I want to show you some things from
the Word of God that, in my estimation and opinion, are the most fascinating
things in the whole Bible. It’s hardly talked about and almost nonexistent in
traditional church teaching. I’ll never understand why. I guess because it’s
been covered up and hidden in tradition.
The thing that’s necessary for the life
of a Christian is knowledge of what happened from the cross to the throne. What
took place in those three days and three nights? The death of Jesus Christ was
not a physical death alone! If it had only been a physical death, Abel would
have paid the price for the sins of mankind. He’s the first man that died
because of honoring God and His Word. He was the first man that God dealt with
in a prophetic manner after the fall of mankind. Every prophet that walked the
face of the earth under the Abrahamic Covenant could have paid the price if it
were a physical death only.
We, as Christians, are talking about
eternal life. We’re talking about the spirit of man. A spirit of a human being
never dies. I don’t care who he is, when he was born, what he does—his spirit
will never, ever cease to exist. When I say it will never die, I’m using the
natural definition of the word “death,” or “die.” Our own physical, natural
explanation of death is to cease to exist. That is not the definition of
spiritual death at all, because you can’t cause a spirit to cease to exist. The
whole spiritual world is a non-ending creation by God.
A Spirit created all matter. God is a
Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. And a
Spirit created all material. So, since when did the material become more real
than the Creator?
How It All Began
The spiritual world is the real
world, and this world is an expression of that world. This world was created by
that world. That world existed without beginning and will exist without end.
And a non-beginning, non-ending creature called God created the whole thing.
Man’s spirit will live, either with
his Lord Jesus throughout eternity, or with his father the devil throughout
eternity. Either one. He’ll never die.
He may lose his soul. If he hasn’t
been born again, he’ll lose his soul, lose control over his will, mind and
emotional faculties. The moment he steps out of this physical body, he’ll go
unto his lord, Satan, into the pit, or the incarcerated place called hell—the jail
of spirits that are alienated from God. They have to be jailed. If they were
left to run loose, they would wreck and work havoc on the creation of God. And
God won’t have that. Hell was created for the devil and his angels, and he’s
taking men there with him.
Now, let’s talk about what happened
from the time Jesus’ body, when He gave up His spirit or gave up the ghost, as
the Scripture said, until He was resurrected and sat down at the right hand of
the Father. I want to know what happened. Don’t you? Wouldn’t you like to know
what happened and what took place in there? When you find out, it will be the
very thing that brings the reality of the Christian life into your life, to the
point where no one can ever take it away from you again. The power of God and
the Word of God will be so solidified in your life that there’s not anyone that
can take it away from you. They can’t do it. Once a man has this particular
thing revealed to him, there’s no one that can take it away.
First, let’s look at the way Jesus ministered.
I want to know what happened in the Garden of Eden. That will tell us some true
facts that will open up the door to some things we need to know a little bit
later on. The Bible says that God gave man dominion over all His handiwork. In
the Book of Psalms, it talks about the stars that God made and all that He made
in this universe, and says all the works of His hands and handiwork had been
put under the foot of man and under the dominion of mankind.
Here’s what happened. God created a
human body. Not a human being, but a human body. And He made that out of the
elements of this earth. Then, from within Himself, He put life into that body.
The Bible said He breathed life into that body. That was a dead thing. The
spirit of man is the real man. And the light and the life of God is the
life-giving source of that man. He had no lack of knowledge or of what he
needed. He walked in a likeness of God—can you see God going hungry? Can you
see God without enough to eat?
You’d say, “Why, no, certainly
not. If He needed any more, He’d just create more.”
Well, that’s the way He made man. Man
is made in His own image and likeness, and He gave him this universe to have
dominion over, and this world to live on and have dominion over this earth. By
His faith and creative ability, He caused this world to feed him and take care
of him in every way. Man didn’t even realize he was naked.
Then, man gave that dominion and
authority over into the hands of an angel, a fallen angel by the name of
Lucifer, who had his name changed to Satan when he fell out from his position
as the number one angelic being of God. He was called “the anointed cherub.” He
lost that anointing and was kicked out of authority because he had invented
iniquity. It was found in him and he brought it into existence. He had no
tempter because he created it.
Satan used the anointing of God to
create iniquity. That’s why there’s no redemption for him. He used God’s power
to invent, or bring into existence, a thing called sin.
The Big Takeover
Now, when Adam gave that creature the
authority that God had given him, he made him the god of this world. That’s
when he became the prince of the power of the air, using Adam’s authority, time
scale and everything that God had given him. All of a sudden, man is limited.
Now spiritual death has been lodged inside that man. The light got turned off.
No inner power! No ability to create from within—only the ability to copy what
already exists. And if the ground would produce, it would have to be done so,
not by the creative ability from within, but by the scratching of the very
hands and sweat of the man’s brow. He had to make that ground produce, because
he had been cast down to its level.
A curse, the Bible calls it, had been
put on him.
Where did this leave God? All of a
sudden His man, His child, His creation, has a stepfather. And the Bible said
that God gave this earth to the sons of men. He gave them dominion over it. He
gave it to them to be god over! But when he turned and gave that dominion to
Satan, look where it left God. It left Him on the outside looking in. He can’t
do anything down there. He had no legal right to do anything about it. Could He
manipulate and operate? No, because He’d be doing the very same thing that
Satan did in the first place. And if God had injected Himself illegally into
the earth, what Satan intended for Him to do was to fall for it, pull off an
illegal act and turn the light off in God, and subordinate God to himself.
Satan intended to get God into such a
trap that He couldn’t get out. That’s what He tried to do, and He did it with
man. See, if he could get God to move illegally in the earth and do something
that’s a lie—the Bible says that Satan is the father of all liars—he’d take Him
because he’s the god of the earth. He has moved in with Adam’s authority and
become god over this existence. And if he could get God to infringe on his
territory, he’d take the rest of the universe away from Him. That’s what Satan
was after!
Now you can see the complicated predicament
that God’s in. You can understand why someone would say, “Wonder why God let’s
all those wars go on?”
He doesn’t! There’s not anything He
can do about it. He has given authority in the earth to the Christians to do
something about it, and they’re not doing anything. They’re just sitting
around. The devil is using Christians’ authority, and just running wild with
it. We ought to be governing with the power of prayer, power of God, power of
the witness and power of the Name of Jesus. That’s the way we’re supposed to be
ruling this earth right now, with the love of God and in the Name of Jesus.
Now there’s coming a time when that
time limit ends and Jesus will set up rule on this earth. Praise the
Lord! However, spiritual death lodged in that man’s spirit and created a
situation where God had to do almost the same thing to a man named Abram that
Satan did to Adam. The only difference was, God came on the scene. Instead of
crawling in there on His belly like a snake, and using the body of a snake to get
in, He came up to the man, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “I am Almighty
God.” There wasn’t any doubt about Who was doing the talking, because it
knocked old Abram right flat on his face.
God did it Himself. Because when He
got through with it, the Bible says in Genesis 17, “And God went up from
Abram.” He made this deal Himself. He made a contract, or covenant, with
Abram. And in this contract, simply because Abram accepted it, God
changed his name to Abraham, made an agreement with him and gave him a new
name. The whole world would know Abraham.
God’s Covenant with Abraham
God legally made an agreement with
Abraham. He cut the skin of that man and that man’s blood was shed. Abraham
gave his own blood in order to mark himself as a covenant man with God—a man
that had gone into a legal agreement with God.
And God marked Himself. He said,
“I’ve sealed Myself with this promise.” And everything that He wrote down in
the Levitical law, everything that He gave His Word to do—all man had to do was
stand on it as an agreement in faith—God would do it. Faith in what? Faith in
that agreement!
Can you see that? That’s His Word. He
sealed Himself with that Word. But if you won’t believe it, there’s not
anything anyone can do for you. If you won’t stand for that, you’ll fall for
something else. Every time. Satan makes that Word to no avail and it won’t
produce if you won’t stand for it.
God agreed to do certain things for
Abraham if Abraham would do certain things for Him, and give Him a way back
into the earth. So he said, “All right, I’ll do it. You can use me, you can use
all of my kinfolks, you can use all that I ever get.”
And God said, “Well, I’ll give you
plenty. I’ll put plenty into your hand.” See, God’s funneling things back into
His own family once again. And it’s not too easy to do, because this bunch
sometimes won’t listen to Him. He’s funneling the cattle on a thousand hills
back into old Abraham’s hands. He picked out a slab of ground over there that
He wanted to use and had plans for, and began to funnel that into Abraham’s
hands.
He had given His Word to Abraham. He
had a working contract with God, and the prophets down through the years added
God’s Words to it. And by the Holy Spirit there were different facets of it,
different laws made and different things set up until that whole system, that
whole Abrahamic Covenant, was made and completed. But there had to be a man
born like that first man. God set that contract up in order to get that man
into the earth.
The Grand Plan of Redemption
Let’s look at Ephesians 3:9. It says,
“To make all men see what is the fellowship, or their part of the mystery,
which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God….”
The things that I’m talking about,
God had these things hidden. He didn’t let Satan know everything He was doing.
In fact, He didn’t let him know anything He was doing! It was hidden. And the
prophets would get little glimpses of it. Abraham had a glimpse of it. They’d
get glimpses of it and put it down, just enough to keep everybody going in the
right direction and headed toward Jerusalem, and headed toward the cross.
Because that was the center of this mystery.
The mystery, by the way, is the plan
of redemption.
Ephesians 3:10 says, “His intention
in this is that now unto the principalities and the powers in heavenly places
might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”
You and I have the right to see into
these things, because we are the born children of God. This is no longer a
mystery hidden from us. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2, “Eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard what God has in store for those that love Him. But it has been
revealed to us by His Spirit.” We’re in the know! The Spirit of God has been
sent to reveal these things, so we can know how to operate.
The devil doesn’t have any revelation
knowledge. He cannot read into you. But he can put thoughts into your mind and
make you react or respond to them, and when you shoot your mouth off, then he
knows what you’re going to go do.
Jesus said not to cast that which is
holy before the swine. They’ll take it and rare up and rend you with it. And
the Bible said, “Had the princes of this world known, they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory.”
See, the devil didn’t know. He had to
kill Abel, because he thought Abel might be the one that would carry this thing
out. God had given Satan just enough insight to know that if he didn’t get rid
of the guy God had in place, He was going to get him.
God told Satan He was going to put
His heel on his head. Satan didn’t have any doubt about that. So he’s out to
stop it any way he can. And he knows if he just gets any inclination on Who it
is, he’s going to kill him. He killed Abel that way—not really knowing—and he
saw that didn’t work. So he just kept it up. Everyone that turned out to be a
prophet, he’d go to work to kill him, thinking maybe this might be the One.
You have to remember, Satan didn’t
know anything about the virgin birth. He didn’t think that could happen, just
like a bunch of other guys I know that didn’t think it could happen. But it
did! And really, it’s very simple when you begin to see through the mystery of
it.
So God kept it hidden from Satan. He
and Jesus working right on down through the line, setting this trap.
The Chosen One is Revealed
Even when Jesus was born, Satan
wasn’t too sure. He knew something was up. He knew things were getting hotter,
and hotter, and hotter on him. But he didn’t know Who it was, because he went
down to Bethlehem and had everybody two years old and under killed there. He
didn’t know exactly Who it was until Jesus walked in the Jordan River and John
baptized Him. And the Spirit of the living God came upon Him, and there was a
voice that came from heaven and said, “This is My Son, in Whom I am well
pleased.”
Boy, the deal was on! It didn’t
last all day, because He wound up on the Mount of Temptation and Satan did
everything he knew to kill him. He knew that this was Him. He knew this was the
One!
Satan set out at that moment to get
Him. He tried to push Jesus off a cliff and it didn’t work. He tried to stone
Him, and it didn’t work. He tried everything he knew how to do, and it didn’t
work.
What’s this Man doing? This Man is an
Israelite, walking and ministering under the Abrahamic Covenant. He’s keeping
the Covenant of God. He’s doing what God said do, and God’s honoring every
moment of it.
Now, He didn’t introduce healing.
Healing was introduced to Abraham in that Covenant. All the prophets operated
in healing. Moses did, Elijah did and Elisha did. Elijah raised an old boy from
the dead, a widow’s boy. He was staying there with them, so that’s the least he
could do! Well, that sounds funny, but that’s true. He had an obligation to
these people. God called on that woman to sustain him and she was doing what God
said do, even though the neighborhood probably talked awful about it. I mean,
after all, him living there with that widow woman and all. I don’t imagine the
religious folks thought too much about it, but nevertheless he got his job done
and saved that nation!
Are you beginning to see some of the
things about the way God thinks? God expected him to raise that boy from the
dead. He did not expect him to sit by and let Satan rob that woman at this
stage of the game. And He’s looking at you the same way. God doesn’t intend for
you to sit by and let Satan steal right out from under your feet. No way!
Listen to me very carefully, because
I want you to get this. There had to be a man born who could stand the test the
first one had failed. Man was the key to the fall, and he was going to have to
be the key to the redemption. God didn’t have a right to get involved in it and
do it. Yet He was responsible, so He’s the One Who’s going to have to do it!
This had to take place. There had to be a man and it had to be all man. He
couldn’t just be part man, because that’s not legal. He had to be all God. He
couldn’t be just part God, because that wouldn’t work. Because God created the
man that fell.
See, the responsibility is in the
hands of God. He didn’t have to fall. God made that man to where he was capable
of not falling. He gave him the authority to stand against Satan. But he did it
anyway.
So what kind of a man is this going
to be? God cannot go back to the dust of the earth and make a new one, because
He doesn’t own the dust of the earth anymore. The men that are operating and
own the dust of the earth belong to Satan. The contract that God’s working on
is only a partial contract, and it’s only good where the earth is that man’s
standing on. God doesn’t have any right to butt in on it and say, “King’s X on
that first one I gave authority to. I’m going to make another one.” No,
that doesn’t work!
God gave man authority and he gave
that authority away. God honored that authority and He’s still honoring it
today. God is a just God.
The Last Adam
So here’s what God planned to do. He
used His right that Abraham had given Him, and He caused a creature to be
conceived from Himself inside the womb of a virgin. He used the Word of God, or
His Covenant with Abraham, to get it done. The Word of God became flesh.
This Man is a carbon copy of the one
that walked through the Garden of Eden. This Man is not an immortal Man. He is
an eternal Man. Pure, clean, absolute—the very heart of God Himself walking
inside an eternal body. He had complete and total control over that body, but
it was not immortal. If it had been, it wouldn’t have died. Immortality means
“not subject to death.” It became immortal at the resurrection of it. You’ll
never touch it with death again, I’ll tell you that for sure. It’s impossible
now, because it’s already been through it.
The Bible calls Him “the last Adam.”
He’s a carbon copy of that first one. He’s an eternal man. Adam was built to
live eternally in the physical body that he had. It didn’t have any flaws in
it. It was built to live that way.
Medical science says the human body
is totally recreated every seven to 11 years. Every cell in it is reproduced
and recreated. And there’s no real, physical, natural and scientific reason for
the thing to die if it’s never injured or hurt. It should live on forever, but
it won’t. Because spiritual death came on the inside of that thing and caused
malfunctions in it and brought death. The life was stopped. The life-giving
source—the life, the power, the life of God was stopped—and that’s spiritual.
That spiritual death will not produce life. It cannot. It produces curse and
damnation, theft and destruction.
Now, what happened here? Here’s an
eternal Man that has control over His entire being. He said, “My life is Mine
to pick up or lay down. No man can take it from Me.” He’s ministering as a
prophet under the Abrahamic Covenant. Right at the most crucial moment of His
ministry, He’s ministering with the Word of God and the infilling of the Holy
Spirit. He did not use any of His divine privileges to minister while He was in
His earthly ministry.
He ministered as a prophet under the
Abrahamic Covenant and went to the cross as the spotless Son of the living God.
But here’s the part I want you to get: when He said, “It is finished,” on that
cross, He was not speaking of the plan of redemption. The plan of redemption
had just begun. There were still three days and three nights to be gone through
before He went to the throne. Isn’t that true? What was finished?
The Abrahamic Covenant had come to a
close! The final sacrifice was hanging on that cross. The priesthood had put it
there. It was legal! The high priest of God hung the Lamb of God on the altar
of the cross!
Watch out for concluding part
Adapted from KCM
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