Living as the Ekklesia in the Third Day - Part 1
By Joanne Panettieri
Editor of Kingdom Iconoclast
It has been clear to me for some time now that the Church of Jesus Christ is in a state of Transition. I remember when we entered the new millennium there was a lot of talk about the “Third Day Church”, but at the time I thought it was just the latest catch phrase. I had no idea what it meant, nor was I very interested. Then at the beginning of the year 2002 God started giving me fresh revelation and understanding of where His Spirit was moving. I began studying the home church movement, started reading books by Frank Viola and some Kingdom teachers like T. Austin Sparks. It was also at this time that the Lord began to bring me out of the spiritual warfare movement and spoke to me about being seated with Christ in the Third Heaven. I began to see the correlation between the Kingdom of God and the Feast of Tabernacles and the transition period that the church was in.
As I sit here today in the summer of 2005, I am thinking about a vision that a friend of mine had recently. She saw a bridge and in the middle of the bridge it forked and she knew she had two life choices that were represented by the forks in the bridge and the direction that her life would take. She also knew that whichever way she went she would have to burn the bridge and herself with it. To me this is exactly where the church is at today. The bridge represents the transition we are in from the “Second Day” to the “Third Day” as the church. Now most of the church may not even know that there is a bridge yet, and are just trying to walk out this Christian life within the structures and doctrines of the Second Day. This is what I refer to as the church that has come out of the Reformation. It is how we DO church today, built on the reforms made out of the Catholic church, much of which is still pagan in origin.
Still others are on the bridge, but are in confusion and don’t understand why things don’t work and maybe they are discouraged and have lost hope, but at least they are on the bridge trying to find their way. These are the believers who have left the structures because of disillusionment or church splits or any other mess that they may have found themselves in.
The third group are those who know and understand the times in which we live and crossing over into the Third Day or Kingdom Realm. They are on the bridge crossing over, but the only way to cross over to the other side is to be completely burned up and consumed by God. It isn’t until we are dead that we can experience the resurrection of the Third Day or enter the Kingdom on the other side of the bridge. This requires a letting go of all that we are, have and desire. All of our hopes and dreams and plans. This is not just a death, but death unto resurrection and new life. Jesus came to preach the gospel of the Kingdom and said many times that His Kingdom was not of this world. The burning bridge will lead us into the Kingdom, and we will have to let go of our old mind sets, doctrines and paradigms.
A comparison between the Days and the Feasts:
The Word of God reveals truth in three fold patterns
Prov. 22: 20-21 20 Have I not written to you excellent (or three-part) things of counsels (plan) and knowledge (perception, skill and discernment), 21 To make you know the certainty of the words of truth That you maycorrectly answer him who sent you?
First Day
Passover - First Feast - Represents Salvation First 1,000 since Christ Outer court of the Tabernacle Salvation - Being Born Again Jesus is the WAY - the doorway to the sheepfold
Crossing over from Egypt to the Promised Land
Water Baptism
Death to self life
External
Earth’s Atmosphere / Natural realm
Second Day
Pentecost - Second Feast - Law replaced by the Spirit
Second 1,000 years since Christ
Inner Court / Holy Place
Holy Spirit /Gifts of the Spirit
Spirit Filled Jesus is the Life - The Second Adam became a life giving Spirit
Living and growing IN the Church
Spirit Baptism
Burial / Tomb Realm
Internal - God begins to do His work in us
Second Heaven - Outer space
Satan’s dominion / Warfare realm
Third Day
Tabernacles - Third Feast - Atonement and Ingathering Third 1,000 years Since Christ Most Holy Place
Death to self and Union with God
Mature
Living AS the Assembly in the Kingdom of God
Fire Baptism
Resurrection - Jesus is raised from the dead
Eternal
Third Heaven
Paradise: Seated with Christ / Throne Realm
THE THIRD DAY IS THE DAY OF RESURRECTION!
In order to more fully understand the prophetic significance of the Third Day we need to see what the Bible says about it. If we look at Genesis 22, the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac we can get a glimpse of what it means to be in the Third Day.
2And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
3And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
4Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.”
Notice that on the Third Day Abraham looks up. The Third Day is a time of looking up! We are not to keep our vision on our circumstances, but fix our eyes on Jesus! When Abraham looks up he see the region of Moriah. Moriah means, “seen of Jah”. It is the mountain of sacrifice of all that we hold dear including our inheritance. But notice what Abraham says to his servants:
“5And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.”
(The ass is a Biblical type of Pentecost (See Stephen Jone’s book “The Wheat and Asses of Pentecost” http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/Wheat%20and%20Asses/wheat_and_asses.htm )
In this verse Abraham is leaving the second dimension of Pentecost with his son (his inheritance) and going up to a higher place, the place of sacrifice. As Pentecost represents the second feast and the Second Day, Abraham is showing in type that there is a higher place that we must strive for in our Christian experience and that is Tabernacles. The place of sacrifice is the place of worship, and Abraham’s faith caused him to say that he and his son would both return. And as Abraham is about to sacrifice his most beloved possession, the angel of the Lord stops him and says:
“ 11And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
12And he said, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.”
Abraham then sees the ram and sacrifices it in place of Isaac, so Abraham calls that place, “The Lord will provide” and to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided”. The Third Day is the day of God’s provision. The word “pro-vide” means “to see before”. from the Latin .” providere” to "look ahead, prepare, supply," from pro- "ahead" + videre "to see".
We walk in the faith of Abraham, knowing that God sees all our needs before we even have them and He is our provider. We know God as Jehovah Jire, “our God will see to it.”
Part 2