Dear Mike,

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

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

Thank you,
L____

Hi L____,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You ask:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your brother in Christ,
Mike