GROWING AND HARVEST OF GOD'S CROP - Part 4

  The subject of what is life is never exhausted. Life is experiencing Existence whether in this world or another for they both exist, and God is THE EXISTENCE who is experienced. Life is not only experiencing one of the two realms but both the Heaven and the Earth. Therefore, death is the loss of experience; when either one of the two realms are lost or even when one is isolated from God.

  In the beginning, Adam and Eve resided in the world, but they were privy to the heavens. In the Books of Aam and Eve, it is written that Adam and Eve, in the beginning, had bright eyes because of their bright natures. They could see unto the heavens. They could see the Presence of God and the angels in Paradise. Paradise was not only on Earth for them but in Heaven as well. They experienced life both on Earth and in Heaven simultaneously, and God was always in their presence.

  Adam said to God, as it is written in the pseudepigrapha Book of Adam and Eve:

But now, that I have transgressed, that bright nature is gone from me, and I am come to this miserable state. And now I have come to this, that I cannot see you, and you do not serve me like you used to do. For I have become animal flesh. (1 A & E 55:4)

  After sin, Adam could no longer see God in Heaven, nor apparently any longer walking in the Garden. Adam could no longer see preincarnate Jesus because Jesus is the manifestation of God, not two different beings.

  John the Baptist witnessed God as Adam had done when he had bright eyes:

³⁰ This is He of whom I said, “After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for He was before me. ³¹ And I knew Him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.” ³² And John bare record, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.” (John 1:30-32)

  John the Baptist was relating that Jesus was and is God and not only an image like Adam. John saw a different Image of God after he witnessed the physical Image of Him. He “saw the spirit descending.” John had bright eyes as he could see God in two of His substances. As Luke wrote, the Holy Ghost of Jesus descended “in bodily shape” (Luke 3:22).

  What did Jesus look like before He was born? He looked like Himself but of a different substance. John saw the other substance because he was filled with the Spirit at birth. He had seen Jesus as God from the womb! (Luke 1:15). John was not born blind to the other world but saw it with bright eyes like Adam once had! About Adam, it is written:

And because, when they were in the Garden they were filled with the grace of a bright nature, and they had not hearts turned toward earthly things. (1 A & E 2:4)

“Since, when at first, I (Adam) ate of the tree, He drove me out of the garden into this strange land, and deprived me of my bright nature, and brought death over me. If, then, I should do this, He will cut off my life from the earth, and He will cast me into hell, and will plague me there a long time.” (1 A & E 71:2)

  While in the Garden of Eden, Adam was filled with grace — the Spirit of God that had been breathed unto his nostrils. The first Adam had the bodily shape of Jesus breathed unto him. He was made alive because Jesus shared His Identity with Adam as the son of God. He could see things that God could see because Adam once had the bright nature of God.

  “Nature” is of the world; better said was that Adam had the countenance of God that was supra-natural. He could see beyond the natural.

  The writer of Adam and Eve defined death very well. Sin deprived Adam of his bright countenance. The Spirit of God (Jesus) was removed from him. Adam died when he sinned. He remained animated and cognitive, but his mind would thereafter be on the things of the world because God was not in the Presence of his eyes nor mind.

  Adam had died when daily communication with the Word (Jesus) was cut off. As is written, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23).

  So, death is existing in sin, and life is living without sin in the Presence of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

  Now back to the key verse that began this “pamphlet” as it has by now turned into a book: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).  

  “In Christ” is in His Spirit, and technically, since Jesus experienced death, the King James Version alone got it right. “In Christ” is having the bodily shape of the “Holy Ghost” within. The question is If it is the Holy Ghost of Jesus, how can He be your Ghost as well? The answer to that is because the Holy Ghost is not some other Being, but Jesus in you. Because He is God, God appears as Himself in different substances. He is still God in either of His three substances. God appears to most people, not as a visible Ghost in bodily shape, but an intangible but valuable Word in the thoughts of Christians:

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… ¹⁴ And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1,14)

   Jesus is the Flesh of God and God’s natural Image. The Word is God’s mental Presence wherein God is written dwells in the minds of Christians.

  Paul wrote about the whole armor of God, as “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephes 6:17). With that in mind, for those who are in the Word of God — the inspired Word of Yahweh in scripture — Jesus is there in Spirit as a sword. Visualize, Christian, that wherever you stand in Christ, Christ is there in Spirit wielding a sword to protect you from being devoured by the Wicked One who roars silently like a devouring lion (1 Pet 5:8).

  “In Christ” means that as a Christian whose mind is on Jesus, the Holy Ghost of Jesus is there slaying all your lions so that you need not raise any weapon yourselves. He will slay the liar and murderer, Satan, so that you can live in peace.

  That explains “in Christ” and at the same time “to live.” Living is aboding in the Presence of God whether in Mind, Body, and Spirit. Not our minds, body, and spirit; but God’s!

  Adam was made in an “image and in our likeness” as is written in Genesis 1:26. The “our” is in Mind, Body, and Spirit, or the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

  “In Christ” for Paul and Christians was most obvious in the Word. But when in the Word, since God is three substances in equilibrium (homeostasis), then those in the Word are in God, in the Spirit, and in Jesus, the Christ.

  Paul was certainly in Christ, in Yahweh, and in the Truth of the Word. “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (1 John 5:7) and so was Adam in the beginning.

  Unseen by Christians is that “God is with us” (Emmanuel) whenever they remain in the Word. His unseen Presence is with us in all three states. The Word is Yahweh in us and Christ in us.

  How to have Christ in three substances in us? “Marvel not,” Jesus said, “Ye must eb born again” (John 3:7). That is not back to how a person was at natural birth but how Adam-kind was when they were generated.

  Hence, “regeneration” begins at rebirth and is completed when the sinner is remade in the image of God as was sinless Adam, and that is an image of God in Mind (thoughts), Body (the flesh), and Spirit (like the Ghost that Jesus gave up, to keep sinners safe from the Wicked One).

  Regeneration begins in the mind. It begins when a sinner realizes that he or she will die because of sin, and turns to the Power of God, the Holy Ghost of Jesus with His “Sword,” to defeat the Wicked One (John 3:14).

  The first step of regeneration is taking the gift of faith and putting it to good use: Those who are “reborn” do nothing! Faith is a gift. What is the “work” that they are to do? “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). That is not ergon-type work but katergazomai, meaning “to accomplish” without expending energy.

  It is to work smarter, not harder to accomplish the same thing. The “work” that you do is mental, His thoughts become your thoughts because for sinful humans they are not (Isa 55:8). The first part of regeneration is not work at all and none of them are! Even obedience to the Ten Commandments are not works but work avoidances. They are ways to mentally have goodwill toward God and others!

  The old creature is not saved at first thought, but by remaining in the Word with Jesus leading the way and guarding your well-being with His invisible sword.

  “In Christ” is remaining stedfast in the faith. (Col 2:5). Lions devoured Christians in the Roman arenas, and they can devour Christians in the world arena (1 Pet 5:8). Why should a Christian worry about the Devil devouring him if he could not? One must stay in the Word for the Devil to flee from them: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (Jas 4:7).

  The first step in becoming a godly being in Christ is belief and trust. The second step is to submit yourself to God. Submission is standing still and allowing the Holy Ghost of Jesus to enter in much the same way as the priests of old did when Joshua (Jesus) entered unto “Paradise.”

  Submission is the sinner submission to the putting on of the “skin” of the Lamb of God, just as Adam submitted to God’s protective coat.

  For Adam, the “coat” had three substances. He wore death to remind him of life, he wore the flesh provided by God to protect his weakened flesh, and he wore the Word of God in his coat to. He now believed in and trusted in what God said because with the coat of skin, he was in Christ. Thereafter, in the Book of Adam and Eve, it is learned that the Word wielded the “sword” against the Wicked One on their behalf. Adam and Eve remained safe until they were raised from the grave when Jesus was resurrected:

⁵² And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, ⁵³ And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Mat 27:52-53)

  The mind of Adam was preserved when he heard the Word speak and felt contrition. The soul of Adam was preserved when he died 930 years later with the promise of salvation. He lived with the hope of salvation and died with it on his mind (1 Thes 5:8). When Adam died he was safe from the Wicked One, even his own son, Cain. What happened to him and Eve at the Resurrection of Jesus? His bones were raised from the dead at the “place of Adam’s cranium” called “Golgotha” and Calvary (cranium). [1] Then his flesh was saved from the Wicked One.

  Thus, the regeneration of Adam was much as his generation. First his mind was restored, then his spirit was breathed in again with the death of the lamb, and finally his flesh was made anew. It was a three-step process just as at his generation.

  God knew Adam before the foundation of the world, and everyone else as well. (Ephes 1:4). At that time, God knew each person’s mind and soul, and selected which ones to provide life to and when.

  Adam was God’s first selection. He took the pre-existing mind and soul of Adam, made an image from water and earth, formed it, and then took the immortal soul and mind from His storehouse and made a living creature.

  Satan cannot kill the soul, but can the image, so why fear the one that can kill just the body? It is not Satan who can kill the soul, but only God who can do that! Hell is the place of death: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat 10:28). Rather than fear Satan, sinners should fear God, but His desire is that none should perish.

  Because of God’s grace for sinners, all are among those who should not perish (John 3:16), but many will because they are not on the Word, and not in Christ. It is worth repeating: in Christ is in the Word, and in the Word is with the bodily shape of the Ghost of Jesus hovering about you with the motion of a dove, and wielding His mighty sword to protect you.

  Death ends that preservation, and thereafter the Christian is no longer just safe, but saved, thus finalizing the regeneration process. The result is a new creature as the original, glorious Adam but no longer susceptible to the wiles of the Devil because the “bodily shape” of the Ghost of Jesus finished off Satan.

  Who killed Judas? He tried by hanging himself, but the Ghost of Jesus broke the “silver cord” of some type with which he had hung himself.

  Was that what Solomon saw when he defined death as the loosening of the silver cord (Ecc  12:6)? Judas killed the flesh of Judas because he could do that. He was aided by the one who can kill the body but not the soul.

  Satan was in Judas, and Satan thought nefarious thoughts to Judas and Satan “suicided” Judas. Then, a little later, the Holy Ghost of Jesus, before even taking the repentant thief to Paradise, escorted Satan to Hell along with his law of sin, to wit: “Now that He ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?” (Ephes 4:9). He took Satan from the water of the belly of Judas and imprisoned him in Hell until he is needed again to test mankind. Satan was rendered powerless, but the law of sin remains in the world. It is as Anton Levey said, “Do what thou wilt; that is the whole law.”

  Satan was as already dead when the Holy Ghost delivered him to his realm. No longer can Satan enter anyone but his thoughts do continually! The only remaining person that Satan will enter, for God’s purposes, is the Antichrist in the end.

  Until then, our thoughts are as the thoughts of Satan unless what we think on is the Word; that is us in Christ with His mighty sword keeping is safe until the time of salvation, sometime after enduring with stedfast faith until the end (Mat 10:22).

  In summary, life is while in Christ, whether it be on Earth or in Heaven. Death, conversely, is away from Christ, whether on Earth or in the “heaven” (realm) of Hell. Hence, life is in Christ, and death in the spirit of Satan. With that said, many of the “living” are spiritually dead. Most live in death! For those who have not worked out their salvation, they are not as God but as Satan, and as dead!

  That brings us to the word “dead” in the key verse. Tomorrow, that will be discussed exhaustively. 

(picture credit: A Knight's Blog; "Sword: Word of God") 

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[1] For more on that, refer to my book, The Skull of Adam.

GROWING AND HARVEST OF GOD'S GARDEN - Part 3

  The two previous commentaries have barely touched on the key verse and its significance: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).

  “Life” therein is more than animated with the ability to grow. God breathed life unto Adam. Of course, his image did animate, but it was motivated by the spirit that God breathed unto his “nostrils,” are literally into his mind. Adam received the Mind of God to complete the three dimensions of the image: mind, body, and spirit. God may have blown the knowledge of only good into his mind. Indeed, it was very good (Gen 1:31).

  Lifelessness was the first process in imaging Adam. His elementary particles, carbon and such, were taken from the earth, mixed with sacred water from the River of the Garden and molded by the hands of pre-incarnate Jesus. Jesus was molding Adam in His own image (Gen 1:26).

  What happened inside of Adam when God breathed unto him? He was identified as Adam as he was made and named Adam after he had life (Gen 2:19) as he obtained the ability to think in naming the animals.

 Something happened to man when life was given to him. He was named by God as man. He was identified by name for his kind, or species.

  What had happened when God breathed unto man. He was identified as different than the beasts (Gen 2:19 again). God breathed His DNA into Adam and man was more than a lifeless image and more than another species; he was uniquely man and had that identification in every cell of his body; an identification that he was uniquely and fully man!

  Since DNA is found in every cell and is unique to the individual, it is the DNA profile of animated creatures. Man’s profile is much different than the other animals. Their profile is also called “DNA fingerprinting” because the “code” of the man or animal is encoded in their DNA. The code is their full identity and Adam’s was different than the animals that he named.

  He was identified uniquely as man and his DNA differed from the other species. He was of God as he had the code of God. Others have already explained what was found in the DNA of man:

Mankind is fearfully and wonderfully made, with a hidden code within the cell of every life. This code is the alphabet of DNA that spells out the Creator’s name and man’s purpose. Scientist(s) discovered a “map” of four DNA bases that carry the ability to sustain life. These bases, known as chromosomes, are paired differently for each person. Human DNA contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, made up of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and their acidic counterparts. Encoded within these elements is an amazing blueprint of life that proves the Creator has put His own unique stamp upon every person. This stamp is actually His name as revealed to Moses thousands of years ago. It was from the burning bush that the Almighty revealed his character as the great “I AM.” This name is the tetragrammaton of the Hebrew letters yod, hey, waw, hey. “I AM WHO I AM…

“The key to translating the code of DNA into a meaningful language is to apply the discovery that converts elements to letters. Based upon their matching values of atomic mass, hydrogen becomes the Hebrew letter Yod (Y), nitrogen becomes the letter Hey (H), oxygen becomes the letter Wav (V or W), and carbon becomes Gimel (G). These substitutions now reveal that the ancient form of YHWH’s name, YHWH, exists as the literal chemistry of our genetic code. (Creative Commons 2005-2013)

  In my book, without this information in mind (The Omega Variant), I concluded that the life of Adam is identified in his DNA and that his DNA was given to him by God when God breathed life unto the elements of the earth.

 In other words, Adam’s carbon chain was woven as a thread and all the information about him was encoded to make man a unique creature, different than the other animals. Life is in the DNA and it is God breathed just as the Word (Jesus) in scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16-17; NIV), “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

  God breathed life unto Adam. He breathed the Word (Jesus) unto Adam and that was very good. It was righteous knowledge that He breathed for “every good work.” When God breathes the Word unto readers, it brings life to the reader, and when God breathed life unto Adam, he was filled with the Word which was the Will of God. The mind of Adam was of the same knowledge of God and that was to do God’s work — to animate him for a special purpose.

  God lost Virtue (dynamis) in generating Adam. His Virtue animated Adam as dynamis implies. Just as Jesus lost virtue with the woman with a blood issue, God lost Virtue when He made Adam whole. Wholeness means that God makes one alive, either then or now.

  Adam was made alive when God breathed Virtue into his mind. Virtue, or goodness, was encoded in the DNA of Adam, and the tree having evil, encoded the law of sin into the minds of Adam and Eve, and sin became part of them. They spiritually died when the “Code” of Yahweh (YHWH) was replaced with the code of Lucifer (666). As scripture calls them, “the Law of God” was replaced by the “Law of Sin” (Rom 7:25).

  The purpose of Adam was to multiply (Gen 8:17) and literally to serve and preserve the “Garden” (Gen 2:15). Adam was “planted” in the Garden by God: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen 2:8). Adam was planted, even his DNA, to grow and to multiply his “seed” (genes). Hence, the Garden was a “Garden of Living Souls” that Adam would serve and preserve for God’s use.

  Life is in the “threading” of the DNA when God wove the double-helix and put His code, “JHWH,” in it. Solomon helped define that:

⁶ Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. ⁷ Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. (Ecc 12:6-7)

  Solomon was speaking of mankind. Referring to returning to the dust of the earth, or death, Solomon said “ever the silver cord be loosed.” Literally, the “silver cord” is the “pale twisted thread” (Strong’s Dict.) and what is the DNA carbon chain? A pale twisted thread in the form of a double-helix that only God could have woven! (The number of carbon is 666 — six electrons, six positrons, and six neutrons.)

  So, if cutting the silver cord of DNA is death, then tying it to the image of Adam was life!

  DNA is life. Your own DNA is your total identity — from God, your progenitors, and your race, gender, personality, place of origin, physical characteristics, desires, and even your purpose in life. It is you and you alone, and God wants that “none should perish” (John 3:16); that your DNA never be loosed by any means.

  If the human DNA is tampered with, it tampers with both your identity and your code. It can even remove the JHWH from you when scientists decode and re-encode your DNA. Tampering with DNA is tampering with your very life, and Lucifer was savvy of that with his knowledge of both good and evil.

  So, what did Lucifer do? He concealed his personality and seemed all good. Then he sucked the life from Eve and breathed death unto her. How he did that was with some “fiery dart” (Ephes 6:16) that may very well be sperm.

  There is evidence in scripture of which I have written that points toward carnal knowledge, or sexual intercourse, between the Image of Lucifer (the “Serpent”) and the Image of God (Eve) to produce a mutant man-angel (Cain) who would wander the land of Nod and spread that new gene. Cain means “Wanderer” and Nod is essentially anywhere outside of Paradise.

  Sperm resembles a serpent. The Hebrew word translated “serpent” could as well be translated “image” and “fiery serpent” as ‘sarap (seraph).

  The fiery dart could very well be the sperm from the semen of an angelic seraph. Another kind coupled with Adam’s kind and produced defiled DNA. Man was no longer fully man, and with that man died by the intercourse between Lucifer and Eve. She then, became the mother of all the living (Gen 3:20) and Adam not named as the father of all living. The Wicked One had become the progenitor of all mankind (John 8:44).

  Mankind died when Eve coupled someway and received the “Serpent.” That serpent must have been the sperm of Lucifer because Cain was part him and part Eve with no credit given to Adam, as is written, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, ‘I have gotten a man from the lord’” (Gen 4:1).

  Eve literally recognized (‘yada) Adam and credited herself and her “lord;” not the LORD GOD but just “lord.” (Her new lord.)

  The silver cord was loosed by genetics. Cain’s DNA was of the Wicked One (1 John 3:12), and Adam’s kind had died by original sin.

  “Original sin” is thought of as only disobedience, but apparently the DNA was changed from human to less human, and death ensued; man was no longer man but iniquitous (perverse). Man was not totally depraved (‘avon) because YHWH is still in their DNA but so is sin. As such the Resurrection (Regeneration) is a cutting and splicing of the human DNA by the Hand of God (Jesus). He infuses His Blood and Spirit into degenerate man and makes them in the image of God again.

  The propitiation of the blood and water of Jesus will restore the DNA of mankind when the dead in Christ shall rise. Then God will make the sinful “Adams” new Adams as He restores their glorious DNA in every cell of their new flesh.

  That should just about cover what life is about. Maybe not. We shall see tomorrow as the commentary continues.

(picture credit: (ibid))

GROWING AND HARVEST OF GOD'S GARDEN - Part 2

  The previous commentary began the expository rendering of one verse: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). The one word “gain” was presented but it certainly has not been fully explored. “Gain” to Paul was essentially the “prize” in the race of life: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Cor 9:24).

Paul spoke literally of an Olympiad when there was only one champion in each race. He applied that to a metaphorical, even a spiritual, race but not where only one wins the prize but just a few. Nowadays all that enter are rewarded a prize just for entering. They run the race, even slovenly, but still get a prize, for just being there. Many never even finish the modern races but are still rewarded. That is not the Way it is done in spiritual races.

In the case of Adam and Eve, the race was much different than what one would expect: “So He (God) drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Gen 3:24). Perhaps the flaming sword is more than coincidence since the Olympiad has the Flame of Olympia that lights the way to the race. Paul must have been as much a sports enthusiast as he was a zealot for God!

One big difference: The Olympiad events were run fully naked, but Adam’s and Eve’s “race” was run fully clothed, both wearing the full-length Garment of God. So, consider the marathon as how Paul likened the spiritual race.

That race was run naked as well. It was symbolic of running in the flesh. For many who attempt to run the spiritual race; they too expect to run it in the flesh. They are unworthy to run because the flesh is only an image, and the race of life is a spiritual Olympiad. The prize is awarded only at the end of the race and not before. The spiritual runners must run for the duration; as Jesus said, “He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Mat 24:13).

Endure what? Iniquity (Mat 24:12). Iniquity is the “economy” of the world, and it must be overcome. Grace is that Jesus, for those who rightfully qualify, aids the runner. Jesus addressed that issue when He said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; ‘I have overcome the world’” (John 16:33).

Remember those cherubim guarding the Way to the Tree of Life? Cherubim are guardians of the Way.  They are the “watchers” along the Way to overcome the endurance of the runner.

The most notorious of the “cherubim” were the Anakim giants that blocked entrance to the Land of Milk and Honey at the entrance to the Garden of God. They were as grasshoppers to Joshua, but Joshua and Caleb overcame them! Joshua was the Name of Jesus and Caleb means the “servant,” obviously of Jesus.

Abraham had also found grace but he and his fellow-worker, Lot, were blocked by “cherubim” in Sodom and Gomorrah. The residents of those great cities had become another kind of being — they had become depraved beasts full of iniquity.

If Abraham and Joshua had their cherubim blocking the Way to the Tree of Life in Jerusalem, any that run the race have their cherubim too. They are so great that if people could see them that they could be identified as cherubim. The world is full of unseen cherubim and the pleasurable images that are presented as entertainment are full of cherubim. They are the obstacles to winning the race for life!

Sincere Christians run the race full “clothed.” The reward is of course eternal life, but the “Prize” is the Tree of Life that remains in the Paradise of heaven and is still guarded by cherubim: “And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind” (Rev 4:6). Those beasts are cherubim who remain along the Way to guard the Tree of Life. For those who enter the race and think that the race is easy, it certainly is not!

Why all the cherubim? Because there must be obstacles for the runners to face to endure to the end. No entrant can coast any of the Way! Faith is a gift, but it must be used and worked to please God.

What is at the end of the race? The reward: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev 2:7). That goes back to Genesis wherein Adam and Eve entered the race for the Tree of Life, and all along the Way, from then to the crucifixion, cherubim kept them out of the Garden. When Jesus was crucified, the Way for them, and all mankind, was provided so long as the Coat of the Lamb of the God is put on and worn.

So, the “gain” of which Paul wrote is the prize — to no longer eat of the Tree of Knowledge of both good and evil but only of the Tree of Life of which, “the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2), meaning the “whosoever” in John 3:16.

The finish of the race — the gain — is this: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev 22:14). Just what is the “right” to the reward? They that do as Jesus commands — to love God and all of Adam’s kind.

“Blessed” has two meanings: (1) reward in the Presence of God, and (2) God taking a knee to the winner. Those who finish the race shall be served by Jesus. Rather than you, taking a knee to Him in mockery as the soldiers did at the crucifixion, God will take a knee to the finishers of the race.

Back to the one who finishes. It is not a relay race. It is a personal race for individuals. No others can endure for you, and you are all alone in the race as if by yourself. Your parents cannot lead you nor any of your friends. Your preacher cannot help you, but only Jesus can! It is just you and God, runner.

Now to continue: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” The race was for Paul. It was him alone, racing to the prize.

There are other runners, but their courses are elsewhere. There are no shortcuts but there are detours. The race can be lengthened, not according to time, but distance. Taking the eye off the prize can be either a detour or somewhere along the Way there could be a roadblock that cherubim have put up. Keeping the eyes on the prize keeps the race as short and obstacle free as can be. Nowhere does the runner just sit down in apathy and give up. If that happens the cherubim will hover around and see that they are immoveable.

Faith must be steadfast; that there is a prize at the end, and it is already as if yours because you believe it to be real and true. The runner has the hope of winning (1 Thes 5:8) but it is not a sure thing because you are not God, but only an image of God.

Only God is certain, and runners are hopeful. Nobody runs without a shadow of a doubt but the cherubim shadows them all the time and puts much doubt in their Way. Doubt must be overcome, and that is by steadfast faith (Col 2:5) and keeping on the whole armour of God for the duration of the race.

The Garment of Adam was his “armor,” and it was passed down to Noah. Noah found grace (Gen 6:8) and he put on the whole armor of God. He wore it through all the tribulation, but Noah never made it to Salem where the Tree of Life was there in the form of Melchizedek.

The Tree of Life did not wither; it endured the storm, and all that water washed the cherubim away from Noah until he was on dry ground.

There, for some reason, Noah took off the Garment of Adam, and exposed himself to a cherub in the soul of his son, Ham.

Noah, thereafter, did not make it all the way to the middle of the “bow” that we think of as a rainbow but is perhaps the fertile crescent with the Tree of Life in its midst! Noah finally made it all the Way because Jesus made the propitiation for his past sin (Rom 3:25) — of becoming drunk and exposing himself in insobriety to the tactics of the cherubim.

For Noah, the “race” was not finished at the mountains of Ararat (Mount Judi in greater Ararat) but at the Cross on Good Friday, AD 33 — all because he failed to wear faithfully the armor of God!

Next in the key verse is “live.” People think of life as physically growing and accomplishing things in the word and having all their biological needs met. Adam and Eve also failed to understand life and death because they had never experienced death. They body of knowledge was incomplete before sin.

As a child, I experienced death, not in reality, but in a vision. God provided a vision of me as if I was floating alone in nothingness toward somewhere, perhaps Hell in the heavens.

I never saw Hell itself, but only the Way there. Like Paul, it was for me alone. Nobody else was there as I was all alone in time and space.

I really had that vision when I was a child, and I was on the path to Hell. The “gate” was indeed broad, but I was entering it by myself, as surely there were many more on different paths in the expanse of the universe. I never saw Hell itself, but I saw where I was heading, For me, to die was isolation; and to live was gain. I had to stay alive! I had seen death, but I wanted life.

Imagine if you will, the sinners in the days of Noah. They experienced what I saw. My “water” was empty space but theirs was H₂0 water. My way was Hell via the waters of space (Gen 1:6) but theirs was the waters on the face of the Earth. Either way, waters were separated from the waters, but both were ways to Hell.

By grace, God drowned the sinners and the cherubim in them. I believe they saw what I saw as they were sucked down the Well of Souls beneath the Foundation Stone. For me, I went the other “waters” in my vision. I went unto the heavens by a different route as I glided like a dove straight to Hell, and neither would this “dove” ever come back.

To be straightforward, that vision scared the Hell out of me, and I sought grace. Like Noah long before, I entered the race and intend to be there for the “prize” to see God take a knee to me rather than me a mocking knee to Him!

Can you not see? Life is the Way to the Prize. Death scared me. Paul saw life, and he saw it as gain. I began to see what Paul saw!

(continued tomorrow as this is getting lengthy)

(picture credit: iStock; "Running a Race")