Sometimes things remain unseen with the eyes wide open. For instance, the name of the book, “Genesis” is about the genetics of the “Garden” that God planted, and the Garden of Eden is essentially the Plantation Estate of God. In that Garden, God planted a variety of crops, foremost God planted the upright species of Adam in the Garden of Eden, “The Lord God planted a Garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom he had formed” (Gen 2:8).
One of each gender was required
for pollination for reproduction. The difference in the species, called “Adam,”
was that it was made in the Image of God. God was the “Husbandman” on that
Estate and the man His caretaker to “dress and keep” the Garden (Gen 2:15).
Now, forget that this was just a small Garden but a huge Plantation. God had
made for Himself an Estate.
I had previously missed the point of both the word, “Garden” and “Genesis” but they were concealed in plain sight! God, I soon realized, was making an estate that someday He would divide amongst His heirs — those with his Image, or Genetics. Paul revealed to the world what I suspected:
16
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and
joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also
glorified together. (Rom 8:16-17)
Likewise, as Paul told the
Romans, their requirement as Gentiles would be for their spirit to testify to
the Spirit of God to be “joint heirs” with Christ Jesus.
Jesus was glorified.
Glorification is a process: (1) God planted Jesus in His “Garden” in the
Kingdom of David, (2) He grew it to maturity therein, (3) He was “harvested”
for God at the crucifixion, and (4) Jesus was the seed (genes) that could
provide life in a dying world.
Jesus revived the crop of human
beings that the invasive “Serpent” had poisoned with “fiery darts” (Ephes 6:16)
with the poison of sin on them. Satan ruined the Garden, and soon its human plants
would wither and die.
All that to say that God developed
an Estate that He would leave to His “genesis” (Greek; gignesthai —
those to be born.) His intention was for all those born would be joint heirs, however,
both of mankind — the male and female — would emancipate themselves from God and
no longer be joint heirs with anyone other than the Wicked One.
The Bible is about having heirs.
All kings worried about who would gain their kingdom at their demise.
Herod was paranoid about who his chief
heir would be, and Caesar, when Herod died, made all his remaining children joint
heirs. God had planned His Chief Heir as well — the Messiah was to be “King
of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim 6:15).
All this is the backdrop to the “Parable
of the Rich Fool” from Luke chapter 12. It begins with one member of the multitude
that was listening to Jesus with a request; one of great significance to him, “Master,
speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13).
Apparently, the man’s father had
died, leaving an estate. By the Law of Primogeniture, the estate would go to
the eldest brother. Those who knew scripture would know that the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ignored primogeniture and would most often choose the
second son, as was the case of both Isaac and Jacob who became heirs despite
primogeniture.
Primogeniture is important because
kings and lords designated their first-born male sons as heirs. Joint heirs were
seldom the case. The first born, were the first genes of the lords and it would
be those “seed” that received the estate, and they would be the husbandmen.
God broke conventions; He selected
second-born sons and in their absence, because of death, latter-born sons. My
bet is that the man was testing Jesus who had just indicated that He was God, “He
that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God” (Luke
12:9).
If Jesus was God as He claimed,
then He would act like God, would He not? He would follow the rule of the
second-son and make the second son heir.
The man seemed generous; he was
not after his father’s estate entirely, but to be a joint-heir with his
elder brother. That seemed gracious to the man; he was not after it all but his
fair share. Surely, a gracious king would divide his father’s estate in the
manner of Caesar.
Jesus, wary of the approach, responded,
“Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?” (Luke 12:14).
If Jesus was king as the man may
have thought because Caesar had appointed no heir of Herod in Judea, that the
man had the audacity to usurp Caesar, seemed disconcerting to Jesus. Who
made you, Caesar, man? For only Caesar could ordain kings in his “estate”
of Rome.
The man had the nerve to make
Jesus the judge and arbiter in civil matters, not realizing that this world
was not the Kingdom of God.
Jesus recognized the man’s
motives, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth
not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:14). The man
had just broken the Tenth Commandment and as such, as well have broken them all
(Jas 2:10).
Jesus had just warned the
multitude, “He that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of
God” (Luke 12:9). Then Jesus spoke the parable, ending with “Thou fool, this
night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be,
which thou hast provided? (Luke 12:20).
Jesus was speaking of the man’s
estate if He indeed would judge in his favor.
What was important to the man?
His father’s estate and the pleasures that would be thereon (Luke 12:19). Like
most people that man missed the point that Jesus was making with His ministry, I
AM the real heir to the Father’s Estate, and if you follow Me and share My
Spirit, you can be joint heirs with Me!
The man wanted to be joint heir
with his brother but did not even consider that Jesus was the legitimate heir
to Paradise in heaven; that Jesus even had the Power to judge him and arbitrate
the Estate of God!
The man was more worried about
the here and now more so than the hereafter, and seemed not to worry about
where his own soul might be planted.
What could the man have asked? Jesus,
how can I be a joint heir with you, and where is your Estate? What crop do you
grow there, and will it ever fail? No, he was more worried about his brother’s
estate and how he could take what was not his by shenanigans. He was using
Jesus to get what was not his. That is the forbidden sin of usury, and he did
so right in the face of God!
Recognizing Jesus as judge and
arbitrator seems admirable, but the man failed to realize that Jesus was God,
as Jesus had just pointed out. Jesus did not come to judge and divide land
but the “Promised Land” in another realm.
The multitude always failed to
see that; the Promise Land was never the Kingdom of David but the Kingdom of
Abraham who God heired it to for safekeeping.
The Book of Jasher identifies
Abraham as a king, but a king living in the kingdom belonging to the Canaanites.
Where, then, was the Kingdom of God that Abraham had become joint heir therein?
It was in another realm.
Luke identified the Kingdom of
God and the Estate that Abraham was to temporarily rule as “Abraham’s Bosom”
(Luke 16:22).
Those who are regenned by God
above (“born again;” John 3:7) are joint heirs with Jesus and entitled to
the Estate of God.
You may have missed it as well
but there is no “Old Testament” and “New Testament.” The New fulfills the Old;
it is a “codicil” — an addendum — to the original Last Will and Testament of
God.
To be joint heirs with Jesus requires
Him to judge and divide the Estate of God — that Garden for two that has grown
into a Great City of God with many living souls within its walls, each governing
very democratically as joint heirs.
With that explained, the entire
Bible is the Testament of God and how the Estate will be probated. By the way,
Jesus probated the Will of God when He was Glorified, and those who follow Him
will be Glorified in like manner at the General Resurrection. He divides the
Estate of God to those who follow Him all the Way there.
Jesus said it best, “In my
Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I
go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
The mansion is on that great
Plantation in Paradise, the very Estate of God, not here, but in heaven. It is
as real as the world but in another realm. That is the inheritance that the man
should have asked Jesus about.
(picture credit: HoumasHouse,com)
No comments:
Post a Comment