiling of “to overcome” is an exercise, a process, the conflict and tension of the entire story and of all the history of heaven/earth. Yet the Spirit of God shows us clearly the picture of Christ revealed in His church and we in Him as the seeing we must have to walk through these seven realities of overcome.

Let's look out, again and always, from those eyes of fire.

“I wear a garment down to the feet; a golden band encircles my chest. My head and hair are white like wool, white as the snow. My eyes are a flame of fire; my feet like fine brass, refined in a furnace. My voice is the sound of many waters. In my right hand are seven stars; out of my mouth goes a sharp two-edged sword. My face is like the sun shining in its strength. I am the design and the fulfillment. I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore. I possess the keys of Hades; I possess the keys of Death.”

The garment of authority is the garment of the High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek. The golden band refers directly to “unrestricted power exercising absolute dominion.” That band of God encircles the chest, that is, the heart, our shared heart with Christ, the very throne of the Almighty.

Head and hair speak of wisdom anointed by the wisdom of God; that wisdom is pure and pure. Jesus said, “As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” I will not develop it here, but it is so clear that this vision of the authority of Christ revealed in His church can be understood only in light of Jesus' soliloquies in John Chapters 5 & 12 and elsewhere. One also needs to bring in Hebrews 7. I will not do that at this time.

Our eyes are a flame of fire means we see God alone, out from the eyes of Love, which is that consuming fire. Our feet like fine brass, purified in a furnace, means we walk as Jesus walked, holy and pure, tried and tested, faithful and true. Our voice of many waters is the words of authority, of Christ our life, coming through many in weakness. Seven stars in our right hand also speaks of authority, and the two-edged sword we speak is that two-sided prophetic word of Christ, calling those things that be not (the victory of Christ revealed in human flesh) as they are, and calling those things that be (the delusions of the world and human self-will) as they are not.

And our face, shining like the sun in its strength is found for us in 2 Corinthians 3:18-4:6

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. . . But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who. . . do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. . . For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

We are His face; we are the light of His glory shining out from earthen vessels.

“I am the design and the fulfillment. I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore. I possess the keys of Hades; I possess the keys of Death.”

When Jesus is called “the first and the last,” it doesn't mean that He is still hanging around, all alone, after everyone else has departed the scene. Rather the two Greek words used denote the pattern, the blueprint from which all things come, and the fulfillment, the completed House into which the Father Himself comes to reside. Whatever He is, He is all of that in all of us. “I am he who lives and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore,” is Galatians 2:20, the only entrance to the tree of life.

I have the keys of Hades and of Death. Revelation 1:18

In these words are expressed terrible and glorious things beyond all measure or comprehension. I can begin to speak of them ONLY by making it very clear that I have no idea what I am talking about. But I want to know Him in all that He is revealed now upon this earth through me. Thus I would stand firmly in Him through all that is terrible and holy and entirely beyond us.

First, let's bring in the close companion verses from Paul.

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:54-57

But second, let's pull back into our story. We must know where this fits. Here is the line from my last letter.

(God's story) begins as a Word and then the accuser. Then comes the Word in weakness, then comes the accuser again. Then comes the Lamb in sorrow, then the Word in many, the accuser's last gasp, and the Lamb again, in Glory.

There is a terrible factor that comes into the story with the accuser. The accuser does not “cause” this factor, it is the result entirely of the decision of Adam.

That factor is CONSEQUENCE.

Death and Hades are two sides of the same thing; they are the horrific consequence of human folly.

Death is the divorce of heaven and earth, the ripping apart of spirit and body. Death is more awful than we can comprehend. Death is a horrific, unnatural, and evil tearing apart, the end result of the horror of any creature pulling its mind and will away from, separated from, God.

Hades is not a geographical location, but a state of being. It is both those humans who have neither spirits nor bodies, but are whispering souls lost in the darkness, along with the angels who left their place in God, who are also wandering and bound by darkness.

Hades is the wounded of death.

Here I must stop. I am not about to dance up and down proclaiming that I know even the first thing about the reality of these words: “I possess the keys of Hades; I possess the keys of Death.” Yet I desire to know, for I desire to know Him revealed through me.

But we cannot know the terror of His victory unless we first place it entirely inside the drama and pathos of His story.

Thus, before we can continue on exploring the seven realities of overcoming, I must take the layout I wrote in the last letter, of a Word to a Lamb, and make the best attempt yet to present before both you and me, in one chapter, the great story of God.

It is in His Story alone that all things find their place.

KOG11 - Salvation Revealed by Daniel Yordy

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:3-5 

A friend posted my Augustine article on Facebook. In the discussion, someone with whom he is conversant raised a question concerning my statement that nowhere does the New Testament connect "salvation" with a place called heaven to which we go after we die. The brother asked, "What about 1 Peter 1:4?"
I operate under the assumption that I am deceived. I realize that is an unusual assumption to hold; but we must hold it because it is true. How do I know that I am deceived? Simple. I look around me and see cruelty and death sitting upon this planet. I look in the New Testament and see the glorious liberty of the sons of God. I look at myself and see that the Christ who fills me with His glory is not noticed by that cruelty and death.

 The mind that is separate from God, that lives in the tree of the knowledge of GOOD (and evil), demands definitions, it demands ideas about God, black and white, neatly tucked in. But the mind of Christ, that lives in the tree of life, knows God, but doesn't know anything about God except by the Word made flesh, by the always speaking of God always flowing through.

It's a simple equation. There is one difference only between the manifest sons of God setting all creation free from the bondage of corruption and you and me. They believe what God says; we do not. We are not bothered by that reality. We know that God's seasons and times concerning us are perfect, and that the Daystar is arising in our hearts.
Nevertheless, if we don't KNOW that we are deceived; we will imagine that the manner in which we view all things right now is accurate - that is, exactly the same way we will see all things after creation is set free. If we don't KNOW that we are blind, we will imagine that we see. If we don't KNOW that we are ignorant, we will imagine that we know God to the fullest extent that a created being can know Him.
It's a given. When we are in the act of setting creation free, when we witness with our eyes rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies, healing and bringing life to this planet, when we participate in the removal of every demon spirit from the experience of man, when the Lord Jesus stands side by side with us, His hand on our shoulder, His words, "This one is Mine; He is My glory," in that moment, we will see all things a good bit differently than we see them right now.
What will have changed? Will all creation and God Himself as they really are change? If we see all things accurately now, nothing could be different in that day. Or - for us to see all things differently then, God and heaven and Christ and creation will all have to change. What a presumption! 
Or will it be that our own eyes open, that our own ignorance ceases, and that we have left deception behind forever?
The mind that is separate from God, that lives in the tree of the knowledge of GOOD (and evil), demands definitions, it demands ideas about God, black and white, neatly tucked in. But the mind of Christ, that lives in the tree of life, knows God, but doesn't know anything about God except by the Word made flesh, by the always speaking of God always flowing through.
That Word is always saying, "I am meek and lowly of heart. I have come to take the lowest place." How can you take such a continual speaking and turn it into some definition of God that fits the way in which we "see" things now?
What human definition of God would discover the reality that the throne John saw in Revelation 4 IS literally and only the hearts of those who believe in Jesus? My heart and yours? Only those who see the unseen could see such a thing.
God is so different from what we think. And SO IS heaven.
Peter used the word "heaven" in verse 4, then he used the word "salvation" in verse 5.
Here's what I am attempting to do all through what I write. There is an utterly false, un-Biblical definition of, especially, these two things, salvation and heaven, that is forced on the words of Scripture by the carnal religious mind that lives separately from the Word always flowing through them. People grow up with these definitions firmly ground into their brain, like an iron skull. They read the words of the New Testament and all they can see are the iron skull definitions tentacled all through every synapse connection of their grey cells.
It is impossible for anyone to see what Peter is actually saying with that iron skull fixed firmly on their minds and hearts. Paul calls it a "veil." It is darkness.
Let me explain further.
There are a number of things in Scripture that are stated as absolutes. These statements rule over everything else God says. Every way in which we approach everything else we find, both in the Bible and in creation, must be guided and governed by these statements of absolute truth.
Here is one of the most important. "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." John 17:3
Eternal life, the life of the age to come, ZOE Aeonian, is one thing and one thing alone. That one thing has two distinct parts. The first part is to KNOW God; the second part is to KNOW Jesus Christ whom God is always sending.
Eternal life is not anything else. It has nothing to do with "eternity" or "living forever" or "going to heaven." In fact "eternal" and "eternity" are not Biblical words, the early church did not know those terms. They are Latin and darkness - when used to rule over Christ.
Knowing God is two things. It is knowing our complete and utter union with Him, intimate heart with heart, and it is the knowing of a God who is always flowing through us to reveal HIMSELF as He is to His creation as we are. That is, Jesus Christ, whom God sends.
Any definition of "God" that is not immersed in this knowing of intimate and complete union and of sending and release has nothing to do with God, it is simply a definition of how Lucifer wants to see himself.
 "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." John 17:3

This is why I refuse to depart from the words God speaks when seeking to know Him. The moment we create words that sound good to our ears because they satisfy the mind that lives separately from God, we no longer know God, we now know the imagination of a serpent who likes to pretend.
1 Peter 1:3-5 (and all of chapter 1) is one of the most glorious declarations of the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Bible. It says the very opposite of what many who might ask, "What about 1 Peter 1:4," hold in their mind.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
There are three primary words that Peter uses here that relate directly to the question we are discussing. Those words are: inheritance - heaven - and salvation.
Let's start with "inheritance." The New Testament is very specific on what, exactly, our inheritance is. Our inheritance is expressed in these statements, bold and underlined. Read all the words first, then go back through and read ONLY what is bold and underlined, skipping all other words. 
The meek shall inherit the earth.
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that (the Spirit of truth) may abide with you forever . . . and shall be in you.
That where I am, there you may be also - At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
You can see that 99.99 percent of our inheritance is stated by Jesus in John 14. Our inheritance is God Himself, the Son of God and the Spirit of God in intimate and utter union with us, we in Him and He in us - God making His home in us.
This 99.99 percent of our inheritance has nothing to do with where we are, whether in heaven or on earth.
When Paul said "Absent from the body and present with the Lord," he was speaking into the confinements of babes in Christ. Inside of Paul's words there in 2 Corinthians 5 he says this: "We walk by faith, not by sight."
It is by sight only that it appears to us that we are "absent" from the Lord while walking in our present bodies upon this earth. But you and I do not walk by sight; we know that such a thing is impossible. How can we be absent from the Lord when He lives in our hearts?
When immature believers lose their physical bodies, they lose the thing that has kept them blind and thus "absent from the Lord" in their limited understanding of reality.
But what is the other .01 percent of our inheritance? All things. That is, all created things, both heaven and earth, that is, all creation belongs to us, it is our property, to do with as we please. But inside of "all things," the Lord Jesus delineated specifically that this EARTH is also a significant part of our inheritance.
And that is what 1 Peter 1:3-5 is all about.
The second word Peter uses is "heaven." We must have an accurate definition of heaven. Heaven is the realm of spirit. Peter uses the Greek word ouranios which means "the heavens" or "the realms of spirit." Heaven is all around us; we live and walk in heaven, that is, in the Spirit, all the time. I cannot "go to heaven." No one has ever or will ever "go to heaven." Such a thing is outside of reality, it is a fantasy drummed up by minds that live separate from God.
Heaven and earth are two sides of the same thing. You cannot have one without the other; they never exist separately. Neither is there a "third" place called "hell." Hades, the place of the dead, is part of the heavens, that is, it exists in the realms of spirit. Everything that is in heaven finds its counterpart in the earth; everything that is in the earth is an extension of what is in the heavens.
My spirit right now lives fully and totally in heaven. I will never be in heaven more than I am right now. The problem I labor under is that, because there is still sin in my physical body, and because of sin, death, I am blind. I cannot see the obvious. People who "die" do not "go to" heaven. All that happens is they lose half of themselves. They are dead. They lose their physical body and thus cannot be seen in the earth, nor interact directly with physical things anymore. They are still alive because their spirits continue in heaven as they always were. But they are only half there, they are only half human, and that is why the New Testament says they are COMING BACK. They want their bodies back. They want to be fully human again.
God specifically and deliberately caused Jesus' physical body to ascend before the eyes of His disciples. They watched that same physical body that they had touched physically just moments before, a resurrected incorruptible physical body, flesh and bone, ascend up until it was no longer visible to their eyes. God did it that way for a definite purpose.
God wanted us to know that Jesus, the Son of God, in His eternal state, is a MAN, that He is always God manifest in the FLESH. God in the earth is the Word made flesh.
When God created us in His image, He made us exactly like Jesus, the Son of God. He is the first One of our kind. (It is only minds who live separately from God and do not know Him that would imagine I might be claiming that Jesus "began" at a certain point in "time.")
God is always speaking: Jesus, the Word made flesh, is always appearing to creation. God is always now. Time is nothing other than the eternal showing up in the earth.
And that IS what Peter says about salvation in 1 Peter 1.
Here is where we get excited.
Peter said, "Salvation ready to be revealed in the last TIME."
Salvation is all about GOD showing up in the earth and in time.
You see, when we understand reality as it is, that is, as God actually says in the New Testament, stripped of all the fantasy definitions of powerful, separated-from-God intellects from 2000 years of the serpent planting lies in the church, then my next statement makes perfect sense.
It is earth that knows salvation first, not heaven. Heaven will know salvation only as it comes to heaven from earth. Those who are in heaven are not saved, that is, they are not yet in the fullness of what salvation is.
Now, those who insist on an un-Biblical definition of the word "saved," cannot comprehend such a statement.
But how can someone who is missing half of himself call himself whole? More than that, the writer of Hebrews said that they without us cannot be made perfect. Those who are dead and in heaven do not yet know the full salvation that all creation is groaning for.
Angels were created to live in heaven only. When they show up in the earth, they have to force themselves down into a lower frequency, it is not their true being. Animals were created to live in the earth only. When they die, their spirit vanishes into the earth, they retain no heavenly form. Man was created specifically to reveal God in both heaven and earth all the time and forever.
The earth is my inheritance. It is impossible for me or any believer who knows the Lord in heaven or on earth to be content while the earth is ravaged by darkness and cruelty.
Carnality sees salvation as earthians "going to" heaven. We see the opposite.
We are heavenlians manifesting God in the earth. We are sent by our Father to reveal salvation now, inside of time and on this earth.
Now, reckon with what Peter is saying. His words are momentous. He says the same thing a few verses later about grace.
Peter is claiming here that there is both a salvation and a grace that we who are born again, we who are filled with the Holy Ghost, we who possess a heavenly (spirit) inheritance, DO NOT KNOW.
Peter was an apostle of Jesus Christ living fully in the Church age. Jesus birthed His church on the day of Pentecost through Peter's voice box!
But this apostle of Christ who walked in union with His Savior said that there is coming a SALVATION that we do not now know. Now, the words he uses to define this salvation are very specific. (This is why I so abhor "the Bible says," throwing around Bible verses without stopping for a moment to see what God actually says.)
First, Peter said, "Apokalyphthēnai." That is the "to be" verb form of the word "apocalypse," to take off the cover. And then specifically in the last time. The Greek words mean "last" and "time," but specifically "the right moment" or "the suitable time."
We know that Peter is referring specifically to this definition of salvation because he says, "to take the cover off." In other words, we know now, by faith, that Christ is our life, but we do not "see" it with our eyes - only because we are blind.
The apocalypse is nothing more than the moment God takes the cover, the scabs, the blindness off our eyes so that we can, for the first time, see the obvious.
The moment we see the obvious, we walk forth in the liberty of the sons of God, setting all creation free. And that IS the salvation ready to be revealed in the opportune TIME.
Time is an earth word; time is not a heaven word. Time is heaven showing up in earth.
Salvation. Full and complete salvation. The Lord Jesus revealed in all of His glory through us is seen in the earth first before it is seen anywhere else. We know that heaven has to wait until the next age before they can begin to comprehend the salvation that we know.
Salvation. This salvation ready and willing and waiting to be revealed in the opportune time is not for us. It is not "our getting saved." Christ is our life right now. We are utterly in Him and He fills every part of us RIGHT NOW absolutely and totally. Our present ignorance defines nothing.
This great salvation Peter is setting our eyes upon IS US invading earth. We are the Salvation of God, Christ in us and as us and through us, bursting upon the present scene, in this most opportune of times, the "last" time of this present age.
We are the sending of God. We are about our Father's business. We are heaven invading earth. We are the full and final salvation of God now being revealed upon this earth.
Let's get our eyes fixed on the real nature of reality.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Romans 8:18-22
"The glory which shall be revealed in us" IS the exact same thing as Peter's "salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
Now, let's fix our understanding on the nature of reality. All creation, heaven as much as earth, is right now groaning and laboring in birth pangs. Heaven as well as earth has set its hope eagerly, eagerly, eagerly in great agony of travail, in a heavy labor under great bondage and darkness - all creation, Heaven and Earth - filled with a desperate, desperate looking and hoping towards WHAT?
Salvation.  
Which is?
The glorious liberty flowing out of the bellies of you and me, the sons of God, the rivers of living water.
This is reality. Everything other than this salvation that poses and struts inside of broken, fallen "Christianity" is nothing more than the fantastic imaginings of very powerful and very dark minds.
This is not a game we are in. "Go, go, go to heaven." Paul said, "Don't ever say that."
Why? Because Christ, Salvation, Reality, is inside of you, in your mouth and in your heart - right now.
And Salvation is the moment when He is revealed through us IN the earth, first, and then to heaven, after. "Until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."