We are dealing with the Appearing of Christ. Here is the reason for my dealing with this subject, notwithstanding the Lord’s dealing in my heart; for there is a theological reason for it, meaning the doctrinal issues bound up in it, and then there is the spiritual significance of it in each of our lives concerning the Appearing of Christ. Theologically I’m looking at scriptures and presenting The Appearing because the theory of dispensationalism says that "The Appearing" that the Bible speaks of has not taken place yet, and will not take place until the "end of time". But they have no scriptural concept of time! And in my search on The Appearing I began to realize that our whole Bible and the whole basis of our belief is bound up in the two words – FIRST and SECOND. It is about the First Covenant and it’s about the Second Covenant. It’s about the Second Covenant being everything promised, prophesied, spoken of, types and shadows and figures in the First Covenant. The First is about Christ; the Second IS Christ.

So what the scriptures are presenting to us is that everything that is involved in the First Covenant – by promises, or prophecy, or type is FULFILLED in the Second Covenant. The scriptures present the First Covenant administered by angels; the Second Covenant by the Spirit of God. The scriptures present the First Covenant in association with Moses; the Second Covenant is associated with Christ. Moses was the mediator of the First Covenant; Christ is the mediator of the Second Covenant. Moses in mediating the First Covenant mediated an understanding given of God that kept God at a distance from His people.

For instance, when Moses went up on the mountain (and there are two mountains in the Bible: Sinai, which is associated with the First Covenant and Zion, is associated with the Second Covenant. (Gal.4:24-26) Sinai was in the wilderness and Zion was part of that high place, that mountain upon which Jerusalem was built. But Zion in the Bible always has a futuristic tone to it. The way Zion is used in the Bible, it is understood that Zion is always something spiritual. Zion always is a summation of God’s highest thought concerning Himself and a people. God has a high thought with regard to Himself and a people, and that thought is summed up in a relationship. The high thought of God is that He will live in a people, and have a people living in relationship with Him. The high thought of Zion is: I WILL DWELL IN MY PEOPLE. Here is My thought concerning Zion: This is My mountain, this is my dwelling place, and herein will I dwell FOREVER! That’s a prophecy concerning Zion. Then "Zion" – My people, Zion – My glory."

So in the First Covenant the Second was consistently spoken of, but was never perfected, was never given because the Second could not be given in the First. The First was given as a TESTIMONY OF THE SECOND. So the Second can not come along and be given as a Testimony of itself or as a Testimony of a Third. The Second MUST COME as a FULFILLMENT OF WHAT THE FIRST WAS ABOUT. So you can’t have with the First Covenant that was associated with Sinai, a promise of Zion, and then say that the Second Covenant is ANOTHER promise of Zion; that the Second Covenant assures us all over again that "one day", sure enough, Zion will come. NO! The Second Covenant is the fulfillment of the First and if it’s not, then it’s not a legitimate covenant at all! And my contention with the theory of dispensationalism is that you have all of these promises in the First. And what makes the First so distinct is that in the First you consistently see the First and the Second, the First and the Second. You also see that the Second is NEVER ACHIEVED. It’s spoken of. The First is achieved: it’s written in a stone, it’s given to a people, because the First Covenant is made up of the promises and prophesies, types and shadows of the Second. Even the Law points to "The One to Come".

That’s what the First Covenant is: it’s a PROMISE OF THE SECOND. Now, therefore if we say that the Second Covenant, the New Covenant has come IN CHRIST, what are we saying? We are saying that the promises of the First has come; that the prophesies of the First has come; that the types and shadows of the First HAS COME! That’s what we’re saying. The dispensationalists say no, part of it hasn’t come yet! We’ll, if part of it hasn’t come, none of it has come! Because the Second is the fulfillment of the First and you can’t say that we keep PART of the Law, but don’t keep it all. If you keep any part of it, you keep it ALL. If you fail in any part of it, you fail in it ALL (James 2:10)! It’s the whole package. The Second Covenant which is a fulfillment of the First must – by His very nature be a whole package. Now here’s the point: did the First Covenant speak of heaven? We know that it did: in the Tabernacle. The Holy of Holies is translated in the scriptures as and speaks of heaven. The Second is the fulfillment of the First, so the Second Covenant can NOT be then another promise of a heaven "yet to come". It has to be a fulfillment of what the First called "heaven", of what the First referred to as "heaven". It has to be or it’s not a fulfillment and if it’s not a fulfillment, it’s not a Covenant.

Well, the First Covenant was given by PROMISE; but the Second was given IN PERSON – THE PERSON OF CHRIST. The Second Covenant is not writing; it’s a Person. The New Testament is written ABOUT the Second Covenant; it is NOT the Second Covenant. THE SECOND COVENANT IS THE REALIZATION THAT COMES IN CHRIST. The New Testament presents Christ as THE NEW COVENANT. The New Testament does not present ITSELF as the Covenant; The New Testament is just a series of writings by Apostles, either as letters to the Church, or as gospels to the whole of the Christian community, presenting CHRIST as the answer, as the fulfillment to the Old Covenant. So consequently, the New Covenant, that is the "new understanding" that God would have a people to walk in concerning His relationship with them – that new understanding is found in a Person. It’s found IN CHRIST! Christ IS… So what does he say? "I AM…" No man can come to the Father but by me. I AM. I am not here to tell you about a way to get to God – I AM THE WAY! Come to Him through ME! I’m not here to tell you a truth about God – I AM THAT TRUTH! In learning ME you know HIM! I AM THE LIFE! I’m not here to tell you about a life to come – I AM THE LIFE! By receiving Me, you have Life and shall never die.

Then he (JESUS) said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

THE NEW UNDERSTANDING IS REVEALED IN THE SON

That’s how Jesus presents it. And so the whole of the understanding that God would have you and me to have concerning our relationship with Himself: that understanding that was set forth in an Old Covenant, a First Covenant, in types and shadows and promises; that understanding is plainly, clearly, and perfectly revealed IN HIS SON. His Son was what God was talking about! When God said, ‘Build a Tabernacle, kill some animals, put some furniture, do these ceremonies, do them this many times, do it this way’ – His Son is what He was talking about. He was showing His Son. His Son – the sacrifice that would come. His Son – the alter, the laver, the candlestick, the bread, the incense – received of God. His Son – The Ark of the Covenant – The Covenant – Fulfilled in Christ, HIS SON. He was involving a people with that Tabernacle, showing that a people would be involved with His Son.

How will a people be involved with His Son? In the type it was through sacrifices and offerings, but in the fulfillment it’s that HIS SON HIMSELF made the sacrifice, gave offering. So then we, through relating with His death, His burial, and His resurrection; that is to say we understand that His death is mine, and His burial is mine, and His resurrection is mine in relation to Him (understanding that "I am crucified with Christ…"); we come to realize that everything that is set forth in type and shadow in the Old Testament is fulfilled IN CHRIST. We don’t have to bring an offering because HE IS the offering. All we have to do is accept HIM as our offering. We don’t have to enter into a tent: we have to by faith, by the realization of THE SPIRIT understand WE LIVE IN HIM. And all those pieces of furniture set forth a realization of Christ. It was just a type and shadow; just a promise under the First Covenant, but in the Second Covenant, He fulfills it Himself. He fulfills everything that it stands for. He fulfills everything that the candelabra stands for. He fulfills it and He did that through the Work of the Cross in His death, His burial, and His resurrection in bringing forth in His resurrection, as it says in Hebrews, a sanctuary, a more perfect sanctuary not made with hands, of which He is the High Priest Himself.

And the sanctuary that He brings forth is His Own Body! How does he do that? He does that by His own Holy Spirit. In the power of His resurrection He has raised us up together in Himself just as He said He would (John 6:39, 40, 44, 53-57). By His very Spirit dwelling in us, we are bound by that Spirit as His dwelling place, as the New Temple that is not made by hands, but brought together in Spirit, by the Spirit –birthed by the Spirit of God. And it’s His Tabernacle because HE lives in it, and HE ministers in it. Well, He ministers according to what was the type and the shadow. Did the Priest of that day offer daily sacrifices? Yes. The Spirit of Christ ministering into us, ministers Himself to us everyday as the sacrifice of God. Everyday – EVERY DAY His death to sin is our death – every day, it’s a continual thing. Yet it was by Him done once and for all, but it’s a daily realization to us.

So what I am saying is that our whole Bible is divided into these two Covenants and that the one Covenant is essentially promises and prophesies, in types and shadows. Moses’ Tabernacle was both a promise and a prophesy of a Greater One to come. Solomon’s was a promise and a prophesy of a Greater One to come. Then you have Isaiah and Jeremiah written, just stating word promises and word prophesies, and Ezekiel. What did Ezekiel prophesy? A Tabernacle to come, a city to come. Well, Moses did the same thing. Moses was considered a prophet because the Tabernacle of Moses was a prophecy! The Old Covenant is just that – it’s God relating to a people by promise, by a prophecy, and He gave many signs and wonders in their midst to prove to them that it was He Himself Who was speaking to them. What He gave was not just natural phenomena; those were miracles wrought by God to show the people that these promises, these prophecies are really from God because who else but God could do these things? But the things that He did were not the Covenant; they were simply signs showing Israel that it was God Who was giving them these promises and prophesies. And the Law that would keep them, until the time the fulfillment of His promises and prophesies came, because they weren’t able to walk without it. They started out without a Law, but when they built themselves a golden calf and started worshipping that, God said, "I’m going to give them a Law, because I must establish in the earth my prophesies and my promises concerning One to come, and I must establish them in this people and this people are going to have to be put under the Law in order to be sustained."

So, for transgression sake, God put them under the Law (Gal. 3:19), and they were kept, Paul says, kept under the Law, shut up unto the faith for that period of time UNTIL faith should come (Gal. 3:23-25). The faith that came, of course was CHRIST HIMSELF! So the Law comes in there, Paul says it was a schoolmaster. Schoolmaster to what? It kept them in the prophesies and in the promises, in the Old Covenant until God brought the curtain down on the Old Covenant, and with that introduced its fulfillment in the New. He didn’t wait 2,000 years between the two to do it either!

Dispensationalists have got people believing that the Old Covenant ended 2,000 years ago, and the New One hasn’t gotten there yet! Well, what kind of ridiculous thinking is that? The New Covenant is God’s answer to the Old one, but if it is not answered in fulness in the New, then God has not answered it at all. That seems simple enough to me! And when you’ve only got the two Covenants and the Second one is not as the First: the First speaks of a Second; the Second does NOT speak of a third. The Second answers the First! But most Christians today think that the New Covenant is simply a better promise of "something to come". But the New Covenant and all that was to come with it was to come "IN SPIRIT" as SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE, Eternal substance – NOT MATERIAL. The First Covenant was material, but it spoke of a Spiritual. How could the Second be material as well and fulfill the aspects of the First? How could it do that? No, the Second has to be Spiritual and the scripture says that it is Spiritual. The scripture says the First was NOT spiritual; the Second is Spiritual. That’s true, so my search on "The Appearing of Christ" has been along the line of showing that there is no time gap between the First and the Second Covenant; the one itself being the end of the other, and that there is not a Third Covenant, or a Fourth; but the Second came with Christ and that He is the substance of it, the fulness of it; and that everything that was set forth in the First IS NOW fulfilled IN CHRIST. We may not be walking in it, we may not comprehend, and we may not be laying hold of it; but it is fulfilled in HIM nonetheless.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen (things of the First: temple, priesthood, feasts, etc.) are temporal (natural or temporary); but the things which are not seen (the Second which is spiritual and fulfill the things of the First) are eternal.

Look at the type of that – and to do that you have to go back to the First. God called Israel out of Egypt, He delivered them, brought them out. They were to go in to a land that was called Canaan, and they were to posses it and fill it up. So that the name of it would be changed to Israel itself, and the very land would bear their name – Israel. That’s what they were to do. They did not do that did they? God delivered them: there was nothing wrong with the deliverance (Exodus 18:8-11). The Egyptians were not still chasing them across the wilderness. The deliverance was full and complete and thorough. And a few weeks after that, there they were right at the bank of the Jordan. THEY REFUSED TO ENTER IN. God did not originally say it will be 40 years before you can go in there – they determined that. Instead of going in they sent out spies. The spies were gone 40 days and they came back and gave a false report. The people rose up and said, ‘We’re not going in there!’ (Numbers 13:30 - 14:4). Moses could not do anything with them. They said we are NOT going in there. *God told Moses because this is a rebellious people I’m going to give them a year for every day, because of their false report. They were gone for 40 days: they will wander for 40 years! Not only that: everyone 20 years of age and older will die during that time and while they are dying, I will raise up a NEW GENERATION. That generation shall go in. There’s the type of the First and the Second coming.

We may not comprehend, we may not walk in the fulness of the Second, of that which is in Christ; but it is there nonetheless. It is fulfilled in Him nonetheless. As surely as the land was set before them… God did not after 40 years take them back to a different spot on the Jordan, or a different land. He took them right back to the same place they had failed forty years earlier, only now it was a different people, but it was still Israel, wasn’t it? It was in fact a type of the "Second Israel", The New Israel, The Second Man, and The Man who had come out of the death of the first. Do you see the type there? The first Israel died; out of that death, a SECOND Israel, The New Man went in under new leadership – Joshua, who is a direct type of Jesus Christ. Joshua was the man who saw the Heavenly Man. Joshua was the one who saw The Man who said, ‘I’m the Captain of the Lord’s Host’, which is the same in the Greek as saying ‘I’m the Head of the Body’. Joshua is associated with Him as The Heavenly Christ. Even though it’s a type and shadow of the Second, it’s still a type and a shadow of the Second because the whole purpose of the First was to promise the Second. Then the whole purpose of the Second is to FULFILL the First! In doing so, the Second goes far beyond the material boundaries and limitations of the First. The Second is exceeding, abundantly above and beyond what the First could even speak of or hope for, but in the Second, all the First is fulfilled.

If we say that God did not fulfill in His Son all the First and much more, then we are saying that the New Covenant in Christ is not a real Covenant, because His whole purpose was to fulfill all things in His Son. All that the First Covenant is, is a promise and a prophecy – that’s all it is. What the Second is, is a fulfillment. Not a fulfillment in writing, not a fulfillment in some more words – FULFILLMENT IN A PERSON, a fulfillment in Christ. A closer scrutiny of the First Covenant would show you that that Covenant itself says these things will be fulfilled in a Person. In every type and shadow that Covenant says that. Now that would take years to go through, but in every type and shadow, in every prophecy and promise that is given; if you follow it to its end, it is always pointing to or speaking of a Person. The whole Old Covenant says ONE WILL COME.

We have said that the Tabernacle says that another Tabernacle will come. Yes, but the way the Tabernacle was arranged, was in fact – Christ! Yes, all of the poles and all of the gold and silver… if you take it piece by piece by piece, it is a picture of Christ. It’s a picture of Christ The Redeemer, Christ The Sacrifice – it’s a picture of Christ. The furniture, which is in the order of ministry (because they went from one piece of furniture to another), is in the arrangement and the order, of course of THE CROSS. Not only the shape of The Cross, but the Order of The Cross. All this blood, all this killing, all this burning. And then that blood taken all the way back (actually the whole Tabernacle itself had to be sprinkled with the blood) to the Ark of the Covenant. So what is the Tabernacle? CHRIST CRUCIFIED. And what is the Tabernacle saying? ONE WILL COME! All of these thousands, and hundreds of thousands of sacrifices being made are NOT saying that one day another hundred thousand sacrifices are going to be made. No, it’s saying one day ONE will come. The writer of *Hebrews 10 lets us know that when he quotes a prophecy saying, "In the volume of the book it is written of ME. I COME to do Thy will, O God. I do NOT come to offer more sacrifices and offerings wherein you have no pleasure. I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second."

So it doesn’t make any difference where you go in the Old Covenant; whether you go in the types and the shadows or you go in the promises or the prophecies – the summed up end of them is just this: ONE WILL COME. One will come. It talks about the promise of glory, the promise of God dwelling in His people and the glory of God. And we end up seeing in type and shadow, and in prophecy and in promise that glory is A MAN! Ezekiel says, "And I saw the glory of the Lord come in from the east and HIS…" He starts describing it as a MAN – One will come… One will come (Ezek. 43:2-3 he refers this to the vision in Ezek.1). The whole essence then of the Second Covenant is THE ONE WHO IS COME. And that brings us to The Appearing of Christ.

Has He come or not? One Who is Come – has He come or not? Well, overwhelmingly our answer to that has to be, yes! But now the dispensationalists have messed that up again. They say, ‘Well, He’s come once, but He’s got to come again.’ And when we ask where that is taught, invariably they go to some New Testament scripture. But wait… you can’t do that! Because the New Testament is declaring the reality of that which Christ is, so now if you are going to show me a place where He’s going to come twice, then you’ve got to show that to me in the First Covenant where all the promises and prophecies are concerning Him.

Well now, what you find there is what the Jews knew it said, but they didn’t understand it. They knew that the First Covenant predicted This One as a Suffering Servant and as a Reigning King. Paul says this is the mystery of God which was hidden from ages and generations, but is now made manifest to His saints. (Col. 1:26) The Jews could not put that together. The prophets themselves, Peter says, did not fully understand what they were speaking of. Then Peter goes on and says, "But we have a more sure word of prophecy…" (2 Peter 1:19-21) He doesn’t mean that we have a better prophet, or we have a better prophecy. The phrase "we have a more sure word of prophecy" means we have the prophets made more sure. What do you mean? Because we know what they were talking about! WE HAVE SEEN HIM, of Whom they spoke! We’ve seen the Suffering Servant and we’ve seen the Reigning King and both of them are ONE. And His name is JESUS CHRIST THE LORD! Now that’s the gospel they had to present to the Jews otherwise not one Jew would have ever become a Christian – NOT ONE! The Jews were not as ignorant as Christians today, who will take half a Salvation, half a Covenant. No sir – the Jews wouldn’t do that! They were looking for Messiah and the Apostles had to prove Jesus to be Messiah. Well, obviously they did or the whole first Church never would have been born!

Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,(The Old Testament or Covenant) And said unto them, Thus it is written,(it is written always denotes the First Covenant scripture) and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.

Jesus proved himself to them to be Messiah because He showed to them for forty days both His death and His burial, and His resurrection. He showed them He was both Suffering Servant and the Ruling King. That’s something that dispensationalists haven’t gotten a hold of yet! They are still looking for the Ruling King to come. Jesus showed them when One came, the other came – I AM BOTH! But the mystery of that is THE CROSS. He was the Suffering Servant in His death: He was the Ruling King in His resurrection. That’s not some future event, but in His resurrection. The so- called First and Second coming is just that: His First in His death. His Second in His resurrection. The Suffering Servant – The Reigning King. Not a Suffering Servant and then… 2,000 years later a Reigning King. Not a Suffering Servant and then… 2,000 years later a Kingdom is "going to come". No, The Kingdom of God is in you! The Kingdom is where The King is!

Christians have been bombarded by this "fantasy world" thing and preachers have gone back over and taken these First Covenant promises and brought them way beyond what we call the Second Covenant. They say "one day…", "one day…", but if that’s so, you’ve just said that the Second Covenant is no good. You can’t have it in part! The Lord Himself is that "ONE DAY".

We say Jesus died as our Savior to forgive us of our sins. But that’s only half of the truth: that’s "Suffering Servant" realization. Where is "Ruling King" realization? Many haven’t accepted it yet and they want Jews to become Christians. No Jew in his right mind would accept that kind of gospel! Of course that wasn’t the gospel that was preached immediately after the resurrection. The gospel that was preached then was that the Suffering Servant and the Reigning King are One, and that’s what the mystery of God always has been. The Jews as a whole would not receive that. They would have gladly received Him as Reigning King, but they didn’t associate with Him as a Suffering Servant. So they said we can’t accept that. The Messiah is supposed to come and set up a Kingdom, and you are talking about dying? Peter even got upset about that and Jesus said, "Get thee behind Me, Satan." (Matthew 16:21-23) Yours is the mind of Satan. Until I’m a Suffering Servant I can not be a Reigning King. You do not know the wisdom of God. Get away from Me, get behind Me.

To the Jews the Cross was a stumbling block: they stumbled over it. They could not understand how could our King be crucified; they couldn’t put the two prophecies together. Paul did, the Apostles did, the first Church did – they finally got it together, but then through 2,000 years that has been lost and we know back historically it was probably lost before the third century, maybe before the first century ended. Then it went on through the Dark Ages, and on and on. So the dispensationalists said here’s a good point for us to jump in and "revive" this hope for a Reigning King! One day Jesus is going to come back and rule and reign. Well, wait a minute! What do you mean He’s going to come back? Where did He go? He went away to death and came back in Life – now, where did He go? He hasn’t left any more! He indwelt His Church and brought His Church forth in New Birth. Then what? He left again? He’s not in it? Then the Church is a corpse!! And they’d rather believe that The Church is a corpse, and that "one day" it’s going to be resurrected.

But HE’S THE RESURRECTION FOR THE CHURCH! If He’s in you – you are resurrected! If He’s not in you, you are never going to be resurrected! He’s THE LIFE! He is the substance of the Second Covenant. The Second Covenant is not another list of promises and prophesies. It’s the fulfillment of the First. And all of the First OF NECESSITY had to be fulfilled in a Person. Ephesians 1:19-23, "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."

Therefore it was a necessity THAT CHRIST WOULD APPEAR. HE HAD TO APPEAR! He had to appear, and His appearing is two fold. He appears as to the First, and He appears as to the Second. As to the First, HE IS THE END. Here is the order of His appearing: First as the end of the First, then as the beginning of the Second – The Second which has no end! No linear end. He appeared – the time and order of His appearing is what we’re looking at. But everything of the First Covenant spoke of that. So He comes, and His coming is at THE CROSS. Hebrews 10 says, "Lo I come, in the volume of the book it is written of Me." He gathers it ALL up and says here is "the coming" the book speaks of. The "volume of the book" is the volume of the Old Covenant. Here is the coming that it speaks of; here is the volume of it: "I come to do Thy will, O God." I don’t come to reinstate the First, I don’t come to perpetuate the First, I don’t come to offer some more sacrifices. A body thou hast prepared for me, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second.

So we understand by Hebrews 9:8 that as long as the First remains, the way into the Second is not made manifest. So His appearing is to the First an END and that appearing is in His death. I’m going to show you that the end is death. We’ll look at the term "taketh away", and we’ll see that by definition it is death. Where does He take away the First? In His death, because what is "the end of the First"? Look at the First itself; what is the end of it? Where does it bring you? The end of it is death. Death – death – death. "Moses, my servant is dead." Sacrifices, blood – death, death. It’s called "the administration of death." Unto man it was said. "Thou shalt surely die." All life comes out of death; no death comes out of life. That’s a divine order. The end of the First Covenant appropriately is DEATH because the whole thing speaks of death. It says blood must be shed: remission of sins… redemption – blood must be shed. So the end of it is death. So Christ in The Eternal Godhead agreed to die! To do that He had to appear in the First.

How did He appear in the First? By taking on the image of it! We are in Hebrews 9:26-28, talking of these two appearings. "Hath appeared once in the end of the world…" That’s just Old Covenant. "To them that look for Him, He shall appear the second (time is not in the original. We’re not talking about "time" here, we’re talking about First and Second). And as we’ve been saying, First and Second is related to Covenant, because the writer says in Hebrews 9:1 – First Covenant. Christ appeared to bring the end of it not a perpetuation of it. So then, how did He appear? To die! How did He do that? He had to take on the image of the First because the First is the only thing that can die. So He was made under the Law. "A body thou hast prepared Me." He was born of a woman; He made Himself of no reputation. He took upon Himself the form of a servant; He was made in the likeness of man. And AS A MAN He humbled Himself, became obedient to THE CROSS, to death even the death of The Cross. He first became obedient unto death, obedient unto this death, this First Covenant, this administration of death – He became obedient to it!

When did He become obedient to the administration of death? At His baptism – that was a "demonstrated" obedience. He went down to John. The Bible says that the prophets and the Law continued unto John (Matthew 11:13). That means that John stood for the summation of the Law and the prophets. All of a sudden, for God’s purposes, all that Israel stood for is summed up in John. He’s the bridge between First and Second. See, Christ is NOT a bridge between the First and the Second: He is the Second! John is the bridge between them. That’s why in Jewish teachings Elijah must first come and set everything in order. Do you know we’ve still got people in the Church looking for Elijah to come? And Jesus Himself said John was Elijah. He told them in Matthew 11:14-15, "And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear let him hear. John set everything in order. What did John say? "Make straight, repent!" He was the bridge between the First and the Second.

Jesus came down and submitted Himself to whom? To John! John said, ‘Wait a minute, I’m not supposed to do this. You are greater than me!’ John recognized that You are the greater Covenant, You are the Great One! Jesus said, ‘Yes, but we must fulfill all righteousness. Suffer it to be so.’ Jesus had to submit Himself unto the administration of death. Why? Because He had to take it upon Himself – He had to become the fulfillment of it. And He did that in His baptism. That’s why immediately when He had done that, He came up out of the Jordan, the heavens opened and God immediately announced, ‘Yes, but THIS IS MY SON.’ Immediately when He submitted to the First, and He came up – You see the Second – The Son of God, and the glory of the Lord, and the dove upon Him. God and heaven recognized HIM!

Well that’s the order revealed out from Heaven. God did that. Phillipians 2: "First became obedient unto death"; then (second) in verse 9 "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name." That name is SON, of course. And right there in that baptism the order of that is seen. Immediately He was obedient unto death even the death of The Cross, because John’s baptism was not a "Christian" baptism. A lot of people think that John the Baptist introduced Christian baptism. No, John was down there doing ceremonial washings, Jewish washings. And Jesus submitted Himself, as a sacrifice, to Jewish washings. He for all intents and purposes, brought an end to sacrifices: when He became by submission THE SACRIFICE, the washed sacrifice – ready to be offered. That’s what Daniel talked about: in the middle of the week, because He was baptized in the middle of Daniel’s week. And in the next 3 ½ years, the final part of the week, comes right up to The Cross, and Daniel’s seventh week is fulfilled! It’s fulfilled with the oblation and the offering of all that was signified at the baptism. That’s exactly what Daniel says. So again, the First is all being brought to its end, the First is all being summed up. IT DOES NOT PROGRESS BEYOND THE CROSS!

Lev. 1:7-13

The point is, it is summed up IN CHRIST, who had to appear. He had to appear as to the First. In order to appear as to the First, He had to appear in a body that was prepared for death. This little lady one time came up and poured her ointment all over Him and anointed Him. They rebuked her, but Jesus said, you don’t know what is going on! She has just anointed Me to My death! She has anointed Me for My death – a body Thou hast prepared for Me – for My death. (Mark 14:3-9)

But do you understand the dispensationalists and the Church order of today want to see that body in the Second? They still want to see a materialistic body. They want to see one wearing a robe, wearing sandals, with a beard. But that’s the one prepared for death! That’s the one that associated with the First Covenant. That body does NOT associate with the Second Covenant. There is this transition period of 40 days where He appeared to them, but it wasn’t actually, in actuality that same body. He took on a form of that same body, but He would appear and then disappear. My point is, He was showing them there His death, His burial, and His resurrection. For 40 days it was a transitional period. It was a 40 day transitional period and then that body went out of their sight, NEVER to be seen again; because they were to be His Body; He would indwell them, indwell His Church; the Body that was not prepared for death, but rather the Body of His Fulness. You see, we want to bring that First body over into the Second Covenant and worse of all; we want it to "come again" at the end of it! That totally defies order, because if He is the end of the First, by Divine Order, He has to be the beginning of the Second.

He can’t be the end of the First and the end of the Second, and there even be a Second! If He is the END of the one, He has to be the Beginning of the other. So His appearing can not be at the end of the Second; it has to be at the beginning of it, or the Second doesn’t begin! No part of it can begin. Now, that’s just logic with regard to Biblical order, but that order is substantiated throughout the whole of the scripture. First – Second, First – Second… never third, Second. It wasn’t Cain and Abel… and Seth. No, Cain – Abel. Cain killed Abel. Seth replaced Abel (Seth is clearly a testimony of Christ and the Church [Genesis 4:25-26]). It’s still First and Second. It wasn’t Esau and Jacob and John, Bob, or Pete. No, it wasn’t Ishmael and Isaac and "thingamajig". No: First – Second, First – Second. With Israel itself: the First group died. During their death, the Second group came up. "Moses, My servant is dead. Joshua, rise up…" That term "rise up" in the Old Covenant is synonymous with "resurrection". Joshua is Moses in resurrection. "Rise up, in three days you and these people will cross over." "Three days I will raise this whole thing up, "Jesus said.

We must understand that HE ASSOCIATES WITH THE FIRST IN DEATH, AND HE ASSOCIATES WITH THE SECOND IN RESURRECTION. There, if you have to have the "two comings", are the two comings! There is the Suffering Servant, and there is the Ruling King. There is the end of the First Covenant, and there is the beginning of the Kingdom of God in reality. Here is the end of the Old Covenant Israel; here is the beginning of the New Covenant Israel, which is The Church, The True Church. Here is Christ appearing in them, and it is HIS APPEARING that makes each of them real. EXCEPT HE APPEAR, THE FIRST HAS NO END. That means it had no fulfillment. EXCEPT HE APPEAR IN THE SECOND, THE SECOND HAS NO SUBSTANCE, because HE IS the whole substance of the Second. He is the fulfillment of the First. The First was not promising a bunch of "things", but ONE would come. Oh, a bunch of things were used; some shadows and promises and prophesies, but they ALL are summed up in ONE. That’s what it means when it says, "In the administration of the fulness of time, God is gathering all things up and presenting them in One – even in Christ; both things in heaven and earth." (Ephesians 1:10) That’s what The Holy Spirit, Who is that administrator of the fulness of time does. He gathers everything up and presents it fulfilled in Christ! That’s what the Second Covenant, the Second understanding is. The Second understanding given of God is that EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID IN THE FIRST IS FULFILLED IN MY SON. That’s the understanding given of God. CHRIST IS THE SECOND COVENANT.

But the Second Covenant is not written on a page; it’s revealed in you and until The Father reveals His Son in you, you may know ABOUT Second Covenant, but you don’t know THE Second Covenant. You can "read" the First one, but you can’t "read" the Second one. You can "read" about it, but you can’t read it. Even the things that Paul wrote, he wrote having seen it, yet he still wrote about it. So he said, ‘I’m just praying that the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened and that God would give to you the Spirit of Wisdom and Knowledge in the revelation of His Son’, because GOD ALONE reveals that Covenant, which is Christ. Jesus says to Peter, ‘Well Peter, I’m telling you flesh and blood can’t do this. Only my Father can reveal this.’(Matt. 16:17) So you can read the First Covenant, and that’s why I’m telling you the books of the New Testament are NOT the Second Covenant. They come out FROM IT, the are written by men who understood it; and the purpose of those letters was that others would come to know Him, and in Him find an understanding given of God with regard to His relationship with a people. THE ONLY WAY WE CAN UNDERSTAND GOD’S RELATIONSHIP WITH US IS IN THE SON, because THE SON is that relationship! It is "no man comes but by me." (John 14:6) "In that day you will understand I am in my Father, you are in Me, and I am in you." (John 14:20) That’s the Second Covenant understanding and that comes through Christ appearing. He appears to take one away; He appears to establish the other. In the First He appeared in flesh; in the Second this SAME JESUS is revealed in Spirit! The Second is greater than the First. The Second IS Christ in you!

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.

Now in Hebrews 10:7-9 we have mentioned "He taketh away." How does He do that? Well, He APPEARED once in the end of the world. And that word "world" is "age", and that’s the only world the Bible ever talks about coming to an end. It’s amazing to me that we still have so many preaching "one day when the world comes to an end." That world ended with the appearing of Christ once and for all! THAT WORLD ENDED AT THE CROSS!

I was getting a haircut during the millennium change and everyone was looking for Christ to appear. Well, He’ll appear if you look in the right place for Him! You need to look where He is and if you look where He is, the promise is: when you look – He’ll appear! (Heb. 9:28) So the barber asked me, since she knew I was a "preacher", what I thought about this, and if I thought the world was about to come to an end. I said, "If you want to be strictly biblical, "the world" as described in the Bible ended 2,000 years ago!" Well, nobody spoke and all was quiet. Nobody asked any more questions. She finished cutting my hair, I paid her, I left, and it was silent! At least until I got out of there. But that’s true! The "world" is "age" (aion = a period of time, age). Now we’ve been talking about the order of His appearing, and the order is: The First shall be Last and the Last shall be First. Now that’s the order of the Kingdom of God. Why? Because the First became Last, and the Last became First and that happened in Christ. It won’t work any other way with you and me. Until the First in us is Last, the Last can never be First. In other words, you always come to YOUR END before you come to THE BEGINNING. Christ became first, THE END; then, THE BEGINNING. You can’t find The Beginning until you face the End.

You and I don’t want to do that. See, the Jews did not want to do that. In fact, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:13, "the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished". They wouldn’t look to the end, because CHRIST WAS THE END OF IT. But He is the end of that which is abolished. He’s the beginning of that which is Eternal, but we won’t look steadfastly to the end. The modern "Christian" religion wants you to believe that you come First to the beginning and that the end has not yet come (one might ask "end of what") so we want to jump over here into the beginning and never face the end. That is a Divine impossibility! You can’t do that. That’s why I can look at a dispensationalist and can say you can’t have two ends. It’s a Divine impossibility. You can’t have Him coming at the end of two ages, because how did this Second one get started? It’s not a carryover of the First. He is distinctly the end, and then He’s exclusively the beginning. That beginning has NO END: no linear end, no time end. The First one did. "At the fulness of the time…" (Gal. 4:4, Eph. 1:10) Time only involves the First Covenant. Time has nothing to do with the Second Covenant. Weeks, days, months, years: First Covenant. They all have spiritual significance, but that all ends AT THE CROSS. "When the fulness of time came…God sent forth His Son…" And it ends there.

Now "TAKE AWAY". In all the Bible dictionaries I’ve checked this in; here is what the word "take away" means. He taketh away. It means to abolish, to REMOVE VIOLENTLY, put to death, slay, kill, murder with violence. (anaireo (an-ahee-reh'-o); Strongs #337) It doesn’t sound like the old just got tired and crept off somewhere. Now historically the "old" as being the whole of the First Covenant, He put it to death violently. The violence of His death; the violence of The Cross, the violence He suffered – not only without, but within. The violence of a soul that was God, being separated from God. That’s the violence, because it is the realm of the death, hell wherein His soul went. "Ye shall not leave my soul in hell." That wasn’t "pretend" time with Jesus. The violence that was required! We think that we are just going to lay it aside and escape that violent end to it in ourselves? Not on your life! No, you’re not going to do that. You can try if you want to, but you’re not going to give it a sleeping pill, you’re not going to give it an injection: no you’re not! No, it ends with VIOLENCE! In us it ends with violence. That’s the reason we don’t want to look to that end.

We just say, ‘well, I’ll just get better. I’ll just improve with years.’ But the Old Covenant did not get better with years, nor did it just get old and die. It required HIS APPEARING, ONCE in the END hath HE APPEARED. When He appears in you, and we are not talking about two Jesuses here, but we are talking about His appearing as to the First and as to the Second. When He’s revealed in you; you always see Him in His appearing as to the First – first. Always you do, always He is your end before you can ever see THE BEGINNING. The problem is that some Christians all of their lives struggle with the end and never really are released to a beginning – a new beginning, a Newness of Life. They’re always in a battle with the old: the old concept, the Old Covenant. CHRIST IS THE END OF IT! See, He didn’t just simply bring it to an end historically: He Himself is the end of it. Every time you see Him, you see THE END of it. Every time He appears, He appears as what He is – the END of the one and the BEGINNING of the other. Yet, Divine order of The Spirit says He is first – END; second – BEGINNING. So that’s the way you know HIM. That’s the way you see Him. In fact, until the First is done away, the Second cannot be established. The scriptures are clear about that in Hebrews 9 and 10.

So it’s not just a Divine Order: it’s a Divine necessity. God will not bring in one understanding upon another. The Second is not the First improved. It is the First done away with violence, because the Second is so absolutely superior to and altogether other than the First, it requires the doing away with the First and then the Second is established; although the First is a testimony of it. Else we hold to the Testimony and reject the Living Witness; the one has to be done away. The sentence is death. He suffered it in Himself, because He is the END and He is that END ETERNALLY. HE is the BEGINNING and He is that ETERNALLY. He is ETERNALLY dead to sin and alive unto God; and He is in the believer.

So the appearing that the Bible teaches is as to the First and as to the Second. Historically and theologically He has already accomplished that. He has appeared as the end of the First, He HAS appeared as the beginning of the Second, or there wouldn’t be a Second. Now as to you and me, in our own hearts, that’s the way He must appear IN US, because that’s the way He DID appear. That’s the way He must appear when we come to know Him. You see, because over the years there are believers being brought into this reality. Thank God there are more believers than there were just in the first century, but we come in that very reality. So God shows us His Son to END IN US a whole First order of humanity, a whole First order of the thing, that He might begin to ESTABLISH IN US the reality of His Son, the reality of what Life really is: CHRIST LIVING IN ME! I thought it was ME living, but the Second Covenant says, No, it is Christ, I am dead; that which I thought was life is dead. Having seen that and reckoning that to be so, I can now look to another for Life. I can look to the Second. Something happens in me that I can accept another as being my Life. But you can never accept that other until you see the first dead. You can’t be released. We try all these ways, but it doesn’t work.

That is Christ in His appearing. That is the order of His Appearing: First as THE END, Second as THE BEGINNING. See, those things are NOT separated by thousands of years. It’s a THREE DAY deal! All the prophecies of the First Covenant revolve around three days in some order or another. Israel had seven feasts, but they were called three feasts. Those three feasts were called three days, because they were called Sabbath days. (Levitucus 23) It’s just amazing! Then Jesus says, "Three days". Do you think He just dreamed that up? And in Joshua – three days. Why not four, why not five, why not two? Divine order says three days. "Three times a year Israel shall come before Me." Why not six? No, three; because it is representative. Jesus says, "Tear this temple down and in THREE DAYS I will raise it up again." Those are the days of His death, His burial, and His resurrection. IT’S THE CROSS! That’s the only separation between the First and the Second. It’s just ONE WORK OF GOD IN HIS SON, Christ crucified. There’s no other teachings in the Bible, particularly in the First Covenant other than that. Suffering Servant and Ruling King: He is one in death, He is the other in resurrection.

The modern day Christian and dispensationalists are more ignorant than the Old Covenant Jews were. They are! The Old Covenant Jews said we might accept Him as Reigning King, but we aren’t accepting Him as Suffering Servant. So here come the Christians now; the theology of today, and say we’re going to accept Him as Suffering Servant, but He’s NOT YET Ruling King. It’s foolish! And you want people to accept THIS as Salvation; particularly people who know anything about the Old Covenant? You want Jews to come flocking to Jesus. If you could show them that The Ruling King was also The Suffering Servant they would receive Him. That’s what the disciples did. They said The One you killed is The One Who lives, and we live by Him, and He’s in us, and we present Him to you – both The Suffering Servant and The Ruling King! The ones, who did receive it, received Him! We come along as "Christian religion" and say all you Jews are wrong. You need to come and accept Jesus. He’s the True Suffering Servant. Well, where’s the KING? Oh, He hasn’t come yet. He’s going to come along "one day".

And if I was a Jew I’d say, well, I tell you what, when He gets here, come and talk to me about it then. He’s the One I want to see. But if you can say, Look, He’s the Same One! The One you killed, that I killed; we all killed Him, is the One Who lives! His Kingdom is FOREVER! Well now, the mystery is solved! THE CROSS! The hidden wisdom of God. That’s what Paul called it (1Cor. 1&2). He said this whole business of The Cross to the Jew is a stumbling block, and to the Greeks it is foolishness, but to we that are saved it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We understand HERE is the very wisdom of God; we understand here is the mystery of The Suffering Servant and The Ruling King brought together in One – death, burial, resurrection. There we are! There’s His appearing, and He’s ever appearing in the Second because He’s the SUBSTANCE of it. For God’s sake – HE IS THE SECOND! So how does He establish the Second? In His own appearing, in His glory. There are three terms that apply to His Appearing: REVEALED, COMING, and APPEARING. Christ revealed, Christ coming, Christ appearing. They are all synonymous as to substance. They are only different as to effect. These are important as we consider the TIME AND ORDER OF HIS APPEARING.