GROWING AND HARVESTING OF GOD'S CROP - Part 6

   So far in the scripture, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” the “me” makes it personal — to be or not to be — alive in Christ. That decision is free will. Man was created in the image of God and the entire Bible is the “Will and Testament of God.”

  Man was created to do the Will of God, and as created, that will was instinctive because man was designed that way. The DNA of God passed along His Will to mankind, and that was literally entirely good (Gen 1:31), not just “very good” because what God created was glorious; it was in splendor and all things were to the perfect Will of God.

  Sin disrupted that perfection, and no longer was the will of man harmonious with the Will of God. With sin, man was no longer “in Christ” as he had theretofore been in God. Adam was in God because God was in him (Gen 2:7) and because “life” is essentially endowed with God and death is not fully alive, or not fully in God.

  In God is God in you, and “in Christ” is also with God — the Christ Jesus — in you.

  Luke wrote in the Book of Acts, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:4). That is the “baptism of the Holy Ghost” — the One Baptism (Ephes 4:5). “All” in that passage did not mean everyone, but specific ones, “When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1), then they were filled with the Holy Ghost with Christ in them.

  Accord means that Christ was in them and them in Christ, and each in Christ together that day in one place; with Christ because he was about to come down in Spirit form.

  At the baptism of Jesus, the Holy Ghost appeared in “bodily shape.” That was a Spirit that looked like Him. It was His spiritual image of which the Man, Jesus, was the bodily image. God has three Images: (1) a bodily image, (2) a spiritual image, and (3) a literal image. The latter is the “Word.”

  When Jesus was baptized, the Spiritual Image of the One true God was revealed, and so it would be when Jesus was crucified. Now that He was alive, the “Comforter” (the Holy Ghost) appeared in another Image that was manifested at the beginning of time, to wit: “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them” (Acts 2:3).

  The word, “cloven,” is archaic; it means “to divide.” When they were together God divided, not a literal “tongue,” but a theretofore unknown language. God spoke to them Words that were probably in His original language that had become a foreign one due to sin.

  They had been born again, and with rebirth, they were given not new tongues but for a time, the very exact Words of God in the original tongue. Thus, cloven fire, did not come on them, but the Word did apparently with the intensity of a burning fire. It seems that the very Fire of the Burning Bush was revealed to them as it had been for Moses, and they all received the Word much as Moses had!

  On that occasion, those who followed Christ were made alive. They even received the same Word in the same language as Adam when he was made alive. They did not get a version of the Truth. but the absolute Truth and it was given to them in Word. They were “in Christ” because the Word was divided among them. It was the same “tongue,” but it was not the tongue nor even the language that was divided, but that the Word was shared with each one that were in accord with Him and each other.

  “Accord” in that verse is harmony in that they were one in mind. All their minds were focused on Christ. They were in homothymadon (“rushing along in unison;” Strong’s Dictionary). They were together seeking Christ, and then in Christ they became; not in body, but Word, and then the Spirit came unto them.

  “In Christ” is in the Word of God and it was as it was in the age of Adam who in the Word with the coats of skin that God had put on both Adam and Eve for them to be in accordance with each other and the Word!

  Adam and Eve were vicariously in Christ because the Word had overshadowed them with Truth — that here is death and you will die! Adam and Eve, then wearing their new garments, were in Christ, the Word. The Holy Spirit, not then a “Ghost,” was on them, and they were in the Word, or in Christ.

There are metrics for being in Christ, and they are in the Word:

²² The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, ²³ meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. ²⁴ And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. ²⁵ If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Gal 5:22-25) (The Latin Vulgate version adds three more metrics, making them the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, or Christ in you.)

 The Tree of Life (Jesus) bears “twelve manner of fruits” (Rev 22:2). In Christ is bearing all twelve of those fruits, each enumerated in Galatians chapter five.

  How did Paul know that for him, he was in Christ? Paul had those characteristics that Saul had not! Saul was the old creature, and his characteristics had been things as these: “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like” (Gal 5:19-21).

  The old creature (Saul) had those characteristics and the new creature (Paul) the fruits of the Spirit of God (the Holy Ghost in him). Those attributes are ways to know whether anyone is a new creature and that is because new creatures will bear good fruit!  The twelve fruits are to “live in the Spirit,” and to be in Christ. Those fruits are evidence that Christians are in accord with Jesus and are in Christ.

  When comparing those contrasting metrics, it should be obvious that one set is for the old creature and the other set, the good fruits, are for the new creature. Something inside the person changes, and that is the will of the person. In Christ is reverting to innocent Adam, and the willingness to do the Will of God. That is what happened when Saul was born again as Paul.

  The nature of Saul changed. He was not what he once was! Something inside was made anew, and the “shadow” that overwhelmed the DNA of God in the old creature was removed. The Yahweh in Saul returned when he saw Jesus, not in the Flesh, but in the Spirit. He was in Christ and Christ in him. Before he had been the “temple belonging to Lucifer” and afterward the very Temple of God (1 Cor 6:19).

  Saul was then in accord with Jesus and was in Christ and with God in him.

  God had always been in Saul, even in his DNA, and Jesus lifted the curtain of the Law that blinded him to God. Inside that “loosened cord” of DNA was Yahweh, and Jesus tightened the “silver cord,” as perhaps Solomon referred to the DNA carbon chain. Then life returned to Saul.

  That Jesus renamed Saul, “Paul” is significant. He had become a new creature. That means that he was no longer brutish with the bad character of the Wicked One, but domesticated, and bearing good fruits.

  The man’s identity changed. His whole character was renewed. No longer was Saul the child of the Devil, but a son of God. He had Yahweh in his shadow, and Jesus removed that shadow, the image of the Serpent, and shined the Light of Yahweh in him. His bonds with Yahweh were renewed, and JHWH in his DNA was tied to his identity again, Jesus had retied the loosened silver cord and Saul was remade alive.

  The DNA carbon chain is from God. It is the identity of mankind that differed from animal kind. It distinguishes the difference between man and ape who are so much alike that those who have been blinded perceive them to be the same beast! It is that 1-6 percent difference that makes man the chosen kind.

  DNA is the encoded identity of the person that totally contains who they are — from whom they came and all their characteristics.

  A change in DNA changes who they are. The Chinese endeavor to change their people into super-soldiers by snipping and splicing their DNA with a synthetic gate-RNA, much like cutting and pasting in a computer program. It is possible to change who people are by changing their DNA, and if biogenetics can create super men, they can create compliant men. As in the book, Brave New World, they can design the newborn (germline) to be whatever society needs for them to be.

  Certainly, wicked people who would tamper with God-given DNA do not want them to be in Christ, but in the world, so to speak, for the “greater good” and not for the goodness of God.

  The DNA has another feature:

  DNA can be twisted like a rope in a process called DNA supercoiling. With DNA in its "relaxed" state, a strand usually circles the axis of the double helix once every 10.4 base pairs, but if the DNA is twisted the strands become more tightly or more loosely wound. (Wikipedia; “DNA”)

   Now compare that to what the wisest man ever wrote:

⁵ …because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: ⁶ Or ever the silver cord be loosed… ⁷ Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. (Ecc 12:5-7)

  Serpents do what when excited? They coil. Powerful snakes supercoil. The serpent in Lucifer, if not his sperm, was his nature. His evil DNA when excited perhaps can be called supercoiling as his wicked DNA became more tightly or loosely bound. Is that what Solomon saw about life and death; a change in the DNA from taut to loosened with the onset of death? Did he, at one time, have the bright eyes to see things then unseen as did Adam in the Books of Adam and Eve?

  Wikipedia says, “DNA can be twisted like a rope in a process called DNA supercoiling.” Literally, the “silver cord” of which Solomon wrote, is the “pale twisted thread” (Strong’s Dictionary). It appears from Solomon’s change in nature that his own DNA may have supercoiled, being tightened or loosened whether he was righteous or unrighteous. Was he speaking from experience of what was happening inside as he became more heretical with the influence of his foreign wives? It can only be speculated, but surely Solomon was describing DNA and its movement like a serpent.

  Was the DNA the “Serpent” in original sin? When Eve was changed inside, was the “Serpent” in her a loosening of her DNA, as Solomon described? Oh, only to know the things of God more succinctly!

  Solomon defined death for the reader. It is the loosening of the pale twisted thread; perhaps it is when the DNA is loosened. Something inside makes the old creature a new creature and Christ in him is that thing. That DNA has JWHW bonds, and they are the code of the DNA that has great significance in numerology. Also, that the DNA is a carbon chain and that the number of carbon is “666” has great significance.

  Organic matter is carbon based and humans are at the top of the carbon footprint. Truly the number of man is 666, and the number of God some number greater than that!

  Judaism, Christianity, and even Satanism recognizes the number of God as “777.” It is a natural number, meaning that it represents perfection, and the Creation is perfection.

  The number of God will be put on man when perfection is eminent during the last days. Those who endure persecution to the death will be given the number of God. A guess might mean that the flesh will return to dust and the soul reveal the Spirit inside as the Ghost of the Christian is translated to Paradise in another realm. The DNA might not then be a visible carbon-chain but a spiritual chain that resembles the DNA of God himself.

  This is all speculation but with the events of the present times, it does make sense. There are just too many coincidences that points toward sinful and righteous DNA. One thing is known; that there is a change in substance when death ensues. There is some thing gained, and that is a new person with a substance unknown in earth and on Earth. Was Paul aware of that substance? Did God reveal the “gain” that he would have?

  Jesus revealed to Paul His substance in Heaven:

³ And as he (Saul) journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a Light from heaven: ⁴ And he fell to the earth, and heard a Voice saying unto him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:3-4)\

  Jesus revealed His substance to Saul. He was Light, and He still is! “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The Voice from above was the bearer of Light; the same Light that Created the world in the beginning: “And God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light’” (Gen 1:3).

  Jesus identified Himself as the Existence (YHWH) who is Creator of all things.

 Jesus said of Himself, “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Thus, having the Light of Jesus is Life, or “in Christ” as in the key verse. The Truth is the Light. Truth is obtained from the Word, so living in the Word is Christ in you, and according to Jesus, “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

  Jesus is the Christ, and no man can come to the Father in Paradise but by having the Word, Jesus, in him. Paul had the Word in him because his writings were God-breathed (2 Tim 2:16; NIV). God breathed life unto Saul as he had with Adam. Paul was in Christ because the Word was in him, and it was Truth.

  Life for everyone, therefore, is remaining in the Word of God so that God keeps his Breath in the Christian.

  Lucifer exhumed the Breath of God in Adam and Eve and breathed death unto the two. The phosphorus in him perhaps deregulated the vital organs of the two!

  Sacred literature says that only after sin did the two have internal organs. Whether that is mere speculation or true is unknown, but the two were changed inside somehow because they became brutish, meaning that they must have meat and the organs to digest meat. Indeed, they had become a different kind of being.

   Tomorrow we will continue with this expository rendering of that one key verse.

(picture credit: Pinterest; "Fruit of the Spirit Quotes")