Part 1 - What Salvation Is

I want to deal with the theme: "The Reality of Being in Christ." I want us to look as deeply as we can into that reality and see what it is about; what our life in Christ is about, because I am convinced that there are a lot of believers that just do not know. And because they do not understand they are discontented. We have a Church world that has hundreds of thousands of buildings, with hundreds of thousands of people in those buildings on a weekly basis, and most of them are discontented. They are searching for something ... and they don’t know what! That’s the reason I think we come up with so many songs that seem to say, "Well, I just wish I could die and go to heaven." And it seems to me that Salvation ought to be more than that! And it IS more than that - if believers come to understand their relationship to Christ as it is NOW; and begin to be in the earth, in the world, living expressions of that Divine Relationship. And you just can’t accomplish that by going to a place once a week, or twice a week, or three times a week. Though our gatherings are for expressing that relationship one to another, there is more to that relationship than can be contained in buildings.

The Corporate View of Salvation

So, The Reality of Being in Christ is what I want to talk with you about. Turn to Ephesians 1. There are many places we could turn to, but Ephesians 1 is as good as any with regard to this realization. Ephesians 1:9 and 10. I want to set the foundation now for this sharing. "Having made known... HAVING made known." This is something that at the time of this writing HAD BEEN made known. "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the administration..." Your Bible may say "dispensation", but it is "administration" in the Greek. And the administration here is the administration of The Holy Spirit, the administration of Christ, over against the administration of the Law; the administration of the Spirit over against the administration of the letter (2 Cor. 3:7-9). The administration that is being spoken of here is that administration that is alive and active in Christ Jesus. It is the administration of which we are in Christ. And the whole emphasis here is God HAVING ALREADY DONE something: HAVING MADE KNOWN. At that time it was made known. Paul understood what he was talking about, he understood what the mystery was all about, and he declared openly the mystery so that to those who received, it was a mystery no longer!

"That in the administration of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him." THE REALITY OF BEING IN CHRIST. We could diagram this with a Cross in the center, because The Cross is what divides the old from the new. The old what from the new what? The old everything - the old, the old administration, the old covenant, world, creation, the old man. It divides the old from the new. On one side you can draw a large circle labeled "Being in Christ". And in that circle, to start with I would put a bunch of circles representing those who are IN CHRIST. This would illustrate seeing believers in Christ, and then asking The Holy Spirit to teach us, to show us what that means; to reveal in us what is to the carnal mind a mystery; but to the Spiritual Mind - a reality (Rom. 8:5, 1 Cor. 2:7, 9). So again, The REALITY of Being in Christ.

I was in India once after traveling to many countries, and finally I came to the jungles of South India. I had been traveling for over two months, and I was exhausted, and India is a difficult place to be in. I finally got to where we were going after a five mile walk. It was extremely hot and steamy and miserable, and all I could do was drape a sheet around me like a diaper! I had a little concrete room 6' x 10' with a steel cot and a coconut husk mattress and one little window with wood shutters and a double flap door. There was no electricity so there was no running water, so we just bathed in the creek. To those people it was home, but to me it was a little rustic! After about two days I just came to the end of myself. I hated India and I hated Indians! And the only thing I wanted to do was - get out! And that as quickly as I could, and I was in the hardest place to do that. There was hardly any way to get in there, let alone get out!

I was in a terrible shape, and I realized that this is serious! I told the Brother there I have to go in this room and pray or I’m going to have to leave; I have to hear from The Lord. I went in the room, closed the door and window and lit a candle - which only made everything hotter... and I began to cry out to God. "God, get me out of this place!" And I prayed that for three to four hours over and over. I wanted out! I kept hollering - Get me out of this place! I can not describe to you what a crisis in my very soul this was. And I didn’t realize then that The Lord had permitted a crisis to come into my heart. This was not "culture shock"; this was all the way down into the soul! And I was crying out "God, get me out of this place!" And the candle had burnt out, and I had burnt out, and I was laying there exhausted. Finally The Lord spoke to me, "Son - where are you (Gen. 3:9)?" Well, the thought sprang to me: "You know very well where I am! I am in the armpit of the world!" That thought came, but before I could get it out of my mouth The Spirit of The Lord spoke again and said, "Son - where are you?" And with that immediately came the answer from The Lord. The thought came, a dim realization: ‘I AM IN CHRIST." Then that same voice said, "Well, would you that I remove you from this place?" Boy, such a chilling voice!

"Would you that I remove you from THIS PLACE?" And I spent the rest of the night repenting, and telling The Lord, "No, I don’t want to get out of this place." Do you understand what happened there? What I had preached for years became a REALITY IN MY SOUL. And I had a decision to make: stay or be removed. I understood that wherever I was on the face of the earth, I was there IN CHRIST, and if I was crying out against where I was, I was crying out against Christ. I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up, and I was out hugging brown necks and kissing brown faces! I couldn’t have enough of them around me, because I realized - I AM IN CHRIST! I AM IN CHRIST! I’m not in India - I am in Christ! And I’m here to manifest the reality of being in Christ. It is there that I began to draw diagrams: not on blackboards - in the dirt. It was there the diagrams began to relate an understanding that had come to me in the middle of the night when The Voice of The Lord said, "Son, where are you?" Friends, you and I are often found in our hearts somewhere other than in Christ. But God sees us no where but IN HIS SON, and then He hears our words and sees our attitudes. The Reality of Being in Christ. From that day to this day I can sit with 1 person, 50, 10 or 10,000 because I am in Christ. I am IN CHRIST!

References:

Salvation in a Person

Well, it’s a reality that has to take place in our hearts, but we do not understand Salvation except by understanding in Christ, because that’s what Salvation is. God hasn’t brought you to a thing: He has brought you to His Son. The "place" that He has brought us to is a Person! If we could only understand this more! Everything of your understanding concerning Salvation is related to your understanding the reality of being in Christ. Most of what Christians think Salvation is has nothing to do with Salvation at all - and that’s just a fact. Salvation for most Christians is so bound up by so many things, and so many beliefs and doctrines, rather than bound up with the REALITY OF RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST; the reality of Being In Him. I tell you again over 200 times in the New Testament Paul and others refer to the believer’s position - IN CHRIST. It seems then that with that many mentions, we should give a great deal of our attention to it, and say, "Father, awaken me in my heart to what this means. Awaken me to this relationship; that I might become on the earth an EXPRESSION of this reality." But most of the time we’re not. We’re an expression of whatever our environment happens to be at the time, rather than filling all of the environment with The Reality of Being In Christ.

We have an ‘environmentally-controlled’ people. But environments come and go! Look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:14. So few understand this statement made by Paul. There are two words we need to see here: ALWAYS and IN EVERY PLACE. "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place." I want to tell you the first few days I was in India there were smelling everything BUT Christ! And flesh stinks! Do you know how you triumph in every place? Simply filling it with the knowledge of the savour of Christ! How are we always triumphant in Christ? Well, He maketh manifest by us that reality in every place. He maketh manifest by us the savour of Christ in every place. Seeing that we dwell in one place; we fill up every place with the savour of the knowledge of Christ!

See, we are triumphant in every place before you ever get there; before you ever get there - you are IN CHRIST! You are triumphant when you get there. The triumph is filling up the place with the savour of His knowledge. That’s the triumph, and if you don’t do that - you are a failure! Because you are failing to manifest relationship and reality. "For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life" (2 Cor. 2:15-16). But unto God it is the savour of His Son. This is what we’re talking about. The whole concept of the Church world today is: ‘God, get me out of here!’ That’s the crisis I came to in 1969 in the jungles of India. That’s the crisis The Church is in, and instead of coming to the realization of Being in Christ, ministry is just giving them ways and means of "getting out". But the whole point is not "getting out" of some place or any place, but rather filling every place with the savour of Him in Whom we NOW live. And this has to do with understanding Salvation. Salvation is NOT our "escape mechanism", but rather our life in Christ.

And you cannot understand Salvation from the standpoint of individualism. You must look at this "IN CHRIST" as representing believers IN CHRIST; not in the old man, but in The New Man - IN CHRIST (Eph. 4:13, 24). You can’t look at that view, which is God’s view of Salvation; you can’t understand that view from the standpoint of individualism. The idea of Salvation being just a "personal" Salvation is extremely misleading and is detrimental to understanding true union with Christ. That’s almost like a slap in the face to most Christians because we’ve been told so much about "your personal Salvation"; and though Salvation is very personal to each of us, the idea of a personal Salvation is misleading and detrimental to an understanding of a CORPORATE union with Christ. It’s like "me and Jesus" have our little thing going. It’s like "God’s will for me." All of these things come out of that view. "My" cabin in glory land. For 2000 years there has been a religious sector built upon Salvation viewed as individual: "I have my own church..." You do? Where did you get it? "I have MY faith, and that’s a private thing, and I don’t speak to anybody about it". Why?

What I’m telling you is that all of these things are in the Church world, and the reason they are there is that Salvation is being preached not as a corporate being, but as an individual package. Salvation is very personal, but that’s not the same thing as having a "personal Salvation" as it is being taught in so many places. And it has led to all of these other miscomprehensions. Salvation is not self centered: it isn’t "me" centered, it is CHRIST centered! You must bring Christ back into the center of the picture, and as we progress to study what it means to be in Christ, we will lose sight of all these circles. All of these circles will have to be erased, because the whole point of being IN CHRIST is not many, but ONE. You may have been many before coming to Christ, but IN CHRIST we are ONE. That’s the problem with individualism; we want "ones".

We are going to look at how we come to be IN CHRIST. How did we get there? What do the scriptures say about that? Paul challenged some: "What, don’t you understand this? No wonder you are doing these things. Don’t you understand?" (Rom. 6:3; 7:1, 1 Cor. 3:16). And he began to talk to them about how they got to be "IN CHRIST", and what it means to be there. In fact, Paul scarcely speaks of anything else in every epistle he writes except The Reality of Being in Christ. And since the fulness of the Godhead bodily dwells there (Col. 2:9), there is a tremendous reality connected with it. And when you see this all in The Person of The Lord Jesus, and come to comprehend that you are in Him, I doubt you will ever want to be found anywhere else (Phil. 3:9)! But you see, believers have just not been taught the reality of being in Him; so we are all looking for "someplace else". That’s not just those looking for someplace else "in the sweet by and by"; we’re looking for someplace else on the earth. The problem with "someplace else" is you’re going to find the same person there who was in the last place; and that’s YOU! And it’s you and it’s me who is the problem to begin with! It’s not me filling up every place where I am with the stench of me; but with the savour of the knowledge of HIM that makes the difference. We wouldn’t need to go from "place to place" if we finally came to see "the place" where we are; and that "the place" is a Person.

Now I’m not saying that The Lord doesn’t lead you from place to place, but most of the time people who go from place to place are NOT being led of The Lord. They are either running from something or looking for something else. I go from place to place, but since 1969 I’ve never left my dwelling place to get there. I have found how much bigger Christ is than this whole world! I haven’t been to all of it, but I’ve found how small it is in comparison to the place where I live - IN CHRIST JESUS! There is enough of that place a million trillion times over to fill up every place on the face of this earth if God’s people only understood THE REALITY OF BEING IN CHRIST.

I’m telling you it affects our whole concept of Salvation; it affects our whole idea of Salvation. You see signs that say, "Where will you spend eternity?" And I think - Right where I am NOW! But some good meaning person wrote that not understanding where we are NOW. I had preached "being in Christ" for years before I comprehended being there. I preached it because I was taught that, I saw it in the scriptures, I believed it; it was a theological reformation in my heart. But then - I came to the CRISIS OF REALIZATION. Then The Lord brought me face to face with what it means to be there. If you are there, then you are NO PLACE ELSE. I was speaking this once and a brother told me I was very close to being a "mystic". I didn’t know what that was, but then I read that a mystic is one who experiences his own vision. But this is not MY vision; it’s The Lord’s Vision. He reveals His Son, but thank God you do experience it; it becomes real to you, you actually live in Christ. You actually begin to understand that if I am found IN HIM, that means I am not found anywhere else.

Then you’ll be able to pick this up in Paul’s words; "While I was with you, I was there in weakness, and in trembling. I wasn’t there with great swelling words of speech. The very fact that I could speak at all was due to the power of The Holy Spirit, because I was there not with my testimony but declaring to you The Testimony of God so that your faith would not stand in me, or in the strength of my words, or in the strength of my presence - but IN HIM (1 Cor. 2:1-4).

What Paul actually says is when I was with you - I was not! See, they might all have actually seen him, but Paul understood and he was seeing something else. He realized - no, not I; and how could it be any way other than that from this man who says, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet, not I, CHRIST liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). See, that’s the other side of this coin to which we are coming: CHRIST IN YOU. But the answer to the truth and the realization of Christ in you is the mystery involving you being in Him, because the two are like two sides of one coin: one is not really good without the other (Jn. 14:20). The understanding that Christ is in me can easily lead to individualism. But the understanding that He is in me is only because I am in Him. It is not individualism, but it is ONE DWELLING IN HIS WHOLE BODY; all of which dwells in Him (Eph. 1:20, 23, Col. 3:11). And that’s a great difference in understanding. All I’m doing now is just talking about you BEING IN CHRIST, and stirring up our minds and our hearts to that reality.

Salvation then is not about "me" and "mine"; it’s about ‘HIM’ and ‘HIS’. In most people’s concept Salvation is "me" and "mine", and that’s the reason they think they are going to go to heaven and see nobody but Grandma! Let’s get down to the nitty gritty: it’s all about me and mine. And they say they are going to see "their" loved one, and don’t care about yours, because it’s "me" and "mine" for them, whether now, hereafter or whenever. Me and Mine - but it isn’t according to the scriptures, especially Ephesians. You ought to read the first three chapters of Ephesians and underline HE, HIM, HIS. What an awakening! What an eye opener! HE - HIM - HIS; because that’s what it’s about. It’s about HIM and HIS. We would understand "The Resurrection" if we understood that! In the Christian community we haven’t the slightest idea whose body is supposed to be raised up. We haven’t got the slightest idea in the Christian community today whom God promised a New Body. We don’t know! And if it’s all about "me" and "mine" - it must be ME and MINE! That must be what The Resurrection is all about!

But I could go through the scripture with you wherever The Resurrection is being spoken of - and it’s spoken of everywhere, but especially where that is the issue of the letter, and show you that the promise even in the Old Covenant was to only One Seed - which is CHRIST (Gen 21:12, Isa. 1:9, Rom. 9:7-8, Gal. 3:16). This Christ Who said if I fall in the ground and die... if I don’t I will abide alone, but if I do, I will bring forth much fruit (Jn. 12:24). To every Seed God giveth it a body of its own (1 Cor. 15:38, Heb. 10:5). The whole promise in the Old Testament was concerning The Resurrection - that’s it! In the Old Covenant you have two major themes: you have the promise and the inheritance. Those are the two major themes that were given to Abraham (Gen. 13:14-16, Gen. 15:7-17), and then carried on and expanded to Israel and the prophets, but basically it’s those two major themes - the promise and the inheritance. And both the promise and the inheritance belong to just ONE SEED. Oh, when you come to realize that, and then you come to realize that the whole scope of Salvation is being IN that One Son, being IN that One Seed; that you and I make up God’s promise to His Seed concerning His Seed having a Body of His own, whose Body you now are! And where did He get that Body, except in The Resurrection? And where did He get that Body, except He raised it up from among the dead (1 Cor. 15:44)?

Hallelujah! It isn’t about "me" and "mine". It is about HIM and HIS. Every facet of Salvation takes on a different comprehension when you get a hold of that. God’s view of Salvation is having all things gathered up and presented in One Son (Eph. 1:10, 13). God’s view of Salvation - His view of Salvation is not cleaning up a mess and making it all look better. No - God’s view of Salvation is gathering up all things; the "all things" that the New Covenant speaks of being gathered up in Christ are the "all things" of the Old Covenant - all things represented in the Old Covenant (Heb. 3:4, Heb. 8:5). All the types, all the shadows, all the promises, all the prophecies - ALL THINGS; that which had been given to Christ to fulfil; that of which He said "I will not lose any of it" - the "all things" (Jn. 6:39). God’s view of Salvation is the gathering up of all things, and having them in, and presenting them in One Son. But how does He do that? He doesn’t just bring a bunch of old things over and poke them in Christ. There is THE CROSS - Hallelujah! None can come here BUT by The Cross; that’s where everything changes. But God’s view of Salvation is just that. It is the gathering up of all things and presenting them IN CHRIST (Heb.1:2-5). Now - has this happened? Has God actually gathered up the "all things" of the Old Covenant, and presented it in His Son? Has it happened? On God’s part it has happened. He sees all things finished, all things fulfilled in His Son. When The Son appears before The Father, He doesn’t appear there in a half-baked way, having done some, but not all; having fulfilled some, but not all. No - He shows HIMSELF to be the fulfillment of all things.

Oh, that’s such a big scope, and all I can do is just make that statement! We could spend a life time of study and never get out of The Tabernacle, and that’s just one of the things that is presented full and complete in Christ Jesus. Then comes the priesthood, then all of the offerings, sacrifices. The types and the shadows - all things gathered up and presented in Him. He shows Him to be the substance of all things hoped for; shows Him to be the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). In the Old Covenant things were hoped for - a city was hoped for (Heb. 11:16), a kingdom was hoped for (2 Sam. 7:12-13), a King was hoped for (Ps. 24:7-10), a shepherd was hoped for (Eze. 34:11-16), bread, living bread was hoped for (Ex. 12:8), Eternal Life was hoped for (Hos. 6:2), a resurrection was hoped (Eze. 37:12), glory was hoped for (Hag. 2:9). All of these things were typed, shadowed, promised and prophesied - they were hoped for. Here IN CHRIST IS the substance of all things hoped for (Heb. 11:1)! I have a hard time with scripturally uninformed ministry who when presenting Hebrews 11 and 12 don’t really do so, but they use the words. They say, ‘Well, faith is the substance of things hoped for... so, whatever you’re hoping for...’ What kind of rot is that?

In Christ we’ve MOVED FROM things "hoped for" to substance. Here we live by faith - substance. Hebrews is a dividing between the old and the New. We see that from the first chapter. There’s a dividing from how God spoke in times past, to ... hath spoken IN SON. Then you go through the priesthood (Heb. Chs. 5, 7), the offerings (Heb. Ch. 10), and the Tabernacle (Heb. Chs. 8-9) and the whole thing: moving from the first to the Second, from the old to the New. Finally you come to the same thing with regard to FAITH. "Now faith IS..." Not a hope for the future, but a reality of the present. Now faith IS - we have come from the hope to THE REALITY IN CHRIST JESUS. Do you know why it’s still a "hope" in so many people’s theology? Because it is not made manifest in the earth in every place by those who claim to live by faith. I’m talking about you and me. We claim to live in Christ, but when people are around us awhile, there’s no wonder they want to die and go to heaven! Things that you don’t see you yet hope for. And this that we have by faith will never be seen until YOU manifest it in the earth, and enable some other believer to be moved from "hope" to "reality", from "hope" to "substance."

That’s what we’ve come to. And in my heart I know it is the timing of The Lord that we move from "message" to "manifestation". We have preached Christ long enough. It’s time now to manifest Him. We say we are in Him: that means that if we are in Him we are NO PLACE ELSE. So that means that in every place - it is not I who is met, but HIM! It means a lot! It means Salvation, the gospel - what we call "the gospel"; that which comes by the revelation of Christ is not something that we can sit forever and listen to without expressing it in the earth, or we will violate in our own hearts the reality of it. And then we’re no better than those "waiting to go somewhere". In the Father’s view He HAS brought things from the hope to the substance. His desire is now to reveal in you, in me the fullness of that substance in the revealing of His Son.

He has brought us from things not seen - desired to be seen, but not seen; not seen because of a veil (2 Cor. 3:13-15), but He has brought us to that fulfillment wherein The Spirit reveals all things, yea, the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10). Yes true, to those who have a heart to know. But we’ve got believers out here in the world still living in the same hope and in the same expectation of Old Covenant saints; that the New Covenant "place" doesn’t exist but one day it’s going to exist. They don’t see themselves in Christ; they see themselves as captives in this world looking for a way out - waiting for God to fulfil His promise!

HE’S ALREADY FULFILLED IT IN HIS SON! In His Son Who said, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the Life. No man cometh to the Father but by me" (Jn. 14:6). "In that day you will understand I am in my Father, you are in me, I am in you" (Jn. 14:20). All things gathered up and presented in Christ is God’s view of Salvation. Has it happened? In His point of view IT HAS! Through the working of The Cross it has! Has it happened in our hearts? Well... there’s the question. Have we come to the REALIZATION of Salvation? There’s the question, because if we’re not looking "to go somewhere" - then what are we looking for? We ought to be looking for something. We ought to have our heart fixed upon something. KNOWING HIM - yes, coming to substance, seeing what has not been seen, and becoming a living expression of that in the earth. I just want to stir our hearts and minds up to the REALITY OF SALVATION. God’s view of Salvation is having a people IN CHRIST. God’s view of Salvation is having all things gathered up and presented in His Son. That’s God’s view. When that becomes our view of Salvation as well, then we begin to become an expression of that reality in the earth. There’s so much I’d like to say: may The Lord give us ears to hear what The Spirit will say, what The Spirit would speak to each of us.

I’ll just say this: the Church world as we know it today does not represent even in a reflected way the reality of being in Christ. That is not the idea of Salvation you get in the Church world today. And yet that is the scriptural view of Salvation. There must be a people who come in their hearts to that view in The Person of The Son and begin to express in the earth a true view of Salvation. I didn’t say there weren’t people in the Church world "saved"; I said that system does not represent the TRUTH concerning Salvation; it does NOT represent a true understanding of Salvation. It does NOT represent a scriptural view of Salvation. That’s the reason it is hopelessly divided by its doctrines, because they are all based on individualism. When what God is after is simple - and yet profoundly a people IN HIS SON, giving HIS SON LIVING EXPRESSION EVERY PLACE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

May the Lord just deal with us during this time in this realization of His Son.

We began to deal with what actually is the reality of Salvation: it is the REALITY OF BEING IN CHRIST. And the goal toward which we are going is not only the realizing of Being in Christ, but the realization that comes with that. And that realization is WE ARE NOT MANY, BUT ONE. One. We spoke of a diagram of being in Christ and having circles there as believers, but when we really come to a comprehension of being in Christ, these circles must disappear because the focus of The Body and of being in Christ is not on the members, but on just ONE BODY. That’s another story, but right now we are just dealing with the reality of Salvation as being in Christ, and we’ll continue with that now.

I opened with the statement that the corporate view of Salvation, the view that many are One; the view that in Christ it is not many but One that prevails. The corporate view of Salvation is the ONLY SCRIPTURAL view of Salvation. You can not understand Salvation from the standpoint of individualism. Salvation is not self centered; it is not me centered - it is CHRIST centered. Salvation is not about me and mine, but it is about HIM and HIS. The emphasis again is that Salvation is presented as a corporate work, and yet unlike our idea of corporate and corporation in the world today, God’s view of corporate Salvation is ONE. In Christ the many are seen as One because they are One. There is no way for any believer who is in Christ to come to that realization until ONE is revealed in you. In the natural if I stood in front of a mirror and looked at myself, to what would I look for identification of the body? Would I look at my hand, or a finger or a foot? Or would I look in the face, in the head? Because it is the head, it is the face that gives identity to the body and none of its parts. Every part find its identity in relationship to the head (Eph. 4:15, 2 Cor. 4:6).

And this Paul emphasizes in his letter to the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 4:6 he makes the statement that God Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts. Now let’s get this in its proper perspective. 2 Corinthians 4:6 is not talking about the creation of the "seen" universe or the "seen" world. It is talking about the Tabernacle. In the Tabernacle there was one place that was totally without natural light. It was the place that identified the whole: it was the Holy of Holies. It was where the Ark of the Covenant was set - one piece of furniture that most perfectly typifies Christ’s union with His House, with His Body (Ex. 26:33-34). But it was set in this cubicle wherein there was no light. And there was no light UNTIL the glory of God appeared. And the glory of God was, and in reality today is the light of that place (Ex. 25:20-22, Ex. 26:31, 35, Ex. 40;2-3, Heb. 9:3, 8, 11-12, 1 Ki. 8:6-11, Rev. 1:9-18). And Paul is making the change in his letters from the old body to the New, from the Old Tabernacle to the New, from the Old Administration to the New, from the glory that passes to the glory that remains. So he finally comes to this: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The light of this house, the light of this Body is in the FACE OF THE HEAD. It is when God reveals His Son in these believers, that in their own hearts they cease from being many, and are able to identify with The One.

Our identifying with one another is IN HIM; it’s not in one another. The hand doesn’t identify with the hand, the foot doesn’t identify with the foot. No, we identify with The Head - that’s where we understand we are One (Eph. 4:15-16, Col. 2:19). And there’s no other way to do it. In fact, an examination of the members will only increase the separation. That’s true, and the Church world today is notorious for setting up standards whereby we examine one another. Do we all dress alike? Do we all look alike? And on and on that goes - these are standards whereby we identify with one another. Standards of false judgment, standards of self righteousness mainly. But the identification that God brings is with HIS SON. The revealing of The Son - and I can’t emphasize that too much. We are talking about being in Christ, and these are true statements, but they are only realized in our hearts in the face of The Lord Jesus. As God just turns on HIS Light, as God commands HIS Light to shine in the midst of darkness... because that’s all there is in the Holy of Holies. Until the glory of God is revealed it’s just darkness there. In other words, there is no natural understanding there; it can’t prevail, it’s no good there, so there’s just darkness until it is filled with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God - and that, in the face of Jesus Christ! And you’ll look where Paul is stating this, particularly in 2 Corinthians 4 and 5, you’ll see that it is talking about the Tabernacle of God. It’s talking about the Body of Christ we are; it’s talking about coming from one system - that of the Law, to the system that is Christ, that administration of The Spirit.

So Salvation then is not self centered. It isn’t me centered; it’s Christ centered. And we came to see that God’s view of Salvation is having all things gathered up and presented in One Son. We read that in Ephesians 1:9-10, and we noted that it said, "HAVING made known." This is the key - having made known. Listen, it is not God’s purpose that you and I who are in His Son remain ignorant of the reality of not only being there, but ignorant of the reality of Christ in Whom we dwell. The reality of Salvation is not you and I just coming to give mental assent to we are all in Christ; the reality of Salvation comes when God reveals His Son in us. And it is in the light of HIM, it is in that understanding that we are able to relate to where we are, and who we are. "Having made known unto us the mystery of His will..." Not keeping it a secret - having made known. We must get a hold of that! Our journey in Christ, our growing up in Christ is a process of knowing Him, and nothing of Him is hidden from those who are His Body.

If we don’t know Him it’s because we don’t seek to know Him. If we don’t see Him it’s because we don’t look for Him. It isn’t because God still has Him hidden and veiled (2 Cor. 3:16-18). It isn’t because God still speaks to us in sundry times and in diverse manners. No, God HATH spoken IN SON (Heb. 1:1-2). What it comes down to is there is no excuse to not knowing Christ. There is no excuse for not growing up in Him - nothing has been hidden. Ephesians 1:9, "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself."It is just this Paul says; this is what He has made known, this is that will which He has purposed in Himself. It is just this: "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times..." In the administration of fulness, the administration of The Spirit. Here is the will that God has made known; here is the mystery that He has revealed; here is that thing that is accomplished which was according to His good pleasure, which He planned and purposed before the world was unto His own satisfaction. Here is what it is - " THAT HE MIGHT GATHER TOGETHER IN ONE ALL THINGS IN CHRIST."

This is it, this is what God has purposed. And Paul is saying this is not what God is planning to do: this is what He has planned to do and ACCOMPLISHED in Christ, and He made it known unto us. Paul says He has MADE KNOWN to me the mystery, and I declare to you that mystery of God in Christ; that what God planned and purposed to do - HE HAS DONE! To gather all things in Christ! And the question I asked was: has that happened? The answer is on God’s part it has. This is where we are in the scripture. You can’t put this into a future reference. Salvation is not in a future reference unless you are reading The Old Covenant. Everything in The Old Covenant was by promise, by prophecy, by hope, by types and shadows of things not seen. But The New Covenant in Christ is not in promise and prophecy, in hope and things not seen. But it is in substance and in evidence (Heb. 10:34, 11:1-3), and in that which The Spirit reveals, for He searches the deep things of God, and reveals them in you (1 Cor. 2:10)! There is nothing hidden here! There are no veils over the face of Christ! There are no veils in this Tabernacle - unless the veil is on OUR heart (2 Cor. 3:14-15).

What veil? The veil of The Old Covenant, the veil that is in promise - a hope, a prophecy, a type, a shadow - of things to come (Heb. 9:3, 8, Heb. 10:19-20). But just a search of the scripture will show you that all things that were to come: the city to come, the world to come, the new creation to come, the King to come, the Seed to come, the glory to come, the promise to come, the inheritance to come... HAVE COME IN CHRIST! He didn’t come and make us another promise. He came as the answer to the one God made in the Old Covenant. I AM... I AM The Resurrection, I AM The Light, I AM The Way, I AM The Truth, I AM The Life (Jn. 8:12, Jn. 11:25, Jn. 14:6)! And all of these things - all things be gathered into One, presented in One, and revealed in The Person of One to those who live there, desiring to know Him. Yes... why? That they may become in the earth, in the world the expression of Him, the expression of His fulness; that Salvation may have expression in the earth, in all the earth, in every arena of human existence.

"That in the dispensation of the fullness of times..." We understand from Galatians 4 that the fullness of time was declared when God sent forth His Son (Gal. 4:4-5). Remember before that God spoke in part, He spoke in times - sundry times, He spoke in manners - different ways. But all of that came to its fulness IN CHRIST. He spoke in feasts and in feast days, He spoke in Sabbath days - Holy days. All of that came to its fulfillment IN CHRIST. Everything God said in a Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ. We must understand that. We do not have in Christ an administration "in part", but an administration in FULNESS. For in Him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:19); how could we have any less than an administration of fulness in Him? That we might understand that God has gathered it all up in His Son, and that is precisely where He has put us - IN HIS SON!

I encourage you to prayerfully stay in Ephesians 1:1-14 for awhile, and then progress through the first three chapters of Ephesians because that is the heart and soul of these sharings. HIM and HIS... HIM and HIS. Not me and mine - No- HIM and HIS! The promise is unto Him and His, the inheritance is unto Him and His. It’s not something other than Him. Verse 3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world..." The emphasis of this scripture is not on me and mine; it is not on you and yours. It can not intelligently read that way: He hath chosen us... before the foundation of the world. That is NOT true! That is not the statement that is being made here. The statement that is being made here is exactly as it is written: "... as He hath chosen us IN HIM before the foundation of the world." What has He chosen concerning us before the foundation of the world; we who are in Him? That we should be holy before Him, that we should be blameless before Him, that we should stand before Him accepted in the Beloved! That’s why He chose us IN CHRIST!

It’s not the choosing of ME, not the choosing of YOU. You cannot understand Salvation, you cannot understand God’s Eternal Redemption plan through the view of individualism. You can not do it! If you want to be many - be many before The Cross. After The Cross - there’s only ONE! This was what God saw from before the foundation of the world; He saw The One, He purposed that, He planned, He willed that. And in The Son, in Christ, He has performed what He has willed; he has gotten what He planned, what He purposed (Jn. 17:23-24). You have to understand that in reading the scriptures. You see far too many who are so "me" minded. And they will go through the scriptures and here’s the way they will read them: "..who has blessed US..." I don’t have a circle in my Bible around "us"; I do have a circle around "in Christ". "... and hath chosen US..." Again, I have no circle around "us". I do have a circle around "in Christ" because the emphasis of God’s plan is NOT ON US; it’s upon having ONE SON. One Son - yes, that’s where He has us, but it’s One Son that He has.

This emphasis continues on. Verse 5, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." We’ve read verses 9 and 10. Now verse 11, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." ‘In whom we have obtained an inheritance..." Where? In Whom! Where are you going to look for your inheritance? You should look for it where it is - IN HIM! "... being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." Remember I said that Paul says the same thing in every epistle? Now we have all these epistles gathered up in one book, but the early Church didn’t. The Church at Ephesus didn’t get the letter to the Philippians; the Church at Colosse didn’t get the letter to the Church at Corinth. They didn’t get all these letters, so Paul says the same thing in every letter. The only variance at all was some of the problems he dealt with in those local gatherings, but his gospel, his declaration is the same in every letter. It’s the same! We have the tremendous privilege today of having all these letters gathered up in one volume and we still don’t know what to do with them! We try to compare them one to another; we debate one against another, but they are all saying the same thing!

Look what he has said here: "In whom we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will..." Look at Romans 8:28 and 29, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." This is the thing that God predestinated. His predestinated plan and purpose was that every one in Christ be conformed to the image of Christ. That’s His plan, that’s His purpose, His predestined purpose, that’s His will. That’s why you and I are in Christ. Ephesians 1:16,17, "(I) cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him..." See how much sense this letter makes when you see who it’s about and what it’s about and why? Paul is praying for them according to the predestined will of God. He’s praying for them according to The Eternal Plan and Purpose of God - whereby they have been placed in Christ. According to that plan God has put them in Christ. You can’t be conformed to Christ unless you are in Christ. So according to His Plan, according to His Purpose, He has put us IN CHRIST. That’s called SALVATION!

And according to that purpose, according to that plan, Paul is now praying for those who are in Christ. Ephesians 1:18-23, "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened: that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."

Do you see it? God’s idea of Salvation is gathering up and presenting all things in One Son. That’s His idea of Salvation. That’s what He purposed, See, all The Old Covenant is, is a pattern, a testimony of what God here in the eternities planned and purposed to do. So in the Old Covenant God began to make that known to man. He made it known in types and shadows, in this way and that way. He made it known by promise, He stirred up His prophets to speak of it, and they spoke of it. But as surely as it is purposed of God in the eternities, and as surely as it is set forth in testimony in the Old Covenant, just as surely it is FULFILLED IN Christ Jesus (Matt. 5:17)!

All I am doing now is emphasizing one thing: The Reality of Salvation is the Reality of BEING IN CHRIST. Oh, you know what Salvation today by so many is taught as being - everything BUT Being in Christ. It’s taught mostly as NOT doing things, And if there’s any reality attributed to it at all, it is placed so far in the future as to make very little difference in your daily life. Salvation is the reality of Being in Christ! That’s where you are! With God Salvation is not many "things"; it is ALL THINGS IN ONE SON. Do please hear that! There are not many things in Christ. In Christ many things - all things are FULFILLED. God’s idea of Salvation was not taking all of these things and just moving them over into Christ. No, God’s idea of Salvation is CHRIST showing Himself to be what all of these things were about. What all of these things spoke of - that’s God’s idea of Salvation. If we could only understand that the whole of the Old Covenant from Genesis to Malachi is simply a blueprint of God’s idea concerning Salvation. He didn’t move the blueprint over here in Christ: Christ is the Substance of the thing! He’s the substance of what was hoped for; He’s the evidence of what wasn’t seen. He is the fulfillment of what was promised and prophesied! He is the perfectness of what was in type and shadow, in pieces and in parts. He is the Glory of God that fadeth not away (2 Cor. 3:11, Pet. 5:4). And you are in Him!

2 Corinthians 5:14-16, "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh..." I still get in trouble over this today. There is something about us that insists upon being known in the flesh, and having that considered. And if you don’t consider it then you are hard, you are mean, you’re angry, you’re uncaring; because we insist on it. We insist on it because deeply ingrained in our understanding is this idea of individualism. And I have said that the concept of "personal Salvation" is one of the greatest misconceptions in the Bible. The idea of "my church" and "my faith" comes from what is preached. I’m not telling you Salvation isn’t personal; I’m telling you that you don’t have a personal Salvation. Before the world was - it was IN CHRIST! But we want to be known after the flesh. That’s the reason I do my best to stay away from funerals, because what has really happened at this so-called "death of a believer"? I know that a loved one is lost, but I also know that they don’t fall out of Christ! I also know they don’t fall out of the land of - The Living! And I know that if we knew where they truly were in the first place, we wouldn’t have all this despondency when the body goes into the ground, because The Body they are - has gone no where!

I understand loss: I’ve lost one of the strongest senses of companionship that I’ve ever had in my life. And at the funeral as I was standing at the gravesite someone who ought to have known a lot better, walked up and put his arm around me, and I guess to comfort me said, "Well Brother Luman, he’s gone on to a better place." And I turned to him and said, "Would you like to explain to me WHERE he’s gone? Would you like to talk to me about the "better place"? That brother was IN CHRIST last week, and he’s IN CHRIST now! His place hasn’t changed, his life hasn’t changed. I’ve just lost a companion!" But we’ve got all of these little cliches that are built around the idea of individualism.

And Paul says, "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh." Now he has a reason for saying that because he’s going to take us right into a greater Truth here. "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more" (2 Cor. 5:16). And that’s the way most believers want to know Him now. Do you know that for most believers today, their greatest hope and expectation would be if that door opened and Jesus walked in this room in His robe and sandals and His beard and He started laying His hands upon them and blessing them? But don’t we understand YOU ARE IN HIM, and HE IS IN YOU, and He’s NOT coming through that door because He lives in His Own House, of which He is The Door (Jh. 10:9)? Hallelujah! We did know Him after the flesh, but henceforth know we Him no more... no more. "Therefore if any man BE IN CHRIST, he is a new creation (that’s the right word here); old things are (not going to be - are) passed away; behold all things are become new." See, this is God’s viewpoint, this is the viewpoint of True Salvation. This was Paul’s viewpoint: old things ARE passed away, behold all things ARE become new.

Now what are we talking about? IN CHRIST! We aren’t talking about the trees and the flowers; we’re talking about IN CHRIST. Where is "all things new"? IN CHRIST! "And all things are of God..." Where? IN CHRIST! "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation" (1 Cor. 5:18). I would to God that believers today would go out in every direction and exercise the ministry of reconciliation - which is IN CHRIST JESUS. The only way you are going to reconcile somebody is in Christ. You can sit down at a peace table with them until you all grow old and gray and die. The only peace table is the table where you eat His Flesh and drink His Blood! Here’s the only place of divine reconciliation; here’s the only place of divine restoration; here’s the only place of genuine resurrection - IN CHRIST! I don’t know why we’re not out beating on every door in this community saying, "Come and dine! Come on, we’ve got some meat you don’t know about. We’ve got some drink you don’t know about." "Well, I’ve got my own church." I’m not talking about your own church: I’m talking about meat and drink! IN CHRIST! Your next door neighbor, the people on the job... Well, they’re Baptist. Who cares? Well, they’re Pentecostals. Ok, but we’re talking about meat and drink! We’re talking about reconciliation. We’re talking about a place where all things are new. We’re talking about sitting down at the table of communion. With God Salvation is not many people, but ONE NEW MAN IN CHRIST.

Now, what does it mean "to be in Christ"? We are in Him - what does it mean to be in Him? And I tell you again we can see these things stated: I can state them to you, but they are only realized in us with the revealing of The Son because Salvation is not a teaching; but the reality of RELATIONSHIP. I’m teaching now ABOUT a relationship. The relationship COMES when God reveals His Son. But what is "being in Christ"? Being in Christ is being where you can come to that relationship. Being in Christ is where you can start that journey, and that knowing - God bringing you to the place. Do you understand why? Throughout all of God’s history with Israel, it all came down in God’s dealings with them year by year, to three times a year. That was the three major feasts, and that involved all of the seven feasts. But what was the law of that? Here was the decree, and the threat if you didn’t do this was that this soul would be excommunicated from this company, this soul will have no fellowship with this company. What was it?

Every male of Israel will gather AT THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE three times a year (Ex. 23:17, Lev. 17:1-9, Deut. 12:5-12, Deut. 16:16-17). That’s basically what it was - they will gather... where? Under a shade tree? No! At the door of the Tabernacle - three times a year. In type and shadow, in law and commandment God is showing that Salvation is a gathering into ONE. Jesus referring to this very Tabernacle said, " Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" (Jn. 2:19). It’s unto HIM that the gathering of the people is. God has designated a place where He gathers His own; that He might show Himself, that they might grow up into Him in all things (Eph. 4:15), that they might become an expression of that reality in all the earth. How that thought in the last 2000 years has been reversed! We are all looking for a mass exodus! But if you are IN CHRIST, you’ve already had your exodus. Now you are at home! We are no longer pilgrims and sojourners and strangers, but fellow citizens of the household of God (Eph. 2:19). The gathering in on. If we have been gathered unto Him, now we are being gathered up in Him (Eph. 1:9-10) - the gathering to Him has not ceased! Sometimes we who are gathered up in Him think the gathering to Him has ceased. It hasn’t ceased! He has given unto us the word of reconciliation.

What does it mean to "be in Christ"? I want to read John 17 here. So that we may understand all of these references to "glory", let’s read the first verses. "These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." Now you know that He’s speaking there of The Cross, because He’s already said that the hour is come that the Son of Man be glorified (Jn. 12:23). But now He’s speaking to His Father. It is in His Body, in His Resurrection that He is going to glorify The Father. It is here by The Cross - His death, burial and resurrection that The Son is glorified. "As thou has given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

That’s going to take place for Him in the Resurrection. That’s where the union that is left is restored to its absolute fulness - in the Resurrection. It is where He who thought it not robbery, not a thing to be held on to, to depart from that glory, to leave from that image, and make Himself a servant, and take upon Him no reputation, and take upon Him the form of a man, and found in fashion as a man to become obedient unto death, even the death of The Cross (Phil. 2:6-8). And His expectation was GLORY! Not "going to" glory - GLORY! And His expectation was fulfilled when He was raised from among the dead (Acts 2:25-27). And our expectation is fulfilled when He raises us from among the dead (1 Pet. 1:3); for as He is glorified of The Father, so He glorifies The Father in everything that lives by Him (Jn. 6:57)!

Don’t talk to me about "glory" being a land somewhere! It is union with The Son! Glorify Me with Thine own self. What do believers know about that today? Nothing - they are lied to across the top of most every pulpit that exists. And they are never told that the glory is IN CHRIST! He is glorified in His Father, and He glorifies His Father in those that are in Him. No wonder it is The Father’s good pleasure to reveal The Son. The wonder is The Father’s good pleasure that we are in The Son - called unto glory. Oh my! Now verse 9, "I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And 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."

We don’t have time to really search these, but only mention them. These are part of the reality of Being in Christ. I’m telling you it is not you and I trying to be one; it is coming to see THE ONE THAT WE ARE - that’s the only way it will ever work. Because we are not trying to go through the world and manifest OUR oneness; we are set in the world to manifest HIS. Glory to the Lamb of God! That’s His prayer: you’ll see it unfold as He goes on. Verse 21, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou has sent me." What’s the world got to do with it? The world is where you MANIFEST this reality! If you’ll permit me to say it this way: nothing is manifest in heaven. Heaven is to be made manifest in the earth. Where? Everywhere - in every place. We read that before: "Blessed be God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest by us the savor of His knowledge in every place" (2 Cor. 2:14)

O thank you Jesus! Verse 23, "I in them, and thou in me..." He said the same thing in John 14. Then He was talking to His disciples, but now He’s talking to His Father and He’s saying the same thing. ".. that they may be made perfect in one..." We’re not perfect in many; we’re perfect IN ONE! What a relief that was when I saw that in the face of The Lord Jesus! We’re not perfect in many; we’re perfect in One. That’s when I quit looking for perfect Christians and just started looking for hungry ones. And this whole thing is that He may have a witness in the earth. I’ll be so bold to tell you He doesn’t need a witness in the heavens, but in the earth. But He doesn’t get it from many; He gets it from ONE. I know that almost sounds paradoxical, but it’s true. Wherever you are, you are there as One, or you have no business being there at all.

"Not I, but CHRIST Who liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). We talked about that. "In every place maketh manifest BY US the savor of Him." Not I, but Christ... how then could I be there? Paul said, "When I was with you, I was not..." (1 Cor. 2:1-5). And he goes on to distinguish that by saying I was not in the power of my substance, I was not in the wisdom of my own words, I was not... No, I was with you in weakness and nothingness, that your faith should stand in HIM! "That the world may know that thou hast sent Me." Look at that in John 17:23, "...and hast loved them, as thou has loved me. Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am..." See, He’s made that prediction to them. He’s given them that assurance in John 14 because He is in the physical sense about to be taken away from them. And He’s said as surely as I’m going to be taken away from you, I’m going to come again and receive you unto Myself (Jn. 14:3). Well, where was He going? He was going to death, He was going to burial, and then He came back in The Resurrection, and He received all that The Father had given Him unto Himself so that they could be with Him where I am, and that they can behold My glory.

That’s the whole point of Salvation. The point of Salvation is not "going to glory". The point of Salvation is BEHOLDING HIS GLORY! That’s the point of Him going away, that’s the point of Him coming again, that’s the point of Him receiving us unto Himself - that where He is, there we may be also. "...which thou hast given me; for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world." Remember we looked at that: "who hath chosen US?" No! no! Thou lovest ME before the foundation of the world. Paul got a hold of this and said He’s chosen us IN THE BELOVED! Yes - IN HIM before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). "And now, Father, as thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world... to show that thou hast loved them... that they may be in Me, where I am, and behold My glory." Verse 25, "O righteous Father, the world hath not know thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent 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."

What does it mean to "be in Christ"? It means One Son, it means we are One New Man, it means we are One House, it means we are One Temple, it means we are One City, it means we are One Body, and the Body of One, it means we are One Kingdom and The Kingdom of One, it means we are One Bride and The Bride of One, it means One Glory and it means One Church! To "be in Christ" means we are ONE. We are never going to know that until we see THE ONE in whom we are; until we see THE ONE whose House, whose Body, whose Temple, whose City we are, because He is The One Glory of it. He is The Glory of His House, The Glory of His Temple, The Glory of His City (Rev. 21:22-23). It is seeing Him that we see Glory, and we express that Glory in the earth (Rev. 21:10)!

Now- look at the type, the promise and prophecy that is set forth concerning these very things in the Old Covenant. In Exodus 4:22 God said you tell Pharaoh Israel is My Son. What He was really saying there was that My Son is Israel. Do you want to know who Israel is? Israel is not a race, Israel is not a people - Israel is My Son! That’s the reason He dealt with the Hebrews the way that He did (Hos. 11:1-4). He dealt with them as being representative of His Son in the earth. But we are NOT dealt with as being representative of anything or anybody! He lives in us! We live in Him! We are NOT His representative body; we are The Only Body He’s got! Hebrews were representative (Rom. 9:6-8), Moses was representative (Heb. 3:5), The Tabernacle was representative (Heb. 8:1-5), Solomon was representative (Matt. 12:42), The Temple was representative (1 Ki. 8:27). But now, THE SON IS COME! It’s not about representation any more, it’s about MANIFESTATION OF REALITY. And there’s a great deal of difference between those. You can get some diplomat to go to some country and he comes in and says "I represent the President of the United Sates." Well, okay, but you let the President walk in... yes, things come to order quickly!

And that’s just on an earthly level. But we’ve got a religious idea today, an idea in the Church world today that all we do is "represent" Jesus; that we are His representatives. No, the Hebrews were His representatives, Moses was His representative. We are His Living Body! See, you’ve got to know that first. We ask why doesn’t that make a big difference in the world? Because YOU have got to know it before the world does! I’ve got to know it before the world does. All the world sees is ME!

Oh, glory to God, we’re talking about The Reality of Being In Christ. Israel - in God’s sight and God’s dealings were One Son and One House. God was NEVER after a bunch of Israelites; He was never after a nation of Israelites or twelve tribes; not after prophets, not after priests, not after sacrifices, He was after ONE ISRAEL - and He finally got it IN HIS SON. It is important to notice that God did not say ‘My Son is an Israelite’ or that ‘ An Israelite is My Son.’ Because God’s thought concerning Israel was never as many, but always as ONE. God’s thought concerning you and I from before the foundation of the world was never as many; it was always as ONE. And I take strong exception to those who belligerently teach it otherwise. They teach that before the foundation of the world God’s concern was upon the individuality of "me", and make themselves something that they never were, and never will be. God’s thought has always been towards ONE. By His Grace we are found in that ONE, accepted in that ONE, having no life but that ONE. That’s what Salvation is all about! So I say again, we are not here as representatives, but as Divine expression of ONE.

We are dealing with the reality of being in Christ, and we want to look at "HOW?" How are we come to be in Christ? We have looked at the reality of being in Christ and what it means to a believer to be in Christ. SALVATION IS BEING IN CHRIST. But we are in Christ for a purpose, and the purpose is the thing that must be realized, because the purpose has to do with relationship. The thought and the theology of the believer’s position in Christ is NOT a new teaching. It is a very strong part of the Calvinistic doctrine started by John Calvin years ago. Martin Luther dealt with the reality of being in Christ, but all of this was taught in a positional way; not in the reality of a relationship. And a lot of "Deeper Life" writers have dealt with the believer’s position, but some how in their books the believer comes out ahead of Christ: the emphasis is upon the believer’s position, and the believer’s this and that. The emphasis comes right back to one of individualism rather than one of the corporate reality of Christ Himself, and in those books what is lacking is the REALITY OF RELATIONSHIP.

Of course that reality is only made known with the revealing of The Son Himself in you. And we must see the necessity of Christ being revealed in you, and that revealing of The Son is necessary to any and all comprehensions of Spiritual Life. You can’t read more than the first three chapters of any one of Paul’s epistles and not run into that fact. He always is dealing with the necessity of spiritual comprehension: the necessity of knowing Christ (Phil. 3:10), the necessity of having the eyes of your understanding enlightened (Eph. 1:18). And all of that is by and through what Paul calls "the revealing of The Son in you" (Gal. 1:16); what Paul calls "the revelation in the knowledge of Him" (Eph. 1:17). It is necessary to the understanding, it is necessary to the comprehending of Spiritual Life.

What we are talking about now, though it is true and factual, and though it cannot in the scripture be refuted in any way at all is - you are IN CHRIST. Salvation is being IN CHRIST. And we have dealt with what it means to be in Christ. It means that you are ONE; not many, but One. That is irrefutable, it is a fact. But until these facts that are irrefutable become a relationship - a living relationship with Christ, then that’s all they will be to you: irrefutable facts. They will be things that you believe, but do not necessarily practice, do not necessarily express one toward another, or in your community, or wherever you are. Because you only express RELATIONSHIP. See, our union with Christ is very much a marriage (Eph. 5:22-32), but a true marriage, if it is to be expressed is relationship. How do you understand that a husband and a wife are married? Because they sit together on the same pew? Well, I know places where they don’t! But the fact that you sit together is NOT expression.

How do you know? Because of the relationship they express one toward another, and because of the relationship they express to everyone else. It’s a living relationship or it’s just a formal, social, legal arrangement. Now our marriage is with Christ. It isn’t a formal arrangement - it is a LIVING RELATIONSHIP. Consequently all that we are talking about can only be expressed through a living relationship. It can not be accepted as a positional teaching and have any affect on your life or in the world; it just becomes a good, religious teaching. Many have set these truths forth from the scriptures, and you see something you can not deny, but they do not find in themselves the ability to live it, so now they are more confused than they ever were! You confront them with Truth, but it is impossible to exercise.

So I stress again that until The Son is revealed in you, the relationship of these things that I am talking about, the relationship of being in Him is not effective in you because it is not brought there by a teaching, it is not brought there by the irrefutable evidence of the scripture. That relationship is brought to you by God revealing His Son in you, and that is strictly and purely a Work of The Spirit! What I am presenting to you is irrefutable evidence. I am presenting to you what the scripture teaches concerning the believer’s relationship with Christ, but you and I must move into that relationship on our own. No one can turn to see the Lord for you (2 Cor. 3:16, Rev. 1:12); no one can say, ‘Father, if this is so, then I want to see Him’ - for you. No one can exercise a hunger for you. You either want to see Him or you don’t. You either desire to know Him and only Him or you don’t. You either want to walk in that relationship or you don’t. So what I am presenting is either tremendous truth concerning living relationship, or it is irrefutable scriptural teaching that will only frustrate you more, because when you see it in the scripture you say this is the way it ought to be. And if that’s not the way it is, then you get frustrated! I’m telling you the end of your frustration is not turning to something else, or something less, or putting your Bible up and saying ‘forget it!’ The end of your frustration is SEEING HIM. It’s saying, "Father, Reveal Your Son in me. I don’t want to take another step except it be in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6).

I feel that is necessary to say in light of this tremendous reality that we are dealing with. And because it is such a tremendous reality it carries with it this overwhelming, tremendous relationship, and it’s the relationship that makes it real! And the relationship is based upon knowing a Person, because all relationships are with a person. It’s hard to relate to a building, to a place. No - you relate to people. We relate to a Person - The Person of Christ; not the thought of Christ, not the teaching of Christ - The PERSON of Christ, the very Spirit of Christ.

So now, back to the study of The Reality of Being in Christ. Being in Christ means that you are One - One Son, One Man, One House, One Temple, One City, One Body, One Kingdom, One Bride, One Glory, One Church. The scripture is full of references that deal with each of those. And each of those words are denoting a RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. It doesn’t mean that you are fifteen different things. It means that in Him the relationship is just that great! You come to realize through The Father revealing The Son in you - we are One Son. And what relationship is that? It brings you into a relationship with God as FATHER that you have never understood, could have never known or walked in before. And that relationship is accomplished in you through The Father revealing His Son (Jn. 17:21-26). There’s only one way that you can know that He is your Father; there’s only one way that you can cry out from the depths of your soul, "Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:10-16); and that is when HE REVEALS HIS SON IN YOU. With The Spirit of that Son, and the Voice of that Son, and with the understanding of that Son, you are made to cry out, "Abba, Father - God, you are my Father!" And there’s no other way you can do it! Oh, you can say "Father, Father, Father..." We say it all the time.

But I’m talking about getting it somewhere past your tongue to where it comes out of the depth of your soul: quickened there by the revelation of The Son. And that’s just one relationship, because yet in the revealing of Christ we come to realize the reality - we are One Man, One New Man. And that brings us into another altogether different arena of relationships - with God and with those around us. And then coming to realize we are not only One Son, and therefore One New Man, but One House - The House and The Household of The Ever Living God (Eph. 2:15-22)! And again, that brings us into an altogether greater relationship. And we are to become in the earth expressions of these relationships - to one another, and in the midst of our community, and in the midst of the earth - wherever we are!

The whole thrust of this realization is not upward - it is downward; it’s into the earth. It’s out of the heaven and into the earth (Matt. 6:10)! It’s not so much from the outside in: it’s from the inside – out (Rev. 21:22-24)! The thrust is outward. The expression of it - outward, but what are you expressing? Well, unless Christ is revealed in you, you see these things and you express a good teaching. You CALL yourself the House of God. But if that realization comes in the revealing of The Son... you BECOME the House of God, you BECOME in the earth The City of God, the gates of which are never closed day and night, and yet no unclean thing can enter therein (Rev. 21:25-27). You BECOME ministers of the reconciling power of The Blood and of The Cross (2 Cor. 5:18-21). See, these things cease to be subjects, and become EXPRESSIONS OF CHRIST, and you live that way. The Body of Christ is not a teaching any more; it’s a functioning reality in the earth. The Kingdom of God is not a teaching any more, but a functioning reality in the earth - through YOU!

It’s a relationship! Oh, the relationship of realizing Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords causes you to function as His Kingdom in the earth. It’s a relationship; it comes out from you, because you are - in Christ irrefutably all of these things! You ARE His City, you ARE His Temple. But are you listening to a word there, the only word that is common? HIS - HIS -HIS!! And none of those things work without the revealing of Him. His City has no light but HIM. His Kingdom has no King but HIM. His Body has no head but HIM. It is in the revealing of HIM. So we go from relationship to relationship to relationship... And it’s not so much that we leave one relationship for another: that relationship is just enlarged into another and another until we are functioning on the earth as we are in the heavens. We are functioning in the REALITY OF BEING IN CHRIST. We are expressing in the earth Salvation!

In the last lesson we looked at Israel being dealt with as One Son, and there’s something else I want to bring into that. ONE LAMB FOR ONE HOUSE (Ex. 12:3). God is dealing with Israel, and in the type and the shadow of what we have in Christ, God dealt with them not as many, but as One House, One Kingdom. "Israel is My Son" (Ex. 4:22); and now to emphasize that the Lamb is introduced. And that is tremendous because with you and I, The Church, The Lamb is introduced: The Lamb’s wife, The Lamb’s bride, The Lamb’s city - The Lamb (Rev. 19:7, Rev. 21:9-27)!

Let’s look in Exodus. One Lamb for One House. If God has more than One House, then He’s going to have to have more than one Lamb. And we know that He has only One Lamb. If He has only One Lamb then He has only One House. In Exodus 12 we see the Passover. This is their exodus out of Egypt, but prior to this we have already read that God said something about Israel. He told Moses to go tell Pharaoh that Israel is My Son - not "going to be", not "one day shall be" - Israel IS My Son. And we said the Hebrews were the representatives of that, but we are NOT the representatives of that. We are the expression and the substance of that. But my point is, BEFORE the Passover, BEFORE the Lamb is introduced, Israel is already identified of God as being MY SON. And that is important to understanding The Truth concerning redemption, because most believers, though they are redeemed, do not understand what has happened to them as The Redeemed of God and what that means. They think it means that their sins are forgiven. But it doesn’t: it goes far beyond that!

Are our sins not forgiven? Certainly, but we’re not dealing with forgiveness of sins here. We are dealing here with The Lamb of God identifying Himself by One House by His Blood and signifying that they are redeemed. What does it mean - to be the redeemed of God? It means a whole lot more than just having your sins forgiven. We’ve got to understand that, because it’s part of the whole picture of the reality of being in Christ. We are told in pulpits across the land today that all The Cross means is forgiveness of sins, and that’s not true. I saw a sign the other day, and I just wanted to go tear it down! It was put up by well meaning Christians, but the message was: God gives us hope. I just wanted to scream! No - He gave the Hebrews hope: we’ve come to SUBSTANCE! He hasn’t given us a hope of Life: He is My Life (Col. 3:4)! He hasn’t given me a hope of inheritance: In Him is my inheritance (Eph. 1:11)! No - God hasn’t given us hope: He’s given us substance!

But across our pulpits that’s what we say. "Come to the Lord and get your sins forgiven" - and that’s it. And then one day you’ll get something better. And one day we’ll be in glory, and one day... one day. That’s the same thing Moses taught, that’s the same thing Abraham said, that’s the same thing the prophets said. Don’t we understand that HAS BEEN FULFILLED IN CHRIST, and if it hasn’t, we don’t have a Salvation? So the biggest part of the Church world is declaring you don’t have a Salvation ... but one day you will! Just hang on - hope...one day ... one day. Every time you turn the television on you hear that, but what I want you to understand is that every word is refuting the power of The Cross. Every word is saying that Jesus fulfilled NOTHING. Do you know that out of the five offerings of Israel that only one of them was a sin offering? Now are you going to tell me that He only accomplished at His Cross one of the five offerings that God accomplished by animals in Israel - and Jesus only fulfilled one of them?

And that’s only dealing with five offerings. It has nothing to do with the whole 24 courses of the priesthood. And all of the rest of it is summed up and fulfilled in Him, all to become a living relationship in you and I as we know Him and as He is revealed in us. No - Redemption is MUCH MORE - much more! So here we’re confronted with Redemption. I just want you to see what is being redeemed here. Exodus 12:1-3, "And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, A LAMB FOR AN HOUSE." Why is it said that way? Because God only had ONE LAMB and He saw Israel as ONE HOUSE. He goes on to explain this: every house has got to eat of the Lamb. "Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in you" (Jn. 6:53). All of Him - you don’t just take a nibble! A Lamb for a House. Therefore in the type everything that was designated a house... what designated it a house? The structure? No sir, the structure didn’t designate it because if a household didn’t have enough people in it to eat the lamb, they had to combine with another household so that they had enough people there to eat the lamb (Ex. 12:4). "Enough to eat the lamb" designated what the house was, and it’s the same designation today - ONE LAMB FOR ONE HOUSE! And He is great enough for the whole household!

What defines if you are in the household? You are in the house, defined there by eating the lamb and drinking the blood. What is the mark of the household? The blood of the lamb upon the doorposts and down its lintel (Ex. 12:7). What did God do through this? HE REDEEMED UNTO HIMSELF A SON (Ex. 13:13-16). There is a tremendous truth of redemption here, but my point now is that everything that is of reality in Christ has been aforetime set forth in type and in shadow. And none of it has been left out in Christ Jesus. Redemption is a reality here. He has redeemed a Son, and that Son has redeemed His House (Heb. 3:5-6). As Moses was servant, so Christ is son... Over what? Over His Own House! Glory to God! Let The Redeemed of The Lord say so! Redemption is of a Son, even a firstborn Son. We are not redeemed as many; we are redeemed out of many unto ONE!

Revelation chapters 5-10. When you read that you will see that the Redeemed are not many. They are redeemed OUT OF many: out of every nation, out of every kindred, out of every tongue. They are redeemed unto ONE. They are made unto Him A Kingdom and A Priesthood (Rev. 5:9-10). Not kings, not priests - that is a mistranslation. They are made a Kingdom and a Priesthood. They are made ONE HOUSE OF THE SON. This is the redemption of The Lord, and this is the purpose of The Blood of The Lamb.

When God allowed Israel to be numbered, it was not for measure of strength or might or power. Remember David made a fatal mistake on that line (1 Chron. 21). The Lord had already established that the number of Israel is not their strength. "I The Lord God am their strength, their buckler and their shield (Ps. 18:2). I AM the strong, mighty tower (Ps. 61:3). Well, David found that out and wrote a song about it! Yes, but the first thing he did was decide to see how powerful we are, so go out and count my warriors; go out and count the mighty men. And his captain even trembled and said, let’s not do that! But David said, go do what I told you to do, and do it quickly. You know the story: he had three choices of retribution. Thank God he fell into the arms of The Lord!

I want to tell you something friends, if you come up to a choice of retribution, or a choice of being dealt with - always choose THE CROSS! Don’t choose being turned over to men. Men will devour you and leave your bones scattered out on the face of the earth! You go to THE CROSS! God will slay you, but He will bring you back into His Son; He’ll bring you forth in the reality of His Son, and His love and His mercy and His truth. At least David woke up in time to take that choice. Numbering - you are not finding your strength in numbering. The whole Church world today has adopted that theology: that our strength is in our number. Today for too many Christians the emphasis is on the many. Recently there was a situation of a young man involved in an automobile accident and people were asked to pray. And I heard someone say they were believing God, and He had to come on the scene because SO MANY were praying. And I thought, well, it only takes ONE! We think we’re going to persuade God by the power of many.

The whole idea is what offended me: not that many were seeking The Lord, not that many were lending support. But I knew by their statement that these folks were not doing it as one, but as many; thinking that it was in the power of many. But there isn’t power in many; the power is IN ONE! When will we ever get a hold of that? The power is in ONE - not many. I have no doubt in my mind and heart that whatever little success I may have in ministry is due to those to whom and with whom I am joined in The Lord. If there is any enlargement of my voice, it is through them. And "my" voice is lost, and "my" this and that is lost in it, and it becomes the ministry of Christ! I have no doubt about that. I have no illusions about individuality - none whatsoever. I understand that God sets certain ministries or expressions of Christ in The Body for this or that, but one is not worth a plug nickel without the other one! One can not survive without the other, except in the illusion of their own imagination.

We need to understand - the power is not in the many; and when I say "many" I mean the individual many. It is in The One! That’s where it is. When allowed to be numbered it was not for measure of strength or power, but it was that all may be seen as One. You can read that in the book of Numbers. The Levites weren’t numbered; they were representative of the whole. And the whole encamped around about them, and they encamped around about The Tabernacle (Num. 9:53). And Israel functioned as One House, and as One Son. We have to understand that: the measuring was not for measure of power, but that all may be seen (that is, see themselves) as One Israel.

Now, moving to another part of this realization. How come we to be IN CHRIST? I said that it was by BAPTISM, but what a baptism that is! And in looking at this we need to look at something in Zechariah, in Haggai and in Hebrews. First Zechariah 4, with direct reference to this latter, this greater, this more perfect tabernacle (Heb. 9:11), which is The Church, this greater glory. With direct reference to this end, God spake these words. Remember Zerubbabel was the one basically and primarily in charge of the recovery of the Temple and actually the City of Jerusalem (Ezra 2:1-2), because the Temple and the City were part of one recovery. After the Babylonian captivity, Zerubbabel is seen there as a strong type of The Lord Jesus Christ. And then there are ministries of The Lord Jesus Christ that are seen: all of which are necessary to a full recovery of The Testimony of God in the Tabernacle and in the City. And all of these ministries were joined to Zerubbabel: ministries such as Daniel, even Jeremiah. But you must see that these are all the ministries of Christ. These were ministries that were joined to what God set the hand of Zerubbabel to accomplish.

If you don’t see that, then it doesn’t make any sense! So there are these ministries of Christ, and they are continually and constantly working toward the recovery of The Testimony of God in the earth through the Temple and the City - which Temple and City YOU ARE! These ministries should be continually at work, but we have this erroneous and misconceived teaching called "five fold ministries" (Eph. 4:11) - all of which has done nothing in the way it is conceived and taught, except exalt each one of those ministries ABOVE Christ Himself. That’s what always happens when man gets a hold of the wrong end of the stick! But there are ministries OF CHRIST, just like there were those attached to Zerubbabel, but it was for one thing: they were all moved upon by One Spirit for one thing - Nehemiah, Ezra, Daniel. They were all coordinated for one thing, and that was the recovery of the Temple and the City; the recovery of The Temple in Jerusalem; the RECOVERY OF GOD’S TESTIMONY IN A PEOPLE. And so works the true ministries of Christ today, because He has finished the Work, and His ministries work to bring you and I into the reality of that. A recovering - recovering us to what? TO A FINISHED WORK! To what was lost but now is recovered IN CHRIST JESUS.

And every true ministry of Christ in The Body of Christ has primarily that purpose. Why? So that Jerusalem may be a light in the midst of the world! So that the gates of Jerusalem shall not be closed day or night. So that a River of Life will flow out from Jerusalem into all of the earth (Rev. 22:1-2). There isn’t anything flowing out until The Testimony of God is recovered in you, and you... and me. And He has set ministry for the purpose of that recovering, that the City may become a ministry in the earth; that The Body may become a functioning reality in the earth; that a River of Life may continually flow out and bring healing to the nations. There isn’t anything coming out of a sick household with a Testimony of God pillaged, lost, and replaced with futurism and individualism! That’s exactly what happened here in the Babylonian campaign. For seventy long years, more than a whole generation, there were people born in Babylon who had never seen the Temple of Solomon, never saw Solomon, and didn’t know who he was!

But this is it: Zechariah 4:6-9, "Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying NOT BY MIGHT, NOR BY POWER, BUT BY MY SPIRIT, SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house: his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath send me unto you." I’m telling you that our Zerubbabel has not only laid the foundation in Himself through His death, burial and resurrection; He has finished the Work! This is the thing that we are part of! And the ministry of The Lord is to bring that to its full recognition and full comprehension of the thing that is FINISHED. Here’s my point: this is a Work of The Spirit. Haggai says that this latter house has GREATER glory than the former (Hag. 2:9). To understand that you have to go to 2 Corinthians 3:6-18 where Paul says we have come from this glory, the glory of the former: to the glory of the latter. In verse 18 he finally says "coming from glory to glory": that is the glory of the old administration to the glory of the new; the glory of Moses to the glory of Christ Himself; from the glory that fadeth to the glory that never fadeth! WE HAVE COME!! But you see that glory is only known with the revealing of The Son. When does the glory fill The House? When The Son is revealed! That’s the reason for the reference in Haggai and in Hebrews 12:22-29 which shows you that WE ARE COME - we are come to that place! We are come from the first to the second.

Now - "It’s not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." We are in Christ by the Work of The Spirit. We’ll look at a few references to this. "But by MY SPIRIT saith The Lord." This whole process of you being in Christ, and growing up in Christ is a Work of The Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:12, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ."Here there is not a denying that The Body is made up of many: the denial is that The Body is many. THE BODY IS ONE! There is no denying that you and I are in Christ - certainly we are. The denial is that it is "you" and "I" in Christ, rather than HIM; because here it is not I - CHRIST liveth in me. And that’s only something that you can realize in the face of HIM. When He’s revealed in you - that "not I" becomes the greatest thing in your soul. NOT I - BUT CHRIST! " For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free: and have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:13). ONE SPIRIT. "Whether we be Jews or Gentiles..." Why is it said that way? By one Spirit we are all baptized into One Body. It doesn’t make any difference at the time of that baptism into One Body whether we were Jews or whether we were Gentiles; or whether we were bond or whether we were free - it didn’t make any difference! Why? Because we know IN CHRIST we are neither Jew nor Gentile, we’re neither bond nor free; we’re ONE NEW MAN! Now - what happened?

What happened in baptism? Something had to happen in baptism! We started out a Jew and a Gentile, bond and free, male and female. We started out that way. But in The New Body we are NOT Jew or Gentile, etc. And that’s not just a change of mind; that’s not just a change of teaching. Something took place in baptism that we’re not being taught about in the Church world. Something happened. Baptized here by ONE SPIRIT! ‘Well, He can’t take me, I’m a Gentile.’ It doesn’t make any difference! ‘I’m a sinner, I’m this... I’m that...’ It doesn’t make any difference - He’ll baptize you too! ‘I don’t really need to be baptized.’ He’ll baptize you too! It doesn’t make any difference whether you are this or that - baptized... One Spirit - One Baptism. Something happened.

Because here in the raising up, in The Resurrection there’s no more Jew, no more Gentile. ONE NEW MAN. What happened? Romans 6 happened. Here’s your baptism. Verses 1-4, " What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid, How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were BAPTIZED INTO JESUS CHRIST were BAPTIZED INTO HIS DEATH? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Don’t you understand that when you were baptized into Him you were baptized into HIS DEATH? ‘I thought I was baptized into His Life?’ No - you thought wrong. You were baptized into HIS DEATH. You are raised in His Life, and He’s the power by which you are raised up: quickened together, raised together, seated together! No - you are baptized into His death, and that by the Work of The Spirit.

Now we know that because of that, there is neither Jew or Gentile, but One New Man; because the Jew and the Gentile are baptized into His death. They simply don’t come out again! "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (Jn. 8:32). You need to know the Truth of your baptism. Now the TRUTH of your baptism is not just me making a statement about it. The Truth of your baptism is Christ Himself! You are only going to realize baptism in the revealing of The Son. How is that? Because when God reveals His Son in you, He does it in a divine order of comprehension. And He is first your end, and then your beginning. There is an order to The Spirit. That’s the reason The Spirit is the One that does this and not some man. The order is revealed in you. Now we know that when one died, all were made to be dead (2 Cor. 5:14); all were reckoned dead - all died with Him. Well, that’s true, but all have not been baptized into His death. That’s the difference! Their very soul has not been baptized into His death.

What’s the very first thing you do in redemption? You enter into His death. The blood is upon the doorposts - you can’t just stand outside and just look at it. You enter in, and then you eat His flesh. Then they weren’t allowed to drink the blood, because the blood only speaks of Christ. Here we eat the flesh and drink the blood. But you enter in; you surrender, you CHOOSE that death as your own death, you identify with Him in that death in your very heart. That’s what it means!

Wouldn’t it be something if across the pulpits of every Church around the world today, if ministry was saying this? Rather than just saying: ‘How many of you want to come and receive Jesus as your Personal Savior and go to heaven one day? Come on down here, and we’ll pray with you, and have you sign a card, and we’ve got a packet for you.’ Oh, for God’s sake! That’s not the way you get in, and then just "teach them" into being a Christian. That’s not what happens. Paul is bringing these Romans up to that. "Don’t you understand something?... Don’t you know that as many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death? Don’t you know that?" He ends that statement in verse 11 saying seeing all of this to be true, then reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but ALIVE UNTO GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. That’s the reckoning of faith, but we won’t deal with that now.

Baptism. It’s in 2 Corinthians 5:14-17. "When one died - all died." We reckoned this: this is a judgment by which we judge. The love of Christ constraineth us to make this judgment: when one died, all were proven to be dead, all were made dead, all died with Him. Then you have the "wherefores" and the "therefores", and "whereas", but it all comes to verse 17. Now, having established this: "If any man is going to BE IN CHRIST, he is a new creation." But how is it that we come to be in Christ as a New Creation? THROUGH BAPTISM INTO HIS DEATH - that’s how we come to be there. That we may be quickened together, and raised together, and seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:5-6). The whole thing is IN CHRIST JESUS! Not out of Him or other than Him - it’s IN HIM!

And The Resurrection is not many: not many bodies - it is ONE. Jesus says, "I AM The Resurrection" (Jn. 11:25). He did not say I do resurrections. I AM The Resurrection - that is, the raising up, and I AM The Life, that is, The Living One. I AM The Promise, and I AM The inheritance. The promise to Israel was resurrection. The inheritance was Eternal Life. Jesus says: I AM (Gen. 13:15, Gen. 15:5, Jn. 6:51)!

He presented Himself to Israel as that Resurrection they had been waiting on and they denied Him (Lk. 4:16-21, Jn. 5:21, Jn. 7:37-38, Jn. 8:56-58, Jn. 19:13-15). The pitiful thing is that in the last 200 years the doctrine of dispensationalism has come up, to where now the majority of the whole Church world is denying the reality of that same Resurrection that Israel wouldn’t accept. They wanted a material resurrection - raising up of bodies and the overcoming of the Romans and setting up in the earth of a material temple as Solomon had done. Jesus kept telling them a greater than Solomon IS COME (Matt. 12:42)! I haven’t come to reproduce what Solomon did. If that was so great, how did it get torn down in the first place? No - My Kingdom is not of this earth (Jn. 18:36). My Kingdom is Eternal (2 Pet. 1:11), it’s everlasting! And I AM The Resurrection. I AM the raising up of it, I AM the standing up of it, I AM THE RESURRECTION! It is IN ME that you are raised up, restored, reconciled - IN ME! And I AM THE LIFE. I AM The Living One! No man liveth but by ME! Not many.... ONE!!

We want to talk now about the image of the Beast (Rev. 13:15). In our last lesson we were dealing with ONE LAMB FOR ONE HOUSE - The Truth of Redemption, and in Revelation 5 we have the Redeemed of The Lord singing to Him. Revelation 5:6-10. " And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts..." This in the original is "the four living ones", so as not to confuse them with the image of the beast later on in this book. The four living ones represent The New Creation in Christ Jesus. "... and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." Christ standing in His fulness as The Lamb of Redemption! He has redeemed a Household by His Blood. "And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts (living ones) and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb..." Now we have to understand that the book of Revelation is full of Old Testament phraseology, because this letter is written to the Church during a time of great and awesome tribulation; the conclusion of which comes about 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the kingdom of Judaism.

And that destruction came as the Lord said it would come in Matthew 23 and 24. These are "the last days" spoken there. It is the last days of The Old Covenant Israel, the last days of Judaism; certainly not the last days of The Church. THE CHURCH DOESN’T HAVE ANY LAST DAY! We are in the EVER LIVING DAY (Rev. 21:25, Rev. 22:5)! But there were "last days" spoken of by the prophets, and that during those last days there would be a great and tremendous restoration, a great and tremendous resurrection, and that a NEW ISRAEL would come forth (Isa. 2:1-4, Isa. 65:17-19, Eze. 37:12-14). Well, that did take place - IN CHRIST JESUS, and The Church came forth in that reality. So this book is not futuristic at all, but it is a letter written to the Churches of that time who were scattered (Acts 8:1-4), who were under tremendous persecution. And remember that many of those Churches had very strong Jewish backgrounds, and John here, more than Paul ministers to those of Jewish background. Paul ministers mostly to those of the Gentile background (Gal. 2:6-9). So while this letter is a letter of confirmation, and a letter of comfort to the Churches, it is a letter of REBUKE to national Israel. And what is being seen here is exactly what is talked about in Hebrews. What is being seen here is the taking away of the first, and the establishing of the second (Heb. 10:9). And all of this is based upon THE WORK OF THE CROSS. What Christ finished at The Cross is played out in the next generation, the next forty years. Do you remember when God dealt with Israel in the wilderness? Everything in the Old Testament is a type of that which takes place in the New Covenant. Remember when Israel was called out of Egypt by the Blood of The Lamb, redeemed as a Son, and then refused to walk in faith (Num. 14:1-35, Heb. 4:2)? It took forty years, it took a generation. In forty years the first Israel died, and the second Israel was raised up and went in as The Son, and in type, claimed the inheritance of The Son (Deut. 1:32-39, Josh. 1:1-9).

And while one was dying out, another was being raised up, and it was going on simultaneously. There was a death - and a resurrection; a literal destruction, an utter destruction - and a restoration, being raised up. And all of that was during forty years. Well, we see this again, and Peter even writes to the Church who is waiting for this, because they are under severe persecution from Judaism. You can look at the first part of the life of Paul when he was Saul of Tarsus - he wasn’t going around blessing Christian, you know! No, no, they were being taken out and killed, and it was a terrible time. And finally it became so bad there at Jerusalem that the words of Jesus were understood and hearkened to, and they got out! They were up on the housetops, and they left (Matt. 24:9-22)! So much so that history tells us through Josephus, who was a Jew, and others, that when Jerusalem fell in 70 A.D. after the time of the greatest persecution and the greatest slaughter that had ever come on the earth, the Jews were literally in that city boiling and eating their own children!

The Beast that they rode upon the back of turned and literally devoured them out of existence! Titus brought in teams of oxen: he tore down the temple, pried up the temple floor, and plowed it according to the prophets so that it looked like a plowed field (Jer. 26:18, Mic. 3:12)! And Titus sent the stones away! This man had a hatred that could not be matched for the Jews, and literally destroyed that whole thing. And Josephus says that when that happened, during that time not one single Christian remained in the city of Jerusalem - not one, because they had hearkened to the words of the Lord. But it was during this time that this letter was written as a comfort to the Church, and to show the Church that what God was doing was bringing an end to the first, and that the second would emerge victorious, and would come as it were, out from God, out from the heavens, and fill the earth, declaring THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS COME!

That’s what the letter says. There’s nothing mysterious about it until you try to put it ahead in the distant future and try to figure out what that’s all about. It’s about what the rest of the Bible is about: taking away the first and establishing the second. It’s about what John’s other epistles are about: taking away the first, and establishing of the second. But during his exile he wrote this, and that’s why there’s so much typology involved in it, because he’s using the very typology and language of the prophets. For instance, the four and twenty elders (Rev. 4:4) - there were 24 orders of the priesthood. Not many Christians have been taught that, and in Old Covenant Israel that represented the Church in the wilderness, and that’s what these elders represent. It’s 24 because there are 24 courses of service in the priesthood (1 Chron. 24:7-19). And Ezekiel saw these living ones, and declared these living ones to be One Heavenly Man, One New Man in heaven (Eze. 1:5). You see that in the first chapter, and this one is after the image and likeness of the glory of God (Eze. 1:28). And the whole book of Ezekiel refers back to that first chapter. Even in the fortieth chapter when he’s talking about the Temple of God, and the City of God, he is referring to this One that he saw; the glory of God coming into that Temple (Eze. 43:1-5).

We find all of that here, and in the midst of it all, giving all of it identity, stands THE LAMB (Rev. 5:6). It is Lamb and The Lamb’s Bride, it is Lamb and The Lamb’s City. It is The Lamb that is being talked about here. And it is put in these different kinds of wording, and unless you are familiar with Old Covenant usage and prophecy, you really don’t understand this. And it’s a shame that the Church today has not been made aware of Old Covenant roots, because the New Covenant is just the fulfillment of the Old (Matt. 5:18). And if you completely cut the Old away, then you don’t know what The New Covenant is a fulfillment of. You see them as two separate things rather than one coming to its end and being fulfilled in the other. And that’s all that is being said here. That’s the setting here, and involved in all of this is Revelation 5:9-10.

"And they sung a new song..." because they represent The Redeemed. It comes right out of verse 8; from " the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints." And they sang a new song, and they are identified as The Redeemed, as The Redeemed of The Lord. But we have these prophetical terms - four living ones and the elders simply to show Israel, if nobody else, and the Christians that came out of Israel, if no one else, that YOU ARE the fulfillment of what the prophets spoke of! It has been fulfilled in Christ. YOU are The Redeemed of The Lord. These courses of the priesthood are fulfilled in Christ, because He says, "Who hath made us a Kingdom and a priesthood unto our God." But here’s my intention: Verse 9, "And they sung a new song, saying Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and HAST REDEEMED US TO GOD by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." And that was true: it was true at that time. Now my point is: we are not redeemed as many: we are redeemed OUT OF many, UNTO ONE. Redemption is of a House, The Redemption is of a Son, and that Son is The Redeemer of His House. See, we’re not waiting to be a House: by Redemption we ARE The House of The Son!

The book of the Revelation is a book written to The House of The Son. That’s the reason it starts off showing The Son in His majesty, and then it begins with the taking away of the first and the establishing of the second. And it ends with the second having been established in the earth, the City of God whose gates are not shut (Rev. 21:25). Well, YOU are The City of The Lord, and out of that City flows The River (Rev. 22:1-2)! Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if in the last 200 years The Church would have been taught that? Instead of becoming some kind of religious order, it may have actually become an expression of Christ in the earth! Not redeemed as many, but OUT OF many - unto ONE. And here’s a little example: a master builder goes to a pile of bricks, and he selects out of that brick pile, that which he will use to build his house. And he selects according to his purpose and vision; and his purpose and vision is not to select a bunch of bricks so that he can have another brick pile. He’s not just moving bricks around! That isn’t his vision; that isn’t why he selects. That isn’t why we’ve been redeemed of The Lord. His Vision is for a House. So a transition takes place in His Hands. Once He lays His Hands upon a brick, a transition begins to take place in His Hands, and the end of that transition is that the brick becomes a house. When we see a brick building, I don’t think anybody looks at it and says, what a wonderful pile of bricks! Aren’t they beautiful bricks! No, bricks have lost their whole image; a transition has taken place, and what was a brick is now a house. What was many is now one. GOD CAN NOT LIVE, DOES NOT LIVE IN A BRICK PILE, but in a House, and He has taken us for that reason. Now you may say that the strength of the house is in the brick, but really, the strength of the brick is that house. How easily a single brick can be broken, how easily a single brick can be moved about and carried away. But not so the house. He has redeemed us out of many, unto Himself as a House, and He is The Son over His Own House. The strength of the House is The Lord, and the strength of the brick is The House.

Let’s look at something now in the book of Daniel. We need to understand that what is accomplished in Christ was once and for all accomplished, and then continues to be true throughout eternity. Everything of the prophecy of Daniel comes to be realized in Christ, accomplished in Christ, to be made manifest in The Church; and yet the spiritual law is there, the spiritual reality there continues on. Wherever there is something that rises up in the image of the Beast, the answer to that is THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB (Rev. 12:11). Whether it rises up in my heart, your heart, or out in the world - the answer is The Blood of The Lamb, because the answer was in the first place fully and finally The Blood of The Lamb. And so it continues to be that way. The problem today is that so many don’t understand that, so they are looking for these things that have happened, and have been fulfilled in Christ, to happen, and to be fulfilled; rather than understanding these things have been fulfilled, and they are yet being fulfilled, and will be fulfilled any time that same image, or that same spirit rises up. It rises up as an enemy of The Cross, an enemy of The Lamb (Phil. 3:18-19, Rev. 17:14, Rev. 19:19). And the answer to it is The Cross and The Blood of The Lamb.

We’ll look in Daniel 3; see what this puts you in mind of. This is in the land of Babylon. What has happened? According to the prophet Jeremiah and also the first part of Isaiah’s prophecies, Israel has forsaken The Sabbath (Jer. 17:19-27). The Sabbath is CHRIST! God has warned them time and time and time again. He warned them but they have had a succession of Kings come up after Solomon, and only two or three of them even honored The Lord to any degree! And those that did raise up and try to bring about a restoration in the land came up short of having a full restoration. They went part of the way, but never went the full way. We might just liken that to The Reformation period. You all realize that about the third century A.D. the whole concept of Christ and the reality of Christ was LOST - was lost! And The Church moved its center to Rome: took the center out of Christ, because it had always been Christ centered. They didn’t have any earthly city: Jerusalem had been ransacked, the temple had been torn down. Now Christ had raised up His Own Temple, and His Own City, and that was to be the center of worship throughout the world - CHRIST HIMSELF! And wherever believers were gathered, they were gathered there IN CHRIST, as Jerusalem, in The Temple of God. But that whole concept was lost. It looked like Rome had all become Christians, but that was only in word.

You go back and look in history. What happened was the Church became a "State Church". It eventually became the Church of Rome, and you know where that went. But what happened was the whole Church went into darkness, to what is even called by historians "The Age of Darkness" - The Dark Ages. What few writings of what we call the Bible that there was, were either destroyed or hidden in monasteries, taken away from the people, so that there wasn’t any Bibles like we have now. They were just taken away; and that’s always the first onslaught of the enemy. When they went into Babylon the same thing happened. Do you know that Ezra, when he was raised up of the Lord for the reformation at the end of that 70 years was a scribe? While Daniel was praying the Lord told him the 70 years was ended, and at the same time The Spirit of God moved upon Cyrus to make a decree, and at the same time The Spirit of God moved upon Ezra, and he began to get him a collection of people to go back. And for the first few years he couldn’t even find a Levite that wanted to go back (Ezra 8:15)! The whole scripture had been lost, but Ezra was a scribe (Ezra 7:6). Historians tell us that Ezra himself searched out; he found, he recovered the writing that has been lost.

Ezra presented Israel with its first full volume of the scripture - The Torah, The Law and The Prophets that Israel had had in 70 years, and Ezra himself wrote 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra wrote that, and added that to what was existent up until that time, and Ezra presented it to Israel (Neh. 8:1-18). So what had happened in Babylon was that the scripture had been lost. Well, today we’ve got Bibles on every coffee table, but the intent of the Scripture has been lost! It’s been lost through so many translations; it’s been lost through so many explanations. The Testimony of the Scripture has been lost! In our days we had the first Gulf War and other things came about and Bible sales skyrocketed. Do you think people are going out buying Bibles so they can search the Scripture for Jesus? No, they are lied to by preachers who tell them go out and buy a Bible and you can see what’s "going to happen".

No, you can read here and see what’s ALREADY HAPPENED! The Bible is not some spiritual Ouija board. You go there to search the Scriptures; you go there to see Christ! Scripture is lost; The Testimony of The Scripture has not been fully recovered in the Church to this time. One of the greatest burdens of my heart is that we do something about recovering The Testimony of the Scripture, and setting forth the Scripture in the volume of Truth to God’s people who have a hunger for The Truth - as The Truth is in Jesus (Eph. 4:21). But this has all happened, and Ezra has been instrumental in gathering these things back together again for that recovery. And so Israel was there in Babylon. Babylon means mixture; and it is a mixture of RELIGION. Babylon was simply a very large, religious system, and it tolerated a mixture. You could worship God however you wanted to. Do we understand that when Israel was taken captive, that they weren’t enslaved, they were appointed places in government? You read that with Daniel and the three Hebrew children (Dan. 6:1-13, Dan. 3:12, Neh. 1:11, Est. 2:17, Est. 9:4). The problem came when they refused to worship the image of the Beast.

But look how many other Israelites did; because we only read of three being thrown into a fiery furnace (Dan. 3:12-15), and we only read of one - Daniel, being put into the lion’s den (Dan 6:13-16). What happened to the rest of them? When the music played - they fell down (Dan. 3:4-7)! That’s what happened. They were given "religious freedom". It’s this curse of individualism I’m talking about. The Church today has become a bastion of religious freedom: ‘worship God after your own choice.’ That’s true, and it’s to the point that if you dare to stand up and have any personal declaration of faith at all - you’re called a heretic! You rock the boat, but there is at least one image in all of that, that everybody does worship. As long as we all agree on that image, then we can agree to disagree on everything else.

This all took place in the first century Church. That’s where the Christians that were in the true message of Christ were persecuted, and accordingly that image was cast down and destroyed in The Kingdom of God. But along about the third century the thing plunged into The Dark Ages, and then we have a reformation. After Solomon died, these things were raised up (I Ki. 14:22-23). You can read that and see some were for this, or that, and some were just wicked; but none of them really brought Israel back to The Sabbath. They were offering their sacrifices on hills, and under trees (2 Ki. 17:10-11; 2 Chron. 12:1; 15:17; 20:33; 21:11; 24:18; 25:14; 27:2; 28:25; 33:3, 4, 9, 17, 22; 36:14). But God had said, "No, you bring it to the door of My House" (Lev. 17;3-4, Deut. 12:5-7, Deut 16:16-17). Why? Because that represented CHRIST. I hope you can see what I’m saying because we are in the midst of it today. He has drawn us unto One House; we want to worship God in our own house, in our own way. So we’ve built our altars here and there, on this hill and that hill, just like Israel had done. They forsook The Sabbath (2 Chron. 36:21).

The Reformation started with men like Martin Luther, John Wesley, and they were wonderful men, just like some of those Kings were. But not Luther, not Calvin, not any of the reformers brought the Church back to the Revelation of Jesus Christ - not one of them. They created a "Protestant Movement", a movement that protested against the Pope! The Protestant Movement has NEVER been in the revelation of Jesus Christ; it has been in a protest against the Pope. And some few fragments of the gospel were recovered, but not The Person of The Gospel Himself! You look at it in history, and now you look at it several hundred years later, and you see the results of it. Is there in actuality, in visibility - is there One Church, gathered in the earth? Is there? No! There are denominations - everybody has their own church. Where did that come from? It came out of the reformers. It came out of Calvinism and Wesleyism; it came out of the reformers, because none brought the Church back to the Revelation of Jesus Christ - not one of them! And Martin Luther does some of the strongest writing on the reality of The Cross that you will ever hope to read, and yet, he still did not bring the Church back to the Revelation of Christ - he didn’t do it.

So we have today, several hundred years later, what represents the Church, but the foundation of it was a PROTEST, not a Revelation of Jesus Christ. Now that’s just history, but that’s what we have today nonetheless. We have got a religious system that is an absolute mixture, and yet it all bows to the name "Church" and "Christianity". And yet nobody says the same thing, nobody believes the same things; nobody truly preaches a RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST. All of those kind of things are bound up in a doctrine that has been invented in the last several hundred years called "dispensationalism." All of that reality has been gathered up and placed in a far distant future - where it will be different "over there". But I’m telling you - it’s different IN CHRIST! If the eyes of our understanding were enlightened, and we could see Him - it’s different here! And it’s been different here since The Resurrection.

Now Daniel 3:1-7 says, "Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurer, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Then the princes, the governors, and captains, , the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then a herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up." When the music starts.... the worship begins! "And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of musick, all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up."Do you know what they called it? They called it "Christianity" Not really... they could have though, because that’s what it’s called today - Christianity. That wasn’t what it was called in the first century, but today it’s called "Christianity" - all languages and all nations - all mixture - and they all worship one image. One image. They made a god out of that image. We read here of the three boys who would not bow down, and were thrown into a fiery furnace. Verses 24-25, " Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like THE SON OF GOD." In the midst of all of that worship, in three men there was a manifestation of THE SON OF GOD! Hallelujah!

The only thing the fiery furnace hurt was the men that threw them in it! Don’t be afraid of the fiery furnace! It is THERE that Christ appears! The point is: do you think God would let that occasion go by? He had to have somebody who stood for Truth in the midst of it, in order to exemplify Himself. In the midst of all that religion, in the midst of a religious worship... hundred, thousands of Israelites were there! As well as people from all over the world that had been brought into Babylon. And right in the midst of that - not with 300, not with 30, not with 3,000, not with 3,000,000 - with 3 men, God manifested His Son! That ought to tell us something, because all of the rest of it is done, it’s gone, it’s over with, it’s passed away, it’s ashes, it’s turned to dust... and THE SON OF GOD REMAINS TO THIS DAY! No wonder Jesus said where two or three are gathered together... See, The Lord never just said anything to be saying it. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in their midst" (Matt. 18:20). That points right here to this story. It points right here to this reality!

Now Revelation 13. The events that are talked about here have primarily taken place. A condition rose up and God dealt with it, but any time that condition rises up, God deals with it the same way. He dealt with it then; He’ll deal with it now. He does it the same way. Verse 11-15, " And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth..." Now there are two beasts mentioned here in Revelation. The beast of the sea represents the Roman Empire which was at its height and the last Kingdom that Daniel saw (Dan. 2:31-35, Dan. 7:7-14). And that last Kingdom was to fall by The Kingdom of The Son - which it did. And the beast of the earth, of the land represents the nation of Israel. It raises up out of the earth, out of the land. It describes national Israel. National Israel still said at that time, ‘we’re the children of God. This is the temple of God, we’re the priesthood of God.’ They were killing Christians as infidels. They took on this false form of The Lamb. "...and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon." And at this time there was a new power to Israel, and that’s why Rome began then to hate the nation of Israel through all the political turmoil, and ended up turning on it and destroying it. "And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh first come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men; And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live."

This is when natural Israel turned to the support, and made alliance with the Roman Empire, and the image of the Roman Empire. "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." This is the same thing that we see over in Daniel. It’s the same idea; it’s the same spirit, the same thing. It is this RELIGIOUS ORDER, and it was directed against the Church. All of this was for the eradication of The Church - The True Church. This was for the eradication of those who were the followers of The Lamb, and there was the joining of Judaism and Romanism for that. And you see that mixture in the feet of the clay and the iron. And there was the joining together for the stamping out of Christianity. But - The Kingdom of God prevailed! The Kingdom of God prevailed then, and The Kingdom of God prevails now! The Kingdom of God was NEVER an earthly Kingdom (Dan. 2:44, Jn. 18:36); it is not now an earthly Kingdom. It is a Kingdom to be manifest in the earth (Dan. 7:13-14, (Rev. 5:9-10), but it is not an earthly Kingdom. It never has been!

But, THE BEAST - the image. Religion took on an image (Rev. 13:14-15). Again you see the image, and it was given a voice; it had a great voice that went throughout the land. It had a great sound; they gave life to it, they gave voice to it. You have to - it has NO LIFE of its own, it has no power of its own. The thing is just like what Nebuchadnezzar built. If you quit giving voice to it - it will become dumb! If you quit giving life to it - it will die! If Christian people would quit serving it - it would go away! The image would have no power: the image wouldn’t have millions and billions of dollars spent if Christians would quit serving it! They give voice to it, they give life to it. It has to be pumped up; it has to be kept up, and those that won’t serve it are killed - cut off!

Turn now to Colossians - we’ll read about a different image. Colossians 1:13-15, "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD, the firstborn of every creature." And how does this all finally end up in verse 18? "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence." The firstborn from among the dead, the only begotten of God, The Head in the beginning, of His Body, The Church, that in all things HE might have the preeminence. There’s a different image talked about here. HE IS THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD. Remember that! You don’t have to give that image a voice: the image has a voice! You don’t have to give that image life: that image IS LIFE! Now Colossians 2:9. We’re still talking about the same one that he started talking about in the first part of the letter. "For in HIM dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in HIM, which is the head of all principality and power."

Now Ephesians. The same thing is being said here. Ephesians 4:11-15, "And he gave some, apostles, and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children..." Children - who dance to the flute and fall down to the music! "...children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ."

Romans 8:18, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time..." And Paul was talking about THAT present time; the time during which John is writing the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ - that time, those days; the days of severe persecution, the days when Judaism is joining allegiance with Rome. "...are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Now verse 29, " For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to THE IMAGE OF HIS SON (Who is the image of the invisible God), that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." It’s not an earthly image that we are to be conformed to.

Someone told me years ago: ‘You sure don’t look like a preacher.’ And I just shook their hand and said, Blessed be the name of God! That is an image I’ve been seeking to get rid of all of my life, and I’m glad to know I finally have arrived!’ What is a "preacher" supposed to look like? We have our "image" and you are very wrong if you think we don’t worship it! I had once heard from a yong man with whom The Lord had been dealing through meetings we had. I knew The Lord was bringing him to a revealing of the Son, but he was in a time of a fiery furnace, and The Son hadn’t quite appeared yet. And the fires were getting hot, but I told him that’s all right: the hotter the fires get, the sooner The Lord will appear. But evidently I didn’t give him enough "comfort". There were others that came along and "comforted" him. And he broke off communication and the sharing we had. Someone had come along and comforted him and made a "Bishop" out of him. That boy wasn’t even ready to preach the gospel yet, let alone be an overseer of anything! What happened was he was taken out from where he was, and he said, I’ll just worship the image. So they let him out, and he worshipped the image! The sad thing was that I knew that God had dealt with him, and I knew it wasn’t going to work. And it didn’t - it turned out very tragically! Oh friends - the image demands worship! Not the worship of God which flows out from relationship and is not performed on cue. But image worship is always on the demand of religious belief and mostly is determined by time and place. But God has predestined us to be conformed to THE IMAGE OF HIS SON - not an earthly image. That’s not an earthly image. "That HE might be the firstborn among many brethren."

Now 1 John 3:1-2, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." The first verse explains the second verse. The world knoweth us not. He’s already said we are sons of God, but the world knoweth us not. Then he repeats it. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear (it is not yet apparent, it is not yet seen, it is not yet made manifest) what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."I take great exception with the dispensationalists who try to put that in the future. John is writing that to the Church at that time with regard to a particular truth that he is trying to get across to them, and that is that NOW are you sons of God, NOW Christ is your Life, and it is the world that doesn’t understand that. It was not made apparent in the world at that particular time as it would be made apparent. And it’s the same time of severe persecution. "...for we shall see Him as he is." And what the correct translation of this says is: "When you see Him, you shall see and understand that you are like Him. Now the world can’t see that, but when YOU see that, when YOU see Him, then YOU will understand that you are like Him, because YOU see Him AS HE IS." Notice that: not as He will be. No, because you see Him AS HE IS. When you see Him, you see Him as He is.

1 John 4:13, "Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And 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. Herein is our love made perfect (brought to maturity), that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." The world has not recognized it, it has not been made manifest, but when you see Him as He is... you shall be like Him, for you see Him as He is. And he goes right on in his letter and says, "because as He is, so are we in this world." Chapter 5:11-12, "And 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." Then verse 20, "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."

The Church is inseparably joined with Christ in His Resurrection. It is a matter of seeing Him as He is, and manifesting that reality in the earth - that the world might know (Jn. 17:23). Now there are some who have accused me of wanting to destroy "The Church". Why would I possibly want to destroy that which Christ has made us to be? But I am out to destroy the image of the Church. Now - listen carefully, because The Church is to be the express and manifest IMAGE OF CHRIST. But rather, The Church has taken to itself the image of ITSELF, and Christians are required to worship that image; and if you do not, or will not, you are thrown immediately into the fiery furnace! I talk to too many Christians today who are bound to that image, and if you are honest, you have to agree. The image both in Daniel and Revelation is, beyond dispute, the image of religion. Just after Daniel had interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the "Great Image" (Dan. 2:31-22) that was in fact four kingdoms including Babylon itself and Nebuchadnezzar as the Head of God. Or four beasts that would come up out of the Gentile world (the times of the Gentiles, Dan 7:3-7). Just after the interpretation of this dream, what did Nebuchadnezzar do? He built a golden image to himself. Now we know that as the head of the image seen in the dream, Nebuchadnezzar came to represent the whole. The Babylonian rule over Israel extended, in reality, to the time of the Roman empire, the last beast. My point is that just this: Nebuchadnezzar built an image to the beast and the image that he (representing the whole beast) built was a religious self-image that demanded worship, or you die. The religion of Babylon was a religion of mixture – Judaism mixed with heathenism. Israel was in captivity because the had allowed mixture to come in and now, in Babylon, they are swallowed up in mixture and are worshipping the image of that religion. Now in the Book of Revelation, the end of that same beast is in view. Israel under Judaism has refused to come to and embrace their "appointed end" ( ) and find their new beginning and eternal kingdom in Christ Jesus, and has instead entered into an unholy alliance with the Roman beast in an effort to destroy the church. So they became that very image that they worshipped in Babylon. They gave power to that image; that image was aligned with the Beast, just like Nebuchadnezzar, because it was there that Daniel saw all of those kingdoms and wrapped them all into one huge image (Dan. 2:31-35). It’s a religious image! The image of RELIGION! It was in Babylon, it was in Judaism, and now that image has come forth, has risen up again in The Church! Well, it always does, it always has. In history that’s where it comes forth. Why? Because God’s people forsake their Sabbath, they forsake THE REALITY OF BEING IN CHRIST - they forsake their Sabbath!

Israel had forsaken their Sabbath, which resulted in captivity in Babylon and image worship. Israel forsook their Sabbath again when Jesus stood up and said, "I AM The Lord of The Sabbath!" (Matt. 12:8) They forsook their Sabbath there, and they created an image, gave it a voice, and they aligned it with a Beast. The Book of Revelation, as well as all scripture, must not be interpreted by so-called end time theologies but should be understood and interpreted in accordance with the eternal plan and purpose of God determined in Christ from before the foundation of the world. It must be understood in relation to a full and complete work of the cross, the finished work of Christ. It is the eternal Son himself in living union with the church which is His own body through the power of His resurrection, establishing in the earth what He has forever sanctified, redeemed, and perfected in the heavens (Eph. 2:1-7, esp. v. 5-6, Rom. 8:28-30). Hebrews 10:9, says, "Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second." In revelation we see the manifested end of the First and the manifested revealing of the second (Rom. 8:18-23), which was then shortly to take place and which did, in accordance to the finished work of the Cross, take place. Old Covenant Israel is not here seen to be just "giving way" but is with great violence being taken away ("taketh away" Gr.) and the Second, the Lord from Heaven in His body the church is establishing His kingdom in the earth. This is an ever-present kingdom, eternal and everlasting (Heb. 12:22-29).

"He came unto His own and His own received Him not…"(Jn. 1:11). With great hatred, Old Covenant Israel cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him" (Lk. 23:21) and brought His death upon themselves (as did we all. Jn. 2:18-22, Matt. 24:1-2). Then in a last ditch and futile attempt to "save themselves" (Jn. 12:25) they joined themselves to the beast of the sea for the destruction of the Lord’s body, the church. They have in nature, character, in point of fact become "another beast", a false prophet, and have made unto themselves another image to the religion of the beast. One cannot miss the comparison found in Revelation 13:11-18 to that in Daniel 3:1-6. This unnatural and unholy union of the sea and land beasts is national Israel and the Roman empire, represented by the blending together of iron and clay of Daniel’s image. The sole purpose of this unholy union was for the destruction of the church, "the followers of the Lamb" (Rev. 14:4). These two beasts together constituted the complete antichrist power.

My point here is just this. The image of this union was an image of worship, and image of a religious mixture. The image was a substitute for Christ. Religion is always a substitute for Christ. It’s a religious image! And where would it come forth again, except in a religious setting? History shows how that happened, but now the image has got voice, the image has got life. And Christians go TO Church, because they have no comprehension THEY ARE The Church. I’m not talking about burning buildings: I’m talking about getting rid of the image, and not worshipping the image of religion, because the Church is in love with itself, and not its Head. It worships itself; it has taken to itself its own image, and sees itself as being the fairest in the land. And it has created a gigantic image, that if you dare not worship... it is fiery furnace time for you!

I am out to destroy the image - if I’m out to destroy anything. "But you shall know THE TRUTH..." (Jn. 8:32) What I’m out to do is rescue the captives. The Truth destroys the image - it always has. And if the image is not destroyed in anybody but you - then I’m thrilled! I’m not on a campaign to do away with organized religion. You are never going to do away with it. But there are some captives in there that can be rescued - by a manifestation of a TRUE IMAGE: not an earthly image, but the True Image of The Son of God. The Church is to be an expression of that image. You can take this into your life and let it mean for you what the Lord desires for you - this business of "image", because the Lord certainly deals with me about "image". He deals with me about that personally, and also in relation to our fellowship; that it not become another earthly image. I deal with people all the time, and they are sick of that. While they don’t have any other image to worship but that, they are sick of that image because that image offers no rest, it offers no peace, it offers no Life. It has no Life to give - you have to give life to it! It has no voice - you have to give it voice! Christians are just working themselves to death: serving and worshipping it, and giving it life, and giving it voice, and keeping it going.

Until what they worship is.... is worshipping that image. They worship The Church, and The Church should worship The Lord! Oh, we have worship services... come on. It has taken an image of its own. And I’ll just tell you this: if we bear the image of the one, we will not, and indeed CAN NOT bear the image of the other. And this cuts both ways. That is to say we can not bear the image of "The Church" and be an expression of Christ at the same time. And we can not bear the image of Christ; that is, be an expression of Him, and bear the image of The Church. Please hear what I’m saying: I’m not trying to destroy the Church. No - THE IMAGE that The Church has taken upon itself, and worships as itself, and has twisted the scripture and theology to fit that pattern. It has taken on the image and says God has a special place just for us; rather than understanding that The Church IS the special place that God has - it’s IN CHRIST!

So we have countless numbers of believers out here following after the voice of an image, and never hearing The Voice of The Son. We think that’s all right, and under the umbrella of that image we can all agree... to disagree, because we all worship the same image. They make bumper stickers and put that on our cars, but it’s NOT all right! That thing has the nature of The Beast, and The Beast whose nature it has devours it every day! Look at the lives of Christians... devoured by that nature. Look at the lives of ministries... devoured by that nature. Their whole program is to give life to the image, to prop up the image. And the worse thing about it is that they put the name of Jesus on it! And then they’ll ridicule and condemn you if you don’t support it and give everything you’ve got to it to keep it going just one more day. But The Kingdom of God doesn’t need "my" help to keep going one more day! Hallelujah! It doesn’t have one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel about to fail if I don’t draw out all my money and give it to it!

Yes, we support; yes, we give; yes, we lay down our lives, but there’s a difference in doing that in desperation, and doing that out of love of Truth. The image created desperate people, and desperate people do desperate things. You see that in ministry after ministry that worships the image. I don’t know how it all got to be that way; I just know it is that way. I know that image is there; it is undeniable that it is there! The early Church fought this battle with the forces of Judaism for 40 years, and we face the same battle today with the forces of organized religion. I said I am not out to destroy The Church: I am out to destroy - where? In your minds, in your understanding - the image of The Church. The Church has taken to itself an image. No one can destroy The Church - no one can do that! The Church is safe and secure in Christ Jesus! All we need do as The Church is speak The Truth as The Truth is in Christ, and that’s what destroys the image. So I’m not on some personal crusade to stop organized religion, but I am out to destroy the image of it - in your hearts, in my heart - by bringing into our hearts the image of The Son of God; to be conformed to THAT image, and to become an expression of THAT image. That’s not an earthly image, but an image to be expressed in the earth. And it has no earthly form. No - don’t ever be afraid to turn loose of something for something better. Don’t ever be afraid to do that because it can just become a form, having no life in it. So I stress again, the image into which we are being conformed is NOT an earthly image, but the image of THE SON HIMSELF (Jn. 1:18), Who is the image of The Eternal Father (Heb. 1:3). And it is that image - the image of Truth itself, the image of Life itself that we are to express in the earth. "Ye shall know The Truth, and The Truth shall make you free." May we consider these things in our hearts, and consider which image we serve, which image we support, which image we bow down to when the music starts. May we consider these things together. May the Lord reveal His Son, because the True image is the image into which we are to be confirmed, that He might be firstborn among many brethren. Amen.