Jesus, the fruit of God's loins

“[David] therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.” (Acts 2:30).

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (which He had promised afore by His prophets in the holy scriptures,) concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” (Rom. 1:1-3).

I believe those New Testament statements are based on the following promises to David.

“Now therefore thus shalt thou say unto My servant David, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, even from following the sheep, that thou shouldest be ruler over My people Israel:

And I have been with thee whithersoever thou hast walked, and have cut off all thine enemies from before thee, and have made thee a name like the name of the great men that are in the earth.
Also I will ordain a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, and they shall dwell in their place, and shall be moved no more; neither shall the children of wickedness waste them any more, as at the beginning,

And since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel. Moreover I will subdue all thine enemies. Furthermore I tell thee that the LORD will build thee an house.

And it shall come to pass, when thy days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build Me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever.

I will be his Father, and he shall be My son: and I will not take My mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee:

But I will settle him in Mine house and in My kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore.” (1Chron. 17:7-14).

“Take of them of the captivity, even of Heldai, of Tobijah, and of Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, and come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah;

Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest;

And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the Man whose name is The BRANCH; and He shall grow up out of His place, and He shall build the temple of the LORD:

Even He shall build the temple of the LORD; and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a Priest upon His throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” (Zech. 6:10-13).

As quoted above, “Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins(G3751), according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne” (Acts 2:30).

G3751 osphus Of uncertain affinity; the loin (externally), that is, the hip; internally) procreative power: -loin.

This text literally refers to King David, that out of his loins Christ (first referring to Solomon in 1Chronicles 17, and then to the Branch or Messiah in Zechariah 6, which would also grow out of the root of David in Isaiah 11:1 and Jeremiah 23:5) would come to His people.

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” (Jer. 23:5,6).

“In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.

In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness.

For thus saith the LORD; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel;

Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.” (Jer. 33:15-18).

So, in a figurative sense, King David could represent God the Father, having lived a millennium in the deep, misty past of the apostolic church. Like King Arthur of English lore, the concept of David brought to the Jewish mind something that was very much a glorified myth. It was Babylonian and Egyptian ancestor worship. To them David was sinless, and worthy of godlike status. And, when in vision David witnessed, “The LORD said unto My Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (Ps. 110:1), the rabbis who lived after the failed Nehemiah-Ezra revival, and who were spoken of in Malachi as “sorcerers” (Mal. 3:5) that the Messiah would quickly condemn in judgment, interpreted David to write in Psalm 110 that “the Lord” was David himself and that David was singing an ode to himself, or that that psalm was Jehovah reciting a praise to David. In keeping with Babylonian thought, the post-exilic rabbis taught that not only David, but all their ancient fathers were faultless and their nation had never been in captivity. “They answered Him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man.” (John 8:33).

The Jews’ Babylonian Judaism was not the original, peculiar Hebrew religion, and the vast majority of Jews had lost their faith in Jehovah. “Then said He unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The LORD hath forsaken the earth, and the LORD seeth not.” (Eze. 9:9). Thus, they adopted the name of Jove (Jupiter) for Jehovah, which became Yahweh to match the Roman pronunciation of Jove, and they exalted their famous historical figures to the place of Jehovah. Nonetheless, Jehovah still watched over His people because they were to be the family through which He would send His Son to redeem the world. While He did not want those heroes to be looked upon as replacements of their God, He did desire His people to see His ancient servants as object lessons of Himself. Those heroes of faith in Him testified of Him, and didn’t want to be worshiped as if they were Jehovah. 

Therefore, to His later faithful ones who were witnesses to Christ’s resurrection, the greatest and godliest king of ancient Israel, and the ancient founder of the kingdom, David would be the perfect object lesson and likeness for their ancient God, whose kingdom reigns over heaven and earth. Thus, David’s loins could represent God’s loins. And a son, eons later coming out of David’s loins, according to the flesh, could speak of the Anointed One coming out of God’s loins, by the anointing “power of the Highest” (Luke 1:35).  “A greater than Solomon” (Luke 11:31), “came out from God” (John 16:27), “and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33, cf 1Chron. 17:14; Rev. 21:7). And it all reveals the first begetting from the infinitely more distant past, when He “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2), and “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15) was begotten and became “the Son of the Blessed” (Mark 14:61). “Being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son?” (Heb. 1:4,5, cf 1Chron. 17:13).

“The dedication of the first-born had its origin in the earliest times. God had promised to give the First-born of heaven to save the sinner. This gift was to be acknowledged in every household by the consecration of the first-born son. He was to be devoted to the priesthood, as a representative of Christ among men.…

Thus the law for the presentation of the first-born was made particularly significant. While it was a memorial of the Lord’s wonderful deliverance of the children of Israel, it prefigured a greater deliverance, to be wrought out by the only-begotten Son of God. As the blood sprinkled on the doorposts had saved the first-born of Israel, so the blood of Christ has power to save the world.” Desire of Ages, p. 51.

King David, a man after Christ’s own heart, relative to “the Son of David” whose heart infinitely more imitated the image of His Father’s heart, was a similitude for the purpose of teaching and confirming the Messiah in the Jews’ minds of Christ’s day. And it also overlays the similitude of Abraham in relation to Isaac, which taught and confirmed the minds of the children of Israel during the long era of the judges. As King David had lived during the misty past in the minds of the Hellenized Jews, and great ages separated their first faithful and holy king from the present dictatorial Herods, so, during the period from Moses to David, had Abraham lived as a past figure of misty aural tradition recently put into the new innovation of writing. Equally great ages had existed in the minds of the children of Israel between them and that godly progenitor of Jehovah’s blessing. Therefore, in the Hebrew minds of the post-Egyptian enslavement, Abraham could be likened to Jehovah. In either respective generation of captivity, both Abraham and David seemed as ancient as God Himself, who used those consecrated men to represent Himself in each Israelite mind, “from whence also he received Him in a figure.” (Heb. 11:19).

Likewise again, a similar similitude for the sake of hope and faith could also be drawn from the 10 generations between Noah and Abram. As Abram, one day to be the father of faith, came from the loins of his father Noah who was himself a preacher of righteousness by faith, so light could shine on the descendents of Shem during their darkening world which was being overrun by the satanic, occult rebellion of Ham, Cush, and Nimrod.

God has always given promise and prophecy through types as the source of encouragement to His people. Through His parabolic metaphors the people of God have always had something with which to bring hope to each other and about which to witness to others who never heard of the most ancient Creator God of love. So, Acts 2:30 can be seen as evidence of the Prototokos coming from the loins of God, the Only Begotten beginning of the Son of God, the First-begotten of God, “the Beginning of the creation of God” (Rev. 3:14).

In extension to the first-born model, as Melchisedec (Christ) is contrasted to Levi, Levi who paid tithes to Melchisedec because he was in the loins of his father Abraham (that is, in Abraham’s DNA), so Christ created the universe, while He was yet deep in the womb of His Father, Jehovah. “And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.” (Heb. 7:9,10). (Human reproduction, made in the image of the Godhead, gives a corporeal picture of Jehovah’s virtue-filled power to create.)

In the womb of God, the Son of God gradually received from His Father that dynamic, holy power to create, as well as the infinite creative information as His Father taught Him everything.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth: and He will shew Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.” (John 5:19,20).

“For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.”  (John 5:21). Here we see the spiritual role that the Son plays in our existence. The Father affects us physically, and the Son was made “a quickening spirit” (1Cor. 15:45), in order to affect us spiritually with conviction of the heart and new birth in conversion. Jesus is the Spirit that we know, He is the one who quickens us from spiritual death. By water (His convicting words of grace and truth) and by Spirit (His own virtue) we are born again. He is our Prince and Saviour. The Father through Jesus is the Spirit of truth and the Comforter.

“Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for His name.” (Rom. 1:3-5).

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” (1Tim. 3:16).

“God was manifest in the flesh”, “declared to be the Son of God with power”, “justified in the Spirit”,“according to the spirit of holiness”, “by the resurrection from the dead”, “received up into glory”.

The Spirit of Romans 7

“Wherefore the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good….

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing : for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. ….

For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man:

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Rom. 7:12,18,22-25).

 

In chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans, Paul had used an example for the “law in my members”. That example was “concupiscence” (vs. 8) Strong’s G1939 epithumia “a longing (especially for what is forbidden): concupiscence, desire, lust (after)”. It reminds me of what I’d heard people say about their teenagers who had gone crazy over their boyfriends or girlfriends, “It’s the hormones!” Well, there is no dispute that our post-Eden hormones can drive a person up a wall. But, these cravings could also equate to every kind of substance abuse: narcotics, nicotine, alcohol, and even high blood sugar. Yes, it’s possible to eat “for drunkenness” (Ecc. 10:17).

The high sugar/high fat diet for drunkenness has been done for eons. Since the beginning of time, the sugar habit in childhood has laid the foundation for the alcohol habit later in life. Halloween and its ancient counterpart has been built upon that premise. Chemicals of any kind, natural or artificially derived, and from whatever source, surge through the brain and body, furiously demanding responses which God created in man. But, the brain and body’s nervous system is very delicate, and God never intended them to be recklessly abused, as sexual lusts and man-made derivatives and substances do. Our bodies were made to be the temple of God, a habitation of God through His Spirit. Every vice falls into the category of Paul’s example, concupiscence. The issue of Romans 7 is an extremely relevant one.

Paul was not treating concupiscence, or fornication, lightly. The sanctified apostle took very serious any trespass of the Law of God, especially fornication. He wrote, “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” (1Cor. 6:18). Paul understood that the most difficult sins for us to overcome were those which satisfy our deepest animal cravings, and they were the most offensive to God in whose image we were made. They become an idol, Satan’s idolatry which he has used to successfully oppose the work of redemption since the beginning of time. This was an issue in the Corinthian church. “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.” (1Cor. 5:1). Paul knew scripture very well and would never handle the word of God dishonestly. “Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2Cor. 4:1,2).

Paul remembered the judgment of God upon Reuben for the same offense as the man in the Corinthian church. “And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine: and Israel heard it.” (Gen. 35:22). “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.” (Gen. 49:4). “Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he was the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.” (1Chron. 5:1).

Paul’s abhorrence of concupiscence even went to such an extent that he recommended (but didn’t require) that the young people not marry. “For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I…. I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be. Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you…. The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.” (1Cor. 7:7,8,26-28,39,40). Paul saw that “the days are evil.” (Eph. 5:16).

In that evil empire, it would be better to remain virgin than to find someone who was not suitable or had deeply buried sexual sins that might later be resurrected by the darkness always encroaching upon the apostolic church. Civilization had become as grossly corrupted as Israel was in Moses’ and Isaiah’s and Jeremiah’s day. “Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land; they shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.” (Jer. 16:2-4). “How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken Me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses. They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (Jer. 5:7-9). “When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning....” (Isa. 4:4). The Lord required Moses to command the lust-enslaved men of Israel to stay away from their spouses while preparing for Judgment Day at Mount Sinai. “And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.” (Ex. 19:15).

Far from making light of the evil of concupiscence, Paul uses it to illustrate the plight of the whole world under sin. He discerned the coming wrath of God. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” (Rom. 1:28-32). And he was instructing his churches to flee from sin.

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under [“the curse of” (Gal. 3:13)] the law, but under grace.

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death….

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:12-21,23).

Paul even mourned for the plagues that would sweep the Greco-Roman world because his efforts to teach and spare it were constantly being blocked by the Jewish leadership. “Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.” (1Thess. 2:15,16). The Lord also drove Ellen White to warn the world at the end of time that the same conditions of ancient Canaan and pagan Rome should strike fear in our hearts today. Before the Lamb’s day of visiting judgment upon a humanity possessed by Satan, Mrs. White’s fearful instruction, like Paul’s, was for the church to gain victory over the destructive lower nature.

“God gives no permission to man to violate the laws of his being. But man, through yielding to Satan’s temptations to indulge intemperance, brings the higher faculties into subjection to the animal appetites and passions. When these gain the ascendency, man, who was created a little lower than the angels, with faculties susceptible of the highest cultivation, surrenders to be controlled by Satan. And he gains easy access to those who are in bondage to appetite. Through intemperance, some sacrifice one-half, and others two-thirds, of their physical, mental and moral powers and become playthings for the enemy.” Messages to Young People, p. 236.

 

“Indulgence of appetite strengthens the animal propensities, giving them the ascendency over the mental and spiritual powers.

‘Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,’ is the language of the apostle Peter.

You need to exercise temperance in all things. Cultivate the higher powers of the mind, and there will be less strength of growth of the animal. It is impossible for you to increase in spiritual strength while your appetite and passions are not under perfect control. Says the inspired apostle, ‘I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.’” Testimony Studies on Diets and Foods, p. 27.

“Indulgence of appetite strengthens the animal propensities, giving them the ascendency over the mental and spiritual powers.” Review and Herald, January 25, 1881 par. 23.

“‘Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,’ is the language of the apostle Peter. Many regard this warning as applicable only to the licentious; but is has a broader meaning. It guards against every injurious gratification of appetite or passion.… These indulgences may well be classed among the lusts that exert a pernicious influence upon moral character. The earlier these hurtful habits are formed, the more firmly will they hold their victim in slavery to lust, and the more certainly will they lower the standard of spirituality.” Review and Herald, January 25, 1881 par. 24.

“Multitudes eagerly accept teachings that leave them at liberty to obey the promptings of the carnal heart. The reins of self-control are laid upon the neck of lust, the powers of mind and soul are made subject to the animal propensities, and Satan exultingly sweeps into his net thousands who profess to be followers of Christ.

But none need be deceived by the lying claims of spiritualism.” Great Controversy, p. 555,556.

 

“Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling. Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conqueroros in the battle with evil.” Great Controversy, p. 425.

Paul likens the hormonal urges in a general sense to the propensities of our fallen nature to commit sin in every way possible. Those cravings bind us as if they possess us. Yet, the secret to successful victory was faith and dependence on Christ. The fallen human must have the help of the Spirit of God in Christ in order to obey “the truth through the Spirit” (1 Pet. 1:22). “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Rom. 8:13). “Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conqueroros in the battle with evil.” To try to “deny self” against those urges without grace from our Creator and Redeemer causes depression, insanity, or going headlong into some fanatical religion. If we are honest with ourselves, we end up with Paul’s same woeful cry that reaches the ears of the Lord of sabaoth: “I have no control of my will! I am wretched in every way! Who can rescue me from my nagging, destructive cravings?” There is a master puppeteer who works those cravings in order to manipulate us. The nightmarish son of perdition, that mystery of iniquity, is coming over the world again today, and Ellen White prophesied against it when she wrote the same concerning the ancient Roman Empire.

“Satanic agencies were incorporated with men. The bodies of human beings, made for the dwelling place of God, had become the habitation of demons. The senses, the nerves, the passions, the organs of men, were worked by supernatural agencies in the indulgence of the vilest lust. The very stamp of demons was impressed upon the countenances of men. Human faces reflected the expression of the legions of evil with which they were possessed. Such was the prospect upon which the world’s Redeemer looked. What a spectacle for Infinite Purity to behold! 

     Sin had become a science, and vice was consecrated as a part of religion. Rebellion had struck its roots deep into the heart, and the hostility of man was most violent against heaven. It was demonstrated before the universe that, apart from God, humanity could not be uplifted. A new element of life and power must be imparted by Him who made the world.” Desire of Ages, p. 36,37.

Of course, “Him who made the world” is the Son of God, the innocent One sent from the Father. And “the new element” imparted by the Son is His Spirit upon our fallen nature. It is the anointing from Messiah, the Anointed One, which He would give the world from His reconciled Father. His words of grace and truth would be the seed that, received by faith into the sinner, holds the principle of new life, the “new element”, the “anointing”.

“The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach [“seduce” (vs. 26)] you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him; that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.” (1Jn. 2:27-29).

“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free…. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:31,32,36). The Son brings to His people “the spirit of judgment, and...the spirit of burning.” (Isa. 4:4).

“They said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” (Luke 8:11).

“He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man.” (Matt. 13:37).

“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever….

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,

As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” (1Pet. 1:22,23,25-2:3).

In the word of God and the anointing of Jesus Paul found the antidote for his terrible sin problem: Christ, His life and death; His words and Spirit; His living intercession before His Father in the sanctuary which the Lord pitched and not man.

The Spirit is the words of Christ, the living, incorruptible, quickening words from Him who is “the Word of life” (1Jn. 1:1). The words of Him who loved us and died for us contain the power of His Father, and He commissions angels to bring His words home to the spirit of the Christian. The Spirit is in the word of Christ through the power of God upon the prophets as they present the testimony of Jesus. The Spirit of God is thus the Spirit of Christ, or the testimony of Jesus, and it corrects every dead doctrine, previously usurped and corrupted by Satan, turning corrupted doctrine back into its original, primitive, empowering arrangement of convicting truth for victory over the devil’s controlling influence. The counsel of God in Christ’s words, through His prophets and angelic spirits, is the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2) that is the power of God unto salvation in the human heart at conversion. It gives the “newborn babes” freedom from dead works and from the law of the flesh, freedom from a human set of laws that require only human efforts, “the will of the flesh” and “the will of man” (John 1:13).

Rather, the power of God unto salvation comes via faith in Christ’s Spirit of life that is in His words and in the “Law of God” (Rom. 7:25). By conceptualizing the lifeless body of the Christ, who had determinedly sought to have the perfection of His Father, and then by the reconciliation He made for the whole world, repentance caused Paul to love the Law of God and to be determined to serve God with his whole mind. He obeyed from his heart the form of doctrine that Christ delivered to him, which he reiterated in Romans 8:1,2. Being made free from sin through the body of Christ, Paul became a servant of righteousness. He had complete victory over concupiscence. He was no longer driven by the fallen nature.

 “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:1-4).

Because of Adam’s fall from perfection and innocence, God could no longer, by simply commanding obedience, see His righteousness fulfilled in us because our nature was weakened by sin and we lost the conception that God loved us. Sin is selfishness and to choose selfishness robs from the soul any place for disinterested love. The choice to sin thrust upon mankind a worldview of selfishness and robbed from the human race the true unselfish knowledge of our Father in heaven.

In the words of Paul, “the Law could not” “[fulfill its] righteousness...in us” because “[the Law] was weak through [our] flesh” (Rom. 8:3). This was experienced by Paul in the previous chapter 7. “To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” “In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” (Rom. 7:18). But, “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” “for [the condemnation of] sin”, did the work of convicting us of our sin in His Son’s beautiful, perfect, and persecuted flesh. The weak offense of the Law became the strong offense through the cross. We needed a tangible demonstration of our sin—we needed transgression of the Law demonstrated through the crucifixion of the innocent One—the Righteousness of God incorporated into human flesh.

We also needed to see God’s condemnation of our sin; we needed to hear His sorrowful expressions of loathing throughout the Old Testament. But God could no longer use His Law to do this, because we were no longer capable of responding positively toward His Law’s conviction. Our minds could not decipher the Law’s deeper language, God’s true, sorrowful loathing of our sin. To our confused minds and warped consciences, the deeper conviction of sin had been as if it were speaking in an unknown tongue. We could not receive it; but only wage war against it. But when, in our one opportunity to spare Him, we see that we mugged and assassinated the friendly and immaculate High Priest, “the Holy One of God” (Luke 4:34), we are crucified with Christ. We see that the Son of the Blessed One came only to be a blessing to us. So we receive the mission of the Lamb and He makes us open to the purpose of His Father’s Law—subservience to love.

“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” (Ps. 32:1,2).

“God was manifest in the flesh” and “justified in the Spirit” (1Tim. 3:16). By our surrender to “this Stone” (Matt. 21:44)—the towering Law in the anointed Prince Messiah made flesh—we are reconciled to God and the great King can once again open to us His blessedness—His Spirit that brings us the promise of pardon. “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Gal. 3:14). Once we have come to Jesus and are reconciled to God, we have a new disposition toward God and His Law. We suddenly love His Law, and find it wonderfully and very doable! We can obey it, which we take great pleasure in. This was the experience of David. “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.” (Ps. 40:7,8). We follow after God’s Spirit of blessedness. Eden’s first dominion, SPIRIT+Spirit+spirit, is restored in us. We “were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13), at least partially so “until the redemption of the purchased possession.” (Eph. 1:14). Our blessedness, or happiness and peace, is an asher (“happy”) that didn’t come from ashera the “happy” (lawless) groves of Ashtoreth. The blessedness from above is Law-based happiness.

And “our shortcomings and mistakes” which often make us “bow down and weep at the feet of Jesus” Steps to Christ, p. 64, cause us to “groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23). “But we are not to be discouraged. Even if we are overcome by the enemy, we are not cast off, not forsaken and rejected of God. No; Christ is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Steps to Christ, p. 64. “No earthly parent could be as patient with the faults and mistakes of his children, as is God with those He seeks to save. No one could plead more tenderly with the transgressor. No human lips ever poured out more tender entreaties to the wanderer than does He. All His promises, His warnings, are but the breathing of unutterable love.” Steps to Christ, p. 35.

Because we have surrendered to the call of God and to the keeping of Christ, He will hold us with a hand that will never let go.

“Nothing is apparently more helpless, yet really more invincible, than the soul that feels its nothingness and relies wholly on the merits of the Saviour. By prayer, by the study of His word, by faith in His abiding presence, the weakest of human beings may live in contact with the living Christ, and He will hold them by a hand that will never let go.” Ministry of Healing, p. 182.

“Let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me; and he shall make peace with Me.” (Isa. 27:5).

 

“I am the good shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd…. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.” (John 10:14-16,27-29). The Father through the good Shepherd coming to the sheep who have faith and who know His voice brings them the Spirit. SPIRIT+Spirit+spirit= the Spirit.

   “All who are seeking to work in harmony with God’s plan of education will have His sustaining grace, His continual presence, His keeping power. To everyone He says: ‘Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee.’ ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.’ Joshua 1:9, 5.” Ministry of Healing, p. 405.

     “Those who take Christ at His word, and surrender their souls to His keeping, their lives to His ordering, will find peace and quietude. Nothing of the world can make them sad when Jesus makes them glad by His presence. In perfect acquiescence there is perfect rest. The Lord says, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.’ Isaiah 26:3. Our lives may seem a tangle; but as we commit ourselves to the wise Master Worker, He will bring out the pattern of life and character that will be to His own glory. And that character which expresses the glory--character--of Christ will be received into the Paradise of God. A renovated race shall walk with Him in white, for they are worthy.” Desire of Ages, p. 331.

God’s pardoning blessedness comes only through the work of His Son’s merciful death. The Father and Son can say together,  “So then death worketh in Us, but life in you.” (2Cor. 4:12). Christ “was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” (Isa. 53:5). “We…joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” (Rom. 5:11). Through the atoning pardon comes Christ's anointing Spirit and His words. Once we have received the anointing of the living Anointed One, now His Law can enter and remain in us. Then, through His words, His sayings, His commandments, teachings, instructions, doctrine, statutes, judgments, His name, et cetera, we abide in Him and in His continuing atonement. “I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me and I in him.... If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:5,7). Jesus lives in us by Spirit in His words. This is what we hear from Paul in Romans 7 and 8.

“He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.... Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:5,7).

“Nothing is apparently more helpless, yet really more invincible, than the soul that feels its nothingness and relies wholly on the merits of the Saviour. By prayer, by the study of His word, by faith in His abiding presence, the weakest of human beings may live in contact with the living Christ, and He will hold them by a hand that will never let go.” Ministry of Healing, p. 182.

After our seeking God with all our heart, bearing up under His condemnation of our sins, then He would give us over to His Son. “Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?” (Heb. 12:5-7). Once we submit to the Father’s rebukes and chastening, He gives us to Jesus, who will in no wise throw us out. We sought Jesus with all our heart and we found Him; we received Him and He gave us power to become sons of God. “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” (Gal. 4:6). Our spirit is united with the Father’s  and the Son’s. SPIRIT+Spirit+spirit.

 

The only other option comes to those who won’t stand before the Father’s condemnation through His Law, and receive His Son’s Spirit. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” (Rom. 8:9). “If ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye [illegitimate], and not sons.” (Heb. 12:8). Them He would have to hand over to His adversary, the devil whose empty Ashtoreth worship gives a deceptive feeling of redemption, and is billed as redemption. But, God is not in it, and it leads away from power to overcome sin. It leads away from redemption; it sends its victims into a tailspin. And after a hopeless, headlong tumble into complete lawlessness and wrathful possession by the evil one, the victim must be destroyed. “That which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.” (Heb. 6:8).

Our deliverance from sin would come by God’s wrath abiding on us until we surrender to His righteous judgment, and then Christ’s taking us under His wing, enveloping us in His bosom. By faith, His disciples would join Him, as He had joined His Father. He would come to us spiritually with His words, the same Comforter and Wonderful Counselor that He had been for His disciples when He taught them. As with the apostles, through His Spirit He would welcome into the holy precincts of His grace and truth everyone who surrendered to the severity of His Father’s Law. “And He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel [“He who fights with God and overcomes (self)”]: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” (Gen. 32:28).

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” (Rev. 2:17). “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” (Rev. 3:21,22). Who sat down with His Father? Jesus. Who is making this promise? The Spirit. Who is the Spirit then? Obviously, it is Jesus testifying through His servant. John, who is “in the Spirit” (Rev. 1:10) and is giving us the words of Jesus. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit....” (John 6:63).

“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28). “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” (John 7:37). “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.... And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” (Rev. 22:17). “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein.” (Rev. 1:3). The Spirit is Jesus calling us.

“Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me…. If ye love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever;… I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you…. At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” (John 14:11,15,16,18,20). “I and My Father are one.” (John 10:30). Since Jesus comes to us through His words that are Spirit, then only those who seek to keep His commandments, words, Law etc. can have His Spirit, the Comforter. Jesus will not leave us comfortless. His words will be a witness to His presence in our hearts and minds.

“All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are…. I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me…. And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:10,11,23,26). When we are united in Their union, through faith in Jesus’ words, which are spirit, then the SPIRIT of Jehovah with the Spirit of His Son in our spirit is “the Spirit” that we experience. SPIRIT+Spirit+spirit= the Spirit.

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you…. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come [prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.]” (John 16:7,8,13).

Remember that the same apostle wrote,

“The anointing which ye have received of Him [“the Son” “from the beginning” (vs. 24)] abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him; that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.” (1Jn. 2:27-29).

In closing, the Comforter Jesus sent to Earth from His greater COMFORTER FATHER still gives abundant comfort to those who are in great need. They have confidence to stand in the great wrath of the Lamb. THE COMFORTER+the Comforter+the comforted= the Comforter.

SPIRIT+Spirit+spirit= “the Spirit”

Under construction

An email

Hi David,

I hope you made it safely to Kingsland, today!

I had a thought about the controversial view of the Trinity, which you published in your book.

I think that in the spiritual experience of some Catholics, what you surmise may be true. However, in an absolute universal theological sense, that it is not. I.e., that in terms of theology, the Trinity really is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, while in some Catholics’ spirituality, ‘Mary’ has usurped the office of the Paraclete.

I know that Muslims are taught that the Holy Ghost equals ‘Mary.’

This topic that you’ve published is very subtle and sensitive, and I hope you weigh your semantics carefully.

God’s love,

 

 

Hi ______,
Thank you for your concern for me. I agree about Mary as another paraclete. There is a real psychology behind it all. That psychology is encapsulated in John 3:36. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” When the wrath of God, His chastisement of our peace, His Spirit of truth abides on a conscience, it’s because that soul needs to humble itself under the mighty hand of God. That person needs to submit himself to the righteousness of God. When he does, God the Schoolmaster, brings him to Christ to be justified. Having surrendered to the justice of God in condemning him of his sins, and repenting of his sins, God can be just to justify him. Now God can rejoice in him because God destroyed his sin without having to destroy him. So, He sends to that son of Adam the blessedness He bestowed upon Abraham (Gal. 3:14), the “Spirit of His Son” (Gal. 4:6). A soul is reborn in God’s image, a new creation walks in His Spirit. His sins are blotted out. His heart is “sprinkled from an evil conscience, and [his body] washed with pure water.” (Heb. 10:22). There is “no more conscience of sins.” (Heb. 10:2). Life-giving, health-giving peace with God replaces the life-destroying, health-destroying separation from God.

But, if the condemned soul refuses to bow before the mighty power of God’s condemnation of sin, then the wrath of God continues. Most of the world suffers under this terrible mental condition. We both have experienced it. For everyone it can last a long time while they “pine away in their iniquity...and also in the iniquities of their fathers.” (Lev. 26:39). They refuse to surrender to the condemnation of God, therefore they cannot be brought to Jesus to receive the gift of God. And the wrath of God continues to abide on them. “Whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever It shall fall, It will grind him to powder.” (Matt. 21:44).

In the horrible grinding we seek some other way of escape beside surrendering to the righteousness of God. Seeing our dishonesty with the Spirit of truth, Satan comes to offer his substitute system to relieve the guilt and condemnation. Satan’s absolution always gets the conscience to go to sleep--either through a chemical substance, or a religious doctrine, or a psychic experience. I see that, from the beginning, Satan has pawned off the 3rd person of a trinity as a religious doctrine and even a psychic experience. The damnation of Babylon has been, from the earliest times, the wine of her fornication. Her fornication was her false doctrines, her smooth religious repetitive mantras, and her hypnotic and redundant sacraments. Today her Catholic spiritual exercises, which brings the mind of the votive in direct contact with her devils purporting to be God, is spreading all over the Evangelical denominations. And that mystery of iniquity, under the same name of Spiritual Formation, is starting to enter the Adventist church.

There has never been redemption through anything that Catholicism ever offered, any more than what Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism, etc. ever offered. The worshipers have only a mental flush and an empty emotional feeling. They offer no power to have victory over sin. God’s truth or condemnation of sin are never permitted to enter those religions or worship practices, and those religions know nothing about the Son of God who is a Saviour and a Prince, the Prince of peace and the Man of war. I see the 3rd person of the Trinity as a competitor who substitutes himself for the 2nd Person. The 3rd person has grace and only grace. That in itself should stand out with red flags all over the place. Neither God nor His Son have ever offered grace and only grace. Both God and His Son are for both justice and mercy, truth and grace. Never one with the other: never justice/truth without mercy/grace, and never mercy/grace without justice/truth. But Astoreth, Astarte, Artemis, Diana, Venus, Mary, Isis, and the other chief female gods offered only grace. And the people flocked to them. Today the whole Christian world worships, prays to, and thereby subtly exalts the Holy Spirit above the Father and Son.

“Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:
So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.
And when they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
And the whole city was filled with confusion.” (Acts 19:26-29).

Demetrius was speaking the pure truth about the Holy Spirit, “whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.” The church turned away from the Father and Son during the first three centuries, and lost the gift of Their holy Spirit. They lost the experience in the things of God, and that is when God’s holy gift of His Spirit became mental assent to some fictional person in the Godhead. The great apostasy and mystery of iniquity involved the bringing of the greatest of all blasphemies into Christian doctrine when the church completely bowed to Satan in the late AD 300’s. Sunday was willingly welcomed in by the sin-loving multitudes, and then on the heels of apostasy came another blasphemy—Mary and the Holy Spirit, as alternative intercessors who were trusted in to be gracious more than Jesus. That was grace without ever having submitted to the righteousness of God and been made guilty and humbled before Him.

We have only one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1Tim. 2:5). We have one Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1Jn. 2:1). He is our only Intercessor, and ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25). Should the one biblical, divine Mediator need another divine Mediator? Should the 2nd Person of the Godhead need an intercessor in a 3rd person? Or, can our Intercessor and Mediator not handle the job of reconciling us to God and God to us? Romans 5:10 says that Christ reconciled us to God by His death. 2 Corinthians 5:18,19 say the same thing. Does Jesus have all power (authority) to save the world as He said He did?

The Spirit is “the Spirit of God”, “the Spirit which is of God”, “His Spirit”, “the Spirit of your Father”, and “the Spirit of His Son”, “the Spirit of Christ”, “the Spirit of Jesus Christ”, “My Spirit”, “the Spirit of the Lord” that give life—“the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”. “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1Jn. 5:11,12). The Spirit is the Son’s kiss of life/breath of life into our spirit, and our acceptance of the Son’s kiss.

_______, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with all this. I know that all of my persuasiveness has never changed anyone’s mind about anything. But, I feel it my privilege and duty to warn others of a doctrine that is probably the greatest and final error of Rome to be renounced and protested before Jesus returns in power. Anti-trinitarianism is not a new idea for me, but it began to come together more and more as I studied Revelation, beginning with Rev. 5:6. I have woven anti-trinitarianism throughout my book, and it may be the reason my book doesn’t sell. It could also result in tribulation for me. I have never spoken ill about any other religion than Catholicism, but the issue against the Trinity could give me a world of trouble, because all religions have a trinity.

Thank you again for your concern for my eternal welfare. You are a true brother.
David

Living in communion

“But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4).

Isn’t living in communion with God what Adam lost when he fell into sin? Before sin he had timeless peace with a Friend. Born with a nature that gravitated to his Creator, and surrounded by every evidence of his Creator’s power and love, Adam was happy, very happy. Eve, the crowning work of creation, revealed to Adam the epitome of creation’s glory. She offered the only thing creation fell short of—perfect companionship. Adam was united with his new world in many ways. The chemistry, the physics, the biology, the astronomy, the geology, the study of animal and plant, all were there for his intellectual pleasure. He even had communion with animals and plants; but, it was not enough. The spiritual union he had with them lacked in a way he couldn’t put his finger on.

Then, through spiritual discernment, when he understood that the animals and plants had their own special form of communion between male and female kinds, Adam realized what had been missing from his perfect happiness. He needed another like himself but not exactly like him; he needed another Adam of the other gender.

The Lord God revealed Himself and His Father in the creation of the first couple. And He illustrated His Father’s universe in miniature when He created the earth. When the Lord God chose this world it was a large, gaseous, rogue planet. Like Neptune, whose atmosphere is mostly water and whose core is the size of Earth, our planet needed a makeover to allow beauty and life to exist and be seen.

So, He condensed the water atmosphere of Earth, forming its gigantic ocean, its seas and lakes and rivers. Then He went to work forming the intricacies of life, right down to the molecule. He created it to be inhabited, ultimately placing two rulers over the glorious new creation, who would be figures of Himself and His Father. Now He had a sanctuary He could visit, a synagogue, a temporary dwelling, a sandbox. It was a world which He filled with His workmanship and with evidences of Himself. “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.” (Jer. 23:24). The earth was “full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” (Isa. 11:9).

This His Father had done to the universe. The Father had brought together the stuff of space, molding the stars into galaxies and nebulae. He had decorated His own home and filled it with His workmanship and with evidences of Himself for the pleasure of the future hosts that would surround Him. It was His sanctuary, an extension of His throne, of Himself.

This was His great pleasure, but something was missing. He beheld the companionship between the stars and their planets. He comprehended a union, albeit mechanical, within galaxies and the nebulae, and realized His lack. He needed one like Himself, who would not be exactly the same. So after incomprehensible eons, He brought forth His firstborn Son, “the Beginning of the creation of God” (Rev. 3:14). His Prototokos was “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15); He was the essence of His Father condensed into a visible form. He was “the angel of the LORD” (Zech. 3:1), “Michael the archangel” (Jude 1:9). He was the Lord God, “the Lord of sabaoth” (Jas. 5:4), “the prince of the host” (Dan. 8:11). He was “the Prince of princes” (Dan. 8:25) and the “Prince of Peace.” (Isa. 9:6).

Now God’s communion was perfect. In His Son He found the epitome of perfection of His universe. Now the Father could be perfectly happy; and heaven could be perfectly joyful. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.” (Ps. 50:2).

Plans were made to create a miniature, a corporeal representation of the happiness and glory of the heavenly home and its universe. The Father and Son came together for this most precious project after choosing one of Their innumerable rogue, gaseous planets. By His Father’s direction in the operation, the Son spoke everything of the earth into existence. The Son did as His Father had shown Him in the “holy mountain of God” (Eze. 28:14). “He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” (Ps. 33:9).

“The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth.… That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent Him.… For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” (John 5:19,20,23,26). “God…created all things by Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 3:9).

The earth represented to Adam the whole kingdom of God throughout the immensity of space. The Lord God had a personal relationship with the land, as His Father had with the first dominion—His universe of peace. “I [will] remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them.” (Lev. 26:42,43). As earth’s land needed rest from being overworked, God’s whole universe has needed rest from the unrest caused by the sin problem.

“Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the Garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.” (Eze. 36:33-36).

Adam had exchanged his wondrous divine nature and glorious world for dry chaff. His new life and world would be nothingness, even less than nothing. All the glory that he had experienced disappeared, because God had ceased His communion with Adam. God could no longer enjoy the nature of Adam and Eve. The new self-indulgent, self-exalted spirit that filled their minds was a constant irritant to His selfless mind. His Spirit was at odds with theirs. Their spirit jarred His Spirit every moment. Their spirit was Satan’s spirit of hatefulness and implacable self-centeredness, adversarial to the love and joy that had once filled the universe until now. “The kingdom of God suffereth violence; and the violent take it by force.” (Matt. 11:12).

Sin brought immense pain to God and to His creation. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” (Rom. 8:22). At every sight and sound and sense, Adam and Eve and their race caused God constant torture instead of constant pleasure. Instead of the previous unending joy, now all that Jehovah received from them was unending suffering and regret for having made the Human Race. And this was as Satan desired in order to wreak his revenge on God and His Son.

Vomiting his vendettas: “This is what they deserve for disrespecting Lucifer and dismissing Me from their presence! I’ll bring jehovah untold misery through those highly prized urchins until he has to destroy them! Jehovah always loved them better than me! He had dreamed of them, even before We the angels were created! He’ll know how I feel when I get even! And when he has destroyed these unworthy jars of clay, then I will heap My final vengeance on jehovah by proclaiming his hypocrisy. He always portrayed himself as gracious; and I will prove him to be otherwise when he destroys the human race which I will make utterly worthless! I will make him eternally miserable for what he has done to Me! I will destroy his credibility forever! jehovah and his precious son will burn forever, even forever and ever, in the fire of My making!”

Yet, despite Jehovah’s infinite misery, He remembers what He lost. He knows what He had with Adam and what can be again. He also knows His precious children of Adam are somewhat ignorant of why and to what extent they cause Him torment. Jehovah says, “They know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). Our Father’s love toward us “suffereth long, and is kind.” (1Cor. 13:4).

Long before the run-in with Lucifer He had provided a way to win back the precious creation of His dreams. “All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ…. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them…. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Cor. 5:18,19,21).

Reconciliation is available to all of His children of Earth. The previous, perfect communion can be restored. Through His Son, the infinite God can once again hold blessed conversation with finite creatures of clay. Constant meditation and prayer—two way communion—returns to Adam’s dominion! Heaven is again reconnected with earth, scarred humanity with divinity that it helped to eternally damage!

Oh, the condescension of the Most High God to dwell again in vessels of valueless clay! The pristine King of heaven living in sanctuaries of Earth’s dust! From where does He derive that self-sacrificing pleasure? It will take the redeemed race an eternity to know. Oh, the depth of the riches of the humility and condescension of God! How unsearchable is His mercy, and His love past finding out!

In the Spirit, pt. 1

“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” (Rev. 1:10). 

The best time to meet with Jesus is on His holy day, the Sabbath.

“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words….” (Isa. 58:13).

“Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:28). 

But, Satan has always had problems with the Sabbath because it offered humanity special privileges with God. All heaven gave special attention to the human children of God.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” (Gen. 2:1-3).

After creating everything on the new planet during the first six days, God created the Sabbath on the seventh. He created a time to spend in communion with Adam and Eve. Before the first day of labor began, God offered rest. Rest in Him. There was no need for physical rest, because Adam had yet done no labor. This was nurturing, the nursing of a mother to her newborn, after her labor. Was there labor involved in Adam by his coming into existence? Probably not. But, there was labor involved in his cooperating to bring Eve into existence. There was the stress of looking for his mate among the other animals, and finding none. That was work. That was labor. Adam labored on the sixth day.

Now he could rest from the anxiety of not having a helpmeet, a companion to do things together, go places together, talk together. A constant friend and helper, Eve was a counselor and the only object on earth upon whom he could bestow his supreme regard.

That Sabbath became the first of 313,034 weekly Sabbaths since. It was not only a whole day of communion with each other, but especially a day of communion with their Maker. All day, every Sabbath, they were in the Spirit because Jesus was walking with them. And in His presence was fullness of joy.

Each day can be like the Sabbath. Yet, each day is cumbered with the cares of this life, and burdened with stresses that distract from the fuller communion with Jesus on His day of rest. We must work. Work is a blessing. But the greatest blessing of all throughout the week in between Sabbaths, is knowing that the Sabbath is coming. “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest.” (Heb. 4:11). The Sabbath rest is never so good than after six days of labor.

But, Jesus’ rest is more than physical. It is spiritual rest. “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” (1Jn. 4:16). Love and trust are twins. Trust permits the nerves to be calm, and trust consummates that peace in the expression of love. There are no threats in trust and no fears in love. The only fear is that we lose the peace and rest in God. “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” (Heb. 4:1).

This is what being in the Spirit is all about. John in the Spirit was him dwelling in God, abiding in Christ, living in Their love. The eternal Spirit is that love eternally. It is eternal life that begins at the new birth in Christ.

“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.” (2Cor. 5:16-18).

Being in the Spirit means to be in Christ. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” (Eph. 1:3).

The Spirit is synonymous with God and His only begotten Son.

“The LORD possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old.

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.

Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:

While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.

When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon the face of the depth:

When He established the clouds above: when He strengthened the fountains of the deep:

When He gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment: when He appointed the foundations of the earth:

Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him;

Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men.” (Prov. 8:22-31).

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen. 1:26). “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” (Gen. 5:1,2).

 To be in Christ is to be in the Spirit. And this is for everyone who will go for it. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Rom. 8:9,10).

John beheld “what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” (1Jn. 3:1). And marveling, John entered deeper and deeper into thoughts of God’s love that he had seen while he had spent his life walking with his Master. The heat of the sun and the things of earth disappeared; the endless sea ceased to imprison him. This world’s troubles went silent; the gnawing hunger and thirst faded away. The concerns for the churches dampened. Hour after hour on that Sabbath day, John’s peace deepened while he went deeper into faith and love for his Master. He was in the Spirit; he was in the Prince  Messiah. He had the Son.

John’s yearning moved God to send Jesus to the lonely exile, and the Revelation came to him. Jesus gave John the special gift of His future secrets as a reward for the disciple’s faith and love for Him. The last father of the church received that special benefit of inspiration not because he was a mighty figure who could sit stately upon an earthly throne of gold. The heavenly benediction came to John as he sat on a rock, living off of vegetation, grimy, dressed in filthy rags, and sleeping on the bare ground. The Revelation filled with promise came because of persecution.

“I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Rev. 1:9).

Jesus is always “full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14). If He blesses a person or a nation with great grace, He must balance that with great testing truth. Otherwise, the grace is not appreciated. After Jesus has tested His people by a stressful test and they endure it faithfully, then He can bless them with His special self-revelation. “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever.” (Deut. 29:29).

The blessed communion that came out of the horrific persecution prepared John for the special revelation that Sabbath day. John had proven himself to be faithful to the core. His big test accomplished, the Lord could reward him with a message to the church throughout the centuries to come. “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” (2Chron. 16:9).

Will we suffer the loss of everything in exchange for a visit from Jesus by His Spirit? Would we do anything to hear His voice through His Spirit? Would we let His Father’s Law grind on our consciences in order for the His angels to escort us to His Son, so we can become His disciple? Would we allow our idols to be taken away in exchange for time spent together with the holy One? Would we too like to be in the Spirit, and also see Jesus? “Every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him” “hath life.” (John 6:40; 1Jn. 5:12).

“And the Spirit [of the Bridegroom] and the bride say, Come.” (Rev. 22:17).

“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28).

“Christ…is our life.” (Col. 3:4).

 “And if Christ be in you, [sin that is in] the body is dead…; but [Christ’s] Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Rom. 8:10).

“This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” (1Jn. 5:11).