Pt. 1 - Knowledge

We are going to begin a search regarding GREAT SALVATION. Now don’t get offended, but most Christians are very ignorant when it comes to comprehending the scriptures in the real knowledge of the Spirit, in Christ. We use the term, "we’re saved", but we haven’t got the slightest idea really what that means, so we just create doctrines and traditions; and we just stumble around in them. We’ve got so many segments in the Church...do you realize why the Church is so separated and divided? Certainly not because it’s the Lord’s Body, not because of Christ; but because of all the concepts, ideas and doctrines that are not even related to Christ. They are just related to what I think holiness is, or what I think Church order is; but they have little or no relationship to the Lord. God’s people are in a terrible condition with regard to knowledge, and we should have knowledge, we should understand our walk in the Lord.

Not having knowledge is so dangerous. We just stick a Bible in someone’s hand and we say, ‘go serve the Lord!’ Then we give them a few doctrines, tell them three or four things to do (come to Church on Sunday, pray fifteen minutes a day, and tithe), and we send them on their way. And then so many other voices begin to come at them out of the radio, out of the television and pamphlets, and out of the building on the corner down the block. I’m terribly burdened concerning the Lord’s Body, and this is the reason there must be a voice of sanity saying - LET’S BRING THINGS BACK TO HIM! LET’S FOCUS THINGS UPON THE LORD! LET’S BRING ALL THINGS TOGETHER IN HIM! First it has to happen in our hearts - in my heart. This all began as I was considering the Lord’s words, "It is finished." Now I believe that, but the Lord one day asked me - what is finished? Well, I answered - everything! And the Lord said, what is everything? And finally I had to break down and say, Lord, I have no idea what is finished, and because of that I don’t have a great deal of appreciation of that. See, it’s easy to say He has finished it all if we don’t know what the all is! And then, most believers go right on not believing that anything is finished at all. We’ve got so many things that we’ve put over beyond Christ, and it causes frustrations, anxieties, confusion, and we’re blown about by every wind of doctrine because we’re not tied down; we’re not anchored, we are not sure of our Salvation. I didn’t say you weren’t saved, but if you investigate that one statement: what does it really mean - to be saved? Doesn’t that imply living a life, doesn’t that imply walking in Christ, doesn’t that imply something more than the experience we had forty years ago or ten days ago?

I’ve recently come to see after preaching this gospel for many years that I knew more about what Salvation wasn’t than I do about what Salvation is. There are so many terms that I’ve been confused about, and they are only now beginning to fall in place. And when they do, they become more than just a term: they become a Truth relating to the reality of Christ, and immediately something of that reality begins to work in you. It’s not just a doctrine or a term, or a word now, but it’s a Truth relating to Him, it’s a reality in Him. Redemption is not just a term now, but a relationship that I have with Him. So we will be dealing with a lot of terms with regard to Salvation.

Now there are in the scripture three major types of what we call Salvation. (See Diagram A) The first type is creation itself - from Adam to Noah. And the second type is picked up in Abraham and Isaac. From Adam to Noah we see the truth of one man and one creation: and a certain obligation is placed upon it. God has a covenant, promises with it concerning certain things. And with each of these there is covenant and promises that relate to that covenant. With Abraham and Isaac the whole issue is SEED and land; although the land comes much into view with Israel, the promise of it relates to Abraham and Isaac, so it has to be understood in relationship to Abraham. What one word comes to mind when you think of Abraham? This land can only be seen and possessed by faith. That immediately ought to tell you it’s not real estate, that’s it’s not Canaan, that it’s not the regions called "the Holy Land", and that ought to tell us something. Faith is the thing that earmarks Abraham; everything he received, he received by faith, and only through faith can it be laid upon. So immediately we have to relate the land and the seed.

Then we move to the third - Israel, and in Israel we see a corporate fulness. Israel stands for a corporate view of Christ. See, everything that is given in promise to Abraham, all in type and shadow, is seen in manifest form in Israel. It was given as a promise until they lost faith and God put them under the law, that they may be at least by the law kept until the coming of Christ. But Israel represents a corporate fulness, and in these three types you see a three-fold Salvation - you see what Salvation is. Now we’ll bring all of these types to The Cross, because they all have to come there. All of the promises, all of the covenants come right to The Cross, and they are dealt with in His death, His burial and His resurrection.

And on the other side of The Cross we find the fulfillment. We bring that part of Salvation that is spoken of in Adam to Noah - one man, one creation, and we bring it over, and you’re faced with a New Creation, you’re faced with One New Man - you’re faced with the fulfillment of it. So we find that the first thing that Salvation is, is a New Creation. That’s not the last thing it is, but the first thing it is. You’re not an old creation on the way to a New Creation. The first thing it is - is a NEW CREATION. Here is a scriptural order; you can not depart from it. You’ve got to start where the Spirit of God starts. It’s a spiritual sequence; here is the way spiritual comprehension of Salvation is - it always follows this line. We are never going to understand what Israel stands for until we have it settled in our heart what Adam stands for, then with Abraham, and then with Israel. And when you bring that over in the Spirit it’s the same way. What Abraham and Isaac stands for finds its fulfillment in Christ. You can make one big circle around this, because all of this is in Christ. We’re not talking about three salvations: we’re talking about a GREAT SALVATION, but it is three-fold in its completeness, and it is three-fold in its understanding.

We first come upon the fact that the first thing we are is a New Creation: One New Man. IN CHRIST - that’s the term for it - in Christ. And then we come to the realization that the One New Man is ONE SEED OF GOD; He is The Seed of God. The answer to all of this is in the Person of The Lord - He is the One Man. In relationship to us; we are a New Creation. The whole creation is summed up in the One Man. It was the same in the type: the whole creation was summed up in Adam. In Christ, the whole creation is summed up in the One Man that He is. So Christ is the answer. On this side of The Cross where we’re dealing with Great Salvation, we’re seeing Christ as He relates to a people. Before The Cross we see the type as it relates to a people; we see God’s dealing with a man called Adam, in creation. And we see those dealings summed up in a man called Noah, because Noah is both the end of the old and the beginning of the New - in type, in shadow. So it is with the Lord Jesus, but we’ll get to that later.

Then God dealing with Abraham and Isaac. People are involved; you and I are involved. It’s fulfilled in Christ, but we’re involved. Listen, God is God, God is in the beginning, The Word is in the beginning, The Word is with God, The Word is one with God - all of that is so whether we even exist or not; all of that is so whether God ever created a man or not, whether God ever spoke to an Abraham, or whether God ever led an Israel. So we have to understand that these things are not so that God can be God; these things are so that God can relate to a people. Great Salvation is not so that Christ can be One Man, but so that He can have New Creation. Great Salvation is not so He can be Who He already was: Great Salvation is so that He may relate to us in Newness of Life! And that in us He may find expression of Himself. Salvation involves us! We must remember that. God is God; Salvation has us as participants.

So we move to the second type - one man who is the seed of God - Christ, The Seed of God. But why would He want to become the Seed of God? He’s One with God, He’s The Word of God - why did He want to become the answer to Abraham’s Seed? So that He could bring forth every seed his own body; so that He could bring forth a Body - that’s you, in whom that Eternal Seed dwells. That Eternal Seed dwells in you and consequently you are His Body. The whole thing is in relation to you. It doesn’t take a body for Him to be a Seed. He is a Seed, however, that He may have a Body: to every seed God has given its own body. That is speaking of the Resurrection. So it is that this Body is the Body Who comes forth in the Resurrection - The Body of Christ. It’s His Body that He Himself quickens, raises, seats and brings forth from among the dead. Then, The Seed of God is The Head, the beginning, the firstborn of the Church. Why the Church? That His fulness may have expression, because here is the difficult part of Salvation. You can’t see One new Man nor New Creation, and when it comes right down to it, you can’t see The Body of Christ either - because that’s a mystery housed in clay pots!

But you can see The Church - not the building on the corner with the steeple. It’s right here made visible in clay vessels - this is The Church. Now, you can organize, but The Church is not an organization. And you can meet, but The Church is not just the meeting. No, The Church is a people in a particular involvement and relationship to Christ for one purpose - the expression of fulness. Israel had one purpose - expression of fulness; we’ll see that in the scripture. All the things involved in The Church; The Church has one reason - expression of fulness! One New Man, therefore A New Creation. Everything we are has to be seen in direct relationship to Who He became. I keep saying "became" - where did He become these things? Right at The Cross! In His death, burial and resurrection He became One New Man. How can God Who is God become these things? See, there’s a place where The Son became something other than invisible God, He became One New Man - we’ll look at that in the scriptures. And in the scriptures, that One New Man ever and only relates to Him. Whatever we are, we are only in relation to Him. We are a New Creation in relation to One New Man, and you’ll find that this is a reality, but we don’t know that. Most of us are still looking for it! We wonder when it’s going to take place and we look at clay pots. But if we could see that everything that is set forth in testimony before The Cross is actually fulfilled in Christ, how differently we would conduct our lives! How differently we would make our decisions, how differently we would be motivated, how differently our values would be of what’s important. It would be as different as day light and darkness when just one part of Salvation is really understood by those who are saved.

And until we do have some comprehension here, we’ll not move on in our comprehension. You see - all of this is so: this is Who Christ is in relation to us, but that’s where it breaks down. We don’t know the relationship. He knows He’s Head of His Body, He knows He’s Head of The Church...HE KNOWS! It’s you and I who don’t know. It’s you and I who don’t understand. He became One New Man through death, burial and resurrection. Why? That He may have a Body in the Resurrection. This is the Body that He raises up! A New Creation - this is it. Then this proceeds on to One Seed and this Seed has only one reason. What was that? "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." - many who are One, One Body. A New Creation becomes in our comprehension One Body. This is what the Lord typed in the scriptures. He made a creation - out of what did He make Adam? Out of that creation, out of the stuff of that creation He created one body. Out of that one body He brought one woman, and called them one man: He called them one man. That’s in type and shadow. But here we come: we say "we’re a new Creation". Yes, but then out of that New Creation comes the understanding, here’s the fulfillment of it, here’s what Adam and Eve spoke of, here’s what Adam and that creation was not true to. Here’s what it is - out of this New Creation comes the realization - One Body: The New Creation is One Body of One Man Who is The Seed of God. So we’re not just a New Creation, we’re One Body. We are the result of a Seed that fell into the ground and died, and came forth. And God gave Him His own Body; for the scriptures declare He has placed every member according to His will, His purpose, in that body. God gave Him, and is still giving Him His own Body. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the ones that were being given to Him understood what they are being given to?

And it goes on, and just gets fuller, because what we’re talking about is a comprehending that comes into us. Dear friends - you ARE a New Creature, you ARE a New Creation, you ARE One Body, you ARE The Church - whether we know it or not. If you are in Him, He’s in you. For the whole point is that He have expression in the earth. The whole point here was not for God to be God, but that God have relationship and expression in the earth! This was in testimony, this was in type, but in that God could not have fulness of expression - this was speaking of that which was to come. And - IT IS COME! The Creation that this one spoke of - IS COME! The Seed that this one spoke of - IS COME! The Body that this one spoke of - IS COME! The Living Tabernacle, temple, city, the Church in the wilderness: what this one spoke of - IS COME! And has as its purpose the expression of Him in this earth.

See, even if these had been kept in perfection, they could not have expressed Him perfectly, but that which He brings forth of Himself can! But we’ll never understand the New Creation we are except in the One Man whose creation we are. You are His workmanship, created of God in Christ Jesus. Just like Adam was taken out of dirt, so we are a creation of the Spirit of God; a creation not made with hands, but born from above. This creation is by birth - divine, supernatural, Spirit birth - born from above! You came from above! The birth came from above! The testimony speaks of it, in Christ it is fulfilled. And as we go on we’ll find that each of these speaks of a deeper work, a deeper comprehension of The Cross. In relation to the first creation and the second one, The Cross means only one thing - absoluteness of DEATH! Adam dies - he doesn’t get sick and get better, he doesn’t get forgiven, he doesn’t get restored, he doesn’t get reconciled. You see, these are the terms that have haunted me. This is a divine order, this is set forth; not only arranged that way in your Bible, timewise these things happen in the order in which they occur in the Bible because they are all birthed in the book of Genesis, and they are in a divine order.

This is the divine order: first creation, then seed to go into that creation, then son comes forth from that seed. In the first creation we found seed, seed, seed, but we found no seed of God there. We find seed of bird, seed of beast, seed of this or that, but no seed of God there. Adam was NOT of God’s seed - he was a type, he was a shadow. Even the word "likeness and image" there in the Hebrew means "shadow of a thing, having no substance." That’s what Adam was - he was a shadow of One that was sure to come. Had he not failed God...One still would have had to come! Because Adam had no substance! So here in Adam we have creation and we have seed, and then in Israel we have the much fruit. The type and the shadow is in the testimony, the order is there; and when all of this comes over into Christ it maintains its divine order, and our comprehension has to be according to this order.

Now each of these signify an ongoing, deeper comprehension of The Cross. Great Salvation is a three-fold Salvation, not three Salvations. I’m not telling you that we’re a New Man now and one day we’ll be this and one day we’ll be that. No - I’m telling you that this is the summation of all of these types; but these set out a comprehension, these set out an order of the Spirit. Here is the order of the Spirit: you are first born again, you are born again by the Seed of God. And because you are born of the Seed of God, and the Body of Christ, for that reason you are the Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him who filleth all. Here is the order. And this is not up for debate - this is the order! It’s a divine order. So when you bring Adam to The Cross, the word is death - he died! What comes out of that? Absolutely nothing! Adam is just dead. A New Man comes forth. Adam just dies; he doesn’t turn into anything. "Dust thou art...to dust thou shalt return." "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Adam just dies! "Thou shalt surely die." Christ was obedient unto death, even the death of The Cross. So with regard to Adam, with regard to mankind, The Cross means death. It doesn’t mean a better life - it means death! It doesn’t mean forgiveness - it means death! It doesn’t mean reconciliation - it means death! I know that’s hard to hear; it’s hard to hear me say it, but it’s harder to hear it with your heart, because we all think that surely there’s something salvageable about us as Adam - and there isn’t anything salvageable!

You see, when you apply the term "born again" immediately the natural mind thinks - I’ve got a second try; I get to be born again. There are people who preach that, even though Jesus explained to Nicodemus that it hasn’t got anything with YOU being born a second time, and even though the Greek term is "born from above". This is a NEW birth; not of an old man - A New Man. He is in each of you; and that’s the first thing Salvation is - A New Man in you - CHRIST IN YOU, CHRIST IN YOU! That’s the first thing, and because Christ is in you as a New Man, you are now a New Creation! It is the answer to this Adam dilemma. Death - but then we start growing, and The Cross has a deeper work because as The Cross relates to the Seed it is not for sin. Jesus said this. You see, we all have such a very little view of The Cross. This dawned on me a few years back because it is on The Cross that Jesus says, "It is Finished." And I realized that The Cross is a combination of His death, His burial and His resurrection - not two sticks of wood. That sums up the three days of The Cross. You can understand that by the history of Israel; the three days of Israel, the feasts of Israel. The Cross is a complete work. So when we say Christ and Him crucified, we mean His death, His burial and His resurrection.

To Adam it’s death; to the world, to the creation, to the first - it is death. It is fulfilled in that it is death. The fulfillment to Adam is death; it is fulfilled in death. Why? Because God said, "Thou shalt surely die." It’s fulfilled in death. But to Abraham...he’s got to come to The Cross too. He comes to The Cross in Christ as well, and this really gives us a bigger picture of The Cross because so much more was done there than what we realize. In our modernistic church view today we just say that’s where Jesus went to pay for our sins, and we can just write "paid in full"...but it’s so much more than that! We say He died so we wouldn’t have to. No - that’s where He died as you! That’s where He died as me! That’s where One died as many, so many all were made to be dead. Paul says this is the judgment we have. "For the love of Christ constraineth us, we thus judge, when one died, all died with Him." The whole creation - died with Him. God has to see in His Son the death of one creation - whether that creation sees it or not is of no consequence! God sees in His Son every man dead, and if it wasn’t that way no man could ever have life. If there’s one man out of that creation - past, present, future - that is not reckoned dead here, then that man can never come to life.

So the love of God constrains us to make this judgment. God so loved...here is how God loved, here is the love of God - ALL DIED or none could ever live. See, Salvation is a New Man, not a better life for the old, not forgiveness for the old. You can’t have Adam forgiven and dead at the same time. Somehow we have to realize that we do pass from one creation to another one; that we do, as man - die! And as New Man - Christ in you - live. But by that New Man we live as a New Creation. But is He only a New Man? No, He is also The Seed of God, and Jesus said, "Except a corn of wheat (a seed) fall in the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies it brings forth much fruit." So The Cross on the one side is created of God, planned of God, purposed of God for the death of Adam - the death of the old man versus The New Man. But also God said that’s not all there is to my Great Salvation, so He gives us a type in Abraham of a Seed bringing forth fruit which can not be counted as the stars nor the dust - the measure of which is hidden in The Seed itself. And all things here are measured BY CHRIST! He becomes the measure of all things!

He is the measure. "...unto a perfect man...after the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." All things here are by the measure of Christ. You can look to the stars, you can look to the sands and you can not there see the measure - He is far beyond measure, and yet He is the measure of His Body, for it is called the fulness of Him! That just blows me away! How can you measure The Body except in the measure of Him? His Body, The Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him Who filleth all in all. You aren’t counting numbers are you? This is not numbers, this is the increase of The Seed; every believer measured by The Seed. One Seed brings forth many - "If ye be Christ’s then are you Abraham’s seed, not seeds as of many, but of one."

So we come to realize that there is a deeper work of The Cross and though as the old man, the last Adam, to Christ it meant death, the end of a creation; but as The Seed of God it meant coming forth in much fruit. So there’s a Work of The Cross that will take place in us and bring a comprehension of death to Adam, but there’s a deeper Work of The Cross that will take place in us that will bring forth much fruit. And that much fruit is in the nature and character of Christ. It is in the character of His fulness - that’s the deeper Work of The Cross. And there is yet a deeper comprehension of The Cross and it has to do with the Blood of The Lamb. John, in his baptizing, who represents all of Israel and all of the prophets and the end of that administration says, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Israel’s Lamb. Israel came out of Egypt and here was where the blood was first applied - upon the doorposts of God’s own house. Israel was God’s house when they went into Egypt and they were God’s house when they came out, but God is showing something - the blood was placed upon the doorposts when they came out. The Blood of the Lamb is for Israel. Israel needed a Lamb - a Lamb for restoration, a Lamb for reconciliation. And when you find those words in the Old Testament of the Bible they all refer to Israel: they don’t apply to Abraham, they don’t apply to Adam in the view of Salvation that they show.

So terms like reconciliation and restoration don’t apply to Adam. To Adam - it’s only one man, one creation - he’s dead! And in the New Man it’s not a reconciled New Creation, it’s just a New Creation - New - a creation that has never existed until it exists through the Lord Jesus Christ. It never has existed; if it was reconciled it would have had to have existed, if it was restored it would have had to have existed. But it never existed! But now, you and I who are a New Creation are also The Body of The Seed, and we’re also The Church of The Head - what Israel was pointing to. And it is in Christ as His own Body where we have terms like "in whom we have forgiveness of sins", "in whom we have deliverance (which is called redemption)", "in whom we have the reconciliation." In Whom - those are wonderful realities of Christ. They don’t belong to Adam; they belong to what Israel stood for, they belong to that which is the fulfillment of what Israel stood for. Here’s where the Blood of The Lamb really counts!

I’m telling you right now - The Lamb was not slain for Adam! The last Adam died as Adam; and He’s called the last Adam. It’s all the Son of God, but He became certain things. He became the last Adam, He became the second Man, He became the Lamb slain. He became that - even the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world - He still became that! He is eternally that to the Church, just like He is eternally One New Man to the New Creation, just like He is eternally The Seed of God to His Body - because He is in you. HE IS IN YOU! He is eternally the Lamb, but I’m telling you that the Lamb was not slain for Adam. The Lamb was slain for what Israel stands for. This is one of the glories of God that can only be comprehended by those who are in Christ - daily washed by the blood of the Lamb! Daily finding forgiveness, daily finding reconciliation, daily finding restoration. Why? What is all of that for? It is toward the expression of Divine fulness. It is for those growing up in to Him Who is their Head in all things, it is for the cleansing edification and perfection of the Church. Why? That He might have a vessel to express His fulness. Here in Christ these terms apply, but in Adam they do not.

Listen - most of the false doctrine and teaching comes out of a misapplication of the terms of Salvation. There’s a whole movement that has got Adam restored: so to them Salvation is just Adam like he was before he sinned. My God, if that’s all Salvation is, I’d rather be a Buddhist! But if you apply restoration to Adam, you’ve got to take him somewhere. But then you’ve got to restore him back to dirt: you’ve got to take him back to something made out of dirt, walking with God in the cool of the evening. No - Salvation for Adam is One New Man - through death! We don’t go back to the garden: we come forth born from above! This creation has never been in that garden, never will be in that garden. In Christ the workmanship of God is not out of dirt - "you are His workmanship, created of God in Christ Jesus unto good works." That’s the scripture. You can’t apply those terms to Adam, but they do apply to Great Salvation; but they apply to the understanding of Israel, they apply to that part of Salvation, that part of Christ that is the fulfillment of the covenant and the promises made to Israel. The blood of the Lamb must be upon our doorposts completely! If there’s going in and there’s going out - it’s under the blood, by the blood, through the blood: blood bought, blood covenant. You don’t apply that to Adam. That’s the family of God, that’s the covering of the family, that’s the life of the family.

I’m telling you the truth: if you apply the blood of the Lamb to Adam it’s like applying swine’s blood on the altar of the tabernacle. The blood of the Lamb does not go upon Adam; the blood of the Lamb goes upon the House of God. It does in type, it does in reality. Adam must die - and does die. You and I in that relationship - in humanity, must see that we’re dead. This is what Paul says, as humanity - I am crucified, nevertheless I live, but not I - CHRIST LIVES IN ME. And when Paul starts talking about the blood of the Lamb, reconciliation - Israel, New Israel, spiritual Israel is in view, because that’s where it’s applied. We’ve got to understand spiritual terms after a spiritual order or we’re always confused. And that’s why in the church world we’ve got so many splits and divisions. That didn’t all come out of a revelation of Jesus Christ: that came out of misapplication of terms.

So as we talk about Great Salvation, we need to understand the whole emphasis of Great Salvation - it’s not just a term. It finds its full measure in Him. And then with that understanding in our hearts we can come back and appreciate these types. And that’s all these are - types, because the reality is Christ. But it’s not just Christ, it’s Christ in relationship to a people. In relationship to you and I first He is New Man, we are a New Creation. Secondly, He is Seed and we are His Body. Thirdly, He is Bridegroom, husband, all those wonderful terms: begetting, firstborn, and we are His Church, His City, His Bride, the One who in Him has forgiveness. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get hold of that and actually start forgiving one another? It’s amazing to me - we want to go out and forgive sinners, but hate each other. And we never accomplish that, we just make converts and still hate each other. If we could just get it right and reach out to a brother or sister, and rather than stomping them down, reconcile them and restore them to what we know them to be in Christ.

See, these terms are ongoing ministries of the Lamb of God toward us. Surely by the Spirit of that Lamb we can exercise these ministries one to another. But no - we’ve got them all related to a sinner! No, they relate to the Household of God. Do we not reach out to those who are unregenerated? Certainly, but how about doing it in Truth? How about saying you’ve got to come by way of The Cross and reckon His death your death - and come forth in New Birth? How about saying you must be born from above? Then, you can bring them into the Household of faith, the Household of forgiveness, the Household of restoration. Yes, and understand the true working of Salvation. Salvation is not some past thing where you were forgiven; Salvation is an ongoing forgiveness, it’s an ongoing ministry of The Lamb, and it must be to be real ongoing between one another, and that’s not a license to sin; that’s a growing up in Christ!

Pt. 2 - The Greatness of Salvation

In the last lesson we looked at three types of Greatness in the Testimony, in the Old Testament, and how they are fulfilled in Christ. To do that all of these have to come to The Cross, and we’ll deal with that later, but now I want to talk about the Greatness of Salvation. Hebrews 2:1-4, " Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?" There is a word that stands out to us here with regard to Salvation, and it’s this word "GREAT" - Great Salvation. When the Lord begins to stir me up in a search, I usually would look up references where the term is used, and also get the definition, and this is very interesting because the definition of the word "great" is "something that is much more, or exceedingly or abundantly." Well - much more - than what? Where’s the comparison? Well the whole comparison of the letter to the Hebrews is between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, it’s between what spoke of Christ and Christ Himself; what was to come and Who came. The letter of Hebrews is bringing us from what we call the Testimony to the Witness; it is bringing us from the type to the fulfillment. It is bringing us from an understanding of God in Adam and Noah, from an understanding of God given in Abraham and Isaac, bringing us from an understanding of God given in Israel, to an understanding of God MADE PERFECT IN HIS SON!

None of these could PERFECTLY represent God’s thought. They could COMPLETELY represent God’s thought concerning mankind with Adam and Noah, but it’s only PERFECTLY represented in the New Creation in Christ. I’m using those two words against each other, but it’s one thing to have something completely done, and it’s another thing to have it done in perfection. This Old Covenant is not less than the New Covenant because there was something wrong with this one. Paul said there isn’t anything wrong with the law - it’s ME who can’t keep it! There’s nothing wrong with the law, and yet he said the law cannot make you perfect. That’s because the law itself was not perfect; it was complete. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it spoke of something, it spoke beyond itself. And all of these types and shadows are complete in themselves: God didn’t leave something out. But they only become perfect, that is, able to bring to fulness, able to give you understanding of God, perfectly manifest His thought, His intention - they only become that IN CHRIST, in the Person of Christ. So no matter how complete the picture of Abraham and Isaac is in type and shadow, it’s only made perfect over in the relationship between Christ and His Body, The Seed bringing forth after His own kind. That can be completely seen in the Testimony, but it is only perfectly seen in Christ.

So that’s what I mean when I say Hebrews is bringing us from the one side to the other side, from the one view of Salvation that is shrouded in types and shadows, and trumpets and voices, people, places and things - all of that; bringing us over to a comprehension of Salvation that is in the very Person of Christ Himself. It is a comprehension that can only be given to you by the Spirit of God, but a comprehension and understanding that once given to you by the Spirit of God does not pass away with time, but remains because it is Spirit and it is Truth. That Creation, for instance, shall never pass away; that Body shall never grow old; and that Church shall express His wisdom and glory throughout the ages to come! Why will this Creation never pass away? Because it is directly related to Him Who is eternal! Why would this Body, His Body never grow old? Because it is The Body of The Eternal Seed! Why would this Church never disband; why will it always be through ages to come a source of glory unto God? Because its Head is Christ, The Eternal King of Kings and Lord of Lords! What I’m telling you is, as a New Creation we need to quit looking around at one another, and look to The Man whose creation we are for newness of life. That’s why this creation shall not come to an end. God’s covenant with Noah is complete with Noah, and there is never going to be according to God’s covenant another literal, worldwide flood. That’s complete, but the perfect thing about that, the perfection of that covenant is only found in this New Creation that is eternal in the heavens. It is here in this creation that you never, never die!

THE COVENANT IS MADE PERFECT IN CHRIST. We’ve got to understand the difference between the type and the fulfillment. It’s true - but the fulfillment is perfect. All of this I’m getting out of this little word, "much more" from "great" because it’s got to be much more than something. Great Salvation is much more. You can’t ignore that. That’s what the writer is telling us here: don’t ignore this, don’t neglect this. And the word "neglect" means to fail to make it the very gaze of your soul. It means to divert attention just a little bit. That’s what God is talking about. Many scriptures talk about that: he that looks back is not worthy. This Salvation, these things are worthy of our attention - that’s an understatement! So "much more" - much more than what? Much more than even what is spoken of. So, is One to come? HE IS MUCH MORE! This means that not only is Christ a fulfillment of all these types and shadows, it is exceedingly, abundantly beyond in Christ! What I’m telling you is this New Man is not simply a fulfillment of what Adam failed to be, He’s not in anyway Adam made better or Adam in any way brought back. This New Man is not simply a fulfillment - He is that, He fulfils God’s whole thought concerning the human race. Hebrews 2 will go on and tell us just exactly that. "But we see Jesus..." First it gives the thought and intention concerning the human race, and then we don’t see it fulfilled. "But we see Jesus..."

Jesus fulfils God’s total thought for humanity. Yes - but MUCH MORE! MUCH MORE! God’s full thought for Adam is fulfilled in Christ, but over and above that, here in Christ is a New Man Who is much more than Adam was even in his finest hour. Because the New Man is born from above, This One is possessed of the Spirit of the Ever Living God. Adam never was - never! Adam was made a living soul, but there is no indication with regard to Adam that he was ever possessed of the Eternal Spirit of God. This New Man is Spirit. So you see the old is fulfilled, but more than fulfilled - He surpasses, abundantly, above, beyond! "That you may be able to comprehend with all saints the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that ye may be filled with the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask of think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." That’s what I’m talking about.

This is The One Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above. He made a Man you couldn’t even think of! He brings forth a Salvation in Christ that we couldn’t even comprehend. Who could comprehend it? It was talked about in the Testimony, pointed at, prophesied of - but there was no comprehension of it. They could look at a rock and imagine something about it, or look at a tent and make it say - yes, God is in our midst. But now in Christ it’s not a tent. Here it’s The Eternal Spirit of the Ever Living God dwelling in you, and most of us don’t comprehend it either! We want to go out and look at a tent too. Because we can’t see it with our natural eyes until God reveals His Son in the midst of His Creation. And then we begin to walk in a different comprehension altogether, and then we begin to realize This New Man is MUCH MORE - much more, exceedingly, abundantly above! Paul says that you might walk the length, breadth, height and depth - that you may know the fulness of God in Christ. Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we’re able to ask. How? According to His power which worketh in you - that’s the Eternal Spirit.

What we’re doing is discussing the Greatness of Salvation. The Greatness of Salvation with respect to the New Creation is The Eternal Spirit - Christ Himself dwelling in you makes it great. What makes the New Creation greater than the old creation? The first one is dirt at its best, this one is man even at its best, this one is God walking in the garden with them, this one is God on visitation programs, this one is God outside. But the New Creation is GOD IN YOU! This One is The Eternal Spirit not moving into that creation, but creating that creation, bringing that Creation forth, this One is born from above, this One is born of God, this One is made without hands, this is a Creation that is eternal in the heavens! It is said of This One "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away...(old things are no more) behold all things are become new and all things are of God." MUCH MORE! You’ve got to have a comparison to appreciate much more. Much more than what? Much more than the first.

Here is the first man. See, over here it took two men to represent One New Man. You’ll always find in Bible typology that it always takes two to represent one. And when you finally come over into the Church we understand that it’s neither nor - neither Jew nor Gentile, neither bond nor free, but rather One. It always takes two. Two is the number of witness, and in the Bible it always takes two - Abraham and Isaac, Moses and Joshua in Israel. It always takes two to bring about a representation that is fulfilled in one. Adam was the first man of this creation, Noah was the last man. But over in Christ - He is the first and the last man. Now we can say He’s the first and the last, He’s the beginning and the end, and the truth of that is so far from us. See, we just pick up terms and say them and even preach sermons on them, and we don’t have the slightest idea of the reality behind them. Nothing is really changed in us, no transformation is taking place in our soul - we’ve just learned some new words, we’ve just got some more teaching or preaching material.

But we’re looking at "much more" which means abundant, exceedingly above, beyond. Now when the Lord began to deal with me about this I realized there had to be a preparation in my heart, because nothing will really happen unless there is a preparation in our hearts. So the Lord really had to deal with me in my soul that the comparison in the book of Hebrews is between the one side of The Cross and the other; from the side that is saying ‘It’s coming" and the side that says, ‘ He is come"; from the side that is the type and shadow and the side that is the fulfillment. And it is showing that the one is not merely an improvement over the other and not merely the fulfillment of the other, but is far above it exceedingly. So in Romans 5:9 and 10 you see this term, "much more". " Much more then, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Being justified by His death - much more - we shall be saved from wrath through Him. "For if, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Much more - it’s drawing a comparison.

2 Corinthians 3:9-10. Here is the same term, and Paul is making the comparison between the administration of Moses and the administration of the Spirit, which is Christ, and he is showing here that we by Christ are moving from that which is called glorious over to that which is called more glorious: coming from glory to glory, the glory of the old to the glory of the New. That’s where we have come in Christ! "For if the ministration of condemnation be glory..." And that’s exactly what we’re reading about in Hebrews 2. "... much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious (the old) had no glory in this respect; by the glory that excelleth." See, the image is glorious until the Real Person shows up! Then - why keep the image? As glorious as it was, it has no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth. Paul is talking here about the administration of the law, the administration of the priests, of the sacrifices - the administration of Moses. And all of that relates to the type that Israel was.

See, this is what happened: Israel as a people, the natural Jews that were a type and a shadow, and at one time were glorious because of what they represented, came right up to The Cross, right up to Christ, and rejected the very Person, the very One, the very Salvation that they were a type and a shadow of. Having rejected The Cross, having rejected what they existed for to show, they had no more purpose to exist upon the face of the earth. And if you bring natural Israel over to the finished side of The Cross, it becomes what the scripture calls the Anti Christ; you bring the system over that denies He ever came in the flesh, because this system says He has not come yet, and they are still saying He hasn’t come yet! And the Church over the last hundred years is helping them out by saying, that’s right - He hasn’t come - using the same scriptures that the Jews use. And they are the same prophetic scriptures that Jesus FULFILLED the first time He came!

And try as you will, the only promises you’re going to find in the Bible with regard to Him "coming again" were fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when He came into His Church. Now, I don’t care about doctrinal issues, but - SALVATION IS NOT ON HOLD! It’s real NOW! He is in you NOW! You are His Body NOW! That’s just a fact, and to make a big doctrinal issue out of it is just silly. We must see the scriptures as they are related to the reality of Him. And the whole point is just this: in the Bible there are two covenants, not three. There are two systems, two administrations, not three. I’m challenging you - show me the one that goes beyond Christ, show me the one that goes beyond the Church. We already read in Ephesians 3:21, "Now unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end." What goes beyond the Church?

Look - there is a Testimony and there is a Witness. This is what your Bible is: there is a first and there is a second. At The Cross He comes to take away the first, that He may establish the second. It could be the first man, second man; first temple, second temple; first creation, New Creation. It’s first and second - and the two are always fulfilled in one, whether it’s a creation, people, a plan, a seed - that’s the way it is in the scripture. It never varies, and that’s amazing to me. The Testimony is glorious - to see how God manipulated people - not only who would be born, but how they’d be born, in what order they would be born (if it was twins, which one would come first). God did this because it’s all part of a Testimony that speaks of a Witness that was then yet to come. God controlled the Testimony - it’s beautiful, it’s complete, but it can’t make perfect in and of itself because it speaks of that which is Perfect which is to come. So the first was never meant to make perfect, but to completely speak of a Perfect. And everything that is ever to come is spoken of here in one of these three types, which sum up Genesis to Malachi. And everything that is spoken of here, comes in Christ, it is fulfilled in Him. It was fulfilled in His death, burial and resurrection.

That’s how you and I have relationship with Him - through His death, His burial, His resurrection. There is no way you have relationship with Him except that way. "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by Me." That’s by His death, burial and resurrection. And that’s our relationship with one another. We are all baptized into One Spirit, all made to drink into One Spirit; all being many are One in Christ Jesus. Isn’t that our relationship? There is no relationship outside of Christ that something can’t touch. And you think you have something, but it does. Outside of Christ - death comes! But not in Him: nothing can touch it in Him! If we could just get our eyes off the clay pots and on the treasure which is within; off of the earthen vessels and on the excellency of the power that works in us that is of God, and realize the Greatness of our Salvation, the greatness of the thing!

So we have two administrations - that which is done away was glorious...much more that which remaineth is glorious. Verse 11, "For if that which is done away was glorious..." "In the volume of the book it is written of me, O God, I come to do thy will. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second." The second - period! There is no third! The second man is the Lord from heaven; but later on he’ll be something else? No sir! No - we’ve got to understand that the comparison in the book of Hebrews is not comparing what we now have in Christ to what we "one day" will have in Christ. That is utter insanity when in Him all fulness dwells; when in Him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily; when in relationship to Him we are quickened together, raised together, seated together in heavenly places in Christ; when in reality God dwells in you, and you in Him! Come on, but because of our ignorance... Here we are: heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, and ignorant to the truth of it! "Now the heir, as long as he is a child - unlearned, unintelligent - differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all."

Here we are, looking for a city! Here we are, looking for a creation! We sing, "Abraham looked for a city"; we could very well sing, "And we’re the city he looked for." But instead we all start looking for a city! And the point is we look with these natural eyes, because if we looked with the eyes of the Spirit, if we looked as Paul said with the eyes of our understanding enlightened, we would see that City, and then you’d quit looking for it! And we would begin to walk in it. The first had the promise of the second. "He came to take away the first." Why? Because that which was glorious was made to have no glory by virtue of that which is more glorious. If you bring this first over here past The Cross then it comes in competition with the second - and it becomes Anti Christ. And natural Israel became Anti Christ. What is Anti Christ? Against Christ? No, it’s saying, ‘I am Christ, we are Christ, He’s not Christ - we’re Christ.’ Jesus said many will come saying I am Christ. And in natural Israel that’s right. The actual word "anti" means "substitute for", a substitute for, instead of Christ. And Israel was in type of that, and that’s why they had to be utterly and totally destroyed according to the words of Jesus, and not one stone was left standing upon another! And by 70 A.D. that had all taken place. The Church had endured great persecution, a time of the great tribulation even during that time, and it all came to an end.

It all came to an end - everything that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24 and 25 - it all came upon Israel, and it all came to an end. What The Cross had put an end to, literally was fulfilled in the earth. When Jesus died the veil was rent and that temple was literally torn down. Why did God suffer such vengeance? God put His wrath and His vengeance in the heart of Titus and others of the Roman Empire (you can read it in the writings of Josephus) against that which at one time was glorious but lost its glory in virtue of that which was to be the glory of Christ Himself: The Church - more glorious. Now this thing had become not only an idol and an image left over, it had become a rebuke against The Cross; it denied the death and burial, it had become a reproach, and God said it will not be permitted to stand on the face of the earth, and the wrath of God came upon it and they tore that thing down stone by stone. They brought in teams of oxen and plowed up the ground where the floor of it had been. Now they didn’t do that because they wanted the gold in it - they did that because of the wrath of God against anything that denied that He is come in the flesh. That’s the wrath of the Lamb! It’s the wrath of the Lamb that you see in the book of Revelation, and it all relates to this. You face the wrath of the Lamb - what is that? It is The Cross, and that which comes upon the flesh by it. Well, they rejected that.

So we have this "much more" in 2 Corinthians 3. Verse 12, "Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech." Now verse 18, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Now that doesn’t mean that in Christ we go from glory to glory to glory. We can’t forget what we’re reading here: that even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. Changed into that same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. We’re brought from the glory of Moses to the glory of Christ; we’re brought from the glory of the old to the glory of the New; we move from glory to glory! There’s no greater glory than that - there’s no third glory! You can’t create a third glory somewhere. From one glory to another glory: the glory of the old to the glory of the New. This is the order of the scripture. They’ve talked about the glory, and the veil done away in Christ so that now we can see the Lord of glory. We look into the face of glory, we behold the glory of the Lord, and we are changed from one glory to another glory: from the glory of the old administration to the glory of the New.

We are changed from the glory that speaks about Him to the glory that HE IS! We are changed from singing "One day in glory" to the reality of manifesting glory. Not glory as a bright light; glory as the nature, the character, the substance of the Indwelling Christ. But you see there’s this great problem, this enigma. Israel didn’t want to come from glory to glory, and in Christ, in our Salvation, what has happened is that the Church system has gone back over to the first and has taken on the identity of Old Testament Israel: waiting for the sounding of the trumpet. And if you read the scripture carefully you’ll find that trumpets are God’s substitutes only relating to Israel. Here in Christ there is The Voice of One. "I turned to see the voice..." Yes, that voice is as a trumpet, but it is not a trumpet. In the Testimony they blew trumpets, on that mountain they blew trumpets; but you are not come to the mountain of trumpets - you are come to the Mount of God! Here it is the Voice of the Lord. There are no trumpets connected with the Church. The last trump was for Israel, the last trump sounded with The Cross for Israel, the last trump of the last feast sounded.

Well these things should bring up some scriptures to us. We’ve got the Church waiting on trumpets, and Israel is the only one waiting on trumpets. The Church should be walking in the Voice of the Lord, should be hearing His Voice daily. "They who hear my voice shall live." "My sheep know my voice." He doesn’t have to blow horns! That’s all in the first, in the Testimony. Even when it’s listed in Revelation, it’s always relating to God’s dealing with Israel over against God dealing with the Church. He always deals with Israel to the sounding of trumpets, but He always deals with the Church to the sound of His Voice, and there’s never any exception to that if you will stay in the scriptures. Isn’t that amazing? But the concept of the Church has been taken back to the Testimony. The prophets in the Testimony speak of a wonderful time, a better place, a glorious thing: so the Church says, well, one day we’ll go there. No - the prophets were speaking of what the Church is, of what in reality we are in Christ, of what in reality has come! There is no third system to come - there’s a first one and a second one. There’s not even a type in the Bible for a third one. It is all fulfilled in Christ!

Our Salvation is so abundantly, exceedingly above and beyond all that we are able to ask or think! If we would just turn our hearts the veil would be taken away, and we would be brought from glory to glory; in our hearts we would pass from the one side to the other. This will be in our hearts: we will come from death unto life; in our understanding we would come from one to the other and we would begin to comprehend something of the word "great". Much more - much more - much more, as it truly relates to our life in the Lord Jesus Christ. MUCH MORE!

Just a final thought from Hebrews 1. One time God spoke in a way, but there are times and manners; but now in Christ both the time and the manner has been fulfilled. We have in Christ come to the fulness of time. "When the fulness of the times were come..." And we have come to the fulfillment of all times and manners. He hath now spoken IN SON. Right now you say, ‘Lord, show me Great Salvation.’ He’s not going to show you a tent, or an Ark of the Covenant, or an angel. No! He’s going to show you The Son, He’s going to reveal The Son in you! Because all of the first is fulness in-part, but in Christ is fulness made perfect. MUCH MORE!

Pt. 3 - Great Salvation is a Person

We are discussing our Great Salvation. I was thinking of the terms wisdom, understanding and knowledge and how they apply to the three types of Salvation we’ve been talking about (see diagrams), and how they are actually fulfilled in the fulfillment of the whole thing. And when we bring those terms over, the New Creation has to do with the hidden wisdom: an act of God revealing that wisdom that had been hidden but is now made manifest. The understanding has to do with The Body of Christ and our relation to one another. And the knowledge is the spirit of wisdom and knowledge that must fill the Church. So those three terms all relate to what is called in the New Testament "the faith of the Son of God". And in the scripture it is always in that order - wisdom, understanding and knowledge - one, two, three. And that is tremendous because there is an order to all spiritual life in Christ. By nature we are a very disorderly people, but in the plan of God wisdom must come first. Wisdom relates to a definite understanding of Christ in relationship to you. Understanding relates to a relationship with Christ, but it is a relation then that we have one with another. We walk in understanding: it is how we relate to one another. And by and large people are void of any understanding! And knowledge is simply The Person of Christ Himself! God revealing His Son: the very Spirit of God revealing in you This Person. And when it comes down to it, wisdom is that Person, understanding is that Person also as well as knowledge is that Person.

You see, when Solomon built his house, and the house that is described in Proverbs, that house is founded upon wisdom, it is gathered up in understanding, and it is filled with the knowledge - and that is the house you are! We need to understand WHO wisdom, understanding and knowledge is, and how He relates to us, because everything Christ is, He is in relationship to you and I. Everything He has become in His death, in His burial and in His resurrection, He has become because of His relationship with you and I. He needs none of that to be God. He needs none of that to be from the beginning. Who needs wisdom? WE DO! Who needs understanding? WE DO! God doesn’t! Who needs knowledge? WE DO! So He is these things not because He is in need of these things, but because we are. All of this is part of the theme "Great Salvation".

Now we’re going to bring Salvation right into a Person, because that’s what Salvation is. We have been looking at Great Salvation and we’ve looked at that term "great". Now we want to go a little farther and look at One that this term "great" describes. We must understand that GREAT SALVATION IS A PERSON. The type in the Testimony is one man - Adam. Adam is the beginning of that creation and Noah is the end of the first - in type. Noah represents the end of that old creation and the beginning of the New: both of those are represented in Noah. Peter calls Noah the eighth person - the beginning of the New. So you can bring that over into Salvation and you have One New Man.

We’ll look at how The Cross applies to each of these types in their fulfillment. For instance, to Adam The Cross just means death - period. But to the type of Salvation that Abraham and Isaac represents, and that’s all fulfilled in Christ, The Cross means something else altogether. And to the House of God The Cross means something else altogether. We must understand that the relationship of each of these comprehensions of Salvation is that they are all One Person. The New Man is after all, One Person. We, because of Him, are a New Creation, because that One is in each of you. SALVATION IS GREAT BECAUSE IT IS CHRIST! The greatness of Salvation is The Person of it; not anything that He has done, but Who He is. The greatness of Salvation is your relationship to Him. And probably most believers have no real comprehension of their relationship to Him. We sit around and sing about how it’s going to be "one glad day". But as we’ve said - there is no third system! In the Bible there’s a first and a second: the first is done away and the second is established. It’s either real NOW or it’s never going to be real! Christ is either Christ or He’s never going to be Christ! He’s either in you or He’s not in you! You’re either in Him or you’re not in Him. And if you are in Him - then you are in Him. There’s not going to be another Christ come along for you to get in.

You are either the House of God or you’re not the House of God. There isn’t some other House of God. You either dwell in Him or you don’t dwell in Him, but there isn’t some other dwelling place; there’s not a "better place". When a saint dies we say ‘he’s in a better place’; but if the person has been in Christ, there is no better place! All we do is put a body in the ground. We buried a clay pot, the excellency of which was never the power anyway! We may miss the physical presence of a brother or sister, but they don’t fall out of Christ. If they were ever seated in heavenly places they are still seated in heavenly places. The whole point is we don’t have wisdom, understanding or knowledge. We just have make believe suppositions and imaginations; we’ve written songs about them, we’ve made up theologies about them, but there is not one piece of scripture in the entire Word of God to back up our imagination if you read it as it is written. Lord help us!

So I’m saying that our Salvation is a Person, and the whole burden of the Spirit, the whole burden of Paul in the New Testament was that the eyes of your understanding might be enlightened. The whole burden is that you may know, that you may understand, that you may comprehend, that you may grow up into Him Who is The Head. And we just totally ignore that in our imaginations and we’ve made it something else. We sing our songs and clap our hands, and we don’t have any idea what it’s all about. Then we go out of the church door and reality hits us in the face, and we’re back the next week "praying through." I was raised up on these terms, but no reality of comprehension and understanding as a Person. Something had to be finished. There is a separation here of The Testimony and The Witness. The Witness is not what you do, The Witness is WHO YOU ARE! You’re either a Witness or you are not! And the Lord really dealt with me: A Witness of what? Most Christians are a witness of nothing! To them nothing has really happened, nothing is really sure; everything is yet going to be...what are you a Witness of?

We must keep this in perspective. Everything from Genesis to Malachi which sums up these three types is called The Testimony of God. And Jesus said "(You do) Search the scriptures...they are they which testify of me." They are the Testimony of Jesus. But the Testimony is absolutely and totally no good, invalid and void unless there was the death of the Testator. There had to be that death of the testator, and in that was the Testimony fulfilled: in His death, burial and resurrection. That which comes out on the other side is called "The Faithful and the True Witness" because the Testimony is in word, and the Witness is in Spirit. The Testimony is about Him, The Witness is Him. Then Jesus says that you would be witnesses unto me; but that doesn’t mean to talk about Jesus. That means that you become living witnesses of Him. We live as those who have no life but Him, as those who are in Him, as those who are His Body. "In that day you’ll understand that I am in My Father, you are in me, and I am in you." That understanding, that knowledge constitutes a witness. The Witness has got to be of the Testimony. You can’t just have something by itself and say that’s the Witness. No, it’s got to be of the Testimony.

The Bible is divided by that. There is The Testimony, then there is the death of the Testator, and The Witness comes forth in the resurrection - A LIVING WITNESS. Every testimony, in our legal system has to have a living witness. In the Bible there is The Testimony - it is engraved in stone; but The Witness is engraved in hearts - The Witness is alive! The Witness is Christ in you; that you, His Body, The Church may become Living Witness unto Him, unto the ends of the earth, unto the uttermost. Now I’m not saying that to be a Witness doesn’t include what you do; but it doesn’t start with what you do - it’s who you are. It’s based upon understanding and knowledge. It has to be based upon The Testimony, and if you don’t know The Testimony, how on earth can you be a Witness? It’s impossible! The Lord caught me up on that one time. He said do you believe everything is finished? I said, yes Lord, it is finished. Then He said - what is finished? And I had to confess I really didn’t know. So I went back and reread and researched every book of The Testimony. I saw that there were five offerings and only one of them was the sin offering. But we say about The Cross: that’s where all my sins were done away, but it’s so much more than that! That’s just saying that all Salvation is, is just getting rid of some sins; and Salvation is The Life of Jesus Christ! Salvation is growing up into Him, Salvation is knowing Him in His fulness! Even in the offerings only one of them dealt with sin. There was the trespass offering, the burnt offering, the meat and the meal offering, and the drink offering. And all of these are fulfilled in Him! He becomes all of that to you and I, and only one of that dealt with sins. We haven’t got any idea what was fulfilled at The Cross! That’s the reason we live the way we do. That’s the reason we get two or three doctrines and we build a church building on it, instead of on The Person of Christ and dedicating ourselves to learning Him.

So - Witness. Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians 2:14, " Now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place." Always - in every place - maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge. And that takes us back in the type to Israel and the golden altar, because that’s the altar of incense. It’s fulfilled in Christ, and to be witnessed always and in every place. God has some stinky place and He wants the savour of His Son there, so He just puts YOU there! Now what are they going to smell there? Sweat or the savour of His Son? What are they going to smell there? Flesh or the savour of Son? Always - and every place! And it doesn’t matter whether we believe it or not - it’s established in the type and fulfilled in The Witness. It refers back to what was established in the tabernacle in the altar of incense, and it’s fulfilled in Christ in living ones, who are The Witness of that Testimony; because primarily we are not the incense or the savour - Christ is! He is the savour of the crushing of the incense. "Who maketh us..." How do we always triumph? In every situation, in every place - where is the triumph? The triumph is that there you manifest the savour of Him. That’s the victory!

Most of us get put in a place like that and we’re too busy praying ‘get me out of here’, to manifest anything of the savour of Christ. We’re there running around rebuking the devil, and saying God forgot me. So the next time you’re in a difficult situation - just think of that, because that’s what God has done: He’s put you there to manifest the savour of His Son! We triumph - every place - all times! The only thing you’re asked to do is just manifest the savour of Him. Verse 15, "For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish." To the one that received it, life unto life, to the other unto death, but unto God the sweet smelling savour of Christ. That’s Witness, and nothing else than that is. Anything less than that is just the dead, stinking works of the flesh, because it’s got to be in line with The Testimony.

Christ had to fulfil The Testimony, therefore in Christ it must be fulfilled in you and I. He can’t be one thing and you and I be something else. The One who said, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life" gives no option on that. Great Salvation is our relationship with a Person: He is The New Man, and because we are in Him, we are a New Creation. We are only what we are by relationship to Him - that’s it! We are a Body because we’re His Body. I know we think we are a bunch of bodies, but we’re not. We’re HIS BODY, and we need to understand that. But how do you understand whose body you are - in the natural? Well, I look in a mirror, and I look at the head; and it’s the body of the man whose face I see. That’s why when somebody robs a store they don’t cover up their feet, they cover up their face, because that’s how people recognize whose body it is. And we are never going to come to God’s understanding except in the face of Jesus Christ, because that’s where understanding comes. As we look at Him and He’s revealed in us, we understand whose Body we are, because we see The Face. The veil is done away, and we, with an open face, beholding the glory of the Lord are changed into that same image. And that’s an inner change - the changing of the heart, of the soul, the renewing of the Spirit of the mind; there’s an actual, literal, glorious change that brings us from the glory of The Testimony to the glory of The Witness: from glory to glory. We’ve dealt with that from 2 Corinthians 3. We are changed from the glory of the type to the glory of the reality, of Christ Himself. So we become expressions of His glory. This is what The Church is to be - it is The Son made manifest!

That’s what The Church really is. It’s not just where we have meetings and sing some songs and go home. We do all that - but we’re not "having" church - WE ARE THE CHURCH! If we’re anything at all, we are The Church. The Church, like everything else, is simply a word defining relationship. We are brought into that relationship through the Person of the Lord Jesus, and that relationship is so phenomenal that the dispensationalists just had to cut it up into little pieces and put part of it out yonder somewhere, because it’s so great! It must have been like that with Israel when they came up to the Jordan and looked and said - there’s no way we can possess that! And God said, what do you mean, possess the land? The fulness is in you - go in there and manifest it in the land, go inhabit the land! Go manifest ME in the land! The only thing I’m asking you to do is don’t make covenants with other gods, don’t make covenants with other nations. It’s not what’s in there - it’s what is in you! That’s what the Lord wanted them to know and in forty years they should have learned that - that I, the Lord am your inheritance, I am this...and I am that. Go into the land! But they wouldn’t, so they had to all die, and a whole new seed was raised up under a whole new administration. And it just took them THREE DAYS to get ready to go in!

Three days - death, burial and resurrection - three days is all it took, and in they went. Yes, they got in there and started making covenants, but the point is everything was already in Israel. Salvation is a relationship with a Person. It is so phenomenal it has to be described as a New Creation, it has to be described as the much fruit of One Seed, His Body. It has to be described in all the terms of the loveliness of The Church. It is all of that and more, because the greatness of it is not after all the creation, the body or the church - the greatness is The Person of Christ; He is what makes The New Creation worthwhile. It’s His Body, it’s His Church, after all - His Church. The Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all! It’s a relationship that we’ve been brought into. We haven’t just been brought out of something; we’ve been brought into a relationship that is called GREAT SALVATION.

Let me point out that phrase again in Hebrews 2:3, " How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation..." And that term "neglect" means ‘failure to make it your only thought’. It didn’t say refuse, reject - just neglect, take away for one moment the gaze of your heart. Why? Because you refuse a relationship. You don’t really neglect an inanimate object: you neglect relationship. If we neglect, if we fail to make it our continual heart’s gaze. Paul says, "Set your affection on things above...for as to this, you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." If we neglect so great salvation - here’s where the term comes from. And we’ve said that Hebrews is continually a comparison between the old and the new. There is the way God had spoken, and how God hath now spoken. And at different times, and in different manners God spoke by the prophets, but at the end of that time He hath spoken in Son. In Son, in Christ we have received the more sure word of prophecy! The more sure word of prophecy is not another prophecy: the actual Greek rendering in 2 Peter 1:19 is "we have the prophets made more sure." Why? Because we’ve seen Him of Whom they speak. That’s Peter’s whole line of reasoning. Before we saw Him we had their word for it, we had the prophets and we believed the prophets. But now we have seen Him - and we have not spoken to you in devised cunning fables - WE HAVE SEEN HIM, and therefore in Him, we have the prophets made more certain.

You see, at one time (Hebrews 1:1) God spoke in the prophets, in the types and the shadows, in the bushes - many different times. And every time has a corresponding manner. For instance, there were seven feasts in Israel and they fell on certain times. But you didn’t just show up: you showed up and there was an object lesson. So in every time there was a revealing of Christ in type, in shadow. But, when the fulness of the times was come...when all those times and their related ways were finished - God sent forth His Son. He hath spoken in Son! What He has said in the Testimony in part He has said in His Son in fulness. Over there glory may have been a puff of smoke and a flash of light, but here glory is The Son - and He’s in you! Glory to God! SALVATION IS THE SON! What God said in part...He hath spoken...at the end of those days. The literal translation from the Greek to the English says, "by many portions and many modes of old, God speaking to the fathers in the prophets, in the last of these days, speaks to us in Son." King James says, "hath in the last days", but it’s in the end of these days. What days? Days when God spoke that way. Hath in the last of those days...because at The Cross is where the last of those days come. At The Cross is where the last days come as relating to all of the first.

And not only have they come the last, but the FULNESS of time. See, with God time doesn’t merely dwindle out, it comes to a fulness, to a full purpose. And it comes to it IN SON! It comes to it in Christ. We’ve already said that Christ doesn’t just fulfil these types and shadows, He is exceedingly, exceptionally, abundantly above and beyond them! We’ve seen that regarding Great Salvation, "great" means ‘much more - abundantly, above, beyond’. Christ doesn’t merely fulfil types: He exceeds them. So He doesn’t just bring times to an end, He brings them to a fulness. When the fulness of the times was come...so that in the administration of the fulness of time... that’s the administration of the Spirit in Christ - He might gather together all things in Christ; gather us up in Christ. That’s the administration of the Spirit now!

We say that someday we’ll see the administration of the fulness of time: but don’t you think the administration of the fulness of time might have come along with the fulness of time? Well, the fulness of time came when God sent His Son! And the administration came right along with it. That’s the administration of the Holy Spirit and it’s greater than times in part, time segments - that’s Moses. But here the Spirit of God is administering fulness of times, times have come to their fulness: all things have been gathered up into Him. This is the Greatness of Salvation! This is what it’s all about!

So in time past God spoke in different ways, but here He has spoken in Son. No wonder Paul said, "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." He didn’t reveal righteousness in me, He revealed His Son in me. He didn’t reveal holiness in me, He revealed His Son in me. He hath spoken in Son. In the Testimony when God said "holiness" He pointed at some meat you shouldn’t eat. Now when God says "holiness" He points to His Son! In the old He pointed to a dead body and said don’t touch it, but now He just reveals The Son Who is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. HE REVEALS HIS SON. Why? He hath spoken in Son. In the type God said "Church" and He pointed to a tent, but now God says "Church" and He points to The Head, He points to The Son because The Church is the effectual expression of Him in the earth.

You see there are three elements necessary to the faith of The Son of God, to spiritual understanding. They are hearing, seeing and speaking - in that order. We can see that in Hebrews. In old times God said something: He said a word, He said "glory", He said "holy" - but He had to point to something that was imperfect. He had to point to something that the eye could see. So what God said could not make them perfect because they could not see what God said. That’s the reason the Hebrews writer says the mountain you’ve come to is not the mountain that can be seen, that burned with fire...ye have come to another mountain. Now it’s spiritual. So now we hear; and how many hear, but they have no sight? John had to turn TO SEE the Voice that spake with him before he could understand. He heard, and then he turned to see. There’s got to be that revealing of Christ in you, because He who is the hearing of God is also the seeing of God. You must have sight. You can’t hear the True Voice of God and look at some object to understand it. You’ve got to see The Voice of God as well. And the hearing and the seeing are the same - it is CHRIST!

And when the hearing and the seeing are the same, the speaking will be the same - then we all speak the same, because we will speak what we both hear and see. You see this is where we break down. We talk about heavenly things - holiness, righteousness - and then we all look at something different, and we say this is what God meant. No - THE SON IS WHAT GOD MEANT! HE IS! And when we see what God meant we all fall on our face! Before the Holiness and Righteousness of God we all fall on our face because we see. And then we start speaking it. Paul said, "I’ve determined not to know anything among you, save - JUST ONE!" Speaking the Truth...that we may all grow up into Him Who is The Head. It will affect what you say.

Well, The Greatness of our Salvation is a Person. These things will fall in place, but the reality of it all is The Person. We’re not talking about terms and doctrines here, we’re talking about relationships with a Person, and the scripture is speaking of relationships. The types talk about it, and the fulfillment is speaking of the relationship. How shall we escape if we neglect so Great Salvation? The Person of it is Christ Himself! The expression of it is to be we ourselves in relationship to Him, but you’ve got to hear, and see and speak. So God at one time spoke in one way, and at other times He spoke in another way: He spoke. One time He used objects, and now HE SHOWS HIS SON, HE REVEALS THE SON. Then what you say means something - it means something to the hearer!

Pt. 4 - The Substance

I don’t know exactly when in the course of Church history, but some time in the last 2000 years the Church has lost her substance, and the Church became in effect, a divorced wife with an absentee husband. And when that happened, being found in that state of mind - divorced, put aside, at least left, then the Church began to come up with fragmented figments of imaginations like: ‘Well, He’s gone now, but one day He’ll come back and get us’. Absentee husband. They began to bring over into that the promises of God made to Israel concerning the coming of the Lord and began to imagine. That’s when the Church really began to go after another...well, you’ve got an absentee husband, so you look for "friendships". And if you don’t just go into outright adultery, you get all caught up in activities to occupy your time, and programs to substitute. And then pretty soon, out of the imaginations of your heart you come up with this "wonderful place where one day everything will be good again."

And by the time you publish some songs about that it becomes scripture. And then you look around and the Church is one place and the Head of that Church, the husband of that Church, the substance that makes it a Church...in your idea He is someplace else altogether. Then you’ve got to create doctrines that justify that, and on and on we go. But when you have a heart to know Him, and the scripture begins to declare Him, you begin to realize He is NOT far off - HE IS IN ME! Then you try to justify all this stuff by that reality that is in you, and you just can’t justify it. And you say - is He in me or not? Are we His Body or not? Because a body with no life in it is called a corpse! So we’ve got a Church today who thinks they are a corpse, and they are waiting on some kind of an imaginary resurrection, when in fact they are The Body of The Resurrection, and should be the evidence of the Resurrection in the earth. You ask - is there no resurrection? Certainly there is a resurrection - it is The Lord! It’s Him who quickens us together, raises us together and causes us to be seated together. With whom? With HIM in heavenly places: not me, and you and Him - you and I IN HIM! "Together with" means that, means an inclusiveness, as one with Him, as His Body.

This is the Truth that the scripture continually projects, but this imagination we have strictly belongs to human kind. It is the enemy of God in you and in me. Imagination is not based upon truth, it’s based upon suppositions. We have strong imaginations, and we fortify them not with true scriptural understanding, but we take pieces of our doctrines from here and there and we fortify our imaginations. And it is extremely difficult to deal with a person who has fortified their imaginations, and are happy with their imaginations. You can only really deal with those that have a heart to hear the Truth.

Well - The Lord is come, The Lord is ever coming! There is so much that God’s people, the Church is missing out on because of ignorance. And ignorance breeds imagination and imagination brings about a form of self worship; and that’s what we have today in so many Christian places. And while no one involved in that would agree to that, backing off and taking an objective view of it, you’d have to say that’s true. But you see, that man of sin has so enthroned himself in the imagination that he has convinced himself that he is God - showing himself that he is God! He has convinced himself that this is a correct viewpoint - fortified.

We want to continue now with some terms of Great Salvation. We’ve dealt with "much more", and that very term requires a comparison. Great Salvation is much more than the Testimony could ever declare it to be, because in Hebrews we are comparing the first covenant to the second, the old covenant to the new in every chapter. We’re not comparing what is God and what is not God; we’re comparing how God did speak as to how God hath spoken. Hebrews doesn’t say that at sundry times and in diverse manners the devil came along and spoke and made everybody think he was God. No, it says GOD SPOKE in these ways, but at the end of these days God hath spoken in Son. King James says "hath in these last days" but we need to understand this, because we all think we’re living in them. But scripturally "the last days" refers to the last days of this old empire, of this old covenant, of this old administration. The last days refers to that which came to The Cross in the fulness of its time, and now you and I are in an eternal day. We are children of The Day! Now the world has gone right on and it’s gotten worse and worse, but you and I are in The Day. We are children of The Day, and we should be walking in the light of The Day, and the Light of The Day is the substance and source of The Day - which is CHRIST HIMSELF! We are in Him, Who is unto us - The Day; who walk not in darkness, but in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we say God is going to do something in the last days, and so many Christians are looking for something to happen that in effect has already happened, but we don’t know what it happened to. See, the first administration stood for something; it was given of God, it was written in stone, it was concrete, people were taken out and stoned who disobeyed it - it meant something! Consequently God didn’t just forget it. He has to bring it to an absolute end, a conclusion, a finality. The last days of it has to come. The prophets saw it..."in that day", "in that day..." Well, we either have to believe that there’s another day somewhere that we don’t know anything about, and that doesn’t have anything to do with The Cross, has nothing to do with His death, burial and resurrection, has nothing to do with our being in Christ - another day that He’s not really the Light of; or we have to understand that this is The Day of His Coming, this is The Day of His Government, this is The Day of His Appearing, this is the Great Gathering. See, we still are all looking for a day like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...that we can see with our natural eyes, and we’ll say - this is the Day alright! But we can’t walk in that day! The Day we walk in, is The Day that Christ is! We can’t have it two ways: we’ve either got to understand that everything that was spoken of materialistically, whether it was a day, a time, a place, a thing - everything that was in the Testimony materialistically (like Sabbath day was an actual day of the week: it had a start and it had an end), has come to The Cross and has its fulfillment in Spirit and Truth, and not materialistically; or we’ve got to agree that none of it does.

You can’t say that at The Cross time came to its fulfillment, the Sabbath day materialistically ended, now we are in The Sabbath - and still be looking for some other day. It doesn’t make sense to say there was a day that wasn’t fulfilled at The Cross and "someday" it’s going to come. We’ve either got to see everything fulfilled at The Cross - or nothing. And if you go through the scriptures on "that day" you’ll see the fulfillment of that as it truly is in Christ. And it’s not always easy to do because we have this materialistic idea that in "that day" something will happen, but I guarantee that in all the scriptures of "that day" corresponding to a day that is yet to come, you will see the fulfilling elements of that day in His death, His burial and His resurrection, and The Cross will become a tremendous occasion to you. You will see that out of That Day there are people released into a New Day. Eternal Day, a Day that Christ is The Light of, a Day that needs no natural sun, moon or stars; but a Day that we walk in, in the knowledge of Him. And that will satisfy you concerning days! Every literal day you will manifest That Day; That Day will be to you a perpetual Sabbath, it will be a perpetual Day of His Appearing, it will be to you against everything that is not Christ, a perpetual Day of His wrath. It will be a Day in which He lives and He rules and He comes, and He’s the Light of that Day. That’s The Day the prophets spoke of. Now we either have to believe that, or we’re going to have to go get something material. Why not go get some bulls and goats? You say, I don’t believe that; but calling Saturday the Sabbath is just the same! Calling Sunday The Lord’s Day is just the same!

You see, if you’re going to take one materialistic thing across - then just take it all! That’s what the brethren tried to do with Paul. They said they loved him, but he was going a little overboard with this "Jesus" thing. ‘Don’t you think that those Gentiles need to be circumcised?’ Paul, who was the most circumcised of them all backed up and said, ‘Now you answer me this, if you’re going to bring one part of the law across, then bring it all. Did the law make you righteous?’ Paul faced the same problem as we’ve got today. If you’re going to bring one part of the type over, then just bring all of it over and start all over again. If you’re going to be looking for a day and a city off out here - well, then let’s look for a sacrifice, let’s look for a Savior and a Redeemer - we haven’t found anything yet! Because it’s either ALL come in Him or none of it is come in Him, since The Testimony is of Him. But you see if we believe that, then the finger comes back against me. The problem is not that He hasn’t completed the Work; the problem is - I don’t know Him! I’ve substituted things for Him. I have not seen this in the face of Jesus Christ. I have diverted my attention, I am not steadfastly beholding the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ! Now spiritual reasoning will tell me it’s got to be one way or the other. This is not merely a matter of what I believe theologically, I’m taking about what is working in us experientially, what is transforming my soul.

I’m not talking about us coming to believe theologically that He is The Day, and that the last days and all that the prophets spoke of is fulfilled at The Cross concerning Israel, and other things, and I believe the scripture. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about That Day becoming to you and I a reality of Life. That we don’t just believe that it is so, but are we walking in it? Because The Light of That Day is Him! And to just believe it in a doctrinal way is no better than believing in another day in a doctrinal way - you’ve just got two different ideas. The point is this has to be actualized in Christ; in seeing Him, in knowing Him - WE PREACH CHRIST! We’re not preaching Kingdom or Sonship - no, we preach Christ! These things are seen in Him, and when something is seen in Him, He is seen; and when He is seen, when He appears - transformation takes place, a mind is renewed, motivations are changed, imaginations are cast down! Those high things that have exalted themselves against the knowledge of God - down they come, and the Lord is exalted!

And sometimes people can HEAR what you say, but they won’t SEE what you’re saying. I want to reemphasize the necessity of not only hearing, but seeing. And it’s got to get beyond hearing even with our natural ear. Even to hear something with our heart and to bring it into our hearts, we still have to have the eyes of our understanding enlightened so we know what we are seeing. We can point to a circle on a board that says "One New Man", but in order to comprehend that we must see Jesus. We must see Christ or we’ll never understand this One New Man; and we’ll never understand our relationship to Him as a New Creation until we see Him, because HE defines New Man, and HE defines New Creation - it’s Him! You say - it’s Him and me; yes, but it’s still Him! You take Him out of it and the whole thing disappears because He’s the substance of it. If you take the substance out of it you’ve just got a shell and it will become a form, and pretty soon turn into another imagination, and some man will come and get in it and become the substance of it. That’s how we come up with these forms of God - we lose the substance.

This happened to Israel when the glory of the Lord departed from the Temple. They still had a Temple: they went right on with their "stuff". Jesus actualized that in His 3 ½ years - He came to that Temple, that same Temple. That was a literal fulfillment of what had been told to Zerubbabel. Haggai said this latter house, this one you are restoring shall have a greater glory than the former house, the house that Solomon built. And literally that even happened because Jesus came into that latter house - a greater than Solomon literally walked into it! But it didn’t receive Him. We’re not talking about the bricks here - that house didn’t receive Him. So the Bible says, "He went out, and departed from the temple". That’s Matthew 24. That’s one of the most heart rending verses I’ve ever read. When I consider that, I say, ‘poor Israel!’. He went out and departed - those words mean ‘totally, utterly gone - forsaken’ - the substance. And His disciples were still fascinated with it. He turned and looked at it and said "not one stone will be left standing upon another." And it so shocked them and disturbed them that they equated that to the end of the world, the end of time and the coming of the Lord, and they asked Him, "When shall these things be?"

What things? What He just got through talking about - the complete demolishment of this whole system - temple, city, people and all; the end of the world, which is there translated "age"; and your coming which is in that definite judgment. Now all of that was actualized at The Cross: so much so that less than 40 years, one generation after The Cross, there was that literal, absolute destruction of the temple and the city, and the people of Israel as a state - scattered completely. There’s never been a High Priest office then or since, not even to this day! That thing was torn down: Titus brought in teams of oxen, pried up the stones, sent them to the four corners of what they called the earth in that day, and had oxen to literally plow up the ground where the Temple floor had been. The prophet had said, "Zion shall be as a plowed field". Why? Because the Lord went out and departed!

What I’m trying to tell us is - you don’t want anything without the substance! We don’t want to jump and preach, but the substance be gone. We can learn all the doctrines and teaching, but the substance be gone. I’ve never gotten over that. I figure I’d rather be dumb as a rock but have the substance, rather than have all the doctrines down, but not see Jesus there. We can sing and shout that we’re a New Creation, but not have any idea Who that is, because we don’t see the substance, we don’t see it in His face. If it’s not an outshining of Him in our hearts, not a comprehension of Him in our hearts, then it’s just another way of believing - maybe a more scriptural idea, but it’s still just an idea. See, you can hear that, but until you see Who all of that is relating to, and see Him by The Spirit, see Him revealed, then you’re just going to relate truisms to wrong objects, and eventually the wrong object will become yourself, because we relate all of that stuff to man. And the very thing that is to exalt Him becomes exaltation for us. That happens because we get hearing without seeing. We hear something, and jump up and start preaching it before we see Who The Lord is talking about.

That’s what we find in Hebrews 1. I’m going to read out of a literal concordant Testament which is a literal translation of the Greek text. "By many forces and many modes of old, God speaking to the fathers in the prophets, in the last of those days, speaks to us in Son." See, King James says "hath in these last days", so we say these are the last days, but the proper translation doesn’t say that. Now I know these are terrible days. I know these are perilous times out in the world, but the last days that the scriptures talk about were the bringing of all of this to an end, so He might bring forth a New Day. We are in that New Day. So we have to understand that everything that comes to be fulfilled in Christ must have this testimonial background to it. Great Salvation is a Salvation that is much more than what is stipulated here. So you can’t have a New Day without these days coming to the last of these days. There has to be order to it: you can’t just decide something is the last days because it looks bad to you. No - what does the scripture declare? It’s the last of THESE days. And what marked these day? The devil? No, what marked these days were they were days in which God spoke in part, dealt in part, in types and shadows. Then what is different about This New Day? The difference is He no longer deals in parts, in types, in shadows. My Lord - HE DEALS IN SON!! He deals in Fulness of HIS SON! Everything He said first in part, He says now IN SON.! That’s the difference between the day.

The difference is not because the devil is madder or meaner; no, that has nothing to do with it. The difference is God did things one way in the first, but now God doesn’t just do them another way - He does it IN SON. So, IN SON we have a New Day! IN SON, a New Creation; IN SON, a clear Word of prophecy, all the prophets made more sure. We have heard them, now we have seen Him of Whom we heard. That’s what Peter is saying. A more sure word of prophecy doesn’t mean another prophecy from another prophet. It means the prophets made more sure because we have seen Him of Whom they spoke. But he wasn’t talking about seeing Him in flesh and blood. Peter said we’ve seen Him when the heavens opened and the most excellent voice spake and revealed Him. Oh yes, that’s the more sure word of prophecy, that’s The One of whom all the prophets spoke - it’s Christ in you, and it’s you in Christ! That’s The One: He’s the substance of the City that you are, He’s the substance of the Body that you are, He’s the substance of the Temple that you are. This is The One of whom the prophets spoke! When we see Him we have The Word of God, written on stones, spoken by prophets, shouted out of bushes...we have it made more sure in a Person. That’s what Hebrews is saying. "Hath at the end of those days, in the last of those days, spoken IN SON."

Now King James uses the terminology of "angels" in this chapter, but the original word in the Greek is "messengers". Now I’m not arguing that angels couldn’t be messengers or that angels weren’t even the messengers of the old covenant, but if we look carefully we see something else, because in verse 1 it says "by the prophets", so the prophets are the ones in question here. How did we switch from prophets to angels here? Isn’t it possible that in verse 5..."For to whom of the messengers..." that he’s not comparing angels to Christ, but comparing all prophets, even Moses; all that has ever spoken of Him as being much, much less than Him, because to which of them, even David did He ever say, Thou art My son? No, not to David did He say this, but to This One who had come. We must understand that the writer is writing to Hebrews here, and he is trying to convince Hebrews that Christ is the much more. So they believe the prophets: here comes One who is greater than the prophets, of Whom all the prophets spoke. Even David, who is considered a prophet and a King - he gave allegiance to This One! Now in this chapter this word is translated "angels". Verse 6, the literal says, "Now whenever he may again be leading the firstborn into the inhabited earth, he is saying, And worship him all the messengers of God." Now the firstborn here is not referring to him being born of Mary; the first born is the first born from among the dead.

See, I’m not saying that the angels didn’t do certain things, but in this text it has a different meaning. Think of the angels of The Church in the book of Revelation: those are the leadership in those churches, the ministry in the churches, and yet it’s the same word translated that way. You really have to translate the word by the context in which it is written rather than what the King James translators did, who due to their religious training believed that everything that moved was an angel with wings. So in this context, he’s referring to the prophets: that God spoke in this way one time, but now has spoken this way - IN SON. And he’s showing the greatness of the one over the other. What good does it really do in this context to show Him greater than angels? That’s never really been a problem. But this word "messenger" can mean either an angel or an anointed messenger, one who speaks by the Spirit of God. And he is showing that even though they did this, here is the greater; here is The Word of Whom they all spoke - to which of them did God say this, that or the other?

Verse 7, "And indeed to the messengers he is saying, and who maketh his messengers blasts and his ministers a flame of fire. Yet to the Son he says, Thy throne, O God is for aeons of the aeons; and the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou lovest righteousness and hateth injustice; therefore thou are anointed by God, with the all of exaltation, above thy partners." And partners can still be referring to all of the prophets out from whom He is exalted, because in Peter’s writings it says the Lord shall raise up among you, one like unto Me, above it; Him shall you hear. That makes scriptural sense, and there’s nothing wrong with that! And the term "raise up" there implies The Resurrection. How did He raise Him up from among the brethren? It doesn’t say He said "stand up". No, He raised Him up from among the dead and exalted Him among the brethren. The fact that He came forth in The Resurrection proves He is exalted above the prophets, and above Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - exalted above all, for He is declared to be The Son of God by The Spirit of holiness and The Resurrection. God raised Him up!

There’s no argument about WHO came forth in the Resurrection - HE DID!! He’s raised up! All things are proved by The Resurrection. The early Apostles preached The Resurrection by Jesus Christ; they preached The Resurrection through Jesus Christ. They didn’t preach The Resurrection as a thing, they preached it through Him. See, Israel believed in a resurrection; they just didn’t believe in THE RESURRECTION - they wouldn’t accept Him. And all things were proved by that. Paul wrote the same thing in other letters, but in this letter to the Hebrews it is comparing how God did things before The Cross, to what He had done in the fulfillment - in Christ; and showing the one to be so much greater, exceedingly greater than the other. He was doing that because most of the early believers were Hebrews: they were Jews and they were having a hard time coming out of that system. It had been entrenched for hundreds of years in them. They were having a hard time with this thing, particularly because that system has denied The Cross, and for a whole generation has been allowed to stumble along and persecute them. It’s not a matter of having theological debates: they come get you, drag you out of your home - and kill you! And think they do God a favor! And at the very beginning of that they’ve got this righteous zealot called Saul who is leading the campaign! And had the Lord not stopped him, he would have almost destroyed the Church before it got started! Do you understand why Paul suffered for the Church so much? He who killed the Church ended up bearing the marks of His dying! For the Church - the Lord changed that, the Lord did that through the revelation of His Son!

That’s the reason we find letters such as the book of Hebrews, and it will help us if we can understand why it was written, and to whom, and what it’s talking about. It doesn’t make it any less true or Christ any less The Truth, but it helps us to understand some of the terms that are used here such as bringing one to its end, and now this Eternal Day, this Eternal Salvation, this Eternal Word - God hath spoke in His Son - is as real now as it ever was! It’s all of the first, the old that has come to an end. But at that time it had just come to an end 2000 years ago, and it still very much had a hold on believers. And in my opinion, most of what we call "The Church" has completely come back in their hears and minds, and have taken up the position of Old Testament Israel, and fortified themselves with the same scriptures of Old Testament Israel, and are still denying that the Lord has come. And so, out of the imagination of their heart, they have dreamed up "something yet to come". They look at the scripture, particularly those in the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which has NOTHING to do with futurism at all; it’s the revelation of Jesus Christ! Here - and now - and forever! But they look into those scriptures and they see the great definitions and declarations concerning The Church, and they say that yes, one day it will be that. No - in the reality and beauty of Christ, it is that NOW! We are just blind, we just look after the flesh!

But now in verse 13: "But to which of the ministers said he at any time, sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" Verse 14 in the original says "Are they not all ministering spirits commissioned for the service because of those who are about to be enjoying allotment of Salvation?" Now what does that mean? If we understand that these ministering spirits are those that minister by The Spirit of Christ, The Spirit of God; because if they were a true prophet The Spirit of God came upon them and they spoke as they were given utterance. Their word was received as The Word of The Spirit - they were ministering spirits. Who were they ministries for? They ministered to Israel, but the Bible also says they spoke of the one that was to come. So, to whom did they really minister? The Israel of the old, or to the Israel that was to come? Did they speak of that which was in type and shadow or which was to come? Who did these prophets really talk about? Did they talk about themselves, did they minister to themselves? Remember this is being written to these Christians. Were they not ministering to those who would be the true heirs of Salvation? And that means you and I who are in Christ - both Jew and Gentile, those who were to be the true heirs of Salvation. If not let’s throw the scriptures away, but aren’t they really written to you and I who are in Christ, that we may go back and see in them the reality of what we have in Him now? Are they not really ministers to those who were desiring to be the heirs of Salvation - you and I in Christ? It makes no difference if we’re Jew or Gentile.

See the whole issue here is that they were not exclusively writing to Old Testament Israel; they were Old Testament Israel ministering to those who would be heirs of Salvation. And don’t forget that the first heirs of Salvation came out of Old Testament Israel - those Jews that left came right over into it, and in them, according to the scripture, all Israel was saved. All Israel was saved in that remnant, because the scripture says The Israel of God are those who are in Christ, and therefore all of Israel is saved. There is none of Israel left out of Christ because The Israel of God is in Christ! Now we’re not talking about "natural" Israel, because "natural" Israel always was speaking of spiritual Israel, and its prophets were always speaking of The One greater than themselves. Consequently "we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard..." What have we heard? We have heard these prophets. We must pay attention to what we’ve heard because what we’ve heard...HAS COME!! "...lest at any time we let them slip." What does that mean? Slip out from their fulfillment, slip out from their place. It would be like letting something be dislodged - one of these prophecies, and fall off and have no true fulfillment.

No, they must be found in their place, we must not let them slip. We must not fail to see these things founded and established and proven in Christ Jesus, because they are all spoken concerning Him. Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed. I believe in searching the scripture, but I believe in seeing these things as they are, fulfilled in Christ! I go back to Isaiah and I get beside myself because I know Who he’s talking about! I’ve seen the City of God that he’s speaking of! It was yet to come when he wrote it; it has come in Christ! To the heirs of Salvation - that’s why these things are important, otherwise the scriptures before Malachi we could just throw away. But no, we should give the more earnest heed to these things that we have heard. Heard where? Heard from these prophets. Why? Because it’s coming in Christ. "For if the word spoken by messengers was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation..."- the very thing it was talking about! If you neglected the type, how shall we escape if we neglect the FULFILLMENT of it - so Great Salvation! And this "great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed..." So you see there now you have a division. This Great Salvation was spoken of by the prophets, but it was first spoken clearly by the Lord and "confirmed unto us by them that heard him(which are the Apostles)."

So the Apostles are in agreement with the prophets because the prophets spoke of One Who was to come. The Apostles are saying - HE’S COME! A more sure word of prophecy! The writer of the Hebrews is simply telling us then we ought to give heed to what we’ve heard and we ought to understand what has been declared to us. IN HIM the Apostles and the Prophets agree!

Then the writer goes right on and he picks up another issue - sacrifice or offering, and he’ll bring that right over and show that to be fully complete and finished in Christ. He will do that all the way through the book of Hebrews - bringing the lesser to The Cross, and on to the greater. He tells us over in Chapter 13 - not to this mount, the mountain that typifies this old system have you come, but YOU HAVE COME to Mount Zion, the city of God. He starts off by saying here is how God speaks, then he shows that. Then he starts saying, now here’s what God is saying in Him, and it just follows right on through this letter. It’s Great Salvation being summed up, being revealed in a Person, Whose Body you are!

Pt. 5 - The Mystery Made Known

In considering Great Salvation we will go on with the Centrality of The Cross. But as we can see from our diagrams of bringing the elements and types of Salvation in the Old Testament over into the reality of Christ, we can look at the names of the Lord with regard to Salvation. God only has to have names in order that He may relate Himself to us. Otherwise - why should He have names? But that we may know Him in the various aspects of His nature and character and His divine intention towards us. Those things are spoken of in the names of the Lord. Now, the names of the Lord are not like Tom or Mary: they always indicate His relationship with a people. We can study the names of God, but we must comprehend the reality of those names in Christ, as relationships that are all satisfied in Christ, because every name over in the Old Testament type by which God is named comes to be fulfilled and satisfied in Christ - as a relationship with us.

In the type with Adam and Noah, Salvation typed as One Man, a creation - the Lord is known in Genesis 1 as ELOHIM. Elohim primarily means "the plurality of God" - God having plurality in Himself. What does that suggest? That suggests creation - God bringing out from Himself, the creation of God, family of God, that whole thing would be that name that would relate Him to creating something in which He would have glory, in which He would see Himself. The name ELOHIM relates to creator. And in Genesis 7:1 in dealing with Noah, the name is LORD or JEHOVAH, and that means "The Self Existent One". Again, that relates to creation: The Self Existent One creates all things, and the whole purpose for this creation from Adam to Noah was that they come to realize that not only did God create them, but that they were created for Him. They lived by Him, through Him, for Him. The Eternal Elohim, The Self Existent One - it relates to this. And the whole point of His relating with a creation is that this creation comprehend: we exist because of Him! You can bring that right over into the reality of the New Birth, The One New Man we are in Christ. And the whole purpose of understanding Salvation as a New Creation is that you and I understand that except by the Word of God (because Elohim and Jehovah are all summed up in The Eternal Word), Who was in the beginning with God, was God, the same with God... So in Salvation He is called "The Word of God". Here this creation is not made with hands, it is spoken into existence by The Spirit. You are born of that incorruptible Seed, which is Christ, The Living Word of God. So in that is summed up both the names of Elohim and Jehovah!

And they are summed up in that Living Word. Why? That you and I as a creation understand what Adam and Noah were to understand at least in type and shadow. We are to understand that except He live, we have no life. We do not exist in, and of, and for ourselves - we are a New Creation, created of God in Christ Jesus; our very life is The Word. We are One New Man, and we are His Creation! How many believers really have that comprehension with regard to Salvation? Many say - now I’m saved and got my sins forgiven, and now I’m on my way to heaven. What’s that got to do with it? No, the first realization of Salvation is - we’re His, we don’t exist but by Him. The first realization of This New Creation is just this - GOD, YOU ARE MY FATHER! And there’s not a handful of believers on the face of the earth that comprehends Him in that way by The Spirit. And that is a tragedy! You’ve got the world, mankind running around saying we’re made in the likeness and image of God, we’re all the children of God. NO, you’re not! Jesus said you’re children of the devil! Children of God are a New Creation in Christ. To them, God is Father. Then you understand your Creator and your Lord is become, by His Word, your Father! I preached half of my life before I realized - God, you are my Father! I didn’t figure that out in the letter of the scripture. The Spirit of the Son, The Living Word rose up in my very soul and cried out, "GOD, YOU ARE MY FATHER!" That’s when my creator became my Father! That’s GREAT SALVATION! So we call Him both God and Lord, but until we know Him by His Own Word as Father, we don’t comprehend God or Lord.

Then in your next type of Salvation in Abraham and Isaac, He is known as God of heaven and earth. In Genesis 14 Melchizedek comes upon the scene, and Abraham comes to know God in a way that he has never known Him before - Melchizedek, King of Salem, and was the Priest of The Most High God. The Most High God means the possessor of heaven and earth - a new name for Abraham. God of heaven and earth. And along with that name of heaven and earth came a seed, the measure of which was in heaven and in earth. "Look to the earth, count the dust if you can, so shall thy seed be. Look to the heaven, count the stars if you can, so shall thy seed be." We bring that over to the understanding of Salvation and Great Salvation comes out of A Seed. A Seed, that has fallen into the ground and died. The measure of This Seed is in the heaven and the earth. The measure of This Seed first according to the order is in the earth. That’s because when This Seed dies, He brought into Him every man - all men were brought into Him, and He fell into the earth and died. The earth is the place of His death, and the heaven is the place of His Life! He fills up the earth with His death, He fills up the heaven with His Life - He reconciles all things in heaven and in earth in His death and in His resurrection!

That’s the miracle of The Seed. That’s what happened to The Seed. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die...and the measure of His death fills it up! And when one died, all died with Him. The measure of His death fills it up. And He comes forth in The Resurrection and the measure of His Life fills the heaven - His increase. He said "Except the corn fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it does, it brings forth much fruit". A Body comes forth, the very substance of which is Christ Himself - the very increase of Himself. A Body comes forth - The Seed brings forth after its own kind! And it is at that time that you understand what Most High God is all about.

So these names of God relate to our comprehension of Salvation. And the third type is Israel, and a totally new name was introduced to Israel by Moses and that is "I Am That I Am." I AM THAT I AM. You bring that right over into the realization of Salvation called The Church: The Church, which is His Body - not the church which is a building sitting on a corner. The Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him. Everything that is accomplished in His Body is to be made manifest visibly in The Church. Just like everything that is summed up in Abraham and Isaac comes to be manifested visibly in Israel, because this is an ongoing understanding of Salvation. So now this New Creation Man is seen to be The Seed of God bringing forth after His own Kind - The Body of Christ. And The Body of Christ is seen to be The Church in the earth. And the only purpose The Church in the earth exists for is to give expression to The I Am - not The I Will Be - THE I AM! Because there’s nothing that He will be other than what He already is! THE I AM. Moses asked, "How shall I speak to them, Lord? Who shall I say sent me?" Did God answer - "Tell them Elohim?" No, because that didn’t relate to what God wanted Israel to be a type of. He didn’t say, "Tell them Most High God." No, that related to what Abraham was a type of. "You tell them I AM THAT I AM , The God Who will dwell in the midst of His people. I am where I am, I am because I am, I am what I am, I am that I am! You tell them - I AM - sent you!"

The Lord Jesus comes along and says, ‘I Am The Way, The Truth, The Life, I Am The Resurrection. I Am come." All of this name I Am, is the name by which The Church is identified with Him: not The I was, not the I will be - THE I AM THAT I AM! What is He saying concerning you and I? Where I Am, ye may be also. In that day you will know! If you want to give a name to The Church, give it this name - I AM. The mystery made known - Christ and The Church. No wonder that’s the instrument that the enemy came against so strongly right at the beginning. He doesn’t care how much you believe about the Lord, just as long as you never understand Him as The I AM. The "I Am that is going to be" - that’s fine; learn about Him all you want. But the enemy doesn’t want us to comprehend The I Am That I am. That’s His relationship to Israel and that’s His relationship to The Church. And The Church is to be the expression of I Am; in all of its aspects - Way, Truth, Life, Word, Resurrection, come, Ever coming - all of its aspects. I AM! The Church is to know Him in that way. Not we are: I AM, because The Church is NOT who we are, but it’s Who The I Am is! The Church is not for the elevation of man, but for the expression of The I Am. That’s the purpose of The Church. In type and in shadow Israel had that purpose. And He came to His own, and His own received Him not. Why didn’t they receive Him? Because they said He hadn’t come yet; they received the concept of Him, but they wouldn’t receive Him.

The whole Church world today is built on a concept of Christ; not on the reality of Christ. The concept - There is a Christ...one day... A religious concept, but it denies the reality of The Person. And it all comes to just this - knowing Him as The I Am, because this is the relationship to which finally Great Salvation will bring you. Finally it has to be this understanding - The I Am. It can be, and must be in its beginning a New Creation - God is my Father. All of that glorious realization Salvation must begin with, but it must go on to be more than that; a greater understanding of the God that possesses the heaven and the earth. He brings them together, reconciling them at The Cross, where in Him all die, and in Him all are made to live - not as many, but as One. But finally and ultimately, there’s got to be a people for whom Salvation is more than all of this: it is Him having expression of His fulness in the earth. Finally Salvation has got to be that: I AM! Therein you will find the purpose for The Church. How far away from that reality The Church world has come. They have kept the concept, and denied the reality of The Person, because religion as a concept is a very popular thing - it makes us all look so good!

Now we’ll talk about The Centrality of The Cross. We’ll use the diagrams, but I want to emphasize the effects of The Cross upon each of these types, because that is the effect of The Cross upon each of these realities of Christ. What is the effect of The Cross upon the Adamic creation? What is the effect of The Cross upon that Salvation that Abraham and Isaac stand for? What is the effect of The Cross upon that part of Salvation that Israel stands for; because you bring all of those three types and the effect of The Cross was fully fulfilled in Christ, and is to be made manifest in a people. So that you have Salvation in Christ Jesus as representing an ever, ongoing work of The Cross. In other words, The Cross in Great Salvation means more than just the death of Adam. It means more than that. You’ll face The Cross time and time and time again in its ever deepening work in you, bringing about in you what The Lord desires. It is the working of The Cross. You are never going to get away from the working of The Cross! Those who only see The Cross as the death of Adam never comprehend the full working of The Cross. However there is that realization that must come first because The Cross is always in the center of God’s plan.

And let us understand something: THE CROSS IS NOT A THING, IT IS NOT A PLACE, IT IS A PERSON. The Cross is summed up in Christ - His death, His burial and His resurrection. That’s The Cross that Paul preaches, that’s The Cross that the scripture declares. Of all of the hundreds of thousands of people that were crucified by Rome, in the Bible, only One died The Death of The Cross. So you see to die on crosses is not the same as The Cross, The Death of The Cross. The Death of The Cross is associated with Christ, with His particular death, and burial, and resurrection, which was different than any death, burial or resurrection that has ever come upon the face of the earth. For in Him it was not a man dying in sin, but it was Him bringing all men to be dead unto sin; that all by Him may be released from sin! But to do that you’ve got to come to Him in His death, you’ve got to claim His death as your own. Well, the Church world has stopped preaching that; they just say, ‘all you need to do, old Adam man is just come on up here and the Lord will forgive you.’ Why don’t we tell them the Truth! That’s not right! Old Adam creation - come up here and identify with the reality that you are DEAD! Dead as a doornail! That what the Lord did to you in His own body was kill you! He didn’t forgive you - He killed you! He just summed up all men into Himself, and according to an appointment - DIED! And when He died all died with Him. And that’s the only death - The Death of The Cross that has connected to it a sure and certain resurrection; because the only ones that can come forth in The Resurrection are the ones that claim The Death of The Cross as their death. You can see in The Word that you are not resurrected from the position of being dead IN SIN; you are resurrected from the position of being dead TO SIN. Who comes forth in The Resurrection? Those who accept His death as their death - they come forth in The Resurrection.

Let’s go to Ephesians 2. We’re going to read this both in the King James translation and in a literal Greek translation. I want to show you something. We must realize that the scriptures have been translated many times by men, and every man that has ever translated the scripture had bias and prejudice in his heart. And given two words to choose from, his bias is going to direct which one he chooses. And it wasn’t any different with the men King James gathered together, and I’m glad he did because by and large it is a good translation. But over time words were changed, but God hasn’t changed, and in His wisdom He chose Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, age old, unchanging languages in which original manuscripts were written. That’s amazing to me because now we can go back to that and correct ourselves. Now we’re not changing the Bible, but the King James translation is not always correct. So Ephesians 2:4, " But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us (and the great love wherewith He loved us was the death of His Son), Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)".

Now we must realize in the context of the scripture that we are not resurrected out from the position of being dead in sin, because that violates the whole purpose of Christ dying! You see, Christ was never dead in sin: Christ died TO SIN. He gathered up all mankind - he that is dead is freed from sin; so He gathered up all mankind and made them dead to sin. The point is mankind is too ignorant to admit it and admit His death as their death. They would rather say - No, we’re not dead, and live in sin! Jesus tried to tell this to the Pharisees, he said you are too proud, you won’t admit that you are blind. If you would I would give you light. But you would rather call your blindness, your darkness - light. Therefore how gross is your darkness! You have become blind leaders of the blind. If you tell the world they can be forgiven - my God, they’ll fill up every building you can build! But if you tell them that you must identify with Him in His death, which means the loss of their life, see how many you fill up. But you’ll fill it up with the other telling them they are forgiven; and in that way, in that understanding - they are not. They have no comprehension of what Salvation is - no wonder it’s such a crazy, religious world out there! No one understands Salvation! They’ve been told it’s everything from Sunday School attendance to paying tithes; writing your name on a ledger, to signing a pledge. And all it amounts to is just Adam getting a new lease on life, Adam getting to start over again, Adam being a better businessman. And organizations have come up to help that idea along, and lots of preachers jump on that bandwagon! Because there’s billions of dollars on that bandwagon, and there’s nation wide publicity on that bandwagon. But the one thing Adam doesn’t want to hear now any more than he wanted to hear it in the garden is - "Thou shalt surely die!" But for those who will hear it, and receive Him in his death, immediately they come forth in His Life.

So, " Even when we were dead in sins..." But here is the literal translation: "God being rich in mercy, because of His vast love, which he loves us, we also being dead to the offenses and the lusts, He vivifies us together in Christ." Now look at that - We also being dead TO the offenses and the lusts. You see, this is the death of The Cross! King James translates it: while we were dead in sin He raised us up. No He didn’t! While we were dead in sins Christ died to sin, and made all in that death to be dead to sin. But you must receive His death as your own. Being dead to sin, He brings us forth unto life - which is exactly what the original verse says. What I’m saying is you are not resurrected out of being dead in sin; you are resurrected from the position of being dead with Christ to sin. You live then by Him, you are resurrected into life. It is His death, His burial, His resurrection. We’ve all participated in that death in sin - what’s that got to do with it? We must become partakers of His death to sin and reckon His death my death. That’s the death God promised to Adam. "And as it was appointed unto man once to die..." And the original says, "and in relation to that, the judgment", because the judgment of God is coming in that death. It is appointed unto man once to die, consequently - the judgment. So Christ died once and for all. And another scripture says and when one died, all were made to be dead with Him.

You’ve got to receive that Salvation, that gospel; and come to embrace Him in that death and realize that, because it is out from there that we know Him as Life. So I’ll say it again - God raised nobody out from being dead in sin. All mankind was dead in sin until Christ died for all men to sin, thus bringing all men to be dead - he that is dead is freed from sin. But the only ones that are truly dead, free from sin, are those who have embraced themselves as being dead with Christ. And if we reject His death, then we remain dead in sin. And there’s no resurrection out from that! But there is a resurrection from being dead with Christ.

That’s what Paul said, "Don’t you understand that as many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into His death? Buried with Him by baptism into His death." Why? "So that like as Christ was raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so also we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His life." THE CROSS IS CENTRAL TO SALVATION. You can’t just come out of the old creation into the New Creation. The old creation has to come to The Cross, and reckon the death of The Cross. Adam - you are going to die! And you’ve got to comprehend that; that there is an all consuming death that The Son died. And He died without sin, but He died to sin. He that is dead by that death (because that’s the death Paul is talking about in Romans 6) is free from sin - it’s The Death of The Cross. But that means we no longer have a life, and you come forth as a New Creation knowing Him as Lord, as Elohim, as The Living Word - you come forth saying ‘It is not I, but Christ who liveth in me. I have no life!" Then it follows that if I have no life, I have no - anything! It is Christ who liveth! But the crowning glory of that is the realization that Christ brings in you: "Oh God, You are my Father! Elohim is Father! Lord God is Father! The old creation could never have known Him as Father. The New Creation, being abundantly above and beyond and surpassing what the first creation was - we know Him as Father!

So Adam’s relationship to The Cross is one of death. Here’s the scripture references: Hebrews 9:26-28 says "... As it is appointed unto men once to die..." We must understand that has nothing to do with physical death. If it had been physical death then it would have ended when the first man died physically. Adam after a few hundred years did die physically, but that didn’t satisfy the death, that didn’t satisfy God, that didn’t satisfy the appointment. The appointment never had anything to do with physical death at all. We won’t really get into that because that’s man being dealt with as a soul - man became a living soul. But there is an appointed death... and He became obedient unto that death. He became obedient unto The Cross. You see the word that applies to that death is - OBEY. Adam was what? Disobedient. You bring that over into The Cross where this last Adam is obedient unto death, even the death of The Cross. These words connect: the first was of disobedience, The Cross brings the results of obedience.

Adam brought into this first creation disobedience. The New Creation is the result of obedience; an obedient Son, a Son obedient unto death. He was obedient, wherefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name (Philippians 2:5-11). OBEDIENT. Listen, in the first creation obedience was to do what God told you to do, and not do what God told you not to do. Adam couldn’t even do that! But in The New Creation, obedience is not doing what God told you to do or not do, obedience here is unto the DEATH OF THE CROSS. There are a lot of people who would love for God to give them ten things to do or ten things not to do, and that is exactly the way they do it - but they won’t be obedient to The Cross. Therefore in this Creation they are reckoned with God as being disobedient. We think obedience is out here doing things. No, it doesn’t make any difference what you do, if you’re not doing it in obedience to the Death of The Cross then what you’re doing is the dead works of the flesh. And I don’t care how many times you ask God to bless it, and how many names you put on it. The Lord dealt with me strongly on that: "Son, it’s not what you do, it’s WHO is doing it - you or Christ?"

We want to do good things. It’s not doing good...it’s who is doing it? It’s who is living here. ‘Well, I’m going to keep the commandments of God!’ Wonderful, keep all the commandments of God, but if you keep all the commandments of God it will simply bring you into the obedience of The Cross! At some point in time you’re going to have to reckon yourself dead, and it is not I, but Christ Who liveth in me. Now that’s the gospel message! That is simple Salvation for Adam. People are always telling me: ‘I’d just like to hear about "simple Salvation".’ I’m telling you what "simple Salvation" is. Simple Salvation is you as dead as a door nail and Christ is the only life you’ve got. That’s as simple as Salvation can be made, but nobody wants to hear it that simple! So to Adam The Cross means unconditional death. "As it is appointed unto men once to die, after that..."

Now we think that means that man dies and after that at some time there will be a judgment. But the actual Greek translation is, "It is appointed unto man once to die, upon which, in accordance with, the judgment." ALL JUDGMENT COMES AT THE CROSS! Jesus said it did, "Now is the judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this world cast out." Here is the judgment of God, and then Paul says, "We thus judge, when one died, all died with Him." This is the judgment that we are brought to. The Cross is the judgment for the world, the inhabited earth; this is the judgment for the Adamic creation. There is a judgment, and the judgment is carried out at The Cross, and it’s never going to be different, it’s never going to change. The judgment is - HERE YOU DIE! And here in The New Creation it is not you, but Christ Who lives in you. That is the gospel of plain and simple Salvation, and it just doesn’t get any simpler than that. But we like to mix it up by misapplying terms that should never be applied to Adam.

So we have that appointed death in Hebrews 9. Then 2 Corinthians 5:14-17. One died, all died with Him...and the end of that is "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation." But not outside of Christ. IN CHRIST he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new - IN CHRIST. How do all things become new? Because The One Whose Creation this is says "I make all things new!" They are made new by Him! They are made new by This One Man Whose Creation we are; This One Man by Whom we live, and move and have our very being. What I’m talking about is Salvation, we’re talking about GREAT SALVATION! We are not talking about "deeper life" or mysterious stuff, we’re talking about a mystery of God made known in Christ. We’re talking about Salvation, and anything other than this is simply not Salvation; it’s just man’s concept of religion. It’s amazing to me that when we present the Truth, people say, ‘Well, I don’t know, that’s just too deep for me.’ It overwhelms me because it lets me know how duped we are: that if The Truth is too deep, what are we comparing that with? We’re comparing that with the concept that The New Birth is writing your name on a piece of paper. So I suppose then if you come along and declare The New Birth as The Living Christ in you, maybe that is a little too deep for you. It’s a little more than writing your name on a piece of paper, I agree, but the point is writing your name on a piece of paper never should have been called Salvation in the first place!

Church membership never should have been substituted for being placed by God through His Spirit as a member of The Body, because you’ll never find the term "Church membership" in the Bible. You’re not a member of The Church, you’re a member of The Body of Christ - God having set each member there as it pleases Him. I don’t know where we come up with Church membership. Well - imaginations of our heart - we imagine it! We’ve created our own "Books of Life" and wrote our own names in it! We think we’re members of a church. The Church is a people expressing in the earth the reality of Christ. What you’re a member of (and that doesn’t mean membership) is The Body of Christ, and you are a member of His Body by His Living Spirit, not by writing your name on a wall somewhere! You are a member because God has added you as a member, but we have become members of congregations, and we’ve lost Great Salvation. Now I’m not telling you there are not local gatherings of believers, but it’s not constituted by writing names down. We can write names down, but that means absolutely nothing except there is an ongoing relationship in process. The list means nothing in and of itself. I’m not telling you we shouldn’t gather but those gatherings should not be constituted by some materialistic way and have nothing to do with The Spirit of God bringing them together.

Now Romans 6:1-11, "...Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?..." It ends up with verse 11, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Both dead and alive - through Jesus Christ - His death, His resurrection - through Jesus Christ. By Him this Adam died, because He dies as the last. By Christ we live in newness of life, as a New Creation, not as a made over Adam. So I say again, for the Adamic man The Cross means nothing other than absolute annihilation - dead! God does away in The Person of His Son with one creation, in order to bring forth another - an altogether other than! Not the same as - OTHER THAN! What a realization! We have these terms of Salvation; for instance - forgiveness, but that term relates to Israel, and The Church, the household of God. And many believers relate that term forgiveness to mankind, to Adam. Many say, you just don’t know what I’ve done, or where I’ve been, and they don’t believe that God could ever forgive that one. Many believers are laboring under that guilt, and it’s because we haven’t understood The Truth of our Salvation. It doesn’t really matter what you’ve done, because your Salvation is not a question of forgiveness; it’s a question of - YOU ARE DEAD! God simply killed you!

And now, your Life is Christ! You never find Paul saying God forgave him for killing Christians, but what he said is, "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ." Paul understood that Salvation is an exchange - for Adam it is one man exchanged for another. It doesn’t make any difference what you’ve done or haven’t done. You may have been a Sunday School teacher all you life...you died too! It doesn’t make any difference how good you were or how bad you were. The Cross is the great equalizer because there you died! And you don’t die because you were good or bad, but you died because other than that you could never have Life!

Forgiveness doesn’t give you life. Forgiveness is found over in the midst of those who have life. Forgiveness for transgressions, forgiveness for sins that connect themselves to Israel, but Israel is the house of God. And there is an ever flowing cleansing of the blood of the Lamb in the house of God. FORGIVENESS IS IN THE HOUSE OF GOD. If we knew that we might be able to forgive one another! But because we’re all confused on where forgiveness is and what it applies to, we want to run out and forgive the world, run out and forgive sinners - and hate one another! But we don’t understand this, and we keep trying to have our past sins forgiven, and it doesn’t matter what you did - YOU’RE DEAD! And if you didn’t have anything to confess, you are still dead - and CHRIST IS YOUR LIFE! The Bible teaches us that we have forgiveness of sins in Christ; "...In Whom we have forgiveness of sins." I know this may be unsettling, but we must see where forgiveness really is, and where reconciliation really is. It’s not for the Adamic creation but for the household of God, that we might begin to reconcile one another, and restore one another, forgive one another. Hereby the world would know something... would see something...and they would see and know something great enough that they would be willing to embrace His death to be part of! But we’ve watered it down and said, ‘Just come on and the Lord will forgive you.’ Lord help us!

We’ve substituted a crucifixion for a sinner’s prayer, and we really think we’ve done something. You may get ten thousand one night to repeat that sinner’s prayer, but see how many you get to confess that they are dead and they have no life but Christ! Out there in that ten thousand there may be a handful who truly by The Spirit of God, and by somebody’s witness and prayer really get born again; but we don’t hear about them - we hear about the ten thousand that said the sinner’s prayer. You see, we’re not born again just by reciting a prayer. You might have prayed, but something was going on deeper than that! But we have them pray, come to "Church" next Sunday, and try to make a Christian out of them. No - it’s The Cross! It was a enigma then , it’s an enigma now. Adam hated it then, and he hates it now. The world tried to get Jesus to get off it then, and they want Jesus to get off of it now. IT’S THE CROSS - but it’s the only way into Life. It’s the center of God’s Great Salvation. It is central to The Eternal Plan of God, and there’s no other way. To Adam, The Cross is Death.

Pt. 6 - The Centrality of The Cross

We have hopefully come to realize that Salvation is indeed a Great Salvation, and that everything in the Scripture is in effect pulled right into it. The center of Great Salvation is The Cross; the substance of that Great Salvation is Christ Himself. Everything, no matter how you fit it into a diagram or into the study; if it is truly by the order of The Spirit, it is going to be finally summed up in the very Person of The Lord Himself. So Salvation is not just things that The Lord does, has done or will do; the very essence and substance of Salvation is THE LORD HIMSELF! There is the miracle of it: that God would bring us by any means into Divine relationship with Himself. This is the miracle - that by any means God would literally dwell in a people, and would bring a people into a Divine union with Himself. Now we get into a discussion of the hows and whys and wherefores and consequences of all of that, but just the thought itself: that Great Salvation is not really found in the whys, wherefores, consequences and implications. Great Salvation is just coming to realize the whole thing is being in a Person - that our Salvation is a Person. And while this may sound in our English language like simplicity itself, it is in fact the mystery of Salvation.

You know, many preach that Salvation is not having to go to hell. Alright - fine, there’s not such a mystery to that. Salvation is going to a place called heaven one day. That’s preached as well. Salvation is released deliverance from sinning - we preach Salvation as many things. And all of that is well and good, but it misses the mystery, it misses the essence, it misses the substance, it misses the WHY. Why would God have created man to begin with? Just so he could sin and God could kill His Son? That doesn’t even make sense! So we want to understand that Salvation finally has to come back where it began in the heart of God. It finally has to come back and be realized in its fulness in the very Person out from Whom it came in the first place. Sooner or later Salvation has got to become to you and I that which ultimately and eternally pleases God. And none of those things that I just mentioned: although they all may or may not be fragments of Salvation - none of them contain within them the pleasure of God. But the mystery of which The Church is the expression - that mystery contains the pleasure of God. And you have to understand when I say "The Church" I am not talking about the religious system. I am not talking about Christianity in general. I am talking about what truly constitutes The Church - a people living in Divine relationship with The Lord; a people who are and who are becoming manifest expression of Him in the earth; a people who are in the knowledge of The Lord. If you can hear this - a people who indeed live by His faith, for the just shall live by His faith. So when I say "Church", that’s what I’m saying.

That’s why I don’t say ‘The church is meant to be..." THE CHURCH IS! Wherever you find The Church you will find expression of Christ. You will not find something that is "meant to be the expression of Christ", but is not the expression of Christ. See, The Church is - because where He is being manifest, The Church is. Where He is not being made manifest The Church is not there. You may have people in a building but you don’t have The Church. So Great Salvation as we are dealing with it finds its ultimate fulness and fulfilment in The Person of The I Am That I Am. In the type with Israel, "I Am That I Am." In the reality, Christ and The Church, it is The I Am. Why with Israel is it The I Am That I Am? And why with Christ and The Church is it The I Am? Because with Christ and The Church they are absolutely at one with one another! I wish there was another way of saying this other than "Christ and The Church", because that seems like me AND a building, me AND my car - Christ AND The Church. But the whole point of it is the MYSTERY which is Christ and The Church. In Ephesians 5 it says the mystery is they are One - not two. "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." One is Head and the other is Body, and the two are One. Consequently The I Am that He really is - The I Am That I Am is The Church.

We have difficulty with that because of our old teaching that The Church is one place and He is another place. We teach The Church is one thing, and He comes in and visits and then He leaves. If we could only understand that the true meaning of The Church is Him expressively in a people. And we’re not making that people to be Him, but rather that which He is in expression - I AM THAT I AM - Christ made visible; in expression. That is a mystery - you can teach there is a mystery, but I don’t believe you can teach the mystery; but the Holy Spirit surely must bring you and I finally to see; finally it’s got to be just HIM. And if we come by this understanding - of a New Creation, that it is just One Man and we are His Creation, purposed to be the expression of Him; if we’ll move in this line that there’s only One Seed as we are His Body, we’ll finally come to realize that the whole purpose of Salvation is not in you or in me - it is in The I AM being The I AM! The I AM having absolute witness, absolute expression, absolute manifestation in the earth. That is so far beyond our finite thinking because most of our teaching tells us it will be ‘someday over yonder’. But is it someday - over yonder? Here is that mystery: "In that day you will know I AM in My Father, you are in me, I AM in you." That’s the thing that I’m trying to find the words to explain. It is the mystery made manifest by The Church.

It is that union, that oneness made manifest by The Church. It is Christ AND The Church because you can’t separate the people from Him and call them Christ. But in the truth of the scripture and in reality The Church can not be separated from Him because the minute you do it, it ceases to be The Church. So in reality The Church is a people in whom Christ is having expression, so it is not the people you are seeing at all, rather the expression of Christ, consequentially. I know this is difficult to discuss because we have a lot of people running around under Sonship or Kingdom or something, saying ‘I’m Christ, I’m God, I’m a Lord and He’s the Lord of Lords.’ Isn’t it pitiful that we can’t exalt Him as Lord of Lords without making ourselves little kings and lords! Listen - King of Kings and Lord of Lords is a title in Revelation specifically meaningful to Old Testament Israel and it is reminding them that all of their Kings are summed up in this King - David as well. And all of their Lords are summed up in this Lord - setting Him forth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It doesn’t have anything to do with the King of Saudi Arabia or the King of England; but the Kings of Israel - King David, King Solomon - He is King of Kings! And when He comes that way in the book of Revelation it shows Him coming in judgment against that old order. There He is the summation of all Kings, the summation of all Lords, and you can’t translate that to be that we are little kings, little lords, and He’s the big King and the big Lord.

But we do that in our ignorance. Just like we say He made us kings and priests. He made us a kingdom of priests, He made us a kingdom and a priesthood. He has never made anybody Kings: He’s summed up all Kings in Himself! He has made us to be His Kingdom, and He has made us to be His Priesthood. And most Bibles other than King James will translate it that way, and that makes sense. So He has made us a Priesthood. He’s the only King/Priest there is. So everything comes to be summed up in The I AM, and here’s where we have the problem. It’s all summed up in Him, and you and I finding our Salvation in being expression of Him. What a glorious thing!

Now we’ve been bringing all these types - Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel, over into their fulfillment in Christ and to do that we had to come to The Cross. We’ve done that with Adam - the creation man. And we’ve found that The Cross to that view of Salvation is death - Adam must die, mankind must die! There is no place for the first mankind on the Resurrection side of The Cross. And to explain that, Paul used these terms concerning having this treasure in earthen vessels, because that’s the only part of mankind that exists on this side of The Cross. We still look at clay pots, and we identify each other that way, we know each other that way - not because we should know each other that way, but we do. So that’s the way we expect to see each other in The Resurrection, that’s the way we expect to see each other ‘just over yonder’. And yet Paul goes out of his way to say, "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." But we are continually knowing one another in that way, rather than A New Creation in Christ Jesus, and it’s because of these clay pots. So Paul makes this emphasis that you’ve got this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of you! You see your calling brethren, how He took that which was made out of dirt; chose to use that, so that no flesh would glory in His presence. If we would just come to see that! Brethren, present ye your bodies as living sacrifices - it’s only normal that you do that. Romans 12. That is the normal course of things; Paul says it’s your reasonable service. If we could finally understand that these are bodies we have, not The Body we are; and the bodies we have must come to serve The Body we are. And the only reason that clay pots remain is for SERVICE - not for definition of Salvation.

So Adam comes to The Cross and the result of that is a New Creature, a New Creation in Christ Jesus. I want to deal now with the view of Salvation in Abraham and Isaac, because The Cross effects each of these types. Whether it is Salvation seen as a New Creation, or Salvation seen as The Seed bringing forth much fruit, or Salvation seen as Christ in His corporate form, which is The Church, The Cross is central to each of those. Each of these types must come to The Cross and there be dealt with, and we must understand that all of these are fulfilled in the death of Christ. You bring Adam to The Cross and the dealing is death. Now the type of Salvation we see in Abraham and Isaac is The Seed of God and the land. We bring Isaac to The Cross and we see Christ as Isaac. To Adam The Cross is DEATH, but to The Seed, to Isaac, The Cross is INCREASE. There is a difference because there is no increase of Adam in The Cross - there is death, and the scriptures we looked at speak of nothing but - you are dead! You are dead, and another is raised up in your stead - One New Man. But Christ fulfilling this second type, which also must come to The Cross; here it is increase. Look in John 12. Now for many years I agonized over a lot of these scriptures because one seemed to contradict the other. Just about the time you get Adam dead and buried, at least in your theology, all of a sudden you come upon a verse that talks about something coming up, coming forth. And it can scramble things for you, and you think - wait a minute, what is this all about?

But we must come to understand that The Cross is as many faceted as Salvation is. The Cross takes all of the types, it takes everything into itself. It takes all of mankind, Israel - everything it takes into itself in The Person of The Lord Jesus. So The Cross becomes a tremendous work of God. It is not only where Adam died, it is where God gets the increase of His Holy Seed. And that doesn’t lessen the death of Adam at all. It just shows that there is another side to The Cross. It just shows that Full Salvation is not just doing away with Adam, but that Full Salvation has more to it than just getting rid of something. Full Salvation has in itself - INCREASE. And the only problem in understanding increase is if we understand it from the natural viewpoint, and we think that increase equals many, rather than understanding that increase is One multiplied by Himself - unto infinity. We are not dealing with many Christs, but One Christ in many members. We are not dealing with many bodies of Christ; and the saints haven’t gotten that together yet in regard to the Resurrection. They insist that it is dealing with bodies - but you are One Body; each made partaker of the same Resurrection and the same Life, and who live as that Body. But we do not want to turn loose of that materialistic form.

We look at ourselves in the mirror and we like what we see, and we want to see it for the rest of eternity. We don’t want to turn loose of that concept and if someone comes along and tells us differently, we just get upset with them! And we want to deal with each other on that basis, and I’m telling you that will break down on you. In that flesh there will be nothing but breakdowns. But we must finally come to comprehend that His death was to bring forth "much fruit" - not many fruits, but much fruit; not many seeds but the increase of One Seed. The result of that is A Body in Resurrection, A Body quickened together, raised together, seated together in heavenly places - A Body in Christ Jesus! And we must understand that’s The Body I am. It’s not the body I have, it’s The Body we are, The Body I Am. That working of The Cross is not doing away with Adam; that working of The Cross is purposed to bring forth the increase of One. And in every increase of Him there is a decrease of us, but so many times we get this mixed up.

I have people all the time tell me, ‘Old Adam just needs to die, Adam needs to die daily.’ And I want to tell them, no he doesn’t. The old man is dead - Adam is dead! This is another working of The Cross you need to face. This is not Abraham taking Ishmael to the altar, this is Abraham taking Isaac to the altar! This is not getting rid of something bad, this is God seeking to bring you, and bring forth in you THE INCREASE OF ONE. This is another realization of The Cross altogether.

But we want to keep on fighting Adam; and that’s simply because we don’t want to finally and in finality say he’s dead, I don’t have any life; Christ is my life! Because just about the time that really gets a hold of you, then we’re just moved over to another view of The Cross. We’re just moved over for increase! That means that working in us A Seed has to fall into the ground and die. You know with the seed there is the husk, the shell. Here’s where we move from the death of one man to SELF being dealt with. Don’t mistake the two. Self is me and you. It’s something that has to be dealt with, and when The Seed falls into the ground and dies, it is the husk that dies. There is a crack in it here and there, and it works in the ground, and finally The Seed starts coming through. And all of this is for fruit. It starts with a shoot, then the ear and finally the full corn in the ear. But it is an altogether different working of The Cross, because the emphasis first of all is getting rid of Adam; the first one, the old man - dead, and a New One in his place. And now, the emphasis is increase.

You don’t put this Seed in the ground to get rid of it; you put this Seed in the ground to get a whole lot more of it. And that’s a different comprehension of The Cross, and it’s a different working of The Cross, and it all took place in The Person of our Lord. He gathered it all into Himself. On the one hand, He as man died as man, and man died with Him. On the other hand, as The Son of God, come to do the will of The Father, bringing many sons unto glory, He is a Seed falling into the ground, that He may bring forth increase of Himself. And we’ve got to see the difference. It’s The Cross, but to one it is one thing, to another it is another thing. To Adam, The Cross is certain annihilation; but to The Son, The Cross is increase of Himself. The scriptures are full of this, but we misapply the scripture. We get a hold of John 12:23,24 and we start trying to apply that to the teaching on Adam and we just get confused, because when you do you just come up with a bunch more of Adam - better Adamites!

But it’s not applicable to that. You’ve got to apply it to the Old Testament order in New Testament form. You’ve got to understand that what God spoke of with Abraham and Isaac is now being fulfilled in Christ and The Seed falling into the ground. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." Now the next verse makes sense. "He that loveth his soul, his self, his independent soul life, shall lose it. He that hateth his independent soul life shall keep it unto eternal life." It’s a matter now that the death of The Seed begins to work in you; and it is called a forsaking of yourself. That’s a work of The Cross. You don’t forsake Adam, Adam is counted - dead! But now there is a forsaking of even that which seems to be good; a forsaking of that which is good! ‘Abraham, now take thy son, the son whom you love, your only son...’ See, God isn’t even recognizing the existence of Ishmael here. Take him! All that you see here in Abraham is perfect obedience, and you see that obedience in Isaac as well. Even in the type when Abraham and Isaac go to the mountain in Genesis 22, when the hand of the Lord stays him, and he says ‘In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen’, and the promise of the increase is made for the first time.

The writer of the Hebrews lets us know that Abraham actually saw The Resurrection. He received him in form of The Resurrection. What happened was when The Seed was offered God saw The Son in corporate form: Abraham saw Israel who was in type of The Resurrection. We must understand - everything that was promised to Abraham, and was fulfilled in the person of Isaac, was made manifest, made visible in Israel. Everything we are as The Body of Christ is made manifest in The Church on earth. The Body of Christ is this invisible union, it is a Spirit Body that is invisible. "Knowing no man after the flesh..." You can’t see it. You can see a clay pot, but you can not see that Body we are, The Spirit Body. There is a spirit body, there is a natural body. It is that Spiritual Body that comes forth in The Resurrection, Paul says that very clearly. But for purpose of manifestation, which means showing openly, making known, exposing - there is The Church, which is His Body. But there is a distinguishing: one is invisible, the other is the visible expression of it.

You can not see The Body, but you can see The Church. That’s why we build buildings and call them - church! "Church" implies a visibility, something tangible, because all the ministry is in The Church. So Church is that tangible expression of this invisible reality. And in this second type of The Seed bringing forth after its own kind, This Seed coming forth in much fruit - you actually see here The Resurrection. But The Resurrection is manifested in the earth in Israel in type, and in fulfillment by The Church. And look what the enemy has done over the years. He has taken the very instrument that is to manifest The Resurrection, and so beguiled it that it is waiting on one! Instead of The Resurrection being the very expression of its existence, it has made The Resurrection a doctrine that it is waiting on!

The Church has always been the focal point of the enemy. He can’t destroy the reality of Christ so he focuses on the vessel that should manifest it, make it visible. If he can just get that vessel to accept anything other than the truth... I don’t even have words to express it. The Church is to manifest Him! It’s the same principle as when Jesus said, "If you’ve seen me you’ve seen The Father." But it seems ridiculous for us to say that in light of what we call The Church: if you see the church you’ve seen the Lord - yeah right! But in reality, "When He Who is our life is made manifest, then we also are seen to be one with Him in glory." In reality that’s the Truth! That’s why we’ve got to understand what we mean when I say "Church". To me The Church is the expression, not something that is "supposed to be". The Church is This Body - it’s just that The Body is invisible and The Church is the visibility of it. They are not really two different things: we only distinguish that one is that invisible, spiritual thing, and The Church is the manifesting, the exposing, the visibility of it.

So we bring this type over, and rather than it meaning death, it means INCREASE. And there is a continual working of The Cross for the increase of Christ. Now, The Cross is a finished work - it killed Adam, but now working the increase we come to: He must increase and I must decrease. Yes, working a decrease, but at some point it’s got to become final in our hearts - Adam is dead. I have no life but Christ! Now that sets me upon a course of comprehension where there can be that working of The Cross to bring His increase; and at His increase, I decrease. And here is the order: He increase, I decrease. The order is NOT I decrease so that He can increase. That’s the natural order, but that’s not right. There is no decrease of Adam - he’s done away, he’s non existent, he’s gone! We must get that in our hearts. And I know there are believers who have problems with the Adamic nature because they have never reckoned themselves dead indeed, and alive unto God (Romans 6:11). There’s never been that reckoning yet. And as long as we go on that way there never is going to be that reckoning. It’s like a member of your family that dies. There’s got to be some point when you stand there (I don’t care when it is) and you reckon this person is dead, and I shall never, ever see them this way again - they are dead! It’s got to lock into your heart. Either that or you have a real hard time. But there are people who can’t come to that, and the whole point is - death ends it all! Now I’m talking about natural relations, because if any of them were in Christ, they are still in Christ; but I’m talking about that physical aspect. There’s got to be a closure - close the casket, put it in a hole, cover it up and it’s done with as far as that physical thing is concerned.

Now you and I have to come to that with this man - Adam. There’s got to be a time when we reckon him dead, and set out to learn Christ, and then The Cross changes. Now The Cross becomes not a decrease of me and an increase of Him; now The Cross becomes an increase of Him and resulting in a decrease of me. Not a decrease of sin, but of self - of everything I claim to be in righteousness... of everything! There comes to be the increase of Him and the decrease of me and this is a tremendously hard message to hear because we’re asking, ‘Well, what’s wrong with this? Surely God will just take this good thing about me and refine it.’ No, it can’t compare to the increase of Him; it must decrease, it must be done away. So the increase is of Christ. The increase is not of members in The Body, the increase is The Measure in each of those. THE INCREASE IS NOT YOU AND I, THE INCREASE IS HIS MEASURE IN YOU AND I!

Look at Ephesians 4. We saw in John 12 the much fruit, and we note that it is not fruits (plural). It means the increase of One. But in Ephesians 4 we come to see something of this measure. "I Therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Now that is not the measure of a gift Christ gives; we are given grace according to THE MEASURE OF CHRIST! The measure of Christ working in us - He is the measure of grace, the measure of mercy, He’s the measure of truth, the measure of righteousness, the measure of holiness - HE IS THE MEASURE! He is the measure of ministry, He’s the measure of calling - He’s the measure! He’s the increase!

What was Israel? Israel was nothing other than the increase of Isaac. Over in the New Covenant that’s called a mystery - the mystery of One; the mystery - Christ and His Church - the mystery. "I would that all men would see the mystery". In every epistle Paul talks about it - that our eyes would be opened to it. And so very few are, because we see Christ and The Church in the natural, in the physical, in the material, like a man and a woman; and yet there, there is no male and no female. Again, we use the imagination of our heart instead of the revealed mystery of the Spirit, and we miss the whole point. You can see the type, the shadow, the testimony; you can see it in the natural, it is in the natural. But the reality of Christ must be revealed by The Spirit. That’s why The Testimony is less than The Witness. That’s why Great Salvation is much more than the type of it. These studies seek to show that it is above and beyond, and exceedingly above all that we can ask or think, all that could ever speak of it. It is a mystery!

According to the measure. Verse 8, " Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)" But we need to read the whole letter. Ephesians 1:22-23, "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." Here in chapter 4 we read "that he might fill all things". Now "all things" have already been defined, but we don’t understand that. "...the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." The whole purpose of Him who is ascended now, who descended and ascended was that He might fill all things. All things - where? All things for The Church, all things in His Body. That’s what’s being dealt with in His descending and ascending; that’s what’s being dealt with in His death and His resurrection; in His coming into the lower parts of the earth. Other renditions say ‘into the lowliness of the earth’, ‘into the Adamic form’, or ‘going into the abyss itself’. It doesn’t make any difference because He did all of that. He came into the earth, and the same One that came in is the One that came back. Why? That He might fill all things! That can’t be talking about things at the beginning - He’s already the fulness, He’s already God. That He might fill all things with regard to The Church, all things with regard to that which He brought forth - THAT HE MIGHT FILL ALL THINGS. It’s the same term as "that He might have preeminence in all things". It’s the same term as "His fulness who filleth all in all." We’re speaking here of a corporate fulness of Christ. We’re simply saying that CHRIST IS THE MEASURE OF EVERYTHING THAT COMES FORTH IN THE RESURRECTION. He’s the measure of it! It comes forth in the measure of Him.

"Much fruit" is not how many, but the measure of Christ in the many. I used to say that grace is not measured by the depth of the hole that God dug you out of. Grace is measured by the increase of Christ in you! Many will say, ‘you don’t know how deep in sin I was. It took a lot of grace to get me out of that!’ But sin is not the measure of grace - Christ is! Grace is not measured by the depth of that hole, grace is measured by the increase of Christ. Great Grace is the measure of Christ in you - not how bad a sinner you were. That’s why Paul says "His grace is sufficient." I would say so! Is Paul doing that referring to sin or the measure of Christ that is in him? People still tend to measure everything by sin: I was a great sinner so He’s a great Savior. Listen - He’s a Great Savior whether you were a sinner or not! Because Salvation is not measured by how much you’ve sinned; Salvation is measured by THE GREATNESS OF HIS PERSON!

We’ve got to get past the mentality that Salvation is getting me out of sin. No, Salvation isn’t getting me out of anything. Salvation is our relationship with Him; Salvation is defined in The Person of Him. Finally Salvation has got to be something more than getting me out of sin; it’s got to be more than the old man dead. Salvation has even got to be something more than me decreasing. Finally Salvation has got to be realized in the full increase of HIM. Salvation has got to be realized in the I AM having His Life, Being, expression in a people; and those people rejoicing in that reality! A city made glad! Salvation has got to become that. So my point is that The Cross is central to every phase of Salvation, and there are different dealings, but it’s the same Cross. To one it is death, to the other it is increase - increase of Christ, but that automatically means decrease of me. And if we continue to read in Ephesians 4 we come down to verse 13, " Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of CHRIST. Verse 16 says "...according to the effectual working in the measure in every part..." The measure is Christ; the measure of the increase is Christ.

And to the third and final type - Israel; bringing that over to The Cross and to see its answer in The Church, the corporate expression of Christ. Here The Cross has bound up in itself perfection, fulness, I use - Resurrection. Now let’s come back to our type. You see the Resurrection in Isaac. Hebrews says that you do. "He received him in resurrection." So you see the truth of resurrection in Isaac, and at that time Isaac alone lived. Israel didn’t exist except in the loins of Isaac. So even though Salvation is one Salvation, there is a three fold comprehending of Salvation. And first Salvation is not Israel - it’s just Isaac, it is just Seed. So you bring that over to the True Salvation and first Salvation is not The Body of Christ, it’s not The Church. First it is the Incorruptible Seed - first it is Christ. So in the type it was first in Isaac, and because Isaac was raised up in type, in resurrection - because of that, Israel came into existence. Israel was the true increase of Isaac, because the seed, Isaac, was in everyone of them! So Israel was the twelve sons of Jacob, and Jacob was the son of Isaac. So in the second view of Salvation - of increase, the comprehension that deals with The Seed, the comprehension is increase: but it is not increase as of us, increase as of many, but increase as of Him. It is Christ living! It is Christ The Resurrection. I Am The Resurrection, but it is increase.

Alright, but everything that He is must come to be seen in a people called The Church. Just like everything that Isaac was came to be realized in a people called Israel. Israel was the proof of the Resurrection, Israel was The Body of The Resurrection. Israel lived because Isaac lived! The Church lives - not in and of ourselves - but He said, "Because I live, you shall live also." The Church is living proof of Him! That’s what it is! So when we come to the effect of The Cross upon The Church, I’ve used the word "Resurrection". The Church is a people who are understanding - we live only because He lives in us! It is a people aware of The Resurrection. See, the early Church, the Apostles, preached the resurrection through Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ. So to The Church The Cross does not mean death; to The Church The Cross does not primarily mean increase; though all of that is summed up in it. To The Church The Cross means LIFE! Because The Life is in the blood, and the blood of The Lamb is upon the doorposts of The Church. Now it isn’t the blood of a dead Adam that is put upon the doorposts of The Church, it is the blood of The Lamb. And we know that at The Cross He was both the last man, but He was also The Lamb of God. This is the greatness of The Cross! We must see that part of that death applies to the first, but another part of that death applies to the second because death is not just finality. It is ever ongoing increase, and it is ever cleansing life! It’s all The Cross! For Israel He was The Lamb - the blood of The Lamb. For The Church He is The Life, because The Life is in the blood! "Except you drink my blood and eat my flesh..." He’s not talking about Him as Adam, but as The Lamb. "...you have no life in you."

So The Cross finally comes full circle to us, and The Cross is Life! Some people say we’ve got to get on beyond The Cross, but when you do - you’re getting too far! But they only apply The Cross to the death of Adam. You don’t get beyond The Cross. The Cross just gets bigger and bigger and bigger! You don’t get beyond The Cross. The Cross just becomes Life to you! May the Lord help us to see this wonderful Truth in the face of the Lord Jesus because it is His death. Here as The Seed it is His burial, and here as The Church it is Him in Resurrection - death, burial, resurrection.

Part 7 - The New Man

We want to take a closer look now at THE NEW MAN - New Creature in Christ Jesus: being born from above, because that’s what it’s all about. In the first place let’s look at the type in Adam. We want to scripturally define Adam, mankind, man as other than Christ. What, who is man? So in Genesis 2:7, " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." The Hebrew translation says, "and man became a soul living." We are going to see how the old creation is different from the New Creation with regard to an individual believer. So dealing with Adam - God created man out of the dust, and gave him a body. That’s the body you see - dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return. And then breathed into him and man became a soul. Not only do we have the account of Genesis for that, but it is in Paul’s writings in 1 Corinthians 15:44. These are two references from what we call the Old and the New Testaments, but actually the Old Covenant has very little to do with books of the Bible. It is a comprehension of God. Paul preached from Isaiah, Jeremiah - he preached from the scripture and he preached New Covenant from the scriptures. It is a state of understanding. And you are either in an Old Covenant mentality or a New Covenant mentality, and it doesn’t really make any difference which book you are reading out of. And many Christians believe that since we call certain books The Old, and we are in The New, that they can just tear out The Old because they are not important at all. But if we called them The Scripture and The Gospels, it wouldn’t be so easy to do that.

1 Corinthians 15:44-45, " It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." Here you have the defining of the difference between the first and the last, the old and the new - quickening spirit. In the man in Genesis there is NO QUICKENING SPIRIT. There is no Seed of God, there is no life giving spirit, no eternal spirit. This man Adam was never complete, he was never after God’s kind. He was a shadow, a type (which is what image and likeness in Hebrew means), having no substance. But when we come over to one who is born from above, we have body, soul and - here we have spirit. THAT SPIRIT IS CHRIST! Here is The New Birth. Here’s what comes from above - The Spirit. We are all made to drink into One Spirit. We are born again by Incorruptible Seed, by The Living Word of God - born from above - CHRIST IN YOU! Now man is complete - spirit - soul - body. And The Spirit has identification - Eternal Spirit, Life Giving Spirit, Quickening Spirit, Spirit of Christ, God dwelling in the midst. That is what it means to be "born from above".

There is no birth in the first Adam. There is no birth from above. There is a soul; that soul was given for the intention of knowing God, obeying God, but here God is very much on the outside. He "visits" with man in the cool of the evening, He walks with His creation in the cool of the evening, but He doesn’t dwell in him. That shouldn’t be strange to you, because everything in Genesis 1, 2 and 3 is after its own seed EXCEPT man. Man was created of God, but was not after God’s Seed; he was not by The Seed of God. But The New Man is born of The Seed of God, and This New Man is the only One that is! The Seed is in you - CHRIST IS IN YOU! That’s what makes Salvation Great! We lose that because in our erroneous teaching somehow we teach that man has a spirit. But in the account in Genesis you don’t find that there. Man became a living soul - a breathing creature, according to the Hebrew word, "nephesh". That’s what man was. In the Old Testament you will find the usage of both soul and the Hebrew word for spirit, and every time in the Hebrew that you find the word "spirit", it always can be translated "soul of man". So why the usage of the two words? After an exhaustive search the only answer I have come up with and not violate scripture, was that every time "spirit" is used with regard to man, it is referring to not something separate from or other than the soul, but a spiritual quality of the soul or a spiritual ambition of the soul. If the soul came out of God, it makes sense that it would have spiritual quality and spiritual ambition. And it also makes sense that when it was separated from God it would lose all spiritual quality, and become totally self centered and selfish.

But we have just accepted a wrong teaching, and we’ve started calling it a "human spirit"; but - if it was a spirit - tell me what would be "human" about it? So we teach that a believer is spirit, soul and body, but we rarely teach it that this Spirit is CHRIST; it’s always something made spiritual, something brought back to life. How do you bring Spirit back to life? How do you kill one in the first place? Now the death of the soul was a death of separation - separated from God, dead in sin. And the death that came to that soul was one that was executed by Christ when he poured out His soul unto death, and fulfilled the death of man, because man couldn’t do it. We really think that when God said, ‘in the day that you eat of that tree you shall surely die’ - that somehow man just died - right there! No, the Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die - a day to die. And Christ fulfilled that! He alone could pour out His soul unto death. Thus the prophet said, and the psalmist writes of Him: "Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption." There is when He, as soul, tasted death for every man.

It still doesn’t mean and indicate that man ever had anything spiritual: in fact right here in 1 Corinthians 15, if nothing else says it - this does. Verse 46, " Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual." There’s no way to read that and say Adam was ever spiritual. That which was first is not spiritual. The second is spiritual. Why? Because of a life giving - not a spirit that has been given life, but a LIFE GIVING SPIRIT. A Spirit giving life. Giving life to what? Giving life to a soul! Giving life to man, giving life to a soul because in Christ this soul has been brought to death, just like God said it would. He offered His soul, He poured out His soul unto death. Thou will not leave my soul in hell. His very soul was quickened. Wherefore that same spirit by which God hath raised up Christ from among the dead... if that Spirit dwell in you... It is not a spirit made alive, or a spirit given life, but A LIFE GIVING SPIRIT. A Spirit giving life to a soul - born from above - born of Christ!

In the New Creation there’s only One Spirit, and that Spirit is Christ. One Spirit. We may well be many souls quickened to life, but we have only One Quickening Life, and that Life is that One self same Spirit. It doesn’t have anything to do with human spirit. If you bring humanity into this it’s no longer a New Creation. If you bring humanity into this you’ve got a spiritual man that is not Christ; you’ve got a man made spiritual who is not Christ. That’s the reason by that teaching we have a man made spiritual, a human, and that’s the teaching that has Christ off outside of the man somewhere; having given us life, but Who is not our life. So then we have to come in with all of these terms relating to Adam - forgiven from sin, made a better creature, a spiritual being. It’s all attributed to Christ, but none of it is centered in Christ. And then, "one glad day" we’re going to go be with Him! But you see, God was outside out there back over in the first picture. You must take Christ from out there and put Him where He belongs as the center of your Salvation, The Man of your Salvation.

See, we can draw diagrams and call it "One New Man", but what does that really mean? It means Christ dwells in you. It means that you have no spiritual qualities except Him! Then we have to back up and think about this "human spirit" we’ve all heard of. Have you ever tried to find it in the Bible? You can find spirit, but can you find "human spirit"? I know there’s much to be discussed about this, but I’ve researched every verse in the Bible that has the word "soul" or "spirit" to be sure on this. And here’s my conclusion: that in the Old Testament where man is referred to and "spirit" is used, it was always in the context of spiritual aspiration or spiritual elements. And every translator I’ve found also says it means "human soul" - the soul of humanity. So I’ve thought if that’s so it has to mean an element of this soul. Then it dawned on me: God breathed a breath of life and man became a soul living. Then there were "spiritual elements" to this soul. In other words, this soul was able to respond to the Spirit of God, there was some spiritual aspiration here. It was created for God, created of God. It wasn’t created selfish; it was created for God, to commune with God. But not being Eternal Spirit it was subject to temptation, subject to failure. In the typology of the two trees - which one did Adam and his partner choose? The one that was pleasing to the sight, to the senses. Man was a soul. He came short, he never attained unto the glory of God, which is in Spirit - man never did.

But we want to see him as having a spirit. And I’ve actually heard people say man had a spirit, and the spirit died. And I’m thinking - how could that happen? Then they say, "And Christ gives the spirit life." But where did you read that? Now that enables us to say we’re a spiritual being. See, Adam desired to be an independent soul. Listen, Christians today desire to be independent spirits, and then we don’t need one another. But if we’d ever realize we’ve only got one Spirit in all of us - there goes your independence of one another! There are today many independent spirits. Some people say they’ve got the "Spirit of Sonship." They get that because they use the word "adoption" which means "placing of a son". But when you understand that God has got only ONE SON to place, then you understand that adoption takes places in the revealing of Christ. But many use that, and they’ve got "the Spirit of Sonship", so that doctrine came about. And you’ll never see a more independent bunch of people than those folks - independent from one another.

And it all comes from bringing this imaginary spirit over and getting it saved, so that you are complete now without God. You are a spiritual being... You see these things sound so good, they sound so reasonable. It appeals to our soul, it appeals to the independence of this soul - to be independent. "Thank God, brother, I’m free!" But you’ve got to be free from something - free from what? We are not to be free from one another, we are not to be free from the Lord - free from sin! But we’re just free - bless the Lord! Many people who say "free in the Spirit" mean free in THEIR spirit. It’s not the "Spirit of Sonship" - it’s Christ!

So let’s not put things there that aren’t there. Paul says - CHRIST IN YOU. Let’s just put Eternal Seed of God, let’s just put The Eternal Word of God, let’s just put the Life Giving Spirit - the Spirit that gives life to my soul, so that my soul is not independent, but very much dependent upon The One Who says, "Because I live, you shall live also." We must understand what happens when we were born from above. We didn’t get a change of mind, we got Life Giving Spirit! Here is The New Man! This soul, being brought by The Cross unto death, must be quickened by The Life Giving Spirit, which is Christ. And in Salvation this soul is quickened by The Life Giving Spirit, which is Christ. And we are born from above, and we have this treasure in earthen vessels - that is an individual believer.

But let’s now look at our second type, the increase of The Seed. Here we would have Christ, The Seed, The Eternal Spirit in you, then the soul, and then the body. Here we come to the increase. Here we come to "He must increase, I must decrease." Here is where SELF is confronted, soul life is confronted. Here’s where we all are. Remember we spoke about The Seed coming forth, breaking through the husk? Here is self life giving way to Christ Life. Paul speaks of this in Galatians 4:19, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until CHRIST BE FORMED IN YOU." Until Christ be formed in you. Paul says the same thing in every epistle. Look in Ephesians 1:16, he’s praying again, " Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; The eyes of your understanding..." Now in scripture the eyes of our understanding is the eyes of our soul. "...that they be enlightened..." Now we understand that Christ is both LIFE and LIGHT. Paul is praying that God would reveal His Son in you, would give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know. How are the eyes of our understanding to be enlightened except this light shine forth in us? God revealing His Son, and light coming into darkness. Now when light shines, our eyes are enlightened, and we are able to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ.

See, you can try to see all you want to see, but until there is light - you can’t see! Have you ever realized something about the Holy of Holies? We have been brought into the Holy of Holies: Christ is in us, but have you ever realized something about the type of this in the Tabernacle? It is absolute, utter, total darkness! The skins of it, the coverings of it were of such a manner that no natural light whatsoever could shine in there! It was totally dark, and it remained dark until the glory of God shined out. And it was only in the light of the glory of God that the Ark could be seen, or that the Priest could approach it. The light in that room was not merely given of God, but IS GOD HIMSELF! Your soul can not be enlightened by natural light, by the senses. Light can not come through the senses and get into the soul; there’s no way it can do that. So what you see naturally does not enlighten the soul; it just fortifies the selfishness of it. What you hear naturally does not awaken your soul. What you taste, touch or feel naturally... No, light can not come from the outside in. Not here, here light must come from the inside. Let me show you that.

I’m talking now about the necessity of revelation. What makes the revelation of Jesus Christ necessary to spiritual life? Why is it necessary that Jesus Christ be revealed in you? Why? BECAUSE HE IS IN YOU!! And because He can not be seen by your soul until He is revealed in the glory of The Father. He must be revealed because He’s in you. But because of our ignorance many Christians are looking for events that are never going to take place! That’s how we read the book of The Revelation, but that is John’s declaration of the Indwelling Christ; it’s God revealing His Son. This is the reason that Paul says in Galatians 1:15 and 16, " When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb...and the God who called me by His grace...when it pleased Him TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME, that I might preach Him."

Now, 2 Corinthians 3:18. What we need is the veil taken off of our heart. See, the whole type of this is over in the Tabernacle, where once again we are confronted with these "three". For once again we have this body, this soul and this Christ - the glory of God. And there is this veil that has upon it all kind of embroidered angels, and wonderful heavenly things. It speaks of heaven and has spiritual aspirations, but that very veil blocks out the glory! And that veil has to be taken away. When it is, the glory of God can fill the whole house, and have expression in all the earth. This veil still remains upon the heart. Verse 15, "But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it (the heart, the soul) shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." What does that mean? It means the veil is gone, and we are at liberty to see the Lord. There’s our liberty - we are at liberty to look at Him! We are at liberty to comprehend the glory of the Lord. We are at liberty to enter in, as it were, the Holy of Holies, the presence of the Almighty God. "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free. Be not entangled..." LET NO MAN PUT THE VEIL BACK UP!

Here it is in verse 18, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass..." Glass is vision or mirror, the vision of the Lord, the face. All of these are the same Greek words, and it’s Christ Himself! When the veil is done away, beholding as in the vision. Who is the vision of the Lord? It is Christ, the glory of God - He’s the vision. Listen, the word "vision" is not what we think. We think it’s like a dream, but here the word "vision" means not only what is seen, but the act of seeing. What do your eyes have when light comes? They have vision. What gives them vision? LIGHT gives them vision. So here He is both the object and the light: He is the light by which we see, and since He dwells in the light, He is the thing seen! HE IS THE VISION! "...with open face beholding as in the vision, we see the glory of the Lord, are changed into that same image..." In other words we see - HE IS MY LIFE! The veil disappears, soul life disappears. He is my life. There is a transforming of the spirit of the mind; there is a putting off in our actual understanding of the old man, and a putting on of The New Man; being renewed in the spirit of your mind, which means the very depth of your soul.

And what renews? Light, knowledge, understanding - CHRIST! He fills this whole thing. With what? The glory of Himself! Let’s go down to 2 Corinthians 4:6, "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." For years I read that and I thought that referred to the creation when God said "Let there be light," But then I began to search that, and the whole context here is talking about the Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, the glory of the Lord; talking about coming from the glory of Moses to the glory of Christ, coming from the glory of the veiled to the glory of the unveiled, the veil done away. This whole thing is not talking about creation; it’s talking about understanding, it’s talking about the veil being done away. And then I understood there is one place where God commands His light to shine out of darkness, and that’s in the Holy of Holies. Because this verse does not say God commanded light to shine into darkness. In the beginning God said, "Let there be light", but that is not what this is talking about. This says God commanded the light to shine out of darkness, which means out from the midst. That only happens in the Holy of Holies. And then I realized this is a letter. We made chapters out of it, but this is what he’s talking about!

And in that darkened place was set only that one piece of furniture: The Ark of The Covenant of God, symbolizing a people in divine covenant with a Holy God. It is there that God commanded light to shine out of darkness, and the glory shined out. He goes on to say this. "...hath shined in (not into. The original says ‘hath shined from within’.)" HE SHINES FROM WITHIN! He doesn’t stand out here and shine knowledge into you. He shines in our hearts, in our souls, He shines from within. It’s the same thing happening in reality that happened in type - the glory of God fills up the room! When the veil is done away the glory fills the house. When we realize that by The Cross it is not I, but Christ is in me - the independent veil, the soul, the flesh, the self is done away, and our True Light shines. And when He Who is our Life appears, then we also appear with Him in glory! LIGHT FILLS UP! The eyes of our understanding are enlightened, and we can know the hope of our calling; we can know the inheritance; we can know the power of His Resurrection! We are looking in the face and we’re seeing the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It’s taking place here - God is revealing His Son and it is unto the full Salvation of our souls. It is bringing us to the end, that is, the completion of our faith, for the Full Salvation. And Full Salvation there means for the full deliverance, the full liberty, for the full development of our souls.

Here we are growing up into Him, here we are walking in the light as He is in the light, and we are having the fellowship - that Adam lost? NO- Much more than that! We’re having the fellowship of the Father and the Son. So much so that John says, come, come, join us. We declare these things unto you, that you might have fellowship with us, that your joy may be full. Here is true fellowship. This is what Adam never knew. This is exceedingly, abundantly beyond. This is God revealing His Son in you.

How could He ever reveal something in you that’s not there? He can’t! He is there, He is there in order that God may fill up His House with light, may reveal Him; fill up His House with glory, may reveal Him, unto the end of our Salvation! Until Christ be formed in you. Formed - transformed - changed. These words you see in your Bible, and they take place here in the face of the Lord Jesus. They take place in the light. See, in New birth He becomes The Life of your soul. But when He is revealed, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, He TRANSFORMS YOUR SOUL. That’s what God was always after. He wasn’t just after man as a living soul, but a transformed man! Adam fell short of that, he never got to that. But here in Christ it’s part of Great Salvation. Great Salvation is not just having Christ in you. Great Salvation in this second type is being joint heirs with Him in the inheritance. Great Salvation is Him having increase. Where is He going to have it? He’s going to have it in you. He’s going to have it in your soul. Great Salvation is Christ being formed in you. Great Salvation is this soul being transformed into the very image of Him. Great Salvation necessitates God revealing His Son in you.

I’ll never forget when I realized that, and I thought - O God, this is it! I knew I was born again, but I always wanted more of God. I had every religious experience known to man - but I wanted more of God. And it finally drove me to desperation because I realized I wasn’t getting that in all these experiences. Those were wonderful for the few moments or seconds they last, but there wasn’t anything out of it. I just quit preaching and worked for my brother in his garage. And for eleven months I sought the Lord - everything had come to an end. I determined that I’ll never preach again - I didn’t have anything to preach anyway. I would preach fifteen minutes and spend the next two hours laying hands on people. The problem was the next time I’d come back I’d lay hands on the same people! What I’m telling you is - none of that changes lives! At least it didn’t change my life. I figured if it wasn’t changing me it couldn’t be changing anybody else either. And the only thing that saved me was I had a heart to know God. That’s the only thing that saved me, because that brought me to utter frustration with all of the other stuff. It wasn’t a question of whether it was real or not, it was that it wasn’t changing me. And I knew this is not more of God!

And after that period of time I was given by a brother who was passing through, an article written by a brother in 1800 entitled, "After Pentecost, what next?" He started talking about Paul’s revelation of Jesus Christ, and my soul just started exploding! I remember I cried out - ‘God, this is it! This is what I’ve been waiting for!’ And I saw it in the scriptures and my soul cried, ‘O God, reveal Your Son in me.’ Now I didn’t know that would mean the end of me. I was reading the book of Ephesians laying under a chair in a prayer room when that whole book exploded, and I saw the reality of Christ in me - not as a doctrine; I saw the reality. God revealed His Son in me! The glory of God shined! I didn’t know any theology for it - I just knew I’d seen The Lord! I just knew that I’m dead - HE IS MY LIFE!! I just knew that He’s in me, and God’s my Father! God revealed His Son in me! And I’ve never looked back since then. I’ve never been bored since then - not since then. And it’s been just one glorious seeing Him. And now everything is beginning to be brought into Him; finally as you look in the scripture - here they come! And you see it - My Lord, this is what this is talking about! And Who is your point of reference? It’s HIM!

He becomes your point of reference for everything of spiritual Life - it’s Him! See Bible scholars can argue with me until the sun grows black about "human spirit" - because I’ve seen Him! But in order to present that to believers I see the necessity to know what the scriptures really say, so I’ve been searching that out. It wasn’t because I needed to be convinced - I’d seen the Lord. I knew Who the Life Giving Spirit was in me! I knew who was soul and who was Spirit; The Word of God that is sharper divided the two for me, and I’ve never been confused about it since. But when you start presenting Christ that way you get a lot of backlash, because everybody wants to be an independent spiritual being. They’ve been told so long that that’s what they are, that’s why so few can really comprehend the reality of The Indwelling Christ.

You talk to them about Christ in you and people translate that as "their spirit man". I’m not talking about some spirit man - I’m talking about Jesus Christ! I’m talking about The Son of God! I’m talking about Christ in you! I’m talking about the glory of God in you. I’m not talking about some spirit man, some human spirit, some Adam made spiritual kind of stuff - No! When you see Him, that makes the difference, and from then on He’ll become your point of reference. That doesn’t mean you know it all, but it will make all that you do know come to find HIM AS THE CENTER, and the only reference point. And the more you know, the greater He gets because it all comes to find its source, its substance - of spiritual Life - in Him!

I’m telling you, there’s nothing like God revealing His Son in you. It’s like being born again all over again! Because all of a sudden the One of Whom you are born again stands up, glory fills up and you see The Lord! Your Life appears, and you appear with Him in glory. You’ve seen The Lord! You understand at that time the union of soul and spirit, and you understand the separation as well. You understand at that time: I live only because He lives in me. You understand what Paul said: I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, Christ liveth in me. You don’t have to water that down. You understand that just exactly like it is.

This is just a little closer look at Great Salvation as it is in you. And then there is a third point where we come from living as bodies to living as The One Body of Christ; and we offer bodies as a sacrifice to The Body that we are. All of a sudden the thing just goes out and becomes The Corporate Body. There is much to that, but it’s all according to the power that worketh in you, the power by which He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. Sooner or later that will effect you there too. This is as real to me today as it was in 1962 because it takes you out of time and space, and He brings you into the reality of Himself, and it’s never over! And I’m telling you since that day I’ve never been bored or depressed. You can’t stand in His presence and be bored or depressed. You can sing about "one day over in glory..." all you want to, but it’s NOW! And when He reveals His Son in you, you know that and you live that! It doesn’t mean you’re not going to face problems in this tangible life, it just means that your life is in Him! And nothing can touch it! It can touch the shell, but it can’t touch The Seed, it can’t touch The Life! It can’t do it! That’s Great Salvation and the substance of it is THE PERSON OF CHRIST!

Part 8 - Changing From bodies to Body

In the course of these studies we have dealt with what it means to be born again; that means Christ in you. And then we dealt with the issue of soul and spirit. Now in a greater view of Salvation we have Christ being revealed in you - Light and Life. He is Light; He becomes Life. And we talked about the transforming of the soul. There’s only one thing that will transform the soul that the Bible says anything about, and that is light, life and truth, because light and life constitute truth. That’s the only thing I find in the scripture that will truly change, transform the soul. And we’ve found that it’s done from the inside out; God shining forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. So here we’re faced with Christ revealed in you, and why He must be revealed in you.

Having said that, the Spirit, which is Christ in you, and the transformation of the soul in faith, light and life; then we come to that outworking of this Indwelling Christ, and there is that change from bodies to Body. We are not talking about any change in the molecular structure of this clay pot; we’re talking about the same change there as we encounter in the soul. That which once served Adam now serves Christ. That which once was dark in the soul now is light, that which once bore the name of man now bears the name of Christ - the name written in us, the transforming of the soul, a transformation in Truth. There is nothing in the scriptures about a change of molecular structure in the body. I know we see that in our imaginations, but that’s not scriptural. But there is a change from bodies, living as bodies, to living as His Body; bodies coming to serve Body. And all of that is according to His working which worketh mightily in me, whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. And the first thing He subdues is the soul. The subduing of the soul - the bringing down of the high places, tearing down of the imaginations - that’s a year’s teaching!

This is where we all are right now - the subduing of the soul. But as that soul is subdued, so this body is transformed. In one case we live as bodies serving ourselves; in the other case we live as Body serving Him. The transformation is always from bodies to Body. Romans 12: "Present your bodies..." And it is very seldom in the scripture that you’ll find the word "bodies" because it is so seldom that the scripture deals with bodies. It’s dealing with body - either body of humanity or Body of Christ. That’s just a translation fact, a fact of definition in the scripture. But in Romans 12 "bodies" are dealt with in just this way - present them as living sacrifices, which is the reasonable thing for you to do. Then Paul goes on and tells you why it’s reasonable. He says it is reasonable because ye are one Body in Christ. So you present bodies to the Body you are: bodies as instruments of the Body you are. You present what you have: you have bodies - you are The Body. You present what you have to serve that which you are. That’s what makes you One!

Bodies make you individuals; so there are diversities of talents, diversities of abilities, and diversities of uses, just like hands and feet, and eyes and ears. But that’s where diversities end - bodies. The Body is One Body, and it’s the same Body, and that’s where we are One. So we bring our diversities into subjection to The One, so that the diversities are not serving diverse things, but the diversities are serving the one thing. How far would we get naturally if we had a hand that served this body, but the rest of the members were serving something else? I’m going after a pencil, and my hand says okay, but my head is looking some other way. I can’t get my eyes and my hand coordinated because there is a breakdown somewhere. There’s a breakdown in The Lord’s Body, and it’s in the mind, it is in the soul, it’s in the comprehension, in the understanding - there’s a breakdown. You’ve got a hand trying to get a pen, and a foot trying to go to Dallas! You’ve got all these diversities doing diverse things for diverse reasons. And yet if I’m going to pick up that pen I’ve got all these members doing diverse things - one is reaching, one is seeing, one is talking; but they are doing diverse things for ONE REASON - to get that pen in my hand. And yet everything has done something diverse to get that done.

But it’s all controlled by one mind. That’s the reason we must first come to have THE MIND OF CHRIST. That’s the reason He must first be revealed in us or "Body" is just a term with you, and the thing that is real is "bodies" with you. But when the mind of Christ comes, so comes the Body of Christ because His mind is after His Body. So bodies serve Body. That’s exactly the way it is. And Philippians 3:21 says just that. King James says, "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." Now the Dispensationalists got ahold of that, and say one day this is going to happen, and connect that with a certain idea concerning His coming, and connect that with a certain idea of what heaven is all about (such as it’s a city similar to one down here, like Orlando, but it’s up in the air somewhere - a big Disneyland in the sky.) So along with that idea we have this idea of the changing bodies. But you’ll notice that it is "Who shall change our vile BODY..." This is the way it reads. It has nothing to do with BODIES. No sir, it’s not there. So what body is it talking about? We need to understand this: it is not talking about bodies, it’s talking about body - body to Body. Vile body to Glorious Body. "...that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body..." The original translation is "that it may be fashioned like unto the body of His glory." And to me there’s a world of difference in "glorious body" and "body of His Glory", because The Body of Christ is The Body of His Glory. For Christ, The Glory of God is in you; it’s The Body of His Glory. It was The Body given to Him of God for the purpose of Glory.

So The Body that you are is The Body of His Glory. "...like unto his glorious body..." And someone is seeing some kind of a human form with light coming out of the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Particularly back in the Dark Ages and Medieval days that was the image they drew for the Catholic Church. And we still think that’s the glorious body, but the whole thing is that it is The Body of His Glory. Listen - YOU ARE THE BODY OF HIS GLORY! The Lord’s Body is The Body of His Glory: that Body which is more glorious against the body which Moses represented, the body of Old Testament Judaism. The body of Old Testament types and shadows is said to be glorious, but made to be non glorious by the exceeding glory of this New Body which is come in Christ, that Body of His Gory; the one speaking of the other. And that’s exactly the change that is being talked about here. You are being changed from the body of the Old Covenant types to the realization of The New Body of Christ, so that bodies serve This Body, because there is a change. And how is that changed? According to that power whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself. How does He subdue all things to Himself? The power that worketh mightily in you! Paul says that at least on three other occasions. Colossians 1:29 says that, "According to his power that worketh mightily in me." Ephesians 3:18, "May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." That’s how He’s able to subdue all things unto Himself. He doesn’t get a club and beat it to death - it’s from the inside out! This glory is changed here in Philippians from the inside out. We’ve got to understand we’re talking about body to Body, not bodies and Bodies - body to Body. We’re talking about unto The Body of His Glory - not some glorious body like that of an individual. And we’re talking about it all being done as an act of subjection unto Himself - subjecting it to Himself; bringing it unto subjection. And the first thing He subjects is the soul. And it is in knowledge, light - transformed. And then He subjects the body unto Himself. And bodies - but bodies are subjected not to bodies, but to the concept of The Body of His Glory.

Now regarding the word "vile" in Philippians 3. The entire chapter is written describing the contrast between the law and the gospels. Paul gives his reasons for leaving the Jewish religion, with all his position therein, that he might win Christ, and be found in Him; not having the righteousness achieved by the law, but the righteousness which is Christ Himself. Paul wanted to attain unto The Resurrection; that is, out from among the dead. Here we must contrast the two terms - "resurrection of the dead" and "raised out from among the dead". Now Christ is The Resurrection of the dead; that is, only He can cause the dead to live. But the term "from among" or "out from among the dead" is applied to Christ Himself in His Resurrection. And in this case Philippians 3:10 denotes a greater comprehension of being raised with Christ, for which Paul is reaching. In part at least it represents his desire to be out from the dead as represented by the Jewish system. He had not yet attained that resurrection, but was in pursuit of it.

Now Philippians 3:21, "Who shall change our vile body..." The actual translation is "body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." Notice not bodies - but body - singular. Notice also the term "our", which is plural - all believers who were waiting on their body of humiliation to be manifested in glory and honor and praise to God. The same things is said in Ephesians 1:14, "Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." Now let’s continue. The body of humiliation that is being spoken of here by virtue of what Paul is talking about is the body of Old Covenant Israel. And he’s talking about our (plural) but singular body - not our bodies: our body, the body of humiliation, the body that Jesus took into the grave. He died in humiliation, He raised in power and glory. He took a body - not only the body of humanity, but the body that Israel represented - Old Covenant Israel; the body of Moses, the body of the law. These things are all referred to as a body. Just like you and I are referred to as The Body of Christ, but that’s made real to us because The Spirit of Christ dwells in us. So it’s not a body of humiliation but The Body of His Glory. But natural Israel was the body of humiliation. "Who shall change..." That word "change" here is the word "transformed". Transformed here has nothing to do with the molecular structure of atoms. It is used in one other place concerning the devil being able to transform himself into an angel of light, and those who are false teachers being able to transform themselves. It means "make it serve" or "make it appear to be". Well, He is able to transform the body of humiliation, able to subdue it and transform it. The one (devil) is able to transform himself and appear as the angel of light, but it means the same thing - to come from one appearing, one form serving one thing - to another. It has nothing to do with making your dirt body something it is not, but to take one form and bring it over into another form.

A vile body - and make it to be through His death, burial and resurrection, The Body of His Glory. And those who were part of that body of Old Testament Israel were the first believers to become, in fact, The Body of Jesus Christ. And Paul is writing to them particularly in the book of Philippians because at that time there was a real problem going on - a suppression of Christianity. The Jews were not going to turn loose of this body concept - the body of Judaism, the body of natural Israel, the body of the law, the structure of Moses - the whole thing! The temple, the buildings - all of that! The Lord by His Cross had it brought to an end, but it was still stumbling on, claiming to be The Word of God, claiming to be all of that. And here are these Christians who have come out of that, and began to declare - We are The Body of Christ! Here are these Jews coming and getting them, dragging them out and feeding them to lions! Here is the man who is writing this letter, in the beginning coming and taking them out of their houses, chaining them up and putting them in prison! Saul - this is Paul doing that!

Now he is writing to these very same believers concerning the coming from one body to another Body; concerning that He is able to do this - to change and to fashion by that power which worketh in us He is able to bring us from one body to another Body altogether. And if you keep it in the context of the scripture this is the only thing it can possibly say. And if you want to go farther you can go into the definition of the words, and you will see that it can not mean certain things. But the truth of what is does mean can not be found in definitions. It has to be shown by The Spirit, and what God says goes along with what the definitions of the words are. Many of us take this scripture and think that He’s going to change our bodies to make it look just like His body. And there is no verse in the Bible that says that. And in this verse in Philippians 3 the word "bodies" is not there. It’s our vile body - singular. It’s the same with the Body of His Glory - it’s singular. It’s many who are One! And we are coming from the one to the other by the power of His Resurrection. We come to His mind, we come transformed, changed; where we take on the actual appearance in the land of The Body of Jesus Christ. We take on the actual form - right out here in front of John Doe of The Body of Jesus Christ!

The Church has lost that by the erroneous teaching of bodies. We are sitting around on our pews waiting to get new bodies, and we are already a New Body! As new as they are ever going to get! He says this same thing in 2 Corinthians 5. If this house, this temporal house were dissolved it would be immediately seen - WE HAVE A HOUSE FROM HEAVEN! Not we’re going to get; not we’re going to one day - no sir - it’s immediately seen - we’ve got it! If this were dissolved - we have! We have! Paul says we don’t need to get rid of this natural body, because we have... Our longing now is to be clothed upon with this one, even to the point that this mortal is just swallowed up, overcome, subdued in the reality of it!

If we understand what the scripture is saying about this means by which He is able to do this, it becomes very clear that it’s from the inside out. The work starts inside, the transformation starts there. It’s not Him coming up on us out of somewhere - No, it starts inside because the principle of The Seed says it’s got to be by The Seed. We’ve got to follow things through by the order it was written in. See - He’s in you! He sets up the realm of the Spirit in you! He sets up the realm of the kingdom in you! He sets up the realm of heaven in you! And He is able to say, because I am in you, you are where I am. It is out from there - and it does change, it does transform, it does subdue - absolutely! But it’s according to His working which worketh mightily in us that this takes place. Even the changing of the body of humility - and this verse specifically speaking of the body of Old Covenant Israel; but also in here you can see the application to the body of humanity, the body of Adam too. So we come from the body of Adam, because it’s been taken up in Old Covenant Israel and put under the law; because in Israel God has just summed up all His dealings with man.

Paul says that: from Adam to Moses sin reigned. It was the law that exposed it. Where did the law expose it? Here in Israel. So everything from Adam to Moses is summed up and dealt with here in Israel. And when we bring this over to The Cross we’ve got the body of humanity, the old body; we’ve got the body of Judaism, we’ve got the body of humiliation. We’ve got that body which was prepared for Him when He came to die. He died in that, the one He brought to death, the other He brought to a fulfillment, but only One Body comes forth - that’s The Body of Christ, The Body in which He lives. So the great change is from the first to the second, and as our bodies have served the first one, they shall now serve the second, as instruments of righteousness. But that will never happen until we first confront the reality of The Body. Until you do that your instruments are going to serve themselves.

Now I just want to deal with a few terms. (See Diagram A) We’ve looked at The New Man or New Creation, then The Seed, which related itself to The Body of Christ, then The I AM of Christ being made manifest in The Church. This is Great Salvation as we’ve been talking about. And each of these Old Testament types of Salvation comes by way of The Cross to be fulfilled in Christ. So we bring Adam across by way of the old creation and we find on the other side of The Cross that the answer to Adam is an altogether new Creation. We bring that part of Salvation that Abraham and Isaac speak of, The Seed, to The Cross, where a Seed must fall into the ground and die, and the answer to that is The Incorruptible Seed, which is Christ, of whom you are born again, and That Seed has brought forth of itself much fruit, which is its own Body; because to every seed God gives its own body. So here we have an Incorruptible Seed, therefore we have to have already an Incorruptible Body - not bodies - BODY! Yes sir, INCORRUPTIBLE SEED CAN’T DWELL IN A CORRUPTIBLE BODY. That’s what Paul says: Let me tell you something - "You have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

The earthen vessels, the bodies you have, are not The Body you are - an Incorruptible Body. You have come from corruptible on the first side - that which was made with hands, that which was spoken in bushes; to The Incorruptible. You have come from God speaking through corruptible sources - prophets, etc., to God speaking Incorruptible Word - IN SON! That’s the book of Hebrews. It’s no different when you come across with the word "body". Old man - New Man; corruptible body - Incorruptible Body; death - Life. Why do we stump our toe on bodies? For the same reason the Jews did. They stumped their toe at the natural, the material temple. They wanted the material temple - thank you! And The Temple of God was standing in front of them declaring Himself - but their blinded eyes could not see Him, yet He spake of The Body of His Resurrection. But they wanted the material things.

Christians today have reverted to the same mind set - the material things. Everything on the second side of The Cross is by The Spirit, of The Spirit, through The Spirit, and is Spirit! That doesn’t mean it’s imaginary - it’s real, it’s eternal - it’s incorruptible! But they couldn’t turn loose of the material, so they just carried it on with them beyond the time of The Cross, and it was literally and utterly destroyed by mankind itself. And religion, Christian religion, if it hasn’t already gotten there is headed in that direction. It is going to be destroyed by the same mankind it seeks to be like; that same mankind will destroy it! It already has started to do that. Christian religion prostituted herself and now she shall bring forth children after that prostitution. And those little children will devour her. I’m not speaking in rhymes and riddles: I’m telling you something. The history of it is in Israel. So does it have to be replayed? No, it’s just that if you reject the same truth concerning Christ that Old Testament Israel did, that history will be replayed, because The Cross will have its same effect, time and time again.

So The Church that started out in Truth did the same thing Israel did. Israel formed alliances with the Beast, alliances with Rome - to get rid of the Christians! But the Lord protected The Church, and Israel was destroyed! Now the Church didn’t get past the third century and The Church came under the rule of Rome because Clement declared himself to be a Christian. And even the Protestant Reformation didn’t change anything. So now the same world that The Church has tried to win by becoming like it, is being consumed by it. But just like Old Testament Israel, God had a people who were called overcomers - they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and followed the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. The wonderful thing is that the Lord has never run out of that kind of people, and He has that kind of people today! You know as well as I do that what we call Christianity has become little more than just another "protest" movement: we go march against this, we go march against that - no lives are changed - we just march against! And we don’t have any idea what we’re marching against! But everybody’s out there marching - another protest movement.

I’m telling you, the world has just swallowed it up and made another minority group out of it, another group that the government supports with your tax dollars. How long do you think it’s going to be before the people get tired of supporting that minority group with their tax dollars? And the whole structure is going to be in real trouble. We pray that we are not of that structure anyway, but it doesn’t take Uncle Sam’s tax dollars to keep The Church, which is His Body operating, because its possessions are not on this earth anyway. We just use things on the earth, but our inheritance is in the heavens! What we want here of this world is just adequate for ministry, because it’s the ministry, not the facility that is important. Our inheritance is in Him! So we take what we need to operate, and the rest we lose. That’s what those do who are following The Lamb; that’s what those do who are knowing Christ, and are functioning as His Body. We are not beggars, we are not paupers - no, nor should we be. But our inheritance is not in the world, and the things of it. Use it - they are there for our use, if we will simply keep covenant with God. The minute you fail to keep covenant, even the thing that is there for your use will possess you.

So now, some terms; with regard to Adam the requirement of God and upon which the promises of God centered was just this: OBEY AND REPLENISH: multiply, be fruitful. To Adam - obey. To Noah - replenish. Adam - obey Me. He couldn’t do that, could he? And to Noah, which is the end of that generation, the type of the beginning of The New - replenish. Now bring these over and we find their true fulfillment by The Cross in the last Adam - THE OBEDIENT SON. Obedient unto what? Obedient unto death! Adam had to be obedient unto not eating, but This Son is obedient unto death - the death of The Cross. OBEDIENCE IN CHRIST IS ALWAYS MEASURED BY THE DEATH OF THE CROSS. Obedience is measured in you by The Cross - how obedient to the death of The Cross are you? Not how obedient are you in do’s and don’ts. We say the Lord told me to go next door, and I was obedient and did it - but maybe you were obedient, and maybe you were not. Because if you did not do that in obedience to The Cross, comprehending you have no life but Christ, then what you did was go next door and do dead works of the flesh! When we come to The Cross, to this obedience being fulfilled, we find that it’s not a "what" but a "WHO". It’s not what we do, it’s Who is doing it that measures the obedience.

See, we miss the whole point in doing things - we think that DOING really does something. It isn’t that at all. A bunch of people doing things who are not obedient to The Cross differ nothing than heathen hollering and screaming at trees and rocks! Jesus said to the Pharisees: you think by all of this you are being heard. You are praying like the heathen pray! I’m not telling you that you can’t jump up and down and shout. Fine - people do that at ball games. You can certainly do it and get excited about Jesus, but don’t mistake that for spirituality or obedience unto the Lord. Because I can be just as obedient as you are jumping up and down - sitting in a chair. Obedience is unto the death of The Cross. If we are obedient there, everything else we do becomes an act of obedience. And if your act of obedience is jumping - jump! If your act of obedience is sitting - sit! But it’s got to be an act of obedience - not something you are doing TO BE obedient. It’s got to come out of obedience unto the death of The Cross; that’s the obedience that has to be in you. Then everything you do, you do in obedience. Otherwise everything you do, you are doing in disobedience. It’s just like a little child. Mommy or Daddy said, ‘I told you to go and do that’, and you’d better do it THEN ...so you do it! But do you do it in a spirit of obedience? See, if we go out in a spirit of disobedience and "obey" God, we haven’t done anything! Just like with a child: it’s not so much whether he did it, but that his attitude was changed. See, obedience is in your heart, not in what you do. Obedient unto the death of The Cross - it goes to that. ‘He told me to do it, so I did it.’ Yes, but it’s THE WAY you did it. You can tell whether something is done out of love or not, and that’s the way the Lord is with you and I. Is it just doing it, or is it a nature formed in you to do it, and you would have done it whether you were told to do it or not?

But the point I want to make is, you can’t just bring these terms over tit-for-tat. In the old they are imperfect at their best, and in Christ they take on an altogether different meaning. "Replenish" is the same way. In the first it was after the seed of man. In the second this Creation is after The Seed of God. Here it is not repopulating by mankind; here it is the bringing forth of the increase of Christ! Here it is those who are birthed from above - A New Creation. No, not those going above; those birthed from above! Jerusalem which is above, the mother of us all - birthed from above. Not just more of us - that’s not what it’s after. Not a head count - birthed from above.

Then, the other two words - BELIEVE - Abraham believed God. To Abraham it is a believing faith, and it is an increase - the measure of The Seed. You’ve got to bring those over and see what True Belief is. "You believe in God, believe also in me." Not believe in me, too. The word "also" there means "in the same way, the same manner, and as one with." Can you imagine the slap to the Jews that was? He said you believe in God, I know you believe in God! Believe in me - what a slap! There’s many things I’d like to say about that because the fact is that most Christians do not believe. Here it is - BELIEVE ME, THAT I AM! Not I will be...was...No! That I AM - that’s the faith of Abraham. It was so real with him. He looked into the Resurrection and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Most Christians today are still waiting for their righteousness to come - they don’t believe.

Then there was KEEP THE COVENANT. With Israel it was "keep covenant". All you’ve got to do is go over there and keep covenant. I’ll do this, I’ll do that, I’ll go before you, I’ll send... Keep Covenant. Do not make covenant with the Canaanites - Keep Covenant. That’s all you’ve got to do. And the first thing they did was make covenant with Canaan. Keep Covenant and DISPLACEMENT. Displace - fill up. You can’t fill something up without displacing something else. If you fill up a bottle with water, you’ve displaced air. Now this gets good! In the type they just killed them in warfare - took axes and cut their heads off - and coming in and filling up. But if you look at the reality of it - God told them I will drive them out. They only had to fight them because they broke covenant with the Lord. Have you ever thought about that? They had to get their swords and go kill somebody because they made a covenant with them, and now they’ve become their enemy. But the Lord just went before them and drove them out - and all they had to do was fill up!

Now you can bring that right down to your job. People are always complaining about the heathen around them. Why don’t you just displace them? I didn’t say fire them, I said displace them. Just fill up that place with the presence, the savour of the knowledge of the Lord. Just declare in that place, in your very being The Finished Work of Christ! What good will that do? The only good! You won’t have to fight with anybody; there will just be a displacement there. You’ll just manifest your inheritance in that place. See, Christians lost that truth a long time ago, so now we’ve got a land waiting for us over yonder. It’s a figment of our imagination because we won’t possess the land we do own. I didn’t say buy it and pay taxes on it - I said possess it! The point is the land you buy and pay taxes on you don’t really own. You own that land where you manifest His reality; where you declare The Finished Work, and you displace all the enemies. When the Kingdom of God is present - everything is displaced! That’s the lesson Jesus taught. He walks into a place and He says, "The Kingdom of God is at hand!" Then He’d just look around and displace this and displace that. He’s say - "get up" or He’d say, "Peace, be still!" Now we say that was Jesus.

But we have no comprehension, so we say ‘one day over in heaven it will be that way.’ Bring it right over in Christ - Displacement. Displacement by doing what? Keeping covenant! Walking in a New Covenant, new understanding concerning relationship. Bring those terms over and they cease to be terms, but they become realities of relationship. It’s a reality of relationship to be obedient. When a person is in that reality of relationship the result is New Birth. We believe - reality of relationship. Not something we’re trying to know. No - we believe. It is truly that way with us. Consequently, increase occurs. And we walk in Truth, in Covenant, and who can stand Displacement? You don’t have to fire anybody - Displace them!

We’ve only just mentioned these terms, but there are tremendous scriptures to associate with all of this. Let the Spirit of God work it in us, but there it is at least in terminology. May the Lord just use the terminology to increase our hunger for the reality of the actual relationship. That’s what Christ brings - REALITY OF RELATIONSHIP! That is GREAT SALVATION!