Gemstones — The Stones That Transfer, Part 3

Beryl and Jasper — Transformation and Transparency

[Study Aired March 17, 2026]

Introduction: The Arc Completed

Scripture moves with sovereign precision. What begins in the shadows of Aaron’s priestly garments continues through the covering of Eden’s anointed guardian and arrives at last in the foundations of the city that needs no sun — each context a deeper unfolding of the same eternal purpose. In the first two parts of this study, we traced four of the six gemstones that appear across all three of these divinely appointed settings: the sardius and topaz bearing the testimony of blood and wisdom, the sapphire and emerald declaring the throne of authority and the power of resurrection life. Now the final pair demands our attention. Beryl and jasper complete the testimony.

Their positions across the three contexts are themselves part of the message. On Aaron’s breastplate, the beryl is the tenth stone and the jasper is the twelfth — the last, closing the fourth row. In Ezekiel’s account of the anointed cherub, beryl stands fourth and jasper sixth among the nine covering stones. In New Jerusalem, the arrangement is inverted with striking precision: jasper becomes the first foundation of the eternal city, and beryl occupies the eighth. The jasper that closed the breastplate now opens the city of God. The beryl that stood fourth in Eden’s covering now rests at the position Scripture consistently marks as new creation. These are not coincidental placements. Every position is a declaration.

The governing principle that unlocks both stones is the same one that governs all of Scripture’s progressive revelation: “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” (1Co 15:46). Beryl and jasper do not contradict the pattern — they crown it. The beryl, with its sea-green translucence, stood on Aaron’s breastplate and upon the cherub’s covering, but it reaches its ultimate declaration as the eighth foundation of the holy city, the position of new creation and resurrection life. The jasper, last of the twelve breastplate stones, closes the list on Aaron’s chest — yet in Revelation it stands as the very first foundation of New Jerusalem, and more strikingly still, it is the stone Scripture uses to describe the appearance of God Himself seated upon His throne. That reversal — the last becoming first, the creaturely shadow becoming the substance of divine glory — is precisely the reversal that creation was designed to undergo.

These stones are not ornamental. They are not arbitrary selections from a mineral catalogue. They are, as all six transferring stones are, witnesses to a single coherent testimony: that God created humanity carnal by sovereign purpose, subjected creation to vanity “in hope” (Rom 8:20), and purposed from eternity that what was external and shadowed in the first order would be made internal, luminous, and transparent in Christ. Beryl’s transformation and jasper’s crystalline clarity are the fitting capstones of that testimony. Let us examine what the text reveals.

The Beryl

The Beryl in Three Contexts

The beryl appears first in the fourth row of Aaron’s priestly breastplate, occupying the tenth position among the twelve stones: “And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper” (Exo 28:20). In Ezekiel’s account of the anointed cherub’s covering, the beryl stands fourth among the nine adorning stones: “The sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold” (Eze 28:13). In New Jerusalem, beryl occupies the eighth foundation: “the eighth, beryl” (Rev 21:20). The Hebrew term is tarshiysh (H8658), associated with a shimmering, sea-colored quality. The Greek of Revelation is berullos (G969), rendered consistently as “beryl.”

What makes the beryl’s profile particularly rich is that tarshiysh appears not only in stone-lists but in visionary contexts of the highest order. When Ezekiel sees the four living creatures and their wheels, he describes those wheels precisely: “The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl” (Eze 1:16). The same qualification recurs in the expanded throne-chariot vision: “the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone” (Eze 10:9). And when Daniel beholds the heavenly man beside the great river, the identification is unmistakable: “His body also was like the beryl” (Dan 10:6). Across two separate visions in Ezekiel and one in Daniel, the beryl colors the appearance of God’s mobile glory and of His heavenly messenger — consistently marking what belongs to the realm of God’s presence and movement. As we examine the tribal witness and the throne-chariot imagery more closely, the full weight of what this color declares will become clear.

The Beryl’s Tribal Witness: Naphtali

Exodus 28:21 establishes that the twelve stones bear “the names of the children of Israel,” yet assigns no individual stone to any individual tribe by name. The series has followed the traditional correspondence that places the tribes in the order of Jacob’s sons across the four rows — a framework that, while not explicitly confirmed by the text, is the most scripturally consistent available and has governed the tribal readings throughout this study. By that ordering, the beryl in the fourth row corresponds to Naphtali. What the text does confirm without ambiguity is the theological portrait Scripture builds around that name — and it is that portrait, not the positional arithmetic, that carries the argument.

Rachel’s cry at Naphtali’s birth opens the testimony: “With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali” (Gen 30:8). The name derives from pathal (H6617), meaning ‘to twist’ or ‘to wrestle.’ Naphtali enters the world as the child of striving — the natural realm’s characteristic posture of self-effort and conflict. Yet Jacob’s final blessing transforms this portrait entirely: “Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words” (Gen 49:21). The wrestler becomes the swift hind. Striving gives way to freedom, and conflict yields to the eloquence of one released.

From Wrestling to Freedom

The movement from Naphtali’s birth name to Jacob’s final blessing is not a biographical peculiarity — it is Scripture’s picture of the first order giving way to the last. Romans 8 traces the same arc in doctrinal form. The carnal mind, Paul declares, “is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom 8:7) — and this hostility is not an anomaly to be explained away but the present operation of the natural condition that God Himself ordained: “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” (Rom 8:20). The enmity of the carnal mind is the designed posture of the first order, appointed by the One who subjected creation to vanity precisely so that its liberation would be His work and not its own. That liberation is the destination: “the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). The hind let loose — Naphtali’s final portrait — is precisely this: from the striving of the natural first order into the liberty of the consummated life.

The beryl’s appearance in Ezekiel’s throne-chariot vision deepens this testimony. The wheels that move wherever the Spirit directs — wheels that never resist, never strive against the Spirit’s impulse, perfectly responsive throughout — are the color of beryl. Where the carnal mind wrestles against God’s purposes, the Spirit-governed existence moves in effortless correspondence with God’s will: “They went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went” (Eze 1:12). The beryl-hued wheels illustrate what Naphtali’s transformed portrait declares: the striving of the natural condition resolved into freedom and perfect responsiveness to God’s Spirit.

The Eighth Foundation: New Creation Declared

The beryl’s position as the eighth foundation of New Jerusalem completes its testimony. Scripture establishes eight as the number of new beginning and new creation not by inference but by explicit appointment. Circumcision was ordained for the eighth day (Gen 17:12) — not the seventh, the day of completion within the first creation order, but the eighth, the day beyond completion, the inauguration of something altogether new. Paul draws the line directly from that appointment to resurrection in Christ: “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God” (Col 2:11-12). The eighth-day ordinance and the resurrection it prefigured belong to the same declaration: what was appointed in the natural order pointed toward the new creation accomplished in Christ. Paul states the substance plainly: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2Co 5:17). The eighth position and the new creature declaration are markers of the same consummated reality — the first order fully passed, the new creation fully established.

On Aaron’s breastplate, the beryl bore Naphtali’s name — representing the natural, wrestling condition carried before God in the first order. As the eighth foundation of New Jerusalem, the beryl no longer represents that striving; it declares the completion of transformation, the entry into the new creation that has no return. The wrestling is finished. The hind is loosed. “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” (1Co 15:46). The beryl is the stone of that passage — carried through all three contexts to bear witness that God’s purpose in subjecting creation to vanity was always this: the glorious liberty of the children of God.

The Jasper

The Jasper in Three Contexts

The jasper completes the breastplate. Following the same birth order correspondence the series has applied throughout — a framework the text does not explicitly confirm but which remains the most scripturally consistent available — the twelfth stone closes the fourth row bearing Benjamin’s name: “And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings” (Exo 28:20). In Ezekiel’s account of the anointed cherub’s covering, the jasper stands sixth among the nine adorning stones: “The sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold” (Eze 28:13). And in Revelation, the jasper achieves a prominence unlike any other transferring stone. It is the first foundation of New Jerusalem (Rev 21:19), the material of the city’s entire wall (Rev 21:18), the stone to which the city’s glory is likened (Rev 21:11), and — most remarkably — the stone whose appearance Scripture uses to describe God Himself upon His throne: “And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone” (Rev 4:3). The Hebrew is yashpheh (H3471), and the Greek of Revelation is iaspis (G2393). In Revelation 21:11, the jasper bears a qualifier absent from all other occurrences: it is “clear as crystal” — a distinctive designation whose full weight the text itself will supply as we examine what this stone declares in its consummated form.

The Last Becomes First: Benjamin’s Reversal

Benjamin’s place in redemptive history is marked by reversal from the very moment of his birth. His mother Rachel, dying in childbirth, named him Ben-oni — son of my sorrow. However, Jacob overruled the name of death: “But his father called him Benjamin” (Gen 35:18) — son of the right hand. The child born of the greatest suffering in Israel’s family was renamed by his father to declare glory and position. This is not merely biographical; it is the pattern of the One who bore the world’s sorrow — “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa 53:3) — and whom the Father exalted to the right hand: “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb 1:3). Benjamin, the last-born, son of sorrow renamed son of the right hand, declares in name and birth the pattern that jasper enacts across the biblical contexts.

The reversal of the jasper’s position from last to first is no accident of arrangement. On Aaron’s breastplate, jasper is the twelfth stone — the final one, closing the list. In Revelation 21:19, it is the first foundation of the eternal city. Scripture states the governing principle explicitly and twice within the same discourse: “But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first” (Mat 19:30; cf. Mat 20:16). What appears last in the external, temporal ordering of Aaron’s breastplate appears first in the consummated ordering of the city of God. God consistently inverts the order of the natural to establish the order of the glorified — because the natural came first by design, not as the ultimate arrangement, but as the shadow pointing toward the very different order of the age to come.

Clear as Crystal: Transparency Before the Throne

The qualifying phrase attached to the jasper in Revelation 21:11 carries the full weight of what this stone’s transfer through three contexts was building toward. The holy Jerusalem’s light was “like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” The Greek is krustallizon (G2929), the present active participle meaning to be clear as crystal, to be fully transparent. This descriptor is not ornamental. The natural man exists in a condition of opacity before the things of God: “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” (1Co 2:14). The consummated order reverses this condition entirely: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1Co 13:12). Scripture gives this transparency concrete expression throughout New Jerusalem. The jasper wall is “clear as crystal” (Rev 21:18) — the very boundary of the eternal city pervious to divine light. The city “had no need of the sun, neither of the moon…for the glory of God did lighten it” (Rev 21:23) — God’s glory permeates every dimension without obstruction, which the transparent jasper wall structurally embodies. The consummation of all this imagery is personal: “They shall see his face” (Rev 22:4) — the unveiled, unobstructed encounter with God that the opacity of the natural first order made impossible.

That this same stone describes the appearance of God in Revelation 4:3 is the apex of the jasper’s testimony. God appears “like a jasper and a sardine stone” upon His throne. In Revelation 21:23, the glory of that same God illuminates the jasper city without obstruction. The jasper appearance of God in chapter 4, and the jasper clarity of the city He inhabits in chapter 21 are one continuous declaration: divine glory expressed in the stone that began as a tribal name engraved on a breastplate. The stone of divine self-disclosure and the stone of the consummated city are the same stone — because the city is the dwelling of God with His people, and nothing remains between them.

On Aaron’s breastplate, the jasper externally represented Benjamin before God — one name engraved on one stone, a finite sign carried into the earthly holy place. That external representation has become the very substance of the eternal city. The city does not need a breastplate to bring names before God; the city is jasper — wall, foundation, light — and God’s own appearance corresponds to it. The shadow of external representation gives way to the substance of internal union: “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb 9:24). Aaron carried the jasper into an earthly copy; Christ has entered the heavenly reality — and the jasper that describes that reality describes Him as well.

Conclusion: The Six-Stone Testimony Complete

As this series has traced across five prior installments, six stones traverse all three contexts — breastplate, cherub, foundation — and each bears witness to a single testimony. Sardius speaks of blood. Topaz declares wisdom. Sapphire establishes authority. Emerald proclaims resurrection life. Beryl announces transformation — the natural wrestling of Naphtali’s birth resolved into the swift liberty of the hind let loose, completed at the eighth foundation as new creation declared. And the jasper finishes the arc: the last becomes first, the son of sorrow renamed son of the right hand, the natural opacity of the creaturely condition becomes crystal-clear in the eternal — the wall and first foundation of the holy city and the very appearance of God Himself.

Christ is the fulfillment of every stone’s testimony. He is the blood-ground of sardius, the wisdom of topaz, the enthroned authority of sapphire, the resurrection life of emerald, the Spirit-driven freedom of beryl, and — most profoundly — the One whose appearance is described as jasper: crystal-clear, hiding nothing, the full self-disclosure of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Co 4:6). The natural shadow declared it; the consummated substance has accomplished it.

“And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass” (Rev 21:18).

Headship

[Study posted between January 24-31, 2026]

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: – Deu 30:19

Since the study of the Song of Solomon is intended only for the Bride and a few latent Saints with a Joseph-like eagerness to govern righteously, we have progressed this far in the creation of God, because we are given to grasp the profound significance of God’s headship as with every other Biblical command of him bringing us to the point of consummation — all of which can be easily found on the website: https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/ Therefore, since we have come this far, now standing on the cusp of the outward return of Christ, it is not considered necessary to review every single meaning of ‘Headship’. However, regarding its impact on the Song of Solomon, although referred to in the Introduction, we will further reflect on how Adam’s God-initiated choice to yield to Eve’s authority on headship grievously disrupted the love they deeply desired from each other, now understood, centred on his pudenda and her breasts, embittering all carnal marriages.

Headship under the Father, and Christ our Husband, is easily seen by the following scriptures and authoritatively rejected by Adam before being cast out of Eden. They start with Eve, since she was deceived, not Adam (1Ti 2:14), appropriately highlighting her as the senior role-playing protagonist—the Church, a remnant of men and women, now represented as the Bride, given to re-establish submission to her husband, Christ, the overarching protagonist. (A note regarding anywhere the term “protagonist” is used: As in any ‘play’, there are numerous sub-protagonists. Similarly, in the Bible, there are hundreds of significant participants, with the Bride of Christ serving as the primary protagonist above her sisters as a subordinate to and in the supreme protagonist Christ, and in order of authority upwards to the Father.)

Eph 5:22  Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 
Eph 5:23  For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 
Eph 5:24  Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 
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.
Eph 5:29  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
Eph 5:30  For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
Eph 5:31  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
Eph 5:32  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Eph 5:33  Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. 

Of course, as presented in the Introduction, that pattern is soundly sullied by Adam’s submission to Eve’s control of how espousal intimacies are to be initiated. It was she, by her imagined superior wisdom derived from profoundly felt feelings, who gave Adam the intellectually inflating food of knowledge to make them both wise, specifically Eve, hopefully vaulting recognition of her ascendant wisdom above Adam’s. Henceforth, to be played out in every espoused decision heavily biased towards women, with both men and women selfishly emphasising their gender-specific boudoir sensualities, the unfulfilling conclusion of the union, oblivious to its every detail, reflecting spiritually in disarray, all because they were temporarily given to reverse their God-given espoused roles.

Christ is the helmsman in the Bride’s turbulent seas (Mar 4:35-41), training her as second in command, bringing his Father’s business home, the rich harvest of humanity. Hence, the establishment and recognition of his headship over everything in heaven and all creation under his Father is immutable. The final say in establishing headship is condensed and without ifs and buts…

Isa 45:5  I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. 

Beyond our finite understanding, God the Father has existed eternally. He is the beginning and the end of both spirit and matter; all things are in him. Because of this immutability, his authority remains orthodox — period! Every conceived human will bow in fear and reverence from that belief. He is the final say in everything; consequently, nothing can be added; he is the sum of His word in His Son, Jesus Christ—the very nature he is establishing in the Bride.

God’s order of headship is affirmed in the ‘natural’ by Joseph, who is given secondary authority to Pharaoh, mirroring the relationship between an earthly husband and his wife and him being in orderly unity with his wife, as is Christ to his Father. An Elect of God is thus a ‘discreet and wise’ wife to Christ.

Gen 41:39  And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: 
Gen 41:40  Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou.
Gen 41:41  And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt.
Gen 41:42  And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck;

(Rev 19:8  And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
Rev 19:9  And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.)

Gen 41:43  And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt.
Gen 41:44  And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.

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.
Rom 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. 
Rom 9:19  Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20  Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 
Rom 9:21  Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Rom 9:22  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

Headship was to be replicated ‘naturally’ in carnal marriages, but was immediately rejected in the Garden of Eden by lustful Adam before its authority could get a foothold. Adam, not Eve, though she was glad Adam didn’t abandon her a second time, unwittingly set in motion the wretched disharmony of espousal intimacy that has lasted an emblematic 7,000 years! Ever since mankind has dissolutely panted to find the idiomatic ‘holy grail’ of sexual fulfilment, probably epitomised best by the Eastern Tantric philosophies—yes, being fulfilled sensually, yet leading to death spiritually, coming nowhere near what Christ accomplishes in his Bride, and she rebounds in Him.

Amo 2:6  Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
Amo 2:7  That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:
Amo 2:8  And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.

1Co 11:2  Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.
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.
1Co 11:4  Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
1Co 11:5  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
1Co 11:6  For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame [G149 [base, dishonourable, filthy, to disfigure] for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
1Co 11:7  For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
1Co 11:8  For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
1Co 11:9  Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
1Co 11:10  For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
1Co 11:11  Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
1Co 11:12  For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.
1Co 11:13  Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?
1Co 11:14  Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
1Co 11:15  But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.
1Co 11:16  But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

Consequently,

Gen 3:16  Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to [against] thy husband, and he [sin & husbands] shall rule over thee [as positively will Christ rule over us]

Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto [Hebrew: ‘el’, against] thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him [sin].

Because of Eve’s curse, it is easy for Orthodox Christian men to lay all their loathing on their wives because of their indifference towards them sexually. It inspired Paul’s need, in Col 3:19, to admonish husbands not to be bitter toward their wives, since her curse is precisely mirrored in them as supposed leaders and heads of the woman, their objection to Christ, their emblematic Husband’s authority. As demonstrated by Alexander the coppersmith (2Ti 4:14), they turned Christ’s word into fables, diminishing its power. Of course, intrinsically, women leapt on that opportunity to sustain their authority over husbands and men, incriminating men far more severely than their wives. As we will recurrently see in these studies, men’s lust sexually without connection with their wives, is typically the nature of a whore, the very damning character they castigate women and particularly wives!

These dynamics primarily illustrate the Bride’s journey in understanding her role as the Church in submission to Christ, first by a husband’s submission to Him. Hence, her infidelity is placed squarely at the feet of men. Now, in that she is the Bride-protagonist, the key figure, in inheriting Adam’s curse, paradoxically, is becoming the New Man—in-Christ.

The sun represents Christ, the greater light, while the lesser light, the moon, symbolises the woman/church in the wilderness revolving around and ruling the Earth, even reversing the order of authority by citing the sun, God, revolves around her—in representing the Great Whore and in her mind, it does! However, she unwittingly, and by nature of her representing the moon reflecting his light imperfectly in the phases of her 29.5-day cycle (which is nearly equivalent to her 28-day menstrual cycle), all signify her capricious rejection of his headship back to Earth, partially illuminating ‘another Jesus’ word more smoothly acceptable to her sensibilities ruling spiritually ignorant husbands and the wilderness church. The final say, represented by Adam’s erratic rule over Eve, denotes the last Adam, Christ’s invariable rulership over all corrupt spirits in the Lake of Fire.

Gen 1:16  And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17  And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18  And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

Eph 1:22  And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Eph 1:23  Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

The sun, the solar system, and the heavenly bodies influence the Earth’s experience, which the Lord deliberately designed to represent mankind’s presumptuous eminence over Him. Since scriptures initially revere her as ‘The Woman, clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet, signifying her rulership, and a crown of twelve stars on her head’, believes that she has far more God-given distinction than her husband, particularly since she brings forth Christ, to which carnal men anaemically submit—blatantly exemplified by the Roman Catholic church and, impotently, by Christian Orthodoxy and unwittingly by all husbands intrinsic lust for knowledge without borders—his headship derailed emblematically by his spiritually adulterous privy member.

Joh 15:16  Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Rev 12:1  And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

Rev 12:5  And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

… and in the short-term, polluted by our former state of borderless pretensions,

Eze 27:3  And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty.
Eze 27:4  Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.

Accordingly, due to Eve’s curse, to the dismay of all women, especially wives, they are subject to the authority of unrighteous husbands and occasionally a few righteous ones. Because wives do not know Christ, they cannot righteously judge their or their husbands’ actions. Husbands, to their immense frustration with their wives’ rejection of their inherent yet sadly ignorant headship, are likewise ignorant of how to teach them Christ’s ways for a truly fulfilling marriage.

While in the flesh, in transition to becoming Christs, it is not consistently possible for us to love our Husband, Christ, to the magnitude that he loves us. In conjugal marriages, which serve as an indication of our treatment of Christ, one spouse tends to love the other more, whereas the other spouse demonstrates comparatively less love. That status is not static; it fluctuates according to emotional circumstances. As with Christ and his Bride, one person is the adorer, and the other, the adored—Christ first loved us in what we are to become, and we gradually learn to adore him—he is to be the adored.

1Jn 4:19  We love him, because he first loved us.

Typically, and as demonstrated by the Beast on the throne of God, ridden by a woman, the Great Whore, our quest is to be the adored. Lustful pride propels us to take the highest seat in mind and actions. It is first vividly established by wives in our carnal marriages for them to feel secure and loved; she insists on adoration, a seemingly innocuous mandate insidiously inserted by Satan in Eden in her present spiritual state to be the adored, usurping her position six thousand years ahead of time. From that arises a strange incongruity, since the adored is at the same time the adorer, artfully inducing voyeuristic-like sensual emotions in themselves by their observance of the other’s breathless passion of adoration.

The Tyrus we have become assumes a position of prominence, symbolising the throne of God; we, in our corporeal existence, are self-promoted, envisioned as irresistibly adored. We also assume the almighty’s position as the adorer in the minds of the laity, since that action presumably amplifies our power and authority to be like the almighty.

Isa 14:13  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
Isa 14:14  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

When we, and like Queen Vashti and Adonijah, position ourselves at the top of the Kingdom, it is assumed automatically that it comes with majesty and honour. Somewhat paradoxically, it is the adorer who gets to have their emotional experience vastly amplified. Contrastingly, the adored attains the love of the adorer, thus soundly solidifying the adorer’s authority.

It is true by God’s design that the woman and wife innately from the outset want to adore their husbands, since his instant sensual ravishment will guarantee his adoration of her! However, because of Adam and Eve’s curses, that profound creed is reversed. Since Adam insisted that he put Eve on a pedestal, it robbed her of the opportunity to be the adorer. Ever since Eden, he has been bowed on one knee, looking up at her, and she, down at him, and that is not how our Lord initially and eternally designed women and his Bride to want.

The “little sister without breasts” in Song 8:8 is not guided like Solomon’s 1,000 other wives, to grow up against God’s order of authority, looking forward to looking down on her insipid husband, injured in his privy and stones and expecting to be ravished. Nonetheless, that’s pretty much what all husbands do in Babylon.

Of course, we ask the Father through Christ for His spirit and the understanding of the keys to the kingdom, specifically, for this study, the spiritual understanding of the Song of Solomon. That insight underscores the glorious reversal of Eve’s curse in unified earthly marriages and most potently mirrors the Bride’s response to Christ, her husband.

1Co 7:3  Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
1Co 7:4  The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
1Co 7:5  Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
1Co 7:6  But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. [If it were a commandment, it would go a long way towards nullifying Eve’s curse]

The Shulamite wholeheartedly bows before her husband on both knees, ecstatic that he has chosen her to be his Wife to minister to Him—quite the opposite of what most courting fiancés do with their hopeful brides, unwittingly prophesying her bold leadership in marriage—the husband thereafter in subservient duty, ingratiating anniversaries to her affected delight.

Accordingly, the Shualmite Bride of Christ is given by her Lord to “reverse [her] curse,” emblematic of the resultant curse of The Law, the ministration of death, concluding and signified by the Feast of Trumpets she has heard in atonement and humility in dying daily since the Cross.

Wives, representing the Christian religious system, effectively market their husbands to buy their costly affections, essentially reconciling them to her; quite the opposite of the Elect being reconciled to her Husband.

Rev 18:19  And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

2Co 5:18  And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 
2Co 5:19  To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

The term “reverse the curse” is conceptualised in the lower mountains of Ararat, where the Ark came to rest in the seventh month—it marked the beginning of reversing the curse, culminating on the eighth day. Noah and his family, thoroughly marked by Adam and Eve’s curses, went forth back down the mountain, “scattering” to repopulate the Earth, unaware that they had ‘precipitated’ the Seventh Day of the Feast of Tabernacles, heralding the coming engulfing fire that would flood the Earth in the Resurrection to Judgement on the final Eighth Day of creation. At that time, all of humanity will symbolically reverse the curse of the flesh in transition to spirit in return to the signified Mt. Ararat, representative of the Mount of the Lord.

Gen 8:4  And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

Jer 51:27  Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz; appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough caterpillers.

Ararat H780 = the curse reversed: precipitation of curse.

Minni H4508 = division.

Ashkenaz  H813 = a man as sprinkled: fire as scattered.

The Beast we are mimics Satan, the captain of lies, represented by the strength of horses—even our ugly, bristling, and rough caterpillars devour God’s truth; after the flood, he thus establishes the new world and heavens “by his understanding.”

2Ch 6:28  If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting, or mildew, locusts, or caterpillers; if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land; whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be:

Psa 105:34  He spake, and the locusts came, and caterpillers, and that without number,
Psa 105:35  And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground.

Jer 51:14  The LORD of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men, as with caterpillers; and they shall lift up a shout against thee.
Jer 51:15  He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding. 

Isa 2:3  And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law [Fire], and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem…

Lev 23:24  Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:25  Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

Gal 3:13  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
Gal 3:14  That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith.

Accordingly, the result of Adam and Eve’s curses, establishing the curse of The Law, indemnifies the Father’s headship through our Husband, Christ’s headship successively first through the Bride, and then, mankind.

In the meantime, carnally eroticised and romanticised sensualities represented by Eve’s breasts and Adam’s privy members rule mankind. With Eve’s sentimentalities centred in her breasts comprehensively influencing Adam’s every decision in the family and society, thoroughly injuring Adam and all men in their stones and privy members, signifying men’s deeply fractured headship. Now, Adam tries to serve Eve and God.

Deu 23:1  He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. 

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.

Adam set in motion men’s worship of women above God, for which women, impudently, in having negatively found hidden treasure in the field of Babylon, eagerly, nonetheless subconsciously disconcertingly, assent.

It is expected that exposition soundly demonstrates the order of headship. However, first, and in the subsequent study, we must juxtapose the primary themes of our torturous journey, which delude us in subjugating Christ’s authority, as we review the paradox of the embronic Bride’s injury in her emblematic privy member and her stones (doctrines) of headship as the New Adam under Christ her Husband.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain” Part 3

(Pro 17:18-28)

[Study Aired August 21, 2025]

Pro 17:18  A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.
Pro 17:19  He loveth transgression that loveth strife: and he that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction.
Pro 17:20  He that hath a froward heart findeth no good: and he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief.
Pro 17:21  He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow: and the father of a fool hath no joy.
Pro 17:22  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
Pro 17:23  A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment.
Pro 17:24  Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.
Pro 17:25  A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him.
Pro 17:26  Also to punish the just is not good, nor to strike princes for equity.
Pro 17:27  He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.
Pro 17:28  Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

our first verse:

Pro 17:18 A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.

Physical Meaning

“A man void of understanding”: This refers to someone lacking wisdom, discernment, and good judgment.

“striketh hands”: In ancient times, striking hands was a way to seal a deal or agreement, similar to shaking hands today.

“becometh surety”: This means becoming a guarantor or co-signer for someone else’s debt.

“in the presence of his friend”: This highlights the friend’s presence as the one benefiting from the surety, often without fully appreciating the risk involved for the guarantor.

A person who lacks wisdom will recklessly make financial commitments for others—like co-signing a loan or guaranteeing someone else’s debt—without thinking it through. (Pro 17:18) warns against foolishly putting yourself at risk for someone else’s obligations financial or otherwise, as does (Pro 6:1-5).

Pro 6:1  My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,
Pro 6:2  Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

Spiritual Lesson

The physical lessons are all true in these proverbs, however we must remember that the natural precedes the spiritual (1Co 15:46) and the more important spiritual lesson we are to learn is to “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another” and appreciate where God has them, while at the same time being ready to give an answer for the hope that is within you, without proselytizing or casting our pearls before swine, or giving that which is holy unto the dogs (Rom 13:7-8). We all fish through the day by our own power at first, until Christ comes along and tells us, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find” (Joh 21:6-11). If we are granted to have God do the dragging and the converting, the fish will come into the net as God determines, and they will both [fisher and fish=those God is working with] be indebted to help bear each other’s burden in the Lord (Gal 6:2). Being our brother’s keeper indebts us to each other, similar to being “surety to a friend”, but in the positive, spiritual relationship in Christ that we’re called unto.

Rom 13:7  Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.
Rom 13:8  Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law (Gal 6:2).

Pro 17:19 He loveth transgression that loveth strife: and he that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction.

Physical Meaning

Someone who loves conflict also loves sin—they go hand in hand. And a person who shows off (“exalts his gate”, meaning makes a big show of himself or his wealth) is heading for ruin. Pride and fighting both lead to downfall.

Spiritual Lesson

The fruit of our lives, the gentleness of spirit, and kindness to one another is the opposite of someone who loves conflict. Someone who ‘stirs the pot’, so to speak, is not someone who is demonstrating the fruit of love, even if they have all sorts of knowledge, if that truth is not being spoken in love (1Co 13:2-3). There is likely an element of pride in that person’s heart, and that pride is manifested in how they express their wealth [God’s wealth, his words, and his works], that they have kept from their youth up, which wealth is really nothing more than their own self righteousness that prevents us from truly selling all that we have and coming and following Christ with the understanding that we are ‘dirt poor’ in his sight (Rev 3:17, Joh 9:41) and have nothing to offer to our own salvation (Mat 19:20-24, Php 3:9, Eph 2:8)

1Co 13:2  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
1Co 13:3  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Mat 19:20  The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
Mat 19:21  Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
Mat 19:22  But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
Mat 19:23  Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 19:24  And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Php 3:9  And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness [“All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?”], which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: [Php 2:12-13, Eph 2:8]

Pro 17:20 He that hath a froward heart findeth no good: and he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief.

Physical  Meaning

A person with a twisted or dishonest heart won’t find true goodness in life. Someone who speaks in a corrupt or deceitful way will eventually get into trouble. Being men and woman of our word, matters both in thoughts and speech.

Spiritual Lesson

It is the “froward heart” that has to be answered according to the idol of that heart (Eze 14:4, Mat 25:24), and that froward heart will not find the truth because at this time it is being withheld by God who has given Satan the power to rule over our hearts and minds (2Th 2:8) causing us to have a perverse tongue that will bring us to fall into mischief, as we hold back or, “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2Th 2:10) and keep back part of the price of the land, meaning part of our complete devotion to God as a living sacrifice [our land, our bodies] (Act 5:3).

2Th 2:8  And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

Act 5:3  But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

Pro 17:21 He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow: and the father of a fool hath no joy.

Physical Meaning

A parent who raises a foolish child will experience sorrow and disappointment. A foolish child brings grief, not joy, to their parents. This reflects the emotional burden of raising someone who rejects wisdom.

Spiritual Lesson

God is in as much control with the spiritual increase in our lives as He is in determining who and what kind of character our children are going to have in this life, meaning when he wants us to have an idol of our heart, a disobedient child, it’s going to remain there until he determines otherwise (1Co 3:6-7). Our physical children may show us who we would be spiritually except for the grace of God, and their success in this life or their failure are all for the sake of the elect who have come to see by the faith of Christ that water is thicker than blood and not blood than water as this proverb is taught in the world. Here is Christ’s perspective on his own family and what should truly matter in our hearts and minds when we think of our own personal families compared to the family of God that we are a part of, Lord willing (Mar 3:33-35). The world “thy brethren without” are seeking God, but Christ made clear that seeking alone does not determine who it is who is the mother [church] or the disciples indeed of Christ (Joh 8:31-36).

Mar 3:32  And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.
Mar 3:33  And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? [physical blood line does not matter]
Mar 3:34  And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
Mar 3:35  For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother. (Those who are washed with the word are Christ’s brother, sister, and mother Joh 8:31-32, Joh 13:14)

Pro 17:22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

Physical Meaning

A joyful heart has a healing effect—like good medicine. But a broken or crushed spirit can drain a person emotionally and physically. This highlights the power of emotional health on the body and soul.

Spiritual Lesson

The “merry heart doeth good like a medicine” comes about, for God’s elect, by clearly knowing what the gospel message is, which is the joy of our salvation that gives us the incentive to strive for the mark of the prize of the high calling in Christ (Psa 51:12). As we discussed last week, the way the Lord restores our joy is by bringing us unto our safe haven after we have gone through the red sea, or the lion’s den, or the fiery furnace of affliction (Act 14:22). God’s elect are blessed to see a “broken spirit” that “drieth the bones”, and those dry bones are healed through His mercy that leads us unto repentance, a repentance that the rest of the world will experience in the second resurrection, where the manifest knowledge of the church will be made known (Eph 3:10) to re-hydrate those dry bones [the valley of dry bones Eze 37:4].

Psa 51:8  Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Psa 51:9  Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
Psa 51:10  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psa 51:11  Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Psa 51:12  Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Psa 51:13  Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

Pro 17:23 A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment.

Physical Meaning

A corrupt person accepts secret bribes (“out of the bosom”) to twist justice. It’s a warning against corruption and how it destroys fairness in society.

Spiritual Lesson

If we aren’t respecters of persons, we won’t be corrupt in our dealings with others, and we will never accept a gift ‘out of the bosom’ of one who is trying to bride us, or pervert the ways of judgement. This is happening all the time in Babylon, and it is the kind of guile that defines who we all were in our appointed time, in our former conversation in the churches of Babylon, where we exchanged gifts and did so unknowingly over the dead bodies of God’s true witnesses who we now are if we are granted to be lying dead in the streets of that great city today (Rev 11:10-11).

Rev 11:10  And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
Rev 11:11  And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.

Pro 17:24 Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.

Physical Meaning

A wise person keeps their focus on what matters — wisdom is right in front of them. A fool, however, is always distracted, chasing distant or unrealistic things, never grounding themselves in what’s truly valuable.

Spiritual Lesson

Our eyes are on the church, which at first is the earth, Jerusalem below (Rev 18:21, Rev 11:8), being tossed about by every wind of doctrine and ‘chasing rabbits’ down holes with dead ends which are contrary to the Truth (Mat 14:24, Eph 4:14, Jas 1:6), “in the ends of the earth”. However, if we are dragged to Christ in this life, our eyes will be on Him who is our wisdom, and the one who gives us understanding, “Wisdom is before him that hath understanding”(1Co 1:24, 1Co 1:30).

Rev 18:21  And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

Pro 17:25 A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him.

Physical Meaning

Again, like verse 21, this emphasizes how deeply a child’s foolishness affects parents—it causes sorrow to the father and pain to the mother. A reminder of the weight our actions have on family.

Spiritual Lesson

The foolish son represents our immaturity in Babylon where we held onto false doctrines, that were a grief to us, during a time when our own bitter experience was being felt by not being free from sin that had dominion over us (Joh 8:36).

We had to bear that sinful nature that was controlled by powers and principalities we wrestle against to this day (Eph 2:3-4). Our doctrine in hindsight could be likened unto a foolish son that caused grief to our heavenly Father (Psa 95:10), and bitterness to her who bore with our infirmities (Rom 15:1), Jerusalem above, which God mercifully drags us to, as we’re dragged out of Babylon and unto our Lord (Rev 18:4, Joh 6:44). Christ never sinned but he identifies with this journey of overcoming sinful flesh (Hos 11:1).

Pro 17:26 Also to punish the just is not good, nor to strike princes for equity.

Physical Meaning

It’s wrong to punish innocent people or to harm leaders who are doing what is fair. Justice must be upheld, and punishing the righteous is a perversion of what is good.

Spiritual Lesson

God’s elect by His grace are quick to hear and slow to speak, and in matters of judgement love is slow to expose (1Co 13:4-7). We know the world rejected Christ’s judgements, and if they hated the master of the house, what are they going to do to the servants of his house, Christ asks us (Mat 10:25). So the world with the spirit that currently resides in it will ‘punish the just and strike princes’, meaning the elect for the righteousness of Christ in them and the works that God is accomplishing through them, and so we need the miracle of God’s powerful hand in our lives to endure those fiery trials of rejection (1Co 10:13) that He knows we must experience in order to mature in His service (Joh 10:32).

1Co 13:4  Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
1Co 13:5  Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
1Co 13:6  Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
1Co 13:7  Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.(Php 4:13)
1Co 13:8  Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

Mat 10:25  It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?

Joh 10:32  Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?

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

Pro 17:27 He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.

Physical Meaning

Wise people don’t talk too much—they speak carefully and thoughtfully. A person with understanding stays calm and composed, showing maturity and strength of character.

Spiritual Lesson

This ‘quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath’ mindset spoken of in (Jas 1:19) is a gift from God, that is witnessed in those who are maturing in the body of Christ (1Ti 4:15-16, Joh 15:8-10). The spiritual decorum that God is forming within us is needful in order to do all things decently and in order in the house of God (1Co 14:40, 1Ti 3:15).

1Ti 4:15  Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
1Ti 4:16  Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

Joh 15:8  Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
Joh 15:9  As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
Joh 15:10  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

As we grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and saviour we become more settled and strengthened and established in the Lord, like a tree that is deeply rooted and not moved around (Psa 1:1-3) by the false doctrines that are likened unto “wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14) that the Lord is giving us victory over with an “excellent spirit”, the spirit of God that each joint supplies to that end (Heb 5:14).

Pro 17:28 Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

Physical Meaning

Even a foolish person can appear wise if they stay quiet. Silence can give the impression of wisdom. In other words: better to be silent and thought wise than to speak and remove all doubt.

Spiritual Lesson

Mercifully God does give us the power to put a bridle upon our lips (Psa 39:1, Jas 3:2-5), but we certainly could not be anything other than what He has ordained for us to be in this life, and so if He does give us this blessing to hold our peace, and not stir up strife, or be argumentative, if He gives us a bridle on our tongue so that we shut our lips, then we will be a peculiar people who are zealous of good works that are coming forth from hearts that have the wisdom of Christ within them, and we will be esteemed as men and woman of understanding blessed to have been given the power to experience this process of bringing every thought into subjection unto God (2Co 10:5, 1Co 9:27). This is truly the spirit of great gain that God has called His son’s bride to be adorned with, “the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price”(1Pe 3:4-6).

1Pe 3:4  But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
1Pe 3:5  For after this manner in the old time the holy women (typifying the Church) also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands (Christ):
1Pe 3:6  Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. (Rom 5:5, 1Jn 4:18).

[Study Aired October 22, 2020]

[Heb 6:20  Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.]

Heb 7:5  And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham: 
Heb 7:6  But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. 
Heb 7:7  And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better. 
Heb 7:8  And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. 
Heb 7:9  And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. 
Heb 7:10  For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him. 
Heb 7:11  If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? 

This section of Hebrews draws a comparison for us with those who are “the sons of Levi” in Hebrews 7:5 who represent the churches of Babylon, to “Abraham” (Heb 7:6) who typifies the elect who give their tithe representing their life being given to “he [speaking of Melchisedec] whose descent is not counted from them [sons of Levi]  received tithes of Abraham [God’s elect], and blessed him that had the promises“[Melchisedec, who typifies Christ (2Co 1:20)]. God’s elect are not represented by Levi but rather Abraham, if God has determined that from the foundation of the world to be so (Eph 1:3-6).

2Co 1:20  For all the promises [“and blessed him that had the promises” (Heb 7:6)] of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by^G1223 us. [Eph 1:6, 2Pe 1:4]

Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
Eph 1:4  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:
Eph 1:5  Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by^G1223 Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Eph 1:6  To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

G1223 dia dee-ah’

A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through (in very wide applications, local, causal or occasional). In composition it retains the same general import: – after, always, among, at, to avoid, because of (that), briefly, by, for (cause) . . . fore, from, in, by occasion of, of, by reason of, for sake, that, thereby, therefore, X though, through (-out), to, wherefore, with (-in). In composition it retains the same general import.

2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by^G1223 these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

One of the main goals in comparing the Levitical priesthood, from where the order of Aaron stems, with another priest that should rise after the order of Melchisedec is to demonstrate where perfection comes from and what is excellent to God (Php 1:9-11) as opposed to something that is good (1Ti 1:9, Gal 3:24, 1Co 15:41).

Php 1:9  And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;
Php 1:10  That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;
Php 1:11  Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by^G1223 Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

Php 4:6  Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Php 4:7  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

In order to “approve things that are excellent” we need to know that this can only be done “by reason of the glory that excelleth” which glory is our hope of glory within (Col 1:27).

2Co 3:1  Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2Co 3:2  Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
2Co 3:3  Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
2Co 3:4  And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
2Co 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; [We bring nothing to the altar. (Php 2:13)]
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.

Excellence is the enemy of good

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 [Heb 7:11]:

Heb 7:11  If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?

2Co 3:8  How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?[Heb 7:12]

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

2Co 3:9  For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory [Col 1:27, Rom 8:9].
2Co 3:10  For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
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 [Col 1:27], 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 [“At that day” (Joh 14:20)].
2Co 3:15  But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
2Co 3:16  Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
2Co 3:17  Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

The reason that the change “For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law” (of verse 12 and part of next week’s study) is glorious and excels in glory like the sun outshining the moon, is because with Christ in us as our hope of glory, we can be recipients of those promises which are in Him that speak of bringing us to perfection on the third day (Luk 13:32), not by might or power but by His holy spirit that gives us the power to rip the veil, which ripping symbolizes our overcoming our flesh (Heb 10:20, 1Co 3:16) in this life as we go from glory to glory through Christ as opposed to those who “could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished” (2Co 3:13, Heb 1:3, 2Co 3:18).

Heb 10:20  By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; [Eph 5:30, 2Co 5:17]

1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Heb 1:3  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

2Co 3:18  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Now let’s look once again at how Jesus “the forerunner is for us entered” and how blessed we are to have an high priest who can now make us kings and priests (Rev 1:6, Rev 5:10).

Rev 1:6  And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Rev 5:10  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

The priesthood of God’s elect is typified in the old covenant with the “the order of Melchisedec” as opposed to the “Levitical priesthood” or “order of Aaron“, and it is through Christ alone that we will be able to obtain to this excellent order and high calling found in “him with whom we have to do” as we “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Heb 4:13-15, Php 3:14).

Heb 4:13  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Heb 4:14  Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
Heb 4:15  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin [Heb 9:13-14, Heb 9:23-24].

Heb 7:5  And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham: 

Verse five is going to be contrasted with verse six to remind us that “they that are of the sons of Levi” and “who receive the office of the priesthood” and “have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham” represent Levi and not Abraham (Rom 9:13). Levi represents Babylon, and Abraham represents the elect to whom God gave the true priesthood “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Rev 1:6, Rev 5:10) who will reign on the earth under Christ who is represented by Melchisedec.

Rom 9:13  As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

Rev 1:6  And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Rev 5:10  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

Physical lineage has nothing to do with our calling, and so we’re being reminded that these sons of Levi, although they descend from Abraham, they and we cannot help but be of our Father the devil (Mat 3:9, Joh 8:37-44) until such time that we are called and chosen (Mat 22:14) to be otherwise (Rev 17:14).

Mat 3:9  And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

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.
Joh 8:38  I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
Joh 8:39  They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. [A tree is known by its fruit and not by its lineage, in other words (Luk 6:43-45, Joh 6:43-45)]
Joh 8:40  But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Joh 8:41  Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Joh 8:42  Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me [Joh 20:21].
Joh 8:43  Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word [1Jn 4:6].
Joh 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

The context found in John 8:37-44 was written for the elect’s sake today to see clearly that lineage has nothing to do with being free (Php 3:4-9, Rom 2:14-19). This stark contrast being spoken to outward Jews (Rom 2:28) is being drawn to make the point as bright as possible for God’s elect today. Christ is making this contrast to the Pharisee within us who still wants to glory in the flesh, and that contrast between flesh and the spirit is shown between Levi and Abraham. Abraham being a type of Christ who, as our hope of glory within, makes it possible for us to be inward Jews who are being set free (Joh 8:36, Rom 2:29, Rom 8:9, Col 1:27).

Php 3:4  Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
Php 3:5  Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
Php 3:6  Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
Php 3:7  But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Php 3:8  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: [Php 1:10] for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
Php 3:9  And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

Rom 2:14  For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Rom 2:15  Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
Rom 2:16  In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

[(1Pe 4:17) Paul then goes on to admonish the church by showing them what those “secrets of men” are within the hearts of those who are first being cleansed in this age [Rom 2:20-29]. Christ admonishes us and encourages us with these words in that regard as well by telling us to no longer lean unto our own understanding, our own righteousness, by saying “think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Mat 3:9)]

Rom 2:17  Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,
Rom 2:18  And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, [Php 1:10] being instructed out of the law;
Rom 2:19  And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,

The statement “Though they come out of the loins of Abraham” reminds us we are all sons of God, just as Adam was a son of God (Luk 3:38). The Jews had confidence in Abraham, and we have confidence in our own flesh at first until we become of the generation which has no confidence in our flesh (Php 3:3). That first man Adam must decrease in order for the second Adam, Jesus Christ, to take His rightful place on the throne of our hearts which can only happen through the circumcision of our hearts (1Co 15:45, Joh 3:30).

Php 3:3  For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

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.

Joh 3:30  He must increase, but I must decrease.

Heb 7:6  But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises.

The verses in John 8:37-44 explain why “he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham” when we’re given eyes to see that Abraham represents the elect who are called to a blessing of our Lord whose descent was not counted of Aaron, just as Melchisedec’s was not. The promises, as we mentioned above, are all in Christ of which we are being reminded when we read that Abraham “blessed him that had the promises” (2Co 1:20-22).

2Co 1:20  For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
2Co 1:21  Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God;
2Co 1:22  Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

Heb 7:7  And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better.

We’ve established that Abraham is ‘the less’ in this type and shadow event of blessing Melchisedec who represents our presenting all our life as a living sacrifice to God (Rom 12:1-3). Abraham is blessed by Melchisedec by being able to give this offering, and this point is clearly brought out in this statement by king David found in 1 Chronicles 9:14).

Rom 12:3  For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

1Ch 29:14  But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.

Luk 17:10  So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

Joh 1:27  He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

1Co 1:26  For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

It is this spirit, found in the verses we have just read, which tells us how we are to present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, a sacrifice that is typified with Abraham giving a tenth [his whole life] of the spoils of war. Giving the spoils of war is a typical act that acknowledges we know where all our blessings originate, along with all our spiritual battles over which God is sovereign in our heavens that are being cleansed in this age.

Eph 6:12  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Eph 1:21  Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

Heb 9:23  It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Heb 7:8  And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth.

Ulitimately God will be “all in all” (1Co 15:28), and that is when each life will be fully in subjection to Christ and our Father in heaven. That event is what the tithe symbolizes all along, and is the reason God says “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” in Malach 3:10.

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Romans 11:33 is the blessing we are talking about, as we come to know God and His son which is eternal life (Joh 17:3). Every soul will come to see the unsearchable blessings that this relationship will manifest in each life that God is going to save in due time (1Co 15:22, 1Jn 2:2, 1Ti 4:10, 1Co 2:9).

In verse eight we are simply being told that our many wonderful works, which we think account for something (Mat 7:22), are not laid up in heaven —  treasure that can only be obtained through Christ — and so this verse is worded this way: “And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth” to remind us that it is those who present themselves a living sacrifice, as typified by Abraham’s giving of the tithe, who are able to lay up treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust does corrupt because we are alive in Him (Rom 12:1, Rom 6:11, Gal 2:20, Mat 6:19-20, Joh 11:26).

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 [Eph 1:6], which is your reasonable service.

Rom 6:11  Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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.

Joh 11:26  And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

Heb 7:9  And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. 

God’s elect are a living sacrifice who lay their lives down for the world as Christ did (Joh 3:16, 1Jn 4:17), saviors who will come up on mount Zion (Oba 1:21) and who are being sacrificed now so that the stripes that we take upon us, the filling up what is behind of the afflictions of Christ (Col 1:24), can one day be beneficial to those who we will be able to judge as a result of having been judged in this life (1Pe 4:12, 1Pe 4:17, 2Ti 2:12, Php 1:29, Heb 5:14).

“Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham” reminds us that the whole world lives and moves and has their being in Christ (Act 17:28) whose life was sacrificed to take away the sins of the world (Joh 3:16). The sins of the world are forgiven, but an accounting is yet to be given for the many, and that accounting comes about for God’s elect today as He leads us to repentance, which happens as a result of our presenting ourselves a living sacrifice (Rom 2:4). It is Levi and all of humanity who took Christ and sacrificed him, and in so doing “payed tithes in Abraham” (Act 4:26-28) through Christ and His Christ, and this pleased God for that reason. “Levi also, who receiveth tithes” is our time in Babylon when we sincerely give our life over to another Jesus, but God’s people are called out of Levi or Babylon if we have been predestined to be a living sacrifice through Christ in this age (2Co 6:17) who will be sacrificed so “Levi also, who receiveth tithes” can one day come to realize that the sacrifice of Christ and His body expressed in typical language as “payed tithes in Abraham” is connected to Christ’s sacrifice and His body as our kinsman redeemer.

Act 17:28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

1Pe 3:18  For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit [Isa 53:10, Joh 3:16, 1Jn 4:17].

Act 4:26  The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27  For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28  For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

The honor and privilege we have been given to suffer in this life for Christ is being expressed in this verse, and the living sacrifice we have become through Him is for the world’s sake as well as ours and is the way in which the world will come to realize that they “payed tithes in Abraham” by having sacrificed Christ and His Christ (Act 26:14-15).

Act 26:14  And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Act 26:15  And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

The first section of this verse “Levi also, who receiveth tithes” is a reminder for us that Babylon does serve us by receiving the lives of the countless many who are called but not chosen. Those multitudes of Babylonian churches represent Levi, and Levi is joined to us, and by God’s grace and faith we come out of her and present ourselves a living sacrifice unto God so that one day those inumerable multitudes will be washed and made “white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:9, Rev 7:13-14). Babylon unknowingly has served us in their unbelief, and God has shown mercy to us today by calling us out of Babylon so that one day we will be able to extend that same mercy back toward the rest of God’s creation.

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, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Heb 7:10  For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.

We don’t know that we are God’s elect at first, but over time become convinced of better things (Heb 6:9, Rom 8:38-39) unfolding within our heavens which give evidence that we are the sons of God in this age who are being led by His spirit (Rom 8:14-16). Abraham, in type and shadow, is still very young in his walk expressed as being “yet in the loins of his father“. Regardless, this is “when Melchisedec met him“, and this type and shadow event is a reminder for God’s elect that God knows those who are His (Rom 11:5), and His remnant were known from the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4). This meeting of Melchisedec is a type and shadow of our day of visitation when we are dragged to Christ and brought to repentance (Joh 6:44).

Heb 6:9  But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.

Rom 8:38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom 8:39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom 8:14  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Rom 8:15  For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Rom 8:16  The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

Heb 7:11  If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? 

Can we go on to perfection through the order of the Levitical priesthood? The answer is emphatically ‘no’, and yet that was a needful part of our journey, receiving the law that was made to show the lawless man within (1Ti 1:9, Rom 7:13) and how impossible it was to be changed and truly overcome by simply keeping the letter of the law that brought only death and not life, which comes through the spirit of God (2Co 3:6).

There is, was and will be a need “that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec“, and Christ is that forerunner who is typified by Melchisedec. However the “order of Aaron” is the other order that genders unto bondage (Gal 4:23-27) and must needs be done away in order for the true liberty of Christ to be manifest through His spirit, a liberty that has begun and will be witnessed through God’s first fruits.

2Co 3:17  Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
2Co 3:18  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Rom 8:19  For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Rom 8:20  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
Rom 8:21  Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
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, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Joh 13:35  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

(Key verses: Gen 11:1-9)

[Study Posted July 18, 2014]

Genesis 11 is a very significant chapter in the Bible because it highlights once more the one and only division with which the elect of God are concerned – that of the division of darkness and light (Gen 1:1-5; Joh 1:1-14). This division contrasts two totally opposing mindsets that God has instituted by which all in the first Adam will live (Mat 4:4). The first nine verses of the chapter summarise the fatal flaws and marred condition of the mind of our natural man which relates to the darkness God created (Isa 45:7; Jer 18:4). This is the ‘world order’ under which all mankind are subjected, even “by reason of Him who subjected [them all] in hope” of a new spiritual ‘world order’ in Christ (Rom 8:20). The rest of Genesis chapter 11 focuses on the offspring of one of Noah’s sons, namely Shem, and sets the stage of the true new ‘world order’ of the Lord and His Christ which comes through faith and obedience to His commandments. This latter ‘order’ is what all the Scriptures focus on when those with the mind of the Lord can see God’s perfect plan for humanity typified by one man and the faith he was given. That man is Abraham, who is a type of Christ and the faith which will please the Father by which “all will be blessed” (Gen 12:1-3). Through the mind of the Lord “the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” is unveiled in all its splendour and beauty (1Co 2:10; 1Co 2:15-16):

Rom 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Rom 11:34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
Rom 11:35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

The theme of the natural or carnal mind’s religious ambitions to reach or impress God on its own terms comes to us within these first nine verses of Genesis Chapter 11. Here we have a summary of the modus operandi of the first Adam and what his generation is all about from the beginning as worked by God to fulfill His purposes and His will at all times (Eph 1:11). The first verse gives us the context and unified mind (“one language” or “one speech”) of all generations of mankind on the earth from the creation of the first Adam up until that point in time. All earthly nations really come from “one blood” and that spiritually refers to our carnal life and way of being (Act 17:26):

Gen 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

No one in the first Adam can escape the evil and darkness God has created in the natural mind with all its selfish lusts, pride and ambitions which is of the “old world [order]” and “not of [the holy spirit of] God” (Gen 2:7; Isa 45:7; Jer 18:4; 1Jn 2:16; 2Pe 2:5). Before God confounded the one language of mankind, they all lived in the east in the land of Shinar which also helps us to see the physical and religious origins of mankind since the global flood:

Gen 11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

The concept “east” links here with the land of Shinar, which is called the “country of two rivers”, an ancient name which associates to the physical region of Babylonia or Chaldea. Some translations have it that mankind first moved eastward, which also connects beautifully with the rebellion naturally present in man’s religious mind-set. Mankind by nature rebels against God’s commandment and His ways of doing things (Rom 7:15-24).

Gen 11:2  (ASV) And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

Gen 11:2  (JPS) And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

Gen 11:2  (RV) And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

From an earthy perspective the sun rises in the east, and in that way God teaches mankind how the spiritual light comes into our lives (Rom 1:20). The entrance into the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple in Jerusalem were facing east, and that is how we all come into our own spiritual understanding of God’s ways. However, man’s ways are always in the opposite direction. The land of Shinar is later known as Babylon in Scripture, and that typifies the spiritual domain of all mankind in the sea of flesh with all its “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (Joh 3:6; Rev 17:15). Babylon is that all-encompassing controlling system of mankind under which our flesh resides – the old spiritual ‘world order’ with its centralised carnal mind. This is the very subtle and evil ruler in our lives which entices us to boast with the treasures and talents of our natural house and then captures us in complete slavery and spiritual bondage:

2Ki 20:14 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country, even from Babylon.
2Ki 20:15 And he said, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All the things that are in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them.
2Ki 20:16 And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD.
2Ki 2017 Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD.

There is, of course, a physical application within the ‘world order’ here on earth through very influential people and families who are regulating various aspects of human society in general today. God is laughing at those who are propagating the foolish idea that mankind can actually have things in their control, but this gives others a valid reason and purpose in life to expose the so-called ‘illuminati’ (the enlightened few) and other such manipulating forces behind human society (Psa 2:1-12). The natural mind, and its vivid imagination, loves these kinds of secret organizations which keep many busy since the people found a plain or valley in the land of Shinar. Whether we are informed or uninformed about these very interesting distractions, the Scriptures are quite clear that all kingdoms and rulership on earth are God-ordained delegated control to which we all must submit (Heb 13:17). These words of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar are God’s fiery words for our man of sin under these delegated rulers in every generation. Spiritual Babylon will be judged to its complete destruction in us eventually through the severe trials sent by God and only in that judgment will anyone be persuaded to be fearful of God and not to resist any “ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (Mat 5:39; 1Pe 2:13; Heb 13:17):

Dan 4:25 (ERV) King Nebuchadnezzar, you will be forced to go away from people. You will live among the wild animals. You will eat grass like cattle, and you will become wet with dew. Seven seasons will pass, and then you will learn this lesson. You will learn God Most High rules over human kingdoms and gives them to whoever he wants.

Dan 4:32 And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.

When we do not recognise God’s provisions, we devise our twisted inventions, as per God’s design and plan. This is what we do when we are under the delegated controls of the Babylonian rulers in our own land of Shinar which reflects our own natural religious attitudes towards God:

Gen 11:3  And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

The residents in the land of Shinar for the first time (according to the Scriptures) used bricks in the place of stones as a building material. The Hebrew word for bricks here “lebênâh” which comes from the word “lâban” which means “white”. Here is the word “lebênâh” in another verse to show us what God thinks of man-made religious altars of white bricks:

Isa 65:3 A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens [behind a false covering or protection], and burneth incense upon altars of brick [Hebrew: “lebênâh“].

Even if we take our self-made bricks through the fire and “burn them throughly” as the people in the land of Shinar did, it cannot produce love and obedience to God. This is when our earthly king (typified by King Saul) wants to do the work of the priest and prophet long before its time (1Sa 15:20-31; Jer 7:29-31). Even when we do things with “a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge” of what true love is, we really believe we are doing all for the glory of God (Rom 10:2; Mat 7:21-23; Isa 4:1; Act 8:3; Act 9:1-2):

1Co 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
1Co 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
1Co 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

All man-made things, like our religious altars of white bricks behind an outward facade or “form of godliness”, are surely not good in God’s eyes (2Ti 3:1-7). The white of the flesh is pointing to our own righteousness which is always a stinking cloth to a truly holy and righteous God:

Isa 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

These white bricks connect closely with an illness in “the skin of [the] flesh” which we all suffer from in the generation of Adam:

Lev 13:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying,
Lev 13:2 When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy; then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests:
Lev 13:3 And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.

And ….

Lev 13:10 And the priest shall see him: and, behold, if the rising be white in the skin, and it have turned the hair white, and there be quick raw flesh in the rising;
Lev 13:11 It is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean, and shall not shut him up: for he is unclean.

The white hair and the rising of flesh is our covering of our own nakedness which is not of the spirit of God (1Jn 2:16):

Isa 30:1 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin.

The same applies to the slime these people in the land of Shinar used in the place of mortar. All this shows how we provoke God to anger continually and “add sin to sin”. This is our religious invention of brick and mortar to make things understandable to our carnal mind and ‘getting our head around’ spiritual things of God when it is impossible for our natural mind to even understand God’s works in the earth:

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.

Joh 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

All man’s efforts are coming from a religious or twisted spiritual conviction even when we do not know that or can see our own marred condition as from the Potter’s hand – “sin through ignorance” (Lev 2:2; 4:13; 4:27; 5:15; Num 15:27; Psa 51:5; Jer 18:4; Rom 8:20):

Gen 11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

In our ignorance we also think we can impress God with our own works. The reason why people in the land of Shinar were motivated to build this city with its tower was to make “a name” for them in heaven! We want to get to spiritual glory via the short-cuts and short circuiting the process, not via the God-ordained process of overcoming “the whole earth” in a slow and progressive manner (Exo 23:30; Act 14:22; 1Pe 4:12; Rev 15:8). Then we are somehow bewildered and amazed when God says He does not know us and rejects our good name. “The more things change, the more they stay the same” is a very true saying for those who still maintain that flesh can be perfected and live happily ever after (1Co 15:50). This is the heart of our own old fool – our natural man:

Psa 14:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psa 14:2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
Psa 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Psa 14:4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.

These people in the land of Shinar quickly forgot what happened before the global flood and simply continued on their evil ways. Human beings are shown here to have very short memories when it comes to the Word of God and His commandments. People in general can remember many earthly things and write millions of books full of words concerning their own knowledge, but the true knowledge or science of God is soon forgotten:

Psa 127:1  A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Psa 127:2  It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

God commanded Adam (initially), and then also Noah and his sons, to fill the earth and subdue it (Gen 1:28; Gen 9:1), but the building of cities and towers took precedence in creating memorials or something to be known for. Even since Cain, the first born, the very seed of the serpent is in us (Gen 3:15; Joh 8:44):

Gen 4:16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
Gen 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

Man’s actions come from his thoughts, and Scripture is clear that they are not even his own inventions. Everything is “of the Lord”, and that includes every spirit that appears first to us in the form of words and concepts in our minds (Rom 11:34; 1Jn 4:1-6; Joh 6:63; Psa 139:1-4; Heb 12:9). Our thoughts are our spiritual heavens created by God, for there He works all things after His will and as a man thinks, so is he (Gen 1:1):

Pro 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.

Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

Psa 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

Man’s perceptions of God are that of a distant God, and that is how God wants the natural mind to see Him…removed and uninvolved. So the Scriptures reveal God in that way to the natural mind:

Gen 11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

It is always interesting to see how our own natural religious mind wants to inform God of things God actually already knows. The carnal mind has this irresistible desire to inform others of its own knowledge. Naturally we never want to be seen as ignorant and stupid. We created cities and towers of libraries (physical and virtual) filled with information, and then we want to educate the uninformed in our haughty and earthy philanthropic spirit. Artificial divisions of human society based on false evolutionary premises rule the natural mind. Our ‘first world’ mind-set also wants to do its bit to reach the poor and barbaric in the underdeveloped (‘second world’) and undeveloped (‘third world’) societies – and how the tower of religious mind-set get further elevation from these good deeds! Then we want God to come down and see and esteem our good works – and He appears initially exactly the way we want to see Him until “the day when the towers fall” (Psa 18:25-26; Isa 30:25). That is when we can see that God indeed loves a cheerful giver and those who can help others with the same Christ-like humble spirit of those of the mature believers in Macedonia (2Co 9:1-9):

Gen 11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Gen 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
Gen 11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

God divided the earthly nations along language lines – not different outward features, racial and other outward features, as some propose. However, this one fractured city of mankind is never going to be completed because it is designed to end in ruin – man is God’s “son of perdition” (2Th 2:3). Babel is the symbol of all man’s splintered efforts to be successful and “of renown”, even in its unified opposition to the one mind of God (Psa 2:1-2; Num 16:1-35):

Gen 11:9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Babel is always the religious city with its self-righteous tower that exposes man’s heavens and also the greatness and wisdom of God in working all things for His purposes. In the effort to build a strong safe city with its haughty pride and earthly lusts, we see our own lusts for the power we are convinced comes through taking control. Confusion is still the overall language of the world. Some actually want others to believe they know what is going on and have answers to the multifaceted conundrum of human society! The United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and NATO are still relevant in our own time to see the confusion and futility of man’s efforts. If we just take time to see our own confusion, we soon come to the sobering realization that we do not even have enough time or ability to sort out our own confusion!!! This is what the mind of Christ, with its new spirit language, reveals to us with its true comfort and peace – a really “strange tongue” which the spirit of God brings. With God’s mind we can see that everything is 100% under control, and everything will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God fattens our old man in its own delusions and pride to supply the wood for the fire “in a day of slaughter” which is coming at its appointed time (Luk 15:22-24).

Jas 5:5 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

———-

Detailed studies and emails relating to these foundational themes in Scripture are available on the www.iswasandwillbe.com website, including these topics and links:

Who Is My Brother?

The Spiritual Significance Of Colors In Scripture (The Color White) – Part 1

The Seven Last Plagues 2006

Revelation 17:1-6

Seven Steps of Salvation

Conference held December, 2012, Buford GA

Mike Vinson

[Update added February 12, 2016]

God had a plan for all of mankind. God’s plan was complete “before the world began, and it included “all [who are] in Adam”.

1Co 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

The scriptures teach that “[God] has devised means that his banished be not expelled from Him”. What that statement means is that God’s plan for mankind is to bring salvation to all who are in Adam. He reveals to us that He is going to do so by means of three separate resurrections, which are typified in scripture as three separate harvests.

Eph 1:9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Here is verse 10 in the Concordant Literal Version:

Eph 1:10 to have an administration of the complement of the eras, to head up all in the Christ – both that in the heavens and that on the earth.

“In the dispensation of the fulness of times [God will] gather together [harvest] in one all things in the Christ”. God’s plan for all mankind is not a plan which includes only His firstfruit harvest. “Before the world began” God planned for Christ, who God created to be the Creator of all things, and to be the first of His firstfruits harvest.

Col 1:17 And he [Christ] 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;

So Christ is not preeminent only in the resurrection from the dead, “He is before all things, and by Him all things consist”. He is in the process of saving “all things” by means of these three harvests we will be studying today.

But Christ is not the only firstfruits in God’s plan. After Christ was gathered to His Father by being the very first person to be resurrected from the dead to life eonian, God will also gather to Himself “they that are Christ’s” firstfruts. That will be the second harvest in God’s three harvests, but it is called the “first resurrection” of those who are “in Christ”. This is what we are told of those who are the first to be resurrected in Christ. As we will see, the barley harvest during the days of unleavened bread, which typifies Christ, and the wheat harvest at the day of Pentecost, are both called a harvest of firstfruits.

Jas 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

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.

So those in this “first resurrection” are the firstfruits of Christ, even though they are resurrected after He is resurrected. But there is one more harvest after the thousand years, and that harvest is the largest harvest of all, because it is the harvest of all men of all time who have ever been “in Adam”. God has devised the means that His banished be not expelled from Him”, and that “means” is this final, third harvest, “the feast of ingathering which is at the end of the year”. In that resurrection, death and the grave will be destroyed, and death will be robbed of every single person it has ever claimed.

Here are all three of these harvests:

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: [1] Christ the firstfruits; [2] afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24 [3] Then cometh the end, 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.

And this is the fate of death:

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.

“The end”, mentioned in 1Co 15:24, means the end harvest. It means the “harvest at the end of the year”, as is revealed in the three harvests seasons in which are revealed the seven steps to the salvation of “all in Adam”.

So there are actually three separate harvests of God’s ‘field’, which ‘field’ according to our Lord, is the whole world.

Mat 13:38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

Christ has purchased the whole field, and by means of his three separate harvests and the seven steps which must be fulfilled within those three harvests, he will not lose one single soul who is “in Adam”. Here are the words of what the scriptures call “a wise woman…”

2Sa 14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

That “means” which God has “devised” is revealed to us in seven separate feasts which are all types of the seven steps which all men must take in order to come to Christ and His Father.

Here are those three seasons in which the seven festivals of Israel took place.

Exo 23:14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Exo 23:15 Thou shalt keep [1] the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)
Exo 23:16 [2] And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and [3] the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Exo 23:17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

Now here are the seven holy days within these three seasons. It is these seven annual holy days which reveal to us the seven steps to the salvation of each and every man whom God will drag to Himself, as well as the seven steps which are being taken by all men in coming to the completion of God’s plan for all men:

Lev 23:4 These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.
Lev 23:5 [1] In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S passover.
Lev 23:6 [2] And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
Lev 23:7 In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:8 But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:9 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:10 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:
Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
Lev 23:12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD.
Lev 23:13 And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.
Lev 23:14 And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:15 [3] And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
Lev 23:16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
Lev 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.
Lev 23:18 And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the LORD, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the LORD.
Lev 23:19 Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings.
Lev 23:20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the LORD for the priest.
Lev 23:21 And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
Lev 23:22 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God.
Lev 23:23 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:24 [4] Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:25 Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:26 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:27 [5] Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:28 And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.
Lev 23:29 For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people.
Lev 23:30 And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.
Lev 23:31 Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.
Lev 23:33 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:34 [6] Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.
Lev 23:35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:36 [7] Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.

Now let’s consider how these feasts of ancient Israel reveal to us God’s plan for the redemption of “all in Adam [including] His banished”.

The first holy day is the passover, which signifies the death of our Lord, “the spotless… lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world”.

The passover took place in the spring of the year.

Joh 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Joh 1:30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.

1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

1Ti 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially [But “not for ours only” 1Jn 2:2] of those that believe.
1Ti 4:11 These things command and teach.

2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us- ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So God is in the process of bringing “all [who are] in Adam” to himself, and this first feast in the first month in the spring of the year gives us the first step that must be taken to bring about the “means that his banished be not expelled from him”. Christ is our passover who has been offered for our sins, and the very next day begins the feast of unleavened bread, signifying the very next step all who are in Christ must take. We are crucified with Christ, and if indeed we are dying daily with Him we begin immediately to purge out the sins which have leavened our lives.

1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

Indeed Christ was offered upon the day of the passover. Rest assured the priest and the Pharisees did not plan it that way. They were as blind to what they were doing as you and I were to the fact that it was through our sins that our Lord was crucified.

Rom 4:25 Who was delivered for [Greek: dia – through] our offences, and was raised again for [Greek: dia – through] our justification.

1Co 15:3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

It is “on the morrow after the sabbath [that] the priest shall wave” a sheaf of the firstfruits of the barley harvest to be accepted of the Lord.

Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

The fifteenth of Nisan being a holy day is called “a high day”, and it can be any day of the week, but it just happened to be on the weekly sabbath the year that Christ, our passover, was crucified:

Joh 19:31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

So when Christ was raised up “early on the first day of the week”, that just happened to be “the morrow after the sabbath” and He was received of His Father as the wave sheaf of the first fruits of the early barley harvest.

Luk 24:1 Now upon the first day of the week [“the morrow after the sabbath”], very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
Luk 24:2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
Luk 24:3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

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

But while Christ’s own apostles went out and wept bitterly for denying Him when He most needed them, they and we still have to wait for the day of Pentecost, which in Greek means ‘count fifty’ before the holy spirit will come to us and enter into our hearts and form and found the church of Christ and the kingdom of God within us.

Luk 24:49 And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

Act 2:1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Act 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
Act 2:3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
Act 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

This is the day in which we are finally willing to die with Christ because the spirit of God has changed our hearts, and we now become Christ’s firstfruits.

Lev 23:15 [3] And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
Lev 23:16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
Lev 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.

If we are Christ’s, then we are “a kind of firstfruits” because this feast typifies those who are in that blessed and holy first resurrection, as Christ’s firstfruits. So the feast of Pentecost is also called “the feast of your firstfruits”.

Exo 23:14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Exo 23:15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)
Exo 23:16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Exo 23:17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

While our Lord was a sin offering “who knew no sin”, the same cannot be said for His firstfruits, who, in Him, become a trespass offering which Christ fulfills only through “them that are Christ’s”. That is how we can be “chief of sinners” and also “fill up in our bodies what is behind of the afflictions of the Christ”. Because Christ fulfills the trespass offering only through us, the Pentecost offering is the only offering offered to God with leaven:

Lev 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.

2Co 5:21 For the man who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (ACV)

We become the righteousness of God in him, and we offer our lives as the scapegoat (Lev 16:8-26) and the second bird (Lev 14), as a living sacrifice, “for His body’s sake, which is the church”.

Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church; (ASV)

1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

Pentecost is the second season and the third festival which reveals the process of our salvation. Pentecost is the summer wheat harvest, which comes in fifty days after the Spring barley harvest. Pentecost is the only holy day in the second Summer season. The last four steps in the process of our salvation are all in the third season of the process of our salvation. These last four steps are all in “the seventh month”, and they begin with the festival of trumpets on the first day of the seventh month:

Lev 23:23 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:25 Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

This is the festival that portrays the judgments of the seven trumpets in the book of Revelation. Here is what happens at the seventh trumpet:

Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Rev 11:16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Rev 11:17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
Rev 11:18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Rev 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

“There were lightnings, and voices, and thundering, and an earthquake, and great hail”, are all Biblical words which are associated with the judgment of the old, first man Adam within us. The ark of His [new] testament is seen within the temple. It is the temple of God which must be cleansed by the fiery judgments of the seven trumpets and the seven plagues of the seventh trumpet. Here is what we are told of God’s temple and that seventh trumpet, which is the seven plagues of the seven angels:

Rev 15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

The passover typifies our first coming out of Egypt, followed by the purging out of the leaven of the sins of the giants within our lives, which at this stage are typified by the land which is filled with great giants. This is the days of unleavened bread in the Spring of our walk. This part of the process of our salvation is followed by the Summer feast of Pentecost, when and where we are given God’s spirit and the kingdom of God begins to grow within us, and we begin to be changed inwardly. But the judgment of our flesh is a life-long process which begins in earnest only after Pentecost and after the holy spirit comes into our hearts and begins to cleanse the temple of God within our heavens.

Heb 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
Heb 9:23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

Christ has entered into the holy place in His temple, “which temple ye are”.

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

The last of these seven trumpets is the seven last plagues. This is the significance of the feast of trumpets. This is when our souls are most afflicted as our heavenly Father is dragging us to Himself. Judgment must begin at the house of God. It is a fiery purging of anything that can be burned up. Anything that can be burned will be burned up and will be burned out of our lives and out of the temple of God in the heavens of our minds and hearts. It is in this day of fasting that we are denying ourselves, dying to our old man, and coming out of Babylon. We return to the temple of God, and begin rebuilding that temple. But Babylon comes out with us, and the seven plagues of the seven angels has yet to do its work within us.

So we are being judged in this life, and we are “dying daily”. Christ comes to us at Pentecost, but Pentecost continues within us as Christ increases within us. Trumpets continues within as “the house of God” is being judged within us. The day of atonement also continues within us as we endure the fiery trials of a life of “dying daily”.

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 4:17 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?

So it is only after we have been judged that we are able to enter into the temple of God, and come to be at one with our Lord by the covering of our sins. And that is the meaning of the Hebrew root word ‘kawfar’ H3722 which ‘kippur’ H3725 comes from and is translated as ‘atonement’, the day of fasting which is on the tenth day of the seventh month. It is not fifty days from the last feast, nor is it a matter of going from the Summer months to the Fall, as from Pentecost to Trumpets. The day of atonement is but nine days after the the feast of trumpets, which is on the first day of the seventh month. We cannot be given salvation, without first suffering with our Lord. Neither can we be given salvation while still believing salvation can be acquired by virtue of our own works. Those are the lessons of the fifth step towards our salvation. It is a day of fasting and affliction for our souls known as the “day of atonement”.

Lev 23:26 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:27 [5] Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement^H3725: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:28 And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement^H3725, to make an atonement^H3722 for you before the LORD your God.
Lev 23:29 For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people.
Lev 23:30 And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.
Lev 23:31 Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.

It is only the few chosen whose souls are being afflicted for the sins being committed within the church. Most people who claim the name of Christ are certainly neither resting from their own works, nor afflicting their souls, or being afflicted because of the abominations which are being committed within Jerusalem:

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.

Here is the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘kawfar’, which is translated as ‘atonement’.

H3722 ka phar kaw-far’ A primitive root; to cover (specifically with bitumen); figuratively to expiate or condone, to placate or cancel: – appease, make (an) atonement, cleanse, disannul, forgive, be merciful, pacify, pardon, to pitch, purge (away), put off, (make) reconcile (- liation).

The “fiery trials” of 1Pe 4:12, and the sighing and crying for all the abominations that be done in the midst of Jerusalem, are one and the same. These are those who are ceasing from their own works and are afflicting their souls on the day of atonement.

Atonement is only five days prior to the feast of tabernacles which begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Like the passover and the days of unleavened bread, these last two feasts are not separated by a single day.

Lev 23:33 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:34 [6] Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.
Lev 23:35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:36 [7] Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.

This “feast of tabernacles” is the third and the last of the three harvests of the Lord’s work to bring salvation to all who are in Adam. The “last great day of the feast” is the immediate consequence of living through the feast of tabernacles, which is called the feast of ingathering in the end of the year.

Exo 23:14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Exo 23:15 [1] Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty: )
Exo 23:16 [2] And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and [3] the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Exo 23:17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

This feast is called the “feast of tabernacles” because Israel dwelt in temporary tabernacles when coming out of Egypt. This is how all who are now being harvested into the kingdom of God view this entire physical life:

Heb 11:9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
Heb 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

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.

1Pe 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

The great purpose of this “last great day” is signified by this event:

Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
Joh 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Joh 7:39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

This feast of tabernacles is the last great harvest of our Lord’s field. It culminates in the last great day when all men who have ever lived “in Adam” will be given “the spirit which they that believe on Him should receive”. It will truly be a “great day” for all of mankind. It will be the consummation of the ages, and will effect the salvation of all of God’s banished. The last great day, is as closely associated with the “little season” which follows the thousand years, as the days of unleavened bread are associated with the feast of the passover. There is not one day between either of these feasts. The “little season… when the thousand years are expired” is distinguished by the rebellion of “the nations in the four quarters of the earth”, who are all destroyed when “fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them”. This is the occasion God is seeking to destroy all flesh and thereby destroy death through the great white throne judgment at the second resurrection of all men of all time in spiritual bodies which will yet need to be purged of the mind of their father the devil, and that is exactly what the lake of fire at ‘the last great day’ will accomplish.

Here is the timeline of the events signified by the feast of tabernacles and the last great day as they are laid out for us in Revelation 20:

Rev 20:1  And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years [tabernacles] are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison [this event precipitates the great white throne judgment which is signified by the last great day],
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 next chapter tells us of a new heaven and a new earth. The statement “there was no more sea” signifies that there is no more flesh, and consequently “there is no more death”, because ‘the sea’ signifies the sea of flesh, out of which the beast we all are, arises:

 Rev 13:1  And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

Rev 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

So many supposedly ‘great men of God’ have quoted Act 16:31, at the exclusion of Act 16:32, of which most Christians actually believe, that all one has to do to be saved is to confess the name of Jesus with your mouth and you are ‘a shoe-in’ for the first resurrection.

Act 16:31 And they [Paul and Silas] said [to the Philippians jailer] Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

Believing that lie is the strong delusion which will place the masses of humanity in that second resurrection. The Bible is much more than this one lone sentence, and we must never forget that the Lord has informed us that “the sum of [His] word is Truth” (Psa 119:160). “Believ[ing] on the Lord Jesus Christ” is not something that comes only out of your mouth. It must also come out of your hands, in what you do. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, must also be demonstrated through your spiritual feet, in the way you walk through this life. So we are also given the very next verse:

Act 16:32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.

The truth is known only when we consider “the sum” of the word of God. And our salvation, and the salvation of all of mankind, is known only when we have lived by all seven seals, all of the seven trumpets, all seven vials, and all of the appointed days which are written in God’s book of our life. This is how salvation comes to each of us individually, and this is how salvation will come to all mankind corporately. When God’s plan for mankind is completed, He will be “all in all”.

Here is how Paul sums up these seven steps to salvation within God’s three seasonal harvests:

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: [1] Christ the firstfruits; [2] afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24 [3] Then cometh the end, 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.
1Co 15:27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. [The Father cannot relinquish “the power of throne” Gen 41:40]
1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Hi Mike,

I need advice from you. Do you think that there will be remedies for mental ailments after resurrection in the lake of fire? Or people will be for example without pills (antidepressants, anti- psychotics …) and will have to endure their problems in full power to somehow overcome problems and disease and repent? Because for example I am prescribed anti- psychotic medication for a very unusual condition. In the past I have lost my spirit or all vital force – breath of God and I am left as very cold, no energy, and become an anxious person which is now with cognitive impairments, can’t concentrate, feel very unwell, can’t feel any warmth but I have another spirit or something. I know that this is the sovereign work of God, but I don’t see light in the end of tunnel; I don’t know with what spirit I will be resurrected.

Another problem is that pills are making me very unwell, too. It is like God was judging me for taking the pills. I feel his fire at those times very much like forcing me to stop those medications when I am reading His word. I feel forced to end medication by God, so I did it and feel more normal when reading your site. But now I am disabled, too. Isn’t it so, that when someone is taking pills which are having some effect, it is accomplished through the spirit realm – that another spirit comes to have effect on the body? Also I feel like a totally different person on pills. I think differently, I act differently because of another spirit from the Lord which he sends. Will those after resurrection with ailments like these have to endure to the end without pills in lake of fire to overcome?

I just wanted to ask you if you can please comment on this.

Thank you,

R____

Hi R____,

Thank you for your questions concerning the resurrection. I am commanded “not to think above what is written”, so my answer will be based upon only what is written about the resurrection.

1Co 4:6 Now these things, brothers, I applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us ye might learn not to think above that which is written, so that ye may not be puffed up, one over the one against the other.

What we know from “what is written” is:

Ecc 9:2 All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous man and to the wicked man, to the good man and to the clean man and to the unclean man, to him who sacrifices and to him who does not sacrifice, as is the good man,

That “one event to the righteous man and to the wicked man” is the fiery judgment which comes upon us all to chasten us to forsake ungodliness and to live godly lives in this present age” (Tit 2:11-12) “each in his own order”.

1Co 15:23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Tit 2:12 Teaching [ Greek – paideuo, chastening] us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

I think you probably already realize that the Greek word translated “teaching” is ‘paideuo’, and that is the very same word which is more properly translated as “chastening” in Heb 12:6.

Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth [ Greek – paideuo], and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

So God is using the noun, “grace”, to personify what He is doing as a loving heavenly Father who is “chastening us to forsake ungodliness, and to live godly lives in this present age”, as the Greek actually reads. This is the one event that is common to all men of all time, including all who will be cast into the lake of God’s chastening grace, called “the lake of fire”. Pills that kill pain and alter our behavior in this physical realm, are but physical examples of what false doctrines do to us spiritually. That is why the great whore of Rev 17 and 18 is have “deceived… all nations… by [ her] sorceries [ Greek, pharmakeia, drugs].

Rev 18:23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries [ Greek, pharmakeia] were all nations deceived.

When I first became aware that the Greek word here was “pharmakeia”, the Greek word that is used in common English for a ‘pharmacy’ or a ‘drug story’, and noticing that two of the most common establishments on “every corner” are drug stores and churches, in my carnal reasoning, I actually believed that what we were being told was that God is using drugs to deceive mankind. God certainly is using drugs to physically alter the physical minds and physical actions of mankind, but the “battle in the heavens” is far more insidious and hidden from the minds of the natural man than is the outward use and abuse of physical drugs. Spiritual pharmakeia, spiritual drugs, are false doctrines and lies against the loving character of our heavenly Father, but which are commonly accepted as truths.

What is most loving and compassionate? Is it more loving to chasten your children to forsake ungodliness and to live godly lives in this present age by means of that scourging and chastening, or is it more loving to condemn your children to eternal flames of torment, with no purpose or goal in mind for doing so, other than to torment those children for all eternity? What a lie, against the character of a loving heavenly Father. What a slanderous report! What a destructive and unhealthy drug is such a blasphemous doctrine! So it is with all false and lying doctrines. Will those who believe those doctrines when they die, be raised up with those same spiritual, mind altering drugs, within them?

If we can see Joseph as the type and shadow of the Christ and his ten traitorous brothers as the type and shadow of those who are being judging in the fire in the presence of the holy angels and the lamb, then the answer is, yes, they will be raised up with earthy glory which is yet to be destroyed and replaced with the glory of the heavens.

Gen 42:17 And he put them all together into ward three days.
Gen 42:18 And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God:
Gen 42:19 If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses:
Gen 42:20 But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so.
Gen 42:21 And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.
Gen 42:22 And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.
Gen 42:23 And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter.

Joseph’s brothers are being tormented “in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb”, and they do not even realize it.

Rev 14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

It is seventeen years later that his brothers finally accept the truth that Joseph never intended to take his revenge upon them because their decision to sell him into slavery was not their decision at all, but was decided by and worked out by God himself, just as is the case with all evil that is done by all men to this very day:

Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Twice we are told that Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt, but then we are told that their actions were actually the work of God who sent Joseph into Egypt. Joseph goes on to assure his brothers who sold him into Egypt as a slave, that he is seeking their welfare and that he will nourish and nurture them, and save them from the ongoing severe famine that is upon the whole world of that time.

Gen 45:10 And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast:
Gen 45:11 And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.

That was the truth of what was in Joseph’s heart. But his brothers, as the type of those who are cast into the lake of fire, cannot yet believe those words. Instead they believe that Joseph is a hard man who will just wait until after the death of his father, and then he will kill his ten brothers who were so evil towards him. They confess that this is what they have been living under for the past 17 years:

Gen 50:15 And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
Gen 50:16 And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
Gen 50:17 So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
Gen 50:18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
Gen 50:19 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Gen 50:21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

Joseph’s brothers had been living in the torment of fearing for their lives all those years. “I will nourish you” are the words Joseph had told them 17 years earlier. That was the truth, which his brothers could not yet receive. Joseph had made his intentions clear, just as the scriptures make it clear that God will save all who have ever died in Adam.

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
1Ti 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us- ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Believing the truth is the only way to kick the drug habit that has ensnared all who are “Babylon The Great The Mother of Harlots” with all of her spiritual drugs, which make up all the lies she has for doctrines. The function of the lake of fire is to burn all those lies out of all men, and in the end to save all men “by fire”.

1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

‘Fire’ in scripture “saves”. It does not, as Babylon teaches with her drugs and her false and lying doctrines, gratuitously torment men for the sake of tormenting them. “If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved“. I hope all of this answers your question about how the lake of fire is administered. the story of Joseph’s brothers teaches us that we are raised up in new spiritual bodies with all the false and lying doctrine still intact in the heavens of our minds.

It will require time and a hunger for that truth to be given to all men, before the mind altering drugs of false doctrines and lies against our own maker will be made manifest to those in the lake of fire. It is just the same as it is now for us. Until we are granted to see and to accept that every doctrine of Babylon has been tainted with the death- dealing pharmakeia and lies against the Truth of our Lord, we are under the mind- altering influence that believing a lie brings upon us. But when we are finally granted to have all those lies burned out of our hearts and minds, then we, just like Joseph’s brothers, can rejoice in the Truth that makes us free from all those damning lies and restores us to good spiritual health.

Exo 15:26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is righ t in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
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.

Babylon “is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt”.

Rev 11:8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egyp t, where also our Lord was crucified.

“Know[ ing] the Truth” is the antidote for all the drugs of Egypt. Listening diligently to the voice of the Lord, do[ ing] what is right, giv[ ing] ear to His commandment, and keeping His statutes”, is the cure for all the diseases which God has placed upon Egypt and upon Babylon and all of her harlot daughters, which have been given to “deceive the whole world”.

Your brother in His service,

Mike>

Dear Mike,

PRAISE TO THE GOD IN THE NAME OF JESUS.

The least and the greatest in the kingdom of heaven stated by Jesus Christ in Mat 5:19 are discriminated only by following or not following and preaching, as well as not preaching the LEAST commandments, and the least commandments I understood are:

1) KILL in the time of LAW and ANGER from Jesus’s first coming until His second coming (verse 21 and 22)
2) ADULTERY in the time of LAW and LOOKING WITH LUST from Jesus’s first coming until His second coming (verse 27 and 28)
3) FORSWEAR in the time of LAW and NEVER SWEAR from Jesus’s first coming until His second coming (verse 35 and 36)

… and now MY DOUBTS are:

1) Why and how are these the least commandments?
2) Does God have or show any partiality among his children?
3) In Jesus’s second coming, Jesus hands over the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN to Lord God Almighty then will the LEAST and GREAT differentiation exist in HEAVEN also?

Is this why JOHN the BAPTIST is called as the LEAST of the LEASTS in the kingdom of heaven?

Waiting for your reply to enlighten my spirit and spiritual thoughts.

Your brother,

D_____

Hi D____,

Thank you for your encouraging words and for your questions.

You ask:

Why and how are these the least commandments?

There is an in depth article on iswasandwillbe.com entitled The Law of Moses Versus The Law of The Spirit. Please read that paper, and you will see that the law of Moses is “not for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient”.

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,
1Ti 1:10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

Read that article, and if you still have questions, please let me know.

Your second question was:

Does God have or show any partiality among his children?

The answer is absolutely not!

Rom 2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God.

Col 3:25 But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.

Now having acknowledged that God is no respecter of persons, let me also take note that the sum of God’s Word reveals that there are within the body of Christ ‘more honorable’ and ‘less honorable’ members of that body.

You ask:

Will the LEAST and GREAT differentiation exist in HEAVEN also?

The answer according to scripture is that even after all is said and done and the eons have run their course and done their work, Christ will still “submit Himself unto the Father”.

1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

So the answer is, yes, there will always be order in all that God does. “One star will differ from another star in glory” 1Co 15:41), and yet your little toe does not resent your hands or your eyes. Your little toe loves and appreciates your hands and eyes, and your hands and eyes do not despise or look down upon your little toe. Here is how that works:

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 Christ.
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.

This all leads us to your third question:

In the second coming Jesus hands over the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN to lord God Almighty then will the LEAST and GREAT differentiation exists in HEAVEN also? Is this why JOHN the BAPTIST is called as the LEAST of the LEASTS in the kingdom of heaven?

I answered part two of this question above.

When you ask why John the Baptist is called the least of the least in the kingdom of heaven”, I must point out that you have not quite gotten the point Christ was making about John the Baptist. Christ did not call John the least of the least. What He said was that the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John.

Mat 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

“He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than” John simply because John will not be in the first resurrection to be in the kingdom of God. John the baptist was under the law of Moses, and no one who is under that law has the faith to be saved. That faith is “the faith of Jesus Christ”.

Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

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.

Gal 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Gal 3:23 But before faith [of Jesus Christ] came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Gal 3:25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Eph 3:12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

“The faith of Christ” did not exist until Christ came in the flesh, and so we are plainly told that the Old Testament prophets were NOT ministering to themselves, “but unto us”.

1Pe 1:10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
1Pe 1:11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
1Pe 1:12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

“The prophets… prophesied of the grace that should come unto you”, not unto themselves. So the “better thing” of Hebrews 11 is “some better thing for us” and “not unto themselves, but unto us”.

Heb 11:39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
Heb 11:40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

This is all of God and not of ourselves. We have no reason to become puffed up, and if we do become puffed up, we will be excluded from that “blessed and holy first resurrection”.

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.

It is after the thousand years that all the great men of the Old Testament, along with all men of all time, will be resurrected to be shown the same mercy we have been shown, and it will be shown to them by those who were chosen to be in that “blessed and holy first resurrection”.

Rom 11:30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

I pray you are given the faith to believe those scriptures and to see that no one in the Old Testament can be in the kingdom of God, which will be set up on this earth for a thousand years. All the Old Testament men of God, like the greatest of them all, John the baptist, will come up in the second resurrection to be judged by those who were in the first resurrection. That is when they will all, for the first time, learn of the name of Christ, the only name whereby we must be saved.

Act 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Our calling is the greatest honor that can be bestowed upon any man if we are granted to be in that “blessed and holy first resurrection” and to judge both this world, during the thousand year reign, and then after the thousand years to judge angels at that ‘white throne judgment… lake of fire’ which will judge all men and teach all men God’s true righteousness.

Isa 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

1Co 6:2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

“Thy judgments” are “fiery trials”, and through that fire all men will be brought to God.

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 4:17 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?

Judgment did not begin with John the Baptist, nor with anyone before John. Judgment began with Jesus Christ.

Joh 9:39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

Be sure to read that paper entitled The Law of Moses Versus The Law of The Spirit.

I hope these verses have answered your questions. If not, please let me know.

God bless you as you come to ‘know God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent’.

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

Thank you for taking your time to respond to my other email, I appreciate this.

I am confused by these scriptures – Read All in Chapter 14 – in first Corinthians Chapter 14, they were talking about prophecy and tongues, how to use spiritual gifts in this chapter – Read verse 34 to 35 – They were taking about that women are to keep silence in the churches – I am confused – why would Paul say this when he was talking about how to use spiritual gifts in this one? These two verses talking about women that are to be kept silent in churches has nothing to do with spiritual gifts. I am confused – Please help?

D____

Dear D____,

Your puzzlement and question is very common to many. It has a very simple answer when one looks at God’s word in its totality. Consider also that in the original scriptures, which were written on rolls of parchment, not bound in easy to use books as we have them today, there were no chapter and verse breaks. Those were man- made additions after the advent of the printing press made it possible for everyone who desired it to have the Bible in their own home in their own language. In the original manuscripts, often the subject of a chapter was started in a previous chapter or continues into the next. Let’s look at the scripture in question as it is translated in several differing versions:

1Co 14:33 for God is not a God of tumult, but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints.
1Co 14:34 Your women in the assemblies let them be silent, for it hath not been permitted to them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law saith;(Young’s Literal Translation)
1Co 14:33 for God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,
1Co 14:34 the women must keep silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak out, but must place themselves in submission, as the law also says.(International Standard Version)
1Co 14:33 For God is not of confusion, but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints.
1Co 14:34 Let your women be silent in the assemblies, for it is not allowed to them to speak, but to be in subjection, as also the Law says. (LITV)
1Co 14:33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints.
1Co 14:34 Let your women be silent in the assemblies, for it is not permitted to them to speak; but to be in subjection, as the law also says.(Darby)
1Co 14:33 For God is not the God of dissension, but of peace: as also I teach in all the churches of the saints.
1Co 14:34 Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak but to be subject, as also the law saith.(Douay- Rheims)

Paul is not changing subject, but clarifying an additional point in exhorting Christians not to allow confusion, disorder, dissension, tumult to be part of their spiritual fellowship. He is in no way continuing the previous dispensation given in the Old Testament, under which women were not to even be allowed to be included in the teaching of the law. The following excerpt reveals the prevailing attitude toward women under the old covenant:

“The rabbins taught that “a woman should know nothing but the use of her distaff.” And the sayings of Rabbi Eliezer, as delivered, Bammidbar Rabba, sec. 9, fol. 204, are both worthy of remark and of execration; they are these: … yisrephu dibrey torah veal yimsaru lenashim, “Let the words of the law be burned, rather than that they should be delivered to women.” – Clarke’s Commentary“]

Under the new covenant, women were not only to be equally taught God’s message, (1Co 11:11 “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord”), but were allowed under specific circumstances to share revelation with both men and women as long as certain protocol was followed. (1Co 11:5 “But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with [ her] head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.”) Women were allowed to prophesy under the new covenant (1Co 14:3 This verse shows what prophesying is: “But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men [ to] edification, and exhortation, and comfort.”), and we are given examples in the New Testament where women did prophesy:

Act 21:8 And the next day we that were of Paul’s company departed, and came unto Caesarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and abode with him.
Act 21:9 And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.
Act 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
Act 2:18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

… but 1Co 14:34 has to do with married women:

1Co 14:35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

Paul was speaking of women who had a scriptural question, for the sake of not causing confusion, wait and ask their husband when they were at home. If they were to speak out, it would show they were not under obedience (subjection) to their husbands (vs 35). Even though it was previously customary for men to ask questions, even to argue and disrupt; under the New Covenant, such disruptive action was considered tumultuous, sedition in the eyes of God, and not to be thought of as led by the holy spirit:

1Co 14:33 For God is not [ the author] of confusion, but of peace…

This ability and permission for women to prophesy was not to be confused with being given authority to teach men.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

This word “teach’ is not the same word as “prophesy.’ They are entirely different functions in the church. While prophesying was for “edification, and exhortation and comfort,” the role of teacher was that of an instructor, and included having authority to teach in the congregation. Not everyone, including women, was given that authority. Said authority is not to be construed as authority over the congregation to rule over them, but of the teaching position itself; similar to graduates today having received their degree, now possess the authority to expound on their given field.

Mat 21:23 And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?
Mat 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Do these scriptures mean women can’t teach at all? By no means. The answer lies in the scriptures. As always these should be our guide.

Tit 2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Tit 2:5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

The more mature Christian woman then should be teaching her daughters, nieces, any other young woman of her acquaintance who is striving to please God in her life. These young women should avail themselves of the wisdom and experience of the older ladies to learn how a Christian wife should comport herself, how she should be teaching her children, how she should be treating her husband, etc. If a woman is really trying to please God, listen to what Peter tells us:

1Pe 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any [ husband] obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
1Pe 3:2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
1Pe 3:3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
1Pe 3:4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

Paul ends the discussion of the matter of disorderly conduct, of which women speaking out was merely a part, with 1Co 14:40 “Let all things be done decently and in order.” In other words, don’t use the God given ability to speak other languages willy- nilly (1Co 14:28 “But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church…”), don’t allow everyone to be speaking out disrupting the service (1Co 14:31 “For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.”), and continue in the tradition of the women showing their subjection to their husbands (and so to Christ and God – 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.”), all for the sake of peace and godly deportment in the assembly.

I hope this clears up the confusion for you. If not, please let me know.

May God bless your understanding,

Mike>

Hey Mike,

Quick question. Do you believe there will some kind of hierarchy when God’s kingdom is all- in- all? The scripture that comes to mind is Mat 5:19.

Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [ them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

I know the Father will always be God the Father, but what about man? Will Jesus always be second in command? Will the elect always be above those in the second resurrection? Or will we all just be the same under one God and Father? This is more out of curiosity than anything essential to my learning. Don’t bother if you find that you don’t have the time. Thanks, Mike. I pray that all is well with you and your family.

In Christ,
R____

Hi R____,
Thank you for your question.

I do not want ever to so much a “think above what is written,” so I will just point out what is said about how things will be after God is all in all.

1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
1Co 4:6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and [ to] Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think [ of men] above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.

I hope that answers your question. The Son Himself will be subject to His Father, so it appears you are right. There will always be an order even when God is in us all.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike