Identity in Christ: Who God Says You Are

[Study Aired March 25, 2025]

Introduction: Understanding Identity from God’s Perspective

In a world that constantly pressures us to define ourselves by achievements, possessions, appearance, or social acceptance, Scripture reveals a profoundly different foundation for identity. The source of true identity isn’t found in outward circumstances or personal accomplishments but in an internal, spiritual reality established by God Himself. As Paul affirms, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), showing that our true identity isn’t determined by external factors but through our spiritual position in Christ.

This relationship transforms how we see ourselves, for as Paul declares, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed(ing) away; behold, all things are become(ing) new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our identity in Christ represents the most fundamental spiritual truth about who we really are, transcending temporary circumstances, feelings and worldly labels.

To understand this identity, we must rely not on human wisdom or psychology but on God’s revelation, for “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The truth about who we are in Christ can only be grasped through spiritual understanding, as we compare “spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:13).

Being Made in God’s Image: The Process of Spiritual Formation

Our identity journey begins with God’s ongoing purpose to conform us to His image. When God declared, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26), He was establishing a continuous process rather than an instantaneous creation. The Hebrew word used here suggests an ongoing action of “making” or “fashioning,” revealing that bearing God’s image is not merely our starting point but our destination as we undergo progressive transformation.

Scripture confirms this progressive work throughout the Bible. David understood this when he declared, “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Psalm 17:15), showing that bearing God’s likeness is something to be realized fully in the future. Paul reinforces this understanding when he writes that believers are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Colossians 3:10), emphasizing the ongoing nature of this transformation.

This process of being conformed to God’s image represents the essential basis of human identity and worth, revealing that our value comes not from what we have already attained but from the godly purpose being worked out in us. As Paul explains, we are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29), showing that conformity to Christ’s image is God’s ultimate purpose for mankind, “for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1:20).

Chosen, Adopted, and Redeemed: Our New Identity in Christ

Building on this foundation, Paul reveals the profound transformation of identity that occurs when we are united with Christ. In Ephesians 1, he unveils multiple dimensions of this new identity:

We are Chosen in Christ: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). Our identity isn’t self-determined but divinely chosen. This election occurred “before the foundation of the world,” revealing that God’s purpose for us predates not only our birth but creation itself.

We are Adopted as God’s Children: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:5). Through Christ, we receive a new family identity – no longer spiritual orphans but children of God with full family rights. John marvels at this transformation: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 John 3:1).

We are Redeemed and Forgiven: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). Our identity is freed from sin’s enslavement through Christ’s redemptive work. This freedom changes who we fundamentally are, as Paul explains: “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness” (Romans 6:18).

We are Sealed with the Holy Spirit: “In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13). The Spirit’s presence confirms our new identity, as Paul declares: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16). This sealing isn’t just external proof but an internal testimony of belonging.

These aspects of identity aren’t earned through human effort but freely given by God’s grace, for “by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). This means our identity doesn’t fluctuate based on performance but remains secure in God’s unchanging purpose, as He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11).

A Royal Priesthood: Called to Represent God

Peter adds another crucial dimension to our identity in Christ when he declares: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9). This verse reveals four interconnected aspects of believers’ identity that parallel Israel’s calling in Exodus 19:5-6.

As a “royal priesthood,” we’re identified both as kings and priests – those who have privileged access to God and authority to represent Him to others. This priestly identity means we can “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16) while also serving as mediators who “offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

Being a “holy nation” emphasizes our collective identity as God’s set-apart people, governed by His principles rather than worldly values. This holiness isn’t primarily about behavior but about belonging – we’re holy because we belong to the Holy One, for “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4).

As a “peculiar people” or “people for God’s own possession” (ESV), we belong exclusively to God as His special treasure. This ownership identity means we’re not our own but are “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20), which transforms how we view our lives, bodies, and purposes.

This identity carries purpose – we’re called to “shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” Our identity isn’t merely for personal benefit but for representing God to the world, declaring His excellence through both words and lives that reflect His character.

Crucified with Christ: Death and Resurrection Identity

Perhaps the most radical aspect of identity in Christ appears in Paul’s personal testimony: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). This verse reveals the paradoxical death-and-resurrection nature of Christian identity.

The phrase “I am crucified with Christ” reveals that through spiritual union with Christ, we as believers have died to our old identities. This death is comprehensive, affecting our relationship to sin: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:6), to the law: “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4), and to the world: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).

Yet this crucifixion isn’t the end of identity but its transformation, for Paul continues: “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Our life becomes Christ’s life expressed through us – not merely imitation but indwelling. This indwelling constitutes the essence of Christian identity: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Our identity becomes so united with Christ that Paul can declare “your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

This resurrection identity means we don’t merely try to follow Christ’s example but experience His life working through us, for “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20, ESV). This indwelling life produces what we could never achieve through self-effort, for as Jesus declared, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

Temple of the Holy Spirit: God’s Dwelling Place

Another profound dimension of our identity emerges in Paul’s declaration: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). This temple identity reveals that we’ve become God’s dwelling place – vessels that contain His presence.

The implications are staggering – the same God who once dwelt in the Jerusalem temple now makes His home in human hearts. This fulfills God’s ancient promise: “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16, quoting Leviticus 26:12). Our bodies become sacred space where God’s presence dwells.

This indwelling isn’t occasional or temporary but permanent, for Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17). The Spirit’s permanent residence transforms our self-understanding, for our bodies are no longer merely personal property but “the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

This indwelling guarantees divine guidance, for “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things” (John 14:26). The Spirit’s teaching transforms our understanding, enabling us to perceive spiritual truths that natural thinking cannot grasp.

Walking in Your True Identity: From Understanding to Experience

Understanding these truths intellectually differs from experiencing them as living realities. Paul prayed for believers to comprehend their identity through spiritual revelation: “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). This knowledge requires divine illumination, not merely cognitive grasp.

Walking in our true identity means first believing what God says about us rather than what our feelings, past experiences, or others’ opinions suggest. This requires ongoing renewal of our thinking, for Paul instructs: “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Our thoughts must align with God’s truth about who we are.

This renewal happens as we immerse ourselves in Scripture, for “all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). God’s Word reveals our true identity and corrects false self-perceptions.

Walking in our identity also means rejecting counterfeit identities based on performance, comparison, or past failures. These false identities contradict what God declares is true, yet they often feel more real because of their familiarity. True identity requires trusting God’s declaration over our perceptions, for we must “trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

The process involves daily choosing to reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11). This reckoning means counting God’s truth about our identity as more real than contradictory experiences or feelings.

Conclusion: Living from Identity, Not for Identity

The world teaches us to achieve an identity through accomplishments, relationships, or possessions. God’s approach is radically different – He gives identity as a gift to be received, not a prize to be earned. We don’t work toward an identity; we work from the identity already established in Christ.

This gift-identity transforms our motivation. We no longer serve God to gain His approval but because we already have it. We don’t perform to become something but because we already are something in Christ. This liberation from performance-based identity brings the freedom to live authentically as God’s beloved children.

When we understand and embrace our true identity in Christ, we find stability amid life’s changes and challenges. While circumstances, feelings, relationships, and abilities may fluctuate, who we are in Christ remains secure because it rests not on our performance but on His unchanging work and character.

The message of identity in Christ isn’t self-improvement but self-replacement – not becoming a better version of ourselves but becoming who God already declares us to be. As Paul summarizes: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed(ing) away; behold, all things are become(ing) new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

This new identity transforms everything – how we see ourselves, others, circumstances, and God Himself. When we grasp who we truly are in Christ, we begin to live from the reality that our “life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), expressing outwardly the identity already established inwardly through God’s sovereign work, for “he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11).

Mike,

Can you help me understand what’s going on here in Ezekiel 9:5-7 with this sighing and crying and mark on the foreheads?

Thanks,
P____

Hi P____,
Thank you for your question. You ask me:

Can you help me understand what’s going on here in Ezekiel 9:5-7

Let’s look at those verses. I am including verse 4 for the sake of establishing who is doing the speaking:

Eze 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
Eze 9:5 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Eze 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
Eze 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

The only way you will understand this or any other verse of God’s Word is to remember these words of Christ:

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Where did these word originate? ” And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city…” That’s right, these are words which have “proceeded out of the mouth of God,” and you and I and every man who has ever lived will, in time, “live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” by which “man must live.”
In this particular case, there are those mentioned in these verses who die because they do not have the mark of God upon their foreheads, and there are those who do not die because they do have the mark of God upon their foreheads, and because they do “sigh and cry for the abominations that be done in the midst of the city… Jerusalem.”
If we are, as Christ declares, to “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”, how is it possible to live both the dying for not bemoaning the atrocities being committed in the midst of the city and the living because of having the mark of God and bemoaning the atrocities that are being committed in the midst of the city? To the natural man the answer to that question is nothing less than believing in contradictions, but to the man of the spirit, it is a very simple matter of “living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
By “comparing spiritual with spiritual” the man with the mind of the spirit knows that he is the first Adam before he becomes the second Adam. He is likewise Cain who kills his brother, before he becomes Abel who dies in obedience to the words of the Lord. We are all first guilty of nailing our Lord to the cross before we repent and die to the flesh by living our lives as if resurrected “in Christ.”

Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Rom 6:13 Nor yet be presenting your members, as implements of injustice, to Sin, but present yourselves to God as if alive from among the dead, and your members as implements of righteousness to God. (CLV)

There is no contradiction at all in seeing that we are all first spiritually dead, before we become alive in the spirit of Christ. That is how we “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” We first do every evil word, and then we repent and Christ lives His life of dying to the flesh within us. It may appear to the natural man to be a contradiction, and indeed, life in Christ is the exact opposite of life in the first Adam, but it all makes perfect sense to those who are given eyes that see and ears that hear.

1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Now, in order to understand what is being said in Eze 9:4-7, we must keep in mind that we “must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” We must keep in mind that we must keep and live, both the dying because of not bemoaning the atrocities in Jerusalem, and we must keep and live, the living because we have the mark of God and do bemoan the atrocities committed within the city of the Lord.
I am going to give you three New Testament examples of how this principle of living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God is applied by the holy spirit to Christ Himself. Then we will see clearly what is happening there in Eze 9:4-7.
Here is the very first scripture in the New Testament which is quoted out of the Old Testament. Let’s look at what the New Testament writers affirm is a prophecy of Christ’s birth:

Mat 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
Mat 1:19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.
Mat 1:20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
Mat 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Mat 1:22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

There it is. Matthew simply states, under inspiration of the holy spirit, that the verses in the Old Testament which say that Christ would be called Emmanuel are a reference to Christ’s birth. But Christ was not called Emmanuel. Joseph and Mary were both told to call Him ‘Jesus.’ Now let’s go back and look at that prophecy in the Old Testament, and see if that really is what the spirit is saying. Here are the verses to which the holy spirit refers in Mat 1, concerning the birth of Christ:
You may very well say to me that these two prophecies have nothing in common with each other, and that is exactly what any physical Jew would say. To the natural man these two prophecies seem to have very little in common, but that is also true of virtually every Old Testament prophecy which the New Testament says is a reference to Christ. I cannot cover them all in this e- mail, but I will deal with these first three examples of this phenomenon cited here in the first two chapters of Matthew. Here is the Old Testament prophecy which Mat 1 affirms is a reference to the birth of Christ.

Isa 7:1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, [ that] Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
Isa 7:2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
Isa 7:3 Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;
Isa 7:4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
Isa 7:5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
Isa 7:6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, [ even] the son of Tabeal:
Isa 7:10 Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
Isa 7:11 Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
Isa 7:12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
Isa 7:13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isa 7:15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
Isa 7:16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

To the mind of the natural man who does not believe that we “must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God,” this does not appear to have anything at all to do with the birth of Christ. This whole story is about a conspiracy on the part of the two kings of Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel, to invade and destroy Judah and Jerusalem. Ahaz, the king of Judah, is so frightened that we are told, “his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.” The message from God to Ahaz is that Ahaz does not need to fear because some virgin is going to have a child, and “before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.” In other words the two kings to the north of Ahaz will be removed before the son of some virgin is old enough “to refuse the evil, and choose the good.”
Yet according to the holy spirit, Christ had to live by these words and be born of a virgin, and according to the holy spirit, these verses in Isa 7 are actually a reference to the birth of Christ.
Now let’s look at our second example of how the Old Testament is interpreted in the New Testament, so we can see how we are to “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Let’s look at the very next time the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament:

Mat 2:13 And when they [ The “wise men from the east”] were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
Mat 2:14 When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
Mat 2:15 And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

Now let’s look once again at how these verses use Old Testament words in a way that demonstrates that we and “Christ in us… must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Here is the only place in all of the Old Testament where the statement “I… called my son out of Egypt” is to be found:

Hos 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.

The natural man will ask, what does Israel have to do with Christ? The answer is that Israel has everything to do with Christ, as much in every way as Christ’s disciples have to do with Christ. That is the principle to which Christ referred when He told the devil “Man… shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

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

Those who receive those who Christ sends are actually receiving Christ Himself. Just how serious a matter is it that we come to know who are and who are not Christ’s? Here is just how crucial it is that we be able to properly “try the spirits whether they be of God.”

Mar 6:11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Here is just how much Christ identifies with those who He says are “His body and His flesh.”

Act 9:1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
Act 9:2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
Act 9:3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
Act 9:4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

Christ says we are Him. “Why persecutest thou Me?”

Eph 5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

Physical Israel was, at the time of Isaiah and at the time of Hosea, God’s kingdom on this earth. To attack Israel was to attack Christ. To blaspheme Israel was to blaspheme Christ. Whether past, present or future, that which is Christ’s is Christ Himself. Those are not my words, they are His words, and He now says that we are “His flesh and His bones.”
Here is what He says to us about the past:

Mat 23:34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
Mat 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Mat 23:36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

“This generation”, as the next chapter demonstrates, is ” he that readeth.” “This generation” is not just that generation in which Christ was on this earth in a body of flesh.

Mat 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, ( whoso readeth, let him understand:)

Mat 24:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

“This generation does not pass away, till… he that reads understands [ that] man must live by every word of God.” That is what Christ means when He says “My words shall not pass away.”
Here now is what Christ teaches us about the application of His words to our future:

1Co 3:21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
1Co 3:23 And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

“All things” and “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God… things present and things to come,” are all one and the same thing. They are “My words which will never pass away.”
Such is the case also for the present:

1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

The emphasis of scripture is upon the present. Time and again, in the book of Revelation, Christ tells us that He is, He was and He will be, but the ‘is’ part of who He is, is always primary and is first in the vast majority of the cases:

Rev 1:4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace [ be] unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Rev 1:17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
Rev 1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Christ does not want us to read His Words and put any of them in the distant past or the future. “All thing are ours… thing present and things to come.” But “all things, also includes “all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias.” But Christ wants us to primarily think of Him as He who is, as the “I Am” God who is here and is near. We are never to forget that all things are ours, past and future, but His presence is primarily how He wants us to see Him and His Word.
Now, notice the context of Hos 11:1. Let’s look at what other “words that proceed out of the mouth of God by which man shall live” are right there in Hos 11:

Hos 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
Hos 11:2 As they [ Moses and Aaron] called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.
Hos 11:3 I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
Hos 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.
Hos 11:5 He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return.

It has all been predestined for all men. We will never go back to Egypt, but we will go “into Babylon.”
How does Christ apply “Israel to Himself?” How does Christ apply the sins of Israel to Himself?” He does so by taking our sins upon Himself, so that God can truly say “I called my Son out of Egypt. We are His Israel:

Gal 6:15 Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do– submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!
Gal 6:16 All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God – his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them! (MSG)

“As they called them they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.” That is what we all do as we are “coming out of Egypt”. It is each of us, even if we are God’s “very elect”, who Christ says are Himself, it is we who have first, while we are still “in Adam”, been guilty of “the blood of all the righteous men, and prophets from Abel to Zacharias.” It is all ” in me, that is in my flesh.” I am “the man” spoken of by Nathan the prophet, and it is only by acknowledging these Biblical truths that we must all give an account of the deeds “done in his body.”

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
2Co 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
2Sa 12:7 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;

Until we can see that each of us “are the man” being spoken of on every page of scripture and in every verse of scripture, we still do not know where “the revelation of Jesus Christ” begins or where it ends, because the revelation of Jesus Christ begins in Gen 1:1 and it ends in Rev 22:21. Even the boring genealogies are just more proof that we and our Savior are both of Adam, “the Son of Man.”
Now let’s look at the third Old Testament scripture which is quoted here in the first two chapters of Matthew. It is found in the very next few verses after the angel tells Joseph to take “the young child and flee to Egypt.” Here is yet another very revealing verse of scripture which leaves the natural minded man thinking that the writers of the New Testament were simply quoting and applying Old Testament verses completely out of context.

Mat 2:16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.
Mat 2:17 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,
Mat 2:18 In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

It is common knowledge to all who are familiar with the geography of Palestine that Bethlehem is just about as far south and west of Jerusalem, as Rama is north and east of Jerusalem. How is it that the New Testament writers can seemingly take any part of the nation of Israel and make it apply to the events surrounding the life of Christ? How can they seemingly take the different events that took place in the lives of the various kings of Israel, be it King David or King Ahaz, and apply those events to the life of Christ? How is it that the writers of the New Testament can take Israel’s coming up out of Egypt and apply that to the life of Christ? There is a spiritual principle involved in doing this, and that principle is expressed in Mat 4:4 and Luk 4:4.
The answer is simple. The simple answer is that every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God is applicable to Christ and all who are in Him, from Gen 1:1 to Rev 22:21. We should each feel that ‘I am the man’ being spoken of on every page and in every verse of scripture if we are in Christ, because it is all about Him. It is all, every single verse and every single word, a part of the revelation of Jesus Christ. The first Adam consists in Christ, and the last Adam is Christ and His Christ.

Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [ they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Col 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Col 1:19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
Col 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

With this in mind let’s go to the verses in question. I have added verse 4 just so we could see more clearly what is being said in these verses:

Eze 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
Eze 9:5 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Eze 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
Eze 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

Again, let me ask you; From where did these words in Eze 9: 4-7 come? The answer to that question is in the first words of verse 4, “And the LORD said unto him…” Like all of God’s Word, these really are “words that proceed from the mouth of God,” and therefore you and I, if we are in Christ, “must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
What do these words concern? They concern Israel, and in particular they concern those who are in Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Who is that today? What is the ‘I am” application of these words of our Lord which “shall never pass away? Where is the true Jerusalem today?

Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

It is the “Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children” which is the first Adam which we all first are. So those who do not have the mark of God in their forehead, represent us at that time of our walk. That is the time when we are committing “the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.” What has to happen to us before we can receive the mark of God in our foreheads? We first must come to see ourselves as those who have been slain by the words which “the Lord said unto Him.”

Eze 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
Eze 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

You and I are “Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children,” before we can become “Jerusalem which is above…” “The ancient men” is our “old man… the first Adam… the dead who bury their dead,” who we all first are.
That is right, the scriptures teach that a spiritually dead person is physically alive and physically capable of burying his physically dead:

Mat 8:21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Mat 8:22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

The man who is spiritually alive has the mark of God in his forehead, but he is dead to the things of this world and of the flesh:

Rom 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Rom 6:2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Rom 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Rom 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Rom 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
Rom 7:6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not [ in] the oldness of the letter.

“When you were in the flesh” means ‘When you thought as the flesh thinks.’ None of this makes any sense to the natural man. It is all counter intuitive. The natural man reasons that you simply cannot die in order to live, and yet that is exactly what the spirit teaches:

Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

If God gives you “eyes that see and ears that hear” spiritual truths, then these things will make perfect sense. But God has given “eyes to see and ears that hear” to only a very few people, and many who do see and hear spiritual matters have not been given the ability to “try those spirits to see whether they be of God.”

1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

These “spirits” we are to try are words and doctrines which are being spoken by “many false prophets.” We must be able to distinguish the words of Christ from the words of the Adversary. Both are spiritual words, but one spirit cannot go all the way with the words of Christ and will twist and distort the doctrine of Christ rather than believe that “you shall surely die”. There is no way around that truth. We must first die to the flesh, before we can ever hope to be alive in Christ.
Those verses in Ezekiel are but an earlier, less distinct, version of these verses in Revelation, where it becomes clearer that it is all within:

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Rev 9:2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
Rev 9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Rev 9:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
Rev 9:5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [ was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Rev 9:6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

“The earth” is us as “Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children” which we all must first be. Here are the verses which demonstrate this truth:

Jer 22:1 Thus saith the LORD; Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
Jer 22:2 And say, Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these gates:

“These gates” are the gates of Jerusalem where “the throne of David” was located. It is in this same chapter, speaking to the same subjects, that we see these words:

Jer 22:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.
Jer 22:30 Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man [ that] shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.

Physical Israel, with a physically pedigreed king, is no longer God’s people, and just like Adam previoius to physical Israel, physical Israel was merely a type and a shadow of that for which God is using all flesh to typify and to foreshadow. It is all “types of us” who must all face the death of our old man, and give up the physical pedigree of being a physical Jew, and become the true Jew, the true Israel of God, by beginning with the ancient man and slaying all the different parts of that old nation which is all within us.

Eze 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
Eze 9:5 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Eze 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
Eze 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

Here is the truth of what this is all about:

1Co 10:11 Now all this befalls them typically. Yet it was written for our admonition, to whom the consummations of the eons have attained.
1Co 10:12 So that, let him who is supposing he stands beware that he should not be falling.

I hope this has helped you to see that this is all typical of us “upon who the ends of the ages are come.”

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Hi again Mike,

A guy who I work with thought I might like reading Glenn Beck’s novel The Overton Window. I knew that I no longer wanted to focus on conspiracy theories even if some of it is probably true. Scanning the book, some thoughts developed quickly. Glenn Beck claims to be a Christian. He is also very patriotic for America. In two minutes I knew that he is one that worships another Jesus, one of the sheep who doesn’t know the voice of its shepherd. One of his heroes in the story, Molly Ross, quotes Thomas Jefferson: “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God”. I got to thinking about something that Samuel Johnson said about patriotism, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. I used to think that he was condemning patriotism, but after looking further into it I learned that he wasn’t saying that all patriots were scoundrels. He was saying that scoundrels use it as a last resort to maintain pride since they possess little for themselves. Right wing Christians think patriotism is a wonderful thing; they equate it with obeying God. Samuel Johnson wrote a dictionary in the eighteenth century. He defined ‘patriot’ as “one whose ruling passion is the love of his country”. Even if you rightly extend this definition to country (men) or fellow countrymen, it puts God in second position. Just as evangelicals secretly love the idea of the “wicked” getting their “due”, they also use patriotism as license and justification to kill those who oppose us. Many secretly love the military weapons that “our” side possesses that so expertly punish those heretics. The popularity that men such as Glenn Beck are attaining is a telling sign of how few of us there are who will turn the other cheek for the cause of Christ.

I am blessed to call you brother,

A____

Hi A____,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about patriotism with me. You are so right, we are not patriots first and Christians second, if we are in Christ. If we really are in Christ, and if Christ really is living out his life in us, then we are Christians first and Christians second, and “we are ambassadors for Christ” in this world, and our true “citizenship is in heaven”, and we are but “strangers and pilgrims on this earth”.

2Co 5:20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech [ you] by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
Php 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (ASV)
Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

All ambassadors are “strangers and pilgrims” in the host country, and would never consider voting or joining in the military or for that matter having a national TV program, or write and sell books in that host country which urged the citizens of the host country to participate in the politics of the host country. If and when any ambassador no longer considers himself or herself to be “a stranger and a pilgrim” in the country to which he or she is sent as an ambassador, he will immediately lose his citizenship in his home country, because, as a very wise man once said:

Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Jesus Christ)

Some man will say, ‘That is speaking of serving money’ and I will agree. But it is also speaking of “serving two masters”, and we are specifically told that as heavenly soldiers we are not to become involved in the affair of this age.

2Ti 2:4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

So the minute any “Christian” takes up a weapon “for God and country” he has at that moment lost any Godly protection that comes with clinging to these words of our Lord.

Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Mat 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Those are words which will not be found in The Overton Window, or for that matter in the writings of any orthodox Christian literature. If it is to be found, it will be made clear that the orthodox writer distinguishes between personal enemies and national enemies or enemies who are breaking into your home. In the words of a nationally syndicated minister, “In that case you should step on him like a cockroach”.

So it is very understandable why our Lord warned us that many would come in His name, confessing that He is the Christ, and still would deceive many” simply because they are not given to receive His Words.

Mat 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what [ shall be] the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Christ is speaking of many who claim to believe in him. Men just such as Glenn Beck, and all orthodox Christian ministers. Any minister who teaches against military service is not an orthodox Christian, but is the exception to what is generally considered as ‘orthodoxy’, which speaks of such heretical things as physical “Godly wars”, or “righteous wars”, as if Christ had never even uttered the words of Mat 5:44 or Mat 26:52.

In closing I will give you a second scriptural witness to Christ’s warning that those who hate Him and His Words the most are those “who believe on Him”.

Joh 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [ then] are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Joh 8:33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Joh 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Joh 8:35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: [ but] the Son abideth ever.
Joh 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Joh 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

Christ identifies with all His creation, and He will administer His vengeance on all. It is not the call of His followers to resist Rome. It is our call to die with Him on His cross and to fill up in our flesh what is lacking of His sufferings.

Col 1:24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

Just one more example of Christ’s inspired Words which “have no place”, either in the writings of Glenn Beck, or any other orthodox Christian who is all wrapped up and involved in the affairs of this world.
Please do not misunderstand anything I have said in this e- mail to be against Glenn Beck and for the politics or others. What I am saying is that no Godly true disciple of Christ, would allow himself to become involved in the affairs of this world.

2Ti 2:4 No man that warreth [ for Christ and His doctrines] entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

As you so astutely observed from a spiritual, and Biblical perspective, all who do are “serving… another Jesus”.

2Co 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or [ if] ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

It is so very natural to “bear with” those who teach us to react naturally and patriotically. It is so very unnatural to be a ‘spiritually patriotic’ ” that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier”.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Dear Mike,

I just wanted to make a comment and ask you if my thinking is correct and that you might, God willing, either expound or correct.
You say quote, ” I cannot tell you how much it means to me to know that you really are praying for me.”
I think I might know how much it means to you that you are in my prayer. Correct me if I am wrong please.
For me, being in the prayers of the brethren is where we are made manifest and present to our Dear Loving Lord and Savior. THIS, is for me, the invisible place, separate to all carnality and worldliness, wherein the Family of the Lord and the Kingdom are made spiritually manifest as in the manifestation of the Sons of God. It is as a fulfillment and expectation that is coming true and the dawning in my heart of the manifestation of the Sons of God.

Rom 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

No longer being a “creature” but a member in the family of God, I am given to see the significance of being in the prayers of the brethren and likewise holding the brethren in my prayer. I am aware of the fact that is told to me by Paul.

1Co 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

So, Mike, consequentially, it means a lot to me to have you present in my prayers… but more that you have me in yours!
If this thinking is radical or twisted or incorrect, please, I would pray that you edify me accordingly..
I am very blessed to be in your prayers.

Blessings to you,
D____

Good morning D____,

Thank you for sending me your thoughts and for asking for my discernment concerning those thoughts. I agree with you. We are “in Christ” (Act 17:28), and Christ is “in us” (Col 1:27) if indeed He is there.
What I have had to fight is what the apostle Paul fought, and that is the mixing of the consummation with the present situation of being “sealed with the holy spirit of promise… the earnest of the spirit [ down payment] until the redemption of the purchased possession.”

Eph 1:13  In whom ye also [ trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Eph 1:14  Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

So we are “resurrected with Christ… in earnest” at this time, and even though we are also “resurrected with him in newness of life”, and even though “Now are we the sons of God”, we still cannot say “the resurrection is already past”. It is not past, and saying it is past “overthrows the faith of some”.

Rom 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Rom 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
2Ti 2:17  And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
2Ti 2:18  Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
2Ti 2:19  Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

We are “sealed with the holy spirit of promise” and “God knows them that… have this seal”. “We are saved by hope… but why does a man hope for that he already has?”

Rom 8:22  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Rom 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit [ of promise], even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body “the purchased possession” Eph 1:14].
Rom 8:24  For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
1Jn 3:2  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

So yes, we are one with Christ already. Yes, “Now are we the sons of God”, but everything we have now, being one with Christ, being buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him in newness of life is only in earnest and not in fullness. So be very careful to avoid the ‘fullness now’ false doctrine which sometimes dominates many Christian fellowships.
I hope you find this edifying. It is intended to encourage you in your walk. I certainly believe that all you want is to know what is the mind of Christ and His Father because “this is life eternal”.

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Hi Mike,

It’s been awhile since I’ve written. I hope you and your family are doing well. I’m doing quite well myself and am continuing to enjoy your ministry. I had a question pop into my head as I was driving from work today. What is your opinion of the oft- used term, “personal Savior” as in “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?” Is it scriptural?

Thank you, Brother,
D____

Hi D____,

It is always good to hear from you. We are doing just fine here in Flowery Branch, and I am glad to know you are doing well and are enjoying the iswasandwillbe. com site.
You ask if the phrase ‘personal savior’ is scriptural? Yes, it certainly is. God is not at this time working with large groups of men, but He is the personal Savior of a few scattered sheep. Being our personal Savior is not a Biblical phrase, but it certainly is the Biblical meaning of these verses:

Luk 17:20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you [ personally].
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and [ that] the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? [ personally]
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you [ personally], the hope of glory:
Joh 10:4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice [ personally].
Joh 10:5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
Joh 10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am [ personally] known of mine.
Eph 4:16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
Php 2:5 Let this mind be in you [ personally], which was also in Christ Jesus:

None of these verses deny that there is also a corporate body with many members, but that corporate body of Christ is a group of individuals who all, individually, have been given the same “mind of Christ.” This corporate body cannot say or act as if is it has no need for the rest of the body, nevertheless, every part of this body personally knows the voice of the true shepherd.

1Co 12:12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is [ the] Chris t.
1Co 12:13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether [ we be] Jews or Gentiles, whether [ we be] bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
1Co 12:14 For the body is not one member, but many.
1Co 12:15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
1Co 12:16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
1Co 12:17 If the whole body [ were] an eye, where [ were] the hearing? If the whole [ were] hearing, where [ were] the smelling?
1Co 12:18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
1Co 12:19 And if they were all one member, where [ were] the body?
1Co 12:20 But now [ are they] many members, yet but one body.
1Co 12:21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
1Co 12:22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
1Co 12:23 And those [ members] of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely [ parts] have more abundant comeliness.
1Co 12:24 For our comely [ parts] have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that [ part] which lacked:
1Co 12:25 That there should be no schism in the body; but [ that] the members should have the same care one for another.
1Co 12:26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
1Co 12:27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

And while we function as a spiritual body, is not God interested in each of us in particular?

Luk 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
Luk 15:7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

I hope these verses all serve to demonstrate that Christ knows and loves each of us personally, and yet we are all a corporate body which shows the same personal and individual care for each of its members.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Dear Mike,

Like you I was a member of the WCG and left in 1994 when the church tried to introduce the trinity. At that time I prayed to God and told Him that if he would teach me His truth, I would discard my current beliefs and accept what He would reveal. I have been taught since then that God is not a trinity but one being only, that the law was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that humanity is not immortal and many other things. I tried writing to the WCG to explain what had happened to me, but I was put out of fellowship. After their bubble burst, I was permitted to return, but I found that this church was not for me, and I left the second time on my own. I have continued studying and am always hoping that God will continue to show me His truth.

I would like to know if God has ever shown you about the two creations that currently exist; the physical and the spiritual and how the physical was a shadow of the spiritual; the spiritual really being what God desires and how Jesus is the very first citizen of the new creation, the spiritual creation, and how God’s elect have their citizenship by faith through grace in the same spiritual creation; that this temporary physical creation will pass away and be replaced by the spiritual. Jesus was not of this creation and the saints are not of it either, but those of the physical are yet under all the forces that condemn, but the saints have no new condemnation. Jesus was the firstborn of many, which means no other preceded him.

Thank you,
L____

Hi L____,

Thank you for sharing your story with me. It just goes to show the truth of this verse of scripture:

Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as [is] the good, so [is] the sinner; [and] he that sweareth, as [he] that feareth an oath.

“There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked” does not mean that this “one event” is all at the same time. There are two separate resurrections, and there are two separate judgments preceding those two resurrections. Between those two resurrections there is a symbolic 1,000 years in which those who are being judged now will reign with Christ over the nations of this world.

Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

The rest of humanity will be judged after this symbolic 1,000 year reign.

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8  And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom [ is] as the sand of the sea.
Rev 20:9  And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Rev 20:11  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

The “fire from heaven devouring them” is the end of all flesh and therefore the beginning of the end of death.

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end [harvest], when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

As long as one person is dead, death has not been “destroyed”. But by the agency of this “lake of fire” made up of the few chosen, they like their God, will be “a consuming fire”.

Heb 12:29  For our God is a consuming fire.

You ask:

I would like to know if God has ever shown you about the two creations that currently exist, the physical and the spiritual and how the physical was a shadow of the spiritual.

The answer is, “Yes, that is exactly what the scriptures teach.” Christ, not Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, King David or any of the prophets, is “the firstfruits of them that slept”.

1Co 15:20  But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

Those who are in Christ then become “the first born of many brothers” via the first resurrection.

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

All false doctrines to the contrary, the natural precedes the spiritual and is replaced by the spiritual.

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that [was] not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

So all bodies in both resurrections “are raised spiritual bodies” for this very simple reason:

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

This is all dealt with in depth in our paper in the essential reading section of the home page, entitled The Law of Moses Versus The Law of The Spirit. Please read that paper, and if you still have questions then feel free to get back to me.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Hi Mike,

I would appreciate hearing your comments on the spiritual meaning of the phrase ‘was gathered to his people’ (see scriptures below). I understand these old testament scriptures were written for our admonition and they minister unto us and they like all words of scripture are primarily spiritual.
While it ‘appears’ to be saying that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Aaron after giving up the ghost are being gathered to his people after death (i. e. have consciousness after death in order to be gathered to his people), it doesn’t actually say that… one has to read into the text based on their idol of the heart (similar to ‘rather be absent from the body AND present with the Lord…. the idol of the heart reads into the text and adds the word immediately in order to line up with that idol – all of which we have covered before). I am clear about the state of the dead (‘asleep and waiting the resurrection’) and the spirit of man (which is the breath of the almighty) goes back to whence it came (God) (Ecc 12:7) and the life in the spirit is hidden in Christ until the resurrection of the dead (us) and the dead know not anything in that state.
In these scriptures, it states Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was (being that they died) gathered and Moses and Aaron will be gathered (death impending). I can see if one believes in the false doctrine of an immortal spirit (with consciousness) that one would in turn use these as ‘proof texts’ and thus the Lord answers according to the heart’s idol… and would just hinder them from entering the Kingdom of God (Christ within us taking his rightful place on the throne of our hearts and minds).
… so the question is: at death what does it mean for these old testament patriarchs to ‘be gathered to his people’? I could not find any other scriptures with this phrase (my e- sword has not been working, so using Wigram’s is a lot slower – makes me appreciate those that came before the computer age – how did they keep a job and study/ minister the word??)

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks and Be Blessed,
M____

Gen 25:8  Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full [ of years]; and was gathered to his people.
Gen 25:17  And these [ are] the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.
Gen 35:29  And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, [ being] old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
Gen 49:33  And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
Num 20:24  Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah.
Num 20:26  And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered [ unto his people], and shall die there.
Deu 32:50  And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:

Hi M____,
Thank you for your question.

You ask about the meaning of the Biblical phrase “gathered to his people?”
This question allows me to point out a very little understood verse in the words of our Lord.
I will not waste time going over all the verses of scripture where Christ Himself states that those who die are simply sleeping, from His perspective. That was what He told those who were crying over the death of the little twelve year old girl who he raised from the dead, and that is also what he said of Lazarus. ‘Lazarus is asleep… the maid is not dead, she is asleep.

Mat 9:24  He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.
Joh 11:11  These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

Resurrection is a waking out of sleep, from Christ’s perspective. Christ eventually told his disciples that what He meant by “sleepeth” was what His disciples would consider as death.

Joh 11:12  Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.
Joh 11:13  Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
Joh 11:14  Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

That brings us to the verse I want to mention that is so little understood and is so often misunderstood and abused by those who believe that mankind is inherently immortal. Here is what Christ taught.

Mat 10:28  And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Man can kill the body, and when that happens we are, according to Christ, “asleep.” But man is “not able to kill the soul.” What is so often overlooked is the fact that God can and does “kill the soul” in Gehenna fire.
So when we die and are all “gathered to our people” we are “asleep”. If we are in Christ then we are said to be “asleep in Christ” awaiting a “resurrection of life”. If we are not “asleep in Christ” then we are said to be in asleep in hades, awaiting a resurrection of damnation. But there is no consciousness of either soul or spirit and a resurrection to a “spiritual body” is expedient if we are to avoid remaining as dead.

1Co 15:16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
1Co 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith [ is] vain; ye are yet in your sins.
1Co 15:18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [ was made] a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

Joh 5:29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

Since mankind is inherently evil, only those who are “in Christ” will avoid that “resurrection of damnation”. But the word ‘damnation’ is not what we have been taught. It is not eternal in nature and simply involves the killing of the soul of the old man, for the purpose of transforming him into the new man much like a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly when it awakes from its long winter’s sleep.
Either way we are “gathered to our people” and will be asleep until we come up in one of those two resurrections. “Our people” are either those that have done good… in Christ,” or “they that have done evil”, who are not in Christ.
If we are “in Christ,” and He is “in us”, then we are to count ourselves as dead and raised already, and we are to be seeking only those things which are above this earth. We are not to think of our old man as not being damned, because he too, is damned, and his soul too, must die in the “furnace of earth” where the fire that is God’s purifying word is doing its work of transforming and judging us even now.

Psa 12:6  The words of the LORD [ are] pure words: [ as] silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
Col 3:1  If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Col 3:2  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Col 3:3  For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Col 3:4  When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
1Pe 4:18  And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
1Pe 4:19  Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

So the “souls” of those who are “in Christ” are in the care of a faithful Creator, and are now, at this very moment, in the process of being judged through “fiery trials” which are killing the soul of our “old… rebellious… marred… and sinful… first man Adam. “

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

So “a living soul… Adam,” must be killed by symbolic “fire”, and “the last Adam [ will replace that soulish Adam as] a life giving spirit.” That is the “one event” which is common to “all men,” regardless of which of the two resurrections we are predestined to participate.

Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

According to that verse we are all “gathered to our people”, and if we follow the “line upon line, precept upon precept” principle of understanding God’s Word, we will find that some are gathered to Christ now, while others will be gathered to Him at a later time, via that great work of mercy and grace known as “the lake of fire.”
I hope this is of some edification and that it helps you to better understand the spiritual meaning of being “gathered to our people”.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Mike,

I wanted to thank you for your work in this ministry. Please forward my appreciation of your work to all those involved as I know it takes more than one man to run a ministry as yours. I read your website every day. It is a great relief for me to have a place to measure my interpretation of God’s word. I love to study His word, and when I feel I have a good hold on it, I come here as a check and balance, for “in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” I have been studying the sacrifice in Leviticus chapter one and was greatly distressed as my interpretation was a bit off. I pictured us as the burnt offering, while you and Jukes have Christ as that burnt offering, which is a more accurate view of the text. I was just a little down that I had not seen that. Being corrected by the word is a tough thing. I just wanted to let someone know my distress right now over that.
God Bless you and your family, Mike.

L____

Hi L____,

Thank you for your encouraging words. I am very pleased that you find iswasandwillbe. com to be in any way edifying and confirming to what the Lord is opening your eyes to see. I especially appreciate the fact that you realize that this is the work of a team of “fellow servants.” If it were not for all the behind the scenes people who make this web site possible, you would not have had the opportunity to write this e- mail. But the Lord has laid it upon the hearts of those who make this possible to help us to make the gospel available via the internet to those who are given eyes that see and ears that can hear the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
Frankly, I am encouraged to hear that your take on the burnt offering is that it is us. I say that simply because of John’s statement that “as He is, so are we in this world.”

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

Christ was and is our burnt offering, but when we are finally given to see and understand what ‘the Christ’ is, then we will be given the ability to believe Christ’s own words:

Act 9:5  And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Act 22:8  And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.
Act 26:15  And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

There it is three times, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.”  Saul of Tarsus never touched Christ, except as he persecuted Christ’s disciples, and it is Christ who said “as you have done it unto the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me.”

Mat 25:40  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Mat 25:45  Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

Those are truly powerful words which make give great weight to John’s statement that we are as He is. Was Christ a sweet smelling burnt offering? Of course, He was. He is first and preeminent in all things.

Col 1:18  And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

But we too, are to present ourselves as He is.

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

We are to reckon ourselves as crucified with Him.

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Was He afflicted for us? Of course, He was. But His afflictions are not yet filled up because He Himself has said that we are Jesus Christ of Nazareth and must therefore fill up what is behind of His afflictions.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

Why do we “fill up what is behind of His afflictions? We do it for the same reason He does it. “For His body’s sake, which is the church.”
Was Christ a sweet savor? So are we.

2Co 2:15  For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:

 I hope that you are not too hard on yourself for seeing us as the sweet smelling burnt offering. In Christ, that is exactly what we are, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you persecute…”

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Mike,

What do you believe the purpose of Abraham’s Egypt trip when he first got to Canaan was all about? Do you think it was to increase his faith or to show how GOD can bring blessings out of our trip to Egypt? It was obviously a scary trip for Abraham because he was so afraid that he committed skulduggery when it came to his relationship about who Sarah was to him. I have a bunch of my own theories but nothing scriptural.

K____

Hi K____,

Thank you for your question.

You ask what is the meaning of Abraham’s trip into Egypt after first coming into the promised land.

Gen 12:10  And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.
Gen 12:11  And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:
Gen 12:12  Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.
Gen 12:13  Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
Gen 12:14  And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she  was very fair.
Gen 12:15  The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.
Gen 12:16  And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.
Gen 12:17  And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.
Gen 12:18  And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
Gen 12:19  Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.
Gen 12:20  And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

The very first thing we need to realize is that all of this happened to Abraham, and it is written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the age have come. It is all typical of each of us.

1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [ Greek, tupos, type]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

What is happening here is exactly the same thing Abraham had done before, this time while still in the promised land, when he does the same exact thing with Abimelech, the king of Gerar. This is after Abraham has separated from Lot, has saved Lot and the king and all the people of Sodom from the kings of the east. Even after all of that, Abraham is afraid of the king of Gerar and again denies his wife.

Gen 20:1  And Abraham journeyed from thence [ From the “plains of Mamre” after the destruction of Sodom] toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
Gen 20:2  And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Gen 20:3  But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
Gen 20:4  But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?
Gen 20:5  Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.
Gen 20:6  And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.
Gen 20:7  Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he [ is] a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.
Gen 20:8  Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were sore afraid.
Gen 20:9  Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou done unto us? and what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done.
Gen 20:10  And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou, that thou hast done this thing?
Gen 20:11  And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God [ is] not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake.
Gen 20:12  And yet indeed [ she is] my sister; she [ is] the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
Gen 20:13  And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said unto her, This [ is] thy kindness which thou shalt shew unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me, He [ is] my brother.
Gen 20:14  And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, and gave [ them] unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife.

The same sin is repeated for the third time by Isaac with the Abimelech of His day, when Isaac fears the king of Gerar and denies that Rebecca is his wife.

Gen 26:1  And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar.
Gen 26:2  And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of:
Gen 26:3  Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father;
Gen 26:4  And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
Gen 26:5  Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
Gen 26:6  And Isaac dwelt in Gerar:
Gen 26:7  And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, [ said he], the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.
Gen 26:8  And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.
Gen 26:9  And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy wife: and how saidst thou, She is my sister? And Isaac said unto him, Because I said, Lest I die for her.
Gen 26:10  And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us.
Gen 26:11  And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

The fact that this sin is thrice repeated with the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac is very significant indeed. The love of a man for his wife is a type of a man’s love of Christ and His Words.

Eph 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Eph 5:26  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Eph 5:27  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:28  So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

“He that loves his wife loves himself.” But who are we to spiritually see ourselves as being? We are to see ourselves as part of the body of Christ, speaking the words of Christ:

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

There are so many types and shadows of you and me in this story of Abraham and Isaac denying their wives, that it would take a whole book to cover them all. But Christ best sums up the meaning of this thrice repeated sin in this statement:

Mat 10:39  He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

“For My sake” means for the sake of My Words, and for the sake of standing up for, and being true to, the words of Christ.

Mat 13:21  Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.

Who do you know who will stand for these words of our Lord in these days of living in fear of another terrorist attack?

Mat 26:52  Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Who do you know who believes and stands for the truth in these verses of God’s Words?

Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

1Sa 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15  And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Who do you know who is not offended by these words of God’s Word?

Rom 9:15  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Denying one’s wife is in type denying Christ and His Words, in an attempt to save ourselves from the uncircumcised Egyptians of what is called the secular world and from the uncircumcised Philistines who being in the promised land, symbolize the church to which the Truths of Christ become a curse on both the house of Pharaoh and the very life of Abimelech.

The ark of God, when captured by the Philistines, represents this same story. In the hands of the spiritually uncircumcised, the Truth becomes a curse that plagues them and their land. just as the wives of Abraham and Isaac were to the Pagan kings who took their wives unto themselves.

The “famine in the land” tells us that this was to symbolize the tendency that is innate to our flesh to relax and become careless when things are going our way, and we have just come into the promised land, or we have just been used of God to destroy the kings of the east, and have just witnessed the destruction of Sodom. That is when “a famine in the land” will plague us all, and we will find it essential that we be brought through the entire process of being humbled by “an experience of evil” three times. Three is the number which signifies the process of judgment, and that process must be “endured to the end.” (See the studies on Numbers In Scripture on iswasandwillbe. com).

Mat 10:22  And ye shall be hated of all [ men] for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Luk 21:19  In your patience possess ye your souls.

I do hope this helps you to see why we are three times reminded that we all tend to deny our wives to save our own lives. Spiritual truth is always counterintuitive to the natural man, and cannot be received by the natural man, even though he may consider himself a spiritual man. It is the ability to receive and live by what seems to be the impossible commandments of our Lord which tell us where we are in Christ and His Words. Like the apostle Peter, we all lack this ability before we are given the strength of God’s spirit to die for the words of Christ.

Mat 10:39  He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Mat 26:75  And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

Abraham, Isaac, Peter and you and I, will all three times deny our Lord and His Words, before we are given to be willing to die with Him on His cross. That is simply the process of the revelation of Jesus Christ within us all. That is the spiritual significance of why the patriarchs three times denied their wives.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike

Mike,

Thank you so much for your website. I have learned so much from your articles, but I do have a question (maybe it’s more like a statement).

I’ve noticed in several of your articles, you use the term ‘Christ contradicts the law’. In my mind, this statement at its ‘face’ value’ is just not true. Christ did not ‘contradict’ the law. He fulfilled the law bringing the ‘new covenant’ of the Spirit and His ‘… but I say…’ were ‘different’ because He is telling us that it’s not what we DO, it’s what is in our hearts (spiritual character).
In other words, the law gives us the ‘letter’ (dos and don’’ts) which is bondage because we cannot keep it! He fulfilled it by revealing the nature, character, LOVE and spiritual capability of our being ONE with Him and our Father that a list of LAWS written in stone could never do. His law, once we are crucifying the ‘old’ man and the Spirit is dwelling in us, is changing our hearts (minds); therefore, we begin to not even THINK to ‘do’ or ‘not do’ as we mature spiritually. That is freedom… no longer slave to sin (not the doing… but the not ‘thinking’ of doing). Of course, it is a constant war, but the battles get much easier as our carnality dies daily with Him and we become ‘overcomers’.
His examples of laboring (in the Jews’ minds) on the Sabbath, etc. were not ‘contradictions’; they were His saying “You no longer have to worry about those ‘lists’ because I have done them all for you – now you let Me live in you and release you from that which enslaved you (the physical do’s and don’ts) that did NOTHING to reveal your Father’s love for you or to open your hearts to loving your neighbor/ enemy. In fact, those ‘lists’ did just the opposite filling your hearts with lust and closing your minds to the true meaning of God’s love!”
I don’t know if I’m explaining myself very well and maybe it’s not even an important point, but using the word ‘contradict’ gives a different perception to me. He could not ‘contradict’ what He fulfilled, but He could show us the SPIRITUAL meaning which is the fulfillment. I hope you understand my objection to the use of that term, and again, it may not be of great importance, but every time I see it I feel the need to offer my objections. If I am wrong, please tell me why.
Thank you so much
B____

Hi B____,

Thank you for your statement and the tone and spirit in which it is presented. You object to me pointing out that Christ’s many “But I say unto you…” statements contradict the “it hath been said by them of old time…” quotations which come straight out of the law of Moses. You say:

Using the word ‘contradict’ gives a different perception to me. He could not ‘contradict’ what He fulfilled, but He could show us the SPIRITUAL meaning which is the fulfillment. I hope you understand my objection to the use of that term, and again, it may not be of great importance, but every time I see it I feel the need to offer my objections. If I am wrong, please tell me why.”

Again, thank you for your entreating spirit. I hope my answer is received in the same spirit.
You say:

He could not ‘contradict’ what He fulfilled, but He could show us the SPIRITUAL meaning which is the fulfillment”

That is the reason I use the word ‘contradict.’ I am attempting to point out that the law of Moses is not spiritual, and we are specifically told that it is “the letter,” and “the letter” is contrasted with “the spirit.”

2Co 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
2Co 3:7 But if the ministration of death, written [ and] engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which [ glory] was to be done away:
2Co 3:8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?

This entire third chapter of 2Co emphasizes the “doing away” and the “abolishing” of the law of Moses, which is called the “ministration of death.”

2Co 3:11 For if that which is done away [ was] glorious, much more that which remaineth [ is] glorious.
2Co 3:12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
2Co 3:13 And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
2Co 3:14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which [ vail] is done away in Christ.

It is true that the law is spiritual, but which law is spiritual? The spiritual law is not being “done away” or “abolished.” It is being established. What was once a sin under Moses, is now righteousness, under the spiritual law of Christ. If Israel had failed to “destroy everything that breatheth” under Moses, they would have been sinning. If they had not followed the law demanding and eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a foot for a foot, then they would have been sinning. But under the New Testament of Christ, what was once righteousness is now sin, and it is now a sin to hate your enemy, much less destroy him. It is now a sin to retaliate of demand and eye for an eye, because Christ has changed the law, and the new law teaches us to “turn the other cheek.”

Deu 20:16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee [ for] an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
Mat 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Today, under the precepts of the New Testament, it is as if Christ has “bestowed labor on us in vain,” if we observe days, months, times or years. But under the law of Moses, it was a sin if you did not observe days, months, times and years.

Exo 20:8  Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Gal 4:10  Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
Gal 4:11  I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

Of course, God knew Israel wouldn’t keep the commandments he gave them through Christ, and as a type of this He says that He gave them ‘statutes that were not good and jugments they could not keep’. This chapter is referring to the Babylonian statutes and laws under which Israel was place as captives in Babylon.

Eze 20:25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes [ that were] not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;

If you did not prepare twice as much on the sixth day, it was a sin. Yet Christ and His disciples went through the fields eating the corn which they had failed to gather the day before.

Mat 12:1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.
Mat 12:2 But when the Pharisees saw [ it], they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.

Was that breaking the law of the sabbath? What say the scriptures?

Joh 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

I simply point out that the letter contradicts the spirit. I have never said the law now has no use. It is still a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, and in that capacity we can understand that Christ’s “But I say unto you…” words which simply and clearly do contradict the law of Moses as much as “save nothing alive of your enemy that breaths” contradicts “love your enemy,” and as much as “eye for and eye” contradicts “turn the other cheek.”
“Eye for an eye” does not “show us the SPIRITUAL meaning which is the fulfillment” of “turn the other cheek.”
The two are completely different spirits!
“Save nothing alive that breaths” does not “show us the SPIRITUAL meaning which is the fulfillment” of “love thine enemies.” It is the exact opposite of “love thine enemies,” and it is a completely different spirit. It is the spirit of the law of Moses, and this is what Christ said of that spirit:

Luk 9:52 And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.
Luk 9:53 And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
Luk 9:54 And when his disciples James and John saw [ this], they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
Luk 9:55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
Luk 9:56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

Here is what “Elias did.”

2Ki 1:10 And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I [ be] a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.

That is the spirit that was in the law of Moses which told a carnal people to “save alive nothing that breaths.”

Deu 20:16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee [ for] an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

Having pointed out that these two spirits are not compatible, and that Christ Himself told His own disciples, “You know not what spirit you are of,” because they wanted to do things the way it was done under the law of Moses, I now need to make the point that perhaps you are trying to make. While they are two different spirits in these two different and contradictory laws, the law of Moses, is nevertheless a shadow of “the law of Christ.”

Gal 6:2 Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ

This law of Christ tells us that physical lambs, calves and goats are no longer needed to cleanse us of our sins, and this law of Christ also tells us that those who thought that the blood of animals could cleanse them were never really cleansed of their sins. It is actually a slap in Christ’s face to sacrifice and animal with the thought of purging or purifying one of His sins. It makes the blood of Christ of no effect. Nevertheless, all those animals which have been sacrificed still serve as a type and a shadow of the true sacrifice of Christ’s life for our sins. That is the function of the law of Moses to this day. That is the “lawful use of the law.” That is how verse 17 of Mat 5 does not contradict the rest of Mat 5.

Heb 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, [ and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
1Ti 1:8 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;
1Ti 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

The law is fulfilled in every jot and tittle, in Christ. Once it is fulfilled it serves lawfully as a type and “a shadow of good things to come.”
But it is “not for a righteous man” because it simply does contradict the law of Christ, as much as hate contradicts love and the darkness contradicts the light.
What is so inconceivable is the truth that the cloud which led Israel through the wilderness for forty years and which gave Mose “a carnal commandment” for a carnal nation, was both bright as the sun on one side and dark as the darkest night on the other side. What this tells us is that the Word of Christ and the law of Christ is light to one person and darkness to the other.

Exo 14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
Exo 14:20 And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.

So it is the Word of God itself that separates those in the light from those in the darkness, “so that the one comes not near the other” when His people are being threatened.
I hope this helps you to understand why I say that the “carnal commandments” for a carnal nation contradict the spiritual law of Christ, for His spiritual nation. Both were given by Christ, but the one was “a carnal commandment” given to a carnal nation, and the other was a spiritual law given to a spiritual kingdom.

Heb 7:12 For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.

This is no small change. These are “the times of reformation,” and Levi and Aaron are no longer outwardly relevant.

Heb 7:13 For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar.
Heb 7:14 For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.
Heb 7:15 And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest,
Heb 7:16 Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
Heb 9:10 [ Which stood] only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed [ on them] until the time of reformation.

If you have not yet done so please read The Law of Moses Versus The Law of The Spirit in the Essential Reading section in the upper left corner of the home page on iswasandwillbe. com.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Mike,

Thank you so much, Mike, for your response and the spirit with which you presented it.
I can’t count the many times I’ve read and studied your paper on Moses Law vs. The Law of The Spirit along with, of ourse, the associated scriptures! Is it not absolutely amazing how often one can read the wonderful Word of God before being given ‘eyes to see’? I have often prayed about this and asked for understanding, and no doubt, the Spirit led me to email you with my questions!
I believe the ‘stumbling block’ for me has always been the word fulfill when our Lord said: “I come not to destroy but to fulfill…” I have had no problem understanding the ‘new covenant replacing the old’ but, for some reason, the concept of ‘ fulfillment’ (of the old) has always been a source of confusion for me. I did see now why you use the word ‘contradict’ (eye for an eye vs. turn the other cheek, etc.). Of course, the answer I’ve searched for is actually so very simple: “I needed the law until faith came, but NOW it is fulfilled IN CHRIST”… period! Like so many ‘blind eyes’, it seems I’ve searched for a more complicated answer.
Again, I thank you for your love and wisdom of the Word. I thank Him daily for leading me to your website. You have helped so much in peeling the layers of a lifetime of orthodox teachings from these old ‘eyes’! I still have a ways to go but every day brings a new understanding, and, God willing, that will continue.

Your sister in Christ,
B_____