In describing the temple that he saw in a vision, Ezekiel the
prophet says that “ the side chambers were three one over another”
(41:6) and there was “winding still upward”, a phrase he uses three
times in verse 7. Solomon’s Temple had winding stairs going upwards.
“The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house;
and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and
out of the middle into the third” (1 Kings 6:8). Ezekiel’s temple
(of his vision), however, had stairs winding upward again and again
still upwards. We know the temple here represents the temple which
is not built by human hands, in which there are higher spiritual
realms still upward and yet higher up. God desires to reveal the
truth concerning higher spiritual realms to His Body, which is the
Church.
Beloved, there are realms which we as a body have never ascended
into. God is calling His people to meet with Him in higher realms.
He wants us to experience the reality of an accord, unanimity and a
coalescence that the Church Universal has not yet realized. How
necessary it is for us to pray: “Lord, remove the veil before our
eyes that we may be able to perceive the length, the breadth, the
width and the height of the purposes of God for His Church”. While
many believers are spiritually exhausted and come to think they have
climbed and known all that God has for them; there are yet others
who hear the cry of the Spirit to ‘come up (still) higher’, to
experience a union between the Creator and the created - that is
quite beyond the imagination of man. Some may think God is calling
them to be “caught up” physically in a cloud somewhere in the
troposphere or stratosphere; but on the contrary, the Lord our great
and mighty God, wants us to climb higher spiritual realms in the
Lord, of which we have no understanding at all.
The Lord wants His people to “be filled with all the fulness of
God,” (Ephesians 3: 19) that they may comprehend with all the saints
(as a church) what is the breadth, the length, the depth and the
height of His love for the Body of Christ. There are spiritual
ladders which the Church has yet to ascend corporately. The stairs
ascend ever upwards. We know that in Christ Jesus there is nothing
that is out of depth. We are to go still upwards and yet more upward
till we are filled with all the fullness of God in our lives,
together with all the saints, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let
us be those who are caught up in the heavenlies, not in the poverty
of our understanding, but in the power of His grace.
When the aged Apostle John saw the Lord in all His glory, the Alpha
and the Omega, he saw that He was “clothed with a garment down to
the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.” (Revelation
1:13). In other words He “was dressed in a robe reaching down to His
feet with a golden sash around His chest” (NIV). Daniel saw the Lord
dressed in a similar way; for he wrote, “I looked up and there
before me was a man dressed in linen with a belt of the finest
(purest) gold around his waist “(Daniel 10:5 NIV). The girdle or
belt was made of gold and talks of the perfect life, of His service.
His righteousness was the girdle or the strength to render the
service of redemption. Our Lord continues as God’s Servant to serve
both God and humanity, not only in this earth but also in heaven,
elevated to the place of authority and power over all other powers.
Doing the Father’s will was uppermost in His earthly sojourn; it
continues to be so in heaven. The Father’s will is that the Bride of
Christ be presented in full stature (Ephesians 4: 13) and without
spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27).
The girdle on the High Priest in typological significance talks of a
union with the people through service. The Lord Jesus said, “gird
thyself and serve me” (Luke 17:8). Jesus enlightened His disciples
by girding Himself and washing their feet (John 13). There is a
union that comes about with God by serving one another (John
13:13-15) in the Spirit. How prone God’s people have always been to
remain in the lower realm. May the Lord give us a desire to ascend
together the winding stairs.
