The Third Dimension

"Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." The rest is promised to the people of God, so it's possible to belong to God and still stop short of a dimension He has prepared. Earlier generations "entered not in because of unbelief."

The rest is the seventh day, the third dimension of grace. Entering it means ceasing from our own works as God ceased from His, not ceasing to serve God, but ceasing to strive in our own strength. In the middle of this passage, Scripture says the word of God divides "soul and spirit." That division is the crossing: from operating in God through the natural mind to operating from the spirit.

With three days after the cross, the government of grace appears in threes throughout Scripture, and in each the third is the fullest:

• Death, burial, resurrection
• Body, soul, spirit
• Righteousness, peace, joy. Right with God plus peace with God equals joy.
• Faith, hope, love: "the greatest of these is charity"
• The way, the truth, the life
• Father, Son, Holy Ghost
• Prophet, priest, king
• Little children, young men, fathers
• Might, power, "by my spirit"

These are not destinations but dimensions. "In my Father's house are many mansions" means many rooms or places in God, not houses on a hill.

In the outer court, everything is brass: all man. In the Holy Place, the furniture is gold, but priests must supply the oil, bake the bread and pour the incense: God and man together. This is the anointing. In the Holy of Holies, everything is solid gold and no one has to light it, because the glory itself is the light: all God. This is the glory. Much of what churches call "glory" is actually the anointing. Asking for "a greater anointing" still stops one dimension short. Beyond the anointing is a place where God works sovereignly through people who have come into order, a place that removes showmanship and personal gifting, because "no flesh should glory in his presence."

Christ entered the holiest "through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." When He died, the temple veil was torn from top to bottom. But He tore it as our example, and every believer has a veil of their own: self, flesh and the old mind. The tearing starts at the head, which is why we're "transformed by the renewing of your mind." Revelation pictures souls beneath the altar: mind, will and reason laid down. "Whosoever will lose his life for my sake... shall find it." The way through is often tribulation; the trial you hate is the opening in your veil. That's why Scripture says, "Count it all joy."

Believers often speak of glory as something reached only at physical death. But Scripture speaks of a death that can happen now: losing your life to find it, dying to self, entering resurrection life. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord... that they may rest from their labours." Applied spiritually, this describes believers who have laid down their own lives and entered God's rest. Glory isn't only a future destination. It's the third dimension God wants His people to enter now.

Zechariah saw a golden candlestick with an olive tree on each side, feeding oil directly into the lamps. No priest had to beat the olives or pour the oil. The vision came with the word "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts," and a promise that mountains would become plains. It's a picture of God's sovereignty: a dimension where His work flows on its own through those who are aligned with Him.

John wrote, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." The Lord's day is the seventh day, which God sanctified for Himself, and in the timeline of grace that is the third dimension. When John turned toward the voice behind him, he saw Christ standing among seven golden candlesticks, which are the churches. Paul spoke of being "caught up to the third heaven." God desires to catch every believer up into that place of revelation.

When David brought the ark to Jerusalem, he placed it in a tent with no dividing veil, the tabernacle of David that God promised to rebuild. Who told David he could remove the veil? Evidently he understood that the tabernacle's spaces were dimensions in God, and he entered a finished work in his own day. That's why worship still looks back to David, and why Peter called him a prophet who, "seeing this before," spoke of Christ's resurrection.