In 1 Corinthians 15:46 we learn that "the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual." The first man, Adam, is from the earth; the second man, Jesus, is from heaven. This principle is illustrated a number of times in scripture, yet we, like Peter on the mount of transfiguration, want to build natural, or fleshly tabernacles when our Lord has a much better plan. We are continually trying to make the shadows of heavenly realities into permanent institutions, and in so doing, actually prevent the revelation of those heavenly realities. God has used, and even blessed man's feeble efforts to institutionalize the promises of God, but as long as we prefer the natural to the spiritual, the flesh to the promise, and the shadow to the reality, we will never know the fullness of our inheritance in Him.
Like Abraham, we love the fruit of our flesh, and want God's promise to be fulfilled in it. Even after Isaac was born, Abraham had great plans for Ishmael, and it was only at his wife's insistence and God's confirmation of her wisdom that Abraham was willing to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, "Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac." But God said, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named." (Genesis 4:9-12, NAS)
It is interesting that Abraham, the archetypical patriarch, is told by God to listen to Sarah, the very model of the submissive wife in I Peter 3:6. The Church today would do well to prayerfully consider this. Despite Jesus' admonition in Matthew 20:25 to not be like the Gentiles, the Church has developed along hierarchical lines structurally and mentally. We tend to favor Hagar, who is Mt. Sinai, who corresponds to the present Jerusalem, who is in slavery with her children, who persecute those who are born according to the Spirit. We must, like Abraham, listen to Sarah, who represents the Jerusalem above which is free, which is our mother, and asks us to cast out the bondwoman and her son. (Galatians 4:25-30). On an individual level as well, husbands would do well to pay more attention to what God is saying through their wives.
Of course the present day Church is not unique in relying on the natural, the worldly, and the legalistic instead of the spiritual. In I Samuel 8 we find that the elders of Israel asked Samuel to "appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations." Even while pointing out that the people were rejecting Him as king, and not Samuel, God allowed them to have a king. Stranger yet, He blessed the monarchy, especially during David's and Solomon's reigns, to the degree that these kings were not only like the kings of other nations, but they were greater than them in military might and material wealth. We discover, however, that even at its peak, the monarchy was never God's perfect plan for Israel, but a natural foreshadowing of Christ's spiritual kingdom.
In the same manner, when David wanted to build a temple, God queried through Nathan, "Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" (2 Samuel 7:7). He goes on to say in verse 11, "...the LORD will make a house for you." Even David, a man after God's own heart, desired to fulfill God's ultimate spiritual purpose in a natural manner. Jesus, of course, said "upon this rock I will build My Church," and we know from Paul and Peter that we as lively stones are being formed into His temple, a building not made with hands.
Our efforts to fulfill God's promises ourselves as typified by Ishmael, hierarchical Church structure, and worldly buildings have often appeared to have God's blessing, but fall far short of God's best. All of these natural facsimiles of spiritual reality not only pale in comparison with what is to come, they are but shadows of a heavenly reality that already existed. Adam was made in the image of God; the Hebrew monarchy was a rebellious people's substitution for submission to God as King; and the temple was modeled after a tabernacle which was itself "a copy and shadow of the heavenly things" (Hebrews 8:5). Hebrews 9:8 makes it clear that "...the way to the Holy of Holies was not yet open, that is, so long as the first tent and all that it stands for still exist." God has blessed the institutional Church and used it as a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, but the time has come (and always was) to cast out the bondwoman and her son, to put shadows and types behind us, and fulfill our high calling as His Church.
RM
