GROWING AND HARVESTING GOD'S CROP - Part 19

  The word gain of which Paul wrote entails many things, but “salvation” is foremost. That English word comes from the Greek, soteria, and Paul got it right. Salvation is not of your own skills, because Jesus was not only a “Carpenter,” but a “Teknik” (BLB Institute 2021).

  Speaking of Jesus Christ, Luke wrote of Him, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

  Salvation therein is “soteria;” deliverance, safety, salvation, preservation, and such (BLB Institute 2021). Safety and preservation are very descriptive. In fact, “preservation of the saints” comes from Psalm 31:

²³ O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. ²⁴ Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. (Psalm 31:23-24)

  First off for salvation (preservation) is contingent on several things:

1.       “Love the Lord;” being a friend of Jesus (ibid). Judas had been a friend of Jesus. Judas had affection for the Lord, then for the love of money, Judas defected from Jesus. Thus, goodwill, not hatred, discontent, animosity, or even apathy is acceptable. Neither is misconstruing the Word of God and making it something that is not.

2.       Preservation applies only to the “saints;” those who are the faithful ones (ibid). Thusly, preservation is dependent on whether the person is faithful or not. Faithful people are those who do the Will of God rather than their own will.
In fact, Satanism is defined as “Do what thou wilt; that is the whole law” (Anton LeVey). Rather, the whole law, according to Jesus is the Greatest Commandment and the one like unto it — to love God with all your substance and others as yourselves (Mat 22:36-39). Love is remaining a friend of Jesus, not when it is convenient but even when it is not productive to do so.

3.      “The Lord” is the Lord God who preserves because He alone is Supreme. By no other Name than Jesus can anyone be saved. Not just any “lord” but the LORD GOD whose Name is Jesus, and especially not the “lord” of self. Jesus is the physical Substance of God. The Flesh which He sacrificed must be cherished. That kind of love is not emotional nor physical work but having goodwill toward Jesus.
 Obviously, those who continually sin have little, if any, goodwill toward Jesus. Sin is essentially ill-will because the sinner is no friend of the Lord but a friend to Satan.

4.    “Preserveth.” God is Sovereign. He alone can preserve the saints. Behaving saintly is self-work and self-ingratiating. In fact, the self-righteous are impedances to God because the self stands between salvation and Jesus. The thread throughout scripture is that man stand out of the way for God to be Supreme because He alone is Sovereign.
Therefore, all a sinner needs to do is be willing to sacrifice their own defective will for the effective Will of God.
A willing worker is not one who can work but only stands ready to do what God says. Like Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac was counted to him as righteousness (Rom 4:3), the willingness for “whosoever” (John 3:16) to be saved is sufficient “work” that is kategazmai and not ergon — it is an accomplishment without any physical work involved.
 Preservation is just like it sounds. God puts the flesh in a protective vessel after thoroughly sanitizing it and adds a “pickling” agent.
The “vessel” is the soul of the person, and the “Agent” is the Living Water of the Holy Ghost. God seals the vessel, and only He can remove the seal but He will not. “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27).
God is Sovereign; He and He alone seals the vessel. Nothing is said in scripture about unsealing, but it is implied with “fall away” (Heb 6:6). Falling away is apostasia in the Greek.
The “vessel” (Jesus called His vessel a “cup”) is sealed by the grace of God by the gift of faith. That seals the “jar” so to speak, but as any cold-packer knows, anything that contains certain substances can build up gases and explode, thus breaking the seal. Every Christian with the onset of faith is sealed by God, but their flesh remains corruptible until the Day of the Lord comes. Hence, what is inside the seal is subject to corruption. Apostasia describes that slow process of overcoming the seal, not by the hand of God nor the hand of Satan but by the Christian’s own mind.
The flesh of the Christian is the “meat” that is sealed in the vessel and no labor on the part of the flesh is necessary to seal it. The person just wills that it be done, and God does the sealing. The seal is the Name “Jesus” and Jesus will never break the seal. That “seal” is the Covenant of Grace, and it is no different than any of the Covenants theretofore wherein the Hebrews always broke the seal.
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30). Grieving is defined in the preceding verse — that the only communication that those so sealed is good and for the administering of grace to others.  In other words, use the ”spice” of grace with which one is sealed or the flesh will spoil. That spoilage will emit a gaseous stench which can break the seal from within. (This topic could be a book itself, so let’s move to the next point.)

5.    Next come “rewardeth.” That is the “gain” of which Paul wrote. That gain is nearly been exhausted, but death is the gain! Everything changes upon dying to the world because Satan is the Prince of the Power of the Air of the world (Eph 2:2). Remember how somehow Satan got into the Garden, Satan got into the Ark, and Satan got into Ham, Canaan, and so many others?
Well, when God sealed each Covenant, somehow Satan got in, not all of his person, but his “air” (spirit) so to speak. Just as each Covenant before was spoiled after it was sealed by God, the Covenant of Grace is no exception because all the Covenants were Covenants of Grace. That is the “Mystery of Christ” (Rom 16:25).

6.    Next comes “the proud doer.” That is not necessarily “works” but accomplishments, but not of one’s own works, but what God has accomplished in you. It is okay to be proud of what God has accomplished, and that is He preserved and sealed you. Nobody is to be proud of their own works. That type of pride is the pomposity of Lucifer. (Isa 14:12).
Pride in that passage is literally “swelling up” (ibid). If the pride is in oneself, then that swelling breaks the seal. It is fine to be proud of what God did for you, but not what you have done for God.
It is not acceptable to give any credit to oneself for what God did. Indeed, you may be preserved but because iniquity is so ingrained pride may be bottled up in the flesh. Perhaps it is pride that swells to break the seal since the Hebrew is literal.

7.       Lastly is verse twenty-four: “hope in the Lord.” The Lord is Sovereign, and you are not. Your hope is not in your good courage, but that He shall strengthen your heart.
“Courage” is not work. It is an attribute of a saint because saints trust in the Lord. Faith is a variable and describes the degree of trust over time. The psalmist entreats the saint to keep the faith and God will provide the strength. Courage is standing firm before an adversary. The saint does nothing! Courage is merely standing still. The gift of faith is the onset of courageousness that is measured by the degrees of faith.
Joshua was courageous enough face the enemies in Canaan as he crossed the Jordan River. Courage is not swimming the turbulent waters and using the strength of yourselves or even others but standing still and allowing God to be Supreme as the Protector of the Faith and the Faithful.
The psalmist used the word “hope.” The Hebrew is literally an expectation (ibid). An expectation is sometime in the future. “Hope in the Lord” lies at the “Day of the Lord” when the Lord does what He says that He would do, to wit: “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom 8:11). Quicken is to animate or to make a living soul again. That is the essence of the gain of which Paul wrote!
God will breathe life again unto the dust of the ground (dried up bones), and the Living Water will be the “mist” that forms the dust for the image, just as in the beginning (Gen 2:6-7). Hence, regeneration is just like generation, and the gain of Paul was not partial regeneration, but full regeneration that will occur on the Day of the Lord.
The “Day of the Lord” is not just a day but the end of an age. It is Jesus finishing His Purpose by dying: That “the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” and saved “from the destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor 5:5). The Day of the Lord is when the flesh is saved as the vessel for the spirit of the saint. Paul saw that time in the future. His expectation (hope) was that someday that what he had trusted the Lord for will come true. Salvation points not to now but a future time. Until then, the Comforter provides the “assurance of hope” (Heb 6:11), or a continued expectation of salvation.
Hence, “salvation” (soteria) is when the expectation is realized and that is when the Lord Jesus returns to make the saints whole in mind, body, and spirit. Until that time safety (sozos) is the protection from the Lamb of God’s “skin”” just as with the Garment of Adam.
God put a Comforter on Adam and Eve to keep them safe until they were redeemed at the “Place of Adam’s Skull” — Calvary. Perhaps Adam and Eve were there when Jesus was resurrected, as is written, “The earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Mat 27:51-52).
What happened when the Word (Jesus) put coats of lambs’ skins on Adam and Eve? They were kept safe until the beginning of the Age of the Lord! Like Adam and Eve, the Flesh of the Lamb of God provides Comfort (John 14:6) until that “day” comes.

 

  It is true: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). “Shall be” is future oriented. It could mean directly or finally! The hope of salvation is that for the living it is finally — on the Day of the Lord.

  There is a clue in there that might be missed. What is “saved”? It is not to be damned – “judged worthy of punishment” (ibid; in Hell). When are Christians judged? On the Day of the Lord when He elects those whose faith merited saving. Those left behind are the damned. The doctrine of “election” has some qualification: That those who “endure to the end shall be saved” (Mat 24:13). Saved at the end and not before. Thus, the “saved” are not the faithful, but those who remain faithful to the end, and salvation is when the faithfulness is recognized by Jesus as He again joins together the flesh to the soul to make a living soul again.

  The very process of generation is the same process of regeneration. Generation was done in stages and so is regeneration. The dust from the ground was the process of generation and so it is with regeneration. That regeneration is rebirth is very Calvinistic doctrine that most of Christians were taught. However, the entire Bible is the Book of Generations whether in the beginning or ending!

  The commentary is almost exhausted but will continue for a few more points. Baptism in that last verse must be addressed because it seems to be a precursor to salvation. 

(picture credit: shutterstock.com;  "Cute boy in red vest demonstrating hope")

GROWING AND HARVESTING GOD'S CROP - Part 18

  So far, the commentary has been about the function (is Christ) and the dysfunction… is of the Wicked One.  Just as “Cain …was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous” (1 John 3:12), so are the “wanderers” Cains (Kenites) of this era: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44).

  Jesus said to the sinners in the synagogue that were not in Him, “If God were your Father, ye would love me” (John 6:42). In that same chapter Jesus identified Himself and His Father as One (John  8:19).

  Jesus was explaining to unbelievers that He is the Messiah — the Christ. In that building were two populations: (1) Those in Christ, and (2) those in the Devil.

  The unbelievers even claimed to love father Abraham and Father God but doubted Jesus who said, “If God were your Father, ye would love Me: for I proceeded forth and came from God” (John 8:44). Therefore, in Christ is loving Jesus even as Abraham and The Father, Yahweh.

  Repeated again is that love (agape) is not an emotion but a characteristic, or countenance. The Jews certainly had goodwill toward God and Abraham, but as Jesus proceeded from Father God; they were also to have goodwill toward Him.

  When Jesus pointed out their true “father” (the Devil), He said, “The lusts of your father you will do.” The determining factor in whose will you are, is whose will that you do. In Christ is doing the will of the Father, and in the Devil is doing the will of your true “father.”

  The Bible is a book of genealogy. It is all about the genes and who came from whom. Cain came from the Wicked One and everyone to this day are of the seed of Cain. In my book, The Omega Variant, I wrote just how Lucifer begat Cain, and just as gorillas and humans are 99% alike in DNA, Abel and Cain were much like outwardly but inwardly they were different partitions of the species. To this day, everyone is of the Wicked One because of genealogy and original sin.

  Those who have been born but not born again, are as cursed as Cain and are a subset of humanity. Not all human and not all beast but hybrids. And just like a feral fox that has been tamed have that brutish instinct in them, so do humans. And just as domesticated foxes will likely return to the wild unless they are protected from the “call of the wild,” so will domesticated Christians. Apostasy is like that; the brute within is called by nature (original sin) to return to nature. Rebirth is the domestication of the brute and immediately the wicked ones begin the call back to the wild.

  Face it; mankind, just as the animals, have herd mentality. The Great Awakening called Christians to the “Garden of God,” but soon after, the Enlightenment called them back to the dark. Humans are as nocturnal as the animals but what animals do in the dark, humans do in broad daylight!

  One man, or perhaps one family, first crossed the Mexican border to America. That one occasion innervated millions to do the same. And just as one man sinned again (Ham) that one instance innervated all men to sin until all have sinned and missed the mark of God.

  “Missing the mark” is more than sinning once but failure to have the faith of God that He has of Himself. Paul was so certain that Christ was in him that he “is Christ” to those who heard him. Jesus had domesticated him to the extent that he would follow Jesus to the grave. Perhaps Paul had nearly the faith of God; hence was not “the Christ” but belonged to Christ, as Jesus was explaining to those in the synagogue.

  Every person is of the Wicked One. Everybody ever born of man and woman are the “tares” of whom Jesus spoke (Mat 13:38).  Thusly, all are Satan because each has the DNA of Lucifer in them.

  To be of God requires rebirth. That rebirth “is Christ,” and having the DNA of Christ. Indeed, the blood of Jesus changed the blood of Saul to become of the blood of Jesus. Saul, converted to Paul, was Christ spiritually.

  From the time that Saul saw Jesus until he wrote the key verse, he changed inside. Regeneration took several years and would be finalized in Rome when, for him, it was finished, just as it was for Jesus at His death (John 19:30).

  When Paul was beheaded, he too was finished. What was finished? The same thing as with Jesus. Jesus defeated death, sin, Satan, and overcame the world; as did Paul. Death was gain for Paul as it was for Jesus.

  What had Jesus gained? Life, a throne in Paradise, Kingship in another world, his full identity (glorification; John 7:3), and He was pleasing to His Father. Paul’s gain was much the same, according to scripture, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him” (Jas 1:12).

  The gain of Paul was royalty in another world in a domain that would never perish. His gain was prince of Paradise the very day that he felt the blade!

  Paul’s function would change with death. Before, he suffered great tribulation because he did the Will of Jesus. Paul would function under duress and hatred in this realm and for that in heaven he would function just as Adam had functioned before sin. When the General Resurrection is finalized, Paul will have the original flesh, mind, and spirit of Adam; and like Adam, he will be the very image of God in substances.

  On the Damascus Road, Paul turned around. Jesus changed his mind. When Paul was beheaded, Jesus changed his substance from real to spiritual. At the Resurrection, the transformation will be complete. Paul’s gain will that he “is Christ” in image.

  Paul “saw” the Ghost of Jesus in his blindness. That gave him immense faith but still imperfect, and not absolute, faith. He would not be “Christ” because he was only Christ in mind. Christ is of three substances, and although his mind was as Christ’s, his soul and flesh were not.

  When Paul walked the way directed by Jesus, something happened there. Paul received the Holy Ghost. There it is: that is where Paul got the idea that life is Christ. Paul began to function as Christ when he had Christ in Him. Paul was functionally “Christ” when the Holy Ghost entered unto him.

  Judas was functionally the Antichrist as Satan entered him. Paul, however, was spiritually functional and Judas dysfunctional.

  Judas had been the friend of Jesus…  “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9). What did Judas do? He no longer had affection for Christ but defected (apostasia) from Him. Judas walked with Christ but was soon to walk in Satan and is Satan. Paul’s point in the key verse, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” was that who you are who is in you?

  Christ was in Paul when he received the Holy Ghost, hence Paul is Christ inside just as Judas is Satan inside.

  The “rapture” on the graph (figure #2) is when those who are dead in Christ along with those who are still alive, are snatched to another realm. The soul of Paul was snatched from death when he was beheaded. Soon, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thes 4:16).

  Paul is dead in Christ. He will be snatched up from the dust from which he was made and remolded in the same manner as Adam. Paul will have new flesh, not corruptible as before, but incorruptible: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet 1:23).

  Born again, or rebirth, begins when anyone first believes as Paul wrote. After having their souls purified (1 Pet 1:22), the flesh is ready for transformation. Rebirth is a long process that begins with “born again” (shown on the graph) and is finished at the rapture when incorruptible flesh is put on, according to that passage. So, just as birth and life is a process for everyone, so is rebirth and spiritual life. Just as the birthing process can be terminated, so can the rebirthing.

  As such, the spirit of Lilith in women still abort the body of infants but can never harm the soul (Mat 10:28)!

  For those who are not aware, Lilith is the “screech owl” mentioned by Isaiah (Isa 34:14). Some believe that she was a first wife of Adam who rebelled, but perhaps she is the evil spirit inside Eve and in radical feminist women!

  If Satan could not test the faith of Christians, he would not have any function. As learned from the story of Job, Satan is the tester of faith. If faith cannot fail, then Satan has no utility. Calvinist doctrine essentially kills the spirit of Satan, and that means that Jesus would not be able to save anyone from him!

  The Purpose of Jesus was for redemption. The purpose of Paul was persuasion that sinners have been redeemed and shall not die if they have faith.

  The purpose of Satan is that for no reason a righteous person shall die If that is true, then anyone who has eternal security robs Jesus of His Purpose.

  Paul likened the Holy Ghost in him to Christ. The “Christ” in him was the Holy Ghost of Jesus who he encountered on the Damascus Road. The Spirit of Christ in him is what made him the “Christ.”

  “He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation” (Mark 3:29). Damnation is eternally dying with death never consummated. The soul is eternal and as such it must always exist someplace. Damnation is very severe, and the Will of God is that none should perish to that state of dysfunction.

  So, what is blasphemy? It is irreverence to the Holy Ghost of Jesus. What about the Holy Ghost in Paul? Blasphemy would be taking the Ghost of Jesus without Purpose. Just what Purpose did the Holy Ghost fulfill? He Comforts and Preserves the man until the man goes to the Presence of the Lord Jesus.

  Paul had the Holy Ghost of Jesus, but he did not have Jesus in the Flesh. His gain was to be in the Presence of the Lord God in all His Substances, in Mind, Body, and Spirit. Therein is glorification.

  Paul looked forward to having all three substances of God, and while on Earth, he was missing the Flesh of God. At the Resurrection, that Substance — the Body of Christ (Corpus Christi) — shall be gained!

  Paul was functioning on Earth as Christ. He did what Christ did — he went unto the world and baptized them with all three substances of Christ (Mat 28:19). Paul was missing the substance of the “Son” and when anyone was baptized with the Holy Ghost, they had Christ the same as Paul. The baptism of Jesus was not of water and nether was the baptism of Paul. He denied that he baptized with water, but his baptism was the Baptism of Jesus throughout his ministry.

  Paul functioned in the Spirit of Jesus while in the world, but at death, his functionality would abound since his trust in Christ became actuality. In heaven, Paul saw something that those on Earth cannot see — that Jesus is the Person of God! Paul himself never saw Jesus as the Person of God until he died.

  With that ultimate knowledge, Paul would function just as Adam in the beginning. The Book of Adam and Eve describes the original Adam as having a bright nature and bright eyes. In heaven, rather than bright eyes to see things beyond, and a bright nature on Earth, Paul would have supernatural vision and a supra-natural character!

  Adam was created in the “paradise” of the Garden of Eden. He saw God in all His three substances daily, and all things were good! Paul’s gain was Paradise in Heaven; the same “paradise” but in a different realm. His gain was a return to Paradise Lost!

  There is one huge difference between the two Paradises. The “Serpent” cunningly sneaked into the Garden inside Lucifer. God allowed that for His Purpose of testing the two beings. No longer, will the innocent in heaven need testing, so the role of Satan is no longer required. Only those who pass the test of faith can enter that realm, and Paul’s gain was that at death he entered in!

  Paradise on Earth is guarded: “So He 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). The “cherubim” were the angels in the flesh of various adversaries throughout the generations.

  Cherubim were surely in the flesh of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities that guarded the Way to the Tree of Life in Israel.

  The cherubim were surely the cherubim that had been in the world guarding the way to the Ark of Noah.

  The cherubim were surely the executioners of Paul who were guarding his way to the Tree of Life. Paul’s gain was that he got past the cherubim and is with the “Tree of Life” in the Paradise of heaven.

  John wrote the Words of Jesus, “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).

  Paul overcame the world in Christ as Christ. His gain was definitely to eat of the Tree of Life; the same tree that Adam and Eve neglected to eat and thus to lose their lives: “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9).

  It is the same Garden, the same place, but in a different realm. On Earth there was two trees from which to eat, and both were in the middle of Paradise.

  What was missing in Paradise in heaven? One tree! The Tree of Knowledge had been cut down by the Carpenter! Ironically, the word “created” in Gen 1:1 means literally to “cut wood.” At the re-creation God “cut wood” so to speak as the Forbidden Tree was gone.

  When Jesus gave up the Ghost at His death, his Body went to the tomb, but where did His Ghost go? Judas hanged himself, but his “his bowels gushed out” (Acts 1:18). Satan in Judas was given up as the Holy Ghost of Jesus cut wood to make the Judas Tree fall with Satan in it!

  The reason that there is only one Tree remaining in Paradise is because Jesus defeated Satan and there is no need for him in the heavenly Paradise!

  Paul’s gain was as well what? The Way to the Tree of Life had been blocked, but the Ghost of Jesus had cut it down. No longer could Satan hide in false knowledge because the Holy Ghost has exposed him and rendered him impotent.

  Never blaspheme the Holy Ghost because He unblocked the Way to the Tree of Life. With that done, the Way for Paul was clear and to enter the Gate to the Tree of Life was clear.

  The head cutters were demon-filled but their axes were chopping for naught. Jesus had already cleared the Way to the Tree of Life!

(picture credit: Jefferson Gospel Open Door Church)