On my last post we saw that shadows and descriptions can have no real impact on us, for there is no substance in them. Therefore we can read about walking in the cold rain, and yet no umbrella is needed, or perhaps drive into the shadow of a tree with no fear of impact. But in this present post I want to look briefly at the transformation substantiality can bring in a person’s life.
Job
Job offers us a good example of such a transformation. Listen to what he says:
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5,6).
Here Job had passed from an ineffective description to the subject hitherto described. He had heard men talking about God, but now he was experiencing for himself the divine presence. At last the Substance was seen and the Voice heard (John 5:37). As a result he could catch sight of his real condition and abhorred what he saw. Repentance seemed the only option. So in dust and ashes he humbled himself before God, calling for mercy.
Yes! Job’s heart had been turned from what had been the case to a new and living hope, and all this because he broke through the descriptive veil and reached the substance.
Isaiah
Isaiah is another witness of such transformation. Being a Jew he had heard about the holiness, mercy and greatness of God many times. But at a certain point of history something happened. Like Job, Isaiah passed from a passive report to an active experience. Here are his words:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:1–5).
So Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. He saw also seraphim, and the seraphim had their face covered by two of their six wings as if the glory was too great for them to see. He also heard the voice of one of them, and the voice was so mighty that the posts of the door shook. Added to it, the house was filled with smoke. Isaiah had never seen such splendor. He had heard descriptions of God but the whole thing had left him unchanged. But now he was facing God, and like Job he realized his true state:
Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”.
All of a sudden Isaiah saw himself covered with filth and began to yearn for a cleansing. Yes! He had undergone a transmutation. Not only did he saw himself differently, but also society as a whole was exposed as defiled, and all this because he had seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
The transition from the unsubstantial to the substantial provoked in him a moral revolution. What shadows and descriptions could not do, the substance achieved.
A question
Now let me ask you something. After what we have seen of Job and Isaiah, how do you explain that some evangelicals who frequent meetings regularly retain sins in their heart for months or even years? They sing hymns like everybody else, pray and sometimes preach, laugh and bless others, yet their heart is not right with God. If Job and Isaiah could not remain in their filth and stench for a second, how is it that these churchgoers feel at home in the excrements of their old life?
At the light of the Scriptures I suggest that the problem resides in the fact that they haven’t experienced the divine for a long time? For some reasons they got caught up in cheap shadows and interesting descriptions and ended up with a religiosity having no power to expose their anemic spiritual state.
The deceitfulness of rites
The need to reach the substance cannot be overemphasized. To remain within the borders of evangelical rituals will not help us, even if these rituals appear sanctified.
For instance, the reading of the Bible—as I have written elsewhere —can amount to the perusing of a mere description. Likewise, a church meeting can be experienced as a social happening based on moral values, nothing more. The social encounter might be highly interesting, but it will not carry spiritual substance in its wings. The same with praying, it can remain as ineffective as cursing (see Prov. 28:9). And what about singing? We can choir the songs of angels, but if it is done within the confinement of the earthly we will get nowhere as far as heaven is concerned. We need to cross the threshold and reach the substance.
Zacharias
The father of John the Baptist was among the priests serving the copy and shadow of heavenly things. For years he had gone recurrently into the temple to fulfill his duty, and for decades he had walked out of there the same as he had entered. But one day something life-changing happened. The shadow gave way to the substance. An angel appeared to him bringing a message from above. The impact of the experience was so overwhelming that when Zacharias came out of the temple everybody knew something unusual had happened.
As Zacharias we can go to church, fulfill our duty and go through the forms, but if we don’t touch heaven we are going to walk out of there exactly as we came in. We need the substance.
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