26.3 Put on Immortality
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
For this mortal must put on immortality. So when… this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54). – For since by man death, by man also the resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:21 – with the non-words removed).
It is we who sing life from the dead.
Read all of Ezekiel 37:1-14, but remember that you and I ARE integral citizens of this Israel and that the promised land is not a scrubby hillside, but all the life of Christ, brethren walking together in love. God was telling Ezekiel to speak Christ.
The Model of Victory
I don’t know much about this event, but what little I do know now is more than I ever knew before. And so, I will do the best I can to place this event, our physical bodies being swallowed up by life, before our eyes, in its context and in its reality.
I ordered the three rows in the model of our Victory according to how I saw our Victory beginning, with the shattering of the image of the serpent. Yet the order is different as our Victory comes to its fullness on the Great Day of the Feast. That order is the world-beast gone first; the evil one and all his angels gone second, and mortality gone last (Revelation 19-20).
Three Victories at Once
Now that I have written the preceding lessons, I see that, of truth, knowing Christ as our only life comes first as well, for that knowing alone is what shatters the image of the serpent. Yet I will not change how I have ordered these lessons, for they build on one another. The model of our nine points of victory is only a way of understanding, useful in the classroom and nothing more.
God’s fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles does progress through three phases, yes, but in each Day of that Feast, all three Victories happen simultaneously and together. The winning of each direction of Victory is essential to the winning of the other two, in each Day of Tabernacles.
Tabernacles
On the First Day of the Feast, our humanity as God’s image, that is seeing God through our humanity AND seeing Christ as our only life AND seeing LIFE as Father carrying us as one Pperson with us, are all three dependent on each other. During the in-between days, providing the anointing of heaven and the provision of earth and instruction in singing the Song of the Lamb to the Church are all three dependent on each other. And in the Final Great Day of the Feast, the vanishing of the serpent and all of his demons, that is, a new man for a new age, the revelation of Jesus Christ in His body – Lord of all, and our physical bodies swallowed up by life are all three dependent on each other.
Only the Is’s Remain
Let’s say that again. You see, our Victory is the vanishing of all the ain't’s so that only the IS’s remain. Thus the only thing we see is what IS.
On Day ONE we see God through the lens of our humanity, we see Christ our only life, and we see Father walking as one Pperson with us. In-between we see the anointing of heaven and the provision of the earth, and we teach the singing of the Lamb. And on the Great Day of the Feast, we see God’s new man for a new age, we see the Lord Jesus Christ unveiled in His Body, and we see rivers of living water gushing out of us, with transformed bodies first and a transformed earth following after.
The Great Day of the Feast
Let’s look again at the Great Day of the Feast. On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit… (John 7:37-39).
– And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle… was the tree of life…. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants… shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads… And they shall reign forever and ever (Revelation 22:1-5 condensed.
The River from the Throne
The First Day of the Feast is being filled as a Church, God’s elect together, with all the fullness of God. The Final Day of the Feast is again, as a Church, God’s elect together, releasing God-seen and God-known out into all creation. For that is what the river of life is: God-seen and God-known, Father Himself now able to touch all with His own hands.
But that river proceeds forth from the throne of God, that is our hearts, our innermost beings. Now, your heart is inside your chest, inside your body. What does that river of life hit first before it can get out into the earth? – Your physical body!
A Corporate Experience
And so, the first transformation of the earth by that River is our physical bodies being, in one moment, swallowed up by life. Let’s think about this moment.
First, this is a corporate experience, all who are in that Bride, the New Jerusalem, whether as the manchild, Zion, or as the Bride, Jerusalem, all together from both sides of the veil, are experiencing an utterly together experience. In all Christian imagination of the “rapture”/resurrection, the action of a literal “coming out of the ground” or “going up in the air” stuff is all solitary, each one by him or her self. I can assure you of this, before that Day comes, Love one another as I have loved you will be our entire life experience.
Absolute Excitement
The first thing you will do, in that moment, is grab your brothers and sisters closest to you and jump up and down together in all overwhelming excitement, laughing uproariously. Only after a bit will you notice that some of these brothers and sisters with whom you are dancing arm in arm are Paul and John Wesley, Ruth and Madame Guyon, Abel and Patrick. Alive, Alive, Alive!!!
(Let me qualify the above list. I am naming those names we know, but we are talking about millions who live now in heaven-only “dead” in Christ, waiting with bated breath for this very moment.)
Dancing Uproariously
You see, God has no Body without living flesh, without incorruptible, immortal human FLESH.
I have danced in the joy of the river of the Holy Spirit with other believers in Jesus many times, often in a great circle, arm in arm, with the joy of the Lord Jesus upon every face. I know whereof I speak. I have tasted the fruit of this Land, and it is good.
But then, after an inexhaustible interval of total exuberance, we will turn and see the peoples of this earth cowering under the shadows of the ruin of the beast and of the dragon, and we will say to them with all gentleness. Do not be afraid. You believe in God; believe also in Jesus.
The World Will Know
And in that moment, the world will believe that the Father sent Jesus and the world will know that the Father loves us as He loves Jesus. Why? and How? Because you and I are of them. We are no different than they are; they know us, and we know them. Father reveals Himself only through real human beings.
Placing the true image of God in its rightful place is the beginning and the end of this whole exercise of Jesus proven faithful and true. And we will walk among the people in tenderness and compassion, and they will know Father revealed.
The Mystery of God
The angel… raised up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever… that there should be delay no longer, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel… the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets (Revelation 10:5-7 – condensed). – Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).
By the time I had finished writing Symmorphy I: Purpose, this word “mystery” had changed its meaning for me and grown much larger in importance and reality.
God’s Image
God’s purpose was simple; He desired a Body, that is an outer form by which He could be seen and known by His creation. Thus God created man so that He might enter into a symmorphic union with man, that God and man would walk together as one Pperson. In this way only could God ever win the desire of His heart, to touch and to be touched.
Then the serpent stole the title of the “image of God” from the true image, before man was fully formed, by speaking in his face, “Did God really say that?” And the hand of man, God’s true image, became cruel, murderous, and abusive.
Faithful and True
It was, then, in Symmorphy I: Purpose, that we saw the arrow striking home that showed to us God’s mystery fulfilled. And thus, God’s answer to the serpent’s challenge is found in Revelation 19, specifically in these words, “His name is called the Word of God,” and then these, “He was called faithful and true.” Joined fully together with those statements is this one, from Revelation 17, “Those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”
God defeats the challenge to His Word AND wins the completion of His desire, His true image, now fully formed, God’s eternal dwelling place.
Hidden
And so, when we see the word “mystery” in Revelation 10:7 and 1 Corinthians 15:51, that word means, “something hidden, something no one can see, something no one knows is there – except for those who have been given eyes to see.” God is giving us eyes to see the most incredible reality we could ever imagine, hidden all through the Bible, unknown and un-looked-for by most.
Clearly, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is speaking of the resurrection of our bodies. The problem is, that is not really a mystery. How many times have you heard intoned the words, “the resurrection from the dead” in a funeral or at a graveside – both in real life and in movies. Everyone has some notion of such an idea.
Symmorphy
What no one knows is Father’s desire and intention. What NO ONE knows is Symmorphy.
Not even Paul and John saw clearly what was hidden in their words. They saw its dim outline, to be sure. But, just as with me, I know that I see so differently from how I saw when I wrote just eight years ago. When I go back to read that earlier writing, however, I see the exact same thing in my words then that I know now. Yet I KNOW that I did not know then what I know now – and so it will be forever.
The amazing thing is, however, that God has stated His GRAND mystery clearly and openly. The problem is that no one believes any such thing.
The Mystery of God-like-ness
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). This is where the Nicene Council comes in – “Oh, that was just Jesus; He is faraway now. This has nothing to do with us.” AND WE ALSO ought to – reveal God.
Consider carefully the following chart; remember that the central column is an abrupt line, lasting only a nano-second.
The Resurrection
We also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. – The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:23 & 26). – If, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. …I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. … I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:11-14 – condensed).
The real issue, the real mystery, is not our bodies swallowed up by life, but rather, our Father seen and known now by all of His creation. – That all may know Me.
One Second Before – One Second After
Look back at that chart. One second before the resurrection, the reality of that old creation, this present age, is FULL and COMPLETE in all outward appearance. One second after the resurrection, the reality of the new creation, the age of human joy, is FULL and COMPLETE in all outward appearance – and no one can hardly remember the former age.
We have established, however, that human history from before to after simply continues. In many ways, everything will seem to be similar. But it will not be, for the fundamental reality of the universe has shifted. Now, everyone knows God as He really is, our Father – through us.
The Heart of the Mystery
But that is the outward appearance of the Mystery, what is it’s heart? – Does God do what He says?
This is My commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. We live among a church that is convinced without question that this WILL NOT HAPPEN, not in this age, and not on this earth. But if the Word God speaks is so weak, then why believe in “God” in the first place?
Will you see her with me? Will you see a Church walking this earth right now, loving one another with a pure heart fervently in all the fullness of Christ?
Will Jesus find faith? Will we see LIFE? Will we sing life from the dead?