Audio Links

Video Links

Last week we saw that “One like unto the Son of Man, means that this really is the “Son of Man,” who really is “in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks,” within His elect, just as the disciples really did “see the Father” when they “saw the Son.”

Joh 14:7  If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Joh 14:8  Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Joh 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

We are slowly coming to see that our relationship with Christ mirrors Christ’s relationship with His Father. Is it true that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father?” If that is true, and Christ says it is, then this is also true:

 Mat 10:40  He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

If it is true that receiving Christ’s elect is the same as receiving Christ, then it is also true that having Christ’s elect in our midst is having Christ in our midst. “And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. Could this same principle apply to being clothed with a garment?

“… Clothed with a garment down to his foot…”

Why are we told that Jesus Christ is “clothed with a garment down to His foot?” To answer this question we first need to ask, What is the spiritual significance of Christ being clothed?
We find the answer to that question at the very beginning of God’s Word.  It is in the book of Genesis that we read that Adam and Eve were both naked and were not ashamed.

Gen 2:25  And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

As and aside, I heard a very prominent American preacher, say that when the resurrection comes that he is going to “Walk straight up and sock Adam right in the nose.” Now there is a loving, forgiving, Christ like spirit, if ever there was one??? This minister actually thinks that he could have done a much better job of obeying God than Adam did. Like all of orthodox Christianity he wants to go back to Eden, back to the time before Adam and Eve knew the difference between good and evil. The whole Orthodox Christian religion wants to go back to living in the nude, living unclothed, not even knowing the difference between good and evil. The whole Orthodox Christian world wants to live in a world that doesn’t know the meaning of the word shame.

Exo 32:25  And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)

Nakedness, and being ashamed of our sins, are one and the same in the word of God. The opposite of nakedness is being clothed “that the same of our nakedness does not appear.”

Rev 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, t hat thou mayest be clothed, and [ that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

If we cannot even see ourselves as being naked, then that is exactly what we will all want to do. Not even able to see our own nakedness we will want to “Sock Adam right in the nose, all the while, reciting Christ’s commandment to “Love thine enemies.” It all brings this verse to mind:

2Ti 2:25  In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;

So why do we see Christ, “clothed with a garment down to His feet?” Why would Christ need to cover his nakedness? Does Christ have nakedness to cover? Did Christ ever have any nakedness that would require “a garment down to His feet?”

Christ came in the flesh, in corruption, in sin.

In spite of the fact that the whole Christian world, refuses to accept what is so plain in scripture concerning who and what was Christ while He was on this earth in a body of flesh and blood, the answer is, as the scriptures plainly declare, “He made Him sin, who knew no sin.” No, that is not a contradictory statement. It is the teaching of God’s Word. Christ was flesh and flesh is corruption:

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

The whole Christian world will confess that Christ came in the flesh, but just like the Adversary in the garden of Eden, in the same breath they deny that there is any significance or truth to that fact. Here is the Adversary’s argument to Eve: ‘Yes, of course God said, You shall die, but you shall not surely die.’
That is the forked tongue of a “great read dragon, that old serpent called the Devil and Satan.” Now notice how similar to that event in the garden of Eden, is this doctrine of an immaculate conception, which nullifies any significance to Christ’s claim to be “the Son Of Man,” or being able to identify with his own weak creation. Just look at the parallel. This is how it goes: ‘Yes of course Christ came in the the flesh, but it isn’t really the same corruptible flesh of  Adam.’
That first lie, separated Christ’s creation from Christ. The doctrine of an immaculate conception, or any form of that doctrine, does the exact same thing, today. It saparates Christ from His corruptible creation, and guts all the scriptures which declare He was the same as us, of any significance at all.
Did Christ come in the same corruptible flesh that you and I, the sons of Adam, have? Knowing Christ and His Father is what is at stake here with this doctrine, and that means this is a matter of life and death. So “Let God be true and every man a liar:”

Heb 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of [ corruptible, 1Co 15:50] flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

If Christ were not made sinful flesh and blood, He would not have been subject to death. Death is the predestined fate of all flesh:

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

If Christ was not “in Adam He would not have been capable of death. But He was “the son of man [ Adam].”
Why must Christ’s flesh be “the same… as the children?”

Heb 2:16  For verily he took not on [ him the nature of] angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Heb 2:17  Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things [ pertaining] to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
Heb 2:18  For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

The Christ of  scripture is not the plastic Christ of pre- Christian paganism, who was immaculately conceived and “unstained with Adams sinful flesh,” and completely incapable of identifying with His own weak, corruptible, creation. Rather, His Father “made Him of a woman… made Him under the law… made Him sin, who knew no sin,” and at the same time “the Son of God.” That is the very purpose for Christ’s incarnation:

Luk 1:35  And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Christ is not just “of the holy spirit.” He is also “of thee,” of Mary, who was “in Adam… the same as the children… sinful flesh and blood.”

What is the spirit of antichrist?

< What do the scriptures say of that teaching, and of that spirit, which denies this truth, that Christ came in “the same” flesh? Here is God’s solemn warning against such rank heresy:

1Jn 4:3  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the [ same, Heb 2:14] flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
Rev 22:18  For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
Rev 22:19  And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [ from] the things which are written in this book.

The efforts to deny that Christ, as the Son of both Adam and of God, “adds to the words of the book of this prophecy.” But this immaculate conception doctrine which denies that Christ had “the same” carnal flesh that we have, was alive and well long before Christ was ever born. The doctrine of a virgin giving birth through an unscriptural immaculate conception, with no carnal flesh or carnal mind involved, is of pagan origins which long precede the birth of the Biblical Christ. The scriptures unabashedly confess that Christ was “made of a woman, made under the law.” Both of those characteristics of Christ are Biblespeak for “being made sin.”

2Co 5:21  For he hath made him [ to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The words ‘to be’ are in brackets because they are added to the text and are not in the Greek, which actually reads “For he hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” The root of the word ‘sin’ means simply “to miss the mark,” and Christ’s flesh, as well as does our flesh, misses the mark of a glorified spiritual body, by a country mile. All flesh misses the mark of the manifestation of the sons of God in incorruptible, resurrected, spiritual bodies. Failing to understand that simply biblical fact is what is missing in the understanding of all those who insist that being made sin is the same as committing sin. They are deny the possibility of sin being inherent in all flesh. Yet that is exactly what Christ Himself, and the scriptures teach:

Luk 18:19  And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.
Luk 13:32  And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Christ was tempted because He had the same carnal flesh as His brothers

Here we have Christ Himself telling us from His own “treasures new and old…’I am not good… I shall be perfected only by a resurrection… I was made of a woman in iniquity… a vessel of clay, marred in the Potter’s hand,” and yet we want to take away from these truths and add lies to them, and say that Christ was incapable of being “led away of His own lust and enticed.” But once again, what saith the scriptures?

Jas 1:14  But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Was Christ a man?

Mat 8:20  And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air [ have] nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

E- sword brought up 85 New Testament entries for the phrase ‘Son of man,’ as compared to 43 New Testament entries for the phrase Son of God. Christ is certainly the sinless, spotless lamb of God, but He is also the son of ‘Adam,’ the Hebrew word for ‘man,’ and it is He Himself who puts twice the emphasis on His connection to us, as He does to His connection to His Father. It is the churches of Babylon who have chosen to emphasize the fact that Christ is the Son of God, to the exclusion of the fact that he had a mother who was of Adam, via Abraham and David.
Why does the Adversary want us all to see Christ as different from Adam to the extent that Christ is denied the struggles of having to overcome the temptations of a carnal mind? The answer is that, such a doctrine keeps us from understanding that Christ too was “clothed with a garment down to the foot.” The answer is that any form of the immaculate conception heresy gives the lie to so many scriptures which the holy spirit has inspired which demonstrate how closely Christ identifies with His lowly and weak creatures. It give the lie to verse like this:

Heb 4:15  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

The doctrine which teaches that Christ never struggled against a carnal mind, claims that it was impossible for Christ to sin because He was not made of the same sinful flesh and blood, “the same as the children.” The fact that Hebrew 2:14 say the exact opposite, makes no difference. The immaculate conception doctrine guts the fact that Christ sweat blood striving against His carnal desire to preserve His carnal flesh. Those who recognize the fact that Christ was striving against His carnal nature are accused of blaspheming a holy Savior, as if He had never said that He was not good, or as if He had never pointed out that He too would have to suffer the death of His own flesh before He was perfected, or as if He never had to suffer in order to learn:

Heb 5:8  Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

“Though he were a Son,” though He was “the Son of God… yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered… in all ways being tempted… drawn away of His own lusts and enticed” to find a way to avoid the death of the cross. It is a body of sin that wants to avoid the cross. It is overcoming that carnal mind that makes Christ’s sacrifice so significant and gives force to the fact that He was indeed “made of a woman, made under the law,” just as we all are.
Do the scriptures teach that flesh is not sin if it does not consciously commit sin? Do the scriptures teach that Christ’s flesh was not corruption even though He was  “made of a woman, made under the law?” Is it even possible to be sin without consciously sinning? What say the scriptures? Christ is the king of His kingdom, and it was He who told us that “Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven brings forth out of his treasures things new and old.”

Mat 13:52  Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.

We have seen what the scriptures teach about Christ need and our need to be “clothed with a garment down to the foot.” What we saw was that this garment is needed to cover the nakedness of all flesh, including the flesh of Christ. We have seen the scriptures which plainly teach that Christ’s flesh and blood was just as subject to corruption as is all flesh and blood, none of which can “inherit the kingdom of God because it IS corruption.  We have seen that Christ’s flesh was the same as that of the children of Abraham, and we saw that Christ was, through His physical mother, descended from Abraham “according to the flesh,” just as much as His Father was not of this world. We saw the scriptures which warn us that the spirit which denies that Christ’s flesh was the same as ours “is that spirit of antichrist.” We have seen that Christ struggled as we struggle and was in all points tempted as we are tempted, and that “every man is tempted when He is drawn away of His own lust and enticed.”
Next week, Lord willing, we will see what is the difference between sin and trespass. It is the failure to understand this difference and it is not knowing why both a sin and a trespass offering were needed and why both must be made, that causes the masses to fall for the lie of an immaculate conception, and all the error that comes with that false doctrine.
Lord willing we will also learn what is the spiritual significance of being “girt about the paps with a golden girdle.” When we come to see the message of all these symbols we will learn much more about the fact that it is “God  who is working all things after the counsel of His own will.”