SAFE ABOARD, NOT SO IF NOT

Sometimes we do not see the past because the present is in the way. Sometimes we cannot see the Spirit because the Body of Christ stands between us and the Spirit. Sometimes we cannot see God at the helm of the ‘ship’ because Jesus seems to be not with us. Gone unnoticed by theologians is the crossing of the waters and its significance: 

²² But Jesus said unto him (the disciple who wanted Jesus to delay so that he could bury his father), “Follow Me; and let the dead bury their dead.” ²³ And when He was entered into a ship, His disciples followed Him. ²⁴ And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but He was asleep. ²⁵ And His disciples came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us: we perish.” ²⁶ And He saith unto them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. ²⁷ But the men marvelled, saying, “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!”  (Mat 8:22-27)

 Note that an episode such as this had occurred before, and in both situations, Jesus was at the helm! Note that the “Word” of the Old Testament was Jesus (John 1:1-14).

Jesus suggested that they let the dead bury their dead (Mat 8:22). He had defined “the dead” as those who would be lost. Compare that to the days of Noah wherein scripture reveals just who are “the dead:” 

⁴ …The sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. ⁵ And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Gen 6:4-5) 

At the time of the flood, the world had become genetically depraved. According to the Lexicon of God, before the flood, those who would not follow him were depraved beings. The sons of God were those who were the progeny of Seth, and the daughters of men were those of Cains’ genetics, as the pseudepigraphic Book of Adam and Eve reveals. After they coupled, there was no longer the pure genetics of Seth in them. They all became depraved beings who were of the Wicked One. They were “the dead” of Matthew chapter eight.

In the days of Noah, only Noah found grace (Gen 6:8). He was born, according to the Book of Jasher, with rare genetics, unlike any other child, to wit: 

¹² And at that time the sons of men sowed the ground, and a little food was produced, yet the sons of men did not turn from their evil ways, and they trespassed and rebelled against God.

¹³ And the wife of Lamech conceived and bare him a son at that time, at the revolution of the year.

¹⁴ And Methuselah called his name ‘Noah’, saying, “The Earth was in his days at rest and free from corruption,” and Lamech his father called his name ‘Menachem,’ saying, “This one shall comfort us in our works and miserable toil in the earth, which God had cursed.”

¹⁵ And the child grew up and was weaned, and he went in the ways of his father Methuselah, perfect and upright with God.

¹⁶ And all the sons of men departed from the ways of the Lord in those days as they multiplied upon the face of the earth with sons and daughters, and they taught one another their evil practices and they continued sinning against the Lord. (Jasher 4:12-16)

 

The “new normal” in the days of Noah was evil and it was genetic. It was in the blood of everyone except Noah. Noah was born with grace, and implied in both Jasher and scripture is that Noah was a Nazarite — “perfect and upright with God;” he was made in the Image of God, with the Genome of God in him. It was a second “Genesis.”

At the time Noah was born, all the others that were born were evil, or depraved. They were born that way. The genetics of Noah were purity and goodness, but the genetics of the remainder were that they were totally depraved, and not worth saving. They were the “walking dead” and as such the dead, indeed, would bury their dead.

What was the deluge all about? The sins of the dead would bury their dead. Those dead in sin caused God to flood the world, and they as such, buried themselves because when the waters receded, the dead were all sucked down the drain into the earth below. The Jews believe that the abyss beneath the Foundation Stone in Jerusalem was the source of the water for the flood as well as its drain.

Now back to Jesus: “When He was entered into a ship, His disciples followed Him.” So, it was with Noah. Who were the ‘disciples of Noah’? His family, his seed, or gens.

God would plant a Garden again, and with Adam recently dead, and Cain as well, Noah’s perfect seed would be planted on new soil. (As it turned out with Samson the Nazarite, Noah also drank wine and lost grace, and he became the “second Adam” with a second ‘original sin.’ Ham became the ‘second Cain.’ 

⁸ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. ⁹ These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. ¹⁰ And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Gen 6:8-10)

 Noah had created his own disciples, or rather God did in him! His gens were his sons, and since their wives were of Cain, they went along for the ride. However, they brought their genes into the new world, and original sin repeated itself.

Jesus did the same thing! He made disciples, implying that they were born again (John 3:7). Jesus, literally from the Greek, engendered them much like Noah had long before with Shem, Japheth, and Ham.

Just as with Jesus when he entered the ship, whose disciples followed Him, so, it was with Noah! 

⁵ Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. ⁶ And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the Earth. ⁷ And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. (Gen 7:5-7)

 His gens followed Noah into the big ship — the Ark of God — to start a new world and a new kingdom. Noah would be ‘king’ there — the ‘husbandman’ (Gen 9:20) like God had been in His Kingdom in the beginning (John 15:1).

The gens of Jesus were His disciples who had found grace in Jesus just like Noah had at his birth that came from the grace of God. [1] Noah was born that way from his mother’s womb, but as Jesus told Nicodemus, unless a man be “born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

In Noah’s time, he was born of the Spirit, according to Jasher (‘Righteousness’) and when he entered the ark, he was born of the water. Yes, the water borne (transported) him to a new world. Jesus was on board with Noah and his gens to regenerate the world with new genes. Jesus had engendered, or ‘born again” new creatures. Yes, the ‘Word” was on the Ark and closed the door behind Himself when all who had entered, entered. 

¹³ In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark… ¹⁶ And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in. (Gen 7:13, 16)

 God closed the door of the Ark; that was what Jesus was doing when he said, ““Follow Me; and let the dead bury their dead.” He was closing the entryway to the ship just as He had so long ago on the Ark!

There arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but Jesus was asleep. In like manner, with the Ark of Noah, the same thing happened: 

¹⁷ And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. ¹⁸ And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the Earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. (Gen 7:17-18)

 The ‘tempest’ of Noah was described as more of a tsunami with both rain and waters from the center of the Earth. 

After resting awhile, then Jesus arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

With Noah there was a comparable event: 

² The fountains also of the deep (the ‘tsunami’) and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; ³ And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. (Gen 8:2)

 Jesus, as the ‘Word” had rebuked the tempest even back in Noahic times! Noah was foreshadowing what Jesus would do on the waters that day — to create new creatures, as was written, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor 5:17).

Mankind should have learned from Noah! Noah found grace and was made a new creature. He was engendered from birth by God to be the ‘husbandman’ who would plant his genetic seeds in the Earth to make a second Garden of God. Well, Jesus was doing the same thing; Christians are His plants in the Garden that must grow well to be good. Then they must spread the “Word,” or the Spirit of God to the world, according to the ‘Great Commission.’

The harvest of the ‘crop’ of Noah’s was raised onto new ground on one of the mountains of Ararat with new flesh from God in Noah’s genes.

In like manner, the harvest of the crop of Jesus’s is new incorruptible flesh raised to their heavenly Paradise — the Garden of God — as it is written,  “…the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thes 4:16-17).

The disciples arrived safely through the tempest. Jesus had calmed the waters. They exclaimed, “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!”  As it turns out that the manner of that Man was like Noah who was given the gens of God at his birth.

Jesus, like Noah, seems to be a Nazarite. He was that manner of Man — He was born as the “Son of God,” not that God fathered Jesus, but like Noah, Jesus arrived in Mary’s womb — the ‘Vessel’ — with the Genome of God within His flesh.

The story of crossing the sea has a purpose, and so does the story of Noah’s Ark. Both are the beginnings of a new world; Noah’s established by God using Noah’s perfect genetics, and the Church through Jesus with His perfect genes of God! That is not to imply that Noah was the son of God in a biological sense, but was borne, like Jesus, as in transported here for a purpose.

As it turned out, Noah was born in the world of the Spirit and Jesus borne to here with the Spirit. Both were new creatures engendered by God and Jesus crossing the sea was the building of the Garden here on Earth — the Church — an invisible Ark that transports those in Christ to a new world in another realm.

Noah’s trip was a little different. His was to a new ‘garden’ with him the ‘husbandman’ for God, but in this world. He was the ‘vine’ from the root of God whose seeds made the Garden of which his sons were the ‘branches.’

Jesus’s ship crossed the sea to the other side and all those who followed Him all the Way made it to safety on the other side of the sea.

The sea represents the boundary between this world and another realm. They were with Jesus all the time, and Him with them, even though asleep.

Jesus is no longer with us, but He remains with us in Spirit while His glorified Body is at rest. If you are a Christian, then it is for the duration as we cross the ‘sea’ with Jesus even asleep in heaven.

We must be with Him when the ship arrives safely. Boarding the ship is just a prerequisite because at any time those who are too afraid of the ‘storm’ may jump into the sea, as indicated with the slipping faith of Peter putting him into turbulent waters.

Now do you understand what was happening when Jesus was asleep but still on board? He is still resting in heaven but remains with us all the while, keeping his followers safe until they are saved at the end of the journey.

(picture credit; Pinterest; "Jesus On the Ship")

 

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[1] Note that God is ‘Glorious’. That is His Image, or genetics (DNA). Coming short of the glory of God is not having the genetics of God, or lacking the grace that emanates from God.