Just to start out with a scriptural focus, we are in Hebrews 9 and 10. In my opinion, one of the most significant statements of the whole Bible is in Hebrews 10:7-10. It is summed up in verse 9. "Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second." This statement brings over an Old Testament prophecy (Psalms 40:5-11 [v7]) into a New Covenant fulfillment. It sums up the whole doctrine of "The coming of The Lord." Any time I open my Bible and share with others I realize that I am opening myself up for rebuttal, and I always take very seriously and think through very carefully what I say. I have no problem with people disagreeing. What I do have a problem with is if any one could FROM THE SCRIPTURE refute what I say, and prove it to be wrong. See, when Jesus spoke during the three and one half years of His confirming the Covenant, very few, if any of the hierarchy of the theologians of the day received what He said, but NONE of them could refute Him. None of them could prove Him wrong. They could accuse Him and blaspheme Him, but when they actually faced Him in the scriptures, they were the ones who finally were brought to nothing and just had to be quiet.

So when I make this statement, it’s a considered statement: that here is one of the most significant statements made in the Bible, because it does bring so much of Old Covenant comprehension, understanding to its fulfillment: IN CHRIST. That’s really what the whole book of Hebrews is about. It’s about showing the Old Covenant to have been fulfilled in the PERSON OF CHRIST. That’s what the writer of Hebrews painstakingly sets out to do. Unfortunately, most believers never get the message of the first two verses of this letter! It is very unfortunate that they don’t because of the importance of this letter. So now we’re just going to deal with some of that fulfillment – coming from the First order of the things, the First Covenant; to the Second – IN CHRIST. But the reality with which we will deal is NOT that we in Christianity are just coming from the First to the Second, as though the Second is just another First. But rather, we are coming from the First to THE PERSON IN WHOM THE FIRST IS FULFILLED, the Person who constitutes the very substance of the Second. Now that’s an important thing.

Most of the "Church world" has little or no comprehension in the first place of what the First Covenant and Second Covenant is. In the second place, they have a very small comprehension of moving from one to the other and how that is done, how that is done in our hearts, and how that is established. How it WAS done and how it IS done. Thirdly, most of the Church world, and I think this is the most detrimental, seems to believe that the Second Covenant is just another Covenant other than the First, but very much along the same lines of the First. For instance, most Christians say, ‘Oh, Old Testament – New Testament.’ They say the Old Testament is the Old Covenant, and the New Testament is the New Covenant. The Old Covenant can be read; the New Covenant must be REVEALED. The Old Covenant was written in stone, and on parchment; it was spoken by the mouth of prophets, angels, and messengers, but the New Covenant is revealed in the Person of The Son. That is the first sentence in the book of Hebrews! And it is tremendously disturbing to me that not a handful of the religious world comprehends that first sentence of this letter.

Hebrews 1:1, "God who at sundry times and in divers manners…" Which means this way and that way, and this time and that time. "…spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets…" We should put a big circle around ‘IN TIME PAST’, because we’re going to be talking about "times" now. TIME PAST – just relate that to the First order. "…hath in these last days…" Now that’s a poor translation. The better translation, the Interlinear translation of the Greek would read: "hath AT THE END of those days…’ And it’s those days that we are talking about. See, too many preachers want to see "time past" and "last days" and they want to stretch those last days until now. They want to preach their "last days" sermons, but there’s no ground for that in the scripture. "Hath at the end of THOSE days…" Those are the days being talked about here. He is comparing "those days" to the reality of Christ, he is comparing the First Covenant to the Second and I don’t care where you go in the Bible, you are going to find that comparison.

Now we have defined "First" and "Second". First and Second is the Divine Order of God. Your Bible is divided into First and Second. I can’t emphasize too much – there is no third! A Third order is a perversion. Clear and simple: it is perversion. It is an order created of man. It only exists as an illusion. It is neither natural nor spiritual. Some bad things can be said about this "third order". It effects many areas of our lives. I face the "third order" concept mostly in dealing with Christians concerning a futuristic view of things. It’s as if we have the Old Covenant, then we have the New Covenant, and then we’ve got a Covenant "yet to come". That’s a "third order" of things. It’s an illusion, a deception, and a perversion. We can see from the scripture, and from reason and from spiritual sequences of the scripture that the Bible sets forth First and Second. The Bible also says the First is NOT spiritual; the Second is spiritual. The Bible relates man to both of these orders – Old Man, New Man; First Man, Second Man. The Bible relates tabernacle, priesthood, creation, heaven and earth, and divides them by Covenant. You have a New and Old, First Order and Second Order. Right on through there is that division in the Bible of the First and the Second. And all of those things are summed up in the First Covenant and a Second Covenant, because all of those things are part of one or the other Covenant.

In the First we have First Covenant Man, First Covenant Priest, First Covenant Tabernacle, First Covenant Mankind, First Covenant heaven and earth. Those things all bear the image of the First. They are temporal; they are a testimony but not the substance of the witness itself. They are a type and a shadow. They are predictive, they are a prophecy, a promise – all of that. They are how God first communicated Himself to man. That brings us back to Hebrews 1:1. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners…" communicated in this way. In different ways, different times, He communicated to our fathers. TIME PAST – remember that? Here we have a definition of "time past" in the scripture. You and I can’t say we are sitting here and its Sunday morning, so Friday is time past. No, "time past" is not speaking of "day before" or yesterday. It’s speaking of an AGE; it has to be brought into scriptural context. "Time past" is First Covenant. It’s very clear everywhere "time" is mentioned, that is referring to a definite period of time, a definite age. You’ll see it is referring to the First Covenant way and means, First Covenant understanding that was given of God concerning Himself and His intention in relation to man.

So he did that, but at THE END OF THOSE DAYS… And here we find the END of those days. Christ is the end and Christ must first be an END before He can be a beginning. There’s no way you can just kind of slide past the end! But we all want to do that. In our nature, whether we understand it or not, we want an improved First Covenant. If you want to relate First Covenant to man – then we want an "improved" man, we want an improved self. We do not want to face the end of ourselves! We do not want to do that and neither did Old Covenant Israel. Except we are brought up to tremendous crisis, we won’t do it. You see this in the Apostle Paul and others: tremendous crisis in their lives; whether the crisis was brought about by Divine intervention or however it’s brought about. It’s a crisis: it’s like somebody walks up and slaps them in the face and says, Wake up! Crisis.

You see this throughout the Old Covenant: the type and shadow of it. It’s always that way because we don’t want to face the end.

One of the most defining scriptures concerning Israel is in 2 Corinthians 3:13. That says, "And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look TO THE END of that which is abolished." The children of Israel could not look to the END; steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. How many of us understand that the Glory of God is the end of that which is abolished? No, we don’t think that. We never associate the Glory of God with THE CROSS. We never associate the Glory of God with the First Order coming to an end. What couldn’t they look at? They could not look at the reflection of God’s Glory on the face of Moses. That’s why they put a veil over him. Paul is saying, we are not going to do that! Paul says we are not going to veil the Glory of God. We’re not going to put a rag over the face of Jesus. We are going to openly declare Him as being THE GLORY OF GOD THAT IS COME. The Glory of God that Israel is looking for; the Glory they hoped for (Col.1:27). We are going to declare Him as being the end of the Law, the end of the First, the end of the First Man, the end of the First Israel. We are going to declare Him as being the only beginning of the New Creation of God – Firstborn from among the dead, only begotten. We are not going to veil this reality as Moses did.

That’s what he is saying here, because Moses put the veil on and it was just a REFLECTION of the Glory. It wasn’t the TRUE Glory, but they couldn’t look at that. Here we find the mystery of that revealed. Paul says, well, here’s why: "They could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished." He goes on to tell us here it’s the First Covenant, the First Administration, the Administration of Death. The First Covenant is being abolished. 2 Corinthians 3:7-10 says, "But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had NO GLORY in this respect, by reason of the GLORY THAT EXCELLETH."

So, we must understand that the Glory of the Second is THE END of the Glory of the First. It isn’t that the First just gets glorious and becomes more glorious. No, it’s that the Glory of the Second makes the Glory of the First NO GLORY AT ALL! It’s like we see in Hebrews 10, "He taketh away the First…" He doesn’t just extend its Glory. The First Covenant mentality is "One is Coming"; that’s what Glory says. What was "Glory" to Israel? That’s what filled the temple; it’s what represented God, it’s what represented God in their midst. It was a type and a shadow, but it represented God. It was the Glory of the First Covenant. It was a Glory of Moses, it was a Glory of the administration of death. And it WAS glorious! But it was so far excelled by the Glory of which it itself spoke, that by comparison, it was NOT Glory at all! The glory, of which it spoke – once that Glory came, was the end of the First Glory by reason of EXTREME excellence. Paul and all the New Testament writers are saying CHRIST IS THE GLORY THAT WAS TO COME! Because the Glory was always typed in the Old Covenant as an individual, as a man. Ezekiel saw the MAN. He saw Him in the heavens, saw Him upon the Throne. That’s in Ezekiel 1 and he concludes that in chapters 40 -44, and he talks about ‘I saw HIM; the Glory of God entered into the temple and filled it.’ It makes it to be A MAN, A PERSON. Paul is saying – THAT PERSON IS COME! THAT GLORY IS COME! Isaiah saw that same Glory, that same Person sitting upon His Throne (Isaiah 6:1-3)

Now, this will help you to understand Who is and Who is not. We don’t want to run around making judgmental decisions. Listen, I don’t have to judge any of you, or be judgmental. THE CROSS MADE THE JUDGMENT! Now you either obey it or you don’t (John 5:27-29). How could I add to the judgment of The Cross? I myself am judged there! But we’ve got this idea today that there isn’t any judgment. Forget that!! The only reason I don’t judge you is that I know you are already judged and you’re judged more than I could ever judge you and I’m judged more that you could ever judge me. I’m judged more than you could ever judge me. I’m judged UNTO DEATH. You are too! Now, whether we’re obeying that judgment or not; whether we are in violation of judgment is another matter. That’s the reason I don’t judge. Now, we are to become a judgment in the earth! That means we are to live in such a fashion that in the earth we set forth the judgment by which we ourselves have been judged. That judgment is: "I have no life but Christ"; "I am no body, but the Body of Christ". So we are become a judgment in the earth and when we enter into a situation, we enter in there as a judgment, that none liveth here, but Christ! We don’t go there to "make judgments": we are a judgment. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any judgment – JUDGMENT IS COME – WITH THE CROSS. The judgment is come in the Person of One.

So we are either going to walk after it or not. I tell many people that here’s what it comes down to: you will either OBEY in your heart, or you won’t. There is not one thing or another I can do about it. I can stand with you, I can encourage you; but who could obey for me? Who could obey for you? Who can do that? It’s a matter of obedience. Why? The One to come CAME in divine obedience! "Obedient unto death, even the death of the The Cross." Now there is no other judgment that God accepts but that judgment working in me, that judgment working in you. There isn’t any other judgment. That judgment works in us the nature of the Lamb. The Lamb is the judgment of all things. If you think God accepts my nature: YOU ARE WRONG! Do you know what God said to "my nature"? THE CROSS! Do you know what God said to "my condition" at its best? THE CROSS!

You hear it on the radio and the television and on bumper stickers all the time: The Lord accepts you just as you are. Where in the name of God did that ever come from? If that were so why the Cross? No, He knew man as we were: He knows man. He would not commit Himself to man because He knew the heart of man. He knows man; He made HIMSELF of no reputation, of low estate, just so He could take on the form of man and go to The Cross as him! So why should I start judging among ourselves? None of us are worth a plug nickel in that realm; in that First Order of things. Every one of us are reckoned dead in Christ. That’s how He accepts us! Because the only Spirit, the only nature, the only character He can accept is that of HIS SON! That’s what the Second is! It’s not you and I trying to be better or trying to be worse. It’s you and I coming to realize, by the judgment of The Cross, I have no life here. Where? In the Second! If you want to associate with the Second, just admit it! "I have no life here!" There’s one place where I have no life, IN CHRIST. THAT’S THE SECOND! In Christ it is "Not I", but Christ who liveth in me. That’s the Second!

That’s the Second Order, that’s the Spiritual Order. Everything else is the First. If it is not the Second, then it is the First. That ought to be so clear that a baby could understand it because there aren’t any gray areas between the two; there isn’t any third. There’s First and Second. The whole plan of God is to bring us from the one to the other, and He does it through The Cross. He does not see us in the Second getting us ready for the third, because there isn’t a third! First Covenant mentality says, "He’s coming – One to come"; The Glory, The Glory! Paul says we’re going to declare to you plainly: THE GLORY HAS COME!

You read that in 2 Corinthians 3: The Glory has come! We are declaring it to you plainly, not as Moses who put a veil so that Israel could not look stedfastly to the end. And notice it says "the end" and not "the beginning". You will never see the beginning; you’ll never know the beginning until you face the end. That is the order of His appearing. That’s what we’re talking about: The Time and Order of His appearing and the order is FIRST THE END and then THE BEGINNING. We can clearly see that in the type in the Tabernacle. Now, I am not smart, but on the basis of this I will sit with any so called Bible scholars, any theologian who will reason in the scripture with me concerning First and Second. There simply is no other order in the Word of God: it does not exist! I have spent years trying to find any other order and the result is that I have been convinced and reinforced concerning First and Second more than ever before. You have to associate everything with that order: First and Second: First Man, Second Man: First Creation, Second Creation. You can call it "old" and "new" if you want because the Bible related old and new to it, but it is actually First and Second. The Hebrew writer makes that very, very clear.

First and Second Glory. I have said that everything of the First finds its summation in the Cross and its fulfillment in the Second, but I’ve also said that the Second is a PERSON and not just another form of the First. In other words, I mean we do not have prophecies in the First and then just better promises in the Second. The Second IS the better promise! The Second is the fulfillment of the First. The promise of the First given to the Seed. CHRIST IS THE SEED! Paul says that in Galatians: "Unto Abraham and his seed were the promises made. Not to seeds, as of many, but as of one. And unto thy Seed, which IS CHRIST." Then he goes on to say, Now if you be Christ’s (possessively, summed up in Him) then the promises are fulfilled in you NOW!

Yes, because look in 1 Corinthians 1:17, "When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay nay?" In other words, an unstableness of mind – yes and no. "But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea." And today that’s all I hear from preachers – yea and nay. ‘Well, some of them are fulfilled, but some of them are not. Well, He’s come, but then He’s not. Well, it may be, but I don’t know for sure. Well, you just have to wait until you get to "glory land" for that. I mean, we’ll understand it "by and by"’. That’s yea and nay and you just want to say: Hey, which is it – yes or no? This order here is just what the Jews were asking. The Apostles had the tremendous task of showing to the Jews of their day, and obviously the message got across to a few of them, because that is what constituted the first Church. Their task was to show that IN HIM it’s all YEA. Every one of your prophets are fulfilled IN HIM; everything they ever said is fulfilled IN HIM. It isn’t coming; it’s IN HIM NOW! That’s the only place you’ll ever realize it in its true significance. Every type and shadow that you have in the Tabernacle, every promise, and every prophet has been answered IN HIM! He has provided IN HIMSELF that answer, that reality, that relationship that your Tabernacle and all of its facets spoke of. IT’S IN HIM! All the promises of God – all of them: the Law, the prophets, the psalms; all the promises of God. 1 Corinthians 1:20, "For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us."

I have no idea how people can read that and then come out with some dumb statement that that this means He’ll "keep the promise." No it doesn’t! It means the promises are FULFILLED IN HIM! It means that everything that God said to Abraham had its fulfillment in Christ. It means that everything that God said to Moses had its fulfillment in Christ: with regard to the land, with regard to possession, with regard to inheritance: EVERYTHING! It means everything the psalmists said: because everything that David said was in relation to Israel’s relationship with God. All the promises were related to Israel and their relationship to God. Paul says, here it is: you will find it in HIM. It doesn’t go beyond Him. There’s not a city waiting for you around the corner. Here, come to realize it IN HIM. And then live as the city, live in that relationship. You are the Jerusalem of God! Unto you are the promises made. They are IN HIM. We did not tell you yes and no: we declare… then Paul goes on declaring Christ in this letter. Then he says we use great plainness of speech. Not as Moses put a veil over his face. We’re not going to hide this from you. We are going to clearly set forth before you the end and the beginning. When the First is ended, only ONE remains: The One of Whom the First spoke. And in Him you’re going to have to find everything of Spiritual Life.

That’s what he’s declaring, and here he’s using that as to the Glory, and he goes on. 2 Corinthians 3:13-14, "And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ." What is the veil? Let’s look at that veil historically in the Tabernacle. The veil was what separated the First and the Second sanctuaries. (See Hebrews 9:1-8) Hebrews 9 says there was one Tabernacle, but inside was represented two tabernacles: the First one and the Second. And we read that the Priest went into the First one daily, but into the Second one only the High Priest went one time a year, and only then by the blood, for his own sins and for the sins of others could he do that. He couldn’t remain there; he could just go in there. Verse 8 says the Holy Spirit was saying something. The Holy Spirit was saying that while the whole First Order of things remain, while this First Tabernacle remains, the way into the Second is not made manifest. He’s getting them ready for what he will say in the next chapter. Therefore when He comes, He taketh away the First; that He may establish the Second. So when the First is gone, only the Second remains.

Now that was a testimony that was established in the First Tabernacle itself, because in the First Tabernacle it was a testimony of these two Covenants – the First and the Second. The lamp stand had a glory, but it burned out! It had to be relit. But the Ark of the Covenant had a glory and that was the Glory of God! That was a type and a shadow. Yes, and Christ overshadowed the whole thing, but my point is that the testimony of the Second was in that First Tabernacle but it was separated by a veil. So we have in that First Tabernacle the old heaven and the old earth. The old earth is that First sanctuary; the old heaven, which was a type of heaven, is that Second one. Old heaven and old earth – separated by a veil. This was signifying that as long as this Tabernacle that has the two divided sections in it remains, these two sections are going to remain DIVIDED. Because in that First one, there is this First and Second, but it’s divided. You can’t freely go from one to the other. Only the High Priest could do that. So as long as you have the First Tabernacle, which represents the First Covenant, the First Order, you are going to have heaven and earth SEPARATED and that is the concept of old heaven and old earth.

He’s about to introduce them to a NEW heaven and a NEW earth where they are NOT separated – they are fulfilled IN CHRIST! Where Christ is joined to His Body, where the Body is joined to Christ, where heaven and earth are one – IN HIM, in Newness of Life. A NEW heaven and a NEW earth. So he makes the point that Christ is entered into heaven itself, not the type (Heb. 9:24). But what is the veil? The scripture uses the term, "the vail of his flesh". THE VEIL IS HUMANITY ITSELF. If you want to call it your flesh, okay: it’s humanity itself because what did Christ take out of the way at The Cross? Ephesians 2:14-18: what did He take away? He took away the Jew and the Gentile – in the body of His Cross, bringing forth One New Man who is at peace with God. So the veil that He took out of the way is humanity itself. When He died upon The Cross, what part of the Tabernacle was immediately affected? The veil was rent! Now the whole Tabernacle was going to be torn down… that was predicted by Christ. But with The Cross, that partition, that dividing was done away.

That’s exactly what he says: "Which vail is done away IN CHRIST." In the New Testament, in Christ, there isn’t anything dividing heaven from earth! The two have become one! That goes back to the prayer of Jesus when he said: Here’s the way you really ought to pray. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Where? In earth, as it is in heaven. What’s He talking about? The two coming together! The one ruling upon the other. Dispensationalists can’t see that as being IN CHRIST, so they have to devise a false "Third Image Kingdom" yet to come and they must always keep it in the future. They have to because it’s an illusion in the first place! The reality of it is NOW IN CHRIST! You are either going to walk in obedience to the reality or you are not. Because some big thunderbolt is not going to fall out of heaven, hit you between the eyes and make you do anything. The thunderbolt has already come! It has come AT THE CROSS! The veil is already done away! Now we either obey and find ourselves walking in the Second, living in the reality of being in Christ now or we don’t.

Here’s the point: if you are not walking in the reality of the Second, then you are not somewhere in "no-man’s land", because the veil IS done away in Christ. That NOW has to be a work of The Spirit in our hearts. Look at this: 2 Corinthians 3:15, "But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." When IT… what? THE HEART! That’s what happened to many Jews of that day, and that’s what must happen to each of us. See, today people think that "accepting Christ" is the same as accepting Christianity. It’s not, but they think it is. They go to their so-called "churches" and sit on their pews; and they are a Christian. They have accepted the teachings of Christianity, they have accepted the religion. In their heart they have said, Yes, Jesus is Who He said He was…blah, blah, blah… The whole question is: have you ever come to the judgment of The Cross? The whole question is: have you really been "born again"? The question is not whether you’ve finally agreed with Christianity and become a "Christian". That’s not the question… it won’t even work that way!

Yes I’m afraid today that many who call themselves Christians come just that way. And when you start talking to them about The Cross, it’s an alien thing to them. If you start talking to them about the veil, it’s an alien thing to them. I’m not saying that it’s alien just because they are untaught in the scriptures. It’s alien in nature, in character, because they’ve been allowed to come in under the concept that Christianity is just a much improved First Order. It’s as if they think that the Second Covenant is a sequel to the First. It isn’t, it’s an altogether "other" book and it isn’t a sequel at all. That’s what Paul is trying to say. He’s saying, Look, it’s not just a greater glory: it’s so great, it makes the other as no glory at all and brings it to its end. 2 Corinthians 3:16, "Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." What shall be taken away? Because it’s done away in Christ, so when you turn to see Him, you don’t see a veil.

There is no veil in Him. You are at liberty to grow into Him into His Fulness (Eph. 4:13). The Second Covenant is realized: the Glory of God is in me! CHRIST IS IN ME! I AM IN HIM! The veil is done away! I HAVE NO LIFE BUT CHRIST! The veil is gone! What is the veil? Humanity: the Jew, the Gentile and you realize it is not I: it is Christ Who liveth in me and I live by Him – NOT as a Jew, NOT as a Gentile; as a New Man, a New Creation, a New Tabernacle of God, as a New heaven and a New earth. He – The Heaven, has come into His earth and made His earth One with Himself! That is according to the promises given to Abraham.

For us it is a matter of the obedience of our heart, for you can obey or not. It’s just a shame that Christianity has become just an improved First Order of things – Looking for Jesus to come "one day". I’m telling you: here’s the mentality: one says "He’s coming" and the other says "HE IS COME!" Not, "He is coming" – HE IS COME! The Second Order mentality is: CHRIST IS COME! CHRIST IS MY LIFE! I am in Him, He is in me, we are in Him, and He is in His Body – HE IS COME! But only The Spirit of God can reveal that and that’s what the scriptures go on and say. Dispensationalists mistake that for some kind of future event; when it is actually just declaring that this is a WORK OF THE SPIRIT. Christ being revealed – Christ coming – Christ appearing – it’s a work of The Spirit! Where is He always coming? Where is He always appearing? It’s always in His Heaven; it’s always coming into His earth. Don’t we understand that there is a NEW Heaven and a NEW earth? That there is a NEW Creation? That we have actually come from the one to the other by THE CROSS.

There is this idea that the "natural" creation has something to do with this. IT DOES NOT! People think that the natural creation is synonymous with the old heaven and the old earth. The old heaven and the old earth is an administrative order: the administration of death, the Law, the First Covenant – an administrative order: old heaven, old earth. It is seen in the Tabernacle – First and Second. First is old, Second is new. It is seen there, an administrative order, but it’s the ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT. We have come from the one to the other. We have too, but you see, 2,000 years ago when this was being written, they had literally come from the "literal" First. They were Jews! They weren’t Gentiles; they were Jews. So this really was meaningful to them, more so than it is to most believers today because most believers today haven’t been taught enough to know what is going on. But these people actually came from the administration of the Law to the administration of The Spirit. They had never walked that way their entire lives, and nobody else had either, but my point is: they had walked under the Law. The possibility is that the day before they were offering sacrifices at the Temple gate!

Now, because of the witness of The Spirit and the Word of the Apostles, they received Christ as that sacrifice: as THE END of that whole order of things; not only in the natural, but in their hearts. These are the ones he is writing to at this particular time. Certainly it is to you and me, but it was written to this kind of a people, this kind of mentality. I think that Christians today fail to realize that; they don’t appreciate it and here is the mistake they make because of that. So, 2 Corinthians 3:16, "Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that spirit…" So he clearly says that the administration of this thing is The Lord. "…the Lord is that spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." That is, you are not bound to the Old Covenant Law. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass…" Open face means an unveiled face. The veil is taken off of our face. Now chapter 4 in verse 6 says, "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."

Now back to 2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all with open face…" The face is not veiled. The veil is taken off of our face when we are face to face with the glory of God. Moses couldn’t do that. The old administration couldn’t do that. That’s what the New administration is about. We do have approach to The Spirit: HE IS IN US! We can know Him: HE IS OUR LIFE! We can behold him face to face: the soul and The Spirit comes face to face; the veil is done away! This is the work of the Spirit- yes it goes on to say that, "…beholding as in a glass…" The Revised Standard Version reads in Ezekiel 1:1, "In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." This word "vision" is "marah" the mirror of God. The true vision or mirror of God is not a reflection of Himself, but the manifest view of Himself; God showing Himself. So it is in 2 Corinthians 3:18. It is God revealing Himself in His Son. We see this clearly in 2 Corinthians 4:6.

He has used this same analogy in chapter 13 of First Corinthians where he says until "the perfect" has come it is like looking through a glass darkly. He uses that as coming from a child to a man. He’s back on that same reference, but here he’s looking into this glass, but it’s not in the darkness of the Old Covenant or in parts. No, no, but "the glory of the Lord, and are changed into that same image, from glory to glory." Now here’s what people think who don’t understand the scriptures. They think that there is an ever changing glory: that we are being changed from glory, to glory, to glory. No! There are just TWO glories. We are brought here from the glory of the old, to the glory of the New. There’s two glories being talked about here. That’s why we read these verses: the glory of the one, the glory of the other. And so IN THE FACE OF JESUS we come from the glory to glory: we come from the glory of the First to the Glory of the Second. The original says, "And this is the WORK OF THE SPIRIT." This says, "even as by the Spirit of The Lord." The work of The Spirit in you is to bring you from the one to the other in the face of Jesus Christ. So I say again: First Covenant mentality is, ‘Well, He’s coming.’ But the Second Covenant mentality is ‘HE IS COME’, because until you see HIM you do not know the Second Covenant.

That’s where we were in Hebrews 1. "Hath at the end of those days, spoken IN SON." Everything that He has said in types and shadows, divers time, different ways, He has summed up, perfected and spoken IN SON. So now the writer of Hebrews is saying there’s no need for us to talk about those things – just THE SON! So we don’t preach heaven and earth – we preach HIM! We don’t need to preach Tabernacle – JUST HIM! But people continue today and go back in the Old Covenant writings, which are the promises and prophecies of God and they preach these things as things, that "one day" is either going to happen or materialize. They just ignore the fact that all of these things were speaking of HIM in His relationship with a people and that it is IN HIM that we find these things.

Look at Ephesians 1. It’s amazing that Paul says the same thing in every letter. That’s the reason we can go from letter to letter and tie it all together. Ephesians 1:9-10, "Having make know unto us the mystery of his will…" Well, the mystery of His will is the New Covenant. And the mystery says that He’s coming, but it pictures Him as a Suffering Servant and a Ruling King. The mystery was – How can He be both? And it was such a mystery that the Jews couldn’t understand it. When Jesus set it before them and said, ‘I must die’, then they said, ‘You are not our Messiah!’ Because they missed the mystery. The mystery was that ‘Except I die, you can not live in My Kingdom. I don’t have to die for Me to be a King, but except I die, you can’t come from the one to the other.’ He came to do the whole thing for those who rejected Him. They wanted Him as a ruling King, but he said, ‘See, I can’t set up a Kingdom among you. I didn’t come to set one up. My kingdom is not of this earth; it’s from above. I didn’t come to build you another kingdom like Solomon did that will come to an end, but to bring you into an Eternal Kingdom to which there is no end. This is The Covenant; this is The Kingdom of which all your prophets spoke: an Eternal, Everlasting One.’

The mystery of it is – you must die to enter. And it’s THE DEATH OF THE CROSS – not this natural death. I must die. His death you know was much more than just something natural. His soul was separated from The Almighty God. He bore the wrath. But the Jews couldn’t see Him as their end. Because of the lack of the gospel that is being presented today to God’s people, God’s people can’t see Him as that end either. No, they don’t want to hear that I’ve got to die before I enter. Are you telling me that Salvation just doesn’t make ME better? We think God wants our best: what else is there to give Him?

IF I GO AWAY I WILL RECEIVE YOU UNTO MYSELF

This is exactly what Jesus told the Jews. He said that’s exactly what I’m telling you. ‘I come to lead the WAY, I’m the forerunner. You can not now come where I’m going, but you will come’, because He was going to The Cross. Then He told His disciples in a totally different setting, ‘That’s alright, don’t worry. Let the peace of God be in your hearts, because if I go away (that was in death), I will come again.’ He DID THAT in His resurrection. ‘And I will receive you unto Myself, that where I am, you may be also.’ That’s exactly what He did! Even commentators like Matthew Henry will tell you that this is NOT a location described there, but a RELATIONSHIP. "Where I am" is not a location, but a relationship. Any good Bible scholar will tell you that. We have been received into a relationship! That’s what the Second so called "coming" is all about! It’s His coming as related to the Second, the Second Order of things, the Second Coming. There is not a third one! Here He is Ever Coming, here He is Ever Present! But who will turn to see Him? It’s just that most will not do it. We won’t turn to see Him, because we know that the first thing we’re going to see when we turn to see Him is OUR END, and we don’t want to see it! So, we just don’t turn. We just won’t turn. So we either make what we believe just a bunch of words and a teaching; but never a reality. Or like most Christians we believe He hasn’t come yet. It’s just kind of a "waiting game".

There are those who will agree by the volume of the scriptures that this has to be true, but they won’t look to see HIM. They will accept the truth of the THEOLOGY of it, but they won’t turn their heart to see Him; because immediately when you see Him, you see the END of one, and the BEGINNING of the other. That’s what He is and if you see Him as He is you can’t see anything else. He is the END and the BEGINNING. In that order: First and Second. So, it’s not that you are seeing the Lord and then, in addition, you see that He is the end of this or that. No, when you see Him, you see the end. HE IS THE END YOU SEE, and He is the beginning. But the Divine order of things, and the order in which the Holy Spirit must reveal Him, because it is the order in which He performed the thing: First – the END, Second – the BEGINNING. That’s the realization that comes into you. That’s what Paul has been saying here and that is what He is saying in Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

But now in Ephesians 1:9, "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times…" Now I’m amazed when I hear preachers speak of that as some FUTURE dispensation. Not only was this written 2,000 years ago to believers that were alive in Christ Jesus then, at that time on the earth walking around; why would one write to them about something that in 2,000 years still hasn’t happened? That doesn’t even make sense! It makes less sense when you do understand that "the dispensation of the fulness of times" is the same dispensation that Paul is talking about in his Corinthian letter – the dispensation of the Spirit over against the dispensation of death. Because the word "dispensation" is translated here in the Greek as "administration." (oikonomia (oy-kon-om-ee'-ah) Strong’s #:3622) So in 2 Corinthians 3 it is the administration of death and the administration of the Spirit: the glory of that first administration and the glory of the second administration. Now here in Ephesians he is saying the same thing. So, "the administration of the fulness of times…" and that is exactly the way it is translated. The word "dispensation" here has nothing to do with linear time, is not described by time element at all, but rather, by the occupants thereof. Therefore, the word "administration", because where you have administration… administration of what? Over whom? Its occupants. For instance, "The Bush administration". That’s not something written on a piece of paper; it’s PEOPLE. The Spirit administration. So, "That in the administration of the fulness of times…" That’s this administration of the Second Covenant.

What most seem to miss here is that Paul is speaking of things determined "before the foundation of the world." Before the foundation of the world God determined that in the administration of the fulness of time He would do what He had "before" determined. The administration of the fulness of time was future to "before the foundation of the world", but that administration was not future to Paul; it had come to its Fulness in Christ. "He might…" do what? "Gather together IN ONE, all things in Christ." Certainly! And here, ALL THINGS; all things of the Old Covenant. Where else are you going to go to get your "all things"? You just have a First Covenant and a Second Covenant. All things; all things written, all things spoken, all things testified of – ALL THINGS! Not one jot, nor one tittle is left out. Not one promise, not one prophecy – all things. The Holy Spirit, the administration of the Second is for that purpose. It is to gather up in your heart, in you, in Christ: ALL THINGS and show them to be fulfilled in Christ, gathered into Him, whether in heaven or in earth. He gathers it into Him and shows all things. "Gather together in one all things, in heaven and earth, even in Christ." (Eph. 1:10) What is He doing? Revealing the mystery of His will; showing what He purposed from the beginning; that everything that He would speak of in a First, He would have IN THE PERSON OF HIS SECOND, He knew that from the beginning, and so when He spoke of it in the First, He spoke of it in those terms. Though it was hidden in signs and types and shadows, still it is clear – clear enough that they were looking for One to come.

What they couldn’t understand of the mystery was HOW God would do it. They never expected that The One to come would come TO DIE and come forth IN RESURRECTION. They thought He’d just come and beat all their enemies. He did! He defeated all enemies! He conquered death! He came forth in the power of The Resurrection, and there is His Kingdom. He doesn’t have to "come back" to that Kingdom: He is the center of it! He’s the substance of it! It exists in Him! He doesn’t have to "come back" to it; HE NEVER DID LEAVE IT! What He left was the First order, He returned in The Second. He is the fulness of it. There is no where in scripture that says anything other than that. Now, there’s no need to argue about that, but just look in the scripture. Where does it say that He has abandoned the Second; that He has left The Second? And that He is going to return to it "one day" or that there is an end to the Second? When you persist and say that, what you do is destroy the whole concept of The Second. You have made The Cross, and that work null and void!

You have made the Christian Church no better than First Covenant Israel. You are still looking for "One to come". You are still looking for unfulfilled promises; you are still looking for unfulfilled prophecies. You are living in an illusion! You have departed from the Truth. You’ve put the veil over your face; you are saying the glory of God will come "one day"; but you refuse to look to the Glory now and begin to bear His image. Because to do so would bring all of the First to its absolute end and bring it to its destruction. Where would it end if you said it’s already ended? It has ended in the economy of God; yes, it has ended. Where will it end now? In me, in my heart! That’s what Paul said, He said although this thing is done, yet the vail remains upon OUR HEARTS (many hearts are very much like the Old Covenant Tabernacle; the Glory is veiled). But when those hearts turn- the vail is done away! Paul said it will take place in your heart. It will take place in you – YOU will be changed from glory to glory. He’s already done it! He’s already made the change. He came and identified with the one glory and brought it to death, and came forth as The Person of the other glory. He has already done that, and He isn’t going to do it any more! But that YOU may come… because the whole thing was that WE may come.

That is the mentality of those two Covenants. There is so much involved in the First Covenant; there’s ONLY ONE involved in The Second! That’s because it took all of that to speak of Him! My Word! It took all of that to speak of Him and yet He fulfills it all and brings us into that, so that we become His City, His Tabernacle. We get an idea that these promises of God all revolved around us. No – they all revolved around The Seed, The One to Whom the Promise is made. We are joint heirs with Him in HIS promises. So again, the Dispensationalists are telling you that God hasn’t fulfilled His promises to His Seed yet. If that’s true; where is our inheritance? Heir…joint heirs with Christ? Of what? It’s like a plague, like a scourge upon the land. I’m sorry that it’s gotten this way in the church, but I’m sorry that the theory of evolution has taken over the school system too. I’m sorry that the theory of Dispensationalism has taken over the Church structure.

The Truth remains The Truth, The Spirit remains The Spirit; and when the heart turns, the veil is taken away! I’m telling you, you will never change that system… but you can changeYOUR heart. I have no hopes of ever changing the system, but I know that there are people that are captive to the system who have a heart to see Him, and I hope that they hear The Truth and turn to see Christ the unveiled Glory of God. Immediately – what happens? Well, they just come right out of The First and into the reality of The Second. That’s what it should have been in the first place: coming out of The First and into The Second. Of course there’s a great crisis involved there, which is The Cross. Yes, because the change is different: it’s not just intellectual. It is actually inward. There is actually a change that takes place, not just an intellectual acceptance. So there is a crisis. It is The Cross and that’s what Paul said. He said we refuse to lie to you, we refuse to veil this, and we will not do it! We will speak clearly; we will speak plainly to you concerning this matter.

So, the order of His appearing. And it is HIS APPEARING, because the First and Second Covenants are not just two theological issues. The First Covenant is the testimony of ONE TO COME: The Testimony of Christ. The Second Covenant is THE PERSON of Christ Himself. So His appearing is necessary to both – that He appears. That takes us back to Hebrews 9 and 10: that He has appeared – once in the end of the First He hath appeared. Hebrews 9:29 says, "And to those who look for Him, shall He appear the second, without sin, unto Salvation." In the First; He appeared. Yes, He appeared in relation to sin. He certainly did! But in the Second He doesn’t.

He had a body PREPARED for Him with regard to the First Covenant. He has a Body GIVEN to Him with regard to the Second Covenant. "To every seed God giveth his own body." (1 Cor. 15:38) That Seed fell into the ground and died, and came forth in the Resurrection. Unto that Seed God giveth His own body. In fact Paul says in Corinthians God has placed every member of His own choosing into that Body. God giveth His seed His own Body. That Body is His Church, that Body is you! You are the Body of the Second Order – not you as a male or female: you as a New Creature in Christ! Dispensationalists want Him to come back into the Second in the body of the First, but that is NOT going to happen! We must understand that would violate God’s order. "A body hast Thou prepared for Me." (Hebrews 10:5) A sacrificial body – yes. That’s it! That cute little baby born in that manger is a SACRIFICE! They just brought Him into Simeon, and Anna was there too, and Simeon and Anna looked at Him and said…"The Sacrifice has come!" They spoke there both of a Suffering Servant and a Ruling King, but they said – THIS IS HIM! Simeon said, "Lord, I can die now. I’ve seen your Salvation!" Yes, He looked at that little bitty baby. What did God see when He looked at that little bitty baby? He saw His Son, Who had become of no reputation; He took upon Him the form of a servant. A body prepared for Him – to die. But, The Body of that Son that pleases God is THE BODY OF THE RESURRECTION, because this is the Body that all of the prophecies are talking about. This is the Temple that the whole Tabernacle of Moses pointed to – The One that Christ lives in, rules in, reigns in!

Here as to the First He appears once in the end (Heb. 9:26), but in the Second (the New Creation) He appears as the beginning, as the fulness. To whom does He appear? TO THOSE WHO LOOK FOR HIM! (Heb. 9:28) Not look for Him "to one day come"; look for Him WHO IS COME. To those who turn… the turning of the heart, to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the Face (Person) of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).