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“Another angel, who
had the golden censer, came and stood at the
altar. He was given much incense to offer, with
the prayers of all the saints, on the golden
altar before the throne. The smoke of the
incense, together with the prayers of the saints,
went up before God from the angel’s hand.
Then the angel took the censer, filled it with
fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth;
and there came peals of thunder, rumblings,
flashes of lightening and an earthquake.”
(Revelation 8:3-5)
John saw an angel
conducting a service at the golden Altar of
Incense. Then, John saw the angel take the censer
and after filling it with fire, hurled it to the
Earth “and there came peals of thunder,
rumblings, flashes of lightening and an
earthquake.” What service did John see? What
is the meaning of this event?
John saw the termination
of “the daily” in Heaven’s temple,
that is, John saw the termination of corporate
intercession on behalf of Earth. The termination
of corporate mercy may be a new concept for some
people so we are going to examine this important
topic. Many Christians are not aware of the fact
that the plan of salvation operates on two
levels: the corporate level and the individual
level. When most Christians read John 3:16,
“For God so loved the world…” they
do not realize that is a corporate statement. God
deals with Earth as a single unit. Jesus
reconciled the world to the Father through His
death. (1 John 2:2) God also deals with people as
individuals. The point is that a day is coming
when the limits of God’s patience with
Earth’s violence and decadence will be
reached. When that day arrives, Jesus will stop
interceding on behalf of the world as a corporate
body and God’s wrath against all mankind
will break out. This wrath will come in two
phases: the seven first plagues and the seven
last plagues. During the seven first plagues,
salvation will be extended to the people of
Earth, but corporately speaking, Earth itself
will be doomed for destruction. To understand the
importance and seriousness of the angel hurling
the censer to Earth, we need to examine six
biblical concepts that flow together to make
sense of this highly important service.
1. Full Cup Principle:
God grants a period of grace to every group of
people throughout history. However, if that group
fills up its “cup of sin” with
degenerate and violent behavior, God acts and
destroys that group of people. The action He
takes is fair and just. It is not an arbitrary
act; instead, it is based on eternal law. This
law mandates that when a group of people (even
angels) reaches the point where they no longer
submit to the demands of the Holy Spirit, that
group must be destroyed. Review this text:
“Then the Lord said [to Noah], ‘My
Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he
is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty
years.’” (Genesis 6:3, insertion mine)
The Lord told Noah that His patience with mankind
had reached its limit because He “saw how
great man’s wickedness on the earth had
become, and that every inclination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil all the
time.” (Genesis 6:5) So, the Lord told Noah
that the end of the world would occur in 120
years – and it did. Many groups since the
days of the antediluvians have filled up their
“cup of sin” and God destroyed them.
(For further study on this subject, please go
into the reading room of this site and there is a
seven-part study on this comprehensive discussion
on this topic.)
2. Jesus’ Present
Role in Heaven: Review these verses: “The
Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the
exact representation of his being, sustaining all
things by his powerful word. After he had
provided purification for sins, he sat down at
the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven….
Therefore, he is able to save completely those
who come to God through him, because he always
lives to intercede for them…. The point of
what we are saying is this: We do have such a
high priest, who sat down at the right hand of
the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who
serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set
up by the Lord, not by man…. If he were on
earth, he would not be a priest, for there are
already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the
law. They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and
shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses
was warned when he was about to build the
tabernacle: “See to it that you make
everything according to the pattern shown you on
the mountain.” (Hebrews 1:3, 7:25,
8:1,2,4,5) The author of Hebrews says that Jesus
became our High Priest and sat down at the
right hand of the Father after He “provided
purification for sin.” Presently,
Jesus serves in Heaven’s temple, “the
true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by
man” whereas the temple built by Moses was
“a copy or shadow of what is in
Heaven.” This is why Moses was warned that
he must not deviate from the pattern that God
gave him because the services conducted in the
earthly temple must accurately parallel certain
processes in Heaven’s temple. God has given
us a model of the processes that occur in
Heaven’s temple and we need to understand
these processes in order to appreciate the
dimensions of salvation.
The wisdom of using
models is simple and powerful. In fact, NASA does
this regularly. Many of the satellites circling
Earth have identical models sitting in special
clean rooms so that if a problem occurs out in
space, scientists can accurately diagnose the
problem by examining an identical satellite on
Earth. Similarly, once we understand the
fundamental operation of the earthy temple, we
can understand the services in Heaven’s
temple.
3. Salvation’s
Model: The earthly temple model had two altars to
teach mankind that salvation requires two levels
of atonement. The golden Altar of Incense was
placed inside the first room of the temple
(called “The Holy Place”) and it served
as the corporate altar. Israel’s priests
conducted atonement services for the sins of the
whole camp at this altar each evening and
morning. The bronze Altar of Burnt Offering was
located outside, near the entrance of the
courtyard. This altar was used to atone for the
sins of the individuals. (Leviticus 4) So, God
set up two altars in the earthly temple, each
with a different purpose – one for corporate
atonement and one for individual atonement.
Most Christians
understand the role of the bronze Altar of Burnt
Offering because it is easy to understand that
Jesus died in our place and is our flawless Lamb
of God substitute. (Deuteronomy 15:21; 1 John
3:5) However, most Christians do not understand
that God’s law demands the immediate
execution of sinners – on the very day of
sin (Genesis 2:17) and the atonement offered on
the golden Altar of Incense represents a stay of
execution. Think about this: Sinners are not
killed on the day they first sin because Jesus
began corporate intercession on behalf of Earth
before anyone was born!
4. How Individuals Became
a Corporation: Adam and Eve were created as
separate and distinct beings. (Genesis 1) Each
person was endowed with half of the power needed
to procreate. (Genesis 1:28) After their
marriage, they did not lose their individuality;
but instead, they became officers in a corporate
unit called “family.” No person loses
his or her identity or accountability to God in
marriage. In fact, the Bible teaches that two
people can be married and one be lost and the
other saved. (Luke 17:34) Similarly, one spouse
can go to jail and the other remains free.
Therefore, a family unit, according to God,
requires the union of two individuals, a man and
a woman. The Bible says, “For this reason a
man will leave his father and mother and be
united to his wife, and they will become one
flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) The union of a man
and woman reflects the image of God. The Godhead
is a corporation made up of three Gods – the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They make up
a family unit called “God.”
(Deuteronomy 6:4) Their threesome as one God
parallels the twosome of a husband and wife
becoming one flesh.
5. Sudden Death: God
warned Adam, as president of the human
corporation, that no one should eat of the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The penalty
for violating this law, God said, would be death
by execution on the very day that sin
occurred. (Genesis 2:17) Because no one
died that day, Genesis 2:17 has been distorted in
many different ways. Nevertheless, the scriptures
are clear – the penalty for sin is sudden
death. This law is eternal and it cannot be
changed. However, on the day Adam and Eve sinned,
their execution was temporarily postponed by
special circumstances.
Let us consider the
special circumstances that permitted their stay
of execution. Eve’s sin was a third degree
felony. She was led into sin through deception.
Adam’s sin was a second-degree felony, since
he willfully sinned because of his love for Eve.
Lucifer’s sin was a first-degree felony
because he defiantly sinned. * Lucifer’s
angels also defiantly sinned. They had committed
the unpardonable sin. (Isaiah 14:12-17; Ezekiel
28:12-18; Matthew 12:31,32) For a legitimate
reason, God did not kill Lucifer and his
followers the day they sinned either. Instead,
God cast them out of Heaven, allowing them to
live so that sin might flourish for a
predetermined period of time. Of course, at the
end of the age of sin, Lucifer and his followers
will be annihilated. Similarly, Adam and Eve were
not killed on the day they sinned. However, at
the end of the age of sin, all of the wicked will
be annihilated. The law cannot be changed.
However, these two temporary stays from execution
demonstrate that the Father is purposeful and
merciful in His administration of law.
The laws created by an
all-knowing God cannot be changed. Ask the people
on death row in any prison; a stay of execution
does not change the demands of the law. Rather, a
stay of execution is a legitimate delay in
executing the demands of the law. Because Jesus
offered to die in their place, God stayed the
execution of Adam and Eve and their future
offspring. This is the meaning of corporate
intercession. The Bible says that Jesus was slain
from the foundation of the world. (Revelation
13:8) Jesus was as good as annihilated from the
beginning of the world, but He came to Earth
4,000 later to actually die. Jesus died when the
Father decided the timing was perfect. (Galatians
4:4, Romans 5:6) There should be no
question about God’s character of love. The
father is not arbitrary. He is committed to the
rule of law in His universe and the death of
Jesus proves that His laws cannot be changed.
Sin has been permitted to
exist for a short season (6,000 years is a
minuscule slice of time when compared to
eternity) because Jesus was allowed to
corporately intercede on behalf of the human race
the day that sin began. The Father granted a stay
of execution so that He could demonstrate the
horrific properties and consequences of sin.
Everyone in the universe has the knowledge of
good and evil. Of course, wicked people cannot
understand the properties of sin because these
matters are spiritually understood. (Daniel
12:10; 1 Corinthians 2:14) God’s biggest
problem at the moment is not the presence of sin;
God’s biggest problem at the moment is
preventing the second rise of sin.
Think
about this. After sin has run its course, and the
differences between good and evil are clearly
understood, what virtue could there be in
permitting sin to exist within God’s kingdom
for a single day? Will God remove the power of
choice from His children to prevent sin from
happening again? No! God is a God of love! So,
how does God prevent His children from sinning
again? This is a serious question. God’s
laws are not righteous because He says so –
they are righteous because they have been
demonstrated to be so! Carefully consider this:
After sin has been destroyed and the sin problem
has been fully resolved, the penalty for any
future sin will be carried out on the very day
that it occurs. If sin occurs and the sinner
immediately annihilated, everyone will clearly
understand the necessity fro destruction and the
righteousness of doing so! It will be as though
God said, “We’ve been there, done that
– and I am not allowing sin to contaminate
my house and hurt my children anymore.”
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