TIME AND ORDER OF HIS APPEARING

by: JW Luman

SECTION 1 –

THE NECESSITY OF HIS APPEARING

We’re going to be dealing in these lessons with the "Appearing of Christ" and all of the ramifications of that term, "appearing". We will be looking at the "Time and Order of His Appearing." In this first lesson we will be dealing with "The Necessity of His Appearing." Why is it necessary that the Lord appears?

Hebrews 9:24-28. I will use these verses for a reference. We will probably come back to them in each of these studies referring to them several times; but this is a point of reference. "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands… (this, of course, is speaking of the Old Testament tabernacle of Moses) …,which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." The issue of His appearing is found in what is Biblically called the "First and the Second". He relates to the First and to the Second finally and thoroughly through His appearing. Therefore, there is the appearing of Christ as related to the First and there is the appearing of Christ as related to the Second. Sometimes we will say, "The First and Second Appearing of Christ". It is far better and more scriptural to say, rather than His First Appearing: His Appearing as related to the First.

We are looking at the Necessity of His Appearing. Now we must deal with the Person of God, The I AM, The I AM of God and understand His relationship to the First and to the Second as the I AM. As everything else that is fulfilled in the Second, this too is set forth in type and shadow in the First. God said to Moses, "I AM that I AM" (Exodus 3:14). He would say no more than that. Jesus brought all of that into its fulfillment when He said, "I AM the Resurrection, I AM the way, the Truth, and the Life". Here it was said, "I AM that I AM. I AM what I AM, I AM because I AM, and I AM that I AM. Tell them I AM sent you". In the First he made his intention known in type, in shadow and at a distance, but here, in the Second, in Christ, that intention that was a testimony in the First was fulfilled in the Second. To the First, He is "I Will Be". This is summing up: promises, prophesies, and psalms. The heart of all of this is declaring One who WILL BE. Will be what? Will be Shepherd, will be King, will be savior, will be healer, and will be dwelling place. On and on and on it declares, "I will be". Bring that over into the new; it is "I AM". So we come from the "I will be" to the "I AM."

My point is PERSON. God has never been, even in relation to the First, in types and shadows, anything less than Person. God never presented Himself as a principle. He never presented Himself as a law. He gave the law and set forth principles, yet He always presented Himself as a Person. That is tremendously important for you and me to understand. Even in the Old Covenant, He presents Himself through types, through shadows, through promises, through prophesies unto Israel as a Person. Yet, it is always what He "will be", what He desires to be, or what He has purposed that He should be. He speaks of a relationship. The Old Covenant speaks of a relationship, the New Covenant IS a relationship.

You can tell right now that a lot of Christians have never, in their hearts, passed from the Old to the New. They are not in relationship. They are in principles, they are in types, they are in the shadows, they are in laws and they are in regulations. None of these are bad, they just don’t constitute relationship. You who are married know that at some point in that marriage, in order to be a true marriage, it has to get off of paper and has got to get into relationship. It’s got to cease to be a principle and become a Person. It has to get beyond vows and promises and come to life lived. The Old Covenant SPEAKS OF Relationship. The New Covenant IS; it exists by, through and in relationship. If we are in Him and are not living in that relationship, then it is because our hearts have not passed over from the one to the other.

How does the heart come from the one to the other? We are brought there BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD. The very Spirit of God dwelling within us brings us from the Old to the New. But how does our heart come? How does our soul come? The word "appearing" is going to have something to do with that. The necessity of His appearing. We are going to see that His appearing was necessary to the First and more so to the Second.

All things here in the Old testify of Him. Do you realize we are taking ALL THINGS of the Old Covenant: every person, every place, every thing, every promise, every prophesy, every psalm, every type, every shadow, every stitch, every material ever used. It’s endless! It’s on and on. But the whole miraculous conception: and this was miraculously conceived in the heart and mind of God; even though it was written in stone, it was conceived in God’s heart. It is the Old Covenant of God for the testimony of Himself and for the testimony of His intention toward a people. All things of the Old Covenant testify of Him. Jesus said, "Search the Scripture, for they are that which testifies of me." You may say, "Well, that was just the Scriptures." Where do you think you find the people, places, things, types, shadows and commandments except in the Scripture? In the First all things testify of Him, but in the Second; all things are HIM.

Let’s look at Ephesians concerning that point. Paul makes a statement in the first chapter as well as it can possibly be made. Ephesians 1:9-10: "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness 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." Now having made known unto us that which He hath purposed in Himself to do, that which He hath willed to do and having made known unto us the mystery of it. Here it was hidden in all things, but revealed in none. It was hidden there. Now coming to know the mystery of God in Christ, you can look back at these things and say, "Well sure! There it is, and there it is and there it is. It’s in type and in shadow". At the time of the Old Covenant, the mystery which is revealed in Christ was still very much hidden. How many, do you think during the time of Noah, and in fact Noah himself, looked at the ark that he built and said, "Well, that is a type of Christ"? Let alone its three compartments, the pitch within and without, you know, all of that. Having come to the realization of that mystery in Christ, we look back and say, "Yes, there’s another type. There’s another shadow that speaks of being in Him". Well, those who have come to acknowledge the mystery are able to do so.

Now, let me just say this as to the "All Things" of the First; as to the types, shadows and figures of what would come in Christ. These places, things, people and events were REAL. God used REAL people, places and things, etc. They were not the imagination of these who wrote the scripture. They were real as to place, time, existence and being and they all find their goal, their purpose, and their end in Christ. They are all gathered up in His death (the death of One) and reconciled to the plan and purpose of God, but in the Second; in the New Creation only Christ remains as God’s answer to all that came before.

My point is just this. One needs not "spiritualize" the Testimony (the First, the types, figures, etc.). The First was real, but natural. It was real, but corruptible; real, but mortal. God created a real, but natural, earth (world), a real, but natural man whose body was made of dirt. There was a real ark (boat), a real tent, and so on. There was nothing spiritual about the First, but it was created, ordered, and used of God as a Testimony of The Spiritual. It was a reflection of the spiritual, BUT NOT A TRUE manifestation of the spiritual. The Spiritual, The New, The True has come in the Person of Christ and you and I (who are in Him and by that union with Him) are not mere "reflections" but purposed as ONE TRUE manifestation of Him in the earth as His One Body, The Church.

It’s the same with the tabernacle. That’s why the Lord said, "Be very careful that you do it according to the PATTERN" (Exodus 25:9).Why? Because Moses didn’t know what he was doing, nor did any other of the people who worked on the various parts of the tabernacle. They didn’t have the slightest idea of what they were doing. God simply gave them the ability to do it. There, however, was a mystery hidden in what they did that was to be revealed in Christ. So what they did had great significance; it had great purpose, but the purpose was not found in the thing they did. What they did had great significance because it ALL pointed to Christ. It would find its purpose and significance in Him. It also made necessary His appearing. It made necessary His Coming, because in that all of those things testified of Him, nothing other than Him, nothing less than Him would give them purpose or significance. What were they a testimony of except the Person of our Salvation?

This is a good place to tell you that our Salvation is bound up with and in a Person. Our Salvation IS a Person. Our very life is bound up with a Person. We have been brought through Salvation into a Person. The Old Covenant speaks of Him. The New Covenant IS HIM. It does not speak of Him also; although that is the way most ministries today present it. They say, "The Old Covenant speaks of Him, but the New Covenant speaks of Him better or clearer." No it doesn’t! The New Covenant is not "another testament" of His Coming: the New Covenant is IN HIM. The New Covenant IS HIM. It’s not another list of things about Him; another list of types, shadows, promises, and prophesies: NO! That is not what the Second is. THE SECOND IS HIM and the ALL THINGS of the Second are found IN HIM as related directly TO Him.

In the Old there was a natural city called Jerusalem, but in the Second we have a spiritual city called New Jerusalem. Where is it? IN HIM. If it’s part of the testimony, it has got to be part of the fulfillment. If it is not part of the fulfillment, you need to go back and check it out in the testimony. Now the testimony is either fulfilled in Him or it isn’t, but since the the testimony is a testimony of a Person, why shouldn’t that testimony be FULFILLED IN THE PERSON. Since every part of this testimony was a testimony of Him, not some thing, the WHOLE testimony of the Scripture comes to be FULFILLED in Him. The problem with Christians today is that we just don’t know Him. We’re not seeking for the reality of all things in Him. We’re not having Him as the reality of all things in us and therefore our comprehension of Salvation is either based on things or a few things, or it’s just a very small comprehension of Him. All I am showing you here is that the very order of the Scripture, First and Second; the very order of the Covenant, First and Second, necessitates His Appearing.

So when we speak of First and Second Biblically, it must be related to either the Old Covenant or the New Covenant; the Old Order or the New Order. If we can just get a hold of that, it will solve for you and I First and Second Coming, First and Second Appearing, First and Second everything. You see, we want to come over here in the Second and have another First and Second. That is not Biblically correct. It is not Bible order. We’re going to be dealing a great deal with order. One of our lessons will deal with the Order of His Coming, but it is extremely important that we understand and relate the biblical terms First and Second to their proper definitions – First Covenant and Second Covenant. That’s what is being talked about in Hebrew 9 and Hebrews 10.

Let’s look at it in, Heb 10:5-10, "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:… (That of course, is the body for His death, His flesh body)…In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will… ("I come to do thy will O God." Now what is the will? "To take away the First and establish the Second." By the which will, by the taking away of the First and the establishing of the Second)… we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." He deals with the First and the Second by the Cross.

You’ll find this again in 1 Corinthians 15 where it says: "…the First man is after the earth earthy, but the Second man is the Lord from heaven. As we have borne the image of the earth, so must we bear the image of the heavenly". In that text, 1 Corinthians 15:44-50, it is said that the First is not spiritual, but rather the Second is spiritual. Now, even here in the First Order of things, in the Old Covenant, you understand that the whole First Order given of God by Covenant, a Covenant that can only be fulfilled in Christ Jesus, made new. How does He make that Covenant new? He takes all time out of it. It is not time oriented now. It shall never end; it is ETERNAL: AS HE IS. It is New as to Divine Nature and character. It is New as to substance. In His death He takes away the First that in His Life, He may establish the New.

Let’s look what we have read in Ephesians 1:9-10. "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will…. HIS WILL, HIS WILL which he hath purposed in Himself which was a mystery, which WAS a mystery. Of course it is a mystery no longer, but is was a mystery. Here is the will, "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times… (Here the Second is the dispensation of the fulness of time). "But when the fulness of time WAS COME, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, made under the Law". Which one of these relates to time? The First Order is time related! Where do you find the type of days? In the Second? No, in the First! You find the order of the six days and find the order of the seventh day in the seventh day Sabbath. Where do you find that? In the First, because it is time related. Where do you find the first month, the third month, and the seventh month? Where do you find these things related to seasons and times of seasons and the feasts? Where do you find these things? You find them in the Old Covenant, the First. Everything there is time related, time measured.

The Hebrews writer says, TIME PASSED. Yes, "hath in TIME PAST spoken… but NOW at the END of those DAYS spoken in Son" (Heb. 1:1-2). The word dispensation here should be translated as administration (Strongs#:3622 oikonomia). That’s the way any good Bible dictionary will translate it. Here is the administration of the fulness of time that is the administration of the Spirit. Here time has come to its fulness; it can’t go any farther; it is no more as far as being significant; it is filled up; it’s finished: ITS PURPOSE HAS COME. The purpose of days HAS COME. The purpose of feasts HAS COME. The purpose of years and the order of years has come. Time has come to its fulfillment in Him, in the Second, which is not measured by time, nor is it related to time. It is eternal, which does not mean a long time, but eternal means NO TIME. Here in the First we have a long time. In the Second we have NO TIME. In the Second weeks and days have no significance.

Oh, how Christians are bound up to week days, to weekend days! They have no spiritual significance. If it is more convenient to gather on one day than it is another day, then gather on that day, but it has no spiritual significance. It did over here because it spoke of something, but when that of which it spoke came, its significance is taken up and fulfilled in Him. Now He is the only significant Day and we are children of the Day. That Day is explicitly for His appearing. The Day of His Appearing. Where do you think that is? IT IS IN HIM! Where are you? YOU ARE IN HIM!

Dispensationalists would have us to believe that He appears at the end of that Day, YET THAT DAY HAS NO END. He is the Light of it. He appears in the Midst of that Day. If it wasn’t for His appearing, there would not be any Day. What do you mean at the end of? Well, they say that He’s going to appear at the end of the Church Age! What age would that be? The Church, which is His Body, the Fulness of Him who filleth all and all (Eph. 1:23). Where in the world did they come up with the term church age? You might want to call it the Church of the Ageless One, the Church of the One without Age who is continually and ever new. But, then you would have to give up on the idea that it has an end or that it was going to ever come to an end. They are all mixed up. It is the First that came to an end and it is the end of the First that necessitates His Appearing because HE hath ONCE APPEARED at the end of that age.

If you insist on putting His appearing at the end of the Second, you have just done away with the Second. Not only have you violated the divine order of God in First and Second, you have managed to do away with the Second all together. This is what our Dispensationalist friends do. Most every Protestant denominational preacher is a Dispensationalist. It’s come about to be that way during the last two hundred years. There wasn’t that many found before then. It has swallowed the church like a giant cancer. I find absolutely nothing good about what any of them have to say because I know their point of view. They read the Scripture, but I know from what point of view. To them, the End is yet to come. To me, the End has already come. You always interpret the Scripture according to your understanding or concept of the End. If the end is yet to come, then for you the Kingdom has not come; for you, heaven has not come; for you, the city has not come. In fact, anything that is gathered up and said to be in Christ is not come. Well, there you have it.

That’s the fallacy of Dispensationalism, because what it does is it de-personifies our Salvation insisting that the person of it has not come in relation to the Second yet. They’ll say, "Yes, He came in relation to the First." We read in the scripture, "He taketh away the First that He may establish the Second". Where does he establish the Second? In Himself. When does He establish the Second? "I am (NOW) the Resurrection and the Life…" (John 11:25).

Let’s go back to Hebrews 9:26: "…but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared". Yes, it’s translated age (aion Strong’s #165) there and it’s this Old Covenant age. He appeared at the end of it. His appearing was necessary to the end of the one, but the appearing of that same Jesus, that same Son, is more so: much more necessary to the beginning of the other. Paul says "much more" in relating to the First and the Second. He always uses the term "much more" so I’m going to tell you that if His appearing is necessary to the end of the First, it is MUCH MORE necessary to the existence of the Second, of which he is the Beginning, the Head and the Fulness.

So, Biblically we shouldn’t be concerned with a First and Second Coming, a First and Second Appearing because Biblically speaking those things DO NOT exist. What did we read? HE COMES! LO, I COME! "The volume of the book speaks of ME, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God"; but He comes in relation to the First and in relation to the Second. Let’s get the First and the Second in their proper order so that we can see how the I AM God has related Himself to both of them. He has related Himself to one in types and shadows. He has related Himself to the other, to the Second, in that He is the Person of it. The Second is not a place He has made for us for He has brought us into Himself. It’s not a city He’s built for us. He has brought us into Himself and we are a city. That’s what the Second is. We are there through union with Him. That we may have relationship, and that God may have what he set out to get: RELATIONSHIP. You can’t find that in the First: It is only spoken of there. As to the First, He comes in the flesh to die; to sum up all the First in His death, but as to the Second, He comes in the Power and Glory of the Resurrection. He comes in Vision (revelation), in Voice and in Glory. He comes in Spirit and in Fulness. He is the ever present and ever coming One in the New Creation; The Church which is His Body; the Fulness of Him.

Let’s look back at Ephesians 1:10: "That in the administration of the fulness 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." That is precisely what He has done. The ALL THINGS that he has gathered together and fulfilled both in heaven and earth, are the ALL THINGS of the Old Covenant, and not one is left out. Not one jot, not one tittle, not one promise, not one prophesy, not one type and not one shadow. He has gathered it into Him, where all things are made new. Made new because as the Old they were time regulated and in and of themselves could do nothing but speak beyond themselves. But in Him, they are ALL FULFILLED by Him. He is the substance of the all things. Whether the all things be righteousness, holiness, sanctification, redemption, or whether it be City of God, Priest of God or House of God. All of these are testimonies of Him that He fulfills in Himself and He receives us unto Himself and says, "Behold, I make all things new". That is eternal. That is everlasting. Hallelujah! Actually, according to Ephesians 1:10, the All Things of the First are gathered together as one in the death of One where they are all brought to their completion, goal, purpose, and end so that Christ could come forth out from death as the Fulfillment, Fulness, and NEWNESS of all things.

The First speaks of a Person. The Second IS the Person. The Second is not a sequel to the First. God did not say, "Well, I wrote a pretty good book. I believe I’ll write another one, a sequel. I’ll change the characters, but pretty much keep the same line of thought. The thought of the First is: One is going to come someday. So, I believe I will write a Second or a sequel and say: One is really, really, really going to come someday. Instead of Moses, I’ll have Paul." That’s not what happened. The First SPEAKS OF a Person; the Second IS a Person. The New Covenant is in His very blood, in His very Life, in His very Spirit. It is the fulfillment of the first. Now, the whole of the First order looks to a Person for its fulfillment, therefore a Person MUST appear. Genesis 1-11 looks for a man. In those chapters you find the creation of a man. You find the whole story it, through Adam, Eve, the tower, the Covenant given. Genesis says, God will have a man. God WILL HAVE a man. Even His description of the First man, "Let us make that man in our image, in our likeness". (Genesis 1:26) In the Hebrew "image" means a representation, having no substance of it own ( tselem (tseh'-lem) Strong’s #6754). That’s what the First man was. It was a testimony, an intention. God will have a man. We know that in the Second, He has that man: THE NEW MAN. The SECOND MAN IS THE LORD FROM HEAVEN. The First was a testimony of Him. The Second IS HIM.

From Genesis 12-50, we have the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the word there is: SEED. God will have a seed. In Psalms 22:30 it says, "He counts that seed unto Himself for a generation". There’s only ONE GENERATION in the Second. In the First you have generations. The Second has ONE generation in Christ Jesus. Once again, the First demands a seed. Once again the Second is fulfilled in the Seed, THE SEED WHICH IS CHRIST.

Then we go to Israel, from Exodus throughout the rest of the Old Covenant. In Exodus 4:22, God tells Moses to go tell Pharaoh: "Israel is my Son." All of His dealings with Israel after that shows that God will have a Son. Israel falls short of that time and time again, yet they are a testimony of that. The First order demands a Person because the whole of it looks to a Person for its fulfillment, its validity, and its purpose. Therefore, ONLY A PERSON; not a principle, not a new law, not another prophesy: A PERSON MUST APPEAR. Not only that, in (Exodus 29:45, 1 Kings 6:13, Ezekiel 43:7-9, and Zechariah 2:10-11) God says, "I will dwell IN MY PEOPLE. I will be IN THEM. THEY WILL BE IN ME. They shall be my city and I will be their God". That is said over and over and in more places than I just read to you. That DEMANDS THE COMING OF A PERSON. All of this by the way, according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:16, has been FULFILLED in the COMING OF CHRIST. Paul uses those very things. He says, "Did not God say, I will dwell in my people’. He also says there, "You are the temple of the Living God". He brings all of that to fulfillment. "I will do this." How did He do it? To say, "ONE IS COMING" or to say, "I WILL DWELL IN… They shall be my people, they shall be my City." To say it is one thing, but to perform it is another!

What separates the First and the Second? What separates the promise and the fulfillment? The thing that separates the two is also the vehicle by which God performs in the Second what He promised in the First. You know and I know that it’s the Cross; it’s Christ crucified. Now I’ve already answered my question. How did He do it? Here is what Paul calls the GREAT MYSTERY of God, even the HIDDEN WISDOM OF GOD, but he says in Ephesians 1:9-10, which we have already read; "having made known unto us the mystery God". Then again in Colossians 1:26, he says, "that mystery which has been hidden..." and has been in the ages, hidden in the types and the shadows, "but NOW is made manifest to His saints". He continues on in Ephesians and Colossians as well as in Romans, Corinthians, and Philippians and explains that the mystery was made manifest by the Cross, through His death, His burial, and His resurrection. Here is the statement with which we will end this lesson: THE MYSTERY WAS REVEALED IN CHRIST CRUCIFIED, WHERE THE DIVINE ORDER OF GOD WAS REVERSED.