Lord Lister and Clean Feet

Saturday, June 1, 2002

LORD LISTER AND CLEAN FEET

There is something that I find to be of utter most enjoyment,
and that is when the Jehovah Witness’ come to my home.
Recently when the Jehovah Witness’ came, I managed to
chat with them for nearly an hour on my back porch about
the deity and person of Jesus. As is the case with many, the
Jehovah Witness’ are trained to operate out of a theological
position rather than a display of that exclusive person, the
Lord Jesus Christ.
PONDERING THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD JESUS
CHRIST
There is a difference between growing up into the headship
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the cunning slight of man’s
hand whereby they lie in wait to deceive by the
systemization of error. To be free of the theological position
is to be free from the systemization of error. It is the
systemization of error that is satan’s greatest weapon in
preventing Christians from growing up into the headship of
the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the display of a person, the Lord
Jesus Christ, not theological position, that is the central
desire the Almighty is seeking in man. Unregenerate man
and religious man in a most peculiar way stand in the way of
the display of the Lord Jesus Christ. To understand the
ministry of the Lord Jesus, one must understand His relation
to the arche. The arche is the place of the dateless past. It is
well before the creation of men, and well before even the
creation of angels and the fall of the anointed cherubim. The
arche is the dateless past before creation itself. This is where
you find the ministry of the Lord Jesus. This is where His
entire prayer life is related to. In the beginning, or the arche,
was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was God, John writes under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. Fourteen verses later he writes that this Word was
made flesh and came to dwell among us that we would
behold His glory. The glory that He abode in with His
Father before the beginning. The display of this glory is the
ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
WE BEHELD HIS GLORY
When Jesus came into this earthly life, He brought the life
that He had with His Father before the arche. The display of
this life was the display of the glory of God. The chief
vocation of the Christian is to behold His glory. It is not in
many activities whereby the Christian’s social life is
enhanced but the cross is absent, but it is in revelation,
something quite organic and full of life. It is something that
holds the attributes or the glory that the Father had with the
Son before the beginning. We are to behold that glory and
reflect that glory by the unveiling of everything that He is.
The display of the Lord Jesus in us. Christ in you the hope
of glory.
THE GATHERING OF THE REMNANT ELECT
It is in the divine thought and desire of God that there would
be an election of men, a remnant out of the human race that
would be gathered into the Lord Jesus Christ. The Almighty
desires that gathering for the awesome purpose that in the
Lord Jesus the Almighty would be manifest. We are to be
gathered into Jesus so that in Him the Father Almighty God
would be manifested before our eyes.
CONSIDER THE ACTUAL LORD’S PRAYER
I do not believe that what people call the Lord’s Prayer is
the Lord’s prayer at all. What men call the Lord’s Prayer
should be called Our Prayer because He teaches us to pray
and He gives unto us words that have become called The
Lord’s Prayer. I think the real Lord’s Prayer can be found in
John 17. It is there where we find that His prayer is that His
Heavenly Father would glorify Him and with that glory, He
could glorify His Father. We learn in this prayer that the
Father has given men unto Jesus for the express purpose of
keeping the Word. We have been given unto Jesus, who is
the Living Word, that we might keep that Living Word who
is a person, greatly joined to us, dwelling in us for all
eternity. The eternal life that is before the beginning, comes
to be manifest in this way that men would know the true
God and the Lord Jesus Christ who was sent by the Father
and came out from the Father into this fallen creation. In His
prayer there comes to be something manifest that is most
unique. For the Lord prays to the Heavenly Father and the
cry of that prayer is, “Father glorify me with thine own self,
with the glory which I had with you before the world was”.
JESUS DESIRED THE LIFE AND GLORY
FROM BEFORE THE ARCHE TO MANIFEST
Isn’t it most interesting that the Lord Jesus desired to be
glorified with the glory that He had with His Father before
creation. Isn’t it most interesting that He desired to be
manifest before the men whom the Father had given to Him
by giving eternal life. Take a moment to think, the glory that
He had with His Father before the world. He desired to have
manifest in Him before those who He had called. As men
were drawn into this organic relationship which is eternal in
the heavens, He would manifest that glory before them as
the Father dwelled in Him and manifested what was from
before the foundations of the world. We can begin to
understand what it means in the scripture when it states, We
beheld His glory. The glory of the relationship that He had
with His Father before the foundations of the world.
I AM GLORIFIED IN THEM
When Jesus prayed, He stated “I pray for them”, not the
world but for those who the Father had given eternal life to,
and whom the Father had given unto Him. Jesus makes a
very remarkable statement. All of the Father’s is His, and all
that is His is the Father’s and that He is glorified in them. In
them His Father is manifested with the glory which He had
with the Son from before the foundations of the world. Jesus
desires a church that is consumed with the reality of being
gathered unto Jesus Christ, and as the Father glorifies Jesus
with His own self, within their spirits where God abides
there rings out the cry, “Christ in us the hope of glory, Christ
Jesus in us glorified with the glory which He had with His
Father from before the foundations of the world”.
PRISTINE
What I am speaking of is very pristine. It is very eternal, it is
very full of glory, and it is very opposite death. Death is
separation from all that is glorious between the Father and
the Son and those in whom He chooses to glorify Himself. I
repeat, this is indeed very pristine. It is not earthen, but it is
heavenward. Have you ever noticed that Jesus really had no
place in the earth? The foxes have holes, the birds have
nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lie His head. When
you notice the pristine prayer life of Jesus that is consumed
with the relationship that He had with His Father from
before the arche, you will notice that the earth has no room
for this display of life. Here Jesus is beaten and made low
and humiliated, but in the heavens he is exalted. Here is no
room for Him in the inn. Here is no home like the bird and
fox have, but in the Heavens, He is seated at the right hand
of His Father.
PRISTINE VS EARTHEN SYSTEMS THAT
PRETEND TO WORSHIP GOD
In Galatians 6 we find a unique expression of earthen
theological systems that outwardly worship God but
inwardly are enemies to prestine eternal life. In Galatians
6:12 we learn that within the realm of the church, there are
those that desire to make a fair show in the flesh of the
members that have gathered to worship Jesus as His body.
Why do they desire a fair show in the flesh? So they do not
suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. They themselves
would not keep their systemization of error, but constrained
the members of Jesus’ body to. Why? That they may glory
in your flesh. Think deeply about this. Jesus prayed that the
glory which the Father gave Him would be given to the
Lord’s followers, and they would be one even as the Father
and the Son are one. He prayed to glorify them with the
glory that they shared from before the foundations of the
world, that they would be one as He and His Father are one.
What a difference between the Lord Jesus and the Galatians.
What a difference in the types of glory. One glory is of the
flesh, the other glory is of intimate eternal relationship. One
glory will manifest, one will be denied, and the eternal glory
can only manifest by the application of the mystery of the
cross. Paul wrote it this way, “God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the
world is crucified unto me and I unto the world”. Can you
discern the two glories at work in the church today? One is
very outward, one is very inward. One is full of much
activity, the other is filled with
stillness out of reverence. One is that man would look good, the
other is that man would look awful, so awful that only hiding him
in the cross would bring relief, and only beholding to the glory of
the one who tabernacled amongst us would bring life.
MAN, MURDERER OF GLORY
MAN, BEARER OF GLORY
Do you know the differences between the Gospels?
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are to Galilee. Galilee represents
the Jews, Romans, and Greeks that were addressed by the
writers as to the person of Jesus. They were written by
Matthew, Mark, and Luke as young men. John, however, is
addressed to Judea in the latter part of John’s life. Matthew,
Mark, and Luke are about the person, but John is written
from the perspective of man being in union with that person.
The union is Jesus revealing His glory and man beholding it.
The union is man in Jesus Christ as the Father glorifies Jesus
with His own self. The union is man meeting God in Jesus
and beholding His glory.
JOHN’S GOSPEL,
RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS ATTEMPTING TO MURDER
THE UNION
There are six separate words for the miracles of Jesus in the
Gospels. The expression of miracle that Jesus manifests the
most in the Gospel of John is semeia, which is the miracle of
signs. It is not the kind of signs that most men think of when
they think of Jesus’ ministry in the New Testament, but it is
the ministry of a sign prophet. An example of a sign prophet
can be found in the book of Ezekiel where the messenger is
no longer separated from the message, but he is the message.
In Ezekiel 24:24 God states that Ezekiel is a sign unto Israel.
How is Ezekiel a sign? He stands in front of the whole
congregation and states that his wife will die and he does not
have permission to weep over her. Ezekiel stands in the
place of God, and his wife stands in the place of the Hebrew
temple. God married Israel according to Jeremiah the
prophet on the night of the exodus during the times of signs
and glory. Now Israel has moved away from beholding
God’s glory into an outward form of Judaism which
inwardly worshiped Bael, a condition I believe one can very
much find in the American church today. Because the Israeli
temple had lost sight of the glory of God, she was dead to
Him, and God was no longer weeping over her apostasy. It
is interesting that the Greek word for adultery has the same
meaning as apostasy. The glory of God had been lost to
Israel and would not be again seen until Jesus came and
John would write, we beheld His glory.
JESUS AS A SIGN PROPHET
Isaiah 7:14 identified that the Messiah’s ministry would be a
sign. In John 2:11 we read the words, “This beginning of
miracles, (semeion-a sign), did Jesus in Canaan of Galilee
and manifested His glory”. With His sign ministry came the
manifesting of glory with the express purpose that His
disciples would believe on Him. Follow the ministry of
signs by chapter in the Gospel of John:
John 2, The wedding at Cana; Jesus the Bridegroom of the new
birth by His blood water to wine.
John 3, Jesus introduces to Nicodemus the sign of the cross;
In likeness to Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness
to put an end to death and a restoration to glory.
John 4, As water would come from the heavenly temple to
heal all the lands in creation, Jesus becomes the water of life
to the dreaded Assyrian woman, (Samaritan woman at well),
a sign that all nations can drink eternal water of life in Him.
John 5, The Fountain Gate and Hezekiah’s tapping Gihon to
create a sheep market pool, where the man was impotent for
38 years and needed Jesus to walk; A sign to Israel that after
38 years in the wilderness, Moses would die representing the
law, and after a two year period Joshua would lead the
children of Israel into the promised land by grace. John 6:
The Passover Feast of the Jews who constantly sought to kill
Jesus is replaced by Jesus who Paul called the sign of the
Passover when he wrote, “Christ who is our Passover”, the
one who makes sin pass over. John 7: When the Jews again
seek to kill Jesus during the Jews Feast of Tabernacles,
Jesus comes as the new feast of Tabernacles in whom
Zechariah says that every nation must come to Jerusalem to
celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in the personal presence
of Jesus Christ or they will not receive water. John 8: The
woman caught in adultery and given mercy while the
proclamation to the religious system of the Jews was that
their father is a murderer from the beginning without truth.
That they in the systemization of error are liars and Jesus is
the great I Am, a sign at the burning bush, a sign of
deliverance from bondage. We could go on and on to
Chapter 11 and Lazarus, but it becomes necessary to touch
foot washing.
FOOT WASHING AND THE CLEANSING OF
MEEKNESS
A careful observation of the book of John shows that if
worshipers serve the Lord without seeing His glory and the
signs of His glory ministry, that there is a certain terrible
adulterous end. When men glory in the flesh and earthen
systems are created, men become diabolically opposed to
the Lord Jesus and will try to kill Him. It is no different
today. Men will try to kill Jesus in you by burying you in
dirt. The dirt of gossip, the dirt of cruelty, the dirt of murder,
the dirt of political power of numbers and churches, the dirt
of hierarchy and apostasy. Jesus took His disciples aside and
showed them that the only way to escape the dirt of earthen
systems, that take us from beholding the glory He had
with His Father, and being glorified with that glory, was by
the process of foot washing. The feet walk upon the earth
and they absorb the earth. As we walk in this world, the
earth will punish us and we will need to b cleansed by the
meekness of foot washing. What Jesus did with foot
washing had a greater spiritual significance than the physical
act of cooling and cleansing tired dirty feet. That only
represented the smaller part of something far more
significant. We wash ourselves from the earthen intentions
of this world when we set our affections on things that are
above as we are instructed to in the book of Colossians and
when we set our mind on things above we behold the Lord
Jesus being glorified with the person of the Father. As we
are gathered into Him, he glorifies us with the revelation of
the humble lamb who came into the earth to taste death for
us, that He might be the Highly Exalted Lamb that opens the
Seven Seals that consummates the age. That we are to have
the mind of humility and wash one another by a corporate
gathering unto Him. Here we are made low, while He is
exalted. For He was made low that we would be exalted and
glorified to touch the heavenlies.
LORD LISTER
The meekness I speak of was such a threat to the Pharisaical
systems in the times when Jesus walked the earth that they
dirtied Jesus’ walk and reputation with lies. They
endeavored to destroy who He was with false witnesses, if
they kept His walk with a dirt attack, they will keep ours as
well. In fact the Lord said that we should not be offended by
this and he warned us about this in advance. In the 1800’s
when men were wounded they would largely die because
other men with earthen hands would operated on them.
Within their earthen, unwashed hands was the bacteria of the
earth, and such bacteria would invade and destroy the body
bringing it into death. This is a spiritual picture of the church
 in warfare today. In the 1840’s, Lord Lister became a
physician and practiced in a conscientious way medicine
with a consciousness of cleansing the earth from his hands.
The result was a dramatic increase in the health of his
patient populous, and a great criticism and persecution of
Lord Lister and his medical practices. His consciousness of
being cleansed from the earth freed his hands to bring life to
ailing bodies who would be healed in an atmosphere of
cleanliness. The next time you use Listerine, remember Lord
Lister because you won’t be able to name his persecutors.
The Bible states that the fear of the Lord is clean. Let our
hands touch the body of Christ in a foot washing way with a
consciousness that the glory that is in the Son who is above,
forms in us to free us from the earthen, and the disease of
the systemization of error. Let us as God’s people have an
awareness of the earthen being washed from us, because we
have been washed and cleansed by beholding His glory, the
glory He had with His Father before the arche.
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