Two weeks ago, we were talking about the original Covenant that God made with Abraham. We got part way into that picture, but then I temporarily side-tracked that last week to talk about the Covenant of Marriage. Let’s pick up today with where we left off.
We will come back to the example of Covenant in Abraham’s life – the very first real picture in detail of what Covenant means from God’s perspective – but I felt like I needed to deviate a bit today and talk about a different aspect of Covenant where most of us have had little understanding. I’m talking about the Covenant of Marriage.
It has been several years – 14 years, in fact – since I last shared on the nature, the meaning and the significance of Covenant, and the fact that we are Covenant beings, living in and under the Covenant that Jesus made for us with His death and resurrection, and the blood He shed on our behalf.
When the Holy Spirit launched us into this area of study some weeks back, I freely admit that I had no idea of the ramifications and the depth of revelation to which we would be taken. Although I am sharing from a place of current and still unfolding revelation, it is obvious that Della and I are both recipients of some pretty amazing areas of healing where we had no previous awareness of demonic footholds and opportunities for the Enemy to afflict us.
Obviously, the Holy Spirit is keeping us in the midst of this study and propelling us to the place where we have no soul wounds of any kind – and nothing whatever left within of memories which continue to stab at us internally. There is a phrase which Mark used in his Gospel quoting from something Jesus said which is about as picturesque as you can get when you start talking about the wounded soul, the rending of the soul or dealing with the fragmented soul.
We continue on with last week’s discussion, but this time taking a different approach and considering a different aspect of healing for those who’ve been wounded in soul and spirit. We’ll start once again with Isaiah’s prophecy – the same place where Jesus started His ministry – as we take up our study with the wounded soul and the wounded spirit and see how each area affects the other.
This is a topic I have mostly avoided for the past 20-plus years, ever since I first heard it discussed. I’ve heard about “soul fragments” for years, but never really considered the Scriptural foundations for this area of teaching – and in fact thought folks who ministered in this area had really gone overboard, stretching the Word into an area that didn’t really exist. This is an area of understanding where I have had some blinders on – and thankfully the Holy Spirit has opened my eyes.
OK. Thought I was going to finish up this thing on math last week, but I can't help it. I get started with this stuff and can't stop. I love the parallels in Scripture. Math and mathematical principles abound in the Word of God. God is very precise in everything that He does, and we govern our lives according to that precision.
Continuing where we left off last week, we consider the number 12 in the picture of the Bride of Christ -- the number of Ekklesia, the number of preparation, and the number of governmental authority. Last week, we said that the New Jerusalem does not only consist of Jews. Representing the call to, and gathering from, the nations are the twelve foundation stones, and on them the names of the twelve apostles who made up that first Ekklesia.
Throughout Scripture, we see numbers repeated again and again and again. What most folks miss is that these numbers are metaphors in Hebrew with pictures that go well beyond the surface. When John wrote, “And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” the angel of the Lord was showing him the same thing that Ezekiel had seen in a vision. It was not a city in the sense of a physical or geographical place; it was the ensample of a principle: a principle which strikes at the very heart of all that the Lord has been doing in our midst.