HEAVENLY REALITIES

HEAVENLY REALITIES

                “The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” 1 John 5:10-12.

                When Jesus was born into this world through the womb of Mary, He was born as a mortal man. His spirit, of course was immortal because He was God in human flesh, but He took on mortal flesh so that He could die for our sins. And so He lived His life on this planet as a mortal man and subject to death and to temptation and Hebrews 2:14-18, Rom. 8:3 make it clear that He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. In other words, He, as the second Adam did not come in the likeness of Adam before the fall, but in the likeness of Adam after the fall. He came in the likeness of fallen man so that He could redeem us from the fall. Therefore He had to be made in all points like us, yet without sin.

                This then is where the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is wrong. Jesus was born into a fallen race in the likeness of fallen mankind. If He had not done so then He could not have served as our example or our substitute. Likewise Mary, though a holy and virtuous woman, was not in any way different than us. She was a fallen human being in need of the same salvation as the rest of us.

                But the wonder of this whole story is that in the resurrection, Jesus took our fallen human flesh and glorified it and transformed it and made it eternal and immortal. The veil between His spirit and His flesh was torn in two thus forever fusing together God and man and this fusing together made His human flesh immortal and glorious and eternal… and of course this then made Him our faithful High Priest because as a glorified Man He is able to understand fully our plight and to come to our rescue.

                “Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man.” Heb. 8:1, 2.

                But John tells us above that we have eternal life and that life is in God’s Son so that he who has the Son has the life. This idea is reflected in another text found in Galatians 3:16 where it says:

                “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds” as referring to many but rather to one, “AND TO YOUR SEED,” that is Christ.”

                What this is telling us is that the promises in the Bible were not written to us. The people of the world cannot claim Bible promises and expect them to work for them. The promises were not written to us. They were all written to Jesus Christ. What this means then is that when we receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and we are born again, then as born again sons and daughters all of the promises written to Jesus become our promises as joint heirs of the kingdom.

                This then is what John is saying in 1 John 5:11-12. Jesus, as our risen Savior is the only one that has eternal life. If we have Jesus, we have the eternal life. If we don’t have Jesus, we don’t have the eternal life.

                Jesus said the same thing in John 6:54, 55 saying: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood HAS eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in Him.” Then in verse 63 Jesus clears it up a bit by saying:” It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh prophets nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

                In other words, we actually partake of the flesh and blood of Christ by partaking of His Word. So taking communion does not replace partaking of His Word, in fact the communion represents a guarantee of a New Covenant of salvation signed in His own blood and made possible by His death and resurrection.

                The point to be made here is that our new birth is much deeper than a trip to the altar and it is much deeper than eating a cracker and drinking grape juice or wine. These are only symbolic of a much deeper thing. The seed of the Word must be implanted in us and grow in us until we are mature sons.

                Jesus, as a mortal man died and went into the grave, but by the power of God within Him, since He was also very God, raised this mortal man from the dead as an immortal man. He then went into heaven to send back to us the same Spirit that conceived Christ in Mary so that when we enter into His death and are raised up in newness of life, we become brothers and sisters of Jesus… members of His spiritual family and as it says: “If we have the Son, we have the life.”

                But this transaction takes place through a death and resurrection. It is much more than a confession of Jesus, or a trip to the altar. It is a death to what we are and a new life lived by what He is.

                Having the Son is much more than a legal declaration. It is the death of who I was as a fallen man, and the creation of a new life made possible by the indwelling Christ so that as long as I have Christ I have the life.

                So it wasn’t the trip to the altar, (say in all of those Billy Graham crusades years ago) that brought salvation to them, but the actual death of their old man and the resurrection of a new man in Christ that saved them. If that death and resurrection did not take place, then their trip to the altar was just a shallow ritual in which no actual conception took place.

                 The Seed has to make it into the womb or there is no pregnancy. Likewise the Seed, the one Seed even Christ has to make it into the heart of one who has entered by faith into Christ’s death so that in receiving that Seed, Jesus Christ, he may then be conceived, thus producing sons and daughter of God.

                If then you have truly been born again and you have truly received that Seed in the womb of your heart then you have eternal life and even though your body will die because it is mortal, your spirit will remain alive and will go back to God who gave it and that spirit will have your name on it and your character imprinted on it and your memories and your personality and your consciousness and this is exactly why 1 Thess. 4:14 says:

                “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. In other words, “The spirits of righteous men made perfect,” Hebrews 12:23, Jesus will bring with Him at the resurrection and we will at that time receive our resurrection bodies.

                We see this truth carried out in places like 1 Thess. 3:13 where it says that Jesus will come with all His saints. It also ties in with Revelation 19: 8, 14 where it describes the Bride of Christ as having clothed herself in fine linen and then in verse 14 it describes the armies of heaven clothed in fine linen.    (Which is the righteous acts of the saints) In other words the Bride of Christ will return with Him at the second  coming which means that we will have been caught up at some point in time before the second coming.

                I see this event as the sickle harvest of Revelation 14, where the saints are harvested and taken to heaven, while the sinners are harvested and thrown into the wine press of God’s wrath. In chapter 15 then we see the saints standing on the sea of glass and in chapter 16 we see the sinners suffering the wrath of God.

                So then back in 1 Thess. 4:14 where the saints who have died are seen coming back with Him, it also goes on to say that those that are alive and remain on the earth at that time will be caught up together with them (That is the saints who have died and returned with Jesus) and so shall we always be with the Lord.

                If we have the Son we have the life. We have eternal life. Jesus said so in John 6:47 saying. “Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes HAS eternal life.”

                Jesus said the same thing to Martha saying:  “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25, 26. In other words, our born again spirit does not die when our body dies, but goes back to God who gave it and in our spirit we are conscious of who we are, for the souls who were below the altar in heaven who had been slain because of the word of God and because of their testimony were crying out with a loud voice saying, “How long O Lord, Holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Rev. 6:9, 10.

                I have come to believe these things with all of my heart because they are the bedrock truth about our salvation. But I also believe that we often take the New Birth too lightly. Jesus said emphatically: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” John 12:24

                This was true of Jesus, for he could only bring forth a harvest of souls if He actually died and was buried and then came forth victorious from the grave. But it is also true of us, for if we enter into His death by faith and we are raised up to newness of life, we too will bear much fruit… the fruit of the Spirit.

                Through the Law we died to the Law in order that the life of Christ may be manifested in these mortal bodies. Gal. 2:19-21

                It is highly important to come to grips with these heavenly realities as we approach the end of life on this planet, and especially as we see the world itself coming into the birth pangs of the tribulation. Jesus said that not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. (Mt. 7:21) and again Jesus said, “In that day many will say to Me Lord, Lord, didn’t we do all of these things? And I will say, “I never knew you.”

                What Jesus is saying here is that many people claim to be the Bride of Christ, but He says to them in effect: “You call yourself My bride, but you have never consummated the marriage. My Seed was never conceived in the womb of your heart.  It was never planted in you. It never bore fruit. You never really became a son or a daughter of God. “I never knew you.”

                The tragedy of this kind of seedless, conception-less marriage is increasing rapidly in our day and age because of false grace. A Gospel is being preached today in which no conception is necessary… no death… no blood… no new birth. In other words, they do not have the Son as they might suppose. They say Lord, Lord, but they no longer consummate the marriage… they no longer bear the fruit… they no longer live by the Spirit… but rather place their hopes in the flesh… in Christian psychology or philosophy, or biblical sounding sound bites and pep rallies, but no conception… no intimacy…no implanted Seed that would spring forth into eternal life… no conception by the Holy Spirit.  

                It is this kind of conception-less marriage that is causing many to fall away from the faith once delivered to the saints and to go even so far as to join with all of the other religions of the world for a global religion of the antichrist.                 Listen friends, we must be pregnant with the Seed of Christ  so that that which is growing up inside of us is being fed by the Word of God and transformed by the Spirit of God, so that when He comes, we will be sons and daughters of God…. the consummate Bride of Christ.

                Romans 8 tells us that the entire creation was subjected to futility and meaningless death because of the fall of man and so all of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.. Of this group Jesus was the first fruits. So He sent down His Spirit to produce many sons and daughters and when those sons and daughters are revealed, it will signal the redemption of all of creation. We were created to rule and reign with Christ over the creation… and so all of creation eagerly waits for this to take place so that entropy and sickness and death can be done away once and forever.

                Jesus has become our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. We are under a New Covenant, a New Priesthood and a New Law… for rather than having a law on stone that was external to us and had no ability to transform us into the likeness of Christ, now we have the Holy Spirit inside of us and the spiritual flesh and blood of Jesus that we may now eat, to take inside of us, so that the life of Christ may be manifested in these mortal bodies.

                If we want to participate in becoming the sons and daughters of God then the Seed must be truly implanted in us. The grain of wheat must die and enter the ground so that the fruit of the Spirit may be produced in us. Doctrine is important, but our doctrines will not save us or give us eternal life. Only he who has the Son has the life. And if we have the Son, then all of the promises and covenants written to Him belong to us.

                Let us now enter fully into the heavenly realities and walk in them, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Rom. 8:14