Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Lekki Soul Centre (LSC)
Date: Wednesday, 6th April 2022
Ministering: Pastor Emeka Egwuchukwu
The gift of God is Eternal Life through Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:23). The issue of Eternal Life is first a promise that is to be realized, one that God is going to fulfil at the end–not the end of the world, but the end of our journey. The end of our journey is also not talking about leaving this physical body, although we are only permitted to journey while in this body.
The path of life is the path of everlasting life (Ps. 16:11), which would in turn lead to Eternal Life. (Psalm 91:16) Being fully satisfied with long life means a person would come into salvation because that is what everlasting life gives as its crown. The crown of everlasting life is salvation.
Paul finished his journey and he knew when he did (2 Tim. 4:7). There is a beginning and an end of the journey. The end of the journey is not necessarily when a person leaves his body; rather it is when the promise has been realized in the person. At this point, it is said that a person has finished the journey.
When Abraham got to mount of Moriah, God declared “Now I know”. All the events that took place along leaving his father’s house, the disappointments he faced were all part of the journey. They were to prepare him for the Mount of Moriah (Gen. 22:12). We see that he had shown the fear of God in graduating levels till he was able to come into that kind of fear that can make the promise to rest on him (Gen. 22:16-17).
Eternal Life is chiefly a promise (1 John 2:25). At New birth, Eternal Life was not given to our spirit. Rather, life was given to the spirit and that life was Christ. In our journey, what was given to us at the beginning was in our spirit which became Christ. Despite our spirit becoming Christ, our soul did not become Christ but was still the old man with its ways.
So, we are to learn Christ (Eph. 4:20, Matt. 12:29). We are to learn of Him not just as Christ but as an everlasting Man. In our learning of Christ, the words of Christ ought to dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16, Eph. 3:17). Although the people of the Ephesian church were all born again, Christ was not yet dwelling in their hearts by faith.
What happened to our spirits at New Birth also has to happen to our souls by coming into the knowledge of Christ (Gal. 4:19). The confirmation of the testimony of Christ in a person was not in the spirit but in the soul (1 Cor. 1:6). In the soul, a witness is born concerning what has happened in the spirit. One is not a witness until that which has taken place in the spirit has also taken place in the soul. Upon becoming Christ, what happens to the spirit is primarily as a result of what the soul does. The soul can either kill or advance the spirit.
It is the soul that believes (Rom. 10:16). The heart is the soul that believes unto righteousness. The soul is helped to believe by agreement. A gift that the soul must have is the ability to believe. Believing is agreeing. If it took the soul to agree for the spirit to be quickened at New birth, it would also take the soul to agree with the tidings of everlasting life for the spirit to also journey.
The soul will work out the salvation by agreeing -- believing. Believing is much more than mental agreement to a matter. Rather it will show in how a person obeys. The result of believing is obeying. The fruit of one's faith is seen in obedience. Believing without obedience is tantamount to faith without work, or a dead faith. “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land…” (Isa. 1:19). The word, ‘willing’ also means believing because it takes the soul to ‘will’.
The Father has sealed up the matter of salvation in the Son (John 6:27). God sealing the Son means that all the life we need (everlasting life and Eternal Life) is sealed up in Him. God has given Him the authority to give these lives to us but we also have to receive it from Him. We receive it from Him by obedience.
The journey of our soul is a journey from life to everlasting life. The same way our soul believed for our spirit to be regenerated at New birth is the same way our soul can learn the doctrine of everlasting life and usher our spirit into it. Everything the soul holds belongs to the spirit. As long as the soul can trap it, the spirit will.
God’s definition of a helpmate in Genesis was unto Eternal Life, not someone to help Adam till the ground. The soul is the Eve of the spirit. Once the soul agrees, the spirit partakes. It is also impossible for sin to completely take over man without the agreement of the soul. Sin needs the cooperation of the soul. Also, life needs the cooperation of the soul. Whatever the soul feeds on is passed on to the spirit.
There is a hope of God made unto our fathers (Acts 26:6-7). Eternal Life is a promise to the fathers. It is possible for a person to be born again and not lay hold on Eternal Life. God promised Eternal Life (Tit. 1:2). A person’s failure to lay hold on Eternal Life does not mean God’s promise has failed.
God spoke to the fathers and not the children (Heb. 1:1). This is not talking about fathers and children in terms of physical age. A person can be physically old but he is yet to complete the curriculum of Christ. The promise is unto fathers and children, but it has to come to the fathers first (Acts. 2:39). The promise of Eternal Life is kept in the fatherhood. When a man arrives at being a father, it is only then that he can begin to see the promise. When a man comes into fatherhood (or everlasting domain), he will be equipped with wisdom to see Eternal Life, in order to lay hold on it.
The understanding of Eternal Life is kept in everlasting life (1 John 5:20). The Son gave an understanding to fathers. In the physical, there is a progressive process of learning: from kindergarten up to university. There is a need to get the understanding of lower classes before one can get the understanding of higher classes. For example, there is a need to understand Mathematics before one can understand Further Mathematics.
In like manner, one must have been exercised unto everlasting life so that he would have the skills and the ability to comprehend what the Son of God has come to give; or else one would not be able to have access to what the Son brought. Eternal Life is an understanding. We will receive Eternal Life through knowledge.
.The Eternal realm is a realm that has been kept from creation right from the beginning. God kept Himself in darkness; it is darkness to man but it is light to Him. What a person does not understand is darkness to him; while what he understands is light to him. The Eternal realm is an abstract realm to man. Man does not even know that the Eternal realm is more real than the present creation – both the physical and spiritual realms.
The revelation of Him is kept in times. These times are times of visitation. The essence of the Son coming is to give us an understanding. Without His coming, we would not know God even though we may know that there is God. Satan knows that there is God but he does not know Him. He does not deny that there is God but he denies that there is Christ.
The reason for this denial is that he knows that Christ is the ladder to knowing God; Christ is God-stepped-down. Satan is saying that God did not come to man so that the issue of God would still be shrouded and he can pose as God. But, if we know Christ, we would know that Satan is not God. Christ is the path to the true God. If we know Christ, we would know the true God and identify the false god.
The realm of Eternal is the realm of “Only” (1 Tim, 6:17). The Only-begotten Son is an Eternal Son, not an everlasting Son. It is in this realm that we have “Omni-” as well – Omnipotent, Omniscient etc. To dwell in the light means that He is dwelling in knowledge because light is knowledge.
“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God…” (1 Tim. 1:17). These proclamations are realms. "Only" qualifies everything that is there. In eternity, Jesus is not just Eternal; He is King of Eternal. That realm is a realm where the Godhead are alone. By alone, it implies God the Father, Logos and the Eternal Spirit were not subjects in the way man counts subjects. They were all Kings in their arrangements. That was their arrangement on the inside. However, man was also promised that realm which means the Godhead do not want to be alone there.
When God was promising Himself Eternal Life, He had man, not angels, in mind (Tit. 1:2, Psa. 8:4). When God was thinking Eternal Life, He was thinking man; not man as fallen man. There was an original man: God-man. We have one God-Man who is a prototype of many God-men to come. So, the landscape of the Eternal realm changed the day Jesus stepped into it. It registered Man. In other words, God’s thoughts of Eternal Life and man became aligned.
The Eternal God stepped down into being a Father. As a Father, He needed a Son. Logos stepped down to become a Son. In so doing, He became a seed because tathers carry seed. He was not a seed initially. The word Father means a carrier of seeds. The Eternal Spirit also stepped down to become the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the One to manifest all of the Godhead.
The Godhead stepped down into an everlasting realm. That realm everlasting life is the administration of the Father. The Son, who is the seed, came not to do His own will, but the will of the Father (John 5:30). The Holy Ghost too shall not speak of Himself (John 16:13). What They came to do in that realm (everlasting) is to bring many sons as the Father desired.
Now that is the purpose of creation. If that is the purpose of creation, it means it should be our sole purpose. Man is here because of Eternal Life and not for any other reason. There are many other things man does here but man is here to realise this God's dream and purpose, which is to have Eternal Sons.
Just as God said it is not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18), it is not also good for the Godhead to be alone by Themselves. They used Adam and Eve as references. Those were eternal thoughts. When God was making Eve, He was thinking of us; just the way the woman is the expression of the man– the carrier of the seed. God was thinking of another body coming into Eternity where They would no longer be alone.
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." (Gen. 2:24). God left Eternity (His Father and Mother which is His dwelling) and came and joined with us that we might become one in Eternity. This is God's big dream. So, He said man should pray "…Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." (Matt. 6:10).
God's will is being done in heaven; but there is also a program being done in Eternity. And He wants to achieve this program on earth. He wants to achieve something that is higher than the heavens on earth among the weakest of His creation. In other words, there is something about Eternal Life and lowliness. In the Eternal realm, there are no lofty beings; only the most vulnerable men are found there: vulnerable but Eternal. This dream is a lofty one but it is the reason for creation.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) The word "only" here is Eternal, meaning God gave His only Eternal Son. He sowed Him as a seed and taught us in the natural with agriculture to sow corn of a wheat and in the time of harvest, many will come forth. God wants to harvest many sons from the earth.
God harvesting sons in this context does not imply physical death. Men are going to be here on earth and come into Eternal Life. Our Lord Jesus Christ is an example, He had Eternal Life in the days of His flesh. He had not died and resurrected when He declared that He was “the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25).
"And this is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3). He who inherits Eternal Life becomes God's treasure. God will withhold him. He will take him to Himself: not necessarily taking him out of the earth but hiding him. So, we might not know when some people would come into Eternal Life. When God saw Jesus, He took Him and hid Him.
Let us make haste and believe unto everlasting life. The spirit of a man cannot assume everlastingness without the soul. The soul has to permit it and it is by receiving the things everlasting. What the soul permits permeates the soul; then, the spirit comes into it. The spirit coming into everlasting life and Eternal Life is not a problem for him but he has to wait for the soul. The day the soul arrives in these realms, both the spirit and soul would enter.
The day the soul fully finishes the works of God, the spirit, soul and body would enter. Then this prophecy would have been fulfilled: "...the mystery of God should be finished…" (Rev. 10:7). The mystery of God is the mystery of Christ, Father and God. Then it will also be said "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them…" (Rev. 21:3). This is the promise of Eternal Life.
The issue of Eternal Life is chiefly a promise but a promise that has to be realised. It has been realised in our Lord Jesus. It is good for us to know that the process that God is taking us through is for us to arrive at the promise. If Eternal Life is the reason for creation, then laying hold on it is the reason why we are here on earth. We should not waste it.
Even if things in the natural don't line up the way a man wants it, he should not be worried because he has lost nothing. A man would only have lost something if he loses the promise of Eternal Life. We should forget our failures and count our successes as dung; as nothing (Phi. 3:8,13). The promise of Eternal Life would be realised in us.
"While it is said, To day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation." (Heb. 3:15) God is making a roll call already by the bringing of His things. Anyone that hears and takes what God is bringing would find himself changing, ascending and eventually laying hold on Eternal Life.
Summary
1. The gift of God is Eternal Life through Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:23). The issue of Eternal Life is first a promise that is to be realized, one that God is going to fulfil at the end–not the end of the world, but the end of our journey.
2. What happened to our spirits at New Birth also has to happen to our souls by coming into the knowledge of Christ (Gal. 4:19, 1 Cor. 1:6). In the soul, a witness is born concerning what has happened in the spirit.
3. When a man comes into fatherhood (or everlasting domain), he will be equipped with wisdom to see Eternal Life, in order to lay hold on it.
4. A gift that the soul must have is the ability to believe. If the soul had to agree for the spirit to be quickened at New birth, it would also take the soul to agree with the tidings of everlasting life for the spirit to also journey into everlasting life.
5. The soul will work out the salvation by agreeing -- believing. Believing is much more than mental agreement to a matter. Rather it will show in how a person obeys. The result of believing is obeying.
6. Just as there is a need to understand Mathematics before one can understand Further Mathematics, the understanding of Eternal Life is kept in everlasting life (1 John 5:20). One must have been exercised unto everlasting life so that one would have the ability to comprehend what the Son of God has come to give–Eternal Life.
7. When God was promising Himself Eternal Life, He had man, not angels, in mind (Tit. 1:2, Psa. 8:4). When God was thinking Eternal Life, He was thinking man; not man as fallen man. There was an original man: God-man. We have one God-Man who is a prototype of many God-men to come.
8. In the Eternal realm, there are no lofty beings; only the most vulnerable men are found there: vulnerable but Eternal.
9. The issue of Eternal Life is chiefly a promise; but a promise that has to be realised. (It has been realised in our Lord Jesus)
10. It is good for us to know that the process that God is taking us through is for us to arrive at the promise. If Eternal Life is the reason for creation, then laying hold on it is the reason why we are here on earth. We should not waste it.