(Ver 1.1) This is Part 3 in the essential advanced Bible study series, about the subject “God is Love”.   If you have not read from the beginning, it is highly recommended that you begin the study with “Part 1”. This lesson will continue the first two lessons and will build upon them, but it will not repeat all of the same subject details. We should know by now that LOVE, is the most important of the subjects found in the entire Bible, because this represents God. We agree with this based upon the foundational truth from 1 John 4:8, where God declares “He is love”, which can also be mathematically stated as “GOD = LOVE”. This means these two subjects are mathematically identical, equivalent and interchangeable. Therefore, we have learned that our God, clearly reveals Himself, as LOVE. And in reverse, anytime we see GOD’s example of LOVE displayed, we can know this was our God manifested!

Php 2:6  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 

This verse is describing the LORD Jesus Christ. It is interesting to observe that Jesus considered Himself to be equal to GOD. This would make Jesus mathematically equivalent to LOVE also. By the Algebraic law If A=B, and A=C, then B=C “. This would be like us saying “If God = LOVE and God = Jesus, then Jesus = LOVE”. The Jews got extremely angry at Jesus in John 5:17-18. Here Jesus just claimed to be doing the works of His Father, and the Jews wanted to kill Him because He had made Himself equal to God. Wow, if they had only known who He was. The main point in this opening, is we much conclude that Jesus was equal to God, and this made Jesus equal to LOVE.

HOLY SPIRIT =
GOD = JESUS = LOVE

Now for a quick review of the series so far.  We should now know that we were introduced in lesson one, to two divine LOVE manifestations, expressions or we can also say, examples. The first in this lesson, occurred in the Old Covenant (Exodus 12), and this was God’s foundational and prophetical natural pattern, called the Passover. This was the sacrifice of a natural lamb, to save the family’s firstborn from death in Egypt.

Our New Covenant divine LOVE example, was the much greater spiritual fulfillment of God’s Old Covenant Passover shadowed display.  This one occurred when “God is Love” became a physical part of His creation by manifesting as a human male child, and growing into a man.  This man was called the Lamb of God in John 1:29,36, 1 Corinthians 5:7, and 28 times in the book of Revelation. Our New Covenant Lamb of God, was named “Jesus” by an angel from heaven (Matthew 1:21, Luke 1:31). This name was selected, because the angel of God claimed He would save His people from their sins. Therefore, we learn Jesus was manifested as LOVE, in the flesh to die in substitution for His lost, and separated human creation. God did this to offer every human salvation from an eternal spiritual death from Him. This salvation was a free gift (Ephesians 2:8). But this gift of LOVE, while available to everyone, is only receivable to a human that believes (John 3:15).

In lesson 2 we learned an introductory overview, of the plan of salvation from start to finish. In this divine plan of LOVE, God designed, created, and initiated the strategy and determined the ending long before humans, Satan, and sin had been joined together in covenant (Isaiah 28:15-18). In fact, if we read in Hebrews 4:3 God declares all of His works were finished from the foundation of our world. That is an amazing supernatural concept to fully grasp.

Nevertheless, we have seen where God’s words were seeds (Genesis 8:22, Luke 8:11) that produced the final outcome of human salvation and fruitfulness. This plan will take a total of 7000 years to fully complete.  It has been, and still is in progress. It was planned by God, to occur in phases of progressive steps. I compared this to be like a smart phone type of hardware and software release strategy, that was designed to keep people engaged, interested and participating with anticipation for the next greater version.

Today we are going to go back and expand on the lesson 1. We will be building upon the two examples of manifested LOVE, given to us by “God is LOVE”. Our goal is to learn something completely new, about the blood that was offered as payments in both displays.  We are going to review the two lambs, two bloods and the two trees. Hopefully we all remember the two lambs were one natural male animal, and the other greater was the LORD Jesus Christ. The blood of application came from these two sacrifice victims. So, we will focus in this lesson specifically on the two trees. What two trees, some will ask?

One tree was the doorposts, and the other tree was the much greater cross.  We will be focused upon some potential new hidden details, that may have been missed in reading these two LOVE presentations. We will attempt to observe, God’s selections, and directions, to help us find His intentions and messages found in each design. I will add a message at the beginning, that this may not be accepted by some people, and that is OK. Some may not be able to receive the message of this lesson, because it could be something that they have never heard taught before. Hopefully, there will be many that do see what God can teach us from comparing a doorpost to a cross. Let us get started.

#1 – INTRODUCTION

What we are about to discover, is at least some of the potential great reasons, why God instructed Moses to apply the blood of the natural lamb victim:

1. on every post, and
2. in two physical directions simultaneously.

We will soon discover that these God instructions, for “the how” that this was to be done, was spoken by God in Egypt, as a prophecy to teach us about His continuing plan, of Salvation. These spoken words declared:

1. the current human problem created by sin,
2. what was needed to temporarily fix it in the Old Covenant,
3. what was potentially to happen in the future, for all of humanity, in Christ on the cross as our solution.

In both applications of LOVE, the blood was being applied on every post, in the exact same two physical directions. What we want to learn, is “how” this was potentially seen from God’s viewpoint. God’s instructions in Egypt, was NOT spoken to Israel at the first Passover, just for a temporary solution, to only deliver them from a problem of the death of their firstborn. This would have only been a temporary salvation, ignoring a far greater needed solution, for deliverance from eternal death, and ever-lasting separation from God.  No, God had a far greater positive divine outlook, and purpose for His instructions. His Exodus 12 commands were given to them, foreknowing His future heavenly plan of LOVE, to save the entire world.

Act 2:23 – Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: 

Notice these words that Peter preached in Jerusalem, to the children of the Old Covenant Passover people, shortly after Jesus ascended into heaven. Those that were listening, were the offspring of the physical people that were delivered from Egypt. All of these people celebrated this event annually. It had just been celebrated 50 days earlier.

Now, remember in Lesson 1 of this series what we should have learned? Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified is called by the name spiritual Egypt in Revelation 11:8. There are some very startling parallels to these two events hidden in scriptures.  Now let’s look at some of the key words found in Acts 2:23.

The Greek word G1012, translated as “counsel”, has the implied meaning of “purpose”. This word choice, teaches us that God had a design and a purpose for the cross. The Greek word G4267, that was translated as “foreknowledge”, means God “knew”, the cross was coming, long before it happened. Revelation 13:8, clearly teaches us that Jesus was already planned to be slain, before God created the foundation of our world. Therefore, the cross was not a sudden demonic surprise attack, that almost destroyed God’s plan of LOVE. It was rather the major part of God’s plan of LOVE, all along.

We will soon learn, that the natural Egypt lamb’s blood, was only a selected 2-D shadow of the spiritual Egypt sacrifice of the real Lamb of God. As a shadow it had outlined similarities, but not the 3-D realities of the real. Therefore, how did the shadow of the slain “natural” lamb in Egypt, represent the “real” divine LAMB, slain outside of Jerusalem?  What changed between these two chosen symbols made from wooden trees?

In determining this, we need to ask some questions. What were the differences in the designs of the two trees, with blood applications placed upon them? Always remember that God uses natural created things to teach us, greater unseen spiritual realities. Jesus taught us this truth, very plainly saying, “How can I teach you spiritual things, if you do not yet understand natural things?” (John 3:12). Jesus places a very strong emphasis upon understanding the naturally created things of this world, to be potentially powerful ways to understand greater and higher spiritual things, and that is what this lesson of LOVE, is focused upon today.

Let us get started, if everyone is ready to learn what I believe the Spirit of the Living God wants to say.  Please pause, pray, and ask the Holy Spirit to give you an open, receptive, and understanding heart. Ask the Holy Spirit of God, to illuminate your mind, having your spiritual eyes, and ears opened to be able to receive everything, that He is speaking to us. Finally, resist the devil’s plan to distract you, by demanding that he remove any preconceived blinders of demonic doctrines, that could be obstructing your ability to see what God, wants to say. Let us get started with our Bible lesson.

#2 – THE VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL DIRECTIONS OF GOD’S LOVE

As noted by the title of today’s lesson, we will be learning about, “God is LOVE”, and His divine LOVE given to us, and for us, and to be received by us, and applied in us, in two directions. We will call these directions, His “Vertical LOVE” gift, given for His “Horizontal LOVE” manifestation. Our subject today will be God’s blood and Love being alive, and active in these two dimensions of human existence. This will cause us to ask; what does “vertical”, and “horizontal” represent in the Bible? Hopefully, these will be answered as we study, and learn.

But we need to go through some basic foundational information, to get everyone on the same page of understanding. Please do not allow some of the technical details of these natural things, that were created by our God, to cause you to be discouraged, if you do not follow them all immediately, or understand how they will apply later. Everything that will be covered in this section, will help us to understand the Word of God on LOVE. 

It is most interesting, to see and learn about one very unusual detail given to us by God’s Word. This is concerning the blood of the natural lamb, and the spiritual Lamb, that were found within both of these implementations of His, divine love displays. What we will discover, are the concepts of direction, given to us as types of sign posts, hidden in two blood sacrifices. These essential details, are found in the divine directions given to us in the Bible. These will be used by God to reveal, the potential meaning of the blood sprinkling of the lambs, that were directed by God, to be placed specifically upon the Passover wooden doorposts, and the cross. 

God knowing how Christ would die in the future, told the Israelites to apply the blood in a very exact way, on specifically chosen known wooden objects. I believe that God did this on purpose, to provide us all with visible signposts. These were given, to point us into turning from the path of selfishness, evil, and hate that we were on, leading us to destruction. These signposts, would help direct us, to now go into the pathway of “Knowing LOVE”.  When we choose to look for, and turn to LOVE, we would be able to recognize, LOVE in hidden Bible messages. We will be able to see “how” God applied the blood, in the Old Covenant Passover, to His New Covenant sacrificed Lamb’s blood. We will be discovering that the “how” blood application, was a direct prophecy, that teaches incredible revealed parallels, when it was fulfilled in Christ’s blood in the New Covenant. For instance, both the Old and New Covenant blood applications, were applied in a vertical direction, and in a horizontal direction, during the same timed event.

This information should make us wonder, why was it necessary for the lamb’s blood to be applied in two coexisting right-angle directions? Also, what do these two directions represent to God?  I believe we can learn the most about any Bible subject by paying close attention to the smallest details given to us, and then asking God why He did it that way. These answers are usually the hidden pearls of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom that God would like for us to know about Him. Absolutely nothing in the Bible is there by accident, or without meaning or purpose to either teach us, about who Jesus is, or who Jesus is not. God’s Word is Him, revealing Himself to us, for us to know Him (John 5:39).

Let us stop and define the word “direction”. This word can be thought of as: 1) “the spoken words of a leader for correction, instruction, or guidance given, to an individual, group, team, nation, etc., to help them achieve the desired positive outcome”. That is one very good definition for what we will be learning today. However, another definition of this word represents: 2) “a line leading us to turn in a specific movement for a desired location or destination”. This could be like someone receiving instructions on how to arrive at Los Angeles, driving from New York City.

Those that have driven an automobile, can relate to traffic signs that say; “Interstate Highway 10 West”, “Do Not Enter”, or “One Way”. These are just examples of three types of signs, that clearly show us a correct or incorrect “direction” to turn or travel. Wow, could these definitions, be related to the blood applied to the doorpost of the Passover house, and the cross?  I believe, they do. Notice what God said during the Egypt Love event of Passover:

Exo 8:23  And I will put a division between my people and thy people: tomorrow shall this sign be. 

Notice what God says will happen in Egypt. God made a division between His people and the people of Egypt. God used the Hebrew word H226 that was translated as “sign”. It is translated this way 33 times. That is a “sign” that we are on the right path in our study. There are many verses in both the Old and New Testament that demonstrates God’s usage of signs.

We should go over some additional concepts of “directions”, before we continue.  We have already seen a couple of the definitions, and applications of the word “direction”. But there are others, within our current world system created by God. This system that we are living within, consists of the basic concepts, of space and time. Many scientists, consider these to be four dimensions of space-time. Within these dimensions, we have the movement of direction, which can be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. Within all of these, we have multiple directions of differing sub-movements, these being, backward, forward, upward, and downward. We also have the unique quality of “time”, which is normally seen as a continual “forward” movement.

Here is another dictionary definition of the word “direction”. It is defined to be: 3) a noun, that means “the position in which someone or something faces (implied to be standing still)”. This definition also implies potential movement, for a possible travel route. Clearly all of our definitions, relate to personal choices, to travel within physical, mental or spiritual space. This traveling or facing direction in the physical realm of concept, can and does usually correspond to a human compass on the earth.

When viewing a compass, the needle pointer will always direct us towards magnetic north. Directly 90 degrees to the right of the direction north, is the direction east, and the opposite 90 degrees left of north, is the direction west. Finally, the 180 degrees from the direction north, is the direction of south. Almost everyone understands these concepts given to us by compass directions.  It is important to note that the 4 compass pointers form a shape like a cross.

When looking at a map of the world, these directions are beneficial to understanding “where” a place is, in relationship to “where” our current location is now. These directions are given to us in the Bible in several verses. For example, notice in 1 Chronicles 9:24 “In four quarters were the porters, towards the east, west, north and south”. Wow, that is an amazing verse that is related to our Bible study.

In 1 Chronicles 9:24, a “porter” is defined as a “gate” or “door” keeper. God is informing us that there are implied doors at each of these four directions of travel, that require a gate/door keeper.  Now remember what happened in Genesis 3. Adam sins, being rebellious against the command of the LORD, and submits to Satan to be his god (2 Corinthians 4:4). In rebelling, Adam turned over the authority of, all of the kingdoms of this world to Satan (Matthew 4:8).

After this occurs, God casts Adam out of the Garden of Eden, placing him back on the ground that He was taken from. Guess what direction this movement was?  Genesis 2:8 informs us that God planted a garden “eastward” from where Adam was created. The man was then moved from the “west”, into the garden that was planted to the east called “Eden”. Therefore, when God cast the man out of the Garden, he was again moved back to the “west” where he was created (Genesis 3:23). Wow, that is amazing. We have just been introduced to a new concept of “horizontal” movement.

But why did God choose east, and west as the location for these movements?  Also ask the question, why was it necessary in Genesis 3:24, for God to place cherubim on the east of the garden with flaming swords, to guard the way to the “tree of life”. Wow, these are amazing details that God included in the descriptions of sin’s origination on the earth. What we will soon discover in many verses of the Bible, is that “east and west” movement represents a symbolic “horizontal” human direction of travel. But there are literal physical movements recorded in all directions:

Mark 1:45 – But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter. 

Here in Mark 1:45, the news of Jesus coming, brought people to him from the east, west, north and south. It is interesting that God places all four directions in the word “quarter”. God’s design of these directions is amazing. We learn many places in scripture where 4 main directions are mentioned.

These 4 directions of movement, east, west, north, and south, are just fundamental knowledge about pointers and compass directions for potential movements, travels, schedules, routes, course corrections, etc. But this is important information, to help us to understand God’s vertical and horizontal applications, of love. Let us talk about the concepts of vertical versus horizontal directions, next.

Vertical is an adjective, and it is normally defined as a line, that is at a right angle to the horizon. Therefore, we normally do not understand the concept of “vertical”, without first understanding what the “horizon” means to us. The word horizon is a noun, that is normally defined as the human perspective of the line where the earth meets the sky, or the heavens. Wow!  Can you potentially begin to see, how these two lines we call vertical and horizontal, represent an intersection point?  Could a point of intersection, represent God’s plan to come down from heaven, to meet with humans on the earth?  I believe it does, and this information, just shouts LOVE to me. Maybe those that do not understand what an intersection is, are not as excited. So let us go over quickly, the concept of what an intersection is next.

An “intersection” represents a place, occasion, or position, where two lines cross. An intersection literally means a location where, two or more individuals, or groups can meet, or join together. The antithesis of “intersecting” lines, would be called “parallel” lines, where the two lines never cross. In this environment, there are no points of direct meeting.  Here are some important synonyms for the word “intersection”: “the connection point or subset”, “a joint location”, “the joining juncture”, “the union point”, “the common point or occasion”, and the most interesting one is, “the cross point”. Wow, remember that last one, because in one of our subjects, we are talking about a “cross”. Now we need to begin to understand more clearly, the concepts of “intersection”, “vertical”, and “horizontal” from a Bible view. Take a look at this verse, found in Psalms:

Psalms 53:2 – God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. 

This verse announces the divine desire, for an intersection point for God’s LOVE expression. God, who is LOVE, said that He sits in the heaven above (the Vertical height of heaven), looking and searching downward (to the Human Horizontal), for anyone that seeks to know Him. Here we have the concept, of many humans on the horizon of the earth, with God sitting in a vertical position, a far distance above in heaven, seeking and searching for anyone to desire to know LOVE. Notice the order of mention. God is first. God’s action of looking down is second. God’s location is heaven third. Fourth, we then find God’s focus for searching, was to find just one human. Fifth, God’s purpose and desire was to find anyone, that was seeking to understand and seek Him. It should be self-evident, that God wanted a point of fulfilment of His desire for man to know Him as LOVE.

God shows us in this verse, that He is looking for those that are here living here in the Horizontal natural realm, that are looking up, for Him, in the heavenly spiritual Vertical direction. Therefore, I believe the direction of “vertical” represents, the God to human relationship that we may have noticed in other Bible verses.  We will see this in the design of the Passover doorposts and the cross, as we continue to learn. Now consider this verse found in Hebrews:

Hebrews 7:19  For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God. 

I think this is very relevant to our Bible Study on LOVE. It demonstrates the concept of God’s great desire to be “NEAR” His human creation. In the Old Covenant, God came nearer to man to be with them, by coming down from the heights of heaven, to live with them on the horizontal earth realm in a tent tabernacle. But Hebrews 7:19 claims this was far from a perfect experience for God or humans. Reading the book of Hebrews, we find that our New Covenant with Jesus, was so much better, and gave us greater hope of always being with God.

We will soon further confirm, how this vertical line represents a pointer guiding natural humans to look up, into the spiritual heaven, to search for God, as we saw above in Psalm 53:2. But this directional pointer, also shows us how we needed God (the Spirit), to come down from heaven, to interact with the natural people on the earth first. We learned in the previous lesson, that this LOVE connection access, was made available by the shedding of animal blood at first. We learned this “Knowing LOVE” plan, was a process of divinely order steps.

We will also soon find, and confirm that the horizon line of direction, represents 1) man’s realm of existence, and 2) our natural limitations. We will additionally discover, that the horizontal line of direction, represents the human-to-human (natural-to-natural) relationships. These would include successful relationships with God, or failures, without God’s vertical participation. It was our fallen human nature, before salvation, and all of the massive displays of evil found in the world, that causes the LOVE of God, to become so desirable and needful.  Now let us continue through some additional created concepts of directions and dimensions.

We all should know from Genesis 1:1, that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  In this first Biblical statement, we have a stated beginning of the direction of time, moving forward towards, the future end of time. Time began from the beginning of creation in Genesis 1:1, and will continue to the end of time occurring in Revelation 22. But we also have the concept, of 3-dimensional space creation, joined within this statement of time creation. All of this introduces us to some new directions of possible movements, within the physical realm other than vertical and horizontal.

Within the 3-dimensions of space, we have the concepts of length, width, height, and depth. Two of these pointers, can be synonymous terms for our 2-D vertical, and horizontal directions.  The vertical, can be labeled as the height, or the depth; and the horizontal, can be labeled as either the length, or the width. These are the basic 2-dimensional God ideas, of a more complex reality of 3, 4 or more dimensions, that are not necessary to understand for this Bible study.

Let us look at another reference of confirmation, to the subjects of height, width, depth and length.

Proverbs 25:2 – It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. 

Proverbs 25:3 – The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable. 

I literally love Proverbs 25:2. This verse should cause everyone, to become a Sherlock Holmes type, of diligent investigative Bible student. God informs us plainly, that He hides information about Himself, in His Word. God plainly says this divine hidden information, is intended for “kings” to search for. This should be describing, every reader of this lesson.

Now notice the next connected verse. Connected to God hiding information, and us finding it; is God saying the direction of height, is directly associated to the location of heaven. Then the next direction, “depth”, is then labeled to be directly associated, with the earth. Height, points us up, and depth, points us down. This clearly describes a “vertical” connection pathway and point of intersection, from heaven (the spiritual) to the earth (the natural), and vice versa. We can see this pathway being described, in a vision given to Jacob, in Genesis 28:12.

One last concept that will help us transition into our next subject, is the word “perpendicular”. This word can be defined as the line standing at a right angle to the horizon. Clearly that means this is a synonymous term, for the word “Vertical”. It also means, there is a 90-degree intersection point between these two lines of vertical and horizontal. This represents the “point” of commonality between two lines. This word “commonality” means a point of union, harmony or peace. Our English word “perpendicular” comes from the Latin language. It is noteworthy to analyze this for our Bible study.  The root words are “per”, meaning “to go through”, and “pendere”, which means to “hang”.  That sounds like a “door”, and or a “cross”, doesn’t it?

This has been a quick overview of the basics. Let us go on to the applications found in the Bible.

#3 – THE BLOOD AND THE O.T. DOOR POST DESIGN

Exodus 12:22 – And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. 

This is our key verse, for this section of our new topic on “GOD IS LOVE”. We should remember from the last lesson in the series, that we were introduced to God’s plan of salvation, being implemented in phases. In these phases, God went from walking, and talking with man personally in the garden, to being separated from His creation, because of the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). This initial Adam sin, caused an eternal separation from our Holy Creator God, for every human (Romans 5:12). It was this eternal separation of spiritual death, that is being described by God’s LOVE, in the chosen Passover doorpost design.

God knowing and understanding the human sin dilemma, has already designed the solution, into His creation, as we learned in the last lesson. God in His omniscient compassion and love, must provide ignorant humans, some visible symbolic signposts. These were given, to help teach us, what was needed to reconcile us, back to God, because of His extreme Holiness.  God knowing the future plan of His death on the cross, has chosen a simple set of doorposts, as the Old Covenant shadow of the greater reality, of the New and better Covenant, found in the coming cross design. Therefore, let us first, study the doorpost design in some depth.

Please reread Exodus 12:22, to see the design of a doorpost, being given to us in a word picture. We will note initially, that the blood applications are described to only be applied by God’s instructions, in two dimensions. These are implied as 1) height or vertical, and 2) width, or horizontal. But we will soon discover that there is much more covered by God’s LOVE than just its two-dimensional height and width. I believe God intentionally limited us to two dimensions in Exodus 12, to emphasize and teach us LOVE. I also believe two dimensions are figuratively used, to teach us that these Old Covenant instructions, are just shadows of the coming reality in Jesus. I believe everyone now understands, that shadows are only two-dimensional outline representations, of the much more complex and greater 3-dimensional reality, that is casting the shadow? Let us continue to examine the shadow text.

In the first Passover, the blood shed by the natural innocent victim lamb, was placed upon the upper horizontal “lintel” post, as well as the two vertical doorposts. One of these vertical posts, was holding the nailed door. Every post had blood applied to it. How many posts were there? If you counted the posts mentioned in Exodus 12:22, you should have come up with a total of three door posts. They are described as the one single “Top” post, and the two “Side” posts. This description even gives us the implied design, of how they are laid out to form the construction. Believe it or not, this door design description, is a picture representation of the Old Covenant.

The door design of a Passover house, is illustrated in the above diagram. The key components of our study have been labeled. These are the “Top Horizontal” post, the “Vertical 1” side post, and “Vertical 2” side post. In the Egypt Passover, going through this blood sprinkled door post frame, where the door was hung, provided each person, temporary natural life, peace and safety.

Therefore, this application of blood was sprinkled, in two different directions simultaneously, and these were the “vertical”, and the “horizontal”. How many posts did you observe that were mentioned, that needed blood? There were three different wooden posts in total, and by the ordered command of God, He decreed that each one of them, required blood.  Why was this necessary?

Now notice there are at least two, very distinct parts of the design of a doorframe, that need to be understood. There is the TOP horizontal Lintel post, that uniquely:

1. Separates,
2. Limits, &
3. Connects.

Then there are the two vertical SIDE posts. These two vertical posts are in parallel to each other. This truth symbolizes, that whatever these two posts represent, they are eternally separated. Then notice, without the presence of the dependent TOP connection post (called the Lintel), there is no pathway to each other. WOW, did anyone just see Jesus? God just described Him, using a shadow form. This is exactly the role of Jesus in the New Covenant. But here in the Old Covenant, this is an inferior shadow implementation, of the far better New Covenant.

Perhaps it will help us, to review some information we learned in the last lesson. In this lesson we should have seen God’s planned Phase 3 of the salvation process, where He personally came to live with humans in covenant with Him. In order to make this part of the plan work, there was a divinely created system of law, a temporary tent tabernacle location for the dwelling of the LORD, and a priest intermediary that went between the 2 separated Old Covenant participants. These two participants were:

• the Old Covenant people of God named Israel,

<-the chosen mediator high priest->

• God Himself.

Please attempt to see, that this just described the Passover doorframe, with great precision.  Did you see it? How many posts were there? The correct answer is still, three. How many participants were there, in the Old Covenant relationship system? The answer is three.  This makes a great match so far. Let us look at it, in more detail. Notice what God teaches us, about the Old Covenant compared to the New Covenant in Hebrews:

Hebrews 8:3 – For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. 
Hebrew 8:4 – For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: 
Hebrews 8:5 – Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. 

These are critical verses to examine for our subject of LOVE in two directions. Anytime we find the subjects of earth and heaven mentioned together, try to find how God is making a comparison of Heavenly Vertical realm to the lower human horizontal realm. Pay close attention to verse 5, because God clearly states the Old Covenant system of human covenant fellowship with the divine, was only a shadowed example type, of the real that is found in the spiritual heavenly domain in Jesus Christ.

Then notice in verse 3, that God required gifts and sacrifices in the Old Covenant. We find this offering was a man presenting God with blood in other verses. This matches the Passover door offering of a lamb’s blood. Then in verse 4, God says Jesus would not be able to offer His gifts to be a priest under this outdated law system. If we go back and read Hebrew 7:12, we find where God says the New Covenant system required a change of the Law, for Jesus Christ to be our New Covenant High Priest, and this will be the focus of the next lesson in the series, the Lord willing. Let us continue, going through our door diagram.

Notice, we have God on the right Side 2, of the three doorposts. This represents the Holy God, living in a physical tent on the earth. We have the sinful people on the left Side 1, that are in covenant with Him. But there is only one way to get from the left sinful to the right Holy, and this was by going through, the single man mediator, called the high priest. Wow, this is awesome, if you see it?  Now what made all of this possible? It was the application of the blood, on every post. Is this what God said to us in the Bible? Let us, take a look.

We can begin with Moses, sprinkling the blood of a sacrificed victim animal, on all of God’s covenant people in Exodus 24:8. That would be an example of placing the blood, on Side Post 1 of our Passover door frame. This same type of animal blood was further offered by the high priest, on the temple altar outside of the inner Holy place, for all of the people in Leviticus 16:15. This is also representative, for the side door Post 1.

We can then find, in Exodus 29:21, where the blood of the animal victim is sprinkled upon the high priest, Aaron and all of his clothing. This was done to cleanse himself from his sins. This blood would make the priest clean, and permit him to enter into the presence of the Most Holy God without the fear of death. That is, if everything was done according to the law correctly. This process represents the top connecting “Horizontal” post blood application.

Now finally, when the tabernacle was built, and the Spirit of God inhabited it, there was an inner Holy area, where God dwelt. This area behind a protective veil (Exodus 26:33), contained the Ark of the Covenant. This inner Holy dwelling place of God, was also called the “Mercy Seat” (Exodus 26:34). The High priest, after he had cleansed himself, and the people with blood, would take the blood and sprinkle it upon the “mercy seat”, seven times. This is described to us, in Leviticus 16:14, and it is interesting to notice that the High Priest is told to do this, while standing facing “eastward” towards the “ark of the covenant”. This would cause the high priest, to be standing on the west side of the ark of the covenant. So far, we have a continuing match to our doorframe design diagram, as being a picture representation of the Old Covenant.

Looking at our door diagram design, we should see, where the Side Post 1 could represent “West”, and God’s dwelling in the vertical Side Post 2, could represent “East”. This would mean the top of the vertical door post was “North”, and the bottom of the doorpost was “South”. And if you did not know it, the direction “north” is also a representation for the location of God, in the vertical heaven. We can read about this reality, in Psalm 75:6-7, to name one reference. But notice, in this Old Covenant diagram, there is no pathway to heaven. The two covenant partners, are still eternally separated because of sin.

Ok, here is the last point in the design of the doorposts. There is only one Horizontal post. This horizontal post, is located at the top of the doorframe. It represents, the limited nature of this type of covenant method, to be below heaven, at the earth’s natural level. Remember, horizontal comes from the word “horizon”, and this is the earth’s surface level for normal human existence. It teaches us, that this Passover method blood design, was only available for God to human, and human to God relationship within the natural realm. This was a severe limitation, and it was very inadequate for what God had pictured in His mind, for the complete salvation of humans, from His enemy. 

This was a very quick, but important description, of the doorpost design found in Passover. It can teach us some very profound hidden truths about the mind of God. This doorpost design was clearly known by God, when He selected it, to represent His “cross” shadowed type. We need to keep this information in our minds, when we review the cross design, in more detail. Now, let us sum up, what we have just learned.

Through someone entering the blood covered Passover house’s door frame, they were temporarily, and physically saved. This represented the individual’s entrance into the physical location to gain temporary life, peace and safety. This blood offering that was applied, was a natural lamb’s life that was taken, in exchange “for” the human life, that was spared and sustained.  Remember this safe location was only accessible by them entering into the door, that was nailed to the posts, where the applied lamb’s blood was visibly seen, on the three physical external wooden posts.

These three wooden door posts represented a temporary covenant system of law, that would permit God to live near His covenant people. It required blood to be applied in three locations, to satisfy access for one human male to enter into His Holy presence, on the earth. This man was the high priest, called a mediator. It was a better system than what was available up until this point, but it was nowhere close, to what was coming in the future with God’s real spiritual manifestation of LOVE.

#4 – THE BLOOD AND THE N.T. CROSS DESIGN

As we have learned in the first lessons, we now know that Jesus represents the type found in the O.T. Passover door.  We know this because Jesus claimed to be the door of His sheep (Christians) in John 10:7. Jesus defines sheep to be humans in John 10:9, by saying “I am the door, if any man enters through me, they shall go in and out and find pasture”. Notice Jesus restates the initial Passover plan and claims to be the door for the New Covenant salvation fulfilment. Finally notice the term “find pasture”, implies that those that entered Him will be fed by Him also. This is a direct comparison to the Passover lamb blood that saved them, and the body of the lamb that fed them the same night (Exodus 12:8). Wow, if this is not exciting and amazing to you, your wood must be wet.

We also know that Jesus our spiritual door, was hung on a wooden cross using nails, where the blood of the sinless Lamb of God (Jesus) was poured out from His body on two wooden crossed posts. But we should take notice that His blood was also applied to the wood posts of the cross, in the same two directions, like the Passover lamb was. Let us review a picture diagram of the cross design, and see if this represents, our New Covenant reality in any form?

Let us quickly understand the type of cross that Jesus was crucified upon. There were two basic types of crosses, used by Roman soldiers in the days of the LORD Jesus upon the earth. The first type, was in the shape of a capital “T”. The second type of cross, was in the shape of a lowercase “t”, without the bottom fishhook. There are arguments for either design being selected. But the majority of Christians in the world today, believe it is the lower-case “t” design, that was chosen by God. I have never seen an upper case “T” piece of jewelry design representing, the cross of Jesus. Neither, have I ever seen an upper case “T” design, that was hung on the top of a church, or found on the inside of a church, or placed in the ground outside of the church?

Also, please understand, that according to scripture, Jesus had to be crucified upon the cross, in the form of the lowercase “t”. We know this because, in Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, and Luke 23:28, there is given to us the fact, that above the head of Jesus, was hung a potentially large sign.  It had to be large enough to be seen, and read by the people, that were standing away, watching the event. This would require letters large enough to be readable.

In Luke 23:28, God said this sign was written in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, and it said “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS”. Wow, is that not incredible? First, notice the sign was written in three languages and one of them was Latin. Latin was an established world language, during the time of Jesus’ death on the cross. Greek was another common world language, used in the known conquered world. Alexander the Great, a Greek King, conquered much of the world and spread this Greek language.  Of course, the massive Roman Empire helped to spread the Latin language to the world also. This causes an interesting connection to help us ensure, that our word definition of Perpendicular coming from the Latin language, is a legitimate application for our Bible study.

The main point here, is for us to realize that it is a requirement of the vertical post to be extended above the head of Jesus and the horizontal post, in order for there to be a large sign, written in 3 languages, hung “above” Him. Why is this important? It is essential for us to understand the correct type of cross design, in order for us to understand the symbolism for each component of the design. Remember, God foreknew the cross that He would be hung upon. This caused Him, to intentionally select the house door, and frame as the perfect type of application for the symbolic lamb’s blood on the first Passover in Egypt. And all of this information, literally means something very profound.

It is very noteworthy to understand the ancient Hebrew alphabet. There were 22 letters in this alphabet. The ending letter was the “tav”, and in the ancient Hebrew it looks like a lower-case “t” cross design. I do not know of any ancient Hebrew letter that resembles a capital “T”.  Since Jesus claimed to be the Alpha and the Omega, in the New Testament, we know He was saying “I am the Alef and the Tav”, because I believe He was speaking Hebrew, when He said it. This appears to say to us; “I am the End, as well as the Beginning”. It also confirms to us, that the cross, plays a very significant ending role in our human salvation.

Notice our diagram of the cross above. Does this design have any direct meaning, and application to our New Covenant? Oh, yes it does! Like the doorpost of Passover being a picture diagram of the Old Covenant, the cross has the same hidden messages associated with it, containing new meanings. Notice, there are a number of similarities to the Passover shadow door post design, as well as there being significant prophetic modifications and transitions, that were given to us that changed from the door posts to the cross-design.

The first major similarity that is noteworthy, is that both designs, were made from wood and trees. It is also important to notice, that the wood being used in both, came from a tree, that use to be a living and growing thing, before it was cut down. Now the dead wood that was used to build both, became a non-living, corruptible or decayable substance. That sounds a lot like our current human body. Therefore, I see this to be God looking down for a non-living human that wants to know Him, and enter into a covenant with Him. There are too many verses to list here that compare humans to be like trees. One very interesting fact about trees and humans, is the fact that no two are identical. Every tree has a natural fingerprint that makes it uniquely beautiful. If you are interested, you can go, and search for trees and read about them.

Next, we will immediately notice, there are only two posts in our cross design. This eliminates one of the vertical Posts from the Passover door design entirely.  Or does it?  Could it be a different meaning than God just eliminated it? I believe there is something profoundly different that occurred in this New Covenant, and we will see this soon enough, in our next design comparison section.

The next significant part of the cross designs that stands out to me, is the “Horizontal” post is not at the top of the vertical post(s), like it was in the door design.  Could this mean, that there was something new, that has taken place? I believe it does. Finally, notice that the cross design has no terminating points, or any limitations of ending. With the exception of the vertical post being buried and terminated within the natural ground. Does any of this have a significant meaning, and application to our New Covenant? I believe it all does.

Was God’s Lamb blood sprinkled upon both of these wood cross posts, like it was sprinkled upon the three door posts? I believe this is exactly the same, on the cross, as it was on the door posts. It should be obvious that the blood of Jesus was sprinkled on the single vertical post, as well as the single horizontal post, simultaneously, as the body of Jesus hung there bleeding. Jesus had to have had at minimum, three nail wounds where blood was applied to the wooden cross posts. Three is an interesting number, because this is how many posts were found in the Passover door. There had to be two nails on the Horizontal post, in the right hand, and one in the left hand. Then there had to be at least one nail in the vertical post for the feet. This blood application is amazingly equal to the instructions that God gave to Israel during the first “Passover”, to apply blood in both the vertical, and the horizontal directions.

What we have seen so far, are God’s designs of two types of doors, hanging from wooden posts, utilizing nails, with blood spread in two directions. This section has been a quick overview of the cross design. Let us now do a review, of a post-to-post design comparison, between these two types of covenants, and see if they teach us anything new, that we might have missed.

#5 – COMPARING POST DESIGNS

We are now going to do a quick overview comparison, between God’s Old Covenant doorpost design, and His New Covenant cross reality. We should begin to notice how similar, and different the Passover door posts and the cross posts details were. I believe this information is very revealing. For example, let us go through the obvious similarities first.

1. Both designs have only one post in the horizontal world direction.
2. Both designs have at least one post, rising in the vertical perpendicular heavenly direction.
3. Both designs had blood applied to them, in both the vertical and horizontal directions.
4. Both designs had blood applied, to EVERY wooden Post that was present, and available.
5. Both designs were made of decayable wood.

Now let us go through some of the fundamental differences of these two divinely selected designs. We learned a normal door frame had 2 longer vertical posts, and 1 separating and joining shorter horizontal post. Therefore, there were three wooden posts in total. We also learned, that the two vertical door posts, are parallel to each other, and that they never touch. This means that they have no common point, for an intersection of union. I believe that is a very important detail. We also noticed the position of the horizontal separating post, is at the very top of the two separated vertical posts. A human walking through the Passover door on the ground, was always below the horizontal post in order to enter the house. I believe all of this information has significant symbolic typological meaning. Let us list the clear differences found in these two designs, next:

1. The cross has one less vertical post than the door
2. The cross had one balanced common center point, of intersectional union between the vertical, and the horizontal, and the doorposts had only vertical and horizontal end-point connecters, that kept and held, it together.
3. The door of Passover was designed for a spiritually dead human to enter, to be temporarily saved from physical death; and the cross was designed for one living man to die a physical death so that, every human could be saved from a permanent spiritual death.
4. The cross vertical post had only one bottom direction, that was terminated, with all others being open ended; and every post of the Passover door, had only termination points.
5. The cross was lifted higher above the earth’s surface, while the door post was meant for only human earth level access.
6. The posts of the Passover door, were covered by an animal lamb’s blood, and the posts of the cross, were covered with only one male human’s blood called the Lamb of God.

That was only a few of the significant differences, and we will talk more about these as we go. Let us move our study to the specific single “Vertical” cross post next.

#6 – THE VERTICAL N.T. CROSS POST MEANING
GOD PRESENTING DIVINE LOVE TO MANKIND

After study of this subject of LOVE in the Bible, I have come to the conclusion that the vertical post represents, God’s LOVE in heaven being extended (poured out), to mankind on the earth below. In the Old Covenant, we discovered that the left post represented sinful humans on the earth, and the right post represented the Holy God, coming down to the natural earth, for His Spirit presence to be nearer, to those that were in covenant with Him. In this example of the Old Covenant LOVE, God needed a Horizontal post mediator, a human go-between, to bridge the gap of sinful division. God implemented this, using the blood of an innocent animal to pay the penalty of human sin, temporarily.

Therefore, in the Old Covenant, one post represented the Holy God on the earth, and the other post represented, the eternally separated sinful covenant humans. This would indicate that the Old Covenant people had some hope of knowing real LOVE with God, but it was not perfect enough, as we read in Hebrews 7. However, now with the cross in the New Covenant, there is only ONE vertical post.

I told you earlier, that this one vertical cross post, does not represent the removal of the sinful human, but rather it represents, the two posts of the Old Covenant which were: 1) the one Holy God, and 2) the sinful human, becoming one new man, in the man Jesus Christ. This does not sound very religious, but it will work out, and be confirmed with the Word of God.

The cross design had only 1 longer vertical post crossed at a central point by one shorter horizontal post. This design provided us with ONE single intersecting “crossed” point of union. Do you remember we mentioned this, when we were defining the words, vertical, horizontal and what perpendicular showed us? I believe this center point of union represents Jesus Christ, our spiritual door. But in order to confirm what this central union point represents; we need to better define, the meaning of the wooden new covenant vertical post.

I believe the single vertical post found in the cross design, represents the LOVE of God, being manifested in the form of the man named Jesus. Jesus was the Spirit of GOD (who is LOVE), becoming a man in the flesh (John 1:1-14). This also teaches us, that Spiritual LOVE became flesh, and dwelt among us physically. How do I conclude this? There are a lot of Bible verses that can confirm this truth.  For example, notice this verse:

John 3:13 – And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. 

This is a radically powerful statement, that Jesus is making a claim to. It is clearly a statement of God’s vertical heavenly: 1) descension, and 2) ascension. This description, corresponds to our vertical cross post design. The TOP of the cross, points us the way, to heaven where Jesus came from, and the bottom of the vertical cross post, was buried into the ground, indicating that Jesus would die, and be buried for us as a human. This sounds, like an accurate description of Jesus so far. Now let us analyze the statement of Jesus in John 3:13, in more depth.

If this statement is not true, then Jesus is insane.  Because for any natural human, this is a crazy claim. Jesus states first, that no man had ever ascended up to heaven, the day when He spoke this on the earth approximately 2000 years ago. So far that is a believable statement. But the next statement is where things get crazy. Jesus then says; “except he that came down from heaven”. Jesus is speaking of Himself as a human male, using a third-person reference, has just claimed that, “He” has just come down from heaven, after previously ascending up to heaven. That sounds impossible, doesn’t it?

Now comes the final, and most outrages claim. Jesus calling Himself to be “the Son of Man”, says “He is still in the vertical Heaven”, while speaking this statement on the natural horizontal earth. Wow, this is amazing truth, being revealed. Jesus is claiming to be an intersection point between the natural and the spiritual. The Spirit of the Living Most Holy God, became a human male on the earth, and He legally was walking, and talking with sinful humans, in the form of a Man with the Spirit of God on the inside, and no one became a corpse, or a pile of ashes, in His presence. God designed a living flesh temple organism, that was a safe sanctuary for Himself, the Holy Spirit to personally interact with sinful humans. This statement teaches us that Jesus claimed, that He was God manifested in the horizontal human realm, equally with the Spirit of God in the heavenly vertical realm. And He claimed to be in both dimensions of existence, simultaneously. Jesus has just claimed to be God’s center point design of a divine union, with man, causing a new intersection that is only found in the cross design, but not the door design. This is the union of the “One God” who is “LOVE”, with One Man who was “LOVE” manifested.  Wow, this represents a God and human intersection reality, that is still in effect today.

This is a great time to let you in on another Old Testament symbolic prophecy type, given to us by the intelligent design of God. These instructions from God, are found in Numbers chapter 2. God instructed Israel exactly how to camp around the Tabernacle containing the Holy Spirit’s presence, while living in the wilderness. God just so happened to tell 3 tribes to camp to the east, three tribes to camp to the west, 3 tribes to camp to the north, and 3 tribes to camp to the south of the tabernacle. Did you notice in the diagram above, that this camping pattern looks like a cross? Of course, this pattern is only clearly seen and known by someone, that is looking down from heaven. Wow, God knew exactly what He was trying to vertically communicate to His human creation living in the horizontal world. This was clearly a hidden prophecy for the coming New Covenant union of intersection named Jesus.

Notice how all of these tribes in arrangement, created lines that met at the center point of intersection, where God was living with them.  This tabernacle was not accessible directly to them, but only by the High Priest as we have learned. But, because God became our High Priest, we are able now to enter the door to come boldly to the throne of Grace directly. I hope and pray that everyone can see how God works in plain sight using hidden ways. These O.T. instructions, clearly show God’s design of becoming the center intersection. But now let us move forward and look at some more New Testament verses that must be seen, and applied to what the single post, of the cross, confirms to us in the New Covenant.

Ephesians 2:11 – Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 
Ephesians 2:12 – That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 
Ephesians 2:13 – But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 
Ephesians 2:14 – For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 
Ephesians 2:15 – Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 
Ephesians 2:16 – And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 
Ephesians 2:17 – And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 
Ephesians 2:18  For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 
Ephesians 2:19 – Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 
Ephesians 2:20 – And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 
Ephesians 2:21 – In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 
Ephesians 2:22 – In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. 

Found here in these verses of Ephesians, are a lot of awesome words of truth and LOVE. These words, contain several subjects, but there are about two or three essential topics for our current study of, “GOD is LOVE”. The first subject, is that there were people in the Old Covenant, that were being separated from God, and were afar off from Him because of sin. These people were literally being called God’s enemies, in Ephesians 2:15. God uses the Greek word G2189, that was translated as “enmity” in the KJV Bible. This word means, there was a hostility and a hatred between God and these sinful humans. But it must also be noted in verse 16, God says this hatred for sin has been slain in the body of Jesus on the cross. That was one of the most awesome displays of divine LOVE, that was manifested on the vertical post of the cross, that anyone has ever observed. The God in heaven came down to the earth, as the Son of Man, and He was joined in complete union with the Son of God. This single union of intersection, was the cross common point, that was designed to die for our sins, to eliminate the divine hostility for all human transgressions. This allowed the divine God access to all humans, and all humans access to God.

These total enemy people, that were being spoken of, were all of those that lacked a covenant with God. This was the original condition, of every human on the earth, after Adam’s sin. But God chose one nation in the Old Covenant, out of all the nations of the earth, to make His own. This is important to remember, because this is the same pattern that is repeated in the New Covenant.

This brings us to subject number 2, in the Ephesians 2 passage. God came to a man named Abram, and began a different process of covenant relationship, to save us ALL. God continued to work the process of salvation, by establishing a relationship with the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These people were called the natural nation of Israel, and they were the participants in the Old Covenant, that we saw in picture form, found in the Passover Doorpost design.

In this subject 2, the Old Covenant people of God were called the “circumcision” in Ephesians 2:11. This covenant, brought God nearer to His people, living on the earth to be with them as described in Ephesians 2:17, being spoken of as those people that were nigh (made near). In this covenant God introduced, and utilized a brand-new concept. This new way of relationship, was to select one man as His human to divine, and divine to human mediator. This one chosen man was able to come into His Holy presence to represent the other sinful people that were in the covenant.  This covenant design, left every other nation of the world, “far” from God, without any hope, as we can read in Ephesians 2:12. These people without any hope, were called “Gentiles”, or the “uncircumcised”, by the Jewish Old Covenant people in Ephesians 2:11. So we have found two groups of sinful earth people being mentioned so far. These two groups of humans on the earth were divided by God into:

1. A People in a Temporary Covenant with a Temporary Home and a Temporary Hope, to be near the God of LOVE, and
2. All other People in the world that were not in any Covenant, were far from God’s spiritual home, and from being His spiritual Family, and were without any Hope of Knowing LOVE.

But now in the New Covenant, there is a new third group of people, that have been brought even nearer to God, and these are comprised of people from both of the above sinful groups of people. Therefore, we notice in Ephesians 2, that we have found two groups of sinful people, and they have now become “one” new man, by entering into the door of Jesus, our door of the New Covenant. This choice of entering into the Christ door, now gives those that believe in Him, a new Hope (Romans 15:13), and a new Home within the Family of LOVE (Ephesians 2:19). This Old Covenant pattern that excluded Gentiles, is duplicated in the New Covenant, to exclude everyone, that does not believe in Jesus Christ to enter the door of salvation. All of these unbelieving people are lost, without any eternal hope of knowing LOVE (2 Thessalonians 2:12).

Remember, in the Old Covenant we had two vertical doorposts. These two separated vertical doorposts (God and Israel), were joined by a temporary human mediator horizontal post. The two-separated-vertical become one single unified vertical, in the New Covenant cross. But this single unified vertical cross post, represents a more inclusive covenant union.

In the New Covenant, God not only allowed the Old Covenant people to be unified with the risen from the dead Christ (Romans 7:4), but He also was joining the ability for every other lost human on the earth, to be in full relationship with God in Christ (Colossians 1:26-27). Jesus Christ, is the center unified point of the cross. Since no sinful human, was able to fulfill the role of the required permanent high priesthood, God Himself became the needed center point unifier, between the vertical Holy divine and the horizontal sinful human realms. Therefore, this unified vertical “cross post”, has included the ability for everyone else, in the world, that never was in any covenant with God, to know Him, and love Him.

Did you notice that we just discussed the fact, that we MUST enter the door of Jesus, in order to be saved in the New Covenant? Where was this door hung, on the cross posts? Remember, in the Passover Post design picture, the door was nailed hanging to the God side of the doorframe, below the Horizontal Top Post. Therefore, in the Old Covenant, there were no nails placed to hold the door, in the left human side, or the top lintel human representative side of the door frame. Wow, doing this would have made the door unable to open.

We can conclude that this Old Covenant, was a severely limited divine encounter, bound to the human dimension of space, and time, to provide a temporary divine relationship at the human ground level, with no human access into heaven, to be with God. Many may wonder, where is this in the Bible? Jesus actually declares this need for a change of direction of human love and worship, in John 4:23.

In John 4:23 Jesus said “The hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers of the Father, shall worship Him, in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him”. This is a very clear reference to God desiring something greater than the Old Covenant method of worship.  In the Old Covenant, people were always on a Horizontal level of relationship with God. But, now in the New Covenant we can have a far greater Vertical Spiritual encounter with our Heavenly Father. Jesus said that hour for this to happen was coming forth, as He was speaking. Wow!

We can also find the Old Covenant Horizontal relationship with God, where there was no heavenly access, described by Jesus in Luke 16.  In these verses, Jesus describes a beggar named Lazarus, and a rich man, who both died. Lazarus died and went under the earth’s surface to a temporary place called “Abraham’s bosom”. The rich man died, and was carried beneath to a place in hell with flames. Both regions were close enough to see and talk with each other.  But neither were close to God’s throne in the Vertical heaven. It is very clear that neither of the men, went above the Horizon of the earth after death. This information plainly describes the need for a change, while declaring the Old Covenant was temporary (Hebrew 8:13).

All of this information can help confirm, that God’s Old Covenant doorframe design, and divine choice, was a covenant containing a message of incompleteness, and inadequacy. This information should have given those in the Old Covenant, a greater desire for a permanent way of knowing LOVE. There should have been the hopeful longing of a desired access to an eternal heaven, and fellowship with LOVE after death in every human heart that experienced God’s deliverance. This access was only provided to them, by the cross. Clearly God knew all of this, when He selected these objects, to represent the shadow temporary door, and His New Covenant permanent door access.

Everyone who has believed in Jesus, knows Him now, that He is our New Covenant door, as He was hanging there nailed, to both of the cross posts, the vertical and the horizontal, simultaneously. Because Jesus was nailed to both the Horizontal (human) and the Vertical (spiritual divine), the New Covenant sacrificial blood payment, could cover everyone, including the mediator human man named Jesus (Hebrews 2:17), who was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). The divine blood payment for sin further covered, every human sin in the horizontal earth realm including, all physical horizontal earth space locations, and all time from Adam (Romans 3:25), to the book of Revelation (Revelation 1:5). Finally, the blood payment for forgiveness, and redemption also, extended upward into heaven, and covered the vertical spiritual human realm payment in the heavenly Most Holy temple (Hebrews 9:23). The entire blood payment for all human sins, came at the same time, from the same man, named Jesus, during the same event located on the cross, outside of Jerusalem.

Please take note, that our door named Jesus, was also “raised up” from off of the ground level, as He was hanging on the cross. We learn this by reading John 3:14. Jesus said “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up”. Do you understand what this means? The serpent on the pole in Numbers 21, was a temporary example of natural salvation. It provided them again temporary restoration to health, and forgiveness of sin. This was another inferior shadow symbol of the much greater work of Jesus’ gift of eternal salvation on the cross.

By God telling Moses to lift up that serpent on a single vertical pole, it was raised up vertically higher, than all of the heads, of the old covenant people who were probably laying on the ground horizontally about to die. By them looking “up” to view the serpent, God was again teaching them the source of real grace came only from heaven. Notice, that this was only a one-time work as was the cross.

Now, compare this Old Covenant event to the people that were standing around to watch the hanging of Jesus higher than them on a cross. All of these people were on the lower horizontal ground level. Remember Jesus was hung not only on a cross, but also on a hill higher than the observers.  This would have included the Jews that cried out to demand His crucifixion, as well as the Roman soldiers that carried out the act. This was Jesus clearly, offering Himself for everyone in the world to witness, Jew and Gentile as we read in Ephesians 2. Everyone who received Jesus as their savior, would have to look up by faith into the raised heavenly direction, as they did in Moses’ day, with the serpent on the pole.

We learn from Jesus in the next verse John 3:15, that this lifting up represented Him becoming our spiritual door of salvation, through our believing in Him, by our faith. This spiritual belief (Galatians 3:2), grants us access into the vertical heaven. It is also representative, of Jesus becoming our spiritual Head, who is now seated in the vertical spiritual heavenly realm reigning (Hebrews 10:12). But we are blessed to enjoy the same, by the church becoming His body, living here on the horizontal physical earth (Colossians 1:18), reigning with Him in the Horizontal (Romans 5:17). This was all possible, because of the nails going through the body of Jesus hanging on both posts as our intersecting, New Covenant union (Ephesians 2:17). By this work, the divine life blood of God was being sprinkled, in both directions simultaneously, being a onetime blood application, in the combined vertical, and the horizontal dimensions.

Ok, let us go deeper still into the cross design. Notice that a cross design looks like a simple childlike drawing of a human stick figure. We have the focused center of union containing the heart of LOVE, that joins the divine vertical realm with the horizontal human realm. We saw this principle in God’s Israel camp design in the Old Testament. The entire nation camped in a crossed pattern centering upon the focal point of LOVE found in the Tabernacle. This looks like the decision point for human choice, and we will talk about this more soon.  

We have the top section of the cross, that could represent a human head. We should realize that this represents Jesus as being the head of all created things as revealed to us in Ephesians 1:22. It also causes us to see how Jesus was made the head or LORD, over both Jew and Greek (Romans 10:12). Jesus was also raised up, and given a name that is above every other name (Philippians 2:9). Jesus being the head caused Him to have preeminence over every spiritual being, whether on the earth (the Horizontal), or in heaven (the Vertical, Colossians 1:18). This design shows how God planned in Jesus on the cross, to make Him the LORD of ALL.

This helps us to confirm that the top of the cross represents the spiritual heaven realm route of access. With Jesus coming down to earth as a man first, to die on the cross, He gave us the opportunity after He was raised from the dead, for us to enter into Him by faith, to go up into heaven where He is also seated right now (Ephesians 1:20). By Jesus becoming the only way to get to the Father (John 14:6), this also limits access to all evil from entering into heaven, that the first Adam joined himself to. This was a brilliant design of the “Most High”, and wise God.

Then we see the head joining the shoulders with the two arms extended outward to each of the horizontal human sides. I believe this represents 3 different acts of love, that we will talk about soon. From this we can see how the human torso (body) that is going down, is being connected from the head to the shoulders, with the legs and feet tightly placed together, as if standing at attention. There were the two hands of Jesus (the Left and the Right), that were nailed to the opposite sides of the Horizontal post (the East and the West). Then there were the feet of Jesus, which was clearly located toward the south side of the cross, nearest to the earth.

The North Top part of the cross assuredly, represents the heavenly realm, where Jesus came down from. It also represents an opened ended invitation for every human to come up and be with God after death. How is this heavenly access made possible, without any blood being taken into heaven by a High Priest, like in the Old Covenant tabernacle?  We can find this answer in the New Testament, in Hebrews chapter 9.

In this chapter, we are told that Jesus took His own blood personally into heaven. This is when He performed a one-time act of offering blood to God in the Highest Vertical, fulfilling and initiating His everlasting role, as our eternal High Priest. This heavenly precious blood offering (1 Peter 1:18-19), was offered by Jesus in person, after He arose from the grave (John 20:17). This superior offering was only required to be presented once as our heavenly vertical payment, for all of our sins (Hebrews 9:26). And this one-time blood offering, provided us eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). Finally, this blood offering in the heavenly also established eternal peace (Romans 5:1).

There is a very interesting fact, about the blood of Jesus, found in Hebrews 12:24. Here in this verse we are told that the blood of Jesus that was taken into heaven, is still there speaking for everyone today. This far better blood of God is speaking better things than the blood of righteous Abel. This is an amazing, and an eye-opening revelation. Did you know blood speaks? God clearly informs us that the blood of a man that was killed by his brother nearly 6000 years ago is still speaking, even today. How much better than Abel’s voice, is the voice of God’s spoken words, coming forth from the eternal blood of Jesus today for us. The answer to that question, is more than you can imagine. Thank God for the Blood of Jesus that is speaking for us all.

Let us get back to our Cross Stick Figure representative. Almost forty days after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Jesus ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9-10), and sat down at the right hand of Majesty (Hebrews 1:3). We now have our Kingly High Priest (in the order of Melchizedek, Hebrew 7:21) seated in heaven reigning (Hebrews 10:12). Therefore, how does this truth relate to our cross design? We read about it, in the previous paragraphs.

We can relate this information to the cross, because of this awesome truth: Christ is called the Head (Ephesians 1:22), and we (the Church) are called the Body of Christ (Ephesians 1:23). Now put this information into context with this verse in 1 Corinthians 5:14, where God says: “Since Jesus died for everyone, we all died with Him on the cross”. Ok, that was my paraphrase, but this is exactly what Paul claimed in Galatians 2:20, when he said “I was crucified, with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ lives in me”. Wow, these are more radical claims of being in two places at the same time, like we saw in Jesus’ claim in John 3. Let us see this principle again in another verse found in the New Testament:

1 John 3:24 – And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us. 

Here is an awesome verse of truth about how God dwells in a human, and we live in Him, if we keep His commandments. This would appear to indicate, that staying in Christ, is our choice of obedience. I believe, this is why, Jesus said in Luke 6:46, “Why call me LORD, LORD, and do not do what I say?”. God has given to us His Spirit, and He lives in the temple of our physical body. And according to this verse we are with Him, in the heavens, if we do what He says. Sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. This is not an inconsistency; it is rather a statement of joint union of two becoming One, as written in the Genesis 2:24, law of marriage covenant. We are NOT saved by our works of the flesh, but He is our LORD, if we do what He says. Otherwise, we become like the first Adam, and become rebellious.

What we are learning, is that when a person becomes a Christian, Christ comes inside of them, and personally joins to become one spirit (1 Corinthians 1:16), to live in their body. This causes the human body, to become the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:17, and 6:19). Romans 12:4 says; “There are many members in One body”. God was communicating, how that many are called ONE, using the analogy of the human body.

The human body is an amazingly created complex living organism. How a new one comes into being, is from the union of two separate living cell contributors. These two separate living cells become joined together, to be one, and they then begin to multiply exponentially, over a short period of time. When a human is fully grown, modern scientists have estimated one human body contains approximately 30 trillion unique individual cells. These 30 trillion unique human cells, were designed by God to work together in LOVE. But since the advent of Satan, certain cells have been introduced into the world to cause some to be motivated by hate, to destroy the others. This is a perfect picture of our spiritual condition being in Christ today. There are some people, even in the body of Christ, that are yielding to the devil, and allowing hate, to fight against God’s LOVE design, and purpose for all humans.

We also read about this concept of many being ONE, in our opening verses of this section, found in Ephesians 2:21. In this discussion, the church is called to be built stones, being joined together upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophet stones, together with Christ being the chief cornerstone of the Holy Temple of LOVE. These are amazing facts of spiritual truth realities. God has established a clear law that states, many can be called by “one” name.

Now let us get back to our stick figure representation of the cross. The head of the body, Jesus Christ, who is LOVE, ascended up into heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God. Before leaving the earth, He gave His body, His spiritual authority (Luke 10:19), and left us here to reach out to the rest of the lost world, with the Gospel (Mark 16:15). How does this information relate to the cross design? You may have already figured it out. The top of the cross above the horizontal post, represents the initial head’s access into heaven, followed by the rest of the attached body on the earth as they die. Since Jesus was raised from the dead, every other human has been given the same opportunity, to be raised up from the dead with Him, by faith (Colossians 2:12).

Therefore, the spiritual body of Christ on the earth, is potentially represented by the lower part of the cross, at and below the horizontal post. These people are in the process of salvation and still have the choice to go up to be with the LORD, or go down and end their lives in hell. But another difference, will be for us to realize, is that not everyone in the Horizontal post realm of existence, will be saved, and we may talk about this more soon. Salvation still requires entering the “door” of the cross, and getting into Christ in the vertical, to be back in potential full fellowship with God.

We have been going through just some of the possible meanings for the Single Vertical post of a cross design. This method of death was specifically selected for God’s method of Lamb sacrifice (Acts 2:23). Satan probably thought this killing of Jesus, was his guarantee for, success, self-rule, and kingship (Mark 12:7). But Satan soon learned that this act was His defeat (1 Corinthians 2:8).

What we have learned from the two vertical posts of the Old Covenant Passover door, being compared with the single vertical post of the cross is very profound. The Old Covenant appears to be closed ended and temporary, with no eternal heavenly access. These two vertical posts, appear to say humans were nearer to God, but still far enough away to motivate them to desire to know God more closely. It also taught us, that the mediator of the Old Covenant was temporary, his offerings were inferior, and the endless repetition had to create frustration for at least some. We further learned this Old Covenant was designed to be temporary, for a greater solution that was needed in Christ.

I am going to say something that maybe some have not understood now. Why does the vertical post on the Passover appear to represent sinful humans, when they never had an opportunity to actually die and go to heaven? After all, the God side of the door frame, post 2 was in heaven, wasn’t He? How could God be in heaven in two places and not the sinful, vertical human side post 1? I just asked a very deep question, one that may go over the head of many readers. 

What is the answer to why the O.T. Passover Door was vertical and not lost in the Horizontal? Ok, here is the quick answer. You can go and read the Bible study that I wrote called “Bible Answers: Solving the Mystery of God’s Chosen Son Versus God’s Covenant Wife”.  In this Bible lesson, I reveal, how Jesus was in Adam, Abraham, Noah, David, and every other human male that was listed by God, in the Luke 3 Genealogy of Jesus.  Because Jesus was equally human, a Son of Adam (Man) (Matthew 16:13), a Son of Abraham, a Son of David (Matthew 1:1), etc., while being the Son of God (Matthew 16:16), Jesus was in both vertical Passover doorposts in “Seed” form. Wow, this is what gave humans in covenant in Israel, hope for the future permanent salvation. I do not have the time to explain this further today. But it is amazing, when you see it.

Then in the New Covenant, we find only one combined single vertical post in the cross. This was a dramatic shift of post designs, that was pre-ordained before creation. We should now begin to understand that Jesus, the Word of God who created the world, placed Himself in the form of a “seed” in the created man Adam. Jesus was already pre-planned to save everyone that believed upon Him, before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9).

I am still amazed every time, I see the cross, how we have not seen this reality of Christ at the center, that provides us a point of intersection and union with God, and God with humans. We may be talking about this more in the next section of the lesson. But Christ Jesus has opened a new direct single-entry way of salvation, and extreme personal closeness with God by becoming God’s needed single human mediator, also known as the High Priest.

That was enough detail about the vertical post design meanings, from a Bible God perspective of LOVE. God came down to the earth, to die on a cross, and to be buried in the ground for 3 days. Then He arose from the dead, after shedding His blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and then He ascended into heaven to reconcile us back into full and normal fellowship with our Creator God. Let us now do an overview of the Horizontal Post meanings in more depth.

#7 – THE HORIZONTAL CROSS N.T. POST MEANING
GOD REACHING OUT HIS LOVE FOR HUMANITY

I believe, the horizontal post of the cross, represents multiple meanings. I will list them first and talk about them as we continue. The potential meanings of the horizontal post are:

1. Divine vertical LOVE, coming down to the Horizontal human realm, to reach out to all of humanity
2. The timeline within the human realm, containing the window of opportunity to make the right choice for our eternity
3. God’s correct pattern for human realm social relationship
4. The human limitations of environment, circumstances, and cross-road decisions for eternal outcomes

That was just the short list of subjects, that we will hopefully touch upon in this section. As we now know, in the cross design, there were no posts used for separation. Nor were there any posts that were being separated. There was also not one horizontal post, used as a connection bridge, between two far apart vertically separated posts. What changed and why? I believe, a lot of you have already seen the answers, in the diagrams, and from the verses given. In a cross design, there were only two posts, with a single intersecting, and overlapping point of unified connection. I know you all remember, we mentioned this before.

I believe sincerely that the vertical posts in both designs, represent spiritual beings. In the Passover, there were 2 separated doorposts, these were the human spiritual beings in covenant on the left side, and the Spirit of God on the right side. We just learned that Jesus was in these chosen people found on the left side of the covenant post configuration. Notice that we find, in the Passover covenant doorpost design, Jesus is never found in the top horizontal connector post. This is because Jesus did not descend from anyone in the tribe of Levi, where the high priests came from. Because Jesus descended from the natural tribe of Judah, He was legally found present in the left vertical door post.

But now in the Cross design, these two Old Covenant vertically separated posts, being connected by one horizontal post, have all become ONE unified vertical and horizontal center cross point (1 Corinthians 6:17). Because God made the New Covenant one with a single man named Jesus, who became the High Priest, we have a unified solution that will never fail. The sinful human component was permanently removed and we can now be saved by entering the covenant door that was hung on the cross, who was also named Jesus.  Wow, this NEW Covenant is all about JESUS!

This also truly represents God who is Spirit (John 4:24), becoming human flesh (John 1:1-14). The Spirit of God became a man, so that we could become a living spirit in union with Him. These are both great realities of two becoming one.

But we now need to understand the Horizontal post of the cross in much more detail. How does this portion of the cross, represent LOVE?  Let us discuss, potential meaning number 1, divine love coming down to reach out to save humanity. I believe everyone should already understand that the horizontal post of the cross, was where the hands of Jesus were nailed. Each of His arms were outstretched, and His left and right hands were placed upon opposite ends of the horizontal post. One side of the horizontal post could have pointed to the east, and the other to the west. Let us take a look at an interesting verse, that could apply to our subject of the Horizontal post of the cross.

Romans 10:21 – But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. 

Clearly Jesus, hanging on the cross, would have had both arms opened wide to be nailed to it. It is also interesting to note that Jesus was crucified about the 3^rd hour of the day, and died shortly after the 9^th hour of the day. This would be representative of Him hanging with outstretched hands a majority of the day. This verse implies that this was an act of LOVE, for Him to even allow this to happen to Him.

The Apostle Paul was quoting Isaiah 65:2 in this verse. It should be easy to see the heart of God, that was hurting for the Old Covenant people of Israel that were rebelling against His LOVE. In verse 20, directly before Romans 10:21, God contrasts a nation that was not called by His name becoming the majority of His New Covenant people. These were popularly, called the Gentiles. But everyone should see that this gift of LOVE was offered to anyone Jew or Greek (Romans 1:16). We learned this in the last section of the lesson about the vertical cross post, when we read verses in Ephesians 2.

Now let us go over potential meaning 2, the timeline of human history to make an eternal decision to receive LOVE. One of the key factors that can be used for understanding the horizontal post of the cross, occurs when we read about Jesus being crucified between two thieves. This would result in a total of three crosses that were present. It would also mean, that there was a total of six posts, when adding together 3 crosses multiplied by 2 posts each. The number six has long been thought of in the Bible, as the number for “man”. I find that very interesting, since everyone hanging, was a male about to die a human death.

But what was the configuration, and relationship of these three crosses?  We learn from Matthew 27:38, that there was one sinner crucified on the left hand of Jesus, and the other one being crucified on His right hand. Wow, that leaves Jesus on His cross, in the center. Do you believe, God knew this also? Do you believe that God could have utilized these details in His hidden symbolic presentation of the plan of salvation on a cross? Why do you believe, God wrote these details in the Bible text? Do they mean anything important? Or was God just filling up the Bible with things that do not mean much. I definitely believe that this was all foreknown by God, and all of these details carry significant hidden information, about what was happening.

It is also very interesting to see, where later hanging on the cross (Luke 23:42), that one thief believed in Jesus to be his Messiah, called Jesus LORD, and received salvation, and the other did not.  This description of their cross experience, would clearly signify the only two choices to make, for every human sinner right now, while still physically alive (Hebrews 3:15). Once they both died, the opportunity to make the right choice, had passed (Hebrews 9:27). I believe that these words, were all intentionally selected, to either teach us a strong message of hope for salvation and eternal life, or condemnation to eternal death.

Keep in your mind that on judgment day, Jesus described that there would be a clear human division, used by God for separating good from evil.  For example, in Matthew 25:32-46, Jesus said “His saved sheep would be placed on His right hand, and the lost goats on his left hand”. Those on the right hand entered into heaven, and those on the left, went to hell. This is not a coincidence. This message is repeated in the description, for the separation of the wheat and the tares, found in Matthew 13:23-30.

What we are observing in the Bible, is a concept of division, that has been occurring ever since the beginning of creation and Adam. The two thieves, that were hanging on a cross to the left and to the right of Jesus, represent a clear horizontal decision point of human freewill choice, to believe in Jesus or not to believe in Jesus. Jesus being in the center, means there are no other choices given, that mankind may be saved by (Acts 4:12). I believe this is a further confirmation, that the two bleeding hands of Jesus, hanging on the cross were correctly reaching out in LOVE, to save “all” of the lost humanity (John 3:16). This would include those that would be saved by believing and receiving on His right hand, and those that would be lost, by not believing on His left hand, and be damned (Mark 16:16).

What I see from the design of the cross, is a center point line of decision, where the left side represents everyone that is eternally separated from God. I then see the right side of the cross to represent those that choose to be saved. This is only one potential meaning of the horizontal post, now let us move to another.

Let us review the concept of meaning number 3, about correct human to human relationships. It is also interesting to note that before the crucifixion, two disciples asked Jesus to sit with Him, with one being at His right hand, and the other at His left hand. This is an entire teaching lesson in itself, but please note the position of Jesus in the center, with two humans requesting a position at each side of His hands.  I further believe, that the one-man Jesus, hanging on the cross, between two human men, represents a correct human-to-human relationship. Two humans in relationship, without Jesus in the center, will fail, but those that will be successful, will always make the choice to have Jesus (LOVE), in the center of them.

We can call all of this, God’s designs and plans for horizontal human decisions, choices and connections. God’s ultimate design would be for every human relationship, to be a Christ centered relationship. But this information also teaches us, a comparison between the two choices. The Jesus kind of LOVE, could only be correctly found to be in the center, if both individuals chose to make Jesus their LORD. But if only one individual, made Jesus their LORD, the other would be permanently, separated from them forever. Can you see how the choices we make, are only available, while we are here in the natural horizontal realm of earthly existence? Once both thieves on the cross died, there were no other opportunities given to them for relationship with Jesus, or with each other. Only one human thief, was told that he would be with Jesus in paradise that day, that they all died. I hope this is well received. This is what I believe the LORD is teaching us, about the meanings of the horizontal post of the cross.

While physically alive in the horizontal earth realm, we have only one possible successful choice for life to select from, and His name is Jesus. Making Jesus our LORD (Romans 10:9-10), grants us access to God the Father in the vertical Heaven, and grants the Holy Spirit access to live on the inside of our physical body in the human horizontal realm. This was God’s correctly designed and wise method for a divine vertical relationship, between a Holy God and the imperfect human. God desired this to happen (John 4:23). All other vertical choices of relationship with false gods, or evil spiritual beings, will only lead to death.

Likewise, there is only one successful choice for lasting human relationships. Everyone, we meet on this horizontal earth, we will either be with them forever, or apart from them, never to see them or hear from them again. This is a thought-provoking reality. I honestly, do not observe many people or Christians, coming close to the examples, that Jesus set before us to follow. Not treating everyone with the God kind of LOVE that we meet, will potentially be very regrettable.

There are two binary directions of choice, for a good or bad relationship. This choice is laid out in the cross design plainly in front of your eyes. But only one correct choice can be made, to possess success in both the vertical and horizontal realms of existence. Remember, on the vertical cross post, there is one open ended top pathway, that leads us to life eternal, and there is one bottom termination point, that only leads us to eternal death, and separation from God. Do you understand, that because Jesus was hanging at the center position of the cross, a location where He was not yet in heaven and not yet in hell, this made Him, and only Him, the focal point for the only available choice, for any direction that you want to go? This is the amazing truth of any door design. A door entered into, makes available the blessing behind the door, and the personal choice of not entering, leaves that person, by default, without these benefits.

You might remember a game show that showed three doors to two contestants. They called this the big deal of the day. One chose one door, and the other one chose another door, leaving one door not selected. Each door was opened to reveal which gifts they were potentially going home with. But only one contestant received their gift, and the other left with nothing. All of this was very similar to our eternal decisions to which path and door we choose. I think that is interesting.

Please think of the vertical cross post, to represent a highway leading people either north (heaven) or south (hell).  Then think of the horizontal post of the cross, to be a highway that leads through the timeline of human existences on the earth. Now consider the fact that the center union of these two highways is found the Jesus intersection point for the human choice decision. We can read about this in 2 Corinthians 6:2. In this verse the LORD says “At a time of welcome, I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation, I have succored you. Now is the time of loving welcome! Now is the day of salvation!” (WNT Bible).

Did you notice in 2 Corinthians 6:2, that God uses the “present” time to be the point for a decision for your salvation? Do you know the present time is a constant moving travel? By the time you read this sentence, the present moment when you started reading about that decision is already in the past, and “now” you have only another fleeting opportunity to decide again? Why is this? No scientist can explain this concept of time adequately. No one can return to the past to accept Jesus, so that leaves that time out. No one but God foresees the future, so that leaves that time out of the decision point realms of opportunity. This leaves us only “NOW”. You see, God says in His Word, we are not guaranteed a tomorrow (James 4:13-16).

By making the right choice, at the right time, everyone can be assured to be permitted to entered into Christ our door of Salvation. Making this choice in the horizontal path of life, will allow the turn lane for the vertical highway northward leading to heaven to be opened. By ignoring this “NOW” decision point, there is only one default highway that has an opening leading south to “hell”.  Now is time to choose.

Finally, let us discuss potential meaning number 4 of the horizontal cross post, the human realm of limitations. I believe the Horizontal post of the cross represents the human carnal realm of our natural life on the earth. This is signified by the term “Horizon”, the physical location where the sun rises every day, and sets every day (Ecclesiastes 1:5). This is the earth’s surface, where humans normally reside by God’s designed purpose. Remember, the English word “horizon” comes from the Greek word “horizo”, which is G3724. This word has the meaning of a boundary or limitation.  This is why the horizontal post on both the door and cross designs, can have the meaning of human limitations, and boundaries. These features represent God’s human physical realm of existence. This is our 3-D space-time created world. But it also can be more specific, to the dry ground, places where breathable air is found, food, water, warmth, light, and etc., are available.

This is why I believe, this information further confirms, why those entering into the door of the Old Covenant, had no access into heaven. I also see that on the Passover door, the horizontal post had two points of termination. This might mean this was a covenant of limited and short-term duration. Applying these concepts to the cross horizontal post design, we see something different when applying these standards. For example, the cross horizontal post was lower than the vertical post top. The cross horizontal post also had two open ended points, and this would indicate this New Covenant, was available to everyone, anywhere, at any time, in the horizontal realm of human natural duration. Can you see how this is possible, based upon the design of these two God selected natural objects?

Now remember we just learned that Jesus was hung at the center of the horizontal post on the cross, and I believe this represent the “NOW” point of decision. If this is true, then the horizontal post of the cross, represents the domain of natural existence while physically alive on the earth, past, present and future. Everyone before Jesus was raised from the dead, we learned went under the earth’s horizontal surface. But these people were preached to by the LORD Jesus the gospel (2 Peter 3;19), and He led captive these captive people vertically to heaven (Ephesians 4:8). This would represent the fact, that everyone on the left hand of the horizontal timeline (east) would have had the opportunity to be saved, by God’s divine grace.

If the center of the cross represents the present “now”, that only leaves the “west” right hand of the cross to represent the coming “future” time line.  These are people living at this moment, and those that will be born in the future. All of these people that are alive have the horizontal opportunity to hear about Jesus the door of Salvation at the “NOW” center point of choice. However, west is the direction that the “sun” sets.  Jesus is the “SUN of RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Malachi 4:2), and the opportunity to enter the door, is setting very soon.

Because the left of the horizontal post is open ended, this represents the fact that every person born from Adam to Jesus, had the opportunity to be saved. Because people at the time of the Lord’s crucifixion on the cross, had a chance to hear about Jesus’ death and resurrection, they all had the “now” moment to believe and receive salvation. Ever since Jesus was raised from the dead, the Gospel has been preached, and is still even “now” in this Bible lesson. Therefore, if you are reading this you can still choose to enter the door of salvation, before it shuts (Matthew 25:10). We do not know exactly when the right hand of the horizontal cross will set and close, therefore a decision point should be made with it being your greatest priority.

Let us review some of the key points from the Horizontal post representations that we have just learned.  While a person is alive in their physical body in the horizontal realm, they can move, travel, as well as decide and make choices. It is during this timeline of horizontal natural existence, that a person can be saved by entering into the door of Jesus. As we may have seen earlier; some humans, in the horizontal realm will choose, to enter into the “door” that God raised up and hung on the cross (aka Jesus), by placing their faith in Him (Ephesians 2:8). These people have now entered into an access point, leading into the vertical heavenly realm. This access is signified as an intersection point (aka Jesus) of the horizontal and the vertical cross posts.

Wherever there is a traffic intersection, there also represents a human choice or decision point. At any time on the horizon life line, a human has the right to choose, to enter into Christ, to not enter into Christ, to remain in Christ, or choose to leave the narrow path. The vertical post intersection, represents the choice of human eternal destination. Staying in Christ, will lead us to the upward direction of heaven, and departing, leaving or rejecting Christ, will lead us to the downward path to hell. This decision is always available as long as a person is alive on the horizontal cross time line. Once someone dies, the choices made before their death, predetermines the direction of spirit travel after death.

Please note, that making no choice, is the default path leading to eternal death and separation from God. This default choice, was made for you by your father Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22). This occurred, when he made the evil choice of eternal death, you were in him and made that choice also (Hebrews 7:9-10). While you had no way to vote for Adam’s first wrong choice, you have been given the right to make the most important choice to enter into Christ to be saved. I pray that everyone has already chosen to enter the Christ door (called the Last Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:45) and will stay in Him, so that you will travel up on the extended vertical post to heaven, when you die, or when He returns to take us to heaven.

We have been learning about the cross, with an emphasis on the Horizontal post and its potential meanings.  We found earlier that the word Horizon comes from the Greek word G3724. It is interesting to note that this Greek word G3724, is used in Acts to describe Jesus dying on the cross:

Acts 2:22 – Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 
Acts 2:23 – Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: 

Notice that these verses are describing the LORD Jesus Christ being crucified on a cross. The Greek word translated as “crucified”, literally means, to be hung and fastened by nails or impaled. That can accurately describe what is done to a door, using hinges, and nails. Also, notice the declaration in this verse, that this was done, by the “foreknowledge” of God. This confirms to us that this was not a surprise, but rather a precisely planned event. In other words, God planned and knew, the precise way, the precise location, the exact year, the exact month, the exact day, the exact hour, and the precise minute that Jesus would give His life.

All of this planned precision, is confirmed by the next part of verse 23, where God uses the Greek word G3724 (horizo). But it is translated as “determinate”. This English word means “to have defined limits”. This word G3724, also carries the implication that, what is being described to happen, is occurring based upon the divinely created law of “cause and effect”, at a specific time, and a specific place of location. Another way to say this, in more Biblical terms, is that this crucifixion event, was the “fruit” produced from the “seeds” of God’s Word, that were coming forth by God’s design. Wow, this is getting really deep. What I believe God is saying to us, is that He foreknew everything that was happening, including the cross design, and He is using this to communicate to us, His LOVE!

Because Jesus redeemed us from Satan’s kingdom paying the ultimate price of His life, and blood for every human sin, anyone that chooses to believe, and enter God’s “door”, is able to become the physical temple of the Spirit of God, here on the earth (1 Corinthians 6:19).  Now post resurrection and ascension, God’s plan of finally living and dwelling with humans personally and intimately on the earth without any separators has come to be fulfilled and available to everyone.  God’s Kingdom in Heaven, now permanently resides in you and I, if we remain in Christ, and we allow Him to live in us. Wow, wow, wow!  This represents Adam’s sin problem being finally resolved and God’s desire to intimately and personally fellowship with each and every human without an intermediary component. This gift has been provided and made accessible and available through the blood of Jesus to anyone.

Therefore, after the completed fulfillment of the cross, humans now have been restored to an unobstructed single vertical two-way spiritual portal into the presence of God.  God lives inside of us here on the earth, and we are seated with Him in the heavenly realm simultaneously (Ephesians 2:6). There is the human full Horizontal access to God here, and now in the earth physical dimension, by His Spirit being One on the inside of us as His temple. Then there is also made available our full Vertical access of our spirit in union with God in heaven, because of us being in Jesus (Romans 8:1), and Him being seated at the right hand of God’s throne, we can come boldly to Him at any time (Hebrews 4:16). We can see all of this implied being made available now by the single vertical post, being in union with the single horizontal post of the cross.

#8 – CONCLUSION

We have been going long enough in this lesson, but we have potentially seen, and learned a lot of new things about LOVE, that we never saw before in the application of blood on the designs of door posts and cross posts.  All of this information concerning the vertical posts separation in the Passover door, and the transformation to be joined in unity in the one vertical cross post, teaches us how God chose designs found within humanity, to reveal to us, how He solved His separation from humans, that He loved. Sinful humans had a problem coming to a Holy God, and the Holy LOVE God, had a problem coming to sinful humans. God solved this problem, by Himself choosing to become a Man, then choosing as a Man to hang, and die on a cross to pay the penalty for all human sin. It was because of the human inability, to keep a covenant at the level of perfection that was required, that caused God to become “one of” us, to keep it, “for us”. This was a tremendous demonstration, of how much He LOVED us.

Now, humans have returned back on a unified path of communion with God, by God’s designed plan, through the manifestation of His divine LOVE.  LOVE created a way containing the plan of salvation and forgiveness for every sin, to “remove” the obstacles separating us “from Him”. God in heaven came up with this ingenious plan, to come down vertically to the horizontal earth as a human, to become a unified Son of Adam equally with being the Son of God. It was this quality of the O.T. Law, that gave Jesus the legal right to be our “near kinsman Redeemer” as described in the book of Ruth.

God did all of this, in order for Him to save humans, from eternal separation from Him.  He did this in LOVE, by giving us a door, to go back and forth “to Him”, and “through Him”. By Him doing this, He opened the only way for humans on the earth, to go where “He is”, and be with Him forever, and vice versa, and this was by us entering the door Jesus.

It is very interesting to learn this vertical and horizontal connection. There are so many verses that have this concept in them that there are too many to list. But please pay attention when you read the Bible and notice words that say above, and below. Look for verses that relate to “heaven” and the earth. All of these verses and more teach two dimensions of existence. One above in heaven is the vertical, and one below on the earth is the horizontal.

Thank you very much for taking the time, to read and study the Bible with us. We love you all, more than you know. But we should all love God much more “NOW”, than we did yesterday. This is because our love increase, will be accomplished by us learning about Him. We obtain more ability to receive His loving grace by spending time with Him in prayer and in His Word. 2 Peter 1:2 says “Grace and Peace, are multiplied through the knowledge of God and our LORD Jesus Christ”. By us learning about what God has accomplished and given to us freely in His Son Jesus, we can grow immeasurably in His loving favor. If you do not know Jesus Christ and His LOVE, you can ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Please do not delay, a tomorrow is not guaranteed for anyone. He is coming back, much sooner than you think.

In the next lesson of the series, we will expand our foundation of the vertical and the horizontal gifts of divine LOVE. We will do this; the LORD be willing.  God bless you!

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!