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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