Intimacy with God

Jesus was and is the messenger of the “New Covenant”. Jeremiah prophesied that the dominant characteristic of this New Covenant would be “knowing God”:

"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the Lord," for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31.33-34, NASB).

This most basic experience of Jesus and of the early Church has been lost in the religion of Christianity.

This most basic experience of Jesus and of the early Church has been lost in the religion of Christianity. Yet, a tiny remnant of believers have realized this phenomenon throughout the ages. In the 20th and 21st Centuries, a gradual renewal of this experience has occurred. This experience of intimacy with God is essential for a dynamic Church in the End Times.

Jesus’ Experience and Message
When it came time for Jesus to fully consecrate Himself to the public ministry of Messiah, He sought out John the Baptist in order to be baptized by him. This baptism marked a turning from His private life to a very public life and ministry. When Jesus was baptized, He received, or was filled with, the Spirit,

Now it came about when all the people were baptized, that Jesus also was baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, "Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am wellpleased" (Luke 3.21-22, NASB).

From this point forward, we observe Jesus responding directly to the immediate direction of the Holy One in everything He did. He said,

Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner (John 5.19b).

Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God would be experienced by His disciples internally rather than externally,

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the Kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, ‘The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or, “There it is!” For behold, the Kingdom of God is in your midst’” (Luke 17.20b-21).

Finally, Jesus said that “eternal life” was knowing God and His Messiah, “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17.3). Knowing, in this sense, means an interactive or experiential knowledge, rather than an intellectual knowledge. So we conclude that Jesus experienced an intimate, inward knowledge of the Holy One. Through this intimacy, Jesus understood God’s will in every situation and He became obedient to God in this manner. Indeed, this is precisely what Jesus was speaking of when He talked of the “Kingdom of God”. The Kingdom of God, or God’s active rule, was being fulfilled through His Son.

The Experience of the Early Church
The early Church’s experience followed exactly the pattern set by Jesus. Indeed, Jesus’ last exhortation to His disciples was to wait in Jerusalem until they had received this “promise of the Father” (Luke 24.49). On the day of P entecost, or Shavuot, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. From this point forward, they dynamically followed Jesus by the Holy Spirit within them. Paul declared that,

“Therefore I make known to you, that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus is accursed’; and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12.3, NASB).

The early Church experienced the Kingdom in this manner and they, in turn, preached the message of the Kingdom.

He further described what I will call “introspection” of God’s own being (1 Corinthians 2.10-13) which also was accomplished by the Holy Spirit. God actively ruled the disciples and, hence, the Church, from within. This was the “Kingdom of God”. The early Church experienced the Kingdom in this manner and they, in turn, preached the message of the Kingdom. In the 2nd Century, the Church lost this sense of the immediacy of God’s guidance (His kingship) by the Holy Spirit. Walker described the 2nd Century Church, saying, “The old conviction of the immediacy of the guidance of the Spirit faded, without becoming wholly extinguished” (Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, page 31). Before long, it was extinguished completely and lost. The Church developed “another gospel” which readily fulfilled the requirements of the budding religion. This “other gospel” was the message of "salvation" which instructed people how to get in and stay in the Church, which was seen as the ark of salvation. Thus the message of the Church was altered from the focus of the immediacy of God’s guidance — the Kingdom of God — to the message of personal salvation which ensured followers of their acceptance in the life to come.

Exhortation
The real essence of the true follower of Jesus is still His dynamic Lordship by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is true of us individually and as local churches. We receive the Holy Spirit individually for the purpose of empowering us to be participants in the local church. Jesus is mystically head and Lord of the Church. In the same way Jesus communed with the Father, we should be communing with Jesus and the Father by the Holy Spirit operating in us. This is the Kingdom of God. This should be our experience in the local church and this should be our message.